The EU’s net zero retreat is gathering steam
MARCH 28, 2024
By Paul Homewood
Building new gas power plants will, of course, “only make the transition to renewables-based power unnecessarily costly”. How do I know? Because I heard it from a bunch of climate activists calling themselves Beyond Fossil Fuels. What’s more, building new gas plants runs contrary to the “emerging consensus” that Europe must phase out all fossil fuel-generation of power by 2035.
I’m used to activists making sweeping assertions and talking in generalities rather than addressing the boring old details like how we keep the lights on when there is little in the way of wind and solar energy on offer, but this really does take the biscuit. Only a “consensus” of climate activists with their heads in the clouds – plus Ed Miliband – thinks we could save consumers money by closing down all our gas power plants in the near future. Judge European governments by their actions rather than their words and the clear consensus is that we are very much going to need gas power in the future. As Beyond Fossil Fuels itself reveals, Britain is not the only country that is building new gas plants. Across Europe, 72 gigawatts-worth of them are being planned. This may well be contrary to the targets governments have set themselves to decarbonise their power sectors, but when forced to make a choice between virtue-signalling and keeping the lights on they are invariably choosing the latter.
It ought to be obvious that you cannot construct a national grid on solar and wind power alone. Renewables are great on a sunny, windy day like today when wind and solar farms between them are generating 21 gigawatts of power. It is rather less good on calm winter evenings when they can struggle to generate 1 gigawatt. What makes it possible to incorporate so much wind and solar power in our energy mix is gas power plants, which can be turned up or down at short notice to balance variable and unpredictable renewable power.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/03/28/the-eus-net-zero-retreat-is-gathering-steam/
