Ed Miliband: The Messiah of Net Zero. Credit: Anthony Devlin: Getty.
If you think your energy bill is already high, brace yourself. Labour may have promised a Net Zero electricity system that would cut average bills by £300 — but as new research reveals, the opposite is going to happen. We can expect the cost of electricity to increase by at least 75%.
“I have absolute faith,” energy secretary Ed Miliband has said, that Net Zero will “do great things for our country and our world.” Inconveniently, an investigation by one of Britain’s leading energy experts provides evidence that our growing reliance on Miliband’s beloved renewable forms of energy, not the “rollercoaster” fossil fuels market, is more likely to have a devastating economic effect.
For the past two months, Professor Gordon Hughes, a senior fellow at Washington’s National Centre for Energy Analytics and Edinburgh University’s former head of economics, has been working with UnHerd to develop a sophisticated computer model of the UK’s electricity system which provides a robust picture of power generation and why the economic pain is only set to continue.
Miliband, according to Hughes, is starting from a false premise. He is “unambiguously wrong” to claim that the principal cause of rising bills to date has been the price of natural gas. In fact, the wholesale price of electricity, which is where changes in fossil fuel prices are most clearly seen, has generally been constant for the past 20 years. And yet in that same period, electricity bills paid by businesses have almost quadrupled, while those of domestic households have more or less trebled.
It’s true that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 saw the European natural gas price surge briefly by up to 500%, while there was a smaller, short-lived spike in 2008, caused by an imbalance between supply and demand. But to blame, as Miliband does,“petrostates and dictators” for the fluctuations is, according to Hughes, just a “convenient scapegoat”. In fact, it’s the ever-growing thicket of taxes, levies and subsidies, stemming from the switch to renewables, which has caused the price increase, for these added extras now comprise more than three-quarters of the cost of electricity on household bills. According to Hughes, “the steady increase in inflation-adjusted electricity prices over the last two decades is largely a matter of self-inflicted harm”.
And his model reveals that under the Government’s 2030 clean power plan, much worse is yet to come.
For true believers like Miliband, this would be a price worth paying if Britain really could become a net-zero paradise. But unfortunately, given the basic inefficiency of renewables, and the fact they often don’t generate power for hours or days at a time, fossil fuels are destined to remain part of our energy mix for many years. This means that if we want to keep the lights on, we are going to have to spend billions of pounds well before 2030 to build new, back-up gas-fired power plants that Miliband claims will only be used 5% of the time, simply because so many in our existing fleet are worn out.
The single biggest element in the coming increase projected by the model is the cost of the planned expansion in renewables. Official estimates of its cost, says Hughes, are too low, and judging by recent market data, the price for constructing new wind and solar farms is likely to be around £150 billion over the next five years — all of which will be added to bills.
Another factor is Britain’s increasing dependence on electricity supplied via undersea cables from abroad. According to the Hughes model, the more electricity we import, the more we pay. But without it, there will be blackouts. In 2024, after all, Britain was a net electricity importer 91% of the time. Yet foreign energy cannot be relied on. Norway has already passed a law allowing its government to block the sale of electricity when its own supply is scarce. Other countries may well follow suit.
You might argue that high prices from European supplies are, in turn, caused by spikes in the natural gas market. But that, Hughes’s model shows, would once again be false: gas accounts for less than 15% of Germany’s energy mix, and less than 5% of France’s. And while Miliband claims his Net Zero plans are needed because gas prices are always bound to rise, that’s also untrue. In Europe, the long-term trend has been stable for 25 years, while in America, the fracking boom has seen costs fall. In other words, to insure against another 2022 — an unusually bad year — Miliband wants to transform British energy in ways that Hughes’s model shows will incur much long-term hardship. That, he notes, “seems like rather a bad bargain”.
Worse is to come, especially once Labour’s green revolution really kicks in. It’s certainly true that wind and solar farms can generate energy from nature, saving operators on fuel costs. But the “full system costs” of renewables wipe out these gains. If, for example, the wind doesn’t blow, turbines will need backup generators. And though Miliband says he wants an eightfold increase in large-scale batteries to store electricity when the weather doesn’t cooperate, the technology only functions for around two hours. This winter, we’ve had days on end without wind, and Hughes’s model suggests batteries would make up just 10-15% of the shortfall.
How, then, would Britain secure the rest of the energy it needs? With natural gas! While Miliband claims gas-powered plants will only need to operate 5% of the time by 2030, Hughes suggests the real figure will be at least three times as high — bearing in mind that the Government says growth in electric vehicles, heat pumps and immigration will increase demand for electricity by 11%. To create a reserve big enough to cope when renewables aren’t functioning and parts of the system “trip off” because of a fault, Hughes says that by 2030, Britain will need some 50 gigawatts (GW) of gas or diesel generating capacity, up from 30 GW now, partly because nuclear stations are due to shut, and we cannot rely on electricity always being available from abroad.
Of course, existing gas plants could remain operational, but only run when needed. But this would ignore another problem. The “open cycle” variety of gas-powered turbines that can be fired up quickly, making them suitable for occasional use, have a lifespan of around 30 years — and almost all in Britain have already reached this limit. By 2030, two-thirds of the less adaptable “closed cycle” type will be similarly aged. Even if we make generous assumptions about how many old facilities might still be available, this means building a whole new fleet over just five years, even though these plants would often lie idle.
All this will obviously cost billions. Current turbine prices come in at some £60 million per GW, so building new back-up plants with a total capacity of 30 GW would cost £18 billion, and 50 GW £30 billion. This implies a further question. With the economy in the doldrums, and the Treasury under pressure to fund budget increases in health and defence, how exactly would Miliband pay for his net-zero dreams? Here, again, the answer is levies on bills, the fees that have already raided pockets so dramatically. Contracts for backup power plants are issued by the Government through what it calls the “capacity market”. This is already skyrocketing, from £120 million in 2017 to £1.1 billion in 2024. With renewables continuing to crowd out reliable alternatives, the capacity market is increasingly needed. And Hughes’s model says these levies are likely to reach an eyewatering £7.4 billion by 2030 — a conservative estimate.
The model identifies still further costs. One is the permits operators must buy to burn gas and other fossil fuels, and whose prices are constantly rising. Then there’s the so-called “balancing mechanism” — whereby operators are paid to generate energy in an emergency, or else cut off production entirely in the case of grid bottlenecks. Taking in all these factors, Hughes’s model suggests the cost of electricity production could reach almost £60 billion by 2030, between 70 and 80% higher than it would be if the UK stuck with its current, non-Net Zero system.
Nor is this even the whole story. All told, electricity generation only accounts for about half your bill. Most of the rest is formed of “network charges” — paid to the National Grid and energy firms for ensuring the power gets from producers to end users. The exact numbers are more difficult to calculate. But the National Electricity System Operator (NESO), the Government-owned company that runs the grid, has said that to create a Net Zero system, it will need to vastly expand its network to link up new wind and solar farms. The upshot? A potential outlay of £65 billion by 2030, with network charges rising from between 80 and 117%.
The economic impact of all this, it hardly needs stating, would be disastrous. “It is a tax on all of us,” is how Hughes puts it. “Electricity-intensive industries which compete in world markets can only meet it by reducing wages or profits. Since workers are unwilling to accept reductions in their incomes, the result has been that they have closed their activities in the UK and moved elsewhere.” The evidence is already in, with the recent demise of the Bridgend steelworks, the pending closure of the Grangemouth refinery and the likely end of car manufacturing at the BMW factory in Oxford. Vauxhall, Hotpoint, JCB and niche manufacturers of items such as mattresses are also cutting jobs and have warned they may soon leave Britain too.
Not that Ed Miliband seems to mind. Only last week, he reiterated his commitment to Labour’s net-zero targets, stating that “the single most important thing we can do is stick to our clean power mission”. It seems that to a man seeking to build a world-leading utopia, something as transient as Britain’s future prosperity doesn’t mean very much.
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Technical details of Hughes’s model can be found on his website, Cloud Wisdom. He is also willing to share the model’s code with those who want to know still more.
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SubscribeExcellent and deeply-researched article. Sometimes, in a highly politicized media landscape, you need a thorough investigation by a real expert to support conclusions that are obvious from the application of common sense alone.
Problem is that real expert will keep their views private so they don’t loose research funding.
Net zero is like religion or communism.
No opposition is allowed.
If you read Lord Sumption books, he openly admits to self censorship before his retirement.
So if people of his stature and intelligence need to do that what do you expect of lesser people?
Very thorough essay. Thanks.
Do you really think a man as dedicated and principled as Ed Milliband will really let a little thing like reality or national bankruptcy get between him and his ideals? Not a bit of it sir.
First he’ll blame the greedy fossil fuel companies when prices go up, then delays in the implementation of his designs. Then he’ll blame the public for wanting too much electricity, before finally turning on the wind and sun themselves for not cooperating and possibly colluding with his enemies.
Never heard dedicated and principles in the same breath as Millipead before
What a brilliant exposé of this unfolding catastroph, I thank you.
Off course this should come as no surprise as Miliband’s father, the dreaded Ralph, absolutely detested this country and all that it stood for.
He was one of that plethora of marxist agitators that fled to this country in the late 1930s and early 40s, much to our detriment it must be said.
Together with Laski and Hobsbawm, he was one of the most pernicious influences ever to be visited on this ‘green and pleasant land’, and it looks as if his son is going to continue in the very same fashion, come what may.
Great post.
Millibrain family are and were traitors to this great country and should had been deported to North Korea decades ago.
Unfortunately, commie scumbags like Hobsbawn were given great honours.
He was Companion of Honour holder.
I think this is given by the Queen/King.
So awarding it to supporter of ideology which resulted in death of Royal family members is disgraceful.
Let us NOT forget who is the true culprit in all this nonsense, THERESA MAY.
The speed with which companies are jettisoning the ESG agenda is not simply the Trump effect but the growing realisation that NetZero is about reducing energy use whereas AI is going to increase energy usage at an accelerating rate.
I suspect that when Reeves went to Davos this year looking for green investment she got this message.
The Express is running a story that Ed is being reshuffled.
It can’t come a split-second too soon.
The true cost of Net Zero? Our democracies, our freedoms, our lives.
Unfortunately it is not just Miliband who is in thrall to the Net-Zero delusion but most of the political class who imposed this plan during the Conservative’s period of office supported by politicians of every other stripe.
There will be great reluctance to accept that they have been steadily impoverishing the country and setting up a system that is far less robust and sustainable than would have been the case without all this regulatory interference.
German politicians and those of other nations have been similarly deluded although the French at least got nuclear supply up and running and still functioning whereas we still have no serious nuclear plans.
And according to media reports over the weekend, Reeves is about to cut the amount of money we were supposedly going to invest in new nuclear.
This article is excellent, but we know all this already – the only people in denial about the costs are the ones aggressively pushing the green agenda and wilfully refusing to put the numbers together, because the first attempt to do so tells you there is no way to make the numbers hang together without deindustrialising and detechnologising.
One point I want to make is that Miliband is an utter coward – I have *never* seen him turn up in a hostile podcast where all his claims are challenged and scrutinised, and the basis of beliefs put to the test. He doesn’t want to defend what he thinks to the wider world, but is nevertheless willing to impose it upon the rest of us. Worse than a religious zealot – at least religious people will debate why they believe what they believe with non believers.
Yes, there is nothing new about this, although the author has been brilliant in his summarising with just the correct amount of information.
I feel that the whole green movement can be summed up by one word – fashion. It is a king’s new clothes movement. People are really genuine about it and are not trying to be evil. The only mistake they are making is that of not listening to counter-ideas and that is a very bad mistake. When you know you are right, then everyone else must be wrong.
I don’t believe there is a way back. There are too many university professors who will not admit they are wrong. There are too many lucrative contracts, which have been awarded by our government. Virtually all politicians believe that the NetZero idea must be correct. Roughly speaking, even delaying the process will cost as much as continuing. If we were to start fracking in a tiny island like the UK, there would be civil unrest because 30 years of students have been told that it is wrong.
Basically, energy prices will rise sharply. People will stop using heaters. Thousands of old people will die. In so doing, NHS waiting lists will be halved and the politicians will tell us how brilliant they have been.
If only green energy were a fashion. Fashions change. But green energy is a religion, and religious views are difficult to change even in the face of reality.
Not Net Zero but Net Zeroism.
Marks of a Cult:
Absolute authoritarianism without accountability
Zero tolerance for criticism or questions
Lack of meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget
Unreasonable fears about the outside world that often involve evil conspiracies and persecutions
Greenhadis?
He doesn’t want to defend what he thinks
Miliband won’t debate his policies in public because knows perfectly well that they are going to destroy the lives of millions of people. He thinks that’s a price worth paying. I suspect he fantasises about being remembered as the man whose policies saved the world. And he’s right to a degree. He will be remembered for his energy policies – in the same way that Stalin is remembered for his agricultural policies.
There are plenty of Davos billionaires who have made it clear they think there are far too many humans on the planet.
I’d be interested to see if Miliband hangs out with (or receives campaign contributions from) any of them
And there are plenty of billionaires/multi 100 millionaires, like the owner of this publication, who want a good return on their fossil fuel investments. But to your point, let’s see the evidence because if it’s there I want to know.
Yes, I agree with overpopulation argument.
But where is it happening?
Muslims and African shitholes.
First step should be end of any aid to Africa and closing the borders.
Within 20 years Africa would find its sustainable population level.
Around 400 million.
The same with Muslims.
Solutions are obvious, really.
We just need leaders in the West to implement them.
You are all aware that the owner of Unherd, Paul Marshall (also owner of GB News and the Spectator), has investments of £1.8bn in fossil fuels and so every article on this subject that appears in this publication may involve some conflict of interest? I’m not saying this completely delegitimses the arguments above but am just curious whether people take this into account while reading?
A green Britain doesn’t necessarily make us poorer (although it does when run by neoliberals who would rather slap fines on us for driving the wrong car than say building better cycling infrastructure – the sort of change that would require taxing the super rich, people who make money by owning things which unfortunately includes most of the media). Put the green agenda in the hands of a genuine economic progressive and you would have a fairer more energy independent Britain.
My response is simple – show me the numbers.
Great question. So there’s little doubt Unherd’s owner Paul Marshall (also owner of GB News and The Spectator) has a vested interest in fossil fuels based on this paragraph from the FT:
‘Marshall Wace, the hedge fund run by Marshall, lists investments in Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, Equinor and other fossil fuel companies among its portfolio.’ (source: https://www.ft.com/content/66bcdded-b4c8-4d3b-9e79-4f8cea24bfd9)
As to the precise number of £1.8bn (it was this in pounds not dollars) I realise my main source does not make this as unambiguously about Marshall Wace as I thought.
My source for the number was this article:
https://www.desmog.com/2023/10/30/gb-news-owner-hedge-fund-paul-marshall-wace-fossil-fuel-investments/
Which quoted this SEC filing for Marshall’s hedge fund company Marshall Wace: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318757/000131875723000007/xslForm13F_X02/mwllp2q23_v2.xml
To get a clearer picture I have just contacted desmog for them to clarify. I have no idea how information of this kind is usually come across. I wonder if it’s the sort of stuff that’s only really circulated in financial circles, kept well away from us peasants. I can keep you updated.
Given the interests of the owner, how do you assess Unherd’s output on this? It’s clearly a matter that means something to Marshall personally, as you can tell by the subject of his latest speech at the ARC event. I don’t want to be so cynical about billionaires/multi-hundred millionaires as to think they can never go against their own class and investment interests (Warren Buffet and Nick Hanauer stand out as exceptions), but as a general rule…
These are not the numbers I meant. I don’t care about Paul Marshall’s investments. I can make up my own mind if the green agenda hangs together regardless of what Paul Marshall says or doesn’t say. You mentioned that “put the green agenda in the hands of a genuine economic progressive and you would have a fairer more energy independent Britain”. I am dubious about this claim. Show me the numbers to back this claim. I have seen nothing that indicates that the UK impoverishing itself over the green agenda would make the blindest bit of difference to climate change. Everything I have seen indicates that forcing the green agenda onto the UK when the technologies are yet expensive and flakey, is going to end up costing trillions, to no purpose, except handing over vast leverage over us to the Chinese and the Americans.
‘handing over vast leverage over us to the Chinese and the Americans’ – how would a Green New Deal (of the kind advocated by progressives like Ann Pettifor) which would focus on giving us more energy independence and better paying, high-skilled jobs in reindustrialising Britain (battery factories, wind turbines etc) make us more vulnerable to other countries? What’s your alternative proposition? If it’s nuclear then fair why not. I just don’t see why you see the development of our natural wind capacity as not in the national interest. And I know how we consume energy makes little difference to overall emissions – I don’t think Miliband is under any illusions that it does, it’s just about setting an example to the world whilst also protecting us against reliance on other countries. And can renewables be made cheaper than fossil fuels? They already are in China thanks to bold industrial strategy.
And fine if you don’t care about Marshall’s investments. Would you say the same to those on here suspecting Miliband (without bothering to put forward any evidence) of being in the pay of ‘Davos billionaires?’ That where your money is has nothing to do with where your mouth is?
“…it’s just about setting an example to the world…”
Seriously?
Switching to green infrastructure would not any create new jobs because as it stands we make pretty much none of the artifacts or technology needed, we would just be end users of stuff made elsewhere. And, even if we did make those goods here, it would create a small number of well paid jobs, not mass employment.
I could go on and on answering your response, (and with an avalanche of numbers) but if you cannot see that there is no such thing possible as the ‘green new deal’, I doubt anything I say would convince you otherwise – you will simply learn this the hard way as you find yourself living in an ever more impoverished country as the years roll on, until you get fed up and bolt, to the US or Canada or Australia or Dubai etc, but not to China, where the cost of energy from renewables is less than fossil fuels, um, allegedly.
I am not evangelical about the Green New Deal, and would need to know more to fully get behind it and feel as confident as you are that nuclear (?) is the answer to our finding more sustainable energy sources that are not vulnerable to geo-political shocks. I’m only probing your argument to see if I can be convinced (Unherd’s slogan is ‘think again,’ although from the level of hostility I get on here for often being the only person going against the hive I sometimes wonder if I’ve misread it). So far I’m some way to feeling more convinced of your position, although the fact you retorted to the China case study with mere condescension hasn’t necessarily won me over.
As to learning the hard way about an impoverished country – don’t worry the last 14 years of Tory rule (rampant free markets and government in the service of the super rich) has shown me more than enough for that. But I would never be so stupid as to go to the US, Canada or Australia. Every time I’ve lived in the Netherlands (on and off the last decade) I’ve had a far better standard of living, thanks to stronger trade unions, better regulated housing and better funded transport and health services. The same is true of much of western Europe – declining now as we are, but from a greater height.
But that doesn’t mean I’ll ever give up on the UK regenerating. I love the place and it’s upsetting how unnecessarily crap all the privatisation has made it. And I don’t think we should be as defeatist as you to say that because we don’t yet make certain things here we should therefore give up altogether, or am I misrepresenting you?
Does that include the partially privatised Dutch health care system? Rampant free markets? Which planet are you living on? Privatisation has ruined Britain? Because British Rail was so marvellous? You think the state would be able to invent the iphone? Maybe having the highest tax level since the war might have more to do with it. Europe and the UK are on a one way trip down the toilet. How may tech companies have come out of Europe? China/US wlll leave us in the dust.
Yes partially privatised, but like all better health services in the world it involves mandatory insurance, a state-funded safety for the poorest and receives significantly more government funding than the NHS, so although some competition between providers is involved (and I’m not completely against this if it’s well regulated) the state is heavily involved. And yes rampant free markets – is that not a fair characterisation of the privatisation of most key utilities – rail, mail, gas, water, telecoms, health to some extent etc. But by all means if there’s lots of evidence that these changes have been a success please tell me! I’d genuinely like to know about them so as to feel less depressed. The best anyone on here has ever come up with is suggesting that telecoms was a moderate success. Interesting you mention the government and the iPhone, well yes while the government did not invent it, it did give a grant for researching its design (https://digitaltonto.com/2013/where-did-the-iphone-really-come-from/), just as Tesla received government money in the beginning. While entrepreneurs usually need to do the detail, there are many instances of governments incentivising the creation of useful inventions through grants. You should read Mariana Mazzucato’s The Entrepreneurial State.
Finally, I do totally take your point that Europe is behind on tech. But are higher taxes to blame? Or, as my examples above suggest, do governments need to be more involved in promoting tech? Genuine question – I’m as concerned about our decline as you are… I don’t know much about how China is getting ahead but I’m sure their government isn’t just sitting by and leaving things to the market.
I have sent a response but it’s being processed by Unherd’s censors… This has happened many times with me before and they’ve never ultimately blocked my posts (although maybe they like delaying it long enough for the news cycle, and people’s attention, to move on). Expect something to appear tomorrow. I hope Marshall’s word watchers see my contribution as part of the ‘real conversation’ Marshall apparently wants about net zero.
Surely the aim should be to make fossil fuels a poor investment by producing cheap energy in abundance from other sources? If so, then clearly renewables aren’t doing that. If renewables were the solution then energy prices would be continually reducing and putting fossil fuel companies out of business via simple economics. The numbers on household bills say otherwise.
Everything about climate change is about scale and numbers, and environmentalists are very poor at understanding the scaling needed to deliver energy in sufficient abundance that it makes going green a natural bargain, not a burden.
Instead we get relatively petty and trivial virtual signaling on schemes that are relatively marginal compared to the huge energy problem that needed to be solved 30 years ago, and could have been, if nuclear had been the priority.
Yes you’re right! That should be the aim, except it hasn’t been because we haven’t had as strong an industrial strategy as we need – as they have done in China, where renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels. But beyond energy sources there are other ways of making the country greener and more affordable. Back to transport – better cycling infrastructure or public transport would go a long way in getting us to lead cheaper, greener and healthier lives. With say rail, we’ve far too long had the legalised corruption between national rail bosses and the government for instance that pays shareholders very well at the expense of customers. For example, living in Exeter it never makes sense to get the train to London since the driving is always at least twice as cheap and it shouldn’t be.
Transport is an entirely different discussion. More cycling is good but it doesn’t heat a house or put food on the table – it’s a petty item compared to the energy problem.
For trains, London, and too many people wanting to go to London, is why train prices are high – there’s not enough capacity for the demand of journeys, so railways boost the prices to constrain demand, which then knocks on to train prices everywhere else.
If you want lower prices, the answer is always abundance, not constraints. For instance, if you made driving more expensive, people would switch to rail, but then rail prices would go up in response because there’s no more capacity for the extra demand created.
To get more trains means heavy infrastructure spend to boost supply: more tracks, faster lines to increase frequency on the same track, and more routes that reduce the need to connect via London. HSE2 started out at more than £1million per mile – a fair proportion to do with environmental and other regulations. High build costs demand high returns. Train companies went bust despite having the highest ticket prices in Europe because the capital expenditure costs were too high. Which comes from gilding the lily in regulations, which then over-constrains supply, creating scarcity instead of abundance.
Thanks for this. Ok so you’ve told me public transport is a side issue before then making almost all your response about transport. That’s fine though – I think public transport is a big issue if it’s robbing you of say £30 a day if you’re going from the commuter belt to London for work.
On your point that what holds an expansion of the railways back is primarily environmental and other regulations, I agree that in the case of HS2 a lot of increased costs was to do with complaints from Chiltern locals demanding tunnels to hide the trains from view, among other things (source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98486dzxnzo).
But I don’t think every regulation around compulsory land purchases necessarily holds builders back. With housing for instance the planning system has been streamlined to the point that 9/10 planning applications are approved. What we need more of – and what they have in other countries which are better at building railways, like France and Spain – is government power to buy land for less. Currently government can only buy land at the price that it is worth after planning permission but we need a system that allows them to buy it at its current value which is often many times less. This will seem unfair on private buyers who will be competing in a two tier system but there is no other way as far as I can tell.
Your point that train companies went bust because of capital expenditure costs – do you really think that’s the main reason? Nothing to do with the mismanagement of funds by private companies and their prioritising of shareholders over customers? (sources: https://www.railway-technology.com/features/a-blow-for-privatisation-in-the-battle-for-british-railways/?cf-view; https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/the-new-politics-of-rail-privatisation/)
And finally on this: ‘if you made driving more expensive, people would switch to rail, but then rail prices would go up in response’ – I didn’t mean driving should made more expensive, I meant trains should be cheaper. I said in another comment that slapping fines on people for driving the wrong car is a lazy and regressive way of reducing congestion and emissions and fuels this mistaken notion that ‘climate-friendly’ policies are necessarily elitist, which I don’t think they have to be (back to China, which you haven’t shared your thoughts on).
16% of China’s electricity production in 2023 was solar or wind. 65% was fossil fuels. (Remembering electricity is not ‘all energy’). https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/china/
That’s less than the EU (22% from solar or wind in 2022) so China is not a great example. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/how-is-eu-electricity-produced-and-sold/#0
China’s coal production has also been increasing year on year from 2021, with almost 100GW in the process of being built in 2024. So it’s not a shining beacon of renewables hope. https://www.carbonbrief.org/chinas-construction-of-new-coal-power-plants-reached-10-year-high-in-2024/
Like I said, environmentalists rarely take in or grasp things numerically, but focus on the trivial ‘heartwarmers’ that actually have marginal impact.
Thank you for your research in addressing one of my points. Most people on here don’t bother. Yes China seems behind the EU on current proportion of electricity produced by wind and solar (although a little ahead on hydro at 13%, as your source shows, compared to the EU’s 12%).
You’re right that China’s appetite for coal is not abating, but neither is the pace at which it’s expanding its renewable power production. Its renewable power output nearly tripled between 2017-2022 (i.e. it’s growing quicker than its output from fossil fuels), according to this source: https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/the-carbon-brief-profile-china/index.html which says it is ‘the world’s largest renewable energy producer and consumer.’ However, the same source also says that the country is ‘now the world’s largest coal consumer by far.’ So we’re both right. Agreed?
But what I want to know from you is what you think our energy strategy should be. We have incredible wind power potential being an island off the Atlantic (although here you would say we should keep seeing renewables as unreliables and give up on the ambition of having as efficient energy storage methods as the Chinese?), and we know we don’t want to be dependent on Russian gas. Are you saying we go nuclear?
China is the bad boy of emissions, but with a PR department that easily gaslights environmentalists – it has a lot of renewables because it’s a big, rapidly growing economy and uses a lot of energy, but it’s also generates the most CO2 emissions. It just spins about its renewables, even when it’s behind the EU on their use.
Nuclear is the only solution that is proven and works at scale. France went to 80+% electricity production from non-carbon sources in fifteen or so years in the 1970s and 80s. If Europe and the US had seriously started on nuclear 30 years ago when the push was first towards renewables, we would have solved abundant carbon-free energy by now – electricity prices would be cheap and there would be a cost benefit to switching to electricity for transport and space heating. Instead, ‘Petty’ environmentalists don’t want to win the battle – they want their bike lanes and to promote meat-free diets to ‘protect the planet’. Closing Germany’s nuclear power stations as a climate-change crime.
So I’ve agreed with you that China pollutes a lot and is the world’s largest coal consumer. You dismiss the fact that it is a world leader in the pace of development (and proportion of consumption, in the case of hydroelectricity) of renewable energy by saying that this is only because it is a large, rapidly growing economy, but I could give the same explanation for its high fossil fuel emissions. Either way, we both have a point yet you are unable to give one inch (not that that’s surprising given most people cannot be persuaded to change their minds when it comes to beliefs they’ve long defended, even or especially when given evidence that contradicts their view: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds).
Fortunately however, I am happy to change my mind with evidence and can currently see no particularly good reason why we did not choose to develop more nuclear energy and so have more agreement with you there. For this reason you must be happy to know that Miliband has publically endorsed nuclear as part of his plan for greater energy sovereignty (https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/564172/nuclear-to-play-essential-role-in-clean-power-plan-ed-miliband-says/) and, contrary to what the article above suggests, has approved the building of 4 new reactors (https://namrc.co.uk/intelligence/uk-new-build/). There’s also more good news to cheer us up in the fact that the renewables sector generated £83bn in gross value added (GVA) in 2024, while employing 1 million people in full time jobs where the average wage is £43,000 (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/feb/24/britain-net-zero-economy-booming-cbi-green-sector-jobs-energy-security). Hard to describe that as impoverishing Britain (sure, energy prices are going up, but where’s the anger with the record profits being enjoyed by private gas companies off the backs of working people? (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/15/british-gas-profits-energy-bills-centrica). This, together with the fact that we are also developing our nuclear capacity as an important medium-term part of securing our energy sovereignty (it has to be medium-term because uranium will run out) has made me – and I hope you as well – feel much more positive!
I don’t believe you read the Carbonbrief article – just mined the renewables number (a number which is consistent with similar growth in renewables around the world for that period).
From the top of that piece: “In 2006, China overtook the US to become the world’s largest annual emitter of greenhouse gases and its citizens now have carbon footprints well above the global average. However, its cumulative and per-capita emissions remain about half of the US’s today.”
I’d also avoid the Guardian as a source for environmental data because it has a habit of cherrypicking and sensationalising. I know this from a long-standing practice of always cross-checking their data with original sources which heavily undermines any trust in their reporting. I also like your ironic use of the New Yorker to explain your position.
I don’t believe you read my comment properly. I also said: ‘However, the same source also says that the country is ‘now the world’s largest coal consumer by far.’ So we’re both right. Agreed?’ But you seem determined not to find any agreement between us – winning this argument is more important to you than getting to the truth together. I am acknowledging when I am wrong, whereas whenever I make a point that does not completely fit your views you either ignore or deny it.
As to your point that China’s growth in renewables is ‘consistent with similar growth in renewables around the world for that period,’ nothing in the article suggested China’s progress was in keeping with global trends. Unless you think the phrase ‘according to the IEA, China will install almost half of new global renewable capacity in the five years 2022-2027’ sounds like a country installing renewables at a typical rate. Your claim is also directly contradicted by this article which says ‘China’s rollout of renewables is happening far faster compared with any other country — and it’s accelerating.’ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2025/03/03/china-renewable-energy-green-world-leader/). There’s also a helpful visual comparing China’s progress with other world powers. In other words again, you are right that they are still leaders in fossil fuel emissions, and I am right that they are leaders in renewables. Both these things can be true at the same time.
As to your claim that the guardian (I also regard it with some suspicion for being not entirely free of corporate interests, like the present publication) is not always honest in how it cites its sources that is a serious allegation and I’d be very interested to see some examples. In the case of the first article I referred to, its two key claims concerning the net zero sector – that it has generated £83bn in 2024 and employs people in 1 million jobs – was consistent with other sources I found online. Here they are: https://www.innovationzero.com/news/uk-net-zero-economy-booming-new-research#:~:text=The%20CBI's%20research%20has%20revealed,goods%20and%20services%20they%20produce; https://www.cbi.org.uk/articles/growth-and-innovation-in-the-uk-s-net-zero-economy/)
Interesting you instead put your faith in the present publication which is not only owned by a hedge fund manager with investments in fossil fuel companies (see my above comments to Prashant Kotak), but in this very article we are discussing it misrepresents Miliband’s agenda by suggesting he does not support nuclear. The one mention of nuclear is in the line ‘nuclear stations are due to shut.’ While this is not incorrect (since some stations are due to be closed), it is misleading because it suggests none are to be opened. But actually Miliband is not against nuclear. During his office he has expressed explicit support of this energy as part of our path to energy sovereignty (and again it can only be part of it because uranium deposits are finite) and is allowing the building of four reactors (as showed in previous comment).
Just replied – links being processed by the censors. Should be up by tomorrow.
Are you sure about debates?
Try to honestly debate Islam in this country.
You will be either killed by Islamofascists or imprisoned by Starmer woke government.
Let’s not be delusional, Starmer only claimed increase in defence spending to avoid confrontation with Trump.
Do we really believe this inhuman rights lawyers would stand up to Putin?
For years, Private Eye has been saying the same thing about NetZero. Even if UK achieved NetZero, how would the reduction of CO2 emissions of about 1% of world emissions actually help the planet? The whole idea is intellectually feeble, the worst type of virtue signalling. But it is not only Milliband at fault – he is supported by the Labour Government which has recently promised to spend billions on carbon capture, another unproven technology.
It was supported and reinforced (in legislation) by the Tories too. I despise them all.
Good article. Miliband is indeed one of the chief villains of this story.
But let’s not forget that the Conservatives played along for 14 years, while Lib Dems and Greens cheered from the sidelines.
Centrist dads need to look up from their beer and football long enough to realise that all the establishment parties have encouraged our ruin.
May put the insanity into law. Princess Nut Nut “persuaded”, shall we say, Boris to convert to the alarmist pseudo religion.
Yes, but something made law might be undone.
We just need leaders willing to do it.
But majority of uk citizens are woke morons who subscribe to all the dogma of multiculti, net zero, gender nonsense etc.
We could see it clearly during covid.
Educated and high IQ people, many my former friends, bought into idiocy of covid policies.
‘“petrostates and dictators”
Could a foreign dictator wage a hybrid war and stop us developing and using gas resources that we have in our own country?
Miliband would tell him ‘Get in the queue. I was here first’
‘The “open cycle” variety of gas-powered turbines that can be fired up quickly, making them suitable for occasional use, have a lifespan of around 30 years — and almost all in Britain have already reached this limit.’
The open cycle gas-powered turbines are also inefficient and expensive.
But that is what we will be relying on in Miliband’s Net Zero schemes, and he will blame high costs on the high price of gas, when it was his schemes that make us need the most expensive form of gas-powered generation.
“It seems that to a man seeking to build a world-leading utopia, something as transient as Britain’s future prosperity doesn’t mean very much.”
Just like his loathsome father only realising that Marxist utopia is never going to sell has substituted net zero.
It’s very suspicious. The new ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, was known to consult for China. Now Miliband was out of the picture for a good 5 years after 2015. Was he working with the CCP in that time and fully committed to weakening the UK via an amplified approach to Net Zero?
As an aside, have a gander at the huge amounts of energy (oh and land) that current and projected server farms will be gobbling up. Never gets a mention
Given all of this, it’s easy to conclude that at least a portion of the NetZero project actually plans to starve the continent of energy to create hardships, economic collapse, and masses of people forced to burn their furniture for heat, with the entire purpose of sparking a 1948-style political and economic revolution throughout Europe. Oh, those well-meaning people wouldn’t do that, would they? Yes.
The resistance in America, as so often happens, is starting at the grass roots with zoning boards and county officials facing locals refusing to let their landscape be cluttered with hundreds of noisy, spinning wind turbines and vast tracts of arable farmland given over to acres and acres of solar panels.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/indianas-cornfields-could-be-gone-with-the-wind-farm-power-plant-energy-renewables-coal-nipsco-11674841400?st=s2BLcK&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
It’s crazy to be spending money to make energy more expensive and driving away industry. It has always been so
Then there is the Carbon Capture boondoggle – not so much unproven as a priori daft. It would cost energy to do it.
The idea that we have too little CO2 in the atmosphere is also daft. Even with all we have added, the CO2 concentration is low enough to stress most plant species. Even the modest increase in CO2 concentration we have achieved inadvertently has resulted in a greening of some semi-arid regions. (Plants must balance water loss against CO2 gathering – more easily accessible CO2 allows better water conservation).
Don’t let facts get in the way of our Ed’s save-the-world fantasy.
Y’all are desperately in need of a Trump of your own. Hopefully one with better manners.
Here is a fascinating article on net zero, EV quotas and the impact in the automotive industry.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/british-carmakers-switch-electric-descended-080000849.html?guccounter=1
Miliband is the new Savonarola, if he doesn’t ‘pipe down’ he will suffer the same fate.
“I have absolute faith that Net Zero will do great things for … our world.” [Ed Miliband]
Never trust anyone who asserts that they have ‘absolute faith’ in an idea – especially one as arrogantly expressed as the above. The hubris of this dreadful man is stunning.
May god save us from these well meaning idiots
An additional cost of renewables derives from maintenance on and life expectancy of hardware. To duplicate the output of a single traditional gas-fired turbine generator requires hundreds of windmills or hundreds of acres of solar panels. To do routine maintenance or repairs on a gas turbine workers simply walk up to the ground level turbine to perform their task. Comparable tasks on windmills require workers competent in the work itself but also trained for working in the inherently hazardous heights of a windmill, sometimes suspended by ropes and harnesses as they work. Often they incur the additional expense of sea travel to the site. Every nut, bolt, tool, and part must be hauled up hundreds of feet in the air and the process repeated on hundreds of windmills. The man-hour differential is substantial as is the cost per man-hour. Gas turbine are protected inside structures that isolate them from the degrading effects of rain, snow, sleet, wind, dust and UV radiation. Windmills and solar panels are subject to all of these accelerating their functional decline. High winds and hail have wiped out acres of solar arrays, which, in the best of circumstances, must be frequently cleaned of dust to perform maximally. When a windmill comes to the end of its life, dismantling it is an expensive engineering ordeal.
If the high price we are paying for electricity is caused by high wholesale gas prices, how does Miliband explain the fact that domestic gas prices in Britain are below the European average?
“Current turbine prices come in at some £60 million per GW, so building new back-up plants with a total capacity of 30 GW would cost £18 billion, and 50 GW £30 billion.”
Sorry, it doesn’t add up. £60 million x 50 = £3 billion, not 30.
Since the whole point of the piece is to show how Miliband’s plan doesn’t add up, you really should be more careful.
Various numbers found online but figures of the order of £600/KW are to be seen (e.g. $800/KW on gasturbineworld website) so perhaps that “60” is a typo and should be “600”. Moreover turbine rollout is another bottleneck.
I recently had a conversation with a chap whose company carries out energy audits on various pieces of equipment. He said that as far as the UK is concerned, solar panels are a net user of energy when the mining, manufacture, transportation, installation, removal and recycling is taken into account. Surely this is no surprise
The Chinese, Russians, Africans…indeed, virtually every non-Western nation…don’t have this problem. They either plan to build giant fleets of coal plants, or expect Western nations to underwrite their green energy plans. Which, of course, means their approach will both offset any impact of the West’s green efforts while simultaneously bankrupting Western nations pursuing such folly.
Time we woke up.
Yes, Net Zero is a nonsense but let’s not forget that it rests on a more egregious nonsense – climate change.
“I have absolute faith,” energy secretary Ed Miliband has said, that Net Zero will “do great things for our country and our world.”
That’s the problem with Net Zero idealogues – all they have is faith – and no empirical evidence.
But Herr Starmer says he will use stolen Russian assets to pay for 5000 air defense missiles for Ukraine, assembled in Belfast, so it’s alright.
The same lunacy happening here in Oz.
Electricity prices are skyrocketing while the Feds subsidize renewables because they can’t stand on their own. Uniquely, because the country is so huge, the transmission line costs to link the wind and solar farms around the country to the grid are astronomical on their own, and ruin prime agricultural land to boot.
We have hundreds of years of gas supplies here that are not being tapped, and the gas that is being brought up is sold overseas because the gas companies make more profit than selling it domestically.
We are now needing to IMPORT gas for domestic use when there is plentiful supply beneath our feet.
Nuclear is finally being proposed by the opposition in the lead up to our imminent election and being demonized by the usual suspects as dangerous and far more expensive than the sun and the wind which “don’t send a bill”.
The ideology is far more important than the reality to these jokers.
Ed Miliband seems to be intent on doing a Lord Denethor impression to the world.
He’s clearly insane and needs to be stopped somehow.