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Net Zero is Losing the Battle of Ideas

by David Turver
22 October 2024 11:33 AM

At the weekend I attended the Battle of Ideas Festival in London. It is a fascinating event, with interesting debates taking place across a wide variety of topics like free speech, culture wars, the economy, education and women’s freedom.

I was there primarily for the energy discussions. Unfortunately, I missed the book launch on nuclear power on the Saturday, but I did attend the two energy debates that took place in the scientific dilemmas section on Sunday.

First up was a lunchtime debate entitled “Is nuclear the future of energy… again?” Unfortunately, the speaker who was supposed to speak for this position had some sort of transportation nightmare and could not attend. I did not catch the name of the man who replaced her, but he did put up a valiant effort considering he was drafted in at the last minute. Speaking against the idea of a nuclear renaissance was Robert Reid, policy development officer for the Alba Party who was in mourning for the late Alec Salmond. We can therefore forgive him somewhat for advancing the hoary old chestnut that offshore wind is cheap: he claimed £41/MWh without citing any sources. Of course, the existing CfD funded offshore wind farms have cost us over £150/MWh so far this financial year and the new projects awarded in AR6 will cost us over £82/MWh in today’s money, more than twice Robert’s claim. Emma Bateman, who is an environmental campaigner and founding member of Together Against Sizewell C, unsurprisingly spoke against the idea of nuclear power and made some spurious claims about safety that if nuclear power were a person would have resulted in the libel lawyers being called on Monday morning. The gist of her substantive argument was that nuclear is too expensive and takes too long so we should therefore spend more on wind and solar.

In the ensuing debate, I managed to correct Robert Reid’s ‘facts’ and make the point that if your primary concern is the environment, then you should be an advocate of nuclear power because it has the smallest overall environmental footprint of all energy sources because it doesn’t take up much land and has very low mineral intensity. I also made the point about the chocolate teapot fallacy. Arguing for wind and solar in place of nuclear power is akin to arguing in favour of chocolate teapots because you cannot wait for a ceramic one. No matter how many chocolate teapots you buy, you can never make tea; just like no matter how many wind turbines and solar panels you install you can never run a modern economy on intermittent electricity.

The physics of nuclear power are far superior to any other energy source because of its extremely high energy return on energy invested, meaning we get far more energy out than we expend building the power plants, and the output is reliable. There are even designs on the drawing board and beginning to be built that will allow nuclear power plants to follow fluctuations in demand. The barriers to nuclear power are all political: the West over-regulates nuclear power and it is unsurprising that it takes so long because of all the paperwork that must be produced before a new reactor can be built. We can fix man-made political and regulatory problems, but mere mortals cannot change the faulty physics of intermittent renewables, just like you can never make tea in a chocolate teapot.

We would be far better off committing to a significant nuclear power programme so we can deliver reliable electricity. If we fix the regulations, invest in rebuilding the skills base and supply chains and choose the right reactor design, we can even have cheap, reliable energy with only a small impact on the environment. This is what the French did in the 1970s and 1980s and now they produce around 70% of their electricity from nuclear.

The next debate was on the “Great British Energy Crisis”. It was encouraging to see that three of the five panellists are subscribers to this Substack (you know who you are and thank you). Two of the speakers, James Woudhuysen and Lord David Frost both made eloquent attacks on Net Zero and its consequences. Professor Michaela Kendall who is the U.K. Hydrogen Champion for Mission Innovation suggested we needed more facts to inform the debate on energy, but managed to skirt around the fact that the Government agreed contracts for green hydrogen at £241/MWh, which is about seven times the current cost of U.K. natural gas, which in turn costs more than five times U.S. gas.

Dr. Shahrar Ali is a former spokesperson for the Green Party who has recently won a discrimination court case against the Greens because they sacked him for his gender critical beliefs. It is a shame Dr. Ali cannot apply his critical thinking skills to Net Zero. The gist of his argument was the world is warming, it is going to be a catastrophe, it is all our fault, so build more windmills.

I managed to take him to task in the ensuing debate by pointing out that even if you believe CO2 causes warming, then it is a big leap to conclude that building windmills will change the weather. This is the so-called mitigation strategy that can only work if 1) CO2 is the only climate control knob (we know this to be untrue from paleo-climate records) and 2) everyone else follows the strategy (you only need to look at charts of global greenhouse gas emissions to see this is also untrue). A far better strategy is one of adaptation which has the advantages of being cheaper and will work regardless of the actions of others and regardless of the causes of global warming. The mitigation strategy we are pursuing is one of unilateral economic impoverishment and the Net Zero “cure” is far worse than the alleged climate change “disease”.

It is encouraging that my intervention drew an enthusiastic round of applause which is testament to the growing scepticism about Net Zero among the general public. It appears to me that cracks are appearing in the cosy green consensus in Westminster and if we get our arguments right, we can win this debate.

All in all, the Battle of Ideas is a thoroughly enjoyable event and I highly recommend everyone to attend next year, whatever your beliefs. It is only through free and open debate that we can get to the truth.

David Turver writes the Eigen Values Substack, where this article first appeared.

Tags: Battle of IdeasClimate AlarmismFact checkNet ZeroNuclear powerRenewables

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33 Comments
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Jeff Chambers
Jeff Chambers
7 months ago

There have always been sceptics who think that the “climate emergency” is nonsense. The interesting thing is that the Western globalist Establishment’s answer to the sceptics has become demonisation, accusations of heresy, and the use of captured institutions (the BBC, the Guardian, the Anti-white Party, etc) to peddle unmitigated lies.

Nevertheless, people look out of their windows and see no climate emergency. I expect that because of this 2TK and the other creatures of this anti-white government will soon “bring the full force of the law” to bear against the sceptics – because “how dare they not believe what the government says!”.

21
0
Norfolk-Sceptic
Norfolk-Sceptic
6 months ago
Reply to  Jeff Chambers

A Level Physics provides enough knowledge of Classical Mechanics to understand that Windmills generate power proportional to the cube of the wind speed, so therefore any variability in the speed will be magnify the power variability: reducing the speed by 20.6% will half the power output.

So, even if ‘something must be done’, (which it doesn’t), it isn’t Windmills.

So why, with so many with that qualification, and more, do we have so many windmills?

7
0
Purpleone
Purpleone
6 months ago
Reply to  Norfolk-Sceptic

Follow the money – it’s a great way to extract cash from the public purse. Stop the subsidies and the builds would stop tomorrow

1
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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
7 months ago

The science is settled.

Nut Zero has sod all to do with climate or saving the planet and everything to do with impoverishing the masses, reducing their numbers and then enslaving the survivors.

I find discussions of Nut Zero absolutely tedious because this is a debate about nothing. People are arguing about nonsense. I appreciate what people like David Turver, Chris Morrison and Paul Homewood are doing but ultimately they are fighting a battle that cannot be won. TPTB will ignore all the arguments, all the evidence and carry on regardless because climate is irrelevant. This is all about control.

‘You will own nothing and be happy. Or dead.’

21
0
Ron Smith
Ron Smith
7 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

I like Ivor Cummins take on ‘climate change’…..Nice weather!

7
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Douglas Brodie
Douglas Brodie
7 months ago
Reply to  Ron Smith

Ivor Cummins did a great cover of my article “Debunking the climate change hoax” as a 30-minute video presentation, adding his own graphics and emphasis.Towards the end he says he feels sorry for me (!) because of my failure to get the message out to the wider public: https://rumble.com/v4x6ek6-ivor-cummins-review-of-debunking-the-climate-change-hoax.html.

5
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Solentviews
Solentviews
7 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

I don’t agree as this sounds like the council of defeat. If people keep making rational arguments about this stupidity, then it only needs a few untimely events for people to wake up.

Some long power cuts due to: excessive demand/bad weather/unexpected maintenance/or sabotage will soon focus the public’s mind.

We are following the Covid playbook almost exactly. Government and International organisation hype things up, we ‘panic’ and make ridiculous choices. The consequences of our panicky actions then come home and hit us hard. Millibrain is making colossal mistakes, but when old people die of hypothermia, or industry shuts down, the public mood will change very quickly indeed. So I’m a big fan of David, Chris & Paul etc.

(Note also the Reform and now Jenrick) are saying they will ditch the CCA. The tide is turning!).

18
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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
6 months ago
Reply to  Solentviews

Fair points and I hope your view prevails. I very much respect the authors mentioned but I just find the topic tedious, perhaps because I have never swallowed the lies about global warming or whatever they choose to call it.

6
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varmint
varmint
6 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

“impoverishing the masses, reducing their numbers and then enslaving the survivors”—I urge everyone to try a little experiment. —Ask a group of as many friends and family as possible “What is Sustainable Development”? Hopefully around 40 or so. —Then see what their answers are. I am pretty sure that few will know. Yet it is this Political Agenda that is being imposed on us. —–How can people NOT KNOW?

7
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
6 months ago
Reply to  varmint

“How can people NOT KNOW?”

If it’s not broadcast by al-beeb it cannot be true. Sheer bloody stupidity and ignorance is difficult to overcome. I work with a physics graduate occasionally, she believes in the global climate scam. She is an utter firkin idiot and there is no discussion allowed.🤔

That is what we are up against.

7
0
varmint
varmint
6 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Ask her if she has ever looked at any data. She will find no increase in storms floods of droughts etc etc. —-if there is no increase in the frequency or intensity of weather events what actual climate changes to people think are occurring? —-Your friend is a classic example, and I have many as well, who feel uncomfortable stepping outside of the herd.

6
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Bettina
Bettina
6 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Millennials and Gen Z have been steeped in the propaganda all their lives. Only when the Nut Zero measures bite them on the backside will they engage their brains.

4
0
Monro
Monro
7 months ago

The U.S. Navy has eighty three nuclear powered vessels.

Naval reactors have an outstanding record of over 134 million miles safely steamed on nuclear power, and they have amassed over 5700 reactor-years of safe operation.

As someone recently said, what this country requires is ‘systemic reform’.

18
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JXB
JXB
7 months ago
Reply to  Monro

You mean a peasants revolt?

7
0
JXB
JXB
7 months ago

The Climatrons and Net Zeroids have no ideas only doctrine and dogma.

Nuclear is THE most expensive electricity production, both because of its capital cost (which must include an allowance for decommissioning), its running costs – not the consumables but all the safety protocols needed.

The reason why France has renationalised EDF is because it didn’t have the money, couldn’t raise it, to replace its ageing fleet of 59 reactors.

It is why new reactors in the UK have been under discussion for over 20 years. How much will Government chip in for construction costs, will Government guarantee above market wholesale price per MW for the reactor lifetime?

Small scale reactors have been around for nearly 50 years in ships, submarines and even satellites, so this latest ‘solution’ – modular reactors is also just people working themselves.

The solution is a coal and gas mix split probably 70%, 30%. Something like we used to have before the Net Zero lunacy which gave us a stable grid, continuous supply, easily upgraded to meet evolving demand and low electricity prices.

10
-2
Solentviews
Solentviews
7 months ago
Reply to  JXB

Energy generation based mostly on Coal and Gas is sound. However I think aiming for 20-25% nuclear baseload wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

8
0
JXB
JXB
7 months ago
Reply to  Solentviews

Cost?

0
0
RichardTechnik
RichardTechnik
7 months ago
Reply to  JXB

I agreewith you and suggest a nuclear baseload would be a better support to the coal & gas mix.. The trouble is the zealots have destroyed our coal fired baseload and their policies are hostlle to such inward investment.

I recall Argentina’s Kirchener created a similarly hostile landscape when she confiscatated Oil & Gas partner’s,, Spains Repsol, investment share in State company YPF. and lsost any menas to exploit the large frackable gas reserve. But Milei seems to be reversing decades of State politics there.

5
0
JXB
JXB
7 months ago
Reply to  RichardTechnik

My argument is an economic one rather than technical. Nuclear costs many times more than coal, takes longer to construct.

If we want lower price electricity and to restore the robustness and security of supply, coal and gas are best option.

Of course none of this matters whilst the Net Zero obsession persists.

4
0
Myra
Myra
6 months ago
Reply to  JXB

So is there a way of bringing the costs down? Is it over regulated? Are the safety protocols too stringent?

4
0
RichardTechnik
RichardTechnik
7 months ago

Reid has an MA in Politics and International relations. He has some experience in HoC policy reserach and some part time work in Tesco. None that qualifies him to have an authoritative opinion on wind energy vs nuclear economics or technology.

7
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
7 months ago

https://www.globalresearch.ca/land-grabbers-carbon-cowboys/5868860

Carbon cowboys indeed. How the big corporations such as Microsoft really do take the piss – burning fossil fuels is absolutely fine so long as the company buys a forest somewhere. Some of us are not so bloody gullible. Very much like the khant with ulez – you can pollute as much as you want so long as you pay £12 per day.

Ba##ards!

4
0
JXB
JXB
7 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

They buy carbon credit certificates. There is a carbon credit exchange – lots of money to be made.

3
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
6 months ago
Reply to  JXB

It is simply making money out of nothing.

4
0
James.M
James.M
7 months ago

Can someone explain why small nuclear reactors can’t be rolled out now or in the very near future. What is there to develop technologically? Why the delay? They already build nuclear powered ships and submarines.

7
0
JXB
JXB
7 months ago
Reply to  James.M

I’ll do my best.

1) Nuclear reactors are designed for continuous near maximum output. Keep powering them down then up every few hours depending on wind conditions will cause damage to fuel rods and the core because of the temperature fluctuations involved.

2) Powering a ship is not the same as powering a whole Country. It would require a large number of reactors to accomplish this – assuming wind/solar no longer in the mix. Reactors are expensive to construct and install and factored in must be end of life decomissioning costs.
We have had small reactors for 50 years, so if they were a viable method of powering an electricity grid we would have had them long ago and France instead of building 59 large reactors from the late 60s onward, would have dotted lots of little baby ones ici et là.

3) Currently 87% of UK’s energy comes from oil and natural gas. The Net Zero policy is to replace that with electrical energy. Just how many small reactors would we need for that I wonder?

The solution to our energy crisis, the least cost and quickest to realise, is forget the Net Zero nonsense, build coal-fired and gas-fired power stations with an approximately 70% to 30% mix.

5
0
ElaineH
ElaineH
7 months ago

0.04% of C02 in the earths atmosphere is not a concern let alone a climate crisis. It is essential for plant life and the food we grow. Look after the planet environmentally by all means but don’t destroy human life in the process.

9
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
6 months ago
Reply to  ElaineH

Hear, hear.

2
0
Myra
Myra
6 months ago

I did go to the book launch of the book on nuclear power and spoke to the author Marco Visscher. He is a Dutch journalist, who mainly wrote for left wing Dutch newspapers and initially was very much in the anti-nuclear camp. He now thinks nuclear is good. Clean energy and the safest form of energy. Some of the nuclear waste can now be reused as well.
Another book to add to my growing stack of books to read.

5
0
Bettina
Bettina
6 months ago

I went to the nuclear energy book launch debate on the Saturday that you missed and the author – Dutch, a stereotypical left wing Greenie – was a convert to nuclear. He was a journalist who had been very much against it at the beginning of the century and gradually came around to its benefits, realising that much of the publics’s fear of nuclear energy was based on propaganda and not facts. He echoed what you said above, “if your primary concern is the environment, then you should be an advocate of nuclear power because it has the smallest overall environmental footprint of all energy sources because it doesn’t take up much land and has very low mineral intensity.

5
0
Old Brit
Old Brit
6 months ago

I think the UK will need to go for SMRs sooner or later if we want to keep up with AI. They also have the advantage of eliminating the need for miles of pylons

2
0
edmh
edmh
6 months ago

Just dividing comparative “Renewables” costs by their annual productivity shows why bills will keep on going up with more and more “Renewables”.  Bare comparative values are available ignoring any advantageous subsides are available from the USA Energy Information Administration.

Doing this simple sum gives a comparative cost of delivering a unit of power to the Grid.  

“Renewables” policies require the replication of power generation installations with conventional generators underused but ~90% efficient, dispatchably operating 24/7 and adds in inefficient, (less than 20% productivity combined Wind and Solar power).

When the last 10 years of achieved European productivity /capacity is taken into account the comparative costs as opposed to Gas-fired power generation are:
·      Onshore Wind power is about 6 times more costly to install with ~22% productivity
·      Offshore Wind power is about 18 times more costly to install with ~31% productivity
·      Solar PV power is about 10 times more costly to install with ~11% productivity.

In 2023 the combined productivity of the whole installed ~520GW European “Renewables” fleet resulted in ~17.5% productivity. 

As this calculation is on an annual basis, it ignores the short-term unreliability and intermittency of Renewables, which cause serious operational problems for the Grid, it thus gives a truly generous view of “Renewables” costs.

  • When comparing with Gas-firing for power generation it should be noted that the CO2 output is half that of Coal-firing and almost a quarter of imported Biomass.  
  • The use of fracked gas in the USA has reduced CO2 emissions by ~25% over the past ~20 years.  
  • Gas-firing in the UK generating the same power ~9GW from the 45GW of all installed UK Weather-Dependent “Renewables” would have given saving of ~330 US$ billion. That is about the cost of banning Fracking in the UK. Across Europe the loss from the anti-fracking decision could be in the region of ~2.1 US$ trillion.

These are not difficult sums, except for those with an obsessive view of the Climate Catastrophe as in the UK Department of Energy Security and Net Zero.  The numbers in some detail for the UK are here:

https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/the-myth-of-cheap-renewable-power-in-the-uk/

1
0
chriswatch
chriswatch
6 months ago

I believe that the weather is controlled by nature, not us. Like everything in this world, it has variations of cold and hot over a variety of periods. What’s to argue about? Common sense will prevail eventually.

0
0

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