Chris Goodall

How much electricity storage capacity does the UK need? | Carbon Commentary The first winter storm of 2025 has just passed over the UK, providing huge amounts of wind-generated electricity. This wasn’t the first time in recent weeks. From late July to late August 2025 we saw ...

High winds and good sun in the four weeks from late August meant that the GB would have needed 8 TWh of storage (c.10 days national power use) with its target 2030 renewables capacity. Current battery capacity would meet just 0.1% of this.
www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2025/10...

Oxford Clarion: funny, accurate, incisive.

Renewables do unambiguously reduce wholesale power prices | Carbon Commentary We still hear assertions that adding renewables to the grid has increased the UK’s electricity costs. I looked at two sources of data and plotted one against the other to test whether there’s any trut...

More renewable electricity supply lowers wholesale prices. I looked at the first 220 days of 2025 and showed that a day in which UK wind and solar supply 50% of total generation typically has a 'day-ahead' price 40% less than a day with 20% wind and solar.
www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2025/8/...

Andrew Neil wrote a wildly inaccurate article on offshore wind the Daily Mail last week. In the article below, I specified the 15 most obvious errors. Sad to see such an experienced journalist publishing work without carrying out even basic research.

www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2025/9/...

‘America First’ and other financial follies — the best new books on economics A gripping chronicle of the west’s interest in emerging markets; a reminder of the importance of human capital; a degrowth polemic; and a debunking of Trump’s economic agenda

Really think that Tim Parrique's book on degrowth (Slow Down or Die) is worth reading, even if you disagree with it. Growth is no longer improving rich societies, he says. Short FT review commends its though-provoking content while expressing strong reservations. www.ft.com/content/e7d6...

Also worth looking at Boston Metal and Electra, which will both use direct electrolysis of ore. Electricity consumption per tonne of iron about the same as hydrogen DRI but big advantages include the ability to use low grade ore and to make the iron in much smaller facilities than a large DRI plant.

To be devil's advocate, because EPRs are absurdly over-complicated and it would be far cheaper to get a South Korean company to build nuclear in the UK at a third the price.

Perfectly possible to use Wylfa (Anglesey/Ynys Môn) which Great British Energy now owns. EdF has previously expressed interest in putting an EPR there but the decision as to which technology to proceed with appears not to have been made.

Will the UK meet its 2030 targets for zero carbon electricity? | Carbon Commentary If the government achieves its targets for renewable electricity capacity for 2030, will it meet its objective for virtually decarbonising the GB grid by that date? Several analysts have given optimis...

Will UK will meet its 2030 clean power targets? The topic is well covered but I tried a different approach, using 1/2hr generation data from last year to model the impact of more solar+wind in 2030. The exercise showed the targets are very unlikely to be met. www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2025/5/...

Joint study shows benefits of enhanced rock weathering for agriculture Working with UNDO, new research shows spreading finely crushed silicate rock on agricultural land enhances yields as well as sequestering carbon dioxide.

FT article on the large sums now flowing into Enhanced Rock Weathering as possibly a cheap carbon capture route.

www.ft.com/content/ffc2...

Surprisingly, no mention at all of the likely benefits in the form of better agricultural yields and reduced fertiliser use.

www.ncl.ac.uk/business-and...

The first test for new Small Modular Reactors (SMR) | Carbon Commentary Abstract This article takes data surrounding last week’s announcement of the first SMR farm in Ontario, Canada to assess whether this new approach to nuclear shows any signs of reducing costs below ...

The implications of last week's announcement from Canada about the first new SMRs to be ordered. Summary: on the basis of this deal not clear that SMRs are going to be any cheaper than full size nuclear reactors.
www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2025/5/...

My daughter Ursula is studying in Barcelona. A photograph from her yesterday of a large circle of people around a battery-powered radio listening to news about the power cut.

The human brain consumes about 20 watts of power. Today's numbers from the IEA suggest that AI in data centres will consume about 240 terawatt hours by 2030. That means at the end of this decade artificial intelligence will use more energy than human intelligence.

Yes, very much better diffusing the relatively low temperature heat. That's why new houses with heat pumps will have underfloor heating, at least on the ground floor.

Actually, I was wrong. There is one visible number. It suggests BP is expecting a 95% capture rate. (Percentage of CO2 emitted actually stored). If I am right may be worth pointing out that no power station carbon capture project has ever achieved a capture rate as high as this.

£22bn planned to be spent on UK carbon capture. First deals were signed 2 months ago. Just sent copy of 750 page contract. All vital numbers redacted. No way to work out how much BP is paid, or the cost per tonne of CO2. But most of the payment will go directly on elec. bills. How can this be right?

Does anybody have a rough estimate of how much cooling would result today from a 27GT reduction in CO2 in atmosphere? (I'm working on the value of cutting contrails and this is the approximate warming equivalent of the typical global coverage of contrails today).

This might work well

Not sure about this. The investment going on life sciences to the immediate west and north of Oxford looks impressive to me, even alongside Harwell and Didcot (or Milton Park actually).

About 3% of the value of the US housing stock. In other words, not a huge percentage.

The largest UK solar farm in planning (Botley West) uses 1,000ha for 840MW (1.19 ha/MW). Let's allow a generous 1.5 ha/MW. DESNZ target 45-47GW by 2030, of which 8GW are on roofs today. Max. 39GW will be needed on fields. At 1.5 ha/MW, this means 58,500ha, or 225 sq miles (22.5 miles by 10 miles).

That's the way the FT 'gifting' system works. As a subscriber that's the best I can do. Actually I think the FT has just made the article free to read anyway.

The utterly plausible case that climate change makes London much colder For some climate scientists, global warming threatens Britain with a more unexpected scenario

on.ft.com/4j9pA2m will give free access to Henry Mance's superb article for up to 5 people.

Press Release - World's First ERW Certified Carbon Removal Credits Issued January 7th 2025 Inplanet.earth Press Release - For Immediate Release World’s First Certified Enhanced Rock Weathering Carbon Removal Credits Issued InPlanet and Isometric announces the first-eve...

Development of Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) as a carbon removal fix has been held up by difficulties measuring CO2 captured. German leader InPlanet has just announced a verified amount for its project in Brazil. A first. Personal view, but ERW has huge potential.

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Better Energy, builder of 50% of all new renewables in Denmark since 2020 entered 'reconstruction' today. (Similar to Chap. 11 in the US, which protects insolvent cos). It blamed falling electricity use. I wrote a post on how similar forces affect the UK. www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2024/12...

The future of transport. Solar-powered lie-flat 3 wheel cycle. The friend who took the photo estimated maximum speed of 60 km per hour. Seen here in a supermarket car park (though seems a trifle unclear where the shopping bags will be stored...)

The surprising rise in climate scepticism | Carbon Commentary A yearly opinion survey carried out in many countries around the world looks at attitudes to climate change and to emissions reductions.[1] Paid for by the French utility EdF, the data collection is c...

I wrote a piece on the striking global increase in climate scepticism in recent years, using survey data from Ipsos and YouGov. www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2024/10...

UK promises £22bn to CCS operators. But across the Atlantic, latest well for CO2 drilled by ADM in Illinois is leaking. Has been closed because of risk of pollution of drinking water. Second failure there. No successes. Perhaps trial projects in UK would have been better than huge commitment now.

Another sign that decarbonisation is actually happening. The port of Hamburg, the 2nd largest in Germany, saw a c.4% fall in volumes shipped in H1 2024 saying 'the impact of the energy transition is becoming increasingly evident in bulk cargo handling, particularly with the decline in coal volumes.'

In a previous life I worked on competition economics, including trying to stop early attempts to drain cash from water companies. Interviewed yesterday by Utility Week about Thames Water, I said that public ownership was inevitable. My reasoning is here: www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2024/4/...