AR5 (Absolutely Ridiculous 5) is yet another fantasy that could well have been drafted by some rogue climate alarmist programmed AI bot
The nations energy used to be part of a real time, 25 year plan, that was constantly reviewed and updated by the then, professionally competent CEGB
Now, our energy systems, including its regulator, are hostage to left wing, ideological entities, who really should be let no where near a nations energy system
When the whole thing collapses into utter chaos, as it will on its current trajectory, I can only hope those who steered us to the cliff edge, are held in serious contempt and accountability
I see the Irish have just had a rather less successful auction for onshore wind and solar. Just 3 wind projects totalling 148MW were awarded averaging €100.47 (£86.98) per MWh in current money. Solar washed out because of failings in auction parameters that echo the AR5 problems. More hard facts about real costs have to be faced.
CfD is nothing more than speculative trading. It should never have been considered in the first instance as no one can guarantee when the wind blows or not.
It's a rich mans game as the middle class & poor. do not have the means or desire to participate, yet are penalised by this political scam.
Devastating take down David. It must be a very difficult time for the green energy facists. Laid out in the way with trends against targets it shows how unachievable targets are. @IntermittentNRG has posted an interesting graphic of the energy generated by wind across the whole of Europe since 2001 and it's DECLINING. Could the trace gas CO2 be responsible for declining wind as well as every other climate catastrophe?😉
Here's a mouseover map of the AR5 successful bids. The different technologies are highlighted by colour, while the size of the circles relates to the likely output from each project. Mouseover details include the name and company, planned start up timeframe, nominal capacity, likely output using realistic capacity factors (not the absurd assumptions made by DESNZ in setting the auction parameters), the strike price in 2012 money, and indexed to 2023.
The UK was forced by the EU to build the worst, poorly designed, expensive GenIII NPP on the planet, the French EPR. Britain could have done like Finland did, fed up with the expensive French EPR, they opted for the Russian VVER-1200 with a guaranteed price of GBP44.5 or 50 Euros per MWh, quite a bit cheaper than offshore wind in a Apples (nuclear) to Rotten Oranges (wind) comparison. And the Korean APR-1400 at half the price of the EPR is now approved for Europe. The UAE completed 5.6GWe of APR-1400's in 8yrs @ $24B, far cheaper than wind or solar even neglecting the terrible problems with intermittent, unreliable, seasonal wind/solar. That's starting from scratch with ZERO nuclear expertise or even much of an industrial infrastructure. According to British politicians, the UAE residents must be much more talented than British citizens.
And even EPR costs would shrink dramatically if publicly financed at <1% interest instead being forced by an EU Decree to be privately financed at ~10% interest. Funny the EU unelected dictatorship has no problem financing bombs & missiles to kill poor Libyans, Syrians, Iranians, Afghani's, Iraqis, Russians and Yemenis @ <1% interest but demands NPP's are privately financed. Yep, they care about climate change.
The super-safe, meltdown proof Moltex molten salt reactor was developed in Britain. Platt's Energy, did the full cost projection analysis for electricity from the Moltex reactors and determined it would be the cheapest electricity source in Britain, cheaper than gas, conventional coal, wind or solar. While being a 24/7, night/day, summer/winter, windy/calm electricity source. And can provide electricity storage for $50/kwe by adding an extra molten salt loop & tank running a standard off-the-shelf CCGT steam turbine. That's cheaper and more environmentally friendly than any form of storage tech currently available.
And with a capability to burn nuclear waste supplying all of Britain's energy needs for hundreds of years, with zero emissions. The British gov't refused to allow them to be built in Britain, forcing them to move to Canada. This is while claiming they have an SMR program, lying through their teeth. Obviously British politicians are owned by the Club-Of-Rome Malthusian Bankster Psychopaths, which are also behind the promoting and building wind farms in Britain.
My view is one of the best reactor being developed is the Molten Chloride Fast Reactor. It's designed to run on spent nuclear fuel, which the UK claims it wants to get rid of. It could supply all of Britain's energy needs for the next 75yrs just running on Britain's current store of spent nuclear fuel. With a 600-1000degC operating temperature, it can supply high grade process heat as well as electricity. And molten salt heat storage to cover the peak daily electricity demand. High level waste from that reactor, that is not valuable isotopes, would amount to about 0.1 oz per person in Britain over their entire 75yr lifespan. Easy to dispose of that in a borehole.
its utterly depressing that we built Magnox and AGRs off our own back and now we are beholden to the French for an inferior costly design that is yet to prove itself anywhere across the globe. More than anything our failure to invest nuclear will be why we can never achieve net zero let alone have a reliable supply of leccy.
Its unrealistic to expect any immediate change now too much is invested by politicians here but it could well be an inflexion point that at least acknowledges there needs to be a recalibration of the plainly impossible 2030 50GW off shore wind and 2035 decarbonised grid goals. These two targets are also driving the FSO to plan a new grid system that will cost 10's billions to build out (and most of the kit wont even be British unlike the 50/60's when we were self sufficient in manufacturing electrical power kit) the cost of which gets loading onto bills through TNUoS. The other thing of note here is booking the heavy lift vessels has to be done years in advance and with other countries jumping on the offshore wind band waggon now finding slots for later this decade could become very limited if we don't commit now. Also im not sure Inch Cape 1 wf (1GW) is going anywhere fast at the moment as construction work hasn't started albeit partners have been selected. Then you have AR3 project Muaitheabhal Wind Farm 189MW construction not started was due online by 2024. The only stuff with semi reliable build dates is solar which im fine with on roofs of warehouse and other large buildings but not on farming land we can't feed ourselves now and the climate evangelists should be more concerned about that but aren't.
My take is the Tories are beginning to wake up and see some opportunity here to row back, Labour have to be careful as any move to say it needs more money will undermine their "cost of living" mantra so not sure eco Ed actually represents their policy, Liberals and Greens are not interested in cost. Fundamentally though people have been brainwashed for decades particularly the younger generation who have heard no other messaging and they are tomorrows voters. So its going to be a tricky path to navigate and unfortunately until people see up close through a major blackout or cost of importing gas so it affects them directly i fear its going to be a long slog now.
Regarding the younger generation, it's interesting that in one of the polls to which I referred in my initial comment here, the view of 55% of respondents that net zero policies should only be introduced if they didn't result in additional costs for ordinary people was shared by 53% of people in the 18-24 age range. Perhaps not so brainwashed after all.
Yet another example supporting my comment elsewhere about serious short-term obstacles to the implementation of net zero. It's not going to happen because it's unachievable - whatever the Climate Change Act may say: the courts cannot overturn practical reality. This isn't a long-term issue: as is obvious from David's valuable article, these obstacles are emerging now. And there'll be more.
There is a lot of confusion here of people who conflate Scientific Net Zero, with a definition of overall zero net GHG emissions with Net Zero, The Political Action Plan, which is just another Carbon Trading scam, like its totally failed Cap n' Trade scam of a plan. A giant, devious, wealth transfer plan for the uber-wealthy. And a greenwashing charade, almost entirely worthless:
EXPOSED: The Biggest Green SCAM In ESG | Breaking Points, Krystal breaks down the corporate scam of ESG and carbon offset programs in the USA:
And they are lying about Biomass emissions. Biomass burning is the most environmentally destructive of all energy sources, 1400 gms CO2/kwh, Supercritical coal is 900 gms CO2/kwh and costs 3X less. But the liars in the British gov't declare biomass "carbon neutral". Probably >80% of the British gov't "Net Zero" programs have little to none benefit for climate. Many are worse than zero.
And you can't give intermittent, low EROI, Wind & Solar a 100% credit for avoided CO2 emissions, as they do. It is very dubious it saves ANY emissions. The grid just doesn't work that way.
If they REALLY cared about emissions (hint: they don't), they would institute the Revenue Neutral Carbon Fee & Dividend. The CF&D penalizes the energy hog rich and rewards the energy frugal middle class & poor. While carbon trading grants government guaranteed giant profits for the wealthy. Really just another devious wealth transfer scheme from the Middle Class to the Rich. Very important, that you must also eliminate all the preferential subsidies, mandates and exemptions given to the political favorites wind & solar. They are favorites because they cost $trillions but do zip to reduce fossil consumption, apart from causing energy poverty --> reduced emissions
Good article and confirms that onshore wind is a myth in England Tories know that but a subtle change keeps the eco wing of the party happy.
Like this in the article "including the giant 3.6GW Dogger Bank development. This will be the largest offshore wind farm in the world covering several hundred square miles, an area roughly equivalent to Greater London, and able to power 6m homes" but should say WHEN THE WIND IS BLOWING but when it isn't we will need 3.6GW of fossil fuel or will the eco lot be prepared to go on a tariff that switches them off when its not. Of course not.
The idea that it’s necessary to have a STEM degree to understand the absurdity of where we are today is, I believe, incorrect. I took a law degree and qualified as a barrister and have had no technical training – yet I have no difficulty in understanding the problem. It’s time for the Government, and especially Claire Coutinho, to listen to people who can understand simple facts (such as those set out above) and apply basic logic to determining the inevitable outcome of such facts. All is not lost. Recent opinion polls have shown clearly that the majority ordinary voters – people who accept the need for emission cuts (hardly surprising in view of wall-to-wall propaganda) – will refuse to have anything to do with net zero policies that worsen their struggle with the cost of living. If key Tory politicians were to get a handle on reality and act accordingly – explaining that net zero is an impossible dream, that energy costs can be minimised and that Labour are eco fanatics – I believe they could change the political landscape.
I would agree if we lived in a rational world. But the CCA is enshrined in law and as I understand it, the Government has to sign up to achieve the CCA climate budgets. If they resile from those budgets, they end up getting taken to court by the various eco-zealots, like in the link below. I think the only way forward would be to repeal the CCA. But we probably need blackouts to occur before any party tries to do it.
That's an interesting point David but times are changing - radically. As you've shown comprehensively in the above article, net zero is simply not possible. And that's so for other reasons as well - not least the UK's hopelessly inadequate skilled workforce. If the High Court were faced with a defendant who was able to demonstrate that it's not possible to reduce emissions sufficiently to meet carbon budgets, it would I believe have to take a different position from that of 2022. No court in the UK would require a defendant to do something that's been shown to be impossible.
A good understanding of law is actually very important in dealing with net zero. The legislation, regulations and contracts are mostly written in a highly tortuous fashion, making use of sheer quantity, obfuscation, cross referencing and defined terms that don't quite mean what the innocent think they mean.
I've always found that good lawyers with the mental agility to negotiate all that can easily master a client brief from a good STEM educated person. The best engineers and commercial people will have a reasonable understanding of law as an essential component of their knowledge and ability to communicate.
Before the making of the laws came the science which supposedly justified the laws. The politicians and lawyers made the laws but few understood the science. Then when the laws were made, they necessitated the engineering science and technology which hardly any of the politicians understand, though they enthusiastically enhance and support the laws which they helped bring into being. What is even more astounding is that many of the engineers themselves don't even understand the complex technical challenges presented by the engineering necessary to get to the legally binding Net Zero target - which is in fact, technically unachievable in the time frame presented! The Monty Python team could not have written a better script.
Sorry, I did not mean to denigrate all those without STEM degrees. Of course there are people like you who don't need on to understand the problem. My frustration arises from most of those in Government and lobbyist land having English, Classics or History degrees and not understanding basic concepts of energy. Last year some Parliamentarians took the Maths SATS test aimed at 11-year olds and more than half failed. I covered that here:
National Grid should not need any of this explaining to them. The dumbing down of our once great power systems engineering industry is a tragedy since the break- up of the CEGB. What of the IET, the silence is defeaning.
The time to change course IS now. That will necessarily mean repealing May's 2019 Net Zero statutory instrument target, preferably amending or repealing the climate Change Act 2008 - BEFORE the next election. It's not going to happen. The present government is going to keep going with the renewables fantasy, hand over power to Labour in a year or so's time who will then double down on the renewables fantasy with mad eco zealot Ed Miliband at the helm and fifth columnist Starmer in overall control, reporting directly to the WEF. Result: total economic destruction and social disintegration of UK PLC. The fake Conservatives are not going to save us in the few hours we have left before midnight.
This a position of utter despair: you say the UK is doomed to total economic destruction and social disintegration and there’s nothing we can do about it because it’s precisely the outcome our leaders have always intended. I refuse to believe it.
I outlined a practical way forward in my initial comment. But, in any case, there are serious short-term obstacles to the implementation of net zero – not least the reality that we haven’t got nearly enough technical managers, engineers, electricians, plumbers, mechanics and other tradespeople (probably about a million) to do the many tasks that are needed to achieve it.
It's a position I take based on observation of the facts. The climate change act and the statutory instrument bolt on Net Zero target is not going to be repealed, before the election and certainly not after if (when) Labour get in. Thus, the UK is, for the foreseeable future, legally committed to a decarbonisation target which is unattainable, the pursuit of which will decimate the British economy and probably wreck civil society in the process. It WILL be pursued (1) because it is illegal not to and (2) because it is what the vast majority of MPs elected to Parliament actually want - be that because they are deluded, incompetent, thick as mince, or financially compromised. Barring mass riots and/or mass non-compliance with Green 'rules', I don't see any positive path ahead.
I'm sorry Jaime, but I don't believe - as it seems you do - that our 'leaders' actually want 'total economic destruction and social disintegration of UK PLC'. There's very little time left before the general election and curiously I see that as an advantage: were the Tories to wake up to reality (and, although they've got themselves into a ghastly muddle about net zero, they're not entirely stupid) they could for example simply say that of course they support the policy but they have no intention of moving more quickly towards its implementation than major economies such as China, the USA, India, Japan and Germany. No need to repeal the target or the CCA - and it provides space to try to do something about for example the skills shortage.
China and India are INCREASING CO2 emissions, substantially as you know, in fact so substantially that they account for the vast majority of the increase in global emissions. If we were to 'follow the lead' of these countries by moving 'no more quickly' to reduce emissions than they are, then we would be opening up more coal mines, giving the go-ahead for national fracking, drilling for oil like there was no tomorrow and stopping any expansion of renewables projects immediately! So any talk by Tory MPs of doing so is just pie-in-the-sky. Also, you really can't lump Germany in with China or India because they are pursuing Net Zero just as fervently, if not more so, than the UK, to the detriment of their once supremely successful manufacturing economy. ZERO real progress will be achieved on winding back Green madness until - at the very least - the Net Zero statutory instrument 'legacy' of Mrs May's failed premiership is annihilated by the Party which brought it into being. I think that will more likely result in the annihilation of the Party, so entrenched are the Green eco-zealots now within the fake Conservatives.
Sep 10, 2023·edited Sep 10, 2023Liked by David Turver
I'm sorry Jaime but you've missed my point. I didn't say we should follow major economies but that we should move towards net zero no more quickly than them. Very different. I'm thinking of the ordinary voter who will determine the outcome of the election. If the Tories were to tell them that they haven't given up on net zero (thereby avoiding pre-election controversy) but don't plan to move towards its implementation any more quickly than other major economies, that would I believe seem logical and sensible - especially if it were linked to an observation that Labour are dangerous eco-fanatics.
No Robin, it was me that said 'follow the lead' of other countries which was a natural interpretation of your comment that Tory MPs would look to other countries like China and India and decide that the UK would move to implementation of net zero 'no quicker than' those countries. So effectively, we would be gauging our own climate mitigation policies according to what they were doing (in the case of China and India, actually significantly increasing their GHG emissions). You must realise that this is nonsensical, because if Tory politicians did commit to that, then it would mean totally abandoning our net zero goals for the foreseeable future and re-investing in the fossil fuel economy. That's not going to happen but more to the point, even a meaningful slowdown in the catastrophic 'progress' towards net zero is not going to happen unless and until the legally binding net zero target is abandoned.
PS you can edit comments by clicking on the three dots by the comment. Much better than Wordpress!
Hang on Labour have rowed right back on spending on net zero and anything they do now affects the cost of living so i expect them to be cautionary and say UK has gone along way already compared to many other countries to slow things down. Starmer should have moved eco Ed onto the back benches last week hes a maverick and will be off message as hes only interested in competing with his brother to get some UN job.
Spot on. Rationalists have wasted years trying in vain to educate our politicians away from building an unworkable national energy system without ever twigging that destruction was the deliberate plan. Our leaders know exactly what they are doing. Net Zero is an anti-humanity plan to impoverish, deindustrialise and ultimately depopulate, see https://metatron.substack.com/p/my-heretical-epitaph?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2.
Labour had a plan.... back in their 2003 White Paper. It called for diversity of supply sources, both by technology and through competitive international markets that they would seek to bolster (it recognised that we were not going to continueto be self sufficient in gas and oil and dependence on too few sources would be a strategic error); no interference in the energy mix, and reliance on markets to provide. Obviously drafted by a Thatcherite civil servant, and surrounded by chapters on the nascent climate issues, but with quite low targets for renewables.
They were concerned about the costs of nuclear, which was finding it hard to compete against very cheap gas, and where decommissioning costs were starting to loom large. Wrong guesses they made: tidal and wave energy were supposed to become large scale and competitive; fusion research would be on the threshold of a breakthrough by 2020.
I plan to be in touch with Prof Mike Waterston with comments and extensions to CFD wind farms, and the future with excess wind capacity and implications for interconnectors (if we ever build it of course!) based on work I have already done. His conclusions are very interesting - gaming both the volumes and the prices.
AR5 (Absolutely Ridiculous 5) is yet another fantasy that could well have been drafted by some rogue climate alarmist programmed AI bot
The nations energy used to be part of a real time, 25 year plan, that was constantly reviewed and updated by the then, professionally competent CEGB
Now, our energy systems, including its regulator, are hostage to left wing, ideological entities, who really should be let no where near a nations energy system
When the whole thing collapses into utter chaos, as it will on its current trajectory, I can only hope those who steered us to the cliff edge, are held in serious contempt and accountability
I see the Irish have just had a rather less successful auction for onshore wind and solar. Just 3 wind projects totalling 148MW were awarded averaging €100.47 (£86.98) per MWh in current money. Solar washed out because of failings in auction parameters that echo the AR5 problems. More hard facts about real costs have to be faced.
https://www.current-news.co.uk/systematic-failures-limit-ress-onshore-wind-success/
CfD is nothing more than speculative trading. It should never have been considered in the first instance as no one can guarantee when the wind blows or not.
It's a rich mans game as the middle class & poor. do not have the means or desire to participate, yet are penalised by this political scam.
Another racket IMO.
Devastating take down David. It must be a very difficult time for the green energy facists. Laid out in the way with trends against targets it shows how unachievable targets are. @IntermittentNRG has posted an interesting graphic of the energy generated by wind across the whole of Europe since 2001 and it's DECLINING. Could the trace gas CO2 be responsible for declining wind as well as every other climate catastrophe?😉
https://twitter.com/IntermittentNRG/status/1701098242119795063?t=95dGJaJNPo7o_47Yfy730Q&s=19
Here's a mouseover map of the AR5 successful bids. The different technologies are highlighted by colour, while the size of the circles relates to the likely output from each project. Mouseover details include the name and company, planned start up timeframe, nominal capacity, likely output using realistic capacity factors (not the absurd assumptions made by DESNZ in setting the auction parameters), the strike price in 2012 money, and indexed to 2023.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/N76ms/1/
Even if the contracts are signed, there is a small matter of finding a supplier that's likely to be in business next month.
Then there's the backlog of planning permission for the hookups...
A timely little tweet from Ben Pile: https://twitter.com/clim8resistance/status/1700604774750511241?t=jP-t9HnlOJECxiJLq2MFGA&s=19.
A timely blasting of Net Zero from Net Zero Watch (GWPF): https://mailchi.mp/thegwpf/lord-king-net-zero-obsession-is-fuelling-inflation-198515?e=69a42f046a.
A timely exposure of the plans of the unelected, unaccountable UN for world governance via the trojan horse of alleged man-made global warming: https://twitter.com/wideawake_media/status/1700422392600760687?t=fC-P3rXvZqlGSffQ7tCyYA&s=19.
The UK was forced by the EU to build the worst, poorly designed, expensive GenIII NPP on the planet, the French EPR. Britain could have done like Finland did, fed up with the expensive French EPR, they opted for the Russian VVER-1200 with a guaranteed price of GBP44.5 or 50 Euros per MWh, quite a bit cheaper than offshore wind in a Apples (nuclear) to Rotten Oranges (wind) comparison. And the Korean APR-1400 at half the price of the EPR is now approved for Europe. The UAE completed 5.6GWe of APR-1400's in 8yrs @ $24B, far cheaper than wind or solar even neglecting the terrible problems with intermittent, unreliable, seasonal wind/solar. That's starting from scratch with ZERO nuclear expertise or even much of an industrial infrastructure. According to British politicians, the UAE residents must be much more talented than British citizens.
And even EPR costs would shrink dramatically if publicly financed at <1% interest instead being forced by an EU Decree to be privately financed at ~10% interest. Funny the EU unelected dictatorship has no problem financing bombs & missiles to kill poor Libyans, Syrians, Iranians, Afghani's, Iraqis, Russians and Yemenis @ <1% interest but demands NPP's are privately financed. Yep, they care about climate change.
The super-safe, meltdown proof Moltex molten salt reactor was developed in Britain. Platt's Energy, did the full cost projection analysis for electricity from the Moltex reactors and determined it would be the cheapest electricity source in Britain, cheaper than gas, conventional coal, wind or solar. While being a 24/7, night/day, summer/winter, windy/calm electricity source. And can provide electricity storage for $50/kwe by adding an extra molten salt loop & tank running a standard off-the-shelf CCGT steam turbine. That's cheaper and more environmentally friendly than any form of storage tech currently available.
And with a capability to burn nuclear waste supplying all of Britain's energy needs for hundreds of years, with zero emissions. The British gov't refused to allow them to be built in Britain, forcing them to move to Canada. This is while claiming they have an SMR program, lying through their teeth. Obviously British politicians are owned by the Club-Of-Rome Malthusian Bankster Psychopaths, which are also behind the promoting and building wind farms in Britain.
My view is one of the best reactor being developed is the Molten Chloride Fast Reactor. It's designed to run on spent nuclear fuel, which the UK claims it wants to get rid of. It could supply all of Britain's energy needs for the next 75yrs just running on Britain's current store of spent nuclear fuel. With a 600-1000degC operating temperature, it can supply high grade process heat as well as electricity. And molten salt heat storage to cover the peak daily electricity demand. High level waste from that reactor, that is not valuable isotopes, would amount to about 0.1 oz per person in Britain over their entire 75yr lifespan. Easy to dispose of that in a borehole.
its utterly depressing that we built Magnox and AGRs off our own back and now we are beholden to the French for an inferior costly design that is yet to prove itself anywhere across the globe. More than anything our failure to invest nuclear will be why we can never achieve net zero let alone have a reliable supply of leccy.
Its unrealistic to expect any immediate change now too much is invested by politicians here but it could well be an inflexion point that at least acknowledges there needs to be a recalibration of the plainly impossible 2030 50GW off shore wind and 2035 decarbonised grid goals. These two targets are also driving the FSO to plan a new grid system that will cost 10's billions to build out (and most of the kit wont even be British unlike the 50/60's when we were self sufficient in manufacturing electrical power kit) the cost of which gets loading onto bills through TNUoS. The other thing of note here is booking the heavy lift vessels has to be done years in advance and with other countries jumping on the offshore wind band waggon now finding slots for later this decade could become very limited if we don't commit now. Also im not sure Inch Cape 1 wf (1GW) is going anywhere fast at the moment as construction work hasn't started albeit partners have been selected. Then you have AR3 project Muaitheabhal Wind Farm 189MW construction not started was due online by 2024. The only stuff with semi reliable build dates is solar which im fine with on roofs of warehouse and other large buildings but not on farming land we can't feed ourselves now and the climate evangelists should be more concerned about that but aren't.
My take is the Tories are beginning to wake up and see some opportunity here to row back, Labour have to be careful as any move to say it needs more money will undermine their "cost of living" mantra so not sure eco Ed actually represents their policy, Liberals and Greens are not interested in cost. Fundamentally though people have been brainwashed for decades particularly the younger generation who have heard no other messaging and they are tomorrows voters. So its going to be a tricky path to navigate and unfortunately until people see up close through a major blackout or cost of importing gas so it affects them directly i fear its going to be a long slog now.
Regarding the younger generation, it's interesting that in one of the polls to which I referred in my initial comment here, the view of 55% of respondents that net zero policies should only be introduced if they didn't result in additional costs for ordinary people was shared by 53% of people in the 18-24 age range. Perhaps not so brainwashed after all.
Good to here
And now SSE illustrates my point perfectly by announcing it won't build any more onshore windfarms.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/09/09/britain-wind-power-developer-sse-onshore-offshore-farms/
Yet another example supporting my comment elsewhere about serious short-term obstacles to the implementation of net zero. It's not going to happen because it's unachievable - whatever the Climate Change Act may say: the courts cannot overturn practical reality. This isn't a long-term issue: as is obvious from David's valuable article, these obstacles are emerging now. And there'll be more.
There is a lot of confusion here of people who conflate Scientific Net Zero, with a definition of overall zero net GHG emissions with Net Zero, The Political Action Plan, which is just another Carbon Trading scam, like its totally failed Cap n' Trade scam of a plan. A giant, devious, wealth transfer plan for the uber-wealthy. And a greenwashing charade, almost entirely worthless:
EXPOSED: The Biggest Green SCAM In ESG | Breaking Points, Krystal breaks down the corporate scam of ESG and carbon offset programs in the USA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXxqjjgH0Ec&t=2s
Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest certifier are worthless, analysis shows:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed-forest-carbon-offsets-biggest-provider-worthless-verra-aoe
And they are lying about Biomass emissions. Biomass burning is the most environmentally destructive of all energy sources, 1400 gms CO2/kwh, Supercritical coal is 900 gms CO2/kwh and costs 3X less. But the liars in the British gov't declare biomass "carbon neutral". Probably >80% of the British gov't "Net Zero" programs have little to none benefit for climate. Many are worse than zero.
And you can't give intermittent, low EROI, Wind & Solar a 100% credit for avoided CO2 emissions, as they do. It is very dubious it saves ANY emissions. The grid just doesn't work that way.
If they REALLY cared about emissions (hint: they don't), they would institute the Revenue Neutral Carbon Fee & Dividend. The CF&D penalizes the energy hog rich and rewards the energy frugal middle class & poor. While carbon trading grants government guaranteed giant profits for the wealthy. Really just another devious wealth transfer scheme from the Middle Class to the Rich. Very important, that you must also eliminate all the preferential subsidies, mandates and exemptions given to the political favorites wind & solar. They are favorites because they cost $trillions but do zip to reduce fossil consumption, apart from causing energy poverty --> reduced emissions
Good article and confirms that onshore wind is a myth in England Tories know that but a subtle change keeps the eco wing of the party happy.
Like this in the article "including the giant 3.6GW Dogger Bank development. This will be the largest offshore wind farm in the world covering several hundred square miles, an area roughly equivalent to Greater London, and able to power 6m homes" but should say WHEN THE WIND IS BLOWING but when it isn't we will need 3.6GW of fossil fuel or will the eco lot be prepared to go on a tariff that switches them off when its not. Of course not.
The idea that it’s necessary to have a STEM degree to understand the absurdity of where we are today is, I believe, incorrect. I took a law degree and qualified as a barrister and have had no technical training – yet I have no difficulty in understanding the problem. It’s time for the Government, and especially Claire Coutinho, to listen to people who can understand simple facts (such as those set out above) and apply basic logic to determining the inevitable outcome of such facts. All is not lost. Recent opinion polls have shown clearly that the majority ordinary voters – people who accept the need for emission cuts (hardly surprising in view of wall-to-wall propaganda) – will refuse to have anything to do with net zero policies that worsen their struggle with the cost of living. If key Tory politicians were to get a handle on reality and act accordingly – explaining that net zero is an impossible dream, that energy costs can be minimised and that Labour are eco fanatics – I believe they could change the political landscape.
I would agree if we lived in a rational world. But the CCA is enshrined in law and as I understand it, the Government has to sign up to achieve the CCA climate budgets. If they resile from those budgets, they end up getting taken to court by the various eco-zealots, like in the link below. I think the only way forward would be to repeal the CCA. But we probably need blackouts to occur before any party tries to do it.
https://www.clientearth.org/latest/latest-updates/news/clientearth-are-suing-the-uk-government-over-its-net-zero-strategy/
That's an interesting point David but times are changing - radically. As you've shown comprehensively in the above article, net zero is simply not possible. And that's so for other reasons as well - not least the UK's hopelessly inadequate skilled workforce. If the High Court were faced with a defendant who was able to demonstrate that it's not possible to reduce emissions sufficiently to meet carbon budgets, it would I believe have to take a different position from that of 2022. No court in the UK would require a defendant to do something that's been shown to be impossible.
I hope you are right.
A good understanding of law is actually very important in dealing with net zero. The legislation, regulations and contracts are mostly written in a highly tortuous fashion, making use of sheer quantity, obfuscation, cross referencing and defined terms that don't quite mean what the innocent think they mean.
I've always found that good lawyers with the mental agility to negotiate all that can easily master a client brief from a good STEM educated person. The best engineers and commercial people will have a reasonable understanding of law as an essential component of their knowledge and ability to communicate.
Before the making of the laws came the science which supposedly justified the laws. The politicians and lawyers made the laws but few understood the science. Then when the laws were made, they necessitated the engineering science and technology which hardly any of the politicians understand, though they enthusiastically enhance and support the laws which they helped bring into being. What is even more astounding is that many of the engineers themselves don't even understand the complex technical challenges presented by the engineering necessary to get to the legally binding Net Zero target - which is in fact, technically unachievable in the time frame presented! The Monty Python team could not have written a better script.
Sorry, I did not mean to denigrate all those without STEM degrees. Of course there are people like you who don't need on to understand the problem. My frustration arises from most of those in Government and lobbyist land having English, Classics or History degrees and not understanding basic concepts of energy. Last year some Parliamentarians took the Maths SATS test aimed at 11-year olds and more than half failed. I covered that here:
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/covid-lockdown-files-lessons-applied-net-zero
National Grid should not need any of this explaining to them. The dumbing down of our once great power systems engineering industry is a tragedy since the break- up of the CEGB. What of the IET, the silence is defeaning.
The time to change course IS now. That will necessarily mean repealing May's 2019 Net Zero statutory instrument target, preferably amending or repealing the climate Change Act 2008 - BEFORE the next election. It's not going to happen. The present government is going to keep going with the renewables fantasy, hand over power to Labour in a year or so's time who will then double down on the renewables fantasy with mad eco zealot Ed Miliband at the helm and fifth columnist Starmer in overall control, reporting directly to the WEF. Result: total economic destruction and social disintegration of UK PLC. The fake Conservatives are not going to save us in the few hours we have left before midnight.
This a position of utter despair: you say the UK is doomed to total economic destruction and social disintegration and there’s nothing we can do about it because it’s precisely the outcome our leaders have always intended. I refuse to believe it.
I outlined a practical way forward in my initial comment. But, in any case, there are serious short-term obstacles to the implementation of net zero – not least the reality that we haven’t got nearly enough technical managers, engineers, electricians, plumbers, mechanics and other tradespeople (probably about a million) to do the many tasks that are needed to achieve it.
It's a position I take based on observation of the facts. The climate change act and the statutory instrument bolt on Net Zero target is not going to be repealed, before the election and certainly not after if (when) Labour get in. Thus, the UK is, for the foreseeable future, legally committed to a decarbonisation target which is unattainable, the pursuit of which will decimate the British economy and probably wreck civil society in the process. It WILL be pursued (1) because it is illegal not to and (2) because it is what the vast majority of MPs elected to Parliament actually want - be that because they are deluded, incompetent, thick as mince, or financially compromised. Barring mass riots and/or mass non-compliance with Green 'rules', I don't see any positive path ahead.
I'm sorry Jaime, but I don't believe - as it seems you do - that our 'leaders' actually want 'total economic destruction and social disintegration of UK PLC'. There's very little time left before the general election and curiously I see that as an advantage: were the Tories to wake up to reality (and, although they've got themselves into a ghastly muddle about net zero, they're not entirely stupid) they could for example simply say that of course they support the policy but they have no intention of moving more quickly towards its implementation than major economies such as China, the USA, India, Japan and Germany. No need to repeal the target or the CCA - and it provides space to try to do something about for example the skills shortage.
Robin,
China and India are INCREASING CO2 emissions, substantially as you know, in fact so substantially that they account for the vast majority of the increase in global emissions. If we were to 'follow the lead' of these countries by moving 'no more quickly' to reduce emissions than they are, then we would be opening up more coal mines, giving the go-ahead for national fracking, drilling for oil like there was no tomorrow and stopping any expansion of renewables projects immediately! So any talk by Tory MPs of doing so is just pie-in-the-sky. Also, you really can't lump Germany in with China or India because they are pursuing Net Zero just as fervently, if not more so, than the UK, to the detriment of their once supremely successful manufacturing economy. ZERO real progress will be achieved on winding back Green madness until - at the very least - the Net Zero statutory instrument 'legacy' of Mrs May's failed premiership is annihilated by the Party which brought it into being. I think that will more likely result in the annihilation of the Party, so entrenched are the Green eco-zealots now within the fake Conservatives.
I'm sorry Jaime but you've missed my point. I didn't say we should follow major economies but that we should move towards net zero no more quickly than them. Very different. I'm thinking of the ordinary voter who will determine the outcome of the election. If the Tories were to tell them that they haven't given up on net zero (thereby avoiding pre-election controversy) but don't plan to move towards its implementation any more quickly than other major economies, that would I believe seem logical and sensible - especially if it were linked to an observation that Labour are dangerous eco-fanatics.
No Robin, it was me that said 'follow the lead' of other countries which was a natural interpretation of your comment that Tory MPs would look to other countries like China and India and decide that the UK would move to implementation of net zero 'no quicker than' those countries. So effectively, we would be gauging our own climate mitigation policies according to what they were doing (in the case of China and India, actually significantly increasing their GHG emissions). You must realise that this is nonsensical, because if Tory politicians did commit to that, then it would mean totally abandoning our net zero goals for the foreseeable future and re-investing in the fossil fuel economy. That's not going to happen but more to the point, even a meaningful slowdown in the catastrophic 'progress' towards net zero is not going to happen unless and until the legally binding net zero target is abandoned.
PS you can edit comments by clicking on the three dots by the comment. Much better than Wordpress!
Hang on Labour have rowed right back on spending on net zero and anything they do now affects the cost of living so i expect them to be cautionary and say UK has gone along way already compared to many other countries to slow things down. Starmer should have moved eco Ed onto the back benches last week hes a maverick and will be off message as hes only interested in competing with his brother to get some UN job.
Spot on. Rationalists have wasted years trying in vain to educate our politicians away from building an unworkable national energy system without ever twigging that destruction was the deliberate plan. Our leaders know exactly what they are doing. Net Zero is an anti-humanity plan to impoverish, deindustrialise and ultimately depopulate, see https://metatron.substack.com/p/my-heretical-epitaph?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2.
The cruelty is the point.
Tune in next week for my article on Labour's plan.
Labour had a plan.... back in their 2003 White Paper. It called for diversity of supply sources, both by technology and through competitive international markets that they would seek to bolster (it recognised that we were not going to continueto be self sufficient in gas and oil and dependence on too few sources would be a strategic error); no interference in the energy mix, and reliance on markets to provide. Obviously drafted by a Thatcherite civil servant, and surrounded by chapters on the nascent climate issues, but with quite low targets for renewables.
They were concerned about the costs of nuclear, which was finding it hard to compete against very cheap gas, and where decommissioning costs were starting to loom large. Wrong guesses they made: tidal and wave energy were supposed to become large scale and competitive; fusion research would be on the threshold of a breakthrough by 2020.
They haven't got one!!
The actual paper can be found here (open access):
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167718723000292?via%3Dihub
I plan to be in touch with Prof Mike Waterston with comments and extensions to CFD wind farms, and the future with excess wind capacity and implications for interconnectors (if we ever build it of course!) based on work I have already done. His conclusions are very interesting - gaming both the volumes and the prices.