Essay by Eric Worrall
Wales has some of the most expensive electricity in Britain, but the financial geniuses who run Wales have a plan which will push energy prices up even higher.
Climate change: Plan to capture, ship and bury power station’s CO2
By Steffan Messenger
BBC Wales environment correspondent
Plans have been proposed to lay new undersea pipes to carry carbon emissions from one of Europe’s largest gas power stations.
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But it involves major building work across a protected marine habitat.
Environmental group Friends of the Earth called for the money to be spent on renewable energy rather than keeping a gas plant going.
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Despite being one of Wales’ biggest emitters of CO2 it has an “essential role” in the country’s transition to a greener future, according to its operator RWE.
“This power station currently runs 80% of the time, in and around when there’s insufficient renewable power [such as wind or solar],” said Richard Little, who is leading the site’s transformation as director of the Pembroke Net Zero Centre.
“We need to build something that allows it to still operate at times when it’s needed without impacting the climate,” he said.
…
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-68296155
Even Friends of the Earth thinks this idea is dumb.
How could building CO2 storage facilities, building an undersea pipeline, and chartering ships to be on standby for when CO2 needs to be buried in the North Sea have anything other than a devastating impact on already sky high energy prices? And of course, let’s not forget the energy lost compressing the CO2 to the point it worth transporting, all of which will have to be paid for somehow.
I lived in Wales for a while. I met a lot of intelligent and talented people in Cardiff, people who run small businesses, who given a chance would transform Wales into an economic powerhouse. But the Welsh people keep electing politicians whose radical left economic incompetence sabotages the entrepreneurial efforts of Wales’ best and brightest.
The Welsh peasants are used to living in poverty.
This is just the Gooberment’s way of making sure they don’t forget it.
Thatcherphobia.
Labour closed more mines in the nation than Thatcher ever did but the communist (spent several months in the USSR studying how to subvert Capitalist governments) Arthur Scargill saw an opportunity to do just that.
He wasn’t interested in the miners, he just wanted to seize power and turn the country red.
The dumb Welsh still think he was doing them a favour.
You get who you elect. See California.
Yes, this is true. Voters need to get smarter.
The sons of Owain Glyndŵr were amusing back in the 70s when coal was still king…
While the National Coal Board was advertising the benefits of coming home to a nice, cosy, warm coal fire the aforementioned ‘sons’ were busy burning down property belonging to the “foreigner”.
The joke ran…
“Come home to a real fire – buy a house in Wales.”
A ‘Not The Nine O’Clock News’ classic from the days of comedy shows being funny.
___________________________________________________
Increasing CO2 makes the world greener, not the other way around:
NASA Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds
NOAA Satellite Data Used in Study Finding Significant Greening in Earth’s Vegetative Areas
“Greening” refers to an increase in leaves on plants and trees.
Green leaves produce sugars using energy in the sunlight to
mix carbon dioxide (CO2) drawn in from the air with water and
nutrients pumped in from the ground. These sugars are the
source of food, fiber and fuel for life on Earth.
More recent 2024 study “The global greening continues despite increased drought stress since 2000” observes similar results.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989423004262
I forgot about this wonderful YouTube from seven years ago:
You don’t understand. To the Left, “greening” means turning everything brown.
Especially shirts
Your assessment disagrees with some bureaucrat’s dictate, therefore you have committed fraud. All the courts on the East and West coasts know that CO2 is a toxic pollutant that is leading the earth to the 6th extinction. /s
Of all the crazy so called green projects, CCS is the most lunatic, revealing an abyss of ignorance. All CO2 taken away from the scarce amount of atmosphere CO2, wikll be replaces by CO2 gassing out from the sea with its manyfold amount of CO2. THis basic gas physics!
Excellent point.
And the energy required to filter vast volumes of air represents around 20% of the gas stations output. A complete waste of energy.
Another excellent point.
Thank you. I’m not known for them. 🙂
That’s an excellent point. 😉
A similar effect occurs with the dehumidification of enclosed spaces. Inevitably a certain amount of outside air infiltrates the space, in fact, that’s an ASHRAE requirement. The dehumidification goes on continuously in a never-ending process, or at least until the exterior humidity drops to the level desired. Particularly goofy is attempting to dehumidify an indoor swimming pool, which is actually attempted in some places.
It’s not ignorance. It’s a MASSIVE project. The bigger the project, the easier it is to loot. Think about all the “consultants” that will be used, and all the contractors kicking back money to the government officials.
The parasitic energy demand for CO2 capture reduces energy efficiency of a conventional power plant by 40%. It’s a total lack of consideration for future generation as the technology chews up cheap fossil fuels for what reason? NONE just crass stupidity and greed.
“We need to build something that allows it to still operate at times when it’s needed without impacting the climate,” he said.
I suggest that they all buy and maintain enough batteries at home to keep their lights on when the sun ain’t shinin’ and the wind ain’t blowin’. When Bob Dylan sang, “The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind … ” it wasn’t about keeping the lights on.
I’ve read over the article on the BBC website several times and I’ve not found any mention of the Welsh Government, let alone any mention of the Welsh Government backing the carbon sequestration plan.
Yes. Though the project is part of SWIC, South Wales Industrial Cluster. Which is partly funded by the UK Government. This is in turn governed by Net Zero Industry Wales, which is partially at least funded by the Welsh Government and has ministerial involvement.
https://www.gov.wales/net-zero-industry-wales-established-support-decarbonisation-welsh-industry
Minister for Economy, Vaughan Gething said:
Accelerating the decarbonisation of Welsh businesses and industry is crucial if we are to meet our ambitious net zero targets by 2050.
The creation of Net Zero Industry Wales is an important step forward to help deliver this transition, and underlines our commitment to support industry in south Wales to decarbonise.
Then there is something called Industry Wales, which has a head of Industrial Decarbonisation….
So there are lots of these stakeholders and partnerships all working vigorously to decarbonize Wales, all somewhat government funded and related. I think its probably true that the CO2 capture project is largely government motivated. But agreed that this isn’t stated in the BBC piece.
Its lunacy in any case.
I agree, there’s no indication of any government involvement in this plan, whether the Senedd or Westminster or even local councils. This is part of the SWIC plan by industry.
You need to dig – they *know* they’re up to something stupid and intrinsically bad when they try to hide the guy behind the curtain.
I don’t think there’s any actual Government Money (yet) but there’s a very real implied threat that if RWE (operator of the power station) don’t ‘do something’, life will be made very hard for them – with the possibility of ‘help’ if they make plan and show willing first.
i.e. Jump before we push you
(Following on from what Brandon has just done about US LNG terminals, I suspect getting any gas to burn in the first place is gonna be their biggest headache)
The jetty they show as being where CO2 would be loaded is the discharge jetty for the Dragon LNG terminal. I’m pretty sure there’s a pipe or two to the power station because warm cooling water can be used to lower the cost of regasification, and the power station runs on gas. Moreover, just to the West of the power station site is the Valero Milford Haven Oil Refinery. (I’ve driven past, headed for the bay at the end of the peninsula where there’s a very pretty sheltered beach with views over the mouth of the harbour). In the days when Milford Haven boasted several operating refineries (Esso/South Hook, Amoco/Murphy, Gulf/Chevron and Texaco (now Valero) pipelines under the Haven were built between Gulf/Chevron (now partly occupied by Dragon and a sea fed oil storage depot) and Texaco to allow them to share a large cat cracker, built on the South side.
Further to the West on the far shore is South Hook LNG terminal which has a higher import capacity than Dragon. While the US may cease to be the UK’s main supplier of LNG (as it is today, ousting Qatar), it can import from anywhere. Once Putin is gone, perhaps even Russia again.
Well, except that SWIC is not exactly just industry. There is a lot of indication of government involvement in the plan, its just not to be found in the BBC story. But the moment you examine who SWIC consists of, what Net Zero Industry Wales is, you find government involvement all over it.
I agree that you do not find Senedd, Westminster or local councils running the scheme. But you do find both Westminster and Welsh minister ‘involved’, as the piece I quoted above makes clear.
Ministers like Vaughan Gething do not make remarks like that at launch events, and devolved governments do not give funding either, for things where there is no government involvement. This is not private enterprise acting on its own, that is for sure.
Meanwhile, the Welsh Government plans to dig some holes and then fill in some holes.
The party that runs Wales is likely to be running the UK before the year is out. A frightening prospect.
Or… sell it to people with greenhouses so they can grow bigger fruit and veg at higher CO2 concentrations for less. Even better, build a few on site so there aren’t any shipping costs. But no, this is government we’re talking about, and Welsh government at that. They love a good opportunity, they like to wave at them as they pass by…
As usual, there’s an emphasis on “green jobs”, the promise that many people will be paid by consumers to perform unproductive work. While every other business concentrates on requiring less labor, the “green” industries brag that they will defy current economic thought and employ more labor, as if this were a valid selling point. If it were, it would instead make economic sense to allow CAGW to proceed as predicted and employ people to fan the sweaty during the inevitable heat waves, as was done by the pharaohs and Aztec nobles.
Welsh Government. A very bad woke joke.
Where to start? Maybe the Welsh NHS…
“Since devolution, approaches to providing NHS services in the UK have become increasingly divergent…”
https://research.senedd.wales/research-articles/devolution-20-are-we-a-healthier-nation/
“North Wales Conservative Senedd member Mr Rowlands said the “vast range of challenges faced and support given by the NHS in Wales on any given day is mind boggling”. Mr Rowlands said responsibility for the situation the BMA described “sits clearly with the Welsh government”. “From founding the National Health Service to running it into the ground – that is the current legacy of the Labour Party here in Wales”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-66052441
In short, whereas England, since Tony Bliar, has relied in part on the private sector to help reduce waiting lists the Welsh were having none of it – on principle. And so they wait…
Green Jobs
How often we hear the clarion call that there will be spandex jackets – one for everyone – in the new utopia of full green employment. But it just isn’t true. Take 3,000 regular jobs in Port Talbot making specialised steel products, then convert them to “green” processes that recycle steel junk, et voila…
“”Tata says it will cut up to 2,800 jobs in the UK, the majority of them at the country’s biggest steelworks in Port Talbot, South Wales.
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Tata will press ahead with plans to close blast furnaces and replace them with electric arc furnaces under a plan to reduce emissions and costs.
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…the move will cut carbon emissions by about 85% and the UK’s overall CO2 output by about 1.5%. The Port Talbot site is the UK’s single largest emitter of CO2.””
https://news.sky.com/story/tata-steel-thousands-of-jobs-axed-at-port-talbot-under-taxpayer-funded-green-shift-13051377
As the original doomsters (Ehrlich, Ehrlich & Holdren) told us “”De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.””
Slow down there…
“”New research showing a reduction in deaths and injuries as traffic slows down is being published today alongside new survey results showing continued public support for the national roll out of the lower 20mph speed limit next year – a UK first.””
https://media.service.gov.wales/news/new-research-shows-20mph-speed-limit-could-save-the-welsh-nhs-up-to-gbp-100m-in-first-year
“”Imagine the delivery of fresh bread usually between five and six-thirty each morning. The route timing is based on vans travelling on near-empty roads at up to 30-mph. The reduction to 20-mph reduces van and driver productivity leading to increased distribution costs and a possible increased bread prices to the customer.””
https://nation.cymru/opinion/the-unseen-cost-of-wales-new-20-mph-speed-limit/
Wales is in dire straits: “”WALES is a net drain on the economy, with it receiving more than £9bn in expenditure than the Government raises in taxation”
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/wales-9bn-drain-uk-economy-2166286
So when I hear the Welsh government backs something I cringe…
No shortage of examples of the Welsh government wasting money – case in point: https://order-order.com/2024/02/19/welsh-government-spent-75000-of-taxpayer-cash-on-clinton-event/
At least Richard Little, evidently yet another net zero groupie (does Director of the Pembroke Net Zero Centre qualify as a green job?), admits indirectly that renewables are pretty hopeless (if they provide insufficient electricity for 80% of the time). But what impact, exactly, does he imagine one gas power station has on climate?
How do you “bury” a gas in water? Do these clowns think it is actually carbon since that’s what they always seem to call CO2?
Possibly. It boils my head whenever i see the word used instead of CO2
Ignorance of contemporary “journalists” knows no bounds. The full BBC article actually hints at “abandoned oil and gas fields” so it becomes clear that they want to inject the CO2 into depleted reservoirs. Which at least makes sense if you accept the climate cult arguments about CO2. Calling that “burial under the sea” with a cute little graphic of containers being loaded on a ship is a good illustration of the state of public education in the 21st century.
I’ve found one advantage of getting old; I now realise that I won’t have to listen to ignorant people saying stupid things for much longer.
Agreed, we seem to have a generation of blithering idiots at the helm right now, makes me wonder how hell human beings ever evolved at all, we’re now going backwards..
The major flaw of democracy is allowing stupid people a vote but to be fair a lot of claimed democracies are nothing of the sort if you have been taken over by the Uniparty/WEF fascists or have a system that allows voting but no power. Just look at the UK where apparently Labour are surging towards government and yet in the last two byelections their votes FELL by over 5000. They still won because those that voted for the Tories previously can’t stomach supporting this centre-left socialist mob.
“The major flaw of democracy is allowing stupid people a vote “
That’s exactly what the Guardian and BBC said after the vote for Brexit.
“The major flaw of democracy is allowing stupid people a vote”
That is a dilemma in a democracy. 🙂
In the United States it would be better to try to educate the voters. If they knew the truth about the situation, they would know who to vote for. But many do not know the truth because they listen to News Media that has a political bias that leads them astray from the real world.
The solution is for Conservative media to have the reach of the current leftwing media. Ninety percent conservative, and 10 percent socialist news media would be about right. Then a lot more voters would be exposed to the truth a lot more frequently, and maybe this will help them decide how to vote properly (in their own interests).
Eric, is there anyplace you haven’t been; maybe a life best described by the Aussie-written song I’ve Been Everywhere:
I’ve been everywhere, man
I’ve been everywhere, man
Crossed the desert’s bare, man
I’ve breathed the mountain air, man
Of travel I’ve a-had my share, man
I’ve been everywhere
[Verse 1]
I’ve been to Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota
Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota
Wichita, Tulsa, Ottawa, Oklahoma
Tampa, Panama, Mattawa, La Paloma
Bangor, Baltimore, Salvador, Amarillo
Tocopilla, Barranquilla, and Padilla, I’m a killer
Lucky Starr if I remember?
There is a reason for the fact that few outside Wales have ever heard of Mark Drakeford, the labour leader.
Idiocy is apparently and unfortunately a renewable resource.
More useless government.
Welsh Politicians, being simple folk, are attracted to the most stupid and most expensive suggestion that is available from the noisy crowd in New Greenland.
This sounds like a South Park underpants gnomes scheme