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.
A large green hydrogen project being developed in Spain by EDP is in line for subsidies via the European Hydrogen Bank. But Hydrogen Insight has learned that the Portuguese energy firm is considering an exit from the process, amid a lack of clarity for potential off takers around regulations to drive demand.
A large green hydrogen project being developed in Spain by EDP is in line for subsidies via the European Hydrogen Bank. But Hydrogen Insight has learned that the Portuguese energy firm is considering an exit from the process, amid a lack of clarity for potential off takers around regulations to drive demand.
This goes to the heart of why investors are reluctant to build hydrogen and carbon capture projects, in spite of the obscene subsidies on offer.
We have of course already seen BP pull the plug on their Teesside Hydrogen/CCS plant and the collapse of the Acorn carbon capture scheme in Scotland.
The concern of all three projects is whether there will be sufficient demand for their products. Hydrogen, is of course, ridiculously expensive compared to gas, even without carbon capture. So who on earth would want to swap gas for hydrogen?
Similarly, why would businesses pay to pipe their CO2 away?
In theory, companies will have no other choice, as natural gas will either be banned or priced out of the market by punitive carbon taxes.
But all these taxes will do is force businesses to pack up and move abroad. So, what then for EDP’s hydrogen plant or BP’s hydrogen power station?
Worse still, for these investors, is the risk that future governments will abolish Net Zero completely, or at the very least keep carbon taxes low. In that event, their business model is completely shot.
Last week, the Eastern Daily Press was kind enough to print an opinion piece of mine. This was written in response to another opinion article, one which bemoaned the lack of progress at COP28, and how damaging this was for Norfolk.
Last week, the Eastern Daily Press was kind enough to print an opinion piece of mine. This was written in response to another opinion article, one which bemoaned the lack of progress at COP28, and how damaging this was for Norfolk.
I don’t think my opinion made it to the online newspaper, so I’m posting it here. Naturally it is aimed at a different audience than my usual offerings at Cliscep, one whose members are probably only peripherally aware of things that we obsess over. I skate over a lot of points very rapidly because I only had 600 words to say everything. My original draft was 1000 words, and whole paragraphs had to be sacrificed to reach the word limit (the piece I was responding to was longer).
My goal was to state things that I believe to be true, in a style accessible to a general audience, in a polite way, with none of the snark that sometimes decorates my posts here.
I encourage readers to engage with their local newspapers in a similar manner. It is our duty not to abandon the field to those whose noble aims but incoherent thinking would doom our civilisation.
Finally, much respect to the EDP for airing views that are forbidden in some quarters.
Net Zero is more damaging for us than climate change
[Title slightly modified by the EDP]
Charlie Gardner (Opinion, 15th January) says COP28 failures are bad for Norfolk. That may well be the case. But failure was eminently foreseeable. The clue is in the name: COP28. This was the 28th such shindig, and after almost all of them, global emissions of carbon dioxide have increased – exceptions being the financial crisis year and the Covid year.
The reason is the different aims of guilt-wracked Western democracies like the UK, and growing countries like China.
China is willing to watch and even applaud as we destroy our manufacturing and are therefore increasingly forced to buy their goods. They are willing to sell us wind turbines and solar panels, especially if it makes our electricity, and our manufacturing, yet more uncompetitive. For China, it’s a win-win scenario. It becomes richer by selling us stuff we can no longer afford to make. And if our reductions in carbon dioxide emissions really do help the climate… why, then the benefits are spread all across the globe, among those doing the work and those sitting in the shade alike.
Dr. Gardner exhorts us all to make individual efforts to save the climate. Such efforts are noble, but pointless. The UK’s per capita carbon dioxide emissions are already now, quite surprisingly perhaps, at or around the world’s average. Compare that to the United States, which is fond of lecturing us about any backsliding (e.g. in respect of the Cumbrian coal mine), but whose own per capita emissions are now about three times ours. Most people in Norfolk really do not have a large enough ecological footprint to feel guilty about.
The UK’s Net Zero policies are biting Norfolk far more than climate change is – which is rather ironic. The UK has the second most expensive electricity in the world – and no, it is not due to over-reliance on fossil fuels! Rather it is because we have installed so much generating capacity that cannot be relied upon to produce when we need it. Prime farmland is carpeted with solar panels – and produces a big fat nothing at five p.m. on a winter’s evening. Wind turbines occasionally produce too much, and we have to pay them for electricity we can’t use. Often they produce too little. Meanwhile the grid has to do a furious juggling act to keep the lights on. Anyone who tells you that renewables are the answer is not thinking it through. It doesn’t matter how many renewables you install. At points in time, they will still produce nothing. And battery backup won’t help. It will help its operators make a quick buck every time supply is tight and the cost of electricity is high. But providing durable power over time? No chance. Anyone who opposes nuclear is not serious about Net Zero. (The RSPB absurdly opposes Sizewell C, while supporting wind farms that will kill beautiful seabirds like kittiwakes.)
With Net Zero, every year, the screw tightens. Prosperity is growing in countries that are using more energy, and consequently emitting more carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, cuts in carbon dioxide emissions for countries like the UK become harder and harder year by year, and erode our wealth and freedoms. And thanks to the stitch up between the major parties in Westminster, nobody asked whether you and me were on board with the project. The technocrats simply declared it was happening and that was that.
The problem with Net Zero is that, noble in aim, in practice, it will be ruinously destructive. Sooner or later the UK’s rush to Net Zero will go off the rails. Then we will all be looking at one another wondering how we got here.
Come the election, I’ll be asking any candidate who knocks on my door: Are you for Net Zero? If their answer is yes… my answer to them will be a firm No.
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