An Idiot’s Guide To Cutting CO2 (Alas, the Idiots Are in Charge)

 

DAVID WRIGHT

RECENTLY appointed by Sir Keir Starmer as Minister of State for Food Security and Rural Affairs, Daniel Zeichner has no background or experience of farming. So, among others, he will have no idea of the impact of onshore wind farms and solar farms on food-producing land.

Politicians have to be seen to be doing something in response to any scare, manufactured or real; covid being a classic example.

So what is their response to the grifters who say that CO₂ causes the Earth to warm? They think: ‘Gosh, we must do something about it.’

Somebody points out that windmills can generate electricity and that the wind is free. Also that sunshine playing on photovoltaic panels can produce electricity, and sunshine is free. Many other people dream up CO₂ mitigation schemes and governments fall for them every time and hose money at them.

Here are the main methods of CO₂ reduction in the atmosphere proposed by those set to make big money from them. In every case government ministers responsible, without a moment’s thought or analysis, agree that the solutions must be adopted.

Onshore wind: Yes, let’s cover the land with wind farms because they’ll provide free electricity. Any company offering to build them will be showered with money and guaranteed a profitable price for their electricity. The decision is made so that the politician can feel good and can show the electorate that the government is taking action. Completely ignored are:

1. transmission lines, with pylons every quarter of a mile and the 625 miles of new transmission lines estimated to be required, which you can bet is a serious underestimate;
2. the huge footprint per megawatt of wind farms compared with nuclear or fossil fuel power stations;
3. the short life of the turbines, 20 to 25 years;
4. collateral damage to birds, bats and the millions of insects they feed on;
5. loss of food-growing land;
6. despoliation of beautiful countryside and its stunning views;
7. visual and audible disturbance to nearby residents;
8. as ever, any consideration of decommissioning.

The huge underground works to support a wind turbine are graphically illustrated in this video, which makes it obvious that the support bases will never be removed.

Offshore wind: Here we enter astronomical costs. Offshore the wind blows more strongly and more consistently and a number of offshore wind farms have already been built around the UK and the US. Such wind farms can be built with seabed mountings in waters up to 60m deep. In deeper waters floating turbine bases must be used. Because of the harsh, corrosive environment of the sea, plus the fact that the wind they are designed to capture also generates waves and salt spray, the maintenance costs are huge and the life of the turbines is much less at 15-20 years. The CO₂ produced in their manufacture, transportation to site and installation is never repaid in their lifetimes by the CO₂ from fossil fuels saved. So they’re all a complete waste of money. Governments and developers don’t care about these negative aspects which far outweigh the so-called benefits because wind is free, you see.

Solar: A more absurd idea to generate electricity in Britain’s cloudy climate and long dark winters would be hard to imagine. This week the Met Office has revealed that England has had less than two hours of sunshine this month and a current, not uncommon, high pressure system over the British Isles is providing very little wind power.

This brings us to the matter of capacity. Every time a new wind or solar farm is announced the press (all on board with the scam) loudly announce that it will produce enough electricity to power x thousand homes. This, of course is based on the developer’s press release which quotes the farm’s nameplate capacity, which is when the whole project is generating at maximum output. This is very rare. This week solar in Britain was generating at just 4.9 per cent of capacity.

The largest solar farm in the UK is currently 250 acres, and most of us have driven past smaller ones near roads: formerly lush green fields for livestock covered in ugly black glass. Tenant farmers pay £500 per acre per year rent, but the landlord will receive £1,000 per acre from a solar farm. So tenant farmers are being evicted. Within days of the general election Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, approved two solar farms of 2,500 acres and 3,000 acres. A further two of 4,000 and 5,000 acres are in the planning stage.

Hydrogen: Another ‘panacea’ eagerly swallowed hook, line and sinker by politicians and industrialists. For an exhaustive examination of its costs and uselessness see here and here. In summary, so-called green hydrogen, produced by electrolysis of water using renewable energy, uses at least 50 per cent more power than is released by burning it. Its very low energy density means it has to be compressed to provide any usable quantity, so storage in pressure vessels, especially in vehicles, makes it almost useless. Existing gas pipelines to homes and factories cannot be used because the hydrogen molecule is so small that it leaks very easily. So filling stations for hydrogen powered vehicles would need large pressure vessels, as would the tankers replenishing them. One needs little knowledge of physics and chemistry to realise that it’s never going to work, but it does need some, and politicians and others with degrees in Politics, Philosophy and Economics are easily misled.

Batteries: Even the politicians realise that wind and solar suffer from intermittency (although mad Miliband clearly does not because he wants to multiply hugely the number of wind and solar farms in Britain) but if the wind isn’t blowing you can have 100 turbines or 1,000 turbines but still no electricity generated. The glib assertion that batteries can provide backup power ignores that fact that they can do so for only a very short time. A few hours is not much use when wind droughts can last for days. Then they have to be recharged, robbing consumers and industries. Who allocates the electricity when the wind starts blowing again? For a few hours of battery power for a medium-sized town a large battery farm containing dozens of container-sized batteries is required.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS): Another white elephant mindlessly proposed to draw the CO₂ out of the gases discharged by fossil fuel power stations. Staggeringly expensive, especially to retrofit to existing plants and very power-hungry to operate; separate the CO₂ somehow, compress it, pump it miles through newly laid pipelines of special quality steel (because CO₂ is corrosive) into underground storage e.g. exhausted gas fields, and then ensure it doesn’t leak out again. Companies in the US have evaluated it and Drax in the UK is experimenting with it but the volumes involved are staggering. How much will electricity bills rise to pay for it?

Other daft ideas have been mooted and some even evaluated. Pumped hydro, which is really just a battery, compressed air to store energy, giant fans to suck air into CO₂ separation units. Undoubtedly more harebrained schemes will be dreamed up. But they all come up against the reality of the laws of physics eventually.

This article (An idiot’s guide to cutting CO2 (alas, the idiots are in charge)) was created and published by Conservative Woman and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author David Wright