Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Dale Vince is a
Speaker 1: lightning rod, a green lightning rod. He's been called Britain's
Speaker 1: most powerful hippie. He's the founder of a series of
Speaker 1: companies building green technologies. Ecotricity is the biggest of them
Speaker 1: and it provides green power to nearly two hundred thousand customers.
Speaker 1: He is also a major donor to the Labor Party,
Speaker 1: which has just elected a new leader and as a result,
Speaker 1: Andy Burnham is now the UK's sixth Prime Minister in
Speaker 1: ten years. This is zero. I'm akshadrati this week. Can
Speaker 1: a new UK government make energy cheap? Welcome to Zero, Dale.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you. I'm happy to be here, actually in
Speaker 2: this building. Your building is stunning. It's my second time.
Speaker 2: I'm still stunned.
Speaker 1: Well, we've also been tot it's one of the most
Speaker 1: sustainable buildings in the world, which is great fair play.
Speaker 1: So you're a major donor to the Labor Party and
Speaker 1: a big supporter of the former Prime minister at Keir Starmer.
Speaker 1: You expected him to go on to win a second term,
Speaker 1: but you know couldn't finish even the first one. I
Speaker 1: don't want to spend a lot of time dissecting all
Speaker 1: his premiership, but from an energy and climate perspective, let's
Speaker 1: start with what did he get right?
Speaker 2: Okay, but versus to say I didn't expect him to
Speaker 2: get the second term, but I very much hoped you would,
Speaker 2: and I think, you know, it did begin to unravel
Speaker 2: and it did begin to look very unlikely. What did
Speaker 2: he get right? I think the big push for green
Speaker 2: energy through the AR seven AR six lots of contracts
Speaker 2: for difference for green energy, has propelled as towards one
Speaker 2: hundred percent green on the grid, and we might be
Speaker 2: four years away from that. So that's a good thing.
Speaker 2: I think the intention to change planning laws for onshore wind,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that it actually went through or in
Speaker 2: a form that is useful because there was a ban
Speaker 2: and I'm not sure it's been unbanned in a completely
Speaker 2: decent way. Yeah, So on the energy front, really I'm
Speaker 2: stuck with the big push for green energy. Are we
Speaker 2: going to talk about the bad things next?
Speaker 1: Yes? So the ER six AR seven is are the
Speaker 1: auctions that ran for offshore wind, and the contracts for
Speaker 1: difference is really a price that is fixed, so it's
Speaker 1: a subsidized price. You make electricity at a price higher
Speaker 1: than the government earns. If you make electricity at a
Speaker 1: price lower, the government fills you up with the subsidies.
Speaker 1: And that's in a way one of the driving routes
Speaker 1: to try and stabilize what has been a pretty volatile
Speaker 1: electricity market here in the UK. But let's come to
Speaker 1: the back.
Speaker 2: Can I comment on that, because first I say it's
Speaker 2: not a subsidy, it is a fixed price and as
Speaker 2: you say, you can win and you can lose, and
Speaker 2: overall the government have been paying into this, but of
Speaker 2: course when there's an energy crisis then we're winning because
Speaker 2: that's a fixed price. And it's been used to minimize
Speaker 2: the rate of return that investors in offshore wind need
Speaker 2: because the risk is taken away. You can fix your return,
Speaker 2: the risk comes down.
Speaker 1: Yes, and it's been a very popular policy. Other countries
Speaker 1: have copied it. But let's come to what went wrong
Speaker 1: on climate and energy.
Speaker 2: Well, in terms of policies, a series of commitments to
Speaker 2: net zero policies, so say heat pump subsidy fund of
Speaker 2: about three billion pounds, are kind of overwhelming focus on
Speaker 2: heat pumps, which is a mistake for a bunch of
Speaker 2: reasons rich I'll I'll go into in a minute if
Speaker 2: you want com captured storage twenty two billion committed over
Speaker 2: twenty five years. Incredible summer of money, incredible period of
Speaker 2: time for a technology that's more than questionable in terms
Speaker 2: of what it can do for us to help us
Speaker 2: get to net zero and all of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: We've got other subsidies for people buying electric cars, which
Speaker 2: very much like the heat pump subsidies, a middle class
Speaker 2: subsidy stuff for people with money. If you can afford
Speaker 2: to buy a new car, it's only one percent of
Speaker 2: Britons that do that every year, then the government will
Speaker 2: give some money to help you buy one. Five million
Speaker 2: Brits are in energy poverty. Meanwhile, getting no help. If
Speaker 2: you want a heat pump, which is fairly exotic technology
Speaker 2: for heating, the government will give you eight thousand pounds,
Speaker 2: but you have to top it up with eight thousand
Speaker 2: pounds of your own. So it's for wealthy, relatively wealthy people,
Speaker 2: and you know they put your energy bills up and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. So what I'm coming to is to
Speaker 2: say this also, I think net zero has become toxified,
Speaker 2: aided completely by the right wing media and politicians who've
Speaker 2: turned it into a very negative term, but they haven't
Speaker 2: done it alone. I think des Nez have created this
Speaker 2: situation where most people think that net zero is not
Speaker 2: for them, it's about giving stuff up, it's for people
Speaker 2: with money. There's a detachment now and a split in
Speaker 2: the political consensus to the extent that party's on the
Speaker 2: right now are calling for the ending of net zero
Speaker 2: and the redrilling of the North Sea for fossil fuels.
Speaker 1: I'm going to come to all the series of those things,
Speaker 1: but let's start with the main problem here. You talked
Speaker 1: about how there's been this break in the political consensus
Speaker 1: on climate for the first time really in a way
Speaker 1: that is very American style. The right does not want
Speaker 1: anything on climate, and the left wants a lot on climate.
Speaker 1: But the issue for people, at least when you run
Speaker 1: the polls is people want climate action. The thing that
Speaker 1: people are really worried about is energy bills. So what
Speaker 1: do you think Andy Burnham as new Prime minister can
Speaker 1: do on energy bills that neither Starma, Reeves or Miliban
Speaker 1: could have done.
Speaker 2: Great question. I think I would say about polling that
Speaker 2: most people still want action on climate change, but they
Speaker 2: don't want to pay for it right, and particularly that's
Speaker 2: true of the people that are struggling with the cost
Speaker 2: of living crisis. The Desne's budget that I believe has
Speaker 2: been misappropriated, mis mispointed. I mean it hasn't all been
Speaker 2: spent yet, is what I'm trying to say. But it's
Speaker 2: fifty billion pounds that I think will be wasted, and
Speaker 2: it's an opportunity for Andy Burnham's come to take that
Speaker 2: money back and spend on more imediate priorities for people
Speaker 2: in our economy. But the biggest thing they can do
Speaker 2: to bring energy bills down the new administration is not
Speaker 2: something that costs any money. So we've proposed a package
Speaker 2: of three energy market reforms. The first one we've been
Speaker 2: banging on about for some years now, which is to
Speaker 2: break the link. So I don't know if you know this,
Speaker 2: but in our energy market, we link the price of
Speaker 2: gas on global markets to the price of wind and
Speaker 2: sun made here in Britain, and it's responsible for incredibly
Speaker 2: high energy bills every time there's an energy crisis. We're
Speaker 2: in the second one this decade, that's bound to be
Speaker 2: another one. We modeled the impact in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: and it added forty three billion pounds to the nation's
Speaker 2: energy bills, thirty billion added to business bills, thirteen billion
Speaker 2: added to domestic bills. It added one point five percentage
Speaker 2: points to inflation and one percent to Bank of England
Speaker 2: lending rates.
Speaker 1: And this is the idea of the marginal pricing of electricity, right,
Speaker 1: just explain what that is and why you think this linkage.
Speaker 2: I don't know why it exists, and nobody has ever
Speaker 2: been able to explain why we have it and why
Speaker 2: we need it and why we can't break it. The
Speaker 2: link itself is imagine a daily auction. The grid operator
Speaker 2: here wants a certain amount of power, call it hundred megawats,
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter, and it takes bids for more forms
Speaker 2: of generation, and it stacks them cheapest first to the highest.
Speaker 2: Last one in is nearly always gas, nearly always, and
Speaker 2: then it pays everybody in the stack the gas price.
Speaker 2: And I don't understand that. Why don't people get paid
Speaker 2: what they bid? So it's basically pay us clear the
Speaker 2: current system, or pay us bid. And the economic impact
Speaker 2: of this system, well it's profound, actually, So that's one measure.
Speaker 2: No money required just to change to the system. And
Speaker 2: the other is to take these CfDS that we talked
Speaker 2: about a minute ago and apply them to the north Sea,
Speaker 2: to the oil and gas production in the north Sea
Speaker 2: to fix the price. Now, this has a number of
Speaker 2: benefits because we've got about ten years production left, and
Speaker 2: while the north Sea is subject to a global prices,
Speaker 2: there's a chance of a cliff edge event where the
Speaker 2: price drops and the operators of diminishing fields call time.
Speaker 2: They say it's not economic anymore, we're going to leave.
Speaker 2: So with a fixed price, we can guarantee the returns
Speaker 2: of the operators, we can keep the jobs we've gotten,
Speaker 2: and kind of have a proper orderly transition. Just so
Speaker 2: happens that taking the market riskal also would save the
Speaker 2: nation ten billion pounds a year on their energy bills. Now.
Speaker 2: The third one is to control the network operators that
Speaker 2: they run the low voltage system, not not the national
Speaker 2: super high voltage system, but the regional grids. And they're
Speaker 2: making forty percent profit margins. They're regulated monopolies. And it's
Speaker 2: quite incredible to me because we already control the profit
Speaker 2: margins of retail energy companies to be just two percent
Speaker 2: and if we were to control the network operators to
Speaker 2: a similar extent, we can knock another five billion pounds
Speaker 2: a year off our energy bills. These three energy reforms
Speaker 2: together will half our energy bills. Biggest thing Labor can
Speaker 2: do to tackle the cost of living crisis and the
Speaker 2: thing that grieves so many people. You know the state
Speaker 2: of our energy bills, but you.
Speaker 1: Know you are one of the biggest donors to the
Speaker 1: Labor Party. You've given five million pounds or six million pounds.
Speaker 1: Does that get you to then present this to the
Speaker 1: government and get a hearing from the leaders to see
Speaker 1: that this might be a good idea.
Speaker 2: So I've been presenting policies like this for a number
Speaker 2: of years to all governments. I'd stepped up at the
Speaker 2: last election to help Labor with what is always a
Speaker 2: funding gap between them and the Tories. And it was
Speaker 2: a mixture of reasons. We suffered fourteen years of Tory misrule.
Speaker 2: Labor had embraced the Green agenda, and I felt that
Speaker 2: they were the best choice for the country, and I
Speaker 2: had the means and the will to help at that point,
Speaker 2: which I hadn't had before. So I stepped into fund
Speaker 2: the gap, as it were, I didn't want anything for that,
Speaker 2: and people find it hard to believe in our country
Speaker 2: and probably in any country, which is why another one
Speaker 2: of the policies we've been suggesting is to ban political
Speaker 2: donations completely and publicly fund them. But what does it
Speaker 2: get me? I mean, I would say nothing special. So look,
Speaker 2: I've had maybe two meetings with Desness since the election.
Speaker 2: I think labor have been actually what would you call it.
Speaker 2: They've been very shy of meeting donors and being around donors,
Speaker 2: almost some kind of positive discrimination or negative in fact.
Speaker 2: You know, if you're a donor, it's like, well, you know,
Speaker 2: just stay over there. And I understand that, but it
Speaker 2: hasn't stopped me putting papers out and publishing reports and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. We've got a suite of them for
Speaker 2: the incoming government, which we believe, and we've had economists
Speaker 2: produce these numbers for us would treble the rate of
Speaker 2: GDP growth in our country.
Speaker 1: And just going to the point you made about you know,
Speaker 1: you are also not just as a donor, but as
Speaker 1: a donor in a way wanting to have political donations banned.
Speaker 1: And in this country there is currently a scandal with
Speaker 1: Reform Party in Nigel Farage, who's under a parliamentary investigation
Speaker 1: looking at donations that have been given to him. What
Speaker 1: would that band look like? And is the new Labor
Speaker 1: government under Andy Burnham going to take it up?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know the answer to the second part
Speaker 2: of that. I hope so would be my answer. I'm
Speaker 2: going to give it a go. So we published a
Speaker 2: paper a few weeks ago. I run a media organization
Speaker 2: called Babelfish, and we just crunch some numbers and the
Speaker 2: simple presentation I would give you is this, our economy
Speaker 2: is worth about three trillion pounds. It might be the
Speaker 2: sixth biggest in the world, something like that. We employ
Speaker 2: a small army, five hundred thousand people in the civil
Speaker 2: service to run this economy at a cost of twenty
Speaker 2: billion pounds a year, and then we allow fifty million
Speaker 2: pounds of private money to fund the politicians that will
Speaker 2: be the government making the decisions. It's a terribly small
Speaker 2: sum of money in the scheme of things. In business terms,
Speaker 2: you say that's a false economy. All right, let's just
Speaker 2: publicly fund it. We calculate it would cost the equivalent
Speaker 2: of a packet of crisps per year per person thing.
Speaker 2: It's not even a rounding era in a three trillion economy.
Speaker 2: So that's the basis of our argument. It's a false economy.
Speaker 2: The result of private funding is corrosion of our democracy,
Speaker 2: suspicion of influence, actual influence as well. We've seen examples
Speaker 2: of that over the last few decades, and so I
Speaker 2: just think it's the chance to properly clean up politics completely. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: our government have tried to shut down cryptodonations, foreign donations.
Speaker 2: It's a game of whack a mole. Every time we
Speaker 2: create a new legislation block, another one comes up. And
Speaker 2: you know, the scandals with Nigel Farges really make the
Speaker 2: point for us because in the last two weeks has
Speaker 2: been one scandal after another around undisclosed donations and what
Speaker 2: they're actually for, leading to the by election which you'll
Speaker 2: probably be familiar with, which is coming in the middle
Speaker 2: of August, which is great fun because fris called a
Speaker 2: by election thinking it was a smart move. He'll put
Speaker 2: it to the people. They don't care about his scandal's
Speaker 2: Trump style really, and all the other major parties pulled
Speaker 2: out and said, well, if you want a by election,
Speaker 2: you can argue with yourself. Other than in Face. He
Speaker 2: popped up and said, well, I'll fight the by election.
Speaker 2: He's a fantastic character. He's been around a while. I
Speaker 2: mighting bi elections, but I'm backing him in Clacton and
Speaker 2: it's going to be it's going to be a fun summer. Well.
Speaker 1: This requires a little explanation for the non UK listeners,
Speaker 1: because in the UK anybody can know with a little
Speaker 1: sum of money, a few hundred pounds really apply to
Speaker 1: be running in an election and be on the ballot paper.
Speaker 1: And we do get some joke candidates and count Binface
Speaker 1: for a long time has been a joke candidate, but
Speaker 1: this time he might be a serious candidate if you
Speaker 1: are funding his political campaign.
Speaker 2: There's a degree to which he's a serious candidate anyway,
Speaker 2: because he uses satire and humor to kind of poke
Speaker 2: fun at the way things are done. And that cuts
Speaker 2: through to a degree. And if you've ever listened to him,
Speaker 2: and I find him, I find him brilliant to listen to.
Speaker 2: You know, I've got I've got a manifesto. I'm going
Speaker 2: to build at least one affordable home. That is a
Speaker 2: great poke at politicians. You are always going on about
Speaker 2: affordable homes and stuff like that is going to fix
Speaker 2: the price of a ninety nine in Clacton. This is
Speaker 2: an ice cream with a flake in the top. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's a British cultural thing. He's so funny, but by
Speaker 2: having a laugh at the things that politicians typically say,
Speaker 2: he helps us, I think, to ground ourselves. And the
Speaker 2: idea of him in farage debating in callectin honestie is wonderful.
Speaker 2: And Faraj doesn't have to lose to lose this gamb
Speaker 2: but that he's made. He just has to lose vote
Speaker 2: share and be embarrassed basically by his own actions. And
Speaker 2: if he does win the by election, which he probably will,
Speaker 2: he'll face another one because this inquiry hasn't gone away,
Speaker 2: and in fact, since he resigned there have been more revelations.
Speaker 1: Well, I should note coun Bnfath's real name is Jonathan
Speaker 1: Harvey is a comedian. And there is a climate policy
Speaker 1: that is relevant that I should note that he has
Speaker 1: talked about, which is he would like to send anybody
Speaker 1: who denies climate change back to school from year one
Speaker 1: all the way to to just before university to test
Speaker 1: whether a little more has gone in their heads.
Speaker 2: Since my in take on that is, we should make
Speaker 2: climate denial a crime. Actually, I mean it's a little
Speaker 2: bit more serious than his idea, but it shouldn't be
Speaker 2: possible today with all of the science that we have
Speaker 2: and the impact that we're seeing. And we were sweltering
Speaker 2: here in Britain for the last couple of weeks, third
Speaker 2: heat wave of the year. You know, it's all quite
Speaker 2: incredible around the world, not just in Britain. It shouldn't
Speaker 2: be allowable to deny climate change because it confuses the
Speaker 2: public and it dilutes action. You know, we don't allow
Speaker 2: things like holocaust denial, and I know that's a very
Speaker 2: different thing on quite a scale really, but I think
Speaker 2: the scale of the impact of the climate crisis will
Speaker 2: be equal to that one hundred thousand people will die
Speaker 2: in Europe this summer from the heat, for example. And
Speaker 2: this is just getting going.
Speaker 1: After the break more of my conversation with Dale Vins
Speaker 1: about the future of British climate and energy policies. If
Speaker 1: you enjoy what you hear on Zero, please write a
Speaker 1: s review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. Recently, Adrian
Speaker 1: wrote Zero has been my favorite podcast since its first episode.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Adrian, you were supportive of the Clean Power
Speaker 1: Plan that Starmer's government put in place, which aims to
Speaker 1: get to ninety five percent clean power by twenty thirty.
Speaker 1: Now we've already got studies saying that's not going to happen.
Speaker 1: It's going to take a little bit longer, but as
Speaker 1: you said, at least they've got the country going down
Speaker 1: that path. From your perspective, do you think sticking with
Speaker 1: the clean Power Plan by twenty thirty is a policy
Speaker 1: worth backing or is the investment in infrastructure pipeline already
Speaker 1: reached a point that the energy department business can focus
Speaker 1: on something else.
Speaker 2: Well, I think Desne's view is that we don't need
Speaker 2: to break the link because by twenty thirty we'll have
Speaker 2: ninety odd percent green on the grid, and therefore we've
Speaker 2: basically weaned ourselves off gas so it won't set the price.
Speaker 2: But then they have their own other study that shows
Speaker 2: that gas will still set the price thirty percent of
Speaker 2: the time in those circumstances. So I think Desnees have
Speaker 2: they've made a misstep, a big misstep. Ed miliband anounce
Speaker 2: breaking the link a couple of months ago. It was
Speaker 2: a fake announcement. They didn't do it, and I come
Speaker 2: back to this point. It's the biggest thing that government
Speaker 2: can do for our energy bills. But it's also important
Speaker 2: to this green transition because we can't have wind and
Speaker 2: sun in our energy mix delivering the benefits of lower
Speaker 2: price green energy until we break the link with gas,
Speaker 2: because gas will still set the price, and green energy
Speaker 2: gets the blame for our high energy bills. But it
Speaker 2: really is gas. The global price of gas setting the
Speaker 2: price of our own wind and sun is a ridiculous situation.
Speaker 2: So I think we should continue to try and get
Speaker 2: to one hundred percent show that we will, and I
Speaker 2: don't even care if we only get to ninety, right.
Speaker 2: I began in green energy in nineteen ninety one when
Speaker 2: there was nothing on the grid, and you know, the
Speaker 2: rate of change now is quite profound. But we must
Speaker 2: tackle the energy market and this systemic problem of gas
Speaker 2: setting the price of green energy, otherwise we can't get
Speaker 2: the benefits of lower bills. The public says, well, green
Speaker 2: energy is driving bills up.
Speaker 1: Beyond the energy market reform ideas that you talked about,
Speaker 1: there are other bottlenecks that remain grid connections planning. What
Speaker 1: do you think Burnham can do to fix this, Well, I.
Speaker 2: Think we need to regulate the power companies better. Right,
Speaker 2: they're privately owned. You know, they're making fantastic sums of
Speaker 2: money for shareholders, and I would argue that we need
Speaker 2: to regulate them to divert some of those fantastic sums,
Speaker 2: more of those sums into the infrastructure that we need,
Speaker 2: because it's our infrastructure is vital to our economy. And
Speaker 2: you know, there's some fuss in the media last week
Speaker 2: about the fact that we need to spend another seventy
Speaker 2: billion or something like that on grid upgrades for green energy,
Speaker 2: and this is a presentational issue. We look back and said, well,
Speaker 2: how much we did we spend building the grid after
Speaker 2: the Second World War for fossil fuels. Well it was
Speaker 2: about the same sum of money. But we didn't all
Speaker 2: run around saying, oh, we need to spend all this
Speaker 2: money for fossil fuels. We ran around saying, well, we
Speaker 2: need to build a grid now. We need to build
Speaker 2: a kind of bolt onto that grid for the twenty
Speaker 2: first century and for this new form of energy. But
Speaker 2: it's so that we can all have power. And you know,
Speaker 2: I mean it's quite often and lost in the debate.
Speaker 2: But renewable energy is a forever fuel, it won't run out,
Speaker 2: and the jobs we create a forever jobs.
Speaker 1: You talked about the Nazi as one of your three
Speaker 1: prong reform fixes, and your position now that we should
Speaker 1: drill in the Nazi additionally from what we've already done,
Speaker 1: but do so with these fixed prices goes counter to
Speaker 1: your position just a few years ago when you were
Speaker 1: funding just Up Oil, who succeeded in a way with
Speaker 1: this labor party to actually put lid on new licenses
Speaker 1: in the Nazi. But in a way you've reversed your position.
Speaker 2: No, you've misunderstood me. I think we should apply a
Speaker 2: CFD to existing production in the Nazi, not drill more and.
Speaker 1: So subsidized existing production because you know you're fixing the price,
Speaker 1: but the price may mean at some point there's a
Speaker 1: subsidy because in a world where we are consuming less
Speaker 1: oil and gas in the future, price of oil and
Speaker 1: gas will actually fall quite drastically.
Speaker 2: No, absolutely, I think the logic is clear. We can
Speaker 2: protect the jobs and we can maximize extraction of what
Speaker 2: we have with a controlled situation at a fixed price.
Speaker 2: Our studies show that over the last five years. It
Speaker 2: wouldn't have been a subsidy. It would have been a
Speaker 2: gain to the country of ten billion pounds a year.
Speaker 2: So I think it makes sense every which way you
Speaker 2: look at it.
Speaker 1: Then let's come to heat pumps, because you talked about
Speaker 1: the subsidies on heat pumps and on electric cars as
Speaker 1: a middle class subsidy. Is that your real problem with
Speaker 1: the heat pumps or is the technology itself holdso a problem.
Speaker 2: Well, I think they're being missold to the public. I
Speaker 2: think they've been missold to desness with claims that they
Speaker 2: can bring energy bills down. We published a survey a
Speaker 2: few weeks ago of heat pump owners and two thirds
Speaker 2: of them said the bills had gone up. Only fifteen
Speaker 2: percent said the bills had gone down. And I mean
Speaker 2: it gets quite complicated. But because of the differential between
Speaker 2: the price of electricity and gas in our country, you
Speaker 2: need to achieve an efficiency known as a cop of
Speaker 2: four with your heat pump in order to just break even.
Speaker 2: If you're getting less than four, your bill goes up,
Speaker 2: and this is what happening for most people. The other
Speaker 2: thing not really understood is that heat pumps produce water
Speaker 2: around about forty to fifty degrees. Forty degrees is where
Speaker 2: they're most efficient. If you crank that dial up to
Speaker 2: try and get your seventy or eighty that you used to,
Speaker 2: then your COP falls away. Our houses have been designed
Speaker 2: for the most part for hot water at eighty degrees
Speaker 2: in the radiators, so when you put a heat pump in,
Speaker 2: you need to change your radiators. Most of the time
Speaker 2: you will have to get used to lower temperature water
Speaker 2: running around your house and stuff like that. So in
Speaker 2: the real world, people are turning them up to get
Speaker 2: a higher temperature and the COP falls away. The average
Speaker 2: COP in our country is two point eight across the
Speaker 2: whoefully of installed heat pumps. Manufacturers say you can save money,
Speaker 2: you have to have more than four to save money,
Speaker 2: and it's not happening.
Speaker 1: But there are two fixes to that that could come through,
Speaker 1: and if those come through, would you support them. So
Speaker 1: one is to actually bring down this gap between electricity
Speaker 1: price and gas price, because if you move some of
Speaker 1: the levees to taxes that are there on electricity into
Speaker 1: gas or into general taxation, that can happen. And then
Speaker 1: the second thing that's happening, which is now a technology
Speaker 1: gain and you've seen technology improvements. You can get heat
Speaker 1: pumps that are higher than for cop Actually there was
Speaker 1: one that's now commercially available at six. So the future
Speaker 1: deployment of heat pumps can be crossing that four barrier.
Speaker 1: That combination. If that actually lowers bills, you'd be supportive
Speaker 1: of heat pumps.
Speaker 2: Absolutely if it comes. So you know, you can have
Speaker 2: a piece of technology that kind of works in theory.
Speaker 2: I'm always wanting to see how it works in the
Speaker 2: real world in our housing stock. You know, six sounds great,
Speaker 2: and if you can get it, that's great. But in
Speaker 2: terms of the gap between electricity and gas, business have
Speaker 2: been proposing raising the price of gas. I think that's
Speaker 2: a terrible thing to do because there are so many
Speaker 2: people in our country. Twenty percent of homes in our
Speaker 2: country can never have a heat pump. They're flats and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. Another twenty percent be super expensive to do,
Speaker 2: But we come back to middle class substits and regressive taxation.
Speaker 2: If we put up the price of gas, that's a
Speaker 2: terrible thing to do. What we need to do is
Speaker 2: bring down the price of electricity. Now, with our three
Speaker 2: market reforms, we can do that.
Speaker 1: We can half it One advantage of heat bumps is
Speaker 1: that you could use them for cooling. Maybe not air
Speaker 1: to water heat pumps, but you could even those. But
Speaker 1: air to air heat pumps, which the rest of the
Speaker 1: world uses for air conditioning, can certainly be made to
Speaker 1: heat and cool. And given the heat waves that we
Speaker 1: are seeing here in twenty twenty six, the demand for
Speaker 1: cooling is rising in Britain. Most people that I'm you know,
Speaker 1: ask what are they doing, are getting portable air conditioners
Speaker 1: really inefficient and not well suited. So that might be
Speaker 1: an advantage for heat pumps.
Speaker 2: Now take your point. I mean air toware can be
Speaker 2: used for cooling and increasingly we need cooling. And there's
Speaker 2: a debate in our country about that right now, you know,
Speaker 2: should we all get air con? But it leaves the
Speaker 2: poor behind? All right, there are people that can't afford
Speaker 2: their energy bills. Now can they afford to run an
Speaker 2: air con unit? Let them buy one? And we have
Speaker 2: to bear this in mind.
Speaker 1: You called heap hops exotic, Are they really exotic?
Speaker 2: They're not. It's just me being a populist. I mean, basically,
Speaker 2: it's a fridge, right.
Speaker 1: It is a fridge, and fridges have been around for
Speaker 1: a very long time. There's an aspect of fridges which
Speaker 1: I continue to throw at people whenever I hear about fridges.
Speaker 1: The first fridges that were invented ran on natural gas
Speaker 1: and they were much more efficient than electric ones. And
Speaker 1: it was the electricity industry General Electric that lobbied and
Speaker 1: put our advertisements to really kill off the natural gas fridge.
Speaker 1: And maybe we should thank them for it, because now
Speaker 1: fridges are way more efficient electrically and natural gas fridges
Speaker 1: will not match it.
Speaker 2: And you've got a few issue with gas as well,
Speaker 2: gas cookers in houses, you know. I mean, gas is
Speaker 2: a bit last century, but I think it's got a
Speaker 2: role to play. When we look at decarbonizing home heating
Speaker 2: in Britain, I think the answer is more of a
Speaker 2: blended outcome of like a forty forty percent green gas,
Speaker 2: which we haven't talked about, forty percent heat pumps and
Speaker 2: twenty percent hydrogen and efficiency measures. And the hydrogen links
Speaker 2: into the previous thing. We discussed how do we keep
Speaker 2: the lights on in one hundredercent green grid, and we
Speaker 2: do that by oversizing the generation fleet so that we
Speaker 2: minimize the times when we don't have enough, but when
Speaker 2: we do that, we increase the times when we have
Speaker 2: too much, we turn it into hydrogen. Our gas grid
Speaker 2: can take ten percent hydrogen right now, and we can
Speaker 2: we can arbitrage. We can either put it into the
Speaker 2: gas grid or hold it and turn it back into
Speaker 2: electricity as a way of supporting grid. So that's the
Speaker 2: bigger picture that we're missing. At the government level, there
Speaker 2: is no plan. There's not even a plan for the
Speaker 2: transition to EPOMPS.
Speaker 1: The other thing you have talked about is nuclear power
Speaker 1: and your stances existing nuclear fleet. Run it as much
Speaker 1: as you can, but don't build new nuclear Now the
Speaker 1: government stance is quite different. This is not just the
Speaker 1: labor policy, but governments before that. They are building new
Speaker 1: nuclear power plants, and there are some of the most
Speaker 1: expensive nuclear power plants in the world. Your main problem
Speaker 1: is they're too expensive new ones, no need to build them.
Speaker 2: Well, I have so many problems with it. They are
Speaker 2: super expensive. They've always made the most expensive electricity we've
Speaker 2: ever had, and they're always late by a decade or more.
Speaker 2: Now we've committed vast sums of money to size well.
Speaker 2: See it's part of the fifty billion that I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 2: and it can't come on the grid before twenty forty
Speaker 2: best case. Now, Desniz tell me that that's about energy secure,
Speaker 2: that's why we need it, And I say, well, we're
Speaker 2: going to be one hundred percent green on the grid
Speaker 2: by twenty thirty under your plan. What are we going
Speaker 2: to do for energy security for the next ten years
Speaker 2: while we wait for Size Well? That argument doesn't stack up.
Speaker 2: And then the other argument is energy security, and I say,
Speaker 2: we don't mind uranium in Britain, so we have to
Speaker 2: buy on global markets. We've already passed peak uranium. The
Speaker 2: world uses more than it minds. We're eating into stockpiles.
Speaker 2: And by twenty fifty, when Size Well is just ten
Speaker 2: years young on the grid, maybe there'll be a proper
Speaker 2: global shortage because of the rate of building of nuclear
Speaker 2: power stations around the world. So no energy security, nothing
Speaker 2: to help us with our energy bills. Quite the opposite.
Speaker 2: We're paying now for Size Well while it's being built
Speaker 2: and it's not producing any energy. And one last thing,
Speaker 2: the legacy right our current bill to clean up nuclear
Speaker 2: power stations around about one hundred and fifty billion pounds.
Speaker 2: We really don't have the technology beyond one hundred years
Speaker 2: to contain this stuff which has a half life of
Speaker 2: eight thousand years or something like that. It's longer than
Speaker 2: recorded human history. And here's anecdotal thought. If the Romans
Speaker 2: had nuclear power, it's only two thousand years ago. We
Speaker 2: wouldn't be going to places like Bath to see Roman
Speaker 2: ruins and bathe in that in that history. It would
Speaker 2: be a toxic no go zone. And that's what we'll
Speaker 2: bequeath to future generations.
Speaker 1: But there is a real concern if we get to
Speaker 1: a place where we don't have very much gas on
Speaker 1: the grid, where we start to lose nuclear plants on
Speaker 1: the grid. We have some batteries and we have some
Speaker 1: hydropower storage, but that's not enough to balance the grid,
Speaker 1: especially given how the electricity consumption in this country works,
Speaker 1: which is very seasonal. And if heat pumps to take
Speaker 1: off and come to a cop of six and our
Speaker 1: real part of the solution, it'll be an even more
Speaker 1: skewed consumption. So what do you do then to balance
Speaker 1: the grid and ensure it works properly.
Speaker 2: Firstly, just something worth knowing. It's often said that, you know,
Speaker 2: we can't rely on the wind and some because they're
Speaker 2: driven by the weather. In this five nuclear power stations
Speaker 2: across who have been turned off because it's too hot.
Speaker 2: And then if you look at the efficiency of CCGT
Speaker 2: gas power stations, it fell twenty percent. In June seven
Speaker 2: gigawats was lost in Britain because of the temperature. Now
Speaker 2: these technologies we think we can rely on are being
Speaker 2: affected by the climate crisis. That's an absolute problem. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: news out today Europe just hit a record level of
Speaker 2: solar generation. You can understand why. So that's kind of
Speaker 2: climate adapted technology. That is, how do we keep the
Speaker 2: lights on? It's an age old kind of question really,
Speaker 2: and I think the smart grid is the answer. This
Speaker 2: emerging kind of field of endeavor AI based real time
Speaker 2: energy balancing between generation, demand and storage. We have our
Speaker 2: own system at Ecodrizny and many others have it too.
Speaker 2: Smart meters in homes is helping us with that, so
Speaker 2: that we've got access to real time consumption data and
Speaker 2: then batteries at home as well is a really big
Speaker 2: part of the answer, so that we can take our
Speaker 2: housing fleet off the grid at times of peak and
Speaker 2: put it back on at times of surplus. So I
Speaker 2: think we have all of the tools actually to make
Speaker 2: this transition and have sustainable one hunderdcent green grid where
Speaker 2: the lights stay on.
Speaker 1: Now, among the many businesses that you have launched, ecotricity
Speaker 1: is the biggest one, but you also have companies that
Speaker 1: do biogas. You have companies that make diamonds out of
Speaker 1: captured carbon dioxide. In twenty twenty three, you also launched
Speaker 1: a company called ecojet, and the idea was to try
Speaker 1: and provide zero emissions flights that would be hydrogen powered
Speaker 1: electric motors. The company at one point had seventy planes
Speaker 1: on order, but as of January this year, it's been liquidated.
Speaker 1: There hasn't been a single commercial flight. What went wrong?
Speaker 2: Technology delay is as simple as that. So were we
Speaker 2: were in the queue for some cutting edge technology. I mean,
Speaker 2: electric motors are not that right, and fuel cells are
Speaker 2: not that either. They've been around a long time. Combining
Speaker 2: them into an airframe that's novel. We were aiming to
Speaker 2: use existing airplanes, which I think is a very sustainable
Speaker 2: thing to do. It also faster to market, and the
Speaker 2: idea has not gone away. We've basically put it on.
Speaker 2: We pressed the balls button, but it made sense just
Speaker 2: to shut down while the technology company clears its hurdles.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's been in testing with the Civil Aviation Authority.
Speaker 2: It was quite advanced, so I'm hoping we'll get to
Speaker 2: revisit it. The idea is really exciting because it's very
Speaker 2: much a hearts and minds thing. When we talk about
Speaker 2: getting to net zero or green living or whatever, most
Speaker 2: people increasingly these days think it's about giving stuff up.
Speaker 2: And if we can show that there's a way even
Speaker 2: to fly in a net zero world, I think that's
Speaker 2: a real heartsome mind winner for people. You know you
Speaker 2: can still fly. That's a big deal. In the same
Speaker 2: way that our sky diamond initiative. I've argued that that's
Speaker 2: a very similar thing because people like diamonds, right, one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty million character a year. I think, of mind,
Speaker 2: people like diamonds, but they're very harmful. The environment impact
Speaker 2: is incredible. A fifth of a gramd diamond requires eleven
Speaker 2: hundred tons of rock to be dug right, which is
Speaker 2: my mind boggling. What we've done is mind the sky.
Speaker 2: We take carbon dockside from the sky. We use the window,
Speaker 2: sun and the rain. All of our ingredients are from
Speaker 2: the sky, completely negative carbon process. The result diamonds. We
Speaker 2: say to people that essentially our message is this, we
Speaker 2: can have the things we like or love in this
Speaker 2: future world. We just have to find another way to
Speaker 2: get them.
Speaker 1: At some point I should do an episode on diamonds
Speaker 1: because it's the one industry whose monopoly has been broken
Speaker 1: by a captured carbon solution, which is the only kind
Speaker 1: of captured carbon solution that has worked at scale in
Speaker 1: a way, even though the scale is only at carrots level. Okay,
Speaker 1: one other question for you on electrification. This is something
Speaker 1: you have thought about but you haven't started a company
Speaker 1: on yet, which is electrifying trains. And to most of
Speaker 1: our listeners outside the UK, that would sound a little odd.
Speaker 1: Growing up in India, ninety ninety five percent of Indian
Speaker 1: trains are now electric. Japanese Treans, Chinese treams, Spanish Streans,
Speaker 1: French trains, they're all electric. What's wrong with Britain?
Speaker 2: So I think the trains you're talking about probably use overheadlines, correct,
Speaker 2: and our idea is to avoid the need for that.
Speaker 2: It's very costly and in a let's say, relatively more
Speaker 2: complicated country geographically like Britain. Let's say that India. I
Speaker 2: don't know. Actually by imagine long distances without tunnels, I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, there's lots of hills in.
Speaker 2: The hills is okay, But tunnels because tunnels, because with overheadlines,
Speaker 2: when you get to a tunnel, you have a problem.
Speaker 2: It's not insurmountable, exactly, it's not ins but this is
Speaker 2: a cost issue. So the cost of electrifying Britain's railways
Speaker 2: in that traditional way is enormous. Our answer is just
Speaker 2: to put batteries in trains.
Speaker 1: Are you doing it?
Speaker 2: We are actually in joint venture discussions with the train
Speaker 2: company to run a pilot service in Britain. I don't
Speaker 2: know if it's like a fifty mile town to town
Speaker 2: type thing. So the answer is almost, we're almost doing it.
Speaker 2: And here's the thing. I built Britain's first electric car
Speaker 2: in twenty ten, and back then the batteries were new,
Speaker 2: the motors were all coming out of R and D,
Speaker 2: and I always wanted to build a motorcycle, which is
Speaker 2: which is harder. What I'm trying to say is that
Speaker 2: if you look at the efficiency of different forms of transport,
Speaker 2: there's a big difference between the efficiency of a car,
Speaker 2: a truck and a train and a car will take
Speaker 2: one ton on one unit of fuel fifty miles, a
Speaker 2: truck will take the same one ton on the same
Speaker 2: unit of fuel one hundred and fifty miles, and a
Speaker 2: train will take the same one ton on the same
Speaker 2: unit of fuel five hundred miles. There's a massive It's
Speaker 2: ten times more effective than a car, and we've cracked
Speaker 2: the relationship between car and battery and range. We can
Speaker 2: absolutely do that with a train. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you ever had a train set when you're a kid,
Speaker 2: one that you put the little batteries in. It's just
Speaker 2: like that, and patteries are so effective today. I mean,
Speaker 2: we're just putting some new batteries into a motorcycle that
Speaker 2: have double the power capacity of the Oldlymian. Once it's changed,
Speaker 2: just like that, and it will change again and keep changing.
Speaker 1: Coming to the policy side, though, there is an aspect
Speaker 1: of politics that you would understand, which is once a
Speaker 1: government sets out as policy, and then because there's new information,
Speaker 1: new technology, new reports, if it changes its mind, it
Speaker 1: would be seen. For example, if it cancels heat pump subsidies,
Speaker 1: it'll be seen as labor rowing back on climate policy.
Speaker 1: If it does so. In carbon capture labor rowing back
Speaker 1: on climate policy. How do you suggest a government deal
Speaker 1: with that kind of criticism, Because it's not just that
Speaker 1: the right is moved away from climate, the left has
Speaker 1: also dug deeper on climate. The Green Party is really
Speaker 1: popular right now, so the Labor Party is losing its
Speaker 1: vote share not just to the right but also to
Speaker 1: the left. And how do you maintain that vote share
Speaker 1: and deal with those types of criticism?
Speaker 2: I understand ecopragmais is my answer. We have to acknowledge
Speaker 2: the big costs of these programs deep into the future,
Speaker 2: the unlikely impact on our carbon targets if you look
Speaker 2: at them, and the priorities of everyday people that are
Speaker 2: more immediate. So x ecopagmtisms say, yes, we still adhere
Speaker 2: to our net zero targets, but this spending of money
Speaker 2: is not a good spending of money. We acknowledge the
Speaker 2: concerns of the public on this, and we move on.
Speaker 2: And I say, stop talking about net zero and talk
Speaker 2: about the green economy, because net zero is about giving
Speaker 2: stuff up, and it's become a bit of a crusade
Speaker 2: and it's polarized the public. Let's talk in steid about
Speaker 2: the green economy, the jobs, the GDP, sustainable growth, that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff that we gain, not what we lose.
Speaker 1: Where the politics in this country stands today, it's likely
Speaker 1: that the next general election will have net zero as
Speaker 1: either the main stress point between parties, between Reform and
Speaker 1: Conservatives on one side don't want net zero, and then
Speaker 1: Labor and Green and libdam's who want net zero? You know,
Speaker 1: ten years ago Brexit happened and then we've had six
Speaker 1: prime ministers since and that was a divisive issue. Does
Speaker 1: net zero become that?
Speaker 2: I think it is that, but I don't think it
Speaker 2: has to be the way that you forecast at the
Speaker 2: next general election. I think if Labor get busy and
Speaker 2: then bold, then we can transform the cost of living.
Speaker 2: We can half the price of energy. We can one
Speaker 2: of our proposers as a national solar rooftop program to
Speaker 2: put sort of on five million public sector homes to
Speaker 2: give people a real experience of the green economy, the
Speaker 2: lower energy builds and that kind of stuff. We can
Speaker 2: transform the landscape in the next three years. And we
Speaker 2: don't need to argue for net zero. I say, don't
Speaker 2: argue for it at all. Talk about the green economy,
Speaker 2: show the benefits that we're getting from that economy and
Speaker 2: how important that transition is. To give you an example,
Speaker 2: some years ago, maybe four, now, maybe five, not really sure,
Speaker 2: we stopped arguing for green energy on the basis of
Speaker 2: the climate. We just stopped and we started to talk
Speaker 2: about energy independence, and it's a really popular term and concept,
Speaker 2: and we said, it's not about ice caps and polar bears.
Speaker 2: Actually it's about jobs and GDP. It's a different presentation
Speaker 2: of the same thing. We get to fight climate and
Speaker 2: get to net zero at the same time. But that's
Speaker 2: the kind of unseen benefit. That's not the forefront argument,
Speaker 2: it's just the background impact.
Speaker 1: Is that how you think Burnham should deal with Trump.
Speaker 2: I think he should tell Trump to keep his nose out,
Speaker 2: And that's a different thing. This is how I think
Speaker 2: Burnham should deal with the public and with reform. And
Speaker 2: this toxic issue is now toxic of net zero. Pivot
Speaker 2: away from it, focus on the green economy, take back
Speaker 2: that fifty billion pounds half energy bills with a series
Speaker 2: of reforms. We've got four policies that will triple GDP growth,
Speaker 2: which I'm hoping to get in front of the new
Speaker 2: government at some point. And I think it's all there
Speaker 2: for us to do where we need boldness and we
Speaker 2: haven't had it.
Speaker 1: Thank you deal, thank you, that's great. Thank you for
Speaker 1: listening to zero. Now for the sound of the week.
Speaker 1: That is the sound of a firefighting plane picking up
Speaker 1: water to help put out wildfires. If you liked this episode,
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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify. This episode was produced
Speaker 1: by Oscar boyd Our. Theme music is composed by Wonder Lee.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Amin Farath, Lucy White, Olivia Rudgaard, Samersadi,
Speaker 1: Laura Milan, Summer Maxwell, and Alyssa McDonald. I'm Makshadrati back soon.