UK power companies are going to be paid not to generate power when the wind blows:
Good grief. Will every "Green" energy booster who thinks that Sarah Palin is a ditz please just STFU right now? You're making actual ditzes embarrassed for you.Energy firms will receive thousands of pounds a day per wind farm to turn off their turbines because the National Grid cannot use the power they are producing.
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The National Grid fears that on breezy summer nights, wind farms could actually cause a surge in the electricity supply which is not met by demand from businesses and households.
The electricity cannot be stored, so one solution – known as the 'balancing mechanism' – is to switch off or reduce the power supplied.
In other shocking news, Joe Lieberman says there aren't enough votes for Cap-and-Trade. Gosh, wonder why? Unreliable, intermittent power at three times the cost of the alternatives, that won't make one rat's behind of difference to the climate even if you accept the whole CO2 scaremongering, because China and India are running flat out building more coal plants.
Boy, it's a good thing we don't have an idiotic Texas cowboy in the White House anymore, but have enlightened and smart Ivy League types instead ...
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So much smart that they can do better than a market solution?
ReplyDeleteSuggested alternative*:
Charge the bastards for putting excess into the grid, that way, the wind farmers'd soon start finding places to put pumped storage schemes.
By the way, I've got my eye on a few potential sites....
*only a suggestion - I'm sure the brains of all of humanity can come up with a much better one - if anyone could outsmart the free market, they'd make Warren Buffet look like a pauper. but no one can...
Good lord, it's like farm subsidies. They will soon have rich absentee wind-farmers in London City getting paid not to windfarm.
ReplyDeleteLike Beverly Hills has 136 subsidized farmers listed, and 80 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. ...
Wouldn't it make sense to have the oil and coal based producers throttle back when the wind based generators can meet demand? Then when the wind dies down, increase fuel based generation and NOT pay anyone not to produce power.
ReplyDelete"Energy firms will receive thousands of pounds a day per wind farm to turn off their turbines ..."
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it make more sense just to not pay them when they're not working? I realize that this is a pretty reactionary economic position, but still...
On the other end of the spectrum, there's the story of the Spanish solar power plant that was using generators so they could still produce - and get paid - at night.
There's really no limit to human ingenuity. Now if only we could use that awesome power for good.