Several informed people contacted me following my speech on importing electricity in the Commons on Monday.
One wrote:
“I listened to your speech yesterday in the House and I completely agree with point that you made regarding the inter connectors.
I have worked in the industry for 35 years ……..
The inter connectors serve a purpose to balance the European system but each country has its own energy policy and agenda. The U.K. is a dumping ground for other countries for their excess generation……
I fear that the Interconnectors will used and abused post Brexit negotiations and that the British public will suffer.
The point is that we can manage without the interconnectors if we focus on U.K. home generated power ……
Furthermore, why we are paying entities to stop importing power and wind farms to curtail their output is beyond comprehension.” (I have removed references to his detailed involvement as he wished to remain anonymous).
I also was reminded of work done by the Centre for Policy Studies revealing the dangerous gap opening up in the amount of domestic power available, and the way that was going to be filled by imports. According to CPS research in 2012 the Coalition government estimated imports of 6 terawatt hours of power by 2030. The plan was to build 26GW of new gas plant to replace retiring coal and act as back up for intermittent renewables like wind. Instead we will build under half that. By 2016 the forecast was to import 77 terwatt hours of electricity by 2025, almost one fifth of our needs.
There are many drawbacks to importing so much. I think we need our own resilience with our own supplies that we control for strategic reasons. We also need to watch out for price rises as and when the continent gets round to ending all its coal power and retires much of its nuclear.They could end up short of electricity. In the meantime the Greens should be campaigning against this interconnector power, as it may well be coming from coal or gas generators. It is all very well the UK claiming it is having coal free days, but it may well be importing coal generated power from the continent for days it thinks are coal free.
The interconnector power is given all sorts of advantages, including no carbon floor tax or transmission charges which the UK competitors face.
It is high time we had a new energy policy suitable for us. It should end our dependence on continental imports, especially given continental growing dependence on Russian gas.That is neither green nor wise, leaving us open to threats of disruption to supply.
June 18, 2020
From a brief glance at who is responsible for what, it appears that Messrs Sharma and Karteng are the ministers responsible for these issues – may we look forward to an assuring (and meaningful) response from either/both to these alarming concerns?
June 18, 2020
God help us.
June 18, 2020
This situation beggars belief and it has come about under your party’s administration Sir John.
I realise that globalism is the key word of the free market hawks but we have to have a degree of self sufficiency in all aspects of our existence.
DfID has been (rightly) subsumed into he Foreign Office to expand our soft power, would you agree that our lack of self sufficiency in manufacturing, food production, energy and investment gives other countries much soft power over us?
June 18, 2020
NS. Unfortunately for 10 years the Tories were run by the Cameron/May administrations with their obsessions with all things European and the EU almost acting as a wet nurse.
Hopefully we will now get some honesty into the problems facing us as highlighted by our host on many occasions. Brexit without a deal will concentrate minds on how to solve them.
June 18, 2020
Not so!
Ed Miliband was Minister for Energy (Ye Gods!) with John Prescot Deputy Prime Minister (Kyoto signed off) leaving any future government with a bed of nails…..
These two revelled in the limelight taking undue credit for New Labour whilst those of us involved in the industry looked on in disbelief – powerless indeed and word- to avoid a catastrophe down the line – as these idiots held sway with the media and seemingly “Do no wrong” at the time…….
June 18, 2020
Its getting to the point where I starting to despair, could someone please point me towards a successful govt policy
June 18, 2020
You voted for them.
Blame yourself.
June 18, 2020
Martin, Unfortunatelt we got what you voted for.
June 19, 2020
+1
June 18, 2020
Apart from our host I despair of all our MPs and Lords
June 20, 2020
And of those of every other civilised country.
Have you ever wondered if it might be you?
June 18, 2020
Itâs very serious. They are incapable of sequential thinking and frankly are âoff with the fairiesâ. The extreme left can pick them off at any time. The Parliamentary Party Remain incapable of selecting competent leaders.
Iâm losing the will to live. I just cannot defend them and as I donât live in Wokingham, I simply can see no point in voting Tory again. I would prefer that a Corbyn had made this mess.
June 18, 2020
totally agree
June 19, 2020
Lynn, if Boris’ crew think the red wall is ok with all this virtue signalling they are much mistaken, I thought Dom had an insiders view on how these forgotten feel.
Working-class white children from the Midlands and the North how many of them got a better education than the privileged extra funded inner-city bame children? Just check where the pupil premium goes and the extra top ups. How many of the WCWC are on the board of FTSE companies unless they built the Companies up themselves from the ground and goodness when they do, they face a barrage of you don’t fit our club blocking moves.
June 18, 2020
Yes, we need energy security – and more food security too. Where do you stand regarding the Small Modular Reactor project? It would be real boon for employment.
June 18, 2020
Indeed. It looks to the uninitiated to give us independence and certainty of supply and a real economic boost. No doubt the people in authority etc who say no to everything, especially cutting/reducing links to their beloved EU, are already working out their objections.
I guess this post is a taste of Sir JRs âproddingâ of HMG. Wouldnât it be nice to see a quick and positive decision made. I guess the antis will bog us down in years of using our antiquated planning laws (dangerous nuclear reactor on our doorstep etc)
It is about time they were consigned to the bonfire (cue Lifelogic on red tape) but I fear they wonât be.
June 18, 2020
Nig1, I would rather have shale gas fracking on my doorstep, than Windmills or Nuclear.
June 18, 2020
why against nuclear, neclear is fantastic…… till it goes wrong and if it goes wrong it doesnt matter
June 19, 2020
Glen, I’m not against Nuclear, it’s just that I prefer shale gas, overall. I am against Windmills.
June 18, 2020
SMRs are very unlikely to be accepted anywhere near to populated areas because of the green myths about safety and radiation. It will be a choice between building one or two big reactors on existing sites or say twenty SMRs on the same site.
June 18, 2020
But on the other side of the cost/benefit analysis this govt will always ask âcan we buy it cheaper from chinaâ
June 18, 2020
almost certainly – but then reliance grows…..
June 18, 2020
SeaW – JR never replies to good questions – haven’t you noticed?
Reply What question?
June 18, 2020
About SMRs, only 3 UK companies might one day build a SMR:
Rolls-Royce with its pressurized water reactor potentially able to provide 440 MWe is at the ‘design stage’. SSR-W (Moltex Energy) with its molten salt reactor potentially able to provide between 300 and 1000 MWe is still at the ‘conceptual design’ stage. As is U-Battery Consortium with its much smaller (4 MWe) high-temperature gas-cooled reactor also at a ‘conceptual design’ stage.
So difficult to see a quick break-through on that front if one wants a UK-based solution.
June 19, 2020
Whatever we do, it’s time to get the finger out. All but one of our existing nukes is due to be closed within ten years. The French are trying to extend theirs but its costing a fortune.
June 18, 2020
We need the lights on but not at any cost and whilst everyone thinks they know about the options which are apparent now ,our scientists must not lock into a scenario which says we cant do this and we cant do that . Much more is possible . We all need open minds.
June 18, 2020
We need to ditch all the renewable subsidies and the energy market rigging by foolish governments and scientifically illiterate MPs, to ditch carbon taxes and red tape and force renewables to compete on a level playing field. We need to get fracking and go ahead with Some sensible some nuclear plants (Hinckley C is not the right solution). We need to have resilience so we are never too dependent on exported electricity.
We do not need any carbon capture schemes (Sunak please note), they are very energy wasteful and very expensive and pointless too. The sensitivity of the climate to CO2 (and the alleged positive feedback mechanisms) have been hugely exaggerated. This is surely quite clear (their projection and model were clearly wrong. Even more wrong than the 500,000 UK Covid deaths prediction).
Slightly more CO2 and slightly warmer has more positives than negatives anyway in greening the planet and increasing tree growth & crop yields. CO2 is after all plant and tree food that the plants, trees and seaweed kindly convert back into oxygen for us to breath and food for humans (and other animals, fish and insects) to eat.
Even if you are a believer in the CO2 devil gas religion the CO2 saved by the UK using renewables is absolutely trivial in the scheme of things anyway. Some greencrap policies and renewables and electric cars can actually increase CO2 and greenhouse gas output.
June 18, 2020
Fully agree – we have not had a clear and definite energy policy for many years now. Nothing wrong with coal, the technology has moved on so clean coal fired power stations should be on the agenda. However the stupid greens will stop that. Drax now firing on wood – madness. Gas fired ? sorry cannot use gas now!!!!!!
Windmills, no wind or overspeed shutdown? P——g in the wind, but good for the land owners.
We are closing /have closed existing power stations without any thought.You can decommission a power station very easliy. Building new power staions takes time plus all the regulation BS that accompanies them. Nuclear – yes but not Chinese funded or unproven French technology. Nothing wrong with Sizewell B. Westinghouse admittedly but what happened to our nuclear industry? We need another Lord Marshall not these brain dead Energy secretaries.
June 18, 2020
It’s not ‘beyond comprehension’ at all, it’s absolutely deliberate and planned. Nothing happens by accident.
There are forces at work in the UK that act beyond the reach of those we elect to represent us. MPs are pretty much neutered and most only care about their pay, pensions and their political careers
Civil servants will not stop conspiring to create dependency (hostage relationship) for the UK on the EU which affords the EU a degree of control over the actions of the UK government.
Why we can’t build import points for US imported LNG is beyond me though if Trump falls and the UK hating democrats achieve power then I can see a democrat POTUS working with the EU to target the UK to damage our future
June 18, 2020
We will, at that point, have no future. Itâs that serious.
June 18, 2020
Good morning.
First let me thank our kind host for raising this and to all those that contacted him and persuade him to have another look.
There is of course losses (voltage) in any electrical system and these losses increase over distance. This can be reduced by upping the voltage and lowering the current, but there is only so much you can do.
We also have to look at interruptions. These can be due to either faults or political machinations. For the former there is little anyone can do when it happens but, with the latter, we must remember that, when we as a customer use only a small percentage of energy we can dictate terms, when we use large amounts and are so dependent on them, they can rule over us.
We have an abundance of energy reserves but have frightened ourselves into not using it. Coal is seen as evil by the Greens, but the Greens seem less keen to discuss the wider use of coal globally. In short, we need a good energy mix.
June 18, 2020
We do need an energy mix. But we do not need coal. It is 2020 – not 1920. Coal will be gone within the decade.
June 18, 2020
Coal is great, there’s lots of it, we sit on an island made of it, it burns well, its cheap…..the only real issue is its by-product, but with technology and a bit of will-power we could be using clean coal
Like they do in Poland, Germany, Turkey, Norway, Austria, France etc…well most still burn coal to some degree
June 18, 2020
my – what a revelation!
June 18, 2020
Not in China.
June 18, 2020
In 2018 coal accounted for over 27% of global primary energy supply. It won’t be gone within the decade, with China building another 46GW of coal fired generating capacity right now.
June 18, 2020
Andy, Coal is one of the raw materials for solar panels.
June 19, 2020
Graphene and graphite are raw materials for some solar panels. The only role of coal might be to provide energy to help build these solar panels.
June 20, 2020
Hefner, Wrong again. Silicon metal is made from the reaction of silica (silicon dioxide, SiO2) and carbon materials like coke, coal and wood chips.
June 18, 2020
Fear not. When the lights start going out, the party that promises to open up coal mines and build coal-fired power stations will be voted in.
June 18, 2020
Everybody is green until the power is out
June 18, 2020
Dave
I’d doubt it. They’d be too busy rioting and pulling down statues.
June 18, 2020
In short we need to ignore the scientifically ignorant, virtue-signalling climate alarmist dopes who seem so determined to render the UK uncompetitive.
Alas parliament and the civil service is stuffed full of such people. Nearly all are arts graduates with little or no grasp of numbers, physics, energy systems, chaotic systems, climate or economics.
June 18, 2020
You are showing yourself up again . It seems to be you against all other scientists .If you need to make such inflated accusations at least give us your paper and evidence.
June 18, 2020
So how does the proposed Government policy tie in with the promotion of electric cars, which will require more generated electric power use.
Here we are sacrificing the motor industry in the guise of going green, and causing all sorts of uncertainty, and it turns out it is perhaps not really green at all.
Like so many government policies, no one seems to have joined up the dots.
June 18, 2020
Good point. Even the most optimistic estimates (by Friends of the Earth) indicate we’ll need at least a 10% increase in power generation capacity and (of course) this isn’t being planned for in advance of the switch to electric vehicles.
June 18, 2020
What they’re not telling you is that most of the population is to be limited to bicycles. The electric cars are for the rich only.
June 18, 2020
Its a model I’ve seen before somewhere
June 18, 2020
At some stage someone will have to be honest and tell the govt that the average hard working voter doesnât want electric cars
June 18, 2020
I do want an electric car. I’d love an electric car. As soon as the range and charging issues are solved, I’ll buy an electric car. Many voters don’t work. Of those that do, not all are ‘hard-working’.
June 18, 2020
Hi Mike – I suspect you would like to add pricing to your list, you may be happy to pay a small premium but I’ll wager not a large premium.
June 18, 2020
Mike W, “As soon as”?? I think you’ll be waiting a long time. Whilst there may be marginal improvements in range in the next few years (at the cost of higher complexity), unless there is a radically better battery technology developed, it won’t happen “soon”.
Moreover, you may find yourself rationed both for the car and for the energy to power it with. That’s because the government is not building the extra generating capacity needed for a widespread take-up of BEVs. So we may have to use Coal for your battery car.
June 20, 2020
Latest city car with a 33KWh battery released in china for ÂŁ7,000, the ORA R1.
It has a range of 300km/187 miles.
How many miles do you think an average working person does in their own car a week?
June 18, 2020
it was hard enough to come up with ”average hard working voters” so not to affend anyone….next time I’ll just say the general public
June 19, 2020
Plus the gas installation industry which will have to switch to heatpumps, which need a third of the KW power of a gas boiler using electricity at s cost already 3x gas and rising. Electricity generation will have to double. Re SEWTHA.
June 18, 2020
Energy policy has been the captive of green interests since the days of the first Blair government. It has resulted in greater energy insecurity, higher energy costs, intense propaganda and, in some cases, remarkably stupid actions in the promotion of the green agenda and a colossal waste of money. Nothing much has changed as governments have changed. The present government is no different. It will likely preside over the final destruction of once substantial industries, and sources of employment, that rely on low cost energy as a primary process resource. In their place cloud cuckoo land reigns supreme.
June 18, 2020
One can only agree with that…
….but when is our government going to wake up to the FACT that man made climate warming/cooling/change is a total swindle — It makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.
MMCC is another insanity that has been PR’d by media to the point of obsession – Just as the media continues to scare people constantly with stories about CV.
The world is literally crossing a boundary, and unless we start making rational decisions all will be lost.
June 18, 2020
Agree totally.
Glad you commented …I was beginning to think that hamsters in treadmills had become a reality and I was the only non believer!
June 18, 2020
+1
June 18, 2020
We need to be more self sufficient in Energy, Food Supply and Medicine.
The problem is also excessive immigration which is resulting in over population and insufficient resources in many areas.
June 18, 2020
Where do you get that idea from? If you comment here you almost certainly vote Tory (Green myself). Tory governments generally like about 300,000 a year as the net immigration figure.
You’ll have to ask your local MP why that is.
June 18, 2020
Mike, Green? I’d never have guessed.
June 18, 2020
This government has been tackling the issue of illegal migration for 11years…any day now they’ll have the problem licked
June 18, 2020
and ideally the design and construction of armaments.
June 18, 2020
A population that is scared is easier to manipulate and govern.
June 18, 2020
Good one, Bryan!
June 18, 2020
Yes. Itâs that serious. 3rd world.
June 18, 2020
We need more Members of Parliament who think along the same lines as you Sir John. Instead of focusing on touchy feely nonsense or appeasing those who shout the loudest like the current shower. When you back down to bullies it generally tends to encourage them. Energy independence and reduced dependency on food imports would be a sensible strategy in an increasingly uncertain world.
June 18, 2020
(You are the ones who shout the loudest. Just sayinâ)
June 18, 2020
Andy, It is you just saying. Which is why only a few anti democratic Remains take any notice of you. Notice how Remain PvL has disappeared now that we’re not extending?
June 18, 2020
Lee Taylor
“We need more Members of Parliament who think along the same lines as you Sir John. Instead of focusing on touchy feely nonsense or appeasing those who shout the loudest like the current shower.”
Problem is, we have MP’s who not only appease the current ‘shower’, but censure and police anyone with the guts to make a stand against it.
They don’t believe we have a right to reciprocate, do unto others etc. They assume divine right to force us to turn the other cheek.
Appeasing left wing activist groups, failing to exact revenge on the president of a foreign country for making direct threats to our sovereignty, then inviting him over for lunch?
They won’t be getting my vote.
June 18, 2020
Iâm afraid few have the wherewithal.
June 18, 2020
Indeed the the people keep electing virtue-signally, politics or envy, magic money tree dopes (or worse still crooks on the make) so often it seems.
June 18, 2020
Aka âprofessional politiciansâ. That is the root of our problems. We need MPs like JR who undertake the work of being an MP as a sacrifice.
June 19, 2020
+1
June 18, 2020
Rather than amateur or academic I want my MPs to be professional, productive and modernising
I donât have a problem calling them professional if theyâre good at their job
I donât want them to be careerists, spineless, power-grabbing clones who believe they are better than the citizens that voted for them
June 18, 2020
All we need is grid-scale energy storage systems, so that our abundant supplies of renewable energy can be utilised when required.
June 18, 2020
Grid scale storage is pie in the sky. To store 5 gigawatt hours of energy would require acres of batteries.
Hydro is the most efficient way to store surplus energy but again it needs acres of land.
It’s the same with carbon capture, it may work on a small scale but not viable for serious use.
It will make electricity costs prohibitive.
June 18, 2020
If only it was so easy…..oh it is
June 18, 2020
I worked in coal fired, oil, gas, nuclear and hydro power stations for 35 years.
Iâm guessing you have never been inside a power station in your life?
Your suggestion is fantasy – trust me!
June 18, 2020
A perpetual motion machine and a magic carpet would be nice too, and just as likely. Storage on the scale required to run on renewable energy is equivalent to over 13,000 Dinorwigs. We don’t have 13,000 locations to put them.
June 18, 2020
Why donât we just wire up lightening and do rain dances when we need some power?
June 18, 2020
Sakara, To put your daydream in perspective – to run the diminished UK Grid for four days in winter when there’s no wind and precious little solar your would need over 68 million Tesla cars (with 70KWhr in their batteries) hooked up to do it.
June 19, 2020
Fine just change the laws of physics and the economics of electrical energy storage. Pass a law to that effect. In the real world however!
June 19, 2020
I always wonder why, after receiving answers detailing why some green ideas just don’t work, Sakara and other green hopefuls come back and repeat their nonsense. Even when they are given references to read they ignore them. 95% of politicians of all parties are like this. Boris, having a good brain but only having studied defunct languages and ancient history seems to be devoid of any technical knowledge and has picked equally gullible ministers.
June 18, 2020
I found it bizarre a few weeks ago when we were Importing power and at the same time paying wind farms not to generate.
Our energy policy is a mess same as immigration and the handling of cross channel illegals.
Get a grip John, your government is proving to be very disappointing.
June 18, 2020
John, after the sad death of Vera Lynn I think you should press Boris for a State Funeral.
June 18, 2020
Hear! Hear! I second that. She helped to keep this Country together during the War years.
June 18, 2020
My Dad’s favourite quote was this:
“O let us never, never doubt what nobody is sure about.”
Me, I think he was terribly wrong. It should read”
“O let us never, never doubt what everyone is sure about.”
Global Warming and Racism.
Look, we depend on electricity.
For heaven’s sake, get some more! It is quite simple: buy some generators! Coal, oil, nuclear all risky. But lights/computers out is catastrophic. Catastrophic.
June 18, 2020
Mike S, So right – generators are risky, but lights out is catastrophic. How have our leaders become so dim?
June 18, 2020
‘We need more energy’
Indeed so. Perhaps Boris can have us dependent upon France, now that he’s invited Macron over as a guest, which in itself is an absolute disgrace and insult to the rest of us.
June 18, 2020
France is in trouble with power generation. Their reactors are old and they thought building Hinkley Point would subsidise their renewal. Instead it is bankrupting them.
June 18, 2020
âA new energy policy suitable for usâ seems unlikely when MPs vote through a commitment to Net Zero in a matter of minutes. China and India are laughing at our sheer stupidity.
June 18, 2020
The best UK website is notalotofpeopleknowthat.com It’s proprietor, Paul Homewood, does a great job of tracking the renewable energy difficulties and he has recently produced a guide to the current subsidies enjoyed by ‘cheap’ wind and solar energy. I would like to see a summary of these costs on every utility bill, to clarify to all just how much it is costing us.
June 18, 2020
Chris if you look at a site called The Renewable Energy Foundation you will find many costs abd figures fir subsidies and constraint payments for wind particularly in Scotland. Information supplied and very reliable by Dr John Constable.
June 18, 2020
Apparently the government is planning to spend tens of millions of pounds on what they are calling a âshock and aweâ advertising campaign to prepare me for Brexit. Odd, because they also tell me Brexit has happened.
If Brexit is so wonderful why do they need to spend tens of millions of taxpayers money on a âshock and aweâ campaign to prepare us for it?
Apparently they are a bit worried that most Brexit voters donât think they have anything to prepare for. (Oops).
Oh, by the way, apparently the new blue passports are not very good. As well as being made in Poland they are apparently very flimsy and look black.
Meanwhile the British factory, in Gateshead, which used to make the old burgundy passports is closing down with the loss of hundreds of jobs.
Going well, isnât it?
June 18, 2020
Great news donât you think that the U.K. is to join the CPTPP, that it looks like there might be a sensible arrangement with the EU & that trade talks with the US are going full speed ahead?
Iâd suggest there is something you do need to prepare for the end of the translation period – nothing much changes and everyone asks after a few months what all the fuss was about. Meanwhile new trade deals, de-regulation and tax cutting free market policies generate a new economic boom.
It could be rather a difficult time for you. We will be thinking of you.
June 18, 2020
Transition period
June 18, 2020
You sound like the BBC and Andrew Marr’s favourite sound bytes echo echo…
June 18, 2020
We are all More Than Ready for Brexit, but the establishment are in shock and in awe at the fact that they will have to work for their salaries.
So Brexit is going VERY well. Thank you.
June 18, 2020
I fully agree with the fundamental point that the interconnectors should be there for load balancing only. Itâs very foolish to depend on them for baseload power.
Itâs time to put the engineers back in charge. The game theorists and greenwashers have done enough damage.
June 18, 2020
Off topic: No-one at all will be surprised that the NHS has failed dismally in their attempt to build a tracking app. Its launch has now been postponed into the distant future with “winter” being offered up as a deadline. “Trails show people preferred to be contacted by a person rather than an app” they feebly say as if they think we are all thick – if I sit next to someone on a train say for a couple of hours and talk to them then I get Covid symptoms how can I tell the contact tracer who that person was ? I don’t know. But if we both had the app it would work. You can think of all sorts of situations where this would be the case. I heard rumours the NHS had paid massively over the odds to a USA company for developing the app – how much ?
June 18, 2020
Most of these so called apps seem to be in difficulty around the world
I switch off my bluetooth now. The ones that work are those tracking your mobile signal and credit card usage. South Korea. Very Orwellian.
June 18, 2020
And subsequent to my earlier post, I’m delighted that a British company is building a liquid air energy storage system near Manchester.
The worldâs biggest liquid air battery started construction last week – another example of how the UK leads in renewable energy technology.
June 18, 2020
The liquid air will power a 50mw turbine for 5 hours. If and only if they use excess renewable energy will they be competitive. If we have to pay a premium to run them at peak demand then it becomes just another green subsidy.
June 18, 2020
More boffins looking for subsidies. In reality, the system round trip efficiency is poor. The real efficiency is under 50% (it can be as low as 25%), and declines if the energy stored isnât used promptly, as the store gradually heats up and liquid air boils off, which has to be topped up with added cooling. They like to ignore âfreeâ heat used to rewarm the liquid air derived from e.g. a power station cooling water supply, and âfreeâ coolth e.g. from regasifying LNG in presenting apparently better figures.
Itâs basically a technology looking for subsidies from one source or another.
June 18, 2020
Here is a concept which may enable a brainstorm group to develop an energy policy recommendation:
Govt should abolish VAT on all goods and services and replace its income with a single rate of tax applied to electricity at source.
What would happen?
June 18, 2020
The return of gas fires, gas cookers and gaslights. Fanny would return.
June 19, 2020
Mike W, The majority of people already have gas boilers, so they do not need to “return” to them.
June 18, 2020
The cost of zero carbon emissions by 2050 /2035 depending on which reports one reads places Boris and Carrie in a difficult place .
There are huge calls on cash for Covid recovery so their answer is to gain control of the DFID budget and use that to fund our â strategicâ interests as part of the FCO..
So we poor taxpayers will either have to pour money down corrupt throats abroad or waste it on green nonsense at home .
Just another way of wasting our money .
June 18, 2020
You don’t seem to get it, we are involved in a Marxist inspired culture war , one moment they want us to bow and scrape to the EU, next they want us to prostrate ourselves to St Greta, now get on bended knee to Black Lives Matter and rip out our history. Our failure to be energy self sufficient is part of this, for to be concerned about it would be deemed nationalistic, nativist, little Englanders.
I realise Sir John Redwood that you don’t want to go there and would much rather discus the dry subject of economics , but that is not going to matter if we lose the culture war. I am sure middle class Chinese people didn’t want to go there when Mao’s cultural revolution was visited on them, but that didn’t save them.
On the EU we, the public , had EUsceptics in Parliament and UKIP prepared to make the argument, with the result the combination of the two, public and political , won through, but on this culture war there is hardly a whimper of protest coming from our political class as the Marxists march through our institutions.
June 18, 2020
+1
June 19, 2020
Iain Moore, A first class comment. Our civilisation is falling not because we have been militarily conquered, but because we have just stopped believing in ourselves. “We” being our establishment who hates ordinary English people with a passion, but won’t relinquish power.
You know that the rampaging far left gangs don’t give a damn about slavery, because if they did they would be doing something about modern slavery, rather than uselessly vandalising statues of people dead for 300 years.
June 19, 2020
we are ruled by the MSM
June 18, 2020
As I said in my unpublished contribution yesterday, we are the one country in Europe that can take full advantage of tidal power and should be developing this technology.
We should also be planning a whole new chain of Nuclear stations on a single design to achieve economies of scale, either alone, or with the French who have to replace at least 40 of their aging stations in the next 30 years. Enormous savings could be made by combining both the design and production of components for up to 75 stations.
Nuclear and Tidal are the only green methods of generating power that are 100% reliable.
It would be foolish indeed to build more solar and wind farms because just when we need it most, in the winter, they produce the least output.
June 18, 2020
Tidal is 100% reliable and 100% variable. The maximum tidal energy was worked out by the late Prof MacKay and it was a small % of the total. Also, the idea of the different sites supplying at different times to smooth the output doesn’t work because the tide times are similar.
June 19, 2020
I agree Tidal is the future.
June 18, 2020
Rubbish. Tidal power is neither reliable nor cheap. It provides power not necessarily when you need it and at slack water it produces nothing.
The turbines are subject to massive erosion and dredging is required continuously.
Cardiff bay wanted overÂŁ100 per megawatt indexed linked for 30years.
Not a good deal.
June 18, 2020
Well, actually, wind produces more power in the winter. And the sun constantly delivers in an hour the amount of energy used by the whole world in a year. We must be pretty thick if, even allowing for the oceans taking up a lot of space and some land areas not getting much light, we can’t harness that to get clean, cheap energy forever.
June 19, 2020
Mike W, If you still think Wind and Solar are cheap and clean you need to watch Michael Moore’s latest film “Planet of the Humans” (directed by Jeff Gibbs).
June 18, 2020
Even the Severn, with a 54 ft rise and fall, with turbines Going both ways with the incoming and falling tide, is not viable. We have known that since Cecil Parkinson was Energy Secretary.
Those who donât know history are condemned to repeat it. Deadly dull.
June 18, 2020
Two Scottish companies were bunged a lot of money to develop tidal power and both went bust with no positive results.
June 19, 2020
Interesting, the French have had the âUsine maree motrice de la Ranceâ for 45 years producing 240 MW, about 25% of the electricity for Brittany. How comes that Britain is not able to make a similar system working in this country?
Is the problem history, technology, finances or politics?
June 18, 2020
This is quite crazy, and is clearly one of many things which will come out of the woodwork as we leave the EU. Governments really have been too lazy these past 75 years.
June 18, 2020
Owen Paterson proposed in a splendid speech around 5 years ago that we invest in small modular reactors, but no, we opted for the behemoth Hinkley point using a design not yet working anywhere, vastly over budget and years behind schedule. Then we had Alok Sharma boasting how the UK is a leader in offshore wind in a week when wind dropped to 0.5% of our electricity supply.
Yes, you are so right, we do need more energy but it needs to be available all the time, not just when the wind blows, and it needs to be economic – hence gas (and if we want to avoid Russian dependence resume fracking) and SMRs.
June 18, 2020
So the UK is working towards acceptance of a foreign hand reaching for our power switch?
June 18, 2020
Offshoring our green horrors so we can look clean is just a complete an utter fudge.
Why would a Conservative government do this?
Relying on other Countries for vital pharmaceuticals, test kits and PPE has killed people in the UK and locked us up for three months!!!
June 18, 2020
Thatâs what the Germans do. They are ânuclear freeâ because their nuclear power comes from France. Incidentally, who pays for The decommissioning of the French nuclear plant? Another good reason to exit the EU ASAP?
June 18, 2020
Millions of houses to be built – more electricity.
Millions more people waved in – to use ( but can’t pay for) more electricity.
New houses shortly to be blocked from having a gas supply – so can only use more electricity.
Electric vehicles – to use more electricity. Presumably vast majority being charged overnight – cables out across pavements for those without a garage? Could the system cope, nope.
Glad i’ll be gone.
June 18, 2020
25000 houses have been built nearby and new residents moved in. There is no extra infrastructure nor services so why has council tax gone up ?
Well. We’ve had nothing but job cuts in recent years so one must assume the new residents are on welfare.
June 18, 2020
PS, the crime rates have gone up and assaults on police (previously non existent) are on the up too.
June 18, 2020
Interesting topic, thanks for highlighting it. It is clear how skewed our electricity, power and energy policy has become since the straightforward and clear market economy in the sector which came in following privatisation in the 80s and 90s. I hope you are being listened to in government.
June 18, 2020
Building power stations with tax payers money is neither vote catching nor sexy, so for decades the decisions to build have repeatedly been kicked into the long grass. Now with the policy to ditch coal and gas we have a minister slipping in legislation, hopefully un-noticed, that will make us reliant for electricity on member states of the EU.
This is as daft as Germany linking up to Russia for its gas. We are regaining our sovereignty and taking back control of our borders and our laws and quietly leaving the master switch in the middle of the EU so that they can plunge us into darkness and bring this country to a stand still any time they choose.
CV19 has put paid to the third runway at Heathrow and we should cancel HS2 then there will more than enough money to sort out our power supply
Off topic.
We have Macron here today and he is going to be dropping into No 10 for chat. The PM is likely to get a mixture of veiled threats and a sob story over unemployed fishermen. He must not give a single inch of ground, because, as I have said before, both he and the Tory party will be politically dead for the foreseeable future.
Be resolute Prime Minister, Macron will get over it or be voted out in due course. They, both France and the EU, need us more than we need them and Macron will not win any friends from the other 26 states if he was to disrupt trade across the channel.
June 18, 2020
“CV19 has put paid to the third runway at Heathrow and we should cancel HS2 then there will more than enough money to sort out our power supply”
Plus existing railways have been made virtually obsolete by homeworking or commuters going bust. No justification for HS2 now.
June 18, 2020
For doctrinaire reasons you sell off a state owned enterprise.
You often break up natural monopolies in the course of doing this. So a fully integrated national resource becomes a hotchpotch of this and that. Frequent changes of ownership within the new companies donât help.
Instead of leaving the companies to their own devices, you have to persuade them to do the job the former state enterprise performed by a series of over-generous, long term contracts. New power stations with dubious outcomes, such as Hinckley Point, are agreed upon at enormous expense to the taxpayer.
Meanwhile the increasing likelihood of power shortages at critical periods is known about – but not addressed.
The British public looks on powerless while their utility bills rise.
June 19, 2020
Peter, For doctrinaire reasons you demand state owned enterprises.
June 18, 2020
I know nothing about power, but I have to say that it is typical that Home based forms and people are disadvantaged by our tax system.
Itâs about time that was changed across the board.
June 18, 2020
Sir keir Starmer was pathetic in Parliament yesterday dodging the question of whether he is Prepared to agree that schools are safe for children to return to. Again we see the baleful effect on childrenâsâ lives and prospects of the leftwing teaching unions who have been actively undermining attempts to get schools back, and the hold these dysfunctional Organisations have on the Labour Party.
June 18, 2020
OK on Starmer and I understand he is being asked because his paymasters in the Union are pulling his strings but 1 in 5 children did very little to no schoolwork throughout lockdown (2 million affected children). 4 in 10 pupils not in contact regularly with their teachers. Where is Gavin Williamson – why haven’t the stats to show how a safe return can be achieved been done, how has France done since reopening mid-May.
There are people in this blog’s comments saying teachers are teaching, we are often told key workers children are being educated. Why can’t the government use these examples of spread, risk and infection to determine safety through the course of the most aggressive part of this pandemic? Why can’t teachers do one to one phone coaching if they can’t do internet coaching with children and get lessons on paper handed out and back in on a Friday to mark the following week. Someone needs to take control of this and if teachers won’t teach with children in front of them, get them back in the classroom to set work on paper for parents to collect and mark work or lay them off work and stop paying them and get in tutors to do it.
June 18, 2020
It is called Prime Ministers Questions. This is because it is supposed to involve the prime minister actually answering questions. (Though Mr Johnson does not seem to understand this).
Sir Keir is not yet prime minister. He is Leader of the Opposition. If you want him to answer questions vote for him at the next election.
June 18, 2020
It should be called ‘Leader of the Opposition questions’. The PM tends to do the answering not the asking.
June 18, 2020
That was his pathetic answer. Ed milliband used to use that line when he couldnât decide or wasnât allowed to say what his opinion was. It didnât work out too well.
June 19, 2020
Andy, No one (of any sense) wants to vote for a pig-in-a-poke, so of course the opposition leader must answer questions about his policies.
June 18, 2020
When it comes to something as basic but highly important to all as electricity, what we need is joined up thinking, planning and organisation but at arms-length from govt, that whilst operating in a financially responsibly way does not allow a profit motive to cloud judgements as to best practice and future needs etc. – I know, we could call it the “Central Electricity Generating Board” (CEGB for short), we could even have regional distribution boards, selling electricity to the end users at the cheapest possible price for their sector. Ho-hum…….. đ
June 18, 2020
NHS Covid app is not going to be ready for months. Well that is not a surprise, many of us were bemused at the Government thinking the Civil Service could produced any computer programme on time or something that worked.
Isn’t it time egos were put aside, toes stepped on and the Government took an app off the shelf that works?
June 18, 2020
For those unaware of the exact, real time, energy use in the country please look at http://www.gridwatch.co.uk This gives a breakdown of exactly where and how our power is generated including the inter connectors.
June 18, 2020
As I type, we are Importing 6% of demand from France and Holland and wind is providing 5%. Solar 6%. So 83%remaining is majority Gas or Nuclear.
Wind is providing only 19% of installed capacity. We’re being conned by the green blob.
June 18, 2020
The Greens should be invited to show us how to live without energy and the modern infrastructure it powers.
Greta can go first.
June 18, 2020
Youâre being too generous the âgreensâ should be ignored (they only received 1% of the vote at the last election)
June 18, 2020
…and she can also try the insect diet they are proposing.
June 18, 2020
+1
June 18, 2020
Cheers
June 18, 2020
Agree but like any number of issues is there actually anybody listening. Surely there must be somebody looking over the horizon to anticipate future problems. No – then no surprise there then.
June 18, 2020
There is a long list of capabilities we must become self reliant on once again, energy and food top the list.
But you have made the taskso much harder by the lax stewardship of our physical and intellectual assets, one result being the high degree of “UK” companies that are actually foreign owned and controlled.
PS my comment yesterday on the headline topic has not appeared so briefly – France accounts for half (2GW) our interconnector capacity but are significantly reducing their nuclear fleet with 14 reactors being decommissioned by 2035 and no new sites approved. So where is the European excess going to come from then?
June 18, 2020
Independent power generation is a screamingly obvious necessity.
Like many decisions, those within have done things to deliberately weaken us.
June 18, 2020
Every one with any commonsense knows that if we pursue the green agenda, we will fall short on our nation’s energy supply. I suspect that is the reason that smart meters are being pushed on us by the state and energy companies. The roll out of these meters will allow energy companies to charge different rates for power at different times.
Of course we should be self sufficient in power, food and military kit and many other things. We cannot claim to be a truly independent state if we are reliant on other countries for essential items because that gives them power over us.
June 18, 2020
Of course we wouldn’t need more energy, more water, more houses, more everything if the Establishment didn’t create a ballooning population by facilitating mass immigration, both legal and ‘illegal’.
June 18, 2020
This must not simply be stopped but reversed!
June 18, 2020
Off topic.
The local grammar has been putting their kids through their paces with all-day online lessons and homework. They are now back to school on a rota basis.
The comprehensive teacher next door appears to be on a permanent bank holiday. Sunbathing, out on trips in the car every day…
Surely lessons could be done through a smart TV or a game station – these things are more powerful than the computers my sons are completing their degrees on. Every ‘poor’ household I know has them.
June 18, 2020
It’s time the Comprehensive School boss took control.
If it isn’t safe for pupils it is safe for teachers to return to the classroom and ensure a full days work is done.
June 18, 2020
Yes, my near neighours are doing 2 days a week. They have been warned they may have to forgo their summer break as the school may stay open. That equates to half a week on full pay. Many are not doing on line tutorials.
June 18, 2020
Good post.
If U.K. insists on continuing down a carbon free future then any import (energy or otherwise) that does not pay an equivalent carbon charge (through tax or trading) should face a border adjustment tax.
As I’ve mentioned before, I would prefer U.K. to adopt carbon tax plus dividend plus border adjustment then to continue with an emissions trading scheme. The dividend should form a small contribution towards a UBI.
June 18, 2020
As I explained in my moderated post, interconnectors do not solve the problem of providing backup when wind and solar fail in the middle of winter. In anticyclonic conditions there may be no wind and large systems can cover Western Europe. We have already seen the Belgian and other countries running on insufficient supply in these conditions when there was a failure in nuclear because of maintenance and not enough gas and coal. These conditions can last for over a week and storage only can supply for part of a day or hours. The continental countries will not supply the UK when they also are facing blackouts. Re. Mackay Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air.
June 18, 2020
We need to ditch all the renewable subsidies and the energy market rigging by foolish governments, to ditch carbon taxes and red tape and force renewables to compete on a level playing field. We need to get fracking and go ahead with some sensible some nuclear plants (Hinckley C is not the right solution). We need to have resilience so we are never too dependent on exported electricity.
We do not need any carbon capture schemes (Sunak please note), they are very energy wasteful and very expensive and pointless too. The sensitivity of the climate to CO2 (and the alleged positive feedback mechanisms) have been hugely exaggerated. This is surely quite clear (their projection and model were clearly wrong. Even more wrong than the 500,000 UK Covid deaths predictions.
June 18, 2020
Why don’t you just take a web page somewhere – write down all the stuff you repeat on here, ad nauseam – and then, instead of repeating it ad nauseam – you could just post a link to your web page. It would save you a lot of typing and save people from reading the same stuff over and over and over and over and over again.
June 18, 2020
Slightly more CO2 and slightly warmer has more positives than negatives anyway in greening the planet and increasing tree growth & crop yields. CO2 is after all plant and tree food that the plants, trees and seaweed kindly convert back into oxygen for us to breath and food for humans (and other animals, fish and insects) to eat.
Even if you are a believer in the CO2 devil gas religion the CO2 saved by the UK using renewables is absolutely trivial in the scheme of things anyway. Some greencrap policies and renewables and electric cars even increase CO2 and greenhouse gas output and export jobs too.
June 18, 2020
Actually CO2 enhancement is used in the glasshouse crop production of lettuce and tomatoes. Growers actually pump CO2 into glasshouses
June 18, 2020
Indeed they do. And most plant have evolved under conditions of higher atmospheric concentrations of CO2. They can use less water too with higher CO2 levels.
June 18, 2020
This government should erect a new statue to Dame Vera Lynn
June 18, 2020
Someone will find a reason to deface or want it taken down
June 18, 2020
Her song about the White cliffs of Dover will offend someone.
June 18, 2020
Surely those racist cliffs will have to go? Must be a footballer somewhere who can guide the PM Into âdoing what is rightâ and get rid of them.
June 18, 2020
Lynn love your reply.
June 18, 2020
We should build some of the latest US designed coal fired power stations. The exhaust from the chimneys of these is so comprehensivley filtered that it is of similar constitution to the human breath
June 18, 2020
What with garlick and the likes?
June 18, 2020
Off topic but current. It is reported that the governments review into social distancing will set back the date the hospitality sector can open even further. Ffs, does it matter in relation to the financial carnage you are causing and in any event who is going to take much notice nor go around with a tape measure policing it. Totally unworkable and even more confusion from a governing class intent on continuing to prove that it is out of touch and has lost touch with reality.
June 18, 2020
There is a distinct feeling of a PM in office but not in power.
The devastation out here is starting to show. It is clear that very many businesses will not be reopening and there will be unemployment and misery beyond anything we have seen.
The cure will be far more lethal than the illness and this will be evident by Autumn if not before.
I literally cannot believe what I am seeing.
June 18, 2020
You are right, Anonymous, and our clueless politicians in positions of power dither and delay, apparently unaware of the unfolding disaster. The latest issue with regard to opening of restaurants and 2 m guidance still in place demonstrates the politicians’ ignorance of the practicalities of running businesses.
I suspect that legally speaking the government would not have a case to prosecute those restaurateurs who were unable to enforce the 2 m guidance, as I believe it is just that, “guidance” and not the law.
June 19, 2020
I too am seeing it. It is on the look of a lot of people’s faced. FEAR over CV19 and FEAR about the future.
What I fear is, when people no longer have anything to hope for the fabric of society breaks down. Perhaps that is why they brought in those new powers ?
June 20, 2020
Well, the only thing for which commenters such as you seem to hope is for bad things to happen to people whom you groundlessly hate.
So if you are all left with no hope, then so much the better for the world.
I’ll drink to that.
June 18, 2020
This morning at 8.00am I went to a market town to let Northern Powergrid into one of my properties to replace their dangerous connection (18 months after reporting the bare cable). The roads had cones blocking off all parking on both sides âwidening the pavements for the mass of 3 shoppers.â Hundreds of cones – the whole town centre reduced to a single lane.
This evening I went back to lock up. There are 7 cones remaining.
Seems the British people are sorting out much of this nonsense themselves.
June 18, 2020
O/T Thanks when and where they are due: I got a message from HMRC Self-Assessment giving me the possibility to postpone the payment due before end of July 2020 till January 2021. A bit tricky to find the spot where the message is stored but at least it was a good news. So thanks to HMRC. (I never thought I would write such a thing!)
June 18, 2020
Furthermore, why we are paying entities to stop importing power and wind farms to curtail their output is beyond comprehension.â
Exactly. To save this country from the extinction of its once-powerful industrial and commercial industries bought about by a complete energy policy driven by ignorance, incompetence and arrogance over decades from our elected politicians We need 500+ members of parliament that think and understand the power generation process and distribution network, like you and your anonymous informer.
June 18, 2020
Off this topic but I see that the Government now says their coronavirus tracing app is “no longer a priority” and may launch sometime this winter.
“World beating” ineptitude and bluster from day one.
Meanwhile the Germans have launched their app and made it freely available to the world.
Just once it would be good if something the government did or said turned out to work or be true. But that seems too much to ask of this shower.
June 18, 2020
No I see that following Jimmy Wale’s offer to pay for us to switch to the German model the government is switching to the Google/Apple API.
It seems embarassment is the only way to get this shower to do the right thing.
It didn’t take a lot of knowledge to foresee this mess – I managed it – in fact everyone except the government predicted it.
June 19, 2020
As todayâs Daily Mail has it: âHow many more corona fiascos? After PPE and testing shambles, minister scraps his own virus tracing app … and new version may not even be ready by winter!â World-beating, isnât it?
June 18, 2020
Why no editing feature on this site?
June 18, 2020
Sir John you are moving towards state owned strategic Utilities and Transport systems. Which I agree with. But remember Mrs Thatcher started privatization. Was it really a benefit the ordinary consumer in the long or even the short run ?
June 18, 2020
We should, as a “Free” Nation, be prepared, at the very least, to review the rewarding abilities of the modern coal-fired power stations (HELE).
The EU obsession with cutting CO2 emissions will surely condemn the people to a future of ultra high imported energy prices.
We must utilise our own resources to become completely energy independent and gain the best results for the British people and never again worry about the rest of Europe.
China, India the USA and LOL, Germany, are building new Coal-Fired Power Stations so it is a nonsense to think little Britain could have such a devastating effect on the world if we followed these get-ahead Nations.
June 18, 2020
John, as I commented yesterday. As one who works in the energy industry the UK absolutely has the ability to generate all of the power we need from a range of fuel sources. However we still need to look at energy security and building storage capacity for gas. The last time I checked we carried around 5 days storage compared to Germany and France at something like 100+ days. Gas generation would be the obvious way forward as facilities can be built relatively quickly, its less carbon emissions than coal and does not rely on the wind blowing to generate. We have trillions of cubic feet of Shale gas available but the government has walked away from Fracking and put it into the ‘too difficult’ bucket. I’m afraid until the government show leadership and change policies the interconnectors and interference from the EU are hear to stay.
June 18, 2020
We also need to consider what seems to be a push to rely on more and more wind and solar. All’s well (mostly) when the sun is shining and the wind blowing.What happens in December in the early morning when its dark below zero and virtually no wind. Are we to rely on batteries?
June 18, 2020
Stuff December 31st. We need to be fully out and away from everything connected to the âŹU much sooner.
In 5 days time it will be FOUR YEARS since we voted BY A MAJORITY to leave the âŹU – ample time, despite what the doom-mongers of ‘Project-Fear’ would have us believe – for ‘deals’ and arrangements to be arrived at.
The âŹU do not WANT a deal, because for there to be one, is an acknowledgement that we ARE leaving and that their project is at an end; other states will follow…. which is why it is also imperative for them to financially destroy the economy of the departing state ‘pour encourager les autres’. Everything they have done thus far, are doing now, and will do in the coming months is geared toward that.
At each ‘milestone’ along the road since the referendum on 23/6/2016 :-
– Declaration of Article 50 on 29/3/17,
– 2 years later on 29/3/19 when the statutory 2 year ‘negotiation’ period ended,
– On 12/4/19~22/5/19 (dependent on Theresanous May’s WAG passing through Parliament,
– 31/10/19 bill for a no-deal exit
– Prorogation of Parliament
– General Election Day 12/12/19
– DDay – Departure-Day 20/1/20….. they have sought to ‘reset the clock’ and throw out anything and everything that had previously been negotiated with the words “it is impossible to do a deal in the time remaining”.
Well Mesdames et Messieurs, meine Damen und Herren – YOU’VE HAD MORE THAN ENOUGH TIME.
Sir John, I would be pleased if you would suggest to the Prime Minister that he instruct David Frost to TELL (not just advise) the âŹU Commissioners that the UK is bringing forward the date at which the ‘transition’ ends, from 31st December 2020 to 21st October 2020.
In these insane blm’ing times the country needs a tonic – probably with a Gin in it, or indeed a stiff tot of Rum – and with that good news the country could toast our final departure from the âŹU whilst simultaneously raising a glass to The Admiral.
I commend the suggestion to the Honourable Member and to The House !
June 18, 2020
fully concur with your comments
June 18, 2020
The entire delay – every single day of it – has been caused by the complete and utter incompetence of the Brexiteers.
You could have left two years ago if youâd have not been quite so clueless.
June 19, 2020
Where are you posting from Andy? I take it that you do not live in the UK, and nor are you likely to be a UK Citizen, otherwise you would have said “We could have left…” rather than “You could have left…”.
June 19, 2020
clearly living in this hostile lonely world where everybody is to blame where outcomes don’t suit his idealistic vision.
June 19, 2020
Problem is Graham, apart from our diarist , honourable members qualify as a rare breed.
June 18, 2020
What is the meaning of “take back control” if we are planning to give away our energy independence to the EU?
Sir Redwood, you are absolutely correct to be concerned with the implications of 20% of our energy coming from the EU.
This decision is an intersection between pro-EU and the EU which would like nothing better than to have this huge leverage on the UK’s future.
Joining them are the mad Greens who dream of a depopulated UK going back to 15th century rural idyll.
Last but not least is our treasury, which likes this because it absolves them of the obvious: pay and develop our own local energy generation.
June 18, 2020
Plus one
June 18, 2020
A country that has to import electricity is not an independent sovereign country. We need to become energy efficient without building more windmills. For now we might have to import basic fuels, but at least those may be stockpiled.
Binning the ridiculous Green Agenda would be a good start. Pollution of course is a different matter.
June 18, 2020
I see Drax in the news today; I wonder what bright spark thought burning American wood would be better than Yorkshire coal. Likely its an attempt at false accounting to get round the Climate Change Act which needs to be repealed anyway.
June 18, 2020
correct, please forgive my pun but its all smoke and mirrors
June 18, 2020
are you getting all steamed up about it?
June 18, 2020
Lunacy. All done so ministers can (wrongly) claim that x% of UK energy (actually electricity only) comes from “low carbon” sources. But coal is just old wood and they both emit similar CO2 levels per KWHour generated.
June 19, 2020
LL, is there not a difference between presently growing trees (which essentially absorb CO2 when growing and releasing it when burnt or decomposing) and trees of the Carboniferous period (which release CO2 absorbed in that period, 300 million years ago)?
June 19, 2020
The EU decided that cutting Ametican trees down, pelleting them, transporting these to a port and across the Atlantic to another port and then by railway to Drax and burning them with less efficiency than coal was.. er.. Carbon neutral. The late Prof Sir David MacKay worked out that it wasn’t by a long way and told Sir Ed Davey who had been put in charge of DECC, who replied “Shit”. We are still paying over the odds for burning the stuff.
June 18, 2020
There are 2 commodities that should be free of imports namely
1. Essential food supply
2. Energy
In respect to 1 I recognise that warmer climate produce does complement home grown so imports from the nearest supplier is required that avoids environmentally damaging mileage, so that’s Southern Europe rather than further afield.
In respect to 2 we need a home produced energy supply and not imported especially focusing on electricity generated in Britain, wind, solar, nuclear (I think coal fired power stations are all finished and the private sector will not touch coal because of public protests). We need to rely less on gas – as fracking became a big public protest so is not economically worth it for the private sector (use more solar and gravity heat pumps)and oil (use more electric cars)as both will eventually run out.
Here we can debate all we like about the clean use of coal or indeed fracking, however we seem to be constantly heading towards the French style of mass protests when it comes to some types of energy sources. So we probably have to be more creative.
June 18, 2020
I suspect your informed source is anything but. He appears to be as clueless as your regular commenters, about how inter-connectors work, and how they make money inside the rules that govern the EU inter-connector market system.
To quote Ofgem “inter-connectors derive their revenues from congestion revenues. Congestion revenues are dependent on the existence of price differentials between markets at either end of the inter-connector. European legislation governs how capacity is allocated. It requires all interconnection capacity to be allocated to the market via market based methods, i.e. auctions. It also includes specific conditions on how revenues are used.”
There are currently a further 8 GW of inter-connectors scheduled for construction, in addition to the 4 GW already in operation. That level of private investment is because the UK is a high price market for electricity and profitable to export into.
Modern HVDC inter-connectors have the ability to transmit both real and reactive power to aid system stability on AC Grids that, at times in the UK, will have a large proportion of low inertia renewable generation on line (wind and solar).
Disconnecting the UK from the European Gas and Electric Networks, would be an act of economic suicide, if not treason, by the ERG 62.
June 18, 2020
Phew – lets hope the EU does not disconnect from the Russian gas networks because such âdisconnection would be an act of economic suicide, if not treason, by the ???âđđ
June 19, 2020
All you do is confirm what we believe. That we are be overcharged compared to the rest and that shutting down our ability to produce our own cheap energy further puts us under their control.
June 18, 2020
bigneil – quite agree. Pity JR can’t comment on this if he agrees or not. Probably he doesn’t dare to reveal his mind in case other MPs jump on him.
June 18, 2020
Not a lot of coverage of the Small Modular Reactor – Rolls Royce are taking a leading role in this important project which has the potential of a dramatic change of direction with regard our electricity generation. A single SMR would have the equivalent output of approx. 150 onshore wind turbines and with none of the variable output due to vagaries with the weather – a convincing low-carbon power alternative!
June 18, 2020
What happened to good old-fashioned competition to achieve a lower priced product to consumers?
June 19, 2020
Yonks ago I wrote to Rolls Royce suggesting that their submarine atomic power plants could be designed for national power generation. They did not answer so I assumed they prefered a low profile. Apart from the technology there are two considerations. A dedicated supply of cooling water and security. Which is why I suggest they be located on military bases where resevoirs can be created. We don’t want any vulnarability to the great unwashed.
June 18, 2020
Back to Virus topic.
Hancock also points to a report by Public Health England which shows that last week, for the first week since mid-March, the number of people who died was no higher than is normal at this time of year.
Conclusion: – either ‘to be expected’ deaths currently are lower than normal? – – OR the deaths attributed to Covid are not the cause.
The former might be true if deaths by way of work/transport incidents or deaths resulting from less pollution causes. Which is it?
June 18, 2020
I often find myself smiling as I read the comments on here. Most of you are dyed-in-the-wool Tories – yet all you do is moan about what Tory governments get up to. Do you not notice a pattern here?
June 18, 2020
Indeed well the Conservative party had been led by Socialist PM dopes for most of my life. Heath, Major, Cameron, May, Boris? …….. even Thatcher made huge and predicatable errors.
June 18, 2020
But better than the appalling alternaives of Foot, Kinnock, Bliar, Brown, Ed tombe stone Miliband, Corbyn and Starmer.
June 18, 2020
At least here on Sir John’s diary we can let off steam in the hope he takes notice and updates the Party on what ex-voters are thinking. I say ex-voters because if this continues I believe lots on here will not bother to vote again – unless Farage rises from the ashes! If us politically interested people can seethe with frustration, what on earth are the couldn’t care less electorate thinking?
June 18, 2020
A pretty sad conclusion, one however I fully agree with
June 19, 2020
Nigel has created the Reform Party. Its mere creation may be cause for concern in the corridors of power.
June 18, 2020
We have not had a Tory Government since 1990.
June 19, 2020
Only the unthinking are dyed in the wool anything. They are the sheep destined to be taken for granted.
June 18, 2020
O/T, and yet not, as what is the point of actually discussing policy you advocate when in power you apparently just give way? This tweet sums it up admirably:
Soutiam
@Souts_Alivand
Hey, what’s actually the point of the Conservative Party winning elections if sections of the left can force their ideas on us *without* winning elections whilst so-called conservatives sit in silence?”
June 18, 2020
That tweet is very accurate and sums up the current political climate
June 19, 2020
Very pertinent.
June 18, 2020
You need more indigenous energy, frack it,
June 18, 2020
Build it….and they will come
June 19, 2020
+1
June 18, 2020
Johnson is now behaving like Theresa May in negotiations with the EU airing random proposals in public that signal his willingness to capitulate only for the EU to reject them. One disparate at the lunacy of repeating an approach that has been proven to fail. He needs to say we will NEVER accepting LPF and that EU exporters will pay tariffs from January if they canât accept that. He should be insisting that the EU changes itâs negoatiating mandate or talks end this month. If he doesnât the EU will interpret that as him accepting an agreement will be within the scope of their current mandate.
June 18, 2020
I urge you all to look at this site.
Ref.org.uk
It gives some jaw dropping figures for constraint payments made mainly to Scottish wind farms. The figures are appalling. Developers are still clamoring to erect more wind farms in Scotland as many have realised they can earn more to switch off rather than operate. Our government is a disgrace. Do they not know what is going on or do they not care?
June 19, 2020
Cutting renewable subsidies is probably illegal and anyway is not a good look for a law abiding government. So the renewable sector will cpntinue ripping off the consumer.
The answer is simple. Tax the windfall profit — there is a precedent. That nice Mr Brown can advise.
JF
June 19, 2020
Breaking: Facebook is now censoring the President of the United States
June 20, 2020
It’s the same as with agriculture. We shouldn’t import too much energy for reasons of military preparedness. Independence and sovereignty come at a price, which is that we have to a measure of self sufficiency in order to defend ourselves.
In any event, our balance of payments and our State debt are not exactly rosy, are they?
June 20, 2020
If energy is an issue, what is the status on restarting the geothermal energy programs? The UK had good development underway in this area, until the research was moved to France in 1994, at the EU’s behest.
Already in this country, one scheme the British government deemed ‘too small’ to be useful was privately completed and now sells energy back to the grid. Several of the research papers suggest that the North Sea is a very good location for development, which would provide continued employment as the oil revenues decline.
As many of these resources are in the north, it would create both comparatively green and renewable energy, and jobs in areas that badly need them.
June 27, 2020
Agree
Our power policy is being driven by the false CO2 agenda, and is therefore sub-optimal, leading to expensive energy, and in case of windfarms unpredictable production not matched to demand. It makes our manufacturing industry uncompetitive against fossil fuel users such as China and India and Germany.
Need and unbiased technical commission to look at the evidence about CO2 – much evidence indicates warming effect of CO2 is insignificant, and the warming theories arise from a contrived computer program.
If we still wish to avoid fossil fuels we should
1) Build our own nuclear reactors – without foreign involvement (definitely no to China)
2) Ask Norway if we could generate large scale hydroelectricity from some of their lakes (and send it via an undersea DC connection) – this could also act as a mass pumped storage scheme to balance out wind-power fluctuations – as hydroelectricity is quick to turn on and off or reverse.
We should not be covering our countryside in solar panels and losing miles of farmland
We should not be burning wood pellets – as it devastates forests
We should not be putting plant derived alcohol into petrol – at the cost of rain forest devastation, or re-allocating farm land from food production (but ok if its a by-product of waste materials).