Climate chiefs admitted net zero plan based on insufficient data, leading physicist says
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
It is hard to overestimate the significance of this new revelation:
Britain’s climate watchdog has privately admitted that a number of its key net zero recommendations may have relied on insufficient data, it has been claimed.
Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, who led a recent Royal Society study on future energy supply, said that the Climate Change Committee only “looked at a single year” of data showing the number of windy days in a year when it made pronouncements on the extent to which the UK could rely on wind and solar farms to meet net zero.
“They have conceded privately that that was a mistake,” Sir Chris said in a presentation seen by this newspaper. In contrast, the Royal Society review examined 37 years worth of weather data.
Last week Sir Chris, an emeritus professor and former director of energy research at Oxford University, said that the remarks to which he was referring were made by Chris Stark, the Climate Change Committee’s chief executive. He said: “Might be best to say that Chris Stark conceded that my comment that the CCC relied on modelling that only uses a single year of weather data … is ‘an entirely valid criticism’.”
The CCC said that Sir Chris’s comments, in a presentation given in a personal capacity in October, following the publication of his review, related solely to a particular report it published last year on how to deliver “a reliable decarbonised power system”.
Enshrined in law
But, in response to further questions from this newspaper, the body admitted that its original recommendations in 2019 about the feasibility of meeting the 2050 net zero target, were also based on just one year’s worth of weather data. The recommendations were heavily relied on by ministers when Theresa May enshrined the 2050 target into law. A CCC spokesman said: “We stand by the analysis.”
In October 2021 The Sunday Telegraph revealed that assumptions underpinning the committee’s 2019 advice to ministers included a projection that in 2050 there would be just seven days on which wind turbines would produce less than 10 per cent of their potential electricity output. That compared to 30 such days in 2020, 33 in 2019 and 56 in 2018, according to analysis by Net Zero Watch, a campaign group.
Sir Chris’s report for the Royal Society, published in September, concluded that a vast network of hydrogen-filled caves was needed to guard against the risk of blackouts under the shift to wind and solar generation, which the Royal Society described as “volatile” because it depends on wind and sun to produce energy.
The report was one of the starkest warnings to date of the risks faced when relying on intermittent weather-dependent energy sources without sufficient backup.
Overestimate
It stated: “The UK’s need for long-term energy storage has been seriously underestimated… Studies that do not consider long sequences of years underestimate the need for long-term storage. Studies of single years cannot cast light directly on the need for storage lasting over 12 months and overestimate the need for other supplies.”
In a presentation delivered on Oct 31 2023, Sir Chris said: “By looking at one year you underestimate storage and you grossly overestimate the need for everything else. That’s exactly what the Committee on Climate Change have done.”
He added: “The Committee on Climate Change, as I already said, looked at a single year and they have conceded privately that that was a mistake. But they are still saying they don’t differ that much from us. Well that’s not quite true.”
The Royal Society report found that up to 100 Terawatt-hours (TWh) of storage will be needed by 2050, to mitigate variations in wind and sunshine. This was based on 37 years of weather data rather than the single year relied on by the CCC.
Real weather data
The report noted that the CCC model required “a much greater level of supply … from other sources, and/or wind and solar than would have been required if storage had been allowed to transfer energy between years.”
A CCC spokesman said: “Our recent report modelled the 12-month operation of Britain’s power system in 2035 using hourly energy demand and real weather data from a low-wind year, stress-tested to simulate a 30-day wind drought.
“We welcome Sir Chris’ work, which considers other aspects of the energy challenge in 2050, under different assumptions about the future energy mix.” Asked if the CCC disputed Sir Chris’s account, the spokesman said: “We’ve got nothing further to add.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/20/climate-change-wind-farms-royal-society-green-energy/
Although the CCC are busy trying to backtrack away from this incompetence (some would say fraud), it is plain that none of their planning or costings have built in the 100 TWh of storage that the RS feels is necessary - a third of current electricity generation.This is also the sort of figure which many independent energy experts have suggested.
This is evident from their projections of grid capacities, faithfully repeated by the National Grid’s Future Energy Scenarios.
It is now clear that Parliament authorised Net Zero without any proper assessment, whether financial or energy, and the whole Net Zero legislation must now be suspended until a full independent assessment is carried out.
In addition, the whole of the CC should now be disbanded. Unfortunately it is still required by law, but it should now be staffed by truly independent members, with a remit to prioritise energy security and cost/benefit goals. The ideological pursuit of Net Zero must not override the wellbeing of the British public, put its energy security at risk or make the public worse off.
But the current and past members of the CCC who have overseen this attempt to bamboozle and defraud the public must be held to account, and excluded from any further influence over the country’s energy policy, or indeed on any issue of public policy.
Trackbacks
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I favour fraud over incompetence. But with Stark in charge, there was a lot of scope for incompetence. No wonder Stark got out before the fan was hit.
I think fraud is the most likely .
There is a long term analysis of wind outputs , which shows that for over half of the year wind farms are putting out less than 20% of their rated capacity .
Click to access Aris-Wind-paper.pdf
Always, always, follow the money. I’m convinced that many people with connections to the CCC made their fortunes based on what government did as a result of their predictions. The CCC were and are nothing short of the gang of chancers who made their fortunes from Covid.
Fraud, supported by lots of useful idiots. Yes, idiots.
Baroness Brown has been on the Climate Change Committee since it started in 2008 and is currently chair of the Mitigation sub-committee. She joined the Board of Ørsted in February 2021.
https://renews.biz/66254/orsted-to-anoint-king-as-new-board-member/
Ørsted board of directors chairman Thomas Thune Andersen said “She possesses a deep knowledge of renewable energy and government policy perspectives from positions, among others, as member of the Committee on Climate Change and non-executive director of the Green Investment Bank.”
In other words appointed for her inside knowledge of government policy which she advises on. What a co-incidence that Ørsted will now go ahead with Hornsea 3 since the Government has increased the strike price by 66%.
https://members.parliament.uk/member/4565/registeredinterests
Baroness Brown receives £40,000 per annum as a non executive director of Ørsted
She is also Chair of the Carbon Trust where Stark has now gone as CEO.
Dennis. It is amazing how this merry-go-round of corruption is allowed to continue. Both the Liebour and CONservative politicians positively encourage it, as they know they will be rewarded when their time comes.
Insufficient?
With the National Grid in a state of collapse, here’s a startling fact for the gullible:
Wind turbines do NOT produce any energy at all, FULL STOP.
The First law of Thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be converted from one form to another.
So called ‘renewables’ should more accurately be called energy collectors. They collect energy that already exists, in the form of wind or sunlight, and convert what little there is into electricity.
Therein lies the perpetual problem. If it is dark, still and cold, typical midwinter conditions, there is no energy to collect, thereby literally leaving us in the dark!
As we discovered recently, in still, frosty December, and again this January, wind ‘energy’ is a technological dead-end.
The intrinsically better sources have what is known as greater Energy Density.
For example, water is 800 times denser than air, so hydro is always going to give a much greater conversion capture than wind. Coal is intrinsically denser than wood, so much more thermodynamically efficient. A coal fire burns much hotter than wood.
Nuclear, working at atomic level wins the energy density stakes hands down.
The other hugely-damaging problem with parasitic ‘unreliables’ is their truly voracious material, maintenance, repair, replacement and land requirements.
At present, all the world’s energy plants occupy around 0.5% of the Earth’s surface. Trying to capture all our energy from solar and wind would require an astonishing 50% of the Earth’s surface!
This will leave virtually nowhere for farming, food production, forests, fishing, nature, wildlife habitats, recreation or us.
Before the planet is completely carpeted, and wrecked with ‘renewables’ it is high time the collective density of our deluded, ever-so-green, politicians realised this!
This is an anlysis which should be in the MSM and available to all politicians leading up to the General Election
George – I responded to the same comment on an earlier thread. Energy density is irrelevant. This logical cul-de-sac leads to similar bad conclusions, and we then lose the ability to criticise the CCC for theirs.
For example, water denser than air. It is the “head” of water (potential energy drop) across a turbine that matters. We can get this with a suitable catchment (availability of resource) and storage (reduction of intermittency). The best choices for hydro are already built in the UK, so there is no meaningful growth opportunity.
Nuclear energy density. The above thread correctly suggests we “prioritise energy security and cost/benefit goals”, and focus on energy density needs to be expressed in similar terms. It gets a tick for contribution to energy security. It gets a cross on commercial and economic factors.
By banning coal fired generation, the UK is “forced to overestimate” its need for nuclear. The need for a ban should give you a strong hint at what is best, if we really were prioritising energy security and cost/benefit goals. We need to ditch the ban on coal if the UK is to improve decisions. Until then, Grangemouths and Port Talbots are going to keep happening.
“This logical cul-de-sac leads to similar bad conclusions, and we then lose the ability to criticise the CCC for theirs.”
BS.
UK coal import history: is it really a potential alternative with secure, diverse supply? Asian markets have taken away several sources, Russia is off limits, and the USA is not a long term reliable source because of varying export economics and regulatory impediments.
Domestic production would be high cost until we have the technology to lower it. Some coal is probably worthwhile in the mix as a way of fuel switching as it has been in the past, but I don’t think there is a case for extensive reliance on it beyond say 5-8GW. The economics depend on periods of favourable fuel switching.
API2 coal (6,000kcal/kg CIF Rotterdam) is currently around $95/tonne which gives power at £33/MWh, plus green taxes of another ~£40/MWh which no longer offers a huge advantage over gas at £23/MWh, giving power at £46/MWh plus green taxes of another £15/MWh. If moves to shore up the UKA Carbon price are successful, the differential will widen.
Well said!
Insufficient?
“Unpayable, Unfeasible and Impossible to live with”
A short presentation for the BBC and our deluded politicians:
The Impossibility of Windmills, including hydrogen conversion, by Jan Smelik, an expert, Dutch engineer who actually does know what he is talking about —
For ‘the BBC’?? Amazing.
“In addition, the whole of the CC should now be disbanded. Unfortunately it is still required by law…”
When a law is built on a lie it’s no longer a law.
Of course none of this comes as a surprise to anyone even mildly sceptical of AGW. Doubtless it will continue to be ignored by the political and public fools around the world.
I do note, however, that following Argentina’s Javier Milei’s outrageous attack on the WEF, “Kevin Roberts, President of the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, spoke to globalists at the World Economic Forum confab Thursday and told them directly that “You are part of the problem, you are not the solution.””
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/watch-you-are-problem-conservative-speaker-slams-davos-globalists-their-faces?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2189
Apparently after introducing Javier Milei, Der Fuehrer Schwab walked out during his speech.
The Royal Society is itself part of the problem, with its absurd idea of putting hydrogen in thousands of salt caverns at 300 bar pressure.
https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/large-scale-electricity-storage/Large-scale-electricity-storage-report.pdf?la=en-GB&hash=C5A09BDA174196AA3822CD7B862A5D08
Debunked here:
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/royal-society-large-electricity-storage-report
Agreed. And, again, having hydrogen in a cave does you no good. You also need a distribution system, and facilities that can use it to generate power.
‘up to 100 Terawatt-hours (TWh) of storage will be needed’
It’s a false precision fallacy. They use maths to act like they know what they are doing.
“a vast network of hydrogen-filled caves was needed”
Gulliver was onto this sort of magical thinking almost 250 years ago:
“He has been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers. He told me, he did not doubt, that, in eight years more, he should be able to supply the governor’s gardens with sunshine, at a reasonable rate: but he complained that his stock was low, and entreated me “to give him something as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear season for cucumbers.”
https://www.online-literature.com/swift/gulliver/21/
Why was “less than 10% of capacity” used? Surely less than 20% or 30% would present huge problems for the Grid and therefore us. Was it because using a larger percentage would reveal just how unsuitable a renewables based generation system is?
Mike,
Dr Capel Aris’s research, which there is a link earlier in the comments, gives 20% at 20 weeks of the year and 80% for approximately one week of the year.
Which is why availability is approximately 35% per annum.
I have to point out that I identified the problem with the CCC’s sock puppet consultants’ modelling relying on just one year’s data (and not a particularly windless one at that) shortly after the Sixth Carbon Budget was produced on reading through their supporting studies, and I flagged that up and have done so repeatedly since.
The problems go a lot wider than Chris Llewellyn Smith has identified, because he was happy to assume that renewables would in future be ever cheaper in line with the then DESNZ official assumptions, perhaps confusing the effects of surpluses causing revenue cannibalisation with the cost, now being revealed through failed CFD auctions etc., and also the cost of investing to provide surpluses in the first place: they do not come free, even if they are worthless. The result is that he assumes that storage can be fed cheaply, and that therefore the massive round trip loss in producing hydrogen as the storage medium can be ignored. A proper analysis including the high real costs of renewables shows that costs start escalating rapidly after renewables account for about 60% of annual supply, and pursuing such a route results in a very costly system overall.
IDAU: when you flagged up the lack of wind data, who was the recipient? It would be interesting to know. The time is now when names need to be known and those that wish this country ill are outed. My guess is that whoever it is is as wealthy now as those fools Stark and Skidmore.
Among many others, I submitted evidence to the BEIS Select Committee for their enquiry into net zero generation by 2035 back in June 2022. It’s on the public record. Part of my statement:
Studies commissioned by BEIS, OFGEM and the CCC never seem to examine storage requirements properly: they either look at very short periods and assume that a combination of short term storage and demand curtailment will work and that storage will be full, or that supply is magically available when limited storage runs out, either via interconnectors that are assumed to have dispatchable availability or because the wind blows again. The reality is that storage or other output has to cover for interseasonal variations and against a year (or even a run of years) with low output from renewable sources.
Our post this evening with a reprise of one from October 21 and a link to this present piece.
‘Today, the Telegraph has a piece about a revelation that the Climate Change Committee ‘only “looked at a single year” of data showing the number of windy days in a year when it made pronouncements on the extent to which the UK could rely on wind and solar farms to meet net zero.’
And that Chris Stark, now imminently departing CEO of the CCC, had admitted this.
However, the Telegraph seems to have forgotten that in 2021 it reported on the analysis of CCC data obtained following a legal battle by the Global Warming Policy Forum.
So Stark conceded zilch privately; it has been in the public domain for over two years.’
Part of the reprised post, which also contains a bit of info about Chris Stark, including your intro to Stark, Paul, beginning with ‘Meet the green wonk who is ready to ruin Britain’:
‘And now it transpires, following a legal battle by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, that the data on which the CCC have advised the government shows that they predicted that in 2050 there would be just seven days on which wind turbines would produce less than 10 per cent of their potential electricity output.
Yep, you read that right. 7 days. We, and so many others, have spoken about how often the whole country is becalmed and in winter too, when electricity requirement is higher. So far this year, there have already been 65 such days, and in 2016 there were as many as 78 as the article in the Telegraph states.’
Seems like the rats are fleeing the ship hoping that the rest of us have no memory at all. There seems to be an ever changing narrative now that the scamdemic is coming to light for what it was and the whole cc agenda is falling apart before their own eyes. They will have to save us from our stupid and arrogant selves thinking that renewables could fix the world. I’m sure the elites in Davos will have an answer for us soon. Too funny. Pretty sure they are gettin a bit scared.
The Royal Society is hardly one to crow about the poor standard of these government reports.
a. It is still unclear to me , if the RS’s 100 twh of storage is twh(t) or twh(e). There is a huge difference between the two. The thermic content of the hydrogen battery’s input energy, loses 70% of its energy in re-conversion back to electricity. So the RS’s 100 twh might only be 30 twh.
b. The RS forgot to mention that since their hydrogen battery is SO inefficient, they would need another 95 gw of wind energy to charge the system up again in a month. That is nearly 300 gw of installed wind capacity, or another 20,000 of the largest wind turbines – just for the hydrogen battery.
c. The RS said that UK energy consumption would be 570 twh per annum, when the true figure at current usage is more like 1,200 twh. What luxuries are the RS expecting us to give up, with its low-ball energy consumption figure?
d. The RS concluded that it would only cost £410 billion, to go completely renewable (including the hydrogen battery). My costing is more like £4,810 billion.
Data Summary:
Information ……. R.S. Data ….… Revised Data
UK annual energy consumption 570 twh … 1,220 twh (p 5)
Wind turbine costings £1 bn/gw … £2.7 bn/gw (p 81)
Wind energy requirements 200 gw … 700 gw (p 81)
Wind energy costings £210 bn … £1,890 bn (p 13, 81)
Wind costings over 50 years £210 bn … £3,780 bn
Hydrogen requirements deceptive 100 twh thermic .. 100 twh(t) (p 5)
Hydrogen requirements actual 30 twh electric .. 30 twh(e)
Salt cavern leakage 0 % … 2 %
Hydrogen recharge in days 13 days … 30 days (p 19)
Hydrogen mine costings £30 bn … £70 bn (p 81)
Hydrogen electrolyser costs £30 bn … £290 bn (p 81)
Demineralised water costs £00 bn … £190 bn
Hydrogen generator costs £40 bn … £130 bn (p 81)
Hydrogen backup total costings £100 bn … £680 bn (p 81)
Plus grid enhancements £100 bn … £350 bn (p 81)
Total costings incl storage 50 yr £410 bn … £4,810 bn (p 81)
.
It seems clear that the RS is low-costing renewables, to make it appear if Net Zero is possible – leading the government down a rocky road to renewable misery, based upon (enticingly) false costings. If the truth were known, the government may well give up on Net Zero right now.
It is Big Green that is corrupting government, not Big Oil.
Ralph
So what year did they pick? Presumably the windiest one they could find?
“They have conceded privately that that was a mistake,”
Why are the decisions and actions of the CCC “private” ? What else is being concealed ? More “mistakes” perhaps ?
A contractor making such “mistakes” should be sacked ASAP.
All well and good, but this is angels on the head of a pin stuff.
The message we seem unable to get across is that co2 does not drive temperature enough from current levels to be a problem, so the pursuit of net zero is a first class grade A society harming category error.
I tried Dieter Helm. I suppose Sir Chris will be next.
” All well and good, but this is angels on the head of a pin stuff. ”
If the CCC are demonstrably incompetent / deceitful / untrustworthy then is that not a lever to force HMG to release all CCC documentation regarding climate change, to allow others to check for errors?
If the PO and Fudge-IT-So can screw their own people for 20 years and get away with it for so long I cease to wonder how long the CCC and CC can go on. I do so hope I am wrong. There are so many people who are responsible for this – Miliband etc – that I hope to live to see them all defenestrated.
I hope you are right, but I rather fear the miserable climate zealots looking for meaning in their lives, and those whose critical faculties have been eroded by money will just double down: we underestimated wind? Need more windmills.
No, that lie that co2 is to blame lies at the heart of this green monster. Stab it in the heart to kill it.
And we need a counterspell to ghastly, guilty “carbon emissions”.
Co2 makes food: “carbon is good”.
Any wordsmiths out there?
Quentin….’J’adore C! Oh, tu?’ Or ‘I love CO too’
Kohlendioxid, ja bitte.
Alas.
CO2: feeding plants to feed the world!
Three word max would be best.
The CCC since its inception has had heavy representation from two US billionaires. Jeremy Grantham’s Grantham Institutes at LSE and Imperial have provided committee members over that time and still do.
https://www.theccc.org.uk/about/
George Soros is represented on the Climate Change Committee by a guy called Stephen Fries from the Institute for New Economic Thinking, (INET), set up by Soros in 2009 with $50 million. Fries is actually based at its subsidiary at Oxford Martin School, set up in 2010. He was group chief economist at Shell (2006–11; 2016–21) and chief economist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change from 2011–16, when he went back to Shell, but is now at Oxford INET.
The first Chairman of CCC before Deben, Lord Adair Turner, left the post in 2013 to become Chair of Soros’ INET where he is still a senior fellow.
From Physics of Wind Turbines:
A crucial point about wind power is that the times of peak electricity demand and the times of optimal wind conditions rarely coincide. Thus, other electric power producers with short lead times and a well developed electricity distribution system are necessary to supplement wind power generation. https://home.uni-leipzig.de/energy/energy-fundamentals/15.htm
*rarely coincide* — opposite to assumptions?
– – –
Unpredictability:
Wind can be generated all day and night, unlike solar energy, but it is difficult to predict.
For example, the UK generated 14% less wind in 2021 than in 2020, despite having 4.4% more capacity.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-60945298
*rarely coincide* = relies on chance.
Reliable and cost effective generation electricity by renewables = a chancy concept promoted by chancers and exploited by chancers.
Paul, surely should be hard to ‘overestimate’ the significance……….
True!!
Why examine only 37 years data. There are more available. Before committing to £trillions of costs the research should be rigorous.
” Before committing to £trillions of costs the research should be rigorous. ”
Before committing £trillions, the believers should present proof that humans are responsible for dangerous climate change.
The objective is the elimination of the British middle-class. Dekulakization.
They had all the wind data they wanted. They only talked about the year’s data they had to look like they cared. More data would have changed nothing.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/21/energy-bills-must-rise-pay-for-net-zero-siemens/
I fear that Sir Chris (who I encountered in a past life) will have the same impact as Prof David Mackay … not a lot.
The amount of weather data used by the CCC is only of academic interest as there is no plan or indeed intention of providing a grid-scale back-up when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun is not shining as evidenced by the total lack of grid scale storage shown in the energy flow diagrams of the 2023 NGESO FES’s for 2035 or even 2050. The CCC only plan for demand destruction.
Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith may be correct in calculating that 100 TWhrs (thermal = 40 TWhrs electrical) hydrogen storage is required to avoid blackouts when looking at much longer periods of weather but he himself makes an even bigger mistake in believing that by 2050 wind and solar power will be the cheapest power available and dismissing nuclear power. Sir Chris believes the current price of offshore wind to be around £30/MWhr.
Already nuclear (fission) is cheaper than wind and solar (AR6 prices) and of course far more reliable and secure. I do not understand how a nuclear physicist, albeit a particle physicist and not an engineer, can believe that low energy density, highly entropic and chaotically intermittent wind and solar power can eventually be cheaper than high energy density, low entropy, reliable, nuclear power.
His RS report also makes very large optimistic assumptions for the electricity->hydrogen-electricity round trip efficiency by 2050 and the capacity factor of offshore wind but these are minor considerations in comparison to his chosen source of power generation.
BTW, the low 570 TWhrs figure used by the RS is because they wanted to calculate the amount of hydrogen storage and cost to make the 570 TWhrs of wind and solar supply reliable and hence ignored the other 650 TWhrs generated by other technologies which when added bring the total to around the 1220 TWhrs planned for the LTW.
Sir Chris believes the current price of offshore wind to be around £30/MWhr.
Nobody else does.
Unfortunately many do including the most of the MSM and particularly the BBC, most MPs, the HoL, the DESNZ, the CCC, BEIS…
OK, I exaggerated slightly, but the current data on costs is freely available, even at the BBC…
Price paid for offshore power to rise by over 50%
Published 16 November 2023
The government has lifted the amount it pays from £44 per MWh to a price up to £73.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67430888
But £73 is in 2012 money. Today that’s over £100 that we actually have to pay. The BBC continues to peddle falsehoods. Besides, it’s not the government who pay. We do.
oldbrew : It isn’t just that fixed offshore wind energy is over £100/MWhr and double nuclear fission (but not the ridiculously priced Hinkley Point C where Cameron, Osborne and Davey used expensive Chinese finance at 9%) but the use of a common business model employed today where an industry makes profit whilst the consumer and taxpayer pays the additional costs which should be attributed to the industry. In the case of the wind industry it was Professor Dieter Helm who pointed out in his 2017 Cost of Energy Review that the renewable industry should pay for their own intermittency. If his recommendation had been taken up there would never have been a renewable industry and we wouldn’t now be looking at fixed offshore wind at over £100/MWhr and floating offshore wind at over £242/MWhr plus all the enormous eye watering additional costs coming with hundreds of square kilometres of intermittent, low energy density next to worthless renewable energy
Not for the first time:
In 2006, at the official opening of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research in the University’s Department of Land Economy, the Director, Dr Terry Barker, said in his speech:
“It may seem astonishing, but the global climate models, providing governments with estimates of the costs of climate stabilisation are nearly all reliant on one year’s data.”
(Link no longer available and not on Wayback).
It seems to me that the false information, happily published by Stark and the Climate Change Committee, has far wider and negative implications than is being faced by the government and the climate change bandwagon. All sensible people agree that the Net Zero programme that was enshrined in law by the Teresa May government has been massively wasteful of many of our traditional national resources. It has pushed up fuel prices for everyone in the country, and put up all industrial costs unnecessarily, This in turn has increased dramatically the coast of living, Net Zero has cost tens of billions of pounds from our taxes, draining money from the government coffers which could have been used to improve so many lives. In reality, Stark’s fraud has resulted in the trashing of the countries economy, and brought us down to being a laughing stock on the World stage.
The falsehood of which he was aware is solely responsible for the introduction of the Net Zero fiasco, and as such, Mr Sunak has very good reasons for first, closing down the Climate Change Committee forthwith, and secondly bringing in legislation to withdraw the Net Zero law, an action which I am sure would be welcomed by 99 per cent of our citizens, and more importantly, it would vastly increase his chances for being voted in at the next election. Finally, for such a massive fraud on which such a falsehood has been perpetrated, Stark should be brought before the courts and answer for his actions, and if found guilty of intentionally misleading us all, for his own gratification, he should be sent to prison.
” Net Zero has cost tens of billions of pounds from our taxes, ”
Others have estimated £4trillion+ cost to the UK population to achieve net zero, I estimated £500billion+ already spent by late 2022.
Someone cleverer than me could probably host a rolling incremental cost counter on a webpage as an effective demonstration of the true cost of net zero.
100 twh is more than the claimed 1/3 of present generation, because it needs to be topped up inside a month or six weeks (to recharge and prepare for the next renewable outage). Thus it will require more wind turbines than claimed, for the recharge.
This gets even worse, if the Royal Society’s hydrogen battery is chosen for storage. This system loses 75% of the energy in its charge-discharge cycle, so even more wind turbines are required to make up for those huge losses.
R
The Royal Society report is no better, as it only assumes 570 twh per annum of energy usage. This is only half the real requirement for UK energy. So all of the RS’s calculations are completely wrong.
R
Note that the Royal Society’s claim of 100 twh of stored energy is completely misleading. This is twh(t) or thermal content, not twh(e) or electrical output.
The report says of the 100 twh:
This is the thermal energy content of the stored energy expressed in terms of the Lower Heating Value.
ie: This is the thermal content of the hydrogen battery, not how much electricity it produces.
Since their hydrogen battery is only 70% efficient at best, the RS is only planning on storing 30 twh of electrical energy. This is very close to the 20 twh that I have claimed we require, and have been claiming for the last 20 years.
Why does the government bother commissioning expensive and unreadable reports from the CCC and RS? They could have just asked me, two decades ago, and got much more reliable data.
Ralph