The wind power delusion

[Ashy]

It's Saturday 17th December and the forecast for the next few days is much more wind, in fact you can hardly see the British Isles for isobars on the pressure chart. But if we check out Spain and Italy we see no isobars across the whole country. Surely they haven't bought into this delusion?

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/maps-and-charts/surface-pressure/

[klondike]

Wikipedia has a page on this. It also mentions us and UK offshore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_European_Union


United Kingdom
By the beginning of March 2022, the UK had 11,091 wind turbines with a total installed capacity of over 24.6 gigawatts (GW): 14.1 GW of onshore capacity and 10.4 GW of offshore capacity,[34] the sixth largest capacity of any country in 2019.[35]

1.8 GW of new wind power capacity was brought online during 2012, a 30% increase of the total UK installed capacity. 2012 was a significant year for the offshore wind industry with 4 large wind farms becoming operational with over 1.1 GW of generating capability coming on stream.[36]

Through the Renewables Obligation, British electricity suppliers are now required by law to provide a proportion of their sales from renewable sources such as wind power or pay a penalty fee. The supplier then receives a Renewables Obligation Certificate (ROC) for each MW·h of electricity they have purchased.[37] Within the United Kingdom, wind power is the second largest source of renewable energy after biomass.[38]

Wind power is expected to continue growing in the United Kingdom for the foreseeable future – RenewableUK estimated in 2010 that more than 2,000 MW of capacity would be deployed per year for the next five years.[39] By 2020, the United Kingdom is expected to have more than 28,000 MW of wind capacity.[40] By 2050, UK government plans to cut carbon emissions to zero by using wind power.[41]

2021
EU-28/27        188,892
Germany 64,040
Spain  28,196
France  19,081
Sweden  12,097
Italy  11,108
Netherlands    8,165
Denmark 7,178
Poland  7,116
Portugal        5,612
Belgium 5,002
Greece  4,452
Ireland 4,405
Finland 3,328
Austria 3,300
Romania 3,029
Croatia 990
Bulgaria        707
Lithuania      668
Czech Republic  337
Hungary 329
Estonia 320
Luxembourg      168
Cyprus  158
Latvia  66
Slovenia        3
Slovakia        3
Malta  0

EU-28/27 Offshore      15,588
UK      26,812
Turkey  10,750
Norway  4,655
Russia  2,043
Ukraine 1,673
Serbia  374
Kosovo  137
Bosnia and Herzegovina  135
Montenegro      118
Switzerland    87
North Macedonia 37
Faroe Islands
Belarus
Iceland
Europe Offshore 28,333
Europe  235,712

It includes a section on Public Opinion. Not sure how much this will change as the bills come in and if the lights go off later. It seems the failure of renewable has been ridden this time so maybe we will be  lucky

Public opinion
Recent public opinion surveys about wind power at both the EU and the country level shows that wind energy, being a clean and renewable energy source, is traditionally linked to very strong and stable levels of public support. About 80 per cent of EU citizens support wind power.[6] Despite overwhelming popular support in the abstract, wind farm projects at times raise local opposition, especially in locations closer to populations or to woodland wildlife. For instance, a wind project in Ripfjallet, Sweden in 2020 has been opposed by a group of local residents who wish to maintain the historical landscape. They succeeded in arranging a local referendum scheduled for 22 June 2020 to determine the future of the project. In Germany, a government agency found that there were 325 active lawsuits against wind projects as of January 2020, often on the basis of protecting ecology and wildlife.[46]

[klondike]

I see from gridwatch that we have coal up and running again. 
1.37GW 3.2% right now
The just stop oil crew will have to change their name.

https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

[Ashy]

If we could only make the wind blow when we need electricity all would be well.
Politicians like it because we can have as much as we want when we don't need it.
Interesting article

[Alex]

There's enough hot air coming from this bloody government to power up a few. 

[Ashy]

Now today the wind is blowing a hoolie and making electricity - for the next couple of days anyway.

[Cassandra]

Aren't Gov surveys fun, just look how they never show any opposition ever to HMG opinion on anything, anywhere. I wonder why?

[Cassandra]

There's enough hot air coming from this bloody government to power up a few. 

Now today the wind is blowing a hoolie and making electricity - for the next couple of days anyway.

Then they have to turn them off as there's too much generated energy and it can't be stored. Meanwhile the wind farm owners get paid for it anyway and instead of switching off they divert what the Grid can't take to 'private buyers' and undercut the grid, with the money they pay them! Real live 'Boris Bollocks'.

https://news.stv.tv/scotland/electricity-customers-paid-windfarms-1bn-to-switch-off-turbines

[klondike]

Now today the wind is blowing a hoolie and making electricity - for the next couple of days anyway.

Still not as much as gas though....

[Ashy]

Well! Today, and for the next couple of days, the wind is quite strong and demand is relatively light, so wind is making 16GW which is more than half the demand. That will save some gas. That's probably the best way to store energy as we have very limited means of storing electricity; in any case we still consumed twice as much as the wind allowed us.

But the forecast for early January shows the wind dropping again, and we still can't make it blow just because we want a bit more, which, of course, we shall do.

Gridwatch shows no solar production at all, which figure I think is unreliable while the universities are closed due to the way they are compiled.

[Ashy]

Tonight the wind is dropping and the air's getting cold. I do hope they've paid the gas bill. I've heard we're going to ship Russian gas in from India now.

[JBR]

I see from gridwatch that we have coal up and running again.
1.37GW 3.2% right now
The just stop oil crew will have to change their name.

https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

OK, that's back a few weeks, but I expect that the proportion of CCGT supply is probably very similar today.
As I have said many times, we have millions of coal under our feet, so why not use it?  Other countries do, even our close neighbour, Germany.
It is high time that this 'net zero' con-game is finally accepted as being nonsense.
The protesters would be far better employed going to China to try to persuade them!

[Diasi]

It's not a new issue, it's centuries old.

Sailing ships could become becalmed for hours, days or weeks when the wind dropped, hence the verse that goes "When the wind didn't blow & the ship wouldn't go, they'd get Carter the farter to start her".

[klondike]

Millenia old...

[Diasi]

Millenia old...

Yep, even then they realised that they needed other forms of energy.

I thought they used women, & then I realised they used oars & not whores.