---

Things are not going as well for the Net Zero Zealots in Europe as hoped, proving that no amount of drivel can negate cold hard facts.  However, the UK seems hellbent on marching forwards and charging consumers for net zero schemes regardless of the costs.

To go some way to understanding why Net Zero Zealots’ fantasies are just that – fantasies – a paper published yesterday by Net Zero Watch describes the results of a review of the computer code inside NASA’s Model E climate simulation. It shows that, far from being based on basic physics, in many places, the model incorporates crude corrections to make the output look vaguely reasonable.  In other words, the world’s climate policies are based on computer simulations of the atmosphere that are thoroughly flawed. 

Flawed computer simulations can only result in flawed policies – rubbish in, rubbish out.

The following is extracted from a compilation of articles published in recent days relating to renewable energy as e-mailed by Net Zero Watch.  You can read the full compilation HERE.

On 20 June, Sweden shocked the world by abandoning the “unstable” green energy agenda and returning to nuclear power. You won’t read much about it because the corporate media’s confirmation bias means it mostly reports “news” that reinforces climate alarmism.

In a statement announcing the new policy in the Swedish Parliament, Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson warned that the Scandinavian nation needs “a stable energy system.”  Svantesson said wind and solar power are too “unstable” to meet the nation’s energy requirements. Instead, she said, the Swedish government is shifting back to nuclear power. 

Svantesson also sent a warning to other Western nations who are blindly pushing to meet the energy requirements of the World Economic Forum’s green agenda.  In “substantial industrialised economies… only a gas to the nuclear pathway is viable to remain industrialised and competitive,” Svantesson noted.

Regardless of whether corporate media report on it or not, the Swedish government’s announcement that it was ditching Sweden’s long-legislated plans for 100% renewable energy by 2040 because the country needed “a stable energy system” is a significant blow to the march to renewables, at least among Western nations.

You can only imagine the teeth-gnashing hysteria of Swedish child climate activist Greta Thunberg at this announcement, can’t you?

A week later, on 27 June, the European Parliament was again deadlocked on pushing a nature restoration bill onwards. The bill is a key part of the EU’s European Green Deal. The parliament’s biggest group, the Christian Democrat EPP, has turned against the plan, arguing it is bad for embattled farmers and puts food security at risk at a time when the war in Ukraine has shown that strategic autonomy on foodstuffs can be essential.

In Germany, the Right has a new cause: resistance to the “Green dictatorship” imposed by the centre-Left coalition government. With Europe’s largest economy now in recession, a nation historically allergic to inflation and slumps is abandoning the political establishment in favour of the Alternative for Germany (“AfD”). This week the AfD won control of Sonneberg, a rural district in the former Communist eastern state of Thuringia. Nationally the AfD is now at around 20%, level-pegging with the ruling Social Democrats (“SPD”) and snapping at the heels of the centre-Right Christian Democrats (“CDU”).

Green policies – including the switch from nuclear to renewable energy, and from diesel to electric cars – have alienated both industrial workers and the middle class.  There is a German lesson for conservatives elsewhere. Above all, the blind pursuit of green agendas is a recipe for electoral disaster.

Just over a week after Sweden, Norway is following suit.  On 28 June, Norway approved more than $18 billion for oil and gas projects.  The 19 projects approved on Wednesday include new developments, additional development of producing oil and gas fields, and investments to increase resource recovery in producing fields, the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy said. The new investments in oil and gas will create jobs and value for Norway and contribute to Europe’s energy security, Petroleum and Energy Minister Terje Aasland said.

The UK is Left Out in the Net Zero Cold

In the UK, The Sun reported, one in three households in England and Wales are on a 120-day countdown to colder weather knowing they cannot afford the heat they need this winter.  The Telegraph reported that households have already paid as much as £15,500 in green taxes on energy over the past 13 years through a combination of direct taxes and taxes that are passed on by businesses.  Not only are these levies contributing to the 70-year high tax burden, but they’re also artificially inflating prices for consumers. 

The Government is expected to add further costs to households when it adds green levies worth £165 a year back onto energy bills.   Companies which produce energy by burning gas to create electricity are charged for every tonne of carbon they produce, under a government decarbonisation policy aimed at helping the country reach its “net zero” goal.  The cost is passed down to households through their energy provider.

Tory MPs are also calling for a “hidden tax” that adds up to £84 on energy bills to be cut to help struggling households.  A letter, coordinated by Craig Mackinlay, the chair of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, says the UK’s carbon emissions trading scheme “could annually be adding as much as £84 to household bills; a hidden tax during a cost-of-living crisis.”  Mr. Mackinlay said that carbon costs had to come down as the current policy was doing “nothing to improve our environment”.

Further reading: Does the Government understand its own Green Levies? Net Zero Watch, 28 June 2023

Meanwhile, The Times reported, wind farms drove record profits for the Crown Estate. “The Crown Estate enjoyed its most profitable year ever last year, with the King’s coffers boosted by the signing of six lucrative offshore wind farm leases.” The bulk of the near-£130 million increase in profits of the King’s property group came from the fees paid by the developers who won the rights to build six new offshore wind farms in January.

Despite now several decades of breakneck building of wind turbines, no country seems to be able to get even half of its electricity from wind when averaged over the course of a year, and no country has really even begun to solve the problem of needing full back up when the wind doesn’t blow. Despite a crash program to build wind turbines – also accompanied by a smidgeon of solar panels – the UK’s percentage of power from wind in 2022 was 26.8%, according to the BBC on 6 January 2023.

As The Sun said: We thought the message was already loud and clear. Britain will not support net zero policies which make us poorer.

To add to the UK’s woes.  Britain is to be left without backup coal power plants this winter after the energy companies Drax and EDF confirmed plans to close their remaining stations. Last winter, the companies were paid to keep these coal units on standby as a final resort to keep the lights on if gas and renewable energy generation ran low.

Kathryn Porter, an energy analyst at consultancy Watt Logic, warned that the loss of the two coal power plants meant electricity supplies this winter would be “less secure”.  She added: “This year will be better than last because the situations in Norway and France are less tight. But a high-pressure weather system affecting Northern Europe will still cause problems due to low wind output and cold temperatures.”

Featured image: Profits at the King’s property group surged by 42 per cent to a record £442.6 million, The Times, 29 June 2023