Public need to be able to scrutinise the true costs on net-zero energy policy–Euan Mearns
September 27, 2023
By Paul Homewood
Euan Mearns sent me this letter he has had published in his local newspaper:
He tells me there is a serious error in the print version, but the correct version is below:
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Please fix the typo in the headline; it undermines the credibility of the case the doctor makes.
Common sense, no need for a degree qualification to understand what he is saying. However if you have a degree and understand…..
Reactive power
Kinetic Inertia
Rate of change of frequency trips
Three phase distribution
I squared t rating of HVDC to ac convertor stations (overload withstand time)
Then we are vastly increasing the risk of blackouts and possibly a total failure of the grid, Imagine no power for 5 days.
Many of us know this and, as you say, it is starkly obvious. Why is it then than nobody in the power distribution industry and specifically in the National Grid have raised their voice to point out the naked absurdity of the Net Zero Position.
We expect the ignorance of politicians but Engineers should speak out.
I have to say that engineers of my acquaintance do chant teh mantra and will not confront the numbers. Why, I dont know
It is very difficult to get someone to disagree with something when agreeing means you keep your job
Well don’t make us cough & Choke! Engineers ? Look her and then the links within to see and understand more about them…https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/poll-more-brexit-reversals-on-the-horizon
An excellent summary of the idiocy of politicians and their useful idiots who are calling for ‘renewable’, a.k.a. ‘unreliable’ electricty.
Well done to the Press & Journal for printing it.
I’m very pleased to see Euan re-entering the fray. The community of knowledgeable contributors who swarmed to his Energy Matters site really helped to tackle issues in depth and increase our mutual understanding, and his contacts and personal expertise borne of being a geologist and chemist were a great underpinning. I hope we will hear more from him, and that he can help once again to drive debate forward.
Seconded!
Hello IDAU,
I have no immediate plans to re-ignite Energy Matters, but that doesn’t mean never. You reach a point where most of what has to be said has been said. Its getting noticed and taken seriously that matters. I have about 6 titles lined up for letters that may or may not get published. Also taking direct contact with UK politicians that so far is one way. We had a paper published earlier this year in Energy Policy on the viability of the Swiss Energy plan that created a furore within ETH Zurich (we weren’t supposed to be working on energy) and we introduced the concept of policy driven research. But then the Finance Dept of the Swiss Parliament contacted us asking for a summary that was published on line on a Swiss Parliament resource and also in print in German and French. I am definitely back writing articles and responding to what appears in the Press and Journal that has become the main anti transition voice in Scotland. There has been little push back so far, but today they publish an article on the virtues of H2 and pumped hydro storage. This is part of their balanced approach that I respect. Responding to this in <1000 words in a language that the public can grasp is a real challenge.
https://dievolkswirtschaft.ch/de/2023/06/ist-die-energiestrategie-2050-umsetzbar/
Thanks to Paul for posting this!
Euan
Hi Euan,
I think that the great body of work that went into Energy Matters, not least from the late Roger Andrews, stands as a vital repository of thought and analysis. I find myself citing it, or going back to check on a half-remembered point fairly often, and I am frequently stunned to be reminded of the quality of the contributions. It is a great foundation upon which to build what comes next.
That is to try to persuade TPTB to see some sense. Doing so requires several strands of action, and I think there is a need to tackle them all with careful application of vigour.
Getting sensible ideas into official channels is one: that means responding to departmental consultations, and ditto from OFGEM and Select Committees in Parliament. Well crafted responses, especially if they come from several different people and angles, will start to percolate. In some cases, the responses get published as part of the enquiry record – and almost always there is a response that reveals whether they have taken notice. This probably requires some orchestration to ensure adequate coverage. I have managed a few – and obviously GWPF does its best on the Parliamentary side, even getting to appear for oral evidence on occasion, but they are a small team, even though they get prominent academics to write good papers. But we need a much more organised and comprehensive effort, I suspect.
Academic channels are useful – I’m sure your time at ETH Zurich demonstrated that you could open doors to data and information by citing your academic credentials – and probably to some of the detail work by think tanks and other academic groups who may have provided support to government policy analysis, but usually understanding what conclusion they were supposed to reach.
Educating the press is also important. There are a number of sympathetic journalists out there whose work would benefit from a bit of polish in the form of expert support so they don’t make mistakes that undermine their work, and so that they have good lines of attack for some of the nonsense journalism that the public are fed. It’s one of the strengths of a site like this that poor journalism gets hauled over the coals. But we need a bit more direct input to journalists who don’t have quite the degree of inquisitiveness and research of a Christopher Booker. Of course, it’s great when people with a real industry background like Kathryn Porter (whom you introduced at Energy Matters) gain a media presence in the press and on TV – something we need more of, and which your letter to the Press and Journal achieved. It is a key element in educating the public.
Then there is Samizdat via the internet – mostly conducted by feeding in comments at reasonably widely read publications. It can be difficult to do at publications that are inherently hostile because they often ban those with opinions they do not like, and do not consider them anyway as being an affront to their beliefs. That is more a pastime to remind them that there is a world outside their echo chambers, and requires skill to survive. Better is to inform in less hostile environments. It can work surprisingly well: you start to see ideas and facts you have planted being quoted by others, and in this way they spread far beyond the initial readership.
Direct political contact, as in writing to your MP, is an exercise in frustration unless the MP is already sympathetic, or one of the rarities who actually try to listen to a reasoned position. It also requires a skill in recognising that they need a message that they can spout without seeming to be too far from the pale. Explaining the very undesirable consequences of government or party policy often does get some traction, because they fear the blowback. I wouldn’t want to claim a full credit, but an example that seems to have produced a result was pointing out repeatedly that requiring landlords to spend silly money on relatively ineffective insulation was only going to result in a housing crisis with evicted tenants and no properties for them to rent. Nurturing MPs and other prominent people in public life who are prepared to listen in much the same way as with journalists is the tactic.
It’s a very different phase.
P.S. I managed with my scratchy German to understand your Swiss article – but I would have struggled to write it! Still, I suppose there’s nothing like time spent in the country for honing a language. Are you still working there?
Euan, good to see you still fighting the good fight.
Hi IDAU and AC,
My time at ETHZ came to a premature end, early 2022, under somewhat disappointing circumstances – money ran out early, the institute got a little nasty with us for publishing a paper that said their energy plan won’t work, COVID screwed up travel plans etc. But the trips I had to Zurich were fantastic – and I miss them. I am 66 in October and consider winding down a little. Part of the mission to ETH was to convert a lot of the blog articles to papers and then a book. Unfortunately that never happened. Several weeks ago I was invited to join Will Happer’s CO2 coalition. They are well-organised and have channels to promote articles wider and influential audiences. Part of my plan is to summarise a lot of the blog content into shorter more accessible articles. And where appropriate to submit these as letters or editorials to local press who appear to be on side. I think local politicians will follow local press. Its a tricky situation in Aberdeen since there is huge hope that renewables are going to replace the oil industry. I’m on a mission to educate.
National Grid has estimated NZ costs as several £££trillions
Well if they did where did they publish and why was this not trumpeted through all the media in the land
” Well if they did where did they publish and why was this not trumpeted through all the media in the land ”
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/news/analysing-costs-our-future-energy-scenarios
Various alternative costs proposed:
” (Leading the Way £2,820bn, Steady Progression £2,930bn, System Transformation £3,020bn and Consumer Transformation £3,020bn) ”
In my view, the above guesstimates are just the starting point.
Thanks for the link Micky. That totals £12 trillion. Dividing by 70 million people I get £171,429 per person. This can’t possibly be true – can it? I had not heard of ESO – electricity system operator for once Great Britain. The grid is fragmented with N Scotland owned by Scottish and Southern and southern Scotland owned by Scottish Power.
” That totals £12 trillion ” . Euan, as I read it, each guesstimated separate cost is an alternative i.e. not to be combined.
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/what-we-do
Thanks Micky, I did say “this can’t possibly be true”. So the sum is £3 trillion / 70 million = £43,000 per head. Happy to pay that on the change I have from my heat pump and EV 😉
I remember the days when the Press and Journal absolutely refused to publish anything that even dared to question the bird mincer scam. I could get things published in most other papers, but not the press and journal. How things have changed!
I came across this document in my files:
Achieving Net Zero: Professor Michael Kelly FRS FREng 1949 –
A report from a putative delivery agency Michael Kelly Note 30 The Global Warming Policy Foundation
“Imagine that I have been appointed the first CEO of a new agency set up by Her Majesty’s Government with the explicit goal of actually delivering Net Zero by 2050. I asked for a few months to be able to scope the project and to estimate the assets required to succeed. This is the result of that exercise, and the consequences that flow from the scale and timescale for meeting the target.
Executive Summary The cost to 2050 will comfortably exceed £3 trillion, a workforce comparable in size to the NHS will be required for 30 years, including a doubling of the present number of electrical engineers, and the bill of specialist materials is of a size that for the UK alone is comparable to the global annual production of many key minerals. On the manpower front we will have to rely on the domestic workforce, as everywhere else in the world is working towards the same target. If they were not so working, the value of the UK-specific target is moot. The scale of this project suggests that a war footing and a command economy will be essential, as major cuts to other favoured forms of expenditure, such as health, education and defence, will be needed. Without a detailed roadmap, as exemplified by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors that drove the electronics revolution after 1980, the target is simply unattainable.”
Thanks for infos. We are truly going to Hell in a hand cart.
It probably worse than that, if you pull the power produced vs. the installed capacity you get a load factor of around 25% for renewable and a shorter service life than advertised, plus declining out with age to boot. And as the chery on the pie what do we do with the turbines blades foundation’s and hulls at end of life?
Just listened to Zac Goldsmith on R4 PM where he was ranting about the government’s decision to open the new oil & gas field by the Shetlands. He got quite agitated, claiming that there are NO representatives of any focus-group or political body that is against NZ. The man is delusional and should be in the same ward at Broadmoor as the fool Packham who has said that giving a licence for the oil field is tantamount to an act of war against this country and NZ. (Plus a few other stupid claims).
EM’s last sentence is exactly the reason today’s politicians don’t focus on costs when it comes to net zero policies, targets and so on. Any semblance of ‘scrutiny’ would be a disaster for them in terms of public reaction, and they surely know it.
Euan”s description of a week long total blackout mid winter should be read by every dim-witted politician. Hardly any of them seem to have taken on board the unreliability of wind and the possibility of a lull lasting weeks. The imminent closure of most nuclear and lack of coal while the gas stations are ageing is leading to a possibility of such a disaster.
In advance, I apologise for the length of this – hopefully folks here will understand why by the end. I woke to my MP, Neil O’Brien, an OBE and not just for his egregious CV “fact checking” rubbish, about his vote in support for the Energy Bill – he replied as below ( which has all the hallmarks of a Cabinet Office/Whitehall prepared script – even I can spot the obvious rubbish and I am no power engineer). It is the whole reason why “dim witted” politicians will not read Dr Mearns’ information; O’Brien is not dim witted but he is a fully paid up bought off member of the WEF Globalist elite that “knows what is best for the rest” – I think a lot better knowledgeable people here will tear his reply apart better than me:
Dear XXXXXX,
Thank you for contacting me about the Energy Bill.
As you may be aware, the aim of the Bill is to help increase the resilience and reliability of energy systems across the UK, support the delivery of the UK’s climate change commitments and reform the UK’s energy system while minimising costs to consumers and protecting them from unfair pricing. To enable this, the Bill is structured around three key pillars: liberating investment in clean technologies, reforming the UK’s energy system so it is fit for the future, and maintain the safety, security and resilience of the UK’s energy system.
More specifically, the Bill includes provisions to ensure market frameworks and governance arrangements are geared towards strengthening energy security and becoming a net zero energy system while minimising costs to consumers. This includes reforming the current energy code governance framework including granting Ofgem new functions to provide strategic direction and oversight on codes and creating a new class of more independent code managers to deliver an improved system for consumers and competition.
I understand that the Government has carefully considered concerns raised regarding the hydrogen levy provisions during passage of the Energy Bill. The Government’s amendments to the Bill remove provisions that enabled the levy to be imposed on energy suppliers in Great Britain, ensuring that within Great Britain the levy can be placed only on gas shippers.
The revised provisions will provide a fairer approach to funding hydrogen, placing the charge higher up the supply chain, with the potential for costs to be spread to the sectors expected to benefit most from early hydrogen development, not the wider British public. By providing two robust and reliable options for hydrogen funding, the Government will help bolster industry confidence in the viability of the UK hydrogen economy and boost private investment, with the potential to unlock significant energy security and economic benefits. The hydrogen sector could support over 12,000 jobs and generate up to £11 billion in private investment by 2030.
Moreover, you will be reassured to know that the Government has recently published a five-point plan to tackle bad behaviour by energy suppliers. The Government is calling for suppliers to voluntarily stop the practice of forced prepayment switching as the answer to households struggling to pay bills and make greater effort to help the most vulnerable. Further, it is requesting the release of supplier data on the number of warrant applications they have made to forcibly enter homes to install meters.
Finally, the Bill includes new clauses which will give the Secretary of State the power to make changes to the existing Energy Performance of Buildings regime to ensure that it is fit for purpose and reflects the UK’s ambitions on climate change, including to support achieving the UK’s target for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The future Energy Performance of Premises framework will need to play an increasingly important role if the UK is to achieve this goal. Energy certificates provide consumers, building owners and occupiers, and third parties with information on the energy performance of the premises stock and support effective decision-making on improving the energy efficiency of premises.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.
Best wishes,
Neil
Neil O’Brien OBE MP
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA
OMG, 186! He uses words like, ‘reliable’, ‘resilient’, ‘robust’ and ‘affordable’ when talking about a strategy dependent of the most intermittent of fuels: wind and solar – and the most expensive, H2.
This reply, like the ones my MP, Jeremy Wright sends me, are definitely written by one of his Green (and green) Spads. We are totally screwed – yet people like him will never feel the affect of his stupidity.
HP, “you named that tune in one”. NO’B ( I will refrain from the obvious ad hominem follow on ) is not stupid; his responses about SARS COV2/CC and experimental GT mRNA matters are littered with “Safe and Effective” in the face of increasingly damning evidence shooting him down daily . He is IMHO completely representative of the curse of a person with extremely limited exposure to what “we” might observe is “real life” by virtue of a career path throttled by Oxbridge PPE/SPAD and public sector/charitable/think tank. But I think he is an alumni of the University of “I Know Better Than You”, deluded totally by that brainwashing and he is contemptuous of the rest, the “PBI”.
I think we have to go through a lot of pain in the UK before the penny drops with enough of the population to fight back – I think we are a way off that; I am largely self educated, continuing at pace and I fear for the ability of the uneducated spoon fed masses who have been dealt a bad deck by the Ultra Far Left Wing Woke so called teaching profession ( with very few exceptions imho ). PH and his “colleagues” around the planet give me hope…
Huh, not just that lot, but also BT / OFCOM.. this new telephone system …. no power = NO PHONE… = no callout for emergencies ( some of us do live close to civilisation but have poor intermittent reception on mobiles: Have you ever had an important conversation of urgency with someone through poor reception? ).