If you were ever uncertain that Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and his Head of Mission Control, Chris Stark, were space cadets with only the vacuum of space between their ears, then the letter they sent to the National Grid ESO yesterday should remove all doubt.
First, it is rather unfortunate that the file name for the letter on the Government website is ‘SOS Chris Stark Letter Clean Power 2030’. It smacks of a certain amount of desperation. But it is the substance of the letter that is more worrying. They have written to Fintan Slye, Director of the National Grid ESO (soon to become NESO) for “practical advice” on achieving a clean power grid by 2030. In other words, neither Miliband nor Stark have the faintest clue how to deliver a Net Zero carbon grid by 2030.
The letter goes on to detail the advice they need, which includes a range of pathways to enable a decarbonised power system by 2030. For each pathway they ask that Slye sets out the energy generation and demand mix and the underlying assumptions that need to be met for these to be deliverable. They also ask for the key requirements for the transmission network and interconnectors. Interestingly, they do not ask for any information about the distribution network. They also ask for a high-level view of the costs, benefits, opportunities, challenges and risks as well as the key actions to be taken by Government, NESO, Ofgem and industry to enable delivery of the pathways. Stark’s post on X/Twitter says the advice will be delivered in the Autumn, so NESO has just three months to complete this work.
Labour’s Green Prosperity Plan was launched with some fanfare back in September 2022 and was put together for the party by Ember, the green energy think tank. Back then it was described as “ambitious but possible”, which is consultant-speak for completely barking. As I covered last year, the plan included completely unrealistic build-out plans for wind and solar power and was very sketchy on the amount of storage that would be required.
The letter from Miliband and Stark puts Fintan Slye in an exceedingly difficult position. Only last month, NG ESO launched its latest Future Energy Pathways (covered here) which were supposed to demonstrate a “a narrower range of outcomes to drive more strategic, credible routes to Net Zero”. The trouble is, all the “credible routes” included very significant CO2 emissions for power generation in 2030 (see Figure 1).
To comply with the request from Government, Slye and his team have to completely rehash this year’s FES “credible” pathways, deliver a completely new set of pathways and somehow pretend that the new pathways are plausible. The extra difficulty arises because FES2024 had it its own credibility problem because it called for a halving of per capita energy use by 2050, had deindustrialisation built in, assumed the use of as yet unproven and expensive technologies to deliver unrealistic amounts of hydrogen and relied upon carbon capture unicorns.
The change in FES 2024 from scenarios to pathways was supposed to bring in “additional economic modelling”, but such modelling was conspicuous by its absence. Now Slye must deliver the previously non-existent cost-benefit analysis for these new pathways within three months. That is a very tall order indeed.
The big question is whether NG ESO can maintain the pretence that a Net Zero grid by 2030 is achievable and economically viable and lose whatever remaining credibility it has, or will it be the first to point out that Mad Emperor Ed has no clothes?
David Turver writes the Eigen Values Substack page, where this article first appeared.
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I’m afraid facts and arguments aren’t going to change the minds of Net Zero advocates.
What will change their minds is the sense that those who don’t want it are getting angry and might start going for Net Zero zealots in ways they might not like.
They need to feel the need to change position at an emotional level. And we all know fear works best.
Personally I make a point of ensuring that anyone who defends climate change policy perceives my anger and a certain sense of menace that I’m not standing for it.
That’s the sort of emotional response that gets people re-thinking, in my view.
Indeed. Righteous anger coupled with a couple of winters freezing in one’s home and – heaven forbid – being deprived of the internet and one’s dumb-down-the-owner ‘smart’ phone (due to power blackouts) and we will probably see some change in direction. Recent history shows how quickly zealots can change sides – 2 years ago there were millions standing in line for untested poison, now they can’t give it away. Reality bites big.
Yep everyone wants to “save the planet” till the penny eventually drops that the planet is fine and it was never about the planet in the first place.
We see the same tactics used against those who put rational arguments and science up against the loony climate change protagonists.
The loonies are not loony and those with rational arguments and science are the loonies.
All achieved using the same approach to so many other issues that are destroying our social values and structures and done using
useful idiotswhatever activists they can fund to implement this madness.The end justifies the means for those behind all this crap who see the destruction of social values and structures as the ends which justify the means.
DS is invaluable as a source of information and a forum to read what sensible people have to say against this backdrop of madness.
Or “never let a good crisis go to waste”, and parasite governments of both parties are certainly putting the manufactured climate crisis to good use to implement all the progressive policies they have long craved
No facts and reason……Just faith and emotion. Climate activists and those who glue themselves to things decided long ago what is true and there is no budging them. But we need to remember it is government and their phony climate models masquerading as science that brainwashed them all. —–Thos governments can hardly come down hard on their own useful idiots that do all their dirty work for them now can they?
Until the liberal mainstream media, and especially the BBC, do honest reporting over the utter folly of spending trillions on completely worthless and highly dangerous Net Zero madness nothing will change.
I would suggest that everyone complain to the BBC via. their Make A Complaint web portal. Find a climate change article on the BBC website, it’ll almost always state that greenhouse gas emissions are the main cause of climate change, something that we all know is complete rubbish. They always make this dumb statement without any dissenting views allowed. That’s complaint-worthy in itself.
Do you really think complaining to the BBC achieves anything? It is impervious to complaints.
Hopefully one low level individual there might start to think for him/her self and light a spark. A long shot, I know.
At a stroke, we could cut the staggering 0.0016% of the atmosphere that is human-caused CO2 by wiping out most of the world’s population by toxic medical interventions, geoengineering, gmo food and electrosmog. Unless some people have already thought of that.
Just as a matter of interest – have any of the Net Zero zealots ever clarified what’s the target internal winter temperature people are expected to maintain in this brave new world of theirs, or hasn’t that sort of practical reality crossed their tiny minds? I see the WHO, NHS and others currently recommend 18-21C, and building ‘sperts recommend above 16C to stop condensation and mould. Are those numbers likely to drop, I wonder? (My place regularly drops well below those already; wonder if that means I get extra brownie points?!)
Off topic, but who cares..
So.. 2.30 pm tomorrow Andrew Bridgen after 20 refusals and the pressure of constitutants harassing their MPs there will be a debate (1 hr slot) about excess deaths.
Its the first parliamentary debate in the world… You couldn’t make this up in your widest of dreams..
https://youtu.be/uWP6mGiDveI?si=sYVcJHZC-SLCDsYQ
More off topic…. Was all this about provoking Iran..
Brand talking sense… Yet again (don’t believe the narrative about him, it’s an attempted matrix takedown)
https://youtu.be/jWO-mtt4_lU?si=vUDuZ1TDB4O-iFMW
”Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you,”
This is a momentous nightmare social experiment, the current technology cannot deliver, the current resources are inadequate. As this nonsense progresses and it becomes increasingly obvious that our current population cannot go ‘net-zero’ and live at anything like present living standards, what is going to happen? Are people meekly going to accept immiseration and a degeneration of living standards back to medieval times? If we do go down this route the UK will become a weird basket case like the mad uncle you keep in the attic while the rest of the world gets on with life. This is a recipe for huge social upheaval and turmoil, the end result of which is hard to predict?
Something similar to North Korea, I expect. Only without the abundant luxuries…
‘Saving the planet’ is worth any cost in some eyes. Even if you can’t afford it, and it wouldn’t save the planet anyway, (primarily because it doesn’t need saving from CO2).
Useless people trying to give themselves a sense of destiny.
The NIC should be closed down and sent back to school while we find some adults to carry on the essential work.
The can will need to be continually kicked down the road because what the parasite political class are trying to do is not just impossible, it is unaffordable, but the pain and suffering inflicted will be a severe blow to hard pressed taxpayers suffering the fallout from the malady infecting all of parliament called PSPS (Pretend to Save the Planet Syndrome)