Pushing Up Profits

Plans to restrict wind farms to seas around Britain will need much larger subsidies from consumers, experts say.

Newspaper reports suggest that the Conservative Party will include a pledge to limit onshore turbines in next year's election manifesto.

But a member of a working group reviewing UK wind energy said this would require increased subsidies of around £300,000 per turbine per year.

Prof Richard Green said this would have a knock-on effect on electricity bills.

Long unpopular among some Conservative MPs from rural constituencies, onshore wind turbines appear to have incurred the wrath of the Prime Minister as well.

Reports suggest that he wants next year's election manifesto to include a promise to limit subsidies and toughen planning laws to make wind farms unviable in the countryside.

Increased emphasis is to be placed on offshore farms, although it is known that these are more expensive to build and run.

Speaking at the launch of a new report from the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) on wind energy in the UK, Prof Green said that strategy would come at a significant cost in increased subsidies.

Under government plans, onshore wind turbines will receive £90 per megawatt hour of electricity generated from 2017. But offshore turbines get more aid, around £140 per megawatt hour.

"That's about £300,000 per year per turbine that is moved from onshore to offshore," said Prof Green who is an economist.

"That is the cost in additional subsidy, at the rates the government is planning to pay in about 2017. Those subsidies are recovered through electricity bills."

According to the RAEng review, there are around 4,800 onshore turbines either operational or under construction in the UK as of February this year. Another 1,800 have received planning permission.

Offshore there are 1,400 either operational or under construction with another 700 having permission to build.

The report points out that onshore wind energy is more expensive than electricity from coal or gas, but wind is one of the cheapest sources of low carbon power.

Solar Panel Belt

A Japanese construction firm is proposing to solve the well-documented energy problems facing Japan - and ultimately the entire planet - by turning the moon into a colossal solar power plant.

Tokyo-based Shimizu Corp. wants to lay a belt of solar panels 250 miles wide around the equator of our orbiting neighbor and then relay the constant supply of energy to “receiving stations” on Earth by way of lasers or microwave transmission.

The “Luna Ring” that is being proposed would be capable of sending 13,000 terawatts of power to Earth. Throughout the whole of 2011, it points out, the United States only generated 4,100 terawatts of power.

“A shift from economical use of limited resources to the unlimited use of clean energy is the ultimate dream of mankind,” Shimizu says in the proposal on its web site. “The Luna Ring ... translates this dream into reality through ingenious ideas coupled with advanced space technologies.”

Public opposition to atomic energy has hardened in the intervening years, as the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. struggle to bring the stricken plant’s reactors under control.

There is a general acceptance that Japan, which shut down its last functioning nuclear reactor in September, will need to restart its nuclear plants in the short term, but the disaster has focused new attention on alternative - and safer - forms of energy.

Shimizu first came up with its Luna Ring proposal before the accident at Fukushima, but the ongoing crisis means it is attracting renewed interest.

Shimizu is reluctant to put a price tag on the construction costs involved but, given adequate funding, the company believes construction work could get under way as early as 2035.

Robots and automated equipment would be developed to mine the moon’s natural resources and produce concrete and the solar cells required for the scheme.

Once completed, the belt would stretch 6,800 miles around the equator and ensure constant exposure to the sun - without the interference of cloud cover - and an equally constant transfer of energy to the Earth.

Shimizu believes that “virtually inexhaustible, non-polluting solar energy is the ultimate source of green energy”.