OT: Greenie hippies win court case forcing the Netherlands to sling up more useless wind turbines.

[philipuk]

We are probably next to see the same and the resulting hike in our energy bills I suppose.

Philip

[Chris Hogg]

Which will put a greater stress on renewable energy supplies in Europe. Denmark, despite all its much-vaunted wind generators, imports typically 25% of its electricity* from its neighbours, Germany, Norway and Sweden, all the time. If Holland start to do the same, there's going to be precious little surplus, especially in winter when solar is limited, hydro may be restricted because water reservoirs are frozen, and we get an anticyclone settling over N. Europe, resulting in no wind.

*Mind you, Denmark's power consumption seldom exceeds 4.5 GW, and most of the time the UK produces more wind-generated electricity than Denmark does. Various Wiki articles give the following installed wind capacities in GW: UK 12; Denmark 4.9; Holland 2.7 .

[The Natural Philosopher]

Austria regularly pays the EU a few million WEuros fine for not having the correct windmill and solar policy.

Its cheaper than having the policy, all in all.

[Timothy Murphy]

I was surprised to find, on studying my electricity bill, that I am paying about £5/month "PSO" charge in Dublin, which as far as I can see (the legal verbiage is unintelligible) is because the electricity is generated from coal or gas. That must amount to about ?100 million per year. I don't know if this money goes to the EU.

[Chris Hogg]

[harry]

You need to get your head out of your arse. All electricty sources are subsidised.

[bert]

Depends how you define subsidy.

[The Natural Philosopher]

And all sources of energy are free too. At the point of availability.

mining coal is no different from harvesting rainfall or harvesting wind.

They all take something that is there for the taking, and spend money to turn it into (more or less) useful energy.