Net Zero - a catastrophe for the UK.

[snowbear22]

The cost of Net Zero has been grossly underestimated by successive Governments-

in 2019 Conservative Philip Hammond estimated 2.1 trillion, the Office of Budget responsibility last year 803 billion, but the cost of decarbonising Britain turns out to be vastly more than the population has been led to believe. Turver writes, the true cost could be as high as £9 trillion – or up to £250,000 per British household.

Wind and solar can be cheap at the point of generation, but they are intermittant and unreliable without vast amounts of backup, storage and grid reinforcement. Turver shows that when these system-wide costs are included, the price of energy soars.

We already have among the highest electric costs in the world and the real costs have not hit yet.

I just don't think that this Government are competent enough to roll it out successfully.

I don't think there will be enough charging ports by 2030 when they ban new diesil cars for instance, I don't think we have the money to invest in and set up a whole new system and back up system without investing the trillions we don't have.

Our debt is The UK's debt-to-GDP ratio is historically high, hovering around 100%, with recent figures showing it between 95% and 104% of GDP, a level last seen after World War II- our credit cards are maxed out already.

YABU - it is worth it, I am willing to put up with the higher costs and substantial hit to the ecconomy for the sake of reducing Global warming

YANBU - It's too expensive and unreliable

net-zero-a-multi-trillion-pound-catastrophe

The Cost of Net Zero by David Turver

I agree OP and I think our infrastructure just doesnt support net zero in any case, small things that could make a difference is that every single new build home for the last 10 years or so, could have had mandatory solar panels. It doesnt. Why not

Every single train and bus service should be fit for purpose and affordable, they're not. Why not.

We've paid god knows how much to 'green entrepreneurs' for essentially ponzi type schemes, paying people to do nothing and provide nothing.

Very few proper cycle routes (and no, shared pavements dont cut it) so people have no choice but to get in their cars.

The list is endless

Oh and dont get me started on disposable nappies, no one ever talks about that

I personally feel that the government try and lead on things that realistically don’t work with the size of our land mass in comparison to the rest of the world.

And thus we Brits bear the brunt of the cost of them trying to make things work that if we were a nation the size of America would possibly make a difference on global warming but as it stands, we are just a drop in the ocean.

It also annoys me that whilst solar et cetera is expected to be the way forward the costs of solar panels that no longer works and whether it can be recycled or not and it’s effect on landfill if that’s where it’s going to end up are not taking into account. I wonder what our grandchildren will be saying in 50 years time about our current efforts.

One of my key concerns is the ignored guidance regarding actually getting energy where it needs to be, and not focussing on local generation. Instead it all massive generation centres, and then miles of cables and roads to get energy where it needs to be, which has a huge environmental impact. Better to focus on small scale local production, eg solar panels on every roof.

Nail on the head there. Maybe time to go back a couple of centuries and look at "localism", i.e. pre electricity, where small scale mills/factories were located on hillsides or next to rivers/streams so as to harness water for power and gravity to move heavy items from top floors to bottom floors (i.e. delivered to top, stored at top and then dropped to be processed below). Old industrial museums are fascinating to see what they achieved without electricity just harnessing nature. Obviously it's too extreme to go back there, but we could easily use the same kind of thinking to produce electricity and make better use/efficiency of it instead of always going to the default of using heavy electric powered machinery when more energy efficient ways could easily be found by using "old" ideas. Likewise with energy production. We're surrounded by water and have hundreds/thousands of miles of streams/rivers yet our use of water, whether waves or gravity, for electricity generation is shamelessly tiny. Water isn't weather dependent, rivers and streams run most of the year (except maybe smaller streams in heatwaves) and the tides come and go twice a day without fail yet we continue to concentrate on unreliable wind and solar! It's all madness.

@soupyspoon I agree with all you say.

Public transport outside the cities is usually unreliable, expensive and often slow not to mention in some places, virtually non existent. It's no surprise that cars are the "go to" transport option for the majority of people living outside the main cities - they have no choice!

We used to have the World's best railway network but most of it was ripped up in the 60s and 70s and routes were often built over (buildings and roads) so can't be restored back to railway routes. The promised improved bus services especially for rural areas badly hit by removal of the rail lines simply never happened and where it did, over the successive decades, rural and small town bus services have been consistently scaled back, downgraded and removed completely in some places.

When my son lived in a small city for his first graduate job, his life was literally dictated by the crap bus service - last bus home from city centre was 11pm so he couldn't stay to the end of even something simple like a pub quiz! Likewise getting to work was stressful as he either had to get up really early to catch an earlier bus or risked getting the bus that got him to work just in time normally, but would be late if the bus didn't turn up or got delayed! Now he works in London and says he never thinks about public transport - he knows there'll be another bus/tube in a few minutes, whatever time of day so he doesn't stress and is "free" to do what he wants, when he wants. If only public transport could be half as good in other cities and a fraction of that in smaller cities, towns and rural areas - where I live, we don't have ANY buses on Sundays at all and the train from our nearest town only runs every 2 hours on a Sunday, starting at 10am and last at 4pm - pretty useless really, especially as it's "northern rail" and they usually cancel half the services on Sundays, so basically every 4 hours!!

@Badbadbunny there are some good examples are what you describe. The Bonawe Iron Furnace and the Cruachan Dam/Hollow Mountain where geography was quite specific for the development of these sites. Bonawe became unprofitable I think due to the arrival of coke. I have no idea if there are other mountains that can be developed into pumped-storage hydroelectric power stations. It maybe Ben Cruachan was the only mountain suitable. Both sites are near to each other and well worth a visit.

I have seen pictures where supermarket carparks have been covered with a sort of solar panel roof above where you park. Added benefit of not getting wet when going to and from your car. We shouldn't be using green fields for solar panels. Obviously I have no idea of the cost to install these panels, maybe the pictures were AI but it does sort of feel sensible to use rather than a green field.

Absolutely we should be using our rivers to generate power, my dream is to find an old water mill and convert it to live in but use the wheel to generate electricity. We have solar panels at the moment and are pleased with how much electricity we can send back to the grid. There was talk of harnessing the River Seven but I'm not sure what is happening there

P.S. I don't work for the Scottish Tourist Board I have visited both places on holiday and was fascinated by how geography was at the forefront of the development of both sites

We don't have any large volumes of water though that make it economic to put in power extraction. Power from water is got when you move a large volume of water from high to low, and to make economically viable you need that process to happen in a single place, so a big river falling through hundreds of feet.

In the UK we have lots of small rivers, streams that fall through low heights over relatively long distances, so something like the 3 gorges or Hoover dam becomes out of the question (plus getting the area of land free for the lake would be hard work). As you point out a lot of rivers/streams run very low in the summer. Hydro power potential in the UK has largely been exploited in all the good areas.

There are a few places where we do have enough tidal water movement, in Scotland and of course the Severn Estuary. I support building the tidal barrage as it diversifies the energy mix even though it might be quite expensive compared to other power sources. But like HS2 the planning and the problems that would cause and the refusal to accept power comes at a cost (for example wildlife habitats) would push up the construction cost enormously.

Solar frustrates me. It is quite complimentary to wind, and we were doing well installing solar up to about 2015, then largely stopped it. If we had carried on installing solar we would now have power installed equivalent to probably 1.5x Hinkley Point C. Not a solution to all out power problems but a considerable help.

Nuclear annoys me, not because I think it is inappropriate tech, but because of the way the cost never seems to factor in disposal (someone elses problem 50 years down the line, we haven't even figured out how to dispose of the current nuclear yet) and the way it is always funded by the government. I think it would be simple to fund nuclear from national investment rather than having to go abroad for it. But that probably doesn't allow the government favoured middlemen to make their slice of money in the process.

The worst thing though I think about the way we try to implement green tech is that it is never a halfway house. So for example we never try to reduce gas usage, we just focus on replacing it completely. I think there are massive efficiency gains to be had through relatively simple changes to the way we use energy in the household, but the government(s) doesn't want to get involved in these and prefers headline grabbing projects that instead funnel money towards their favourite people. I'd prefer to see a program that focuses on say reducing national gas consumption by 10% rather than the heat pump debacle that currently exists.

@GasPanic

There are several huge tidal bays and estuaries which have huge flows of water four times per day, regular as clockwork, Summer and Winter that could produce huge amounts of electricity. We just don't have the political will to do it.

Net zero is an investment in our future

Europe's biggest problem for hundreds of years is lack of fuel resources

We have expensive power because we need to import stuff. Look at where oil comes from- USA, Russia, middle East, south America. None of them are stable and everyone in Europe pays the price for it.

If we can harness renewable for ourselves we will be stronger and less reliant on unstable or unfriendly nations

On charging points OP, every new house in our parish is required to have solar panels and a charging point. Any block of flats must have one charging point per two flats. No panels/charging point, no building sign-off.

Our parish has two village halls. Both had solar panels installed across the full south facing roof in the last three months, and both have multiple charging points installed. The installations will slash the utility bills. Grey water systems will be installed in the summer.

All street lights in our parish have been changed for very low power units. Community transport vehicles have been swapped to electric.

We have a team working with the housing associations and any low-income pensioners owning private houses to improve insulation, cut emissions and reduce water usage.

There is a lot going on at local level to reduce need, while others worry about increasing high level infrastructure. It is worth the effort and needs to continue.

It is a catastrophe -I’d rather send drones to Ukraine than spend money (ie hand it to China and foreign companies) to build wind turbines.
we are a family of engineers and it’s actually embarrassing to hear MPs, MSPs, staff of the new British Energy company (or whatever it is) speaking on this subject it’s utter smoke and mirrors. The chair of the British energy company is from Siemens but the rest I doubt are scientists or engineers. WTF.

Actually reminds me of the greens pontificating on transgenderism -bullshit

I live close to a gas fired generator supplying electricity. Council is taking them to court later this year to ask the company to make it stop making so much noise.

It's awful.

So where do solar panels, electric cars/batteries and wind turbines come from ?

That would be China, which a lot of people would argue sourcing from poses similar problems to sourcing from the countries producing oil.

Personally I believe that green tech is better for power production (if a bit more expensive). It's the rate at which we are migrating, the costs and the energy mix imbalance we are incurring because of that rate that is causing the issues.

It seems to be going pretty well as far as I can see.

The share of the energy mix coming from renewables is rising every year. Labour's just conducted a successful auction for the next phase of offshore wind power. The problem currently is that every unit of electricity we buy is pegged to the current price of gas, and that apparently that "can't" change while we have gas power stations on standby.

Yes, we have to look into ways to store electricity better, but I gather that this is happening.

My house is 100% electric- I have a heat pump and it's absolutely great- it's lovely and warm and our bills are about £1000 pa.

We were hit hard by Storm Goretti down here, and it was interesting to see that the only house that kept the lights on during the power cut was the one with solar panels and battery storage. I hear that some early adopters managed to power their houses using their electric cars as batteries. A lot of people got sneery about all- electric houses (and we would have been stuffed if the power cuts lasted longer- we don't have that kind of system yet)- but their oil powered heating didn't work either, because it relies on electric ignition! The only other foolproof technology was wood burning stoves.

Sorry, I've rambled on a bit, but conclude that done properly moving towards low carbon technologies can be better and cheaper. We just need to get a move on in getting there.

Your poll isn’t what I would say but I’m on the YABU side.

My knowledge is minimal but I note that I have been told all my life by certain media sources that renewables aren’t a realistic source of power - it used to be that they would never be more than 10% of production - and yet here we are, with them becoming an increasingly normal part of life and an increasingly large proportion of rising electricity demand being met by them.

Perhaps lucky that people just got on with it, with individuals and community groups leaping to take up increased local energy production whenever the option became available, leaving the commentators to argue about it in their wake.

Good if this finally makes it into news

People seem to be unaware of the cost of net zero. Among other things. Like not knowing the effect of producing electric cars on the environment, etc

Net Zero is a great way for people to make money. That's about it. If you can get on that gravy train, lucky you.

It's nearly 20 years since I had a consultant tell me that our riverside office would be underwater in 10 years.

I don't think he's ever believed his own crap but he was on a very good salary and he makes six figures now and appears on TV chatting shit about net zero. I can't remember what phrase we were on 20 years ago.

They don't have to come from China, though. Any country could invest in producing these things- especially wind turbines.

Unlike oil and gas, which are only found in certain places. And I for one will be deliriously happy seeing the smile wiped off Trump and Putin's faces when their price goes through the floor. (Then we can watch all the geopolitical manoeuvring over dwindling water supplies begin 🤦‍♀️).

Solar panels, probably not.

Wind turbines and cars, where else would you get the rare earths, that are only found in certain places ?

My dh volunteers at a prison, and asked why the prisons don't put up solar panels.
The answer was that sp's come from China, and their manufacture often involves slave labour. Something to think about.

Drax power station, using wood pellets, is a scandal, importing wood from across the world, and using energy to dry and shred it.

The cost of vastly reducing the habitability of the earth will be even greater.

Total economic suicide. Deindustrialisation due to high energy costs but we still buy the stuff anyway, just produced elsewhere. Does nothing for total global emissions, possibly worse due to transportation. Sadly Tories and Labour both up to their necks in it. My main reason for voting Reform at the next GE.

What rare earth materials do wind turbines use?

It's because the technology changes and it is difficult for people to have the vision as to where it is going to go or end up, especially if it is in an early stage of development.

For example if you look at wind turbines the size and power (and efficiency) has increased massively in recent years, probably far more than anyone expected.

Stuff like electric cars, people talk about range anxiety and charging time without realising that tech is on the way that is going to increase the range by maybe a factor of 2 and decrease the charging time significantly (if the power is available to perform the charge, which is another issue). This tech will probably be mainstream within 10 years but if you start an electric car thread it will probably be full of people banging on about how the range isn't good enough and never will be.

A lot of the renewable tech is getting incremetally better, but it is hard to predict where the huge breakthroughs will come from. For example there are ideas with solar, but it makes the panels difficult and expensive to fabricate and its not clear that there are going to be any big jumps forward yet.

I'm pretty sure that it's now possible to source solar panels that haven't used slave labour, but it's good the question's being raised.

I agree, Drax is a fudge and a disgrace, and I gather that this govt. has cut its subsidies drastically. Nobody who supports true renewable energy supports Drax.

The same rare earths that all strong (and therefore efficient for power generation) magnets use.