Net Zero: Every Urban Street And Front Drive Will Be Dug Up
By Paul Homewood
Electrification of heat and transport will create huge challenges in terms of generating capacity. But what is often forgotten is the upgrading of the cables which bring the power into our towns and homes:
London, 16 July: The UK faces a £200 billion bill to rewire the country if the government follows through on plans to electrify the country’s homes and transport systems. That’s because installation of electric car chargers and heat pumps will push up demand for power beyond the capacity of the existing wiring.
The findings are set out in a new report from the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which is published today. According to author Mike Travers, this will mean that most streets in the UK will need to be dug up (with diesel-driven machinery):
“At present new home car chargers and heat pumps are using up all the spare capacity. But we will soon reach the point where the network will not be able to handle the extra demand. So in towns and cities, the underground cables which carry the power will be inadequate. That means that we are going to have to dig up almost every urban street and many rural ones too. The whole distribution grid is going to need to be replaced.”
And the cables that carry power into the homes will need to be dug up too.
According to Travers:
“The power cables taking electricity into your home probably run underneath your front drive. So if you want a car charger and a heat pump you are going to have to pay to dig it up. If you have an expensive monoblocked drive, that will not be cheap. Distribution boards, main fuses and smart meters in homes are going to have to be upgraded too.”
Travers has estimated the cost of all this work at around £200 billion, even before considering the cost caused by the disruption. “Many homeowners will be paying thousands”, he says.
Notes for journalists
Mike Travers CEng, MIMechE, FIET is an electrical engineer, whose career spanned periods in the Royal Engineers, in the hydroelectric sector, and industry. He previously sat on the the IET Wiring Regulations Committee and was the industry representative on the committee that rewrote the Grid Codes for Scotland.
His paper is entitled The Hidden Cost of Net Zero: Rewiring the UK and can be downloaded here (pdf)
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Then do it all again for the hydrogen…
+1
Certainly will be disruptive for streets/traffic – been chaos where I live as they are upgrading the broadband cables.
Will also be a bit disruptive for properties, but they can of course install smaller domestic supplies with a mole – so probably 1 hole, rather than ripping up expensive drives wholesale!
RUSSIA REPORT:-
Surprise, surprise, haven’t read it yet, but a search reveals zero hits for fracking, gas, energy etc. It has been shown beyond all doubt that there has been organised anti-fracking propaganda and funding of UK groups by Russia.
If it ain’t broke then don’t fix it.
Where’s the profit in that?
The Gospel according to St Mark Chapter 8 Verse 36.
This is to control global temperature in 2100, remember. Lunatic.
Which it won’t do anyway, however much money is wasted on the climate wild goose chase.
oh dear somewhat surprisingly, politicial hyperbole and promises of the earth or saving it tomorrow, haven’t been throught through properly! Flippin’ heck and here’s me thinking, believing it all, boris is as green as they come and even more green than uncle cob compo and not so great great great grandfather joe biden. What a sad, inwardly looking, strange and very odd world going green won’t save us, dropping green undoubtedly would.
Greens struggle to define the word ‘woman’ (but know for certain how to control the temperature of the earth).
I have a good friend who is a member of the Green Party, bless her, and she says that she supports their policies but the Party is run by a load of wooly headed characters who she wouldn’t trust to run a whelk stall never mind being able to implement policy if in Government.
I don’t expect politicians to answer any question but these replies are hilarious in the language they use which would not be decipherable to most people IMHO.
It used to make headlines when our budget deficit reached say £30bn. Today they are talking in terms of hundreds of billions without batting an eyelid. Has the Government seen the CV19 episode as a chance to introduce us to the enormous sums of borrowing that will mask the borrowing/taxation that will be needed to fund this electric transition?
The young of today will be paying for this folly for their whole working life and probably beyond as the economy contracts (if it ever returns to it’s previous level of course).
It will never reach that stage Terri Jackson Msc MPhil physical scientist Terri
On Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 11:02 AM NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT wrote:
> Paul Homewood posted: “By Paul Homewood Electrification of heat and > transport will create huge challenges in terms of generating capacity. But > what is often forgotten is the upgrading of the cables which bring the > power into our towns and homes: Londo” >
Is it me or are all of the “solutions” we are being presented with by our supposed betters to an UNPROVEN problem akin to the logic of a 7 year old where no consideration is given for consequences…or cost? Every “solution offered by the ever so woke gweeenies is disruptive in respect of the impact on lives and the economy. Could it just be that the chaos and disruption IS THEIR GOAL and the ever so gweeeen imperatives just a trojan horse? I am sure I do not need to remind you all that IF physics and geological history is wrong and the gweeen blob humanities graduates beliefs right. then where is the balance considering that the UK currently returns only 1% of the annual human contribution to CO2 returned to the Carbon Cycle? Indeed, does it not strike you as odd that they are screaming for all this “carbon neutral/carbon zero ( whatever that means to humanities graduates) to be inflicted on the UK but are totally SILENT even glowing about China, a country ADDING more and more carbon dioxide emissions? Something in rotten in the state of Denmark/ Wuhan/ UN / Climate Activism Central and I smell only revolutionary marxism
Brilliant response! Thank you! Someone understands!
NET-zero? “Travers has estimated the cost of all this work at around £200 billion, even before considering the cost caused by the disruption. “Many homeowners will be paying thousands”
All that spending has nothing at all, zero, to do the NET-zero requirement to capture and geologically store billions of tons of the CO2 that has been added since it was ~280 ppm. The cost of Negative Emission Technology is calculated on a per-ton basis from atmosphere capture to permeant burial. Do the math. Trillions, not billions would be required.
I know I’m uneducated in these things, and most others as well, but where did all the CO2 come from before man lit his first fire and where did it all come from before the industrialisation?
i.e. What was all the CO2 doing before it was turned into coal and oil?
What was the level in the atmosphere? It must have been very high to provide the raw material for all these fossil fuels.
If high levels of CO2 cause runaway global warming, why was the earth not fried to a crisp?
Methane was (and still is being) produced in the mantle, used as food by bacteria in the crust and the excretia ejected as ‘oil’ before passing through the rotting trees/dinosaurs etc and being found by Johnny humans who called the sticky substance ‘fossil fuel‘ – and because scientists love to conform, the initial bit is studiously ignored!
StephenP… One answer lies among the sediments of the late Eocene…
Nature 461, 1110-1113 (22 October 2009) Atmospheric carbon dioxide through the Eocene–Oligocene climate transition…
Paul N. Pearson, Gavin L. Foster, Bridget S. Wade
“Geological and geochemical evidence indicates that the Antarctic ice sheet formed during the Eocene–Oligocene transition 33.5–34.0 million years ago. Modelling studies suggest that such ice-sheet formation might have been triggered when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels FELL below a critical threshold of ~750 p.p.m.v. During maximum ice-sheet growth, pCO2 was between 450 and 1,500 p.p.m.v., with a central estimate of 760 p.p.m.v.”
Back then plant life on land was lush and although the pH of the oceans was much lower that today, the carbonate biota thrived. The climate was warmer, but it was mild.
CO2 levels were very high hundreds of millions of years ago. It got sequestered as coal and oil sure but look at limestone deposits. The Grand Canyon in AZ is 1.6 km deep and the vertical faces of many cliffs are limestone layers, sequestered eons ago. These deposits stretch hundreds of kilometers. The Great Barrier Reef, same thing. There’s a lot more carbon sequestered as carbonate rocks than fossil fuels and short of tectonic activity it will never return to the atmosphere.
Getting back to the Expensive infrastructure upgrade. I think The decarbonization people are thinking about that. Why else would they propose an incredibly inefficient switch to hydrogen As the basic fuel for the economy?
A more pertinent question is why was it warmer during the Medieval Warm Period such that Vikings farmed Greenland, why was it warmer than today during the Roman Warm Period such that vines grew as far north as Newcastle, and why did everyone survive these periods quite happily? There is also the Minoan Warm Period to consider but I don’t have an example to show that this was warmer than today.
Gerry, someone mentioned this in the DT the other day and I added that the CO2 level did not match today’s level so where was the connection? There was no answer.
In deep geological time CO2 and global temperature seem to be unrelated:
In the medium term temperature and CO2 correlate but temperature leads CO2 concentration:
In the recent past there seems to be a negative correlation:
In the very recent history the apparent decrease in global temperature ~1940 -> ~1970 has been incrementally ‘disappeared’ :
And there was the temperature pause 2000 – 2015:
None of that infers that CO2 is not a ‘greenhouse’ gas, just that the climate system is far more complicated than the IPCC’s simplistic model.
Nice compilation, I_A_N_A_R
Have you seen this Patrick Moore video, re your “deep geological time” graph?
This video of his on the dearth of CO2 is also very informative, IMO.
“£200 billion bill to rewire the country if the government follows through on plans to electrify the country’s homes and transport systems”
Is a one time expense of 200 billion pounds a big deal for an economy with an annual govt spending budget about 4 times that?
What is the lead time to provide all the new copper cables and build all the enlarged substations that will be required?
The interstate highway system in the USA was completed in 8 years. So I am guessing your electrical system overhaul will take less than 8 years.
Er, and where’s all the copper coming from?
But why would you spend – sorry, waste – all that money on making things worse in the first place?
Yes sir. I agree that if the idea is to fight climate change then it is a waste but if it is a rational overhaul the energy infrastructure then it is something else.
chaamjamal – the UK is not a rich country, everything is paid for by borrowing. As soon as there is a loss of confidence we will be bankrupt. As it is the average person has to work until the 1st of June each year just to pay their tax for the year before they keep their ‘own’ money. £200B is £7200 per household.
And look up Smart Meters if you think the UK can replace the whole electrical system – it can’t even replace one tiny component! Or HS2 railway. If you really think the UK is capable of doing anything ‘big’ on time and not vastly over budget.
Thank you for that education, Mr Grim. I did not know these things. From my brief stays there I had a different view. But I stand corrected, sir.
And come 1 January the UK exits its trade deal with its largest market accounting for just under half our exports with either the barest of deals on tariffs and quotas or nothing at all, although there is hardly any difference between the two options. It will bring a huge increase in costs in doing business with the Single Market such that many small exporters will stop. Even big companies will face problems as the UK will no longer be part of REACH and petro-chemicals make up a quarter of our exports to the Single Market. In fact it is worse than that as other countries such as South Korea have signed up to REACH so we will have problems exporting there too.
But that £200 Billion is just to rewire the local distribution system .
The real cost to upgrade the grid & build all of the new power stations that would be needed for EVs & electric house heating would be over £3 Trillion .
Click to access ThreeTrillion-1.pdf
The idea is total insanity .
Thank you. But the link doesn’t work.
https://www.thegwpf.org/cost-of-net-zero-will-be-ruinous-new-reports-warn/
Try this link .
Talk about glass half empty! Think of all the lovely jobs this will create.
Looks like the electricity supply market is shrinking what with all the firms going bust I received a letter today saying the iSupply has sold up to SSE.
But SSE already sold up to Ovo.
https://www.energyvoice.com/other-news/240948/2600-jobs-to-go-after-ovo-buys-sse-energy-services/
CORRECTION – iSupply has been bought by EDF not SSE.
The main problem with ‘green energy’ is that the PV panels create Direct Current (DC) power. It’s OK if the transmission distances are really short and individual end user has DC appliances/equipment or a DC-to-AC converter (inefficient conversion). That shouldn’t be too difficult to understand. That is if the local AC Power Factor isn’t too bad. DC power looses voltage over long distances because even copper cables have a voltage drop due to impedance/resistance (~10 Miles).
It appears that greenies haven’t researched all of the facts.
The only mechanical generators that can produce are gas turbine (steam) and wind turbine. Steam is a lot easier to control than the wind velocity. So, you go figure it out. Steam generation has been extremely efficient for over a century. This is where geothermal energy comes into play. The Earth’s molten core is an infinite source of heat ( 2,000 + *C) that can be tapped at temps ~ 400/500*C at drill depths of 15,000/20,000 feet. The natives of Iceland enjoy geothermal steam at the Earths surface. Yellowstone could be tapped for steam near the surface. There are many oil wells drilled to 15,000 feet that have 450*F temps. Steam plants with multiple wells can be used with multiple well heads. I can verify the fact that oil well service/drillers have drilled to depths with 500+ *F temps. I did research with Sandia Labs in geothermal research with down hole instruments capable of 500*C. Regards, Retired Mechanical/petroleum engineer of 45 years field/rig experience.
Nooooooooooooo!
Hi George,
My local council will be appointing an “independent energy advisor” as part of a current commission to review plans for their eco-house pilot scheme. With those qualifications, I’m afraid you won’t make the shortlist. Sorry.
Sounds promising Gerry , but outside a few natural close-surface regions in , say NZ or Iceland the concept has history, bad history.
A certain naturalist called Flannery peruaded the Australian govt and private investors to sink (in every way the approprate word) 1billion Au dollars into a hot rocks venture. it failed ,
https://catallaxyfiles.com/2014/08/08/hot-rocks-a-dud-ask-tim-flannery/
Ironically one of the methods necesary to get the heat out was to use fracking .
It seems that technically it is possibl but economically it is only worth doing if the oil and gas prices increase significantly or carbon taxes are imposed to the same effect..
One of the few:
https://www.cityofboise.org/departments/public-works/geothermal/
“dug up (with diesel-driven machinery) ”
Good grief. Surely this cannot be allowed.
Start a protest.
Allow only electrical vehicles, powered by wind, solar, and tides.
Here’s your sign: Electric Vehicle Only
Certifiable.
Surprised report didn’t talk about diversity as this is a fundamental design principle that underpins current sizing of distribution systems. Basically diversity works on the principle that not everyone is using everything simultaneously and so the system isn’t sized for maximum aggregated load from all households. However, in all EV world come 6PM in a suburban housing estate you will dozens of cars plugged in for 10-12 hours all drawing 7Kw continuously (13A/3kw charging isn’t going to cut it with much bigger battery capacity EVs) putting big standing load on the system. This will overload distribution transformers and radial feeders well before house wiring in many locations and your talking to 50 to 100k to change these with 250k across the DNO’s. The DNOs answer to this is to have smart meters tell you when there is sufficient capacity to charge in your area not so good if you need to get a full charge for a long journey next day.
I’m sure I’ve posted this link before:
Click to access ESDD-02-012.pdf
p 18 ff gives the calculations for the “diversity” allowance per home, starting with a basic level depending on the number of bedrooms, and adding in allowances for electric heating and water heating and car chargers to estimate the likely peak demand on the local transformer. Car chargers are assessed at 1.5kW for slow charging and 2.5kW for fast charging – i.e. they allow for the fact that not everyone will be charging their car at once, and that household demand overnight will fall, and thus the basic allowance can be added to the charger specific allowance. Nevertheless, I’m sure that if penetration increased significantly there would need to be other ways of negotiating charging between households. You might have to pay a hefty premium to secure an immediate fast charge or a deep charge lasting much of the night. The incentive will be to keep cars topped up to the level recommended by the manufacturer’s software daily, with more if going on a longer run. Top-ups from shortish commute journeys and school runs won’t last all that long.
‘This old house’ will not be seen tonight in order to bring you a special episode of ‘This old country,’ where we rewire the UK. Coming right up. Stay tuned.
You have to laugh. Greta has accepted a €1m donation from the Gulbenkian Foundation. Calouste Gulbenkian was the pre-eminent oilman of the first half of the 20th century, involved in opening up the Middle East and Azerbaijan, and playing off oil majors and political interests – there is a good account of his efforts in Daniel Yergin’s The Prize.
Shouldn’t she hand the money back? Or is it only BP money for the arts that is tainted?
She’s supposedly giving it away to fight climate change, so I guess she would just consider it a grossly inadequate advance on the reparations due.
Thinking about it, a climate change promoting philanthropist org. ‘invents’ a new award for climate change, Greta is the first ‘winner’. Obvious isn’t it – everyone wins. Money that was going to be spunked on ‘fighting climate change’ is funneled through Greta who ‘selflessly’ gives it to ‘fighting climate change’ – like Gulbenkian didn’t know she would do that?
Eventually, as methane becomes more expensive and nuclear is accepted after the offshore wind scam fails, we will need to upgrade the electricity supply. Would it be possible to run a supplementary cable overhead, reducing size by increasing the voltage?These could be run on telegraph poles and along the eaves of houses or clipped to the roof. The cable between the transformers could be inserted into main roads in a narrow trench using a cutting machine. Or perhaps the cable tv ducts could be used. In the countryside smaller transformers are sited on poles.
I have been expressing concern about this for years. The plan is to double electrical energy consumption (at a minimum). That will require doubling the distribution system. It took us a hundred years to build the current system much of which is underground, and all of it in major cities. The plan is reproduce the current system capacity as an add-on in the next five to ten years. And that is not only the wires but all of it. The substations, the transformers, all the extra structural requirements and paraphernalia that higher current levels mandate have to be upgraded as well.
If you live in a high rise, you may not know it but there is heavy duty, power substation down in the lower recesses of your building. Ours was taken out by a nearby lighting strike which fried it. It exploded when it failed doing significant damage to the reinforced compartment. It took three months and million dollars to replace it.
That was considered normal in times of normal demand for such equipment and services. Imagine the cost when every second block has a building with simultaneous demand for such a replacement and they need it in a hurry. All over the advanced world, at least in the vision of the plan. These mini substations are all very expensive, custom made for the building and hand fitted by extremely qualified people who cannot be qualified with a six month training course. None of the very specialized, certified parts are made locally and not even nationally in most countries.
Because of the risk that occurs when they fail, they need technicians who have served a four year apprenticeship plus several years of experience. Their work has to be certified multiple times by board certified, independent technicians many of whom are civil servants working in their own time frame. Every building in the city that offers internal parking will be mandated to provide electric charging and will have to go through that upgrade process. Many of those buildings that have external parking will be mandated to go through the process as well. For the plan to be accepted by the public, they have to be assured that there will be charging stations everywhere. The policy makers will make sure that they are available at a convincing level.
Some of you might be wondering who will pay for all that. I mean, half of all the major buildings!!??!! Most of the readers here already know who will pay in the end regardless of how the real costs are hidden from view.
For those left wondering how we survived for three months without power….? It was easy. They just brought in an industrial trailer sized diesel generator and ran it non-stop for the three month duration of the repairs. Bit of noise and conspicuous pollution. Well, a lot actually. Had to be done. Just like they will have do it for thousands of buildings in all the major cities of all the industrialized countries. Or so the policy makers hope. Personally, I find the sound of a a large, running diesel generator reassuring. And to paraphrase a line from a movie, I love the smell of diesel in the morning. But I think maybe that is just me.
Industrial trailer sized diesel generators have a pretty standard overall design so I suppose it is possible that there might be an endless supply of them in one form or another. I’m sure the local authorities will take of such details before passing mandates. If there is one thing about the greenies it is their belief that they always think things through better than anyone else.
Where is the production line of transformers, we may ask? Quoting an article on solar storms:
But the big fear is what might happen to the electrical grid, since power surges caused by solar particles could blow out giant transformers. Such transformers can take a long time to replace, especially if hundreds are destroyed at once, said Baker, who is a co-author of a National Research Council report on solar-storm risks.
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Cliver agrees: “They don’t have a lot of these on the shelf,” he said.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/3/110302-solar-flares-sun-storms-earth-danger-carrington-event-science/
Add to the failure of “smart meter” installations the abysmal failure to complete Crossrail. We simply don’t have the skills, nor the resources nor the money to execute large projects. And by the way its is the electrical/control side that has scuppered Crossrail.
BREAKING NEWS: – sad to report that the JCU has won its appeal against the court decision that its sacking of Dr Peter Ridd was unlawful. That now effectively means that anyone working under the same contract terms in academia in Australia no longer has the right to free speech. Seems there is no other legal step but Dr Ridd will carry on his honest work on the Great Barrier Reef while JCU will continue to produce shoddy fake research papers such as the one featuring pictures of the same fish in what was supposed to be 50 separate fish and the acidification paper that could not be repeated.
It’s a bit confusing at the moment, I’m not sure if JCU ‘won’, or were just granted permission to appeal – not sure if MSM bias is overstating? I expect JONOVA site will clarify soon.
Another name that does not appear on a search of BBC – Peter Ridd!
As even the Guardian carries the stories, it must be a deliberate editorial decision by the BBC simply to never mention any climate controversy/disagreement. So much for balance.
As I read it the JCU has won the right to appeal the original decision , which is now put on hold until the appeal is held .
So Peter Ridd has not lost yet .
Seems that they have actually ‘won’ the whole thing, though it isn’t necessary the end of the matter.
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/07/ridd-appeal-jcu-spent-a-fortune-to-win-the-case-and-trash-its-own-reputation/
http://www.thegwpf.com/ridd-case-federal-court-delivers-devastating-blow-to-free-speech-in-australia/
It looks like the appeal has overturned the original verdict , but Peter Ridd now has the chance ,[ & the backing ], to take it to the high court .
So let us hope that common sense prevails.
Yes exactly, he lost, but he can still appeal, as per…….
Many experts did and STILL DO recognize that once well seeded into a population, the only solution to CV19 is natural or managed natural spread, with the goal of herd immunity, whilst protecting the vulnerable, and preventing the overloading of ICUs.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53433824
Shortly after the government was set on this course of action Neil Ferguson panicked them into a crazy economy destroying lock-down. He just happened to be in some sort of a relationship with a senior figure from AVAAZ.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/neil-ferguson-architect-lockdown-brought-failing-obey-rules/
AVAAZ is an extreme climate change promoter, and wants your support for a green recovery to ‘repair’ the destroyed economy.
https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/green_recovery_loc/
Fishier than a barrel of 2 week old mackerel?
Almost every day we hear politicians glibly talk about zero emissions, green recovery, electrically powered aircraft, hydrogen fueled cars and the like. They have absolutely no idea about what they are talking about, not a clue. They don’t even begin to understand the problems to be solved, the chances of success, the consequences and above all, the cost.
They have no idea about the problem they are trying to solve, whether it is real, whether they can make a difference, or whether it is all a fantasy.
The money men, academics and others are lining up for the subsidy harvesting, the funding, the grants and investments. Everything departed from reality so long ago that no one questions anything any more.
I noted this on my blog ages ago.
People seem to assume there is any intention of actually producing enough electricity to cover the demand. I really have not ever seen any evidence of that intention.
Last night we had less than a third of the wind power we expected, down in the 200+ Megawatts, this afternoon it showed up with twice as much as forecast:
https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=generation/windforcast/out-turn
We even had some OCGTs running last night – to avoid using coal, I suspect.
Once upon a time the price of electricity was probably set for the month. Does this look like a stable system to you?
https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=balancing/systemsellbuyprices
As we march into the new future of variable supply from weather dependant energy and demand side reduction to balance it, does this look like getting any better? ‘Please turn everything off, we’ve no power’… ‘Oh, now we’ve too much – you can have it for free’… ‘oops, turn it all off again, you’ve gone too far’ … etc
Soon you’ll be able to let the grid suck the power out of your electric car and ‘earn’ more than actually driving into work the next day.