From Climate Scepticism

By JIT

On Wednesday, for some reason or other, lunch was late. The 1 o’clock news had finished, and I found myself watching live coverage of the energy infrastructure debate in the House of Commons. Naturally I only saw as much of the debate as it took to eat a sandwich, but I was so disturbed by what I had heard in that brief time that I resolved to dig out the text of the debate on Hansard.

Just to see how stupid our elected representatives in Parliament are. How stupid are they? Quite stupid, as it turns out. Not bovine. There is a glimmer there of some sort of intelligence, but a large felty green blanket has been thrown over it. This enables our MPs to argue for national suicide while rationalising it as a good thing for all concerned.

The debate was opened by Stephen Crabb (C), who said some sensible things about the need for new nuclear. Now, Clisceppers know well that whatever new nuclear is produced, it will be less than it should have been. This is particularly galling since, yes it is expensive, but it is the only viable way of powering an electricity grid in a modern civilisation if one’s principal preoccupation is getting rid of all those “carbon” emissions.

Up rose Caroline Lucas (G) to intervene.

Did any of the witnesses [at Crabb’s Welsh Affairs Committee] point out the eye-wateringly high cost of new nuclear, as well as how painfully slow the process will be, given the amount of time it will take for it to be up and running? With the best will in the world, it is unlikely that there will be a new big nuclear power station until the early 2030s. Given the Government’s own target to decarbonise the electricity supply by 2035, nuclear will be unable to play much of a part in helping us to achieve that.

We all know that greens, capitalised or not, will oppose nuclear come what may. They can then use the painfully slow development process as an argument against it. A bit like puncturing my car tyre and then telling me that using it is not viable because it’s too slow. Crabb’s reply, in part:

On the cost of nuclear, yes, those points were made to the Committee. We made sure that we had an evidence session to hear from Friends of the Earth and others who are opposed to nuclear per se. We heard their strong arguments about their belief in an energy system entirely comprising of renewable and power storage technology in the future, but we also heard strong evidence that the technology for that does not yet exist. We have to stay in the real world, so nuclear, which has been tried and tested over the long term as a provider of cheap and reliable power, is an important part of our future energy mix, in conjunction with other energy sources.

Moments later, up pops Wera Hobhouse (LD), of whom more will be reported later.

Particularly on estimates day, are we really “putting our heads in the sand” when that technology is simply the most expensive? In considering Government expenditure, should we not be looking for a technology that produces clean energy and is the least expensive, not the most expensive?

Whatever else we think of wind power, it is cheap in terms of marginal costs when the wind is blowing. What does it cost when the wind isn’t blowing? Crabb:

The evidence we considered took in the entire life cycle of a nuclear power station. Looking at the energy produced over 30, 40, 50 or more years shows that they give us a secure, reliable base load of affordable energy production. People who oppose nuclear per se will not be persuaded on cost or on the efficiency of the technology; they will not be persuaded at all.

At this point Andrew Bridgen (Reclaim) got his first word in, stating that small modular reactors as offered by Rolls-Royce are tantalisingly within reach. Crabb notes the money already sent to RR and burnt by them, while acknowledging the potential of the technology. Having been fairly sensible so far, Crabb begins to lose the plot, extolling the alleged virtues of floating offshore wind. My suspicion is that he would not be so enthusiastic about it if there was not a bottomless pit of Other People’s Money to fund it. This sceptic’s instinct is that floating wind will have crippling maintenance costs as a thick coat of icing on the cake of its crippling development costs. On the plus side it might be quite productive, as wind goes. On the negative side there are still our feathered friends, who never get a mention in energy debates featuring the virtues of Aeolian power (including here).

Angus Brendan MacNeill (Ind) spoke next, and gave some statistics without pointing out the reason for them. He speaks of an engineering skills gap, when:

Recently, I met representatives from the National Grid, who told me that by 2030 they hope to do five times the amount of work that has been done in the past 30 years.

I wonder why they think they need to do, in 7 years, the work of the previous 30? Clisceppers need no explanation here.

Touching on the supply chain, I think since the Bronze Age about 700 million tonnes of copper have been mined, and in the next 30 years, some people say, the same amount will have to be mined as has been mined in the last 5,000 years.

Why would that be? Are we regressing to the Bronze Age?

It has been said to me, in my new role chairing the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, that perhaps Ofgem needs a statutory duty for net zero. That might free up Ofgem’s hands to do a number of things, because it often feels quite constrained in its remit from Government.

Its remit – as widely understood at any rate – was to be a consumer champion. It has done a poor job at that. Now MacNeill reports – without explicitly endorsing their view – that he has had representations that Ofgem should become Net Zero champion instead.

We can see the evidence in recent months that the climate is oscillating unusually—we know it is.

Sure.

There is an opportunity here to really move for hydrogen, and some estimates suggest there could be 1.5 million jobs in hydrogen. It is a big sector; it needs to be given time and space and a Government commitment. People within energy are telling me they are concerned that those commitments might be weakening.

There could be 1.5 million jobs in shovelling horse apples too. But I would not base our future on it. MacNeill then winds up by extolling the virtues of smart meters for demand management (= energy rationing).

Up next, Nicola Richards (C).

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I take this opportunity to thank the Department for its work throughout the year. During that time it has introduced our flagship energy bills support scheme, which gave every household £400 off their energy bills at a time when the price of energy had increased massively. That was not the only cost of living measure that the Department spearheaded; further to that scheme, the Government also put in place the energy price guarantee to cap household energy bills at £3,000.

Make everything expensive, then give us a discount, and pat yourselves on the back? Clap. Richards notes that standing charges are too high, without noting some of the socialised costs that are added to them. Then we step over the border of Realityville into La-La Land.

Households will be limiting their energy usage for a variety of reasons. While lower-usage households usually have a lower income, many households are also cutting their usage to reduce their household emissions.

LOL.

Richards notes that energy costs are too high for businesses. Naturally government policy does not get the blame for this. I won’t excerpt any more of Richards’s speech, but will summarise it as delusional. She looks forwards to lower bills for her constituents at the close. I can assure her that, on our current trajectory, there is no hope of that, unless our future involves banging rocks together and making unintelligible grunting vocalisations – at that stage, the crippling bill landing on the doormat might not hold such a threat, not least because we won’t be able to read.

Next up, Emma Hardy (L), with a focus on carbon capture and storage. Few things are more likely to get me shouting at the TV, or muttering bitterly into my tea, than blithe statements about carbon capture and storage by people who, if there was any sense in the world, would be different people saying the exact opposite.

If we accept that we cannot all cheer for one individual football team, and that there is a need for many different energy producers on the pitch, we have to deal with carbon capture and storage to meet our net zero targets and decarbonise in the way we need to.

The apparently left-field reference to football teams harkens back to a comment in Crabb’s opening speech, so it is not as out of place as it seems in this excerpt. Naturally my riposte to this would be “Our net zero targets are self-imposed. Any expensive policies that flow from them are choices, not obligations.”

Hardy wants the government to approve CCUS projects on the Humber, which means sending Other People’s Money. I didn’t really follow the nuance, but it seemed as if manufacturers were chomping at the bit to build factories there, if only there was some way to get rid of that pesky CO₂. There is. You vent it to the atmosphere. CCUS projects are going to be an enormous cost sink, and unless everyone is doing it, cannot be viable. You could impose a global carbon tax, and if it was high enough, CCUS would become viable. But that relies on our international friends taking the same approach. Will they?

France, Germany, Hungary and Norway are all moving ahead. Those international companies are making decisions now. Those in the Humber face the real possibility of carbon capture and storage infrastructure not being in place in time, in which case they will have to cease operations. These companies will then begin to move to countries where carbon capture and storage is available. Those looking for a place to invest and meet their targets will not choose the UK. Once we miss this opportunity, they are gone forever. For example, the companies are already signing 20-year contracts with Norway.

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The good news is that, if the Government give certainty to these industries—if they meet them and provide them with the security and certainty that they need to invest—77,000 new jobs could be created in the Humber, and an industry worth £30 billion in taxable revenue could be there by 2050. That will happen only if the Government provide certainty to investors and move quickly and decisively to get all the UK’s carbon capture and storage capability on-stream ahead of our competitors. This is a one-off opportunity and the Government are dangerously close to blowing it.

This is something else that I don’t understand. Often we hear that the UK is going to be left behind in one Net Zero race or another. But that does not make sense. What actually is the advantage in being the first to build a viable CCUS? I don’t see one. If it works elsewhere, just copy it, and that way you can do it more cheaply.

Next, Virgina Crosbie (C) on new nuclear (she’s pro) and infrastructure. Then Wera Hobhouse (LD) returns to the fray.

It has been an interesting debate so far, but there is no doubt that the pace at which we are getting to net zero is too slow. The recent report from the Climate Change Committee is very clear: it describes the Government’s efforts to scale up climate action as “worryingly slow”. The committee has lost confidence that the UK will reach its targets for cutting carbon emissions. That is an unacceptable dereliction of duty, and I worry that it is becoming increasingly normal to accept that we will not meet our climate change target of limiting the rise in temperatures to 1.5°C by 2050. Let us remind ourselves why that target is very important: if we do not stay within the 1.5°C limit, the permafrost will melt, releasing huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere. That would be irreversible—no amount of human effort would be able to stop it.

At this point Andrew Bridgen tries to intervene, but is rebuffed. Says Hobhouse:

Let us not make the 2050 target something that we cannot reach. We must reach it—it is an absolute necessity that we do. I will not give way to people who will not follow the science, and who deny that evidence.

Bridgen was probably coming in to say that nothing the UK can do alone will have the slightest effect on the climate. But we’ll never know, because Hobhouse will not give way to “people who will not follow the science.” Hobhouse shows how delusional mainstream thinking is a minute later:

At times like this, we need more Government, not less. The prevailing laissez-faire attitude of hoping for the market to settle all our net zero challenges is no longer fit for purpose. The CCC has said that we could have mitigated the energy crisis if the Government had rapidly deployed onshore wind and solar power—here lies the hypocrisy. On the one hand, the Government say that they do not want to interfere with the market; on the other, they actively limit the onshore wind and solar industries. The de facto ban on onshore wind and a framework that does not create enough incentives for the solar industry have meant that people in the UK have paid far higher prices for the energy crisis than would otherwise have been necessary.

I will leave it to the reader to identify the several problems in this paragraph. Having refused to give way to science-denier Bridgen, Hobhouse now gives way to polymath Lucas, who says:

The hon. Member is making a powerful case, and I thank her for it. The Secretary of State told me yesterday that ending new North sea oil and gas licences is, in his words, “bonkers policy”. Does the hon. Member agree that what is really bonkers is a Government subsidising oil and gas companies to drill more of the very thing that is destroying our planet, and handing billions in subsidies to the fossil fuel companies in the middle of a cost of living crisis?

“Destroying the planet” might be overselling the power of carbon dioxide. Just a tad. Hobhouse concurs with Lucas:

I could not agree more. This is about creating level playing fields—at least for the renewable sector versus the oil and gas industry—but we do not even have that.

The US Inflation Reduction Act and the EU’s Net-Zero Industry Act will be transformative, and will incentivise huge investment in new renewable technologies and crucial net zero infrastructure.

On Hobhouse’s planet, wind and solar are not subsidised, and oil and gas are not taxed. If only we had a mildly sceptical voice in the Commons who could put her right?

BRIDGEN: Will the hon. Lady give way, please?

HOBHOUSE: I have already said that I will not give way, and I stick to what I have said.

Take that, science-denier! Hobhouse again, after extolling the billions our friends in the US and EU are splurging on green subsidies:

The UK’s budget for net zero does not come close to matching the ambition of our partners: we need to spend now to save money in the future. The country’s finances are already straining under the weight of Conservative Government incompetence, and the London School of Economics predicts that UK banks and insurers will end up shouldering nearly £340 billion-worth of climate-related losses by 2050 unless action is taken to curb rising temperatures and sea levels.

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The climate crisis cannot wait. Penny-pinching now will lose us fortunes in the future: Government investment and the right Government policies and frameworks are needed to meet the climate change challenge.

Of course, spending money on wind and solar would not save us from climate impacts. Even if we could power our country solely on these generators, we would be relying on the rest of the world following us, even accepting as given that such a project would reduce carbon dioxide emissions enough to “save the world.” In other words the source of our energy does not and will never make a difference to any climate impacts. What it will do is give us some sort of moral leadership, but I think most people prefer money.

Next up, Sir Paul Beresford (C) who extols the virtues of fusion power, which are virtues indeed, were fusion power to exist at a relevant scale. Beresford talks warmly about Oxford’s Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, at which point Bridgen tries to intervene again.

BRIDGEN: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

BERESFORD: Sorry, but the hon. Gentleman came late to the debate, and I am just about to finish.

Attentive readers might have noticed Bridgen successfully intervening in the first speech of the day. I cannot criticise Beresford here, because Bridgen might have punctuated his later fruitless attempts to intervene by leaving the chamber and re-entering it.

Alex Cunningham (L) rises to talk more about CCUS, but notes in passing the destruction of industry in Teesside:

At Billingham in my constituency, we currently have the Mitsubishi Cassel works working towards final closure, with the loss of several hundred jobs. CF Fertilisers has ceased the production of ammonia just down the road, although I remain hopeful that at least that will restart if energy costs come down. For the record, that is the only remaining ammonia plant in the country, and CCUS would help ensure long-term production.

CCUS would add to the costs of the ammonia plant. We need ammonia because we need to eat, and to eat we need to farm intensively, and to do that we need fertilisers, and for that we need ammonia. The fact that such obvious needs have been put to the back of the queue by our Net Zero fantasies is madness. Cunningham later approvingly quotes the Skidmore review of Net Zero with this asinine comment:

“It is essential that the UK acts quickly and decisively. There is a new global race to maximise the growth potential from net zero at a time of wider geopolitical uncertainty. We are now at a crunch point where the UK could get left behind.”

Skipping a couple of contributions we come to Selaine Saxby (C) who waxes lyrical about the potential for floating wind farms off the South West shore with this frankly ludicrous comment:

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the Celtic sea, I strongly support the Government’s target of having 5 GW of floating offshore wind by 2030, and I am delighted that the Celtic sea has been identified as a key development opportunity to complement existing deployment in the North sea for the simple reason that the wind blows the other way round there. We need to develop both areas to optimise wind energy production.

Here, the wind blows the other way, enabling the giant rubber bands that generate the leccy to be wound up. Next, Andrew Bridgen is called. Does he say anything sensible?

This estimates debate is extremely important, especially considering how lively the debate is in the field of climate science—not reflected in the Chamber today. Given the effects on a population already struggling with energy bills; the growing public awareness of doom-mongers with their deadlines that never actually come to pass; the extreme sacrifices being forced on us all, which may be futile in the face of China, Russia and India continuing to increase their use of fossil fuels enormously, it appears that the Government are taking one side of a scientific argument and, once again, declaring it to be an unchallengeable fact.

The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), who is no longer in her place, is clearly a champion of wind and solar technology. There is a place for those technologies, but the question I wanted to ask her, though she refused my intervention—perhaps the Minister will help her out when summing up—is that on those long, cold winter nights when the wind does not blow, if we rely on solar and wind power, what will keep our houses warm and industry running?

The fact is that the UK accounts for less than 1% of global emissions. On that basis, we are voluntarily rejecting entire established industries that have been proven to work to keep us warm, fed and sheltered. We are asked to reject those for the fantasies of Just Stop Oil protesters and Leonardo DiCaprio-esque climate scientists. We are asked to reject those for technologies that either do not yet exist or have not been proven at scale. The Government cannot prove many of the concepts we have heard about. I seem to remember that for the last 40 years, fusion reactors have always been 20 years away. If I asked the Minister, I think we would find that they are still 20 years away today.

We are asked to reject technologies for those that do not even exist and are not proven at scale. Not only can the Government not explain exactly what technologies we will use, but they cannot give an accurate estimate of what it will cost. According to some estimates, the drive to net zero could cost £1 trillion, or even £3 trillion. If that is on the lower side, £1,000 billion will be slammed on the overdraft of the generations to follow us. I am not sure they will thank us. As with all failed experiments, the only certainty is that when the bill comes in, the people will have to pay.

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Esteemed colleagues in both Houses have pointed out the current plan is wasteful, damaging and may be ill-thought-out. The only thing certain is that, if we carry on down the legally binding route of net zero that the Government have set for us, our people will become poorer, colder and less free. It is another prime example of, “We know what’s best, we’re going to tell you, and you’re going to get on with it.” People are getting sick of that level of governance.

Thanks, Mr. Bridgen. If only we had another 325 MPs with a similar view.

In the interests of brevity I will draw a veil over the rest of the debate. Suffice it to say that an objective observer would not be reassured about the country’s future. Still, you know what they say. You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

The sceptics’ dying words:

We told you so.

Notes

Read the entire debate, if you are of mighty constitution.

You can watch Bridgen’s contribution here.

Featured image

Andrew Bridgen begins his speech in a “well-attended” (according to Stephen Crabb in his closing statement) Commons chamber.