Fintan Slyly Moves the Goalposts
National Grid ESO responds to DESNZ and will not properly answer the questions posed
A few weeks ago, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and his Head of Mission Control, Chris Stark wrote a public letter to Fintan Slye of the National Grid ESO asking for practical advice on how to deliver a clean power grid by 2030.
The letter asked Slye to set out a range of pathways to enable a decarbonised power system by 2030. For each pathway they asked for the forecast energy generation and demand mix and the underlying assumptions that need to be met for these to be deliverable. They also asked for the key requirements for the transmission network and interconnectors and for a high-level assessment of the costs, benefits, opportunities, challenges and risks as well as the key actions to be taken by Government, NESO, Ofgem and industry to enable delivery of the pathways.
Recently, Fintan Slye took to Twitter/X to announce his initial response. Strangely Slye’s letter is not addressed to Miliband or Stark, but takes the form of an open letter to industry.
The letter starts off with warm words announcing the formation of a “cross-cutting delivery unit” that will report back to Government by the end of Autumn 2024, less than three months away. They say their plan will be:
“A whole systems spatial view of what is required to deliver a clean, secure, operable electricity system by 2030. The plan will consider possible clean energy generation mixes and their associated network, market, and operability requirements, referred to as pathways.”
That sounds good as far as it goes. However, the letter then goes on to say that all pathways will “meet clean power in 2030 against a definition to be agreed with UK Government.” In other words, there is no agreed definition of what a zero-carbon grid by 2030 actually means. They do not know what the target is. It seems that Miliband and Labour have set the country on a journey without properly defining the destination. And the initial request from Miliband and Stark reveals they don’t know how to get there. It’s the blind leading the blind to an unknown destination.
Slye’s letter then states that ESO recognises that accelerating the decarbonisation of the electricity system presents a “significant opportunity.” To capture this opportunity, they will engage with “industry and those with wider expertise” through two stakeholder forums aimed at industry and societal delivery partners. Those societal delivery partners sound quite ominous – are they going to bring out the nudge unit to shame us all into compliance?
Even more worrying is what Slye’s letter misses out. He was asked to provide a high-level assessment of the costs, benefits, opportunities, challenges and risks of delivering a net zero grid by 2030. Slye’s letter makes no mention of costs, benefits or risks. He is only focused on the “opportunity.”
In other words, Fintan has slyly moved the goalposts. The work of NESO will not inform the Government or the public about the costs and risks of delivering the as yet undefined net zero grid by 2030. This is now the blind leading the blind to an unknown destination without knowing the price of the ticket. Fintan Slye is ducking his responsibility and we are going to be short-changed again.
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There is no simple answer because a decarbonised grid by 2030 is technically and logistically impossible, probably financially and politically as well. There is an “opportunity” to lumber the populace with lots more ugly wind and solar farms installed all over our precious landscapes and seascapes. These inappropriate technologies are expensive to build and integrate, heavily resource-depleting, inefficient, unreliable, short lifespan and toxically non-recyclable. They require a vast network of cables and pylons to carry the distributed electricity, even as far-flung as Shetland and the far north of Scotland, to the centres of population, providing National Grid with an enhanced level of transmission fees.
Taking a step back for a broader perspective, there is no need whatsoever to attempt reduce our national CO2 emissions with these so-called renewables because the global warming effect of atmospheric CO2 is already “saturated”, which means even doubling its concentration from the present level will cause negligible global warming. Even if this science is disputed, and simple observation is sufficient to show that the CO2 global warming theory is a hoax, there is still no point in attempting to decarbonise unilaterally as the majority non-western world is never going to follow suit.
It's great that the chickens are going to come home to roost under the aegis of Ed Miliband who started all this nonsense back in 2008 with his legally-binding Climate Change Act.
Regular Sunday thanks David.
According to Lewis Carroll, "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there", so it looks like our Fintan has lots of options. The term "societal delivery partners" suggests a bullshit generator at full revs. Let's see if he can exceed stakeholder commitment thresholds with imaginative targeting and creative route-finding to minimise practical roadblocks and optimise journey participation.
As I reported on Energy Bad Boys' substack yesterday, earlier in the week I came across this Politico article: Former Poland PM: ‘We’re living under the illusion of environmentalism’ https://www.politico.eu/article/former-poland-prime-minister-mateusz-morawiecki-environmentalism-reindustrialization-economy-industry-green-policy-competitiveness/
From which: "In response to the 1973 oil shock, France embarked on a highly ambitious nuclear power development plan, which led to the construction of 58 reactors in just 15 years."
Clear objective, clear result, by practical and skilled people. Aiming for energy security achieved a low-carbon electricity system as a by-product, before the first climate change protest placards appeared.