The government now says  it does wish the UK to be more self reliant. One obvious area to start with is energy, the centre of the current cost of living and international crisis.
The government wishes to move to a net zero future. They need to understand that for the next few years most people will need gas for their home heating boilers, most energy using industry will still need gas for ceramics and steel, bricks and cement. Most cars, trucks and vans will still need petrol or diesel. The electric revolution will be more widespread next decade, not this.
That is why the UK government now needs to call in the oil and gas industry in the UK and encourage it to fill the gap of the next few years with more UK produced gas and oil. The Business Secretary implied he would do so. So when will he make the announcements that policy needs? We do not need more studies or White Papers. The need is urgent. He and his officials need to give licences to explore and to produce more  from all the known deposits and fields. The Treasury needs to consider if the tax regime is sending the right signals, as it will be a big winner from more domestic production. Producing UK oil and gas already incurs Corporation tax at double the standard rate.
For its wider goal of decarbonising the government needs to make more rapid progress with small nuclear reactors, to conclude if this is feasible and economic and if so pump prime a development and production programme to make them a next decade reality. It needs to see which combination of technologies could back its extension of windfarms so that they can keep the lights on when the wind does not blow or blows too much. They need to decide on  the balance of green hydrogen production, battery storage and pump storage as the main means of storing wind energy when it is available and using it when the wind is on strike. Affordability matters when they make their choices. You cannot rely on more wind farms alone as there are too many hours when there is no wind or when you have to switch off the turbines because the wind is too strong. All the energy they produce on windy nights needs to be stored for use on calm days.
March 14, 2022
Good morning.
Yep ! And I wish . . .
Wishes are for fools. What is needed is action, and I see little of it.
To imply something is to suggest it only. Again, no action to be taken.
We are witnessing a government imolising itself. When the enegy cap, a Labour / RedEd idea, ends in April, not only will our prices go throught the roof, but we will be paying foreign energy companies milliions in compensation. Utter madness. Political parties do not get re-elected after they have just impoverished the voter.
A third of the price of our electricity is made up of VAT and payments to so called renewables. These renewables are owned by rich landowners and large foreign companies. The VAT, albeit smaller of the two, if removed would be as seen as a kind geture. So too would a reduction in fuel duty, especially on diesels. This would help industry.
Your party is digging its own grave and, when your fellow MP’s realise this it will be too late ! You are a lone voice.
March 14, 2022
We have in April, thanks to Socialist Sunak, a circa 60% increase in diesel taxes for many businesses with the abolition of red diesel. This will add even further to inflation and the cost of living crisis.
Net zero and the expensive energy agenda is pure insanity on stilts – politically, scientifically, defensively and economically. A disastrous leaving gift from that deluded fool one Theresa May.
March 14, 2022
I had my council tax drop in today 4% increase across the board with additions for adult social care and flood defence. So why is there an increase in National Insurance? It strikes me we are being taxed two or three or even four times for the same thing!
I do not want to pay to house people from Afghanistan, Hong Kong, EU or Ukraine. ÂŁ40 million still being sent to EU for child benefit for children who never set foot here!
Tax us out of existence for Tory virtue signallers to piss away around the world!
March 14, 2022
+1
Reducing 75year high tax burden would be a help. Even Gordon Brown calling for NI hike to be cancelled as it will hit the poorest!!
Good political move by him.
Waster Johnson coming after your last penny.
March 14, 2022
Sunakâs first (of many) tax grab action (even before Covid) was a 90% reduction the entrepreneurâs CGT relief which was intruded by the Socialist Brown. This to out Socialist even âindigenous growth theoryâ, âSave the Worldâ and âno return to Boom and Bustâ Gordon Brown and one assume discourage investment in UK businesses as much as possible.
March 14, 2022
Hope – âReducing 75year high tax burdenâ indeed and the highest levels of pointless red tape ever and soon thanks to the Net Zero religion and the war (that it has helped to create) the highest energy costs we have ever seen too.
March 15, 2022
LL, historic low interest rates for over a decade with high inflation does not bode well for peopleâs pockets. Lowest disposable incomes since 1950s.
JR blogs about resilience when he knows his party and govt has deliberately created the historic record for borrowing, debt and deficit!
The last twelve years of ever increasing taxes to reach a 75 year historic high was not an accident, it was deliberate. The repeated claims by 3 PMs and 3 chancellors of low tax utter dishonesty to con the public by this Tory socialist party and govt.
The trap in the N.Ireland protocol and sell out agreement through level playing fields- employment, environment, state aid etc- prevent cutting red tape, prevents independence, prevents creating your own laws, taking back control of money, control of our borders! or anything else! Another absolute lies.
Since leaving the UK has been invaded by boat people (6 million from EU decided to stay), Afghanistan invited her, Hong Kong invited here and yesterday Gove invited all from Ukraine with right to benefits, jobs. How about covid, how about saving NHS! How about mandatory vaccines or vaccine passports! Gove and co sacked 40,000 care workers for not being vaccinated! I canât recall JRâs or his colleagues protests.
March 14, 2022
âWhat does national resilience look like?â
A forlorn hope with this government. Politicians will pay lip service to the idea but nothing will change.
We have been dependent on food imports for such a long time, albeit with a strong navy for most of those years. Energy dependency is a relatively new status but it fits in with globalist thinking and the globalists have most of our politicians in their pockets.
March 14, 2022
So is the amount of subsidy to renewables a percentage of the total energy bill or is it a fixed amount? If it’s a percentage then it will increase with the bill which can’t be right. If the bill is increasing because of the cost of oil and gas then wind and solar will be more competitive and therefore won’t need to be subsidised.
March 14, 2022
+1
March 14, 2022
It staggers me how Conservative MPs in particular are missing the big win here. We do NOT need to produce more energy Mr Redwood – we need to use LESS energy.
Contrary to the views of some, this doesnât mean a return to the dark ages. Far from it. Despite the multitude of gizmos and gadgets in our homes we use less energy per person now than at any point for the last 60 years. The country as a whole is back using the same amount of electricity we did in the 1980s.
We have learned to do much more with much less – a trend really pushed by the EU with measures Tories moan about like energy efficient lightbulbs, hoovers, fridges and hairdryers.
The best thing we can do now is to insulate Britain. We can significantly reduce energy consumption simply by lagging lofts, replacing old doors and windows. With government will we could start this today – whereas small nuclear is a decade or more away.
Reply What a stupid post. Our energy use is down because we import so many more energy intensive items from China and the EU instead of making them ourselves. I have told you about the accounting distortions before but you will always criticise whatever I say.
March 14, 2022
Andy, you say we need to use less energy. That rather misses the point, with prohibitively high cost energy of wind and solar, being unreliable and heavily subsidised, we wonât have any!
March 14, 2022
Andy, I don’t think you’ve done you homework. If you look at this government report, you’ll see something important about energy use over the last 50 years :
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1020152/2020_Energy_Consumption_in_the_UK__ECUK_.pdf
There has a been a decline in energy use only in the manufacturing sector, where it has been very pronounced. But that’s because we don’t manufacture much these days. Domestic, transport and services have all seen an increase in energy use since 1970, contrary to your claim. You will also see the almost negligible contribution so far made by ‘bioenergy’ sources. We still depend overwhelmingly on petroleum, gas and electricity for our energy, and it’s good that some are trying to hold the government to account on how we can ensure the country continues to obtain energy from those sources.
March 14, 2022
If you look at the entirety of energy use in UK industry/domestic/transport etc. only about 20% of it is used for domestic heating. The average household could save about 15% energy by additional insulation. So that means if we put extra insulation in every single home in UK overall UK energy use would reduce by 3%. Big whoop.
March 14, 2022
I do not agree with much that John Redwood says but he is generally polite. Calling Andyâs post âstupidâ is insulting and demonstrates the paucity of the MPâs argument. Of course we should be working hard to reduce consumption but also look at all energy sources to balance pollution against insecurity. I expect better from my MP.
March 14, 2022
@middle road
Call a spade a spade Andy’s post is totally bonkers Stupid and Sir John knows how to politely say it in plain English.
If you are offended try Russia or China for their alternatives of politeness to relieve you of your pain.
March 14, 2022
For what itâs worth I find it funny. I am pretty much un-insultable.
March 14, 2022
If one is anything other than a right wing Leave voter then it seems to be a necessity in some parts, Andy.
They have to say something in place of fact-based reasoned arguments it appears.
March 15, 2022
It’s just a political spectrum NHL
Your derisory abusive comments equally apply to those like you and young andy on the other side.
March 15, 2022
NLH hahaha – yet you come here amongst what you call ‘right-wing leave voters’ every day, on this thread, feeling the need to leave 15 comments, 45 yesterday.
You feel only you make fact-based comments here; in one of the comments, you said the area around Chernobyl was comparable in size with England. Mark disagreed and responded to query your ‘fact-based comment’ that ‘the still-uninhabital area around Chernobyl is comparable in size with England’. He wrote: “A large exaggeration. The exclusion zone at Chernobyl is about 1,000 square miles, and there has some discussion about reducing it in the light of falling radiation levels. the area of England is a little over 50,000 square miles. Perhaps rather more important is that the permitted designs of reactors in the UK is such that a Chernobyl accident could not occur.”
When I looked up Chernobyl Mark seems to be correct “The Exclusion Zone covers an area of approximately 2,600 km2 (1,000 sq mi) in Ukraine immediately surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant where radioactive contamination is highest and public access and inhabitation are restricted.” Wiki.
Andy comes here most days with his ageist discrimination and insulting comments, perhaps one day when Andy goes too far, and he will, I will report Andy to the authorities as anyone on the other side of the political spectrum seems to like doing to get people cancelled for hurt feelings.
March 14, 2022
lots of practice I imagine.?
March 14, 2022
Middle road,
Well at least Andy got a reply.
My post seems to be deleted -presumably for pointing out that government do not care about the electorate. Nothing will happen, apart from some window dressing maybe.
More people can see this. So puff pieces about Boris the statesman bouncing back, levelling up, etc no longer fool people.
March 14, 2022
Me thinks Sir JRâs outrage is misinformed. Kevin Macleod who knows more about houses than any politician has recently debunked the drive towards heat pumps, not least because of their electricity needs, by saying we should start with improved insulation/draught protection.
It is nonsense to suggest that my energy use is down because of what we import. It is because I am more careful than ever.
And in that respect I have been trying to do even better with solar water heating. But can I find a supplier anywhere. Too busy and I suspect I am not alone. This misinformed mis information spreading government would do better to increase the number of solar providers than the current heat pump nonsense.
Andy is spot on. As proved with state of the art eco homes, energy use can be reduced to almost zero. If not already, new builds should be aiming for net zero energy use. I am seeing umpteen new housing estates with no solar panels etc why not? Government should offer a free energy efficiency survey to include improvement suggestions plus subsidies to carry them out. And this time ensure you have sufficient suppliers.
March 14, 2022
Nig 1
The problem with finding suitable companies to install solar hot water is that capable and experienced enough are snowed under with replacing existing central heating units thanks to the impact of threatened heat pump alternatives. Add to which the industry and developers install combi boilers, they are cheap and easy to install and do not require detailed knowledge to make them work and have no hot or cold water storage requirements. To fit wet solar they require a heat store which means finding space for it the very thing that combi boilers do not require a lot of.
Conventional heating systems will in most cases require a new cylinder mains pressure with solar coil and sensor tappings . Then there are the panels , pipework and control stations to consider. To the run of the mill installer they are not easy money against fitting a combi. My company had solar hot water, heat recovery written onto my vehicles.
The tax payers are being hit hard enough at present and I do not see why households or landlords for that matter have free energy surveys, and subsidised improvements funded by the tax payer.
Any reputable Heating Installer/Installation company would be able to build such a survey in when quoting for the work and advising for the best options available. But it comes at a cost if the client is really serious about having the best. Too many installers want the quite life and the easy money.But it is very doable and from my point of view very satisfying when clients go for it and 12-18 months down the line tell you how much better off they are with taking the leap of faith.
Recommendations were a very good source of enquires and continuous work load.
March 15, 2022
Insulation fans should remember the buildup of radon gas in certain properties. Ventilation has always been a good and healthy thing and still is.
March 20, 2022
Look at the map on UKradon.org and check whether it is a potential problem or not.
March 14, 2022
Yes! What a stupid post. We have villages and lots of houses including my own with Listed status and they are not permitted to change things like Front Doors and windows. My walls are cob and the rooms small, make them smaller by insulation? Away on with you, that would be mental! I have a thirty year old vacuum, it still works better than modern Chinese rubbish.
Your generalisation is rubbish, its obvious you are part of the change for change sake generation!
March 14, 2022
Plus you only use the vacuum for perhaps 30 mins a week (less still in my case) and the âwastedâ heat just heats the house anyway!
March 14, 2022
Andy even in the 1980s people used electric storage heaters, gas fired CH was not that widespread, coal fires were commonplace. Quite a number of homes were built with electric underfloor or fan room vents electric heating. Think about the manufacturing that went on and the enormous industrial use of electricity. You were in primary school I don’t suppose you have a clue about the reality of life then.
March 14, 2022
Ps. You only have to look at peoples roofs after it has snowed to spot those with poor insulation.
March 14, 2022
@Andy “The best thing we can do now is to insulate Britain” ? Wow.
So when are you gluing your hands to the tanks invading Ukraine with your mates? Many would follow your dreams methinks…
March 14, 2022
Reply to reply
+1
March 14, 2022
Andy : “We do NOT need to produce more energy Mr Redwood â we need to use LESS energy.”
Have you realised how much energy you are consuming re-building your house?
March 14, 2022
…..or using the internet, OR. Gigantic servers are often situated in the cheapest countries for electricity.
March 14, 2022
A silly post indeed. We use less electricity mainly due to LED lighting and exporting industries overseas together with the related jobs. Electricity is only 20-25% of total energy use. You switch from electricity to energy in you comment – it is not at all the same thing.
We do not moan about âenergy efficient lightbulbs, hoovers, fridges and hairdryersâ just about being forced to use them by government decree when they often make no sense for our particular situation. Compact florescent lamps were appalling, dim and full of nasty mercury but were still rammed down everyoneâs throats. The waste heat from a less efficient fridge, lamp, hoover⊠heats your house anyway. So if you have electric heating little direct benefit! Plus you have to buy the new, more expensive and often less reliable and short lived products like condensing boilers.
March 14, 2022
Andy
The reduction in energy since the 80s is because of the loss of heavy industry since then. For it to amount to the same means that domestic energy has gone UP and by a huge margin.
These taxes are going to hit hard. Nothing empowered Putin more than carbon accounting (also known as cheating) and the reliance of the EU on his gas.
March 14, 2022
PS, It is a similar falsehood to saying that child abductions have gone down and street violence has gone down – so it means we’re safer.
No it doesn’t.
If kids aren’t allowed out to play anymore and people have modified their behaviour to avoid conflict then it doesn’t mean we’re safer- it just means we’re a lot less free.
March 14, 2022
This is what happens when Neo-Marxist progressive ideology infects a nation and its politicians with its poison. Common sense and utilitarianism is thrown out of the window causing suffering for all and all in the pursuit of what exactly? A narrative of Net Zero? What the hell is that? Who contrives this tosh anyway?
Even Mr Redwood accepts the bloody narrative of Net Zero nonsense but then he’s a party politician so has no choice but to submerge his true feelings and opinions on the altar of party loyalty and unity
We are seeing terrible things on tv with the world passing through a transformational phase of realignment while Labour politicians can’t agree what constitutes a woman. Yes, this is what exercises the tiny minds of politicians today. Pathetic, beyond pathetic
I know Labour is a cancer but the Tories have allowed their politics to flourish and bloom by their refusal to oppose while deceitfully and surreptitiously embracing it for an easy life and to appease the progressive enemy
Reply I accept that the main governments intend to act on the net zero narrative and ask the U.K. govt to build affordability and availability of power into their policy. I have not written in support of their narrative.
March 14, 2022
And if the British people “ask THEIR Government NOT to act on the net zero narrative” then what?
We find out who they really work for! And it isn’t us.
March 14, 2022
Why do governments fall for âThe Emperorâs New ClothesââŠover and over again?
Politicians who see the truth should be that little boy who called out the Emperorâs nakedness.
It would only take a bit of truth-telling âŠno bravery involved.
He SHOUTED it and the scales fell from the onlookersâ eyes.
â Look, the sails arenât turning!!â
Fairytales had a purpose.
They should be promoted!
March 14, 2022
+1
March 14, 2022
That is the biggest problem about the whole Net Zero package. Unrealistic time scales. All these countries and ours worse than most, all pissing before they have got their flies open.
As usual with our lot loads of talk and very little or no thought.
There is going to be such a backlash against all of this because there is no reason to destroy people’s way of life over trying to reach zero CO2. Its unachievable with the technology we have at the present. Nobody in this government has the b###same to tell Boris you could and most probably backing let alone riding the wrong horse. All the things that need to happen are being ignored. Dingy Invaders, poor housing stock, secure efficient power generation 24/7 and distribution networks. Not a nano gram of common sense between all of them.
500+ want to raise up their hands and take a good hard look around then and then take an even harder longer look in the mirror. THEY ARE THE PROBLEM.
March 14, 2022
+1
March 14, 2022
+1 – sadly the government will talk the talk, and do nothing … except make things a hundred times worse with their mass immigration. Andy will be really pleased when many pensioners start dying of cold and hunger. (sarc).
March 14, 2022
Shirley it is not talk but utter lies. Johnson and his govt. have no intention of changing net stupid, cutting taxes, stopping immigration, or Brexit. Johnsonâs main aim is to lie to get votes and do the opposite.12 years of failure is not an accident it is deliberate.
March 14, 2022
Pensioners dying of cold had hunger.
So two years of Covid restrictions, a wrecked economy and a newly strident Putin WERE a waste of time then, seeing as Covid was mainly a killer of old people. OK to die of hypothermia but not Covid.
I see that the paid help (representing you and me) at the BAFTAs had to wear a mask while the spoilt celebrities wandered around free.
This obscene spectacle was reflective of what happened at climate summits with politicians unmasked while waiting staff had to stand to attention like faceless mannequins.
Sickening but this really tells us what it’s all about.
A return to Downton Abbey days but without respect for staff.
March 14, 2022
‘and’ not ‘had’.
March 14, 2022
This government is resilient in its thinking but not in its energy policy
HS2, National Insurance tax hike, cementing the gas fracking well-head, ending any further gas/oil exploration, maintaining VAT rates, NI protocol and net-zero still going aheadâŠ.and what of the full Sue Gray report
March 14, 2022
+1 g c
The Sue Gray report, superceded by the police investigation. A judge led enquiry will surely be the next area of long grass…….
March 15, 2022
+ 1,000,000 turbo terrier. We are being governed by a bunch of total incompetents.
March 14, 2022
Have Cuadrilla been contacted yet to stop the state mandated vandalism of concreting over their gas Wells or is it just another pule of hot air from Bozo and wife.
Have the company been contacted to start work on the Cumbrian coal mine or is this still under judicial review.
Actions my dear man not platitudes.
Are Extinction Rebellion and Co going to be treated like the terrorists they are.
March 14, 2022
+1
March 14, 2022
+1
March 14, 2022
Ian Wragg :
We will find that BEIS (Business Elimination and Import Substitution) will become dysfunctional and, like a former Labour Home Secretaryâs description of the Home Office, ânot fit for purpose.
And for the same reason.
The Secretary of State may wish to pursue a certain policy to fulfil a manifesto pledge/protect the country and its people/keep his seat at the next GE but the Civil Servants in the department will want to continue with their own ideas (Net Zero in the case of BEIS) and will put a spanner in the works of any divergence from their intended path.
March 14, 2022
The first and most important step is to abandon its hugely expensive, unachievable and meaningless drive to net zero. It is unaffordable. It fails, on its own terms, to reduce man made CO2 (because CO2 generating activities are exported elsewhere to be reimported as commodities or finished products). It is meaningless because the main drivers of climate, the sun, our orbit around it, tectonic plates shifts causing volcanic action and the behaviour of clouds are wholly unpredictable, create a chaotic system; these dominant natural forces, as the scientists who write the IPCC’s WG1 report concede, are excluded from their models. Yet the narrative we are fed expects us to believe that man made CO2 drives the climate in a linear response within this chaotic system we call climate. The smart response would be to adapt to climate change as it evolves, cut waste and reduce actual pollution (not obsess about CO2). Then your sensible proposals could be pursued with the urgency they deserve.
March 14, 2022
Gear, hear, Old Timer! And that IPCC report to which you refer has had a second report out that points out the huge chunk of missing data! The mediaeval period when CO2 levels were about double what they are now! I wonder though, whether that will have been shown to Johnson?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/02/15/ipcc-ar6-spm-credibility-destroyed-by-disappearing-medieval-warming-period/
March 14, 2022
Johnson, along with other Princes, Presidents and Prime Ministers who attended the Glasgow COP, wear no clothes but a few, like the wattsupwiththat blog and others do point out the inconsistencies between what the scientists write in WG1 and what the spin masters write in the SPM. They control the narrative we are fed. Countries, like India, who rightly do not buy the SPM narrative must think the West is stupid.
March 14, 2022
I should add that the scientists, in WG1 acknowledge, the c17thC Little Ice Age; they think it was caused by volcanic activity somewhere around the globe. They also acknowledge that increased CO2 in the atmosphere promotes plant growth, greening the planet, and say it will have feedback effects. But they do not quantify what they are and so do not allow for this feedback in their models. They also concede that their atmospheric grid is to big to capture and measure cloud effects and cite two studies which say it would be too costly to attempt to do so. In any event any model would be no better than the assumptions fed into it. WG1 vindicates the arguments put forward by Dr Steven E Koonin in his book “Unsettled? What climate science tells us, what it doesn`t and why it matters”.
March 14, 2022
+1
March 14, 2022
+1
Many of us, but not enough, saw Climate Change for the SCAM it truly is. The good news is, thanks to the very people pushing this, the SCAMdeminc and war with Russia, costs are going through the roof. And if there is one thing that is guaranteed to make the Silent Majority silent no longer, it is by hitting them where it hurts most – their pockets ! The trouble is, the political class and the Establishment are well behind the curve.
March 14, 2022
Multiple small nuclear reactors are an absolute non-starter. The NIMBY middle-classes like Andy won’t even accept new homes being built where they live never mind nuclear reactors.
March 14, 2022
One or two large reactors should surely, logically be cheaper, easier to protect, safer and more efficient than lots of small ones. The main cost of nuclear is so often the political processes and delays & not the engineering.
March 14, 2022
Imagine that a technical fault occurs at one of your large reactors. How big a chunk of your national generating capacity then goes kaput? A larger number of SMRs would be a more resilient solution. Over time, some diversity in design should also be introduced.
March 14, 2022
Not convinced that one or two large reactors are ‘easier to defend’. You need to believe that all incoming missiles can be shot down, whereas one or two will usually get through. The distribution network will also be concentrated and vulnerable.
March 14, 2022
Roy Grainger & Lifelogic :
Just because SMRs are small and modular does not mean they need to be sited in peopleâs back gardens.
For a start they can be placed in the 7 nuclear sites that are being closed between now and 2028 where there exists already a willing workforce, security and the power transmission lines. Plus another 6 or more retired nuclear sites around the country.
Two 470MW RR SMRs at each of the 7 existing sites would produce 6.6GW, which is far more than the 3.6GW Dogger Bank windmill energy at the last CfD auction (AR3). And more modules can be easily added at a later date.
Because SMRs are smaller and factory built on a production line they can be much cheaper than large, special one-off builds such as Hinkley Point C (which is itself two 1.6GW reactors) and in fact the costs are halved.
March 14, 2022
RG, it would appear these small nuclear reactors are about the size of a Premier League football stadium so there seems to be one obvious candidate, but only produce about 10% of a conventional reactor and they surely must be more susceptible to terrorist action.
March 14, 2022
They’re a non starter for technical, security, and environmental reasons whatever public opinion.
March 14, 2022
I donât object to new houses being built where I live. Quite the contrary. A big development is proposed very close to my house. I wrote in supporting it. All of my elderly neighbours in their big homes got together and objected. I suspect it will be rejected by the Tory council – which I didnât vote for.
I object to nuclear because when it goes wrong – and sometimes it does (Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima) – the consequences are unacceptable.
March 14, 2022
Yes, the still-uninhabitable area around Chernobyl is comparable in size with England.
March 14, 2022
How about fracking ?
You told us you didn’t want anyone to die when it was Covid we were talking about.
The gap between windfarm reality and windfarm propaganda is going to mean a lot of hypothermia.
March 15, 2022
A large exaggeration. The exclusion zone at Chernobyl is about 1,000 square miles, and there has some discussion about reducing it in the light of falling radiation levels. the area of England is a little over 50,000 square miles. Perhaps rather more important is that the permitted designs of reactors in the UK is such that a Chernobyl accident could not occur.
March 15, 2022
Andy : âI object to nuclear because when it goes wrong â and sometimes it does (Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima) â the consequences are unacceptable.â
Nuclear power, when compared to all other forms of power generation by TWhrs/death, is the safest of all.
March 17, 2022
“Yes, more people in England have choked on carrots than have been eaten by lions, so carrots are more dangerous than lions”, says Richard.
March 15, 2022
‘I object to nuclear because when it goes wrong ‘ – – you surprise us all Andy.
March 14, 2022
Indeed, it is clearly daft to build expensive nuclear reactors only to have them work very inefficiently by turning them on and off all the time to compensate for intermittent wind and solar.
March 14, 2022
Itâs clearly daft to pontificate on use when the project is still in its infancy. What I donât understand is why more hasnât been done to use or spin off from the reactors in our nuclear subs, for domestic supply.
March 14, 2022
I suppose you know that Mr Farage was stopped from having a meeting regarding the green scam?
Why are venues allowed to dictate politics?
The govt may say it wants to be self sufficient but it does not protect the free speech that just might give people the ooomph they need to regain their sanity!
I will believe the govtâs bleats when the anti fracking concrete mixer is withdrawn!
And someone gets a shovel out up in Cumbria.
March 14, 2022
As Iâve said before, when someone is being prevented from doing or saying something, you know that whatever it is they were being prevented from saying or doing is correct.
These idiots give themselves away by censoring or preventing people from speaking out. Itâs so obvious!
March 14, 2022
+1
Absolutely spot on!
March 14, 2022
No Sharon, global CO2 concentration during the Northern Hemisphere Medieval Warm Period was not double what it is now. It was not 800 ppm (twice the present concentration). It was about 250 ppm.
Temperature and CO2 concentration are not the same things, you know, and this whatever you might say about âfree speechâ.
So if Sir John moderates me and prevents me from saying that you have not particularly well understood the whatsupwiththat diagrams, is it more likely to make me right or wrong?
March 15, 2022
If CO2 levels were 250 ppm when the temperatures were higher than now, how come with CO2 levels rising from there to the current 400 ppm the temperatures dropped and there was a mini ice age in the later centuries? Doesn’t this disprove the link between CO2 and temperature? I thought the whole argument was that CO2 directly affects global temperature. If not what is the argument for reducing CO2?
March 15, 2022
The little ice age (roughly between 1300 and 1800) happened at a time when CO2 concentration was mainly stable (250-270 ppm). Possible explanations have been a series of volcanic eruptions between 1250 and 1300 that induced some NH cooling via increased concentration of dust/sulphate aerosols (confirmed by chemical clues in vegetation data, some in areas later covered by Icelandic glaciers).
CO2 concentration went from 280 to 300 ppm between 1850 and 1950, from 300 ppm to 400 ppm between 1950 and 2013.
The interactions between CO2 and T also depend on surface albedo: if temperature near the surface increases, the surface of ice-covered ocean decreases, areas of snow-covered land decrease, extent of Himalayan glaciers decreases, then the surface albedo (how much solar radiation is reflected at the surface) decreases, more radiation is absorbed by the surface leading to locally increased temperature. A positive feedback.
March 14, 2022
Sharon
Exactly.
But you really must stop applying logic and truth to your comments. It might piss some people off! I do hope so.
Keep on saying it.
March 14, 2022
I second that! +1
March 14, 2022
So tell me: the problems are clearly with the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers clearly. But what about the original WG1 report? Why is Larry Hamlin not saying anything about it? Are there too many pages for him to read?
ipcc.ch âAR6 Climate Change 2021: The physical science basisâ, 3949 pp.
If there is a question about the Total Solar Irradiance, why does Larry not adopt the cautious conclusions of Ronan Connolly et al., 2021, Res.Astron.Astrophys., 21, 131 âHow much has the Sun influenced the Northern Hemisphere temperature trends? An ongoing debateâ, iopscience.iop.org
Why does Larry not support the review paperâs authors in recommending new studies using alternate TSI datasets?
And TT, if Sharon is applying âlogic and truthâ why does she not question Larry using Minoan, Roman and Medieval peak temperatures over GREENLAND to produce arguments over global temperatures? This does not look very logical to me.
March 14, 2022
Are you suggesting that the science may not be settled ?
March 15, 2022
gc, Newtonâs laws were undisputed for about two centuries before Einstein came with a very different take on those that changed completely the physics landscape.
In a different domain, the mRNA approach is now disputing the field of vaccination to the DNA approach.
So there is no such thing as Settled Science.
A better question might be: Where is the new âEinsteinâ to change the climate change paradigm? S. Koonin based on his somewhat biased reading of the 2013 IPCC report? Really?
March 14, 2022
What a typically silly, binary analysis.
People are prevented from saying all manner of things for perfectly good reasons, such as not inciting violent crime, murder on a racial basis etc.
I doubt whether you would allow your private property to be used for a pro-European Union purposes either, would you?
So why should serious scientific establishments such as universities allow theirs to be used for people to spout anti-Enlightenment, conspiracy theorist mumbo jumbo?
March 14, 2022
Good grief.
Youâre still grinding on about âprivate propertyâ?
I bet youâre looking forward to 2030!
March 14, 2022
Because NHL, Universities should especially be places where there is freedom of speech and openness of debate.
They should not ban or censor speakers they do not like or topics they do not agree with.
Let the students hear different speakers with radically different views, let the debate take place.
Students might change their minds or the speakers might realise they are wrong and the event might help them change their minds.
The meeting as I understand it was to discuss the costs of Net Zero and the effects on the economy of implementing the Climate Change Act.
If their argument is so weak why are you so worried about hearing it, that you want them to be cancelled?
March 14, 2022
Universities are places which celebrate and operate the values of the Enlightenment, not those of the Dark Ages with its superstitious hocus-pocus.
March 15, 2022
Your definition of the enlightenment NHL
Not everyone’s
March 15, 2022
Martin ….’Universities are places which celebrate and operate the values of the Enlightenment,’
REALLY?
They celebrate in pubs, clubs, bedrooms the liberation of being away from parental standards…..
March 15, 2022
The Enlightenment – by its luminaries’ analysis – defines its own values.
You either accept them or you don’t.
The anti-vaxxers, climate fantasists, moonies, astrologists, homeopaths, and general conspiracy theorists do not, and that is why they are rightly excluded from institutions based upon them.
March 15, 2022
I like freedom of speech NHL
As should all Universities.
The debate surrounding net zero and its cost plainly doesn’t come anywhere near your florid descriptions.
March 17, 2022
Universities quite rightly will not allow any speaker who intends to use their forums as platforms to propagate proven LIES.
That is the problem that those over whom you fawn have.
March 14, 2022
Everhopeful. I fear you have a long wait.
March 14, 2022
+1
Yes!
Oh dear âŠmaybe Iâll never believe them?đł
March 14, 2022
Everhopwful, the shovel is urgently needed in Westminster!
March 14, 2022
Self reliant? Does Ukraine want to be self reliant? Does any sensible country want to be self reliant? No, we all need friends and allies. That’s why Putin cheered Brexit
March 14, 2022
Yes, Russia can be self-reliant because it covers enough of the Earth’s surface to have all the resources that it needs for that.
These small islands are at the other extreme.
Resilience looks nothing like brexit therefore, and the European Union as a whole has a far better chance.
March 14, 2022
The UK could be far more energy independent than it is currently.
It has great reserves of gas, oil, coal, fracking gas and oil, bio fuels and wood.
Which we are deciding not to use.
Instead we use imports so as to reduce our CO2 account as imports are added to the account of the nation we buy it off.
Soon we will be able to claim we are at net zero by this accounting manipulation.
March 14, 2022
+1
March 14, 2022
Putin kept quiet about Brexit. What he WAS cheering was German reliance on Russian gas.
Greenism empowered him like no other.
March 14, 2022
He did not keep quiet. He gave a long speech telling us Brexit MUST be delivered. Go figure
March 14, 2022
And I have a video of him saying before the result that Brexit was a bad thing but not too publicly.
He said afterwards that a referendum result must be delivered for democracy to mean anything, to be precise.
He was right.
Go figure.
March 15, 2022
I’d say that not murdering and outlawing your opponents is necessary for democracy to mean anything, but there we are.
March 14, 2022
Not as much as he’s cheering the EU for buying his gas and oil and funding his war machine.
March 14, 2022
Like the UK buys nothing from his ally China, you mean?
March 14, 2022
Self reliance has nothing to do with friends and allies. Self reliance means we are not hostage to the whims of a country upon whom we are reliant for one thing, or another. Just look at the non-stop threats emanating from France since Brexit, and France is supposedly a friend AND ally!
March 16, 2022
Self-reliance and resilience are not the same things, Shirley.
For instance, a country where people individually generated their own electricity would be more resilient than one which depended on a grid which could be disabled in a war, and there are many analogous things.
If the fuel to do so were supplied by a powerful and trusted ally then it would not be self-reliant, but still resilient in that instance.
That is why European Union membership if anything increases, not decreases resilience for its countries.
March 14, 2022
The EU chose not be friendly nor an ally when we were in the EU and especially not when we left.
EG France threatened withdrawal of electrical power from the Channel Islands as part of the “negotiations” over fishing.
The sensible thing is always to be as self reliant as possible, then you can choose who your friends and allies are.
March 14, 2022
From one Channel Island, Dixie, just from one, run by similar cases to the DUP and ERG.
March 15, 2022
As usual you chose to ignore the point which is that the EU exploited a dependence of ours to force our politicians to give in. They are not and never have been friends or allies.
Oh, except when they (Belgium, Nederlands, Austro-Hungary …) needed our help to defeat Napoleon.
March 15, 2022
Yes, it’s a pity that that succeeded.
March 14, 2022
no! he wanted to CAUSE division and disaffection with the EU.
March 14, 2022
@ Gary Megson -and so (in your world) Putin is proving now what a “friend and ally” he is to Ukraine is he?
March 14, 2022
At some future stage the remaining population of what will be left of Ukraine is going to wake up and ask who is to blame for their misfortune.And,if they have any agency in the matter,their anger may not be directed where you think/hope.
March 14, 2022
I think that their anger will mainly be directed at he who instructed his military to kill their loved ones and to destroy their homes, businesses, and infrastructure somehow.
Yes, they may have some criticisms for others too.
March 14, 2022
NLH
It will be directed at NATO which will refuse to enforce a no-fly zone.
It will be directed at the EU which will refuse to have them and will be too broke to help rebuild Ukraine.
False promises. Clapping seals.
March 15, 2022
NLA, you’re projecting your fixated hatred of the European Union onto others.
Most Ukrainians are nothing like you.
NATO didn’t promise a no-fly zone, quite the reverse under Putin’s express nuclear threat, and the conditions for accession to the European Union remain exactly the same as for all applicants or aspirants.
March 15, 2022
NLH, Hungarians and Poles used to be starry eyed about the EU once, thinking as the Ukrainians do that it was all about liberalism and democracy and would save them from the Russians. The EU is fining them now, for not toeing the German line, even while they are relieving the refugees in the middle of a war on European soil. That is what the Germans mean by “our European values.”
March 17, 2022
Poland and Hungary broke their treaty commitments.
That is a separate matter from anything else.
They will no doubt receive help for their efforts re the refugees.
Smart people can walk and chew gum at the same time.
March 14, 2022
What an utterly illogical inference.
March 14, 2022
Yes, any sensible country DOES want to be self-reliant. Because in times of shortage producing countries are going to keep their produce for their own people, and in times of dispute produce can be withheld or we can even be blockaded in order to blackmail us. Look how France recently threatened to renege on agreements to supply power unless we gave them a greater share of our natural resources for free.
March 14, 2022
Gary Megson :
I think Putin wanted the UK to be a member of the EU and hence controlled by his ally, Merkel.
Mrs. Merkel, was brought up in East Germany (her parents moved from West to East), spoke fluent Russian, was a senior member of the Russian communist propaganda unit known as Agitprop and was a spokesperson for the last DDR government before re-unification.
Mrs. Merkel was responsible for the unilateral invitation of 1m immigrants into the EU, for Energiewende and for the early closure of Germanyâs nuclear power plants together with a dangerous reliance on Russian gas.
At a speech in 2018 in Berlin she said :
âNation states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty and that sovereign nation states must not listen to the will of their citizens when it comes to questions of immigration, borders, or even sovereignty.â
March 14, 2022
Sir John,
Does an amendment to the climate change act need to be passed?
The legislation so favoured by 500 of your colleagues in Westminster frustrates reduction of CO2 emissions by not accounting for emissions in producing fuel (eg gas) and goods (eg steel) abroad and transported to the UK.
Denying the evidence of anthropogenic global warming is an unwinnable distraction.
March 15, 2022
I wish more attention was being paid to the likely scale of warming, which is in reality quite modest. I have been reading the detailed paper for those with a knowledge of the science from Wijngaarden and Happer, which reports on the methodology and physics of the detailed calculations they carried out on the absorptions and emissions of radiation in the atmosphere at various typical locations around the earth to cover atmospheric composition and profile variations (polar, equatorial desert, Mediterranean…). They compare their theoretical results with measurements taken by satellites with remarkably good levels of agreement, and calculate what the implications on radiative warming of the atmosphere would be of a doubling of each greenhouse gas. These turn out to be very modest, and substantially lower than the parameters used in climate models, leaving an awful lot of work to be done by feedbacks if the alarmist projections are to have any validity. Basically, it undermines the alarmist case completely. It’s real science, with theory checked against experiment. Not a model projection that turns out to be wrong that never gets questioned properly for failure.
March 15, 2022
Wijngaarden & Happer, 2020: very interesting. However it is curious that the authors did not superimpose the modelled and observed curves in Figure 15 of the original paper (or Figure 3 of the wattsupwiththatâs summary of W&H) and even better provide a difference curve. In some exercises I have seen students doing in the early 2000s, such a difference curve showing the wavenumber areas of disagreement was the springboard for further spectroscopic studies allowing better parameters to be included in the following release of the HITRAN database.
Here assuming that the present database (2017) is the reference, any departure between modelled and observations in Fig. 15 would have displayed the deficiencies in the modelling. Just comparing âby eyeâ the set of left and right curves in Fig.15 it seems to me that the agreement is far from perfect practically everywhere where it could matter, ie the strong absorption bands, eg the ozone band at 9.6 ÎŒm (around 1,040 /cm), the wing of water band between 400 and 520 /cm, or important for the discussion even the carbon dioxide 15 ÎŒm band between 620 and 700 /cm.
So this (non reviewed) paper is more interesting by what it tries to hide than by what it pretends to show.
Sorry I would have been a reviewer from hell to the authors if such a paper had ever come into my hands. Minimum comment would have been âpotentially accepted but with major revisionsâ.
Additional comment: Andy May from wattsupwiththat might be a good journalist but a poor scientist not to see this obvious flaw in the paper.
March 14, 2022
You say âThe government wishes to move to a net zero futureâ So very clearly we are governed by deluded, climate alarmist, scientifically illiterate, fools. There is no climate emergency a bit more CO2 and even a little warmer is on balance a net benefit. Greening the planet and increasing crop yields.
You also say:- âAll the energy they produce on windy nights needs to be stored for use on calm days.â Well perhaps but storing electrical energy (however it is done) is very expensive and wastes about 25% up to 75% of the expensive wind energy produced. Thus making stored wind electricity absurdly expensive. Best not to invest hugely in things that produce electricity when it is not needed – or just us it to heat building or storage heaters at night or chill freezers by giving it away at very low cost to anyone who can usefully use it. The best way to store energy is a pile of coal or tanks of gas or oil or nuclear fuels.
The net zero agenda is basically deluded, driven by virtue-signalling deluded, ignorant of physics/maths/engineering art graduates and moronic group think. Rather like the ERM and EURO.
If the government want to save CO2 why do they subsidise people to scrap their old diesel car and buy new electric cars (and thus cause new electric cars to be built)? This clearly causes far more net CO2 not less? Plus we do not even have any low carbon electricity to charge these vehicles with.
Why too do they still allow private jets, helicopters and first class travel when this produces far more CO2 than does economy flights?
March 14, 2022
The Government may want to achieve Net Zero but there is no evidence that the British people do and they have been misled (putting it politely) about what it will cost both the country and them personally.
Once again, and like other contentious issues over the last few decades which they know go against the grain of public opinion, the Establishment has closed ranks and is operating a political CONsensus to deny the British people any democratic say in the matter. According to Richard Tice, there has been an organised attempt to prevent any debate taking place by making commercial premises unavailable to a campaign group which is not promoting Net Zero. So much for freedom of speech in this Not A Democracy.
National resilience cannot be delivered if the Government is relying on intermittent, unpredictable and unreliable sources of energy and technologies which require rare metals mainly available in other countries and which are controlled by our adversaries/enemies.
National resilience cannot be delivered if the Government continues to expand the population by roughly a million people every 3 years and is, at the same time, reducing our already depleted ability to feed the existing population by promoting fields of solar panels and massive re-wilding of others.
There is no joined-up thinking in this appalling administration; they are floundering around completely detached from reality and are either incapable or unwilling to do what is necessary. A ship of fools.
March 14, 2022
+ many, Donna. There is no logic to what the government is doing, but they will sideline democracy as usual. They learned well from the EU and no doubt envy the EU not having to consider the needs and requirements of their citizens. Our politicians admire it so much that they are replicating it here.
March 14, 2022
25% greencr*p charge on our energy bills?
Why ON EARTH should WE subsidise rich landowners to host bloody, ugly, useless, hateful windmills on their rolling acres?
March 14, 2022
I’m rather more concerned about the nuclear plant thirty miles away that I am about the windmills that I can see over the way.
March 14, 2022
You could settle for no heating, no cooking, no light on the days the windmills don’t turn, or you could use them all from the output of that jobs creator at the plant?
March 14, 2022
There are no good arguments against serious exploration of whether shale gas reserves are as large as suggested. Estimates vary by a factor of up to 50. The world may be thankful that president trump won in 2016. If the democrats has been in power they would have shut down the US shale industry, putting even the US in hock to oil and gas imports.
For all the nonsense, smears and fake news about Russian funding of politics in the U.K. and the US, the one thing Putin really does seem to have funded is pseudo-scientific propaganda against fracking. With his hold over key EU member states such as Germany, we now see exactly why.
March 14, 2022
Richard. Good post.
March 14, 2022
They need highly-enriched uranium, a bit like weapons grade.
And they produce waste dangerous for thousands of years.
March 14, 2022
NLH
weapons grade uranium.
Which – because of EU expansionism – we’re going to need a lot more of in the form of weaponry for the new Cold War in Europe when it could have been put to use making energy.
Or did I not see EU officials present at the Ukrainian coup in 2014 ? Or Biden & Son messing and profiting in that region ?
The EU was not called the EU originally. The Common Market that we joined was set up to prevent war in Europe – there is now war in Europe.
March 15, 2022
It was set up to prevent war between its members.
It has been 100% successful at that.
March 14, 2022
BBC at it again.
20 Ukrainian kids being brought to England and fast-tracked for cancer treatment. All to the good, I suppose but then I , nor my loved ones, are suffering cancer at the moment.
But the BBC ! Zoe Ball “I am so PROUD of our NHS !”
Not one mention of the Government that organised it.
March 14, 2022
On topic
National resilience.
All of the things we would die without: Energy, fuel, water, food and shelter. We should be able to revert to a basic but survivable state without external help should the world go tits up – as it’s looking like it is.
How will you all be able to look Zelensky in the face when you tell him he can’t have his no-fly zone ?
All very well clapping. In no way should we enforce a no-fly zone, btw. We shouldn’t even be encouraging the Ukrainians to resist – we should have encouraged them to take Putin’s peace offer.
At the very best Ukraine is going to be ruined with hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced. At worst… I don’t even want to think about it.
Zelensky is being used by an ambitious EU and a NATO which wants to warn China off Taiwan but is too scared to fight a nuclear power directly.
March 14, 2022
Whilst I have every sympathy for the children with cancer, it is a FACT that this Government’s Covid Policy has led directly to a tsunami of untreated cancers in the UK in British people who have paid for the NHS through their taxes and now cannot get the treatment they need or will get it when it is too late.
And we’re supposed to support this?
March 14, 2022
If some are being fast tracked does this mean others are being pushed down the queue or is extra funding and resources being given? This is all virtue signaling by the Government who put looking good above the needs of their own people.
March 14, 2022
NLA. Not one mention of the long waiting lists now either. My husband is well over time for his check up for cancer and I know others too.
March 14, 2022
If battery storage is to be cost effective, electricity costs need to be several times as much as they are today. The depreciation cost of discharge and recharge of batteries is much greater than the energy returned.
March 14, 2022
The government and people that either stand to make lots of money or are eco communists want to move to net zero. Anyone that can think critically is a lot less keen. Physics, availablity of resources and the fact that most “green” projects are about as green as open cast mining mean that the whole idea is impossible.
March 14, 2022
AH, in no way am I a conspiracy theorist, but it’s not unknown for humans to spike the guns of their rivals to gain competitive advantage so why wouldn’t an unscrupulous country do the same i.e. Russia to fund Western net zero eco warriors and enthusiasts. Additionally the lobbyists, scientists etc who support human-led climate change would have to seek alternative employment if it was disproved in any way.
March 16, 2022
Or to fund the Tory Party and Leave campaigns.
March 14, 2022
As I understand it nuclear plants are designed to run at a consistent output so you have to have an alternative means of generation to cope with varying demand.
Either you have power generation you can switch on and off (dispatchable) or you over produce using nuclear and have a way to make use of the excess energy.
One approach for varying demand might be to use a mix of gas turbines and renewables where excess from the latter is used to generate hydrogen to then produce gas for the turbines and domestic heating and liquid fuels for vehicles, any excess gas being stored for periods of higher demand. The point is to avoid having to import gas and liquid fuels.
Wind and solar farm operators should be required to incorporate storage to make their output dispatchable and would no longer be paid to stop production.
March 14, 2022
Nuclear submarine reactors aren’t constrained to produce ‘consistent output’ – otherwise they would be completely unsuited for naval power. Rolls Royce’s SMR design draws, I believe, on its expertise in building reactors for the Royal Navy.
Hydrogen? The next lunatic idea from this ‘Green’ government.
March 15, 2022
Civilian versions may not be as capable or flexible for reasons of engineering or cost.
You use the Hydrogen as a precursor for syngas which is what you distribute for heating and power generation turbines. Syngas is Methane which is the primary component of Natural Gas so changes, if any, to boilers, storage and piping would not be as significant as with Hydrogen. There are pathways to turn H2 into liquid fuel for transport applications.
The issue is that national resilience depends on having viable alternatives when we have no Gas or oil of our own and cannot or will not import it. So what is your solution?
March 14, 2022
Alice +1 Got it in one!
March 14, 2022
If we want national resilience then that requires, also in addition to the above mentioned strategies, that citizens are not plagued with excessive taxes and they have some room to control their lives without being scared to walk out the front door.
Another scare front has just opened up — We are now being told by HMG inspired adverts that water will become scarce. This really is taking the Mick!
Probably the source of this is that water companies are jumping on the fake news bandwagon, and to avoid doing their real job of maintaining supplies of fresh water they look at increasing their profits — If water is seen to be scarce then it becomes more valuable and they can up the prices.
This comes on top of the announcement that water meters will be installed, with the same objective of increasing profit without them doing their day job of storing enough water or even mending the leaky pipes –– Consumers are a much easier target!
RIP-OFF BRITAIN JUST GOT WORSE
March 14, 2022
I had several emails from my water supplier last year asking me to reduce my water use as supplies were running out. We keep building hundreds of thousands of new houses but don’t seem to build any new reservoirs. The population of the UK is increasing at an alarming rate outpacing the availability of the infrastructure. This will all end in tears. Shame on our politicians who allow this to happen.
March 15, 2022
@Christine +1
Yes – it all boils down to people not doing their jobs properly.
Why aren’t the water companies collecting more of the rain water that falls, and storing it for future use?
Why aren’t water companies doing more to fix the leaky pipes that spill out more water than makes it to consumers?
Why hasn’t the government addressed the issue with realistic plans instead of ripping off consumers?
March 16, 2022
Private companies are there to make money, not to provide a service.
The less that they can get away with spending on the latter, the more money they make.
Tory law doesn’t seen to force them to do very much at all.
March 14, 2022
You and most of the rest of us have said all this for a very long time. Is repetition a necessary tool when dealing with government. I await Boris’s energy plan and it had better be good. I also await the Chancellors plan for a post Brexit post Covid plan for an entrepreneurial UK.
March 14, 2022
This is the classic government response when found out saying what it now wishes. Meaningless with no outcomes as we see with fracking.
As with everything that comes from Boris, I done believe you. We shouldnât have been put in this position in the first place.
March 14, 2022
So who IS allowed to own one of our former football clubs?
Not a Russian but a Saudi?
The Saudis recently executed 81 people in one day!
Oh and our dear govt. is being called waaaycist over the ÂŁ300 per month take-a-refugee reward money!
Oh dear me!! Much wringing of pinnies!!
March 16, 2022
Sorry, what representative of significant numbers of people is calling the government racist over this matter?
None, are they?
March 14, 2022
Of Business Secretary Kwarteng you ask ” So when will he make the announcements that policy needs?”.
I think it very commendable of you to stick with him. I am looking to his successor before anything useful happens but then I could do with more Christian charity.
Reply The PM is not about to replace him so I address my remarks to him
March 14, 2022
Understood: entirely proper. What we all know and the PM should too is that we do not have the latter day Ludwig Erhard we need so much, now more than ever.
March 15, 2022
I read that the PM has commissioned a separate team to bang heads together in Whitehall and produce a sensible policy for fossil fuels. That rather suggests he understands he cannot expect one from Kwarteng and the quangos.
March 14, 2022
What does national resilience look like? In a word a doughnut designed by non STEM folk who have zero experience of demand and supply let alone generation of power sadly.
As an example we are now far more vulnerable to major pinch points of supply risk today due to closing down our options from the time when Ed Miliband was out in charge of UK Energy. That says it all!
March 14, 2022
I support Nigel Farageâs call for a referendum on Net Zero, hopefully this will put an end to the madness!
March 14, 2022
+99
We demand our say – we’ve had enough of fairy tales
March 14, 2022
Lester_Cynic: If of interest, the petition to Parliament calling for a referendum is still open for support – Petition number 599602.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/599602
March 20, 2022
But the Government has given its response to the 24,000 people who had signed it, and the answer is âNoâ as a referendum is not the tool to address the question (which BTW shows that Farage and Niall Warry are not as clever as they think they are).
March 14, 2022
I think that’s why the two commercial premises where the cross-party campaign “Power Not Poverty UK” were due to hold their rally were lent on to withdraw from the booking.
The pro Net Zero Establishment is running scared of the people …… again.
March 14, 2022
The PTB will never let us have another referendum. They got their fingers burned over Brexit and still haven’t recovered. They just keep trying to burn our fingers for having voted for Brexit.
March 14, 2022
Lester. I support Farage full stop.
March 15, 2022
Me too fus. The best PM this country never had (excluding Maggie and Churchill of course).
March 17, 2022
Nigel “the euro will be dead and buried by Christmas 2012” Farage.
Nigel “Russia won’t invade Ukraine” Farage.
Aye, I’m sure that you do.
March 14, 2022
Off topic, now the US wants to take on China as well as Russia. In fact the US will not tolerate any country in the world doing anything to frustrate the sanctions on Russia imposed by the US and its allies.
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/03/13/sullivan-on-china.cnn
“Sullivan vows consequences if China gives lifeline to Russia”
March 14, 2022
Now the Chinese accuse the Americans of “disinformation”:
https://www.politico.eu/article/china-accuse-us-disinformation-ukraine-russia-war/
âThe U.S. has been spreading disinformation targeting China on the Ukraine issue, with malicious intentions.â
Is this because President Biden is old and barmy, or what?
March 15, 2022
Oh, so you do believe everything that the Chinese say after all, now.
March 14, 2022
Alice
Carrie says “you must stop thinking like that” In their world common sense and logic does not exist.
March 14, 2022
All I’ve been reading about is more useless windfarms being foisted on us all. Dumb or what?
March 14, 2022
+1
I saw a tweet re heat pumps.
Plumbers wonât install the things apparently.
Too busy removing them from disgruntled customers!
New inventions must run concurrently with the earlier ones.
And they must fight it out in the market place!
March 14, 2022
+1
March 14, 2022
âBritish Grown Tulips for Mothersâ Day!â
Way to go. At last.
THATâS what we want!
British grown. British made.
British pickersâŠ.no chance!
March 14, 2022
+1
March 14, 2022
Everhopeful. Why break your back doing a days work when you can lie on it all day and get more in Universal Credit?
March 14, 2022
Alice. We never needed wind. A sensible approach would have ensured this. They are an expensive folly.
March 14, 2022
Yes, industry learned long ago that windmills (and now turbines) were not reliable enough to run a business. Why have we now accepted unreliability is somehow ok?
March 14, 2022
“The government wishes to move to a net zero future.” This policy, complete with its aggressive yet arbitrary timeframe, is at the root of our energy problems. Despite government hyperbole, the case for Net Zero has never been convincingly made, especially as it pertains to just the UK (and perhaps a number of other countries) but allows many more countries to pursue their own more rational energy policies, negating the efforts of the UK along the way.
To even try and reach its goal, the government has to make huge bets, back market-defying policies, and adopt a dirigiste mindset that is anathema to effective governance.
Sir John, in your excellent analyses of energy policy it would be best to set aside the the overarching aim of NZ and just focus on what works in balancing security of supply, cost, and environmental stewardship.
March 14, 2022
The PetroDollar and ZeroCarbon are mutually exclusive.
The West has not thought it through.
March 15, 2022
It will be Renminbi only for lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel, carbon anodes, wind turbine steel jackets, neodymium, solar panels, Geely EVs (includes Volvo), and micropocessors and computer device storage.
March 14, 2022
It sounds as if the Business Secretary is trying to wish the energy crisis away. Summer is coming and people will not need so much heating. Next month prices will rocket again, and quite likely again before the year is out!
As the crisis is a well known fact, and the answer has been known for years as well as government being constantly reminded by Sir John and many others, if (when) people die due to the lack of energy, will that be democide?
March 14, 2022
National resilience for Boris is to stall any decisions on using our own gas and oil assets for our benefit and groveling to Saudi Arabia instead. Anything so he can build more windmills.
Goodness knows what they will get out of him but it will be easy and you can be sure it won’t be good for us.
I think you agree Sir John he is a great PM when it comes to grabbing headlines for his personal benefit.
March 15, 2022
I suspect he will be asked to supply more weapons to attack Yemenis and Iranians, risking a very dangerous war, in exchange for a rather limited amount of diesel to try to replace some of the loss of imports from Russia.
Our oil imports from Russia in recent years are in this chart:
https://image.vuukle.com/9ffc6604-feed-474e-a82d-c2de2f561502-14386bd5-a73b-409b-8182-a4c577af3d47
March 14, 2022
This country’s lack of national resilience is embarrassing. That Mr Hunt MP didn’t follow the findings of research study after study to keep stocks of PPE (or at least have a plan on where and how to make the required PPE within the UK) to prepare for a pandemic. That even after SARS and test and trace systems already operated in Foreign Countries, we hadn’t even planned for one.
When I think back to the 1980s people I know didn’t have central heating, the windows at home were single glazed people felt cold at home, the water heater was only switched on at certain times each day, limited bath use and no shower. No mobile phones, no internet or home computer/gamestations, no choice in television viewing channels, shops shut on Sundays, people say there has been no progress – really! Well if this government takes us back there pursuing net-zero by 2030 the young people won’t cope, my kids can’t believe it when I go out without my phone for an hour! We didn’t have wardrobes full of clothes, tumble dryers, two cars families, my Mum cooked all our meals from scratch using in season low-cost vegetables with every meal, no takeaways, no ready-meals, no fast food frozen meals and she worked; going to a restaurant was unusual and usually, for a birthday or some special event, no foreign holidays, a weekend away was a big treat, a trip to a caravan holiday a massive undertaking and not every year.
Are you really planning for the next generation to all live false lives in the Metaverse.
March 15, 2022
Spoken for millions of families now grown up to appreciate what we have achieved. Who is going to tolerate this ‘iron-curtain standard of living’? Well the first reaction is to vote against the party doing almost nothing to reverse this plunge into meagre living standards and removal of the things that make life worth living.
March 15, 2022
Itâs true MT. The political parties all as bad as each other though and some are even worse. What makes me laugh is the first thing they do is protect their own wages and benefits package and pensions normal people working in the private sector just canât buy a fat pension at 60. Over ÂŁ100,000 pa jobs with no real responsibility or need to sell anything or even provide a decent service and a should they choose to take early retirement get awarded a nice little consultancy job on the side and they look down their noses at people who have to scrimp and save to try to provide 20% of what they enjoy in their retirements.
When they chase young people into virtual reality worlds to get their kicks, pretending to be something they arenât donât say they werenât warned. The warnings are all around us. The next generation are just giving up their freedoms too easily. They canât even speak their minds, especially to the brain washed. The cancel culture will be ok for them until it is their turn to have their lives cancelled, then theyâll all have a melt down. Theyâre giving away their cash and right to buy what they want at a time they choose (their bank account can be frozen with the touch of a button), freedom to travel at a reasonable cost, even their freedom to own anything. Their virtual reality goggles will be their only joy or their one hour walk around the block that theyâll be allowed. Weâve had the trial run and the top echelons like their power (just look at power tripping Sturgeon and Drakeford to give you a taste of what Labour in power would be like). Gove stabbed the English in the back when he got rid of Evel – he is Scottish though! But his party let him do it. Theyâll be sorry when they lose power soon.
March 14, 2022
ÂŁ350 pm payment for a room for a refugee.
My lad’s paid ÂŁ350 per WEEK for a grotty student dig which he’s going to have to pay on debt for many years to come. Not to say that this refugee payment isn’t about charity – but why now ? Why didn’t we offer this for brown people coming over ?
And ÂŁ350 per month. Will this even cover the extra utilities ? Or the issues in evicting problem families ? (and there will be a few) Or the impingement on personal life ?
It smacks of a political class out of touch with the cost of living crisis.
Had we not abused our asylum system and filled our hotels already with young men of military age this measure would not be needed.
I suppose we need to add one obvious thing to the list on national resilience and that’s proper border and population control.
I’ve given up.
It is quite obvious that the Tories are up to their necks in the wilful destruction of this nation.
March 14, 2022
Its cheaper than ÂŁ350 a night in a 4star hotel
The hotels are full and they can’t place refugees in army barracks….so the next best thing is to beg the people
March 15, 2022
glen, they don’t have to beg the people there are people like Linekar lining up to help so let them. Everyone can scream and shout from the sidelines ‘the taxpayers (government of choice) can and should do more all the time, can tax more to do more but then when it comes to paying the bills or putting up a spare room then they expect everyone else to do it. Does this funding come out of the foreign aid budget it should?
March 15, 2022
NLA, I think the government are calling the media and certain parts of the public’s bluff with this scheme.
HMG know what you say is the case: they know it is more sensible to keep people in the region and to give a lot of aid in money, manpower, and kind to be spent on them there; they know we can help more people that way; they know that is what the Ukrainian government and people prefer; they know our asylum system has been grossly abused for decades; they know they are keeping Afghan refugees, illegal immigrants, and homeless women and children in hotels; they know there are homeless men and some women on the streets; they know up to a thousand illegal immigrants a day are coming across the channel; they know millions of Hong Kongers may want to come; they know what we all think about the situation which has been allowed to develop so that when it comes to genuine refugees, women and children being driven out of their country in Europe, while their menfolk stay behind to fight, there is no room at the inn.
So when the hard faced women like Caroline Lucas, Yvette Cooper, and Joanna Cherry spewed their hatred and bigotry at the Home Secretary and all too many other people joined in, loudly clamouring that the British public were wanting to take people in and it was only the heartless government stopping them, it made sense to come up with this scheme.
What I can’t understand is why the politicians are so coy about all the help we have already given and are giving, why they let these lying bigots have it all their own way, why they never put them down, though Gove managed a bit of that in the Commons.
March 14, 2022
Battery Storage, Sir Johna, is expensive pie in the sky.with the stored electricity providing power lasting an hour or two. The cost is prohibitive and likely to become more so with many countries bidding for the same scarce minerals required for the batteries.
Has anyone heard of the very large storage facilities in California that keep catching fire? If not it will be only because the BBC and our media find that kind of news far too inconvenient. It does not fit the narative!
March 15, 2022
Yes, BOF, I did. The NuStar large storage facility in Rodeo, California is a storage facility for ethanol produced by the Phillips 66 refinery (abcnews.go.com). And there was a fire there in October 2019.
Then there was the fire in an Amazon warehouse in a distribution centre in Redlands, near LA in June 2020 (abcnews.go.com).
Then the Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility containing lithium batteries had to be disconnected from the grid on 04/09/2021 then again on 04/02/2022 because some elements were shown to be overheating, with resulting scorched batteries and melted wires, but ⊠no fire.
So no fire linked to large scale electricity storage generated by wind or solar. Try again, you might even be able to report something correct. But check first your websites to make sure it fits the narrative.
March 14, 2022
All we are getting from Boris Johnson’s socialist regime is kite flying in order to test media reaction. We “might do this” or we “could do that”.
It’s rubbish.
March 14, 2022
âThe government wishes to move to a net zero futureâ
From 2021
âThe Climate Change Committee (CCC) told MPs that British households and businesses would face only a modest cost for reaching Net Zero emissions in 2050, but analysis of their financial models by the Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) shows that key assumptions were not credible even at the time the report was published.
The revelations come after the CCC spent two years and tens of thousands of pounds resisting attempts to have the Net Zero model spreadsheets released under Freedom of Information legislation. The Information Tribunal finally forced their disclosure in August this year.
The first results of the GWPFâs analysis focus on the Transport sector costings. The work reveals that the CCCâs claims that decarbonisation could be achieved at no net cost was based on wildly optimistic and sometimes bizarre assumptions âŠ
⊠Lord Deben, chairman of the Climate Change Committee, told Parliament the Net Zero report was âthe most seriously presented, costed effortâ â but it is now clear that the CCCâs costings were incomplete, biased, and grossly misleading.
Parliament was, in essence, misled and Net Zero was badly mis-sold. The public is now facing the price for that deception ⊠Craig Mackinlay MP, chairman of the parliamentary Net Zero Scrutiny Group, told the Sunday Telegraph that the findings were âscandalousâ and that Parliament had been âmisledâ. â
March 15, 2022
Barbara now Boris has the reason to put his plans back to 2050 which was all the manifesto said.
Who are the people who put their names on the report, who were the modellers, they should be accountable for ‘incomplete, biased, and grossly misleading’ these wildly optimistic and even bizarre assumptions are made by zealots to the cause without a care for people that don’t live in the big Cities.
March 14, 2022
âAll the energy they [wind farms] produce on windy nights needs to be stored for use on calm days.â
Creating hydrogen to store electricity through electrolysis and then using as fuel for a turbine has an overall efficiency of around 33%. When this is coupled with a windmill capacity (load) factor of 50% (optimistic) it means that 40GW of INSTALLED wind capacity (the aim for our North Sea windmills by 2030) will supply just 10GW of continuous, reliable electricity. We currently need around 40GW of continuous electrical power.
The windmill advocates realise this and instead of storage intend us to live with variable and intermittent electrical energy using âdemand responseâ and âvolatile pricingâ. Plus inevitably rolling blackouts.
Read the Net Zero Strategy and watch the HoL Industry & Regulators Committee Meetings on the subject âOfgem & Net Zeroâ.
March 15, 2022
Indeed. The volumes of storage required to allow wind to be used as the dominant form of generation while actually meeting demand are gargantuan and completely unaffordable. Moreover, life becomes really difficult when we have extended periods of low winds. You may be able to get away with imposing power cuts on domestic freezers for a few hours at a time – but not for days. Likewise for keeping EVs charged sufficiently to be able to use them. It’s unattainable and unaffordable.
March 15, 2022
‘Volatile pricing’ and ‘demand response’ – hence the push to get smart meters out to the mug public.
March 14, 2022
National resilience is the very opposite of Net Zero.
Which is why our communist fifth column Civil Servants are so desperate to implement Net Zero and have produced a 368 page manual (Net Zero Strategy : Build Back Greener) on how to destroy a country’s economy.
March 14, 2022
OT; This article, analysing China’s strategic interests in the Russian-Ukraine conflict, will be of interest and relevance to your post yesterday.
March 14, 2022
In other news Iâve just read in another forum; comments about the young men of Ukraine â
ââtheyâre erecting barriers around the town’s statues to try and protect them against imminent attack. Meanwhile here in the UK we have marauding gangs of youths and so-called students pulling down and defacing statues, trying to rewrite history.ââ
March 14, 2022
Mainly agree with you today Sir John.
A few points though.
We probably already have too many wind farms. As you point out they are of very limited use.
And haven’t they been placed on land that COULD BE PRODUCING FOOD? That is a stupid policy.
Far better to put Solar Panels on roof tops. For example every Central Government Owned building and every Local Government Owned building.
I’d welcome my council putting solar panels on my council owned bungalow. It would cause me some temporary discomfort having workmen around and above me for a while. I would not expect any economic advantage to me. My bills won’t reduce. But it would make sense for my country, long term.
Meanwhile, the U.K. is not properly OUT of the E.U..
That is what Boris was elected to do.
Our fishing waters are still being pillaged and damaged by others while we cannot buy fish from our own fishermen.
Northern Ireland is still effectively in the EU.
March 14, 2022
P.S. to my own comment about solar panels on rooftops.
Since Boris, or is it his wife, seems hell bent on the ridiculous Carbon Neutral policy, I pointed out that solar panels on roof tops made more sense than wind farms.
Also we need to increase our use of nuclear power.
But actually I think the whole carbon neutral policy stinks. I suspect there is a majority of voters think the same.
Carbon Neutral is only one of the crazy policies this government have pursued.
Unfortunately when we do get an election all the main parties are bad and alternative parties seem to have lost their way.
March 15, 2022
Your point is well made, rooftop panels would be effective and probably cheaper. Problem is of course that the profits of the big corporations would be cut, as would the need for big landowners to rent out their land for huge amounts, and we can’t have that can we? The public don’t count, only big money does.
March 15, 2022
Pauline, isn’t N.Ireland half in and half out more in the Single Market than the EU? The people there get to keep their free movement in the EU do they similarly have to take people from the EU who can then flow freely into the rest of the UK? It is just an open back door for Europe as is Southern Ireland, Boris set a trap for us.
March 16, 2022
Because of the Common Travel Area dating from long before the EU, there is already free movement between the UK and Southern Ireland.
March 14, 2022
Comrade Gove wriggled out of answering your question on the gap between the 3 year visa and the 6 month tenure.
March 14, 2022
One thing it looks like is an end to offical stupidity…
On that note, why has Kwarteng being endlessly ducking the calls from Cuadrilla, who are desperately pointing out that they are currently still legally obliged to cap the ony 2 fracking wells in the country.
The deadline may be 30/6/22 but they have repeatedly said that they need to start this week to achieve that and once it’s capped (filled with concrete), it’s not possible to undo it.
Also, they cannot ask the hired plant to sit idle while Kwarteng prevaricates – it costs a fortune to hire and it’s booked for other things after this work.
Kwarteng has said in the HoC that fracking should now go ahead, so PLEASE use your influence as an MP to discover why he is not matching his actions to his words. I’ve tried my own MP but they simply spout pre-baked woke nonsense.
I believe Kwarteng is a net zero disciple who has no intention of doing anything about this, we need to apply pressure from everywhere, fast – this is urgent.
March 14, 2022
Coming to a town near you…..sooner than you think
”Glasgow City Council has announced a ban on petrol and diesel cars and other vehicles in the city centre from next June. Residents currently living in the zone will have an extra year to replace their car or face fines”
March 14, 2022
So Putin can ask China for military help but Ukraine can’t ask any european country for help maintaining a ‘no fly zero’ in their own country…..shame on us for fear of the bear – we’re still dancing to his tune
March 15, 2022
National resilience is under attack from the fifth column communists at the BBC who constantly gaslight us that any deviation from the average weather, whether this is temperature, rainfall or wind, is âextremeâ and caused by man-made emissions of CO2.
This enables the utilities et al, many of whom are foreign owned, even by the Chinese Government (CCP), to reduce maintenance to increase profits and/or reduce the countryâs resilience to weather events by using the excuse that âextreme weatherâ has caused the lack of service.
This delights the BBC who then explain to us that the lack of services proves that man-made CO2 is causing climate change and extreme weather events.
March 17, 2022
Yes, that’s privatisation for you.