New Prime Minister will have to pause Net Zero or face the demise of UK’s steel industry
By Paul Homewood
From Net Zero Watch;
London, 22 July – With the exorbitant costs of Net Zero plans threatening Port Talbot steelworks with closure, the next Prime Minister will be faced with a stark choice: pause Net Zero plans for energy-intensive industries or preside over the end of the UK steel manufacturing.
The warning comes from the director of Net Zero Watch, Dr Benny Peiser.
Tata Group, the owner of the UK’s largest steel manufacturer, has threatened to shut down operations if the government does not agree to provide £1.5bn of subsidies to help it reduce CO2 emissions.
The crisis for UK steel demonstrates that the cost of Net Zero is an existential threat to British industries and manufacturing.
As an energy-intensive manufacturer of internationally traded commodities, the steel sector is particularly sensitive to the astronomical cost of decarbonisation. It is the first to acknowledge that the industry simply can’t survive Net Zero without multi-billion handouts – but it won’t be the last.
Tata Steel and the energy-intensive sector more broadly can be regarded as a canary in the coalmine, giving early warning of a more general economic and industrial disaster, as the rising costs of Net Zero trickle down to the rest of the economy.
Dr Peiser said:
"The new Prime Minister is unlikely to be willing to hand over subsidies on the scale demanded by Tata, not least because every other industry hit by demands for decarbonisation would insist on handouts too.
"It is becoming more evident by the day that the Climate Change Committee misled Parliament over the true cost of Net Zero. Most energy-intensive businesses in the UK won’t be able to survive the looming Net Zero cost crisis unless the new Prime Minister takes swift action.”
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Like so many of your great posts, I feel like saying
“No shit Sherlock, who’d of think it”
Pity most UK MPs can’t read or do simple arithmetic.
Net Zero is probably the Biggest Scam perpetrated on society in History. 1 Trillion $$ per year. Spend a few Shekels on carbon credits and you don’t have to spend a dime cleaning up the Real pollution that poisons the air we breath or the water we drink . . .
https://www.allaboutenergy.net/270-energy/today/multiple-energy-types/world/3208-clean-green-energy-net-zero-fairy-tales-on-steroids?highlight=WyJqaW0iLCJsZSIsIm1haXN0cmUiLCJqaW0gbGUiLCJqaW0gbGUgbWFpc3RyZSIsImxlIG1haXN0cmUiXQ==
Facts . . . Not Hyperbole NOT propaganda !!
The Steel Industry is , so far , the only one being mentioned in the media to be hit by the massive cost increases in the ETS . [ Carbon taxes ].
These increases have also hit Airlines ,[ ticket prices going up ], electric generation , [ we all know this has gone up by huge amounts before the Ukranian invasion ,] and refineries , [ difficult to know quite how much this has hit fuel price at the pumps .]
So how long before these other costs are mentioned in the media .
Of course we have already lost aluminium smelting to green accelerated energy prices.
At Lynemouth, north of Newcastle, Alcan had a neat operation whereby its coal fired power station supplied all of its electricity output to the adjacent smelter. As Wikipedia shows the environmental regs. were the cause of closing the smelter. With the loss of +500 jobs.
The saga is set out in Wikipedia.
This sort of lack of pragmatism will be the death of much of what remains of UK heavy industry. Keep a watch on the glass industry for the next to suffer.
Talking of petrol pump prices – how much excise does the government charge on a litre of petrol? In Australia, we are currently paying about $2.20/litre for petrol. I understand it’s about an equivalent of $3.20 in the UK – which means that you are paying much more tax. Is anybody complaining about it? Ironically, with the nonsense about climate change, and the removal of fossil fuel powered vehicles, the government is going to lose so much income, one wonders how it will manage? Tax on bicycles? Breathing?
At present, nearly a pound per litre of petrol is duty and VAT – a little under half the pump price. The government takes still more tax, through levies and licences and royalties and corporation tax, ‘upstream.’
Nobody complains because they know it is utterly and completely pointless to object, since the people have zero power – except to change from one bullying political party to an even worse bullying political party, occasionally.
How it will manage? A false question since these are not taxes on an industry but on the PEOPLE while they are daring to buy an essential commodity.
It really should be unlawful for government to pass a Net Zero 2050 demand without having costed it. Firstly in pounds, secondly in opportunity costs and thirdly in cost-benefit analysis.
As just about everyone on here has stated what’s the point of UK going NZ if the RoW is going gangbusters for coal?
Global emissions outweigh UK cuts so our efforts will (literally) be completely futile.
At what point does squandering unknown trillions in order to achieve no global emissions or atmospheric concentrations reductions and a 0C temperature reduction cease to be an ‘investment’ and instead becomes reckless spending?
Also, the small matter of national energy security has already been compromised on several grounds. It’s clear NZ 2050 didn’t consider these risks properly.
1. UK energy based on weather-dependent sources isn’t acceptable.
2. France threatened to pull the Channel interconnectors three times!
3. Relying on Norwegian and global gas spot markets isn’t a secure energy source as both are now impacted by Russian influences.
Energy must be non-negotiable as a UK government obligation. Failure to secure it ought to be an ‘impeachable’ offence, whether against the PM or government.
Net zero is a very stupid idea. Anyone who believes in it should stop exhaling CO2, right now!
Sorry but that’s illogical. Parliament makes the laws so it can just repeal a law that stops it doing what it wants. A parliament cannot bind a future parliament, which is right.
And it’s questionable whether CO2 affects global temperature enough to worry anyway. ECS calcs are very low – see notrickszone website.
Close this steel facility — import steel from elsewhere. That’s a good save-the-world plan.
Maybe the UK is planning to stop using steel entirely. That’s an even better plan.
We are already importing the steel jackets for offshore wind turbines from China.
“…the cost of Net Zero is an existential threat to British industries and manufacturing.”
One omission in the above surely? NZ is very obviously a very clear threat to our National Security
The new Prime Minister doesn’t have to pause Net Zero, but cancel it because it achieves nothing. Manmade carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels has a negligible effect on the climate. It is the sun, nothing else.
” It’s The Sun !” This is one of those concepts that is actively denied and difficult to get across against the propaganda. There’s a useful discussion document doing the rounds that might be found informative here … https://howtheatmosphereworks.wordpress.com/solar-geo-interaction/ …
On July 18th, 2011 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), declared, in Scientific American, that More Than 50% of the heat that keeps Planet Earth Warm in the Universe, comes from the fission reactor at the Earth’s core. Not one Climate Change Forecast includes this Scientific Fact of how Planet Earth works. All the studies look only to the Sun for answers. That means All Current Projections examining Climate Change are missing 50% . . . 1 / 2 of the Input Factors effecting the Surface Temperature of the Earth!
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/nuclear-fission-confirmed-as-source-of-more-than-half-of-earths-heat/
Science is an EVOLVING mechanism . . . yesterday’s news MUST become todays truth.
I have already seen a quoted “govt response” on this from Politico. Apparently large companies like Tata have big pockets and should dig deeper. A mindless response.
And Tata will respond by saying, ‘thanks very much, we’re off’. There are plenty of countries in the developing world, who haven’t yet fallen for the ‘Year Zero’ ecocide ruse, will welcome them with open arms. As recent events in Eastern Europe have demonstrated, any country that doesn’t encourage self sufficiency in food, energy and critical infrastructure supply and support, is betraying its’ people and leaving them vulnerable to penury, misery and foreign exploitation. But, on the evidence of their actions, that would seem to be the plan all along by many of our political leaders. Fancy that?
This also needs to be seen in the context of Tata’s Dutch operations.Tata Steel’s operations in South Wales are effectively run as a junior partner of the much larger steelworks in Ijmuiden. Traditionally, the Tata Steel Europe management team, which is dominated by the Dutch, has sacrificed the interests of its non-Dutch operations in order to maintain maximum throughput at its principal site and I sense that this initiative will amount to more of the same.
The proposal from Tata Steel is to install electric arc facilities at its Port Talbot steelworks, with the result that the whole ironmaking side of the business (Coke Ovens, Blast Furnaces etc.) would be dismantled, and the plant would become dependent on imported billet and scrap steel to feed its rolling mills etc.
Is Tata Steel also proposing to end Ironmaking at its treasured Ijmuiden plant, or is this just a means of closing Port Talbot and blaming it on the UK Government?
The Welsh Assembly “Government” has an extensive 50mph speed limit on the M4 through Port Talbot, including the steel works and claim it is to “reduce pollution.” The fact that greater vehicle numbers accrete by slowing everybody down and keeping them in the area for a longer period, producing more exhaust emissions, seems to have escaped them.
If they allow the steel works to close, pollution will be reduced significantly, no one will have a job around there, so traffic will be reduced as well.
Simples…
They are just a load of No good boyos.
No good Boyo goes out in the dinghy Zanzibar, ships the oars, drifts slowly in the dab–filled bay, and, lying on his back in the unbaled water, among crabs’ legs and tangled lines, looks up at the spring sky.
NOGOOD BOYO. (Softly, lazily) I don’t know who works there and I don’t care.
Apologies to the great wordsmith Dylan Thomas
You produce more ‘emissions’ from dropping a single drop of fuel as you refill than burning the whole tank, in a modern car. The Senedd is insane.
I checked the NAEI emissions map. I can find no evidence that the 50mph limit is having any effect on PM 10, NO2 or CO2. The map can be set to show just road transport, The only sector of the Welsh M4 with poor emissions is the back of Newport around the Brynglas tunnels which are a regular traffic jam.
An internal combustion engine using compressed natural gas (CNG) produces around half the CO2, almost zero NOX and particulates.
CNG is halfway to the hydrogen economy. If only we had a ready supply of the stuff.
JF
Successive Govts. have ignored repeated requests for help from the steel industry for at least the last 15 years.Wasnt it Gordon Brown who shut down Redcar?
It’s all here in this report. Steel making is to be reduced to a recycling procedure making high grade steel by some as yet unavailable technology.
”
Steel sector: All exsiting forms of blast furnace production, which are already under great pressure due to global over-capacity, are not compatible with zero-emissions. However, recycling powered by renewables, has tremedous opportunities for growth exploiting the fact that steel scrap supply will treble in the next 30 years. There are short term innovation opportunities related to delivering the highest quality of steel from recycling, and longer-term opportunities for technologies for zero- carbon steel making from ore that could be deployed after 2050.”
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1810/299414/REP_Absolute_Zero_V3_20200505.pdf?sequence=9&isAllowed=y
As the report was part funded by the Government, they can hardly say that they unaware of what is about to happen. Of course on the other hand the general public would probably never seen it. Too busy watching Love Island. Well they won’t love this island when the alarmists are finished.
Mike,
blast furnaces make iron, not steel, and iron is required for many items, apart from being further processed to make steel.
Whether we can recyle enough iron to supply the requirements of the market, I don’t know but I’m sure the politicians don’t know either?
If the next PM needs a get out for NZ, then perhaps he/she should call on the UN to negotiate a NZ Treaty for the world. That could delay things for a few/many years.
Why is everyone talking about New Zealand? I’m confused.
“…misled Parliament…”
But they WANTED to be misled.
‘You can’t cheat an honest man, never give a sucker an even break, or smarten up a chump.’ The words of Larcen[y] E. Whipsnade, played by W.C. Fields in the 1939 film,
‘You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man.’
I had forgotten the last of these three admonitions. Obviously our Establishment has not forgotten it.
“Great Britains Second Industrial Revolution and a New Prime Minister”
The coming of a New Prime Minister got me thinking so here are some thoughts from an Englishman in the USA.
The United Kingdom is a GREAT country but looking at it from the outside for the last 20 years I now fear for the word GREAT in “Great Britain”.
My focus is on something we all use, we all need every day and is required to keep the world moving ……. “ENERGY”
Like in many other parts of Europe and the World it looks to me like crazies have taken over in the UK. Green policies and Net Zero Emissions are leading England into the madness of so called renewable energy. This is not a fanciful observation, UK and European radicals think that Solar Panels and Wind Turbines will power the future saving us from a mild manageable temperature increase which is absolutely no threat to any British person let alone mankind.
They cannot save us from a non existent threat and now Germany is in the midst of that realisation. Germany is the European poster child and has spent vast sums of money over may years to get just about nowhere. What they have ended up with are outrageously high domestic and industrial electrical prices, no Nuclear, dependence on Russian Gas and now the fact that digging up coal is about the only choice they have of keeping the lights on. If they really had been worried about Co2 emissions in the first place they would have followed the French down the Nuclear path and saved them selves a great deal of pain.
Back to the United Kingdom and its prospective new leader. None of them have yet to my knowledge mentioned Green Polices or Net Zero. The British population sits atop a vast potential supply of energy which is in the form of Natural Gas. In a similar way to the USA we could be Energy independent. We already have an existing Gas infrastructure and if we moved forward with Fracking the existing gas under our feet just think how far ahead of Europe and the World we could be in the next few years.
Residential electric bills could come down to sensible affordable levels, domestic heating costs would plummet. Industry could become competitive again which could potentially lead to new jobs. Cheaper fertiliser could be sold to our farmers and then around the world. Our food, our manufacturing industry, our population could flourish. Our people could take advantage of an amazing cost effective natural resource that is the GREAT BRITISH ENERGY of Natural Gas.
All this can be achieved NOW with current technology and in a relatively short period of time. It needs courageous leadership to get the GREAT back in Great Britain and move us forward into THE SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.
A small benefit would be potential reduction in the emission of British Co2 which currently only stands at about 1% so in reality not making a big difference to the world. If we did this and politicians saw the light it could be a transition to a cleaner Nuclear future, we already have the makings of small nuclear power with Rolls Royce. Has someone in our government the courage to pull the United Kingdom out of the “ Green Pit Of Doom “ and up into the Natural Gas Light of a Second revolution.
This energy revolution was achieved already during the last administration in the United States so it is a proven pathway to cheaper energy costs and energy independence. It is also plane to see that the current Green Progressive policies of the current American government have been an unmitigated disaster and do not work, sadly the USA is following the failed policy of Germany back into the pit of doom.
DO NOT let the UK follow like a lamb to the slaughter into the catastrophic madness of so called Green Technology.
WAKE UP and smell the GREAT BRITISH ROSE that is Natural Gas Energy and let it catapult us into a NEW INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
.
Well said Richard, hope you don’t mind, I’ve copied your comments to post onto various fracking supporting and some anti fracking sites.
I’d prefer not to use natural gas for power production. NG achieves its greatest value where energy is required without too much clean-up.
Urban home heating is a good use for gas because there are no emissions of SO2 or NOx. Wood and coal are not suitable sources of energy at small scale and in urban settings, because the smoke is sooty and contain SO2 and NOx. It is therefore reasonable to use NG for home heating, and reasonable to discourage coal and wood burning for home heating in urban areas.
Even if coal is not well suited for small and urban settings, this should not lead us to the conclusion that coal should not be used at all. In fact, coal is by far the best choice of fuel for large industrial energy supply, and especially for firm-flexible (reliable) power production.
By maintaining access to global coal reserves, coal fired power stations help to diversify energy supply.
As coal and gas compete in world markets, their prices will tend to align over moderate time periods.
Whereas gas can be difficult and is relatively costly to store (suitable facilities and cost of compression), coal can be more economically stored at the point of use because we can create vast stocks right at the power station using stacking and reclaimers.
Coal combustion can be fully cleaned-up in a large industrial setting, all the way to trace amounts of particulates and acid gases.
Put these things together, and keeping a significant share of coal in the total energy mix increases security of energy supply in the most economic way.
It is an act of self-harm for the UK (and other economies) to turn their backs on coal fired power generation.
For the ones that have trued, the only real question is: how long will it take to suffer insecure and expensive energy before realise that the true economic value of coal fired power generation far exceeds any theoretical future harm due to CO2.
” how long will it take to suffer insecure and expensive energy before realise that the true economic value of coal fired power generation far exceeds any theoretical future harm due to CO2.”
Only coal offers the combination of relatively low construction costs, relatively low operational costs, relatively reliable operation and the ability to stockpile months of fuel at the power station.
After several decades of supporting the concept of nuclear fission to generate electricity in the UK, I now think that Hinkley C should be the end.
From 2019:
”
This project has a similar history: when EDF first started promoting this scheme in 2008, the government priced it at around £4bn, for completion by 2017. After last month’s announcement, the price tag is up to £22.5bn.
”
https://www.building.co.uk/focus/why-have-costs-gone-up-at-hinkley-point-c/5102058.article
May 2022 construction cost stated as £25bn to £26bn.
Mucky R
Hinkley Point is the wrong technology, chosen for bad political reasons. We can do a whole lot better if we have sensible choices of proven technology and don’t insist on pretending that the UK is at risk of a magnitude 9+ earthquake.
@ IDAU, I’ve probably previously posted the estimated construction costs for a twin PWR reactor Sizewell B https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/sizewell-is-targeted-for-nuclear-expansion-1540797.html £3.5billion at 1992 prices
The “Mucky R” moniker might have to be used!
My error, twin PWR was previously proposed for “C” not “B”
Excellent . . .
Read the following as PROOF that ‘Clean Green Energy does NOT exist !!
https://www.allaboutenergy.net/350-energy/today/electric-vehicles-and-batteries/3199-batteries-renewable-energy-and-evs?highlight=WyJqaW0iLCJsZSIsIm1haXN0cmUiLCJqaW0gbGUiLCJqaW0gbGUgbWFpc3RyZSIsImxlIG1haXN0cmUiXQ==
Facts ALWAYS Trump conjecture . . .
Assuming she wins, this will be in her in-tray on day one. She won’t cancel or suspend NZ, she’ll hand all the money back in disguised subsidies and keep the steel industry alive that way. She won’t cancel NZ until her Backbenchers are howling about it, and so far they think it’s just great.
Part of the plan. First destroy heavy industry and the rest of industry will follow.
Once the people lose their ability to sustain themselves they’ll be dependent on the government for everything and the plan will be complete.
“…dependent on the government for everything…”
The only thing a government provides (is an actual producer of) is coercion.
So the actual situation will be, “dependent on the government for permission for everything.” If the government – in effect if not deliberate purpose – denies permission TO LIVE, the whole population will die. We may hope that will not actually happen, but it is certain that the experiment of denying permission to live will be attempted – is being attempted – everywhere in the West. And, so far, the population is wildly applauding every stumbling step on the way to its appointment with the scaffold.
I understand the sentiments of the commander of the Vogon destructor fleet, just before he zapped Earth out of existence. “You should have objected sooner. People who take no interest in local politics! Bloody apathetic lot. I could read you more of my poetry. No? Fire!”
The only way a government can help is to reduce taxes and get out of our way.
Well, Chaswarnertoo, that is,
“Laissez-faire! Laisser-passer.”
There was a time when this was a comprehensive, respectable, living philosophy. Not any more. I estimate that genuine Libertarianism is the doctrine of perhaps 1% of the population of the West.
The rest, it seems to me, are divided into four roughly equal groups; 25% Full-on Socialists, 24%* Luke-warm Socialists, 25% Leave Me A Crust to Live On!, and 25% Whatever God or Fate Decides!
None of these people even seem to know there once was a World where vulgar, dishonest, and brutal politics was not the be-all and end-all. None of them seem to know anything, or be able to think straight, except perhaps in narrow, job-related areas
When, if ever, will Atlas shrug?
* I am trying to add up to 100%!
That did not work out too well in Sri Lanka.
No truer words could be said !!!
I worked 12 years in Economic development . . . You loose Primary Industries . . . You Destroy demand and income throughout the regional economy . . . Scocialist rhetoric will NEVER comprehend these truths . . . The following paper speaks to this painful reality . . . The Irony of the written word . . .
https://www.allaboutenergy.net/47-environmentalists-for-nuclear-united-states/people/people-north-america/3198-the-irony-of-the-written-word?highlight=WyJqaW0iLCJsZSIsIm1haXN0cmUiLCJqaW0gbGUiLCJqaW0gbGUgbWFpc3RyZSIsImxlIG1haXN0cmUiXQ==
Paul,
You must have a look at the BBC news website this morning – a load of rubbish about how US industries cast “doubt” on AGW.
I couldn’t read it all I felt so sick🤢
The BBC has gone full conspiracy theory on climate change. It’s childish nonsense from beginning to end, a world where apparently people who run businesses are inherently evil and willing to let the planet they live on die just to be richer until that point. It’s a bad Ben Elton novel (forgotten the title) taken seriously by what appear to be permeant teenagers.
Mr. phoenix . . . I concur . . . writ LARGE . . .
Our challenge is the ‘millions’ of of ‘Scientific papers’ that say otherwise. My research demonstrates that it ALL goes back to Michael man’s ‘Hockey Stick’ graph where his ‘findings’ removed the Middle Ages Warming period and the Little Ice Age completely from the pages of History, statistically. The IPCC swallowed this ‘Data’ hook, line and sinker ever since 2001 where his graph first appeared. Global media and in turn Bureaucrats and their respective Governments, the World over, have bought in to the ‘Lie’ . . . My 40 year old Daughter, a science major, has ‘Great Difficulty’ accepting that this one graph could be Sooo wrong. Hundreds of graphs dating back at least 70 years from core samples, lake bottoms and tree ring readings say otherwise . . . Yet, Michael Mann’s graph still ‘Rules’. I am inclined to call this linkage to one graph . . . a virtual conspiracy . . . In the following paper it is compared to 4 other ‘researchers’ graphs . . . there are none so blind as those who will NOT see . . .
https://www.allaboutenergy.net/217-environment/man-made-global-warming-organizations-discussing-all-positions/world/3334-false-protagonism?highlight=WyJqaW0iLCJsZSIsIm1haXN0cmUiLCJqaW0gbGUiLCJqaW0gbGUgbWFpc3RyZSIsImxlIG1haXN0cmUiXQ==
To me, this is like spreading ‘evidence’ that the Earth is FLAT . . . Science PROOVES that it is NOT . . . Yet the protagonists and the masses call this ‘Fact’ . . . Denial from Deniers . . . Shall be seen as Heathens to ‘The Faith’ . . . .
“Gridlock”?
No PM can pause net zero with the Climate Change Act in force. The courts are already breathing down the government’s neck…
The Government’s unlawful Net Zero Strategy
On 18 July 2022, the High Court ruled that the Government’s Net Zero Strategy (“NZS”) – the cornerstone of its strategy to transition to a green and sustainable future – was unlawful. It decided that the obligations set out in sections 13 and 14 of the Climate Change Act 2008 (“CCA”) had not been satisfied and ordered the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to lay a new report before Parliament by the end of March 2023.
https://www.cms-lawnow.com/ealerts/2022/07/the-governments-unlawful-net-zero-strategy
Parliament creates lots of Acts but whether various sections are actually enacted is a decision Governments make. The clearest example is there is an enacted statutory requirement for all Health Care workers to be Covid vaccinated, but as this section of the Health and Social Care Act (reform) 2008 was a stupid idea, it sort of gets ignored.
Just modify sections 13 and 14.
It’s time that the strategy was declared unlawful from the other end: I.e. because it will cause economic and societal collapse implemented.
Steel is a basic industry in any modern country and should never have been given away to Tata in the first place who continually seek bail outs to keep their own pockets lined. That said we need steel to build all the windmills – well no most of it gets built overseas despite Kwasi telling us we are leading the world in wind generation. Almost none of the high value stuff is made in the UK our limit is labour to dig up the roads to run in the cables.
Steel is a low value commodity in very country. Whoever can make it cheapest should make it and we should spend our money and labour making stuff that’s more valuable. We can’t possibly make everything we need without vastly increasing the cost of everything we need. Try using steel for most of its applications without chips these days. But we don’t make chips and its a shortage of those that is far more of a problem than steel right now.
54% of global steel manufacture is in China. Do you want to increase our China dependence yet further?
Those words my dear sir is what has DOOMED the western economies to become ‘Shackled’ hands and feet by China into our eternal economic demise . . .
Gov’t are letting big emitters go as they get large CO2 reductions for a relatively small number of jobs lost. They deem the trade-off a least worst option.
They’re also setting up the owners as the bad guys; see how Tata are pitched as having ‘deep pockets’. The premise will be Tata refused to pay therefore they carry the blame for plant closure.
Sensible people will see gov’t have moved the goalposts and are knowingly making UK steel production unviable.
Gov’t will then announce a ‘jobs package’ for Port Talbot to replace Tata’s lost jobs and further down the line will claim the ‘carbon emissions cuts’ as their own great Net Zero work!
They may try to offer a Potemkin village hydrogen hub, which would require even greater subsidies that they haven’t quote yet worked out how to try to hide, or even calculated how ginormous they need to be.
The Climate Change Committee constantly misleads government. Indeed Lord Deben has ben accused of making a fortune out of climate misinformation. Why is no-one challenging this influential, self serving but unaccountable quango?
His term is up in a few months. The green blob is doubtless already planning a worse successor.
I was forced to shout at the BBB on radio 4 yesterday, that twit Rowlatt saying that Tata want to decarbonise the steel industry at Port Talbot by closing the blast furnaces and putting in electric arc furnaces – sounds a really good move, but they forgot to say arc furnaces only recycle existing steel – they cannot make new iron from iron ore ! As yet there is no viable alternative to making iron – the ore has to be smelted with coke. Hence the need for the new mine in Cumbria to help make us self sufficient in coking coal – or maybe we won’t need it if all the blast furnaces are closed !
Now would be a good time to recall Boris’s last cabinet meeting and the words of our great departing PM.
” …with record temperatures in this country, who can doubt that we were right to be the first major economy to go for net-zero. The right thing to do to protect our planet from global warming, and what we did at COP26 was very important for the world. Never forget the massive economy to transition, bringing millions and millions of clean technology driven jobs in the future for our country”
That was ‘bringing’!
Yes, we drive out the geophysicists and geologists and instead have lots of people putting insulation in lofts. Because thats good for the country…
“…putting insulation in lofts.”
Making an industry out of minor, do-it-yourself jobs…oh dear.
Spot on for Richard Bell above.
Lord Deben, otherwise known as the Rt.Hon. John Gummer, BSE, CJD,
Just a moment ago on BBC news they were interviewing yet another of those Just Stop Oil harradins. She said the goverment had to tackle the two major crises now affecting the UK: The cost of living crisis and the Climate Change emergency.
I thought to myself, you can’t do both, because trying to comabt the latter will only exacerbate the former. In any case, if you could just stop oil how would you be able to distribute food and health care?
Furthermore if you stop Fossil Fuels you can’t build the components for Solar Panels or Wind Turbines . . . in China . . . They burn MORE Fossil Fuels Building these ‘Clean Energy’ solutions than they will EVER replace during their ENTIRE productive lifetime . . .
https://www.allaboutenergy.net/270-energy/today/multiple-energy-types/world/3208-clean-green-energy-net-zero-fairy-tales-on-steroids?highlight=WyJqaW0iLCJsZSIsIm1haXN0cmUiLCJqaW0gbGUiLCJqaW0gbGUgbWFpc3RyZSIsImxlIG1haXN0cmUiXQ==
Fact . . . NOT Environmentalist Propaganda !!!
The Climate Change Act 2008 killed off the aluminium, heavy chemicals and ceramics industries
Net Zero will finish it off