From NOT MANY PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Too common sense!
With the Conservative leadership race now underway, we’re hearing a lot about unity and the expected tough talk on immigration, defence, welfare and tax. If only more candidates had been at the Cabinet table recently, to push the Conservative policies our members want to hear.
But there has been little talk of net zero emissions. Previous prime ministers, from Blair onwards, have wavered on energy policy. But all have committed to varying degrees to international climate agreements, even going beyond legislation.
Tony Blair oversaw the Climate Change Act (CCA) in 2008, Theresa May oversaw the 2050 target amendment. We are one of the few countries that has committed itself to legislation. But Parliament is sovereign and can repeal and amend any law it wants. I would recommend, on energy policy, that they do the same.
The results of this goal are now becoming clear, with British consumers are paying some of the highest prices for electricity in the world. We pay 2.5 times what US consumers pay and four times what the Chinese pay. Then we wonder why high-energy companies, from steel to ceramics, prefer to invest abroad.
What all previous administrations have agreed on, no matter how misguided, is to reduce fossil fuel use with little or no plan for how to replace the gigawatts of electricity lost by destroying still-functioning power plants, while still planning for a huge increase in electricity demand — electric cars, heat pumps, and replacing gas or coal-fired power from high-energy industrial processes.
As we dismantled our traditional fossil fuel power plants, our international competitors, especially China and India, spurred the construction of new plants. The power plants we did not dismantle were converted to burn wood pellets, mostly from the pristine forests of North America.
The amount of CO2 emitted per kWh of energy is approximately 1.5 times that of burning coal and three times that of using natural gas. This form of biomass energy accounts for 15% of the UK’s electricity generation and we call it “zero carbon” energy. Net zero emissions have really dropped that low.
Aside from burning North American forests, alternatives, if planned, include wind turbines and solar power. Neither is “cheap,” a statement that depends on ideal conditions for generation in the right place, meeting demand through existing distribution networks, The true cost is yet to be seen..
Individual wind or solar farms need to be connected to the grid via poles and cables that consume a lot of copper, aluminum and concrete, and the backup power needed to cope with irregular power generation has not yet been considered.
Options include battery storage on an unimaginable scale, with California studies estimating the cost to the state alone at $15 trillion (£11.5 trillion), with replacements every 10-12 years.
The plundering of Africa and South America to extract the necessary minerals has not yet been calculated.
Other energy storage methods include: bringing water uphill to reservoirs, if the terrain allows, using the stored gravitational energy for later release; electrolyzing water into hydrogen; or producing liquid e-fuels, but using existing liquid fuel infrastructure and transportation via reliable internal combustion engines.
To deal with the often prolonged periods of low-pressure storms with low winds, freezing conditions and low light that can blanket an entire continent for days, the costs of wind and solar backup are amplified dramatically. That’s a lot of copper, steel and concrete, and a lot of devastated land that can no longer be used for agricultural purposes.
The other “grand plan” is large interconnectors between countries to share generation and demand response. This is said to be equivalent to Energy independence and security France’s threat to the Channel Islands’ energy supplies in a minor “fishing war” three years ago should serve as a lesson that relying on others, however harmless, is not a good idea.
The final piece of current thinking involves maintaining and building new gas plants to provide backup power when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. The capital wasted in building gas plants that are rarely used (owners will demand super-high prices because the plants are capital-intensive, their fixed costs are only partially used) is obvious.
Labour’s latest plan to block North Sea gas drilling ensuring imported gas, with its much higher carbon footprint, will need to be burned in these plants. There will be very little GB plc left for Qatar to buy in the coming decades.
While the last decade was a fight over Brexit, the next decade will be a fight over energy. Labor’s plan to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030 Not only is it impossible, it is incredibly expensive because it is useless and potentially dangerous. There is a possibility of power outages. This will be the factor that brings down this Labor Government.
Our energy policy needs to be radically different. Here is what I propose.
First, we must amend the Climate Change Act 2008 to bring the UK back on track with most of the world. The CCA has not only led to distorted energy policy, but has also been used routinely to block most infrastructure projects by well-funded activist groups. More worryingly, a number of Supreme Court decisions have supported this view. If we want growth, we must reclaim the right to build the infrastructure we need.
Second, we must move toward a nuclear future.. We are still considering Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), but the Conservatives have wasted our last years in government with more indecision. The large EDF reactors that are underway or on the drawing board are complex, overpriced and delayed.
We need scalable Model T Fords, not Bentleys. If nuclear fusion becomes a reality, it will open up a whole new chapter in human energy production, with enough cheap electricity to produce hydrogen and e-fuels at scale. Traditional fission reactors can still provide that.
Third, we need a “domestic gas race”. Gas is the bridge fuel as we scale up nuclear. Domestic is key and we need to open up, as Norway is doing, every and every exploitable field in the North Sea basin.
We should look positively at fracking to ensure that domestic gas consumption, although likely to decline in the coming decades, is at least on par with domestic production. Exports would be a bonus. The benefits are clear: investment, high-paying jobs, large tax receipts and balance-of-payments savings.
Finally, we need to end taxpayer support for wasteful wind and solar projects. Energy auctions should be the price for providing energy 24/7, 365 days a year. If wind and solar owners can provide this, the economics should be a commercial decision for them, not an additional burden on taxpayers.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/22/net-zero-is-sinking-to-new-lows
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