https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/11/06/in-the-absence-of-capital/
In a recent social media post, I tentatively put forward “Watkins’ Law” (taken from a paragraph in an earlier post):

“Whenever an activist, politician or journalist uses words like ‘ought,’ ‘could,’ or ‘should,’ what they really mean is ‘can’t.’”

This is based on the same reasoning behind Betteridge’s Law – that any news headline which ends with a question mark can be answered “no.” That is, the lack of certainty points to an inability to succeed in the current circumstances. We “ought” to decarbonise our economy for the sake of the environment. We “should” do this by ending our use of fossil fuels. We “could” do this by switching to renewable energy. Read through the prism of Watkins’ Law, at our current state of resources, knowledge and technology, we can translate these net zero hopes as: We can’t decarbonise our economy; we can’t end our use of fossil fuels; and (even if we tried) we can’t do it with renewable energy.

As I explained in that earlier post, one of the main reasons for the coming failure is that there is in fact no “we” with the power of decision and access to the necessary resources to bring any of this about. Activists, journalists and (especially) climate scientists are no more than the equivalent of football fans, shouting (probably poor) tactical advice from the terraces. Government, one would hope, might at least be the equivalent of the team coach. Although after half-a-century of a neoliberal ideology of limited state interference, government is at best a poor coach who has lost the last ten games and will likely be sacked by the end of the month. Only the players on the field – the multinational corporations and cartels which profit from net zero projects – have access to the knowledge and resources needed to achieve net zero… but it turns out that, on a global scale, there just isn’t enough to go around.

In the end, this is the factor which will kill net zero… we cannot maintain our current standard of living and the changes required of us all – but particularly the elites who enjoy the power of decision – are too great and too negative to be acceptable. This is obvious enough when we consider that the UK – which claims to be a world leader – is struggling even to do the (comparatively) easy bit, decarbonising electricity generation. The most recent data shows that the UK’s electricity grid was producing 72 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, compared to 85 million tonnes from heating buildings, 105 million tonnes from industry, and 126 million tonnes from transport. UK agriculture, which produced just 32 million tonnes being the other sector targeted by the UK’s net zero activists in what must surely be what psychologists call a displacement activity.

The reality is that the UK economy is so dependent upon imports – including close to half of its food intake – that it simply cannot cease using the internal combustion engine vehicles, and especially diesel trucks, that move both essential and discretionary goods and materials from the ports to the cities and the stores. The conceit, however, is that once “we” have decarbonised the electricity system, “we” will be able to operate a new fleet of electric trucks, trains, and light vehicles to replace the current ICE fleet… a substitution which won’t be helped by the UK’s dependence upon foreign corporations to either build the vehicles or to supply the components for plants in the UK to assemble.

Even if – and it’s a big “if” at a time when economic demand (the amount of money people have to spend) is reeling after years of lockdowns, steep inflation, tax hikes, and eye-watering interest rate rises – Britain’s businesses and households have the wherewithal to purchase these new electric vehicles, this would require an even bigger increase in electricity generation than is being proposed in already over-ambitious net zero targets intended solely to replace the UK’s fossil fuelled electricity generation. According to the BBC, among the “achievable” (i.e., unachievable) “huge challenges” (i.e., show-stoppers) will be installing 1000 km of electricity cables and “hundreds of miles” of new pylons, together with an additional 4,800 km of undersea cables to connect the proposed offshore windfarms.

This is where the real-world problems begin. Because, after decades of neoliberal offshoring and de-industrialisation, Britain no longer has the capacity to manufacture new infrastructure at the proposed scale. As the government’s pet public finance quango, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) explained following the new government’s first budget last week:

“There is a large increase in government spending over the five-year forecast. In an economy that is currently operating close to capacity and that is little changed in size at the forecast horizon, this has to be accommodated through a decrease in private sector spending and some rise in net imports. Part of this decrease comes through Budget policies, as higher taxes weigh on disposable income and, as a result, private consumption. But, as a consequence of higher interest rates, real wage adjustments, and capacity and skilled worker constraints, there is also some further crowding out of business investment, consumption, and net trade.”

In plain language, the only way in which the UK government can meet its investment targets – within which net zero is a large part – is by depriving the private sector of the resources and skilled workers it needs, and/or increasing the volume of imports into a country which is already running a huge (ex-financial services) current account deficit… for which it needs to continue attracting foreign (mostly dollar and euro) investment. This is one reason why, despite appearing to promise otherwise, the Labour government was obliged to increase taxes to rates not seen since the Second World War – the alternative of taking on unfunded debt à la Truss, or simply creating new (i.e., devaluing the) currency, would send foreign investors running for the exits.

Money, however, is a secondary problem, since it is only ever a claim on wealth rather than being wealth in and of itself. The OBR hints at the deeper problem with its mention of the shortage of skilled workers. As I noted in an earlier post, the UK is desperately short of precisely the kind of high-level STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) graduates who would be essential to successfully achieving the proposed net zero roll-out. Indeed, for the moment (although things will change as global competition for resources heats up) skills shortages are second only to high energy costs as a barrier to achieving the proposed targets. For example, in a recent report, the UK Metals Council (the trade body for the UK’s remaining metal industry) found that just 14 percent of its members were experiencing problems securing resources, while 60 percent were struggling with skills shortages and energy costs.

But even if what remains of the UK’s metal industry (following the closure of its last virgin steelmaking capacity in September) was able to supply the metal required for net zero, Britain lacks the manufacturing capacity to make anything like the quantity of cable needed. As James Young from JDR Cables (one of the few remaining UK manufacturers) explained recently:

“With a sizeable offshore wind resource readily available, the UK is increasingly focusing on the deployment of larger turbines, with 20MW designs set to be commercialised in the next two to three years. The availability of high voltage (HV) and extra high voltage (EHV) cables to bring the power to shore will be critical.

“However, since the closure of several sites in the 1990s and early 2000s, domestic supertension and submarine (HV and EHV) cable manufacturing has been absent from the UK and the country has become wholly reliant on imports for these cables and for offshore wind export and interconnectors. This means that some of the UK’s most important forthcoming grid infrastructure, energy security and net zero projects are reliant on overseas supply chains.”

The provision of hundreds of miles of pylons will fare no better, despite the adoption of a new (Danish-designed) T-shaped pylon. While specialist UK firms are providing some of the components, the pylons themselves are manufactured in China. And it is unlikely that UK firms – hampered by energy costs, resource supply problems, and skills shortages – are going to be increasing manufacturing capacity any time soon.

The incoming UK government has been vociferously pledging to meet its net zero targets despite being fully aware of these probable show-stoppers. But even if, by some Biblical-scale miracle, the infrastructure could be built (even more miraculous if it could be on time and within budget) there is one final problem which mere mortals cannot overcome. In all of the government’s announcements, there is not a single mention of nuclear – the only viable source of essential baseload electricity in the unlikely event that we cease using gas. It appears that the UK government has put all of its proverbial eggs in the wind basket. And even setting aside the fact that wind turbines are not, in and of themselves, renewable energy (they are merely a non-renewable renewable energy-harvesting technology) installing massive additional capacity is nothing like providing additional power.

To understand this, consider the UK’s electricity supply and demand at 9.15 this morning (see image above). Demand was fairly low. But nevertheless, nearly 60 percent of our electricity came from the gas power stations the government wants to do away with. A further 13 percent came from nuclear power plants which are being phased out between 2026 and 2030 (with no sign of the yet-to-be-completed 3.2 GW Hinkley Point C generating any power during that phase out). Another 15 percent was being imported through interconnectors with France, Holland, Denmark, and Norway. Wind, on the other hand – and despite 28.5 GW of installed capacity – was generating just 2.1 percent (0.78 GW) of the UK’s electricity. The simple reason for this is that the UK is currently lying beneath a high-pressure weather system that is blocking out the usual flow of Atlantic winds and leaving us to make do with very low speed easterlies. In these circumstances, even if the UK installed 100 times the wind turbine capacity, we would still depend upon other sources (which will be phased out by the end of the decade) or imports (which our former European partners may be less inclined to provide) during periods of similar weather patterns in future.

This was not a problem today. Britain’s autumn has been mild, and the shorter – and colder – days around the solstice are still a couple of weeks away. Moreover, one of the effects of climate change appears to be a big decline in the likelihood of severe blizzard events of the kind which engulfed the UK in 2010, 1982, 1963, and 1947. However – and the 2021 Texas freeze gives us an example of this – as the polar vortex (which keeps cold air pinned above the north pole) breaks down, it is surely only a matter of time before the UK gets another interaction between wet Atlantic winds and cold polar air which marks the beginning of such weather events. At that stage, wind power will be plentiful. It is the cold, high pressure air which follows which results in disaster, as demand for (increasingly electric) heating rises just at the point where generation plummets and equally frozen European neighbours are keeping the electricity they are generating to keep their own people warm. The 1982 event lasted for more than a fortnight, the 1963 freeze continued through January and February, while in 1947 it snowed for 55 consecutive days (each event mitigated by an abundance of coal and a network of coal power stations, most of which closed decades ago).

In the event – even before the net zero project is attempted – that the UK experienced a similar freeze it is doubtful that any government (particularly one which just means tested additional support with heating for Britain’s pensioners) could survive the political fallout. But less often mentioned in government announcements, the British state is holding on to one last get-out-of-jail card. As Leslie Hook and David Sheppard at the Financial Times point out:

“Britain’s net zero target comes with a significant caveat: it will depend on whether other countries are following suit. A review within five years will assess whether other countries have adopted similar goals — and if they haven’t, it could give the UK the opportunity to weaken its ambition.”

In the absence of the real-world capital required to achieve the proposed net zero targets, that caveat may at least lower the otherwise inevitable rise in hypothermia deaths which would otherwise result… if not, granny had just better hope that the wind keeps blowing and the winters stay mild.