http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid640957304001?bctid=676265059001

If I had to choose, I would rather live next to a 1000Mw coal fired station (equipped with scrubbers – even better) than within cooee of a 1MW wind turbine.

And apart from Andy’s economic assessment I like this from Wikipedia:-

Wind power is non-dispatchable, meaning that for economic operation, all of the available output must be taken when it is available. Other resources, such as hydropower, and load management techniques must be used to match supply with demand. The intermittency of wind seldom creates problems when using wind power to supply a low proportion of total demand, but as the proportion rises, problems are created such as increased costs, the need to upgrade the grid, and a lowered ability to supplant conventional production.

i.e. better have a hydro, nuke, thermal or fossil fuel handy just in case the wind dont blow.

Does anybody know what these are?

The whole world knows that the “economic benefit” of wind, solar, tides, ethanol, etc is hugely negative. Hydro and geothermal are usually just as unaffordable. Where they are economic due to serendipitous locations, it is not because they use renewable fuel.

What is the environmental benefit of renewables? They might produce fewer net GHGs, but so does nuclear and ‘clean coal’. They use vast tracts of land, displace food, gobble scarce resources, kill birds, ruin landscapes, have dreadful energy conversion rates and last for only about 15 years.

Is “renewable” just a nice word that sounds “sustainable”?

This is really worrying. Europe is starting to show signs of breakdown. I don’t think these levels of debt can be sustained much longer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gd6-zfeeaM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrASFrpi8zA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thUrVB7bFdE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kotac3meVM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPtayYoHoCY

(it might get taken down so worth grabbing while it’s there. There are also good quality torrents on the box and uknova)

The climate change scare is dying, but do our MPs notice?

The collapse of the warmist position on climate change has not impinged on politicians in Britain or Brussels, says Christopher Booker.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8131383/The-climate-change-scare-is-dying-but-do-our-MPs-notice.html

Compare and contrast with The Guardian’s position

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/14/climate-change-science-email-scandal

h/t
EuRef
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/11/climategate-year-on.html

“Britain’ Trillion Pound Horror Story”

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/britains-trillion-pound-horror-story/4od#3139408

How many decades have the Greens been with us? So it’s a relief that The Age last subjects Victoria’s Greens to this scrutiny – and depressing that it’s the first from the paper I can remember:

Closing down the carbon-spewing Hazelwood power station within four years would mean replacing its 1500 megawatts of electricity with renewable energy and encouraging consumers to be more energy efficient…

But Jon Stanford, an energy economist at Insight Economics, said …renewable energy was nowhere near ready to take on the burden carried by Hazelwood … and even if it was it would increase power prices and put ‘’great pressure on the budgets of Victorian families’’.

For example, the Greens would introduce a gross feed-in tariff for people with rooftop solar panels… This policy was recently abandoned by the NSW government because of a $2.5 billion blow-out in costs, which were eventually picked up by consumers…

…..
Sad isn’t it; I think the human race has doomist tendencies
(is that a personality disorder)

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/11/answer-is-yes.html

He also has an interesting related story on the Western Isles scrapping their plans to build windfarms, because or the cost of the infrastructure required to connect the Isles to the mainland

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/11/let-them-dig-peat.html

We should also note that the Isle of Eigg – a recently convert to 100% renewables – had to switch to diesel generator backup when they ran out of power recently.
This is a taste of things to come, perhaps?