From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Doug Brodie
A new bombshell report destroys the case for Net Zero:
Executive Summary
The UK’s expensive electricity is weighing on the nation. Rising bills are repressing the discretionary income of British households and high industrial electricity prices are discouraging inbound investment. This paper quantifies the logical failures that have led to high prices and how they are defeating the very reason why the costs were incurred in the first place: to meet environmental objectives. Expensive electricity is hampering the electrification of heating, transport and industrial activity, pushing progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions ever further away.
Government policy has started to recognise that there is an electricity cost problem, but efforts to redistribute costs are mere symptom management. Instead, policymakers must engage with a major cause of high prices – an expensive power system, driven by the wider costs that come with intermittent generation sources.
Onward have commissioned an independent study to quantify the full system costs of continuing with the current policy direction, versus cost savings that can be achieved by taking a new approach. It models a power system that prioritises firm generation capacity, responding to demand, rather than forcing consumers to react to the vagaries of the British weather. This plan includes a diversified mix of nuclear, renewables and gas generation, which builds a much cheaper power system that can be used to electrify and decarbonise more of the economy.
The savings are substantial. The alternative policy pathway saves £320 billion between 2030 and 2050, and reduces system costs by 20% in 2040 versus “business as usual”. Savings are made across four major areas:
- £137 billion in network spending, thanks to a higher utilisation firm power system with supply located closer to demand
- £94 billion from lower wholesale prices, thanks to the removal of carbon taxes
- £67 billion in lower spend on balancing and ancillary services
- £22 billion across generation subsidies and the Capacity Market
Realising savings of this scale requires a shift away from the current central planning model, to a system that allocates the costs of intermittent generation to the causative generators, rather than sending a bill to the end consumer. This paper sets out an alternative policy pathway, to build a power system that allows consumers to access affordable electricity when they need it, cutting bills and increasing economic growth. In turn, cheap electricity can drive the adoption of electric vehicles and heat pumps, via consumer preference, and not state mandates. This is a win-win, for growth and the climate.
This is the report commissioned by Onward:
These are the key takeaways:
I have copied a few of the charts:
Onward are a highly reputable economic think tank, at the forefront of forward thinking.
The indisputable facts they have put forward must be the strongest argument yet about abandoning Ed Miliband’s mad dash to decarbonise the electricity system.
That policy lies at the very heart of the Net Zero agenda.
Even more money could be saved by scrapping wind and solar altogether.
Just stop grant support is all we need to do. Where wind and solar are economic options and wanted by the local population then fine use wind and solar.
The disgraceful situation we have currently is a one size fits all mindset in government. The minister says let us support so called renewable energy and suddenly everyone is jumping on the grant bandwagon and we end up with nonsense projects being hailed as the future which have no future whatsoever in the commercial world.
Correct.
Without grants it’s dead in the water.
There is a reason why technically backwards countries got superrich by selling oil and gas,
but no backwards (or any other) country got filthy rich
by selling solar panels and windmills.
Because one is cheap high density energy – the other expensive, low density energetic virtue signalling with very limited use,
made to look affordable with all kinds of tricks.
China can’t be doing too badly selling solar panels to gullible Europeans.
“Just stop grant support is all we need to do.”
That isn’t what this proposal does. It introduces a CfD scheme for nuclear, with subsidy at similar level to current for renewables (slide 40). Nuclear CfD strike prices are comparable to current wind ( about £140/MWh, slide 47).
We really have overcomplicated and undermined our erstwhile functional, reliable, affordable power supply utilities these past 3 decades, haven’t we, Nick?
Why do we inflict these upercuts on ourselves, do you think?
Mostly by adopting ideas so stupid only academics could have come up with them, as George Orwell noted?
That isn’t what this proposal does
I don’t see where Rod is saying that.
As I said, slide 48
Strike price on Hinkley point is £95/MWh
Rolls Royce expects to generate RELIABLE electricity at £60-£70/MWh with small modular reactors
“£95/MWh”
As agreed in 2013, with increase allowed for inflation.. It now looks unlikely that it will be working before 2030, with huge cost blowouts.
Slide 48 estimates £138/MWh in 2030.
The issue is the international obligations imposed by UN and others claiming ‘international’ status resulting in blind allegiance to stuff like Net Zero priority and free migration etc.
Until the UN and other ‘International’ committees can be made to pay for their hare-brained ideas we will be forever cursed with the sort of nonsense Net Zero and unopposed migration causes.
The International Organisation Immunity Act made it literally impossible to go after any of the globalists tools ( IMF, UN,BiS etc).
This plan includes a diversified mix of nuclear, renewables and gas generation, which builds a much cheaper power system that can be used to electrify and decarbonise more of the economy.
And you need to electrify and decarbonize because….
….. because Mad Ed et al said so.
I had to sit through a presentation yesterday reminding us of corporate HQ’s ‘sustainability’ goals and what we can all do to help achieve them. Nut zero is alive and well in the dizzy world of corporate finance.
A lot of detail and assumptions there, and it is plain silly to describe them as indisputable. One that struck me was price of gas, slide 25 of ppt. It assumes the price would drop from £35 per MWh thermal (2027) to £25 per MWH in 2030, and then stay stable. That is a whopping assumption, and far from indisputable.
“A lot of detail and assumptions there”
Sounds very much like CMIP6, Nick. Doesn’t it.
Is that your recommendation?
Was that an attempt at a swerve, Nick?
When they can model clouds- the real thermostat – get back to me.
Did you not get strati’s point?
I’m sure he did, but was left short on words to respond with.
So what is the point?
This report is as bad as CMIP6?
This report is as good as CMIP6?
Of course there isn’t a point. It is a mechanical response you can make to anything.
Point taken. Since you are disputing them, they are not indisputable.
Such is your success. You should have quite while you were still ahead.
typo: quit
Actually most of the assumptions are challenge-able.
I’d expect gas to be nearer two to three times that. With Iran and the middle east in flames along with Russia.
Which just makes nuclear more inevitable since the cost of balancing renewables with gas will render them unaffordium
A lot of the headline savings come from dropping key elements of BAU (SSP5-8.5), so it’s not surprising that the model yields a lower cost. The comparison is really between lower costs and higher emissions, not between two routes to the same destination.
And I’d be wary of treating the BAU assumptions as “indisputable”.
Models are only as good as their inputs. That’s one reason the IPCC has moved away from treating SSP5-8.5 as a central “business as usual” pathway. The more important question is how sensitive the results are to changes in assumptions such as gas prices, demand growth, and technology costs.
Isn’t it amazing that as the price goes up you will use less of it. I believe that is called the law of supply and demand. For example: if gasoline prices rise you will make less frivolous trips and combine each trip with multiple destinations so you still get everything you need done but at a lower cost. Working smarter not harder.
This is a win-win, for growth and the climate.
Maybe a win for growth but for climate? Only if CO2 is the absolute control knob, which it is not. And if the tiny fraction of global CO2 reduction achieved by the UK would make any difference at all.
There is no win for climate.
To make such a statement one needs a reference to how and what the perfect climate actually is.
So one can tell when a win and when a loss occures.
And it is literally impossible to call any climate in recent years a reference when 90% of the time life exists on earth the climate was 10+ degrees hotter.
So far no one has even determined where and what the best climate currently is on earth
or what even the best climate zone is.
They can’t, because they call any change anywhere bad – which is technically impossible.
About 80% of the earth’s climate is water, ice and snow. Activities of humans will never have any on these.
I left the word “effect” in the second sentence.
“So far no one has even determined where and what the best climate currently is on earth or what even the best climate zone is.”
Been a hot summer here in Wokeachusetts and my garden has never looked this good: raspberries, blueberries, tomatoes, apples, pears and my 5 fig trees in large pots- all are thriving. I just counted 75 figs on those fig trees. When picked fresh off the tree, nothing is more delicious!
Plus we have not made any real reduction in emissions just out sourced some of them to other countries.
Bingo! The state of Wokeachusetts has done the same and now it brags at how it’s lowered “carbon pollution”.
Given species’ abilities to acclimate to differing micro climates, there can never be one single optimum climate nor one single global climate. As such there is not climate emergency.
An emergency is when one of your plane’s engines is on fire or your fishing boat is leaking miles from shore. The slightly warmer weather in some areas is more than made up for by the overall greening of the planet.
An emergency is when one is found unconscious on the floor, which was me a few years back.
The difference between an emergency and a crisis is the difference between a burning plane engine and a leaking fishing boat. The time elements play into it.
Something that maybe might resolve in decades is neither, which is the point you are making.
Maybe the authors are playing the game, you know, don’t scare the natives
To any costing I add the following: “And the rest…”
Why? Because government and civil service first response is to hide whatever they can for as long as they can.
The Labour government is heading to court to block the publication of migrant crime statistics.
Following a year-long battle at the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), it was ruled that the Ministry of Justice must provide the Centre for Migration Control with the most comprehensive dataset on migrant crime in British history. The Labour government is now trying to stop the public learning the truth. Migration Central
I rest my case.
They also don’t want us to know in future about criminal convictions of government ministers.
Fun facts
Louise Haigh – Deputy PM etc – is a convicted fraudster. A fraudster so dumb (and pink/blue haired) that she reported her phone stolen to the police using the phone she claimed had been stolen. All for an upgrade.
Phones 4 Lou signed off on the phone alert on Friday.
I hate it when bureaucracies and wokesters talk about migrants when they mean ILLEGAL aliens. My state of Wokeachusetts spends well over a billion dollars/year taking care of the ******* migrants!
Illegal Aliens is the term used in the Immigration and Naturalization Act.
Calling them “undocumented migrants” is a flaming insult to the many legitimate refugees who entered and were vetted on entry and went forward through the naturalization process to ultimately achieve citizenship.
Of course conflating migrant and immigrant just makes a worse communications signal to noise ration.
Net Zero advocates, particularly Red Ed Miliband and other left wing mainstream policy makers, just answer one question. Are you aware that 90% of atmospheric greenhouse gases are clouds and water vapour, over which we have no control. Even after many years burning fossil fuels, carbon dioxide is just 0.04%. it has a tiny effect on climate by comparison. Climate change is real and mainly caused by variation in the sun’s activity, it is not man-made and cannot be changed by him. Hence Net Zero (carbon dioxide) is a very very costly scam, perpetrated by people who do not understand the science or who have ulterior motives.
Are you trying to say that government cannot control the weather? That is heresy.
Government can control everything.
Well, the politicians think they can and work work tirelessly to convince the population that they can, but….
You should go to Tubi and watch the movie Geostorm.
It is a fun movie, but it also demonstrates just how futile any human effort is to control weather.
Humans do have a minor affect on temperatures. UHI makes night times a bit warmer.
CO2? An effect so low as to be immeasurable, but it does affect the specific heat capacity of the atmosphere (Cp).
Yes climate change is real. It is the consequence of the definition, the average of weather.
Yes, the world is warming, slightly. Almost all of that is not controllable by humans.
Didn’t you get the branding memo? Climate change was updated to climate extinction…geez
My bad. Hard to keep up with all the climate variability.
Mad Ed and his band of cronies will continue down this path as long as the British public keeps accepting the imposition of Marxist shackles around their necks! No amount of logical arguments will convince the cult members of the errors of their ways! Even a cursory study of 20th Century history shows that the socialist true believers keep on enacting the same failing policies until the landscape is littered with mountains of skulls. Why would the proponents of Marxist Meteorology be any different?
Inhabitants of the Cluster B personality disorders will always rise to the top of the hierarchy, and the hardworking, law abiding citizens become “enemies of the state!” The question is only whether the public indoctrination system has succeeded in persuading a majority that THIS time socialism can work! With a nearly totally disarmed public reversal is improbable. My heart goes out to my cousins across the Pond. You deserve to be Great again!
Wot you need is hydrogen and I have a spare bridge to throw in with the deal-
Queensland settles $66m lawsuit with Fortescue over failed hydrogen project
Wind and solar can’t support the grid, stop wasting our time, money and resources on crap that doesn’t work.
But, Bob, it does work as intended. It makes very, very rich a niche clique of people at the expense of humanity.