The ideas of Labour, Greens and Lib Dems offering us a future abundance of cheap renewable electricity is a dangerous deceit.
We lack the guard capacity to shift more to electrical operation and to handle more renewable generation from far off and unreliable wind turbines. It is an absurd lie that the U.K. can generate all its electricity from zero carbon sources by 2030. On a bad day wind and solar are under 10% and gas above 50%.We are becoming hopelessly import dependent.
Adding more onshore and offshore wind farms requires a breakthrough with some chosen methods of storage, with huge investment in batteries and or hydrogen to retain the surplus wind power when there is a lot of wind. What happens if there is a longish period with little wind, particularly on cold high pressure days in winter?
Many voters are appalled at the contradictions and nonsenses in some net zero thinking. Why not go for net zero immigration as every person has a carbon footprint? Why import LNG with greater CO 2 output than using our own gas down a pipe? How does closing a steel works in the U.K. to save carbon help if you import the steel from somewhere else that allows the carbon?
The net zero brigade does not know where all the huge sums will come from to close down all our gas power stations, build wind farms, treble or quadruple the grid and switch all industry over to renewable electricity, introduce hydrogen at scale and cover land with battery farms.
It will require subsidy and taxpayer support as it has so far. Renewable power is only cheap if you ignore the costs of back up and skew tax and subsidy their way.
June 3, 2024
Good morning.
We need to abolish the Climate Change Act. This single piece of legislation drives stupid stuff like Nut Zero and our eventual doom.
I have already mentioned hydrogen peroxide as a possible solution. But we will need to design and build better and more efficient wind turbines as the process of creating H2O2 to around 90% is quite energy intensive.
June 3, 2024
Mark, I fear the energy storage solutions are dead ends – the energy loss is massive and cost nonsensical.
We will only get to net zero electricity when nuclear fusion is mastered.
June 3, 2024
The fix is in regarding Brexit and net stupid, Starmer has not challenge Sunak at all which speaks volumes. Not diverging from EU in any regard using any excuse not to diverge ie scrapping their laws, not getting out of ECJ, no control of our borders from France, still acting in lock step and giving away N.Ireland!!
If Tories were serious back in 2010, or 2019 then our country would be in a completely different place. Cameron made clear “Red Ed’s” energy policy was “Marxist”. They then implemented it and built on it as May stated in parliament. What a contrast calling it Marxist, labelling the leader of Labour Red Ed then building on it! Look at mass immigration worse than Labour,
Reform Party.
June 3, 2024
They sure are dead ends in general. All are hugely expensive and loads of energy is wasted in the process. A pile of coal or a tank of natural gas is the way to store electricity. Then generate the electricity only when needed.
June 3, 2024
We now have lockdown Valllance advising Starmergeddon on all things electrical. Perhaps he knows something about physics that has passed the rest of the world by.
For nearly 3 weeks last month wind provided less than 5%of demand although theoretically it could cover the entire amount.
Battery storage and hydrogen production are very expensive ways to store electricity. Nuclear, be it fusion or fission is the only answer. That will be lost on the clowns at Westminster.
June 3, 2024
The net stupid also destroyed jobs and manufacturing, I want to know why the unions are not kicking off or forcing Labour to change course unless they accept it helps make a socialist global world.
More mines shut down under Blaire than Thatcher! The UK has an abundance of coal oil and gas but Uni Party refuse to produce it and rely on hostile countries and EU!
June 3, 2024
No, the way to store electrical energy is a pile of coal or a tank of natural gas or a nuclear fuel store & generate electricity only as needed. You can cope with some wind power on the grid but too much gives you loads of electricity when you do not need it. This excess electricity is hardly worth storing. So stop building too many windfarms. A bit more CO2 plant food is a good thing not an emergency anyway.
June 3, 2024
You state what most of us here know is common sense. The problem is nobody in power in Whitehall and Westminster is stating it, and backing it with data. I’m sorry Sir J. is leaving office now when he is one of the apparent few prepared to challenge the climate dogma infecting political offices.
If Sir J. has some solid data from his time in office, I for one, would be eternally grateful if he would write a paper on it, backed by government data, that can be published and introduced to the listening media and brought to the public’s attention for proper debate. Net Zero is the most expensive (?) national policy being followed. It must be reviewed in light of current data and knowledge.
reply I have just published The $275tn Green Revolution available via Amazon
June 3, 2024
Perhaps something that catches the attention of a young editor on a TV station, no longer than 3 paragraphs and able to be discussed on a 5 minute panel. If that fool Jim Dale can get on TV, it should be easy for a senior politician to get the financial perspective discussed.
June 3, 2024
USD 275 TRILLION! Makes the US debt look trifling.🤯
June 3, 2024
100% agree
June 3, 2024
A “break through” in battery storage is rather unlikely – just some slow and gentle improvements year on year seems rather more likely. A break through on Nuclear and Nuclear Fusion is possible I suppose.
The best ways to store electricity currently is as a pile of Coal or tanks Gas, Oil or even piles of wood (young coal) as at Drax if you really must then only generate the electricity as and when it is needed.
June 3, 2024
@LL; Any breakthrough in battery storage and inverter technology (design) will likely come via economies of scale in the manufacture of smaller units designed for domestic and office based SME use, this is already happening in the USA for non Net Zero reasons (their propensity for overhead line power outages), and of course in the UK when the telecoms industry switches off the copper network every home and office will need a UPS if for no other reason than to maintain a operational phone system!
June 4, 2024
A small battery UPS to keep phones and few lights etc. going for a short power cut is ones thing. Grid scale battery storage is quite another. Do the maths. Most serious back ups will be diesel or petrol generators.
June 4, 2024
@LL; Sorry if my comment about keeping telephones running mislead you. When I was talking about ‘smaller units’ I was referring to units that can keep an average house powered up, obviously the more load placed on the unit the quicker the batteries will be discharged, but with a bit of common sense and perhaps a duel fuel cooker… As I said, research what is already available in the USA.
I agree with you about the increase installation of diesel generators, or even LPG (rather than petrol), but such an install is not always practicable, and will its self face regulation by the Net Zero zealots no doubt as they become more common.
June 4, 2024
UPS designs to keep your router and ONT going use lead acid batteries. Much more cost effective for the application. Less fire risk too.
June 3, 2024
The Climate change act supported by all but a tiny handful (not supported by JR) of our generally scientifically illiterate and deluded MPs. Not even a vote on May’s evil Net Zero.
June 3, 2024
The maximum efficiency of a wind turbine is defined by physics at 16/27ths, known as Betz’ Law. Practical wind turbines have a sweet spot which achieves 75-80% of the maximum (or around 45% overall), but rather less at lower wind speeds where the power in the wind is much less because of the cube relationship with wind speed (and zero below cut in speed). Above the generator rated output efficiency falls because none of the extra power can be captured. This is a typical efficiency curve for a design optimised for lower wind speeds.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/GqyyC/1/
Optimisation is about the most cost effective design for a location (not necessarily the most efficient). Big offshore turbines aim to tap slightly stronger winds at higher hub heights that allow larger swept area and bigger generators. Current evidence suggests that the apparent economies of scale and better theoretical yield may be negated by high installation and maintenance costs as the large turbines are subjected to greater stresses causing bearing wear and extended shutdown pending repair. A similar phenomenon applies to tidal stream turbines.
June 3, 2024
@Mark B; Your last paragraph is an oxymoron, there will be not enough storage as there will be not enough H2O2 to create such storage, given the basic issues of reliability will remain with wind turbines!
How is the research into tidal electricity generation going, unless the moon drifts off into outer-space (in which case excess CO2 will be the least of our collective worries…) there are two guaranteed tides per day after all?
June 3, 2024
I had visions that he wanted to store it in peroxide blondes.
June 4, 2024
Rather expensive to capture tidal power plus it is not on demand power you have to use all between the tide times or it is wasted. Also neap tides give far less energy than spring tides. Not renewable energy as it actually slow down the earths rotation which is largely where the energy comes from.
A good question that nearly everyone, even some physicists, often get wrong is which is stronger the gravitational pull of the Sun or the Moon? The Sun’s pull is actually 177+ times stronger. The moon is only more important for tides as the pull from the moon on the near side of earth is much stronger than on the far side as the moon is far closer. With the Sun far less difference near to far sides.
June 4, 2024
@LL; “Rather expensive to capture tidal power plus it is not on demand power you have to use all between the tide times or it is wasted ..//.. [it would] it actually slow down the earths rotation”
Nonsense. Tidal power can be made to work in a similar way as any other hydro-electric generation system. How does ‘damning’ a few tidal river estuary’s affect the worlds sea tides, no one is proposing to dam the Strait of Dover! At worst there might be a very marginal increase in the High Water mark on the coastlines. The flow into the river will only be slowed if the turbines are duel acting, generating on all four ‘tidal’ (inward and outward) movements.
As for cost, would it be any more expensive than current nuclear power, yes there is much talk about cheap nuclear fusion technology, but then there has been for the last 100 years…
June 4, 2024
You have to enclose a fairly large area to get any significant power this is expensive to build and maintain. They do not even protect coastlines due to cost. Tidal is predictable power but not on demand and cannot cost effectively be stored. Also if you dam a river is soon silts up do dredging costs too.
A dam from Calais to Dover might save the boat migrants a bit on RIBs though. All I say above is entirely correct.
Which bit are you suggesting is rubbish?
June 4, 2024
Technically tidal does slow the Earths rotation speed, very little I agree but it does. That is where the energy comes from.
June 3, 2024
In spite of the Conservative collapse, with voters desperately casting around to throw their vote away in a meaningful way so that the Oligarchs of the U.K. get the message, the Greens are only on 5%.
Mr Gold, on this website, over-represents the Green Agenda, for accurate Green representation he should be allowed to post on every 100th day.
95% of the Country unites to refute the Green agenda and the madness of net zero. The 5% probably have a vested interest.
June 3, 2024
well said Lynn, the truth is unknown in politics!
June 3, 2024
John speaks the truth now unencumbered by previous loyalties and expectations. He is right to do so. NZ is a dangerous, authoritarian ideological fallacy but more than that, it is an assault on the person by the political state and one adopted as a religion by all main parties.
The naivety of the voter is condemning the British people into servitude.
June 3, 2024
It isn’t as simple as naivety …. many have been brainwashed by the State, using the BBC and other mainstream broadcasters. And at least one generation of young people have been indoctrinated by the State “Education” service.
Check out “The Indoctrinated Brain” by Michael Nehls MD, PhD. It’s a deliberate strategy which was implemented very effectively with the Covid scam.
June 3, 2024
+1. It’s an excellent read.
June 3, 2024
DOM:
Please reassess your first sentence.
June 3, 2024
I fear that there is a lot of Green “entryism” into Labour.
100 at last count and much trumpeted by those lefties who hate Labour maybe sensing and hoping for yet another split in the party?
Vote Red get Green…… Deuteranomaly?
June 3, 2024
Net-zero is indeed the weapon of government and the vehicle of mayors to impose draconian communist policies to further control the people
June 3, 2024
naivety ? or just plain thick!
June 3, 2024
Net Zero will kill million if really perused (it probably will not it will be just pretend like the imported wood at Drax and exported industries).
Another Chairman Mao event pure evil.
June 3, 2024
Ll thanks for the Covid book recommendation. So many similarities between Covid and Co2 scares, why do people fall for such nonsense???
June 4, 2024
+1
June 3, 2024
@ DOM – I recall siilar truths from Sir John from when he was in parliament. There are his books “We don’t believe you” and “Build back green” from several years ago too.
June 3, 2024
similar
June 3, 2024
Making us poorer whilst telling us it’s for our own good.
June 3, 2024
+++
Unencumbered truths is what our Parliament should be all about, but alas.
If you read debates from days gone by via Hansard, you can see how far we have fallen in the ability to allow free and fair speech, not afraid of unpleasant truths.
The grown ups really have given over Parliament to a gaggle of spiteful non-entities, who do not have the mental capacity needed to ensure rigorous debate to find the truth.
A soft dictatorship by comparison to previous openness.
June 3, 2024
‘ Many voters are appalled at the contradictions and nonsenses in some net zero thinking.’
True. It requires more than an honest conversation though. Action is necessary to stop it.
Western nations get saddled with this nonsense while China, India etc carry on regardless.
Politicians will continue to spout nonsense because they go with the globalist stance as it seems best suited to their own personal careers.
June 3, 2024
Not only are the politicians in La-La land thinking NetZero will work. You have to ask yourself if somebody is that detached from evidence of reality what else are they detached from ?
Turns out they are detached from the actual evidence that man made Global Warming is happening.
I ask anybody who believes this nonsense to point me at the ACTUAL EVIDENCE. Show me the killer evidence. Not a summary by an international body or a list of climate scientists all of whom have mortgages paid for by Government grants. Show me the killer research papers !!
You can’t because they don’t exist.
June 3, 2024
What % of MPs and Civil Servants have any grasp of physics beyond a GCSE? 3% – 6% perhaps? We have had energy secretaries who confuse energy and power and talk complete drivel about the Saudi Arabia of Wind.
June 3, 2024
Javelin :
Absolutely correct.
There is no evidence for CAGW caused by burning hydrocarbon fuels. Even the IPCC itself calculates just a warming of 1.2 degrees C for a doubling of CO2 (IPCC WG1 P95 footnote) which Happer & Wijngaarden calculate to be 0.7 degrees C.
All the additional predicted warming is from water vapour feedback which is nonsense because there is no evidence of increasing water vapour in the atmosphere, particularly at the higher altitudes where it counts, or non-existent anyway because water vapour, like CO2, exhibits the phenomenon known as IR saturation where all the IR radiation available as defined by the IR bands and the Earth’s Planck distribution curve have already been absorbed at current atmospheric levels.
Not only are the IPCC models not matching the data but their models and theory that CO2 is the planet’s thermostat cannot even explain the past let alone the future.
In essence all the predicted warming is politics leading the science. Note that the IPCC have been instructed to look for ANTHROPOGENIC reasons for global warming not for THE reasons for global warming and hence all other possible reasons for our mild temperature increase out of the Little Ice Age are ignored.
June 3, 2024
Agreed Javelin. I’ve been saying this for years. There is science to refute the claims but they won’t allow the real scientists time or msm coverage to inform and educate the masses i.e. those not in receipt of grants/ wages to say what they want!.
Climate: The movie (The old Truth) by Martin Durkin, is the latest with over 20 plus real scientists stating the truth about our climate. Available on You Tube for those who haven’t to view and spread the word!
June 3, 2024
Unfortunately I believe honesty in our political system has long since left the building.
Earning brownie points with global entities seems to be the order of the day and bare faced lying regarding the real dangers we face, not just here but all European populated nations it seems.
Anyone who is truly honest regarding any real dangers we face will be called a ‘climate emergency denier’, Islamophobic, racist, and transphobic. I’m quite sure there will be many more ‘ism’s’, ‘phobias’ and ‘denier’ crimes hitting the legislative books in the near future.
Dishonesty and burying heads in the sand rules Parliament.
June 3, 2024
‘honesty in our political system’ – a wonderful oxymoron.
June 3, 2024
Often the fuller truth conceals what MPs don’t reveal. Consider this true story:
An ‘old’ lady found a sampler of expensive cream in Boots valued at £30 for a tiny jar. She eagerly dipped into it encouraging two other shoppers to try it at the same time at net zero cost, but in her haste dropped a large dollop worth about £8 onto the tiled floor. A quiet bloke standing in the same aisle saw it happen and told a staff member: “An old lady has dropped a dollop on cream on the floor. Please cordon it off as someone might slip over it”.
What the quiet bloke didn’t say was that the old lady was his wife!
(And what I didn’t reveal above is that this bloke is her husband!)
Some MPs are more open at the outset and set a good example. Others care net zero about their own liability to what is right.
June 3, 2024
+1 as Sunak is doing with the vast levels of Vaccine harms. Why were they given to people who had zero need of them.
How are Suank’s Moderna dealings and profits coming on? Did he use a heat pump for his RARELY USED swimming pool up North?
June 3, 2024
Net zero will not happen, it would cost £trillions that we do not have, we have no cost effective large scale storage technology (other than piles of coal or tanks of gas that is affordable) it would deliver negative benefits anyway. Just ditch net zero completely now. Most of the things pushed to save CO2 do not even do so let alone do so to any significant sense. EV cars increase CO2 compared to keeping you old car longer.
Hydrogen outside a few specialist areas is a nonsense as so expensive, hard to store safely and very energy wasteful to produce. It is not a source of energy just a very expensive battery system. There are good reasons why electricity is about three times the cost of gas as it is a far more flexible fuel. Taking electricity and concerting it to Hydrogen is a reverse Midas thing to do. Not cheap, not energy efficient, hard to store and rather pointless. If you have to generate electricity when it is not wanted (the problem caused be renewables) there are rather better ways to use it than conversion to H2.
June 3, 2024
I crunched a few number on hybrid cars. Each time you plug them in you might save something rather less than 50p by using electricity rather than diesel or petrol for a few miles. If your time is valuable is it worth the effort? Plus the cost of the charger? This however is not a real saving either just that there is little tax on electricity and loads of tax on petrol/diesel so no real saving for the country. But also you degrade the hybrid battery (usually only guaranteed, do read all the many restrictive conditions, for six years or fewer) probably by far more than 50p per charge. Plus you are carrying all the extra weight and complexity of the motor, battery and an engine with you so more to maintain, higher capital costs and more to go wrong and more depreciation.
Then you also have the battery fire risk, the large amount of fossil fuels needed to mine & manufacture the battery and motor, the extra tyre wear, the need for of road parking space at the house (not worth driving much out of you way to then not save 50p and have to walk back)
Keeping your old car longer is almost invariably best in CO2, practical, flexible and cost terms.
June 3, 2024
I spoke to a neighbour the other day, who is not seen for a while. She leaves home at silly o’clock every morning to drive into London to work. She said now all the roads are 20 mph it takes longer, and asked rhetorically, how is driving in second gear less polluting? I’d have thought, as a scientist, it is more not less polluting.
June 3, 2024
Sharon
Yes more polluting, as your car will do more engine revolutions per mile, the lower the gear you use.
Likewise acceleration and braking is less efficient and will cause more pollution, than running at a steady speed.
June 3, 2024
I am in the process of switching my now 15 year old car for a much newer model that is no longer being made, but has the attributes I want (and some I don’t like keyless ignition). Delaying the switch makes no sense, as most who own these cars will keep them rather than sell, as indeed will I, so they are hard to find. It is another diesel, but with Adblue to appease the ULEZ gods. Sacrificing space to a hybrid battery is out of the question.
June 3, 2024
Mark
I purchased a keyless vehicle last year and you can switch the key OFF with a quick double click when locking.
To test it when locked, hold the key in one hand and see if you can open the door with the other, likewise use a faraday pouch for the car key to limit transmission signal, same test applies.
Main dealer was completely unaware of this extra security feature, which not all manufacturers produce.
Found out about it by chance on the internet.
June 3, 2024
“an honest conversation about net zero” well we have never had that from this government, Labour, MSM or the dire BBC. Anyone saying anything sensible on net zero is banned by the BBC. Ofcom is evil too on this propaganda and indeed they also were on the Covid Vaccines and the vast vaccine injuries.
June 3, 2024
You say “treble or quadruple the grid”. But if we all switched to EVcars, EV vans, renewables and heat pumps you will need more like 10 times the grid capacity. This as the heat pumps will need nearly all their energy in the few very cold days of winter. Most of the grid will this be wasted for the rest of the year. Also connecting up endless offshore wind turbines and solar farms needs are more cabling. Again the cabling will have to carry a certain capacity for the high wind or high solar days but will only on average carry perhaps 20% of this. Far, far cheaper to connect a large gas, coal or nuclear facility. We will also be wasting the very valuable gas grid we have in place & for no good reason. We have loads of gas under our feet to extract.
For all the renewables to be backed up the generation capacity needed for peak winter demand on a few days might be 20 times too, this as you need to double up to avoided blackouts. Again expensive capacity wasted for most of the year.
June 3, 2024
The UK is committed to reaching net zero by 2050. The UK Government has adopted a suite of policies in order to reach net zero, set out in two strategy publications, the Net Zero Strategy (2021) and Powering Up Britain: The Net Zero Growth Plan (2023).
These strategies and policies have been subject to much scrutiny from numerous parliamentary committees, independent third-party reviews, and wider media attention. Those in favour of diverting even more subsidies to the fossil fuel industry are the source of many of the spurious objections to net zero
Once there are two million BEV’s registered here they become the huge renewable electricty storage system, charging up overnight with surplus electricity from the N Sea windfarms, that Sir John agrees is neccessary. Because they are not all on the roads at the same time, but are connected to the various charging systems, they can supply electricity into the grid when required. The more BEV’s we have, the bigger the storage capacity.
We are also connected to the massive EU-wide electricity grid via the interconnectors. This means that we can export surplus renewable electricity at a profit and when necessary, we can import electricity.
None of the arguments against net zero stand up to scrutiny.
June 3, 2024
There is no excess electricity from wind farms on the days they are stopped. You must be on some strong medication if you believe the bovine excrement coming from parliament.
June 3, 2024
Those who want to preserve their EV battery will use it at between 20% and 80% charge unless embarking on a long trip. On average they are likely to be about 50% charged, much as with the average amount in a fuel tank. So the free space is at best 30% of capacity on average. Once full, that’s it until it is used. There has to be the grid capacity to deliver the surplus in the first place. In reality, most of the surplus will be curtailed, since exportinb it at negative prices also makes no sense.
June 3, 2024
You have not begun to address the points Sir John makes.
June 3, 2024
Let’s just imagine for a moment that I have an EV (I don’t, and I don’t ever intend to get one).
Why should I use my privately-owned car, which I have purchased at vast expense, to provide the Government with a source of energy? Every time I charge the battery, it will degrade and depreciate its value. And anyway, if I’ve charged it it will be because I need to use it to transport me somewhere, so I’m not going to “waste” the energy I have stored by helping the Government keep the lights on when it has deliberately destroyed our energy security.
June 3, 2024
Do you actually live in a galaxy far, far away?
June 3, 2024
….and have found the answer to travel at the speed of light, free energy from nothing and in 5 years able to control the Earth’s cooling/heating ar a stroke?
June 3, 2024
Definitely! No doubt about it.
June 3, 2024
I have a bridge I would like to sell you
June 3, 2024
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. He’s already made an offer on mine!!!!
June 3, 2024
Using car batteries to assist the grid is a bit of a nonsense. Stationary batteries are rather cheaper and safer than using car ones and lugging them around. Each charge discharge devalues the battery probably
by more than the value of the electricity stored. So why would owners agree to this? Also they may suddenly need the car and find it flat!
Circa 30% of the energy wasted in transmission, charge, discharge, AC DC and voltage conversions too.
June 3, 2024
There are a very large volume of grid battery projects being suggested, largely on the back of the extreme price volatility in the energy crisis. The problem is that it is hard to see how they can make money. The grid is using them to the tune of 1.4GWh per day for grid balancing charging and discharging – about 30MW average charging rate, with typically about 1.2GW contracted to be available. Revenues for this have collapsed about 90% from £17/MW/h of availability to £1.70/MW/h due to competition. Some money is being made by charging up cheaply and discharging at higher prices, but that only really works for cycles lasting a few hours, and competition will erode revenues. Longer term storage remains economically unviable for batteries. They cannot hope to cover for Dunkelflaute which requires large, costly storage capacity that only gets to turn over relatively infrequently, let alone for interseasonal storage, or interannual storage between good and bad years.
They will soon be looking for subsidy handouts.
June 3, 2024
Why mess about with BEV battery Grid back up, when nuclear power stations would provide endless supply very reliably and without putting maintenance staff at risk having to service wind turbines out in the North Sea?
June 3, 2024
a fool’s’ golden paradise. Believe it if you must but time will prove the total inadequacy of the argument.
June 3, 2024
“These strategies and policies have been subject to much scrutiny from numerous parliamentary committees, independent third-party reviews, and wider media attention.”
Well obviously not by people who actually understand the physics, climate, energy engineering, and economics realities! The group think religious types who thing walking and cycling produce no direct or indirect CO2 per mile and thing EV cars save CO2 or people on the make from subsidies? Or MPs with paid “consultancies”.
June 3, 2024
Make something here and the Co2 emmissions count. Make it in China (probably using coal-fired energy) and they don’t. Please explain how this stands up to “scrutiny” SG?
June 3, 2024
PS If your government had had the nerve to challenge Net Zero and other ‘eco’ doctrine in the past few years Sir John, as well as overule Treasury migration policies, then they might not be in the pickle they are in today.
Too late to have last minute regrets I’m afraid, Labour is going to wipe the Tories out and we will get more of this green theology and mass migration whether we like it or not. What an absolute shambles! The Tories can only blame themselves because Starmer certainly wasn’t capable of winning on his own merit.
June 3, 2024
“The UK is committed to reaching net zero by 2050“
Yes but why? It is insane, cancel this lunacy now.
June 3, 2024
I don’t think the wider UK is committed to it at all. It’s just the narrow zealot class. People are beginning to understand what it entails. I note that the wider public are increasingly better informed, as a reading of comments even in the tabloid press reveals. But as so many of them also note, there is no truly credible way of voting it down.
June 3, 2024
SG :
I calculate that 2 million BEVs each with 50 KWhr batteries would in theory provide 100 GWhrs of energy storage.
At current demand this would provide electricity for 4 hours and by 2050 just 1 hour.
From where do you obtain please the evidence that chaotically intermittent wind will somehow provide sufficient energy to re-charge these batteries “overnight”? Will the wind magically blow every night?
For the first 28 days of May the 28 GW of installed wind capacity has provided an average of just 3.8 GW, with a minimum of just 0.2 GW.
The Royal Society’s Large-Scale Electricity Storage report after studying 35 years of wind data reckons we need 50 TWhrs[e] of storage by 2050 to avoid blackouts. This is 500 times more than the energy from your 2 million BEVs.
June 3, 2024
To run an average detached house in a cold winter just for one month (using just electricity with heat pumps, electric heating, cooking and two EV cars) would probably need about 8,000KWH of battery storage for the month. This would cost about £120,000 just for the batteries. They might last at best 10 years so finance costs and depreciation would be about £18K PA. Sounds like a plan we can all afford. The electricity for the month would cost about £2,500 the battery depreciation and finance costs £1,500 per month on top. Plus you have the cost of the heat-pump system say another £25,000 if a small house the two EV cars say £50K. Total capital needed nearly £200K. All worth next to nothing after just 10 years.
June 3, 2024
We have to remember that the power output from a BEV battery will be limited. Fast discharge (and heavy footed driving) will shorten battery life. Also, there has to be adequate cable capacity to provide the power. I think anything faster than a 7kW discharge (home charger capacity) will be unlikely. So if a car makes 49kWh available to the grid it would last up to 7 hours. I suspect that in practice only 3 hours (21kWh) would be offered, as no-one wants a flat battery.
The result is a limitation of the available power to 7GW per million vehicles signed up to the scheme. It will be a lot less, because many will not plug in if they see a forecast for persistent power shortage due to low wind/sun. Also, it makes no sense whatever to discharge one battery to charge another, and then use that charge to recharge the first battery. That just wastes 20% of the charge per round trip.
The real role for V2G will be limited to peak lopping supply in less challenging circumstances, when recharging is easy afterwards. However, the number of opportunities will be limited because with lots of extra wind and solar capacity there will be days when even peak demand is exceeded by generation.
June 3, 2024
Do you really believe that the rich & famous are going to allow their £70k+ EVs to be used as energy storage by private energy companies
June 3, 2024
They would have to be mad as the depreciation to the batteries would exceed any payment they might make.
June 3, 2024
Degradation of the battery during the recycle costs more than the electricity supplied.
June 3, 2024
The target is green pensioners who have an EV to go shopping weekly, for medical appointments, and maybe an occasional trip to see the grandchildren so long as they live reasonably close.
Busy working people, travelling in rush hour simply won’t be home when peak demand hits.
June 3, 2024
” subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.” There are no subsidies – but there are tax concessions for new developments, and for decommissioning. Decommissioning has been paid for by enhanced taxes and PRT over the lifetime of the field. Currently renewables get the subsidies (£1.5bn for AR6 for example), whilst the oil / gas industry are zapped with “windfall” taxes, and these will increase under Mad Ed.
June 3, 2024
UNTRUE – Shell disclosed that had received approx $750m in tax rebates to decommission the Brent oilfield since 2017, after how many decades of operation.
According to Shell the Brent Project employs 1000 people and “This presents the UK with the opportunity to become a global leader in decommissioning – with skills and experience that can later be deployed around the world.” So we pay $750k per head who then toddles off to somewhere else and pays taxes somewhere else – doesn’t seem much of an opportunity for the taxpayer.
June 3, 2024
North Sea oil companies were taxed extra amounts because when Tony Benn was energy minister he did not trust them to do the decommissioning. The deal was that a decommissioning reserve was paid up front in extra tax, to be returned when actual decommissioning took place. It was in effect an interest free loan to government. Later governments welshed on the deal by reducing the rate at which the tax was repaid.
June 3, 2024
I refuse to allow my EV to be used to supply power to the grid, to be part of a grid storage system.
There is a limit to the number of charge-discharge cycles any battery can do and there is no benefit to allowing the grid to degrade the lifetime of the battery “for free”.
I doubt any EV owner with any awareness of these issues, and that is likely to be the majority of early adopters, would allow their EV to be used in this way.
Seriously, if you want the grid to use BEVs as grid storage then the grid must own the BEV it’s battery and maintenance and replacement costs.
June 3, 2024
Didn’t Boris the net zero fan bring it forward to 2030? Anyone would think all these Labour Green ideas are new, they’re already here.
4 Dec 2020 — Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the UK will aim to cut its carbon emissions by at least 68% in the next ten years. BBC
18 Nov 2020 — The 10-point plan includes a target to quadruple offshore wind power by 2030, to 40GW, reported the Guardian, “Water into energy”: £500 million for hydrogen
What’s the plan? The UK joins other countries (and the EU) in setting a medium-term target for the production of low carbon hydrogen: in this case, 5GW by 2030, including “a town heated entirely by hydrogen”. globalenergyblog
ICE ban brought forward to 2030 by Boris Johnson. https://www.carbonbrief.org/media-reaction-boris-johnsons-10-point-net-zero-plan-for-climate-change/
June 3, 2024
SG :
By calling upon private vehicles to supply electricity to the National Grid you are at least admitting that the Net Zero Strategy was wrong to state on P19 that we will have electricity available “at the flick of a switch from abundant, cheap British renewables….” and that our electricity instead will be intermittent.
However, since this intermittency will be random in both time and length I will not be allowing my ev batteries to supply energy to the national Grid to keep the lights on in Parliament but saving the energy for my own use when my time for rationing occurs.
June 3, 2024
A government that was bothered might stop or challenge these bogus TV Weather announcements.
The clearly deluded claims of this month or that being the “hottest” on record.
Just trying to frighten those who believe the world is about to fry.
June 3, 2024
EHopeful
The stupid thing about some of these weather reports, they seem to report the hottest part of the country as though it’s everywhere. I’ve had grey, not especially warm days where the forecast was for the ‘hottest day of the year so far’! It’s a joke.
The only good thing is, the GWPF and Daily Sceptic are challenging the Met office over their deliberate inaccuracies and they’re having to backtrack.
The media are also selective about what information they take from the IPPC reports – again deliberately mis-leading the public.
As you say, all this frightens those who believe the world is about to fry or melt or whatever. Fear is a powerful weapon.
June 3, 2024
+++
100%
June 3, 2024
“Project Fear” seems to be hampering the very same govt. that craftily succeeded in scaring the socks off many over a virus.
People often in comments dismiss the govt. warnings about Labour as a new fake fear inducer.
So clever now to disbelieve when the warnings are true!
June 3, 2024
In the 2023/24 winter heating season, power generated by wind, hydro and solar reached 55TWh, 10TWh more than the 45TWh’s generated by gas power stations across the UK. 55TWh is an absolutely phenomenal amount of juice. The wind failed to blow on only 5 days last winter.
With or without new licenses, the North Sea oil and gas fields will continue their inevitable decline, so we will need to import ever greater quantities of gas and oil from abroad – unless we cut our demand by rolling out more renewables. Being more dependent on imports of foreign produced hydrocarbons does not enhance our energy security
Once you take out the Energy Generator Levy, UK renewable electricity is 60% cheaper than CCGT – because the best energy conversion efficiency achievable with the current technology is only 50%. There is no need for additional back-up CCGT plant, we can import electricity from the interconnectors when needed.
June 3, 2024
A Ponzi scheme propped up by MASSIVE SUBSIDIES from the taxpayer. Renewables are a deception, FACT
June 3, 2024
Phew!
No problem then?
A weight off my mind.
Can I throw away the wind up torches and hot water bottles?
Blankets torn up to make bandages for the next “emergency”?
I THOUGHT I was bloody freezing for two winters….
Clearly I was mistaken 🦄
June 3, 2024
How many times do you need to be told that “Power” is not measured in Watt hours but in Watts. WH are a measure of energy not power.
It is a mistake that is so basic, a bit like me writing an article about a Shakespeare play and stating it was written by Molière.
It demonstrates for everyone to see, no real scientific understanding. Renewable energy is worth far less as it is not on demand and is often generated when not even needed. It also produces quite a lot of CO2 to build and maintain, it needs expensive and them less efficient gas back up, far more expensive to connect up and the cables can easily be cut by accident or by enemies.
June 3, 2024
Dear Mr Putin,
Could we have some gas please?
Dear Ms Von der Leyen,
Could we have some electricity please?
Dear Mr Macron
Could we have some electricity please?
Thank you for your pursuit of servitude Mr Gold
June 3, 2024
So importing does not affect the net zero calcualtions?
June 3, 2024
The fact is that thanks to policies you favour, SG, Britain has become a regular net importer of electricity in most years since about 2010. Last year saw the highest net electricity imports ever. Here’s what the government’s assets publishing web site says: ‘Reduced energy production meant that net import dependency increased to 41.1 per cent in 2023 from 37.3 per cent in 2022, with electricity imports increasing significantly on 2022.’ Notice: ‘reduced energy production’, and that includes renewables.
If the programme was to enhance our energy options with renewables, this deplorable outcome would not have happened.
What has actually happened instead is that we have destroyed much of our own electricity production capacity, with the result that the Green lobby can position themselves as saviours of our energy security. I say ‘with the result’, I’m sure this was foreseen.
June 3, 2024
Why do we need to rely on importation of electricity SK. The majority of that imported Electricity comes from France and is generated using nuclear generators. Why complicate the energy industry with imports? We could simply build more of our own nuclear plants and generate our own electricity and provide high quality secure supply using UK resources and jobs. Just an idea I have.
June 3, 2024
nonsense. 5 days of zero wind, but dozens of inadequate to provide required supply.
Why did we usually BUY interconnector electricity of 20% we needed?
June 3, 2024
And here we have Loony Tunes again spouting total nonsense!
June 3, 2024
Renewables Are not Cheap. This summarised data is from David Turvey of Eigen Values.(thanks)
There are 3 subsidies :
1. Feed in Tariffs : 2022-23 £1.7bn
2. Contracts for Difference : £2bn
3. Renewable Obligations Certificates : £7bn.
All are index linked and will therefore go up.
Then there is Grid Balancing (either too much or too little wind) : £2.46bn
Total subsidy is about £12bn.
The next round od renewables (AR6) is being offered at £102/Mwh (fixed offshore), £246/Mwhr (floating offshore), £89 /Mwhr (onshore), and £85/Mwhr (solar). For reference, Gas is 65/Mwh and the ROC reference price is £53/Mwh.
On top of all that, one needs to add the money for net zero; for example £60 bn has been allocated to CCS Carbon Capture and Storage, Drax get £680m pa for burning American trees, and EV and ASHP are sold with grants from taxpayers.
Can we – the UK taxpayers – afford this?
June 3, 2024
It’s not going too well in the USA. The renewable green energy disaster off the northeastern US is getting worse
Less than one per cent of the way to the Biden 2030 target ….with Shell laying off most of its offshore wind business staff and refocusing on oil and gas.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/03/renewable-energy-green-offshore-wind-disaster-biden/
June 3, 2024
Copy/paste of a post you have made several times. I refer you to previous answers. It is simply untrue that renewable electricity is 60% cheaper than CCGT. The average cost of wind is around £150/MWh including subsidies, and no Generator Levy applies to ROCs or CFDs or wholesale prices below £75/MWh, which is where the cost of CCGT (including carbon taxes) has been for several months.
June 3, 2024
As you say:- “Many voters are appalled at the contradictions and nonsenses in some net zero thinking. Why not go for net zero immigration as every person has a carbon footprint? Why import LNG with greater CO 2 output than using our own gas down a pipe? How does closing a steel works in the U.K. to save carbon help if you import the steel from somewhere else that allows the carbon?”
I would add why encourage EVs when they cause more CO2 if CO2 is the problem (it clearly is not actually).
Why encourage walking and cycling when they are powered (very CO2 inefficiently) by human food that causes loads of CO2 to produce, harvest, butcher, package, freeze, refrigerate, cook, transport… The government transport web site still claim walking and cycling produce no CO2 direct or indirect. This a total lie, likes Sunak’s Covid vaccines are “unequivocally safe” claim. But then Rishi Sunak is still jetting about in private jets, in first class and helicopters – so he like King Charles obviously does not give a damn about CO2.
June 3, 2024
Oh no!
I’m sure that their planes run on carbon free fuel but I can’t think what that might be.
What does not have a carbon cost? Honey? Water? Lemonade?
Surely…all must be hauled, processed, bottled etc etc?
What about a direct vein to fuel tank transfusion?
That might work?
A bit messy with about the range of a fully charged EV…but still…obviously they are dedicated to saving the planet.
June 3, 2024
LL Actually, when a conversation gets to people eating food giving off high CO2, or cow’s windy pops is bad for the environment – I think this is getting into the realms of beyond ridiculous!
How could any sane person hear that without thinking it’s all a joke in bad taste?
June 3, 2024
Virtually everyone has two feet. Many have several dependants. Every move on entry adds ever more to increasing carbon footprints here. Net zero immigration would reduce the increase.
June 3, 2024
If honesty on Nett Zero is required, the firsf dishonesty is to ignore Reform’s ” Contract with the people paragraph 7″. Read it and you will find a reflection of the Conservative view of the people in the country.
You have got the dishonesty of Labour, Lib/ Dems and Greens right, but compound it by ommiting your own party, the consocialists who invented it, played with it for years, cost the users of power a fortune in tax and subsidy, and increased the UK’s responsibility for excess carbon by importing it. You parsonally displayed an honest approach but most of those around you did not. Do not compound it just because the only honest solutions come from Reform. There is no room for Etc Ed if you want honesty.
June 3, 2024
Reform are right Suank’s fake Tories wrong. But Reform will be lucky to win a seat.
June 3, 2024
LL.
Likely you are right. For me this says more about the political maturity of the british electorate than it does about offers from any political party.
June 3, 2024
+1
But now likely to get my vote as JR is no longer standing.
I cannot vote for any of the others, as they also agree with net Zero.
June 3, 2024
Ah – let’s all support a wholly owned Corporation because Corporations don’t legislate to help themselves at all.
Let’s start with some honesty. Would you allow Pfizer to rewrite our voting rights? If not why allow another corporation that same power? Reform will remove the power from the People to ever sack a government again – IN THEIR OWN INTEREST – because they can’t win a seat unless the electoral system is rigged in their favour.
June 3, 2024
…… because they can’t win a seat unless the electoral system is rigged in their favour…………..so what is FPTP then, if not a rigged system for the UNIPARTY??????????????????????????
June 4, 2024
I think the risk of a dictatorship until there is a revolution lies with a Labour landslide. I doubt Reform would attempt that, even if they secured a landslide in the future. They are then likely to “forget” that they considered PR superior to FPTP as a means to gain seats. The reality of PR is that it mostly produces unwanted coalitions that please no-one and parties renege on manifesto pledges to be in government: it bolsters the position of incumbent parties rather than clearing the Augean stables. Clearing out tired old parties encourages the growth of new ones.
June 3, 2024
I don’t think Reform have yet managed to produce a sound energy policy. They plan to waste large sums on nationalisation that even Labour isn’t proposing: that will achieve nothing, or worse than nothing. The state is a lousy manager. They need to work out how to unleash the forces of competition, domestic supply and competitive international markets.
June 3, 2024
Now net Zero Immigration would be a vote winner, and a game changer, plus the Government could have the power to achieve it immediately (if it really wanted to ).
Net Zero emissions from power production is simply a political and scientific lie, as most of us out here already know.
June 3, 2024
There will not be an honest conversation about net zero. After 30+ years of brainwashing that will not happen in the few weeks leading to the GE. All the main parties have pushed this agenda hard so there will be no abrupt about turns. It has been a based on a remarkably successful campaign of misinformation, on a par with persuading people that the earth is flat and is the centre of the universe. Forget the facts that the IPCC only looks at so called man made warming and ignores natural causes, that CO2 is not a pollutant but essential to photosynthesis, that IPCC models are so useless they resort to quoting averages, that as admitted in the last report they have no way or hope of predicting cloud formation and cover, and so on. Only “believe” or you will be boiled alive.
June 3, 2024
Many who post here object to net zero on cost grounds, believing the fossil fuel lobby propaganda that it will bankrupt us. Nothing could be further from the truth. This 2022 Oxford University study demonstrated completely the opposite:-
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-09-14-decarbonising-energy-system-2050-could-save-trillions-new-oxford-study
The key points:-
1) New study shows a fast transition to clean energy is cheaper than slow or no transition
2) Idea that going green will be expensive is ‘just wrong’
3) Green technology costs have fallen significantly over the last decade, and are likely to continue falling
4) Using large numbers of EV’s as an electriciy storage system is a positive side effect of their introduction
5) Achieving a net zero carbon energy system by around 2050 is possible and profitable
Worth a read – if you care about our planet
June 3, 2024
More academic flights of fancy, produced at the height of the energy crisis, and already completely outdated by subsequent events. Fossil fuel costs gave returned to more normal levels with big increases in LNG supply coming ip as new plant comes on stream, and gargantuan oil discoveries (almost 2 Saudi Arabias in the Antarctic alone). Baroness Brown tells us we need to pay much more for wind – and as a director of Ørsted she should know. The Royal Society pointed out the huge gaps in analysis of storage and overcapacity requirements. NGESO has admitted it needs to spend £200bn on grid expansion by 2035, and then we need to spend the same again of more on the low voltage distribution grid.
June 3, 2024
The paper assumes transition to 2050, not 2030. It also assumes that alternative back-up to Solar and wind, such as Hydrogen, will have been developed, and will be relatively inexpensive.
The elephant in the room is that whilst CO2 is a greenhouse gas, there is little to no evidence that it has had an effect on the Earth’s Climate Changes over much of its life span. Just a modern statistical assumption, and a hockey stick.
Would a greener planet be beneficial – of course. Should we cripple the UK to knock our 1% of World pollution down to zero, which will be gobbled up by China in weeks? Of course not.
June 3, 2024
SG
Electricity is just one part of our energy requirements.
Planes, Ships, Lorries, Construction machinery, Industrial machinery, Agricultural equipment and much more, cannot work successfully without petrol, diesel and gas power.
June 3, 2024
In more general terms, if you want honesty in the coming election.
1. The consocialists need to accept that the chaos and mismanagement of the last 14 years is theirs alone and to stop offering baubles they do not believe in.
2. Labour need to explain what they would do to correct the shambles they might inherit.
3. The Lib /Dems do not impress with poorly executed downhill travel, a metaphor for what they offer.
4. The Greens should keep their heads in the sand, exposing themselves for a good electoral kicking.
If the electorate fail to awake to what Reform are offering, they deserve all they will get.
June 3, 2024
I see we now have a Conservative candidate for Wokingham John (chosen last Night it would appear)
Know nothing much about her other than it is suggested she tried 3 other Constituencies first (and failed) before finally succeeding in Wokingham. Lives out of the area in Oxfordshire, so appears to have little local knowledge, and unfortunately got the name of our Town wrong, calling it Woking (which is in Surrey)
Clearly an intelligent lady given the high powered Jobs she has held in Banking and Finance, but does she really have the local peoples interest at heart, or does she just want to be an MP, anyones’s MP
I guess time will tell, but she only has 4 weeks to make an impression.
June 3, 2024
Is she a conservative or a pretendy liberal one nation Tory?
June 4, 2024
Timaction
I do not have a clue, as she has not to my knowledge put out anything yet about her own thoughts and policies, other than to those who chose her as a candidate, but apparently in her mid 30’s she has suggested it is time for a new generation of Conservatives to take over, so probably a yes to your suggestion.
June 3, 2024
It’s a scam. How do we know? Because no debate and no dissent is permitted by the Establishment; they are imposing it dictatorially. What the WEF demands, the WEF gets.
The climate changes and always has. It is not caused by CO2 and certainly not by the 1% of emissions the UK is now contributing to the global total. The scaremongering “evidence” they hyperventilate about is produced by flawed, manipulated and deceitful computer modelling with the Climate Change Zealots using “worst-case scenarios” to justify their hyperbole.
Johnson morphed into the worst Eco Nutter of the lot when he married the current Mrs Johnson. But since his defenestration, Sunak has done nothing to stop the destruction of our energy security, economy and manufacturing base. His Government is directly responsible for the impending impoverishment of the residents in Port Talbot – and in due course, the rest of us.
The vast majority can’t afford an EV. They can’t afford to install a heat pump which won’t heat their house or the massive subsidies they are being forced to pay for foreign-owned “renewable” companies. They are being coerced and bullied to do the impossible.
But now the worms are turning and the Not-a-Conservative Government thoroughly deserves the electoral punishment-beating it’s going to get. Pretending to delay the imposition of EVs etc by 5 years means nothing when the law which punishes car retailers for selling “too many” petrol/diesel vehicles has been retained. They will destroy our car manufacturing industry next, on behalf of their WEF Masters.
June 3, 2024
Sir John , Most of us with a technical background know that a large majority of Politicians are ignorant of the things they are talking about and wether they know it or not, they are pushing a very large scam. One cannot talk technology into existence and set dates, you have to wait and see how a new breakthrough can be adopted for use needed!
Most of our so called leaders in politics are ignorant of science and corporate liars.
We the public ignore them as much as possible and try to continue with the reality in our lives !
June 3, 2024
Fantasy government.
All about beliefs and predictions.
Sensibilities and predilections.
Furiously weaving moonbeams into a tangle.
The end will be The Four Horsemen.
War, Famine, Conquest and Death.
And none of this ever needed to have happened!
June 3, 2024
‘The ideas of Labour, Greens and Lib Dems offering us a future abundance of cheap renewable electricity is a dangerous deceit.’
To that I would add the Conservative party who pretend that tweeking dates offers an alternative. It does not.
The only party offering an alternative energy policy (and migration policy) is Reform and if they stand a candidate here they will get my vote.
June 3, 2024
You can criticise net zero policy but don’t you dare even hint at questioning the climate apocalypse basis for it. We can be absolutely sure that greenies and activists are 100% accurate about that. Never mind that they have never been right about any past prediction. Oh, and don’t dare to ask what net zero will actually achieve.
Is it just me or does the whole thing stink?
June 3, 2024
One step at a time. Remember that belief in CAGW is rather like a religious belief. It only gets disproved in the long term. Those who believe the extreme climate modellers are not likely to change their minds on that easily.
It is much easier to show that Net Zero is completely unworkable and pointless. It is also easier to show, as Bjorn Lomborg does, that adaptation is the better path to follow even if CAGW turns out to be true.
June 3, 2024
An honest conversation needs honest people to take part in it. There have been honest MPs in the Conservative party – I can think of two in particular who were hounded out for expressing views that were not wanted by the leadership. A national conversation also needs an honest media, but no chance of that. The BBC and Sky have recently had to apologise for their blatantly biased treatment of Nigel Farage. There have been a couple of media presenters who told it straight, on GB News, but they were forced out. So as long as we have a political and media establishment who are pushing net zero, we won’t get an honest conversation about it on official channels. For now, the best that can be hoped for is that in private conversations people admit to each other that it’s BS, rather like the way Communism in Eastern Europe crumbled. People started revealing to each other that they don’t believe the ideology inculcated by the state any more. That’s how NZ will fail.
June 3, 2024
Daily Sceptic yesterday ran an article demolishing Labour’s claim that their Great British Energy plan will “save £300 off the average annual household energy bill”. The whole thing was based on outdated data and in reality it will do just the reverse. We have an election where the politicians are now all spouting rubbish and believe the public will accept it, they will not. Battery storage, or any sort of storage, capable of coping with a loss of renewables of several weeks is totally impractical now or any time in the future, there is no alternative to fossil fuels and we should stop pretending that there is.
As for EV cars, yes some people do seem to like them and usage is very slowly increasing. But even if you charge them with fully renewable energy, which we do not, it takes around 50,000 miles driving until you recover the extra CO2 emissions of manufacture. They are not ‘green’ however you define that term.
June 3, 2024
With all due respect Sir JR. It’s a shame your thoughts were not aired more widely when you were in parliament.
Sakara Gold continues to promote his nonsense. Co2 is 0.045% of Earths atmosphere. The UK contributes around 1% of that. In other words, a tiny amount of a valuable natural element. Yet he and idiots in government are happy to destroy the last vestiges of industry in the UK. Are happy to make electricity so expensive it will lead to deaths. Are happy to rely on foreign energy support that can be withdrawn any time.
Meanwhile China/India/USA/many far/east countries carry on emitting large quantities of Co2 that take up any savings we make in weeks or possibly days.
‘Net Zero’ is total madness.
June 3, 2024
Unfortunately it’s relatively few voters who are appalled at the contradictions of net zero. Most are, understandably, taken in by or unaware of such contradictions due to the obfuscation, misinformation and downright lies which surround the issue. How many voters for example know that over half of the supposed ‘cost’ of energy from gas is accounted for by an arbitrarily allocated ‘carbon cost’? Or that official calculations of the cost of renewables are based on a theoretical maximum output of wind and solar which is 1.5 – 2.0x the reality?
I propose that we don’t say we will abolish net zero – that will lead to a fatuous cacophony of name calling about ‘denial of global warming’ etc. rather I’d suggest the Conservatives propose a tweak to net zero, adding a requirement that no net zero policy will be implemented if it has a material negative effect on people’s livelihoods and living standards or the prosperity of the nation. The Climate Change Committee should have a new, corresponding, ‘sustainable growth and prosperity’ mandate. This should have majority support in the Country and be an election winner.
June 3, 2024
Sir John, you have again failed to even mention what is driving this crazy Net Zero movement. You will never progress or convey the pointlessness of Net Zero policies while you allow the advocates for it to tell the lie that CO2 is a pollutant (the EPA in the USA). Because the conventional view of a pollutant is, it must be reduced or removed it allows the Climate Alarmists to latch onto an innocent molecule (CO2) that is actually essential for all life on Earth and claim we must make policy to stop any production on it.
Stop hiding the truth and come out and speak honestly to those zealots. Tell them CO2 is a net good for humanity and the world eco systems, overall. Tell the modern Luddites marching under the banner of JSO or XR or the Green Party they are plain anarchists not progressives.
WE must speak the truth and stop pussy footing around the subject. At the present rate of energy security destruction, the UK will cease to be a functioning democratic nation very quickly. Once we are unable to look after our own basic survival needs i.e. warmth, food and shelter, which the removal of use of fossil fuels will deliver, the UK will no longer be a functioning society.
June 3, 2024
I like to point out that CO2 is indeed a greenhouse gas. Greenhouse growers have furnaces producing extra CO2 to help their plants grow bigger and faster.
June 3, 2024
Many of the media are biased into supporting untrue claims or are clueless in not realising crazy MP make false statements. Truth is everyone’s most loyal friend, and should be their normal standard unless they enjoy misleading even themselves.
The Speaker is effective in preventing members from claiming others lie when in the House. However, if Parliament operated properly, it would discipline any member found blatantly lying to large audiences via media. Many do and gain power to cause more harm.
June 3, 2024
When people are being educated to believe they can change their gender to their favourite cuddly furry animal with the force of law you really cannot expect ever to have a rational debate about anything. The young grow up in a world of make believe that is officially called a safe space. Rational debate must await their exposure to the real world and completion of their treatment for their consequent post traumatic shock disorder.
I voted for Boris Johnson in 2019 believing that he was playing King Canute over Net Zero. I was appalled to find subsequently he really believed in it.
The facts are very simple. The climate is warming but there is no evidence that this warming is dangerous and none that it will continue for ever. There have been warmer periods in the past and human development has progressed faster in warm periods than in cold periods. The incidence of dangerous weather has not increased. Crop yields have increased as expected as the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen. Sea levels are not riseing any faster than they have over the last century or more. Knowledge of the climate system is inadequate to predict with certainty its future course. Some speculative scenarios which might or might not turn out to be true are alarming but here is no cause for alarm based on what is known with certainty.
From this there is a case for caution but not for mandating rapid and costly transition to inadequate technologies.
My wife and I are considering what kind of new car to buy because our old car was written off after an accident. It is a difficult decision because there is so much uncertainty and that uncertainty is driven by government policies flying in the face of reality. Will the government or reality win? Canute is still on his throne sitting on the beach. The tide will take years to decide the outcome. In the meantime I would like a car that can easily be modified to adopt new technologies as they are introduced each year – new types of battery, fuel cells, hydrogen combustion engines, plug in to a mains charger or not depending on the cost of electricity and alternative energy types etc.
Governments have made the same mistake they never learn from: governments cannot pick winners. They picked flourescent light bulbs then had to subsidise their replacement with LEDs that could have been introduced first time round had they waited only a year or two instead of rushing in with their chosen product which was already obsolescent. They’re doing it again with Net Zero.
For those who believe in the Bible the world will end one day and there is nothing we can do to prevent it. in the meantime a cautious approach until the end arrives would be to fund R&D and when a likely winner becomes commercially viable support its introduction with suitable regulation if necessary but otherwise leave it to the market.
The other points Sir John raises on inconsistencies and contradictions in policy are the result of incompetence, outsourcing policy making on a narrow area to a fanatical group – the Climate Change Committee. What did anyone expect?
June 3, 2024
OH, If that were the only deceit we were were being offered.
We know very well labours intentions are to get us back into the EU by the side door, and their new taxes will make Hunt seem like a fairy Godmother.
One thing all big parties agree on though which is riddled with deceit and misinformation, is the management of the economy and the UK generally. Not just banking and localised corruption, but when we are and were in trouble financially, the Chancellor keeps tightening the belt to close down struggling businesses – not to mention struggling families, while at the same time £billions upon £billions are sent abroad for frivolous reasons or wasted on useless ideology.
Public services are drained of resources while government departments have reached record lows in productivity.
Then we have the civil service that allegedly works for our benefit, but has assumed powers to manage how HMG operates as well as what rules should be set.
NONE of this deceit will go away after the election. In fact we can expect worse. We are already being told of shortages to come of food and water and electricity, yet these shortages were created by Western governments, especially our own. So we can look forward to rationing of every commodity.
With so much perverted thinking and deceitful actions from our so-called leaders on the subject of our future, there is nothing to look forward to. They want to put controls in place to micro-manage our actions, while individual freedom of thought will become a too expensive luxury.
This election will improve nothing, but will ramp up wins for those that want to enslave us further to their system.
June 3, 2024
Well said, John!
But, funfundamentally, it really necessary at all.
Are the forecasts and, even, the data series really resulting in existential risk? Are they even correct? Is CO2 really the destroying the planet or is it offering more sustenance for more greening of the planet which in turn absorb more CO2? The biggest threat used to be the ozone layer now it is CO2, what will it be next to justify 1000’s of publicly funded research and lobbying jobs?
Meteorological models are hard pushed to forecast next month’s weather let alone the next decade’s weather. What about the performance of past forecasts?
June 3, 2024
Before ‘honest’ debate can happen, our government and the climate change committee must first declare that the subject of ‘climate-change’ ISN’T settled
June 3, 2024
The starting point for that would be appointing a rather different set of people to the Committee.
June 3, 2024
Sir John
“This election needs an honest conversation about net zero”.. Yes, but will we get it and when we don’t who pays for it? Of course, us, we pay with the lose of jobs, income security, resilience, and future.
“The ideas of Labour, Greens and Lib Dems offering us a future abundance of cheap renewable electricity is a dangerous deceit.” – you forgot the Conservatives. 14 years of doing nothing and we still get energy levies/taxes but not enough energy to go around. No one has yet beaten the Conservatives on high prices and high cost along with high taxes.
The trait of a Socialist, promise the people everything and anything, spend uncontrollably as if it’s going out of fashion, don’t worry about a return on spend cover everything up with new and higher taxes. Promise to lower taxes then find new ones change the criteria shuffle the pack and charge every one more – i.e. do the opposite. The Socialist spin is it will be someone else paying. So where does this version of Government get of calling itself Conservative – it is just another Socialist Party deluding itself about reality.
June 3, 2024
There have been calls in the MsM from some calling themselves Conservatives for Sunak to make ‘promises’ in his manifesto
‘They (The people) are disillusioned by the remarkable lack of Conservative principles promoted by a party in power for 14 years.’
‘These voters yearn for a reason to vote Conservative. The Tory manifesto is a chance to grasp the nettle of unaccountable, undemocratic bodies stymying the will of British people. There must be policies that demonstrate how the Conservatives will return power to where it belongs: with the electorate.’ – Annunziata Rees-Mogg
And, so on and so on, all rational and reasonable ‘Conservative’ principles, ideas and direction. Then the Kicker 14 year of refusing to honour all such promises in manifesto’s, speeches and deeds just regurgitating them to become pretend Conservatives for a day, no longer has creditability. Then we have to add in the Sunak/Hunt duo and their personal refusal to control spending, showering everyone and anyone with our money, growing the State – Socialism at its bonkers extreme. That is then compounded with high taxation and the ‘program in place’ of more to come. Is anyone anywhere going to believe these individuals? Then add in their recent days of miss-speaking, miss-representing.
All the time we have these and their collective responsibility colleagues at the helm we have a proven hell of the incompetent incumbents.
The Conservative Party has created a ‘rod for our backs’
June 3, 2024
Number of coal-fired power stations
UK – 1 (planned closure date sept 2024)
China – 3,092
Enough said
June 3, 2024
@glen cullen – and China as with the majority of the World does not have Laws requiring them to do anything different. But the UK does, Conservative Government Laws, Conservative Government levies and taxes on energy, Conservative Government after 14 years living in hope that foreign Governments will come to their aid and supply the UK energy needs(at a massive price hike) because they won’t, so you can round it up and say Conservative Government punishment of the UK and its Citizens.
Remember, President in waiting Sunak and his sidekick/s want you to vote for Sunak based on his record! They bang the drum that anyone but there-selves would be worse!
June 3, 2024
There will be no ‘honest conversation about net zero’ because it is a gigantic scam designed to impoverish and control the majority for the benefit of a globalist cabal.
June 3, 2024
No, we need a referendum on net zero.
June 3, 2024
Before even considering a referendum the first thing is to ensure that people are well informed. Do that, and I suspect the referendum would be redundant.
June 3, 2024
Net Zero means rolling blackouts.
We have insufficient local grid capacity for the electrification of heating and transport which means that even with sufficient supplies of renewable generated energy electricity would need to be rationed by rolling blackouts controlled by smart meters.
In the UK 80% of local grids are only capable of supplying 1 – 2KW continuously to each household according to a consultant research engineer (Eng.D) from Southampton University in written evidence to a Parliamentary Committee studying evs. Although meter boxes are fitted with 80 amp fuses (18.4 KW at 230v) this power consumption is only possible if it is for random amounts at random times which will not be the case when heating and transport is electrified. His conclusion was that evs could only be owned by 1 in 7 households even when staggering the supply to 7KW chargers and this was not taking into account the 4-5 KW needed for heat pumps running 24/7 in winter. The engineer said that heat pumps were not feasible at all without upgrading the local grid as they impose even more load than evs.
June 3, 2024
PS : Link to the consultant engineer’s Parliamentary evidence :
https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/82722/pdf/
June 3, 2024
Net Zero is economic suicide.
Renewable electricity is not only chaotically intermittent but also the most expensive. At the next renewables auction (AR6) the CfD for fixed offshore wind is £100/MWhr (2023 price) and floating offshore wind is £242/MWhr (2023 price). Note that the wind industry is already saying these prices are too low. Reliable RR SMRs are £50-£70/MWhr depending on funding type (RAB or CfD) (2021 price) and the price for large nuclear is £50/MWhr everywhere else in the world but the UK even for the EDF’s EPR Hinkley Point C technology. Gas is £60/MWhr without carbon taxes and coal £30/MWhr without carbon taxes. The Royal Society’s Large-Scale Electricity Storage report calculates that the 570 TWhrs of renewable energy (80/20 wind solar mix) needed for 2050 requires 50 TWhrs [e] backup which will double the price of electricity using hydrogen storage even with optimistically doubling the wind load factors and electrolysis efficiency. Batteries at current prices would cost £ 21 trillion.
June 3, 2024
There is no security in Net Zero.
In addition to deindustrialising so we cannot make steel and munitions and hence military equipment :
How can it be safe to transition to intermittent and unreliable renewables and put all our energy eggs into one energy basket, electrification, when there is no plan or even an economic method to store grid-scale electricity ?
How can it be safe to electrify everything and make our grid the biggest hacking target in the world?
How can it be safe for China, a state described by our security services as “hostile”, to supply all our energy infrastructure – wind turbines, solar panels, the metals and minerals for motors, generators, batteries and cabling?
How can it be safe for our energy infrastructure to be spread out over half the North Sea? How will our depleted armed services protect all the wind turbines and undersea cables from air and submarine drones? Or all the vast expanses of solar panels? No undersea cable or pipe is safe today, as seen with Nord Stream 2.
How can it be safe to electrify our armed services – aircraft, ships, tanks ? How will they be re-charged on the battlefield or at sea? Or in the air?
June 3, 2024
Welcome to 1950 china – ZEV mandate: 22% of new cars must be electric this year …..only in Marxist UK, I still can’t get my head around a tory party telling & forcing manufacturing what they can sell
June 3, 2024
Can I have a little boast that my Labour run council is roughly £35 million in debt?
Is that a record…or comparatively small potatoes?
June 3, 2024
marble spuds….
Slough Borough Council alternate Labour control or no majority.
The stark debt situation has been highlighted in a nationwide report by the BBC Shared Data Unit. It showed that Slough Borough Council was £430 million in debt in Quarter 2 of the 2023/24 financial year. That is the 69th highest amount of debt by an authority in the country.
June 3, 2024
Good grief!
Yes..my horrible council’s effort is pretty pathetic in comparison.
June 3, 2024
This is what you get when you close down any debate on the subject. We are constantly bombarded with false propaganda on the subject. I’ve had to stop watching TV as I’m incensed by the constant message of climate change that is woven into every program. This must be by design as it is far too common to be an accident. Politicians must be corrupt or lazy if they don’t see what is happening in our society.
June 3, 2024
It has been by design on the BBC ever since the 28-gate meeting in 2006 decided to do that. A £4bn p.a. propaganda effort.
June 3, 2024
We are peanuts in the world as far as climate control and change are concerned ; we can only stand and wait at the behest of other bigger ones .
June 3, 2024
I think Labour and the Greens will be less bothered about the countryside and nice areas and will push planning decisions for pylons everywhere there is an open field. They don’t get caught up with the village nimbies such as those that elect Conservative councillors. They don’t worry if a brick building at the front of a housing estate looks nice; they pass the plan. A supermarket with ugly grey facia and no planting passed. People trying to punish Sunak’s version of a conservative government will be shocked.
June 3, 2024
Sir John,
As usual, providing words of wisdom. Perhaps the technology will improve, given time, to provide this Green panorama with reality – but it is not here now or in the near future.
June 3, 2024
France uses 70% more electricity than the UK now despite it having a similar population. Why is this? Is it that the Tory success in achieving 30% of our energy from wind alone is down to their policy of deindustrialisation by creating artificially high energy prices through Net stupid and thereby driving manufacturing and processing industry away? The French have very little wind generation but a lot of nuclear and hydro which are both despatchable and SavethePlanet. Why are we importing wood chips for burning in power stations? Pure cretinism.
We have the most idiotic government in the world outside Africa when it comes to energy security and a few other things besides.
June 3, 2024
In 2021, 35 percent of the heating systems in France used natural gas to generate energy. However, over 50 percent of the heating system used renewable energy sources.
But in the UK 80% of houses use mains gas as the UK has a more comprehensive gas network. When the government put the “green tax” on gas – moving it from electricity – then the balance might change. Currently gas is 1/3 th eprice of electricity and the UK has the second highest price in the world for electricity.
June 3, 2024
I am utterly devastated. Bereft.
Took our cat to the vet to comply with rabid chipping law.
We have had the cat for 12 years as a stray.
Turned out he had a chip already and vet contacted the “owners”and they seem to want him back.
Is there no end to the cruelty of this hateful regime?
Cruel.
June 3, 2024
as a ‘stray’ was he never checked over and a chip looked for?
June 3, 2024
Mark + MT
Vets have only recently started to do that because of “Fern’s Law” ( Bruce Forsyth)
Great advantage to the vet …helps them know whom to charge.
There are loads of stray cats around here and trying to find their homes has always landed me in a lot of grief. They invariably make their way back here.
I have always taken any stray that can be handled to the vet if necessary and paid for treatment. This law makes that impossible.
Cats generally live where they want to.
June 3, 2024
I can sympathise with your threat of loss. It would really help if vets insisted on checking for a chip on at least the first occasion they see an animal, not 12 years later or rather than just if they need to make entries to a pet passport. Indeed, it should be law, and there have been petitions in support of that. They need to check in case the chip has migrated, or perhaps was installed differently abroad too.
If the owners still live nearby the cat may come back to you anyway. If they have moved, it might run away again to look for you. Points that the vet should put to the registered owner.
June 3, 2024
Thank God!
They didn’t want him back!
But what a terrible, terrible law.
Well enforced by vets who also fleece one without mercy.
June 3, 2024
Our hosts last paragraph is both spot on but historically irrelevant, given the massive subsides that have always plagued the Nuclear power industry (total costs, from the first sod being dug to the last piece of decommission/reprocessing), the arguments against the Green and Net Zero lobbies can _not_ be about public subsidy, only reliability of supply.
Even with, supposed advances in storage technology, wind and solar renewable simply do not stack-up, as you imply, if wind turbines are becalmed or the wind is to strong [1] for 30 days during the short days of winter no Wind or PV storage system is going maintain the electricity network as it is now, never mind with any greater move to EVs & electric heating.
[1] wind speeds in excess of what the turbine gearbox or generator can handle, hence the blades have to be prevented from turning
June 3, 2024
We now know that there is a de-facto death penalty for expressing the wrong view throughout Europe and the wider West.
Tories were hopeless in the face of it (made it much worse in fact) and as a consequence will be irrelevant in the discussion of our energy security and net zero. 60 MPs maybe ? Who knows.
June 3, 2024
Net Zero is a fraud which most of our gullible MPs have swallowed whole. No hard scientific evidence exists for Net Zero, and CO2 is not the slightest problem.
President Putin and Xi must be laughing their socks off at the stupidity of the Western nations, especially the UK.
June 3, 2024
Given you’re stated position on Net Zero, it is quite clear you are truly representative of the Conservative Party, well in my mined anyway!
Added to this you’re position on Self Employment, IR35, and the related reforms, the increased in spending on the Military, and the support for Supply-side Reform and De-regulation, a Truly conservative agenda, it makes me wonder why we in Wales have got a Welsh Conservative agenda based on Small C conservative nonsense!
Wealth generation, here in Wales, like many other things, is in a Mess! Why is ARTDavis wasting his time with the Left-wing nonsense? He will never get a Majority, he can’t even get a crooked, Labour FM, the sack for taking money! The Welsh are loyal to their Party’s, and put a Red shirt on a Monkey and their vote for them!
Defeat Welsh Narrow Minded Nationalism! Meaning the Point is not to win in Wales, but UK wide!
Do not try to have different offerings across the UK, it is confusing!
The question is? Can you get a One Nation Tory, like Sunak, Hunt, Davis, too lead on a Truly Conservative agenda?
The Poles are suggesting Not!
Would you accept this point? Would the rest of the Conservative Party?
May be I’m bias towards Free Markets, Brexit, Sovereignty , but it’s the only way I see the Conservative Party putting their strongest foot forward!
RDM.
June 3, 2024
@RDM; I don’t recall UKIP doing to well in Wales either, the electorate clearly has a problem with at least some right-wing philosophy, just as in Scotland. Pushing polices the electorate do not want is like flogging a clearly dead horse, you’ll get nowhere, other than making a fool of yourself.
June 3, 2024
All very well, but Mr Redwood believes there is climate change, he just criticises the way of dealing with it, so he is on both sides. Dare not risk his moral comfort.
Reply Do give up misrepresenting my views. There has been plenty of climate change over the ages. I have never supported the idea of manmade CO 2 as the sole determinant of future climate trends, and have regularly exposed the contradictions and nonsenses of some CO 2 driven policies.
June 3, 2024
I believe this subject will be shelved until the new Government gains the power to manipulate us further.
Net-zero et al. are but instruments to bring about a new and existing “Fear factor”. A repeat of the Covid lock-downs which enable the Government to take full control of our lives. There, they had a taste of the real power they can grab and are now very reluctant to release it.
Socialist policies have been active in the UK over the past 30 years and this subject certainly will be grabbed by the new incumbents under the guidance of the Civil Service, who really run this country.
June 3, 2024
The totally false CAGW and its “solution” Net Zero is a Communist strategy to destroy the West by sabotaging its access to cheap, abundant reliable energy and by de-industrialisation and the implementation of inefficient, impractical and fragile electrification is designed to make the West not only economically weak but militarily weak.
It is understandable why the Greens (aka the Reds) would be adopting CAGW/Net Zero and also the ideologically driven left of the Labour and Liberal parties. But why the Conservatives, whose previous success was always down to following the idea of applying “what works best” should be adopting Net Zero is a mystery only explained by infiltration which is why the Conservative Party will not be able to provide a strong opposition in the next Parliament.
June 3, 2024
@OR; Makes one wonder why so many otherwise intelligent Capitalist have fallen head over heals to jump on the AGW/Net Zero bandwagon then, if its sole intent is to destroy Capitalism…
I have no problem accepting as fact that those further to the left than is good, such as the Greens, use the AGW & Net Zero ‘religion’ to further their cause, why wouldn’t they, or countries intent on destabilizing the west also use this new religion to their advantage, but there are plenty of hard nosed capitalists, and large numbers of right-wing politicos, who also use it for their own ends too – you can’t sell expensive electric cars, or supposedly “eco-friendly” white & brown household products, or recycling services, without talking up AGW & Net Zero etc!
June 3, 2024
If NetZero is a ‘thing’ and a thing that the World needs, why is it that 95% of the Worlds Population does not have to endure punitive Laws and regulations, high energy costs, loss of jobs, forced offshoring of industry, just to send a virtue signal?
If it was a ‘thing’ any sane sensible government would first ensure there was an economy, earning real money to fund what-ever may be thrown at the Country down the line. Then they would ensure the Country had resilience, energy security to survive. They would want to ‘work’ with the people of the Country, not only listening to them but hearing. We can tackle anything working together, but having a government fighting us isn’t the way to go about things.
What they would not do is cross their fingers behind their backs, punish, while setting about to cause malicious long term damage to the Country and its people.
June 3, 2024
‘There is no climate emergency’.
Richard Lindzen, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, MIT
June 3, 2024
Younger British voters are sleepwalking towards a Labour Government who are projecting policies on the major topics that make no sense whatsoever :
1 : Immigration – Yvette Cooper is lying through her teeth over both legal and illegal immigration. They have no policies to deal with the problem. At least the Conservatives have Rwanda. NOBODY is being honest : Net migration of 750,000pa is what is causing our housing and NHS problems.
2. Net Zero – Labour is lying about Net Zero. As our host says, totally green energy will be impossible to achieve by 2030. Realistically, 2045 is the earliest it can be achieved, and then only if the government gets its finger out and gives the go ahead for at least 20 SMRs this year.
3. Defence – Starmer reluctantly agreed to go along with 2.5% but without a timescale it is an empty promise.
As is saying that Labour will build four submarines. These four for the strategic deterrent are already ordered – what about the next generation of Hunter-Killer Subs we are supposed to be designing and building with the Australians ? Nothing has been promised about them.
Unless Putin is ousted and Russia settles down, we are going to be needing to spend four or even 5% on defence by the end of the decade and even then it will probably be too little and too late. And we haven’t even discussed China !
We need an army of at least 150,000, a minimum of 500 tanks, and thousands of drones. Plus at least double the number of surface ships and aircraft, particularly Destroyers, Typhoons and F35s.
June 4, 2024
Russia has ‘settled down’, Chris. It has got round the West’s crazy self-harming sanctions, built up its own economy and forged strong economic and diplomatic clinks with the rest of the world. It has also settled down to a long war of attrition with NATO in Ukraine, which it is winning on its own terms of weakening the Western-supported regime there. As part of that, it is finding ways to overcome NATO’s advanced weaponry. ‘Ukrainian’ attacks on pre-2014 Russia have helped to cement solid support among the population behind the Kremlin’s policies. Why on earth would Putin want to spoil all that by trying to invade Western Europe?
We don’t need to damage our economy further by spending 5% of GDP on the military. We need to put the military we do have down at Dover, where we continue to be invaded, but not by the Russians.
June 3, 2024
Honestly if I had retired from my main job and was utterly brilliant at everything I tried
I would definitely be talking to Reform right now.
How wonderful that would be.
June 3, 2024
“Farage standing in election”, says Guido Fawkes.
The GE has now got interesting!
R
June 3, 2024
Although our ruling elites will wish to continue with their Net Zero plan for electrification because smart meters together with CBDC will give them enormous power over every individual they will be having to change their minds over using renewables for (some) power generation. For whilst they may be happy for us to suffer meagre supplies of chaotic intermittent power they are beginning to realise that renewables simply cannot provide sufficient power for their AI plans and thus alternatives, such as nuclear, will become necessary.
June 3, 2024
“A spokesman for the Tories said: “Nigel Farage risks handing Keir Starmer a blank cheque to rejoin the EU, impose the Retirement Tax on pensioners and hike taxes on hardworking Brits up and down the UK.”
They know that because the Tories refused to get Brixit done, the Tories has left the EU just about in charge of everything that needs changing. The Tories refused the UK its own Legislators, they handed that away. They know that because the Conservative Governments runaway uncontrolled expenditure has give us the highest level of tax payments in 70 years with more to be added as per the Budget if they get elected. And yes the Tories are taxing all pensioners by stealth, only the means tested on credits escape Conservative tax hikes that are promised in the next term
How about a Conservative Minister selling us what 14 years have achieved, and why they have ramped up the punishment and pain in the last 5 years reaching a crescendo under Sunak/Hunt. How can anyone now be afraid or believe the scare stories of the alternatives, when the 14 years of ever increasing nightmare continues. The Conservative Governments record speaks loud and clear on what they promise. NetZero misery and punishment, no energy resilience, no economy, uncontrolled expenditure and so on and so on.
The Conservatives have no record to stand on just failure. Do I believe Farage or Reform will get anywhere, No Do I believe Sunak/Hunt have wreaked the Conservative Party Yes
June 3, 2024
I despair at how low the Conservative Government has become under Sunak & Hunt, in attitude, as well as incompetence and ineptitude.
Most of the unattributed and of course the utterances from Sunak & Hunt themselves are so bogus they have to have been made up by someone still in kindergarten. Is that where CCHQ gets its staff?
You, sell things or ideas by being relatable to your audience, on their wave length, but above all hearing what they are saying. Just slagging off the alternatives makes you the ‘nasty’ one, the one with and ingrained chip on your shoulder, someone to create distance from.
Selling is simple, it is hearing what is said – meaning the real question, having empathy with your audience, that then causes people to ‘like you’. You cause a reciprocated response. CCHQ is engendering a hate response, a hand’s off, keep away don’t touch with a barge pole reaction
They need to have a sit down with Micheal Ashcroft, get him to bang heads together. Although like me he will see them as a lost cause, the problem
June 3, 2024
All this in the shadow of probably the worst Labour Cabinet ever.
June 3, 2024
YouGov’s MRP has just come in, predicting a Labour majority of 194 seats – a bigger landslide than 1997 and the highest figure of any party of any election. The poll predicts Labour will win 422 seats, and the Tories 140 seats. A reminder that YouGov’s MRP correctly called both the hung parliament of 2017 and Conservative victory in 2019…
Thank you the Conservative Party, CCHQ and the cheer leaders Sunak & Hunt whom have probably booked their airline tickets out – so don’t care. Was that the aim? a job well done and a pat on the back
June 3, 2024
I see Reform has now replaced their current Leader with a former Leader after the election has been called so as to get a better result. I think the Conservatives should now do the same and bring back Boris!
June 3, 2024
Lucy Demery chosen to stand for Wokingham Tories, Farage to Head Reform and contest Clacton.
Things are hotting up!
June 3, 2024
The latest research from Thunder Said on low carbon round-the-clock power generation predicts that nuclear SMRs will be far cheaper than the wind or solar . Britain has a world leader in this technology, Rolls Royce. Britain’s industrial sector desperately needs competitively priced power and , as you have said many times, Britain also needs to wean itself off imported power. This is our chance; the Government must get behind this technology.
June 3, 2024
“The ideas of Labour, Greens and Lib Dems offering us a future abundance of cheap renewable electricity is a dangerous deceit.”
You missed out the Conservatives ? Why ? Simple oversight ?
June 3, 2024
RG – not simple oversight but all part of the globalist PLAN
June 3, 2024
Regrettably too many Conservatives were also wedded to the delusion of Net Zero especially Teresa May and Boris Johnson. They’ve been deceived by the Climate Change Committee and their media acolytes the BBC. Too many politicians in previous parliaments have been brainwashed. Only affordable practical reliable technology will solve the problem and presently only nuclear meets this criteria. Accordingly for the reasons stated Conservatives have dragged their feet and selected a losing strategy in wind, solar and biomass. Yet the solution was obvious fourteen years ago. It’s a huge policy failure .
June 3, 2024
NET ZERO is total BSbut for some reason JR has a fixation with these two words.