In October 2008, Parliament passed the Climate Change Act requiring the U.K. Government to ensure that by 2050 “the net U.K. carbon account” was reduced to a level at least 80% lower than that of 1990. (“Carbon account’ refers to CO2 emissions and “other targeted greenhouse gas emissions”.) Only five MPs voted against it. Then in 2019, by secondary legislation and without serious debate, Parliament increased the 80% reduction requirement to 100% – thereby creating the Net Zero policy.
Unfortunately, it’s a policy that’s unachievable, disastrous and in any case pointless – and, importantly, that’s the case even if you accept that human carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to a rise in global temperature.
1. It’s unachievable.
Many vehicles and machines (used for example in mining, mineral processing, agriculture, construction, heavy transportation, commercial shipping and aviation, the military and emergency services) and products (for example concrete, steel, plastics – all needed for the construction of renewables – fertilisers, pharmaceuticals, anaesthetics, lubricants, solvents, paints, adhesives, insecticides, insulation, tyres and asphalt) essential to life and wellbeing require the combustion of fossil fuels or are made from oil derivatives. There are no easily deployable, commercially viable alternatives. Our civilisation is based on fossil fuels, something that’s unlikely to change for a long time.
Wind is the most effective source of renewable electricity in the U.K., but: (i) the substantial costs of building the huge numbers of turbines needed for Net Zero; (ii) the complex engineering and cost challenges of establishing a stable, reliable non-fossil fuel grid by 2035 (2030 for Labour) – not least the need to cope with a vast increase in high voltage grid capacity and local distribution; (iii) the enormous scale of what’s involved (immense amounts of space and of increasingly unavailable and expensive raw materials, such as so-called ‘rare earths’, required because, unlike fossil fuels, the ‘energy density’ of wind is so low); and (iv) the intermittency of renewable energy (see point 2 below), make it most unlikely that the U.K. will be able to generate sufficient electricity for current needs let alone for the mandated EVs and heat pumps plus industry’s requirements and other demands such as huge data centres the predicted growth of AI.
In any case, the UK doesn’t have enough skilled technical managers, electrical and other engineers, electricians, plumbers, welders, mechanics and other tradespeople (probably about a million are needed) to do the multitude of tasks essential to achieve Net Zero – a problem worsened by political demands for massively increased house building.
‘Net Zero’ means that there has to be a balance between the amount of any greenhouse gas emissions produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere. However there’s no detailed, costed (or indeed any) plan for such removal, thereby invalidating the entire project.
2. It would be socially and economically disastrous.
Neither of the main political parties’ all-renewable energy project includes a fully costed engineering plan for the provision of comprehensive grid-scale back-up when there’s little or no wind or sun, a problem that’s exacerbated by the pending retirement of fossil fuel and nuclear power plants. Both parties are now talking of building new gas-fired power plants – thereby undermining Net Zero – but they’ve not published any detail and, in any case, intend it seems to fit them with carbon capture and underground storage systems – an unproven, wasteful and expensive technology that hasn’t been shown to be viable on a national scale. This issue is desperately important: without full back-up, electricity blackouts would be inevitable – ruining many businesses and causing dreadful problems for millions of people, including health consequences threatening everyone and in particular the poor and vulnerable.
Even more serious is the fact that, because there’s no coherent plan for the project’s delivery, little attention has been given to its overall cost. All that’s clear is that it would almost certainly be completely unaffordable: for example, a recent National Infrastructure Commission projection of £1.3 trillion is probably far too low – estimates in excess of £3 trillion seem likely to be more accurate. The borrowing and taxes required for costs at this scale would destroy Britain’s credit standing and put an impossible burden onto millions of households and businesses.
Net Zero would have two other dire consequences:
- As China essentially controls the supply of key materials (for example, lithium, cobalt, aluminium, processed graphite and so-called rare earths) without which renewables cannot be manufactured, the U.K. would greatly increase its already damaging dependence on it, putting its energy and overall security at most serious risk.
- The extensive mining and mineral processing operations required for renewables are already causing appalling environmental damage and dreadful human suffering throughout the world, affecting in particular fragile, unspoilt ecosystems and many of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people; the continued pursuit of Net Zero would make all this far worse.
3. In any case it’s pointless.
For two reasons:
- It’s absurd to regard the closure of greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting plants in the U.K. and their ‘export’ mainly to SE Asian countries, commonly with poor environmental regulation and often powered by coal-fired electricity, as a positive step towards Net Zero. Yet efforts to ‘decarbonise’ the U.K. mean that’s what’s happening.
- Most major non-Western countries – the source of over 75% of GHG emissions and home to 84% of humanity – don’t regard emission reduction as a priority and, either exempt from (by international agreement) or ignoring any obligation to reduce their emissions, are focused instead on economic and social development, poverty eradication and energy security. As a result, global emissions are increasing (by 62% since 1990) and are set to continue to increase for the foreseeable future. The U.K. is the source of less than 1% of global emissions – so any further emission reduction it may achieve cannot have any impact on the global position.
In other words, the Net Zero policy means the UK is legally obliged to pursue an unachievable, disastrous and pointless policy – a policy that could result in Britain’s economic destruction.
Robin Guenier is a retired writer, speaker and business consultant. He was for 20 years Chief Executive of various high-tech companies and advised the Government on communications technology. An earlier version of this article was first published on Cliscep.
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The tide seems to be turning in the Trans debate. Who will be the JK Rowling equivalent in the Net Zero con?
The tide seemed to be turning at the time of the Climategate debate, but that was in 2009, when much of the weather station temperature fraud was exposed and the modelling was discredited. In the event, nothing much changed, because, metaphorically, all the dissidents were rounded up and shot, their images erased from the historical record, and the UK politicians re-affirmed their subservience to the UN. NetZero is now a global multi-trillion dollar industry and means of political control: it won’t die easily. One might start by eliminating the NetZero ideological propaganda in teacher-training colleges and schools[1].
[1] “Why Doncaster might be a coastal resort by 2050”.
Very good comment. Climategate was indeed swept under the carpet and the pseudo scientific fraud continues as the mainstream media led from the front by the BBC brainwash an unsuspecting public who are having the real state of the climate kept away from them for political purposes. There is no tyranny worse than the one that terrorises you for your own good, and that is exactly what climate change politics in a symbiotic relationship with the government funded data adjusters (often referred to as scientists) is doing.
But this time Roy the policy is having to face up to harsh reality. As Ayn Rand said: ‘we can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.’ Well, we’ve been evading realty for a long time and now the consequences are upon us.
Jeremy Clarkson
It’s unachievable if we want to maintain our current lifestyles, but you have to wonder whether that’s part of the plan. There are plenty of countries in the world where the leadership and establishment have for many years pursued their own financial advancement over the advancement of the nations they are supposed to be leading – and this fact is well recognised. Why do we assume that our own leaders would not behave in a similarly despotic fashion?
“but you have to wonder whether that is part of the plan”———–Are you kidding? Ofcourse it is part of the plan. It is called Agenda 2030, previously Agenda 21. According to the UN and WEF the lifestyles of people in the affluent western world are “unsustainable”. In other words our standard of living is TOO HIGH. To their way of thinking it will be impossible for the developing world to achieve the same as us this will use up all of the world’s coal oil and gas. ——-Climate Policies like Net Zero are therefore economic and political policies that seek to redistribute and control the worlds wealth and resources, and for that you need a very plausible excuse. ——That excuse is climate change and the policies like Net Zero that seek to lower living standards, starting with the wealthy west who are deemed to have used up more than our fair share of the coal oil and gas in gaining the prosperity we now have.
Water vapour credits don’t sound so catchy I guess!
Yes the fake greenhouse gases – 90% is water…..shouldn’t water therefore be banned?
Yes, replace it all with dihydrogen monoxide!
That’s hydrogen done with then, all it produces is steam! looks like we’ll be swapping one greenhouse gas for a worse one
How about instead of carbon net zero, government spending net zero. There’s something I could really get behind.
We are all capable of not spending more than we have in our private lives. Why can’t government?
The only Net 0 i agree with is 0 immigration for 5 to 10 years so we can try and find out just how many people we have in the UK. To quote Trump…..”Find out what the hell is going on”!
Fiat currency, and more specifically and recently, low interest rates and quantitative easing.
This also benefits private individuals who are in a position to borrow to invest, i.e in property.
Wind is the most effective source of renewable electricity in the U.K.
Nonsense. The construction of a simple, 65m wind turbine requires 100 tonnes of steel and 260 tonnes of concrete. Huge amounts of energy are required to produce the steel and concrete, not to mention the 7 tonne carbon fibre blades, the copper wiring, rare earth element magnets and light metal components. These substances all require mining, crushing, transport, melting, transport, processing, assembly, further transport and erection. Estimates show that a wind turbine requires 15 to 20 years of operation solely to recover these energy outlays!
The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is 0.04% (currently 418ppm, I believe) and it is generally agreed that 97% of the CO2 is of natural origin (mainly tectonics). The UK contribution to global, anthropogenic CO2 is 1% (1.01% in 2019). In other words, if UK were to zero its CO2 output, the global CO2 reduction would be 1% of the 3% of the 0.04%, i.e. 0.000012%, equivalent to removing 1 molecule of CO2 from among 8.3 million other atmospheric molecules.
There will clearly be no noticeable change with such a reduction and it is certainly not worth upending British society and doubtlessly bankrupting the country further to serve such an end.
Also, long-term carbon cycle data going back 600 million years show a wide variation in CO2 levels from as high as 8,000ppm down to current levels, returning to around 3,000ppm during the Jurassic period, followed by a steady decrease in CO2 from 2,500ppm down to 182ppm prior to the current interglacial. This latter value can be considered dangerously low since most terrestrial plant life cannot exist below a concentration of 150ppm. Our combustion of fossil fuels, increasing CO2 concentration to current day levels, is hopefully averting an actual CO2-related climate apocalypse. One must also mention that the warming effect of CO2 is known to logarithmically decline with increase in concentration, and recent research has revealed that CO2 at higher atmospheric altitudes actually has a cooling function.
Finally, we are all individual CO2 generators because we exhale 100 times as much CO2 as we inhale (we inhale 0.04% CO2 and exhale 4% CO2). Anyone who promotes Net Zero needs to realize they must stop breathing!
The point is well made of the relationship between carbon dioxide concentration being kind of logarithmic, but is it not also true that there is an effective limit on account of saturation being achieved? They don’t explain that. In the meantime, there are those who know that increased levels are beneficial to plants, and deliberately ramp it up in greenhouses.
Steel: The tower of a wind turbine is primarily made of steel. On average, a modern onshore wind turbine tower may require approximately 300-400 metric tonnes of steel.
Aluminium: Used in various components, such as the nacelle and hub. The weight of aluminium in an onshore wind turbine can be in the range of 10 to 20 metric tons.
Fibreglass and Composites: The blades of a wind turbine are often made of fiberglass and composite materials. The weight of the blades can vary, but each blade may weigh several tonnes.
Copper: Several tonnes of copper are found in various components, such as the generator, electrical wiring, and other electrical systems.
Concrete or Cement: Emplacements use concrete or cement which can only be manufactured with hydrocarbons. Cement is manufactured through a controlled chemical combination of calcium, silicon, aluminium, iron and other ingredients. High temperatures, kilns and mixing apparatuses are needed.
Rare Earth Minerals: Neodymium and Dysprosium are elements used in the production of permanent magnets for the generators in wind turbines (very limited supplies). The amount of rare earth elements used in a wind turbine depends on the specific design and type of generator but will comprise many kgs of material.
To source 1 kg of neodymium means removing more than 1 tonne of tender Gaia’s skin and underlying bodily structure. Drilling for rare earth minerals generates 2000 tonnes of toxic waste. We don’t have enough rare metals to produce endless arrays of the Bird-Choppers (China is the world’s top supplier).
“To provide most of our power through renewables would take hundreds of times the amount of rare earth metals that we are mining today,” said Thomas Graedel, Clifton R. Musser Professor of Industrial Ecology and professor of geology and geophysics at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
“Wind is the most effective source of renewable electricity in the U.K.
Nonsense.”
Indeed. It’s stretching the definition of “effective”. The wind doesn’t blow all the time. Sometimes we go quite a while without much wind, at least where the bird choppers are installed, so the backup to wind has to be able to produce close to 100% of our requirements for periods of hours or maybe days, so we have to build and maintain a huge amount of redundant capacity. How can that be “effective”?
I think what the article is saying is that of all of the unreliable ineffective renewables there are, that wind is the most effective of those. It is a bit like saying that of all the useless things in the world, some are the best. But I don’t think the author of the article is trying to give praise to wind energy. Quite the opposite.
Thanks varmint, that’s precisely my point.
Yes that’s a fair point
“if UK were to zero its CO2 output, the global CO2 reduction would be 1% of the 3% of the 0.04%, i.e. 0.000012%”
Great comment overall, but I think this calculation is flawed. Since nature is both an emitter and an absorber of CO2, whereas man is just an emitter, we need to compare our emissions with nature’s net emissions. If we are 3% of gross emissions, we must logically be a higher % in terms of net emissions. Some might also argue that nature’s emissions and absorptions may net off over an extended period, such that increases in atmospheric CO2 over that same period would then be substantially all man-made.
Yet there have been times when natural emissions were 10 and even 20 times higher, with no runaway warming taking place. There is no evidence that human emissions of CO2 are causing or will cause dangerous changes to climate. The idea that we will comes from models all full of assumption speculation and guesses. This is NOT science.
Can you show that the increase in CO2 caused by human activity is not absorbed readily by increased plant growth? If not, your point is invalid.
No CGW it’s not nonsense. Read the relevant part of the article (better still all the article) and then varmint’s comment below.
In my opinion, the author of the article makes a very good and detailed analysis of how disastrous Net Zero policies are, but without actually questioning Net Zero itself.
CO2 is not a problem gas, as proven by the huge variation in historic levels, which never caused the oceans to boil or the planet to go up in flames. More CO2 simply means more, and higher quality, vegetation, which is of enormous benefit to all animals living on this planet, including ourselves.
I am simply convinced that not that many years ago, a number of utterly dubious characters needed a culprit they could blame their brainchild ‘Global warming’ or ‘Climate change’ on, something credible which sounded sufficiently scientific but of which the public would be largely ignorant and would therefore not immediately challenge, if at all: they chose CO2 and sold it to our gullible western governments, with the result they (the utterly dubious characters) can promote their propaganda, rake in the millions and control large swathes of the world’s population.
One result is that poor nations remain poor and underdeveloped because our politicians promise them economic support only on the condition that they have ‘Sustainable’ or ‘Renewable’ energy sources. This means they cannot extract the coal, gas or oil under their feet and use it to provide cheap and reliable energy 24/7.
Not having electricity means millions of Africans, for example, do not have refrigerators to preserve food and medicine. Outside of wealthy parts of the big cities, people do not have lights, computers, modern hospitals and schools, air conditioning – or offices, factories and shops to make things and create good jobs.
Not having electricity means disease and death. It means millions die from lung infections, because they have to cook and heat with open fires; from intestinal diseases caused by spoiled food and unsafe drinking water; from malaria, TB, cholera, measles and other diseases that could be prevented or treated with proper medical facilities.
This is why the whole idea of ‘Net zero’ should be abolished.
‘... without actually questioning Net Zero itself.’
If by that you mean without questioning so-called ‘climate science’ I plead guilty. And that’s because the overriding objective must be to demonstrate to the public and to politicians why it’s necessary to abandon the unachievable, disastrous and pointless net zero policy. And that doesn’t require a reference to the science.
Indeed referring to the science would be a serious unforced error – getting you sucked into the ghastly and mind-numbing world of climate change orthodoxy where debate is not allowed and where you’d be dismissed as a ‘climate denier’ and therefore unworthy of serious attention however cogent your arguments. So no, a reference to the science isn’t the way to get the public the politicians to understand why it’s necessary to abandon this absurd and dangerous policy.
‘… the whole idea of ‘Net zero’ should be abolished.’
And so it should. And I believe I’ve spelled out above how that can be done.
I tried to explain to someone the other day, that what we were doing was pointless as net zero for the UK was concerned, by using money as a medium.
e.g. in money 400ppm = £400, of which ~4% (estimated human input) is £16. of which UK share of ~1% = 16p, China @ 27% of £16 = £4.32. China’s expected growth 2024 =4% of £4.32 = 17.28p. Therefore China’s growth alone is greater than our total contribution, a fools errand, urinating to windward..
Agreed, it does look ludicrous – and you’re only looking at the electrical side of it. E.g. the aim of abolishing the use of domestic gas supplies, presumably increasing the need for local electricity instead would make it worse. I know there are plans to move to mixed methane and hydrogen – but the efficiency of creating the latter will have it’s own problems.
In the real world, the firms that manage local distribution don’t look like they intend to ramp up their local distribution networks (DNO). Just a few years ago, one of them did a lot of work in my area, on a like for like cable replacement job. A few related comments towards the end of this: https://youtu.be/LS8VFhRMsYY from around 4 minutes. Look at the cable ratings and imagine what would happen if everyone wanted EV cars and electric heating at home.
ref cable rating. perhaps they are factoring in a ground heating matrix to keep the outside temperature up as the heat pump systems inside the houses don’t work. Just a thought.
I know mixed hydrogen/methane has been mentioned but are there any plans that you could supply a reference/link for please? I recall the shift from coal/town gas to natural gas. Quite a few explosions and fires IIRC. Hydrogen is far more dangerous and difficult to work with. I imagine there’ll be a few disasters with leaking hydrogen if they do it.
https://www.worcester-bosch.co.uk/hydrogen one of the manufacturers of domestic boilers. Apart from the compatibility of the customer end, the production of H as a fuel can be grossly inefficient, especially by electolysis; might as well use the electric power directly, unless it’s a surplus on windy, sunny days, perhaps. I think at present most of the H produced is a side product of other products, like pure oxygen for steel manufacture. The usual suspects have adopted terms like “blue hydrogen” and “green hydrogen”, while saying not much about the fact that H is not a source of energy. There has to be extraction from something else. I’m not advertising, but …. https://www.airproducts.com/energy-transition/clean-hydrogen-production
Many people and many on this website having been saying pretty much the same things that appear in this article for years about the impracticality and uncosted insanity of Net Zero, but this is what happens when ideology trumps common sense and silly governments are spending other people’s money on their phony pretend to save the planet eco socialist garbage, which an unsuspecting public mostly don’t realise has NOTHING to do with the climate.
Workers at the UK’s last coal-fired power plant prepare to say goodbye.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-68912006
Succinct, eloquent and informative. Many thanks Robin.
As Prof Judith Curry said in her excellent address this evening at the GWPF annual lecture in London, she can’t understand the logic of investing in renewable energy which is dependent on ‘weather’ to achieve some mythical free energy utopia. For example one of the worlds largest solar farms in Texas (?) was recently obliterated by a hail storm. If sanity is beginning to return to the NHS surrounding mixed wards and the recognition of two biological sexes (you would think doctors knew that already but apparently they don’t) perhaps common sense will become infectious and politicians will at last realise their dreams of net zero are just pie-in-the-sky, cloud cuckoo land nonsense. There’s always hope.
“There’s always hope”——–The only hope is that it gets slowed down a bit as reality bites. But you have to remember what the purpose of Net Zero is. ——It is NOT about the climate. It is about the worlds wealth and resources. There are now 8 billion people in the world. At global government level (UN, WEF etc) it is deemed we cannot all have the standard of living that the wealthy west has, as there will not be enough fossil fuels in the ground to power all of that. So the idea is for the wealthy west to slow down as quickly as possible their use of fossil fuels first while the developing world catches up. It is Eco Socialism, and the seemingly plausible excuse used is “Climate Change”
The face of Net Zero. ——-A silly old bat
A government’s goal should not be zero carbon emissions, the goal should be a level of emissions such that the cost of reducing them equals the damage that those emissions would cause. The solution, of course, is to implement a carbon tax at the social cost of carbon. In the UK various environmental taxes (fuel duty, Air Passenger Duty, etc.) already exceed this.
Mere details, as a politician would say.
What a brilliant article. One of the best I have read that succinctly covers most of the key aspects of this suicidal, evil agenda.
Of course all well said. Except the bit about “the UK is legally obliged to pursue” net zero. The UK itself cannot be “legally obliged” to do anything,because parliament is sovereign and the law can be changed.
Don’t let the politicians get away with pretending they are “forced” by law to do net zero. They need to be held fully accountable for attacking and undermining our country and our way of life.
Another law might be brought to bear here: treason is still illegal.
No Adam – the UK is indeed legally obliged to pursue the mad policy. Until of course the law is changed by the sovereign parliament. One problem: it’s hard to imagine any likely mix of MPs that would be willing (or even interested in) changing the law. So what will happen when ideology comes face-to-face with reality? The courts cannot make the impossible possible. Could be interesting.
Indeed. But if politicians choose not to change the law, then they must be held accountable for their failure to do that. They cannot evade that responsibility by claiming that a previous parliament made another course of action illegal.
Far from having a responsibility to change the law, MPs have a responsibility to uphold it. It’s failure to do that that could get them into trouble.
In any case it’s pointless.
For two reasons:
Make that three, and the most important: so-called Carbon (CO2) is simply not a problem, just an excuse to control and make money from us.