The Hidden Cost Of Wind Power – Booker

Booker on the cost of wind power today:

The hidden cost of wind power

In the past year or two there has been an extraordinary attempt by ministers, the renewables industry and green pressure groups to convince us that electricity from wind and the sun is now cheaper than that from fossil fuels. This issue has come up yet again with the refusal of the BBC to uphold a complaint from the Global Warming Policy Foundation about remarks made by Lord Deben (aka John Gummer), chairman of the Climate Change Committee, in an interview by John Humphrys on Today on Radio 4.

Although the BBC upheld one part of the complaint, it rejected another against Deben’s claim that onshore wind is now “the cheapest form of producing electricity”. It came up with Government figures to show that onshore wind is now marginally cheaper than any other power source.

What the BBC and the rest always conveniently omit when making such claims is that both wind and solar only exist because they receive colossal subsidies (paid for through our electricity bills). By various means, the majority of onshore wind farms get a subsidy which means that the price we all pay is almost double that from fossil fuels (although even here the Government and the BBC load the dice further by adding on to the fossil fuel cost that of the hefty “carbon tax”, and omitting what we pay for standby backup from gas for when the wind isn’t blowing).

For offshore wind, the average subsidy costs are almost double that again. In no way is the cost of wind anything but vastly more expensive than that from fossil fuels. They really should stop trying to pretend otherwise.