Climate radicals fuelled Europe’s reliance on Putin’s gas. Now they want to make it worse
By Paul Homewood
We may not be able to enforce a no-fly zone in Ukraine, but at least we are doing something to defeat Putin’s military adventure in the country. Lord Adair Turner wants us to drive at 55 mph on the motorway to save fuel.
That’ll teach Vlad the Mad. I can see him quaking even now at the thought of a go-slow past Newport Pagnell Services. There must be grim faces in the situation room at the Kremlin as generals wonder just how much longer they can hold out against British motorists who keep their feet off the throttle.
It is true, of course, that Britain and Europe would be in a far better position at the moment were it not for our reliance on Russian gas and oil. Then we really would be able to close down the Russian economy and make life extremely difficult for the Russian war machine. But the reason we can’t do this is because of people like Adair Turner who for years have been trying to run down Britain’s own fossil fuel industry. Turner is chair of something called the Energy Transitions Commission as well as being on the Government’s Climate Change Committee. You get the picture. His call for motorists to drive more slowly – as well as for householders to turn down their thermostats – is inspired less by a desire to defeat Vladimir Putin than by trying to cut carbon emissions.
Both may be worthy goals: defeating Putin and cutting emissions. But it is pathetic to conflate the two things and claim that we can tackle the Russian leader’s megalomania through squeezing a few more miles per gallon out of our cars. It is the politics of the primary school: it reminds me of all the bossy posters we used to have up in the classroom when I was six years old imploring us to save water by not running the tap while we brushed our teeth. Isn’t this the worst form of virtue-signalling? A way for pompous liberals to feel good about themselves while actively making the situation worse.
It should have been obvious that even if we do succeed in one day eliminating carbon emissions we are going to rely on fossil fuels for many years to come. You can’t run an economy on intermittent renewables alone, not with current technology – we need gas to keep the lights on when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. As for electric cars, remember those rosy predictions just a few months ago of how they were going to reach cost-parity with petrol cars by 2024? There is fat chance of that now with surging prices of nickel and other commodities.
Motorists can, of course, save money by driving more slowly. But they can work that out for themselves, thank you; they don’t need some quangocrat to tell them what to do. They can also save money by accelerating more slowly and doing fewer short journeys. That is the other foolish thing about Turner’s advice: driving at 55 mph on the motorway isn’t even a particularly effective way of saving fuel. Driven at a steady 70 mph my car will still do 52 mpg. And I can save myself a lot of time, too. And time, when you are trying to run a business which involves moving people and goods about the country, is money.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Driving slower means people have less time
that has a cost itself for a business
And even for an individual if driving time cuts the amount of time you can do paid work.
I am not aware of of having unlimited time on this Earth. I drive fast as I don’t wish to spend my life driving. It amazes me that those who have less time than me drive slowly…
Public Sevants are always looking for (acceptable) excuses to fill in their days.
Truck drivers (and others) who get paid for what they deliver, less so.
I drive to get somewhere. More time driving is less time there. That makes me poorer.
Forget paid work – my leisure time has a far higher value. What’s an extra hour visiting your elderly mother or grandchildren worth? What’s an extra hour somewhere beautiful on a spring day worth?
BTW Building more solar and wind doesn’t reduce this years olil/gas consumption, it vastly increases it.
If you build anything you increase the world’s oil and gas consumption.
If you build one gas power station you need concrete and steel.
If you build a solar/wind farm that makes the same amount of electricity in a year , you’ll use about 100 times more concrete and steel.
.. So you will vastly increase this years oil/gas demand.
Great point Mr. Green, Solar panels . . .
The whole ‘Decarbonizing’ discussion is a Red Herring . . .
There is NO Such Thing as Clean Energy !
When you go to Wind or Solar or EV’s . . . There are ‘Embedded Costs’ that the ‘Green Energy’ advocates choose to ignore . . . Time to learn the truth about ‘Green Technology’ . . . The Facts . . . NOT the Propaganda so often paraded as the ‘New Paradigm’ . . . It is just an illusion . . . The ‘Clean Green Energy’ narrative is so filled with false assumptions it would be laughable if not for its wide spread acceptance in society at large. The following are some explanations of how that green narrative has gone off the rails, so to speak.
Solar Panels, the main problem with them is the Heat and the chemicals needed during processing using the ‘Czochralski Method’ turning all that silicate into the silicon used to make these panels. Producing pure Silicon requires the processing of raw silicate. Including the 1,425o C Heat required to melt the quartz crystals, usually by burning coking coal or gas. The Glass covers are made by heating sand, soda ash and limestone to the incredibly high temperature of 1,700o C with gas. Then they are Re-Heated to 450o for tempering. What about the CO2 going up the chimneys where that quartz or that glass was melted? Then, silica, we use hydrochloric acid, Sulfuric Acid, Nitric Acid, Hydrogen Fluoride, Trichloroethane, and Acetone. Do we recycle that waste?
What happens to all the ‘left-overs’ from using these highly toxic chemicals? Solar Panels need gallium-arsenide, copper-indium, gallium-diselenide, and cadmium-telluride. All of which are highly toxic even radioactive. Furthermore, Silicon dust is a hazard to workers where silicone is made and where it used. Oh, and last, the Silicone infused Solar Panels cannot, as yet, be recycled. What happens to all the by-products from making and processing all these chemicals? Furthermore, it has been suggested that the energy input to build solar panels exceeds their energy output in their productive lifetime . . . From . . .
https://www.academia.edu/71023588/Batteries_Renewable_Energy_and_EV_s_The_Ultimate_in_Environmental_Destruction
My thoughts . . .
Bang on, as usual.
But let’ not forget the end-of-life problems with this stuff: What is the recycling potential for age-knackered windmills and solar panels? None as fr as I can see, (but would welcome suggestions) and suspect that some kind of crushing followed by holes in the ground followed by pollution of watercourses will be the order of the day.
Which is why the original Stern Report said we replace existing plant with renewables when it needs replacing, not before. Otherwise costs go up and so do emissions.
We have of course done the opposite, which means higher costs and higher emissions. Because Green is not about CO2.
Great Stuff ! . . . It takes us a while in the West . . . But we do learn from our mistakes . . . Now, Time to bring home the processing of industrial resources from China . . . remember steel? . . . 60% of global steel production is in China . . . You think they won’t use that against us?? We have a wake up call . . . time to upgrade and invest in ‘Clean’ processing, using scrubbers and electrostatic precipitators and nitrogen oxide burners and recycle the water from the scrubbers to make fertilizer and drywall, back here at home !! For over 30 years we have had the technology. We all just need to clean up how we process energy and reduce the pollution. Something NOT ONE environmentalist has ever advocated . . . Their primary goal has always been to destroy the fossil fuel industry . . . NOT to clean up pollution . . .Our ‘Environmental Legislation’ has done nothing more than move the problem over seas . . . Out of sight, out of mind. Time to change that NOW ! Bring all that production home and finance ‘Green Solutions’ on every smokestack that comes home . . . With public money . . .
My Thoughts . . .
We (what we used to call the Free World) need a scheme which allows us to keep the lights on while preparing for Net Zero in the unlikely event that it eventually becomes necessary.
Rejoice! There is such a route. Seek out the post entitled ‘The Sensible Speech on Climate the PM will never make’ on TCW Defending Freedom.
It’s so simple a Conservative Secretary of State could understand it, or even (the ultimate test of simplicity) a Conservative Minister for Energy and Climate Change
JF
Peer reviewed study of studies finds clear evidence that stupid people who are led by emotions are prone to double down on stupid plans.
Well my boiler’s off till Putin gets out of Ukraine. In a sane World we’d be producing our own gas but even if Boris does a U turn on fraccing and drilling it’ll take years to realize our full production. And if you can’t do likewise you could maybe turn the thermostat left a bit, unless you’re a pensioner you don’t need to sit in 25°C. I’m no advocate of hair shirts but you can’t just cause extra gas and oil production, next week, by political diktat.
When The Chinese start buying from the Russians the current vendors to the Chinese will be very glad to sell to the west. Global trade is a balancing act almost like a teeter totter . . . when things swing too far one way a counterbalancing move reacts in the other direction. Soon ALL the cards will be on the table . . . we will know who we can count on and who we can not . . . The fuel will be there . . . we just have to wait for the monkeys get off the table . . .
If and when China invades Taiwan, will we impose the same strict sanctions currently applied to products and services from Russia? No more cheap Xmas toys for the kids , no more brillant and affordable smartphones and laptops. No more solar panels, no more magnets for wind turbines . No more blue face nappies and no more LFTs. An interesting future.
Mr. Waite, you are absolutely 100% correct ! China, today, has the world over a barrel. They build EVERYTHING we use every day . . . that is why our economies and our employment have shifted to ‘Retail and Service’ economies. Unionization in North America is at it’s lowest point since collective bargaining was legalized 100 years ago. China has been the perfect dream come true for capitalist ideology. You might like to read . . .
https://www.academia.edu/49676862/Social_Engineering_Environmentalism_and_Globalization_A_New_World_Order
Colin,
I keep hearing this including from government, but the sooner you start the quicker the results will come.
It is lunacy to ignore all the fuel we have in this country and keep buying from abroad for how long?
You can, however, get started by political diktat. What is it with those people (are you one?) who blank anything that Francis Egan says and prefer to listen the inane ramblings of the eco-freaks who know naff-all about energy except that they don’t like it ‘cos climate! What exactly is their problem and why are we paying them any attention?
Cuadrilla have the licences; they also have the expertise; they also believe that the country has resources to make us energy self-sufficient for the next 50 years. Let them get on with what they do best and we can find out whether they are right or not.
There is no downside to fracking, only to not fracking.
Isn’t it strange that, with talk of restarting fracking, that all of a sudden there are ‘frightening earthquakes’ detected at the Eden geothermal experiment..(DT today)..
Could it be that someone wants to raise the fracking scare all over again?
“you can’t just cause extra gas and oil production, next week, by political diktat.”
Well actually in terms of gas production quite surprisingly you can. Gas producers did request the “political diktat” to be changed to allow them to do so but were rebuffed.
.https://www.independent.co.uk/business/government-should-loosen-gas-rules-amid-price-spike-north-sea-firm-says-b1924229.html
For those with short memories, Jonathan Adair Turner, Baron Turner of Ecchiswell, was the gormless twat who headed up the Financial Services Authority 2001-2013.
Also head honcho of the Confederation of British Industry.
The bloke who assiduously ignored all the whistleblowers and warning signs of the financial crisis 2007-8..
During this 2008-9 period the FSA staff received £20 m in bonuses. His deputy chair was fired for whistleblowing about the insider trading scandal.
Adair was famously “The Watchdog who Didn’t Bark.”
The financial crisis ruined real people’s lives and doubtless sent many to an early grave.
If even at that time he had been doing the job he was paid for rather, than wringing his incompetent blood stained hands about the terrors of a harmless trace gas, essential to all life on Earth, we would have been in a much better position. I have to admit that he, and some of his corrupt rich cronies, might have made slightly smaller obscene profits.
All was brushed under the carpet, of course, and, instead of being sent to the Tower, he’s still here, still milking the tax payers, still pontificating about stuff he knows sod all about.
A complete, disgusting, oxygen thief.
Net zero policies make us more vulnerable to extreme weather events, just an exercise in futility.
War is not something I had thought much about, but it seems likely we are about to be dragged into the ultimate futility mainly because nobody thought about it.
Nobody wins.
UK energy policy demonstrates the caliber of our politicians and civil servants. They are completely divorced from reality and living in some kind of utopia where cause and effect is void. The fact that after 12 years in office a plan is being considered now speaks volumes. The parasitic hub of Whitehall needs a good clearing out.
The West bankrupted the USSR in the 1980s, we should have bankrupted Russia in the 1990s.
The West might bankrupt Russia this year if the economic noose is held tight, but our reliance on Russian gas is our weakness.
Six years to build a fleet of coal-fired power stations to reduce reliance on Russia’s gas, particularly as modern coal-fired stations can load-follow to a certain extent.
Our over-reliance on Russian energy sources is not their fault, and certainly no reason to hate or wish to ruin Russia. Russians are people, not monsters. We should use our own resources because it makes sense, not for any political reasons.
Coal fired power stations always load-followed to a significant extent, particularly after gas started to be used for electricity generation. No to mention whirligigs & moonbeam collectors.
But OK to build new coal generation (or even to immediately stop the demolition of the very few survivors).
But from whence cometh the coal?
Any idea of the costs of sinking new shafts or drifts? How many miners can you tempt back to the extremely hazardous and physically demanding jobs they were brutally kicked out of a decade ago? Especially with HMG’s long proven enthusiasm for GangGreen hanging over their heads?
How easy would it be to get Planning Consent?
Most coal (until a fortnight ago) comes from Russia.
” But from whence cometh the coal? ”
Six years to source the coal. Poland (a coal producer) currently imports coal from Australia, Canada currently exports coal to China, so the concept of shipping coal by sea isn’t unknown, but the goal should be UK coal; we apparently sit on billions of tons of the stuff, although not particularly accessible. Gasification of UK coal is another option.
Historically, coal-fired was slow to load-follow, hence CCGT for intermediate load. Modern coal-fired offers load-following that is comparable to CCGT.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032117309206
Ramping rates, table 2
It would appear that Russia is close to defaulting on loans
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russia-belarus-squarely-default-territory-billions-debt-world-bank-2022-03-09/
The US has the export capacity to make good much of Europe’s Russian imports. Add in some from Colombia and South Africa, and coverage is not too bad. Of course, persuading Biden to let it happen is a different matter.
The West was not exactly particularly helpful to Russia in the 1990s – or to the Ukraine come to that. Both were economic basket cases. Putin did much to turn the Russian economy around, which is why he has stayed in power so long.
That’s utterly false. The West did a great deal, including large investments in oil and gas and in other areas. And Russia did nothing to help itself – I looked at a promising gold project for US investors but total marginal tax was 110%! And that’s before the kickbacks.
Putin is a pure kleptocrat. He has amassed a vast fortune, not turned the economy around. It is now more dependent on the oil price than ever before. He wastes huge sums on the military which remains as corrupt and poor as ever and huge sums on pointless military ventures in Syria and elsewhere. He has stayed in power despite the economy, the same as those in power in North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba or parts of Africa.
Yep Micky, our Russiaphobia and constant attempts to rape and ripoff their country and intrude and demolish their security has worked really well! We’ve got the result we set out to achieve with our refusal to engage in diplomacy. Russia finally concluded that the West’s refusal to listen made another decade of talking futile. So they copied the USA / UK and also abandoned international law and used violence. Just as the West has for 30 yrs! People get angry when you persistently try to bankrupt them!
The only people ripping off Russia were the Russian government themselves. For decades they have refused to invest in any meaningful improvement of economy, industry, welfare, and social institutions, and used resource exports to enrich themselves beyond any reasonable measure and build a totalitarian police state complete with a Goebbels tier propaganda theatre. The two policies didn’t go well together, as we are witnessing it now, and the ill-gotten riches of the elites were sacrificed at the altar of one ex-KGB officer’s megalomania. Unsurprising, considering there isn’t a single successful country ruled by the military and secret services wielding absolute power, all such countries are failed states. So one could say that we deserve whatever is coming our way. We aren’t monsters, but we have allowed a monster to take over our country.
Comparing Western wars of aggression against uncooperative and potentially dangerous dictatorships to Russian wars motivated by neo-imperialist territorial ambitions is just plain wrong. While both result in massive destruction and death, as all wars typically do, they have completely different underlying causes.
Why would the West have wanted to bankrupt Russia in the 90s though? Besides the Western condemnation of the Chechen wars, and the Russian condemnation of the war in Yugoslavia, the relationship was rather cooperative in the post-Soviet pre-Putin era. Even in the 2000s there was some cooperation, before the relationship soured after the Georgian war.
Why didn’t the West bankrupt Russia back in 2014, when it became apparent that Putin is obsessed with reviving the dead empire, is another question. Guess they were still delusional that they could keep buying cheap oil and gas as if it wouldn’t be funding the war machine built for future conquests. Now you pay for your mistakes (including the “green” madness), as we pay for ours.
Not sure how many more comments I will be able to post here. There have been talk about disconnecting from the internet, and many websites only work through VPN/Tor already.
Absurd. The people who got vastly rich in Russia are Russians. As is obvious.
Thank goodness we mothballed coal fired power stations and did just demolish them as some wanted…
The typical speed of demolition suggests a barely concealed “scorched earth” policy. The larger turbo-generators might have been worth saving, but preservation requires resource e.g. controlled environment, slow rotation and lubrication. Also have to keep the mice out.
The availability of new turbo-generators could be a stumbling block for the six year programme to construct coal-fired power stations in the UK.
Price of domestic heating oil in the UK is spiking, with no price cap to protect consumers.
Defeating Putin?
To do that depends on the USA if they want to get involved, this is totally out of our control the UK has no influence on the matter, when will the BBC etc realise this.
The USA focus is different to Europe, always has been.
The USA forces are still arriving and Putin knows this
” this is totally out of our control the UK has no influence on the matter ” Unfortunately, the UK’s actions and inactions have shackled the US response, e.g. money laundering in the UK. It’s depressing to read that London is regarded as the money laundering capital of the world.
For Europe, is there a stable short-term alternative to Russian gas? My view is that there isn’t.
‘Lord Adair Turner wants us to drive at 55 mph on the motorway to save fuel.’
Why not 35? Does he not care?
Labour will be out next week with 30.
Interesting to compile a list of the people who have misled the British public about the climate scam and how responsible they are: obvious contenders for worst offender are: Theresa May, Boris, BBC, ITV, Guardian,”I”, Independent, Kerry, Mann, Scott, with special mention to Horrorbin of course. Hard to choose and hard to punish.
You can add Deben, Huhne and Davey to that list, along with Goldsmith and Lucas.
Just first thoughts: along the lines of the G&S song “As some day it may happen / I’ve got a little list”, Harry. I was just feeling a bit vexed about the damage that these puppet-commentators have caused to the UK!
‘And it really doesn’t matter who you put upon the list, for there’d none of them be missed….’
He was created a life peer in September 2005 as Baron Turner of Ecchinswell, for “public service to the Nation”.
He is keen on carbon taxation and in 2006, he joined Al Gore in launching the Carbon Disclosure Project. In an interview with the The Observer, Sunday 3 February 2008
he said carbon reduction must begin at home.
In a collection of essays called “Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth”, he argued that ‘growth has to be dethroned’ if the planet is to survive surging population growth and global warming.
On February 5th 2009, Lord Turner had breakfast with George Soros, (official record of his engagements). Later that year Soros announced at the Copenhagen Climate Conference that he would invest $1 billion in clean-energy technology and create an organization to advise policy makers on environmental issues, according to a Bloomberg report.
In 2012, Lord Turner left the CCC. In 2013, he joined the George Soros think tank, Institute for New Economic Thinking, where he is currently a “Senior Fellow and Grantee, INET” https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/experts/aturner
Here is the scumbags at the Guardian take on things giving oxygen to the nut job protestors.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/11/anti-fracking-uk-activists-fight-resurgence-plans-
Now here is an option, ” Steve Mason, campaign director of Frack Free United,” as mentioned in the article is this guy… https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-mason-environmental-smart/
Find and update on his various company directorships show him to be a real nose trougher in renewables subsidised “businesses”. it also gives his home address of 7 Beech Drive Great Habton Malton YO17 6TX.
So how about we set up our own protest Samba band and drum all night and day outside his front door? I am sure he would appreciate our right to (not so) peacefully protest against unelected groups such as his undemocratically trying to force their views on the rest of us.
Sorry if someone else posted this earlier but …
https://babylonbeeDOTcom/news/biden-sells-alaska-back-to-russia-so-we-can-start-drilling-for-oil-there-again
Russia is likely the ultimate source of all the false climate change and net zero propaganda with the aim being to destroy the economic systems of the west and allow them to gradually absorb the whole of Europe. Germany being one of their early conquests owing to its energy policy. The UK might escape but time is the essence and we don’t have much of it. China is in the same game of hoping to rule the World with its germ warfare. It could one day be a clash of the two titans.
If we’re looking for pet conspiracy theories, one of my own is the possibility that the oil and gas industry as a source of the climate mumbo jumbo. Or maybe not quite the source, but enthusiastic endorsers of the mumbo jumbo.
Their benefit is the removal of coal as a competitor energy source, leaving more of the energy market to be supplied by oil and gas. Happy days for oil and gas producers.
And, at least in the UK, there is the possibility of dodging some offshore decommissioning liabilities if any depleted fields can be turned to storage reservoirs for CO2. Happy days for oil and gas producers.
We’ve had fuel saving speed limits in the past, in 1973 oil crisis, a temporary maximum national speed limit of 50 mph for all roads, including motorways, was introduced on 8 December 1973. Not only that but rationing books were issued at the end of 1973. But rationing was never introduced. I should have kept mine probably worth something now on eBay
It won’t affect me a reat deal as I’m relaxed about getting anywhere in record time. Although making everyone drive slowly has hidden financial costs and effectively increases the distance between places. But for a government keen to have Net Zero as a legacy then this is one step on a long road.
Was it 55 mph?
I have been wondering about the real benefit / penalty of these slowing measures. Sheffield and Birmingham motorways have speed restrictions “to reduce pollution”: in my experience these cause stick-slip traffic flow and the vehicles are in the “pollution zone” for far longer than say 50/70ths of the equivalent time, and almost certainly produce more NOx. and PM than when flowing freely. This also reduces any fuel savings: stopping and starting are the most wasteful part of a journey.
Also, the Covid traffic-reductions showed that there was virtually no effect on pollutants when few cars were about: most of the PM is imported form far away and natural NOx levels are far higher than these virtuous gits realise.
But where was the DT wh en this nonesense was building. Nowhere to be seen.
Guy Walters has a good article in the MoS today looking at how the Russians are funding the various anti-fracking groups around the world to stop the competition to Gazprom. As none of these groups are charities they have no requirement to disclose where the money comes from. The Russians use opaque off-shore companies to hide the money trail. Walters notes how often a sleepy town with no history of any protesting is suddenly home to a rapid and very well organised, and funded, protest.
Thank you for that Mr. England . . .
The Successes of Climate Change Advocacy Groups over the last 30 years, in The West, has only given Power to ‘Unsavory’ nations around the world. EVERY ‘Net Zero’ step has handed the power over our economies off to Russia or China or some other ‘Pollution Friendly’ Nation. They know that we are ‘STUPID’ and they are laughing all the way to the bank. When we shut down a steel mill or a coal fired power generating station or an aluminum smelter at home . . . They ‘Fill the Void’ . . . Every step we take to clean up our climate at home quite simply moves the problem out of our back yard and dumps the Pollution somewhere else . . . NET ZERO . . .
https://www.academia.edu/49676862/Social_Engineering_Environmentalism_and_Globalization_A_New_World_Order
https://www.academia.edu/71021345/All_Electricity_Even_Renewables_Poisons_Planet_Earth
My thoughts . . .