High Scam 2, Metro and Sprint are NOT green; just ecocidal.

Thanks, Barry.  I entirely agree with you and you make the right points.

Like High Scam 2, Metro trams and the Sprint buses to come between Walsall, Brum and Solihull (as well as trams out to Solihull from Brum!), are called green transport because they will be electric.  But electricity that is largely made from finite fossil fuels and a small amount of renewable energy; as well as, large majority fossil fuel constructed nuclear power stations.  All three transport modes are greedy luxuries and vain projects that are entirely unnecessary and most unhelpful in reducing GHG and our fatal dependency on finite fossil fuels.

All those billions of cost in price and in weight of GHG emissions should be used to rebuild the bus and train network to get car commuters onto the (work) bus that would be free for all (not just my old crocks age group) and have priority at traffic lights in their dedicated bus lane, and red for all other vehicles crossing the bus lane.

High Scam 2 is promoted as increasing the number of railway services throughout the UK, with extra capacity.  This is misleading because the trains are only super fast between three cities and two of their airports, with some trains stopping at Crewe and East Midlands Parkway, the E arm terminal.  That E arm is now greatly shortened thanks to our sound, strong, unanswerable reasons!

FROM    https://www.hs2.org.uk/the-route/

"HS2 trains will run from London to the West Midlands, where they will rejoin the existing West Coast Main Line."  https://www.hs2.org.uk/the-route/

"HS2 will integrate with new lines and upgrades across Britain’s rail system to deliver faster travel to many towns and cities across Britain not directly on the HS2 route, including Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby.

"170 miles of new high-speed line is already under construction between Crewe and London, employing over 29,000 people. In total, the Government is planning over 260 miles of new high speed line across the country."

The only advantage is that it is employing over 29,000 people.  However, they should all be employed in getting the UK's energy inefficient buildings up to modern, very low GHG emitting standard by fitting solar PV on every roof for every building to be a mini power station, to provide its own electricity as much as possible.  We all have to reduce our manic love of travelling, urgently especially jetting around the world and bombing around all over the UK.  My wife and I have and can maintain it, since 2019.​

 MY CLUES FOR A CLUELESS, FLOUNDERING, WAYWARD G...

​Do read this over High Scam 2, if you're interested:​

 GARETH DENNIS: This articulate young man has go...

​

Thanks so much, Barry for writing that was so encouraging.  HS2, Metro and Sprint are NOT green; just ecocidal.

Porritt on nuclear power stations - the 'solution' that worsens the problem!

My summary with Porritt's quotes from his blog -http://www.jonathonporritt.com/sizewell-c-just-the-latest-nuclear-scam/

The nuclear alternatives are more sensible, a lot cheaper and can address the problem much more quickly.

HMG is responding to their own climate emergency and the energy/cost of living crisis - the uncomfortable NOW - by ordering nuclear power stations that take a decade or two to come on stream!

Only foreign companies like the French EDF have the know-how.  Yet, they are in financial straits but, almost wholly owned by the French government.

EDF is not known to build anything on time or on budget.  Half of France's nuclear reactors are closed: "31 reactors closed – out of a total of 56."  It will cost them 20 bn euros in lost revenue when EDF is already in debt.

Nuclear is the most expensive way in the world to generate electricity.

Hinkley Point (EDF) is way over budget and delayed.  Cost is now £26 bn, with more cost hikes becoming inevitable.  HMG's new idea (financing scam): Pay Up Front and Pay Again Later for what will still be very expensive elecy.

All our billions should be going to insulate our leaky houses and to build very low energy demanding homes for very minimum energy bills.  Invest in reducing demand and creating the green economy.

Net zero electricity is impossible with nuclear elecy when GHG emissions are so massive through the long years, even decades, in building the energy-intensive concrete and steel power station!

Instead, double down on offshore wind and resurrect onshore wind because "it’s by far and away the cheapest source of electricity, between a quarter and a third of the cost of nuclear"

Improving the energy efficiency of people's homes is seriously lagging behind what the govt is doing.  For example, David Cameron got rid of 'all the green crap'. This was "compounded subsequently by both Theresa May and Boris Johnson writing off energy efficiency and retrofits as irrelevant to the Government’s purpose."

Why is the successful retrofitting ECO scheme paused?

Committee on Climate Change reported this year: ‘its (govt) shocking gap in policy for better insulated homes.’

" ... a £19bn commitment to improve the UK’s appalling housing stock was actually part of the 2019 Tory Manifesto. And if there was one thing that might save their rancid bacon in Red Wall seats, it would surely be to follow through on that commitment."

We must have full investment in a full-on Green New Deal.

The nuclear billions must go on retrofitting and boosting wind and PV solar on rooves.

Going for nuclear elecy is inextricably linked to nuclear weapons.  The one depends on the other - in skills and supply chains.

French President said, 'Without civilian nuclear, no military nuclear; without military nuclear, no civilian nuclear.’

Tim Weller   1 September 2022

My mini nuclear fusion power station

In 8 years, we generated 38,000 kWh of elecy from our 6.24 kWp solar array on our E/W roof on my small, mid-terrace, 3 storey townhouse in Halesowen, West Midlands, UK.   We used 6,000 ourselves and exported 32,000 for the rest of you to use, if you live in the UK. 

Our small is beautiful, comfortable, eco-home is a mini nuclear fusion power station.  Every building in the world should be like ours.  WHY NOT, MY FRIENDS?

DUPLICATED? Spend like there is no tomorrow and there will be no tomorrow

Spend like there is no tomorrow and there will be no tomorrow

The more we spend, even if it's green or renewable projects, the more greenhouse gases get emitted and the deeper the crisis.  We are well and truly snookered.  But we can't give up.  We have to do what we can, individually and in our working lives, to postpone extinction instead of accelerating it as we are doing with a host of unhelpful spending projects.

Spending hundreds of millions of gg (or GHG) on nuclear power and HS2, which take many years to build is the height of folly.  We don't know how many years it takes for a nuclear power station to pay back in low gg electricity what gg it has emitted in its construction (an example of not very helpful net zero that everyone raves about).

HS2 never even gives us anything useful like power.  It simply is an undeserved bonus for the rich with a First Class seat guaranteed only for those who could take the plane, anyway between the Big Four Important Cities.  And it stops at two of their airports, too!  So what is the point of it when it races us to extinction?

We are well and truly snookered. Therefore, ...

We are well and truly snookered because of fossil fuel burning and finite resources.  We are living way beyond our means, our limits and our boundaries, living unsustainably and unjustly.  Therefore, this all the more reason why we need to move away from these very expensive 'solutions' to our predicament, like the 16 modular nuclear reactors at £2 bill each and start, quickly, to live more simply, to downsize and to be content with less high living, heavy-footed lifestyles that demand these high greenhouse gas emitting nuclear power stations.

Cut GHG by treading lightly, spending the very minimum possible.

16 small modular nuclear reactors to nicely accelerate greenhouse gas emissions, instead of investing in PVs and batteries for every building in the land.

Cut spending, like the big transport projects, that fail to curb GHG emissions in quick, sensible ways.

Keep spending of everything to the very minimum because spending always involves GHG emissions, such is our addiction to finite fossil fuels.

More spending = more GHG emissions.  Therefore, spend to cut those emissions, wherever possible.

JUST BUILD MORE HOMES LIKE MINE - not nuclear power stations

The thing is very high in greenhouse gas emissions during construction - like High Scam 2 and Metro trams - but very low when generating over the lifetime of the station (25 years?).  When does the one cancel out the other?  But then there must be some greenhouse gases emitted in decommissioning over the years.

The whole thing is counterproductive.  And threatened by sea-level rise.  And, totally unnecessary, as well if we only could go for PV on every suitable roof, every other renewables, energy efficiency and were much less greedy and extravagant in our unsustainable lifestyles.

Unfortunately, more greenhouse gases (GHG) are emitted in construction than they can possibly save, eventually in having low carbon electricity from the thing.

No one knows how many years of generation must take place before the greenhouse gases in construction are eventually cancelled out.

Instead, every building a mini-power station, like my home!  Thanks to PV solar panels and storage batteries.

Spend like there is no tomorrow and there will be no tomorrow.

Spend like there is no tomorrow and there will be no tomorrow

The more we spend, even if it's green or renewable projects, the more greenhouse gases get emitted and the deeper the crisis.  We are well and truly snookered.  But we can't give up.  We have to do what we can, individually and in our working lives, to postpone extinction instead of accelerating it as we are doing with a host of unhelpful spending projects.

Spending hundreds of millions of gg (or GHG) on nuclear power and HS2, which take many years to build is the height of folly.  We don't know how many years it takes for a nuclear power station to pay back in low gg electricity what gg it has emitted in its construction (an example of not very helpful net zero that everyone raves about).

HS2 never even gives us anything useful like power.  It simply is an undeserved bonus for the rich with a First Class seat guaranteed only for those who could take the plane, anyway between the Big Four Important Cities.  And it stops at two of their airports, too!  So what is the point of it when it races us to extinction?

Metro ​has contributed to the wrecking of public transport with seven railway lines now destroyed and eleven bus routes permanently giving all public transport users a longer, slower and worse journey for those many buses that use Five Ways from Brum, Dudley and Sandwell.  The buses are relegated, forever, to a longer, slower and worse rush hour jammed diversion.  Even self-powered bikes are banned from most of Broad Street and all of Five Ways underpass!

The railway industry is the only set up to destroy/obliterate one-third of its infrastructure, to then build HS2 and, electric "bus on rails" Metro on its railway lines!  Truly bizarre!

Shambolic Net Zero Strategy according to Porritt

Porritt on HMG's Net Zero Strategy - my highlights

1. Do not doubt this is for real. For sure, it’s muddled, manipulative, repetitive and hopelessly inadequate when set against what the science of climate change tells us is now needed. But it’s still for real, with big money, vaulting ambition, and enough substance to keep us ticking over until the reality of what’s REALLY needed kicks in.

So does all this provide ‘an exemplar for other countries’ in the run up to CoP26? NO, IT DOES NOT.

Does this make the UK ‘fighting fit for the green Industrial Revolution’? NO, IT DOES NOT.

Does it map out a strategy for ‘working with the grain of consumer choice’? NO, IT DOES NOT.

Does it ensure a genuinely ‘just transition’, unambiguously exiting from the world of fossil fuels while supporting those whose jobs will inevitably be lost in the process? NO, IT DOES NOT.

That’s the high-level summary. Time to dig down into the detail – on two crunch issues: HEAT and NUCLEAR.

HEAT AND BUILDING STRATEGY

THE SCANDAL:

"With at least 2.5 million people still living in fuel poverty in the UK, with at least 10,000 excess winter deaths every year, and with more than 19 million properties with Energy Performance Certificates below the minimum C grade, this Strategy represents failure on a massive scale.

"New Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) is LESS generous than old RHI

"The BUS offers a one-off grant of £5,000 a pop, and will run for just three years. With a total of £450 million in the BUS pot, that amounts to precisely 90,000 new heat pumps. Exactly how this matches up with the overall target of 600,000 heat pumps to be installed every year by 2028, as announced with characteristic braggadocio by Boris Johnson in his 10 Point Plan in November last year, is yet to be revealed.

"The emphasis in this Strategy is all about swapping out boilers for electric heat pumps in people’s homes – regardless of how efficient or inefficient that home might be. The emphasis on FABRIC FIRST (through better insulated, better ventilated buildings) has all but disappeared, meaning that much of the benefit of a more efficient source of heat will still be lost through leaky, often damp and unhealthy, exploitatively costly buildings. Not much’ levelling up’ going on here.

"The emphasis on FABRIC FIRST (through better insulated, better ventilated buildings) has all but disappeared, meaning that much of the benefit of a more efficient source of heat will still be lost through leaky, often damp and unhealthy, exploitatively costly buildings. Not much’ levelling up’ going on here.

"With at least 2.5 million people still living in fuel poverty in the UK, with at least 10,000 excess winter deaths every year, and with more than 19 million properties with Energy Performance Certificates below the minimum C grade, this Strategy represents failure on a massive scale.

YET MORE NUCLEAR NONSENSE

"... the idea that a fleet of new SMRs is going to come online in time to make any kind of material contribution to our Net Zero target by 2050 is total pie in the sky.

"But the charade goes on. The pro-nuclear troops keep getting marched up and down that hill. Meanwhile, the things that really need doing now (a serious, fit-for-purpose retrofit scheme for the UK’s wretchedly unfit housing stock, mass investment in new battery manufacturing, serious, consistent support to bring down the cost of heat pumps, etc etc) are all there in the Net Zero Strategy, but starved of the kind of long-term strategic support they so urgently need.

"God knows what historians will make of this – and of the massive opportunity costs entailed in persevering with this whole fleet of nuclear fantasies."

Nuclear power is irrelevant, unnecessary and pointless

Dear Jonathon - I'm now watching your videos from your website.  Plus blog.  Great stuff!

Has there been any calculation over the weight of greenhouse gases emitted during the construction of a nuclear power station?

Or, its carbon footprint?

When would the amount of electricity generated outweigh the weight (or amount) of greenhouse gases emitted during construction?  Or, is that impossible to calculate?

The thing is very high in greenhouse gas emissions during construction - like High Scam 2 and Metro trams - but very low when generating over the lifetime of the station (25 years?).  When does the one cancel out the other?  But then there must be some greenhouse gases emitted in decommissioning over the years!

The whole thing is counterproductive.  And threatened by sea-level rise.  And, totally unnecessary, as well if we only could go for PV on every suitable roof, every other renewables, energy efficiency and were much less greedy in our unsustainable lifestyles.

Live simply so that others may simply live means NO NUCLEAR, EVER!

Please advise - only if you have time, Jonathon.  Many thanks and best wishes

PORRITT HAS IT RIGHT

When it comes to understanding the true nature of Net Zero by 2050, I have one huge request: could everybody please stop flourishing their particular ‘get out of jail free’ cards – whether that’s a nuclear card, or a hydrogen card, or a 100% renewable electricity (100% RE) card.

There are no get out of jail free cards. We’re trapped in an energy-intensive way of life, driven by frenetic consumerism, causing massive damage to both people and the planet, and putting at risk the very future of humankind. There is no energy-based solution to this meta-impasse: the only way we’ll avoid an accelerating slide into civilisational collapse is by transforming that suicidal way of life.

Energy is a sub-system of that much bigger economic system – though it is, to be sure, the most important sub-system. And the most important aspect of that sub-system is EFFICIENCY.

Whatever combination of supply-side options we may have settled on by 2050, it’s the efficiency with which we acquire and use every one of those units of energy which matters most – not whether those units are renewable, nuclear or hydrogen.

http://www.jonathonporritt.com/getting-real-about-net-zero/

Twitter to Liam Byrne

Hunger because the political parties have wrong priorities. Always more money for nuclear warheads, aircraft carriers, arms manufacturing for war in Yemen, £15 BILLION for 150 miles of tram lines when buses, trains need upgrading. AND fare-free travel for all ages, not just mine!

"This legal defence for the 3 Trident Ploughshares 2000 peace women ... " ALASTAIR MCINTOSH October 2001

This legal defence for the 3 Trident Ploughshares 2000 peace women argues that in British constitutional theory, military defence is the ultimate responsibility of a monarch who is both Commander in Chief of the armed forces and, by divine grace, “Defender of the [Christian] Faith.” Such implied theocracy sits in a framework of Scots constitutional law where, contrary to the English position, the Community of the Realm, and not Parliament, is Sovereign under God. God’s legal recognition is further emphasised by Scotland’s primary constitutional instrument within the United Kingdom, the Treaty of Union, 1707, and it is alluded to in the schedule to the Church of Scotland Act, 1921. 

Additionally, Lord Stair (like Blackstone in English law) affirms that divine law is the foundation and context within which Scots law develops. It follows from this that British military defence policy as it affects Scotland ought to be consistent with Christian principles. Such principles were taught by Christ as pacifism, but accommodated by most of the mainstream churches as “just war theory.” However, both stances - pacifism and “just war” - refute genocide as being ultra vires.

Nuclear weapons are, of course, potentially genocidal, which is why they are opposed by the mainstream Scottish churches which do not, otherwise, adopt a pacifist position. To destroy the infrastructure supporting nuclear weapons is therefore consistent with a citizen’s duty to prevent a greater crime from being perpetrated. Within Christian tradition, the precedent for such preventative destruction was established by Jesus turning over the tables of the money changers in the temple.

Set in such a context we can see that these three women are not criminals: they are stalwart upholders of law and order. Their work of witness calls us back to the constitutional nature of the British state that we are in. They remind us to raise ourselves up to our nation’s God-given higher vocation and to turn our backs on those “fallen” faces of nationhood that would traditionally have been called “sin,” such as possessing weapons of mass destruction.

Nuclear weapons stopped the Cuban missile crisis ending in nuclear holocaust

Such was the thought from a friend.  The problem is, however, that the very nations who have the most nuclear weapons to wipe humanity off the face of the earth the greatest number of times, are the very ones who cause the most wars, viz: USA/UK/Israel, Soviet Union/Russia.  Their possession of WMD is no brake on their extremist tendency for warfare and, in this century and last, for killing the greatest number of people ever seen in the history of humanity.  Nukes are no deterrent to aggression and violence.

The enormous stockpile of WMD was no disincentive for the USA to put Jupiter missiles in Turkey near to the border with USSR, nor was it a discouragement to the USSR in their bid to put missiles (ICBMs) near to the USA landmass.  It was this one-sided, aggressive policy of the West that caused the Cuban missile crisis in the first place.

The truth is, these nukes are so destructive, with the blowback of radiation on the attacker, too that they are just too impractical to be of any use in a crisis or no crisis; in time of war or in time of peace.  Therefore, they are not deterrent.  Why have them when they have to remain unused white elephants, stuck in their underground silos for ever or, having to be moved around the subterranean depths of the world's oceans in a cigar shaped metal tin?

Could these nukes simply bring the thought to these imperious states in the nuclear club that they can throw their weight around in the world?  That they can strut around like self-important, gilded peacocks to use coercion, force, aggression and violence to get their way whenever they want?

The religious and political right is invariably wrong, hypocritical and inflamatory!

Our right wing governments and electorates love to assume that we are going to be attacked at any time. We love to have enemies, too. Both help to justify our armaments, our aggression and our attacks. Tough, hard, bellicose stances by our leaders always attract the love of the electorate and their votes. Our most outstanding post-war prime ministers have been our great war leaders, Churchill, Thatcher and Blair. Eden is discredited. His right wing Conservative Party Cabinet who, with France and Israel attacked Egypt, failed to get the agreement and support of the USA and so lost the war.

For 63 years, the right in the US/UK/Israel first invented and used, and then maintained the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. The right wing democracies soon made the Bomb too destructive to be of any practical use. Yet, even so, our side came the nearest to using them in 1962 after our side provocatively put Jupiter missiles in Turkey near the border with the Soviet Union - our number one enemy. The political and religious right wingers worked hard to persuade Kennedy to use nuclear weapons - for a second occasion being the first to use them. A more right wing, Republican president, might not have resisted their demands to nuke the evil, Communist Russians.

Our side has always been the most bellicose in word and deed in attacking countries with Communist rulers or, governments with militant, Islamic tendencies that refuse to behave like we do in the world. Well, when you have all earthly power, of course might is right and you have a duty under God to make other nations as blessed and democratic and as Christian as yours!

Our side has tried hard to make more user friendly battlefield nuclear weapons that could be of practical use in our wars around the world. We have always made the running in finding new ways to spend our one-off wealth on ever more sophisticated and wonderful conventional and nuclear weapon systems, eg Polaris to make us independent of the US, Cruise missiles, star wars, renewing Trident - and all when the US is our best and closest buddy; and, the only country with whom we have a special relationship.

We don't believe in balance - only imbalance in favour of the US, UK, Israel! The other side gets it in the neck from our invasions, attacks and occupations if the other side, our enemy, try and correct the imbalance to make for less aggression by our side. Our behaviour around the world in attacking countries without nuclear weapons, sends the powerful signal to them that they must have the Bomb to prevent them from being attacked - and attacked by us; us who are always right and righteous and well intentioned and always know what is best for everyone else!

Our right wing electorates in the world's super-power bloc, love hard, tough, warring leaders to throw their weight about and to command the love and respect of the electorate. Democracy means war, aggression and war crimes - even from 1945 - by the great, outstanding and upstanding democracies! Right is wrong - for both our right wing political leaders and the right wing Christians who are right in there, whispering encouragements in their ears.

Might is right for the right, who are always right and blessed of the Lord. They are the righteous of the Lord, after all!

Scotland's N coast in storm, snow and white water!

I woke up - in the car at Ceannabeinne Bay, near Durness - to gale force N winds on Sat 5 April 2008. There were a few snow showers and impressive seas - the like of which I had never seen before! Numerous rock pillars, stacks and headlands whipped the angry sea into even greater fury. Waves, already white topped would smash into them and explode upwards in a fury of white water. One great cleft in a sea cliff gave an initial explosion of wave disintegrating into a white mass like a fire burst. A second later, the same wave, had funneled into another shock of white water much higher up the cleft! This second water burst had spray coming off the top, like smoke and disappeared far over the grassy headland.

In the morning, I had views as if I was in a plane from Beinn Ceannabeinne (383m) and, in the afternoon, views as if I was at sea as I got up close to the heaving sea. I paddled through it round a small headland just getting round as the tide was flooding in. A few minutes later I had a good view of an otter that I surprised. Sometimes, the sea was blue and white; at other times green and grey but always dominated by perfect white surf, spray and foam.

Walking across the virgin white sands in the shadow of towering rock pinnacles, I had the whole place to myself. As I waded through the water, round the headland towards land, I could have been Robinson Crusoe shipwrecked on what I pretended was this sandy, idyllic desert island - apart from the very cold temperature and snow on the distant hills!

Later, I had views from the cliff top towards Cape Wrath. Far away, I saw what looked like a mini nuclear explosion as a particularly heavy sea would smash into a rocky islet. It completely disappeared in a cloud of white water and spray that reminded me of the mushroom cloud from an H bomb explosion.

Necessity is the mother of invention

One member of the group at my 60th birthday weekend (photos opposite), came up with this saying to explain that we have nothing to worry about over our limited reserves of fossil fuels. Science and technology will come to our rescue as oil, gas and coal finally become too expensive to be worth exploiting. There will be hydrogen and nuclear to save us. But, hydrogen has to be made and that uses energy. Nuclear fission uses finite resources, too so cannot be the ultimate solution - unless, after all these decades of trying, nuclear fusion is perfected.

It seems that oil is more important as a chemical building block for our five hundred everyday objects around the home and office and in town and country. It is needed for even carpets! I don't think we should be burning, very wastefully, the oil - or gas, for that matter - to turn into electricity. For every $100 barrel of oil that is turned into electricity, two barrels go up the chimney of the power station! Even oil man and Texan, George W Bush admits that Western societies are addicted to oil but does nothing to even slow the rising and prodigious burning of the stuff. The President might well have said, "We need oil to survive as a nation, just like fish need water for their survival."

Our one off, never to be repeated, geological inheritance that took 300 million years to form is being foolishly blown in the Western and Christian and white man's thoughtless dash to blow the lot in just 300 years! What is the matter with the white races with their many centuries of the Judeo-Christian traditions and beliefs at their heart that see them as the peak of creation with the right to exploit this inheritance? This bonanza has gone to our heads and we've been unable to cope with this cornucopia of riches. These nations, alone, are responsible. Now, many other countries are wanting to do the same to even more quickly exhaust the remaining reserves!

The double whammy is that as we all burn the oil and gas and burn down the tropical rain forests, we also screw up, good and proper the climates of the world - to nicely further worsen our long term prospects! And, then, there are going to be 50% more of us on this tiny planet to do yet more of this stupid burning and consuming. The lot of us are the horror species not the human species on this earth, I think!

And, to think that the discovery of first coal (in about 1750) and then oil, followed by gas is an invention! Not even we humans in our arrogance and supreme intelligence can invent something so versatile, invaluable and precious as oil, gas and coal. How can we humans invent more oil when it took Nature 300 million years? Yet, on that evening, I alone was appalled by the complacency that was shown in using that saying to lull everyone into a false sense of security over our prodigality and greed in running through the black gold in the twinkling of an eye - relative to the geological time scale.

Our misguided faith in science and technology to bale us out of our folly and our reliance on the 'solution' of economic expansion from a diminishing capital resource base is like the 'Any Questions' questioner who said, "Our behaviour is like the smoker who keeps smoking confident in the knowledge there will be a cure for cancer - to allow him to keep smoking!"