Net Zero Becomes Net Five

Clown world update

Mr Milibean and Stark Raving Bonkers haven’t got a clue how to reach a Net Zero electricity grid by 2030, even though Milibean set the target as one of his first acts as Secretary in charge of Energy Insecurity and Year Zero under the Keir-Mher Rouge regime. So they wrote to Fintan Slye, head of National grid ESO, saying ‘Please sir, tell us how to get there, so we can launch our sixth form project properly.’

Fintan Slye has now responded and he has come up with what is now certainly to be adopted as the official government definition of ‘Grid Net Zero 2030’:

“There’s no established definition of clean power,” says Slye. “So what does it realistically mean? One of the key pieces of work from the Committee on Climate Change found that the cost [of decarbonisation] really begins to escalate when you reach those last percentage points towards 100% clean power.

“So at the moment, the working definition that we’re using for this analysis is to reach 95% clean power. That means that, by 2030, 95% of the generation in Great Britain over the period of a year will be from clean power sources. And that means that the remaining 5% will come from unabated gas. That’s our definition.”

There will continue to be “a significant amount” of gas power plants in reserve for the cold, dull, windless weeks of winter, but they will run for only limited periods, Slye says. Conversely, there will be days when Great Britain generates far more electricity from renewable energy sources than it can use or store, so there are likely to be greater exports to neighbouring countries.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/oct/01/the-man-in-charge-of-labours-green-energy-dream-its-at-the-limit-of-whats-achievable

So now a 100% decarbonised grid by 2030 is a 95% decarbonised grid by 2030. Will that be acceptable to the doom-mongering loons at Just Stop Oil? I doubt it. Expect more soup.

So Net Zero is now Net Five. What a joke. Soon it will be Net Ten and then Net Twenty. And remember, grid decarbonisation is the ‘easy’ part of Net Zero 2050. They’ll still have to do all forms of transport, manufacture, construction, farming, domestic heating, etc. in order to totally decarbonise all primary energy consumption in the UK.

If they can’t manage to set up ‘abated gas’ (i.e. carbon capture applied to CCGTs) in significant and economically viable quantity over the next 5 years, then Slye’s definition means that he assumes that periods when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining (cold, still weather in winter and particularly overnight) will occur only 5% of the time throughout the year. Well, excuse me, but nightime lasts for at least 16 hours every day during midwinter, so if the wind isn’t blowing, ‘renewables’ will be contributing the square root of nowt. It’s an absurdly optimistic assumption to be making. Dunkelfautes and other ‘wind drought’ periods are almost certain to occur for more than 5% of the time, maybe even as high as 20%. This will mean, regardless of the nameplate capacity of renewables installed, we will need gas or nuclear back up for 20% of the 365 days in the year, even by 2030. Meaning Net Zero will be Net 20 - or the lights will go out. But yeah, Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station has just been closed down and will be blown up. Cries of joy from the Green loons!