Wind energy: 12 EU nations 'failed to install a single wind turbine' last year
In this newsletter:
1) Half Of Europe No Longer Wants Wind Energy
CNBC News, 21 February 2019
2) The Supposedly Impartial BBC Should Hang Its Head In Shame At Its Relentless Bias
Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph, 24 February 2019
3) Invitation: European Climate Seminar In Amsterdam
Ontgroeningsdag/ Degreening Day
4) Thank Heavens Constable’s On The Case
Kathy Gyngell, The Conservative Woman, 24 February 2019
5) White House To Create President’s Commission On National Climate Security
Myron Ebell, Competitive Enterprise Institute, 23 February 2019
6) AOC's Green Deal Isn't New — It's Been A Flop In Germany
Liz Peek, The Hill, 21 February 2019
7) The Farcical “Green New Deal”
Mark Perry, Carpe Diem AEI, 23 February 2019
8) U.S. Judge Dismisses Boys' Lawsuit Against Trump Climate Rollbacks
Reuters, 20 February 2019
Full details:
1) Half Of Europe No Longer Wants Wind Energy
CNBC News, 21 February 2019
Twelve countries in the European Union (EU) failed to install “a single wind turbine” last year, the CEO of industry body WindEurope said Thursday.
Giles Dickson said that while more and more people and businesses were benefiting from wind power, many things were “not right” beneath the surface.
Dickson added that growth in onshore wind fell by more than half in Germany last year and “collapsed in the U.K.”, stating that, in the EU, 2018 was “the worst year for new wind energy installations since 2011.” The latter figure reflected regulatory changes undertaken by EU member states following a review of state-aid guidelines.
In Germany’s onshore sector, the group explained that “lengthy permitting processes” and projects with “longer build-out periods” had resulted in a “significant decrease” in installations, which fell from 5,334 megawatts in 2017 to 2,402 megawatts (MW) in 2018.
While investments for future capacity were deemed to be “quite good” in 2018 thanks to the U.K., Spain and Sweden as well as expansion in offshore wind, Dickson said that the outlook for new investments remained uncertain.
“There are structural problems in permitting, especially in Germany and France,” he added. “And with the noble exception of Lithuania and despite improvements in Poland, there’s a lack of ambition in Central and Eastern Europe.”
Overall, Europe installed 11.7 gigawatts (GW) of gross wind power capacity in 2018. While this represents a drop of more than 30 percent compared to installations in 2017, the sector still installed more capacity than any other type of power generation in the EU last year, WindEurope said.
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2) The Supposedly Impartial BBC Should Hang Its Head In Shame At Its Relentless Bias
Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph, 24 February 2019
How ironic it was last week to hear the BBC leading its news on that Commons report claiming that our “democracy is being destroyed” by the flood of “fake news” spread by social media. In fact, thanks to the relentless bias of its own coverage of so many issues, there is no more influential source of “fake news” than the BBC itself.
Here are two glaring, but far from untypical, recent examples.
The first began earlier in February with puffs on the BBC News website and Radio 4’s Today programme by Roger Harrabin, the BBC’s “environment analyst”, for a report by a body called the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), warning of “multiple crises” that threaten to “destabilise” the world’s entire environmental system. Particularly striking was a repeated claim that, since 2005, thanks to climate change, there has been a 15-fold increase in floods across the world and a 20-fold increase in “extreme temperature events”.
This seemed so startling that it prompted Paul Homewood, the diligent statistical analyst, on his Notalotofpeopleknowthat blog to track down the evidence for these claims. It turned out that they originated from a database of natural disasters, EM-DAT. According to Homewood, this showed that the chief reason for these rocketing increases was a very significant change in the way such “disasters” were being recorded, to include thousands of more recent events that would previously have been far too small to register in the global figures (the IPPR itself warned that these figures should, therefore, be treated with “caution”).
But then Homewood found that the IPPR version was taken from something cited as the “GMO White Paper”, which might have sounded scientific. In fact, the “GMO” stands for Grantham, Mayo, van Otterloo, the asset management firm run by Jeremy Grantham, who also funds the Grantham Institute on Climate Change at two London universities, Imperial College and the LSE (similar figures have been quoted by Lord Stern, the chair of the LSE branch).
Even the BBC realised that it had come rather a cropper on these claims. Subsequently, it allowed for at least a partial correction, aided by Mark Lynas, the climate campaigner, and the authors of that disaster database to which Grantham attributed his figures. But the impact of this was infinitely less than that of the coverage by Harrabin.
It was he who, back in 2006, was the organiser of that “secret seminar” between top BBC executives and green activists, which led to the BBC policy that – despite its statutory obligation to report only with “impartiality” – because the science on climate change was now settled, there was no need to give “equal space” to views that questioned it (with results so much in evidence ever since).
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3) Invitation: European Climate Seminar In Amsterdam
Ontgroeningsdag/ Degreening Day
On the 7th of March, the long awaited “Ontgroeningsdag”-seminar is back with a day full of stimulating lectures. Based on the theme “Sensitive Climate? Hard numbers!”, we have arranged a varied line-up of national and international speakers, who will ensure that minds are sharpened while frequent breaks and drinks allow you to connect with the speakers and other guests.
Speakers
The climate discussion is relevant like never before, so we’ve brought together speakers of different disciplines to each shine their unique light on a different aspect of the debate. There is the key-note by climate scientist Nic Lewis on Climate Sensitivity; Theo Wolters adressing the costs of the Dutch ‘Energieakkoord’; Rob de Vos tackling the KNMI’s practices; economist Richard Tol discussing climate costs; and Benny Peiser on the European “Green Energy Crisis”. The first part of the programme will be in Dutch (Wolters and de Vos), the rest of the day is in English.
Tickets
Tickets for the seminar are available for the regular €35 price or €10 for those younger than 31 years old. Do not forget your discount coupon if you have one!
https://eventix.shop/uw7tm9rw
Location
Our beautiful seminar-location, the old Planetarium in Amsterdam, is easy to reach with public transport and car.
More information & registrations here
4) Thank Heavens Constable’s On The Case
Kathy Gyngell, The Conservative Woman, 24 February 2019
We have much to thank the Global Warming Policy Forum for. Who else is keeping a close, critical and sceptical eye on the EU’s and UK’s energy policy?
Harry Wilkinson has already drawn our attention to Dieter Helm’s devastating critique of the cost of the UK energy policy and Business and energy Secretary Greg Clark’s complacent response about the high energy prices we suffer as a result.
The government’s approach, Professor Helm argued, would ‘continue the unnecessary high costs of the British energy system, and as a result perpetuate fuel poverty, weaken industrial competitiveness, and undermine public support for decarbonisation’.
With our domestic and industrial electricity prices already substantially above those in the G20 (EU domestic prices are more than double those in the G20 and industrial prices approximately 50 per cent higher), I can’t help but think he is right.
Which made the publication of an EU Commission study of the effect of climate and other policies on international competitiveness all the more welcome. Or it would have been if they had got it right. Fortunately for us, Dr John Constable, the GWPF’s energy editor, was on hand to read it. And he immediately spotted a significant error.
It claimed that annual levies on UK consumers in 2016 for subsidies to renewable electricity were €1.57billion. A figure that was not just wrong but very wrong. The correct figure, Dr Constable pointed out, is closer to €7billion.
The EU Commission’s consultants have now acknowledged their mistake, agreeing that Dr Constable is correct and most importantly ‘that the largest part of the other subsidies was from the Renewables Obligation’. Readers will be happy to hear that the figures are being corrected and can expect a revised report online soon.
We can only hope it will point out the consequences that this significantly revised figure has regarding calculations of Renewable Energy support costs for electricity consumers.
Full post & comments
5) White House To Create President’s Commission On National Climate Security
Myron Ebell, Competitive Enterprise Institute, 23 February 2019
The Washington Post obtained leaked Trump administration documents this week that reveal that the White House is preparing an executive order to create a President’s Commission on National Climate Security.
The National Security Council (NSC) initiative would feature scientists who challenge the seriousness of climate change and the degree to which humans are the cause of climate problems, three unidentified administration officials told the Post.
The Post reported that the plan was discussed by administration officials on Friday in the White House Situation Room.
It is considered a modified version of NSC senior director and climate change denier William Happer’s plan to create a panel on climate change and national security, according to the newspaper.
The commission will be charged with reviewing several official reports that claim that climate change presents multiple national security challenges. The effort is being put together by Dr. William Happer, who has served as senior director for emerging technologies on the White House’s National Security Council since last September.
The Post’s story appeared online on February 20th with a nice photo of Happer. The next day the story appeared on the paper’s front page without the photo. The New York Times caught up quickly and also ran a story the same day on the front page with a photo of Happer. Both stories in the Post and Times discussed and criticized Happer’s views that global warming is not a crisis, or even a problem, and that increasing atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are beneficial to the biosphere.
Fair enough, but the Times’s story ran online with the headline, “White House Climate Panel To Include Climate Denialist.” This elicited strong reactions, which were compiled by Valerie Richardson in a story in the Washington Times. As I was quoted in the story, calling one of America’s most distinguished scientists a denialist is just stupid.
The New York Times’s headline is just the opening salvo by the climate alarmist establishment to derail the first official critical review of consensus climate science. And it’s straight out of the political far left’s handbook, which is to ignore the issues and first try to undermine or destroy the opponents. In this case, I think the alarmists are going to fail.
I’ve known and worked with Will Happer for several years in his capacity as chairman of the CO2 Coalition (and before that as chairman of the Marshall Institute) and since he’s been on the White House staff. Will is a man of tremendous integrity and high scientific attainments. He is also highly respected by his peers.
As for the issue at hand, it seems to me that the climate establishment should welcome a critical review of the science contained in the various official reports. They should have nothing to fear. After all, they’ve told us over and over that the thousands of articles published in scientific journals are peer reviewed and that peer review is the gold standard. If the science is as robust as claimed, then an official, high-level review should put to rest the doubts that have been expressed over the last three decades by skeptical scientists.
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6) AOC's Green Deal Isn't New — It's Been A Flop In Germany
Liz Peek, The Hill, 21 February 2019
Sorry, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), that Green New Deal of yours isn’t really very new after all. It’s actually an "Old Green Deal," a rehash of the environmental platform called Energiewende, or “energy transition,” adopted in Germany in 2010.
And, in Germany, the Old Green Deal has been something of a flop.
Similarities abound between the German program and the resolution proposed by House freshman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). Like the Green New Deal (GND), Germany’s Energiewende called for a shift to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050.
Energiewende built upon Germany’s Renewable Sources Act of 2000, which encouraged the use of wind, biofuels, hydropower and solar energy through a system of feed-in tariffs and also grid priority for renewable energy.
It was funded by a surcharge on electricity, which cost consumers more than $20 billion per year. The build-up of renewables also benefited from more than $800 billion in subsidies.
Like the GND, the Energiewende also included an ambitious roll-out of a national energy grid to facilitate the mandated increase in solar, hydroelectric and wind energy. The German program, like that of AOC, called for a “public bank” to finance the large-scale investment needed to facilitate the plan.
Also, the plan demanded that houses and factories be refitted to achieve greater energy efficiency; between 2006 and 2014, some 3.5 million homes were refurbished or built according to new efficiency standards at a cost approaching $200 billion.
Like AOC’s plan, the German program also demanded enormous spending on energy research and development. With the Energiewende well underway, and with so many similar features, its progress might prove instructive for the backers of the GND.
The bottom line is that despite a significant jump in the use of renewable energy (30 percent in 2016 from 7 percent in 2008), Germany has embarrassingly fallen short of its own climate goals. Carbon emissions have not declined meaningfully.
The main reason is that in its zeal to appease Green Party voters, the country went overboard, pushing out carbon-based fuels at the same time that it moved to eliminate nuclear power.
As a result, though there is theoretically enough capacity to supply the nation’s total electricity needs through the use of renewables, Germany has had to rely on coal-burning power plants to supplement intermittent (and finicky) wind and solar power.
In 2016, for instance, growth in solar and wind production stagnated despite growth in both sectors’ capacities. In 2017, coal still produced 37 percent of the country’s power.
The country has not just been burning coal; it has been burning lignite, one of the dirtiest fuels on the planet. In fact, in 2016, seven of the 10 worst polluting facilities in Europe were German lignite plants.
The most recent report from the government concludes that Germany will likely miss its 2020 climate goals, which called for a 40-percent reduction in carbon emissions compared to 1990 levels. The problem is not just the lignite mess, but also the continued use of petroleum products to fuel cars and airplanes and ongoing emissions from buildings.
To address the damaging use of gasoline in cars and trucks, a government commission considered instituting an 80 mile-per-hour speed limit on Germany’s autobahns, which currently have no restrictions. The proposal leaked, prompting outrage. Car-happy Germans may embrace reducing carbon emissions, but many were not ready to slam on the brakes.
An alternative proposal was launched in October 2016 by the country’s upper legislative chamber, which demanded a total phasing out of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2030.
However, given the need for additional electricity (from coal or gas) to fuel an all-electric fleet, studies showed the change would actually increase carbon emissions, at least in the short term.
Germany’s Energiewende may have failed to bring down emissions, but it has significantly boosted electricity prices.
Germans pay more for electricity than almost any other people on earth at a cost of $0.33 per kilowatt hour, compared to $0.19 in France and $0.13 in the U.S., for instance. The cost of electricity for an average family of four in Germany has doubled since 2000.
As for the mammoth retrofitting of buildings for energy conservation, the government proudly reported in 2017 that, “Primary energy consumption has been considerably reduced in the last few years, falling by 15.9 per cent between 2008 and 2015 alone.”
Full post
7) The Farcical “Green New Deal”
Mark Perry, Carpe Diem AEI, 23 February 2019
That’s the title of Richard Epstein’s latest Hoover Institution article, here’s the opening:
The dominant source of energy for the foreseeable future for both the United States and the world will be fossil fuels, chiefly in the form of oil, natural gas, and coal. Throughout the world, many groups will push hard for massive subsidies to wind and solar energy. Yet, that attempt, no matter how bold, will fail to shift the overall balance of energy production toward green sources. The fatal drawback of wind and solar is their lack of storability. Solar works when the sun shines. Wind works when breezes blow. Both often provide energy when it is not needed and fail to provide it when required. Any legal diktat that puts these renewable sources first will only produce a prolonged economic dislocation. Pie-in-the-sky proposals like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, which stipulates 100 percent of energy needs be supplied by “clean, renewable, and zero emissions” sources, should be dead on arrival.
And here’s Richard’s conclusion:
It is quite shocking that many Democrats have lined up in defense of this extreme proposal without the slightest knowledge or awareness of its deeply counterproductive features. They seem to have adopted the dangerous mindset that the outcomes produced by traditional markets and deliberative processes are necessarily corrupt. The progressive movement, and the nation as a whole, will be in far better shape if the harshest critics of the status quo took it upon themselves to understand the many tradeoffs and compromises that are needed to operate any complex system—before implementing an infantile proposal that will wreck the whole thing.
Mark Perry: The chart above shows the latest EIA forecast to 2050, and confirms Richard’s forecast that the “dominant source of energy for the foreseeable future for both the United States and the world will be fossil fuels, chiefly in the form of oil, natural gas, and coal.” In fact, maybe not just the foreseeable future, but the future for the next quarter-century or more! Even more than 30 years from now, the fuels of the future — coal, natural gas, and oil — will be the sources for about 79% of our energy demand, not much different than today. And despite all of the hype and taxpayer subsidies, solar panels and windmills will supply less than 15% of our energy in 2050.
Full post
8) U.S. Judge Dismisses Boys' Lawsuit Against Trump Climate Rollbacks
Reuters, 20 February 2019
(Reuters) - A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by two Pennsylvania boys and an environmental group seeking to stop U.S. President Donald Trump from rolling back regulations addressing climate change, saying the court does not have power to tell the White House what to do.
Disagreeing with a judge overseeing a similar case in Oregon, U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond in Philadelphia ruled on Tuesday that the Constitution does not guarantee what the boys and the Clean Air Council called a due process right to a “life-sustaining climate system.”
Diamond also said the boys, who were 7 and 11 when the lawsuit was filed in November 2017, could not trace their respective severe allergies and asthma to White House policies.
He said this meant the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue Trump, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and other defendants who had moved to dismiss the case.
“Plaintiffs’ disagreement with defendants is a policy debate best left to the political process,” wrote Diamond, an appointee of President George W. Bush.
“Because I have neither the authority nor the inclination to assume control of the Executive Branch, I will grant defendants’ motion.”
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The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.
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