Thread by @mac_puck

There are so many lies here by @SteveBakerHW , I am just going to have to take them one by one...

1. His promise to the voters.
Steve says his promise was "to pay close attention to climate change policy"; he says he has done that now and as a result is against decarbonising by 2050.

Bullshit, Steve: your promise is in the manifesto in black & white (& yellow highlighter)

2. Four lies in one paragraph next.
End of:
- comfortable lives
- mass car ownership,
- foreign holidays,
- domestic heating.

"Project fear" or what?

Calm down Steve, the CCC estimated net zero will mean 2% lower per capita GDP than otherwise in 2050. Brexit passed ....

that milestone by 2018.

Per Capita GDP lower in 2050, than it otherwise would be - by 2%. Let's put it another way: assuming a typical 1.75% per year growth, decarbonisation means we achieve in December 2050 the standard of living we would have achieved in February 2050.

So?

3. "...the drive for renewables has led to electricity prices nearly doubling"

Ooh you great, big, fibbing, fibber, Steve! - please have a read of this: energymonitor.ai/policy/market-…

I have screen-grabbed the relevant bits, because I know brexiters don't know how to click links:

4. Next you try the old con-a-granny trick: say a big sounding number without any context.

"£11 Billion" Oooohhh!. You mean 1/2,000th of one year of UK GDP... spread over two decades. That would be about £10 a year then, for the average Brit.

4.continued
You also deliberately create the impression that past subsidies - eg for Hornsea - mean there will be a need for more of the same; bigger even.

But you MUST know renewables went "subsidy negative" in 2019 due to reducing costs.

Read it: resilience.org/stories/2020-0…

5. "Government planning to [ really, really piss off homeowners and any other classic Tory voter demographic ]. Bullshit. This is more Climate Change Deniers Project Fear. Do you really think anyone will fall for this unbelievable scaremongering, Steve?

6. "Electric cars £10K extra"
They can also be £5K extra or £3k extra, Steve.

But over 4 years the TCO (total cost of ownership) is LESS: theicct.org/sites/default/…

And given that 91% of new car buyers use finance, TCO is the figure that matters.
uk.motor1.com/news/353737/91….

7. "Heat pumps are:
A. 3x as expensive
B. more costly to run
C. only heat modern homes.

A. The difference in price is due the HP market being 25K units a year vs 1.8M for boilers. Creating a 1.8M HP market will level the prices.

B. Only if installed incorrectly.

C. Myth.

The "only modern homes" myth had an element of truth 10 years ago when the refrigerants commonly used delivered a maximum water temperature of 50deg C and didn't work below -5 deg C outside.

These days newer refrigerants allow 80deg water and work in -25deg C outside air.

9. "£100,000 per household"
Hm... whom should we believe - UK Civil Servants, or paid-up lobbyist for Fossil Fuel Climate Change Deniers cum MP for hire?

Lets say the civil servants are right - 40K per household

Anyway: infrastructure is financed by borrowing, not taxation!!!

The actual tax rise required to cover £40K of borrowing is £300. And it is spread over 30 years.
So next year my tax goes up by £10, then another £10 the year after, etc etc.

£10 a year to save the World? Sounds like a bargain to me. One fewer round of drinks every 2 years.

And why should the red wall voters even pay that £10 ? - surely the billionaires can cough up a bit more; if only to make the view from their private rockets still worth looking at.

YOUR government chooses who bears the tax burden most.

10. "No way to generate power when the wind isn't blowing"

You mention a couple of pie in the sky solutions but ignore 3 that work:
A. HVDC interconnectors so that we can draw solar power from Portugal or wind power from Denmark or nuclear from France.
B. Demand-side ...

management (ie smart grids)

C. Fck it: have some gas turbines and even diesel genny's on standby; if they only run a few hours a year we have still achieved a massive Carbon reduction. (Don't get hung up about "net zero", 99% reduction is good enough)

11. Fusion
More mis-direction by Steve. Point to a pie in the sky technology to divert attention from realistic, affordable, renewable alternatives to fossil fuel.

12. "Unless someone invents a way to store energy in massive bulk"

They have, Steve.

Check it out: sunamp.com
It doesn't store electricity; it stores heat. But if your heat is coming from a heat pump, this allows the heat pump to run at 10 am but deliver ..

...its heat at 5 pm say.
One in every house in the UK and you can store 250GWh of heat (equivalent to storing 60GWh of electricity). All for <0.5p per KWh cycle. ( ie about 1/10th the cost of Lithium batteries)

And it doubles as a HW cylinder, but smaller.

Throw 25M electric car batteries into the mix and a "virtual market" to allow people to sell spare storage capacity and you have another way to "store energy in massive bulk".

Do you notice how renewables. HPs and EV's work so incredibly well together, BTW?

13. Pahahahahhaha!
This one is your best lie yet, Steve. We haven't even exited the grace periods yet or put our own border red tape (Brex tape) in place.

14. "Obtain the consent of the public"
The manifesto pledge could not have been clearer. If an 80 seat majority was a mandate for the oven ready deal, it was a mandate for net zero.

"Using fear" Lord, Jesus, the hypocrisy: Steve's whole article is fearmongering.

15. So, Steve Baker, what first attracted you to the Billionaire Koch brothers' lobbying network? 😉

16. Saving the planet is a noble endeavour.

Aaahh! THAT'S why you are doing your best to undermine efforts to do so, Steve; it is because you are the most ignoble, mercenary and corrupt little man who ever became a Tory MP... and that is saying something!

End