From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Paul Kolk
This confirms what we learnt a few weeks ago:
Bill payers are to fund a £30bn overhaul of the electricity network as the National Grid “rewires the nation” to hit net zero.
National Grid unveiled the investment as it prepares to build thousands of miles of new cables by 2030, to carry electricity from wind farms in Scotland or offshore to power-hungry cities mainly in England.
This overhaul will eventually cut greenhouse gas emissions – but will lead to thousands more pylons being built across Britain and extra charges on customers’ bills.
The announcement, planned for weeks, comes as net zero is expected to play a major role in the forthcoming general election campaign. Labour is seeking to decarbonise by 2030, but Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, has argued that this is too fast.
John Pettigrew, National Grid’s chief executive, announced the move alongside the company’s full year results for the year to March 2024, including another £30bn to be invested in the US.
He said: “We’re announcing today a new five-year financial framework. We will be investing £60bn in the five years to the end of March 2029 – that’s nearly double the level of investment of the past five years.
As the National Grid now admit this expenditure is only needed to connect wind farms in Scotland and offshore to the market, surely they should be made to pay for it.
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This overhaul will eventually cut greenhouse gas emissions
No, it will not. Not even a pandemic managed that.
So we can be sure they’re planning some far more drastic than a mere pandemic. Gotta stop that Satanic carbon pollution from destroying the Earth! No measure is too extreme! The Earth is burning, the oceans boiling, the ecosystems collapsing, the glaciers melting, the sea is rising, hurricanes are approaching, massive forest fires….. ahhhhhh- we gotta save the planet!
This, perhaps universal truth, was written over 100 years ago.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
― H.L. Mencken
I happened to watch a climate nut job video on YouTube a few days ago- it was trash. But then the YouTube algorithm sent me more as recommendations. I watched a few more. Good thing I’ve gotten educated in climate skepticism here over the past 3-4 years. I was able to easily deconstruct all of them. Without my “training” here- I wouldn’t have known how to respond. They seem so rational- so sciency. People with PhDs.
“Not even a pandemic lockdown managed that.”
Fixed it. Same cause: our government betters know best.
Fanx
Sorry not sorry for being pedantic 🙂
I just really really detest government, and want to make sure it gets it due. I hate thinking of all those bureaucrats suffering in ignominy.
I thought emissions went down during the lockdowns but CO2 kept increasing. Am I misremembering?
What is the carbon footprint of this massive project?
Huge
And it gives the lie to the claim than wind power is cheaper!
YUGE !!!
“What is the carbon footprint of this massive project?”
For the UK almost nothing …
Most materials will be sourced from China, India, Indonesia, South Africa & South America, so it’s not on our ‘carbon balance sheet’.
Don’t you just love creative accountancy.
And you need heavy machinery to build a grid. But I’m sure they’ll use only electric driven machinery obtained from green sources!
Yet all of the conventional back up will still be required!
Especially because now there’s a lot of resistance building up against industrial scale battery systems to store “green” energy. And mostly from the same people who push green energy!
shush now- don’t ask questions that they don’t want to answer!
Never fear, JCB* the UK’s biggest supplier of construction equipment is going hydrogen.
https://www.jcb.com/en-gb/campaigns/hydrogen
*JCB has a dictionary entry: a type of construction machine with a hydraulically operated shovel on the front and an excavator arm on the back
A large range of alternative tools can be attached to a JCB backhoe loader at either end. Very versatile. Also lots of other designs with different capabilities such as telescopic loaders.
The new hydrogen boom comes for free.
J C Bamford.
And what about the ecovisual squalor it creates? That will be a truly depressing and inescapable blight on all mankind once the folly is well on its way.
but… but… then the oceans can stop boiling!
but… but… the ocean’s boiling will stop the sea level rise, due to evaporation.
Ergo; we need more CO2
30 billion to look at a multitude of new eyesores industrializing the pastoral countryside? In the US the “sympathizers” to the “green” crusade have no idea what these hysterics have in mind. And like folks on the Jersey shore those folks here in Montana are not going to like their vistas sullied with high voltage lines and bird choppers. This whole fiasco is going to collapse here because public opinion is going to turn.
“This whole fiasco is going to collapse here because public opinion is going to turn.”
Don’t hold your breath, Decades of Propaganda to overcome.
BTW – Is Propaganda a correct goose ??
A cooked goose
Sauce for a proper goose is sauce for a propaganda.
More like a snake.
Here in New England, the enviros fight hard to prevent a new, large power line to deliver cheap hydro power from Canada. I wonder how they’ll react when it’s determined a vast new grid will be needed in America.
Time to rediscover Tesla’s vaunted wireless power transmission technology.
Meanwhile, ironically, hypocritally, there’s not a lot of resistance to solar “farms” in western MA- from the same people who’ve been pitching “clean energy”. Initially, much of that was built in central MA, where we “deplorables” live and not many enviros- so they loved pushing. Now it’s happening in their elite areas. They also are fighting to stop industrial scale battery systems for storing “clean energy”. They seem to fail to see what hypocrites they are.
missoulamike: “And like folks on the Jersey shore those folks here in Montana are not going to like their vistas sullied with high voltage lines and bird choppers.”
My look at a variety of NWPCC and WECC power planning reports convinces me that these documents are like Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas — full of words and music and rhyming lyrics, all of it signifying nothing. But Missoula’s mayor and the Missoula city council love them.
Long time friends who retired to Missoula for its access to outdoor recreation in all directions tell me it will take a decade or more for Montanans to wake up to what is going on with the power grid in the US Northwest. And then only after a series of blackouts occurs.
In the meantime, they have their wood stove, their supply of propane, plus their supply of freeze-dried rations bought from commercial entrepreneur survivalists in Utah, all of it ready and waiting for when the inevitable happens.
I’ve asked these long time friends what they will do if a winter blackout occurs and thousands of U of M students begin violently scavenging the city for food and water.
If some of these students come knocking on their door, they will strongly refer these students to Missoula’s mayor and city council, local politicians who are now pushing hard for closure of the Northwest’s coal-fired and gas-fired power plants.
This may be a story line? Apparently, the new target of the spring tornados, in addition to trailer houses, are wind mills/turbines. A news report indicated a large number were destroyed in the latest Iowa storms.
The Next Front in the War Against Climate ChangeOpinion by Brian Deese
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-next-front-in-the-war-against-climate-change/ar-BB1mYObY?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=1632eed91c8e4777944fd4d7d63b9a66&ei=22
And much more- that’s just part of his rant.
Beyond his wildest hopes! But he lies awake at night! OMG! Failing to meet our DEMAND for CLEAN power! Planetary potential? Oh, yuh, let’s have some of that ZERO carbon technology! And they ran ENDLESS models! Yikes!
And to top it off- he helped write the law!
“The Next Front in the War Against Climate Change Opinion by Brian Deese”
Shouldn’t that read … Brain Disease ???
Investing = wasting, stealing.
Throwing away….
This is nothing to what the UK is going to have to start getting acquainted with 6 weeks from now. They are about to elect, with a huge majority, the wokest political party in the West. Without realizing it, because the leadership has carefully avoided saying what it is going to do.
Current forecasts from Electoral Calculus: A Labour majority of 308 seats, in a 650 seat Parliament. That is a majority, not the number of seats, which will be 479 out of 650. With no written constitution and no restraints whatever on what laws are passed. Well, there are two theoretical restraints, the House of Lords, which is more woke than the Labour Party, and the Monarchy, occupied by someone more woke than the House of Lords.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/05/25/bill-payers-to-fund-60bn-net-zero-overhaul-of-national-grid/
Con 92
Lab 479
Lib 44
So the British can look forward to a government which will try to get to net zero in electricity generation by 2030.
Labour said it would hit the 2030 electricity target by quadrupling offshore wind, accelerating the use of floating offshore wind farms, tripling solar power and doubling onshore wind capacity.
The Labour plan also envisages the completion of new nuclear power stations at Hinkley Point and Sizewell, as well as backing new “small modular reactors”.
However, Starmer said a Labour government would keep a “strategic reserve” of back-up gas-fired power stations to guarantee security of supply. He added that it would invest in hydrogen and in carbon capture and storage schemes, to ensure there is zero-emission back-up power when there is no wind or sun.
Source: FT.
4 x offshore wind would take it up to about 60GW. Now ask yourself, how is 60GW offshore wind plus the current 15GW onshore plus another 15GW in prospect going to power a country whose peak demand right now is 45GW.
That is basically 90GW of wind to supply current demand, which they are proposing to double with the move to EVs and heat pumps. This year 22% of all cars sold must be EVs. Next year its 28%, and in 2030 it will be 80%. If a manufacturer ships too many ICE cars, its a fine of 15,000 sterling for every one over quota.
Where is supply going to come from, on one of those dead calms in the winter or the summer caused by blocking highs, when the current installed base of about 29GW regularly produces 0.5GW for days on end. And when, in the winter, even during the day there is just about no solar. Raise the installed base to 100GW, and maybe you get 2GW or so. Peak demand will probably be 70 by 2030. Nuclear and biomass will give maybe 15GW. Where is the other 50GW going to come from?
It sounds like the UK will be moving faster into bankruptcy with these new plans.
Government EV mandates will ruin the UK car industry.
Big Government is Bad Government.
We’re already more than bankrupt
We’ve been at the coyote-running-full-speed-off-the-cliff-before-falling stage for some time. The animators are just stretching out the suspense a little more for the gullible.
The UK has proved it is hopeless at big infrastructure projects – HS2 failure being but the latest fiasco. Labour hasn’t a hope in hell of getting to net zero in electricity production by 2030 or quadrupling offshore wind by then, especially if they put Miliband in charge of it.
They call him “millipede” btw. A proper creepy-crawly.
NB : I use BM Reports + ESO (30-minute resolution) data, where the Gridwatch (notionally 5-minute) data corresponds to the BM Reports integration.
Adding in ESO’s “Embedded Wind” numbers usually keeps the “Total Wind” above 1 GW, but claiming “days” on end below that level is an exaggeration.
Attached is an updated version of my graph for “Renewables on the GB electricity grid” for the 26 days from the 29th of April to the 24th of May (+ 8.5 hours of this morning).
May is the tail end of spring rather than the depths of winter but proponents of solar, especially those in Australia, will no doubt highlight production on the 9th, the 11th and (especially) the 19th of May.
They will probably gloss over the numbers for the 3rd and the 22nd (and, to a lesser extent, the 16th) though …
29 GW to 90 GW … just multiply the left-hand axis by three to see what might, purely theoretically, have been produced by “the Great British weather in the merry, merry month of May” by that ninety gigawatts (!) of “capacity” instead.
NB : The right-hand axis will remain exactly the same … funny things, percentages …
Week 1, noon on the 4th to noon on the 11th : One 24-hour period, out of seven, above 10% of “nominal / nameplate / faceplate capacity” …
Week 2, the 15th to the 21st : Seven days oscillating around the 10% “capacity” line …
It remains to be seen how the last week of May will turn out, meteorologically speaking.
Yes, you are right ‘days on end under 0.5GW’ was an exaggeration. Apologies for that.
But in terms of day’s lows, its actually on the high side. Last year’s daily low, from gridwatch, was 0.071GW! Not unusual either, this year the low is 0.16GW so far.
This surely, as much as the longer lows of 2GW or less, makes the plan of moving to mainly wind powered generation for the country completely impossible.
For solar, the key months are December and January. May is only one month away from the longest day, and UK high outputs from solar are May-August. December is the critical month for the grid, with the shortest day on December 21 (St Lucia’s day). There is no solar generation at all after 4pm in the two lowest winter months and the angle of the sun is lower, which reduces what you get during the shorter daylight hours.
As an illustration, 12 Dec 2023 the daily output from 14.4GW national capacity was 0.344GW. On 20 Jan 2024 it was the same. This is 2.3% of faceplate. Made worse by only being available for about 5 or 6 hours, and sharply peaked in that period.
So I don’t think its an exaggeration to say that in December and January solar basically vanishes in the UK. Any plan to use solar more heavily, as the Labour Party plans to, must address this. If you insist on doing it with storage, the numbers will be huge.
There will have to be storage not only to cover nights during the summer, with replenishment during the day when output is higher, which might be possible. But there will also have to be storage to cover the entire months of December and January. Well, not to exaggerate, to cover all but 2.3% of your capacity.
The 2023 faceplate of 14.4GW, by the way, had a peak summer output of about 10GW. So solar in the UK goes from 10GW to zero every night in the highest generation period, and then it goes down to 0.3GW per day for the whole of December and January.
No one in their right mind would propose using this on grid scale unless they had massive cheap reliable storage. But all political parties in the UK endorse it, and none of them are addressing storage.
“So I don’t think its an exaggeration to say that in December and January solar basically vanishes in the UK.”
yea but that’s peanuts compared to what the loons are doing in Estonia…while closing down the oil shale backup.
59-60N and installing loads of solar panels-which with subsidy sends EU money to PRC.
Daylight length in Nov-Jan is pretty much non existent.
When I saw that I realise the propagandists and crazies have no limits.
michel: “Peak demand will probably be 70 by 2030. Nuclear and biomass will give maybe 15GW. Where is the other 50GW going to come from?”
Virtual power plants a.k.a. energy rationing. On a scale which drarfs that seen in WWII. (You are fighting climate change, after all, an enemy more dangerous than Hitler’s Germany, if the UK’s climate alarmists are to be believed.)
And, within a few months of this Labour Party change, China, and other developing countries that are tired of being poor, will start up enough new coal and gas powered energy plants to render all of the UK’s sacrifices meaningless.
So….how long will the feeling of moral superiority warm and satisfy the hearts of the kingdom’s people?
The bill is more like £200bn with an average of £18.4bn p.a. to be spent over the years 2024-2035 according to their own estimates. They split it up to hide the awful reality.
Cost overruns a bonus extra! Plus added cost for underground/subsea lines where objections to pylons succeed.
We spent a week in Tenby, South Wales, shortly after Xmas. Much of the countryside and many of the villages of the south were awash with ‘NO PYLONS’ posters.
Are you sure the posters didn’t read
NO PYLONS
PLEASE PLACE PREY FOR PUTIN!
by any chance?
Russia is not always our best friend.
Russia has a variety of submarine assets, reportedly able to cut,say, power cables.
And we want to put hundreds – or thousands – of miles of undefended cables around our coast.
It may not end well.
And the French are our best friends!
Auto
I’m not sure which “they” you’re referring to, but in any case, it will be the bill payers that end up paying. Either the wind farms will up their prices the next chance they get, or National Grid does.
Unfortunately, more and more politicians are taking less and less responsibility for governing the country. It’s five years of grandstanding at PMQ’s with the jolly old boys club like they never left Oxbridge, followed by a mad scramble to work out what “the people” want, hoping to come up with some cheesy slogan to allow them to keep their fat arses on the green benches – opposition or in power, doesn’t seem to matter so long as they get to keep their noses in the trough. Who cares how much the next arbitrary and capricious Act of Parliament costs the taxpayer? There’s always more where it came from.
If you’re an American, you can experience our political class quite easily. Set up two rows of inflatable tube men, one red and one blue, then play recordings of geese honking at high volume. You might think that’s an unfair depiction of the House of Commons, and you’d be right. The geese would do a better job.
Meanwhile the madness goes on…
A piece in the June issue of the BBC’s Gardeners’ World magazine claims that the weeds of racism have sprung up in some unlikely places. Landscape designer Jackie Herald argues that choosing to plant non-native species in British gardens can constitute ‘horticultural appropriation’, because they were originally brought to the UK as a result of colonialism.
Is your garden guilty of ‘horticultural appropriation’?
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/05/24/is-your-garden-guilty-of-horticultural-appropriation/
What should I tell Wisty – the Wisteria?
I’m sure we should shoot migratory birds to prevent them dropping seeds they picked up elsewhere, shouldn’t we?
/sarc
Especially the coconut carrying swallows.
Are African swallows migratory?
Yes;
Swallows migrate to South Africa during our winter, flying for six weeks, at up to two hundred miles a day.
Better ban all potatos and tomatoes, then…
If the plants came from the UK’s former colonial possessions, doesn’t that constitute reverse colonialism?
A story tip, for all you BEV naysayers.
Here’s some interesting development in battery technology which will probably solve all the negative issues of short range and long charging times for BEVs.
https://www.catl.com/en/news/6239.html
“At Auto China 2024, CATL unveiled Shenxing PLUS—the world’s first LFP battery that achieves a range above 1,000 kilometers with 4C superfast charging. Within eight months after the launch of the Shenxing superfast charging battery in August 2023, CATL has once again pushed the boundaries of LFP battery technology, ushering in the era of superfast charging for the whole industry. “
“Aside from offering long range, Shenxing PLUS also charges fast. It can deliver a 600-km range in just 10 minutes of charging, far surpassing the usual batteries available on the market and realizing a true superfast charging speed of one kilometer per second.”
Wow!!
It’s still slower than refilling an ice car
Next
What will your 0.75MW connection and home charger cost? Plus the distribution cables and pylons to deliver it.
Do you actually believe that any more than the previous 1000+ stories of super batteries? I got tired after the first few dozen disappeared without a trace.
And no mention of cold weather performance, safety, repairability, weight, expense, toxicity, where all the necessary raw materials come from. What else have they left out? Slave labor?
ETask: what about the grid? Does this new battery somehow not need to rewire the world’s power grids?
That will be great, when and if it happens, and when and if it does I will happily move to an EV so equipped.
But its not going to make any difference to global CO2 emissions.
LFP has comparatively low energy-density, so a 1000-km battery would weigh several times as much as those of whose weight already requires edicts and subsidies to get them into vehicles.
After that, there seems little point to considering the fantastical claim of fast charging.
I might expect CATL to have an optimistic view of its own products, but I’d be surprised if Vincent’s news would convince any non-believer.
“LFP has comparatively low energy-density, so a 1000-km battery would weigh several times as much as those of whose weight already requires edicts and subsidies to get them into vehicle.”
Looks like you didn’t bother to read the linked article. Here’s the relevant quote from the article.
“The 1,000-km pure electric range comes from continuous technological breakthroughs. The cathode of Shenxing PLUS is made with a granular gradation technology, which places every nanometer particle in the optimal position to achieve ultra-high compact density. The proprietary 3D honeycomb-shaped material is added to the anode, boosting the energy density while effectively controlling the volume expansion during charge and discharge cycles. The single-piece casing, which is an industry first, optimizes the internal space utilization, allowing the Shenxing PLUS cells to reach an unprecedented energy density level. At the system level, the Shenxing PLUS battery pack has a topological structure optimized on top of module-free CTP 3.0 technology, enhancing the packing efficiency by 7%. Through breakthroughs in materials and structure, the Shenxing battery system’s energy density surpasses the 200 Wh/kg threshold for the first time, reaching 205 Wh/kg, making ranges over 1,000 kilometers a reality.”
Do you not believe in technological progress?
Problem is finding a superfast charger that is actually working or not having a queue of 5 or 6 cars waiting to recharge.
Every week there’s an announcement of a new “magic battery”. Personally, I’m holding out for Musk’s “million mile” battery which was due any day now in 2018.
Can you say “fire bomb?”
Thank you Chinese Communist Party.
Very cool.
/s
Wow!! Vincent;
You are a salesman’s dream
Please make contact as I have several bridges to sell !!
The price tag of a “thing” is the most reliable measure of the hydrocarbons burned to produce the “thing”.
This power grid will create £60 billion worth of CO2.
A whole lot of extra carbon pollution will be created building the windmills and power grid. None of which are being built with renewable energy. Almost all of it will be built with coal and natural gas.
Please don’t use the term carbon pollution. That is an imaginary phrase dreamt up by climate alarmists. Please use a more accurate phrase like beneficial carbon dioxide enrichment.
When governments say “invest” they universally mean “spend”.
If governments were truly investing why do they have deficits?
By the time they get the cables built the offshore windmills will all have been blown down.
Think of the 60 billion GBp offshore connections as the beginning of the end of the misadventure with wind. Here’s where the UK will be in 2033:
Biggest expansion of nuclear power for 70 years to create jobs, reduce bills and strengthen Britain’s energy security – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Great British Nuclear, The Rt Hon Claire Coutinho MP, Andrew Bowie MP and The Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP
Published 11 January 2024
The government today outlines plans for the biggest expansion of nuclear power for 70 years to reduce electricity bills, support thousands of jobs and improve UK energy security – including exploring building a major new power station and investing in advanced nuclear fuel production.
Copy, key statements only (abbreviated) SMR in bold added for emphasis
The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, said:Nuclear is the perfect antidote to the energy challenges facing Britain – it’s green, cheaper in the long term and will ensure the UK’s energy security for the long-term.
Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Claire Coutinho, said:
British nuclear, as one of the most reliable, low-carbon sources of energy around, will provide that security.
Following its launch last year, Great British Nuclear (GBN) will drive the UK’s nuclear ambitions forward, including through the game-changing SMR competition which will soon invite short-listed companies to tender.
Unlike conventional nuclear reactors that are built on site, SMRs are smaller, can be made in factories, and could transform how power stations are built by making construction faster and less expensive.
Minister for Nuclear Andrew Bowie said: The government’s investment in nuclear will ensure the UK remains at the forefront of technological developments.
Our plans will give investors the confidence to back new UK projects
Tom Greatrex, Chief Executive of Nuclear Industry Association, said:We welcome the publication of the roadmap – the commitment to explore a further large-scale project beyond Sizewell C in parallel with the deployment of SMRs is very welcome.
Sue Ferns, Senior Deputy General Secretary of Prospect trade union, said: Commitment to a long-term investment in new nuclear capacity is most welcome.
Nuclear is an essential part of a low carbon, secure energy strategy that should also deliver good, clean jobs at scale. Investment in both GW-scale power plants as well as SMRs is critical to ensuring a nuclear renaissance,
Carol Tansley, Vice President of UK New Build Projects at X-energy, said: We’re delighted this ambitious roadmap recognises the vital role in the UK energy mix for advanced modular reactors (AMRs).
Gwen Parry-Jones, CEO of Great British Nuclear said: Since Great British Nuclear started the SMR technical selection process last July, we have moved strongly forward and are on track to complete vendor selection later this year.
Andrew Murdoch, UK Managing Director of Advanced Modular Reactor developer, newcleo, said: We now look forward to participating in the government’s consultations on both siting and the routes to market for advanced technologies ahead of developing our first of a kind advanced modular reactor here in the UK by 2033.
60 billion? I don’t believe it. Double that. No, triple that.
National Grid announced their plans to “invest an estimated $75 billion across the company’s service territory in the UK and US over the next five years, with nearly half of the funding dedicated to US energy system improvements in Massachusetts and New York.” Their announcement includes:
“In New York, National Grid is investing around $21 billion between now and 2029. Among those investments is the Upstate Upgrade which comprises more than 70 transmission enhancement projects across Upstate New York. The portfolio of projects will transform the grid, improve reliability and resilience, and enable National Grid to deliver renewable energy to homes and businesses across the state. This investment will also generate thousands of new jobs and create additional economic growth, all while ensuring the grid is able to meet the growing demand for electricity.”
“In New England, our five-year investment will total roughly $14 billion. As part of this investment, National Grid will implement innovative solutions, like smart meters, to help consumers manage energy use; build modernized energy infrastructure; construct and upgrade infrastructure to make it less susceptible to extreme weather events; and maintain and improve the quality of our existing gas and transmission assets.”
No mention how this will affect ratepayer bills. They also neglected to point out that the Upstate New York ratepayers already get most of their power from zero-emissions generating resources including nuclear and hydro so the delivery of renewable energy is for New York City.
Just say no. Take that 60 billion pounds and build new fossil fuel and nuclear power plants. You will have dependable, affordable electricity and only need to maintain the grid not waste your money on a useless expansion.
Fantasy busting-
Copper cannot be mined FAST ENOUGH for EVs and Net Zero Transition | MGUY Australia (youtube.com)
There’s a Tom Scott video about this. Scotland (or various companies) invested huge in wind turbines on the Orkney Islands. Unfortunately the electric link to the mainland is *too small* to pipe through all of that power. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UmsfXWzvEA