Net zero by 2050 is simply not happening
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Few energy analysts enjoy the level of global respect accorded to Vaclav Smil, a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba and a best-selling author of 47 books. Whenever Smil publishes something new, people in the energy space pay attention. That’s certainly the case with his latest publication, a 48-page report titled “Halfway Between Kyoto and 2050: Net Zero Carbon Is a Highly Unlikely Outcome.”
In the report, Smil details efforts to date by global governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and finds them wholly inadequate to achieve the goal of net-zero by 2050.
“To eliminate carbon emissions by 2050,” Smil writes, “governments face unprecedented technical, economic and political challenges, making rapid and inexpensive transition impossible.”
Among a wide array of major hurdles that must be overcome, Smil highlights the enormous scale of global energy use, the slow pace of energy transitions throughout history, and the fact that “major emitters like the United States, China, and Russia have conflicting interests.”
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.
DESNZ Admit–We Will Need 50GW Of CCGT In 2035
By Paul Homewood
You will no doubt recall the exchange of letters with Claire Coutinho a few weeks ago, which I organised with the help of one of her constituents.
The letters concerned her Government’s decarbonisation policies, and how they were putting our electricity grid at risk.
This was the second letter we sent a month ago:
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Many thanks for your reply concerning Net Zero policy.
I appreciate the Government has many ambitious low carbon plans for 2050, which you list. However, none appear to offer a solution to the catastrophic problems facing us during the 2030s.
To lay it out in simple terms, according to the National Grid’s Future Energy Scenarios, peak demand for electricity will be about 100 GW in 2035. We will probably have about 10 GW of dispatchable capacity (nuclear, biomass and hydro) – this assumes that all unabated gas power is shut down.
Even with 20 GW of interconnectors, which we most certainly cannot depend on, we will be woefully short of electricity when wind and solar power is at low levels.
You plan on 5 GW of new unabated gas, but clearly this will be nowhere enough. We will likely need ten times as much. Building new gas power plants incorporating carbon capture may be a solution, but I see no plans to do so in the time scale we are looking at, ie the mid 2030s. In any event, carbon capture adds significantly to the cost of electricity, and increases the amount of gas needed to produce each unit of electricity. Are you happy to see energy bills rising as a consequence?
The other plans you mention are currently far too small to make any difference, and will certainly not be ready in any scale by 2035.
Low carbon hydrogen, for instance, will need tens of billions spending on a whole new infrastructure – electrolysers, distribution networks, seasonal storage and hydrogen burning power stations. The new batch of projects outlined will only supply about 0.1% of the UK’s annual gas consumption, and are not grid-scale solutions.
On top of that, there simply won’t be enough wind/solar power in your plans to produce the hydrogen anyway. And if that is not enough, the contract price you have agreed for the next batch of hydrogen projects is ten times that of natural gas. Are you prepared to see household energy bills rocket to pay for these subsidies?
Similarly tidal and geothermal are extremely expensive, and the 106 MW currently procured is a tiny amount. While these technologies may bear fruit in thirty years’ time, we clearly cannot rely on them making any difference in the next decade.
You mention 35 GW of battery storage, but typically such batteries can only store enough for an hour’s use. Plainly these will be useless when we go days on end with little wind power.
So there you have it! We are staring at a gigantic black hole in our potential electricity supply come 2035.
I can only see one solution – begin construction now on a fleet of new CCGT plants, if necessary made CCS ready. (Bear in mind, CCS is still not a proven technology at scale). It will need to be at least 50 GW. In addition the current fleet needs to be contracted for at least 15 years, to provide standby capacity.
Evidently this is not part of your government’s plans. In which case, could you please explain how your plans will avoid the blackouts which appear inevitable?
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.We have now received this reply from DESNZ:
By Paul Homewood
Labour’s plan to set up the Great British Energy company at a cost of £8.3bn is just part of its wider Green Plan, which is still included in its website:
https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Make-Britain-a-Clean-Energy-Superpower.pdf
According to Sky News, it comes with a cost of £23.7bn over five years, equivalent to £870 for every household in the country. But what will we get for the money?
In addition to Great British Energy, which cannot be funded by increases in windfall taxes, as claimed by Labour, we are promised these goodies:
The Met Office is Gaslighting Us With its Claim that Our Damp and Chilly May Was “Warmest on Record”-Ben Pile
By Paul Homewood
A good piece by Ben Pile.
Regardless of the accuracy or otherwise of the Met Office figures, Ben points out that the supposed warming we have been seeing in recent years has little to do with high temperature extremes. Instead it has more to do with the relative of abnormally cold weather and milder nights.
As he points out, why should this be a climate crisis?
Weatherwise, it has been a rubbish May. And it has been an abysmal spring. It has been cold and wet. And everyone knows it. But according to the Meteorological Office, the U.K. has just experienced its hottest ever May, and its hottest ever spring. As news reports and the Met Office’s own press release have correctly indicated, this “may come as a surprise” to many people who actually live here (rather than on the planet that the Met Office’s scientists inhabit). To those people, many of whom had their heating on for a good part of the month, the Met Office’s statement, as well as the “akshully…” news reports that claim to shed light on the difference between perception and reality, look like actual gaslighting. Even if the claim is true, which remains to be seen, what it reveals is the inadequacy of temperature as a metric on which U.K. climate and energy policy rests.
Read the full story here
Ben’s summing up is very telling:
“I was surprised to discover that data from the weather stations that are used in the Met Office’s analysis are not available to the public at higher than monthly resolution.
That’s a problem because in order to build an estimate of how useful minimum and maximum temperature data are, even in one location, never mind across an entire country, it would need to be compared to hourly data at a minimum. But not even daily data are available.
You might have thought that scientists and institutions that are so keen to tell us that their metric is so significant would be just as keen to make all of that data available to us. But you would be mistaken. The data is jealously guarded. It’s not for public consumption. We are supposed to take the good faith of institutional science for granted and are neither welcome nor even permitted to check for ourselves. ‘Follow the science’, means ‘obey’, not ‘try to understand’. And that’s what makes me – and, I hope, you – a sceptic.”
By Paul Homewood
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h/t Philip Bratby
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Excited by reports of a late June heatwave to make up for the achingly familiar blustery showers that are expected to dominate the first couple of weeks of summer? Don’t be.
For one, the party-poopers at the Met Office were brutally quick to dismiss the likelihood of a prolonged hot spell later this month – so you can put away the Bermuda shorts and pack up the beach towels for the time being.
Still, as if the scepticism of the country’s best forecasters wasn’t enough to dampen our spirits, with near-comedic timing the doomsters at National Grid have weighed in to warn of the bleakest of winters.
The Grid’s “winter readiness” report, which every year evaluates how prepared the country is for the coming colder months, must be among its grimmest yet. In simple terms, the experts at its Electricity System Operator arm are warning that we are going to be more reliant than ever on imported power to keep the lights on during cold snaps.
In any civilised country this should be regarded as something of a national tragedy. The idea that Britain requires foreign imports to keep the lights on ought to be a source of great shame, although it seems nothing embarrasses our incompetent political masters anymore.
Neatishead
By Paul Homewood
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-synoptic-and-climate-stations
I mentioned the Met Office station at Neatishead the other day, which had set the highest temperature in the UK one day last week.
Ray Sanders has found out that it has only been operational since December 2022, and has been trying to find out its WMO classification. The Met Office has steadfastly refused, asking him why he wants to know.
Such an arrogant attitude from a publicly funded organisation is utterly unacceptable, and one can only wonder what they are trying to hide. Ray has now submitted an official FOI, which they cannot legitimately refuse.
By Paul Homewood
London, 6 June – A new scientific study has confirmed what GWPF reports and statements have emphasised for some time: Natural and climate-related disasters have been declining rather than increasing during the 21st century.
For years, international agencies such as the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the International Red Cross (IFRC) have been issuing reports claiming that climate-related disasters are currently escalating (Weather, climate disasters surge fivefold in 50 years, says UN report).
For years, the GWPF has been pointing out that such claims are wrong and contradicted by empirical data. The UN agencies’ misleading claims arise from a failure to account for the major increase in disaster reporting engendered by the arrival of new technologies since the 1970s.
Not only has the annual number of climate-related disasters trended downwards over the last 20+ years.
The number of people killed by natural and climate-related disasters has also been falling steadily over the past 120 years.
Taylor Swift Sends Private Jet To Pick Up Boyfriend
By Paul Homewood
h/t Russell Hicks
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No comment!!!
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https://x.com/wideawake_media/status/1798258209355927927?s=46
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Manufacturers have warned that high levels of discounting for electric cars cannot continue “indefinitely” amid a downturn in household sales.
Electric vehicle sales rose overall by around 6pc in May, compared to a year earlier, taking their share of the market from 16.9pc to 17.6pc.
That represented a faster rate of growth than the entire car market but the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) warned that the majority of the sales are still to businesses and are being boosted by aggressive price-cutting.
Discounting has reached record highs this year, with the average price cut on a new electric vehicle reaching 10.6pc in April, according to online dealer Auto Trader.
Despite this, the share of EVs sold to private consumers fell from 20.2pc to 18.6pc in May – continuing a trend seen in previous months.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 