Sizewell B in Suffolk will be the last working nuclear power station in Britain after 2030. Photo Norma Desmond via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
The drive to import energy in the name of net zero threatens Britain’s independence as a modern manufacturing economy…
The news that the prime minister Keir Starmer will give the go-ahead for the construction of a new nuclear power plant, Sizewell C in Suffolk, is welcome. This suggests that some of those in government are rethinking their commitment to net zero at any price.
At the same time, Starmer is expected to agree to a fleet of small modular nuclear reactors, which could be built anywhere in the country where there is a need for continuous power.
Britain’s five existing nuclear plants are close to the end of their working lives. These new moves might be criticised as being already too late. But they represent a change of heart on the main obstacle to nuclear progress – net zero policy dogma and the fiction of cheap renewable energy.
Miliband’s retreat
Energy secretary Ed Miliband is a leading advocate of forcing a move to renewable energy sources. He also had to row back on his commitment to net zero. Confronted with a government decision to green light a third runway at Heathrow, Miliband reversed his long-held and determined opposition to that development. He now claims it is compatible with net zero!
Other casualties in the drive to net zero are the failure to persuade people to replace their gas boilers with heat pumps, and the failure to tempt people away from petrol and diesel cars into electric vehicles. Previous targets are being dropped or deferred, another welcome step.
Opposition to net zero imposition for domestic heating and cars is based on the reality that consumers are faced with greatly increased costs for something less effective.
Similar opposition must be brought to bear on other projects which blight our lives in the name of net zero.
For example, plans to massively augment the existing electricity grid infrastructure will create more and more power lines, substations and pylons. Some of them will be enormous.
Naturally, people living near these huge constructions oppose their siting.
Miliband proposes to offset up to 40 per cent of the electricity bills of people living within half a kilometre of new or upgraded infrastructure. Opposition to the growth of pylons is strongest in areas where these structures are designed to be built, and the intention is that opponents will effectively be bribed into acquiescence.
‘Manufacturers are starting to question the consequences of adhering to imposed net zero policies…’
Rosie Pearson, of the Essex Suffolk Norfolk Pylons action group, doesn’t agree. “Bribing communities with token money off their electricity bills and new playgrounds in return for destruction of their local environment and business has been deeply unpopular since the concept was first proposed.” The proposal is likely instead to stoke more widespread opposition when people realise that the cost of the bribe for some will be increased bills for everyone else.
Manufacturers are also starting to question the consequences of adhering to imposed net zero policies. German carmaker Porsche now reports that it will be adding combustion engine and plug-in hybrids to its portfolio of products, in light of their recognition that “…combustion engines will be around for much longer than previously thought.”
Electric vehicles
In Europe, as in Britain, sales of EV cars are stalling. Other car makers, including Mercedes-Benz and Renault, have also scaled back their EV targets recently. They pay lip service to the necessity of promoting EVs through government-imposed quotas and levies. But they draw the line when profits are hit because they can’t sell the EVs they make.
This stance by carmakers is obliging the government to start bending its own net zero rules. For example, the requirement to phase out the sale of all petrol and diesel vans by 2030 is to be postponed until 2035. Not exactly a reversal of policy but certainly watering it down.
Similarly, makers of “elite” British cars will now be exempt from net zero rules.
That’s great for the bosses of firms such as Aston Martin and McLaren. No doubt they have the ear of senior members of the government. The rest of us need more widespread changes.
Perhaps the tide is turning on net zero policy. If so, it ought to prompt a renewal of opposition rather than relaxation. There is still a long way to go and the zealots have not given up. And some of the harm to our environment and agriculture will be irreversible once developers have seized the land and started work.
Above all, the devastation to British industry in the name of net zero will impact the lives of workers for generations. It is not that the transition to net zero is being managed badly (which it is), but also that the end in itself is flawed.
Closure
At Grangemouth for example, the government’s decision to phase out oil and gas exploration has triggered the imminent closure of Scotland’s last remaining oil refinery with 500 jobs at stake and 2,500 more in related industries. Proposed alternative uses for the site include a fuel import terminal. This highlights the unremitting drive by governments, present and past, to replace mining or making things here with importing them.
‘Instead of using our own oil resource, we pay another country for theirs and pay someone else to ship it here. It’s economic lunacy…’
Britain needs oil, and will continue to do so for some time. Instead of using our own resource, we pay another country for theirs and pay someone else to ship it here. It’s economic lunacy – a scorched earth policy.
New green jobs have long been claimed as a consequence of moving away from the use of fossil fuels. But there’s no evidence of that. “Just another fig leaf”, Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham said of the terminal closure, “…to justify its act of industrial vandalism.”
Perversely, Miliband has unveiled a plan to create a bioethanol plant which would use Scottish timber. The proposal to effectively “turn trees into petrol” would require subsidies to attract investment, and may create between 50 and 120 jobs.
Drax power station supplies 6 per cent of Britain’s electricity by burning wood pellets. Its claims to be “low carbon” are controversial and disputed. And it attracts huge green energy subsidies too.
Another fanciful claim is that renewable energy will be cheaper. In the absence of any estimate from the energy department of the cost of decarbonisation of the grid, Professor Gordon Hughes, an eminent energy analyst, made a calculation.
His estimate comes out at an extra £25 billion a year more than we now pay, over £900 for each household. He based this on the actual cost of building, maintaining and at times replacing far more machinery and infrastructure than the grid currently employs.
Small wonder Miliband’s department is coy about costings. And we don’t yet have the engineers that would be needed to carry out the work.
The bigger picture is that reliance on imported energy puts Britain’s security at risk. We saw the turmoil when Russian energy was taken out of the picture. Now it is reported that Norway is reconsidering its position as a major energy exporter to many places, including the EU and Britain.
EU energy price harmonisation policies mean that countries like Germany, having gambled heavily on renewable energy to replace the nuclear power on which it previously largely relied, now have to depend on imports. Consequently, despite being almost entirely self-reliant in energy, Norway finds its electricity prices rising. That caused so much dissatisfaction among Norwegians that the government fell. A lesson for British workers and a warning for our own government.