The UK is losing the industry that makes everything
By Paul Homewood
We should be very frightened about this, but we are inured to it now:
It’s a tale of devastating UK chemical industry deindustrialisation.
Peter Huntsman, CEO of Huntsman Chemicals, delivers some scathing comments: “My biggest costs over the next five years will not be an increase in oil and gas prices, it will be an increase in climate taxes” and “Europe is fast becoming a geriatric Disneyland”.
Sadly, despite the fact that Ed Conway admits Britain has “the highest industrial power costs in the developed world, which is partly down to Net Zero”, the only lame remedy proposed is that our Net Zero strategy needs "a re-think and a re-moulding".
Conservative Environment Network Want More Renewables
By Paul Homewood
Following Kemi Badenoch’s pledge to abolish Net Zero, I questioned whether the wets in her party would let her get away with it.
The wets, many of whom are little more than Lib Dems in disguise, are ably represented by and often members of the Conservative Environment Network, CEN, which has been vigorously campaigning in support of Net Zero and associated green policies for years.
Last month, its Director, Sam Hall wrote this piece for Conservative Home. It proves beyond doubt that a leopard never changes its spots!
Sam Hall begins by ludicrously trying to defend Conservative Government policies:
Landfalling Hurricane Trends
By Paul Homewood
As I pointed out in my review of hurricanes last week, comprehensive observation and measurement on hurricanes globally really only became possible in the 1980s, with the help of satellites and robust hurricane hunter aircraft.
But reliable longer term data is available for landfalling hurricanes, notably, of course, in the US.
For the last few years Roger Pielke Jr has been keeping track of Atlantic and North Pacific landfalling hurricanes. His data goes back to 1950.
He has now updated his graphs to include last year:
Electricity Generating Costs
By Paul Homewood
h/t Joe Public
Steve Loftus breaks down the differences between the latest electricity generation cost report and the 2023 version:
https://x.com/LoftusSteve/status/2011395197612274091
Especially pertinent is the increase in renewable costs:
Well worth reading his thread.
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Cunningham
Claire Coutinho sums it all up nicely:
Ed Miliband used to say that renewables were nine times cheaper than gas. Well, after his botched offshore wind auction this week, he’s not saying that any more – and neither are bill-payers who are watching their bills go through the roof because of Ed’s maniacal obsession with his net zero targets.
Miliband has just signed us up to the largest ever round of offshore wind farms at the highest price for wind power in a decade. He has given wind developers every concession they asked for – even offering them guaranteed returns for longer by extending the length of their contracts to 20 years. It amounts to a massive boost to wind developers’ profits at the expense of people’s energy bills.
£2.7 Billion Bill For Floating Wind
By Paul Homewood
I briefly touched on floating offshore wind in the new AR7 auction, but it is worth a closer look.
At a strike price of £216.49/MWh at 2024 prices, or £226/MWh at today’s the technology remains ridiculously expensive, at more than four times the cost of gas power.
It is supposed be a new, developing technology, demanding investment. Yet the Hywind project off the coast of Peterhead has been operational since 2018.
Worse still, the current AR7 prices are even higher than the £201.97/MWh current strike price for Green Volt’s floating wind farm set in last year’s AR6.
Prices are going up, not down. So why are we still wasting money on what appears to be a white elephant?
The two new projects for floating wind agreed at AR7 have a budgeted subsidy of £133 million a year. This may sound insignificant, given that their electricity output will also be tiny, with capacity of just 192 MW.
But these CfDs give guaranteed, index linked strike prices for twenty years. Over the full period of the contract, a subsidy of £2.7 billion will be paid at current prices. Remember this is on top of the revenue from the electricity produced.
It still pales into insignificance when the whole of AR7 is added up. We have so far concentrated on costs per MWh, but in total over twenty years, we will be paying out a subsidy of £38 billion.
I can think of no other branch of government that could, or ever has, signed away £38 billion of taxpayers’ money on a white elephant that has zero value at all to the country.
Carbon Capture & Hydrogen Electricity Costings
By Paul Homewood
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/electricity-generation-costs-2025
Something else that came of DESNZ latest Electricity Generating Costs 2025 report is the cost of Carbon Capture and Hydrogen generation:
BBC “Clarify” Great Barrier Reef Disinformation
By Paul Homewood
The BBC must be getting worried about the upcoming audit of their coverage by their Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg3pp52m65o
You will no doubt recall my complaint to them about it this report, which failed in 2024 the reef was at record high coverage – something that was clearly relevant.
They have now added this correction:
Nobody will see this “clarification”, of course. But I will pursue it with the ECU to make sure it is mentioned in their Complaints Logs.
AR7 Will Add £1.9 Billion To Electricity Bills
By Paul Homewood
DESNZ have just announced the results of the new CfD auction, in what must go down as one of the most blatantly dishonest, arguably fraudulent government press releases in recent years:
Global Hurricane Trends
By Paul Homewood
We all know hurricanes are getting worse, don’t we? After the MSM keeps telling us so.
After Hurricane Melissa a few months ago, for instance, the BBC’s weathergirl, Sarah Keith-Lucas, was adamant that “The frequency of very intense hurricanes such as Melissa is increasing”. Similar claims abound across the networks and newspapers every time a big hurricane comes along. And that’s before we even mention the fake climate attribution studies designed to make headlines.
The only problem is that the data does not agree!
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT