By Paul Homewood
There has been no doubt at all that the placemen at the National Grid, OFGEM and elsewhere have been covering up for the looming energy catastrophe for a long time now.
They have assured us that we can rely on intermittent renewable energy, batteries and stupid smart meters to provide all of the energy we need to run our economy.
Real data from the green pioneers in Norway suggests otherwise.
From Bloomberg:
Norway’s push to electrify everything from transport to heating and industry has pushed one of the hungriest power consumers in the world to even higher records.
On Thursday morning between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., five million Norwegian consumers used the same amount of power as twice as many inhabitants in neighbouring Sweden. Freezing winter weather has contributed to the increase in demand, but it also reflects Norway’s efforts to use more electricity in every corner of life, according to the grid manager Statnett.
“A larger and larger share of the energy consumption is being used as electricity,” Irene Meldal, head of communications at Statnett, said. “More than half of the energy Norwegians use is already in the form of power.”
The country’s love of electric cars won worldwide fame through a Super Bowl ad starring Will Ferrel, but electricity is also the dominant source for heating in Norway. Power is used to warm as much as 85% of all indoor spaces which compares to Sweden where district-heating is the major source.
This has contributed to Norway having the second-highest power consumption per capita in the world, according to the World Bank, only beaten by Iceland. The country expects to keep consuming more with the thirst for power set to grow 30% by 2040.
Norway has a population of 5 million, so you can extrapolate UK peak demand to roughly 300 GW, which compares to a current level of about 50 GW. This clearly is not remotely possible for the grid to supply in the UK.
What greenstruck hippies don;t seem to realise is that Norway gets nearly all of its power from hydro, thanks to all the mountains and lakes they have:
http://energodock.com/norway/electricity-shares
Norway can manage perfectly fine with such an abundant supply of natural power. Unfortunately we don’t have many mountains here, and the idea that we could supply a reliable 300 GW from wind and solar power would be laughable if it was not so serious.