If we left energy policy to the Opposition we would be closing down our oil and gas fields more quickly, refusing to get more out of the ground, and urging the construction of more windfarms. This requires a big increase in the grid which will take years to plan, agree and build. Meanwhile we would be even more dependent on imports. We would be in more danger of rationing or interruptions to supply. Prices would rise to provide sufficient incentive  to put in the extra  wind and solar capacity.
These parties have energy policies based on the imperative of getting to net zero. They never seem to worry about security of supply or affordability. These two aims should be more central to energy policy.
The government has now accepted that  getting more of our own oil and gas out makes sense. It did with some persuasion keep open a couple of coal stations for longer which has been helpful in the last two years.
We still do not have good ways of storing renewable power when it is available for times when there is no wind and sun. It may be possible to do this with battery stores and or making green hydrogen. Until that happens we need more back up power. As government and Opposition press  on with wanting  more things to run on electricity  we need more reliable power, it would be good to put extra gas fired stations in to meet need.
There is no point in urging more people to switch cars and heating  systems to electricity if there is insufficient renewable power on a reliable basis and insufficient grid space to carry the power from a distant offshore wind farm to a customer. There needs to be greater clarity about costs and charges and more consideration of affordability. The UK is suffering from too little domestic output at too high a price.
January 26, 2024
Good morning.
Sir John
Just saying the other party would be that bit worse is not a vote winner. Admit it, your party is finished, and it was all done by its own hand.
Theresa May MP – “We will build on (RedEd) policies. Those being on the environment and energy.
Enough said.
January 26, 2024
Agree Mark, still to see a sensible energy strategy from anyone in government.
A primary school age child could spot the problem with intermittency of solar/wind energy. Equally that school age child wouldn’t suggest a solution of building a second supply at suignificant cost to protect against power shortfalls – the only current reliable/secure option.
January 26, 2024
Mark,
Not just build on it but gold plate EU level playing field on environment not to be competitive to EU. Sunak stated he would not be more competitive than his neighbours!!! Sunak currently negotiating with EU to further strengthen the EU Windsor sell out agreement so UK is in lockstep to regs rules and courts and could never diverge. No.10 says it was speculation! Sunak has form for back stabbing, incompetence, school boy errors and not keeping his word.
JR,
How about taking back control of our laws borders and money!! UK fined ÂŁ34 million by ECJ for red diesel across the whole of UK! Sunak rules out leaving ECHR but says he will ignore their rulings, yeah right! Cameron is back.
January 26, 2024
Let us not forget Cameron called Red Edâs energy policy Marxist. Then they built on it!!
January 26, 2024
A primary school age child will also understand that if you want to reduce CO2 emissions, then you should not import people into a country where winter warmth depends on the burning of fossil fuels.
January 26, 2024
A Primary Age child could see the problems of National Security and potential Blackmail with foreign interconnectors. Just our fools in Westminster and their Civil Serpents are still wedded to their beloved dreams of an EU superstate. France/Fishing Licenses and Jersey’s power springs to mind. This was years ago now and they still haven’t speeded up Nuclear, gas, hydro or other power sources for self sufficiency and costs. Even importing coal from Russia to show their virtue signalling stupidity instead of digging our own! Truly useless at this and most other policies. Latest polls show Reform catching the Tory’s. Hopefully a tipping point will come and the One Nation Liberals will get their payback. Whatever happens, 14 years of failure will not get rewarded. The public have had enough regardless of Starmergeddon.
January 26, 2024
Talking of which, how is it proposed that the electric arc furnaces Tata say they want to build are powered? Just adding to a system already on the brink of breakdown does not seem sensible. I have my doubts whether it will happen at all. Just another Tory way of closing down industry in this country and devastating local communities which once again will not recover, just like the mining areas, all soon forgotten once all the hullabaloo dies down despite all the promises of new industries and better cleaner jobs.
January 26, 2024
The country is in serious trouble now.
If rishi goes there is no sensible person to replace him anyway.
No matter who wins the next general election the voters are not going to get the kind of sensible policies and delivery they need.
There is a massive disconnect between the political class and everyone else.
We don’t have a coherent society with common values, the decent people are being abused on a massive scale.
This is going to blow up one day, I don’t know when, but if so called democracy has delivered such failure with policies despised by the majority then I don’t see any fixes other than revolution or civil war.
The lame identikit politicians have had their time.
January 26, 2024
Quite, heard it on the radio a number of times now. The PCP electioneering line: ‘vote for us, even though were useless, because the other lot are worse’. This is the contempt with which the PCP holds you and me, the voter.
Sir J, you have made many positive suggestions in this blog, it’s what sets you above the rest of your foolish colleagues, please don’t follow their negative line, it will not work.
Interesting also, Reform are now seen as a real risk; idiot Tory MP’s are doing them a publicity favour!
January 26, 2024
Indeed about the only selling point this appalling government have is âwe Con-Socialists are truly dire but Starmerâs Labour will be even worse.
JR says âIt may be possible to do this with battery stores and or making green hydrogen.â indeed or by compressing air, or pumping water up hill⊠well it is âpossibleâ but it is vastly expensive and hugely energy wasteful (circa 25% to 80% of the electrical energy is wasted in the electricity to energy storage back to electricity. A battery that can store just ÂŁ1 of electricity can cost ÂŁ400 and so capital costs and depreciation can be over ÂŁ1 per charge discharge cycle and much of the energy is wasted in the process and in mining and making the battery, voltage conversions AC to DC and back and charge and discharge. Fire risks too. All the other methods have high costs, energy waste and fire or other risks too. Barrages are very dangerous.
Far better to store it as methane, nuclear or coal and produce as needed. CO2 is not a problem anyway.
Wind power with expensive storage makes no sense financially, economically nor even in CO2 terms as all sensible, competent, independent, honest scientists & energy engineers will tell you.
January 27, 2024
LL,
Not worse, the same. This govt and parliament is rotten to its core.
After expense scandal we were told there would be reform. The rotten MPs have made it difficult for people to find out who is being investigated, for what and only told the outcome. What happened to Cameronâs open and transparency is the best disinfectant rhetoric? Binned. A proper right to recall rather than the sham in existence? Oh yes, lobbying will be the next scandal Cameron comment. etc ed
January 26, 2024
Well said! It is not the opposition parties that have been running the country these last 13 years
January 26, 2024
The elected party has been ruining not running the country for these last 13 years.
January 26, 2024
There is no energy policy only relying on hostile states for 12.2% of our electricity in 2023.
I see Fishy has a new ruse for Northern Ireland, he’s going to make sure all future legislation doesn’t impact on Northern Ireland and if the DUP don’t agree he’s going to cancel the power sharing clause in the Good Friday agreement to get Stormont back sitting. This has the slimeball Camerons prints all over it.
Fishy must go now.
January 26, 2024
Go now – Moody Blues 1965
We’ve already said “goodbye”
Since you gotta go, oh you’d better
Go now, go now, go now (go now, ooh)
Before you see me cry?
I don’t want you to tell me just what you intend to do now
‘Cause how many times do I have to tell you darlin’, darlin’
I’m still in love with you now
Whoa oh oh oh
We’ve already said “so long”
I don’t want to see you go, oh you’d better
Go now, go now, go now (go now, ooh)
Don’t you even try?
Tellin’ me that you really don’t want it to end this way
‘Cause darlin’, darlin’, can’t you see I want you to stay, yeah.
They were just as confused then as the Tory MPs are now!
January 26, 2024
@Mark B – agreed we might be asking for another 10 years of purgatory by voting for any of the opposition. But, all this Conservative Government has done in the last 14 years is continue with the Blair/Brown wrecking ball – but more so.
So even a remote chance of removing these WEF Socialists, making things worse, then down the line finding some real Conservatives, with real support for the UK, Democracy and so on is no longer a gamble but a necessity.
January 26, 2024
The policy of building a new EPR2 at Sizewell shows the stupidity of the government. Hinkley is delayed again to 2030 and it’s unproven technology.
The decision on SMRs has been delayed until autumn no doubt falling foul of the GE so no decision there. The interconnectors are massively one way with is Importing large amounts of electricity at very expensive rates
This government has been cavalier with Britain’s energy supply and the whole liblabcon want disinfecting. You’ve had your chance and blown it.
January 27, 2024
The EPR decision us lamentable. The latest from EdF is that Hinkley Point will cost ÂŁ43bn in money of today to complete (and therefore the remaining spend will push it inexorably to ÂŁ50bn in total money of the day by the time it is spent), with delays now extending possibly to 2035. They have blamed the ONR for its repeated interventions demanding design changes which probably only make the problems with the design worse, as well as adding to cost and delay.
We must stop the ONR from tampering where there are proven safe designs with a track record. Their role should be to ensure procedures are in place for safe construction and operation and decommissioning. We must stop thinking that the French design should be used in place of the proven, much less costly designs from Korea and Japan. The mindset in evaluating SMRs needs to change too. It needs fresh management and a consumer friendly remit.
January 26, 2024
We are not talking about energy policies to win elections , or score party political points, we are searching for the best way forward for the UK.
January 29, 2024
John – see todayâs NOTALOTOFPEOPLEKNOWTHAT website about the Daily Sceptic article on how you again have been lied to by the Climate Change Committee. You simply must stop the futile damaging NET ZERO fraud before it ruins us. One percent? China 31%. CO2 does not materially affect the weather. The IPCC cannot find any change in extreme events for a century.
January 26, 2024
Honestly it really looks as if the tories intend to leave everything to the present opposition! Cede it, parcel it up, give it away.
An 80 seat majorityâŠI could weep. And I would if I actually believed that they were conservatives.
Are we absolutely certain that the revenues from new gas and oil arenât earmarked for âgreencr*pâ?
A sort of one off profit investment to build millions of rusting windmills?
I just read that growing your own veg is reckoned to be bad for the planet!
Not really surprised âŠI had expected that.
But how mad and disappointing.
January 26, 2024
Sunak when trying to become Tory leader said he would get fracking! When in office banned it. Come on, JR, get real. Sunak and Hunt taxed companies so high no one is interested in producing oil and gas. Your party even bought coal fromâŠâŠRussia. Your party/govt currently buying gas from EU through increased inter connectors who in turn have increased its LNG import by 30% fromâŠ.Russia!!
Why more inter connectors to EU JR? We want energy security not from hostile EU who threatened to cut electric from Jersey! Stopped vaccines to N.Ireland, stopped PPE to UK etc. Stop cuddling the abusive partner who threatens us harm.
January 26, 2024
Before the 2019 election, the transport secretary (now defence secretary) said we would have further consultation on HS2, the day after the election it was a done deal ….thats not democracy thats cheating and lying for votes
January 26, 2024
The Globalists want you entirely dependent on them for food. The last thing they want are people growing their own.
January 26, 2024
loss of control you see!
January 26, 2024
@Everhopeful – An 80 seat majority squandered, on vanity, ego, self-gratification – that has given us debts, high taxation, and destruction of the very fabric of the UK. There is nothing imaginable that could be worse
January 26, 2024
Agree â
What Tory, Labour & LibDem politicians want :
Battery storage, Interconnectors, Wood-Pellets, Wind-turbines, Solar, Nuclear âŠexpensive limited supply
What the people want :
Coal, Oil, Gas, Shale Gas fracking, Nuclear âŠ.cheap constant supply
January 26, 2024
and it comes down to …drum roll …..CHOICE.
January 26, 2024
Agree – If only we had a free democratic choice ….wouldn’t that be something
January 26, 2024
How can we call ourselves a modern nation when we have no energy?
January 26, 2024
An no steel and little industry. How can we even have a sensible defence policy? Still Charles our King of carbon hypocrisy is perfectly happy to helicopter from Sandringham to London yesterday – a distance of 100 miles. Probably using about 30 times the fuel that a car would have. Do as I say not as I do you plebs. Is Sandringham heated with heat pumps or gas or oil. The latter two I expect.
January 26, 2024
Whether Sunak has 1 wind mill or 1,000,000 wind mills if the wind does not blow they do not work. The maths genius knows this right? Another school boy error? Our ancestors worked this out 200 years ago!
We are sitting on 300 years of coal, yet buy it from Russia or anywhere else. Germany uses coal, China uses coal, India uses coal, US uses coal. England buys in coal rather than produce its own. How exactly does that help the planet?
Could Someone in his socialist pro EU party help Sunak work out the flaw in His PLAN. Because His PLAN on energy, economy, Brexit, immigration and taxation is not working!
Third electric bus in a week caught fire in London yesterday!! How dangerous is this while being a public service vehicle!!
January 26, 2024
+1
January 26, 2024
They’re beyond being socialist
January 26, 2024
………..or steel production, no manufacturing and open borders.
January 26, 2024
We sit on an island made of coal & shale gas, surrounded by a sea of gas & oil âŠwe have the natural resources that other countries could only dream of.
And yet we donât exploit nor utilise those energy resources for the benefit of the british people and industry
Oh we have ‘energy’ but this government chooses not to use it !
January 26, 2024
And surrounded by OUR fish….at least it was, NOW over fished by everybody else.
January 26, 2024
Don’t get me started !!!
January 26, 2024
But why are they so keen to destroy everything to achieve net zero?
What will happen if it doesnât happen by 2050 ?
Nothing! We know that and assuming a modicum of intelligence so do they.
So why?
January 26, 2024
Think Millennium bug. Think 0.04% of the atmosphere is CO2. Think 3% of that at best is produced by man and only 1% of that tiny, tiny figure is produced by the UK. China’s annual INCREASE of CO2 production is more than the entire production of the UK. CO2 is a plant food without which all living things would die. They are still importing 1.2 million a people a year with NO FOOTPRINT. Then take them seriously when their focus is on the wrong side of the planet if there was a problem in the first place. The CO2 bogy gas is going to get us!! Water vapour is a more important greenhouse gas, as is destroying the lungs of the planet, the rain forests.
January 26, 2024
They are not keen to destroy everything, just the West and transfer all to the East. Is India, China and all the rest putting their heads on this block? Do they care? They must have scientists every bit as good (?) as ours, yet they do not think the world is going to end by next Tuesday or they would join in. If the countries with the largest populations don’t fear for themselves what does that say about ‘the settled science’. I don’t believe they have a suicide wish as our brain-washed lot seem to have. They wish to be prosperous, not pauperise their populations. By the time this idea is found to be wrong, it will be too late.
January 26, 2024
Why aren’t they honest about net-zero in their manifesto ….about the financial & social costs, and about following the UN world agenda
January 26, 2024
If only John would reveal what’s really behind the drive to NZ and renewables but then I’ve given up hoping that the Tory party would choose our side rather than the side of Neo-Marxist progressives
The Tories never commit to one side but always try to manage both camps. We see this across ‘contentious issues’ as determined by Labour and the fascist left. The Tories they’re being clever but it’s evidence of a party without belief, without a soul and without a courageous mission.
A party that puts authoritarian speech laws on the statute book is utterly repugnant. It is akin to Liverpool FC sending out their own striker with his legs tied together.
Reply. I have continuously pressed for change in energy policy to take security of supply and affordability seriously. I am up against the whole weight of the Treaty based western international thinking which is dominated by the CO 2 issue. This is supported by big business and the national governments as well as by global quangos and think tanks. In the UK Labour, Lib Dem and SNP all think controlling CO 2 is more important than the wishes and needs of Uk consumers and industry. One of my would be correspondents thinks it all stems from a couple of billionaires.Instead it is fully embedded in most western national and international governing institutions.
January 26, 2024
Reply to reply: “Big business, governments, global quangos and think tanks”: You don’t mention the sprawling network of pressure groups which powerfully influence opinion via media campaigns, and therefore influence the direction of government policy. This is perhaps because if you did, Sir John, you’d have to consider who funds them. That might be a couple of corporate billionaires, I guess. Of course the result is that the net zero religion has become embedded in ruling institutions, but it’s important to see how it came to be that way.
As we see with the farmers on the continent now, pressure groups protesting against net zero insanity are far more of a threat to the Green establishment than finely argued debating points. The French and German governments have announced measures to slow down their drive to net zero, because they know they have lost public support. Why won’t farmers here demonstrate? Because their land is now owned by corporate business, perhaps? Or by the country’s ‘Greenest’ university, in the case of your constituency?
January 26, 2024
*I am up against the whole weight of the Treaty based western international thinking which is dominated by the CO 2 issue. *
But then you’re trying to fight this as part of the wrong team. To continue the analogy, it’s as though Mo Salah puts on a Man City shirt to help Liverpool win then complains that the Liverpool team won’t pass him the ball. This won’t work, and it will confuse your constituents for you to be so way off the party line and triangulating with Reform.
January 26, 2024
Effectively, government and world leaders following the wisdom of Saint Greta.
January 26, 2024
JR,
And the data from the wretched climate committee has admitted it was flawed! Why not lead rather than continually following global rot!
January 26, 2024
Spot on Sir John. In some countries there are moves to stop people from voting for parties who oppose this madness. Meanwhile some, like China, ignore the Net Zero foolishness.
January 26, 2024
@Dom
There is much on social media about the so called “climate scam” and various books have been published with a “climate scam” title. I am no scientist and I do not know whether or not “climate scam” is a conspiracy theory. How many times do todays conspiracy theories become tomorrows truths ?
I do not believe that there has yet been a full, open, transparent and well publicised scientific debate …..BBC where are you ?. Without such a debate, it is concerning as to how we have got to where we are.
Meanwhile we plebs suffer.
January 26, 2024
Unfortunately Sir John you are also “up against” a significant proportion of your own Party, which is why I suspect Mr Sunak can only pull half-a-rabbit out of his hat and a very poor half rabbit at that. What you state about our lack of energy security and nonsensical Net Zero polices makes eminent sense but your Government (and our Civil Service) are now heavily wedded to these ideas. It seems we are going to get this stupidity whoever we vote for, so I can certainly understand why so many see no point in voting Conservative.
On a more upbeat note, Alex Brummer wrote a very positive article about how (very!) succesful the UK has been recently in the Services sector. There is a LOT of good news there for post-Brexit Britain but as Alex noted at the end – all this seems to have escaped the communications team at No 10. All we hear about are the disasters!
January 26, 2024
To reply:- The war on CO2 plant tree amd crop food and vital for life is clearly bonkers. But for governments and those on the make it is a useful excuse for ever more taxes, ever more regulation, ever more government and an excuse for failure in so many areas. Flood control, forest management, rip off energy incompetenceâŠplus a racket for the subsidy farming industries.
Just like the net harm Covid vaccines coerced into those who never even needed them even had they been safe and effective – just follow the money. Who funds the JCVI for example.
January 26, 2024
Then we must elect a Party who changes this religion. Reform. It’ll be interesting to see and hear the campaign to promote net zero, continued mass immigration, ban our cars and boilers, highest taxation ever, collapsing NHS and non existent dental services. Add in a load of woke anti English men deliberate discrimination for employment legislation…. and on and on. Uni Party must go.
January 26, 2024
Yes…
January 26, 2024
Reply to reply. Funny how the same old billionaires names crop up in every category you list but no one wants to call them out. Why is that I wonder.
January 27, 2024
Reply to Reply : âOne of my would be correspondents thinks it all stems from a couple of billionaires.Instead it is fully embedded in most western national and international governing institutions.â
You and your âwould be correspondentâ are both right. We have embedded fifth column communists in our Government, Parliament, Civil Service, judiciary, educational establishment (120,000 Chinese âstudentsâ in our universities) quangos and institutions working to destroy our economy. In addition we have WEF feudalists/billionaires wanting us to own nothing so they can own everything. Then we have the energy grifters, one of whom posts on this site regularly, and finally, as always, the useful idiots who are unable to recognise a scam, particularly religious world-ending scams.
January 27, 2024
The Royal Society report on Large Scale Energy Storage lifted a corner of the carpet on the many false assumptions being made in support of net zero. I welcomed it when it came out in September for doing that, while pointing out that it still adopts many of the other false assumptions that I have been highlighting for a good number of years. It came back to public notice when Sir Christopher Llewellyn Smith used it to criticise the work of and for the CCC recently, and it also emerged that he admitted the RS work failed to take proper account of the effects of changing weather on demand.
The GWPF has just produced its own study estimating the position with rather more realistic assumptions about costs and technical performance capabilities of turbines and electrolysers etc. concluding that the 2050 cost per household for energy would be ÂŁ8,000p.a. – if all the storage and plant could even be built. It is simply unaffordable.
January 26, 2024
‘If we left energy policy to the Opposition we would be closing down our oil and gas fields more quickly, refusing to get more out of the ground, and urging the construction of more windfarms.’
Is this a quiet acceptance of CC/NZ? If so it is acceptance of a scam, a fraud designed to destroy the UK (and the Western world) economies. It is proving highly successful and benefits all those countries not implementing it.
Time for a clear out at Wesrminster.
January 26, 2024
As an owner of an air-source heat pump system. Which is not very efficient, is not cheap to run, service or maintain. Plus installed an expensive solar system which is great in summer but useless in winter. Especially when it gets very cold the battery storage goes into hibernation! So I totally agree with your comments & specifically this unfounded madness to Net Zero. That is more about project fear & controlling the population. So that the rich get richer! Good example is Khans ULEZ control scheme. It has been enforced with little resistance from the people who are paying fortunes to comply. For no benefit to them! Just giving Khan millions to waste on a daily basis & they still comply! Unbelievable…….
January 27, 2024
Could I ask what made you spend your money on the two inefficient and expensive energy systems you purchased, Jude? Were there any reviews you could go to, or sources such as Which, that evaluated them?
January 26, 2024
All very well Sir John but this leaves voters choosing to vote for the party they dislike least.
January 26, 2024
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/01/25/andrew-montford-does-the-climate-change-committee-understand-the-energy-storage-problem/#more-71308
Interesting article, and if true a bit of a school boy error for which we will of course pay.
It references the data used to calculate energy storage, or lack of it.
I personally would imagine any errors in the push to net zero can be mopped up with the excuse that the climate crisis ( I believe that’s its new name) is far worse than they first thought!!
January 27, 2024
The answer is that the CCC adopted a whole catalogue of completely unrealistic assumptions, of which the failure to evaluate the potential need for storage properly is just one. They simply reckoned (correctly) that politicians a civil servants would be bamboozled by torrents of pdfs, and gambled that proper criticism would be ignored, at least until the policy collapsed in failure who,e they enjoyed their pensions.
January 26, 2024
Sir John, your final sentence needs to be put into context.
Yes, you are correct, we are producing insufficient energy domestically and it is too expensive. That crisis of inadequate security of energy supply and the elevated costs have come into being, during the Tory administrations period in office since 2010.
Not a very good legacy is it? How do you feel about that?
January 27, 2024
The UK was self sufficient in energy in the first few years of the century, but that was lost by about 2005. EU regulation and climate legislation helped to ensure it was rapidly undermined. Of course only a few MPs abstained and a bare handful actually voted against the Climate Change Act. Energy policy I the coalition was sub contracted to Lib Dems Huhne and Davey. There has been only very limited opposition within Parliament from any party, with a few mainly Tory MPs and Graham Stringer prepared to talk sense.
January 26, 2024
The government has now accepted that getting more of our own oil and gas out makes sense.
In that case stop this idiotic road to self destruction of net zero rubbish, ozone /climate change they are all but a thick smoke screen to screw every last ÂŁÂŁÂŁâs of our money, put simply if the great British people really believe in this net zero crap then there would be more than one MP in Parliament, whatâs needed right now is a party to be truthful with us and stop all this disaster nonsense of that we will all fry in 30 odd years time , this is a fundamental reason why we are struggling to make ends meet because net zero rubbish as a effect on every aspect of our life and our a hard earned cash, when the weatherman with all the satellites and computers canât get the next dayâs forecast right and the research scientist who get funding to peddle this crap we should take there views with a pinch of salt,
January 26, 2024
People do not understand the concept of a tacit-catastrophe.
Itâs like having cancer. You feel nothing but unless you act death will follow. Meanwhile the victim parties on excessive sunshine, drink and fatty food.
Other examples include Europe 1938, the months before the 2007 mortgage backed CDS crash, the tulip bubble. The list of examples is very long.
We are currently living in a tacit-catastrophe just waiting the big reveal.
January 27, 2024
Or as we used to call it-the lull before the storm.
January 27, 2024
Javelin : âWe are currently living in a tacit-catastrophe just waiting the big reveal.â
If youâre referring to the CAGW, no weâre not.
There is no CAGW caused by the burning of hydrocarbon fuels. It’s a scam. Not only does the historical climate data, such as the Roman and Medieval warm periods (vines grown by Hadrian’s Wall and barley grown in Greenland) and CO2 following temperature in the Antarctic Vostok ice core data, show it to be hysterical nonsense but in addition the calculations of Happer & Wijngaarden on the real atmosphere, including water vapour, omitted In the IPCC models, have proved that doubling CO2 produces a negligible increase in the GHG effect (see the CO2 Coalition website for details).
And BTW what caused the planet to warm to bring us out of the most recent ice age just 11,000 years ago? It certainly wasnât anthropogenic emissions of CO2, a plant food which at current levels is at a historically very low level and which has come very close (30 ppm) 9 times in the last 800,000 years to being insufficient for plants to grow and causing the ending of all life on earth.
January 27, 2024
Javelin :
If on the other hand you are referring to the coming social upheaval as a result of the Net Zero and mass immigration policies, then I would agree with you.
January 26, 2024
The only way to get a change in energy policy is for Labour to be in power and for the lights to go out. So let’s do that. It is one of two areas that only Labour can fix because the Conservatives are too scared of upsetting Guardian readers. The other is the NHS – only Wes Streeting has a chance of making any changes to improve that- not saying he will but he’s the only one who dare try.
January 26, 2024
Exposing the accounting scam would be a start.
Our CO2 use (if CO2 is actually harmful) is going up not down.
January 26, 2024
UK energy policy is based on clueless fantasies about CO2 and the viability of so-called “green” energy. This country’s descent to third world status over the next 20-30 years is all but assured if the UK stays on its present course. It is driven by the decisions of the current political class. It will require a political revolution to remove them from power and instate policies which make sense.
January 26, 2024
Bournemouth knife disturbances a fight between students at a college ??? Is anyone being fooled by this ?
General election please.
January 26, 2024
NZ suits the Tories. They can tell us that we’re losing our cars, heating and industry not because they messed everything up but because it’s part of a well thought out plan and is for our own good.
January 26, 2024
After Julia disappears, Winston is brought back to the Ministry of Love. Moments before he’s executed, he sees a poster of Big Brother, and finds comfort in it, realizing that his struggle is over. He does love Big Brother now.
1984 George Orwell.
Perhaps we’ll all have our own epiphany.?
January 26, 2024
As our esteemed host has commented previously, there is no prospect of the Climate Change Act being either repealed or amended in circumstances where such a proposal would not command a majority in Parliament.
If we shift back 50 years and look at how Enoch Powell analysed how the question of the UK’s membership of the then EEC (and in particular Ted Heath’s intention to drive towards economic and monetary union) might be kept open. the conclusion he drew was that a majority should be given to the party that would take that course. Harold Wilson’s subsequent fudge is another matter entirely.
Are we really going to be driven towards a social and economic model combining the worst elements of Castro’s Cuba, the generals’ Myanmar, Maduro’s Venezuela and Pol Pot’s Cambodia as a result of uniparty consensus? Bye bye quality of life, it was nice to have known you.
January 26, 2024
I expect that this reply will be moderated, as you do not like posts that contradict your views, but for an educated man the sheer gall and ignorance in this piece is, frankly, appalling.
Almost every statement you have made above is demonstrably false. As you are well aware, the Conservatives have had 14 years to upgrade the grid, install sufficient EV charging points and build enough onshore and offshore windfarms to cope with those rare days where the wind is calm. The fact that this has not happened demonstrates the rank incompetence of this period of government
You must be aware that legislation is already in place ready to allow large numbers (millions) of EVs to be integrated into the national grid, acting as a huge energy storage system. This is fortunate because there is no economically extractable oil or gas left in the N Sea, as you must also be aware.
If you want to post pro-fossil fuel, climate crisis denying material like this you really should take the trouble to research the facts first, because otherwise you expose yourself to allegations of ignorance and bias.
January 27, 2024
Do I detect a note of desperation creeping in, SG? That would surely be because more people across Europe are now waking up the reality of how useless the alternative energy cult really is. And how harmful to livelihoods the net zero dogma will be. You can’t fool all the people all of the time, remember?
January 27, 2024
R. Grange :
The desperation exists because they know that climate is always changing and cooling is just as likely as warming (weâve only just exited an ice age 11,000 years ago) and they need to get their communist/WEF feudal systems well in place before the cooling starts and they can no longer use the CO2 scam to impoverish us.
January 27, 2024
Nothing to say about the third Electric bus suddenly catching fire in just one month?
So far they’ve been lucky and no-one has died. But it’s only a matter of time …..
January 27, 2024
SG : âAs you are well aware, the Conservatives have had 14 years toâŠ..build enough onshore and offshore windfarms to cope with those rare days where the wind is calm.â
According to the lead author of the Royal Societyâs recent report âLarge Scale Electricity Storageâ the CCC have vastly underestimated the amount of storage required as there are many days and years when there is insufficient energy from wind and solar. They calculate 100 TWhrs thermal (hydrogen) equivalent to 50 TWhrs electrical storage is required.
The storage from ALL bevs will be 1/50th (2%) of this, also bearing in mind the 40% reduction in vehicles according to the UK Fires Absolute Zero report and will only be capable of powering the grid for 10 hours maximum if ALL vehicles are connected. And who in their right mind would even connect their vehicle to the grid when the wind isnât blowing to deny themselves the ability to travel which may even be an emergency?
There is no large grid-scale bev plan in the 2023 NGESO FES energy flow diagram for 2035 or even 2050 and anyway to be using bevs for storage which themselves need the grid for charging seems like the design of a perpetual motion machine.
The 3 inconvenient truths are electrification will not work, renewables cannot provide the worldâs energy and is already 4 times the price of nuclear for reliable energy before further nuclear advances and finally the level of CO2 in the atmosphere does not determine temperature as shown by Professors Happer & Wijngaarden (see the CO2 Coalition for details).
January 26, 2024
We should have planned and implemented a greener energy policy years ago. We could have built modern nuclear power stations combined with wind and solar energy fields. There would have been no need to continue extracting and burning fossil fuels. Now we all suffer the impact of climate change with heatwaves, droughts, floods, violent storms etc…
January 27, 2024
ChrisS : âNow we all suffer the impact of climate change with heatwaves, droughts, floods, violent storms etcâŠâ
The IPCC WG1 Table 12 in Chapter 12 shows that the IPCC has concluded that a signal of climate change has not yet emerged beyond natural variability for the following phenomena:
River floods, heavy precipitation and pluvial floods, landslides, drought (all types), severe wind storms, tropical cyclones (includes hurricanes), sand and dust storms, heavy snowfall and, ice storms, hail, snow avalanche and coastal flooding. The IPCC can only find some slight warming leading some melting of ice and snow.
The BBC are gaslighting us.
We need nuclear for sure, but renewable energy is essentially worthless as it needs a full backup system to work. If hydrogen is used as back-up to provide reliable electricity then the cost of the renewable energy is 4 times that of current nuclear (fission) which can only get cheaper as the technology improves.
January 26, 2024
Please ignore Port Talbot and the destruction of our steel industry. Please also ignore the regular reports of EV vehicles spontaneously catching fire. And above all, ignore the fact that “our” Energy Policy is in lockstep with the EU’s and we’re signed up to the EU’s Energy Interdependence Policy … because we’re supposed to have left the EU and we don’t want you to realise that it never really happened.
“Vote CONservative. Our Energy Policy is marginally less lunatic than Labour’s.”
Yup …. a real vote winner.
January 26, 2024
There is a misconception among the Net Zero crowd that you can get round the lack of renewables during times of no wind and no sun by storing it somewhere. Even primary school arithmetic will show that the amount of storage required is totally impossible to achieve in any timescale. Until nuclear fusion becomes a reality, if ever, any ideas that we can have 100% renewable energy is cloud cuckoo land.
January 26, 2024
Why not be honest for a change? Renewable power is a total con. Wind farms take more energy to build than they produce in their lifetime. They also can’t be recycled. Solar panels only work in small scale applications, for reliable power to anything like a modern society they are useless. EV’s are a dangerous joke. Clearly politicans are only interested in agendas not reality.
January 26, 2024
Sir John, I think you imply it but, to be clear, your second paragraph applies to the Conservative Party too.
January 26, 2024
Reply – Reply
Absolutely correct in your response John, but why are they all thinking that way, do they really believe that the World is going fry in a couple of decades time, do they really not understand that population growth and population movement has nothing to do with it, do they really think the activities and variable power of the Sun has nothing to do with cycles of weather, do they really think they can control peoples lives with fines, taxes and subsidies when the alternatives are either more expensive to purchase in short supply or simply not as efficient.
Do they ever look at the other side of the coin for alternative opinions.
I am simply bemused by all of this “one track group thinking” and the exclusion of common sense.
January 26, 2024
Increasingly more people are realising that none of the parties supposed to represent and serve them in the House of Commons are worth voting for.
January 26, 2024
I occasionally look at the Gridwatch.co,uk website. The other night, when it was windy (âStormâ Jocelyn) we were importing 20% of our energy.
January 26, 2024
too windy so the sails are stopped from turning in case they break.
January 26, 2024
As at 21:00hrs we are importing 6% …..thats about average (all time ave) ….but they don’t want the people to know that
January 26, 2024
Reducing the excess amount of hot food we eat would cut the energy needed to grow it, pack it, sell it, transport it, cook it, and dispose of its packaging.
There would be fewer obese people suffering ill health, reducing NHS costs. All the savings from such waste could be used for more productive benefits.
Governmentâs failure to act is the major Opposition.
January 26, 2024
I don’t want to exist on some lettuce, a green tomato, sliced jar’d beetroot and an apple for my main meal.
January 27, 2024
You may eat what you like to decide what you become.
Glass consumes enormous energy and canât exist on beetroot alone.
January 26, 2024
But Mr. Redwood, youâve been in power for 14 long years.
Youâve had 14 years to âplan, agree and buildâ. How far have you got? What? Havenât even started yet?!
Predictably, Hinckley C is now back another 5 years to 2031. Whatâs that going to be – 20 years to build!
January 26, 2024
Churchill was aware of the need to ensure energy security back in the late 1890s and early 1900s and did something about it. The Tory’s never seem to learn.
January 26, 2024
Ah yes. The same government relying on one nuclear power station that despite HMG hubris will be even later on stream (mid 30s) than currently admitted thatâs if it gets finished with EDF in desperate financial straights, passing the begging bowl around, what odds HMG having to pick up the tab.
Prevaricating on other sites and losing the initiative totally on mini nukes.
It recently trumpeted billions for carbon capture allegedly linking up to 90 sites with a regional network although technology to do this doesnât exist/unproven.
Drax wood burning, heavily subsidised and now being seriously challenged over whether its wood is really sustainable emits up to 8 million tons of C02 on its own.
We also import coal when we have large stocks available but politically donât have the balls to exploit it.
I wouldnât trumpet your party over the opposition if I was you Sir John, inept, frankly lying from incompetent Ministers and Civil Servants.
The fact you had to persuade them to start up a coal fired station and buying electricity from France at a vast cost with the natural resources we have demonstrates 13 years of utter failure.
January 26, 2024
Sir John
âthe Opposition we would be closing down our oil and gas fieldsâ and the Conservative Government record? To date the policy has been to put the UKâs energy supply and in the hands of the political whims of Foreign Governments.
The latest Oil/Gas UK Licence in the North Sea is owned extracted, worked, domiciled and sold by a foreign government on the open market. The Norwegians taxpayer earns more from it than the UK. Then as punishment the UK user gets to pay extra to import its own energy resource.
The latest renewable energy project is owned and run by the Danish Government, this Conservative Government has promised to pay them ‘more’ than the market rate for its production â in effect subsidising the Danish Citizen while penalising the UK user.
Electricity supply is owned by the French Government is now costing us ÂŁ1.5 billion a year, to import it from them. While at the same time the French Government says if the UK wants them to build a UK a nuclear capability they need to come up with another ÂŁ35billion and they will be 10 years late in it arriving. The UK start up for SMRâs (Newcleo), that this Conservative Government refused to support has been given the billions it needs from the French Government if it moves to France â which they have announced they are doing.
So, my question Sir John is giving Foreign Governments control of UK energy supply any different?
When do we get the energy security and resilience we had just a generation ago, and we have been promised ever since, we still have the expertise, the facilities and resources but this Conservative Government puts off-shoring all UK assets above protecting the UK. Labour is bad, horrid, but is it as anti-UK as this Conservative Government?
January 26, 2024
I hope you realise that Newcleo is an Italian start-up, with support from the EU, which has had an agreement with France to build its first plant in South of France.
newcleo.com 15/05/2023 âAt the âChoose Franceâ Summit, newcleo announces major investment plan of âŹ3bn in France by 2020â.
As usual, the Telegraph was unable to follow the actual developments and is now (20/01/2024 âNuclear start-up newcleo drops plan for UK factory in favour of Franceâ) copying what has been published on 17/01/2024 by reuters.com â Newcleo seeks big fund investors, France could take small stake, CEO saysâ.
January 26, 2024
Oops, first paragraph âby 2030â.
January 26, 2024
It has now been revealed that the wind data used by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) to justify net zero was based on a single year. But there will be years significantly worse than this and consecutive bad years.
This means they underestimated the energy storage needed to provide year-round electricity by an order of magnitude. The approval by MPs to target net zero was based on false data.
This brings the whole competence of the CCC into question. They clearly need more STEM graduates working for them!
At the very least, they should be brought to account and asked to re-do their analysis. This must be based on the grid only failing in a one-in-a-hundred-year event.
January 26, 2024
A lot of well explained comments but I was left angry that your Party and Government for all these years has ‘dropped the ball’ in modern parlance. So, you now try to suggest the shambles will ALL be down to a change of government! No wonder the polls indicate a wipe out for your Party.
January 26, 2024
Sir John
âThere needs to be greater clarity about costs and chargesâ We need to know why is the UK alone in paying more for its energy than all its major competitors.
We need to know why all the off-shoring of UK industry is to Countries that donât give a dam and put their own Countries wealth and prosperity for their people first.
We need to know why imports from entities that do not have UK style restriction imposed on them is even allowed?
Itâs the double standards from the Conservative Government, they with to punish and impoverish the UK while encouraging and subsidising the opposite elsewhere – that just cant be right or allowed to continue so they must go.
January 26, 2024
A better energy policy means cancelling Net Zero but this will not happen whilst the Uni Party controls Parliament, the Civil Service, the CCC, the judiciary and many of our institutions, regulators, âOffsâ, the BBC and quangos. The Net Zero Strategy has been designed to destroy the democratic Westâs access to the affordable, secure and reliable energy necessary to exist. It is not followed In China, Russia, India et al.
The energy from renewables is essentially worthless as it is chaotically intermittent and hence requires a complete back-up system, currently using hydrocarbon fuels. There is no plan at all for a back-up system using either batteries of hydrogen because it is so hideously expensive. If low CO2 emission energy was necessary then nuclear, which is half the price of renewables (except for Hinkley Point C especially selected for its duff technology and exorbitant cost) would have been selected instead of renewables.
Not only does the historical climate data show that CAGW is simply hysterical nonsense (such as barley grown in Greenland in the Middle Ages) but also in addition the calculations of Happer & Wijngaarden on the real atmosphere, including water vapour, omitted In the IPCC models, have proved that doubling CO2 produces a negligible increase in the GHG effect (see the CO2 Coalition website for details).
January 26, 2024
Mefears an incoming and typically naive Liebore government – some of us can still remember the sophomoric John Battle MP when he was effectively the energy minister in the first Bliar government proudly announcing in the Commons “there will be no more dash for gas”.
All these years later and still that party and its imbecilic ‘infantry’ have it in for the cleanest of the fossil fuels – it may not be totally clean but it is the cleanest of them when burnt.
Blighty may no longer have sufficient gaseous resources of its own (tha guess) but it has much and it has reliable suppliers from elsewhere (Russia excepted!).
Therefore, before the next General Election, this government should give the go-ahead for more such plants – if there are any awaiting such.
January 26, 2024
Sir John
Which ever way people try to shake it out, the Conservative Government is so anti the UK it is verging on them being out right Traitors, clearly working for someone else and not those that provided the 80-seat majority, empowered and pay them. The people they neglect to serve, the State the refuse to manage. The out of control recruitment and expenditure everywhere they are in charge of managing
No one entity before has enforced the removal of so many of the UKâs wealth creators. No one entity has forced the UK to be subject to the whims of foreign powers.
Now if the media is to be believed even our media outlets are being forced to be controlled by foreign dictators â the list is endless of the mindless, reckless destruction of the UK by this Conservative Government
Its not a ‘Better Energy Policy’ – there isn’t a UK one. What is needed it is a UK policy that includes an energy policy that is needed. Now we need one from a UK supporting government just so we can survive
January 26, 2024
I see Elon Musk has decided to name his new range of electric vehicles after our esteemed host. The ‘Redwood’ will be on sale next year.
January 26, 2024
Sequoia hasn’t got the same ring to it.
January 26, 2024
The thought is there even an energy policy? let alone a ‘better energy policy’ this Conservative Government gives the appearance of how can we destroy the UK – not make it better
From the MsM,
âUK electricity prices have risen faster than almost any other developed country since 2019, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has found. â
âIn the UK, taxes and levies made up 17pc of electricity and 7pc of gas bills.â – courtesy of a prolific spending Conservative Party, at rates higher than our Competitor Nations.
âAs a result, the competitiveness of energy-intensive industries is expected to remain under pressureâ â read as in it is the Conservative Government policy to destroy the UKâs industryâs ability to compete.
âFranceâs government is reportedly demanding a multibillion-pound handout from Britain to cover the budget of nuclear power projects being built in the UK by French energy giant EDF.â The UK Conservative Government has forced the UK to be held hostage to the whims of the French Government
If it wasnât France, it would be one of the other Nations that we are hostage too, even for so-called renewables.
We have a hostile Conservative Government, hostile to those it serves, it has ensured that the UK is hostage to the whims of politicianâs elsewhere â that is not keeping the UK Safe and Secure
January 26, 2024
But this tory governments energy policy hasn’t changed in a decade …..net-zero – net-zero – net-zero – net-zero – net-zero – net-zero – net-zero –
Don’t go making out that your policies are any different from the labour party or the libdems, its just the schedule thats different (and thats only a few years to hoodwink the people)
January 26, 2024
Well anything would be better than nothing. If ignoring our own resources, subjecting UK users unnecessarily to world prices, failing to invest in the grid, or atomic energy in favour of unreliable windmills and tying ourselves to the EU to cover shortfalls is policy then we had it, but to a calamitous end.
Energy policy has been run by flat earthers/ nett zero fanatics, fearful of every lunatic group emerging from the woodwork. Until we get real people in place we will continue as walking wounded.
January 26, 2024
Quite so Sir John.
Given the huge costs involved, I am amazed that so many MPs are afraid of questioning the whole subject. Is this because most of them are intimidated by scientific and engineering issues?
January 26, 2024
The call for Conscription went down like a cup of cold sick. That’s because the Conservative party have taken a wrecking ball to everything in this Country. There is nothing left to fight for.
(Unless you want to fight for the right of drag queens to read story’s to 4 year olds).
The Labour party will be exactly the same, except it will be on the dark.
Why are mainstream political parties actually working to destroy everything?
Reply It is not Conservative policy to impose conscription!
January 26, 2024
Today’s article is plain common sense, and I say again a successful modern economy needs cheap reliable energy. It seems the Western nations have gone mad about CO2 and Net Zero, while China & India continue to build and use coal-fired power plants. How much damage will be done to the UK by this utter stupidity.\
I am reminded of the Beeching / conservative plan to cut a superb railway system to pieces. 60 plus years on and we can see that was utterly stupid. I know there is a massive weight of Government, Quangos and think tanks behind Net Zero, but they are wrong, just as Beeching was about our railways.
It seems most of our MPs are like sheep and just follow what appears to be popular opinion.
I
January 26, 2024
Good morning
Thank you for airing this vitally important subject. This blog is one forum where discussion of NZ is encouraged rather than censored. I write as one who is in favour of reasonable CO2 reduction technology where it actually works and is implemented internationally and not to the disadvantage of only those countries which toe the line.
As you yourself have previously pointed out, many of the measures required by the UK green lobby significantly increase CO2 emissions, as much as fivefold in the case of LNG importation versus domestic gas production. This apparent disconnection from their stated aims (reducing CO2 emissions) reveals their true intent and opposition to Western countries.
The draconian green measures already implemented by the UK government have already destroyed much of British industry in favour of foreign imports without reducing CO2 emissions and exceed those of any other western country. Our government appears to be frozen in the glare of the headlights, unable to break away from the group think imposed by malign actors on this issue and so many others.
It is time for us to recognise that extreme leftist agendas are behind much of the relentless green attack on our country. And they are succeeding.
January 26, 2024
There are some seriously misguided influencial people promoting particular policies and practices which must indeed be opposed.
For decades it has been made easier for them via our leaders, especially those who are more interested in a global view than a national one. They have let the view prevail that if we were short of something we could always import it, short-term popularity.
There has been almost no truth expressed about the cost of this in the money we have to pay, nor support for our industries, home support and employment. To do so has I think been considered unpopular so it has been left alone.
There must be a fundamental change here and while there have been some examples, this must be widened and spoken about seriously by political leadership as a general principal to be followed.
Policy must be that making, extracting and growing things must be here first, and we must stop selling what we have for foreign short-term cash, and long term loss of control.
January 26, 2024
Bruges Group đŹđ§
@BrugesGroup
Hot on the heels of the Windsor Framework, the Prime Ministerâs latest wrongheaded scheme would leave the UK aligned with the EU in perpetuity.
January 26, 2024
Along with this Conservative Governments shedding the UKs energy capability to the EU Nations, embedding EU Laws- controlled and created in the EU into their(Con-Gov) policy drive. You get to understand the reason for destroying the UK to make it once and for all someone else’s puppet. – No democracy, no Sovereignty, just a colony of those un-elected, unaccountable bureaucrats we could and have never been able to vote for. Meaning yet again, a repeat performance of producing a Manifesto that was 100% a pack of lies.
January 26, 2024
There is nothing logical about any of the messaging that is promulgated by the MSM and the LibLabCon. In order to understand how this phenomenon has arisen, it is necessary to examine what happens to prominent individuals who go off message: they are either disappeared from public view, stripped of public office, or they are obliged to make a public retraction of their heresy; thus those who promulgate their vile poison in the public sphere are given carte blanche.
What proportion of the LibLabCon actually believe that cutting our CO2 output and consequently making energy unaffordable for individuals and industry alike will save the Planet? What proportion believe that a man can become a woman? What proportion believe that flooding our country with unassimilable aliens and handing them the reins of government is the only way to save our country from senescence and decline? Nevertheless, all these destructive time bombs have enshrined in law.
If you do not control the message, you control nothing, not even if and when we go to war.
January 26, 2024
According to Gridwatch, as I write, wind is supplying 15GW. It seems to be very breezy out there, yet it is supplying only about 50-60% of its advertised “capacity”.
At the same time we are importing 3GW from France, about 8.2% of current demand.
The system has prioritised interconnectors with the EU over connecting up the UK.
I wonder if we are paying UK-based wind generators constraint payments, whilst at the same time importing power from the EU ?
January 26, 2024
When I was 5 I had Measles.
Only memory the overwhelming sadness I felt
when I couldnt try even a spoonful of the bowl of ice cream my Dad brought me.
Sad because I knew we were poor and ice cream was dear.
Simple solution to Measles vax thing.
Separate vaxes
MMR touted as one vax
Its 3. Measles , Mumps and Rubella
Give the Measles as a separate vax.
You cant get it as a separate vax on NHS.
January 26, 2024
True – a fee is charged for a single measles vaccine, not MMR.
January 26, 2024
“….fully embedded in most western national and international governing institutions.”
Great, really stuck with who to vote for now đ€
January 26, 2024
Build Back Better
January 26, 2024
There’s a really good article by Will Jones on The Daily Sceptic about how net zero is dying , but is taking the UK (and Germany) down with it.
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/01/23/net-zero-is-dying-but-its-taking-us-down-with-it/
We also have UK100 councils who are using ultra vires to enforce net zero harder and faster! Together Declaration are is in that case!
Net Zero is the de-industrialisation of the west to bolster up the poorer countries. Do we really think that if do end up with a war, that those countries will kindly hand over resources for military weapons, or energy for us to function as a country?
This net zero will be the death of us (perhaps literally?)
January 26, 2024
I completely agree with you that, in the interim, we must press on with utilising our own resources as much as possible. An instantaneous switch to renewables is impossible. BUT please press for the introduction of SMRs as soon as possible. Major nuclear continues to prove out of control in terms of both time and cost.
January 26, 2024
Lions led by donkeys?
January 26, 2024
I read we’re paying the French another ÂŁ1.5 Billion for electricity. Surely anyone with a microbe of common sense must realise that we are not generating enough of our own. Why is that? Because we’ve been made to close down our own power stations in favour of LOL ‘renewable energy’ sources to achieve the nonsensical “Net zero” condition so that ‘we’ (namely our Leader), can boast to the world “we were the first”. Duh. While the RoTW laughs and looks at us and wonders what happened here. Horror! Now we find the renewals are not as regularly renewing as predicted by those scary computer models, which have a habit of being wrong almost every time they predict. Yet those in power carry on as if this is OK. And so it will continue under a Starmer government. So lightning does strike twice in the same place. Hello, we cannot afford it. Cultivate home products just like Trump’s USA and make us great again. But DO IT NOW, we cannot afford to procrastinate and further.
January 26, 2024
Imports of French energy average every year 3.2% (recorded since 2012 ie all time …about when we started net-zero) and its not cheap, net-zero isn’t cheap
I’m sure our government would like all of our energy import from France and that would massively reduce of net-zero target
January 26, 2024
Reply to Reply
Yet
January 26, 2024
Council Chamber – Civic Offices, Thursday, 18th January, 2024 7.30 pm
Philip Meadowcroft asked the Executive Member for Finance the following question:
Question:
During the first nine months of 2023 Wokingham Borough Council (WBC) made ÂŁ75 million worth of loans to cash-strapped local authorities.
WBC Councillors and Officials have repeatedly emphasised to me that these loans, including the ÂŁ10 million lent last June to the bankrupt Woking Borough Council, were underwritten or guaranteed by the Treasury.
They have referred me to sections 6 to 13 initially (then just Sections 6 and 13 only) in the Local Government Act 2003 in support of their entrenched belief that Treasury guarantees for these loans actually existed.
Nowhere, however, in Section 6 or 13 do the words âguarantee” or âunderwrittenâ or âTreasury” or “Government” appear.
Councillors and Officials appear to be persisting in misleading and deceiving Full Council, and the Wokingham residents and council taxpayers they represent, with false and misleading statements justifying their actions which they cannot actually show and prove to be true. This is tantamount to a material and significant deception.
When and how, please, will the truth be told, together with an apology?
January 26, 2024
”not a lender or borrower be” especially not with taxpayers money
January 27, 2024
I only have one comment all new build should have and be designed to have solar panels and battery storage by law. This would take a lot of pressure of building on farm land . Would relieve pressure on the grid because its generate were it is used.
January 27, 2024
Only if you believe the UN IPCC climate change hype
January 27, 2024
Rodney Needs :
The Professor of Pure & Applied Electrochemistry at Newcastle University believes that Li-ion batteries are far too dangerous, because of the possibility of spontaneous combustion causing un-extinguishable fires with toxic fumes of hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride, to be located anywhere indoors. 3 London electric buses have caught fire in the last month and house insurance does not cover charging evs within 10 metres of the house. Solar produces next to zero electricity in the UK in winter when we need the most energy. Solar only works in hot, sunny climates where the energy can be used for air conditioning/cooling.
January 27, 2024
Which is why a number of research groups are working on non-Li-ion batteries. The Australians seem keen on VRFBs (abc.net.au, 02/02/2023 âVanadium Redox Flow Batteries can provide cheap, large-scale grid energy storageâ).
Also greenauthority.com 07/09/2022 â10 alternatives to Lithium-ion batteries: which new tech will power the future?â
But most of these alternatives are not going to be available tomorrow.
January 27, 2024
Sir John, you will never win your argument for âa better energy policyâ because your reasons will always be trumped by the argument that there are no limits to energy poverty or to the expense needed to save the planet.
January 28, 2024
JUST STOP COAL (and LNG)
30% of world gross emissions of CO2 and CO2 equivalents among greenhouse gases comes from burning raw coal at power stations. 55% of these are emitted by the world’s biggest federations – China, USA, EU and India. Per unit of energy generated, CO2 emissions from gas fired power stations are half those from raw coal. LNG is as bad as coal because of the energy used in cooling and reheating the gas. Converting all coal fired power stations to ‘clean’ (decarbonised) coal or gas would reduce world gross CO2 emissions by at least 15%. The reduction in world net CO2 emissions (taking account of carbon capture schemes) would be greater.
AND CFS
The ‘hole in the ozone later’ at the poles has not completely closed. CFCs are still being used in production in some countries – when I last checked it was furniture making in China and refrigerators made in South America but there may be others.
AND COP CONFERENCES
Every year many self opinionated ‘global leaders’ descend upon some poor benighted city, flying in by private jet or by first class or business class. accompanied by their security staff and flunkeys (and in one case his valet). If Joe Biden attends, up to 20 heavy bullet proof limos are air freighted in to protect him. Keynote addresses are given by the great and the good, including King Charles pronouncing with ever increasing stridency (but no greater clarity) “Something must be done”. Every nation agrees but says why it should be exempt from action or must postpone action. A bland communique is issued regarding targets and everyone returns home with nothing of use achieved.
ZERO POPULATION GROWTH
Achieving net zero carbon by 2050 will be difficult enough without world population increasing. Energy consumption per capita is not significantly, if at all, declining. So ZPG at world level is required.
ACTION PLAN
Normally, I believe that each nation should run its own affairs. However, the world’s winds and convection currents are no respecters of national boundaries; what is emitted in China does not stay in China. What is needed are trade penalties to be applied to nations running a dirty economy – burning raw coal, using CFCs or increasing their population. The UK should in the first place propose to WTO supplementary tariffs on the exports of offending countries. If these proposals are vetoed, we should set up a rival WTO which would implement our proposals. We are allowed to have our own foreign policy.
January 28, 2024
John, there is absolutely NO threat from the climate. Only a major threat from crazy fools pushing for the abandonment of useful energy for ineffective, costly investments which will not meet our requirements and will continue to bankrupt and destroy the country, impoverish its citizens and make it impossible to respond politically or militarily to our enemies or compete with coal consuming industrial giants. It is time to drop the nonsense that is the propagandised, filtered and censored ‘science’ around climate and to also drop all regulations, incentives, subsidies, taxes and rules around our industry, energy extraction, refining and usage etc. We must get back into the game before we are absolutely finished by the green twaddle that is the current thing.
David Bunney