© ollomy, istockphoto.com

Big splash in the Guardian today as a trial blended 2% green hydrogen into the gas grid to feed a gas-fired power station. Green hydrogen, is of course created by using electricity from renewables, so the whole thing begs the question, why not just feed the green electricity into the electric grid and cut out two energy transformation steps? Electrolysing water loses 25-40% of the input energy, and the gas fired power station concerned has a maximum efficiency of 47%, so you’re getting about a third of the electricity out that you put in. What’s the point in throwing so much valuable power away?

The answer might be in the article’s quote from Gary Smith, the general secretary of the GMB union, said: “The success of this trial is a significant moment for our country’s energy future. It highlights the vital role that innovation across our industrial heartlands can play in creating highly skilled unionised jobs in working-class communities, an essential part of any credible plan to meet our net zero obligations.”

This follows calls from the Unite Union for Energy and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband to be sacked following the closure of two oil refineries in the UK. Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham said “it is a disaster that two oil refineries are facing closure in less than a year under Labour’s watch”. In a separate statement she said ““We have a plan to transition to wind manufacture, carbon capture, hydrogen, ready sitting and waiting, costed properly… and you get ‘computer says no, let’s discuss it another time’.”

Of Graham’s three proposals, only wind stacks up. Hydrogen is incredibly inefficient due to its basic chemistry as we’ve seen above. Carbon capture is also inefficient (a classic end of pipe solution) and is very unlikely to ever be cost effective given these refineries are already dying on their feet without that additional cost. I would love to see how both are “costed properly”.

I’m starting to get deeply sceptical about the role of Unions in the energy transition. Of course their role is to protect jobs, and it is in their vested interest for any green jobs to be unionised, but they’ve got to wake up and smell the coffee. Creation of a low carbon economy means the destruction of the high carbon economy – ie we must stop burning stuff as that is where most of the carbon emissions come from. Wind, solar and electrification are increasingly crushing the competition in terms of cost and emissions, so why would we stick with dirty old technologies?

The right of British politics is now invested in climate cakeism – the daft idea that we can tackle climate change without actually changing anything – and parts of the left are buying into the same nonsense.