I suppose I should praise Boris Johnson for announcing what he calls a Green Industrial Revolution' in the FT this morning, but I find it hard to do so. There are several reasons.
First, the money involved has, by and large, already been previously announced. This is simply a repackaging, in the main.
Second, the amount to be spent is £12 billion, over an extended time scale, which is paltry given the urgency of the issue.
Third, this sum is less than the £17 billion spent by the government buying PPE and other equipment from those with ties to the Conservative Party according to a House of Commons report, also out today.
Fourth, the commitments included those to nuclear (which no one seems that kern to build) and carbon capture and storage, which is of decidedly marginal green value.
And fifth, and by far the most important, is the fact that the most basic changes required to deliver change are omitted from the list of projects to be supported.
So, for example there is no serious mention of household energy saving or insulation. The sum committed is just £30 per U.K. building.
There is nothing about heat pumps.
Nothing also about household boiler replacement programmes.
Or come to that, solar energy generation.
The transformation of household efficiency, which is vital, is ignored as a result.
There is also no discussion on reducing demand for travel.
There is nothing about transforming air travel, bar a commitment to creating electric planes.
There is no increased commitment to rural broadband to make it easier to work at home.
And there is not a hint of the energy transformation required around food.
There is also nothing on flood defences, which will be critical as we have passed the point where rising sea level can be prevented.
Nor is there any indication at all as to how any if this is to be embedded within business processes or reporting.
What there are look like vanity projects to appeal to the middle classes.
This is not a Green Industrial Revolution. This is a sop, at best.
The climate crisis we face is vastly bigger than the coronavirus crisis. Its long term threat to almost every aspect of life as we know it is enormous. And the government is treating it with contempt. That is not good enough. But that's not because of the politics involved. It's because it is failing to deal with a very real threat.
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And not a mention of tidal, or small hydro schemes. Once again the Nuclear lobby has destroyed investment in new alternative technologies and blighted the future.
What a missed opportunity this pathetic version of a Green Industrial Revolution is.
There is no mention either of banning owning of dogs as pets, working dogs and existing pets excepted.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/carbon-footprint-animal-dogs-cats-america-study-meat-vegetarian-a7878086.html
The marginal difference in lifetime CO2 emissions between a petrol car and electric car is small but real, but the proposed changes could have gone so much further.
There is something about heat pumps in it though.
But not nearly enough
The mental health benefits of dogs are enormous
The proposals by the Tory gov will not work for a range of reasons.
1. Nuclear vs Off-shore Wind: in summer months the UK has quite low load (20 to 25GW). Given the cost trajectory of PV (& by extension roof top PV) load “seen” by National Grid could well head below 15GW by 2030. How does this “work” in a system where there is circa 10GW of nuclear on the system that cannot modulate plus renewables that are north of 60GW (wind & PV). Answer: it does not.
2. Hydrogen. The focus is SMR+CCS (or ATR+CCS) to produced hydrogen. The 5GW of electrolysers will not be sufficient to “buffer” UK renewables. Something much closer to `10 to 15GW will be needed — allowing surplus electricity during times of high output to be converted into hydrogen (nukes do not modulate — due to neutron poisoning).
3. EVs and Heat Pumps. 600.000 heat pumps per year is mentioned. Unless this is coupled to deep thermal renovation of buildings this will not work politically — UK serfs will refuse to install heat pumps that will drive their energy bills through the roof. The other related problem is that even with a fit for purpose thermal renovation programme UK electricity distribution networks will not be able to support both EV charging and rising numbers of heat pumps.
I have no doubt that the UK DNO Mafiosi are keeping silent on the above point — in the hope that once things are sufficiently down the track they will be able to demand money, with menaces from the gormless toryscum government for a colossal network rebuild.
The “plan” is something cooked up in a hurry by BEIS and know-nothing Downing Street advisors. Political eye candy — “oh look we are doing something”. The finance aspect is also a give away — making the (sh)city of London the global green finance capital. What a joke.
Thanks
I know of several reasons why nuclear power plants can be difficult to modulate, including thermal stress of the fuel canisters, but I can’t find any reference to neutron poison relating to modulation. Can you provide a reference?
France has been modulating its reactor for a few decades, how come they can manage?
Interesting, and disappointing, that Johnson focusses his hydrogen ‘revolution’ on heating and cooking (wanted by the gas industry to preserve their business) rather than on grid balancing or steel manufacture (needed by the whole economy to achieve net zero).
The current trajectory is heat pumps and electric vehicles. Heat pumps will only work (physically & economically) with well renovated houses. However, once penetration of heat pumps passes 20% – you need embedded renewables, at the LV level . The only embedded renewables that fit the bill are fuel cells – which ideally, run on hydrogen. Network reinforcement (to allow more heat pmps) is not feasible (= too costly & too slow). You will not use H2 for cooking. The production of H2 will help balance supply (from renewables) with elec demand. H2 for steel is a requirement if the Uk plans to retain any primary steel making capacity (it would be well advised to). So you are correct in some areas and less so in others.
I don’t think heat pumps are the panacea that some are suggesting. If you’re building a new house to PassivHaus standard with underfloor heating and PV panels on the roof then yes, they may be part of the solution. But in existing homes, badly insulated and draughty where underfloor heating may not be possible then, as you say, there are problems.
A massive programme of insulation and air-tightness will be required, which may involve MVHR heat recovery in addition, plus larger radiators to compensate for the lower flow temperature of the water produced by the heat pump. A back-up heating system may be required in winter, especially if insulation and draught proofing standards are not radically improved.
New houses could be built to zero net carbon and PassivHaus standard now, if the government wrote it into the Building Regulations, but it seems the latest changes may actually reduce standards. (https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jan/24/changes-building-regulations-less-energy-efficient)
As always, the major issue is with legacy buildings, vehicles and other factors.
The money proposed to be spent for the green industry programme -carbon capture/storage, nuclear power stations and even off shore wind farms require vast capital expenditure compared with the carbon reduction returns. It would be far better spent on a massive domestic insulation programme. Carbon capture so far has not proved to be the magic technological fix that was promised initially and requires vast underground excavations could pose similar problems as fracking.
Note that these schemes are to be built in the red wall constituencies such as the old Drax sites and Humberside to prove that the Tories are levelling these areas up. Large carbon capture sites would not be tolerated in the Tory South heartlands. The promtion of nuclear is woorying as if the problems of overspemd and new techmology and French/Chinese involvement in the Hinkley C project has not taught any lessons. As for Sizewell C, the authorities have obviously forgotten about the massive problems of building Sizewell B in the 1980s. The ever increasing problem of mounting nuclear waste is ignored, especially now that Sellafield is being decommissioned and sea dumping banned.
Why have’t the Tories not reversed the ban on in shore wind installations?
Bill
I agree – hence the points I made
Richard
Onshore wind installations have not been banned. It’s subsidising them or providing price guarantees that has been banned. It’s possible that renewables are not as price competitive with fossil fuels as we have been led to believe, hence the lack of new installations.
It looks very like the nuclear will continue to be uranium-based with all the accompanying problems. Were I to see the word “thorium” anywhere I’d be all in favour, but this is just more of the same, down a road we only traveled in the first place because we wanted the raw materials for nuclear weapons.
Its like a personality disorder – the obsession with nuclear. I’ve been involved the the resistance to Bradwell – we are faced with a hundred year clean up of old nuclear stations costing billions..
The costs have swung an order of magnitude against nuclear in the last ten years, yet we are still bone headedly persisting.
Carbon capture still pie in the sky unfeasible, ridicualoursly expensive and justifies more fossil fuel extraction. They strangled the burgeoning solar industry three years ago
Agreed
I opposed Sizewell in the 70s when my father was working on it…..
Made for interesting teenage years
How about reducing the Motorway Speed Limit to 60 & other roads to 50 – with enforcement
An easy cut in carbon emissions, safer roads and a potential reduction in overall transport demand?
And you still get there…..
With GPS etc in many vehicles it surely could be organised that speeding could be recorded and a monthly bill sent to the registered keeper for sustained speeds over the limits. Or we could just erect average speed cameras.
And we need a proper transport policy which would invest in free public transport, reduce the amount of goods sent by road and put it onto the railways and reduce private car use. The stats suggest most trips are short: “Car use (both as driver and passenger) accounts for only 8 per cent of the trips under half a mile in length but rises to 76 per cent of all trips in the 2 — 3 mile band and 80 per cent of trips longer than five miles in length; above one mile, more than half of all trips are by car.” (RAC)
Decent cycling and walking infrastructure and subsidised e-bikes could turn that stat of 3/4 of trips of 2-3 miles made by car into zero.
All the more interesting that Boris is showing his true priorities when he jtoday announces 24.1 Billion for “defence”:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/defence-secures-largest-investment-since-the-cold-war
God it’s depressing to read everybody’s comments. Depressing, but entirely unsurprising with this ‘government’ in charge.
Fundamentally, it comes down to this: “Third, this sum is less than the £17 billion spent by the government buying PPE and other equipment from those with ties to the Conservative Party according to a House of Commons report, also out today.”
And this: “Note that these schemes are to be built in the red wall constituencies such as the old Drax sites and Humberside to prove that the Tories are levelling these areas up. Large carbon capture sites would not be tolerated in the Tory South heartlands. The promotion of nuclear is worrying as if the problems of overspend and new technology and French/Chinese involvement in the Hinkley C project has not taught any lessons. As for Sizewell C, the authorities have obviously forgotten about the massive problems of building Sizewell B in the 1980s. The ever increasing problem of mounting nuclear waste is ignored, especially now that Sellafield is being decommissioned and sea dumping banned.
Why haven’t the Tories not reversed the ban on in shore wind installations?”
A mixture of corruption, policy dictated more by political considerations than environmental ones, and incompetence.
But then, what else would we expect from johnson?