Yesterday the government launched its strategy for cutting the carbon dioxide output caused by heating buildings. They wish to promote heat pumps, and will offer grants of ÂŁ5000 to people willing to install these devices who meet their criteria. The details of the scheme will be announced prior to a launch in the spring of next year.
They also reiterated their strategy of banning all new petrol and diesel cars from sale in the UK after 2030, preferring universal adoption of new electric vehicles where people are buying new.
I pointed out that for this strategy to work the UK would need to generate all its electricity by approved green means, as otherwise we would simply burn the fossil fuel in the power stations prior to running homes and cars on electricity. As we are often still relying for 60% of our electricity on fossil fuels when the wind does not blow and there is not much sun that is going to take a major investment in new green capacity that will work when the weather is not helpful to certain renewables.
The Minister in reply did not promise a major expansion of green generation from reliable power sources. He did not comment on the possible shortfall in electrical power if the government is successful in getting widespread adoption of fuel pumps and electric cars. He did say the government sees gas as a transition fuel which clearly will do a lot of the work in generating power and heating buildings for at least this decade. Nor did the Minister answer those who asked when it was going to commission more nuclear power. This is reliable carbon free power, but we face the reduction in the amount of nuclear produced over the rest of this decade as old nuclear power stations are closed. down. This will add to the difficulties of supplying enough green power this decade.
Tomorrow I will set out again more of the ways the government can act now to ensure we have sufficient generating capacity and sufficient access to gas as transition fuel for this decade, whilst they put in place the major investments in reliable green electricity they will need for the next decade and beyond. They need to announce new nuclear, new small nuclear, more biomass more hydro and pump storage and more battery storage and hydrogen conversion for wind energy when the wind does blow well.
October 20, 2021
What ever we do it is minuscule to what China,India,Brazil will do.
October 20, 2021
Net zero is all window dressing. The government’s unrealistic response to the threat of global warming prove that like most of us they don’t take the doomsday scenario seriously. Most of us just want to get on with our lives.
October 20, 2021
All the new green jobs going to China.
They even ship the concrete bases for wind turbines.
The 20 year subsidy for one German wind farm ends this year and won’t be renewed so turbines are being decommissioned as not financially viable.
Green energy required lifelong subsidies. No mention of that.
October 20, 2021
I hear the document is titled The Road To Ruin.
October 20, 2021
+1
October 20, 2021
This Government under the clown is a special kind of stupid. Carrie on Boris. All very funny until the lights go out and the Bill’s arrive.
October 20, 2021
John mentions biomass but that must be grown in the United Kingdom not shipped in which nullifies any advantage of using it.
October 21, 2021
It also takes too many acres from food production. Chatham House have just produced a very well researched study on BECCS as proposed by Drax and the CCC. They find that it would take 27â31 per cent of the UKâs current agricultural land area, a substantial proportion that could have implications for food supply chains.
Their study also shows that the costs of the system are frankly unaffordable (power at more than twice the price of Hinkley Point requiring massive subsidies), and yet it still would produce significant CO2 leakage when you examine the whole supply chain. Of course, proper costing and feasibility evaluation has been absent from anything published by the CCC.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/2021-09/2021-10-01-beccs-deployment-quiggin.pdf
October 20, 2021
@Ian Wragg; “Green energy required lifelong subsidies. No mention of that.”
Indeed but perhaps it is best not trying using that as an argument against so called renewalbles, given that nuclear also require life long (and post life) subsidies. Of course the difference with nuclear is its reliability to supply during the reactors life.
October 20, 2021
The direct answer to JRâs question is we do not it is a stupid idea born from illogical political ideology without substance or proof. Therefore the answer is to get rid of Johnson ASAP. Cummings comments today about SPADs being embarrassed what their depts write and they have to sign off. As he points out the govt is not governing!
Johnson is so besotted with his latest squeeze you could imagine him going back in time living in a cave, no fur clothes she wants to ban them, no log fire either, logs should be banned. So sitting there together naked in the dark, cold and covered in bat shi.. wondering how they caught COVID!
That is stupid Johnson for you.
October 21, 2021
+1
October 20, 2021
Indeed.
Plus the solutions proposed wind, electric cars, green hydrogen, heat pumps, biofuels, public transport, cycling, walking ⊠are vastly expensive and save trivial or no CO2 anyway.
Keeping your old car rather than causing a new EV and battery to be built actually saves CO2 so why pay/bribe people to cause new EVs and short lived batteries to be made? Importing wood to burn at Drax emits more CO2 than burning coal or gas would. Walking and cycling fuelled as they are by human food are not CO2 efficient either.
The government agenda make no sense at all unless you are a vested interest on the make. The BBC R4 coverage and non questioning of it yesterday was a disgrace.
Plus CO2 not a serious problem anyway a little more plant, tree and crop food is a net positive in greening the planet and world cooperation is a pipe dream.
.
October 20, 2021
When I say the BBC radio 4 coverage was a disgrace the problem was that the MPs and climate committee types do not understand energy engineering/economics and nor did the BBC art graduate interviewers. Then capped off by companies (largely on the make from government grants etc.) who sell and fit heat pumps. These companies, needless to say, pretending the technology is very good and will fall hugely in price hugely as volumes increase.
The reason volumes are low now is that the technology is generally far too expensive and very impractical especially in retro fit situations.
So a totally one sided discussion with loads of misinformation, ignorance and zero reality or balance. But such is the BBC. Had they been discussing Mozart or Beowulf they would probably have found an impartial expert on the topic but not for heating systems, climate realism or energy it seems.
October 21, 2021
âHow do you get to net zero?â
Why would you want to? The solutions being pushed do not work anyway even just in CO2 terms and furthermore we would need worldwide cooperation which will not happen.
R&D is fine (mainly in better nuclear, batteries, artificial fuel manufacture methods & fuel cells – I would suggest in the main) roll out of duff/premature technology by subsidy or law is idiotic and hugely damaging. It mainly just exports jobs, the related CO2 production and makes people poorer.
October 20, 2021
Quite, in time UK measures will be used in dictionaries to illustrate the term “Ostentation”
October 20, 2021
@Bob Dixon +1 the very parts of the World we have exported UK pollution to. They get to supply the UK with products produced by most polluting methods and the ship them back to the UK in the most polluting way. In the meantime these actions by the UK Government feeds and increases World Pollution, and guess what its the UK taxpayer that is funding the problem creation
October 20, 2021
ââgreen is good, green is right, green worksââ maybe but its not democratic nor economic
People voted in the last election for a Conservative Party and not the Green Party
October 21, 2021
No – not good, right and does not even work in general either. Though it depends or how you define âgreenâ. The war on CO2 is clearly insane.
CO2 plant, tree and crop food is what greens the planet wonderfully a huge net positive. Chlorophyll is the key component in the process of photosynthesis, which sustains plant life and produces oxygen for the entire planet. Converting the CO2 into plant, wood, food, fuel ⊠and Oxygen. It is green.
October 20, 2021
China have, in fact, just announced that they are going to INCREASE coal production, to 12 million tonnes per DAY! And we are wasting billions and billions of pounds to cut our already minuscule and utterly INSIGNIFICANT CO2 output! We are governed by politicians who are – quite literally – mentally retarded. How can any sane person vote for these lunatics?
October 20, 2021
Sky News â ââJust 10 rivers are carrying 90% of the plastic entering the oceans, a study has found. Two of them are in Africa – the Nile and the Niger – while the others are in Asia: the Indus, Ganges, Amur, Mekong, Pearl, Hai he, Yellow and Yangtze.ââ
How is my having to buy a heat pump going to help stop these countries of Africa and Asia polluting the oceans ?
October 20, 2021
I shall look forward to reading your proposals, which I know will be carefully thought out – and balanced. But how disappointing to read that just before COP26, George Eustice the SoS “Environment” will recommend rejection of all the recent reforms made to the Environment Bill by the House of Lords. The proposed amendments would have given greater protection to the remaining fragments of ancient woodland in Engand and a legal duty on the water companies to reduce sewage damage to our rivers and beaches, among other helpful changes
The government proposes to estabish yet another large toothess QUANGO – the “Office for Environmental Protection” to “monitor progress on improving the environment” The proposals in the Environment Bill will do little to protect our environment, but will legalise the destruction of our rivers, coastal areas etc to increase the profits of the foreign owned water companies and their shareholders.
Useless Eustice has done nothing whatsoever since the 2019 election to reduce damage to the environment in which we all live. He should hang his head in shame, and consider his position.
October 20, 2021
+1
But he is following orders.
Destruction is the day job now âŠand probably always has been.
October 20, 2021
Agree – With the preeminence of decarbonisation the current focus of our government is in compliance with the net zero Paris Agreement and adopting the conclusions of the UN IPCC, while ignoring the protection of our nature, ecosystem and landscape
We canât spend money on repairing ancient woodland, maintain public walkways, dredging canals and rivers nor manage our forestry etc as all the money has been spent on domestic heat pump subsidy
Environmentalists are now deemed second class to Climate Change Crusaders
October 20, 2021
+1 SG.
October 20, 2021
I see the need not to rely on endless fossil fuels, but when will we have viable alternatives, rather than wishful thinking. I am not convinced that ‘green’ power is actually green at all, and I have yet to be convinced that reducing CO2 will solve anything, let alone our climate.
The lack of affordable power and heating may well help reduce the influx of illegal immigrants from warmer climes. Oh, silly me, they don’t pay any of the bills, do they?
October 20, 2021
+1
Is it about power though really?
Seems to me it is more about a HUGE transfer of wealth.
We, the ordinary people, will no longer have the right to anything.
And it is probably worse even than that!
October 20, 2021
You are right so called green power isnât green – see Planet of the Humans, now on You Tube, by Michael Moore, a man of the Left who the eco zealots have also even condemned. If only there were MPs who challenge the very basis of this madness and its lack of scientific rigour. Proposals to help achieve an âElectric Revolutionâ tacitly accept the flawed basis of Net Zero and condemn us to a future of ever increasing costs and economic decline.
October 20, 2021
CO2 in the atmosphere is an essential part of the food chain. Below about 150ppm photosynthesis stops, plants don’t grow. In recent decades the rise in CO2 has promoted the greening of deserts, visible from satellite imagery. People own greenhouses, CO2 at c900 ppm, to grow their tomatoes faster.
CO2 has been demonised in order to attack car ownership and the consumption of resources required to sustain growth of the car market. That is why the EU Commission unwisely decided to promote diesel cars about 20 years ago. The UK government joined in. This in turn produced its own environmental problems. Politicians are, mostly, clueless about the consequences of their actions to tax, subsidise or regulate life. This PM and government is no different. There will be more squander bug spending with unintended consequences.
The predictions of a rise in global temperatures because of a rise in CO2 is unsupported by evidence. The so called models that predict this are all over the place, fail to work when applied to historic data and are doomed to fail because they cannot predict cloud formation. Earlier this century a scientist pointed, in the science section of an IPCC report, that the climate is a chaotic system that cannot be predicted. His voice was drowned out by the propagandists.
October 20, 2021
The lack of affordable heating may well rid us of stupid arts graduate politicians and make way for some science and engineering types.
October 21, 2021
What sensible good scientist or engineer would want to go into a parliament where all but a tiny handful voted for the insane climate change act, support net zero & the war on a lie, the counterproductive, hugely extended lockdown, banned fracking, like tax rates of over 100% ⊠also where you almost have to routinely lie to get elected.
October 20, 2021
Shirley. Another 860 came over from France in 3 days. Border force didn’t go out to them as the weather was too bad so they sent the RNLI out to do their work for them. Apparently these VOLUNTEERS are resigning. Who can blame them?
October 20, 2021
Are you sure about those facts, as it wasn’t reported on either the BBC or Sky
October 20, 2021
“endless fossil fuels” is an oxymoron.
October 20, 2021
Good morning.
” . . . more ways . . . “
I can only think of ‘one’, and that ‘one’ our kind host will not mention. It is the ‘one’ that is at the root cause of all of this insanity and green fanaticism. It is of course, The Climate Change Act.
Looking, listening and reading on this matter one is struck by the similarities between the, High Priests and Priestess of EnviroMENTALism and the same in the Aztec Empire. I reproduce from an article describing the practice of human sacrifice to their god, believing as they do, such things will save them. The most troubling thing that I read, was that the victims went happily to their deaths. The similarities between these ancient people, whose civilization is now extinct, and that of our own draws some uncomfortable parallels.
October 20, 2021
Was it the gruesome way in which I explained how the Aztec’s despatched their willing victims, or the mention of the Elephant in the room, The Climate Change Act, that got this moderated ?
đ
October 20, 2021
One probably has to die?
Or everyone on the planet has to. Rendering the whole shebang a bit pointless.
October 20, 2021
We didn’t vote for this crap. It’s being imposed after Johnson squirmed into No.10 and THEN post-GE declared his adoration and commitment to all things that the Tories simply DO NOT BELIEVE IN
It is quite simple. Your party, many of its MPs and the party leadership have sold us down the river, deceived their supporters and is now hoping we don’t notice what their grubby, filthy game is
It is simply not good enough for Tory MPs to endorse this collectivist, progressive politics by suggesting alternatives without threatening to bring down what is essentially Socialism
The abuse of the taxpayer by Johnson and Sunak using sovereign debt to hide the true cost of this systemic revolution in our we live our lives is deceitful, vile and utterly reprehensible
Johnson won’t be around in the next decade but the damage he will leave behind will cripple the people of this nation
This PM is without question the worst of any PMs we have had to endure since the party brought down Thatcher
October 20, 2021
Great post Dom. Agree Johnson is the worst PM ever. This country is doomed.
October 20, 2021
DOM, I strongly agree with the comments you made.
October 21, 2021
The problems we face now are a direct result of New Labour and its policies. Namely – The Climate Change Act.
October 20, 2021
The government is already at ‘Net Zero’ – for scientific understanding. I’m enjoying ‘Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom’ by Dr Patric Moore, a refugee from the higher, lunatic reaches of Greenpeace. The chapter I am on at the moment makes the point that global temperatures have been going up for the past THREE HUNDRED YEARS – and that the CO2 level has lagged the temperature rise, so is more effect than cause. So I would urge you, and other MPs, to read the book, or similar ones, look at Johnson’s performance yesterday – and then send in either men in white coats to treat him, or the SAS to rescue him.
October 20, 2021
Fully agree with your conclusion
October 21, 2021
+1
October 20, 2021
Good Morning,
The objective is to keep the average world temperature increase to less than 1.5 deg. C above the average of ‘pre-industrial period’ world temperature whatever that is, by reducing CO2 emmissions.
Here’s the problem: World population in 1850’s, was @ 1.25 billion people. We are now a over 7.7 billion people. We all exhale CO2… Go figure.
October 20, 2021
And hereâs the second problem â only around 10 climate academics came to the conclusion of the target temperature increase of 1.5 degreeâŠ..and the rest of the climate change crusaders just jumped onto the gravy train
October 21, 2021
Most of that population growth has been in India, China and Africa. So what is your solution ?
October 20, 2021
I must say âŠit is quite satisfying seeing the comments on various MSM articles this morning.
In response to the latest raid on our wealth âŠever more taxes proposed so we can go even greener âŠfolk are realising how poor this will all make us. Bring back coal they say.
What they havenât woken up to is the fact that the entire point was always to swipe all our assets this time. Many attempts over the centuries but this is the big one ( being global).
And I canât really see how MPs etc can escape it since they will not be needed in the futureâŠ..
âGreenâ was a word used to mean naive, young, stupid. As in green goose.
October 21, 2021
+1
October 20, 2021
There are no votes in commanding people to live in a cold house and only have tepid hot water.
Thirty years ago we didnât have the internet or mobile phones. With todayâs technology we can easily solve problems that would have been impossible thirty years ago. Take COVID, without broadband to the home and online shopping, it would have been impossible for so many people to work from home.
In thirty years we will also have new technologies that are unimaginable now.
Use tomorrowâs technology to solve tomorrowâs problems.
It is arrogant and absurd to think that we have the capability today to solve tomorrowâs problem.
And futile to try.
All we can do is impoverish ourselves and destroy our way of life by wasting investments (that themselves damage the environment – look at the concrete and steel in wind turbines) in expensive equipment that wonât work, and even in its own terms will be obsolete within that thirty year period.
Blue should be better than Green, and balance zealotism with pragmatism.
October 20, 2021
Sir J,
Just one question. Why does the Government see the need to be a global leader in the race to carbon zero?
As others say, we are a small part of the problem and UK at zero is for nothing if USA, China, Germany, et al don’t follow.
October 20, 2021
Iâm sick to the back teeth hearing about this zero carbon nonsense. Itâs put out on adverts etc so often⊠what is the emergency? Is the world going to implode, explode, catch fire, what?
Climate change is not caused by humans, so why are the greenies trying to play God?
And the timing to push it so hard, stinks. Talk about catch you when youâre down, on the back of the disaster caused by lockdowns.
The cost is phenomenal⊠several £trillion and counting
If this is not part of the Great Reset Iâll be surprised. Phase II?
October 21, 2021
They are not Green, they are Red. This is about wealth transfer, nothing else.
October 20, 2021
For me thereâs far to much on this climate change rubbish , why should we suffer paying till we die when the likes of china Brazil India continue to burn fossil fuels because they are not stupid and taken in by the likes of Greta and her frontal lobotomy followers , the likes of all these climate change muppets wonât be satisfied till weâre living in caves and living off leaves and berries to survive
October 20, 2021
And when net zero is apparently achieved, what will be the next demon to be conjured up by the catastrophe addicts and very apparent hypocrites?
October 20, 2021
+1
October 20, 2021
According to a comment I read the commenterâs council has just felled over 1000 trees for biomass.
Is that a good idea?
Facilitating the madness by suggesting ways and means of achieving it only commits us to greater taxes and controls.
As someone saidâŠwe need a political party to OPPOSE greensh*tery.
Isnât it nice to see ODL glittering around with his uber rich mates?
Aaaaaaaah!
October 20, 2021
So they have set out their strategy, no harm in that but setting defined targets without any idea of how to meet them is not a strategy, it is a wish list and whilst I am supportive of where they want to get to, no idea on how to roll it out is ridiculous.
Boris is rolling it out, not fit for purpose, as a virtue signalling exercise prior to COP.
And in terms of not fit for purpose, the Governments booster jab programme is failing. It is of course now back in the hands of the bureaucratic NHS so zero surprise, as is their attempts to blame us for slow take up.
The new Minister in charge is anonymous and inexperienced so again why should we be surprised.
It is clear from the Select Committeeâs report that the elderly and care homes were âignoredâ leading to unnecessary deaths and it is happening all over again as we see infection and death rates rise.
When will âyouâ bloody learn, take action and do something important like saving lives.
October 20, 2021
Yesterday was another grim one for the state of our disintegrating parliamentary democracy. No vote was taken on the continuation of the Coronavirus Act and yet it is to continue for another 6 months. If a vote should be held for continuation of this Act how, constitutionally, can it be still in force? Or are MPs so blasé about their constitutional roles as to have no regard for the liberty and freedom of those they were elected to represent?
Reply A vote was taken by the chair rightly judging the House wanted the measure by a large majority as no Opposition party opposed it. As one who did oppose I accept it carried overwhelmingly.
October 20, 2021
I would rather have seen names taken down. I’m worried that we are headed towards another lockdown because the government has done away with sensible public hygiene measures and, seemingly, has cut back on advertising on the subject. Going about my business I see many people acting as though COVID has gone away; it hasn’t.
October 20, 2021
There should have been a vote but as we now live under an elective dictatorship nothing surprises me except the fact that MPs aren’t prepared to defend the democratic rights and freedom of their constituents.
October 20, 2021
Reply to reply
The whole thing looked and sounded disgraceful.
Thanks for voting against it!
October 20, 2021
Shows the calibre of our MP’s.
October 20, 2021
I’m sorry Sir John, that’s just not acceptable.
This is something that may well affect all of those that live in the United Kingdom and just because a vote may be lost is not good enough reason to not have it, those that don’t support it need to go on record as being against it.
October 20, 2021
BT
Agree, for something which is so important, with such huge ramifications for the public and business, I would have thought a vote at least should have taken place, I have viewed the proceedings on line, what a bloody sick joke our Parliament has become.
Reply The Chair can decide support is so strong for a proposition there is no point in holding a division. That was the case on CV19 regs, which were debated with I and others urging their ending.
October 20, 2021
Reply-Reply
Sorry John, view it on Youtube, it looks like a comedy farce to me.
Hardly clear when the shout had to be made twice, with the Deputy Speaker then joking about how loud some people were shouting.
You may well be right that the majority were for more restrictions, but why for the of sake of saving just 10 mins not make them all vote for it, so that it is properly recorded.
October 20, 2021
Sir John, thank you. You were one of only 76 MPs opposed to the continuation of the ’emergency powers’ granted by the Coronavirus Act 2020 and bestowed upon this Government – and thereby upon its carefully selected ‘experts’.
With less than 1% of those who contract Covid-19 actually dying, and those in that minuscule percentage being mostly very elderly and vulnerable, or others with comorbidities, there is absolutely no reason to extend these powers. (One can only guess at what lies in store for us over the next six months.)
So sad that we lost David Amess needlessly. He was, like yourself, one of the few, and increasingly rare, principled MPs. No wonder he was a friend of yours. Belatedly, my sincerest condolences.
Mary M.
October 20, 2021
Apart from you Sir John, and a few others, the electors have few friends in the House. Government by dictat?p!
October 20, 2021
In all my years I’ve never felt so distance and disconnected from our government and MPs
October 20, 2021
Reply to SJR Reply
If nobody is prepared to stand up and raise issues, then its not really a democracy it becomes an autocracy. And why does it need to be the Opposition, why not you or any other MP ?
Reply There were shouts of No but not sufficient to justify a vote.
October 20, 2021
Those in favour should still have been recorded through the lobbies Sir John
October 20, 2021
@Brian Tomkinson; More worryingly, apparently, no amendments could be tabled…
October 20, 2021
Barely a day after the disgraceful nodding through of the Coronadictatorship Act by a sparsely-occupied chamber of laughing MPs, Sky News has gone into overdrive in its calls for the Government to implement ‘Plan B’ immediately. Other mass media outlets are scaremongering about a supposed wave of ‘cases’ and the projected fallout on ‘our’ NHS, despite the Nightingale hospitals being dismantled and wards being closed. I suspect that we are overdue in adopting social credit passports to facilitate the Great Reset, and our globalist masters are getting inpatient.
October 20, 2021
But we do not know which are people votes or how many sensibly would have oppose it. Was it more than 10, 20, 50 sound MPs?
October 21, 2021
But we do not know which way MPs would have voted nor how many would sensible have opposed it. (Is what I meant to say).
October 20, 2021
Hydrogen as a fuel sounds attractive. However it is highly explosive, it is corrosive and has an effect that makes many metals brittle and prone to fracture and thus failure, rubber and plastics are also damaged in similar ways. Thus storage and transportation is a problem, and so would be in the vehicle, and what materials would the engine be made from where high temperatures exist too. Can it be made without energy from fossil fuels in sufficient quantity and at a realistic cost?
October 21, 2021
H2 sounds superficially attractive only to people who do not know anything about it. We have no hydrogen mines and making it is either vastly expensive and energy wasteful (green hydrogen) or produces lots of CO2 and is energy wasteful too. Not that CO2 is a real problem anyway. Methane is far more sensible and practical in eneral and we have lots of it.
October 21, 2021
Ordinary old coal gas was about 50% hydrogen, John, but we managed with that for decades, with the then technology too, didn’t we?
You’re just making up excuses.
October 21, 2021
Wrong again NHL
We dont mine enough coal any more to create sufficient coal gas.
October 20, 2021
I very much doubt that the Green Lunatics’ ambition to Tax Us ‘Til the Pips Squeak, so that Johnson and the current Mrs Johnson can posture and virtue-signal to the world, will be any more successful than the last attempt. The claim that we must do this because our ancestors made the “Original Sin” of starting the Industrial Revolution is the kind of statement you expect from a Religious Zealot, not a supposedly intelligent Prime Minister.
The Government’s statement yesterday was basically a warning that you will be made colder, poorer and your quality of life will be further reduced ….. and it won’t affect the climate one iota.
I don’t intend participating in the scam, and none of the Lib Lab Green CON will get my vote.
October 20, 2021
They’re certainly taking the fun out of life
October 21, 2021
Donna
Correct. It will not affect the climate. And I tell you what ! It won’t affect them either.
October 20, 2021
Ps. I see NHS chiefs want to implement lock down etc again. If they did their job properly it wouldnât be necessary. Throw money at them, get nothing back just like the Doctors.
Useless Ministers/Mandarins with zero performance management ability.
October 20, 2021
+1
A key remark NIG L
October 20, 2021
I don’t like the idea of posting in support of the NHS – it’s a fundamentally flawed institution – BUT the NHS spokesman on the Today programme said that the overwhelming proportion of Covid patients in Intensive Care are the unvaccinated.
The government would have been better introducing vaccine passports and other factors to force more people to take up the vaccine. Why are we having to pay thousands of pounds treating those that choose not to be vaccinated when the cost of a jab is less than ÂŁ20. If they had to pay for their own medical treatment you can be sure they would have taken up two free vaccinations.
October 21, 2021
Christmas and the New Year is a busy time for the NHS.
October 20, 2021
As your government wishes to punish taxpayers for being progeny of the Iron Bridge creators (does that mean that different ethnicities within our multicultural society will now be taxed differently?) how long will it be before we are taxed because our ancestors had the gall to walk upright?
I find your government more nauseating each day Sir John. Party of aspiration indeed.
October 20, 2021
+9 Painless plan – who is Boris kidding!
October 20, 2021
Another keyboard critic who hides behind anonymity.
No respect at all. You should have the courage if your convictions to identify yourself.
October 20, 2021
Another freedom you and your ilk wish to suppress Michael?
October 20, 2021
I think the Government is in absolute fantasy land, the opposition are in fantasy land plus.
All are absolutely clueless with regards to the problem, the solution, the cost, and the timescale.
October 20, 2021
+9
October 20, 2021
Spot On Alan
October 20, 2021
+1
October 20, 2021
Those at the top at clueless, its cold deliberate treason
October 20, 2021
Alan Jutson
Today I have been fortunate enough to be working in a property where the owner is living “the dream ” regarding his grandson eco project.
Ground Source Heat Pumps, 300 and 500 thermal stores acting as bn
Uffers to ensure adequate hot water supply, solid wall external insulation, new windows.and the complete upgrading of the heating system to compensate for the lower temperatures in other word the dogs #### everything to meet the green dream.
Total cost ÂŁ93k but will get a third back through the government’s (taxpayer funded) grants.The latest government offer he fills is pitiful. Is he saving money on running costs? No. What is his honest opinion on what is trying to be done? I quote “a load of b#####ks totally out of reach for the average man in the street. He states nothing but nothing has been done to ensure the infrastructure is in place to ensure security of the electrical supply capable of meeting the anticipated demand.
It is just another fear campaign dreamed up by politicians who do not have a clue what they are dealing with.
Thus spoke the voice of knowledge of a man in a position to speak on the subject from hard paid experience .
October 20, 2021
Agreed ! The Green agenda is designed for smiley face headlines now, and to Greenwash the Party that inflicted Brexit on us. As ever ,( See debt , N Ireland ), they will make the future pay for their present. It only takes John Redwood to ask simple questions and King Boris appears in all his blubbersome nakedness as a Bunteresque fraud whose environmental concern was discovered a week ago.
We need affordable and practical Green policies not self congratulation, debt, fake jobs, and grands projets.
400,000 new jobs ? Fantastic ! We could use ‘elastic band power’ and create millions of winding up jobs if that worked . The Conservative Party used to complain that Labour started from a sensible Keynesian borrowing for investment and ended up chucking cash at any old boondoggle. That Party is no more, it is deceased.(etc)
The Green agenda is boondoggle City and I support Sir John`s unanswerable objections
October 20, 2021
“How do you get to net zero”
Simple, destroy any remaining manufacturing we have. Allow the old, vulnerable and poor to freeze to death and financially cripple both the population and the country.
When you have achieved this, you will have removed 1% of Co2 from the atmosphere. 1% of .04%.
Meanwhile China, India, America will continue to increase Co2 output rendering our expensive reduction meaningless.
Oh! and Brazil will continue to destroy the rain forest while you are busy planting silver birch around housing estates.
Madness……………………
October 20, 2021
Kwasi Kwarteng on this morning voicing the opinion that the price of heat pumps will drop as they are taken up.
How so? I ask. Heat pumps are based on mature technology. They are made of mainly steel, which is going to cost more as energy costs go up.
A heat pump might be a good solution for heating our unit, which currently uses electric heaters. We put them in because of the cost of a boiler, pipes and radiators. The thing is, a heat pump still needs pipes and radiators to work.
October 20, 2021
Dave Andrews : “The thing is, a heat pump still needs pipes and radiators to work.”
Heat pumps in fact need bigger pipes and radiators over conventinal gas boilers so the cost of the heat pump itself only represents a third or even a quarter of the total bill for installation. They also use immersion heaters for the hot water.
It’s informative to go to YouTube and watch a video made by an installer. Search for :
“This is Why Heat Pumps May NOT Be The Future.”
October 20, 2021
OR
Heat pumps also require a lot of electricity to run, then you need more electricity to power a separate hot water system to feed the bathroom and kitchen.
Has any government Minister actually thought this through at all ?
Has any Government Minister actually questioned this green policy in any meaningful way at all ?
October 20, 2021
PS : Heat Pumps :
I’ve also learned that they need to be on 24/7 to provide sufficient heating. This means noisy fans running all night long and they are very slow to react to outdoor temperature changes (which can easily happen in the UK) and demands to change indoor temperatures such as between daytime and night time temperatures.
October 22, 2021
Very interesting video, from a practical and experienced installer of heat pumps.
His suggestion that there will be a future industry built around âHave you been mis-sold a Heat Pumpâ, was an aspect I had not considered.
Thank you for the link.
October 20, 2021
It might be possible to reduce the cost of heat pumps to, maybe, a few thousand pounds, but the actual cost to buy a replacement gas boiler for the average house is only about ÂŁ700. ( Most people are grossly overcharged when they have a replacement fitted ).
What won’t come down is the huge cost of the installation. The cost to rip out the old pipes and radiators and install much larger pipes and radiators will be enormous – especially when it requires concrete floors to be chunked up. It will probably require a great deal of redecoration as well.
The disruption and cost to householders will be immense.
October 20, 2021
I imagine that even if the price of heat pumps come down (and why should it as they will be mandatory purchases) the price of installing them wonât.
October 21, 2021
There isn’t much scope for heat pump prices to fall. They’re a collection of pipes, valves, pumps and fans and a heat exchanger. All old technology that has long ago been optimised. It’s wishful thinking that ignores reality.
October 20, 2021
I’ve just replaced my boiler and fitted new radiators. 95% of the pipework is new too. So, effectively, a new central heating system powered by a condensing combi boiler. To be honest the work was done at the same time as other bits of work so extracting the exact price is not easy. I would be fairly sure it cost me about ÂŁ4k to have done. Compared to heating my home using electric radiators I estimated that my new central heating system would pay for itself in 6 years. The boiler is guaranteed for 10 years so i figured gas central heating is still by far the most sensible option.
Even so, I’d consider an air source heat pump if it is practical in terms of actually heating a tank of hot water reasonably quickly and keeping my home warm on a cold winter’s day.
October 20, 2021
He believes that they will be like smart phones. Eventually, they will cost 100 pounds and will fit in your pocket.
October 20, 2021
If the price of heat pumps will drop as they are taken up won’t many wait for that so the price won’t drop?
Also the need to insulate very well means no opening of triple glazed windows for air, let alone fresh air so many will fall ill with few doctors to help. Sounds like an interesting future.
If anyone is interested to read about ‘is it climate change?’ might like to read the ‘Right as Rain’ article in ‘The spectator’ of 21 Aug this year by Simon Cooper describing violent weather happenings from 100s of years ago in a book titled, ‘The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Weather book’ .
October 20, 2021
Hopeful sanity will return post COP26, the need for Boris, family, and his cabinet to grandstand will end, after all so far only dates (plucked out of the ether it would seem, as our host sort of points out…) have been announced, and we all know appointments can move, or even be cancelled altogether.
Funny how those complaining about the effects of burning fossil fuels on an industrial scale are the ones who object to returning to a pre industrial age climate, surely if they want to keep the climate ‘cool’ as it was recorded 100-150 years ago we actually need more CO2, more pollutants, after all do not high atmosphere particulates not reflect UV etc. from the sun, similar to the way tin foil can be used to reflect radar.
Just look at any photo from the 1920-30s taken outside, other than high summer, it is very common for people to appear clothed in heavy overcoats and hats, yet much of the world has been cutting it use of fossil fuels (due to more efficient use) for at least 70 of the last 100 years! If ice sheets never flowed in to the seas, if ice ice shelves never used to break up, how come the Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg.
Or am I miss-thinking all this?
October 20, 2021
Having listened to our PM yesterday, it struck me that his policies would achieve net zero, only problem is that will be net zero Conservative Mps after the next election.
October 20, 2021
Kwartang this morning comparing iphone and ipad purchases to purchases of heat pumps and electric cars. People choosing to buy things is one thing, Government bribing (with tax payers money) people or forcing them by law to buy things they do not want and do not really work is not quite the same Kwasi!
DRIVERS even being offered ÂŁ3,000 to give up their cars in the West Midlands. They can then use the grant to take alternative forms of transport like trains and taxis. But what is a taxi but a less efficient and more expensive car (often travelling a double journey for the same effect) and needing a paid driver. Far less efficient than a car. Train often very inefficient too when fully considered staff, track, stations, ticketingâŠ
Even less incentives to work if you get ÂŁ3000 plus your benefits why bother?
October 20, 2021
It is insane politically, like the ERM and the Poll Tax combined but 20 times larger with lots of frozen OAPs thrown in for good measure.
October 20, 2021
Dear John. Do please research the arguments about CO2 and climate. Since 1850 the rise in CO2 nowhere correlates with global temperature (the âpauseâ remember -and elsewhere) and will inexorably continue to rise at about 2ppm a year as it has for the last forty. Greta Thunbergâs dream industrial crash caused by Covid had no effect whatever on the fine detail of the sawtooth rise recorded at Moana Loa. Sawtooth âcos northern hemisphere vegetation season. Do look it up. Meanwhile 40 years of satellite measurement show globe to be warming at 1.3degsC a century. IPCC models are exploded by modern science. There has been no change in the weather. For forty years every alarmist scare story from polar bears to the Great Barrier Reef has failed. Donât get me going on the ad hominems you denier.
October 20, 2021
Indeed – but the rest of parliament are just as obsessed with this – so no change for us
October 20, 2021
Good. The liblabcon need teaching a lesson
Much low hanging fruit for the Reform Party.
October 21, 2021
@Ian Wragg; “Much low hanging fruit for the Reform Party.”
Any future Reform Party, at least one with policies you would support, will be as successful as UKIP were, at best an irrelevance, at worst doing nothing more than allowing an even more pro climate change coalition, more than likely also having an agenda to re-join the EU, if not an outright manifesto pledge.
The idea Conservative votes will switch their alliances in droves is down the garden path with the fairies, 2010-15 was a lesson hard learnt!
October 20, 2021
+1
October 20, 2021
90% of UK available heat pumps are imported either complete or as components. So the Government has simply exported UK pollution, to some of the countries that are not dancing to this Governments tune on saving the planet. That means to some of the Countries that are the Worlds biggest polluters already and have no intention of putting their economies at risk to play along. This Government in this ‘virtue signal’ wants the ‘UK taxpayer’ to fund extra World pollution than would have been achieved by doing nothing – you couldn’t make it up.
So more World pollution is being created with funding by the UK taxpayer, while the UK people get to loose jobs and livelihood, pay even more taxes and have the wealth, health, safety and security of the Nation pulled from under them.
The above is compounded in a similar way with both solar and wind energy generation. More World pollution greater taxes, reduced wealth.
It would be more creditable, more honest and in keeping with the asperation if we were to stop importing goods from Countries that had greater emissions than the UK. Although the flaw there is, there would be no imports to waste what little money we have left on. Its the duplicity and hypocrisy of Boris that we should worry about not World pollution.
The HoC in this – playing along for fear of going against the MsM and the ‘great reset’ playbook
October 20, 2021
Government are on a ride to hell in a hand cart both practically and politically. It is government by mantra with very little recognition of the science, engineering, or practical realities. When the electorate realise the full financial burden which will fall on them plus of course their freedom of movement it will be bye bye Boris.
He is getting away with it for two reasons. First any opposition in the HoC is emasculated and inward looking. Second there are few free thinkers in his own party, the majority prefer to stay on the greasy pole. They look on bullshit Boris as an election winner, mistakenly when the electorate realise the cost to them.
October 20, 2021
What a dire state of affairs. The only opposition to this madness seems to be from the public who have to pay for it and from a group of Tory MPs – all power to their elbows. Hopefully they will have the same effect that a similar group had on David Cameron on a referendum for Brexit. All pollution is obviously detrimental but to think that humans can control nature is beyond belief.
October 20, 2021
A Government ‘Honest’ about its ‘global warming’ intentions would ban all electric cars from being imported into the UK were their manufacture is taking place in countries that do not match or better UK current emissions.
That wont happen, pollution outside of the UK’s just 1% is not real pollution. Better the World to suffer greater world warming funded by the UK taxpayer than to be ‘Honest’ and have a ‘real’ plan.
October 20, 2021
Never mind what the government say to the cameras – hasn’t anybody seen the published report they commissioned?
UKFIRES have done the dirty work – link to full report from: http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/news/absolute-zero
We achieve net-zero by destroying our society as we know it – Two examples, based on what we know of government intention:
– airports will close;
– imports by sea will be drastically reduced as the Co2 usage will count against us.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-calls-for-zero-global-shipping-emissions-by-2050-as-greenest-ever-london-international-shipping-week-begins
Never mind that climate change is a figment of the collective socialist establishment imagination and that they intend to take us back to the dark ages, literally, this is all more treachery from a government that has not just lost its way, it has deliberate intent.
Never mind that we won’t be able to drive around in our useless electric cars – Production and innovation will be impossible as factories will be deprived of power…
When a society stops getting bigger and better it will go the other way – We will collapse in on ourselves, reducing us to something less than a 3rd world state..
–
October 20, 2021
The PM gave the game away when announcing the 5K for a heat pump installation stating that this was to ”kick-start” industry into mass production of this equipment thereby reducing the price and accelerating the rate of uptake. All the announcements on this topic of reducing the use of fossil fuels since the 2019 election have had this fundamental aim behind them.
The whole scheme falls apart because we have never developed a clear plan to generate electricity and only lurched from one poor solution to another. Wind and solar power on an island located on the western side of the North Atlantic is not a clever idea. If we are going to avoid plunging this country into darkness and poverty we have to switch to nuclear generation using both big and small power stations.
Forget the past where it was thought to be a good idea to put cables across the channel and allow EDF to buy into our electricity industry and put together a realistic plan in a realistic time frame based on nuclear, hydro and tidal streams. Allow solar panels on ALL houses and buildings and encourage the development of batteries for house installation.
None of this is new, as heat pumps have been in use for over 30 years in the USA and in many other parts of the world as have solar panels. To keep prices at a realistic level plan to invite the manufacturers from the States to set up factories here and do the same for those who make solar panels. We are always slow to make such changes which puts the public at risk of being ripped off price wise.
Bite the bullet and get on with it!!
October 20, 2021
On the way to net zero is moving from coal to gas. That saves about 50% of CO2 for the same energy yield.
A responsible country such as Germany or Italy ensures that they have sufficient gas stored to ride over price spikes and wholesale supply delays.
They have between ten and thirty times the UK’s capacity, where, on the other hand, light tough Tory regulation and absent or inexpert oversight allowed the Only-For-Profit-Lads to pocket the money that they saved by not bothering to do this.
You voted for it, so enjoy the spike price gas and electricity which are coming, along with possible service interruptions.
October 20, 2021
Your current obsession about gas storage is a red herring.
Gas prices are way up in the countries you mention NLH
And up even in America.
Gas storage is about back up capacity not price stability.
Storage cost many millions and has to be paid for in the supply price.
October 20, 2021
well carbon is not the only pollutant
there are lots of industrial processes, on which we all depend, which produce pollutants other than carbon
the arts grads in the political bubble really are clueless
October 21, 2021
NOX for example.
October 20, 2021
I have heard that the UK is intending to lease a million square miles of African desert. Apparently, the plan is to install many millions of solar panels. There will then be a pipeline so that the power produced by the panels is brought into the UK. The pipeline will, of course, need to be routed around the EU so as to reduce the risk of blackmail.
I belive Mr Johnson is about to announce this fantastic project, which he anticipates will be up and running as quickly as 2055 and which he anticipates will produce much hot air as early as the planning stage.
October 21, 2021
They should never have named those bikes after him. It has all gone to his head. Nero returns.
October 20, 2021
Morning,
You have to use all of our skills and real resources and put them to work. Instead of leaving them sitting around idle.
To to do that you Introduce a job guarentee. A transition job from unemployment to the public sector then once you have shown you turn up for work to the private sector.
We can buy the unemployed at ÂŁ10 per hour – permanently. Without touching taxation rates. That will automatically stabilise the economy as it stands. The MONOPOLY price setter sets the price at ÂŁ10 per hour and lets it float. Completion the market does the rest.
But you need a competition and monopoly authority with some teeth.
Government spending stops automatically when it runs out of things to buy at a price worth paying. It’s the available at a price worth paying bit that’s important, and that’s the limit. Not numbers on a spreadsheet.
To put it more simply, it’s government buying that’s important, not government spending. Maximum stuff for minimum outlay.
And that leads onto the other important concept. Government only really needs to tax to stop the population buying things it wants to buy. Anything more is overtaxing.
Unemployment shows we are over taxed for The size of government we have.
The chancellor has little to do with it. Ideally none at all. How much is deployed is entirely down to the private sector. The more unemployed they hire, the lower the amount government will spend.
It’s entirely automatic. No chancellor required and no MPC either.
” While banks have this power of creating money it will be found that they exercise it only within the strict limits of sound banking policy.
I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks or the Bank of England can create or destroy money. We are in the habit of thinking of money as wealth, as indeed it is in the hands of the individual who owns it, wealth in the most liquid form, and we do not like to hear that some private institution can create it at pleasure. It conjures up a picture of an autocratic and irresponsible body which by some black art of its own contriving can increase or diminish wealth, and presumably make a great deal of profit in the process. ”
Rt Hon Reginald McKenna PC, Post War Banking Policy, 1928
Not only is that how money is supposed to work, it’s how it has to work – since it is the oil that greases the wheels of commerce. And it is that commerce that keeps us all fed and watered.
Money is made round to go around. If it ain’t going around, somebody has to force it round the system.
Articles are being written daily about investment strikes and firms reducing production because they canât get the staff, and that will drive up prices. All of which is backed by the assumption that there is no alternative production mechanism available.
Yet there is it is called a job guarentee a transition job. And there must be â since the threat of it keeps capitalists in check.
We need to see firms as Cattle, not Pets. They are there to produce an output, and if they are not doing it, then the dead wood in the system needs to be allowed to die.
The transition job wage is only paid to people working in Job Guarantee jobs. The more people on the scheme the more government spending. When they move to private sector jobs that payment stopsâââwhich automatically reduces government spending.
It is an âauto-stabiliserâ. Spending goes up when the economy is down, and spending goes down when the economy is up. By far superior to the automatic stabilisers we have now. Which spreads unemployment like a disease.
So because it is carefully targeted at only the people that need it, and it automatically self-adjusts based upon need, there is no requirement to correct any over spend via taxation on the other side. The result of that is straightforward. The current low tax rates can stay.
Not only is it a brilliant automatic stabiliser it is a fantastic price anchor also. A crucial point is that the JG does not rely on the government spending at market prices and then exploiting multipliers to achieve full employment which characterises traditional Keynesian pump-priming. It works like any Monopoly price setter you set the price and let it float.
Full employment, brilliant automatic stabiliser and a fantastic price anchor. Cutting the costs of social issues that unemployment causes. Crimes, Jails, family break up and mental health problems. It creates true competition treats firms like cattle not pets that will drive up productivity.
Between 1935 and 1943, the WPA literally built the infrastructure of modern America, including 572,000 miles of rural roads, 67,000 miles of urban streets, 122,000 bridges, 1,000 tunnels, 1,050 fifty airfields, and 4,000 airport buildings. It also constructed 500 water treatment plants, 1,800 pumping stations, 19,700 miles of water mains, 1,500 sewage treatment plants, 24,000 miles of sewers and storm drains, 36,900 schools, 2,552 hospitals, 2,700 firehouses, and nearly 20,000 county, state, and local government buildings.
All with unskilled workers. They built modern day America. These unskilled workers moved to the private sector and some became entrepreneurs.
The virus has shown clearly this ideology that the market will fix it without government help is bogus. A pipe dream.
October 20, 2021
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10109299/ROGER-BISBY-Heat-pumps-one-biggest-cons-Ive-seen-building-trade.html
Very interesting
October 20, 2021
Do we have any UK owned heat pump manufacturers or will we as usual with the encouragement of ‘Boris’ import them? He loves that. In his speech the other day he was doing his usual prostituting of our country; shouting from the podium to the foreign visitors come here and ‘buy buy buy’, we’ll do anything you wish for your money and things, bragging that we are in the lead. Disgraceful deceit.
October 20, 2021
As one journalist commented today with all of the new ‘green’ proposals parliament has effectively written a blank cheque for the PM.
I echo all of the concerns from the blog.
Sir John, I assume that there are at least some MP’s (maybe on both sides) that see the sheer folly in all this and have at least some idea of the consequences for peoples lives ? If not, then the Westminster bubble is really out of touch.
I can tell you from anecdotal evidence here in the former Red Wall constituencies, the next GE will be a disaster for the party. This government will suffer the fate of previous administrations by defying the will of the people or at least turning a deaf ear to their concerns. Cameron found out very quickly what that fate was, and Boris and deputy PM Carrie will also find out.
October 20, 2021
I just don’t see how people can afford this John. Does this mad government really expect people to take on a ÂŁ12 – ÂŁ15k debt? There is no way I’ll be able to afford a loan of this size. I suppose they would like us to freeze in the winter. If you are on a nice big salary and your wife is employed by you I don’t suppose it’s any trouble. Count me out. I won’t be voting Conservative again. All Boris is doing is giving work to China etc whilst putting more people on the dole here and producing the emissions elsewhere. Is he for real?
October 20, 2021
Fedup
Afraid ÂŁ12-15K is way off the mark, triple it at least if you want an effective and workable solution which includes a heat pump, an ancillary hot water system, and a good degree of insulation.
October 20, 2021
The problems associated with becoming all electric using green energy are :
1) We will need to generate 7 times more electricity than we do at present and find a way to store it for long periods of time.
2) 7 times more electricity consumption will require a massive upgrade to the electrical distribution network meaning every road in the country will need to be dug up to install the necessary new, bigger cabling to every home and business. A massive project bearing in mind we cannot even get fibre optic cable to every home and business in the country.
3) All cars and heating boilers will need to be replaced which will be again a massive cost in not only time and money but also the use of Earthâs mineral resources. BTW, is the government going to build a heat pump factory or will the Chinese get a nice big order for 20m+ heat pumps?
A better solution is to use green natural gas/methane :
1) Green methane can be produced using anaerobic digestion of waste and agricultural products and from excess renewable electricity via hydrogen and the Sabatier process. In the meantime fossil fuel methane will reduce CO2 emissions compared to other fossil fuels.
2) Methane will enable us to use our existing ic vehicles and heating boilers with minor adaptations and most importantly our existing gas distribution and storage.
The problem with hydrogen is that it also requires new cars, new boilers and cannot be distributed using our existing natural gas pipework, as well as being more dangerous in the need for very high pressures.
October 20, 2021
Richard. Just think of the emissions being produced to manufacture all this junk. Still China will be responsible for this so we don’t need to worry.
October 20, 2021
Does this petrol/diesel car ban from 2030 include vans?
October 20, 2021
I believe its all vehicles (less HGVs and Ministerial/MPs cars)
October 21, 2021
I very much doubt it. There are not many hybrid commercial vehicles around let alone full on electric. Plus. The industry has lobbying power đ Going all electric will be very expensive and will damage profits.
October 20, 2021
Dear Sir John,
Thank you for informing us that the government took next to no notice yesterday of your sensible suggestions. Do please let readers of this blog know in future of anything newsworthy .
October 20, 2021
That is not the question. You sound like a car salesman asking âHOW do you want to pay for our top of the range car?â
The question is âWhy do you want the UK to get to net zero CO2 emissions ?â
There is no evidence that Co2 levels are affecting the climate in a harmful way. Climate changes takes place over thousands of years. Nature will change climate much more than humans. The vast majority of the pollution comes from Asia and it is growing quickly.
October 20, 2021
Thats the best question ever
October 20, 2021
Who is going to get the 90,000 – ÂŁ5000 grants, housing associations, ex-council houses? Properties worth less than ÂŁ150,000? A new private housing estate? New flats being built from the ground up in our Cities? Remote houses and farmhouses? Who, just who is choosing who gets this golden ticket. Does their current heat source have to be more than 15 years old?
October 20, 2021
a-tracy : âWho is going to get the 90,000 â ÂŁ5000 grants, housing associations, ex-council houses?â
Just as the subsidies for electric cars went to the wealthy who bought expensive Teslas, so heat pump subsidies will go to the wealthy who can afford to the ÂŁ20k+ conversion.
So the poor will pay to subsidise the rich, just as we have already seen with wind farms.
So much for levelling up.
October 20, 2021
It most certainly will not go to flats or terrace houses as heat pumps are unsuitableâŠ.maybe the grants will go to the nice detached house in suburbia
October 21, 2021
Before that, who is going to build them ?
October 20, 2021
Sir John
Net zero is clearly net zero energy.
Roger
October 20, 2021
I agree with John Redwood except for his last sentence, there is no spare energy for hydrogen or storage when the wind blows well, the capacity is not there, it simply reduces gas consumption on those occasions, it is just doing what many people mistakenly think it does all the time. A rapid build of nuclear is the only way to achieve the government’s commitment and to the added loads of heating and EVs that they are promoting.
October 20, 2021
Dear John,
I am stumped as to how to explain politely to my Conservative MP that what is being done is crackers on so many points. Having recently read Machiavelli’s Discourses, I think the title of the 22nd chapter of the second book : “How often the Judgements of Men in important matters are erroneous” is quite apt when thinking of the stance taken by a sizeable majority of MPs in Parliament on this.
Yours,
a well wisher for your stance
October 20, 2021
The government’s green policies are just about the stupidest in the entire world. One aspect that has not been sufficiently commented upon is the ‘carbon capture’ schemes. This is the ultimate in wasted money. At least with all the other schemes – alternative energy, electrification, etc – you actually get something at the end of it. With carbon capture, on the other hand, the government is proposing to spend billions to just put CO2 into the ground and do nothing with it. Completely nugatory work. There are some processes that can actually use CO2 to produce other chemicals, but instead the government is going to just ppour the money into a hole in the ground. This is the most cretinous policy of them all! And not a single Tory MP has objected to this!!!
October 20, 2021
Heat pumps do not work. They heat up the radiators to luke warm and no more. Wall insulation will increase the problems of dampness. The wall cavity is there for a reason.
The government would be better if they stopped the continous floods of untreated sewage pouring into our rivers and coastal waters, but they are not doing so.
I will, therefore, not follow any rules or laws relating to so called green policies.
Con/Lab/Lib are environmental polluters.
October 20, 2021
I’ve always thought that those taking the trouble to post here ( with one or at most three exceptions ), are sensible, forward thinking and reflect things as they really are.
It’s interesting that with very, very few exceptions, nobody here thinks that the Green Crap agenda can be delivered, effectively, on time and at anything like an affordable cost.
It would have been much better had the UK committed to moving at the same pace as the average of China, the US and India. The whole idea of the UK leading from the front in order to shame the others into following is going to bankrupt us.
It’s blindingly obvious that no country that matters will be in the slightest bit influenced or shamed into following our example. In fact, when they see the cost to the UK, they will, without doubt, back away from following us down this route to financial ruin.
The only realistic course is for us to first up our generating capacity to the maximum foreseeable and only then introduce alternative heating systems and electric cars when heat pumps are more efficient and a fraction of the current cost and the essential charging infrastructure is in place for the cars.
By then, perhaps the whole idea of battery electric cars will be seen to be a Sony Betamax-style cul-de-sac and manufacturers will at last spend the necessary amounts on fuel cell technology to make it a viable alternative to fossil fuels. I for one would then be prepared to switch my daily driver but I will never part with my classic cars.
October 20, 2021
I wrote to Boris Johnson in January of this year regarding the “Green Agenda” coming on top of the damage to the economy done by lockdowns. I said that “to impose bans on various kinds of transport and domestic without a cogent strategy for generating sufficient energy and resources to replace them will be even more damaging to the economy and demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of “the science””. Also that the costs will be at least ÂŁ2 trillion, ignoring ongoing costs to individuals because electricity prices will be much higher. Also that despite being a life-long Conservative supporter, I would not vote for the Tory Party again unless there were a major change change in policy, which would put ordinary people first, rather than the obliteration of personal freedom and the consequent destruction of lives and livelihoods and rejects de-industrialisation, all of which will be the results of the “Agenda” designed purely in order that our ministers can virtue-signal on a world stage but will make no difference to global climate. I received no acknowlegement to my letter, needless to say, but Mr Johnson cannot say that he has not been warned.
October 21, 2021
Now you know how our kind host must feel ?
Good for you for writing though. And do not forget to follow up on you promise at the next GE đ
October 20, 2021
Before we get to your title SirJ âHow do you get to net zeroââ
Shouldnât we, and the men of science & intellect, be first asking
ââWHY SHOULD WE GET TO NET ZEROââ
October 20, 2021
F U S
is he real?
NO.
October 20, 2021
glen cuÄșlen
Correct. Nobody has given us the answer to your question and probably never will. Because they can’t
October 21, 2021
It is not a question of why, although that is a good question. It is about obeying the law that this government has set. Due to the Climate Change Act, that nobody seems to want to discuss, the government increased its carbon neutral target from 80% by 2050 to 100%. That is why !
October 20, 2021
31,000 scientists say there is “no convincing evidence” that humans can or will cause “catastrophic” heating of the atmosphere Vs. 100 scientist that contribute to the IPCC report (climate bible)
http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/31000-scientists-say-no-convincing-evidence
October 20, 2021
The 31.000 scientistsâ claim originates from the Oregon Institute of Science & Medicine, which has an online petition (petitionproject.org) that states:
ââWe urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.ââ
If you want to research this further use an alternative search engine rather than the most famous as theyâre banned all sure articles as alarmist and as climate deniers
October 20, 2021
We have reached net zero, that is, in brains behind all this greenc**p. Our host and many others have posted the shortcomings, not least of all that it will deprive many of personal transport. Not s good election strategy!
October 20, 2021
American Enterprise Institute
ââThere is no climate emergency, say 500 experts in letter to the United Nationsââ
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/there-is-no-climate-emergency-say-500-experts-in-letter-to-the-united-nations/
October 20, 2021
We wonât get to net zero because by then weâll have voted in a government who will have abandoned the attempt.
October 21, 2021
The LibLabCON are all committed to this. Who do you think the sheep are going to vote in to rid themselves of the High Priests of Climate Change ?
October 20, 2021
If you have 2 bedroom accommodation or less, you would be better off with a electric boiler.
October 20, 2021
Paul
Interesting, rather a sweeping comment.
How can you make that statement without knowing what type of building, it’s construction, the existing system is, how it is used, what temperature is deemed comfortable, and what it costs to run.
Likewise a 2 bedroomed flat in the middle of the block will use less power than an identical one on the outside of the block with more outside walls and a roof. indeed it would also use probably use less than a detached 2 bed bungalow.
October 20, 2021
You don’t. Net zero is unattainable and unaffordable. Since we can’t achieve it neither can the rest of the world, and we need to plan for that. We need to be concentrating on low cost energy and developing a vibrant economy that can accommodate the challenges of the future.
It is nonsensical to claim that we would not adapt to changes in climate if we did not first cripple the economy to make adaptation unaffordable. It is absurd to claim that our actions alone will magically halt the tide of changing climate. It is equally absurd to claim that changes will be catastrophically costly in the UK when there is no evidence that remotely supports such a claim. More dramatic changes in climate will happen elsewhere if they occur at all: perhaps the locals should be paying us to don hair shirts for the tiny benefit it would confer on them.
October 20, 2021
If you want control you ban and limit peoples ability to be mobile, you limit choice, you manage things centrally, you impose taxes on bad behaviour and you social engineer where and what jobs people will do
If you really believe the IPCC report about the end of the world if we donât maintain the global temperature by going ânet zeroâ we need to cease all aviation, revert shipping back to sail, stop all coal, gas, biofuel, oil, wood fired power stations and only allow nuclear, stop space exploration, stop home heating and stop all internal combustion engines worldwide
What our government is doing isnât about net zero its about control WITHOUT THE PEOPLES CONSENT
October 20, 2021
glen cullen
+1
October 20, 2021
Further to, John. Reading what you say gives me a horrid feeling that you believe Net Zero is possible. No it isnât. Do the sums. Why are there so few people in parliament with an ability to count or knowledge of simple science.? Meanwhile it will crash our economy in favour of China. And will have absolutely no effect on temperature in 2100. Ever heard
the BBC explain that UK produces only one per cent of global CO2? Me neither. Virtue
signalling to China, India, Indonesia etc?
Pathetic and sad. Posterity will never forgive you.
October 21, 2021
He is a politician in a political party and has to follow the line. At least in public. Currently there are too few voices expressing concern at all this. Come the next GE and when those Red Wall and other marginals the Tories hold look bleak, there will be calls for change. Either that or, as we have seen in the past, a change of leader.
October 20, 2021
O/T Sunak reduces taxes on big banks to keep them competitive. The tax man is chasing me forÂŁ357 and taking it from my occupational pension in which the coalition government changed the calculation from RPI to CPI and I didn’t work for the public sector. They just don’t get it do they!
October 20, 2021
Before embarking on the road to net zero, important questions need to be answered.
At what level would carbon dioxide be deemed ‘safe’ for humanity? As far as I am aware, no one has said what this goal should be. At 150 parts per million all life dies. We currently have some 400ppm? During the age of Pangea, when life thrived, it was 1,800ppm. At current levels, we are able to grow more food, starvation appears to be a thing of the past and an area the size of the Amazon on the planet has been reclaimed and become greener (NASA). Is this a bad thing?
The left created the CO2 band waggon and now the Conservatives have jumped on board. But there is an obvious candidate for climate change, the magnetic pole shift and our weakening magnetosphere letting in more energy from the sun. Independent scientists see this as being the fundamental cause of climate change. It has little, if anything, to do with increasing CO2.
It is important to understand the cause before prescribing the remedy, or else our economy will have been wrecked for nothing and we will be ill-placed for what is to come. (Heat pumps don’t work in freezing conditions when there is no heat to draw from in the atmosphere.)
October 20, 2021
Boris is starting to terrify everyone.
Andy might say “The planet will burn if you don’t buy a heat pump” but the rest of the world isn’t doing it.
October 20, 2021
The rest of the world might not be buying heat pumps but they are making them, and making them from steel copper and plastics forged in coal fired power stations
October 20, 2021
With his addiction to the ‘green economy’ regardless of how much money it costs, how much misery it will bring and how little impact the UK’s feeble contribution will make to reduce global pollution, Boris reminds me of a First World War allied General – on the whistle, everybody over the top -regardless of how many lives are lost in the process.
He may wish to save the World but we now need his party to save us from him!
October 20, 2021
Beecee
to save us from him
They haven’t got what it takes. Too many are slip streaming with him for an easy ride in the hope it will keep them employed.
SĂše the experience and knowledge condemned to the back benches and weep.
October 21, 2021
All PM’s must, for some strange reason, leave a LEGACY !! Something that will define both them and their Premiership. Vainglorious isn’t it ?
October 20, 2021
Where can one get unbiased advice about an air source heat pump. Not from any installer trying to sell you one. I want to know simple things like: If it is 0 degrees centigrade outside (where the heat pump is) – how much time will it take to heat a 60 litre hot water cylinder to 60 degrees centigrade. And, how much electricity will the heat pump consume to do that?
When I put new radiators in my little property – I calculated (as far as I can remember) that they will give out about 8 kw when the central heating is running. My understanding is that an air source heat pump will never make my radiators ‘piping hot’ and that the water is at a lower temperature with the idea of providing steady, background heat. To maintain my living room at, say, 20 degrees centigrade when it is zero outside, how much bigger will my radiators have to be? Will an air source heat pump be able to maintain my house at 20 degrees C on a cold winter’s day?
I don’t mind putting one in, and even a small wind turbine to provide some of the power it needs, but I want serious, accurate, unbiased answers to whether it will work or not.
October 20, 2021
Mike Wilson
Radiators are or should be on what is known as delta t. The difference between the flow and return temperature. Most system designs were sized to give a 11 degree drop across the radiator so must boilers operated at 82 Flow 71 Return giving a delta t of 76.5. Depending on the room.temperature in the manufacturers technical figures you will find the correction figures by which to multiply the design output of the radiator by. Nearly all new radiators now have different flow and return design criteria to ensue maximum low return temperatures to keep the applia nice in condensing mode. Trying to get temperature figures out of heat pumps is hit and miss in that gas, oil you can set the exact input to meet the load and once set it becomes a constant. Heat Pumps react to constant changing air temperatures so any loss of input is made up by electric immersion heaters in the buffer store to even out the differences.. much easier with underfloor heating as the design temperatures are very much lower.
The best heat pump installations are those with large thermal stores which yo ca retrofit wet solar thermal panel to increase the temperature of the store thereby increasing the hot water draw off efficiency. In aÄșl heating designs one has to asume that consideration has been given to the Basic Hydraulic Principles of Wet heating and hot water system design. A bench mark for the industry in days of old.
October 20, 2021
How do we get to net zero? I would suggest the only vaguely practical way is to build at least 15 new nuclear power stations and heat our homes using electric convector radiators and gradually change over to electric cars. We could offset the CO2 produced by heavy industry.
But, alas, we have a bunch of incompetents in government who have allowed us, one of the original leaders in nuclear power, to fall so far behind that we now need French and Chinese input.
Instead we should build a load of new Magnox reactors and simply get on with it. Somehow, anyway you like, the price of electricity has to be subsidised so we can all afford to heat our homes with it and drive our cars.
October 21, 2021
The best way to get to Net Zero is to make ALL and I do me ALL our MP’s, Lords and Ladies, Civil Serpents and all those pushing this nonsense to live the life they preach for 1 whole year. No jetting off anywhere ! That’s cheating !
October 20, 2021
How do you get to net zero ??? -Doesn’t matter what we say – BJ says one thing – then does the opposite. BI only cares about himself.
October 20, 2021
John, could you ask Priti Patel how she kept her job in the recent reshuffle when she is clearly totally incompetant at her ORIGINAL aim – in which SHE promised to CUT the illegals? Do Boris and her actually understand English? – – or are they just liars?
October 20, 2021
According to the Centre for Sustainable Energy (an independent charity with a full list of funders and clients) a heat pump system “will require a hot water tank and the heat pump should heat your hot water tank to around 35-40°C. However this is not hot enough to kill any bacteria within the tank. Therefore the tank should be timed to heat up to 60°C once a week”. I imagine this necessitates an immersion heater.
They also say that for best results you need specially designed oversized radiators and preferably the system is never turned off but simply turned down because it can take several days to get to a comfortable temperature if it is turned off.
Are we being given the full picture?
October 20, 2021
Nuclear is not Carbon free. ” The Berteen paper confirms the van Leeuwen result that for ore with uranium concentration around 0.01% the carbon footprint of nuclear electricity could be as high as that of electricity generation from natural gas.
This remarkable observation has been further confirmed in a report from the Austrian Institute of Ecology by Andrea Wallner and co-workers. They also point out that using ore with uranium concentration around 0.01% could result in more energy being input to prepare the fuel, build the reactor and so on, than will be generated by the reactor in its lifetime.”
October 20, 2021
Your expertise is mainly financial, but this does not ignore your very sensible ideas in many other fields. It strikes me that many of your ideas put you in conflict with many conservative policy ideas that are espoused these days. I also realise that you prefer persuasion to direct conflict. I also detect that you find current conservative policy is in conflict with the thinking of those who might vote conservative. Witness many of the responses in your diary. I am reserving my final judgement until Rishi Sunak reports in the Budget at the end of the month.
I am sure you have read it, despite no mainstream airing, that the thinking of the Reform Party is much closer to conservative electorate aspiration than anything emanating from Downing Street at the moment. The RP are, I assume, keeping their powder dry. In my judgement I would suggest that if the conservative party stays on it’s present course come the 2024 election. I assume the Reform Party is planning a repeat of the Brexit trouncing given in the last EU election we took part in.
The rhetoric from Downing Street is good, but the substance is none existent and a million miles from the expectations of the way forward post Brexit. With the exception of the outstanding performance of Liz Truss it is a disappointment. Green is a phenomena like that which some smoke, seems to hold government in a self induced coma of unreality. I have no objection to a clean and healthy land, there are many benefits, but I find myself in conflict with how we are going to achieve it. Not least because current thinking is far from logical and alienates those who will bare the cost. Ultimately it is the market that will decide. The forced bringing to market unsuitable product precedes a disaster.
Government should confine itself to specifying the targets, but leave the process to those that know, just as they did with the Covid vaccine. You would think that even politicians would hesitate in the light of all their recent financial disasters.
October 20, 2021
Sir John, you talk a lot of sense (as usual) but you are NOT in government. And Boris couldn’t care less what you think.
I’ve just learnt that there is a group of Tory MPs that have formed a “Net zero scrutiny group”. Is the membership secret? If not I would be interested to know how many Tory MPs are members of this (ie. how influential is it?) and whether they benefit from your membership and wisdom.
Reply I belong to it. I donât know latest numbers.
October 20, 2021
“As we are often still relying for 60% of our electricity on fossil fuels when the wind does not blow and there is not much sun that is going to take a major investment in new green capacity that will work when the weather is not helpful to certain renewables.”
No, you still didn’t get the point about batteries. We’re already in the process of installing about 16 GW of batteries in the grid, and that number will climb. We will *store* energy for days when there isn’t wind or sun.
This is a new issue and a new technology, because with fossil fuels you can always burn fuel and storage isn’t a necessity. The basic nature of the grid is changing. In future it won’t just distribute energy, but also store it.
October 20, 2021
You don’t get the point about batteries. It’s the GWh and TWh that counts in supporting periods of Dunkelflaute that can last many days and even weeks, and that’s the expensive and uneconomic bit. The planned 16GW is mostly of one hour duration or less, and holds less energy than our pumped storage. No-one is even considering batteries of more than four hour duration. Frankly, it will be hard for 16GW/16GWh to earn a reasonable return. There is some demand for batteries to provide ancillary services – essentially handling short term fluctuations in the supply/demand balance that last from seconds to a few minutes, and being ready to handle something like an interconnector trip. But even with more wind, that sort of demand will be limited to perhaps 3GW or so.
October 20, 2021
Could the Queenâs cancelled trip to Northern Ireland be due to the NIP paperwork requiring a declaration of asset value, pay any tariff and commitment not to travel south
October 20, 2021
Reading up on the subject of heat pumps and the installation Iâve found that heat pumps are incompatible with flats (20% of pop.) and unsuitable with terrace houses (26% of pop.)
Doesnât this government do any basic research?
October 20, 2021
â otherwise we would simply burn the fossil fuel in the power stations prior to running homes and cars on electricityâ
Air source heat pumps are around 300% efficient, gas generated electricity is 60%. So the net heat output from gas->electric->home heat is 3×0.6=1.8 = 180%
The best condensing boilers are 95% efficient. So the net heat output from gas->home heat = 95%
So even without any move away from gas heat pumps result in almost half as much gas being used.
October 20, 2021
I read that JET, the UK-located multinational fusion research lab at Culham, just signed a continuation contract with the EU involving E100M in new EU investment. This is part of the UK’s program to support ITER, which is the European multinational fusion program, of which the UK is a member. Just another indication that cooperation in Science does not require political integration.
October 20, 2021
A simple part not mentioned is CO2 capture. Iceland successfully captures it and process it. The US went the full ‘hog’ and turned it to new fuel – so a renewable then? Holland uses it in their Green House fruit and veg (tomatoes etc)plantations to accelerate crop growth.
The Government doesn’t appear to be to concerned about the UK economy or even helping to solve the World ‘global warming’ – just how to keep taxing, taxing and taxing. Or maybe it just about the ‘grandstanding’ of gesture politics – the ‘virtue signal’ . One thing for sure is they are not in anyway focused of ‘Global Warming’ just accelerating the causes of it.
October 20, 2021
The real ânet zeroâ we need to achieve to save the planet is net zero population growth.
This is what should be discussed at COP26.
October 22, 2021
Sir John, my apologies for a late reply to one of the most important diary entries you will ever write — I’ve been in transit from La Taha and the coms were not that good. While appreciating your political difficulties in telling the obvious truth about the UK’s response to the Great Glasgow Gabfest, eventually you, and those who like you who can see the ruinous posturing that is already going on. will have to follow of the little boy and tell the British public that the Emperor has no clothes.
The perfect is the enemy of the good enough. The perfect solution — more renewables, fusion power, insulate the UK from top to bottom are the perfect proposals, perfect even though they won’t actually work. They will fail if tried and will take down the political class en masse. Those solutions will kill people, literally kill people.
The good enough solution is out there and needs advocates. Frack. (I see you are wary of using the ‘f’ word). The truth is that without natural gas our economy will fail. If we use imported gas from the Middle East the boil-off from the LNG tankers will be a huge contributor to our emissions of greenhouse gases. If we rely on Norway and Russia we will be damaging our balance of trade. If we rely on Russian gas, Norwegian electricity or French nuclear power we lose political leverage. If we frack the Bowland shale we will within ten years be able to supply Germany when the Russians apply energy blackmail, an outcome which even the FO might realise would be useful.
Or, if one hadn’t looked at the numbers, we could go for more renewables. I’ve seen this autumn the 24GW wind turbine ‘fleet’ producing 0.2 GW. To match the UK’s baseload we’d need 100 times the number of turbines. The lowest reported turbine output I’ve been told was 0.1 GW.
When the lights start to flicker the government will panic and all sorts of stupid, expensive and dirty generation will be grabbed — oil, coal, OCGT*, geothermal, micro hydro, biomass (dirtiest and most damaging of them all) — and billions more will be wasted while our industrial economy is damaged beyond repair. The perfect will have destroyed the only response we can make that will get us to Net Zero. Frack, use CCGT generation with OCGT to respond to spikes in demand. Build the SMRs and let them take the load when ready which will be at least ten years, ore if we prevaricate. Cancel the EPRs, they will be late. costly, poorly designed and they will merely make matters worse.
Speak before it’s too late. What better cause to go down fighting for than the entire prosperity of our country?
JF
See: “The sensible speech on climate the PM will never make”, TCW, Julian Flood – August 29, 2021
October 23, 2021
Yes nuclear and hydro make sense, since they are reliable, clean and contribute to energy security.
Not convinced re biomass – doesn’t the fuel need to be shipped from around the world?
Emerging nuclear technologies such as thorium reactors are even better, since they use thorium to generate U233.