by John Brian Shannon

Welcome to Day 1030 of Theresa May’s premiership, and still no Brexit in sight. Zzzzz…

There’s no Brexit news to report, but as this is a blog about Brexit I’m compelled to write something, anything, about Brexit.

So, here’s your weekly Brexit mashup:

“Prime Minister Theresa May could set a date for her resignation in the coming days, the chairman of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee has said.

The PM said she will step down when her Brexit deal is ratified by Parliament — but some MPs want a fixed date.

Sir Graham Brady said he expects a “clear understanding” of that timetable once she has met the committee, which she will do on Wednesday.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s The Week in Westminster, he said the 1922 Committee had asked her to give “clarity” about her plans for the future, and she had “offered to come and meet with the executive”.

He continued: “It would be strange for that not to result in a clear understanding [of when she will leave] at the end of the meeting.”

The 1922 Committee is an elected body of Tory MPs that represents backbenchers and oversees the party’s leadership contests.”

Excerpted from: Theresa May could set exit date this week – Sir Graham Brady (BBC)

‘If you judge a fish by how well it can climb a tree…’

It seems that Theresa May has done a great job of being the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom but has been a disaster when it came to Brexit. Such a conundrum!

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.” — Albert Einstein

The UK economy (in contrast to ‘Project Fear’ projections) is rocketing along. Government debt is falling and deficits are getting smaller, and relations with America went from “back of the line” to “let’s do a trade deal soon as you get Brexit sorted”.

Even relations with the EU seem to have broadened-out a bit as each side reflects on what they mean to each other and how they can keep what ‘works’ in the relationship while discarding what ‘doesn’t work’ for both sides in the post-Brexit era.

And there’s good news on the environmental front. Last week, the UK didn’t burn any coal

That’s right! The country that started the Industrial Revolution around the year 1760 burning millions of tons of coal in industrial-sized burners to produce electricity and heat to fuel a socio-economic miracle, burned none last week.

It looks like more such weeks will be reported in the coming months as the UK completes its phaseout of industrial scale coal-fired electricity generation by 2025. (Although many rural homes in the UK still burn relatively tiny amounts of coal, or wood, or a mixture of coal and wood)

Natural Gas has replaced coal in the UK, and that’s a good thing because the gas burns up to 1,000,000 times cleaner than brown coal (lignite) and up to 10,000 times cleaner than the cleanest grade of black coal (anthracite) and Natural Gas is about 1000 times cleaner than burning home-heating fuel (kerosene).

“Each stage in the life cycle of coal—extraction, transport, processing, and combustion—generates a waste stream and carries multiple hazards for health and the environment. These costs are external to the coal industry and are thus often considered “externalities.” We estimate that the life cycle effects of coal and the waste stream generated are costing the U.S. public a third to over one‐half of a trillion dollars annually. Many of these so‐called externalities are, moreover, cumulative. Accounting for the damages conservatively doubles to triples the price of electricity from coal per kWh generated, making wind, solar, and other forms of nonfossil fuel power generation, along with investments in efficiency and electricity conservation methods, economically competitive.” — Full Cost Accounting for the Lifecycle of Coal — Harvard Medicine (Report available for download at The New York Academy of Sciences)

So while burning Natural Gas produces plenty of CO2, it produces slightly less than half the CO2 that burning coal produces. And there’s no airborne heavy metals, no soot, no sulphur dioxide to breathe that’s so powerful it can destroy automotive paint finishes, no toxic fly ash long-term storage problem, no damage to aquatic life from water runoff near the massive coal piles. Nitrogen Oxide and other airborne oxides aren’t a factor with Natural Gas either.

If you’re a Briton pat yourself on the back, because the UK is a world leader in the switch to converting from coal to cleaner fuels, and additionally, adding wind and solar capacity to the grid!

Image courtesy of BBC

Growing the Economy, While Lowering Emissions!

“A new Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit report confirms that Britain has been the most successful G7 nation over the last 25 years on the combined metric of growing its economy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

In the 25-years since 1992 when clean air and the corresponding lowering of healthcare spending became an important policy for the United Kingdom, the country grew its per capita GDP by 130% while lowering GHG emissions 33% — proving that a country can simultaneously grow their economy AND lower greenhouse gas emissions.” — UK Leads G7 in the Combined Metric of Economic Growth + Carbon Cuts (LetterToBritain.com)

Each type of power plant has vastly different water demands

Water usage by power plant type — per megawatt / per hour.

It’s too bad Theresa May didn’t wait until later in the game to become Prime Minister (allowing Brexit to be completed by others) because they would’ve delivered a worthy Brexit within months of the June 23, 2016 referendum, and then Theresa May could’ve ushered-in an era of economic growth + lower emissions and clean air and water in God’s Own Country.

READ: Theresa May’s Environment Speech, January 2018