The populists are the deep state now! - and they are becoming unstuck

It is reported in the Financial Times by Jim Pickard that Dominic Cummings, a favourite of the Trumpian populists, has blocked implementation of Conservative manifesto promises to spend £9.2 billion on 'energy efficiency of homes, schools and hosptials'. He is reported to have said that energy efficiency is boring, and he wants to spend the money on new houses.

Apparently the Treasury and BEIS want to spend on energy efficiency to fulfill the manifesto commitment, but, it would seem, Cummings' view of the will of the people is not to be denied. Of course the Steve Bannons of the world claim that it is the career civil servants, closet liberals and socialists, who are the deep state.

But how can this be if it is the democratic wish of the nation as expressed through a manifesto which the self styled populists are trying to thwart? The Brexiteers have been keen on announcing that they are defending the will of the EU Referendum Result, but it seems now that it is just that the populists know best even when their views are different from what people voted for in a General Election. This attitude used to be called elitism!

Yet this instance of the blocking of energy efficiency is not an isolated case. There is now a creeping awareness that the so-called populist right, with their anti-statist and allegedly pro-personal freedom agenda, have backed the wrong horse when it comes to combatting coronavirus. They have made this a partisan issue, with their reluctance to support lockdown measures - or even to (in many cases) to embrace low cost measures such as facemask wearing, proper testing and proper contact tracing schemes.

But the majority of the population has not been going along with them. They have wanted strong measures to combat the virus, even if it means economic costs. The usual tropes of banging nationalist drums and blaming foreigners have certainly been tried (in the case of Trump and others), but people realise that shaking your fist at foreigners does not deter a virus. The populists are no longer so popular.  We can see this perhaps in the French local election results in which the far right slipped backwards. Hopefully we will see it a lot more in the US elections in November, although that is still sometime off.

But one thing that we need to do is to expose this theory about the deep state subvertng the popular will. The only deep state that is doing this is run by the right wing populists themselves. In the USA they have largely prevented an effective US response to the coronavirus, and in the UK they have damaged it. Who knows, but it may be that this virus crisis is the beginning of the end for the Trumpian populists.

EDF sanctioned by French Regulators for not coming clean to investors over Hinkley C

The chickens are coming home to roost for EDF for their questionable decision to go ahead with building Hinkley C -  a decision they took despite the lack of certainty over whether they would get enough backing from the British Government. Originally EDF was publicised as being offered  UK Treasury loan guarantees that had been widely touted as a vital basis for building Hinkley C. But now the French Financial Markets Regulator has sanctioned EDF for not flagging up how conditional such loan guarantees were. These loan guarantees have never materialised.

Essentially, EDF is now continuing to build Hinkley C using money borrowed on its own balance sheets - borrowings which are much more costly than UK Government backed guarantees and which reduce its own (EDF) profitability. The Finance Officer of EDF actually resigned at the time EDF decided to go ahead with building Hinkley C.

There is a commentary on the French Financial Market Regulator's decision at Bloomberg:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-26/edf-faces-11-million-fine-for-opacity-as-u-k-nuclear-cost-rose

The British Treasury wanted to see that EDF could demonstrate the completion of its Flamanville EPR reactor (the same design as Hinkley C) by the end of 2020. But this has long since failed to be likely to happen. No Treasury loans should have equalled no construction of Hinkley C. But instead the construction has gone ahead. Did the EDF management expect the French Govenrment to bail out EDF? About a sixth of EDF's shares are owned privately, the rest being held by the French Government. The French Government has been pumping money into EDF, raising the spectacle that, in effect, French taxpayers are paying for a nuclear power station in Britain!
I discused the crisis facing EDF in an earlier blog post:
https://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-secret-massive-losses-edf-is.html

Of course all this is happening at the same time when we are being asked to believe that the next EPR (at Sizewell C) is going to be delivered at low cost to the consumer if the risk of building the plant is transferred from EDF to the British taxpayer and consumer! This is the so-called RAB mechanism, something that could well just turn out to be an almost unlimited cash facility for EDF to park their financial black hole in the centre of British finances (as well as those of the French).

Will we ever learn?

Photographer: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg

Is ageism to blame for Sweden's covid debacle?

On June 17th, as new covid cases declined in the UK, Sweden's increased and Sweden posted more new C virus cases than the UK. This is despite the fact that the UK has 6.5 times as many people. This is especialy surprising given that overall, Sweden is on average much less densely populated and thus less naturally prone to easy covid transmission than the UK (and as is widely known, neighbouring Denmark Norway and Finland have had much lower death rates). 

But maybe it is less surprising if you factor in the very ageist profile of Swedish political representation and the rampant ageism that is said to happen in Sweden. Despite the fact that the over 65s are a quarter of the Swedish population only 2 per cent of MPs in the Parliament, the Rikstag, are over 65 and old age discrimination is intense.

Indeed whilst in the UK it seems to be the political right that opposes (and. no doubt, weakens) the UK's restrictive policy response, in Sweden, things are such that the nationalist Sweden Democrats are attacking the Social Democrat led Government in Sweden for its 'relaxed' attitude to the coronavirus crisis.

Of course there's many in the UK eager to promote the Swedish solution as a preferred strategy, but alas it often seems to go along with tropes about how the disease is mostly the problem of old men who don't have long to live anyway. Apart from the fact that many young people are worried about getting seriously ill, these ageist stereotypes, which seem to have taken over Swedish politics, are misguided. In fact the people dying of coronavirus likely have many years still to live, as discussed by the recent radio programme 'More or Less'.

But perhaps even worse than this the biggest losers of this trope are older women who are nearly as vulnerable to the old men to the coronavirus. Let's put it this way, if you are a 70-80 year old woman you might be 20-30% less vulnerable than a man of the same age, but you are still hundreds of times more likely to die than someone in their 20s. Old women are becoming invisible in this crisis. And the poorer you are, the worse are your chances.

Sweden has achieved much in terms of gender equality in the Riksdag in that practically half of the MPs are now female - but the success in sidelining the old males has obscured the fact that old women (who are usually poorer and less powerful than older men anyway) have very little representation. Gender equality is a vitally important aim, but it should go hand in hand with reducing ageism, not increasing it. More women MPs should mean an effort to get more older women MPs as well.

There's a big problem here. What it means in practice is that old people are now, in view of the covid crisis, are being ever more oppressed  through what should be called severe institutionalist ageism in Sweden. There's some pretty torrid tales that have come out of Sweden of the old being denied oxygen to fight off coronavirus. It would be disastrous politically if this state of affairs led to a far right party taking power in Sweden. But that now looks like becoming a serious possibility, and rampant agesim will be a significant cause of this.

Blue hydrogen - a Trojan horse from oil and gas

The announcement by the German Government that their hydrogen strategy will include support for so-called blue hydrogen as a transitional measure must be regarded as a huge setback for a sustainable energy transition. Essentally what is being proposed is the propping up of oil and gas rather than the alternative – an energy efficient decentralised system based on renewable energy.

The danger is that the British Government will now follow suit.

Blue hydrogen is hydrogen produced from natural gas with the carbon captured and stored – with the caveat of course that the process, for cost reasons, is unlikley to abate more than 85% of the carbon content of the natural gas.

Essentially what the natural gas industry will succeed in doing with ‘blue’ hydrogen is to preserve their multinational gas extraction business by the trick of branding their product differently in different countries. Gas from the same fields will be either branded (further downstream) as ‘blue’ or nothing at all (in other words, normal carbon producting stuff).

Of course it will only be in a few places that the gas will be marketed as ‘blue’. I’m sure lots of fancy consultants will be employed to convince us that really blue gas comes from particular places, but the reality is that in a complex world of international gas trading such distinctions will be window dressing.

Instead of the spending extra investment to kick start the blue hydrogen distribution business we should be spending it on building up energy supplies from renewable energy.

The sort of scheme we should be supporting, indeed being made mandatory is like one being piloted in Wales. This involves local houses being power systems in themselves that generate, store and use the energy efficiently. The Swansea City scheme involves new energy efficient housing being built complete with solar pv panels, batteries and also heat pumps. This will lead to a system that (because of the efficiency of heat pumps) lead to carbon emissions that are 4xs (yes, four times) less than using ‘blue’ hyrdogen. Not only that but the system will also manage fluctuating renewable energy supplies in a way that avoids extra investment in peak power plants and also reduces investment in transmission and distribution wires.

It may be difficult to retrofit some existing houses with heat pumps, although fitting them to district heating systems powered by large scale heat pumps may often be possible. In such cases electric storage heaters can be deployed. These can also be managed so that their electricity use can be timed to fit in with the vailability of renewable energy, again so reducing investment in power plant and distribution wires.

Of course hydrogen has important uses – (although not in space heating where it is inefficient compared to renewable electriciytm, especially with heat pumps). Important uses for green hydrogen include making steel, fertiliser, shipping fuel, cement and storing renewable electricity – but here we should be making investments in green hydrogen – hydrogen supplied from renewable energy via electrolysis – not wasting the money on propping up the oil and gas companies. We face a crucial crossroads here. Do we want to channel lots of money into propping up the existing gas industry or instead use it to build up markets for decentralised sustainable energy?

For more information on how hydrogen might fit into a 100percent renewable energy economy, go to the website https://100percentrenewableuk.org/

massive bias towards nuclear

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/document/171336/download

ebikes

https://www.cyclevolta.com/understanding-e-bike-power-range-and-energy/#:~:text=Just%20pedaling%20along%20at%20a,same%20energy%20as%20normal%20walking.&text=The%20750%20watts%20allowed%20for,of%20a%20professional%20bicycle%20racer.

An electric car typically gets 90 to 130 MPGe. Most eBikes get somewhere around 2,000 MPGe

Nuclear Power switches off wind power in Scotland

A report published today by a newly formed pressure group, 100percentrenewableuk, says that that nuclear power is instrumental in forcing the National Grid to turn off large amounts of wind power in Scotland. Nuclear power is also heavily responsible for the large payments paid by the National Grid to windfarms to turn off (be ‘constrained’) when there is too much electricity on the network. These so-called compensation payments (paid for by electricity consumers in general) have focussed on the Scottish part of the British electricity system. This means that nuclear power is a poor means of balancing wind power.

The newly formed initiative 100percentrenewableuk commissioned a leading energy consultancy, Cornwall Insight, to estimate how much of this practice of turning off wind farms could potentially have been avoided if nuclear power plants were shut down. This allows us to estimate what might happen to windfarm compensation payments if nuclear power plant were able to operate as flexibly as wind farms, that is in being able to turn off production when required by the grid. Two years were selected; 2019 as the most recent completed calendar year, and 2017 the most recent year when both nuclear plants in Scotland (Hunterston B and Torness) were fully operational.

It was found that, in 2017, 94 per cent of the windpower that was turned off could have been generated had nuclear power plant not been operating. In 2019, 77 per cent of windfarm output which was turned off (constrained) could have been generated had the nuclear power plant not been operating. These results indicate a direct relationship between nuclear power and the payments made to windfarms to turn off. Essentially, wind power receives the blame because it would cost a lot more to induce the nuclear power stations to reduce their generation.

Windfarm compensation payments in 2017 were close to £100 million, and around £130 million in 2019. The operation of nuclear power is associated with about £100 million each year paid in compensation to windfarm operators – ie the large bulk of windfarm compensation payments. In 2017, when most nuclear power was being generated, almost all of the constrained wind generation could have been avoided if nuclear power plant had operated flexibly, or shut down.

Dr David Toke, author of the report said: ‘It is wrong for wind power to be ”blamed” by the media for these compensation payments. Inflexible operation of nuclear power plants is switching off wind turbines. Essentially, cheaper electricity production from windfarms is being turned off in order to protect production from nuclear power plant whose production is much more expensive to manage. These nuclear plants either cannot or will not help to balance the grid in these circumstances. This undermines renewable energy and increases the costs to the consumer of operating windfarms’.

This pattern of the failure of nuclear power in the UK to participate effectively in grid balancing has been entrenched in the system of contracts awarded by Government to new nuclear and renewable energy generators, that is Hinkley Point C and offshore windfarms in 2017 and 2019.

These contracts further insulate the inflexible balancing position of new nuclear power. Nuclear power will be guaranteed compensation if they are constrained whilst windfarms will be forced off the grid without being paid for electricity production or compensation for constraints. This will pass the hidden costs of nuclear inflexibility onto wind and solar farms.

In addition, as the proportion of fluctuating renewable energy on the grid increases there will be an increasing number of occasions when wholsesale power prices are negative. But production from Hincley C will always be paid at the premium price even when power prices are negative. On the other hand in future wind and solar generators will lose money irf they generate during periods of negative power prices.

The new group behind the report, 100percentrenewableuk, calls for the idea of providing so-called ‘baseload’ through large centralised generators including nuclear power and fossil fuel power plant to be scrapped in favour of a 100 per cent renewable energy system. Under this system renewable energy should not be constrained but instead stored using various techniques to provide power through both short and long term storage purposes.

Buy the new report giving you the full details on how nuclear power undermines wind power and how we can organise a fully 100 per cent renewable energy system. Just £12 - see 100percentrenewableuk

EDF in last gasp drive to get blank cheque for Sizewell C

EDF is struggling, but may well still succeed, to persuade the Government to give it what amounts to a blank cheque to build Sizewell C nuclear power plant by wrapping it up in an opaque mechanism called the Regulated Asset Base (RAB). Parallel to this a lot of people in Britain are engaging in a process of self-kiddology. They so deeply believe that nuclear power is necessary for the UK that they will gladly be hoodwinked by a bogus financial scheme that allows another nuclear construction debacle.

Let's cut to the chase. EDF is in big financial trouble - and that's before the current virus crisis. Last December I wrote about the massive financial problems experienced by EDF, http://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-secret-massive-losses-edf-is.html. If the UK Government commits  to the RAB finding of Sizewell C it will be a lifeline to EDF. This will attenuate its problems of trying to get its own French Government to fund its liabilities by getting a different Government, the UK, to offer it what is a virtually unlimited cash facility. EDF is now struggling to afford to build Hinkley C, and so it badly needs the cash fillip of unlimited funds on a a notionally different, but related (and difficult to separate) project. 

The trick, as far as EDF is concerned, will be to get the UK Government to agree to fund cost overruns from when it says it starts building Sizewell C. That's the key point of the RAB mechanism. There's a load of tosh being talked about how the biggest problem for nuclear power is the high interest rates on capital it has to pay privately. No, that's not the central issue - the issue is the length of time it takes to build the plant (which makes banks unwilling to lend money of course).

Nuclear developers usually say it takes 5 years for the construction of a nuclear power plant, when in reality it takes at least 8 years, producing a cost overrun of at least 60 per cent. In reality, for the EPR design (being built at Hinkley and Sizewell), given the evidence of EPR reactors being built in France and Finland, construction time is more like 15-20 years - that's maybe 300+ per cent cost overrun before you even count the interest rate payments!

Despite all this evidence a lot of people want to believe in nuclear, however unlikely the financial narrative maybe and however expensive nuclear may be compared to its renewable energy competitors. Cognitive dissonance comes into play and they swallow the EDF story. They refuse to look at all of the other options that allow us to increase low carbon energy shares much more cost-effectively. People also refuse to consider the possibility that actually, you can have a 100 per cent renewable electricity system (or 100 per cent renewable energy system as a whole). We certainly have plenty of cheap offshore wind resources, not to mention onshore wind, solar pv and the possibility of wave and tidal technologies being developed. So why not?

There are very credible means of long term storage of renewable energy ranging from compressed air to ammonia, hydrogen and flow batteries. Biogas from food and farm wastes is another option, already existing, that can be expanded to provide storage. We should be market-testing these options not spending time guaranteeing multi-billions of pounds to EDF for a technology that takes decades to deliver and which will be woefully obsolete by the time it generates anything. Renewable energy can provide energy security for a lot less uncertainty and cost than nuclear power. 

But in the UK we proudly prefer to do our own 'traditional' thing (in this case doing nuclear power badly) despite what other countries are doing in a much more modern way, that is until disaster occurs (as with the current C virus crisis). For once we should buck this habit and commit to a 100 per cent renewable energy target (just like Spain has done).  We should be far-sighted, and not waste tremendous amounts of taxpayers and consumers money for decades on building nuclear power stations that never seem to be delivered.