Yesterday I pointed to the dangers of net zero enthusiasts backing ways of life and products they do not adopt themselves abut require others to do. Today I ask, what does make sense and what is a saleable green policy?
The UK has advanced on the road to net zero for electricity generation. This should be one of the easiest ways to journey to less fossil fuel use. It is not however a good idea to do so by coming to rely more and more on imports from the EU, when they in turn rest heavily on Russian gas and German and Polish coal. Our first aim should be to get back to self sufficiency in electrical power for environmental and strategic reasons.
We should also have more uninterruptible renewable power in the mix and less unreliable wind and solar. Another pump storage scheme would greatly help flexibility and avoidance of power cuts. Water power more generally is more reliable and wind by harnessing water flows down rivers or the power of the regular tides and waves. We need much more capacity if the government’s ambition electrical revolution is to sweep on.I doubt we can make do without combined cycle gas, especially now there are difficulties in replacing our old nuclear stations let alone expanding nuclear.
The advance in domestic heating and cooling will come first from better insulation. More help to exclude draughts, include better standards of insulation and ensure hot water systems are well protected would lower costs and demands for fuel to heat. Anything which lowers energy use and energy bills is a very saleable proposition.
We can do more to recycle and control waste, to protect farmland and woods and to look after our landscape. Conserve and recycle is good. Forcing premature replacement of existing heating systems and vehicles with new products that are dear or not so good may not even help to net zero, given the resource cost of scrap and replace.
July 29, 2021
Free market forces trumped by Marxist infused political policy. And yes, Marxism and its ideology has now wormed its way into the British State’s culture and it seems this PM’s instincts.
Free consumers are difficult to control from the political centre and therefore they must be brought to heel by removing products they wish to buy. ICE vehicles are the preferred method of personal transport as are gas boilers. This now conflicts with the State’s aim which is to remove such products in the name of environmentalism.
The now nobbled consumer and indeed the deceived voter have been neutralised by a handful of lobby groups, grotesquely unsuitable political advisers and foreign political influence of a most sinister nature
This Anti-democratic, Anti-libertarian, Anti-freedom of choice is extremist in nature in all its forms. It resents choice. It resents voice. It desires imposition without opposition.
We will be forced to comply and conform by hook or by crook, by oppressive, immoral legislation and if necessary by demonisation through non-conformity and in the final state, arrest and incarceration. Don’t think none of this can happen in a once liberal democracy. It can happen and it will happen. And Boris and his allies across the political spectrum will be the facilitator
The British voter is voting itself into a state of imprisonment in which only privileged groups enjoy elevated status from the barbarity of the State’s demands
Well done Parliamentary backbenchers, your silence is destroying our nation. Loyalty to voters has been replaced by loyalty to party and career.
July 29, 2021
You just need to scare people to get them to comply with absolutely anything.
Canât remember who said that but it is very true!
And I think they might have mentioned that it can even happen in a democracy.
AnywayâŠgive me a flood and Iâll show you a neglected waterway, an inappropriately sited building, a newly excavated luxury cellar or a space where there once was a dam! Man made indeed.
We only need fear our leaders not the climate.
July 29, 2021
Well said. I fully concur and for those who they do not scare, as Don points out will be demonised, which is what is happening now.
There is no place for individual choice, free markets and democracy in the Johnson Regime.
July 29, 2021
+1
July 29, 2021
Certainly J Bush – – keep the fear going – the beeb are STILL going on with the already discredited “xxx people died wthin 28 days of a positive result” – that shows NO cause of death. I have no doubt those same people died wthin 28 days of going to the toilet, breathing, taking in fluids, sleeping, eating and many other things – but they aren’t mentioned. Are they as deadly as the non-mentioned cause in the govt fear campaign?
July 29, 2021
BigNeil. Or did they just die of neglect which has happened to many patients. I know, I’ve seen it first hand and got friends whose relatives were treated really badly. With Covid relatives couldn’t visit and so many things went amiss. Still, eating and drinking aren’t a necessity are they?
July 29, 2021
I also fully concur with your comments
July 29, 2021
Spot On
Who’s in charge – the people or parliament
July 29, 2021
Parliament – do you not know the UK Constitution?
July 29, 2021
The people are in charge. For decades Parliament ignored us, so we instructed them to leave the EU.
A âsane approach to global warmingâ party would pick up a lot of votes.
July 29, 2021
No.The financial system is in charge.We’re bust.We’ve been bust for a long time.Therefore,we do as we are told by that system.
Mark Carney told you,in one of the few worthwhile utterances from him,that we rely on the “kindness of strangers.”
He wasn’t auditioning for the part of Blanche du Bois,in an Am-Dram production of A Streetcar Named Desire!
July 29, 2021
The sane approach to any changes in climate is to adjust to them as and when needed. As humanity have always done so. The idea that CO2 is some world climate control system that can prevent floods, temperature rises, long freezes, forest fires and the likes is moronic.
Joyce Msuya, assistant secretary general of the United Nations and deputy executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said: “While the climate crisis, together with biodiversity loss and pollution, has indeed been under way for decades, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought this triple planetary crisis into sharp focus.
Joyce Msuya, assistant secretary general of the United Nations and deputy executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said: “The pandemic is a warning from the planet that much worse lies in store unless we change our ways.” These people are clearly idiots or liars. A warning about the dangers of labs in Wuhan perhaps or very less likely wet markets there perhaps.
A Heath today – “what is conservative about a Conservative Party that wants to hike taxes and increase energy costs – The Rudderless Labour-lite face an autumn of political carnage”
We have the highest taxes for 70 years already and there is no “CO2 emergency” whatsoever. The problems is far to much government waste – “Shit Hill” at Marble Arch for example and HS2 for another.
July 29, 2021
You’re in for a couple of disappointments.
I’m not sure how you got this far really.
July 29, 2021
Sometimes people (the voter) power can work – I’ve just read that Liverpool are the first region to reverse its ‘cycle lane’ policy as nobody used them and they created congestion
July 29, 2021
Glen
I read that No 10 is demanding that councils keep their deeply unpopular cycle lanes on pain of less funding from central government. I’m not sure that is good tactics for trying to win council elections in Liverpool.
My local council was forced to ditch a cycle lane that was causing severe access problems for ambulances trying to get through the single remaining lane to the hospital in grid locked traffic jams, even in the light traffic of lockdown. I suspect it actually was responsible for some deaths.
July 29, 2021
Glen – the billionaires who have promised the leaders a life of power and luxury for their treachery – that’s who is in power. Hope they enjoy ruling a planet full of 3rd worlders.
July 29, 2021
Quite right. The investors and the banks are running the show.
July 29, 2021
+1
July 30, 2021
Glen Cullen – The Globalist UK Establishment are in control and have been for decades however their power will shortly be removed.
July 29, 2021
You have about the most rubber-stamping parliament in the democratic world.
With a majority of eighty – largely of eager-to-please newcomers, and very much a two-party system – the Government can do as it likes.
Please, don’t criticise the European Union’s now, will you?
July 29, 2021
Ooh, I think I will criticise the EU. We can vote the Tories out. Canât get rid of the EU Commission.
July 29, 2021
No you can’t do a blind thing about anything to do with it now. Prior to 2016 the UK was one of the Big Three with enormous influence however.
July 29, 2021
No MiC. They used our influence. They didn’t “give” us any influence at all.
July 29, 2021
Only in your mind. We had such enormous influence they have Cameron the square root of fuck-all when he asked for a few crumbs.
July 29, 2021
Unfortunately, Martin, the UK Remain elite did nothing for this nation with what, in fact, was a tiny amount of influence. We’ve had far more real influence on the EU from the outside – think covid vaccines – than ever we had in it.
July 29, 2021
It’s better than that. The existing EU member can’t get rid of them, either. In effect, the economic and military power of 27 countries has been hijacked by one bureaucracy in Brussels, which in turn takes its orders from Berlin.
July 29, 2021
Agreed. Project fear strikes again.
July 29, 2021
I can’t disagree with a single word you have said, Dom, or with those that have replied to you. We really are going to hell in a handcart and it’s driven by those that may think they know better than the rest of us but clearly do not.
July 29, 2021
Well said Dom.
The deafening silence from a majority of “Conservative” MPs is dispiriting and disgraceful. They are failing to represent people who voted for conservative policies; not green/left-wing authoritariansim.
July 29, 2021
How many Tory voters are climate deniers. Just a handful that post on here?
July 29, 2021
Using the term ‘climate deniers’ is disparaging, we prefer the term ‘man-made climate change sceptic’… (until all the science is settled)
July 29, 2021
Mike, There’s no such thing as a “climate” denier. It’s meaningless propaganda. And a non-argument. The only thing I, and millions of others, deny is the CAGW hoax. And even climate scientists are waking up to the damage that climate doom-ism is doing to real climate science. Pity the activists and politicians haven’t caught up.
July 29, 2021
@DOM. As with most I agree with you.
Love him or hate him – a Nigel Farage character, who turns up and is NOT the establishment would win an election today without breaking into a sweat.
The HoC stays quiet, what is left of the Conservative party is not heard – its a sad day for freedoms, the right to aspire, achieve and take responsibility for ones self.
If you dont feel ‘you are entitled’ to be given what others just work for you are the drag on the controled society. Not part of Boris’s build back better, the new beginning you are the Dinosaurs. A controlled at all times People is this administrations objective
Reply No evidence of this in the polling. UKIP only ever won one seat in a GE despite many here telling me to join them. The only way to get us out of the EU was to back a Conservative govt to deliver us a referendum.
July 29, 2021
Reply-Reply
Come on John we all know the voting system is against independents and new Parties, and when they do stand the larger more established Parties Flood the constituency with their senior members and an excess of money.
When in a referendum situation the story was very, very different as you well know.
Farage has now got it right again, this time on the chaos of dealing with illegals being helped across the Channel by the lack of any sensible action of both French and UK Governments.
He may yet come back to haunt you all !
July 29, 2021
Gary Lineker nailed it.
In commending RNLI for doing their job, he reminded their detractors of their oft-parroted own words: “ALL Lives Matter”.
I see that Farage has caused donations to RNLI promptly to quadruple.
We are a decent country after all.
July 29, 2021
MiC : âALL Lives Matterâ
I thought we were not allowed to say this?
July 30, 2021
Martin, there is only you and a few of your blog chums that doubt we are a decent country regularly each day!
I sincerely hope that all the new donors to the RNLI keep it up long term and make their donations regularly from now on but at least they’re all on their donations database now.
July 30, 2021
Aiding illegal immigration should itself be a crime.
The RNLI should return illegal immigrants to France. Or face prosecution
July 29, 2021
JR said: “UKIP only ever won one seat in a GE . . .”. Yes, but in the EU elections they got many seats, coming second to the Tory party in 2009 (equal seats to Labour but more votes) and then top in 2014. The successor – the Brexit Party – was top again in 2019. The difference was in the voting system. Clearly the public wasn’t as sanguine about the Conservative party as yourself.
July 30, 2021
@Reply Polling only offers an answer to an answer already know. The system is weighted against Democracy, those in power award themselves on going funding to keep their machinery well oiled. While seemingly well meaning the purpose ensures the establishment has the upper hand to ensure challengers are kept at bay.
With respect the Conservatives have not delivered Brexit, nothing remotely like it, not delivered independence or sovereignty – in part they may have been hamstrung by HoC that was and is against MP’s taking responsibility for anything . Then again after all the announcements in the last 24hours what used to be a Conservative party is now trying to out do the Socialists with their own extreme Socialist agenda.
July 29, 2021
Excellent comment DOM. We need an early general election to rid ourselves of these mad socialists.
July 29, 2021
Dom :
I completely agree.
I simply don’t understand the current policies of unilateral and technologically impossible net zero which will economically destroy us, increased importation of foreign sources of energy dsigned to make us less independent and the push for ever increasing immigration, both legal and illegal, to worsen the environment and social cohesion.
What sort of country do our current Parliamentarians wish to see?
Our only hope is for a new party. The existing parties should all remember that they were all beaten by the Brexit Party in the 2019 EU Parliamentary elections and are deluded if the FPTP system will protect them when the inevitable shortages and rationing starts to bite.
July 30, 2021
The biggest impact on the environment of cars is during their manufacturing.
It is insane to scrap perfectly serviceable vehicles before they are at least fifteen years old. Politicians who acquiesce to such a policy are either corrupt or stupid or both – there is no other explanation
July 29, 2021
Good morning.
There are two sided to this – Demand, and supply.
Let us tackle the supply side first. Currently the government’s energy policy is based on the mantra of, CO2 is bad and that anything that is not is somehow good. This is a childish over simplification. It is driving the government in two energy policy directions neither of which will meet the supply side. The first is so called ‘renewables’ which are intermittent and do not generate anywhere near enough energy for the nations needs. The second is nuclear. The government has embarked on an expensive and time consuming gamble with Hinkley Point. Again, when it comes on-line it will not meet sufficient needs.
The other side is supply. This the government is making a rod for all our backs. It has been, and continues to, increase the populations size to such an extent that the supply will never meet demand, certainly given current government policies. Their solution is to use ‘Smart meters’ to control demand and thereby attempt to balance them both out. This is a risky process as politically as this means controlled brownouts will cause much unrest as people expect basic needs in a modern country to be met.
The political parties, under the cover of so called environMENTALISM, are slowly enacting Socialist / Marxist doctrine of State control over the population. There are, sadly, far too many either coward or fooled into accepting this and, as a result, a far more dystopian future of various forms of State supplied rationing awaits.
July 29, 2021
Yes. We also need to reduce population but the Tories love increasing it and have enlisted a cherished charity (the RNLI) into aiding the Tory People Trafficking scheme.
Thus it can start to blame the British people (like me) for being beastly when they stop donating or ‘abuse lifeboatmen’ as the BBC claimed yesterday (without evidence.)
The RNLI usually go on TV and berate idiotic adults putting to sea from safe shores with children in unseaworthy craft. They are biased, clearly.
Andy is able to come here and claim the moral high ground but it was me who bothered to set up a direct debit to fund them 17 years before he even thought of it. (He should now be donating ÂŁ40 a month if his promise to double my money is true.)
No comment on anything to do with supply or crime or social problems is true without reference to mass immigration – which has swelled our population by at the least six million people in the last twenty years (@300k net pa) Many more if extra births and illegal immigration is counted.
Yet Newmania tells us this has had no impact on housing and services in key areas.
A nurse friend of mine at the local general has just told me that Covid is only half of the story. The masses of housing estates in this region has not been met with an increase in hospital resourcing and they cannot cope.
“Do not get ill. Do not get injured.” She implored me and my wife.
July 29, 2021
Andy and MiC et al may claim the moral high ground but they don’t have it … and given the attitudes behind the hateful bile they spout they never will.
July 29, 2021
Mmmmwwwwahhh!
July 29, 2021
Great comment dixie.
It is part of the left’s attempt to silence everyone else by claiming a moral superiority and if that doesn’t work they use personal abuse.
But once examined their ridiculous claims fail.
You see it on here regularly.
July 29, 2021
Its’ happening everywhere NLA. Worthing is a classic case. I can’t tell you the amount of new housing that has gone up and is still going up and yet all the local hospitals that serve the area have cut back on beds and waiting times are abysmal. No wonder people are getting fed up and ill.
July 29, 2021
It was the CEO of the RNLI, Mark Dowie who highlighted the abuse that the RNLI’s volunteers have been getting by some individuals simply for volunteering to put their own lives at risk in order to save others.
Donations to the RNLI have increased massively in recent days. I would argue that this is much more representative of the views of the general public as to the job the RNLI are doing than the position taken by the likes of Nigel Farage.
July 29, 2021
Actually the majority of the public are opposed to illegal migration. Polling from YouGov found that 61 per cent would support a ban on illegal migrants applying for refugee status, compared to only 21 per cent who were opposed. By a margin of 64 per cent to 15 per cent, the public also said that it would be fair to deport asylum seekers with inadmissible claims. But nice try, Peter.
July 30, 2021
I wonder what the distribution of donations by size has been. I suspect the new money is dominated by relatively few larger donations. It will be interesting to see how long the greater level of donations continues.
July 29, 2021
No Longer Anonymous : “No comment on anything to do with supply or crime or social problems is true without reference to mass immigration â which has swelled our population by at the least six million people in the last twenty years (@300k net pa) Many more if extra births and illegal immigration is counted.”
I have been wondering if the government’s strange reluctance to open up the country despite the number of people who have been double jabbed is because they know there are far more people in the country than they admit to/the official statistics and hence the proportion of vaccinated people is much lower than they are claiming.
July 29, 2021
Energy security for the UK ought to be the overriding priority, with self-sufficiency the aim.
July 29, 2021
Indeed. A National Security issue that the establishment are ignoring, just like the mass migration hypocrisy pretending it doesn’t add to our carbon footprint or impact health, housing provision or public services. Absolute stupidity by the legacy parties. We need significant change and they cannot provide it. All stuck in their ways with an outdated voting system that doesn’t provide choice for the people.
July 29, 2021
+1
Also the failure to uphold their first priority, the Defence of the Realm. The ever growing attacks on innocent bystanders are the direct result of this.
July 29, 2021
It astonishes me hat Labour donât adopt âenergy security for the UKâ as a mantra. It would win a load of votes and there is no downside. Lots of infrastructure spending, jobs created here etc. Whatâs not to like. I must write to Labourâs HQ at once.
July 29, 2021
Agree â it would be a vote winner especially for the 1.4m unemployed, we could build wind turbines here, frack for gas, dig for clean coal, manufacture grapheme products for industrial and build nuclear small modulesâŠwin win
July 29, 2021
The UK is blessed with many beautiful old houses which are not only poorly insulated but difficult to improve. The situation is not helped by the planning laws and the conservation and listing rules in particular. Amazingly, these require planning permission to install loft insulation, despite it being invisible from the street, which not only takes time and bother but costs money as councils now charge for the application.
In my view a wholesale review of all aspects of planning is urgently required.
July 29, 2021
The whole âgraded listedâ building thing is haphazard and needs to be scraped
July 29, 2021
The property which is my home, is approximately 150 years made of 2′ thick solid sandstone walls (so no chance of wall cavity insulation), but is fortunately not Grade listed; though I do have a wall at the end of the garden, built at the same time, which is Grade 11 listed!
July 29, 2021
Are you referring to Westminster?
July 29, 2021
At the time they built âWestminster Palaceâ they use the latest design, technology & materials of that periodâŠâŠthey where visionaries, theyâd never dream of living in the past or in old building â thatâs when Britain was great, we demolished the old and built new
We need to build a new âWestminsterâ to mark an era of the people and democracy
July 29, 2021
Sorry Glen, slight correction to your phrase ‘they’d never dream of living in the past’: the Houses of Parliament were deliberately built in mock-Gothic style to conjure up past grandeur, in order to replace the old palace which had been burnt down.
July 29, 2021
Nobody is forcing you to replace your car or your boiler right now. But as sure as night follows day they will need replacing at some point.
Even if your boiler was installed yesterday it is unlikely to make it to 2040. And when you next replace it we need you to get a heat pump instead.
Far from being undesirable electric cars are the most desirable cars on the market. But the higher upfront cost puts people off. Over their lifespan they cost about the same as a petrol car. But the cost is front loaded with a higher initial price but much lower running costs. That is an easy problem for government to solve. It just chooses not to.
Incidentally I noticed yesterday that the Tories are now saying their Brexit barge will costs ÂŁ250m. They think the world will somehow be impressed with a ship smaller and less expensive than those owned by some billionaires. For ÂŁ250m every home in Wokingham could be properly insulated, and fitted with solar panels and heat pumps.
Isnât it amazing how they can find plenty of money for stuff we donât need but none for things we doâŠ
July 29, 2021
Take a look at “Why Heat Pumps May Not Be The Future” on YT and then give us your thoughts.
July 29, 2021
Welcome to the brave New world.
All electric van broken down on motorway island. No chance to push it off the road, not even hazard warning lights working.
Poor driver going spare waiting for a breakdown vehicle with a crane.
July 29, 2021
The times, they are a changin
July 29, 2021
I would be very interested to see how you arrived at that calculation Andy. Wokingham must be much smaller than I thought.
July 29, 2021
Wokingham Borough in 2017 had a population of 165,000 – now after being swamped with new housing estates you could add several thousand homes, and perhaps 3 times that for people.
So how much would typical loft insulation, solar panels (ugh!) and a heat pump with associated internal work performed by a contractor cost?
July 29, 2021
Wokingham and Wokingham Borough are not the same though. Less than 50,000 people live in Wokingham. ÂŁ250m spread over that population is about ÂŁ50,000 per resident, or across the whole borough, about ÂŁ16,000 per resident.
July 29, 2021
Sorry, ÂŁ5,000 per resident of Wokingham (error in my maths). For a 3 person household, that’s ÂŁ15,000. I think you could get a heat pump, some loft insulation and some solar panels for that sort of cash.
Even spread across the whole borough, based on a quick internet price search, you could certainly get the loft insulation and a heat pump and have some cash left over to go towards solar panels.
July 29, 2021
oh well – it kept you busy with a calculator for a while.
I live in Wokingham and know you can’t piss about with all the old listed homes, the rabbit warren newbies, and the ‘over my dead body’ reaction to the awful look of the solar monsters. How will people react to ‘i’ll just put this big fan unit on your patio, or bolt one on each of your outside walls, oh and those radiators will never do, have you got nice thick woolies for the winter, err and spring and autumn?’
July 29, 2021
Peter
Sorry to disappoint you, but the estimate to bring all houses up to the suggested new spec with Heat Pumps, heating controls, higher levels of insulation and triple glazing is between ÂŁ50 -ÂŁ60,000 per dwelling, and that is a rough present day estimate from Architects and Surveyors.
Assuming work is completed by trained and approved people.
Clearly it will vary from House – House, Building – Building with differing forms of construction, some may cost less, some much more.
Some properties due to construction, location, or design, will never be able to reach the suggested new standard.
I do have some knowledge of insulation standards, as I sat on the British Standards Board discussing such for a number of years, and was Vice Chairman of NALIC, National Association of Loft Insulation Contractors, and was also a member of The Cavity Wall Insulation Contractors Committee.
July 30, 2021
Peter, there is no way this only costs ÂŁ5000 per home, if it did the government would instruct all new builds to put them in from the start when it is much cheaper to do it to the core of the home.
July 29, 2021
A simple internet search says “Ground Source Heat pumps cost between ÂŁ11,000 and ÂŁ15,000
Air source heat pumps cost about half that”
A 4kw solar panel it say says ÂŁ4000 to ÂŁ7000
Then I see insulation….”for a typical 3 bed semi….expect to pay ÂŁ8000 to ÂŁ15,000 for external insulation
Half that for internal insulation”
Seems OK for the wealthy Andy types.
But not for me.
July 29, 2021
In Andyâs wealthy middle-class world everyone is able to install a charging point in their own drive and has enough garden and wall space to install heat pump. He doesnât care about the millions of us who live in places where we simply canât do either. Still, maybe Andyâs political guru Sir Lewis Hamilton will come up with a solution after heâs switched to an electric car himself.
Check your privilege Andy.
July 29, 2021
Before everyone starts having a go, I do not agree with this climate change crap and certainly not with the energy proposals regarding heating etc. The house we are living in right now has solar panels which were already installed by the previous owner. No way would we have paid out for them in the first place and since moving in we would have had an enormous bill for another inverter if my son hadn’t been working for a solar company at the time. Because of the panels and the fact that our car needed to be changed anyway we opted for a hybrid in the knowledge that 98% of our journeys involve between 20 and 30 miles round trip. We didn’t buy it to ‘save the planet’ but rather to save our pockets as the model chosen was cheaper than the model we were already driving and just as nice in our view. Since taking delivery of it in March and having three quarters of a tank of petrol in it I have only had to fill it once after a trip to Sussex/Hampshire. If I had not done this journey I would still have that fuel in the tank. Rather than make everyone go fully electric with all the uncertainty over flat batteries etc why not let people go hybrid? I am sure the mileage could be improved and just doing this would save a lot of fuel being used. I don’t think anyone should be made to go down this route but if the government is insisting then to me this could be a better alternative unless hydrogen makes a successful entry. Just saying.
July 29, 2021
Hybrids would also save jobs as ICE engines would still need engineers.
July 29, 2021
You can also charge a hybrid using an ordinary household plug socket which is easy to install outside your house. I don’t bother with public charging points.
July 29, 2021
Good point, as its reported 4.5m in the ICE automotive manufacturing, repair and parts supply chain….We’d lose half of them under this governments ‘green’ revolution
July 29, 2021
John suggests that “green enthusiasts” are in a position to “require” people to make changes to their lives.
Of course they are not. Only Parliament can pass the laws which would actually require people to do that.
The obsessive victimhood-pleading of the Right results in this frenzied hyper-reaction to anyone, looking in the least like for one moment they might simply state a fact that they don’t want to hear.
It seems to be the fact that the teller has the agency and freedom to speak on the matter at all, which enrages them more that what is actually told.
We make of this what we might.
July 29, 2021
Parliament has already passed such laws MiC
The Climate Change Act is one such example.
The Net Zero Policy that develops from that act contains bans on gas boilers and internal combustion engines vehicles in a few years.
I think that meets the definition of “requires”
As every political party is in favour of these policies, the only way to vote against them is to hope a new party with different views might develop.
July 29, 2021
As I said.
July 29, 2021
Vote Reform.
July 29, 2021
No MiC
Not as you said
Parliament has already passed legislation.
You are required in the near future to what you are told.
Dont be a denier.
July 30, 2021
Sorry, exactly as I said.
July 30, 2021
You said green enthusiasts are not in a position to require us to make changes to our lives.
That is what you said.
They already have.
Yet again you deny what you actually said just above.
Amazing
July 29, 2021
Not the point, Andy.
Those with ICE cars and gas boilers are going to be punished until they ditch them. And then punished after that too.
‘Front loaded’ costs.
Ah. You mean ordinary people are going to have to take on more credit.
You do realise that credit is at the root of excessive global consumption. Enabling people to consume what they haven’t already earned and – in many cases – more than they ever will.
Credit took the brakes off consumption in the same way that leaving the gold standard created funny money.
Your EV seems to work quite well for you but wait until there is a queue of them at your next ’15 minute’ charging point and the government have decided to raise lost petrol revenue (currently at over 150% of refinery price) by whacking it on EV charging and mileage.
And they are only as clean as the power station that charges them and advocates of them ought to be as puritanical about their features as they are forcing flat dwellers to fight for charging points. They should be as bland and utilitarian as a soviet Lada.
July 29, 2021
32m vehicles to be dealt with the year they are banned….quite a problem coming up.
And where to put all those battery scooters, push-bikes and walking boots?
July 29, 2021
Your views and that of our current green government appear as one
July 29, 2021
Have you noticed there is NO limit of money for a non stop flood of non English speaking, unskilled, house wanting, NHS wanting, translator wanting, schooling wanting, non contributing, infrastructure using, culture change demanding, replacements.? Only one inevitable result – and the govt know it.
July 29, 2021
“much lower running costs.” Until you need to replace the battery.
July 29, 2021
And then do what? Send Wokingham on a World our to sell British exports?
Here’s a question. Will Starmer commit to any future Labour Government *not* using the ship? Will he do what every Labour Government in my lifetime has done – denounce Tory policies and then benefit from them?
July 29, 2021
You still haven’t worked out what will power your ÂŁ70k battery car and ÂŁ30k ground source heat pump, Andy, have you? Because your EU toasters sure won’t.
July 29, 2021
DOM and Mark B, Excellent comments both. It is truly getting past wake up time. The Conservative party is useless, in dereliction, and culpable.
July 29, 2021
The argument now is how we can become self sufficient without burning coal and oil . The argument should not be this continuing obsession with Co2 and climate change. Moving on to other reusable sources will put us in a situation which is not finite .
July 29, 2021
The issue about âburning oil & gasâ is only definitive if you believe the hype about half the world scientists saying that their predicted models indicate a global temperature rise of 1.5 degree â otherwise your assumption is false
July 29, 2021
What on earth are you talking about ? I have just said we need a source of energy that is not finite. Wake up! What assumption ? fossil fuel is finite , water and wind until the earth is no more will be ever present!
July 29, 2021
My poor argument is that we should still be burning coal and oil as the issue and science isn’t complete/done/definitive/settled….no offence
August 1, 2021
Nothing is finite. Everything stays on the planet even fossil fuels.
July 29, 2021
âWater power more generally is more reliable and wind by harnessing water flows down rivers or the power of the regular tides and waves.â
Hydro electric schemes were successfully implemented in Scotland in the post war years.
However, there has been talk of a Severn barrage for a very long time. It has supporters and opponents.
July 30, 2021
For onshore hydro there have been extensive studies of the potential untapped resource, most of which is in Scotland. According to the study, the potentially viable 1,019 sites could produce about 657MW and deliever about 2.77TWh per year, which is not going to amount to a whole lot – under 1% of UK consumption. There is a further 248MW across England and Wales. Pumped storage schemes have been hard to get off the ground. The biggest new one is Coire Glas, which gained planning consent late last year for 1500MW of maximum output at the cost of frothing up Loch Lochy (the original consent in 2013 was only for 600MW, which limited its earning potential), and it has a storage potential of 30GWh, so it could last for 20 hours at maximum output. It is projected to cost over ÂŁ1bn and take 6 years to build. For comparison, Dinorwig has maximum output of 1700MW and storage of 9.1GWh. The Coire Glas scheme was discussed by Euan Mearns, who explains the difficulties – not least of being in an iconic location.
https://euanmearns.com/coire-glas-the-raging-best-of-pumped-hydro-storage/
The Severn Barrage has been discussed down the decades. It’s a very expensive scheme that would have implications for flood risk up the Severn (Gloucester, Tewkesbury, Upton on Severn, Worcester, Bewdley, Ironbridge, Shrewsbury…) because it would permanently raise water levels upstream of the barrage. But some of the bigger problems arise because tides are very variable across each month with the lunar cycle. If you try to even this out by using part of the estuary for pumped storage you lose 70% of the output potential, making it even more expensive. To get an idea of the range of outputs look at this chart:
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/D0N7k/1/
You will see that there are long periods with no output at all, particularly during neap tides. The spiky and variable nature of the output creates problems for the grid in a similar way to solar. Because the times of high tide change by about 50 minutes a day, so does the time of any peak output – and it will occur at unwanted times such as the middle of the night, or on top of a solar peak from time to time. Zero output may well coincide with peak rush hour demand, which again is not helpful.
July 30, 2021
Mark :
Thanks for this really informative post.
July 29, 2021
What I find extraordinary is the complete refusal of politicians either in govt or not and of green campaigners and others who like to make loud gestures of green virtue to address the basic numbers. What is to be the energy source for the c. 5x increase in electric power generation needed to achieve ânet zeroâ, and what is to be the backup for when wind and solar donât work due to weather conditions? There are no answers to this and the question isnât being asked let alone debated properly. Very curious.
July 29, 2021
your post is good clear thinking and is exactly what i have been wondering about.
I would say very curious but above all very dangerous and looks like a huge man made disaster in the making .
Think about electric power cuts , of the magnitude possible – the destruction of our country .
July 29, 2021
Fixing draughts in my home is my responsibility. The government’s role should be to set, and enforce, the highest standards of insulation in new-build housing.
July 29, 2021
The current new building regs are set, enforced and inspected by the governing trade body – National Federation of Builders
July 29, 2021
Glen
New Insulation standards for new homes and extensions are currently going through consultation for possible introduction next year.
I am informed by the trade press that many of the older double glazing systems currently in use will not pass the proposed new standards, even when using high insulation sealed units, as it’s the frame that will fail the new tests.
Newer systems should be ok for a while, as long as the correct sealed units are fitted.
Life expectancy of a sealed unit is still the same as it ever was, about 20 years, hence the 5 – 10 years guarantee given by many manufacturers on product.
July 29, 2021
Great – marking their own homework like Boeing did.
July 29, 2021
And Councils Planning and Building Control Departments.
Is that OK for you Marty?
July 29, 2021
No, because they are forced to contract out to private sector “consultancies” who are also often connected with the building industry.
July 29, 2021
Wrong.
They work under the laws
If you know of any irregularities then report them to the authorities.
July 30, 2021
Right, so we now need an inspectorate to inspect the privatised inspectors, to make sure that they are doing for what they are paid.
Marvellous.
July 30, 2021
Depends who does the best most effective job
A Chartered Surveyor employed by the Council or one employed by private company.
Your assumption is always Council good Private sector bad.
July 29, 2021
Pumped storage, to make use of the abundant supply of free energy being harvested by wind and solar farms is a good idea. Those of us of a certain age will recall the huge metal gasometers that used to be found in every town, these stored the domestic gas that used to be made from our coal. As they were pumped full they rose up from the ground and would supply domestic gas under pressure on demand
I envisage pumped storage steel tanks full of water (or the excavated spoil) the size of a football pitch and say, 50m tall when raised. A cubic metre of water weighs a tonne and so ~ 540,000 tonnes could be pumped up using surplus renewable wind farm energy at night and/or solar energy during the day – and the energy released on demand. The technology is already available and a great deal of energy could be stored if we built, say 200 of them dotted around the country. Certainly the steel required could keep a UK steelworks busy for quite a while.
Using windfarm energy to electrolyse free seawater (once the sewage has been filtered out) to produce green hydrogen and its valuable by-product, oxygen is another option. Siemens have already built a full-scale demonstration plant using solar energy at the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in Dubai.
https://www.siemens-energy.com/mea/en/company/megaprojects/dewa-green-hydrogen-project.html
Once thousands of EVs are on our roads they will also soak up windfarm output at night and will effectively become energy storage devices. There are huge opportunities for UK entrepreneurs in the renewable energy field.
July 29, 2021
Good to see a positive informed contribution looking at the opportunities rather than the King Canute push back stuff that politically and now with all the major financial etc institutions committed to it, is a dead duck.
In other DT news âwhatâs conservative about pushing up taxes and power costs, even nationalisation back to the appalling British Rail. A steel producer. Bankrupt for a reason, no idea how to reform the NHS, just throw more money at it and appoint âa liferâ to run it, zero new ideas, education in the pockets of the unions etc.
A Labour lite ideologically bereft party allowing the blob back to control our country.
The issues you raise Sir John are interesting but âfiddling whilst Rome burnsâ
July 29, 2021
Nig1, Sakara’s comment is neither “positive” nor “informed”, it’s ridiculous. As usual. Trust me, a dam to hold back 50m of water is considerably thicker than the steel required to hold a gas in a gas storage tank. No one in their right minds would use a “gasometer” model for 540,000 tonnes of water with a depth of 50m.
July 29, 2021
Your ‘gasometers’ would only keep the UK’s current demand satisfied for about half an hour.
The purpose of putting an electric car on charge overnight is, believe it or not, to charge its battery, (as opposed to the few minutes it took to ‘charge’ your petrol car). I am sure electric car users will be delighted to find their car battery flat in the morning and a couple of discharge-charge cycles stolen from the precious few the car came with!
Politicians and others are living in a fantasy land, they just don’t appreciate how much energy is stored within fossil fuels, fuels that can be readily stored and transported as required. Springs, weights and flywheels need to be massive to store significant amounts of energy.
A can of petrol is truly a wonder fuel.
July 29, 2021
Jim S
“A can of petrol is truly a wonder fuel.”
Well Boris Johnson & Co are very worried at the prospect of us having petrol at our disposal, wonder why ?
July 30, 2021
At Dinorwig the upper reservoir is over 500 metres above the lower one. The height differential is essential if you are going to store meaningful amounts of energy – it’s a direct trade off with the size of the reservoir you need, and also means that a much greater power is available.
Something to think about: if you charge up your car when wind is plentiful, and the weather forecast changes to a lengthy period of little wind, are you going to let the grid drain the car battery to keep the lights on for others? How much inducement would you need, and what would that do to their electricity bills?
July 30, 2021
The amount of energy stored increases dramaticaly if you increase the surface area, i.e. double the surface area to two football pitches and you quadruple the energy stored for the same 50m height. Tremendous amounts of electricity can be stored with one of these systems. A UK company called Gravtricity is already building a prototype using old coal mine shafts
https://gravitricity.com/
The wind is nearly aways blowing somewhere in the UK. I plan to charge my EV using my solar panels. The smart system you describe can be set so your fully charged vehicle only gives back say, 10% max to the grid. You could also run your domestic LED lighting, flat screen TV, central heating pump or radio off it at night, though not a washing m/c, vacuum cleaner, tumble drier or dishwasher. It is 50% cheaper to charge your EV from domestic overnight supply than to use a commercial charging point. If you can do it during the day from your solar panels, the juice is completely free.
July 30, 2021
Glad you think in our heavily populated country we can spare so many square miles for your enterprise, or that we would spare the water to fill it. We could of course do with some more reservoir capacity, but not that much. Energy storage does not increase with the square of the area – only with area (actually the formula is E=mgh, so it is the mass of water – area times depth times density – multiplied by the height through which it drops, known as the head, and multiplied by acceleration due to gravity, g). The power it can generate depends on the rate of flow through the turbines (Q), their efficiency (η) which tends to be higher when generating than pumping and also varies according to flow rate – there is an optimum, gravity – g again, and head (it is customary to use the effective head which allows for friction losses as the water falls through the penstock to the turbines) =Qηgh. If you have a low head, you must have lots of turbines to generate much power, increasing the cost substantially.
The graviticity system using heavy iron weights stores rather modest amounts of energy. It is designed to compete with grid batteries for smoothing out short term fluctuations on the grid with timescales of the order of seconds and minutes. Their demonstrator project uses 50 tonnes of weights on a 15m high rig so it stores about 50,000x10x15J, or 7.5MJ, or just over 2kWh, which it can release at up to 250kW (the power of a typical sports car engine), which would last less than 30 seconds.
The trouble with the wind is that all too often it is barely blowing at all anywhere in the UK. From over 24,000MW of capacity we had as little as 39MW of generation in recent days. That’s just 0.16% of capacity. We have had many days in succession this year with very slight winds and negligible wind generation – and the same weather has also affected wind farms across Europe. You should be worried because those who model our net zero future ignore these conditions in their modelling, or assume they don’t last very long if they look at them at all – ignoring the many day periods of Dunkelflaute that happen in the real world. I expect your solar panels don’t give you much power in winter.
July 31, 2021
As is usual when you comment upon matters where you are out of your depth, you fail to understand the concept of storing energy by raising heavy masses. No water flows through Gravitricity turbines, they use a geared generator to recover the electricity used in pumping the masses higher.
By using equations that describe a totaly different concept – that of pumping water up shafts to create a head of water – you misunderstand the simplicity of raising a MASS weighing over a million tonnes with a surface area of just two football pitches, not square miles.
And lastly, my solar panels do generate electricity during the winter, enough so that my aircon system can work in reverse for a couple of hours in the middle of the day, pumping heat into the ground floor of my house.
As usual with many who post here, you offer criticism and nothing positive or an alternative to the status quo
July 30, 2021
S.K.
All very interesting . Not sure anything is free in this world. There is also the moral obligations especially if you have principles. There is the child exploitation in mining raw earth products, decommissioning of wind farms and disposal of all its components, loss off land due to infrastructures, transmission and distribution, side effects of living under power lines, never fully investigated and the disruption of natural water courses and the impact on the sea bed and its eco system. To some of us it all adds up to similar meat with different gravies. All the above are the real facts of having Net Zero and I am sure more will come out of the woodwork as it progresses. What is not are the figures from computers supplied with suspect information emotionally believed as a result of attending the services of the world’s latest religious sect.
July 29, 2021
Agree that by 2040 we may be well on the way to a better solution than with products now, and that is the whole point of protest, the government is trying to move too quickly before reliable and proven products are fully developed and available, of course the sensible thing to do is to replace existing with better as the old and existing equipment time expire’s, if its cost effective to do so.
That is not what the government are doing, they are deliberately penalising some products and throwing taxpayer money at others.
At the moment electric cars are being heavily subsidised through grants (now reducing) but most of all, through no taxation, whilst exactly the opposite is true of ICE vehicles and fuel, hence the reason the running cost factor that you outline is in favour of electric, that is until the Government start to tax them as well, because they will need the revenue.
Too many moving goalposts for sensible decision making I am afraid.
July 30, 2021
Alan Jutson
Well said Alan.
July 29, 2021
Sir John. I am interested to know if you believe that climate change is man made.
July 29, 2021
Intelligent people do not require binary absolutes.
If they are of the view that there is a reasonable probability that the claims of the majority of meteorologists and of other atmospheric scientists are correct, and also that the consequences of ignoring them could be disastrous, then responsibility – stemming from the Enlightenment value of the Precautionary Principle – dictates that they take action.
For those in certain positions, and in relation to matters generally, failure in this regard might rightly be deemed recklessly criminal.
July 29, 2021
”Intelligent people do not require binary absolutes”
So the Laws of Physics don’t apply
July 29, 2021
???
July 29, 2021
I’d like to hear that answer
July 29, 2021
I might believe there is some good intent in all this if I could see any environmental care or consistency in the small, local things.
But noâŠ.front gardens are concreted over, back gardens are ghastly deforested wastelands filled with noise and smoke making equipment. Cars idle smokily and noisily often emitting loud music. The rubbish produced by all the woke companies litters everywhere and total idiots troop off to clean beaches rather than hold the authorities to account.
We need local jobs, local shopsâŠthe list is endless and so are the lies from government especially the Home Office.
Well they can shove their green garbage Reset cr*p because it was never born out of any care for the planet or the people on it.
July 29, 2021
It beggars belief.
It’s the young ‘educated’ people who seem to leave the beaches and parks looking like tips. “Someone else does the cleaning.”
When was the last time you found a Werther’s Originals packet on a beach or in a park ?
July 29, 2021
Open top recycling. Madness in our windy weather.
The latest is that we “… must not waste water rinsing tins and plates.” So dirty cans are supposed to sit outside in Summer heat ?
July 29, 2021
Oh my goodness!
I hadnât heard that latest madness.
Not rinse out tins etc?
Rats, foxes, cats tearing open rubbish sacks âŠand stench, as you say.
And not waste water in a rainy country?
Too many people now?
Or are the crazies planning to export our water?
They are allegedly clearing out an area of Africa to get at rich underground supplies of water! Three powers fighting over it no doubt.
July 29, 2021
NLA – it also seems to be the young who want unlimited immigration – haven’t they any understanding of a quart into a pint pot?
July 29, 2021
You make a silly, extreme caricature. No one wants that.
However, interestingly, I see that in Sydney, Aus, median house price is about ÂŁ750,000 (yes GBP).
It’s hard to think of a country with much more space and scope for the building of new towns etc.
So the claim that it is the crowding of small countries which causes high prices would appear to be called into question, would it not?
July 29, 2021
Australia’s population has grown from approx 10 million in the sixties to over 25 million.
And it is focussed into a few big cities like Sydney.
But MiC says that has nothing to do with demand for houses.
Hilarious.
July 30, 2021
I can see why you did so badly at school.
July 30, 2021
What a silly response Marty.
Why do you always resort to personal comments when your argument is challenged?
July 29, 2021
Bigneil
“it also seems to be the young who want unlimited immigration â havenât they any understanding of a quart into a pint pot?”
No they don’t, because they’re metric sissies.
July 30, 2021
Everhopeful
It is frightening when you start to apply real logic and common sense to all of this. The inmates have taken over the asylum I fear.
July 29, 2021
You make some good points but far too gently. The net zero agenda is wrong in engineering terms, environmental terms and economic terms. It is a political disaster too. CO2 is not a major problems, the solutions proposed do not save CO2 and certainly not significant CO2.
If CO2 is really the problem they claim we would need world co-operation to reduce it and this will clearly not happen. China alone built the equivalent of more than one large coal plant every week in 2020.
If the government really think CO2 is the problem they would ban first class flights, helicopters (other than rescue ones), central heating, bonfire nights, firework displays, burning wood (it should be used as wood or buried), barbeques, garden fires. They should ban planes flying with more than a few empty seats, ban sales of expensive cars with huge engines, large houses and all meat eating and meat production. They should make people wear more jumpers and thermals and not heat buildings much at all. They should cut down all mature trees (the take in little or no net CO2 use the wood and replant with new growing trees. Ban all space flights, reduce international shipping, keep small old cars rather than replacing them and much else. But they do not do any of this as they clearly do not really think CO2 is a serious problem.
You can only judge politicians by what they do not what they say.
July 29, 2021
They are for example burning imported wood at Drax an insane policy if you are really concerned about C02. They still allow people to build massive homes 50 times larger than they reasonably need and buy collections of huge luxury cars. You would certainly ban bottled and canned water and drinks and drink tap water (far cheaper & better for you anyway). It is perfectly clear the government themselves given their actions simply do not believe in CO2 reductions it is a ruse for socialism and a con trick. It you want a good laugh read the insanity from Allegra Stratton (Boris’s spokesman on green crap) in the Telegraph a couple of day back. Also ban gyms as that is clearly a large waste of food fuelled energy (food energy is very inefficient in CO2 terms).
July 29, 2021
The media carefully avoid reporting the NASA website which concluded that over 35 years of increasing CO2 the planet had added 18 million square kilometres of greenery due to enhanced plant growth, about twice the area of the USA. ‘Zero carbon’ is a plain idiotic political slogan.
The arrogance of political ‘elites’ knows no bounds. They can’t stop rubber boats crossing the Channel but they think they can adjust the temperature of the entire globe to suit themselves by putting up windmills and other expensive and superstitious gestures. Banging saucepans to drive away the virus would be in the same category of deluded thinking . With these attitudes the future situation of the UK as an environmental goody-goody will be laughable as the real polluters like China do nothing. Insane, as you claim repeatedly.
July 29, 2021
RH, +1
July 29, 2021
+1
July 29, 2021
+1
July 29, 2021
Spot On, great post Rick
July 30, 2021
R H
Brilliant
July 29, 2021
Today I read that the electricity supply for all these electric cars is absolutely nowhere near ready or probably even possible! Well thereâs a surprise!
AlsoâŠmore scarily ( can this really be true?) there are firms planning to capture and store (!!) CO2.
Huge contracts for mates no doubt!
July 29, 2021
Is it Southern Water by any chance?
July 29, 2021
+1
July 29, 2021
What a load of infantile absolutist nonsense you so often write.
July 29, 2021
got a mirror handy?
July 29, 2021
-1
July 29, 2021
Indeed LL
July 29, 2021
Excellent points, Lifelogic. The problem is that the people who have been sold the CAGW doom religion will never admit they’re wrong, they’ll just move the goalposts. As happened with their diesel car fiasco.
July 29, 2021
<blockquotewhat does make sense and what is a saleable green policy?
TBH – it is impossible to answer that because we are starting from a position of very misguided logic, so many of us will argue that we are starting from an invalid point.
We expect to run low on energy this autumn as generating plants close down, which demonstrates the irrationality of the current approach – before reducing capacity we should have developed something that can really replace that energy creation we already have.
The current practice is to make sure the public get the message, very hard, and reduce their usage, if they can get any when it gets really cold!
We all want a nice clean planet, but knee jerk reactions are worse than useless…… FGS, it should be obvious to everyone that nature has worked for millions of years to provide us with fuels and precious resources that we can just take out of the ground — What an insult to this great Earth God to ‘leave it in the ground’.
We need to back track on Net-Zero, all the way…. Fix those models that have never worked, get science honest again, remove incentives for the already rich to get even richer off something that is not a problem, and take a fresh look at our world – It wasn’t created just for looking at, it was meant to be lived on to the fullest possible extent.
July 29, 2021
+1
July 29, 2021
USA reduced their carbon emissions and increased energy security greatly by promoting fracking. We should do the same instead of relying on electricity imports made from Russian gas and German coal and Canadian wood chips.
July 29, 2021
Yes, the burning of methane rather than coal roughly halves CO2 generation, so it is an important interim means of power production etc.
The pyrolytic conversion of methane to hydrogen first would reduce that to zero.
July 29, 2021
Hmm…
So no energy need to do the conversion process then , wonder where that comes from…[irony]
July 29, 2021
“…Methane pyrolysis is considered a suitable alternative technology for hydrogen production. Methane pyrolysis implies the thermal decomposition of methane to form hydrogen and solid carbon. From the thermodynamic point of view, the decomposition of methane is energetically much more economical than water electrolysis, i.e., only 37.5âkJ are necessary to produce 1âmol of H2, whereas 286âkJ per mol H2 are required in water electrolysis. Although methane pyrolysis is not â unlike water electrolysisâââan indefinitely sustainable process due to the use of a fossil raw material, this technology can be a timely alternative owing to the large amounts of natural gas reserves available.”
It’s around eight times cheaper in energy usage than electrolysis. If the hydrogen produced is also used to supply the heat, then up to a third of it may need to be used, but you’re still left with the lion’s share.
July 29, 2021
And using the methane directly, Martin, is even cheaper still – possibly as much as 10 times cheaper (domestic electricity is already about 6 times more expensive than domestic gas (methane)). Then there is the conversion costs from methane to hydrogen, including new plant, and the lower energy density costs, and the extra costs due to the difficulty of installing a hydrogen grid.
July 30, 2021
I’ve looked at pyrolysis of methane and I note that 1) it is only at the stage of lab research at the moment. 2) the estimated cost of a proper plant operation is still somewhat higher than steam reforming of methane, and that from the proponents – they are looking for a subsidy of the order of ÂŁ500/tonne. 3) there are no guarantees that scaling up will be easy, with considerable uncertainties admitted on a host of issues.
July 30, 2021
Yes Mark.
ICEs were pretty poor at first too – progress will come.
The beauty is that the residual carbon is in elemental solid form, not CO2.
Yes, Nick fly-tipping is cheaper for tradesmen than paying for the proper disposal of their waste too.
July 29, 2021
I think that people who try to skip all the strictures they have imposed on othersâŠlike pingpotty isolatingâŠ
are extremely selfish,
and illiberal,
and sneaky, and MEAN.
They should learn to put the public first!
July 29, 2021
I agree with your general direction but what is the government actually doing?
Sustainable and secure, scalable electricity generation has to be a core element of energy supply, but it won’t be cheap enough to cover UK winter heating needs.
I and a friend have been comparing notes on experiences with “greener” energy approaches – solar panels, immersion heater diverters, EV and air source heat pumps. The short answer is that ASHPs do not appear to be viable for UK winters without expensive supplementary heating, while the more effective GSHP installation is far too expensive as a general approach. Solar panels and diverters are good enough for average EV usage, house appliances and hot water but would not be generally sufficient for heating in the colder months even with reasonably well insulated homes.
I don’t see UK housing stock of all ages being converted to passivhaus standards and even double glazing and extensive insulation is likely too expensive for many. So you need to accept you can only get so far with reducing domestic properties and focus on the generation and supply side.
Short of finding some magical way to generate electricity very, very cheaply and while meeting the self -imposed restrictions, my suggestion is to explore the use of surplus electricity to generate hydrogen feedstock. Use that H2 along with captured CO2 for hydrocarbon production – gas for home heating and generator fuel, liquids for transport. Get this process close enough to net zero CO2 and you can extend if not retain the option for some ICE vehicles.
What is the UK research strategy, programme and funding to address our energy and resource needs? Is it more than that being wasted on HS2? What is the UK strategy on critical materials, which will need to include catalysts, metals etc to support our energy and industrial needs? Does the government even have a list yet?
Another side of the equation is to reduce general demand by stopping the import of unproductive migrants.
July 29, 2021
Your submission today suggests to me that there is no credible plan to detox the UK. Nothing that stands up to scientific scrutiny and is acceptable to the electorate who are expected to pay for it. All we get are soundbite pronouncements and no appended budget. Meanwhile industry, engineering and science are quietly getting on with possible solution that are marketable. The ill informed legislators will need to shift their stance in the face of growing public disbelief.
July 29, 2021
The government must start with State buildings as they come up for repair, renewal and replacement. The number of buildings that you can see lights on at night, floodlights on empty car parks, empty multi-storey car parks at night instead of reactive lights that only come on when a person walks past. Buildings that could have solar panels fitted south facing, replacement tiles rather than attached on to tiles.
We want the British to have control over our energy provision not foreign firms and other Countries.
Government make the savings show us how big the savings are at the local council offices for a start. Do all of these big old listed public buildings have secondary glazing and insulation? If not, why not if you all believe in this is the way forward and there are immediate savings?
July 29, 2021
a-tracy – – re the solar panels. It was suggested ages ago that with all the new houses and industrial units going up everywhere – the South facing roofs could have the panels fitted as standard – but then again it always needs someone to grab more money afterwards instead of forward thinking.
July 29, 2021
bigneil – I wonder just how successful solar panels are? Why aren’t they compulsory on blocks of apartments they’re building all over London, Birmingham and Manchester if they generate enough electricity to run the block?
It is just so tiring to listen to all this fiddling around the edges.
When the new tube line was built did they plan in the heat distribution system to power up local flats/offices nearby as they did on some of the old lines.
Someone putting a bit of loft insulation in isn’t the big solution to these problems. Everybody I know already has it and most have cavity wall insulation.
July 29, 2021
a-tracy
“I wonder just how successful solar panels are? Why arenât they compulsory on blocks of apartments theyâre building all over London, Birmingham and Manchester if they generate enough electricity to run the block?”
They do work, quite well. But only if you change your lifestyle to eliminate heavy current useage on domestic appliances.
If you can manage to do that, solar is quite successful at clobbering the monthly energy bills. I have a 700W set up and hardly pay any gas or electric. But I also have an AGA and a couple of log burners. Were it not for those then solar wouldn’t be worth it.
July 30, 2021
A lot depends on the feed in tariff you got. Since the government removed most of the subsidy in generous feed in tariffs new solar installations have ground to a halt. They no longer make financial sense in most cases. You need to be using power in the middle of the day in summer to have a hope of reasonable economics on a new installation, which needs to be favourably located. If you are out at work – forget it!
July 29, 2021
a-tracy
Local councils, mostly leftists, fleece the crap out of the people they’re supposed to serve, with council tax, bus lane, and cycle path scams to name but a few….which pays for their big fat civil service pensions. So as far as I’m concerned they should pay out of their own pocket for an extra layer of clothing. They neither need nor deserve heating in their offices.
July 29, 2021
SirJ you and the conservative party are working on the premise that you have to have a ârevolutionâ
A green revolution is staged to show and appease the green party and the world media that weâre doing somethingâŠwhat we need is the management of our built environment and not the social engineering of people, their views and their behaviour
Before we look at solutions we need to understand the problem/issue, the governments own BEIS report that UK co2 level is down to 1858 level and all air particle pollutants are down dramatically across the range to 1970 level â so the issue isnât co2 or air pollutionâŠ..maybe itâs the predicted 1.5 degree global temperature rise â well only half of scientists believe its man-made the other half believe its sun flares and planet life cycle
Realise that we the UK are not the problem, China, India and Russia is
So by all means create a managed âgreenâ environment to make thing cleaner, pretty and more efficient/sustainable for humans to live in
Build more nuclear power station â especially small modular
Dredge rivers and build up banks with its material
Manage our trees and tree planting nationally
Fund our council to clean up litter
Develop and allow coal fired powers with low emissions
Develop the use of âgrapheneâ material, products and filters
Above all stop banning things on a false premise
July 29, 2021
+10
Past and present governments have encouraged massive housing developments on flood plans, then fail to dredge the rivers. To protect the homes and those living in them, it is time to encourage the recommencement of river dredging, because we have, purportedly, left the EU.
Or are most politicians really that stupid, or do they just have a sadistic streak?
July 29, 2021
J Bush
The environMENTAL Agency does not agree with dredging as a solution, so you need to change their views as well as the Politicians.
It may be a simple solution to you and me, but they have had decades of indoctrination from the Greens and the EU suggesting that the spoil/silt you remove with dredging is toxic, and thus cannot be used to build up the river banking to prevent flooding as in decades past.
July 29, 2021
GC, +1
July 29, 2021
Off topic, I have a little letter:
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/letters/bring-in-penalties-to-deter-exports-from-northern-ireland-to-the-republic-of-ireland-which-evade-eu-standards-3327139
“Bring in penalties to deter exports from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland which evade EU standards”
“A lot has been said about the UK governmentâs proposals for revision of the Irish protocol, and on the kneejerk negative reaction, but there has been little comment on associated proposals which do not even need the agreement of the EU and the Irish Republic.
If the UK government is content to announce that âWe also stand ready to bring in new legislation to deter anyone in Northern Ireland looking to export to Ireland goods which do not meet EU standards or to evade these enforcement processesâ (paragraph 43) and âWe are also ready to put in place legislation to provide for penalties for UK traders seeking to place non-compliant goods on the EU marketâ (paragraph 62), then why not just go ahead and do that?
And then use that new UK law to underpin a system of export licences to regulate the carriage of goods out of Northern Ireland into the Irish Republic.
It may seem counter-intuitive to add to the burden of bureaucracy by introducing export licences, but they would only be needed by the relatively few individuals and companies who actually export goods across the land border â that trickle of goods which allegedly pose a deadly threat to the integrity of the huge EU single market â and once in place they would make redundant the present crazy system of EU checks and controls on all goods imported into Northern Ireland.”
July 29, 2021
Denis Cooper.. and just how do you think the Government us going to enforce non movement of goods from NI to the ROI with some 500 border crossings- not to mention farmyards outhouses and laneways one side or the other?
July 29, 2021
Why not ask Lord Frost? This is what he said in an internet discussion a couple of weeks ago:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/07/13/the-northern-ireland-protocol/#comment-1243376
“… you can in fact manage these legal differences, things that change when you move from one territory to another, without having processes at a border, they can be managed satisfactorily in other ways … ”
And that’s equally true whether you are not having processes at a single border crossing or at five hundred.
July 29, 2021
It always amuses me when remainers and SF-ers pretend to panic about the shape of the NI border.
Goods cannot be imported from the UK into NI and then sold in the RoI if they have no such excise permits as the UK scheme proposes. Small-scale local smuggling from NI into RoI is not prevented by the sea border, and it is up to the RoI to control or ignore their own small black market. Nor is can there be illegal border crossing, under the mututal RoI/UK provisions of the CTA.
As the EU says itself ‘The European Unionâs 6 000-kilometre-long land border between Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, the Russian Federation and EU Member States presents significant challenges for border control….[Yet] Member States reported only a few isolated breaches. In fact, most of the issues seem to concern small scale smuggling of excise goods. Along the Eastern land border, abuse of legal travel channels is more common than illegal border-crossing”.
They’ve rather given the game away there. So I think Brussels can stop pretending that a chicken or packet of cigarettes wandering across the road from Strabane to Lifford is going to unduly affect the economy of the EU .
July 29, 2021
mancunius as you must be aware SF-ers are just running down the clock demographics are taking over. The invisible border is there on land and on sea but only for a few more years.
July 30, 2021
The usual suspects have been parroting that for decades, and there is still no sign that the majority in NI want to be part of the RoI. They are too prosperous as part of the Union UK, and have too much to lose – a free health service, for a start. But – as in Scotland, where the opinion polling for independence is always more enthusiastic than the actual referendum vote – they know that pretending they might vote for union with the RoI is always a useful wheeze for extracting more money from the English taxpayer via the credulous Westminster parliament.
As to the RoI’s political establishment (whose view in the matter is not unimportant) they regard the prospect of taking on the responsibility for NI with the same unalloyed horror they did forty years ago.
July 30, 2021
Mancunius for a start the HSE is not free, not free because the people pay- then I have to say the people of the ROI know nothing about union with Scotland except maybe for at some future time under an EU umbrella then when the time comes for Irish unificiationI believe it will happen in a very natural way as I expect just like the falling of the Berlin wall
July 29, 2021
You keep missing the same point. The NIP is there to make sure non-standard goods do not enter the EU. You are saying we would not need a “system to make sure non-standard goods do not enter the EU” if only we had a “system to make sure non-standard goods do not enter the EU”.
You are telling us we would not need an NIP if only we had an NIP. We already have an NIP, so we don’t need to replace the NIP with an NIP.
We just have to get the EU to administer the existing NIP in a sane manner, and it looks very much as if they are finally getting that, because they have now suspended their legal action and offered to negotiate.
July 30, 2021
You are missing the point that there can be alternative systems to achieve the same end. Alternatives to the unacceptable system embodied in the present protocol were put forward before but were instantly rejected by the EU and the Irish government. The alternative system proposed here does not need their agreement and would work well enough even without their collaboration.
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/07/28/a-conservative-green-revolution/#comment-1247752
âOut would go any checks on goods brought into Northern Ireland from Great Britain. Instead checks would only take place on goods destined for the Republic of Ireland.â
July 30, 2021
I guess that you missed this previous reply to you:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/07/25/state-borrowing/#comment-1247071
July 29, 2021
Green should include steps to ensure no slurry can get into water courses -a very real problem currently.
Water Companies should be compelled to redouble efforts and budgets to tackle terrible waste of potable water leaking into streets etc.
Local Authorities should work to standardise equipment to process various waste items, including collection of spent batteries, paint cans, previously non-recyclable plastics and more.
Cars reaching end-of-life should be collected by arrangement and not fall into the hands of scrappers making a fast buck.
More Authorities should provide nearer locations for dealing with waste (Wokingham failing being a classic case in point) and establish compost production ideally in their borough – not miles away like Wokingham.
I’m sure people would appreciate a tidier, more environmently aware neighbourhood.
July 29, 2021
Agree. The river Severn has become very polluted from all the factory chicken farms along the route.
July 29, 2021
It’s trickier than just stopping slurry directly entering rivers etc. though this is a priority.
The problem is that even if muck is spread carefully on the land, when it breaks down in the soil it forms nitrates and phosphates which are soluble, and find their way into whatever river the catchment feeds.
In turn this causes algal blooms of green slime etc. and unbalances the river. The Wye is particularly badly affected in this way.
There needs to be some regulated scheme for the collection and processing of farm waste as there is for human waste.
July 29, 2021
And do you think that all that can be achieved by the private sector?
It would need more inspectors than there are people in the country to make sure that they all did what they were paid to do!
July 29, 2021
Are you suggesting the State doesn’t require audit and inspection?
July 30, 2021
Public sector employees do not benefit financially personally from breaking rules.
And consider this.
Cost of foot-and-mouth cleanup in the Netherlands, direct labour ÂŁ600 per farm.
Cost of foot-and-mouth cleanup in the UK, outsourced to private contractors ÂŁ100,000 per farm.
July 30, 2021
Do you not remember cases of Council staff that broke the law in areas of housing allocation, benefits, housing inspections, planning and benefited as a result?
PS
You have already been demolished on the reasons for the different relative costs of Foot and Mouth.
Try another irrelevant whataboutery subject.
July 30, 2021
Don’t be naive Martin.
3. Weâre finding more fraud in government â and thatâs a good thing. Sadly, fraud is a reality in any organisation, whether in the private or public sector.
source civilserviceblog.co.uk.
I could give you examples of public sector fraud but I don’t want to get moderated by John.
July 29, 2021
M T
The first thing Wokingham could do would be to scrap the need to fill in a form to book a timed place at the recycling tips.
It used to be run on a turn up and dump basis, now since the new booking system was introduced (under Covid Safety) the capacity of the Centre has been halved.
Likewise charging for some items of waste has been introduced in the last couple of years,
Fly tipping I believe has been reported as increasing, Clearly no connection between the two !!!!!!
It is if course all being dressed up as helping to get a more efficient operation at the plant than before !
Amazing, simply amazing.
Happy to give you more info if you need it JR, have already written to the Council and local Councillors to no avail, they all believe its more efficient, but like most things you have to use it to see it !
Check it out for yourself, and then tell me the present system is more efficient, with the site now only limited to about half its capacity for vehicles than before the system was introduced.
July 29, 2021
The trend towards more limited life products needs to be reversed somehow.
Buildings made to last 100 Yrs, vehicles 20, appliances 20, clothes 10.
This was possible in the past.
July 29, 2021
In a nutshell I believe that conservation (e.g. preventing drafts) will work since it unites the “green” requirement with the economic requirement.
The rest of it is politics/power grabbing (communism/socialism/Marxism by the back door) or people distorting the market to make a fast buck.
I believe that anything that requires “nudging” (e.g. propaganda) should not be trusted.
July 29, 2021
It seems strange that we need to divert recources to fight atmospheric warming in a country that is warming at a rate of 1/100 deg C per year, mainly in the winter season, and whose inhabitants need space heating to stay warm for the majority of the year.
July 29, 2021
The most promising solution to sustainable, reliable electrical power is probably the Rolls Royce modular nuclear station project.
It is entirely UK-designed and built and has huge export potential. The government should be diverting a large amount towards development and should throw in lots of foreign aid budget in as well as the system should be ideally suited to many third world countries.
A production line to build the modules could be functioning sooner than any new large power station project that has to go through our tortuous planning process !
July 29, 2021
Must be plenty of under-employed, high quality engineers at R/R currently given the lack of flights and demand for new aero engines or maintenance of them.
July 30, 2021
A big problem for RR is that its SMRs have to go through the ONR approvals process which is designed to frustrate all but the most determined nuclear projects. It’s how we’ve ended up with expensive, unproven, troublesome EPR technology for Hinkley Point.
July 29, 2021
Did you see the article on the nationalisation of Forgemasters in the Telegraph yesterday? It concludes:
The company also hopes to work on a new generation of mini nuclear reactors which are far cheaper to design and build than conventional powerplants.
Mr Bond said that the nuclear plants – known as small modular reactors – are similar to the devices used in submarines.
July 29, 2021
I saw that, and I think it was an editing botch. The chances of Forgemasters developing these are zero. I think that “the company” was RR.
July 29, 2021
Yes – “work on” probably means “make parts for” contingent upon someone else actually designing and assembling the device.
It’s probably just as well that the idea will peter out – the safety implications are horrifying beyond anything to do with fossil fuels.
July 29, 2021
They have proved very safe and reliable on submarines for decades MiC
What is your proof for saying the safety implications are horrifying?
July 30, 2021
Forgemasters have had to be nationalised because they were not internationally competitive thanks to high energy costs. They had become dependent on defence related business to survive. Coming to more businesses as energy costs rise under net zero.
July 29, 2021
The majority of the contributors have realised that the Marxist solution thatâs being proposed can only lead one way!
The abolition of Fracking in the US has resulted in them going from an Oil exporter to being dependent on some extremely unstable countries
People seem to miss the point that Oil plays an important part in the manufacturing process of several vital products, Pharmaceuticals and plastics amongst them, the fact that almost no MPâs are questioning this is deeply disturbing, the sight of an almost completely empty HoC with the few attendees masked is beyond comprehension
I donât think that Let Down adequately describes the situation, what is required is the reassertion the Old Normal which served us so well for so long?
July 29, 2021
+1
July 29, 2021
Given the record cold currently afflicting Australia and South Africa, the snow falling in Brazil, our cold spring, the sub zero temperatures recently experienced in Texas, one must question whether the world is warming at all.
Sure, I’ve cherry picked- but so do those promoting the idea of warming.
July 29, 2021
Energy efficiency and its pursuit and the drastic reduction of waste is to my mind should be the drivers. The idea that green zealots should be allowed such power and influence by government is dangerous and largely unworkable.
July 29, 2021
“net zero enthusiasts” Impractical fools who need to consider the arguments against it by real scientists. Reading “The Hockey Stick Illusion” by A.W. Montford would be a good start. There are (were?) presentations on YouTube by people such as Patrick Moore.
Surely it is time for a reasoned discussion rather than blind acceptance of the politics pushed by government?
July 29, 2021
Patrick Moore’s new book is excellent as is “Sustainable Energy Without Hot Air” free on the internet by David MacKay (A Cambridge Physicist/Engineer) he illustrates the huge practical, engineering and physical/economic constraints of low carbon energy generation.
July 29, 2021
And never forget the great man himself, ‘David Bellamy’ who taught thousands upon thousands of kids to enjoy our environment (sadly sacked by the BBC for his views on climate change)
July 29, 2021
Fixing draughts? Hang on Sir John – arenât you pointing out that one of the remedies to corona is better ventilation?
As Florence Nightingale pointed out.
So – underfloor heating and open windows. Quite the Roman.
July 29, 2021
+1
July 29, 2021
What about the project in cornwall, the eden hot rocks, should be up and running sometime next year and if works like in other countries will supply over 15% of the England electric when finished. One reason it may be kept off the radar is because big companies and gov don’t like it, it cheap to build and supply electric for nothing, not the way they do business.
July 30, 2021
I see no sign of plans to generate as much as that. The current project is in reality very small scale, and may actually generate more of a return from extracting lithium form the circulated brine from the deep aquifers it reaches that from generating electricity. It was accompanied by a lot of seismic activity that would have shut down shale gas drilling. Will that be popular when scaled up? If it’s acceptable, we might get back to more serious energy provision from our own shale gas.
Seismic activity at the United Downs project:
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/P5OE0/4/
July 29, 2021
Sir John – as you say the “It is not however a good idea to do so by coming to rely more and more on imports ”
Its even more concerning that the whole theory of todays and future UK Energy is based on off loading it to foreign a lot of it foreign State owned energy suppliers.
It would appear that nuclear for all its problems is part of the UK’s future, there is a big however in that. The UK thanks to Gordon Brown sold off our capacity to be an independent Nuclear energy provider – as there was no conceivable reason for its future. The UK is now paying Foreign State owned providers more than it achieved from the sale just to get back on track.
To many successive Governments have played to the audience in order to win the next election, before common sense and the common good of the country. In an item recently in the MsM it was reasoned the UK Government will give the French State run energy company more than its value just to keep us supplied with electricity – paying to be held hostage comes to mind.
This lack of foresight is played out regularly in all the areas the Government is charged with keeping us safe and secure. Each time it leads the taxpayer to pay twice over for the same, think of ARM, think of GPS out of Guildford now in the hands of the EU, think of the Chinese takeover of the UK’s largest chip maker in Wales(especially when the world is crawling to a halt due to shortages)
July 29, 2021
Being more self sufficient will work but energy costs will rise. We will simultaneously need to make Chinese imports more expensive in order to punish it for running a dirty economy. In order to comply with the spirit of WTO rules, we would also need to apply higher tariffs to imports from the USA, Poland and Germany, nations that also burn a lot of coal. This needs to be done gradually to enable our entrepreneurs and investors to use labour more efficiently, in order to counter cost increases.
July 29, 2021
Don’t you just love the ‘climate change levy’ – the tax that doesn’t help the environment
July 29, 2021
Strange. I don’t recall any of this ”green revolution” and ”zero carbon by 2030 (or whatever)” stuff in the Conservative Manifesto back in 2019. Has it been debated much over the past two years – you know, when our chosen representatives get together in Parliament and discuss things?
July 29, 2021
Boris & Co would say ââthe manifesto is more of a guidelineââ so it can evolve into anything until the next election when theyâll swear by it
July 29, 2021
You knew ‘The CABINET decides policy’ meant Carrie, or perhaps the last half-baked scientist he just met.
July 29, 2021
A big area of concern comes from the ‘Grand Standing’ and ‘Virtue Signalling’ every proposal coming from Government amounts to exporting jobs, exporting the UK’s future. The Government is not keeping the People safe and secure when all their focus is on ‘just’ moving the problems to elsewhere in the World.
The starting place for anything must be how all these replacement arrive in the market place. A great big chunk of the battery powered cars are made and delivered to our shores by some of the most polluting elements known to man. i.e. the Government is in the first instance creating greater World pollution than it solves in service – so desperate to be on message they don’t look at the consequences.
July 30, 2021
Nota#
Come on now, you must stop this logical thought process and thinking outside the box. You will confuse even more the confused congregation listening to aÄșl the sermons coming out of NO 10.
July 29, 2021
Sir John “especially now there are difficulties in replacing our old nuclear stations let alone expanding nuclear.”
I would suspect it isn’t really such a big deal, more the consequences of a weak Government that is to ready to ‘give’ taxpayers money away rather than invest it for a return. The Government is selling us down the river when they give out money to what ostensibly is foreign powers to provide our energy. They(their owners) in turn see this weakness and play the long political game as after all its politics to them not business.
All enterprises that require taxpayer subsidies should be first an foremost owned by the taxpayer, that does not mean a foreign taxpayer. Someone somewhere has to start taking responsibility and be held to account to ensure a re-investable return on all taxpayer funding.
July 29, 2021
Fully subsidised wind turbines by the taxpayer, fully owned by private energy company…..and all the benefit goes to the company shareholders
July 29, 2021
I’m a fan of watermelons. But not when they’re political policies and are green on the outside but red on the inside.
The Government is promoting extreme left-wing policies under the guise of environmentalism. It is all about CONTROL (again). Banning this; outlawing that; taxing; forcing unnecessary expenditure on private individuals to meet a collective outcome. And continual “nudging” (ie psychological techniques) to change behaviour, treating us like children.
The pathetic, patronising and quite frankly childish article Allegra Stratton wrote in the DT this week is a prime example. How on earth can a Government, which purports to be conservative, sanction such a ridiculous lecture on how to wash the dishes? Do they really not understand how they are alienating conservative voters with this lunacy?
The NetZero claptrap should be ditched. Nothing we do to reduce carbon emissions will make the slightest bit of difference to the global output of C02. The Government should instead focus on planting more trees (instead of ripping out ancient woods along the route of HS2); empowering individuals to improve the energy performance of their homes by scrapping VAT on insulation and solar panels/installation etc and (if they must) ramping up road tax on 4×4 cars, which have proliferated in the past 2 decades, to encourage drivers to switch to smaller vehicles.
July 29, 2021
Many good point here. Though to save CO2 best it is actually better to chop the mature ones down (then use to timber to build long term buildings or just bury it deep) and then grow new ones in their place. Though this might have political difficulties. Similarly you should bury all crop waste and not use it for energy or let it rot.
But we all know C02 is not really the huge problem they pretend it is.
July 30, 2021
Donna
Please stop bashing 4×4 owners. There are thousands of big cars out there and they are not four wheel drive. What about all the people towing caravans and trailers, also motor homes?
Last time I looked we have not yet sunk to the level of East Germany as was in that one type of car fits all. All these people with three kids or more need larger vehicles, people with physical disabilities need a bigger vehicle , easier to get in and out of and more comfortable for them to travel. Please do not take away ones freedom of choice with punitive taxation, every body has the right to a quality of life..Address the daily millions wasted by governments and the public sectors.
July 29, 2021
Gone With The Wind
Courtesy of Gridwatch, here is the contribution of wind power to total electricity demand from 1st April to 24th July:
25% of the time it met 5% or less of demand
48% of the time it met 10% or less of demand
66% of the time it met 15% or less of demand
79% of the time it met 20% or less of demand
Somebody above proposed “using surplus renewable wind farm energy at night” for pumped storage schemes. Based on the last 4 months there was precious little surplus and that was outweighed by a huge shortfall. People, including what laughingly passes for a Government, need to wake up and face the uncomfortable negative facts about renewable energy.
July 29, 2021
Wind turbine 100% funded by UK taxpayer and 100% supported by every MP
July 29, 2021
Not quite every single MP but almost. But then almost no MPs have any understanding of science, engineering, energy or energy economics.
July 29, 2021
Indeed.
July 30, 2021
2021 has been a particularly bad year for wind. Despite some extra capacity, wind generation was down 20% in Q1 2021 over 2020. It would have taken 550 Dinorwigs to store the missing energy. Supply has been very tight at times, and the Continent came close to a widespread blackout on 8th January, suffering significant grid disruption. With closures of dispatchable plants (nuclear, coal, even some gas) next winter is going to be very tight if the weather is at all unkind (continued low wind, lower temperatures), with soaring prices and risk of blackouts.
As wind capacity increases so will the risk of not having enough dispatchable capacity, including in Europe, meaning that we may not get all we hope for delivered over the various interconnectors. This is the fundamental problem behind the major blackout stories from California and Texas we’ve heard this year. On the other hand, when the wind does blow, we will get larger surpluses. Already we have been seeing exports at negative prices (in 2020 when demand was low because of lockdowns and when the wind was stronger), subsidised by UK bill payers.
July 29, 2021
Since “climate change” is a religion perhaps we ought to say that Covid is a sign sent to us to show us that Modelling is not Science.
St Neil of Ferguson has shown us that many times over the last few decades.
July 29, 2021
My wet finger in the air facing the breeze is more accurate.
July 29, 2021
Indeed and JCVI/Zahawi/Hancock/PHE even failed to get the vaccination adjusted for gender risks. This almost certainly resulted in well over 1000 extra deaths and almost as many new widows and wasted many ÂŁmillions too.
July 29, 2021
There cannot be many homes left that do not have basic insulation, i.e loft, cavity walls and double glazing.
To go any further than that requires much investment and also involves the infamous *cladding*.
There are thousands of people having their lives ruined by unsafe cladding which, four years on from Grenfell, is still in place and people who bought flats in good faith are expected to pay for its replacement.
July 29, 2021
The cost of removing and or replacing the cladding in building terms is not that high. The problem is all the lawyers, managing agents, the gov. red tape and many other middle men who get between the leaseholders and some builders to cream money off. Often pushing the costs up more than ten fold.
After all what does it actually cost to remove a few sq. metres of cladding from a flat’s outer walls? About a man day of work per flat max plus the scaffolding.
July 30, 2021
LL
As it always was, will it remain.
The minute government or local authorities start sourcing to do projects the costs escalate as you quite rightly say. Same in the private sector. If its an insurance work the price goes up.
How many taxpayers fund projects have ever come in under budget?
July 29, 2021
After President Macron’s legislation of a few days ago to make the French vaccine prisoners, they have just sprayed his residence, the Elysian Palace, with manure. I suspect this is not about going green. Could it be they have no faith in their rulers?
July 29, 2021
You get the odd loopy farmer anywhere.
Remember what happened to that council here?
July 29, 2021
You get the odd loopy Labour supporter everywhere, too. Funny how that works.
July 29, 2021
” More help to exclude draughts, include better standards of insulation and ensure hot water systems are well protected” – oh dear!
This has already been tried, via the grants system, and those who personally benefit are residential houseowners who could probably afford the costs themselves by remortgaging. In cities, most people live in flats, and their landlords – who would see no personal benefit – are uninterested in lowering their profits by installing new windows and wall cavities. Their tenants’ energy costs are a matter of supreme indifference to them, as rent values and rentability take no account of insulation. What puts money in the landlords’ pockets is a shortage of accommodation, effectively guaranteed by the influx of newcomers welcomed in by the Major, Blair, Brown and subsequent Conservative governments.
Given the irremediably poor insulation and creeping damp of older buildings (particularly since the removal of their coal fire chimney convection) and the almost equally poor insulation of new-builds constructed by builders for maximum profit and minimum outlay, it would be cheaper to invite the Luftwaffe to have another go, and insist this time that German builders and architects are also engaged to rebuild Britain’s housing. They did a much better job of insulation in Germany than our lot did here.
July 29, 2021
The out of step inequality of the UK tax punishment system. Is those that can afford something are financed by those that can’t. The latest mumblings is that more battery car charging points should be funded by the general taxpayer. Just as those able to afford these shiny new battery cars are subsidised by the general taxpayer.
The Government keeps digging holes. There is a concept that you should just get something âŠ.. because.
Its like the irony of those jetting of on holiday and everyone else gets punished for their extra CO2 production and when they bring the new virus in everyone gets to batten down once more.
July 29, 2021
Like so much of the UK getting to the top of the “Zero Carbon here” chart is we just take the generated energy and leave the CO2 in another country. The Greens and all politicians that jump on this supposed vote catcher can tick a box at our expense. The Government has spent more time explaining and justifying why we should get vaccinated with daily broadcasts, charts, professors and scientists making presentations. It is a bit suspicious that they can’t present evidence to the voter in a similar way to justify the mad expensive dash to go CO2 generation free. The focus on zero carbon emission is a distraction from all the other ways the environment is being destroyed. But there is no money to be made in stopping environmental damage but a lot in going green and throwing out these cheap and efficient CO2 generators before there time is up. Hydrogen is a better fuel for vehicles than electricity but not a lot of investment here unlike China.
July 29, 2021
In the world of housing development, there is only one criterion for a successful project: Location Location Location.
In the world of energy utilities to provide efficient, effective, reliable, cost-effective services 24/7 is : Generation, Transmission, Distribution.
This country is heading on a lemming-like charge toward a 100% all-electric economy and the three essentials to even begin to provide it, are not in place.
The high majority of politicians are peeing before they have their flies open with their headlong charge to Plan Net-Zero. The Chancellor it has been reported takes a deep breath when figures of over a trillion pounds are being banded about. Who has commissioned the engineers and scientists to produce actual figures so for once the government can be totally honest with the nation and tell them “this is the cost” They will not because the first party to do so will be totally wiped out at the next election? All this uncertainty is playing into the hands of the financial powerhouses and it is them that will dictate the eventual outcomes.
Why is this country so riddled with the belief that we have to lead the world and be in the vanguard of everything? Start putting the brakes on, it is the sun, not politicians and financiers that control the world’s climate. Let science and engineers come up with the tools to help. Rolls Royce has small nuclear generators that could be spread around the country reducing the transmission lines and reliance of power from other countries until such time as nuclear fusion takes it place.
The government has got to be totally honest with the electorate, everything comes at a price, all we are concerned about is how much, not the jackanory figures from people who are not qualified to comment other than give iffy assumptions.
July 29, 2021
Electrical Generation.
In Britain there is to my knowledge little use made of the Moons gravitation effect on the seas that surround our coast to generate electrical power.
Rye Harbour sea bird nature reserve on the South East coast of Kent has a sea wall surrounding it with 1.2 metre diameter tunnels inserted into the wall to allow the reserve to fill slowly.
Mr Redwood if you in your busy life could spare some time to view the incoming tides force through these small tunnels set into the reserve wall you will be aware of the gravitational pull of the moon and the free power that is NOT being used to generate electricity, albeit only for a few hours twice a day, but its free, the nature reserve in question is but a small laboratory, however the evidence is there to witness and calculate the imposed tidal forces that may be used for a larger scale model(s) for the country’s needs.
July 30, 2021
All energy sources are free. The only issue is how much does it cost to harness them in useful ways, and how useful are they in practice. Tidal is expensive to harness, and comes with problems of intermittency. I provided more detail above looking at the Severn Barrage.
July 30, 2021
He does have to go far to see the power of the tides, he just has to look out from the Houses of Parliament to see the eb and flo of the river Thames. The problem is, storing that energy as we cannot wait for the next tide to come in or out.
July 30, 2021
Mark–RE Electrical Generation.
Good Morning Mark. Thank you for your information and comments regarding the River Seven and Thames, my thoughts are more related to a lagoon type of water storage, where the tide can be prevented by a barrier from entering and exiting the lagoon in a controlled manner, thus harnessing and extending the period of the immense forces imposed by the incoming tide and holding back the weight and lunar pull of the water when the tide has returned.
There are many inlets around the British coast where a small dam can be made, using these inlets it would not effect the many rivers that Britain has or the traffic that they are subject to.
Do you think that there is any mileage in investigating these thoughts for producing electrical power?
July 30, 2021
The only differences between a lagoon and and estuarial barrage is that the latter has a river flowing into it, while the former requires vastly more investment in barrage, as you don’t have the natural advantage of the estuary’s banks. Compare the Swansea Bay project, which was designed for 11.5km of enclosing barrage with the La Rance project in France, producing much the same energy output (largely determined by the tidal range and the enclosed area) with just 1km across the river, much of which housed the turbines and sluices and a lock, and carried a 4 lane bridge offering a short cut between Dinard and St Malo that saves drivers a lengthy diversion upstream to the next bridge – itself offering a big energy saving. Barrages have a triangular cross section to cope with wave action, and therefore the cost increases with the square of water depth as well as length. River flow also reduces (by scouring), but does not eliminate problems with silting, though silt can also be brought down in the river water, depending on the geology it flows through.
Certainly none of the larger lagoon projects has shown signs of economic viability. The potential of smaller sites it limited: you need to enclose a big area to generate much energy. At La Rance, it’s about 22 sq km, and they produce about 600GWh per year, or an average of about 70MW (peak is 240MW) – about the same as the take off power of a twin engine jet.
July 31, 2021
Mark.
Thank you for the information.
July 30, 2021
If only it were free.
It currently costs huge sums to harness wave and tidal power.
Salt water has a rapid degrading effect on the machinery and so asset costs plus maintenance costs are huge.
July 29, 2021
I have recently been assisting a disabled friend who has a 19th century cottage which is grade 2 listed.
It has very poor insulation and single glazed windows and the gas boiler has to work very hard to heat it in winter.
Yet, we have just been refused planning permission to fit it with any form of double glazing and to replace the roof with a new one which would be a few inches higher to enable it to have proper insulation beneath. This would be necessary to avoid reducing the ceiling heights to a level which even a person of average height would have to crouch. The only way to insulate the solid walls would be to clad the outside. The garden is too small to allow a heat pump and I am certain that permission for either would be refused.
A neighbour has just been threatened with legal action because modifications to a garden wall to create a wider entrance and which had been approved, were done with a modern angle grinder rather than an old fashioned hammer and cold chisel !
What is the solution to the thousands of houses like this one ? If the authorities will not allow them to be modernised, should they be demolished and replaced ?
July 29, 2021
Whatever we do in our country, if we fail to control China, it is a case of fiddling while Rome burns.
July 30, 2021
I did note that India pointedly did not join Alok Sharma’s recent COP26 pre-meeting. He seems now to be berating the US for trying to stop the use of Uighur slaves to make solar panels. Clearly the Chinese have got to him. I have a feeling he ought to be counting his fingers.
July 29, 2021
JR
Excellent article Sir, though I fear you believe the damage Boris Johnson is doing to this country can be remedied with words and parliamentary process. You are wrong.
Time is up Sir. He has to go, and he should take Ms Patel with him, and preferably eat and digest the climate act, NI protocol and WA on the way out.
We’ve had enough of this foreign-serving shyster and his crackpot ideas on how this country should be run.
July 30, 2021
There is no feasible, affordable route to net zero by 2050. That means that globally, there will not be much change in emissions of CO2, and that the climate will change as it is going to anyway. We are currently planning to shoot our bolt by spending huge amounts on technologies that make things more expensive, which will have serious economic consequences, especially since we already have a massive debt burden. Will we have enough in the locker to be able to handle what climate change throws at us?
We need to change course in favour of cheaper energy, and creating an internationally competitive economy. It would make sense to look more seriously at low cost nuclear – but not to force the pace for the sake of it. Much more important is to halt the slide into a dystopia where we are poor, cold and hungry.
July 30, 2021
Saw Allegra Stratton interviewed on NewsNight last night , it is scary to find our Government has been hijacked by climate change zealots for whom nothing else than complete obedience to their religion is to be tolerated, individual choice is nothing less than a heresy.
July 30, 2021
I agree Ian
Its noticeable that most, like Alegra, have no real scientific or climate education but have a propensity to believe everything they are told by others.
July 30, 2021
We will see what happens WHEN the blackouts start.
July 30, 2021
Would be good to see – say eight older houses converted to the new utopian standard – complete with heat pump ,solar panels and super duper insulation.
This would be a project given full publicity with all data and costs being available -could be covered on TV.
The houses would be in different locations throughout the UK.
I would choose Braemar for the Scottish one . (coldest day in UK for 26 years was recorded in Braemar in February this year at -22.9C .
There must be a quango capable of being tasked with this or councils with engineers and architects who can do. In view of the significance of this stuff it needs to be done -pronto -to demonstrate how good it all is -or not.
It is so important that money must be diverted from a less important project.
Perhaps something like this is already being done . Anyway your blog above raises my spirits as you clearly grasp what is at stake and self sufficiency in electric power is an absolute must.Thankyou for your efforts Sir
JR.