Net Zero Watch: China rethinks path to climate goals due to energy crisis

 

In this newsletter:

1) China rethinks path to climate goals due to energy crisis
Bloomberg News, 12 October 2021
  

2) Gripped by energy crisis, Europe considers breaking climate promises and turning to coal
Newsweek, 10 October 2021

3) UK turns to coal as low wind output increases power prices
Bloomberg, 11 October 2021

 

4) Energy crisis pushes Serbia to keep coal power, president says
Bloomberg, 9 October 2021 

 

5) Net Zero heralds the demise of British manufacturing as glassmakers threaten to move overseas
The Daily Telegraph, 11 October 2021 

 

6) Benny Peiser: There's enough natural gas in the UK for about 50 years, but the Govt has banned using it
GB News, 11 October 2021

 

7) Tone-deaf ministers to announce plans to hike gas bills by £159 despite soaring energy costs
The Sun, 12 October 2021

 

8) Ross Clark: Our energy policy is a lose-lose, exporting carbon emissions to China at the expense of British industry
The Daily Telegraph, 11 October 2021

 

9) New study confirms Sun/Cosmic-Ray climate connection 
Net Zero Watch, 12 October 2021

 

10) And finally: In opposition the Tories sound like the GWPF
The Daily Telegraph, 11 October 2021

Full details:

1) China rethinks path to climate goals due to energy crisis
Bloomberg News, 12 October 2021

China’s widening power crisis, which has forced rationing across the country and threatens to derail economic growth, is prompting policy makers to rethink the pace of the nation’s energy transition.

China’s path to a greener economy needs to be underpinned by a stable supply of energy, Premier Li Keqiang said in a release on Monday following a meeting of the National Energy Commission last week. Before establishing a timetable for peaking carbon emissions by the end of the decade, the country needs to conduct an in-depth assessment of how it has handled the recent power crunch, he said.

The comments, just weeks before crucial climate negotiations open in Glasgow, Scotland, could be contentious given the need to accelerate efforts to mitigate global warming. Without additional commitments from China -- which the U.S. and U.K. have long been calling for -- the conference known as COP26 is unlikely to be a success.

There had been an expectation among some of those helping to draft the plan for China’s energy transition that the 2030 road map could be publicly released before the week-long National Day holidays that began Oct. 1, according to people familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.

In a statement that highlighted the need to continue building up the nation’s capacity in fossil fuels, from coal to oil and shale gas, Li said that China needs to prioritize its economic development, which “holds the key to solving all its problems.”

Energy Security

“Energy security should be the premise on which a modern energy system is built, and the capacity for energy self-supply should be enhanced,” he said. That means the twin goals of peak emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060 should be achieved in a “sound and well-paced” manner that will require “long and hard” effort, according to Li.

In a separate speech on Tuesday, China’s President Xi Jinping said the country still intends to set out more precise details on how it will peak carbon emissions in key areas, without giving a timetable for the release.

Full story 

2) Gripped by energy crisis, Europe considers breaking climate promises and turning to coal
Newsweek, 10 October 2021

Coal stocks have also rallied as demand has increased, with European producers turning to coal as a result of the energy crisis.

Europe is in the grip of an energy crisis amid rising prices for natural gas, increased demand for fossil fuels and the approach of the winter that will make access to fuel even more urgent.

The price of natural gas on the continent has risen sharply over the past year with the European benchmark up nearly 600 percent as of Thursday and the European Union (EU) seeking more gas supply from Russian energy firm Gazprom, which is already Europe's largest supplier, providing 35 percent of the continent's needs.

The price fell on Thursday to $120.79 per megawatt-hour (MWh) after Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country could sell gas to European spot buyers through its domestic market. The previous price was $134 per MWh on Tuesday.

Rising costs have been driven by increased demand in Asia and other parts of the world as economies reopen after shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ongoing difficulties with gas supply and costs have reopened questions about the use of coal.

Coal is the most polluting fossil fuel and European countries have committed to phasing out its use and closing all coal plants by 2030, according to Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, a climate change nongovernmental organization (NGO).

Europe was already halfway to that goal as of March this year but the energy crunch has led some power producers to ask Russia for greater supplies of coal as well as gas, while API2 Rotterdam coal futures - a benchmark price reference for coal imported into northwest Europe - rose $80 per metric tonne in September and passed $230 per metric tonne.

Coal stocks have also rallied as demand has increased, with European producers turning to coal as a result of the energy crisis.

Full story

3) UK turns to coal as low wind output increases power prices
Bloomberg, 11 October 2021

U.K. power prices rose after a coal power plant switched on Monday to make up for a shortfall in wind generation and limited flows on two power cables to Ireland. 

Britain is set to end the use of coal within three years and to make power generation fossil fuel-free by 2035. For now the nation is still reliant on coal when the wind drops or demand increases and this winter is set to be even tighter than grid operator National Grid Plc expected. 

High gas prices are making coal generation more profitable and capacity cuts on two interconnectors to Ireland are limiting one source of potential imports. The Irish network operator has cited “system security reasons” for restrictions. 

“We’re already seeing in times of tightness in interconnected countries that imports to the U.K are constrained,” Adam Lewis partner at Hartree Solutions said. “This differs from National Grid’s Winter outlook assumptions that the U.K. will always be able to incentivize imports.”...

The nation doesn’t use coal all the time but it is needed when markets are tight. National Grid asked Uniper to switch on a unit at its Ratcliffe coal-fired power plant to help make up the shortfall in wind. The U.K. has burned 2 terawatt-hours of coal this year, about 2% of total power generation, according to data from Fraunhofer ISE.  

U.K. wind output dropped as low as 4,416 megawatt on Monday, down from high of 13,396 megawatt reached on Tuesday last week, according to National Grid data. The forecast looks set to decline to Wednesday.....

4) Energy crisis pushes Serbia to keep coal power, president say
Bloomberg, 9 October 2021 

Serbia won’t phase out coal-fired power plants anytime soon as it needs them to deal with the current energy crunch, President Aleksandar Vucic said, defying European pressure to speed up its energy transition to cleaner fuels.

More than two-thirds of Serbia’s annual production of 35 terrawatt-hours comes from thermal plants, while the rest stems mostly from hydro- and wind-powered facilities. Serbia needs to reduce emissions to meet requirements for joining the European Union. The nation’s aging thermal plants are fueled by lignite, the dirtiest type of coal.

The recent surge in energy prices is hurting industrial production and preventing the country from giving up on coal-fired plants, Vucic told reporters Saturday in the capital, Belgrade.

“We actually need to secure much bigger amounts of power in order to have full energy security,” he said. “We were smart not to destroy our resources,” such as the Communist-era Kolubara and Kostolac plants and their open-pit mines, he said.

Full story

5) Net Zero heralds the demise of British manufacturing as glassmakers threaten to move oversea
The Daily Telegraph, 11 October 2021

Manufacturers warn spiralling gas prices could force them out of the UK and lead to longer waiting times for materials

Households are braced for the cost of renovating their home to surge amid warnings that spiralling energy prices will force glassmakers to shift production overseas.

Manufacturers are set to make a decision within days on whether UK production facilities should be shuttered and more glass made abroad and imported into Britain, industry body British Glass said.

Some glassmakers have seen gas prices surge up to 10 times higher than usual, with costs already being passed on to customers.

The industry has been among the energy-intensive sectors calling for support, with the introduction of a price cap being mooted by businesses as a potential solution

Prices are capped for consumers but not industries. 

Dave Dalton, chief executive of British Glass, said:

"Fundamentally businesses are going to vanish offshore, and a lot of these businesses are controlled from elsewhere in the world. 

"We could see names that we know in the glass industry move out of the UK quite easily because it's not viable to manufacture here. We need immediate intervention, not across the board, but to certain companies to help them over the bump."

Builders warned that moving manufacturing out of the UK would lead to higher costs for people renovating their homes and longer waiting times for materials.... 

6) Benny Peiser: There's enough natural gas in the UK for about 50 years, but the Govt has banned using it
GB News, 11 October 2021

Click on image to watch the interview

 

7) Tone-deaf ministers to announce plans to hike gas bills by £159 despite soaring energy costs
The Sun, 12 October 2021

 TONE-DEAF ministers will next week announce plans to hike gas bills by £159, The Sun can reveal.

Despite soaring energy costs and factories preparing to shutter this winter, Boris Johnson will double down on his controversial Net Zero Strategy ahead of next month’s COP26 climate summit.

The PM will argue that electricity is kept artificially expensive, hitting efforts to get people to switch to electric cars and central heating

Despite soaring energy costs and factories preparing to shutter this winter, Boris Johnson will double down on his controversial Net Zero Strategy

And central to it will be the controversial Heating and Boiler strategy that will seek to make electricity cheaper and gas more expensive over the next 15 years.

It will:

* BAN new gas boilers being installed after 2035, with Brits handed subsidies of between £4,000 and £7,000 to install expensive electric heat pumps.

* UNVEIL how firms and households will be encouraged or forced to switch to cleaner energy supplies - with green levies currently whacked on leccy bills switched to gas.

* DELAY a decision on replacing the gas network with controversial hydrogen to heat homes has been delayed until at least 2026 amid safety concerns.

The PM will argue that electricity - which is the cleanest it has ever been - is kept artificially expensive, hitting efforts to get people to switch to electric cars and central heating.

But insiders say it will take years of listening exercises and legislation before the green levies currently slapped on electricity can be moved over to gas bills.

The average green surcharge paid on household electricity bills is £159, with the money used to invest in renewable power generation and subsidise the poorest households' bills.....

 
 

8) Ross Clark: Our energy policy is a lose-lose, exporting carbon emissions to China at the expense of British industry
The Daily Telegraph, 11 October 2021

The worst thing about the impending closure of steel works, glass works and other factories due to high energy costs is that in a year’s time the government will be crowing about what a success it all was. Ignoring the lost output, workers laid off, and the depressing effect on Britain’s remaining industrial areas, ministers will look at the figures for UK carbon emissions - which will inevitably plunge as the smokestacks go cool - and say: what a great job we are doing in the fight against climate change.

How can I be so sure that the government will be so blinkered? Because that is how ministers already behave. Over the next few weeks in the lead-up to COP26 we will be told ad nauseum that the UK has cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 43 per cent since 1990. What millions don’t like telling us so much is one of the main reasons for the fall: that we have offshored our emissions. We have lost a lot of our heavy industry and are importing a lot more manufactured goods instead – thanks in part to climate policies pushing up energy prices for UK industry way above the levels paid by overseas competitors.

The most-quoted figures for UK carbon emissions only include ‘territorial emissions’ - i.e. those physically spewed out within the United Kingdom. It ignores shipping, aviation and emissions from farms and factories elsewhere in the world producing food and industrial goods for UK consumers. When these inconvenient caveats are included, the fall in UK emissions is a lot less impressive: 26 per cent since 1997, rather than the often-quoted 38 per cent for territorial emissions. One of the main reasons for this is that emissions associated with imports from China have soared by 64 per cent over that period. In the meantime, the share of the UK economy made up by manufacturing has fallen from 16.8 percent to 9.9 percent.

High UK energy prices, inflated by green levies, are not the only reason for the relative decline of UK manufacturing. Labour, too, is a lot cheaper in South East Asia than in Britain. But they are a large part of the story. Energy-intensive UK manufacturers must pay the Climate Change Levy, the Renewables Obligation and the Emissions Trading Scheme.

Following warnings of what these costs were doing to UK industry, the government did start providing some support for energy-intensive industries in 2013. It says, for example, that it has provided £480 million in help towards energy costs to the steel industry alone in the past eight years. Yet it isn’t enough to make up for the huge differential in energy prices between Britain and most of the rest of the world. Electricity prices for extra-large consumers in the first half of 2020 were 84 per cent higher than the median price in the EU.

Needless to say, it is easy to force carbon-intensive industries from Britain by jacking up energy prices for industrial users. But to what purpose? It certainly isn’t helping the planet. Close a factory in Britain - where electricity comes mostly from gas, nuclear and renewables - and transfer production to China, where much electricity is still produced by far dirtier coal, and you have increased emissions.

What is so depressing is that no political party wants to stand up for UK industry any more. We have a Conservative party which chirps about levelling up communities in the Midlands and North - while driving away jobs by pushing up energy prices. Yet opposition parties want an even faster transition to Net Zero, at whatever cost to UK industry.

How ridiculous to hear Labour’s shadow business secretary Ed Miliband this morning complaining about the government’s ‘failed energy policy’ - unless it is a different Ed Miliband from the one who pushed the Climate Change Act through Parliament in 2008, tightening the carbon reduction target at the last minute without any thought as to the implications.

In the rush for politicians to prove themselves greener than thou, UK industry sadly finds itself nearly friendless. Meanwhile, emissions on the other side of the world continue unabated.

9) New study confirms Sun/Cosmic-Ray climate connection 
Net Zero Watch, 12 October 2021
 
Dr David Whitehouse, Science editor

A new study published in Nature Scientific Reports by researchers at the Danish National Space Institute at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem suggests that the Sun’s activity in screening cosmic rays affects clouds and, ultimately, the Earth’s energy budget with concomitant climatic effects.

 

This research, by Henrik Svensmark, Jacob Svensmark, Martin Bødker Enghoff, and Nir Shaviv supports 25 years of discoveries that point to a significant role for cosmic rays in climate change. In particular, it connects observable variations in clouds and Earth’s energy budget to Copenhagen laboratory experiments and theory, showing how cosmic rays help make aerosols and accelerate their growth to become cloud condensation nuclei and ultimately clouds.

Eruptions on the Sun screen the Earth from galactic cosmic rays – energetic particles raining down on our planet from exploded stars. “The Sun carries out fantastic natural experiments that allow us to test our ideas about cosmic ray effects on the atmosphere,” professor Henrik Svensmark, lead author of the study told the GWPF.

Solar explosions produce magnetised gas that sweeps past the Earth reducing the cosmic ray flux reaching us. These events are called Forbush decreases taking their name from the American physicist Scott E. Forbush, who
first noticed them more than 80 years ago. They lead to a temporarily lower production of small aerosols – molecular clusters in the air – that normally grow to seed the water droplets of low-level clouds. This, in turn, reduces the cloud cover which is known to affect climate.

The recent breakthrough is that the effect on the Earth’s energy budget has been quantified using satellite observations from the CERES instrument on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites.

The observational data indicate that the Earth absorbs almost 2 Watts per square metre additional energy within 4 to 6 days of the cosmic-ray minimum. Such a large effect is a major surprise since the general consensus of the climate community, recently expressed in the 2021 released IPCC report AR6 (chapter 7.3.4.5), is that, “… the GCR [galactic cosmic rays] effect on CCN [cloud condensation nuclei] is too weak to have any detectable effect on climate and no robust association was found between GCR and cloudiness. … There is high confidence that GCRs contribute a negligible ERF [effective radiative forcing] over the period 1750 to 2019.”

These new results show the IPCC’s conclusion will need to be reassessed. Two Watts per square metre can be compared with the IPCC report’s estimate of solar effective radiative forcing over the period 1750 to 2019 of only 0.01 Watts per square metre (obtained by only considering solar irradiance changes).

“We now have simultaneous observations of decreases cosmic rays, aerosols, clouds, and the energy budget” says professor Nir Shaviv.

The solar effects in this study are too short-lived to have a lasting effect on the climate, but they point the way to research that could uncover how the mechanism works on longer time scales. “It could be that the effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – the so-called climate sensitivity – might be smaller than is deduced from climate models when this effect is taken into account,” adds Professor Svensmark.

Feedback david.whitehouse@thegwpf.com

10) And finally: In opposition the Tories sound like the GWPF
The Daily Telegraph, 11 October 2021

Energy bills could be forced up by another £800 and homes rendered “unsellable” by the Scottish Government’s controversial plan to force home owners to rip out their gas boilers, an official consultation on the scheme has warned.

An analysis of responses on the new Heat in Buildings strategy, unveiled by the SNP-Green coalition government last week, cited warnings that moving to “net zero” could add between £200 and £800 per year to utility bills.

With the majority of homes reliant on gas, it said that the mass deployment of zero-emissions heating systems “could result in considerable fuel cost increases”, tipping thousands of people into fuel poverty.

The analysis highlighted the financial burden on households, and particularly the elderly, of having to pay thousands of pounds to replace their gas boilers with low-emissions systems such as heat pumps.

House prices could also take a hit from the scheme, the report warned, “with some properties becoming unsellable if high-cost refurbishments are not completed”.

“It was suggested that mortgage lenders will need to be consulted as the changes could result in properties on which a mortgage cannot be raised,” the report said.

It said some home owners could be pushed into negative equity if it is not cost effective to renovate their homes, creating a “two-tier” housing market with other properties that are “easier and cheaper to improve”.

The Scottish Government report also cited warnings “that there could be a substantial and sustained consumer backlash” against the plan, especially among “early adopters” of the new heating technologies who face “disproportionately higher costs”.

Although many respondents to the consultation backed the scheme, there were concerns about the SNP-Green coalition using Scots as guinea pigs as “it implies that consumers will be used unwittingly as part of the learning process”.

The warnings emerged in a 267-page analysis of the responses to a public consultation on the scheme, which was conducted between February and April.

Patrick Harvie, the co-leader of the Scottish Greens, announced last week that more than a million homes must be converted to “zero emissions heat” by 2030 to meet the country’s greenhouse gas targets.

All buildings are to be converted to “zero emissions” by 2045 at a total cost of £33 billion. However, Mr Harvie said the Scottish Government would provide an initial contribution of only £1.8 billion.

He repeatedly failed to specify how much of the remaining £31 billion would fall on home owners already struggling with rising domestic bills. ...

‘A triple-whammy of bad news’

Liam Kerr, the Scottish Tories’ shadow cabinet secretary for net zero, energy and transport, said: “The SNP-Green Government seems determined to hit homeowners with a triple whammy of bad news.

“Home owners will find the coalition’s imposition of rocketing bills, a decline in property values, and the threat of their homes becoming unsellable completely unacceptable.

“They are the ones who will pay the price for Patrick Harvie’s ill-thought out and potentially damaging strategy. It is typical that the devil is in the detail of these plans, despite the Green minister’s attempts to spin a positive picture last week.

“Everyone recognises the need to achieve net zero, but the SNP-Green Government must be completely upfront about the significant impact their plans could have on Scottish homeowners.”

The London-based Net Zero Watch (formerly Global Warming Policy Foundation - GWPF) is a campaign group set up to highlight and discuss the serious implications of expensive and poorly considered climate change policies. The Net Zero Watch newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.netzerowatch.com.