Letter to the editor: What does net zero really cost?

At 78 years of age, I suspect I won’t need to worry too much about whether or not the UK reaches net zero by 2050, but I do believe the Conservative Leader, Kemi Badenoch, is correct that although the UK should do what it can to limit pollution, it should not be at the expense of bankrupting the country, nor endangering our energy supplies.

The UK produces barely 1% of global emissions, with the World’s top five polluters being China, the USA, India, Russia and Japan, with China producing more pollution than the following four countries combined. Apart from Ed Miliband, does anyone seriously believe that anything the UK does will cause others to follow with, for example, US President Donald Trump telling the UK to dump wind turbines, withdrawing the US from the Paris Accords, ripping up President Biden’s green agenda and increasing fracking. Please consider a few facts.

The first is so called ‘’green energy’’ which is never green, take for example the Drax Power Station in Yorkshire, which burns biomass ( compressed wood pellets), primarily imported from North America and recently reported to be the largest single source of carbon pollution in the UK, while receiving the best part of £1 billion in taxpayer funded subsidies annually.

China produces 86% of the World’s solar panels and even those produced in the UK contain 40% of materials sourced from China.

Less than 5% of the UK’s energy supply comes from Solar while, due to the Government closing power stations, we import between 15% and 20% of our electricity from abroad just to keep the lights on, at a cost of £250 million per month. Solar panels are only really effective in full sunlight and not at all in the hours of darkness and with less than 8 hours of daylight during the winter months, when most power is required, neither efficient, nor cost effective.

In spite of Labour’s largest private donor having made his fortune from renewable energy, most of the UK’s wind turbines are foreign manufactured and owned, when the UK could be leading the world in the small modular nuclear reactors produced by Rolls Royce, but the Tories are just as much to blame as Labour for the unnecessary procrastination in rolling out this source of clean energy.

There are over 41 million vehicles in the UK of which only 1.3 million, or just over 3% are fully electric. Analysis by Green Flag, the breakdown provider, shows that the average age of cars on the UK’s roads is now 9.4 years, so people are not only not rushing to buy electric, but most are simply not in a position to buy any new car, let alone a pricey electric one. Electric cars not only depreciate quicker than petrol or diesel, but a replacement battery can start in excess of £5000. The 40 million petrol and diesel vehicles will still require petrol and diesel, so why import oil from abroad when we can produce much of our own.

All the heating engineers I know wouldn’t touch ground source heat pumps, due to the cost, the noise, the lack of reliability and the need for electricity to operate in any case.

The last reported figures from DEFRA show that of the food we consume in the UK, 46% is imported, although this is now likely to be higher, which a walk around any Supermarket will show. With the Labour Government intent on concreting over what remains of our countryside with housing, solar panels and wind turbines, imports of food will only increase further.

I do believe we treat the planet badly, but I wonder if the eco fanatics such as Ed Miliband and the BBC’s Justin Rowlatt can explain how it was generally warmer during Roman times, particularly in Europe, than it is today. This period, known by scientists as the Roman Warm Period or Roman Climatic Optimum, saw a significant warming trend from roughly 250 BC to AD 400, with some studies suggesting temperatures were 2 degrees Celsius (3.6°F) warmer than today.

Clearly, there was no industry like we have had over the past 200 years and the population in AD 400 is estimated to have been around 200 million as opposed to todays 8.00 billion.

In 2013, Sir David Attenborough, probably the World’s most renowned naturalist, said that the biggest threat to the planet is overpopulation. The UK and England in particular, is one of the most densely populated countries in the World and continuing to get worse. As a result, the UK is one of the World’s most nature depleted countries and here in the South we live in a water stress area due to the continuing development of large scale housing estates, which also accounts for the regular discharge of sewage into our rivers and coastal waters.

We are not and will not be a good example for any other country to follow and the rush to net zero will simply bankrupt this country.

Finally, if the we are worried about rising sea levels, the new proposed AI data centres should be built next to the coast, where SMR fuelled desalination plants can provide both power and clean water, just look at what the Gulf States have done with desalinated water, turning deserts into lush landscapes and of course, the same could be done in the drought ridden areas of Africa where, perhaps, trees might grow to replace the prime rainforest being destroyed globally to mine the lithium required for electric batteries.

Robert Bishop

Broomfield Drive

Billingshurst

West Sussex