Many people argue that instead of producing more of our own gas to cover some of the energy shortfall we need to press boldly on with more windfarms. They argue that now wind energy is cheaper than current gas prices, so it makes economic sense as well as environmental.
If only it were that simple. Many have pointed out that the problem with wind energy is it stops when the wind does not blow. It does not matter how many windfarms with how much rated capacity you install if the wind does not blow. Wind turbines also cannot function in very high winds. But there is an obvious more practical problem for those who say the answer lies in a blowing wind. Most UK households this winter will heat their rooms and water using gas. Renewable electricity would be no use to them. Most industrial processes use gas rather than electricity. Most commercial premises are fuelled by gas.
Until most households, most factories and most offices have been through their own electric revolution we will need more gas as electricity cannot power it. The issue is do we produce the gas ourselves, with greater reliability and tax revenues flowing to the UK state, or do we import it with tax revenues and jobs flowing to the overseas provider? Is there going to be a hydrogen revolution, where it becomes commercial to use windpower to create large quantities of hydrogen which can be used to fire our boilers? If so that does not solve the problem for the next few years whilst this is planned and installed.
In all the grand green plans gas is down there as a transition fuel. In all the plans there is an acknowledgement that the world as whole will be using more oil and gas at the end of this decade than it did at the beginning. It will be more reliable, collect more tax revenue generate more jobs and vent less CO2 if we use our own rather than rely on imports.
September 1, 2022
Surely this is largely sensible and all rather obvious to anyone who know anything about energy, energy engineering and energy economics.
But the green hydrogen agenda (wind energy to hydrogen and perhaps back to electricity) is an absurdly expensive and energy wasteful dead end – other than for a few specialist applications. Wind farms anyway need loads of fossil fuels to construct and back up and the conversion to hydrogen (an inferior less flexible and convenient form of energy than electricity) is very energy wasteful & so makes little sense in general.
You say âUntil most households, most factories and most offices have been through their own electric revolution we will need more gas as electricity cannot power it.â true but what is the point of this electric revolution? We have no cheap, reliable, spare low CO2 electricity anyway. EV cars actually increase CO2 compared to keeping you old ICU car as creating the new car and batteries needs so much energy. So why are government pushing this agenda?
September 1, 2022
I am completely with the sensible 1,100+ scientists, including the sensible Nobel laureate physicist Ivar Giaever who have signed the well worded declaration stating that âthere is no climate emergency.â The signatories declare that climate science, as it currently stands, has become far too politicized to take seriously and that climate change – as currently posited is not an existential threat to humanity.
The climate alarmists which seems to included Boris, Sunak and even Truss plus 90%+ of MPs for some bizarre reason are certainly a huge threat to many humans and the economy though. And as soon as this winter.
Some daft Sunak supporter just now on Talk Radio “inflation needs to be the number one priority…. then wittering on about unfunded tax cuts…” well Sunak’s priorities are Chancellor were certainly creating inflation with money debasement/printing, breaking manifesto pledges, sticking to the net zero lunacy and vastly increasing taxes while cutting state pensions in real terms.
Sunak is not really the ideal man to tackle inflation nor one to win any election is he? Fund the tax cuts by cutting government, HS2, net zero, cheaper energy, firing parasitic workers and get better growth mate!
September 1, 2022
+1
September 1, 2022
Absurd discussion on Nuclear Energy on PM just now with some Oxford Prof. But as usual with this idiotic BBC it starts from the position “How do we meet the net zero targets for 2035 and 2050”. But these are idiotic targets, not reason at all to aim for them and they will certainly not be hit anyway.
The Prof. and the BBC should be questioning why on earth we have these vastly damaging, pointless & moronic targets not asking how we can hit them.
Thank you very much Nick Clegg, Bliar, Ed Miliband, Ed Davey, Sunak, Cameron, May, Boris, Zac Goldsmith, Kwasi et al.
September 1, 2022
And why no other country has committed to net zero by 2050.
Is there something wrong with the British mind or worse. Every time the EU would make a law the British gov would follow it to the letter. The French, not, or only if it was advantageous to them.
September 2, 2022
Yes of course more gas for now. Small nuclear reactors, fast to build, are an excellent option. We already have the technology from ships.
Nuclear fusion would be great and will take some time, but really, how difficult can it be?….
September 1, 2022
Good morning.
Renewables are only competitive with fossil fuels because the market is rigged in favour of them. When discussing renewables one must into account the whole environment impact. The mining of materials to make them, the construction of them, and finally, their decommissioning. No form of energy generation is perfect, but to suggest that renewables are clean is highly disingenuous.
The primary concerns should be, in order of importance :
1) Is it safe ?
2) Is it secure (ie the source has to come from places where supply can be guaranteed) ?
3) Is it reliable (ie provides continuous output) ?
4) Is it economically feasible / affordable ?
5) What are the FULL environmental consequences, from construction to decommissioning ?
We also need to address that old subject / mantra here of SUPPLY and DEMAND ! We are only talking about SUPPLY and are refusing to address DEMAND, except by forcing people to use less by charging more. Great for mostly foreign owned companies and their profits (the capital costs are already fixed), not so good for those struggling at the bottom.
I Googled : “what is the projected cost per kwh of electricity for the UK” and it came up with :
That is roughly a 250% increase and set to rise further in 2023.
Give me one reason why I should vote Conservative given that you people have been in power for over 12 years ? Because that is exactly the same question EVERYONE will be asking come the next GE.
September 1, 2022
Starmer/Sturgeon OK it is two reasons!
September 2, 2022
Labour will not give Scotland a second referendum and even if they did, many of the English, including me, would be happy to see them go.
If you think people will vote Tory out of fear of a LibLabSNP coalition, I suggest you think again.
September 2, 2022
I’ll give you 3 why NOT …..Cameron, May, Johnson. My 3 trumps (boom boom) your 2.
September 1, 2022
A great post today John. If only more people making the decisions thought like you.
September 1, 2022
Quite right, FUS.
September 2, 2022
Well, yes, per unit of energy gas produces only half the CO2 of coal, and near zero other pollutants such as SO2 and particulates.
However, anything which contributes to the global demand for gas helps Putin’s mobsters with their criminal, murderous, destructive war in Ukraine.
It really is a problem, but if fracking – so far as possible in the UK – would help to solve the cost-of-living crisis here and diminished revenues for Putin, then they are two very big wins to offset the relatively minor nuisances which it might cause.
There is a horrible war on after all.
September 1, 2022
Good morning and thanks for the blog
When does the public get a say in all of this? Most on here know full that green energy isn’t green in the way we understand. Most on here have also grasped the fact that those promoting this Luddite solution are driven by political ideology rather than any sense of care for human welfare or the environment.
We are seeing yet another area of life being politicised to drive change towards an authoritarian solution whose primary purpose is control.
I am intrigued as to the emergence of Covid some three years ago now and the associated events in between. It all appears coordinated and convenient. Nations and peoples flipped onto their heads since Wuhan delivered its payload into the human space
It all feels manufactured, life is beginning to feel unreal. I’d prefer the reality and freshness of Thatcher’s world
September 1, 2022
ââ It all appears coordinatedââ
Its interesting that if you google âbuild back betterâ youâll get many hits from many different countries as thou theyâve all been given the same strapline to use
September 2, 2022
Glen Cullen: “theyâve all been given the same strapline to use”
They’ve all been given the same strapline to use.
It goes without saying, and I doubt that Redwood would have the chutzpah to say it, but we could use 20% of our energy generated by Coal about now.
Poland, still has mines and is still investing in Coal generating plant.
And at least the Poles will have an alternative energy source this winter.
September 1, 2022
I was only saying this to a friend today about Covid. Our vaccines have completely waned by now if we are to believe the ‘experts’ and we are all going about our daily lives without masks etc and when we do catch Covid it’s no worse than a cold and yet we are being told it’s vital we have more immunisation this time with a different vaccine which I’m led to believe is two in one. If it wasn’t for the fact I want to travel to the USA I wouldn’t bother but I’m going to be forced to take it which isn’t right.
September 1, 2022
All the time we have the hate CO2 sect in key positions in government’s, despite over a thousand scientists and engineering type people saying for God’s sake have a rethink, then this country who has decided to want to lead the kamikaze charge to economic destruction no matter how realistic managing any real productive changes are perceived to be, is never going to happen.
When bringing in corporate change you have to drip feed in the new and slowly reduce the business as usual operation which keeps staff and income operating. Too much has been done on a unthought panic and emotions rush and too reliant on subsidies.
September 1, 2022
Ask yourselves the honest question.
How many people actually introducing all these self destruct proposals are qualified and educated in the core subjects? Just about says it all.
September 1, 2022
Or even have the ability to understand the basics of these subjects if they even tried to.
September 1, 2022
Quite. When I write to my MP on any scientific subject, it is quite clear she not only a) has no knowledge and b) has not bothered to do any independent background reading or research, but also cannot understand what it being said to her. What I receive back is inevitably some boilerplate clichés sounding as if they come from a young, clueless SPAD.
September 1, 2022
Statement from Gazprom head Alexey Miller:
Gas supplies from Russia to China via the “Power of Siberia” for 8 months of 2022 increased by 60% compared to last year;
But ⊠hang on ⊠demand for energy has fallen in China due to the lockdowns.
Solution. China is converting Russian gas to Liquid Natural gas and shipping it to Europe at 4X the price of Nordstream gas.
The Governments of Europe either need to stop gas coming from China (and collapse their economies) or admit that the war with Ukraine has been lost.
September 1, 2022
Well the outcome is the transfer of wealth from the West to China or whoever is repackaging the ” Russian sourced gas.
Perhaps this was the desired outcome. But why?
September 2, 2022
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization in action!
September 1, 2022
Those people that argue for outsourcing of gas supplies also argue for outsourcing of abattoirs. Hear no evil. See no evil.
Even if greens believe their own crazy beliefs about global warming they cannot believe outsourcing is any better ethically.
September 1, 2022
I’m reasonably sure that the UK’s gas rigs will be functioning 24/7 and have no spare capacity. I read the other day that it takes 28 years from a issue of a licence to produce gas. Gas rigs take time to build so there’s no short term solution to our gas problem.
September 1, 2022
There are gas fields in the North Sea and shale gas in Lancashire ready to start producing nowâŠ.they just need the okay from this government – So not 28years more like 28 days
September 2, 2022
And if we did produce extra, it would all go on the ‘world market’ to bump up the price and would not help the UK consumer one iota. We’d probably use it to produce electricity to send to or ‘friends’ in the EU to help them out of a hole and save the EU project.
September 2, 2022
100% correct Graham1946….any domestic produced energy needs to enter a new UK only market….any surplus can go onto the international market
September 1, 2022
Let’s also remind ourselves that despite ÂŁ10bn pa of subsidies and perhaps ÂŁ100bn to date, just 4% of total UK primary energy comes from wind (the global figure is about 1%).
The only zero and lower carbon technologies presently available at the scale we need are gas and nuclear (hydropower if we had the geology). net zero by 2050 is a pipe dream unless there’s a sudden and dramatic technological breakthrough. But if we want at least to continue to aim in that direction, gas as an interim fuel for the next few decades, and nuclear at far greater scale, are essential. Every time we hear virtue signalling posturing from politicians and others about net zero, we need to require them to address the factual realities.
September 1, 2022
Exactly and coal too if we have to as we do!
September 1, 2022
Good Morning,
This post should be: WHY WE NEED A COMPETENT GOVERNMENT
ANSWER: To produce a self-sufficient energy policy, so that we don’t need to debate why we need more gas.
September 1, 2022
+1
Johnson said today thanks Tony thanks Gordon. What he should have said was: thanks Dave, thanks Teresa and I (Johnson) forgot we need self sufficiency among the net stupid remarks I previously made. I am sorry.
September 1, 2022
Sensible but the green establishment won’t like any of this – they are locked into their own dogma.
September 1, 2022
Sir John is absolutely correct. We need more gas (and oil) and it is in our interests both economically and for security reasons to use our own resources – not to rely on (and enrich) unfriendly, unstable foreign regimes OR dubious “friends” and allies.
It’s all well and good telling people they have to switch to electric domestic energy systems, but since the country is up to its eyeballs in debt, we have rampant inflation and now people will be paying out ÂŁthousands for energy, they will be even less able to pay for it. Solar panels? ÂŁ10,000. Heat pump? ÂŁ30,000+ by the time you’ve carried out all the insulation necessary and redecorated your house. Electric car? ÂŁ25,000+.
It’s unaffordable for the vast majority. And anyway, we simply don’t have sufficient engineers to carry out the installations by the timescales Johnson announced in his Grand Green Dream.
The Grand Green Dreams need to be ditched. Unfortunately, the Eco Zealots in the Establishment and the Eco terrorist groups they’ve encouraged aren’t going to like that. So I hope the new Prime Minister is going to need rather more cojones than the last few we’ve been cursed with.
September 1, 2022
+1
September 1, 2022
It depends on what priority the government has.
Is it the well being of the UK and its’ citizens, or the religion of net zero? They are incompatible, until some real progress is made towards AFFORDABLE means of creating reliable and on demand energy.
September 1, 2022
Sir J, totally valid points. As true today as they were 20 years ago… Which begs the question why did succesive governments over the period fail to set a robust energy strategy?
As an aside, an article yesterday pointed out that the electricity price increase in October make the cost per mile for driving an electric car dearer than the equivalent diesel car. How will that go down with the sheeple who bouight into the electric car dream?
September 1, 2022
Badly I hope then we diesel owners and petrol fans can have the last laugh.
September 2, 2022
Well you can always buy that new ÂŁ20 kettle and save yourself the tenner ( a year mind ..! ) Boris falteringly mentioned recently. Unbelievable. What planet are these people on.
September 1, 2022
Agreed John, so why are 650 politicians in Parliament wedded to this Self harming green net Zero Policy, and continually promoting it even now when it is clear the cost means misery for millions of people ?
September 1, 2022
+1
September 1, 2022
I would suggest because many of them believe it’s in their longer-term personal interests.
September 1, 2022
Joe public has known this for years.
The government has ploughed on with its net zero, no fracking, leave it in the ground nonesense. Now the hens have come home to roost.
Entirely predictable you will have blood on your hands and it won’t do you any good blaming Pootin
September 1, 2022
+1
September 1, 2022
Our politicians need to stop impoverishing the ordinary people. It’s political decisions that are messing up our lives.
The current political class won’t change their ways, so we need to get rid of them before they ruin everything for the majority of the population.
Our kind host and a very few others excepted.
September 1, 2022
I live in the Fens. Windmills did not do the drainage for centuries, despite Dutch intervention by Vermuyden. Then steam power came and did the trick.
I hope we are not going back to sailing ships! Just read St Paul!
Wind farms are a very expensive way of supplementing other forms of generation.
That is all.
My problem – how out on a limb are you in parliament?
September 1, 2022
There is nothing more dangerous and destructive than a poorly read and self trained amateur.
Framed sign displayed in a gas fitters lobby dated 1938.
Nothing much has changed then.
Therein lies the problem. Too many sponges to absorb all the sales pitches from the renewable snake oil salesmen.
Those in our parliament that did understand so few in number were ignored and banished to the back benches.. Shades of WSC in the 30s.
September 1, 2022
Give me a decent subsidy, say 50% to install solar panels, meeting existing electricity needs and heating my hot water tank, thus reducing demand on the gas supply.
September 1, 2022
Sir John, you have literally decades of anti-shale gas propaganda to overcome, not least from that most un-British creation, the Nudge Unit.
May I offer you a route through? Natural gas has one carbon atom to four hydrogen, so when burnt a large proportion of the energy comes from converting H into H2O. What proportion of the energy released comes from H and what from the C is complicated, but with a bit of licence you could get away claiming that a fracked gas economy is halfway to hydrogen.
Low carbon, clean-burning with almost zero particulates, safe, it’s the ideal fuel. And.. pause for fanfare… it’s halfway to the hydrogen economy.
Even I could sell that to a shivering population.
JF
Invoice follows.
September 1, 2022
Whatever the argument for wind the transition is during an emergency, which is never good.
Even during the hardships of the ‘7os, (and I should imagine the hardships of the world wars) there were chip shops, a hearth in every home, ancient pubs for communal warmth and banter.
Our local swimming pool has been closed down !
In attempting to defeat Communism (which we won’t) we are about to experience the bleakest and unfairest of Communism.
Can we not at least agree – that poking the Bear whilst becoming ever more dependent on his gas and whilst in the transition to Net Zero (which is dependent on China instead) was the height of stupidity.
I see the Euro is approaching dollar parity – “welcome to the Brexit” as one French border guard said *sarc*
And “F***k the EU !” said one American pertaining to the CIA instigated putsch in Ukraine in 2014, the year in which this war really started.
September 1, 2022
What you are saying makes sense to me and I would have thought to most people.
Even a child can work out that when the wind doesn’t blow the sails stand still.
So what are we looking at here then?
I assume many of the types advocating that more wind farms will solve the interim problem as well as the future problem, are those who would be considered ‘well educated’ or ‘better informed’ yet they seem unable to grasp this elementary fact.
Many in the general public no longer have the capacity to think for themselves after decades of politicised education.
They will continue to just believe and repeat what they hear from so called experts and if it’s ‘on the telly’ well then it must be true.
So that brings us back to those in positions of power, the supposedly better educated, the green lobby and of course those with huge investments in the wind energy business.
What they all have in common is a political/social ideology one that contradicts itself to the point of hilarity.
They are all wealthy, despite some trying to pretend otherwise, and will not be living in one room this winter to try and stay warm and keep their bank balance in the black.
September 1, 2022
In the light of the need for more UK produced gas for our own power needs why are we selling it to the EU. It would seem that the UK government is either unaware of or indifferent to UK needs. The Boris waffle about atomic energy and more windmills is just that. Atomic expansion will take ten years to bare fruit and you have pointed out the shortcomings of wind power. we need much more immediate gas and coal solutions. I hope the next PM is fully aware of this and can declare a state of emergency that will over rule the nests of luddites that breed within our population.
September 1, 2022
Windmills are simply the latest diesel.
September 1, 2022
Except diesel was on demand, could be stored very cheaply unit needed and worked! Wind on the other hand…
September 1, 2022
Quite right, about 60% of electrickery comes from gas power stations and 80% of households use gas for cooking and heating. It is as vital as water, near as dammit. We will need this bridging fuel for at least a decade more…
Importing it at spot prices has been wrong.
I don’t mind whether it’s N Sea gas and/or fracking, just get on with it and sign up long term contracts.
The latest energy pricings are an existential threat to many UK businesses which will be forced to close as they will go bankrupt.
Many households will be driven into poverty and further debt. Unemployment will rocket. Balance of payments will also bear the brunt. Sterling is already under pressure.
Expect IMF bailout with 2-3 years, likely once Labour coalition enter as the next Govt. The tories won’t be thanked for what’s happened on their watch, whomever anyone wants to blame. 12 years in power, what a potential legacy…. đ
September 1, 2022
+ why are we sending 15% of our electricity generated this morning to the Continent? This isn’t balancing a few percent.. its looks more like we are underpinning Europe’s supply!
Please Sir J kindly add a piece about these interconnector cables and how we actually benefit. Rarely do I see generation coming the other way into Britain? Are we subsidising the continent’s supply? Are the generators making a profit on these exports and is the Exchequer getting a decent cut?
I think we should be told…
September 1, 2022
+ many Rhoddas
Especially as Macron was blackmailing us over electricity supplies. Our government keeps turning the other cheek for yet another EU slap in the face.
September 1, 2022
Good morning John.
Some questions.
If we produce more of our own gas, how will that transfer to low cost to the UK consumer if those who mine it can sell it to Europe at current rates?
If the UK government stipulates the gas must be used for UK consumers at low cost, why would the energy companies bother with it when they make much higher profits with other business sectors where they can sell at the global rate?
Can an energy company be formed with the remit of serving the UK customer instead of shareholders?
September 1, 2022
This really is an elephant in the room.
How do you ensure supply when prices are held artificially low in a global market?
The only way would seem to be a nationalised supplier acting in the interests of UK residents (with no unions).
September 1, 2022
It will take a great mix not forgetting tidal power especially in areas prone to tidal rips and then what about boring down to get geo thermal? If we just need more gas then we had better do a side deal with Putin’s Russia
September 1, 2022
Good post Sir John, especially the mention of Green Hydrogen.
I agree with you that the immediate (and medium?) future can only be secured by access to fossil fuels, particularly gas, and I look forward to the next PM showing enthusiasm and resolve concerning Home production.
More importantly, I want the PM and the whole Government to recognise that Green Hydrogen is the future for transport, especially LGVs. Using wind or solar power to produce hydrogen from water is the gold standard of sustainability because its combustion in air produces water as an exhaust. Its the ultimate in recycled fuel and is deserving of as much support as the taxpayer can afford.
Whilst battery powered EVs are becoming a success, the environmental damage involved in obtaining the raw materials for batteries may become a significant problem in the near future.
September 1, 2022
The whole disastrous green scam is being exposed as we watch Europe descend into a cold bleak future. If you think hydrogen, which is highly dangerous and difficult to contain, is suitable for widespread use (even if you could produce enough) then you’ve never watched footage of the Hindenburg burning.
Well done Boris and all the other WEF puppets for ruining the world.
September 1, 2022
+1
September 1, 2022
I have read Liz Truss’s article in The Sun.
All very promising.
There is a whole class of hard working people who have tolerated the Rashford/BBC/Greenist pressurised Government thus far, but will not take it any more.
I call them the Lunchbox Class. They are hard working people on around ÂŁ45k a year who are considered well off but are, in fact, piss poor. They slip through the Rashford test yet cannot afford the school meals that they pay others to get. Their children go to school with lunchboxes instead.
Now they are expected to pay for heating that they don’t get.
Wages must NOT be made to chase benefits as we are on the cusp of doing. The Tories have done nothing but incentivise dependency, poor behaviour and low achievement.
Ms Truss needs to turn around this, the most socialist, high taxing and negligent administration we have ever had.
September 1, 2022
Wind farms are an eyesore and unreliable.
The ”green lobby” should wind their necks in and stop trying to drive us backwards. We have an urgent and very large energy crisis and as you state Sir John a large proportion of our houses and apartments are heated by gas, so unless we increase the supply, prices will continue to rise and families freeze.
It is a ‘no brainer’ that we should start fracking and opening up the North sea wells as soon as the new PM is installed on Monday. Up until January 2020 we were bound by the EU rules on energy and partly due to the pandemic and also the PM’s drive towards ‘Net Zero’ we have done nothing towards becoming energy self sufficient.
We need to be practical not political and go flat out to securing our energy and getting a grip on controlling the costs.
September 1, 2022
Thank you, Sir John, for once again guiding your immediate and hopefully wider readership (that’s you and your advisers, Liz) towards working out logical and sensible answers, indeed in some cases the only answers, to questions of this kind without spoon feeding those answers to them. For anyone within Liz’s entourage who still needs an additional steer in the right direction: “remove all restrictions upon onshore gas extraction – that’s fracking, in common language – and suspend or repeal any related legislation that might impede this approach, including the Climate Change Act.”
September 1, 2022
We need more gas because, as decreed by former leaders ( not your average Joe), we depend on it, and electricity, to live an industrialised life.
Factories in Germany are shutting ( do we have any left to shut?) because of the lack of gas.
And that I find extremely alarming.
We are literally being jettisoned backwards.
WITHOUT the necessary social and practical tools ( and land) needed to live.
Are politicians trimming their wicks in preparation?
September 1, 2022
+1
September 1, 2022
This highly unpleasant ârevolutionâ didnât begin with the steam from a kettle in someoneâs kitchen.
It is possibly wholly political and punishing to those on the Right of politics.
The Left mistakenly think they will be OK. ( Why? How?)
If I am wrong then why is the only solar kettle I can find just for camping? A most unprepossessing black tube which takes 45 mins to boil.
AND it needs sunshine AND as a retrograde technology it is very expensive!
September 1, 2022
Do the architects of all this rubbish SERIOUSLY believe there will be a workforce to be drawn upon after the apocalypse?
If they think they can replicate the 1700s then they are wrong.
There will be no compliant, obedient, God fearing, hardworking labour pool upon which to draw.
Canât they see what they have already done to people?
September 1, 2022
When is this blinking leadership thing going to conclude?
September 1, 2022
12.30 Monday – Truss!
September 1, 2022
+1
Thank goodness for that at least.
Small mercies!
September 1, 2022
Writing from Scotland, wind turbines are a bane and a blight. The turbines are getting taller and taller; go past them, and they never seem to turn. Nevertheless, our village received a community payment from the wind farm up the road, and the community bought some flashing Christmas lights. That makes up for everything.
Much more worryingly, some off-shore wind farms are being sited on some of the most important fishing spawning grounds. That is the case for the latest one approved off Shetland. For the Shetland fishing communities, the question is, do the authorities want intermittent wind? or do they want people to eat? why are the authorities determined to wipe out our fishing communities?
September 1, 2022
I really feel for you Alison. I lived in Scotland and started up the first national anti wind farm group called Communities Against Turbines which later became SAS. I moved from Scotland back to England 3 years ago and the ruination of Scotlands landscape is terrible. I lived in the Southern Uplands and that was ruined by gigantic turbines over 400ft tall and over a 100 in each windfarms with applications for more. Truly shocking when you consider many cannot operate fully because the grid can’t cope but they get massive payouts for shutting down.
September 1, 2022
Iâm trying to picture your government planning and installing the massive number of wind turbines and hydrogen production and storage facilities that would be needed to supply our gas boilers. You canât stop illegal entry to this country by people in rubber boats. Hmmm.
September 1, 2022
It’s an inconvenient truth for the Climate Change fanantics that the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t provide much energy in winter, or on cloudy summer days. But these are facts and we have to have back up power sufficient to meet the highest periods of need which are in winter when we use most energy.
Also, electricity currently costs four times the price of gas so unless the cost is reduced to be comparable with gas, it will always be a very much more expensive fuel.
There are other fundamental questions that need to be answered :
Nobody is currently addressing the long term cost of switching away from gas and coal or the cost of providing electricity from the Nuclear plants we will need as back up ?
Just how many UK housing units are able to be switched to inefficient heat pumps and what will that cost ?
Who is going to provide the infrastructure needed for millions of electric cars and at what cost ? It will certainly not be in place by 2035 when the government plans to stop the sale of IC-engined cars completely.
What about the half a million caravanners in the UK and millions more in Europe and the USA ?
In What Car ? magazine recently, they found that the average range of a medium sized car towing a touring caravan was reduced to 100-120 miles ! That is completely impractical.
What is going to power the millions of trucks in the UK which cannot possibly carry enough batteries on board ?
September 1, 2022
Sir John, any politician who is still unsure about the answers to these questions shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near government from 5th Sept on. The situation is critical and we need people who already know what must be done and will carry it out.
September 1, 2022
We don’t just need more gas, we need more nuclear, coal, wind, solar, hydro. Why have we been left so exposed?
It doesn’t help when newspapers lead with cold homes will cost children’s lives. I started life in a shared tin house for my first four years, with a coke run fire, the radiators weren’t often on and not at all during the night, and the tin was paper thin (the tin was replaced in later years by another form of cladding but you can still buy those houses today for less than ÂŁ40,000). Are the councils/ha that own most of these houses responsible for the insulation, or are the rest of the taxpayers expected to pay for it? They’ve been claiming decent rents on them for years; these houses have paid for themselves years ago. My next home had one gas fire in the living room, it wasn’t on at night, we had ice on the windows in the morning and on the coldest nights slept in large woolly jumpers, PJs and socks; we were as fit as fiddles and hardly ever went to the doctors. In fact, I’d say a lot of the increases in asthma, other respiratory conditions and other illnesses are a result of too much heat in bed!
People wonder why mental health conditions are so bad nowadays when living conditions have greatly improved compared to what our grandparents lived like. It is all this constant scaremongering. Relative poverty is never going to end when we bring in hundreds of thousands per year with only the clothes on their backs. I’m sick of hearing everything is the government’s fault and for the government to sort out. This is what is causing most of the problems this new way of thinking has removed any family obligations and a lot of waste from food to clothes to energy. I think every article telling us about a person in benefit poverty should tell us to the penny how much they get from the government in total, every 1p from housing benefit +++.
September 1, 2022
Sir John,
We must survive this political problem by leaving all global twisted fraud.
We must look after Number ONE and develop our independance in all fields.
Dump the so called World Economic Forum as it is focused solely on the greedy manipulating morons.
Look after Britain as itt id most important to us!
September 1, 2022
Lord Howell just now on talk radio:- I am not sure Boris is going for the right nuclear technology.
I (and most independent & sensible nuclear scientists, engineers and physicists) are damn certain he hasn’t got this right. After all he got net zero wrong, lockdown wrong, inflation wrong, tax increase wrong, test and trace wrong, the ineffective and dangerous vaccine even for children wrong, the joke NHS wrong, EVs/heat pumps wrong, road blocking wrong, the tax increases wrong,.. the man take advice from St Greta and Carrie after all so hardly following science or logic.
He just liked the political phrase “we will open one nuclear power station a year” I suspect. Anyway the only short term solution is more Gas, Coal and Oil longer term some sensible nuclear – so get fracking, drilling and mining now. Move all the subsidies for the unreliables (wrongly called renewables) to this activity.
September 1, 2022
Lifelogic. +1
September 1, 2022
With nuclear, coal & gas fired power stations you have surety of supply and energy output, using domestic resourcesâŠwith wind-turbines you donât and never will
With petrol & diesel power vehicles you have surety of supply, energy output, confidence in your journey and refuel time is extremely quickâŠ.with EVs you donât and never will
September 1, 2022
Truss unable to answer if Trump was friend or foe! It showed me she is stupid and controlled by Westminster group think. US always a friend. However Obama and Biden have showed hostility towards UK. Even Cameron had to send official to make formal representations to US over BP! Dopes at Westminster fawned over him.
Why is this important to todays topic because it shows your party leaders incapable of independent thought and decisions, hence net zero group think lunacy.
You previously made similar sentiment of Sunak and Treasury pro EU thinking. Thatcher was capable of making decisions against the grain of Westminster.
September 1, 2022
Hope.
As I heard it Liz said the Jury is still out about whether MACRON was friend or foe.
Why would anyone ask about Trump?
September 1, 2022
I think the Public jury decided pretty soon after he got the job that he was never going to be a friend.
September 1, 2022
The data below is for the 24-hour period 00:00 to 23:59 31 August 2022.
Number of migrants detected in small boats: 0
Number of boats detected: 0
4th day and still no illegalâs crossing the channelâŠmaybe we have them all
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/migrants-detected-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats
Can we have confidence and believe any government statistics or are the numbers so high that our government have put an embargo on the data release
September 1, 2022
âIs there going to be a hydrogen revolution, where it becomes commercial to use windpower to create large quantities of hydrogen which can be used to fire our boilers?â
Hydrogen cannot use the existing natural gas network. It corrodes the steel pipes used for bulk transport and requires bigger pumps. You need to pump 3/3.5 times more volume to achieve the same energy flow. As a much smaller molecule than methane the leakage control will need to be vastly improved. It also requires the conversion of all boilers, hobs, generators etc..
If hydrogen is planned to store energy from âexcessâ wind then taking a 30% capacity factor for wind turbines (BEIS UK Energy in Brief 2022), a 60% efficiency for both electrolysis and electricity generation plus a 13% loss to compress for storage, then to achieve a guaranteed amount of power will require 8 times more installed wind power. Thus our current 35 GW electrical power requirement will require 280 GW of installed wind power.
If we wanted wind to provide all our power, taking the Netherlandâs figure of 5 MW/sq km as the optimum for 15 MW turbines, then we would need an area half the size of the North Sea.
Nuclear power is far more affordable and achievable, provided of course that the Government/Civil Service do not choose duff and expensive technology such as EDFâs EPR reactors, quite possibly a selection made to discredit nuclear power.
September 1, 2022
Why did you avoid the heading –
‘Why we need more of our own gas’.
Too controversial?
September 1, 2022
Off topic, the Maidenhead Advertiser has published the letter that I sent in:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/08/28/the-public-sector-could-save-some-energy-to-help-us-out/#comment-1337699
under the heading:
“Sensible alternative needed to NI protocol”
Which is becoming more urgent as the EU prepares to get its retaliation in first over the NI protocol Bill:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/08/31/consultation-on-electricity-regulation/#comment-1338318
September 1, 2022
If there were never any subsidies for all this so called new technology called turbines aka windmills then none of this crap would have never got off of the ground. Nobody would have invested in it because it was such a low, long return on their money. Now these companies make billions out of the energy bill/ tax payer. Is this ever right I ask myself?
September 1, 2022
Politicians across the UK and Europe got it wrong, got the energy planning for its own countryâs badly wrongâŠ.every politician run hell for leather to follow the UN & EU plan to distribute energy pan-europe and pan-continent in the pursuit of globalisation, Net-Zero and the green revolution
Politicians and governments need to be honest and apologise to its people for following the globalisation plans for energy set by the UN (WEF) and the EU. Politicians need to apologise for experimenting with wind-turbines, heat-pumps and banning the internal combustion engineâŠyou got it wrong â please admit it
We donât need more international imported gas WE NEED MOVE DOMESTIC SHALE GAS & OFFSHORE NATURAL GAS
September 1, 2022
“The issue is do we produce the gas ourselves, with greater reliability and tax revenues flowing to the UK state, or do we import it with tax revenues and jobs flowing to the overseas provider?”
Sir John,
I wonder how many other countries in the world that have such an abundance of oil, gas and coal reserves as the UK, would even consider this an issue.
September 1, 2022
Yesterday, the world’s largest wind farm became operational off Yorkshire This thing is mind boggling in that it occupies enormous space (64,000 football pitches size, about 120,00 acres) to produce electricity for one million homes at full pelt, so you can reckon that will average 100,000 homes tops. It is Norwegian owned. Just how much suitable space is there to get 30 million homes supplied? Compare with a nuclear station, which takes much less space on land, I don’t know but I’d guess a couple of hundred acres) and we have several decommissioned sites already there. It must have cost a fortune to build and needs constant maintenance, being 90 miles off shore, so no low cost energy will ever come from it, and the profits will go abroad anyway. Barmy.
September 1, 2022
Iâm praying to God that a bit of this sequential thinking is heard once again in the Cabinet room!
September 1, 2022
Without buffer storage for wind and solar you need alternative dispatchable power, eg gas or hydrogen fuelled. The activists and their government pals do not mention these critical elements, the pretend they are not an issue.
They destroy their own credibility just like the AGW zeolots did
As do the oil-heads who believe there will never be shortages of oil and gas, that they need do nothing to avoid it and will always be able to access and afford what they need.
September 1, 2022
JR “Many have pointed out that the problem with wind energy is it stops when the wind does not blow. It does not matter how many windfarms with how much rated capacity you install if the wind does not blow.”
It’s not just that. It’s that every unit of GDP is founded on a unit of energy.
Next, your windfarms are not ‘Green’, not least because they kill birds, no one seems to have made the connection between the growth of windfarms and the decline of british birdlife.
Next, windfarms are not ‘Green’, it takes an enormous amount of burnt hydrocarbons to refine the materials; steel, aluminum, plastic, materials for the alternator, the blades, the support, the concreate to give balast to the windmill, and the electronics necessary to regulate the electricity produced.
Next, a modern windmill is net energy negative. It requires more energy during it’s construction and during its lifetime – energy is frequently pumped into the device to maintain the bearings even when it is idle.
We can only afford them when we have a sufficient base load to make up the energy shortfall.
Even the strategic energy reserve consists of diesel generator sets that can be brought on line to feed power into the grid.
In short the Tory energy policy is to use a common acronym FUBAR’d
September 1, 2022
APL. Not only birds but bats too. An important part of our ecology. Also there are many more beachings by whales and dolphins. It’s thought the electro magnetism from the underground transmission cables and the vibrations from the bases are to blame. Green my a**e.
September 1, 2022
A couple of interesting FT articles have been copied across to another eurofederalist outlet, the Irish Times.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2022/09/01/what-are-the-eus-options-to-curb-electricity-prices/
“What are the EUâs options to curb electricity prices?”
“European energy prices are set through a so-called marginal pricing system in which the most expensive power plant called on to meet demand on any given day sets the wholesale electricity price for all suppliers. This means gas-fired power stations, which are still needed to keep the lights on in many countries, tend to dictate the wholesale electricity price for the rest of the market even though renewable power can be produced more cheaply.”
“But as gas prices have soared to record levels this year â largely due to Moscowâs decision to reduce supplies to Europe â the cost of electricity has been dragged up too. More policymakers are therefore calling for a new approach that would allow cheaper renewable energy to be sold at a lower price. Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Tuesday that proposals to change the market structure âare falling on increasingly fertile groundâ.
The UK government in July launched a consultation on decoupling the prices of gas and renewable power. Pressure is now mounting in Brussels.”
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/2022/08/31/there-are-tough-economic-times-coming-down-the-tracks/
“There are tough economic times coming down the tracks”
“If the planned tightening of monetary policy is likely to generate a recession in the US, what might happen in Europe? The answer is that the recessions there are likely to be deep given that the energy price shock is so large.”
“Monetary policy will play a part in the European story. But the core of its current crisis is the energy shock. Central banks cannot do anything directly about such real economic disturbances. They must stick to their mandate of price stability. ”
I would question whether that is the correct mandate. When all human beings had been made unemployed and homeless and were starving and freezing on the streets, what consolation would it be that retail prices had only risen in line with an arbitrary mechanistic mandate that politicians had given to central bankers? The monetary system should be there to serve us, we should not be sacrificed on the altar of dubious monetary theory.
September 1, 2022
In the Telegraph today:-
The practice of âfamily votingâ must be stamped out
Young women are being incarcerated and their voting rights abused
NORMAN TEBBIT
Indeed sort out postal voting and voting fraud and the boundaries. Truss has one hell of a lot to do!
September 1, 2022
Couldn’t agree more, Sir John. What the UK needs to do is to abandon the short-term Gadarene rush to “net zero” and have “minimal carbon” as the objective. Net zero will only be possible over the very long term as technology develops and becomes affordable, it will probably take 50-100 years. In any case, as others have said, reducing the UK’s CO2 emissions in any way, let alone to zero, will have absolutely no effect on global climate.
September 1, 2022
You only support the idea of âminimal carbonâ if you believe that a 1.5 degree rise in world temp will start the oceans to rise and kill off all humans….tell it to China & India
September 2, 2022
The most unpalatble solution to the effect humans are having on the world and its resources would be to find a way to stop births for at least 10 years in China, India, Soith America and anywhere else that would agree.
September 1, 2022
UKCS gas production expected to decline from circa 38 bcm to circa 10 bcm a year in 2035. Continued sky high prices may encourage some wildcat plays, who knows. The Fracking prospects decline with each new survey; currently estimated at 4,000 bcm. On an industrial scale of a few thousand wells, fracking could cover the decline in UKCS output; but, there are no proven recoverable reserves that could get easy finance. Fracked gas will be sold at market prices the same as all UKCS gas. There may be some freebie gas for “local to well” objectors (Italian style), and some free property damage insurance đ
The EU Offshore Renewable Energy Strategy, sets out the goals of reaching at least 60 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030 and 300 GW by 2050. Plus 40 GW of wave power by 2050. This is why we need the interconnectors. The wind will be blowing and the sun shining and charging storage systems, somewhere in Europe and North Africa, if not in the UK.
You can’t burn pure hydrogen in a current domestic natural gas boiler; but you can mix 20% hydrogen into natural gas and the boiler will still work at a slightly reduced output. Hydrogen is an energy carrier, as a vehicle fuel, it’s best left to Moon Rockets and inner-city buses and trams that work out of depots.
Meanwhile, build more LNG terminals and get the Rough Storage back in service. Don’t know who is paying for the large quantity of cushion gas (pushes out the working gas), Centrica or the Government?
Reply There’s plenty more gas and oil offshore and onshore if we wish to get it out
September 1, 2022
Right to Reply: Please just get it out
September 1, 2022
acorn : âThe wind will be blowing and the sun shining and charging storage systems, somewhere in Europe and North Africa, if not in the UK.â
Not true. Often when the wind isnât blowing in the UK it isnât blowing either across the whole North Sea and into Europe.
And I wouldnât think it makes for a secure energy system to be reliant on France/EU for any energy when we have already been threatened by a French president to have our energy cut off. And North Africa??
Anyway there is no energy security in wind when 95% of wind turbine parts and 100% of solar panels come from China plus China controls the market for the raw materials for motors, generators and batteries.
September 2, 2022
I monitor a site called wind in Europe which shows quite clearly that if it’s not windy here it’s unlikely to be windy elsewhere in Europe. In fact, the reason we have seen ballistic electricity prices in recent weeks has been because of a Europe wide failure of wind generation. Prices have soared beyond the marginal cost of gas generation, because there is also a capacity shortage. The available supply has been rationed by price. With the EU’s plan it will likely be rationed by power cut.
September 1, 2022
To say we need more gas is obviously true, and to say we need to produce it ourselves is also now acknowledged by everyone. So it is surprising that you have not gone beyond these truisms to say WHERE this should be obtained. In your Tweet today you talk about “extracting more gas from existing fields”, which again is not opposed by anyone. So why no mention of FRACKING? This is the door that needs to be pushed at – all the others are already wide open! And please, no more nonsense about doing this ‘with the consent of the local community’. NO, we cannot allow NIMBYs to have a veto on matters of vital NATIONAL importance. If you are woried about political repercusions just position the fracking wells in Labour and LibDem seats. Now that we have a new PM who is able to change direction, and with the energy crisis focusing minds like never before, this is the perfect time to push ahead, all guns blazing, on fracking. It’s now or never.
Reply I do support onshore as well as offshore gas production and have set out how.
September 1, 2022
Currently watching Boris on TV at Sizewell.
“No-one has taken a long term view of energy for the past twenty years” (and he went on to blame Labour). I absolutely agree but haven’t the Tories have been in power for the past twelve years? Where has the long term strategy been all this time?
“Wind is still the cheapest and best power available to use” Maybe but it clearly doesn’t work all the time and never will, so get real and stop promoting it.
He went on to tell us how we were (once) world leaders in nuclear power but now everyone else is building nuclear power stations except us (the Chinese have 50 or so apparently). So why is that? Although I have no faith in Labour, surely it’s the Tories who have been in power for much of the time he’s talking about?
“We need a long term energy strategy in place – which delivers long term sustainable energy for years to come” Really?? I could have sworn we currently have a strategy to off-shore everything (including our carbon emmissions) …or have I completely misunderstood our (e.g. Boris’s) governments approach. There has been zero committment to energy self-sufficiency.
He also doubts fracking will be the “panecea people think”. Somehow, I’m pretty certain we’d be much better off right now if we had allowed it five years ago. Waxing lyrical wind and nuclear does not solve this country’s need for gas over the short and medium term – for at least a decade or so.
He’s still talking and I’m sat here thinking that this is a speech he wouldn’t have given if still PM. However, it’s too little and far too late. Goodbye Boris, sorry but I’m not going to miss you very much.
September 1, 2022
And buy a new electric kettle. It will save you ÂŁ10 a year. Is he for real?
September 2, 2022
a decent electric kettle – minimum ÂŁ30 – so at least 3 years to recover outlay.
You know it makes sense….
September 1, 2022
According to our Prime Minister, the answer to this crisis is Sizewell C and ” shedloads of wind power”
God help us.
September 1, 2022
Sizewell C is a white elephant that should be replaced with much cheaper proven technology that can be built on budget and on time in under 5 years, from Korea and Japan. No more EPRs
September 1, 2022
+1
September 1, 2022
Correct.
September 1, 2022
The UK is still sending billions of money to the EU via dubious politically driven agreements and contracts.
Its almost as though they have a free hand to loot the public purse, for major policies never agreed by the public.
They even then fail to deliver the scale of the supply needed or obtain any benefits for the UK!
September 1, 2022
These Classics graduates advised by geniuses like St Greta, Lord Debden and Carrie… almost as bad at PPE Oxon. Bonkers Boris!
September 1, 2022
Boris today proclaiming that wind-power is 9 times cheaper than gasâŠ.maybe on âPeppa Pig Worldâ
September 2, 2022
bullshit to the last, eh?
September 1, 2022
Indeed plus these 7(was it) new Rolls Royce mini nuclear power plants. These are not the right technology as far as I can see.
September 1, 2022
Pat.
Boris is so totally useless on anything to do with energy he probably does think wind power can be stored in sheds!!
September 1, 2022
+1
September 1, 2022
âWhy we need more gasâ
Boris policy statement on energy today confirmed that the answer is ââNO ââ â Boris today stated that the governments position is that theyâre pro wind-turbines and against shale gas. I must conclude that his policy statement today has the fully backing of the whole of government and his cabinet, the support and endorsement of the majority of backbench Tory MPs and the support of the party members
Long live Net-Zero and the Green Revolution
September 1, 2022
Johnson no longer has to face an unhappy electorate. People like our kind host do ! If policies do not change then, for better or worse, there will be a change of government.
Like much else, despite all the airy-fairy nonsense, reality soon takes over.
September 2, 2022
unhappy? – do you mean downright hostile?
September 1, 2022
I think Truss has read the public mood far better than Boris.
But then he’s gone, so doesn’t care quite so much now about what people actaully think – he’ll be jetting about the world making a lot more money than Teresa May managed (and surprisingly she’s made millions) – so can afford to join Zak and other wealthy green Zeolots in sunnier climes this winter. I asume the gas bill isn’t going to inconvenience you either Glen?
September 1, 2022
My last sentence was sarcasm
September 1, 2022
most of us got that!
September 1, 2022
Err . . .
I hope glen cullen, you are being sarcastic !!
Anyway, haven’t you noticed that Boris is no longer stating ‘THE GOVERNMENTS position’.
I hope you are wrong about the majority of the parliamentary Con Party members supporting Boris’s eco lunacy.
September 1, 2022
No one from the current government, the cabinet, the backbenches or the party machine have rebuked todayâs policy statementâŠ.therefore they support it
September 1, 2022
Group think insanity – does Boris still think he got the big things right? Which one did he get right other than keeping Labour/SNP out of office and I cannot think of any really.
September 1, 2022
Why would an outgoing PM deliver a potentially divisive Policy Statement in the last couple of days of his role?
I rather hope Ms Truss will appoint a Cabinet that is not too enthusiastic on wind-turbines and FOR shale gas and nuclear investment. And will bring an end to interconnects.
September 1, 2022
Billed as his energy policy statement aired midday on all TV news channels….maybe he should have consulted with his party first
September 1, 2022
Glen. You don’t seriously believe the M.S.M. do you?
September 1, 2022
when did he ever?
September 1, 2022
HS2 ÂŁ150bn and Nuclear PowerStation Sizewell âCâ ÂŁ700mâŠ..we know where the governments priority is !
September 1, 2022
Rather than article after article about generating more energy and making energy cheaper, how about a series of articles on what this government could do in terms of reducing the need by ensuring the country’s housing stock is well insulated?
September 1, 2022
I was told that to bring my property up to top level insulation would cost around ÂŁ10,000.
Saving me on current prices of electricity and gas maybe ÂŁ60 per month.
The investment doesn’t add up.
September 1, 2022
ÂŁ60/month is ÂŁ720/year, which is a 7.2% ROI.
With the current predictions on where prices are headed, that ROI seems likely to only increase.
September 1, 2022
It is a pay back of nearly 14 years
No business would invest on that time line.
And then there is weeks of disruption as builders attack the walls and ceilings of your home.
September 1, 2022
I am instead buying a 6kw diesel generator and two dual fuel log coal burners fires to become completely independent of the chaos that will be coming.
September 2, 2022
With the current projections I’m seeing for the price cap for next March, that pay back time will drop to about 3-4 years come Easter.
September 2, 2022
You assume I have cash reserves to divert to insulation rather than having to borrow at high interest rate
Insulation won’t keep my lights on nor heat my modern house.
And it’s an estimate of up to ÂŁ60 per month saving.
My quote was lower than usual as most insulation projects cost double or treble.
September 1, 2022
Dear Sir J
* UK is a pretty windy country, most of the time, and offshore pretty well all of the time. So I don’t really buy your dubiousness on that issue. (I am a retired aviator (and scientist) but I know the conditions up there and out there very well).
* New developments in wave power are coming along all the time, some recent ideas are really practical and cheap to install. I think the sea is pretty wavy ALL of the time. (Why is this not being peddled as a UK invention? Lots of commercial opportunities there. Quite generally: why is it customary in “right wing” circles to brush off anything that is remotely “green”? There are loads of commercial opportunities out there. Why the fcuk are our capitalists not doing anything about that? (I count myself as being fairly “right wing” but jeez, I despair of my brethren on the right that they cannot exploit these new opportunities. )
* Nuclear power stations both on a “shedloads” scale but also the “mini” power stations that Rolls Royce are developing and now installing. (Another UK world leader).
* We also need to invest in more solar power, our roofs should be covered in them. Why is this not done?
* We need all of it. Gas/coal/oil is needed too but they are only a stop-gap and we had better prepare or the day that they run out.
I object to all of the “either/or” kinds of argument. It is like a school playground scrap. We need all of it, not one bit or other. Mankind is an omnivore at the dinner table and we need to be omnivores in our energy consumption.
Thank you for listening (if you do).
// Robert B
Reply We have had several days recently where wind only gave us 2-5 % of our electricity. You need gas to supply more than 50% when that happens.
September 1, 2022
You have missed something out Sir John.
Modern gas powered ‘Combi’ boilers need electricity as well as gas.
No matter how much I pay my energy supplier, chances are I shall freeze to death this winter because Boris’s eco lunacy means the electricity grid will be empty.
Otherwise, today’s diary is right.
Surely no one needs telling these things.
September 1, 2022
I wonder if I can heat my boiler and house by wind-power alone
September 1, 2022
you live in a child’s Wendy house?
September 1, 2022
It might be warmer come this winter
September 1, 2022
I watched a video of Mick Lynch on BBC website earlier. He spoke of his desire to see all working people get a pay rise to match the increase in cost of living. That in itself is a laudable ambition. Unfortunately certain industries, businesses and (Civil!) services are not profitable enough to be able to do that. Solutions include reduction in owners/shareholders profit distribution, workers accepting reduced staffing might be inevitable, and even Government investment where the situation warrants it. What he didn’t cover was the methods to be used to argue for pay increases. Withholding your service or products damages required support for your situation.
The people directly involved in that sort of action need to reflect on the longer term outcome, or ideally find employment elsewhere which, by the law of supply and demand, might rebalance the very situation he complains about.
September 1, 2022
Even if it were possible it would take quite some time to regain self sufficiency in gas. Whilst producing as much as we can has the most direct return for the economy we must also recognise the need for a more competitive market in import supply. That places priority on encouraging Norway in particular, with its pipelines to the UK, but also other friendly countries to increase their supplies too.
September 1, 2022
BO wrong about windmill’s being the cheapest power in the UK. Geothermal is the cheapest power in the UK, the EDEN project might be small at 25 MW at cost of 22 million pounds, it base load 24/7 aday all year round and last as long as rocks stay hot with very little maintenance, on the other hand, wind is not base load and breakdown happen and only 30 odd years of life out at sea and could be alot less for some windmills. Four more projects are at the planning stage in Dorset and Cornwall and then you have disused coal mines which are submerge in hot water for heating homes and factories, council Kent is doing one and few up north, the gov is not even looking to expand this base load free energy, gov like the big deal project with loads of debt and waste, nuclear 30 billion pounds a pop and last 70 years, massive costs to run when built and another 30 billion pounds to decommission in 70 years time. If I had 100 drill rigs operating in the UK for 10 years it would supply every home and office in the UK with limited hot water for heating and for factories and places where it really hot electric as well.
September 1, 2022
Having come back from holiday, it was amusing to turn on the tele and hear Boris saying that Putin has been involved in a Kamikaze policy of not selling his cheap gas to Europe. It seems me that Europe including the UK, has been on a Kamikaze of refusing Russian cheap gas, closing pipelines at US insistence, and closing investment in fossil fuels, all on its own resulting in disastrous inflation and shortages. By the way the decision to let EDF build their disastrous nuke at Sizewell, when all the other designs work and can bebuilt cheaper 7 years, is more proof of government incompetence.
September 1, 2022
The sheer idiocy is even worse than that, Stred. It’s now been reported in the FT that Chinaâs biggest oil refiner Sinopec Group is channelling liquid natural gas to Europe. Apparently they don’t need it in China at the moment because of the economic downturn there. And where does this LNG come from? Er, Russia. It greatly increased its LNG supplies to China this year, by more than is needed domestically. So because the EU wants to stick it to Putin, the Chinese are making a handsome profit selling on to Europe LNG that they got at a discount from Russia. Brilliant.
September 1, 2022
and then there is the EDF cock up at Hinkley Point – whats the lastest cost projection and when will it be completed – mind you the price the consumer will have to pay eventually will take your socks off
No good news from other EDF projects either in France or Sweden yet the UK Government ploughs on in tis gross stupidity. One has to ask the question – why does France what to nationalise EDF …… er thats a tricky one. Well try asking the question why does the UK government nat ionise a company/ industry
Are there any brains in this Government or previous Governments – certainly clever enough never to carry the can.
September 1, 2022
The reason we need (more) gas is because of the enormous amount of energy that gas and other hydrocarbons can supply.
28m homes using 4KW on a cold early winter morning for their heat pump, and immersion heater to kill off Legionnaires disease, will require 112 GW. This is equivalent to the power from 35 Hinkley Point C/Sizewell C EDF EPR nuclear reactors. Or 896GW of installed wind turbines if hydrogen is used as storage to guarantee a continuous supply, 18 times the 50 GW of offshore wind planned for 2030.
38m evs on a standard 7KW charger will require 266 GW, although in this case charging could be staggered during the night reducing the power required at any one time⊠provided the Government doesnât use the energy stored in the ev batteries during the night for grid stabilityâŠ.
The whole of the National Grid infrastructure, local and national, will have to be increased dramatically to be able to supply all this additional power once the gas is turned offâŠ.unless of course the idea is to live with far less energy and accept intermittencyâŠ.
September 1, 2022
To some extent gas can be a transition fuel but it has to be a long transition. At world level, we should frown against the burning of raw coal and the use of LNG. Both of those have double the carbon footprint of natural gas, the latter because of the energy used in cooling and reheating. We need additional tariffs to be imposed on the exports of countries burning raw coal; that can only be done on a rational basis by proposing their inclusion in WTO rules. The necessary calculation should be easy enough to make: compute the annual running cost (not the capital cost) of converting coal fired power stations to decarbonised (“clean”) coal. Spread this hypothetical increase over the country’s exports by value and impose a suitable tariff. Yes, the proposal would upset China, America, India, Germany, Poland etc etc. But I for one am pissed off that we make ourselves the whipping boy when there are far bigger culprits out there,
For the short term emergency of this winter, the government should take emergency powers to ensure that the extraction of North Sea gas and oil, fracking, the construction of on shore and off shore wind farms, go ahead.
We should not be capping prices but rather aim at cutting domestic consumption, limiting the maximum temperature in homes and offices to 17 centigrade degrees and temporarily eliminating VAT on clothes. Again, emergency powers may be needed. If we need to help the poor, we should give them vouchers to buy sweaters and woolly underwear.
Another way of helping the poor is to reform income tax. No one on an income of ÂŁ20,000 or less should pay any income tax or personal NI. A standard rate of 24.9% should apply up to an income of ÂŁ65,000, with a 45% marginal rate applying on higher incomes. With these changes, no one would pay more income tax than at present (I’ve checked the maths in a spreadsheet) and someone on ÂŁ20,000 pa would save over ÂŁ2,000 pa on income tax and NI.
Finally, if we stopped all immigration, aiming at ZPG, we could concentrate on improving and replacing our existing housing stock to be better insulated rather than building new houses.
We should always remember that if we achieve a certain percentage reduction in gross carbon emissions, there is a bigger percentage reduction in net carbon emissions.
September 1, 2022
We cannot really abandon ‘Net Zero’ in principle. To do so would expose the new PM to vast amounts of ridicule and vituperation both at home and abroad, and not really acheive anything. Since there is no penalty for failing to meet our targets, we should ultimately just be prepared to fail, as all other countries will fail anyway. Simply ensure that all Government agencies know that energy security comes first, net zero second.
September 1, 2022
The reason for Net Zero has nothing to do with climate change/reducing CO2 emissions, as evidenced by the absurd employment of useless, expensive and unreliable wind for our electrical power, but rather to force the termination of fossil fuels.
The electrification of heating and transport will give enormous powers of control to those in charge of our smart meters, power that is not possible if we continue to use hydrocarbons for these tasks.
This explains why, despite looming electrical power shortages, possibly lasting many years, there is no amendment planned to the forced adoption of expensive and impractical evs and heat pumps.
September 1, 2022
Off topic, what are the odds that Liz Truss will cave in, just as Boris Johnson caved in back in November 2011?
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/eu-will-not-negotiate-on-ni-brexit-deal-while-liz-trusss-controversial-protocol-laws-remain-on-the-table-1828080?ITO=newsnow
“The European Union will refuse to negotiate changes to the Brexit deal on Northern Ireland as long as Liz Truss continues with her controversial legislation that would allow ministers to rip up parts of the agreement.
An EU official confirmed to i that Brussels would not engage in further talks as long as Ms Trussâs Northern Ireland Protocol Bill continued its passage through Parliament.
The revelation appears to torpedo any plans the frontrunner to be next prime minister had to use the legislation as leverage to get a better-negotiated solution with the EU.”
Just a reminder that the EU has in case consistently refused to negotiate changes to the Brexit deal on Northern Ireland so there’s nothing new there:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/06/30/the-eu-expands-its-foreign-policy/#comment-1326424
âGermanyâs ambassador to the EU has said member states will not change the mandate of chief negotiator MaroĆĄ Ć efÄoviÄ to renegotiate the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Michael Clauss has said that EU capitals were unanimous in believing that the Protocol should not be renegotiated.â
âWe shouldnât forget that breaching the Northern Ireland Protocol, which is the centerpiece of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, is no small thing.â
And nor would the EU’s threatened “retaliation” be any small thing; on the contrary it would be an entirely disproportionate response even if the EU had actually suffered any injury, as made clear in this Irish Times editorial of November 11 2021:
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorial/the-irish-times-view-on-the-northern-ireland-protocol-the-price-of-repudiation-1.4725007
“… there are fears that punitive actions confined to the protocolâs remit, notably NI-UK trade, will not represent … sufficient economic leverage on the British … The alternative sanctions approach, publicly floated by Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney and backed by many member states, is for the EU to abandon all or part of the Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA), struck post-divorce/Withdrawal Agreement (WA) in late 2020, and which was always conditional on the latterâs agreement and then impmentation. Instead of facing Northern Ireland-specific measures, the UK could face tariffs and possible quotas on all its exports to the EU.”
The Irish are being very foolish in calling for a trade war, but if they want one we should give it to them:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/07/19/then-there-were-four/#comment-1330135
“And while that projected an 8.16% GDP loss for Ireland if the UK left on WTO terms it was only 2.76% for the UK, which may be worth remembering if EU supporters start threatening us with a trade war.”
September 1, 2022
Six out of the last six posts on the blog have been about energy. It is rightly so and it all links in to the cost of living crisis. This crisis will be the chief issue at the next ge.
I wonder if the leadership candidates understand that. I think not. There is always the danger they are taken up with their own even valuable vision of Britain. Yet that will not win an election. If the next leader goes into the next election with the country in ruins, the people impoverished, business collapsed, visions won’t matter much.
It is important that the new leader has a six out of six approach to energy and the cost of living crisis like our host.
September 2, 2022
This is much the same point as I have been saying. They really are drinking in the Last Chance Saloon and, like yourself, feel that they do not yet know it.
September 2, 2022
I think the place ran out of booze some time ago. And like many pubs – they have to close.
September 1, 2022
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
Net Zero Watch has condemned the Governmentâs green energy policies as âa national disaster.
Highlighting the ability to sell to the highest bidder which we all know happens.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/09/01/net-zero-watch-has-condemned-the-governments-green-energy-policies-as-a-national-disaster/
September 1, 2022
It is a national disaster with the burden on the taxpayer and the poor
September 1, 2022
I said that we should have gone for a No Deal Brexit and I resigned from the Conservative Party when I didn’t get one. We could have avoided the NI protocol. Tariffs on our exports would mostly be trivial and border delays would be low, with the exception of agriculture. We could have scrapped many of the EC Laws and Directives that have come in since the Maastricht Treaty became law. We could put a pistol at the EU’s head, proclaiming that the cost of unnecessary delays imposed on our exporters would be deducted from the remaining monies that we owe the EU. And we could have avoided the ECHR.
The EU is treating the USA better than they treat us. For example 98% of American containers going through Rotterdam are not inspected, because of trusted trader relationships.
September 2, 2022
You know it makes sense….others don’t.
September 1, 2022
Britainâs Bitter Regret: Inevitable Result of UKâs Suicidal Renewable Energy Policy
stopthesethings Aug 31
A really good article built around a piece in the telegraph
Act in stupid haste and thereâs plenty of time to repent in leisure; with the insane renewable energy rush, there comes a veritable lifetime of regret.
The miserable truth is that our leaders donât want us to have cheap energy
The Telegraph
Daniel Hannan
http://stopthesethings.com/2022/08/31/britains-bitter-regret-inevitable-result-of-uks-suicidal-renewable-energy-policy/
September 1, 2022
Everyone in the media is trying to find solutions without trying to find the real problem – why has the energy wholesale price been increasing for the past 12mths, whats the trigger
September 1, 2022
Sun Cult Exuberant Over Brief Moment When Solar Delivered: Then Came SunsetâŠ
September 1, 2022 by stopthesethings
Brilliant article built around comments from Watts up with That and ABC news.
The infantile mentality of the renewables cult is on vivid display when they crow about wind or solar adding something meaningful to the grid. Always brief and fleeting, the 60 minutes when solar or wind did something special, is always trumpeted as if no one else cares about their power needs for the other [âŠ]
http://stopthesethings.com/2022/09/01/sun-cult-exuberant-over-brief-moment-when-solar-delivered-then-came-sunset/
September 1, 2022
Even California does not have the capability to support the EV push.
Nice to know we are not alone. Who would have ever thought it?
Courtesy of NaLoPKT
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6311693805112