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Another budget impact hidden in the small print:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/race-to-build-britain-s-first-mini-nukes-delayed-again-in-budget/ar-AA1tgBrw

Miliband continues his anti nuclear stance.

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Oct 31Liked by David Turver

Thanks for the update

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To complement your podcast I note that Lord Lilley was able to secure a debate in the Lords to discuss the costs of Net Zero. He was able to place on record some proper analysis of its costs and benefits, and to debunk some of the common myths about it.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2024-10-24/debates/DA117E0F-1B4A-4166-A971-ACF2B4EAB310/ClimateAgenda

He lambasted the policy based evidence making that lies behind so many government investment decisions, particularly from the CCC: Lord Deben blustered with cherry picked untruths in his response. Lord Frost as Chair of GWPF also made a useful contribution: GWPF have just produced a revised Net Zero costing if £10 trillion – it’s behaving like HS2 as a project. Others to raise good points included Lords Moynihan of Chelsea, Strathcarron, and the Earl of Leicester.

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Some of the detail behind the forecasts in available in the OBR's Annex A

https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-october-2024/#annex-a

Including oil and gas prices and inflation assumptions. Scroll through... I haven't investigated all the spreadsheets (why don't they put them all into one with a sheet per topic?) which may have more detail.

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Good content, as ever. But I disagree with you about fuel duty. There are 2 ways to reduce fuel consumption.

The big state method is to decide that fuel should be cheap and then invent a million rules to reduce consumption, many of which (electric cars as an obvious example) increase total energy consumption. That way, thousand of clever brains spend time working out how to maximise their return from the complexities of energy legislation and subsidies.

The small state method is to do one thing only - slap a significant tax on fuel and let the market decide how to respond. That way the same thousands of brains devote their thinking to solutions which reduce energy consumption.

As to the import/export issue, energy content taxes are levied on imported goods and refunded on exported goods, so we would still be making and using our own steel.

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Fuel taxation long encouraged the development of more fuel efficient engines and other methods of improving fuel economy. It was the announcement that ICE engines were to be prohibited that halted all further development work in its tracks. Almost equivalent were the virtually unachievable emissions constraints mooted for Euro 7.

US CAFE regulation saw family cars replaced by pick-up trucks to evade the regulations.

There is some considerable potential for improving fuel economy - which would be a global benefit, since the technology would spread to nations where regulation and fuel taxation are much less of a factor in consumer choices.

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Oct 31Liked by David Turver

Indeed. The 1.6 dCi diesel engine produced by Renault/Nissan/Mitsubishi/Mercedes Benz is an exceptional engine which appeared in 2011. With headline figures around 70mpg, it achieves mid to high 50s in practice with general driving. Chain driven, with no cambelt to change, it is extremely durable. Euro 6, with no DPF issues, nor need for AdBlue. It would be interesting to compare its total PM10 emissions with a typical electric car, taking into account the latter's emissions from heavy weight on car tyres.

If it were in a vehicle designed as it should be for 20 years life or 200,000 miles, it would beat electric cars hands down because of the low embodied energy (ie low energy needed to make it.)

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This from the detail

"£3.9bn has been earmarked in 2025/26 for the first carbon capture and storage clusters in the UK"

Theres no projects that are anywhere now ready to mobilise on that scale although they will claim investment probably as a result of their planned changes to the capacity mkt whereby nothing new or refurbished will qualify unless its CCUS ready from the next round of T-4.

Then there is

"confirmed £2bn of funding for 11 projects going through Hydrogen Allocation Round 1"

this is pointless there is no demand for hydrogen on that scale currently. Even locally the bus company thats screwed millions for a hydrogen bus fleet has them all sitting idle as the HSE says producing hydrogen in an urban environment is too dangerous. so they have to tanker it in so causing more pollution!

Given the OBR has been elevated to wise council by Reeves surely she can now see the stark reality of Millibrains endeavours from the levies table and reign him in.

The Chancellor confirmed £2bn of funding for 11 projects going through Hydrogen Allocation Round 1.

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Thanks for the Budget summary, and the interview is excellent - a really good summary of where we are and why, and why the current trajectory is so bad.

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I suppose people have given up trying to explain to politicians and the public that the British contribution to man-made emissions, like that of Australia, is only about 1%. That means both of our nations could disappear off the face of reverse and cease to contribute any emissions without making a measurable difference to the climate.

Given that, why would we contribute a dollar or a British pound, much less tens of billions, in order to obtain more expensive and less reliable power while inflicting massive damage on the environment?

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