Reality Checkpoint 2023
News from previous year

EVS: THE TRUTH
If you'd like to learn more about EVs, have a look on Youtube. There are several informative channels, but the best one I've found so far is run by John Cadogan, an Australian car dealer and wordsmith (with a sound knowledge of cars, Physics and Chemistry).

Unlike car journalists, he's not a shill for the big car dealership companies. He's highly entertaining and tells you about the way Land Rover, Skoda and most of the rest treat you after you've parted with your money.

21 Dec 23

EVS: EXCESSIVE COSTS AND POOR RANGE
From a dealer ..... "I can't believe that consumers don't want a car which goes a third the distance of their old one and costs three times as much. Who'd have thought it?"

19 Dec 23

LAND ROVER BATTERY COST
Reported to me by a local driver looking for a new vehicle - 'I asked the replacement cost of the batteries in a Land Rover EV when the warranty expires. The answer: £35,000'.

My observation: unless the car companies start making affordable vehicles with a decent range which ordinary people want to buy, they will be in trouble.

14 Dec 23

COP 28 - REALITY CHECK
At the recent climate conference in Dubai, delegates debated the phase-out of fossil fuels without any serious discussion of costs. This was not very helpful. You don't buy anything without knowing the price.

In the run-up to the conference, COP28’s president, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, said that he would not sign up to any discussion that was alarmist, and that there was no science indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels was needed to limit global heating to 1.5C. He also said that eliminating fossil fuels would take the world back into caves.

Confronting groupthink with reality was not popular with some members of the audience.

Michael Kelly of Cambridge University has said that the transition from fossil fuels would be the biggest engineering project undertaken in British history. We are not ready for it. Mike has published a paper called Achieving Net Zero: A Report from a Putative Delivery Agency. The British government has failed to do a proper cost-benefit analysis of what it would take for the UK to be carbon neutral by 2050. Prof Kelly therefore decided to imagine that he’d been appointed CEO of a new agency with the explicit goal of meeting the target.

Among his conclusions:

1.The cost would be about £3 trillion, or £180k for every household in Britain.
2.A workforce of similar size to the NHS would be required, for 30 years.
3.We would need double the number of electrical engineers.
4.The country would have to go on a war footing with a command economy.
5.Major cuts to health, education and defence would be needed.
6.The electricity supply would need to increase by 67% to keep transport at today’s level.
7.The National Grid would need to be 2.7 times bigger in 2050 than it currently is.
8.That's eight times the rate at which new capacity has been added over the past 30 years.
9.Every home in the UK would have to be rewired, plus the street wiring and sub-stations.
10.The cost would be £700 billion, and we don’t have the manpower to do it.
11.Without that spending, we will have to live with frequent power cuts.
12.If the cost of HS2 is £100 billion, achieving net zero will require 36 HS2s by 2050.
13.That's one HS2 a year, every year until 2050.

Now is the time for a rethink on net zero. It is wrong to adhere to a goal which will cost trillions of pounds, and which cannot be achieved. Disbanding the Climate Change Committee, which misleads scientifically-illiterate MPs, would be a good start.

14 Dec 23

REWIRING THE GRID TO ACCOMMODATE WIND FARMS
The great lie of our contemporary politics: that the expensive, risky and unprecedented rewiring of what was a cheap and reliable energy system will somehow improve the weather.

It is a sorry comment on the state of our education system that the public believes this nonsense.

Whatever you think of climate change, this is simply untrue, yet it is a lie that public broadcasters, educators, bureaucrats, politicians, academics and virtue-signallers like to spread.

2 Dec 23

JOHN CADOGAN and EVs
If you are interested in looking at some honest appraisals of electric cars and trucks, you may be interested in John Cadogan's Youtube channel. John sells new and secondhand cars, reviews them dispassionately, and has been in the car industry for several decades. He is well-informed and has a crisp turn of phrase. If you like his channel, please spread the word.

1 Dec 23

EV's AND THEIR RISKS
There has been a recent spate of EV fires, and a catastrophic fire at Luton airport, the rapid spread of which was largely due to EVs. 1500 cars were destroyed. An engineer writes.....
I worked in engineering design and in particular, the petrochem industry, for almost 50 years and, as you know, we have thousands and thousands of regulations and guides / standards to ensure safest possible operations. Low probability - high consequence events have really been studied over and over again to minimise risks. What is needed is the same due diligence regarding ev battery risks. This is becoming ever more important as more and more ev's are rolled out. Let us prevent reasonably foreseable bad-consequence events.

With reference to multistorey car parking for EV's: there could be a big problem. If the car park is old, the structure might not be good enough to hold up the weight. Here in the UK a lot of multistorey car parks have banned EV's from going any higher than ground floor because the structure could collapse because of the enormous weight of the batteries.

30 Nov 23

A RECENT BBC REPORT
I was somewhat amused when reading a November 16 report by the BBC about the government's latest award of massive new subsidies to the UK’s offshore wind developers. This is what it says:

“The price paid to generate electricity by offshore wind farms has been raised by 66 per cent as the government tries to entice energy firms to invest..... It comes after an auction for offshore wind projects failed to attract any bids, with firms arguing that the price set for electricity generated was too low. The government has lifted the price it pays from £44 per MWh to £73."

"It is hoped that more offshore wind capacity will lead to cheaper energy bills.”

This doesn't seem to make much sense. How will an increased electricity price lead to smaller bills?

21 Nov 23

CLIMATE ALARMISM CONTINUES AT THE BBC
Another complaint has been upheld against the BBC’s coverage of weather and climate .In May, the BBC weatherman Chris Fawkes said in a video after the Bologna floods in Italy that half the annual rainfall had fallen in 36 hours.

The claim was false; rainfall totals were much lower. In upholding the complaint, the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit apologised for the lapse in editorial standards.

Climate researcher Paul Homewood, who filed the complaint, said “Sadly this cavalier attitude to factual reporting is all too common in the BBC’s coverage of weather and climate matters.”

The BBC has repeatedly been accused of institutional alarmism and has been forced to correct over a dozen false claims in climate and weather in recent years in response to complaints from the public.

15 Nov 23

GREEN FUNDING
In an attempt to meet Net-Zero targets, set with little thought about how they would be paid for, governments are spending enormous amounts of money on green industrial policies. When money is made available in this way, often without adequate scrutiny of the schemes involved, it is a great opportunity for unprincipled speculators.

Antonio Costa, the Portuguese PM has resigned after an investigation into government corruption in lithium mining and a green hydrogen project.

The company 'South Pole', which sells virtue-signalling tokens paid for by high-end restaurants and others (known as carbon offset credits) is involved in a controversy about making exaggerated claims for its products.

Trevor Milton, the founder of an electric truck making company has been jailed over misleading investors about the carbon-reduction credentials of his products.

These are not isolated incidents.

Meanwhile Shell is suing Greenpeace for £1.7M for disruption, a sign that companies are starting to defend their right to go about their business without interference from eco-enthusiasts.

12 Nov 23

EV FIRES AND CAR INSURANCE
There has been a spate of EV fires recently. This is having an effect on car insurance. A minor accident that used to require little more than some paint can now cost thousands. John Lewis has paused offering insurance for EVs because it costs so much.

It's worth having a look at the video footage of the Luton Airport fire. The official line is that it was started by a diesel, but I'm not convinced. The burning 'diesel' vehicle, flames coming from under the passenger seat, actually dropped through the floor, so it melted the concrete. But the melting point of concrete is about 1200C, and limited-oxygen hydrocarbon fires don't get any hotter than about 900C and produce lots of black smoke; conspicuously absent from the blaze. Lithium batteries on the other hand burn much hotter.... see what you think.

Once the fire had started to spread it will have encountered some EVs .... this will have speeded up the spreading and caused the reported multiple explosions and structural collapse. We need some safety rules about car parking and EVs, obviously, and some effective strategies for tackling and preventing battery fires. Leaving them to burn is hardly a strategy.

19 Oct 23

ULEZ CAMERAS TERMINATED
About 1900 ULEZ cameras were initially installed. The number terminated by citizens opposed to the ULEZ is now over 1000. Cameras have been recently terminated in Bromley, Beckenham, Bickley, Croyden, Wandsworth, Brixton, Highbury, Tottenham, Fulham, Millwall, Isle of Dogs, Penge, Orpington, Blackwall, Twickenham, Wembley, Acton Town, Bethnal Green, Brent Cross and Elephant & Castle.

17 Sep 23

NHS PAYING ULEZ CHARGES
The Royal Marsden has established a procedure to reimburse NHS patients for ULEZ charges during their visit to the Royal Marsden. All RM patients are eligible for reimbursement except those attending diagnostic appointments with a two-week wait.

12 Sep 23

NET ZERO IS FUELLING INFLATION
Mervyn King, former governor of the Bank of England, has made some strong comments about Net Zero and its negative effects on the economy, in an interview published in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday, 9 September.

He said that it made no sense to add Net Zero to the Bank's list of responsibilities. "The Bank can do nothing about climate change. It's not even obvious that the biggest and most immediate risks to the economy are coming from climate change, as opposed to pandemics or cyber security or excess lending to commercial property."

Apparently the bank, alongside its annual report, published an 85-page report describing how it would get to Net Zero by 2050 by installing heat pumps.

So we have, in effect, a bank entering the political debate about something highly controversial in a hotly-debated subject where it has no expertise, when its remit is to look after the country's financial interests.

Mervyn King continued.... "Whatever Britain does in terms of emissions is going to have a negligible effect on world emissions .... it doesn't make sense for government to have arbitrary dates at which you ban gas boilers or petrol cars."

He also said that it's a mistake to ask each individual business or organization to have a net zero.

9 Sep 23

SMALL BUSINESSES - ANNOUNCEMENT
The Federation of Small Businesses said on the eve of the ULEZ rollout that a heavy-handed expansion of the ULEZ zone will be disastrous to those they represent. It said that drivers must be treated fairly before issuing penalties. Sadiq Khan, who has ignored all criticisms of the scheme by the people he is supposed to represent, is expanding the scheme from 8 to all 32 London boroughs, with drivers of vehicles not meeting his criteria facing a £12.50 daily charge.

Incidentally I have a Ford Fiesta. 2015 reg, which is so low in emissions that I don't need to pay any car tax - it's a Euro 5 diesel. This car, exceptionally clean for the environment, does not qualify for any exemption.

If I was to drive to any London borough I would be liable for Khan's £12-50 charge.

28 Aug 23

ATTACK ON BRITISH FREEDOMS
Extract from a letter in the DT, 24 Aug 23:
It's time to put a stop to the Net Zero project before it's too late. Net Zero is an impossibility, and I find myself unable to vote for any party that fails to recognize that fact.

Democracy in Britain is broken and there will be serious consequences for the future of our society if we allow our rights and freedoms to be removed for some vague greater good.

23 Aug 23

NET ZERO AND THE GMB UNION
Mr. Gary Smith, general secretary of the General and Municipal Works' Union, has made an important statement. He has pointed out that voters will not accept economic destruction in order to acheieve Net Zero. A rush to abandon oil and gas would be a disaster, and he urged the Labour leader to think again about his 'green' objectives.

The Labour Party still plans to instigate widespread 'decarbonization' in its latest manifesto, more or less copying the ideas in Joe Biden's failing multi-green-subsidy plan.

Mr Smith said that politicians had been dishonest about the costs of Net Zero and hitting 'climate' targets. "...if they get the discussion wrong on oil and gas and how we heat our homes and how we power industry, it becomes ULEZ on steroids", he said.

He hoped that Labour's position on this issue was changing as they faced up to the complexities and challenges of Net Zero. Allowing gas and oil to wither would be a disaster for national security.

21 Aug 23

TARGETING DRIVERS MUST NOW CEASE
After years of virtue-signalling, fantasy economics, deciding to ban petrol and diesel car purchases from 2030, ULEZ schemes, Low Traffic Zones and banning gas boilers from as early as 2025, reality has finally kicked in.

Keir Starmer, who could neither defend nor denounce ULEZ before the Uxbridge by-election is now finding ways to distance himself from it.

Even Tony Blair has entered the fray stating the obvious that until China reduces its emissions, the UK will be self-sabotaging by meeting these arbitrary deadlines.

Germany woke up first, seeing the devastation it would cause to their motor industry. They are now trying to make their politicians see sense and cancel the EU ban on conventional cars.

Bella Sankey, the new Labour council leader for Brighton, estimates that parking fees imposed by the Green council, which has just been voted out, cost the council about £1million in day-tripper revenue over three years, leading to a £3million black hole in the city’s finances.

The loss in parking revenue makes up the largest part.

The Greens' plan to introduce Brighton’s first LTN (low traffic neighbourhood) is probably what gave Labour its first council majority in 20 years.

The new Labour council has said it will re-allocate the £1million set aside for LTN to refurbishing the city’s public conveniences, literally flushing the LTN fantasy down the toilet.

5 Aug 23

NET ZERO SLOWDOWN
It is good to report that the Prime Ministeris willing to reconsider the character and pace of the UK’s emissions reduction policies. Recent YouGov opinion polls show that the electorate approves.

For the last year there has been growing public dissatisfaction with the UK’s emissions reduction policies and overly-ambitious Net Zero targets.

British electricity is expensive due to an obsession with wind and solar, which remain extremely costly in spite of twenty years of heavy subsidy, now about £8 billion a year.

The invasion of Ukraine has exposed renewables as being incapable of giving the UK energy security.

The proposed banning of new petrol and diesel cars is also premature, and replacing them with EVs has not been thought through. EVs may have a limited role in the short term for some users in urban areas, but they are not affordable for the majority of drivers.

The Prime Minister has begun to reform these failing policies. I note also that new licences have now been issued for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.

1 Aug 23

DON'T EXAGGERATE - IPCC
The IPCC has a new chairman, Professor Jim Skea. He said in interviews with German news media over the weekend that it was wrong and misleading for climate activists to imply that temperature increases of 1.5 degrees Celsius posed an existential threat to humanity.

This has long been the problem. Politicians say that they are following the science and then come out with something contrary to what the IPCC has actually said.

31 Jul 23

IS REALITY RETURNING?
Since the Conservatives shock by-election victory, both main parties have been panicking about Net Zero policy, which they have been pursuing irrespective of cost or effectiveness.

It seems there is oncern about the ban on petrol and diesel cars by 2030, phasing out gas boilers by 2035, unrealistic energy efficiency targets for landlords and low-traffic measures.

Sunak seems to be committed to renewables and decarbonising the energy sector, but seems to be sceptical of the car and boiler targets bans, which were brought forward by 5 years without thought for the consequences.

There may be a serious problem facing the planet, but to what extent would the proposed solutions address the problem? Is it actually man-made? What are the trade offs involved? How does decarbonisation measure up against other obligations, like alleviating cost-of-living pressures and protecting the elderly from the cold?

Deadlines that once seemed far away, like the 2030 ban on new petrol cars, are now getting rather close and focusing minds. The public certainly are concerned about the environment, as evidenced by consumer choices and behaviours, but they are unwilling to be taken for fools.

29 Jul 23

WILL NET-ZERO DEADLINES BE EXTENDED?
After the Conservatives' uunexpected by-election victory in Uxbridge, there are tensions in both main parties about the cost of so-called environmental policies. Expansion of London's ULEZ zones was responsible for Labour's defeat. One hopes that the banning of petrol and diesel car sales, and of gas boilers, and of other necessities, will be delayed whilst the technology catches up.

24 Jul 23

NET ZERO MAY BE A MISTAKE
The revolt against eco-extremists has begun. Anger at irrational and authoritarian green schemes is causing shifts in national politics.

This is not surprising. In the UK, by mandating Net Zero by an arbitrary date, bringing in over-generous subsidies, they are causing economic and societal destruction on an extraordinary scale.

We have seen opposition to ULEZ in the recent by-election in Uxbridge. Local politicians who have supported anti-car schemes are facing a voter backlash. As Mr. Gove says, we need thoughtful environmentalism, not a religious crusade.

The next scandal is probably heat pumps; an expensive technology totally inappropriate for many British homes. The 2030 deadline for banning diesel and petrol cars is approaching, with little effort being put into building the electricity production capacity to run them. Dissent has for too long been treated with condescension, or as a sin against the planet, by decision makers and by all the major news outlets.

It is hardly democratic if all three major political parties in the UK only offer varying shades of eco-extremism. They have avoided thoughtful debate so far, but if the technologies are not ready, avoiding proper discussion will no longer be possible. If we really want Net Zero by 2050, the way in which it is to be achieved needs to be examined, alternative courses of action proposed, and the advantages and disadvantages of the various options scrutinised.

Where is the cost-benefit analysis of Net Zero by 2050?

23 Jul 23

NUCLEAR POWER
It seems to me that there is too much enthusiasm for wind and solar power and not enough for nuclear.

Nuclear works around-the-clock; no need for batteries; no need for back up. The observant have seen that wild claims about the purported benefits of wind and solar never survive the first contact with reality.

The greens are becoming divided on nuclear power. Initially they were all against it but in recent years many leading greens, notably George Monbiot of the Guardian, have swung in favour of it. Their main reason for doing so is misplaced. They favour nuclear because it will reduce CO2 emissions and so help to prevent the “climate crisis”. But there is no climate crisis. The climate over the last hundred years has been healthy and benign, a bit too cold perhaps compared with most of the pre-industrial age, but much better than the unusual cold of the 14th to 19th centuries.

A better reason for favouring nuclear power is that it is the safest, cleanest, most reliable power that we know and it is affordable. Around the world, solar and wind have been an expensive failure, while many countries have shown that nuclear can be extremely successful.

10 Jul 23

NO MORE OIL / GAS EXPLORATION IN THE UK?
Sir Keir Starmer said recently that the Labour Party would grant no more licences to explore fresh fields in the North Sea. He intends to ban further development whilst still importing oil and gas from abroad.

The executive chairman of Ithaca Energy, which has the bulk of its operations in the North Sea, has warned that a ban on fresh oil and gas licenses is deterring investors and threatens our energy security.

I had just decided that voting for the Tories is impossible because of their insane energy policy. Now it appears that the Labour Party's policy is worse.

27 Jun 23

A CHASM BETWEEN MPs AND ORDINARY PEOPLE
A green levy of £170 is to be imposed next month on household energy bills to support the development of renewables. The charge was suspended last autumn for two years and the cost shifted on to general taxes. This shows how out of touch politicians are with the finanical harpships of ordinary people. A time of high inflation and soaring energy bills is hardly the time to impose a Net-Zero energy surcharge.

Lord Frost has called for an end to Net Zero. He says the 2050 target enshrined in law is unachievable. He has also asked for the phasing-out of gas boilers and petrol cars to be cancelled. The majority of the public would agree with him. How are they going to travel and keep their houses warm otherwise?

27 Jun 23

DRAX TO KEEP RUNNING
The two coal-fired units at Drax are likely to be in use this winter. They were used as backup last winter and were due to be retired in April but National Grid has asked the company to delay closing down in case the power is needed in winter 2023-24.

17 Jun 23

...Update....30 Jun .....Drax has said that its last two coal units will not be available this winter. It cited a combination of technical, maintenance and staffing reasons for the decision. The only coal plant available will be the one at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire, owned by the German company Uniper.

ELECTRIC PLANE GROUNDED
An electric plane developer, Tecnam, has stopped work after finding its batteries will only last for a limited number of flights before they have to be replaced. The degradation of the battery after only a few hundred cycles would erode the plane's value, ruining the commercial prospects. The plane under development was a nine-seater.

17 Jun 23

CARS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
In the light of what Rowan Atkinson said about EVs a few days ago: a true environmentalist would be properly maintaining his existing car until it wears out, and not buying a new electric one until that point. But that doesn't allow for virtue signalling, which seems to be the main purpose of the environmental movement.

A new electric car every 3/5 years uses a lot more resources than maintaining and operating a diesel or petrol car for 10 or 15 years. We already have the cars. Why not use them to best effect?

16 Jun 23

GREENS SHOWING HYPOCRISY
Germany's Greens are facing ridicule because they have failed to install a heat pump in their party HQ in Berlin, despite pushing for a nationwide switch to the technology.

The Greens have announced plans to ban new gas boilers starting next year and replace them with six million heat pumps by the end of the decade.

Short of nuts for your fruitcake? Look no further.

12 Jun 23

POLAND TO TAKE FOSSIL FUEL CAR BAN TO EU HIGH COURT
Poland is to appeal against EU rules to end the sale of diesel and petrol cars across the bloc from 2035.

12 Jun 23

ROWAN ATKINSON'S VIEW OF ELECTRIC CARS
Rowan Atkinson has written an interesting article on electric cars which has appeared in various newspapers. A quick google search will find it. It's an excellent read and a good summary of the present position. In summary - 'Our honeymoon with electric cars is over so, for now, my advice is to hang on to your old petrol motor.'

6 Jun 23

DIRTY GREEN FUEL
Green fuels have been blamed for affecting rail services from Salisbury and Exeter to London. South Western Railway has been forced to run a reduced timetable after biofuels, used to meet 'Net Zero targets, clogged up train engines’ fuel filters.

Many diesel-powered trains have been run on biofuels recently. Biodiesel is a renewable, biodegradable fuel manufactured from vegetable oils. But these engines seem to have been blocked by algae or bacteria, which grows in biofuel, especially if it's not treated with enough chemical additives.

About 30 of SWR’s 1,700 carriages are believed to be affected. They have been removed from service for inspection and maintenance, which means there are not enough to run the normal timetable. Luckily the majority of SWR's trains are electric. Engineers are washing out the dirty tanks to fill them with normal diesel.

21 Apr 23

CLIMATE SCEPTICS INCREASING IN NUMBER
Scepticism about human-caused climate change is increasing. A recent poll conducted by a group at the University of Chicago found the belief that humans are causing significant climate change had decreased in the USA from 60% to 49% over the last 5 years. Similar falls have been recorded in other countries.

20 Apr 23

GERMANY AND CARS
The German government is threatening to continue blocking green legislation unless the European Commission allows diesel and petrol vehicles running on synthetic fuels to be sold after 2035.

24 Mar 23

CONUNDRUM
The Biden administration is increasing its green subsidies. This will have consequences for Europe. Will the EU increase its own green subsidies in response? That would be difficult; we have the war in Ukraine, plus the cumulative effect of prolonged NGO anti-nuclear activism and over-investment in renewables over the last two decades, which has sent energy prices sky-high.

1 Feb 23

NEW EV COMPANY MOVING WORKERS TO USA
The British electric-van company 'Arrival' is downsizing its workforce by 800, about 50% of its workers, to reduce costs. It is planning to move to the USA in a switch of its strategy. Instead of focusing on Britain, it is planning to start production in North Carolina, as long as it can raise the capital. This is more likely to happen in America than here. Biden is giving money, in subsidies, for EVs and renewables.

1 Feb 23

ELDERLY AND VULNERABLE NOT HEATING THEIR HOMES
Ambulance crews say they are treating a growing number of patients who are falling ill because they are unable to afford to heat their homes. Politicians are sacrificing the most vulnerable people in following the Net Zero agenda.

25 Jan 23

MASS PRODUCTION OF AFFORDABLE ELECTRIC CARS IS UNLIKELY
The UK chief executive of Kia, the South Korean car maker, Paul Philpott, has said that they have no immediate plans to mass-produce electric cars. The reason - they are unaffordable. This goes against the government's ban of diesel and petrol vehicles after 2030. Most electric cars are well over £30,000. The electric version of the Fiat 500 is the smallest electric car, and its price starts at £30,000. Most of the cost is in the battery.

The RAC reported recently that the recent rise in electricity prices means that rapid-charge points used on long journeys, if you can find one, are now about £10 more expensive than filling up a car with petrol. Similar research from the RAC shows that the cost per mile using a slow public charger is often more expensive, per mile, than using petrol.

It's been obvious for a while that car manufacturers are not happy about abandoning petrol and diesel vehicles and replacing them with cars that most people cannot afford. The commercial prospects are dire. I can see car companies going bust if they don't change direction.

23 Jan 23

SWEEPING UP
From RC, a council employee, from a discussion forum...

"We are looking to replace a street sweeper and we considered electric". The quotes:

Electric was £249,132; Diesel was £99,579.

The electric vehicle can be run for about 2 hours and then needs 8 hours charging. It weighs 4.8 tonnes. The diesel weighs 2.8 tonnes.

The weight difference has licence requirement implications and there is also the cost of installing the charging infrastructure.

This was a no-brainer.

20 Jan 23

STARMER STRUGGLES TO UNDERSTAND
Sir Keir Starmer has stated publicly that if Labour gets elected, fresh oil and gas investment in Britain will be banned. Exactly what we want during an energy crisis! And Net Zero will still be implemented ... I hope many of you are writing to your MPs and other decision makers to convince then of their folly.

If they receive no letters of protest about Net Zero they will assume you're willing to go along with it. Think about it - banning petrol cars, banning diesel cars, banning gas boilers, banning oil boilers, banning coal; making you buy heat pumps at £20k a throw to heat your home and electric cars at £30k. Ordinary people cannot afford this; it is madness...

20 Jan 23

USE OF COAL IS INCREASING
EU governments are having to re-think the shutdown of coal-fired power stations and abandoning climate 'targets' because of energy supply problems. Global coal consumption rose by 1.2% in 2022; in the EU the rise was 6.5%.

18 Jan 23

NO EVs IN WYOMING
The U.S. state of Wyoming has said that from 2035, the sale of new electric vehicles will be banned in order to protect its oil and gas industry; a valuable source of revenue and a major employer in the state.

18 Jan 23

NO BATTERY FACTORY IN NORTHUMBERLAND
Last year, Boris Johnson was talking about the building of an enormous 'Britishvolt' factory to make batteries for electric cars in Northumberland. He said it was a strong testament to the UK's place at the helm of the global green industrial revolution, and he went on to talk about a green planned economy and an industrial renaissance based on it. Ministers committed £100 billion to it because it aligned with official rhetoric on NetZero.

Now we learn that there was no viable business plan and that the company is in administration.

17 Jan 23

THE ELECTRIC MINI IS LEAVING THE UK
Recently, BMW has announced that the manufacture of its electric Mini will move from the UK to China, where manufacturing is powered by coal. Other carmakers are planning to reduce the number of EVs they will manufacture because their enormous cost and the increasing price of electricity makes them increasingly unaffordable for drivers.

17 Jan 23

SWISS REFERENDUM ON NET-ZERO POLICIES
The Swiss People's Party (SVP) is calling a referendum aimed at blocking a draft law to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The SVP argues that imposing further reductions would be counterproductive during the current energy crisis, made worse by tthe cuts in Russian gas availabiliity.

Proposed referendums require the support of 50,000 signatures to be activated. The SVP energy spokesperson Monika Rueegger has said that this threshold has been reached.

The Swiss People's Party is the biggest group in Switzerland's federal parliament.

13 Jan 23

EXTRA LIFE FOR 2 NUCLEAR STATIONS
Belgium is going to extend the life of two nuclear reactors until 2035. It seems that their energy strategy is having to change because of the energy crisis. The French utility Engie runs these stations: Doel 4 and Tihange 3, which were going to be closed in 2025.

13 Jan 23

SWITCH TO EVs DELAYED
The proposed ban on selling diesel and petrol cars in Scotland has been delayed. The reason given is that the charging infrastructure isn't good enough and that EVs are too expensive.

This website's view is that introducing EVs produces more problems than it solves. The ban on petrol and diesel vehicles should itself be abandoned.

13 Jan 23

HEAD OF FEDERAL RESERVE SHOWS GOOD JUDGEMENT
Jerome Powell, Head of the US Federal reserve, has said that banks risk undermining their independence by wading into social issues and seeking to tackle climate change. These are issues which go beyond their remit. These remarks were made at a conference in Stockholm.

Mervyn King, ex-governor of the Bank of England, supported Mr Powell. Speaking at the same conference, he said that central bank independence came with great responsibility. It should not be misused by getting involved in areas which have not been explicitly delegated by the appropriate political process.

Mr. Powell singled out climate change as an inappropriate topic for unelected central bankers to address. "We should stick to our knitting..... we are not and we will not be a climate policymaker".

11 Jan 23

INVISIBLE REFUSE TRUCKS
York City Council have spent £8 million getting rid of diesel and petrol trucks used for refuse collection and replacing them with electric.

It's not going very well. The council spent £6.5 million on the new vehicles and £1.5 million on charging stations. Councillor Mark Warters criticised the project; delays with the chargers mean that some of the lorries can't be used.

He said that 25 vehicles have been hidden away in a storage yard because they're an embarrassment; there's nowhere to charge them.

When you manage a fleet, a lot of council workers start really early; around 5am. It's accepted practice that these people take their vehicles home, where they cannot be charged. Mr. Warters explained that they are being charged either at the depot or at hyperhubs and public charging points.

A spokesman for York council said that 13 of its EVs are being used and 30 are not. Here are some of the stationary ones:

11 Jan 23

WIND TURBINES ARE NOT SUITABLE FOR THE GRID
This website supports sound scientific solutions — and wind power is not acceptable because it fails to deliver the goods.

By this I mean that wind energy:

1) is not a technically legitimate solution for our grid, or to meaningfully reduce CO2, and

2) is not a commercially viable source of energy on its own; and

3) is not environmentally responsible.

Those basic criteria haven’t been selected to make wind power look bad, but are what should be used to evaluate the legitimacy of any proposed alternative source of energy. I am not against economic incentives to help deal with climate change or to support renewable energy. I am only against proposals which don’t make scientific sense.

10 Jan 23

NOT ENOUGH SCIENTISTS IN WESTMINSTER
Remember when you are paying your electricity bills that the extortionate price we are paying is the fault of successive Lab and Con governments for refusing to invest in reliable generation capacity (Labour: 13 years under Blair, followed by about 12 years under Conservative leadership). We should have more nuclear, and no more wind and solar. The sooner this is remedied the better.

The quickest and possibly the best solution would be to buy about ten of Hitachi's BWRX-300 small modular reactors; the build time is only 24-36 months. We could have affordable electricity again in a little over three years if the government had the will to do it.

9 Jan 23

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