I agree with the argument about Trump essentially hobbling the future US economy by rejecting renewables. Unfortunately UK Labour is doing the same, only surreptitiously. Peter Mandelson (Tony Blair and Iraq war associate) has been and remains a key advisor to Keir Starmer. Labour have pledged £10billion of taxpayer cash to the fossil fuel giants in 'subsidies' to support carbon capture and storage development. Like a filter on a cigarette, it won't help in the long run.
Corruption driven by corporate lobbyists is hampering the transition to clean power in the UK. Last month Tony Blair declared the idea of net zero should be binned. It is public knowledge that the Tony Blair Institute has been given many millions by the Saudis. The illegal Iraq war showed that Tony Blair and his acolytes will go to any lengths to further the interests of the fossil fuel industry.
So while i agree that Trump is an odious character, we must ask, who are the people trying to suppress the renewable energy revolution and drive climate change by burning more and more oil and gas and producing more and more plastics ? They are the company executives, the shareholders, the corporate lobbyists, the shady financiers,not just the politicians that they influence.
Blair didn't say it should be binned he said it needs a different approach if its not to have too greater short term impact in jobs and costs. The problem for the UK it can only achieve CP2030 by massive import of the equipment. There's no point in us trying to produce solar panels even batteries as Chinese have that optimised and have huge scale and competition but we should be producing things like nacelles and high voltage equipment. This would mean enticing the overseas entities that manufacture this stuff now as we do very little to at least assemble locally and the govt should be forcing that through on new build windfarms given the size of the market on offer.
I read and watch a lot of videos about China and it amazes me how quickly they have progressed with green energy, transportation and high speed rail in the last 20 years. Meanwhile in this country popular opinion is that renewables are driving up the cost of electricity and will cause blackouts. Instead of pandering to the right Labour needs to accelerate our switch to renewables.
What’s driving up the price of electricity is the design of the electricity market. In the olden days, the CEGB would dispatch generation to maintain network stability, in order of marginal cost as appropriate. Not too dissimilar. But pricing would essentially follow average costs, not marginal cost as it does now. Add to this the renewables obligation & eg paying out FiTs which is borne solely by electricity when we are trying to decarbonise the whole of the energy sector, and we have a perverse tax on electricity which in effect subsidises gas. This is a recipe for discontent over the whole green agenda. Reform is urgently needed, first to spread the burden over gas and fossil fuel use to make it closer to a carbon tax, and secondly to take gas generated electricity out-of-market, paying gas generators for capacity, not generated energy, reflecting the reality that they provide a balancing element of increasingly infrequent usage.
Most people haven't realised yet China is going to be the Saudi Arabia of the next century. Chinese solar panels and batteries will be powering the world.
Its ironic that it was the West that realised that it needed to address decarbonisation but other than Denmark no other country capitalised on it in terms of producing what was going to be required albeit our R&D efforts laid the foundations. The UK as usual always fails to turn its ideas into manufactured products so we are left with the Chinese. They've utterly cornered the market and there is little point in anyone else now trying to compete with them. For the UK we should be pushing to at least get a slice of the action in getting them to invest in the UK in assembling the kit if nothing else not in the mass manufacture of solar panels.
I agree with the argument about Trump essentially hobbling the future US economy by rejecting renewables. Unfortunately UK Labour is doing the same, only surreptitiously. Peter Mandelson (Tony Blair and Iraq war associate) has been and remains a key advisor to Keir Starmer. Labour have pledged £10billion of taxpayer cash to the fossil fuel giants in 'subsidies' to support carbon capture and storage development. Like a filter on a cigarette, it won't help in the long run.
Corruption driven by corporate lobbyists is hampering the transition to clean power in the UK. Last month Tony Blair declared the idea of net zero should be binned. It is public knowledge that the Tony Blair Institute has been given many millions by the Saudis. The illegal Iraq war showed that Tony Blair and his acolytes will go to any lengths to further the interests of the fossil fuel industry.
So while i agree that Trump is an odious character, we must ask, who are the people trying to suppress the renewable energy revolution and drive climate change by burning more and more oil and gas and producing more and more plastics ? They are the company executives, the shareholders, the corporate lobbyists, the shady financiers,not just the politicians that they influence.
Blair didn't say it should be binned he said it needs a different approach if its not to have too greater short term impact in jobs and costs. The problem for the UK it can only achieve CP2030 by massive import of the equipment. There's no point in us trying to produce solar panels even batteries as Chinese have that optimised and have huge scale and competition but we should be producing things like nacelles and high voltage equipment. This would mean enticing the overseas entities that manufacture this stuff now as we do very little to at least assemble locally and the govt should be forcing that through on new build windfarms given the size of the market on offer.
I read and watch a lot of videos about China and it amazes me how quickly they have progressed with green energy, transportation and high speed rail in the last 20 years. Meanwhile in this country popular opinion is that renewables are driving up the cost of electricity and will cause blackouts. Instead of pandering to the right Labour needs to accelerate our switch to renewables.
Absolutely!
What’s driving up the price of electricity is the design of the electricity market. In the olden days, the CEGB would dispatch generation to maintain network stability, in order of marginal cost as appropriate. Not too dissimilar. But pricing would essentially follow average costs, not marginal cost as it does now. Add to this the renewables obligation & eg paying out FiTs which is borne solely by electricity when we are trying to decarbonise the whole of the energy sector, and we have a perverse tax on electricity which in effect subsidises gas. This is a recipe for discontent over the whole green agenda. Reform is urgently needed, first to spread the burden over gas and fossil fuel use to make it closer to a carbon tax, and secondly to take gas generated electricity out-of-market, paying gas generators for capacity, not generated energy, reflecting the reality that they provide a balancing element of increasingly infrequent usage.
Most people haven't realised yet China is going to be the Saudi Arabia of the next century. Chinese solar panels and batteries will be powering the world.
Its ironic that it was the West that realised that it needed to address decarbonisation but other than Denmark no other country capitalised on it in terms of producing what was going to be required albeit our R&D efforts laid the foundations. The UK as usual always fails to turn its ideas into manufactured products so we are left with the Chinese. They've utterly cornered the market and there is little point in anyone else now trying to compete with them. For the UK we should be pushing to at least get a slice of the action in getting them to invest in the UK in assembling the kit if nothing else not in the mass manufacture of solar panels.