David Turver: Labour’s Great British Energy Suicide Note

Introduction

This Substack has been highly critical of the Conservative government’s energy policy. However, we are now in an election period, so it is time to subject Labour’s energy plans to some scrutiny. On Friday, Labour announced more details about its plans for Great British Energy.

Their plans include many promises, but precious little detail on how they will be achieved. Labour’s central claim is that they will “cut energy bills for good” and they put some flesh on the bones by claiming in the text of their regional maps their plans will “save £300 off the average annual household energy bill”. Labour’s claim appears to be based upon a report by the energy thinktank Ember. However, it does appear they mean a saving on electricity bills, not overall energy bills.

Gwythian Prins: National security concerns must take precedence over the climate

There is a respectable peacetime economic case for closing the Port Talbot blast furnaces and ceasing production of basic oxygen steel (BOS) in the United Kingdom and it is set out by the leading trade economist Catherine McBride. She shows how much British steel-making of any type has declined by volume, and how chronically dependant what remains is upon imported raw materials. She also explains how much EAF – electric arc furnace – steel production from recycled scrap has increased worldwide: for example, 70% of American steel in 2022 came from that source. Finally, she shows how globally dominant China and India have become in BOS, as witness 90% of China’s 1 billion ton steel production in 2022. China and India have massive economies of scale, and also access to domestically controlled raw materials, giving end-to-end control: in the Chinese case, both coking coal and iron ore, and in the Indian case, iron ore but with need to import coking coal. In contrast, the UK currently has to import both ore and coking coal at scale to feed the condemned blast furnaces.

Economic conundrums for Germany as top court cancels climate funding plan

When might it occur to politicians, German or not, that endless subsidies to feed their own climate obsessions either come out of the same pot as the rest of their government’s income, or by pumping up national debt – or both? Looks like a road to nowhere, or nowhere good.
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As Germany scrambles to find €60 billion after the constitutional court ruled that transferring unused COVID-related debt to a climate fund was against the constitution, economists warned that spending cuts could cost the country economic growth in the coming years following a parliamentary hearing on Tuesday, says Euractiv.

Last week, Germany’s Constitutional Court ruled that transferring €60 billion of unused COVID-related debt to a climate fund was against the constitution.

With the amount removed from the fund, the government is now discussing how to close the funding gap, with Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP/Renew Europe) calling for spending cuts.

UK sued for counting wood burning with carbon capture as ‘negative emissions’

Biomass on the move [image credit: Drax]

Denounced by one opponent as ‘an accounting gimmick’ and ‘double counting’. The whole biomass from trees industry is once more outed as little more than a giant subsidy-grabbing confidence trick, from energy-intensive conversion of wood into pellets all the way to so-called carbon capture. Where are the real world benefits in this hugely expensive system?
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Environmental groups are taking the UK government to court on Monday (13 November) over plans to spend billions on Biomass with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), a technology aimed at removing CO2 from the atmosphere that is also being promoted by the European Union, says Euractiv.

Plaintiffs say BECCS technology relies on flawed accounting assumptions because it sees the carbon captured from wood burning as negative emissions when the process is at best neutral from a climate perspective.

“The government’s rationale for BECCS as providing negative emissions violates international carbon accounting protocols underpinning the Paris Agreement, to which the UK is a signatory,” said a statement from The Lifescape Project and the Partnership for Policy Integrity (PPI), two environmental groups that are the complainants in the case.

“Burning forest biomass and relying on BECCS for negative emissions will not contribute to the government’s legal obligation to achieve net zero by 2050,” they warned.

US Watchdog Has Grim Winter Warning: There May Be Blackouts

If it’s climate obsession versus reality in US power supplies, there can only be one winner. Strong opposition to new gas pipelines plus increasing reliance on intermittent renewables can only end badly for consumers of power.
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As much as two-thirds of the United States could experience blackouts in peak winter weather this and next year, the North American Reliability Corp has warned.

These warnings have become something of a routine for the regulatory agency lately, says OilPrice.com.

Earlier this year, NERC issued a blackout warning for some parts of the U.S. over the summer, citing extreme temperatures.

Germany To Bail Out Siemens’ Struggling Wind Turbine Division

Big Wind to governments: ‘We’re gonna need a bigger trough’. So much for cheap renewable energy, a stale myth if ever there was one, given the endless subsidies. How much is too much in climate obsession circles? Net zero targets have created a captive market for suppliers.
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The German government is preparing to provide financial support to Siemens Energy’s struggling wind turbine division amid a broader crisis in the wind and solar industries, reports OilPrice.com.

-> Siemens Energy, facing significant losses, is in talks for up to 15 billion euros in guarantees, with the German state covering 80% of the initial funding.
-> Siemens AG shares have plummeted over 70% since mid-June, with the company abandoning its 2023 profit outlook due to challenges in its wind turbine unit.
-> The UK government is set to offer higher subsidies for offshore wind projects, following a previous auction where developers backed out due to low pricing, indicating growing financial strains in the renewable energy sector.

Energy “transition” to be much more expensive

The cost deceptions of wind power lobbyists can’t be maintained any longer, as the UK government has closed off their favourite loophole. As this Net Zero Watch press release headlines it: ‘Wind industry confirms Great Green Lie’.
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Campaign group Net Zero Watch says that the wind industry has effectively admitted that it has been deceiving the British public over the cost of the energy “transition”.

RWE Renewables has just told the Government that it needs its subsidy “strike price” to rise by 70% if any more wind farms are to be built.

Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:

Rishi Sunak has said that there has been a long-term deception of the British public. RWE’s demand for more subsidy confirms it. The Green Blob has been lying about renewables costs for years. The truth is that wind power is expensive, and becoming more so. The energy “transition” is a transition to poverty, but few in Westminster seem to have the guts to say so.”

Full press release here.

Energy firms adding £242 to domestic bills as profits soar

Anyone feeling the financial strain of high energy bills, whether the charges are blamed mainly on subsidies or other factors, won’t find this pleasant reading. Tariff Watch says its report is ‘revealing the secret data behind Britain’s broken energy system’.
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Energy companies’ operating costs are making up a substantial portion of customers’ bills, says Energy Live News.

On average, these operating costs add £242 to each customer’s annual energy bill, accounting for approximately 13% of the total bill, according to a report from the Warm This Winter Tariff Watch.

The report indicates that energy firms are allocating a considerable chunk of their operating costs to marketing activities.

This category encompasses expenses related to sponsoring football teams, event venues and the creation of television adverts.

Idea of green growth losing traction among climate policy researchers, survey of nearly 800 academics reveals

Prosperity via subsidies, making the energy that powers economies more scarce and/or more expensive, always sounded like a fantasy.
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When she took to the floor to give her State of the Union speech on 13 September, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen largely stood by the script, says Phys.org.

Describing her vision of an economically buoyant and sustainable Europe in the era of climate change, she called on the EU to accelerate the development of the clean-tech sector, “from wind to steel, from batteries to electric vehicles.”

“When it comes to the European Green Deal, we stick to our growth strategy,” von der Leyen said.

Her plans were hardly idiosyncratic.

Countries Wage War Over Clean Energy Subsidies

On one side of the Atlantic: the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), on the other side: the Green New Deal. The gloves are off, but can the subsidy money be as enormous as indicated without massively stoking inflation? Besides, what possible climate benefit does anyone think they might see?
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Journalists are calling it a subsidy war, says OilPrice.com.

Those involved in it are keen to preserve an image of cooperation and agreement. Whatever you call it, it’s hard to deny the obvious: the United States and Europe are locked in a race—a subsidy race for the energy transition.

When Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act last summer, many companies had reason to celebrate: they were going to get generous financial support to build or expand their businesses as long as they fell into any “sustainable” category.

The mood was different in Europe. There, business leaders had reason to start worrying about one more thing: the increased competitiveness of U.S. goods thanks to the IRA and the consequent reduced competitiveness of their own goods.

Matt Ridley: I’ll buy a new petrol car in 2029

The rush to electric vehicles risks killing our car industry, shackling us to China and bumping up our taxes to reduce global emissions by just 0.044%. That’s why I’ll be buying a brand new petrol car just before the 2030 ban

Daily Mail July 8

BMW i3 electric car plus battery pack [image credit: carmagazine.co.uk]

Britain’s electric vehicle transition and the ban on petrol car sales from 2030 are a slow-motion car crash. The technology is not ready, the cost will be vast, the logistics are forbidding, the reliance on China is worrying and the backlash from the public is likely to be harsh.

Worst of all, the benefits are derisory at best and may not even exist.

Yes, you read that right. It is possible that we could replace all of Britain’s cars and vans with electric vehicles and still find that carbon dioxide emissions are higher, not lower. Cost-benefit, hello?

As predicted, wind industry blackmails the UK – demands yet more subsidies – Net Zero Watch

Hornsea Offshore Wind Project, Yorkshire, England
[image credit: nsenergybusiness.com]

Forget the cheap electricity hype. The Oliver Twists of the loss-making renewables business are raising their voices again.
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London, 5 July – Net Zero Watch has urged the Government to stand up for consumers and businesses by rejecting the wind industry’s latest demands for more subsidies.

In a move that gives the lie to years of propaganda claiming falling costs, the wind industry’s leading lobbyists have written to the Government, threatening to abandon the UK unless there are hugely increased subsidies for their companies (see RenewableUK press release).

The industry is claiming that unforeseen rising costs now necessitate and justify three actions:

Revealed: Trees planted to help achieve net zero are adding to Scotland’s carbon emissions

Sitka spruce forestry in Scotland

Another avoidable green fiasco in the name of climate obsession.
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Millions of pounds are being spent carpeting thousands of acres of land with conifers on the basis they will lock up CO2 from the atmosphere.

But a new report shows that many of the forests springing up around the country likely add to the risk of climate change, says the Sunday Post.

Vast tracts of peaty soil are being dug up and drained in order to plant trees, unleashing a torrent of stored carbon [dioxide] into the environment.

In Brief: A Texas-Sized Energy Fiasco

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Is it really the Inflation Acceleration Act? Subsidies to offset other subsidies don’t save anyone money. Climate groupthink strikes again.

PA Pundits International

Austin passes subsidies for gas power to counter wind-power subsidies that have destabilized the state electric grid.

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We all remember the great Texas power outages a couple of years back, and Texans more than most. That doesn’t mean their elected representatives are learning the right lessons, as the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal notes.

What a mess. Renewable subsidies have distorted and destabilized the Texas electric grid, which resulted in a week-long power outage during the February 2021 freeze. To prevent more blackouts, Republicans in the Lone Star State now plan to subsidize gas power plants.

The Texas Senate last week passed putative energy reforms to “level the playing field,” as Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick put it. Texans will now spend tens of billions of dollars to bolster natural-gas plants that provide reliable power but can’t make money because of competition from…

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Biden’s green spending blitz could plunge world into ‘dark ages’, warns Hunt

Subsidising net zero type so-called climate policies in the US is not only enormously expensive but globally disruptive as well, it seems. Climate protection becoming climate protectionism?
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Joe Biden’s flagship green energy policy risks plunging the world into the economic “dark ages”, Jeremy Hunt has warned.

The Chancellor urged world leaders not to put up trade barriers after the US President passed a $369bn package of subsidies to support climate and energy businesses, reports The Daily Telegraph.

Mr Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act has drawn an estimated $200bn in investment since it was passed last year, according to estimates from the Financial Times, and both the EU and Britain have been forced to draw up responses of their own.

It has sparked fears of a new era of protectionism, where economies are closely managed through tariffs and subsidies.

Rollout of £150m heat pump scheme branded ’embarrassing’ after installation target missed

Domestic Air Source Heat Pump [image credit: UK Alternative Energy]

A climate-obsessed government wasting money on a ‘wretched’ subsidised scheme while chasing self-imposed targets – heard it before?
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The government offered vouchers to help people pay to replace boilers with heat pumps but critics say most people can’t afford them “subsidised or not”, reports Sky News.

“It does not help people keep bills low. It takes from the poor to give to the wealthy and it is an embarrassment of a policy.”

The figures have cast doubt on the government’s target of 600,000 installations of heat pumps per year by 2028.

Drax shares fall after its project misses out on UK carbon cash

Biomass on the move [image credit: Drax]

Latest from the strange world of so-called climate finance. Champion biomass burner’s share price drops when massive government handout not forthcoming.
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(Reuters) -Shares of British power generator Drax fell on Thursday after the government turned down its carbon-capture project for the country’s latest funding round for the technology, reports Reuters (via Yahoo News).

Drax hopes to build a 2 billion pound ($2.47 billion) CCS project alongside its 2.6 gigawatt biomass power plant in Yorkshire, northern England.

But to do this the company has said it would need clarity from the government on a funding model and has paused development of the project.

Giant UK offshore wind farm ‘at risk without government support’

The government talks about ‘investment’ in renewables. So-called cheap wind energy holds out the begging bowl again.
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Rising supply chain costs and other financial pressures are threatening the development of what could be the world’s largest offshore wind farm off the coast of Britain, says Energy Live News.

The Hornsea Three Offshore Wind Farm is expected to have a capacity of almost 3GW and generate [Talkshop comment – on a good day] enough energy to power three million homes.

Energy giant Orsted, which is behind the construction of the massive wind farm, has said it needs more government support to achieve project progress.

In a statement, Duncan Clark, Head of Orsted UK & Ireland, said: “Since the auction, there has been an extraordinary combination of increased interest rates and supply chain prices.

“Industry is doing everything it can to manage costs on these projects but there is a real and growing risk of them being put on hold or even handing back their CfDs.”

Mr Clark has called on the government to offer targeted support on investments such as tax breaks.

A government spokesperson told ELN: “The government is encouraging investment in renewable generation including through £30 billion to support the green industrial revolution…”

Full article here.

Energy providers to UK government: more handouts for ‘green’ projects please

An interesting (?) concept from renewables promoters here, partly to boost ‘innovative’ (generally expensive) technologies. We’re supposed to believe that bigger subsidies, or ‘fiscal incentives’, will lead to lower bills.
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The energy sector is ramping up pressure on the government to bolster investment in green projects, with Renewable UK the latest to raise concerns the country could be overtaken by rivals such as the US and EU, reports City AM.

The industry body, which supports wind and tidal energy, has called on Downing Street to bring in fiscal incentives such as new capital allowances for renewable technology.

It also favours sustained supply chain investment in the UK to expand green jobs, and speeding up the planning process – with offshore wind developers waiting an average of five years for planning approval under current restrictions, and some projects taking up to a decade to secure a grid connection.

Pipedream: Drax’s £2billion plan to ‘capture’ carbon emissions and pump them under the North Sea

It’s a dream if they think it makes any difference to anything other than the company balance sheet, except the ‘upto 10,000 jobs’ they claim it will create and support. Do we hear the sound of yet more subsidies going down the climate plughole?
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Bosses at Drax Power Station says they are waiting to hear whether the government will greenlight plans for a £2billion hi-tech scheme to capture carbon emitted from its biomass burners and pump it under the North Sea to be stored, reports yahoo!.

They say the scheme could potentially capture 95 per cent of the carbon emitted from the power station’s two biomass burners at Selby – removing eight million tonnes of carbon a year, and supporting up to 10,000 jobs.

Drax plant director Bruce Heppenstall said the power station had already run two pilot projects to test out the ‘Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage’ (BECCS) technology.

It was, he said, a ‘game changing technology’ that leading climate scientists at the UN’s IPCC said could play a critical role in addressing the climate crisis.