Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Griff, strativarius – Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Small Government Right Wing Hope of the UK Conservatives, talking to the Guardian like a big government left wing green.
I’m maligned as a ‘green energy sceptic’. I’m not. Dear Guardian reader, here’s what I think
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thu 13 Oct 2022 16.00 AEDTCritics suggest our growth agenda conflicts with the need to achieve net zero. They couldn’t be more wrong
t is always intriguing to see my own views through the lens of a newspaper refracted away from what I think. Although I am no admirer of Extinction Rebellion, I can assure Guardian readers that I am not a “green energy sceptic”. I am in favour of intelligent net zero in which green energy will play the biggest role.
I’m proud to belong to a country that has cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% since 1990, while growing the economy by over 70% in that time.
…
Getting the British people on board with net zero requires us to demonstrate that we can go green in a way that makes them better off, not worse off, that drives growth instead of hindering it and that stimulates investment and innovation rather than driving traditional industries to the brink of ruin. The effect we have had on energy-intensive industries increases carbon emissions as we import more from abroad while destroying high-paid jobs in the United Kingdom.
There are ways to make this work which the country is adopting. Consider the Contracts for Difference scheme. This programme has grown to support a bountiful range of renewable energy sources, from onshore wind to offshore, solar power to tidal and from remote island wind to energy production from waste – all while bringing down costs and growing the economy. The drive to produce up to 50GW of offshore wind by 2030 means that this sector alone should grow to support 90,000 jobs.
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That is why our recently announced growth plan will accelerate the delivery of major infrastructure projects including onshore and offshore windfarms. This plan will also boost the UK’s nascent hydrogen industry, which will work in harmony with the renewables and gas sectors alike.
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We are exploring options to support low-cost finance to help householders with the upfront costs of solar installation, permitted development rights to support deployment of more small-scale solar in commercial settings and designing performance standards to further encourage renewables, including solar PV, in new homes and buildings.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/13/green-energy-guardian-reader-growth-net-zero-liz-truss-jacob-rees-mogg
Order Order has suggested Rees-Mogg may have more than an intellectual interest in promoting green energy – According to Order Order, Mogg’s mum is trying to have a large solar farm approved on their farm land, which would require overturning Prime Minister Liz Truss’ pushback against using farmland for solar projects.
The only evidence I have for this alleged Rees-Mogg conflict of interest is the stories in Order Order, so we should definitely seek a little more corroboration. But if Order Order’s claims about Rees-Mogg’s mum are true, frankly I’m disgusted.
Rees-Mogg has some questions to answer, both about his alleged family interest in covering farmland with solar panels, and his apparent backflip from small government advocacy, to supporting a firehose expenditure of taxpayer’s money on useless green energy.
If solar was the cheaper option, and had any potential to improve the lives of ordinary people, it wouldn’t need government subsidies, market distorting solar quotas, and government provided cheap financing to proceed. Private backers would be falling over each other to provide capital, without any intervention from the government.
Rees Mogg’s claims that green energy has any potential to improve the lives of ordinary people in my opinion are absurd. His lavish offer of government money backed cheap finance to expand the green blight, in my opinion blatantly contradicts his carefully cultivated reputation as a low tax small government conservative.
“we can go green in a way that makes them better off”
I wonder how many UK people feel that they’re ‘better off’ due to their ‘green’ (it’s not) investment right now, as they’re lumbered with horrendous energy bills and the prospect of blackouts this winter.
1) How much money has been ‘invested’ to date?
2) How much ‘better off’ are they?
3) What impact has this investment had on the climate?
Maybe he is playing a game with the Grauniad, in which he pumps out a string of lies that is similar to normal Guradian content, for publication in the Guraniad, which will make their readers believe that he is the good guy, and the Gardunia has fallen for it. It’s a very dangerous game, perhaps, but maybe not all that dangerous really if it’s only for Garudian readers (no-one else ever believes anything in the Gunariad).
I wouldn’t be surprised if stories like that are circulating in the British Conservative Party. I remember when David Cameron was contesting for leadership, all my right wing Conservative friends explained his left wing “heir to Blair” positioning was a false front, that Cameron was actually a right wing Euroskeptic, who wanted us out as soon as possible.
If a politician tells you in private their public position is a false front, the promise which is easiest to break is the promise hardly anyone knows about.
But all the evidence is that Cameron is a left wing heir to Blair. I’ve seen nothing to contradict that view and today’s Conservatives appear every bit to be Blue New Labour.
Agreed, I was just warning against believing false front stories.
Whoooooosh
He’s a politician, ergo a short termist instinctively because he has to revisit the well every 4 years or so; he is also just like every other politician in the HoC bar a very small number who, from a POV of self preservation, buy into every bandwagon that they perceive the voters doing likewise ( eg CV19/vaccine lies/AGW/CC ) – and he and his ilk are dragging this country to a very bad place
Moggster is more than a politician. Politics is his hobby.
You just know Rees-Mogg is lying when he cites 90,000 jobs in the renewable sector. Tens of thousands of renewables jobs have been promised in Scotland over the years but there has only ever been a few thousand appeared.
At least one turbine maker I know of packed up and went back to China despite lavish incentives to have them stay.
However, Conservatives are not sitting on their hands entirely. Innovate UK is a government initiative to stimulate business productivity (as opposed to the oft cited growth) by offering grants and loans for novel projects. There’s a lot of NetZero guff in there but many grants are just looking for clever propositions which create employment and takes advantage of entrepreneurial spirit. https://www.ukri.org/councils/innovate-uk/
I hope he is lying. The last thing the UK needs is more ‘renewable’ energy.
I suspect what he is really doing here is saying that the whole green case will be carefully looked into. If it is then found totally wanting, it will be dropped but with justification beyond Ress Moggs ‘personal opinion’.
If faux science created the renewable justification real science can reverse it.
As misguided, wasteful government meddling goes, HotScot, that sounds like a slightly less-destructive bad policy than something Labour would implement under a griffian regime.
Any project that would be profitable would be financed privately. That leaves harebrained schemes that cannot be justified conventionally (bird choppers and slaver panels to cite two examples) to be financed by the innumerate morons in government, in order to fleece the public by benefiting well-connected cronies.
It’s sad to see even the UK’s closest thing to a conservative Conservative go so far off the deep end into the crony capitalist abyss.
The record of government “investment” in start up companies is very bad.
If you want to attract new companies, ones that have a chance of actually surviving, the only way to do that is to maintain a low tax, low regulation environment.
90,000 more people being employed producing energy is 90,000 people not being employed to produce something else.
ie, we want fewer people employed in producing energy, not more.
Just imagine how many more people would be employed in farming if we banned tractors and made farmers use horses, or dig with their bare hands! And think how much poorer we’d all be.
hang on a minnit’ Observer, using horses and our winnin’ to pull ploughs was a stone age practice …..is that now what the Ganggreen mob want?
ITYM ‘Angriudi’…
You missed the nudiaraG 🙂
The problem in the UK is gas prices… it would be worse without 43% renewable electricity
Not if some of the investments in green energy had been used in developing oil & gas resources instead. For instance shale gas.
Or nuclear power
Of course rational people do acknowledge human CO2 is a serious issue and reducing it a necessity.
“Rational” people may believe that, but only for your version of rational.
Photosynthesizing organisms beg to differ with your assertion that “reducing it a necessity”!
Rational people do no such thing, as there is no evidence that CO2 is harmful. Indeed all the evidence goes the other way, that CO2 is very beneficial.
Hang on Mark! I had one of those wonderful full wobbely cream dispensers which I put on my low carb breakfast summer fruits . Today the Carbon Dioxide in the can ran out and I would swear there is still some cream in that can.
Any suggestions as to how I could access it without the Co2
Britain has enough frackable gas to run everything for decades, if not centuries. A fraction of the investment which has been wasted on useless green energy, if spent on gas, would have given Britain energy independence.
There are people of quite a different opinion about UK shale gas resource.
Yes, but both actual liberals and actual scientists would agree to allow a test of that hypothesis.
Why are you against a test of developing the UK shale gas resources?
Are you anti-science, Griff?
Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and most of them stink.
Forget the opinions of ignorant people. The data shows that CO2 is a beneficial gas and that increasing the amount in the atmosphere has benefited everyone.
I believe a new Combined Heat & Power (CHP) plant (burning waste) is to be built in the Fens. No more smelly, methane producing ‘rubbish tips’. So much more efficient than wind or solar.
Where is this mythical 43% that you keep spouting?
Currently at 4.50pm wind is supplying 14% compared to Gas 60.5%
Nameplate capacity.
(which is so removed from reality, it’s a mystery why the Scales and Measures authorities in all countries haven’t fined the manufacturers for false claims)
True. They are fraudulent.
Wow, 2 whoppers in one short sentence.
Please explain why electricity prices started rising years before gas prices did, if gas prices are the cause of the increase in electricity prices.
The lie that the UK gets 43% of it’s electricity from renewables has been dealt with many times. Getting 43% for 5 minutes one time during the year does not mean that they are getting 43% over all.
Griff,
43%? Have you seen how little wind generation we have had for the last four months?
I presume you also include the faux renewable that is Drax. Drax at least is reliable and being a conventional generator produces good electricity. I use the term good because renewable electricity is inferior to conventional.
If thar quote is accurate, Rees-Mogg has his metaphorical head so far up his ar$e he sees teeth.
Every now and then comes along some one who claims to be conservative and after acquiring a following proves to be a turncoat. Richard Muller comes to mind.
I believe England the Uk should go green. Back to those lush rolling green hills and farmlands. No one wants to see solar panels and 150m tall windmills there.
How much of this is just the Classical” Two Bob each way””.
After all he can always say to the Green bit in his party,”” I did try””.
Michael VK5ELL
There is no green bit to the conservative party.
Only Tory members whose noses are deep in the green trough.
I think there us a strong strand of care for the country, and the environment, in the UK, and in the Tory Party. Old-fashioned ‘countrymen’, etc.
The Conservative Party is – certainly used to be – conservative: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!!
There us also a small strand of “What’s in it for ME?” Tories, as in the UK.
The latter include watermelons, or those in bed with those, like Boris.
Auto
Ex PM David Cameron’s wife’s father has two wind farms on his estate which reportedly bring him in £500,000 in rent a year.
You are right Eric, we need to have a closer look at this guy. Everything he said was political gibberish. We’ll have to see what his actions are. Action speaks louder than words and it’s harder to make gibberish of actions. You did something or you didn’t.
Hes leaving the door ajar for Boris Johnsons return and Mr Rees Mogg again featuring in said BJ cabinet.
I think the Truss experiment has lasted as long as those on Married at First sight
Maggie Thatcher was greeted with the worst Tory opinion polls ever, and a panoply of people trying to bring her down.
“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”
If the Tories destroy her they are out of office for a century.
“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”
That sounds like Trump.
So what . Britain today was in a much stronger position than in 1979. Since the 2008 financial crisis they recovered quicker than similar larger countries in Europe and were already on the lower side of taxes compared to OECD countries. The post Brexit decline never happened either, now that was a real major battle even within the Conservative party
I see her opponents are now calling Truss, “Lithium Liz” for her unhinged financial policy. Thatcher at least had a coherent plan even if it was unpopular and of course backed by the markets
“the need to achieve net zero”
There’s his first, and probably most fundamental error. The entire argument is based upon the presupposition of there being a need to get to a “net zero” emissions scenario. This is based only on the models and assertions of Climate Catastrophists, it is madness and it’s implementation will result in the deaths of millions if not billions of people.
The supposedly conservative Liberal Party here in Victoria also piled on to a “net zero” policy, despite rapidly rising energy prices hurting working people more and more each day. What is it that is driving this? What leverage or threats or promises have been made to get people who should be standing on conservative principles to crumble without even a whimper? It doesn’t matter what names they call you, they’ll call you those names regardless. The far left (Marxist) lunatics who are demanding this madness, not to save the climate (that is irrelevant) but to gain almost total power over all people in Western countries. Their goal is not to transform it but to destroy it in order to create the material circumstances under which a Communist revolution can take hold. This might sound crazy, or hyperbolic, but they have been planning this for many decades. Lead by the likes of Klaus Schwab and the WEF and implementing the philosophies of Marxists like Herbert Marcuse and Antonio Gramsci these people are determined to create the conditions under which their supposed utopia will emerge, even if it destroys us all.
I spoke to a very senior Liberal when they were in government, and they said that if they opposed net-zero then Australia could kiss goodbye to all free trade agreements. I don’t think that’s a good argument, but evidently to someone trying to improve Australia’s economy it carried a lot of weight.
That would make some sense. But cowing to the demands of globalists will not stop them. We’re heading towards a crescendo, and being in a position where your entire economy is utterly gutted and your energy infrastructure collapsed will be no way to enter the coming conflict for the freedom of the whole world. If we acquiesce to these globalists, we will lose. It just shows how much it was the opposite of free trade if they use it as a bludgeon against countries to get them to impose policies that are against the interest of their citizens. That’s not free trade, it’s tyranny.
I’ve seen this a lot recently, on varying scales. Like industry bodies (in agriculture) who have caved to environmental measures that are totally against their members interests because the body is funded by government grants, which they would lose if they didn’t tow the line. Putting yourself, or a group, even up to a whole country, in a position where they are dependent on an outside party, whether that be government or supra-government organizations is always a recipe for disaster. I have a bad feeling that a lot of people are going to have to learn that the hard way, even those who know it already.
ESG is the tool the globalists are using to usurp national governments authority.
You are entirely correct about the Marxists/Neo-Marxists/Post-Modernist fellow travellers (I know they say they are anti grand narratives but that’s a lie as they are almost uniformly hard left politically).
These are very dangerous times.
Could not agree more.
…toe the line…
Its the old communist technique. Infiltrate the power structures and you can control everything
Mike J,
Yes, Josh the former Treasurer said as much in a short ABC tv clip just before they announced their net zero turncoat policy. I have an old-fashioned view that whoever threatened him that international commerce would otherwise be difficult should have been identified and charged with corruption. Sadly the post-modern dictionary does not include “brave”. Geoff S
It’s hard to be an outspoken atheist in a society ruled by dogmatic Climastrology zealots.
That rumor may be true Mike, but the threat would only be agreed with by the weak politicians we have now on both sides of parliament, not by the Howards, Menzies or Hawkes. How good are these FTA’s anyway?
We need somebody of substance to stand up to the climate alarmist bullies and call their bluff! Science has already shown that the AGW hypothesis is wrong, we are not generating global climate change, and CO2 is only a minor factor in modern mostly solar driven warming.
IF – and its a damned big IF – the moggester is as intelligent as one hopes, he has already realised that net zero is cobblers, but the problem of high and rising fossil fuel prices remains. Whether we go ‘net zero’ because of green ideology, or because fossil fuel is pricing itself out of the market, matters little.
What counts is cost effective non fossil fuel sources, and here there is only one answer – nuclear. Its what happens next that is the problem. Renewables rely on gas in the UK. There is no alternative that works at sane costs, so we need to frack in the shorter term.
That is probably a given. The quesion is how to spin that into a green policy.
Nuclear is the very best reliable carbon zero energy supporting fickle-friend unreliable energy like wind and solar. True energy security as well.
Brian,
it is not the best but the only source of non CO2 emitting generation that can work, unless very substantial hydro generation potential is available, and very few have that.
I agree. Let us recall that only five minutes ago all those now demanding Nert Zero were opposing nuclear energy because it was so dangerous, they said. The MSM believed them and successive British governments have closed or sold our nuclear engineering capability.
Just as well our Victorian forbears were a bit more sensible otherwise they might have closed down steam engine production and we would be waiste deep in horse dung in all our cities.
New nuclear has been UK govt policy under both Labour and Conservatives since 2006.
Ed Milliband recently restated Labour is committed to it.
Ah, then it is clear that Labour has no intention of supporting nuclear ever, if that’s what Ed Miliband said.
He is one of the few politicians who can lie without moving their lips.
What are the subsidies on offer for nuclear compared with wind & solar?
And the UK has plans for a substantial amount of nuclear. Has had since 2006, under both Labour and Conservative govts.
Only Hinkley out of 8 potential sites is building.
Why? The inability to finance it.
No griff, you are being disingenuous.
The inability to finance a project that is subject to arbitrary cancellation by a future government, unlimited liability in case of any minor accident, and constant unopposed attack by a minority of activists that oppose it, is not a project that is getting supprt from government, no matter what they say.
When this current govt took office 12 years ago they were committed to nuclear and indeed one nuclear reactor has been started under this govt…
The plans for Wylfa and Moorside were quite firm and only haven’t proceeded because the selected builders pulled out over finance.
There is no other obstacle to nuclear in this country other than putting up the money in a way which doesn’t put too much on bills and/or produces a return on investment.
If he thinks offshore wind will bring down cost then he is a twit.
Rees-Mogg Old Etonian, Oxford, wealth estimated to be in excess of £100 million (Wiki), an upper-class twit.
He’s a history graduate too so knows FA about science and engineering.
hey, i am a history graduate (tudor -stuart) – do not pretend to be a scientist – but offspring of brilliant engineer/mathematician who fostered skepticism. it was my knowledge of history that first led me to doubt Mann’s stats and climate warming crap and to study it and related issues on this site and others
This has also something to do with the current zeitgeist in the UK and many EU counties but not all, for instance Poland and Hungary would be exceptions, where climate alarmism is taken for granted.
Reading UK newspaper articles via Net Zero Watch even the ostensibly reasonable views are often tempered by provisos along the lines of: ‘of course we must limit carbon [sic] emissions eventually but not too quickly now is too soon’.
Jacob Rees-Mogg an ardent RC could be adapting St Augustine’s prayer: ‘Grant me carbon chastity and continence, but not yet’.
I think the position of Poland is shifting away from coal and towards renewables…
e.g. the plan for energy it published in Jan 2021
Poland has the 9th largest coal reserves in the world and Germany has the 6th largest. Yet both countries are facing blackouts this winter because they refuse to use their indigenous resources. Foolish!
As with everything ‘green’ … follow the money.
and ideology … this is an ideological, if not religious, endeavour.
Nietzsches Death of God doesn’t mean the religious instinct goes away … it simply displaces the subject and the political becomes elevated to the sacred.
And this website is heretic central.
Nothing green ever works properly.
I saw this and my view is that he is spouting the usual lack of reality that the Department of Business, Enterprise and Industrial Strategy put out. I am fairly certain Mr Rees-Mogg knows nothing about what he is quoted as saying.
The article ended that if anyone had a comment on the article, they should write into their letters page, limit 300 words.
I did reply with as brief a critique as I could, which ended up about 450 words, so it will probably be discarded without even being read. Just how can a meaningful comment be made in 300 words?
Rees-Mogg earned £7m from Brexit, so I can believe he has a vested interest in promoting wind or solar, especially as he has a company investing in China
Again oh again, the moron is talking about electricity generation, What plans has he got for Net Zeroing aviation, shipping, road transport, agriculture, construction, forestry? Nobody says. Futile. And UK’s one per cent of global CO2?
Indeed, the UK could sink below the waves tomorrow and not a jot of difference would be seen.
Guido is usually a sound source
Mogg is an elitist of the first order
Very disturbed to read JR Mogg’s Green misconceptions.
If we look at just two simple metrics, they alone destroy the economic message he is putting out that Green is advancing the economy while reducing CO2.
He claims the UK has increased its economy by 70% while reducing its CO2 footprint by 40%. since 1990.
The economy has grown but so has the national debt i.e. its borrowing which is part of the GDP it has grown from £200Billion in 1990 to now over £2 trillion in 2022. That is not economic growth that is economic liability. Add to that disastrous metric the loss of UK currency spending power. The £sterling has gone from $1.7/£ in 1990 to todays $1.13/£. That is straight decline not growth.
When that national spending power is added to the borrowing liabilities, then to claim the UK had grown by 70% is pure false accounting/number manipulation. We have actually declined as an active economy over the past 30years.
Our increasing GDP measured in £sterling terms is illusory. If we add in the increase in population over the 1990 period through to today that amounts to a 20%uplift due to migration which is again falsely adding to GDP. That additional population activity is being funded by borrowing, not by indigenous economic wealth creation.
The ongoing push for Green energy will continue to offshore economic activities in manufacturing, while increasing importation of low cost but high CO2 imports from China and India. That is not wealth creation that is decline.
We need a real ‘reset’ back to sound economics not factored illusions based on false Green accounting. That slight of hand is favoured by the propaganda class working for the WEF, it is not real.
Did the green policies substantially affect that debt?
Well the state borrowing £billions to grant support the massive uplift in part time energy generation, represented by wind turbines and solar farms has to be paid for so what do you think?
Silly boy! griff doesn’t think. He’s got his propaganda talking points to flog.
In that green subsidies substantially increased spending.
In that renewable energy has caused substantial decreases in the economy.
Yes, green policies have substantially made the debt worse.
A Guardian Editorial seems to believe due democratic process on so called green energy policy has been conducted in the UK and around the world. The Guardian’s principle agenda is not seen mainly as a consequence of the UN’s IPPC several meetings with politicians who did not refer these decisions back to their electorate but as something there is a general consensus about. Of course climate is not the only matter the Guardian obscures beyond reason.
The UK famously had a referendum on EU Membership which was seen as a formality for the Remain camp. We know how that went. And so why no referendum on the crippling green policies which have turned once proud Great Britain’s and Northern Ireland’s energy policy into such an ugly and expensive mess?
If the Guardian really believes there is a genuine consensus then let them advocate for a referendum to prove their case. Then we will see where our two faced politicians really stand as they had to do when the referendum on the EU returned its unexpected outcome. Does Rees-Mogg just blow with the wind or what?
Net Zero was item 5 on page one of the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto.
did voters read it? did they accept that’s what they were getting?
Come on griff even you know that the election was all about Brexit and no other matter ever really got a look in.
“And so why no referendum on the crippling green policies which have turned once proud Great Britain’s and Northern Ireland’s energy policy into such an ugly and expensive mess?”
The time is ripe for a referendum. Let’s see what the People really think about the horrendous position they are finding themselves in because of this unnecessary war on oil and natural gas.
‘Does Rees-Mogg just blow with the wind or what?’
Like most Members of Parliament, Rees-Mogg is scientifically and technically illiterate and way out of his depth when dealing with issues relating to climate and Net Zero. This defect makes him a soft target and easy prey for those conniving weavers of the Emperor’s magical new green suit who are pushing the Net Zero agenda for personal gain and, ultimately, for the erasure of national identities from the world scene in order to replace the nations with a single world state under a totalitarian, technocratic One World Government. Clearly, he has swallowed their pretentious lies hook, line and sinker and is now being reeled-in on their UN/WEF party-line.
I wonder if he has any inkling of the terrible fate that awaits him when the Net Zero band-wagon crashes because the technology that would make it possible hasn’t been invented yet and he’s being held co-responsible for the catastrophe, along with the rest of his misguided green compatriots in Parliament.
order order is the website address. the proper name is, of course, Guido.
Rees Mogg gives the impression of being a free marketeer, a freedom lover. If he supports Net Zero he is neither but rather an authoritarian and a socialist.
JRM is a politician with large financial assets in many countries and many fields of enterprise. He had, possibly still does, in Russian companies. If you own farmland probably the most profitable crop at the moment is electrons either from sunshine or both. An energy shortage really helps if you’ve investment in every time of energy.
Brexit, of which he was an enthusiastic supporter also made him a lot of money.
He has had a long term involvement in Somerset Capital Management LLP an asset management company which moved to Dublin before Brexit
How can you tell when a politician is lying – it’s when his lips are moving.
Jacob Rees-Mogg is a politician. He wants to be Prime Minister. A role that is currently vacant. Although the fool in the role hasn’t realised that yet.
To be PM in the UK you need to avoid instant character assassination from the BBC and SkyNews.
After 28-gate and the canonisation of former BBC2 head Sir David Attenborough, the BBC is 100% committed to an extreme green agenda. NetZero is not enough for them. We need to go negative (they seriously want this with no discussion of costs).
So, Jacob Rees-Mogg has decided that “Paris is worth a Mass” and has made obeisance to the green agenda in the other BBC house journal, the Guardian. It’s an entry ticket for the leadership race.
This is just evidence that Jacob Rees-Mogg has no integrity. But anyone who follows UK politics knew that already.
Rees Mogg has consistently said he doesnt want to be prime minister.
Was he lying then? Is he lying now?
Well I certainly don’t know what to make of it… but mostly that’s over JRMs decision to make the statement and make it where he did. A bold decision to offer a piece to the Guardian and credit to them for accepting it.
Those of you who believe that any part of UK politics or govt is ever going to go back on Net Zero should take a good look at this piece.
Out of curiosity when do you think Net Zero will start bringing down energy prices?
JRM himself talks about the move from the Renewables Obligation to the Contract for difference, under which renewables get a set strike price…
those CfD renewables are ALREADY paying back the difference between strike price and current wholesale price.
as RO contracts expire and we get more new CfD on (now) subsidy free renewables, the price will go down… but with still so much gas in the mix, it will be a while before we see it.
So when will the cost of having to keep gas & coal plants running full time to fill in for wind & solar stoppages be honestly attributed to the costs of wind & solar?
When will it start having any impact on the climate?
Rees-Mogg a Uber-Conservative? Ha ha: good joke, but it’s not April 1st!
By UK standards he is… ‘conservative’ is a centre right party in the UK, not equivalent to US political stance of Conservative
I have no idea why this comment is being down-voted. It’s 100% factually correct.
Meanwhile “Environmentalist Greta Thunberg said in an interview with German journalist Sandra Maischberger that she thinks it is a bad idea to close down existing nuclear power plants while increasing coal generation.¨
Golly.
From the article: “Critics suggest our growth agenda conflicts with the need to achieve net zero.”
What need?
You are assuming too much.
Some facts:
There has NOT been a planning application submitted for the solar but an application asking about the requirement for an Environmental Impact Assessment where the decision is that one is required as of early last year.
A scoping application was received at the end of last year but there is no futher information on it. They appear to be trying to see if an EIA can get approved before submitting a Planning App.
Rees-Mogg’s mother is NOT the sole owner of the land – probably only a third.
From the article: “I am in favour of intelligent net zero in which green energy will play the biggest role.”
Mr. Jacob Rees-Mogg is under the illusion that windmills and solar can power all of society.
The places where “Green” energy is making the most inroads is where the electrical grids are most at risk. When windmills and solar make up the “biggest role” we can expect frequent, periodic electrical blackouts, when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. I don’t believe windmills and solar will ever have the biggest role in our electrical grids. I don’t think Mr. Jacob Rees-Mogg has a firm grasp of the situation. Too bad for Britain.
JRM has a firm grasp of what is to his benefit. Thus he moved his investment firm to Dublin so that it would not be compromised by the Brexit that the Government he was part of was promoting.
For many, Rees-Mogg was the last conservative in the Conservative Party. Then along came Brexit and he joined the ultra Brexit idiots who believed the UK should not have any trade deals with the EU and trade on WTO rules alone. To support this, they lied that this was a common state that included the USA and China. But this was lying by omission and calling a ‘trade deal’ only that which was registered with the WTO. However, looking at the EU information on trade agreements, both countries were party to over 50 agreements that facilitated trade with the EU. At that point I realised he was a moron and his stupidity caused damage to the UK economy by closing off the only sensible exit strategy from the EU which was to remain a member of the EEA while then sorting out a more permanent arrangement with the EU.
“I am in favour of intelligent net zero in which green energy will play the biggest role.”
Where is the oxymoron ? 😀
Or better name it a contradiction in itself ? 😀
There is no such thing as conservatism as long as gutting energy security is a cornerstone of every political platform.
This green blob is a religion. If you don’t bend a knee to it, you don’t survive in politics, anywhere. Just like Christianity was the litmus test in the past.
But we have, in the US, an established separation of church and state. And it’s the custom in Europe as well. So Western nations thrived despite Christianity for a long, long time. Theocracies, like they have in the Middle East, regressed.
However, there is no separation between the green blob and state. Therefore, we will regress to the level of the theocracies unless we manage to convince politicians that it’s not in their interests to be addled by this religion.
Given the complete indoctrination of today’s youth, that’s not going to happen. So we had better figure out what to do when the lights go out for good. Since I’m not a prepper, I just hope I’m not around to see it. However, it seems likely I will.