The Great Big Green Discussion Thread

mmmmikey

Martyn1981 wrote: »

So, back to the basics, the more demand for green energy there is, the more green energy that has to be supplied to the grid.

Hi Martyn

This, in my view, is the fundamental flaw in your logic. It doesn't necessarily follow that increased demand for green tariffs will lead to increased supply of green energy and therefore lower CO2 emissions. Demand is also regulated by price - i.e. as price increase demand decreases and vice versa.

If more of us want to buy green energy than the market can produce, one possibility is for the energy companies to go out and errect load of wind turbines, or whatever, which is what you're suggesting happens if I understand you correctly.

Another possibility, which is much more attractive to the energy companies in the short term, is that they can simply push up prices for green energy until demand reduces to meet supply, with consumers not prepared to pay the higher price shrugging their shoulders and saying to themselves "it's no big deal anayway".

In the long term, demand for green tariffs may rise to the point where it starts to have a significant influence on supply, but that may be years away or may not happen at all. In any event, market regulation in the form of various subsidies can take care of the problem.

I acknowledge that some of the green tariff provides do invest an amount in solar farms, etc. but this seems to me to be a token amount to get round regulation rather than anything significant.

On the other hand, the downside of green tariff's is that they give well meaning people like my neighbours opposite a greatly inflated view of what they're actually doing for the environment so they are quite relaxed about driving their matching his and hers Range Rovers....

I think the article below is well balanced.

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/energy/do-green-energy-tariffs-make-difference

Martyn1981

mmmmikey wrote: »

Hi Martyn

This, in my view, is the fundamental flaw in your logic. It doesn't necessarily follow that increased demand for green tariffs will lead to increased supply of green energy and therefore lower CO2 emissions. Demand is also regulated by price - i.e. as price increase demand decreases and vice versa.

If more of us want to buy green energy than the market can produce, one possibility is for the energy companies to go out and errect load of wind turbines, or whatever, which is what you're suggesting happens if I understand you correctly.

Another possibility, which is much more attractive to the energy companies in the short term, is that they can simply push up prices for green energy until demand reduces to meet supply, with consumers not prepared to pay the higher price shrugging their shoulders and saying to themselves "it's no big deal anayway".

In the long term, demand for green tariffs may rise to the point where it starts to have a significant influence on supply, but that may be years away or may not happen at all. In any event, market regulation in the form of various subsidies can take care of the problem.

I acknowledge that some of the green tariff provides do invest an amount in solar farms, etc. but this seems to me to be a token amount to get round regulation rather than anything significant.

On the other hand, the downside of green tariff's is that they give well meaning people like my neighbours opposite a greatly inflated view of what they're actually doing for the environment so they are quite relaxed about driving their matching his and hers Range Rovers....

I think the article below is well balanced.

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/energy/do-green-energy-tariffs-make-difference

Hi Mikey, more demand for green energy is shirley a good thing, and it will impact supply too.

There are lots of ways to spin a negative, and imagineer a problem, but in reality, more demand, more supply, and as I said, if you test the argument to the extreme (purely as a mental exercise) then all homes, businesses and corporations demanding green energy will support a massive roll out of green energy capacity to meet that demand.

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Hi Mikey, more demand for green energy is shirley a good thing, and it will impact supply too.

There are lots of ways to spin a negative, and imagineer a problem, but in reality, more demand, more supply, and as I said, if you test the argument to the extreme (purely as a mental exercise) then all homes, businesses and corporations demanding green energy will support a massive roll out of green energy capacity to meet that demand.

Sorry, Mart, but Mikey is right - it isn’t spin unless the definition of spin is any argument that criticises Mart’s view of the world.

The first rule of economics is that increasing demand increases price. Where supply is elastic it will react to provide more to meet demand until the price finds equilibrium but where it is inelastic that takes time - several years to plan and rollout new wind farms. More demand than supply means prices rise and economics dictate that consumers will substitute another product, i.e. non green energy. Green energy prices will revert to a new equilibrium which maybe higher (if some customers are prepared to pay an increased premium) or lower (if consumers decide ‘I have tried this green energy thing and the prices just go up so I will go back to what I know’).

mmmmikey

Martyn1981 wrote: »

There are lots of ways to spin a negative.

There are also lots of ways to spin a positive and that's really what I'm taking issue with - the marketing for green tariffs is in my view massively hyped up and creates a completely misleading picture.


Ultimately it's up to you to decide who's more likely to be spinning - an energy company wishing to sell you electricty or some guy on an online forum with no vested interests who has consistently supported most of your views on green issues

Martyn1981

mmmmikey wrote: »

There are also lots of ways to spin a positive and that's really what I'm taking issue with - the marketing for green tariffs is in my view massively hyped up and creates a completely misleading picture.


Ultimately it's up to you to decide who's more likely to be spinning - an energy company wishing to sell you electricty or some guy on an online forum with no vested interests who has consistently supported most of your views on green issues

Hiya, I think you are conflating two issues. Are/will some companies use green tariffs as greenwashing, of course, but does that matter if it helps roll out more RE, and faster.

You said yesterday that there could be two results, more RE being rolled out and/or higher prices for the RE generation.

But, if you think about it, you are agreeing with me about basic supply and demand economics - supply and demand curves will meet at a point that gives the price. If the demand curve rises, and supply is in-elastic then prices will rise in the short term.

But, in the medium/longer term, a higher price will lead to an increase in supply, either by the incumbents, or new supply from new entrants attracted by the higher price/returns.

So regardless of whether the green energy tariffs are from a green driver, or a bandwagon jumper on, the net result is the same, a faster rollout of new/additional RE generation.

As I said before, testing an argument to the extreme is a good mental exercise, and if we all demanded RE or low carbon generation, then the market would have to respond and speed up deployment.

Also, unless I'm mistaken, 'green' deals don't seem to be more expensive anymore, so a demand led push for more RE is a great support to government policies and actions from the supply side.

Again, from this post, I've noticed that perhaps we are looking at this from different aspects, I wasn't really arguing about whether or not the deals are spin, I was arguing that the results will still be real (not spin), and a wins a win.

Edit - I note from the other thread that you specifically want to ask about the instant change (or lack of) to the energy mix. Is this where we are getting confused/bogged down? I'm not suggesting any instant change, that would be silly, I'm talking about driving change, and driving it faster than it otherwise would from the demand side.

Hope this makes more sense now.

Also having now read Ken's post, I see he also agrees about in-elastic supply and rising prices, though he seems to conclude in a reversal over time, whereas I would suggest an increase in supply, since if people would change back based on a higher prices, then they would not have changed in the first place, and if
based on a higher price later on, then the supply/demand economics (this is based on) would result in increased supply, not sustained higher prices ...... and even in the short term now, we can see falling RE costs, possibly lower than FF generation with carbon pricing ....... but then we also have to discuss the cost of storage in the medium to long term, but perhaps that's for another thread and another time.

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Greta Thunberg, favourite to win Nobel peace prize, honoured at Standing Rock

It should be renamed the Nobel PC prize

mmmmikey

Hi Martyn - I have responded to your points on the other thread running about this. Might be worth reminding ourselves that most items on our individual "good things to do to save the environment" lists are the same. AFAIK the only significant difference between us is that "switch to a green tariff" isn't on my list but it's somewhere on yours. Now, off to complete my application for membership of the Greta Thunberg fan club.....

pile-o-stone

JKenH wrote: »

It should be renamed the Nobel PC prize

Easy to knock others who get off their backsides and actually try to make a difference. One wonders what the world would be like if we all just sat back and did nothing to try and improve things. No doubt we'd still be living on the African Plain.

JKenH

pile-o-stone wrote: »

Easy to knock others who get off their backsides and actually try to make a difference. One wonders what the world would be like if we all just sat back and did nothing to try and improve things. No doubt we'd still be living on the African Plain.

Some might say that was a good thing ... unless you got eaten by a lion. So man tamed fire to keep himself safe. That led to burning wood, then coal, then oil and look where we have ended up. Safe, warm well fed and with a standard of living the working man could never have imagined 100 years ago. I think it is generally called progress. Just at what precise point did we start stealing our children’s future and why didn’t we stop?

Because we preferred it to what went before.

Of course the young don’t realise this. They don’t see the benefits that have accrued and given them their cosy homes and their parents the 4x4s to transport them to school. They’ve never had to go to work as children in the factories and the mines - or survive all the deadly childhood diseases that took such a heavy toll.

At which particular point in history does miss Thunberg think we should have halted progress and given up fossil fuels?

What can a 16 year old contribute to solving problem that the IPCC and world leaders have been struggling for decades to resolve? One thing and one thing only- hysteria.

I totally agree that we have to sort this mess out but the blame game is not the answer. What Miss T is doing is not promoting peace and harmony in the world - simply more discord and condemning a generation of children to fear the world will end before they grow up.

While the liberal left adore her attack on capitalist values she alienates a lot of people with her holier than thou attitude. I know it is fashionable to dismiss the views of what the metropolitan elite left regard as the uneducated populist right wing but those views exist here in the UK and the US and elsewhere in the world.

Not everyone sees Ms T as the saint that the left wing media promote.

The Sun mocked her:

How dare we? No. How dare you sail to America on a carbon fibre yacht that you didn’t build which cost £15million, that you didn’t earn, and which has a back-up diesel engine that you didn’t mention.

I’m sorry Ms Thunberg, but if you’re going to lay into my generation, you must accept it when I lay into you and yours.

What about the pills you take when you have a headache?

What about the clean water that comes out of your tap? What about the food you can buy at any time of the day and night?

No 16-year-old was responsible for any of that.

What about the aid missions currently being run in some of the poorest countries of the world, or the drugs that help keep Aids at bay?

Think about all the movies you’ve enjoyed. Movies made by grown-ups. And all those comedians who’ve made you laugh.

How dare you sail to America on a carbon fibre yacht that you didn’t build which cost £15million, that you didn’t earn, and which has a back-up diesel engine that you didn’t mention.

And then pause for a moment to consider how soundly you sleep at night, knowing that adults are building and servicing and flying Sweden’s fighter planes. To keep you safe.

We gave you mobile phones and laptops and the internet. We created the social media you use every day and we run the banks that pay for it all.

So how dare you stand there and lecture us, you spoilt brat.

mmmmikey

JKenH wrote: »

What can a 16 year old contribute to solving problem that the IPCC and world leaders have been struggling for decades to resolve? One thing and one thing only- hysteria.

So I'm guessing from this your application for membership of Greta's fan club was turned down?

Whether you support her methods or not, she is proving to be good at mobilising public opinion and helping to keep environmental issues at the top of the political agenda, and that seems to me to we a worthwhile objective in itself.

Is her presentation balanced? No of course not. But that's not what's she's trying to do.

Coming back to your point, what can a 16 year old contribute to solving problem that the IPCC and world leaders have been struggling for decades to resolve? My answer would be maintaining awareness and keeping people focused on resolving the issues, and even when she goes OTT she's certainly proving to be effective at that.

Far more so than middle aged hippies glueing themselevs to aeroplanes.......