Labour’s plans to phase out all gas and coal power stations by 2030 requires the UK to accelerate its build of wind farms, solar panels, nuclear power, and battery storage. It would also require a big expansion of the grid. They propose a nationalised industry to do much of this work as it would require huge subsidies and managed prices for the power. Claire Coutinho is right to highlight the huge cost of some ÂŁ116 bn of trying to do this and to question the feasibility and wisdom.
It is of course totally unrealistic. Nuclear power will be considerably lower by 2030 following the closures of existing power stations. It is not possible to decide now to put in extra nuclear power stations and have them producing power by 2030. Putting more and more windfarms in as they plan does not solve the problem of keeping the lights on on a windless day. Saying they can put in sufficient storage is more easily stated than delivered. Relying on big batteries would require a colossal programme of building them. Finding enough pump storage locations would not be likely. There is also the small matter of the grid which would need major enhancement against a background of long and complex planning procedures and many local communities wishing to protect their landscape or divert power lines from settlements and important buildings.
We need more affordable and reliable power. Balancing price and security of supply against environmental objectives is a crucial part of success in energy policy. Labour just goes for the environmental without a thought about keeping the lights on, helping business be competitive and controlling people’s power bills. Combined cycle gas power still represents some of the cheapest and most reliable power, which is why our system needs what it has and needs some more for the transitional period,whilst nuclear, synthetic fuel, hydrogen and renewables become more affordable and practical propositions for more of our demand.
March 26, 2024
Good morning.
A program started by the Conservative Party and their Nut Zero lunacy.
Labour’s plans are no worse than that which your own party has done. What plans do the Conservatives (sic) have ? More wind turbines and solar panels perhaps ? Throwing more money at Hinkley Point ? Or digging for coal and drilling for gas under our feet ?
How are you going to address the demand and supply issues ? ie We are importing more and more consumers but not creating any real capacity. What about efficiency ? Are we making better use of our resources ?
What will a supposedly Conservative government ‘actually’ and I do mean ‘actually’ do ?
Answers on a pin head methinks.
March 26, 2024
Fully agree. It seems clear that Mr Redwood pretends to be angry about Labour’s plans, when in fact those plans are the same ones Mr Sunak and Mr Hunt want to pursue. It’s time we got some honesty into British politics – Hunt, Sunak, Mordaunt etc should lead one party, and Braverman, Badenoch, Redwood etc should join Tice and Farage in a different one. Stop pretending there is any unity of purpose at all in today’s Conservative party
March 26, 2024
Cameron called Labour energy policy Marxist, he called Miliband Red Ed. May stated she would not only implement but build on it!!
Treacherous May did not put her uncosted treacherous nut stupid to a vote, you all allowed it!!
Sunak stated he would frack if elected leader! He stopped it, added more wind fall taxes and then extended the wind fall taxes!
Australia sales ÂŁ30 billion of coal each year, China buys most of it and has mining companies in Australia.
Australia sales enormous amounts of iron ore, guess who to? UK buys goods from hostile,China who buys its goods from Coal fired power stations!
UK has 300 years of coal under our feet. Ofgem now wants to cost vary cost of electric during different times of the day ie rationing by another name!
Your party has wrecked our economy, manufacturing, way of life, culture. It has no regard for national security in Food, farming, borders, manufacturing, energy, steel, ship building, etc etc.
JR what are doing even mentioning Labour? Your party has shifted left to copy them not the other way around! Cameron betrayed the country over Brexit, he ran away. His biggest achievement gay marriage which he never had any mandate from the public or raised in Queens speech. Treacherous May betrayed the country over Brexit, her biggest achievement she wrecked future economy over net stupid, destroyed the police and lost over 250,000 illegal migrants to her system! Johnson got 85 seat majority to get Brexit done, he resoundingly failed and was dumped in case he changed his mind. Sunak was rejected by Tory members as was Hint. Their job to betray Brexit by preventing diverging, acting in lockstep so it could not be reversed like energy dependence on EU and linked fishing to energy so we cannot get back our fishing waters, border down Irish Sea and checks on goods from one part of our country to another, instead of scrapping 4,000 EU laws he just implemented more into do service legislation! His greatest achievements, wrecked the economy, betraying the nation over Brexit and banned smoking!
March 27, 2024
Hear hear. Well said Hope.
March 26, 2024
Similar comments to yesterday; where’s the difference between mad Labour energy plans and the Cameron/May/Johnson/Sunak nonsense. It’s your Party Sir J that’s gone dancing with the fairies, not the population.
As a contributor said yesterday, go and join Reform, you’d probably get Treasury and can make a real contribution. It’s not your fault, this PCP has left you, and they’re lemmings going over the cliff.
March 26, 2024
Yes. Pot shots at Labour are fairly pointless and easy anyway; “they’re like us but worse” doesn’t really cut through as a rallying cry.
A tougher gig for our host would be a critique of Reform policies.
March 26, 2024
I just started to watch ,”Climate:The Movie (The cold truth) by Martin Durkin. It’s available free on You Tube. I’m aware that he was interviewed by the Planet Normal team of the Telegraph and contributors include real scientists Professor William Happer and several others. Can I suggest people watch this as I’m sure the great and good fools who believe in the Nut Zero religion will try to get it removed.
Reading Sir John’s contribution this morning reminds me that the whole Uni Party believe in this nonsense and any dissenting voice is ridiculed and called names. The same people who are prepared to export our industry, cost us ÂŁbillions in our energy bills and bankrupt us on the alter of unproven science and the life giving gas CO2 demonised. This is madness and needs to stop. Reform.
March 26, 2024
Having now watched this, I am more convinced than ever, that the whole net zero ideology is a complete scam supported by useful idiots. It is proven from several sources that CO2 content of the atmosphere FOLLOWs global temperatures up and down by about 100 years. We are also in the end period of an existing ice age and CO2 is very low based on historical records over millions not 100 years. Unsurprisingly it is shown that the ……Sun drives temperature change with other extraterrestrial phenomenon. Government funding drives the ideology where dissenting voices are ridiculed and silenced.
March 26, 2024
The political parties are utterly clueless about the implications of their environmental, energy and tax policies. They are slowly but surely destroying the UK`s industry base. Investors have got or are getting the message and are moving out of or not investing more in the UK. This is especially notable in the AIM sector where the AIM All Share Index has dropped from 1200+ in 2021 to around 750 currently. That is a fall of around one third. This is the market where small, growing companies come to seek new finance. It is dead in the water. It is in sharp contrast to many other stock exchanges around the world. No wonder investors look abroad; there is no hope in the UK.
March 27, 2024
DA, +1
March 26, 2024
PS. Bill likes MPs because for some reason so many support what he wants.
Do you think it’s because of his Christmas list?
March 26, 2024
Australia sold ÂŁ30 billion worth of coal last year, a main purchaserâŠChina. Australia sold iron ore as well, guess who toâŠ.China. Who will but goods from hostile spying China from its coal fired power stationsâŠ.UK! Uni party are mad do not vote for either half of the Uni party.
UK has 300 years worth of coal and shuts down every mine when it is broke, energy costs through the roof and ofgem announce cost variation through day ie energy rationing!
A vote for uni party is a vote for our own destruction to our way of life and standards of living.
A&E last week 10 hour wait, this week minor injury unit 5 hour wait, while Tory continues its 1.5 million low paid welfare mass immigration each year!
March 26, 2024
Indeed the Conservatives are in fantasy land too.
1. There is no climate emergency and even if there were then the UK cutting CO2 does nothing significant. Furthermore the things they push EVs, Wind, Solar, public transport… make no significant difference to CO2 and are totally impractical anyway. Net zero will kill even more people than the Covid Vaccines have done.
2. The Covid vaccines did not harm and are not unequivocally safe or indeed even remotely safe.
3. Sunak is not stopping the boats, reducing the debt, growing the economy, cutting NHS waiting lists…
4. Inflation has come down from 11% but he as Chancellor took it from 1% to 11% with his QE and lockdown lunacy.
5. When Hunt and Sunak say they are cutting taxes they are lying they have cut NI but other taxes and fiscal drag more than outweigh this.
Fantasy Land indeed. With worse still to come from Labour.
March 26, 2024
The prospect of replacing existing fossil fuel power generation within 6 years is impossible, there simply is not the industrial base or trained manpower to make it even remotely feasible. So what kind of deranged idiot is going to make this a central plank of their manifesto and expect to be taken seriously?
March 26, 2024
They’re just virtue-signalling to the middle class “greens” and poorly educated, brainwashed, scientifically-illiterate younger voters.
March 26, 2024
+1
March 26, 2024
If Conservatives didnât add so many extra to our population we wouldnât need such large increases in power. Adding a net 700,000 people, or whatever the true, probably higher, figures are every year is a major cause of increasing crisis development. Labour would be worse, but that a reason to support a BETTER party, not a slightly less worse one like the âConservativeâ party has become.
March 26, 2024
6 years, 11 years? Labour and Consocialist two sides of the same coin, and Lib Dums even worse, all planning to impose their disastrous nut zero agenda on us without any consultation. Even though as long as China and India are still building coal fired power stations in their dozens and it wonât make one iota of difference, the idiots are still intent on their virtue signalling even it means destroying our economy and our living standards in the process. Only Reform are offering to stop this madness.
March 26, 2024
The kind of deranged idiot that a majority of voters will opt for later this year. Why will they do that? For reasons that our host rarely wants to discuss, to do with media control and ownership. Alternatives to the favoured narrative that might allow the public to take a different view are suppressed.
March 27, 2024
Which would be enormously helped by ditching FPTP and getting a more proportional voting system allowing within each present major party to separate the wheat from the chaff, and recompose the political landscape with both the loonies and the sensible ones in each present major party to go their own ways.
March 26, 2024
The multi directional leader of the Labour Party.
March 26, 2024
he’s a Chameleon – sometimes green, sometimes blue, often red? Mostly disappears in his surroundings!
March 26, 2024
Ed Miliband.
March 26, 2024
85 seat majority in 2019, currently 66 have accepted defeat and are standing down. âThe planâ is definitely not working, the rest still will not get rid of Sunak and Hunt! Unbelievable stupidity.
March 26, 2024
No more unrealistic than your plan by 2035 or 2050 or whenever. Unless there is a major breakthrough in fusion we are going to need at least 50gw of nuclear.
Thats not happened in your 14 years when you’ve been gleefully blowing up perfectly goid coal stations. Liebour will cease exploration in the North Sea and we will be even more reliant on imported gas.
No one in their right mind will invest in more CCGT with the constant threat of closure.
Well done for destroying the most reliable power grid in the world.
March 26, 2024
We could of course give the go ahead to start building Rolls Royce SMRs bit you would rather give the work to EDF or Westinghouse. We can’t have any manufacturing done in Britain as it goes against nut zero religion.
Just think, some of those highly skilled jobs from Alstom train builders could be utilised in Derby but the new green jobs only go abroad.
The hundreds of pylons necessary to transmit unreliable renewables will need to import the steel now we have no blast furnaces, maybe they can come ready prefabricated from China
We really ate going to pay through the nose for our green revolution.
March 26, 2024
Agreed.
Conservative politicians are campaigning on the basis that they will collapse the economy, farms and industry and shut down the country 5 years after Labour.
The Westminster bubble has floated away with the fairies and the whole country can see it.
March 26, 2024
The UAE has completed ordering, building and commissioning 4 Korean nuclear stations, with output similar to the EPR at Hinkley, in 7 years. These are designed to the same higher safety standards. The UK could accept the design and build 10 of them on existing sites of defunct Reactors and commercial supplies of fuel in order to have 32GW of reliable electricity suitable for night storage heating. This would make the very expensive heat pump solution unnecessary. But they won’t because the very slow and finicky UK safety authority will be given the job to duplicate Korean expertise and take 10 years to even start the job, making it 3x as expensive in the process. The UK is a nation of regulators.
March 27, 2024
Perhaps our MPs should be demanding to know why our establishment are so utterly incapable of matching the efficiency and effectiveness of the UAE.
March 26, 2024
+1
March 26, 2024
Nuclear will struggle with heat pumps as you will need X Giga Watts in summer and 20X GW in winter so circa 90+% of the nuclear power station will be wasted for most of the year. Ten plants with only one working most of the time.
March 27, 2024
Nuclear is ideal for off peak heating and electric car charging. The baseload would provide reliable power for the increased electrical transport and industry. Gas may increase in cost again as world demand from developing countries expands. France had a much higher proportion of nuclear and cheap electricity also exported to Germany and the UK.
March 26, 2024
Meanwhile in ChinaâŠâŠâŠ
China keep acting as a hostile state and the Tory govt with Hunt and Lord slim ball Cameron refusing to accept hard facts!
March 26, 2024
“Unless there is a major breakthrough in fusion”
Not the way they’re going…
March 26, 2024
It is indeed a fantasy land. It simply cannot be done. Storage of electricity is a non starter in terms of cost and energy wasted. So you need gas or coal on demand generators as back up for wind and solar. Even ÂŁ116 Bn is a huge underestimate. A massive expansion of the grid (circa 10 times) would be needed and this is totally impractical indeed impossible too. Especially if they force ever more people onto heat pumps and EV cars.
No just reliable power we need but âon demandâ power, this as back up to so called ârenewablesâ as as we switch to heat pumps there will be huge extra demand on a few cold winter days. Perhaps 10+ times current
winter demand. Electricity needs to be stored as gas or piles of coal (or wood) ready to generate. Nuclear is not very efficient at this either.
But the Tories have essentially the same mad and totally impractical policies. Labour have just put a few even more idiotic bells on them.
March 26, 2024
We’re obviously supposed to forget Cameron and the Blue-Green failures; May who imposed Net Zero targets with no mandate so she could “have a legacy” and the Fat Oaf’s enthusiasm for imposing the Net Zero scam on us …. blowing up perfectly viable coal-fired power stations in favour of becoming “the Saudi Arabia of wind” ….. with no reference whatsoever to the fact that oil is a reliable form of producing energy and wind isn’t.
March 26, 2024
+1
March 26, 2024
The future is âgreenâ and unrelentingly GRIM.
March 26, 2024
@Everhopeful – but only for the UK, more than 95% of the World is not engaged in destroying their economies or their people
March 26, 2024
Not even green really, just fake green wash.
March 26, 2024
I prefer to envisage my pot half full. Emmerdale contains a glut of depression, such that it comes with a health warning, we don’t need it spilling into reality.
March 26, 2024
So is your solution to suck increasing amounts of gas out of our dwindling reserves, hope to be able to import gas from elsewhere at realistic prices whilst someone else develops the R&D, skills and manufacturing of “nuclear, synthetic fuel, hydrogen and renewables”? And the hope we can afford these imported goodies while our science, technology and engineering skills and companies continue to be given away?
March 26, 2024
Hydrogen, outside a few specialist areas is very expensive, impractical, difficult to store safely and very energy wasteful too. Another rather mad dead end in general.
March 26, 2024
Yes. Whilst the resource is there we should exploit it. And that applies to coal, oil, gas and fracked gas. They can still develop “alternative” sources whilst we have reliable and cheaper energy.
March 27, 2024
Who is “they”? What do you think it will cost us (the taxpayer and customer) to import these fuels? We are utterly dependent on energy, is it sensible to rely on unfriendly foreign providers?
March 26, 2024
The gas is plentiful , only government dwindles. The nuclear has worked for years in our submarines. The intermittent renewables can produce the hydrogen on the coast. You are right to say our inovative products and their creators are given away by a rob Peter to pay Paul rabble of PPEs. Think the computer, the WWW, the jet engine, DNA,the Miles sound barrier breaker, TSR2 , etc et al. The World would be a much loorer place minus our technological contribution.
March 27, 2024
I agree that alternative energy production methods can be used, I would argue that we shouldn’t rely on others but re-establish and protect our research, manufacturing and production capabilities, then sell the surplus energy not the skills.
March 26, 2024
What are our best universities doing though dixie, what are the most intelligent learning there? old technologies or new, who is teaching them the new. Are we stagnating? The UK government invests into the universities not only by providing partial tuition fee loans, but topping them up and providing r&d funds. Isn’t it time they started to tell us what they are achieving, after all an extra 10% of kids now go into Higher Education, we should expect some return for all that extra training we’re funding.
I think Labour supporters would be very shocked to hear about all the pylons coming in nearby empty fields to carry electricity (where? – straight out of the UK we seem to sell it at a loss? Why?) People in green and pleasant Tory areas are in for a shock when they get a Labour council with a Labour MP who signs off on all sorts of ugly infrastructure.
March 27, 2024
@A-Tracy I don’t know what they are doing, I no longer have comprehensive sight of academic activity in the sectors I was involved in. However R&D towards products and solutions occurs in a range of organisations – academic, public, with the majority in the private sector where information is necessarily private.
In the academic sector much applicable research is funded by industrial partners while the more public projects are heavily influenced by politics. Which are the “best” universities? I would cast the net very much wider than Oxbridge and London.
Should we be told? I believe we should be able to find out about projects that receive public funding without obfuscation. But our establishment do not have a history of sharing such information and the general media are not interested in positive news, for that we need to explore subject specific sources.
March 27, 2024
These large research universities get a lot of money from the UK government on top of the student tuition fees. They should be more forthcoming about what they are inventing and creating to benefit the UK or at least a list of all the projects we support.
Today I saw a university called Cranfield has been awarded ÂŁ69m in support of plans to test hydrogen-powered aviation technology, I hadn’t even heard of this university.
In the last 14 years, how much have the conservatives spent like this? To hear Labour, you’d think hardly anything has been invested.
March 27, 2024
Cranfield College was involved in aeronautics R&D since mid last century, I don’t know what happens there now it is a university.
March 26, 2024
So you think we should import our energy rather than use our own, lest we run out of our own gas resources? Very odd. Have you not considered that the Private energy companies practice R&Ds alongside production? That includes further exploration. And its just as well the friendly Americans et al, don’t think this way otherwise we’d all be importing our gas and oil from Russia who will do it now and worry about the future in the future.
March 27, 2024
I am not the one proposing a dependence on importing energy and technology products, in fact the opposite.
I think we should be rebuilding our STEM skills base and re-establishing a critical mass of STEM industries and companies as a matter of priority.
Do you seriously believe the US will always be friendly or even able to guarantee uninterrupted supply of fuels whatever the cost?
March 27, 2024
How much do you think the UK has spent on STEM skills and R&D in the last 14 years?
March 27, 2024
In total, public and private, no idea. There is an HMG report from February this year (The UK Science and Technology Framework) which says they are committed to invest ÂŁ20b in public R&D 24-25.
They have identified 5 key technologies including AI (but not robotics!?) telecoms and semiconductors – good, but we already led in these at various times then gave it away much of it while some idiots were wittering on about Silicon Roundabout or moving Heathrow to East of London on Boris Island.
Some useful/interesting words in the report but we’ve seen them before.
There are clearly some good programmes in play such as the one to recover neodymium directly from motors etc using hydrogen without having to grind stuff up. But what is the circular manufacturing process to make use of this?
Which university programmes are funded by foreign companies and so represent a net loss?
There is the Faraday Institution which is supposed to be central to battery R&D in the UK but not a peep from politicians, press etc.
April 1, 2024
ÂŁ20bn isnât peanuts why isnât the government shouting about what they are doing, perhaps its because they have been told they have to lose this election to make a big change.
March 28, 2024
Yes, I believe the USA will always be friendly with us. The problem now is with the current POTUS, although they remain a key part of the Five Eyes group and the NATO alliance, an organisation that binds us together.
Regarding this country and STEM ambitions, it seems our teaching profession should start with the real basics, like stem cells from excellent teachers, because we need more excellent teachers rather than the lefty activists running their Unions.
March 26, 2024
Yes we thought we could spare a few drops from our Trillion or so ÂŁâs worth of oil and gas – which should last a few hundred years.
Whatâs your solution? Move to Africa where the sun shines?
March 27, 2024
My solution would not include relying on others to develop and build what is critical for our survival and prosperity and hope to be able to buy and import them. We should be identifying critical resources, skills and industries and priortising their redevelopment.
And it is not “our” oil and gas, that belongs to the companies that extract them who operate in a world market independent of our needs. In January 2024 Energy Monitor reported that 40% of the North Sea licences are held by foreign investors, 30%+ are private equity so non-transparent, who will not share your priorites for energy cost or destination.
Reply Any oil and gas produced by whoever owns it means well paid jobs and lots of tax revenue here.
March 27, 2024
@reply
We need more affordable energy for our homes, schools, hospitals and industries than we need tax revenues for government who simply give it away to illegal immigrants and foreign interests. Some of that tax comes from us to buy the gas!
March 26, 2024
There is no such thing as a large battery. They do not exist.
Best thing to do here is to complain to a watchdog. Perhaps advertising or political. Outright lies are not allowed by politicians when campaigning.
March 26, 2024
The best large âbatteryâ is a pile or coal or a tank of gas next to a power station. The other âsolutionsâ H2, batteries, pump storage⊠are totally unaffordable with current tech. on the scale that is needed.
March 26, 2024
The only effective battery on the scale we require is a mountain located resevoir. Surplus electricity pump fills it from a lower resevoir, so that it becomes the battery. Releasing the water via turbines to the lower resevoir produces electricity as and when required.
In England you could do it by daming one of the south running valleys from Ullswater towards High Street. You would need to make provision in the local NHS for Friends of the Lake District suffering severe apoplexy.
March 26, 2024
Oil and gas deposits are a large “battery”, ie energy store, but took a very long time to charge and supplies are remote and finite.
So the best strategy is to whine? Seriously?
Even asking for strategy and plans are a waste of time, the government has had decades to address the looming issues and has refused to invest in R&D let alone implement nuclear buildout. If renewables really were important they and allied technologies would be treated as strategic industries and we would be building them here rather than import everything.
So much for a service based economy with dwindling manufacturing and engineering skills.
Perhaps individuals should start taking more responsibility for managing their own demand and supply of energy.
March 27, 2024
Have they refused to invest Dixie or are the people they’re investing in not coming up with the goods. I think we should be told in the last 15 years how much has been invested in R&D.
March 27, 2024
I agree, If the word “invest” is used then there needs to be an ROI goal and progress/outcomes need to be reviewed, if not then just use the word “spend” instead.
But this would be asking for the civil service and politicians to report on progress, efficiency and effectiveness, return on capital, productivity … brace for incoming waffle particularly as R&D inevitably has a high failure rate.
Where has the investment in nuclear power been? As far as I can tell they have relied on foreign companies and governments but they haven’t built anything.
March 26, 2024
There is no climate crisis – just a lack of brains in parliament!
Climate The Movie should be compulsory viewing for every MP.
March 26, 2024
Indeed, we are in a relative dearth of CO2 plant, tree and crop food historically and a bit more CO2 and even slightly warmer is on balance a net good. Gove, Ed (Tomb Stone) Miliband and that daft LibDem woman might take climate instructions from St Greta the school drop out but I prefer proper physics, science and energy engineering. Not deluded emotional rants.
Google for the picture of these pathetic Greta disciples lapping up her lunacy.
March 26, 2024
+1 NanT
March 26, 2024
+1
March 26, 2024
@ Nant I agree! Having watched that documentary, it’s put so much into perspective. So much is clearer to understand, especially the persistence in the persuing of net zero. And it’s nothing to do with climate change/emergency. It’s a bandwagon now!
March 26, 2024
Climate The Movie has a serious flaw though in its lack of a brief and punchy explanation of the scientific method and thus a contrast with the lazy attribution and computer modelling by the climate alarmists.
March 27, 2024
There is a very famous clip of Feynman delivering a lecture on the topic of scientific method, easily found. “The key to science” message takes just a minute, though the whole lecture can also be found on the website devoted to his Lectures in Physics. It really can’t be bettered.
March 26, 2024
@NanT – be careful they would rather the truth didn’t come out
March 26, 2024
Well said.
March 26, 2024
Being the wrong side of 85 I am sorry I shall miss the hand brake turn that our politicians will make when they come face to face with reality.
March 26, 2024
I watched this ( Climate: The Movie (The Cold Truth ) on YT last night.
I am not a scientist and so don’t try to debate the scientific issues. Like most people I have no idea of how Climate actaully works. However I do think this film is the counter-argument to Al Gores ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ which was widely publicised at the time. I’m willing to listen to the views of these very well qualified scientists, (which include a Nobel prize winner) that are being presented here.
I have long doubted the whole “The science is settled” argument from the BBC, as it just seems to be a form of censorship. I would have liked to have been able to hear Nigel Lawsons’ (economic) arguments against the Net Zero policies that have been inflicted on our ecomony – but couldn’t because they refused him air-time. Shouldn’t that worry everyone?
I therefore would stongly recommend everyone watch this counter-argument whilst they still can and indeed to ask others to do so as well. If we are being mis-lead, then we have a very urgent need to expose and discuss this problem – as according to these scientists, the science seems very far from settled. This is far too important to ignore. A whole, very expensive house of cards is being built on these ‘Carbon’ policies and we need to know the truth – and soon.
March 26, 2024
Agree. Vote REFORM and maybe the Conservatives will one day be âŠ. Conservative!!
March 26, 2024
+ 1 Gordon. Reform are our only hope.
March 26, 2024
+1
March 26, 2024
For sure, Labour are in LaLa land on how to get near Nett Zero by 2030 or even 2040. Their thrashing around in fantasy land is going to cost you the taxpayer dearly, whatever means they choose to get there.
We already have sufficient foreign owned, intermittent, wind power. More, means that in anticyclonic conditions, when the wind ceases blowing, we loose a greater proportion of our generating power, which means we need even greater fossil backup.
Imported fossil fuel means greater Co2 getting it to the UK and strategic vulnerability. Then of course there is the vulnerability of fluctuating cost relating to what is going on in the World. Lastly there is the new tax inspired by the EU on all we have to import. This is asylum thinking.
The answer is a number of SMRs located adjacent qualifying, by numbers and industry, end users. I guesstimate around 15. They would not require miles of marching pylons if sensibly placed. For those who scream untried technology I would point out that they have been running our submarines for many years. Just in case any sabotaging scribes have other ideas, like long grass international tender, I mean Rolls Royce SMRs. For absolute security complete whatever mega atomic power stations are under construction. We can always sell the surplus to the EU or our own Channel Islands, not forgetting the IOM.
In the interim, to quote Donald, ” Drill baby drill”, but adding Frack darling frack. The object being to run on our own gas, oil and coal until such time as the 15 SMRs are operational. It is the CO2 lite option.
Use the intermittent windmills and solar to produce Hydrogen by electrolysis for gradual incorporation into industrial and domestic power requirements including transport. We use science and engineering to get to these goals rather than pillow talk political dictat by vacuous PPEs.
Very long term we continue pressing for Nuclear Fusion, the ultimate utopian goal. That is a plan, get on with it. A last instruction. Change the business plan so that UK end users get power at cost plus an acceptable profit. That also means a tax rethink and major reduction.
March 26, 2024
Battery storage needed for the UK winter demand if we ditched fossil fuels and went for ârenewablesâ heat pumps and EV cars would cost something like 20 times the UKâs total GDP. It would not even last very long before needing replacement.
Claire Coutino read maths and philosophy at Oxford so surely she can do these simple back of an envelope calculations? So why do we have nutters like the Committee for Climate Change in charge? We must ditch or at least pause for say 100 years or so the insanity net zero then perhaps take another look if they must when we have sorted controlled fusion power.
March 26, 2024
The fact that the war against CO2 is based on junk science and has nothing to do with reality, means all Net Zero policies are fantasy.
March 26, 2024
Labour will use subsidies to conceal the true cost of NZ and their carbon neutral tosh. It’s not that difficult to understand. A five year old child could conclude this though it could be beyond the wit of your average Tory MP who stills labour’s under the delusion that serious debate will win the next election. No,wrong. You assassinate the character of Starmer and portray him as a threat to prosperity, security and freedom
If you can’t undermine Marxist Starmer, gormless Reeves and Crayons then it’s time to give up
If the gormless Tories aren’t gonna fight on a platform of liberty, free-speech and anti-immigation then trot off back to the Shires and drink your expensive reds
March 26, 2024
The Not-a-Conservative-Party’s Fantasy Land is, to all intents and purposes, the same as Labour’s Fantasy Land.
The problem isn’t the timescale: it’s the unaffordable, unnecessary, undeliverable Net Zero Fantasy shared by the Westminster Uni-Party that is the problem.
As Martin Durkin’s film “Climate: The Movie” explains, the whole thing is a scam with no genuine science to support it. Nothing we do in the UK to reduce CO2 (even IF it was desirable, and it isn’t) will change the global climate. It will just impoverish us.
I’m not voting for any Party which intends to reduce my standard of living: to make me poorer, colder, less mobile with a restricted diet and pay for their Net Zero Fantasy.
March 26, 2024
We already have managed prices for energy – and have done since Theresa May announced the start of the re-nationalisation of power with the energy price cap legislation in 2018.
I do not recognise Coutino’s ridiculous figure of ÂŁ116bn for the costs of fossil fuel phase-out. This sounds like another huge invention by the fossil fuel lobby, like claiming the “costs” of net zero will be high – when the Treasuryâs own Net Zero Review showed exactly the opposite
In any case, Labour proposals to invest in renewables infrastructure represents a better use of taxpayers money than blowing it on paying interest on the national debt and helping buy-to-let landlords out with their property insulation costs
March 26, 2024
ÂŁ116 Bn is a large under estimate!
March 26, 2024
I am afraid the solutions both parties seek are undoable, with Labour in total fantasy land.
Solutions to a problem that does not exist, a gigantic fraud designed to destroy the economies of the Western world, together with mass legal and illegal immigration to destroy us socially and culturally.
March 26, 2024
Labour are planning La La Land, except that as you say, SJR, it’s not possible. It will totally bankrupt the country ( we’re halfway there already!) and leave us like some third world country…
Do they realise this? Or is that their intention?
March 26, 2024
Politicians tying themselves in knots for some virtue signalling nonsense, All to try and remove <0.00045% of Earths atmosphere. Lunacy.
March 26, 2024
Iâm just trying to remember which political party in power originally announced a ban from 2030 on the purchase of the type of new cars people want, and introduced mandatory annual carbon budgets, which legitimise Labourâs proposals? Itâll come back to me eventually.
March 26, 2024
I wonder if Lord Dave of Greenshill Lobbying felt even a twinge of embarrassment when he gave China his pathetic warning about cyber attacks yesterday? Someone with an ounce of integrity surely would be embarrassed that only 10 years ago he was lauding China and saying that the UK would be its best business partner in the west as he opened our economy to Chinese spies.
March 26, 2024
Sir John
You may or may not be correct about Labours Plans, but what are the Conservative Plans? Whatever they may say they have had 14 years of manifesto promises all renegaded on and for the most part the complete opposite has been forced through.
I don’t like the thrust of Labours energy ideas, but they do appear to suggest UK created energy for the UK economy leading to self-reliance and resilience in an unsettled World. What we know of Conservative Plans and they have a proven track record on them is that the UK energy production is be first and foremost owned by Foreign Nationalized industry owned, funded by the UK Taxpayer, that then has the UK and its Government controlled by the Political whims of those no one voted for. That is not energy security, its not resilience.
Both Parties fail the UK they are forcing an astronomically priced NutZero policy on the Country that is not followed by 95% of the World. They both are creating unaffordable costs while insisting that electrical energy usage must double(EV’s & HP’s). They both know it wont work which is why yesterday the proposal for surge pricing was put forward to curtail electricity usage – which was the whole point of the not so ‘Smart Meter’ – energy rationing is already being put forward as the way to cope with NZ. The rest of the World gets to laugh grow richer at the UK’s expense as its business as usual for them. The so called problem of emissions doesn’t go away because the UK’s 1% is nothing to the Worlds 99% and growing emissions.
So both party’s have set out to destroy the UK for know other reason the personal self-gratification
March 26, 2024
Pot calls kettle black. Again.
March 26, 2024
Not sure why you are moaning about Labour’s fantasy plans when the government you represent has equivalent fantasy plans to ban the sale of all gas boilers and petrol cars by 2035 and an actual LAW to make the UK entirely net zero by 2050.
March 26, 2024
Labour said that for every pound the taxpayer puts into the new nationalised company, the private sector will put in three. Surely the private sector will want a commercial level of return on their investment. When I remember Mr Brown’s PFI disaster in terms of costs, I don’t think Labour’s proposals really add up to cheaper fuel… They also said they’d implement yet another windfall tax of 78 percent, perhaps they’ve never read the story of the goose which laid a golden egg.
March 26, 2024
Governmentsâ bad decisions reduced future supply and cannot be remedied soon enough to restore current needs.
People also consume far too much, creating demand that cannot be sustained. Some folk canât afford even enough to heat or eat adequately, yet very many more buy, use and waste resources way beyond their needs.
If wastersâ lives depended on cutting their consumption by 50% most would probably find ways to manage. Leaner bodies without surfeits of accoutrements and needless journeys could be healthier for those all round.
Government budgets are about control, but governments generate waste beyond control.
March 26, 2024
You’re going to have to find a new way of campaigning in the next general election because your standard Project Fear approach about a Labour win which worked when Corbyn was in charge won’t work now. You can point out, as here, stupid Labour policies but the Conservatives in all cases are actually implementing near identical stupid policies so why should we be scared of Labour ? Your economic policy is effectively subcontracted out to the OBR and BoE and Labour’s will be too – no change. You can also point out things that need fixing like “the boats” but as you’ve had 15 years to fix those problems and failed to do so we can safely assume you’ll continue to fail even if re-elected.
March 26, 2024
Off Topic – but the most important item today!
The US and UK have exposed a global Chinese hacking plot that targeted White House staff and the state department as well as British MPs and the Electoral Commission.
Washington and London announced sanctions on two individuals and one company linked to APT31, a China state-affiliated group, in response to cyber attacks that âendangered national securityâ.
After years of me warning of China people are finally waking up to the ever increasing ability of China to wreck our country. Expel staff, stop all Chinese student applications, refuse all Chinese EVs…..
March 26, 2024
But hold on a minute, hasn’t the Government already signed up to do all of this, and more? Are there not big national penalties to be paid for failing to meet our agreed climate change targets? So why agonise over matters that are already just water under the bridge. As a nation we just need to deliver what we have already agreed to deliver on time and we need a Government that can achieve that.
March 26, 2024
Meanwhile, Lord Cameron has firmly aligned us with Russia, China, and Iran. But not to help our energy supply. Oh no.
The first two want the Iranian war on Israel prolonged, in order to divert attention from what they are each doing, and the last wants to win the war. Qatar, Iran’s little helper, wants HAMAS to survive to fight another day.
In leading the way in this moral collapse of the West, the Biden/Obama regime is ostensibly pandering to its moslem vote, but in continuing its appeasement of Iran, releasing another 10 billion the same day Schumer made his disgusting outburst, it reminds us it also has trillions of dollars worth of financial and energy interest to safeguard by keeping in with Iran. The opposite policy to Trump’s: rather than energy self sufficiency, get oil from Iran while virtue signalling about cutting out Russia, Iran’s partner in crime. The two countries share intelligence, share weapons, share technology, share military training, and share the production of false information to the West. The two countries have successfully manipulated the UN against the Western interest and prevented the hostages from being returned. They have kept the terrorists in hope as well as supplies.
And in all this shame and perfidy, Lord Cameron has got nothing out of it for us. Not that we would want that.
March 26, 2024
Lord Darroch reminds us Lord Cameron also has an excuse: he has battalions of international lawyers in the FO telling him we can no longer defend our friend and ally, just in case we might be targetd in the same way by unscrupulous lawmongers. So we can’t defend our borders because the international lawyers say we can’t, and now we can’t defend our allies. But we can ally against them with criminals.
March 27, 2024
Lord Darroch wanted us to be ruled by the EU. One step up from China, I suppose.
March 27, 2024
A dire diplomatist whom Trump disdained and had to be recalled.
March 26, 2024
We best vote Tory because the Labour net-zero plan is even worst ….not a chance, I’d vote reform or for any party that isn’t following the climate crusade religion
March 26, 2024
Well said.
March 26, 2024
All this nonsense is because our MPs and Government are foolishly committed to the Net Zero nonsense.
Sir John, you say you know the arguments against Net Zero but try to highlight ways to make actions and policies in favour of Net Zero less drastic. I am sorry, but you are dealing with the effect, not the cause.
We need your powerful and effective voice stating clearly that Net Zero is wrong. The UK is being damaged in all sorts of ways, Steelworks closing, Railway carriage building closing down, extra costs on everyone’s energy bills,
refusal to keep open existing gas power stations, refusal to become energy independent, and lack of support for Farmers to come as close as possible to self-sufficiency in food. If not you, who? If not now, when? The madness and self-destructiveness of the Net Zero myth has to be challenged now before it destroys the Uk economy!
Did the Government learn nothing from the by-election in Boris Johnson’s old seat!
March 26, 2024
Perhaps Labour’s plan is to use the wind power when it’s available then import the rest. After all, if the fossil fuels are burnt abroad it isn’t accounted in the UK’s carbon footprint. They will need to step up interconnector capacity though. At the moment we’re importing 7.1GW and a check on the internet reveals the maximum capacity is 7.4GW. We’re currently importing more than renewables are generating, so the Tory plan is already anticipating what Labour want to do.
March 26, 2024
Good grief they cannot even get something as simple as a smart meter to work properly, let alone designing and building power stations of any ilk in good time.
I see reported today that we now have 3,940,000 smart meters which do not work in the UK, what a farce of a policy !
For goodness sake scrap net Zero, it’s a bloody fiasco, and is costing all of us a fortune, and for what exactly ?
Yes of course we need more power, but of the continuous type, so it must be either Oil, Gas, or Nuclear, given coal is not going to be in the mix, biomass/wood chip also a complete farce.
Sun and wind have their place, but not as a stable base load source.
Clearly it is not going to be nuclear any time soon, so get on with the others, and in the meantime look at tidal and fracking again.
An interesting viewing of “Climate the movie the cold truth” on Rumble yesterday, clearly the science is not settled yet, but why are governments and the media trying to ban alternative views which use historic and recorded figures, instead of allowing a proper and open debate with eminent scientists from all sides, instead of only those they are Funding !
Or would that allow the cat out of the bag !
March 26, 2024
Dear Mr. Redwood,
Your blog today has produced a quite predictable response from your readers comparing Labour’s fantasy land energy plans to their view of the not so dissimilar ones of the Conservatives. Now is your chance to set out your party’s energy plans right here and now so that we may directly compare and contrast them. Who knows, there might be a few votes in it for your party.
The entire Westminster political establishment lives in a Net Zero fantasy land, dreaming up ever more ridiculous and expensive schemes coupled with unachievable timescales as Ministers and Shadow Ministers compete to be the most stupid.
Labour’s expensive, fantasy land politics will quickly be met with a hard dose of reality and unfortunately, it is the British people who will end up paying the price of these follies. What is your party’s excuse?
March 26, 2024
This is the same as the joke with the punchline “we have established you are a whore now we are haggling over the price”.
Your party wants the same expensive, pointless outcomes we’re just haggling over the price
March 26, 2024
Of course Labourâs election promise to decarbonise our electricity by 2030, or even on the date they expect to gain power, is feasible as they havenât also promised that electricity will be reliable and on demand as it is now. Or its price.
They can simply switch off all hydrocarbon generation, or even explosively demolish these power stations as we see in this official SSE video of the COP26 president, Alok Sharma, MP :
https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1429456184902393858/pu/vid/720×720/JwPnpycxEiyBmqVJ.mp4?tag=12
No plan exists for electricity storage because it is too expensive. According to the Royal Societyâs âLarge-Scale Electricity Storageâ report we would need to store 55 TWhrs (e). Battery storage would cost ÂŁ21 trillion and using hydrogen, also costing ÂŁ trillions in capital expenditure, means doubling the cost of electricity again to at least 4 times that of hydrocarbon generated electricity.
Since nuclear is shunned, decarbonising our electricity using weather dependent, chaotically intermittent renewables means that the government will be managing demand as they cannot manage supply. Looking at the history of the last century it is clear that socialists can achieve their ends but only at an enormous cost to their populations.
March 26, 2024
Mr Miliband’s plan is to build thousands of floating wind turbines. “Just when you thought it was safe to go into the water”.
It really is about time that the Milibands of this world were asked to explain where our electricity will come from when the wind does not blow?
The Earth is still coming out of its last mini ice-age. It is a pity that some of our politicians’ brains are still in it.
March 26, 2024
People underestimate quite what a disaster Labour would be. Labour govts are always a disaster, even if itâs not apparent until years later. The last one gave us: Scottish and Welsh separatism and catastrophically bad devolved govt, the sale of the gold at a 40 year low, the Iraq war, the busting of the UK banks caused by an explosion of leverage and a foolish bailout, all manner of expansion of the state bureaucracy and of course 3 federalising EU treaties with no vote (which led to brexit).
Probably they will reverse these fantasy green policies after a couple of years when public outrage builds enough, but a lot of damage will be done in the meantime.
Vote Conservative therefore – itâs slightly better.
March 26, 2024
Why should I care about Labour. Your failures, waste of money etc far outweigh anything they might do,
This from a government whose windfall taxes and net zero policies have resulted in our lowest ever home produced energy whilst completely failing to invest in nuclear.
Sunak apparently thought ÂŁ20 million announced in Barrow would impress people and make a difference and ignored meetings for a year about legal migration, thinking it was not something the electorate was interested in. He truly is pathetic.
And in other news owing to Ministers relaxing the rules on Universal Credit fraud is now north iof ÂŁ10 billion. People claiming sickness benefit now do not even have to show proof.
Time for you to call time on a wonderful career Sir JR you are being let down and supporting an incompetent administration,utterly unworthy.
March 26, 2024
When if ever will there be a proper debate in Parliament on these issues?
It is absolutely vital to ensure that all the supposed policies are trashed as unrealistic / unaffordable.
I agree that Climate The Movie should be played in Parliament to show MP’s how out of touch they are.
March 26, 2024
Why are socialists always so in love with technology that they always fail to understand – like windmills?
It’s time they were known as the Unrealistics, as their pathetic dreams have little chance of coming true – they would rather waste our entire economic structure than admit their pipe dreams will not be fit for purpose or provide anything close to what we need.
In their rare sentient moments I’m sure the Labour elite know how false their plans are, but that won’t stop them from causing great damage, to reduce our economy to that of a 3rd world nation.
March 26, 2024
Is it really true that no nuclear power could be rolled out by 2030 ? Surely , if more emphasis was put behind speeding up the approval process, SMRs could be rolled out by then ?
Reply No. None have type approval even
March 26, 2024
I’ve been seeing Ads all day on X for public investment fund. Apparently its transforming Saudi Arabia max assets for the benefit of the local economy.
100% powered by renewable energy. Solar powered 5G network. New Industry ecosystems. Perhaps people think we have enough sunshine for this :).
This PIF sucked in talent from the rest of the world they went from 40 professional staff to 2500, a stunning fact is 60% of the population there are under the age of 30.
March 26, 2024
It seems to me that Climate Alarmism has become a destructive dogma, even a religion, so powerful that Western politicians are well and truly corralled by it. Of course there’s a need to manage natural resources wisely and to adapt accordingly, but what’s going on is highly suspicious of a globalist conspiracy. (The words ‘strong delusion’ come to mind: 2 Thess 2:11). The eastern nations humour us, but quietly continue in unashamed pragmatism.
Who will rid us of this madness? At very least, hedge your bets!
March 26, 2024
The criticisms Sir John makes about Labour are all very understanderble ; but if the thermometer of criticism was applied to the Conservatives just imagine how long his post would be !. Sunak has little in his punch to attack from ; if he was replaced at this time the uncertainty would remain ; what a dilemma !.
March 26, 2024
Only constant blackouts will wake the British people up and rouse them into getting rid of all the main political parties and their net zero nonsense. Get yourself a generator, a wood burner, solar power and some candles and sit back and watch the carnage to come. We are either governed by fools or the corrupt.
March 26, 2024
“Labourâs expensive fantasy land for 2030”
Your party started all this and has lived in fantasy land for the last 14 years. Do you really think that you will win our votes by trying to frighten us into believing that Labour will be worse? We have the choice between death by a thousand cuts or armageddon. Whichever we choose we end up at the same place.
The only solution is for the few remaining commonsense conservatives to move to the Reform party who are the only ones with a plan to save what’s left of this country. Stop insulting our intelligence.
March 26, 2024
+ 1 Christine. Absolutely spot on.
March 26, 2024
“Labourâs plans to phase out all gas and coal power stations by 2030 requires the UK to accelerate its build of wind farms, solar panels, nuclear power, and battery storage.”
Labour this, labour that. labour, labour, labour.
Nothing about the execrable record of the Tory party for the last fourteen years of Tory misrule.
John Redwood is making a bid for information / propaganda minister in the dying months of this not Tory administration. John Redwood, the Comical Ali* of the Tory party.
*The Iraqi information minister during the illegal invasion of Iraq.
Reply As many if you write in to say there is no difference I need to show where the two main parties disagree. Why no interest in the Labour alternative
March 26, 2024
There’s no doubt Barmy Starmy would be much worse.
March 26, 2024
I think the thing is John we have no interest in the not a Conservative Partyâs Net Zero agenda either. Yes things will be diabolical with Labour but really, can things get much worse than this fake bunch of socialists masquerading as Tories? At least we know what to expect under Labour – big state, high tax, mass immigration, benefit dependency, woke nonsense. Oh wait a minute, isnât that what we have already with Sunak and Hunt and the one nation wets ?
March 26, 2024
Reply to reply. Cameron called the Labour energy policy Marxist, May stated in Parliament she build on it!! Come on JR do not take us for mugs.
March 26, 2024
JR: “Why no interest in the Labour alternative”
We know the Tory party as it’s currently constituted is just a Totalitarian warm up routine. I’ve listed these before, but here goes again.
When I voted for Boris Johnson, I expected to, ‘get BREXIT done’. But here we are, still arguing about the status of a region of the united Kingdom.
Deluded as I was, I didn’t expect the Tory party to shut the economy down, and confine me to my own house. Try to force me to wear a mask, try to coerce me, by lies and bullying ( if you don’t get vaxxed, you’ll lose your job ), restrict travel abroad, and when you arrive back home, if you’d confined yourself to a hotel at your own expense, on the governments advice, found out later that Matt Hancock, the health minister was laughing at you behind your back and between him and the so called, civil servants.
The current Prime minster while chancellor created billions and billions in sterling, only to give it away to fraud and corruption, companies set up just to milk the system, then when he’d finally managed to gerrymander the Tory leadership ‘selection’ process ( because he couldn’t get himself elected ), he claims the outrageous inflation that he personally had caused, was Mr Putin’s fault.
And that’s another thing. We as a country are on our uppers, largely as a result of the graft and corruption of Boris Johnson and the corrupt incompetence of Rushi Sunak, but apparently, we’ve got billions and billions to throw away supporting the corrupt Ukraine government that was installed in a coup d’etat in 2014, supervised by US Senators and Victoria Nuland.
Meanwhile, people in the UK can’t afford their energy bills. Food inflation is insane, inflation ratchets up, and never gets reversed.
During lock-down, you, all of you, lied to the public day after day. Don’t forget, “Let’s announce the next variant and scare the pants off everyone”. That is prima face evidence of a liar.
That’s just a few of the things on my list. But you want to know why no interest in the Labour alternative, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you on your own blog. We expect that sort of economic incompetence from the Labour party, the two things we as Tories wanted from the Tory party, smaller government, and sober responsible economic policy.
We know the Labour party is utterly useless, and we expected the Tory party to be just a little bit better. But guess what, it turns out your party is just a venal, just a dishonest, and just as incompetent as the Labour party.
What difference does it make if Labour gets in ?
None.
March 27, 2024
The difference we have to pray for, is that the present power lying in the CCHQ is completely broken in disarray after being labelled fools of the first order in presiding over the selection of MPs over these last Governments.
So many are clearly NOT Conservatives! How has this come about? The vast numbers are just bums on seats like nodding donkeys on the rear parcel shelf we used to see in cars. Are there no brain cells there to witness the road to hell in a handcart being visited on the country? If the electorate is as good as polls indicate, they have woken up at last to the need to unload the present regime. I call it that because it isn’t fit to be called a Government.
March 26, 2024
I like to read some positive things from time to time, and things we have made progress on, such as recycling energy from Tube trains to power stations in an article from 2015 so I can only hope more was done about this as it was just a trial on the Victoria line.
London Boroughs were allocated ÂŁ80.4m to make streets healthier and safer who gave that money central government or London local government?
Do we store any energy in underground salt caverns? https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/01/renewable-energy-storage-innovations-batteries/ this is what the WEF suggest for storage.
March 26, 2024
The good news is that a majority of the voting population will understand that this programme is undeliverable, and that Labour will be spending countless billions in a futile attempt to achieve it.
Whether this is enough for voters to turn away from Labour, I doubt, but it will undoubtedly cost them seats that they might need to achieve a majority.
March 26, 2024
LOL, Labour’s dream team, they continue to dream, on and on and on.
There is absolutely ziltch chance of success and no point in pursuing this crazy, impossible target. But why are they even contemplating it when there are far worse CO2 emitters than little Britain?
Labour, LibDem and those similarly affiliated within the Conservatives, are driving this country into darkness. Both in lack of power and lighting but also into failing economic growth and potential bankruptcy and Bond default. Why?
Why do they not tell us why it is so important for the UK to be the first to achieve “Net-Zero”?
Especially when that achievement here, will not change the Global emission totals, one iota.
Why do they wish to play into the hands of the biggest offender, China, who is still building a new coal-fired power station each and every week?
Put your case to the British public in a National Referendum and let the people decide what is best for them. It’s called democracy, our accepted system of government in the UK which is currently being ignored by all main Parties.
LOL. Of course you could win us over by supplying each household with a diesel powered generator ‘just in case those lights do go out’ and the CH system fails on a cold night.
So, drop this vanity project and think of us from the back streets and more of your country rather than how you dream of looking good on the world stage.
NB. Right now you’re looking more like circus clowns, a great laugh in Beijing.
March 26, 2024
Paragraph three – we need a more affordable and reliable power supply!!! No we need to drive the fools who believe the climate nonsense out of Britain, It is a scam, just to make our lives uncomfortable.
March 26, 2024
Sir John
âLabourâs expensive fantasy land for 2030 â
Your headline is surely a misplaced rendering of reality. No one knows what Labour will bring once in power as in power they will be thanks to Sunak/Hunt and this Conservative Government. From this UniParty and CCHQ more manifesto promises will be proven to be false, a 14 year record of falsehood â say one thing do the opposite. That is the fantasy.
While the Labour direction is unknown, we do know where we stand with the Conservative Party, 14 years of ridiculous proven outcomes, fiscal drag will after the election boost the tax take beyond the already 70-year high, the uncontrolled spending is already committed, and the NetZero fantasy that is not being played out in the rest of the World will drag the UK further into the doldrums. Thatâs what we are promised by this Conservative Government â more of the same.
We do know as the Sunak/Hunt duo keep proving they will commit to spend more in an uncontrolled, unaccountable way, expand and not manage all their clubs of mates that achieve nothing, then seek to punish and control beyond reason, to enforce their will. All they can honestly do is rely on a proven track record of destruction of the UK that achieves nothing other than appease what appears to be their own personal self-gratification. They have proven were they stand.
If labour is in fantasy land where are the Tories?
March 26, 2024
There is no CAGW necessitating the unilateral decarbonisation of our electricity by 2030 or 2035 or 2050, or indeed, if ever. The IPCC calculates that doubling CO2, which would take 200 years at the current rate of CO2 increase, would cause just a 1 degree C rise in atmospheric temperature (Happer & Wijngaarden say 0.7 degrees C). Any additional warming is just politics and guesswork on the possible feedback amplification from water vapour, the biggest greenhouse gas by far and which does not appear to be happening because there is no evidence of increasing humidity in the troposphere, particularly at the higher altitudes which matter for the greenhouse warming effect.
Neither is there any historical evidence for ârunaway warmingâ caused by CO2 or any GHG and if anything the Le Chatelier Principle applies to produce a negative feedback mechanism. In fact the historical evidence shows CO2 following temperature in the Antarctic Vostok and Greenland ice core data and higher temperatures than today in the Roman warm period when vines were grown up by Hadrianâs Wall and in the Middle Ages when barley was grown in Greenland.
The IPCCâs WG1 (âthe scienceâ) Table 12 in Chapter 12 shows that the IPCC has concluded that a signal of climate change has not yet emerged beyond natural variability for the following phenomena:
River floods, heavy precipitation and pluvial floods, landslides drought (all types), severe wind storms, tropical cyclones (includes hurricanes), sand and dust storms, heavy snowfall and, ice storms, hail, snow avalanche and coastal flooding.
The IPCC can only find some slight warming leading some melting of ice and snow.
CAGW and the Net Zero âsolutionâ is a Marxist device to impoverish the West. The activists have no issue with Chinaâs CO2 emissions because China already has an authoritarian Communist government. If CO2 really was a problem then the activists would be advocating cheap, abundant, reliable nuclear power and not expensive, unreliable, calorically intermittent renewables with no feasible way to store electricity.
March 26, 2024
After 14 years of this Conservative Governments miss-management of keeping the UK safe and secure â we face a grim future.
âOfgem is consulting on introducing a âdynamicâ energy price cap for households to meet the demand of net zero.â They are facing the fact there is not electricity to supply the UKâs needs.
Or in plain English your âSmart Meterâ does not at any time save you money. Most people are surprized that Advertising Standards Authority hasnât jumped on the misleading advertising campaign. It was and is a charade.
âdynamicâ energy pricing is the use of a âSmart Meterâ to price those that do not have high incomes out of the market when those in high income bracket need their electricity, to cook their meals, power their heat pumps and charge their EVâs. Electricity rationing, or as using Jeremy Hunts rational those pensioners on his non-poverty ÂŁ169.50 per week need to make way, for as he says are his not so rich chums on ÂŁ1,923 per week to have their regular time slot.
The desperation for âSmart Metersâ is now clear
March 26, 2024
Our current pumped storage can produce 5.6 gwh – for about 5 hours. So, about a sixth of what the grid needs – for FIVE HOURS! Thatâs it. Thatâs all. As for battery storage – complete and utter nonsense.
A big EV battery is rated at 100 kWh. Letâs pretend it could deliver the full 100 kw for an hour. You would need 10,000 of them to produce I gigawatt for one hour. To run the grid for an hour (about 30gw typical demand), youâd need 300,000 batteries all fully charged and connected to the grid. To power the grid on a windless, cloudy day in mid winter, youâd need 7,200,000 batteries. For a cloudy, windless week in mid-winter youâd need 50 million batteries.
Please stop giving any credibility to the idea of pumped or battery storage. Both are completely impractical.
March 27, 2024
We need to reorganise our rulers. We need a miner in charge of energy; a bus driver in charge of transport; a farmer in charge of producing food to eat’ a shop assistant in charge of shopping malls; and any other person who has done a job of work for all the jobs available to run the country efficiently. Also get rid of the QUANGOs please. You have been promising this for years and nothing done so far only increased them.
March 27, 2024
This is one of the reasons a Labour govt won’t last even it gets a majority of 500. People will end up rioting in the streets if they try to implement this lunacy from where the economy and tax burden are now.