Why we need "Net zero"

[Beelbeebub]

34 minutes ago, Crofter said:

In a few years time I think we'll have stopped worrying about EV range. 

It makes far more sense to transmit energy down power lines than to drive it around in a battery. 

Better charging infrastructure will allow smaller batteries, lighter cars, more miles per kWh.

As I said, it's charging anxiety. 

 

But crucially, EVs don't need oil. They can run off whatever you make your electricity from. 

 

And with V2G tech finally starting to happen your car battery becomes your house battery or even a grid battery when plugged in. 

[Beelbeebub]

3 hours ago, ProDave said:

Which is why I thing they would get the public on side more if it was presented an an energy security issue due to our dwindling oil and gas reserves, and without the silly completely stop oil use targets.

The "stop oil use" targets are pretty tied to shifting road transport to electric as that is the majority (3/4) use for oil.

 

I prefer "stop burning oil" to "stop oil" - as I've said there are some things we need oil for and even some sectors which we will ha e to keep burning fossil fuels for (aviation is a big one) 

[SimonD]

3 hours ago, ProDave said:

Yes it is happening.  BUT if not actually man made we will get to net zero eventually at great cost, and find it makes no difference.  So it DOES matter how it is caused.

 

This is at the crux of it all. I personally think the scientists and policymakers are making some very big, long-term mistakes here. The environment is a complex dynamical system and those scientists who specialise in this area of understanding should know that rarely can you ascertain direct causation to changes in these systems due to their complexity. You can only really look at balance of probability of influence on the basis of observable patterns.

 

For me, I think the net zero strategy that focusses on CO2 is a mistake, it's just another example of a reductionist perspective that will cause lots of other unintended consequences, the cost of which, not just monetarily, but socially and environmentally we simply don't know. I think it would be much more sensible if we directed our attention and resources to first and foremost taking care of our whole environment and as such would nurture the whole system that governs climate. CO2 merely plays a role in this.

 

3 hours ago, Spinny said:

Except the other major issues are (1) cost, (2) environmental impact, and (3) intermittancy.

 

1. There is huge disagreement on the actual costs of renewable energy with people using different calculation methods and huge tax payer subsidies in place now. Subsidies not only being direct but also via paying producers to turn off wind turbines and cut off power feeds - effectively paying for no power. So we then have energy storage costs. We also have the cost of power cabling.

 

2. Environmental impacts extend from being a blot on the landscape, to killing wildlife, to felling rainforests, to catching fire, to falling over, to child labour in cobalt and lithium extraction, to interfering with radar, to loss of farm land.

 

3. Intermittancy means no energy security without huge scale energy storage, either centrally, or in a distributed fashion where everyone has to install a battery in their house.

 

Renewables is not a free lunch or without very real issues.

 

I don't think anything is a free lunch. Many of those who are opposed to renewables cite the issues you do, but that is often at the expense of an honest assessment of the wider costs of fossils fuels - very rarely do the externalities of fossils fuels and the very huge subsidies received by fossil fuel companies get a look in. But it's not just about that. It's about the long term history of geopolitics and power and how fossil fuels have actually fuelled a lot of the problems we face today as a whole society. This is very interesting read on the topic, IMHO:

 

"Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century is a long history of this present political moment. It recounts three histories—one about geopolitics, one about the world economy, and one about western democracies—and explains how in the years of political disorder prior to the pandemic, the disruption in each became one big story. It shows how much of this turbulence originated in problems generated by fossil-fuel energies, and it explains why, as the green transition takes place, the longstanding predicaments energy invariably shapes will remain in place."

 

As I see it, the whole thing just goes around in circles and will probably continue to do so for a very long time, but with some groups just getting on with their thing - like a solar entrepreneur saying that they're not wating for government policy to catch up, they're just getting on with it because the price is right and the returns just get better. Just like those who recognise that using gas, for example, the produce electricity that is then used to power vehicles and home heating is much more efficient and cleaner than ICE or piping gas directly to the home and burning it inefficiently there -  and nobody seems to talk about the infrastructure costs and impacts gas has on the country and its environment, just electricity cables. Each option has its drawbacks but it's got to be about what works on balance witha long term view.

 

[markc]

I try and stay out of the climate debate because I like to work on hard facts, but I do feel the problem is the “Net” bit.

Net allow loads of negatives along as there are positives to make it Net.

its like saying someone murdered 2 people but saved 2 others so all is good! 
moving our industries overseas to reduce our emissions may work out as Net but disastrous for the planet and our country

[Spinny]

New technology is always the big hope. If we imagine a world with abundant energy from fusion, and a world where we are able to manufacture and reprocess materials new and old, things could look very different. When we think of the astonishing technological achievements of the last 100 years, and the accelerating pace of change, mankind will hopefully be in a different place in another 100 years - the blink of an eye in climate change terms.

 

This video shows the astonishing developments now to come in bio technology and man made protein design for example...

https://youtu.be/KbDvQgsOI-E?si=eW3ukpS1dLkhsGvA

[Mr Blobby]

A lot to unpack here 🙄

 

4 hours ago, Spinny said:

1. There is huge disagreement on the actual costs of renewable energy with people using different calculation methods and huge tax payer subsidies in place now. Subsidies not only being direct but also via paying producers to turn off wind turbines and cut off power feeds - effectively paying for no power. So we then have energy storage costs. We also have the cost of power cabling.

 

A lot of the renewable incentives were closed to new entrants many years ago. In Northern Ireland, where the renewables incentives were excessive, the cost to each electricity bill is £31 per year.  More than it should be, but not exacly the end of the world.

Conventional thermal generation plant is also paid not to generate. This is not a new thing restricted to wind trubines.  In Northern Ireland both conventianal thermal plant and wind turbines have always been limited by transmission constraints and paid not to generate. 

Grid energy storage is not really a thing and is not the solution for transmission constraints nor for excesive generation.  

 

4 hours ago, Spinny said:

 

2. Environmental impacts extend from being a blot on the landscape, to killing wildlife, to felling rainforests, to catching fire, to falling over, to child labour in cobalt and lithium extraction, to interfering with radar, to loss of farm land.

 

Here in Ireland we don't have any of the GB nimbyism.  We don't think they are ugly, Irish wind turbines are onshore at half the cost of offshore turbines. 

Far more birds are killed by domestic cats than wind turbines. 

There is twice the risk that your petrol or diesel car will catch fire than a wind turbine.

Eighty percent of the worlds cobalt is from industrial mines without child labour.  And cobalt-free batteries are available. 

There is no shortage of farm land here and farmers I know with wind turbines on their land have never complained about their dairy herd being imacted.

 

4 hours ago, Spinny said:

 

3. Intermittancy means no energy security without huge scale energy storage, either centrally, or in a distributed fashion where everyone has to install a battery in their house.

 

Grid energy storage is never going to be the principal balancing mechanism for intermittent renewables.  Never.  Frequency regulation and vanity projects, maybe, but that's about it.  Why would anyone pay millions of pounds to build a giant battery to supply a few seconds of power, or even dispatch a gas turbine, when demand side agreements reduce demand for a fraction of the price.  Commercial agreements to manage demand have been in place for years with DSUs and (in GB) smart meters to adjust demand.  

 

4 hours ago, Spinny said:

 

Renewables is not a free lunch or without very real issues.

 

After the capital costs are covered the energy from a wind turbine is at zero cost per MWh to the turbine owner. 

The challenges of intermittent supply have been well understood and planned for.  Ireland has no nuclear generation.  50% of Irish electricity generation is from renewables, and that is almost entirely from onshore wind turbines.  Curtailment is almost always restricted to overnight when demand falls off a cliff, but the increase in EVs means more overnight and off-peak demand management is possible through smart meters and TOU tariffs.  Overnight generation in Ireland, when EVs are charged, is often from 80% renewables.  More EV charging is good for grid stability, it reduces curtailment and every petrol car off the road is an easy step to reduce vehicle emissions by 80% and move towards net zero.  😏

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Mr Blobby

[Ed_]

On 20/01/2026 at 20:10, JohnMo said:

China? So we are ok, aren't we!

 

Was in a Scottish ship yard, a year or two ago, full of wind turbines for offshore, all had been shipped from China 

Not one single Chinese offshore wind turbine has yet been installed in European waters.

I suspect you must have seen the foundations, which are just welded steel. China produces some of what we use, but most are produced in Europe, or the Middle East.

 

Unfortunately, like ship building, we struggle to produce major offshore steelwork in this country. Not just at a competitve price but just to fabricate it full stop

 

There is however a new facility being built at Teesworks - https://www.seahwind.com/ - proper heavy industry. I pray it is successful.

[Ed_]

On 21/01/2026 at 22:18, Spinny said:

Mr Millipede

Do you think ad hominem attacks help convince the undecided of your arguments?

 

[jack]

4 hours ago, Spinny said:

1. There is huge disagreement on the actual costs of renewable energy with people using different calculation methods and huge tax payer subsidies in place now. Subsidies not only being direct but also via paying producers to turn off wind turbines and cut off power feeds - effectively paying for no power. So we then have energy storage costs. We also have the cost of power cabling.

 

Agreed generally, but the way such subsidies work is a failure of government policy and negotiation. There's no reason for curtailment payments to wind generators to be anything like as lucrative as they are. The failure to increase grid capacity and interconnectivity is also unforgiveable.

 

The fossil fuel industry also has the advantage of being able to avoid the costs of negative externalities. It's easy to conclude that the dead eagle at the base of a wind turbine was probably killed by the turbine. It's more or less impossible to attribute specific cases of lung cancer, emphysema, asthma, etc. to the burning of fossil fuels, but it's undoubtedly the case that it causes serious negative health impacts on human health, including huge numbers of unnecessary deaths every year.    

 

4 hours ago, Spinny said:

2. Environmental impacts extend from being a blot on the landscape, to killing wildlife, to felling rainforests, to catching fire, to falling over, to child labour in cobalt and lithium extraction, to interfering with radar, to loss of farm land.

 

Fossil fuel extraction, transport, and use, have similar issues of their own. 

 

4 hours ago, Spinny said:

3. Intermittancy means no energy security without huge scale energy storage, either centrally, or in a distributed fashion where everyone has to install a battery in their house.

 

This is the one point I agree with wholeheartedly. Adding more renewables without dealing with the baseload required to cover periods of low renewables generation and drastically increasing storage at grid scale is completely unreasonable. Most people who want more renewables seem to not understand this.

Imagine where we'd be now if government had decided to spend the HS2 money on fast-tracked nuclear power stations?

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, jack said:

Imagine where we'd be now if government had decided to spend the HS2 money on fast-tracked nuclear power stations?

About 25 away from getting some power.

Now imagine if half the money had been spent on grid reinforcement/renewal, a third on new RE generation and the remaining amount on storage (which does NOT have to be batteries).

We would have increased installed capacity by about 15GW, and dispatchable power by probably 10GW.

Or, in eady to understand terms, about 20% of our needs.

But hey, getting to Birmingham, from somewhere near North London is a vote winner.

[-rick-]

11 minutes ago, jack said:

This is the one point I agree with wholeheartedly. Adding more renewables without dealing with the baseload required to cover periods of low renewables generation and drastically increasing storage at grid scale is completely unreasonable. Most people who want more renewables seem to not understand this.

 

Not sure I agree with this. Yes you need the grid capacity to transport the renewables (you highlighted that problem) but once you have that and you have dynamic pricing then the market likely sorts a lot of this out for you (possibly less efficiently if you did it in a more centralised manner but the the decentralised nature of this has it's own advantages). Offer people/companies nearly free power at some times and expensive power at others and a lot will be motivated to take advantage.

 

There are structually some issues with the way we've done things in this country that means there are more difficulties here than other places but I think the point stands anyway.

 

I don't think we should subsidise new build renewables if we don't have the capacity to use them though.

 

Edit: To clarify, we obviously need sufficient base load capacity for true baseload, but what is true base load will be affected by descisions people make due to dynamic pricing. AFAIK we still have a lot of non-renewable baseload available.

Edited 5 hours ago by -rick-

[jack]

14 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

About 25 away from getting some power.

 

HS2 was announced in 2009. It needn't take 41 years to design and build a nuclear power plant. Much of the delay is regulatory.

 

14 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Now imagine if half the money had been spent on grid reinforcement/renewal, a third on new RE generation and the remaining amount on storage (which does NOT have to be batteries).

We would have increased installed capacity by about 15GW, and dispatchable power by probably 10GW.

 

We can do both. The UK is one of the most expensive places in the world to build nuclear power stations. I understand why it's cheap to build them in China, but there's no good reason why somewhere like Finland or France is able to build so much more cheaply and quickly than the UK. 

 

14 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

But hey, getting to Birmingham, from somewhere near North London is a vote winner.

 

It's absolute insanity that it's no longer terminating in central London.

[SteamyTea]

28 minutes ago, jack said:

no good reason why somewhere like Finland or France is able to build so much more cheaply and quickly than the UK. 

Possibly the cost of decommissioning is account for elsewhere.  I think that the two EPRs are both close to £20bn, though it is hard to find a true costs for any of them.

It is not really the price that is the problem as much of that is for labour, of which most is UK based.  The biggest problem is the slow pace.

 

45 minutes ago, -rick- said:

and you have dynamic pricing then the market likely sorts a lot of this out for you

Do you think so.

We already have half hour pricing, just not on the retail side.

Dynamic pricing will be to a lot of customers a disadvantage.  Most cannot cope with E7, let alone E10 (two cheaper periods.

I work with two people, neither of them stupid, and one is an electrician.  Like me, they both have E7.  One cannot understand how to set up a storage heater and heats her hot water on demand, the other (the electrician) has twice the day units than night units (700 kWh, 360 kWh respectively).  A little probing and it transpires that they run a tumble dryer for 2 hours every day (as part of their holiday cottage cleaning business business).  As the night units only heat the hot water, they are using about 10 kWh/day, which is probably about right for two/three of them. I was around their place the other evening, not coming out of the storage heaters.  They heat when they feel cold, so generally on day rate.

Offering those people dynamic pricing will be a disaster.

[-rick-]

1 minute ago, SteamyTea said:

Do you think so.

We already have half hour pricing, just not on the retail side.

 

We do and we have it on the retail side as well to a degree (Agile). There are some customers it's suitable for and some it's not. I'm not suggesting that it be mandatory, there will always be a use case for the provider providing a blended rate incorporating some extra amount for risk.

 

Having said that I don't think we have a particularly good dynamic pricing setup here, where the price paid for every unit is set by the most expensive unit. That means the periods of really low prices are much more limited than they would be if we used an average price rather than max price model, this limits the return for people able to invest to load shift or load shed.

[SteamyTea]

6 minutes ago, -rick- said:

price paid for every unit is set by the most expensive unit

That is our biggest problem.

Marginal Pricing is a ludicrous system for a necessary service.

Imagine if the supermarkets did it.

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, jack said:

Agreed generally, but the way such subsidies work is a failure of government policy and negotiation. There's no reason for curtailment payments to wind generators to be anything like as lucrative as they are. The failure to increase grid capacity and interconnectivity is also unforgiveable.

 

AND a failure of planning.  WHY so many approved in Scotland, where there is no more capacity and they are the ones paid not to generate, while at the same time there is still I believe a blanket planning ban on onshore wind farms in England where there is the capacity and nearer to where most of the power is needed.

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, ProDave said:

nearer to where most of the power is needed

That is not really an issue though.  Bulk transmission losses are pretty small.

The biggest problem is public acceptance of wind and solar.  Mostly based on disinformation.

One of the oldest windfarms is near Truro, clearly visible from the A30, but only for about a mile, so less than a minute at 70 MPH.

There is also a solar farm close to it, most people I know do not know of its existence. even though it is clearly visible.

[saveasteading]

4 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

12 minutes ago, ProDave said:

nearer to where most of the power is needed

That is not really an issue though

But the gentle people of SE England don't want to see turbines or pylons but do want the energy. Some power somewhere is keeping it that way.

 

And the transmission lines really do disfigure vast areas of beauty and wilderness,  The residents, through whose areas they pass, get no recompense.

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

transmission lines really do disfigure vast areas of beauty and wilderness,  The residents, through whose areas they pass, get no recompense.

They get reliable, low CO_2e, electricity.

I am sure there were similar complaints about paving roads.  Now people marvel at what the Romans did for us.

 

But realistically, telegraph and power poles in 'pretty' villages are a bigger problem visually.

I have one outside my bedroom window.  I don't notice it, mainly as I am asleep, or it is dark.  Oddly though, it does not supply my house, that has underground cabling.

[Ed_]

36 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

The biggest problem is public acceptance of wind and solar.  Mostly based on disinformation.

10 times as much land is used for golf courses as solar, yet it is solar that gets the bad press for "taking up prime agricultural land".

Domestic cats probably kill 1,000-10,000 times as many birds as wind turbines, but we rarely hear that context.

Most things we do are bad for nature, but some things are less bad than others.

 

I wonder how much of the reluctance for renewables is simple NIMBY-ism. No one has tried to build a new fossil fuelled plant that recently, somehow I imagine it wouldn't go down too well with the locals unless replacing an existing one, which is probably not a viable strategy given our growing power demands.

[Crofter]

I used to think that battery storage couldn't possibly play a meaningful part in supporting the grid. I'm starting to change my mind. 

I'm not saying it's necessarily the best way forward, but with LFP tumbling in price (no Co in these) and Sodium entering the market, the price for battery storage is far lower than anybody predicted even a few years ago. Add to that the proliferation of EVs, with lots of battery packs ready to go on to static storage once the vehicles have rotted away. And of course V2G should be part of the solution. 

By my back of envelope calculations, an average EV should be able to run a house for about two days straight. That might not get us through every period of calm, dim weather, but it will go a very very long way. We'll probably still need some gas generation to plug the gaps, but I genuinely think it will be possible to get to 10% or less fossil fuel dependency on the grid.

[saveasteading]

4 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

poles in 'pretty' villages are a bigger problem visually.

to the people in pretty villages.  I'm meaning the huge pylons that would traipse over the Highlands, Lowlands, Dales etc. But  perhaps not the Cotswolds..

6 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

complaints about paving roads.

roads run both directions. bringing services and selling goods. Pylons tend to be sending energy  in one direction.

 

I live in the SE but do think that it is a resource for the areas it comes from and there should be recompense. A very big meter at Dalwhinnie, or Banchory or wherever.

[Beelbeebub]

3 hours ago, Ed_ said:

Do you think ad hominem attacks help convince the undecided of your arguments?

 

I find it useful as whenever I hear someone say "two tier keir" it's sign they're going to spout a load of twaddle

[Beelbeebub]

2 hours ago, jack said:

The failure to increase grid capacity and interconnectivity is also unforgiveable

Yes but then people say this

 

58 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

And the transmission lines really do disfigure vast areas of beauty and wilderness

 

[Beelbeebub]

Nimbyism is a massive issue.

 

Near me there is a proposal for a fairly large solar farm. People are losing their minds over "the damage to the view from the AONB". 

 

The park will barely visible as a sliver of dark blue/black from the AONB in question.

 

The biggest impact will be the brief periods in the morning where there may be some chance of glare reflecting off the panels for anyone standing on higher ground. 

 

Of course you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between the glare from the solar panels and the glare from the big river and numerous lakes and ponds (not to mention flooded fields at various times if the year) that already make up the landscape. 

 

The local pressure group has made all sorts of noises about the "10ft high security fence" (in an area defined by 10 ft high hedgerows and tree lines even higher.  They are also incensed by the "giant substation" needed. Turns out it's about the size of a shipping container.