Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon; During a GB News interview with Nigel Farage, President Trump has warned UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson his renewable policies are leading Britain into an economic disaster.
Donald Trump tells Boris Johnson he is making a ‘big mistake’ by backing wind power
Speaking to Nigel Farage on GB News, the former US president says the energy source is only backed by environmentalists who ‘hate the world’
By Christopher Hope, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT 30 November 2021 • 9:16pm
Boris Johnson is “making a big mistake” by trying to turn the UK into the Saudi Arabia of wind, Donald Trump has said.
The former US president said that wind farms were “horrible”, “ridiculous”, “kill all the birds” and “start to rust” after a couple of years. They were only backed by environmentalists “who hate the world”, he said.
Mr Trump also took aim at a wind farm sited just off the coast of Aberdeen where he owns the Trump International Golf Links, describing it as a “shame” and the windmills as “monsters” in an interview with Nigel Farage on GB News on Wednesday.
Mr Johnson, the Prime Minister, has made increasing reliance on wind energy a cornerstone of his energy policy, telling the United Nations last year that he wanted to make the UK into the “Saudi Arabia of wind”, mimicking Riyadh’s dominance in the global oil market.
However, in his interview, Mr Trump said Mr Johnson was “wrong”, adding: “He’s making a big mistake.”
…
Read more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/30/donald-trump-tells-boris-johnson-making-big-mistake-backing/
I would love to provide a GB News link to the interview but I couldn’t find the link – if anyone finds it please post in comments.
As for President Trump’s criticism of Boris Johnson’s energy policies, I completely agree with what I read in the Telegraph.
The utter inadequacy of renewables, especially in a country as far North as Britain, should be obvious to anyone who can do a little math. Trump is a businessman – he understands economics and cashflow, so he can do the math.
Even if you believe a little government money or market distorting preference rules are required to kickstart the British green energy economy, ask yourself, what is the taxpayer exit strategy? What is the date at which the government money must end, otherwise renewable energy should be considered a failure?
If you can’t give a definite answer to this question, you are effectively admitting renewables are economically unviable, and cannot survive without open ended government support.
Update (EW): h/t Ben Vorlich – the link to the GB News interview https://www.gbnews.uk/farage-the-trump-interview (the “what they are doing is ridiculous” clip is here)
If only Donald had enthused over wind farms – the Boris would have had to scrap them all.
Yep Trumps biggest failure was not backing unreliables. The left would have raced to cancel them. The left including the Simon and Izaak are poor excuses for humans.
I guess this would be called reverse-psychology.
We have to trick the Leftists into doing the right thing.
Those who missed the full version of the Farage interviews (he also interviewed a number of others to opine about segments of the interview) may manage to stream the full 2 hour programme repeat due at midnight GMT, 7 p.m. Eastern US, 6 p.m. Central US from here
https://www.gbnews.uk/watchlive
You may need a VPN presence in the UK – I can’t be sure of that. Also try the apps offered, which allegedly work almost anywhere.
There are also additional segements of the interview at this link (though not the whole programme AFAIK)
https://www.gbnews.uk/farage-the-trump-interview
I’m not sure what’s going on, but I think Boris is either being coerced into all this or he is being given some lucrative incentives from somewhere. Perhaps like many or most other leaders.
Boris could not give a fig one way or the other, he just does whatever person who had most of the sway over him tells him what is politically expedient for him, and that happens (for time being) to be his current wife.
Boris did follow Cummings advice to a letter and did well out of it, until Carrie decided that she is no2 and not Dominic.
I use to like his humour while he was a journalist, but eventually realised that he is a vacuous egoist.
Or he could be just accepting the science and recommendations of UK electricity industry. It isn’t as if the UK is the only country going this route.
There is no science, and socialists all over the world are pushing the same nonsense. That doesn’t make it true.
He isnt wrong though, is he. And I think Boris just realised the futility of wind, when he ordered 12 mini nuke power plants off Rolls Royce.
Which I was coming, and bought a load of RR stock in the spring.
Made a nice 28%!
12? Just 5 … to deliver 2GW by 2035.
Climate is a human construct.
There is only weather. By the day, by the hour, by the minute, by the ….
Boris doesn’t give a damn, it keeps the greens of his back until he leaves office and then off to make the big bucks as his policies crucify the country.
The wind clip
https://www.gbnews.uk/news/trump-im-surprised-by-boris-disgusting-wind-energy-policy-youve-got-one-of-the-most-beautiful-countries-in-the-world/169582
The Net zero clip
https://www.gbnews.uk/news/trump-world-leaders-net-zero-promises-are-ridiculous/169613
There are some links in comments that may include the interview with a wind energy fan, introduced by Farage for “balance”. It’s a pity because he was able to get away with all sorts of rubbish, eg, when challenged about the intermittency of wind suggested that even nuclear has only 70% availability and Mr Farage (if he knew) failed to challenge his assumption of base load available 70% of the time being comparable to hourly fluctuations of wind. I hope they follow this up with somebody who knows what they’re talking about.
As you well know UK wind is predictable to a very high degree of accuracy up to 24 hours in advance, allowing for ramp up or down of gas and organising electricity supply.
And back with that old lie.
To be useful, you have to be able to predict the speed of the win to within a few kph 24 hours in advance. Just being able to predict that there will probably be wind is not enough.
BoJo is not making the decisions. His eco-nutter, Marxist wife, Princess Nut Nut, is.
Symonds moved from Rockefeller charity Oceana to Aspinall, of top Tory donor climate activist Zac Goldsmith. Lots of history there. There is a very powerful Tory Climate Lobby.,
And “… what is the taxpayer exit strategy?” for the US taxpayers?
“The future will tell us who is going to be able to digest this, and who will fail,” Tavares said. “We are putting the industry on the limits.”
Stellantis CEO says EV cost burden is ‘beyond the limits’ for automakers (msn.com)
which dovetails with Honda looking for any port in a storm-
New Honda CEO Announces Big Change of EV Strategy (msn.com)
Seems the MSM can’t continue ignoring the bleeding obvious-
Village heat pump scheme that has cost £250,000 per house (msn.com)
Getting rid of fossil fuels was all going to be a breeze and free or dirt cheap from Gaia with lots of Green jobs. Now is the winter of their discontent all you shucksters carpetbaggers and Gretaheads. It was always your lunar prescriptions that would bring you undone and ultimately the hard questions being asked about the basis for it all.
Trump lost the election, he’s not president anymore!
And we are all worse off because of it.
He may again be president, so he’s not out of the picture yet, and is still a subject for conversation. I know lefties don’t want to hear that, but it’s true. The truth can be painful sometimes. Especailly if you are on the wrong side of it.
I have become aware of a meeting held by the UK House of Lords Industry and Regulation Committee on the 4th September 2021. In the transcript – available here – Dr John Constable makes the case that the current UK Net Zero policy is ruinous, politically dangerous, and unsustainable.
I don’t agree 100% with all his position, but 97% would be close 🙂
I think it is highly significant that this sort of message is being passed around the upper echelons of government, to the point where irrespective of entrenched interest in renewables, the message that they are simply unsustainable, and that nuclear of one sort or another is really the only choice left, is starting to become the current meme.
Note that in no way does he openly challenge the climate change narrative. In fact he neatly sidesteps any inference that anything other that concern for cost effectiveness is driving his policy position: His assertion that a zero carbon policy is ‘rational’ does not uniquely identify ‘climate change’ as the source of its rationality – leaving plenty of room for interpretation as rational in the light of geopolitical and economic factors adversely affecting UK energy security and costs.
This is the same meme that has been adopted by the nuclear community – not to openly challenge the climate change narrative – but to emphasize that the logical course of action is nuclear deployment, if reducing fossil dependence is the aim of the game.
In short I am beginning to hope that the outcome of FLOP26, is not as Boris has suggested, a massive move to yet more renewable enery, but a policy recoil from what is incerasingly perceived as an unsustainable policy that does not in any case achieve its stated aims, and certainly not at a sane cost. And in thge rebound from renewables people are now being listened to when they advocate nuclear – even France seems to be considering the reversal of its ‘close all reactors’ stance.
IS THERE A SEA-CHANGE HAPPENING?
I have become aware of a meeting held by the UK House of Lords Industry and Regulation Committee on the 4th September 2021. In the transcript – available here – Dr John Constable makes the case that the current UK Net Zero policy is ruinous, politically dangerous, and unsustainable.
I don’t agree 100% with all his position, but 97% would be close 🙂
I think it is highly significant that this sort of message is being passed around the upper echelons of government, to the point where irrespective of entrenched interest in renewables, the message that they are simply unsustainable, and that nuclear of one sort or another is really the only choice left, is starting to become the current meme.
Note that in no way does he openly challenge the climate change narrative. In fact he neatly sidesteps any inference that anything other that concern for cost effectiveness is driving his policy position: His assertion that a zero carbon policy is ‘rational’ does not uniquely identify ‘climate change’ as the source of its rationality – leaving plenty of room for interpretation as rational in the light of geopolitical and economic factors adversely affecting UK energy security and costs.
This is the same meme that has been adopted by the nuclear community – not to openly challenge the climate change narrative – but to emphasize that the logical course of action is nuclear deployment, if reducing fossil dependence is the aim of the game.
In short I am beginning to hope that the outcome of FLOP26, is not as Boris has suggested, a massive move to yet more renewable energy, but a policy recoil from what is increasingly perceived as an unsustainable policy that does not in any case achieve its stated aims, and certainly not at a sane cost. And in the rebound from renewables people are now being listened to when they advocate nuclear – even France seems to be considering the reversal of its ‘close all reactors’ stance.
Germany of course with its drive to essentially create a European superstate which it will dictate to, is still committed to close nearly all its nuclear plant next year, and with a left/green coalition in power, is now free to utterly destroy itself for ideological reason.
What seems clear to me, is that climate change policy, has reached a tipping point, where public awareness of the fact that governments have done little or nothing to address a problem they themselves have declared to be a global crisis, apart from lining the pockets of their cronies and driving energy prices to unaffordable levels, is driving a new mood – which is somewhat along the lines of ‘well if we have to go net zero what point are windmills when we have far cheaper nuclear power? ‘
In short energy security and high fossil prices will drive the UK and other European countries towards nuclear power, completely irrespective of ‘climate change’.
This winter is already cold in NW Europe – there seems to be a huge kink in the jet stream driving polar air down to lower latitudes – on my Gridwatch site it has become clear that in the last two months – more or less since Macron threatened to cut Britain off from French electricity if his illegal fishermen didn’t get issued with fishing licenses – the flow of electricity has reversed, with France now being a net importer of UK electricity.
Combine that with historical low winds this year in NW Europe, with the fact that Germany is driving renewable policy even harder, and you have the makings of a California style meltdown on the cards. The meme that if renewable energy is failing, we just need more, can only last so long.
US readership should invest in popcorn futures, and watch the drama unfold, because in terms of this particular tipping point, lunacy in Europe is slightly ahead of lunacy in the USA, and as someone remarked here today, ‘Donald Trumps policies, without Donald Trump, would be highly electable in the USA today’ .
With luck, enough chickens will come home to roost this winter to finally reverse the renewable rot, and start to engender, the question that dare not speak its name ‘if we have to go net zero, why are we bothering with windmills and solar panels?’
The delicious prospect of the Green Blob being hoist by its own petard, and having to admit ultimately that if green targets are to be met, nuclear is the only sane option, is something I have a bottle of modestly priced ‘sparkling wine’ in the no 2 refrigerator in readiness for.
And full marks to Nigel and GBnews for getting the Donald on, and for Donald for appearing.
It would be great if you are right and leadership is coming to its senses.
They should be coming to their senses because the danger is right there in front of their faces. The windmills they were counting on cannot be counted on in a pinch and they are now seeing this reality. One bad break with the cold weather, and they could have a disaster on their hands in the very near future.
And it is obvious that adding more windmills to the mix will not fix the situation, no matter how many are added. We are hitting the Windmill Wall now. Beyond a certain point, they dangerously destablize the electric grid, and there are several locations worldwide that are right on that edge.
Nuclear energy is the logical place to go for those who think CO2 is a problem. It’s acceptable to both sides of the issue.
This is what Republicans in the U.S. should be focusing on since they are not very good at debunking the Human-caused Climate Change narrative, so they should just say the way forward is nuclear energy and stick to that, and should criticize any further government subsidies for windmills. This way they can appear to be doing something about CO2 while at the same time helping the economy by giving it reliable, sufficient electiricty for everyone’s needs, while getting rid of the ugly, harmful windmills that are a blight on our landscape and a killing field for our wildlife.
I have not watched it myself yet but will share.
https://youtu.be/VQhBxeCaS-k
I’m afraid this is right. Currently the UK is planning on banning all sales of oil or stored gas boilers in 2026. There are currently 4-5 million homes who are off the gas grid (because they are rural) and therefore rely on oil or tank gas for heating.
So these will have to replace boilers with heat pumps, just as the other government policy kicks in: the move to wind and solar to power the grid.
And the other shoe is that all cars will be converted to EVs. I think its after 2030 that ICE cars will be banned.
The gas transmission network will remain in place and mains gas boilers will still be legal until 2035. It is supposed to be converted to hydrogen at some point but I don’t think anyone has put out plans with maps of who will be converted and when.
That is going to require all appliances to be changed out, and its also going to require wholesale reinstallation of the pipe network because the current one is not going to be safe for hydrogen – embrittlement of metal piping, and also much of it isn’t leak proof for hydrogen.
Ask, why are we converting the grid to hydrogen at the same time as we are converting all the boilers that are supposed to burn the hydrogen to heat pumps, and there is no answer.
Its very hard to forecast how this will actually turn out.
I would expect that all the 4-5 million who can afford it will go to new oil or tank gas boilers in 2024, and hope they get another decade or more out of them. But there is a problem, and that is that new boilers must now be condensing. Condensing boilers, whether gas or oil, are much less reliable and have shorter lives than regular ones. They are only marginally more efficient than the best traditional ones – probably 5 or so percentage points. But every little helps when you are saving the planet.
Maybe some will buy stoves and burn smokeless fuel in them? It is possible, its back to the fifties, but a solid fluel Aga type stove will allow you to cook and will keep the chill of a house, and provide some hot water. As long as you are strong and healthy enough to get the ash out and refill it twice a day. But installing them in most houses is a major project, and probably they will be banned also.
Maybe some will buy generators?
If the government of the day does not back down, this is going to be one of the greatest health and civil engineering disasters of all time. There simply will not be enough power to run the heating and charge the EVs. There will almost certainly not be enough to run industry and business.
You can imagine a winter in the late 2020s or early 2030s, the usual dead calm that appears for a couple of weeks in January or February with a blocking high, clear skies, freezing temperatures, when people cannot charge their cars, cannot run their heat pumps, cannot even run their legacy boilers because these require power to run the pumps. Cannot cook (if you are off the gas grid you will always be cooking on electricity).
At the same time, the NHS will be in the throes of yet another collapse and will be unable to look after the many old people sick and dying of the effects of hypothermia.
China meanwhile will be raising its emissions every couple of months by more than the reductions the UK is making.
The country is in the grip of collective insanity. Or its political class is. And its not just on climate, either….
The plan is for a 20% hydrogen mix… which any UK boiler built since 1996 will run on (I even see ads for boilers confirming ‘this will run on 20% hydrogen’).
this gas mix is being actively trialled in the UK, there is massive investment in blue and green hydrogen production.
You are being sold a false alarmist narrative about what will happen about installed gas boilers.
That may be. It was not the original plan or rather dream. It was not the idea of having the gas supply contain 20% hydrogen which led Boris Johnson to claim the UK was going to be the ‘Qatar of hydrogen’. It was not what the well publicized pilot project is testing either.
It is true that its more realistic to simply add a bit of hydrogen to the existing gas supply. Maybe it really can be done safely and at little infrastructure and appliance replacement.
But this realism comes at the price of effectiveness. If there really was a source of green hydrogen (there isn’t) and someplace to store it (there isn’t) and if it were possible to make all appliances run on it, and the network transport it safely (digging up streets on a grand scale), that at least would deliver the desired result, the abolition of fossil fuel use in the form of gas for heating and cooking and maybe industrial use.
It may be a mad thing to do, but this would at least do it.
However, if all you do is dilute the gas with hydrogen to the tune of 20%, you are not achieving anything towards the supposed goals of the policy. Its going to make no difference to UK emissions, let alone global ones. Its totally pointless. Its just feel-goodery.
Why does anyone think this makes any kind of sense? But its on a par with lots of green thinking. Propose something radical which is at least internally consistent. Then when you discover what the consequences will be, dilute it into tokenism. All that the 20% will do is raise the price of gas by a little. No effect, zero, on UK emissions.
In fact, since the hydrogen will be derived from gas, it will probably raise them. Just like burning wood actually raises emissions – unless you count the possible regrowth of the forests many decades later, which may or may not happen.
By the way, griff. You haven’t answered the other point. Which no-one does. Why bother with hydrogen anyway, if you are installing heat pumps everywhere and eliminating the demand for gas?
And where is the electricity to come from, to power all those pumps and charge all those EVs?
Yes they are trialling a 20% hydrogen mix but people are questioning whether the 7% reduction in emissions from the grid that would be achieved if the whole network switched to the new mix is worth the effort.
“The more you drill into it the more expensive and complicated it becomes and I think that people are finally realising it does’nt look good” – Richard Lowes, Researcher in heat decarbonisation, Exeter University.
As for heat pumps –
“I would argue that they (heat pumps) are completely unsuitable for about 50% of UK buildings” – Robert Sansom, Institution of Energy & Technology’s Energy Policy Panel
Both from https://hydrogen-central.com/hydrogen-heat-homes-uk-wired/
A 20% mix only leaks 1/5th as much hydrogen. How marvelous.
A 20% mix will still burn, but since the burners were designed for 100% natural gas, they won’t burn as efficiently.
Given the lowered efficiency and the lower energy content of hydrogen, the burners are going to have to burn longer to produce the same amount of heat, which means the fans are also going to have to run longer. Pray there are no really deep cold snaps, these new improved furnaces many not be able to keep up.
There is another observation you can make from this conversation.
Watch Zemmour’s announcement of his candidacy for the French Presidency. It has subtitles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8IGBDK1BH8
Watch, and remember the end of Weimar. Its probably not Zemmour, he is probably only a precursor of the real risk. And not just in France, either.
The video which has now been marked by Youtube as requiring sign-in to confirm your age! Because its not suitable for the young!
Right, that will certainly stop people watching it.
Incidentally, its only the subtitled version that is being censored. The French version without subtitles is still available. At least for now:
Strange no mention of Zemmour’s Breton billionaire backer Bolloré who has a huge problem with Macron.
https://www.lemonde.fr/m-le-mag/article/2021/11/16/l-opa-de-vincent-bollore-sur-la-presidentielle_6102316_4500055.html
Why is it that none of those proposing and/or demanding Net Zero have calculated the amount of land that will be covered with wind/solar facilities to provide the electricity? Why is it that none of those proposing and/or demanding Net Zero have described what the land that will be covered with wind/solar facilities to achieve Net Zero will look like. The mountain tops of Vermont look more and more like the strip mines of West Virginia, and they have only started. Do the math, even covering all of the south facing roof surface of family homes does not even provide 1/2 of the electricity for making those homes achieve net ZERO and less than 1/2 of the family homes have south facing roofs. Then there are the metropolitan areas with multi-story apartments and condos? Everyone will be living in an industrial area. – They cut down several hundred acres of land to “provide” power for an amusement park, with no batteries. Where do they get their power at night – when it is used the most.