The government is offering us a new energy policy. It wantsĀ a new long term plan for its aim of getting to net zero by 2050, and a shorter term plan for the current decade to keep the lights on and to provide affordable energy as we await the technologies and investments in a greener future.
The government is likely to back substantial increases in nuclear provision for after 2030. By 2030 nuclear output will be well down following the closure of most of the existing fleet of stations, with only one major new opening. It will need a big rate of build to turn this round for the 2030s.Ā The government will also favour more wind generation. This can only work if at the same time the government and the market invest in storage and usage technologies that overcomes the intermittent nature of wind power. This week wind has been as low as 1% of our electricity generated, leaving us very reliant on gas and coal. Even if we had doubled current wind capacity it would have left us mainly dependent on fossil fuels to keep the lights on. Some combination of large scale battery storage, pump storage schemes, the production of green hydrogen and the location of energy using businesses close to wind arrays which can handle intermittency will all be needed if the country is to rely on more wind power. It is unlikely investment in batteries and hydrogen will be sufficiently advanced this decade to avoid the need for reliance on gas and other fossil fuels as transition fuels.
The short term plan is easier to work through. There is an overwhelming case to produce more of our own fossil fuels at home. It cuts carbon dioxide output substantially to do so. It generates a big windfall in tax receipts instead of sending huge sums in tax to foreign countries and in cash toĀ companies who export to us. It generates jobs here at home. It cuts down transmission losses. The government needs to work closely with the domestic industry to grant the permits and tackle obstacles to the necessary investment in more output.
There can be more help to encourage people and businessesĀ to improve the energy efficiency of their homes , offices and factories. The public sector could undertake substantial investment in energy savings measures to cut its footprint.
If the country is to succeed with the electrical revolution the government wishes, it will take a new generation of affordable and attractive home heating and vehicle products to wean the public off their current reliance on gas to heat homes and petrol and diesel for their transport and deliveries.
March 30, 2022
And still we haven’t been told of the cist of these bonkers ideas. Reading your post today zjohn I feel you think Johnson’s ideas are sane. How big was the envelope for this latest folly? The day anyone in Parliament comes up with something sensible regarding energy won’t be a day too soon. In the meantime they seem intent on bankrupting the country.
March 30, 2022
Wind doesn’t work. Fact
We have government by lobby groups. A half witted Tory party captured by the progressive left across all issues is an act of criminal deceit. They tiptoe around green, race and gender issues like barefooted bathers avoiding broken glass underfoot. It’s pathetic to watch Tory MPs having to think twice before they express a view
Some are waking up to Tory deceit and how the party double bluffs the public. Saying one thing in public but pandering and appeasing the lobby system under the radar
March 31, 2022
100% correct Dom
March 30, 2022
CO2 is .04% of the atmosphere. If by 2050 we reach ‘net zero’ we (the UK) will reduce that by 1%
That’s 1% of .04%. Utter madness.
March 31, 2022
Before the industrial age it was 0.025% or so.
The aim is to stop it from reaching 0.06% or higher.
For comparison, ozone, on which we crucially depend, is only of the order of one-thousandth of that amount.
March 31, 2022
You seem to have missed the point Old Albion was making NHL
It was, that even if the UK did achieve net zero, the overall effect on the climate’s temperature would be tiny.
April 1, 2022
No, I addressed and refuted it in my reply, which you have clearly not understood.
April 1, 2022
I have re-read the original post of Old Albion, and whilst it would be better to have his/her actual opinion, it seems fairly obvious that the post spoke only about the tiny amount of total global CO2 that the UK is creating and therefore the net zero policy if totally successful in the UK will have a tiny overall effect on global temperatures.
And reduced global temperatures is the key ambition driving all these policies.
Old Albion did not say anything about how it compares to the pre-industrial levels nor how it compares to the ozone level which was the topic of your reply.
I suggest you re read it again and have a think NHL
March 30, 2022
I’m expecting to be disappointed. Johnson, like Putin and Biden, is a zealot and has a limited capacity to back away from a failed policy.
I want to see a commitment to keeping our coal-fired power-stations kept in reserve, with full coal-yards.
And I also want to see government address the issue of training the nuclear engineers necessary to man the new SMRs. Raiding the ranks of the Royal Navy’s Submarine Service isn’t the solution.
I’ve ordered a second bucket of gasket.
March 30, 2022
JR The last paragraph sums up the situation, ā ā¦ā¦ is to succeed with the electrical revolution the government wishesā!
And, ā to wean the public off their current reliance on gas ā
The government has decided without any public consultation. Who do they think they are to make such huge life changing decisions with consultation? Calling it a cheek is a very polite way of describing the way a lot of people think about it all.
Not that I was ever into the idea, but Iāve gone off globalisation, it only benefits a few, very unpleasant characters.
March 30, 2022
I feel the only way forward is to use various sources of energy in an interacting way. How the science and organisation of this can be achieved I will leave to the architects of such a project .!
March 30, 2022
And how much will this “offer” cost?
As we know from the answers to the NHS questions yesterday, they borrow, print and tax so they can shovel money at a problem without bothering to carry out any kind of cost/benefit process.
The Ā£billions squandered so far on the Eco Loons’ windmills have provided about 3% of our energy needs this week. And they aren’t viable without large subsidies. Electric cars are expensive, inefficient and impractical if you live outside a metropolitan area and public transport is unavailable/inadequate/impractical.
If EVs, electric pump heating, public transport etc were efficient, practical, affordable and desirable options for most people they would voluntarily switch to them. They aren’t …. which is why the Eco Loons have to ban the popular alternatives.
I’ll be declining “the offer” at the ballot box.
March 31, 2022
In a few weeks Donna: poor old council will be getting a foot up the beehookie as I vote Power not Poverty. Not directly to do with them but itās my first opportunity to use my vote. God knows who I voted for PCC last year due to government lockdown. A raving loonie, I believe. Wouldnāt a conservative Conservative party make life simpler?
March 30, 2022
Abandon net zero and most energy supply problems disappear.
March 31, 2022
Its a Government of the Government for the Government
March 30, 2022
This obsession with windmills should be stopped. It’s a cul-de-sac with no benefits.
If we double the capacity of wind it will still only supply 2% on a windless day.
Thankfully the MSM is slowly waking up to the enormous expensive con that is wind power. Excellent article in Mondays Mail destroying the argument for wind.
The first party that pledges to stop this nonesense will romp home.
March 30, 2022
So Kwartang wants to cover hundreds of square miles in solar panels. You really do have a death wish with the electorate. Wasting more money supporting China buying useless intermittent power which will need 100% fossil or nuclear backup creating more CO2.
I didn’t read anything about digging our own coal or fracking our own gas.
Department for Business Extinction and Import Substitution working as usual against the British people.
March 31, 2022
Those the God’s wish to destroy they first make mad.
March 31, 2022
Ian. You are spot on.
March 31, 2022
Maybe like with Putin our civil service are to scared to tell our govrernment the truth against wind power
March 30, 2022
Wind turbines and solar panels are pretty much useless unless the energy can be stored. Does the world have enough natural resources to provide enough battery power for even a small country like the UK? I also have doubts about the safety of large battery storage and charging installations. Even small batteries can explode quite dramatically and there have been problems with some EV batteries catching fire. I believe the big data processing sites have large emergency battery power. Obviously these will be miniscule compared to the needs of a country, but their experiences of safety requirements may be a start.
March 30, 2022
South Australia made a disastrous mistake installing huge banks of batteries supplied by Musk at a cost of $30m, supposedly to provide backup when wind and solar failed. They did that – for about 3 minutes – while the grid was hastily connected to the neighbouring state. Anybody who thinks batteries can store enough energy to run a country or even a city for a decent time needs to do some homework. The problem with batteries is energy density. Tesla batteries weigh around 600kg, which is not far off the dry weight of the old Mini. A tank of petrol weighs about a tenth of that with probably better range. We are being sold a pup by ministers who mostly appear to have zero understanding of science or technology but just want to be environmental goody-goodies and to hell with the cost to the taxpayer. They will discover that the cost actually comes at the ballot box.
March 31, 2022
Shirley M
Exactly, well said
A few weeks ago the large merchant ship transporter load with cars a lot of electrical models caught fire and sank.
The fire started from faulty electric car batteries.
That will be the next insurance scam burnt out EVs that needed whole battery replacement..
March 31, 2022
Has the investigation report been published yet and identified the cause of the blaze? Can you point me to the investigation report that conclusively proved the EV batteries were the cause of the blaze rather than just a complicating factor in it’s management. Apparently the fire was put out eventually though the ship sank on the way to Portugal.
A recent AutoinsuranceEZ.com study found that ICE vehicles are far more fire prone at 1529 fires per 100K vehicles versus EVs at 25 fires per 100K vehicles. Hybrids are even worse at 3474 fires per 100K.
March 31, 2022
”Wind turbines and solar panels are pretty much useless unless ”
Just look at Greece for examples….luke warm water, then wait 5 hours for more luke warm water – and thats in the summer
March 31, 2022
Not that I don’t believe you but in the Summer months we have a days worth of hot water by 7am thanks to PV panels on the roof in the UK.
So I find it very difficult to believe you are presenting a truly representative summary of Greece.
March 31, 2022
Dixie. Perhaps it’s the difference between a hotel and a private household?
April 1, 2022
That would make sense.
March 31, 2022
I was highlighting the un-reliability of solar and indeed wind power
March 30, 2022
The green energy delusion is a perfect example of the total ignorance of physical reality that politicians suffer from. There is no combination of wind, solar, wave, battery or wishful thinking that can power any society that hopes to retain a modern conveniences such as having food or clothing available in shops or heating for homes. To really on those systems will require a drastic downsizing in population ( difficult when government is importing the entire Third World even allowing for murderous vacine policies) or becoming the Third World. Green energy will mean government won’t even have enough electricity to track and imprison us (the only plus).
March 31, 2022
I mentioned the same thing in my post, but it was deleted.
March 30, 2022
Good morning.
But this is not new. All it is is the realisation that we will no longer use Russian gas and that that has to be replaced by something else. In this case, more useless wind.
Nuclear is a longterm project. None of it will be available in the short to medium term. The plan, as I see it, is to try and limit consumption through Smart Metering and price rises- ie rationing. But this will not work as government does not seem to be following what one side (hand) is doing whilst doing the above. ie It is creating demand to combat inflation that it has created due to poor policies, bad to non-existant planning, massive money priniting to paper over the cracks of the aforementioned.
There seems to be as much reluctance to accept we are in a real mess with regards to energy policy as we are with what constitutes a woman. This is the mental maze those that are in power seem to have entangled us in. Most ordinary people can breath and think at the same time, a skill that seems to have been lost on those in Westminster and Whitehall.
There are undoubtedly some very clever people in the upper echelons, but with high IQ comes arrogance and the mistaken belief that they are always right. I am happy for them to make decisions that affect their lives, but not mine !
March 31, 2022
As I say, if you want to know what the word “woman” means then look it up in the dictionary.
It’s quite simple.
March 31, 2022
Please pass on your post to the Leader of the Labour party who could not or would not answer.
March 31, 2022
‘an adult female human being’.
There are growing numbers of people who are not adult who claim, or wish to be known as ‘woman’ – yet would not pass the normal physical tests to establish that. Also numbers of born male but wish to be known as ‘woman’ with or without the physical alteration since.
March 31, 2022
They can wish – it’s not illegal.
March 30, 2022
What I find both extraordinary and alarming is the complete absence of any focus on the actual numbers – how much energy we need and how much is produced by these various schemes. All we hear about is āhow many homes will be poweredā a meaningless statistic. For example the Sunneca solar farm it is reported today will carpet 2,800 acres of hitherto attractive countryside in solar panels. It will generate about 50 MW at peak capacity. Firstly we donāt know how often āpeak capacityā will be reached (e.g. not at night I assume), and secondly 50 MW (= 0.04 mtoe pa) is approx 0.025% of U.K. energy consumption.
The plain fact is these various renewable schemes wreck countryside at enormous public expense but their energy density by comparison with fossil fuels (or nuclear) is so low as to make them more or less irrelevant. Is mr Kwarteng, also it seems now re-invented as a green fundamentalist, aware of these facts and data?
March 31, 2022
Given that a favourable solar farm location only generates at 11-12% of its peak capacity on average across the year the 50MWp will only contribute 5.5-6MW on average. It’s an appallingly low energy density for the land consumed. No wonder that erstwhile Chief Scientific Officer David MacKay called renewables a great mistake.
March 31, 2022
Mark, that 50MW allows for the low capacity factor – the initial claim was for 500MW!
JF
March 31, 2022
Your comment caused me to look at my own setup and I think that 11-12% might be too low.
I have a 5KW array feeding a 3.8KW inverter generating around 5.2 MWh per year over the last 4 years.
Assuming 8 hour working periods at 3.8KW generation capacity that is around 171 days – just under 50% across a year.
I don’t agree at all with a strategy of carpeting open countryside. Much better to put arrays on buildings that consume the power and capture surplus in batteries for overnight usage.
March 31, 2022
Good shout.
March 31, 2022
5kW x 8760 hours in a year is 46.8MWh for the denominator. 5.2/43.8 is 11.9%
March 31, 2022
The first figure should be 43.8, not 46.8. Apologies for the typo.
April 1, 2022
My figures were for the system not one component of it. The array component is 5kW but the system generates 3.8kW. The array is sized to maximise the period of light capture in terms of hours per day and days per year generating 3.8kW.
I could put a higher power invert in the system and it would emit more energy over the day but that would be wasted since any extra simply get’s pushed to the grid. If I installed a house battery then it might make sense to upgrade to a 5kW inverter but that would add cost.
Also, don’t you think it is disingenuous to assume a 365 days x 24 hour operation for panels that can only operate in daylight? “Peak capacity” of an ICE unit only when fuel is supplied to it.
April 1, 2022
A nuclear power station will produce close to its rated capacity 24×7 for 18 months at a time between refuelling shutdowns. It is standard to look at the average output relative to peak generation, and there is every reason to treat solar the same way.
Almost all solar installations in the UK are fixed panel. Your post isn’t entirely clear, but it seems you have opted for a system with at least 1-axis tracking which will increase output through being more accurately aimed at the sun other than at midday. Such systems are rare here because the economics don’t work for a solar farm – at least not yet – perhaps if too much solar leads to curtailment and negative pricing in the middle of the day over enough of the year? Nevertheless your inverter limitation will in practice make relatively little difference to annual output, since it only sacrifices the peaks of output on sunny summer days. Overall, your system conforms to the 11-12% I quoted.
April 2, 2022
My array has fixed panels though each panel has a mini-inverter to maximise output even with uneven insolation.
A nuclear power station is designed to operate 24 hours a day. For obvious reasons solar panels, on the earth’s surface, cannot as the “fuel” will not be available at night.
If I add a battery between the inverter output and my consumer unit then the system can now store energy and provide power for more hours of the day. In that case I would accept the system’s peak operating envelope should then be 24 hours, but then the energy produced and captured would increase so the average output across the year will be higher.
March 31, 2022
Richard1 you make a reaally good point with regards to ‘energy density’. There is too much hype of so called renewables, and that includes hydrogen gas. There are simply too many questions that go unanswered.
March 31, 2022
Richard. Exactly. You cannot measure supply from renewables or forecast how much we will get as the weather varies every day.
March 31, 2022
Richard 1
How much subsidies will be paid out to encourage the construction of the solar park and how much will be paid out in constraint payments?
March 30, 2022
Quote: “If the country is to succeed with the electrical revolution the government wishes, it will take a new generation of affordable and attractive home heating and vehicle products to wean the public off their current reliance on gas to heat homes and petrol and diesel for their transport and deliveries”.
Quite so, and the only way to do that is if some of these products are shown to actually work over the longer term – and not merely be marketing hype. Otherwise this will be first time our civilisation is stepping backwards in terms of new products improving our lives. In the past people have adopted things that improve their lives; from what I can see these new ‘Green’ products are inferior to what we have now.
March 30, 2022
The clueless Johnson government is all wind and no substance. In the near term of five to ten years the answer now, as it was post privatisation of the electricity industry, is to dash for gas. The technology is well known. It works. It is reliable. The UK possesses gas reserves with potential for more if fracking is permitted. In the meantime the UK remains dangerously and inexcusably reliant on too many foreign imports and on unreliable UK wind/solar resources. It is beyond time that someone else was in charge of setting national energy policy.
March 30, 2022
This is not going to happen.
The UK administration will rush headlong to be seen to be sticking to agreed international measures. Prefect style they will want headmaster to praise them for their superficial efforts however minimal the outputs. Style over substance.
‘Twas ever thus, this is why we had to leave the EU. The UK administrations can not act in the interests of its own citizens when it comes to agreed rules. It is an affliction and will only be addressed with a clearout – that is not going to happen unfortunately so we are stuck and being disadvantaged.
Britannia the self-loathing self-flagellator.
March 30, 2022
If such attractive products existed ( of were ever likely to) there would be no need to wean anyone off the old technology.
Thereād be queues to buy the new stuff!
What a total waste of time all this is!
All that lovely coal is laughing its socks off at these antics.
It must be so humiliating for any remotely sane MPs to have to deal in this sham.
March 30, 2022
All of this is premised on the world’s being generally at peace, or at least in most regards as it was until a month or so ago.
That is about as contingent as it could possibly be, I think, and so such future gazing is a bit moot as it stands.
March 30, 2022
UK will be incapable of building new nuclear plants on time and on budget – costs and schedules at least 2-3 times greater than originally planned must be built into the planning – we couldn’t even build the Crossrail train line competently so no chance with a nuclear plant.
I see Boris says there will be no fracking because he’s worried about earthquakes. If policy decisions are going to be taken like that by a single person there’s not much point discussing it is there ?
March 30, 2022
Off topic, this is becoming urgent and Liz Truss should not be using Ukraine as an excuse for inaction:
https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2022/03/30/news/loyalists-warn-dublin-could-be-targeted-in-protocol-violence-escalation-2628410/
“Loyalists warn Dublin could be targeted in protocol violence escalation”
In this letter:
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/aileen-quinton-raising-tensions-time-we-put-the-blame-where-it-belongs-violent-offenders-not-protocol-protestors-3631965
a lady whose mother was killed by the IRA at Enniskillen writes of Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney:
“In 2018, he had tweeted out a link to an Irish Times article headed: āWhat if Brexit brings the violence back?ā
It was about fears that border checks will lead to a return of Troubles and it recounted how a lorry driver was killed in an IRA bombing of a customs centre.
Mr Coveney added that this article was āfor anyone who wants to understand the politics and emotion behind why the Irish Govt is so clear on the need to provide a guarantee that no border infrastructure will re-emerge on the Island of Irelandā.
He should be ashamed to tweet this. That terrorists might not like something should never be the argument for not doing it.
His response to the possibility should have been āany violence or even threats will not be tolerated and certainly not allowed to influence policyā ā not being the damn delivery boy for the āwarningā (a warning that the terrorists do not seem to have actually made… but then they didnāt actually have to).”
Months ago during a television report a woman appeared briefly to say that it was violence and the threat of violence which got its way in Ireland and that was why the protocol has been inflicted on her community.
March 31, 2022
Threats of violence works extremely well, especially religious violence. Isn’t that why we have to adapt and change so many of our laws, traditions and teachings in the UK and/or look the other way, turn the other cheek, etc?
March 30, 2022
You fail to mention The National Grid.
We have built wind turbines and solar panels without providing cableling or storage. So the power produced cannot be used but we still pay the owners of the turbines and the solar panels.
Will this be part of the review?
March 31, 2022
Bob. This very problem has been evident in Scotland for years yet they now want to copy it in England . Madness but also despicable when you think of the hardship it will cause to people.
March 31, 2022
FUS – Your government does not care about the people. It is all about power and control.
March 31, 2022
Bob. I’ve just read that National Grid have sold 60% of the gas pipelines to an Australian bank and a Canadian finance company for Ā£4bn. The Oz bank has a bad track record with public utilities. No suprise there then.
April 1, 2022
If you want people to be able to do as they please with their private property then stop complaining.
March 30, 2022
Wind plus storage, plus replacing gas boilers with electrically driven heat pumps is very, very expensive and very wasteful on energy too. It make no real sense (outside a few special situations) but then Kwasi has no understanding of energy, physics or energy economics/engineering. Just like circa 95% of MPs or Lords.
So is energy policy driven by gross incompetence, May’s bonkers net zero climate alarmist religion, vested interests or just simple & pure corruption?
March 31, 2022
LL. Yes. Really. How the hell do they think the ordinary man on the street is going to afford all this crap? There’s all the expense of insulating and changing his heating with the added cost of upgrading decorations etc and then to get to work, take children out, get to the shops, go to the vet, dentist, doctors and visit granny etc he will have to change his car. If he’s on a low wage he will probably be the sort who has to buy cheap, around the Ā£2k mark so how is he going yo get a second hand EV for that? The batteries will be defunct and for a garage to change them before it goes onto the forecourt is going to cost alot more than that. Bonkers and life will not be able to continue like it.
March 31, 2022
Insulation is one of the biggest bits of net zero fraud. To do a proper job on the housing stock is a Ā£2 trillion project that would take many decades: judge this by the 600,000 homes annual target for heat pumps, or about 2% of the housing stock. The savings it would produce might never pay for themselves: it’s about Ā£ 70,000 per home on average, so even if you save 50% of a new style Ā£3,000 annual bill it would take 46 years assuming you got financing for free. Or in other words, at anything over 2% borrowing cost it never pays off.
There are clearly much better ways of investing Ā£2 trillion. Of course, there are doubtless much less expensive insulation and repair projects that pay off much sooner, which are likely ignored in the green push for the whole enchilada. A drone survey with a thermal imaging camera in cold weather would identify areas of action that might make a real difference and take very little time and cost – much better than an EPC survey. Then there are lifestyle issues: letting a dog in and out to the garden a dozen times a day would place a high value on a porch airlock entry for the pooch for example.
March 30, 2022
I suspect that the new energy policy will be much like the old one in practice. Donāt panic!
March 30, 2022
The solutions are short term gas, coal, fracking, oil, nuclear medium term and then better nuclear fusion long term.
March 30, 2022
EV cars save no CO2 either after manufacture of car and battery, recycling after about 8 years + charging are fully considered (not that CO2 is a serious problem anyway). Plug in hybrids can make sense as these only need a smaller battery about 1/10 the size of a full EV and a small & efficiently run petrol, diesel or liquid gas engine. So about ten hybrids can be made for the same energy as each full EV battery. They can then do the city bit on battery (taking some pollution out of the city) but do not have the range or slow charging issues.
Hydrogen another government obsession does not really work well either – a very expensive and energy inefficient way to store energy we have no hydrogen mines.
The idea of using cars to provide back up for the grid is idiotic too. The car battery depreciation on each charge discharge would exceed the value of the energy stored in most cases. Plus who want to wake up to a flat battery?
March 31, 2022
LL. No chance of common sense from this lot.
March 30, 2022
Solar panels to cover an area the size of Dartmoor, farmers being paid to ārewildā their land, wjild we import more and more of our food!
Great!
March 30, 2022
Perhaps wiser heads than those in government might have seen this reality earlier. We really do need experience and concurrent wisdom in government rather than emotive youth.
March 31, 2022
S J S
The problem is that in the vast majority of our politicians all suffer from walking around with their heads where the sun don’t shine. With all these woke problems and associated decisions rather proves the point. What hope is there for a efficient, effective energy system? No chance.
March 31, 2022
Sir Joe. It’s their rubbish uni education.
March 30, 2022
Does the govt know that any far leftist worth his salt is dead against nuclear?
Bit of a conundrum for the bend-over-backwards-to-appease-the-left brigade??
March 30, 2022
No worries.
Johnson is already planning to cover agricultural land in the South with solar āfarmsā.
No food security there then.
But wonāt he left be pleased.
March 31, 2022
LL. No chance of common sense from this lot.
March 31, 2022
Don’t worry Everhopeful. As long as they can plant veg that will be ok because then they’ll be able to tell us there isn’t enough land for animals and we’ll all have to go vegan. Another box ticked.
March 31, 2022
People right across the spectrum are opposed to it.
March 31, 2022
EH, Could it be that the French āfar leftā is more intelligent than the British one? Fabien Roussel (Parti Communiste), Jean-Luc Melenchon (La France Insoumise) two of the āfar-leftā candidates to the French presidential elections recently agreed to (try to) keep the nuclear plants active till 2045 or 2050. The only real opponent to further nuclear energy development in France is the Green Yannick Jadot. All the other candidates accept nuclear energy till at least 2050 with some, E. Macron, V. Pecresse, M. Le Pen wanting six to 12 new nuclear plants before 2030-35.
Could the French know āthingsā that Brits donāt?
March 30, 2022
Does anyone think that we will get a rational balanced response to meet our needs at the right price. Green think Carrie et Al has corrupted government policy. They are trying to sell nuclear as a solution, only ten years away minimum, looking to carpet green fields with solar panel arrays, I suppose peoples roofs wonāt suffice and bribe us to accept massive turbines that remain idle in our back yards.
Matt Ridley who has forgotten more than the devious cloth eared Karteng knows has highlighted the vast gas reserves in shale and safe means of extraction.
It stinks.
And talking of that, we saw the hysterical and dishonest response from the government about P and O.
Yesterday a shameful report came out about an NHS maternity ward killing 300 babies and some mothers then trying to cover it up, bully whistle blowers etc.
If 900 workers losing their jobs provoked such outrage what should actually killing infants generate? You are right, not one peep from any politician.
Utterly disgraceful and demonstrates how the NHS has government/opposition in its clutches.
April 1, 2022
Those useless grouse moors could beneficially be better used for solar arrays.
March 30, 2022
I’m not convinced that the government is willing to give real ground on this – Any movement back to a sensible energy policy will be short lived as they realise the impossible goal they have set, for this fairy tale of theirs requires that we are actually deprived of the energy we need to run the country and our lives.
HMG is still believing the tales of the Earth overheating, but ignores the fact that our weather has been exceptionally cold, with snow in many parts around the world – which is far from normal, and Yes, the Poles have a great deal more ice than they’ve had for decades.
We shouldn’t expect the duplicitous MSM to announce such things or that the Sun is going through a prolonged quiet period – the main reason for changes to our climate. All we get are alleged record breaking temperatures that never quite meet up expectations, but are emphasised to fit the MMCC narrative.
As we suffer very chilly weather thanks to another blast of Arctic cold winds, Ministers walk around with their heads in the clouds, and fail to even calculate that more people will die of cold over the coming years than were ever killed by covid as their so called energy program starts to bite.
It would be really nice if HMG had seen the light and was seriously backtracking on their ever-reducing-energy policy, but Net-Zero is far too important for them to start worrying about those that will die of cold as the planet continues to cool.
March 31, 2022
+1 Bryan. I have never known a government treat it’s own country and people so badly and for what reason? None of it makes any sense. None at all.
March 31, 2022
never heard of Russia, N.Korea ?
April 1, 2022
Indeed.
March 31, 2022
We had snow today – a number of light blizzard showers that didn’t settle at low level, but the surrounding hilltops are covered down to about 1,000 ft. Another generation of children who know what snow is.
March 30, 2022
When if ever will the zealots in the civil service and politicians take the sdvice of comprtent physicists and engineers and realuse that wind and solsr may not be available in the middle of a winter freezing lull for two weeks or more and that battery, pumped water, hydrogen conversion, compressed air, weights down mineshafts etc cannot work for more than half a day at most. Biomass can only supply a small % and the capacity needed just for the extra electricity for heating and transport will need to double or triple. Gas stations run inefficiently when backing up wind and solar. Tidal and wave can only supply intermittently and low %. Unless we invest in gas and large scale nuclear now and cut the planning and regulator hold ups, were stuffed.
March 30, 2022
Once again our gracious host leads us to draw obvious conclusions without spelling those conclusions out for us. Being subject to the uncertainties of weather dependent energy is plainly dangerous; being browbeaten into giving up inexpensive and reliable products in favour of expensive and unreliable ones is plainly wrong; and being asked to accept that we have reached peak quality of life and must gradually give it up is plainly offensive.
One minor observation. The word “wean”, in the context of reliance upon fossil fuel – products that have sustained quality of life since the Industrial Revolution – is somewhat jarring, given that those products are neither inherently transitional (think mothers’ milk) or harmful (think hard drugs). When that word is used by ministers projecting a We Know Best attitude, it is verging on offensive.
March 31, 2022
He knows that if he expressed those that you perhaps erroneously draw as his own then he would rightly be ridiculed.
I think that he still wants you to draw them, however.
March 31, 2022
Aye. Gracious host going greenish, I fear.
March 30, 2022
Sir John, I and no doubt many others can see the logic in your arguments. However, our political masters under the sway of the Green lobby won’t, they don’t need to. With these people, it is not about reasoned argument, but forcing through what the lobby wants. That lobby is happy with reduced energy use, colder homes, less industry (in Britain, at least) and less travel. Making compromises with their Net Zero agenda won’t buy them off. Only a firm determination to keep our traditional sources of energy viable, as supported by the Reform Party, will do. We know the stakes are high, from the cynical intimidation and silencing of Reform Party’s recent ‘Vote Power Not Poverty’ campaign launch. All opponents of the Green lobby’s agenda should unite to stand against the government’s Net Zero insanity in a cross-party display of strength, spreading the messsage by all online means available while there is still time to speak uncensored. Otherwise, we are looking at a colder and poorer future for all but the corporate elites and their stooge politicians and hangers-on.
March 30, 2022
For now becoming decades, governments have been turning their face away from a policy that could succeed, prefering to hide behind ‘it will be alright on the night’ assurances. Now events and green ignorance have combined to lead the country into an energy wasteland for many years to come, with no certainty of a solution.
March 30, 2022
Are these green targets inflexible ?
For two years we had lockdown and no-one going on holidays abroad because of Covid. Now they won’t be going on holiday because they can’t afford it because the Eat-Out-to-Help-Out and Stay-at-Home-Do-Nothing + Covid-Fraud bill has hit the mat (where was the money coming from ?)
Consumption went down.
Can’t the 2050 date be put back a bit because of this unexpected hiatus in consumption ?
Is there no mercy for people who can’t afford Ā£300 trainers ?
April 6, 2022
āThey wonāt be going on holidayā, interesting to think that these last three days (04 to 06/04) we are told of queues in Dover for ferries, problems with Eurotunnel, the Covid-related cancellations of some BA and EasyJet flights making people stranded in airports. I wonder whether all these are really businesspeople going abroad to fight for Global Britain.
March 30, 2022
You mention “to keep the lights on” but an MP on television recently stated that electricity is only about 20% of our present total energy needs so the situation for our future is dire without a change of attitude from the government.
March 30, 2022
This is the FIRST statement of common sense from a member of Parliament I have read. Please try convincing our PM and others in Westminster that progress and innovation cannot be forced. Wrong solutions have been pushed by a lot of people who are ignorant of the technical and scientific side of good progress. Wrong solutions are a major waste of our money.
March 30, 2022
So either we need ” a new generation of affordable and attractive home heating and vehicle products” or instead we could just have a new government, could we not?
I know which is cheaper, easier to obtain, and more likely to help us.
March 30, 2022
Yes in the short term we need to capitalise on the gas we have, both land based and maritime. Until we can produce commercial quantities of Hydrogen it is an essential element in our fuel plan. We must eliminate imported gas and do not export any until our needs are adequately covered.
We also need to mine our own coal for industrial and peripheral needs. Importing it is insane when we have it readily available. Then there must be long term insulation schemes to improve the efficiency of all domestic property. Combine it with subsidy for domestic solar schemes and a fair payback from the power distribution companies for excess electricity going back into the grid.
The main drive for the production of electricity must in the midterm be nuclear, but from plants we own and operate. The experience of the last few years demands self sufficiency. I would lay an interconnector to the Channel Islands as a matter of urgency. I have an instinctive preference for about fifteen Rolls Royce SMRs covering the nations needs rather than some large Chinese Takeaway.
Wind power is fine as a backup providing it can stand alone without subsidy. The present system of transferring 25% of a domestic electricity bill from the hard pushed populous to a few wealthy land owners is unsustainable, as is the 5% VAT charged on fuel bills. You will discover how unacceptable it is during the 2024 election results night.
Long term, support Fusion Energy.
I will judge Boris’s energy plans should they materialise against the above.
March 30, 2022
So reading your post this morning what is new ?
The thinking is perhaps right, but the time scale is a farce.
Government still appear to still think the present 2030 target is the answer, they still think more wind is the answer, battery storage has not really started in any major way, and is the production of such batteries actually green anyway.
Nuclear production will be less by 2030 not more, given the build times.
Yes I am all for extracting more from the north sea, but that is only immediate if we stop exporting it !
Scrap the 2030 plan, and work towards a sensible 2050 if you want to get to net Zero in a manageable and rather more cost effective way, when planned, developed and reliable technology should be able to help.
March 30, 2022
aj, it would seem that all fossil fuel extraction in the UK has to have a licence and there is no reason why these licences cannot state that all or a large percentage must be used in the UK and not exported. The basis of all business is to do deals and therefore prices for UK consumption will fall and they will not be subject to the wild range of world spot prices.
March 31, 2022
MM
Indeed, I have made the same point many times before, but I guess no one in Government has put a “supply UK first” clause in any licences.
If it has, then I cannot understand the problem with lack of, or control of supply.
Seems to me no-one with any commercial or business sense gets involved with writing up any of our government contracts, otherwise we would not suffer over runs on cost, delays, or non performance.
March 31, 2022
All North Sea production must be landed in the UK unless granted an export licence by the Secretary of State. In practice that means that all pipeline oil and gas comes to the UK, with the exception of a few small fields that happen to be close to the Dutch sector and Dutch offshore fields. Oil is mostly made available at shipping terminals, and there is no prohibition on sale to other countries from Hound Point, Sullom Voe, etc. and indeed most of our oil production is sold abroad because our refineries prefer to run other crudes that offer a better return. This trade is beneficial: it would raise costs for our refineries not to be able to choose their crude, and push up pump prices.
Export options for gas are extremely limited: small volumes are sold to Ireland by pipeline, and small volumes are sold via the two way pipelines from Bacton to the Netherlands and Belgium, which are also used to import gas at times of high demand. In effect, most of the export is supplied by imported LNG so you can regard the UK as being an LNG terminal for the Continent, supplying mainly in the summer when demand is low, but having the security of landing the gas here first. See this chart
https://image.vuukle.com/9ffc6604-feed-474e-a82d-c2de2f561502-f670b8be-4bed-4cac-95cc-69632e8ee520
March 30, 2022
Sir John
How is energy to be stored to keep a country running for hours or even weeks on end? Where are the green hydrogen mines? It seems to me that to become an MP a degree of technical illiteracy is a necessary qualification. Probably a PPE degree!
Roger
March 30, 2022
Solar is just too expensive. If it was a reasonable price all new house builds would have solar roof tiles on the most opportune side of the roof to fulfil the family insides needs each day.
This is like the NHS managers from yesterday nothing seems to be managed or planned from staffing to replacement to maintenance, we are just going from one panic situation to another. Who runs the UK nuclear energy facilities? The UK went by all the EU rules yet take a look at France – they canāt even ensure the provision of arms (restrictions set by the EU) are faithfully complied with.
We have water companies abusing the sewerage overflow systems no action being taken. Yet they charge for sewerage treatment.
March 31, 2022
A-Tracy. Have you seen the cost of replacing an inverter when solar goes wrong? It’s astronomical especially with a Ā£450 call out charge which our supplier wanted. We managed to get a second hand inverter and the job done privately. All these new renewables are great until they go wrong.
March 31, 2022
Actually, you put me off putting solar tiles on when you discussed your problems before. When it is more widespread these issues will be easier to get resolved but groundbreakers will always carry the brunt of the early adoption costs.
March 30, 2022
The problem has been obvious for a while. Sadly, many of of our MPs are PPE qualified
…… where Politics comes before Economics.
March 30, 2022
Sir John, you have brought this topic up several times in the the last year or so and so far nothing has been done to resolve this critical situation. We have several solutions from reopening the offshore gas and oil wells off our coast to fracking and harnessing the many tidal streams that surround us. You have spelt out the short-comings of wind power and yet the only answer that has so far been given is more of these wretched windmills!
To me it is glaringly obvious that somebody or a whole department are wilfully not doing their job and should be sacked. The only other alternative is that there could be a clause within the EU law that was drafted into UK law preventing us implementing an obvious solution and the government is not owning up to it.
We have a PM who has shown his true colours and capability over the Ukraine invasion, setting an excellent example to the Western world and it would take only about half a day of his time to sack the blockers and get our energy policy back on track and free of outside influence.
Let’s have the truth behind this appalling situation.
March 31, 2022
George. I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that either the EU or Francewill take us to court if we open up coal or frack to have our own supplies as it would mean unfair competition.
March 31, 2022
Fus
Thought we were now a Sovereign Nation and could make up our own rules, especially for our own consumption.
Have I got it wrong ?
March 31, 2022
Alan. Maybe?
April 6, 2022
It would be interesting to know the āsomewhereā where you read that.
Not that I doubt you (well, just a little) but France will not take the UK to court over coal as President Hollande at COP22 had committed France to be coal-free by 2023 and Macron later reiterated the commitment and even moved the date to 2022.
Furthermore I do not think the argument for unfair competition does hold any water as the UK is now out of the EU.
March 30, 2022
The problem is energy storage systems like pump storage and batteries, is they only help ease short term shortages of renewables. But what happens when we get becalmed for days or weeks on end? At the moment, the only way to produce this electricity is have duplicate gas generation capacity.
In the longer term we could replace this with more base-load generation like nuclear and tidal. Stockpiling biomass for becalmed periods would work. Allam cycle gas power stations to capture CO2 would reduce the need for short term storage at the same time.
Of course a much better strategy is to stop subsidising new renewables for the next 5 years. Instead invest the money in developing the next generation of technology. Then we will have a much better mix of solutions to choose from in 5 years time. This will actually solve the problem for the whole world, rather than only focusing on the UK target.
March 30, 2022
I’ve been reading an article by Doomberg about the difficulties thst farmers are facing. Natural gas is used in fertilizer, weedkiller and diesel production and the lack of it is leading to huge spikes in cost and shortages. The delays in computer chips is causing shortages of parts to keep equipment going and shortage of propane is causing problems for grain drying.
In the US and UK the governments subsidise the growing of biofuels instead of food. In the UK the weedkiller for rapeseed is banned and we were buying it from Ukraine. With the land being bought by billionaires and mega investment corporations on the green agenda subsidy game, it is unlikely that they will turn over to growing food. There are reports of panic buying already. But the ministry is more interested in rewilding fields.
Really, mass sackings will be necessary before anything changes.
March 31, 2022
Northern Ireland is awash with manure.
March 31, 2022
some might say so is Westminster!
March 31, 2022
š
March 30, 2022
We need fracking.
Use the need for energy security to blow away the NIMBYs.
March 30, 2022
Thereās going to be a lot of wind in the new energy policy but no fossil fuels, no further north sea oil exploration, no further gas fracking and no further digging for coal/cokeā¦..it will be another āgreenā energy policy
March 30, 2022
āThe government will also favour more wind generation. This can only work if at the same time the government and the market invest in storage and usage technologies that overcomes the intermittent nature of wind power.ā
No economically viable non-fossil fuel grid scale storage technology exists and the Government should halt Net Zero until one is developed.
The more renewables there are on the grid, the more gas backup we need and since this gas backup is unable to run efficiently because it is both old and being switched on and off to balance the grid against the variability of renewables there is even the chance that more gas is burnt as a result.
Using green hydrogen produced through electrolysis as a backup for electricity is only around 36% efficient and when coupled with a 50% capacity factor for a windmill means that the quantity of electricity that can be reliably obtained from a windmill is only one quarter of its installed capacity.
I recommend anyone interested to visit the website of Net Zero Watch.
March 31, 2022
Actually it’s even less, because it only makes sense to make hydrogen when there is surplus electricity, otherwise you are effectively burning hydrogen (or methane) in a CCGT to make hydrogen and wasting 64% net of the hydrogen (or methane) you burn: then because the surpluses are intermittent and of varying size it doesn’t make economic sense to invest to use all the surplus since only rarely will higher levels of surplus occur, which will not justify additional plant to exploit it. So you still end up with significant curtailment of unusable energy, and high costs because of low utilisation factors. This chart explains the consequences
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/nZM72/1/
March 30, 2022
JR You say – “Some combination of large scale battery storage, pump storage schemes, the production of green hydrogen and the location of energy using businesses close to wind arrays which can handle intermittency will all be needed if the country is to rely on more wind power.”
Yes yet but:- all these storage scheme are very expensive, very energy wasteful and generally totally impractical when you do the numbers. Pumping water up hill is perhaps the most efficient wasting only about 25% of the energy but this needs a huge reservoir of water at the bottom and one at the top of a large height difference, it uses loads of land, suitable locations are few, can be very dangerous if the barrage fails too. To use it for energy production you need water in the top one and space in the bottom one. To use it to store energy you need space in the top one and water in the bottom one at the right time.
March 31, 2022
Storage is really only economic for short term grid stabilisation (where the speed of operation of batteries does have an advantage when there is declining inertia from large traditional generators) and daily peak lopping operations. Beyond that it turns over too infrequently to make a margin to pay for the round trip losses. The only technologies that are really capable of larger scale storage technically are (pumped) hydro and power to gas. Unfortunately, there are simply too few sites remaining that we could exploit for pumped storage, and power to gas suffers from very low round trip efficiency, which heavily eats in to the economics. Whilst both these are much cheaper than batteries the cost is till horrendous.
The economically cheaper solution for a renewables grid is actually to build 4-5 times as much capacity as would be needed to meet average demand on average during the year, discarding 3/4 to 4/5ths of the output, and running with fairly minimal storage and other support. Of course this means that your electricity is more than 4-5 times as expensive as the number you first thought of. But renewables plus storage is simply not a viable solution whichever way you cook it.
March 30, 2022
That is all well and good, but there is only one thing needed to effect the change – cheap electricity.
And, if I was paid nearly the same rate for putting electricity into the grid as I am charged for taking it out, my roof would be covered with solar panels tomorrow. At the moment the only way solar panels make any sort of sense is to have an Ā£8000 battery installed to store the energy you produce. A lithium battery with all the environmental damage and human exploitation that involves. So, Iām sticking to my nearly new combi boiler for now.
March 30, 2022
You say:- āIf the country is to succeed with the electrical revolution the government wishes, it will take a new generation of affordable and attractive home heating and vehicle products to wean the public off their current reliance on gas to heat homes and petrol and diesel for their transport and deliveries.ā
Well yes but it will also need changes to the laws of physics – which is to say the least somewhat unlikely. The government is hooked on a mad, impractical and totally unaffordable ideology – rather like the Shrewsbury & Telford NHS trust it seems. The Trust that killed and brain damaged so many babies and mothers with a natural best ideology – even when it clearly was not best. Not that Telford or Maternity was all that untypical of much of the rest of the appallingly run NHS. Then it seems they even tried to blame the mothers for their incompetence! Surely a appallingly evil thing to do to a bereaved mother.
MARCH 30, 2022
POST A COMMENT
March 30, 2022
A new energy policy that actually works will take a revolution in the thought processes of government and the abandonment of the Climate Change Act and Net Zero. They will have to admit they have been leading us down a blind alley, but will arrogance allow a U turn?
The UK has an abundance of gas oil and coal and there is no good reason for us to have unaffordable power and be cold, lose industry and jobs. Let’s use our own.
I suggest stopping all renewable subsidies, which are one of the major costs on our energy bills. After all, they keep telling us how cheap.wind and solar are so let them compete fairly.
March 31, 2022
+1 LL. I have read that wind turbines earn the most money when they’re switched off. If true, then that is one amazing feat of contract writing (I hope the recipients appreciate it) but who approved it …. and who pays it? (I guess it is taken from our green taxes?)
I wasn’t sure this could be true as it sounds ridiculous. After much searching I found an article covering the subject of paying for wind turbines to be switched off, but even then, the article tried to put a positive spin on the costs of paying vast sums for the wind turbines not to turn.
I give in. I feel intelligence and logic are undesirable traits in the UK of today and everyone who is ‘anyone’ must embrace the religions of net zero and wokism and not question anything unless they desire to be ‘cancelled’. Nobody will notice the change, as the idiots are already in charge.
March 30, 2022
Sir JR
Interesting perspective for our national energy policy but as always this needs to be settled at both regional and international level. We can’t settle it on our own
March 30, 2022
Yes we can bill
We are an independent nation now
Our Parliament is supreme.
March 31, 2022
Only in this jurisdiction, Peter.
March 31, 2022
Well obviously yes.
That is what an independent nation is.
Supreme in it’s own jurisdiction.
March 31, 2022
Peter 2
It has nothing to do with a supreme parliament, energy policy is a regional and global collaboration and cooperation
It has nothing to do with us being independent or not we have always cooperated with our allies on energy issues.
Happy reference some literature for you.
March 31, 2022
Tell that to China…..they’re going hell for leather for energy independance
March 31, 2022
I disagree bill
The UK could be easily self sufficient in energy.
We have 5 nuclear reactors France has over 50.
That is a policy choice we failed to make.
We could exploit our offshore gas and oil fields more.
We could exploit our fracking reserves which may have enough gas to supply us for decades.
Then we could increase renewable forms of energy.
Then we could have a big programme of energy efficiency including better insulation.
Germany is now realising how events can threaten the supply of gas if you are dependent on other nations for supply.
March 31, 2022
And that is even without mentioning our huge reserves of coal, wood and bio fuels.
March 31, 2022
Just needs the ‘will’ of government…..sounds like the policies of the Reform Party
April 1, 2022
Peter 2
What you wrote has nothing to do with independence
April 1, 2022
If you are self sufficient in your energy needs then you are much more independent than those who are dependent on the continued willingness of others to supply them.
March 31, 2022
Very true. We need to encourage the development of energy resources in friendly countries around the world. Making up for any loss of supply from Russia is in reality a global project, for all that we would do well to try to maximise our own domestic contribution. The US-EU deal for 15bcm of extra gas this year is not even going to replace Nordstream I which supplies 55bcm, let alone overall EU imports from Russia that are around 170bcm.
Of course, it also entails fuel switching. It is encouraging to note that German Greens have approved burning extra coal to reduce gas dependence: that is something that really works, whereas increasing reliance on wind actually serves to back out baseload generation like coal, and requires extra gas to provide the balancing power for when the wind doesn’t blow. We’ve seen both these features in operation in the UK in recent years: we switched from gas to coal after Fukushima, saving gas for our boilers and stoves, but wind has replaced coal and some nuclear, and resulted in a return of gas generation and more imports to keep supply balanced. See this chart
https://image.vuukle.com/9ffc6604-feed-474e-a82d-c2de2f561502-453d8b9d-b316-4868-b1a8-ee4f302d0b0f
March 30, 2022
“This can only work if at the same time the government and the market invest in storage and usage technologies that overcomes the intermittent nature of wind power”
Forget it, you’re wasting your time (and OUR money):
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2022-3-25-aivx0sdredj216gyhhvx186ph4kyzz
March 30, 2022
On a different subject, with the report on maternity services the NHS predictably are saying they need more money.
That must not happen, they must be forced to cut all waste. One could start with the salaries paid to non productive senior, too high and not realistic for some who cannot even plan for the future as the answers to your questions show
March 30, 2022
Completely agree with you Sir John – but I’m really not convinced that anyone else in your government shares your views.
Political and Media obeisance to the green agenda is about to meet hard reality – unlike many unpopular things that can be (and usually are) kicked down the road by our political leadership, promising a green Nivana in ten years time, isn’t going to work when the heat goes off next winter.
March 30, 2022
Have a look at https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/electricity/sub-topic-01.php It predicts that fossil fuels, will still be playing a large part of primary energy consumption at net-zero time, 2050.
Also, the IEO 2021 Chart library is a sobering read, you can scroll through the lot at https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/pdf/IEO2021_ChartLibrary_full.pdf Not exactly what COP26 has in mind?
March 30, 2022
This policy is nothing to do with saving the planet it’s about pricing poor people away from car ownership and onto public transport. Leaving the roads free for the self appointed elites to travel with ease. Also, Billionaires have been buying up farmland in recent years. These people have no wish to farm. They want the land for the subsidies that you can get from re-wilding and installing wind turbines No sane person could think that increasing wind power could solve the shortage of energy. Or re-wilding could feed the nation. Follow the money, it’s one big con at our expense. Pity we no longer have journalists to investigate what corporations and politicians are doing to this country. When ordinary people question this logic they get suspended from social media. The whole thing stinks!
March 31, 2022
+1
March 31, 2022
and to re-establish ‘estates’ as the wealthy did in years gone by…
March 31, 2022
Historically, the wealthy became so simply because their ancestors had been granted estates by William The Conqueror.
March 31, 2022
and supplying soldiers in every war waged since! What about the industrialists buying up lands with their proceeds?
March 31, 2022
+ many Christine.
March 30, 2022
Totally off topic John but itās been announced free parking for NHS staff in England will be axed from this Friday and prescription charges in England are going up in April. Of course this nasty Government only suspended parking charges during the āpandemicā for fear of looking heartless but yet again as with so many things, hospital parking for patients and staff alike and prescriptions are totally free and have been for a long time in the rest of this so called union. Tell me John, as someone who represents an English constituency, how much longer are you and your colleagues with English constituencies going to allow this blatant discrimination of your English constituents by a U.K. Government to continue? This is only part of a long list of things where England pays and the rest of their precious union gets it free. When pray are they going to grow a backbone and start standing up against this discrimination by anti -English Socialist U.K. Governments of all colours, this so called Tory one included. Do any of our self-serving MPs care, I doubt it. Also, could you please tell me if parking charges apply when parking under the House of Commons or is this yet another tax free freebie MPs enjoy along with free travel to work, free London accommodation with heating and council tax bills thrown in, whilst caring not one jot about the cost of all these things to others?
March 31, 2022
+1
March 31, 2022
+1 JoolsB. Note, the additional costs for the English are in ADDITION to taxes paid and are charges (on the English only) paid out of taxed income. This also raises the West Lothian question. When are the MP’s of the devolved nations to be prevented from voting on England only matters? The inequality between the nations of the UK is staggering!
March 31, 2022
Great post Jools.
March 30, 2022
If there was a real profit from battery storage every major player would be doing it. They will only do it if government’s are stupid enough to subsidise it to the same extent as wind turbines. It only adds to the disposal and waste epidemic that will be hitting the world in less then 10 years time. That doesn’t include turbine blades and solar panels and all the control systems.
Boris and Carrie wants to save the world? My backside they do. Stop looking at half the process follow it through from start to finish. When nuclear fusion gets properly sorted all this green crap nonsense will disappear.
March 30, 2022
Anyone with an interest in this important topic MUST read the Net Zero Watch paper issued on 27 March titled āRadical Plan to end the Energy Crisis.
Sir John is clearly on the right side of this argument, however, some of the things he talks about in his posts are simply impractical or undesirable in that they go against the position of the engineering and energy finance experts of Net Zero Watch.
The easily read and informative paper points us clearly in the direction we need to go.
March 30, 2022
This government of imbeciles, led by the Chief Traitor Boris Johnson, is NOT doing anything that will seriously resolve the energy crisis. They say they will quadruple the number of wind turbines, but if there is no wind this is of no use whatsoever. Storage of wind energy is appallingly expensive and only lasts so long, so this is a ridiculous idea. Worse still, the government refuse to accelerate the roll-out of RR’s SMRs, and they refuse to promote fracking. Investing in large foreign nuclear reactors based on backward and unreliable foreign technology is utterly moronic, as these will be delayed for years – if they ever come on stream at all. And despite the looming food shortage caused by the war in Ukraine the government is going to carpet more of our arable land with solar panels that only work a fraction of the time. Put these on roofs, by all means, but not on farmland. And for a government which wants to promote ‘green’ energy, the refusal to invest heavily in deep geothermal energy – which could provide 25% of our electricity and is a reliable 24/7 energy source – is utterly unfathomable. NO, I’m sorry, but I have ZERO confidence in Boris, Kwasi, Sunak or any of the rest of the morons running our country … into the ground.
March 30, 2022
If any one of us had dreamt this folly of the UK relying on wind in 2022 betting against proven energy solutions you could rightly certify us.
However Boris and MSM seems to defy gravity and common sense.
March 30, 2022
You talk about government as if it were located very far away – nothing at all about how you and your chums, in and out of government, are all seated in the same political setting rubbing shoulders.
March 30, 2022
Get Fracking.
March 31, 2022
+1
March 30, 2022
China is ramping up its fracking to secure its energy supply for the future. PetroChina aimed to build a pilot zone with annual production of 100,000 tonnes this year, expanding to 500,000 tonnes a year by 2023.
March 30, 2022
Roy Spencer of University of Alabama Huntsville publishes each month a satellite based global lower atmosphere temperature. The global anomaly from the 30 year average (1991-2020) for February 22 (0.00C) was lower than that for February 21 (0.20C). One month on its own is insignificant but looking further back I find that for 13 of the last 14 months the anomaly is less than the corresponding month of the previous year. I find it extraordinary that nobody seems to have noticed this. The exception is December 21 with an anomaly of 0.21C as against 0.15C for December 20. I am not suggesting that our globe is cooling but I do believe that we need hard scientific evidence of the alleged threat of a climate catastrophe before we do further serious damage to our economy.
March 31, 2022
The very, very long-term trend is for the Earth’s temperature to cool and for CO2 levels to decline below the point necessary to sustain life. But Greta doesn’t know that.
March 31, 2022
Not in the news media but perhaps our MPs are reading this ?
March 30, 2022
Sir JR
Why does it take 11 days for a visa from the Ukraine, when 3000 have given 25000 are stil witng I feel ashamed of being British for the moment, we shound be able to do much better
March 30, 2022
The new Tory policy is to remain signed up to the insanity of Net Zero whilst not becoming so detested in the short term that they lose the next election. Call it kicking the can down the road.
The government has been introducing wind energy using contract for difference whereby those foreigners who wish to profit from the stupidity of the English, bid to install wind turbines where either people don’t want them or where they are very expensive to install such as the sea in deep water. The government covers the difference between the striking price and the market price at any time; but what is that when none of the means of producing electricity economically are permitted to maintain base load for fear of destroying the planet by turning it into a flaming fireball.
March 30, 2022
A thousand or ten thousand turbines it still depends on the wind blowing and at not too greater speed. The power companies have indoctrinated parliament so well and the fear of losing the green vote and keeping their seats is greater than the future and industrial security of this country.
It’s just another agenda forced upon us to meet the aspirations of the new powerful woke society the world has been inflicted with. The lunatics are running the madhouse and we do nothing but let them get more powerful.
March 30, 2022
Natural gas makes a wonderful low CO2 fuel for HGVs, larger cars, buses, trains and boats. It produces very little NOX when used in an internal combustion engine and almost zero particulates. If the gas grid were extended it would lower our CO2 footprint as people replaced oil.
Now, Sir John, about the ‘f’ word. Find a community which if handsomely renumerated would allow itself to be used as a trial area for onshore ‘f’ ing. It’s worth many millions to demonstrate that tremors are minor irritants and the return for the nation can hardly be overstated.
And it might be worth trialling home heat and power generation, with winter heat being used from home gas generators while they send surplus power back onto the Grid.
JF
March 30, 2022
Research: LAES – liquid air storage. and others. Some good UK stories.
March 31, 2022
I am currently constructing 4 seaside apartments. They are insulated to the hilt. They have a relatively dreadful EPC because the all electric heating and water-on-demand are punished by the 2012 algorithm still being used by the State to calculate EPCs.
My un-VAT -registered commercial tenants are paying 20% VAT on their electric bills. The small cafe now has a bill of Ā£1,600 per month (but can reclaim 20% VAT).
Itās time the Government got of its unicorn.
March 31, 2022
The Energy policy should be what is best for the UK citizen and not the Energy/Net Zero image of the Politicians in Parliament.
The focus on fossil fuel CO2 generation gives Government an excuse not to look at other areas causing increased CO2 levels in the world and pollution on an globalised industrial scale.
If you provoke a War there is no climate change to worry about even Covid fines
March 31, 2022
TESLA Energy anyone!!!!
March 31, 2022
An interesting report āUK Energy in Brief 2021ā, BEIS, assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 52 pp. Pages 47 and 48 provide reference/access to more detailed documents, all related to UK energy production and use.
From this document, it should be clear that there is practically no future for coal, whether in power stations, or as domestic, industry, servicesā source of energy (p.18- 19).