Net Zero was never going to happen but it has been used to make massive profits and take huge sums of taxpayer money and funnel it into the private sector. Nuclear energy is not being considered yet because when Net Zero collapses there is too much profit to be made from so called fossil fuels. It's always about the money.
The UNEP, Friends of the Earth and Greens started this decarbonization campaign in order to deindustrialize, impoverish ordinary families and depopulate the planet. They've never wanted to solve problems so have always protested against the implementation of anything which would solve a problem they created in the first place.
Hi Ariane, thank you for commenting. That is exactly what my next substack post is about - this pursuit of an answer to a problem only they have promoted. The UN's largest funder is Bill Gates, And all men have an agenda.
Firstly fusion - in 1980 it was "30 years away", today its 30 years away, I think in those years we have moved from creating a chain reaction of milliseconds to about 5 seconds at huge cost.
Is it the solution of endless cheap power "too cheap to meter"? No.
Firstly you cannot cool a fusion reactor, you need temperatures in excess of 100,000C to get a sustainable reaction which would melt everything you could use to cool it, and cooling something that difficult to get to would shut it down.
A fusion reactor would be a D-T reactor, Deuterium, Tritium reactor.
Simply D + T = He + n (N = neutron)
A fusion reactor is constrained by magnets in a toroid but the D and T at high temperature are striped of electrons and are therefore positively charged and respond to the magnetic fields, the neutrons are neutral and do not, so they leak.
The only way of driving power from a fusion reaction is ironically by fission, you surround the reactor with a lithium blanket and fission the lithium into He + T which then releases heat.
You can then cool the Lithium fuel and from that raise steam for a turbine.
The T can be recycled into reactor fuel, but you'd need a reprocessing plant for that and the cladding would be radioactive waste as would the Lithium reactor.
So you would have radioactive waste, granted not as active or dangerous as fission reactor fission products but Tritium is radioactive with a 12.3 year half life and worse than that it can combine as water in the body, so its quite biologically hazardous stuff, but is quickly expelled from the body by urination.
So fusion reactors are not quite as simple as the "free lunch" many think it is, nor is it entirely non hazardous, nor is there no nuclear waste.
On the plus side He is pretty expensive, its about the price per volume of a top scotch whiskey.
As my old chemistry teacher said, a point to ponder.
It rather suggests that we already have an excellent source of energy in the name of oil and gas! Thank you for your comment. And indeed. a point to ponder.
Yes, the key point is not ideology, if we use expensive unreliable sources of energy it means that flows through to people's costs, and more importantly business costs, which in turn will be passed onto you.
That means business becomes less competitive and other countries using cheaper sources produce cheaper goods which consumers will buy in place of expensive alternatives produced here, leading to a loss of jobs and a fall in living standards.
That will see higher and higher taxes, an endless reduction in the welfare state, the rich leaving the country and taking their taxes with them to lower tax jurisdictions, with a loss of taxes paid, and therefore higher taxes again for the poorer to make that up.
A vicious circle of decline.
It would be far cheaper to mitigate climate change than stop it.
What should also be noted is that over the last 800,000 years the climate has gone through 6 cycles of approximately 125,000 years where the temperature has varied peak to trough by 11C with CO2 varying from a low of 170ppm to a high of 300ppm.
The current level in the atmosphere is 420ppm. Now if the climate scientists are correct, and CO2 creates global warming, and history tells us that in excess of 300ppm it causes a tipping into global cooling then you could in a few decades see winters like Canada and believe me, trying to heat your house with a heat pump is going to lead to millions freezing.
And of course in those temperatures, ice will form on wind turbine blades, reducing their efficiency substantially, potentially unbalance them, they may become useless and snow covered solar panels would be equally useless.
At which point you'll need all the oil and gas and nuclear you can lay your hands on.
Net Zero was never going to happen but it has been used to make massive profits and take huge sums of taxpayer money and funnel it into the private sector. Nuclear energy is not being considered yet because when Net Zero collapses there is too much profit to be made from so called fossil fuels. It's always about the money.
Absolutely - the US is still exporting gas to Europe since Russia became a no go.
The UNEP, Friends of the Earth and Greens started this decarbonization campaign in order to deindustrialize, impoverish ordinary families and depopulate the planet. They've never wanted to solve problems so have always protested against the implementation of anything which would solve a problem they created in the first place.
Hi Ariane, thank you for commenting. That is exactly what my next substack post is about - this pursuit of an answer to a problem only they have promoted. The UN's largest funder is Bill Gates, And all men have an agenda.
Hi Tom,
Firstly fusion - in 1980 it was "30 years away", today its 30 years away, I think in those years we have moved from creating a chain reaction of milliseconds to about 5 seconds at huge cost.
Is it the solution of endless cheap power "too cheap to meter"? No.
Firstly you cannot cool a fusion reactor, you need temperatures in excess of 100,000C to get a sustainable reaction which would melt everything you could use to cool it, and cooling something that difficult to get to would shut it down.
A fusion reactor would be a D-T reactor, Deuterium, Tritium reactor.
Simply D + T = He + n (N = neutron)
A fusion reactor is constrained by magnets in a toroid but the D and T at high temperature are striped of electrons and are therefore positively charged and respond to the magnetic fields, the neutrons are neutral and do not, so they leak.
The only way of driving power from a fusion reaction is ironically by fission, you surround the reactor with a lithium blanket and fission the lithium into He + T which then releases heat.
You can then cool the Lithium fuel and from that raise steam for a turbine.
The T can be recycled into reactor fuel, but you'd need a reprocessing plant for that and the cladding would be radioactive waste as would the Lithium reactor.
So you would have radioactive waste, granted not as active or dangerous as fission reactor fission products but Tritium is radioactive with a 12.3 year half life and worse than that it can combine as water in the body, so its quite biologically hazardous stuff, but is quickly expelled from the body by urination.
So fusion reactors are not quite as simple as the "free lunch" many think it is, nor is it entirely non hazardous, nor is there no nuclear waste.
On the plus side He is pretty expensive, its about the price per volume of a top scotch whiskey.
As my old chemistry teacher said, a point to ponder.
It rather suggests that we already have an excellent source of energy in the name of oil and gas! Thank you for your comment. And indeed. a point to ponder.
Yes, the key point is not ideology, if we use expensive unreliable sources of energy it means that flows through to people's costs, and more importantly business costs, which in turn will be passed onto you.
That means business becomes less competitive and other countries using cheaper sources produce cheaper goods which consumers will buy in place of expensive alternatives produced here, leading to a loss of jobs and a fall in living standards.
That will see higher and higher taxes, an endless reduction in the welfare state, the rich leaving the country and taking their taxes with them to lower tax jurisdictions, with a loss of taxes paid, and therefore higher taxes again for the poorer to make that up.
A vicious circle of decline.
It would be far cheaper to mitigate climate change than stop it.
What should also be noted is that over the last 800,000 years the climate has gone through 6 cycles of approximately 125,000 years where the temperature has varied peak to trough by 11C with CO2 varying from a low of 170ppm to a high of 300ppm.
The current level in the atmosphere is 420ppm. Now if the climate scientists are correct, and CO2 creates global warming, and history tells us that in excess of 300ppm it causes a tipping into global cooling then you could in a few decades see winters like Canada and believe me, trying to heat your house with a heat pump is going to lead to millions freezing.
And of course in those temperatures, ice will form on wind turbine blades, reducing their efficiency substantially, potentially unbalance them, they may become useless and snow covered solar panels would be equally useless.
At which point you'll need all the oil and gas and nuclear you can lay your hands on.
Oh but the UK must lead the world. After all some lemmings must be at the front to lead all the others over the cliff!
It really peaves me when someone says "but it (out sucide) is enshrined in Law". Then bloody well unenshrine it!
Exactly - who the fuck can sue a country? It's utter bollocks.