The Chocolate Teapot Fallacy

The Battle of Ideas tells us Greens need to sharpen their arguments, because they are losing the debate on Net Zero.

This week’s bonus article covers my visit to last weekend’s Battle of Ideas Festival in London. It is a fascinating event, with interesting debates taking place across a wide variety of topics like free speech, culture wars, the economy, education and women’s freedom.

I was there primarily for the energy discussions. Unfortunately, I missed the book launch on nuclear power on the Saturday, but I did attend the two energy debates that took place in the scientific dilemmas section on Sunday.

First up was a lunchtime debate entitled “Is nuclear the future of energy...again?” Unfortunately, the speaker who was supposed to advocate for this position had some sort of transportation nightmare and could not attend. I did not catch the name of the man who replaced her, but he did put up a valiant effort considering he was drafted in at the last minute. Speaking against the idea of a nuclear renaissance was Robert Reid, policy development officer for the Alba Party who was in mourning for the late Alec Salmond. We can therefore forgive him somewhat for advancing the hoary old chestnut that offshore wind is cheap: he claimed £41/MWh without citing any sources. Of course, the existing CfD funded offshore wind farms have cost us over £150/MWh so far this financial year and the new projects awarded in AR6 will cost us over £82/MWh in today’s money, more than twice Robert’s claim. Emma Bateman, who is an environmental campaigner and founding member of Together Against Sizewell C, unsurprisingly spoke against the idea of nuclear power and made some spurious claims about safety that if nuclear power were a person would have resulted in the libel lawyers being called on Monday morning. The gist of her substantive argument was that nuclear is too expensive and takes too long so we should therefore spend more on wind and solar.

In the ensuing debate, I managed to correct Robert Reid’s “facts” and make the point that if your primary concern is the environment, then you should be an advocate of nuclear power because it has the smallest overall environmental footprint of all energy sources because it doesn’t take up much land and has very low mineral intensity. I also made the point about the chocolate teapot fallacy. Arguing for wind and solar in place of nuclear power is akin to arguing in favour of chocolate teapots because you cannot wait for a ceramic one. No matter how many chocolate teapots you buy, you can never make tea; just like no matter how many wind turbines and solar panels you install you can never run a modern economy on intermittent electricity.

The physics of nuclear power are far superior to any other energy source because of its extremely high energy return on energy invested, meaning we get far more energy out than we expend building the power plants, and the output is reliable. There are even designs on the drawing board and beginning to be built that will allow nuclear power plants to follow fluctuations in demand. The barriers to nuclear power are all political: the West over-regulates nuclear power and it is unsurprising that it takes so long because of all the paperwork that must be produced before a new reactor can be built. We can fix man-made political and regulatory problems, but mere mortals cannot change the faulty physics of intermittent renewables, just like you can never make tea in a chocolate teapot.

We would be far better off committing to a significant nuclear power programme so we can deliver reliable electricity and if we fix the regulations, invest in rebuilding the skills base and supply chains and choose the right reactor design, we can even have cheap, reliable energy with only a small impact on the environment. This is what the French did in the 1970s and 1980s and now they produce ~70% of their electricity from nuclear.

The next debate was on the “Great British Energy Crisis.” It was encouraging to see that three of the five panellists are subscribers to this Substack (you know who you are and thank you). Two of the speakers, James Woudhuysen and Lord David Frost both made eloquent attacks on Net Zero and its consequences. Professor Michaela Kendall who is the UK Hydrogen Champion for Mission Innovation suggested we needed more facts to inform the debate on energy, but managed to skirt around the fact that the Government agreed contracts for green hydrogen at £241/MWh, which is about seven times the current cost of UK natural gas, which in turn costs more than five times US gas.

Dr Shahrar Ali is a former spokesperson for the Green Party who has recently won a discrimination court case against the Greens because they sacked him for his gender critical beliefs. It is a shame Dr Ali cannot apply his critical thinking skills to Net Zero. The gist of his argument was the world is warming, it is going to be a catastrophe, it is all our fault, so build more windmills.

I managed to take him to task in the ensuing debate by pointing out that even if you believe CO₂ causes warming, then it is a big leap to conclude that building windmills will change the weather. This is the so-called mitigation strategy that can only work if CO₂ is the only climate control knob (we know this to be untrue from paleo-climate records) and if everyone else follows the strategy and you only need to look at charts of global greenhouse gas emissions to see this is also untrue. A far better strategy is one of adaptation which has the advantages of being cheaper and will work regardless of the actions of others and regardless of the causes of global warming. The mitigation strategy we are pursuing is one of unilateral economic impoverishment and the net zero “cure” is far worse than the alleged climate change “disease.”

It is encouraging that my intervention drew an enthusiastic round of applause which is testament to the growing scepticism about Net Zero among the general public. It appears to me that cracks are appearing in the cosy green consensus in Westminster and if we get our arguments right, we can win this debate.

All in all, the Battle of Ideas is a thoroughly enjoyable event and I highly recommend everyone to attend next year, whatever your beliefs. It is only through free and open debate that we can get to the truth.

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