From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Cunningham
The idiot Miliband’s plans continue to unravel:
The operator of an underground power station at Scotland’s “Hollow Mountain” has put on hold its plans for a major expansion of the site.
Renewables developer Drax had proposed building a new hydro-electric facility next to its existing complex inside Ben Cruachan, near Dalmally in Argyll.
But it said the costs of the project had risen and it would not be bidding for UK government support at this time.
The company said the expansion could potentially go-ahead in the future, “subject to an appropriate balance of risk and return”.
The existing underground power station was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1965.
At the time, it was the first large-scale reversible turbine storage energy project of its kind in the world.
It is housed within a huge cavern dug out inside Ben Cruachan, which is nicknamed Hollow Mountain because of the project.
Drax had proposed investing £500m in the construction project over seven years.
Last year, it completed initial design and engineering work for a 600MW expansion of Cruachan.
The company said: “Drax believes that the Cruachan II project is well aligned with the long-term system need for flexible generation and energy storage and, given its location, is well placed to support system constraints between Scotland and England.”
It added: “Drax remains committed to disciplined capital expenditure which seeks to balance the risk and return of individual projects against other uses of capital, to maximise value.”
Full story here.
The simple fact is that the £500 million project, funded of course by government subsidies, would barely have made a dent in the black hole created by intermittent wind power.
Cruachan 2 would be able to supply about two hours worth of electricity at its rated output of 600 MW, roughly 1 GWh. That’s enough to keep the UK grid going for about a minute or two.
Drax would need the government to pay for all of that investment one way or another, as the project would have little commercial value otherwise.
This latest ploy is intended to force the deluded Miliband to fork out yet more taxpayer money.
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It is now brutally clear that Ed Miliband is totally out of his depth in his current job. But he would be out of his depth in a puddle.
He still wants to be PM and put his elder brother well and truly in the shade
He’ll certainly be in the shade when the lights go out!
Quite the opposite. Shade requires light to cast the shadow.
Yup. You cant run an electricity grid on Marxist theory
All ammeters are equal, but some ammeters are more equal than others.
And Miliband is most definitely not a professional, quite the opposite
Here’s the thing. In the Labour party he is one of the most popular and could probably even retake the leadership if Keir disappeared
“Doncaster MP Ed Miliband named most popular member of Cabinet by Labour members”
https://www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk/news/politics/doncaster-mp-ed-miliband-named-most-popular-member-of-cabinet-by-labour-members-5051701
That is in the context of a party with a huge majority based on 20% of the possible vote and 32% of the actual vote.
Most popular or least unpopular?
In Labour he is the most popular. I’ll give you a moment to get your head around that.
Exactly, because he is so popular within the Labour Party Ed Millivolt is going nowhere, even Starmer knows to keep your allies near but your enemies even closer.
This is why Labour is making a right pig’s ear of things, they think they’re still at school running a popularity contest
Not just Ed. Its the whole political class. It was Ed who introduced the Climate Change Act. But it was May who made it more draconian in its provisions, and it was Johnson who failed to curb it in any way. And it was Sunak who, though obviously a skeptic, failed to speak clearly against it. The country had to wait for Tice and Farage to get anyone publicly talking basic common sense on the subject.
Remember, they passed the original Act with only three or four votes against it. They passed May’s strengthening of it without even requiring a vote.
Not just Ed. Labour, Conservative, Greens, Plaid, SNP, Liberals. All of them totally out to lunch, and all confident they knew what they were approving and that it was the right thing to do.
“Not just Ed. Labour, Conservative, Greens, Plaid, SNP, Liberals. All of them totally out to lunch, and all confident they knew what they were approving and that it was the right thing to do.”
Yes, the Climate Alarmists have produced a very good propaganda campaign. They have fooled a lot of people into doing some really stupid things over an unreasonable fear of CO2.
Fat Green Envelopes…
Is money green in England? I thought that was a USA thing.
It was fine when the costs were 20 years in the future and the technical problems would be solved by magical new technologies, now we are 20 years into the future, the costs are here, the magic tech isn’t, and people are starting to wake up to the reality of net-zero.
Insert fusion energy comment here.
Can I insert the comment in 10 years instead?
Sunak, during the Tory leadership contest with Truss, stated he, like Truss, was in favour of fracking, with the ‘local support’ caveat. One of the few things Truss managed to do in her brief premiership was to reverse the effective ban on fracking; one of the first things Sunak did when he was parachuted in as her replacement was to reverse this reversal. So I’m not at all convinced that Sunak was a sceptic.
He also put the ban on selling ICE cars out from 2030 to 2035 with much fanfare. But neglected to mention the £16K fine per car for selling a new ICE car would remain in 2030/35 so the ban effectively stayed in placed
When I visited the Ffestiniog pumped storage power plant many years ago the rationale for its existence then (mid 1960s) was that it saved one nuclear plant.
In short pumped storage was there to fill in for the mid evening electricity peak demand, Which would otherwise have necessitated a whole thermal power station to be run up.
Since then gas has arguably been cheaper in that role.
But pumped storage is also an extremely good ‘up in a minute’ emergency resource and if its already spinning it can add some power instantly and more power pretty much in the second to three second range,
It would be a good idea even if there were no renewable energy installations at all.
Unfortunately in the current political climate, no one sees a way of making green capital out of it or profit.
Oh, and Ffestiniog was the first pumped storage plant in the UK, not Cruachan
I think once NutZero has gone and reason prevails, it (Cruachan 2) will be built.
“I think once NutZero has gone and reason prevails”
It won’t be going for some time to come. Possibly 2029
Blink of an eye…
I think it will all collapse a bit earlier…
We all live in hope, Leo.
Trouble is there is so much of the infrastructure past planning and in production. All those gold plated Contract for Difference commitments, guaranteed constraint payments etc. Its a huge Supertanker that will take years to unravel. Our Civil Service write one sided contracts all with the Green companies side protected.
LS “It would be a good idea even if there were no renewable energy installations at all.”
Yes, agree, but not for list price.
Release the Cruachan!
Let’s face it: The dream is over. Only the other day Labour’s top (and most successful) grandee poured cold water all over it when he said:
“The current approach isn’t working… These are the inconvenient facts, which mean that any strategy based on either ‘phasing out’ fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is a strategy doomed to fail… The disdain for technology in favour of the purist solution of stopping fossil-fuel production is totally misguided… The COP process will not deliver change at the speed required… Political leaders by and large know that the debate has become irrational. But they’re terrified of saying so for fear of being accused of being ‘climate deniers’.”
That, as they say, was a bolt out of the blue and hastily, by some means, Blair was forced to recant on his statement. In seconds flat Blair had become the enemy:
“Yesterday, The Guardian quoted a Whitehall insider who described Blair as “a serious threat to sensible climate policy.” – The Express
Who funds him? (/sarc)
“Patrick Galey, the head of fossil fuel investigations at the nongovernmental organisation Global Witness, said: “Blair’s well-documented links to petrostates and oil and gas companies ought to alone be enough to disqualify this man as an independent and reliable arbiter of what’s possible or commonsense in the energy transition.””
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/apr/30/blairs-net-zero-intervention-invites-scrutiny-of-his-institute-donors
“Senior figures in climate science and politics began to talk to the Guardian of their worries about Blair’s activities and attempts at influence two years ago. At first the concerns were raised quietly and off the record, with no one wishing to speak out publicly. But in the past week those worries have emerged into the open after the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), his thinktank, published a paper on Monday evening setting out proposals for a “reset” of global climate policy”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/05/tony-blair-serious-threat-climate-policy-out-of-touch
One could easily argue that they are in… denial, and they are. The question is just how long they will remain determined to do and die at our expense.
Thing is, one doesn’t see what Miliband does now. Starmer is in a bad enough position, caught between a rock and a hard place. One way is to fire Miliband, repeal the Climate Change Act and do a U-turn on Net Zero. This would split the party and might even lead to a leadership challenge.
His other choice is to carry on as now, drifting into power rationing and blackouts and rising prices. Neither is at all appetizing.
But for Miliband its even worse. He started out introducing the Climate Change Act in 2008. That was a typical Oxford weekly tutorial essay, disguised as policy. It was committing to targets a generation away, and all it had to survive was a debate. Like a weekly tutorial essay, or like an Oxford Finals exam question.
Not his fault, really. His entire education had trained him to approach policy problems like this. The goal is to extract the key points and construct an argument which gets you through the session. When this is the only way you know to approach things, the result is policies based on vague generalizations and a few key cherry picked specific observations, often lacking the relevance they are assumed to have.
There is actually no substitute, if you are going to formulate policy which has to be implemented, for knowing some subjects thoroughly. You cannot get away with the level of understanding that lets you argue convincingly for some high level approach for a half hour. But his whole education was a denial of this.
What is he to do now that the wheels are coming of fit? He cannot U-turn, it would be the end of a career and reputation. And it would be ideologically unacceptable. But its not going to work, and every couple of months from now on in he’s going to see more and more instances, like this one, or the no-bids, or project cancellations. And at the end of the process he too will be faced with blackouts, rising prices, and rationing.
They are going to get more and more desperate as the thing unravels, and will most likely resort to tweaks here and there, postponements, some extra investment in gas generation, slowing down the EV conversion. The result will be the worst of both worlds, and the current rift between the political class and the mass of the citizens worsening. At some point this is going to lead to an electoral earthquake. Whether its the next election or the one after, its coming.
And one does not see what realistic possibilities Starmer and Miliband have to avert it.
Michel, you seem to be forgetting that Starmer is the consummate u-turner.
I’m wondering, given his track record, how that escapes you? Here is a list before Labour were elected last summer
All Keir Starmer’s Labour U-turns in one place
https://www.politico.eu/article/keir-starmer-labour-party-uk-election-u-turns/
And later in government
All of Labour’s U-Turns So Far
https://order-order.com/2024/08/12/all-of-labours-u-turns-so-far/
Starmer’s knowledge of hard biology has transitioned from “trans women are women” to “99.9% of women don’t have a penis (1 in 1000 do) to “I agree with Tony” and now to agreeing with “the clarity given by the Supreme Court”
Nobody’s saying it, but that trade deal… Trump saw him coming and we’ve been shafted yet again.
Yes, agreed on Starmer. He would turn on a dime if he thought it was to his advantage. But those early U-turns were relatively easy to do, low cost. The thing about the energy policies is, its not clear that he can do it at all, and certainly not at acceptable political or financial cost.
Do you think he could get away with it? And do you think he will take the risk? I doubt it. Maybe if the alternative gets to seem bad enough? We shall see.
He’s stuck with the rabid greenism in the party on the one hand, and stark reality and the public on the other.
Yet he’s still managed doublethink; economic growth and net zero.
Reality says one or the other, not both.
There is also the problem that Ed is apparently the most popular MP in the party (Can’t get my head around that!) so changing course is more difficult and attempting to do so will lead to chaos within the party.
A ‘typical Oxford weekly tutorial essay’ part-written by Cambridge English Literature graduate and eco campaigner Bryony Worthington, who ‘earned’ a seat in the House of Lords off the back of it. I guess she was better qualified than him to check the punctuation.
There is actually no substitute, if you are going to formulate policy which has to be implemented, for knowing some subjects thoroughly. You cannot get away with the level of understanding that lets you argue convincingly for some high level approach for a half hour.
Agreed. To identify and analyze the problem, you need a certain degree of expertise. You have to understand the need for spinning inertia in the grid, the difficulties in transmitting power long distances, the inherent problems with intermittent energy production and many other things requiring more than a quick study. Those people can help anticipate problems and identify solutions.
What experts don’t do well is predict the future. Many studies have demonstrated they are no better than lay people at predicting medium and long term trends, even in their area of expertise. It’s why we can’t rely on “experts” or anyone else to tell us that, once we identify possible problems, there will be some technological advance that will take care of us. It’s frequently done, with those who should know better pointing to technology that works well on paper or in the lab, then spectacularly fails to scale up.
Better to identify the problem with things like loss of spinning reserve, and then select the most reasonable solution that is obvious and apparent now. If something else works, it will become available later, as it works into the system. Allowing experts to tell us to re-order our lives based on their promise that something will work out is irresponsible of them and daft for us.
Read many documents published by the civil service and it is clear they know exactly what the implications are, in particular a recent piece of legislation allowed cessation of electric power. This is demand control.
However it is a response to the political imperative of Net Zero. Only abolishing this and the Climate Change Act will solve the (non-existent) problem.
“It was committing to targets a generation away”
Now here it is 2025.
I don’t think there’s much if an anti net zero faction in Labour. More or less just Graham Stringer, who talks common sense and is signed up to GWPF.
OTOH the Tories are split between the greenies in the Conservative Environment Network and the realists outside it.
For a good laugh on Friday: Without debt relief, climate action will fail
“While climate disasters intensify across the Global South, another connected crisis is quietly unfolding – one with less media coverage, but just as deadly. Governments are drowning in debt”
Currently – at this moment in time, it rises by the second… – the national debt for the UK stands at: £2,643,916,xxx, xxx.xx It is that fast
https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/debtclockbackup
Look wot you poms really need is virtual solar power plants-
Trust ‘on the line’ amid claims AGL drained householder’s battery at peak times
Well that and getting us young boomers back to work as the fickles aren’t really sustaining the younguns that much-
Boomers told 70 is ‘the new 50’ in push to keep working
Re the virtual community power plant roof top solar+battery participants –
the first and only reality they should register is that –
YOU are now the product, not the electrons being retailed to the non-producing consumers.
It looks like it is not viable because it does not increase the reservoir size. It just provides more generation. Projects like this were built near me in Canada. The excess generation is only available in the spring when flow is high and demand is low and prices are low. In the winter you only have same amount of water and can’t generate more.
The dams were engineered with properly sized generators when they were first built.
Remember this is pumped storage in a wet part of Scotland. Loss of water is not an issue. There is a lot of potential competition from other schemes along the Great Glen. Perhaps they think they wouldn’t get the business given the competition which is mostly closer to the wind farms.
They haven’t learned the lesson of Northvolt-
Britain announces 1 billion pound AESC gigafactory funding deal
Who the Hell are AESC in global EV battery making?
This project fails cost-benefit test, but at least it rises to a “for the right price, yes I’d go for it” level. The right price might be “free”.
Fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear generators. Remove all wind and solar from the grid. Build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators
It seems to me that the only way in which the UK is likely to come to its senses is for there to be a massive and long lasting power outage. The government in general, and Red Ed in particular, has absolutely no idea how to address such a thing and the emperor will be revealed to have no clothes.
I have a vehicle with a large battery and a decent inverter because I think a major blackout is inevitable.