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Post by Pacifico on Mar 8, 2024 16:11:18 GMT
Latest in a long line of eye-watering costs being imposed on the public in the dash to Net Zero.
£10bn for 60GWh of batteries that would keep the grid going for <1.5 hours at peak times. Is this an early April Fool?
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Post by Red Rackham on Mar 10, 2024 12:39:08 GMT
Household electricity bills will rise relentlessly and then stay high if Britain sticks to its net zero ambitions. This is the inevitable consequence of the shortcomings of all current means of generating clean electricity – and demand for electricity is certain to soar if we scrap gas boilers and force people to buy electric cars. The Government has committed to net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 and this pledge survived the Prime Minister’s recent watering down of the Government’s green agenda. One of the pillars of emissions reduction is a continuous increase in the use of zero-carbon electricity. There are four large-scale sources of zero-carbon electricity: nuclear, hydro, solar and wind. All are technologically quite mature, so we can judge how well they will be able to meet the country’s need for zero-carbon power. It’s important to understand that electricity is a carrier of energy, not an energy source, and is currently not storable at grid scale at affordable cost. To give an example, the largest grid-storage battery in the world would power Britain’s peak demand for two minutes and 24 seconds - linkBut the truth is, the government don't know how much net zero might cost. When the Commons nodded through Britain’s legally-binding net zero target in 2019 all MPs had to go on was the Climate Change Committee’s estimate that the whole process would cost £1 trillion. [Some estimates are closer to £5 trillion] MPs failed to probe this figure and the government didn’t even try to calculate one. Indeed, when the Treasury attempted to come up with its own figure in 2021 it gave up, saying it couldn’t be done because there are too many unknowables - link
But one thing is for sure, net zero is eye wateringly expensive and will make the economy and people poorer. |
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Post by Pacifico on Mar 10, 2024 16:26:06 GMT
Labour going full on bonkers.. cut energy bills indeed..  CCS increases energy costs. Green hydrogen contracts agreed at £241/MWh, 10X cost of gas. Green steel is also too expensive. Floating offshore wind is 2.4X more expensive than new fixed offshore, which is in turn about 2X the cost of gas-fired electricity. |
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Post by Pacifico on Mar 31, 2024 7:17:28 GMT
Was thinking about this earlier - this has got to be the first time in history that any Government (and the Tories would spend the same) will have spent so much and yet had absolutely no impact on making people's lives for the better. Normally spending of this scale has been for creating welfare systems, health systems or stopping conflicts. However this time we are spending on the creation of an energy system to replace the current energy system that works well - the only difference will be that we will pay more.  |
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Post by Tinculin on Mar 31, 2024 10:15:14 GMT
Yeah, the thought of whether that money could be better spent to improve lives is staggering. That kind of money could revitalise the NHS, could be spent on affordable housing, better road maintenance or a plethora of other things which would have far more obvious and substantial benefits to the country.
Net zero seems like another idea that the government is obsessed with, despite having questionable benefits.
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Post by Dan Dare on Mar 31, 2024 11:04:10 GMT
Net zero is a concept of dubious value in the UK context. A far more meaningful objective would be to strive for energy independence.
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Post by Red Rackham on Apr 1, 2024 14:16:42 GMT
Renewables are expensive and unreliable, which is why energy security should not be confused with net zero. Relying on the wind to provide us with affordable and reliable electricity, is a complete fantasy, and it's no secret that it's a complete fantasy. The government have provided £billions in subsidy to the renewable energy industry and every year the government acknowledge the industry need more, an extra £285 million last year [2022] it seems it doesn't matter how much tax payers money is thrown at wind farms. Yet in December and January the government warned us that power cuts may be required to preserve dwindling energy supplies.
Net zero technology may be profitable and more importantly, reliable, at some point in the future but that point is not now. We are running before we can walk in an attempt to look virtuous to the rest of the world. The fact that in 21st century UK millions of people cant afford to heat their homes is, it would seem, worth it so politicians can say look how green we are.
For interest: In December 2022 the ONS said that during the winter of 2021/22 there were 28,300 deaths in England and Wales due to cold homes, and guess what, no one is talking about it. Yet if just 1 person dies this summer due to heat deluded lefties and the green lobby will be shouting about it from the rooftops.
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Post by Red Rackham on Apr 1, 2024 14:20:14 GMT
Net zero is a concept of dubious value in the UK context. A far more meaningful objective would be to strive for energy independence. Indeed, energy independence would be a more meaningful objective. Unfortunately energy independence and net zero is not achievable. The choice we have is, energy independence or net zero. |
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Post by Orac on Apr 6, 2024 7:34:13 GMT
A lot of the green political / policy agenda seems to be about making sure no community is independent in anything it needs to survive.
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Post by Dan Dare on Apr 6, 2024 9:16:18 GMT
Energy independence in itself necessarily involves basing your economy and society on renewable energy sources that are under your own, national control. In the UK context that leads inevitably to 'net zero' or something close to it.
Members of economic blocs like the EU who can pool their resources and who have the industrial capacity to produce their own generating systems will naturally find this easier to accomplish than 'stand-alone' entities, especially tiddlers on a global scale like the UK.
The big guys like the USA and China can paddle their own canoes.
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Post by Pacifico on Apr 8, 2024 7:44:56 GMT
Estimating NetZero costs per household;
Heat Pump: £15,000
Electric Vehicle: £40,000
Upgraded National Grid: £15,000
Total (so far) £70,000.
And all to achieve nothing at all...
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Post by Orac on Apr 8, 2024 8:36:59 GMT
Energy independence in itself necessarily involves basing your economy and society on renewable energy sources that are under your own, national control. In the UK context that leads inevitably to 'net zero' or something close to it.
Members of economic blocs like the EU who can pool their resources and who have the industrial capacity to produce their own generating systems will naturally find this easier to accomplish than 'stand-alone' entities, especially tiddlers on a global scale like the UK.
The big guys like the USA and China can paddle their own canoes.
This just looks like a line of interlocked non-sequiturs and tangled rationales for some kind of tree based, super-national fascism. Why stop at Europe or China? If placing the European population under one supreme commander gets us closer to better weather, wouldn't placing the whole world under such control get us even closer? |
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Post by Dan Dare on Apr 9, 2024 8:26:45 GMT
Not necessarily. Anyway the primary rationale for energy independence is not better weather.
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