Net Zero Watch welcomes Scottish Government’s new-found realism on climate.
Campaign group Net Zero Watch has welcomed the announcement by the Scottish Government that they are considering legislating to water down their Net Zero targets.[1] Net Zero Secretary Mairi McAllan told the Holyrood Parliament that, having set themselves a legally binding target of cutting carbon emissions by 75% by 2030, she and her officials were now considering a variety of options to address the impossibility of actually delivering, including legislation.
Welcoming the move, Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:
Politicians across the world have set ruinous, utopian targets that are impossible to deliver. Ms McAllan is the first to publicly face up to reality, but she won’t be the last. We have reached the high water mark for Net Zero.
Under the Climate Change Act, governments can amend the decarbonisation target and the timetable for achieving it by regulation, as happened in 2020 [2]. It is also open to them to legislate.
Mr Montford said:
This is a purely political decision. Whatever course they take, the Scottish Government will face opposition from environmentalists, the Climate Change Committee and their Green coalition partners. But they have no option. You can’t negotiate with reality.
LONGi Green Energy Technology has appealed for the West not to abandon Chinese manufacturers. But in 2021 LONGi was accused of using slave labor sourced components.
World’s biggest solar company warns west not to cut out Chinese suppliers
Longi executive says costs would double, job opportunities would be lost and green targets missed
The world’s biggest solar panel manufacturer has warned that Europe and the US risk slower decarbonisation of their economies if they restrict Chinese companies from their renewable energy supply chains.
China dominates solar manufacturing, accounting for more than 80 per cent of global production following decades of deep state support, rapid domestic demand growth and intense local competition.
But western political and industry leaders have called for greater diversity in supply amid a glut of Chinese imports, as well as expressing security fears about China-made components being used in critical infrastructure.
Dennis She, vice-president of Longi Green Energy Technology, which has around 20 per cent of the global market for photovoltaic modules, told the Financial Times that western countries would “at least slow down” their transitions away from fossil fuels if they were to cut back on Chinese solar supplies. He also warned that the cost of solar panels produced without Chinese involvement in countries like the US would be “double”.
LONGi, the U.S.’s top solar-panel supplier, is exposed to possible human rights violations through its supply chain. LONGi and its subsidiaries sent at least 21% of the shipping containers that carried solar panels to U.S. ports during the second quarter of 2021, according to research firm Panjiva. Including panels from another leading manufacturer that buys material from LONGi, the company could account for as much as 30% of recent shipments.
LONGi buys polysilicon, a key ingredient in most solar panels, from at least three producers that source their raw material from Hoshine Silicon Industry Co. Ltd., according to a recent report from the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University in the U.K.
Hoshine was hit with a U.S. import restriction in June after U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, said it found evidence that the company used forced labor at factories in China’s autonomous Xinjiang region, where Beijing is accused of suppressing Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities. LONGi has denied the allegations and the Chinese government previously has denied that it is committing human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
LONGi strenuously denies using slave labor. But how can they be sure? How can any of us be sure? Even if LONGi management are completely sincere, slave labour is allegedly a practice promoted by Chinese authorities. If allegations of slave labor are true, there would be no pressure on upstream supply chain companies to tell the truth when asked, about which of their workers get to go home at night.
So my question stands – is the alleged climate crisis serious enough that we should take even a small risk of benefiting from slave labor? Or should we close the door to Chinese products, until China admits their wrongdoing, and convincingly renounces slavery? How else can we force China to stop this abomination?
Occasionally I listen to the consumer affairs programme, “You and Yours”, on BBC Radio 4. As well as the usual guff about clothes shopping, gambling and sundry other stuff that doesn’t interest me, there are some articles of general interest, such as various frauds to take note of and avoid. And then there’s the regular pushing of net zero and associated topics. So it came as a surprise when the subject of heat pumps was discussed today in less than glowing terms, especially as I have listened to them being pushed enthusiastically on the same programme in the past. Perhaps the worm is turning here too.
About half-way through the programme, the host, Winifred Robinson, introduced the subject thus (with the rest also being transcribed by me below):
WR: If you’re coming through this winter knowing that your gas boiler will need replacing soon, then what should you do? There are Government grants on offer of up to £7,500 if you want to put a heat pump in. More than 30,000 people have applied for those grants so far, but that’s not anything like what the Government had hoped would apply. But even with these grants the heat pumps can be expensive, and they’re not suitable for every home. And it may be that the price of a gas boiler is about to cone down a little. I’ve been speaking to a couple of people who can give us the benefit of their experience. Mike Foster speaks for the big boiler manufacturers – he’s from their trade group, the Energy & Utilities Alliance. And Mark Jones has been working out what to do about a new boiler. Mark Jones told me about his home.
MJ: It’s a detached house in Bournemouth. It’s got five bedrooms, a fairly large detached house. I currently have a 30Kw boiler installed, so we’d probably need a couple of the largest heat pumps that are available for domestic properties to be able to do the job, and that’s what I’ve been quoted for.
WR: So you looked at putting in two heat pumps?
MJ: Well that’s what I was told I would need by a plumber that came to do the quotation. He said it would be two standard heat pump systems that would work together to generate enough heat to heat the house.
WR: And what did you decide to do?
MJ: Well, I er, the price for that work was about £20,000, so then I was told that because I have an electric car I would also need to upgrade the power supply to the house, and I subsequently found that that was going to cost another £5,500, so we’re looking almost £26,000 to replace my gas boiler with a heat pump system.
WR: So even if you knock off the £7,500, it’s still a lot more expensive than a gas boiler.
MJ: Yeah, it’s substantially more expensive than a gas boiler, and not only that, the actual running costs of the system still would be a bit more – not much more – but I’m led to believe it would be a bit more than running the existing gas boiler. So, as it stands, there’s no incentive at all to spend all that money.
WR: I’m guessing that you’re worried about the environment, or you wouldn’t even have bothered investigating this, would you? You won’t like the idea of just putting in another gas boiler?
MJ: Well, I’d prefer not to, no, I try to be conscious of my carbon footprint, and I have an electric car which I really enjoy, and you know, I’d like to move with the times and try to be a bit ahead of the curve in terms of selling the house on in the future. I’d like to be adequately prepared and, you know, try to do my bit for the environment.
WR: But you’re gonna get a gas boiler?
MJ: [Laughs]. Well, I’d prefer not to. I’m kind of, I feel, I’m probably going to bide my time.
WR: Mike Foster. The manufacturers were given targets, weren’t they, for heat pump installation, and told that they would be fined if those targets were not met. And it’s been reported that the Government has changed its mind about that. Does it mean that the price of a new gas boiler will come down a bit, and explain why it would.
MF: The scheme that you refer to was called the Clean Heat Market Mechanism, and it was designed to incentivise boiler manufacturers to install heat pumps into people’s properties. The problem with the scheme itself is that it really is about consumer demand. That’s what drives the number of heat pump sales in the UK. It’s not about whether a manufacturer can make a heat pump or not, it’s, you know, do people want to put them into their homes? And the experience that Mark has just described is fairly typical of what we’re finding out and about in the country. So that scheme is aimed at the wrong target. And what it does mean is that the boiler manufacturers have looked at their target sales of heat pumps, looked at their target sales of boilers, and concluded that they’re gonna end up paying a fine. And for every heat pump that they fail to sell, they get a fine of £3,000. So cumulatively, added up across the target that they’ve been set, and the boiler manufacturers’ only recourse to protect their own financial position and that of their workforce and the jobs in the local communities, is to put the price of boilers up. And they did that from the first of January. Now, if this speculation proves to be true, and the Government agree [sic] to scrap the fines associated with the scheme, firstly that will be great news for the boiler manufacturers, yes, but it will be super news too for the consumer, because they would see a boiler price fall by about £120.
WR: That’s not very much, is it, I mean it’s not that super news, is it? I don’t know, is that decisive, if you’re putting in a new boiler, £120, that wouldn’t be decisive would it, I mean a boiler lasts for years and years.
MF: And they absolutely last for years and years, and in terms of, you know, the price of a boiler, £120 on something like a £2,500 install might not be a lot of money to some people, but why should people who have a gas boiler, who perhaps can’t afford to make the switch to a heat pump, why should they be penalised because other consumers aren’t picking up the volume of the heat pumps that the Government target suggests? It just seems the wrong group of people to end up targetting with this so-called boiler tax.
WR: So people listening who know their gas boiler will need replacing soon – in your opinion, who should look at the possibility of having a heat pump?
MF: The first thing you would have to reflect on is that the average cost of a heat pump is considerably more than replacing your gas boiler. So the average home typically is about £13,400 to replace your gas boiler with a heat pump. And your running costs are likely to go up by about £120 a year, having a heat pump compared to a gas boiler. But you do save carbon…
WR: They cost more to run? They’ll cost more to run?
MF: Absolutely, on an average efficiency on a, so the Government-acknowledged minimum level of efficiency for a heat pump then, then, yes, they’ll cost about £120 a year more to run. And that doesn’t make it a great marketing offer. But you do save carbon. And in the right home, they might be suitable, so Winifred, you would look at say new-build homes would be the most obvious place for heat pumps to be rolled out in large numbers…
WR: But the Government’s going to make them do that, aren’t they? They’ve had a really early deadline, haven’t they, the house-builders, isn’t that 2028?
MF: Exactly, they’re gonna have to do it by regulation. And then, if you were doing a self-build, that might also be another appropriate time to make the switch to a low temperature heating system typical with a heat pump…
WR: What about a big renovation, then, if you’ve bought a property needs a big renovation, that’s got no heating system, would you go for a heat pump then?
MF: It depends on the type of house that you have, Winifred, and how much your renovation is going to be. If it’s a solid-wall construction home then immediately, you know, I would question whether a heat pump would be the right product for you. But if you’re going to spend money on external wall insulation, you might have under-floor heating put in, then maybe your property becomes suitable for a low temperature system. But you need to have the space, and obviously and importantly you need to have the finance to be able to afford to make the home suitable to run a heat pump.
WR: Mike, there are lots of companies, aren’t there at the moment, advertising electric boilers as replacements for gas boilers. But they’ll cost loads more to run, won’t they? There’ll be no harmful emissions from them, but they’ll cost a lot more to run.
MF: An electric boiler uses electricity from the Grid, and the Grid, you know, it’s not zero carbon yet. You have carbon emissions as the result of running anything that is electrical in your home, and an electric boiler would be no different. The problem with an electric boiler compared to a gas boiler is the running cost. An electric boiler is a ittle bit more efficient but it#s four times more expensive per Kilowatt hour to run.
WR: So what needs to happen? Because if you talk about changing the pricing for electricity as opposed to gas, then the people who are generating the green electricity from windmills and so on, they say that electricity needs to cost even more.
MF: This is what makes this whole debate round heating homes and decarbonisation an incredibly difficult topic. For the UK, with 85% of homes currently on the gas grid, converting the gas to a low-carbon or zero carbon gas might well be the least disruptive, least costly way to go forward, because you can still use a boiler, you can still use your existing radiators, and Winifred one of the things that most people don’t appreciate it is that the majority of homes in this country now have a combi boiler. They have got rid of their hot water tank. You can’t have a heat pump without having a hot water tank. So that adds to the cost and the disruption, and also to some extent, the behavioural change that, you know, individual consumers will have to live with the way in which perhaps you used to do in the old days with an immersion heater and filling up the tank, then waiting for it, you know, somebody to use all the hot water in their bath or their shower. Those are all problems associated with decarbonisation of heat, and there’s no easy answer, I’m afraid.
WR: That was Mike Foster from the Energy & Utilities Alliance and Mark Jones speaking to me a bit earlier.
Last week, Jess Ralston, the Head of Energy at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), took to Twitter/X to criticise Robert Jenrick for suggesting that if Labour keep their promise to decarbonise the grid by 2030, then we will see power blackouts:
Figure 1
3) Jenrick: “Labour promised to decarbonise the grid by 2030… If they were reckless enough [sic] to deliver this it would lead to power blackouts”
What's the evidence? Blackout fears are unfounded; generation-related outages are vanishingly rare
She suggested Jenrick’s fears were “scaremongering” and demanded some evidence. She’s right that assertions without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. So, time to look at the evidence.
Warnings of Blackouts
First, Robert Jenrick is hardly the first person to warn of blackouts. The boss of the National Grid warned in November 2022, that blackouts and power cuts could be imposed during a really cold winter. Last year the National Grid also warned that they “sometimes they need to reduce demand by planned outages to avoid major damage”.
If even the National Grid is warning of outages, then Jenrick’s comments can hardly be described as scaremongering.
Peak Supply from Fossil Fuels and Nuclear
Remember that Labour have promised to decarbonise the grid by 2030, so I thought it would be helpful to see how much we rely upon reliable sources of power like fossil fuels and nuclear power now. I downloaded the supply and demand figures from Gridwatch for December 2023 and January 2024 to determine the peak supply from fossil fuel sources and from nuclear power during that period. There were eight occasions when supply from these sources exceeded 32GW. The peak supply from fossil fuels and nuclear came during the evening of December 1st, 2023, at 32.3GW. At that time, we were getting <1.5GW from wind, nothing from solar, 2.8GW from biomass, 0.8GW from hydro and a net 5.8GW from interconnectors.
Since then, due to a fault on one of the nuclear power stations supply from nuclear has dropped from 4.8GW to 3.8GW.
Changes to Generating Capacity
Over the next few years, the supply from fossil fuel and nuclear sources is going to change dramatically. First, the Government has announced that it plans to phase out our remaining coal power stations by October 2024. Moreover, the Hartlepool and Heysham One nuclear power plants are scheduled to shut down in 2026. In addition, the remaining two Advanced Gas Cooled Reactors at Heysham Two and Torness and due to shut down in 2028. This will leave us with just 1.2GW of nuclear capacity until Hinkley C eventually comes online, now expected in 2031.
DUKES Table 5.11 gives a list of all power stations in the U.K. by type, including the year of installation. Gas-fired power stations are supposed to have a life of 25-30 years (sometimes up to 40 years). Assuming an asset life of 30 years for gas-fired units and the announcements about coal generation and the nuclear power plants, Figure 2 shows what the profile of fossil fuel and nuclear power plant capacity looks like out to 2035 and compares that to the peak power produced by these types of unit in December 2023.
Figure 2
Here we can see we may run into trouble as soon as late this year if there are any unplanned outages or maintenance issues with the power plants. Capacity in 2025 just falls short of peak requirement, with 2026 showing a capacity gap of 3.9GW. The gap then grows to 15.9GW in 2030, closes a bit in 2031 as Hinkley C comes online before expanding to over 17GW by 2035. This does not consider that as the penetration of EVs and heat pumps increases, peak demand is likely to rise, further exacerbating the gap.
It might be possible to extend the life of these power plants out to 40 years. This begs the question about whether we should be basing our energy security on aging gas-fired power plants that are on their last legs? Ignoring that issue for the moment, extending the lives has the impact of keeping us just above water out to 2027, but there is a 1.4GW gap from 2028 as the remaining AGR nuclear plants close. If the grid is supposed to be decarbonised by 2030, there is then a gaping chasm of over 31GW at that point, as seen in Figure 3.
Figure 3
So, what might fill the gaps? Well, the most obvious thing to do would be to keep the coal-fired plants running and nurse the gas-fired plants into a longer life. To be safe, we should be investing in more new gas-fired plants, but we have not installed a new CCGT plant since 2016.
During those peak times described above, the interconnectors were effectively maxed out already, so there is no chance they can come to the rescue.
The Net Zero zealots have ruled out fossil fuels, so let us look at renewables. We have 1.5GW of natural flow hydroelectric capacity and aside from a few single-digit MW installations, we have not installed any significant new capacity since 2008. Hydro is not coming to the rescue. We also have pumped hydro, designed for fast response, but much of this was already being used at the times of peak demand, so that is not going to bridge the gap either.
We have 3.9GW of bioenergy, most of it being burning trees at Drax. There is no chance of expanding that to meet a 31GW supply gap by 2030, and anyway, where would all the wood-chips come from?
Of course, if we carpeted more farmland with solar panels, it would make no difference at all. This is because the peaks occur when it is dark, so there is no solar power anyway.
That leaves wind. At the times when fossil fuels and nuclear were providing over 32GW, wind was producing 1-1.5GW. It is unrealistic to expect that we can double wind capacity by 2030, but even if we could, we might expect at most an extra 1.5GW of generation on calm cold evenings, or less than 5% of the gap. So even doubling wind capacity is not going to help.
They could retrofit carbon capture and storage (CCS) on to the existing gas-fired plants, but there are several issues with this. First, we do not have a single plant working with this technology today, so the chances of installing this on all the aging gas-fired plants by 2030 are negligible. Second, CCS reduces the efficiency of power plants, so even if they did manage to install CCS, the output would be ~20% lower than it is today, meaning we would still have a significant generation gap.
Conclusions
Robert Jenrick was right. The evidence shows if Labour gets in and pursues decarbonising the grid by 2030, then we are in for blackouts. But before he takes a victory lap, he should consider that his party’s plans call for decarbonisation of the grid by 2035. Under his Government’s plans we will still face blackouts by 2028 at the latest.
I do hope this is sufficient evidence to convince Jess Ralston that our generation capacity is in a parlous state and there is a very real risk we will face blackouts in the not-so-distant future. And while we are on the subject of needing evidence to support assertions, what is the evidence that the “I” in ECIU can justifiably stand for Intelligence?
The inspiration for the title of this article came from the eponymous song by, appropriately enough, The Damned. When thinking about alleged policy gurus, recent, current and potential future energy secretaries, I am reminded of another track from the punk era: Pretty Vacant.
The Government’s Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate specifically refers to motor manufacturers – though there seems to be some ambiguity between “sold” and “produced”.
However there is no information provided as to how non-UK manufacturers will treated, and how foreign companies could be forced to meet the mandate under UK law. I there FOId the DfT, and they sent me this response:
So, as I suspected, there is no way the Government can actually enforce its mandate with non-UK manufacturers.
Suppose BMW missed its target by 50,000 cars. At £15000 per car, that’s a penalty of £750 million – which they clearly are not going to pay, no matter how much the Government huffs and puffs.
And if the Government attempted to restrict market access, I suspect there would be an almighty row with the EU. It is one I also suspect the Government would lose in the European courts.
This is particularly relevant given that German manufacturers are hoping to continue focussing on ICEs, now that the EU has an exemption for “zero carbon fuels”.
But also note this section:
It would be easy for European manufacturers to bypass the mandate, simply by pre-registering cars for 3 months before exporting them. By doing so, they would easily undercut domestic manufacturers, who would have to include the cost of the mandate in the price of their ICEs.
It seems naive in the extreme for the Government to just assume that BMW, Renault and all the rest would willingly cave in to UK demands. But that just about sums up the whole lunacy of Net Zero.
Maybe legal beagles out there might check my logic and see if I’ve missed anything.
Pumping CO2 into mature oil fields and not producing the oil that will be mobilised is pure madness and irresponsible at a time when energy security is high on the national agenda.
Sir, Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is viewed as an essential component of decarbonisation by many OECD governments and has been debated and considered in the UK for at least two decades. The technology exists to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) at power stations (gas or coal) or industrial works (e.g., oil refineries) using a range of technologies and to then pipe that CO2 to a geological location where it is pumped into porous formations in the deep sub-surface, where it is supposed to remain forever. In the UK, it is envisaged that the CO2 will be pumped into defunct oil or gas fields in the North Sea. Hence, instead of accumulating in the atmosphere, it is disposed of underground. The trouble with CCS is that it consumes a lot of resources, is therefore expensive (cost largely unknown) and provides no tangible benefit for those who have to pay for it, that is us.
CCS has a very wealthy cousin called CO2-EOR where EOR stands for enhanced oil recovery. All defunct oil fields still contain a lot of oil. This residual oil does not flow under its own steam and that is why it is left behind. Pumping CO2 into a defunct oil field does two things, it can dissolve some of the residual oil and mobilise it and it can expand the oil volume making it easier for the oil to flow. The oil can be pushed towards existing production wells and recovered. This effectively increases the oil recovery factor (a good thing in the world of economics) and extends the operational life of our oil fields (a good thing for the city of Aberdeen and the UK as a whole).
The trouble with CO2-EOR, from the simplified view of our politicians, is that it is CO2 neutral (ie. it does not increase or decrease CO2 emissions) although the level of neutrality varies from one field to the next. For our politicians, all obsessed with CO2 reduction targets, CO2 neutrality was not good enough. At least two opportunities to get CO2-EOR up and running in the UK have been squandered by successive governments that are obsessed with pure CCS that produces absolutely nothing of value and will be immensely costly to the public purse and to the population.
The government’s original plan was to support a single demonstration project to the tune of £1billion. This has now evolved to a plan to support many projects arranged into two clusters at a cost to the public purse of £20 billion over 20 years. The East Coast Cluster is based around Teeside and the Humber, and the Hynet cluster is based around NW England and N Wales. The Scottish based Acorn cluster, centred on Peterhead, is on track 2.
The thing I do not understand, is what are these companies going to sell and to whom? The government needs to provide cast iron assurances that beyond squandering £20billion of our hard-earned cash, that there will be no further costs to the public. Perhaps local MP Andrew Bowie can explain how this enterprise, that produces nothing of value, is going to be financed.
Pumping CO2 into mature oil fields and not producing the oil that will be mobilised is pure madness and irresponsible at a time when energy security is high on the national agenda. CCS with EOR has the promise to provide a vibrant self-funding industry. Why spend £20 billion on an aspiration that produces nothing when you can spend nothing and produce a lot more oil from the North Sea?
Why does this remind me of the Monty Python Spanish Inquisition skit?
New Research: The World May Have Crossed a Solar “Tipping Point”
By UNIVERSITY OF EXETER OCTOBER 19, 2023
The world may have crossed a “tipping point” that will inevitably make solar power our main source of energy, new research suggests.
The study, based on a data-driven model of technology and economics, finds that solar PV (photovoltaics) is likely to become the dominant power source before 2050 – even without support from more ambitious climate policies.
However, it warns four “barriers” could hamper this…
Decarbonisation plans across the globe require zero-carbon energy sources to be widely deployed by 2050 or 2060. Solar energy is the most widely available energy resource on Earth, and its economic attractiveness is improving fast in a cycle of increasing investments. Here we use data-driven conditional technology and economic forecasting modelling to establish which zero carbon power sources could become dominant worldwide. We find that, due to technological trajectories set in motion by past policy, a global irreversible solar tipping point may have passed where solar energy gradually comes to dominate global electricity markets, without any further climate policies.
Nobody Expects “the Momentum of the Solar Energy Transition”!
The authors suggest that solar power will become the dominant power source by 2050 without “more ambitious climate policies.” However, four barriers could stand in the way.
Nobody expects “the momentum of the solar energy transition”! Our chief barrier is grid resilience… grid resilience and access to finance… grid resilience and access to finance… Our two barriers are grid resilience and access to finance… and supply chains…. Our three barriers are grid resilience, and access to finance, and supply chains… and an almost fanatical devotion to silencing political opposition… Our four… no… Amongst our barriers… are such elements as grid resilience, access to finance… I’ll come in again.Apologies to Monty Python
Overcoming the Solar Barriers
“Grid Resilience”: Only use electricity only when the sun is shining.
Grid resilience: Solar generation is variable (day/night, season, weather) so grids must be designed for this. Dr Nijsse said: “If you don’t put the processes in place to deal with that variability, you could end up having to compensate by burning fossil fuels.” She said methods of building resilience include investing in other renewables such as wind, transmission cables linking different regions, extensive electricity storage, and policy to manage demand (such as incentives to charge electric cars at non-peak times). Government subsidies and funding for R&D are important in the early stages of creating a resilient grid, she added.
Access to finance: Solar growth will inevitably depend on the availability of finance. At present, low-carbon finance is highly concentrated in high-income countries. Even international funding largely favors middle-income countries, leaving lower-income countries – particularly those in Africa – deficient in solar finance despite the enormous investment potential.
Supply chains: A solar-dominated future is likely to be metal- and mineral-intensive. Future demand for “critical minerals” will increase. Electrification and batteries require large-scale raw materials such as lithium and copper. As countries accelerate their decarbonization efforts, renewable technologies are projected to make up 40% of the total mineral demand for copper and rare earth elements, between 60 and 70% for nickel and cobalt, and almost 90% for lithium by 2040.
Political opposition: Resistance from declining industries may impact the transition. The pace of the transition depends not only on economic decisions by entrepreneurs but also on how desirable policymakers consider it. A rapid solar transition may put at risk the livelihood of up to 13 million people worldwide working in fossil fuel industries and dependent industries. Regional economic and industrial development policies can resolve inequity and can mitigate risks posed by resistance from declining industries
“Even without support from more ambitious climate policies”
Can someone please explain to me how they plan to overcome these barriers “without support from more ambitious climate policies” (AKA massive government intervention)?
Nijsse et al., 2023 envisions the following energy transition:
Nijsse et al., 2023 envisions the following energy transition:
The loss of solar generation was accompanied by the usual midday doldrum. 4,904 MW of solar and wind generation tool a lunch break that day. Fortunately, it occurred on a Saturday, the high temperature was only 63 °F and natural gas-fired generation quickly ramped up to fill the gap.
All of the blather about the “energy transition” omits a very pertinent fact: There has never been an energy transition. Nor will there ever be an actual energy transition unless we manage to harness nuclear fusion.
We never transitioned from traditional biomass to fossil fuels. On a per capita basis, we consume as much “traditional biomass” for energy as we did when we started burning coal. We have just piled new forms of energy on top of older ones. Now, we have changed the way we consume energy sources. In the 1800’s the biomass came from whale oil and clear-cutting forests. Whereas, today’s biomass is less harmful to whales and forests.
From 1800 to 1900, per capita energy consumption, primarily from biomass, remained relatively flat; as did the average life expectancy. From 1900 to 1978, per capita energy consumption roughly tripled with the rapid growth in fossil fuel (coal, oil & natural gas) consumption. This was accompanied by a doubling of average life expectancy. While I can’t say that fossil fuels caused the increase in life expectancy, I can unequivocally state that everything that enabled the increase in life expectancy wouldn’t have existed or happened without fossil fuels, particularly petroleum.
It’s simply absurd to claim that solar power will ever become the dominant power source, with or “without any further climate policies.” Nobody should expect an energy transition. Wishful thinking dressed up as scientific research just encourages politicians to make bad policy decisions.
Emma Pinchbeck, Chief Executive of Energy UK, addressed the audience at the Energy UK Annual Conference, highlighting the broader challenges affecting the energy sector.
…
“The costs of projects have gone up by as much as 40% – such that no offshore wind developers could bid into the government’s most recent renewables auction. And hanging over all of this, the havoc that rising temperatures and extreme weather are already inflicting on countries and people across the world.”
Ms Pinchbeck said the UK needs “a power sector two to three times the size of the one today to power that future economy and to build five times the amount of infrastructure in the decade ahead as in the previous three.”
A power sector three times the size of today, providing the same energy as today, is not a good thing, it would be an economic disaster. Consumers at best would receive the same electricity as today, but they would have to pay three times the wage costs of today’s electricity sector. On what planet would this be a good thing for consumers?
If British consumers genuinely want affordable zero carbon power, and protection from wild fluctuations in global energy prices, the only viable option is to copy the French nuclear program.
France is the only major country in the world which successfully decarbonised most of their electricity sector, without the help of a fortunate abundance of hydroelectricity. Nuclear generates just under 70% of French electricity. And best of all, from a consumer point of view, nuclear plants are shielded from global energy price fluctuations, because unlike fossil fuel plants which require continuous refuelling, nuclear plants only need to be refuelled every two years. Even better, most of the next batch of fuel can be recovered from the spent fuel. Two years between refuelling cycles is plenty of lead time to secure a good deal and ensure affordable continuity of power generation.
Germany and Australia share delusional obsessions with wind and solar power; but they also share a desperate demand for reliable coal-fired power. Hidden from sight, both Germany and Australia have recognised (albeit a little too late) that the only way of delivering 24 x 365 power, whatever the weather at prices everyone can afford is by using coal-fired power plants.
As to Germany, Bridget Ryder take a look at moves by Germany’s RWE to demolish wind turbines to allow it to access more of Germany’s brown coal. That move doesn’t sit with the narrative about Germany transitioning to an all wind and sun powered future.
Nor does the next story from The Australian. Where reality is pressing upon those who claim that Australia is already well on its way to running on nothing but sunshine and breezes.
China and Germany: Firing Up Coal Power While Wind Takes a Back Seat The European Conservative Bridget Ryder 9 September 2023
Germany is dismantling a wind farm to make way for more coal mining, while China is on a spree to open new coal mines.
So goes the global push for renewable energy and decarbonisation, another sign of the reality check facing the proposed energy transition away from fossil fuels to ‘renewable’ energy such as wind.
The German energy giant RWE announced in October 2022 that it was removing a wind farm to expand its open lignite mine in the region of North Rhine-Westphalia. The first wind turbine has already been felled, and another seven are slated to be removed. The company will then have room to excavate some 15-20 million tonnes of lignite.
Lignite, also called brown coal, is the least efficient and therefore the most carbon-emitting form of coal. But it’s also abundant in western Germany, and according to the German government, it’s needed now more than ever.
The German government and RWE brokered the expansion of the lignite mine last fall because of the energy crisis engendered by the war in Ukraine and Germany’s subsequent loss of the Russian gas and oil it had relied on.
In exchange for permission from the German government to expand lignite mining for the moment, the company promised to ultimately phase out coal in 2030, eight years before the previous deadline.
With that caveat, the German government touted the deal as “a good day for climate protection,” though it seems there is little reason to believe that it wouldn’t once again prolong coal mining in 2030 should the need remain.
In fact, Germany’s attempt at switching to wind-sourced energy has proven a disaster. It is already far behind on its goals while facing increasing resistance from local communities to the installation of wind parks.
In another example of the schizophrenic tension between environmental rhetoric and political-economic reality, China has also abandoned its pledges to cut back on coal and has instead embarked on a coal burning spree.
In raw numbers, in the first six months of 2023, China approved 52 gigawatt (GW) of new coal power, began construction on 37 GW of new coal power, announced 41 GW of new projects, and revived 8 GW of previously shelved projects. About half of the plants permitted in 2022 had started construction by summer. One gigawatt of energy is equivalent to one large coal-fired power plant.
While not as ambitious as the EU, China has pledged to level off CO2 emissions by 2030 and reach net zero in carbon emissions by 2061.
Ironically, China is both the world’s largest producer of renewable energy, including wind, solar, and hydroelectricity, and simultaneously the world’s biggest carbon emitter, pumping out almost a third of the world’s carbon emissions in 2020. It’s not surprising, as in many regions, the Chinese infrastructure to store and distribute wind and solar energy has not kept pace with the production of these ‘renewable’ energies, meaning the electricity produced can’t be integrated into the grid and used. At the same time, for example, the fabrication of wind turbines, in which China is also a global leader, is heavily dependent on coal-fired power plants.
But most tellingly, according to analysts, the coal-powered projects are largely being approved where there is already excess coal-fired power. This indicates that China is prioritising economic recovery and energy security over ecology.
“There is more development than there is need for development,” Cory Combs, an analyst at Trivium China, said. “When we look at it from an energy security perspective, they [provincial-level governments] are putting an extremely high premium on short-term energy security. I don’t mean systemic issues; [I mean] even making sure there’s not even a two-hour power shortage. That’s taken over everything else, including the financials, but certainly decarbonisation.” The European Conservative
Australia must slow coal exits to safeguard affordability Alinta Energy CEO urges The Australian Colin Packham 15 September 2023
Australia must slow the closures of coal power stations to prevent surging power bills damaging households and businesses already battling a cost of living crisis, the head of the country’s fourth largest electricity and gas retailer has urged.
Australia has set an ambitious target of having renewable energy generate more than 80 per cent of the country’s power needs by 2030, a central pillar in the country’s plan to be net zero by 2050.
In comments that will intensify debate about the cost of the energy transition, Jeff Dimery – chief executive of Alinta Energy – said slowing the closures of coal power stations must be prioritised or households will endure more and more pain.
“I think we must slow down the pace of closing existing coal power stations a little bit. We are very good at taking higher emitting baseload generation out of the system but not so great at replacing it, and the economic signal is not strong enough at this time,” Mr Dimery told The Australian.
“Let’s not increase the burden on the consumer because prices are rising.”
Australia is battling a cost of living crisis that is weighing on support for the federal Labor government, but there is growing pressure on the country to achieve its net zero aspirations.
Mr Dimery said Alinta shares the government‘s ambitions but said there is undeniable evidence of the economic toll of rising prices.
“We have millions of people relying on subsidies and support to pay their energy bills, and I agree we had to do it but we can‘t be subsidising forever,” said Mr Dimery.
The Australian Energy Regulator in June revealed the number of households on hardship payment plans to repay electricity bills surged by 19 per cent during the first quarter of 2023, underscoring the impact of recent increases in bills.
The surge came before many households endured an increase of more than 20 per cent, the second such rise in as many years.
The comments came as Mr Dimery shared the stage with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at News Corp’s Future Energy event in Sydney.
Coal is still the dominant source of electricity in Australia, with the 20GW of capacity accounting for about 60 per cent of the country’s power. To replace coal, however, Australia will need to build significantly more capacity than the amount of coal already in the system due to the intermittent source of renewable energy.
The government believes the transition to renewable energy can be accelerated by building new transmission lines.
About 10,000km of new lines must be built before 2030, but their development has been hampered by funding constraints and community opposition.
The federal government has said its $20bn Rewiring the Nation, which offers cheap loans and concessional finance to transmission developers, will break the bottleneck.
Mr Dimery, however, said Alinta supports the build for transmission lines, but the costs will eventually flow through to consumers – and when comparing new renewable energy projects – it must be done on a like-for-like basis. The Australian
“Peak Oil” refers to the hypothetical point at which global crude oil production will hit its maximum rate, after which production will start to decline. At the forthcoming COP 28 conference in Dubai, a major agenda item will concern whether all parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change will commit to curtail financing of new hydrocarbons development, thus aiding to advance the arrival of “peak oil”.
The International Energy Agency June 2023 Oil Report projected global oil demand to peak “before the end of the decade”.
The exact size of the global oil resource is not definitely known. Experience over many years has shown that initial resource estimates have been continually revised upwards as new discoveries are made, fields are better delineated and new technologies applied. It is important to understand the terminology. Oil reserves are the amount of crude oil a country or region has that can be economically produced with current technology. Oil resources include oil reserves plus the quantities of oil in the ground that are considered either “conventional” (susceptible to development through well bores using minimal stimulation) and “unconventional” (resources whose development also require multistage hydraulic fracturing or other advanced extraction techniques).
Current estimates are that global oil reserves are between 1.4 trillion barrels and 1.73 trillion barrels. The world has a reserve to production (R/P) ratio of somewhere between 38 and 46 (i.e. 38 to 46 years of production at current rates left).
There is a widespread international effort to find and develop more oil. According to a June 2023 report by Energy Monitor, there are now 47 countries with planned new oil and gas fields.
In 2012, the United States Geological Survey assessed undiscovered oil and gas resources. For undiscovered, technically recoverable oil resources, the mean total for the world was 565.3 billion barrels of crude oil. There remains a large potential for increasing oil production from existing fields by improving the recovery factor, or RF (the percentage of initial oil in place that is recovered through better technologies). The average RF from mature fields around the world is somewhere between 20% and 40%. The means to do this now are a combination of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and improved oil recovery (IOR). Using combinations of EOR and IOR technologies it has been possible to achieve RF’s of 50% and 70% for some fields. In other words, in many cases it is possible to almost double the recovery factor, thus potentially doubling the existing conventional oil reserves.
Estimates of the size of the unconventional oil resource base are more difficult. Using the statistics of the US Geological Survey and the US Department of Energy, the global unconventional oil resource base was 450 billion tonnes (3.3 trillion barrels).
The potential ultimately recoverable oil resources are thus a combination of currently discovered conventional reserves (1.4 trillion-1.73 trillion barrels), plus undiscovered conventional reserves (565 billion barrels) plus unconventional resources (3.3 trillion barrels). The total, which must be regarded as speculative, is in the range of 5.1 trillion to 5.4 trillion barrels. At current rates of consumption, that could supply the world’s needs for close to 150 years. From this it is reasonable to conclude that the potential consumption of oil in the world will not soon be resource-constrained.
Development of additional oil reserves relies upon a favourable investment climate for oil companies, high enough prices to supply the necessary cashflow, and supportive government policies. The International Energy Agency 2023 report indicated that upstream oil and gas investment rose by 11% in 2022 to over US $450 billion and is expected to rise by 7% to US $500 billion in 2023. However, in 2015, new capital expenditures constituted over 90% of cash flow, but that share steadily declined to less than 50% in 2022. Among the reasons cited by the IEA was “uncertainty about future oil demand”, but global oil demand continues to rise at over one million barrels per day per year. A more accurate reason may be companies’ concern about the adverse impact of western countries’ anti-hydrocarbons climate policies.
Absent intrusive climate policies, the world would inevitably go through a long transition in which increasingly more expensive oil was supplanted by natural gas and a range of other competitively-priced energy sources.
Climate policy, however, seeks through taxation, regulation and central planning to control the pace of transition.
It also seeks to remove natural gas from the equation as a transitional fuel.
In so doing, climate policy risks creating a situation of both dire scarcity and extremely high energy prices that may persist for a long time. It remains to be seen, of course, whether the public in democratically-governed countries will tolerate such a transition.
Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
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