The EU intends to improve its offer to the world for its progress to net zero.It plans a 55% reduction in output of carbon dioxide compared to 1990 levels which will require tough action to cut fossil fuel use in transport, homes and industry.
It has led to various disputes. Should the lower income countries be allowed laxer targets than the richer ones, who arguably are better able to pay for a fast transition? Will there be substantial solidarity funds to help pay the costs of change from EU funds for the poorer countries?
Should the EU carbon trading scheme be extended from electricity and general industry to cover personal transport and home heating? If so how high would the carbon price go, cutting the living standards of all who were hit by the new carbon penalties? Are the voters of EU states now ready to pay more directly for car and boiler use, on top of the extra indirect costs already imposed through electricity and general industrial product prices?
German opinion is getting more and more concerned about the possible expansion of a transfer Union, where Germany will be expected to pay more to help countries like Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy. It is also worried about the extent of ECB buy up of the bonds of the weaker countries of the Union to keep interest costs down. The next ECB meeting and the next EU Council in June are going to be important meetings about far the EU plans to go down the road of fuller financial integration, binding Germany in to accept more the debts and obligations of poorer countries and more of the high costs of the road to net zero. Germany is also unwilling to phase out its coal industry and coal power stations this decade.
May 29, 2021
The road to ruin.
Germany will not do anything that interferes with it’s manufacturing base.
Political nonesense driven by uneducated politicians who can’t be voted out.
I see mass demonstrations on the streets of Europe with politicians hiding to save their lives.
Wind again supplying 1.6% of demand. Grow up before it’s too late.
May 29, 2021
+1. The laws of physics will not change for 600 virtue signalling MPs with degree in Law and PPE no matter how man bonkers laws they pass.
May 29, 2021
+1
May 29, 2021
Where did you get that 1.6% figure for wind power? It’s absolute rubbish
This from Wikipedia
“The United Kingdom is one of the best locations for wind power in the world and is considered to be the best in Europe. By the end of May 2021, the UK had 10,961 wind turbines with a total installed capacity of over 24.1 gigawatts: 13.7 gigawatts of onshore capacity and 10.4 gigawatts of offshore capacity, the sixth largest capacity of any country in 2019. Wind power contributed 24.8% of UK electricity supplied in 2020, having surpassed coal in 2016 and nuclear in 2018. It is the largest source of renewable electricity in the UK. The UK Government has committed to a major expansion of offshore capacity by 2030”
All those wind turbines harvesting absolutly free energy…..
The trouble with accepting fossil fuel industry propaganda about renewables is that the “research” is paid for by the industry itself. The tobacco industry used to do the same thing when denying that smoking casued cancer
May 29, 2021
Electricity generation accounts for approx 20% of total energy consumption, almost all the rest is fossil fuels. So if wind was 1/4 of electricity generation in 2020, then it was 5% of total source of energy. And thatâs with us all paying c. ÂŁ10bn pa and rising rapidly to subsidise ârenewablesâ.
I have no problem with trying to get to low carbon sources of energy. I can see advantages even if the great global warming scare turns out to be hugely overblown.
But those who promote it loudly while polishing their halos need to get real and explain how itâs all going to happen. At the moment, except for those countries lucky enough to have plentiful hydropower, the only reliable means of multiplying electricity generation by the 4-5x itâs going to take to get to net zero is nuclear and natural gas (a lower but not zero carbon fuel).
So please do some research yourself and come up with some answers. We hear none from the govt the opposition and all those shrill pressure groups.
May 29, 2021
Expansion of wind power is modest compared to the sources available. A combination of nameplate overcapacity, potential curtailment if no intermediate or use can be found. Storage can be electrical ,chemical or physical. Batteries,capacitors, metallic hydrogen, Ammonia,CH4, batteries or hydro and or domestic hot water stores charged via the grid at zero cost when supply exceeds demand.
I see no reason to close functioning plant until its normal end of life. Particularly despatchable plant whoose economics are under pressure because utilization is falling and returns are pushed into the future or dissappear. They could be nationalized into a reserve capacity for forecast demand/supply imbalances and to counter threats of supply from hostile state controlled suppliers of services. This would be reasonable given the supply seizures during the pandemic, unreasonable frictions at borders ,threats made and others to come.
May 29, 2021
I agree with your scepticism about the fossil fuel industry. Your figures for wind turbines; are they figures for theoretical capacity or or actual contributions to the grid? I only ask because wind speed varies considerably and therefore turbines (and solar panels) are inconsistent as a source of power. I am not unduly concerned about this provided that more nuclear, hydro or tide generation is intruduced.
May 29, 2021
As at time of typing this, wind power is providing 1.74% of grid load. And that at huge cost to users from the expensive subsidies paid to developers and manufacturers. The wind may be free but the cost of extracting energy from it is enormous – there is no such thing as a free lunch!
May 29, 2021
Spot On
May 29, 2021
Indeed and wind farms need loads of fossil fuels to construct and maintain plus back up and huge subsidies – so they produce CO2 of at least 50% of natural gas power stations per MWHour anyway. Not that CO2 is a significant problem anyway.
May 29, 2021
I suspect that the 1.6% was a “spot” number – maybe over a recent 24 hour period?
Because that 24.8% annualised number you quote is also misleading, as the wind clearly doesn’t blow constantly 24 x 365 and unless you can store the surplus energy produced when demand is low over a 12 month period then you clearly need to have a backup for when the wind don’t blow!
May 29, 2021
@SG – Supply has to meet demand – ie provide power when it is needed at the time it is needed since we don’t have sufficient storage. At this moment 08:54 on Saturday May 29th wind is meeting 1.51% of demand according to http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk.
At the same moment CCGT was meeting 13.34% of demand, nuclear 19% and biomass 8.34%.
You need to differentiate between instantaneous and averaged demand and supply – Wikipedia does not.
May 29, 2021
In some ways that is not the point. The point is that, over a period of time, wind provided 24.8% of our electricity. The issue is storage. Stating that, at one moment in time it is only producing 1.5% – and is therefore pointless – does not negate its contribution to our energy needs.
Clearly we need to invest in storage and not in HS2.
May 29, 2021
And how do you intend to store 40 gigawatt to cover a 12 hour period. That is 480 gigawatt hours.
You would need batteries the size of Wales.
In th 18th century they discovered wind wasn’t reliable and physics hasn’t changed in the ensuing 200 years.
The Germans, the epitomy of efficiency have given up on wind as it’s poor value for money. What do they know ee don’t.
May 29, 2021
.. which is why I made the point about insufficient storage.
I wasn’t implying that at an approximately instantaneous 1.5% wind is useless, merely that that the 1.6% figure originally quoted was not rubbish but simply lacked context.
We do need storage alongside the intermittent generation to make it dispatchable.
We also need nuclear.
May 29, 2021
Yes clearly we need more storage. For wind that is. Some sort of a huge barn and when there is no wind we will just open the doors of the barn and voila! There is wind!
Heh he. I apolgize for my poor sense of humor.
May 29, 2021
You will have to wait until battery storage facilites the size of several football stadiums are built in every city in the UK
May 30, 2021
@ Peter2 and Billy Elliot
Not too long ago we had local gas storage in towns and cities in large tanks called gasometers. These were sizable landmarks and the one that has since been removed from Reading was used as an approach reporting point for White Waltham airfield.
Presumably, at one time Reading users had to wait until that tank was constructed before they could receive gas.
An established storage technology called redox flow batteries uses fluid tanks to store charged electrolyte and would likely be a similar size, you scale the size of tanks for the amount of energy you need to store but it wouldn’t be anything like several football stadiums.
May 30, 2021
Well we ought to be getting on with it Mike, because there are not any plans for building any mega batteries in the UK that are even close to starting their build.
Yet we are soon to be forced to go nearly all electric.
I keep hearing about new and wonderful technical solutions but they need scaling up and building.
Me I’m looking to buy a generator very soon as I see regular power cuts coming our way.
May 30, 2021
Dixie
Gasometers relied on being fed from the local gasworks, making town gas (a premium cost product with extra convenience) from coal. They were large enough to help smooth out short term demand peaks, such as roasting Sunday lunch, or topping up the heat in the lounge on a cold evening. Central heating based on gas didn’t really come in until North Sea gas. Before that, the energy store for our home was 20 hundred weight bags of coal delivered to the coal cellar, and the store for the gasworks and power stations was great piles of coal delivered by coaster, barge and train.
The storage needed for a renewables based grid without other backup generation is of the order of over 30TWh for present levels of demand, and more than double if we electrify everything. A vanadium flow battery stores about 25 kWh per cubic metre at best. So a football field of tankage 20m high would store 25x100x50x20kWh, or 2.5GWh. So you would need at least 10-20,000 football fields of tankage- if you could supply the vanadium required.
May 31, 2021
@Mark,
On a national scale storage would be large, but you’d have to compare like for like – eg with existing gas and oil storage.
According to Energy-UK current UK gas storage (4bcm) facilities will only meet around 25% of UK demand in a day, it is not clear for how many days though as capacity and throughput varies across facilities. The bulk of this storage is depleted gas fields and salt caverns. Backing up this storage are pipelines to Belgium, Netherlands and Norwegian gasfields supporting around 80bcm pa.
So the actual storage volume of gas is very large comparatively and then you need to add diesel stores on top – would redox electrolyte storage be any larger?
The recent developments at Warwick on cost reduced flow batteries do not use Vanadium but more comment material, eg Manganese..
May 31, 2021
Thank you for drawing attention to the work at Warwick. I had not encountered it. Still very much in the research phase, but some promising results. The authors see potential for extending storage into days and weeks, which is certainly an improvement on the minutes and hours that apply to lithium grid batteries.
The economics of batteries depend on how many charging cycles per year provide an income to defray the cost. 365 days compared to 52 weeks, 12 months and 1 annual season, or once in say 30 years to cover unusual weather patterns sees a range of a factor of over 10,000 in effective cost of storage. The economics tend to favour significant overinvestment in production capacity with discarding of surplus energy rather than more storage, but you get left with an irreducible residue that has to be met by conventional, dispatchable generation. In the mean time, the marginal useful output of an extra wind farm may be as little as 10-20% of its potential, which means its effective cost per MWh is 5-10 times higher.
Fossil fuels are massively more energy dense than flow batteries. Coal and oil is typically more than 10 MWh/m^3, LNG is over 6 MWh/m^3 and methane at 100 bar is about 1MWh/m^3.
May 29, 2021
Gridwatch template giving dynamic readings of all sources of generation. As I type wind is supplying 2.3% of demand.
Wikipedia is nor a very reliable source of uk generation I prefer the National Grid.
May 29, 2021
When the wind doesn’t blow the windmills lie idle. FACT.
May 29, 2021
When it does blow they contribute as much as half of the electricity we consume. When coal is in the ground it produces no energy. Extracting it and burning it is a filthy business.
We need more storage.
May 29, 2021
@Mike Wilson – storage of electricity is absurdly expensive whatever method chosent and wastes at least 25% of the energy in the process too. Far better just to generate it when it is needed.
May 29, 2021
Reply to Mike Wilson. “We need more storage”.
How do you propose to obtain more storage Mike? And where?
May 30, 2021
@LL – define “absurdly expensive” give us some facts, some numbers .. or perhaps you don’t know or even care because “absurdly” sounds good.
MIT in September 2019 published a paper (reported in IEEE Spectrum) on what renewables storage cost needed to be to compete with non-renewables;
“Energy storage would have to cost $10 to $20/kWh for a wind-solar mix with storage to be competitive with a nuclear power plant providing baseload electricity. And competing with a natural gas peaker plant would require energy storage costs to fall to $5/kWh.”
In January this year, a team in Warwick reported that they had developed a hybrid redox flow battery method offering storage at less than $25 per KWh.
This is close to Pumped Hydro of $20 per KWh but doesn’t need mountains – facilities can be located and scaled close to demand.
These developments are happening in spite of opposition and whining from the likes of you.
PS If you do not use any of the available energy from wind or solar it is ALL WASTED.
PPS What is the waste from gas turbines? 40%, 60%?
May 30, 2021
Dixie
In 2019, global vanadium production increased by 15 % year-on-year to 111,225 tonnes as Vanadium. China is the worldâs top vanadium producer, with 59% of global vanadium supply in 2019. Russia is the second largest producer, accounting for 17 % of 2019 global supply. South Africa is the third-largest producer, with 7 % of global vanadium supply in 2019. So perhaps not the best security of supply prospect.
A vanadium battery uses about 110kg of vanadium per cubic metre. So global production (mainly used to produce steel alloys) is enough for about 1 million cubic metres of electrolyte. Enough for 25GWh of storage. It’s not going to solve the problem
May 31, 2021
@Mark,
As mentioned above I don’t believe the recent Warwick approach uses Vanadium but lower cost material such as Manganese – their goal was lowering cost rather than increasing performance.
Manganese is more abundant than Vanadium, South Africa, Australia, Gabon and Brazil are major sources, China has large deposits but less than South Africa and these are much lower grade.
The thing to bare in mind is that metals can be recovered and recycled then re-uesd whereas once you have burned oil and gas it is gone for good, there is no more.
Conceivably, a country could maintain it’s level of critical metals by recycling whereas that is not the case with oil and gas. However, it is also conceivable that with enough energy, the right catalysts and chemical processes synthetic hydrocarbons could be produced from CO2.
If gullible people stopped fighting the oil company’s battles for them and focused on supporting work to find sustainable solutions we might get somewhere.
May 29, 2021
just go into Wikipedia and change the % to 100%.
May 29, 2021
The wind is certainly not free with all the subsidies we have to pay and the constraint payments for doing nothing. If it were free and providing the kind of percentages you are talking about then I think we would all see a fall in electricity prices. Instead we have exactly the opposite with energy prices going ever upward. It is certainly not free in environmental costs either with acres of deep peat bogs dug up and replaced with concrete platforms the size of olympic swimming pools and miles of cables which will never be removed. Water supplies have been contaminated and the quality of life for some people taken away completely. So far England has miniscule amounts of onshore wind but if you look at Scotland some areas have been obliterated and the only thing you see for miles are money making turbines.
May 29, 2021
Not wind farms but tax payer subsidy farms!
May 29, 2021
Odd on here that you canât reply to a reply.
I donât pretend to be an energy expert. But I read things like …
… and I find myself thinking if we spent as much time, money and effort on storage as we have done on extracting coal from deep mines and burning it to create steam to power turbines and/or on building absurdly expensive nuclear power stations ( the decommissioning costs of which are unknown and stretch out in front of us for decades), then we would solve the storage problems and stop the absurd business of burning coal, oil, gas and wood pellets to generate electricity.
Iâd be curious to know the cost of putting solar panels on every house in the country with some battery storage in each house.
May 30, 2021
Mike Wilson
Supposedly a 4kW solar system is about ÂŁ6,000, and a Tesla Powerwall is about ÂŁ10,000 installed. So ÂŁ16,000 for 30 million homes is about ÂŁ480bn, and it would produce around 100TWh a year, or close to a third of our current demand. Trouble is, at midday in summer, they would be producing a significant fraction of 120GW when demand might be only 25GW, and since it would only take about 4-5 hours in the morning to fill the battery, large amounts of power would have to be curtailed. Unused power is a fire risk – a friend’s house burnt down from a solar installation that had inadequate protection. Meanwhile in winter, they would be producing next to nothing just when we need more power. For the same money you could have very 20 expensive Hinkley Points lasting at least twice as long, generating around 5 times as much per year, and probably with lower operating and maintenance costs.
Already with about 13GW of solar connected the Grid is arranging to pay solar farms to curtail on sunny days. The cost of that goes on our bills. Solar is not a sensible solution for the UK. That’s why subsidies have largely been withdrawn. Without subsidy, few are finding a solar installation makes any economic sense (it might make sense e.g. if you lived somewhere else in winter, and used a lot of power for air conditioning in summer during the day), and installations have almost ground to a halt.
May 31, 2021
@Mike and Mark,
Storage is the key to managing intermittent power generation but it can take various forms. I have a 5KW array which is limited to 3.8KW at the inverter. This is used to power the house plus produce stored hot water and charge the EV, I don’t have a house battery as they are not yet economic.
After charging various appliances the surplus is then exported to the grid which has to be managed to accommodate this and all the other intermittent, non-dispatchable supplies.
You can make intermittent supplies (solar, wind) dispatchable via storage, after all this is what coal, oil and natural gas are, chemical stores of solar energy accumulated over eons, to be burned up by man over seconds.
My preference would be for surplus energy to be used to be stored statically for later power generation and chemically as a fuel such as synthetic hydrocarbons.
May 29, 2021
Did you worry about all the subsidies for fossil fuels over the years?
May 30, 2021
Fossil fuels provide governments with hundreds of billions in taxes.
Subsidies is a green myth using some very odd data and derived statistics.
May 30, 2021
Glad to benefit from all the taxes paid by oil and gas over the years. We did end up having to subsidise domestic coal production to keep the unions happy, it’s true. But there is no subsidy on the coal we import.
May 31, 2021
@Peter2,
the subsidies at the start of oil’s ascendency.
the wars fought over access to the oil – or don’t you count that as “subsidy” – a cost to the country and taxpayer.
You are quick to label anyone who disagrees with you as a green – I am not a green, I simply prefer honesty and transparency.
May 29, 2021
F U S
Very good reasoning and very true.
The renewable energy industry’s have been brain washing people with the free arguement from day one. The only reason it took off was because of the totally obscene amounts of subsidies thrown at them. Ed Milliband has a lot to be accountable for. But it will never happen nearly all these politicians are fully paid up disciples to the Church for Saving the World. Efficient, effective reliable power generation 24/7 can only come from a mixture of generating fuels, nuclear, gas, solar, wind and bio mass. Rocket science it ain’t.
May 29, 2021
Have you started to add up the millions/billions presently put in nuclear fusion research. As anybody I am looking forward to such a thing as nuclear fusion electricity in 10-20 years. But I would bet my bottom dollar that the usual clowns on this blog (if they are still with us) will be dithyrambic about this wonderful âfreeâ energy, discounting the billions possibly trillions that will have been invested by governments/private companies/individual taxpayers to get to that point. How much has already been put in the UKAEA MAST project in Culham, ÂŁ55m plus a recent ÂŁ21m?.
The international ITER project has a cost (depending who is talking) between $22bn and $65bn.
May 30, 2021
Between 1965 and 2019 (the years for which BP offers data) nuclear has provided a total of over 93,000TWh of energy. If the research bill was as high as $930bn, that would be a cost of $10/MWh produced, or 1Âą/kWh. Compare with over ÂŁ50/MWh for an ROC these days – and Hywind gets 3.5 ROCs per MWh generated.
May 29, 2021
@Sakara Gold; Stop being so gullible! Like windmills that only milled the corn when the wind blew strongly enough, much the same applies to wind turbines, and in some ways wind turbines are even worse than those old windmills.
Citing how many wind turbines there are, or the total available generating capacity, is meaningless, what matters is the force and how constant the wind is – there is little or no generating capacity on a becalmed day, or if there are gale or storm force winds because many wind turbines have to be stopped from rotating otherwise the the gearbox or generator unit over-speeds and and self destructs!
May 29, 2021
Free energy? Strange how my (renewable) energy bill keep rising.
May 29, 2021
All energy is “free”. But there are costs in harvesting it. That applies to wind and solar every bit as much as to gas and oil and coal.
May 29, 2021
Just check on this live actual usage. Right now wind is providing 3.51% of our UK demand. Earlier it was less than 2%.
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk
May 30, 2021
Wikipedia oh dear is that the best you can do?
May 29, 2021
I see rules to which those who are disadvantaged pay no heed. ‘Twas ever thus except for the gold plating UK.
May 29, 2021
Ian Wragg
Total common sense, I was going to say that an 18 year old girl would readily grasp that fact but then I remembered đ€đ€
May 29, 2021
Not uneducated, if anything too highly educated but in the wrong subjects. When you have a Minister for Climate Change who advocates huge expansion of renewables at the exact time a blocking continental high pressure system paralyses the turbine fleet from Norway to Spain, or a graduate in the history of the theatre proposes solar panels as an energy fallback in a UK winter then educational attainment can be seen for what it is, worthless if not relevant.
Alan Bond to the Lords as an emergency measure, followed by the engineers who have worked miracles in keeping the lights on in spite of everything that the politicians have done.
JF
May 29, 2021
Yup
Too many BAs in charge. At least Lifelogic and I have qualifications in STEM.
May 29, 2021
I wager my HNC in Construction bests a BA in English for rigour.
(I don’t want to declare my chartered qualification – a different discipline – as it betrays my industry.)
May 29, 2021
Ian wragg – so who are you talking about – uneducated politicians who can’t get voted out? you talking about the House of Lords?
May 29, 2021
Or Unelected Politicians like Lord Frost who cannot be voted out?
May 29, 2021
Ian Wragg
“I see mass demonstrations on the streets of Europe with politicians hiding to save their lives.”
……we could do with some of that here.
May 29, 2021
Ian,
Iteresting observations but once again you show your lack of knowledge about Europe. Try again
May 29, 2021
Good morning,
When German voters wake up and realise how much they are paying into the EU, by comparison to the other NET donors, I expect there’ll be something of a problem. What will their politicians promise to keep the voters acquiescent?
More importantly for the UK, what is the plan to either eliminate the Withdrawal Agreement and Trade deal, which are clearly not up to the job, as many here warned; or at least remove and replace with workable arrangements. It’s time to get tough with the EU bureaucracy. In this effort, may I suggest setting up a ‘Friends of Exiting the EU’ type quango, financed out of the foreign aid budget, for the sole purpose of encouraging and advising those parties in Europe that wish to follow us out. Headed by one N Farage..
May 29, 2021
Nobody else is leaving the EU. The Withdrawal Agreement is a legally binding international treaty – with the Northern Ireland Protocol being entirely negotiated by Brexitists. It isnât changing. Germans know how much they pay into the EU. They understand the difference between cost and value. Itâs a shame the Brexitists did not.
May 29, 2021
Yes, hope springs eternal for the curtain-twitchers, yet to be dashed again, deservedly.
Surprise, surprise, an entity as diverse and extensive as the European Union has a range of views held with it, some of which compete.
Who’d have thought it, eh?
May 29, 2021
Disingenuous. The NI protocol had to be agreed against the background of the continuity remain parliamentâs surrender act and mrs Mays already agreed disastrous backstop. Happily and crucially it has a clear suspension clause which the EU has already invoked. As the EUs implementation of it clearly breaches the Belfast Agreement – and indeed some clauses in the NI protocol itself – it will have to be suspended if changes are not agreed within the next few weeks.
May 29, 2021
Any international treaty is only binding whilst it is given effect in Domestic Law.
May 29, 2021
and Germany will carry developing coal fired power stations. And China, and India, and USA.
While we beat ourselves up over 0.5% effect on global so-called ‘climate change’.
May 30, 2021
Bullseye!
May 29, 2021
Your like a broken record Andy; maybe you would be more at home in the EU
May 29, 2021
Point of order Andy.
The Withdrawal Agreement and the Northern Ireland Protocol were entirely negotiated by the Conservative Government, not known for their Brexit persuasion. If Leave voters had done the “negotiating” I don’t believe they would have agreed to such a self-harming deal.
May 30, 2021
yes- you confirm it will take Houdini – remember him?, to extricate yourself from the EU.
Tied up, ball and chain, handcuffed, dozens of kg pages of legislation.
‘We’ve got you, chum’ – writ large in German and French.
May 29, 2021
“When German voters wake up and realise how much they are paying into the EU, by comparison to the other NET donors, I expect thereâll be something of a problem. What will their politicians promise to keep the voters acquiescent?”
They’ll ban AFD and any replacement party who doesn’t fall in to line
The voters will vote, the parties may change around, but the policy wont.
May 29, 2021
Yes dear old Nigel bring him on – the answer to all our prayers – but where is he havn’t heard a peep in a long while
May 29, 2021
Peter,
thre is generally no majority in any EU country to leave the EU , so what are you actaullly talking about?
May 30, 2021
why not each country hold a Ref to prove it?
May 29, 2021
The EU is discussing policy choices. Brexiters, as ever, report this as “falling out”, as if there are never policy discussions in UK politics. Don’t you get tired of this, or is misrepresenting the EU just a lifestyle choice of yours?
Reply The Commission is determined to drive through its net zero and redistribution policies but cannot yet get agreement. This is not a friendly academic policy discussion.
May 29, 2021
Garland, Switzerland have said publicly that discussios have ended, they do not buy into the EU any further.
May 29, 2021
Switzerland is not in the EU. Switzerland has never been in the EU. As a sovereign state Switzerland exercised its right not to sign a deal with the EU. The Brexitists get all excited about this but to the EU it really makes very little difference at all. The deal was primarily for Switzerlandâs benefit – not the EUâs.
May 29, 2021
Wrong way round. The EU finds an independent and highly prosperous Switzerland an ideological threat and has been trying for years to shoehorn Switzerland into some form of political and economic subjugation. Probably theyâd like that strong balance sheet behind the eurozone doomsday machine. I would if I was the EU, ECB etc. But the Swiss are too smart for that. No support at all – you should reflect on this – for joining the EU in either Switzerland or Norway, though neither has a particularly good arrangement with the EU.
May 29, 2021
Switzerland thought not. They rejected on the grounds of unfettered access of EU citizens and all the migrants the EU have swilling around to residence and social service access in Switzerland. They stopped what we are still trying to correct.
If the EU are not bothered why did they keep trying for many years.
Andy, you of the instant unsubstantiated statement from your unique position of inner knowledge can perhaps detail all those advantages that the Swiss are missing out on. Their rejection , just like Brexit is yet another nail in the EUs crazy game, a flag to any other EU nation considering joining the democratic outside.
May 29, 2021
Andy
I donât think that anyone was suggesting that Switzerland is in the EU but theyâre very closely aligned
May 29, 2021
Insignificant and irrelevant little England to influence the world on Green policies.
Are you an ox or are you a moron, Andy ?
All you’re going to do is created the most enormous and pointless inequalities that this country has seen in living memory – most likely suffered by the working class and BAMEs.
May 29, 2021
Yes the same as Norway – the same as Iceland
May 30, 2021
Ah – the Swiss (famous for criminal banking accounts and millionaire watches), the Icelanders (those geezers famous for economy meltdown), the Norwegians famous for…..err wood and tall Christmas trees.
May 29, 2021
We know Switzerland has never been in the EU. This week they told us they are never even going to get into a Treaty Framework with the EU. Imagine, the sensible Swiss don’t want a Treaty Framework with the oh-so wonderful EU. And this is good news for the EU?
By the way, I don’t recall Andy/MiC discovering that refusal of Treaty Framework is proof of how democratic the EU really is until now. Coincidence?
May 29, 2021
Indeed the EU has fallen out with Switzerland now, as it has with the U.K. itâs a less dramatic fallout as Switzerland was more independent. Support for EU membership in Switzerland has fallen from 50% in the early 90s, at which time they had a referendum on EEA membership, to 10% now. Itâs the same in Norway. Itâll be the same in the U.K. in a few years the way things are going.
May 29, 2021
Indeed and Switzerland is completely surrounded by EU countries with no access to the sea.
May 29, 2021
The 100+ bilateral agreements that had been developed over the years between Switzerland and the EU remain the same. What the 7-year trade talks (that recently failed) were about a closer trading relationship (superseding these 100+ agreements) including some alignment regarding the role of the ECJ and immigration-related questions.
The only real risk is that some of these 100+ agreements will become outdated in the (near?) future, and it is not clear at all which of Switzerland or the EU will lose the most.
May 29, 2021
The Commission can do nothing unless the Member States agree. Because elected politicians, not unelected bureuacrats, call the shots in the EU. But you know that. It just suits you – even now we’ve left – to pretend the EU is something it is not
May 29, 2021
And all those little members joined the EU for the pleasure of exercising their democratic rights? That’s totally naive. They joined for the money, and as long as they get the money, they will vote “Yes”.
May 30, 2021
Like being in the Masons – look after one another with business, but make sure the top dogs stay top dogs.
May 29, 2021
Not correct Garland
The unelected Commission works by using previously signed treaties to push their personal plans.
I’m amazed how little you EU fans know about how the Empire operates.
May 29, 2021
Garland
“The Commission can do nothing unless the Member States agree. ”
…….Unfortunately that is not the case Garland. The EU Commision is run by the French, always has been. So whatever France wants France gets.
May 30, 2021
Ursula VdL the Commission President is German, Frans Timmernans the VP for âgreenâ thingies is Dutch, Margrethe Vestager the VP for digital endeavours is Danish, ⊠and soon and so forth. Have you ever looked at ec.europa.eu âThe Commissionersâ?
I am sorry if in your life you were at times âwounded by the Frenchâ and you cannot stand them, but you would have to consult with some of the other contributors saying the EU27 is German-controlled. Which is it, the French or the Germans?
May 29, 2021
Sir JR
These are political discussions going on at EU level as they do on an on-going basis. Your generallisations about the EU does give credibility to Garland’s comments about your over-gen ralisations which I ahve pointed out before as well
May 29, 2021
Will you ever get a vote on it bill?
Or will you just be told what your betters have decided for you?
May 30, 2021
Oh, E2P2, I am sure you were able to vote and choose Mr Johnson as PM, Mr Sunak as Chancellor, Ms Patel at the Home Office, and so on. Or were you just told what your betters have decided for you? I am amazed how little you Tory fans know how the UK state operates.
May 30, 2021
I can vote them out very soon hef, if I want to.
Try voting out your beloved EU Commissioners or Presidents.
May 29, 2021
I understand Germany gave up on wind power because of its unreliability and its poor output level even at peak and opted for coal fired power stations. I have 3 questions:
– How can the EU achieve this target, if its largest Nation is not following the script?
– How come Germany has not been told to stop this and get back to wind power?
– Why does the EU turn a blind eye to Germany breaching so many of its diktats, but other EU countries get bounced on, fined, browbeaten and threatened for not conforming?
May 29, 2021
Within your last paragraph lies the demise of the EU.
May 29, 2021
Agricola
thre is no demise of the EU, even if you predict is every week, it has been aorund for 70 years and it will be aournd for another 70 year, yawn
May 30, 2021
EU started in 1993
May 30, 2021
E2P2, As I know from reading the EU website, commissioners are elected (indirectly I agree) for just five years. Which brings me back to my original point: did you actually vote for Mr Johnson, Mr Sunak, Ms Truss, Ms Patel, � Or were they chosen by the PM independently of what you might be thinking?
At the next EU elections I guess German voters could vote for AfD, French ones for RN, Dutch people for JA21 or FvD, Italians for La Liga, Spaniards for Vox, ⊠and if this âfar sideâ were to get the majority of votes and majority of MEPs (BTW, much easier in the EU Parliament than at Westminster, proof: with its 32% of the vote, in June 2019 TBP got 29 MEPs out of 73 UK ones, the beauty of a much closer to a proportional system than the FPTP system) the commissioners would be proposed by the relevant winning parties, and the Commission would reflect the new trend.
Prove me wrong with the relevant EU texts to support your claim, and I will apologise profusely.
May 30, 2021
Pedantic rubbish from you as usual hef.
You know what the democratic system in the UK is hef.
I vote for my local candidate.
All parties in the election have already elected a leader.
I know who that party leader is when I vote.
If the PM performs badly or his Cabinet perform poorly I can vote them out at the next election.
When did you or I ever vote directly for any EU President or Commissioner.
More importantly when do you or I have a chance to vote them out.
I dont need your profuse apology hefty.
I would prefer you to see how fundamentally undemocratic the EU system is.
May 29, 2021
Because under the EU Carbon Trading Scheme, Germany buys up as many surplus licences as they can, thus increasing their carbon cap and therefore giving the impression, statistically, that they are a low carbon emitting country.
May 29, 2021
Aye, self serving hypocrisy hiding behind political jiggery pokery.
May 29, 2021
BC Exactly. All a big con. All this carbon credit buying is nonsense.
May 29, 2021
+1
May 29, 2021
Boris should BAN the EU carbon trading scheme…he’s banning everything else
May 29, 2021
Glen Cullen
Boris won’t ban the EU carbon trading scheme, because 1) he’s a europhile, 2) he’s got Belgian ancestry, 3) he has’nt got the guts – if he did he’d have ripped up the May / Macron / Varadkar NI protocol.
Boris only bans stuff we depend on – because doing so pleases the big money and his friends in France, and we’re soft enough to let him get away with it.
May 30, 2021
We’ve set up our own scheme. It’s designed to produce a higher carbon price than the EU one, and it’s succeeding – Friday prices were ÂŁ48.50 and âŹ51.81 per tonne, or about ÂŁ4/tonne more in the UK. The result is that electricity prices are rising to pay for it. Next will be the carbon border tax that Liam Fox is now arguing for as a front man. Probably just as well he never made it to being head of the WTO: it flies completely against the principles of free trade. The green zealots in BEIS at work for you.
May 29, 2021
Wrong. Germany gave up nuclear power after the Japanese Fukushima disaster. They are one of the few countries in the world still building coal-fired power stations. Germany has more solar panels intalled per capita than any other country in Europe. They are still building wind farms in their bit of the N Sea
May 29, 2021
Germany giving up nuclear because of Fukashima was a very unintelligent excuse to appease the antinuclear lobby. Unlike Japan, Germany is not prone to tectonic activity which produces powerful earthquakes and, in the case of Fukashima, Sunamis.
May 29, 2021
Indeed.
May 29, 2021
Has Germany told Boris not to pursue the nuclear power option
May 29, 2021
JB, Really? According to foreignpolicy.com on 10/02/2021 âIs Germany making too much renewable energy?â the problem appears more like a glut of electricity at times with not enough storage capacity.
The article certainly describes a number of problems, which are likely to be similar to those encountered in the UK.
May 29, 2021
Indeed and storage is very expensive and very energy wasteful.
May 29, 2021
Yes Hefner, Scotland produces too much power from wind turbines and the cost of turning them off is astronomical. Try looking at the figures paid out to Scottish windfarms to switch off provided by Dr John Constable on the Renewable Energy Foundation website. It’s obscene but they keep erecting more.
May 30, 2021
Germany currently produces a net surplus of about 50TWh a year. But by the time they make their closures of nuclear, coal and lignite capacity that are planned (currently providing over 200TWh a year) and demand rises to feed EVs and electrification they will have a much larger deficit, and the surrounding countries will not be able to benefit from German net exports. The increased reliance on renewables will see very volatile markets, and the lack of viable alternative sources could well lead to rotating blackouts. Shortage pricing will spread across Europe, as will the shortages themselves. We have already seen Norwegian prices arbitrage up to German levels after the opening of a new interconnector between Germany and Norway – as shown in this chart.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/VyrHt/3/
The UK may find it difficult to secure supplies via interconnectors, as will Germany, at times of high demand in winter.
May 29, 2021
There are plenty of other green sources of power beyond wind.
The Institute for Government did an interesting piece of research a few years back which looked at the Brexitist claim that only the U.K. was ever punished for breaking EU rules. It concluded the claim was basically baloney.
Between 2003-2016 Germany was taken to the ECJ 87 times, losing 14 cases. The U.K. was taken to the ECJ 64 times in the same period, losing 16 cases. Both were pretty much inline with the EU average.
If you are interested in actual facts – Italy, Spain, Greece and France get taken to the ECJ most often. The Scandinavia countries get taken the least off.
About half of the cases involving the UK were around environmental matters. Things like the treatment of waste water – or sewage. How awful of the EU to demand the UK government adhere to environmental standards which the UK government had agreed to adhere to. Still, now you have taken back control of your sewage you can pump as much of it as you like into our rivers. A Brexit win.
May 29, 2021
Yes, they seem to be making extremely fond use of that freedom too, almost as much as the Tories are of the High Court’s ruling that it is not an offence for a minister knowingly to mislead the public.
This is none other than a Licence To Lie.
It’s time that it went to the Court Of Appeal and to the Supreme Court if needed.
Perhaps the Good Law Project will get to it in time, but heaven knows they have plenty, with which to be going on.
May 29, 2021
That isn’t what the High Court said MiC.
You need to be more accurate and less Guardian.
May 29, 2021
MiC
“as much as the Tories are of the High Courtâs ruling that it is not an offence for a minister knowingly to mislead the public.”
……Tony Blair.
Enough said.
May 29, 2021
@Andy âThere are plenty of other green sources of power beyond windâ. True, natural gas for example cheap, on demand and the CO2 plant and tree food emitted greens the planet very nicely indeed.
I assume you mean wave, wind, tidal, geothermal, nuclear. The first three are very expensive, not on demand and need fossil fuels to build anyway. The latter two just rather expensive. Fusion coming fairly soon with luck.
May 30, 2021
what about pedal power? -hook up your bike to a battery for your lights this evening.
May 29, 2021
That’s rich. Many of our water companies are run by foreigners.
May 30, 2021
And whyâs that, I wonder?
May 30, 2021
because they found they could charge what they liked, produce ‘profits’ and pay the dividends to the owner……easy peasy.
May 30, 2021
Or could it be that the water distribution when it was privatised in 1988 was insufficiently regulated by OfWat?
The OfWat reviews happen only every five years, 1994, 1999, ⊠and with every review prices were allowed to go over the RPI (Please note, RPI not CPI).
Furthermore the âpressureâ put by OfWat on companies to reduce leakage is the following: companies are now committed to delivering a 50% reduction in leakage from 2017-18 levels by 2050. Isnât that good of them?
Anybody to buy some Thames Water shares?
May 29, 2021
Andy
Like biomass, grow trees, chop them down, turn them into pellets and ship them across the Atlantic and burn them?
Any other suggestions.. of course we could always keep using good old reliable fossil fuels?
May 29, 2021
A sensible contribution totally spoiled by your sentance, Andy.
May 29, 2021
Andy
“There are plenty of other green sources of power beyond wind.”
Strange, I’d have thought you would have a monopoly on it.
May 29, 2021
The answer to your final question is that ‘He who pays the piper, calls the tune’. Germany is the economic motor of the EU. It is almost certain that German disaffection with the EU is what will eventually cause it to break up.
May 29, 2021
âHe who pays the piper calls the tuneâ. Not alas for taxpayers – much of the tax paid is even spend on propaganda telling them which tune they can have.
May 29, 2021
This week Russia has started work on the construction of the biggest oil terminal in the Arctic on the Taymyr peninsular which will serve the Vostok Oil project-one of the largest new oil developments in the world-10 new ice class tankers are also being built.
It has also confirmed that it expects to increase natural gas output around tenfold by 2035 and that all the LNG expected to be produced over the next 20 years has been sold in advance.
The temperature hit 30 degrees in Arkhangelsk last week,it’s residents posted pictures of themselves sunbathing whilst the Arctic Council meeting in Reykjavik was in progress!And Mr Putin has confirmed that anyone seeking to “take a bite out of Russia will have their teeth knocked out so they will not be able to bite ever again”.I’m sure Sergei Lavrov,possibly using a more elegant turn of phrase,said the same to Antony Blinken at the AC meeting!
May 29, 2021
“Mr Putin has confirmed that anyone seeking to âtake a bite out of Russia will have their teeth knocked out”
Shame we don’t have such a leader.
May 29, 2021
Germany needs to replace 8 GW of nuclear (closing by end of 2022), 15GW of coal and 14GW of lignite capacity (most of which will now likely close by the mid 2020s, especially if the Greens are in government). The majority of these units have been running at relatively high load factors i.e. orders of magnitude more GW of wind & solar capacity is required to replace it, given lower average load factors.
The trouble is they have no credible plan for handling this. Government auditors doubt that the need for reserve power plants was properly determined and that should the government continue its current course with the Energiewende, costs will not only explode, but the risks of grid instability will rise. Already companies are envisioning voluntary temporary shutdowns in the event of power shortages. Energiewende could âendanger Germany as a business location and overburden the financial sustainability of electricity-consuming companies and private households. This can then ultimately jeopardize the social acceptance of the energy transition.â
We face a similar problem.
May 29, 2021
The politically blind, technally ignorant imposing on the reluctant in response to a flawed religion. The UK, but on a bigger scale. Yet another weakness in a weak construction. Being imposed top down with no consultation with the people. Even the politicians of the dependant nations within the EU are begining to see the cracks. Switzerland, which has always been less convinced by the integration solves all policy of the EU, has told Brussels, no further. Their politicians know they could not sell it in possibly the most advanced democracy in Europe.
It is long overdue that Boris got his cohones back and told Brussels that the NI Protocol creates the very situation it was designed to avert. In the real knowledge that it was a punishment tactic on the part of the EU, who could not care less about the GFA. This along with fishing rights are the known fault lines. I await the emergence of the full financial story, who has agreed to pay what to whom on our departure. How much residual alignment has been accepted as a condition of departure.
In the light of the financial punishment the EU are attempting to inflict on Astra Zeneca, I would informally invite AZ to relocate overnight from Belgium to the UK. The EU has publicly demanded the same from the banking and financial sector located in the City of London.
You were right to press for a WTO future in our relationship with the EU, and it is a reversion we should consider now.
May 29, 2021
+10
May 29, 2021
Un cojon, dos cojones. Cuantos anos usted ha vivido en Espana?
May 29, 2021
I take it you got the point before getting all teacher committee or put another 0way un dolor en el culo.
May 29, 2021
Here is a dynamite suggestion. Germany will be the first to leave the EU because it will not accept bankrolling all those dependant nations. The political risks of so doing within Germany being far too great. The German people will not buy the rest of the EU because the price is too high.
May 29, 2021
And hereâs a flying pig. Nobody else is leaving the EU. The others that may have considered it have seen what a mess you have made of it and now donât want to.
May 29, 2021
Another unsubstantiated comment from your unique position of inner knowledge. Been chatting to the Greek PM have we.
May 29, 2021
agricola
Germany was always going to have to pay more into the EU after we left, we knew it, they knew it, the rest of the EU knew it, and indeed expected it.
The UK was a big net contributor, and dare I say it, in many cases a voice of some reason against some of the more excessive ideas and extreme EU policy idea’s.
Germany is now starting to realise what a loss we are, not just financially, but politically as well, the others were/are not so bothered, as long as Germany continues to pick up the bill !.
I can see trouble ahead !
May 29, 2021
I have just finished the French version of Barnierâs book âLa Grande Illusion: Journal Secret du Brexit, 2016-2020â (Gallimard). This will never get a literary prize, obviously, but as a commented diary of the UK-EU negotiations, it will certainly be among the must-read books in future PPE (and Science Po) programs.
And as so often it shows how in these negotiations it was another case of lions (the little people preparing tens of thousands of documents on multiple topics, within Whitehall and Brussels) led by UK donkeys (Theresa May, David Davis, Dominic Raab, Steve Barclay, David (Lord) Frost, Boris Johnson) and EU politicians kept at armâs length by âcommon accordâ but being informed on a daily basis of the details of the discussions with at least weekly interactions between Barnierâs team and the various heads of government.
Given the EU had to deal with 27 governments and sets of ministers, it certainly shows how much the EU27 were, despite internal discussions (and the rather desperate efforts of the UK to âdivide and ruleâ) rather working as one unit behind Barnierâs group. And this at a time where Tory politicians were striving to weaken Theresa May, plotting to move ahead in the future race to leadership, talking various amounts of rubbish (ERG look the best in that respect) to please/cajole the tabloid press and the British populus.
At the end, one is left thinking that the UK had just tried to bluff its way in these negotiations (as the Brits have done repeatedly over the years (hello Liz)) but the other side at first flabbergasted by the referendum results was very quick to recover and prepare itself (most of what was agreed in December 2020 had already been written down in EU informal preparatory documents by September 2017). And one cannot brush away the feeling that the EU (Barnierâs team) had almost continuously been ahead of the UK âteamâ from March 2017 to December 2020.
Which shows there were much better people on the other side than on the UKâs. But when one sees the calibre of the present clutch of ministers âŠ
May 30, 2021
I won’t ask to borrow the book…
May 29, 2021
I’ll put my money on an Italexit. Spain? Possible, if the likes of Vox start winning elections. France? No – neither Le Pen nor Macron supports leaving. Germany? No – swinging to the left. If I were in charge of the EU, and wanted it to survive, I’d suggest the EU becomes more like NATO – and ends all forms of ‘transfer payments’.
May 29, 2021
Germany’s natural partner is Russia which also brings a partnership with China.Germany now exports more to China than the USA and there are c10x as many German companies operating in Russia than any other nation.Russia is also re-industrializing,currently developing,amongst other things, a large petro-chemical industry on top of it’s oil & gas industry-lots of business for German process engineering companies.
China and Russia are going to cut the legs from under the EU/NATO.
May 29, 2021
That is one way it could happen, but there are others. If the issue is Germany paying too much for the poorer members, then Germany can redefine the EU to address that. It’s ultimately up to Germany what EU membership entitles a small member to, so Germany can simply reduce the total EU budget to the point where less money changes hands.
In fact, if the EU’s goal of economic convergence was feasible, that would already be happening. In fact, it isn’t, and annual payments don’t cause national economies to converge, so Germany can simply say that subsidies didn’t work. Of course, as long as the EU exists in some form, Germany will still have tariff free access to the smaller members’ domestic markets.
May 29, 2021
Agricola,
Lots of statements but no proof for any of them, don’t you some times get tired of this rubbish taht becomes less and less factual
May 29, 2021
Never let a crisis go to waste.
The EU Commission takes every opportunity to turn the ratchet: âmore EUâ is the solution to every problem. The bigger the problem, the greater the leverage.
The Germans are right to be concerned about increasing transfers, not only for current expenditures but also for the burden of debt.
Other countries, such as Denmark and the Netherlands, are increasingly concerned about further erosions of sovereignty.
Everyone should be concerned about the EUs sclerotic growth, and meddlesome regulations, becoming a drag on the world economy.
The U.K. should not be taken in by this climate change deception. There is no appetite, or justification, for enforced scrapping of central heating and the return to wearing furs from November to March each year. Talking about it is dangerous. Implementation by any Government will lead to carnage at the ballot box. The EU Commission does not have to worry about that: the Conservative Party does
May 29, 2021
You would never be allowed to wear fur by today’s greens. They expect – even want – you to freeze.
May 30, 2021
No need to freeze. You are likely to be much more comfy (less bulky and for much less) with Thermolactyl-type of clothing (sold in all good sport shops).
May 29, 2021
What is it about sovereignty – but just some vague notion that we are somehow different or surperior. Well from what I read there are a lot of disappointed superior type malcontents in England at the moment the ones who swallowed the brexit spoof hook line and sinker – so too bad – it’ll be left to another generation or two now to sort this mess and even then we’ll never get back to where we were –
May 29, 2021
A pointless war on plant, tree and crop food that will cost the world ÂŁ50+ trillions for no benefit. Far, far better ways to spend this money saving lives now, as Bjorn Lomborg and others sensibly suggest. Even if you are a believer in this devil CO2 gas religion the âsolutionsâ pushed by government, EVs, hydrogen (a very inefficient energy âbatteryâ in effect), heat pumps, wind farms… save trivial or even no CO2 when manufacture and maintenance are properly considered.
May 29, 2021
Indeed LL.
May 29, 2021
The practical realities of their obsessions are beginning to reach register in their unthinking lemming minds. Just because they have the power to decree that “there will be Net-Zero” doesn’t mean that it will happen.
Boris should be making note of this.
Of course Germany should be worried about the mechanics of a transfer Union, whereby they subsidise other countries – But TBH it’s how the EU was designed — Germany has grown rich on it’s manufacturing capacity, only because it didn’t have real competition within the EU, and all EU countries were obliged to use German products.
There will be more tears, but it seems to be clear that Germany will in the end sacrifice a part of itself to remain top dog in a floundering would-be empire.
May 29, 2021
Transferring money from one part of the United Kingdom to another is apparently a good thing that creates economic success.
Transferring money from one part of the European Union to another is apparently a bad thing that creates economic failure.
No wonder Brexit is such a muddle. Here, buy a fish. They canât sell it anywhere else.
reply I have always argued the EU needs to be a transfer Union with U.K. scale regional transfers. that was one of the main reasons I did not want the U.K. to commit to the Euro and the political union which has to follow
May 29, 2021
Not my words….and nothing to do with BREXIT – You’ll be blaming the cool weather on Brexit next.
When you share a currency between nations whose economies are so different it was always going to be a problem of imbalances. All EU nations can borrow at the low EU rate thanks to German good standing – that alone threatens the whole EU economy, and why Germany has to spread its wealth around to even up the debt created.
May 29, 2021
âTransferring money from one part of the United Kingdom to another is apparently a good thing that creates economic success.â
No it is not in general. It is damaging market manipulation that make people poorer overall.
May 29, 2021
But according to you, Germany is a sovreign nation and can do what it wants. Why should it use its success to bail out unsuccessful countries that will probably never be prosperous, or at least not for decades. 19 of the 27 are net suckers of EU wealth, the remaining few the suppliers. It cannot last and only will as long as the relatively weak Euro (compared an independent D.Mark) is useful to Germany.
May 29, 2021
@graham1946
Because they share the Euro – Certainly they do not bail out the countries struggling within the economics of a one size fits all union out of love of their fellow men — They do it to maintain the status quo.
The unfortunate thing is as you say, the poorer countries will never be able to match Germany as everything is in Germany’s favour – Think of it as Germany giving something back.
May 30, 2021
‘Germany giving something back’ – – I near fell of my chair laughing.
May 30, 2021
Why did the USA provide money to European countries with their Marshall Plan after WW2? Could it have been to recreate working economies with consumers able to buy American products?
What about trying to make a possible analogy ⊠or is that too much of a thinking effort?
May 30, 2021
hef
That is effectively what Germany and to a lesser extent Holland are doing for the EU’s many poorer nations.
The political question is, for how long and how much will be given until their domestic voters turn and feel they want it to stop.
May 29, 2021
Kindegarten stuff Andy. Money movement works in the UK because we have a common curreny and one controlling Treasury. Exactly the same in the USA.
It fails in the EU beause currencies vary and even within the Euro there is no mandatory fiscal control. It is a giro funded largely by Germany but lacking german prudence. You obviously have not been paying attention. The EU is driving towards absolute fiscal control of all member states. Many EU member states do not buy into this because it fundamentally undermines their sovereignty. Additionally the EU dare not ask the electorate this fundamental question because they the electorate know it negates their democracy. Democracy being a bad concept in EU circles.
May 29, 2021
Well we’re not in the EU anymore so you have little say – whatever is arranged as regards financials and banking including money transfers in the EU now and in the future will be EU business and if we want to go along we will just have to row in
May 29, 2021
Bryan Regarding Germany being top dog. It all sounds pretty dangerous to me.
May 29, 2021
Fedupsoutherner
Indeed… It’s either Germany or France. The EU was organised to favour these two.
Germany has always been the more aggressive so it will come out on top… and yes, how is that German inspired EU army doing?
May 29, 2021
FuS, BH, so according to you, what are we going to get, a German Europe or a European Germany?
May 29, 2021
Germany already dominates much of the EU’s policy — Look at how many German’s hold top offices – Look at how everyone looks to Merkel for leadership
May 29, 2021
Truer words, etc. People always forget the Twenties and early Thirties, when Germany used trade as a means of leaning on its neighbours. It was only when that failed that things got more “interesting”.
May 29, 2021
In this instance at least it is being discussed by the EU before being imposed on the population and the costs and challenges are being considered.
Here in the UK doctrine is just being foisted on us.
A stopped clock is right twice a day.
May 29, 2021
Bryan, agreed Germany has good well organised manufacturing capacity. I rate it as second only to the japanese in terms of productivity and quality. Their big advantage on the world stage is a weak currency. The possibility of a reversion to a strong Deutchmark is maybe their only logical reason for staying with the EU and Euro.
May 29, 2021
Indeed, and they also have a captive market for their goods, IE within the EU, which is why they do so well – Their home market sustains them nicely
May 29, 2021
John
Now we are out of the EU I really do not care what their policies are, we have no more control about EU policies than we do with Russia, China, or America with regards to so called climate change or anything else for that matter, if figures can be fiddled (adjusted) rest assured most Countries will do that to make it look like they are in compliance with whatever is agreed internationally.
Yes it is a cynical view, but history suggests that is what will happen.
I would sooner our politicians be concerned about some of the crazy ideas and policies that our Government is proposing, and how that is going to affect us in the UK both collectively and as individuals.
Reply I mainly concentrate on U.K. matters here. I get the highest viewings and comment levels when I write about the EU as the U.K. media starves us of good independent analysis and description of EU policies and progress. We need to know what our neighbours are doing and to spot the many areas where The U.K. establishment wishes Us to follow the EU line regardless of whether it is good or not.
May 29, 2021
Reply -Reply
I get all that John, and perfectly understand the EU is part of World politics, and will always have some sort of influence on many Countries, members or non members etc.
Also aware that you have questioned some of the more extreme Uk proposed policies with regards to climate change, and I thank you for that.
I just wish more of our own home grown MP”S would be sensible and investigate and get some real facts themselves, rather than just accept that anything remotely described as Green, is automatically good, when often the unintended consequences of such policy idea’s are very grim indeed.
May 29, 2021
Bryan Harris
Lots of nations are making on money in the EU there is no empire that youa re talking about
May 30, 2021
BB – You’ll have to explain what you mean – it doesn’t make any sense to me
May 30, 2021
nor me…
May 29, 2021
It’s been reported that a significant proportion of UK goods going to the EU have had tariffs applied, despite the no-tariff deal. Then they complain the UK isn’t keeping its end of the bargain up over NI.
Still, not heard yet about the UK applying tariffs to EU goods. No doubt our lot can be just as officious.
May 29, 2021
They won’t. The establishment are pro EU and want us back in. We need to be vigilant. Drip by drip they will weaken Brexit (actually the Brino they imposed) until we are again under the evil empire’s boot.
May 29, 2021
“Still, not heard yet about the UK applying tariffs to EU goods. No doubt our lot can be just as officious.”
Yes, but that would just freeze bad faith as a policy in both directions. Better not to do that and bring pressure on the EU to keep its word and administer the NIP honestly.
May 29, 2021
Carbon Zero is a bit like wearing masks.
We used to just breathe and thrive but now that natural function has been unnecessarily complexified .
We used to use the God-given natural resources of the planet and now, without rhyme nor reason they are verboten.
Another, no doubt unreported protest march today.
Donât forget…it is âopening upâ that causes âspikesâ….NOT PROTESTS….thatâs what was reported last summer regarding the lionized protests. Remember the statues?
Rather awkward, in a plague-ridden country to explain why a huge gathering does NOT lead to more dropping dead on the streets. So better not to mention them!
We really are living in an asylum.
May 30, 2021
‘We used to use the God-given natural resources of the planet and now, without rhyme nor reason they are verboten.’
The reason is obvious – overpopulation using the resources.
May 29, 2021
And in the meantime in China and India the bands play on as they watch the self destruction of the western world as we know it. The children’s song “The emperor’s new clothes springs to mind”
When are the so called leaders see all this for what it really is? Unless this is the new world order for total control.
May 29, 2021
The jury in the science community (50/50) is still out on whether the correlation between man-made co2, sun flares and natural climate cycles are the reason for the minuscule rise in global temperature (measurements differ between institutions and scientists)
Best case scenario â do nothing
Worst case scenario â mirror the interventions of main perpetrators i.e. China & India
May 29, 2021
Initially Italy was to host âCOP26â but wasnât deemed on message enough and the UN went with the UK
May 30, 2021
COP26 was initially scheduled in November 2020, and in Glasgow with Claire Perry OâNeill as President. And do you know what? There was something ⊠not sure, maybe something I think called Covid-19 ⊠that prevented its proper preparations, so the UK proposed to move the meeting by one year and still in Glasgow.
The Italian connection is that Italy organised and held (remotely via Zoom et al.) the Youth4Climate meeting at the end of September 2020.
Another beautiful example of the disinformation brought to you by GC and its favourite tabloid.
May 29, 2021
Glen
I have to say no one has yet convinced me yet that the problem is all man made.
Thus I tend to agree with you, until such time as it can be proven without much doubt.
I certainly agree we should do all we can to stop poisoning the earth, that we should recycle where it is economical to do so, and be careful with the environment, but population growth is the biggest problem the earth has in my view.
May 29, 2021
Couldn’t agree more
May 29, 2021
âAll EU countries were obliged to use German productsâ: funny that, when I was last time in âmy little part ofâ France, fifteen months ago I still saw more Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, Honda, Hyundai, Fiat, Dacia and Ford cars than Audi or BMW ones. There were some VW ones obviously but not more than in the last fifty years, I would think.
Apart from my Bosch drill, most of the tools I have got there are either French or Chinese! My gas cooker is Italian, my fridge-freezer, washing machine are US-French (Whirlpool).
Practically all the fruit and vegetables are locally produced in this part of Southern France, and most of the rest, all sorts of cheese, meat, fish, ⊠are nationally produced or imported (from tropical countries).
The electricity I might use seems to come from a nearby dam, one of the nuclear power stations in the Rhone valley or from the solar or wind farms existing within a 50 km radius of the place. My heat pump is from Amzair (made in Brittany).
And the âDeveloppement Economiqueâ in the âMontpellier-Mediterranee Metropoleâ appears to rely more on local or recently set companies (Dell, Schlumberger, Eurobiomed, MedTech, Quantum Surgical, Dyneff, Urbasolar, EngieGreen, âŠ) than on âanything Germanâ.
May 29, 2021
The EU has been approaching crunch time for more than a decade but the pace has quickened, particularly since VDL as taken control of the Commission.
The issue, as ever, is the seemingly unstoppable progress towards the United States Of Europe. Those in charge in Brussels have been moving the project forward by stealth and subterfuge, starting with Draghi’s buying up of Italy and other country’s debt, a practice of doubtful legality. Merkel has looked the other way why this has gone on, despite mutterings from the Bundestag and warnings from the Constitutional Court.
Under VDL, Brussels hit on a new wheeze – the long-desired raising of cash which Brussels could distribute as it sees fit in the form of the “NextGenerationEU” fund. This is a thinly-disguised âŹ750bn fund to help recovery from the Covid Pandemic and is money raised by Brussels “on behalf” of the member states. In effect it is borrowing by the EU as an institution, something specifically prevented by the treaties and clearly at odds with the German Constitution.
The Commission would love to expand the Carbon scheme across the 27 with the the vast sums that would be raised being passed direct to Brussels to spend as it sees fit. That money is probably the only way VDL will be able to bring the member states like Hungary and Poland back into line. Naturally it would be Germany, Netherlands, Finland and Austria that would have to pick up the tab.
It’s just as well we are out otherwise we would be the second largest contributor !
The key question is whether the German Constitutional Court is prepared to flex its muscles and put a stop to it. This would be a line drawn in the sand which would bring a firm halt towards fiscal integration and the transfer union so desperately wanted by France and Italy.
I hope the German Court, on behalf of its taxpaying public will do its job.
May 29, 2021
Yes we are on the road to the Grand Federal States of the Northern Hemisphere – and in time, and probably after Putins time, it will extend in area from Portugal right across the n9rthern hemisphere to China and Japan and maybe even include China and Japan. Bound to happen
May 29, 2021
Which democrats will be in charge?
May 29, 2021
At 09.15am this morning the accurate figures are these :
Demand. 30.52GW
Generation. Nuclear 5.42 GW. 18%
Wind. 0.47GW. 2%
Solar. 4.13GW. 14%
Hydro. 0.36GW. 1%
Total carbon neutral 10.38GW. 34%
Thatâs not bad is it ? Whatâs to complain about.
May 29, 2021
Your total percentage is adds up to 69% – whats generating the other 31%
May 29, 2021
Glen, you have just proved you cannot add up: 5.42+0.47+4.13+0.36=10.38 then 10.38/30.52=0.34 so 34%. Then 66% are not from renewables, must be gas, oil âŠ
Ever checking your numbers before posting?
May 29, 2021
Percentage figures supplied – 18% + 2% + 14% + 1% + 34% = 69%
May 30, 2021
Are you really so basically innumerate? 34 is about 18+2+14+1 (to the rounding of decimals in the original figures): you are double counting things.
I hope you have never been involved in anything requiring numeracy.
I also hope you realise that the non-renewables cover not your 31% but 66%. So not only you cannot add up but the conclusion you draw is wrong by more than a factor 2. Poor England.
May 29, 2021
Even the UK falls down big time on net zero depending how it is interpreted. Is net zero based on production or consumption?
The UK Government has accounting by its actions set out to remove production out of the UK and rely on imports. So does that mean the UK is participating in ‘net zero’ or aggravating it?
May 29, 2021
But why do we want to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? It’s a death wish. Carbon dioxide is NOT causing global warming, increase concentrations in the atmosphere will occur as temperatures rise, gases become less soluble in liquids with increasing temperature – that is simple physical chemistry, so as the earth warms there will be an increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, from any source, industrial activities included, is NOT causing global warming: there were no industries producing carbon dioxide in the earth’s previous warm phases which occurred between each of the five ice ages. There were no people on the planet then let alone industries! Al Gore’s global warming nonsense is defeated by many other sensible scientific considerations as well. It’s time the people devoid of adequate science education were encouraged to abandon Gore’s alarmist mythology. Gore wasnât a scientist, I was.
May 29, 2021
Great to read comments from a scientist .
The post rational era will not come to be , if scientists like yourself refuse to be silenced.
May 29, 2021
Well Said!
May 29, 2021
Not a very good one, apparently.
May 29, 2021
I am amazed by the VW Group and its advertising of new cars. All electric and green?
The VW Group is renowned for producing its own energy from it own coal fired power stations. (they have aspirations to change, but that is the sum total of thinking) So can Goods of any description even start to plug, push, promote green credentials in use, when the production and delivery is the biggest threat to ‘net zero’?
A demonstration of flaky standards and descriptions promoted and permitted by the authorities.
May 29, 2021
Slightly O/T but related to your tweet re ‘Covid deaths’, Sir John. While I agree with your overall point, Bosnia/Herzegovina is not in the EU/EEA, as you imply it is. If you mean Europe more widely, Romania, Serbia, Germany, Greece, Croatia and Poland have higher death rates as such, according to World Factbook (cia.gov). Deaths ‘from/with Covid’ is in any case a meaningless statistic. The WHO has recognised the flaws in the PCR test mainly used as a diagnostic of Covid 19. It is time your government did too.
Overall mortality is one statistic that governments can’t really fiddle.
May 29, 2021
Net Zero is based on pure fantasy and manipulated “data”. It needs to be stopped.
May 29, 2021
DavidJ
Completely agree. Boris’s fantasy world – our nightmare, can and will be stopped at the next general election. Even if he’s no longer PM. After all who would trust a party that did nothing to remove this mad man.
May 29, 2021
I am looking forward to the complete collapse of the c o r r u p t EU which will happen sooner than many of you think. Nothing can stop what is coming, Nothing.
Wake up people.
May 29, 2021
Paul – you miss the point – being a citizen of the EU for some hundreds of millions is a matter of great pride – to be European first – it is not about money and it is not going to go away – am lucky myself to be a EU citizen with all of the freedoms – but neither could i say that I am looking forward to the complete collapse of anywhere else – as you say – including the UK – it’s a bit like this I will be riding first class you will be in third – your choice
May 29, 2021
If not money -what is it about? Lets be brutally frank? Germany lost the ww1, and then lost ww2. But it seems the rest of Europe is content to let them win the Economic War 1. France, instead of being trampled all over again, are content to try to hang on as equal partners – big mistake.
Good luck with that, mein herr.
Bye bye mein lieber Herr, farewell mein lieber Herr.
It was a fine affair, but now it’s over.
And though I used to care, I need the open air.
You’re better off without me mein Herr.
lyrics- Mein Herr.
May 29, 2021
You think you can take pride to the bank? You think pride will counteract bad policy? And talking about first an third class, what is the EU’s average unemployment rate? Nearly twice that of the UK. And for even worse news, look at youth unemployment – that’s your future sitting idle, doing nothing, earning nothing, learning nothing.
May 29, 2021
You cannot be an EU citizen Jacob
The EU isn’t a nation state.
May 30, 2021
Certainly true E2P2, but from 1 July vaccinated citizens in the various EU countries will receive a EU-wide Covid-19 vaccine (digital) certificate, valid for all EU countries.
Fortunately (and I guess not by chance) the NHS Covid vaccine digital certificate (available via the NHS app) looks almost the same as the EU one (same info on the holder, on the type of vaccine, date, manufacturer, batch number, country of vaccination, and authority delivering the vaccine), which makes the UK certificate almost (still need to be officially confirmed by the EU) guaranteed to be accepted at the EU borders.
So very good to see that UK citizens are unlikely to be refused access to the EU because of a different proof of vaccination. Having a âcommon spaceâ for this type of things is certainly a plus, donât you think so?
May 30, 2021
That doesn’t make them a citizen of the EU hef
Total fail
May 31, 2021
E2P2, do you actually read what I write before typing madly to comment back?
I started with âcertainly trueâ to your previous âyou cannot be a EU citizen Jacobâ.
Too quick out of the starter block, disqualified.
May 29, 2021
Paul
thre is no proof of anything in your statement, it has been aorund for 70 years and will be aorund for another 70 years so whre is your proof for this nonsense?
May 30, 2021
EU started in 1993
May 30, 2021
PaulC, Well, I have been wide awake since your first similar post in November 2020, and I am still waiting. So when do you expect the Second Coming to happen? As a former Scout, Iâve got to âbe preparedâ.
May 30, 2021
How witty you are heffy.
May 29, 2021
The comments here today are very short-term, which plays into the hands of pro-EU trolls, who change their stories day by day as new crises show up.
The real danger is what happens in the future. We got very close to being dragged into the euro crisis, despite not even being members, and we ended up lending the Eurozone very significant amounts of money.
As a World financial centre, the UK is always in danger of getting too mixed up with EU finances, and that can lead to disaster because the eurozone simply does not understand economics, which they interpret as mercantilism.
Can we be sure that the UK Government has contingency plans for keeping the UK from getting too entangled with the eurozone and its banking system as its budget crisis gradually unfolds?