So far there has been some 33,448MW of capacity awarded CFDs, but of that capacity some 2,330MW has seen its CFDs terminated, dominated by these AR4 Projects:
Energy from Waste with CHP 30
Offshore Wind 1396 (Norfolk Boreas - now permitted to rebid in AR6)
Onshore Wind 221.46
Remote Island Wind 120
Solar PV 276.2
In addition, there have been susbstantial permitted reductions of capacity against the originally awarded capacity totalling some 1,680MW of which a small proportion are smaller adjustments because e.g. it was discovered that not all turbine sites in a project could be used when it came to building them, or the turbines slightly underperformed against manufacturer claims in strong winds. The main adjustments were to AR4 projects, many of which will have been allowed to re-bid the reduced capacity into AR6:
Capacity....Reduction
Offshore Wind 5598.34 1367.21
Onshore Wind 167.7 12.15
Solar PV 364.32 72.935
This means that we can think of AR6 as starting behind the curve by the AR4 terminations (2,045MW) and capacity reductions (1,452MW), or about 3.5GW. Only capacity procured above that will really be new.
The formal notification of the AR6 CFD budget revision is here:
By the time that Miliband was deciding on this he will have had data on the total volume of pre-qualified projects by technology, together with a forecast of how much budget they would consume if bid at the administrative maximum permitted bid price. It seems possible that in most categories there would have been a larger volume of bids that the original budget approved by Coutinho would have covered, which would have resulted in some element of competitive auction, and therefore perhaps slightly lower CFD prices.
For comparison, in AR5 all solar PV was awarded at the maximum price, with only onshore wind (1.3% discount to maximum) and tidal stream (2% discount to a very lavish maximum) showing any discount. Initially there was no public announcement that an auction was to be held at all, so it's hard to know exactly what went on behind the scenes. According to the timetable for AR6, the EMR Delivery Body is supposed to have issued a Notice of Auction on August 2nd. There is no announcement that they have done so on their website, or the AR6 CFD microsite that is supposed to carry all announcements. I am emailing EMR to ask whether there is an auction or not. If there is not, it means that the budget was increased sufficiently to mean that no auction was necessary, and all applications will be allotted in full at the maximum permitted bid price. It seems quite probable that Miliband opted for this to maximise the capacity awarded (since only pre-qualified capacity can bid).
The estimate is that for the main plank of offshore wind at the full price about 4.2GW would be procured, just 700MW above the lost 3.5GW from AR4. Given none was procured in AR5 there is going to have to be a big increase in budget and strike prices (and under the counter alternative subsidies) for AR7 if Miliband is ever going to attempt his silly dream. I will try to work up estimates for the other pots, but they are likely to be relatively small beer, even with the increases.
Meanwhile, the CFD budget in 2024 money of some £2.215bn according to DESNZ's press release is equivalent to £33bn of increase in consumer bills over the next 15 years, all sanctioned by Ed. It's worth another £75 plus VAT on household bills - and that is before we add in the other associated costs of extra grid capacity (NGESO's projected £18.4bn a year spend is worth £67/MWh alone on current demand levels) and associated balancing, backup and stabilisation costs.
Very comprehensive deep dive into the background here and im looking forward to Millibrain spins the announcement on AR6 awards. What we need of course is for at least one of the journos that gets access to him to challenge him over why when he says wind is so cheap and Labour are against capitalism is that he has allowed them to renegotiate upwards their previously awarded CfDs. The figure though is total cost at the ASP its only the delta to long run wholesale costs that is extra cost to consumer though. Mind you when you add in FiT, ROCs as well as CfDs it must be more than £75.
Also as you say the 2030 zero emission goal is just implausible although with Labours manifesto acknowledging that gas has to be retained as a back up in reality blows it up anyhow. Again he just wants the ESO to run the grid for one settlement period without any CCGT on the bars so he claim hes achieved his mission. Just don't ask him where the savings are!
As I understand it, Dave, the CfD price is the amount that vendors demand to ensure that their shareholders are made good against cost increases *over the economic life of the project*. It therefore acts as a proxy for the long term cost trajectory of "renewable energy". A 55% increase in CfD price demonstrates that those who are most competent to evaluate the cost trajectory of "renewable energy" believe it will rise. This contradicts the statements of those who are least competent - the government, and its rag tag posse of "Advisors" - that costs will decrease.
In terms of import vulnerability: we sit on our island at the end of a very long pipeline that crosses many territories. If, say, European LNG imports collapse in the New Year following the onset of rapid decline in US tight shale oil and gas, it would be an interesting essay to analyse who we would become beholden to for what.
Final point: energy growth is to the stability of an economy what forward motion is to the stability of a bike. Although the contraction here appears small, the effect it has on the financial system through the exponential divergence between things of value in the economy and the money units that we use to represent those things is devastating and what will create the collapse.
CfDs are indexed to the CPI so move up through the life of the project but agree that the price especially in todays money is a proxy for how much these windmills cost. The simple fact here is offshore windmills are now at least double the govt LCOE data for what they should cost and running at c30% above last 12mths cost of gas which has crept up a bit as well. Also the CfD figure is what is paid at the windmills meters not the other end at the consumers. By the time you add all the extra costs of the balancing mechanism and ever increasing charges to cover for the grid build out there is no way bills are going down. So why can't Millibrain just be honest with consumers and tells that this is the cost of going to net zero - oh i know why there might be a bit of backlash.
Or it kicks off in the Middle East and supplies from Oman are disrupted. The UK & EU are very vulnerable, yet both sit on vast shale resources, but we have banned ourselves from using them.
Sir, 'fact checkers' exist to tell people what to think, not to provide data (note the organisations that birthed them are almost all Left wing). They were not needed until factual, data driven sources of information arrived that people could access, such as your excellent writings which exposed the lies the Left were telling.
It is sad that the enforced decline of our energy use and society is considered a good thing. The considered standard for growth, wealth and success for a country is increasing energy use, not decreasing.
However the 'climate change' hoax has nothing to do with the environment or ecology. It is the latest method of social control forced on people. Another desperate attempt by a failed system to punish the ciizen with ever larger transfer of private money to the state machine, to give the state ever more power over the most fundamental block of modern life - energy.
What no one has bothered themselves with is when the power really does go out we won't be able to buy candles. Heck, we won't be able to *make* candles, let alone transport, stock, contain them. Millions will die. You can't build a new power station in a fit of desperation when there is no power for the drills, no fuel for the diggers.
You are correctt: it's pure and simple psychopathy.
So the unreliables had a net increase in capacity of 2.8GW across 2023 yet their contribution didn't increase actual generation by that amount showing load factors are falling. Also what Dukes tells us, which isn't a good sign either but is a fact, is that energy demand is falling as we further deindustrialise and correctly make some adjustments to our energy usage. So this then should now be causing a reappraisal of how much energy is actually going to be required in the future before we plunge headlong into repeating the mistakes made in the 50/60's into over forecasting demand and overbuilding generation. Millibrain won't though and we will be left with 1000's of underutilised windmills and our landscape annihilated by solar panels and it will cost the consumer dearly. Oh and the cherry on the cake here is the only people who will benefit aren't in the UK anyhow.
Thank you David: your article coincided with a post from Green Leap Forward on "luxury beliefs" https://www.greenleapforward.wtf/p/the-rich-get-greener-and-the-poor , which I think fits well with Mr Milliband. I feel your missile guidance failed in the final paragraph as I can't ascribe sadism to him. However, what I think matters more is that while to a classical liberal, coercion is repugnant, a socialist like Mr Millband can see it as necessary to achieve a "greater good". He wrote recently that the public must be persuaded to accept pylons and power lines running across the country. We all need educating.
I'm not aware of historical precedent for the coercion that will be needed to press home the "energy transition".
I can also commend Ed Conway's masterful and very readable book, Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future. His chapter on copper should sober up true-believers in the transition, except of course that it won't, any more than mining expert Simon Michaux, in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDbPTOImipo&t=4s
Miliband (like Blair, and Brown, and Harman, etc.) is a member of The Fabian Society, the politics and morality of which was shaped profoundly by George Bernard Shaw. In "The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism", Shaw suggested that if a person was deemed incapable of contributing to society, then they should be executed.
I realise that Miliband is not accountable for Shaw. But to my mind, in the ideology they share, there is something that goes far beyond a rational desire to achieve "a greater good", at least in any sense the term normally is used. I'd agree it's perhaps a step too far to characterise it as sexual pleasure. But we need some label to signal adequately what they might be ready to contemplate, and Dave's is as good as any for popular discourse. It certainly distinguishes it as an emotional/irrational impulse, rather than an intellectual/rational one.
At the height of our access to energy, 26,000 people a year die of cold related effects in the UK every year. All of them are in the category of people Shaw would describe as "incapable of contributing to society". That number will expand rapidly at the commencement of Labour's rolling energy blackouts. It will be an opportunity to calibrate Fabianism's fondness for "the greater good".
Thank you in return Al - very kind. There's a lot of good material around, some of which deserves a bigger readership, which I like to share. I also like to be challenged rather than staying in a comfort zone, as even people one may disagree with still have interesting things to say.
Oh, I think cutting the winter fuel payment at the same time as adding new, more expensive forms of energy to the grid is pretty sadistic. As is giving £11.6bn away in overseas "climate aid" while putting up taxes and cutting spending on new hospitals.
They could reasonably have started by clawing it back from all pensioners paying 40%+ income tax, perhaps with a band of 25% or 30% tax for a few thousand of income below the threshold to withdraw progressively from other nearly as rich pensioners. That would be seen as much fairer.
David - As a relative newcomer to your writing it would be useful, for me at least, and maybe others, to know where you stand in “the big picture” as it were
A superficial skim gives the impression you are a passionate climate change denier, and certainly you are being shared by climate change deniers, but I suspect that isn’t actually the case
If you had a magic wand, how would our energy systems look in 2050?
Thanks - I arrived at a similar figure of nuclear plants myself, but 120 GW installed capacity would be, say, 40 Hinckley C’s, and as we haven’t even built one yet, 40 might be quite a challenge
If we used the 240 GW of waste heat rather than just threw it away into the sea, we might need half the number. We should really view nuclear as heat sources that also make some electricity, but we’d have to site them near urban areas and that’s where we’d loose the argument
I imagine a lot of grid upgrades would be required. The north Wales grid couldn’t cope with a Hinckley C sized station, and will have two national parks to cross. But then Wylfa was always a bad place for nuclear. Even more so now
Continuing with the current plans of mainly renewables, the only logical place for any new nuclear is SE England, but again I suspect that is already lost
The French managed to get to 70% of their power being nuclear in about 20 years so with determination that is possible. Of course, part of that is achieved by using neighbouring countries to help balance the system, and part by scheduling refuelling and maintenance for summer when demand is lower. The main part of their flex is hydro, reducing their need for gas as a balancing fuel. Their attempts to replace some of the system with wind seem to have increased the need for gas flex.
I know, but net zero will need at least x2 current demand if not x3. We don't have the hydro resources they have, and probably don’t t have the discipline to have so many reactors of the same design. Plus they have an element of dynamic tariffs lots of electric heating
If we need to change to dynamic tariffs and heat pumps, why bother with nuclear and just go for the cheaper offshore wind?
Same with hydrogen for storage which we could use in place of hydro - why both with nuclear?
The scenario in FES2024 makes sense to me, and will be based on far more data and rigorous analysis than any armchair strategist can design
Net zero is infeasible and unaffordable. If you think that FES2024 makes sense, you simply haven't evaluated it properly. FES world has been built on fantasies, not reality. They have yet to release their methodology and underlying data for this year. You can then expect detailed critique. Meantime David Turver did disassemble some of their visible assumptions in an earlier article which you can find on the site.
Do not think that having lots of money and even quite able people to throw at creating the FES means they are anything more than pieces of fiction designed to fool politicians and journalists and hence the public. They are designed to maximise the business of National Grid.
What are your views then on the “Mission Zero” report which shows net zero to be net cash positive by 2050, and hence the basis for our industrial strategy
The role of David Turver, and others, is to instigate thought, not to get to the correct answer
The smelter was considering their own power station until the CEGB effectively gave them 1/3 of Wylfa capacity at marginal cost. When they didn’t need all the power they would sell it to the grid. As soon as the Wylfa closure was finally agreed, Anglesey Aluminium closed
Nuclear is definitely the answer, but it's going to take decades, first to acknowledge it widely, and then to actually build it out. David's 'darkness' will be the rule in the interim.
The backdrop to the infiltration of the dark tetrad is the gathering Unenlightenment. Science and society, the economic and scientific progress of the last 300 years gifted to us by the Age of reason and the Industrial Revolution are rapidly winding backwards, being replaced by superstition and feudalism. The New Dark Ages beckon in Europe and the West and the dark tetrad fits perfectly the psychological profiles of our new overlords. They tell us that we must follow the Science, be it climate science, woke biology, immunology or whatever, wherever that Science leads - and those of us deep in dissociative states follow, like children, the sound of the Pied Piper.
Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of Science
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dare
Disturb the sound of Science
“Fools” said I, “You do not know
Science like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in a world of Science
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said “The words of the prophets
Are written on subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of Science”
Disturbed. Very appropriate. Still the best cover version.
"BTT emphasizes the importance of betrayal as a core antecedent of dissociation, implicitly aimed at preserving the relationship with the caregiver.[3] BTT suggests that an individual (e.g. a child or spouse), being dependent on another (e.g. their caregiver or partner) for support, will have a higher need to dissociate traumatic experiences from conscious awareness in order to preserve the relationship."
Sadly, much of the public are still in that psychologically dissociative state, having been particularly primed during Covid. As Doug points out below, they refuse to accept that our government and institutions would actively seek to do us all great harm, preferring instead to cite ideological obsession, groupthink, or even just madness. The dark tetrad lays out the psychological basis for the imposition of that harm.
I'm not sure they are intentionally doing us harm. They are so captured by their own ideology and stupidity that they believe this tripe. They will be absolutely dumbfounded when the lights start going out. To use an unfortunate phrase in this context, that's when the gaslighting will really start.
The most generous interpretation is that they don't care whether they do us harm or not. What matters to them most is the pursuit of their goals, be they financial, political or ideological. The most generous interpretation might apply to some, but a less generous interpretation is clearly appropriate with others. There is a strong streak of sadism which runs through these policies and I believe part of it is born of a vicious envy and a burning hatred of the achievements of Western civilisation right up to the turning of the 21st century. These people literally hate us and they hate what we managed to achieve. Why else would they want to tear it all down? Madness and stupidity doesn't cut it.
Oh I think it's driven by virtue signalling. It is important to remember that we are governed by highly intelligent idiots. They are utterly incapable of seeing the consequences of their policies and actions.
If, as you claim, they are "utterly incapable of seeing the consequences of their policies and actions," why did the previous government introduce totalitarian powers of ensuring compliance with energy rationing measures (including the power to enter people's homes to check compliance with 'smart' energy appliance regulations) into the Energy Act? Sounds to me like politicians and civil servants know exactly where their madcap 'delusional' policies are taking us.
Great article, David. I’m really glad that you, an irrefutable expert in power system engineering, are taking the gloves off and explicitly confronting the evil we are up against.
These days I find myself getting quite short with people who think they can fight the madness of Net Zero using rational arguments. This has been the approach for over 20 years and it has got us precisely nowhere. Those who persist in this approach need to question why they are getting nowhere. I say it’s from not acknowledging that our oppressors are evil, the “dark tetrad” as you encapsulate it: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/basics/dark-tetrad.
I don’t accept that our oppressors are “just” mad and as such open to having their ideas straightened out by rational argument, I say they are thoroughly bad. They showed their true colours during their Covid “plandemic”. It is so obvious that trying to run the country with net zero fossil fuels using replacements which have useless EROEI ratings (you have previously posted on this) will lead to economic collapse and mass starvation.
I don’t think it’s anything as deep as that. I think it all comes down to money, specifically to the huge, beyond-repayable fiat money debts that have been run up by our feckless politicians since Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. In 2020 while the climate change hoax was ticking over on the back-burner, a thought-to-be imminent global financial meltdown was the main reason the globalist establishment launched their Covid “plandemic”.
Reiner Fuellmich and his expert witnesses documented this in their 2022 Covid-19 Crimes Against Humanity model trial summarised by myself here (a time-spaced 2-part post): https://metatron.substack.com/p/reiner-fuellmichs-grand-jury-court. Unfortunately, these proceedings were totally suppressed by the complicit MSM and Fuellmich is currently locked up in prison on suspiciously-contrived charges.
If you search for “Leslie Manookian” in that post can read/listen to her opinions on the dire state of the global financial system. She believes that Covid was no less than the attempted controlled demolition of our global political and economic civilisation to cover up the financial mismanagement of governments and Big Money over many decades.
Thankfully the globalists failed to neuter us by their Covid plandemic but they are now focusing on their climate change hoax, perhaps intending to introduce energy and food rationing systems or some form of compulsory digital id to force us all into digital straitjackets. Do not comply!!!
“The debt-based fiat system is a multi-generational Ponzi scheme … which needs more outlandish excuses faster now to create more debt to keep it afloat --- everything that’s about to happen lies at the feet of central bankers and politicians. Every other narrative is a distraction. It’s beyond everyone’s control”: https://x.com/DowdEdward/status/1819474011262537839?t=Esi9bEyuJBVTmq7a-_vVUw&s=19.
The words of Mark Twain are very applicable on getting the general public (and maybe even Ed Miliband) to waken up to the climate change hoax and the Covid scam: “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled”.
There was a reminder....Lysenko! Stop Millibacon's version.....would be like getting the Titanic to swerve the iceberg. As Captain of this doomed ship, 'The Edstone Green', he is a veritable Ahab. Perhaps only mutiny by the 'crew' ( us), or market forces, will wrest his hands from the wheel.
With regard to AR6 I would note the following:
So far there has been some 33,448MW of capacity awarded CFDs, but of that capacity some 2,330MW has seen its CFDs terminated, dominated by these AR4 Projects:
Energy from Waste with CHP 30
Offshore Wind 1396 (Norfolk Boreas - now permitted to rebid in AR6)
Onshore Wind 221.46
Remote Island Wind 120
Solar PV 276.2
In addition, there have been susbstantial permitted reductions of capacity against the originally awarded capacity totalling some 1,680MW of which a small proportion are smaller adjustments because e.g. it was discovered that not all turbine sites in a project could be used when it came to building them, or the turbines slightly underperformed against manufacturer claims in strong winds. The main adjustments were to AR4 projects, many of which will have been allowed to re-bid the reduced capacity into AR6:
Capacity....Reduction
Offshore Wind 5598.34 1367.21
Onshore Wind 167.7 12.15
Solar PV 364.32 72.935
This means that we can think of AR6 as starting behind the curve by the AR4 terminations (2,045MW) and capacity reductions (1,452MW), or about 3.5GW. Only capacity procured above that will really be new.
The formal notification of the AR6 CFD budget revision is here:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66a8f4ebce1fd0da7b592fc4/CFD-allocation-round-6-budget-revision-notice.pdf
By the time that Miliband was deciding on this he will have had data on the total volume of pre-qualified projects by technology, together with a forecast of how much budget they would consume if bid at the administrative maximum permitted bid price. It seems possible that in most categories there would have been a larger volume of bids that the original budget approved by Coutinho would have covered, which would have resulted in some element of competitive auction, and therefore perhaps slightly lower CFD prices.
For comparison, in AR5 all solar PV was awarded at the maximum price, with only onshore wind (1.3% discount to maximum) and tidal stream (2% discount to a very lavish maximum) showing any discount. Initially there was no public announcement that an auction was to be held at all, so it's hard to know exactly what went on behind the scenes. According to the timetable for AR6, the EMR Delivery Body is supposed to have issued a Notice of Auction on August 2nd. There is no announcement that they have done so on their website, or the AR6 CFD microsite that is supposed to carry all announcements. I am emailing EMR to ask whether there is an auction or not. If there is not, it means that the budget was increased sufficiently to mean that no auction was necessary, and all applications will be allotted in full at the maximum permitted bid price. It seems quite probable that Miliband opted for this to maximise the capacity awarded (since only pre-qualified capacity can bid).
The estimate is that for the main plank of offshore wind at the full price about 4.2GW would be procured, just 700MW above the lost 3.5GW from AR4. Given none was procured in AR5 there is going to have to be a big increase in budget and strike prices (and under the counter alternative subsidies) for AR7 if Miliband is ever going to attempt his silly dream. I will try to work up estimates for the other pots, but they are likely to be relatively small beer, even with the increases.
Meanwhile, the CFD budget in 2024 money of some £2.215bn according to DESNZ's press release is equivalent to £33bn of increase in consumer bills over the next 15 years, all sanctioned by Ed. It's worth another £75 plus VAT on household bills - and that is before we add in the other associated costs of extra grid capacity (NGESO's projected £18.4bn a year spend is worth £67/MWh alone on current demand levels) and associated balancing, backup and stabilisation costs.
Very comprehensive deep dive into the background here and im looking forward to Millibrain spins the announcement on AR6 awards. What we need of course is for at least one of the journos that gets access to him to challenge him over why when he says wind is so cheap and Labour are against capitalism is that he has allowed them to renegotiate upwards their previously awarded CfDs. The figure though is total cost at the ASP its only the delta to long run wholesale costs that is extra cost to consumer though. Mind you when you add in FiT, ROCs as well as CfDs it must be more than £75.
Also as you say the 2030 zero emission goal is just implausible although with Labours manifesto acknowledging that gas has to be retained as a back up in reality blows it up anyhow. Again he just wants the ESO to run the grid for one settlement period without any CCGT on the bars so he claim hes achieved his mission. Just don't ask him where the savings are!
As I understand it, Dave, the CfD price is the amount that vendors demand to ensure that their shareholders are made good against cost increases *over the economic life of the project*. It therefore acts as a proxy for the long term cost trajectory of "renewable energy". A 55% increase in CfD price demonstrates that those who are most competent to evaluate the cost trajectory of "renewable energy" believe it will rise. This contradicts the statements of those who are least competent - the government, and its rag tag posse of "Advisors" - that costs will decrease.
In terms of import vulnerability: we sit on our island at the end of a very long pipeline that crosses many territories. If, say, European LNG imports collapse in the New Year following the onset of rapid decline in US tight shale oil and gas, it would be an interesting essay to analyse who we would become beholden to for what.
Final point: energy growth is to the stability of an economy what forward motion is to the stability of a bike. Although the contraction here appears small, the effect it has on the financial system through the exponential divergence between things of value in the economy and the money units that we use to represent those things is devastating and what will create the collapse.
CfDs are indexed to the CPI so move up through the life of the project but agree that the price especially in todays money is a proxy for how much these windmills cost. The simple fact here is offshore windmills are now at least double the govt LCOE data for what they should cost and running at c30% above last 12mths cost of gas which has crept up a bit as well. Also the CfD figure is what is paid at the windmills meters not the other end at the consumers. By the time you add all the extra costs of the balancing mechanism and ever increasing charges to cover for the grid build out there is no way bills are going down. So why can't Millibrain just be honest with consumers and tells that this is the cost of going to net zero - oh i know why there might be a bit of backlash.
Helpful clarification - thanks
Or it kicks off in the Middle East and supplies from Oman are disrupted. The UK & EU are very vulnerable, yet both sit on vast shale resources, but we have banned ourselves from using them.
It is a system loaded with Single Points of Failure.
ME pretty volatile now yet oil down today again to nearly a 12mth low and not far off a 3yr low.
Fear of recession.
We keep finding too much of it!!
Sir, 'fact checkers' exist to tell people what to think, not to provide data (note the organisations that birthed them are almost all Left wing). They were not needed until factual, data driven sources of information arrived that people could access, such as your excellent writings which exposed the lies the Left were telling.
It is sad that the enforced decline of our energy use and society is considered a good thing. The considered standard for growth, wealth and success for a country is increasing energy use, not decreasing.
However the 'climate change' hoax has nothing to do with the environment or ecology. It is the latest method of social control forced on people. Another desperate attempt by a failed system to punish the ciizen with ever larger transfer of private money to the state machine, to give the state ever more power over the most fundamental block of modern life - energy.
What no one has bothered themselves with is when the power really does go out we won't be able to buy candles. Heck, we won't be able to *make* candles, let alone transport, stock, contain them. Millions will die. You can't build a new power station in a fit of desperation when there is no power for the drills, no fuel for the diggers.
You are correctt: it's pure and simple psychopathy.
So the unreliables had a net increase in capacity of 2.8GW across 2023 yet their contribution didn't increase actual generation by that amount showing load factors are falling. Also what Dukes tells us, which isn't a good sign either but is a fact, is that energy demand is falling as we further deindustrialise and correctly make some adjustments to our energy usage. So this then should now be causing a reappraisal of how much energy is actually going to be required in the future before we plunge headlong into repeating the mistakes made in the 50/60's into over forecasting demand and overbuilding generation. Millibrain won't though and we will be left with 1000's of underutilised windmills and our landscape annihilated by solar panels and it will cost the consumer dearly. Oh and the cherry on the cake here is the only people who will benefit aren't in the UK anyhow.
Thank you David: your article coincided with a post from Green Leap Forward on "luxury beliefs" https://www.greenleapforward.wtf/p/the-rich-get-greener-and-the-poor , which I think fits well with Mr Milliband. I feel your missile guidance failed in the final paragraph as I can't ascribe sadism to him. However, what I think matters more is that while to a classical liberal, coercion is repugnant, a socialist like Mr Millband can see it as necessary to achieve a "greater good". He wrote recently that the public must be persuaded to accept pylons and power lines running across the country. We all need educating.
I'm not aware of historical precedent for the coercion that will be needed to press home the "energy transition".
Fellow subscribers may like to see Gordon Hughes' post on adaptation, notable for its rarity among a superabundance on mitigation https://cloudwisdom.substack.com/p/adaptation-to-climate-change-optimism.
I can also commend Ed Conway's masterful and very readable book, Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future. His chapter on copper should sober up true-believers in the transition, except of course that it won't, any more than mining expert Simon Michaux, in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDbPTOImipo&t=4s
> I can't ascribe sadism to him
Miliband (like Blair, and Brown, and Harman, etc.) is a member of The Fabian Society, the politics and morality of which was shaped profoundly by George Bernard Shaw. In "The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism", Shaw suggested that if a person was deemed incapable of contributing to society, then they should be executed.
I realise that Miliband is not accountable for Shaw. But to my mind, in the ideology they share, there is something that goes far beyond a rational desire to achieve "a greater good", at least in any sense the term normally is used. I'd agree it's perhaps a step too far to characterise it as sexual pleasure. But we need some label to signal adequately what they might be ready to contemplate, and Dave's is as good as any for popular discourse. It certainly distinguishes it as an emotional/irrational impulse, rather than an intellectual/rational one.
At the height of our access to energy, 26,000 people a year die of cold related effects in the UK every year. All of them are in the category of people Shaw would describe as "incapable of contributing to society". That number will expand rapidly at the commencement of Labour's rolling energy blackouts. It will be an opportunity to calibrate Fabianism's fondness for "the greater good".
I see you're very well read on this subject. Thank you for the references.
Thank you in return Al - very kind. There's a lot of good material around, some of which deserves a bigger readership, which I like to share. I also like to be challenged rather than staying in a comfort zone, as even people one may disagree with still have interesting things to say.
Oh, I think cutting the winter fuel payment at the same time as adding new, more expensive forms of energy to the grid is pretty sadistic. As is giving £11.6bn away in overseas "climate aid" while putting up taxes and cutting spending on new hospitals.
I concede.
They could reasonably have started by clawing it back from all pensioners paying 40%+ income tax, perhaps with a band of 25% or 30% tax for a few thousand of income below the threshold to withdraw progressively from other nearly as rich pensioners. That would be seen as much fairer.
David - As a relative newcomer to your writing it would be useful, for me at least, and maybe others, to know where you stand in “the big picture” as it were
A superficial skim gives the impression you are a passionate climate change denier, and certainly you are being shared by climate change deniers, but I suspect that isn’t actually the case
If you had a magic wand, how would our energy systems look in 2050?
I'm not a denier, I'm a lukewarmer. But I do think that mitigation is a strategy that is doomed to failure, as I explained here:
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/risk-net-zero-worse-climate-change?utm_source=publication-search
And we don't need a magic wand to design the grid of 2050. Just some common sense. I had a go here:
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/nuclear-power-everywhere-all-at-once?utm_source=publication-search
Thanks - I arrived at a similar figure of nuclear plants myself, but 120 GW installed capacity would be, say, 40 Hinckley C’s, and as we haven’t even built one yet, 40 might be quite a challenge
If we used the 240 GW of waste heat rather than just threw it away into the sea, we might need half the number. We should really view nuclear as heat sources that also make some electricity, but we’d have to site them near urban areas and that’s where we’d loose the argument
I imagine a lot of grid upgrades would be required. The north Wales grid couldn’t cope with a Hinckley C sized station, and will have two national parks to cross. But then Wylfa was always a bad place for nuclear. Even more so now
Continuing with the current plans of mainly renewables, the only logical place for any new nuclear is SE England, but again I suspect that is already lost
The French managed to get to 70% of their power being nuclear in about 20 years so with determination that is possible. Of course, part of that is achieved by using neighbouring countries to help balance the system, and part by scheduling refuelling and maintenance for summer when demand is lower. The main part of their flex is hydro, reducing their need for gas as a balancing fuel. Their attempts to replace some of the system with wind seem to have increased the need for gas flex.
I know, but net zero will need at least x2 current demand if not x3. We don't have the hydro resources they have, and probably don’t t have the discipline to have so many reactors of the same design. Plus they have an element of dynamic tariffs lots of electric heating
If we need to change to dynamic tariffs and heat pumps, why bother with nuclear and just go for the cheaper offshore wind?
Same with hydrogen for storage which we could use in place of hydro - why both with nuclear?
The scenario in FES2024 makes sense to me, and will be based on far more data and rigorous analysis than any armchair strategist can design
Net zero is infeasible and unaffordable. If you think that FES2024 makes sense, you simply haven't evaluated it properly. FES world has been built on fantasies, not reality. They have yet to release their methodology and underlying data for this year. You can then expect detailed critique. Meantime David Turver did disassemble some of their visible assumptions in an earlier article which you can find on the site.
Do not think that having lots of money and even quite able people to throw at creating the FES means they are anything more than pieces of fiction designed to fool politicians and journalists and hence the public. They are designed to maximise the business of National Grid.
What are your views then on the “Mission Zero” report which shows net zero to be net cash positive by 2050, and hence the basis for our industrial strategy
The role of David Turver, and others, is to instigate thought, not to get to the correct answer
By the end of this year they will no longer be owned by National Grid
There was an aluminium smelter next door when it was first built but agree now little point having one there.
The smelter was considering their own power station until the CEGB effectively gave them 1/3 of Wylfa capacity at marginal cost. When they didn’t need all the power they would sell it to the grid. As soon as the Wylfa closure was finally agreed, Anglesey Aluminium closed
Nuclear is definitely the answer, but it's going to take decades, first to acknowledge it widely, and then to actually build it out. David's 'darkness' will be the rule in the interim.
The backdrop to the infiltration of the dark tetrad is the gathering Unenlightenment. Science and society, the economic and scientific progress of the last 300 years gifted to us by the Age of reason and the Industrial Revolution are rapidly winding backwards, being replaced by superstition and feudalism. The New Dark Ages beckon in Europe and the West and the dark tetrad fits perfectly the psychological profiles of our new overlords. They tell us that we must follow the Science, be it climate science, woke biology, immunology or whatever, wherever that Science leads - and those of us deep in dissociative states follow, like children, the sound of the Pied Piper.
Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of Science
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dare
Disturb the sound of Science
“Fools” said I, “You do not know
Science like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in a world of Science
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said “The words of the prophets
Are written on subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of Science”
Disturbed. Very appropriate. Still the best cover version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4
I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles
Such are promises
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest, hmm
Reminds me of those “Great News!” marketing missives. You just know a price rise is hidden behind the PR fluff.
I was reading about a concept called "Institutional Betrayal Trauma" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayal_trauma - I think what you are describing is covered by that...
"BTT emphasizes the importance of betrayal as a core antecedent of dissociation, implicitly aimed at preserving the relationship with the caregiver.[3] BTT suggests that an individual (e.g. a child or spouse), being dependent on another (e.g. their caregiver or partner) for support, will have a higher need to dissociate traumatic experiences from conscious awareness in order to preserve the relationship."
Sadly, much of the public are still in that psychologically dissociative state, having been particularly primed during Covid. As Doug points out below, they refuse to accept that our government and institutions would actively seek to do us all great harm, preferring instead to cite ideological obsession, groupthink, or even just madness. The dark tetrad lays out the psychological basis for the imposition of that harm.
I'm not sure they are intentionally doing us harm. They are so captured by their own ideology and stupidity that they believe this tripe. They will be absolutely dumbfounded when the lights start going out. To use an unfortunate phrase in this context, that's when the gaslighting will really start.
The most generous interpretation is that they don't care whether they do us harm or not. What matters to them most is the pursuit of their goals, be they financial, political or ideological. The most generous interpretation might apply to some, but a less generous interpretation is clearly appropriate with others. There is a strong streak of sadism which runs through these policies and I believe part of it is born of a vicious envy and a burning hatred of the achievements of Western civilisation right up to the turning of the 21st century. These people literally hate us and they hate what we managed to achieve. Why else would they want to tear it all down? Madness and stupidity doesn't cut it.
Oh I think it's driven by virtue signalling. It is important to remember that we are governed by highly intelligent idiots. They are utterly incapable of seeing the consequences of their policies and actions.
If, as you claim, they are "utterly incapable of seeing the consequences of their policies and actions," why did the previous government introduce totalitarian powers of ensuring compliance with energy rationing measures (including the power to enter people's homes to check compliance with 'smart' energy appliance regulations) into the Energy Act? Sounds to me like politicians and civil servants know exactly where their madcap 'delusional' policies are taking us.
Great article, David. I’m really glad that you, an irrefutable expert in power system engineering, are taking the gloves off and explicitly confronting the evil we are up against.
These days I find myself getting quite short with people who think they can fight the madness of Net Zero using rational arguments. This has been the approach for over 20 years and it has got us precisely nowhere. Those who persist in this approach need to question why they are getting nowhere. I say it’s from not acknowledging that our oppressors are evil, the “dark tetrad” as you encapsulate it: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/basics/dark-tetrad.
I don’t accept that our oppressors are “just” mad and as such open to having their ideas straightened out by rational argument, I say they are thoroughly bad. They showed their true colours during their Covid “plandemic”. It is so obvious that trying to run the country with net zero fossil fuels using replacements which have useless EROEI ratings (you have previously posted on this) will lead to economic collapse and mass starvation.
The Dukes 2023 energy statistics show the scale of the deindustrialisation that has already happened. You could add the BP warning about oil refineries closing down across Europe: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/bp-refineries-will-shut-across-europe-as-west-abandons-fossil-fuels/ar-BB1qT88P?ocid=finance-verthp-feeds.
There is a scripture that might explain the darkness:
"For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie" 2 Thessalonians 2:11, NIV
If this is the case, the implication is that those in power are under a cloud of powerful spiritual darkness. They even believe their own lies.
I don’t think it’s anything as deep as that. I think it all comes down to money, specifically to the huge, beyond-repayable fiat money debts that have been run up by our feckless politicians since Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. In 2020 while the climate change hoax was ticking over on the back-burner, a thought-to-be imminent global financial meltdown was the main reason the globalist establishment launched their Covid “plandemic”.
Reiner Fuellmich and his expert witnesses documented this in their 2022 Covid-19 Crimes Against Humanity model trial summarised by myself here (a time-spaced 2-part post): https://metatron.substack.com/p/reiner-fuellmichs-grand-jury-court. Unfortunately, these proceedings were totally suppressed by the complicit MSM and Fuellmich is currently locked up in prison on suspiciously-contrived charges.
If you search for “Leslie Manookian” in that post can read/listen to her opinions on the dire state of the global financial system. She believes that Covid was no less than the attempted controlled demolition of our global political and economic civilisation to cover up the financial mismanagement of governments and Big Money over many decades.
Thankfully the globalists failed to neuter us by their Covid plandemic but they are now focusing on their climate change hoax, perhaps intending to introduce energy and food rationing systems or some form of compulsory digital id to force us all into digital straitjackets. Do not comply!!!
Former Wall Street kingpin Edward Dowd agrees.
“The debt-based fiat system is a multi-generational Ponzi scheme … which needs more outlandish excuses faster now to create more debt to keep it afloat --- everything that’s about to happen lies at the feet of central bankers and politicians. Every other narrative is a distraction. It’s beyond everyone’s control”: https://x.com/DowdEdward/status/1819474011262537839?t=Esi9bEyuJBVTmq7a-_vVUw&s=19.
I note crypto is undergoing a crisis of confidence again, down 10% on the week.
You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.
Jonathan Swift
So we have to lead them into reasoning for themselves.
The words of Mark Twain are very applicable on getting the general public (and maybe even Ed Miliband) to waken up to the climate change hoax and the Covid scam: “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled”.
There was a reminder....Lysenko! Stop Millibacon's version.....would be like getting the Titanic to swerve the iceberg. As Captain of this doomed ship, 'The Edstone Green', he is a veritable Ahab. Perhaps only mutiny by the 'crew' ( us), or market forces, will wrest his hands from the wheel.