In this newsletter:
1) Norway approves more than $18 Billion of oil and gas projects
Bloomberg, 28 June 2023
2) Sweden shocks Europe: Abandons 'unstable' green energy agenda, returns to nuclear power
Red State, 25 June 2023
3) EU deadlocked over controversial Green Deal
Associated Press, 27 June 2023
4) Peta Credlin: Sweden’s botched ‘green dream’ a warning to us all
The Australian, 29 June 2023
5) Daniel Johnson: Germany is headed for a political meltdown
The Daily Telegraph, 27 June 2023
6) Green Britain: One in three homes in 120-day countdown to fuel poverty
The Sun, 28 June 2023
7) While millions of people struggle to pay their energy bills...
The Times, 29 June 2023
8) Brits have already paid £15,500 towards Net Zero without realising
The Daily Telegraph, 28 June 2023
9) Britain to be left without emergency coal reserves this winter
The Sun, 28 June 2023
7) While millions of people struggle to pay their energy bills...
The Times, 29 June 2023
8) Brits have already paid £15,500 towards Net Zero without realising
The Daily Telegraph, 28 June 2023
9) Britain to be left without emergency coal reserves this winter
The Daily Telegraph, 28 June 2023
10) The Sun says: Govt must bin ‘green levy’ that adds to our energy bills and makes us poorer
The Sun, 27 June 2023
11) Slash ‘£84 green carbon tax’ to help households, Tory MPs demand
The Daily Telegraph, 28 June 2023
12) Francis Menton: Still waiting for the magical future of free wind power
Manhattan Contrarian, 26 June 2023
The Sun, 27 June 2023
11) Slash ‘£84 green carbon tax’ to help households, Tory MPs demand
The Daily Telegraph, 28 June 2023
12) Francis Menton: Still waiting for the magical future of free wind power
Manhattan Contrarian, 26 June 2023
Full details:
1) Norway approves more than $18 Billion of oil and gas projects
Bloomberg, 28 June 2023
Bloomberg, 28 June 2023
Norway’s energy ministry approved oil and gas projects with a total value of more than 200 billion kroner ($18.5 billion) as Europe’s biggest supplier of natural gas works to keep up production.
The projects, which include Aker BP ASA’s Yggdrasil and Valhall PWP og Fenris in the North Sea, as well as Equinor ASA’s Irpa in the Norwegian Sea, cover 19 new developments, build-outs of existing fields and increased oil-recovery projects, the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
The Nordic nation has become the biggest supplier of natural gas to Europe in the aftermath of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and will likely continue to see strong demand as buyers turn their back on Russian energy. A flurry of development plans were submitted at the end of last year in order to benefit from pandemic-era tax breaks introduced to maintain investments as demand sank.
“Norway is the only net exporter of oil and gas in Europe, and by implementing these projects we ensure new production from the latter half of the 2020s, so that we can maintain high Norwegian deliveries,” Petroleum & Energy Minister Terje Aasland said in a statement.
As many as 55 wells are planned at Yggdrasil. That area is estimated to contain about 650 million barrels of oil equivalent, making it one of the biggest development projects on the Norwegian continental shelf in recent years
The projects, which include Aker BP ASA’s Yggdrasil and Valhall PWP og Fenris in the North Sea, as well as Equinor ASA’s Irpa in the Norwegian Sea, cover 19 new developments, build-outs of existing fields and increased oil-recovery projects, the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
The Nordic nation has become the biggest supplier of natural gas to Europe in the aftermath of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and will likely continue to see strong demand as buyers turn their back on Russian energy. A flurry of development plans were submitted at the end of last year in order to benefit from pandemic-era tax breaks introduced to maintain investments as demand sank.
“Norway is the only net exporter of oil and gas in Europe, and by implementing these projects we ensure new production from the latter half of the 2020s, so that we can maintain high Norwegian deliveries,” Petroleum & Energy Minister Terje Aasland said in a statement.
As many as 55 wells are planned at Yggdrasil. That area is estimated to contain about 650 million barrels of oil equivalent, making it one of the biggest development projects on the Norwegian continental shelf in recent years
2) Sweden shocks Europe: Abandons 'unstable' green energy agenda, returns to nuclear power
Red State, 25 June 2023
Red State, 25 June 2023
Wait— it wasn’t supposed to be this way. That is, according to Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, John Kerry, and Joe “Existential Threat to Mankind” Biden, et al. “It,” of course, being the utopian green energy of the Shangra-La of tomorrow — which Sweden is abandoning and returning to nuclear power.
That’s right, climate loons. Sweden just dealt a severe blow to the globalist climate agenda by scraping its green energy targets. In a statement announcing the new policy in the Swedish Parliament, Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson warned that the Scandinavian nation needs “a stable energy system.”
Svantesson said wind and solar power are too “unstable” to meet the nation’s energy requirements. Instead, she said, the Swedish government is shifting back to nuclear power and has scrapped its goal of a “100 percent renewable energy” supply to meet the nation’s energy requirement, as reported by Slay.
Gavin Newsom’s California was unavailable for comment.
The decision is a major blow to unreliable and inefficient technology, not to mention the bitter climate gnome, Greta Thunberg, who continually warns mankind about the next climate armageddon that never comes.
The World Economic Forum vs. Net Zero Watch
European countries are under constant pressure from multiple directions to shift to renewable energy to meet the goals of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) green agenda. The WEF’s vision is being heavily pushed by the United Nations, the World Health Organization (WHO), Paris Climate Agreement, World Bank, and climate catastrophizer Joe Biden and his just-as-wacky administration.
Svantesson continues to warn other Western nations that blindly push the WEF’s green agenda.
In contrast to the WEF and the other aforementioned groups, the environmental campaign group Net Zero Watch has welcomed the move.
"The Swedish decision is an important step in the right direction, implicitly acknowledging the low quality of unstable wind and solar, and is part of a general collapse of confidence in the renewable energy agenda pioneered in the Nordic countries and in Germany.
The United Kingdom has every reason to follow Sweden’s lead but should go further.
A small population in a large country such as Sweden can afford to reject fossil fuels, relying on nuclear and hydro and biomass, but the United Kingdom, and other substantial industrialised economies need to face the facts, and understand that only a gas to nuclear pathway is viable to remain industrialised and competitive."
In “substantial industrialized economies,” Svantesson said, “only a nuclear pathway is viable to remain industrialized and competitive.”
Full post
3) EU deadlocked over controversial Green Deal
Associated Press, 27 June 2023
BRUSSELS -- The European Union is facing a cliffhanger vote next month that will test its global climate and environmental credentials, after its parliament was again deadlocked on pushing a nature restoration bill onwards on Tuesday.
The legislature's environment committee emerged deadlocked at 44-44 on the plan to beef up the restoration of nature in the 27-nation bloc that was damaged during decades of industrial expansion. It means the full parliament will be asked to reject it.
"The fight is not over. We will do our utmost to rally forces throughout the hemicycle behind an ambitious law to the benefit of people and the planet,” said socialist S&D legislator Mohammed Chahim.
The parliament’s biggest group, the Christian Democrat EPP, has turned against the plan, arguing it is bad for embattled farmers and puts food security at risk at a time when the war in Ukraine has shown that strategic autonomy on foodstuffs can be essential.
The bill is a key part of the EU's vaunted European Green Deal that seeks to set the globe's best climate and biodiversity targets and make the bloc the point of reference on all climate issues. The plans proposed by the EU’s executive commission set binding restoration targets for specific habitats and species, with the aim by 2030 to cover at least 20% of the region’s land and sea areas.
The EU's executive commission wants the nature restoration law to be a key part of the system since it is necessary for the overall deal to have the maximum input. Others also say that if the EU fails on the nature restoration law, it will be indicative of an overall fatigue when it comes to climate issues.
The Green Deal includes a wide range of measures, from reducing energy consumption to sharply cutting transportation emissions and reforming the EU’s trading system for greenhouse gases.
Last week, the EU governments already backed the plan but if the parliament rejects it at its June 101-13 plenary session, the bill would have to be fully reworked, and in essence, diluted at a time when scientists and international institutions like the United Nations call for extra efforts, not fewer.
4) Peta Credlin: Sweden’s botched ‘green dream’ a warning to us all
The Australian, 29 June 2023
Two days ago, the new centre-right Swedish government announced an energy policy U-turn. You won’t read much about it because the media’s confirmation bias means it mostly reports only “news” to reinforce climate alarmism.
And the nature of Swedish politics – consensual, with multi-party coalitions – means decisions don’t always stick or mean as much as they seem.
Still, the government’s announcement that it was ditching Sweden’s long-legislated plans for 100 per cent renewable energy by 2040 because the country needed “a stable energy system” is a significant blow to the hitherto unchallenged march to renewables, at least among Western nations.
In a statement, Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson said wind and solar were too “unstable” to meet a modern economy’s 24/7 energy requirements. Although the government still wants a “clean” energy system, this no longer will be based on renewables but on the nuclear power that currently provides about 30 per cent of Sweden’s total electricity.
“We need more electricity production, we need clean electricity and we need a stable energy system,” she said, adding: “In substantial industrialised economies … only a gas to nuclear pathway is viable to remain industrialised and competitive.”
You can only imagine the teeth-gnashing hysteria of Swedish child climate activist Greta Thunberg at this announcement, can’t you?
Previously, Sweden has been at the very forefront of “stronger action on climate” with more than 40 per cent of its power generated by hydro and nearly 20 per cent by wind. Plus, in addition to the 100 per cent renewables by 2040 commitment, Sweden had a commitment to countrywide “net zero” by 2045. Sweden’s move is the biggest step so far towards climate realism, but it’s also just the latest move away from the “transition at any cost via renewables” mindset that has dominated Western governments’ thinking for the past two decades.
Far from diminishing its reliance on nuclear, France is now set on increasing it. And while the green-left government in Germany has finally closed its last three nuclear plants, it still imports plenty of nuclear power from French plants across the border. It also is extending brown coal mining to keep the lights on in the absence of Russian gas.
In Austria, the government recently moved to revive closed coal-fired power generation. And a sizeable ginger group of British Conservative MPs thinks the only way to create a winnable contest with Labour at the next election is to drop the bans on new petrol and diesel-powered car sales from 2030, stop the looming ban on new gas boilers for domestic heating, and allow more exploration and extraction of North Sea oil and gas.
Meanwhile, here at home, our government is doubling down on the green dream, despite more and more energy experts arguing the transition is going too far and too fast, threatening all the businesses and jobs that depend on reliable and affordable 24/7 power.
In an extraordinary article, Alan Finkel recently extolled his vision splendid of forests of wind turbines and fields of solar panels stretching as far as the eye can see. But instead of recoiling from this dystopia, the former chief scientist expected us to embrace it as a necessary element in the supposedly essential move to net zero.
In a revealing speech last year, Energy Minister Chris Bowen enthused about the scale of the challenge ahead.
Getting to the government’s now-mandatory legal target of 82 per cent renewable power generation by 2030, he declared, would require the installation of 22,000 solar panels every day, and the erection of 40 large wind turbines every month for the next seven years. Plus, 28,000km of new transmission lines would have to be constructed for the resultant decentralised grid – even though, given the intermittency of wind and solar, these would be active only 30 per cent of the time on average.
To Bowen – who conveniently neglected the consequential need for “firming” – this was a necessary but welcome task, requiring a mobilisation of resources unprecedented outside wartime.
But to more and more of the people charged with keeping the lights on, and needing reliable power to keep jobs and production going, it’s mission impossible.
In the real world it’s simply not happening, given the practical difficulties in getting permissions to build; and it can’t actually happen given the astronomical cost (the government estimated transmission capital costs alone at $80bn pre-election) plus chronic shortages of material and skilled workers.
But while Australia seemingly can’t wait to close down all our remaining coal-fired power stations in a bid to save the planet by eliminating our 1 per cent contribution to mankind’s global emissions, outside of the emissions-obsessed West there’s no such indulgence.
Last year, according to the just-released Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy, wind and solar power between them accounted for less than 6 per cent of total global energy usage.
The much-maligned fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal, together accounted for almost 82 per cent of total global energy consumption, barely down on the previous year, despite near ubiquitous virtue-signalling and green chest-thumping. Even in the global electricity sector, last year wind and solar were less than 12 per cent, while coal and gas usage was at record highs. Yet somehow we think we can close all our coal-fired power stations within a decade and get 70 per cent of our electricity from wind and solar, within just seven years. There’s only one word for this: mad!
Full post
5) Daniel Johnson: Germany is headed for a political meltdown
The Daily Telegraph, 27 June 2023
That’s right, climate loons. Sweden just dealt a severe blow to the globalist climate agenda by scraping its green energy targets. In a statement announcing the new policy in the Swedish Parliament, Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson warned that the Scandinavian nation needs “a stable energy system.”
Svantesson said wind and solar power are too “unstable” to meet the nation’s energy requirements. Instead, she said, the Swedish government is shifting back to nuclear power and has scrapped its goal of a “100 percent renewable energy” supply to meet the nation’s energy requirement, as reported by Slay.
Gavin Newsom’s California was unavailable for comment.
The decision is a major blow to unreliable and inefficient technology, not to mention the bitter climate gnome, Greta Thunberg, who continually warns mankind about the next climate armageddon that never comes.
The World Economic Forum vs. Net Zero Watch
European countries are under constant pressure from multiple directions to shift to renewable energy to meet the goals of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) green agenda. The WEF’s vision is being heavily pushed by the United Nations, the World Health Organization (WHO), Paris Climate Agreement, World Bank, and climate catastrophizer Joe Biden and his just-as-wacky administration.
Svantesson continues to warn other Western nations that blindly push the WEF’s green agenda.
In contrast to the WEF and the other aforementioned groups, the environmental campaign group Net Zero Watch has welcomed the move.
"The Swedish decision is an important step in the right direction, implicitly acknowledging the low quality of unstable wind and solar, and is part of a general collapse of confidence in the renewable energy agenda pioneered in the Nordic countries and in Germany.
The United Kingdom has every reason to follow Sweden’s lead but should go further.
A small population in a large country such as Sweden can afford to reject fossil fuels, relying on nuclear and hydro and biomass, but the United Kingdom, and other substantial industrialised economies need to face the facts, and understand that only a gas to nuclear pathway is viable to remain industrialised and competitive."
In “substantial industrialized economies,” Svantesson said, “only a nuclear pathway is viable to remain industrialized and competitive.”
Full post
3) EU deadlocked over controversial Green Deal
Associated Press, 27 June 2023
BRUSSELS -- The European Union is facing a cliffhanger vote next month that will test its global climate and environmental credentials, after its parliament was again deadlocked on pushing a nature restoration bill onwards on Tuesday.
The legislature's environment committee emerged deadlocked at 44-44 on the plan to beef up the restoration of nature in the 27-nation bloc that was damaged during decades of industrial expansion. It means the full parliament will be asked to reject it.
"The fight is not over. We will do our utmost to rally forces throughout the hemicycle behind an ambitious law to the benefit of people and the planet,” said socialist S&D legislator Mohammed Chahim.
The parliament’s biggest group, the Christian Democrat EPP, has turned against the plan, arguing it is bad for embattled farmers and puts food security at risk at a time when the war in Ukraine has shown that strategic autonomy on foodstuffs can be essential.
The bill is a key part of the EU's vaunted European Green Deal that seeks to set the globe's best climate and biodiversity targets and make the bloc the point of reference on all climate issues. The plans proposed by the EU’s executive commission set binding restoration targets for specific habitats and species, with the aim by 2030 to cover at least 20% of the region’s land and sea areas.
The EU's executive commission wants the nature restoration law to be a key part of the system since it is necessary for the overall deal to have the maximum input. Others also say that if the EU fails on the nature restoration law, it will be indicative of an overall fatigue when it comes to climate issues.
The Green Deal includes a wide range of measures, from reducing energy consumption to sharply cutting transportation emissions and reforming the EU’s trading system for greenhouse gases.
Last week, the EU governments already backed the plan but if the parliament rejects it at its June 101-13 plenary session, the bill would have to be fully reworked, and in essence, diluted at a time when scientists and international institutions like the United Nations call for extra efforts, not fewer.
4) Peta Credlin: Sweden’s botched ‘green dream’ a warning to us all
The Australian, 29 June 2023
Two days ago, the new centre-right Swedish government announced an energy policy U-turn. You won’t read much about it because the media’s confirmation bias means it mostly reports only “news” to reinforce climate alarmism.
And the nature of Swedish politics – consensual, with multi-party coalitions – means decisions don’t always stick or mean as much as they seem.
Still, the government’s announcement that it was ditching Sweden’s long-legislated plans for 100 per cent renewable energy by 2040 because the country needed “a stable energy system” is a significant blow to the hitherto unchallenged march to renewables, at least among Western nations.
In a statement, Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson said wind and solar were too “unstable” to meet a modern economy’s 24/7 energy requirements. Although the government still wants a “clean” energy system, this no longer will be based on renewables but on the nuclear power that currently provides about 30 per cent of Sweden’s total electricity.
“We need more electricity production, we need clean electricity and we need a stable energy system,” she said, adding: “In substantial industrialised economies … only a gas to nuclear pathway is viable to remain industrialised and competitive.”
You can only imagine the teeth-gnashing hysteria of Swedish child climate activist Greta Thunberg at this announcement, can’t you?
Previously, Sweden has been at the very forefront of “stronger action on climate” with more than 40 per cent of its power generated by hydro and nearly 20 per cent by wind. Plus, in addition to the 100 per cent renewables by 2040 commitment, Sweden had a commitment to countrywide “net zero” by 2045. Sweden’s move is the biggest step so far towards climate realism, but it’s also just the latest move away from the “transition at any cost via renewables” mindset that has dominated Western governments’ thinking for the past two decades.
Far from diminishing its reliance on nuclear, France is now set on increasing it. And while the green-left government in Germany has finally closed its last three nuclear plants, it still imports plenty of nuclear power from French plants across the border. It also is extending brown coal mining to keep the lights on in the absence of Russian gas.
In Austria, the government recently moved to revive closed coal-fired power generation. And a sizeable ginger group of British Conservative MPs thinks the only way to create a winnable contest with Labour at the next election is to drop the bans on new petrol and diesel-powered car sales from 2030, stop the looming ban on new gas boilers for domestic heating, and allow more exploration and extraction of North Sea oil and gas.
Meanwhile, here at home, our government is doubling down on the green dream, despite more and more energy experts arguing the transition is going too far and too fast, threatening all the businesses and jobs that depend on reliable and affordable 24/7 power.
In an extraordinary article, Alan Finkel recently extolled his vision splendid of forests of wind turbines and fields of solar panels stretching as far as the eye can see. But instead of recoiling from this dystopia, the former chief scientist expected us to embrace it as a necessary element in the supposedly essential move to net zero.
In a revealing speech last year, Energy Minister Chris Bowen enthused about the scale of the challenge ahead.
Getting to the government’s now-mandatory legal target of 82 per cent renewable power generation by 2030, he declared, would require the installation of 22,000 solar panels every day, and the erection of 40 large wind turbines every month for the next seven years. Plus, 28,000km of new transmission lines would have to be constructed for the resultant decentralised grid – even though, given the intermittency of wind and solar, these would be active only 30 per cent of the time on average.
To Bowen – who conveniently neglected the consequential need for “firming” – this was a necessary but welcome task, requiring a mobilisation of resources unprecedented outside wartime.
But to more and more of the people charged with keeping the lights on, and needing reliable power to keep jobs and production going, it’s mission impossible.
In the real world it’s simply not happening, given the practical difficulties in getting permissions to build; and it can’t actually happen given the astronomical cost (the government estimated transmission capital costs alone at $80bn pre-election) plus chronic shortages of material and skilled workers.
But while Australia seemingly can’t wait to close down all our remaining coal-fired power stations in a bid to save the planet by eliminating our 1 per cent contribution to mankind’s global emissions, outside of the emissions-obsessed West there’s no such indulgence.
Last year, according to the just-released Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy, wind and solar power between them accounted for less than 6 per cent of total global energy usage.
The much-maligned fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal, together accounted for almost 82 per cent of total global energy consumption, barely down on the previous year, despite near ubiquitous virtue-signalling and green chest-thumping. Even in the global electricity sector, last year wind and solar were less than 12 per cent, while coal and gas usage was at record highs. Yet somehow we think we can close all our coal-fired power stations within a decade and get 70 per cent of our electricity from wind and solar, within just seven years. There’s only one word for this: mad!
Full post
5) Daniel Johnson: Germany is headed for a political meltdown
The Daily Telegraph, 27 June 2023
Olaf Scholz faces a reckoning as Germans resist his ‘Green dictatorship’ of mandatory heat pumps and unaffordable technologies
In Germany, the Right has a new cause: resistance to the “Green dictatorship” imposed by the centre-Left coalition government. With Europe’s largest economy now in recession, a nation historically allergic to inflation and slumps is abandoning the political establishment in favour of the more radical far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Remarkably, Green policies – including the switch from nuclear to renewable energy, and from diesel to electric cars – have alienated both industrial workers and the middle-class.
The Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz is seen by many as a puppet of the Greens, his junior coalition partners. This impression of weak leadership has been reinforced by Scholz’s latest proposal to force homeowners to replace gas or oil boilers with heat pumps. The new law, due to come into force next January, is deeply unpopular and already the electoral impact is being felt.
This week the AfD won control of Sonneberg, a rural district in the former Communist eastern state of Thuringia. Though Sonneberg has a population of just 54,000, the party’s victory there is seen as a significant breakthrough: its first taste of municipal control. Nationally the AfD is now on around 20 per cent, level-pegging with the ruling Social Democrats (SPD) and snapping at the heels of the centre-Right Christian Democrats (CDU).
Three eastern states – Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony – have regional elections next year. As in Sonneberg, it is likely that the AfD will overtake the CDU to emerge as the largest party in all three. The AfD took off a decade ago as a primarily anti-EU movement, but quickly morphed into a protest party against Muslim immigration. It now represents a broad spectrum from nationalist democrats to neo-Nazis, but has hardened its stance since the invasion of Ukraine to appeal to pro-Putin and anti-war sentiment.
One of its slogans is: “Close the borders” – which would exclude Ukrainian refugees. It also aims to speed up the legal process for asylum seekers and to deport illegal migrants. The AfD has been classified by the police in Thuringia as “extremist”, and its parliamentary leader there, Björn Höcke, is under investigation for using the Nazi slogan: “Alles für Deutschland!” (“Everything for Germany!”) Höcke strongly denied that his comments were in any way in breach of the law.
Yet what is remarkable about the present AfD surge is that voters are no longer put off by hardliners such as Höcke. The postwar German taboo on anything reminiscent of the far-Right may be weakening. There is no mystery about the anti-Green rage of the property-owning classes and their disillusionment with the centre-Left SPD and centre-Right CDU. After all, the Christian Democrats exist to defend their interests. The new domestic heating law proposed by the Greens will force households to pay between £15,000 and £40,000 to replace gas or oil-fired boilers with heat pumps. In poorer, mainly eastern, regions of Germany, property prices often range from £80,000 to £100,000. So the coalition government’s law would, in effect, halve the value of these homes.
This threat to homeowners comes on top of the huge rise in energy prices since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which has fed into anti-war agitation. People worried about unaffordable Green technologies are easily persuaded to support those undermining Western efforts in Ukraine and give Putin hope that the longer the war goes on, the more likely he is to find sympathetic politicians in Europe to end the war and grant him territory. Indeed, the main political beneficiary of the war has been the AfD. In Sonneberg, it campaigned on the slogan: “Against sanctions – cheap gas from Russia.”
But it is not just homeowners and the middle-class. Workers, traditionally Left-wing SPD voters, see Scholz’s coalition as obsessed with climate change and the war, but dangerously out of touch with their concerns: the cost of living, jobs, migration and crime. The AfD have managed to build an effective coalition across class lines.
So: is a new populist wave about to sweep across the Continent? In answering that question, there are major differences between Germany and, say, France or Italy. Whereas populism has swept away the French and Italian centre-Right establishment, in Germany the CDU is still relatively strong. The AfD has no dominant leader such as Marine Le Pen or Giorgia Meloni – something that is bound to cost them in national elections.
Nevertheless, there is a German lesson for conservatives elsewhere. Above all, the blind pursuit of Green agendas is a recipe for electoral disaster. The backlash is not limited to eastern hinterlands such as Sonneberg. In the western city state of Bremen, an anti-Green protest party, Citizens in Anger, got 10 per cent of the vote.
Democracy implies persuasion, not coercion – especially not of those who own cars, investments and property. They have a lot to lose. If an Englishman’s home is his castle, a German’s home is his schloss. The German establishment forgets that at its peril.
The Daily Telegraph, 28 June 2023
In Germany, the Right has a new cause: resistance to the “Green dictatorship” imposed by the centre-Left coalition government. With Europe’s largest economy now in recession, a nation historically allergic to inflation and slumps is abandoning the political establishment in favour of the more radical far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Remarkably, Green policies – including the switch from nuclear to renewable energy, and from diesel to electric cars – have alienated both industrial workers and the middle-class.
The Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz is seen by many as a puppet of the Greens, his junior coalition partners. This impression of weak leadership has been reinforced by Scholz’s latest proposal to force homeowners to replace gas or oil boilers with heat pumps. The new law, due to come into force next January, is deeply unpopular and already the electoral impact is being felt.
This week the AfD won control of Sonneberg, a rural district in the former Communist eastern state of Thuringia. Though Sonneberg has a population of just 54,000, the party’s victory there is seen as a significant breakthrough: its first taste of municipal control. Nationally the AfD is now on around 20 per cent, level-pegging with the ruling Social Democrats (SPD) and snapping at the heels of the centre-Right Christian Democrats (CDU).
Three eastern states – Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony – have regional elections next year. As in Sonneberg, it is likely that the AfD will overtake the CDU to emerge as the largest party in all three. The AfD took off a decade ago as a primarily anti-EU movement, but quickly morphed into a protest party against Muslim immigration. It now represents a broad spectrum from nationalist democrats to neo-Nazis, but has hardened its stance since the invasion of Ukraine to appeal to pro-Putin and anti-war sentiment.
One of its slogans is: “Close the borders” – which would exclude Ukrainian refugees. It also aims to speed up the legal process for asylum seekers and to deport illegal migrants. The AfD has been classified by the police in Thuringia as “extremist”, and its parliamentary leader there, Björn Höcke, is under investigation for using the Nazi slogan: “Alles für Deutschland!” (“Everything for Germany!”) Höcke strongly denied that his comments were in any way in breach of the law.
Yet what is remarkable about the present AfD surge is that voters are no longer put off by hardliners such as Höcke. The postwar German taboo on anything reminiscent of the far-Right may be weakening. There is no mystery about the anti-Green rage of the property-owning classes and their disillusionment with the centre-Left SPD and centre-Right CDU. After all, the Christian Democrats exist to defend their interests. The new domestic heating law proposed by the Greens will force households to pay between £15,000 and £40,000 to replace gas or oil-fired boilers with heat pumps. In poorer, mainly eastern, regions of Germany, property prices often range from £80,000 to £100,000. So the coalition government’s law would, in effect, halve the value of these homes.
This threat to homeowners comes on top of the huge rise in energy prices since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which has fed into anti-war agitation. People worried about unaffordable Green technologies are easily persuaded to support those undermining Western efforts in Ukraine and give Putin hope that the longer the war goes on, the more likely he is to find sympathetic politicians in Europe to end the war and grant him territory. Indeed, the main political beneficiary of the war has been the AfD. In Sonneberg, it campaigned on the slogan: “Against sanctions – cheap gas from Russia.”
But it is not just homeowners and the middle-class. Workers, traditionally Left-wing SPD voters, see Scholz’s coalition as obsessed with climate change and the war, but dangerously out of touch with their concerns: the cost of living, jobs, migration and crime. The AfD have managed to build an effective coalition across class lines.
So: is a new populist wave about to sweep across the Continent? In answering that question, there are major differences between Germany and, say, France or Italy. Whereas populism has swept away the French and Italian centre-Right establishment, in Germany the CDU is still relatively strong. The AfD has no dominant leader such as Marine Le Pen or Giorgia Meloni – something that is bound to cost them in national elections.
Nevertheless, there is a German lesson for conservatives elsewhere. Above all, the blind pursuit of Green agendas is a recipe for electoral disaster. The backlash is not limited to eastern hinterlands such as Sonneberg. In the western city state of Bremen, an anti-Green protest party, Citizens in Anger, got 10 per cent of the vote.
Democracy implies persuasion, not coercion – especially not of those who own cars, investments and property. They have a lot to lose. If an Englishman’s home is his castle, a German’s home is his schloss. The German establishment forgets that at its peril.
6) Green Britain: One in three homes in 120-day countdown to fuel poverty
The Sun, 28 June 2023
The Sun, 28 June 2023
One in three households in England and Wales are on a 120-day countdown to colder weather knowing they will not be able to afford the heat they need this winter, a study has found.
The fuel poverty report has revealed nine million households are at risk of going without the heat they need this coming winter, unless government intervenes with direct energy support for affected households.
Experts analysed the energy behaviours of 51,205 financially vulnerable households during the last two winters to understand the actual size of the fuel poverty gap.
Based on an expected £1,850 price cap on October 1, it revealed the lowest income households need an extra £593 to afford the heat to stay warm and well this winter.
In response, smart Pay As You Go energy supplier Utilita, which created the report with fuel poverty experts from the University of Oxford, is calling for the government to announce direct financial assistance to help fuel poor households before the weather starts to change.
Bill Bullen, CEO and founder at the energy supplier, said: “The government must not allow one in three households to agonise about the winter ahead, with no guarantee of any financial assistance.."
Full story
7) While millions of people struggle to pay their energy bills...
The Times, 29 June 2023
The fuel poverty report has revealed nine million households are at risk of going without the heat they need this coming winter, unless government intervenes with direct energy support for affected households.
Experts analysed the energy behaviours of 51,205 financially vulnerable households during the last two winters to understand the actual size of the fuel poverty gap.
Based on an expected £1,850 price cap on October 1, it revealed the lowest income households need an extra £593 to afford the heat to stay warm and well this winter.
In response, smart Pay As You Go energy supplier Utilita, which created the report with fuel poverty experts from the University of Oxford, is calling for the government to announce direct financial assistance to help fuel poor households before the weather starts to change.
Bill Bullen, CEO and founder at the energy supplier, said: “The government must not allow one in three households to agonise about the winter ahead, with no guarantee of any financial assistance.."
Full story
7) While millions of people struggle to pay their energy bills...
The Times, 29 June 2023
Profits at the King’s property group surged by 42 per cent to a record £442.6 million
The Crown Estate enjoyed its most profitable year ever last year, with the King’s coffers boosted by the signing of six lucrative offshore wind farm leases.
Profits at the King’s property group jumped by 42 per cent to a record £442.6 million in the 12 months to the end of March, up from £312.7 million in its previous financial year.
The bulk of the near-£130 million increase in profits came from the fees paid by the developers who won the rights to build six new offshore wind farms in January.
Full story
8) Brits have already paid £15,500 towards Net Zero without realising
The Daily Telegraph, 28 June 2023
The Crown Estate enjoyed its most profitable year ever last year, with the King’s coffers boosted by the signing of six lucrative offshore wind farm leases.
Profits at the King’s property group jumped by 42 per cent to a record £442.6 million in the 12 months to the end of March, up from £312.7 million in its previous financial year.
The bulk of the near-£130 million increase in profits came from the fees paid by the developers who won the rights to build six new offshore wind farms in January.
Full story
8) Brits have already paid £15,500 towards Net Zero without realising
The Daily Telegraph, 28 June 2023
Households have already paid as much as £15,500 in green taxes on energy over the past 13 years, new analysis has revealed.
It comes as the Government is expected to add further costs on to households when it adds green levies worth £165 a year back on to energy bills.
Tory MPs are also calling for a “hidden tax” that adds up to £84 on energy bills to be cut to help struggling households.
Companies that produce energy by burning gas to create electricity are charged for every tonne they produce – a cost that they pass on to consumers.
The Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA), a think tank, estimates that households have paid £15,540 from 2010 to 2022 through a combination of direct taxes and taxes that are passed on by businesses.
Since 2018, households have paid £6,411, the analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics found.
Tom Ryan, policy analyst of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, urged ministers to consider suspending green levies on energy bills to help households with the cost of living crisis.
Full story
9) Britain to be left without emergency coal reserves this winterIt comes as the Government is expected to add further costs on to households when it adds green levies worth £165 a year back on to energy bills.
Tory MPs are also calling for a “hidden tax” that adds up to £84 on energy bills to be cut to help struggling households.
Companies that produce energy by burning gas to create electricity are charged for every tonne they produce – a cost that they pass on to consumers.
The Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA), a think tank, estimates that households have paid £15,540 from 2010 to 2022 through a combination of direct taxes and taxes that are passed on by businesses.
Since 2018, households have paid £6,411, the analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics found.
Tom Ryan, policy analyst of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, urged ministers to consider suspending green levies on energy bills to help households with the cost of living crisis.
Full story
The Daily Telegraph, 28 June 2023
Britain is to be left without backup coal power plants this winter after the energy companies Drax and EDF confirmed plans to close their remaining stations.
The National Grid on Wednesday said it had ended talks with the two companies about keeping open West Burton A, in Nottinghamshire, and two coal-fired units at Drax’s plant in Selby, Yorkshire, after they made clear that the sites would not be available.
Last winter, the companies were paid to keep these coal units on standby as a final resort to keep the lights on if gas and renewable energy generation ran low.
But the refusal of EDF and Drax to keep the facilities open means the Grid will be unable to keep this so-called winter contingency in reserve again.
A third coal power station that participated last year, Uniper’s Ratcliffe-on-Soar, also in Nottinghamshire, will continue to operate but only on a commercial basis, meaning it is not available as a contingency.
Full story
Wind power: It’s clean. It’s free. It’s renewable. Google the subject, and you will quickly find fifty articles claiming that electricity from wind is now cheaper than electricity from those evil, dirty fossil fuels. So why doesn’t some country somewhere get all of its electricity from wind?
In fact, despite now several decades of breakneck building of wind turbines, no country seems to be able to get even half of its electricity from wind when averaged over the course of a year, and no country has really even begun to solve the problem of needing full backup when the wind doesn’t blow.
Germany is the current world champion at trying to get its electricity from wind. (It also gets a small contribution from solar panels, but since it is the world’s cloudiest country, those don’t help much.). According to Clean Energy Wire, December 2022, in 2020 Germany got 45.2% of its electricity from wind and sun. Then that declined to 41% in 2021, due to lack of wind. In 2022 they appear to have bounced back to 46%. Germany has enough wind turbines that they produce big surpluses of electricity when the wind blows at full strength. But they still haven’t cracked the threshold of meeting 50% of electricity demand with wind and sun over the course of a year.
It’s no better over in the territory of co-climate crusader UK. Despite a crash program to build wind turbines (also accompanied by a smidgeon of solar panels), the UK’s percent of power from wind in 2022 was 26.8%, according to the BBC on January 6, 2023. Solar added a paltry 4.4%.
Well, maybe this project isn’t as easy as the central planners thought it would be. News of the past week brings to light a few more speed bumps on the road to energy utopia.
At the website Not A Lot Of People Know That, Paul Homewood on June 21 presents a calculation for the UK of how much wind turbine capacity would be necessary to supply the country with all its electricity needs by building extra wind capacity and using it to electrolyze water into hydrogen. The calculation was initially prepared by a guy named John Brown, and provided to Paul. For those interested in reviewing the calculation, it is available by emailing Mr. Brown at jbxcagwnz@gmail.com.
For starters, Homewood notes that average demand in the UK was 29 GW in 2022, and it has 28 GW of wind turbine capacity already. As you can immediately see, the fact that 28 GW of “capacity” only supplied 26.8% of average demand of 29 GW indicates an average capacity factor of under 30% for the wind turbines. The total demand for the year came to 262 TWh, but the wind turbines only produced 62 TWh.
Full post
The National Grid on Wednesday said it had ended talks with the two companies about keeping open West Burton A, in Nottinghamshire, and two coal-fired units at Drax’s plant in Selby, Yorkshire, after they made clear that the sites would not be available.
Last winter, the companies were paid to keep these coal units on standby as a final resort to keep the lights on if gas and renewable energy generation ran low.
But the refusal of EDF and Drax to keep the facilities open means the Grid will be unable to keep this so-called winter contingency in reserve again.
A third coal power station that participated last year, Uniper’s Ratcliffe-on-Soar, also in Nottinghamshire, will continue to operate but only on a commercial basis, meaning it is not available as a contingency.
Full story
10) The Sun says: Govt must bin ‘green levy’ that adds to our energy bills and makes us poorer
The Sun, 27 June 2023
The Sun, 27 June 2023
We thought the message was already loud and clear. Britain will not support Net Zero policies which make us poorer.
Yet the “green levy” adding £170 to your annual energy bill will be reinstated next month, having been suspended for a year. It would be crazy for the Government to plough on with that.
Millions are desperate for help, not new charges from Downing Street.
They don’t have a few extra quid to fund unrealistic Net Zero ambitions.
The Tories’ powers to cut inflation are limited.
Rishi Sunak stresses that he can only resist unaffordable pay rises and hope the storm passes.
But here’s a new burden he can spare us right now.
Bin the levy, Rishi.
11) Slash ‘£84 green carbon tax’ to help households, Tory MPs demand
The Daily Telegraph, 28 June 2023
Yet the “green levy” adding £170 to your annual energy bill will be reinstated next month, having been suspended for a year. It would be crazy for the Government to plough on with that.
Millions are desperate for help, not new charges from Downing Street.
They don’t have a few extra quid to fund unrealistic Net Zero ambitions.
The Tories’ powers to cut inflation are limited.
Rishi Sunak stresses that he can only resist unaffordable pay rises and hope the storm passes.
But here’s a new burden he can spare us right now.
Bin the levy, Rishi.
11) Slash ‘£84 green carbon tax’ to help households, Tory MPs demand
The Daily Telegraph, 28 June 2023
The Net Zero Scrutiny Group’s letter said the UK’s carbon emissions trading scheme was ‘a hidden tax during a cost-of-living crisis’
A “hidden tax” adding up to £84 on energy bills must be slashed to help struggling households, Tory MPs have said.
Companies which produce energy by burning gas to create electricity are charged for every tonne of carbon they produce, under a government decarbonisation policy aimed at helping the country reach its “net zero” goal.
The cost is passed down to households through their energy provider, potentially imposing up to £84 a year at current rates, according to analysis in a letter signed by 33 Tory MPs and peers calling for carbon costs to be reformed.
The new figures come as Rishi Sunak faces pressure to help households struggling with rocketing mortgage rates, stubbornly high energy costs and an inflationary spiral pushing up prices.
The letter, coordinated by Craig Mackinlay, the chair of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, says the UK’s carbon emissions trading scheme “could annually be adding as much as £84 to household bills; a hidden tax during a cost-of-living crisis.”
Mr Mackinlay said that carbon costs had to come down as the current policy was doing “nothing to improve our environment”.
On Sunday, the Telegraph revealed that the Government would reintroduce green levies, which add £170 to annual household energy bills and include costs of insulation schemes and older wind farm contracts, from July.
The day before, Grant Shapps, the Energy Security Secretary, told the Telegraph that households will be spared a levy on their energy bills to fund the hydrogen industry.
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former energy secretary and Sir Iain Duncan-Smith, the former Conservative leader, were among signatories to the letter, which said that power generators who create electricity from gas were passing down the carbon costs imposed on them by the Government to households.
“While the ETS was intended to encourage industry to decarbonise, costs have spiralled in an unsustainable way,” they warned.
Sir John Redwood, an environment secretary under Theresa May, who also signed the letter, said carbon costs should be suspended until the energy burden on households and businesses comes down.
“Carbon dioxide is a world issue, not a national issue,” he said. “We import things that require a lot of CO2 and claim that it’s nothing to do with us.”
Full story
12) Francis Menton: Still waiting for the magical future of free wind power
Manhattan Contrarian, 26 June 2023
A “hidden tax” adding up to £84 on energy bills must be slashed to help struggling households, Tory MPs have said.
Companies which produce energy by burning gas to create electricity are charged for every tonne of carbon they produce, under a government decarbonisation policy aimed at helping the country reach its “net zero” goal.
The cost is passed down to households through their energy provider, potentially imposing up to £84 a year at current rates, according to analysis in a letter signed by 33 Tory MPs and peers calling for carbon costs to be reformed.
The new figures come as Rishi Sunak faces pressure to help households struggling with rocketing mortgage rates, stubbornly high energy costs and an inflationary spiral pushing up prices.
The letter, coordinated by Craig Mackinlay, the chair of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, says the UK’s carbon emissions trading scheme “could annually be adding as much as £84 to household bills; a hidden tax during a cost-of-living crisis.”
Mr Mackinlay said that carbon costs had to come down as the current policy was doing “nothing to improve our environment”.
On Sunday, the Telegraph revealed that the Government would reintroduce green levies, which add £170 to annual household energy bills and include costs of insulation schemes and older wind farm contracts, from July.
The day before, Grant Shapps, the Energy Security Secretary, told the Telegraph that households will be spared a levy on their energy bills to fund the hydrogen industry.
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former energy secretary and Sir Iain Duncan-Smith, the former Conservative leader, were among signatories to the letter, which said that power generators who create electricity from gas were passing down the carbon costs imposed on them by the Government to households.
“While the ETS was intended to encourage industry to decarbonise, costs have spiralled in an unsustainable way,” they warned.
Sir John Redwood, an environment secretary under Theresa May, who also signed the letter, said carbon costs should be suspended until the energy burden on households and businesses comes down.
“Carbon dioxide is a world issue, not a national issue,” he said. “We import things that require a lot of CO2 and claim that it’s nothing to do with us.”
Full story
12) Francis Menton: Still waiting for the magical future of free wind power
Manhattan Contrarian, 26 June 2023
In fact, despite now several decades of breakneck building of wind turbines, no country seems to be able to get even half of its electricity from wind when averaged over the course of a year, and no country has really even begun to solve the problem of needing full backup when the wind doesn’t blow.
Germany is the current world champion at trying to get its electricity from wind. (It also gets a small contribution from solar panels, but since it is the world’s cloudiest country, those don’t help much.). According to Clean Energy Wire, December 2022, in 2020 Germany got 45.2% of its electricity from wind and sun. Then that declined to 41% in 2021, due to lack of wind. In 2022 they appear to have bounced back to 46%. Germany has enough wind turbines that they produce big surpluses of electricity when the wind blows at full strength. But they still haven’t cracked the threshold of meeting 50% of electricity demand with wind and sun over the course of a year.
It’s no better over in the territory of co-climate crusader UK. Despite a crash program to build wind turbines (also accompanied by a smidgeon of solar panels), the UK’s percent of power from wind in 2022 was 26.8%, according to the BBC on January 6, 2023. Solar added a paltry 4.4%.
Well, maybe this project isn’t as easy as the central planners thought it would be. News of the past week brings to light a few more speed bumps on the road to energy utopia.
At the website Not A Lot Of People Know That, Paul Homewood on June 21 presents a calculation for the UK of how much wind turbine capacity would be necessary to supply the country with all its electricity needs by building extra wind capacity and using it to electrolyze water into hydrogen. The calculation was initially prepared by a guy named John Brown, and provided to Paul. For those interested in reviewing the calculation, it is available by emailing Mr. Brown at jbxcagwnz@gmail.com.
For starters, Homewood notes that average demand in the UK was 29 GW in 2022, and it has 28 GW of wind turbine capacity already. As you can immediately see, the fact that 28 GW of “capacity” only supplied 26.8% of average demand of 29 GW indicates an average capacity factor of under 30% for the wind turbines. The total demand for the year came to 262 TWh, but the wind turbines only produced 62 TWh.
Full post
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.
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