Miliband, China, & the feasibility of government plans

Last week Miliband published his risible “Clean Power 2030 Action Plan“, piling on yet more nonsense atop the supposedly supportive NESO report of a couple of weeks ago which ostensibly provided cover for his & Starmer’s disingenuous retreat from “100% decarbonisation by 2030″ to “100% always meant 95%“.  That’s a lot of reading there, if you’re so minded.  Don’t expect much[1] intellectual consistency, though.

Anyhow, whatever target he finally declares to be what he really meant all along, one of Mili’s ideas is for some kind of ‘bonus’ to encourage developers to use UK supply chains instead of, as at present, importing just about everything including the workforce.  I can report that would-be new renewables developers are all very keen to be given this bonus, in whatever shape or form it materialises – to the point where they are putting their plans on hold until they learn the details!  Unfortunately, even the fingers-crossed “endorsements” of Mili’s breakneck 2030 timetable state that there isn’t a nanosecond to be wasted (code for “it’s impossible, matey“) – so this new cause of delay (among very many one might list) could prove to be a pretext for yet another volte face.  Most likely, I guess, the ditching of the UK Supply Chain thing[2].  By way of support for this cynical view: FID has just been announced on Phase 1 of our very first Carbon Capture & Storage project[3] – and the developers have announced a “non-binding ambition” to source 60% of their stuff from UK supply chains.  How very amusing.

And of course the same goes for the building industry – in spades!  (see what I did there?)  1.5m new houses (sorry – homes: we now learn a significant % will be converted office blocks) cannot remotely be built with nothing but indigenous supply & labour.  Nor the building standards that so many activists believe they were promised would be imposed on housing developers – for energy efficiency / heat pumps / solar panels / disabled access etc etc.  There’s another target ripe for downwards revision.

In amongst all this oh-so-cynical realism, we learn that in the New Year … Mili is off to China!  – that well-known “developing country” (for COP purposes) which is the source of almost all solar panels and much else besides.  What, do we imagine, is the purpose of his mission?  To tell them they must locate their factories in Sunderland, & stop burning coal?  To lecture them on human rights?  To demand the return of Hong Kong?  To stop sending weapons components to Putin?  Do tell us, Ed – what will constitute success for your mission?  We only ask because we want to know.  

ND

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[1] I was about to say “any / whatsoever” there: but in fact there is a thin strand of consistency detectable.  Having not formally decided whether or not to extend the wretched Drax’s baleful biomass subsidies beyond 2027, Miliband pays lip-service at least, to the possibility Drax stops generating thereafter.  Personally, I’d be very surprised if he held his nerve against the blatant subsidy-farmers at Drax – but this formal reserving of the position is at least a modest positive sign.  

[2] See, for example, the sad little story of the Vestas Isle of Wight turbine blade production / job losses.  How are those “650,000 good new jobs” shaping up, Ed?

[3] Obviously this announcement of “CCS” at Teesside came with a great fanfare.  Look closer, and you’ll notice that its primary sponsors, BP and Equinor, are committing only to the new gas-fired power plant at this stage.  That’s the low-hanging fruit, of course, and in any event, CCS or no CCS, is likely to have a role as part of Mili’s “fleet of gas-fired back-up” which he now realises he always meant to retain.  We’ll believe the commitment to the actual CCS aspects when we see it, Ed …