So far the UK’s ambition to be the Saudi Arabia of wind has put in an impressive 29GW of capacity. On a good day when there is plenty of wind and total demand is only around 30 GW this might deliver half our power needs. On a day of low wind, and when winter demand is over 40GW it might be 1-2%. It is true the cost of supplying the capacity and therefore of the power has come down as turbines have been scaled up and their capacity cost has fallen. Since 2010 levy support and contracts for difference have cost us an extra ÂŁ80bn plus for renewable power (to 2023). Current electricity bills are around ÂŁ100 higher thanks to green levies.
Labour and Lib Dems say we can switch over to all no carbon electricity by 2030 and that this will be cheaper. Both these claims seem unlikely. Labour say to get to all carbon free they need to install an additional 87 GW of capacity, allowing plenty of margin over the demand of 30-45 GW depending on time of day and weather. As most of this will be wind, and as the sun does not shine during long dark evenings and early mornings in winter it will still require stand by gas generators and all those interconnectors to import. The truth is we have already become very import dependent, with imports at over one fifth of our needs even on sunny low demand summer days when the wind dies down. We have been closing fossil fuel stations down before having the renewable reliable capacity (with storage)Â to replace them
There seems little likelihood that the UK can plan, permit and install anything like 87 GW of renewable capacity in the next six years. The last auction to supply capacity did not go well as the prices offered were unattractive. The lesson was the Regulator needs to allow considerably higher prices to get companies to come forward to offer new capacity. Investors are going to be wary of the opportunities given the history of windfall taxes, price controls and changes of policy. These are all likely to get worse if we have a change of government to Labour.
Labour and Lib Dem buy the idea of cheaper power because they assume gas prices will climb higher and stay there, so wind energy looks cheap in comparison. Instead in recent months gas prices have retraced most of the giddy climb they experienced when Europe determined to get rid of its dependence on imported Russian gas and the Ukraine war sent the price spiralling. Hitting a peak of ÂŁ6 a therm, it is now back to 80p.
The amount of capacity they envisage would also require a large expansion of the grid with pylons straddling many more landscapes.
June 29, 2024
Good morning.
Like so much else, the only thing that differentiates all the main political parties is the pace. Some will go further and faster, others not so. The destination is the same, and so to the result.
Oh when are the grown ups going to take over and start talking sense ?
June 29, 2024
Well Reform are likely to come second in vote share (& most certainly in England where in most seats they are the best way to keep Labour out) and they have a sensible energy policy. Ditch net zero or postpone it permanently. True Labour, Tories, Plaid, SNP, LibDims, Greens all have totally bonkers energy policies with just that tiny delay by Sunak.
June 29, 2024
Boris Johnson
âThe nation doesn’t really want Sir Keir or his tax-hiking, EU-loving, soft-on-illegal-migration agenda. There’s still time for us to swerve …â Dream on Boris, the party has been destroyed by Cast iron liar Cameron, May, yourself & Sunak, net zero, open door immigration, net harm lockdowns, a botched brexit, net harm vaccines and three manifestos of blatant lies and a huge fraud against your supporters.
Why did you leave off the net zero lunacy Boris? The only way to swerve in 90% of the english seat is for all the Tory voters to switch to reform as they are invariably the best candidate to beat Labour or Libdems. Perhaps 10 at most seats have sensible Tories like Kemi Badenoch, who actually have a good chance of holding their seats AND are real Conservative. Mogg is gone and even Sunak with his huge majority is quite likely to go.
June 29, 2024
+ 1
Johnson is just demonstrating his ability, once again, to ignore what he said only a short while previously.
Like he did regarding Putin’s invasion.
June 29, 2024
Everything Johnson said would apply to what he implemented with a 85 seat majority to do the opposite!
If Johnson had the brains and courage, the latter is his biggest failing, he would have culled All one nation pro EU types not ask them would they support Brexit! Bear in how,vile they were towards him and Heseltine ranting every time he was asked, get rid of Johnson get rid of Brexit. They also knew his flaws, his zip and story telling to avoid confrontation!
June 29, 2024
JR, Sunak pledged to frack when campaigning to be leader, he dropped once in office. He pledged to implement 2019 manifesto and had to pledge to deliver Brexit under Johnson. He back stabbed Johnson and betrayed the nation with his EU sell out giving away N.Ireland coercing DUP MPs by cutting their pay to force them to accept his sell out! He is completely untrustworthy.
Today Sunak writes he will get rid of gender ideology in schools! Sunak introduced the Sex and Relationship Act to teach 4 year olds a man could be a woman or cat! Seriously, is his memory that bad, a serial liar or stupid?
Sunakâs record on his manifesto delivery promise, his five pledges, energy, immigration, illegal immigration show that he did the opposite! Economy, taxes, deficit, debt, public spending, welfare etc do not stand any meagre test of scrutiny!
Sunak and Hunt deserve obliterating along with Cameron, Osborne and All one EU nation types.
June 29, 2024
Typical narcissist. We cannot have them represent the Nation. We need Selection Committees. People who have achieved in any field other than climbing the corporate ladder.
Showmen are expensive, shallow, untrustworthy and downright dangerous.
June 29, 2024
They don’t believe that they’ve done anything wrong
June 29, 2024
GC,
They realise alright. They know Labour offer the same EU lock step. They are trying to scare the public which cheek of the arse is more bearable.
Reject both vote Reform!
June 29, 2024
Jeremy Hunt thinks the public are really so ungrateful for the Tories 14 years of excellent service. Just how deluded & bonkers can people be?
June 29, 2024
Oh dear Kemi (one of the few Tories I would actually vote for if I were in her constituency) is saying:-
âprospective Reform UK voters are âgood peopleâ who âdonât know who theyâre voting forâ and she believed the Tories could win the election but it was âgoing to be a hell of a fightâ.
âWhat I am asking those people who are Reform voters, or considering voting Reform, is that you are good people, I know that you feel some disappointment with our party, but donât let these people who claim to be like you get in.â
We know exactly what we are voting for Kemi:- A real Conservative party who will ditch the mad net zero policy, cut immigration hugely, cut the size of the state, cut taxes, cut red tap, leave the ECHR, ditch HS2, hold a vaccine harm inquiry, give 20% tax relief on private school feesâŠall excellent policies which you fake tories have not and will not deliver.
âsome disappointmentâ – your partly has been a total disaster for 14 years we hold your party in total and utter contempt. You got Covid Totally wrong mad lockdowns and net harm vaccines, HS2, net zero, rip off taxes still rising, a botched Brexit, failure to even try to reduce immigration legal or legal, failure to leave the ECHR, the dire Windsor Accord, the wars on Landlords, car users, the self employed. Most of your party deserved total destruction. Your party has zero chance of winning dear? But I still hope you are returned in you seat despite these idiotic and insulting statements which will not help you.
June 29, 2024
Kemi who scuppered her own âburn EU lawâ bill.
And she says we donât know what we are doingđ€
Itâs not going to be a fight. Itâs all over bar the shouting.
June 29, 2024
Lifelogic +1
June 29, 2024
Exactly, the ONLY party that has not been persuaded by Al Gore, Greta Thunderberg and other non scientist pundits. What is it about climate science that turns our political leaders into mindless morons? DO THE RESEARCH AND ASK QUESTIONS. At least 2 Nobel Laureates, in SCIENCE subjects, call the ‘climate emergency’ nonsense. If you thought Covid was expensive, you haven’t seen anything; NZ will send us back to the dark ages.
June 29, 2024
Covid with the mad net harm lockdowns and net harm vaccines seems to have cost circa ÂŁ500 billion so far (still many vaccines harmed people to show up). Net Zero if they really go for it will cost ÂŁ2 trillion+ directly. But these totally wasted monies (as zero benefit) will then not be invest elsewhere in sensible things.
The BBC bias last night against Farage by the audience and that daft Question Time language graduate they employ was totally off the scale – even by BBC standards. Farage did very well despite this.
June 29, 2024
Agree about the QT bias. The selected audience was dripping contempt for Farage and Fiona had a wad of racist accusations to read and interrupt him. There were no likely Reform supporters there. Just younger and BLMs who were determined to attack him. The BBC has lost all impartiality and become political, as has Channel 4 who just happened to be filming under cover when a actor playing an Alf Garnett turned up to provide the slur but of course any connection is absurd.
June 29, 2024
Exactly the mad Socialist Greta disciple and English Grad. Michael Gove who even like Starmer wanted VAT on private school fees – the reverse of what is needed in education (and healthcare) which is tax breaks for not using the state system.
June 29, 2024
@Peter Wood +1
June 29, 2024
Charles Moore (English and History 2.1, Cambridge) is surely wrong in yesterdayâs Telegraph.
It is just an unconvincing, last minute attempt to portray Farage as not ârespectableâ.
June 29, 2024
Just chucking âmudâ at Farage and hoping some sticks like the BBC QT, Sunak, Starmer, Ed post office Davey and the rest. This to try to help the Tories get a few more than the circa 50 seats. It might well have the opposite effect as the politically driven law-fare does with Trump.
Come on Charles Moore you are rather better than this.
June 29, 2024
If government could settle on a sensible decision and enact it, the solution would become increasingly closer each day.
June 29, 2024
Sunak – fracking on, fracking off, fracking on, fracking off
June 29, 2024
+++
A PMâs Refrain
Fracking on, fracking off
I donât know what Iâm saying
Never mind I donât care
Itâs you who will be paying!
June 29, 2024
He’ll be fracking off for a long time quite soon.
June 29, 2024
”carry-on fracking” new tory comedy
June 29, 2024
Exactly. Net Zero should read Nutters Zero. Implementation is physically and financially impossible.
June 29, 2024
Meanwhile,more and more Russian gas is going east.Pipeline and LNG sales to China are both at record levels.Also central Asia- Center on Global Energy Report,29/2/24,”Russia’s expanding energy ties in central Asia”:…..”Russia achieved notable success in 2023 including building generating capacity,increasing electricity and hydrocarbon supplies to the region and developing its transit potential to China”.The Diplomat,7/3/24:”Russian gas supplies to Uzbekistan projected to surge nearly five fold by 2026.”
Bloomberg also reports this week that “Russia may be building a ‘shadow fleet’ for gas transportation”.A number of gas transport ships have been acquired by Dubai-based entities and will be used on the Northern Sea (Arctic)Route.The Barents Observer,21/6/24,reports:”Sea Ice Lies Thick on the water as Russian Oil Tanker Sails Arctic Route without Icebreaker Escort”:”Loaded with up to 38,000 tons of oil,the 245m long Shturman Skuratov,makes this year’s first transit shipment on the NSR without icebreaker assistance,heading for the Pacific port of Kozmina.”China and the UAE’s DP World logistics giant are putting their weight behind this developing route.
June 29, 2024
Thatâs what happens when you allow dementia patients, drug addicts and the inadequate to lead your countries. All your potential friends and allies have to turn elsewhere. đ
The conservatives canvassed yesterday. 4th visit! I told them I could not send Christopher Howarth or Harry King off to fight Russia. So I had to vote against them.
Those two lads encapsulate our hope for the future. They are precious!
June 29, 2024
This one is worse than mindless politics. The strategy of more and more turbines will lead to electricity shortages and blackouts. However much capacity you have there will be times when generation is inadequate for demand.
June 29, 2024
Indeed as every competent engineer, energy economist or physicist can tell you or could work out in less than a couple of hours.
June 29, 2024
Wind can never support a modern economy. As you say last week it was contributing 2% at one stage. Rather than waste money on subsidy sucking renewable energy we should be concentrating on nuclear
Who would build or own an expensive CCGT plant to be told you can’t operate it only when government decrees.
We are heading for serious blackouts, possibly another reason fishy wanted to hand over the baton
June 29, 2024
All to virtue signal to the world…………………….
June 29, 2024
Also signalling they are liars or total and utter morons.
June 29, 2024
And the world laughs!
June 29, 2024
+1
June 29, 2024
Morning Sir John.
Totally agree with you as usual.
I would also suggest that being dependent on other countries for our energy via interconnects is a very risky policy, given that many think we are on the brink of war.
I am sure our would be enemies are aware of the location of these cables and pipes and would know that if they blew them up, we’d be in trouble.
June 29, 2024
Good point.
I should think they might just noticeâŠ.windmills!
Fat chance of covering them up.
Oh no thoughâŠI daresay they are relying on the power of positive thought âŠor magick?
June 29, 2024
Under the geneva convention its against the law to target dams and nuclear power stations (don’t tell the russians) but wind-turbines are free game, as the convention hasn’t been updated, and only a few european countries have ‘mass’ wind-farms to generation main energy supply ….so you’re correct, its a massive & easy target
June 29, 2024
+++
Strange that they didnât think that one through!
June 29, 2024
Indeed.
June 29, 2024
We certainly know that the dependence on interconnectors allows the EU to blackmail us over our fisheries.
June 29, 2024
Indeed. Energy supply by hostile EU Countries will result in more free English fish when the EU agreement is renegotiated. We desperately need rid of the useless woke, mass immigration, nutty zero Uni Party.
June 29, 2024
Cliff.. Wokingham. +1 , the political whims of those we cant vote for, is not security of supply, it is not the volume required for all the other crazy weird ideas , EV’s, Heat Pumps. Everything is about off-shoring and decline not resilience and growth. ideology over sensible logical management and government. The refusal to hear, listen and work with the people that pay and empower them, means not a single one should be in parliament let alone chasing to be a leader.
June 29, 2024
âwinter demand is over 40GWâ well with a higher population & if they push everyone to heat pumps and EV cars it may well peak at ten times this for a few cold winter months. So vast grid and generating investment is needed this investment then wasted for 80% of the year. Generating if using wind and solar will need back up so perhaps 20x generating capacity.
âLabour and Lib Dems say we can switch over to all no carbon electricity by 2030 and that this will be cheaper. Both these claims seem unlikely.â Rather an understatement JR the claims a fraudulent and total lunacy.
June 29, 2024
No such thing a ânoâ carbon electricity not even ârenewableâ electricity. Constructing, commectimg, back up and maintaining Wind Farm and Solar Panels uses loads of fossil fuels. Hydro causes loads of greenhouses gas too as does making EV cars and batteries and nuclear plants. Bio fuel too not clever.
June 29, 2024
If we get Fracking UK gas prices will fall hugely they can be about 1/3 of ours in the USA. Also drilling and mining please.
June 29, 2024
…and if that energy was supplied to satisfy the UK markets first, at a set price, before the supplus is give to international markets …a bit like the USA
June 29, 2024
LL, +++++.
Itâs clear that many are irritated by your persistence in posting the same messages on this forum.
The alarm clock rings and rings until the sleepers wake up.
Your comments are accurate, constructive , and rational. Donât be deterred, I beg of you.
June 29, 2024
What is the point of posting the same stuff, ad nauseam, on here? Heâs preaching to the choir. Why does he feel he has to post the same stuff ten times a day, every day? I find it weird. Itâs seems to me like a âlook at me, Iâm hereâ thing.
I appreciate he occasionally posts salient info, but mostly itâs the same rant. When heâs on his deathbed will he be looking back on his life thinking âI wish Iâd spent more time saying the same thing, over and over again, on John Redwoodâs diary.
Iâve got to be honest, as I read comments if I notice his name at the top of the comment, I skip to the next one. If I donât notice his name, I realise before I am one sentence in who the author is and move to the next comment. My wife nags a great deal less.
June 29, 2024
Thanks.
June 30, 2024
I donât mean it nastily. But if Iâve read you say the same thing once, Iâve read it a thousand times. I canât see how it can be healthy for you. You must be consumed each morning by posting the same stuff on here. It feels like some sort of addiction. Have a day off. See what it feels like.
June 29, 2024
So 29GW of capacity with total demand around 30 GW on a good day “might deliver half our power needs” but “On a day of low wind, and when winter demand is over 40GW it might be 1-2%”. Yet rather than “Labour say to get to all carbon free they need to install an additional 87 GW of capacity” should not our new quango Great British Energy install at least 1,421 GW to meet winter demand carbon free or perhaps rather more than double that figure? We are going to be the OPEC of wind!!!
(Workings – 29 GW = 2 per cent. so 14.5 GW = 1 per cent. so 1450 GW = 100 per cent., then deduct existing capacity of 29 GW to leave new capacity required of 1,421 GW.)
June 29, 2024
If the wind doesn’t blow, it doesn’t matter how much turbine capacity you have, the output will be the same surely? (e.g. nothing)
June 29, 2024
Less than nothing as they actually use power when zero wind.
June 29, 2024
No, it might only provide 1% to 2% of 40 gigawatts Or 400 to 800 megawatts.
June 29, 2024
…and whatever ÂŁbillions that the tories & labour propose to spend on energy storage ….it will only last 6 hours …thats right 6 hours tops, then its blackouts
June 29, 2024
âHitting a peak of ÂŁ6 a therm, it is now back to 80pâ A therm is 29KWH & so now less than 3p a KWH electricity in the UK, costs circa 8 times this. A good heat pump system might typically get you three time energy output for the input. So it will still cost nearly three times as much to run as a gas boiler and be far less practical and far more expensive to install and to maintain.
June 29, 2024
We might also ask why UK electricity is so expensive when gas power plants can be 50% – 60% efficient. So why does electricity not cost more like 6p per KWH than 24p especially as the green loons keep (wrongly) telling us renewables are cheaper than gas? Coal usually cheaper still.
June 29, 2024
LL,
Nine out of twenty six posts from you so far. And you havenât even started on your other topics yet.
Moderation does not seem to affect you. How do you manage it?
June 29, 2024
Reason the UK energy market is hugely government rigged another back door tax system that renders the UK uncompetitive.
June 29, 2024
Have you factored in the cost of building, maintaining and decommissioning the plant. Or just taken the price of the gas, and the efficiency of its conversion to electricity, into account. Have you factored in the cost of the grid and distribution to everyoneâs property?
June 29, 2024
I allowed a margin circa 20% to cover these costs. You can actually get a gas boiler that generates both heat and electricity in your house and ditch the electricity grid and the now rip standing charges. Makes rather more sense than ripping out the gas and fitting heat pumps. Then you do not have the vast extra electricity winter demand.
June 29, 2024
The heat pump will only gi e you a factor of 3 at 10 degrees C
Below that it drops off dramatically
Also it o ly gives a temperature of 55 degrees on the best days. Not enough to prevent legionnaires disease
June 29, 2024
In truth none of the players in the last Parliament were looking. The answer is beneath our feet and seas, plus around the Falkland Islands where the reserves are vast. I have asked many times for an explanation of the energy business plan that gives us energy at three times what it costs in the USA, but none has been forthcoming. I therefore assume that the problem is in the FCO where there is no wish to upset their friends in the EU, Middle East or South America. Additionally there is the false god of Nett Zero, to whom almost all in political power pray daily.
To reinforce the tenets of NZ , they the blob have rowed back on the replacement of existing nuclear power or its expansion using SMRs. All parties that have been in power are complicit. Reform who contract to act and look to have future representation in the Commons are having increasing black ops employed against them to thwart their voice and leverage the electorate. I hope the electorate are wise enough to see it and ignore it when they enter the ballot station. For sure the Blob are running scared.
If your ties to power and the conservatives no longer go beyond membership it is time to come clean on the energy business plan. It is inadequate to complain of a proliferation of windmills attached to a totally underfunded grid. Give us your Don Quihote.
June 29, 2024
Agricola, +++++
Net Zero energy is as foolish an objective as anyone can imagine, utterly unachievable, as misguided as ancient alchemy or perpetual motion.
Please, Sir John, let us have an authentic Johnstonian response, âI refute it thus!â to this Milli bandicoot absurdity.
June 29, 2024
Apoligies to Cervantes, it should be Quixote.
June 29, 2024
No Sir John, that is only the ambition of the loony lefties and screwballs in Westminster who have absolutely no Idea of what they are proposing for Britain. But they do not care, money for the WEF is their only target.
I personally will be voting Reform as their policy is to dump socalled net zero, we know it is a scam.
June 29, 2024
Wind and solar only generate power. Fossil fuels both generate and store it. Since the real problem is not generation, which is easy, but storage, which is hard, it would be helpful if Ministers reflected on this.
June 29, 2024
Storage is just totally uneconomic. The investment in storage of electricity once generated is hugely expensive per unit of energy stored. A pile or coal or a tank of gas that can then generate power on demand is far cheaper and far better and far safer too.
June 29, 2024
Its estimated that any built battery energy storage could only supply the UK with 6 hours max ….then its candles
June 30, 2024
LED battery troches amd rather better than candles or even wind up torches. A bit of exercise for you too.
June 29, 2024
LL.
Energy is stored in oil gas and coal. You only release it when you want it. You release it compatible with demand , no need to fantasise about giant storage batteries. SIMPLES.
June 29, 2024
But battery energy storage is a policy of and in the Tory, Labour & LibDem manifesto …it will cost ÂŁbillion, and happen
June 29, 2024
Good point
June 29, 2024
Excellent !
The problem is there is no plan or strategy John. We simply refuse to invest and steal skills from abroad. Simply refuse to accept that Government can command any resources available for sale in its currency and can use its sovereign power to force those resources to be freed up so it can purchase them for the public good and provide cheap energy.
Once money is out of the picture because voters understand we issue it. We can get back to what economics is supposed to be aboutâââthe allocation of actual physical resources to tasks. If we want more engineers, where are they coming from? If we want buildings, who is going to build them and what with? What were the alternative uses? What are the opportunity costs? Just because government can command resources, doesnât mean it should. Neo-liberalism likes to imply that market value and social value are the same. The correct view shows they are very different beasts. Public provision has to be assessed politically on its social value and social costs. Free from the tax payer money myth.
This is going to be a HUGE transistion to undertake and it would be silly to think it is simply a matter of banking policy. The One Rate To Rule Them All belief has to be rejected entirely. Interest rate targeting can’t provide the heavy lifting required to move vast amounts of skills and real resources to where they are required. Or they will repeat Thatcher ‘s mistakes. The belief that function of the doctrine of âsound financeâ is to make the level of employment dependent on the state of confidence.
The the neo-liberal viewpoint which is that government is just another organisation in the system that has to compete for resources by price. Business and banks always get first choice of resources and government has to make do with the scraps. They believe the bankers and businesses should be in charge and that the population are just factors of production to be shifted around, like ingots of steel, as business requires.
During Thatcher’s much needed huge transition away from mining and ship building and low end manufacturing into services and high end manufacturing. Because she believed the one interest rate to rule them all and that interest rate targeting could provide the heavy lifting. Because she believed the sound finance doctrine, because she believed bankers and businesses should be in charge and that the population are just factors of production to be shifted around, like ingots of steel, as business requires. Because she believed there is always somebody ready with the cheque book open ready to hire the unemployed the transistion caused. It caused havoc across our lands. Hollowed out communities and some still haven’t recovered.
We have to ensure that we never repeat those mistakes again. By introducing a job guarentee at the local level ensures those mistakes won’t happen again. It will catch the unemployment generated by this huge transition across our land. It will catch the unemployment generated by the productivity improvements created by the transistion. Once this unemployment has been been captured by the local area job guarentee. It makes it easier to transition these people back into the private sector as quickly as possible. It allows humans to learn new skills on a living wage to support their families where they live. It keeps aggregate demand high in the local area that helps all businesses in that area. It means we don’t expect engineers to become nuclear physicists over night or brick layers to become IT specialists at a click of finger. Humans need time to retrain and learn new skills during a huge transition like this and need to support their families. A local job guarentee on a living wage allows them to do that.
The function of the doctrine of âsound financeâ is to make the level of employment dependent on the state of confidence. We move away from that nonsense and make the job guarentee government policy.
June 29, 2024
All delusion and with much promotion by our media and the stupidity being legislated by our politicians.
We know our media is bought. Perhaps Sir John, an investigation of politicians finances and sinecures and connections to outside bodies is necessary. Most are known, but never highlighted by the bought media.
Reply It is all on the Register of Interests. Various MP s have advocated net zero policies and gone on to green jobs.
June 29, 2024
There’s the bribe. There shouldn’t be green jobs for politicians who advocate green policies.
June 29, 2024
Yes itâs the âcontingent corruptionâ that needs to be controlled. What people do as MPs is registered, but they are âpaidâ for mad legislation once they are sacked by the electorate.
June 29, 2024
Reply to Reply – the register of interests is a joke. MPs who “forget” are given a slap on the wrist.
Worse, it does not go beyond interests that are (a) personal and (b) current.
So, for example, a family interest leading to a predilection for taxing the self-employed does not have to be declared, such as if someone were to have a father in law who owns a large IT consultancy firm.
Nor does it need to be declared if someone is expecting to be rewarded with a non-exec directorship after leaving politics, or even a president role such as global affairs for some social media tech giant.
Basically, it is not fit for purpose. Politicians receive a pension when they leave parliament so they should not be allowed to work or receive other monies – it should be an “end of working life” gig, to give back experience to one’s country – as it used to be.
June 30, 2024
Sir Jonathan Van-Tam, the UKâs former deputy chief medical officer who became a household name during the pandemic, has become a senior medical consultant to the Covid-19 âvaccineâ maker Moderna.
June 29, 2024
One of the curious things about mendacious propaganda is that if the lie is repeated enough times, people start to believe it
Something similar has happened with net zero. The right-wing press’ lies, repeated almost daily, that net zero will bankrupt the nation and worse, result in that old chestnut “blackouts” could not be farther from the truth. Net zero will save money on household’s energy bills, give us clean air to breathe and allow us to reduce and then eliminate fossil fuel imports. Numerous studies – including the Treasury’s own forecasts – have shown that net zero will be very profitable once fully implemented
Sunak’s heavily pro-fossil fuel administration, which is about to be rejected by the electorate, has actively obstructed greater investment in renewables, prevented upgrading the national grid and stopped building out EV charging points. What a pity that in order to make their fallacious point, the anti-net zero cult followers have to lie about it.
Reply The One Nation Conservative government has spent a fortune on more renewables ad supporting technologies
June 29, 2024
Did The Treasury get Imperial College and Prof Ferguson to construct and run the models. Because I predict they will be as accurate on the Net Zero scam as they were for the Covid one.
June 29, 2024
Nothing you say here Sakara is true. Currently the (total) human used energy in the UK that comes from wind and solar is about 7%. The idea that this can pushed up to 100% is totally moronic. You also would need masses of money and fossil fuels to build wind farms, solar farms, storage, EVs anyway. Net Zero is neither possible (not even desirable if it were). It is you who have swallowed this mad propaganda. Please listen to some sensible and honest physicists like William Happer and mug up.
June 29, 2024
Sir John, shouldn’t your topic have been titled ‘In search of power, types produced and how cheap?’
June 29, 2024
SG : âNumerous studies â including the Treasuryâs own forecasts â have shown that net zero will be very profitable once fully implemented.â
This is exactly what the communists in the USSR said to justify their forced collectivisation program in the early 1900s. Unfortunately it didnât work, was hugely unpopular, and resulted in a huge loss of life.
June 29, 2024
SG : âThe right-wing pressâ lies, repeated almost daily, that net zero will bankrupt the nation and worse, result in that old chestnut âblackoutsâ could not be farther from the truthâ
At the next renewables auction fixed offshorw wind will be ÂŁ100/MWhr and floating offshore wind, recommended by SKS at his GB Energy speech in Scotland, will be ÂŁ242/MWhr. Gas, without carbon taxes, is ÂŁ60/MWhr. Gas is reliable whilst rewnewables are chaotically intermittent and require backup as well as enormous additional costs in upgrading the grid for distribution and grid stability. No grid-scale electricity storage system exists or is even planned for 2050, let alone 2030/2035.
June 30, 2024
+1
June 29, 2024
SG : âOne of the curious things about mendacious propaganda is that if the lie is repeated enough times, people start to believe it.â
For which the Left are the masters, as evidenced by âwar is peaceâ, âfreedom is slaveryâ, âdiversity is strengthâ and now, today, âNet Zero is prosperityâ, Biden is fit to be presidentâ, mass immigration of alien cultures brings harmonyâ and âXY = XXâ.
June 29, 2024
Excellent post OR
June 29, 2024
“The right-wing pressâ lies, repeated almost daily, that net zero will bankrupt the nation and worse, ”
Does that include a Mr Darren Jones, until May, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who let the cost cat slip out of the bag recently?
June 29, 2024
Explains why Greta was on the TV every day, spouting the same rubbish endlessly. The repartition certainly worked on you but not on Mrs Gold who wishes to waste energy (worth more than itâs weight in gold) on growing orchids!
June 29, 2024
SG : “The right-wing pressâ lies, repeated almost daily, that net zero will bankrupt the nation and worse, result in that old chestnut âblackoutsâ could not be farther from the truth.”
Well, we’re shortly going to find out when Labour becomes the next government and begin to implement their promise to decarbonise our eletricity by 2030. I look forward to seeing their plan. But not the result.
June 29, 2024
Some transparency would be welcome from government and industry.
For example if electricity pricing is set by gas as the last resort why would electricity prices reduce if gas became the primary energy source?
As voters and taxpayers we have zero influence or control over the “authorities” so individuals can either adapt or whine – I choose to adapt unlike the megawhiner who comments this blog … yet doesn’t even live in this country.
June 29, 2024
As voters we can boycott the parties who want to impose NZ, including Sunak’s Tories. We don’t have to “whine”, we can vote for the party that rejects NZ and in April pledged to campaign for a referendum on it. Reform are not going to just stand down on 5th July, Dixie. The fight will go on, regardless of how many seats are won.
June 29, 2024
Electricity prices are NOT set by gas. They have to cover the installation and maintenance and subsidies of the Green energy industry AND the backup energy industry (gas, oil and nuclear).
June 29, 2024
The wholesale price of electricity is set by the cost of the last resort production … which is gas.
June 29, 2024
BTW my understanding is that part of the issue is the carbon pricing which is applied to electricity but not to gas for residential use.
As I said, we must first have transparency on true costs and pricing … for example what are the costs of continual involvement in the middle east to support our access to imported oil and gas.
June 29, 2024
Thatâs NOT what Ofgem says. Itâs what the globalist one-nation-government say, but that is wrong.
June 29, 2024
Labour will pass oppressive criminal legislation to ban all articles of this kind. Contrary opinion on this and other issues will become known as denial. This simple act of state criminalisation of opinion forming will be the evidence we all need to conclude that NZ is indeed an authoritarian and oppressive political experiment.
No one, no one will ever persuade me that the Earth is at the centre of the universe because that is what the political establishment is trying to do.
We’ll all become Copernicus, Tyndale and Luther.
June 30, 2024
Some of us did try to tell Sir John that mass immigration would lead to the destruction of the Tory Party.
Reply And I pressed for a big reduction!
June 29, 2024
The Labour, Libdem, and Greens are ideologues and have little or no common sense nor business acumen. They will destroy our Country.
June 29, 2024
Too late. Itâs already destroyed.
We need to recover it and the first thing we need is a Conservative option.
So slay the imposter!
June 29, 2024
could be the intention?
June 29, 2024
It is curious that itâs so difficult to explain these fundamental facts. Wind cannot possibly cover all electricity demand as it doesnât work when it isnât windy. There is not at present battery technology to store surplus power generated for future use. Whilst solar on the roofs of buildings makes sense for those buildings, the large solar farms covering swathes of productive farmland and ruining the countryside with a view to supplying the grid are a wasteful nonsense. It ought to be obvious even to the most blinkered green that backup power is needed. Fossil fuels of one sort or another are the only alternative presently in existence. (Nuclear is of course an excellent alternative but govts have been closing and slowing nuclear since Blair came in and it cannot in any case be switched on and off.)
In addition, electricity generation is itself presently only 20% of total primary energy consumption. Itâs true much of the 80% is lost as thermal heat but until the entire economy is electrified – home heating and cooking, transport and industry – and until there is technology to store power generated for when the wind doesnât blow and itâs night, renewables can only ever play a minor role in total power generation.
June 29, 2024
Perhaps Sir John could remind us when the British people voted for the country to “become the Saudi Arabia of wind;” to have our reliable gas and coal-fired power stations blown up or decommissioned and for the resulting sky-high energy prices which makes our manufacturing base terminally unable to compete with other countries.
Perhaps he could tell us when we voted to spend ÂŁhundreds of billions trying to eliminate the 1% of global carbon emissions we produce each year and for vital industries like steel manufacturing to be closed down.
Because I can’t for the life of me remember when the Westminster Uni-Party put that to the people in a General Election Manifesto and got a mandate for it. The only Party which did, the “Green Party” was soundly rejected everywhere except lunatic Brighton.
The fact is, this is a policy which was cooked up in Globalist Institutions like the UN, WEF and EU, and which has been imposed on the British people who are expected to pay ÂŁsquilions to become colder, poorer and have severely reduced lifestyles.
June 29, 2024
….and the tories roll out ‘smart-meters’ soon to be made compulsory
June 30, 2024
You voted for that when you voted Conservative at the last n elections.
June 30, 2024
No I didn’t. No-where in the Manifesto did it spell out what they intended doing, how they thought they would achieve it, or what it would cost.
June 29, 2024
Sir John
If it is cheap why does it need subsidising?
June 29, 2024
Excellent
June 29, 2024
Net Zero is the most expensive suicide note in history…..
June 29, 2024
There has to be enormous tidal energy extending at locations right round the coast if only it could be harnessed?- it could be included with the mix
June 29, 2024
Read Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air free on the net. Tidal and wave energy could only supply 1 to 2 % of electrical energy if all coasts were fully developed. And it would be expensive and variable.
June 30, 2024
Only practical on a few locations. A processed Severn barrage was eliminated because of some birdsâ nests and a few snails. Could have been 7 gw if memory serves. Roughly a fifth of our requirements.
June 29, 2024
If the UK needs to be kept safe, secure and resilient in energy why is what is provided coming from foreign Nationalised Industries whose supply is reliant on the Political whims of those we don’t vote for?
June 29, 2024
Off topic.
Yesterday, in the comments I wrote this “The Not-a-Conservative-Party is now terminally ill, thanks to the snobbish, arrogant, treacherous and patronising Tory Boys in the One-Nation-But-Not-This-One group.”
Just to prove my point, today in the DT, Charles Moore has described Farage as disreputable and Reform voters as a “rabble” for the sin of refusing to vote for a Party which has wrecked the economy; driven mass immigration to ridiculous levels and has a Party Leader who no-one voted for and who is clearly incapable of leading a horse to water, let alone the country.
Shades of Clinton and her “deplorables” comment, which resulted in Trump being elected President. Let’s hope the arrogant, patronising Moore’s comments have a similar result here.
When will the Tory snobs realise that insulting the people you want to vote for you isn’t a good idea.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/28/americas-leaders-shame-nation-britains-fail-to-lead/
June 29, 2024
The Tories created the Rabble Army and Moore will soon see what a rabble can do.
The rabble voted for Brexit for a start, all the marshalled, obedient troops under the command of Moore etc were defeated and rightly so.
June 29, 2024
Baron Moore of Etchingham supported Brexit:
âCharles Moore on Brexit and immigrationâ, 08/02/2016.
June 29, 2024
Oh dear. I used to like him.
June 29, 2024
Why does the UK have the highest energy costs against all our main competitors, penalising our Industry and the People?
Is it because of Conservative Government taxes on our energy supply. Punitive punishment to curtail usage?
Where does all the electricity over and above what is currently in short supply come from to feed the EV’s and Heat Pumps being forced on the UK? A situation that does not come into the equation with those Nations we compete against.
You get to question who our Politicos of all complexions are working for? Its 100% not those that pay and empower them.
June 29, 2024
Maybe UK energy costs are high because as at 09:00hrs this morning we are importing 28.6% of our energy from France via interconnectors
https://grid.iamkate.com/
June 29, 2024
Glen
Just a thought, I wonder if the French have threatened to cut us off (just like they did with Jersey) if we make too much fuss about the boat people, and also their so called fishing rights/Quotaâs in the Channel. .?
June 29, 2024
They certainly hold all the cards
June 30, 2024
I’ve thought for a long time that there is a secret agreement with France that we will “take our fair share.” It’s the only thing which explains the French allowing dinghies to launch and the close coordination of the at-sea “rescues.”
For the sake of appearances and to try and fool the electorate, Sunak pretends he wants to stop them and Macron pretends he is trying.
June 29, 2024
Politicians and green activists are also keen on solar power in the form of large swathes of productive countryside and productive farmland being covered in these. Letâs look at the numbers. 1 kW of the most efficient sort of solar panel is approx 4.5 square metres. So even without allowing for extra space between for installation, maintenance etc, thatâs c. 1,200 acres for 1 GW capacity. But they only operate at c. 15% efficiency in the U.K., due to the latitude we are at and they donât operate at night. Hinckley Point C will have a power generation capacity of 3.2 GW. So to match that youâd need c. 25,000 acres of solar panels. Thatâs actual panels so the total solar farm would be more. Even then of course youâd still need back-up as there are no batteries capable of storing all that power generated.
How many politicians and activists advocating these policies understand the physics and maths of it, let alone the economics? My guess is not many.
June 30, 2024
If you put a 3 kw installation on 20,000,000 houses – thatâs 60 gw. Thatâs about twice what the grid generally handles. Okay, no use at night. As I write this at 12.30 am, demand is 14 gw.
Instead of pissing ÂŁ60billion up the wall on HS2, the government should have spent ÂŁ3000 on every roof in the country. I know, I know – not a problem solver – but it would make a big contribution.
June 29, 2024
You can’t have cheap energy and net-zero ….thats the choice, plain & simple
The Tories & Labour have chosen net-zero while Reform have chosen cheap energy
June 29, 2024
Nor can you have reliable energy and net zero. But why on earth does anyone want net zero when it obviously does net harm and costs pointless ÂŁ trillions too?
June 29, 2024
Those in charge of our energy know all of this, Sir John. Their goal is to destroy us. Net Zero is not only economic suicide but also military suicide.
How can it be safe to deindustrialise so we cannot make steel and munitions and hence military equipment?
How can it be safe to transition to intermittent and unreliable renewables and put all our energy eggs into one energy basket, electrification, when there is no plan or even an economic method to store grid-scale electricity ?
How can it be safe to electrify everything and make our grid the biggest hacking target in the world?
How can it be safe for China, a state described by our security services as âhostileâ, to supply all our energy infrastructure â wind turbines, solar panels, the metals and minerals for motors, generators, batteries and cabling?
How can it be safe for our energy infrastructure to be spread out over half the North Sea? How will our depleted armed services protect all the wind turbines and undersea cables from air and submarine drones? Or all the vast expanses of solar panels? No undersea cable or pipe is safe today, as seen with Nord Stream 2.
How can it be safe to electrify our armed services â aircraft, ships, tanks ? How will they be re-charged on the battlefield or at sea? Or in the air?
June 29, 2024
You raise a very good point. Currently Russia is targeting Ukraines energy grid. This is done to adversely affect the civilian population, especially in winter.
If the same was to happen to us, how would we be able to heat our homes with no gas boilers or coal fires ?
June 29, 2024
Mark, it’s also done to stop Kiev’s army from easily transporting its materiel around by rail transport, which is almost all electric-powered in Ukraine. But the main point is right: we’ve had a government determined to make enemies, and at the same time determined to ensure they can easily defeat us. Military security and energy security are just words our rulers pay lip service to. I’m not voting for that to continue.
June 29, 2024
A trawler dragging an anchor cut a French electricity interconnector, so Russia could knock out continual supplies easily and cause blackouts at peak times today.
June 29, 2024
Looking at how much we have achieved so far, it is looking all but impossible.
…and labour say it will be cheaper — That’s way too many fairy tales.
None of the big 3 will let go of netzero – it is the means with which they keep us in check and it means they don’t have to provide anything new. They don’t have to come up with innovative solutions because they don’t have the management capabilities in any case – they will do nothing effective and to hell with the consequences.
Official policy determined by the civil service?
June 29, 2024
No one seems to worry about how wildlife will be affected by all these wind farms and pylons going up. When birds migrate they do not expect to come back the following year and be cut to pieces as is happening. No one looks at the effects of electricity pylons and solar panels on the water supply. The solar panels have to be washed off and this goes into the earth below which sheep might eat off and into the underground water supplies. More money needs to go into studies by people who value the natural world. The fact is we are putting all this rubbish onto our lands to accommodate an out of control human population which needs culling.
June 29, 2024
Simply put – they just donât care about âthe planetâ or even the earth.
June 29, 2024
I recently saw a photo of the steel reinforcement of the base of a wind turbine before the concrete was added.âIt’s stunning ‘what lies beneath’.â’Green’.â’Renewable’.âWouldn’t fancy the job of demolishing it once its useful life is over; presumably it will just remain. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GQ2atl7WQAAisSm?format=png&name=small
June 29, 2024
RC :
Thanks for this picture.
Fixed offshore wind uses 1000 times more concrete and steel per unit of usable power than a large nuclear fission plant (such as Hinkley Point C) and 2000 times more than a gas plant.
These figures are made even worse when it is considered that gas and nuclear plants last 3 times longer than offshore wind turbines.
June 29, 2024
And look at the non-recyclable windmill blades being used as âlandfillâ
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/photos/wind-turbine-blade-landfill
June 29, 2024
Look at we have done with so called ‘climate change’. Gone hysterical, with government and establishment trying to be in the lead.
Thus, rather than manufacturing what is needed, we import it, and of course other’s power as fast as we can.
This is typical throughout. Instead of desiring to make things for ourselves, we simply buy from elsewhere, from those who do think making is a good idea.
Over recent years we have destroyed our economy and in many cases we will not start again because we don’t know how and don’t have the human skills.
But never mind, let’s get some money by selling off everything else we still have for the foreign money we can’t get any other way.
And when the new owners make profit and surplus cash, guess where it goes.
We must replace our leaders and their supporters who are unable and unwilling to change how we do things.
June 29, 2024
So the windfall tax might bail us out!
I am searching for a supplier who does not âguarantee 100% renewable energyâ.
June 29, 2024
I just wish politicians had some level of mathematical competence and more honesty.
They are happy to buy into inaccurate financial analysis with hidden subsidies and helpful assumptions.
May I suggest that large industrial users like Port Talbot and Grangemouth should be allowed to vertically integrate their energy supply with on site power stations and direct sourcing of feedstock with no taxes.
June 29, 2024
Almost like treating their operating site as a Freeport.
June 29, 2024
What a wonderful achievement to reach CO2 Net Zero. Hmm. And all it takes is a measly drop of 0.8% of the global total. Double Hmm.
Meanwhile, the Rest of the World worry about their economies, with both China and India building new coal-fired power stations on a weekly basis, to provide cheap electricity to their citizens, to keep their costs of living down. Well done those Nations for looking after their own people, first.
Meanwhile, we actually ban coal-fired power stations and fracking and make it extremely difficult for those companies using R&D to find new energy sources in our waters.
Meanwhile, we buy Gas and Oil from those foreign producers who transport thousands of tons of it to our shores at enormous cost to our purse and to the global output of CO2.
Meanwhile, research has discovered there is not enough copper in the world to satisfy the huge demands of the new renewables required to provide 100% of our energy requirements. What then?
So, I ask all of those who fight for this net-zero, what’s in it for us? It is costing us ÂŁÂŁBs. What actual benefits will we see, here in the UK?
And will you give up your crusade when our Treasury coffers reach their own “Net-Zero”? Or still maintain we must press on?
So, this net-zero crusade for OUR country, surely, is the new definition of insanity?
June 29, 2024
The entire army of Labour, BBC, CH4, Guardian and Tory weasels are in full attack mode on Farage and Reform. Lies, slanders, fake tears and fake tv footage by CH4 subcontractors. Yes, well. As in the US with Trump the people can now see what the establishment game is and they’re no longer deceived by such obvious scams.
All that we are seeing is the result of Tory leaders betraying a nation, their beliefs and their way of life to appease the left and Labour’s wide-ranging bureaucracy that now controls this nation
June 29, 2024
They are making it very clear who they are afraid of!
June 29, 2024
Why are British politicians trying to destroy our economy without having any impact on climate whilst many other countries in the world are doing entirely the opposite? Is it simply down to the fact that being Arts graduates, they are entirely ignorant of science and the scientific method or do they not care and are motivated purely by personal ambition which drives them to engage in virtue-signalling which in this case is simply appeasing rogue international organisations bent on destroying Western civilisation from within and turning us all back into serfs?
June 29, 2024
There is no necessity to search for cheap power. It already exists as hydrocarbons which are also reliable, storable and easily distributed. Reliable nuclear fission will eventually become even cheaper than hydrocarbons although the electricity storage problem will still exist if we persist with impractical electrical devices.
The search is simply because of the Net Zero âsolutionâ to a non-existent problem, CAGW.
UN IPCC WG1 Table 12 in Chapter 12 shows no signal for climate change (floods, storms, draughts, precipitation etc.) except for some slight warming leading to some loss of ice and snow. So currently no crisis or emergency. Not that a temperature increase will cause extreme weather or a climate catastrophe as shown by Icelandic Norsemen colonising Greenland in the Middle Ages until the Little Ice Age which required an average temperature 5 degrees C higher than today.
UN IPCC WG1 P95 : Doubling CO2 increases temperature by 1.2 degrees C (0.7 degrees C calculate Happer & Wijngaarden). This will take 160 years at the current rate of 2.5 ppm. Not that additional CO2 will heat up the planet as there is already sufficient CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb all the IR radiation emitted by the Earth which it can use for its GHG effect. So adding more CO2 makes little difference. Furthermore the Antarctic Vostok ice core data shows CO2 following temperature for the last 500,000 years when both have been at historically low levels. So no hurry to cease emitting CO2.
UN : Climate action is #13 on the list of sustainable goals. So the emergency only applies to the democracies of the West. The climate activists, who have no issue with CO2 emissions from China and India, appear to believe that these countries exist on a different planet.
June 29, 2024
Correct on all counts ….but our MPs don’t read the IPCC reports they watch the CH4 climate show
June 29, 2024
is there much difference?
June 29, 2024
If sunny and windy Australia, with an area many times greater than UK, including the sea areas, and a population of only a quarter of UK’s, can’t get to Net Zero, why does anyone think the UK can without nuclear power?
June 29, 2024
âLabour and Lib Dem buy the idea of cheaper power because they assume gas prices will climb higher and stay there, so wind energy looks cheap in comparison.â
The climate activists donât need to âassumeâ. They can make the price of gas whatever they want it to be simply by adding an appropriate amount of carbon tax. Plans exist to do this with domestic gas to make heat pumps cheaper to run than gas boilers â see Labour supporting ex Conservative Minister Chris Skidmoreâs âMission Zeroâ.
June 29, 2024
âLabour and Lib Dems say we can switch over to all no carbon electricity by 2030 and that this will be cheaper.â
This is perfectly feasible because as they are not guaranteeing security of supply of domestic electricity there will be blackouts and of course the less electricity used the lower become the electricity bills. The bills for candles might rise thoughâŠ.
June 30, 2024
I did note that Labour are mulling a Department for Net Zero. As we already have the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, I deduce they are planning to ditch Energy Security.
June 29, 2024
I agree with the vast majority of people who have commented here. I remain extremely perplexed by almost the entire political class swallowing the ‘climate emergency’ religion, when there is masses of scientific information countering (1) whether there is any significant climate change going on (just over 1 degree warmer in 150 years); (2) whether CO2 by any stretch of the imagination can cause such warming; (3) how closing down the UK’s production of oil and gas, in order to import the same from abroad can affect anything except damage our economy; (4) how beggaring the UK and destroying its manufacturing industry can affect more than 1% of emitted CO2, while the rest of the world increases its production of CO2.
June 29, 2024
Dear Sir John
You will be greatly missed
A friend sent me this comment regarding energy after reading your excellent article
He points out that
A lot of your comments ignores new tech- for now set asideâeternal energyâ- deep drilled Geothermal systems, fusion, etc. Large scale heat pumps drawing heat from the Med for example.
But even now and in a very few years, SMR , small modular reactors will be practical and available They can be factory built, the size of a school bus, cost about a half million bucks, etc. They can supply power enough for a town of 20,000 for years. They use U235, but there are already experimental units using U238- cheap , low reactivity Thorium with no long term safety storage issues. And all these can hook up to existing grids and transmission lines replacing fossil fuel systems in situ.
reply Next decade new technology may help. This decade sees a collapse in U.K. nuclear output as most of our existing stations close. U.K. SMRs may make it through design and assessment. They will be considerably bigger than you suggest and will need new type approval and sign off. There will not be one operating this decade.
June 30, 2024
@reply – the French State owned reactors to close, is that a surprise? The appearance given is the Conservative Government wants to be beholden to the French Government at every opportunity.
The sites, the money and the proven technology for SMR’s is already in place take place in the North East, this Conservative Government is resisting them. Westinghouse, the former UK Government owned Nuclear Power (Sold off by Labour as the UK would not need Nuclear Power and the need to pay-down the debt Labour created when they created the financial crisis) facility manufacturer is able to supply today. Rolls Royce has contracted Westinghouse to supply fuel and technology
June 29, 2024
Could someone tell the climate change committee that its mid-summer and still cold …..we need cheap energy
June 29, 2024
29 June, mid-summer?
June 29, 2024
Its aroundabout the 24th June ….but like the met-office I gave myself a 5% error
June 29, 2024
TESLA free power anybody?
June 30, 2024
The UK could have some of the cheapest locally produced energy in the world but our rulers seem determined to make us pay for expensive imported fossil fuel. I no longer believe this policy is attributable to concern about climate change at the UK’s tiny impact on it.