Green Economics Brings Down Government

Green Party Northern Ireland manifesto for 2016 election

I always knew Green policies were bad because of, among other things the underlying economics, but I never thought I'd see the day when they would bring down a government assembly like it has in Northern Ireland. I blogged about the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme (known as Cash for Ash) before here. For every £1.00 spent on wood pellets, a participant in the scheme got paid £1.60. It didn't dawn on the people in charge that this was an invitation to burn as much wood as possible, effectively leading to the government burning it's own money. And lots of it. 

The cost of this outrageous scheme is estimated to be over £1 billion over the next 20 years. A huge sum for Northern Ireland which relies on a £10 billion block grant from England every year and runs a fiscal deficit of about £ 9 billion. Now there are claims that whisteblowers were ignored and pressure exerted by officials to keep the scheme going. 

You didn't need to be a trained economist to know the scheme couldn't work. Although the Green Party only has 2 seats in the assembly, there is a strong green ethos in the ruling party, the DUP. Their leader, Arlene Foster, took much of the blame and responsibility for the design of the scheme.

I could find no mention of renewables or green energy in the Sinn Fein (the second largest party) manifesto for 2016. It appears it was taken off the agenda in favor of their "Green Paper on Irish Unity".  Their leader, Martin McGuinness who was the Deputy First Minister, resigned last week over the matter forcing another election. 

Hopefully there is a lesson in all this - green policies and green economics are mostly for the scrapheap. The only people they benefit are the very rich in society.

Cash For Ash - How Green Feel Good Polices Damage the Environment

        The remedy is sometimes worse than the disease - Francis Bacon

Josh cartoons

Green polices are mostly ideological and rarely based on any kind of robust analysis. This was never more evident in the Cash for Ash scheme that was setup in Northern Ireland where amazingly, farmers got paid a profit to burn wood pellets. There are reports that farmers with empty sheds could qualify for the handsome subsidies. There are also reports that people are burning the wood pellets right around the clock with windows and doors open to allow the heat out.   The impact on the environment of course is entirely negative. 

A full report on this crazy scheme can be found here in The Irish Times.

New Report on Biomass

BW Energy have published a new report on the attractiveness of biomass for Ireland as a means of achieving our 2020 targets rather than continuing with expensive and unreliable wind energy. The report can be accessed here :

Unlocking Ireland’s biomass potential –converting Moneypoint coal fired power station to sustainable biomass.


There are many interesting points made and two which really stuck out at me :

• Ireland has the best growing climate for forestry in Europe with substantial scope to expand due to low forest cover. With around 730,000 hectares under forest, Ireland is one of the least forested countries in the European Union (11% cover compared to an average of 18%) despite its climatic conditions being the best for biomass production. Indeed, according to the Paterson Climatic Index Ireland scores 10 ha/m3 annual biomass production potential whilst Finland, where 18% of energy is produced by biomass , rates only 3.8ha/m3 .

• According to the SEAI in 2011, 0.5 million m3 of forestry thinnings – a key potential source of sustainable biomass - was left uncollected on the Irish forest floor.

I've written about the advantages of biomass over wind energy here before - it provides dispatchable power, can be stored, not as weather dependent as wind, displacement of coal rather than gas etc. One thing the report doesnt really address is the increased use of oil as a result of harvesting the biomass but wind energy also increases dependence on oil. Indeed, Eirgrid have recently stated that capacity of demand side units, a fancy name for industrial diesel generators,  have reached 230MW and is set to increase further (this after ESB closed down most of it's oil generating power stations!).

Installing more wind energy will certainly increase reliance on fast acting generators like diesel and open gas cycle turbines. Given that the agricultural industry is dependent on oil anyway, transferring 8% of total land to biomass production, probably won't change total oil dependence in the agricultural sector overall (and possibly there will be scope for some biofuels when biomass industry is up and running).

Biomass has been tried before in Ireland. In the late 70s, we signed an international agreement to run biomass trials for energy conversion :

Grants were given by the then EEC, and ESB and Bord Na Mona became interested in developing it. Crops grew quite well in good soil conditions but the planting of bogs became a complete failure. Biomass was ultimately abandoned in 1985. Des O'Malley's (Fianna Fail) nuclear plans were scuppered by Fine Gael in the early 80's who favoured coal power instead. Moneypoint power station very nearly ended up been powered by much cleaner and lower emitting nuclear energy but ended up coal fired in the end. 

There is now a possibility of making amends for this and converting Moneypoint to biomass if BW Energy's plan turn out robust enough (I can't see too much wrong with it). The following article describes how the biomass trials failed in the late 70s / early 80s and argues that it was in fact a missed opportunity rather than a failure in biomass as a technology. Are we to miss that opportunity once again because of adherence to lesser technologies ?

Biomass Energy Crops - What Went Wrong (Irish Times, 1986 - click to expand)

If you really fear climate change, then you should be very worried

Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away - Philip K Dick. 

Reality is divinely indifferent - Richard Bach

Greenhouse Gas Emissions from each sector in 2013 (Source:EPA)

Our government is fully committed to both wind farms and fighting climate change but a simple analysis of the figures shows that they have no hope of combating it without doing something major about agriculture emissions, converting most of our power stations to biomass and introducing legislation that will alter our fast moving modern society altogether. Green lobby groups are rightly angry because they see the writing on the wall - no amount of wind farms can ever stave off the alleged dangers of climate change. If you are a believer in man made climate change, then you need to change your government and do it urgently.

The Irish government officially accept that climate change is a serious threat to Ireland and that we need to reduce our emissions to stop it's effects. The action they are taking in response is to enact a Climate Bill which is pretty much toothless, setting up a panel of experts and forcing ministers to give speeches on progress (or lack of) - in otherwords, it encourages talking shops rather than action. The other action they are fully committed to is installing wind turbines up and down the country. Apart from this there is occasional lip service to energy efficiency and the possibility of giving more subsidies to non dispatchable plant such as wave or solar. But energy efficiency initiatives dont sound all that "sexy" and politicians always prefer building things rather than conserving.

I have no doubt that the development and advancement of onshore wind energy projects will be and must be a significant element of Ireland's energy policy and its approach to combating climate change in the years ahead - Minister for Energy, Alex White, December 2015.

The Irish Greens are pretty extreme in their belief in climate change. There is the very vocal Friends of the Earth, the RTE television star Eamon Ryan, leader of the Green Party and many others who seem to be in well paid jobs and are fully committed to fighting climate change. One wonders what will happen them if we experience global cooling in the next few decades. One thing they are united in is their vocal criticism of the government. Are they right ? Well, given that they believe in climate change, then they are right to be angry. Because building more wind farms wont have any effect.

The Electricity Sector

Emissions from electricity make up about 20% of Ireland's total emissions. EPA state that :

Emissions from Energy (principally electricity generation) decreased by 11.1% (1.42 Mt CO2eq) in 2013. This reflects decreases in coal and peat used in conventional fossil fuel fired power stations for electricity generation, by 16.4% and 9.5% respectively, and also a decrease in natural gas use of 8.3% in 2013. Electricity generated from renewables increased by 6.6% between 2012 and 2013.

But another significant reason for the drop in emissions in 2013 was the East West interconnector which came online at the very end of 2012. Importing electricity from the UK is good for your emissions count because they are counted in UK, not Ireland. The new interconnector provided about 8% of our electricity in 2013, emissions free, and resulted in a complete gas power station lying idle for most of the year (Huntstown CCGT plant in Dublin).

Electricity consumption increased by just 0.2% during 2013 which is the equivalent of about 10,000 more homes to power. Despite this there was a reduction in emissions of 11%. A spin person might attribute all this to wind, but as you can see from the below there were four other very significant factors which resulted in less emissions and given wind increased by 13%, an overall saving of 11% is a poor enough showing. One can see the clear ineffectiveness of wind from these statistics :

Factor that reduced CO2 emissions for 2013	% Change
Reduction in Coal	-16%
Reduction in Peat	-9.5%
Reduction in Gas	-8%
Increase in Interconnection	+220%
Increase in Wind	+13%
Total reduction	-11%

Note: Biomass increased and hydro decreased by the same amount cancelling each other out

So what if we doubled our wind capacity ? Given the technical limits of wind on the system and the requirement for 5 large power stations to be running at all times to provide stability to the system, the most we can ever do is half our emissions in the electricity sector. This would give us a 10% drop overall - and this is a very generous figure, considering the larger turbines recently installed will require more maintenance than their older models and also the not insignificant back up plant inefficiencies that will result from large levels of wind penetration. Somewhere between 5-7% is probably a more accurate figure but let's allow 10% for now. This would reduce overall emissions by 10%. That leaves the remaining 80% to deal with.

Current Outlook : Ireland intends to carry on building more wind farms. Large scale biomass and nuclear have been ruled out as options by Government completely eradicating any chance of making meaningful reductions in emissions. Many new data centres are been planned around the country in the next few years which will significantly drive up demand for electricity and associated emissions.

Agriculture Sector

Agriculture is the largest "offender" at 32%. One solution is that we carve up half of agricultural land, dispose of the animals and plant it with trees. This then would cut down agri emissions to 16%. We could then convert some of the power stations to biomass and use some or all of the wood for electricity. This then would leave electricity emissions at about 5%. But, we would need some serious machinery to cut all these trees down and transport them and there would be an increase in imports of polluting oil, so this may well bring us back up to 20% for agriculture. But bear in mind that the current government are opposed to large scale biomass electricity generation.

Current Outlook: Ireland plans to increase its food exports and thereby increase its herd. There are no plans to change land use to forestry. Ireland's Prime Minister has asked for a free pass on agriculture emissions at the Paris climate summit citing the recession and lack of investment. 

Transport Sector

The transport sector makes up 19% of total emissions. There would need to be mandatory purchases of new electric vehicles with generous grants made available. Charging would need to be at night only and restrictions on charging made during spells of low wind. Otherwise, more dispatchable plant would be needed which would increase emissions in the electricity sector. One way out of this would be the above mentioned full conversion of large power stations to biomass.

Dublin Airport would need to restrict passengers to about 5 million, one quarter of current figures. This will push up prices and Ryanair would be a thing of the past. It would also drive up Ferry use negating some of the emission reductions.   Large supermarkets would have to reduce in size as there would need to be restrictions on large delivery vehicles. Having very few fuel stations would instantly take out most of the large fuel tankers on our roads, themselves consumers of oil.   Perhaps we can use some of that forested land to plant biofuels and further lower emissions. We could get down to 5% with some serious repercussions for modern society.


Current Outlook : Transport emissions have recently begun growing again. Sales of new cars are up and higher than EU average, as are sales of heavy goods vehicles. Traffic on Dublin's M50 motorway is growing at 10 times the European average.  More people have flown through Dublin Airport this year than ever before.

Residential Sector

Residential emissions are 11%. Mandatory passive housing could maybe get this down to 8%. Maybe more land could be used to grow fuel for biomass heaters with a combination of district heating intiatives getting it down to 5%.

Current Outlook : emissions are rising due to increased coal use, doesn't seem to be much focus by government on CHP or district heating initiatives.

Industry Sector

The same retrofitting schemes could be done for industry getting it down from 15% to 7%.

Current Outlook: emissions decreasing slightly, but with electricity costs predicted to match or exceed Denmark's in the years to come there might not be any industry left wiping out all of this sector's emissions. Most likely government would grant exemptions to industry at this stage from green levies, much like what has happened in Germany.

Waste Sector

Waste emissions will increase in the future when Poolbeg waste to energy plant opens so lets bring that up to 6% from 2.5%.

Current outlook: Poolbeg plant will open soon, not aware of any other similar plants in planning

Conclusion

These changes would bring emissions to 48% of current levels - from 57MT to 27MT. This is a very generous figure as there are all sorts of unintended consequences with the above changes e.g. how many people will buy diesel generators and go off grid altogether ?

The changes are startling to those used to modern comforts. There will no longer be a guarantee that when you plug something into the wall that you will get electricity out. That holiday you had once a year - that will have to go. 

It all hinges on agriculture and how we decide to use this land in the future. More trees means less CO2 in the atmosphere, reducing emissions further. Enda Kenny, Ireland's Prime Minister, has asked the COP21 leaders for a pass on Ireland's agriculture emissions thereby making the transition required to halt climate change all but impossible, unless we do without electricity, heating and modern vehicles altogether. Quite rightly, then, the greens are angry at Kenny's capitulation to the agriculture sector. Without changes in use for significant amounts of agriculture land, no serious dent in our emissions can be made. Significant reductions in the other sectors, as you can see from above, depend on land changes in the agri sector. 

So we have a government who tell us that climate change is a very big threat to us, but who have bet all their chips on wind turbines and other non dispatchable technologies. The most this can do is reduce our emissions by 10%, if even that, which will have negligible impact on the projected impacts of climate change. Let's remind ourselves once again what our energy minister's plan to combat climate change is :

I have no doubt that the development and advancement of onshore wind energy projects will be and must be a significant element of Ireland's energy policy and its approach to combating climate change in the years ahead - Minister for Energy, Alex White, December 2015.

So ask yourself the question, is our government really serious about combating climate change or are they just paying lip service to the new trendy ideology ? Why are they pushing wind energy as the number one solution when they must know it can only make a tiny dent in our emissions ? Is there something else driving this mad rush for wind farms ? Most likely, it makes them feel good that they are doing something, even though it is something akin to trying to hold back the Titanic with an elastic band.

Reality shows us that the economy is recovering, and we desire more than ever the comforts of modern living - fast cars, airplanes and Irish beef.

So if you really believe in climate change, then you should be worried, very worried.

Biomass - To convert or not to convert

With huge surplus generating capacity already in this country, it was announced last week that we are to build a brand new biomass plant in Mayo with capacity of 42.5MW. It is costing € 180 million to build it compared to a gas plant which costs just over two times as much but provides ten and a half times as much electricity output. (The 445MW Whitegate gas plant cost € 400 million to build in 2010).

This works out at a capital cost of €4.2 million per MW output for the biomass plant compared to just  € 900,000 per MW for the gas plant i.e it costs nearly 5 times as much to build a biomass plant than a modern CCGT plant.

As usual, economist Colm McCarthy is spot on in his analysis :

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/colm-mccarthy/endas-new-power-plant-is-set-to-generate-lots-of-cash-for-investors-31300651.html

We have three peat plants and a coal power station that could be converted to biomass (Edenderry is partly converted already). The biomass route to meeting our targets is better than wind as it provides dispatchable power, but it makes much more economic and engineering sense to convert these existing plants rather than adding more capacity. Converting Moneypoint (which has 855MW capacity) would cost approx € 380 million according to BW Energy. This works out at a capital investment of €0.4 million per MW compared to Killala's € 4.2 million per MW i.e. it costs over 10 times more to build a new biomass plant than it does to convert an existing power station. Also, with the conversion of Moneypoint, higher emitting coal gets displaced, whereas the Mayo plant will be displacing "cleaner" gas.

So it's a no brainer - we should be converting Moneypoint, not building new capacity.

Emissions rise during March with increased use of oil generation as back up

Admin Note - There are a lot of diagrams in this blogpost once again but I believe they tell an interesting story so please bear with me. Apologies if you experience formatting problems - these are not intentional !

However, it is an unfortunate fact that the contribution to adequacy of additional amounts of wind decreases progressively and tends towards zero [ESB 2004]. 

Diagram 1 - All Ireland average wind penetration levels (Eirgrid)

We can see from the above diagram that average wind penetration for the month of March has nearly doubled since 2012. Let's see what impact this has had on the running of our electricity system. 

Diagram 2: Fuel Mix March 2012 (wind penetration 13%)

Diagram 2 shows the fuel mix for March 2012. Black represents coal, gas is yellow and green is wind. 
Gas is acting as back up to the intermittent wind. Given Ireland's generation capacity, this is the most 
efficient and cleanest form of back up. Hardly any oil generation was used.

Diagram 3 - Fuel Mix March 2013 (wind penetration 17%)

Diagram 3 shows a similar fuel mix as 2012 but with some oil generation (red shading at top)

Diagram 4: Fuel Mix 2014 (wind penetration 21%)

Diagram 4 again shows a similar fuel mix for 2014 but with small amounts of distillate 
(i.e. diesel) oil generation (light green shading at top) and heavy fuel oil (red).

Now we come to March 2015:

Diagram 5: Fuel Mix 2015 (wind penetration 24%)

You probably have noted that gas generation has become comparatively less and less 
each year as wind penetration increases. But what we see now in 2015, with average and 
maximum wind penetrations of 24% and 61% respectively, is significantly more distillate and 
conventional oil generation. This meant that emissions from conventional generators 
increased as "dirtier" inefficient oil replaced "cleaner" more efficient gas generation. 
Why did this happen ? Well, if we take a look at forecast and actual wind generation 
for a period in March 2015 it will give us a clue :

Diagram 6: Wind forecast and generation March 2015

The intermittent nature of wind is evident in Diagram 6. The red line shows forecast wind and 
it is clear that actual wind (blue line) failed to meet forecast wind on numerous occasions 
during this period.

Oil generators have a unique characteristic in that they are very fast acting, in Ireland it 
typically take eight minutes for them to reach full capacity, compared to say a gas generator 
which can take up to eight hours to start. But there is a trade off - oil produces more emissions 
due to its energy dense nature while gas, once the generator is up and running, produces about 
30% less nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide than oil. Gas plants are also much more efficient 
in terms of fuel consumption. So what has happened is that fast acting oil generators are 
stepping in to meet loss of supply due to unforeseen drops in wind power.

If we take a system with lower levels of wind penetration, like in 2012 / 13, we can see that 
gas generators can cope with these wind levels as sudden loss in supply from wind generators does 
not cause a major problem to the system. But we can see in Diagram 6 losses in wind generation 
of up to 400MW, which is akin to the loss of the largest power plant in Ireland. One might ask, 
but surely, there is reserve there for such a loss of power - well there is, but in my opinion, 
this would be reserved for the loss of a power plant rather than loss of wind power.

The conclusion from this is that the system can cope with wind penetration of circa 20% but as 
you go above this level, the benefits from wind energy diminish, as you have to back it up with 
fast acting higher emitting plant. I have long believed that we have reached saturation 
point with wind energy and this data confirms this. It is clear that an all wind strategy does 
not make sense.

While nuclear should be an option but requires a long term plan of itself, there is a simpler 
solution, that does not require back up oil plants, new pylon infrastructure or a new expensive 
Grid Code to accommodate high levels of unstable wind energy, to meeting our renewable 
targets - biomass. 

The below presentation gives a good summary of the benefits of this option :

http://rethinkpylons.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/BW-Energy-Irish-Wind-Policy-Time-to-Rethink-May-2015.pdf

While wind provides non dispatchable generation (incapable of been switched on when 
required), biomass provides dispatchable generation (can be switched on as required). 
This means that biomass generation can replace an existing power station (eg Moneypoint 
coal power station) and utilize existing grid structure. 

________________________________________________________________________
Other Data

For completeness sake, the below diagram shows March demand for the years 2012  - 2015. 
You can see that there was a couple of days where peak demand was higher in 2015 
(and also lower) but in general, demand was roughly the same and therefore does not 
account for the increased use of oil generation. 

One of Europe's leading renewable energy experts on the alternative to wind energy for Ireland

So if we have reached saturation point with wind energy as the evidence clearly shows, then what are Ireland's options for the future ?


Malcolm Brown, a director of BW Energy, has almost three decades experience in the international energy sector and low carbon economy. He therefore is a voice that carries a lot of weight in any debate on energy policy. He has now brought his expertise to bear on the current debate in Ireland.

New technologies will make cheaper green power and also protect the country's tourism

by Malcolm Brown, director BW Energy

THE Government is planning to erect hundreds of gigantic pylons as tall as Liberty Hall across Ireland as part of a € 3 billion network upgrade.

Up to 2,000 new wind turbines will be built through the country's beauty spots - and next to our world-famous racing stables.

Last week Eirgrid said it could consider technology that would mean no new pylons - but only in the South-East.

Ireland has an "all-wind strategy" to meet EU 2020 renewable "green power" targets. But these plans are now outdated and unnecessarily expensive. By the end of 2014, Ireland had installed more than 2,000 wind turbines in rural heartlands and was just halfway to its target of 40% of renewable electricity by 2020.

Meeting the target requires a doubling of onshore wind power. So, another 200 new wind farms involving 2,000 new turbines - to be subsidised by the ordinary bill payer.

And to carry all this extra power, high-voltage lines will be strung over 700km of countryside - on huge pylons up to 60m in height. More wind power requires more pylons because it is produced in remote places which are actually the heartlands of the vital horse and tourism industries.

The construction and operation of these turbines and pylons threatens the tranquillity essential for the equine and tourism industries.

Tourism is worth €3.4 billion to the economy and horse racing is worth another € 1 billion. Why threaten such vital industries, especially when there is no need to do so? And who will pay for all these new turbines scattered across a very beautiful countryside? It will be you, the ordinary electricity consumer through subsidies added to your bill.

In 2015, Irish electricity prices are amongst the highest in Europe. Irish householders pay 42% more for their power.

Fortunately, there are better, cheaper ways to meet EU "green power" demands. Technology today offers better solutions in transmitting and producing "green power".

Last week, EirGrid, which is responsible for Irish electricity transmission plans, announced that "developments in technology now allow us to achieve improved performance from existing transmission infrastructure". Modern technology called "series compensation" can put more power onto the system without the need for new infrastructure and there is also scope for more undergrounding of high-voltage cables. That means better value for electricity bill payers. The higher tech option at Grid Link - from Kildare to Wexford and onto Cork - would save € 300million compared to the original plan.

Improved technology has found a cheaper, better way of transmitting electricity. But hard-pressed Irish electricity bill payers should also be asking the question, "Can new technologies also help to actually produce subsidised 'green power' more cheaply?" The answer is a resounding "Yes".

Existing dirty coal-fired power stations can now be re-engineered to produce clean "green power" from sustainable biomass, or burning wood pellets. Ireland can meet her 2020 EU "green power" target in one fell swoop by converting the Moneypoint coal-fired power station in Co Clare to burn sustainable biomass.

With Moneypoint supplying up to 25% of Irish electricity demand from a single power station and being the country's largest single emitter of greenhouse gases, it has a key role to play in fighting climate change. It is economic common sense to re-engineer an existing power station to produce "green power".

Then use the same transmission system to deliver this power rather than spending billions of euros on doubling wind power and associated transmission investments.

And that way you also protect Ireland's stunning countryside, and its racing and tourism industries.

Republished from The Irish Mirror with kind permission from Malcolm Brown.