Simon Evans Profile picture
Apr 23, 2021 9 tweets 6 min read Read on X
The UK govt has formally issued draft legislation, making its 78% by 2035 climate goal into law

legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2021/978…
It does not (yet) legislate to include international aviation and shipping in the budget, but additional regulations on that will follow

legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2021/978…
for reference, here's Article 30 of the Climate Change Act under which international aviation and shipping will be included

legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/27/…
The UK's 78% by 2035 target will avoid 6bn tonnes of CO2e over 30 years and will be a net benefit to the UK economy worth £266bn

That's according to the govt "impact assessment" on the measure

legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2021/18/p…
There's a great thread on the impact assessment here from @timbolord

@timbolord Blimey, the UK govt expects the country's electricity system to be 95-99% zero carbon by 2035

That's 14 years from now

Its modelling includes up to 75% from wind and solar alone

legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2021/18/p…
@timbolord Interesting to see that the UK govt does not expect hydrogen to be used widely for heating, in its core modelling pathway to cutting emissions 78% by 2035

(it does model an alternative "high resource" pathway where hydrogen heat is widespread)

legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2021/18/p…
@timbolord A key issue for hydrogen heat is that low-carbon hydrogen isn't expected to be available at scale by the mid-2030s, according to the UK govt

legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2021/18/p…
@timbolord Also interesting to see UK govt modelling finding that blue hydrogen is needed, but only in the "short to medium term" before truly zero-carbon supplies become available at large scale and lower cost

legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2021/18/p…

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More from @DrSimEvans

Oct 30
Incredible stat:

A single container ship of solar panels can provide as much electricity as more than 50 large LNG tankers of gas – or 100 large coal ships

There's many more insights in IEA Energy Technology Perspectives 2024 – here's a selection 🧵

1/7 Image
Fossil fuels account for 40% of global shipping trade by volume – but only 10% by value

2/7 Image
The world's solar industry employs as many people as gas

Solar + EVs + batteries + wind combined employ as many as oil
3/7 Image
Read 8 tweets
Sep 27
NEW: How the UK became the first G7 country to phase out coal power 🧵

Four key ingredients in UK's success:

❌🏭Stopping new coal
❤️‍🔥☢️🌄Building alternatives
💷Making polluters pay
📢Clear political signals

But there's much more to say…

1/n

interactive.carbonbrief.org/coal-phaseout-…
Image
UK opened the world's first coal power plant in 1882 on London's Holborn Viaduct (pic)

⛰️ Since then, UK coal plants have burned 4.6bn tonnes of coal, emitting 10.4GtCO2
🌍 That's more CO2 than most countries have ever emitted, from all sources (!)

2/n

interactive.carbonbrief.org/coal-phaseout-…
Image
But the UK was the world's first "coal-fired economy" – and that started long before coal-fired power

🥤Coal fuelled pumps to drain mines to get more coal
📈And as steam engines got more efficient, it got cheaper to use and extract ever more of the fuel, inspiring "Jevons paradox"

3/n

interactive.carbonbrief.org/coal-phaseout-…Image
Read 10 tweets
Aug 6
Oh dear oh dear, Andrew likes to pose as an energy expert, but *everything* he adds here is wrong

💷His biggest omission is that higher power imports means lower bills for consumers💷

Shall we count the other ways he's wrong?

Yes, let's, with added GIFs and some MATHS🧵
Let's begin with the facts. Andrew doesn't say so, but I am going to assume he is (correctly) quoting data from Montel Analytics, showing that UK electricity imports were 18.9TWh in H1 2024, up 82% from H2 2023

Here's some news coverage of the data:

current-news.co.uk/spike-british-…
Let's pause for a moment to congratulate Andrew for successfully quoting a report (albeit without attribution)

This is the only thing he did right.
Read 15 tweets
Jun 18
NEW ANALYSIS: Cutting the 'green crap' has added £22bn to UK energy bills since 2015

🏘️Insulation rates down 98%
🏚️>1.6m new homes built to low stds
🌄Onshore wind/solar growth crashed

A decade of rollbacks has left the UK more reliant on gas imports – and exposed to high gas prices

carbonbrief.org/analysis-cutti…Image
Just over a decade ago, then-PM David Cameron was infamously reported to have told aides to "get rid of the green crap" as a "solution to soaring energy prices"… Image
After Cameron's "get rid of the green crap" frontpage, a series of UK climate rollbacks followed

First, policy changes and funding cuts for home insulation improvements, with annual loft+cavity wall installations now 98% below previous levels Image
Read 8 tweets
May 9
Fossil-fueled chemicals boss Sir Jim Ratcliffe has an anti-EV tirade in today’s Daily Telegraph, littered with outright falsehoods, half-truths and selective facts

Exhibit 1: Far from "coming to a halt", EV demand grew by 25% in Q1 of this year

Let’s take a look shall we?

1/ Image
Exhibit 2: Ratcliffe cherrypicks Germany – where EV subsidies recently ended – to argue that demand is drying up

As already mentioned, global EV sales grew 25% in Q1 of this year, according to the IEA

2/ Image
How about China, Jim? Ah yes, EV sales are up 35% so far this year. But I guess that didn't fit your narrative.

Nor does the UK, I guess, given sales are up 11% in 2024ytd (31% for plug-in hybrids, on which more later)

3/
Image
Image
Read 11 tweets
Apr 4
It seems @mattwridley thinks @Telegraph readers are idiots

Let's run the numbers:

244,000km2 = area of the UK
5-10% = share of UK Matt says would need to be covered with solar to meet electricity demand in June

40MW = solar capacity per km2
500-1,000GW = solar capacity, if covering 5-10% of UK
300% = share of total UK electricity demand that would be generated by 1,000GW of UK solar
650GW = current solar capacity of China, roughly half the global total
<30GW = actual UK summer peak demand

15GW = current solar capacity of UK, of which ~10GW ground mounted
0.1% = current solar land take
70GW = UK govt solar target, because no one thinks we can run the country on solar alone
<1% = future land take

>20% = reduction in UK gas imports if govt solar target is met

Zero = credibility of Matt's articleImage
Image
Sources:

Land requirement for UK solar 40MW per km2 = 6 acres per MW, based on current solar farms; as noted in the article, govt says future farms would need 2-3x less land

carbonbrief.org/factcheck-is-s…
Summer peak demand is 28GW says NGESO

nationalgrideso.com/research-and-p…
Read 8 tweets

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