The obvious conclusion from this is one that also follows from an examination of the UK power generation record. It is that you cannot get to net zero in generation, or anything like it, if you try to use wind as the main source.
You cannot get there by using a generating technology which is both unreliable and unpredictable. Its not fit for purpose. And no-one does, no-one is even trying. Though the UK Labour Party, if it comes to power, may make a run at it if their current announcements are turned into policy.
Nick Stokes has reached a correct and logical conclusion on this. His argument is the only one that has any chance of addressing the issue. It is that you run wind as a supplement to a gas system, with the financial justification for doing so being the supposed fuel savings.
He is still positioning the gas as a supplement to the wind, but in fact to any unbiased observer the system is actually working the other way around.
He has never produced a business case or a proper paper showing this. The most he’s done is put up a graph showing UK CO2 emissions from all sources falling from the 1990s to the present, but with no demonstration that the cause of the reductions is installation of W+S and no account of the financials.
When you’re reduced to this argument for wind, it amounts to the admission that previous climatist arguments for it have failed in the light of experience.
The most devastating refutation of the viability of wind is an observation from the UK that I have cited a couple of times before. Jon Butterworth, chief executive of UK National Gas, is quoted by the Telegraph as saying:
“If we hadn’t had gas in 2022, there were 260 days when we would have had rolling blackouts, and for 26 of those days we would have had a full blackout.”
Think about what all this means. The conclusion is, the UK is running a gas system supplemented by wind (and in summer, solar). And that no-one has ever shown that this is a cost effective way to run power generation. By which I mean, shown that its less expensive to run a gas + wind system, as compared to a conventional coal + gas system.
I am skeptical that adding W+S actually even lowers emissions. Another thing that is claimed but not rigorously shown.
