John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I welcome proposals that will create more generating capacity in the United Kingdom. As the Minister knows, I am extremely worried that we are already typically 10% dependent on imported electricity and that the current plans envisage our becoming more import dependent, with the preferred route for electricity provision being the construction of more interconnectors. I am worried about this on security grounds, because we link ourselves at our peril into an energy-short system on the continent of Europe that is far too dependent on Mr Putin and Russian gas. I also worry about it because we are short of electricity and gas at the moment, and we see the price pressures that that creates. I think we should be doing more to expand the supply of both electricity and domestic gas.
I think the Scottish National party has made some important points, although it comes at nuclear power from a different perspective from that of the Government. While we could usefully enjoy more nuclear power, it is very important that those projects are timely and cost-controlled, with technologies that will deliver reliable power on a sustainable basis. Does the Minister agree that nothing in this legislation, and nothing that he can now do, can prevent the proportion of our electricity that is generated by nuclear from declining for the whole of this decade? As I understand it, these projects take a long time to get type approval and financing, and a long time in construction. As I also understand it, all but one of our current nuclear power stations is scheduled to close by 2030, and although one large new nuclear power station should come on stream during that period, it will not offset all the capacity that is taken out.
…
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I wish the Secretary of State, the Minister and the Bill every success. I think we might call this Secretary of State brave, because experience tells us that it is extremely difficult to land one of these really big projects and keep it to time and budget, and it is extremely difficult to get agreement to cheaper power. I am delighted that Ministers are motivated by the wish to have both more reliable generating capacity and more affordable power. Those are two excellent objectives of energy policy.
However, I fear that what I have learned from this debate, and from previous debates like it, are these things. First, we are going to have less nuclear power in 2030 than we have today, whatever Ministers doāthey are prisoners of their inheritance. Secondly, it will be difficult signing up big projects in particular, or getting smaller projects that are available and working in good time so that there is more nuclear, rather than less, in the decade that follows, and it will be difficult securing that at prices that customers think are good.
In the meantime, we have the problem that, on a typical day, we are already 10% import dependent for our electricityāI think it should all be generated in the UKāand that we are very dependent on the sun shining and the wind blowing, but the wind not blowing too much. When those things did not happen towards the end of last year, we had to reopen three old coal plants. People would rather not have to burn coal, but coal stations were reliable and actually worked when the wind did not blow and the sun did not shine. If the plan is to close them down and make them unavailable in future before we have anything else as a good stand-by, we will be trying the patience of the international community and trying our own luck rather too far.
I urge the Secretary of State, on the back of this Bill, to consider ways of increasing reliable power for this coming decadeāthe decade that we are living in and that we will be battling over in immediate elections to comeābecause that is what will matter to our voters. We should have in mind security of supply, availability of supply and affordability as the crucial things that we need to take care of so that we do not have a self-imposed energy crisis. Linking us into the European system is not a secure thing to do, because those countries are chronically short of reliable green power. Poland and Germany are in the middle of trying to phase out coal and lignite. Germany is in the middle of phasing out nuclear altogether. France needs to think about replacements for its ageing nuclear fleet and it is chronically short of gas, which is a sensible transition fuel, so it needs to rely on Putin and Russia.
January 12, 2022
Good morning.
Like our kind host I do not blame Ministers for the mess we find ourselves in as these decisions should have been taken long ago. What I do blame them for is supporting policies that will make the matter far worse. High immigration and high electrification. Our kind host also does not mention that, much of the profits go to foreign companies, some owned by foreign countries such as France and Germany. Perhaps it would be better if these companies were owned and registered in the UK with all taxes on profits and dividends remaining in the UK.
January 12, 2022
+1
January 12, 2022
They have been in power for nearly 12 years and all they have managed to do is demolish perfectly good coal fired stations.
They have also helped de industrialise the country through indiscriminate green taxation.
The balk is firmly in the Tony parties Court and they should be punished accordingly.
Where’s a proper uk priority party when you need it.
January 12, 2022
TodY wind provides 12% of our power and gas 57%.
We are running open cycle gas turbines to supplement the grid.where after closing the remaining coal and nuclear plants do you expect to get the 9gw of power from.
January 12, 2022
Ian
I agree as a whole the CONservative Party has been terrible over the course of its governance. But I was referring to individual ministers, who could of course tell the PM that his proposals for Net Zero are unworkable and, if the government did not change course he would have to resign much like Lord Frost. Think what would happen ? No minister should go to the crease and discover all the bats broken aka Geoffrey Howe
š
January 12, 2022
@Ian Wragg; “Whereās a proper uk priority party when you need it.”
Rejected by the UK electorate back in 1979, if not 1964, perhaps even 1945…
January 12, 2022
I think rejected is the word. Nuff said.
January 12, 2022
Well said Ian
January 12, 2022
Agreed. The Conservatives have had plenty of opportunity over the past decade to fix these problems, but have made no, or minimal, effort. Immigration continues to soar which exacerbates all the other problems being experienced by the UK. A rising population goes against everything in the Conservatives manifesto. Mass immigration increases pollution, it increases demand for power, it increases food imports, it increases demands for housing, it increases demands on the NHS and education. All of these are scarce enough, without adding to demand. The illegals also require vast amounts of hard earned taxpayers money to keep them in expensive hotels with all the other benefits provided, eg. spending money, mobile phones and takeaways.
January 12, 2022
SM
Well said.
January 12, 2022
Indeed very good points. We should also look at why new nuclear is so appallingly expensive. This is not for real or engineering reasons. It is largely caused by artificial reasons, planning processes, political opposition, the slow and inept legal system and similar. World war II lasted six years yet it takes us about 16 years to plan and build Hinkley Point C? This despite all the new tools, computers and other equipment we have now to speed thinks up. Political constipation and incompetence is much of the problem
Rather like the Ā£100k to remove a few M2 of cladding from a flat that would cost builders about Ā£5k + scaffolding at most.
January 12, 2022
+1
January 13, 2022
The average time to build and run tried I tested nuclear power stationed in other countries is seven years. Our regulator insists on starting from scratch. Why not tell them to stop making work for themselves and take account of equally competent foreign regulation? And the cost per MEn is half what we will pay for Hinkley.
January 13, 2022
Sorry typos altered after writing by my Amazon device.
January 12, 2022
Re foreign ownership of UK companies that is now a conspicuous feature of the business landscape. Sale of such UK assets to foreign buyers appears to have become one way governments try to offset long standing trade deficits. In such circumstances the government of the day has lost influence over issues that matter, such as security of supply of essential goods and services such as energy. This is compounded by the overly complex and burdensome tax regime of the UK and widespread political hostility to the very idea that a business should actually make profits.
January 12, 2022
Did you hear the Centrica man, Mr O’Shea, explaining to the Today Programme that producing more of our own gas would not help us as we buy so much from abroad?
January 12, 2022
How does a spokesperson for such a large company make such an idiotic remark?
He needs to be ‘let go’.
January 12, 2022
What do you think? Isnāt his first responsibility to communicate to his shareholders the details of the short- and long-term developments of the company?
Thatās what an open market requires him to do, isnāt it? Would you want a more āsocialistā market and a nationalised gas company?
January 12, 2022
Quite.
Some people struggle to hear themselves, apparently.
January 12, 2022
Of course Centrica is foreign owned so he would say that. If we produced more gas we wouldn’t have to buy from abroad.
January 12, 2022
If you don’t want that, then you have to have laws about to whom owners of private property may sell it.
Libertarians don’t like those.
January 12, 2022
You egularly berate brexiteers as being only focussed on “little england” and say they dont like foreigners. NHL
Now here in you grand post you want the UK to have laws controlling foreign owners of companies.
Do you spot a little bit of inconsistency?
January 12, 2022
Centrica is a British company (LSE:CNA) 83.1% owned by institutional investors and 12.6% owned by the general public.
See simplywall.st āWhat kind of shareholders owns Centrica plcā (09/01/2022).
January 12, 2022
Can you give us a breakdown of these 83.1% institutional investors hef?
January 12, 2022
@Ian Wragg; But isn’t natural gas priced via the international oil markets, so even if the UK were to produce more of our own gas the UK utility companies would still have to pay the world market price – of course the UK could choose to remove ourselves from that market, but that might have implication should we wish to sell onto the world market either our oil or gas, never mind wish/need to buy from such markets.
Now of course had we still an operational coal industry, producing coal from which we could make coal gas… š
January 13, 2022
Gas prices are mostly independent of oil prices these days (a few oil indexed linked contracts still persist), and they vary enormously around the world, partly because of the costs of LNG – liquefaction trains and shipping, or long distance pipelines. Countries that are self-sufficient in gas have much lower prices. Indeed that applied to the UK until we started to become a significant importer.
January 12, 2022
Centrica is not foreign owned.
January 12, 2022
IW, the 83.1% owned by institutional investors are largely made of non-banking organisations like pension funds, insurance companies, unit and investment trusts, all of which deal with money from the public, a large part from the British public.
You might be owning a small part of Centrica even if you donāt explicitly know about it.
January 13, 2022
Schroder Investment Management Ltd owns 11% of Centricaās shares, the second institutional investor is RWC Partners Ltd with 5.1%, the third Columbia Management Investment Advisers LLC with 4.8%. Only 17% of shares are owned by individual investors.
January 12, 2022
@rose; Indeed I did, who started the dash for gas idiocy (back in the 1980s), did they not understand our own natural reserves were finite and short term…
January 12, 2022
Some say our reserves of fracked gas could keep the UK self sufficient for decades.
And others say there is still huge reserves of gas and oil in the seas around the UK.
Sadly we have decided not to look.
January 12, 2022
@Peter2; See my reply to Ian Wragg above, even if ‘some people’ are correct it will not necessarily alter the price we have to pay…
January 12, 2022
”Digging for Britain”
January 13, 2022
@Peter2; Just to add to my previous reply to you, off-shore oil and gas exploration has been and is ongoing, but the problem is all the easy pickings are either already being exploited or are exhausted. Whilst there are undeveloped reserves many are going to be very costly to extract, needing either a high world oil price to make them economical or massive state subsidies to, or control of, the extraction company…
As for on-shore extraction and fracking, indeed, but some of the loudest critics are not the eco-worriers but Conservative voting NIMBYs, would you want a nodding donkey or a fracking drilling rig at the bottom of your once peaceful country garden garden?
January 12, 2022
Your seem to forget that if the UK produced sufficient gas for its own internal requirements it wouldn’t need to purchase on international markets.
And by producing an extra supply of total world gas that might well reduce the overall market price.
January 13, 2022
Correct. When we were self sufficient our gas prices were lower than even those in the US.
January 13, 2022
@Mark; The cost of any such UK extraction has to be below the world market price though, or subsidised by the taxpayer….
January 14, 2022
Jerry. Costs are low, and taxes and market prices are high. Gas was being produced at the low prevailing market prices of 2020. Gas prices have been persistently low in the US. Technology has lowered costs. Any more barrel scraping?
January 14, 2022
Mark; “Any more barrel scraping?”
You tell me, that’s twice now you’ve changed the goal posts!
January 12, 2022
+1 In order to mitigate poor long term decisions we need to dampen demand and change tack on electrification for the time being.
What Labour needs is a sassy leader with bite at the dispatch box… that will see the Tories out of office for three terms at least.
If only we had a Tory government with an 80 seat majority out of the clutches of the EU.
Wouldn’t that be a thing ?
January 12, 2022
The Tories have been in power for the last 12 years and for 29 of the last 42 years. But itās not their fault we are dependent on energy from abroad?
January 12, 2022
Mike
We have elections every 4 to 5 years and that has an effect on how MP’s think and behave. ie They only see up to, and not often passed, the next GE. No political party wants to leave any sort of political bonus to their opponents much like the Tories did back in 1997 when they gifted New Labour and growing economy. That help New Labour an awful lot – Remember Gordon Brown’s alleged prudence and how that built a false reputation for the man as the Iron Chancellor ? On such small things elections are won and lost.
Now look at power stations ? They take years to build, cost a fortune and can be very tricky politically eg Shale gas.
What I am saying is, I blame the system that simply does not work. Something really has to be driving it like HS2 for it to happen and nothing has been driving the building of power stations. Too many anti this or that groups being given more media air time than they warrant methinks.
January 12, 2022
@Mark B; Indeed, decisions that should have been taken three or four decades ago (in the case of building new nuclear power stations), so no our current problems can not be blamed on any current minister, just the ingrained party policies they stood for election on, such as “market forces” = good, a planned economy = bad; “Just in time” = good, back-up capacity = bad; PFI (style) funding = good, direct funding from HMT = bad etc.
January 12, 2022
I’m puzzled Jerry.
Having read hundreds of your posts
Are you now telling us you are a socialist?
January 12, 2022
@Peter2; “Iām puzzled
Why doesn’t that surprise me, anything outside your political comfort zone seems to cause you great puzzlement! š
“Are you now telling us you are a socialist?”
Define what you mean by “socialist”…
I have made no secrete [1] that I believe in the postwar consensus, as such I suspect I am no more a Socialist in most peoples minds as any Tory Prime Minister was between 1951 and 1974, but if that makes me “socialist” in your eyes I’ll wear the badge with pride. But then perhaps you’re simply getting awfully confused between a planned economy and a command economy, the latter as found in eastern Europe before the 1990s.
[1] in fact I have made it bl**dy obvious, harking back to the Tory 1950s all the time
January 13, 2022
Yes, Hayek was forced to concede – to “clarify” – that by “socialist” he meant only command economies e.g. Stalin’s.
That doesn’t stop his disciples from quoting him as if his words were proof that any form of social democracy is unworkable, naturally.
January 13, 2022
It’s just that sometimes Jerry you give the strong impression that you vote Conservative then on other occasions you write like a real Labour voter.
As your post above demonstrated.
PS
Planned economy v Command economy…same theory the only difference is the percentage of ownership by the State.
January 13, 2022
@Peter2; Whatever, it is called debating, yes I admit to sometimes playing the devils advocate, testing my own or others arguments, I assume you do likewise, no?…
January 12, 2022
One would almost have to conclude that this government by not putting in place plans to build the necessary capacity (nuclear, gas exploration) is implementing a strategy whose inspiration is driven by political and ideological considerations rather than the day to day needs of those who have to suffer the misfortune of living in a country now governed by extremists, Marxists and Oxbridge grifters who see the contrived issue of ‘Climate change’ as a most efficient weapon of State control over the lives of the plebeians they RULE OVER
The Tory party’s and their MPs acceptance of the Green and CC agenda is typically valueless Tory politics knowing full well they can pas on the elevated costs of this Neo-Marxist agenda to the idiots that we have so obviously have become
I see the grubby WEF is today saying that CC is now main risk we all face. Schwab and co are determined to impose a wealth transfer mechanism and we will indeed ‘own nothing and be happy’.
January 12, 2022
Sir John Redwood the voice in the wilderness. Very good speech but the reality is do they understand or really care. I think not.
They will learn soon enough as the people rise up against energy prices and the cost of the sheer incompetence of years of pushing our energy supply and distribution system onto the back burners.
When you change systems within companies you have to keep the business going as usual as you introduce change. But the sermon from the Church of Renewable Energy to Save the World dictates otherwise. Destroy our coal generation as our competitors keep theirs. Sheer and utter madness.
January 12, 2022
Because the idiot in charge has never run a company and neither has he been able to manage his own affairs properly. And the CONservative Party put him in charge.
January 12, 2022
@Mark B; “Because the idiot in charge has never run a company”
Who are you talking about, Boris Johnson (or Mrs Thatcher, don’t think she ever ran a company either, although Denis did), or someone else, the current SoS at BEIS perhaps?…
January 12, 2022
@turboterrier; Except our host was not a “voice in the wilderness” back in the 1980s when these sorts of decisions ideally needed to be taken, far from it, he was Director of the Number 10 Policy Unit from early 1982 until late 1987, he was then a senior member of the cabinet or shadow cabinet form mid 1989 until the end of 2005.
January 12, 2022
Too much for the zero knowledge/experience Treasury propaganda spouting Simon Clarke methinks.
Completely missed/ignored the circular argument.
January 12, 2022
And in other news did anyone hear the nonsense spouted by Michael Fabouffant in defence of the PM.? On that basis any multi office building can have a party and ignore lockdown. Plus the poor sap put up for the morning news round with nothing to say. First rule of news management, stop digging. We donāt believe you.
And a classic example of Borisās cowardice, presumably hiding in Piers Morganās fridge again and amnesia just like somehow forgetting he had changed his phone. How many readers have forgotten their phone history? Precisely!
We are now told he needs to apologise to have a chance of keeping his job. His history proves that even if he did, he wouldnāt mean it and in any event can that ever make up for bleak sadness imposed by him on people losing loved ones unable to be with them, whilst he and his mates partied?
No no no.
Time finally for him to discover that raising two fingers to the world has consequences.
January 12, 2022
Boris must be the delight of the opposition. He generously gives them plenty of ammunition to throw at him.
I doubt Boris can save himself, unless a miracle occurs. I hope he is replaced by a competent and democratic patriot!
January 13, 2022
I doubt it. You can only trust the Tories to swing further Left and appoint a lockdown nut.
January 13, 2022
NOBODY wanted lockdowns.
It’s just that they wanted millions of sick and half a million dead rather less.
January 12, 2022
Who do you want as PM, Nig L? A bumbling hypocrite? Or a lockdown fanatic bent on introducing vaccine passports, as in most other European regimes, not to mention Scotland and Wales? Time for you to decide where you stand on that, I think.
January 13, 2022
My last employer required me to travel internationally.
We often needed jabs to go to some places.
If I had refused then I would have been dismissed.
This is standard practice in companies, and has been for very many years. Why do you only now start raising the objections that you do?
January 13, 2022
Many many countries have required the jabs for as long as I can remember, including our military required to ensure they could travel to some places where it would be needed.
January 12, 2022
The set questions today from Tory backbenches at PMQs where an embarrassment; and the endless Tory MPs rolled out to the media in support for Boris
January 13, 2022
When required the sheep bleat ‘baa baa’.
January 12, 2022
Surely there must have been something underhand and sinister involved in failing to secure future energy for this country? In tandem, our armed forces have been mercilessly cut, I understand.
Surely these things canāt happen accidentally?
Alternatively, can those in charge REALLY be that stupid?
January 12, 2022
Well yes, those in charge certainly can be that stupid, if they all come from the same types of private schools, which they do. They also all come from a small part of the country, namely London, and think that the world revolves around them and that nowhere else matters.
January 12, 2022
+1
January 12, 2022
Energy generation and supply was, and is, within the EU as a common resource. Our silly lot thought that we would be part of a European Federation and it would not matter as France, Germany, Poland and others would supply the energy to us.
All paid for of course in Euros š
January 12, 2022
+1
Ah ha!
Of course that must be it. Well spotted!
January 12, 2022
Those in charge really can be that stupid. It’s a condition of employment for most of them.
They do not have Britain’s interest at heart.
January 12, 2022
+1
January 12, 2022
Ian. Oh yes. They really are stupid. Look at ‘smart’ motorways.
January 12, 2022
And why on earth have people been dutifully āsavingā the NHS if Johnson and Javid can now happily annihilate it by sacking 100,000 staff who donāt want a jab.
(Alarming in itself that those who have experienced all of this first hand feel like that!)
January 12, 2022
If working in ‘life saving’ duties, but will rather be unemployed over having a jab, then I have no sympathy.
Presumably they have never travelled to countries where several ‘shots’ are required?
Did parents never have them inoculated against all manner of life changing illnesses?
January 12, 2022
+1
Surely the fact that they would choose unemployment over a jab (being medical people) rather strengthens the argument against having it?
January 12, 2022
no it says that millions of people in this country enduring 2 years of deprivation, family deaths and fear of a plague have ‘saved ‘ 100,000 workers who don’t deserve ‘saving’.
January 12, 2022
Because they think they can just import more people to replace them and make those left work harder.
January 12, 2022
+1
Yes Iāve wondered about that.
Do they also think they can somehow pay replacements less?
January 12, 2022
Many greens support nuclear power as part of the UK’s energy mix. I would also like to see investment in one of the British grid-scale energy storage systems, several of which are now installed (a full scale one in Manchester) with the firms involved taking operational data. These data and a Levellised Cost of Electricity competition between the various contenders would show which was commercially viable.
Where is the BEIS support for the British firms involved? Kwarteng prefers to wastre taxpayers money subsidising the oil industry’s blue hydrogen and carbon capture scams.
January 12, 2022
Are there any that store more than a few hours of energy for a town?
Perhaps you could let us know.
January 12, 2022
Sakara. What about all the foreign developers in the wind industry? They bring in their own foreign labour and the profits are not ours .
January 13, 2022
Orsted (Danish), Vattenfall (Swedish), Iberdrola (SSE but Spanish), Innogy (German) and Equinor (Norway) have all been involved in the UK offshore wind market since 2003.
How comes that the UK, one of the best locations in the world for wind energy and a leader in offshore wind installations, has not been able to develop companies able to compete with these continental European companies? Is it because of the EU? Of a working āfreeā market? Of a lack of UK investors? Of a lack of UK political will and a HoC/HoL full of third-rate politicians?
January 12, 2022
Odd because the Greens official policy is against nuclear SG
January 13, 2022
As you were quick to point out not that long ago, the Green Party only has one MP. But are all āgreenā-inclined people in the GP? I doubt it, P2. So would it be possible that such āgreenā-inclined people could support more nuclear energy? I would not be surprised.
Is the world becoming so complicated that you fail to understand it? Could it be that all these ācertaintiesā you were spoon-fed in the ā80s might not be as relevant as in āMrs Tās good old daysā?
January 13, 2022
Spoon fed certainties….what twaddle hef.
Hilarious coming from you with your dogmatic attitudes towards nearly every political policy in existence.
PS
I was just pleased that SG was pro nuclear as I reckon the majority if Greens are not.
The Green Party is anti nuclear but I notice recently that some supporters of the party and green generally are changing their attitudes towards nuclear.
January 13, 2022
What do you mean by grid scale? I have shown that reliance on wind last year would have required 50 TWh of hydrogen storage, or nearly 40TWh of 75% efficient pumped storage. That is grid scale.
January 12, 2022
Good speech. You have diplomatically left out the additional risk that one EU country – France – has also threatened Putin-like behaviour in cutting off electricity supply to obtain political leverage (in that case the threat was made against the Channel Islands for refusing to cave in to French demands on fishing).
January 12, 2022
I too noticed that. But it was the French Prime Minister who said that and he, unlike our PM, is really not that important the political hierarchy.
January 13, 2022
Just one of the Channel Islands.
The others were reasonable, and caused no problem with France.
January 12, 2022
Although it is reassuring that your speeches represent the views of many UK voters, it would be interesting to know if your efforts ever translate into meaningful outcomes. I have my doubts.
January 12, 2022
It was good to hear our hosts contribution to this debate, and how he ‘swatted’ away the rather ignorant interventions advocating yet more useless windmills, what doesn’t the member for Bath (and others) not understand, windmills do not work reliably enough whilst Nuclear is one of the original ‘Renewables’?
January 12, 2022
Is it the case that had the Speaker not indulged the anonymous leaker and the dishonest media with a disgraceful display of House Humbug, we might have had a serious emergency debate, courtesy of Bob Seeley, on the rogue modelling which has cost the country so much?
Or perhaps might we have had a serious debate on energy supply?
January 12, 2022
@rose; I bet if it Labour was in govt you would not be bleating like a lost lamb, claiming that democracy was being undermined by leaks, stop being so ruddy transparent!
January 12, 2022
OFF TOPIC.
My mind returns to the events in Jan 2021:-
Two women have described how they were surrounded by police, read their rights and fined Ā£200 each after driving five miles to take a walk. The women were also told the hot drinks they had brought along were not allowed as they were “classed as a picnic”.
Guidance for the current lockdown says people can travel for exercise as long as it is in their “local area”. The police force involved, Derbyshire Police, said driving for exercise was “not in the spirit” of lockdown.
Consider this with inviting 100 for an event in a government garden, bring your own booze. Thirty attended ‘socially distanced’. Did the PM attend merely to thank workers, or enjoy some downtime?
A number of us have gardens that will easily allow 30 guests to socially distance, and bring their own drinks.
A great break from the stresses of life in 2022.
January 12, 2022
I wonder what the fastest time has been to propose, get approval for, build, and operate at full capacity a nuclear power station in UK ? My guess is several decades. Also, where is the Uranium coming from ? All that has to be imported too so it’s hardly a secure option is it ?
We should for once follow Andy’s advice to stick close to the EU and designate gas as a green fuel and get fracking.
January 12, 2022
Roy Grainger :
āI wonder what the fastest time has been to propose, get approval for, build, and operate at full capacity a nuclear power station in UK ? My guess is several decades.ā
Youāre thinking of Hinkley Point C, a 2 x 1.6 GW nuclear power station currently being built with new French technology which has experienced technical problems, and Chinese finance.
The Rolls Royce consortium say they are using existing technology and is claiming that if they start immediately they can begin delivering from their first factory 2 x 470MW SMRs/year from 2031 at a price which is a third of Hinkley Point C (Ā£40MWhr with RAB funding).
Uranium is available from Kazakhstan, Australia and Canada with Australia possessing around 30% of the world’s known recoverable uranium reserves.
For more information I suggest watching from 11:38 hrs : HoL Industry and Regulators Committee Tuesday 16 November 2021 : Subject : Ofgem & Net Zero :
However, I do agree that in the meantime we should be using gas and it is certainly helpful in convincing the Remainers to use gas that the EU has designated gas as āgreenā.
January 12, 2022
Dependence on Russia is certainly a worry, but unfortunately so is dependence on France.
January 12, 2022
and Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Greece, Malta, Austria, Belgium …..
January 12, 2022
Sir John, just about every one of your entries since the New Year have had the same serious underlying theme. They illustrate that absolutely nothing is being done to reap the benefits of Brexit and in fact every recent government decision ties us ever closer to the EU.
Jon Gaunt reviewing the papers this morning on GB News and referring to Party-gate and the sustained attack of the last few months on the PM, stated that this was a serious and concerted move by the Remainers to get us back into the EU. He warned that if Boris goes that’s where we will end up.
This all ties together. December 2019 the Remainers were shattered with the result of the election. January 2020 the pandemic hit and Boris did an excellent job of overcoming the lack of preparedness and securing the vaccines. This gave the Remainers time to regroup and the Cummings fiasco indicated where and how to attack the PM who does not bother about small detail.
The Civil Service aided by a lot of MPs from all parties had a year to gentle change the direction of travel for this administration and everyone of your entries this year clearly illustrates this. The series of leaked emails have been orchestrated to bring the whole matter to a head as the Remainers see Boris as the one remaining obstacle to getting us back under EU rule.
Those MPs should understand that their aim and action is nothing less than treason and if they were to succeed the EU would crush this country out of existence. The Marxist undercurrent running through the media and our universities is all part of conditioning the up and coming generation.
I hope the PM kills party-gate for good at PMQs today.
January 12, 2022
+100 That is my fear too, and it appears to be successful as the majority of the Conservative party is aiding and abetting Boris in the destruction of the UK economy.
January 12, 2022
āRemainers see Boris as the one remaining obstacle to getting us back under EU rule.ā
Boris as the last defence against the EU is plain misreading of the status quo.
I doubt many Remainers share that view. However, it could be brought up as a desperate attempt to try to save Johnsonās career.
As for āI hope the PM kills party-gate for good at PMQs today.ā dream on…
January 12, 2022
The open doors Tory immigration policy is already crushing this country out of existence. Johnson is on record as being very pro immigration, and is the real traitor here.
January 12, 2022
Wrong and wrong. Firstly, Boris is NOT the guardian of Brexit, he is the betrayer of Brexit. He has given Northern Ireland to the EU, allowed EU fishermen to pillage our waters and destroy our fish stocks, and is paying billions of pounds to the EU and giving them military support while they abuse us and laugh at his weakness and stupidity.
As for “party-gate”, his woes here are richly deserved. I am not a hypocrite, and therefore as someone who has never followed the moronic and fascistic government restrictions I am not criticising others who also did not do so, but I do criticise Boris for having tried to impose these rules on us in the first place. He has been hoist by his own petard. He should never have imposed the appalling and unjustified lockdown rules at all, and it is good that he is now paying the penalty for having done so.
January 12, 2022
+1, X-Tory.
January 12, 2022
SirJ whichever way you cut it; you donāt paint a pretty pictureā¦.this government isnāt interested in coal, gas or nuclear power stations old or newā¦.as Boris keeps telling everyone that weāre to be the Saudi Arabia of windfarm energy
Make no mistake this is the direction of travel unless our government tells us differentlyā¦which they havenāt; the green revolution is still on track
The EU policy is to share energy across Europe and Boris wants to be part of that plan
January 12, 2022
Boris will remain on track with his ‘green revolution’ so long as he has the support of Tory MPs and the house…..and he does
Nothing is going to change because the majority of Tory MPs agree with his policy
January 12, 2022
Glen. Quite right and the public are pissed off with it all.
January 12, 2022
You are correct with your final sentence.
The EU has deliberately been creating energy interdependence for a couple of decades …… no senior member nation could be allowed to be energy secure, and the UK appears to still be locked-in to the policy.
January 12, 2022
I note your tweet of 9 Jan alongside, JR, urging that the UK should take control of all internal trade, “as the original Agreement implied”, but that is not what the EU believes it implies.
In any case the root of all this difficulty was and still is the baseless dread of leaving the EU without a special trade deal that was deliberately whipped up by George Osborne with his “Project Fear”.
Well, we have left with a special trade deal, it’s worth somewhere between 0% and 2% of GDP -even on Osborne’s Treasury analysis only 1.3% – of marginal value given that the long term trend growth rate of the UK economy is in the region of 2.5% a year or 0.2% a month, and part of the price for that is checks and controls on all imports into Northern Ireland when the rational solution would be checks and controls on exports to the Republic and the rest of the EU.
Plus every business and individual in the province will continue to be exposed to ongoing checks that they are obeying all EU Single Market laws as interpreted by the EU Court of Justice, just as if the province was still part of the EU.
Clearly that “fervent and passionate unionist” Boris Johnson
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-50338539
thought that BRINO would be good enough for people in Northern Ireland, and will his successor think any differently, will they insist that Northern Ireland is put back on the same footing as the rest of the UK?
January 12, 2022
Mr Hands does indeed cheer one up. But what was the talk of the Opposition trying to take control of the order paper all about?
January 12, 2022
The Government/BEIS estimate we will need 40% to 60% more electrical power by 2035 than our current usage of around 40 GW as a result of increases in population (so no reduction in immigration foreseen) and the electrification of transport and heating.
Now 2035 is the date by which the Government/BEIS say our electrical supply will be fully ādecarbonisedā.
I do not see how this can be achieved when the only serious plans the Government/BEIS have for increasing electrical energy is for there to be by 2030 40GW of offshore wind, which will only produce an average of 20GW of power through intermittency, and there are NO plans in place for non-fossil fuel grid stability or long-term back-up or for increasing connectivity (beefing up the grid).
If the Government/BEIS decommission any further fossil fuel capacity weāre heading for a serious shortage of electricity.
Our only hope is that the Government places orders now for the Rolls Royce consortiumās SMRs so they can come on stream beginning of the 2030s.
The CEO of this consortium says they can use existing nuclear technology to supply at Ā£40/MWhr if they receive the right funding (RAB). This is a third of the strike price (by 2030) of the French/Chinese Hinkley Point C and less than the latest strike/CfD prices for wind which many observers believe are unrealistically low and does not include any extra costs for mitigating intermittency and variability.
Reply As you say the average power delivered by wind farms is well below rated capacity. More importantly you need 100% back up to deal with periods of no wind
January 12, 2022
āBring a bottleā.
Boris has blown the whole scam ā¦globally!
Enormous implications.
Bless our Boris ! š¾ šø
January 12, 2022
So it was all about controlling the plebs after all
January 12, 2022
+1
Certainly looks like it!!
January 12, 2022
When Boris was recovered from Covid, I was wishing the media would ask him “Did you catch Covid because the advice and rules weren’t adequate, or was it because you weren’t following them?”
Now we know the answer.
January 12, 2022
I’m afraid we shouldn’t have been in lockdown at all and in their heart of hearts they all knew it. (Proven by this and many other actions.)
I don’t doubt they acted in accordance with the rules and had wine in their work bubbles. There will be no prosecutions. The impression it has given, however, is terrible.
The coming global economic depression caused by lockdowns (not by covid) is going to bring mortality rates of a magnitude many more multiples than the disease itself.
Sweden was right.
There are nastier things to befall us than Covid and that is lockdown and the ramifications of it which we are about to see.
January 12, 2022
Yes – Sweden was right
January 13, 2022
If this country had done what Sweden had done then there would have been around half a million deaths in short order and health provision would have collapsed completely.
That is because this country is not full of Swedes, and does not have their government either, with the relationship that they do with that.
They only needed advice, not compulsion, to behave responsibly in general.
They still did far worse than did their similar neighbours, however.
January 12, 2022
He probably would have caught it anyway. Lockdowns only really delay infections – at best it seems. Can actually make things worse if you look at the figures.
He has said sorry. We just need Boris to say sorry for the insanity of Net Zero, the vast government waste and the huge tax hikes now and then reverse them all.
January 12, 2022
+1
Lol
Or you could ask ā Why, precisely are you not scared of the lurgi?ā
January 12, 2022
Are we still under lockdown covid Plan B, has anybody died of Omicron variant ?
January 13, 2022
or even a bad cold?
January 12, 2022
Thanks for your effort. I would judge that we are in a power shortage emergency situation. Its rectification requires similar motivations and obstacle clearance action as occured with the creation and accummulation of vaccines.
What is the timescale on producing the first Rolls Royce SMR. What length of test programme is required and can it be accelerated. Have the government ordered the first unit, decided where it will operate etc. How many units are required to cover UK needs. What is the likely cost per unit.
What timescale is envisaged by BP and Shell for the production of sufficient Hydrogen to replace domestic gas, industrial gas, and gas used in electricity production. What are the cost of engineering changes needed in its distribution. Can current domestic appliances be adapted cheaply or do they need to be replaced.
As with the vaccine, do not waste time asking civil servants, go to the people at the sharp end for answers and action.
This government is so parallised by partygate that I fear they have dropped the ball on things that matter. All partygate achieves is permission for the opposition to dine out on it. I don’t condone it, but on a battlefield it counts for nothing compared to slaying the enemy. It is putting a bullet through your own foot.
January 12, 2022
Thank you Sir Redwood, spot on regarding nuclear power.
We need to invest far more into nuclear power, both in research and education, we need to start it at technical colleges and at universities, we nee nuclear scientists and technicians.
Canada has a splendid nuclear industry, why not cooperate with them (and Australia may be interested too) on a joint venture.
The real problem is Boris, he is against nuclear power on principle, he wants us to relay only on “natural” resources like wind and solar, both of which can’t support 65 million people living in a cold and industrial country.
First order of business is getting Boris out of #10.
January 12, 2022
Actually, I think the real priority should be to get Mrs Boris out of No 10. But that’s unlikely to happen without her poodle leaving too.
January 12, 2022
+1 but oil, gas and coal are fine for now – until we get better nuclear and fusion in due course. Get fracking and drilling please.
January 12, 2022
+1
January 12, 2022
Ellis. Dare I say it’s not Boris that’s against nuclear but Carrie.
January 12, 2022
“If the plan is to close them down and make them unavailable in future before we have anything else as a good stand-by, we will be trying the patience of the international community and trying our own luck rather too far”
It is beyond stupidity. It is economic sabotage, and those responsible should be held to account.
January 12, 2022
Completely off topic for which I apologise
Boris Johnson has achieved something which I didnāt think possible, I actually LOATHE him, there are many politicians who Iāve disliked over the years and I speak as a once loyal Tory voter who had never voted for any other party
Quite an achievement
Rant overā¦. Sorry
January 12, 2022
I donāt think that thing will get past moderation, I donāt know why š¤š¤š¤š¤
January 12, 2022
You detest him for not being right wing enough.
It’ll be fine, therefore.
January 12, 2022
How do you know that NHL
As your pal bill says….give us facts data and proof.
January 13, 2022
And it was fine.
January 13, 2022
And it was another fantasy post from you NHL
January 12, 2022
He had one job, and that was to get brexit done….and he couldn’t even get that right
January 12, 2022
Agree. Bloody toxic.
January 12, 2022
Sir John.
The failure of our energy policy is neatly illustrated by the slow-motion HS2 crash that is the European Pressurised water Reactor programme. We are currently building Hinkley C EPR and the decision on Sizewell C EPR is due to be made this year.
From a report in the Guardian 2017 āAccording to GĆ©rard Magnin, a former EDF director, the French company sees Hinkley as āa way to make the British fund the renaissance of nuclear in Franceā. He added: āWe cannot be sure that in 2060 or 2065, British pensioners, who are currently at school,Ā will not still be paying for the advancement of the nuclear industryĀ in France.ā Well, consider the fact that the UK is paying 9% for the funding when it could borrow at 2% if it werenāt negotiating with French civil servants who have run rings round our so-called world-beating team. EDF is a nationalised French company run by professionals. āTheĀ National Audit OfficeĀ estimates the additional cost to consumers (above the estimated market price of electricity) under theĀ “strike price”Ā will be Ā£50Ā billion.ā Wiki
The Hinkley C EPRs in Somerset have a strike price of Ā£106/MWh at 2021 prices and will, unless there are further delays, be contributing to the grid in 2026 after approval in 2008. As well as being late it is over budget: the cost estimate was Ā£18billion in 2016, but by 2019 it was up to Ā£22,500,000,000 and the electricity it produces will cost more than forecast.
The Finnish Olkiluoto EPR (EDF of course) is going to take 22 years between approval and delivery of the first electrons to the Grid. If Sizewell works on the same timescale then by the mid-2040s it will be doing something about the demon CO2 with the delivery of 3.2GW. So are we in a climate emergency or not? If we are then a gas transition to our own nuclear would be an appropriate response, and Rolls Royce has obtained Ā£410 billion funding to build our own SMRs. If approved now, UK designed and built SMRs will be generating nearly 5GW by 2033 and after that the skyās the limit. EPRs are a distraction and will delay delivery of zero carbon electricity by at least a decade.
Please see āWhite elephant energy projects that are tomorrowās HS2ā at TCW which presents a more lucid (and less Covid-garbled) explanation as to why we are close to make a generation-impoverishing error.
Incidentally, HMG made noises about ending Chinese General Nuclearās involvement in our nuclear infrastructure but I can find nothing other than the initial flurry of announcements. Did this happen? I, for one, object to Chinese hands on the control rods of nuclear reactors in the UK.
JF
(Off to bed with a hot drink and a paracetemol)
January 12, 2022
Parliament is now like an episode of Eastenders from the 90s weeping and wringing of hands. Smegtastic.
January 12, 2022
Make a high capacity factor a condition to be allowed to connect to the grid, say 90%. Then ‘renewables’ would not be able to leech off reliable forms of generation.
Oh, get some of the grid engineers into the Lords. Someone there needs to know what they are talking about.
JF
January 12, 2022
Sir John, please keep agitating – you have my support
January 12, 2022
+1
Agree totally, aware you must be as frustrated as many of us out here are JR, but at least your points have to be read and listened to by Government Ministers, some day someone may take notice, and if enough do it may, just may, force a change in Government thinking and direction.
January 12, 2022
Why is it that politicians and civil servants seem to be incapable of taking simple decisions? We do not have enough power so lets shut some more power stations and then see what needs to be done is hardly a winning policy is it?
We know wind is intermittant, we know solar doesnt work at night and we now know that the French are robbing us blind for taking their spare capacity off them, and now there are 100s of thousands of electric vehicles that need to be charged somehow because there is no joined up thinking in Whitehall. Indeed any sort of actual thinking would be a novelty. I am sick and tired of hearing about ” in 10 years time”, we could be fracking and producing our own gas within 12 months if fingers were extracted . We are desperate for some old-fashioned common sense and can-do attitude instead of the continual virtue signalling and fear of criticism from the MSM. No one reads the papers any more but we all need to heat our homes and have the lights on. Oh, and the voters are always right because its our money that politicians enjoy spending!
Enough is enough, roll your collective sleeves up and sort it out or expect us to find others who will!
January 12, 2022
Labour asked for a vote yesterday on removing VAT from energy bills. Hereās the opposition embracing what we were told was a benefit of Brexit.
The Brexitists voted it down. Odd.
January 12, 2022
Satirists are having a really, really tough time.
January 17, 2022
I’m afraid to tell you there is no money left.
January 12, 2022
Oh dear. I’m very disappointed that someone of your wisdom would support such an appalling Bill. This Bill is completely the wrong approach for two reasons:
1. It loads all the risks and costs onto British consumers while giving all the profits and security to foreign companies. As the idiot Kwarteng admitted: “the existing financing scheme has led to too many foreign nuclear developers walking away from projects”. Foreign nuclear power companies are notoriously incompetent, with their projects ALWAYS late and over budget (just look at Hinkley Point C). They obviously know this themselves, which is why they are not willing to invest their own money into the building of these power stations, but want us to finance them instead! And with this new financing model their incentives to finish on time and on budget are reduced further, as no matter how delayed, and how much the budget overrun, the companies will be safe and it will be the British people who will pay. Foreign companies must be laughing at our stupidity as they suck all our money out of Britain. Madness!
2. We want SMRs, NOT the large nuclear power stations anyway, as these take longer to build and cost more, meaning that their electricity is much more expensive. The designs of the large power stations are also completely unreliable (the Hinkley-style EPR doesn’t work anywhere in the world! The only functioning model, in China, is so unsafe it has had to be closed down). We should be focusing SOLELY on the British-designed and built RR SMRs, and should be fast-tracking these so that they could be up and running this decade. I have said before that the regulatory approval should be done CONCURRENTLY with the building of the plants, so that as soon as they are approved – which they inevitably will be (they’re from RR for God’s sake, who have decades of experience of building safe nuclear power plants for our submarines and are the best engineering company in the world!) – they are already built and can be switched on immediately. These SMRs would be ready long before any large nuclear power station.
January 12, 2022
X TORY. Brilliant and correct.
January 12, 2022
The 1954 US Nautilus had a 10 MWe nuclear reactor, the present much bigger US submarines have nuclear reactor of about 100-200 MWe. The two A1B nuclear reactors powering the next generation of Ford-class US supercarriers will each produce 300 MWe.
The SMRs planned for the UK in 2035 are supposed to produce 470 MWe each (06/12/2021, world-nuclear-news.org āSheffield Forgemasters to supply Rolls-Royce SMR forgingsā).
January 12, 2022
“we are already 10% import dependent for our electricityāI think it should all be generated in the UK”
Don’t forget that 30% of UK electric actually comes via gas pipes. Sixty percent of that is imported.
January 12, 2022
A quote. When INJUSTICE becomes law, REBELLION becomes DUTY.
January 12, 2022
Slightly off topic, but still to do with heating and warmth.
There is an article in TCW by Gavin Cooke, climatologist and author of Frozen Britain. He discusses the settled science on climate change and brings together results of various studies from around the world, showing that the Earthās surface has rapidly cooled in the last five years. He then describes centuries old studies of the sun and their gradual making sense of what they saw. Itās the lack of sunspots on the sun followed by a brief time lag that then plunges the Earth into a very cold period. Lots of sun spots, hotter weather; less spots , cooler weather; no spots, mini ice age follows. It is expected that we are leaving one phase and the sun is due a less active phase with fewer sun spots.
These twits that believe in global warming (then changed it to climate change) and refuse to even acknowledge other views, need to be forced to listen and talk about it. If the climate change brigade are wrong, that would be tantamount to going on holiday to the North Pole with only your shorts and tee shirts packedā¦ā¦
And what happens to food growth and production if the temperature is cooler? Never mind keeping warm with icy air being blown about by windmills.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/as-earth-cools-an-arctic-future-threatens-but-warmster-boris-wont-be-told/
January 12, 2022
Gets my vote
January 12, 2022
S, I hope you read Gavin Cookeās 2009 book ā2025: Ice-bound Britainā in which he was writing āwhat the authorities have not acknowledged is that Britain is heading into a mini-ice age, lasting 30 years or more, that will peak around 2020. This climatic catastrophe will leave Britain in a state of near anarchy and economic collapse as freezing temperatures irrevocably change the way we liveā.
So, has it happened? Kind of yes and no. What Gavin Cooke (not a climatologist but an individual interested in weather) discussed in his 2009 book is the heating of the Atlantic ocean surface temperature, which appears, during a number of summers, to lead to the position of the jet stream setting to the south of the British Isles (instead of being to the north of them) and therefore acting as a barrier to warm air coming from the European continent. It leads to more rain-bearing weather systems during the summer coming from the Atlantic on the north side of the jet stream.
Interestingly this behaviour has been consistently documented not by climate models but by weather analyses and forecasts carried out by weather centres like the Met.Office and other meteorological centres.
Of interest is also the Meridional Overturning Circulation discussed by Cooke, linked to mixing salty water with fresh water due to melting Arctic ice (due to sunspots, really?)
Even more interesting is that the two Russian solar physicists Mashnish and Bashkirtsev lost their $10k bet with James Annan that the global temperatures are driven more by solar activity than by greenhouse gases (Funnily this fact is not quoted in the recent TCW article).
January 12, 2022
It sounds like you have looked thoroughly into nuclear power as a means of making us Independent for power supply and found that it is too late for this decade. Obviously we must prepare now for future decades on that one.
You then argue for not closing coal fired power stations. Quite right but are we still producing our own coal? I hope so. It would be a bit daft to import coal wouldn’t it.
You have argued before in support of our own resources of oil and gas, including fracking. You are right there too.
Shame your leader is hell bent on saving the planet by expecting his own country to run on sun and wind alone.
January 12, 2022
How stupid does Boris think we all are?
Is he right?
January 12, 2022
Yes he is. If we had a general election tomorrow, 17.4 million “leave” voters we know would still vote for his incompetent, corrupt shambles of a government. The fact that his government has contrived to transfer more money from the public purse into Conservative Party cronies and sponsors private wallets; thanks to Covid, will be of no consequence to a brain dead electorate.
January 13, 2022
Acorn. I wouldn’t bank on that vote.
January 13, 2022
acorn
Many of that 17.4 million Leave voters once voted Socialist until the Socialists betrayed them. So I would not count on it and be so dismissive.
January 13, 2022
A million or more of them are now truly out of the European Union, Acorn.
January 12, 2022
John. No, he’s bloody well not.
January 12, 2022
OFF TOPIC.
from BBC WEBSITE.
The government’s use of a “VIP lane” to award contracts for personal protective equipment (PPE) to two companies was unlawful, the High Court has ruled. Campaigners claimed the VIP lane was reserved for referrals from MPs, ministers and senior officials and gave some companies an unfair advantage.
A judge ruled it was unlawful to give the two companies preferential treatment as part of the VIP lane.
But she said both offers were likely to have been given contracts anyway.
The legal action was brought by the Good Law Project and EveryDoctor which claimed the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) unlawfully awarded contracts to supply PPE – such as medical quality facemasks and gowns – during the height of the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
The groups took legal action over more than Ā£340m in contracts awarded to PestFix, a firm that supplies pest control products, and a contract worth about Ā£252m to the hedge fund Ayanda Capital.
The campaigners said the DHSC “prioritised suppliers including PestFix and Ayanda because of who they knew, not what they could deliver”.
January 13, 2022
The BBC conceals the fact that this was an emergency with no time for normal procedures of procurement. The Parliamentary Standards Commissioner did the same. It was all hands on deck.
January 13, 2022
I agree rose.
It is common in industry for large companies and government organisations to have approved supplier lists which rank potential suppliers.
It isn’t easy to get on these lists and get promoted to the higher gradings.
These companies that supplied PPE were effectively preferential class suppliers.
Staff purchasing products are expected to use those listed as preferential suppliers as the first port of call.
Others would be listed as approved suppliers.
But calling it a VIP Lane is very odd.
I’ve never ever heard this term before
January 13, 2022
rose – do you mean ‘all hands in the cookie jar?’
January 12, 2022
The Tory Party is going to look even more incompetent when Hinckley C fails to work. Itās a lot of money to spend on completely unproven technology. Should have stuck with Magnox.
January 12, 2022
More importantly. When are you and all tory MP’s going to get rid of the lying, immoral, liability Johnson. The man has zero integrity and no shame.
January 12, 2022
If 54 backbench Conservative MPs send letters to the 1922 committee it will trigger a leadership challenge.
Are you thinking about taking that action?
January 13, 2022
I take it thats a No!
January 12, 2022
Farage with Portillo on his show with a throw back of Portillo’s SAS Speech.
Nothing has changed in all that time still it would seem the problems remain the same. Has nothing been learned?
January 12, 2022
There is no medical emergency and probably never was.
January 12, 2022
Small Modular Reactors (Rolls Royce)
Proven technology
Distributed power generation (eggs in baskets and all that)
So simple even the Navy can operate them ( apologies to my friends in the RN) – they have been the basis of our new lead powered submarines for decades.
January 13, 2022
Proven to need enriched uranium too.
January 13, 2022
Iran might sell us some!
January 12, 2022
Short term.
Keep adequate reserve capacity ie. coal & gas with storage for winter.
Expedite Grid storage rollout. Hydro-(Norway),flow batteries and phase change.
Consider encouraging overbuilding renewable wind capacity particularly at no subsidy auctions.
RR nuclear to replace imported coal & gas.
Stretch current assets.
Longterm.
Strategic independence from hostile states including the EU.
January 13, 2022
Hi John,
I listened to the parliamentary debate about Trident. and it struck me early on that people were mostly pulling figures out of the air, and that the government had not actually put a figure forward for the monetary cost of Trident. A few MPs actually asked that precise question and didnāt receive an answer.
That is to be expected, because Trident costs what it costs to produce. Whatever is required to get the job done will be procured and placed at the disposal of the project. The cost, as with any government intervention, has nothing to do with money. If it is available for sale in the governmentās denomination, then the government can always purchase itāāāwhether that is missile systems or social housing. And, if it wants to, it can set the price in its own currencyāāāsimply by banning or restricting alternative uses of those resources until it gets what it needs. You see this all the time when a country is at war, but people act like Homer Simpson when you suggest it at other times.
The cost is, in fact, the people and resources required to create and build the submarines, crew the submarines and the ancillary services and suppliers that feed into the process. The unions representing these workers asked what else these people would be doing instead if Trident was not renewed, and there were very few answers to be had on that point in the debate. MPs opposed to Trident failed to make any reasonable case for alternative used of these skills and real resources.
Most MPs opposing the motion talked in terms of money, about how the money could be spent on the NHS, social care, or housing. But again the use of figures masked the actual problem.
The problem is never finding the money. An index finger and a computer keyboard and a spending bill passed in parliament finds The money.
The ship builders on the Clyde, or in Barrow donāt get up in the morning and think ātoday Iāll be a doctorā. The Navy staff donāt decide that they will build houses on a Thursday instead of piloting boats. Itās a ridiculous notion, and one that is rightly dismissed by the unions as hand-waving.
But it shows how ill-informed our representatives are about the way government spending works. They implicitly rely upon the magic of the tooth fairy – free markets to provide ship builders, navy crew and parts manufacturers with alternative orders and engagements. The tooth fairy assumes that people are mutable between professions at the snap of a finger.
It was down to Scottish National MPs to make an actual case. The engineers engaged in Trident could perhaps be used to create more wind farms, or renew other Navy vessels instead of Trident. But it didnāt seem to be at the scale or intensity require to replace the whole of the Trident proposal. Certainly I found no comfort in the suggestions, and I doubt the unions would either.
Those opposing Trident failed to win the argument on that point alone. They really had no alternative plan for the people working in the industries. And that always seems to be the case. When government lays people off, there is never a list of private sector employers sat there with cheque books at the ready. Even outsourcingās open secret is that it is really a way for government to fire people without getting their hands dirty.
Government never seems to realise that the only way it can fire people is if they are hired and retained by the private sector. If that doesnāt happen then government just goes from paying people to do something, to paying people to do nothing. Hardly a sensible approach and what a job guarentee program would fix in a heart beat.
So we have learnt a great deal from this debate:
1. When the chips are down numbers become irrelevant to a government, because they are largely irrelevant. Government spending is a matter of people and stuff. Always is. Always will be
2. Numbers are used by those in charge as a way of avoiding the difficult questions relating to real people and alternative uses. Used by ideologues to wave placards and shout slogans.
3. Government is very willing to deploy vast quantities of people and resources on a huge white elephant project, but refuses to do so on anything more useful to mankind.
It is time to break down the frame of numbers. It is time to refuse to speak in terms of numbers, and start talking only in terms of people and real resources required to get things done.
That way we can avoid the nonsense of pretending submarine crew can become surgeons overnight. We can address the actual shortage of skilled staff without believing they will magically pop into being just because youāve taxed some rich people.
And we can debate the actual use of the nationās resources and ask if what people are currently doing is actually the best thing they could be doing.
The only constraint on government spending is the skills and real resources we have available. Trade is the same get rid of the numbers and actually look at what people are doing with the real resources instead. What type of real resources we receive from other countries.
No raid on wallets required because unlike the Eurozone we do not need to collect the currency before we can spend.
January 13, 2022
It should I hope be obvious that we need a programme of new nuclear power stations to replace the ones we are losing, and more if we are going to electrify the economy further. It should also be obvious that we should not commit to further EPRs at Sizewell or anywhere else. We should instead adopt established proven technology for the initial programme, with an accelerated approvals process that accepts the proven technology rather than trying to reinvent it. We should aim to build this initial rollout to the same design to reduce costs. Done in this way we could have new reactors in 6 years, perhaps less. Further development of SMRs can then form the basis for the next round. Pension funds would no doubt be delighted to provide some long term finance at interest rates considerably below those offered to the Chinese for hinkley Point. As a low carbon investment it must meet their modern criteria.
January 13, 2022
The current value of the Hinkley Point CFD is Ā£106.12/MWh. My ready reckoner tells me that Rolls Royce’s projected costing of Ā£1.8bn for a 470MWe SMR with a 60 year life works out at around Ā£35/MWh for the capital cost element at a 7% financing rate, so Ā£40/MWh after allowing Ā£5/MWh for fuel and maintenance, assuming a 90% utilisation. However that is before the ONR has managed to saddle it with a load of unnecessary cost. A comparison with the Barakah project in the UAE, which supposedly cost $25bn for 4 reactors totalling 5.6GW shows similar levels of cost for current proven technology, although there may be some undisclosed cost overrun there – but there is no reason to be paying EPR prices for nuclear if we proceed sensibly. It is interesting to compare with the CFDs in payment for our existing wind, solar and biomass: this chart shows average strike prices weighted by energy generated using data from EMR Settlements, with the overall average now being just under Ā£150/MWh
https://image.vuukle.com/9ffc6604-feed-474e-a82d-c2de2f561502-4b89c6cd-0e60-4fea-9203-d9fa7fe7627b
Of course, current electricity prices are above that average, and it has has just been announced that suppliers will share a Ā£39m payment in respect of the last quarter in consequence. The daily payments to/from CFD generators over the last year are shown in this chart
https://image.vuukle.com/9ffc6604-feed-474e-a82d-c2de2f561502-30ff263d-2f3f-4a77-b710-b9a8aec53677
However, it is balancing costs caused by failures of wind generation and capacity shortages that have really soared in recent months, as shown in this chart, which includes the CFD payments to show their relative importance.
https://image.vuukle.com/9ffc6604-feed-474e-a82d-c2de2f561502-0fc0295d-bfba-4ac2-a733-7b75d93edba0
Volatile balancing costs and prices can be detrimental to nuclear investment by causing negative prices during times of wind surplus – also leading to exports at negative prices, subsidised by consumers. We really need to have intermittent renewables being made to pay for the consequences of intermittency, as recommended by Prof Dieter Helm a few years ago. Then perhaps we would not be so tempted to over-invest in unreliable power, and nuclear investors could proceed with more confidence.
January 14, 2022
Right now, Friday morning, our wind fleet, with an installed capacity of over 24.0GW, can only produce 0.62GW of power. Wind power is useless when the wind doesnāt blow.
January 14, 2022
Well done, Sherlock.