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Michael, I don’t think it is really full nationalisation. The underlying resources aren’t being nationalised; the government isn’t taking back ownership of the coal, oil and gas. Those will still be extracted and hence owned by private companies, a lot of which aren’t even British.
There was huge propaganda promoting privatisation and denigrating nationalisation around the Thatcher era. And it worked; national assets were sold off cheap, and anyone who bought shares made a lot of money very quickly.
But think what nationalisation really means. Recently, loads of councils have been on the brink of going bust. But say the council housing hadn’t been privatised. Those councils would still have masses of rent coming in every week. They’d have financial independence, to do whatever local people voted for instead of whatever Westminster insists upon. As an added bonus, private landlords would be unable to charge the exorbitant rents that they do these days, because they’d have to compete against the lower prices of social housing. Win, win.
The same goes for energy companies, but at the national level. If the government owned the energy companies, they’d really be our energy companies, and all our energy bills would subtract from the tax we have to pay. We’d also have some degree of democratic control – we have zero democratic control over private companies, unless we have enough spare money to buy shares in them.
On the downside, we might get bombed by the USA though. That’s what the USA does; it bombs any country that nationalises its resources. That’s why they bombed Libya and Iraq, fought a dirty war against Syria, and overthrew Iranian democracy back in 1953. It’s a very consistent pattern.
Michael, why is Clive “Lord” MacKinlay telling untruths about climate science?
Clark, until a couple of days ago, I had never heard of Lord MacKinlay.
I have only looked at that presentation once.
i will look at it again.
i had gained the impression that his main focus was on energy supply and energy self sufficiency and energy security.
At present we are often getting between ten and twenty percent of our electrical supply vis interconnectors, meaning we are importing that energy.
Europe Energy is also in crisis, partly because of the blowing up of the undersea natural gas pipelines but also Ukraine has shut down natural gas transit from Russia through Ukraine.
Ukraine are also targeting Russian energy plants and transmission in Russia.
Yes, Russia has destroyed a lot of the energy system in Ukraine.
Because of nuclear accidents, Germany decided to cut their reliance on nuclear power.
Many of the nuclear power plants in France are coming to the end of their working lives, yes, at Christmas an EPR came on stream in Normandy, no doubt, some of that electrical supply comes to England.
The U.K. has decided to end its use of coal, a little prematurely, I would say.
We are building Hinkley Point C a double EPR but nobody knows when that will come on stream.
Ed Milliband is not keen on nuclear power.
So, most of Europe is in a right pickle over energy.
The cost of energy is the main reason Europe and the U.K. are rapidly shedding jobs in energy intense use facilities, like steel making, cement making and chemical making.
The U.K. is the most dedicated country in the world with Net Zero.
We will soon be able to just beg?
We will be running out of home produced food as farmers sell their land for housing or runways or solar farms or wind farms.
The current government are focused on destroying small farmers, they are idelogically set against them, how dare they own their own land.– “…until a couple of days ago, I had never heard of Lord MacKinlay.”
I’m not surprised. He was only made a lord, a baron no less, last year. I wonder what he did to deserve that? The political honours system stinks.
He’s right that there’s a potential energy shortfall and I agree with him about Drax, but lying about climate science won’t solve either.
Politics ruins everything, it forces all issues into binary choices, and encouraged by the media most people start taking sides. I really can’t see any point in a fight between a mixed bag on one side, and a conversely mixed bag on the other, unless the objective is to keep everyone confused and conflicted while you make a load of money.
I also agree that it’s less harmful to make most stuff where it is to be used, rather than paying China to make it and then shipping it half way across the world.
But if we did that, we couldn’t blame China for our emissions 😉
Michael, I’m not keen on nuclear power, because you need a stable, well ordered society to tend it or it’ll turn into a set of disasters within days. You rightly highlight a set of crises Britain and the developed world faces. Food could run out, energy could fall short. Chaos would ensue and reactors would melt down and blow up. No thanks; it’d be bad enough already.
Yes, we are importing some of our electricity; but that is because it is cheaper to do this than generate from gas. The main supplier is France, who have an excess of nuclear power at times when their demand is reduced due to mild temperatures.
We are not reliant on the imports, but it saves the country money and reduces our naughty gas burning statistics.
However, some purveyors of BS like to pretend that if we didn’t import the power our lights would all go out. No they wouldn’t; but the country would have to make very expensive short term purchases of gas at inflated prices – so our bills would rise quite steeply.
I/4 of the U.S.A. fleet of B-2 nuclear capable bombers have recently been moved to Diego Garcia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_B-2_Spirit
For the last few weeks the Americans, mostly from the Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Harry_S._Truman
have been attempting to degrade the Houhti military, in Yemen.
There is some talk that the Houthi have taken out a Hawkeye, with the five crew, not yet confirmed by yesterdays American press conference. The Hawkeye flies from the aircraft carrier, it is both defence and mission directing.
Iran has vowed to first strike Diego Garcia.
This might be because the Americans are taking out Iranian assets in Houthi controlled Yemen?
Or WW£ might be on the way.Recently Sir keir Rodney Starmer claimed that an extra one point six billion pounds would be dedicated to fix potholes in our crumbling roads.
The treasury, have rowed back, saying there is no money.
Ed Milliband is going to be using thirty billion pounds for Carbon-Capture.This is unproved tech.
We cannot expand the grid four or five times, in less than five years for his fantasy of Net Zero by 2030.
The greatest out pouring of money will be on the renewal and multiplication of the grid.
95% of U.K. GDP is government debt.
We are stoney broke.
If we can not afford £1.6 billion for potholes how can we afford £30 billion on Carbon-Capture?We are living in a madhouse.
That mad house is Ed Milliband’s head.
He is delusional.
Yes, it might be possible to get to something approaching Net Zero in two hundred years time but to hobble the U.K. more than any other country, so quickly, will bring the United Kingdom to economic catastrophe.Michael, any government with a sovereign currency cannot go broke because the government is the creator of the money. This was proven, in spades, when paying for wars, when bailing out the banks in 2008, and in the first year of the pandemic.
So when they tell us there is not enough money, we can be sure they’re withholding their real reasons.
Fat John, your April 1, 10:15 comment is partly untrue. There are indeed times that electricity would fall short without the imports, particularly when demand is high and average British wind speeds are very low. There is not enough installed gas generation capacity to meet peak demand if other sources are low.
You’re partly right too though. Mostly, importing electricity is cheaper than burning gas. But also, sometimes the interconnectors are used because there is insufficient grid capacity to move British wind energy to where it is needed.
Michael, coal hasn’t been completely abandoned. There are still at least two coal fired stations; one of them is the unused plant at Drax. They are mothballed, but at least one was fired up and made a test delivery to the grid, this winter just gone.
Michael, thanks for the US military update, even though it is very bad news. Love the typo; highly appropriate!
And the biggest carbon capture project is for Drax. They’re so shy about it they never mention Drax and don’t even mark Selby on the map!
Re: ‘This [carbon-capture] is unproved tech.
On the contrary, Michael: Carbon-capture machines are now a reality. In addition, as well as capturing carbon, during their working lifetimes, many carbon-capture machines can even manufacture thousands of new carbon-capture machines for you. This is not an April Fool. Some people call them trees. I wonder how many you can get for £30 billion.
Re-lapsed Agnostic,
wonderful, amusing but true.
I have long thought that as CO2 in the air increases and our planet warms and become a little more wet, then the vast Boreal will grow more profusely, also the tree line will go further North.
The ability of the Boreal to take in Carbon dioxide is huge. Already the planet is greening, a lot.
All this for free.Depending on who you wish to believe, somewhere between 50% – 75% of Oxygen is made in the oceans, most by phytoplankton but also by sea grass and coral, cobalt nodules and other.
I assume this means that much Carbon is taken in to the oceans.
It is thought that the added Carbon dioxide in the air is “greening” the oceans.Michael, regarding greening, tree lines, and the source of oxygen, are these things not reasonably well known? I mean, is there genuine scientific debate about them in the scientific journals, as opposed to YouTube videos featuring the same dozen or two contrarian scientists over and over again, pontificating outside their fields and vigorously promoted by the likes of the Heritage Foundation and the GWPF?
See, this seems to be the source of this interminable argument. You seem to think that the vast majority of specifically Earth scientists are politically motivated to mislead the public, whereas a tiny number, promoted by political think tanks opaquely funded by fossil fuel money, are the only ones being honest.
If you’d only take notice of the evidence I present, I could show you it’s the other way around. But whenever that seems likely to happen you change the subject, make claims about economics, or mention Ed Milliband yet again, as if you daren’t face the awful truth.
The awful truth – our grid is not up to the task set by Ed Milliband.
In my town, apparently a fortified data center has been constructed, no nameplate, it is a secret.
Other data centers have applied to be sited here but there is no spare electricity.
My electricity is delivers on “telegraph” poles, until about three years ago, the wires were bare, they have now been replaced with insulated wires.
Where many of my friends live in the next village about 3/4 miles away, the electric was out yesterday for almost 24 hours.
Today I have been for a walk past four Diesel generators, connected up to the telegraph poles.
When you look up, all the “gear” is ancient.
It looks like the first power ever run into this village.
Four and a half thousand extra houses are about to be built in this village.
There is no evidence of any more electrical supply.
The other week Heathrow was out for almost 24 hours, the substations are all very old.
The grid is creaking.
If Angela gets her way, in less than five years, she wants one and a half million extra homes to be constructed.
Where will their electricity come from?
We are all being sold a pup.Clark,
let us give this a bit of brain work.
If trees take in a lot of Carbon dioxide, for a time that Carbon is locked up in those trees.
So for a time that Carbon, is not in the air.
If 50% plus, of Oxygen is released by Phytoplankton, then those phytoplankton are taking in a lot of Carbon.
The Carbon dioxide is in the air, by some mechanism, it enters the oceans.
It is drawn into the Phytoplankton. For a short while, that Carbon is absorbed into the Phytoplankton.
If there were to be more Phytoplankton, say because, there was more Carbon dioxide, do you think those extra Phytoplankton, would help to absorb more carbon dioxide?I would like to make a guess.
If there were to be more Carbon dioxide in the air, then it seems likely, that more Carbon dioxide would be drawn into more phytoplankton.I guess the new knowledge of huge numbers of Polymetallic nodules, on the sea bed, such as at the “CCZ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarion%E2%80%93Clipperton_zone
will be very interesting to scientists.
The lead scientist is based in Scotland.
The Indian Ocean Nodule Field (IONF) roughly 500 km SE of Diego Garcia Island,
Sir Keir Starmer, is just about to give up on the BIOT.
If many of these nodule fields are in the deep sea and the Oxygen they produce, stays in the deep sea and is used by the critters who live in this zone, maybe this will be neutral as far as the Carbon cycle goes?
Some groups of the nodules inhabit more shallow seas, like the Baltic sea. Possibly the more shallow ones, will have effects on the Carbon cycle but this is very new science.World’s second largest nodule field, very close to Diego Garcia.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825202000788#:~:text=This%20field%20identified%20as%20Indian,%C2%B0%20to%2080%C2%B0E.Indian Ocean Nodule Field,
average depth of five thousand metres.
About half a million square Kilometres, area.Crikey, Michael, I fear for Clark’s sanity after these last posts. I’m not sure the ‘awful truth’ concerns the national grid or Ed Milliband’s plans to increase capacity, but I guess you knew that already. It might help if you gave this some enhanced ‘brain work’ from time to time; you might learn something new rather than reinforcing inconsequential delusions.
Yes trees absorb CO2 and produce O2 – the carbon is stored in the limbs and trunk and remains there unless we burn it – wood, coal or oil. With phytoplankton, the real issue is the acidification of the oceans from increased CO2 emissions – change the pH value sufficiently enough over a relatively short timescale, you kill all these little critters, increasing the acidification process and accelerating atmospheric pollution considerably.
As for the rare earth deep sea nodules – so what? The problem is over-consumption of all resources by a population way beyond this planet’s carrying capacity, the majority of whom don’t understand what depletion and collapse actually mean.
I have to ask Michael. These Polly metallic nodules you seem so fascinated by (and I agree, they are kinda fascinating) have been doing their thing for millions of years. In what way has their discovery changed anything given they have been doing this for millions of years?
I would also say to you, the greening of parts of the globe is a feedback loop to the increase in CO2 levels. Why would such a feedback loop exist.@Shibboleth
I don’t agree our planet is over populated. We have more than enough (sustainable) resources to feed, house, supply healthcare and educate everyone. Our problem is profit chasing. The American dream as it’s now called, previously the Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Spanish, British dream is the problem.
How do you propose to reduce the world population and what criteria will you use to tell people they can’t have kids?
Where are you going with this?Recently Tata shut Port Talbot, marking the end of traditional steel making in Wales.
The steelworks have provided jobs for the people of the town for over 100 years, so for many, this is being described as the end of an era!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/czxgy5yw8z7o#:~:text=The%20UK’s%20biggest%20steelworks%20%2D%20a,job%20losses%20across%20South%20Wales.
Then today,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy5rlvkzq2xo
British ( China) Steel, most likely will be shut in days.
British Steel said: “We are not able to comment at this time”.So, if we “need” to increase the size of our Nation Grid by three – four or five times, to get to Net Zero, where will the steel come from?
Where are the trained workforce who will build this New Jerusalem?
Electric heating, electric cooking, electric water heating, electric railways, electric vehicles, one and a half million extra houses by 2030.
We are going to require large amounts of steel, if it comes from overseas, what will we trade for the steel?
We have collapsed our Coal industry.
We are collapsing our Steel Industry, we are collapsing our agriculture.
We are nose diving down to Oblivion,
on the alter of Net Zero.Good job, MN. Never address any point beyond any depth but a simplistic assertion, or at best a passive aggressive reply. Change the subject, for God’s sake, and do it right away.
