Some of you may remember the apparent minor miracle that happened in Spain, over a decade ago. No, I’m not talking about the apparition of the Virgin at Garabandal, or the occurences at El Cebrero in the 14th century. No, this was a far more mundane miracle:
Solar panels generating electricity at night!
Spanish newspaper El Mundo found that between November and January, 4500 megawatt hours (MWh) of solar energy were sold to the electricity grid between midnight and seven in the morning.
As I’m sure you’re aware, solar panels require, well, sol, the Sun, to work. So, how were solar panels in Spain making electricity at night? The Spanish government wondered the same.
Well, as it turned out, the government’s own subsidies to solar generators were so lucrative that the owners could run diesel generators powering massive floodlights, and still turn a profit.
In the UK, Guardian environmental columnist George Monbiot has argued the newly introduced UK Feed-in Tariff (FIT) could also be susceptible to fraud.
‘By buying electricity for 7p and selling it for 44p (if you sell power to the grid rather than using it yourself, you get an extra 3p), they’ll make a 600 per cent profit,’ he has said, implying that generators may similarly hijack solar installations.
Well, duh. It appears Mooners, the quintessential Oxbridge champagne socialist, has just discovered “perverse incentives”. And not the kind that require a quivering first year boy and an absent house master. When governments throw mountains of taxpayer’s money around for the grabbing, well, grabbers gonna grab.
But the CEO of the UK’s largest solar company said that the UK renewables industry is sufficiently regulated and that fraud would be ‘extremely unlikely’ […]
The energy regulator OFGEM also played down fears that similar fraud could happen in the UK.
The Ecologist
Famous last words…
Scottish Power has been accused of “environmental madness” after it was revealed more than 70 of its wind turbines had been hooked up to diesel generators.
To be fair, though, Scottish Power wasn’t using the diesels to spin the wind turbines. Instead, they were trying to get around yet another inherent problem with wind turbines and cold weather.
The Sunday Mail revealed via a whistleblower that diesel generators were used on 71 turbines in order to prevent them freezing during cold weather in December.
Scottish Power told the publication that this took place after a fault developed on the grid.
That “fault” being, presumably, that the turbines froze up and stopped spinning right when households needed electricity the most. As they tend to do.
South Scotland Labour MSP Colin Smyth told the Mail that “whatever the reasons, having to use diesel generators to de-ice faulty turbines is environmental madness”.
Energy Voice
“Madness” is the Climate Cult’s by-word.
That, and “greed”.
The latest figures published by Britain’s Office for National Statistics have laid bare the staggering cost of the much-vaunted “green jobs” in the UK.
Currently each job in the wind and solar power sectors is being subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of over £250,000 per job, every year.
The Daily Sceptic
Which is practically a bargain, compared to what US taxpayers were stiffed by the Obama administration, for its “green jobs”. As Investor’s Business Daily reported, toward the end of Obama’s reign:
The most recent analysis shows that his administration has created only 2,298 permanent green jobs, according to the Institute for Energy Research, which used data from the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office to reach this conclusion.
And that scattering of jobs has cost dearly. IER says Washington has spent $26.32 billion to create those few positions. That means each job has cost taxpayers $11.45 million.
Investor’s Business Daily
Analysing the ONS data from the UK shows that, in 2021, there were 22,000 full-time equivalent “green” jobs in the UK. By sector, these were: 10,600 in offshore wind, 5,000 in onshore wind, and 6,400 in solar.
Each of those industries is heavily subsidised by the government. Very heavily.
The total subsidies in 2021 for these three sectors is around £5.56bn. This compares to the ONS estimate of £14.56bn turnover for the same sectors. Putting it another way, 38% of the turnover is pure subsidy.
Pulling all this together, we can add up the total subsidy received for these technologies and compare it to the number of jobs in each sector.
We can see that each offshore wind job cost £247,000 in subsidy, each onshore wind job nearly £283,000 and solar £238,000. The average across all three sectors is nearly £253,000 per job.
The Daily Sceptic
These are not one-off kickstarters, either. These are ongoing annual payments.
So, are “green workers” being paid a quarter-mill every year? How do you get in on this racket?
Not so fast.
According to other data from 2021, a solar installer on average earns just £41,500, and a solar electrician £38,750. The highest-paying job, environmental lawyer, brings home an average £82,875.
So, where does the other £150,000-200,000 go?
Someone’s making an absolute motza off the British taxpayer.
