“When people on average earnings start to fall into ‘fuel poverty,’ it is clear that Britain is in the grip of a living standards crisis,” leads the UK’s Daily Express of Oct. 12. “On current trends every British household on a middling income will be defined as living in fuel poverty within four years . . . add in the bills for running a car and the picture becomes bleaker still . . . All the old complacent assumptions about Britain being a securely prosperous country must be jettisoned.”

One-fourth of British households may be forced into “fuel poverty” by 2015 as the British government raises electricity and gas taxes to invest in more high-cost renewable energy—especially high-cost and erratic offshore wind turbines.

“So it is time for Britain to abandon unilateral and unrealistic targets for cutting CO2 emissions, especially where they will only be achieved by investing a fortune in prohibitively expensive ‘renewable’ sources of energy,” concludes the Daily Express.

The costs of British electricity have doubled since 2004, and are expected to rise another 20 percent this year. The German Deutsch bank predicts another 25 percent rise by 2015 as the UK pours billions of public dollars—from both the Treasury and higher consumer billing—into the big steel barges and the tall turbine towers.

“‘Radical policy change’ may be necessary to protect millions of struggling families from the biggest household price shock since the 1970s,” writes Sean Poulter in the Daily Mail of Oct. 12, quoting London financial analysts. Meanwhile, Poulter says, with the worst unemployment figures for 17 years, the Institute for Fiscal Studies found families are about to endure their biggest income drop in over 35 years (a collapse which, incidentally, brought Margaret Thatcher to power).

Put another way, the British cost of electricity is rising about six times as fast as British household incomes, according to David Blair in the Financial Times of Oct. 11. He predicts the steady rise in electricity and gas charges could force the government to reconsider spending L200 billion on new infrastructure by 2020, especially that big expansion of wind power.

“If the rate of increase continues, it would concentrate minds even further and energy costs would rise potentially to the top of the public’s agenda and therefore of the political agenda,” Blair quotes David Hunter, an energy consultant. Mr. Hunter described the costs as “eye-watering.”

Meanwhile, Lord David Young, the former UK Secretary for Trade and Industry, said in the London Times, “No one can doubt that we are going through a period of global warming. A few weeks ago I was at an Inuit settlement on the west coast of Greenland where they have seen five months of sea ice a year reduced to less than a month. . . . Cold weather [persisted in England however] between the 15th and 19th centuries when the Thames would freeze over and frost fairs were held. It was said in Roman times, when we were going through a warm period, that English wine was famous. . . . Our climate is always changing”

Lord Young warns, “in an age of few political beliefs, the cause of climate change [has become] an end in itself. . . . Only recently the Government Chief Scientist, no less, forecast that by the end of the century, Antarctica would be the only habitable continent.”

But he notes that there has been no global warming trend since 1998. “Are we absolutely certain that the main cause of global warming is carbon and has nothing to do with the output of the Sun, or any of the other theories?” he asked. “It would be unfortunate if history recalled that we solved a problem that in the end did not require a solution by tipping [Britain’s economy] into a depression.”

CHURCHVILLE, VA—As I write, a strong wind is blowing across the Alleghany Mountains onto my house. It’s bringing an “Arctic Clipper” that will drop my temperatures this weekend to a frigid and unusual 6 degrees F. Why can’t I get some good from this chill wind—with a wind turbine to harvest the “free” energy?

 

Out in Oregon, General Electric has just announced a big wind project: 338 turbines, rated at 845 MW. GE claims it will power for 235,000 homes, and is applying for the appropriate federal subsidies.

 

Will the wind turbines power 235,000 homes?  Don’t bet on it. My friend Donald Hertzmark—an energy economist—warns the power deliveries from this wind project are likely to average only 25 percent of its rated capacity. That would serve only 58,000 homes, not 235,000.

 

But Hertzmark says even this is too high because the wind is highly variable. The Texas power grid’s experience is to rely on no more than 9 percent of the wind farm’s rated capacity. That would reduce GE’s real subsidy claim to about 21,000 households.

 

It gets worse.

 

Most of Oregon’s power comes from dams, and the lean period for hydropower is winter. That’s when heating demand peaks—but also when the dams have to restrict their water flow to protect fish, control flooding, and save up irrigation water for the next summer.

 

How likely is it that wind turbines can add to Oregon’s generating capacity in the midst of the winter electricity demand surge, and offset the hydroelectric generating restrictions?  Not very, says Hertzmark.

 

This January, Britain’s wind turbines (6 percent of total generating capacity after many billions of dollars invested) supplied virtually no power on most days. The wind tends not to blow when and where it’s already very cold.

 

The stars of the British winter power demand were natural gas turbines, which are 34 percent of capacity and supplied 40 percent of the power during the winter wind lull. But Britain’s North Sea natural gas is running out; the only likely new source would be natural gas piped from Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Ouch.

 

“Wind cannot be relied upon to provide firm generation at full capacity coincident with peak demand.” warns Hertzmark. “Wind might be capable of contributing to the peak demand requirements at some times. However, this will rarely happen—and when it does, it will be for brief periods. For significant periods of time, no households will be served by the wind farms.”

 

Nor have either of the worlds “wind leaders”—Denmark and Germany—decommissioned any fossil fuel plants. The fossil generators are kept in “spinning reserve”—burning fossil fuels—to keep the lights on in the schools, factories, and hospitals when the wind dies.

 

Why build wind turbines at all?  Well, wind and solar were the only energy sources the Greens would endorse, probably because they’re so expensive and erratic that there’s no danger of anybody getting hooked on cheap power again. Denmark was also selling wind turbines to other countries, so they had to be demonstrated at home. Now China is making cheaper turbines. Who will buy?

 

The cost of the “free wind”? Projections are about 17 cents per kwh—far higher than other energy sources.  One of my neighbors has just invested $100,000 in a wind turbine. I think he’s wasted his money—and some of yours.

 

DENNIS T. AVERY is an environmental economist, and a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC.  He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at PO Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421 or email to cgfi@hughes.net