So as the COP 26 climate change conference opens in Glasgow, and we are repeatedly getting messages about global warming and what needs to be done. I thought I would just have a look at some of the seemingly contradictory things that are being said.
Firstly, I would say that I am not in any way a climate change denier. Climate Change is happening there are so many examples of that that it would be unrealistic to suggest there isn’t some form of climate change.
It is also clear that we do need to take drastic actions to reduce our climate changing behaviour and to reduce our personal carbon footprints. However, the actions we take need to be realistic and proportionate. A couple of examples that concern me about things which in their own sound fine but when taken together with other factors make them in my view unrealistic are as follows.
Electric Cars
From 2030 petrol and diesel engine vehicles will not be sold in the United Kingdom. We are going to have to buy electric vehicles from their north quite clearly there will be a lot after that before electric vehicles are compulsory there will be a runoff period from 2030 when people still have petrol- or diesel-powered cars because not everybody could afford to buy a brand-new car.
My concern about electric cars is where is the energy going to come from to power these vehicles. Yeah, I hear you say the energy is going to come from electricity, but go back one step further where are we going to get the electricity from?
At the present time we have only just managed to supply the current demand for electricity in this country new power stations are needed they are not being built. Every time a new power station is proposed we end up with delays of years owing to public inquiries et cetera nobody wants a power station built near them. The environmentalist will say that we should be using solar power wind power or wave power. However, when any of these schemes are proposed others object to them and progress is painfully slow. Given the lag between proposing a new power station and it being operational we are not going to have these power stations in place by 2030.
Domestic Heating
When you are in the issues around domestic heating supplies the situation becomes even more unrealistic. The government are saying that all households will have to install heat pumps to replace bare gas boilers in the future stop these heat pumps will either need to be ground source heat pumps or air source heat pumps. Leaving aside the costs of the pumps for the moment [I will come back to this at a later point in this blog close brackets. The heat pumps are not able to supply all the heating needs for a house, especially in cold weather. Also, it takes quite some time for the heat pump to produce enough extra heat 2 raise the temperature in your house. It is not like a gas boiler where you were just the thermostat and the room heater almost instantaneously.
To overcome these problems, it will be necessary for people to have an additional source of heating in their home, namely electric heating.
Now every house that currently has a gas boiler also needing an additional electric heater is going to provide considerable extra strain on the power stations in this country. New partner you may of course remember in the previous section about electric cars I raised the issue of providing the power for those cars. Now not only do we have all those cars to provide electricity to charge, but we also need huge amounts of electricity to supplement the output of the heat pumps.
As I have said previously there simply is not the capacity in this country at the present time to achieve this. It should also be borne in mind that we currently already must import. a huge amount of electricity into the UK. I understand the amount we currently import is 24,556 giga Watt hours of electricity. This predominantly comes from France via. Undersea cable.
However, it should also be borne in mind that France is going to have similar problems to the UK, namely switching to the use of non-fossil fuels. It is reasonable to expect that the French will have more demand for their own electricity and will therefore be unable to supply unlimited amounts to the UK.
Also, is it worth being so reliant on an overseas nation for our energy supplies. We are currently seeing the French threatening to detain UK fishing boats and blockade port if they don’t get their own way. By increasing our reliance on the French for power supplies, we are giving them increased power. To dominate the UK.
Costs
The next issue that concerns me is. The whole issue of cost. At the present time, an electric car costs upwards of 30,000 pounds. That is out of the price range of most people. I appreciate that the cost of. Electric cars are likely to come down over time, but until that cost does come down, people are not going to be able to afford electric cars.
At present. Driving an electric car once you have paid the purchase price, is relatively cheap because there is no fuel duty on the electricity you use. However, as more people move towards electric motor vehicles, The government will lose out in huge sums of money that they currently get from duty on petrol and diesel. These sums will have to be replaced. The government is not going to be able to suddenly take a huge drop in income given the services they must fund. Effectively all the money the government pay out for services is taxpayers’ money and must be raised in taxes from somewhere.
If the Chancellor gives with one hand, he takes away with another.
The net effect of this is that we will almost certainly have road pricing in the future, I.e., Charging per mile driven, whether that is only on major roads which all become toll roads, or whether we all must have some form of black box device in our cars remains to be seen.
In relation to heat pumps, they. Can cost at present. In the region of 6 to 10,000 pounds or more. If you have a ground source heat pump, then there is considerable cost. In installing the necessary underground piping. That of course assumes that you do have sufficient area to install that piping. Most homes in this country probably do not have sufficient outside area that could be dug up for the paving to be installed.
However, that is not the only cost involved with. Heat pumps. As I mentioned earlier, they do not heat a house as well as. Gas or electricity stop. The. Homes need to be fully insulated. This again is a significant cost for a lot of people, especially those with older style homes. Homes will also need to be triple glazed too. I’m sure they are more efficient. Finally. The size of radiators in the home will also need to be increased. This. As a significant cost again. It may also be that. Houses need under floor heating which. Will be a Hitchcock used.
The government recently in its statement on Green Energy stated that it would make grants available towards these costs. However, they are. Only making 30,000. Grants available per year of up to £5000. Those grants. Over three years will only amount to 90,000 homes. Whereas we have over 60 million people living in this country. The £5000 grants will also not even cover the cost of a heat pump, let alone the installation new radiators, new insulation, under floor heating etcetera
The cost simply of moving to electric cars and to heat pumps to heat homes. Ah, far outside. Most householders’ ability to pay. If people cannot pay. What are we going to do? As I mentioned earlier. The government money is your money, so it is not simply the case that the government can pay for this to be done. It seems at present we are legislating, so that people will no longer be able to have their own motor vehicles and will be back to Victorian times with no heating in their homes. In fact. it will be worse than Victorian times because people will not be able to burn a fossil fuel to keep warm full stop
I have not even mentioned the effect on the economy. Look at all the HGV vehicles on our roads. The cost of electric HGV vehicles will be incredible. The transport companies will have to pass that on to the consumer and thus we will end up with huge increases in. Transport costs and therefore huge increases in prices of goods. This is on top of the increased cost. Everyone is going to have for buying electric cars, installing heat pumps, running those heat pumps, et cetera.
The reality is that the current green proposals are a bit like the Emperor’s New Clothes. It is simply talking. Everybody is getting carried away with things that in reality do not work.
Yes, we need to move to more environmentally friendly methods and processes. It is no good moving towards more environmentally friendly methods and destroying the economies of the world to do so. There must be a balance between. Climate change prevention and not destroying. The economy and society with it.
Any proposals made need to be ones that are. effective and can work. At present. It seems that nobody is thinking about the effectiveness of these ideas. It is great to say we need electric cars or that we need heat pumps, but without the infrastructure to support them or the ability to pay for them, it is a nonstarter.
Insulate Britain, with their protests, are demanding the government pay to insulate every home. What is not being asked is where that money is going to come from. As I have said previously. The government do not have does not have money of its own. It is. Your money that is raised via various taxes. Protesters always seem happy to spend other people’s money.
Overseas Aid
Another theme that was being discussed in the media. Today was that developed nations. Need to be giving huge amounts more aid to developing world countries to enable them to install. Green facilities. Again. The question must be where is this funding coming from?? As we have already established, the cost of electric cars, heat pumps, insulation, et cetera in the UK is huge and is going to be crippling. Where is the extra money going to come from to pay? For similar. Cost in third World countries?
We do need to act. However, action needs to be action that is not going to destroy our society.
People to stop and to take a realistic look at what is being done and what realistically can be done rather than jumping on the bandwagon of the latest green initiatives proposed by some academic.
Some very small changes that we should be talking about are things like for example:
Stopping FIFA and UEFA from expanding European and world football competitions. We are seeing, for example, UEFA increasing the number of teams playing in the European Champions League. Those teams are flying across Europe, every week of the football season. Now, that is doing horrendous damage to the environment. A simple way around that would be to have the European Champions Cup played over a month in one host country. That way, all the teams taking part would need one flight to that country and would be based there for the period.
I notice that no. Commentators are. Caring to take on the football authorities. They are too powerful, and football is too popular to try and. Forced to change.
I notice in the recent budget the government reduced air passenger duty. Four flights wholly within the United Kingdom. This on the face of it, seems a strange. Policy when we are trying to reduce our carbon footprint. We should be encouraging people too. Travel in the United Kingdom via more green methods, e.g., the railways. I do not know the logic behind. This moves in the recent budget. It seems at odds with the government other pronouncements and. Suggest a luck of joined up thinking.
We still see. The very rich. And famous flying by private jet around the world for holidays, weekends, away and other. Jones. Nobody seems to call those people out.
Football teams, for example, often fly to warmer climate during a break in the football season. Again, unnecessarily increasing the carbon footprint. In fact, recently, I understand Manchester United flew to an away league game at Leicester! Yes, flew! No one is calling this waste out, but instead you are expected to bankrupt yourself to pay for a heat pump that won’t heat your house.
Again, at this time of year we will start to see lots of houses covered in thousands of Christmas lights and other decorations. The same BBC and ITV News programmes that berate us all year over our carbon footprints and lecture us on what we need to do to save the environment, will be running features, about how wonderful these houses look. They are praising the householders for doing so. What about the extra electricity being used? All those lights are increasing our carbon footprint. Why are we praising people and celebrating people wasting Electricity?
Bobby Shaftoe's Gone to Sea 