AEP’s Latest Rant
By Paul Homewood
h/t Robin Guenier
When AEP throws his toys out of the pram, you know the Net Zero agenda is in big trouble!
It’s not worth pasting the whole article. It’s the usual load of twaddle.
But let’s take a closer look at his claims:
1) He claims we are losing our leadership in the clean-tech race. In his words, “China is running away with the great prize of the 21stC”.
But building more solar farms and EVs does not alter the fact that China dominates the manufacturing side; not least because of its access to cheap coal power.
2) He claims that the UK is at risk of sticking to horse-power as others embrace the steam engine. But we switched to steam power because it was so much better. If renewables and EVs were so good, we would switch again, without the need for bans and subsidies.
3) He goes on to claim that greenhouse gas emissions have already peaked in most of the world, and are even peaking today in China.
Although economic growth has slowed since 2019, there is no sign that global emissions have peaked. Since 2010, while OECD emissions have dropped by 11%, non-OECD have risen by 27% and are now double the former.
4) He repeats the usual nonsense that renewable energy is much cheaper, but ignores the wider system costs and refuses to accept that you simply cannot run a modern economy on wind and solar power alone.
5) He talks of EVs reaching purchase price parity by 2025 – (which planet is he on?) – if he is right, of course, we would not need to ban petrol cars.
6) As usual, AEP is gushing about how wonderful China are! What is it with AEP and China? Don’t worry about all these new coal power plants they are building, he says, because they are building 6 GW of renewable capacity for every 1 GW of coal, which is only needed now as back up.
What a clown! Does he not know that this 1 GW of coal power will produce more electricity than his 6 GW of solar?
China know full well that they need fossil fuels for the bulk of their energy, and that wind and solar can only ever be top ups – that is why they still only supply 7% of the country’s energy.
AEP is right about one thing though. He stresses that China is desperate to become energy independent, scared that it could have supplies of oil and gas shut off in a global conflict. That, of course, is why they are maximising their own reserves of coal, as well as doing deals with Russia.
But what about the other side of the coin? His renewable dream would leave the UK and the rest of the West at the tender mercy of Xi and the CCCP. Don’t forget that when the current batch of solar panels and EVs pack up in ten or fifteen years time, we will need to replace them with new ones from China.
That’s not a future I would care to think about. I am surprised AEP thinks otherwise.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Paul thank you for summarising his article. I saw he had an article in the Telegraph and I swiped past it as I knew it would be a load of horsepoo. You saved me valuable minutes in my life. Many thanks.
Nothing wrong with horsepoo, it greatly enhances the roses.
AP’s claptrap however…
Who is greasing his palm?
https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/committed-grants?q=telegraph#committed_grants
Who else?
1,379 comments so far 3pm, 2nd Aug), and counting. The majority strongly echoing Paul’s line.
In most lines of work you would be hauled in for an interview without coffee for such shoddy work. The DT allow AEP and former Guardianista writer Suzanne Moore to peddle nonsense:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/07/25/corfu-rhodes-greece-climate-change-threat-global-warming/
He seems to talk in nameplate outputs. He’s either stupid enough to believe they are possible or he is devious enough to think he can fool his readers into believing what, without a doubt, are downright lies.
As for being a cheerleader for China, he’s playing with the big boys now: those with a more ruthless attitude to those who would not be committed team players. I live in hope that he will live to regret his misplaced loyalties before we do.
AEP and former Guardian writer Suzanne Moore are trashing any credibility the DT has. Mo wonder subscribers are baling out in droves.
DT is currently being peddled amongst interested media parties by Lloyds – apart from the Daily Mail, I wonder which other MSM entity is hovering – could it be that AEP has an eye on the auction to come….
Perhaps he knows the Chinese are interested?
My thoughts too – cannot conceive they would be directly “interested”, but they might be sufficiently interested in a UK MSM outlet and fund a Trojan Horse in the same way they have infected every other strand of western life…..? But then again, let’s not get carried away…..”no wait, it DID start in Wuhan”
I commented on the article in the DT this morning. A colleague sent this to me, which sums up AE-P:
The root of the issue is that he has no principled understanding of energy as a concept in physics, and relies on press releases and market babble to ground his opinions. He believes the people who take him out to lunch, and believes them in a passive and uncritical sort of way.
The fact that his gods have feet of clay will be very hard for him to compute, since admitting that renewables are the problem will also mean accepting that he has been lied to or at least misled, and that he was gullible enough to accept the lies and the misdirection.
Tell me, have you ever known AEP to be right about anything, ever? He is interesting, but when it comes to getting things right, he’s a zero.
A bit OT but we do not seem to hear about how much of our valuable farm land is being made over to products for bio fuel. On walks we seem to find endless fields of maize and broad beans. Are these ending up as E10? Surely its mad to do this when we import so much of our food and supermarkets are increasingly offering empty shelves for some items.
Most maize is grown to feed Anaerobic Digesters. It is the most land-intensive method of generating ruinable energy ever invented.
I wonder what the EROI of biofuels is as well as how much embedded fossil fuel energy (e.g. diesel fuel for tractors) and derivatives (e.g natural gas for fertiliser) there is and how its useful energy compare if we burn it directly especially if all the natural gas goes to a CCGT operating a 61% efficiency.
The majority of maize grown in the UK is for animal feed particularly for dairy cattle.
A fuel check on youtube showed that it would seem that E10 fuel is a bit of a myth as the ethanol content was a maximum of 5% for BP and Shell and just 2% for Esso. The regulation is for ‘up to 10%’ allowing lower levels.
Fuel sold as E10 will have an ethanol content that depends on the refinery where it was blended and the economics of its operations that will be changing constantly. Most fuel is provided by particular distribution terminals which may be directly fed by pipeline, or by coaster or dedicated rail replenishment. In most parts of the country the fuel you buy from Sainsbury or BP or Esso comes from the same distribution terminal, with sharing and offtake exchange agreements avoiding the need for duplicate assets. Only tiny quantities of additives injected when the road tanker is loaded differentiate (example for Shell V Power fuels).
The remaining refineries are Esso Fawley (Southampton), Valero Pembroke, Essar Stanlow, Prax Lindsey, Phillips Humber and PetroIneos Grangemouth. Esso is the only major brand with its own UK refinery.
The minimum permitted ethanol content if E10 us 5.5%.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2021/199/made
Listening to BBC PM just now I realise there is another name to add to the list of those wishing this country ill: Evan Davies! I’ve never known a time when I shout at the radio as when he’s talking about – pushing it, actually – NZ. The way the BBC is pushing this totalitarian solution to a non-problem – and one that, in this country would make not a blind bit of difference to the climate – is beyond the pale. He is now the new Lord Haw-Haw.
“He is now the new Lord Haw-Haw.” Very, very strong words Harry. Sadly equally strongly true.
P21 of the NG ESO FES 2023 Report :
“In the face of the unprecedented changes seen in the UK and around the world, it has become clearer that the transition to an energy system supplied predominantly by weather dependent sources, and a reformed market to underpin it, will deliver many benefits.”
Weather dependent sources? What past century do the NG ESO want us to live in? What happened to the Enlightenment and all our science and engineering? As I’ve seen written elsewhere, the last gang who wanted to deliberately impose impoverishment on its people was Pol Pot and we all know how well that ended.
Unprecedented changes? Where? What?
What benefits?
The UK wind power lobby says its renewables (are so cheap they) need bigger handouts than ever.
Jul 06, 2023
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Wind-Power/Wind-Lobbyists-Push-UK-Government-For-More-Subsidies.html
Farage had a person on last night that outlined that situation. made a refreshinh change from the usual throw away sound bites.
55 minutes in.
Stop these Things looks at an analysis from the Manhattan Contrarian – World Now Wasting $1 Trillion Or More Per Year Investing In Useless “Renewables”
Manhattan Contrarian Francis Menton, 29 June 2023
“Here’s the big picture:
Primary energy demand . . . in 2022 increas[ed] 1.1%. . . .
Global electricity generation increased by 2.3% in 2022 . . . .
Fossil fuel consumption as a percentage of primary energy remained steady at 82%. . . .
Carbon dioxide emissions from energy use, industrial processes, flaring and methane (in carbon dioxide equivalent terms) continued to rise to a new high growing 0.8% in 2022 to 39.3 GtCO2e, with emissions from energy use rising 0.9% to 34.4 GtCO2.
Bottom line: it’s now $1 trillion per year, plus or minus, invested in wind and solar “renewables” plus grid upgrades and energy storage needed to accommodate them.
And for that vast sum of money, the percent of primary energy from fossil fuels does not budge by even a tenth of a percent. And, as world energy consumption increases, carbon emissions just continue to increase. The trillion is just completely wasted.”
And the climate shrugs…
What powers a clean-tech revolution?
Virtue signalling, incompetence, greed and malice.
Meanwhile, to the surprise of no one:
https://climatechangedispatch.com/california-turns-to-fossil-fuels-again-for-electricity-during-heat-wave/
Follow the money.
Is that Gates funding the Telegraph via his money laundering Foundation?
Why do so many people in the West believe that making the latest Green stuff is so vital? Let China make it and we will make whatever it is they stop making to switch resources to solar panels. We seem to have regressed in our understanding of Economics somewhere between 100 and 200 years, depending on the subject.
China has always had that sort of magical, mystical atmosphere, hasn’t it. Silk, gunpowder, writing, tea, jade, ceramics. Impenetrable language, Marvellous place.
And yet couldn’t make glass which underpinned a lot of the progress in science, and in a programme that asked why did the Industrial Revolution start in England, cited this as a major reason.
There was an entertaining interview on Talk TV this morning between JHB and her guest Edmund Gemmell, leader of the Climate Party. The latter spouting almost verbatim from the AEP hymn book but well rebuffed by JHB.
Bags of nonsense from AEP as usual. The Telegraph is waving the NetZero flag without understanding the science. There is a mild sense of scepticism developing amongst the elite but it has long way to go.
Ben Marlow’s piece today (3rd August) tries to appease the DT readers (going after Shapps) yet is still nonsensical green propaganda! Marlow actually says UK gas is sold on the global market (the UK doesn’t have an LNG export facility and only produces half of the gas it uses so the idea of using pipelines to export this back to the nearest facilities in Norway for global sale is ridiculous even before you get to the additional costs and loss of gas inherent in the LNG process).
Anyone who says “global market” as a reason not to domestically produce energy are anti-wealth, anti-British, anti-energy security propagandists. Even for oil we have Brent Crude at a premium to West Texas, we have every incentive to domestically produce oil to reduce costs in the UK.
Marlow then introduces the biggest oxymoron I’ve seen on the British energy debate as he rails against ‘poor’ grid infrastructure while demanding more onshore wind! Yes, those billions used to hook up small wind and solar farm arrays that only get 10-30% utilisation are taking away from reliable CCGTs and future SMRs which means we have a terribly expensive grid! The solution is more of the same problem?!
Oddly Marlow doesn’t want Rolls-Royce to put up a competitive tender for SMRs but to be given it carte blanche, putting all the eggs in the RR basket for valuable sites and grid infrastructure. So, he’s complaining about the one thing the UK government is doing right! That the Telegraph’s “chief city commentator” is demanding a monopoly for crucial technology that is essential for the UK not to turn into a brownout basketcase shouldn’t be shocking nowadays but it’s still sad.
“It’s the usual load of twaddle.” Harsh, Sir! AEP is an interesting case study. On climate he is a Man of Faith and, alas, his religion is utter rubbish.
On other topics, though, he is merely erratic which means that he often says interesting things. In other words, on those other topics he is – insofar as any journalist can afford to be – a Man of Reason.
The question is why so many people have turned Climate Science, so called, into a religion.
Presumably because they lack a traditional religion.
That would certainly explain why so many clerics of the Church of England have joined The Church of the Most Holy Climate Scientists.