Rishi Sunak met media representatives more than any other sector of the UK economy between July and September, analysis by Byline Times shows.
The Prime Minister met senior executives from Rupert Murdoch’s media empire alone four times in the space of three months, compared to just once for NHS representatives.
Sunak met Daily Mail editors twice in that time, while meeting housing sector figures once. Several of the meetings were listed as “social”, meaning they are unlikely to have been minuted. That includes meetings with the departing News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch, and separately, his son Lachlan who is taking over at the helm.
Every single one of the PM’s eight media meetings in that time is with right-leaning media outlets.
Journalism professor and Byline Times contributor Brian Cathcart said: “These depressing figures reveal just how close the connection is between the right-wing billionaire press and our multi-millionaire prime minister.
“Forget democracy and forget parliament: this is where the real power in this country resides, and worse still, what we see is just the tip of the iceberg. Contacts of this kind are maintained at every level of Government and are so intensive it’s impossible to say where press influence ends and Government begins.”
In 2023, some 100 miles off the coast of north-east England, the world’s largest wind turbines will start generating electricity. This first phase of the Dogger Bank offshore wind farm development uses General Electric’s Haliade X, a turbine that stands more than a quarter of a kilometre high from the surface of the sea to the highest point of the blade tip.
If you placed one in London, it would be the third-tallest structure in the city, taller than One Canada Square in Canary Wharf and just 50 metres shorter than the Shard. Each of its three blades would be longer than Big Ben’s clock tower is tall. And Dogger Bank will eventually have nearly 300 of these giants.
Just two decades have passed since the UK’s first proper offshore wind farm was built off the coast of north Wales. Its turbines were each able to produce 2 megawatts (MW) of electricity in ideal conditions – considered huge at the time. In contrast, the Haliade X is able to produce 13MW of electricity, and 15MW turbines are only another year or two away.
So why are turbines increasing in size at such a rapid rate, and is there a limit to how big they can go? In short, the first answer is to reduce the cost of energy and the second is that there must be a limit – but nobody has put a number on it yet.
Big turbines, cheap electricity
Just five years ago, the offshore wind industry hoped to reduce its energy pricing to below £100 per megawatt-hour by 2020 from new projects in UK waters. Even at that level, projects would still have relied on government subsidies to make them economically viable, compared with other types of electricity generation.
But in fact, costs quickly reduced to the extent that offshore wind farm developers were soon committing to selling their electricity at much lower prices. Today, developers are building wind farms such as Dogger Bank where they have committed to prices below £50 per megawatt-hour. This makes offshore wind competitive with other forms of power generation, effectively removing the need for subsidy.
The major factor in reducing these costs was turbine size. Ever-larger turbines came to market faster than virtually everybody in the sector had expected.
Dogger Bank is ideal for offshore wind as the water is very shallow. When complete, the project will power 6 million UK homes. Dogger Bank Wind Farm
Blades cannot spin too fast
In theory, turbines can keep getting bigger. After all, a bigger blade extracts energy from the wind over a greater area as it rotates, which generates more electricity.
But there are some engineering constraints. One concerns erosion of the blades caused by them colliding with raindrops and sea spray. For current designs, the speed of the blade tips must be limited to 90 metres per second (which works out at just under 200mph) in order to avoid erosion. Therefore, as turbines get bigger and blades get longer, their rotors have to turn more slowly.
A consequence of having to slow the rotor down is that, to produce the same amount of power, the blades must deflect the wind to a greater extent. This results in greatly increased forces on the whole turbine. We can address these high forces, but only by increasing both turbine weight and cost. And that means the point at which the turbine becomes unprofitable – the point at which the extra cost is no longer worth it for the value of extra electricity generated – is reached much sooner than if the blade tips were allowed to go faster.
Also, as blades get longer they become more flexible. This makes it more difficult to keep the aerodynamics of the wind flow around them fully under control, and harder to ensure the blades do not strike the turbine tower under extreme wind conditions.
Logistical constraints
Engineering challenges like these can perhaps be solved in the longer term, though. This will mean that wind turbines are more likely to be limited in size by manufacturing, installation and operational issues, rather than any physical limit on the design of the turbine.
Just transporting blades and towers from factory to site and assembling the turbine when you get there presents huge challenges. Each of those Big Ben-sized blades must be shipped in one piece. This requires huge ports, giant vessels, and cranes that can operate safely and reliably far offshore. This is where the limit is most likely to come from.
Needed: huge ships, ports and cranes.DJ Mattaar / Shutterstock
You can see these limits in practice in the UK, which is surrounded by windy and shallow seas that are perfect for generating energy. Despite this, the UK is likely to miss its ambitious target to more than treble its offshore wind capacity by 2030.
This is not because of technology or lack of offshore sites. Rather, the industry will not be able to manufacture turbines quickly enough, and the port infrastructure and number of installation vessels, suitable cranes and workers with requisite skills is unlikely to be sufficient.
So if the UK is to maximise the benefit to its economy from what is, so far, a fantastic success story, the focus now needs to switch from pure cost reduction to developing workers’ skills and the offshore wind supply chain.
Turbines will get bigger, I am sure, but I suspect at a slower rate than we have seen in recent years. And if the turbines are deployed 100 miles offshore, will anybody care? After all, the public will not be there to see them.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
There are many milestones to pass in the transition from a high to low-carbon sustainable energy system. There is the first hour without coal, or oil, or gas generation (or all of them together) and the point when the last coal, oil or gas power plant (or all of them together) are finally retired.
Another milestone that feels important is the first year when renewables generate more electricity than fossil fuels. For the past three months we have been tracking the data for Great Britain (not Northern Ireland, which shares an electricity grid with the Republic of Ireland) and we believe it is on track to pass this milestone in 2023, but it will be very close.
Using the broadest definition, renewables actually first overtook fossil fuels in the odd, COVID-affected year of 2020 (although not in the subsequent years of 2021 and 2022). However, that includes 5% or so of Britain’s electricity that is generated through “biomass” plants (which burn wood pellets, often imported from forests in America).
Trees can of course be regrown, so biomass counts as renewable. But the industry has its critics and it’s not globally scalable in the same way as the “weather-dependent” renewables: wind, solar and to a certain degree hydro power.
When we use this narrower, weather-dependent definition that is more appropriate for a global transition, then there is a very good chance these renewables will overtake fossil fuels for the first time ever in 2023. Once this milestone has been passed, we also think it is unlikely (though not impossible) that gas and coal will ever again generate more of Britain’s electricity than wind, solar and hydro over a full year.
Whether Britain passes the milestone in 2023 will come down to the final few days of the year (from here on we’ll use “renewables” to refer to the tighter, biomass-excluding definition).
The chart above can be used to track progress and will update with the latest data each day. The lines show the running total of the difference between how much electricity has been generated by renewables and fossil fuels.
When the line is increasing, this shows more renewables than fossil fuels for that period. The horizontal axis shows the day of the year, so, if at any point the line is above the zero axis, that indicates that the year so far has had more renewable than fossil fuel generation. If the red line ends the year above zero, then Britain will have achieved the milestone.
(One caveat is that we know from the official statistics published later that there are some differences from “missing” and estimates for embedded generation; this typically only accounts for around 1%-2% of the final total.)
It depends on the weather
As we write this, with ten days of data left in 2023, renewables are very slightly ahead (by just over 1000 GWh – about the same level as a peak day of electrical demand). However if they are to stay ahead it will depend on the weather – especially the wind.
The reasoning here is that Britain uses less electricity over the holiday period due to less industrial and commercial demand. As wind power is clean and has become cheaper, it tends to be used first, meaning when demand is low or it is sufficiently windy there is less need to generate electricity with fossil fuels.
There are nuances around this such as where the generation is located, and the amount of electricity imported from other countries, but the general principle of renewables taking market share away from fossil fuels is a factor of Britain’s electrical market.
An important area to also highlight is the continued drop in electrical demand. 2023 is on track to have a lower demand than 2022, which itself was lower than the COVID-impacted year of 2020 (against our predictions) due to record prices. The drop in electrical demand means that additional generation was not needed, much of it inevitably from fossil fuels.
Additional milestone also likely to be passed
However 2023 could be the first year where renewable generation exceeds domestic electricity demand (homes comprise 36% of total electrical demand). This means the annual electricity generated by Britain’s wind turbines, solar panels and hydro resource will now be greater than that consumed over the year by its 29 million households.
The above bar chart demonstrates the trend towards this point since 2009. In the first half of 2023, renewable output was less than domestic electrical demand by 1.5 TWh (1500 GWh), but strong renewable performance since then means it is likely to end the year with total generation in excess of household demand.
If either of the milestones described here do not happen for 2023, then they will almost certainly occur in 2024, during which another 1.7 GW of offshore wind capacity will begin generating and Britain’s last coal-fired power station is scheduled to cease producing electricity altogether.
Image of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reads 1% RICHEST 100% CLIMATE DENIER
Hopefully soon an article looking at what it means to be a climate denier. There aren’t any real climate deniers anymore – the science is so clear and easy to understand. It’s a simple message, humans create climate-destroying gases, mostly Carbon Dioxide CO2 through burning (using) fossil-fuels that destroy the planet. There’s also the alternative that using renewable energy resources – the Sun, Wind, water and tidal, etc does not create the climate-destroying gases and so does not destroy the planet. That’s so simple and straightforward that even Nigel Farage can understand it.
So if there’s no problem understanding that, how and why do we still have climate deniers and what does it mean to be a climate denier? What does it mean for Rishi Sunak to say that he’ll take every last drop of oil from the North Sea?
Why does the government, newspapers and Tory TV attack climate activists? It’s because they’re climate deniers which raises the further question why are they climate deniers intent on damaging the planet?
Airplanes are seen on a tarmac. (Photo: Afif Ramdhasuma on Unsplash)
Organizers demonstrated to call attention to the ongoing forced displacement of Palestinians and the denial of their right to return home.
More than two dozen human rights campaigners were arrested on Wednesday for blocking Interstate 678, the Van Wyck Expressway, in New York—the road that leads to John F. Kennedy International Airport—in one of the latest highway protests demanding justice for Palestinians.
The protesters blocked the road at about 11:30 am and continued the action for about 20 minutes, The Messenger reported, displaying banners that read, “Right to Return, Right to Remain” and “Divest From Genocide.”
Independent journalist Talia Jane reported that the protesters aimed to call attention to the Israeli government’s denial of the Palestinian people’s right to return to their homes, which they were forced to flee in 1948 when the state of Israel was created.
Happening now: Activists have blockaded entry to JFK International Airport on one of the busiest travel days of the year to bring attention to the humanitarian right to return home, which has been withheld from Palestinians for decades. pic.twitter.com/p0Hhqv7V4E
The protest was held on the 81st day of Israel’s U.S.-backed bombardment of Gaza, which has killed at least 21,110 people and injured more than 55,000, as well as displacing more than 80% of the blockaded enclave’s population.
The campaigners linked arms and blocked the expressway days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly said the government’s objective is the so-called “voluntary” migration of Gaza’s 2.3 million people—another mass displacement of Palestinians nearly 75 years after they were driven from what is now Israel.
Some travelers headed for JFK on the busy holiday travel day exited their vehicles and walked to the airport with their luggage.
At least one told the demonstrators, “Good luck,” as she climbed over a highway barricade to get to the airport.
26 activists blockading the expressway to JFK Airport have been arrested and loaded into a bus. Travelers exited their taxis and walked to the airport, most silent but one saying “Good luck” and “I support you guys.” pic.twitter.com/968WTmOupX
The Port Authority of New York told The Messenger that 26 people were arrested “for disorderly conduct and impeding vehicular traffic” and that officials dispatched two buses to offer rides to travelers.
The outlet reported that protesters carrying signs that read, “Land Back” also assembled outside Los Angeles International Airport, blocking travelers from entering.
— People's City Council – Los Angeles (@PplsCityCouncil) December 27, 2023
National Jewish-led Palestinian rights groups Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow have blocked bridges and highways and organized mass protests in other travel hubs since Israel began its total blockade and air and ground assault in Gaza, which has threatened the population with starvation and disease as well as bombings.
Neither group had claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s protests at press time.
