EU Referendum

If global warming – man-made or otherwise – is responsible for this year's mild winter, then the Scots have reason to be thankful for it.

According to the Scotsman on Sunday, Scotland is on the brink of a power crisis after an accident at one of the country's biggest electricity plants massively reduced supplies to the national grid.

This is Longannet in Fife (pictured). It is, in fact, the second largest coal-fired power station in the whole of the UK and has been shut down after a conveyor belt carrying coal collapsed. The worst of it is that the Hunterston B nuclear power station is already off-line, leaving Scotland perilously short of power. Outages have been avoided only because of the unseasonably warm weather.

The two stations normally account for almost half of Scotland's electricity generation and, crucially, provide constant back-up electricity at times when other stations (and the wind factories) are not operating.

Since Scotland normally exports power to England, but because of the way the grid is structured, it is difficult to reverse flow and send power from England up to Scotland.

This highlights the fundamental fragility and inflexibility of the National Grid, something we looked at in December. Few people realise that, in terms of electricity supplies, we are living on the edge and, even now, we are one power station away from disaster. As we increase our dependency on wind-generated electricity and fail to invest in more stable power providers, the situation can only get worse. No one in the business, it seems, is prepared to guarantee the stability of the grid after 2010.

The time is getting close when buying that generator is becoming essential.

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Labels: energy

I was talking to a power supply engineer the other day, and asked him whether it was worth getting a back-up generator to protect against the possibility of power cuts. The answer was a most emphatic "yes", and he is by no means the only one who has given that answer.

But what is just as worrying is that the likelihood of anything intelligent being done about the problem has just receded. According to a Eurobarometer poll released yesterday, only 20 percent of those polled throughout the EU are in favour of nuclear energy, 80 percent back solar energy and 71 percent are in favour of wind energy. Which just goes to prove that the majority can be wrong (and most often is).

But with that level of hostility towards nuclear, and those sort of percentages in favour of renewables, the chances of any politicians (apart from the French, who don't give a damn) making the "tough decision" and going hard for nuclear are extremely slight.

The poll itself has been published as a curtain-raiser to the publication of the EU's strategic energy review, copies of which have already been leaked. But first sight indicates that it is not going to become a runaway best seller.

In fact, a study of the document simply affirms that the EU is not in control and the key decisions – as always – are going to have to be made by member states. And they, it would appear, can be as bad as the EU when it comes to making the right decisions.

That generator is looking more and more like an essential as days pass.

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Labels: energy, EU, wind

The beginning of 2006 saw Gazprom throwing its weight around and raising gas prices to Ukraine, citing "market forces" as an argument. Unfortunately, that meant an immediate decrease in the amount of gas Ukraine was sending on to various other European countries and the EU was in an uproar (well, a small uproar). A very swift agreement was reached and, while the price Ukraine paid was raised (unarguably they had been underpaying but that was part of the deal Putin had promised to Yanukevich who proceeded to lose the election once the counting was sorted out) but Russia, Putin and Gazprom did not quite get all they wanted.

In the immediate aftermath of those events there was a great deal of talk about alternative energy sources, pipelines being built and more thought given (though not in Germany) to nuclear power. Little of it came to anything, though pipes are being constructed to various other former Soviet republics.

In the last few months Gazprom has consolidated its control of natural gas and, even, oil production in Russia, forcing Shell to "renegotiate" its contract and cede control of Sakhalin-2. It is beginning to look as if Gazprom, run by various buddies of Putin, is beginning to gnash its teeth at BP. One possible outcome of all this is a gradual dropping off in foreign investment and Russia not being able to fulfil her various contractual obligations to supply energy to European countries.

That could be a disaster for Putin and his possible successor, since the Russian economic boom, such as it is, relies entirely on export of oil and gas plus a few other natural resources. There has been no sign of investment in industry nor any attempt to develop and diversify Russia’s economy.

This year started with another Gazprom attack of the vapours – this is becoming a bit of a tradition. But because this particular attack was on Belarus, led by "Europe’s last dictator", Aleksander Lukashenko and a country through which considerably less gas flows to the West than through Ukraine, the EU and its members remained shtumm.

It seemed rather odd to have Gazprom (or the Russian government, whichever one thinks of first) bullying Lukashenko, who has been Putin’s most loyal ally. He will not take his country down the Western road, unlike the leaders of Ukraine and Georgia. So, why is he being bullied?

Well, some of it is money. Belarus has agreed to an increase in price from $47 to $100 per thousand cubic metres, to be raised again by 2011 to something like $300 per thousand cubic metres. Whether Belarus will be able to afford this and what will happen if it does not, remains to be seen.

Of course, the original price was extremely low. But it ought to be pointed out that it had been negotiated, if that is the word, as a bonus for Lukashenko’s unwavering support. Furthermore, as the Wall Street Journal Europe pointed out two days ago [subscription only], we cannot talk about such things as market prices when Gazprom exercises complete monopoly and refuses to open up to foreign investors.

In any case, the money is not the most important part of the deal and, it would not be altogether surprising if those terms were loosened up at some later stage. What Russia was really after is the 50 per cent stake in Belltransgaz, Belarus's gas pipeline monopoly.

Gazprom’s openly avowed aim is to control and consolidate the production and distribution of gas to all its clients. Russia refuses to ratify the International Energy Charter, under which signatories have to allow free access to pipeline networks.

Nor is Russia particularly happy with the proposed EU liberalization of the energy market, which will break up the existing Continental monopolies but will also prevent gas suppliers to own pipelines. And vice, as they say, versa.

This is most definitely not in Russia's interests and the last few months have shown us quite clearly how that country and its state monopolies understand the expression "market forces". Briefly, it amounts to "what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable". At the barrel of the gun, figuratively speaking.

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Labels: Belarus, energy, Russia

Like the tower blocks before them, the wind towers are another mass delusion. A letter in The Telegraph tells us why:

Sir – Once again the public are being misled by the wind industry. These windfarms, which are going to cover over 100 square miles of the approaches to the Thames Estuary, will never power one third of London homes.

If as suggested the installed capacity of the 400-plus turbines is 1.3 Gw (1300Mw) then even with a generous load factor of 30 per cent the average output will only be 390Mw. This would in fact be enough to provide 5Kw to 78,000 homes, about enough to power an electric kettle and a toaster. If, as there frequently is, a high pressure system is sitting over south-east England, then there will be zero output from these windfarms. The claims about carbon dioxide savings are equally dishonest. Using widely accepted data the annual, theoretical savings of CO2 for these turbines would be approximately 1.46 Mt and would reduce global levels by a farcical 0.005 per cent.

What your readers really need to know is that these windfarms will receive approximately £160 million per year in subsidies, paid for by them. This windfarm scandal has gone on long enough and needs to be exposed for what is. We are destroying our landscapes and now our seascapes for nothing more than green tokenism, and are being expected to pay for it as well.

Bob Graham, Chairman, Highlands Against Windfarms, Orton, Moray

The tragedy of it all is that, had we not been lumbered with the Green Moron, the Conservatives could have exposed the stupidity for what it is, and gained some real political brownie (instead of greenie) points.

Much of the "green agenda" is a bubble, waiting to burst. Cameron has got on the bandwagon – to mix metaphors – just at a time when the wheels are about to fall off.

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Labels: cameron, energy, environment, wind