By Paul Homewood
Harrabin is throwing his toys out the pram again!
The UK chancellor’s Spending Review has been accused of undermining the prime minister’s “green” vision by pushing ahead with a £27bn roads programme.
After several speeches in which Boris Johnson pledged to rescue the economy by “building back greener”, Rishi Sunak’s speech on Wednesday barely mentioned the climate.
He said he was pursuing the nation’s priorities.
Mr Sunak put detailed numbers on the PM’s recent green technology plan.
But he offered no increase on the £12bn Mr Johnson says the government has mobilised to tackle climate change – even though the sum is much less than what’s been agreed in France, Germany and others.
Environment groups are most angry at the roads programme. The chancellor said it would ease congestion, improve commute times and “keep travel arteries open.” It was essential, he said, because people are shunning public transport during the Covid-19 pandemic.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55077760
It is not the Spending Review which has “undermined” the green vision, it is harsh economic reality. (Not the Harrabin seems to have a clue what that is)
In fact, the PM’s 10-Point Plan made it obvious that the government could not commit to the barmy extremes demanded by Harrabin and his cronies.
Although it promised £12bn, this will be effectively spread over ten years, making it tiny in relative terms, a pump priming exercise more than anything.
So let’s take it apart step-by-step, and see what public spending it commits to:
Offshore Wind
£160m into modern ports and manufacturing infrastructure. Despite this, even the government admits that 40% of the content in offshore wind farms will be sourced from abroad.
Hydrogen
£240m Hydrogen Fund, to encourage development of hydrogen production capacity.
The aim is to have 5GW of hydrogen production capacity by 2030, but this will need a further £4bn investment from the private sector. Even then, it will only provide a tiny fraction of the amount of hydrogen needed to supplant natural gas.
Nuclear
£385m for an Advanced Nuclear Fund and £215m investment in small nuclear reactors, to encourage development of new technologies.
Also £170m for R+D on Advanced Modular Reactors, and £40m for supply chains.
Zero Emission Vehicles
£1bn to support the electrification of UK vehicles and their supply chains, including developing “Gigafactories” in the UK.
£1.3bn to accelerate the roll out of charging infrastructure.
£582m for subsidising the purchase of EVs, which at £3500 each equates to 166,000 cars – enough to support EV sales for two years at the current rate, but absolutely irrelevant in overall terms.
£20m for HGV trials.
Public Transport & Cycling/Walking
Invest £5.0bn for public transport, cycling and walking schemes.
Aviation & Shipping
£15m for research into zero emission flight, and £20m for clean shipping technology
Greener Buildings
While the plan talks of energy efficiency and heat pumps, the only money actually committed is £1bn to extend measures such as the Green Homes Grant.
As I have pointed out already, the annual cost of installing the promised 600,000 heat pumps a year will be over £6bn. The cost of any meaningful insulation in homes and public buildings will be many times greater.
Clearly the government cannot afford such sums, which raises the question of who will pay the bill.
Carbon Storage
£1bn for a CCS Infrastructure Fund, which will provide industry with the certainty required to deploy CCUS at pace and at scale.
It is worth noting that the CCS pilot projects at Drax and Peterhead were going to be funded with £1bn. Both projects were abandoned.
It is not clear exactly what the government will get for this new £1bn, or whether CCS can even be made to work economically. But any large scale roll out will cost considerably more to set up, and will of course be hugely expensive to operate.
It is not immediately clear how this will “transform the UK’s industrial regions”, as claimed. It is more likely to be a millstone around its neck!
The Environment
£40m for the Green Recovery Challenge Fund.
Green Finance and Innovation
£1bn for the new Zero Innovation Portfolio, further developing the green technologies for net zero.
As I said at the top, most of this is pump priming, attempting to draw in private investment and support research and innovation.
Some of it actually makes sense, such as support for the nuclear sector.
But it is really just fiddling around at the edges. If we are going to do all of things needed for Net Zero – electrification of transport and heat, roll out of hydrogen, energy efficiency, expansion of renewable energy, upgrading the electricity gris and so on – the cost will run into hundreds of billions and maybe even more.
Sooner or later, someone will have to pick up the bill.
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November 26, 2020 at 12:15PM
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