To get to net zero the Uk would have to shift most people away from petrol and diesel and aviation spirit Ā to electric transport , shift most away from fossil fuel to electric heating ,and Ā eliminate most fossil fuel use by business. This would require quadrupling the grid capacity and greatly increasing capacity of the cable system to every home and factory.
It will also be essential to end the output of the coal and gas power stations and find a way of storing and time shifting the output of wind turbines and solar panels.
How realistic is this on the time scales the government wishes? How is this done so there is enough renewable power in time for the new EVs and heat pumps? Itās pointless to put in wind farms if there is no grid to carry the power and self defeating to spend on EVs and heat pumps if the power is generated from gas.
So far there is no plan I can read for a massive expansion of the grid and cable systems let alone large sums of committed capital to build out the necessary facilities. There are planning rows over the modest additions to the grid being discussed. There is little thought about digging up the streets to provide more power to each home, nor positive thoughts about trying to bury the cables somewhere other than under the middle of the main roads.
Who will pay for all this? Presumably it will fall to electricity consumers as ways are found to add all this to bills. It would be good to know how much of an increase this might entail.
August 6, 2023
Good morning.
Dear Sir John
There is a plan, you just need to go on the UN website and look up, Agenda 21. Plus others of course eg those from the WEF and ‘others’ such as ‘Gorgeous George.’ š
August 6, 2023
Mark, I sense this is more “crusade” than “plan”. Crusades generally end up with more wealth for the wealthy and pain for the masses.
Sir J is spot on about the grid constraints. The changes required dwarf projects such as Hinckley C or HS2. Look how well/quickly those have progressed. A full electric UK by 2050 isn’t going to happen.
August 6, 2023
One little question PETEB. Where is the material coming from and who is going to manufacture all these big cables for the nee grid?
CHINA??
We are in cloud cuckoo land without a plan!
August 10, 2023
Ā“Nationalgrid.com, 13/06/2022 āInterconnectorsā
Also prysmiangroup.com looks like a multinational company with HQ in Milan.
August 6, 2023
Then we will follow the path of South Africa – An intermittent energy supply.
Someone needs to tell Sakara Gold that his shiny BEV will no longer work when the sun does not shine as the grid, by his own admission, will never never be able to cope.
What a waste of money.
August 6, 2023
It is all a load of dreams, some of us know it be convincing dreams, most of us can’t get to sleep fearing confrontation with horrific nightmares of poverty, icy winters, food shortages, Zil roads that were once used to create a living, sleeping in the dark through long winter months, aware of the elite purring along in almost silent supremacy. Obesity a rich man or woman’s ailment.
August 6, 2023
Agree.
August 6, 2023
Pie in the Sky. The whole thing is impossible, ludicrously so, and the entire nation can see it, except for a few academic idealogues.
August 6, 2023
I don’t have a place I can comment these days . It may be because I think most are going in the wrong direction and it doesn’t fit in with the general tenet of repetitive comments , so Mancunius , as a greater Mancunian and Having spent he earlier pat of my Life In Manchester I have cheekily used your reply box.
There are ongoing projects to grow vegetation and trees in savannah grassland and desert areas .Most are successful . This is perhaps the only realistic way forward; that is, to use an abundance of CO2 to feed the real greens as trees and vegetation .
August 6, 2023
There is no CO2 āabundanceā.
August 6, 2023
Which deserts are being claimed back?
August 6, 2023
It certainly aināt gonna happen with current technology is it? Perhaps when we have sorted practical fusion power. Also note the the grid using wind farms is far more expensive to construct as you have to connect to all the many wind farms and solar farms often under the sea and these cable carry less electricity perhaps on average only circa 20% of their capacity as the wind and solar is so intermittent.
Anyway wind, burning wood at Drax and solar power are not remotely net zero Carbon sources of electricity. EV cars cause more CO2 not less than just keeping an old petrol or diesel car ever more so if you do a low millage or the car is charge using electricity from gas or coal or wood as it will be in the UK. Climate alarmism is pseudoscience as Dr John Clauser has pointed out.
August 6, 2023
If only more people in parliament understood some physics, engineering, economics, maths, business, reality, logicā¦ only a handful failed to vote for Ed Milibandās bonkers and vastly expensive climate change act!
I see that Sunak, after his push for better maths (he and Andrew Bailey certainly needs this as the clearly did not understand QE, lockdowns, tax borrow and waste policies and the causes of inflation) is now pushing chess. Clearly a very sexist game this as only 3 women have every been in the top 100 and only one ever in the top ten.
This is, I suspect, because women in general, very sensibly, do not want to dedicate themselves or become sufficiently obsessed with such time wasting games. Then again perhaps it is evil male ādiscriminationā putting them off or the pieces are just too heavy or the wrong colours! Maaate!
August 6, 2023
LL,
I would not trust Sunak with my kids or grand kids pocket money let alone household budget. He has an appalling record and should be ousted. What maths skills he might have are overwhelmed by his total lack of judgement, analysis and decision making. The man is not fit for office. Further supported by his lack in personal qualities, back stabbing Johnson, 5 in legislative committee to name a few!
August 6, 2023
I tend to agree, anyone who thinks people should pay taxes to buy other people meals in restaurants (Eat eat out to help out) is surely bonkers. Then look at the Ā£billions on Test and Trace, Furlough, the covid loans, lockdowns, vaccines for young people who were never at any real Covid risk but were at severe vaccine riskā¦ all immoral and economic lunacy too.
August 6, 2023
but apart from all that some say he’s quite a pleasant chap.
August 6, 2023
Correct
August 6, 2023
Leading government efficiently needs bright sparks in power. At present we have a pair of damp squibs achieving little of any use while wasting shedloads of our capability and valuable resources.
August 6, 2023
It does look like that.
August 6, 2023
Oliver Dowden a law graduate in the Telegraph today.
āIllegal migration undermines the values of the UK
Our society is built on fairness, so stopping the small boats and people smugglers remains a key priority for usā
Does this dope really think our society is built on āfairnessā? What on earth is fair about freezing OAPs paying taxes to put other in 5 star hotels, or King Charles spending millions on private jets and not paying inheritance tax of 200million, what is fair about being born severely disabled with alcoholic dysfunctional parents? Is it fair for Sunak to marry into hundred of Ā£millions. What is fair about being born in a hell hole war zone rather than a pleasant part of the UK? Some are born rich, healthy, intelligent and beautiful and others not remotely.
In what possible way is society build on fairness Oliver? Get real mate. You get what cards you are given and try you best.
August 6, 2023
Correct
Grant Shapps has suggested it is unlikely the government will step in to protect households from rising energy bills this winter. The energy secretary said once inflation had fallen the government would āabsolutelyā need to cut taxes.
Cut taxes what a tory government cutting taxes seems unlikely after 13 years of tax to death borrow and piss down the drain policies. Anyway until you stop what waste net zero, HS2, pointless student loans for duff degrees, bloated governmentā¦ how can you cut taxes?
Also your net zero lunacy and energy market price rigging is just back door taxation. But a form of taxation that raises prices but does not even do anything positive or raise any tax. Did you not learn this in your Poly HND in finance surely even you can figure this out?
August 7, 2023
Government and the grid are counting on high prices reducing demand.
August 6, 2023
A key priority! 14 years of promises to reduce mass immigration. Based on fact and record we know he is lying! Osborne set the standard to lie to the public, no one serious in private! It is not possible to import 1.2 million legal immigrants with less than 3,000 on golden visas- the ones the country actually want with 1, 997,000 low skilled welfare claimants! This before the mass illegal immigration being granted stay to remain!! France laughing all the way to the bank for doingā¦. Nothing. Just another leave fee for Brexit!
Dowden knows, or ought to know, when he has been in govt. there has been NO reduction whatsoever. Therefore if a key priority God help us from these incompetent fools.
August 6, 2023
Clearly the whole of our political system / society is built at least on some stab at fairness. People are taxed to provide infrastructure we all can use, to provide a (sort of) health service free at the point of use, to educate poor kids and rich kids, to have law and order etc.
Iām not daft enough to think the outcome is fair – but there is some attempt to even things out.
August 6, 2023
Fairness being slavery for the Lord of the Manor when not being killed or maimed in fighting his war. Fairness in hacking a living a mile below ground getting coal and black lungs. Fairness in various industries making Ā£millions for the owner. Fairness for farmers and labourers producing our food, but taking all the risks of weather, market manipulation, product regulation and output controls imposed by some fools sat on green benches.
Funny sort of fairness!
August 6, 2023
It might also be good if those in government were able to comprehend that the population as a whole has no means of expanding their money supply to facilitate yet higher taxes. Government are going to force more and more people into the black market simply to survive.
The British are a law abiding nation, but needs must when the Devil drives – and nobody is in any doubt that its the Devil driving!
August 6, 2023
+1
August 6, 2023
Teresa Coffrey saying you will be punished at the ballot box if you drop Eco policies.
Quote the opposite I would think. Most people realise the whole shebang is a con to bankrupt the voters.
August 6, 2023
The Conservatives will be punished at the ballot box whether they drop Eco policies or not. However if any of them think that keeping Eco policies will persuade Lab/Lib voters to switch to them they are deluded. There is no point developing policies to appeal to people who will never vote for you. The only extra votes available to Conservatives are to the right of them in the Eco-sceptic group. But the Conservative MPs will never drop Net Zero just as they will never leave ECHR. In time we will vote for a different party who will
August 6, 2023
Indeed nearly everyone knows that looking after āthe environmentā is sensible and good but CO2 is harmless and vital plant, tree and crop food and a net good for the environment on balance.
August 6, 2023
Agree
August 6, 2023
Friday about 3pm wind generation dropped to 1.5gw. Just what you need to run a 21st century economy.
August 6, 2023
Ian+Wragg
What I canāt understand is how all the suppliers of electricity claim that their electricity is 100% renewable?
August 6, 2023
it must be free from the Sun Interconnector.? You just need solar panels, rare metals, that sun shining, a method of stroring the bounty…..
August 6, 2023
+1
August 6, 2023
I think you extrapolate your own view to include everyone. My observation is that most people believe the nonsense hook, line and sinker.
August 6, 2023
I understand the EVs that drove through flooded streets (no maintenance of drainage like everything else) have been written off. Batteries and water donāt get on. The price of second hand EVs is going through the floor – wonder why? Must be because of the huge demand!
August 6, 2023
Lynne, I suspect Dowden does not have the guts to repeat the 14 year lie that they are low tax conservatives!! Look at the national debt, interest on debt, huge bloated big state and taxation.
Then remind yourself how JRās party in 2010 claimed they were going to balance the structural deficit by 2015. Then 2019, 2021 then abandoned under Hammond!!
Same for scrapping ECHR, taking back control of laws, borders and money. Now think of these against what Sunak has actually done. Given away N.Ireland under Windsor sell out while tying GB to EU, not scrapping EU laws, regs or directives. Retains EU level playing fields to stop GB being competitive, Sunak even said UK should not compete with its neighbours!! Sunakās unwanted running mate advocating the tyrannical Chinese lock down!
Close your eyes and you could be forgiven for thinking this was an extreme left Labour govt. They spent more than Corbyn advocated!! Built on āRed Edāsā āMarxistā energy policy! Yet JR seems to forget when discussing energy or economic policy failures by his party.
August 6, 2023
You canāt qualify āConservativeā with ālow taxā. There is no other type. If this is a high tax government – well – draw your own conclusion.
August 6, 2023
I’d suggest that most of the over-stayers & illegal immigrants are already working in the black economy …often now in plain sight, without fear of police action, in car wash, nail bars, restaurants and as unskilled labour
August 6, 2023
Oh . And Turkish barbers. They work 7 days a week. Open all hours.
August 6, 2023
You know all those illegal immigrants crossing in small boats, well they have to work for years in those establishments to pay-off their passage ā¦weāre complicit in modern slavery
August 6, 2023
So what would be the point of the UK hitting net zero?
1. We only produce 1% of world CO2
2. A bit more CO2 plant, crop and tree food is a net good anyway.
3. If we cut back China, India, Africa, America etc. will very sensibly not anyway.
4. There is no climate emergency we are in a relative dearth of CO2 in historical terms.
5. Even if climate charge become a problem adaptation is far cheaper and a better way to go.
6. Even if the world needed some cooling reducing CO2 is not remotely the way to do this.
7. Anyway the technology our government pushes, EVs, solar, wind, wave, tidal, public transport, walking, heat pumps, burning wood at Draxā¦ does not even save any and any sig. CO2. EV cars and burning wood certainly increase CO2.
August 6, 2023
+1
Achieving Net Zero is a pointless exercise to achieve the square root of SFA.
But it will impoverish this nation and it seems that that is the UN/WEF’s intention – being implemented by their puppets in Parliament.
August 6, 2023
Yes but JRs party knew this when labelling Miliband Red Ed or his energy policy as Marxist. They then implemented and built on it as Treacherous May stated in parliament. They only make false claims to be different when electioneering! Based on fact and record they went further with the āMarxistā policy than Labour advocated.
August 6, 2023
+1
August 6, 2023
Whatās the success criteria, when do we know weāve achieve ānet-zeroā ?
August 6, 2023
+1
Achieving Net Zero is a pointless exercise which will achieve the square root of SFA – except impoverishing this country and that appears to be the real intention of the UN/WEF and their puppets in Parliament.D
August 6, 2023
Donna,
Yes, accepted, but that is their aim. JRās party only spout lies in the alternative to get elected. Hence the current sham by Sunak about cars etc. he starting his electioneering for next year. He has no intention to be conservative or implement conservatism. 14 years reflecting on fact and record should show any reasonable person it is not possible for the country to end up in this economic position, Brexit position, immigration position, big state position etc etc. They reached the goal they set out to achieve. Remainer May and chums still in place, huge number of her remainers placed in the Lords. Johnson should have culled all Mayās cohort, change selection procedures for his party to cleanse all EU apperchecks from his party.
August 6, 2023
+1
August 6, 2023
Good summary. Have you noticed the msm on steroids this week over any weather event to push the Climate Change narrative. Floods in China, its apparently cooled in Europe but hot in South Korea etc etc The Met office created the first storm of the year yesterday ………in August……..named it Anthony. Apparently significant storm with wind and rain in the West. Well we live between Bristol and Bath in the West. Guess what………..it rained and we had a slight breeze. Certainly no storm. The nudge unit must be working overtime in No 10 as our weather isn’t fitting their narrative to make us walk, run, cycle, buy EV’s, use non existent public transport.
They can’t put up, so they should just shut up. We don’t believe you!!! CO2 is a harmless trace gas (0.04% of the atmosphere) that feeds the worlds plants, without it we would all die! Why is your stupid Government going to spend billions on carbon capture? This will eventually go down in history as the most stupid policy EVER.
The rot, lies and spin started with Blair and has become the norm in current politics by all main parties. We want to see the results and actions NOT WORDS ANYMORE. Your Party has wasted 13 years. Name one successful policy……………………………….waiting.
August 6, 2023
The globalist elite: “But, but, but…isn’t it a good thing for the UK to be setting an example?”
We plebs: “An example of how the Great Leap Backward can return a developed Western democracy to a Stone Age existence, and unpick all the quality of life achievements we have made since the Industrial Revolution? Just give us a proper chance to vote on it…”
August 6, 2023
There’s only one party that has said they’ll repeal the climate change act & policy of net-zero ….The Reform
Party
August 6, 2023
So someone has been found guilty of āharassingā Matt Hancock. It seem to me he was mainly just asking him perfectly sensible questions. Questions MSM should have been asking Handcock and the government. He gave no answers. Surely Handcockās lockdown policies of enforced dangerous vaccinations (if you want to keep you job) and imprisonment in homes & care homes without visitors were rather more of a āharassmentā and this of millions of people?
Are the police investigating the government and their āexpertsā for gross and criminal negligence yet? More deaths this year in the 15-45 age group even than in the 2020 covid year. This almost certainly due to the āvaccinesā and the NHS lockdowns and NHS large treatment and ambulance delays. Far more life years lost as far younger victims. Covid did at least only bring forward deaths by a couple of years in the main not 40 to 75 years of life lost.
August 6, 2023
āWho will pay for all this?ā Well it can only be bill payers or tax payers can it not? Or perhaps yet more borrowing so future tax payers!
āIt would be good to know how much of an increase this might entailā probably well over Ā£2,000 PA per household if they do not reduce they energy use (many will have not choice but to do so) but it clearly will not, indeed cannot with current tech. really happen. Many OAPs will just freeze to death and pay with their lives. Plus it will just export jobs and the CO2 they produce. We are led by ignorant, totally irrational & unscientific fools.
August 6, 2023
If the government really had any serious intentions on this they would ban all private jets, helicopters other than for emergency rescues, first class flights, half empty planes flying around, burning wood at Drax, gyms, jogging, hobby cycling, meat, King Charles travelling and living in palaces, EV cars, taxis (they are far worse than private cars in CO2 terms per passenger mile)ā¦ until then I will assume even they do not believe in the climate alarmist scam one tiny bit.
August 6, 2023
āNet zeroās dam has burst, but the BBC is still papering over the cracks
For decades, the Beebās coverage has been shamelessly one-sided, presenting highly politicised theory as irrefutable factā
CHARLES MOORE is surely right in the Telegraph.
Shamelessly one-sided and a totally the totally unscientific & the religious St Greta, King Charles, firery hell on earth side.
August 6, 2023
Sounds like a candidate for getting his bank account closed. O E cannot be a climate change heretic.
August 6, 2023
To all those who are supposed to represent us.
I hope you understand the evil that we face
No more carbon means no more human race
Now is not the time for calm and contemplation
Net zero augurs total termination
āDo not go gentle into that good night” (Dylan Thomas)
August 6, 2023
Net Zero. Another government vanity project whose only achievement is to waste valuable resources.
August 6, 2023
+1
August 6, 2023
A good article in the Telegraph the other day, The net zero wheels are coming off.
People are now beginning to realise that what this tiny island does will have no effect on the climate.
They are beginning to revolt against the cost required to make us colder and hungry on a policy never voted for.
Tackling immigration, crime and the NHS would be good bit they are too difficult so we’ll concentrate on bankrupting the masses.
The first party that renounces this UN, WEF mandated nonesense will be in power for decades.
August 6, 2023
The problem of supply becomes so much easier if the population is collapsed and only the elite are allowed to travel.
Just saying.
August 6, 2023
Yes thatās right. Net zero needs:-
– 4x times the current electricity generation = c. 10x the current production from wind and solar, if itās all to be renewable
– cabling, transformers etc to distribute the greatly increased power thereof
– a means of storage of renewable electricity generated, unless a windmill is invented which works when thereās no wind and a solar panel which works 100% of the time (at night etc) and not just 15%. Or some new technology like nuclear fusion
Answers from net zeroās advocates please, not just as to the cost of this (Philip Hammond says Ā£1 trillion) but how itās going to be done.
August 6, 2023
Use gas, coal, oil and lots of R&D to crack controlled and safe nuclear fusion in perhaps circs 20 years time. We are getting closer. Plenty of the former to get us to practical nuclear fusion. Renewable make little sense other than in a few special situations with current tech.
August 6, 2023
1504 hrs.
Well to date that’s all pretty negative and argumentative.
Expanding the Grid was the Topic.
As ever the ‘little people’ are kept in the dark. Government doesn’t explain why it isn’t planning ahead, it just seems to say ‘that’s too difficult at the moment, we’ll think about it after the next election.
We know, currently, our electricity demand/supply varies from negligible at night to a maximum that depends on many factors.
Adding renewables to the mix doesn’t alter the need for a flexible supply, electricity will need to be increased as fossil fuels naturally exhaust. Just because I’m going to die doesn’t mean I need to rush out and buy a coffin this afternoon – why the rush to impose an unsuitable solution (BEVs) to a complex transport demand.
Why are we still spending money on HS2 between London & Brum when we need Small Nuclear Reactors near cities and major power users to avoid thousands of miles of pylons requiring country wide planning permission ?
Why are we blindly buying Solar Panels we know only last a few years when we could be designing and making recyclable ones ?
Why aren’t we improving our infrastructure as we commission wind farms ?
Why aren’t we seeing a drop in electricity prices when the wind blows or the sun is out ?
While I’m asking questions “why are we penalising home owners and businesses with elevated interest rates” when the root of the trouble is past Quantitive Easing and inflationary factors ? A fairer solution would be to levy the cost to those who could afford higher VAT on non ‘green’ products and services.
August 6, 2023
At last the truth is coming out. At last.
Nobody wants pure electric cars.
Nobody wants heat pumps.
Nobody wants ULEZ in Cambridge or anywhere.
Nobody wants to be forbidden to fly.
Nobody has even questioned the global catastrophe schtick.
At last common sense is breaking through. Viva democracy!
August 6, 2023
+++
And so say all of us!
Let us scream it from the highest hilltop and drown out the steely groaning of the windmills.
August 6, 2023
I second all that Mike, they can also forget digital ID as well. We must not let that get off the ground.
Keep that tanner in your pocket you might yet need it!
August 6, 2023
You bulliet points should be the tory pledges
Fully agree with your comments, a free society and a free market …the the people decide, let the people buy and consume what they want
August 6, 2023
Mike
Nobody wanting the long list of absurdities doesn’t make them not happen! We – the people – must refuse to comply. There are lots of groups that are building in size trying to get the word out as to what is going on… the battle is far from over.
August 6, 2023
This has apparently already been posted…but,
Mike
Nobody wanting the long list of absurdities doesn’t make them not happen! We – the people – must refuse to comply. There are lots of groups that are building in size trying to get the word out as to what is going on… the battle is far from over.
August 6, 2023
Not sure thatās entirely accurate. 23% of new registrations in the last year were EVs. Lots of retired, middle class old farts round here driving new EVs.
August 6, 2023
The patent absurdity behind all of this is one of the reasons our current government is due for well deserved ejection at the next election.
August 6, 2023
Indeed, but they will be replaced by an identical party wearing Red rosettes.
August 6, 2023
The main media has a lot to answer for. ITV news the other night had their political correspondent morph into an expert on climate as he was in America talking to someone about reefs. Obviously a no news day or he was exhausted from slagging off Trump, whilst deliberately overlooking/ignoring Biden and his families activities. No mention of El Nino that happens every four years and sometimes exceptionally so. No mention of the Sun, its activity or intensity that drives the jet stream, no mention of a whole host of other variables, cloud cover, volcanoes, time between ice ages, Milanovic cycles, tectonic plates, that man cannot control. Our net zero having net zero impact on the worlds CO2 (China, India USA etc ignoring targets), harmless plant food gas emission’s. Too many preaching politicos and news people like King Canute and need to go sit on the beach and order the tide to go back.
August 6, 2023
If only there was some way to reduce the UK population down to 20 million and maybe bring in a law that keeps everyone at home and off the roads…..
They wouldn’t think of doing something like that…..would they?
August 6, 2023
I understand the objective for the U.K. is 15 million. I wonder whether any Britons are included in that figure.
August 6, 2023
If women have career options, rather than being treated as vassals, the population will gradually decrease in any country. The problem is that there are too few people of working age to maintain the economy as well as care for the elderly – something has to give.
August 6, 2023
Well what do expect with Grant (shambles) Shapps involved. Recently crowed in the DT about the expansion of drillings licences etc to give us energy security when it was the same government that looked to ācloseā the North Sea down in a drive to Net Zero relying on imports.
Equally pathetically slow to give the green light on small nuclear reactors with the industry desperately waiting for direction so allegedly phasing out fossil fuel generation but with HMG driving more electricity consumption, zero plans to produce it and the grid to carry it.
In my estimation. Utterly incompetent.
August 6, 2023
Sounout promised to resume Fracking during his failed leadership campaign last year and then stopped us having it, having been appointed leader after the Tory coup.
It’s ok as we can import our energy via interconnectors from our reliable friends in the EU who give us their illegal immigrants (our gutless leaders won’t return them straight away for failing to secure their borders), steal our fish, refuse cooperation on science projects and fail to negotiate properly on Northern Ireland. Oh and charging us Ā£37 billion ish for…….nothing.
August 6, 2023
An even more immediate problem is – why is industry in the U.K. paying 50% more for its power than most EU countries and far more than in the USA ?
August 6, 2023
Because we have placed sanctions on our energy supplier.
German industrialists are at last jsing the word – ādeindustrialiseā – as they close their factories.
August 6, 2023
There’s no “we” in “they”, the Tory Party.
August 6, 2023
The Wholesale electricity markets are rigged against the UK consumer, only UK suplus energy should go to the international wholesale markets
August 6, 2023
It is not even a question of money (if you had enough), you will need millions of trained people to install such equipment, the According to a National Heating, Plumbing and Ventilation trade magazine, the Government are already falling behind in the training of engineers to fit heat pumps, at the present size of its labour force it will take 400 years to retrofit all properties in the UK, then add in the complication that the life expectancy of a heat pump and solar panel is about 20 years, and you start to realise that everything that has been installed so far will also have to be replaced before 2050.
Perhaps Government knows more than us, and all of those boat people are qualified electricians, plumbers, or nuclear engineers !
Politicians again living in a Fantasy World, words are quick and cheap, actions are expensive and time consuming.
August 6, 2023
Never mind fitting Heat Pumps, just try to get a heating engineer/plumber around here. They are all booked out months ahead. Blair shut down Polys and encouraged everyone to take degrees, often in pretty useless subjects. I’m pretty sure that if my boiler packs up I’m not going to need a Social Worker and an AI Chatbot won’t be to much help either.
August 6, 2023
Ian T
Absolutely correct, prices have also increased rather dramatically (Ā£50.00 per hour seems a minimum around here) as they know demand outstrips supply, and they had to work through Covid, suffer all of the shortages of materials and restraints on working, because the self employed got little government help, so they are now making hay whilst the sunshines.
Many people replacing older gas boilers with another new gas boiler before the 2025 cut off suggested by the government.
We will need a huge number of skilled engineers of all sorts in the future, because most of those working now, will be retired before 2050.
Absolutely agree with you, a Degree in Social Studies, Drama, etc, etc not a lot of use in getting to Net Zero.
University Degrees for all, another failed political fantasy !
August 6, 2023
Your comment had me worried. According to the British Gas web site, the 2025 cut off applies to fitting gas boilers in new homes. There is no ban on replacing gas boilers in homes built before 2025.
August 7, 2023
Mike
Unaware of the full details of any scheme, as not likely to affect me yet (replaced our gas boiler a few years ago, and still under guarantee), am aware that certainly one family member and another very close friend are having replacement gas boilers soon. Some of the newer gas boilers they are informed will be ok with a potential Gas Hydrogen mix !
August 6, 2023
If all of this were not one huge money-making, population-reducing, power-grabbing scam we would not have even noticed the transition.
Life would have continued as before but with cheap, efficient and people-friendly electrical power.
But the goods arenāt out thereā¦ And apparently windmills need coal!
Does no MP remember the bitingly cold winter ( maybe not for all?) we had and the cold morning in August we have today?
Not to mention present rainfall when ( if Summer returns) the believers cry ādroughtā.
August 6, 2023
Armies of useful idiots digging their own graves.
This sheep-like mentality is inherent to the human condition.
It always has been. It is why we have wars and plandemics.
And it is what psychopathic leaders prey ( and get fat ) on.
August 6, 2023
Unfortunately we have outsourced all our manufacturing and with it the skills required to produce and install modern technology. Mickey Mouse degree graduates cannot retrofit the millions of old homes. Itās a non starter.
August 6, 2023
The money being poured into the rush for ‘Net Zero’ is one of the reasons why our real growth over the next decades will be sub-par.
I see that the Great Barrier Reef is in such good health that Albonese’s government is claiming to have saved it – despite being in power for little more than a year! Global Warming/Boiling is a scam – and if your colleagues spent more time reading books and studying sciences they would know that.
August 6, 2023
They don’t do science, just bullshit!
August 6, 2023
Just for clarification, when you say āmoneyā, are you describing taxpayer funds and subsidy
August 6, 2023
The real saviours are Peter Ridd and Jennifer Marohasy who have kept an eye on the condition of the reef and pointed out that it was in much better shape than the alarmists wanted it to be.
August 7, 2023
Also true for the reef in hong kong
August 6, 2023
Sir John, the working people of this country will refuse to pay for this totally unachievable nonsense. The people have not been asked if we want BEVās, heat pumps and a vast, expensive and hugely disruptive upgrade to our electricity grid. It is crystal clear, wind and solar cannot and will power our electricity grid 24/7. They are predictably unreliable in the case of solar and constantly intermittent in the case of wind. Why is it that parliament in 2008 when the CCA was passed fail to understand this? Why did parliament in 2008 fail to understand that nuclear is the most reliable āgreenā source of electricity?Why did parliament completely disregard the nuclear energy policy implemented by France? Why did parliament fail to understand that onshore and offshore gas was our best and most secure source of power until nuclear could take over? Why did parliament agree to convert Drax to biomass chopping down trees in North America to be shipped thousands of miles and then āartificially pretendā the emissions are ācarbon neutralā? Why did parliament fail to ensure we had sufficient gas storage facilities? All of these questions are policy failings, where the British people have been led āup the garden pathā resulting in ever increasing energy costs and other policies we do not want. Finally, has the frenetic insane push for wind and solar been seen by politicians, media and many other organisations as a money making opportunity?
August 6, 2023
All my life nuclear power has been something described as difficult. Costly to build, even more costly to decommission and the waste products don’t have a satisfactory disposal plan. Even the French are planning to send their waste to Russia for processing.
Have all the problems been solved whilst I wasn’t watching?
August 6, 2023
I see Germany has the snow ploughs out clearing hail. Itās August! In Northumberland we have just topped a foot of rain in the last month. The Pacific Ocean has dropped a number of degrees.
This Global Warming inferno must be stopped! At any cost!
August 6, 2023
Iām BOILING!
Not surprising really..Iām in bed with a hot water-bottle.
Freezing outside!
August 6, 2023
+1
August 6, 2023
The people pushing this lunacy – far too many of whom at sitting comfortably on the red and green benches in Parliament – haven’t got a scooby-doo how any of this might be achieved and they really don’t care as long as it doesn’t affect them negatively.
Far too many of them, as well as many of their chums in the Green Lunacy Industry (and Charlie-Boy) expect to make a pretty penny out of impoverishing the British people in order to try and achieve their impossible dream.
Follow the money and it goes straight out of the pockets of “the little people” and straight into the pockets of wealthy Establishment Brits and the Global Elite.
It is impossible to do what they say will be done by 2030, but that doesn’t matter because it isn’t about what they say it’s about.
August 6, 2023
There is the forming of an alternative party preaching common sense approach to the natural event of global warming. What is needed is more grounded MPs to join the party and rid us all of the self interested members in our government of both houses. Maybe then we can vote for REFORM and give ourselves the chance to survive. There are more scientists speaking against the given agenda than exist on the IPCC but with no funding they will not be heard. Look up and listen.
August 6, 2023
All excellent questions Sir John – which leads one to wonder why so few others are asking them?
These issues are not a matter of conjecture, any trained electrical engineer would be able to come to the same conclusions let alone the expertise that the people runing the National Grid will have available.
So why don’t we hear from them – Facts, Costs, Timescales? I’d much rather spend that Ā£40M+ Covid Enquiry money on something useful, an actual plan (there I dared to say it) – “A PLAN” (let’s shout it out!) rather than the current mix of wishful thinking and complete fantasy that our Politicians and the Media insist in pushing out.
August 6, 2023
I had some electrical work carried out at home last week. The electrician was an “old-school” type – past retirement age but still fully accredited and carrying on because he chooses to (and he chooses his customers).
We talked a bit about the Net Zero “plans” and the proposals for the grid, EVs, heat pumps etc and he said what they were talking about was an impossibility – it cannot be done – and he had declined an “opportunity” to train to install EV chargers.
August 6, 2023
Ā£40 million for an enquiry into ācovidā when we all know it was lies!
Someone filling their deep pockets there then !
August 6, 2023
Wireless power transmission would be one of many good places to start. The technology is emerging, and we are way behind the curve as usual.
August 7, 2023
Wireless power transmission has been used ever since the first radio broadcast by Marconi. Tesla wanted to use it to deliver power to homes, but ran up against the facts of physics, with the power intensity falling off with the square of the distance from the transmitter, making it extremely impractical for serious energy delivery. Radio signals get amplified by powered radio sets to produce enough power to run a speaker. Using the power of the radio transmission is enough to run a low output earpiece: I had a radio like that as a child.
August 6, 2023
Grant Schraps has failed to organise any such plan for upgrading the grid to the capacity necessary to allow the wide-scale introduction of BEVs. He is actively obstructing anything renewable and thanks to the imposition of huge windfall taxes and additional VAT, renewable energy producers such as Vattenfall are now cancelling half-built N Sea projects and are leaving the market. Schraps has repeatedy failed the planet as the net zero minister and should resign with immediate effect.
SoS Environment Therese Coffey has been busy organising petions against any upgrading of the pylon network needed to bring renewable electricity ashore and so distribute it to where it is needed. How obstructive is that?
Today the fossil fuel lobby have planted stories in the right-wing press alleging that the cheap Chinese BEV imports are a security risk. My word, as Labour are attracting millions of disaffected Tory voters to their excellent Green Plan I can smell something akin to panic
August 6, 2023
“Schraps has repeatedy failed the planet….”
Oh gosh, I expect the planet is SO upset about that. I can almost hear it crying into its oat-milk skinny latte.
August 6, 2023
If the Grid can’t cope at present (and we know it is on a knife-edge in winter when we have to import power) and we know they cannot possibly upgrade it and all our houses in the time given or at reasonable cost, why the lunatic idea to add to the burden with EV’s and heat pumps? Surely reducing the burden is the way to go and instead of giving 5 grand subsidies for heat pumps which won’t touch the sides and don’t work for most houses anyway, why not insist firstly that new builds have solar panels and adequate insulation for a start, and the wonderful heat pumps if that is what they want, much cheaper in the build than retro and divert the subsidy (corporate bung) to people in existing dwellings wishing to install them? I know SP’s don’t do that much in winter, but even in summer when boilers go, we will still need to heat water, do the washing and showering etc. If you don’t do this by electricity at present, you are in for an almighty shock with the cost being many times higher than fossil fuel. Of course this would reduce demand and profits for the suppliers, which no doubt Tories cannot stomach, but we can rely on them to just up the unit price as they have done in the past when they want more money. No sign of cheap power returning any time soon with the wonderful ‘free’ power of the windmills and solar farms.
August 7, 2023
New homes account for just 1% of the housing stock each year. Most of those are additional rather than replacement for homes that have been pulled down. It will take more than a century to sort out the housing stock.
August 6, 2023
Why should Vattenfall be cancelling their North Sea wind farm project when we are told that wind energy is 9 times cheaper than gas (Sir Keir Starmerās Christmas speech)?
It can only be because they know the real costs of wind energy and are smelling the coffee that the subsidies are unaffordable and will be wound down.
The real danger from cheap Chinese evs is not their ability to spy but the dangers caused by Li-ion battery fires which cannot be extinguished. I can expect evs to be banned from tunnels (eg Dartford Tunnel), multi/underground car parks and ferries.
August 6, 2023
SG
āexcellent Green planā
No-one wants Green. If theyād wanted Green, they could have voted Green in huge numbers. They never have.
August 6, 2023
Just so ….they all had a chance at the last election, and they only returned one MP ….the people rejected the green revolution and the MPs ignored the people
August 6, 2023
Yes but the small vote for the Greens has managed to turn all the major parties into Greens. Green votes rule!
August 6, 2023
Vattenfall were overstretched with their borrowings and dependent on indirect subsidy, and cannot now cope with higher interest rates. Blaming the government is what firms do when their business plan is overcome by economic reality.
And of course Chinese digital imports are used by the PRC for espionage purposes, as they always have been.
That Labour has a Plan is news to me. They seem to have a different plan for every voter.
August 7, 2023
The government had not revised its cost estimates on wind since 2020, when it estimated that costs would continue to fall rapidly. It has ignored the real world, which has come back to bite in the form of unfinanceable projects and lack of bids to build new ones. Expecting that prices that were artificially low because of the enforced economic downturn to persist was folly. Its p;olicy was built on Hopium.
August 6, 2023
The sum that shows that powering the UK on renewables cannot work was in the book by the late Prof MacKay, SEWTHA. No politician or zealot civil servants seem to have read about it. Western Europe regularly is subject to freezing weather with very low wind and sun for a period of 2 weeks or sometimes longer, as in 1963 when an anticyclone over Scandinavia draws continental air over. This affects all nearby counties and therefore energy storage of 2 weeks is necessary. If we are to rely on electricity for heating industry and transport, we will need 4x the present capacity. The possible means was analysed by MacKay and none of them are feasible.
We do not have enough high level lakes for pumped water storage of more than a day. Same goes for other gravity storage. Hydrogen storage would require enormous tanks, which leak. Batteries costing as much as the national GDP would only last hours.
Before he passed, Prof MacKay said that the only solution to provide energy security was to build nuclear and run them all the time, as France has done for 50 years. But this does not seem to have been taken on board by Mr Shapps, who has expanded the civil service by creating Great British Nuclear. GBN will now take until 2030 to make a decision on whether to back Rolls Royce, Bill Gates, EPRs or any other type of nuclear reactor.
August 6, 2023
Sorry I forget to mention that all but one of our nuclear stations will be closing over the next few years, leaving gas and wood pellets as our only back up if Sizewell is offline.
August 7, 2023
What we need is a project to streamline the processes at the ONR and operate them in parallel to speed up nuclear approvals. The career path would be to actually running nuclear plant having gained a useful training while evaluating it. An expansion of university courses to supply the necessary skilled people is also a priority. The older generation with the skills are retiring.
August 6, 2023
Totally agree, the objective cannot be delivered by 2030 nor 2050! New technologies will be required for storage & delivery of energy. This whole Net Zero plan is just virtue signalling by WEF & western politicians. Because it is not about energy consumption. It’s about controlling people’s lives & transfer of people’s money & assets to the state.
Not acceptable on any level!
August 6, 2023
I assume that all these Government activities are planned and happening, Why are you asking me? isnāt it your job to get the answers from the Government? For my part, I already have the PV panels on my roof feeding an electric car on the drive. Now considering battery storage and heat pumps. It is true that there isnāt much help from Government either of funding or technical advice. Oh well I suppose COP 26 has been and gone.
August 6, 2023
It is laudable to wish to reduce or try to eliminate air pollution. The plus for the NHS would be considerable. Remember however that our World weather systems will fairly distribute pollution from the major polluters whatever we do. However, as the mantra goes” Every little helps”.
It is a big mistake to put a rigid timeline on the process, it forces poor decisions that do not meet the target and looses the electorate in the execution. Essentially decisions must be market led and thought through in detail. EVs without fast economical charging facilities, a grid that can supply them from reliable sources are a waste of space.
The solution is to present the scientists and engineers of our research establishments and motor industry with the desired targets, give them incentives and rewards via our tax system, and let them get on with it. They better than government better understand that solutions must satisfy the market. I see no reason why ICEs should peak at Euro 5 and 6, detoxing could go further. Being simplistic, attach a flock of windmills to a sea water hydrogen electrolysis plant and produce the gas from the claimed cheapest electricity. Use the hydrogen to propel our road transport. No need to expand the grid, refueling as fast as ICE, no hideous array of cables, no pollution from burning hydrogen.
Remove yesterday, the long grass inspired competition for SMRs. Support Rolls Royce, a UK company employing UK people, to get the first one up and running asap. They have been propelling the underwater navy for decades so everyone knows the technology is tried and tested. I suspect it is only scribe inspired bloody mindedness holding it back. Remember Barns Wallis’s problems with his bouncing bomb.
It requires Churchillean wartime drive rather than the wet hand of governmental committee think that pervades UK government currently.
August 6, 2023
At some point there will be a critical reality check – the UK will be short of power and renewables won’t supply the need.
The obvious solution will be coal – the UK is floating on it. The only snag is there will be no one left who knows how to build coal-fired power stations, so we’ll have to import them from China like everything else.
August 7, 2023
I think we will see an emergency programme of new CCGT capacity, partly because delays are building up in the construction of new wind farms as firms pull out of building and even bidding. It can be built rapidly at sites with good existing grid connections and take advantage of the gas grid.
August 6, 2023
I hope the new cabling isnāt all going to be all on overground pylons.
I had to laugh when a new cable was put from the industrial estate to a new housing estate, they dug up a channel in the road and all along a nicely tarmaced pavement. Itās been relayed like patchwork, when there was a wide grass verge that a cable tube could have been sited in quite easily.
August 7, 2023
Don’t worry, the pylons won’t go over the posh parts of Sussex, Dorset etc. As for the grass verge, they probably want to keep that to put new houses on.
August 7, 2023
I don’t live in a posh part. My area gets all the things no-one else wants.
August 7, 2023
National Grid’s spending planning assume that, a few locations and subsea cables aside, they will be able to carpet the country with pylons which are much cheaper by a factor of up to 10. The cables don’t need to be insulated, and trenches don’t need to be dug.
They are already running into opposition on projects like East Anglia Green which is to run from Norwich to Tilbury (where there used to be a large power statio supplying London). Since Vattenfall cancelled the Norfolk Boreas offhore project they have a bit more time for arguments, as it would have been a major user of the link.
I wonder if we won’t end up with local electricity supply on telegraph poles in at least suburban settings, like in many smaller US towns.
August 6, 2023
Indeed, and there is a reason for this.
Knowing full well that the current amount of energy generated will never be enough to satisfy all demands, they refuse to improve on this, ignoring the need to increase supply. With that in mind, there would be no need to dig up the streets or expand the electric grid, BECAUSE HMG is committed to doing nothing to ensure we have enough energy to run the country! It’s all part of THE plan.
Here come the new Dark Ages
August 6, 2023
Bryan Harris
The electricians had to cut off the power for about 4 hours a couple of days ago
It was a useful experience in preparation for our future, just like South Africa
August 7, 2023
Rhodesia! They donāt have intermittent power like SA. Just none at all – apart from sunshine (which does not overly bother us at 55 degrees north).
August 6, 2023
“Who will pay for all this? Presumably it will fall to electricity consumers…..”
Yes indeed, us ordinary plebs, paying a heavy price from already taxed income to enable the globalist elite’s pie in the sky schemes.
Once again Sir John, in professor mode, invites his readership to respond in undergraduate mode. Once again, the anticipated response is “take matters to their ultimate conclusion and repeal Ed Miliband’s Climate Change Act”. The likely mark is an A, but accompanied with the comment “remember there isn’t a majority in the Commons to vote for its repeal.
August 6, 2023
National Grid live as at 10:00hrs 6th August
Interconnectors = 18.9%
You never hear about this in the news anymore
August 6, 2023
as at 21:30hrs interconnectors 25.3%
August 6, 2023
Net Zero isnāt about everyone owning an electric car; itās about taking away private transport and imprisoning us inside 15-minute cities. Why do you think there are no plans to upgrade the grid and put in sufficient charging points? Itās always been about control. If Sunak really believed in this so-called climate emergency would he be flying his family halfway around the world for a holiday? Would he be living in a huge house with a heated swimming pool? No, he wouldnāt. Unfortunately, people have been brainwashed by the media. The number of people I meet who believe this nonsense is astounding. They also seem to think Labour will do a better job than the Tories. I despair at times about how stupid most people are.
August 6, 2023
Spot on Christine
August 6, 2023
āThis [to get to net zero by 2050] would require quadrupling the grid capacity and greatly increasing capacity of the cable system to every home and factory.ā
This isnāt going to happen. There isnāt the money, the manpower, the material or the time to achieve it.
They know it and itās not the plan.
BTW, the National Grid has asked for Ā£220bn (Ā£18.4bn/year from 2024 to 2035) just to get us to the 2035 decarbonisation date. Spending they describe as ācontributing to GDPā and probably no more accurate than the estimate for HS2 :
https://www.nationalgrid.com/document/149501/download
Plus Ā£54bn to bring the next round of wind farm building electricity onshore.
The real plan is not to quadruple the grid capacity but to quarter our energy usage. This will be achieved through the electrification of everything (heating, transport, industry) even if the devices (evs and heat pumps etc.) are expensive and impractical and then to ration out the expensive and intermittent energy using smart meters.
The communist UN/BBC believe that they can achieve this through enforced and draconian restrictions coupled with massive behavioural changes brought by āscaring the pants off usā with incessant propaganda that we must save the boiling planet by net zeroing our 1% contribution to global CO2 emissions.
August 7, 2023
National Grid is only talking about the cost of the transmission network. There is at least a similar sum to be spent on recalling the distribution network to handle heat pumps and EVs.
One factor they haven’t really covered is how much surplus wind and solar generation they plan to try to handle. My guess would be that transmission will be restricted in some zones, enforcing curtailment. That of ourselves increases the cost of the renewable supply which must pay for itself from non curtailed volumes. Storage is not going to solve this.
August 7, 2023
Ugh. I hate autocorrect – back to the PC. “recabling”, not “recalling”, and “of course” not “ourselves”.
August 6, 2023
John Redwood reasonably asks for costings for the Grid expansion. What assumptions on net zero are made by the OBR when they publish forecasts of Public Borrowing for many years ahead? Is it assumed that all the costs will fall on the private sector but surely there will be tax revenue effects eg on vehicle taxes?
August 6, 2023
I think voters will latch onto the problem more if it’s made human scale for them by concentrating on the changes needed for their home. They can readily extrapolate from their house to all those on the street, all the streets in the town, the local towns, and so on. This will mean more to them than āN million homes will need changesā.
To do this tell them why the wires which run into their kitchen āfuse boxā or consumer unit will need changing. āThe existing wires would melt with the extra current needed to supply … at the same time so they need to be replaced with thicker ones, just as your electric cooker has its own special cableā.
Some will have experienced the hassle of having a smart meter installed. Point out this was just a swap of a meter but now the whole run of wire from the substation to the house needs to be replaced and access gained to the fuse box inside.
(Will existing substations be able to meet the new requirements in place? Or will their physical footprint grow?āWill more substations be required and what bit of land will be pinched to hold a new one?)
Finish by saying that after all this, they will be pushed into having an electric car and air-source heat pump. The car needs charging over time, instead of the fuel being moved in quickly like petrol. The air-source heat-pump noisily concentrates lots of little bits of heat outside into the house but struggles when it’s colder. Oh, and your radiators will need swapping too.
August 6, 2023
Home Office data (late)
4th July – 262 illegalās in 5 small boats
5th July – 077 illegalās in 2 small boats
August 6, 2023
My gas boiler is now obsolete and I am having to pay a high price for parts whenever maintenance is required. Accordingly, I shall shortly order a new gas boiler, which will be more thermally efficient than the old one, but less durable because some steel components will be replaced by aluminium. I’m told (and have hopes) that the fitted cost will be under Ā£3,000 and that it might last up to 10 years. We shall see. It’s a much better prospect than a heat pump, which would cost a lot more and be less thermally efficient. If HM Government orders me to buy a heat pump there will be all out war, including lots of normally law abiding citizens being willing to use the black market.
The advantage of on shore as opposed to off shore wind farms is that they can be built closer to where the power will be consumed. Examples might be Badenoch moor to serve Inverness, Dartmoor to serve Totnes, Ilkley moor to serve Yorkshire towns. It would save on huge investment in the distribution network but create a few eyesores.
A relatively cheap measure that would earn us a lot of brownie points would be to convert/replace all of our coal fired power stations to ‘clean’ (decarbonised) coal. I understand that in addition to the capital cost of conversion, the cost of generating electricity would rise by about 30%. We should also replace imported LNG with UK gas. We would then be in a position to propose to the WTO that countries running a dirty economy, based on burning raw coal and/or using LNG, should have a supplementary tariff applied to their exports. Such a proposal might upset China, India, USA, Germany and Poland but use is Sovereignty if you’re not prepared to use it?
It is also true that a lot of small nuclear power plants would lead to lower distribution cost than a few large ones.
August 7, 2023
There is already a massive surplus of wind on windy days in Northern Scotland from the onshore wind farms, now being added to by offshore ones. Building on Badenoch Moor exacerbates the problem. That is why they now want to double the Beauly-Denny line across the Highlands and build several offshore HVDC links South, one of them at least directly to Yorkshire. More transmission is also being built in the SW to try to handle the anticipated massive solar surpluses which at present benefit from the closure of Hinkley B and the poor summer weather.
I see no benefit in using up the world’s resources faster in order to bury money in a hole. Carbon capture schemes are futile. We should continue to invest in making ICE engines more efficient, which would do far more to reduce emissions.
August 6, 2023
As always, Sir John, you can spot the issues that the government, for all their bright civil servants, cannot see, let alone plan for.
What you have exposed is the price of mindless virtue signalling by those elites who care more about their image on the world stage than about the ordinary citizens they are supposed to be looking after.
I’ll give our Government a tick in the box if they turn their attention to national energy security and have the courage to dump this net zero stupidity and stand up to the ecoloons who have messed with our heads for far too long.
When will the government give the go ahead for Rolls Royce mini nuclear power units before RR give up waiting and we end up buying inferior power units from foreign suppliers?
August 6, 2023
The question is not “Who will pay for all this?”.
The fact that there is no plan tells us everything we need to know – there is no plan for grid expansion because there’s no intention to do that.
Why? Because, ultimately, the “elite” simply wish to stop ordinary people driving around so freely, getting in their way.
Expanding the grid would not solve the issues of blocks of flats, or other places where there is insufficient parking. Wiring up charging points only works if you have somewhere to park that isn’t a back road. Lots of offices have insufficient parking with many workers (especially those on zero hours type contracts, who often have a long drive to their place of work) finding back-road parking places where no charging point will ever be built.
The technology is nowhere near supporting modern life. Many people will be forced out of car ownership altogether – or at best, their car might service only a part of their needs, such as a trip to the local shops, while their daily commute has to be done via public transport.
That’s the other effect of this – it will massively increase the herding of many people onto public transport – another effect that the “elites” will see as a benefit. They will be able to drive past buses and trains full of the carefully-manmaged proletariat, without the inconvenient hindrance of the many vehicles of the hoi polloi getting in their way.
August 6, 2023
Remember all the hue and cry about 5g broadband and national security?
The Chinese will end up putting millions of their electric cars into the Western World. With all the electronic bells and whistles and maybe even more.
EVs are nothing short of a basic principle of a smart meter on wheels that can be controlled in a nano second to switch off the supply. In a EV there could be secreted all round and in the vehicle data collection receivers and who would know. How much loose talk goes on in the back of taxi’s and company vehicles?
What a very effective form of data collection to ultimately control a country. Our politicians and governments on the High Alter are through fear are forcing all of us to have one of these vehicles.
Maybe we should start being more switched on and careful for what many are wishing for.
August 6, 2023
”The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War – China
August 6, 2023
Net zero and man-made climate change are scams designed to control and impoverish the majority for the benefit of the already wealthy minority. When will MPs do what they are paid for and start working on behalf of their constituents and not the glabalist cabal determined to have us enslaved in a tyrannical world government?
August 6, 2023
The existing plans are unrealistic as much of the proposed technology is too expensive and ineffective.
Instead, build small nuclear reactors near population centres. By doing this, there would be no need for additional grid capacity. The new plants can feed waste heat into community-wide heating systems. This approach avoids air source heat pumps that don’t work and reduces peak electricity demand (cars do not have this problem as they can recharge slowly overnight).
Dig up the roads once to install community heating, on-road electric charge points and new drains to separate rainwater from the sewage system. The current plans are for 20% of electricity to be nuclear. Make it 50%. Change the law so municipalities can make long-term deals with small nuclear suppliers to make it happen.
We need to build around eight million new homes by 2050. So first, build high-frequency public transportation systems like the Docklands Light Railway. After this, construct high-density, quality housing, offices and amenities around the resulting transport nodes. The people living in these areas will have less need for cars as everything will be on their doorstep. All the new homes will use low energy. There will still be the existing housing stock for people not wanting to live in these vibrant new areas.
For smaller settlements, the issues are very different. Many dwellings are not suitable for air-source heat pumps, and people rely on their cars to get around. High-frequency public transport is not practical. So focus on R&D to solve these challenges by inventing new technology. Potential research includes community-scale geothermal energy, anaerobic digestion plants and synthetic fuels.
Would your Wokingham residents accept a small nuclear plant and two new high-density urban districts; in exchange for cheap electricity, no other new homes and 15 trains per hour into Reading?
August 6, 2023
This Conservative Government is either naive or dishonest
āany suggestion that some of the Ā£500mn of state aid and other incentives offered to Tata to build the gigafactory might end up going to a Chinese company would be politically sensitiveā. Then the day after that’s exactly what happens
Roughly speaking the UK Taxpayer is to fund the Worlds Largest polluter. It was obvious from the get go the direction that Tata would take, the company has no access to the raw materials needed, China does. Tata has no expertise in battery production China does.
The main points being the concept doesnāt build a UK capability, in fact it causes the UK to be a hostage. China is very protective of its industry for a UK Company to set up there requires that at least 50% of the enterprise is Chinese owned.
As usual this Conservative Government gives the appearance of being 100% against the UK.
August 7, 2023
Panasonic and Samsung have the technology. Access to resources to feed new capacity with raw materials is a different matter. It is there that China has a strangle hold. Notable that the government chose an Indian company instead. Do they do any research, or did they just think it would bolster the PM’s push for trade deals there?
August 6, 2023
I hope I will be gone before it gets this bad.
August 6, 2023
Politicians are not Engineers that is the very big Problem. They do not have an engineering mind set. Hence nothing gets done. They just need to look good. More to the outside world rather than the UK citizen these days.
We could have been world leaders in Hydrogen production now if Gordon Brown had not removed funding some 15 years ago. China leads in techonolgy production and it not just because of its Political system.
There are more Engineers in government and they think about the next 15 years and not the next year like our Governments do.
August 7, 2023
We encouraged most of our refineries to close. China has been building new capacity. That is of course where most hydrogen production takes place, for use in desulphurisation and other refinery processes. Methane reforming is the dominant source of industrial hydrogen and ammonia based fertiliser its main use. The use of hydrogen as a fuel remains niche because of its cost and handling difficulties. Musk opted for kerosene as rocket fuel (RP1 grade) instead of the liquid hydrogen used by Saturn V rockets in the Apollo programme.
August 6, 2023
āSo far there is no plan I can read for a massive expansion of the grid and cable systems let alone large sums of committed capital to build out the necessary facilitiesā. Where does the cabling come in a no oil World?
The very big question, that highlights the stupidity of this Conservative Government, to fill our streets with BEVās means importing from the most polluting Country in the World. China is not about to stop there use of oil and coal. The UK Conservative Government NetZero policy increases exponentially World Pollution. Someone needs to tell them they are not doing what they say āIt-does-on-the-tinā. That is either fraudulent or a Lie on their part. Either way they have their fingers in their ears.
The EU āgod bless emā have woken up and recognised that more than 55% of the components of cars they assemble and sell are not using EU or UK parts ā in practice they are for the most part Chinese Cars. Hence the EU aspires to see, EU & UK components raised to 45% now and up-to 65% down the line.
The not thinking things through Conservative Government, a headline, a punishment, a cost, a virtue signal, stroking ones self esteem and ego are more important, than real practical achievable aims.
August 6, 2023
āheat pumpsā where is the Government plan, and who is going to pay to replace 90% of the UK housing stock just so it is capable of working with the latest high energy/high electricity usage and high cost heat pump.
This Conservative Government after 13 years is still not thinking it through. Blundering into a virtue signal without a clue how it would work.
Don t get me wrong I know they(heat pumps) work I know what is needed to make them work. But this cancel culture Conservative Government has clearly not spoken to anyone that knows what is needed or the would have backed off ages ago. The Building Research Establishment would be a good starting place
August 6, 2023
Whatever happened to tory principles of competition, market forces and consumer choice?
If heat-pumps & EVs where proven to be twice as effective and half the cost, Iād still be against them if the ban still applied
August 6, 2023
John,
There are an infinite set of negative consequences to the plans for the unnecessary attempt to transition all of civilisation to being powered by electricity only.
The scale of grid expansion requirements at all voltage levels (transmission and distribution) is huge. There are great difficulties in the supply chains and manufacturing as well as installation of these components. Supergrid transformers and overhead lines developments tend to take many years to plan, design, order and install. This is both difficult in rural and mountainous area where wind-farms are located and solar parks or off-shore grids and the development is very disruptive to nature. We learned that in Scotland the SNP sanctioned the felling of 16.5million trees to develop wind-farms. In urban areas there is even more costly developments and disruption as everything is normally in oil filled cables (yes petrochemical) underground. Most cables will need to be replaced or paralleled up meaning that most roads will need digging up. Substations will need uprating also. There are not the skilled workers to do this and getting supply of the components from limited suppliers when the rest of the western world is going down the same unnecessary and mad route to bankruptcy and costly, unreliable energy is going to prove difficult.
I am personally involved in looking at grid operations for this future world and smart grid capabilities to manage the complex power flows and difficulty in controlling rapid reversals in power flows on highly constrained routes as the weather changes or consumer demand needs change. Storage and alternative small nuclear generators will be required to facilitate this. Again more cost and very difficult to achieve. Our back-stop to all of this is the development of new market arrangements and centralised control to dictate whose power can enter the grid when and where or how much the will be paid or even have to pay to inject power into an already overloaded grid, or as a consumer also have price variations according to both variations in weather driven production and availability of power, how far away it is being generated and what other power consumers around you are doing. Beyond this, smart systems will intervene and order your car to stop charging, your heat-pumps to shut off or other smart devices to increase/decrease their output. It is very, very complex to analyse and design. Whilst I believe it possible to put in place the scale and complexity of change is quite a challenge in the Net Zero timescales. We really could do with 200 to 300 years not 20 years. This complex grid is going to be much more vulnerable to hacking attacks or simply failures. The renewable sources are going to be prone to non-production during periods when it is very cold or hot and heat pumps start asking for x3 the power to heat your home when the external heat exchanger causes freezing, just at the time the grid is running out of wind power. The grid will thus be more vulnerable to extreme weather. People having been banned from having gas, coal or wood fires will be more vulnerable and under the control of the state. It is not an architecture I would recommend ā especially when CO2 is not a pollutant, it doesnāt control the weather, human emissions donāt drive atmospheric concentrations it is off gassing from the oceans in response to natural temperature rise (Henryās Law) and has half-live of 10 years.
We need fossil fuels and we need petrochemicals for fertilisers, medicines, lubricants and plastics. Keep drilling, mining, fracking, refining and distribution capacity high. It will take up to 25 years to recover petrochemical industry capability needed for our civilisation once we realise that we have created an unmitigated disaster with our current renewables, electricity only energy policy.
David Bunney
BSc Meteorology; 25 years as an energy consultant, electricity grid control systems architect, energy market designer, and energy industry regulations expert. Legal drafter to the 3rd energy package with UK and EU.
August 7, 2023
Good to see you comment here. I have seen a number of very sensible and informed comments from you elsewhere. I endorse all the points you make.
August 7, 2023
If, as you say, CO2 half-life is only 10 years, by continuing adding CO2 to the atmosphere are we not simply prolonging the length of time during which CO2 could have an effect?
You say CO2 does not control weather. Indeed atmospheric dynamics control the day-to-day pressure highs and lows, but dynamics is not independent of the gradient of temperature between different regions, in particular the equator-poles temperature gradients as these influence the Hadley, Ferrell, and Polar cells as well as the Walker circulation.
My question therefore is: As observations show an increase of temperature in northern hemisphere (NH) polar region, what do you make of the possibility that a reduced temperature gradient be linked to a weaker more sinuous NH jet stream with potential impact on areas of drought and large precipitations? Is that in your view completely decoupled from any increase in the various gases said to have a greenhouse effect?
August 6, 2023
Net Zero
I do not understand how we have got to where we are without plan A, let alone a plan B.
I was formerly of the opinion that the Conservatives were the party of competence.
Yeah right š
August 6, 2023
I just wonder, that even with say a majority of perhaps 150, would these tory MPs still plough ahead with net-zero ā¦.I guess they would !
August 7, 2023
The problem for us, the frustrated electorate, is that the opposition parties think the Tories are not doing enough to keep zero-carbon on target. So we’ll get more of the same nonsensical policies with them.
There’s only one choice left for us, we need a new party that will revert to the true conservative policies for the greater good of our country and us, its citizens. The current incumbents are NOT true Conservatives.
August 6, 2023
Take a look at the share price movements of ‘green’ investment trusts: they are going nowhere. Batteries, wind, wavepower, ‘clean energy’ infrastructure projects, even such previously soaring individual shares such as Tesla: all are languishing, as even with large, hidden amounts of taxpayer-funded subsidy, they cannot make a profit, and government tax policies prevent the misallocated capital from finding healthy, profitable outlets.
It is nothing less than the state-promoted euthanasia of capitalism.
August 6, 2023
+1
August 6, 2023
First Solar (FSLR) started at $0.5 in 2018, it was at $1.95 on Friday. Greencoat UK Wind (UKW) at 125 p in 08/2018 is at 145p, not great for sure but it had been providing 5% dividend over all these years, 5.32% in 2023. Octopus Renewables Infrastructure (ORIT) at 100p when it started four years ago is at 95p with a 5% annual dividend. It looks bad but would Warren Buffett (āBe fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearfulā) say thatās the perfect time to buy?
August 6, 2023
And all without subsidy?
August 7, 2023
Do your homework and check the individual companies in these unit/investment trusts. But maybe you donāt know how these work?
August 7, 2023
Like Tesla (whose shares have surely outperformed your picks enormously) these shares really depend on the extent to which the businesses continue to be subsidised and insulated from competition by taxes on their competitors.
August 6, 2023
Can you have one of your Researchers look into the overloading of electricity cables and energy storage in this country which is going on please? I have read some disturbing research being undertaken which is linking the reduction in copper to manganese storage in batteries could be leading to CJD. Funding has been refused at this stage so the people doing this valuable research cannot continue at the rate they would like.
August 6, 2023
āāCorporation tax should be reduced to 12.5% to boost foreign investment, according to former Cabinet minister Sir John Redwood.āā he told GB News
Well said SirJ
August 6, 2023
I watch U tube and there are many South Korean ladies making vlogs about simple fresh natural living. They are literate young ladies who look to growing food in their own space. They don’t chat through the vlog ; instead they use the written words at the base of the screen to convey their heartfelt appreciation of natural living . They talk about inspiring poetry , they use their senses of smell , touch and breath to inhale and feel the majestic country scenes which surround them, They are humble and work hard to live ,making very nutritious food from their own gardens.
These women are working ‘ off the grid’ as much as is possible. They use words and sentences to show their appreciation of what this world has in it’s garden of Eden. There are scenes where families teach children to respect nature ( not throw dirty kebab papers from BMW ‘s on to overcrowded roads) These are the types to change the world , not the grabbing competitive, self important pedants .
August 6, 2023
I agree with the general thrust of the argument. Net zero has been mostly wishful thinking so far.
But it is not pointless to use a ground source heat pump even if the electricity to run it comes from gas. Ground source heat pumps are up to ā400% efficientā because only a quarter of the energy they use is the electricity the user puts in. The rest is heat energy from the ground.
So youād be using less gas. And purely on running cost terms it ought to be a lot cheaper as a result. The question is whether installation can be made cheaper and whether this can be financed by banks / government providing upfront funding and then taking a spread between paying the old price for heat (as if you were using a 100% efficient heating system) and the new cheaper price (using the new 400% efficient system) until the funding is paid off; and can those funding plus running costs be made to be comparable with energy costs today.
It requires cash upfront and some sort of ability to hedge electricity prices, and probably some way of making getting heat pumps installed easier as no one wants their garden ripped up for ages. But I donāt believe this is beyond the wit of man if government incentivised it. And that would make heating cheaper for everyone in the long run. And provide work for installers.
August 7, 2023
‘It ought to be a lot cheaper’ – Yeah, just what we were told about nuclear in the fifties – ‘it will be so abundant that it will be too cheap to meter’ is my memory of the politicians usual pie crust promises in order to get acceptance. How did that turn out? If you can overcome human greed you just might get something. Good luck with that.
August 7, 2023
Ground sourced heat pumps are okay if you have gardens the size of the National Trust. “The average system will require between 600 and 1200 square metres of land. This land must be clear of trees and buildings.” if you coil around the ground a couple of meters down. You also ideally need wet clay or be able to install below the ground water table as dry sand does not transmit heat fast enough from the surrounding soil. Some people opt for a vertically installed pump with a massive bore hole down below the water table. But these are major engineering undertakings which will cost a lot!
Air sourced heat-pumps are more practical to install than ground-sourced ones, but get less efficient as the temperature of the outside air drops as there is less energy to extract for every 1C of further cooling of the outside air you don’t get the same energy for the inside. Once the grill of the outside heat exchanger drops below the wet-bulb freezing temperature then (much like a fridge or freezer) your outside heat exchanger will ice up and no longer transfer heat until an induction heat coil is used to deice it. This will drop efficiency well below your 400% to more like 80% once this happens. Similarly if the unit gets covered with snow it will stop working altogether. So under the most adverse weather conditions these units will struggle and seek to draw x4 the amount of energy they draw each from the grid per 1C increment they want for the inside. The house will be colder and demanding more heat also and longer run times. Similarly under these same weather conditions wind turbines will fall still and start icing up also. You will have no electricity coming into the grid whilst demand will be x4. The lights will go out, the heating will go off and people will die of the cold without a log fire or GCH to keep them warm.
August 7, 2023
Heat pumps are 400% efficient when heating from say 16C to 20C, provided that the house is well insulated. Stay inside, lock the doors and don’t open the windows. As the outside temperature drops the efficiency declines, and by 10 degrees below freezing when you need it most its efficiency drops to that of a direct electric heater, and indeed it is standard design in cold climates to include heating coils. That means that there is a sudden dramatic increase in heating demand. Meeting it would require lots of extra generating and transmission capacity that doesnāt otherwise get used, which would be a huge expense. It would have to be dispatchable capacity, as you can’t rely on wind and solar in a Dunkelflaute cold snap.
The colder it gets the greater the reliance on insulation, which is a very costly item for older homes. It is estimated that insulating the housing stock to the required standard is a Ā£2trillion item on its own. Essentially you end up rebuilding – a very costly process that would take over a century, and result in lots of extra emissions that would defeat the object.
August 7, 2023
Sorry to say this but what do you expect? An honest thought through strategy for Net Zero? It is like South Australia on a national scale. Exactly this issue. Failure to modify the grid led to a statewide blackout in Sep 2016. It was caused initially by a tornado taking out some pylons but the resilience of the grid had been reduced by the introduction of wind and solar. Engineers had warned of the need to re-engineer the grid for wind and solar but the cost would have meant the budget for the Green Energy transition was unaffordable. So the government excluded it and got the budget for the generation alone. Hence statewide blackout – particularly damaging for industry eg., aluminium smelters. The Federal government was then forced to pay for the essential retrospective re-engineering of the grid – with a gesture from Elon Musk of a large battery for free.
When Boris was campaigning for the premiership I voted for him thinking his ferver for Green Energy was in emulation of King Canute to demonstrate that Net Zero is impossible. Alas his courtiers were unconvinced and the absurd Net Zero agenda remains in place.
I guess UK will need a near nation-wide blackout before the myth is killed off.