No Kidding
5 years, 9 months, 1 day, 20 hours
20 October 2023
Climate change is now and no-one on this planet is immune from the consequences.
Torrential rain across the north of England last Friday morning flooded the railway network. I was on a train in a queue of 8 halfway up the country. No-one can remember this line under water before. My mind inevitably alights on something I heard on Wednesday morning: ‘the government needs to invest in enhanced flood risk management’. No kidding.
That statement was made at the launch event of the UK National Infrastructure Commission’s second National Infrastructure Assessment. Here are my top 5 takeaways, significant not just for the UK but everywhere as governments grapple with how to place investment bets on a very uncertain future:
1. Hydrogen has no place in the future of home heating. That conclusion is based principally on hydrogen being assessed as 5 to 6 times less efficient than heat pumps in converting electricity to heat. But hydrogen is nonetheless a critical investment as it has myriad other uses in a decarbonised future, for example it is deemed essential to decarbonisation of heavy industry.
2. A low-cost net zero energy future will require hydrogen and gas-fired power stations with carbon-capture and storage, to ensure security of supply against intermittency in renewables, backed by 2 months of stored gas and hydrogen fuel
3. Covid has not dented the strategic necessity of extra capacity in mass transit in cities. Forecasts show continuing rising demand for peak commuting into city centres.
4. Resilience standards are required for different categories of critical assets, after forecasting of the risk and consideration of the costs and benefits. Eg is it worth spending a billion pounds flood proofing this railway line to spare Richard (and the other passengers on that train) getting stuck once a year? Or will it be twice a year? Or every week?
5. No more waste from energy plants should be approved unless they are backed by carbon-capture. Landfill tax should be further increased, and the ambit of single-use plastics ban extended.
And then, the most important message of all. The Commission forecasts that if its recommendations are followed, overall household bills for infrastructure will fall by between 10 and 25% by the mid 2030s. That is driven by lower and less volatile energy prices for heat and transport, flat digital costs and slightly increasing water costs. So, short term pain, long term gain. Let’s hope this government, and yours, listen and act.
I left London at 1pm and made it home at 9pm. Climate change is now and no-one on this planet is immune from the consequences.