Legal challenge made over ‘net zero’ power plant
By Paul Homewood
One more reason why the Net Zero Act must be cancelled.
The UK’s energy security is far too important to be put at the whim of a judge and an eco-nutjob, who is no doubt funded by far left eco groups. (It is an extremely expensive process going to judicial review, if anybody is in any doubt).
The decision to build a new power station faces a legal challenge over its potential greenhouse gas emissions.
Environmental consultant Dr Andrew Boswell has applied for a judicial review against the government’s decision to approve a "net zero" gas power station in Teesside.
He said his calculations revealed the plant, which would use carbon capture technology, would produce far more greenhouse gas emissions than initially estimated.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) said it would be "robustly defending" the legal challenge, while the developers said they did not comment on legal proceedings.
The secretary of state for the DESNZ granted a development consent order (DCO), which is required for nationally significant infrastructure projects, to the plant in February.
Developers Net Zero Teesside Power (NZT Power), a joint operation between BP and energy firm Equinor, claimed that at least 90% of the plant’s generated emissions would be captured and funnelled into a storage site beneath the North Sea.
But Dr Boswell said his calculations revealed that the developers failed to consider emissions linked to the supply and and transport of gas, such as the release of methane.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd1ddz14q1no
There is no secret at all about these upstream emissions. And it is also highly unlikely that the plant will achieve anywhere near 90% capture.
What we also know is that CCS plants are extremely energy inefficient, ie they need much more gas to produce 1 unit of electricity than a plant without CCS. Hence these upstream emissions will be much greater too.
It would therefore make much more sense all round to just build a proper CCGT plant with no carbon capture.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
NET ZERO FOLLYAs most self respecting scientists know, man-made carbon dioxide has virtually no effect on the climate. It is a good gas essential to animals and plant life. Provided dirty emissions are cleaned up, we should be using our substantial store of fossil fuels while we develop a mix of alternatives including nuclear power to generate energy. There is no climate crisis, it has always changed and we have always adapted to it. In the Ordovician ice age atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were 4000 ppm and have been 15 times higher than now. There was no industrial revolution then to be the cause . The present quantity of man-made carbon dioxide is insignificant compared with water vapour or clouds which comprise a vast majority of green-house gases. Man has no control over the climate. Statistically we are overdue a period of cooling.The sun and our distance from it have by far the most effect. Most importantly, the Net-Zero (carbon dioxide) Policy will not do anything to change it. Countries like China, Russia and India are sensibly ignoring this and using their fossil fuels. They will be delighted at how the west is letting the power elites, mainstream media and government implement this Policy and the World Order Agenda 21, to needlessly impoverish us as well as causing great hardship and suffering.
Sean, you are correct but tilting hard at “windmills”, the political establishment have now got too much “skin” in the Great Game and regardless of how many times the folly of Net Zero is shown to be, they will never back down. The biggest lie regarding “cheap, plentiful Green Energy” never stood up to intelligent scrutiny, asking why Gas, Oil, Coal power has a Green Tax applied, whilst Wind and Solar just have massive subsidies handed over, thus taxing the consumers twice, will just create a opportunity for a myopic stare and look of confused pain that You, the Little Person just do not Understand and need to be shown the error of your ways.
The bills for this folly will fall on the very generation that has bought into the Climate Cult, the baby boomers of the 50’s & 60’s will look on in wonder that people actually believed that you could effectively get “something for nothing”. The only guarantee of 24/7/365 Energy lies in fossil fuel exploitation, whilst simultaneously exploring alternatives like Small Nuclear Reactors, Wind and Solar with improving battery storage/capacity- a multi stream approach that does not cut off secure Energy sources.
the whole point of the Act was to bind future decisions to the values and attitudes taken by one Minister in one government at one date. It was always an offence to democracy and took the position that “An end of history” was true in all spheres of life.
Despite this the Conservatives spent 14 years only to make it worse.
Also a major aspect of the Climate Change Act (or Net Zero Act as it is called in the blog post) is that it allows the Green lobby to attempt to enforce the act through judicial review. Friends of the Earth explained this just before the act was introduced back in 2008 in an article in The Economist:
https://web.archive.org/web/20231122025728/https://www.economist.com/britain/2008/11/20/a-rod-for-our-backs
Extract from the article:
“But the core of the effort lies in the climate-change bill’s legally binding targets. “The advantage”, says Martyn Williams of Friends of the Earth, an environmental group that has been pushing the bill for two years, “is that this doesn’t leave things to distant, politically fudgeable targets.”
But although the idea of applying the unforgiving sternness of the law sounds attractive, it is not clear how the planned legal straitjacket is to work. Government targets usually apply to bodies such as schools, hospitals or individual departments which can be punished if they fail to meet them. The emission-reduction targets would apply to the whole country, making any notion of punishment nonsensical. Instead, Mr Williams hopes that judges will enforce the rules against the government itself, citing a recent court case in which the judge agreed with Greenpeace that an official consultation on nuclear power had been unlawfully conducted and ordered that it be run again.
The government insists that the shame of breaking its own law will be enough to keep it in line even if enforcement proves impossible.”
Interesting, Dave. The actions have been apparent, but I didn’t realize it was intended from the beginning.
The problem with that theory, Epping, is that the government is not bound by it; the government could rescind it any time they want to. That they choose not to – that they play along with it – doesn’t mean they can’t.
I regret I cannot agree with you.
The law is the law and both governmenr and the bureaucracy have to adher to it. If they don’t the greenies will get plenty of money to ask the Courts to insist the law is followed.
You seem to be under the misaprehension that Governments can change the law – they cannot. It is Parliament that does that. But they only do it if a Government puts forward a bill and has a majority in the HoC and can persuade the left dominated HoL to agree.
Sadly the Conservative government has been as silly aboyt Net Zero as the originator of the legislation, Mr Miliband. Don’t we all remember Cameron’s campaign message “vote blue get green. He might have added, vote blue get red to explain his and Tory successors their leftist policies. Even, vote blue and get rainbow to explain their wokist agenda.
In short they have been a shower and are not at all the solution to the country’s problems. They assisted if not caused many of them.
M’kay. We have a clash between American English and English English. Parliament is part of the government, hence, whomever the players, government can change the law.
But they don’t.
In reply to Gamecock (I cannot see ho to just “reply”), in the UK the Government is what we call the Executive branch. Parliament is quite different.
Indeed, until about WWI any back bencher (non government member of parliament) who agreed to join the government was obliged to resign and seek re-election and thereby receive the approval of his voters.
In the UK the Government alone can propose legislation (there are a few esoteric exceptions) and Parliament debates (we hope) and approves or not.
Perhaps this explains our differnces?
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/government
They see it my way. But they do have a separate section to describe your way.
The people in control of your nation can repeal CCA/NZ.
Epping is slightly wrong on this since the target for emissions reduction is not contained in the Act. It is in secondary legislation – a Statutory Instrument. The vast majority of SIs are just passed into law but can be subject to a debate in Parliament. An SI can be negative where unless there is objection it becomes law or affirmative where it needs approval to become law. A new SI could be made to reduce the emissions target from the one the stupid Theresa May introduced before flouncing off. But given that the majority of the morons in our Parliament didn’t object to the 100% target it would be a challenge to find enough sensible MPs in the new Parliament. Perhaps the way forward is to make Net Zero a Jewish thing and then in an instance it will be gone.
It is the primary legislation that gives all this momentum (no pun intended). The publication of SIs to define the actual limites does not invalidate that point except there is no way of reversing or reducing targets set in an SI (such as Teresa May introduced) other than through further legislation. There was no Parliamentary debate on her SI because the Tories were as unintersted as the greens were enthusiastic for it.
Given any level of target under the Act there is the ability for the green left to litigate to restrain anythinbg they don’t like in the energy sector. Isn’t it odd they always have access to unlimited funds for this; I wonder how much comes via Quangos and “Charities” from the tax payer.
That would be the same “Dr” Andrew Boswell who has spent £70,000 of crowdfunded money to frustrate the building of a much needed road improvement scheme, thereby costing the taxpayer £millions. He also drives around in his wife’s 10 year old VW Golf, NOT an EV as you might expect…
https://www.google.com/search?q=EDP+Dr+Andrew+Boswell&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Not sure if this posted the first time I tried – apologies if it’s duplicated!
That would be the same “Dr” Andrew Boswell who has spent £70,000 of crowdfunded money to frustrate the building of a much needed road improvement scheme, thereby costing the taxpayer £millions. He also drives around in his wife’s 10 year old VW Golf, NOT an EV as you might expect…
https://www.google.com/search?q=EDP+Dr+Andrew+Boswell+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Is this idiot involved in the judicial review of the A66 planning decision, which due to the election will now probably be binned? Another two bad accidents at pinch points where the work cancelled by Blair in about 2007 never got done, just this week. It is time somebody rich took out a private prosecution for manslaughter against him, just to tie him up in legal nonsense for a while.
Mark Steyn’s judicial review of Ofcom’s censorship is on Tuesday 11th at Royal Courts of Justice.
https://www.steynonline.com/13657/no-harm
Energy security and Net Zero is a contradiction in terms, you cannot have both. Net Zero is a .com trick anyway.
If my local Tory MP survives I will ask her if she is still a member of the Conservative Environmental Network and still in favour of the Celtic Sea project.
the man has form. This relates to a road building scheme which he took to court of appeal and lost
Norfolk A47 scheme: Activist loses Court of Appeal case – BBC News
And this is his crowd funding appeal to fight more cases … He just doesnt like roads in norfolk, specifically the A47.
Stop road building that wrecks the climate and nature (A47BNB/Norfolk) (crowdjustice.com)
and these are his fellow travellers
https://friendsoftheearth.uk/climate/govts-climate-strategy-deemed-unlawful-historic-ruling. includes “the good law project” who Guido keep lambasting
(29) Andrew Boswell | LinkedIn
What about all the CO2 emissions, to make the steel and concrete, to make wind turbines.?
Net Zero? I don’t think so.
R
I keep saying this, but never get an answer.
If the CO2 is stored in old oil wells, presumably as a supercritical fluid, what is to stop a well-blowout? And a resulting cloud of gas blowing onto the east-coast, and suffocating millions of people?
I presume the CO2 will be supercritical, at above 50 bar, to increase its density. This is enough pressure to create a spectacular blow-out.
Lake Nyos Disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos_disaster
Phase transition of CO2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercritical_carbon_dioxide
Ralph
Well, in order to save the planet a few people will have to die but be assured the ‘right’ people won’t be among them.
Ralph; hopefully the well would not be pressurised beyond the original levels at which it held oil/gas for millenia?
In the US they are using offshore saline aquifers for CO2 sequestration – don’t know if we have the geology for that.
To get the capacity, you need to go supercritical – or greater than 1,500 psi. With hydrogen, they are talking about 2,500 psi – which requires a lot of energy to compress, and has a high possibility of escape (a standard well-blow-out).
We do have salt beds for caverns, which is why hydrogen storage is planned for the coast of Yorkshire. These are probably more secure than old oil wells. But most of these beds will be required for hydrogen.
The history of oil drilling, suggests that blow-outs are far from uncommon. And a CO2 blow out would be FAR more dangerous than hydrogen, as it hugs the ground and kills every animal.
R
It would seem that the only proper debate on this issue will be in a court of law, where the pros & cons are used to prove one side’s case, etc.
Sorry, that is not how works.
The CC Act is law, that all that counts now, it will simply be a case of whether the judge “thinks” the complainant has a case.
First the complainant has to convince a High Court judge that there is a case to review. If so then the case goes to a full hearing and both sides put their case. Boswell will need to prove that the government did not have the power to act as it did. If there is legislation requiring the government to keep the lights on that would override the emissions. That would highlight the stupidity of Net Zero that is bound to arrive at some point.
Appriciate that explanation – thanks.
The only way to achieve the CC in CCS is by oxy-combusting the hydrocarbon fuel because at power station magnitude the 80% nitrogen diluent in the exhust gas from air combustion inhibits the application of conventional absorption processes. Oxy-combustion is totally inefficient and will need enormous ASUs (air separation units) with their huge air compressors. Driving the latter will use most of the power generated by the combustion. It is fantasy technology.
Vernon E: the companies building a 300 MWe plant in the US using the Allam cycle would disagree with you!
MikeH: The Allam Cycle has nothing to do with the combustion. It is just a slick way to extract the CO2 but not if nitrogen is present in the exhaust
“MikeH: The Allam Cycle has nothing to do with the combustion.”
Sorry Vernon but it most certainly does. The whole process starts with oxy-fuel combustion specifically to avoid nitrogen at the very beginning so it cannot be in the exhaust.
Exactly Ray. Once oxy-combustion has been accepted it doesn’t particularly matter what method of CO2 removal is used.
Sorry Vernon, I misunderstood your comment, my mistake. We are agreed on oxy-combustion.
Global warming due to rising CO2 levels is the greatest HOAX in the history of mankind!
Click to access WJARR-2024-0884.pdf
No it isn’t – Christianity is.
Vernon E.
I had considered that, but I have had personal experiences that convince me that it is real