National Grid recognises that it needs a major expansion of grid capacity to carry  all the extra electrical power that will be needed as people switch heating and transport to electrical methods. They also see they need more capacity to handle more intermittent renewable power on the system, as they seek to make more connections available to the mushrooming solar and windfarms seeking access and long distance transport for the power they hope to generate.
National Grid is talking about an increase in electricity volume of 50% by 2035. This is well short of what would be needed for net zero. We will need increased power to handle a growing population, as well as increased power per head when people switch more of their activities to electrical means. They talk of an investment of a large ÂŁ54 bn. which may well be an understatement. They need to put in subsea cables to offshore wind to get the power to land, and pylon mounted cables to route the renewable power long distances from generation to use. There will also need to be a complementary investment in local power cables street by street and house by house as more people want supplies beyond the capacity of their current installations.
This poses a number of planning and environmental issues. Many people object to pylons strutting across the valleys and landscapes of England, and few want to live under powerful electrical lines where they need to cross urban areas. There will be a lot of pressure to put more of this underground which greatly increases the costs. All this extra capital will need rewarding, so electricity prices will need to reflect the need for so much money to be committed to expanding the grid as well as all the extra cost of additional and different generating systems. More renewables also means more back up generation which is costly to provide, or means the construction of expensive large battery farms, pump storage systems or conversion into hydrogen and synthetic fuels using the renewable power.
Given planning delays and the long enquiries used by those against all this is going to take many years to accomplish. What are your thoughts on the feasibility and practicality of this approach?
March 20, 2024
The ionosphere is expanding and heating up as our atmosphere grows fatter and sticks further out into the plasma, as we rotate through it generating heat. A lump of coal is thousands of times bigger after it is burned to become a gas, and burning solid fuels and liquid is the reason the atmosphere is expanding. Equally sink holes are appearing all 0ver the world and many earthquakes are caused by fuel extraction leaving the earth’s surface with no pressure e.g. Morocco recently. The technology is there to make electricity from light dipoles using a laser and a Venturi but this suppressed. Given we are only permitted to use old and highly inefficient alternative technologies to generate electricity, we have to use them. It would be better if we simply used laser and Venturi and we could have all the electricity we need at very low cost. It will never be allowed. The problem is that the super powerful keep us in ignorance.
March 20, 2024
What?
A 50% grid capacity increase is nothing like enough. A house using gas for cooking, heating, hot water plus non electric cars might only need perhaps ÂŁ590 PA of electricity for fridge freezer, led lighting, computer, tv, washing machine. One using heat pumps for heating and hot (tepid) water and a couple of EV cars easily might need ÂŁ5000 of electricity PA. But worse still the heat pump electricity is needed mainly in a few winter weeks so the grid capacity needs to be rather more than ten times. Plus the grid is far more diverse in having to connect up numerous wind farms all over the place. Then we have to increase the generating capacity by double this if you use renewables as you need 100% back up for the renewable.
The whole plan is lunacy. The solution is to ditch the net zero religion, get fracking, drilling and even coal mining and use the existing excellent gas grid. CO2 and even slight warmer is a net good and anyway any CO2 the UK saves is irrelevant and will be taken up by China, India, Russia, AfricaâŠ
March 20, 2024
Lunacy indeed.
As for the expansion of the national grid, the old saying: “a day late and a dollar short” does not begin to describe the fatuity of the UK’s current so-called energy policy.
March 20, 2024
And today Tata steel starts to close down our steel making ability. Sunak and his nutters need ousting ASAP. The self declared son in law of India will be pleased to know I did is not going net zero any time soon!
March 20, 2024
Connection to wind farms also inefficient as they have to carry 100% of the output, on occasions, but only carry circa 20% on average. Plus they are spread out all over the place and usually at sea. Very expensive to construct and maintain. Vulnerable from submarines and to attacks too.
March 20, 2024
And just think of all the new cement, copper, steel, plastics (from oil) needed to build all this infrastructure, and almost all will be imported. Is there anyone in the Civil Service doing the sums on this?
March 20, 2024
Peter, a far too obvious question, with the answer being No.
Otherwise the present Policies would be changed !
March 21, 2024
And where will the money come from anyway to pay for all this, when we don’t seem to have money to repair schools and roads properly?
March 21, 2024
By the magic of Quantitative Easing (previously known as debasing the currency).
March 20, 2024
50% grid upgrade won’t touch the surface with everyone on heat pumps and EVS. Plus of course the Elephant in the room of when the wind doesn’t blow.
SMRs near the load centres are the answer but the government is too stupid to see that.
March 20, 2024
………..increasing need by the 1.3 million granted visas each and EVERY YEAR and illegals plus their families allowed in as well, who will need, electricity, housing, health services, education, transport etc etc. We all those services can’t provide now so it will only get worse with higher taxes to pay for this wondrous Tory mass immigration policy. Its ok though the EDI and ESG, plus inEquality laws and rules will ensure the English will remain at the back of the queue but pay for it all!
March 20, 2024
Hunt seems excited that food inflation has fallen to 5% from 20% last year. So food is circa 26% up over the two years. But pay rise over those two year was typically 10% before tax taxes have increase too due to fiscal drag and other tax grabs and anergy market rigging. So we are far worse of Hunt so why the excitement Hunt?
March 20, 2024
LL,
Hunt not happy with James Dysonâs criticism of his and Sunakâs economic stupidity. He is all for Trussâs growth. Yet JR and chums happy to be directed into oblivion. There is absolutely no hope of getting elected with these two in charge the public has made their minds up. Oust Sunak and Hunt or be ousted yourselves.
March 21, 2024
Give me Dyson anyday, even if his hand dryers need earplugs to use as so noisy..
March 20, 2024
90 boat people arrived already this AM it seems.
How is the âstop the boatsâ pledge going Rishi? Then we have the over 1 million PA legal ones you obviously approve of. Lord Cameron of Greensill Libya promised us fewer than 100,000 this over 14 years back.
March 20, 2024
LL,
Collection service not rescue.
Funny how the French do not load onto their boats their side of the channel but are loaded onto Border Force boats as soon as they cross the middle line and it is known where they should be collected from!
What about the legislation introduced last August JR where it gives them no status or might to apply to stay here, how many deported so far? Is the legislation as good as Sunakâs word?
Meeting in a minute with back benchers, get Sunak and Hint to resign.
March 20, 2024
Whatever is done will not be enough. The move towards Third World conditions continues.
March 20, 2024
Good article on Conservative Home today – â If the OBR is demanding spending cuts, here are some ideasâ.
Unfortunately it is pearls before swine over there. It should be renamed âLiberal Democrat Homeâ.
Not that a Sunak government would listen to sense anywayâŠ
March 20, 2024
So much fat that could be cut start with net zero and the pointless degrees both do net harm.
March 20, 2024
Another insane policy for this con-socialist government.
âWar on landlords risks billions for economy and thousands of jobs
Successive tax raids under the Tories prompt one in 10 private investors to sell upâ
Tom Haynes in the Telegraph.
It benefits no one, neither tenants nor landlords. With labour even worse will follow.
March 20, 2024
Sorry it does benefit parasitic regulator and lawyers!
March 20, 2024
The Tories could end Sadiq Khanâs misrule, but theyâre not even trying
If they had any ambition left, they would put up Penny Mordaunt to defeat Londonâs unpopular mayor
Philip Johnston today.
Indeed Sunak clearly approves fully of the Kahn ULEZ expansion and other motorist mugging plans as he chooses not to stop them.
March 20, 2024
Good to see that the loathsome Mr. Verruca has resigned in Ireland.
Another globalist puppet who was installed to ruin a country.
March 20, 2024
If it worked then investors would be investing. Itâs not working so Governments are subsidising.
The point is that the Government investment comes from taxes. These taxes are either taken away from delivering health or taken from people as taxes. The obvious thought is that this reduces our standard of living.
Buy you also have to NET the situation out and ask yourself if it was more efficient to cut the Government out the loop and simply force people to have caps on their energy use. This will have same goal of reducing CO2 fuels and reducing the standard of living.
The problem here is the green lobby tell themselves and others lies whilst if you stand back and look at the situation what they are wanting is basically to reduce the population, stop transport, stop comfortable living and deindustrialise the world. Which needs to be put in the context of poorly written academic computer models that have been predicting the end of world every decade since the 1970s.
However the green lobby are also pro mass migration so completely contradict themselves.
Itâs the dying embers of Marxism.
March 20, 2024
How would that power get into the national grid, and wouldn’t the investment John wrote about to move it around the UK still be required?
March 20, 2024
Some basic chemistry of burning
C(s) + O2(g) -> CO2(g) same number of gas molecules
N2(g) + 2O2(g) -> 2NO2(g) 3 gas molecules reduced to 2
CH4(g)+ 3O2(g) -> CO2(g) + 2H2O(g) 4 gas molecules reduced to 3, and to 1 when it rains
March 20, 2024
âA lump of coal is thousands of times bigger after it is burned to become a gasâ well perhaps but really the CO2 molecules are just spaced much further apart as a gas than the solid carbon ones were. A good thing too as plants, crops and trees need this food and use it to create (with CO2 and H2O and sunlight) the 02 we all breath.
March 21, 2024
John, do you not realise that the climate thing is a scam? Do watch. âClimate – The Movieâ on the v WATTSUPWITHTHAT website and try and understand the science. Itâs not difficult. This nation is being deluded by you ignorant politicians. The trouble is the huge sums of money involved in perpetuating the scam. You will need to be BRAVE
Reply I am trying to get commonsense applied
March 20, 2024
I understand in the very long term petrol and gas will become more expensive so we will need some more cheaper electricity.
However wind and sun are not cost effective and not reliable compared with nuclear energy.
In the very long term every country will need nuclear energy. That poses its own problems and limits global energy.
March 20, 2024
In the UK if you heat with heat pumps you will need far more electricity in a few cost winter weeks. Nuclear is not good for ramping up and down either. Though clearly better than wind that you have no control over. You might need 10 times the generating capacity but this only full used for less than 10% of the year. Very capital expensive indeed per KWH used in generating capacity and grid distribution capacity.
Get some decent engineers to do the numbers and stop this lunacy.
March 20, 2024
I have lost count of the Quango that are involved in this grid shindig. We now have the “National Energy System Operatorâ (NESO) that will be an independent public sector corporation over the private sector ESO. The “Regional Energy Strategic Planners”, and the “National Infrastructure Commission”; which has just been asked to make policy recommendations to get a grip on the fourteen monopoly Distribution Network Operators (DNO), now owned by an oligopoly of six companies. The Treasury reckons there is 60% spare capacity at the DNO level, unfortunately, nobody knows if or where it exists on the 132 kV and below distribution grids. All the fuss is at the 400/275 kV grid level.
BTW. The last district power outage we had locally, did for the Blue Phase cable in our street; when the power was restored it went pop. The street has now been tied back to the two remaining phases.
March 20, 2024
Short term circa 100-300 years gas, coal & oil so drill, mine, frack plus a little wind, hydro and solar when & where cost effective – long term research better nuclear and nuclear fusion and better batteries roll out only when it works and is cost effective. Ditch net zero now.
March 20, 2024
JR,
At the moment EU provide about 25% of electric. Sunak increased energy inter dependence, why? France threatened to cut off Channel Islands! Stopped PPE coming here and stopped Covid gene therapy jabs!Why is your party/govt. tying UK to EU through stealth in everything it does.
Why is the govt hosting a EU meeting in July? We voted leave?
EU increased its LNG by 30% fromâŠâŠ.Russia UK buys coal fromâŠ.Russia.
March 20, 2024
Hope
Plus ÂŁ600,000,000 for France to stop the boat people.
How is that going by the way ?
March 20, 2024
The French love it !
March 20, 2024
400 plus just today. One allegedly stabbed during the journey it seems.
March 21, 2024
Without that ÂŁ600 million, there would have been 5 more people would have come over.
March 20, 2024
Sometimes rapid expansion achieves better solutions. On major projects, better technology has time to emerge. This enables late movers to advance further, fast, with simpler, efficient, less costly and clunky installations. The Post Office (now BT) Tower involved much heavy metal cable and to become state of the art. Fibre optics simply changed the need.
March 20, 2024
Petrol and gas are finite resources, so it is sensible to research alternatives. However, government imposed targets to eliminate them don’t match with reality.
I favour exploration of geo-thermal energy, which doesn’t create the problem of nuclear waste disposal. The deep rocks are always hot, and if more energy needs to be drawn from them for winter time, the heat can recover during the summer months.
March 20, 2024
The Eden Project found their original geothermal rocks eventually cooled down after a few years, and they have applied to drill and frack a different stratum. Some of the Cornish geothermal projects have hopes that the brines may have enough lithium content to make it worth separating, but those projects seem to have been on the back burner for a while now, so evidently it is less easy than they hoped.
The Government is offering up to ÂŁ157/MWh in 2012 money (about ÂŁ220/MWh today) for geothermal projects in the AR6 CFD round, which is more than twice what they hope to have to pay for offshore wind, and more than three times the recent wholesale power prices.
March 20, 2024
And these prices should also be compared to the ÂŁ50-ÂŁ70/MWhr (depends upon whether it is RAB or CfD funding) at 2021 prices quoted by RR SMR to the HoC ES&NZ Committee at their 15/11/2023 âKeeping The Power Onâ evidence session.
March 20, 2024
The return on investment for wind-turbine is 15-20 years, the life-cycle of a wind-turbine is 15-20 years …therefore they need taxpayer subsidy throughout there life-time, they will not reduce bills, only increase energy costs
March 20, 2024
@Javelin – Nuclear from the ‘molten salt process’ works, its recyclable, can eliminate nuclear waste, it just doesn’t supply the bomb making industry so isn’t prolific
March 20, 2024
Good morning.
All this can be laid at the door of MASS IMMIGRATION. When you increase demand, you have to increase supply. And as such one can truly say that MASS IMMIGRATION is not a benefit to the people of this country.
March 20, 2024
Mass and usually low skilled migration certainly does not help but but a (totally deluded and pointless) drive towards heat-pumps and EV cars is the main cause by miles. EV cars save no CO2 anyway full accounted for. Heat pumps powered by the typical UK electrical mix also save very little or no CO2. This you look at all the grid improvements and other adjustments needed too. You need large hot water tanks taking up flat and house space too – these not needed for combi-gas boiler systems.
March 20, 2024
Mark,+many.
Last two years 3.5 million low paid welfare people (5% population) imported. Over 59,000 criminals who entered the country illegally in hotels despite legislation last year giving them no status or right to apply to be here, however Rycroft was clear they are applying- why? Legislation overridden by ECHR! None deported since last August!
Standing charges are likely to be more expensive than energy use for poor people!!
March 20, 2024
Mass migration is like 10% of the population. So I donât think that is the cause of demand. The problem is nonsense academic predictions reducing the supply.
What mass migration of low productive, low tax paying, high tax consumers DOES do is to divert tens of billions from investment and standard of living improvements. This then means that money cannot be invested in nuclear and other energy supplies.
March 20, 2024
If the UK population could be reduced to about half what it is today, the country could produce enough food without depending on imports. Reduce the population further and more land could be given over to forestry producing logs for the winter hearth.
In the interim there is a demographic problem with insufficient young people to keep an elderly population in retirement, as well as an economic problem with insufficient workers maintaining interest payments on the legacy national debt.
March 20, 2024
All this Net Zero and every other catastrophe in the country including illegal immigration, can be laid at the door of pathetic, spineless, unproductive politicians. With the General Election fast approaching the best this country can do is to unseat all sitting MPâs and inform the incumbent that if they donât listen to the majority of the people, then they too will go; enoughâs enough.
March 20, 2024
With a bit of luck and common sense people will look at their extortionate electricity bills, and finally revolt against the imposition of Net Zero.
March 20, 2024
Particularly the rip of standing charges (an unfair poll tax on the poor especially) they have now.
March 20, 2024
I have been revolting against the scam for years Wanderer. Once I realised most of the world were not going down that lane and were laughing at we Brits.
Come on guys, shout out â the scam is over! We are no longer playing your games.â
March 20, 2024
@Wanderer – while I agree with you, our political system has been hijacked by Socialist Dictators, their personal self-esteem is all that matters. How do you get rid of people that take your money to fund their way of life that also results in them having the funding to shut out alternatives – blackmailed with your own money
March 20, 2024
Living under pylons carrying powerful electric currents is dangerous to health. It causes our cells to experience a constant electrical pole and therefore mutations.
The NHS will need a huge amount of additional money – much more than the entire GDP – to deal with all the additional sick people created both by the âpandemicâ response and Net Zero.
Time politicians began to consider, just for a minute or two, whether itâs possible that they might be wrong.
Personally I believe we are approaching the point where they will need to be held personally to account for the damage done, based on their voting record.
I see that doyen of Net Zero and âlove the planetâ, Zac Goldsmith, has been caught speeding for the 7th time, probably not in a mini. Much pollution as he rushes about instructing us.
March 20, 2024
Hypocrisy is rife in the climate alarmists from Bill Gates, to Zak, to King Charles to Sunak with his private jet and helicopter and large heated multiple houses. Do as I say not as I do you plebs.
March 20, 2024
You can transmit it as DC current that can avoid this air transmission problem . Or you can even transmit power as natural gas and generate (the rather little electricity needed for most home use so long as they do not have heatpumps or EV cars) at the home with a small sterling or other electrical generator (combined heat and power). Then you can ditch the electrical grid completely.
March 20, 2024
Lynne,
Probably in a hurry to catch a plane to his second house in Spain that Boris and Carrie use!
March 20, 2024
Oh you donât have to rush to get on private planes – they go when it suits you!
March 20, 2024
Zak was in what the BBC describe as âhis hybrid electric Volkswagen Golfâ which is essentially just a petrol car. Rarely do people plug them in anyway, even if they can be plugged in. But then even full EVs save no net CO2 after considering manufacturing etc, anyway – perhaps he knows this or perhaps he does not care. A hybrid really no better than a petrol car heavier, more complex, less reliable and more expensive to buy and run. Little if any fuel saving after increased fuel used in manufacture.
March 20, 2024
The judge did tick him off on the grounds of more pollution at higher speeds, which I suspect is true when he was doing 73mph on a 50mph motorway, but perhaps less certain when doing 28mph in a 20mph limit in London.
March 21, 2024
and of course a ban doesn’t hurt Zac. Your ordinary parent, carer, nurse, worker will have life destroyed over too many times they let the whining low gear wander over 20 mph.
March 20, 2024
+1
March 20, 2024
Another problem with living near pylons is they electrically charge particles which when they are breathed in will act as free radicals and cause damage to soft tissues .
March 20, 2024
Route planning calculation can save much of the risk of ugly pylons. Four straight lines are often not the shortest distance between four cities. Five shorter straight lines use less. Even two lines diagonally might be enough.
March 20, 2024
I’ll make one prediction about these monstrosities ‘strutting across the landscape’. They won’t be doing any strutting across the posh parts of the country, just where the ordinary paying plebs live. Already here in East Anglia they have rejected plans submitted to run them along the coast under the sea and intend to run them over land because they say it costs too much. These things will have a very long life and the difference in cost over the years will be minimal if anything at all. This is being bulldozed through on a tissue is lies and misinformation because it suits some powerful people. The consultations are a sham, like most of these things. Minds have already been made up and the ‘consultations’ will be binned, just like Mayor Khan’s ones on ULEZ. We do not live in a democracy any more.
March 20, 2024
Indeed, the burial of Supergrid cables also has miriad potential problems. When Dungerness was linked to the southwest in the sixties, the reason this Supergrid was aerial rather than buried was stated that a corridor up to 400metres wide would be needed and that no vegetation in that strip would survive the high temperatures caused by the heat loss from the 400000 volt cable array.
March 20, 2024
@Lynn âTime politicians began to consider, just for a minute or two, whether itâs possible that they might be wrongâ as any honest or competent physicist or engineer could explain to them in a few minutes.
To a PPE, language, politics or Law graduate perhaps nearer an hour!
March 20, 2024
đđ€Ł you are an optimist! You canât get through many of these thick skulls in a lifetime. But thatâs the nature of a Narcissist.
Have you seen Macron thinking that the threat of deploying 20,000 French troops would bring Putin, cap in hand, to the negotiating table? We are in the hands of dangerous, manic, lunatics! This canât go on!
March 20, 2024
too late – the brainwashing completed.
March 20, 2024
You can turn a fluorescent tube into a light sabre by standing under a high voltage power line: video of this is easily found. It is driven by the oscillating electric field that surrounds the line.
March 20, 2024
I’d like to see the planners impose massive costs, inconvenience and a large dollop of provocation upon the consumer, which it seems is their plan. Maybe then the voter would be persuaded to vote for parties who oppose the Socialist Net Zero agenda
Nothing of what we see today in Socialist Britain is accidental. All is designed to cause inconvenience and to display the state’s contempt for liberty, freedom and the individual.
Covid was a declaration of war against the civil space and our freedoms and every legacy parties was part of it.
Labour like the Tories and the SNP are a poison and they’ll continue to make all inconvenient debate a criminal offence including opposing NZ.
March 20, 2024
Seems so.
The majority of the public now realise Net Zero is a complete con-trick with a vast cost, vast negatives and zero positives. Rather like the net harm Covid vaccines.
March 21, 2024
And, yet again, you assume the majority agree with you. They donât. Go into your local town centre with a clipboard and ask 20 people. Your point that if the costs were explained they might change their minds is no doubt true – but, as it stands, most people support the concept.
March 20, 2024
The Tories creating problems, and then solutions to problems that donât exist
March 20, 2024
@DOM +1
Punishment and Control is not good government its just Dictatorship.
March 20, 2024
DOM, ++++
And a joy to see the end of Varadkar who went far beyond the wishes of the Irish.
March 20, 2024
Why not generate the electricity adjacent the need by using Small Modular Reactors next to population centres.
Develope hydrogen ICEs or hydrogen electric cell units so that electricity for propulsion is generated at the point of use. Toyota and others in Japan are working at it, as is a tiny company on the Welsh border. Additionally such forms of propulsion eliminate all the negatives of EVs. Use the intermittent offshore wind farms to produce the hydrogen on the coast, obviating the need for pylons to march the landscape.
Achieving the final 10% of Nett Zero would be horrendously expensive, so do not try to go there. Instead, clean up the process of using fossil fuel for all the other needs we are dependant on. Pharmaceuticals and plastic for instance.
The very last thing we need is the PPEs and Lawyers solutions which only succeed or mostly fail by spending other peoples money, and leave us with the pot hole infested infrastructure, in its widest sense, that we enjoy today. Science and engineering hold the answers, not politicians.
Donald produced the definitive answer last night, “Drill baby drill”. To eliminate transport CO2 we need to do the same with our own resources until such time as atomic and hydrogen can replace reliance on fossil fuel. For the UK it is Drill, Frack, Drill, darlings, SMRs and Hydrogen.
March 20, 2024
To answer this properly would require an essay of at least 10,000 words, but one observes that National Grid needs to build five times more electricity transmission infrastructure over the next five years than it has constructed over the past three decades. Which will provide an ~ÂŁ11bn boost to the economy – and as many as 130,000 highly specialised jobs.
Replacing expensive imported fossil fuels with far cheaper, cleaner, domestic sources of renewable energy will prevent the kind of big hikes in our bills that we saw when the fossil fuel cartel quadrupled the price of energy after the lockdowns ended. Not to mention the ÂŁ135bn in subsidy (ÂŁ60/month for every family) paid directly to the energy companies during the winter of 2022/2023
These changes would also be good for our finances:- the Treasuryâs Net Zero Review suggested that the average electricity bill in 2050 for a household with an electric vehicle and a heat pump will be broadly similar – or even lower – than the average electricity, heat and transport fuel costs for a household in 2019 with an ICE vehicle and a gas boiler. Clearly, the alleged “costs” of Net Zero have been vastly exaggerated by the fossil fuel lobby
Many people cannot understand why the government has not ordered a demonstration plant of Rolls Royce’ SME nuclear technology – which could generate vast amounts of electricty near where it is needed, making up 40% of electricity demand as “baseline”
Lithium batteries are not the only way to store electricity. There are many other ways. And we should invest in the innovative XLinks Morocco project – this alone promises to provide up to 8% of electricity demand at a fraction of the cost of a nuclear power station
Reply You grossly under represent the costs of these different ways of generating power. There is no way we could get to 40 % nuclear over tge next 20 years. It is 15% and about to fall with a large number of closures.
March 20, 2024
âWhat are your thoughts on the feasibility and practicality of this approach?â
Not feasible, not practical, vastly expensive and entirely pointless with zero upside. In short totally idiotic. Talk to sensible engineers and physicists and ditch the mad net zero religion in full. Get fracking, drilling, mining and do R&D into better batteries, nuclear power & fusion for the longer term.
But our art grad politicians are hooked on this mad group think religion – just as they fell for the net harm Covid Vaccines, and net harm lockdowns. Follow the money and government grant farming and so called âconsultancyâ rackets.
Reply MPs cannot earn from consultancies exploiting their MP role for company benefit.
March 20, 2024
Frankly I am more interested in your failure, another one, to ensure HMRC offers a proper service.
Crumbling yet again to the Civil Service. Whatâs the point of your Ministers allegedly responsible?
In office, not in power. Time to be honest and go.
March 20, 2024
I know from experience that National Grid, as a regulated monopoly, has senior management that is fully supportive of the drive to Net Zero. Its latest pronouncements on NZ costs are designed to manage expectations and pave the way for the ever increasing costs and disruption to come. It is notable that they have not repeated their previous estimate of ÂŁ3 trillion for total NZ related grid costs, a figure which is far less palatable.
If Labour sticks to its 2030 plan for decarbonisation then energy blackouts are inevitable. I hope that blackouts will bring a belated change of direction. I fear that Labour will deem them necessary in order to continue the fight against man made climate change, and to set an example to the world that the UK can be relied upon to retain the climate moral high ground.
March 20, 2024
Well said Dom, I agree , i second all that statement !
March 20, 2024
The unreality of political thinking is astounding. Wind power doesn’t even produce the amount of energy used to build the ridiculous things. It’s generation is less reliable that pre election promises from failed governments. If you actually wanted serious clean energy you’d be building a network of small nuclear plants distributed widely across the country. Instead we have childlike unscientific drivel from WEF lapdogs. No wonder britain is collapsing.
March 20, 2024
All to save (temporarily) < 0.00045% of Earths atmosphere. Lunacy.
March 20, 2024
So when is âWe have cut taxesâ and âThe Covid vaccines are unequivocally safeâ Rish Sunak going to correct the record, apologise to the House and the people he so misled and resign? To be replaced by someone who tells the truth and postpones at least the net zero lunacy? Someone who does not fail on four of his five promises.
No chance even with a new leader but the party might survive. Then again is that better when it is so stuffed with dishonest socialists like vat on school fees Gove, Hunt and Libdims like May, Cameron�
March 20, 2024
Itâs all utopian nonsense for a negligible effect on global emissions of trace gas CO2.
March 20, 2024
My views on the practicality and feasibility:
It’s unaffordable, undeliverable and unnecessary.
Unaffordable. Thanks to the Covid Lunacy, we are already in ÂŁ3 trillion of debt and individual households simply cannot afford heat pumps or EVs even IF they wanted them and most don’t. They are being bullied by the Establishment into wasting their hard-earned money, or getting themselves into debt, for products which they know are inferior.
Undeliverable. We don’t have the engineers to install the pylons and upgrade the grid, even IF the planning process is simplified to facilitate them. People don’t want to live near them or have their area blighted by massive pylons, and more than they want to live in areas blighted by massive windmills so they will be doing everything they can to delay, or better still, prevent their installation.
Unnecessary. Nothing we do to reduce CO2 in the UK will make a scrap of difference to the climate. The “CO2 scaremongering” has been disproved by eminent physicists and despite the claims there IS no consensus; but they are silenced and traduced by the Globalist organisations pushing the climate lunacy in the same way expert scientists were silenced and traduced during the Covid tyranny. If “the science” was as conclusive as the Globalists claim they would not be doing everything they possibly can to prevent debate.
Net Zero has nothing whatsoever to do with the climate. The UN has admitted it is a means of transferring wealth from western industrialised countries to Asia and Africa (global levelling down). The Globalists are seizing another opportunity to make ÂŁsquillions. And Governments are grasping the opportunity to exert control over their populations. End of.
March 21, 2024
Unaffordable. Yes it is, but only 400 billion of the almost 3 trillion is to do with Covid – the major part is due to government.
Undeliverable, yes if we do it ourselves, but you know the government does not like British industry, they prefer foreigners to do the work and make the profit. The sea windmills are done by mostly foreigners and we know they hate they idea of there being any British made steel so they subsidise foreigners to close down our capacity and produce it abroad. They don’t care about people living near the pylons. The East Anglia project will go ahead despite all the complaints and showing a better way.
Unnecessary – yes we all know that except government and people with money making in mind.
Net zero – absolutely agree.
March 20, 2024
A bill increase for each household of only ÂŁ20/ÂŁ30 pa to pay for at least a ÂŁ60 billion grid investment looks like fantasy economics? But not possible to see ESO workings on grid investment costs, constraint costs or repayment terms since no details of these published in the ESO reports yesterday, just the maps.
March 21, 2024
They always underestimate the costs of major projects in order for them to go ahead. Would HS2 have got treasury approval if they said it would cost 100 billion? No, so they say 30 billion, get started and allow the costs to balloon and end up in cancellation. HS2 will be the shortest most expensive ‘high speed’ line in the world and will achieve nothing
March 20, 2024
Sir John,
You raise interesting questions and for the last hour I have been reading articles about the grid, electricity generation and Ower requirements for heat umps, EV chargers etc. It strikes me that there is a whole lot of misinformation about.
The figures don’t add up regarding electricity supply to homes. I read that an EV charger needs about 40amps a heat pump, 32amps, my existing range cooker needs 32amps… And so on. My house has a main fuse of 80amps. I read that I would likely need to get a new panel of between 150 and 200amps to power my home if I went down the EV, heat pump and no gas route. That would, I assume, mean getting the electricity supply cable into my home upgraded ie a much thicker cable. If all my neighbours do the same, the amount of work in my road alone would take ages. It seems to me that government has not thought it through.
We need a real fair and thorough public debate about the whole green and net zero issues because, they are two entirely different things. Why has debate been shut down? Who are the main drivers of this agenda?
Even putting the technical difficulties to one side, our country is being destroyed by wind and solar farms. Driving through Wales you see beautiful country side views destroyed by tens of windmills. Solar farms blight the landscape. Even our coastal views are ugly now.
I cannot see that people can afford to pay more for their energy, we are already skint.
March 20, 2024
You would have to accept choice is the answer. From your examples – your heat pump wants 32amps, your existing range cooker needs 32amps =64 Try to add EV charging and BANG. You could choose to charge the car and either the heat pump or the cooker ….make your choice?
March 20, 2024
but you can feel smug knowning that we’ve shown china how too save the planet
March 20, 2024
As I write this, Wind and Solar are only providing 9% of the demand. This is not uncommon.
As we need clearly to have back-up generation to ensure supply, why not just build that back-up generation in the first place and forget the huge extra expense of multiple diverse systems such as Wind Farms.
Oh, I forgot, net-zero!
March 20, 2024
Completely impractical. Every single planning application to expand and upgrade the grid will be opposed at every step by “concerned locals” and the local MPs of whatever party (including the Greens) and environmental groups massively increasing the cost and the timescale for any project.
I’m surprised you even mention battery storage at grid level as an alternative. Lithium batteries are way too expensive (especially as they only last a few years) to be considered for anything other than backup power for small systems involving a few hundred houses linked to local solar/wind systems. Locals will complain about those being installed too because of the obvious fire risk (We’ve now had (under-reported) EV fires at Luton, Bristol and Gatwick airports).
March 20, 2024
“National Grid is talking about an increase in electricity volume of 50% by 2035. This is well short of what would be needed for net zero.”
Really? You need to distinguish between grid capacity, the responsibility of National Grid ESO, and generating capacity ( a number of responsible parties) that feeds power to the grid for distribution.
Electricity demand has been reducing so grid capacity wouldn’t have to increase by the same factor as generation capacity.
“They need to put in subsea cables to offshore wind to get the power to land”
Really? The National Grid isn’t responsible for the wind farm interconnects, the do not own any turbines, substations or cables that link them.
You also might consider that National Grid ESO is becoming responsible for coordinating the gas “grid” as well as electricity and the role that hydrogen may well play in replacing natural gas, and so reduce the envisaged extra requirement for electricity to run heating.
In the politics context I would be far more concerned that Scotland will host the majority of UK power generation and how you will address that time bomb.
March 20, 2024
Why would they put all the power generation in Scotland? So they have a strangle hold on the rest of the UK.
March 21, 2024
A very good question.
It seems the bulk of generation is in the north while the bulk of consumption is south to central. Perhaps SMRs would allow a more appropriate, distributed generation but I suspect the anti-wind and solar brigade would complain about the proximity of SMRs as well.
March 20, 2024
Evidently all new housing should be built in Scotland because of access to cheap power…
National Grid have plans for an offshore grid that they would own and operate. Of course, they are major shareholders in most of the international subsea interconnectors, as well as the domestic ones. Whether OFTOs will survive as independent outfits connecting wind farms to shore remains to be seen. Both Labour and Reform seem keen on exteensive and costly nationalisations, and the Tories have just implemented nationalisation of NESO on the Railtrack model.
March 20, 2024
The expansion of the electricity supply network is absolutely essential. The Nimbies that oppose the development will change their minds when they have no power. Letâs start the debate from an entirely different perspective. Electricity pylons are a visually attractive architectural feature of our landscape a bit like the many thousands of windmills and watermills which were a feature of old Britain two hundred years or so ago their remains are a much valued feature of our landscape today. With a little thought and creative design, good planning and site-ing they could be even more appealing and would be displayed as a modern feature of the landscape. We have many creative and artistic skills in this country that would willingly contribute to the artistic design of the new pylons and their arrangement in the landscape. Why not run national competitions to select the best choices for each location. But as always this needs to be done quickly, a few months at most not years mired in a hopeless disfunctional planning system.
March 21, 2024
Visually attractive? A bit like all those “visually appealing” high rise shoe boxes built in the post-war era to house people cleared out of “slum houses” which could have been improved and brought up to standard? One of them famously went up in flames a few years ago – rather like many potentially lethal EVs are.
There’s nothing visually attractive about a string of metal towers and cables crossing our beautiful landscapes.
March 20, 2024
Government, Opposition and all MPs should put an end to these man-made climate change and net zero scams which were designed to control and impoverish the majority for the benefit of a globalist cabal.
March 20, 2024
Make it a requirement for all houses being built have solar power generated locally used locally. With on site battery storage to hold surplice to be used at night.
March 20, 2024
And make it mandatory, while you are about it, that God switches the sun in England on every day! Or else!
We could do with more wind too – turn the turbines and blow the clouds away, fam the flames from the lithium batteries. I can see anyone in the U.K. being cold!
March 21, 2024
What, and deplete the profits of their mates in the generation/supply industry? Any losses to their profits would simply be added to the bills of the plebs without solar panels as it is now. The rich get richer and the poor get abused. Same old same old.
March 20, 2024
In financial investment, the advice is to diversify your portfolio of assets, to prevent disruption in a single area from impacting your overall wealth.
In IT, diversification of equipment supply, to ensure the appropriate equipment is used for the service being provided is the norm.
However, for something as critical as heating every home, we seem to be singularly proposing an electrical solution as the only suitable method. (Although interestingly, I noticed during a recent power cut that this switches off the central heating controller, so the boiler doesnât heat the water for radiators , which is an obvious dependency I had not realised!).
It does seem like the government are gambling and hoping the one method being pushed will work, rather than promoting a market with a diverse range of home heating solutions available.
As an aside, if the government was serious about heat pumps, change planning laws to guarantee planning permission for boreholes needed for ground source heat pumps. Air source pumps are not an efficient solution, but a ground source would be adequate for my property.
March 20, 2024
The forecasted requirement to expand-the-grid is due to electrification of everthing due to the laws of climate change and policies of net-zero – laws & policies introduced in the last 2 decades …..which can be repealed at any time …..NO net-zero NO need to expand-the-grid
March 20, 2024
Dear Mr. Redwood,
The Daily Telegraph has an opinion piece today entitled “The Untenable Costs of Net Zero”.
It begins with “The national electricity grid is already stretched. A roll-out of wind energy would push us past breaking point”.
It goes on to say “Britainâs electricity needs are set to soar as our lives become more digitally intertwined and we move towards more electrified heat and transport. More than 1,000 miles of new overhead lines supported by an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 new pylons, some more than 600ft high, will be needed. Where are they to go? The scale of this investment exposes the unrealistic ânet-zeroâ ambitions of both major parties.”
It ends with “Politicians must be far more honest with the public about the practical implications of their net-zero policies.”
And encapsulated in that last sentence lies the whole problem regarding the feasibility and practicality of the current approach – our corrupt, venal and useless political class (with a few notable exceptions).
March 20, 2024
The only people striving for NetZero are Woke Politicians that see signaling a virtue as some kind of badge. These are the people that want to dictate and control everyone to be a mirror image of themselves, these are also the same people that feel the need to discriminate, to manipulate to get their way. They do not strive to bring the best out of people, allow people to be the best they can, allowing people to be individual â its all about their self-gratification in creating a mirror of their Socialist World
What they donât believe is in the creation of the money and wealth to take Society forward, these are the died-in-the-wool Socialists that now dominate the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat Parties. What they donât believe is in the individual and individual responsibility and people achieving their full potential.
As someone on these pages previously put it, parliament is dominated by the Socialist Uni-Party where everyone is âentitledâ as long as they toe the line and act according to their personal vision of Socialism.
March 20, 2024
They are planning one of these interconnectors where I live. It will destroy a beautiful 20-mile strip of land as wide as a motorway with huge sub-stations along the way. People will lose their homes and farms and we will have 8 years, which will turn into decades, of disruption. Just leave us alone. I donât believe your climate change nonsense. Just stop importing people. What is wrong with you politicians?
March 20, 2024
Another (thatâs 4 in the past week) high street chain having a nationwide IT glitch âŠthis government has pushed everything paperless, everything reliant upon electronic systems, everything wind-farm, apps and online âŠ.but what if someone hacks, cuts or disrupts the power supply, what if we have insufficient power due to net-zero âŠitâs a brave new world
March 20, 2024
but those carrying cash could pay and walk out with the shopping !
March 20, 2024
Thatâs not a brave new world thatâs a sensible world
March 20, 2024
Sir John
If I may be permitted what you are saying is our Socialist dominated Conservative Government and Parliament â havenât thought it through
They are all more concerned with the electioneering virtue signal than they are the prosperity of the Country.
This Woke agenda has become about punishment, they would sooner the lights went out, the factories shut and transport didnât move so as to enforce their nonsensical will on the nation.
What they havenât dared to answer is why 189 Countries in the World more than 95% of the Worldâs population are not engaged in this lunacy, they are all looking after their own looking to move forward and grow their wealth.
We all had a wry smile when Putin was re-elected, but the UK has been forced down to the same level of population control and punishment by similar dictators. The GE will be distorted to which Socialist Cabal must rule. Please, please, please can we have ânone of the aboveâ on the ballot paper – we need to find a way back to government by the people for the people.
March 21, 2024
Yes, Ian, I had a wry smile when Putin was re-elected President. But that was because I was smiling at the ludicrous headlines in the Western media saying he rigged the election. The Levada polling organisation, an ‘independent, non-governmental polling and sociological research organization’ (Wikipedia) is no friend of the Kremlin, which has described it as a ‘foreign agent’. It gave Mr Putin’s approval rating in February as 86%. He got 87% of the presidential election vote. I’d call that pretty good opinion sampling by Levada.
Commentators in this country say that’s because the Russian public were only allowed to see state-controlled media. As if they’ve never heard of Ofcom. As if they don’t know about establishment attempts to silence GB News. What it’s really about is our politicians and their media minions’ fury at seeing a politician in another country enjoying popularity because he’s doing what his people want. Unlike Western Europe, where politicians are unpopular because they’re doing what their people don’t want.
March 21, 2024
@Hat man
“politicians are unpopular because theyâre doing what their people donât want.” more disturbing they don’t care, forget who empowers and pays them
March 20, 2024
Suggestion:
Create a speedy national electric competition, open to all, with ÂŁ10m worth of prizes available for the best ideas.
All submissions to be on one sheet of A4 paper.
All entries considered, with a skim clear of non-starters.
A panel of scientists and other specialists would assess and score the finest of all, submitted to MPs to vote on.
March 20, 2024
My submission would be a one liner ”Stop Net-Zero; Stop Net-Zero Today” ….hope I’m shortlisted
March 20, 2024
That’s great – John Harrison had to fight tooth and nail for any promised reward for solving the longitude problem, and was never fully paid!
Same old story. What happens to ideas? Maybe there is some government funding to develop them. Then sold off to highest foreign bidder, government may make some back in tax and, as usual, multinational conglomerates and private investors take by far the greatest profits.
Probably best not to bother considering that system….
March 21, 2024
Youâre right G.
This government would probably announce the winners publicly first, destroying the protection that a Patent would allow.
March 20, 2024
Off topic
John can you please try to explain the thinking and logic for HMRC to close their telephone helpline, when Millions of people will be needing to fill in an income tax return, many for the first time in their lives, due to the State pension now being taxed, due to the Chancellors action of freezing the Personal tax allowance.
We already know it was under pressure as it has been reported that 10,000,000 million calls went unanswered last year.
On going I see they are only going to allow important and complicated cases to be discussed by telephone in the future, everyone else is required to talk to a Bot on a computer, so we all know where that will go, leading to millions being fined for not completing tax forms on time, or incorrectly.
What is it with this government that thinks this is a good idea. ?
Reply Ministers have told officials not to close it
March 20, 2024
Of course we will need more electricity, for a start we have a larger population which is still growing, and at a faster rate than more efficient products can be developed, the simple reason why the NET Zero policy is a farce !
Older cables and networks will also need replacing, so it is not just building/adding to an older network, it is also about completely replacing some of the older installations, which few people yet seem to realise.
More computers, more batteries, more robots, more air/ground pumps, more automated payment systems means more complication and more power.
I see a number of shopping outlets have had recent problems with payment and ordering systems, and with all of these systems and records on file, security becomes ever more important, not just individual, but companies and government and security services.
Life in general has, and is getting more and more complicated, leaving millions of people behind and vulnerable, especially those who are computer ignorant.
The divide on our population is getting greater, not just with finance, but with the now necessary use of technology.
Hence my previous comment with the HMRC decision about dumping their CUSTOMER helpline.
March 20, 2024
Good luck getting through anyway. I don’t know why they don’t have an e-mail question line or a chatbot.
March 20, 2024
Reply – Reply
I guess we will have to wait and see, if it still closes we will then know who is really running the Country !
March 20, 2024
When we achieve net zero, when we bankrupt this country, when we are living like medieval peasants, when the old the poor and the vulnerable die, what impact will that have on global climate ?
March 20, 2024
Crematoria rely on gas. What will they do as we near 2030/5?
March 20, 2024
Microwave
March 21, 2024
a bit like a ready meal? You know going from frozen solid to cooked? Only a rather large oven. Would that make the lights flicker when in use?
March 20, 2024
Mr. Redwood, I think it would be helpful to provide some figures for storage of electricity.
For example, there are 4 pumped storage systems in the UK with a total capacity of 32 GWH. If we had no other generation, these could power the current grid for ONE HOUR.
I did some figures recently on the proposed Tara battery production plant in Somerset. The plant is described as a â40 GWh plantâ. If every battery produced in a year was used for grid storage, it would power the grid for 1 hour and 20 minutes.
I think you, and others, should stop talking about grid level storage. It is completely impractical and astronomically expensive.
The ONLY answer to ânet zeroâ is 100% nuclear. You should get on with it.
March 20, 2024
We currently rely on stored energy if we are lucky enough to find it, natural gas, which is exhaustible to the extent we must ship it in from the US and ME. Unfortunately it took thousands+ of years to produce the gas and store it.
Electrolysis production of hydrogen for later use in a gas turbine generator is one form of grid level storage.
March 20, 2024
The actual generating capacity of our pumped storage is about 5.6GW, which therefore it could maintain for a maximum of a bit over 5 hours. In practice, some of the storage is reserved against the need to “black start” the grid, so it would last rather less than 5 hours to allow the grid to be restarted after a blackout. It is not able to deliver sufficient power to make up for loss of renewables on windless evenings.
March 20, 2024
Sir John
Elsewhere in my other life I have been reminded of this Government NetZero madness. The magic âheat-pumpâ requires massive amounts of âelectricityâ, it is not as promoted some âfreeâ resource.
Then as you say the EV madness also needs massive amounts of âelectricityâ
So not only does the grid need to grow, we need to have the resources to pump the power in. At this moment in time, we have a so-called Conservative Government and a Parliament that are preoccupied with offshoring all the UKâs basics of industry, then re-importing the same from the Worldâs Largest Polluters. Likewise, the UK has moved from being a self-sufficient energy producer in it own right to one that is reliant on the political whims of foreign powers to keep the lights on. That has nothing to do with lack of resources or know-how (although our know-how is being exported just in case, we tried to do our own thing), just a government that is fighting the People.
Is it ânot thinking it throughâ or a cabal of those out to deliberately destroy and cripple the UK?
The reflection is still the same the World isnât involved in the NetZero quest, they are to busy creating wealth and expanding
March 20, 2024
âThey [the National Grid] talk of an investment of a large ÂŁ54 bn. which may well be an understatementâ.
The full amount they are requesting between 2024 and 2035 is ÂŁ220bn (ÂŁ18.4bn/year x 12 years) and this is before the usual HS2 cost over runs :
https://www.nationalgrid.com/document/149501/download
Furthermore the National Grid only represents 2% of the total grid mileage. The other 98%, the local grids to each property, will also need upgrading as they are not currently of sufficient capacity to take all the extra electricity required for charging evs and permanently running heat pumps etc.. This will without doubt cost ÂŁtrillions even if the (Chinese?) manpower and materials can be sourced and the economic and social disruption supported.
Happer & Wijngaarden have proven there is no CAGW caused by increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. It is time we had a referendum on whether or not to proceed with the unilateral economy destroying Net Zero Strategy
March 20, 2024
Absolutely right.
Worth noting that National Grid hope to grow having entered the distribution end of the business by buying Western Power Distribution. I imagine they think that all the regional distribution businesses should be nationalised and controlled by them.
March 20, 2024
I say ÂŁ5000 of electricity but a larger house might need ÂŁ20,000+ of electricity PA. A palace perhaps ÂŁ100,000 PA This as much as 200 houses using gas or oil for heating, cooking and cars. Worst still is the heavy winter weighting of this demand. The Gas heated house will use a bit more lighting in the darker winter perhaps 20% more but the EV car and heat-pump house will use about 30 times as much as average on just a few very cold winter days. So this grid and generating capacity costing a fortune to build and install is largely unused for circa 80% of the year.
Economic and energy management insanity. All for zero benefit. Follow the money, crony capitalism and corruption?
March 20, 2024
‘few want to live under powerful electrical lines where they need to cross urban areas’
Won’t it also mean more substations in urban areas as the supply to each house is laboriously upgraded, one by one?âIncreasing the capacity of an existing substation may not be possible on its parcel of land.âThe surrounding land is already owned and used by others.âFinding space for an extra substation will be difficult.âBribe a landlord to sell a strip of garden given he doesn’t live there?âThe surrounding owner-neighbours won’t be pleased.âAnd then there’s the noise.âStand outside of the fencing and you can hear the hum during daytime above the background noise.âYou hear it in bed too on a warm night with the window open when everything else is quiet.
Electricity prices will have to rise to cover the cost but this will make the daft, top-down-planned heat pumps and electric vehicles even less attractive compared to gas, petrol, and diesel.âSo extra penalties will be added to those consumer-friendly fuels to subsidise Net Zero further by nobbling the opposition.
It, like so much of what Government does, is only made possible by the funny fiat money.
March 20, 2024
It is just simply crazy and economically illiterate. The only future to achieve “clean” energy is to roll out at speed SMRs and deep drill Geothermal near to where the greatest demand for energy is.
Electricity pylons carrying power cables are not only despoiling the countryside but will create a dangerous environment for our children in that they create high levels o electromagnetic radiation which has been shown to cause brain tumours in children.
With a general election due at some point in the next nine months, Sunak canât resist playing politics, accusing Labour of taking a âfantasy approachâ to energy security. This accusation was reinforced in a speech on the same day by the Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Claire Coutinho. Without naming Labour, Coutinho argued that pretending âyou can do things overnight is a fundamentally dishonest positionâ, referring to Starmerâs pledge to decarbonise the grid by 2030 rather than by 2035.
Having more onshore wind, as Miliband wants, doesnât make wind intermittency disappear
But there is a fundamental difficulty with Sunak and Coutinhoâs attempt to position themselves on the side of realism and honesty on this issue. They too are trapped by their commitment to achieving Net Zero. The Toriesâ differences with Labour on this are mainly matters of degree. Both parties are committed to decarbonising the grid in absurdly short time scales, both pledge a massive build out of wind power that will push up energy bills and both have played down the impact of intermittent wind generation on the grid.
The fact that wind is an intermittent source of energy means that the grid can do without it, but it canât do without gas, nuclear generation and deep drill Geothermal. âWithout gas backing up renewables, we face the genuine prospect of blackouts,â Coutinho said in her speech in a welcome statement of the obvious.
But Coutinho gets electricity generation back-to-front. Rather than gas providing backup for intermittent wind-generated power, gas-fired capacity provides the backbone of the grid and wind is a high-cost, optional extra. In essence, investing in wind requires having two parallel sets of generating capacity: one that generates electricity only when the wind is blowing and one that can generate electricity 24/7.
Coutinhoâs speech last week was billed as a strategy for energy security. Any strategy worth its name includes the means of delivering its objectives, which, in this case, means building more gas-fired capacity. Energy ministers since Sir Ed Daveyâs time in David Cameronâs coalition government identified the need for more gas-fired power stations. In 2012, Sir Ed said that 20 new gas-fired plants would be needed between 2012 and 2030. âI strongly support more gas,â he told the Guardian at the time.
In a 2015 speech, Sir Edâs successor, Amber Rudd announced the governmentâs intention to take coal off the grid by 2025. âWeâll only proceed,â she said though, âif weâre confident that the shift to new gas can be achieved within these timescales.â Coal has since all but come off the grid, but hardly any new gas-fired power plants came on. In fact, gas-fired generating capacity peaked in 2012 at 37 gigawatts (GW). By the end of 2020, gas-generating capacity had fallen by over 2 GW to 34.9 GW.
Any serious energy strategy must ask why that is the case and then come up with a solution. Huge subsidies for intermittent renewable energy generation capacity mean that power stations are operated less efficiently. Meanwhile, the governmentâs policy of pushing up the artificial cost of carbon plunged the âBig Sixâ energy companiesâ thermal generators into loss. In 2014, the Big Six recorded losses of ÂŁ1.6 billion on their gas and coal-fired power stations. As Rudd observed in 2015, âwe now have an electricity system where no form of power generation, not even gas-fired power stations, can be built without government interventionâ.
Rather than address the fundamental reasons why investors shun gas, Coutinho offered up a mishmash of contradictory soundbites in last weekâs speech. Acknowledging that new gas would be permitted to emit carbon dioxide for a âbrief window of timeâ, the Energy Secretary said that as more wind and long-duration storage is built, these new power stations will run less frequently. But this will make it an even steeper climb for investors to recover the capital expenditure sunk into the plants.
Furthermore, new gas power stations will be required to be âNet Zero readyâ when theyâre built. Either they must be able to connect to carbon capture and underground storage (CCUS) or have turbines that can also burn green hydrogen. On CCUS, the government is making a ÂŁ20 billion bet on what Coutinho calls âthis game-changing technologyâ. CCUS needs costly pipeline and storage infrastructure, not to mention that the post-combustion removal of carbon dioxide incurs an additional energy penalty. Outside the oil and gas industry, where CCUS is used to enhance oil and gas retrieval, the technology has yet to demonstrate commercial viability and quite probably never will. Betting on silver bullets seldom turns out well.
Green hydrogen is another silver bullet thatâs colossally expensive. In a 2022 report, policy expert Francis Menton went through the pie-in-the-sky economics of relying on renewable electricity to make hydrogen to burn in a gas-fired power station. To use green hydrogen to produce the same quantities of electricity as gas, you need a turbine capable of producing 288 MW, costing $305 million (ÂŁ240 million), plus a supporting 4.7 GW of solar capacity â more than 16 times the capacity of the gas-fired power station â to provide electricity directly to the grid and generate sufficient hydrogen to be stored as backup. In total, this would cost $6.6 billion (ÂŁ5.2 billion). By contrast, natural gas would require just the $305 million gas turbine plus $600 million-worth (ÂŁ472 million) of natural gas, making a total cost of around $900m.
These numbers illustrate why the costs of Net Zero are off the charts. Yet Coutinho says the government will stand with potential investors if they avoid âhiking bills for familiesâ. Similarly, the Prime Minister promises to deliver Net Zero âbut not by piling thousands of pounds worth of costs onto householdsâ. Both are being less than honest in their denial of a trade-off between decarbonisation and the cost of energy. Coutinho boasts that the newest auction round for low carbon energy has âthe largest ever pot for renewablesâ. The word she left out is âSUBSIDYâ, as in âSUBSIDY POTâ, WHICH IS FUNDED BY PAINFULLY HIGH AND RISING LEVIES ON CONSUMERS BILLS.
In this monthâs Budget, the Chancellor has quadrupled the annual subsidy available to renewable investors after the industry complained that last yearâs subsidy was not enough. Thanks to the Climate Change Act (2008) imposing on the government a legal duty to pursue Net Zero, the wind industry has ministers over a barrel. The government has âlistened to the energy industryâ, Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive of trade group Energy UK, told the FT, and Jeremy Huntâs boost to the renewables budget had sent an âimportant signalâ to investors.
Shadow energy secretary Ed Miliband, who drove the Climate Change Act through parliament, said Coutinho was attempting to open up a culture war. Energy policy isnât a form of wish-fulfilment. Having more onshore wind, as Miliband wants, doesnât make wind intermittency disappear. This isnât a dispute about culture: itâs the hard reality of intermittency that Miliband prefers to ignore.
Ironically, Milibandâs plan for a state-owned Great British Energy company presents Britainâs only realistic option to invest in new gas. Even if private investors could make the numbers add up to invest in gas, regulatory risk would have them run a mile. The government is the source of regulatory risk and is therefore better positioned to manage it than private investors. If Starmer wants to keep the lights on, the first call on Labourâs ÂŁ23.7 billion green prosperity fund should be investing in a fleet of new gas-fired power stations. As Coutinho rightly says, âthere are no easy solutions in energy.â
March 21, 2024
Sir John,
I was stunned to see the length of the piece you included from Dr John de los Angeles.
I can only imagine he is among your favourite authors.?
The rest of us clearly get moderated often, and sometimes for producing 3 or 4 lines.
But it is your blog, after all.
Reply you use multiple short posts to try my patience. Tge long one got delayed but when I could read it it seemed to me to be worth publishing. Long ones might just get zapped because I am too busy
March 20, 2024
So, until 2035 we will see major shortages of energy, and after that it will only get worse.
Those pushing the ‘green’ revolution are guilty of not joining up the dots and imposing power scarcity. They are unfit to design anything, let alone a national energy structure that works.
The Climate Change Committee has done nothing to bring in netzero with all the technicalities sorted out – Far from it, they provide inaccurate estimates to make it all seem feasible. Why is it still operating?
Why is there so much deceit over alleged climate change? If it were true why the need to constantly lie to us and indoctrinate us with false facts?
As it stands, the plans outlined by our host are at best hopeful, but still far from adequate. We badly need to keep gas and coal generating stations. That is, Unless we are about to see a huge population reduction
March 20, 2024
” …and few want to live under powerful electrical lines where they need to cross urban areas.”
Per Bloomberg:
“How much do people hate pylons? Thatâs an easier question to answer than you might think â look at house prices and you can put a number on it. A 2005 study showed that living close to electricity pylons could affect resale value by up to 38% â and that homes within 300 meters (984 feet) of an overhead power line sold at the lowest prices.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-11-22/uk-autumn-statement-will-jeremy-hunt-open-a-pandora-s-box-on-energy-bills
March 20, 2024
Fingers crossed for a warmer climate ; less rain and more sunshine .
March 20, 2024
explore that with a top meteorologist?
March 20, 2024
Everything hinges on Hydrogen Fusion Reactors, especially miniaturized versions that can be pre manufactured and rapidly installed. If accomplished, all problems listed here would be solved easily.
Shouldn’t Tokamak have succeeded by now, considering how much time, money and effort have been expended? After all, as is often pointed out here, truly successful innovations almost take off by themselves- they are horses that dont need flogging…
March 20, 2024
G :
Fusion is not going to happen in the near future and even if and when it does happen to convert everything to electrical will still require ÂŁtrillions to be spent on upgrading the local grids supplying every property.
March 20, 2024
@ Original Richard
Certainly not advocating electrifying everything at once, although most properties have an adequate supply.
US and China spending billions on the quest. An opportunity for post Brexit UK to take the initiative? Wouldn’t be that expensive to take a fresh ‘back to the drawing board’ look….
March 20, 2024
G : “….although most properties have an adequate supply.”
I’m afraid they don’t and the low voltage single phase electricity distribution from the last sub station to a property is typically sized to handle a simultaneous power draw of about 2kW as a maximum which is inadequate for continuously running heat pumps necessary during cold spells never mind any other additional electrical equipment such as charging evs, cooking etc.
March 20, 2024
Is this grid network to supply us in the UK with UK generated energy or is it to share renewable energy with neighbouring countries and regions? Surely we already have the grid set up for all our current businesses and homes?
When a new estate is built who pays for the interconnectors?
Do the power companies pay the government to use the national grid or do they own it?
March 20, 2024
Good question. I saw that OFGEM recently turned down several proposals for new interconnectors. Perhaps they are starting to wake up to the insecurity posed by dependence on interconnector imports and the prospect that exports would simply end up being subsidised by UK consumers, often at negative prices.
They are allowing Lion Link to proceed. Thus will go from somewhere near Sizewell nuclear power stations to the Netherlands via a wind farm in Dutch waters. So the Dutch will have access to reliable nuclear power, while the wind output may go Dutch or increase the need for transmission across East Anglia, adding to UK sector wind and the nuclear output. I think we can see who the clear winner is in this, and it’s not UK consumers.
March 20, 2024
Thanks, that’s very interesting, Mark. We are still prepared to outsource our essential survival requirements to the EU.
March 20, 2024
We need to focus far more on conservation. We need to stop the damaging expansion of the population as a matter of urgency and stop listening to those who want to use the environment as a Trojan horse to bring in communism.
March 20, 2024
If the power cables are underground how dangerous are they compared to the risks over overhead power lines. The overhead powerlines aren’t insulated either.
Are we going to have to import the engineers to lay all of these cables or have we been training them ready? How much has the national grid been spending on these interconnectors for the past thirty years?
We are told National Grid, SSE and Scottish Power own the high-voltage transmission lines is it those organisations that pay for all this? Scottish Power have warned ministers they need to work on getting the public to accept more visible infrastructure. WHY? So they can save costs? 4-7 times more than we have now. How would this work in energy-zapping for overly congested London, or is it just our countryside that these pylons are wanted? They’ll probably go in our poorest areas as they want the Chancellor to bribe people with ÂŁ10k discounts of their next 10 years supply costs.
March 20, 2024
None of this future digital/AI Grid System will work without real time high resolution consumer metering. That means consumer Smart Meters. The UK is way behind other advanced countries at 52% take-up. China is over 80%; Sweden 100%. Even North America is circa 80%. High resolution data means lots of Gigabits of cellular phone capacity and Terabits of data storage. Congratulations to my new supplier Octopus, who have finally got the gas part of my Smart Meter, to display half hourly readings.
March 20, 2024
There’s really no point in half hourly metering of gas. The industry works on the gas day, recognising that linepack provides the natural buffer to meet demand peaks intraday.
March 21, 2024
Agreed, imagine if we just transmitted gas and generated power and heat at the premises with domestic sized CHP units, the size of a fridge freezer. Not a net zero strategy alas.
BTW. Half hourly readings do highlight leaking gas valves when the boiler is off during the night.
March 20, 2024
You ask for our thoughts on the feasibility of upgrading the National Grid. Well, it simply can’t be done, and what is more, it won’t be done. What idiot decided you need to build two systems for electricity because of the unreliability of wind and solar? What idiot decided to make Net Zero by 2050 a law?
It is frightening that about 95% of our MPs are committed to it.
Until we ditch Net Zero, the UK economy will steadily decline! Let’s have a referendum on it, and the arguments for ( virtually nil ) and against should be laid out properly for people to vote on.
Minds, like parachutes, work best when they are open! How do we open the minds of our MPs?
March 20, 2024
KfL :
Correct.
Plus there is absolutely no security to Parliamentâs current energy plan :
– Electrification is putting all our energy eggs into one basket, especially dangerous when grid-scale electricity cannot be stored and we have a single system, the National Grid, upon which absolutely everything depends. When the Grid goes down absolutely nothing will work.
– There is no way our depleted military can defend thousands of miles of undersea cables connecting us to all the windmills in the North Sea and those connecting with mainland Europe or can protect the hundreds of thousands of square miles of windmills in the North Sea or vast solar panel estates on land. All easily destroyed by cheap, simple aerial drones or under water robotic drones. We Saw how easily Nord Stream 2 was destroyed.
The Net Zero Strategy based upon expensive, weather dependent, unreliable, low energy density, chaotically intermittent wind and solar combined with electrification and no grid-scale storage leaves us not just economically exposed by but also militarily exposed.
It is as if an enemy of the UK had designed it all.
It is time we had a referendum on our unilateral Net Zero Strategy to put a stop to it now
March 20, 2024
I note that OFGEM have not called a halt to the crazy Xlinks project for cables all the way to Morocco to tap a massive solar and battery farm. The project had threatened to build links to Germany instead – even further away. Let the Germans have it if they will pay.
Even crazier are outline plans for a transatlantic cable to the US, supposedly to take advantage of the different time zone for solar. They had more sense in Lagado using cucumbers.
March 20, 2024
Mark :
Correct.
March 20, 2024
The Conservative Government and the whole of the noisy section of Parliament is pushing for NetZero not seen anywhere else in the World. To repeat, elsewhere in the World 189 Countries have not chosen this NetZero âvirtue-signalâ, the UK Conservative Government are perusing punishment and control with a previously unseen zeal in what should be a âfree Countryâ With every diktat becoming an all-pervasive punishment action that is predicated on the State stealing from those that have least amount to fund those that can well afford.
This is all carried out under the guise that Governments have money, they donât, they just create laws to allow them to steal from peopleâs wallets, make people poorer so the rich can get richer and they can create a âvirtue-signalâ, a look at me badge, please keep me as your ruler. Then to rub it in every action, diktat and punishment has seen the UK get poorer as a Nation while funding increased CO2 and Pollution in the World as a whole, forcing UK wealth creating too elsewhere.
They either didnât think it through or they see their job is to impoverish and punish the UK
March 20, 2024
The reality is that Parliament and DESNZ have made a big mistake in appointing National Grid as the custodians of the Future Energy Scenarios that describe the Net Zero future. For NG, the way to grow their business is to have ever more grid, to grow their asset base and allowable income. It should be no surprise that the solutions they devise have this outcome. That includes trying to write off the gas network which will now fall under the same management, allowing even more grid.
Meanwhile DESNZ dole out more subsidies to wind, and refuse to look properly at whole system costs for the future plans. Providing low utilisation grid assets without charging the cost to wind and solar is a massive hidden subsidy. Also ignored, particularly by Chris Stark and the CCC is that much of this grid capacity will be needed to route power to and from the horrendously expensive storage that would be needed to make the system work.
It is no coincidence that the proposal to implement zonal pricing was supported by NG (though they would have preferred even more nebulous nodal pricing). Zonal pricing will make it apparently easy to justify grid investment, while ignoring the reality that a grid like we used to have, with rel8able dispatchable power stations located close to demand yet with the ability to offer cross support to cover maintenance and other outages could provide power at much lower cost.
March 20, 2024
Mark
The Royal Societyâs âLarge-Scale Electricity Storageâ report estimates that reliable storage using hydrogen will double the price of electricity even with making the bold assumptions that the wind capacity factor and the electricity-hydrogen-electricity round trip efficiency will both double by 2050.
Consequently there is no plan for grid-scale storage and I donât think there is any intention to implement one as can be seen from the total lack of any grid-scale storage in the energy flow diagrams in the 2023 NGESO FESs for either 2035 or 2050.
The intention is for intermittency and demand to match supply (DSR – Demand Side Response) using smart meters and variable pricing and when that fails, rolling blackouts.
March 20, 2024
Why don’t those who understand these things properly tell the politicians that what they are proposing is :
a) impossible in the timescale to 2050
b) beyond affordable
c) the disruption would be so huge : just to boost the power delivery to every building will bring the country to a halt.
d) There will never be enough trained engineers to deliver the infrastructure.
I guess the climate change zealots have their collective heads so far up their nether regions that they wouldn’t listen anyway.
March 20, 2024
The preferred candidate to Chair the National Energy System Operator (NESO) has been announced by the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero as Dr Paul Golby.
Paul is currently the Chair of the National Air Traffic Service (NATS) and has extensive experience in the energy industry, having been Chief Executive Officer of E. ON UK from 2002 to 2011, and a Non-Executive Director at National Grid plc from 2012 to 2022. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Paul will appear at the Energy Security and Net Zero Select Committee in April for a pre-appointment hearing prior to taking up the post on Day 1 of NESO this summer.
He really ought to be the man to do it, and the Select Committee should ask him the question. But they will indulge in green platitudes instead. The Committee would do well to arm itself with proper questions about the infeasibilty of Net Zero.
I did see that the Climate Change Committee have been trying to get their retaliation in first by accusing the Scottish government of having an infeasible Net Zero plan. They should look in the mirror and take aim at themselves.
March 20, 2024
Yes electricity is a situation that needs solving. Yes NZ has not been thought through
But being asked to vote for the incumbent version of a Conservative Government would be suicide for the Nation, even the Liberal Democrats would probably work for the benefit of the UK and that is scraping the barrel.
âThe UK head of Santander has said that high taxes has made Britain an unattractive place to invest.â
âWorkers and businesses have suffered a ÂŁ100bn tax raid since 2019, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. It is equivalent to ÂŁ3,500 per household.â
It is no longer as your ruler we know best, it is just malicious unwarranted vandalism
March 20, 2024
The national grid wasn’t a problem before net-zero and the UN IPCC reports of climate change …..they’ve invested a problem, a problem still unproven, a problem thats going to cost, and cost big ….what if they’re wrong ?
March 20, 2024
From the MsM
The English Football team can no longer have the the English Flag on their kit, they will in a discriminatory fashion have to be more inclusive by ditching their English identity. You couldnât make up, its not even April 1st.
Thatâs what comes of a Conservative Government leading by example, trash the Country and its identity. Is that the only way they see of turning the Country to into their own self-indulgent image.
No England, No English, no dissent just a Socialist enclave in the image of this so-galled Government – the Uni-Party
March 20, 2024
Ian B :
It appears that Parliament wants the country to return to the Middle Ages with weather dependent windmills for unreliable and chaotically intermittent energy and the importation of millions of economic migrants with Medieval cultures, laws, and practices.
March 20, 2024
National Grid security = Smart-Meters and Battery Storage
Energy security = Interconnector supply from France
Nuclear Weapons security = Continued supply from USA
Fighter Jet security = Continued supply from USA
Cheap Labour = Continued supply from France
NHS Nurses recruitment security = Continued supply from Africa & Philippines
UK Economic Policy security = Supplied from OBR
UK Immigration & Human Rights security = Supplied from ECHRs
Traffic security = City/Region Mayors using ULEZ & LTNs
March 20, 2024
About the Net-Zero project. When are those who have some clout in these decisions going to conclude the blindingly obvious to us from the back streets?
There is no necessity for this country to pursue the dreams of some egotistical people within our Government because, 1. We do not emit enough CO2 to be a global offender and 2. We cannot afford it.
Net zero has become our own sword of Damocles swinging across the whole country ready to slice us all into bankruptcy.
It’s madness to continue, especially now that new data proves we have reduced our own levels whereas the big offenders have not. And surely, our own minute 0.8% of the Global Totals should not require serious intervention?
Let the others reduce theirs first, as our meagre quantity will make not an iota of difference to global output.
March 20, 2024
It must be cheaper to simply lay cables on the sea bed compared with the erection of pylons on private land which will involve NIMBY disputes to the chosen sites and the annual rental costs of each pylon. Nobody will want to live near high tension wires. Whatever the costs of a sea bed installation, this has to be the chosen method . It’s about time the four tides a day provides non-stop renewable power. Build the Swansea Lagoon. Costly, yes but once built a forever daily supply of cheaper and cheaper power whatever the weather.
March 20, 2024
Unfortunately tides do not supply non-stop power. It’s very intermittent, with long periods on no output while waiting for water levels to diverge (or tidal stream speed to pick up if you opt for tidal stream turbines), and it varies enormously with the phase of the moon. Barrage power goes from nothing to maximum when you open the sluices, forcing rapid ramping down of the other generation you use to keep the lights on. The Swansea lagoon suffers from the need to build a lengthy barrage to enclose it – which will have unwanted consequences in Swansea Bay and the surrounding ports. By comparison, La Rance on the other side of the channel needed almost no barrage to be built at all – it carries a 4 lane road between St Malo and Dinard, and most of it is taken up with the turbines, sluices and a lock, so there is no dead cost. Swansea would produce very costly, very intermittent electricity.
March 20, 2024
“National Grid recognises that it needs a major expansion of grid capacity to carry all the extra electrical power that will be needed as people switch heating and transport to electrical methods.”
I see that at 18:42 hrs today the 28GW of installed windmill capacity is providing just 2.96 GW of power and the 14 GW of installed solar capacity 0.01 GW.
March 21, 2024
These numbers should scare the pants off those that pressurise us for even more renewables. But will they? Nah they are all deaf, dumb and blind to pure scientific logic. Especially when it proves their pet vanity projects are nowhere near as good as they dreamed.
March 20, 2024
Russia has today gone on the offensive.
Soon this disaster in Ukraine will be over.
We need to repair Nordstream!
March 20, 2024
You’re kidding, right?
March 22, 2024
No, just a Putin fan
March 20, 2024
Not that you don’t know just that they’re ‘in-the-know’
March 20, 2024
61 yesterday and reported 450 today, thats enough to completely fill Rwanda ….whatever happened to the new law that every illegal immigrant was going to be arrested, detained and incarcerated for committing a criminal act, before deportation ?
March 20, 2024
If net zero were desirable (and it isn’t) then the answer is synthetic fuels and hydrogen to power vehicles and heating systems. SMR nuclear reactors to generate electricity.
The recent trials of hydrogen powered vehicles in Wales showed great results with 1200 miles between fuel cell changes on a heavy industrial class vehicle (I think it was an ambulance, I can’t remember).
By generating the electricity from nuclear it *should* be cheap and can be used to create the hydrogen, which is not easy to do in a neutral way or an energy efficient way without nuclear power.
It is long past time government stopped paying businesses excessive monies and revenue guarantees when they build power generating infrastructure. It is the constant market interference that keeps the costs to consumers far too high.
March 21, 2024
There is a common thread in all of these half-baked “initiatives” :-
1970s Britain joins the Common Market and when it became the European Union politicians could blame the EU instead of taking accountability themselves. A new class of PPE / Lawyers became mainstream who needed full time Advisors, PR gurus and expensive Consultants to overcome their lack of the real world, unlike the older experienced MPs.
Spinning was the new game in town and the constant stream of new ideas and gimmicks dreamed up by these shallow thinkers on both sides of the Channel.
After decades of this the plebs plebiscite ( vote in which a population exercises the right of national self-determination) of Brexit 2016 rang alarm bells for the political class who cried wolf “Cliff edge” panicking as infinitum.
Now throwing big money at illusory big projects to appear relevant but virtue signalling essentially and plausible spinning turbocharged to steamroller any criticism challenging their groupthink, we end up with major problems on all fronts and at the same time…..
Bequeath this legacy to the opposition instead and no money left again.
March 24, 2024
At first inspection 100% solar or wind generation needs 100% back up generation by other means. Storage mechanisms reduce the 2:1 ratio of total generating capacity to demand but not by much. If politicians had been told Net Zero means at least doubling the investment in generating capacity would they ever have been so keen on it?