Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Prime Minister Theresa May has responded to climate scientist Myles Allen and others urging her to commit Britain to 100% renewable energy by 2050, and has demanded other countries follow Britain’s lead.
Climate change: UK government to commit to 2050 target
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analystGreenhouse gas emissions in the UK will be cut to almost zero by 2050, under the terms of a new government plan to tackle climate change.
Prime Minister Theresa May said reducing pollution would also benefit public health and cut NHS costs.
Britain is the first major nation to propose this target – and it has been widely praised by green groups.
But some say the phase-out is too late to protect the climate, and others fear that the task is impossible.
…
Number 10 said it was “imperative” other countries followed suit, so there would be a review within five years to ensure other nations were taking similarly ambitious action and British industries were not facing unfair competition.
…
But there will need to be a massive investment in clean energy generation – and that has to be funded by someone.
The government hasn’t yet spelled out if the cost will fall on bill-payers, or tax-payers, or the fossil fuel firms that have caused climate change.
…
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48596775
British politicians have set the the goal; it is now up to Britain’s engineers to step up and do their part, to prove the doubters wrong, and figure out how to make solar power work during prolonged nation wide low wind conditions in the middle of a 50° North winter.
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Notice these stupid jerks don’t specify “no carbon” rather than “renewable” energy.
Theresa did this to cement her legacy so it is said.
She certainly did that! Worst Prime mimister ever!
By the way the shutting down and bankruptcy of British Steel is really triumphant success of government policy
and they should brag to the heavens about it .
It is what they wanted to do and this is the joyous face of decarbonisation.
Tough on the 20,00 steel workers and directly dependent who lose their jobs but don’t worry they will all be given well paying green jobs Just ask your MP Now they will be after all our jobs but don;t worry these nice Chinese will always look after us – just like Tienamen Square and now Hong Kong
Good on you Theresa and enjoy your retirement
Lets get this straight. 95% of co2 is natural. Of the remaining 5% Britain emits 100th of that. It would be very foolish to believe that more than a tiny fraction of that is unnecessary-heating, farming, transportation of food etc being vital.
So our ‘bad’ co2 emissions are probably 10% of that 100th of that 5%?
Maybe I’m just not up on the new technologies, but I didn’t know that solar panels required wind in order to produce power.
Sarcastic comprehension failure!
If you read it in context, it’s making the point that it doesn’t matter how much wind capacity you have installed, the whole country can be becalmed and you get nothing – typical of blocked cold anticyclonic weather in a UK winter, during which there is a few feeble hours of low angle sun so you get negligible solar power too. This situation could potentially prevail for a month or three by which time all the old people will be dead.
The capacity factor of solar in the UK is about 8 (yes eight) %.
Thinking on that a little bit more, this could have been sarcasm. That would fit with Eric’s style.
Mark Governor BOE said we must leave the oil in the ground to save the planet. I wrote him a letter asking him how he intended to get back to Canada after his term in office at BOE. Carney did not reply. I phoned his PA and asked her how Carney intended to get home to Canada, she spluttered and gasped, I could tell her head was exploding and she just slammed the phone down. I get the same reaction from every alarmist protagonist I phone up to discuss Co2 and the response is always the same. At first they appease me but as soon as I mention satellite data absolute outrage spluttering gasping and then the phone gets slammed down.
I have submitted FOI requests to BOE, CCC, BEIS, Met Office and the BBC. Bearing in mind they all profess to know about climate why can they not answer very simple questions like if you have evidence that Co2 causes warming then what happens if mitigating Co2 causes cooling? Do you believe that weather will stop or that hurricanes will stop? My feeling is that they all know they are telling porky pies because when I repeat the requests because they don’t answer they accuse me of being vexatious and repetitive. I respond by saying I would need to be vexatious if you just answered the questions.
If CCC had conducted due diligence about Zero Co2 by 2050 they would know whether the Co2 emitted in the transition process was more or less than the Co2 they hope to mitigate but again no answer. I have asked how much CAGW will be averted by the UK spending between £4.4 and £5.3 trillion by achieving Zero Co2 again no answer.
This is my FOI:
FOI to CCC Dated 13th May 2019.
• Identify how much climate change will be averted by reducing beef and lamb production by 89% or whatever figure the CCC determine is needed to stop the climate from burning?
• Identify how much climate change will be averted by banning gas home heating boilers in the UK?
• Identify how much climate change will be averted by trashing 32 million fossil fuelled cars and replacing them with EV’s?
• Identify how much climate change will be averted by trashing 500,000 HGV’s and replacing them with battery equivalents?
• Identify how much Co2 will be emitted by replacing 29 million gas boilers with 2 electric boilers for each home because one is inadequate for the task?
• Identify how much Co2 will be emitted by the necessary thickening of the cables to peoples homes to cope with the extra load of charging EV’s, powering heat pump systems and electric boilers?
• Identify life cycle Co2 emissions for EV’s?
• Identify the cost and life cycle Co2 emissions of tripling electricity “demand lead” generation to power homes with EV’s, heat pumps and electric boilers?
• Identify the justification for spending the following amounts when the UK only emits 1.2% of global Co2 emissions when only 4% of the 1.2% is related to fossil fuels:
EV’s £1.3 trillion, conservative estimate?
£754 billion to retrofit 29 million homes with heat pump systems
£58 billion for thicker cables to cope with the increased load
£58 billion for 2 x electric boilers to increase temperature to 70C plus to cope with winter and avoid Granny dying from accidental hypothermia?
£200 billion for reliable coal or gas fired generation to meet the demand from EV’s, heat pump systems and electric boilers
£2 trillion for infrastructure, charging systems and upgraded transmission connection
Alternative fix one hydrogen boiler at £13,500 times 29 million homes at a total cost of £392 billion.
• Identify how much global atmospheric Co2 emissions will be mitigated by spending £4.4 trillion?
• Identify how much catastrophic anthropogenic global warming will be averted by spending £4.4 trillion?
• Identify the benefit to the UK of mitigation microscopic intangible amounts of Co2?
• Explain why any country would follow our example when the total cost of relating the UK cost to the planet would be £506 trillion?
• Identify the amount of taxation needed to finance £4.4 trillion plus the cost of fraud, sharp practice and corruption?
• Identify the total volume of resource depletion for each individual component involved?
• Justify looting the developing world of its natural finite resources for our supposed domestic comfort. Whilst at the same time the UNFCC remains intent on stopping the developing world having complete access to low cost coal fired generation to remove poverty from 1.3 billion people who need to cook their food over dried animal dung and biomass?
• Explain how in detail all of this electrical equipment can be supplied by unreliable, inefficient short life wind turbines?
• Explain how in detail how much – 1MW / 50 acres – land will be consumed in trying to make the UK taxpayer believe wind turbines can meet a tripling of demand?
• Explain the level of resource depletion necessary to produce hydrogen for home heating and cooking?
• Explain and identify the cost of switching home heating and cooking from methane to hydrogen?
• Explain the health and safety risk of pumping high explosivity rise hydrogen into homes, offices and high rise accommodation?
• Grenfell Towers plus hydrogen? Explain?
• Burning 1 ton of methane emits 2.5 tons of Co2. Steam reformation of methane to generate hydrogen demands 3 tons of methane to be consumed to generate 1 ton of high purity hydrogen a process which generates 12.5 tons of Co2. As methane is a finite resource why would anyone in their right mind burn three times as much methane, emit more Co2 just to indulge in the cosmetic exercise of misrepresenting this irresponsible exercise as being environmentally friendly, which it is not?
• As fracking is being abandoned in the UK why would any government ship billions of tons of methane across the oceans to burn three times as much in the UK to persuade other countries that his epic waste of natural resources is saving the planet?
• CCS & Parasitic Load. If you had 5 coal fired stations in close proximity linked to a CCS system you would need the power to 2+ stations to generate the energy needed to capture, sequestrate, compress, pump and store the Co2 generated by five coal fired stations. The same dynamics apply to hydrogen production and methane. CCS/BEIS recommend using hydrogen to emit less Co2 saying nothing about the massive increase in methane needing to be consumed to give the misleading impression that this process is viable and beneficial when it is not. Justify this idiocy?
Demand now 34.62GW’s, wind 2.01GW’s, turbines needed now to meet demand 180,000?
In 2007 Greg Clark said we had generated 14% of our electricity from Co2 free sources including biomass and nuclear. This might have mitigated 0.0000037586% of global Co2 emissions.
You have 20 days to answer all of the above questions. The person who answered the phone this morning made it absolutely clear that every company has a legal obligation to answer all FOI requests honestly. The product of computer modelled studies is not acceptable as answers, studies of any kind are not acceptable. Just specific mathematically calculated numbers including all of the physical parameters related to the specific issues.
David Wells 13.05/2019.
References:
https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/R-0319-MM.pdf
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/home/gas-boilers-are-on-the-way-out-what-are-the-greenest-alternatives-msckmcfcn
https://www.thegwpf.com/is-the-long-renewables-honeymoon-over/
https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/study-wind-power-increases-dependence-fossil-fuels-eu-germany-must-soon-begin-scrap-wind-units-new-costly-environmental-issue/
Very good David. The answer is very simple really. They have no idea whatsoever. I take it you have not had a reply?
Very good David, UK citizens can submit online FOI requests to government and public authorities via the site Whatdotheyknow.com The request and reply is all published online. Below is the link to previous online requests, made to the climate change committee, along with replies.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/body/ccc
I’ll buy you a pint for that post. Superb!
Even zero emissions will delay a tiny temp. rise by a mahoosive 70 days…..
Trump promised a super trade deal after Brexit. Maybe the small print on CO2 should be carefully studied?
Ms May did not deliver Brexit, did not actually succeed in the coup against Trump despite rather drastic Novichok tantrums and dodgy dossiers.
Ms May’s only legacy is the complete breakdown of the UK. Anyway since Mr. Sedwill of the Cabinet Office is the King of England , the order likely came from the permanent Civil Service.
A design for national poverty and suffering justified by a fraud. You have to ask what is in it for the politicians.
Not going so well in Germany-
https://notrickszone.com/2019/06/11/wind-energy-woes-german-expansion-collapses-to-near-zero-2019-threatens-to-be-a-disaster/
“The government hasn’t yet spelled out if the cost will fall on bill-payers, or tax-payers, or the fossil fuel firms that have caused climate change.”
Considering the taxes levied on fuel is something like two thirds of the pump price, perhaps the government should bear all the costs. From their own pockets. Not only have they profited the most from oil, they also invented the “problem” so they should pay for the “solution”.
Theresa May is following a well-established pattern for failed leaders of democratic nations: Introduce diabolical legislation in the dying days of the leadership which will make the nation as difficult as possible to manage for the incoming regime.
Protection for the country from this act of petulant treachery has come from an unexpected (to my mind) quarter – Philip Hammond, Chancellor of the Exchequer. He has forced in a clause that says that after 5 years there will be a review to ensure that other (major) countries are meeting their targets. So it’s game over for Theresa May: the chance that other countries will meet their targets is zero. Germany et al have already given up. I suspect that the next UK Prime Minister (Boris or any other) will be able to happily ignore Theresa May’s desperate attempt to destroy the UK, and to do so from day 1 – ie. not waiting for the 5-year review.
From a Brit
This is actually a response because of a political problem. The Green party and the Liberal Democrats are mad keen on this kind of nonsense (you may see my affiliation etc. but both are fairly hard left) and the public is being passed so much mis-information that saying anything else is political suicide. Put simply they are suggesting something which is technically not possible, at least not without taking Britain back to the stone age. I will quickly outline the exact policy and why it cannot work.
In each case the party says they want the following:
Only Electric transport including lorries and buses.
No gas space heating, this must become electric.
Maximum insulation of all property to extreme standards to help the above.
In some cases no nuclear power.
Lots of wind and solar.
No gas turbine power.
No Coal.
Renewable wood from USA is partially acceptable as long as it is sustainable.
You will see that electricity needs to replace both space heating and transport, which together need something like 100GW continuously in winter. Transport alone is something like 50GW.
The UK grid capacity from all sources is presently about 50GW, of which ideal renewables is about 35GW.
Real renewables capacity is more like 3.5 to 5GW, and only 2-4GW at night. At night with no wind it is zero.
CCGT is the main producer of electricity in the UK, but uses gas and so produces CO2. Renewables expansion is already faltering as subsidies are reduced and maintenance costs become higher with plant age. Even assuming transport and space heating could be got to 50GW, the cost is likely to be £1trillion as every electricity infrastructure is doubled in size, every road dug up, and every overhead Grid line doubled up. Electric cars are not possible without many changes as each domestic property has only 1kW available from the distribution network, yet most properties have at least one car. Average charging would mean only 1 car every 10 houses (including present loads) and I can see the fights that would cause!
Britain cannot afford £1trillion of public sector spend in a time interval which would get us somewhere near the target, because a considerable part of the money would be needed in the next few years to get the large scale infrastructure in place. Our Grid is already close to failure due to wind and sun changes, and this much renewable generation would cause serious stability problems.
Domestic properties only receive 1 kW? That is not very much electricity.
The 1kW figure is not supportable. UK domestic properties have between 40 and 100 Ampere supply. At circa 250 volts, that’s 10kW to 25kW.
Electric showers alone will be in the 6-10kW range.
One of the major issues I see with going “all electric” is single point of failure risk. In this utopian vision, if we lose the electricity supply and we lose all energy. Engineers once designed energy systems to diversify supply and improve overall reliability.
The future is unreliable energy supply for a number of reasons, including lack of diversity.
No Jim you don’t understand and have got it totally wrong.
This is why:
Domestic properties in UK: approx 40million.
Grid maximum capacity 50 GW.
Other loads which cannot be dumped 10GW
40GW/40m = 1kW.
Perhaps you now see, but if not I will explain further. The distribution network depends on something called diversity. This means that full load (normally 60A / house or 13kW) is not drawn at the same time in all houses. Usually about 300 homes are fed from a 600A 3ph supply, each can take approx 6A (single phase) at the same time with no danger to the fuse. The supply transformer is usually 500kVA capacity in towns.
David Stone CEng MIET
You have overlooked two things.
Firstly, National Grid peak demand is not the same as the true peak demand. There has been an increase in “embedded” (distribution connected) generating capacity which leaves National Grid with a fraction of true peak demand. I don’t have figures, but National Grid’s peak demand was happily marching up past 60GW a few years ago and there has been economic growth since then. I would very much doubt that true peak demand has not increased to well above 60GW.
You also overlook correlation. GB demand typically peaks around early evening on a Tuesday in January or February. This is because industry and commerce is still drawing power in the early evening (your 10GW is not relevant), when streetlights switch on early on darker evenings, and many people arrive home to start cooking, washing machines, electric showers etc (many homes drawing power way above 1kW).
Clearly not every house will behave exactly the same, but there is correlation at work. Your assumption of average is invalid.
David Stone , the right idea but very low on total figures .
A CCS report in 2016 for parliament showed that , [ if UK houses were insulated up to the Standard of Austrian houses ] , then it would take another 200 GW of generation capacity for electric heating .
Private cars would need something like an extra 130 GW if they all plugged in together , & commercial vehicles , [ which would need charging every day ] would take another 100 plus GW of capacity .
So a total of something like 400 GW extra generation capacity would need over 100 extra Hinckley C power stations to be built , [ at £20 Billion each ] , plus about the same cost again to upgrade the grid .
+1 to Professor Michael J Kelly. Or maybe +100. But everyone, please note the “Emeritus”. Only an “Emeritus” can make such a statement without losing their livelihood. We live in a sick world, and university professors live in one of the sickest parts of our sick world.
She also promised to take us out the EU …
The British Prime Minister, Theresa May, has never made the right decision in her political life, this continues that streak. What she proposes is simply impossible unless of course it is the intention of the State to reduce the population as well as reducing the standard of living.
The British Prime Minister, Theresa May is just a puppet and doesn’t make decisions. She is told what to do by her master. She has NEVER worked for the people.
So reassuring that at least one country is going to do something about bad weather. Mind you, whatever they do will take four times as long now since they will adopt a 10 hour work week. Perhaps we can assign other global problems such as volcanism, earthquakes, plagues and reality TV to some of the other EU nations so as to share the load a bit.
It’s just an engineering problem –
After the Wrights made the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk the 757 was just an engineering problem.
Among the many idiotic features of this international virtue signalling is the fact that the green fools who believe in this nonsense really think that they can switch from the U.K. ‘s gas heating of homes to hugely expensive eco-heat recovery and other various pumped systems . Fine for the wealthy but the vast majority simply cannot afford such unreliable and breakdown prone technology. The stunning cost has yet to dawn on the true believers but with all the other expensive things to be done there won’t be any room to subsidise ordinary homes. So presumably they will either be left to die in the cold in winter or the NHS, education, social care, police budgets etc etc will have to be dramatically cut. Let’s see how that plays out politically.
Meanwhile perhaps the US should prepare for a vast increase in political asylum applications from Brits desperate to escape planet of the Green Snotheads.
Theresa May did this out of pure spite.
She cares no more about climate than she ever did about Brexit.
She’ll cackle as the country carbonises.
“Labour Considers 2030 Net-Zero Emissions Target”
https://www.thegwpf.com/labour-considers-2030-net-zero-emissions-target/
That would be the British Labour party lead by Jeremy Corbyn, brother or Piers Corbyn.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-7119569/JOHN-GRAY-Jeremy-Corbyn-contempt-working-people.html
Recently the steelworks in the northern town of Scunthorpe went bust, and it would appear that the British car industry is moving out of the UK. Most recently announced was the closure of Fords petrol engine production in the Welsh town of Bridgend. It’ll be their diesel plant in Dagenham next.
What idiot wants to invest in combustion-engined cars in a country that wants to ban their sale?
There is one path to that goal. 100% nuclear power.
I doubt very much that’s what they have in mind.
I must protest at Theresa May being described as the worst Prime Minister ever. This is not possible, the worst Prime Minister ever is of course Gordon Brown.
Gordon’s list of crimes against the taxpayers is both long and expensive. The most eye catching (though not the most expensive) was the sale of 375 tons ( yes tons) of the UK’s gold reserves. Astonishing he told the market he was doing this so he only got $250/ounce.
Gordon was truly a man of limitless incompetence.
Theresa May was a bit unlucky, but still pretty useless. So second worst for me.
Neville Chamberlain.
Neville was a patriot who ordered rearmament in secret and bought us time to rearm. Winston was a lifelong friend.
Old Winston was also a strong supporter of the feeble minded peoples act of 1913, fortunately wasn’t passed in to law otherwise WW1 would have seen more deaths than the ‘Flu epidemic afterwards.
May surely gets the title for utter malicious incompetence
Exactly what China waited so patiently for to buy British Airways.
There’s nobody to vote for in the UK.
They are all committed to climatism, and the Brexit party has only one policy.
This home-grown bulging-eyed lunatic is a secret weapon of mass destruction the slavering evil Third Reich could never even have imagined in their wildest lsd-fuelled dreams.