Prime minister to address Tory party conference while Scottish cabinet considers Covid-19 ‘circuit break’ lockdown
Here is some more reaction to the announcement from Boris Johnson about wind power briefed overnight.
From Jonathan Bartley, the Green party co-leader
Wind power announcement:
– Good to see the Prime Minister’s conversion
– We need the detail of how it will be funded
– It still falls far short of what is urgently needed and what could be achieved.https://t.co/GVeWdgM3cy
Delighted I ignored @BorisJohnson in 2013 when he said:
“Wind farms couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding”
Under my policies, @LibDems made the UK the world leader in offshore wind.
Regrettably, the new Tory plans aren’t nearly ambitious enough.https://t.co/IxksVKFYIl
Boris Johnson’s claim that 40GW of offshore wind capacity could power “every home in the country” is both literally correct and a clever distraction. Domestic electricity consumption is only one third of total electricity demand (104 / 346 TWh)https://t.co/0iy9e174lo
As the government wants all new cars to be electric by 2030, and as we switch from oil and gas combustion to electricity for our space and water heating, 40GW of offshore wind looks even less like the panacea Johnson suggests.
It’s important, but just part of the picture.
Good to hear PM restate commitment to 40GW of offshore wind – always happy to welcome a convert!
Now we need to scale up rapidly
– domestic electricity only one third of total electricity demand
– as we electrify transport & heating, we’ll need much more
https://t.co/Yx13AWSUJW
Here is another epidemiologist with a sobering assessment of the current situation. These are from Adam Kucharski at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
If COVID cases/hospitalisations/deaths are rising – as they are in many European countries – there are only two ways the trend will reverse…. 1/
A. Enough change in control measures and/or behaviour to push R below 1. The extent of restrictions required will depend on population structure/household composition etc. But given existing measures are disruptive and R is above 1, could take a lot of effort to get R down. 2/
B. Accumulation of sufficient immunity to push R below 1. However, evidence from Spain (e.g. https://t.co/kEfelVIKWO) suggests ICUs will start hitting capacity before this point, so to avoid them being overwhelmed, would likely end up cycling between epidemics and (A) above. 3/3
