With most people relying on fossil fuel for vans and cars, deliveries, holiday travel and heating and with most industry using gas coal and oil for its factories and processes, shifting from fossil fuels requires an enormous investment and change.
Net zero enthusiasts regularly tell us a huge increase in wind farms, onshore and offshore, would enable a faster UK transition. Yesterday I asked them to guide us on how quickly the grid and street cable systems can be greatly expanded and how this will be paid for. We await cogent answers. Without more grid and cable the wind farms cannot send their power to customers.
Today I want to ask what do we do on days and at times Ā when the wind does not blow or blows too much? There are various technical answers being explored. There could be more large battery farms, where the batteries are charged on good wind days and discharged to the grid on low wind days. There is considerable power loss on charging and discharging, and issues over effective battery lives.
There is the possibility of using surplus wind power on good wind days to make green hydrogen. Ā Direct drive hydrogen engines are arguably more effective for heavy plant, trucks and buses, than trying to make powerful enough Ā batteries. Hydrogen home heating may prove warmer and better than heat pumps. A hydrogen system would require large plants to make and store commercial quantities of the gas and a distribution system for it.
There is the possibility that new synthetic or plant based fuels might emerge which are thought to lower CO 2 output and could be used in a variety of transport, industrial and heating uses.
The problem of intermittency could be abated by one or more of these answers. It would still be difficult to have enough battery or stored hydrogen capacity should a long cold windless period emerge in winter. Each of these answers requires further work on best methods for achieving them and on how Ā they would be rolled out quickly and paid for on a large scale. Going over to hydrogen or to electricity for the many things that currently run on fossil fuels Ā requires large investment in new grids, cable systems, and hydrogen pipes,stores and deliveries . The Ā same applies to other new fuels.
When might we get greater clarity on the preferred technologies, the timetables and costs?
August 7, 2023
They will NEVER admit the idiocy of their āfeelingsā and ābeliefsā.
The question is how long is the western world prepared to be governed by people who āfeel and believeā but canāt think sequentially?
This is an existential question.
August 7, 2023
Agree. People ( more people) will die.
40 years ago this place where I now merely exist was bristling with octogenarians ( and older).
(The oldest lady I met was 103 and fully with it)
They ran the Church, organised jumble sales walked to the shops, knitted and crocheted and made jam. They organised Brownies and even went on barge holidays.
The level of ill health and death now is astounding.
Replacement coming along nicely!
August 7, 2023
Why is there any need to change from fossil fuels or even consider it when US, China and India continue to build and use new coal fired power stations each year without any regard to collected idiocy of globalist group think? UK out put makes no difference compared to these countries. The real question is why if your party and govt under Sunak determined to make us cold, poor and hungry? Your party also keeps to its mass immigration policy which acts in stark contrast to their alleged aims under climate scam. Your party and govt keeps exporting jobs and industry to these countries and import the goods back here without any explanation to the voting public, why?
August 11, 2023
Lord help us, John do go and do the sums on BATTERIES and HYDROGEN! Itās dreadful how ignorant are our politicians
Reply I am proposing we set the task to business who would need to produce affordable versions to be useful and popular.
August 7, 2023
Allow me to recommend Gulliver’s Travels by Dean Swift. In the floating island of Laputa, scientists are working on various clever plans. Their brilliant suggestions are transmitted to the island of Lagoda below as Laputa travels over them in the sky.
They also do music…
August 7, 2023
They also attempt to make sunbeams out of cucumbers, iirc
August 7, 2023
The advocates of Net Zero do not care. They are of the “Let them eat cake” persuasion.
August 7, 2023
Agreed. And they will find the same end. I cannot believe that they hold us in such contempt that they are not afraid.
August 8, 2023
They are afraid. That’s why they are seeking total control over us with Central Bank Digital Currencies and a Social Credit System.
August 7, 2023
Agree
August 8, 2023
We have a signal example of that in the brainless hysteria of the JSO and ‘Welcome to Migrants’ protesters, whose parroted slogans and automaton-like demeanour betray a fervent desire to be dictated to and an indifference to the harm they are causing. They are like zombies being given remote instructions via earpieces.
August 7, 2023
Nuclear in the form of SMRs is the best solution to both intermittency and the need for added electric power. We have a national champion , Rolls Royce, and we need to get moving quickly to help establish a leading position in this new technology.
August 7, 2023
Indeed we do. If we had a capable and competent Secretary of State for Energy, orders would have been placed with RR by now. Instead, following a succession of dreadful occupants of the role going all the way back to Ed Miliband, we have an individual who may unkindly but accurately be described as the Energy Insecurity Secretary. It is difficult to avoid concluding that for many years, governments have deliberately pursued policies of making and keeping energy scarce and expensive, probably to discourage consumption but paying little attention to quality of life in the process.
August 8, 2023
But they make sure *their* quality of life does not suffer!
August 7, 2023
RollsRoyce that would never do! Our so-called government has gone out to foreign competition ! Brit engineering will never do! Dont forget we are waiting for EU ships for our navy! British ship building destroyed by bad government!
August 7, 2023
EU policy to tender out to other EU countries. That is why traitor Sunak gave building of our warships to Spain instead of UK!!! There are serious issues of national security therefore I can only conclude he betrays his nation at every chance.
August 7, 2023
@Robert Thomas
SMRās are the most logical solution, and being pro UK there is a lot of logic to the RR direction. Unfortunately they are a bit late to the table with an unproved design at the scale needed ā but I hope for our sake the succeed.
Irony – Westinghouse the former UK owned Company that the Labour Party and Gordon Brown got rid of saying the UK would never need them also has SMRās in their stable. Argentina, China and Russia are already building them. This Conservative Government is not even hearing the narrative.
August 8, 2023
Thanks Ian_B, the Government has not gone to foreign competition on SMRs. I donāt know what some here read but they appear to be rather mistaken. RR_SMR Ltd is yet to have a proper 470 MW to show.
Even the previous and present RR bosses/executives (John Rose, Tufan Erginbilgic) said that much in last MoS. They want the best SMRs. They think they can provide them within the imparted timeframe.
They certainly have plans and a very interesting website but no tangible system at the scale they have advertised and that the potential users could see working right now.
In a way the timeline shown on gov.uk for SMRs becoming an active part by 2029 gives RR some time to actually show what they can do.
So some contributors here saying either that the Government should proceed right now to help a RR (British, GSTKing) or criticising it for its Ā“foreign biasā is only showing that they, as so often, might have been sent off track (or been deluded) by their usual sources of information.
Why people would not want the UK have the best SMRs but only a British one is beyond me.
The other competitors, General Electric, TerraForma, Hitachi, are not particularly linked to the EU, so again the usual anti-EU does not make much sense (MFD, Hope)
August 7, 2023
Good morning.
Zealots like, Sakara Gold think that it is the government that should be doing these things. What it is in truth is that the taxpayer should be made to subsidise his transport costs. If he believes that there should be more power points then it is only right and proper that private industry pays for this and charges him for the fully cost for their investment. This is the only fair way to do things.
Sir John I can tell you what they do now :
1. Nothing, as they get paid anyway.
2. Fire up the diesel generators.
Rape seed oil can be used to create ethanol. But the plan is not to find suitable alternatives to what we have but, to impose a dystopian lifestyle.
CO2 and the fear of Climate Change is being used as the means to a very unhappy end no matter what ‘they’ say.
August 7, 2023
Of course we can use crops, oils, wood and sugars to convert and use for heating, electricity generation and transport but rarely does this make any economic or environmental sense whatsoever, so why do it?
The environment is one thing and we should look after it. A war on CO2 plant, tree and crop food however is bonkers. A bit more CO2 is on balance a net benefit we are in period of relative dearth of CO2. Plus when you do the maths the low CO2 “solutions” pushed by governments do not even reduce CO2 at best they just export it!
There is no climate emergency whatsoever just another mad unscientific new religion pushed by dopes like May, Miliband, St Greta and it seems by circa 95% our scientifically ignorant deluded virtue signalling MPs.
August 7, 2023
+ 1
I care a great deal about the environment and support initiatives to improve and protect it. I don’t give a 4X about the “climate crisis” propaganda or the demonisation of CO2. It’s so obviously a huge scam and they can only keep it going by ignoring and suppressing the opinions of eminent scientists who don’t support the narrative and silencing dissent.
August 7, 2023
Indeed endless propaganda from the BBC, governments, charities, universities on the CO2 devil gas religion.
One technology that can certainly make sense is combined heat and power. Houses and offices now can be arranged to need very little electricity by using LED lighting and using gas for all heating and not having an EV to charge, You can get gas powered generators to generate this power and use the “waste” heat for hot water or heating but they would need to get a bit cheaper which they could if build in large numbers, Thus not wasting the heat at the power station and perhaps not even having the now rather rip off standing charges for electricity at all.
But the deluded CO2 and fossil fuels are evil religion has ensured this scientifically sensible approach has not taken off. Also you could build houses near gas power station and use the waste heat to heat them.
August 8, 2023
Lifelogic:
The UK āEnergy Conservation Demonstration Projects Schemeā encouraged energy efficiency by using working examples of what leading operators had achieved and providing incentives to replicate that technology throughout industry. The present leadership is inefficient.
August 7, 2023
+many
August 7, 2023
I wonder when they will decide that whales should be cancelled and start hunting them for their oil?
August 7, 2023
The whales are beaching themselves to escape from the constant noise in the oceans emanating from fields of windmills.
August 7, 2023
more like the continuous sonar of both submarine and surface warlike craft driving them to suicide.
August 7, 2023
Well I suppose it would be renewable oil!
August 7, 2023
Once the scientists and engineers crack controlled nuclear fusion as they surely will do (within perhaps 20 years or so) we can then use the cheap abundant electricity to manufacture man made fossil fuel replacements for aircraft fuel, cars, trucks. heating will be mainly heat pumps or just electricity directly as that would be more efficient and easier to transport than using some manufactured gas or hydrogen and without far less energy lost in the process.
If we get a break though in battery tech. (the need to be lighter, cheaper, store more energy per KG, not burst into flames, charge more quickly…) then EV vehicles will start to make ,rather more sense, especially in cities.
Until then drill, frack and mine the fossil fuels and use them, cheap, convenient, can be stored & technology we have and understand, safe & practical .
August 9, 2023
Lifelogic, Tory peer Zac Goldsmith has said: “he could support Labour at next election over climate issues – if it focused more on nature, not just carbon”.
August 7, 2023
Agreed by me Mark!
August 7, 2023
@Mark B
The enemy of ācommon senseā is the social media driven sound-bite that this Conservative Government buys into and feeds.
Most real answers are simpler(if not harder to illustrate) but less impactful in the electioneering/personal self-esteem sense.
There are many instances, but just take oil as a comodity. Without it there would be no BEVās, electricity(cabling), mobile communications, clothing, endless list. So how is importing better for the economy than using our own?
August 7, 2023
UK Aircraft carriers have an anticipated 50 year life. This was known when Tories made the decision to build them and had the chance of using nuclear. Is this another example of Uni party stupidity or an example of the Tories being caught out for conning the public on climate scam? Their mass immigration policy in stark contrast to their climate scam aims.
August 7, 2023
Technology should be appropriate to the task in hand. In many cases this is not electricity but one of the fossil fuels – coal for steel, gas for industrial heat, electricity for aluminium production, petrol/diesel for motive power etc. A one size fits all attitude is not sensible, trying to make everything electric.
August 7, 2023
You do R&D and when (and if) the technology works and is cost effective only then do you roll it out and without subsidy. Roll out using subsidy of duff or premature tech just give you huge taxes and load of duff tech. littering up the country that needs replacing later. The government have done the latter with carbon capture, EVs, heat-pumps, solar, wind, wave, tidal, hydrogen.
R&D in promising areas fine but government are hopeless even there are choosing the right areas. Not their money what do they car if it works or does not work,
But we have a Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (a total contradiction in the title)
The Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP who has an HHD in finance & business from Manchester Poly. So almost certainly has not even got a decent O level in Physics let alone A level!
August 7, 2023
Modern 2-stroke (already banned) & 4-stroke petrol & diesel engines are being further developed and improved across the far-east especially in Japan and China ā¦weāve stopped all that research in engine efficiency due to the climate crusade
August 8, 2023
Improving the economy of ICE engines is one way to have a global impact. Improved fuel efficiency technology spreads rapidly, to the benefit of all. People replace with the improved technology quite voluntarily.
August 8, 2023
+1
August 7, 2023
@Will
Every day life as we know it canāt function without oil, even these windmills!
I wonder if what some are suggesting is that we go back to the old days before we found a use for it, petrol, that is, it used to be thrown away on the ground until someone came up with the ICE
August 7, 2023
Little point in storage (with current tech other than in a few special situations). This as it is very expensive and wastes so much of the energy in the process. Can be rather dangerous too, The best way to store electricity is as pile of coal, tank of diesel, natural gas or as nuclear fuel and generate only when needed. Plenty such fuels to get us thought to practical fusion, better nuclear or other new tech.
CO2 is really not a serious climate issue probably on balance a little more is a net benefit we are in a relative dearth of it currently in historical terms.
August 7, 2023
If itās true that they are capturing CO2 and pumping it underground might that not have serious consequence eventually?
As I have said before, CO2 rising from the earth can cause problems. Not least in Delphic Oracle situationsā¦Oh the powers might like thatā¦the BoE could use it for forecasts.
In the same wayā¦if we went totally nuclear how many Chernobylās would there be? And what of the consequences of all that stored waste very long term?
August 7, 2023
if we went totally nuclear how many Chernobylās would there be? And what of the consequences of all that stored waste very long term?
Nuclear can be very safe indeed and nuclear fusion would be far safer still without the waste problems.
August 7, 2023
But in the hands of our leaders?
August 7, 2023
LL
Wasnāt the Chernobyl accident caused by the engineers carrying out unauthorised experiments on the reactor?
August 7, 2023
….and nobody will tell us the true costs of taxpayers money Ā£trillions
August 7, 2023
Great wonder they donāt just finish the whole thing off and sweep up all the spoils.
Theyād just be left with their AI to do all the dirty workā¦if they had any electricity that is.
August 7, 2023
@Everhopeful
It is just a Conservative Government WOKE sound-bite. Waste CO2 can be repurposed as fuel, said to be relatively expensive, but compared to is not stated
August 7, 2023
+1
I think they may be quite serious in their delusional way.
August 7, 2023
šš»šš»šš!!šLifelogic
August 7, 2023
Storage of electricity and hydrogen? That’s likely isn’t it, when they didn’t even store enough gas to get us through a couple of days supply, which is very easy to do, it just cost a bit of money and that is anathema to big corporations. Wasn’t it the Tories who permitted the Rough storage area to be closed down as late as 2017 for reasons that it was biting into profits. They said it was beyond its working life, but here we are with them bragging they are re-opening it again, so obviously that was a lie. You can’t trust any of them when it comes to the God money.
August 7, 2023
Without nuclear to replace FFs there will be anarchy, chaos and violence as the grid collapses when demand crushingly exceeds supply at all points. Maybe this is what the Marxist eco-warriors, NZ bigots actually want to see.
Always remember we are dealing with anti-human bigots who have politicised the natural environment for political gain. If these extremists could politicise the air that we breathe they would, in they way they have with race, gender and human sexuality.
We are dealing with people who are primarily destructive and authoritarian who seek total control over all things. These people were seen many centuries ago declaring that the earth was at the centre of our universe in direct contradiction of the truth
August 7, 2023
Don’t replace FF, lets develop it, lets make it cleaner and cheaper, lets use our resources as god intended
August 7, 2023
The thought of piping Hydrogen into homes fills me with horror. A highly explosive gas in every street, madness.
August 7, 2023
Town gas which everyone used before North Sea gas was 50% hydrogen. The dangerous component was carbon monoxide. Using a mixture of hydrogen and natural gas for home heating poses no problems.
August 8, 2023
It poses a number of problems. There is certainly an increased explosion risk, as hydrogen forms explosive mixtures over a wide range of concentrations, and is very difficult to stench, since stenching molecules are necessarily much bigger, and therefore diffuse much more slowly – you could have an explosion before you detect a gas leak. It needs proper ventilation to lower the risk – an immediate heat leak for your home via open window. Methane is easily stenched, and detected long before an explosive mixture is formed. Being a small molecule it diffuses from burners much more rapidly: these have to be re-designed with smaller orifices so that the flame stays seated on the burner, rather than blowing itself out. The flame is not very visible, which increases the risk of being burned, or leaving a burner running. You need three times the flow to produce the same energy, and hydrogen takes up three times the storage volume. That has lots of consequences in operating pressures, pipeline diameters and the need for additional buffer storage. Currently methane linepack (extra pressure in the pipelines) provides the buffer storage to handle intra day variations in demand, replacing gasholders. SImply converting methane storage to hydrogen would be completely inadequate, since there is no predictable supply from a pipeline or guaranteed top-up from an LNG shipment, and the storage capacity is reduced to a third of the methane energy.
Dealing with these problems adds costs to a very expensive medium: hydrogen is costly to produce, even done in the most efficient fashion by steam reforming of methane. You do far better to burn the methane instead.
August 7, 2023
and instead of proposing a solution that might explode, the more available is one of batteries that might become burning infernos in our homes, while we sleep….we’ve even had fires in mid-flight.
August 7, 2023
And natural gas isn’t explosive? Both carry their natural risk (as any heating technology does). Hydrogen has been proven to be as safe as natural gas is. But that doesn’t stop at least one house every year going bang somewhere in the country. But like flying, using natural gas and/or hydrogen is probably statistically safer than crossing the road!
August 7, 2023
Small ‘c’ conservatism :
Sorry, but hydrogen is far more dangerous that natural gas.
It is a tiny molecule and leaks far more easily.
August 7, 2023
First of all you need to have a level playing field for all products, which does not involve taxation or subsidy, then and only then you can really start to make a comparison as to what is going to be firstly cost effective.
You also need to add up all of the various aspects of the make up of emissions from the start, to the end use of the various production and distribution systems, of all of the types of power sources to get a true comparison about emissions/pollution
Only when you have completed the above can you start to make sense of any comparison.
We all know electric Cars are not pollution free, yet they get subsidies, when ICE cars are taxed to hell.
We all know that wind power and solar panels do not create free energy and have a limited life span (typically 20-25 years,) but they get subsidies, when oil, gas, and coal are taxed.
Nuclear looks great until you involve dealing with the waste, for years we dumped polluted waste in the oceans of the World, sealed in nothing much better than an oil drum , when that very waste is toxic for thousands of years but the containers they were put in will break down in decades.
Then we really do need to have a full and open discussion, with an honest debate to find out if all of these emissions do really cause so called Climate change in the first place !
August 7, 2023
You have no chance of that, they think we are fools when the try to say the science is settled. Thats not true, science is always moving!
As far as I am concerned, there is no climate change, only weather change as normal!
August 7, 2023
@Berkshire Alan +1
Wishful thinking though, it doesnāt create a self-esteem stroking electioneering sound-bite. āban, cancel, punish import only, more tax, more government(read taxpayer) spending sound more decisive.
August 7, 2023
Iām not really sure how much more one can say about lunacy.
( We donāt need new energy systems. The world is NOT boiling!)
Not to mention the fact that we are being shunted unceremoniously and undemocratically into a 15 minute city situation.
Apparently ādemocracyā is always withdrawn when the state feels threatened. Obviously our leaders knew exactly how we would react to their wild schemes and tried to preempt trouble with a stab at totalitarianism.
August 7, 2023
We get back to the question of ” is our generation of CO2 the sole cause of Climate Change” . Like with Covid , those voices challanging lockdowns, masks, and the vaccines for younger people were more or less criminalised.
But the truth is emerging they were not that wrong in their view.
You can not get funding for reasearch to see if other factors than CO2 are impacting the climate and causing it to change.
It was once a crime to believe the earth was not flat.
Sir John the point about hydrogen is to avoid the use/need for elecric cars, vans, and trains. We used the same pipes for natural gas as used for the old town gas made from coal. But as you so often point out you can’t easily store elecricty. But you can store Gas. So the first step is to build hydrogen production plants ( Gas Works) close to power stations or the incoming grid station for Wind generation. All this requires Engineering which a skill in short supply in the UK these days.
August 7, 2023
This government, and its climate change committee (CCC) closed down genuine scientific debate by declaring that āthe science was settledā
Iād like to see on TV a real debate of a panel of scientists from both sides of the argument
August 7, 2023
Agreed – especially concerning Town Gas, which was a Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen mixture. So we have already had Hydrogen in our gas system so why not again?
August 8, 2023
The basic facts of chemistry mean that making hydrogen is going to be very costly however you do it. Trying to do it from intermittent and highly variable renewables surpluses is perhaps the most expensive way yet devised.
August 7, 2023
The other unknown which has not been mentioned. Is the speed that the population grows! At the current rate we cannot build enough houses to keep up with any additional numbers. Let alone heat these homes. By 2030, including all current & illegal numbers. UK will be at least 75m. Possibly 7m more than France! Net Zero is a fantasy!
August 7, 2023
75 million by 2030? A major supermarket said it was more than 80 million, way back in 2008.
August 7, 2023
Wow thatās a lot of boats. But donāt they need oil to make rubber?
August 7, 2023
B – Year 2008: And there were more recent indications of around that figure Barbara in the last couple of years or so, again from our food providers’ observations & estimates.
August 7, 2023
When will this nonsense end? CO2 is essential for human and plant life. It should never have been demonised as a pollutant. If, as is argued, it is detrimental because it is a so-called ‘greenhouse gas’ why is it thought sensible to replace fossil fuels with hydrogen which when burned becomes water vapour the most prevalent ‘greenhouse gas’? This is all designed, not to save the planet, but to control and impoverish the majority for the benefit of the already wealthy minority.
August 7, 2023
I once knew someone who was fairly well up in the politics of the far, extreme left.
He really, really HATED this country and wanted it to be destroyed.
At the time I thought he was a bit eccentric but harmless ( after all no British government would EVER allow all that)
But everything he saidā¦even down to getting rid of farmers and cows, is coming true.
So I have watched all this unfolding in a fairly informed way!
August 7, 2023
The idea of getting rid of farming is to make way for four global distribution centres..,
August 7, 2023
Oh dear.
That sounds ominous.
Distribution of bug burgers?
Or worseā¦.
August 7, 2023
The truth is finally out! Well said Brian. I have maintained that for years and lost friends as a result of them accepting the lies!
August 7, 2023
The cold hard reality is that our entire industrialized economy is built on fossil fuels. First coal then oil and gas. Take them away you are looking at a returning to a pre industrial age. It’s no good deluding ourselves that batteries, solar and wind can do it, they need oil to make them and only work at small scale. For vehicles they are dangerous and almost useless. Alternative fuels give nowhere near the return on energy invested so are too expensive. You can use nuclear for electricity but for manufacturing and transporting goods, food and people oil is it.
So if you want the end of our current society then continue with the delusional green agenda.
August 7, 2023
Your piece today Sir John tells us why it will no work. It is intermittent energy, it is far too widely spread and requires far too great an extension to the grid. The further electricity travels through the cables the more is lost and consequently more must be generated. Battery storage is pretty useless when even a very large facility can be drained in an hour, or less.
The best solution is to abandon alleged green energy. There is no case for a war against CO2. It is our friend.
August 7, 2023
Correct – when is enough net-zero, enough net-zero, when will it end, whats the success criteria, when is the job done ……nobody knows
August 7, 2023
B O F
Across the big housing estates in Kilmarnock, there are transmission lines running through the middle of them.
For years arguments have waged back and forth over the high incidents of cancer in the estates under the power lines. Despite the high numbers of infections the power companies and the National Grid have all denied responsibility and never once has there been an inquiry. The results going the wrong way would be catastrophic for the industry. Another lift the carpet and apply the broom.
August 7, 2023
Considering the obvious dangers of batteries being used to power EVs and bikes, with a tendency for them to suddenly go up in flames and the difficulties of extinguishing a battery fire, large banks of “battery farms” would inevitably be extremely dangerous.
It’s rather a shame that the 644 idiots perched on the green benches and most of those perched on the red ones who voted to destroy the economy didn’t find out the answers to Sir John’s questions before they passed the Climate Change Act 2008 and a “Conservative” Prime Minister, Theresa May, created the moronic Climate Change Act 2008 (2050 Target Amendment) Order.
Still, since we still have a “Conservative” Government, scrapping the Amendment Order could be done tomorrow and the Climate Change Act 2008 could be scrapped, or at the very least amended again, before the General Election.
But the Blue-Green-Socialists in power don’t seem to understand that when you’re in a hole, it’s best to stop digging.
August 7, 2023
Actually digging is a very good answer – geothermal.
August 7, 2023
Best sites : Redcar and Cleveland, Middlesbrough, East Lindsey, Hartlepool, Northumberland and Bassetlaw, also include Newcastle upon Tyne, North East Derbyshire, the East Riding of Yorkshire and Nottingham.
August 7, 2023
And for us down South, electrically heated socks.
August 7, 2023
And use the HS2 route as part of an electrical spine.
August 7, 2023
Battery or Hybrid
August 8, 2023
Geothermal works well in Iceland, where they have reliable and easy access to hot springs, and where they can run the plant at a fairly constant level by using most of its output for aluminium smelting rather than heating Rekjavik. In the UK the heat is not so intense or reliable, and needs deep drilling and fracking to tap into. I recently looked at the economics of the Eden Project’s new geothermal plants. They are heavily dependent on large subsidies.
August 7, 2023
Correct Donna
I have seen reports of explosions and fires at battery storage facilities in California. Somehow they are newsworthy enough for our bought and paid for MSM!
August 7, 2023
Donna,
Correct. But the climate scam is about bringing socialism across the world to level up allegedly poor countries.
August 7, 2023
John,
We cannot rely on wind and solar to power our nation as they are too defuse and require so much land, so many minerals for them the grid and supposedly storage. All this requires so many engineers that don’t exist, money/wealth we don’t have and more fossil fuels burned in China to make it than the current infrastructure it is supposed to replace. There isn’t even enough copper, cobalt, zinc etc to expand the grids of the world.
Battery storage for TWh of energy on demand is infeasible and unaffordable. There simply isn’t enough mineral mining and refining resources to supply the UK let alone the rest of the world.
Hydrogen is too costly and infeasible on scale as the losses on conversion are too great, further increasing energy costs and required generation capacity. Synthetic hydrocarbons fuels lose even more on conversion.
Nuclear is the best alternative to fossil fuels, and doesn’t require external backup, but uranium is finite and most mining is controlled by Russia and the Chinese. It may be possible to use the vast deposits of thorium and breeder reactors to limit our need for uranium. Thorium doesnt make bomb grade plutonium directly and could be less of a terrorist threat. It does have its challenges though. New reactor designs are more efficient with nuclear fuels, minimising waste and long term storage concerns. A large reactor fleet of smaller modules is quicker and less risky to deploy and opens up the possibility of limited red hydrogen production.
By far the least risky, least costly and sensible way forwards is to extend our policy of using fossil fuels and securing reliable supplies for a century or two. CO2 emissions don’t control the climate.
August 7, 2023
I completely agree. Kathryn Porter wrote an excellent piece in the Telegraph recently concerning the practical limitations of hydrogen. She has a stellar technical background and is an associate member of the All Party Committee on Energy. Paul Homewood also reproduced her article. Iām convinced we are heading for a major crisis because our politicians have selected a losing strategy with wind and solar.
August 8, 2023
Kathryn’s blog should be compulsory reading for anyone with a serious interest in energy policy. Her research is always thorough, and she has an excellent command of issues across the spectrum: her analysis of the failings of EPCs was outstanding, she knows about nuclear at a technical level and has contacts across industry who value her input and share their observations and problems from the coal face to keep her very well informed.
August 7, 2023
@David Bunney
Almost every statement that you have made in your post is demonstrably wrong; you are repeating anti-renewables propaganda from the fossil fuel lobby. I do not have time this morning to debate your points, except to give you some facts. Renewable electricity last winter displaced more than a third of the UKās entire annual gas demand for power generation. Without it, the UK would have had to increase net gas imports by more than 22 per cent (including gas imported via pipeline)
Generating the same amount of electricity using CCGT would have required around 95TWh of gas ā equal to 110 tankers of LNG – or the amount more than 10 million UK homes would burn over the winter.
In 2022, UK renewables provided 38 per cent of the countryās electricity generation, nearly as much as gas (at 40 per cent) and we became a NET ELECTRICITY EXPORTER for the first time since 2010.
August 7, 2023
S G
You forgot to mention that for long periods of high pressure the wind did nor blow, the sunshine was minimal and ‘renewables gave us 5% or less of demand. The yawning gap was filled by fossil fuel and nuclear. Worse, expensive imports. All to make war on CO2, essential to life and has nothing to do with anthropogenic CC/GW.
August 7, 2023
No wonder the cost of energy has gone through the roof! Shows you what obduracy and unlimited funding produce – think how easy it will be to scupper the ārenewable energy from the seaā – I mean they managed to blow up Nordstream which was a much more difficult technical problem.
August 7, 2023
Bunny seems exactly right to me, so what exactly did you think he said that was wrong? But it is true, as you say Sakira Gold, that wind can, to a degree reduce the demand for gas – but it certainly needs gas (or coal) for back up and in doing so makes the gas power less efficient as it has to be ramped up and down. Economically it is debatable if worthwhile though when fully accounted for.
August 8, 2023
We burned lots of extra gas to help keep the Continent supplied. See this chart:
https://i0.wp.com/wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/GB-Gen-Price-HQ-1676233783.8236.png
August 7, 2023
+1 D B.
August 7, 2023
The easiest (and cheapest) win is to make sure that our housing-stock has top-notch insulation. Building-codes should reflect that.
Grpahene batteries offer some useful features, such as very rapid charging.
P.S. There, I didn’t mention window gaskets!
August 7, 2023
We’ve been doing home insulation grants since the 1970s ….everybody that wanted insulation has already got it ….insulation is a red herring
August 8, 2023
It’s not very cheap. To raise insulation of the housing stock to Net Zero standards is a Ā£2 trillion item. At current interest rates it never pays back.
August 7, 2023
Your questions are for the Conservative Party in government. It was always predictable that its embrace of Green would not appease the green lobby, which is never satisfied. This embrace, and the failure to prevent the ever increasing level of illegal migration, surely means Tory destruction at the next election. I hope your approach of gentle persuasion / trying to get the PM and co onside rather than put them in a corner with accusations of stupidity, does meet with some success.
August 7, 2023
‘what do we do on days and at times when the wind does not blow or blows too much? ‘
Well we will have to organise to have weather messages ‘pushed’ to our mobiles which will tell us to stay home as trains, buses and e-scooters will not run and our cars should not be charged. Further advice on temperature will advise to put extra clothing layers on and the energy supply companies will restrict power via smart meters and as a last resort cut supply.
Welcome to the oil-free world.
August 7, 2023
Micky Taking
The last time I looked the turbines have gearboxes which after a few years leak and spray oil around the surrounding areas. Life as we know it cannot exist without oil or grease plus all the products that are a side effect of the production process.
August 7, 2023
That was my point – life as we have known it will cease, existance constrained by both energy controls and new laws to control the people will hasten dystopia, an organised zombie routine of robot activities, freedom no longer understood nor craved.
August 7, 2023
āwhat do we do on days and at times when the wind does not blow or blows too much? ā
Lets ask the tories, they’re the ones getting rid of fossil fuels
August 7, 2023
John, sorry in my earlier post I forgot to mention biofules. They are in their own right inefficient, ineffective. If we are talking replacements for petrol and diesel, then their production wastes lots of land that should be used for food and consumes petrochemical fossil fuels in the farming stage and fermenting stages and the resultant fuel after mixed with petrol E5 and E10 degrades that fuel so that at lower MPG more fuel is burned overall, making it more costly to run the vehicle and more CO2 is released anyway. The fuel is more damanging to the engine and anything which shortens the life of equipment also pushing up costs and creating more need to do more mining and refining and hence produce more CO2.
The other thing labelled as biofuel is the burning of entire forest ecosytems in power generation facilitaties such as Drax. This is a travesty of destruction. The sooner they can go back to burning coal with clean flu technlogies that remove particles, nitrous oxides and sulpher oxides the better. It is moronic that we have been blowing up, taxing into the ground and restricting coal burniing through emissions regulations.
Thanks
David
August 7, 2023
David
Hooray for mentioning coal, we are sitting on 300 years of supply, and if emissions are the problem thenfor goodness sake develop a practical filtration/scrubbing system.
Politicians I am afraid look at coal as a dirty word now, at least in the UK they do.
August 7, 2023
Not German Green politicians. They have stepped up the burning of the filthy brown coal that ran East Germany. They decided that was better than stepping up for the lynch mobs.
August 7, 2023
…and China love coal
August 8, 2023
I believe the biofuel mandate is actually a way to shorten the lives of ICE vehicles intentionally, thus removing them from our roads.
August 7, 2023
I thought we gave up paper because of all the trees
And then they brought us plastic bags
Which clogged up all the seas
And now all parcels, brought by oil, are wrapped in reams of paper
So donāt the forests matter now?
Oh no!ā¦. Itās water vapour!!
( So is that why the mad ones now hate trees and seek to rip them up? Water vapour I believe is supposed to react with CO2 to increase global boiling. Lol.)
August 7, 2023
Rip them up ship them to Drax using oil then burn them causing more CO2 (and harm) than local coal hugely worse than local gas. Not counted as CO2 emitted in the UK and the new trees counted as CO2 offset in America totally Bonkers a fraud surely!
August 7, 2023
+1
All of it a blinking farce!
August 7, 2023
The volcanic eruption in January , has caused a 10% increase in global water vapour! I’ve no doubt that’s affected the weather!
August 7, 2023
Have you ever heard of the hydrological cycle of evaporation, condensation, precipitation? The typical āhalf-lifeā of H2O in the Earthās atmosphere is five days. The only way the amount of water vapour increases durably in the atmosphere is via an increase in temperature (via the called Clausius-Clapeyron equation: one additional degree Celsius adds up seven percent more water vapour).
August 8, 2023
The jury is still out on the effects, but the water was injected into the stratosphere, where it largely remains. Projections suggest it may take 5 years to dissipate back through the troposphere weather systems to the oceans. Because it forms a significant fraction of all the water at that level it is providing an interesting real life experiment. So far it has proved hard to detect a clear signal for effects on the weather or climate, unlike say Pinatubo, where the aerosols and sulphates produced significant cooling.
August 7, 2023
Well that is what the climate alarmists claim.
1.5C warming threshold and all that guff.
Sh*t happens and the planet bounces back.
It wonāt recover from what the maniacs are trying to do though!
August 8, 2023
Obviously the planet will bounce back, but as originally discussed by James Lovelock as early as the mid-1970s (his Gaia hypothesis and subsequent books) whether the humans will adapt so easily to the new state of the environment is an open question.
And according to Lovelock the species best adapted to this type of change is the Blattodea aka ā¦ cockroaches. They have been around for 320 million years ā¦
August 7, 2023
The government has just announced a Ā£20 billion subsidy for the oil majors’ carbon capture and storage scam – but not a single CC&S installation anywhere in the world has succeeded. If the government wanted to upgrade the grid, the money is there. What is lacking is the political will
Once a certain mass of battery EVs are on our roads (many say 1.5 million), connected to the grid and charging up overnight we have a buffer against wind power curtailment and intermittency; a certain percentage of the stored power can be fed back if needed.
Several British universities and new start-ups have developed grid-scale energy storage systems. Rolls Royce are still waiting for government to approve an installation of their SMR nuclear power plants. Approving more onshore solar and wind would improve our energy security. The interconnectors will provide power back up when it’s needed. Green hydrogen is good – 20% of the gas used for central heating could be hydrogen
When your colleague Alok Sharma had a seat in Sunak’s cabinet at least he could speak up for the planet
August 7, 2023
We donāt elect MPs to āspeak up for the planetā. We on earth elect MPs to speak for their constituents.
August 7, 2023
They’ve forgotten that bit, and to whom they owe their loyalty
August 7, 2023
how novel! When did anybody’s MP speak for their constituencies rather than in a roundabout way they speak for the ambitions of the few eased into power supposed to be democratic!
August 7, 2023
SG :
āOnce a certain mass of battery EVs are on our roads (many say 1.5 million), connected to the grid and charging up overnight we have a buffer against wind power curtailment and intermittency; a certain percentage of the stored power can be fed back if needed.ā
This will power the country for a couple of hours and then how do the owners get about when their batteries are flat and there is still no power to charge them?
And at the same time the discharge/recharge cycle further degrades their battery.
As I write, the 28 GW of installed wind power is providing just 5 GW of power.
And what makes you think that there is more wind at night than during the day? There certainly isnāt any solar power at night.
August 8, 2023
I’m sure that oil majors would be much happier supplying oil and gas, but these projects are very much at the behest of government, who have decided to bury your taxes in a hole for no useful purpose.
August 8, 2023
Let’s just assume I’m daft enough to spend Ā£30,000+ of my money on an EV, knowing that the battery has a limited life-span closely linked to the number of charges it gets. (I’m not, by the way).
Why on earth would I allow MY property to be used to supply the grid with battery power because the morons in Government kow-towed to the Eco Nutters and didn’t create a secure energy supply using the available resources of gas, oil, coal and (if they ever get around to it) nuclear?
August 7, 2023
A solution to abundant energy lies under our feet, a few miles down. The hot rocks can superheat steam to drive turbines. Not commercially viable currently, but with directed investment surely this should be considered as a way to go. No harmful emissions, no toxic by-products.
When I was at school just over 40 years ago, I supposed the end of the fossil fuel age would come as reserves would be depleted and countries would go to war for what’s left. The USA would do “whatever it takes” to ensure their needs were met. There was a clear need to research alternatives. I didn’t expect the western world would decide to precipitate an end to fossil fuels while they were still available, without adequate alternatives having been developed.
August 7, 2023
Thatās how Iceland gets most of its energy. But they are lucky being at the juncture between two tectonic plates the Icelanders donāt have to dig a few miles, a few (tens of) metres generally is enough.
August 7, 2023
The quantity of fossil fuels is calculated by what is financially viable to extract. So that amount fluctuates with the price. As they become more difficult to acquire the price rises so the viability remains and we never run out of fossel fuel.
Renewables should be calculated on the same basis. How much renewable energy is financially viable to extract?
My guess – blow all!
August 7, 2023
Renewables financial viability is currently measured by the amount of taxpayer subsidy available by politicians in a net-zero society
August 7, 2023
A power plan.
Continue with the present mix for the next ten years, but ensure that our fossil fuel needs come, as far as possible, from our own sources. This means increasing gas and oil storage to one years usage minimum. It means fracking as well as off shore extraction. Open up a coal mine to service our steel industry and remaining coal fired power stations. Block nimbyism and penalise heavily eco terrorism. Most important of all ensure that end users get the end product at cost plus a reasonable profit. The present financial supply chain is insane. Only allow export under exceptional circumstances.
Support Rolls Royce in introducing the first SMR. End the competition, undoubtedly dreamt up by scribes as a delaying tactic. In time if anyone comes up with anything better than RR we end up with a mix of electricity producers.
Use existing windmills to supplement electricity supply and as it is claimed to be the cheapest power source, stop subsidising it and use it to produce Hydrogen. Hydrogen for transport both personal and commercial. Hydrogen eliminates all the downsides of EVs. Assess what changes need to be made to the gas grid and appliances to take an ever increasing percentage of Hydrogen.
In all cases incentivise science and engineering to produce answers. Even were we to approach a nett zero goal , it would, given time impact positively on the country’s health and the cost of the NHS. But for all those sandal clad Greta look alikes out there, rest assured it will have no effect upon the slightly warmer climate we are currently enjoying. If there are any negative effects of a warmer climate mitigate against them, in between picking your grapes.
August 7, 2023
Posted just after 08.00 this morning, so why the delay, are you fearful too many might agree
August 8, 2023
He has a day job.
August 8, 2023
Unfortunately the evidence is that wind is not the cheapest source, especially when you add in all the extra costs it causes for additional transmission lines and equipment to handle gusty output, and backup for when the wind doesn’t blow. We are about to have a dramatic demonstration of this from the AR5 CFD auction which is likely to see no bids at all for ordinary offshore wind. Cerrtainly what we pay for wind currently is way above the cost of gas generation. The average CFD for wind is just under Ā£180/MWh weighted by production of each wind farm. Gas has been less than half that, despite a heavy loading of green taxes. Older wind farms subsidised by ROCs are even more costly.
August 7, 2023
I donāt know why you would ask these questions of āNet Zero Enthusiastsā I would ask them of the Government through my MP. I do not count myself an Enthusiast just a pragmatist. Many (but not all) of us an be self sufficient in renewable energy. All of as are currently dependant on Nuclear Power when the wind doesnāt blow and sun doesnāt shine. Large scale and personal energy storage can be provided using current technology. Whatās the problem?
August 8, 2023
Cost. Intermittency. Lack of supply when you most need it.
August 7, 2023
There are a myriad of options that are more viable and more practice than those proposed and implemented, by the cancel, ban import only Conservative Party. The Conservative Governments direction is based on control and the Socialist WEF Doctrine.
The first thing to answer is the money ā no vibrant, resilient UK Economy in the first place, ends with no UK.
Sir John you have hit on some of the direction, hydrogen is one. Hydrogen is not only a delivery method it is also a storage facility. Being trialled in the UK at the moment, hydrogen delivered through and mixed with-in with UK Gas supply. Apparently it then gets split, back into Hydrogen/Natural gas at the user end. At this moment it is seen as the delivery method for hydrogen to supply trucks at ātruck stopsā. So the grid exists, no need to build additional.
All new Gas Boilers have to be capable of running on at least 15% hydrogen and have been for some time.
August 7, 2023
BEVās(battery electric Vehicle) are in some ways more problematic, they need power delivery Here the UK is moving into a dangerous area of safety and security of the Country, all for the sake of a virtue signalling headline. BEVās cant be introduced at scale without total Chinese involvement. Most of what we see of these on UK roads are Chinese sourced, regardless of the badge on the front and where they are assembled. As we have just learnt the much heralded Conservative Government deal with the Indian Company Tata for battery āassemblyā in Somerset has to have the Chinese involved as owners and suppliers. Tata didnāt have the know how or resources. Based on the EUās own assumption the output from Jaguar land Rover going into the battery age have at least 55% of its components Chinese sourced. So again this Conservative Government gets to export UK Wealth as in sending them UK taxpayer funding.
We do have available, the capacitor and it circumnavigates the dangerous situation this Conservative Government is creating in locking us 100% to the whims of the Chinese Government. Capacitors exists and work extremely well, in Motor Sport F1, LeMans cars and BTCC, all using them for power. In road cars Toyota are committed to these for road cars from 2024 on. Capacitors are smaller lighter and have a higher energy density than the Chinese Lithium versionā Toyota are talking 900 plus mile range. Has Japan seen the danger being posed? BEVās are highly polluting, due to their weight, there is excessive air pollution due to tear wear and brake dust ā said to be more toxic than diesel particulates.
Capacitors are relatively expensive at the moment, but this is down to production scale more than anything else. They also donāt require questionable raw materials from questionable sources.
August 7, 2023
@Ian B
The not thinking it trough has been a theme from our Political Class for some time
ULEZ? Appears to be encouraging the use of BEVās in inner cities. They didnāt ask the question – respiratory/health issues?
BEVās are highly polluting, due to their weight, there is excessive air pollution due to higher tyre wear and brake dust ā said to be more toxic than diesel particulates
So in our airless inner cities we have people in power that wish to kill their citizens.
August 7, 2023
There is no rational answer from the green cult for your questions, for two main reasons: they donāt really care, human flourishing is tertiary to āGaiaā, their infantile mother complex and low technology existences.
We will need fossil fuel for generations, but some of the energy we need could be provided by nuclear fission and perhaps fusion.
There is no climate emergency, no climate extinction around the corner, people should get themselves informed about this crucial issue of energy for the future.
August 7, 2023
You only need to replace fossil fuels if you believe the UN IPCC reports
‘The tories finding solutions to problems that don’t exist’
August 7, 2023
and goethermal and tidal and.. this is nuts ’cause they’re all away on hols..
August 7, 2023
āA wave energy converter bought by Orkney Islands council for Ā£1 is expected to cost Ā£150k to decommissionā https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-66248137
August 7, 2023
āRecharge-Industriesā who agreed to bail out āBritishVoltā have defaulted on its purchase payment !
August 7, 2023
….. We await cogent answers…..
It’s almost pointless asking them. They’re like religious fanatics who can never offer any sensible answer to the miracles they claim. But then, of course, they are being paid to further their agenda!
As is often mentioned – follow the money.
August 7, 2023
Electricity is very dangerous and we are running headlong into converting everything. Needs more research on this issue before we see people being blown up in electric cars and fires at charging stations. On the heating element, what about underfloor heating which is far less intrusive than these awful things they are proposing. They are much more researched these days and would cause less friction on noise issues with neighbours. I still think we should use all forms of energy, including coal, so that we are self sufficient and not reliant on other countries.
August 7, 2023
Sir John
This Conservative Government is so hung up on the virtue signal, stroking personal self-esteem and ego it fails to get to the point of the objective.
First and foremost it is about removing the UKās reliance on others and becoming self reliant and resilient. Then doing that it in such away to cause the use of more renewable.
The pre-occupation with just banning, and importing creates more dangers. It is a policy that actually accelerates the World pollution situation.
There are many if not hundreds of practical solutions that will have more effect and contribute more than the āban, cancel and importā doctrine (where are they getting that from?)
What are most personal cars used for? Short hopās and the occasional once in a blue moon distance run. Is the highly polluting, excessive hydrocarbon consuming BEV that requires a massive power resource to charge and facilitate the answer? Something that came up the other day on you diary is the use of oil. A BEV is produced using oil to create its body panels, its complete interior, even the tyres are made from oil and then the lubrication to keep it running still more oil. Then factor in this Conservative Government is preoccupied by ensuring all the component s for BEVās are manufactured by the Worlds biggest polluter. Then if that is not enough they hit up the taxpayer to support destroying the UKās industrial base.
A simpler less crucifying way is to encourage the self charging hybrid for the main stream and hydrogen for the higher mileage. Overnight that’s 50% of the pollution off the streets.
If the Conservative Government was able to manage and not bow down to the WEF doctrine by putting the UK the Economy front and centre lots of these situation would be morphing naturally, with out the āban, cancel and importā imposition.
August 7, 2023
National Grid live as at 09:30hrs 7th August
Interconnectors = 21.8%
One fifth of our energy is imported …utter madness, we live on an island of gas & coal surrounded by a sea of gas & oil ….and we’re importing a energy
August 7, 2023
and how was that 21.8 % produced to sell to us?
August 8, 2023
with French coal ….but it wasn’t our coal therefore not our co2 ha ha
August 9, 2023
Electricity in France is more likely to come from nuclear (62%), solar (22%), hydro (8%), gas (4%), wind (2%), biomass (2%), petrol (<1%), coal (<1%). Both export and import were at 0%.
Figures for Metropolitan France on 09/08/2023 at 12:00 rte-France.com
August 7, 2023
I would say, off the top of my head;
The Obvious one, Nuclear, but it still has real problems;
uranium – finite and most mining is controlled by Russia, Chinese, and Africa (China and Ru controlled),
thorium – more efficient nuclear fuel, minimising waste, and long term storage concerns.
SMR – still has it’s clean up problems, but potential, also has the potential development of Sun disposal! With one national champion, there will be a lack of competition, without any REAL solution (Threat is giving up control, to other country’s; China, Germany, France, USA,…).
The important alternative would be LNG?
Because, I would argue, it’s the most Economically efficient, from where we are, and it has the potential to becoming Environmentally very efficient (it can be burnt very cleanly), for both efficiency’s!
What’s intriguing is the potential for Hybrid Hydrogen, mixing Hydrogen and LNG (H2 + CH4), but this currently limited. I believe it’s limited to 75% LNG, 25% Hydrogen, but that would be useful? Transporting H2, but is not going to work on it’s own!!!
It has potential Technical innovation’s like High Speed Turbines?
One important point, too highlight, is the potential to make, grow, or find, a clean Gas in the Third World? Allowing Developing country’s to integrate into the Developed world, using their own energy supply!
Would open markets both ways; Selling a Gas Turbine truck to them, and they supply Grain, Gas, etc,…
As long as we maintain our own Relatively Cheap Energy supply, to support our Competitiveness!
Hope this helps?
BR
RDM.
August 7, 2023
The answer is obvious. Press ahead with the zero plan, upgrade the cables and replace all fossil fuel energy sources with wind farms and solar panels, et al. BUT provide each household, with a free, diesel powered generator (and diesel) to use when the renewables do not provide enough to power the home. All of that should only cost, a mere Ā£2T and be delivered by 2085 – if the HS2 plan is anything to go by.
August 7, 2023
imagine that in the next winter of dark, freezing days with all those diesel generators starting up, belching their fumes outside every home in the land…..
August 8, 2023
Beware: California is already moving to ban private generators.
August 7, 2023
Sir John.
The UK needs a strong vibrant, self-reliant, resilient economy before any of these āban, cancel and import onlyā policies.
A 70 year high tax take is not a wealth creator. Punishing UK Industry is not a wealth creator. This Conservative Government actually causing the UK to have the highest energy prices against our competitors is not a wealth creator. Lets not forget our high inflation, high interests all are derived from this Conservative Government management ability. That would suggest this Conservative Government is focused on blocking UK wealth creation.
As the World stands the only place with less than 1% of the so-called problem and they only place engaged in this NetZero race is the UK. That means without the UK doing anything – nothing will change. With the UK implementing 100% of the āban, cancel and import everythingā – nothing will change. It also means without wealth creation there is no way the UK can afford the adjustments needed to cope with the pollution from others.
So this doctrine, this religion is about destruction, not creation
August 7, 2023
+ 1
August 7, 2023
āWhen might we get greater clarity on the preferred technologies, the timetables and costs?ā asks Sir John who has been in the party in command for 13+ years. If in that time he has not been able to get the answer from his own Governments, one can wonder what he has been doing in the HoC. Donāt the various successive SoSs for Environment, or BEIS talk to him? Does he not see he is displaying how weak a MP he has become?
August 7, 2023
No, he is displaying that he is one of the few people in public life capable for formulating the cogent questions. The fact that nobody in the political or state class can answer them is displaying how weak the governing class has become.
But you will not be able to follow that logic. So Iām expecting a snide comment diverting attention from the issue – as usual.
August 7, 2023
That’s asking for something nobody in authority has given a great deal of thought to.
Their answer is to fill our countryside with windmills – No wonder they want to reduce the population because we won’t have much land left for people or food when they put those useless sometime-energy-producing monsters everywhere!
Even if we fill every bit of space with these things, when the wind doesn’t cooperate we still won’t be getting any energy!
The only real answer is to promote real science – get inventors stimulated. A much better solution to alleged climate change would be for the politicians pushing this con to admit their deceit, after which everything would resolve itself and we could all get on with life without any threats!
August 7, 2023
If the political desire s to destroy civilised society, then the most effective and sure way of doing that is to remove energy availability from the masses.
The outcome of that political policy will be significant, and politicians will not be spared frim the fallout.
August 7, 2023
testing
August 7, 2023
It’s 10.30am and I’ve read all of the replies . No one has come up with an answer to the question posed . The truth is there isn’t one . Wind is unreliable and an extended use of Atomic power poses all manner of problems . Reducing need by tackling the population problem is one approach but Governments would have to work closely together and , so far , institutions like the UN have failed to unify anything like a world approach .
August 7, 2023
“There could be more large battery farms”
Really? I wouldn’t want to live within 20 miles of any such thing. It’s a nailed-on certainty that it would explode at some point.
August 7, 2023
Not economic either, the best way to store āelectricityā is a pile or coal or a tank of gas and generate only as needed.
August 7, 2023
āBritishVoltā !
August 7, 2023
Dear Mr. Redwood,
You ask “When might we get greater clarity on the preferred technologies, the timetables and costs?”
You have touched on the answer to your own question in your previous day’s blog when you said “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.”
Overlooking whether one considers it desirable or not, what are the chances of a successful transition to Net Zero by 2050 costing hundreds of billions of pounds, if not trillions, from a government (and ones yet to come) that cannot even build a railway line between points A and B (watchdog says HS2 project appears undeliverable)?
August 7, 2023
Why not tidal power? The Swansea Lagoon concept was said to be too expensive! but it is a simple and brilliant concept. Surely expense cannot be a consideration because long term a tidal system will be working four times a day – for ever? Some designer will produce a concept which can be installed on any high tide coastline, close to volume habitation. The hydro -electric system will work if correctly sized, 24 hours a day /7 days a week. The same design can be installed on mountain sides for one way (down) use. With spare wind energy you pump the water up the mountain-side and release the water through the electro turbines when needed. Let’ s do it.
STEPHEN BAILEY
August 7, 2023
Much better than the Swansea lagoon is of course the Severn and its famous bore and 54 foot rise and fall in tide. Turbines going both ways (to take advantage of incoming and outgoing tides) is not financially viable.
Multiple government reports assessing this are available in the library.
August 8, 2023
Because it is very costly, and very intermittent. That means it has to have backup ready to ramp up rapidly, much like with solar power at sunset: you need CCGT of the same capacity as backup, and it will operate at reduced efficiency in that role. Since the moon’s daily apparent orbit is actually about 24 hours and 50 minutes, the times of tides keep shifting, so you get times when there is no output during peak evening demand, and when output is maximum in the middle of the night. The lunar month means that there is a huge variation in output between spring and neap tides every fortnight. There are long gaps waiting for water levels to diverge to try to get maximum output over a tidal cycle. If you try to smooth the output by dividing some of your lagoon for storage you lose about 70% of the output, making it very expensive indeed: such storage doesn’t begin to touch the neap/spring variation.
August 7, 2023
I did not respond yesterday, but what an indictment of the intelligence of most of our MPs your article was! Why did no MP ask those basic questions? When will they wake up & accept they are wrong to ban petrol & diesel cars in 2030?
When will they wake up & realise CO2 is not a problem? It is frightening to think just how thick most of them are!
As to battery storage or alternatives to fossil fuel, maybe, given time, something will emerge. Meanwhile, like headless chickens, both Government & Opposition stubbornly refuse to face the facts & reality, so run in ever decreasing circles of absurdity! Just as the hole in the ozone layer was resolved, so we can resolve the problems facing us today, but until the Conservative Government / Party wakes up & deals with the real situation, which is that we need energy security, whether from Fossil Fuel or Nuclear, the Uk is going nowhere fast!
August 7, 2023
The ozone hole problem was solved because only a few companies were producing the completely synthetic CFCs. And when the Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987 and activated on 01/01/1989, DupontdeNemours had already developed the replacement gases (HFCs). Fortunately the HFCs were not reacting with O3, so good for the ozone hole. Unfortunately per molecule some HFCs have a higher greenhouse warming potential than CO2 and are much longer-lived than CO2.
August 8, 2023
It’s unclear whether the problem has really been solved. Recent evidence suggests not.
August 10, 2023
Acceleration of the Brewer-Dobson circulation due to increases in greenhouse gases, R.R.Garcia, and W.J.Randell, 2008, J.Atmos.Sci., 2731-2739.
These modelling results are supported by present day observations as analysed in meteorological centres.
Ā“The advective Brewer-Dobson circulation in the ERA5 reanalysis: climatology, variability and trendsā, 18/05/2021, ACP (Atmos.Chem.Phys.), vol.21,issue 10,
August 7, 2023
The only plan they have which started in 2020 under Johnson is to make energies so expensive you have to cut back, the rest is just talk.
As real GDP goes down, the less money they will be able to borrow. They lost over 1 million workers since 2020 and are in decline, if you add the lost workers to the unemployment numbers you would be at 8 to 9 per cent out of work, thats why they are bringing in as many overseas people as they can to try to fill the gap.
They do not have the skills for any thing else, after all they only thick plebs themselves. As for the data they put out is very poor and will not change because if it did it would show the dire straights they are already in.
August 7, 2023
āWhich technologies [I presume ānovelā technologies is meant here] could replace our fossil fuel driven economy?ā
None.
Sorry, but thatās the truth.
Politicians are bankrupting us in the present in their rush to cobble together an unnecessary future.
August 7, 2023
Once you have made up your minds, you can guarantee that the Chinese will manufacture the wherewithal and sell it to you. Whatever the occidental politicians with their degrees in subjects that the Chinese do not recognise as useful knowledge decide they need on the basis of their sheeplike adherence to an international criminal conspiracy’s policies for destroying their countries economies, they will provide. These ignorant politicians are worried that the Chinese will introduce spyware and the means of external control to the products they sell. Politicians should be far more concerned that the Chinese are laughing their heads off at the sheer ignorance and stupidity of the people their electorates put in charge of their countries who are deliberately sabotaging the industrial lead they had over China whose economy had been totally destroyed by Mao Zedong with the able assistance of his Bolshevik advisors, specialists in mass murder and economic destruction.
August 8, 2023
The one good thing the CCP did was to look closely at what happened to the Soviet Union. They soon realised that, if they did not do something quick, they would be next. So to maintain power, which is the only game in town, they decided to dump Communism and adopt a two-tier system. Communism for governance (in reality the CCP in control), and Capitalism for the masses.
And its working.
August 7, 2023
The only two are Hot Air and B******t.
August 7, 2023
Throughout the Middle East & North Africa, there are reports on social media that you can stay in a luxury 5* floating hotel on the sunny coast of England, all found for 12 months, for an initial payment or surety of Ā£1,000 euros, no visa or passport required ā¦.boats leaving daily from Calais
August 7, 2023
Disputed by the Mayor of Portland saying that the barge is inhumane, substandard and shouldnāt be used for refugees
August 7, 2023
āToday I want to ask what do we do on days and at times when the wind does not blow or blows too much?ā
To decarbonise just our electricity (20% of our total energy use) using renewables is going to cost at the very least Ā£700bn plus either the cost to store 500K tonnes of hydrogen or spend Ā£4 trillion in batteries, if the power is to be dispatchable/reliable.
They know this, which is why there is no plan other than to electrify everything and fit everyone with a smart meter so the expensive and intermittent energy can be rationed.
August 7, 2023
Dear Sir John,
A couple of longer-term government projects.
First, start building new big atomic power stations on all the 6 remaining available ex-Magnox sites within the next five years – hard but possible given the will. These stations already had grid links that can be re-instated and upgraded relatively quickly. Separately. get some demonstration R-R small modular reactors built and working as fast as possible (IE waiting only for safety clearance) to supply power-intensive industrial sites directly. Speed matters more than direct cost here.
Second, reverse the slowdown in rail electrification. The UK is way behind comparable countries. As far as I can make out, there was a plan to complete electrification in about 2055, albeit not covering some lower-usage lines. Yet even this lackadaisical programme appears recently to have been slowed down to go on until 2070. You are probbaly better informed. Compare this with ministers speeding up the ban on new ICE vehicles from 2035 to 2030. I guess that did not require Tresury approval.
August 7, 2023
No idea. But i’d like to hear from futuristic people like Musk, Dyson.
Have we even got scientists now like De Groot, Edison? Who are the and why aren’t they interviewed?
What are the enormous brains at Oxford, and Cambridge, are they held back by professors or are they allowed to fly with their ideas? Actually which UK universities actually research these things and not just turn out eco-warriors who talk but don’t think and do helpful research? Does Dyson have his inventors working on heating systems of the future?
It seems all we want to turn out are lawyers to argue with each other.
August 7, 2023
My petrol station has āagainā put up the price of unleaded by another 2p to Ā£1.48 per litre
August 8, 2023
Glen
In the past month Sterling has fallen against the Dollar and a barrel of oil has increased by 12%.
August 8, 2023
UK/USA Ā£/$
8th August Ā£1.2714
8th July Ā£1.2823
8th June Ā£1.2558
WTI Oil
1st Jan $76
1st Feb $76
1st Mar $77
1st Apr $80
1st May $75
1st Jun $70
1st Jul $70
1st Aug $81
August 7, 2023
Sir John
As with all these things where you ask the question and then others then identify the real need and the real answer, you and they are all stymied when the money being spent is āoursā. Those that are doing the spending of our money are not interested and plainly just donāt care beyond the massaging of their own personal self-esteem and place in history(there is a word history! How soon)
A great reminder was Jeremy Clarkson writing in the Times over the weekend āBuild 500 bridges for HS2? Britain canāt even mend one(Hammersmith Bridge).ā As you have identified previously HS2 is consuming massive amounts of taxpayer money, a line going from nowhere to nowhere to save so little time, it surely is just about vanity. Yet put the same amount of money into track and signalling upgrades you get to improve the situation for millions of people. There is no vanity in that, no ego appeased, no catchy sound-bite just millions of people getting around the Country more efficiently.
The Conservative Governments aims on their own personal NetZero dream is the same, it is about Ministers on a personal level, an egotistical level with Zero gain for those that get to pay for it.
This Conservative Government is so caught up in its own ego they cant see the question so donāt know how to answer it. Sounding like a worn out record ābanning, cancelling and importing everythingā does zilch, nothing to reduce all the things they claim to want to reduce. It does however reduce the UKās economy to a third World basket case.
The first thing that matters is having the wealth and money to react to a changing World ā an economy. They have to get that up and running before they start giving the UKās Money/Wealth to competing powers who’s āsnake oil salesmenā promise them the World. They need to get their own house, the State in order, only spend on what the Country can afford. Good Government is not about being a Good Dictator, its about trusting the People and releasing them from the State imposed straight jacket.
August 7, 2023
Sir John
Everything you have identified, needs lots and lots of money, the sort of money that comes from wealth, wealth creation – not tax. Get that flow going, then produce tons and tons of cheap, resilient and reliable electricity closer to US prices than the Conservative Government punishment prices we have here.
Then maybe, just maybe we can have a discussion on what is real about the NetZero list, and what can the UK do to play an equal part with the rest of the World.
The Conservative Government is to much about the cart before the horse, they believe that those that have no experience, no expertise and those that donāt do, before they engage with those that can get things done.
August 7, 2023
This says it all. Last week I received some PR about the āFirst-ever ESG executive education programmeā launched by Energy & Environment Alliance.
On checking the credentials of those involved, there was no scientific background or anything remotely along those lines, but they did advise Government of Tourism. That in its way sums up this Conservative Governments outlook.
August 8, 2023
Ian B – Tourism ? Would that be anything to do with the gradual trashing of it going on in our own country. Hotels as a start & all that that presents these days, future touring by car ? maybe we will have to forget that; parking difficulty, more restricted areas, appalling road conditions, pollution of our rivers and coastal waters, levelling up ! of run down coastal towns, VAT & failure to attract additional international spend, increasing loss of our pubs and shops, unable to survive …… the list goes on.
August 7, 2023
There is nothing wrong with fossil fuels. Forget the the Green crap, the Net zero BS, the useless windmills and electric vehicles. Wake up people you are being CONTROLLED.
August 7, 2023
Wise Words Indeed
August 7, 2023
Why do we need to replace our fossil fuel technologies, no one has managed to make a convincing case for so doing?
The availability of reasonably priced energy has transformed our lives, when I was a child we didnāt have central heating, I regularly had ice on the inside of my bedroom windows.
Plenty of very distinguished scientists have made a very convincing case for not doing so, the distinguished scientists that I mentioned in an earlier post.
Itās only people like Al Gore and John Kerry and our monarch who arenāt impacted by the cost.and itās being promulgated by the UN, not an organisation known for their concerns for the population of the world
Pay more and we will make you colder and more miserable, and poorer, not an election winning slogan, no one asked us what we wanted and if they did it would be a resounding NO, why not hold a referendum?
people die from cold, the BBC are frantically trying to convince us that weāre all going to burn up which is rightly being treated with derision
We produce 1% of a trace gas which represents 0.04% of the atmosphere and is essential for the survival of life on the planet
Please provide some evidence for your claim and not just repeat the government line
August 7, 2023
So Ascension Island is resurfacing. Maybe HO Minister Sarah Dines could talk to her colleague at Defence to learn why it might not be such a great idea. Will the US military with whom the UK military shares the island be happy with the idea?
August 9, 2023
I agree silly season idea.
However, where would you put thousands of thousands who want to come here, Hefner? Are you living in the UK? Sending children or grandchildren to inner city schools?
August 9, 2023
My three children went to inner Reading state schools (two in a previously secondary grammar school that transform itself into a selective state school recruiting on merit) as my grandchildren do in other parts of the country.
Do not forget, only about 7% of children go to fee-paying schools in the UK.
gov.uk āElitism in Britain, 2019ā, 24/06/2019.
So when some people discuss equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome, am I allowed to repeat John Cleeseās famous Monty Python phrase: āI fart in their general directionā.
August 10, 2023
Ah, but some families breed a mantra of get on and do. My children were the first children in both our families to go to University, they have all got on and done well, following our lead, we dragged ourselves out and made our own opportunities in 1980’s Britain when we were told to be entrepreneurial was a great thing for us and the Country.
In fact, all my generation of cousins did better than their parents growing up in that era, they created their own opportunities in the main, as we didn’t have any connections. But I do know what continues to make inequality and it is often in the public sector and ‘protected’ professions where if you have no family members inside already, and no sponsor or friend connections you’ve made through your religious place or favoured educator, or union top bod you are invisible, or overlooked for promotions to people a lot less capable.
It would be interesting to research how many fire officers have family and friends in the service, paramedics with other NHS workers in their family. Universities, Chambers and on.
August 7, 2023
Wilco, then Clintons, and now Boots are closing 300 stores ā¦.thatās the cost of net-zero, high energy costs and rent & business rates
August 8, 2023
Perhaps the biggest cost of Net Zero will be the economic destruction it wreaks. The economy is going to be a lot smaller, and we will all be poorer, colder, and hungrier, losing our cars, our jobs and even our homes that don’t meet net zero standards.
August 8, 2023
Correct
August 10, 2023
And supermarket town centre domination and online shopping. Restricted car parks usually provided by those supermarkets that only allow 2 hours so you can’t shop anywhere else but their store. It is much easier for governments to control eight major providers than lots of smes. This is where everything is going.
August 8, 2023
Current government policy:
1. Do away with all current sources of energy, heating and industrial energy. Instead harness the mystical power of the unicorn horns. If everyone were to wish really hard while holding hands, it would need only 1,000,000 unicorn horns to propel a vehicle 1 yard at 5mph. So clearly all we need to do is to seed the entire island of Great Britain with unicorn horns, and stop producing food. Sometimes mass starvation is essential. You know it makes sense.
2. In order to pulverise and store the unicorn horns we need special widgets that we can only import from countries which do not intend to make any change at all in their energy sources. These countries dwarf our usage of fossil fuels, so what we are doing will make no appreciable difference to the globe. You know it makes sense.
3. This will beggar the population and allow our widget importers to beggar us further and control our government. You know it makes sense.
4. All electable political parties shall be forced by secret treaties to pursue the same policy, to prevent any alternative course being followed. You know it makes sense.
August 10, 2023
Yes, I agree mancunius.
It won’t take long, everyone will be so grateful when Labour get in on promises to feed their children breakfast and lunch they won’t even ask what they’re feeding them and getting them used to.
There’s nothing we can do about it, our hands our tied by leftie x y z. When the left are in, because there’s no money left the economy was left in a mess it was all because they bought too much ppe and test kits.