Surprised to see @timesredbox letting @cmackinlay repeat a slew of wholly inaccurate lines in his column on UK energy policy today
He did at least get one thing right: Soaring energy bills are due to the high price of gas
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Let's start with the positive:
As Craig admits, soaring energy bills are due to high wholesale gas prices
As I showed in my latest analysis, nearly 90% of the increase is due to gas, with the rest mostly due to supplier failure; policy costs are falling
carbonbrief.org/analysis-cutti…
Unfortunately, that's about all Craig gets right
He implies electricity price rises over the past decade are due to renewables…
…but doesn't find space to mention that gas prices are now triple the level in 2002 (his chosen year)
Guess what else has tripled since then?
Next, Craig falsely says that gas demand for net-zero will only fall ~30% by 2050, according to the CCC
This is…not even close to correct
Gas demand falls 76% in CCC's main scenario, pictured, and by 50-91% in the other pathways
Craig then goes against literally everyone serious by arguing that wind power is more expensive than gas
UK govt: Gas is 2x cost of onshore wind; 1.5x offshore
IEA: We agree with UK govt
BNEF, Lazard, Irena etc: Us too
iea.org/reports/world-…
carbonbrief.org/wind-and-solar…
I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about the rest of Craig's arguments, but just in case it wasn't already abundantly obvious, I've added a little clue
carbonbrief.org/solar-is-now-c…
Receipts:
Craig's column
thetimes.co.uk/article/why-ba…
UK energy prices
gov.uk/government/col…
CCC pathways
theccc.org.uk/publication/si…
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