“If you want to have a levelling-up agenda, if you want to have sovereign capability and to reach net zero, you need a British steel industry,” said Stephen Kinnock, the Labour MP for the Port Talbot region. “The clock is ticking. The blast furnace technology that we currently have is not compatible with the transition to net zero.”
Yes, quite so, Matey. But electric arc furnaces don’t require subsidy. We’ve already got lots of them. Therefore, get rid of the blast furnaces, sure, but no subsidy for you.
Obviously petrochemical coke from nuclear powered synfuel plants is the answer.
I’m sure Kinnock is a firm supporter of all the subsidies going to such a plant in someone else’s electorate.
Kinnock minor can tick the box about “enthusing the local plebs about things they think they care about” while doing absolutely nothing practical. Clearly learned at the knee of his dear old papa. Just demonstrating that the socialists can do nepotism just as well if not better than the Conservatives (in name only).
“electric arc furnaces” don’t reduce iron ore to make steel, they reheat scrap steel to recycle it. Worth doing, but no substitute for a blast furnace that reduces iron oxide using carbon.
Of course, you can burn the carbon out of sight, make hydrogen, and use the hydrogen to reduce the iron oxide at three times the price, twice the carbon dioxide emissions, and resulting in crap-grade hydrogen-embrittled steel. What’s not to like?
I’m with TATA on this: “The stupid governement is hitting us with £2bn of Net Zero penalties, so the government either gives up on Net Zero, gives up on Net Zero as applying to us, or we do a John Galt.”
Rub the stupid bastards noses in it.
I’m with TATA on this: “The stupid governement is hitting us with £2bn of Net Zero penalties, so the government either gives up on Net Zero, gives up on Net Zero as applying to us, or we do a John Galt.”
Obviously, my preference is for the latter as they would presumably phuq off somewhere like India with their pollution, emissions and need for subsidy while still being able to purchase their output on the world market. 🙂
As for Net Zero, it’s clearly ludicrous and well understood as such. While BoJo was happy to stand in the limelight and proclaim his NetZero cred, we all knew he was a liar and largely doing it to keep peace with his own mistress-cum-wife. BoJo is now toast, although like any good Shakespearian drama might show up again in the final act to stab the dagger in his erstwhile political assassins.
It will be up to whomever follows as to whether they are going with the WEF and the rest of the globalists pursuing this nonsense (looking at you Rishi Sunak) or take another path.
For all her weirdness, Liz Truss might be game enough to play it the standard way, turn NetZero from a fairly hard target to a soft one and start kicking the can down the road while playing pretend NetZero by putting a few subsidies for middle class virtue signallers to install heat sinks, but meanwhile nonsense like preventing the installation of new gas boilers gets quietly scratched.
Until we’ve got far better technological solutions to gas and oil replacement NetZero is a pipe dream. Since it’s politically difficult to dump it entirely, paying lip service to it while preventing NetZero from phuquing up reality is probably the pragmatic way forward for a PM that would like to win an election.
If we believe the “CO2 causes catastrophic warming” theory and hence want to practically eliminate CO2 production, we need to eliminate it worldwide.
Hence we should give up the use of metals from anywhere. No point in moving the CO2 emissions elsewhere. Yes that does imply a literal return to the stone age, and a vast reduction in population but that is the only way to get rid of CO2 emissions worldwide.
We also need a workable plan to coerce the rest of the world to do likewise, or our sacrifice would be pointless.
Only if we are serious about doing this is there any point in reducing our CO2 emissions.
Somehow I doubt there’d be any votes in favour of that proposal, and it isn’t feasible anyway.
So we should stop the play-acting and just go for cheap energy.
We’ll be saying a big hello to all intelligent lifeforms everywhere and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.
I guess that as far as the Greens are concerned it started to go wrong from there.
JG – Trussy seems like the least worst option at the moment. She’s not very bright and not particularly conservative, but at least she isn’t a proven snake like the supple and serpentine Mr Sunak. I hope she wins, and then doesn’t start WW3 with Russia.
On a related subject: since we are about 4 months from Germany (and other EU countries) begging UK to import more LPG through terminals which we have, and they do not, and pipe the gas to Germany, to stop the public freezing, NOW would be an ideal time for the new UK Prime Minister to unilaterally announce a resolution to the NI protocol issue along the lines of “The UK is sovereign, no internal borders, and no IE to NI checks, now do phuq off EU”.
The German politicians have shut the coal power stations, shut the nuclear power stations, and pissed off their gas supplier. Let’s see if they are stupid enough to piss off their gas-supplier-of-last-resort. Germany has lots of lamp posts.
And when the politicians start trying to decide which industries “are unnecessary” and start turning off the gas to them, won’t it be funny to see them having their faces rubbed in it as they slowly understand the interconnectedness of all things!
“….good and hard.” EU (and to a lesser extent UK) is about to receive an object lesson.
Which is a shit state of affairs to be in, but they you say “Rattlesnakes don’t commit suicide” and I’d rather suffer Liz Truss and her “fake it ’til you make it” approach than Rishi Sunak who is a confirmed snake in the grass and a cad of the first water.
@Tim – Yup. Agree completely. Problem is that would take someone with backbone and that’s a precious and rare commodity in our current political class.
“But electric arc furnaces don’t require subsidy”
But they DO require electricity, and that’s something which is in increasingly short supply and shooting up in price, thanks to pathetic attempts to reach “Net Zero”. A steel plant can stockpile weeks (or months) worth of coal, but if the ‘leccy goes off the furnaces will soon cool down and cost a fortune to get going again.
Tim the Coder July 24, 2022 at 11:02 am
Tim, you seem to be assuming that Seumas O’Biden won’t stop the LNG ships coming to UK in the event that we 2-finger the NI Protocol.
‘We also need a workable plan to coerce the rest of the world to do likewise, or our sacrifice would be pointless.’
Actually Pat, I seem to remember that the computer in some film or other had the solution to this one. It called it ‘Global Thermonuclear War’.
@decnine: cheer up, MI6 have already given the old moron Covid.
I suggest Truss simply aligns the UK to the world average reduction in C02
Why do we need to do more than the major polluters?
Net Zero is an albatross around her neck
“Son of Welsh Windbag emits hot air”
Stand (all) the Kinnocks behind a windmill, at least they’d be slightly useful.
Also, there are 650+ oxygen thieves to cull – that’ll reduce CO2 exhalations significantly.
“On a related subject: since we are about 4 months from Germany (and other EU countries) begging UK to import more LPG through terminals which we have, and they do not, and pipe the gas to Germany, to stop the public freezing, NOW would be an ideal time for the new UK Prime Minister to unilaterally announce a resolution to the NI protocol issue along the lines of “The UK is sovereign, no internal borders, and no IE to NI checks, now do phuq off EU”.”
Surely the best way to deal with it is to ignore the EU and go and talk to the organ grinder (ie the Germans) and say ‘We’d love to help you with the extra gas you need next winter, but we’ve just got this little NI problem you might be able to help us with first…..We’re going to abandon the Protocol, we can count on your support, can’t we?’
Classic British Imperial approach of “Divide and Rule”. Worked with the fuzzy wuzzies. What’s not to like?
The problem is the French as usual would kick up a fuss and remind Herr Flick of German war guilt and no doubt instead of a sensible compromise there would be further muddying of the waters.
Far better to toss the protocol and let them piss-and-moan (which is always a feature and what they enjoy most of all anyway), point out that any sanctions would be replicated and would start first with the LNG pipeline to Europe. That would concentrate the minds of the Germans at least.
Downside of this is that as soon as the Eurogas crisis is over they’d come back with some “Muh treaty” bollocks, but that’s a given anyway. Better to get it over and done with and rip the plaster off.
“The problem is the French as usual would kick up a fuss and remind Herr Flick of German war guilt and no doubt instead of a sensible compromise there would be further muddying of the waters.”
Doubt the Jupitarian one’s in the position to do this. The Deputies election has effectively castrated him. (Always presuming he had a pair in the first place)
Jupiter will piss-and-moan, because it is what he does. It is in the nature of that half-man as a born cuckold. He might institute some petty reprisals, because similarly, that is in his nature, but he won’t do anything of substance because the Germans will yank his leash and remind him who’s paying the bills, especially if he starts interfering with gas supplies into industrial Germany.
Jupiter’s domestic legislative castration is enough of a distraction for him anyway. He’s a lame duck that can posture but not effect change.
“when the politicians start trying to decide which industries “are unnecessary” and start turning off the gas to them”
Are all the factories on smart meters so they can be turned off individually and remotely? The gas main is just a pipe, the tap is inside the building, there’s nothing you can do at the “push” end to stop somebody taking gas at the consumption end. It’s like a raincloud deciding who takes water out of a river. You either turn off everybody on the branch, or break in individual buildings and clamp the meter.
Similar response apparently to the pollution acts in earlier decades, inspectors turn up at Port Talbot and say you have months, they suggest something more like years and if not they’d be happy to send everyone home on unpaid leave for a year or so. Turns out the inspectors suddenly became very flexible on the time scales