[ZeroGravitas]

See, this is where logic and experience would have helped.

Would burning more expensive gas during a gas price crisis have helped?

No, UCL research suggests that wind power saved over 100 billion (this is net of 45 billion in subsidies) from 2010 to 2023! And it continues to do so.

And that's after it got effectively banned from being built onshore for a decade in England, costing many billions more.

(Though, the world got lucky here as the CfD mechanism helped prove offshore wind was feasible, another British success story).

[mhh__]

> logic and experience

This is patronising drivel.

We burn gas when there is no wind & sun. We do this because there no alternative other than the lights going out. You are not seeing the whole.

[ZeroGravitas]

Let me rephrase your comment:

When there is sun and/or wind we burn less gas.

Gas current and futures price for just the gas that needs burned (nothing about plant maintenance or carbon price to compensate for pollution or cost for building the plant or paying loans taken to build it etc.) is at 100, 90 and 80 pounds per MWh over the next 3 years.

That is more than the cost to build entirely new solar and wind, about double the cost of the best current projects, maybe 50% more than the average.

So even if you waved a magic wand and instantly solved several major world crisis affecting the price of gas, it still would be cheaper to build renewables in the UK than to buy just the gas alone.

This is true in the UK and basically everywhere in the world except maybe Russia, some parts of the middle east and the US Shale regions, but even there it's a close thing!

This has led to these being nearly 100% of all new electricity capacity built globally. Which only drives prices lower, and displaces gas and so makes gas cheaper than it otherwise would be too.

Didn't you start this thread by complaining about expensive energy?

We have the solution and you don't like it because you read news from magazines owned by people who pretend climate change isn't real.

[mhh__]

So what if it's a cold night with no wind? I'm not saying renewables aren't cheap, I'm saying that you can't fully construct a grid on them and that this has not been communicated.

Our energy is expensive and volatile because of this (and subsidies to implement it). You don't seem to be capable of following my argument. It's not a free lunch. Renewables are also slightly problematic for grid stability although I expect we will have enough fast storage / (possibly synthetic) inertia eventually.

"What if we don't fix the roof?"

"but it's sunny?"

[tialaramex]

> I'm saying that you can't fully construct a grid on them

You can add storage, which twenty five years ago looked completely impractical but it turns out actually no.