Steve Loftus Profile picture
Jun 16, 2023 15 tweets 3 min read Read on X
🍃 The Offshore Wind Megathread 🍃

How many times have you seen on TV or read on Twitter that wind power is cheap and that's where the Government should focus its efforts?

Let's have a look at why that isn't remotely true.

#windenergy #greenenergy #renewables Image
@BrknMan @aDissentient @7Kiwi MW not GW, it's late.
@BrknMan @aDissentient @7Kiwi I will say its possible for outliers. HR3 is a shallow, near shore farm and it was built before turbine costs shot up.

That's not the trend were seeing in the UK.
@halhod Though not covered here there are many that dispute it's greener credentials also
There are 35 tweets in this thread. Buggy Twitter doesn't always show them all in line, sometimes I see to 27, sometimes 30. You have to click on the last you can see to get the rest.

I notice the view counts for the later ones are much lower.
@halhod Also capex is 60-70% of the levelised cost and anything built recently is going to be 38% more expensive than pre 2021 just due to increased turbine costs.
@paterson_vm @fergustp Safe
@aDissentient @peterbatt Also there's the inconvenient fact that the IPCC says they are getting more expensive and why.

The global drop from 15 to 20 is due to a raft of near shore, shallow Chinese projects. It's not a true global trend.
@aDissentient @peterbatt Here's the study.

Its up to 2019 I think and the costs fall within both Hughes and Montford own estimates.

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
@peterbatt @fergustp @aDissentient Hughes, Montford, the Science Direct study I sent you and the IPCC all agree offshore wind is increasing in price.

There is only one person with a case of denialism here Peter.
@peterbatt @fergustp @aDissentient Let's make this easy.

Show me anything that says the costs of offshore wind are falling that doesn't include CfD bid prices.
@peterbatt @MingleDandy @fergustp @aDissentient And would save everyone hundreds of pounds a month, at least £400, and thousands over the coming years.
@peterbatt @MingleDandy @fergustp @aDissentient You started off your responses by saying that we should ignore such people. So maybe you should?

And the article you said contains science? It's arguments in order are,

1. It's really more than 1% (you can say that about everyone, in which case it's still 1%).
@peterbatt @MingleDandy @fergustp @aDissentient 2. 1% is actually big (It's not)

3. History matters (not to future planning it doesn't)

4. We are influencial (we can be influencial without crippling ourselves).

5. China is actually great (lol)

Zero science.
If you enjoyed this and want to read something interesting about UK water in light of the Thames Water news then read my thread below.

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More from @LoftusSteve

Mar 30
Pensions - The solution

The current average pension liability for someone retiring today, adjusted for 3.2% triple lock increases over 20 years, is £315,500 per person.

We could make that roughly £9,500 per person if we change the end we pay to the start. 🧵
If for every child born today the Government paid £9,500 into the "Great Britain Pension Fund", a fully ring fenced and invested fund, this would cover the full pension liability for that child to retire at age 68.

That amount in 68 years would be £940k. Image
This is based on a 7% annual return on average. Which over a mixed portfolio I think is achievable. The US stock market on average has returned around 10% historically, the UK around 6%.
Read 11 tweets
Mar 27
We need to have an uncomfortable conversation about pensions.

It was introduced in 1909, but it wasn't until 1950 that the average life crossed the threshold.

Now we live nearly 20% of our lives above the state pension age, and growing. Image
Had we stayed in line with 1980, the state pension age should now be 73 years old.

The average person does not contribute anywhere near enough in tax to cover 20% of their life in retirement. So we are taxing it out of the young. Image
The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that state spending on pensioner benefits will increase from 6% to 10% of national income over the next 45 years—a surge equivalent to £100 billion annually in today's terms.
Read 13 tweets
Nov 6, 2024
The left are so pompously dislikeable.

Nobody on the right does this. When Labour won I didn't see any serious conservative voices writing long "woe is me" tweets about how the world was a darker place and doom and gloom was imminent.

They are all such self righteous pricks.
Read 10 tweets
Sep 4, 2024
🙊 The Common Disinformation Megathread 🙊

Last year the House of Commons Library published a document designed to brief MPs on the basics of renewable energy pricing.

It's a pack of lies that's regularly used across the RE sector. I'll show you how.Image
1️⃣ The commons document makes the following points,

🔸Gas sets the price for renewables
🔸Renewables are the cheapest in the merit order
🔸That renewable prices are falling

Let me explain why that's nonsense, but first, the link.

commonslibrary.parliament.uk/why-is-cheap-r…
2️⃣ The key tenet of the document is that pricing on the spot market is determined by the marginal generator, the last operating generator in the merit order.

The theory is simple, the cheapest get used first and the more cheap options the more likely the last is cheap too.
Read 15 tweets
Feb 16, 2024
This is the real story today. This isn't Blair '97. Nobody is moving to Labour.

Conservative voters stayed home

Kingswood 2019 - 16,492 votes for labour
Kingswood 2024 - 11,176 votes for labour

Wellingborough 2019 - 13,737 labour votes
Wellingborough 2024 - 13,844 labour votes
This is what happens when you don't do Conservative things.
In the 1996 South East Staffs by election Labour gained 22% of the vote and Tories lost 22%.

In early 1997 Labour took Wirral South by gaining 18% and Tories lost 16.5%.

Clear pattern of Labour attracting Tory voters before '97 that doesn't exist now.
Read 4 tweets
Dec 16, 2023
💰The Cost of Renewables Megathread💰

The popular narrative in UK politics, and subsequently social media, is that renewables are cheap and drive bills down while gas is the problem driving prices up.

This is propaganda designed to make you buy in.Image
1⃣ You could be forgiven for thinking that the following points are facts as they are repeated often enough.

🔸Renewables are 9x cheaper than gas
🔸Renewables are bringing prices down
🔸Solar is the cheapest form of electricity
🔸Wind is cheap, especially onshore

All lies.
2⃣ There are three renewables subsidy schemes in operation.

Contracts for Difference (CfD) that came into effect in 2017 and Renewable Obligation Contracts (ROC) which ran from 2002 until 2017. These cover all large projects.

FiT (Feed in Tariff) is for sub 5MW projects.
Read 20 tweets

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