Kevin Watt

@RockyHimalaya @Tw_timerAlder And they last for 25 years and can be recycled. Can you recycle a litre of oil?

Renewables are so energy intensive to get to end users. Mining/drilling, refining, transportation, burning. Energy costs at every step of the way. 1. Polysilicon Refining (Solar) Polysilicon is the single most energy-intensive component of a solar panel. Energy Intensity: Siemens Process (Standard): 60–80 kWh per kg of silicon. FBR (Granular Silicon): 18–35 kWh per kg (a ~40% reduction pioneered by GCL Tech). Physical Power Source: Roughly 80% of global polysilicon is refined in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. In these regions, the "physical reality" is almost entirely coal-fired power. Large industrial parks (like those owned by Daqo or GCL) often operate their own sub-critical or supercritical coal units to maintain the ultra-stable temperatures required for chemical vapor deposition. 2. Aluminum Smelting (Solar & Battery Casings) Aluminum represents a massive "embedded energy" cost in solar frames and battery housings. Energy Intensity: ~13,500–15,000 kWh per tonne. Power Source: Smelters in Shandong and Xinjiang (e.g., China Hongqiao) rely on on-site captive coal plants. These plants allow them to produce aluminum at a cost floor that grid-dependent competitors cannot match. 3. Synthetic Graphite (Battery Anodes) Natural graphite is mined, but high-performance EV batteries use synthetic graphite, which is "baked" into existence. Energy Intensity: 10,000–15,000 kWh per tonne. Physical Power Source: The key process is graphitization, which involves heating petroleum coke to 3,000°C for weeks. This is almost exclusively powered by cheap coal-heavy grids in Inner Mongolia and Sichuan. Because electricity accounts for nearly 45% of the production cost, manufacturers physically locate where coal is cheapest and regulation is light. 4. Nickel Processing (Battery Cathodes - HPAL) Energy Intensity: High-Pressure Acid Leaching (HPAL) is extremely energy-dense, requiring massive steam and pressure. Power Source: In hubs like Morowali (IMIP) and Weda Bay, the industry has built over 4.4 GW of dedicated captive coal capacity as of 2026. Because the Indonesian national grid is too weak to support these refineries, Chinese firms (Tsingshan, Huayou) have built their own coal cities. This is the "dirty secret" of the "clean" EV battery: it is refined using off-grid coal. 5. Lithium & Cobalt Refining Energy Intensity: Lithium (Spodumene): Requires roasting at ~1,000°C, consuming ~500–800 kWh per tonne of concentrate. Cobalt: High-temp hydrometallurgy. Physical Power Source: Most refining happens in China’s coastal provinces (Jiangsu, Zhejiang). While these facilities use the provincial grid (a mix of coal, nuclear, and wind), the thermal energy for roasting is typically provided by on-site industrial boilers fueled by natural gas or coal dust. 6. Solar Glass Melting Energy Intensity: 5–7.5 MMBtu per tonne (~1,500–2,100 kWh equivalent). Power Source: Glass furnaces must run 24/7/365; if they cool down, the glass solidifies and destroys the furnace. To avoid grid outages, major players like Xinyi Solar and Flat Glass Group utilize natural gas or fuel oil for direct heating, supplemented by captive coal power for the machinery.

Fossil fuels are so energy intensive to get to end users. Mining/drilling, refining, transportation, burning. Energy costs at every step of the way. Just one reason primary energy demand is a poor metric to assess energy needs. Renewables and electricity win in so many ways.

@Tw_timerAlder About 7% of a barrel of oil is lost in transportation and refining. Then you burn it in a ICE vehicle and loose another 75% of the energy to heat. Electrons are much more efficient.

@MccobbDavid @janrosenow

@janrosenow So What? If fossil fuels are the enemy they are claimed to be, which I don't think they are, then surely it wouldmake sense to use our own North Sea oil and gas rather than have it shipped across the globe in, as you point out, fossil fuel driven ships.

More than 40% of ships globally transport fossil fuels. Nearly all of them run on fossil fuels too.

@ArchRose90 @BasilTheGreat @MailOnline How many civil servants will they have to employ to do this..it won't happen.

@BasilTheGreat @MailOnline Reform plans to review all successful asylum grants over the previous 5 years from now, since 2021. By 2029, it’ll be longer. This is an addition to all those currently in Britain illegally. Can you not read or engage your brain instead of posting slop misinformation?

🚨REFORM UK ANNOUNCE THEY WILL ONLY DEPORT 5 YEARS OF ILLEGAL MIGRANTS Weak Sauce again from Reform UK This means only illegal migrants that arrive after July 2024 will be deported but all those before will not be included Absolute let down [@MailOnline ]

@Tim47222 @KathyConWom @Keir_Starmer @Ed_Miliband Norway couldn't spend their oil receipts with only 5 million population inflation would have been out of control they had to save it. Our oil receipts were spent on public sector and tax cuts.

@KevinGSWatt @KathyConWom @Keir_Starmer @Ed_Miliband Dont Kevin, it will hurt there brain cell. There's 6 months worth of oil in the UK bit off the North Sea, if that. If only Thatcher hadn't sold it off cheaply to her city mates, who in flogged of to the American oil companies. If only we'd done what Norway did, and kept it public

Norway collected £50bn from North Sea oil and gas last year. We collected £4.4bn, having taxed our own producers into closure in pursuit of a #netzero fantasy. I cannot think of a cleaner example of a government failing its people @Keir_Starmer and @Ed_Miliband conservativewoman.co.uk/the-suicidal-m…

@AbsorberTheGeek @MortyMark @KathyConWom @Keir_Starmer @Ed_Miliband And 14 years ago Osborne insentified UK North sea oil extraction but it still declined. Why was that?

@KevinGSWatt @MortyMark @KathyConWom @Keir_Starmer @Ed_Miliband Because it has been domestic policy for a decade+ to dissuade domestic production (through taxation, licensing, etc). You can hardly blame long-term capital going where it is best treated, and that isn't the North Sea.

@MoreCoase @KathyConWom @Keir_Starmer @Ed_Miliband Your appraisal. You're saying billions of £s of oil revenue have been lost and nobody has connected the dots.

@KevinGSWatt @KathyConWom @Keir_Starmer @Ed_Miliband No. Just gross stupidity.

@MortyMark @KathyConWom @Keir_Starmer @Ed_Miliband Proven? Economically extractable? , so why is it not been taking out of the ground now.

@KevinGSWatt @KathyConWom @Keir_Starmer @Ed_Miliband Plenty of oil West of Shetland 👍

@montie @RobertJenrick @bbclaurak @Nigel_Farage Well he's an open goal.

Few people have had so much mud and hate thrown at them as @RobertJenrick. I know I couldn't cope with it! But that composed and persuasive performance just now on @bbclaurak was the mark of a pro. And those qualities were the ones that made him @Nigel_Farage's choice as for shadow chancellor long before his defection happened. If Rob can get Reform ahead of his old party on economic trustworthiness over the next three years the Tories won't just be going backwards at the next gen elxn, they'll be almost completely out of business.

@AstroMikeMerri @PeterDClack He won't accept facts.

@PeterDClack If you understood atmospheric physics, you’d know that energy transport is driven by the (very large) column density of CO2, not its (very small) fractional contribution. This has been explained to you many times. Either you are pathologically stupid or you lie deliberately.

Water vapour is the ultimate life support mechanism on our blue-green dot. It provides up to 70% of atmospheric heat retention, reaching concentrations of 40,000 ppm. Contrast this with CO₂ at only 420 ppm—just 4 molecules in every 10,000. Is CO₂ really the climate control knob though? Ice core studies show CO₂ actually lags temperatures by up to 1,000 years. This reflects the massive oceanic inertia of a planet where the seas are the true thermal engine. Covering 71% of the surface to an average depth of 2.3 miles, oceans contain 91% of all retained heat energy. Water is also 1,000 times denser than air and is the heavy lifter of our climate system. Water vapour dominates in the tropics and mid-latitudes, leaving only the deserts and poles—where temperatures plummet the moment the sun sets. CO₂ serves as the essential plant food for photosynthesis and global greening. Recent NASA studies have revealed decades of expanding leaf area, attributed to improved CO₂ levels. Water vapour remains the ultimate foundation of our habitable, oceanic world. #ClimateScience #WaterVapour #GlobalGreening #OceanicInertia

@ArchRose90 @ToryMemo82 Not really. Farage is hardly ever in his constituency.

@ToryMemo82 It’s the local elections, campaigning in other areas during this period is essential. What a pointless post. 😂

He'll go to anyone's constituency but his own.

@newstart_2024 He didn't he's blinkered, it's for clicks.

Konstantin Kisin delivered a brutally honest reality check about Britain’s climate policies. How does outsourcing carbon emissions to other countries while destroying the domestic economy actually help the planet? He pointed out the devastating human cost: in Britain, pensioners are dying every winter because they can’t afford heating bills — all in the name of policies that aren’t even reducing global emissions. “We are not saving the planet by killing pensioners,” he said. “I’m not in favor of killing pensioners.” It’s a raw reminder that good intentions don’t always equal good outcomes. When climate policy hurts the most vulnerable at home while simply shifting emissions abroad, is it really about saving the planet — or something else?

@RichardTomo5 @CeeMacBee The resource that's been declining for 20 years?

“Mad” Ed Miliband is allowing Britain’s North Sea resource extraction to decline - while we spend up to £40bn importing oil and gas from Norway. Think about that. We’re shutting down our own supply, shipping it in from abroad, and paying more for the privilege. It drives up costs. It weakens our energy security. It’s dangerously stupid.

@jonburkeUK @Siemens She's just an idiot with a posh Voice.

More deranged attacks on the domestic renewable energy getting Britain through yet another fossil fuel crisis. Wind turbines manufactured at the @Siemens factory in Hull are keeping the lights on and right-wingers can’t take it because their job is to make you hate Britain.

@KimberleyJayne4 @jonburkeUK @Siemens And if it does? And a gas turbine is lubricated by Reformer tears?

@jonburkeUK @Siemens 🙄 A standard turbine requires roughly 80 gallons of oil per year for maintenance.

@PippaP22 @AllisonPearson There is no evidence that migratory birds are affected by wind turbines. Perhaps turn your anger to household cats.

@AllisonPearson And what they do to bird and sea-life 😢 It doesn’t bear thinking about. I always think, is something feels wrong, it almost certainly is.

I was in Wales today where beautiful countryside, prime grazing land, is being covered in giant windmills twice the height of Big Ben. Each propeller bigger than a jumbo jet. The “green jobs” being created are in China. It’s corrupt, toxic and evil.

@AllisonPearson You'd rather burn gas or coal, that seems more toxic than a wind turbine. Don't know where you get corrupt and evil from. I'll give you a word deranged.

@here_there @robhawkes Strange as this has been in operation since 2012.

Only in the world of mad Ed is importing dirty wood pellets from Canada clean and using North Sea oil and gas is dirty He’s so far into the looking glass that’s he has completely tied himself in knots He’s simply a hypocritical clown. Closes the North Sea despite it being able to generate more tax revenue, more jobs, more security and imports oil & gas and wood pellets from abroad that are dirtier and worse for the planet as he books the carbon on the producer People like @mgshanks are going to wake up sooner rather than later than mad Ed has duped us all @UKLabour

I do find it mad that burning wood pellets from abroad is considered "renewable energy" and suitable for a very large amount of subsidy 🤯

@ClarksonsFarm1 As agriculture is a huge emitter of CO2 farmers would better electrifying their vehicles and utilising some land for solar production and reducing diesel to a minimum. This would give farms greater energy security and reduce cost.

Yes, drill our resources in the North Sea.