{"id":280868,"date":"2023-09-28T13:12:45","date_gmt":"2023-09-28T11:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=280868"},"modified":"2023-09-28T13:12:48","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T11:12:48","slug":"blown-out-of-the-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=280868","title":{"rendered":"Blown Out of the\u00a0Water"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Climate Scepticism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

BY\u00a0MARK HODGSON<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is the sun setting on wind energy?<\/mark><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quite by chance I caught a revealing interview on BBC Radio 4\u2019s PM programme earlier today. I set out a transcript below. Unfortunately the interviewee, Rod Wood, the MD of Community Wind Power, seemed to be on a mobile telephone and I struggled to catch every word clearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ED: Now, a green light for an offshore oil and gas development today, but it comes at the time we have another very significant energy story unfolding. Red lights flashing over wind energy projects in the UK. There are now several signs of problems. One, a Swedish developer, Vattenfall, put the breaks on a development in the North Sea in July, saying it was no longer viable. Two, the latest auction for contracts for state support for clean energy flopped. There were no bids from offshore wind developers. And then three, yesterday, one of our biggest onshore wind developers said it\u2019s halting development of Sanquhar II in Dumfries & Galloway. Community Wind Power say the project would have powered 350,000 homes. Rod Wood is the company\u2019s managing director. I asked why he\u2019s now choosing not<\/strong> to invest in onshore wind, which we\u2019re told is the cheapest and easiest form of green electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RW: You\u2019re right, onshore wind has been the cheapest, and I think will continue to be cheap alongside solar in the UK. The difficulty that we all know of late is the last few [two?] years is we have a huge increase in capital costs, we\u2019ve seen inflation, obviously rampant inflation, and we\u2019ve seen with turbines that the costs have increased over 60, 60+%. We\u2019ve also seen a massive increase in financing costs, where mortgage increases, so financing costs for wind farms long-term for infrastructure, fifteen years, has increased from below 2% up to nearly 8%, so a four-fold increase there. We have a weak pound as well. All those things factored in together have signficantly increased our costs and we estimate them now to be around \u00a380, just over \u00a380 per megawatt hour, which is substantially more than they were, and of course the Government, as you\u2019ll be aware, with this windfall tax they\u2019ve introduced has determined somehow that anything over \u00a375 is an extraordinary, er extraordinary price. So we have the sales tax applicable from \u00a375, so actually they\u2019re taxing \u00a35 of cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ED: So, just tell me whether the economics of onshore wind, or wind in general, has been fundamentally<\/strong> transformed by the things you\u2019ve described. We\u2019re talking 8 pence per kilowatt hour, in human terms. The price at the moment \u2013 I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m paying, probably 30p or something per kilowatt hour? I mean, it should be surely<\/strong> possible to make money where we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RW: Well we don\u2019t, unfortunately, sell you the electricity ourselves. We\u2019re a generator, so we sell to the utilities and to corporate PPAs. So that\u2019s where\u2026there\u2019s a differential obviously. There\u2019s a cost in transferring the power from site in to your house, and that\u2019s a big difference, obviously, and different companies evolve [?] that. From our perspective, clearly, Evan, the situation is the costs have increased. All<\/strong> costs\u2026supermarket costs, everything has increased significantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ED: I want to just ask you about your view of whether the Government is interested in wind. This is the third blow \u2013 pardon the pun \u2013 to wind power. We\u2019ve had Vattenfall abandoning one project they were going to invest in; we\u2019ve had an auction for off-shore licences which didn\u2019t get any takers; and I just wonder whether you\u2019re worried that there isn\u2019t the commitment to wind that we have had in the past?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RW: I think I agree with you. Positionally, they\u2019ve already pinpointed renewables, wind and solar particularly. We have the windfall tax. If we were generating electricity from gas or from diesel generators, there\u2019d be no windfall tax. So why are they attacking us when they should be looking at the wider community of generators in the UK? That\u2019s the big issue, and why are they giving us a five year tax, when actually in Ireland or the EU the tax is finishing at the end of this year. Green electricity is the backbone and the foundation for new industries, data centres, AI, blockchain, pharma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ED: I mean, it is very interesting. This obviously came in, this announcement comes in the week that we have a new licence for offshore drilling for oil and gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RW: Yeah, reading the press release, it\u2019s quite interesting that they now talk about Net Zero and taking, looking at it in a pragmatic and proportionate, realistic response. I\u2019m not quite sure what that means exactly. But I don\u2019t think the climate will be looking at the UK in the future in that way, as sea levels rise and London, you know, and other coastal cities start to submerge. This is going to be the fourth, or was going to be the fourth largest wind farm in the UK, with 380 Megawatts in addition to the 30 that\u2019s already there. We can\u2019t make it work, so how can others?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ED: Have you actually, perchance, had conversations with the Opposition, the Labour Party, about whether they would be inclined to make the environment more friendly to your investments?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RW: We haven\u2019t as yet, no. We\u2019d certainly like to. We\u2019d like to engage with them and other parties and explore, and explain how actually this industry can support all these other industries going forward. There\u2019s massive opportunity there. John Coldwell \u2026 on the programme the other day, you know, let\u2019s encourage green new companies, investments, coming in to this country and we can be great again, you know, with lower corporation tax rates as in Ireland, and actually drive the growth of the economy forward. But we need modern thinking, as they\u2019re doing in the US and the EU and other places, and hopefully Labour will be considering that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ED: Rod Wood there, who\u2019s the Managing Director of Community Wind Power, pulling back on a scheme in the south of Scotland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was interesting to hear Evan Davis describe onshore wind only as the cheapest form of green<\/strong> electricity, and Mr Wood, after agreeing that it had been, going on to say (if I heard him correctly) that he thinks onshore wind will continue to be cheap (but he seemed to drop the claim going forward that it will be the cheapest<\/strong>). Indeed, it would be difficult for him to maintain the claim, given that he then launched into a long spiel about all the costs now hitting onshore wind energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He spent a long time bemoaning the windfall tax \u2013 on anything above \u00a375 per megawatt hour. He seemed particularly aggrieved about this, despite the fact that this is at a level significantly higher than the price of recent CfD rounds (admittedly those contracts haven\u2019t been taken up) that was used in some quarters to claim that wind energy was \u201cnine times cheaper\u201d than fossil fuels. He also suggested that if his company generated electricity using diesel or gas, then no windfall tax would apply. I would suggest that either he or the BBC is mistaken, for less than two months ago the BBC\u2019s website featured an\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0about the windfall tax, more properly called the energy profits levy (or EPL) with the heading \u201cWhat is the windfall tax on oil and gas companies and how much do they pay?<\/em>\u201d It stated that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the first six months of 2023, BP paid $970m (\u00a3755m) of tax in the UK \u2013 with about $460m (\u00a3358m) due to the EPL.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shell initially said it did not expect to pay any windfall tax for 2022, as its North Sea investments meant it was not considered to have made any UK profits.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But on 2 February it announced that it would pay $134m (\u00a3108m) for 2022, and expected to pay more than $500m (\u00a3400m) for 2023.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Centrica said it was paying about \u00a31bn in tax from its \u00a33.3bn 2022 profits, which includes about \u00a354m under the levy.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Much of the rest of the interview seemed to bemoan the return of long-term interest rates to what are historically normal levels, and that in turn carries the suggestion that renewable energy has only made the headway that it has thanks to unsustainably low interest rates over a remarkably long period of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The interview wound up with a reference to alarmism (apparently London and other UK coastal cities will be underwater if windfarm projects don\u2019t proceed) and an implicit plea for subsidies (euphemistically described as \u201cmodern thinking, as they\u2019re doing in the US and the EU and other places<\/em>\u201d) and preferential tax treatment (\u201clet\u2019s encourage green new companies, investments, coming in to this country and we can be great again, you know, with lower corporation tax rates as in Ireland<\/em>\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all rang rather hollow, and one sentence (\u201cWe can\u2019t make it work, so how can others?<\/em>\u201d) for me blew out of the water the claims that are constantly being made on behalf of wind energy. It looks as though Net Zero could be unravelling before our eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quite by chance I caught a revealing interview on BBC Radio 4\u2019s PM programme earlier today. I set out a transcript below. Unfortunately the interviewee, Rod Wood, the MD of Community Wind Power, seemed to be on a mobile telephone and I struggled to catch every word clearly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":280872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691823055,691822718,691819094,691823054,691821274],"class_list":{"0":"post-280868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-community-wind-power","9":"tag-green-electricity","10":"tag-renewable-green-energy","11":"tag-rod-wood","12":"tag-vattenfall","14":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/00Offshore-Windpark-pixabay.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1b48","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":271540,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=271540","url_meta":{"origin":280868,"position":0},"title":"Big Wind Decimates Balsa\u00a0Farmers","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"04\/08\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Booming demand for balsa wood, used to make turbine blades for wind energy, is ravaging Amazon forests and indigenous communities \u2014 in the name of \u201cgreen power.\u201d","rel":"","context":"In \"balsa wood\"","block_context":{"text":"balsa wood","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=balsa-wood"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-138.png?fit=1200%2C489&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-138.png?fit=1200%2C489&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-138.png?fit=1200%2C489&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-138.png?fit=1200%2C489&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-138.png?fit=1200%2C489&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":202107,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=202107","url_meta":{"origin":280868,"position":1},"title":"All Wind & Promises: New US Study Reveals Another Great \u2018Green\u2019 Jobs Hoax","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"30\/05\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The rocketing power prices caused by subsidised wind and solar have destroyed thousands of jobs in manufacturing and mineral processing, for starters. But, retorts the renewable energy rent seeker, think of all the green jobs \u2018created\u2019 by the wind and solar industries. 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