As The Guardian notes this morning:
From next year, engineers will need to roll out more than 100km (62 miles) of electric cabling every day until 2040 if the government hopes to power the UK towards its climate goals, according to new data.
Analysis of Britain's existing power grids and the country's predicted electricity demand reveals that within the next 17 years, more than 600,000km of electric lines will need to be either added or upgraded across the UK.
But, somehow, you just know that the government will prioritise tax cuts instead, don't you?
Or that they will simply say that the fiscal rules will not allow it.
One day, we are going to deeply regret our inaction.
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“One day, we are going to deeply regret our inaction”.
There is a strain of neoliberalism that lives beyond regret. It forgives nothing but itself, and blames everyone else for its failures. The Neoliberal political mantra of our age? Never apologise. Never admit – anything.
I recall when Brexit happened I wrote then, and repeated endlessly that the Conservatives had no intention of reducing immigration; they couldn’t do it, and the economy would not cope with the consequences. They intended simply to switch immigration from Europe to the rest of the world. This brings its own problems (it does not solve the large demand by British seafood and agriculture, for example for seasonal labour – which was European); and it has all come to pass, as inevitably it would.
In the late 1960s the UK was converted to North Sea Gas in a couple of years with minimal levels of disruption to normal life and the cost of gas went down.
These days minor utility re-cabling or pipework has become a permanent feature of life and regularly means roadworks or even road closures lasting months at a time.
Like the history of UK car manufacturing over the last 60 years it is perfect example of the real cause of UK national decline. To slightly modify Clinton’s phrase, It’s the ownership model, stupid.
There are some functions that need to be nationally owned, some that need to be privately owned and an intelligent balance needs to be maintained between the two.
Both need to be democratically regulated and the American/UK model of ownership i.e. domination by Wall Street and the City of London, or to put it another way management by the same sort of people as Johnson and co, is a recipe for disaster.
I think I read somewhere – that a national programme to get local communities to generate much of their own renewable energy might do away with the need to have such a massive investment in the national grid – but cant find the reference.
Is this it? “Community solar is set to surge in the UK – and you can have a piece of the pie” by Martin Wright, October 23, 2023 @ Positive News
https://www.positive.news/environment/why-community-solar-never-been-easier/
But these local community energy schemes need law and regulations to change,bor they stumble over the monopoly of even street-level cables and systems; whereby the monopoly charges a huge mark-up simply for conveying power a few hundred metres (by claiming it’s sold to the grid at a low feed-in price and then sold back at the high market price. Physical alternatives mean cabling between buildings. (Look up Power Station in NE London, run by the folks who did “Bank Job”)
Thank you, Richard.
I would just caveat that the deracinated and sociopath elite in charge don’t think they will regret it. We, lesser mortals, will and understand the risk. They don’t.
It won’t happen, there is not the labour to undertake the work, which in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s was done by Irishmen.
The focus is on a single energy vector – electricity and ignores the other vector that currently +/- provides 6x as much energy compared to elec – gas.
The Guardian article is little better than a regurgitation of TSO propaganda spounted by the likes of Winser whose report I read – it makes various assumptions and glosses over realities – which if considered would negate much of what he says.
In the case of the IEA and Birol. Their forecasts for renewables (price and impact) from 2000 to 2020 were wrong by an order of magnitude (their record is there for all to see) – but now Birol/IEA is somehow an authority? Really? Trump tells fewer lies than the IEA.
The problems with technical/network planning for renewables have been known for more than 15 years. However, planning tools (and the skill sets to use them) are still wholly inadequate begging the question what were the DNOs, TSO and Ofgem doing in that time? I guess they were waiting for “the market” to deliver solutions. So that’s all alright then isn’t it!
Still waiting for NGED (ex-WPD) to give permission for some roof-top PV (200kW) located on a factory roof that will use the totality of the production – the local office lacks the authority to grant permission & it has to go to National Grid. It is beyond pathetic and demonstrates that indeed the UK, is a failing state.
One hundred years earlier, in the 1830s onwards, there would have been no railways without the Irish Navigators; or before that, the canals …..
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
I note that the talk is always about more and more lines of pylons marching across the countryside – a prospect to turn more and more of us into apopleptic nimbys.
But the foreseeable future is all electric, so why should we settle for second best? What we need is the best grid possible that’s built for the future – one which is both ‘green’ and ‘pleasant’, and not cheap and ugly.
I just stood in my porch and counted 7 pylons on the horizon.
You really don’t notice them unless someone tells you they don’t like them.
I can count 5 wind turbines, too.
My father planned and built a lot of pylons in his life
He was always amazed how few were objected to – including the massively obvious lines right across the fens.
I remember Guy Martin climbing up a pylon for its servicing. Apparently there have been no accidents with pylons, ever, because the engineers know exactly what they are doing.
Do you think people will object to T pylons as much as the lattice ones?
No idea
My father fell down a pylong and broke his leg badly
He decided to start designing them instead
You are lucky. The village I lived in, Burton upon Stather, overlooked the Trent valley and on a clear day I counted 117 turbines and many many pylons. As usual, it all depends where you live.
But I think you have a very large field of view?
Following the money, less cabling means less energy supply, which means higher energy prices. Are there any signs of energy companies raising the prices to make extra profit?
It means rationing, hence the smart meters.
Richard, I see your Professor Michael Jacob, Sheffield University has commented critically on the leak of documents that is bringing Sultan Al Jaber, Minister for Industry/ Advanced Technology, and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) CEO; but critically here, apparently now the COP28 President, is causing a stir over mixed messaging and signalling to the world for COP28 and climate change targets.
I suspect I have always felt in my bones that, no matter the scale of impending disaster, turning this massive engine of economic power, from fossil fuel to green energy; given the interests and investments of both fossil fuel producers and users, is going to take far more trade-offs and compromise than climate change activists, commentators, scientists or politicians are prepared to acknowledge: no matter the consequences, because this is not a matter of outcomes, but realpolitik. One way or another this tanker is going to take a lot of turning round. At the same time, I have always believed that the fossil fuel industry is best placed, in terms of resources (money, engineering, management and technical) to deliver the chnges. What the fossil fuel industry, which has enormous political heft, is not going to do is lightly surrender its place at the heart of the energy equation. Given that as a brute fact; how do you turn the ship round? Not by what we are doing, or the activists are saying
By hard negotiation, that may genuinely turn the bow round. Moralising is not working, and will not work, because the moralisers, frankly have insufficient leverage on their own. It is not what we need. It is what we can do; but also and more than just what we can do, but will do, or only too likely – will not do.
I am reminded of the old anecdote, perhaps apocryphal but supposedly repeated by Harry S Truman, about Stalin and the Pope: “I remember at Potsdam we got to discussing a matter in Eastern Poland, and it was remarked by the Prime Minister of Great Britain that the Pope would not be happy over that arrangement of that Catholic end of Poland.
“And the Generalissimo, the Prime Minister of Russia, leaned on the table and he pulled his mustache like that (gesturing) and looked over at Mr. Churchill and said:
‘Mr. Churchill, Mr. Prime Minister, how many divisions did you say the Pope had?’”
The denouement was delivered much later, by Churchill, who allegedly: “told Pope Pius [XII] of Joseph Stalin’s cynical question at the Yalta conference in which he asked, ‘How many divisions has the Pope?’ Pius replied grimly, ‘When you see Our son Joseph again tell him that he will meet Our divisions in heaven.'”
Notably here, given the urgency of climate change, Joseph Stalin did not die until 1953.
Mr Warren, dealing with your second para. A year or so ago I had discussions with European Commission economists on the “problem” of the fossil mob. The proposal was to pay them for lost dividends and the calculation was that this would be much cheaper than Draghi hosing money at Euro bankers (you will recall the Euro60bn per month that lasted a year or so). In a meeting I organised in 2018 (large energy users and producers – no NGOs, no Commission), Shell said that it would have zero problem funding renewables at any level – from its balance sheet. This begs the question – why has it not been more active? Probably laziness.
I agree – moralising is a waste of time – sadly I do not see countries being able to stand up to the fossil mob – Shell and its wholly owned subsidiary – the Netherlands, Edf – ditto France etc (please don’t think this is an exaggeration). As for the European Commission – powerless & in thrall to lobbyists. Which leaves the ECB in Frankfurt – wholly insulated from the on-going & accelerating climate disaster and seemingly unwilling to lift a finger (I don’t count token fingers and kind words). In the final analysis it comes down to engineering and money, & the money men (it is mostly men), at the moment think they can ride this one, which begs the question – when will “buyers regret” kick in, probably when it is all too late. Pathetic.
I do hope that planet earth / climate chaos understands that immature, selfish human beings can only go at the pace of the most ignorant / wealthy taking realpolitik micro steps.
There was an interesting programme last week on Channel 4 called The Great Climate Flight (2 episodes) made by Kevin McCloud, Mary Portas and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. They were looking principally at on shore wind, oil and gas subsidy and building standards and didn’t pull their punches. It was made very clear that the government were very deliberately blocking green initiatives and named names, they also spelt out the vast subsidy to oil and gas.
One example they explored was the draconian planning law that only applies to onshore wind turbines where one single objection can scupper a project, another is the way local authorities are prevented from making local planning regulations more stringent on insulation etc – the example here was Lancaster.
However they also visited a factory making electric Vauxhaul vans that wanted to generate its own electricity using wind and solar but were unable to do so through lack of appropriate infrastructure that the government was neglecting to build.
I thought it was clear and well presented – it also stressed that greener was cheaper and not at all unaffordable!
I thought it very good messaging.
I will try to look it out
I thought The Great Climate Flight showed that, even with money, privileged access to the media and big names – and even their own TV show, those three were easily rebuffed by the decision-makers, all their efforts nullified. Living without democracy is so demoralising.
Channel 4’s website says of, “The Great Climate Fight”: “Climate change can be stopped and the solutions could benefit us all. Kevin McCloud, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Mary Portas urge government to act, and save us money at the same time.” Available at:
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-great-climate-fight