The top down drive to change the way we get around, heat our homes and chose our diets is said to generate lots of green jobs as well as helping the governments that drive it to meet carbon dioxide targets. As they plan this governments need to take into account all the jobs in fossil fuel based businesses that will go. The UK government also needs to understand that whilst windfarms, battery production, electric cars, new heating systems and different foods will all generate jobs, they do not necessarily generate them in any particular country. As this is a top down state led set of policies, it will take state action to call up the technologies, raw materials and production facilities that does produce the green products they favour. The UK needs to see that China, the USA and some others are far advanced with putting in this production. We need to speed the UK’s response. Given the lack of strong popular demand so far for many of the final products it will take some state seedcorn cash or tax breaks and contracts to procure the output needed.
Let us start with the raw materials. There are schemes to extract lithium from rocks in Cornwall. We will need plenty of lithium for a large electric vehicle industry based on batteries. There are plans to put in rare earth processing in the North East. That too needs developing at pace, as these electric technologies all need rare earths, which are currently dangerously concentrated in Chinese hands. It will need large quantities of green hydrogen. That requires more renewable electricity and plants to manufacture and store it.
Then look at capacity. If the UK wants a decent sized car industry to survive it will need factories capable of making say 1.5 million batteries a year. Nothing like that is yet on the drawing boards. It will need to at least double current electricity output to cater for domestic power demand. To reduce meat in diets it will require a large expansion of market gardening to produce a wider range and volume of vegetables and meat substitutes.
Net zero is a hugely demanding target. The government needs more positive action now to bring forth the massive investment and technological developments it requires if they are serious about it. It would be a bad idea to continue on the net zero course thinking we can rely on imports for all the new green products it will take. Above all it needs listening to what people and markets are saying. Government and business have not yet designed and produced popular low carbon products that enough people want and can afford. Until they do so the danger is it will prove easier to force the decline of what we currently have than to produce a success for the new areas governments want. So far the UK has seen a much bigger decline in diesel car and engine output than it has seen a rise in electric car and engine output. Government needs to consider this warning sign.
April 4, 2021
Good morning
I think the cat has long left the bag as to what some of us here think is what is going on – That the CCP is behind all of this nonsense.
It is good that our kind host mentions the key flaw in all this so called Green Revolution stuff in that, a lot of rare earth materials are in the has of CCP and that access to them will require us to kowtow to them. So one of the key promises that electrification of will achieve energy independence are quite false. And that what gets me and I am sure a lot of people. The whole thing is a sham and policy is made up on the hoof. Hence the lack of planning.
We also have people in charge of large budgets who have no history in delivering any project no matter how big or small, on time and to cost. And we have a parliament and a legislature that is unable to hold Ministers and the Civil Service properly to account.
April 4, 2021
You last sentence is the key. When did Parliament examine the proposal, itâs impact and approve any of these measures? When did the people approve of the direction of travel? When did we become a dictatorship with the reincarnation of Erich Honecker in charge?
Who gives a toss what the âgovernment wishesâ?
No wonder they are vaccinating as fast as they can, it resolves all these issues of scale as Mike Yeadon explains on Delingpole.
April 4, 2021
+1
April 4, 2021
Germany claimed the same and all the alleged jobs went to China! China steals intellectual property, replicates goods with their own and replace goods with cheap slave labour!
Good old Paris Agreement and other green garbage was seen for what it is by Trump! WHO called out for being complicit with China, Trump! Who actually did anything about China colonising the world by economics? Trump! Only person to confront mass immigration? Trump!
Then we have the horror show Johnson who does not know his own mind, God help us.
April 4, 2021
+1, emphatically
April 4, 2021
Indeed the green “solutions” they propose do not even work even just in CO2 terms and CO2 is not a real problem anyway. It is job destroying insanity from Carrie and this essentially socialist government.
On the vaccination programme it is surely immoral to force people to take this vaccine by backdoor “vaccine passport” methods. It is highly debatable what positive there is for young people (who are not really at any real risk from Covid anyway) from taking the vaccine. One of my daughters is in her early twenties and has had Covid so what on earth is the point in her taking the hopefully “very small” risk of vaccination? For men over circa 45 and women over 50 or so (who have not had it or people with particular medical risks) the benefits surely exceed the risks. I have had the Oxford on without any significant side effects. The Yardly Dellingpole interview is indeed interesting.
April 4, 2021
Depends what they want to do. Other governments look certain to bring in vaccine passports, just as some require certain inoculations for the old fashioned diseases like yellow fever, so it’s not just up to our government. If they don’t want to travel abroad, they won’t be affected. For general domestic use, they won’t be adopted, its far too contentious, although why people who own smart phones, leave them on 24/7, go on Facebook and Twitter, buy online, use credit and debit cards, download ‘apps’ by the bucket load think it is novel and a freedom hazard is a puzzle. We don’t need all our health records shown, just a ‘green o.k.’ signal or a simple card like those issued when you take the vaccine. Seems from early Israeli reports that the vaccines do help prevent transmission as well as mitigate the effects of illness. If this is finally proven, why would people who have any regard for others not take it, other than for medical reasons?
April 4, 2021
For a vaccine to work, it must prevent transmission to the vaccinated person. We don’t need Israeli or any other reports to understand that basic point.
I think the answer to your question, Graham1946, is that some people aren’t sure what else these vaccines do to us. They are still undergoing trials. People can legitimately ‘have regard’ for themselves, for their own health, and not want to put it at risk. That’s what those who want to be vaccinated do, after all.
April 4, 2021
LL
“…it is surely immoral to force people to take this vaccine by backdoor âvaccine passportâ methods.”
Treasonous, in fact. Especially when you consider our Island people gave their lives to prevent Britons having to ‘show their papers’ in their own country.
April 4, 2021
LL, Agreed. There are the elections – but who to vote for to express disapproval of the Greenliblabcon party? The Ward election just has the Greenliblabcons – but I know the Con candidate and he’s a good guy, so I might vote for him or spoil the ballot paper. At Mayor level it’s Reform for me.
April 4, 2021
LL
+++++
April 4, 2021
Well said.
45 for men / 50 for women – good cut-off point.
I can only see 100% vaccination for all as political spin (to make look what a thorough job they’ve done).
The risks to younger people surely substantially outweigh benefits?
April 4, 2021
A net carbon zero by 2050 promise was on the first page of the Tory manifesto at the 2019 general election. So if you voted for them, you approved the direction of travel.
April 4, 2021
No, that is not the case, Andy. Leave voters such as myself voted Tory to ensure that the Liblabs could not overturn our democratic vote for Leave. That does not translate into approval for any other particular policy – we would need Referendums for that.
April 4, 2021
As Andy said.
You voted for it.
April 4, 2021
Correct – the last general election was on single policy, either comply or fudge the referendum result….thats why lots of labour voters supplied their vote
If this government had any honour they’d hold another gerenal election before implimenting any new policies outside the scope of brexit
April 4, 2021
Bizarre – these Leave voters claimed that the referendum was on everything from anti bus lanes to reinstating the British Empire, yet deny everything in the Tories’ General Election manifesto existed except getting brexit done.
It just gets weirder.
April 4, 2021
I read the Tory manifesto. I knew what you were voting for. It is amusing that you didnât know what you were voting for. Still, it was not the first you quittlings didnât have a clue what you were voting for.
April 4, 2021
Andy.
Scrapping ICE cars and going electric by 2030 was not in the manifesto.
I’m fine with net zero by 2050.
April 5, 2021
Actually it was on the second page entitled “My Guarantee”, the fifth bullet;
“Reaching Net Zero by 2050 with investment in clean energy solutions and green infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions and pollution.”
Maybe others gave that point more or less importance than you but unfortunately there is no way to quantify such things as we cannot pick & mix manifesto commitments.
Democracy lasts only as long as it takes to cast a vote, after that it is a buggers muddle if we are lucky but closer to a dictatorship if there is a strong majority.
April 5, 2021
Martin, The Referendum was on whether to Leave or Remain in the EU. It was never about bus lanes or reinstating the British Empire.
April 5, 2021
Andy, You have no idea what I voted for. Unlike in the single issue Referendum, at a general election every voter has to choose a party which has a mixed bag of policies, or not vote. It is thus a judgement – can I put up with some idiot policies to achieve Leave. If Remain had accepted the Referendum result, such a compromise would not have been necessary, of course. So what you’re whining about is Remain’s fault.
April 4, 2021
The destiny is approved, the discussion is about the means of transport and the way in which we fuel the vehicle.
April 4, 2021
Voters obviously do not approve of all of a political party’s agenda just because they vote for them. This especially with the first past the post system as you have to vote for the least bad option and usually only two have any change. Anyways on this climate alarmist issue all the alternatives were even worse. Surely you understand this Andy?
April 5, 2021
LL, But we’re having to deal with Andy here. He doesn’t understand how our election system works.
April 4, 2021
I donât remember it ever being mentioned, prevent Corbyn and get brexit done,but we have BRINO, Johnson doesnât have a mandate for his destructive policy… Co2 is not a harmful gas… itâs essential for plant growth although some ill-informed individuals say otherwise
April 4, 2021
Andy, voting to ensure we left the EU was more important than any daft commitment to be carbon neutral by a date plucked out of the air by PPE politicians with no technology or funding plan and knowing they will be long gone well before their proposed date.
As a result we have retained the ability to influence these âclimate changeâ policies by electing and removing those who will be making the decisions unlike those who remain in the EU.
April 4, 2021
Spot On Lynn
April 4, 2021
I agree. The CCP is directing all of this.
And the way we live now. In some ways worse than Orwell’s proles – not even there were they forced to wear masks and they could still gather and go to pubs.
The biggest threat now is our own politicians and scientists telling us that they want to eradicated disease. We could be in masks and living in fear for ever if we let them carry on.
No. We are NOT used to masks, Mr Hancock.
The police (with an utterly appalling reputation at present (murderers, rapists and extremists in their ranks) are losing the prerogative of policing by consent and the government is losing its prerogative of governing by consent.
April 4, 2021
A few bad apples should not be allowed to blacken the reputation of our Police men and women.
There are clearly problems but I’m pretty sure that’s down to leadership issues (and indeed how those leaders are selected and promoted).
April 4, 2021
NLA
But to be fair you get rotten eggs in any organisation, granted some organisations completely rotten as in the Johnson imposter government.
However with covid the police are caught between the devil and the sea. On the whole I think the police are getting a balancing act right under difficult conditions.
Pitty the lefty snowflakes breaking the rules arent smart enough to realise Boris is doing Blair’s bidding.
April 4, 2021
No Longer, Anyone can look at the ONS all deaths graph for the last 15 months and see three things plainly: there have been significant excess deaths compared with the 5 year average; the deaths are seasonal; the inflexions (peaks and troughs) do not coincide with the untargeted national lockdown start and finish dates (provided the 4 weeks from infection to death are factored in).
The untargeted national lockdowns do not work. For example, in the one, the peak of deaths was at 8th April, but 4 weeks after the 23rd March start is 20th April. Nowhere near. Therefore the government (after the first lockdown failure) either must have realised this, or they do not know what they’re doing. That means the government is quite likely to have used the lockdowns to deliberately condition us for authoritarian rule. That suits the green fascists admirably.
April 4, 2021
That should read (second paragraph): “. . . in the FIRST one, the peak of deaths . . .”.
April 4, 2021
Wrong again. There were 5000 Chinese plague virus deaths a week before the Xmas lockdown began and we currently have about 50 per week. A primary school child would conclude that the leckdown has been effective, in that it has clearly reduced the number of deaths. Which gong are you trying to bang today? That the virus has mysteriously become less lethal?
April 5, 2021
Sakara, What part of “the inflexions (peaks and troughs)” don’t you understand? If the national untargeted lockdowns worked you would see their direct dated effects on the ONS all deaths graph. All you have to do is look for yourself and pick out the dates, instead of blustering. Then tell me the dates to confound my point. It should be easy – if you were right.
April 4, 2021
OND Death stats, since the end of June 2020 to date, (after the end of the nasty first 2020 wave) are actually only about 7% up on normal. End of June 2020 to June 2021 is quite likely to be only 5% to 6% up on the 5 year average (allowing for population and ages) and this despite the NHS having discontinued many urgent procedure and diagnosis. Well within a normal range, especially given the NHS shutdown issues.
April 4, 2021
Today, Easter Sunday Metropolitan Police enter a church in Balham and disrupt a service.
Whatever happened to notions of sanctuary within church premises?
Anarcho-Tyranny rules again. Genuine crime goes unpunished while police attempt to modify the behaviour of law abiding citizens.
April 4, 2021
I’m afraid those Church goers were not observing the law – it was quite clear from the video I saw that there was no social distancing and many were not wearing masks.
Now you might not agree with those laws but they still exist and the Police are obliged to enforce them. If this had been a group of young party goers – would you have objected to the Police breaking it up?
April 4, 2021
So, very much like supermarket shopping in the untargeted national lockdowns, Ian. And how often have the police shut down those supermarkets?
April 4, 2021
@NickC; Like supermarkets, churches are subject to various exceptions made within the Covid prevention laws, being classed as essential, but unlike retail food shops churches have only very limited exceptions -thus no social distancing, no masks, no entry.
April 5, 2021
So you think the virus can tell the difference between a church and a supermarket, Jerry? What’s important is the likelihood of infection. Stop hiding behind petty, imperfect, illiberal laws – you sound like a curtain twitcher.
April 5, 2021
@NickC; Oh for pity sake, no one is suggesting supermarkets are any safer but food is an essential, a church service, like a pub, is not.
April 4, 2021
The police pick and choose which laws they choose to enforce or not all the time. Shoplifting for example is very rarely prosecuted. Often they even take the knee as they choose not to prevent criminal damage. They chose not to disperse people protesting outside a Yorkshire School too.
April 4, 2021
@Peter; Actually I think you’ll find that happened on Friday, and it wasn’t shut down because people were seeking sanctuary but because those inside the church were not following Covid prevention laws, no masks, no social distancing.
April 4, 2021
Jerry, To hold tyranny at bay it may be necessary to disobey or circumvent unjust and oppressive laws. So obedience is a matter of judgement, not an absolute. We have that over-riding right. Bad laws need to be resisted, as the National Identity Card was in 1950 (court case 1952).
April 4, 2021
@NickC; “obedience is a matter of judgement, not an absolute.”
Nonsense, unless you would approve of illegal Trade Union secondary picketing, shutting down your company simply because it carries on similar business as that of the primary strike action, do you approve of Extinction Rebellion occupying streets and property?
April 5, 2021
Yes indeed âobedience is a matter of judgement, not an absolute.â, Jerry. That principle has a long history in our law. As individuals we have both the right, and the duty to resist tyrannical and unjust law. And take the consequences of course – nothing of value comes cheap. Moreover, it certainly does not give you the right to decide what I or other people may judge appropriate in relation to illegal secondary picketing, for example.
April 5, 2021
@NickC; As individuals we have both the right, and the duty to resist tyrannical and unjust law.”
Perhaps, but in doing so you have no right to risk harming others, and that is the problem here. If someone harms themselves so be, but to (knowingly) act in ways that will, or is likely to, harm innocent bystanders or third parties is beyond such rights.
“Moreover, it certainly does not give you the right to decide what I or other people may judge appropriate in relation to illegal secondary picketing, for example.”
Oh yes it does! The secondary pickets of Orgreave, for example, might have been justified, not so the actions of secondary pickets above a road in South Wales. No one has a right to harm others, directly or indirectly, physically, mentally or financially, in the name of their cause, what ever it is.
April 4, 2021
Jerry,
The police arrived again on Sunday at the same church. Worshippers were wearing masks and socially distanced. So not breaking the law any more than people at supermarkets.
The Good Friday episode was probably worse as it is the most important day in the Christian calendar.
Policing by consent has disappeared.
April 5, 2021
@Peter; Well yes, I suspect the police did check that the law was being compiled with on Sunday – your point being what. As I said to NickC, churches do NOT have the same exemptions as supermarkets.
April 5, 2021
Jerry, As I have said to you, some things are more important than petty law – such as (for believers) freedom to worship. Destroying statues or lawns is hardly a matter of fundamental principle.
April 5, 2021
@NickC; “some things are more important than petty law â such as (for believers) freedom to worship”
But no one was deigning anyone’s rights to attend church, just how the act was conducted.
You really have not thought out your rant, are you seriously suggest people should be free to practice what ever they wish in the name of freedom and what ever religion?! “Petty law” to one, being civilised for others…
April 4, 2021
I can tell you where they wouldn’t dare do it !
April 4, 2021
+1
April 4, 2021
No longer anonymous,
I could also tell you but the reply would be deleted.
April 4, 2021
And very reminiscent of the âtax collectorsâ in the days of JesusâŠ..the police even said they could all be fined ÂŁ200 ???
April 4, 2021
@glen cullen; “the police even said they could all be fined”
As with any crime, how much would a trade union be fined for illegal picketing, when did the right start excusing law breaking, oh when they dislike the law of course….
April 4, 2021
Yes, Jerry, that’s what policing and governing by consent means.
April 4, 2021
@NickC; Yet the only discontent appears to be from a minority, just as it is only a minority who want a return of secondary picketing. That suggests the police do have the consent of the majority.
April 5, 2021
Jerry, So you think worshipping in a church is a crime? Nor is it a minority – I do not know anyone who has not “broken” covid “laws”, and I suspect that is near universal. People tend to say they want strict laws – for others, but not themselves. Curtain twitchers like you are the minority really, Jerry.
April 5, 2021
@NickC; No, not the act of worship, just the behaviour during the act.
April 4, 2021
But you do not want a legislature that holds governments to account.
When the Supreme Court correctly ruled that our supreme Parliament should not be prorogued by the Government you were enraged.
And you want a thumping right-wing majority in Parliament of tame Tory newbies to give the most rubber-stamping legislature in the democratic world.
Don’t parrot Farage’s nonsense about the European Union’s, and make yourself look even more foolish, eh?
April 4, 2021
Why make up such fakery, Martin? Of course we want our UK government held to account. That was one of the main reasons to vote Leave – because it was impossible to hold the EU government to account. And chance of having an actual libertarian (what you falsely call right-wing) government would be a fine thing; what we’ve got is a ghastly mix of cultural-marxism, authoritarianism, and green fascism.
April 4, 2021
Who is in charge?
Elected Government or judges?
April 4, 2021
The law – made by Parliament.
April 5, 2021
A rare occasion I am able to agree with you MiC
April 4, 2021
“the key flaw in all this so called Green Revolution is that a lot of rare earth materials are in the has of CCP and that access to them will require us to kowtow to them.”
That is just one flaw, there are so very many:- CO2 is not really a serious problems, slightly warmer and higher CO2 concentrations are on balance a net benefit. Even if you accept the CO2 devil gas religion the solutions proposed (wind, PV, batteries and electric cars etc. will not work) nor even in CO2 terms. Finally even if CO2 were a serious problem for say 100 years time then spending ÂŁ billions now to prevent it still makes no sense. Billions of more sensible ways to spend it. See Bjorn Lonborg’s excellent – How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place.
Anyway without world cooperation (which is very highly unlikely) C02 reduction is not going to happen. Best adapt it might get hotter, it might get colder or it might stay about the same. If we are materially richer and have cheaper energy we can adapt better to whatever is thrown at us.
April 4, 2021
Lifelogic, First class. Thank you.
April 4, 2021
Once again L/L, a great post.
April 4, 2021
Lifelogic : “Finally even if CO2 were a serious problem for say 100 years time then spending ÂŁ billions now to prevent it still makes no sense. Billions of more sensible ways to spend it.”
The communist driven climate change activists who are suggesting we change the Earthâs climate (weight of the atmosphere is 5.5 quadrillion tons) rather than take simple measures to mitigate any global warming or cooling or extreme weather conditions reminds me of the producer of the film âRaise the Titanicâ who made the famous quip regarding the movieâs cost that it would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic (Ocean).
April 5, 2021
Indeed, climate alarmism is clearly about controlling the people & not the climate. As Piers Corbyn rightly said.
April 4, 2021
MI6 flying the transgender flag!! Good grief what is the head and Johnson thinking! I suggest it is no longer fit for purpose.
Get Johnson out he is now embarrassing the whole of our nation.
April 4, 2021
+1
April 4, 2021
Top down government driven policy means that government, ministers, prime ministers and their advisors are directly responsible for the outcome. To me goverment seems to have a capacity to move through the creation of disasters on an ever increasing scale based on ignorance of what they are doing. Current disaster progression starts with the Dome, travels through various failed technology information projects, expands financially with HS2, offers further potential with the Boris Burrow, and finally can one hope the 100% electrification of all things moving. Not one of them accompanied with a cost and profit spread sheet that would cut any ice with an investing bank. Unless of course it was based on government borrowing rules. No private enterprise would be stupid enough to submit such a request knowing they would be blown out of the door faster than they came in. The only place for the private sector is that of a sub contractor to these flights of fancy.
As with Covid vaccines, it is the place of government to lay out clearly what they wish to achieve and by when. Specifically in the case of the green agenda, which is laudable, it is then up to technology in industry to come up with solutions that work and are acceptable to the buying public. No one in their right mind would task a PPE graduate or a lawyer to produce a vaccine or remove an appendix. We currently suffer ministers and pubescent school girls who think they can.
April 4, 2021
Well said!
April 4, 2021
Exactly, Agricola. I would just add one further major problem – there are far too many people on Earth to adequately sustain in terms of adequate food, housing, medical/social care and clean environmental management, but that is not a path than any politician in any country would dare to go down.
April 4, 2021
There are not really too many.
Problem is there are too many people on Earth who don’t like one another, who don’t consume resources efficiently enough, and who don’t make enough of the scientific endeavour to figure out how to improve things in general.
(And if we in The UK procreated more we wouldn’t need so many immigrants and if those in immigrant countries procreated less, by the West helping to increase their standard of living, a bit / make it more stable, then general population of world would be under more control).
April 4, 2021
Shakespeare’s play The Tempest brilliantly captures how we should be stewards of this world (as those in The Renaissance world believed) and the need to get the balance right and in the right way between nature and the mind and so on.
Our problem is that we are destroying more and more what was best of our Greco-Roman values / vision for this Earth and above all destroying our Judaeo-Christian values / vision for this Earth (and Heaven).
We are becoming more and more like Prospero at his worst – and like the monster Caliban at his worst.
April 4, 2021
Ed M
“and above all destroying our Judaeo-Christian values”
Well, the ‘Boss’ up there hasn’t done me any favours and never lifted a finger to prevent rotten things happening to me or indeed many innocents.
It isn’t what they teach you at Sunday School or what the Pontif would have you believe……..it’s Karma, and I stopped paying in years ago.
April 4, 2021
There are too many people in the UK; the country doesn’t grow enough food to feed the existing population. In response, more farmland is being turned over to housing.
April 4, 2021
We ‘could’ grow enough to feed ourselves, but that is not the kind of revolution Boris has been ordered by his globalist masters and his EU friends to bring upon us.
However I share your sentiment, and I think if there is to be a revolution it should be one of self sufficiency, not this green scam Johnson seems hell bent on enforcing as though he was some kind of crank-brained tin pot little dictator.
April 4, 2021
Ed: one of the provocations of violence is over-crowding, and the actual or perceived encroachments on ‘my space/resources/rights’ caused by it.
April 5, 2021
@SM,
I don’t think it’s about quantity of people but quality of people …
In sense that if everyone like each other more, then numbers wouldn’t be such an issue.
How many people in London for example really like each other? ( I LOVE London btw, and i LOVE meeting and chatting with people and being with my friends in London, but I don’t think I would, or NEARLY so much, if it weren’t for my traditional Christian faith – (i.e. of the traditional Christianity that gave us traditional Christians such as Jane Austen, Bach, Mozart, the architects of the beautiful cathedrals and so on). And I don’t think we’ve nearly explored enough what science can do so that we could all enjoy this Earth a lot more.
But as a traditionalist Christian, I believe we can only achieve all this great happiness here on Earth through the miracle-like help and through the miracles of The Divine (I’ve experienced a few miracles in London – the most extraordinary was being cured of debilitating arthritis in my lower back – not far from High Street Ken, less than 5 minutes walk from Kensington Palace. Really.
April 4, 2021
The problem with the âtoo many people on Earthâ argument is that it is other people who are the ones you consider superfluous. It isnât you, your family, your friends who are the people we donât need – it is others, elsewhere.
And that is a very dangerous road.
April 4, 2021
Unless you are a different Andy, weren’t you previously chortling about the deaths of wicked Tory Leave voting pensioners?
April 4, 2021
We’re already dying out through under-reproduction Andy.
April 4, 2021
Andy
The planet IS overpopulated.
April 4, 2021
SM
“…but that is not a path than any politician in any country would dare to go down.”
I would ! make me PM and I guarantee a reduction in UK residency and the prevention of immigration.
April 4, 2021
You have my vote!
April 4, 2021
@SM; That comment probably says far more about you than anyone else. đ
April 4, 2021
Good post – and your first five words are key. Policy-formulation by this government is amongst the worst I can remember. I can imagine that all of the big initiatives are being generated by a tiny cell of Boris and a few Spads/Media advisers, and that essential processes – involving civil servants – have been dispensed with. We saw the same probem with Trump, albeit that he, unlike Boris, had a better grasp of what needed doing. This has to change. The simplest quick win would come from reducing the size of the Spad operation inside No 10 and pushing the surplus ‘advisers’ into the ministries. Longer term: sack most of them.
April 4, 2021
Better to sack Boris. Or (and?) replace Carrie with Delingpole.
April 4, 2021
Not much else to add, you sum it up well.
Perhaps we need a Dragons Den type of panel formed to which Ministers have to make a policy presentation.
But then politicians would want to choose the panel members, so that would also fail !
April 4, 2021
Something of that nature exists already in House of Commons Committees.
April 4, 2021
SM
Yes indeed, staffed by Mp’s chosen by Mp’s, makes my point rather well I think !
April 4, 2021
Alan Jutson
“Perhaps we need a Dragons Den type of panel formed to which Ministers have to make a policy presentation.”
A summoning to Runnymede would be more fitting.
April 4, 2021
“No one in their right mind would task a PPE graduate or a lawyer to produce a vaccine or remove an appendix. We currently suffer ministers and pubescent school girls who think they can.”
Indeed or to manage transport, energy, business, health care, trade …
Transport Sec. Higher National Diploma in Business @ Manchester Polytechnic
Business and Energy classics and history at Trinity Camb.
The NHS (both minister and the dire CEO) PPE Oxon.
Our socialist, tax to death, anti-business Chancellor PPE Oxon.
The green agenda seems to be driven by a Theatre Studies Graduate from no 10 when she is not wasting ÂŁ200K on interior decor!
Test and Trace Dido Harding (PPE Oxon) how many ÂŁbillion was this?
In healthcare the damn fools killed 1000+ extra people (and cost ÂŁbillions) by failing to make the blindingly obvious gender risk adjustments in vaccination priority. Even after they were told. May they rest in peace.
April 4, 2021
Agricola
“… it is the place of government to lay out clearly what they wish to achieve and by when. Specifically in the case of the green agenda ”
If they had any decency and honour, then yes. However they have to be careful what they tell us and when otherwise we’d never elect them in the first place.
” Christ don’t tell ’em that ! they’ll never elect us, better sneak it in and enforce it via tax and the DVLA “
April 4, 2021
Rare earths have a utility, and strategic importance, beyond car-battery production. China understands that; MPs need to as well.
April 4, 2021
The UK might more securely turn its attention to the rare earth minerals in Australia where there appears to be a good potential, with deposits in South Australia in particular. A risky investment in mining prospecting, certainly but worthwhile?
April 4, 2021
Perhaps we could ask some of the Aussie opal and gold miners to keep a look-out.
April 4, 2021
Sea Warrior
MP’s do understand it. They’re just selling the country down the river because they don’t have guts like the rest of us, also add in the corruption factor.
April 4, 2021
Sea Warrior, Rare earth minerals are used in magnets for electric motors (eg traction motors), not for common batteries – Lithium-ion, NiMH, etc – (which typically use elements such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, etc).
April 4, 2021
Indeed – and each F-35 fighter needs several hundred kgs of the stuff.
April 4, 2021
We are, apparently, run by clueless politicians who, in turn, are driven by well funded, noisy lobby groups. They will be the ruin of the nation.
April 4, 2021
+1
Fait accompli!
April 4, 2021
Absolutely.
I enjoy John’s blog but he’s very careful (which I understand) about what he references and makes sure he stays within safe parameters. That does us all a disservice for there are unaddressed issues that no Tory politician will touch with the proverbial barge pole and leaves the public exposed to harm
The lobby industry, their allied activists and those party and union vested interests does have the capacity to destroy democratic accountability
Scum like McCluskey and bigots like Lammy are more powerful today that the entire Tory backbenches, fact
The left are now in control of this country and Mr Redwood and his backbenchers have become an irrelevance and that’s dangerous for us all
April 4, 2021
@oldtimer; Indeed, but who maintains such people in power, the equally clueless electorate. They will be the ruin of the nation!
If top-down governance and forced change did not work why has one of the most authoritarian govts in the world, the CCP, created such a worldwide economic power house that is modern China, doing so in less than 40 years. A sobering, if unwelcome, thought perhaps…
April 4, 2021
Jerry, Actually the communists in China copied Hong Kong’s free enterprise system onto the mainland. With the strict provisos that the new entrepreneurs kept out of politics, and the Party overlords could have a stake in the riches generated.
April 4, 2021
@NickC; As I said, top-down, regardless of whose economic business plan the CCP cribbed from, far more successful, for both ruling overlords and most of their subjects. Not saying I approve, just pointing out that strong top-down governance can and does work.
April 5, 2021
Jerry, The Chinese communists copied Hong Kong’s free enterprise system onto the mainland precisely so that top down political control of industries and factories was avoided. Chinese entrepreneurs were successful where top down political control in the past had failed – as it always does.
April 5, 2021
@NickC, You are deluded if you think the CCP has not been controlling China, and now Hong Kong via top down control.
April 4, 2021
Perhaps, decision makers or Power brokers in the West / US decided to embrace the China for short term profit and future power. Some under the cover story the CCP would move toward democracy. Others may have been bribed, corrupted or entrapped or all three. Others perhaps because it was a free ride on the gravy train for them. The population is also 1.4 billion with a strong work ethic and most probably just want some freedom and prosperity like us all.
Still would we notice the difference in China , would we have nothing and be happy?
April 5, 2021
@anon; Your description of China in the latter part of the 20th century sounds somewhat like the UK (and western Europe) in the immediate pre and post WW2 periods, when what you knew wasn’t necessarily as important to who you knew [1] (even bribery!), the UK workforce had a strong work ethic too and we also had a strong and pro-active top-down government system, especially post 1945.
[1] deference and favouritism was still alive and well into the 1970s in some parts of the UK, socially and within the boardroom
April 4, 2021
+1
April 4, 2021
And all because a (then) sixteen year old Swedish girl threw a tantrum.
April 4, 2021
Backed by very powerful people. This is all being done (including the pandemic response) to take things away from us whilst making us think it’s for our own good.
April 4, 2021
The real clever trick in all this is not just the taking away, but the giving back. As if it were our freedoms and liberties are granted by them and them alone. It is a bit like a parent taking away a child’s toy and not giving it back unless they behave. They may be the parent but that toy still belongs to the child regardless. In short, we have witnessed in plain sight the Servants become the Masters and many have not even noticed the change.
April 4, 2021
@OA; Nonsense, not saying that Swedish girl hasn’t been used -by some very powerful people (as @NLA points out (sans his silly comment about the pandemic response), but ‘Green’ issue politics have been with us long before she was even born, indeed since her mother was barely out of kindergarten. The Ecology Party (of GB) was formed in 1975, it’s self replacing a ‘Green’ issue party by another name created in 1972, if I recall in response to concerns about toxic waste dumps.
April 4, 2021
If you spoke to your grandchildren (rather than at them) youâd discover that their generation agrees with Greta and not with you.
They also find it pathetic that old men choose to pick on a teenage girl.
April 4, 2021
@Andy; Well of course they “agree”, when school children’s heads have been filled in schools with so much nonsense as Facts, just as Greta was in Sweden, rather than being taught to treat science as something to be investigated and questioned – always, very little in science is ever proven to the point of being unquestionable.
April 4, 2021
If you spoke to your grand parents (rather than at them) youâd discover that their generation has more wisdom and less indoctrination than yours, Andy.
April 4, 2021
Andy
Do you agree with young Greta that the world will end in 12 years?
April 4, 2021
If you spoke to your grandparents (rather than at them) you’d discover that their generation learnt real science at school instead of some money making mumbo jumbo.
April 4, 2021
So that’s that then, Andy.
The Left pick a girl to front up their issues and then no one is allowed to argue with her about them. Very clever.
You never have and never will be a conservative.
April 4, 2021
There seems to be an absolute refusal to engage with actual numbers. With c. ÂŁ10bn of subsidies pa we get c. 40% of electricity generation from wind power, which is in any event intermittent. But electricity accounts for only 20% of total energy consumption. If we want net zero that 20% number needs to get as close to 100% as possible – with electrification of homes, industry and transport. Technology will allow some greater efficiencies, but it is clear we need at least 3x and perhaps up to 5x the current electricity generation to do this, allowing also for economic growth. Where is this to come from? Are there plans for 10x the current number of wind farms? Whatâs the plan for backup?
It really is time MPs got themselves informed on the basics and required ministers – and indeed opposition spokespeople – to answer these questions and stop allowing them to get away with fatuous green platitudes.
April 4, 2021
The point of course being that one question is how to electrify the whole economy and the other is how to generate the electricity from zero-carbon sources.
April 4, 2021
Richard I can’t remember who said it but one wind farm developer in the early days came away from a government meeting and was overheard to have said “Thank God we have gullible ministers”. Our ministers don’t seem to have a clue about anything. They go around spouting off nonsense in the hope it will appease the minions but keep their fingers crossed to see what will happen. What an irresponsible way to carry on. Apparently councils gave been either given funding or at least been allotted funding for street charging stations for EVS. So far only a few councils have done anything but most haven’t bothered. I think they’ve been occupied with blocking roads to traffic for cyclists.
April 4, 2021
Indeed, Richard1. We know that the government is not building the requisite extra electricity production plant. And has no plans to do so. Nuclear, for example, requires a 15 year leadtime. So either Boris, Carrie, BEIS and co, don’t know, or they’ve been conned, or they want the peasants to have no cars and unheated homes.
April 4, 2021
They can comfortably have their hare-brained schemes knowing that by the time of reckoning they will be long gone, very well pensioned off and not have to account for any of it. The last Labour government is the prime example. They knew back in 1997 that we were heading for a power crisis but did nothing, but allowed power stations to close and knew that Nuclear stations were nearing their life end. Then came 10 years of Tory inaction also, and to cede one of our most important products, electricity, to be at least partly produced by the Chinese and French, neither of whom have any love of the UK.
April 4, 2021
It is obvious that the government is not serious about the zero carbon policy. Its words are belied by its deeds. It is virtue signalling, just like many of the liberal establishment.
April 4, 2021
Cynic, Exactly so.
April 4, 2021
The RSPB seem to have woken up to the destruction of birdlife caused by the windmills and are now challenging the government, I believe.
What ever way you look at it, the green agenda will be at the cost of the environment and leave millions of people in poverty, but hey, some will be richer!
April 4, 2021
Poor birds. Poor bats.
The damage done by this government will be incalculable.
Will there be anyone left to record the history of it all though?
No legacy!
April 4, 2021
@EH; “The damage done by this government will be incalculable.”
Not just this govt, every govt since the mid 1970s.
One of the excuses used to ‘sell’ mass closure of the British coal industry was due to Green Issues (acid rain), when sulphur removal could have been used, just as CCS could be used today to deal with any perceived threat from CO2, but there was money to be made. The same happened with the simple and efficient, immediate, use of our plentiful landfill sites, now waste has to be paid to be sorted at collection sites [1] before being sent to landfill, incineration or recycling. There’s money in muck, as they say, and the more muck you can invent the more money there is to make…
[1] and that includes household sorting of recyclables that has to be paid for via local taxation, wheelie bins and their collection all cost money
April 4, 2021
Yes.
Agree.
And now we are seeing the final ruination.
April 5, 2021
Jerry, CCS is largely imaginary.
April 5, 2021
@NickC; I thank you for your opinion…
April 4, 2021
History, as we now learn can be cancelled or altered to ones way of thinking.
April 4, 2021
Sharon, when I helped start the first national anti windfarm group in Scotland we had many a run in with the RSPB. Some RSPB establishments actually had their own wind turbines installed! We shied them data abd videos highlighting the destruction of raptors abd songbirds ftom these dreadful things. We were also in touch with specialists in bats but it all fell on deaf ears. Now they are waking up to the dangers. Even the shark spawning grounds in Southern Scotland were under threat from off shore turbines together with the welfare of whales and dolphins etc. Nobody gives a damn because there is too much money involved fir land owners and developers. It’s truly obscene. Tge are destroying the very things were are meant to be protecting. Solar panels are killing insects on a large scale in the UK but birds who frequent areas of solar panels in the desert are being killed in their thousands.
April 4, 2021
Fed U southerner
I watched a video of a lecture by an American who works in the green industry, snd he said that what heâs seen in the form of wildlife destruction has, over a ten year period, completely changed his mind about solar panels and wind farms!
Perhaps, slowly, slowly people are waking up to the destruction itâs causing to the environment.
As with any bad idea, follow the money!
April 5, 2021
+1
April 4, 2021
Depressing that a man of your intellectual rigour and integrity is exhorting the government to a achieve Net Zero, an objective very few people actually want and that will have absolutely no impact on the climate, even though reducing climate change is the ostensible reason for this insanity.
Reply I did no such thing. try re reading
April 4, 2021
I’ve re-read your post, Sir John and it’s clear what you’re saying – the green revolution is going to happen, so the government should provide more ‘seedcorn’ money to help it go well. You say we need to develop lithium production for electric car batteries. You say we need to greatly increase factory capacity for electric batteries, and market gardens, to cope with the green agenda. You say more renewable energy will be needed. You sum it up as ‘The government needs more positive action now to bring forth the massive investment and technological developments it requires’ if this agenda goes ahead.
So you apparently accept the green agenda, and query only whether enough state-supplied (i.e. taxpayer-supplied) money will be available to carry it through. MPC may have over-egged it slightly, but on the principle of the thing s/he is right in my view.
Reply This article deals with the reality that governments believe this and want it. I have written and spoken before on the wider issues you raise. I do not say I want all this and am voicing concerns about the downsides it brings. I am not your problem.
April 4, 2021
MPC, a series of green policies that make technical, market, and practical sense would be no bad thing. The criteria should be, do they work, do they satisfy the very varied market, and do they make financial sense. Each should be costed both environmentally and in financial terms from conception to delivery. Many are not as good as the lobby would have you believe. My concern is that the decisions are political and emotion led and will be dumped on us, largely because there is not the expertese in Parliament to question any of it.
There are great potential benefits, particularly in personal health if we get it right, but I do not see climate moving one iota in the direction some want. Take advantage of the pluses from climate change and mitigate for the downside.
April 4, 2021
Agricola, That’s largely true, but the term “green” is itself an emotional label. Take the government’s encouragement of diesel engines for cars: that was supposedly “green” . . . until it wasn’t. But the science never changed, it was just conveniently ignored. Bio fuels is another green failure – as are windmills and BEVs. The science is there telling us so, but who cares, it’s greeeen, right?
April 4, 2021
You sound like a Socialist politician from the 1970’s.
reply Try re reading.I am saying you cannot do net zero without popular products that are better than the carbon based originals.
April 4, 2021
Reply to reply. ‘You cannot do net zero without popular products better than carbon based’
Theoretically you are correct but that’s exactly what governments do. Hence we are to have toasters that don’t toast, kettles that take half an hour to boil, vacuums that don’t suck, washing machines with not enough water to do a proper wash, electric cars that don’t go the distance (subsidised to make them popular among the well to do at cost to the lower paid of course), etc.etc.
April 5, 2021
True but there is not even any upside to net zero carbon anyway! Cost ÂŁbillions value negative. Economic destruction for no reason.
April 4, 2021
Net zero is technically not possible. The low hanging fruits have been plucked, we are now left with the difficult/expensive problems. (Eg massive expansion of the national electricity grid to meet our bright new electric future.)
Many of our existing carbon reductions have been achieved by the transfer of fuel intensive industries to other countries. (Mostly by “lift and shift” policies when we were in the Fourth Reich).
April 4, 2021
Absolutely – we effectively close down our industry in the name of climate change and instead import goods from countries that have rising carbon emissions.
So all we’ve achieved is to export our jobs and our carbon emissions elsewhere. Bonkers!
April 5, 2021
+1
April 4, 2021
I sit back in despair at the endless stream of clueless policies, legislation, and regulation which is constantly being suggested and put forward by politicians of all colours in many Countries.
Only in China do they seem to have a plan that is working, and that is slow domination of the World by trade.
April 4, 2021
The CCP has an end goal and a game plan designed to meet it. They also have a lot of patience. We too can do the same, we just need the right people with vision and not silly ideas like burrowing under the Irish Sea.
April 4, 2021
Youâre either the man or work for the man; youâre either the leader or the follower
This government (even with it majority) is the latter
April 5, 2021
+1
April 5, 2021
I see the daily Telegraph has picked up the China topic today with its grab for rare earth products around the World.
I fear it is being recognised now a bit late by other Countries.
April 4, 2021
This whole plan is ill-thought through and completely daft. We are light years away from having enough electricity generation to eliminate fossil fuels, we don’t have anything like enough lithium for all the batteries needed and when they have exhausted their useful life we have no way of getting rid of them.
70 or so years ago we had MPs who had a wealth of business and/or industrial experience behind them but today we are getting an increasing number who are ”completely wet behind the ears”! Most have come down from university, gone into a think-tank or been an assistant-to-an-assistant in the house of commons, been coached in public speaking and then set off on the campaign trail to find a seat. No experience, only know what they have read or been told and never had to survive by putting their ideas into practice.
It is a bit like promoting an army recruit to the rank of Major the day after they have completed their first 8 weeks of basic training!! I also apologise to those MPs who have had a successful career before entering parliament.
Yes, we need to replace fossil fuels, but think the stages through and don’t cripple industry and the country which is exactly what the present plans will do.
April 4, 2021
Sir John
I believe you are pulling your punches. The Net Zero push and elimination of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 makes the Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme look a model of probity and enlightened intervention by comparison.
Net Zero demands unprecedented intervention in a market economy that can only be sustained if you believe the world faces an imminent existential crisis. A belief unfortunately by our political class.
Far better to campaign for sensible adaptation polices that rely on man’s ability to innovate, rather than pluck heroic targets from thin air which lead to malinvestment on a huge scale.
April 4, 2021
When dogma drives ill thought out policies then for sure there will be big losers as well as chaos.
The majority of green policies are indeed based on dogma rather than science — When for example did just one of the predictions of doom actually happen?
The green movement is based on inaccuracies, deceit and outright lies, so why are so many blind to this fact? Perhaps it has something to do with money?
When was the last time a research company turned down a lucrative contract to show the alleged harm Co2 was doing? — It’s never going to happen because they’d be cutting their own throats to tell the whole truth – they produce reports that say what they are required to say to reinforce the myth of man made climate change.
April 5, 2021
+1 or indeed the BBC.
April 4, 2021
We really need to be getting back to normal.
When does Prime Minister Whitty plan to set us free ?
Hospital admissions and deaths down by 90% according to one report I’ve just read.
We could save a fortune on politicians’ wages if they are going to let the Lizard Man run the country – he’s about the only mutation I can see in this vicinity.
April 4, 2021
” As this is a top down state led set of policies, it will take state action to call up the technologies, raw materials and production facilities that does produce the green products they favour. “ – exactly so, and which of course means creating a supply that few seem ready to match with demand through action by government that has a bad track record in delivering on major projects and an even worse one in picking commercial winners.
The scale of transformation is, I submit, well beyond the capabilities of government and for that reason, I am out. I do not accept the present Government is serious in its professed commitment to its green revolution because it cannot deliver on it.
If the Government really wants to promote greeness, it would do so best by keeping us well out of the forthcoming wars over Ukraine and Taiwan (if they happen). But I doubt it can do that either.
April 4, 2021
Green hydrogen from electrolysis costs 3x the cost of hydrogen from steam reformation of methane and this hydrogen costs 3x the cost of the same amount of energy from burning the methane. This can’t be changed because the process is governed by natural law.
By changing transport, heating and industrial production from gas and petroleum to hydrogen from electrolysis, we are increasing costs 9 times and wasting energy. There appears to to be no one in government who understands physics and chemistry.
April 4, 2021
Stred
Convenient facts are lost on many politicians.
They have a dream, and we will all be made to pay for it, one way or another
You either buy expensive new, or keep the old but with increased taxation.
April 4, 2021
”no one in government who understands physics and chemistry”
No party of government has that understanding nor the difference between party policy for voters to base a decision – on green issues all parties are clones
April 4, 2021
Your assertions about the relative costs of green and blue hydrogen are wrong. Blue hydrogen is promoted by the fossil fuel industry as cheaper than green because they have paid the scientists to do the “research” and they then use this paid data to lobby governments. Five years ago they would fund any scientist who needed the money to produce “research” that denied climate change. Thirty years ago the tobacco industry was doing the same in denying that smoking caused cancer.
Green hydrogen, produced using free energy harvested by the renewables industry is also a possible way to store the intermittent renewables energy. Electrolysis is cheap, clean and the plant can be built next to the wind/solar farms. Blue hydrogen is expensive, dangerous and requires carbon capture and storage.
April 5, 2021
Energy from renewables is not free. With the extra indexation that kicked in at the beginning of the month, the average CFD is now ÂŁ145/MWh, or about 3 times the cost of power from CCGT.
Noone can change the laws of physics and chemistry that are the fundamental determinants of the cost of electrolysis and steam reforming of methane. Hydrogen is hydrogen, whatever process is used to make it. It is equally dangerous either way, and it offers low energy density storage requiring three times the volume of methane for equivalent energy.
Hydrogen is only being considered at all because renewables are intermittent, incapable of adjusting to meet demand unless through curtailment of massive over production, and batteries are far too expensive and puny to bridge the gaps.
April 5, 2021
The figures were worked from the cost of wind and solar electricity including distribution compared to the cost of energy needed for existing steam reformation plant using natural gas. It was even agreed by the Climate Change Committee that electrolysis is three times the cost.
April 5, 2021
Sakara, No one denies climate change. But CAGW is a hoax.
April 4, 2021
Corky says, what a bargain, our net-zero will save one whole weeks worth of 2030 Chinese emissions! Meow
April 4, 2021
Oh lovely!
He is a VERY clever cat!
April 4, 2021
King Canute knew his limitations , a thousand years on we have a PM who thinks he can control the weather, we are being led by religious climate change zealots whose policies will impoverish us. Look at your own words ….’To reduce meat in diets’… this is the stuff of totalitarianism, you are seeking to tell us what we can eat, look how far they have marched us down this road that you Sir John , a free market libertarian, could write such a thing.
Meanwhile , while they are telling us to live cold, miserable, vegetable munching lives, they are shipping people into the country by the million. Please can you explain the policy logic between the two? While you are interfering in our diets for sustainability reasons they covering the countryside with concrete to house their population expansion. Explain it?
April 4, 2021
You suggest the government listens to business. Iâd suggest if this government did listen to business, rather than adopting the f*** business policy the prime minister explicitly stated, then weâd still be able to export cheese, chocolate and fish.
April 5, 2021
Andy, Have you noticed that everything that has gone wrong with Boris’s (and your) BINO are the bits where we are still beholden to the EU? You Remains might like to think on that.
April 4, 2021
British entrepreneurs and the City are reluctant to make the necessary investment to achieve the vision of a green revolution for good reasons – one is that the government will not take a “golden share” in what will become strategic industries and so will not prevent foreigners from buying out their new businesses, closing the new production facilities and moving the jobs overseas.
The foreign currency that comes in to the Treasury when British firms are bought out (or farms, portfolios of buy-to-let properties, infrastructure assets etc are sold) keeps the current account deficit down and allows those who wish to take foreign holidays to do so – without exchange controls.
Some of the new industries still require serious investment in R&D to bring their potential to fruition. The lack of available tax breaks and a brain drain of British talent overseas also hinder development. Providing seed corn capital is one thing but overcoming the dinosaur views of those who wish to preserve the fossil fuel status quo – frequently expressed here on this blog – is another major issue.
My guess is that once the City financiers are reassured, it may happen. We are blessed with abundant supplies of free energy. Lets start with green hydrogen and a renewable energy storage solution.
April 4, 2021
If there is reluctance to invest it is because it makes no financial sense. Reassurance takes the form of large guaranteed subsidies at taxpayer expense. Mr Buffett can explain that wind and solar farms only make sense when subsidised.
April 5, 2021
Sakara, No energy is free. And if others are reluctant to invest, why don’t you make a mint out of what you obviously think is a golden opportunity? Start a green electricity generating business yourself, and stop expecting me to pay for it.
April 4, 2021
Need millions of tons of copper to increase the capacity of the National Grid
April 4, 2021
we need small modular nuclear reactors
April 4, 2021
And aluminium
April 4, 2021
One thing that always puzzles me is high cost railway electrification and how even Hone Counties Conservatives from South of the Thames don’t suggest the cheaper option.
The old Southern Railway/BR Southern Region used the cheaper ground rail system (including Wokingham). O.K. it’s not perfect – what is? However, have you noted any demonstrations against this in Wokingham? London Underground uses a similar system for the Tube, again no demonstrations !
So might I suggest you ask Mr Shapps to consider this option for Britain’s remaining lines?
April 4, 2021
Martin, indeed I would suggest the old system is far less costly to install, and and does not require the regular replacement of the overhead pantographs.
April 4, 2021
I do believe that third rail wastes a lot more electricity though.
April 4, 2021
The third rail system is considered dangerous and any extensions will only be allowed in exceptional circumstances. The existing network has grand father rights.
The reasons for high cost of electrification include:
Short time slots to carry out the work and the need to hand back the railway in safe working order,,
Compension payments to train operators,
Immunisation of signalling and telecoms – often the equipment is old and the only practical method is costly re-signalling,
This does not apply to a new line where the cost of building an electric railway is only slightly more expensive than a non electric railway. So why is the Oxford – Cambridge reopening (East west line) been built as a non electric railway ? This line links six electric lines and first stage, at Oxford, is in use by Chiltern trains (from Marylebone via Bicester).
April 4, 2021
So what are your opinions on;
– the PM’s 10 point plan (Nov 2020) which identifies key strategy elements which set a context for the issues you raise
– The UK Industrial Strategy
– The Energy White Paper (Dec 2020)
– Faraday Institutions
– Advanced Propulsion Centre
– Innovate UK and the UK Catapult programme
The first three points in the 10 point plan directly address energy provision (wind, hydrogen and nuclear) so would deserve wider discussion.
April 4, 2021
This statement isnât true.
âIf the UK wants a decent sized car industry to survive it will need factories capable of making say 1.5 million batteries a year. Nothing like that is yet on the drawing boards.â
Last year the following development was announced:
âA site in the North East of England has been selected as the location of the UKâs first battery gigafactory.
Battery technology investor, Britishvolt, has acquired exclusive rights to a site in Blyth, Northumberland and intends to begin construction in summer 2021.
Total investment for Britishvoltâs gigafactory is ÂŁ2.6 billion, making it the largest industrial investment in the North East since Nissanâs arrival in 1984 and one of the largest-ever industrial investments in the UK.â
Reply Nowhere near 1.5 m on current plans
April 4, 2021
I read recently a report by WoodMac that expected to see global lithium battery capacity reach 1.3TWh p.a. by 2030, quadrupling present levels. If we assume 80kWh per car, 1.5 million vehicles would be 120GWh p.a., or nearly 10% of global 2030 production for all purposes. Grid batteries are also a major area of demand, but the UK consumes over 1TWh per day in winter, while gas consumption can exceed 4 TWh per day. Then add in transport demand.
The plans are infeasible.
April 4, 2021
‘the plans are infeasible’
thats because we’re still trying to find solutions to problems that don’t exist
April 4, 2021
Do not forget that replacement batteries also need to be manufactured as the originals will only last 10 years.
So you need capacity much greater than for just for new cars.
April 4, 2021
To achieve Carbon Zero,
We needed a Nero,
And he shambled along just in time,
Crying, â let them eat cake!
For they must not have steak.
Give them mealworms and crickets in slime.â
When Boris de-develops us back to 1789 we are going to be awfully cold and hungry!
April 4, 2021
I want to reduce pollution whilst it is cost effective.
The green agenda is nothing but marxism by the back door.
April 4, 2021
Please read the BEIS government report a couple of years ago, which stated our air pollution, and co2 level was back to 1970 and 1858 respectively
You canât get more reduced than that !!
April 4, 2021
Javelin
Agreed! And theyâre off to a good start grooming the nation to comply with rules and âguidelinesâ for the Corona Virus!
April 4, 2021
This Government is playing a very dangerous game. When people realise they will be priced out of car ownership and will be unable to heat their homes there will be a huge backlash which is why they are clamping down on the wrong sort of protests. They are willing to sacrifice their party in order to deliver this so-called green agenda. They seem to want the UK population living in small apartments in city centres allowing the countryside to become the domain of the elites with mega-farms owned by the state and rich landowners. They are following the example of the old USSR. Control the food supply and you control the people. When did we vote to live in a communist country? There seems to be a grander plan at work here which is evident in all western countries but not in Asian countries who we know are the greatest polluters.
April 4, 2021
I read about a new housing estate where the residents are locked into a 10 year energy contract ( not gas) and it is costing them 4x what they were used to!
April 4, 2021
Both China and India have in recent days said that they do not plan to pursue net zero, and that the West should instead go carbon negative. Meanwhile Die Welt reported that the German government has been warned that its Energiewende is a danger for all Germany with risks of blackouts and industrial collapse. The same message needs to go to Mr Kwarteng. But he seems determined not to listen.
April 4, 2021
As ever, our kind host is inviting us – in the manner of an Oxford don conducting a tutorial with a keen but naive undergraduate – to work out for ourselves that these proposals are pie in the sky, or (borrowing Jeremy Bentham’s phrase) nonsense upon stilts. Perhaps we can now all set out to influence the debate by using the phrase “Net Zero aka the Great Leap Backward” whenever the opportunity presents itself.
April 4, 2021
It appears to me Mr Redwood that you are buying into Johnson’s green scam.
If you think this is going to get your party re-elected, you are mistaken. There is going to be a vicious backlash.
Johnson’s vaccine passports will be morphed into ID cards….Blair must be laughing, and Johnson’s green scam is to be implemented by force if necessary, everyone knows this will be done at the fuel pumps and at the DVLA.
Bending over for global corporates, rather than protecting the people who elected him and our way of life , freedoms and enshrined rights.
We ain’t stupid, we know what the Johnson government is up to.
Reply Please read what I say. I do not buy into any green scams
April 4, 2021
Reply to Sir Redwood –
“How the government needs to improve its green revolution”
You could have said; ‘it needs to be scrapped’ Thus you appear as buying into it.
April 4, 2021
I agree with your conclusion Steve
April 9, 2021
+1
April 4, 2021
Youâve jumper the gun Sir J
I still need to be convinced about the justification for a âgreen revolutionâ in the first place ?
Or has the climate change argument been settled and the world is going to implode in the next ten years if we donât go electric ?
WHY DO WE NEED A GREEN REVOLUTION
Reply My piece deals With the reality of government wanting this. I have never asked for this revolution myself
April 4, 2021
What % of people have asked for this idiotic revolution? A few art grads at the BBC, Prince Charles, Greta, David Attenborough, Baroness Jones of MoulsecoombJenny (with her Men Curfew demands), Lord Debden, XR, Emma (fist class) Thompson, that Green English Grad from Brighton and a few other totally deluded dopes and hypocrites.
Most of who do not even know the difference between power and energy nor the units used for them.
April 4, 2021
@LL; “What % of people have asked for this idiotic revolution?”
Don’t know, but there was a lot of ‘Luddites’ between 1760-1840, they also though it idiotic – a period of rapid change that we know take for granted as the “Industrial Revolution”, it will never catch on, never be a commercial success, they shouted whilst stamping their feet, breaking machine tools etc…
April 4, 2021
LL
“What % of people have asked for this idiotic revolution? ”
Or whom ?
Tesla Corp, the CCP ?
Remember we had to have catalytic converters because a certain company had the world monopoly on platinum. Now it’s lithium but same old BS.
April 4, 2021
American cars started to have catalytic converters from 1975, cars in Germany, Sweden and Switzerland had to have one from 1985, it became compulsory in the UK on new cars in 1993. âA certain company had the world monopolyâ on platinum: Which one please?
I am afraid you are regurgitating a tabloid myth after all these years.
As you say yourself, same cause, same effect, same BS from same contributors.
April 4, 2021
A green revolution will be hugely damaging, we need one like we need a hole in the head.
Rather likes yet further tax increases, more red tape or more government they are all disasters but that is the Boris, Carrie, Sunak agenda.
April 4, 2021
this government green revolution changes the whole political paradigm – do parliament serve the people or do the people serve parliament…….very troubling time ahead
April 4, 2021
JR
“My piece deals With the reality of government wanting this. I have never asked for this revolution myself ”
I’ve heard it all now.
April 4, 2021
It appears that the back-benches are so divorced from government; they have zero influence. Sounds like a party within a party within a partyâŠ.and thatâs not good
April 4, 2021
I donât remember being asked if I wanted to stop eating meat!
April 4, 2021
Youâll be asked in 4 years when its already implemented
April 4, 2021
Glen c
And all this climate change has led to a much greener landscape in those parts of the world that burn fossil fuels. Even some deserts are showing green shoots… is that so bad?
Itâs as most things – green is politics!
April 4, 2021
”green is politics”
Could you explain why the voters only returned one green MP ?
April 4, 2021
Sir John
As always with the UK Political Class, they don’t think things through. They go for the next knee jerk reaction to be on message with a minority – with an eye on the next Election. Missing the main point the people they are trying to appeal to will never vote for them under any circumstances.
To rationalise everything would be to write a book and not just a few sentence’s from me or anyone on your wonderful Diary comment section.
Very small trains of thought that any one else can expand on and what Government fails to grasp.
So far all the employment initiatives amount to bringing back Labour’s ‘Selective Employment Tax’ by the back door. Did that work?
The simplest way to reduce traffic pollution is ensure there is a ‘First Class’, cost effective, public transport network. Taxing the over taxed taxpayer as a deterrent without a alternative in place is not advancing society but pushing it further behind the rest of the World.
No one needs big Government, Political Class ideas, Politburo grand designs, history has shown without exception they all fail big tie, they rely to much on a one size fits all approach. Were as getting off the backs of the people, stop burdening them with Political Class trivia and then naturally the wealth and the well being of society advances, for the simple reason people, that is the people, can just do it so much better with less drama, ego and armature dramatics.
April 4, 2021
In summary, your party and your government Sir John, is, as you know, planning to destroy our economy, bankrupt the country and end our freedoms and way of life. And there are non-elected ideologues in positions of power and authority to drive it along and enforce the will of the State. Induviduals are now the enemies to be crushed.
April 4, 2021
Question, Sir John: who advised you that we would need to double our electricity production?
The truth is, not only do you need to replace gas-fuelled electricity, but you also need to replace the energy currently supplied directly by fossil fuels. The gas system supplies double the energy of the electricity grid. The vast majority of road vehicles also use fossil fuels and that energy needs replacing with electricity.
In fact, according to the government’s own energy statistics, electricity supplies only 11% of UK energy needs.
Most of that 11% is currently supplied by gas generation and will need replacing.
So, naively, it could be said you need roughly twenty times current zero-carbon generation. It’s not quite as bad as that, because electric heat pumps are c. 300% efficient and electric vehicles have about 3 or 4 times the efficiency of an internal combustion engine.
Given these efficiencies the true amount is likely in the range 5 to 10 times more. Whatever it is, it is certainly a lot more than merely double.
Reply Yes it would be much more than double to get to net zero but thatâs their aim for 2050. my doubling is an immediate minimum.
April 4, 2021
Reply – Reply
Has anyone worked out if the existing electricity infrastructure/national grid is actually up to allowing usage to double, and that the cables will stand a huge increase in the current usage, to power and charge all of these new cars and appliances.
If there has been no work done on this as yet, may I politely suggest someone (with Knowledge) actually starts to do some sums and rather basic calculations, otherwise we may have a series of melt downs. !
April 4, 2021
After I wrote, it struck me, surely they must have a report where the calculations are detailed. You know, one that sets out how much extra zero carbon electricity must be generated to meet the targets? And that this would’ve been done before they announced their targets?
But I don’t think there is one !!
April 5, 2021
kb
Can almost guarantee they have no such thing, only when the cables start to fail, and we start having power cuts will someone wake up, then the panic will set in.
Perhaps we should all purchase a diesel generator for emergency home use just in case.
Never know we may be offered a subsidy to do so in a few years time, such are the manifestations of Government policy, but by then all the fuel garages will be closed through lack of business in our lemming type rush to go electric !!
April 5, 2021
I wouldn’t call any of the calculations “detailed”, but I have examined spreadsheets provided with the Sixth Carbon Budget, and the National Grid’s Future Energy Scenarios. It doesn’t take long to show that these are all completely unrealistic, and take no account of a proper hour by hour reconciliation over many years of varying weather. I have done those kinds of calculations, and they show a need for very substantial overbuild of capacity, and vastly more storage than being assumed in these scenarios. That is, massively greater cost.
When you add in a dose of reality for such things as what can realistically and economically done to reduce consumption through insulation (another government scheme has just collapsed in failure), whether people would really tolerate shortened car battery life to provide V2G balancing, the costs of digging up all our streets to install beefier cables, etc. you come to realise it is all just a green fantasy that would collapse the economy.
April 5, 2021
kb, See http://www.gov.uk âEnergy trends March 2021â pdf, 44 pp for an assessment of the present situation.
âNew plans to make UK world leader in green energyâ, 06/10/2020.
ec.europa.eu âTo meet increasing energy demands, by 2050 the UK and Turkey will need to import metals from other countriesâ, 30/05/2019.
An older document might also be of interest: âElectric vehicles: Driving the transitionâ, 16/10/2018, BEIS Committee, publications.parliament.uk
April 4, 2021
History teaches us (for those who wish to read it)that specially in the areas of industry and commercial sectors that top down massive changes never achieve the goals aspired to. If you don’t take the critical masses into consideration, they will not be supportive in making the changes happen. We are being forced down a road on the back of dodgy computer programmes and hysteria over the world doing what it has always done, change and evolve.
What the government should do is stop all this waste of money and resources on its green agenda and get this country into a position of real prosperity with real jobs, energy infrastructure to accommodate the change, foundation blocks to have the infrastructure to control and manage all the different raw earth materials essential for the new world order. They are investing and backing all the wrong horses as in most areas we are also rans as we trail behind all our major competitors.
Throw out all these so called experts all without exception each with their pet agenda, get this country fully operational and profitable, then and only then will the inhabitants of these islands really get behind you and make it happen.
April 4, 2021
As one who works in the energy industry I have said much the same as John to my clients and my own MP, to little effect it has to be said.
1. NetZero policies will kill certain parts of our industrial base and little is being designed, developed or invested to replace these jobs and industries.
2. The government are pushing us towards electric when in fact our electricity prices are going up in large part due to renewables obligations (green taxes) – its a catch 22 situation.
3. Any scheme in the UK to obtain rare metals or minerals will be fought against by the green blob – the very same green blob that is pushing us towards electric cars etc which will need these materials – very bizarre logic from the greens.
4. Green Hydrogen (as opposed to Grey or Blue) is not there from an economics / technological standpoint.
As an example some years ago Spain was investing heavily in Solar on the ‘green jobs’ lie. However it was shown by an economic study that for every 1 job created by the green revolution 3 were lost in traditional industries – epic fail.
Most of all nobody has asked for this, and nobody wants it. Boris buffoonery at its best.
April 4, 2021
Canât you see, at the next GE in 2023 or 2024, UKIP/TBP/ReformUK will have little chance of getting more than a few MPs (if any). With FPTP still around most people will still go on voting for the CUP or Labour.
A large number of people commenting on this blog are wary of the CUP, but having very little sense of history, do not understand that the main objective of the party (as it has evolved many times over the years since at least the 1970s) is to be in power as to satisfy its âclienteleâ without antagonising too much the âlittle peopleâ.
Are you so sure of being among the happy few belonging to this clientele? I would guess, reading day after day the comments here, that you are very unlikely to be part of it. And I also guess that the âreally important peopleâ have other ways to communicate with âthe powers that beâ than commenting on this blog.
But if you get some relief by being here, who am I to condemn? It is just funny.
April 4, 2021
are you the âclienteleâ ?
April 4, 2021
Hefner
It doesn’t matter, Johnson has angered and betrayed so many people that we’ll probably just vote Labour out of revenge. Besides, better to have a government that at least doesn’t try to disguise itself.
Boris Johnson will not get the conservatives re-elected, he’s pulled some real nasty dirty tricks to weaken our country.
FYI : what did it for me was green crap and EV’s, selling out Northern Ireland, and not removing EU fishing vessels from our waters. Those are the acid tests for many.
He’s not one of us and we won’t be voting for him or his party regardless of who’s running it. The damage is done and the trust is gone.
April 4, 2021
Green hydrogen currently about 2$-5$ a kg, depending on the kit used.
Using ch4 is cheaper but advantage will diminish as scale increases and costs generally decline as any volume manufacture proves. +80% of the cost is electricity , and the wholesale cost is heading down. This can also act as a buffer to mitigate peaks & troughs in demand supply. Electrolyser switches on or off as demands peak or trough.
I see no downsides for the UK in exploiting its wind resources , as long as the supply chain is in the UK and not sold out to pay for HS2 etc. This along with fishing reform and investment can spread development and wealth within the UK.
April 5, 2021
Now calculate what area of sea needs to be covered with wind turbines at the standard spacing to provide UK energy needs. The energy must be able to power domestic/commercial heating via heat pumps. It must also power all road vehicles. It is NOT merely replacing current fossil fuel electricity, which is only a fraction of our energy requirement.
To save you time the answer is an area equivalent to England.
April 5, 2021
Reference, or details of the calculation, pleasy please? (See my comment below to steve).
April 4, 2021
The impending global climate catastrophe is a communist driven scam to convince our PPE politicians to attempt a project so expensive and disruptive that it will cripple our economies and bring about the demise of our democratic societies.
The Earth has warmed and cooled throughout its history and has been slowly warming since the last glacial maximum 22,000 years ago and well before man-made industrial CO2 was produced.
In fact it is amazing that our climate is so stable given all our energy comes from a nuclear fireball 93m miles away.
Note that the BBC no longer uses the term âman-made global warmingâ or even âglobal warmingâ but has changed to âclimate changeâ to cover all the possibilities including another ice age.
The only benefit to âgreenâ energy is if it can enable us to become energy independent.
April 4, 2021
Original Richard
There is data out there showing that global temperatures began to rise coinciding with the hand over of Hong Kong……go figure.
April 5, 2021
Which data? And where? Sorry mate but if you are not able to give a reasonable reference, I will think it is just BS.
April 4, 2021
Original Richard
“The impending global climate catastrophe is a communist driven scam to convince our PPE politicians to attempt a project so expensive and disruptive that it will cripple our economies….. ”
Not a new strategy. Remember what Star Wars did to the Soviet economy ? and it worked.
April 5, 2021
OR: âGlobal warmingâ vs âClimate Changeâ has nothing to do with the BBC: it came when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its First Assessment Report in 1990.
So please keep up, youâre just 31 years late.
April 4, 2021
Meanwhile, there was significant violence in Northern Ireland last night. It would be worth pondering whether this was spontaneous, if it is an attempt to influence the implementation of the NIP, or a bit of both – a spontaneous protest hijacked by people who have an agenda.
In history, the pattern of political crises being exploited in order to pursue apparently unrelated political goals isn’t exactly rare.
April 4, 2021
A quick scan of the replies to the topic for today go over the same old ground as ever namely:
Hate for any thing that seems a bit left wing
Bash the EU
Over population
Spending tax payers money
Bash the PM – (may be he is too young)
Any way it amuses me because most of you will be dead in 10 years when the real topic of the day is developed namely Gov Green Revolution. I do believe that a lot more research and development in Hydrogen fuel should be carried out, and the UK is lagging Germany on this. I’m not entirely convinced about a dash for electric vehicles because battery technology is not advanced. I favour a mixed approach for a few years with all electric public transport (state subsidized) More fossil fuel efficient engines (lean Burn) as technology has advanced in this area a lot and more could be done, along with refining fossil fuels even more to make them less CO2 outflow. So I find myself agreeing with JR today on this topic.
I do feel there is compelling evidence of climate change however like Covid vaccines the best solution will come through science and technology.
April 4, 2021
David Brown
“I do believe that a lot more research and development in Hydrogen fuel should be carried out”
But it won’t. Reason: petrol engines can be made to run very succesfully on it, and that doesnt please Boris’s global corporate masters.
April 5, 2021
The reality is we are imposing “green” fuel standards for petrol and diesel that will lead to poorer fuel consumption, shorter engine life, destruction of orang utan habitat to grow palms for biodiesel and replacing food with energy crops. At no proper level of analysis is this green at all. It’s just a part of nudging you out of your car into an EV if you can afford it.
April 4, 2021
You are right Sir John, but not talking anything like forcefully enough.
The fact is the present government haven’t a clue about science and technology, or how to power and run a successful, productive, economy.
They give no thought to U.K. having it’s own resources and not being dependent on other nations who can cut off supplies.
The whole ‘net zero’ ambition is an unnecessary target any way. There is no global warming threat. But if Boris wants to trumpet the idea on the world stage he really should check out the sort of things you are talking about here.
At the least I would expect any prime minister to understand that the country needs to import less and export more. The Balance of Trade has been understood for at least a Century after all!
April 9, 2021
+1
April 4, 2021
Back in the Sixties, chemical smogs that would bring London and other British cities to a halt were annual events. Everyone expected these smogs and treated them as something “normal”. Their only ways of dealing with them were short-term – drive slowly, use lights in daytime – but nothing that actually addressed the underlying problem.
Finally, Government banned the burning of coal in domestic fires and industrial furnaces and to a lot of people that simply made things worse, because it added new costs to a situation that did not immediately improve.
Eventually, however, smogs went away, tens of thousands of older people no longer died each winter from preventable respiratory diseases, and for the first time in recent history it became worthwhile to clean the outsides of London’s buildings, revealing, to general astonishment, that they were not a uniform grey after all.
Attempts to limp along with a problem will always be the easy option, because it provokes the least opposition. Trying to address the real problem will always meet with determined opposition for many reasons, some financial and some just psychological. But limping along just ensures that 2022 is the same as 2021, and so on, and you have to wrestle with the same old problem, all over again.
April 4, 2021
I am also surprised that as part of a discussion on âWhat the Government needs to improve its Green Revolutionâ nobody has mentioned the recent (02/2021) Pensions Schemes Act. Among other things related to auto-enrolment, actions to stop pension scams, making multiple pension pots appear in one location, … the Act encourages (not yet requires) pension funds to adopt environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in their investment decisions.
Given that these pension funds usually have about 60% invested in stocks and contribute to a sizeable fraction of the total investments on the London Stock Exchange, given that with auto-enrolment, practically everyone working in the UK is likely to be affected by such a measure, one would think that the Governmentâs support for ESG consideration by UK pension schemes could be a topic possibly discussed by MPs. What is Guy Opperman, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Pensions and Financial Inclusion, making of it? What is Sir Johnâs view on this?
April 5, 2021
âNet zero is a hugely demanding target. The government needs more positive action now to bring forth the massive investment and technological developments it requires if they are serious about it.â
The mistake being made is that the communists making these net zero proposals are intending for us to maintain our current energy consumption and consequently our life-styles and freedoms.
Rather they see the solution in energy rationing which is more easily achievable if everything is converted to electric. Hence the push for smart meters, heat pumps and EVs.
April 9, 2021
+1
April 9, 2021
Time to bin all this global warming nonsense. The “science” so avidly promoted by Gore and others has been thoroughly discredited but is still being worshipped. A good read explaining this in great detail is “The Hockey Stick Illusion” by A.W. Montford detailing the work of Steve McIntyre, Professor Ross McKitrick and others in analysing the “data” used by Michael Mann’s flawed temperature reconstruction.
April 10, 2021
There is constant rhetoric about the creation of green jobs, but not much detail as to what they actually are and if indeed there’s a market for what they are intended to produce.
As you say, Sir John, what is going to happen to all the jobs in the automotive and allied industries that are based around fossil fuels? It seems to me that the Government along with industry needs to define and develop markets for these green products and to rapidly introduce a cross training program to upskill workers in the new disciplines or, come 2030, there’ll potentially be hundreds of thousands out of work.
There also needs to be a focus in universities and further education to provide training and knowledge in development and production of new technologies and significantly less in social sciences and other unproductive – to the GDP – subjects.