Britain's anti-Irish wind energy policy

Impetus · 15-04-2014 4:47pm #1

I refer to an item published in the Irish Times on 14.3.2014 regarding Britain’s inflexibility on pricing of electricity traded over the GB-IRL interconnectors.

Many anti-Europeans in GB say that Britain is only interested in free trade, and does not want to involve itself with other items on the EU agenda. It seems to me that Britain only wants free trade when it is to the country's advantage. Perhaps it is time to tell Tesco to go away, together with all those tacky British chain stores that are an eyesore on Ireland's Main streets and in its shopping malls?

This is typical of that country’s self-centred, anti-European approach to doing business. It seems to me that the Irish government (and the EU) should adopt a similar self-interested policy against Britain’s nuclear energy plans.

Over the past fifty years, Britain has shown itself to be incapable of running a clean nuclear electricity generation system – putting Ireland, Scandinavia, France, Benelux and Germany and further afield at risk of health and pollution risks.

Nuclear energy is not unlike a country allowing its borrowings to increase to 3,000% of GDP – it leaves a massive inheritance of radiation muck for future generations to deal with. A true financial iceberg.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/uk-pricing-stance-blamed-for-collapse-of-energy-plan-1.1761050

Greensleeves · 15-04-2014 5:30pm

Impetus wrote: »

I refer to an item published in the Irish Times on 14.3.2014 regarding Britain’s inflexibility on pricing of electricity traded over the GB-IRL interconnectors.

Many anti-Europeans in GB say that Britain is only interested in free trade, and does not want to involve itself with other items on the EU agenda. It seems to me that Britain only wants free trade when it is to the country's advantage. Perhaps it is time to tell Tesco to go away, together with all those tacky British chain stores that are an eyesore on Ireland's Main streets and in its shopping malls?

This is typical of that country’s self-centred, anti-European approach to doing business. It seems to me that the Irish government (and the EU) should adopt a similar self-interested policy against Britain’s nuclear energy plans.

Over the past fifty years, Britain has shown itself to be incapable of running a clean nuclear electricity generation system – putting Ireland, Scandinavia, France, Benelux and Germany and further afield at risk of health and pollution risks.

Nuclear energy is not unlike a country allowing its borrowings to increase to 3,000% of GDP – it leaves a massive inheritance of radiation muck for future generations to deal with. A true financial iceberg.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/uk-pricing-stance-blamed-for-collapse-of-energy-plan-1.1761050

Presumably what the UK government is interested in is getting the best possible deal. Why would they pay above the odds for electricity from Ireland?

Impetus · 15-04-2014 6:01pm

Greensleeves wrote: »

Presumably what the UK government is interested in is getting the best possible deal. Why would they pay above the odds for electricity from Ireland?

Security of supply, diversification of supply, very low inflation (no increase in raw material cost), and part of an EU wide community effort to create a large pool of renewable energy sources. There is a huge quantity of electricity traded between European states every year.

While Switzerland is not in the EU, the confederation is quite happy to interconnect and trade energy. You can see the MW imported or exported in near real time in the chart at the bottom right of the homepage of http://swissgrid.ch/swissgrid/en/home.html

Greensleeves · 16-04-2014 10:44am

Impetus wrote: »

Security of supply, diversification of supply, very low inflation (no increase in raw material cost), and part of an EU wide community effort to create a large pool of renewable energy sources. There is a huge quantity of electricity traded between European states every year.

While Switzerland is not in the EU, the confederation is quite happy to interconnect and trade energy. You can see the MW imported or exported in near real time in the chart at the bottom right of the homepage of http://swissgrid.ch/swissgrid/en/home.html

It all comes down to price. If our electricity is too expensive the UK won't buy it. It's not as though we are the only available source. Ed Davey warned Scotland recently that if it becomes independent the UK will treat it like any other country.

"Both the independent Scottish state and the continuing UK government would be focused on serving the best interests of their citizens. For the continuing UK, the energy relationship with an independent Scotland would become purely commercial."

If Scotland did become independent, Davey said UK ministers and energy companies would search for the most competitive European energy sources to supplement UK production. Scotland could win some contracts, that power could easily come more cheaply from Ireland, France, Belgium, Denmark or Norway, with new interconnectors now being built."

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/09/ed-davey-independent-scotland-fund-energy-alex-salmond

Impetus · 16-04-2014 1:42pm

Greensleeves wrote: »

It all comes down to price. If our electricity is too expensive the UK won't buy it. It's not as though we are the only available source. Ed Davey warned Scotland recently that if it becomes independent the UK will treat it like any other country.

"Both the independent Scottish state and the continuing UK government would be focused on serving the best interests of their citizens. For the continuing UK, the energy relationship with an independent Scotland would become purely commercial."

If Scotland did become independent, Davey said UK ministers and energy companies would search for the most competitive European energy sources to supplement UK production. Scotland could win some contracts, that power could easily come more cheaply from Ireland, France, Belgium, Denmark or Norway, with new interconnectors now being built."

Independence is an insular illusion, particularly prevalent in Great Britain. A country whose economy is driven by financial services (of the kind neither the British nor the rest of Europe needs) and the arms industry. Hence the balance of trade deficit of €25 billion in the quarter to Sep 2013. Britain needs the rest of Europe to supply its basic needs.

It seems to me that the “cost” of energy in Britain is based on false accounting in that the price per kWh does not include nuclear energy costs for the full cycle – ie the long term storage of the waste in a well maintained safe environment. These are being paid by the taxpayer and borrowed from future generations.

This is in effect a subsidy on British electricity prices which is closing the British market to imports. It is not dissimilar to the manufacturing situation in China, which uses obsolete equipment and systems, whose large scale air and water pollution is making cities like Beijing unliveable in. All in the name of producing cheap rubbishy goods that are largely thrown away by the customer in a short period. Leading to recycling and disposal problems in the west. Virtually every other country in Europe has large scale electricity exporting / importing. At I write this, Switzerland's grid is exporting 2.8 GW of power to Italy*.

GB’s wholesale energy price is running about 5c per kWh according to the real-time prices at http://www.apxgroup.com/market-results/apx-power-uk/dashboard/ Wind energy in a high wind environment like Ireland costs about 6c per kWh to produce.

Gov.ie needs to attack the British nuclear subsidy which seems to be preventing this export. Meanwhile Irish wind energy producers need to adopt a cost price model based on amortization over the expected useful life of the hardware, rather than short-term cost accounting.

*http://swissgrid.ch/swissgrid/de/home.html

Impetus · 16-04-2014 3:07pm

There is a full page article in today's Financial Times entitled "Wasted Energy".

An interesting "ps" in a box at the foot of the article :

Politics: Mathematical trickery dogs debate

Part of the reason that the European Commission has not proposed biofuel targets for 2030 is pure exasperation.

Setting goals for 2020 has turned into a bitter political battle between EU nations and has become a showcase for mathematical trickery. Until the numbers are agreed for 2020, targets for 2030 seem unlikely.

The original proposal for the renewable energy directive, made in 2009, was simple: by 2020, 10 per cent of transport fuels should come from renewable sources such as biofuels. But that target has become far more contentious over the past five years, with some countries opposing many fuels made out of crops on the grounds they waste farmland that should be used for growing food.

Several countries are now striving to redesign the 10 per cent goal and set a separate target for second-generation biofuels that derive from waste or that do not displace crops. But the argument between nations is intense.

The European parliament has suggested that 6 per cent of fuel could come from food-based biofuels and 2.5 per cent could come from advanced biofuels.

Countries such as Poland, Hungary and Spain have been pushing for the first-generation target to be significantly more than 6 per cent. Countries such as Denmark, the Netherlands and Italy have been seeking greater emphasis on “advanced biofuels”.

In December, the countries were unable to reach a compromise, reaching an impasse that could set back investment in advanced biofuels for years.

Marko Janhunen of UPM argues that the parliament’s 2.5 per cent target for advanced biofuels is an implausible figure for an industry that is only just beginning. “That would need about 50 refineries like the one we are building at Lappeenranta,” he says. But he insists that is no excuse for not setting a target of even 1 per cent as that would give the market the confidence it needs to continue investments in advanced biofuels.

The issue is made more complicated with mathematical debates over how to encourage countries to use more advanced biofuels by allowing them to be “double counted” or even “quadruple counted” in national energy mixes.

Energy exports have to start somewhere, even if it is only in the 1% space - as has been suggested above for advanced biofuels.

Full article: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1bf7a80c-b430-11e3-a102-00144feabdc0.html

djpbarry · 17-04-2014 9:29am

We already have a thread running on the wind farm for the midlands, I don't think we need another, especially one with a decidedly anti-British slant.

Britain's anti-Irish wind energy policy

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