HOT AIR Boris’ energy strategy and obsession with wind power is a load of hot air – fracking and nuclear are what we need
By Paul Homewood
Dr John Constable in the Sun:
OUR energy policy has been an incoherent mess since the early 2000s when Tony Blair forced the UK off the carefully engineered and economical gas-to- nuclear strategy that was then under way.
Instead, Blair put all our bets on so-called renewables, wind and solar power.
Low wind power in 2021 is one of the main causes of the current energy crisisCredit: Alamy
Nuclear was damned with faint praise, while coal was progressively driven off the system.
This has left the UK increasingly dependent on the weather for our electricity — not ideal in a country with our unreliable climate.
So there has to be back-up from natural gas-fired power stations, the only generators flexible enough to work with uncontrollable wind and solar.
Gas is a very good fuel, but because of the Blair renewables policy we have certainly become overexposed to it.
So it’s no exaggeration to say that today our energy security hangs by a single thread.
In fact, low wind power in 2021, with UK onshore wind output down nearly 20 per cent compared to 2020, was one of the main causes of the current energy crisis.
Europe is also overcommitted to wind and their output was also down, so they wanted the natural gas too.
The international economic recovery post-Covid compounded these effects. Very high gas prices — with huge amounts paid to Vladimir Putin’s Russia — were the result.
Most read in Opinion
Critics of Mr Blair’s policies said at the time that renewables would make the UK vulnerable to high gas prices, and they have been proved right.
So the only question that matters, after yesterday’s publication of the Government’s energy security strategy, is: Has Boris cleared up Tony’s mess?
With the best will in the world, the answer is a resounding NO.
In fact, he’s actually making it worse.
First, there’s precious little in the strategy to help consumers with rocketing bills in the short term.
For example, scrapping the £10billion-a-year green levies.
And second, there are simply gigantic costs in the medium term, and in spite of those costs our security of supply looks as uncertain as ever.
Yes, there are positive aspects, but every silver lining in the strategy seems to have a particularly dark cloud wrapped around it.
The plans to get more oil and gas out of the North Sea are completely rational and could help to protect consumers as well as enhancing security of supply.
But why has the Government done so little to lift the over-cautious moratorium on fracking shale gas?
Shale has huge potential for the UK and it is simply irresponsible to leave it unexplored.
And then there’s Boris’s plan for a nuclear programme delivering 25 per cent of electricity consumption by 2050.
Broadly speaking, this could be a good idea.
“The Government press release is followed by pages of fulsome quotes from energy businesses supporting the plans.
That should set alarm bells ringing. When the energy sector starts salivating, the consumer is on the menu.”
COST AND TIMESCALE
Nuclear energy is a physically superior source of energy. It’s high quality and reliable.
But alongside the nuclear proposals there are wildly ambitious plans for still more wind and solar, which are all but completely incompatible with the nuclear proposals.
These technologies do not work well together, physically or economically.
The Government plans are just incoherent at worst. And then there is the cost and timescale of wind.
Even with modern high- capacity wind turbines, the plans mean the installation of several thousand super-sized machines, and all in a little under a decade.
This will require an express service that will send costs off the scale.
The Government is still parroting industry propaganda about falling wind prices, but no one who understands the wind farm companies, or who has looked at their financial accounts, believes costs are coming down significantly.
In fact, it seems that costs are actually rising as they move into deeper water and more difficult conditions, which is not surprising.
Regrettably, Mr Johnson’s strategy, like Tony Blair’s before it, is a confused muddle of overly ambitious targets that only suit industry lobbyists looking for subsidies.
And those lobbyists are already excited.
The Government press release is followed by pages of fulsome quotes from energy businesses supporting the plans.
That should set alarm bells ringing. When the energy sector starts salivating, the consumer is on the menu.
Mr Johnson’s plan may be good for the energy companies but it will be bad for British households and businesses.
DAMAGING TO ECONOMY
It will also be damaging to the economy as a whole.
Delivering these extreme and muddled policies will cost, even at a conservative estimate, capital expenditure of several hundred billion pounds in a matter of a few decades.
Some analysts say between £500billion and £800billion, more than half of the UK’s net investment budget for the next 15 years or so, putting a squeeze on many other areas of expenditure and wiping out real income growth in the UK for more than a decade.
Looking on the bright side, very little of this energy plan will ever be realised.
In spite of a few positive aspects, it is uninvestable, unaffordable and impractical.
Far from clearing up Tony’s mess, Boris and his Government appear to have learned nothing from the failure of the New Labour energy policies.
Disappointing?
This late in the day and in the midst of the worst energy crisis in a generation, I fear it’s going to prove a disaster for the UK.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/18202425/boris-energy-strategy-fracking-nuclear/
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
As with identity and sexual politics, governments are now adopting policies that favour the minority (a tiny minority) over the majority because government has determined its benevolence is sufficient for consumers rather than its impartiality.
‘This has left the UK increasingly dependent on the weather for our electricity — not ideal in a country with our unreliable climate.’
FFS. DON’T USE THEIR LANGUAGE !!!
The UK climate (Cfb – Köppen) hasn’t changed in more than a hundred years. Weather in UK is unrealiable; the climate is perhaps the ONLY thing reliable in perfidious Albion.
Carrie and her coterie have got Johnson by the short and curlies. Matt Ridley in the Daily Mail showed wind contributed less than 4% to our energy last year, as well as being intermittent and unrelaible. Same to covering the country side with solar panels made in China which are useles in the depths of winter when most needed.
Johnson’s prepared to face down objectors to on-shore windmills, but not to the minority of Green crusties who oppose fracking, which would ensure our gas supply, and allow us to largely replace Russia as well as earning us a few bob. SNRs have been used safely in submarines for years-so what’s the problem there, apart from total lack of foresight? It’s infuriating!
John Constable is my number one got to for information about dysfunctional government policy.
What will we do WITHOUT Oil and Gas . . .
Click to access Products%20Made%20From%20Oil%20and%20Natural%20Gas%20Infographic.pdf
This is how Naïve environmental policies make us all . . .
Couldn’t agree more Paul. I would be happier if governments would restrict themselves to implementing the requirements of their electorate, rather than trying to decide what is best for them – a task they (the government) are totally unqualified for.
“In the case of nutrition and health, just as in the case of education, the gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for people than the people know themselves.” (The Socialist Case by Douglas Jay, 1939)
The mantra of Govts for nearly 80 years .
I seem to remember that nutrition was minimal and Health very poor in the decade that followed 1939.
I am thinking rationing and wartime bodily harm here.
Who runs the country? A democratically elected government or a bunch of workshy, lying, misinformed and scandalously misinforming environmental anarchists?
It can only be the latter since the UK is not a functioning democracy as while the government is elected, the people have no power over it.
!!! . . . The Big Green Propaganda Machine and all it’s Minions in the Media and Government.
As long as the CCA and CCC exist the UK is going to spiral downwards. Blaming Blair and Milliband for everything is disingenuous: the fault is squarely with the misruling Tory government: they have had years to correct the earlier foolishness.
Happy to heap gargantuan amounts of blame on Blair and Miliband, but don’t forget Brown and Veggie Benn who deserve heaps also for their arrogant gormlessness.
But I agree that 95% of the Tories are just as gormless & venal.
In addition to obvious scam artists like Tim Yeo and “Lord” Deben, let’s also dump more blame on Husky-Hugger Dave Boy, with his father in law Sir Reginald Sheffield filling his boots every day with another £1,000 for siting eight modest sized (by today’s standards) wind turbines on his land.
Then there’s stupid Theresa May and her 100% Zero Carbon.
Not to mention convicted criminal Chris Huhne and “Sir” Potato Ed Davey as successive useless peculation maestros posing as Her Majesty’s Secretaries of State for Energy & Climate Change. Remember how they cancelled Forgemasters’ loan (with the help of Business Secretary Vince Cable) for a massive 15,000-tonne metal press for nuclear components. Whilst Forgemasters could have got round this, there was no point because the Limp Dims were anti-nuclear. This led to Davey signing up to the most expensive, least likely to work properly and to be completed in time (not to mention controlled by China & France!) nuclear plant at Hinkley Point. Expected now in 2026!
No party represented in Westminster can be trusted. Even the half-rational DUP had the ridiculous ‘Cash-for-Ash project.
There can’t be more than a couple of dozen denizens of the HoC who could organise a piss up in a brewery.
The rot absolutely started with Blair. It was his claIm “the science is settled” in 2001 following AR3 that got my attention.
Followed up by Ed “village idiot” Milliband and the Climate Change Act in 2008.
And don’t forget Gordon Brown’s “flat earther” comment about deniers. It is still my intention to write to him personally and demand an apology for that insult to thinking scientists. I am just hoping we both live long enough and the circumstances arise where I can do it.
AR3 was properly called TAR of course.
Thinking Scientist,
Gordon Brown couldn’t even get the ‘Flat Earther’ comment right. He forgets that view of the world was a consensus view at the time, just as is the ‘CO2 is the enemy’ view at the moment.
From the Grauniad 4 December 2009:
“With only days to go before Copenhagen we mustn’t be distracted by the behind-the-times, anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics,” Brown told the Guardian. “We know the science. We know what we must do. We must now act and close the 5bn-tonne gap. That will seal the deal.”
And Ed “village idiot” Milliband in the same article:
“Ed Miliband gave his most damning assessment of the sceptics yet, describing them as “dangerous and deceitful”. He said: “The approach of the climate saboteurs is to misuse data and mislead people. The sceptics are playing politics with science in a dangerous and deceitful manner. There is no easy way out of tackling climate change despite what they would have us believe. The evidence is clear and the time we have to act is short. To abandon this process now would lead to misery and catastrophe for millions.”
The sceptics are playing politics eh Ed? Not the politicians then?
Finally Nick Clegg:
“Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, said it would be disastrous for the planet if sceptics were able to undermine support for a climate change deal. “Ideological dinosaurs, whether in Saudi Arabia or in the Conservative party, who deny climate change must not be allowed to hide behind some leaked correspondence to support their outdated theories,” Clegg said.”
Where are those unbelievers in the Conservative Party now to save us from the climate idiots?
“Even with modern high- capacity wind turbines, the plans mean the installation of several thousand super-sized machines, and all in a little under a decade.”
Every single one of those machines will be manufactured and installed using fossil fuels for transportation. What that means is more CO2 will necessarily be added to the atmosphere. Lowering CO2 emissions ASAP cannot be done while installing “renewables”. No transition to an all-electric world can be made without oil. Increasing exploration and methods to extract and refine it will be necessary, climate “emergencies” notwithstanding.
Does the UN’s IPCC leadership understand that?
So TRUE !! Facts . . . NOT Fiction . . .
https://www.academia.edu/71023588/Batteries_Renewable_Energy_and_EV_s_The_Ultimate_in_Environmental_Destruction
https://www.academia.edu/73548362/Electric_Cars_Burn_31_More_Energy_than_Gas_Cars_Revised_
Do these modern high- capacity wind turbines produce electricity when there’s no wwind?
Then this made me smile.
Victorian Big Battery: Australia’s biggest battery storage system at 450MWh, is online
The Victorian Big Battery, a 300MW / 450MWh lithium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) in Australia, has been officially opened by the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change for the state of Victoria.
https://www.energy-storage.news/victorian-big-battery-australias-biggest-battery-storage-system-at-450mwh-is-online/
Sounds so good, but big numbers confused journalists.
I hope I live another 10 to 15 years — in good health and sound mind — so I can witness the culmination of the UK and other’s policies.
The regional disparities (geography? anyone) are fascinating. For example, I live in Washington State (US left coast) where hydro and nuclear power underlie the grid. There are many small thermal facilities, some solar, and much wind. Energy is exported to California via both AC & DC lines [Path 66 & Path 65].
California and the UK are unnecessarily trying to save Earth, while other places have more pressing and interesting issues.
Watching all this play out takes a lot of time.
Thanks to Paul, it is easier.
Y’all have a great day.
Last night’s BBC Hull Look North
“Would you accept a windfarm in your village, in return for discounted electricity bills ?”
This spin is then put as Wind/Fracking/Nuclear what do you want on your doorstep ?
But hang on that’s False equivalence
cos wind is low density energy source that only works when it feels like it
Gas is way superior for each acre used.
Spot on Gamecock.It is unreliable weather patterns,NOT Climate.All he is doing is giving a nod to the Climate chg. nonsense.
The Sun always calls it right, it has the widest reach of all UK papers and to the most important readers – the man & woman in the street with common sense. It’s a clear, factual well written piece. Perhaps they’ll look at some of the dodgy science next, like bad computer model predictions.
I have always held the view that once The Sun starts to call it out then the politicians are going to find it very tough going. In terms of stopping climate change policies – its The Sun wot did it!
” OUR energy policy has been an incoherent mess since the early 2000s when Tony Blair forced the UK off the carefully engineered and economical gas-to- nuclear strategy that was then under way. ”
No. It started to fall apart after DRAX was completed (early 1980s) with no further new coal-fired and became shambolic when the twin-reactor Sizewell C project wasn’t approved in the early 1990s. As a direct result, all that professional UK design and construction expertise was lost.
Never mind Micky R, we’re going to have the Great British Nuclear Vehicle. With time, this organisation might become known as the CEGB (mk2). That’s what I will call it.
It will be essential for the Government to properly resource CEGB (mk2), including having a funding plan for the immense resources it will need (it takes an army of scientists and engineers to have a nuclear capability).
CEGB was a world class organisation. As you say Micky, it had an impressive track record in securing UK power supply, and we should not forget how it delivered a massive fleet of generating and transmission assets within just a couple of short decades.
It was Thatcherite dogma that brought CEGB to an end.
The CEGB-provided fleet of well-designed and enduring power generating assets are now closing. They served well for the 3 decades following privatisation, so now we have the chance to see how well the private sector will compare.
And the answer is …… (fanfare) ….. CEGB (mk2).
What a complete failure of the privatised model. We have a horrendous energy crisis, and the answer is to re-nationalise.
Constable mentions “fulsome quotes from energy businesses supporting the [Government’s] plans”. Complete failure of Thatcherite private sector dogma in one small sub-clause.
Are you funded to be an anti nuclear activist or do you do it voluntarily?.
Ray. I worked for the CEGB, joining as a fresh young engineering graduate.
I have worked in the industry ever since, so I’m heading for my 4th decade in the business of electricity generation and supply. I’m not exactly unfamiliar with topics discussed on these boards.
To respond to your earlier profanity, I’m no stranger to nuclear technology and nuclear investment. You were wrong there.
I have no political affiliations. So your latest barb is wrong again.
I would prefer if you would stop guessing about me, and cut out the barbs. Just try to read my comments with an open mind.
Nice barb Ray.
I have commented before that nuclear is stuck in national ownership. The private sector cannot live with nuclear potential liabilities. Every example of private sector involvement in nuclear is (in effect) the “outsourcing model” of public sector provision.
It’s not a view that you (and others here) thought had merit when discussed before. But the creation of the CEGB (mk2) kinda proves me right, don’t you think.
The government has spent decades trying to find a private sector solution for new nuclear, dancing round the handbags with different funding models for the private sector to eventually walk away from. The last remaining solution they can come up with is CEGB (mk2).
Rather than the barbs Ray, why not acknowledge that maybe I had a point.
Its a fantasy – we don’t have those skills any more. But there is a simple and low cost solution to the medium term that only needs a relaxation of the idiotic Net Zero themes. Its like this. Consolidate the renewables capacity at what it is now. No need for new wind farms. Adjust our gas turbine generators to dual fuel as the Ireland Alternative Fuel Obligation does (which requires generators to hold three months reserve storage) and, maybe, build some new ones. As far as I can see, currently the price of kerosene is about half of that of gas on a BTU basis. An essential will be to overcome the priority of renewables over other generators – there must be a formula for CCGT generators to be guaranteed a base demand to be viable but the same applie to the new proposals to combine renewables with nuclear. Its a no brainer. QED.
It’s a good article by John Constable, and I agree with almost everything he says.
It’s all very well to state what he disagrees with and to point out flaws, but his case would improve if he could come up with a suggested way forward.
I will try to do this in the most understated way I can manage at the moment:
THE ANSWER IS COAL!
What was the question?
Gamecock: The question is how do we secure energy supply in the most economic way. This is not a “trilemma”, and never was.
Right now, the UK is suffering from shortage of energy. Energy demand is price-inelastic, so shortage causes the spike in prices we are now presently seeing.
Our shortages are a consequence of single points of failure in primary energy supply which have developed as a result of the policy to close coal fired generation (loss of fuel switching capability we have had until recently). Fuel switching capability is an option which greatly improves our access to global energy supply.
I like the phrase used by John Constable in the above post: “energy security hangs by a single thread”.
Our highest short-term priority is to diversify primary energy supply, and the only option we have is to maximise coal as a fuel for our economy (industrial processes where emissions can be controlled).
The following are not choices we should turn to:
– Gas. We’re already hanging from that single thread. No point in hanging even more from it because the exposure only increases.
– Renewables. 24 GW is already have too much dependence on weather-dependent sources. If there are times when 24 GW generates nothing, there are times when 50GW generates noith.
Nuclear. There is a long process to get to operation, including planning, design, and demonstration (thousands of hours needed to demonstrate reliability). Until demonstrated, investments in a design are risky. So we can only think about new nuclear on 20-30 year time scales.
Imports. Our near-neighbours are in the same position as we are. Outsourcing our energy security needs to our near neighbours (as we have tried to do in recent years) is not an option. We need to look past them to directly access world energy supply. And that means coal.
You are so silly, Jordan.
“Our highest short-term priority is to diversify primary energy supply, and the only option we have is to maximise coal as a fuel for our economy”
There is nothing you can do with coal. Your coal plants are gone. And people who know how to run the boilers are doing something else now.
Your economy is in algor mortis.
“There is nothing you can do with coal. Your coal plants are gone.”
Good grief Gamecock, try to keep up man!
BoJo is talking about new nuclear. On the logic of your reply to me, you would respond “but we cannot have nuclear because our nuclear plants are closing”.
BoJo’s strategy does NOT answer the present energy crisis. Read what John Constable says at the top of the page. And read my comment above.
So, let me hold your hand and spell it out to you: the UK needs a new fleet of coal fired power stations. These could be operational in around 5 years, and that’s about as good as it gets from the alternatives we have.
Something the range of 10GW – 15GW of new coal fired capacity will restore the UK’s fuel switching capability. This improves our access to world primary energy supplies, it benefits fuel security in the UK, and it is the best chance we have of competitive energy supplies (because it’s the same world markets as our international competitors.
The UK has benefitted from this since we built the gas fired power stations alongside the coal fired capacity built by the CEGB. It is the Government’s carbon taxes and mandatory closure of coal fired capacity that has created the present mess.
So I spelled out the main options to you in my “silly” comment above, but I will repeat, with regard to UK energy security:
THE ANSWER IS COAL.
‘the UK needs a new fleet of coal fired power stations. These could be operational in around 5 years, and that’s about as good as it gets from the alternatives we have.’
“No, Mr Bond, I expect you do die!”
You don’t have five years, sonny. And NFW any Western government would approve your plan. They’d die first. And they will.
Rigor mortis is setting in now.
Gamecock. Like John Constable, you diagnose the illness but you don’t come up with any proposed solution.
I agree with you that the UK situation is dire. There is not much we can do short term, other than not closing any power stations that are capable of being kept open. This will not be cheap or particularly easy, and it only mitigates (it doesn’t get us out of the hole).
New coal assets can be operational in 5 years, and they will be proven nth-of-a-kind designs. New nuclear (like SMRs) will be 30 years before we get to nth-of-a-kind design as they will need to demonstrate operational performance (a good few thousand hours).
The other candidate options are non-starters: more exposure to gas; more exposure to weather; more exposure to neighbouring countries; rationing supply by price or volume.
So please offer your solution. Or has your rigor mortis advanced much further than you have assumed.
Jordan: where do we get the coal from?
The international market Vernon.
Ignoring Russia for the foreseeable, big producer/exporters include Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, Central America, Canada, Poland and the USA.
I noted the Government described nuclear as “home grown” energy when announcing its “Energy Security S-tradgedy”. The UK produces no uranium oxide, and the government has concluded (in 2010) that conversion of UK plutonium stock into fuel is unproven, therefore not a choice it was ready to make in 2010. Government preference is to import uranium.
Whatever definition they were using for “home grown”, there is a decent overlap between coal and uranium producing regions. I’m confident (not!) the government would describe coal fired generation as “home grown” to be consistent with its view of new nuclear generation.
The UK market signals the relative merit of gas-fired and coal-fired generation using the spark-spread and dark-spread, respectively. The dark-spread has been well ahead of the spark-spread since the start of the energy crisis and the market is trying to signal an economic benefit of coal fired power. But, as somebody rightly pointed out in an earlier post, the absence of fuel switching capability deprives us that benefit. The blame for this disadvantage lies squarely with government policy of carbon taxation (preferential punishment of coal which would have otherwise been economic) and mandatory closure (driving in the nail when destroying the economics of coal fired generation wasn’t enough).
The present energy crisis is wholly self-inflicted.
A final comment is worth adding. The “world” has access to the full range of “world market” fuel supplies. If the UK selects only part of that market, it is destined to reduce the reliability of fuel supplies (compared to “the world”) and destined to increase the cost of supply (ditto). It is therefore an act of self-harm to deprive ourselves of economic fuel supplies as we make our economy more expensive and less reliable. This is a lesson we will come to learn, and it is only a question of how long it takes the UK to give up the present policy of self-flagellation.
Quite right ! And alternative energy puts us at the mercy of the Chinese who build ALL the components of ‘Green Energy’ . . . Walking straight into another self imposed energy TRAP . . .
Jordan; Dr Constable has come up with a way forward:
https://www.netzerowatch.com/radical-plan-to-end-the-energy-crisis/
This was published on the Net Zero (ex-GWPF) website 2 weeks ago.
Thanks Mike, that’s helpful.
I’ve had a look through the linked document and I agree with most of it.
I’m not convinced about fast-tracking CCGT replacement, as I would expect better value for money from other elements of the proposals (therefore not a priority item).
The document says ” Make contingency plans for the construction of new ultra-supercritical coal power plants to diversify fuel supply in the next decade, should nuclear generation construction be delayed.”
I would go further. As new nuclear has FOAK risk, I would just get on with building the new coal fired plants. They have the benefit of securing supply of power and diversifying UK primary energy supplies. Some of these might replace older, less-efficient CCGT capacity, which comes back to my last comment.
I get a strong sense of nationalisation in the document. I believe this is where we are heading, and we are well down that path. An important question is whether this is necessarily a bad thing? Should we prefer nationalisation or a privatised model?
It is surely the case that a nationalised power supply industry will be flawed. Recent government’s obsession with climate change and weather dependent renewables is a great example. But flawed government control is what we have right now, when we are supposed to be enjoying the benefits of the private sector model.
The private sector could be proving its worth right now, if it is supposed to be all it is cranked up to be. Instead, we have lazy private sector electricity companies who are happy to bend to the government’s whims and can see no further than the nearest government teet to suckle from.
They are shining examples of their own uselessness. If they are gotten rid of, they only have themselves to blame. That’s sad but true – I don’t say it as a matter of personal preference.
2 Things . . . ALL the ‘Green Energy’ solutions (?) are built in China . . . Further dependence on unsavory foreign control of our energy supply . . .
Second ALL the solutions (?) consume MORE energy than fossil fuels . . . Embedded costs.
Third OHM’S LAW . . . 15% of the electricity is lost as HEAT during transmission . . .
31% of the electricity is lost charging Electric Cars.
Green Energy policies ere the worst Scandle of the 21st century . . . yet to unfold . . .
https://www.academia.edu/71023588/Batteries_Renewable_Energy_and_EV_s_The_Ultimate_in_Environmental_Destruction
https://www.academia.edu/73548362/Electric_Cars_Burn_31_More_Energy_than_Gas_Cars_Revised_
“you diagnose the illness but you don’t come up with any proposed solution.”
I have no duty to provide a solution.
But if you insist, it is stupid simple.
“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” — Ronaldus Magnus, 1981
Repeal CCA and Net Zero. Get government out of the energy management business. Free market providers will get you what you need.
Yeah, the chances of that happening are double-ought zero. People with power like having power. You can all damn die before they’d let go of their power.
BWTM . . . UK has <4GW of coal generation capacity. Scheduled to be 0.0GW in two years. Not only is there the insurmountable problem of getting government to approve new coal generation, there is the insurmountable problem that government has poisoned the well. NO ONE will invest in coal generation in UK without being underwritten 100% by government (just like nuclear). They have pushed for coal's death for nearly a generation, and they are on the cusp of getting it. Energy companies know that; they won't be doing any more coal in the UK.
Having been a project manager for decades, I practiced getting the replacement up and running before shutting down the old. UK government, as project managers, shut down the old with no replacement. Their incompetence is going to kill people.
We knew Net Zero would fail. We just didn't know what it would look like or when it would happen. 2050 seemed so far away, few worried about it. You are in deep doo-doo NOW, and there is no way out. Intransigent, incompetent, misdirected government isn't going to take their boot heel off the energy companies' necks.
Your problem is insoluble.
Great points . . . Re: Net Zero’s failure, many of the reasons are in the following paper . . .
https://www.academia.edu/71023588/Batteries_Renewable_Energy_and_EV_s_The_Ultimate_in_Environmental_Destruction
As to the effective use of coal I refer you to pages 6 – 9 in . . .
https://www.academia.edu/45570971/The_Environmentalist_and_The_Neanderthal
I have been to this Facility and I have seen the success ! Totally ignored solutions because the environmental movement has only ONE goal . . . Eliminate Fossil Fuels . . . Even when the clean-up is a better cleaner solution . . . There is NO panacea . . . !!
Gamecock
Thanks for your views. You say: “Your problem is insoluble.” This is an admission you will never hear from the Government. You were reluctant to provide a solution (which would have meant you were just having a good moan), but the Government doesn’t have that choice. They have to choose from the options available to them, and I have listed them above.
I know what you are saying with the problem of getting government to approve new coal generation”, But there is an incontrovertible fact of the matter in play here: THEY HAVE NO CHOICE. All of the other options are duds.
That’s the very reason why I have said many times on these boards, the only remaining question is how much pain they need to impose on the UK before coming to that conclusion. They either need to find a face-saving excuse, or it has to be a humiliating reversal of policy. I would prefer the latter, if it means less pain for the UK.
Right now, industry is suffering big style, and I would expect there to be serious drop in UK productivity to be announced over the coming months. That’s going to have the Government squirming. This year, we were lucky to have a mild winter and we avoided 1970’s-style rolling black-outs. But there is next winter, and the winter after that, and so on. This isn’t going away any time soon. And the woes of the Energy Suppliers are not over – they face massive bad debts as people cannot afford their bills, and industries fold – watch that space.
I acknowledge your points, but I think you under-estimate what comes next. And the answer will be COAL. It is an easy prediction to make because there really is no choice
You’re not getting it, Jordan. Government is the problem.
But you make the EXACT SAME MISTAKE AS THE GOVERNMENT.
“And the answer will be COAL.”
You pick your favorite way. Same as Mr Homewood: ‘fracking and nuclear are what we need’
Your picking is no damn better than government picking.
The solution is to get government et al out of the damn way. Jordan, unless you have capital and are going to build generating capacity, you are no damn different than the government.
The solution is to tell entrepreneurs to do whatever they need to do to get you power. They will decide. Your deciding marks you as another control freak. But you can be sanctimonious, because your choice is better than the government’s choice.
Whatever. This is all academic. Government isn’t going to let go. You are sofa king dead.
Gamecock: We have a privatised power industry, and we have had it for over 30 years. How do you think they are doing? Are you happy with their efforts to secure supply?
I’m not.
The private sector has had ample opportunity to demonstrate its worth and how it can do better than the public sector. If the Government was an obstacle, the private sector has had ample opportunity to work around that problem. If it was as good as you seem to think, it would have done a lot better than where we are today.
I can see that and reach a suitable conclusion. Whether it’s what I want or not is not the issue. Whether the private sector works well in other settings is not the issue.
Your answer to private sector failure is more private sector. Somehow today’s complete failure will somehow come good because you simply believe it should. It’s a vacuous argument, no better than those who call for more wind generation to solve the present shortages of supply.
I wish you were right. But where is the evidence? I go with the facts, and I will be pragmatic about the choices we have to take.
In theory, if you believe academics and economists, the smallest incentive will bring an unlimited supply of entrepreneurs flooding in to solve a problem, gushing with innovation and gushing with cash to throw at it. In the real world, that doesn’t happen. Why isn’t it happening RIGHT NOW in the UK in response to the energy crisis. And don’t say “because the government”, because those super-duper entrepreneurs should be clever enough to deal with that (if we believe you).
A great example is the Government’s announcement of the creation of a new public body, the Great British Nuclear Vehicle (I call it “CEGB mk2”) to invest in nuclear generation. The government has tried FOR DECADES (I was involved) to invite the private sector into nuclear power station development, ownership, and operation. They tried different funding models, they helped out with sourcing of land, they offered financial support mechanism. All they could get was interest from a couple of foreign-owned public sector organisations. The Government has concluded (they DO have some learning capability) that the private sector is not interested in nuclear liabilities and not interested in owning nuclear power stations.
Does observing this make a sofa king Gamecock? Really? That’s called projection. You are starting to get personal – I’m done with you now.
” The solution is to tell entrepreneurs to do whatever they need to do to get you power. ”
For most of western Europe, the free market solution for electricity generation and domestic heating is gas bought from Russia. Which is probably OK if you can trust Russia.
“We have a privatised power industry, and we have had it for over 30 years.”
More silliness. You have a strong, autocratic central government controlling the power industry. Privately owned, but not privately controlled.
That is your problem. You can haggle about the choices they have made, even get them to make better choices, but you still have the core problem of their being able to decide.
Government will make political choices. Your getting them to make a better choice will only last until the next group of doomsdayers convince them that the political will is to kill some form of energy production. Government poisoned nuclear energy. Government poisoned coal energy. They are killing “fossil fuel” energy. Your problem is that your government can poison nuclear energy. That government can kill coal energy. That they can kill “fossil fuel” energy.
“Pick COAL!” leaves them to pick. It also suggests the you are fine with government picking, you just don’t like their choice.
“You have a strong, autocratic central government controlling the power industry. Privately owned, but not privately controlled.”
Maybe you should argue that point with John Constable. He said at the top of this thread: “And those lobbyists are already excited. The Government press release is followed by pages of fulsome quotes from energy businesses supporting the plans.”
That’s your private sector Gamecock. The Government did nothing to get them all excited about it. They did it all by themselves.
And your answer to that is …. more private sector. Great idea, that’ll solve all our problems.
“Government will make political choices.”
Sure it will. There are plenty of people in these comments who think they can get new nuclear by persuading government to support new nuclear. I’d like to see you go and have an argument with them about how bad Government is.
The current UK fleet of nuclear power station in the main will be retired by 2035 and if we are lucky Hinkley C and Sizewell C will replace their total output. As renewables only supply 4% of our total energy usage, provided by gas and electricity.The fact that nuclear power stations take 10 to 15 years to build and commision, gas will be our main source of energy for the next 15 to 20 years.Therefore it is essential that fracking is developed to provide the UK with a secure energy supply.
Currently, of the existing UK fleet of operational nuclear power stations, only Sizewell B will be generating after 2028
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/EDF-confirms-earlier-end-date-for-Heysham-2-and-To
Although the goalposts could be moved … again.
Vincent: you are talking fantasy nonsense. There is nothing yet to suggest we have viable gas-producing shale. Cuadrilla’s tests confirmed that Bowland shale is too impermeable (as many shales are) to produce even miniscule flows of gas. By all means let them have another try but one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a differnt result.
Cuadrilla don’t think fracking is nonsense Vernon; why would their MD insist that they should be given the approval to proceed. Why buy fracked gas from the US or import gas from the Middle East; if you are concerned about climate change it makes sense to control the process in the UK and save the damage to the environment caused by freezing and transporting the gas by sea.
I note that at the end of last month Ørsted sold a 50% interest in their 1.3GW Hornsea 2 offshore wind project to AXA for £3bn. That reveals a huge disconnect between industry and government expectations of the future cost of offshore wind. The project can expect say 600MW average generation, or 5.3TWh per year, 2.65TWh for 50%. The capital charge cost for amortising the investment plus interest is about 8% p.a., or £240m p.a. over the life of the wind farm. That implies over £90/MWh (240/2.65) just for amortisation. Maintenance costs are of the order of another £20/MWh. The current value of the Hornsea 2 CFD is £73.71/MWh.
It would seem that there is no expectation of taking up the CFD when the project is completed, and an expectation that even allowing for curtailment average revenues will be over £110/MWh. With no CFD protection for curtailment the project can expect perhaps 25% of its potential output to be worthless, so they are expecting production revenue to be over £145/ MWh.
Kwasi and Boris are deluded if they think that wind is going to be cheap.
any links to the axa deal?
Lots in the specialist press
https://www.newpower.info/2022/03/orsted-sells-3b-stake-in-hornsea-2/
Idau; those figures confirm the wind industry woes reported here:
https://www.rechargenews.com/wind/were-all-in-trouble-wind-turbine-makers-selling-at-a-loss-and-in-a-self-destructive-loop-bosses-admit/2-1-1197217?mc_cid=9acd144434&mc_eid=66c7ca370e
There’s a particualrly interesting comment about how a vicious circle has developed in pricing whereby manufacturers have based their costings on volumes of business which have not materialised. They then feel forced to bid at uneconomic levels to try and build volume.
Not really. The sale of a stake in a wind farm has very little to do with cost but a lot to do with expected revenues and profits. From the seller’s point of view it crystallises profit up front, and provides cash to rinse and repeat. Here’s Ørsted’s own evaluation that shows they hope to book a profit of 9-10bn DKK from the sale. £1=DKK8.33, so comfortably over £1bn.
https://orstedcdn.azureedge.net/-/media/www/docs/corp/com/investor/financial-reporting/hornsea-2-transaction-announcement-slide-1.ashx?la=en&rev=f70dd213ab9347868199050fe4b2e0d2&hash=9EBD6FC0150C0FD2BF773018FD64AE63
Idau: I think some wires got crossed in the link or we are interpreting the report differently.
The one I posted opens with:
“Raw material and logistics inflation coupled with downward price pressures from auctions have led to an unsustainable situation where wind OEMs are selling at a loss, with the sector unable to deliver Europe’s planned tripling of wind capacity by 2030, industry leaders have warned.”
It’s a report from a recent wind industry conference where some major manufacturers were bemoaning the state of the business: aiui “OEMs selling at a loss” is the turbine manufacturers, not the eventual owner-operators.
I’m not denying that the turbine manufacturing business is in trouble and needs to raise prices – there are some good insights in that report, such as the outsourcing of manufacture to China of key components like shafts on cost grounds – and clearly rising commodity prices mean that renewables routes are going to be a lot more costly than estimates made in on a 2020 cost basis when prices were depressed would suggest. Another article suggests that turbine manufacture will soon be more or less completely taken over by the Chinese, raising the security of supply arguments to another level.
However the real point of the sale of Hornsea 2 story is that there is a clear expectation of not taking up low strike price CFDs, and therefore CFD prices have become irrelevant and are no guide to cost or future electricity prices. CFD auctions are now meaningless, and simply serve to decide which projects go ahead on a market basis, with the market rigged in other ways such as a general shortage of dispatchable capacity and sky high carbon taxes. There is little prospect of this changing while the government is so set on an unviable policy.
Talking of which, the article on the hydrogen ambitions begins to touch the absurdities of that element of the policy – something I have been drumming away at for some time now.
https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/first-take-uks-new-plans-for-10gw-of-hydrogen-by-2030-seem-illogical-contradictory-and-expensive/2-1-1198379
They’re still only scratching the surface, but they’ve got the key point that intermittent hydrogen from offshore wind is going to be very, very expensive, and that alternative colours are no better unless gas becomes cheap again.
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Idau: Thanks, I wasn’t aware of the bigger picture.
It looks as if we have a double-whammy. Low auction prices are used to put pressure on the manufacturers while the owner/operators are not going to stand by their winning bids.
We live in interesting times…