Bienvenido “Nonoy” Oplas Jr.

Minimal Government Thinkers, Inc.

Renewables Cronyism,

Germany and UK Cases

Occasional lectures in the Philippines

Presentation at Development Economics class +

Comparative Economics of SEA class

Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), Quezon City

22 January 2015

Outline

I. Global energy mix

II. Generation cost, Electricity prices,

developed countries

III. Germany Case

IV. UK Case

V. No climate basis for renewables

cronyism

VI. Conclusions

I. Global Energy Mix, 2010

Source: Total world energy consumption by source 2010, from REN21

Renewables 2012 Global Status Report.

Reposted in WUWT, A LOL ! press release on renewable energy from wishful

thinkers at the University of Delaware

* Note that wind + solar was only 0.6 % of total despite decades of govts. support

• Share of coal + natural gas, 50.5% in 1973, 63.2% in 2011

Source: IEA

Source: IEA

source: WUWT, Maryland’s “Wind Powered Welfare”, March 12, 2013

II.

Generation

Cost,

Electricity

Prices

Wind and

solar are

agn, the

most costly

power

sources, for

US plants

entering

2018.:

source: IEA, Medium Term Renewable Energy Market Report 2014

http://www.iea.org/Textbase/npsum/MTrenew2014sum.pdf

Even among fellow renewables, solar and offshore wind are

expensive.

So countries that have more wind and solar farms also have the most expensive

electricity rates.

Famous climatologist Roy Spencer showed

this chart on the right – increase in life

expectancy, people living healthier, longer,

coincided with CO2 emission and moderniztion

of human society.

Source: Dr. Spencer, Why Don’t More People

Care About Global Warming?. October 1,

2014.

WSJ, 16 October 2013

III. Germany Case

source: NTZ, Germany’s Renewable Energy Efficiency Falls To Just Over

20% – Threatening To Ruin Country’s Competitiveness, February 24, 2013

In Germany, 1990 to 2011,

capacity utilization for (a)

wind about 15%, (b) solar

about 10%. The other

renewables have higher

utilization rate.

EurActiv, 22 October 2014

New York Times, 24 October 2014

The Telegraph, 7 November 2014

Europe being a very modern continent, and Germany and UK being

highly industrialized countries, and yet there are stories and reports of

“EU risks blackout”, a “dark continent”, and “impossible green dream”.

In developed Asia like Hong Kong (electricity, 71% from coal, 29% from

natural gas, zero from renewables; Singapore 78% from natural gas and

18% from oil, very small from renewables (as of 2011, from ADB’’s Key

Indicators 2014) ); S. Korea and Japan, the words “blackout” or

brownout” or “dark continent” are never heard. They have huge, stable

and reliable energy supply, at cheap prices, their energy policies have

not been hijacked by green socialism yet.

Below,

IV. UK Case

Sunday Express, 15 October 2014

Mail Online, 15 October 2014

The Telegraph, 5 October 2014

Intl. Business Times, 6 November 2014

The Times, UK, 21 November 2014

(Above, Batanes; below, Bangui, Ilocos Norte)

Source: Energy Econ 25: Coal Use and GDP Expansion, Is There a Correlation?,

01 September 2014

Previous photos -- reason why if there are wind farms, there are no houses,

no fishing or farming village, no beach resorts, almost no other economic

activity. Those wind towers can fall down, wind turbines and blades can get

burned and fall down. The economic trade off of having more wind farms is

huge. Plus huge amount of mining and production of iron and steel, cement

and other mineral products.

Below, those who relied more on coal power have faster econ. growth.

V. No Climate Basis for Renewables Cronyism

Climate change (CC) is true. It happened in the past, happening now,

and will happen in the future. Global warming (GW) is true, it

happened in the past (last century, Medieval warm period, Roman

warm period,…), and will happen again in the future. Global cooling is

also true, happened in the past, happening now.

Because CC is natural (nature-made, not made), it is cyclical (warming-

cooling-warming-cooling), and has precedents (not “unprecedented”).

Skeptics (like me) do not deny CC or GW because these are true.

What we deny is that CC and GW is “man-made” or anthropogenic. CC

is caused by nature (the Sun, galactic cosmic rays, water vapor,

volcanoes, ocean oscillation, carbon cycle, hydrologic cycle,…).

Below, warming-cooling cycle coinciding with CO2 concentration. One

study says temperature leads CO2, other studies say it’s the reverse.

Common denominator, there are precedents of warm period, lasting for

decades & centuries.

Source: WUWT, Euan Mearns,, Vostok and the 8000 year time lag Dec. 27, 2014

VI. Concluding Notes

1. Pilipinas gaya-gaya (imitating). Because UK, Germany and other

European countries have renewables favoritism and cronyism laws, we

also have one. The Renewable Energy Act of 2008 (RA 9513).

2. The PH’s RE law has more cronyism provisions than RE laws of our

Asian neighbors. This slide + 2 slides below presented at the ADB few

years ago by former DOE Sec. Vince Perez, who later migrated to become

WWF-PH Chairman, while owning several wind power companies.

NREB

Proposed

ERC

Approved

Solar 17.95 9.68

Wind 10.37 8.53

Biomass 7.00 6.63

Hydro, run of river 6.15 5.90

Philippines Feed in Tariff (FIT),

approved July 2012

3. Renewables are fine, provided there should be NO subsidies. People

can put up solar panels in the roof of their houses and buildings, fine.

People can put up wind towers in their farms and private property, fine.

They are using their own money, taking their own risks and benefits.

4. It is different when people put up wind farms or solar farms in huge

areas including public forest lands, because they want to get paid huge

money (via RPS and FIT) at the expense of consumers. FIT is the

guaranteed minimum for renewables. While coal, nat gas, big hydro

geothermal can be priced down to P1/kWh or even less during non-

peak hours, renewables are guaranteed to be paid FIT rates.

5. Cases of Germany and UK show that government intervention and

cronyism in energy policy is wrong and counter-productive.

Governments should get out of electricity pricing, stop forcing grid

operators and electricity distributors to buy first from renewables even if

their rates are expensive.

6. There is zero climate basis for renewables cronyism. There is zero

justification for governments to intervene heavily in energy production

mix and electricity pricing.