It is currently -5C (23F) at Mind Towers according to the weather station at the local airfield, and falling at a rate of 1.6C per hour. The wind supposed to be coming from SSE, but is currently showing as 0.0 knots.
Be it directly through our tax pounds, or by proxy via the charges loaded on to our energy bills as part of the Renewables Obligation, the hundreds and hundreds of millions of pounds poured into wind turbine subsidy and feed-in tariffs is delivering next to nothing to the energy supply, because the wind is next to nothing – barely 4% of the official figure for installed wind generation capacity and providing 0.4% of current energy being generated in this country:
It cannot be repeated frequently enough that the government’s obsession with wind power is an obscenely expensive folly.
While Germany talks a good renewables game, it quietly does what is necessary to provide the energy needed by its people and its industry by investing heavily in new coal-fired power. Just look at what Germany has been building while Cameron and Huhne have been tilting at windmills. Conversely, our politicians are so blinded by the CO2 bogeyman they ignore 200 years’ worth of domestic coal reserves and put their faith in intermittent and unreliable natural phenomenon.
Germany’s government is putting Germany’s interests first. Our government is advancing someone’s interest, but it is not that of the British people. When will people sit up, take notice and declare ‘enough’?
Update: At 9.40pm it is now almost -8C (17F) and wind is now generating even less, a meagre 120MW of power, or 0.3% of the current energy generation.
“Germany’s government is putting Germany’s interests first. Our government is advancing someone’s interest, but it is not that of the British people. When will people sit up, take notice and declare ‘enough’?”
Not, it would appear, in my lifetime.
Windpower is like that; the more you need, the less you get.
A major question not being asked about the waste of tax payers money on windfarms is: What about the profit being made by energy companies, particularly those controlled in foreign countries?
Wind energy is here to stay. However, wind energy needs backup supply for stable production. Therefore, the maximum fraction of wind energy in the grid is no more than 50%.