When it comes to realism and logic, whom would you trust more: engineers or politicians?
This is an especially pertinent question when all the governments in the Western world are committed to ‘net zero carbon emissions’, but it is the energy providers and manufacturing companies who have to try to meet that improbable target.
Many of those businesses say what the politicians want to hear — especially when they are provided with vast subsidies in the process.
But, last week, two of the most knowledgeable and involved spoke up to provide the facts rather than the gloss.
The first was the former chairman of Siemens Energy, the German industrial behemoth that is the biggest manufacturer of wind turbines in the UK.
Joe Kaeser, whose old firm lost almost £4 billion in 2023, largely because of problems in the offshore-wind business, ridiculed the fashionable notion that wind power is ‘cheap’, saying: ‘I think the net zero targets are realistic, but they come at a cost. You need to stick by the facts at some point, even though some facts sometimes may not be liked…
‘If you want to have cheap energy you need to be gas-fired. That’s the cheapest way, the most secure way if you calculate the whole thing from beginning to end.’
Did you hear that, Ed Miliband? Labour’s Shadow Climate Change Secretary continually claims that if we moved to an energy system powered entirely by renewables, with only nuclear back-up, this would ‘cut bills’.
Presumably he believes that when the wind isn’t blowing, nuclear power — which happens to be very expensive, though safe and reliable — could be turned on at a moment’s notice. Er, no, Ed. You need gas-for that. And where do the truly colossal sums come from to create this electric future, free from fossil fuels? Naturally, from you, the taxpayer.
That is a point appreciated by Miliband’s colleague, the Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who has been steadily putting the brakes on her party’s commitment to spend £28 billion a year on what it calls ‘green growth’.
Joe Kaeser, former chairman of Siemens Energy, admitted: ‘You need to stick by the facts at some point, even though some facts sometimes may not be liked’
Last October, the National Infrastructure Commission declared we would have to spend £2 trillion to hit the official target of net zero by 2050. That’s optimistic: the National Grid itself says it will cost £3 trillion to build the system.
A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking serious money. These are sums that otherwise might be spent — or will need to be spent — on, for example, defence and social services.
This is, obviously, a global issue. And so one of the best people to consult is the head of Toyota, the world’s most successful car company. After all, this is the industry key to the politicians’ determination to make their countries’ CO2 emissions dwindle away, by switching over entirely to electric vehicles (EVs).
And it was the chairman of Toyota, Akio Toyoda (grandson of the company’s founder) who last week was the second industrialist to tell the bald truth. The firm has, for some time, taken the lonely position — while supporting the move to reduce CO2 emissions — that it is completely unrealistic to suppose that the world’s drivers could ever depend entirely on electricity.
Speaking to employees in a Q&A session, Toyoda observed that his company’s determination — unlike its rivals — to continue investing massively in petrol-electric hybrid vehicles had paid off: it sold a record 9.2 million cars last year and was struggling to meet the demand for its hybrids.
Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda has for some time taken the lonely position — while supporting the move to reduce CO2 emissions — that it is completely unrealistic to suppose the world’s drivers could ever depend entirely on electricity
Toyota’s Corolla Touring Sports 2.0 Hybrid: Mr Toyoda said electric cars would never take more than 30 per cent of the market
Mr Toyoda also said that electric cars would never take more than 30 per cent of the market because ‘customers not politicians will decide’.
Quite so. In the U.S., Europe and the UK, sales of EVs are actually falling from earlier levels, as customers experience some of their disadvantages — not just ‘range anxiety’, but eye-watering insurance costs and appallingly high levels of depreciation. Recent research showed EVs in the UK lose up to half their value after only three years’ use.
This consumer resistance explains why Hertz, the car-rental colossus, announced this month that it was replacing 20,000 Teslas with petrol-powered vehicles — a stunning volte-face that hit both its own share price and that of Tesla.
Is our own Government listening to the consumer? Although Rishi Sunak last September moderated Boris Johnson’s policy of compelling British car manufacturers to sell only EVs by 2030, delaying the cut-off date to 2035 (the same as in the EU), the Prime Minister has maintained all the punitive measures.
So, by 2030, our car manufacturers will be required to make 80 per cent of their sales EVs — or be fined £15,000 for every car they sell that breaches that target.
Please, listen to Mr Toyoda. Engineers know what works best — and the consumer is king.
Young men sign up to fight: that’s the heroic point
My fellow Mail columnist Boris Johnson, while offering his brawn in the service of the new ‘citizen army’ proposed last week by the outgoing British Army chief, General Sir Patrick Sanders, gave reasons why ‘we are somehow failing to entice young men and women to join the ranks’.
He suggested that this was ‘partly because of a misunderstanding of the risks.
‘Parents see graphic social media images of what happens in war, and panic at the idea that this might happen to their kids. They steer them away from the armed services on the grounds — still statistically unlikely — that they will get hurt’.
By way of demonstrating how unlikely this was, he also observed: ‘I am proud that during my tenure as PM there was not a single member of the UK armed forces who lost his or her life on active service.’
In fact, only three British soldiers have been killed while on military operations since 2014 — an extraordinary thing historically. During my lifetime of 67 years, there had previously been only one year without loss (1968).
This is for a simple reason: since 2014, when we withdrew our combat troops from Afghanistan, the British Army has not been involved in any fighting at all.
But, far from encouraging young men to sign up, this makes them much less inclined to do so.
And it should be obvious why. The biggest attraction — the chance of taking part in battle — has been removed. The possibility that you may lose your life in combat is the point of the heroic challenge, not a disincentive.
Two of my nephews served in Afghanistan; I have spoken to them and their colleagues.
One of those ex-officers told me: ‘The year I applied, we lost more than 100 men in active combat. In the same year, there were over 5,000 applicants to Sandhurst, of whom 300 were accepted.
‘By 2016, after we’d ceased combat operations, Sandhurst struggled to fill 200 places.’
Or as one Afghan veteran told Sebastian Junger (a journalist who had been embedded with the military during that campaign): ‘Combat is such an adrenaline rush. People back home think we drink because of the bad stuff — but that’s not true. We drink because we miss the good stuff.’
