Will Net Zero be a Casualty of Green-on-Green Attacks?

More cracks are appearing in the Net Zero project

There has been quite a stir in the Net Zero world these past few weeks. In effect, the various bodies taking it upon themselves to guard the Net Zero agenda have begun a kind of warfare against each other.

Climate Change Committee Blasted

First to don the battle fatigues was Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith (CLS) who exploded a grenade under the Climate Change Committee (CCC) when he explained that the CCC had made a mistake in their energy system modelling. This is shown in this video link which has been set to start at the incriminating section (see also Figure A).

Figure A - CLS Criticised the CCC and National Infrastructure Assessment

CLS said that the CCC have conceded privately that looking at just one year of electricity supply from renewables when it comes to designing the grid is a mistake. The great strength of CLS’s work on long-term storage was that it considered 37 years of weather data when calculating how much energy storage would be required to cover back-to-back low wind years.

But CLS did not stop there. He moved on to a casual drive-by shooting of the National Infrastructure Assessment (NIA). Apparently, the NIA based their report on only one adverse weather event and did not take advice from the Met Office that adverse events often cluster together.

Not content with taking out the CCC and the NIA, CLS managed to shoot himself in the foot as he was holstering his weapon. He admitted in another interview that his own analysis did not take account of variable demand arising from variable weather (see Figure B).

Figure B - CLS admitting he has not treated variable demand properly

This matters because low wind years tend to be colder, so if we have electrified domestic heating demand will be higher than expected at the same time as low supply, thus leading to the need for even more storage.

Poor old CLS then discharged his weapon into the other foot as he put his name to another paper from the Oxford SSEE that said we should consider that 1,500TWh of electricity demand in 2050 is a reasonable figure. The trouble is, CLS assumed 570TWh in his long-term storage report, some 2.6 times lower. This means we will need far more storage than he calculated and even more than the CCC.

By implication, CLS has also blown up the National Grid’s modelling in their latest Future Energy Systems (FES23) report. Their report also only modelled a brief period of low wind, called a dunkelflaute and certainly did not consider multiple years of low wind.

Some of this was covered by the Telegraph and resulted in more collateral damage at the CCC. The outgoing Chief Executive, Chris Stark produced a blustering thread on Twitter/X to try and limit the damage. He does not admit that he conceded he made a mistake to CLS. However, he also never claims that the CCC work, in either its 2019 or 2023 reports considered back-to-back low wind years.

The trouble is, the squabble is really much ado about nothing. Or rather, much ado about the wrong thing. The CCC, FES23 and CLS in his long-term storage report all converge on a figure of around 600TWh as their estimates of electricity demand in 2050. They are fighting over how much storage will be required to meet this demand. But as we saw above, even CLS admits in the Oxford SSEE paper that this estimate of demand is way too low and 1,500TWh is more appropriate.

They are effectively arguing about how many lifeboats should be on the Titanic as they set a course full speed ahead for the iceberg.

Analytical Skills are Priority for New CCC CEO

In apparent acknowledgement of the weaknesses in the CCC’s analysis, the head-hunters searching for Stark’s replacement have placed great emphasis on analytical capabilities in their job specification (see Figure C).

Figure C - Job Spec for new Chief Executive of Climate Change Committee

The replacement CEO must nurture a culture of intellectual curiosity and analytical integrity as they oversee complex programmes of work of high quality that forms a sound basis for policy recommendations.

The public nature of this battle is having a real impact already. A community group has called for a halt to a scheme to build a new pylon line through northern Scotland that they believe will lead to “industrialisation of the Highlands” until climate change advisors have “got their facts straight.”

Siemens Energy Chairman Attacks Fairytale Thinking

Finally, Joe Kaeser, the chairman of the UK arm of Siemens Energy has been indulging in some guerilla tactics of his own. He warned that energy bills will have to keep rising to pay for the green transition as he attacked “fairytale” thinking about net zero. I wonder if he had in mind the Climate Change Committee or Ed Miliband? He even described green hydrogen of the type proposed in CLS’s storage report as another fairytale.

He is clearly in some difficulty because Siemens Energy has recently taken a €multi-billion bath in its wind turbine business after problems emerged with its machines. He bemoaned the fact that there is no “profit pool” in the turbine business, so innovation is being stifled. I would say that if there’s no profit in making wind turbines, then the only reason the industry exists at all is because of lavish subsidies.

His final comments were an assault on the very heart of the net zero project. He stormed Net Zero HQ, pushed the big red button and vaporised whole agenda by saying:

“If you want to have cheap energy, you need to be gas fired. That’s the cheapest way, the most secure way if you calculate the whole thing, from the beginning to the end.”

With two sentences, the mantra of cheap wind and solar renewables has been blown away in a giant mushroom cloud of hubris and lies. The chairman of Siemens Energy should know what he is talking about.

Labour Party Destroys the Green Agenda

Finally, the Labour Party donned balaclavas and blew up the green agenda by withdrawing its commitment to spend £28bn per year on green projects. Their plan has been watered down to spend around £4.7bn per year instead.

They are planning to use the money to create a state run power company call GB Energy and establish a national wealth fund (NWF). The NWF is intended to invest in EV production, clean steel (aka steel that is too expensive), hydrogen (10X more expensive than gas) and carbon capture (essentially an energy tax to reduce the efficiency of conventional power plants). What could possibly go wrong?

They have also maintained their commitment to decarbonise the electricity generation sector by 2030. They say this programme will create good jobs, lower energy bills and deliver energy security”. To partially pay for their plans they are going to implement a “proper windfall tax” on energy companies, increasing the marginal tax rate to 78%.

Quite how they’re going to deliver the required renewable generation capacity when they have withdrawn most of their funding remains to be explained. Nor do they explain how higher taxes will encourage energy companies to invest more. It is also difficult to see how more expensive, intermittent renewables will deliver lower bills, good jobs or energy security.

Labour’s move prompted the Green Party to put on their hemp flak jackets, jump into their battery powered tanks and launch their own offensive. They attacked Labour’s plans saying they are: “a massive backward step for the climate, for the economy and for good quality jobs”. They also said they “would go further and faster, investing at least double what Labour originally pledged”. In effect, all the trees they want to plant are of the magic money variety.

It is clear all is not well in the big green tent. Only time will tell if these developments are as significant for Net Zero as the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was for peace in Europe. But the net zero advocates are now turning on each other and exposing their own paper-thin analysis. The end of the net zero project cannot come soon enough.

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