We've already noted that Miliband's energy policy will come to no good - and there'll be a lot of disappointment for those who set store by either or both of a 100%-decarbonised electricity system and/or "lower bills for everyone, for good", both to be delivered by 2030.
The number of reports telling him this can't be done, in aspect after aspect, is becoming a deluge. The latest and possibly the most damning is from the redoubtable National Audit Office which declares that his plans are critically dependent upon delivery of carbon capture & storage (CCS); but that he has no Plan B, and that Plan A is most unlikely to deliver CCS in the relevant timeframe without some highly implausible assumptions being made. (Personally I'd go further and say, there is no possible plan and no amount of money that could deliver CCS on the scale and timeframe "required".)
Since the election, other bodies have variously told him that
- he needs to find another £48bn if his wind and solar plans are to be realised (Cornwall Insight);
- he's on track only to achieve one third of the "necessary" emissions reductions by 2030 (Climate Change Committee - although to be fair, they are deeply compromised by their own inanities over the years)
- he'll need to commission new gas-fired power stations for his "reserve fleet", not just rely on existing ones (National Engineering Policy Centre, whoever they are)
- smash the
gangsNIMBYs up and down the land (Resolution Foundation)
Etc. That's on top of dealing with the dreadful EDF on Hinkley Point and Sizewell, and fending off a load of legal actions that will be gleefully pursued down several avenues, notwithstanding Starmer's intention to see off all opposition summarily in whatever planning forum he meets it.
Obviously, we understand that every Tom Dick & Harriet is busily projecting his/her wish-list onto the government right now in every area of policy, along with urgent financial pleading; and most will be sorely disappointed. Starmer/Reeves took care to limit their measurable commitments to as few as they thought they could get away with. But not in energy. "Clean power by 2030: families and businesses will have lower bills for good, from a cheaper, zero carbon electricity system by 2030" was the commitment. Oh yes, and 650,000 good new British jobs delivering it all, also by 2030. It ain't gonna happen.
And Miliband himself must be set to be a very early casualty. Will he see out the New Year? The first reshuffle? Party conference?
ND
27 comments:
Charles
Well I think he might last for a while as everyone with a brain knows it’s a poison chalice. The replacement will come when it is obvious he has no chance of delivering and the damage to Labour is becoming real. Maybe another 18 months. Given that he obtained his place at university on the grounds that his father was employed there as a Marxist economist I am not sure how bright he is or more importantly how ready he is to fight his corner.
It's time for that Amis/Conquest line:
"I told you so you fucking fools."
Hmm.
Does Starmer need Miliband? If so, why?
Former Party Leader, so is there a section within the party Miliband can control and deliver to Starmer?
Starmer is now PM, big majority, so is Miliband of any further use?
So, given there's a fair amount of opposition to Net Zero anyway, and the NAO have weighed in, has the Civil Service begun to realise the damn thing is basically bat-shit insane?
Further, given the Climate Change Act, does DECC/DESNZ have an effective veto over many other departments? (Consider TJOYS - The Judge Over Your Shoulder and Cumbria/Surrey County Council)
Depending on the answers;
Set Miliband up to fail - it might not take too much over this coming winter, fr'instance - such that he's gone within 18 months. Supercede the CCA, which was Miliband in the first place, and remove the veto.
We have yet to see Labour's housebuilding plans collide with the 2025 requirement that they all be heated by heat-pump, not gas.
If CCS was a flier wouldn't someone have done it by now? I think it breaks the second law of thermodynamics.
If you could capture carbon economically, why not then burn it then do it again? Alas the perpetual motion machine is not with us.
The only reasonable explanation for Miliband and his Canute-like "resolution" is that he's the fusible link. Lots of money will be spent. No promises will be satisfied. And at some stage Starmer will declare an emergency situation, fire Miliband and use him as the scapegoat for having pushed an impossible agenda. Then 2030 goes back to 2035, maybe 2040, "because of Miliband's failure". Just like another Politburo, comrades.
'If you could capture carbon economically, why not then burn it then do it again? Alas the perpetual motion machine is not with us.'
More like a perpetual radiation machine. It's a good job thermodynamics is there to protect us. A perpetual radiation machine really could push the climate past a tipping point.
Anon: your last sentence is of course correct for certain(!), and there's quite a lot of force in your first. But I think you'd, errr, better brush up on your physics as regards the 2nd.
One of Drew's laws of physics is: you can suspend the law of gravity for as long as you are willing to throw money at it. That's the one in play with CCS. Ditto Hinkley Point C, in all probability. They'll finish it somehow, but don't ask about the cost.
Back to CCS: I saw something amusing yesterday. The govt-sponsored CCS "clusters" will of course be based around a group of large industrial CO2-emitters. One of the big challenges is reaching critical mass of CO2 (no single emitter would be big enough), captured, processed for quality and compressed.
One of the early clusters is to be in the North West, and one of its corner-stone industrials is a big incinerator - sorry, waste-to-energy plant - owned by Viridor. Seeking to learn what carbon capture technology they intend to use, I checked their www, where it says they don't know! FFS ..
No doubt this will disappear in minutes as happens with all my posts now, but let's try; the redoubtable Paul Homewood (who delights in getting the BBC to admit that various climate reports are in reality misinformation), in his Not A Lot of People Know That blog, on the advance insabity of CCS.
Miliband. God help us.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/07/24/how-the-failure-of-carbon-capture-risks-causing-a-net-zero-nightmare/#more-74561
Isn't the real problem here that governments say they will do something to control CO2 emissions - but don't have any credible way to do that.
Therefore invent something that sounds like it might work - to the naive - and looks like a money spinner - to the not so naive - and definitely is a soundbite - to the totally cynical.
Sit back and wait, you can't fool Nature, but Nature will solve the problem in the end.
BTW, if you do fire up some big compressors (absorbing 30% of your power station) and push a load of CO2 underground who is to take on the job of making sure it stays there for - 100 years, 500 years, 10,000 years? Look forward to the lawyer-fest when it starts bubbling up. Rusty pipes, crumbling concrete, jammed valves etc etc.
Tory or Labour or whatever - a non solvable problem.
Surely the solution is to reinvigorate the Goth music scene globally, and then you can have a CCS -> dry ice -> CCS cycle...
The sight of Miliband dolled up as a vampire at Whitby, surrounded by women wearing more fishnettery than advisable for their size, and a group like The Mission, would be a worthy addition to his album of embarrassing photos.
Caesar - your appalling vision reads like a prompt for a deepfake video: AI could knock it up in a couple of minutes. I think it would quickly go viral, in rather dubious parts of the www
jim - it will be entertaining, in due course, to read the contractual terms under which BP & Equinor (the probably first cos to be commissioned for an actual CCS storage facility, in the "Teesside NZ" project) discharge their obligations. I'm willing to bet (a) they accept no liability for seepage, nor offer any guarantees; (b) they'll want the bulk of the £££ upfront, no refunds
Elby - you have succeeded! (Does anyone else suffer from the same problem??)
It did occur to me that Miliband was purposely being set up by Starmer to fail. Possibly even to discredit the whole green agenda. Starmer isn't stupid, he must realise that all this 'Net Zero by Y date' stuff is just not practically feasible, regardless of whether one believes it necessary in the longer term. So he needs a scapegoat for when it fails. Give the job to the original architect of the whole policy, reduce his budget so there's no chance he can make even some progress, and tell him to go ahead and make the sunbeams from cucumbers by 2030. And when it fails Miliband is discredited, Net Zero ditto, and the whole thing can be kicked into the long grass. Long Term aspiration, no fixed dates etc etc.
Sobers - Funnily enough, Miliband's original 2008 legislation said that the targets can be reviewed periodically and that if the Sec of State determines other nations aren't pulling their weight he can change them
I don't know whether this has survived into successive 'updates' (notably May's "legacy" NZ2050 Act of 2019)
anyhow, "binding" only means that if a target has been missed the SoS must explain to Parliament - after the fact! The recent court case against Shapps added that if an SoS doesn't have plausible plans to meet a target he's in dereliction of his duties
("plausible" is my word and I don't know the technical definition - but it's clear enough that if the numbers don't even stack up within themselves, as was the case with Shapps, that certainly ain't plausible! Dickhead)
Meanwhile who is to benefit from the increase in offshore wind turbines? Well, the Crown of course ie the royals/the King. The Crown estate owns the land around the coast which will be used for building them and then the Crown gets the rent for use of the land.
Jan, it seems that you don't understand that the King doesn't own the Crown Estate. It was handed over to the government in the time of George III. Do keep up!
I can tell you someone who won't benefit (as well as "all of us who pay for it", of course): anyone affected by the vast swathe of land needed to bring this all from (at) the shore & transmission onwards. Not just pylons & temporary works, but hefty permanent stuff, too: big edifices
https://www.google.com/maps/@50.8189839,-1.1921497,45a,35y,235.52h,72.96t/data=!3m1!1e3?authuser=0&entry=ttu
Often in or through conservation areas etc. The local nimbys campaign for this to be done in an offshore gathering grid, and only brought ashore in a handful of places with minimum disruption. fat chance: it'd cost a heap more.
Starmer, of course, has long boasted he'll slash-and-burn the planning system, too: Get Out Of My Way. As the Child Benefit rebels can attest, he loves a good macho confrontation ...
There's another advantage of a gas-fired power station. By siting it neat the customers you minimise the necessary transmission lines.
And if you utilise the heat you can keep a big town warm effectively for nowt.
I revise my estimation that Starmer isn't stupid, he's just gone on the record (at the launch of the GB Energy boondoggle) that 'energy bills will fall by £300 on average by 2030', as a result of Labour's wonderful renewables policies. Well thats a hostage to fortune if ever I saw one......one can only assume that he has drunk the green cool-aid and only sees what he wants to see. There's no other explanation for such a politically 'brave' (read idiotic) statement.
Quite a lot of evasion around that £300 though - and it very much sounds as though the press mob had him cornered on it & he felt the need to plough ahead. Honeymoon isn't lasting long ...
and Mili has picked up on the point that it says nothing about gas prices
The Macquarie move to take full ownership of National Gas is interesting. Why pay for something that supposedly will be worthless in a few years.
These bankers must know something, and it will cost a lot more than Thames Water.
Tangentially related
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/18/german-living-standards-plummeted-after-russia-invaded-ukraine-say-economists
The energy shock caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to the biggest collapse in German living standards since the second world war and a downturn in economic output comparable to the 2008 financial crisis, a stark assessment has found. In a joint paper designed to underline the depth of the economic crisis in Europe’s erstwhile powerhouse, two former economic advisers to the German government have said that real wages in the country slumped further in 2022 than in any year since 1950. A failure to protect German industry from the energy price spike may turn the 2020s into “a lost decade for Germany” and further fuel the rise of the populist far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the authors warned in a working paper published by the Forum for a New Economy.
The exact mechanism of said "energy shock" is left unexamined ... this is a European tragedy, and if the EU had any independence or spine they would have been up in arms. Germany is literally the only world-class productive economy in Europe.
As a National Grid ( Gas) pensioner I am now worried man!!
Oh Anon.
Big fail.
Vlad will be very annoyed you forgot to edit.
“ energy shock caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine..?”
NATO supporting the facist Nazis against the peace loving Russian Federation, surely.
Alas, SMF, I was quoting the Guardian and I thought it well to report verbatim. The literal Fascist Nazis were getting standing ovations in a Western Parliament not so very long ago, it's interesting that we sent ordinary Red Army members back to Stalin's grateful arms but gave sanctuary to SS members. Used to have a colleague whose dad was brought over here. They built a neat chapel not far off the M74 in Scotland.
This item is of interest:
https://www.thestar.co.uk/business/sheffield-steel-forgemasters-to-make-barrels-for-tanks-and-artillery-to-help-ukraine-fight-russia-4718922
"Sheffield Forgemasters is set to make huge gun barrels to “keep Ukraine in the fight” against Russia. The Brightside steelmaker is set to use its 10,000 tonne press to make forgings for artillery and tanks supplied by the UK after Russia’s full scale invasion in 2022. The move will also mark a return to domestic production of forgings for gun barrels after a gap of 20 years."
I presume the gap of 20 years refers to the last time the UK built a tank, but I may be wrong.
Anon @ 12:45 - see today's blog post
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