Green energy powered by bullsh!t

BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
Recently we were lucky enough to have countless energy firms starting up & saving the planet by signing up millions of like minded customers intent on doing their bit by supporting these companies with their green energy.

Now here's the really strange thing, virtually all these so called "green" companies are suddenly going broke & are no longer viable, has the price of wind suddenly rocketed, has the sun suddenly increased it's price?
Of course not, these lying buggers are simply all going out of business because the price of oil & gas has shot up making the polluting energy they buy dearer than they can afford, they simply pretended to be green by planting a few trees to "offset" all of their pollution, remember that when you look around your green carbon absorbing farms & are told your few cows are destroying the world.
 
Recently we were lucky enough to have countless energy firms starting up & saving the planet by signing up millions of like minded customers intent on doing their bit by supporting these companies with their green energy.

Now here's the really strange thing, virtually all these so called "green" companies are suddenly going broke & are no longer viable, has the price of wind suddenly rocketed, has the sun suddenly increased it's price?
Of course not, these lying buggers are simply all going out of business because the price of oil & gas has shot up making the polluting energy they buy dearer than they can afford, they simply pretended to be green by planting a few trees to "offset" all of their pollution, remember that when you look around your green carbon absorbing farms & are told your few cows are destroying the world.

The government de-regulated the energy markets years ago and wanted to make it a competitive marketplace.

It is possible to start your own energy company and sell energy to customers despite you not actually owning or operating any generating plant. You merely buy it wholesale and sell it retail to your own customers who of course, you have to get the money out of. The big energy generators would rather sell shed loads of electricity wholesale to other companies than go around collecting millions of retail KWh 'crumbs' from householders when the bills are often so tiny they don't pay the postage on a stamp.

So loads of wannabe energy companies started up. They made money. Because new renewable grid capacity was coming online all the time. These suppliers were being subsidised by government for every KWh produced so they produced whatever they could even if the wholesale price of energy was beyond pants- the electricity was being generated for 'free' and the government subsidy was paying for the install cost of their plant.

Now you have the reverse situation.

Gas is as expensive as fudge. Unfortunately the UK burns a LOT of gas to make electricity because Tony Blair decided on that decades ago. They shut all the coal or oil fired plants or converted them to gas. Building a gas powerplant is dirt cheap because you just pipe the gas in, there is no material to store, handle or dispose of. It's childsplay. Turn one tap and press ignition. Bingo.

This week it has been pretty dull, cool and no wind. It's not totally anticyclonic but that is what we would call it in winter. No wind. Cool conditions. So your solar and wind generating capacity is doing fudge all and the electricity companies are scratching their heads because suddenly gas is expensive and they consume mind boggling amounts of gas every second they are running their powerplants.

The French meanwhile, are laughing their asses off because their country is mostly nuclear powered and the price of uranium could increase 100 times and it wouldn't do much to their costs.

Basically, we should have started building 6 new reactors in about the year 2000.
 
Last edited:
If they are relying on wind to generate their profits then I'm not surprised. I can see four different sets of turbines from here and none of them have turned a blade for at least the last 48 hrs
 
If they are relying on wind to generate their profits then I'm not surprised. I can see four different sets of turbines from here and none of them have turned a blade for at least the last 48 hrs

Most energy companies were relying on wind or solar in a way because the constant installs of these systems meant that the wholesale price of energy was on the floor at times. In fact, in some countries grid operators started charging producers to take their electricity leading to minus energy prices. In this scenario, the situation for big powerplants becomes a serious problem because shutting some of these down is a big deal.

The adoption of solar and wind has meant the energy market is all over the place and it has caused instability in the market.
 

BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
This is the thing with this green agenda, as we know certain tractor manufacturers are well ahead of the game, John Deere & to a lesser extent Fendt are already world leaders in green energy offsetting by deciding green paint was the only way forward, I hope all other farming manufacturers take note & catch up quickly!
 

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
Everything that the critics of renewables said about the mad rush to switch out of fossil fuels is coming true. The political class have been living in cloud cuckoo land regarding the nations energy supplies for over a decade and now reality is biting them in the backside.

I'm just glad I've got a log stove and a big pile of logs in the barn, I may be sitting in the dark at times this winter, but I'll be toasty warm..........
 

Yale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Most energy companies were relying on wind or solar in a way because the constant installs of these systems meant that the wholesale price of energy was on the floor at times. In fact, in some countries grid operators started charging producers to take their electricity leading to minus energy prices. In this scenario, the situation for big powerplants becomes a serious problem because shutting some of these down is a big deal.

The adoption of solar and wind has meant the energy market is all over the place and it has caused instability in the market.
Problem is consumers are now reaping what stupid government have sown.:facepalm:
 
Had we begun building those reactors in around 2000 they would be operating by now and we would not be buying in shed-loads of imported gas and using it to make electricity. Import gas to heat people's homes -I have no issue with that at all- if you want heat you have to burn something but using gas to make electricity is incredibly daft but it was done because it was politically expedient to do it. Energy experts were warning the government that the existing reactor fleet had only 20 years of useful life left in about 2005 because I remember hearing about it on the radio. No one listened. you can't assume that gas will always ben dirt cheap. It only reached record lows because the Americans started fracking and suddenly became energy exporters again. The main issue with that is that shipping natural gas is more expensive than a pipeline because you can't get the same density on a ship like you can an oil tanker and not all countries have an LNG terminal either. The UK could have signed a deal with the USA in about 2010 for shipments of LNG stretching decades into the future and everyone would have made money from it but there doesn't seem to be any long term thinking at any level of government these days.

Speaking with our plumber the other day who was in to service our boiler, he is spending a lot of time swapping out heat pumps for oil or LPG boilers at the minute. Basically, unless you have a new build house with serious insultation and draft prevention, a heat pump doesn't really work.
 

steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
Had we begun building those reactors in around 2000 they would be operating by now and we would not be buying in shed-loads of imported gas and using it to make electricity. Import gas to heat people's homes -I have no issue with that at all- if you want heat you have to burn something but using gas to make electricity is incredibly daft but it was done because it was politically expedient to do it. Energy experts were warning the government that the existing reactor fleet had only 20 years of useful life left in about 2005 because I remember hearing about it on the radio. No one listened. you can't assume that gas will always ben dirt cheap. It only reached record lows because the Americans started fracking and suddenly became energy exporters again. The main issue with that is that shipping natural gas is more expensive than a pipeline because you can't get the same density on a ship like you can an oil tanker and not all countries have an LNG terminal either. The UK could have signed a deal with the USA in about 2010 for shipments of LNG stretching decades into the future and everyone would have made money from it but there doesn't seem to be any long term thinking at any level of government these days.

Speaking with our plumber the other day who was in to service our boiler, he is spending a lot of time swapping out heat pumps for oil or LPG boilers at the minute. Basically, unless you have a new build house with serious insultation and draft prevention, a heat pump doesn't really work.

Heard a similiar tale from my Engineers who will not install ASHP in inappropriate properties... Common sense, and who needs the grief from an unhappy client?

Some housing associations have come unstuck putting in massed ASHP systems, then having huge complaints from customers about excessive electric consumption. As I recall, the pumps were basically working as glorified immersion heaters, far too much of the time.
 

vantage

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Pembs
Had we begun building those reactors in around 2000 they would be operating by now and we would not be buying in shed-loads of imported gas and using it to make electricity. Import gas to heat people's homes -I have no issue with that at all- if you want heat you have to burn something but using gas to make electricity is incredibly daft but it was done because it was politically expedient to do it. Energy experts were warning the government that the existing reactor fleet had only 20 years of useful life left in about 2005 because I remember hearing about it on the radio. No one listened. you can't assume that gas will always ben dirt cheap. It only reached record lows because the Americans started fracking and suddenly became energy exporters again. The main issue with that is that shipping natural gas is more expensive than a pipeline because you can't get the same density on a ship like you can an oil tanker and not all countries have an LNG terminal either. The UK could have signed a deal with the USA in about 2010 for shipments of LNG stretching decades into the future and everyone would have made money from it but there doesn't seem to be any long term thinking at any level of government these days.

Speaking with our plumber the other day who was in to service our boiler, he is spending a lot of time swapping out heat pumps for oil or LPG boilers at the minute. Basically, unless you have a new build house with serious insultation and draft prevention, a heat pump doesn't really work.
Gets to me why tidal energy has never been harnessed. Predictable and clean. Probably because nobody would make any money.
 

toquark

Member
After a lot of hard won experience I’ve come to the conclusion that domestic renewables really aren’t feasible in about 90% of homes.

The only possible exception being solar to power modern electric convection heaters. Heat pumps are a complete waste of time unless you enjoy learning amateur engineering and are happy to spend £30k + doing so.
 
Gets to me why tidal energy has never been harnessed. Predictable and clean. Probably because nobody would make any money.

I think getting planning or permission would be the biggest problem. The second you consider building something at sea the environmental impact becomes very hard to gauge I guess? Also, it is not really proven technology so who wants to sink 20 billion into something totally unproven? At least we know Hinkley C will work at the end of the day because it is technology that has been done many times before. A tidal barrage, across the Severn for example: will it silt up? How much energy will it actually generate? How long will it live? Will it survive serious storms? It is all a big guess.
 

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
Gets to me why tidal energy has never been harnessed. Predictable and clean. Probably because nobody would make any money.

Because the sea is an incredibly destructive environment. Not only are there incredible physical forces at work, its salty to boot, so everything corrodes like mad. Lots of wave/tidal energy capture devices have been tried, they work fine, until a storm comes along and the whole lot gets smashed to pieces.
 

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
The government de-regulated the energy markets years ago and wanted to make it a competitive marketplace.

It is possible to start your own energy company and sell energy to customers despite you not actually owning or operating any generating plant. You merely buy it wholesale and sell it retail to your own customers who of course, you have to get the money out of. The big energy generators would rather sell shed loads of electricity wholesale to other companies than go around collecting millions of retail KWh 'crumbs' from householders when the bills are often so tiny they don't pay the postage on a stamp.

So loads of wannabe energy companies started up. They made money. Because new renewable grid capacity was coming online all the time. These suppliers were being subsidised by government for every KWh produced so they produced whatever they could even if the wholesale price of energy was beyond pants- the electricity was being generated for 'free' and the government subsidy was paying for the install cost of their plant.

Now you have the reverse situation.

Gas is as expensive as fudge. Unfortunately the UK burns a LOT of gas to make electricity because Tony Blair decided on that decades ago. They shut all the coal or oil fired plants or converted them to gas. Building a gas powerplant is dirt cheap because you just pipe the gas in, there is no material to store, handle or dispose of. It's childsplay. Turn one tap and press ignition. Bingo.

This week it has been pretty dull, cool and no wind. It's not totally anticyclonic but that is what we would call it in winter. No wind. Cool conditions. So your solar and wind generating capacity is doing fudge all and the electricity companies are scratching their heads because suddenly gas is expensive and they consume mind boggling amounts of gas every second they are running their powerplants.

The French meanwhile, are laughing their asses off because their country is mostly nuclear powered and the price of uranium could increase 100 times and it wouldn't do much to their costs.

Basically, we should have started building 6 new reactors in about the year 2000.
Politicians eh? Never mind, there's a bunch of them meeting in Glasgow shortly, they'll sort all this out.....
 

vantage

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Pembs
Because the sea is an incredibly destructive environment. Not only are there incredible physical forces at work, its salty to boot, so everything corrodes like mad. Lots of wave/tidal energy capture devices have been tried, they work fine, until a storm comes along and the whole lot gets smashed to pieces.
True.
It’s not stopped off shore turbines, tidal lagoon would be easier to construct and being attached to land, easier to service.
 

vantage

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Pembs
I think getting planning or permission would be the biggest problem. The second you consider building something at sea the environmental impact becomes very hard to gauge I guess? Also, it is not really proven technology so who wants to sink 20 billion into something totally unproven? At least we know Hinkley C will work at the end of the day because it is technology that has been done many times before. A tidal barrage, across the Severn for example: will it silt up? How much energy will it actually generate? How long will it live? Will it survive serious storms? It is all a big guess.
Not sure it’s a guess, most of the questions could be worked out, given a bit of effort. Planning would be the big issue, but HS2 is going ahead with dubious benefits, perhaps the gas crisis will sharpen people’s priorities.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
The government de-regulated the energy markets years ago and wanted to make it a competitive marketplace.

It is possible to start your own energy company and sell energy to customers despite you not actually owning or operating any generating plant. You merely buy it wholesale and sell it retail to your own customers who of course, you have to get the money out of. The big energy generators would rather sell shed loads of electricity wholesale to other companies than go around collecting millions of retail KWh 'crumbs' from householders when the bills are often so tiny they don't pay the postage on a stamp.

So loads of wannabe energy companies started up. They made money. Because new renewable grid capacity was coming online all the time. These suppliers were being subsidised by government for every KWh produced so they produced whatever they could even if the wholesale price of energy was beyond pants- the electricity was being generated for 'free' and the government subsidy was paying for the install cost of their plant.

Now you have the reverse situation.

Gas is as expensive as fudge. Unfortunately the UK burns a LOT of gas to make electricity because Tony Blair decided on that decades ago. They shut all the coal or oil fired plants or converted them to gas. Building a gas powerplant is dirt cheap because you just pipe the gas in, there is no material to store, handle or dispose of. It's childsplay. Turn one tap and press ignition. Bingo.

This week it has been pretty dull, cool and no wind. It's not totally anticyclonic but that is what we would call it in winter. No wind. Cool conditions. So your solar and wind generating capacity is doing fudge all and the electricity companies are scratching their heads because suddenly gas is expensive and they consume mind boggling amounts of gas every second they are running their powerplants.

The French meanwhile, are laughing their asses off because their country is mostly nuclear powered and the price of uranium could increase 100 times and it wouldn't do much to their costs.

Basically, we should have started building 6 new reactors in about the year 2000.
It's even worse than that.

The energy companies paying those of us with renewables for our export are allowed to create Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) which they then sell to other companies. These then entitle those second companies to buy fossil fuel generated electricity but call it renewable. It's a government manufactured "offset" scheme especially for electricity wholesalers.

So, in reality, most power companies offering "renewable tariffs" where you pay a bit extra to feel smug about all your leccy coming from renewable sources are actually partly selling greenwash.

That particular merry-go-round squealed to a halt because the soaring gas price pushed up the wholesale price they had to pay for the bought in dirty electricity that they were going to apply their supply of green stickers to. This has revealed the con behind the regime because if their leccy supply was genuinely from renewables its cost would not have increased just because gas prices went up.

Incidentally, doesn't all that remind you of a certain maroon agricultural machine scheme when it's applied to imported cereals...... :unsure:
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Had we begun building those reactors in around 2000 they would be operating by now and we would not be buying in shed-loads of imported gas and using it to make electricity. Import gas to heat people's homes -I have no issue with that at all- if you want heat you have to burn something but using gas to make electricity is incredibly daft but it was done because it was politically expedient to do it. Energy experts were warning the government that the existing reactor fleet had only 20 years of useful life left in about 2005 because I remember hearing about it on the radio. No one listened. you can't assume that gas will always ben dirt cheap. It only reached record lows because the Americans started fracking and suddenly became energy exporters again. The main issue with that is that shipping natural gas is more expensive than a pipeline because you can't get the same density on a ship like you can an oil tanker and not all countries have an LNG terminal either. The UK could have signed a deal with the USA in about 2010 for shipments of LNG stretching decades into the future and everyone would have made money from it but there doesn't seem to be any long term thinking at any level of government these days.

Speaking with our plumber the other day who was in to service our boiler, he is spending a lot of time swapping out heat pumps for oil or LPG boilers at the minute. Basically, unless you have a new build house with serious insultation and draft prevention, a heat pump doesn't really work.

The domestic RHI scheme, which will have paid generously for those heat pumps (& biomass boilers) pays out for 7 years. The first systems installed will have been paying out for just about 7 years now, our biomass boiler included.

Without the RHI payments, those systems are dearer to run than a condensing boiler, or they were until the last month or so.

If our pellet boiler needs any expensive repairs, it will probably be scrapped and replaced with something cheaper/less green.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 78 42.9%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.6%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.5%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 5 2.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,286
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top