British green energy push may lead to blackouts

The London Times reports that Britain’s crusade to replace natural gas with “green” energy threatens the country’s ability to keep the lights on:

Britain’s race to net zero will leave the country at greater risk of blackouts and higher electricity bills, a confidential report commissioned by the national grid system has warned.

The report, disclosed to The Times by a whistleblower, revealed the National Energy System Operator (Neso) cannot accurately model the modern power system as the government pursues a drive towards renewable energy sources.

Britain is subsidizing the installation of solar panels, even though Britain is a cloudy, overcast country where the sun often doesn’t shine, making it harder to rely on solar energy than in sunnier countries. Britain is not like America’s sunny southwest, nor is it like Africa’s vast, sunny Sahel region, where even poor people are currently installing solar panels to meet their electricity needs, and installing solar panels even in the absence of government subsidies. Yet, “the United Kingdom has solar power subsidies and financial incentives, primarily featuring the Warm Homes Plan, the ECO4 Scheme,” and exemption from sales tax. That includes the “Warm Homes Plan: Provides targeted funding and non-repayable vouchers for low-to-middle-income households to install solar panels” and “ECO4 Scheme: Offers eligible low-income households or those receiving qualifying benefits free or subsidized solar panel installations.”

London receives only about 1600 hours of sunshine per year, while Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland, gets only about 1200 hours of sunshine per year. Some days are very cloudy in those cities. By contrast, Yuma, Arizona, gets about 4,000 hours of sunshine per year, Phoenix gets 3,900 hours, and El Paso gets about 3,800 hours of sunshine per year. Many African cities like Cairo and Capetown get well over 3,000 hours of sunshine per year. In those sunny places, solar panels generate a lot more electricity.

Lawyer John Hinderaker says it was obvious that Britain wouldn’t be able to model the power system, given Britain’s reliance on forms of green energy that are intermittent and unreliable in Britain, like solar energy: “Of course [Britain] can’t accurately model the power system! Wind and solar are intermittent, weather-dependent electricity sources. There is no way to predict, or to control, when they will produce electricity and when they will not. This has been obvious to everyone for a long time, but apparently it took a ‘confidential report’ and a ‘whistleblower’ to bring the facts to the attention of the British public.

The London Times adds:

The report found inaccurate forecasts were pushing up costs for consumers and raising the risk that Neso would be unable to keep the network stable to keep the lights on safely.
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Internal Neso reports show that on June 23 the electricity grid breached five operational safety constraints and system security was compromised.

Britain also is investing in wind energy, which has both benefits and costs. Wind turbines don’t last forever, and they leave behind fiberglass blades that landfills often won’t accept. Moreover, the “blades have low energy content, and burning fiberglass emits dangerous pollutants,” notes the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. In short, notes CNN, “wind energy has a massive waste problem.”

36% of wind turbines generating electricity in Spain will need to be decommissioned by 2028 as they become obsolete.  That’s 7,500 wind turbines and 20,000 blades that will have to be dismantled and disposed of somehow. Those wind turbines were installed before 2005, but their lifespan is only 20 to 25 years.

Their steel, copper wires, and generators can be reused. But not their fiberglass blades, which only a few landfills in Spain will accept.

Wind energy poses other challenges for nature as well. In 2022, the biggest U.S. utility that generates wind power pleaded guilty to federal crimes for killing 150 eagles.