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There’s been a lot of media lately about the energy crisis in the United Kingdom. Many of the remaining anthropogenic climate change deniers try and blame it on renewables. One of the deniers I spar with at Quora posted an article that takes this line. I replied as follows …
This article is by retired accountant Paul Homewood. Here’s the link to it at ACC denier Anthony Watts’ blog WUWT [What’s Up With That]: Power Markets In Crisis. It’s selective and he seems to be blaming the transition on renewables. Just about every country is transitioning to renewables, including China, which has stopped paying solar subsidies from 1 August 2021 as solar is so cheap.
The main energy problem for the UK is very high gas prices. These have only gone up in recent months and it’s a worldwide problem caused by excess demand compared with supply as the world emerges rapidly from the coronavirus downturn. A cold winter caused stored gas levels to fall sharply. At the same time, demand for gas has risen rapidly, especially in Asia and particularly China.
The UK has become increasingly reliant on gas over the decades. It’s become a major fuel in electricity generation. Also, more than 80% of households are now heating their homes with natural gas. Until recently, gas prices were a quarter of electricity prices. It’s a case of having put too many energy eggs in the one basket. Worse still, the UK has scant gas storage capacity or about 2% of annual demand. Other European countries have much more. See graph below. The UK Office of Gas and Electricity Markets in March warned the government of the risks of a price surge and low storage. The government didn’t do anything.
Speaking of eggs in the one basket, the UK may have also done this with renewables, perhaps concentrating too much on wind. Part of the problem this year has been lack of wind. But the UK probably needs more energy from biofuels, solar, hydro, and green hydrogen. Things are moving in all these areas but more probably should have been done sooner. The UK would have done better to move faster towards renewables, given they are cheaper and cleaner.
Brexit certainly hasn’t helped. European gas prices are also at record highs, but European Union members can trade between each other and prices balance out. The UK is fine when energy prices are low but when they are high it is left very exposed to price shocks. There’s also the petrol shortages and subsequent high prices due mainly to a lack of truck drivers who mainly came from Europe but the pandemic and Brexit have kept them in Europe. The UK inflation rate is also rising.
Homewood says: “Arguably the biggest factor this year has been the doubling of EU carbon prices …”. But the EU says: “The effect of the gas price increase on the electricity price is nine times larger than the impact of the carbon price increase.” See Press corner.
He also talks about the “£12bn a year cost of renewable subsidies”, but doesn’t mention that subsidies to other energy sources, particularly fossil fuels, seem to be at least as much. This includes things like reductions in VAT on fuel bills and coal and nuclear decommissioning costs, cleaning up old coal mines. The European Commission a couple of years ago identified £10.5b for fossil fuels and £9.5b for renewables.