Expensive Wind Power: is little more than a convenient fairy tale

Professor Gordon Hughes
Dr Gordon Hughes is a Professor of Economics at the University of Edinburgh where he teaches courses in the Economics of Natural Resources and Public Economics.

The key problems with current policies for wind power are simple. They require a huge commitment of investment resources to a technology that is not very green, in the sense of saving a lot of CO2, but which is certainly very expensive and inflexible. Markets have to be rigged in order to persuade investors to fund the investment that is required. The economic cost of fixing  markets in this way, especially if there is a possibility of making mistakes, is very high. Before proceeding along this path, any Government ought to be very sure that (a) the economic and environmental benefits outweigh the substantial costs incurred, and (b) the risks of pre-empting better options that  may emerge in future have been minimised.

 

In reality, neither of these conditions is close to being satisfied. To misquote another aphorism, unless the current Government scales back its commitment to wind power very substantially, its policy will be worse than a mistake,
it will be a blunder.

10. Final Thoughts

In a speech to a group of prominent business leaders the previous Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change gave an extended soliloquy on his vision of greener growth for the UK – Huhne (2011). Nothing could better illustrate the gap between do-it-yourself economics and the realities highlighted by concrete economic analysis as presented in this paper. In Mr. Huhne’s world all investment that comes under the category of greener growth is a good thing, irrespective of whether it generates adequate returns on capital that has to be diverted from other uses or whether it reduces emissions of CO2 in practice.

The casual assumption that expenditures on green technology represent an efficient and economic use of scarce resources is little more than a convenient fairy tale for troubled times. Reality is rather different. Some green technologies will pay off – yielding satisfactory returns to both investors and users – but many will not. Ample experience tells us that any returns are likely to be smaller and take much longer to be earned than the enthusiastic projections produced by enthusiasts and lobbyists.

GREENPEACE - LIKE IT OR NOT, UK 'NEW NUCLEAR' WILL HAPPEN!

But Sir David King does disagree with you:  
"..... power outages could occur as early as 2017 as old nuclear, oil and coal-fired power stations are closed because not enough is being done to replace them. The school's study shows Britain can’t meet its goal of cutting carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050 without ramping up nuclear power and electrifying both transport and heating....."

What else did he say?  "".....switching all generation to renewables would be 
“enormously expensive” because everything 
would need to be backed up by equivalent 
gas-fired capacity for when the wind doesn't blow. The power grid could support a maximum of 20 percent large-scale wind power alongside smaller turbines, solar panels and geothermal heat pumps fitted to homes....""
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-
15/u-k-renewable-energy-push-may-prevent-
electricity-crisis.html 


Every UK member of Greenpeace must leave the sanctuary of their Disney World existence, forget the delusion of their Energy [R]evolution policy and come into the real world, where nuclear really does do the job of keeping the lights on - all of the time!


But each and every one of you can help to make the Government sit up and take notice of LFTR development. If LFTRs provide the UK's future nuclear capacity, they will allay all your fears about safety and long term storage of waste.


You can either sit on the sidelines chanting your mantras as new PWR nuclear power stations get built, or join the LFTR movement and get action on a safer and greener alternative. See the above links to the "38 DEGREES" and "E-PETITION" campaigns.