AEP Needs To Read The CCC’s Reports
By Paul Homewood
I did not have time yesterday to fully dissect this latest piece of juvenile nonsense from AEP:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/18/rich-world-needs-less-energy-net-zero/
You will recall that he thought he had magically discovered the secret to how Net Zero would be a doddle all by himself.
His little theory was that everybody was concentrating on primary energy consumption, and had ignored how “super efficient” renewable technology was, not to mention EVs and heat pumps. After all, don’t fossil fuels waste a lot of energy.
As a result, the transition to Net Zero would be cheap and easy.
I pointed out that all of the official agencies must surely have already factored these into their calculations.
As you will know, I have spent considerable time looking into the various reports and projections from the Committee on Climate Change, and I cannot recall them even barely mentioning primary energy. Instead all of their reports and plans are concerned with electricity requirements.
For instance their Sixth Carbon Budget goes into great detail projecting power capacities and supply:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2021/10/27/sixth-carbon-budget-does-not-add-up/
They are based on guesstimates of how much electricity we will need to power EVs, heat pumps along with everything else.
Then they extrapolate how we can do all of this with low carbon technology. (By the way, they do not attempt to estimate the emissions involved in producing solar panels and batteries in China!)
In other words, they have already taken account of the points AEP raises.
The Future Energy Scenarios published by the National Grid are formulated on the same basis.
And as we know, the CCC’s plans for Net Zero are not only unworkable, they will also be horrifically expensive.
Which all rather exposes AEP’s article for the childish piece of nonsense it is.
I call on the Telegraph to withdraw the report, and replace it with something written by somebody who knows what he is talking about.
But I find it shocking that someone like AEP is given the opportunity to write garbage like this, when he clearly has not even bothered to read any of the work the CCC has published.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
25 quid a MWh for offshore wind!! What medication have they stopped taking?
This is a realistic estimate for the cost of renewable energy .https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/09/28/brits-face-6000-annual-bill-to-reach-net-zero-by-2050/
Almost certainly £6000 per year per family , probably more .
What is also noticeable is that is that someone put pressure on CIVITAS , who put some of the figures out , to try to retract it . [ Just like Khan did when it was shown that the London ULEZ did not make the air cleaner ].
So it is all just lies and propaganda from the media nowadays to try to push the net Zero insanity .
Must be in 2050 funny money, where the currency has been rebased due to hyperinflation.
He’s a typical specialist with a big ego. Knowledgeable in one area but assumes that means he’s clever right across the board. I’m sure everyone knows a lot of people like that.
Just what is his knowledgeable area? I’ve read many articles by him and all have been pretty rubbish.
Never a truer word spoken D G-J.
A specialist, just like Professor Ferguson
Paul, I think the heading needs the word “Read” inserting.
Nobody has forgotten about efficiency, but they have conveniently forgotten about the energy, materials and manpower needed for production, maintenance and distribution of renewable electricity.
Another sleight of hand is to project the best case scenario (e.g. a wind farm in the North Sea) to the whole world.
An offshore wind turban in most locations probably consumes more energy than it creates over its lifespan.
I want an offshore wind turban!
I’d go for several million of them.
Climanrecon is quite right, but there is one important criteria missing. That is life span for each of the generation sources and their replacement cost. Further, there is no estimate for supersession of one source by another over the intervening period to 2050.
He simply read one report that said what he wanted to read, so he fails to show any scepticism and fails to check it.
Very much in the mould of BBC Climate reporters like MacGrath who never seem to check anything.
This is part of a rejected, at the 2nd submission, complaint about an article in the Climate part of the BBC Website.
“You raise some interesting points, which I have not fact checked, about historic banana harvests, temperature impacts on growth and Fusarium Wilt. However, I do not consider that the article is editorially compromised by not considering these issues.”
I will go to the 3rd stage of the procedure citing this a reason for correcting or withdrawing the article.
Man needs to see a doctor. Oh! never mind, they can’t sign him off sick any longer.
what he should be saying is EV and heat pump penetration isn’t going to be anything like as fast as they are forecasting (or want) and as this is driving massive expenditure on the green grid and subsidising even more useless wind. The electricity industry messed up badly in the 70/80’s with its poor forecasting causing billions of pounds of abortive expenditure lets not make the same mistake again.
Does the levelised cost of energy in the article include the cost of back-up and grid stability for renewables?
Does the levelised cost of energy in the article include the cost of carbon taxes for fossil fuels?
If you read any of the supporting papers for the Sixth Carbon Budget you rapidly find they are based on fantasy. Unfortunately they lack the moral dimension of Hans Christian Anderson or the Brothers Grimm, being influenced by woke Disney.
That is perhaps a reason why AEP would not get enlightened by reading them. You need to have read more widely to get proper enlightenment. I foresee an Evensong collect becoming popular again…
Lighten our darkness we beseech Thee O Lord, and save us from the perils of this knight.
Their continuing to allow AEP to write articles on scientific matters is
one of the reasons I have cancelled my DT subscription. He has no
understanding of science whatsoever, and clearly believes that if you
can find a manipulation of the data that supports your argument, that is
‘truth’. He also fails to understand that the output of models is not
data, and that press releases often hype what they are advocating.
The man is utterly useless.
“If you repeat a lie often enough, you become a journalist.”
AEP needs to play to his strengths, like reporting on the Clinton’s.
Clintons – autocorrect added the apostrophe….
Very convenient assumption that heat pumps work adequately which we know they do not.