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Tata Steel has announced an immediate withdrawal from Britain, threatening 4000 steel working jobs, and 40,000 jobs in dependent industries. The main reason given for abandoning Britain, is the high price Tata is forced to pay for energy, thanks to Britain’s green energy policies.
Tata’s decision is nevertheless a body blow to steel in the UK, with wide industrial and political implications. The threat to 4,000 jobs at the UK’s largest steelworks at Port Talbot, a community which is synonymous with the steel industry today in the way Jarrow was with the shipyards a century ago, is existential. But the closure of Tata’s plants, if it goes ahead, could threaten at least 40,000 jobs nationwide and help to make a mockery of the “active and sustained industrial strategy” which George Osborne advocated as recently as last November.
It would be foolish to pretend that there would be no problem facing steelmaking in Britain that determined state intervention could not solve. Global market power in steel production has shifted decisively to China, while decades of underinvestment and a long-term decline in UK steel’s international competitiveness cannot simply be dismissed as unimportant, least of all at a time when public money remains tight. Tata, after all, is a company with a record of trying to take the long view. It invested in a new blast furnace at Port Talbot. But steel’s cost base, especially the prices it had to pay for energy, left it vulnerable to the glut that has followed the slowdown of the Chinese economy. China’s readiness to unload steel on global markets at marginal cost knocked the floor out of the industry elsewhere, including in the UK.
The Tata decision is the latest stage of an ongoing crisis in the British steel industry.
Leading left wing British opposition politician Jeremy Corbyn, a strong advocate of renewables, has demanded that parliament be recalled, to consider state subsidies and other emergency measures to prevent job losses in the steel industry. Sadly the list of measures Corbyn wants considered, does not appear to include tackling the root cause of the job losses – Britain’s insane green energy prices.
A once great nation, brought down by liberal delusions of Unicorns and Fairy Dust..
Well you had me cheering there for a bit Eric. Any time you can get rid of 40,000 surplus jobs in the Energy business, and still supply the same or more energy at the same or lower costs and prices, then you know that you are moving up the energy efficiency (of availability) curve.
But if the job losses are in other industries; and are due to the diminishing efficiency of your Energy supply programs, then you are certainly on the road to ruin.
Bottom line in any competitive market, the irreducible cost base is the amount of energy the enterprise consumes, and the real cost of that energy to that enterprise. And shell games, that simply hide the cost under a different haystack do not ever solve the problem.
Energy availability and affordability is a TECHNOLOGICAL problem. It is NOT an ECONOMICS problem.
Economic problems can be solved with the stroke of a pen, by Economists; but only if the problem really is an economic problem.
But if the problem is really the unavailability of the technology, then economists can’t solve it no matter what they do, with the shells, and moreover, you need technologists (engineers and scientists) not economists to solve technology problems.
I could make solar PV economical if it was an economics problem.
Just slap a tax of a million dollars a barrel on fossil fuels, and use that money to subsidize the PV panel industry.
The problem with that is, I didn’t change how many square meters of solar cells I can make out of a barrel of oil; that number is still locked into the technology problems.
So I just dramatically increased the price of solar cells, without making even one more solar cell available.
You have to decrease the energy capital of a technology, to lower the cost of that sort of energy. That takes science/technology/engineering breakthroughs, not economic shell game witchcraft. Energy efficient Green Energy technologies just don’t exist.
G
That’s like saying you can make domestic products economical by slapping a 1000% tariff on imports. The definition of economical is:
“giving good value or service in relation to the amount of money, time, or effort spent.”
How does forcing up the price of a good make it more economical? No, you just made PV more desirable and not more economical.
Well tsk tsk to you Tsk Tsk.
I have a policy of never getting between anybody, and a precipice they are determined to leap off.
I might in rare cases suggest they look before they leap.
That could transmogrify into ‘ Read before you write. ‘
“””””…..
Tsk Tsk
March 31, 2016 at 4:36 pm
“
I could make solar PV economical if it was an economics problem.
Just slap a tax of a million dollars a barrel on fossil fuels, and use that money to subsidize the PV panel industry.
That’s like saying you can make domestic products economical by slapping a 1000% tariff on imports. …..”””””
“””””…..”””””…..economical if it was an economics problem. …..”””””…..”””””
…………. if ………
G
“””””…..How does forcing up the price of a good make it more economical? No, you just made PV more desirable and not more economical. …..”””””
Do you even read what YOU yourself write.
“””””…..How does forcing up the price of a good make it (THAT GOOD) more economical? …..
My suggestion forced up the price of fossil fuels. That does not make fossil fuels more economical; just the opposite in fact.
BUT, It certainly makes it plainly apparent, that the cost of making solar PV is intimately tied to the AMOUNT of energy (and of course its price) that it requires to perform the proposed enterprise.
I think I did say it was a TECHNOLOGICAL problem. It takes TOO MUCH ENERGY to make a solar PV system.
and the cost of that energy is what makes it a poor value for money ie uneconomical
G
The UK, like many developed westernised countries, has off-shored its heavy industry. This has resulted in the reduction of CO2 at local level, but not globally. It is simply a redistribution exercise as to where the CO2 emitted in the industrial process is created. In fact, with shipping more CO2 may globally be produced as raw commodities are imported, and finished goods exported.
The cost of electricity is at least twice as expensive as it needs to be as a direct consequence of the push towards green energy. But green energy is not green since there is no significant reduction in CO2 given the need for 100% backup capacity, and much CO2 and rare metals etc are used in building and siting windfarms etc. In practice, green energy is anything but green.
The trouble is undoubtedly ill thought through green policies which makes energy prohibitively expensive for large users-such as steel- but to this must be added a huge glut of steel at rock bottom prices due to china’s current over production.
The end result will surely be fewer steel makers and an inevitable hike in prices.
Which doesn’t help large energy consumers in Britain. Someone facetiously said that perhaps we should offer to pay three times the going rate for steel for the next thirty years in order to support our steel industry in an ironic reference to the govts intention of paying three times the current price for electricity for that period in order to support the proposed Hinckley nuclear power station.
tonyb
I thought it through. I have posted many comments on various forums over several years pointing out the inevitable consequences of expensive green energy, and pointing out that we are not bequeathing our granchildren a better cleaner world for which they will thank us. We are bequeathing them a life of poverty and deprivation for which they will curse us. How did I think it through? Am I a scientist, an expert, a politician? No, I’m just an ordinary bloke who somewhere along the way acquired a little common sense.
If it’s any consolation, “we” have not done this.
Richard, the greenest way to help the planet is produce CO2. Coal, gas and oil are all cheap and provide all the power we need without any “renewables”.
LFTR’s are also a great piece of nuclear engineering, politics as always hinders progress.
Absolutely. Carbon dioxide is not a greenhouse gas (greenhouses work by trapping warm air, not radiation).
CO2 is a green gas.
.
It is a sad irony that people who call themselves “green” demonise the very thing that makes the planet green.
Chris
So which countries are getting low cost electricity from LFTRs at the present time ??
G
Don’t need LFTR. MSR burning U/Pu will work just fine. But let’s let the market decide instead, OK?
Shipping aside – the Chinese produce a LOT more evil CO2 per ton of steel than any Western nation. With slave labor available from the mines right through the shipping dock, they don’t HAVE to be efficient with their resources.
Of course, the REAL problem is that they also produce a lot of ACTUALLY nasty stuff in the process. SO2 and NO2 spewed into the air, along with a truly vile cocktail of heavy metal sulfides, sulfates, and other compounds dumped into the rivers.
But Western Greens don’t care. They’re only Chink peasants, living in a Communist Paradise.
Observer old soul,
I assume – as a good bum boatie – that the phrase ‘Chink peasants’ is your take on the views of the – widely despised – ‘Western Greens’.
Now, certainly that is how I understand it.
Fair enough.
Auto
Yes, that is a very perceptive comment, Reality Observer. In summary, Western Greens are complete f*ckwits.
“But green energy is not green since there is no significant reduction in CO2 given the need for 100% backup capacity, and much CO2 and rare metals etc are used in building and siting windfarms etc. In practice, green energy is anything but green.”
Absolutely the opposite of the truth. Windfarms etc. use much more fossil fuel emitting much more CO2. That IS what green really is! More CO2 is more plant food, more food, more wealth for the poor, more food for wildlife, less pressure by humans on wild parts of the planet. It is LESS CO2 that is “dirty” – MORE CO2 is GREEN.
Look on the bright side, with our Aluminum industry gone & steel industry about to go, there’s a chance we can keep the lights on this winter.
All hail to out glorious Green leaders……. soon we’ll be on a par with North Korea
The capacity will be there but will Brittons be able to pay for it?
N Korea where the lights are mostly off at night – see pictures from the ISS. What the greenies really want, except for themselves. is a worldwide N Korea but with many fewer people and animals and birds and insects and..
I just wonder in the new unpopulated green paradise who is going to make all the luxury goods that they take for granted as their birthright now and how are they going to power their Prii(plural of prius) and Teslae and tablets and smart phones and their whole www thingy and all the other stuff they rely on so absolutely today (like water and heat and food and lattes and bicycles and Vespas and so on and on) to give their sad little existences meaning. I don’t think any of them have thought this through at all.
Every enviornmental group blames all the earth’s problems on one species, and generally on one culture, western. They say that overpopulation is the greatest threat to humanity, then in the next breath talk about saving lives, they never explain how to reduce the global population by 90% or more by saving lives. To depopulate the earth, starvation is the ticket, it is not labor intensive, the dying attend to the dead, Stalin proved this method to be superior to Hitler’s death factory approach. To achieve mass starvation, just drive up prices on food and other energy products, deny new innovations in farming, treat every new technology as a threat, and most importantly you have to believe that the world needs population management, and that you and others like you will make good managers.
“I just wonder in the new unpopulated green paradise who is going to make all the luxury goods”
I think H.G. Wells foretold this in The Time Machine, with the Morlocks and Eloi.
Piusses (or izzat Piii ) may get 120 MPG in tests on empty race tracks; but they will never get that out on real roads.
My two liter Subaru Impreza, easily get 50 MPG on flat roads, at any speed between 30 mph and 60 mph. But going to work each day on a flat freeway, I seldom can go 30 mph, and I never go higher than 60 (by choice). My average speed for the last 10,000 km has been 11 mph, which requires me to have my foot on the brakes all the time, since the car won’t go less than 15 mph on a flat road, with my foot off the gas pedal.
In silicon valley, everybody wants to be in front of the car that is in front of them, and in the lane that has the shortest line in front of them. So if somebody coughs, everybody starts switching lanes (even back and forth) so they are going mostly sideways, rather than forwards.
No matter how slowly I am going (or fastly), the car that WILL pull in front of me from either of the adjacent lanes, will ALWAYS be going slower that I am, which leads to an immediate braking from me (and my next Subaru will do that for me automatically). The car that just cut me off, has no idea, just how far I have to travel to recover that lost KE without having my instantaneous MPG exceed my long term average MPG.
Usually another car will cut in front of me, before I recover my road speed. No it matters not a jot, which lane I am in, both lanes on either side of me will be used by the sideways drivers. Well they prefer to use the lane to my right, just to let me know that I am in THEIR lane (which is whatever lane I am in).
The other Silicon valley traffic pestilence is the texter gap at traffic lights. Wne you hit a red light and have to stop, half the cars are texting or yacking on their iphones, so they leave a two car length empty space between them and the car stopped in front of them. That way, if their foot slips off the brake pedal, or they hit the gas while waving their arms around in gestures their other connection end can’t see, they will wake up before they crash into the car in front (most of the time they will). But then you may have to honk at them to wake them up so they know the light is now green and the car way in front of them is gone. That of course pisses them off, that you interrupted their texting séance.
Yes they ARE mostly Asian immigrants. I can’t help it that they are; that’s just the way it is.
Doesn’t matter to me what they are; well THEY are just drivers who fail to observe (ALL) of the traffic laws.
G
But Chris, I’m glad to see, that I am not the only one who notices the problem.
Peace, Mate. We’ll get through it somehow !
“george e. smith
March 31, 2016 at 11:13 am”
In slow traffic in your scooby, put the gearbox in to 1, you’ll just run at tick-over, no need for gas or brake because in D, it wants to, and does, change up ASAP. I am going to assume your scooby is a circa 2000-ish model with a 4 EAT automagic gearbox (AWD). Whoever programmed the ABS, GCU and ECU was focused on economy and not the driver. I have the 2003 Imprezza with the 4 EAT automagic gearbox and I am eternally frustrated with it. So my next scooby will be manual, which is a genuine, fulltime, 4×4. The auto (AWD) is not. Duty solenoid C disengages the rear axle above 60kph (About 40mph until the ABS detects slip). I have never managed to get 50mpg out of mine even on a long 1024km, non-stop apart from a break and gas, run from Sydney to Melbourne.
But as to you description of driving habits, switching lanes texting/calling, I tend to give these drivers a wide birth, especially if they happen to be driving a B-double. The police here in Australia are more worried that drivers are not running over cracks in the pavement rather than bad, distracted, driving.
Hey Patrick,
Thanx Mate for the Impreza heads up.
I actually have a 2012 hatchback and it has their new 2.0 liter engine. It also has the CVT transmission, and you can slip that into manual mode with up and down shift paddles on the steering wheel.
I also have (2) Legacys both with CVT, and on an actual freeway round trip of 750 miles from Sunnyvale to Glendale in SoCal and back, on hiway 5 over the grapevine, I got a trip average of 41.8 MPG. Basically had cruise set to 62 MPH but dropped that back to 55 going up both sides of the grapevine. They both have the 2.5 liter engine. All three are just the Premium models. No hot Subies for me. The CVT is very nice to have.
G
The same politicians (that’s 97% of them!) who were sobbing crocodile tears in December, about the end of the British Coal industry, are today back again, wailing and gnashing teeth, saying they are doing “everything possible” to save steel.
Whilst simultaneously backing remaining in the EU (which has given rise to many of the problems) and refusing to discuss the government’s very own £18 “carbon floor price” which arguably was the coup de grâce for both industries.
Whether from abject stupidity or extreme hypocrisy or both, it is sometimes hard to say.
The hard core Greens will view these closures quite dispassionately. Closures are tough, yes, but a necessary sacrifice as we march forward paying penance for our sins against the planet along the way.
It’s all part of the deliberate language of the guilt trippers when describing emissions as “human activities”.
Isn’t it amazing how when many people talk about necessary sacrifices, it’s always someone else that is doing the sacrificing.
Cue the expression of concern about these impacts. They were intended and the posers pretending to care should be forthright about their goals.
There is an interesting comment on this on the Daily Telegraph. See;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/03/30/it-may-be-heart-breaking-but-there-must-be-no-bail-out-for-port/
I love the way that the Lefties on the Grauniad’s Komment macht frei are decrying the profiteering of the “Big Six” energy companies. It’s all their fault.
Chances of my contribution to their discussion being posted?
“An excellent result of our clean energy policies, driving this polluting, carbon-producing monster out of business.”
I suspect not!
I suspect that, even with free energy, the UK could not match China prices….
Possibly, but at least they would have had a chance. Britain still has a lot of presence in the high quality end of the market. With lower energy prices they might have held onto market share at the high end of the market, even if they weren’t able to match Chinese prices.
https://www.imeche.org/news/news-article/uk-engineering-companies-heavily-dependent-on-export-markets-26051501
There’s also the cost of shipping, customs and delivery time. Then there is communications issues. Taking advantage of potential competitive edges like an ability to provide cheap, clean, reliable energy such as coal means you can have local heavy industries. But not if you have the EU/UK energy policies. I agree, this is an intended outcome, implemented by those in our body politic who are against our civilisation.
Maybe not match their prices, but most likely far outmatch their quality. As the fastener industry declined in the the United States due to cheap, Chinese fasteners, so did the failure of numerous products from faulty, poor quality fasteners. The Chinese do a great job of making “cheaply made” products, both in price and in quality. How many homes in the United States had to be gutted to replace cheap, unhealthy Chinese drywall? How many cheap, Chinese-made children’s toys have been recalled because they were painted with lead paint? The list can go on indefinitely.
They used to say the same thing about Japanese products.
Then about Korean products.
Then about Taiwanese products.
In reference to Don Perry’s post, and I mean this seriously; has anyone ever come across a well-made piece of light engineering that turned out to be made in China? EVERYTHING, and I do mean everything, that I have seen as poor quality always has ‘PRC’ written on it.
We have a quality supermarket chain here in England called Waitrose. I recently went there for a potato ricer. It is £8(!). That’s about double the price of Chinese made ricers found elsewhere. However, I thought it must be worth it. That is until I read the label and found it was made in China. So what is happening now, is that companies here are importing crap from China, and trying to pass it off as ‘better engineered’, and thus charging a higher price. We recently struggled to find a non-Chinese can opener. We eventually found an Italian one. However, a non-Chinese bread maker still eludes us. We have a store here called Currys (not a good store, but has a wide choice). They line up all their products. We looked at every bread maker they sell…ALL Chinese, even the Japanese makes! If anyone knows a non-Chinese one, please say.
Back in the 60’s and 70’s, the Japanese were known for selling low cost, low quality toys and knock offs.
It was the standard joke that if it fell apart I the first couple of days, you could look at it and it would say “Made in Japan”.
This is how all emerging companies enter the global economy.
“MarkW
March 31, 2016 at 2:48 pm”
All major manufacturers in the UK since the 80’s use Japanese manufacturing techniques such as “kan-ban” squares (Too little time and space to describe what that is…but it is funny all the same. IBM (UK) took to it like a rash). I do have to admire the Japanese especially Honda. If there was a quality problem (And body parts from Rover was a problem so much so Honda installed their own CNC pressing plant), the WHOLE line was stopped until it was corrected. IBM had an issue with that even though the product was defective needing re-work or had parts missing, the line never stopped.
Chinese steel makers have low energy costs to start with and have been subsidised by the chinese government to dump steel in the world market. The USA imposed import tarriffs of 224% (or thereabouts) to combat chinese dumping – the EU in contrast imposed a 24% import surcharge allowing the Chinese to continue to undercut european steel prices.
End result will be that steel industries outside of the USA decline or close whilst China builds market share ready to capitalise on that and effectively control and largely monopolise global steel production when markets recover.
The only solution for the UK is to leave the EU so that we can set our own import tarriffs to combat dumping where it occurs – but in the meantime the UK is effectively prohibited from any meaningful action to preserve our steel industry because the EU will not allow us to.
And yet so many the other side of the pond – like Obama, Kerry and Gore – are calling for Britain to remain as a subject state of the EU and no longer a functioning democracy.
Does it make sense to first have irrationally high energy prices and then to charge consumers a tax for so-called antidumping “protection?” Such tariff in fact protects the producer side for no apparent reason other than some so far mythical future sell-side monoply. Tariffs hurt consumers and are a poor response to anti competitive government policies, intereferences, amd manipulations.
You don’t seem to realise the Tarrifs are because China is Dumping State Subsidized products on the rest of the world.
The Tarrifs are to prevent anti-dumping.
It does not hurt “Consumers” if the alternative is that those “Consumers” are all out of work.
China is sending its natural resources in useable refined forms, using state coercion of its subjects, priced too cheaply? So we are to demand govt tax us (yet more!) so as to somehow stop this? The better response is to figure out how to avail of the opportunity while it lasts, not to demand yet one more tax by the same people that made British steel ossified and subject to too high labor costs, dumb work and termination rules, and overly restrictive environmental restrictions.
when something is actually on sale below cost, normal folks call it ‘surplus’ and buy it to save money and make profit.
the concept of ‘dumping’ is spin to claim victimhood status for inability to compete.
it’s those who imagine they should be entitled to force buyers to buy from them at higher prices who go crying for government to ‘protect’ them.
another word to watch for is ‘hoarding’. let’s hope we don’t get to hear that one.
The problem with dumping, is that it doesn’t work. All that happens is that Chinese taxpayers are being forced to pay so that the world’s consumers can improve their lifestyles.
What happens is that a few marginal producers go out of business (that was inevitable anyway) and the viable producers cut back on production until China runs out of tax money.
So, is Saudi “dumping” oil? Kind of looks like it to me. So where is the reaction and outrage? Oh, wait. Wasn’t this Obama’s idea in the first place as part of the sanctions against Russia? So, how has that worked out?
5 years and it will resolve itself as the Saudis financial reserves crater. The Law of Unintended Consequences and Murhpy’s Law will take care of things. I hope.
It might not occur to you but the entire Chinese export model is based on dumping (export is everything is everything because even the Chinese home market people don’t buy home market goods but just reimport exported ones)…..
In USA, PV solar makers bemoan China panel dumping prices that undercut them. Well it is still too expensive for the would be customer. Hey Earth to PV industry ; ….. It is not because of China dumping.
It is simply that YOUR technology (and theirs) is simply way too inefficient to compete with readily available legacy energy sources.
The sun will give you 100 watt per square foot tops. Of that you may get from 10 to 20 W/sq. ft.
Land prices aren’t going to go down any time soon.
Being green (which we used to be) couldn’t get us to where we are today; and it certainly can’t sustain us where we are at.
Which is not to knock solar; PV or whatever. It can be useful in niche markets; but it is never going to be cheap; but it can be economical in those niches, where it fits.
Ivanpah is a better fit with Desert Tortoises, than with solar aided Natural Gas electricity.
G
The insanity of Britain’s green energy policies knows no bounds, as the country’s ‘political elite’ still continues to demonise cheap reliable sources of energy in favour of expensive unreliable ones. Britain will shortly face a long period of rolling blackouts and sky high electricity costs in winter and no one seems to care, certainly not the obviously incompetent energy and climate change minister Amber Rudd, whose expertise is in her degree in history and a previous career in venture capital and employment recruitment.
The UK government and its equally green obsessed political opposition will never admit that their green policies have been anything other than a disaster for the country’s economy.
To be fair, the Tata steel works crisis is not solely the fault of green energy, other factors are: i) the current UK government’s obsession in protecting its supposedly special relationship with China, which led it to oppose easier anti-dumping policies by the EU and, ii) anti-dumping tariffs that are a tiny fraction of those of the USA.
other factors are:
iii) High Business Rates
iv) Green Carbon Taxes
v) lack of Government Investment in all things using Steel
vi) lack of Managerial interest by Tata, they just left the Plants to run themselves and their management are poor.
vii) lack of investment by Tata, no spares, no upgrades, old equipment etc
Seems much government investment other than outright vote buying over there is for studies by groups that do not share data and abused peer review but somehow produce findings reported as valid and funding for astroturf groups fronting as NGOs that purport to speak or report the public’s will. Inspector Gore could find lotsa fraud there if it would damage his wealth prospects to do so. Less government I in steel or otherwise, please.
Seems much government investment other than outright vote buying over there is for studies by groups that do not share data and abused peer review but somehow produce findings reported as valid and funding for astroturf groups fronting as NGOs that purport to speak or report the public’s will. Inspector Gore could find lotsa issues there if it wouldn’t damage his wealth prospects to do so. Less government I in steel or otherwise, please.
You forgot
unions,
useless HR & IR departments and laws
unions
high raw material costs (can Port Talbot receive 350,000 t ships full of iron ore and coal from Australia)
shipping costs, port costs, unions
lack of automation and latest technology. (the Japanese have the latest steelmaking technology and have invested in China and the Chinese are stealing their technology)
unions, poor quality management and poor quality engineers (technical universities in China, Japan, Singapore and South Korea are turning out better qualified engineers than the red brick so-called universities in UK eg East Anglia)
Cement forgot to mention unions
Not to mention all the jobs that will be wiped out next month by the blanket ban on psychoactive substances.
Although these jobs will not so much be wiped out, but transferred to the black market where quality is poor and profit margins are high – but tax take is nil.
With no steel and no legal highs, it looks as though the British economy is going to be almost 100% dependent upon solar subsidies and the growing social work industry. But wait…that surely can’t work.
I guess that we’ll all have to become environmentalists.
We can occasionally inspect a drainage channel while wearing a hi-viz jacket and a hard hat (why the hat?).
Saving beetles from diggers. It beats working for a living.
Britain also lost her aluminium plants when they closed down the nuclear plant which provided power for them.
For a worker-friendly party, climate activists seem to know little about working..
Since when have climat activists been “worker friendly” ????
All they want to do is close down industry, head back to the stone age and reduce human populations. They couldn’t give a damn about workers.
Oh they give a damn about workers. They would like to see about 6.5 Billion of them disappear. (to save Gaia you understand)
I detect a concrete trend there, that seems to identify one of the big impediments to energy efficiency.
I think he’s onto something.
g
Fear not Mark; Mother Gaia, has everything under control, and the surplus will be handled in due course, regardless (or irregardless as the case may be) of what we think we should do.
Look at how she took care of the problem of too many people (tourists) at Base Camp on Mt. Everest.
A little here, and a little there, and pretty soon you are talking real numbers.
g
The elephant in the room is the Climate Change Act. Killing that will go a long way to help the steel industry. More CO2 will help crop growth but not affect climate.
Current contribution to UK grid from wind to nearest % = one (0.56%, was = zero, 0.49% an hour ago).
The best way to improve that is to remove all coal, gas and nuclear. Then it will be 100%
Don’t forget solar (not much today so far). Still at least the birds and the bats survive another day.
Rejoice, wind is now up to 0.7% at 10.15 BST (5.15 EST).
If I fart in a bottle and send it to you will it help?
I’m curious. Did they ever actually remove the gunpowder. from under the houses of parliament?
Salvation, it is now 1.23% at 12.15 BST (7.15 EST)
Actually I know a Canadian geologist who is a strong climate skeptic, yet he has invested a lot of money in wind farms because the tax breaks are so good he could not turn it down.
He says that for every $1000 invested, he gets $750 back from the government. It makes wind farm investments almost risk free, and I’ll bet the terms are still not as generous as those in the UK.
Don’t you just love politicians giving away taxpayers money?
Klem, if he’s a tax paying geologist then he is just getting some of his taxes back.
g
It’s not just green energy but also the European Union for not allowing higher import tariffs against the dumping of chinese steel. We are no longer a full democracy because of the European Union.
In fairness to the EU. The rest of Europe wanted to stop Chinese steel being dumped on us.
It was the idiotic Cameron government who committed the treasonous (and hopefully politically suicidal) blunder of putting China first.
This was reported as a scandal back in February (here’s a link to the Telegraph).
Oh I’d missed that piece of news. PS your link is to the Guardian not the Telegraph but I’ll believe it anyway. The UK government’s argument is that a move by Europe to increase tarrifs would increase costs to consumers. I think steel is a strategic product so consumers should come second. Also it still shows how undemocratic the EU is because it stops other countries doing what they want to do.
Interestingly the US has slapped a tarrif of upto 236% on Chinese steel.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-03/u-s-commerce-finds-china-steel-subsidies-of-as-much-as-236-
As I said up post about the excuse of protecting consumers
“It does not hurt “Consumers” if the alternative is that those “Consumers” are all out of work.”
Tarrifs just mean that everything made from steel is more expensive. You aren’t saving any jobs, you are merely shifting which industry is losing jobs.
If that is true why have the USA done it and the EU wanted to do it, but were stopped by Cameron and Osborne.
They wanted to protect their own markets, you are talking about taking 40,000 people out of the economy and on the dole, which we are going to have to pay for instead.
The country can only do that for so long before there is no cash to pay for anything other than food produced in the UK and all of manufacturing disappears, which is exactly what Maggie Thatcher wanted.
That the US followed politics rather than economics, is not an argument that the economics is wrong. Just that the ignorant people vote and politicians listen.
Now that you have made steel more expensive, you have made everything that is made from steel more expensive. This means that everything made from steel is now less competitive, plus the consumers who have to buy these now more expensive things have less money to spend on everything else they wish to buy.
You haven’t saved a single job. The only thing you have done is transfer the job losses from politically powerful industries, to the rest of the economy.
Just for laughs, you should see what those China steel tariffs have done to the US price of refrigerators and stoves etc. White goods, cost an arm and a leg now.
Talk to (the Handsome) Walter E. Williams about China steel tariffs, and economics.
G
What have the BBC had to say about the Tata Steel crisis and the high cost of energy?
.
.
.
.
Oh, an American economist did mention the high cost of energy in passing in the on Newsnight, but it was not discussed further by the panel, and she then countered that by saying that companies, such as GM and Vestas were pulling out of the UK because of the lack of support for green investment opportunities.
Colin: On Radio 4’s Today programme they interviewed the ex-chairman of N-Power (I think it was) and he was extolling the virtues of green energy, trying to have us believe that it was getting cheaper and cheaper and that it was becoming a competitive source of energy compared to conventional generation.
People like this would like us to believe that loss of steel jobs is an unintended consequence of saving the planet from CO2. I believe there is nothing unintentional at all. These people/greens are merely puppets for their masters: want to bring the West’s manufacturing to its knees? then flood the market with state-subsidised, below cost steel. Watch as Western steel foundries go out of business. When you become the monopoly provider of steel……you know the rest.
The involvement in ‘green’ energy is why the Big 6 say so little about the tax factor in their costs. They don’t want to upset the hand that feeds them taxpayers’ cash as subsidy. SSE are up to their neck in windmills and other ‘green’ stuff.
Harry ” Watch as Western steel foundries go out of business. When you become the monopoly provider of steel……you know the rest. ”
When you say you know the rest, I am guessing you mean much higher prices that could be demanded by a monopoly. I read somewhere that to be a strong military power you must be a strong industrial power. I don’t think that the raw material for the weaponry required for war could be bought from your enemy.
So long as the US continues to pay people to not work, and borrows the money from China, to give to them, the Chinese will always be able to undercut anyone else.
If you have an EBT card (Everybody But Taxpayers), you don’t need actual money to get what others have to work for.
G
george’s comment reminds me of another fact that many people often overlook.
Why do we have a trade deficit with China?
The biggest single reason is that it’s because we have a budget deficit.
When we buy stuff from China, they send us goods, and we send them greenbacks.
As long as their is a trade deficit, the Chinese will end up with an ever growing pile of greenbacks. The existence of this pile of greenbacks will, over time cause the value of the greenback to fall, making our stuff cheaper to sell and their stuff more expensive to buy.
To the Chinese, this is obviously a non-optimal solution. So what do they do.
They could burn the greenbacks. That may be good for us, but it doesn’t do anything for them.
The only solution is that they have to get those greenbacks back to the US somehow.
They could use them to buy things from us. However, the US government has given them another option, they can buy US Treasuries. This allows them to decrease their pile of greenbacks, thus preventing the greenback from falling in value, but they don’t have to import things to compete with their own industries.
Until the budget deficit problem is solved, the trade deficit problem will never be solved.
Heres how it works in the UK. The government sets crazy green taxes helping to make steel production unprofitable. Then the money from the green taxes is used to support non viable green alternatives eg windmills. The green companies use the green subsidy to buy steel to make windmills from where? Yes they buy steel from China. You could not make this stuff up. We are truly rules by incompetents!
because china uses coal power which makes steel production economical?
well, then- call it evil – make up a catchy label for it – demonize it and tax it to protect those who have chosen the most uneconomical means cuz it feels so good to be green.
because all the unemployed need to blame somebody, right?
oh, protect the stupid from the smart! taxation is protection! idiot rights! down with intelligence!
Are you unemployed?
If your pay check came out of the US Treasury you are ! (and not military)
G
As if one thinks the green blob cares.
“Tata’s decision is a summons to a public seriousness…”
Er, no, it’s a closure of an industry due to high energy costs.
Maybe the unemployed can be hired as Guardian journalists on a work-sharing basis. Each can do a phrase or word. If the Guardian becomes even less profitable they can try a summons to a public seriousness. Whatever that is.
Pigeons coming home to roost.
All part of the de-industrialisation of the West, under the policy of contract and converge:
“Contraction and Convergence, developed by Aubrey Meyer of the Global Commons Institute. Cut emissions of carbon-rich countries, while allowing those of carbon-poor countries to rise, until everyone has the same quota.”
http://www.gci.org.uk/
For some reason the Global Commons Institute will not currently allow me access but this is the guy here:
http://www.amazon.com/Contraction-Convergence-Solution-Schumacher-Briefings/dp/1870098943
He is a musician, whose ideas on CO2 reduction are UN policy. Espoused by all prominent AGW protagonists such as Lord Stern and friends.
Hi Dennis
Sorry about the web access problem. I am having a disagreement with the service provider over a bill.
A storm in a tea-cup – simply put they continually ask me to pay at a link they provide that doesn’t work.
I don’t know how to get past that as they refuse to put it right.when you ask them to do that.
That’s ‘BT’ for you . . .
If you are interested, these links do work: –
http://cbat.info/#domain-1
http://cbat.info/#domain-2
http://cbat.info/#domain-3
http://cbat.info/#domain-4
As for us Aussies if the Labour Party win this election we will follow England and Spain and etc etc
I’m going to be looking carefully at minor parties at the next Aussie Federal election – I’m not overwhelmed by enthusiasm for Turnbull’s Labor Lite.
I said when Abbott came to power, Turncoat was waiting in the wings back in 2013. I also said that will be a disaster for Aus if Turncoat takes power. Turncoat and the LNP will not “win”. I suspect we will have a hung parliament. A disaster for Australia.
I am a bit rusty on the when of it…but
TATA bought a steel rolling mill a few yrs back now
promised to keep the 500 jobs it was RED???something mills?
anyway not long after the shut it down claiming too expensive to run
and promptly opened the same mill in India with 500 workers..
so..you lose your industries, even more dangerous to a nation you lose your SKILLED WORKERS..and apprenticeships have been canned or cut savagely over the years to DEskill.
in a few years time you will have very few people able to work the machinery OR even handle preprocessed metal items for further milling etc.
Ive seen it happen here in Aus for the last few decades even prior to the mongrel bast**ds and the green lunacy.aluminium smelters shut
steel works onlow production n losses of huge skilled workers
chryslers gutting was the start of the death spiral for our auto ind. then ford n holden went
after massive handouts as well.
you sell to OS buyers then kiss your biz goodbye in short order
we now have NO washing machine makers either..electrolux was the last and it shut this yr
so everythings imported.
so..have a stoush with one of the few maker nations and???
yeah..grim.
now we have your moronic excuse for a leader pushing TPP on us, and TTIP on the eu.
whentf? are people going to wake up to the tiny detail that globalising is the single best way to ruin established biz and hand control to a very few who dont give a rats about anything but the profit taking?
and Im pretty sure the tata mob have links to TERI and pachaauri was involved in both somehow.
its ALL one big filthy stinking pile of doodoo..warmist agenda 21 millenium whatever name its shite!
Just how much trouble do we have to ask for in UK?
Ta Ta from UK…maybe forever?
Nothing is forever. All this could be turned around very quickly, if sanity prevails in Westminster.
It is heading to forever if loads of money does not appear and hopefully not of the borrowed or tax payer variety. You need to visit here more often and smell the rotten coffee!
For sanity to prevail, Eric, it has to have been there in the first place.
I wonder how long people like Eric Worrall will be allowed to criticize
Big Brotherthe government.We are moving toward a more totalitarian government at an ever accelerating rate. Did anyone here foresee the liberal-left (American style liberal) ask the government to go after skeptics for thought crimes?
“The more and more one watches freedoms disappearing by the day, the more one must wonder if there is a way to stem the tide. Orwell and Solzhenitsyn…visionary and historian…gave us blueprints to follow…checklists with which to use as frameworks of reference for what is befalling us daily. Someday it may be that the brief period of freedom enjoyed by the American people may be categorized as a “work of fiction” <i>in a future that may not even allow anyone to read it.”</i> (from link)
The destructiveness of the alarmist war on reason and real science is truly a concern and a threat, but ever increasing control by governments world wide over their population is the reason behind it all. And continual war helps with controlling the population.
Freedom is like lots of things in life – use it or lose it.
Tata now not only own what was British steel, they own a large chunk of what was British car making (LandRover).
Is Bentley still a British car ?? Or Armstrong-Siddeley ??
g
Owned by Ford or GM I think.
Bentley is a VW car.
The engine is a standard VW V8 unit, bolted together into a W16. And all the running gear comes from Skoda (another VW subsidiary). So the Bentley should really have a ‘Made in Czech Republic’ badge.
Patrick MJD
I owned a 1992 Jaguar S (British racing green). Absolutely beautiful car…to look at, not (to attempt) to drive. Since then I searched around a little bit, but my last 6 cars have been BMWs.
Britain & cars – not exactly a marriage made in heaven.
Well some of the best sports cars were designed and made in the UK. It was not until the union movement and the slack British work “ethic” took over that destroyed what innovation and quality there was in the car making industry. Many British cars were let down by very very bad Lucas electrics.
I had a 1956 3.5 liter Jag XK140 hard top Coup with overdrive, and the high compression engine. Rebuilt the entire engine and transmission plus od from a bucket full of bolts. No two parts of the entire power train that could be separated remained together after I started. Ran like atop after that.
Ended up getting totaled by an empty logging truck near Victoria Kansas, which is 500 miles from the nearest tree. Insurance company gave me $700 for it.
g
People are asking why the UK steel industry is suffering from Green Taxes, while the Swedish and German ones are doing ok.
The Swedish steel industry runs off hydro power. This is not attacked by the Greens.
The Germans IMPORT MORE THAN HALF their power – from hydro in the north and the French nuclear to the south. That means they can even run a photo-voltaic industry and get away with it.
The UK still depends on coal as the largest single power source. Green taxes aim to tax this out of existence. Which is why the UK is suffering alone…
German private consumers pay much more (twice as much as the UK) so that their Industry pays less.
Maybe they just need to install more under channel cables to get electricity from Europe.
“As of 2005 imports of electricity from France have historically accounted for about 5% of electricity available in the UK. Imports through the interconnector have generally been around the highest possible level, given the capacity of the link. In 2006, 97.5% of the energy transfers have been made from France to UK, supplying the equivalent of 3 million English homes.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_Cross-Channel
“The UK is the world’s sixth largest importer of electricity” “This energy gap is due to the closure of coal-fired power stations that cannot meet emission standards and the shutdown of aging nuclear power stations.”
http://wordpress.mrreid.org/2011/11/20/uk-electricity-import-and-export/
http://wordpress.mrreid.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/electricity-import-export.png
‘4000 steel working jobs, and 40,000 jobs in dependent industries.’
Not to worry. The government has programs to take care of them. Who needs jobs anymore?
Socialism is freedom.
Freedom from working
Freedom from eating
…
The people of the old USSR, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, had a saying:
“They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work”.
Heck, at least they pretended to work.
What planet are you on?
This crisis is brought about by a right wing Tory government stuffed with Old Etonians who dont give a sh** about manufacturing or workers.
The fact that a right wing Labour government (eg Tony Blair) would not be any different is no consolation .
Cameron and Osborne are too busy looking after City of London tax dodgers and British badged tax avoidance centres around the world to worry about British Heavy Industry.
Only in Europe would socialists be called right wing.
There are very few “right wingers” in the British govt, does varying shades of socialist.
Replace “does” with “just”.
The following sentence is hard to understand because it has multiple negatives.
Here’s a simpler version.
Further simplification:
I have a feeling that even cheaper energy would only postpone the inevitable.
Further simplifiction
They’re dead, but essential to the UK and must be saved at all costs. Let’s subsidise them to the tune of 100% like Green Energy.
Britain is bumping up against what economists call comparative advantage.
A desire to improve living standards means Britain must move displaced workers into higher value-add jobs. This has 3 major components: (1) political leadership, (2) appropriate education, and (3) personal flexibility.
All 3 components are essentially missing in modern Britain (and other western democracies). If the only British response is to chase down the rabbit-hole of Chinese slave labor and subsidies, that may have some limited validity, but it simply prolongs financial damage to displaced workers (and probably increases the national debt).
Isn’t this exactly what the politicians want? It will help them meet their emissions targets. Do people actually believe that lowering emission will not cause economic hardship?
I don’t think it is what they want. Most Western politicians I’ve met are scientifically illiterate – mostly legal background. They probably don’t understand what they are attempting to achieve is impossible.
There was a time when as a politician, even if you were as thick as a plank, you were obliged to take direction from specialists. Now of course you do as you’re told by the EU and ‘gold plate’ that a bit to show your ‘leadership’. For internal backup you whistle up your nearest green fairy and plough billions into research supportive of your windmill fantasies.
What they want is to reduce emissions, which this will accomplish. What they do not want is the economic hardship that comes with reducing emissions.
The battle is ever so slowly coming to a head. Up until now, the cost of Green policies has been minimal. That is going to change and this is indirect evidence of that change. (I mean indirect because energy policy is just one piece of this particular puzzle)
It’s O.K. though Eric, because although they did indeed mostly train in Law (and the Arts and Humanities) they later make some effort to keep abreast of developments in “science”.
By watching the BBC and reading the Guardian.
Perhaps even subscribing to the National Geographic.
So, their total ignorance is perfectly combined with self-education!!!
Yes, the situation could hardly be any worse.
“Leading left wing British opposition politician Jeremy Corbyn, a strong advocate of renewables, has demanded that parliament be recalled, to consider state subsidies and other emergency measures to prevent job losses in the steel industry.”
But shouldn’t Jeremy and Co be applauding the closure of coal burning steel plants with less crowding out of investment in his precious renewables of the future? Think of it as Schumpeter’s constructive destruction eh Jeremy?
Jeremy thinks it’s a good idea to maintain a nuclear submarine fleet – but without nukes. That boy needs to be in a care home under heavy sedation.
At least we now have a real chance of beating Sweden to the tape for first western country to achieve politically correct suicide. I’m off to Putin’s Russia.
Yep. These formerly dynamic countries – Sweden is Exhibit A – are held out as examples of successful welfare states, always with gestures to the wealth and efficiencies that existed before the state took control. Running on fumes and eating the seed corn, they are.
Please let us know how that works out.
Steel making in Britain was formerly in the State’s hands before being de-nationalised as part of a comprehensive programme to return most industry to private hands. The aim of this was largely to reduce the burden on the taxpayer, something that was once routine thanks to then inefficiencies of these huge organisations. Poor management and arcane trade union attitudes combining with a lack of strategic investment and modern methods being entirely ruinous. Interestingly enough much has changed as a result of this privatisation, British industry is often superbly run and very efficient, yet still finds itself unable to compete with foreign practices. In this instance global production that exceeds demand, a situation that sees China supporting production and sale of steel at or below cost, factors that are aided and abetted by Britain’s obsession with saving the world. My sympathy is with those who may well lose their livelihood when they may have escaped until better times even if it was difficult. Regrettably Britain’s political parties are dominated by people who have little idea of the world’s realities, they are all too frequently hopeless bodies whose real aims conflict with their primary responsibility, looking after those who elect them. I would like to find someone better to vote for, but unfortunately most political aspirants know little about industry or business never mind real life.
The global glut of product and factors of production is due to actions of state-created central banks and the states they enable pushing state-defined GDP using currency units summoned from thin air, in so doing having directly or indirectly built stuff nobody wanted or needed or can scarcely afford to operate and maintain. China’s empty cities are but one quite clear example, with Australia’s mining sector following. Even Lord Keynes would be appalled at what they wrought.
Yours is a brief but deep comment. Sadly, few seem to understand the nature of the issue. Government policy around the world basically has brought forward future demand, stimulating activity which would not have occurred for some time if at all. The resulting economic growth is therefore largely illusory. I hope Keynes would be appalled. Certainly Hayek would be.
reading the CAGW-infested Guardian’s faux concern for the steel workers makes me sick. the media & politicians most responsible for pushing CAGW policies that are destroying industry are the ones who shout the loudest when the INTENDED consequences come to pass.
“This is not a time for dogma” writes the Guardian in the final para! too late…the CAGW dogma the Guardian pushed/continues to push is responsible for the industrial mayhem with more to come (spare a thought for the state of the National Grid):
31 Mar: EnergyLiveNews: Jacqueline Echevarria: Steel sector crisis ‘due to high UK energy costs’
The comment from Conservative MP Peter Lilley follows Indian company Tata Steel’s decision to sell all its businesses in the UK, putting thousands of jobs at risk.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, he said: “Clearly there’s a world problem to the steel industry, we need to be asking why it’s the British industry in particular which seems to be facing terminal closure.
“I think one of those reasons is still far too high energy costs in this country. We can’t blame all that on the EU, that’s largely a self-inflicted wound but we ought to be doing more.”
The MP for Hitchin and Harpenden believes the UK has taken an “even more extreme view than many other countries on the need to subsidise renewable energy and other expensive forms of energy, the costs of which in this country is spread across industry as well as consumers”…
http://www.energylivenews.com/2016/03/31/steel-sector-crisis-due-to-high-uk-energy-costs/
31 Mar: UK Daily Mail: Ross Clark: Eight reasons why Port Talbot never stood a chance (and the EU is the biggest of them all)
Root of many UK steel problems is the glut of steel imported from China
Climate Change Act is another reason for crisis in the British steel industry
There are six other reasons why the dice were loaded against Port Talbot
And America’s just as bad
So much for the special relationship. The U.S. Department of Commerce has also subjected British producers to import tariffs on steel — in our case of up to 30 per cent. This is not because we are dumping cheap steel on the U.S., but purely as a protectionist measure to help U.S. producers sell more at home…
The legacy of Red Ed
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was predictably jumping up and down yesterday, demanding that Parliament be recalled to discuss the crisis over Port Talbot. But the fact is that one of the major reasons for the crisis in the British steel industry is the Climate Change Act…
The reason is that punitive green taxes and levies have been introduced in an attempt to meet the self-imposed, arbitrary target for cutting UK carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 — a figure dreamed up by (Labour’s) Ed Miliband when he was Environment Minister under Gordon Brown…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3516543/Eight-reasons-Port-Talbot-never-stood-chance-EU-biggest-all.html
Following on that Peter Lilley interview on Five Live we were treated to a much longer, uninterrupted lecture from Ken Clark, Twentieth Century sometime Chancellor, who bemoaned the green energy taxes, whilst lauding the EU and all it’s works.
Well, he would wouldn’t he?
Yesterday’s man, praising yesterday’s anachronistic institution, whose power he promulgated at the expense of UK democracy and self determination.
Peter Lilley talks more sense on energy than anyone else in Parliament. He was one of only 3 MPs who voted against the Climate Change Act. Sadly this means that he will be ignored or vilified by many, particularly those in the Grauniad.
“Green
EnergyIdiots may have Just Cost Britain 40,000 Jobs”.There, fixed it for you.
Typical attitude of Progressive politicians and bureaucrats: “Our program failed, but it’s never our fault.”
They fail to recognize that government intervention is always gum in the clockworks.
Progressives always have an answer to problems of their own making:
“It would be foolish to pretend that there would be no problem facing steelmaking in Britain that determined state intervention could not solve. “
No matter how many problems government intervention causes, the solution is always, more government intervention.
No bother at all. Hire the 40,000 at the Department for Environment. Borrow the money to provide good pay and great benefits, so someone else will pay.
This exposure of elevated costs will play out over many more industries and jobs as the vortex of easy money , high debt, and overcapacity whip saws the world economy. Bad public policy has been busy not only with green power scams but also with easy monetary policy as substitute for tax and regulatory reforms. The continuing easy money path now after almost a decade of it is the delay tactic to hold a fragile world together.
The money changer city state could care less.
Canada is likely going to lose 1/2 of its steel jobs (currently 20,000 workers) with the closure of at least 1 of its last 3 producers (I’m expecting only Dofasco will survive intact). The blame is also being placed on China but given they are all based in Ontario which has the highest electricity prices in North America it is surprising (or not) that our “green” governments don’t want to place any blame on this. It doesn’t help that they produce 2x the steel Canada needs and their business depends on exports into a sated NA market with declining demand.
Does Evraz/Ipsco count as a steel producer?
I was thinking of the big mills (Dofasco, Stelco, and Algoma — the latter 2 are in some form of receivership/sale) but Evraz would make it 4 — although they are also laying off workers so I am not sure of their financial situation. But given they are in Saskatchewan they can’t blame energy prices.
Yes, their problem is that nobody is building pipelines. Sometimes ya just can’t win.
Yeah, and it will be at least 5 years before any new pipelines are built with PM Lite at the helm in Canada.
http://s9.postimg.org/6zeyqgx0v/Ind_Elec.png
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/international-industrial-energy-prices
Quarterly: Industrial electricity prices in the EU for small, medium, large and extra-large consumers
See source spreadsheet for Germany, conspicuous by its absence from charts.
” parliament be recalled, to consider state subsidies and other emergency measures ”
Typical socialist thinking. IE, there is no problem that unlimited amounts of OPM (Other People’s Money) can’t fix.
Perhaps shuttered industrial complexes are the most practical sites for the warmunist renewables investors to establish their supposedly sustainable wind and solar farms instead of displacing natural habitats.
What makes Britain’s climate and energy policy and legislation to reduce GHGs even more insane is that the natural millennial cycle peaked in 2003 and the earth has been in a cooling trend since then . See Figs 1 and 5 at the latest post at http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/
Since when do “greens” (read socialist / communists ) give a rat’s ass about people?
The green’s heaven on earth; the former USSR, Castro’s Cuba and Maduro’s Venezuela have a PERFECT record of impoverishing the citizenry and enriching the ruling elites. This socioeconomic outcome is what the greens desire and pine for. It will allow them to exert total control over the “unwashed masses;” (read, ignorant and stupid masses).
And let’s be honest; CO2 is a TRACE GAS in the atmosphere constituting 0.04 PERCENT of the atmosphere; it has ZERO affect on climate.
Lastly, if you want to really destroy the lives of people, bring on an ice age or a “LIttle Ice Age.” Humans are and have always been creatures of warm climates.
And our sympathy level is what? Oh! The Arab contribution to “number theory”. That would be -5,-6,-4,-3,-2,-1,?,1,2,3,4,5,6 !!!
The concept of zero was developed in the east. All the Arabs did was transfer that information to the west.
Hey, employment is a real drag. Getting up in the morning. Reporting for work. Putting up with whacko bosses. Who needs it? Those folks will probably be happier and better adjusted without jobs.
Seriously, in a world with low transportation costs and very few trade barriers, it is very hard to keep industrial jobs in developed countries. It’s usually cheaper to make most stuff in low wage countries with low living costs. Eventually of course it’ll all even out. Americans and Europeans and Chinese and Indians and eventually even Somalis and Afghans will all most likely compete on a more or less equal basis. But that’s a long time in the future.
More immediately, England’s energy policies may well be misguided (I wouldn’t vote for them If anyone allowed me to vote on them). But electricity costs really aren’t that big a deal for steel. Now Aluminium as you folks prefer to spell it … That’s a different story. Anyway, there’s a fairly exhaustive analysis of the effect of English electric prices on steel production here. http://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-the-steel-crisis-and-uk-electricity-prices Bottom line: High electricity costs do a bit of harm, but they really only raise the product price by a couple of percent. The big problem is too much supply and too little demand resulting in no profits for anyone anywhere.
The Outer Planets Association will undercut the production and shipping costs vis-à-vis Earth. … in about 200 years.
Just stick a windmill on top of the site and give it more subsidy.
The silly thing is it will mean more stuff imported from the other side of the earth
Here in Ontario, Canada we have manufacturers that have to overpay for “green” power, then have the excess power (which all comes from nukes, hyrdo and gas anyway) to neighbouring states and provinces…which have manufacturers who are in competition with their products.
Reminds me of Communist China where the family is billed for the bullet that kills the prisoner.
Why just an energy cost? Isn’t steel making all about changing iron oxides and carbon into iron and carbon dioxide?
I no longer ponder “Who is John Galt?” and now ask “WHERE is John Galt?”. GK
I believe he’s in the green room.
In 2008 these same politicians all voted, almost to a man, to cut the UK CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050, as part of the Climate Change Act. And subsequently put in place measures to make HC energy more expensive. Did they not realise that this would mean the closure of all our heavy industry ? Isn’t this what they wanted ? Did they think you could run a steelworks off windmills ?
The intellectual deficiency is breathtaking.
Thinking ahead is not something that politicians specialize in.
“Never let a serious crisis go to waste.”
When you can put your stamp on the next one
Actually, I see little problem with this plant closure. My analysis shows that it will have little impact on the LGBTQ community. Moreover, steel production is primarily a Western Eurocentric and American white male construct that is long overdue for a gender redefinition. Anybody who disputes my learned analysis should be investigated for possible application of RICO statutes.
Ah a man who understands what really is important to modern politicians.
Who is John Gault?
Beat me to it….
Although the movies were kinda hokey, It would be nice if Jeremy Corbyn could be forced (A type of Clockwork Orange rehabilitation) to watch them.
“can’t we just substitute bronze?”
This is truly pathetic. Destroying critical industries over this nonsense. Worst yet, the Union members that put that Government in power are the ones losing their jobs. Same thing here in America. The unions are voting in the job destroying environmentalists.Union leadership is the greatest threat to Union jobs. They hate their employers that sign their paychecks, and love the government that will destroy their jobs,
Their employer makes them actually show up and work in exchange for a paycheck.
Government on the other hand promises free money, and all you have to do is vote every couple of years.
The same union leaders want the UK to remain in the EU, which means more of the green nonsense!
If I were a trade minister I would be concerned that the next target to be hit by the green taxes and the general vulnerability of Britain as a manufacturing nation would be the glass industry , especially float glass which the UK , through Pilkingtons, did so much to create.
The UK produces only 9% of the world output compared to 19% in Germany and it is a sector dependent on the economy of housing and auto industries (so may be in some danger at the present time – my interpretation , hopefully wrong) :
http://www.glassforeurope.com/en/industry/index.php
from the above site note the following:
–“The economics of the continuous-flow float operation require a high capacity utilisation rate – typically above 70% – before a plant becomes profitable. Energy and raw material costs are significant, representing almost two thirds of the production costs. “–
I doubt however that any minister of the present govt is bothering to think that far ahead because something more serious than the closing down of individual industries is happening in British society and that is that forces like the Green movement and the EU bureaucracy are so powerful that there is nothing that can be done , “all resistance is futile” .That is the position of the Govt and it is working its invidious way through the rest of society .
The template is the situation in Greece : unemployment was 15 % before the Euro crisis and is now 24% and nearly 50% amongst young people . Yet despite early defiance to EU terms , all is now quiet , the Greeks have now resigned themselves to the situation and that is the quiet , resigned, despair that is overtaking Britain.
Do they still make cars in the UK? Any new housing other than for the financial sector elite?
According to the BBC TopGear program, they do indeed make cars in England. Quite a lot of them. But most of them are made in England by Ford, Nissan, Honda, Toyota, GM, etc. I think the only British company still in the business is Aston Martin and it really ony produces a few thousand a year.
Morgan is also British. (So is Williams but they only make 2 cars per year and they have Japanese engines ;-). )
Nissan received massive taxpayer breaks to start making cars in the UK. Honda do make cars in Swindon. I worked there in 1993/1994, not on the line, when 1 Accord or Civic came off the line every 2 minutes. There was over capacity in the industry then, not sure what the industry is like now.
They should have gone with the green rocket fuel business instead….
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/03/30/nasa-to-officially-unveil-its-green-rocket-fuel-project-in-colorado-this-week.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fscitech+%28Internal+-+SciTech+-+Mixed%29
I am reluctant to comment on power generation in locations that I am not very knowledgeable. So I will pass on on this link without comment.
“Nuclear’s share increased by 2 percentage points on 2014 to 21% of the total.”
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/EE-Nuclear-helps-offset-dip-in-UK-coal-generation-2015-data-shows-31031601.html
The Obama administration, Sanders, Clinton and the Democratic leaders are committed to Holdren’s policy of deindustrializing the United States in order to pursue “sustainability”. They are promoting the CAGW myth as a scare tactic to destroy the coal and fossil fuel industries. They by pass Congress by executive orders and EPA regulations . Holdren and the Ehrlichs are explicit in their objectives :
” A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation. Resources and energy must be diverted from frivolous and wasteful uses in overdeveloped countries to filling the genuine needs of underdeveloped countries. This effort must be largely political, especially with regard to our overexploitation of world resources, but the campaign should be strongly supplemented by legal and boycott action against polluters and others whose activities damage the environment. The need for de–development presents our economists with a major challenge. They must design a stable, low–consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided for every human being.”
– See more at: http://www.cfact.org/2014/05/31/john-holdren-in-his-own-radical-words/#sthash.ZdwbaUL8.dpuf
Here is a blog post I made in 2009.Fortunately the bill never got past Congress. I suggest WUWT readers look at the whole thing and be truly horrified at what was attempted.
“The Boxer – Kerry and Waxman – Markey bills represent the greatest threat that America’s constitutional democracy has ever faced.
The almost non -existent Anthropogenic (CO2 caused) Global Warming has been used as a pretext to try to grab control of all economic activity in the country because congress will decide the price of all energy via the distribution of carbon credits to whomever contributes most to their campaign funds. Energy production will be diverted to so called “green ” sources which are hopelessly uneconomic unless heavily subsidized.
If these bills pass, all private real estate will essentially cease to exist because Obama’s climate police will decide the appraisal value of all real estate and thus control the sales price of everyone’s home. Any alterations or improvements will have to be approved by government inspectors.
A vast bureaucracy will be created to run this virtual totalitarian police state run for the benefit of the congress and whichever corporations or special interests pay them the most.
Since my first post in January 2009 , solar activity has continued to be virtually non-existent making it more and more likely that the earth is entering a 20 – 30 year cool spell during which crop production would be seriously reduced at a time of increasing population. Obama’s policies of CO2 reduction would exacerbate this problem and worsen the worldwide food shortages which might well occur if the cooling actually develops.
The main stream media are aiding and abetting this coup-in some cases , e.g. NBC, because they are controlled by a company – General Electric which has spent millions on lobbying in order to benefit from the bill or because of the political (Socialist – world government ) agenda of its leaders e.g . BBC.
It is essential that the grass roots of working middle America become informed about this looming threat and come together to speak out and stop this takeover by a kleptocratic and self appointed elite who plan to be the rulers of this Corporate Socialist state .”
Are we headed for a Socialist Sanders Presidency?
It would be funny watching the leftards getting themselves in such knots, if it wasn’t the fact that they are causing widespread misery and poverty. This sentence from the Grauniad article is a classic: “there would be no problem facing steelmaking in Britain that determined state intervention could not solve.” It was determined state intervention that cost these 40,000 jobs, you f*cking idiots.
You can’t roller skate in buffalo herd and you can’t: (i) produce steel using solar energy, or (ii) run a cement kiln using wind power. Do the math.
The green elitists see their iphone and Tesla and consider the energy needed for the daily charge. In reality, it takes steel and concrete (and much more) to exist in a modern society.
How many of the green leftists live or work in buildings or commute on roads between them that don’t use steel and don’t use concrete?
The steel and aluminium industries here in Australia are long gone due to cheap Chinese steel and aluminium flooding our markets. Back in the 80’s when I was a young lad at school, Australian steel and aluminium was some of cheapest and best in the world due to our large amounts of iron ore and bauxite, and cheap manufacturing costs, including cheap energy. We have heaps of high-quality coal here, and coal-fired electricity plants. Electricity was, and should be, exceptionally cheap, but it is not.
At the factory where I work I was given the job to file the steel certificates we require for pressure vessel assembly. almost all of them were written in Chinese. Some of the certificates were very old, up to 20 to 30 years old.
Australia, and undoubtedly the UK have been enjoying cheap steel for decades at the expense of their own. I guess the unnecessary high cost of energy is the last nail in the coffin for these industries.
I thought unions had a duty to protect their membership interest not sell them down the river by siting on their hands while green lobby groups and politicians pick apart their members.
The are going to facilitate the demise of what remains of manufacturing . What are they afraid of ?
Here is a clue unions… Start Demanding politicians reverse the foolish policy decisions of the past 20 years which were based on failed climate model projections of doom . Let’s hope the earth keeps warming .
How many members of unions have relatives who are at or on the verge of fuel poverty ? Time to step up or leave the dance floor .
Most union leadership are socialist/communist first and foremost.
They will gladly sell their membership down the river if it helps to advance the cause.
“What we know is that the British government has for the last three years
been blocking efforts by the EU to equip itself with the sort of anti-dumping
weaponry used by Washington to confront China.
Germany shelters its energy-intensive industries by cross-subsidies under
its ‘Energiewende’. The UK left its steel mills to face the full shock of green
taxes, until a partial rebate was agreed in December.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/03/30/britain-sacrifices-steel-industry-to-curry-favour-with-china/
I hope Tata will also leave Holland. My family doesn’t work there anymore so who cares. People voted for this government. We forecast that this would cost jobs and now it is happening.
China’s heavily subsidized producers are dumping their output on the world market. China’s share of global steel output has risen from 10% to 50% over the last decade. It has installed capacity of 1.2 billion tonnes a year that it can never hope to absorb as the construction boom deflates. On OECD estimates, it has built up 400m tonnes of excess capacity, – twice the EU’s entire steel production. China’s unwanted steel is finding its way systematically into Europe, greased by export subsidies, tax breaks, cheap state credit, and the panoply of measures used by a mercantilist power to rig global trade. This is not the free market at work.
The most interesting aspect of all this concerns the EU’s limited response to China’s actions. While the US has imposed 267% tariffs on cold-rolled steel, the EU’s tariff is just 13%. Why the muted response? Apparently it’s all down to one EU member vetoing a more robust response: Britain.
Incorrect, the government opposed the scrapping of the rule which allows lower duties to be imposed as a matter of policy but in fact asked that higher duties be imposed on Chinese steel exports. The rule permits lower duties but does not set them, that is done by the European Commission. The $9 tarrif was determined in Brussels not London.
This is the biggest factor behind the collapse of the UK steel industry. The downturn in the Chinese construction industry has seen them dump cheap steel on the world market. The US acted quickly to impose tariffs on Chinese goods but when the EU moved to act by axing a rule which limits tariffs to 16% – known as the lesser duty rule – the Tory government blocked it.
The real problem facing the UK steel industry is the collapse of the price of steel on world markets. When the price you can get for your product falls by 50% in 2 years you will struggle. This is a factor of decreasing demand in China and increasing production. Decreasing energy costs would help but the reality is that its way more expensive to employ people in the UK than India or China. Local papers on Teesside pointed out that many of the companies decrying the closure were sourcing steel from the cheaper producers.
This is the best analogy I have seen…
https://twitter.com/omotforest/status/715237246954291200
Whilst it’s undoubtedly true that the Climate Change Act and other UK policies are indeed mental, the Port Talbot problem is actually a direct result of a rather different environmental policy: that of recycling.
The steel industry has made huge leaps in the last decade to be able to recycle steel of varying quality into specific high quality, specialist steels that previously needed to be made from “virgin” steel straight from the ore. This part of the market is doing at least OK, even in the UK where we have some real specialisation, but there is significant over-capacity of blast furnaces – the world has innovated away from them.
Saving Port Talbot is more akin to saving a blacksmith that doesn’t produce tyres for cars.
This is the most under reported angle of the Green Energy movement, the opportunity costs. The real costs of this nonsense isn’t what we spend on it, it is what we don’t spend on other things that are more useful, and the hidden costs imposed on people whose incomes and livelihoods get harmed.
Liberals just publish nonsense like this, and no one ever holds them accountable. Fracking was the main driver of job creation in the last 8 years. Alternative energy killed countless jobs in coal, rail, steel, etc etc.
http://aboutdanwong.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/info-4.jpg