Government Takes RISKS With Taxpayers’ Money On Unproven Net Zero Tech

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

The GWPF’s Harry Wilkinson explains how taxpayers are on the hook if carbon capture schemes don’t work.

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April 2, 2025 6:09 am

CO2 sequestration is an idea entirely without merit.

Sean Galbally
Reply to  Steve Case
April 2, 2025 7:05 am

See Above

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Steve Case
April 2, 2025 8:24 am

Use trees.
Stop cutting down trees for solar farms.
Plant more trees instead.

ethical voter
Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
April 2, 2025 3:24 pm

You are suggesting common sense where madness reigns. They will be coming for you.

MarkW
Reply to  Steve Case
April 2, 2025 8:34 am

Dangerous too, if the CO2 should ever catastrophically escape from storage.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  MarkW
April 2, 2025 10:40 am

That has happened.

John Pickens
April 2, 2025 6:11 am

Please post up a text based report on any videos like this. I don’t need to waste time watching a video when a few paragraphs can be read in seconds.

April 2, 2025 6:27 am

“…if carbon capture schemes don’t work.” (from the sub-headline)

Forget “if” – it is already blindingly obvious that sequestering CO2 underground cannot plausibly alter the trend of warming or cooling or any other climate metric such as precipitation, floods, droughts, heat waves, or storms. It is a purely symbolic and costly gesture based on the unsound speculation that incremental CO2 in the atmosphere must drive sensible heat gain down here. The sooner we get past this fashionable misconception, the better!

Sean Galbally
Reply to  David Dibbell
April 2, 2025 7:04 am

SPOT ON. Politicians will not discuss the possibility even because the last thing they want is to be proved wrong however much suffering that will cause.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  David Dibbell
April 2, 2025 8:25 am

Any CO2 put into the ground eventually escapes. Maybe it takes as long as algae to become oil, maybe quicker, but it is not permanent. Gaia does not like people playing in her knickers.

strativarius
April 2, 2025 6:30 am

“Government Takes RISKS With Taxpayers’ Money On Unproven Net Zero Tech”

One could argue that a wind turbine or a solar panel works, after a fashion, but at what cost? Because even if CCS could be made to work at scale it would still need huge £billion subsidies.

When an oil/gas company wants to explore there is no handout…

“Licensees must meet certain financial criteria to demonstrate that they have the financial capability to exploit the exclusive rights granted by the licence. “
https://www.nstauthority.co.uk/regulatory-information/licensing-and-consents/licensing-system/licensee-criteria/

If you can’t afford to bring the field to production, forget it. But it’s a double whammy for any government; cash for the licence and a steady stream of revenue – free money that otherwise would not be there to waste.

The ‘whatever you want to call them‘ have worked and toiled ceaselessly on making tax breaks seem somehow equitable with state subsidies. It might work on paper, but in the real world? Not a chance.

Idle Eric
Reply to  strativarius
April 2, 2025 7:59 am

One could argue that a wind turbine or a solar panel works, after a fashion, but at what cost?

One could also argue that by displacing nuclear in the energy mix, the net result is more CO2 emissions from gas in the UK, coal in Germany/Poland, so they in fact fail to achieve their fundamental purpose of reducing emissions.

strativarius
Reply to  Idle Eric
April 2, 2025 8:21 am

Me, myself and I have no problem with emissions of CO2

Idle Eric
Reply to  strativarius
April 2, 2025 8:48 am

The irony is that, whatever your view on CO2, we could already be more or less at net-zero, and have cheap and abundant electricity as well, if we’d committed to nuclear 25 years ago instead of trying to power the economy with technology from the 12th century.

strativarius
Reply to  Idle Eric
April 2, 2025 9:20 am

Nuclear is a solution. That’s why they hate it.

Reply to  strativarius
April 2, 2025 12:52 pm

But what is the problem?

ethical voter
Reply to  Retired_Engineer_Jim
April 2, 2025 3:26 pm

Other people’s prosperity.

observa
April 2, 2025 6:46 am

It’s all part of the transitioning process and they’re only thinking of saving you money-
Electric buses allegedly charged using diesel generators

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  observa
April 2, 2025 8:29 am

Diesel generators charging the buses emit more CO2 than diesel engines or diesel electric engines.

April 2, 2025 6:51 am

Miliband should be in manicals

(Yes, I know manacles isn’t spelt that way.)

strativarius
Reply to  Redge
April 2, 2025 7:18 am

I know what I would do with him…

Reply to  strativarius
April 2, 2025 7:37 am

We all know what you’d do with him, mate. Quite a few of us Brits would give you a hand lol

strativarius
Reply to  Redge
April 2, 2025 8:22 am

Form an orderly queue!

Reply to  strativarius
April 2, 2025 8:32 am

exactly

atticman
Reply to  Redge
April 2, 2025 9:02 am

That’s what we do in the UK… (well, we used to).

strativarius
Reply to  atticman
April 2, 2025 9:21 am

Only over 55s do that now

April 2, 2025 6:53 am

Photosynthesis works great and we have plenty of deserts just add water via desalination power by nuclear energy

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  MIke McHenry
April 2, 2025 8:30 am

There are emerging technologies that ultimately could accomplish desalination using sun light.
Will the be practical? Economical? Too soon to tell.

Otherwise, spot on.

Rick C
Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
April 2, 2025 10:15 am

Sun light already drives desalinization of sea water to the tune of a trillion tons per day. 😁

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Rick C
April 2, 2025 10:42 am

Right. The trick is to capture the water vapor.
There are simple techniques for that, such as leaving a metal pan in the sun. When the sun goes down, the water condenses and collects. The technical detail is implementing it on an industrial scale.

Rick C
Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
April 2, 2025 1:39 pm

How about building dams and reservoirs to collect it when it falls out of the sky. Then build channels and pipelines to get it where you need it. This approach has been previously demonstrated and proven to be effective I believe.

ethical voter
Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
April 2, 2025 3:31 pm

Clouds are condensed water vapour and they transport and distribute it for free.

MarkW
Reply to  MIke McHenry
April 2, 2025 8:39 am

I want to use nuclear power to disassociate limestone to supplement the CO2 being released by fossil fuels.

DD More
Reply to  MarkW
April 7, 2025 10:24 am

From talk by Dr. Patrick Moore – one of the Founders of Greenpeace, has the same idea.

Today, at just over 400 ppm CO2 there are 850 billion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere. By comparison, when modern life-forms evolved over 500 million years ago there was nearly 15,000 billion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere, 17 times today’s level. Plants and soils combined contain more than 2,000 billion tons of carbon, more that twice as much as the entire global atmosphere. The oceans contain 38,000 billion tons of dissolved CO2, 45 times as much as in the atmosphere. Fossil fuels, which were made from plants that pulled CO2 from the atmosphere account for 5,000 – 10,000 billion tons of carbon, 6 – 12 times as much carbon as is in the atmosphere.

But the truly stunning number is the amount of carbon that has been sequestered from the atmosphere and turned into carbonaceous rocks.100,000,000 billion tons, that’s one quadrillion tons of carbon, have been turned into stone by marine species that learned to make armour-plating for themselves by combining calcium and carbon into calcium carbonate. 

During the last glaciation, which peaked 8,000 years ago, CO2 bottomed out at 180 ppm, extremely likely the lowest level CO2 has been in the history of the Earth. This is only 30 ppm above the level that plants begin to die. Paleontological research has demonstrated that even at 180 ppm there was a severe restriction of growth as plants began to starve. With the onset of the warmer interglacial period CO2 rebounded to 280 ppm. But even today, with human emissions causing CO2 to reach 400 ppm plants are still restricted in their growth rate, which would be much higher if CO2 were at 1000-2000 ppm.

Here is the shocking news. If humans had not begun to unlock some of the carbon stored as fossil fuels, all of which had been in the atmosphere as CO2 before sequestration by plants and animals, life on Earth would have soon been starved of this essential nutrient and would begin to die.

Sean Galbally
April 2, 2025 7:02 am

Carbon Capture DOES NOT WORK.

NET ZERO FOLLY

As most self respecting scientists know, man-made carbon dioxide has virtually no effect on the climate. It is a good gas essential to animals and plant life. Provided dirty emissions are cleaned up, we should be using our substantial store of fossil fuels while we develop a mix of alternatives including hydro-electric, nuclear power and fracking to generate energy. There is no climate crisis, it has always changed and we have always adapted to it.  It was not warm in the Ordovician ice age when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were 4000 ppm and have been 15 times higher than the 420 ppm it is  now. There was no industrial revolution then to be the cause. The present quantity of man-made carbon dioxide is insignificant compared with water vapour or clouds which comprise a vast majority of green-house gases. Man has no control over the climate. Statistically we are overdue a period of cooling.The sun and our distance from it have by far the most effect. This always  varies a little in cycles as the earth’s axis of rotation varies. Most importantly, the Net-Zero (carbon dioxide) Policy will not do anything to change it. Countries like China, Russia and India are sensibly ignoring this and using their fossil fuels. They will be delighted at how the west is letting the power elites, mainstream media and government implement this Policy and the World Order Agenda 21/2030, to needlessly impoverish us as well as causing great hardship and suffering.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Sean Galbally
April 2, 2025 8:34 am

Funny how the start of the industrial revolution was timed to match the drilling of the first oil well in Pennsylvania. Not when the steam engine was invented. Not when ancients first started producing bronze. Not when the concept of interchangeable parts leading to mass production was introduced in the 1700s. Just like the time span for climate change came 30 years after the first satellites. Prior to that 30 years was a micro climate definition and climate spanned millions of years.

Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
April 2, 2025 12:55 pm

Some have set the start of the industrial revolution at 1750, in Wales.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Retired_Engineer_Jim
April 2, 2025 1:15 pm

That’s as good a date as any.
The point is, it is selected based on someone’s definition.
In actuality, the industrial revolution started when humans learned to control fire.

Petey Bird
April 2, 2025 7:29 am

These ideas are conceived by academic who have no experience in the real world.

MarkW
Reply to  Petey Bird
April 2, 2025 8:40 am

no experience in the real world”

and proud of it.

cartoss
April 2, 2025 7:33 am

Carbon dioxide sequestration has been tried many times by different companies and is technically feasible, but at enormous cost. All that Mad Ed will achieve is the transfer of a huge amount of taxpayers money to the usual green subsidy miners. They will walk away, failed but enriched, regardless.

KevinM
Reply to  cartoss
April 2, 2025 9:53 am

We can’t get rid of CO2 because it would cost us 2 oxygen atoms per 1 carbon atom if we vented it into space. If all Earth’s carbon were packed into graphite balls and catapulted onto the moon, what would the size of the moon be relative to Earth? Humans and goldfish, being carbon-based, would be a loss. We might build Aluminum robots to finish the job while we’re unavailable. The electronics for the robots would need silicon resistors I guess.

ethical voter
Reply to  cartoss
April 2, 2025 3:33 pm

Not failed. Mission accomplished.

Petey Bird
April 2, 2025 7:43 am

It is beyond comprehension that they are still installing solar panels in the UK, let alone carbon capture.

April 2, 2025 8:04 am

It’s easy to take risks with other people’s money when there are no consequences.

Reply to  Shoki
April 2, 2025 12:56 pm

No immediate consequences.

Sparta Nova 4
April 2, 2025 8:11 am

Note the YouTube imposed misinformation disclaimer box.

We must trust, without question, the UN.

strativarius
April 2, 2025 8:27 am

Somehow the UK has to get into the wildfire thing…

Londoners told not to have barbecues in case they cause wildfires https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/01/the-joys-of-spring-march-was-sunniest-on-record-in-england/

Who will be having a bbq at 14 or 15 C? Not me.

It’s getting ever more desperate.

Reply to  strativarius
April 2, 2025 12:57 pm

Wildfires in London?

DMA
April 2, 2025 8:41 am

The intro”The GWPF’s Harry Wilkinson explains how taxpayers are on the hook if carbon capture schemes don’t work.” begs the question: How will we know when it works? Any scheme like carbon capture should have a defined and measurable goal

Reply to  DMA
April 3, 2025 5:17 am

The objective is to chuck as much money as possible at it to enable Miliband and his fellow ecoloons to boast of how much money they are chucking at it (can’t you just wait to hear dick-Ed boast “the UK leads the world in investment (sic) in CCS!”). ‘Success’ will be measured by how much is being spent. We can be confident that (i) a few of Ed’s mates will get rich out of it; (ii) it’ll go massively over budget; and (iii) it’ll achieve absolutely nothing. But it’s only taxpayers’ money, the stuff that grows on trees.

Dave Andrews
April 2, 2025 9:22 am

I suspect plans for CCUS (Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage) as the IEA likes to call it are not going too well since their last major report on it was in 2023 and it does not seem to have been updated in 2024.

Rick C
Reply to  Dave Andrews
April 2, 2025 10:58 am

Denbury, Inc. (recently acquired by ExxonMobil) has been using CCUS for may years for Enhanced Oil Recovery in old East Texas oil fields. It has apparently been profitable and Denbury claims that the CO2 sequestered amounts to more than the CO2 produced by burning the oil recovered (so-called green oil). So there appears to be a successful application – just one that the greens don’t like for obvious reasons.

Corrigenda
April 2, 2025 10:46 am

Net Zero is now a total proven nonsense.

April 2, 2025 11:39 am

You have to watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkImqOxMqvU. Net Zero costs are astronomic

MrGrimNasty
April 2, 2025 12:22 pm

As I posted on the last unthreaded, it’s destined to fail and they know it really.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cmselect/cmpubacc/351/report.html
£34Billion down the drain.
Even if it succeeded in capturing 100% of the UK’s emissions, it would make no difference to atmospheric CO2 levels, we know that because the Covid global drop in emissions was many times greater, and didn’t produce a blip.

ethical voter
Reply to  MrGrimNasty
April 2, 2025 3:43 pm

Yes, but it’s not about actual results, it’s about virtue signalling. The cost is irrelevant. Its taxpayers money and fools and their money are soon parted.

Bob
April 2, 2025 1:46 pm

Very nice.

observa
April 3, 2025 5:37 am

One plus is no more jet in COP kneesups so the poor folks can go to Blackpool-
Rich ‘should be forced to fly less so poor families can go on holiday’