[gendal]

The amount wind farms in the UK have contributed back over the last ten years is a rounding error compared to how much they have received. It's not even close: https://x.com/7Kiwi/status/2031657347433603581

And the scary thing: the wind farms aren't even making that much money! Some projects have been cancelled and others had to re-bid in subsequent auctions to get a higher CFD price than they originally received because they couldn't make the economics work. Worse, there are reasons to believe they're not even fully provisioning for their end-of-life decommissioning costs.

The UK's energy policy is unbelievably destructive :(

[youngtaff]

Where’s his methodology?

How does he separate the CfD price from the market price that’s being set by renewables?

Where’s his evidence that using gas would be cheaper than renewables?

[gendal]

He explains on his website where he gets his data from. He gets it from The Low Carbon Contracts Company... y'know: the firm who is the actual counterparty to the CFDs and so should probably know the actual sums of cash being moved - and in which direction.

His January article: https://davidturver.substack.com/p/record-january-cfd-subsid...

LCCC's relevant data page: https://dp.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dataset/actual-cfd-generati...

The actual spreadsheet: https://dp.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dataset/8e8ca0d5-c774-4dc8-...

And note: even when gas is more expensive than the CFDs, the huge fixed and/or policy costs (network build-out, capacity market, curtailment, etc) are devastating.

The story would be completely different if wind farms were actually cheap to build and run... the problem is they're just not.

I wish it were not so... it would be great if we had a path to being free of dependence on hydrocarbons. But in a battle between wishful thinking and physical and economic reality, reality usually wins.

So we're faced with a choice as a nation: continue to pour tens of billions of pounds down this drain... or call time on the experiment and free up all that money for something productive?

[youngtaff]

Thanks… I’ll have a read through though I’m highly skeptical of anyone who’s a member of Toby Young’s Free Speech Union… it says a lot about their political leanings

[gendal]

Cheers. No doubt there's additional nuance I've missed but I'm fairly certain he's directionally correct. And, if he is, we face some dire consequences as a nation.

Re the Free Speech Union, that's an interesting one and perhaps points to a broader point. It often feels to me that there can often be an asymmetry of risk faced by participants in some highly charged debates. I know this is a cliche, but there is definitely something to the adage that "conservatives think progressives are stupid, but progressives think conservatives are evil".

So it doesn't surprise me at all that the FSU was founded by somebody from that 'side': If you're debating in an environment when some (I stress some) of the people who may read your writings may actually think you're evil, as opposed to just wrong, it seems rational to invest in some protection?

In any case, I don't know Turver, but I have no reason to believe he's making this stuff up. He seems pretty rational to me, and does share his working. I'd urge you to remain open minded to the (scary) possibility he's right.