We need better regulations and incentives, not carbon taxes on domestic gas, to save the planet

 Whenever an economist or someone who seeks to make themselves out as being a go-ahead free market type wants to declare their interest in saving the planet from climate change, you can bet your life it will largely involve a call for hefty increases in carbon taxes. And now people are saying that is what we need to get heat pumps installed in the UK. That includes a lot of people who should know  better, judging by evidence to the House of Commons' Environmental Audit Committee recently.

But they are barking up the wrong tree. Sure, price rises affect energy behaviour, of course, but can economists point to any big green technological changes that have largely been promoted by energy tax increases? Advances in wind power, solar pv, energy efficiency in buildings, efficiency in lighting appliances etc have all been achieved almost entirely through carefully targeted regulations and incentives.

The same will be true for heat pumps; especially for heat pumps! Heat pumps are partly stymied in the UK because they are manacled by certification and building regulations that were drawn up for gas heating. See more on this at 100percentrenewableuk.org/blog. Heat pumps are very successful on the continent for two reasons, only one of which is the fact that prices for domestic gas supplies are much higher relative to electricity on the continent, making heat pumps much more cost-effective. 

The other factor is that building and certification regulations allow them to be built for the market, that is they do not have to be built as big for a given house as UK regulations insist, and they can be run without 'zoning' which, again allows them to operate much more efficiently. An especially terrible example of the disinformation and confusion spread by the big energy companies is described in one of the more useful type of consultancies, that is something commissioned by environmental groups. on the amount of self-serving nonsense spread by the gas industry trying to inflate the case for hydrogen.

But let us get back to the price argument. If you want to make the technology more cost-effective in terms of price, then do not go down the path of trying to impose large increases in gas prices through a carbon tax or something similar. That will produce massive political resistance in the case of the highly sensitive domestic heating market. Instead have incentives that work properly - like a mixture of the renewables heat incentive and installation grants together. New build housing and housing in areas not connected to the grid are good markets to establish a British heat pump industry initially. The Energy Saving Trust says as much anyway.

Of course we have to source the money for the incentives from somewhere - and here levies on energy consumption for specified purposes can usually be politically acceptable. On the other hand we should resist the pressures from the big energy companies for self-serving subsidies that are added to the costs of electricity. The roll-out of so-called smart meters is a case in point which is paid for by a levy on electricity consumers. Most of these have been given to companies who do not offer smart tariffs, yet the scheme is costing energy consumers large quantities of money just to save the companies themselves some meter reading costs. 

Then there are the subsidies for Hinkley C and then Sizewell C which will be levied just at the time when the levies used to prime-pump the renewable industries are falling. Yes, keep electricity costs down by sourcing electricity from renewable energy, not nuclear power or carbon capture and storage.

A lot of the problem results from the confusion spread by economists who are hired by the big energy companies. They know their free market theory and equations about supply and demand, and they know what the companies who commissioned them want them to say. But in fact they know little about the institutions - the regulations and the industrial practices - that act as barriers to, and ways of framing, real life markets. 

Webinar on achieving 100 per cent of Scottish energy consumption from renable energy

 Recording of webinar on how and why the Scottish Govt should set a target to achieve 100 per cent of ALL energy from renewables - see https://100percentrenewableuk.org/blog If you live in Scotland, please sign the petition! https://100percentrenewableuk.org/achieving-100pc-of-energy-in-scotland-from-renewable-energy-petition

how all or most of our energy needs can be provided using less than 7 per cent of UK waters

 Yes, you've probably guessed it! Offshore windfarms will do the trick of providing all our energy needs using around 7 per cent of UK waters. Of course it makes sense to have as much onshore wind and solar as well - it's always good to have diversity and it spreads business around and lowers cost.

You can read more about how we get this calculation by visiting the website of 100percentrenewableuk

Happy renewables!

Government slashes energy efficiency spending by 80 per cent in so-called 10 point climate package

 Andrew Warren, the Chairman of the British Energy Efficiency Federation, says that spending on energy efficiency has been slashed by 80 per cent. Meanwhile the gas and nuclear lobbies are being paid many hundreds of millions of pounds for projects that are unlikely to cut carbon emissions for many years to come, if ever. See https://100percentrenewableuk.org/blog

Join the fightback against the Government’s toadying to nuclear and gas interests and register for the FREE WEBINAR on December 3rd to support the campaign for Scotland to set a target of achieving 100 per cent of ALL energy used in Scotland from renewable energy.

Please sign the petition for Scotland to set 100 per cent renewable energy target

 Please sign the petition for Scotland to set 100 per cent renewable energy target. 

See the 100percentrenewableuk blog at https://100percentrenewableuk.org/blog and you can access the petition page directly at https://100percentrenewableuk.org/achieving-100pc-of-energy-in-scotland-from-renewable-energy-petition

Register for the free webinar (on December 3rd) on how Scotland can reach this target at https://100percentrenewableuk.org/register-for-webinar-on-how-scotland-can-get-all-of-its-energy-from-renewables-december-3rd

Is Treasury about to cave in over EDF's demand for a blank cheque for Sizewell C?

 It is looking increasingly likely that the British Government is about to cave-in to EDF's demand that the British energy consumers should pay what could be massive cost overruns for building Sizewell C nuclear power plant. But what has not been discussed so much is how the contract the Government is likely to offer EDF will reduce deployment of renewable energy schemes. 

A report in The Times signals that EDF chiefs is meeting the Chancellor to complete the details for how to dress up what is in effect a blank cheque for Sizewell C. It reported that the withdrawal of Hitachi from the Wylfa site was a 'shock'. Hitachi's move which has been expected for a year, is not a shock to people in the energy industry. It became apparent (to me at least!) long ago that new nuclear plant can only be built if they are given an effective blank cheque (that is the promise of an unlimited supply of cash) from some state-backed energy monopoly.

At the moment Hinkley C power plant is being built with the backing of the French state who will pay EDF's bills for the plant's cost overruns. But EDF has been told that the French state won't pay for another British nuclear power plant at Sizewell C. So EDF bosses are telling the Brits that they have got to have Sizewell C, and that the Government will have to promise a scheme whereby the Government will have to ensure that EDF' cost overruns are recompensed.

Of course we are treated to many press reports and consultants explaining that the costs of Sizewell C will be less than Hinkley C, but this somewhat begs the question of why it is then that EDF needs a promise that the British state will ensure payments of cost overruns. 

What, however, is less understood is that EDF will be expecting the same sort of contract as given to them for Hinkley C which allows nuclear electricity generation to crowd out production from future renewable energy plant. EDF will be given so-called 'baseload' contracts that mean that when electricity wholesale prices are low or even negative they will still get paid the same level of high premium prices. Meanwhile future wind and solar pv projects will be effectively forced offline by the nuclear power plant because they will not receive premium prices. 

This type of 'baseload' contract is another form of hidden subsidy to new nuclear power stations that raises the real price of nuclear power beyond the fictional prices quoted in government reports. Meanwhile the cost of this subsidy to nuclear power's (for generating power at a high price when the power is not needed) is borne by renewable energy, whose costs thus increase. Yet of course this hidden subsidy is entirely a creature of the biased contracts that the Government offers nuclear power. Nuclear power is given preferential contract treatment because it is called' baseload'. And yet it bears no penalty for being inflexible -that is unable to change its output to fit in which demand and supply patterns. 

Given the wealth of alternative low carbon generation options, as well as the prospect of being able to balance the electricity system better without these nuclear power plant, there is no need to build these plant given their great expense, besides any other reason. However EDF not only has immense political clout as a big multinational corporation owned by the French state, but they also have the support of a large number of civil servants - indeed there is a much larger number of civil servants dealing with nuclear power compared with renewable energy.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/frances-edf-demands-clarity-on-british-nuclear-power-plans-00t6gbmlg

Be careful what you wish for - why letting ex-pat Scots vote in an independence referendum might not give the result its protagonists want

 What started off as looking like a whakky idea - allowing a Scottish independence referendum on the proviso that all people who would be eligible for Scottish passports - has now become almost mainstream in England (at least in right wing political circles). Those promoting the idea are opposed to Scottish independence, expecting such a proposition to deliver a 'no' vote in any referendum outcome. But these 'give the vote to Scottish expats' should be careful of what they wish for.

Because it might actually backfire and produce more votes for independence than votes against.

Sure, the opinion polls suggest, now, that there would be a healthy majority for a 'no' vote among the English residing expat Scots, but that's before the campaign starts, and certainly before the potential 'no' voters are informed of the benefits of obtaining an extra (Scottish) nationality. 

These benefits are likely to be substantial given that Scotland is very likely (I would say almost certain) to quickly become a member of the European Economic Area (EEA) and therefore entitle Scottish citizens to the freedom of movement benefits that result from this. Travellers to the EU from the UK after the end of the year may well experience some irksome changes meaning people having to pay to take out health insurance cover, experiencing much greater difficulty in taking pets to the EU, re-imposition of mobile phone roaming charges and of course facing visa restrictions on the amount of time they can spend abroad. 

We don't know as yet what the arrangements may be, but what I can argue with some logical argument in support is that the ideal relationship that Scotland would have with the EU after independence is not full membership of the EU, but membership of the EEA. This would allow Scotland, as is the case of Norway who is a member of the EEA but not the EU, access to the European Single Market and all of its benefits. For sure, this would include access to health cover as it is for Brits at the moment easy movement for pets, no mobile phone roaming charges and no restrictions on access to EU countries. Scotland would be also able to negotiate a close trade agreement with the rest of the UK, something it would need but would not be able to negotiate separately to the EU if it was a full EU member.

Nobody has factored in the effect on ex-pat Scots when they realise they would get these benefits. Many of these potential referendum votes probably have no deep feelings about independence one way or another, but they may well be very keen on obtaining the useful benefits to themselves that might flow from independence. They might well suddenly warm to the blandishments of Nicolar Sturgean et al. In deed, in political science a famous theory propounded by Mancur Olson (about which political scientists have been arguing ever since) highlighted the crucial positive impact on recruitment to pressure groups of 'selective incentives'. Of course, as critics have pointed out, support for causes is very important, but so are perceived individual benefits.

A surprisingly large number of people could end up voting for the benefits given that everybody who has at least one grandparent born in Scotland would be eligible for Scottish citizenship. You might suddenly see a lot of people 'rediscovering' their Scottish identities for the sake of claiming holiday health insurance and fee mobile phone calls, even though some of them may never have actually set foot in Scotland.

Now, that might be upside. The downside however is that, in the event of a narrow 'no' vote result  if the number of expat Scots voting in a referendum exceeds the margin of a 'no' victory then the Scottish nationalists will say that the vote has been rigged. The referendum will be robbed of its legitimacy. Once that happened the door is opened to all sorts of odious extremists who are willing to put other people's lives in danger in terrorist attacks in the name of 'nationalism'. At best there will be a movement of civil resistance and civil disturbance in opposition to what will be framed as a rigged result. Things could get quite difficult.

Maybe some of the protagonists of this 'give expat Scots a vote' strategy are being a bit tongue in cheek, and will become a bit more straight-faced if and when Scottish enthusiasm for another vote increases. 

I hope so, because the consequences of such a crazy idea will almost certainly make these people regret coming up with the idea in the first place.

Why we're not heading for a 'no-deal' Brexit - the Brits will cave in and then claim the EU 'blinked'

 I'm a student of the 'new normal' in politics - that's the post so-called populist revolution new normal - which means that the UK will do much the same in January with a last gasp concession to EU demands. In that case the substance was that there should be no border in Ireland. 

Now I know we're all walking around in a sea of belief that somehow the 'EU blinked' in January - although what it blinked on I'm not sure, except that saying so saved face for the UK Government. See the discussion by the Institute for Government. The Irish/EU position had always been 'no border in Ireland' and that is precisely what they are getting. All this stuff about how the EU blinked on the backstop or something doesn't really wash since the backstop was a creation of the May regime to try to finesse away the objections of the DUP. In the end the DUP's objections were brushed aside to allow Ireland, backed by the EU, to avoid a border in Ireland, even if there is a border in the Irish Sea. 

Of course, and getting to the present, a key reason why a 'no-deal' Brexit is to be avoided is that if there is a no-deal then the Irish Sea border will become a lot harder than it otherwise would be, exacerbating problems, and also, into the bargain, increasing the possibilities for a United Ireland. Shift focus to Scotland, and the chances of Scottish independence happening in the next few years increase from the quite likely to the near-certain. I suspect that in the event of a 'no-deal' there would actually be some minimum agreements to avoid the worst aspects of trade chaos and to keep the planes flying (not that too many of those are flying these days). But the economic effects would certainly be severely noticed when the 'no-deal' came into effect (I wouldn't entirely rule out some sort of extension either).

In political terms the obvious move for the British Government is to give the EU essentially what they want and simultaneously negotiate some face saving measure for the British Government (eg political institutions get new creative labels). This will enable the British Government to announce that the 'EU blinked'. The tabloids can announce a great British victory, and then carrying on decrying the BBC for not letting them sing 'Rule Britainnia' to celebrate this interpretation.

What does the EU want? Well, they want to know that British environmental and labour standards will remain complementary to EU ones and they want the UK to obey state aid rules. Of course a key objection from (some) Brexiteers to that is that such policies take away control from British institutions and lets the European Court tell the British what to do. Here the face-saving devices come into play in that new institutions will be invented to 'consult' about these things, except of course the back channel will be some recourse somewhere along the line to EU or International Treaty law with some binding arbitration mechanism.

A last minute deal will be done and neatly everybody will say they are happy. That's the new normal.

Why we shouldn't head back to the offices just to save the property owners from losing money

 Big Capitalism rarely gets as self-mocking as when it is crying out for state subsidies to preserve the failing out-of-date technologies of its biggest zombie corporations. It seems to me especially ludicrous  as the CBI calls upon the Government to get people back to work in city centre office blocks. It's not that ordinary people want to spend their days travelling on crowded trains and buses so that they sit in rabbit warren offices peering at their betters in lavish offices who get transported by motor vehicles. Indeed if a lot more people work from home this will save heaps of money, resources that can be channelled into other things that people actually need. 

It's just that property owners and property developers stand to lose a hell of a lot of money if the trend towards home working is not sharply reversed.

Of course there are a lot of city centre shops and cafes that are affected by this change, and they have my sympathies, but I suspect if it wasn't for the property owners and developers you wouldn't be hearing quite so much about the issue. But then I also sympathise with all those academics who get made redundant when student numbers fall. I just don't hear any clamour from the guardians of big capitalism for the state to stop such job losses - quite the reverse in fact, as we never seem to stop hearing about how there are too many students (statements always made by people who are graduates themselves of course). 

If the centralised office is a declining technology then so are big power stations (whether fossil fuel or nuclear), and, you've guessed it, the CBI is usually first in line to urge the state to direct multi-billions of pounds to support these dinosaur technologies. The CBI has been making special efforts to get the state to pour great sums into funding EDF's vastly unprofitable (before the massive handouts) nuclear power plant at Hinkley C and soon, we hear, Sizewell C. Sizewell C's funding will involve an unlimited cash transfer facility from the electricity consumer to EDF under a scheme (RAB) that is, with deceptive irony, labelled as something that will save money!

We've heard a lot about how low-interest rates encourages so-called 'zombie capitalism', that is firms which would otherwise be insoluble but which are kept alive because they can service their growing debts. But what is much more flagrant is the way that the CBI retards innovation and channels the state's resources into bankrolling the status quo of big, concentrated, financial and industrial interests. That's zombie state capitalism, and it is the worst kind. 

Some references:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53925917

https://www.cbi.org.uk/media-centre/articles/build-new-nuclear-power-stations-and-invest-in-carbon-capture-to-reach-net-zero/

https://www.power-technology.com/news/cbi-nuclear-power-carbon-capture/

How Scottish independence will boost green energy

If, as now seems likely, Scotland becomes independent in the next 5 years, green energy should get a major boost. A Scottish Government will have the unconstrained ability to offer contracts to supply low cost renewable energy which could be sold not only to England but also to a European continent eager for renewable energy. Meanwhile Scottish electricity consumer prices could be reduced by avoiding the extra costs of building nuclear power stations in England and Wales.

Offshore wind power costs and also onshore wind power costs have fallen since 2017 so that today windfarms can be built for no more than around £40 per MWh compared to over £90 per MWh for nuclear power and around £60 per MWh for natural gas fired power plant.

Opinion polls are showing more consistent support for independence these days, and the UK Government consistently talks to an English audience rather than a Scottish one as it negotiates the fallout from Brexit. The story from London that surely the Scottish people prefer being run from Westminster than being run from Brussels indicates just how little they understand Scottish nationalism. Many nationalists would say that they would prefer to be run over by a bus than run by Westminster!

It is uncertain as to what level of integration with the EU would transpire, but there would certainly be a lot of interest in building more interconnectors to trade with the European continent, perhaps via Norway. The Germans in particular may well be interested in boosting their renewable energy by buying in wind power from Scotland. Although there are still substantial potentials from onshore wind, and also lots of potential for solar power, even this is dwarfed by the massive amounts that could come from Scottish offshore waters, especially using the developing floating wind technologies. If, on top of sufficient renewables to power Scotland's own energy consumption, say  40GWe of offshore wind was installed, Scotland could earn a billion pounds a year if the Government charged £5 per MWh export levy. This would be a very useful sum, although only around a tenth of the income that used to come from oil and gas revenues in good years.

It seems most likely that Scotland would continue to be part of the British Electricity Transmission and Trading Arrangement (BETTA) - tearing up lots of expensive transmission arrangments does not seem to make much sense to either England or Scotland. OFGEM would be responsible for electricity trading throughout Britain while control over dishing out electricity generation contracts in Scotland would revert to the Scottish Government (SG). At the moment under the terms of Electricity Legislation regulations covering electricity generation are the preserve of the Westminster Government.

The SG would have the ability to issue its own long term contracts for electricity supply (and also set up trading in demand side management). Importantly Scottish electricity consumers would not have to pay surcharges to fund new nuclear power. Hinkley C will not be online anyway by the time of independence, and certainly nothing else in the way of new nuclear. Westminster could still threaten to stop the payments of renewable energy obligation certificates for Scottish windfarms (it did in 2014), but by 2024 all of the windfarms will have paid off the bulk if not all of their bank loans anyway.

Meanwhile the Scottish Government could issue many contracts for large amounts of renewable energy contracts for wholesale power prices that are no higher than what would be paid anyway. Currently the power to issue such contracts - called contracts for difference (CfDs) are held by the Westminster Government. But in the case of Scottish independence this power would be held by the SG.

In the extreme event that Westminster demands that Scottish people pay for English new nuclear power stations as a condition for continued participation in BETTA (the ending of which would disrupt English electricity markets), then, at least in the medium term, Scotland could have its own independent electricity supply system.

Scotland could balance the offshore wind variability with various methods, including bigger use of batteries to even out daily renewable fluctuations, but it could easily be 100 per cent renewable using ammonia or some other substance as a means to store renewable energy in the longer term. The renewable energy would be stored at times when electricity prices, and therefore the costs of the renewable energy. Then the stored energy would be generated using what are very cheap gas turbines or gas engines when there was not enough renewable energy, battery or interconnector based etc supplies to meet demand. An ammonia based long term storage system is not just fantasy. It is coming soon. A facility to convert renewable energy into ammonia as a means of storing hydrogen is actually going to be deployed in Saudi Arabia. See also coverage by 100percentrenewableuk.

Indeed, for those of us that support 100 per cent renewable energy, we could almost wish the Westminster Government to throw its rattle out of its pram and scrap BETTA. That could make Scotland a world leader, perhaps the world leader, in clean energy technology.

Why we should enthusiastically back solar farms in the countryside

As far as the prospect of solar farms in the countryside are concerned, I simply say 'the more the merrier'. Surely if we are facing a climate crisis then we should do our best to welcome cheap, clean, energy sources. And large scale solar farms that are now being proposed in quite large capacities are coming in very cheap to the extent that they are being developed on a 'subsidy free' basis.

Solar farms already constitute a very important contribution to renewable energy in the UK.   A little over half of UK based solar electricity is generated from them, the rest coming from domestic solar installations or on commercial properties. I do often hear the refrain 'they should put the panels on roofs, not on farmland' - too often as far as I am concerned. 

Well I'm certainly in favour of clearing away the contractual and regulatory obstacles that get in the way of putting solar panels on as many roofs as we can. However it is simply wrong to imply, if that is what people mean, that if planning consent for a solar farm is refused, then somehow the panels will magically reappear on some suitable roof somewhere else. They won't. We shall simply have that much less solar power generation. Neither are the solar farms easily transferable to some other piece of land that maybe preferred - land availability that is sufficiently proximate to the right electricity connections is in short supply.

Some say solar pv should not be on farmland. I disagree. Yes, there's a balance to be struck between localised food production and clean energy production - but in this case there's not really much of an argument that I can see, and not much of a balance. A small proportion of farmland in the UK will generate a massive amount of solar electricity.

Around 66 per cent of the UK is farmland, yet it would take coverage of  barely 1 per cent of the UK's land to generate the equivalent of the UK's entire current electricity production. That's not much of a sacrifice really - the benefits of the clean energy surely outweigh the loss of a very small proportion of farmland. Are we really, seriously arguing, that in the teeth of what we call the climate crisis, that this is beyond the limit of what we can sacrifice. Surely not!

I am afraid also that I completely fail to understand the aesthetic arguments that are sometimes posed against solar farms. I must say I have no sympathy with the landscape objections to wind power either, and think that the noise issues are invariably overstated, but surely the local impacts of solar farms are even less? You cannot see them from a long distance, and indeed, when you can see them from a medium distance you can hardly often distinguish them from strawerry net cloches and polytunnels. I haven't heard many people complaining about the sight of them!

 I don't see any biodiversity arguments against solar farms on farmland. Indeed, if they are placed on so-called 'prime' agricultural land they are almost certainly giving the land a break from the large quantities of chemicals that sterlise the land! I have heard arguments that solar farms will actually improve the biodiversity compared to intensive agriculture. What I am certain about is that they cannot be worse in ecological terms! The main difference will be that the land will be used to generate lots of clean energy rather than soak up chemicals!

If there are ever any ecological doubts about solar farms, it won't (in my view) be about the ones that are farmlands; rather this will be about the impact on areas of special wildlife interest. 

Indeed recently there was a planning controversy about the Cleve Hill solar park, which was given ministerial approval in May. The Kent Wildlife Trust were very concerned about the proximity of the solar park to protected wildlife areas. However, there were some changes made and the Trust commented: 'we have secured larger buffers to the ditches, more mitigation land and better management, so even if it gets permission it will not be as bad as the initial application, and some species may even be better off'. Now that's hardly a ringing endorsement, as they say, but it doesn't suggest to me that it is the end of the world either. 

On balance I am clearly minded to support this project. It is a project that is going to use come cutting edge technology, and it will also install some batteries that will help the balancing capabilities of the electricity grid. At 350 MW capacity this will add a substantial amount of solar generation. The UK's solar generation is currently up to around 4 per cent of UK electricity demand(from about 13.5 GW), as measured  on an annual basis.

And also I'm glad to see there should be steady flow of larger solar farms coming up in the future. Australian owned company Macquarie is planning an initial 1 GW.  It really should be a cause of great celebration that companies are planning solar pv farms without even any contracts being offered by the Government. We should be cheering, not wringing our hands over this.

Ten years to save the planet - Jonathon Porritt's new book

Dave Toke has interviewed Jonathon Porritt about his new book 'Hope in Hell - a decade to confront the climate emergency'.

Porritt talks about 100 per cent renewable energy, opposition to nuclear power, electric cars, clean meat and the need to tackle population growth. To see the interview, go to:  https://100percentrenewableuk.org/blog

Jonatthon Porritt is the most influential green political thinker in the UK and has occupied various leading positions in the green movement including Chair of the Green Partry in its earlier years, Director of Friends of the Earth in the period of its most rapid growth, Director of Forum for the Future and Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission.

He has written 10 books, starting with the seminal 'Seeing Green' in 1984, and in 'Hope in Hell' he mixes reviolutionary objectives and zeal with some reformist methods.

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.

https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx

Academics face pension value meltdown because of doomsday inflation pension clause

As the UK faces the possibility of hyperinflation, any retired or soon-to-be retiring academic faces the annihilation of the value of their pension. With the Government poised to print vast sums of money in an attempt to keep the lockdown-struck economy afloat there is a looming danger of a rapid and massive take-off in inflation. However, because of the way the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS)  is structured this means that as inflation takes off academic pensions will become rapidly devalued. If hyperinflation takes hold they will become practically worthless.

The University and Colleges Union (UCU) has been fighting battles to preserve the 'defined benefit' nature of the USS scheme and also argue against big increases in pension contributions. But little attention has been placed on a change to the USS conditions that were introduced a few years ago which strip away a lot of the protection against inflation.

The rules state, in effect, that the pension income will be fully protected for only the first 5% of annual inflation. Above that only HALF the inflation will be matched by increases in the pensions.

For example, of annual inflation rate hits 50% this means that the value of an academic pension will decline, in one year, by 22.5%. And inflation could get worse than that with the Government printing the amount of money that seems set to happen!

Of course in recent years inflation has been low, but under the new conditions many people in the financial world fear that inflation will take off as the Government, in effect, prints money. We may have been lulled into a false sense of security by the Government's policies of 'quantitive easing' in recent years which did not lead to inflationary consequences. The effects were contained within the banking system itself. But what the Government is going to do now is to give lots of money direct into the real economy. That is a different matter. History does not record good outcomes for this strategy which leads to hyperinflation. The most recent example is Venezuela, historically The Weimar Republic. Enough said!

Sure, printing money reduces the value of Government debt, but it ruins anyone on a fixed, or partially fixed income including people on pensions that do not fully uprate pensions benefits in line with inflation.

No doubt in present circumstances University managers will seek to 'persuade' lots of academics to take early retirement. But they won't find many volunteers. Most people might risk jumping out of a plane if they have a parachute. But not without one.

Of course there are remedies. One is to alter the terms of the USS so that pension payments are fully protected against inflation as measured by the CPI. Another broader measure os form the country in general to pay a much higher level of taxation to get the country out of the terrible mess we are in without turning us into another example of Venezula or the Weimar Republic.

why 'baseload power' is a myth

https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Baseload_power

The Times newspaper; a paragon of hypocrisy about free speech?

The Times exposed its own hypocrisy today when it said that universities 'should not turn a blind eye to baseless propaganda' - ignoring its own promotion of climate scepticism through publishing the views of Matt Ridley.

Under a headline 'Spreading Falsehoods' a Times leader today criticises three named academics for spreading conspiracy theories, variously about how the WHO or the West was using the C virus as a bioweapon. Well, to make my own view clear, I condemn anybody who spreads such nonsense and I call upon them to stop it. But should the universities take action against them? I think not! 

The Times says:
 'Real news outlets are reporting the state of medical knowledge and safeguarding public health. Their efforts are being undermined by dilettantes who lack specialist knowledge. Those who share conspiracy theories under the guise of academic affiliation are trading in falsehood. Their institutions should not turn a blind eye to baseless propaganda'.(1)

It's very interesting that The Times should complain about how science is being undermined by 'dillettantes who lack specialist knowledge' when it publishes climate scepticism by Matt Ridley. Take for example the article published in 2018 by Matt Ridley discussing theories of global cooling when he says, for example:

'the argument that the world is slowly slipping back into a proper ice age after 10,000 years of balmy warmth is in essence true' (2) 

This is utter nonsense of course. The climate science tells us that the temperature of the Earth is increasing much more quickly than anything that can be seen in the last 10,000 years or more and that this is associated with anthropogenically induced warming. No doubt Matt Ridley might excuse his article as being a wind-up or something; but then I'm sure the peddlars of the current conspiracy theories have parallel excuses.

The plot thickens when one considers the articles that the Times' publishes on protecting academic freedoms. Only a couple of months ago the newspaper published an article by the Education Secretary Gavin Williamson which said, among other things:

'The University of Oxford has adopted strong codes of conduct that champion academic freedom and free speech, explicitly recognising that this may sometimes cause offence. Every university should promote such unambiguous guidance'. (3) 

Aha, so, putting these various strands together, Universities must defend free speech even though people are offensive.....but they must crack down on academics who spread offensive conspitary theories? 

This doesn't make sense really - unless you come to the conclusion that it's ok to be anti-science if this doesn't offend your own prejudices, or to put it more bluntly 'Freedom of speech is ok so long as it isn't offensive to my own general worldview'. It's called hypocrisy.

But, for universities, you do get the impression that they cannot win. Somebody is always going to complain whatever happens on campus. 

Perhaps in view of all this, universities should simply ignore what opinion leaders say in The Times and regard these articles instead merely as sometimes irritating pieces of entertainment.



(1) 'Spreading Falsehood' Times Leader, April 11th page 29
(2) Matt Ridley 'Global Cooling is not worth shivering about - The Earth is very slowly slipping back into a proper ice age but technology should enable civilisation to survide it' January 8th 2018
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/global-cooling-is-not-worth-shivering-about-pmdn8gp07
(3) Gavin Williams February 7th 2020 'If universities can't defend free speech Government will' https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/if-universities-cant-defend-free-speech-the-government-will-jwmnfznh7

Renewable energy likely to soar upwards in 2020 as proportion of UK electricity consumption

Now, I must start by saying that I'd far far prefer renewable energy increases NOT to occur if it magically prevented further deaths in this dreadful epidemic. However simple analysis of trends does imply that renewable energy is likely, ceteris paribus, to increase as a proportion of UK electricity consumption from around 37% in 2019 to around 43% in 2020.

Why? Well a big factor here is that electricity consumption seems to be running around 10 per cent less than one would expect this time of year. If this only translates to around 5% over the whole of 2020, then, added to continued (on trend) declines in UK electricity consumption, and the effects of recent additions to renewable energy generation, then this will produce quite a big increase in the proportion of UK electricity from renewables during the year.

Of course even if there was no renewable energy installed this year (although I'm assuming about 20% of planned installations occur this year) we would still see an increase this year because the installations registered last year will not have been operating for the whole of 2019, whilst they will be available for operation the whole of 2020. (I'm also assuming that maintenance of existing electricity infrastructure is counted as an essential activity). So that adds 2-3 per cent onto the RE proportion on its own.

Electricity consumption has been declining for several years now of course, and declines in overall electricity consumption will increase the poportion supplied by renewable energy simply because the bulk of renewable energy will continue to generate whilst it will be fossil fuels that will be usually constrained because of declining consumption.

My assumptions are to a degree weather-dependent - eg they will go awry to the extent that this year isn't as windy as last year, and to a lesser extent if it isn't very sunny.

https://www.current-news.co.uk/news/covid-19-drives-down-demand-as-lockdown-affects-usage-patterns

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/moscow-motorway-is-new-chernobyl-m3k3hx62n

https://www.newsweek.com/moscow-radiation-uranium-highway-chernobyl-1466880

https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/radioactive-waste-and-spent-nuclear-fuel/2011-06-comment-radioactive-dump-in-moscow-a-ten-year-history-of-reckless-procrastination

https://www.newsweek.com/moscow-radiation-uranium-highway-chernobyl-146

6880

Why using hydrogen to supply heating would be a terrible choice

The natural gas industry is now campaigning to save its business by extolling the alleged virtues of converting gas heating to supply by 'blue' hydrogen. This blue hydrogen production would be done using natural gas to produce the hydrogen whilst capturing and storing carbon dioxide produced in the process. But this is a facade that will delay transition to a sustainable clean energy economy and waste renewable energy into the bargain.

Blue hydrogen is not a substitute for energy from renewable energy. Even if the hydrogen was sourced from renewable energy (and not much of it will be) the result would be a grandiose waste of renewable energy. This is because using hydrogen from renewable energy to heat buildings is around four times less energy efficient compared to using heat pumps (using renewable electricity) to supply heating in buildings. 

The gas industry's plan is to start off with blue hydrogen, after which at an unspecified period this would be replaced by green hydrogen generated from renewable energy like wind or solar. There are three big reasons why hydrogen in general is a bad choice for our heating networks. 

First, carbon capture, in the blue hydrogen production process, is unlikely to be close enough to 100 per cent because carbon extraction processes become more and more expensive the higher the proportion of carbon is captured (over 85 per cent). 

In practice, of course, the carbon capture will probably not even be 85% as the gas industry seeks to produce hydrogen at a low commercial costs and tries to absorb the many infrastructural costs of changing the system to hydrogen. These are rather greater than the gas industry is letting on at the moment since hydrogen will need to be distributed differently compared to natural gas at present. 

Second, such a programme will provide support for a continued fossil fuel industry (including unabated methane leakage from extraction activities). The industry will include the possibility (read near-certainty) of production that is not subject to carbon capture and storage. There is then the issue of monitoring and accountability over the extent to which the carbon is stored in a sustainable fashion. These are likely to be lacking.

The reality is that 'blue hydrogen' in the UK will be used to develop new natural gas fields that will only be economic if they carry on supplying large quantities of unabated natural gas to other parts of the world. 

A third reason why 'blue hydrogen' is bad is that using 'blue' hydrogen, in as much as it succeeds in paving the way for supply of renewable hydrogen, will lock in a huge wastage of renewable energy compared to using this renewable energy much more efficiently. 

On the one hand the electrolysis process by which renewable energy is converted to hydrogen is only 80 per cent efficient. That is bad enough since using renewable electricity to supply heating would not involve these losses. However things get a lot lot worse when you realise that the best way of suppling heating in efficiency terms is through electrically powered heat pumps. These use the renewable energy input some 3-4 times more efficiently to produce the same heat compared to heating by 'green' (renewable) hydrogen.  We're going to need a lot of of offshore windfarms and solar farms already, so using renewable hydrogen when you could be using heat pumps supplied by renewable energy is a big, big waste of renewable energy.

We ought to focus on electrifying the heating system, not locking it in to hydrogen. New build properties can be built to maximise energy efficiency and using heat pumps to supply what should be a much-reduced need for heating services. Existing buildings can be heated with district heating supplied by large scale heat pumps, or at worst converted to electricity-only heating, or preferably fitted with heat pumps.

Hydrogen has its purposes, but heating buildings is not a good purpose. So all those green anti-nuclear activists who have for many years been thinking that hydrogen is a good way of using renewable electricity for heating should think again. Far from helping towards a renewable energy economy they may actually be inadvertently promoting demands for nuclear power since they will be increasing the need for non-fossil fuels to supply all the hydrogen needed for the heating sector. Green energy involves energy efficiency as well as green energy supply, and blue and even green hydrogen should be ruled out as a means of heating buildings.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2237544-who-expert-we-need-more-testing-to-beat-coronavirus/

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/coronavirus-cases-have-dropped-sharply-south-korea-whats-secret-its-success

What's especially shocking about the coronavirus outbreak in Italy - a lack of testing

The news from Italy today is especially tragic given that the daily death toll rose to 133. But there's something that makes this look even more awful - and that's the very high ratio between deaths and confirmed cases in Italy. This suggests that a large proportion of the C virus cases in Italy have not been discovered - and therefore that the fact that the outbreak is, currently, dangerously out of control is related to this lack of discovery. This may well signal a very big lack in testing for infection in Italy, if not elsewhere.

In fact, according to the official statistics the fatality rate of confirmed cases in Italy, at 5 per cent, is rather higher than than the fatality rate of China, which is 3.8 per cent. Indeed the death rate among Italian cases appears to be getting higher.

Now, once one has excluded the possibility that the virus circulating in Italy is more virulent that the one circulating in China (elsewhere in Europe the death rate is much smaller than in Italy, so this seems unlikely) the one very concenring conclusion is that a very large proportion of the C virus cases in Italy have not been discovered. This has serious implications for controlling the spread of infection. The difference between the death rate in Italy and China may be partly or wholly concerned with the significantly higher average age of people in Italy compared to China. However, even if this explains all of the difference (I would be surprised if it did), Italy (and most other countries to a greater or lesser extent) are still falling well short of 'best practice' in testing, which is set by South Korea at the moment.

If we want to look for a country where a comprehensive testing programme has been conducted, we should look at South Korea. There has been a similar number of confirmed cases in S. Korea as in Italy. However, whilst, as of February 8th, there were 266 deaths in Italy, there were only 50 deaths in South Korea. Again, if we dismiss the idea that there is a different virus circulating in one of the two countries we can only assume that the death rate compared to confirmed infections is, using the S. Korean statistics, around 0.7 per cent.

The South Korean figures (garnered as a result of mass, often random, testing, as opposed to the much more apparently limited Italian testing) offer a little crumb of comfort in that the death rate is lower than some fears. However it also highlights the yawning likely gap between Italian official data and the much larger likely scale of the epidemic in Italy.

People have been discussing the implications of the rapidly increasing scale of the outbreak in Italy, but one lesson seems obvious to me. There needs to be a big increase in testing, most of all in Italy, but also in all other countries. If you don't know who has the disease, you don't know who their contacts are, and you cannot easily close off the disease.

Michel Foucault said that 'power is knowledge'. He is certainly right there, and at the moment we do not have nearly enough of the knowledge that is gained through testing

Source of medical data
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

https://eciu.net/blog/2020/onshore-wind-back-with-a-bang

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/869788/contracts-for-difference-ar4-consultation-impact-assessment.pdf

Solar pv cost plunge presages surge in UK subsidy free solar projects

All over Europe there are reports of a plunge in the prices of solar pv projects, and in the UK a leading solar analyst has predicted that over 1 GW of solar pv will be deployed in the UK in 2020.

Solar pv prices have been hurtling ever lower for many years. and some crazily low prices for solar pv projects have been reported in Middle East in contract auction contests such as in the UAE and Qatar. But this trend is now even affecting not-as-sunny parts of Europe. Solar pv costs - what finance geeks call 'levellised cost of energy' (LCOE) - and which indicate what projects investors and banks will support - are dipping below wholesale electricity prices in more and more countries.

That means that solar pv schemes, big ones that can be built efficiently using higher power outputs compared to rooftop solar projects, are now coming forward on what is called a 'subsidy free' basis in the UK. That is without Government based incentives such as feed in tariffs that launched the first markets for solar pv (before being scaled back in recent years).

Even in often rather cold Finland the cost of solar pv is now below that of the wholesale power price. In Germany, which still gives some feed-in tariff support for what is now a booming rooftop solar pv market (increasingly associated with home batteries) the Government is giving out contracts to large schemes through auctions which deliver low prices. Nearly 4 GW of solar pv was deployed in Germany in 2019.

The surprise is that in the UK, which no longer has a Government backed system of awarding contracts to solar pv schemes,  increasing quantities of 'subsidy free' solar pv schemes are in the development pipeline. According to Finlay Colville, Head of Market Research at the Solar Power Portal, around 6.6 GW of solar pv capacity is currently at various stages in the pipeline, with over 1 GW said to be deployed in 2020. These projects are dominated by (what is for solar pv) very large projects, many being 40 MW or bigger in size. Of course this pipeline is, on this trend, likely to grow in the future. 6.6 GW of utility solar projects would generate around 2.4 per cent of UK electricity on its own on an annualised basis.

There have been so far, in the UK, a small number of 'subsidy free' solar projects that have been deployed in particularly favourable circumstances (eg alongside already available grid connection equipment, or as extensions of battery projects). However this new crop of what can be called 'utility scale' projects represents a new development that will make a substantial addition to UK generating capacity.

There are also various plans for 'subsidy free' onshore wind projects (including projects being taken ahead by Scottish Power and SSE). Around 500 MW of what will be 'subsidy free' wind projects are registered for the capacity mechanism for the 2022-23 year, but the capacity of solar pv projects threatens to move well ahead of wind power in the subsidy-free development stakes (note: for comparison a MW of wind power will generate roughly twice as much electricity per annum as a MW of solar on average). Although wind projects on the best sites offer very cheap prices, a big constraint on renewable energy projects is the availability of sufficiently low cost grid connection options. Solar pv may have an advantage here. Whilst high windspeed sites are tied to specific limited locations, there is an even spread of sun resources around the country. Hence solar pv may have more of a chance to pick up good grid connection possibilities.

Of course when it comes to offshore wind power, things are different.There are very, very large areas of good windspeed locations offshore, and grid connection costs for schemes can be calculated down simply by building ever more massive windfarms. But that's another story, albeit a very big one!

Reference links:
Solar Power Portal
 https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/blogs/uk_utility_solar_sector_starts_gw_plus_deployment_roll_out_for_2020
also LCOE analysis at
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pip.3189

Why EDF's argument that they cut costs with early start to Sizewell C is nonsense

As reported in 'The Times' EDF is now pressing the Government for an early decision to fund Sizewell C nuclear power plant through what is effectively a blank cheque financial model. EDF say they want to start building Sizewell C in 2022 because they will save money through transferring staff from building Hinkley C.

To me this sounds a very dubious argument for the simple reason that building another two units of their 'Euorpean Pessurised Reactor' (EPR) at the same time as Hinkley will put even greater pressure on staff resources - which  are very scarce in the highly specialised nuclear industry - and lead to increased problems and costs, not savings. The argument posed by EDF annoys me especially as I have been (for some time) researching a book for Routledge about the factors that have led to the nuclear power construction cost overruns, and  big factor appears to be precisely the fact that there is just not enough specialised nuclear staff in the West to build nuclear power plant. So this argument about 'transferring' staff seems to me to be especially tendentious.

EDF claims they are going to 'transfer staff'. Planning to transfer staff could produce even bigger delays as construction fell behind schedule, the staff couldn’t be released on time  and building at Sizewell has to be halted leading to  even greater costs as other staff sit around doing very little.

Really the whole argument seems to me to be a clever way of distracting from the obvious point that they cannot build more than two units at once (indeed, cannot even do that on time). To say that there is some sort of cost-saving in this seems bizarre. But then, in reality, we shall find that the real start of construction at Sizewell C will be pushed back and back.

But EDF have an big incentive to pre-commit the UK Government to an early start for Sizewell C (which may in practice be no more than some light work in advance of serious construction) because of three possibilities.

The first is that bad news continues to come about the longer and longer delays with building EPR reactors in France and Finland. The second is that bad news could soon be also coming concerning more delays with Hinkley C itself. The third is that EDF are in big financial trouble having to fund Hinkley C on their own balance sheet while suffering losses with their construction at Flamanville and would be given considerable succour with an open-ended committment to pour money into the company for another twin power plant. (See my earlier blog post on the massive losses EDF are suffering with Flamanville). The quicker they can get a decision from the UK Government then the less chance that the Government will be put off by continuing bad news from Flamanville and Hinkley C itself.

EDF have been consistently arguing for arrangements that they say reduce costs, while the outome is that costs increase. This is most likely to be the case with the arrangements that they have promoted to build Sizewell C. They have claimed that it will be cheaper because using Government money is chreaper. But the reality is that the Government will be committed to paying for any cost overruns of the project - so how is this project going to be built cheaper when the company doing it has no contractual incentive to keep costs down?

The reality is that every nuclear power project being built in the west over this century is costing at least double (probably even more than that eventually) than they were supposed to cost in the first place. The cost of building Sizewell C under the proposed 'Regulated Asset Base' is likel;y to be much higher for the energy consumer compared to even Hinkley C - even if it is cheaper for EDF! And EDF are rushing the public into accepting the inevitable high public costs before there is further mouning bad news from the construction of their power plant at Flamanville and Hinkley C.