Unforgivable ignorance at the heart of Net Zero

Jun 24, 2024 by

by Ivor Williams, TCW:

LABOUR’S GB Energy Plan for Net Zero by 2030 has met with severe and widespread criticism, sometimes for the wrong reasons and mostly without the kind of detail that even now our politicians do not seem to understand.

For instance, one of our more serious newspapers put up three objections: wind and solar are more expensive, not cheaper; insufficient cash is available for scaling up generation; and the record of nationalised industries is very poor. That has completely missed by far the most serious flaw, and is at the same time the unforgivable ignorance at the core of all Net Zero politics.

The author of the piece knows nothing of meteorology and is assuming that the wind will always blow and the sun will always shine. But 2030 will meteorologically be no different from other years, during which the sun will as usual set at night, contributing nothing in winter to the solar panels for the peak evening energy demands. The wind will blow sometimes as gales, other times as a gentle breeze, and occasionally not at all.

Claire Coutinho until very recently was the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (and there’s an oxymoron if ever I saw one). She has slated Starmer’s energy plans, pointing out that ‘sometimes the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine’. You have to give her ten out of ten for realising that no government minister has ever taken that into account when drafting all the nonsensical zero-carbon policies since the original Climate Change Act in 2008.

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