The London Tories, backed by all opposition parties and Holyrood, have written ‘Net Zero 2050’ into UK law.
Of course, obtaining cleaner air, clearer skies and “saving the planet” are laudable aims. Always assuming they are achieved in a soberly-reasoned, cost-effective manner.
Sadly, the absence of parliamentary opposition has ensured the opposite and was a disaster waiting to happen.
We have seen its effects in:
- The failed electricity wholesale market, where the dearest source of electricity, currently gas, sets the price for all, causing soaring bills and excessive profits;
- The failed electricity retail market where companies piled up consumer credit with over-priced direct debits, spent the proceeds and went bust in droves, the lost money being refunded from other customers’ bills!
- The ban on developing our own gas supplies, preferring to import foreign gas at three times the carbon intensity.
Not content with the damage already done, Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson are off to the great COP27 climate confab, presumably, to commit us to even more demanding targets.
There is a problem, however. A major study for the Finland Geological Survey (GTK) by Professor Simon Michaux found the necessary amounts of certain minerals to be impossibly large.
At 2019 production, for example, it would take 10,000 years to mine the lithium and 29,000 years for the germanium needed for one generation of technology to replace fossil fuels.
Extraordinary. Can it be true that no-one considered the resource requirements and their environmental impact before committing to spend trillions on an impossible dream?
Michaux confirms: “…replacing the existing fossil fuel powered system…. using renewable technologies…..will not be possible for the entire global human population. There is simply not enough time, nor resources to do this by the current target date”.
Ominously, he concludes: “What may be required, therefore, is a significant reduction of societal demand for all resources….. This implies a very different social contract and a radically different system of governance to what is in place today.”
That is, a totalitarian, green tyranny interfering in every corner of our lives.
In purportedly “saving the planet for our grandchildren”, it behoves us surely to ensure that the cure is not worse than the disease.
John Tulloch
Aberdeen
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