From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

 It’s official! Renewable energy is definitely cheaper than fossil fuels and the tens of billions we pay out to subsidise reduce your electricity bills!

It must be true – the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit says so!

I complained about a BBC World at One soft soap interview with the lobbyist for the wind industry, Adam Berman, a few months ago. He was allowed to get away with the lie that renewable energy is cheaper than gas power, and that our electricity bills are high because of the price of gas.

I covered the story here.

Predictably the ECU has rejected my complaint. In doing so they have totally ignored the evidence I sent them, viz:

1) Fiscal data from the OBR regarding Environmental Levies, aka subsidies for renewables, which will amount to £17.1 billion this year, all of which is added to bills.

2) Costs of grid balancing, which amount to £2.6 billion, nearly all of which are incurred because of the intermittency of renewables, and all of which are added to bills.

3) Details of subsidies paid out via CfDs, which specifically destroy the notion that renewables are cheaper.

4) Details of other subsidies, such as Renewables Obligation.

Not only did the ECU ignore this evidence, they failed to refute it or explain why it was in any way irrelevant to electricity bills.

In rejecting my complaint, the ECU concluded:

In my judgement, the interview provided a duly accurate and clear explanation of how the UK electricity market functions. It served to clarify the complex relationship between gas prices and electricity costs, and the role of renewables in the current day to day pricing structure.

Bear in mind that the specific topic of discussion was “why are UK electricity prices so high?”. It was not a discussion of how the market works. As such the ECU’s response is not relevant.

As for the ECU’s “proof” that renewables are cheaper, they state:

In the second half of 2021 and most of 2022, the price of gas significantly increased because of market changes after Covid-19 restrictions were lifted and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This has made renewables comparatively even cheaper.
Even before the rise in gas prices, new renewables schemes were able to generate electricity more cheaply than fossil fuels. In 2021, the global average lifetime cost of electricity generation for new solar panels and hydropower generators was 11% lower than the cheapest new fossil fuel generator, while onshore wind was 39% lower.

The fact that gas prices spiked in 2022 have no relevance to why prices are so high now.

As for the second paragraph, they link to this report from the International Renewable Energy Agency:

https://www.irena.org/publications/2022/Jul/Renewable-Power-Generation-Costs-in-2021

Their theoretical costings are global ones, based on new construction and have no connection whatsoever to the actual prices and subsidies paid out in the UK for wind and solar farms built years ago, or that still continue to be built.

Why does the ECU need to go back to a theoretical study published four years ago and based globally, when there is the actual data readily available?

It is not theoretical costings that determine our bills, it is what we actually pay to generators.

The ECU also wheel out that old BEIS study from 2023, purportedly showing that new build renewables are cheaper.

In addition, the most recent Government assessment of electricity generation costs shows the levelised cost of electricity from wind and solar is generally lower than for gas-fired generation.

The same report they wheel out every time this issue is raised. Whether they are cheaper is irrelevant, because wind farms built in future don’t affect current bills.

But what really struck me was this section at the end of the ECU letter:

However, I think it is worth noting Contracts for Difference provide low carbon generators with a guaranteed price per MWh of electricity generated but they also mean generators have to make payments back to suppliers if the market price of electricity is higher than the guaranteed, so-called “strike” price. My understanding is most CfD strike prices are currently below the wholesale market price.

My understanding? What does “your understanding” have to do with anything? Is it so difficult to get hold of the facts?

I presented the facts surrounding CfDs, which conclusively show that “your understanding” is false. So why do you still maintain otherwise?

So, just to make this crystal clear. The OBR say that CfDs will be paid a subsidy of £1.4bn this year, and this will increase in the next four years:

https://obr.uk/download/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-march-2025

And on a monthly basis, subsidies have been paid throughout the period of the scheme, except for a few months in 2021/22:

https://data.spectator.co.uk/energy

The response was sent by Colin Tregear, who you may recall is off on a six-month course with the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, which aims to make the ‘climate crisis’ a central element in the journalism of the attendees.

The ECU will always defend the BBC against complaints, regardless of the facts.

But this latest judgement proves that it is also prepared to defend the BBC’s Net Zero agenda, come what may!

From ClimateREALISM

By Linnea Lueken

A recent article at the website CounterPunch titled, “Al Gore Puts Down ‘Climate Realism,’” responding to a TED talk given by Al Gore, says that carbon capture and storage and direct air carbon capture are “like fool’s gold,” which neither reduces the carbon content of the air to a meaningful degree nor does so in a cost-effective way. This is true, though not in the way or for the reasons CounterPunch writers articulated.

There are many nonsensical and false claims in the CounterPunch post; to address them all, but we will focus on the post’s very interesting claims about carbon capture and storage, and direct air capture.

CounterPunch writer Robert Hunziker says that one of the ways the fossil fuel industry tries to convince people that the fuels that built and maintain modern civilization are useful and good, is by claiming that “carbon capture and storage and direct air capture and recycling of plastics will handle everything.”

Hunziker quotes Al Gore as saying “These things are much better at capturing politicians than they are at capturing emissions!” He then goes on to claim that if carbon capture is “inefficient, the ‘climate realism’ argument is destroyed.”

This is true insofar as it addresses the climate “realists” who still think that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and worth removing from the air, which this website (Climate Realism) in particular does not agree with. Indeed, if climate apologists in the oil industry and other industries that invest in credits generated by direct air capture are right and carbon dioxide is a problem that needs addressing, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) is the way to go, then their argument is ruined if carbon capture is a farce.

If CCS does not actually accomplish what proponents claim at realistic costs, then their argument is destroyed. CounterPunch and Hunziker are right.

This is not the argument that most “climate realists” make, however. CCS is a scam, for the reasons Hunziker addresses, but also because it is unnecessary. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and there is nothing wrong with using fossil fuels.

“Carbon capture cannot physically costs-effectively reduce emissions,” Hunziker writes, then cites an article posted by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, among others, to show that carbon capture is inefficient and costly.

This is true.

A Heartland Institute study from January of this year (2025) demonstrated how nothing about CCS is worth the current trend of government-funded CCS companies being able to use eminent domain to take private land in order to install CCS pipelines. CCS projects are not profitable on their own. According to the study, “the overall CCS process can cost up to $144 per metric ton,” not including the initial capital investment of a commercial scale project, which can cost billions. The Heartland study estimates that global expenses on CCS projects as of 2023 were around $20 billion, with up to $200 billion worth of projects approved.

Unfortunately, members of both the Republican and Democrat parties in the United States advocate for subsidizing CCS projects heavily to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars. As explained in this Climate Realism post, the majority of government Research & Development dollars given to coal companies by the government is earmarked for CCS and other net-zero aims. While both trees and carbon capture technologies play a role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, trees are generally considered more efficient at carbon sequestration due to their lower cost, self-powered nature, and established presence as a natural carbon sink. Simply plant more trees if you want to capture carbon dioxide directly out of the air.

CCS at the power plant level makes electricity more expensive by necessity due to the amazingly high cost of installing and using the energy-intensive equipment, and retrofits on plants can reduce the output of a coal power plant by up to 28 percent.

There is one situation in which carbon capture is not a scam, and that is Carbon Capture Utilization – in which captured gas is injected to help stimulate oil production in Enhanced Oil Recovery operations. Climate activists and sympathetic media are unsurprisingly not appreciative of this use.

Where CounterPunch and climate realists really differ on this point is this: CCS isn’t only expensive and inefficient, it is unnecessary. Carbon dioxide emissions are not causing a climate emergency; weather is not getting more extreme, and none of the alleged “tipping points” we’ve been warned about for decades are any closer to being crossed, despite media claims.

In the end, CounterPunch is correct to point out that CCS is a scam, it absolutely is, and is a massive waste of billions of dollars. They missed the main reason, though, and that is that it is totally unnecessary. In no way does rejecting carbon capture and storage “put down” Climate Realism; Al Gore and CounterPunch will need to find another strategy.