Britain’s paralysis will allow China to obliterate our lead in renewable power–Ben Marlow
By Paul Homewood
It is sad to think there used to be a time when the Telegraph’s business journalists knew what they were talking about:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/06/02/britains-paralysis-china-obliterate-renewable-power/
Marlow makes several spurious and misleading claims:
He forgets to mention that all of this trailblazing has already cost the country over £80 billion, and according to the OBR will cost us nearly another £100 billion during the next five years. That is why other countries have been reluctant to follow suit!
As for Hornsea powering 2.5 million homes, maybe he would like to tell us what all of those homes are supposed to do when the wind does not blow:
He talks as if this is all something new!
Crying out for investment? What he means is spending yet more tens of billions increasing grid capacity and connecting out of area wind farms. And all of this will be added to our energy bills. Maybe Mr Marlow should do his job, and investigate just how much this will cost, and then explain to us why he still thinks it is a good idea.
He then makes this particularly fatuous comment:
Clue, Mr Marlow: we are not facing energy rationing because we have not got enough wind farms, but because we have shut nearly all of our reliable coal power stations. Meanwhile, in case he had not noticed, China continues to build coal power. And that is why China still only gets 11% of its power from wind and solar.
Apparently we are all going to be saved though:
100 GW of renewable power? Wow, that must be a lot!!
Perhaps next time though, Mr Marlow should do his sums first. That 100 GW will probably generate about 130 TWh a year; global electricity output is over 28000 TWh, so the extra will amount to less than half a percent. Worse still for the silver lining he talks about, global demand for electricity is rising at a rate of about 700 TWh a year, so increases in renewable capacity won’t even keep up with demand.
But I was particularly intrigued by the claim that “China is outpacing the rest of the world”. His link takes us to this article:
Britain risks becoming in thrall to Beijing due to its growing reliance on renewable energy, a new Lords report has warned.
A House of Lords committee warned that Britain is becoming too dependent on China for the supply of rare earth elements used to manufacture wind turbines and components for solar panels.
China’s control over the global industry creates “new risks” as it leaves Britain at the mercy of Beijing for supplies.
The Lords committee warned that Xi Jinping could use rare earth mineral supplies as “leverage” in negotiations over other issues. Jason Bordoff, of the Columbia Climate School, told the committee China’s dominance in the critical minerals market was a "national security concern" and said the Government should work to reduce the nation’s reliance on Chinese exports.
The Economic Affairs Committee issued the warning in a report on how the Government can secure the nation’s energy supply while delivering on promises to combat climate change.
The committee recommended more investment in the North Sea to deliver domestic supplies of oil and gas and encouraged policy measures to boost private investment in renewables.
In other words, the total opposite of what Mr Marlow is calling for.
Finally he claims:
The IEA’s figures are based on spurious levelised cost estimates.
In reality, the renewable capacity added in the last two years has added to UK energy bills, not reduced them. And he is obviously not aware that the CfDs agreed for renewable projects due to come on stream in the next few years are not legally binding on generators, and that as a consequence energy bills will not fall as a result.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I hate the common pathetic rubbish whereby any economic development is ginned up as a “race” where there are leads to be lost … the metaphor is a stinker. In this case the purpose is a stinker too. As, alas, is Ben Marlow – quite clueless.
The man to follow in the Tel is the Blessed Ambrose who swings entertainingly between talking utter tripe and putting his finger on a good point. You never know what’ll you’ll get from Evans-Pritchard. Except on climate and so on where he’s fallen for all the Climate Emergency nonsense.
“…a race…”
Such silly notions are a hang-over from the crass economics of Mercantalism.
Unless you are actually preparing and hoping for an ever-lasting war (which some elitists probably are!) it is idiotic. However, since some countries do feel it is a race and hope to leverage economic power into military power we cannot entirely ignore the point of view.
Yes I agree. AEP gets a fair amount of stick here, but actually he often does write very penetrating comments on various subjects. I have exchanged emails with him, and he is quite prepared to ask questions on various subjects. We don’t agree about wind farms but he is well aware of views as expressed here. Personally I think it is worth engaging with him on a serious factual level. he might not always agree with one’s view, but then why should he?
Exactly. And in this case it’s really bizarre as he’s talking about essentially buying it, not innovating and making it. Economic development is not a race at all. And as China will soon find out, “winning” means you have no customers.
The best one could say of the UK’s leadership in windmills (the Saudi Arabia of offshore etc), is that we lead the world in buying-in other countries expensive technology for offshore power: some claim to fame!
What has the HoC, the Lords, etc. say about this? Oh, right, nothing.
Windmills are a useless power source. Not even Green taking account of manufacture, land despoliation and 101 additional drawbacks.
A coup for Ed M’band and his foreign masters, a huge loss for the rest of us.
‘will allow China to obliterate our lead in renewable power’
. . . preventing UK from winning the race to the bottom. Not that China is actually in the race. And 2nd place seems no better than 1st place.
What is this so-called ‘lead in renewable power’ worth in pounds sterling? Or in billions of elephants?
‘UK’s green ambitions are being thwarted by an insurmountable wall of red tape’
Damn people are able to speak up and stop what they don’t want. Note that “UK’s” ambitions are not the people’s ambition. It is the elitists in control of the government who have ‘green ambitions.’ And they don’t care how many have to die to get there – yes, they are evil. Basic understanding reveals their ambition will not support 85% of the current population of UK. And in the run up, citizens will be forced to spend exorbitant capital for negative return (EVs, heat pumps).
‘Maybe Mr Marlow should do his job, and investigate just how much this will cost, and then explain to us why he still thinks it is a good idea.’
Marlow finds it more rewarding to audition for the elites. He wants to be in the ruling clique. Meaning he has sold his soul.
Whatever else you may think about China, it is not going to wreck its economy by having the same “climate”, “green” , “net zero” and electric car obsessions as is the case with politicians in European countries, California in particular in the USA and the Democrats in general in the USA.
The UK will soon lead China in the number of children per one orange.
it is just utter nonsense to claim that failing to build wind power is “losing a race”. It is flat-Earth Economics of the most absurd kind. There is no race, economies depend one ach other and we all get wealthier if other countries also get wealthier. Growth is not a zero sum game.
With apology to Lenin, China is selling rope
The sad thing is that when we still had a decent amount of industry annual electricity demand topped out at just over 400TWh, yet today it has fallen dramatically. In 2022 consumption was just 273TWh and generation 326TWh. The difference is largely the result of exports and transmission losses. So in reality it has little to do with demand. It’s all about inconvenient supply as a result of rising renewables penetration.