In this newsletter:
1) Hungary instructing schools to switch to wood-burning
Daily News Hungary, 29 July 2022
2) German cities impose cold showers and turn off lights amid Russian gas crisis
The Guardian, 29 July 2022
3) UK street lights could be dimmed ‘in Germany-style blackout’ to save energy
Metro News, 29 July 2022
4) 40% of UK households could be drawn into fuel poverty by soaring energy prices this winter
Sky News, 28 July 2022
5) Energy crisis reckoning awaits new Prime Minister
Politics Home, 29 July 2022
6) As the lights go out in Europe, Britain must forge a new energy policy
Reaction, 30 July 2022
7) Fraser Myers: The lights are going out across Europe
Spiked, 27 July 2022
Spiked, 27 July 2022
8) Paris faces an even colder, darker winter than Berlin
Bloomberg, 29 July 2022
Bloomberg, 29 July 2022
9) Francis Menton: What the future holds for our climate leaders
Manhattan Contrarian, 28 July 2022
Manhattan Contrarian, 28 July 2022
Full details:
1) Hungary instructing schools to switch to wood-burning
Daily News Hungary, 29 July 2022
Hungary's education ministry is instructing educational institutions to immediately assess the feasibility of switching from gas to wood-burning as soon as possible by purchasing stoves.
This is according to the letter received by the school districts, which was obtained by Klubrádió. Tamás Totyik, the vice-president of the Teachers’ Trade Union, was stunned by the idea. The conversion is pointless and very expensive, because wood will be as expensive as gas.
He says this will take us back to a time when children had to carry wood to school. Members of the PSZ suspect that the Ministry may have delayed the publication of the school year order because of a planned carbon break for the winter period.
Switching to wood heating is not only a step backwards compared to gas heating, but also involves costs that the school district cannot afford, said energy expert Attila Holoda, as can be read in the article of Klubrádió. Firewood is already a scarce resource. Using wood will also increase the ecological footprint, Holoda underscored.
2) German cities impose cold showers and turn off lights amid Russian gas crisis
The Guardian, 29 July 2022
Daily News Hungary, 29 July 2022
Hungary's education ministry is instructing educational institutions to immediately assess the feasibility of switching from gas to wood-burning as soon as possible by purchasing stoves.
This is according to the letter received by the school districts, which was obtained by Klubrádió. Tamás Totyik, the vice-president of the Teachers’ Trade Union, was stunned by the idea. The conversion is pointless and very expensive, because wood will be as expensive as gas.
He says this will take us back to a time when children had to carry wood to school. Members of the PSZ suspect that the Ministry may have delayed the publication of the school year order because of a planned carbon break for the winter period.
Switching to wood heating is not only a step backwards compared to gas heating, but also involves costs that the school district cannot afford, said energy expert Attila Holoda, as can be read in the article of Klubrádió. Firewood is already a scarce resource. Using wood will also increase the ecological footprint, Holoda underscored.
2) German cities impose cold showers and turn off lights amid Russian gas crisis
The Guardian, 29 July 2022
Cities in Germany are switching off spotlights on public monuments, turning off fountains, and imposing cold showers on municipal swimming pools and sports halls, as the country races to reduce its energy consumption in the face of a looming Russian gas crisis.
Hanover in north-west Germany on Wednesday became the first large city to announce energy-saving measures, including turning off hot water in the showers and bathrooms of city-run buildings and leisure centres.
Municipal buildings in the Lower Saxony state capital will only be heated from 1 October to 31 March, at no more than 20C (68F) room temperature, and ban the use of mobile air conditioning units and fan heaters. Nurseries, schools, care homes and hospitals are to be exempt from the saving measures.
“The situation is unpredictable,” said the city’s mayaor, Belit Onay, of the Green party. “Every kilowatt hour counts, and protecting critical infrastructure has to be a priority.”
Hanover’s 15% savings target is in line with the reductions the European Commission this week urged member states to make to ensure they can cope in the event of a total gas cutoff from Russia. Germany, which is more reliant on Russian gas imports than other European countries, is under pressure to lead the way.
In Berlin, the German capital, about 200 historic monuments and municipal buildings were shrouded in darkness on Wednesday night as the city switched off spotlights to save electricity. Monuments previously lit up at night include the Victory Column in Tiergarten park, the Memorial Church on Breitscheidplatz and the Jewish Museum.
“In the face of the war against Ukraine and Russia’s energy threats it is vital that we handle our energy as carefully as possible,” said Berlin’s senator for the environment, Bettina Jarasch.
Germany uses most of its gas imports to heat homes and power its large industry. But while an energy emergency plan initiated in June enables utility firms to pass on high gas prices to customers, most private households in Germany pay their gas bills in set advance payments and have yet to directly experience the kind of dramatic increases that would change consumer behaviour.
On Thursday, Germany’s government confirmed that a planned gas surcharge on customers could be much higher than previously expected, to save energy companies from going bankrupt in the coming months.
“We can’t say yet how much gas will cost in November, but the bitter news is it’s definitely a few hundred euros per household,” said the economy minister, Robert Habeck.
5) Energy crisis reckoning awaits new Prime Minister
Politics Home, 29 July 2022
Hanover in north-west Germany on Wednesday became the first large city to announce energy-saving measures, including turning off hot water in the showers and bathrooms of city-run buildings and leisure centres.
Municipal buildings in the Lower Saxony state capital will only be heated from 1 October to 31 March, at no more than 20C (68F) room temperature, and ban the use of mobile air conditioning units and fan heaters. Nurseries, schools, care homes and hospitals are to be exempt from the saving measures.
“The situation is unpredictable,” said the city’s mayaor, Belit Onay, of the Green party. “Every kilowatt hour counts, and protecting critical infrastructure has to be a priority.”
Hanover’s 15% savings target is in line with the reductions the European Commission this week urged member states to make to ensure they can cope in the event of a total gas cutoff from Russia. Germany, which is more reliant on Russian gas imports than other European countries, is under pressure to lead the way.
In Berlin, the German capital, about 200 historic monuments and municipal buildings were shrouded in darkness on Wednesday night as the city switched off spotlights to save electricity. Monuments previously lit up at night include the Victory Column in Tiergarten park, the Memorial Church on Breitscheidplatz and the Jewish Museum.
“In the face of the war against Ukraine and Russia’s energy threats it is vital that we handle our energy as carefully as possible,” said Berlin’s senator for the environment, Bettina Jarasch.
Germany uses most of its gas imports to heat homes and power its large industry. But while an energy emergency plan initiated in June enables utility firms to pass on high gas prices to customers, most private households in Germany pay their gas bills in set advance payments and have yet to directly experience the kind of dramatic increases that would change consumer behaviour.
On Thursday, Germany’s government confirmed that a planned gas surcharge on customers could be much higher than previously expected, to save energy companies from going bankrupt in the coming months.
“We can’t say yet how much gas will cost in November, but the bitter news is it’s definitely a few hundred euros per household,” said the economy minister, Robert Habeck.
3) UK street lights could be dimmed ‘in Germany-style blackout’ to save energy
Metro News, 29 July 2022
Metro News, 29 July 2022
Britain faces being plunged into Germany-style blackouts as the energy crisis spirals, experts warn.
Street lights could be dimmed or switched off, and central heating use slashed in public buildings in a bid to save electricity.
Parts of the UK could follow Berlin’s lead, which has seen blacked out overnight lights for around 200 historic monuments and municipal buildings, including the city’s cathedral, Old Palace and Charlottenburg Palace.
Hanover has also let its fountains run dry after Russia’s state-run supplier Gazprom cut gas flow to Europe via Germany from the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.
Robert Buckley, from energy analysts Cornwall Insight, admitted it ‘might make a difference’ at ‘the margin’ if the UK takes similar action.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning: ‘I think what you raise is a really good point, and we’re in danger of running into this kind of thing involuntarily, because there is also a cost of business during a crisis here, because of these energy cost increases.
‘We will go into a period where energy prices for business may be five, six, seven times where they’ve been historically – and what you’ll end up there is that businesses can’t afford to run and actually businesses might themselves decide not to heat swimming pools or whatever.
‘So I think that the fact that the Germans are having this discussion is constructive for them and it’s a conversation that actually we should be having more of over here.’
Mobile air conditioning units and fan heaters are now banned in municipal buildings in Hanover.
Officials have also put a stop to hot water in public buildings, swimming pools and gyms and turned off lights in museums.
Heating is set to be permitted again from October to March, but only to a 20°C maximum.
Other cities dimming street lights include Weimar, Mainz – where usage has been halved – and Augsburg, which is considering turning off some traffic lights.
4) 40% of UK households could be drawn into fuel poverty by soaring energy prices this winter
Sky News, 28 July 2022
Street lights could be dimmed or switched off, and central heating use slashed in public buildings in a bid to save electricity.
Parts of the UK could follow Berlin’s lead, which has seen blacked out overnight lights for around 200 historic monuments and municipal buildings, including the city’s cathedral, Old Palace and Charlottenburg Palace.
Hanover has also let its fountains run dry after Russia’s state-run supplier Gazprom cut gas flow to Europe via Germany from the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.
Robert Buckley, from energy analysts Cornwall Insight, admitted it ‘might make a difference’ at ‘the margin’ if the UK takes similar action.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning: ‘I think what you raise is a really good point, and we’re in danger of running into this kind of thing involuntarily, because there is also a cost of business during a crisis here, because of these energy cost increases.
‘We will go into a period where energy prices for business may be five, six, seven times where they’ve been historically – and what you’ll end up there is that businesses can’t afford to run and actually businesses might themselves decide not to heat swimming pools or whatever.
‘So I think that the fact that the Germans are having this discussion is constructive for them and it’s a conversation that actually we should be having more of over here.’
Mobile air conditioning units and fan heaters are now banned in municipal buildings in Hanover.
Officials have also put a stop to hot water in public buildings, swimming pools and gyms and turned off lights in museums.
Heating is set to be permitted again from October to March, but only to a 20°C maximum.
Other cities dimming street lights include Weimar, Mainz – where usage has been halved – and Augsburg, which is considering turning off some traffic lights.
4) 40% of UK households could be drawn into fuel poverty by soaring energy prices this winter
Sky News, 28 July 2022
E.ON chief executive Michael Lewis says he has never seen prices rise so high and so quickly during his 30 years in the industry.
Up to 40% of households could be drawn into fuel poverty by soaring energy prices this winter, the boss of one of the UK's largest energy providers has told Sky News.
Rising wholesale gas prices, fuelled by the war in Ukraine, mean the domestic energy price cap is forecast to increase from the current £1,971 for typical usage, to up to £3,420 in October, and as high as £3,850 in January.
Michael Lewis, the chief executive of E.ON, which supplies gas and electricity to almost four million households, said that without more direct government help millions of households will be spending more than 10% of their income on energy, the definition of fuel poverty.
"We called for more intervention earlier in the year as we could see up to 40% of our customer base going into fuel poverty," he said.
"We would expect prices to be above £3,000, possibly up to £3,500, depending on how wholesale prices develop.
"Beyond that into January, we would certainly expect the high wholesale prices to feed into the price cap after Christmas and probably a further increase.
"So there's no doubt about it, these prices are unprecedented.
Full story
Up to 40% of households could be drawn into fuel poverty by soaring energy prices this winter, the boss of one of the UK's largest energy providers has told Sky News.
Rising wholesale gas prices, fuelled by the war in Ukraine, mean the domestic energy price cap is forecast to increase from the current £1,971 for typical usage, to up to £3,420 in October, and as high as £3,850 in January.
Michael Lewis, the chief executive of E.ON, which supplies gas and electricity to almost four million households, said that without more direct government help millions of households will be spending more than 10% of their income on energy, the definition of fuel poverty.
"We called for more intervention earlier in the year as we could see up to 40% of our customer base going into fuel poverty," he said.
"We would expect prices to be above £3,000, possibly up to £3,500, depending on how wholesale prices develop.
"Beyond that into January, we would certainly expect the high wholesale prices to feed into the price cap after Christmas and probably a further increase.
"So there's no doubt about it, these prices are unprecedented.
Full story
5) Energy crisis reckoning awaits new Prime Minister
Politics Home, 29 July 2022
“What I've been seeing on the doorstep for the last six months is fear, absolute fear in people's eyes. They are terrified as to what is coming down the line, they don't know how they're going to pay it."
As the race to replace Boris Johnson risks being overshadowed by the looming cost of living crisis, Tory MPs Richard Holden and Alec Shelbrooke, supporters of the two party leadership contenders, join PoliticsHome's Alain Tolhurst and Caitlin Doherty to talk about radical energy plans, blue-on-blue attacks and the hustings between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss.
Holden, the MP for North West Durham, is backing Sunak in the contest, and said the former Chancellor had a track record of policies helping people through the pandemic and beyond.
“But you're absolutely right that now it looks like that's becoming baked into the system, and bills could even go higher, which is the real concern for people,” he said.
“So that's why Rishi’s already said that as soon as bills now hit £3,000 we'll cut the VAT on them.”
There has been criticism from some Conservatives that Sunak has not pledged other immediate tax cuts, but Holden said he didn’t want to risk spiralling interest rates, which will be “the real killer for families”.
“The average person in my constituency with a £125,000 mortgage, they would have to pay another £500 pounds a month on their mortgage if interest rates went up to say six or 7%”, he said.
“That would absolutely take them over the edge.”
Shelbrooke is supporting Truss, the Foreign Secretary, and the MP for Elmet and Rothwell talked up her plans to remove temporarily the green tariffs on energy bills, as well as reducing National Insurance and VAT.
But he said with predictions the energy rice cap will hit £3,850 in January, with bills for that month alone hitting £500, we are “in a situation now all of that is almost just tinkering at the edges”.
Shelbrooke added: “It may be that we have to suddenly get really radical. Now, I wouldn't want to suggest that this is a policy of Liz Truss, or of Rishi Sunak, but there are countries in Europe – Lithuania as an example – who buy in their gas wholesale by the government, and then the companies sell it out.
“So it's a similar model to what we're doing with the railways, and it may just be that we get to the point where the government has to say, we will buy the gas wholesale, the companies will sell it out, but it's not going above the price cap that currently exists, and the government would have to subsidise that cost.”
“Alec and I in the same ballpark on some of this stuff,” Holden said in response.
“We are going to have to have radical thinking, I think you saw that actually in the TV debate before it was cut short the other day, both candidates said we're going to have to look at fracking,” he added.
To get through this winter we're “going to have to look in a very radical way at energy supply”, Holden said.
Shelbrooke said he himself is “not sure” how his family will be able to pay if bills energy costs continue to skyrocket.
“I've been on the doorstep for decades, and you always get people moaning at you on the doorstep [...] that's politics," the MP explained.
“What I've been seeing on the doorstep for the last six months is fear, absolute fear in people's eyes.
“They are terrified as to what is coming down the line, they don't know how they're going to pay it.
“To be honest, I'm not sure how in my family we're going to pay if it carries on going up this road."
6) As the lights go out in Europe, Britain must forge a new energy policy
Reaction, 30 July 2022
As the race to replace Boris Johnson risks being overshadowed by the looming cost of living crisis, Tory MPs Richard Holden and Alec Shelbrooke, supporters of the two party leadership contenders, join PoliticsHome's Alain Tolhurst and Caitlin Doherty to talk about radical energy plans, blue-on-blue attacks and the hustings between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss.
Holden, the MP for North West Durham, is backing Sunak in the contest, and said the former Chancellor had a track record of policies helping people through the pandemic and beyond.
“But you're absolutely right that now it looks like that's becoming baked into the system, and bills could even go higher, which is the real concern for people,” he said.
“So that's why Rishi’s already said that as soon as bills now hit £3,000 we'll cut the VAT on them.”
There has been criticism from some Conservatives that Sunak has not pledged other immediate tax cuts, but Holden said he didn’t want to risk spiralling interest rates, which will be “the real killer for families”.
“The average person in my constituency with a £125,000 mortgage, they would have to pay another £500 pounds a month on their mortgage if interest rates went up to say six or 7%”, he said.
“That would absolutely take them over the edge.”
Shelbrooke is supporting Truss, the Foreign Secretary, and the MP for Elmet and Rothwell talked up her plans to remove temporarily the green tariffs on energy bills, as well as reducing National Insurance and VAT.
But he said with predictions the energy rice cap will hit £3,850 in January, with bills for that month alone hitting £500, we are “in a situation now all of that is almost just tinkering at the edges”.
Shelbrooke added: “It may be that we have to suddenly get really radical. Now, I wouldn't want to suggest that this is a policy of Liz Truss, or of Rishi Sunak, but there are countries in Europe – Lithuania as an example – who buy in their gas wholesale by the government, and then the companies sell it out.
“So it's a similar model to what we're doing with the railways, and it may just be that we get to the point where the government has to say, we will buy the gas wholesale, the companies will sell it out, but it's not going above the price cap that currently exists, and the government would have to subsidise that cost.”
“Alec and I in the same ballpark on some of this stuff,” Holden said in response.
“We are going to have to have radical thinking, I think you saw that actually in the TV debate before it was cut short the other day, both candidates said we're going to have to look at fracking,” he added.
To get through this winter we're “going to have to look in a very radical way at energy supply”, Holden said.
Shelbrooke said he himself is “not sure” how his family will be able to pay if bills energy costs continue to skyrocket.
“I've been on the doorstep for decades, and you always get people moaning at you on the doorstep [...] that's politics," the MP explained.
“What I've been seeing on the doorstep for the last six months is fear, absolute fear in people's eyes.
“They are terrified as to what is coming down the line, they don't know how they're going to pay it.
“To be honest, I'm not sure how in my family we're going to pay if it carries on going up this road."
6) As the lights go out in Europe, Britain must forge a new energy policy
Reaction, 30 July 2022
There is nothing like a war to bring people face to face with reality. One of the consequences of this crisis is that it ends all controversy over net zero, certainly the ambitious timing of the target, since the resources no longer exist for implementing it.
“Put that light out!” Wartime conditions are returning to parts of Europe, as they transition from lockdown to blackout, after Vladimir Putin cut the flow of gas from the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 20 per cent of capacity. The city of Hanover, an icon of European prosperity and lifestyle, which was in a political union with Britain from 1714 to 1837, is reducing energy output by turning off the lighting on public buildings and cutting hot water supplies, limiting room temperatures to a maximum of 20C and reducing the times that heating will be on in municipal buildings from October to March.
Other German cities, including Munich, Leipzig, Cologne and Nuremberg, are making similar provisions, while Berlin’s darkened public buildings recall wartime restrictions. Officially, the aim is to meet the EU demand for a 15 per cent cut in gas use among member states, but in fact, Germany is a special case – in energy terms, a basket case – and author of its own misfortunes.
Over the past decade there was much chatter about the “legacy” of Angela Merkel. Well, here it is: the blacked-out cities and businesses contending with the worst energy crisis in Europe are the legacy of Merkel’s insane reliance on Russian gas supplies to light and power Germany. This is what happens when a highly developed industrial society puts its energy supplies at the mercy of a ruthless, war-mongering dictator. There is no excuse for Merkel: she was not crept up upon by the psychotic successor of a reasonable statesman, Putin was already in power when she subjected her country’s energy provision to his whim.
France is in no better shape. Unlike Merkel, France eagerly adopted nuclear power; Fukushima held no terrors for the entitled Énarques. Unfortunately, the largely state-owned French energy authority, Électricité de France (EDF), appears to have maintained its nuclear power stations to Chernobyl standards, so that only 26 of its 57 nuclear reactors are running, with the majority out of action and undergoing emergency maintenance after cracked pipes were discovered.
So, at this crisis point, France is relying largely on gas-fired plants, hydro and unpredictable wind power, as well as imports. No wonder Emmanuel Macron spends much of his waking hours on the telephone to Vladimir Putin. This month the French grid made an emergency request to Britain for extra power – at the height of summer. The French energy crisis is aggravating soaring prices in the European market and, by extension, the eurozone crisis: it seems probable that inflation has embedded itself to become endemic in the eurozone economy.
The whole European Heath Robinson contraption is endangered, long-term, by the perfect storm now assailing it. Soon, anyone who claims Britain’s woes are due to Brexit will simply be told to look across the Channel. If we had remained in the EU, our problems would have been compounded by a compulsory 15 per cent reduction in gas, i.e. energy, use – for the altruistic purpose of bailing out improvident, incompetent Germany.
That does not mean we are immune to the pressures on energy prices being generated on mainland Europe. The UK is fortunate in relying on Russia for only 4-6 per cent of gas supply, but UK wholesale prices, e.g. for next-month delivery, are up to 12 per cent higher as a result of Putin’s Nord Stream 1 game-playing. Britain has made itself vulnerable to rising prices by closing the gas storage facility at Rough on the Yorkshire coast. So, we are making a fast buck by exporting record volumes of gas to Europe that should be stored for the winter in the UK.
The prospects for next winter are rapidly becoming apocalyptic. The energy price cap is forecast to hit an average £3,500 by October, the autumn increase amounting to 74 per cent; inflation is already headed for 11 per cent, but gas price rises will boost it higher. By January, the monthly household energy bill is predicted to reach £500. That is entering life-or-death territory for some of our citizens, while energy costs could put an end to businesses that survived the pandemic lockdown, but can take no more punishment.
Whoever becomes prime minister in September will face a crisis as demanding as war – partly derived from war, in the Ukraine. The first task should be to appoint a dedicated Secretary of State for Energy, exclusively focused on the crisis and reporting to the prime minister and cabinet (of which membership would be a necessary attribute of the post) weekly.
This Secretary of State for Energy should be separate from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and focused exclusively on the state of energy supplies, with a remit to accelerate licences for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea and any other promising regions. We should also try to secure further supplies from reliable sources such as Norway. Lord Frost would seem a likely candidate for a post that would require its holder to do for energy today what Lord Beaverbrook did for aircraft production during the War.
A Secretary of State for Energy would need to review the promotion of nuclear power. Planning has been granted for Sizewell C, now investors are needed. But our greatest asset should be British skills and inventiveness. Our universities should be encouraged to prioritise hydrogen research and every other potential energy technology; even if only some of them work or are cost-effective, every avenue should be explored.
Although broad-based reduction in public spending is an essential reform of the incoming ministry, as in the first days of the pandemic an increase in support of households faced with unaffordable energy bills may be unavoidable. Liz Truss, our likeliest prime minister-in-waiting, seems to smell the coffee, with her pledge to suspend green levies on household bills for two years, though more relief than that will be needed.
Britain should not be facing an energy crisis. We are an island of coal set in a sea of oil. Every North Sea well that can practically be exploited should be brought on-stream, pace Nicola Sturgeon; oil licences are a reserved power. The whole smug, blinkered mentality that, in the interests of virtue-signalling, seeks prematurely to cut off our fossil fuel energy supplies, must be rejected.
Both Tory leadership candidates are committed to permitting fracking, where the local community does not object. Does such a community exist? Are we neglecting an important energy asset due to lack of education among a public relentlessly propagandised by green zealots?
Priorities need to be radically reviewed. Every element of energy bills related to green levies must be stripped out, regardless of the protests of lobby groups. In the current reality, hypothermia is a more immediate danger than global warming. All government and local authority extravagances must be pruned. We could even take a few lessons from European cities: why, in an unprecedented energy crisis, are our towns disfigured by acres of garish neon lighting?
There is nothing like a war to bring people face to face with reality. One of the consequences of this crisis is that it ends all controversy over net zero, certainly the ambitious timing of the target, since the resources no longer exist for implementing it.
We need to discover from neutral scientists the probable climate changes of the next three decades, as peculiar to Britain, and devise a bespoke response, rather than galloping ahead of the world in unaffordable gestures, beggaring ourselves and shredding our energy infrastructure while China opens ever more coal-fired power stations. Since the immediate cause of the current energy crisis is Vladimir Putin’s aggression, we should also invest heavily in his defeat by Ukraine.
7) Fraser Myers: The lights are going out across Europe
Spiked, 27 July 2022
The crippling energy rationing is an irrational, dangerous reaction to a crisis decades in the making. And they will leave a lot of ordinary Europeans out in the cold.
The EU’s 27 member states – all modern, advanced industrialised economies, some among the richest in the world – are about to start rationing their energy supplies. This week, at an extraordinary summit, EU members agreed to a European Commission proposal to slash their gas use by a punishing 15 per cent over the next eight months. From August 2022 to March 2023, the lamps will, quite literally, be going out all over Europe.
The immediate spur for this is the prospect of Russia limiting or even cutting off supplies of gas to the EU. According to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, even this worst-case, nightmare scenario is ‘likely’. European leaders were particularly spooked earlier this month when the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, which supplies Russian gas to Germany, had to be shut down for 10 days for repairs. They were afraid it would never reopen.
The EU’s punishing plan is designed to get Europe through the winter, should the Russians do the unthinkable and turn off the taps completely. If the crisis deepens, voluntary gas cuts could become mandatory. The European Commission of unelected technocrats has also explored the use of emergency protocols which could block any country from exercising a veto on mandatory gas cuts and would also prevent the European Parliament from having a say.
As Politico reported in the run-up to this week’s summit, European governments were ‘being asked to sign over their right to energy sovereignty’, in Brussels’ ‘most far-reaching power grab’ yet. And with some exemptions – for nations not connected to the EU’s gas and electricity networks – this is exactly what has happened. European countries now face crippling energy cuts – first self-inflicted, then potentially imposed by Brussels.
Yet in the eyes of the Brussels spin machine, this gas-rationing catastrophe is EU ‘solidarity’ and ‘unity’ in action. Or even, in the excitable words of European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans, a golden opportunity for Europeans to become ‘masters of our own energy security this and next winter’. This is through-the-looking-glass stuff.
It is hard to overstate the madness of all this. This should not be mistaken for a bold or selfless move to sanction Russia for its horrific invasion of Ukraine. The EU had already agreed to cut Russian gas imports by two-thirds back in March, and to ban 90 per cent of oil imports back in May. No, this plan is about slashing Europe’s use of gas, wherever it is from. It is about managing Europeans’ ‘demand’ for energy rather than fixing its supply.
And while all of Europe is dangerously dependent on Russian gas – with Russia supplying 40 per cent of imports last year – the main concern is Germany. Indeed, it is the world’s largest importer of natural gas, 55 per cent of which came from Russia last year. It is Germany that this plan really sets out to rescue.
Germany is already having to make drastic cutbacks to energy use. Town councils are dimming or turning off street lights and even traffic lights. Large landlords and housing associations have started turning down the heating on their residents and rationing their hot water. Some local authorities are considering setting up ‘warm rooms’ for elderly people to gather in the winter.
Even Germany’s much-vaunted industrial sector – powered largely by gas – is now facing the abyss. Germany now has a trade deficit for the first time in 30 years. Trade-union leaders fear the collapse of entire industries. Green Party economy minister Robert Habeck has warned of an impending ‘Lehman Brothers-style’ crisis, triggered by gas shortages, that could send shockwaves through the wider economy. And foreign minister Annalena Baerbock even said the government could be ‘busy’ this winter dealing with ‘popular uprisings’ (though she has since retracted this).
So clearly, Germany is in a deep crisis. And via the EU, it is asking (or strong-arming) its European neighbours to share some of the pain.
Some fellow member-states were quick to spot the irony in what is effectively an energy bailout of Germany. This is the same Germany that, during the Eurozone debt crisis of the 2010s, insisted that indebted countries had only themselves and their profligacy to blame. Bailouts were offered but strict austerity measures and so-called structural reforms were attached, which laid waste to the southern European economies. The economies of Greece, Italy and Spain have never recovered to their pre-2010 levels. As Spain’s energy minister put it, when hitting back against the proposals last week: ‘Unlike other countries [ie, Germany] we have not been living above our energy means.’ Spain was joined by a host of other southern countries in voicing public opposition to the energy-rationing plans. But, as the Spanish energy minister acknowledged, whatever her protestations, the core proposals were really ‘a fait accompli’.
Berlin usually rules in Brussels, after all. At this week’s council meeting, though southern Europe was able to draw some concessions, only Hungary actually voted against the plan.
Those southern Europeans are right to grumble, of course. Germany’s crisis is not just a product of bad luck. Germany has made a series of strategic mistakes going back decades – some of which are unforgivable and utterly inexplicable.
Like many in Europe, Germany misjudged Russia’s intentions. Indeed, even as President Putin’s tanks massed on the Ukrainian border, Germany still had every intention of pressing ahead with Nord Stream 2, a planned gas pipeline to Russia, which would have supplied a third of Germany’s gas needs for the next decade. This reliance on piped gas also means that, unlike other countries, like the Netherlands and France, Germany has no infrastructure for importing liquefied natural gas, which would allow it to buy gas from a broader range of countries.
And like many countries, Germany has attempted a disastrous transition to carbon-free energy. The intermittency problems that are inherent to renewable energy mean there are huge energy gaps to fill when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow. This creates a dependency on gas to fill in the gaps.
Most baffling of all has been Germany’s abandonment of nuclear power. Nuclear energy produces no carbon emissions, but it is still hated and feared by Germany’s green-leaning establishment. In fact, green thinking exercises such a tight grip on the German political class that the German government appears determined not to extend the lifespan of its nuclear power plants – even amid this once-in-a-century energy crisis, and even as it asks for energy-rationing ‘solidarity’ from other countries.
The crippling gas cuts to come are not a sign of European strength and solidarity. They are an irrational, dangerous reaction to a crisis decades in the making. And they will leave a lot of ordinary Europeans out in the cold.
While EDF has promised that at least some of its reactors will be back online in time for the colder months, the company has a nasty habit of over-promising and under-delivering. The severity of the winter could be key: Each degree Celsius the temperature drops below normal, French power demand surges by about 2.5 gigawatts an hour — equivalent to the output of two nuclear power stations.
During a late cold snap last April, the French grid was forced to issue a rare orange alert — the second highest — asking households and companies to “moderate their consumption.” Those alerts will become a staple this coming winter, and very likely will escalate to “red alerts” that indicate a risk of blackouts unless families and businesses reduce demand.
Electricity traders are taking the risk seriously. In the wholesale market, the benchmark one-year French baseload power contract has jumped to a record high of 507 euros ($512) per megawatt hour, well above German prices of 350 to 370 euros for the parallel contract. French retail consumers are protected for now thanks to a price cap, but businesses are fully exposed.
Come winter, it will get much worse. For December, baseload French power is trading above 1,000 euros, almost double German prices, while peakload power — typically in the evenings when families gather for dinner and the heating is on — is changing hands at more than 2,000 euros. In practice, that means traders expect French power demand may be so high relative to supply that so-called hourly prices will bump against the 4,000-euro limit set by the exchange many times in December.
The market, aware of what’s coming, is trying to kill consumption ahead of time, in an effort to avert blackouts. It’s a costly way of attempting to force electricity-intensive companies, such as smelters, to plan to shut down in December.
The French problem is spilling over into the rest of Europe, including the UK. EDF, long a source of national pride as well as low-cost electricity exports, is having to buy power to meet daily requirements. Earlier this month, the French grid made an emergency request to the British network for extra power — and that was in summer, when demand is low.
In the past, EDF only imported electricity on a net basis for a few days a year, if at all. For example, between 2014 and 2016, France didn’t import power on a single day. But as the nuclear troubles mounted, it’s relied increasingly on imports. Last year, it bought electricity from overseas for 78 days. So far this year, it has been forced to do so on a record 102 days.
France’s purchases put further pressure on a European electricity and gas market that’s already under stress. If French President Emmanuel Macron wants to help ease the European energy crisis, he needs to focus at home. Fixing EDF should be his top priority — well above his phone conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Paris has taken a first step, announcing the nationalization of the company at a cost of 10 billion euros, although not earlier than September. Puzzlingly, Macron has yet to bring in a new executive team. The company’s chief executive is set to depart, but perhaps not until March 2023. The rest of the senior team, including the executive in charge of nuclear power who has overseen the disastrous performance of the last couple of years, appear to be safe in their jobs for now. Macron also hasn’t curbed the influence of the trade unions within EDF — another perennial issue that’s stymied reform at the company.
Time is running out. Paris is delightful in the autumn and the winter; it’ll be much less attractive if the “City of Light” is forced to go dark.
“Put that light out!” Wartime conditions are returning to parts of Europe, as they transition from lockdown to blackout, after Vladimir Putin cut the flow of gas from the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 20 per cent of capacity. The city of Hanover, an icon of European prosperity and lifestyle, which was in a political union with Britain from 1714 to 1837, is reducing energy output by turning off the lighting on public buildings and cutting hot water supplies, limiting room temperatures to a maximum of 20C and reducing the times that heating will be on in municipal buildings from October to March.
Other German cities, including Munich, Leipzig, Cologne and Nuremberg, are making similar provisions, while Berlin’s darkened public buildings recall wartime restrictions. Officially, the aim is to meet the EU demand for a 15 per cent cut in gas use among member states, but in fact, Germany is a special case – in energy terms, a basket case – and author of its own misfortunes.
Over the past decade there was much chatter about the “legacy” of Angela Merkel. Well, here it is: the blacked-out cities and businesses contending with the worst energy crisis in Europe are the legacy of Merkel’s insane reliance on Russian gas supplies to light and power Germany. This is what happens when a highly developed industrial society puts its energy supplies at the mercy of a ruthless, war-mongering dictator. There is no excuse for Merkel: she was not crept up upon by the psychotic successor of a reasonable statesman, Putin was already in power when she subjected her country’s energy provision to his whim.
France is in no better shape. Unlike Merkel, France eagerly adopted nuclear power; Fukushima held no terrors for the entitled Énarques. Unfortunately, the largely state-owned French energy authority, Électricité de France (EDF), appears to have maintained its nuclear power stations to Chernobyl standards, so that only 26 of its 57 nuclear reactors are running, with the majority out of action and undergoing emergency maintenance after cracked pipes were discovered.
So, at this crisis point, France is relying largely on gas-fired plants, hydro and unpredictable wind power, as well as imports. No wonder Emmanuel Macron spends much of his waking hours on the telephone to Vladimir Putin. This month the French grid made an emergency request to Britain for extra power – at the height of summer. The French energy crisis is aggravating soaring prices in the European market and, by extension, the eurozone crisis: it seems probable that inflation has embedded itself to become endemic in the eurozone economy.
The whole European Heath Robinson contraption is endangered, long-term, by the perfect storm now assailing it. Soon, anyone who claims Britain’s woes are due to Brexit will simply be told to look across the Channel. If we had remained in the EU, our problems would have been compounded by a compulsory 15 per cent reduction in gas, i.e. energy, use – for the altruistic purpose of bailing out improvident, incompetent Germany.
That does not mean we are immune to the pressures on energy prices being generated on mainland Europe. The UK is fortunate in relying on Russia for only 4-6 per cent of gas supply, but UK wholesale prices, e.g. for next-month delivery, are up to 12 per cent higher as a result of Putin’s Nord Stream 1 game-playing. Britain has made itself vulnerable to rising prices by closing the gas storage facility at Rough on the Yorkshire coast. So, we are making a fast buck by exporting record volumes of gas to Europe that should be stored for the winter in the UK.
The prospects for next winter are rapidly becoming apocalyptic. The energy price cap is forecast to hit an average £3,500 by October, the autumn increase amounting to 74 per cent; inflation is already headed for 11 per cent, but gas price rises will boost it higher. By January, the monthly household energy bill is predicted to reach £500. That is entering life-or-death territory for some of our citizens, while energy costs could put an end to businesses that survived the pandemic lockdown, but can take no more punishment.
Whoever becomes prime minister in September will face a crisis as demanding as war – partly derived from war, in the Ukraine. The first task should be to appoint a dedicated Secretary of State for Energy, exclusively focused on the crisis and reporting to the prime minister and cabinet (of which membership would be a necessary attribute of the post) weekly.
This Secretary of State for Energy should be separate from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and focused exclusively on the state of energy supplies, with a remit to accelerate licences for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea and any other promising regions. We should also try to secure further supplies from reliable sources such as Norway. Lord Frost would seem a likely candidate for a post that would require its holder to do for energy today what Lord Beaverbrook did for aircraft production during the War.
A Secretary of State for Energy would need to review the promotion of nuclear power. Planning has been granted for Sizewell C, now investors are needed. But our greatest asset should be British skills and inventiveness. Our universities should be encouraged to prioritise hydrogen research and every other potential energy technology; even if only some of them work or are cost-effective, every avenue should be explored.
Although broad-based reduction in public spending is an essential reform of the incoming ministry, as in the first days of the pandemic an increase in support of households faced with unaffordable energy bills may be unavoidable. Liz Truss, our likeliest prime minister-in-waiting, seems to smell the coffee, with her pledge to suspend green levies on household bills for two years, though more relief than that will be needed.
Britain should not be facing an energy crisis. We are an island of coal set in a sea of oil. Every North Sea well that can practically be exploited should be brought on-stream, pace Nicola Sturgeon; oil licences are a reserved power. The whole smug, blinkered mentality that, in the interests of virtue-signalling, seeks prematurely to cut off our fossil fuel energy supplies, must be rejected.
Both Tory leadership candidates are committed to permitting fracking, where the local community does not object. Does such a community exist? Are we neglecting an important energy asset due to lack of education among a public relentlessly propagandised by green zealots?
Priorities need to be radically reviewed. Every element of energy bills related to green levies must be stripped out, regardless of the protests of lobby groups. In the current reality, hypothermia is a more immediate danger than global warming. All government and local authority extravagances must be pruned. We could even take a few lessons from European cities: why, in an unprecedented energy crisis, are our towns disfigured by acres of garish neon lighting?
There is nothing like a war to bring people face to face with reality. One of the consequences of this crisis is that it ends all controversy over net zero, certainly the ambitious timing of the target, since the resources no longer exist for implementing it.
We need to discover from neutral scientists the probable climate changes of the next three decades, as peculiar to Britain, and devise a bespoke response, rather than galloping ahead of the world in unaffordable gestures, beggaring ourselves and shredding our energy infrastructure while China opens ever more coal-fired power stations. Since the immediate cause of the current energy crisis is Vladimir Putin’s aggression, we should also invest heavily in his defeat by Ukraine.
7) Fraser Myers: The lights are going out across Europe
Spiked, 27 July 2022
The crippling energy rationing is an irrational, dangerous reaction to a crisis decades in the making. And they will leave a lot of ordinary Europeans out in the cold.
The EU’s 27 member states – all modern, advanced industrialised economies, some among the richest in the world – are about to start rationing their energy supplies. This week, at an extraordinary summit, EU members agreed to a European Commission proposal to slash their gas use by a punishing 15 per cent over the next eight months. From August 2022 to March 2023, the lamps will, quite literally, be going out all over Europe.
The immediate spur for this is the prospect of Russia limiting or even cutting off supplies of gas to the EU. According to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, even this worst-case, nightmare scenario is ‘likely’. European leaders were particularly spooked earlier this month when the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, which supplies Russian gas to Germany, had to be shut down for 10 days for repairs. They were afraid it would never reopen.
The EU’s punishing plan is designed to get Europe through the winter, should the Russians do the unthinkable and turn off the taps completely. If the crisis deepens, voluntary gas cuts could become mandatory. The European Commission of unelected technocrats has also explored the use of emergency protocols which could block any country from exercising a veto on mandatory gas cuts and would also prevent the European Parliament from having a say.
As Politico reported in the run-up to this week’s summit, European governments were ‘being asked to sign over their right to energy sovereignty’, in Brussels’ ‘most far-reaching power grab’ yet. And with some exemptions – for nations not connected to the EU’s gas and electricity networks – this is exactly what has happened. European countries now face crippling energy cuts – first self-inflicted, then potentially imposed by Brussels.
Yet in the eyes of the Brussels spin machine, this gas-rationing catastrophe is EU ‘solidarity’ and ‘unity’ in action. Or even, in the excitable words of European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans, a golden opportunity for Europeans to become ‘masters of our own energy security this and next winter’. This is through-the-looking-glass stuff.
It is hard to overstate the madness of all this. This should not be mistaken for a bold or selfless move to sanction Russia for its horrific invasion of Ukraine. The EU had already agreed to cut Russian gas imports by two-thirds back in March, and to ban 90 per cent of oil imports back in May. No, this plan is about slashing Europe’s use of gas, wherever it is from. It is about managing Europeans’ ‘demand’ for energy rather than fixing its supply.
And while all of Europe is dangerously dependent on Russian gas – with Russia supplying 40 per cent of imports last year – the main concern is Germany. Indeed, it is the world’s largest importer of natural gas, 55 per cent of which came from Russia last year. It is Germany that this plan really sets out to rescue.
Germany is already having to make drastic cutbacks to energy use. Town councils are dimming or turning off street lights and even traffic lights. Large landlords and housing associations have started turning down the heating on their residents and rationing their hot water. Some local authorities are considering setting up ‘warm rooms’ for elderly people to gather in the winter.
Even Germany’s much-vaunted industrial sector – powered largely by gas – is now facing the abyss. Germany now has a trade deficit for the first time in 30 years. Trade-union leaders fear the collapse of entire industries. Green Party economy minister Robert Habeck has warned of an impending ‘Lehman Brothers-style’ crisis, triggered by gas shortages, that could send shockwaves through the wider economy. And foreign minister Annalena Baerbock even said the government could be ‘busy’ this winter dealing with ‘popular uprisings’ (though she has since retracted this).
So clearly, Germany is in a deep crisis. And via the EU, it is asking (or strong-arming) its European neighbours to share some of the pain.
Some fellow member-states were quick to spot the irony in what is effectively an energy bailout of Germany. This is the same Germany that, during the Eurozone debt crisis of the 2010s, insisted that indebted countries had only themselves and their profligacy to blame. Bailouts were offered but strict austerity measures and so-called structural reforms were attached, which laid waste to the southern European economies. The economies of Greece, Italy and Spain have never recovered to their pre-2010 levels. As Spain’s energy minister put it, when hitting back against the proposals last week: ‘Unlike other countries [ie, Germany] we have not been living above our energy means.’ Spain was joined by a host of other southern countries in voicing public opposition to the energy-rationing plans. But, as the Spanish energy minister acknowledged, whatever her protestations, the core proposals were really ‘a fait accompli’.
Berlin usually rules in Brussels, after all. At this week’s council meeting, though southern Europe was able to draw some concessions, only Hungary actually voted against the plan.
Those southern Europeans are right to grumble, of course. Germany’s crisis is not just a product of bad luck. Germany has made a series of strategic mistakes going back decades – some of which are unforgivable and utterly inexplicable.
Like many in Europe, Germany misjudged Russia’s intentions. Indeed, even as President Putin’s tanks massed on the Ukrainian border, Germany still had every intention of pressing ahead with Nord Stream 2, a planned gas pipeline to Russia, which would have supplied a third of Germany’s gas needs for the next decade. This reliance on piped gas also means that, unlike other countries, like the Netherlands and France, Germany has no infrastructure for importing liquefied natural gas, which would allow it to buy gas from a broader range of countries.
And like many countries, Germany has attempted a disastrous transition to carbon-free energy. The intermittency problems that are inherent to renewable energy mean there are huge energy gaps to fill when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow. This creates a dependency on gas to fill in the gaps.
Most baffling of all has been Germany’s abandonment of nuclear power. Nuclear energy produces no carbon emissions, but it is still hated and feared by Germany’s green-leaning establishment. In fact, green thinking exercises such a tight grip on the German political class that the German government appears determined not to extend the lifespan of its nuclear power plants – even amid this once-in-a-century energy crisis, and even as it asks for energy-rationing ‘solidarity’ from other countries.
The crippling gas cuts to come are not a sign of European strength and solidarity. They are an irrational, dangerous reaction to a crisis decades in the making. And they will leave a lot of ordinary Europeans out in the cold.
8) Javier Blas: Paris faces an even colder, darker winter than Berlin
Bloomberg, 29 July 2022
Bloomberg, 29 July 2022
In the European energy crisis, all of the attention is focused on Germany and gas from Russia. But France and its fleet of struggling nuclear reactors are at least as important. Indeed, the first European city to suffer a blackout as temperatures drop toward the end of the year may well be Paris rather than Berlin.
As winter approaches, the outlook in France is increasingly dire. Electricite de France SA, the state-owned utility, is running only 26 of its 57 reactors, with more than half of its chain undergoing emergency maintenance after the discovery of cracked pipes. With atomic reactors generating the lowest share of the country’s power in 30 years, France faces an electricity ‘Waterloo.’
The slump in nuclear availability is forcing France to rely more than ever on gas-fired plants, intermittent wind and hydro as well as imports. That’s pushing up the cost of electricity in the wholesale market for the whole of Europe, with French forward prices surging to almost 1,000% more than their decade-long average through 2020.
As winter approaches, the outlook in France is increasingly dire. Electricite de France SA, the state-owned utility, is running only 26 of its 57 reactors, with more than half of its chain undergoing emergency maintenance after the discovery of cracked pipes. With atomic reactors generating the lowest share of the country’s power in 30 years, France faces an electricity ‘Waterloo.’
The slump in nuclear availability is forcing France to rely more than ever on gas-fired plants, intermittent wind and hydro as well as imports. That’s pushing up the cost of electricity in the wholesale market for the whole of Europe, with French forward prices surging to almost 1,000% more than their decade-long average through 2020.
In the middle of the summer, when French electricity demand hovers around 45 gigawatts per hour, that’s not an insurmountable problem. But on a cold winter evening, when French households can push consumption above 80 or 90 gigawatts, it could be catastrophically expensive. Although the French economy is smaller than Germany’s, Gallic power demand surges well above that of its neighbor during the winter as households there rely more on electricity for heating and hot water.
While EDF has promised that at least some of its reactors will be back online in time for the colder months, the company has a nasty habit of over-promising and under-delivering. The severity of the winter could be key: Each degree Celsius the temperature drops below normal, French power demand surges by about 2.5 gigawatts an hour — equivalent to the output of two nuclear power stations.
During a late cold snap last April, the French grid was forced to issue a rare orange alert — the second highest — asking households and companies to “moderate their consumption.” Those alerts will become a staple this coming winter, and very likely will escalate to “red alerts” that indicate a risk of blackouts unless families and businesses reduce demand.
Electricity traders are taking the risk seriously. In the wholesale market, the benchmark one-year French baseload power contract has jumped to a record high of 507 euros ($512) per megawatt hour, well above German prices of 350 to 370 euros for the parallel contract. French retail consumers are protected for now thanks to a price cap, but businesses are fully exposed.
Come winter, it will get much worse. For December, baseload French power is trading above 1,000 euros, almost double German prices, while peakload power — typically in the evenings when families gather for dinner and the heating is on — is changing hands at more than 2,000 euros. In practice, that means traders expect French power demand may be so high relative to supply that so-called hourly prices will bump against the 4,000-euro limit set by the exchange many times in December.
The market, aware of what’s coming, is trying to kill consumption ahead of time, in an effort to avert blackouts. It’s a costly way of attempting to force electricity-intensive companies, such as smelters, to plan to shut down in December.
The French problem is spilling over into the rest of Europe, including the UK. EDF, long a source of national pride as well as low-cost electricity exports, is having to buy power to meet daily requirements. Earlier this month, the French grid made an emergency request to the British network for extra power — and that was in summer, when demand is low.
In the past, EDF only imported electricity on a net basis for a few days a year, if at all. For example, between 2014 and 2016, France didn’t import power on a single day. But as the nuclear troubles mounted, it’s relied increasingly on imports. Last year, it bought electricity from overseas for 78 days. So far this year, it has been forced to do so on a record 102 days.
France’s purchases put further pressure on a European electricity and gas market that’s already under stress. If French President Emmanuel Macron wants to help ease the European energy crisis, he needs to focus at home. Fixing EDF should be his top priority — well above his phone conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Paris has taken a first step, announcing the nationalization of the company at a cost of 10 billion euros, although not earlier than September. Puzzlingly, Macron has yet to bring in a new executive team. The company’s chief executive is set to depart, but perhaps not until March 2023. The rest of the senior team, including the executive in charge of nuclear power who has overseen the disastrous performance of the last couple of years, appear to be safe in their jobs for now. Macron also hasn’t curbed the influence of the trade unions within EDF — another perennial issue that’s stymied reform at the company.
Time is running out. Paris is delightful in the autumn and the winter; it’ll be much less attractive if the “City of Light” is forced to go dark.
9) Francis Menton: What the future holds for our climate leaders
Manhattan Contrarian, 28 July 2022
If my posting has been a little light for the last month or so, it’s because I’ve been working on a big Report for the Global Warming Policy Foundation on the subject of energy storage as a means to back up electricity generation from wind and solar facilities. The Report is basically finished, and now going through an editing process. It will probably be published some time in September.
In doing the research for the Report, I have had occasion to look carefully into the plans of many countries and U.S. states that claim to be the “leaders” in climate virtue, specifically on the subject of how they intend to reach the goal of Net Zero carbon emissions from generation of electricity. These climate “leaders” include, in Europe, Germany and the UK, and in the U.S., California and New York. One would think that for any jurisdiction pursuing Net Zero ambitions, and seeking to abolish use of fossil fuels, it would be completely imperative that some energy storage solution absolutely must be found to provide back-up for the electricity system when the wind and sun are not producing. But what my research has shown is that every one of these jurisdictions seeking to be the leader toward Net Zero has given astoundingly insufficient consideration to the energy storage problem.
I previously have covered some of the more incredible deficiencies in the Net Zero planning of these places, for example in “Can California Really Achieve 85% Carbon-Free Electricity By 2030?” on May 16, and “And The Winner Is, Germany!” on June 29.
The single most astounding universal failure of all jurisdictions pursuing Net Zero is the failure to pursue any sort of working prototype or demonstration project of a Net Zero electricity system before committing the entire jurisdiction to the project on the basis of a blank check to be paid by the taxpayers and ratepayers. Who has ever heard of such a thing? in the 1880s, when Thomas Edison wanted to start building central station power plants to supply electricity for his new devices like incandescent lightbulbs, he began by building a prototype facility in London under the Holborn Viaduct, and followed that with a larger demonstration plant on Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan that only supplied electricity to customers within a few square blocks. Only after those had been demonstrated as successful did a larger build-out begin.
Similarly, the provision of nuclear power began with small government-funded prototypes in the late 1940s and early 1950s, followed by larger demonstration projects in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Only in the late 1960s, twenty years into the effort and after feasibility and cost had been demonstrated, were the first large-scale commercial nuclear reactors built. No competent person would take any other approach.
But somehow our politicians have now become so filled with hubris that they think they can just order up a functioning wind/solar electricity system and assume that backup energy storage devices will magically get invented and it will all work fine and not be financially ruinous, all by some arbitrarily-ordered date in the 2030s.
Today, all the mentioned jurisdictions and many more have embarked on ambitious Net Zero plans, and yet there does not exist anywhere in the world a functioning prototype or demonstration project that has actually achieved Net Zero in electricity generation, or anything even close. Indeed, it’s worse than that. There is a fairly substantial project that set out to achieve Net Zero (although they weren’t using the term at the time, which was 2014), and has fallen remarkably short. That project is on the island of El Hierro, one of the Canary Islands off the coast of Spain. El Hierro installed a collection of wind turbines and a pumped storage/hydro reservoir as back-up to great fanfare, but it struggles to achieve 50% of the electricity from the wind/storage system over the course of a year. The rest comes from a diesel generator.
The system operator puts out monthly statistics (with substantial lag), typically with excited verbiage about “tons of carbon emissions saved,” without ever admitting that the system has totally failed in its original goal of getting rid of the fossil fuel piece. Instead they now have three redundant systems for providing the electricity — wind turbines, hydro reservoir and turbines, and the diesel generator — all of which must be paid for, and all to provide the same electricity that the diesel generator was fully capable of providing on its own. The cost has been calculated at about 80 euro cents per KWh, roughly 7 to 8 times average U.S. consumer rates; but the cost is largely hidden from El Hierro ratepayers by subsidies from the EU and government of Spain.
My research also covered in depth the question of how much energy storage would be needed for various jurisdictions to fully back up a predominantly wind/solar generation system without any use of fossil fuels. Credible calculations previously discussed here have included the calculation of Roger Andrews, done in 2018, that either California or Germany would require at least about 25,000 GWh of energy storage to back up a fully wind/solar generation system for a year without use of fossil fuels; and a calculation by Ken Gregory done on very similar methodology in late 2021 showing that the full U.S. (lower 48 states) would require about 250,000 GWh of storage for the same purpose. These are truly huge numbers.
Facing such requirements to reach Net Zero and banish fossil fuels from the electricity system, the plans of these jurisdictions for acquisition of storage are quite shocking.
The consultancy Wood Mackenzie reported on April 11, 2022 that Germany had announced plans to acquire all of 8.91 GWh of energy storage by 2031 — a ridiculously puny amount if Germany is actually serious about Net Zero. Utility Dive reported on April 12, 2022 that New York had plans to acquire all of 6 GW of storage (likely corresponding to about 24 GWh, since the batteries are to be of the lithium-ion type that generally have capacity for four hours of discharge at full capacity). This figure is only slightly less puny than Germany’s. Another piece from Utility Dive on April 6, 2022 reported that California’s regulators had ordered utilities to acquire what would be the equivalent of about 42 GWh of storage as part of the Net Zero plans of that jurisdiction. All of these storage acquisition plans are in the range of about 0.1% to 0.2% of the storage that would actually be needed to achieve the Net Zero goal.
So what will the future of energy usage actually look like in these places as fossil fuels get phased out and wind and solar take over, with woefully insufficient energy storage to cover the intermittencies?
Full post
Manhattan Contrarian, 28 July 2022
If my posting has been a little light for the last month or so, it’s because I’ve been working on a big Report for the Global Warming Policy Foundation on the subject of energy storage as a means to back up electricity generation from wind and solar facilities. The Report is basically finished, and now going through an editing process. It will probably be published some time in September.
In doing the research for the Report, I have had occasion to look carefully into the plans of many countries and U.S. states that claim to be the “leaders” in climate virtue, specifically on the subject of how they intend to reach the goal of Net Zero carbon emissions from generation of electricity. These climate “leaders” include, in Europe, Germany and the UK, and in the U.S., California and New York. One would think that for any jurisdiction pursuing Net Zero ambitions, and seeking to abolish use of fossil fuels, it would be completely imperative that some energy storage solution absolutely must be found to provide back-up for the electricity system when the wind and sun are not producing. But what my research has shown is that every one of these jurisdictions seeking to be the leader toward Net Zero has given astoundingly insufficient consideration to the energy storage problem.
I previously have covered some of the more incredible deficiencies in the Net Zero planning of these places, for example in “Can California Really Achieve 85% Carbon-Free Electricity By 2030?” on May 16, and “And The Winner Is, Germany!” on June 29.
The single most astounding universal failure of all jurisdictions pursuing Net Zero is the failure to pursue any sort of working prototype or demonstration project of a Net Zero electricity system before committing the entire jurisdiction to the project on the basis of a blank check to be paid by the taxpayers and ratepayers. Who has ever heard of such a thing? in the 1880s, when Thomas Edison wanted to start building central station power plants to supply electricity for his new devices like incandescent lightbulbs, he began by building a prototype facility in London under the Holborn Viaduct, and followed that with a larger demonstration plant on Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan that only supplied electricity to customers within a few square blocks. Only after those had been demonstrated as successful did a larger build-out begin.
Similarly, the provision of nuclear power began with small government-funded prototypes in the late 1940s and early 1950s, followed by larger demonstration projects in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Only in the late 1960s, twenty years into the effort and after feasibility and cost had been demonstrated, were the first large-scale commercial nuclear reactors built. No competent person would take any other approach.
But somehow our politicians have now become so filled with hubris that they think they can just order up a functioning wind/solar electricity system and assume that backup energy storage devices will magically get invented and it will all work fine and not be financially ruinous, all by some arbitrarily-ordered date in the 2030s.
Today, all the mentioned jurisdictions and many more have embarked on ambitious Net Zero plans, and yet there does not exist anywhere in the world a functioning prototype or demonstration project that has actually achieved Net Zero in electricity generation, or anything even close. Indeed, it’s worse than that. There is a fairly substantial project that set out to achieve Net Zero (although they weren’t using the term at the time, which was 2014), and has fallen remarkably short. That project is on the island of El Hierro, one of the Canary Islands off the coast of Spain. El Hierro installed a collection of wind turbines and a pumped storage/hydro reservoir as back-up to great fanfare, but it struggles to achieve 50% of the electricity from the wind/storage system over the course of a year. The rest comes from a diesel generator.
The system operator puts out monthly statistics (with substantial lag), typically with excited verbiage about “tons of carbon emissions saved,” without ever admitting that the system has totally failed in its original goal of getting rid of the fossil fuel piece. Instead they now have three redundant systems for providing the electricity — wind turbines, hydro reservoir and turbines, and the diesel generator — all of which must be paid for, and all to provide the same electricity that the diesel generator was fully capable of providing on its own. The cost has been calculated at about 80 euro cents per KWh, roughly 7 to 8 times average U.S. consumer rates; but the cost is largely hidden from El Hierro ratepayers by subsidies from the EU and government of Spain.
My research also covered in depth the question of how much energy storage would be needed for various jurisdictions to fully back up a predominantly wind/solar generation system without any use of fossil fuels. Credible calculations previously discussed here have included the calculation of Roger Andrews, done in 2018, that either California or Germany would require at least about 25,000 GWh of energy storage to back up a fully wind/solar generation system for a year without use of fossil fuels; and a calculation by Ken Gregory done on very similar methodology in late 2021 showing that the full U.S. (lower 48 states) would require about 250,000 GWh of storage for the same purpose. These are truly huge numbers.
Facing such requirements to reach Net Zero and banish fossil fuels from the electricity system, the plans of these jurisdictions for acquisition of storage are quite shocking.
The consultancy Wood Mackenzie reported on April 11, 2022 that Germany had announced plans to acquire all of 8.91 GWh of energy storage by 2031 — a ridiculously puny amount if Germany is actually serious about Net Zero. Utility Dive reported on April 12, 2022 that New York had plans to acquire all of 6 GW of storage (likely corresponding to about 24 GWh, since the batteries are to be of the lithium-ion type that generally have capacity for four hours of discharge at full capacity). This figure is only slightly less puny than Germany’s. Another piece from Utility Dive on April 6, 2022 reported that California’s regulators had ordered utilities to acquire what would be the equivalent of about 42 GWh of storage as part of the Net Zero plans of that jurisdiction. All of these storage acquisition plans are in the range of about 0.1% to 0.2% of the storage that would actually be needed to achieve the Net Zero goal.
So what will the future of energy usage actually look like in these places as fossil fuels get phased out and wind and solar take over, with woefully insufficient energy storage to cover the intermittencies?
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The London-based Net Zero Watch 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.
1 comment:
And where Britain goes, we go.
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