In October 2008, because of a perceived need for Britain to contribute to the decarbonisation of the global economy, Parliament passed the Climate Change Act, requiring the Government to ensure that by 2050 ‘the net UK carbon account’ (CO2 and ‘other targeted greenhouse gases’) was reduced to a level at least 80% lower than that of 1990. Only five MPs voted against it. Then in 2019, by secondary legislation and without serious debate, Parliament increased the 80% to 100%, creating the Net Zero policy, under which any remaining emissions must be offset by equivalent removals from the atmosphere.i

Unfortunately, it’s a policy that’s unachievable, potentially disastrous and pointless –irrespective of whether or not Britain’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions influence global temperatures.

1. It’s unachievable

1.1 A modern industrial economy depends on fossil fuels. Modern industry and infrastructure require fossil fuels or oil derivatives for a vast range of products and materials.ii Examples include: ammonia for fertilisers, cement and concrete, primary steel, plastics, sulphur, ethylene, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, phosphates, anaesthetics, semiconductors, synthetic graphite for electrodes, carbon fibres, lubricants, solvents, paints, resins, adhesives, insulation, tyres and asphalt. Many vehicles and machines – used for example in agriculture, mining and quarrying, mineral processing, building, heavy transport, shipping, aviation, the military and emergency services – cannot operate without fossil fuels. Commercially viable alternatives for essentially all the above have yet to be developed.iii

1.2 Shortage of skills. Britain lacks the necessary technical managers, electrical, heating and other engineers, electricians, plumbers, welders, mechanics and other skilled tradespeople required to meet the 2030 target required for Net Zero; a problem that’s exacerbated by the Government’s house building plans.iv

2. It’s potentially disastrous

2.1 Wind power limitations. As Britain’s latitude limits solar power, wind is the most practical renewable energy source. However it faces serious constraints e.g.

  • the high costs of subsidies, construction, operation and maintenance, especially with high interest rates;
  • the complex engineering and planning challenges of expanding a stable high-voltage grid by 2030, v
  • its vast scale requiring increasingly scarce space, materials and components vi vii;
  • intermittency (see 2.2 below).viii

These difficulties and others described below raise serious doubts about Britain’s ability to generate by 2030 sufficient electricity for today’s needs let alone for EVs, heat pumps, industry and in particular the data centres supporting AI.ix

2.2 Back-up and storage challenges. The Government aims for 95% renewable electricity by 2030 but has not published a fully costed engineering plan for grid stability when there’s little or no wind or sun; a problem exacerbated by the expected retirement of elderly nuclear and gas power plants. Proposed solutions – new gas-fired plants with carbon capture and underground storage (CCS)x, ‘green’ hydrogen and batteries – face long lead times, high costs and unproven commercial viability.xi xii Battery storage is limited by short duration, degradation, safety risks and high cost.xiii Yet, without reliable back-up, electricity blackouts are likely, bringing major problems for business and serious health risks for everyone, particularly the most vulnerable. The blackout in Spain on 28th April 2025 (probably the result of lack of ‘grid inertia’xiv) caused at least 8 deaths xv; and probably many more over the whole period affected by the outage. A winter blackout in Britain could be far worse.

2.3 Overall cost. As there’s no comprehensive delivery plan, it’s impossible to produce an accurate estimate of the project’s overall cost. However estimates indicate a likely cost of several trillion pounds.xvi The borrowing and taxes required to fund this would put a huge additional burden on households and businesses and, particularly in view of the economy’s many current problemsxvii, would further stress Britain’s already fragile economy.

2.4 High energy prices. Renewable system costs – including subsidies, carbon taxes, grid balancing, grid expansion, constraint payments, storage and back-up – have contributed to Britain having the highest industrial and amongst the highest domestic electricity prices in the developed world.xviii The additional costs of for example investment in ‘green’ hydrogen and CCS will make this even worse, exacerbating the on-going destruction of our industrial base and undermining the Government’s key mission of increased economic growth. 

2.5 Dangerous dependence on foreign suppliers. Policies restricting North Sea oil and gas increase uncertain reliance on imports of oil and gas and of European electricity. More critically however Britain’s dependence on China’s goodwill, exemplified by the latter’s effective control of the supply of key materials (e.g. lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, copper and so-called rare earths), poses strategic risks including potential Chinese control of supply chains and embedded vulnerabilities such as ‘kill switches’; this dependence poses a major risk to Britain’s economic and overall national security.xix

2.6 Infrastructure vulnerability. Britain’s growing number of offshore wind turbines and undersea pipelines and cables are becoming increasingly vulnerable to sabotage.xx Likewise an expanding and complex grid infrastructure offers an obvious target for hostile hackers aiming to destroy our energy and economic security.xxi

2.7 Environmental and social problems. Renewable energy expansion is mineral-intensive: the vast mining and mineral processing operations are causing severe environmental damage and human suffering throughout the world, often affecting fragile ecosystems and the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.xxii Note also that renewables’ increasing demand for key minerals for which demand exceeds likely supply may well threaten their future viability.xxiii

3. It’s pointless

3.1 ‘Exporting’ emissions is senseless. Closing GHG emitting activities in Britain in pursuit of Net Zero and then importing the relevant products from countries that have weaker environmental regulation and often use coal-fired electricity – thereby increasing global emissions – makes no sense. It means also that key industries, for example chemicals, fertiliser, ceramics, glass and primary steel, face extinction.xxiv xxv Likewise, importing products and materials (see 1.1 above), for example solar panels and other products manufactured using fossil fuels, contributes to the increase in global emissions. A related problem is the vast amount of wood imported for the subsidised Drax power plant: burning wood emits more CO2 than coal xxvi.

3.2 Britain’s contribution is insignificant. The USA xxvii plus most non-Western countries – together the source of over 80% of global GHG emissions – don’t regard emission reduction as a priority and, either exempt (by international agreement) from or ignoring any obligation to reduce their emissions, are focused instead on economic and social development, poverty eradication and energy security.xxviii As a result, global emissions are increasing (by 66% since 1990) and are set to continue to increase for the foreseeable future. As Britain’s domestic emissions are only about 0.7% of global emissions, further reductions would make no discernible difference.xxix

Summary: Net Zero means Britain is legally obliged to pursue an unachievable, disastrous and pointless policy – a policy that imperils our national security and could result in Britain’s economic devastation.

NOTE: Nothing above addresses the ‘Net’ in Net Zero because offsetting residual emissions via GHG removal is highly controversial and uncertain. In particular it would require comprehensive international agreement about for example environmental risk, possible leakage, national transparency and third party verification – an outcome that evidence from international climate negotiation suggests is extremely unlikely to happen.xxx

Endnotes

i http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/27/part/1/crossheading/the-target-for-2050

ii See Vaclav Smil’s important book, How the World Really Works: http://tiny.cc/xli9001 Also see this: http://tiny.cc/5no0101 and this: https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/In_a_barrel_of_oil

iii Regarding steel for example see the penultimate paragraph of this interesting article: https://www.construction-physics.com/p/the-blast-furnace-800-years-of-technology.

iv A detailed Government report: http://tiny.cc/bgg5001 See also pages 10 and 11 of the Royal Academy of Engineering report (Note 10 below). Also see: http://tiny.cc/0mm9001

v https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/02/09/orgem-net-zero-backlog-risks-grid-target/

vi See Andrews & Jelley, “Energy Science”, 3rd ed., Oxford, page 16: http://tiny.cc/4jhezz

vii See paragraph 2.5 above. Also: https://energydigital.com/sustainability/mckinsey-2030-battery-raw-material-outlook

viii For a comprehensive view of wind power’s many problems, see this: https://watt-logic.com/2023/06/14/wind-farm-costs/.

ix Re the AI dilemma: http://tiny.cc/axxy001 and http://tiny.cc/ikty001

x See this report by the Royal Academy of Engineering: http://tiny.cc/qlm9001 (Go to section 2.4.3 on page 22.) This interesting report contains a lot of valuable information.

xi https://watt-logic.com/2025/12/30/offshore-pipeline-closure-risk/

xii Re CCS: http://tiny.cc/emi9001, and https://heimildin.is/grein/24581/. Re hydrogen: https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-2-14-when-you-crunch-the-numbers-green-hydrogen-is-a-non-starter.

xiii Why batteries are not the solution: https://nenpower.com/blog/what-are-the-main-challenges-in-integrating-battery-energy-storage-with-renewable-energy/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

xiv An energy specialist reviews the facts and risks here: https://watt-logic.com/2025/05/09/the-iberian-blackout-shows-the-dangers-of-operating-power-grids-with-low-inertia/

xv See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Iberian_Peninsula_blackout.

xvi A report published by the Institute of Economic Affairs says that net zero could cost at least £7.6 trillion between now and 2050: https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Cost-of-Net-Zero-Turver-1.pdf And in this presentation Professor Michael Kelly also indicates how the cost would amount to several trillion pounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkImqOxMqvU And re continuing uncertainty: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/02/17/miliband-miss-net-zero-targets-unless-spends-extra-75bn/

xvii A worrying view of the current state of Britain’s economy: http://tiny.cc/nli9001

xviii For a comprehensive view go here: https://iea.org.uk/were-number-one-in-unaffordable-electricity/ Then follow the links to Government Tables 5.7.1, 5.3.1, 5.9.1 and 5.5.1. Note that the UK’s industrial electricity price is well above that of our international competition. And note that our domestic electricity prices are also exceptionally high. Also see these useful reports https://watt-logic.com/2025/05/19/new-report-the-true-affordability-of-net-zero/ and http://tiny.cc/n7j0101

xix See http://tiny.cc/0gvj001. An article by Richard Dearlove (ex-head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)) on national security risk and net zero: http://tiny.cc/wbev001/. Re ‘kill switches’: http://tiny.cc/vgvj001.

xx Re vulnerability concerns: http://tiny.cc/9ruf001 and http://tiny.cc/xau9001. This essay by Dieter Helm (Professor of Economic Policy at Oxford) covers vulnerability and much else: http://tiny.cc/dtyf001

xxi Re hacker risk to the electric grid: https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/power-at-risk-uk-energy-grid-cyberattack-threat-rpWxY_2/

xxii See http://tiny.cc/gtazzz, http://tiny.cc/unx8001 and https://eia.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/EIA_US_Wind_Turbine_Timber_Report_1024_FINAL.pdf. And harrowing evidence is found in Siddharth Kara’s book Cobalt Red : http://tiny.cc/nmm9001. For more detailed views of minerals’ environmental and economic costs: http://tiny.cc/klz9001 , http://tiny.cc/swd1101 and http://tiny.cc/qj0u001

xxiii A problem that’s reviewed here: http://tiny.cc/6dzq001

xxiv As explained here: http://tiny.cc/chg5001

xxv A current example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c70zxjldqnxo

xxvi See this: https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/drax-is-still-the-uks-largest-emitter/. And this Public Accounts Committee report: http://tiny.cc/qpwh001 And note the irony of castigating ourselves for not planting enough trees in Britain: https://www.itv.com/news/2026-01-07/uk-risks-missing-climate-targets-without-rapid-tree-planting

xxvii Note: The fact that Trump is abandoning plans for renewables is not really such a huge change for the US as, despite his climate policies, the oil and gas industries flourished under Biden: http://tiny.cc/2ww1001

xxviii This essay explains how over the past 30 years non Western countries have taken control of international climate negotiations: https://cliscep.com/2025/12/08/the-west-vs-the-rest/

xxix This comprehensive EU analysis provides detailed information by country re global greenhouse gas (GHG) and CO2 emissions: https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2025

xxx This report sets out many of the issues: https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-environ-112823-064813 – and, re the difficulties and uncertainties of international climate negotiation, see endnote xxviii above.

43 Comments

  1. Robin,

    Many thanks for continuing to update the tale of the folly of UK Net Zero. It’s valuable work.

    Like

  2. Fifteenth update! OMG, I’ve been at this for years. My objective has been to produce a fully referenced document that covers all the essential issues – excluding anything about climate science – in under 1800 words and (including endnotes) in no more than 4 pages of A4. I’m sure I’ve missed or misrepresented some matters and would welcome any comments, observations or criticisms that I might use to improve my effort, but keeping it within the constraints I’ve set out above.

    Thanks for the kind comment Mark.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Robin – thanks for refining your posts.

    Only comment I would make was regarding “Battery storage”.

    Seen a few talking heads that trot that out as why ED’s dream is achievable.

    Do they have a clue what they are talking about?

    Like

  4. dfhunter,

    Regarding battery storage, as things stand, I believe that suggesting that battery storage is the answer to the unreliability and intermittency of renewables, is the triumph of hope over reality. I suppose that over time there is the possibility that technology will improve sufficiently for batteries to represent adequate back-up, but I don’t see any sign of that happening in the foreseeable future, probably not in my lifetime, and certainly not in the timescales aimed for by our mad government.

    Is addition, there is the problem that not only will performance have to improve exponentially, the need for rare materials will also have to diminish dramatically. I don’t see much, if any, sign of that.

    Liked by 2 people

  5. Regarding batteries, here’s an article on the DW website, talking about the problems. Bear in mind that, like much of the media, DW’s line is that there is a climate crisis and renewable energy is essential to deal with it:

    “Europe’s energy problem isn’t green power — it’s storage

    Solar and wind produce lots of energy — but not always at the right time. More battery storage could help Europe to stabilize prices and replace polluting fossil fuel energy, but roadblocks remain.”

    https://www.dw.com/en/europes-energy-problem-isnt-green-power-its-storage/a-77302218

    It pushes the line that battery prices are falling, but the detail is revealing as to the scale of the problem:

    When smaller, private storage systems and large-scale facilities are put together, the [battery storage] capacity in the EU has increased tenfold since 2022. But to meet the bloc’s climate goals, that figure would have to increase by another factor of 10, to around 750 GW — a target that’s still some way off….

    That use of language is potentially misleading. It means that a 100-fold increase over 2022 storage levels will be necessary, and that in four years only one-tenth of that target has been achieved. Then there’s the raw material problem, exacerbated by China’s dominance in this area:

    …Just as important for EU member states, alongside the political will, is access to lithium and other metals needed for battery production. The bloc has been prioritizing the development of its strategy for raw materials, supporting domestic production of rare earths, reducing dependence on China and developing secure supply chains. In addition, the EU wants to promote the recycling of critical raw materials like lithium, nickel, gallium and cobalt.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. Robin, Thank you for this update. You have captured all of the key issues clearly and concisely.

    One addition comes to mind. Unless I missed it, there’s no reference to the working conditions in those countries to which we have exported so much of our industry which are likely to be worse than here. That’s a general assertion which would be hard to document so the example of slave labour in the manufacture of solar panels in China could be the example? (You may well have seen the recent reports on how the govt is trying to swerve its obligations on that specific issue.)

    Like

  7. Thanks Mike, that’s a good point. The nearest I get to mentioning it is in the second and third lines of item 3.1 where I refer to ‘countries that have weaker environmental regulation‘. I’ll consider how I might expand that to meet your observation.

    Like

  9. Regarding batteries, they are commercial operations and are there for selling electricity when prices are high, having bought it when prices are low. They are not charities bent on helping governments to “tackle climate change”. The business case must depend on very high prices at pinch points, in other words the more dysfunctional the grid is, the more they profit.

    I would make more of the “wrong number” point, which I know I bang on about, and in fact I have yet another note to write up about this topic. I am quite sure that there are heads in sand on this: our consumption emissions have not seriously declined despite all the pain, as for example this ONS figure shows:

    The final bar is 10.5% lower than the first (though there were higher points in between).

    Another thing I have been paying more attention to lately, as has Mark, is the “cost of carbon” – which it turns out has no foundation in the damage caused by carbon dioxide.

    Liked by 2 people

  10. MikeH,

    As promised, I’ve considered how I might fit in a comment about China’s use of forced labour in the manufacture of solar panels. Unfortunately I’ve haven’t been successful as, although it’s an important issue, it’s only marginally relevant to the case against NZ. However it’s caused me to review item 3.1 and I might redraft part of that.

    Like

  11. Robin, I see your point and agree. There must be quite a few issues which can be linked to NZ but are better handled separately. Certainly poor working conditions and slave labour are involved in a multitude of products we import, not just solar panels.

    Like

  13. Robin, You may find something useful if you compare your text to a speech on energy policy made a few days ago by Reform MSP Duncan Massey in the Scottish parliament. Newly-elected Mr Massey has worked as a senior economist in the oil and gas industry. My colleague Biologyphenom of Dundee keeps a close watch on Holyrood proceedings and has posted a video of  the speech on the substack: https://biologyphenom.substack.com/p/scottish-parliament28-may-2026.

    I would go as far as to say that Mr Massey’s speech is the most common sense that has ever been spoken on the subject of energy policy in the entire lifetime of the Scottish parliament. The transcript of his speech is here: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/official-report/search-what-was-said-in-parliament/meeting-of-parliament-28-05-2026?meeting=20163&iob=222892#orscontributions_M20999E391P964C3056362.

    For a laugh (or cry) you can also read the speech which follows from Green party nutter Lorna Slater and go to the start of the debate and the motion proposed by SNP nutter Stephin Gethins “That the Parliament believes that Scotland’s energy should be in Scotland’s hands, and calls for all energy powers to be immediately devolved to the Scottish Parliament.”

    Liked by 2 people

  14. Thanks for the link Doug. Duncan Massey’s speech was both eloquent and excellent. It was remarkable just how much ground he was able to cover in only nine minutes. The contributions from Stephen Gethins and Lorner Slater were depressing but unsurprising: there isn’t the remotest likelihood of such people paying any attention to the good sense expounded by Mr Massey.

    I would urge other Clisceppers to read the linked transcript of Massey’s speech.

    Liked by 2 people

  16. I’ve now read the transcript of Duncan Massey’s speech. I agree that it is an extremely good opening to his career as an MSP. He may be one to keep an eye on. Sadly, as Robin says, the response to it from the usual suspect was predictably poor.

    Liked by 2 people

  17. dougbrodie1 – thanks to you & your mate Biologyphenom for that speech link by Duncan Massey.

    As Robin & Mark comment, his grasp of the facts regarding the looming energy crisis the UK/Scotland face was impressive.

    Haven’t listened to the “Stephen Gethins and Lorner Slater” bits, but from above comments I can guess it was the usual pie in the sky renewable nonsense.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. David Turver has a powerful piece this morning:

    Reform and Tory Policies Not Enough to Reverse Miliband’s Net Zero Madness Opposition – Opposition parties will need to go further than cancelling AR7, eliminating carbon taxes and abolishing ROCs to bring electricity bills down.

    His conclusion is stark:

    If the UK is to survive as a developed economy, these extra costs simply cannot be allowed to endure. In fact, drastic action will be required to cut subsidies even more than Reform and Tory plans and the extra grid integration overheads driven by intermittent renewables will need to be removed too. The legislative and contractual barriers to doing the right thing are considerable. It will take brave and principled politicians to enact the required changes. This will mean inflicting considerable pain on the current beneficiaries of this state largesse – renewable energy generators, their investors, storage companies and grid operators. Emergency powers are going to be needed to return to a rational energy policy. Laws need to be repealed, subsidies removed, contracts broken and assets left stranded. Investors in these doomed projects should take note.

    However, the pain inflicted on the green industrial complex by a return to a sane energy policy will be small compared to the pain inflicted on the rest of the economy if high electricity prices are allowed to continue. Clean Power 2030 and Net Zero must be stopped now.

    A must read.

    Liked by 1 person

  19. Excellent piece by Ben Pile in today’s Daily Sceptic on Blair’s malign influence on the development of UK politics:

    https://dailysceptic.org/2026/06/01/we-dont-need-tony-blair-to-tell-us-the-sky-is-blue/

    His conclusion captures the challenges of dealing with the Climate Change Committee and all the other “Blob” elements:

    “Blairism is not the whole of the story of Britain’s tragic experiment with green politics. But it does explain its form. There was no persuasion required in this era of politics, because the exercise of power no longer required the consent of the governed. Trying to challenge a quango such as the CCC to account for its obvious bullshit, or explaining to an MP why the CCC’s instructions to Parliament were wrong, was like barking at a brick wall. Public institutions became bland, sterile monoliths, whose idiot staff were flattered – mostly by themselves – into believing that they were planet-saving super-geniuses, not mediocre hacks advancing banalities at our expense. Tony Blair’s flim-flam about the formulation of ‘policy’ and about recognising a policy failure in the face of “global change” is not being made on our behalf or in our interests; it is an attempt to sustain that form of politics which prohibits the representation of our interests. It might be fun to see Blair giving Miliband a bloody nose, and to see the Blob’s consensuses tearing themselves apart. But to come out of the other side of the climate policy disaster without addressing its causes would be to invite it to happen all over again. We don’t need any more Blairs.”

    Like

  21. From Dieter Helm:

    “The cost of energy and what to do about it”

    https://dieterhelm.co.uk/energy-climate/the-cost-of-energy-and-what-to-do-about-it/

    …Britain is currently accelerating the closure of its North Sea gas production, switching from “home-grown” British gas to Norwegian North Sea gas and US fracked LNG gas. The industrial consequences have been dire. High electricity prices have contributed to the closure of Grangemouth refinery, the Exxon refinery in Scotland, one of the Hull refineries, the closure of most of the steel industry, the closure of the fertiliser and fibreglass industries, and severe problems for pottery and for glass-making. Car manufacturing is back to the 1950s’ levels. There is devastation amongst the SMEs, aggravated by the increase in employer national insurance contributions, enhanced workers’ rights, and increases in the minimum wage. The unfunded welfare spending has increased the cost of capital, with record gilt costs. Energy policy has reduced economic growth, not increased it.

    As to the promised falls in the costs of renewables and the new enthusiasms for nuclear, the facts are not encouraging. The costs of offshore wind are rising, as witnessed in the latest AR7 auctions, and the system costs of solar and wind are rising as more excess capacity is needed to meet peak demand, and as the grid has to be doubled and all the batteries and storage added to keep the lights on for the same peak demand. (More on this later.)…

    …All this might be more bearable if it was reducing global warming, or at least leading to Britain no longer causing climate change; if all that “world leadership” was actually having an impact on climate change. The sad fact is that it isn’t making much difference. It is not just that the UK contributes a very small amount to the global total emissions, but rather that net zero carbon production is the wrong target, if this is what you want to do. It has to be net zero carbon consumption, and that is a different story. High prices accelerating the closure of large energy-intensive industries, and replacing “home-grown” production with foreign imports makes climate change worse not better. Making steel and cars and solar panels and refining minerals in China, which burns more than 50% of the world’s total coal, is not an obviously good climate change policy. The facts are clear and scary: the carbon concentration in the atmosphere has continued to increase at around 2 parts per million (ppm) since 1990, now accelerating to 3ppm. There isn’t a blip in this disaster, and certainly not a “British blip”. And, sadly for Johnson and Miliband, no world leaders are looking to Britain to find out how to make a difference. No one else wants the highest prices and stagnant economic growth.

    In this context, it is worth also debunking the idea that the energy world is divided simplistically into “clean” and “dirty” energy, and that renewables in particular are “clean”. They are not. The supply chains are full of emissions and pollution – from mining to transport to refining to manufacture of the generation equipment and the transmission and distribution systems, and batteries can be very dirty. Take a look at the lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper and rare earth mines around the world. Renewables may be “cleaner” (although not always), but they are not clean and they are not zero emissions. Decarbonising the world’s energy systems is a much harder task than advocates of the simplistic notion of “clean energy” apparently believe….

    And much, much more.

    Excellent as always.

    Liked by 3 people

  22. Mark,

    Thanks for the link to the Helm article. It’s very long and very interesting. And I suspect very important. To get a proper grip of it, I’m going to have to read it again. I’m sure it will be worthwhile. His final paragraph amounts to an extremely short summary of his position:

    Realism points up the need to urgently address the two immediate crises: the crisis in British industry as a result of the highest electricity prices in the developed world; and the crisis of affordability for households. To these can be added the climate crisis: there is no significant global progress on reducing the carbon concentration in the atmosphere, fossil fuels still make up 85% of global energy supplies, and there is no transition from coal, oil and gas globally. Britain may have got out of domestic coal, achieved by the Conservative governments, but it has not got out of coal consumption embedded in imports. It is still 75% fossil-fuel-dependent. There is no transition from fossil fuels taking place globally, and nobody is looking to Britain to find out how to do it – how to have the highest costs, and be the most vulnerable to shocks like those in Ukraine and Iran, even when it does not take much gas from either Russia or Qatar. There is a deep irony that Johnson and Miliband share the enthusiasm for the go-for-broke strategy which has resulted in the current problems.

    He doesn’t say that there is no climate crisis – few people who are in authority or otherwise influential are willing to say that openly. But I believe many are beginning to think it. And I’d be surprised if Dieter Helm was not one of than. Read his article.

    Liked by 2 people

  23. Robin, you wonder whether Dieter Helm is beginning to think there is no climate crisis. I suspect that he is not yet there for the following reasons.

    Firstly, he is the author of two books [Refs. 1 and 2] published within the last decade which show his deep interest in ending the fossil fuel age and in Net Zero.

    Secondly, my retired academic friend has met Helm (probably since Covid) and, if I recall correctly, says Helm believes firmly in the climate crisis and the need to exit fossil fuels.

    However, none of the above precludes a change of mind!

    References:-

    1. ‘Burn Out. The endgame for fossil fuels’, Yale, paperback 2018. Blurb on the cover says, “The coming energy revolution is bringing an end to the fossil fuel age …”
    2. ‘Net Zero. How we stop causing climate change.’, William Collins, revised paperback 2021. Regards, John C.

    Liked by 2 people

  24. John,

    I only said beginning to think… And, if not, I’m pretty sure he would agree there’s not much, if anything, the UK can do about it.

    Liked by 2 people

  27. I’ve just now read Dieter Helm’s article again. It’s an utterly damning indictment of Britain’s energy policy. My only regret is that he makes his points quietly and almost understates them. Normally I would welcome this, but what I believe is needed now is for someone of his calibre and understanding to describe loudly, clearly and above all publicly the appalling ‘impasse we have reached‘ (his phrase).

    PS: a result of reading it again is that I’ve made a small amendment to paragraph 2.6 of the header article.

    Liked by 2 people

  28. Helm’s article explains the problems in terms that even MPs can understand. Will any of them read it?

    Like

  29. David Turver has published another distinctly worrying piece this morning:

    Miliband’s Clean Power 2030 Plan Off the Rails Soaring costs, failure to deliver wind and solar capacity and Drax withdrawal from BECCS show Miliband’s CP2030 plan is off the rails.

    From his conclusion:

    The Clean Power 2030 plan is failing on all three dimensions of cost, time and quality. Grid integration costs are soaring, undermining claims that CP2030 can bring down bills or can be achieved without costs to consumers. Wind and solar installations are way behind schedule and now Drax has kiboshed the main element that was supposed to deliver supposedly negative emissions to meet the CP2030 emissions targets. It is clear the CP2030 project is off the rails.

    The shortfall in wind and solar is probably going to have to be met from reliable power stations. As we have covered before, the nuclear fleet is being retired and the gas fleet is aging, so it is unclear where this capacity is going to come from.

    That and Dieter Helm’s recent article indicate that we’re fast approaching a dreadful near future. Yet no one in a position to do anything about it seems to have noticed.

    Liked by 1 person

  30. Robin, you wrote (1.56pm on 5th June), “My only regret is that he [Dieter Helm] makes his points quietly and almost understates them.” I wonder whether Helm, Porter, Turver (and others?) could work together to provide the lead in the creation of a united front against the dangerous idiocy of current UK energy policy.

    The UK energy situation is becoming desperate and I suspect that only a large organisation will attract the interest of the media and thereby gain political traction.

    In haste, John C

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  31. I have dropped a quick line to each of Porter, Turver and Helm to suggest consideration of the common front idea. By so doing I hope I have not muddied the waters of any behind the scenes discussions that may already be in progress. Regards, John C.

    Liked by 1 person

  35. Denby Pottery survived the Napoleonic Wars and the Great Depression. But it couldn’t withstand Ed Miliband.

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  36. An excellent article on the Daily Sceptic about the consequences for the UK of the Iran war and our extreme vulnerability to such disruptions. A couple of paras are particularly strong:

    “A serious country treats resilience as a cost worth paying — not from nostalgia for coal or hostility to cleaner energy, but as the ordinary prudence of a nation that would rather not stand on one leg. This winter will be hard. We in Britain will come through it the way we have come through worse: by keeping our heads, by looking after one another, by holding on for the morning. But coming through it cannot be the end of the matter. It must be the beginning.

    Because once it is over, this country has to confront the thing that did this to us. Not the strait, and not the war — those merely pulled the trigger. What loaded the gun was an ideology: the belief that a modern nation can dismantle its own energy system, at ruinous cost, in the name of a meaningless target, and pay no price. That belief will now be tested to destruction, in public, at our expense.”

    Full article: https://dailysceptic.org/2026/06/12/hormuz-the-slow-motion-crash/

    Liked by 3 people

  37. Just checked the grid stats. As of now (22:00), the interconnectors are supplying over 30% of our electricity: 8.0 GW out of a total of 26.2 GW. That’s the highest I can remember seeing.

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  38. MikeH,

    For the people charged with running and stabilising the Grid, it must feel like a bucking bronco ride. We seem to import far more via the interconnectors than we export, but over the last couple of weeks, the Grid has shown every possible combination, from 30%+ (net) coming in via the inerconnectors, to small levels of export; sun and wind combined have produced 70%+ down (more commonly) to 20-30% and occasionally less than 10% (which is incredibly poor for the time of year, when it’s at its peak); gas has produced anything from 5% to 50%; and the price is mostly high, but has ranged from mildly negative to £150 per MWh. It’s a total mess.

    Liked by 2 people

  39. “Britain ‘faces deindustrialisation’ without relief from high energy prices, survey warns

    Make UK says manufacturers’ feedback shows sector at risk of collapse as it calls on Treasury to take action”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/15/britain-faces-deindustrialisation-relief-energy-prices-survey-make-uk

    Britain’s industrial sector is at risk of collapse as thousands of companies warn that they could face bankruptcy within the next year because of high energy prices, according to an industry survey.

    The manufacturers’ body Make UK said the latest feedback from its members found that many would not be able to cope for much longer with energy costs that were twice the average in continental Europe and four times higher than in the US.

    A survey revealed that a quarter of manufacturing companies either planned to move their production overseas or had already done so, while one in 10 companies believed it was likely or very likely they would be insolvent within the next 12 months….

    …“The time for talking is over. The time for action is now,” he said. “Britain faces deindustrialisation unless manufacturers get relief from high energy prices. Electricity and gas in the UK are far too expensive and it’s costing our country steeply. We cannot afford to be delayed by political upheaval, or by further consultations.”

    Almost half (46%) of industrial companies have been hit by a further increase in their energy bills since the start of the conflict in the Middle East, with six in 10 passing this rise on to customers, according to the survey. However, despite raising prices, almost all companies (98%) told Make UK that they expected to experience a significant squeeze on their profitability over the next quarter.

    In response to falling profit margins, almost four in 10 (38%) companies have delayed investment and more than a fifth (21%) have reduced their headcount, according to the survey.

    About 800 of the UK’s 130,000 manufacturing companies are large and mostly foreign-owned. Phipson said larger businesses were moving production overseas to countries in mainland Europe and Asia where they could benefit from cheaper energy costs, while mostly smaller domestic firms were forced to cut investment and jobs to stay afloat.

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  40. Mark, that’s an utterly damning indictment of Britain’s energy policy. And from the Guardian!

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  41. And yet we know what the reaction is going to be.

    “Nurse! The patient is dying. We need more leeches”.

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  42. There’s more. Nils Pratley (one of the Guardian’s few sensible journalists, though he has to say some non-sensible things occasionally – he does write for the Guardian after all):

    “Listen to manufacturers and unions: high electricity prices are killing industry”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2026/jun/15/manufacturers-unions-electricity-prices-make-uk-tuc

    The problem, though, is that there is no serious analysis of the root cause of the high prices. There can’t be, can there? That would involve abandoning net zero.

    Liked by 1 person

  43. “Maintaining grid stability in a wind and solar world”

    https://watt-logic.com/2026/06/16/maintaining-grid-stability-in-a-wind-and-solar-world/

    …In electricity, the traditional answer has been: make sure there is enough generation to meet demand. Make sure the market clears. Make sure counterparties can perform. Make sure fuel is available. And make sure there’s enough capacity margin.

    All of that still matters, but it’s no longer enough.

    In a power system increasingly dominated by wind, solar and batteries, the central risk question is changing. It’s not simply whether we have enough megawatts, it’s whether the system can remain stable while those megawatts are being delivered?

    That distinction is crucial. A system can have plenty of installed capacity, plenty of renewable generation, and even a healthy-looking market position, while still being vulnerable to fast-moving physical instability.

    The Iberian blackout of April 2025 should be understood in precisely that way. The final ENTSO-E expert panel report described the event as the result of interacting factors, including oscillations, gaps in voltage and reactive power control, rapid output reductions and generator disconnections, leading to fast voltage increases and cascading disconnections in Spain and Portugal.

    That’s not a conventional fuel-supply problem. It’s not a simple “there wasn’t enough generation” problem. It’s a power-system stability problem.

    Which also makes it a credit problem, a collateral problem, a contract problem, a regulatory problem, an insurance problem and an asset-valuation problem.

    The physical event and the financial event are not separate. A voltage problem can become a settlement problem, a collateral problem, a performance problem and a disputes problem within minutes. When protection systems trip, generation disappears, imbalance positions change, interconnector flows change and prices can move in ways that standard base-case models rarely capture. So the question isn’t just whether the engineering works, it’s whether the commercial architecture assumes that the engineering will always work.

    The difficulty is that many of the most important stability services in a power system have historically been invisible to markets because they were bundled with conventional power stations. Coal, oil, gas, nuclear and hydro generators connected to the grid, are heavy rotating equipment, which have both physical and electromagnetic coupling with the grid, delivering inertia, voltage support and fault current. The market paid for electricity, but it received grid stability more or less for free.

    But that bundle is now being unpicked because inverter-based resources – wind, solar and batteries work differently. They produce direct rather than alternating current and they are not coupled to the grid in the same way that conventional generation is…..

    …Many decarbonisation plans assume that wind, solar, batteries and grid-forming electronics will scale smoothly. Perhaps they will. But a prudent risk manager should ask what happens if the engineering takes longer than the policy timetable. What happens if assets are built before the network is ready? What happens if markets reward energy production but underpay stability? What happens if the system becomes dependent on services that have yet to be demonstrated at scale?

    We hear a lot these days about energy security. Mostly people think about this in terms of fuel supplies, or managing intermittency. Grid stability is neglected, not least because of the perceived threat to the energy transition – if we admit that wind, solar and batteries make the grid less stable, the public might be less keen on continuing with a transition they are already realising is far more expensive than they were promised.

    Unfortunately there are too few people making energy policy that understand the physics of power grids. They just about understand capacity but have no idea about voltage. Even within the sector too many people use terms such as “reactive power” without really understanding what they mean. Worse, they misunderstand them, for example, reactive power is now often assumed to be a commodity that any current bearing device and provide when that is a highly dangerous assumption.

    Not only do they not understand the risks to grid stability, they actively seek to avoid understanding it. But that’s not a luxury those of us working in the market can afford….

    …So my closing message is this.

    A wind and solar world is fundamentally different from the world for which our power grids were designed. Not just in the obvious ways of being weather dependent and intermittent.

    They are direct current resources being forced into alternating current infrastructure. This means we must look differently at every element of the grid, well beyond energy and capacity.

    We have to pay attention to local voltage support, real fault ride-through, tested inverter behaviour, dynamic stability services, synchronous condensers where needed, robust black-start plans, better data sharing, enforceable grid codes, and markets that pay for resilience before a blackout happens rather than after it.

    We need regulators who understand that reliability is not an optional extra, and system operators who are honest about physical limits rather than keeping quiet to satisfy policy ambitions.

    We need developers who treat grid-code compliance as a core asset capability, not an administrative hurdle, and risk managers who are willing to ask uncomfortable questions.

    And we need policymakers who don’t assume the laws of physics can be repealed by the legislature.

    The lights stay on not because we have enough megawatts on a spreadsheet, but because millions of devices, machines, controls and contracts perform together in real time.

    In the old system, much of that performance was supplied by the physics of synchronous machines. In the new system, it has to be designed, procured, tested and paid for.

    There’s no room for complacency.

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