As much for my own future reference as anything, here is the list of nonsense in Labour's energy plan. Since they intend to deliver the bulk of it by 2030, DV we shall be able to tick off the items as they do not come to pass.
> "By 2030, the UK will be the first major country in the world to run on 100 per cent clean and cheap power". Can't be done. Not clear anyone really thinks it can be, incidentally, even though Miliband pretends to. Not even the '100% clean' bit is possible, since (as is admitted elsewhere in the manifesto) gas will continue to be needed - so by inference, they really are depending on the carbon capture & storage they also commit to - another very long shot indeed; assumption upon assumption). As for "cheap" ...> "Cut energy bills for good ... cheap power for all ... not just in the short term, but for good ... Labour’s plan for a cheaper, zero carbon electricity system by 2030 will lower bills because renewables are far cheaper than gas. Last summer the price of gas was nine times higher than that of renewables and it remains significantly higher. Based on gas futures price projections, our mission has been estimated as saving UK households £93 billion over the rest of this decade ... take £1,400 off the annual household bill." Outright rubbish from beginning to end. (The consultancy that crunched the numbers for them - 18 months ago! - has quietly disowned them.) Most renewables are more expensive than gas, some of them much more. And all the other system costs arising from use of renewables are then piled on top (see 'infrastructure' below, and a host of other things). The period of "gas nine times higher" was the height of the Putin spike; it was only the spot price; and it lasted for all of a couple of days.
> "By 2030 ... quadruple offshore wind with an ambition of 55 GW by 2030 / More than triple solar power to 50 GW / More than double our onshore wind capacity to 35 GW". The only question is how far short of this 'ambition' they will fall. Incidentally, with knowledge of the German practice of building renewables (and getting paid) but not connecting them to the grid, we'd better hold them to a definition of 'GW' that means, not just capacity but 'connected and functioning capacity'.
> "Double the government's target on green hydrogen, with 10 GW of production". An interesting one, this. What, pray, will be the load factor on this 10 GW of capacity? Very, very low, I'd guess. And why would anyone build that? Unless, of course, it'll be paid for (via subsidy) irrespective of LF - which I suppose we can't rule out.
> "Unleash marine and tidal power". Sounds exciting! No details, however, so hard to comment further, save to say that the extensive track record of tidal power experimentation is very unencouraging indeed.
> "Four times as much grid infrastructure to be built in the next seven years as has been built in the last 30 ... We are confident the transmission operators can do it." Really? What in the recent history of UK civil engineering leads to this conclusion? Oh yeah, the A14 upgrade came in on budget and under schedule. Anything else we can point to? HS2? Hinkley Point?
> "De-link the price of renewables from gas, to ensure their low prices are passed on to households and
businesses". There are some potential subtleties here, but I doubt this was written by someone who actually understands how markets work. (Incidentally, the same is true about some rather convoluted stuff they've got on local community energy schemes, but space does not permit.)
> "Mandating UK-regulated financial institutions – including banks,
asset managers, pension funds, and insurers – and FTSE 100 companies to develop and implement credible transition plans
that align with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement across their portfolios". Too late! We've already passed the 1.5 point of no return. Even more seriously: what the Hell does this 'mandating' mean? This could spell Big Trouble.
In fact, all of it could! Finally ...
> "Our plan will create 650,000 jobs across the country by 2030". Some would say: cost 650,000 jobs, more like! Well, job-creation schemes are job-creation schemes. If even half of the above plans were to be embarked upon seriously, it probably would require hundreds of thousands of new jobs. But where ya gonna find the Brits to fill them, eh?
So: a watching brief on all this guff. Five or six years of popcorn is a lot of popcorn ...
ND
22 comments:
Lots of ambition but …. would any reasonable person put Ed in charge? Suspect the difference between success and failure will be down to whichever Spads and civil servants are tasked with bring the plans forward. If only we could choose them.
Labour wil very slowly discover why the Tories did nothing for 14 years. Things Green come with problems - cost - functionality - continuity - upsetting the Nimbies. Some jumped on the bandwagon declaring there was good business to be done - but only while the subsidies last.
Doing nothing will probably be bad news, but that does not seem to bother the RoW. Cross that bridge...
Try a bit of strategic soft pedalling. But other aspects of Tory uselessness can be avoided - unless they can't.
Politicians are very good at failing to discover stuff that it would be inconvenient to discover. Eg Ed Davey and Horizon.
Candlelighting = (noun) The act of blaming every thing except renewables when blackouts are common due to energy grid break down.
Well I've got my 10KVa diesel generator, and a switch over system fitted so my house can run on fossil fuel regardless. I've a feeling I'm going to need their assistance at some point in the next 5 years.
Seriously, why would any politician make such ludicrous promises that cannot be delivered upon? Its pretty much guaranteed to make them look like lying tw@ts in a specific timeframe. Are they now so separated from reality that they think they only have to say something for it to be come about?
Do you have a link for that plan?
@Paul *applause*
Paul - that's a good 'un
decnine - and Ed Davey & Drax. Although the story goes, he was confronted with that one, and responded Oh, shit
Anon - yup, but you need to learn how search engines work! I'll let you off this time:
https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Make-Britain-a-Clean-Energy-Superpower.pdf
Much of this stuff is pie in the sky nonsense. E.g. tidal power is well known to be totally impractical.
Parts which might be made to work from an engineering perspective will soon run into brutal lawfare tactics that have made HS2 a disaster. May has further enabled all of this by capping litigants legal costs at 10k under the Oslo accords. So Labour will spend the next five years fighting an unholy alliance of Tories and Greens in the courts to build wind turbines onshore and actually connect them up.
The one part which might conceivably work is a bit more rooftop solar. Plenty of unused residential rooftops, panels are really cheap now, not too hard to train installers. Maybe bring back the grid payments?
As Tim Worstall often says, jobs are a cost not a benefit.
The idea of 650,000 more people working to produce only slightly more electricity than we presently produce is madness.
EVs.
The unexpected problem.
Streetside parking in our town have been turned into EV-only charging points - for the duration of charging and no longer.
They're empty most of the time so that's four free parking spots gone.
Popcorn needs heat doesn't it ?
Labour uses the noun "plan" in an interesting way. It seems to mean 'deluded fantasies such as a schoolboy in short trousers would have imagined in the late fifties'.
It's on a par with the notion that we'd all travel to work by gyrocopter and moving pavements.
@dearieme
The pavements won't move, but the goalposts certainly will!
I'm worried about war too.
All of a sudden the armed forces adverts and are all young white guys.
How are we going to rearm ourselves, Ukraine, the Baltic States AND create this fantasy world of cheap green power?
Following advice to learn to use the internet I found this example of competency and problems with giving a high profile speech. It shows how much thought has been given to appointing Ed.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/03/undoing-of-ed-miliband-and-how-labour-lost-election
One of politics rules is, if Ed Miliband thinks it's a good plan, it probably isn't.
No doubt Starmer will u-turn when he can, once the real costs are apparent to him, do some performative things this parliament, quietly drop it from the next manifesto - look, he will say, it was in the last manifesto, and we're delivering on it, so no need to repeat an old policy - and if back in, drop it in the bin.
There are some benefits to having few political morals.
impressive early results, anon. Stick at it! (Using a search engine well is a bit of an art - like generating fruitful prompts for LLMs)
Miliband is an interesting case study: there's more to him than maybe meets the eye. I think we'll have a post on him
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has ordered an immediate ban on North Sea oil drilling, in a move that overrules his own officials.
Spectator
Not sure that's the right summary of what's going on, BQ
Labour has been pretty clear, the 'ban' will be on issue of new exploration licences - NOT on production licences
that was clearly designed to bring about green-pleasing, oversimplified headlines, while having no practical effect because the last gov licensed just about everything for exploration, and Lab also promised not to revoke anything already extant
And they have just announced they'll not defend the Cumberland coking coal mine (Friends of the Earth are trying to stop it) - which makes it pretty certain that Port Talbot is no longer going to make steel from ore.
I forgot to mention - Port Talbot uses limestone as flux in the furnaces, from a plant by the M6 at Shap.
When I was driving that way two weeks ago, only two out of of four kinds were working. When I returned a week later, none of them were working.
"kinds" - "kilns"
Post a Comment