Net zero isn’t working – but Conservatives refuse to grasp the nettle-Charles Moore
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Most conservative-minded people do not expect to lead political or intellectual fashion. Indeed, we are rather proud that we don’t. Not for us the delusions of celebrity: we rather complacently boast that we are playing a longer and wiser game.
From the late 1960s, for example, the fashion – even among most Conservatives with a big C – was that you could control inflation only by prices-and-incomes policies. True conservatives (first Enoch Powell, then Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher) saw this was nonsense, because inflation is a disease of money. By about 1982, they were proved right.
Obviously, conservatives are often proved wrong – the poll tax was a famous example. But, on the whole, we are less wrong than our opponents because we are neither utopians nor catastrophists. If someone says, “Let’s abolish war!” or “Three weeks left to save the planet!”, our instinct tells us this is silly.
Therefore conservatives tend to be sceptical about climate change policy. We differ among ourselves about how to judge the scale of climate change and remedy its problems. Some of us are techno-optimists; others are romantic ruralists. But we usually agree that “emergency” timetables, targets and other measures to banish climate change will have serious unintended consequences (poverty, instability, shifts of political power against the West) and are, at a global level, unattainable. We doubt the capacity of government to set the world to rights.
The idea of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 (or any precise date) is profoundly unconservative, yet Conservative governments have chosen to worship at that shrine. Net zero demands a completeness which human society can never achieve.
We conservatives say this now and again and wait to see how long it is before hotter heads come round to our view. Under governments which, for nearly 20 years, have called themselves Conservative, we have fared badly. Climate-change dogma has been imposed on schools and become entrenched in academia. It is pretty much a career requirement for holding public office or achieving corporate eminence.
Regulators such as Ofgem, originally charged with safeguarding the interests of consumers, are being suborned by net-zero “mandates”. Since the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street fell swooning into the arms of Governor Mark Carney 10 years ago, the dogma has even been enshrined in the remit of the Bank of England. It is to the 21st century what the 39 Articles were to the 17th.
Growing impatient, conservatives have made the classic mistake of arguing that because something cannot work, it won’t happen. Politicians – Tories, just as much as any others – don’t mind about that. They exploit time lags to promise the impossible. Green measures are announced with fanfare. Their full cost is postponed into a future just too distant to damage their progenitors at the next election.
This cannot go on and yet, even after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, British politics has been agonisingly slow to adjust. In both urban and rural settings, the talk is shifting from virtue-signalling to complaint. Two years ago, your dinner-party standing was improved by boasting about your electric car. Last month, however, I sat next to someone whose brother’s Tesla had failed (just out of warranty), apparently because of water in its battery. The cost of a new battery was £17,000. He got a reconditioned one for a mere £10,000.
In London, everyone’s story is about the jams and diversions caused by Ulez. In the country, the talk is of the vast cost (well into five figures) and ineffectiveness of air heat pumps. This week, a plumber told a friend that he now removes two such pumps a month because their owners despair of them. In Germany, the banning of new domestic oil or gas furnaces from next year threatens the governing coalition.
Yet still our Government has hardly moved. Yes, Rishi Sunak is pushing for more oil and gas exploration licences in the North Sea. He also, though far too timidly, is promising to cut windfall taxes of oil and gas profits.
Sir Keir Starmer said recently that he intends to prevent new explorations. His stance, which he already seems to be backing away from, brings out a division in the Labour Party between those who live within the M25 and the rest. Labour’s bicycling London haute bourgeoisie – and their Extinction Rebellion offspring – are very different from those people, going by the old-fashioned name of “workers”, who minister to our continuing need for fossil fuels. Gary Smith of the GMB union, their eloquent spokesman, knows that oil and gas, especially gas, are the essential underpinning of any energy transition.
All those aggrieved and damaged by net zero measures add up to an impressively mixed constituency from leafy shires to Red Wall. At one end, you get landlords, now confronted with the need for revised Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) on all the properties they let. EPCs now insist on double-glazing, sealed doors and other net zero measures which, for older houses, are shockingly expensive and unsuitable. You also get country people with substantial houses who face cold cheerlessness without their wood-burning stoves. In business, you find banks and corporations hemmed in by the demands of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance investing) which chill investment in many essential and profitable fields such as fossil fuels or defence industries.
Its shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, ditched the promise she made two years ago to spend, if back in office, £28 billion a year on green projects. Her excuse sounds sweetly innocent: “The truth is I didn’t foresee what the Conservatives would do to our economy”; but she must know that her own party’s policies would have done the same, only more so
At the other end, you get “workers by hand” (as Labour’s famous Clause 4 used to put it) and pensioners, for both of whom grotesquely high energy costs are such a problem that increasing their hardship to help save the planet is insulting.
There is an obvious benefit for the first political party to feel such people’s pain. You might have thought that the Tories, being less doctrinaire than Labour on green issues, could move faster.
Yesterday, however, it was Labour that switched. Its shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, ditched the promise she made two years ago to spend, if back in office, £28 billion a year on green projects. Her excuse sounds sweetly innocent: “The truth is I didn’t foresee what the Conservatives would do to our economy”; but she must know that her own party’s policies would have done the same, only more so.
No matter, Ms Reeves is doubly right to make this move, both because it shows a glimmer of economic sanity and because it gets there first. If Labour no longer espouses endless “green growth”, the Tories are left high and dry – or, rather, low and wet. If they try to out-green Ms Reeves, they will lose what remains of their natural supporters. And she has just stolen from Mr Sunak and Jeremy Hunt their previously unique selling point of financial responsibility.
The language needed for energy policy should come naturally to conservatives. Its key words are “security” (of supply), “reliable”, “affordable” and, but only if those prior conditions are met, “renewable”. Security also requires reasonably low external political risk. Russia is the most lurid current cause of the insecurity our net zero obsession exacerbates. China, which has not the slightest intention of hitting net zero, is the biggest long-term threat.
Climate change is presented as an emergency, when it is better seen as a long process which requires adaptation. Energy insecurity, with its threats of blackouts, soaring costs, financial instability and bullying from unfriendly foreign powers, is not far short of an emergency. Successive Conservative governments have missed these threats almost entirely. We small-c conservatives have only the melancholy comfort of being proved right.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
That’s because ‘conservatives’ (or patriots) have been deleted from the political class and replaced by slightly tamed down watermelons belonging to the WEF. The former left are all full blown marxists. WE are screwed.
I tend to agree with you. I follow The Conservative Environment Network on Twitter. Whilst I agree with some of their aims (a couple, maybe), in general they behave like the Conservative arm of ER. They seem to think it’s a race to be greener than anyone else.
Because that’s how these things must work. All campaigning organisations tend towards extremism.
Sadly that would seem to be the case.
Reblogged this on Truth is difficult but essential….
Totally agree. I’ll vote for the first party to recognise the economic stupidity of Net Zero and the need to protect the British people from illegal immigration.
Graeme
There is huge scope for a party that offers sensible policies on those two issues and many more. The trouble is that our politicians seem bereft of any common sense, vision or intelligence.
The trouble is that most MPs involved with Energy are History graduates.
That makes it even stranger. Or perhaps they were already brainwashed with the “climate” scam and didn’t actually read or research any history i.e. the climate changes before any of the things they now want banned even existed.
>>The trouble is that most MPs involved with Energy are History graduates.
Not History graduates – PPE grads -Politics, Philosophy and Economics.
What has being a history graduate got to do with it? History tells us that 5 Year Plans and central planning are the road to ruin and worse. Maybe you non-history graduates aren’t aware of that?
Graeme may I suggest you read this.
https://www.reformparty.uk/reformisessential
Or alternatively this – from a party who have the same number of MPs as the Green Party!
https://www.reclaimparty.co.uk/manifesto
Thanks Ray,
Actually I’m aware of Reform, but not Reclaim, unfortunately I suspect neither will offer candidates in my constituency in Scotland. It’s likely to be either the Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dem and the horrendous SNP.
I would probably vote for a party that promised to scrap Net Zero. Until then I’m not voting for anyone.
Quite right Mr Phoenix44. I wonder what a mass abstention by unrepresented conservative voters would achieve?
“I would probably vote for a party that promised to scrap Net Zero.”
Is this emphatic enough to attract your vote?
“There is no climate emergency. The Reclaim Party will defer the Net Zero commitment until the clean technology required to do so is available. A premature migration would punish the poorest and most vulnerable.”
https://www.reclaimparty.co.uk/manifesto
They currently have as many MPs as the Green Party who seem to have disproportionate levels of control.
The problem there is “defer” instead of what is actually needed i.e. “scrap”
>>The Reclaim Party will defer the Net Zero commitment
The media is partly to blame, it’s been going on so much about climate change that the more naïve members of society believe it. It’s only recently that wise heads such as Charles Moore and Paul Homewood have begun to speak out.
Yesterday I was waiting in a queue of about ten people, all strangers when the topic of hot weather came up, one blamed climate change and how net zero is happening too slowly, the others disagreed. OK ten is a small sample, but it does indicate that people are beginning to realise that CC is harmless and goes up and down, but more importantly they are starting to realise the the pursuit of net zero could ruin the Western countries and leave us easy targets for China, North Korea and Russia.
Two points John.
First, dont lump Paul in with the lame media who may or may not be waking up. Paul has been speaking out on this blog for many years, and pointing out this drift to insanity loud and clear.
Second, we are not a ‘target’ of China or Russia (Nth Korea is irrelevant). They think we’ve gone mad (they’re right of course) and are just trying to ignore us as they pursue rational objectives for their people. We are not a target, they just want us to leave them alone. As we recede into irrelevance and poverty they will continue to prosper and advance with rational fossil fuel based energy policies. Soon our economic, political and foriegn policy will look very like that of Nth Korea, whose low standard of living and diktat style Govt our politicians are trying to emulate.
I concur.
Paul is doing a great job for the intelligent people. My point was that the media is complicit by riding the bandwagon. Fortunately people are beginning to realise but still the mainstream media needs to get off the bandwagon.
If the UK goes broke due to money wasting we can’t defend ourselves.
I’ve actually heard people voicing the view that once “we” (that is Britain) get to net zero all our climate change troubles ( which they fervently believe already exist) will cease. That’s why they think net zero is so urgent. I don’t know how we can deal with this level of ignorance.
Moore makes the classic and naive mistake of rejecting carbonism for its inefficiency.
When will,journalists wake up to the fact that its sole purpose is to impoverish, disempower and restrict liberty?
The carbon cult, along with covidism and wokism are three arms of the same beast.
That’s asking a lot of a journalist.
I wrote to my MP (Labour) with the heading Net Zero Nonsense and asked him how such a small amount of man made carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could change the climate. I received a reply within a couple of hours, so realised that it would be a ‘one I’ve prepared earlier’ standard response.
The reply thanked me for my concern about climate change (no I’m not) and agrees that the man made portion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is only 4%, but it is the overall increase in greenhouses gases that is contributing to the warming of our planet. He goes on to say that the IPCC, consisting of thousands of scientists from all over the world, agree that human activities are the primary cause of the increase in carbon dioxide, disrupting weather patterns and causing rising sea levels and melting glaciers.
The most insulting bit was encouraging me to explore the vast body of scientific research available on climate change.
This is what we are up against.
And that response – clearly coordinated – indicates the world of shit we in the UK, and elsewhere, we are rapidly hurtling towards. I was similarly keen to hear from my MP but judging by the responses he was written to many emails regarding SARS COV2, and he is heavily involved in UK HMG’s censorship operations including so called “fact checking” for which activities he has been promoted, I thought better of it.
Caro ,the actual amount of man made CO2 in the atmosphere is 0.001%.But none of the Green Loonies will ever admit that fact .
And as for the IPCC, it is made up of just politicians who have admitted that their main aim is to destroy capitalism , and they control what any scientists are allowed to say in their reports
Indeed, the aim is global socialism:
This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution. That will not happen overnight and it will not happen at a single conference on climate change, be it COP 15, 21, 40 – you choose the number. It just does not occur like that. It is a process, because of the depth of the transformation.
Christiana Figueres (UN Rep)
The IPCC is a global warming advocacy group that doesn’t involve any pre-eminent scientists. Their latest report contains more lies and fiction than any of the previous 5.
🙁.
The actual CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is about 0.04% (by volume).
I don’t know why some people think that because it is small it can’t have any effect.
Think back to your school chemistry lessons. Do you recall potassium permanganate? The colour is visible in water solution at parts per million concentration. It has a very obvious effect on the transmission of light even though it is extremely dilute. Many dyes etc are even better at this than potassium permanganate.
CO2 is similar in that it strongly absorbs infra red light at certain wavelengths. We can’t see it because our eyes are not sensitive to those wavelengths (* except famously for Greta Thunberg), but it is happening.
Unfortunately for CO2 the wavelengths at which it absorbs overlap almost totally with those that absorb water vapour — which (too bad) “got there first”! And its 0.04% cannot compete with H2O’s ~1%+.
What is more, palæontological evidence is that changes to atmospheric CO2 concentrations LAG temperatures and not the other way round.
And the final nail in the “puir wee soul’s” coffin is that its (already minimal, if any) effect is logarithmic which means every molecule is half as effective as its predecessor. (If I’ve got my sums wrong on that I’m sure someone will put me right🤷♂️)
And that is before we start on the dangers of too low concentrations rather than too high which are physically unlikely in any timescale we need to concern ourselves with.
It’s a con and our politicians — and naive immature little greenies — have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.
KZBKZB , yes , the CO2 makes up just 0.04% of the atmosphere , but only about 3 or 4 % of that comes from human emissions .And the UK is only about 1% of that .
So the actual UK CO2 makes up just 0.00001% [ or 1 part in 10 Million ] of the atmosphere . Anyone who tries to say that can have any effect on climate does not know what they are talking about , or is deliberately lying .
Mike Jackson: there is at least one CO2 IR absorption band that doesn’t overlap with H2O.
You are right in that the atmospheric absorption (surface to space) is almost 90% saturated already, but the other factor is the heat is absorbed at lower altitude in the atmosphere, as the CO2 concentration increases. So the near-surface atmosphere is heated.
Essentially all of the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations for the last 100+ years has been man-made. People, please don’t play with arcane math games to try to deny that.
The saturation of the CO2 bands in the lower atmosphere means that additional CO2 in the lower atmosphere cannot significantly raise surface temperatures. The UN IPCC CliSciFi models have tropospheric water vapor hot spots that are supposed to reflect back to the surface as warming. Since that is not happening, we are left with increasing SW absorption leading to the current warming.
kzbkzb : You need to read the paper by Happer & Wijngaarden which shows that at current levels of CO2, increasing CO2 has negligible CHG warming effect because of IR saturation :
Click to access Infrared-Forcing-by-Greenhouse-Gases-2019-Revised-3-7-2022.pdf
A good video explaining this for methane and for CO2 is :
I really cannot see how increasing CO2 from 3 molecules per 10,000 to 4 molecules per 10,000 can cause climate breakdown.
Nobody thinks it can’t have any effect. But the idea changes in something with such a small concentration control global weather is extremely unlikely. There are far larger forces.
kzbkzb – From my unscientific observations of the weather (you have accused me in the past of being scientifically challenged), one of the main drivers is atmospheric pressure with wind blowing from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure. Surely for CO2 to affect the weather it would have to have an effect on pressure.
Caro, I don’t recall accusing you of anything. On to the pressure question, that is weather, not climate. CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) acts to hold heat nearer to the ground. The planet surface is 30-odd degrees warmer (on average) than it would be without greenhouse gases.
John Brown I do recall reading papers by Happer et al. I doubt there are more than a handful of people in the world who can fully understand them, and I doubt even more that any of them are on here.
In one paper (as I understood it) he says the CO2 bands are virtually saturated but then goes on to say that the heating effect is in accord with the mainstream models, albeit at the lower end of such models. He certainly does not say that CO2 has zero effect.
Phoenix44: no you cannot assume that something must have little effect just because it is in low concentration. This belief seems to be a thing on here, but it does not do our cause any favours.
The lethal dose of plutonium by inhalation is about a microgram. That is 1 microgram per 70kg of body weight. That works out to 0.000 000 0014% by weight. Yet it will kill you. You could do similar calculations for novichok and any number of things.
kzbkzb – Climate is the pattern of weather conditions of an area. Man made climate change believers blame CO2 for all adverse weather conditions, even the pleasant conditions, such as the weather at the moment.
kzbkzb, you are quite obviously a troll. What purpose do you think you are serving here?
To anyone else who thinks I am being harsh, simply put “kzbkzb” into your search engine of choice and see what comes up. Translating Chinese into English helps.
Ray Sanders – thank you for your comment on kzbkzb. I now realize the significance of your comment on an earlier subject when you ask what the temperature is like in Guangdong Province.
I can assure you I’ve no connection with China. Simply another middle aged Brit with a laptop.
I am trying to get you to address what the other side will say. Otherwise you are just in an echo chamber. That won’t do your cause any good at all.
Charles Moore is a beacon of common sense, so rare in politics these days. I could sum his piece up with a ‘ no s*** Shylock’ comment.
Alas our political class lives in a hermetically sealed echo chamber and is devoid of courage. The hysterical fear narrative of the Net Zero blob is all they listen to. They deserve the wrath of voters come the next election.
The last paragraph says it all in a nutshell (apart from climate change needing adaptation, where he is still, I presume, talking about the non-existent man-made climate change).
Charles Moore is a very intelligent man; but he, like everyone else who gets paid to or turns up on a variety of media “platforms” to comment in sceptical tones about the destructive folly of NutZero imho commits the repeat offence of NOT stating the blindingly bleeding obvious. CO2 is vital, non negotiable for all life forms on this planet – it is one of the three such entities that result in most life forms – heat from the sun, water from space…and CO2.
Or the sheer stupidity of repeatedly stating the worth (?) of seeking to limit any rise in temperatures to a finite arithmetical figure when the biggest single controlling factor is beyond human control – the Sun. He nibbles at one of the elephants in the room by Not asking of these climate change liars – “what will you do when 1.5% is breached – pick another figure out of thin air just as those who have stated there is X years to save the planet, only to change X to Y when X expires?
There are many more very inconvenient truths that get ignored in his article as with other sceptical commentators – which then takes on the implicit acceptance that , eg, CO2 IS a demonic gas to be reduced ( why not eradicated ? – why are these AWG/CC cheerleaders not asked what level of CO2 do they consider “OK” to expose their fraud completely – if they mention a figure akin to the “1.5%” fraud will that not scupper their fraud?
He speaks a lot of sense then spoils it by saying: ‘Climate change is presented as an emergency, when it is better seen as a long process which requires adaptation’.
I too would be interested to know what level of CO2 they want to get down to. I have never seen a figure mentioned in all the nonsense I have read about the need to reduce it.
Actually, I thought that sentence was the smartest thing he wrote.
Climate change is a long process (climate has naturally changed for billions of years and will continue to do so for billions more). He sensibly leaves out the lie that humans are the cause or can change climate.
He says we must adapt to climate changes (not futilely try to change it or hold back the tides).
So he nailed it. Climate changes (naturally) so be smart and adapt to it (because humans can’t change climate).
Thats why he was Editor of the DT ( who will buy ….?) and I was not. That is a very subtle interpretation which I get – but he should extend his piece a tad further so that the AWG/CC liars “get it”….? I feel he and others miss a golden opportunity to hammer – gently – a nail into these liars.
Talking of ‘adaptation’ is not unreasonable. I have “adapted” to the sudden appearance of summer in France by packing up my vests and breaking out the shorts. Also bringing the sun loungers up from the cellar and try to remember where the anti-bug cream is!
Adapting to climate is the same thing on a bigger scale. Just make sure you know where the woollies are when the downturn comes in 10/20/30 years — which history shows us it surely will!
Who originated this (inordinately successful) Cult of Climate Panic I don’t know. The amazing thing is the number of people who ought to have known better who have signed up to a belief for which there is not a shred of scientific evidence.
There is more hard evidence for the existence of God than there is for dangerous anthropogenic climate change.
The climate changes all on its own. “adaptation” to whatever Mother Nature does is what people have always done. The problem is all the fanatics who think they can change nature by inventing taxes, regulations and bans.
>>adaptation
bobn – I hope that is what he meant, but I read it that he thought that the climate was changing unnaturally and that we would have to take unusual steps to adapt. I agree with 186no and think he should go further and dispute the man made climate change theory.
I consider CM a man of insight, experience, someone self evidently as small “c” conservative, very widely knowledgeable and he has a brain – not difficult to grasp all of that. I cannot conceive that he is sufficiently aware to write the above article but not aware of the AWG/CC fallacy and all that goes with it in its widest contexts, including its use as the next “control” cab off the rank. Given the corrupt nature of OFCOM ( cf Steyn’s ruling resembling a colander imho ) it might well be that he is allowed so much latitude ( just like, eg, Farage @ GBN ) – “Yes you can mention X but do not on any account mention Y and Z”. It occurs to me also the fact that DT is in administration, effective controlled by Lloyds Bank and is up for sale might also be …..problematical.
Caro…what level of CO2? NASA ‘guru’ James Hansen has written that to be safe we should return CO2 to its 1987 level of 350 ppm. That would mean taking 70 ppm out and storing it somewhere. That’s as absurd as net-zero is.
That’s reasonably sensible. I’m not convinced CO2 plays a key role in climate but perhaps it does. Its reasonable to say we should adapt if and when we need to.
Broadlands – Thank you. James Hansen thinks by reducing CO2 by 70 ppm it will stop the climate changing, that’s amazing! Strange he should choose 1987 – wasn’t that the year of the Great Storm?
Maybe the question to ask the fanatics is what temperature do they want? They are so obsessed with CO2 that they “forget” it is already dangerously low for all life.
Good point. The answer is “not more than 2° above some vague figure around 1850 or so”.
Or it was till the number-crunching concluded that 2° was never likely to be reached on any current modelling projection. At least not soon enough to convince anyone that the effort would be worth it.
Which is when it quietly morphed into 1.5° which is on the cards if the upcoming La Niña does its job! Schellnhuber (who came up with 2° because the ‘pollys’ like numbers they can understand) has admitted that neither figure is meaningful.
The activists are obsessed with CO2 because they are obsessed with unwinding two centuries of technological and social advance. And the common theme underlying that advance is cheap, reliable energy. And the common theme running through that is that coal, oil and gas all emit CO2. Why do you think they are also opposed to nuclear power generation? Because it also provides cheap, reliable energy. If they were sincere about CO2 “pollution” they would be welcoming nuclear with open arms! CO2 is merely the excuse for ‘unpicking the industrial revolution’.
Even the IEA ‘cheerleaders’ acknowledge in their ‘World energy Outlook 2022’ that coal, oil and gas are going to be around for a long time (just don’t mention it).
“coal demand peaks in the next few years, natural gas reaches a plateau by 2030 and oil demand reaches a high point in the mid 2030s before falling slightly. From 80% today – a level consistent for decades – fossil fuels fall to 75% by 2030 and just over 60% by 2050.”
And from their ‘Energy Technologies Perspectives 2023’
“The world still relies on fossil fuels for its energy supply. The growth in clean energy supply since 2000 has been DWARFED BY THAT IN OIL, GAS AND COAL ESPECIALLY IN EMERGING AND DEVELOPING ECONOMIES. (emphasis added) Oil is the largest source of primary energy (29%) followed by coal (26%), natural gas (23%), solar and wind (2%), nuclear (5%) and hydro (2%)
In 2021 coal provided 75% of the energy used in global steel production and over 50% in cement production while about 70% of chemical production was based on oil or natural gas………the extraction and processing of critical minerals typically relies on fossil fuels” – ie, no wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles etc without fossil fuels.
What are they counting? Very little oil gets used for generating electricity. OTOH thousands of oil-based products and what is still left from that as transport fuels.
In descending order, more realistic is coal, gas, nuclear, hydro, oil, solar and wind for generating electricity
>> Oil is the largest source of primary energy (29%) followed by coal (26%), natural gas (23%), solar and wind (2%), nuclear (5%) and hydro (2%)
Realist. Dont just look at UK and Europe. Rest of world burns things we dont. Saudi, Kuwait, Iraq etc get the majority of their electricity from oil. not surprisingly
I have just watched on catch up TV, on BBC Parliament, a recording of two debates in Westminster Hall on 6th June. The first one on Literacy for Children, and the second immediately followed on Net Zero. The Government spokesman stated that they had a working party currently investigating a cable link to Morocco, yes Morocco, to access their Solar Panels. This apparently to improve our Energy Security, (I wonder if it might possibly be vulnerable to attack by any of our enemies with a small IED, and also what the power loss might be if it went ahead) Not once did any of the delegates state what the benefits would be to the Climate if Net Zero was achieved. Several stated that the Committee on Climate Change, (Lord Deben’s name being referred to in hushed tones of reverence) had recommended not £189Billion of UK Tax payer investment to achieve the target, but over £350Billion. The apparent massive benefit to the UK Economy is the major benefit now put forward. Not a mention of the Climate which we know of course will not be affected one jot.
Anybody thought to enquire as to the power loss between Morocco and the UK?
It is a proposed HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) link of almost 4,000km (yes really that long!) Line losses are typically 3.5%+ for every 1,000km. Just in transmission you will likely lose 14%, however the converter stations at both ends will both lose power resulting in likely over 16% total losses (possibly as high as 20%).
The thing is though it would be a crazy thing to do. Consider the politics of those “nice” Moroccans. They illegally kicked a nation of its own country (Western Sahara) and then built a wall (berm) to keep them out. This resulted in the world’s largest and longest running refugee camp. Morocco should really be one of the world’s worst pariah states on a par with North Korea. Do we really want to trust these sort of people to be able to pull the plug on us whenever they fancy it…pure insanity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Sahara
The Northsealink is now down by 700 MW for along time.
Ray,
having worked in deserts, (Saudi Arabia and Oman), sand storms are severe and I would suggest that the maintenance of solar panel and wind turbines will be onerous, apart from the obvious significant drop in power when they occur.
Essentially all of the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations for the last 100+ years has been man-made. People, please don’t play with arcane math games to try to deny that.
The saturation of the CO2 bands in the lower atmosphere means that additional CO2 in the lower atmosphere cannot significantly raise surface temperatures. The UN IPCC CliSciFi models have tropospheric water vapor hot spots that are supposed to reflect back to the surface as warming. Since that is not happening, we are left with increasing SW absorption leading to the current warming.
You don’t need maths. You just need to show that CO2 increases as temperature increases, as ice cores demonstrate and bottled fizzy water shows. If that is so then you have cause and effect backwards.
Pheonix44, show me the calculations of how much CO2 is released from the world’s oceans by the approximately 1℃ increase in global temperatures. Pissing in one’s bathtub raises the water level but you can’t measure the change.
The first thing that the rats in the Houses of Parliament will have to do, to demonstrate they acknowledge their errors, if to repeal the Climate Change Act. The Act that the Plug ( of the Beano comic fame) lookilikee, Ed Miliband, introduced just before the last commie Labour government was kicked out of office in 2010.
And what did the incoming Prime Minister, Mr Cameron, say about himself; he’s the heir to Blair.
And that explains the current shower who call themselves Conservatives.
15% is a ballpark estimate. The cables are estimated at £8bn. There are supposed to be 20GWh, 5GW of batteries which would cost much the same: replace every 10 years. The solar units are more expensive sun trackers, but at least the extra desert land they need is cheap. They can also be pointed away from the sun to reduce output. Cost of cleaning water might be interesting.
I often wondered about the effects sand blasting solar panels might have. It seems it is a problem so 10 years might be optimistic.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227412463_Effects_of_sandblasting_on_the_efficiencies_of_solar_panels
Perhaps it is a good reason to have tracker panels. Face them out of the wind in a sandstorm, though I suspect strong winds might do a dair bit of damage however they are oriented.
It’s not so much that they’re stupid, but that they’re controlled. we appear to have what the Americans are calling a “Uniparty”, as though they are all consumed by groupthink. What it takes is for one party to declare a National Emergency, scrap Net Zero, get drilling, and fracking, take control of our borders, and we’d be on the right road to recovery.
“Under governments which, for nearly 20 years, have called themselves Conservative”: what a strange mistake from Moore. The government elected in 2010 rightly called itself a Coalition government. So Conservative governments have been in office for only eight years. Eight is not “nearly 20”. Is Moore getting a bit old for this lark? But he’s only 66.
Governments aren’t elected, they are formed. What a strange mistake to make for a pedant.
The 2010 government was a Liberal government given that Call Me Dave was no Conservative and hated the party members.
is it time to test IQs of Tory MPs??