I’m expecting the Aussie government to soon announce a plan for solar powered submarines and wind powered fighter jets… the idiot Aussie electorate will clap along like seals.
See how long the windpower bubble lasts when people get wind literate and start checking at dawn and dusk to see how often they will get hot breakfast and dinner if they depend on RE for heat!
EXAMPLE
GRIDWATCH Saturday 23
AT 6.30 PM eastern time THE WIND WAS CONTRIBUTING 13% OF DEMAND IN THE EAST
Mike, in case you are not aware of the work of the Energy Realists of Australia, this is a series of briefing notes that we distributed to all the sitting pollies and a list of journalists between 2020 and 2022. The journalists have kept very quiet about it, including the good ones who are on our side.
We are unfunded, mostly sem-retired engineers with collectively hundreds of years of experience and we don’t have institutional support like the employees in the IPA and other organizations with common interests. It is disappointing that we have not yet been able to work in partnership with the IPA, the Centre for Independent studies, the Page Institute and the Menzies Research Unit to optimise our efforts.
Trillions of dollars have been spent around the world rolling out wind and solar infrastructure and in return we have more expensive and less reliable power with catastrophic environmental impacts.
The elephant in the net zero room is the wind droughts or dunkelflautes that Australian investigators documented over a decade ago.
Dirt farmers are alert to the threat of rain droughts, but the wind farmers never checked the reliability of the wind supply to become aware of wind droughts.
Wind droughts become an existential threat to thousands or tens of thousands of people when the wind drought trap closes on a windless night during extreme weather conditions coinciding with outages of conventional power. See Texas in February 2021!
This is a good piece, he has done splendid work, and there is much more on the lunacy of British energy policy, especially the dodgy handling of offshore wind contracts.
Mike (and Chris, of course), I don’t know whether I should thank you for a timely update on the "state of play” in the world, or berate you for utterly and absolutely spoiling my day. The complicity of our political and industrial leaders, in their arrogant pursuit of self-interests is simply gob-smacking.
Their sheer gullibility and greed, in a mad rush to appease one of our World’s biggest rogue states, is unfathomable. If it’s not pitiful gullibility, then is it deliberate intent to defraud the people who they claim to represent? Is it one or the other, or both? Either way, our leadership stands condemned.
Anyone who has been following “the game”, will not be surprised by the modus operandi that we are witnessing from the CCP and Russia (not forgetting the smaller rogues including Iran and North Korea). The upheaval and destruction of Western democracies has long been the main game, and they are finally getting much closer to their ultimate goal.
I can’t believe that our leaders don’t understand what most observant people are well aware of. Is there still time to turn our collective fortunes around, and is there the will to do so? If not, our cherished democracies will soon be consumed.
What government does not subsidise their producers access to overseas markets? What government does not levy a tariff on imports? What government does not set up tax concessions for expenditure on research and development? There is never a level playing field.
That is not to say that we should condone plainly silly stuff like carbon dioxide emission mitigation.
We don't know why the climate changes and its politically undesirable to admit that it could be anything other than industrialization based on the use of cheap sources of energy that is causing the climate to swing between warming and cooling, in a more exaggerated manner in one hemisphere than the other. That disparity should give us a reason to ponder what that cause might be because the atmosphere is well mixed, at least below the tropopause, ie within the weather-sphere.
China has zero tariffs on imports from Africa and is offering cheap loans in RMB. Fortescue is apparently using such a loan to advance its green steel objective.
Whilst I agree with most of the wind comments, the last part of the Stack about China is modern day reds under the bed scare mongering. The software for controlling solar panels is different to the hardware (the panel). All software can potentially be hacked including software that controls any type of grid and whether the electricity is gas or wind or solar generated makes no difference to that. Protecting our cyber assets has to be part of our defence. If we were smart we would buy nuclear power stations from China, we could buy them for $3 billion a pop (no pun intended) and have enough to power the entire country for the next 80 years for around $30 billion U.S. What stops us? Two great irrationalities, fear of nuclear energy and fear of China.
Much smarter to buy your nuclear reactors from South Korea. There's no need and probably zero advantage in getting them from China. The Koreans built four excellent reactors on time and under budget for the UAE.
I agree the Korean Reactors are great (like the Chinese ones they are based on the Westinghouse design) and they too are getting cheaper as they build more of them. But in all purchases creating price competition is important and the Chinese will compete hard on price. We should not let politics get in the way of a good deal.
Yeah, that attitude is what got us into several of the messes that now look like existential threats.
If one doesn't like having spyware in one's solar panels and wind turbines, then letting the Chinese build one's nuclear power plant doesn't make a lick of sense.
I’m expecting the Aussie government to soon announce a plan for solar powered submarines and wind powered fighter jets… the idiot Aussie electorate will clap along like seals.
Wind was never going to work onshore or off but the meteorologists never issued wind drought warnings.
Records from the oil and gas platforms in the North Sea should have been a warning.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/a-curious-tale-of-the-north-sea-winds/
See how long the windpower bubble lasts when people get wind literate and start checking at dawn and dusk to see how often they will get hot breakfast and dinner if they depend on RE for heat!
EXAMPLE
GRIDWATCH Saturday 23
AT 6.30 PM eastern time THE WIND WAS CONTRIBUTING 13% OF DEMAND IN THE EAST
AND 2.5% IN THE WEST OH DEAR!!
https://www.nem-watch.info/widgets/RenewEconomy/
WHAT ABOUT TEXAS?
https://www.gridstatus.io/live/ercot
3 AM WIND 4% SOLAR 0
JUST AS WELL ITS NOT A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT WITH SUBZERO TEMPERATURE
BRITAIN?
https://grid.iamkate.com/
9.20 AM WIND 9 SOLAR 0 LOL
Mike, in case you are not aware of the work of the Energy Realists of Australia, this is a series of briefing notes that we distributed to all the sitting pollies and a list of journalists between 2020 and 2022. The journalists have kept very quiet about it, including the good ones who are on our side.
They are very coy about wind droughts as well.
https://www.flickerpower.com/index.php/search/categories/general/list-of-briefing-notes
We are unfunded, mostly sem-retired engineers with collectively hundreds of years of experience and we don’t have institutional support like the employees in the IPA and other organizations with common interests. It is disappointing that we have not yet been able to work in partnership with the IPA, the Centre for Independent studies, the Page Institute and the Menzies Research Unit to optimise our efforts.
Trillions of dollars have been spent around the world rolling out wind and solar infrastructure and in return we have more expensive and less reliable power with catastrophic environmental impacts.
The elephant in the net zero room is the wind droughts or dunkelflautes that Australian investigators documented over a decade ago.
https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/the-late-discovery-of-wind-droughts
Dirt farmers are alert to the threat of rain droughts, but the wind farmers never checked the reliability of the wind supply to become aware of wind droughts.
https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/we-have-to-talk-about-wind-droughts
Wind droughts become an existential threat to thousands or tens of thousands of people when the wind drought trap closes on a windless night during extreme weather conditions coinciding with outages of conventional power. See Texas in February 2021!
https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/defusing-the-wind-drought-trap
Time to exit net zero!
https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/end-the-net-zero-nightmare
Thanks, Rafe. I’ll take a good look.
All so stupid... whom the Gods wish to destroy...
Great article. Perhaps you can comment on the high decommission costs for wind turbines.
A 1GW offshore windfarm will cost around A$900m in decommissioning costs.
This will include dismantling the towers, moorings, floating substations, cables and port facilities.
Mucho $$! What is that per turbine?
You might find this interesting:
https://open.substack.com/pub/tucoschild/p/wind-turbines-are-full-of-sh-and?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2mh23j
This is a good piece, he has done splendid work, and there is much more on the lunacy of British energy policy, especially the dodgy handling of offshore wind contracts.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/whats-the-true-cost-of-britains-biggest-offshore-wind-farm/
A bigger canvas
https://assets.realclear.com/files/2023/12/2321_2320_realclear-report-rupert-darwall-v7_1.pdf
Mike (and Chris, of course), I don’t know whether I should thank you for a timely update on the "state of play” in the world, or berate you for utterly and absolutely spoiling my day. The complicity of our political and industrial leaders, in their arrogant pursuit of self-interests is simply gob-smacking.
Their sheer gullibility and greed, in a mad rush to appease one of our World’s biggest rogue states, is unfathomable. If it’s not pitiful gullibility, then is it deliberate intent to defraud the people who they claim to represent? Is it one or the other, or both? Either way, our leadership stands condemned.
Anyone who has been following “the game”, will not be surprised by the modus operandi that we are witnessing from the CCP and Russia (not forgetting the smaller rogues including Iran and North Korea). The upheaval and destruction of Western democracies has long been the main game, and they are finally getting much closer to their ultimate goal.
I can’t believe that our leaders don’t understand what most observant people are well aware of. Is there still time to turn our collective fortunes around, and is there the will to do so? If not, our cherished democracies will soon be consumed.
What government does not subsidise their producers access to overseas markets? What government does not levy a tariff on imports? What government does not set up tax concessions for expenditure on research and development? There is never a level playing field.
That is not to say that we should condone plainly silly stuff like carbon dioxide emission mitigation.
We don't know why the climate changes and its politically undesirable to admit that it could be anything other than industrialization based on the use of cheap sources of energy that is causing the climate to swing between warming and cooling, in a more exaggerated manner in one hemisphere than the other. That disparity should give us a reason to ponder what that cause might be because the atmosphere is well mixed, at least below the tropopause, ie within the weather-sphere.
China has zero tariffs on imports from Africa and is offering cheap loans in RMB. Fortescue is apparently using such a loan to advance its green steel objective.
Whilst I agree with most of the wind comments, the last part of the Stack about China is modern day reds under the bed scare mongering. The software for controlling solar panels is different to the hardware (the panel). All software can potentially be hacked including software that controls any type of grid and whether the electricity is gas or wind or solar generated makes no difference to that. Protecting our cyber assets has to be part of our defence. If we were smart we would buy nuclear power stations from China, we could buy them for $3 billion a pop (no pun intended) and have enough to power the entire country for the next 80 years for around $30 billion U.S. What stops us? Two great irrationalities, fear of nuclear energy and fear of China.
Much smarter to buy your nuclear reactors from South Korea. There's no need and probably zero advantage in getting them from China. The Koreans built four excellent reactors on time and under budget for the UAE.
I saw the Korean nuclear supply chain in January this year with Australian nuclear experts and engineers. As you say. On time and on budget.
I agree the Korean Reactors are great (like the Chinese ones they are based on the Westinghouse design) and they too are getting cheaper as they build more of them. But in all purchases creating price competition is important and the Chinese will compete hard on price. We should not let politics get in the way of a good deal.
Yeah, that attitude is what got us into several of the messes that now look like existential threats.
If one doesn't like having spyware in one's solar panels and wind turbines, then letting the Chinese build one's nuclear power plant doesn't make a lick of sense.