Net Zero has been blamed for the complete shutdown of Heathrow after an aviation industry expert told Reform MP and Deputy Leader Richard Tice that Heathrow is moving from diesel back-up generators to biomass and the system failed “at the first time of asking” when a local electrical substation went up in flames. The Mail has more.
At least 220,000 passengers have been left stranded in Britain and around the world after an electrical fire shut the airport for at least 24 hours – with the level of global travel chaos sparked by the outage being compared to 9/11.
The UK’s busiest airport was forced to close on Friday after its main power substation exploded and set alight less than two miles away in the west London suburb of Hayes.
The complete closure of Heathrow due to the loss of just one electrical substation is unprecedented and raises major questions for the airport and the Government. It has also left many stranded travellers raging and reduced to tears.
Mr Tice said on GB News: “It appears that Heathrow had changed its backup systems in order to be, wait for it… Net Zero compliant.”
“They had got rid of their diesel generators and had moved towards a biomass generator that was designed not to completely replace the grid but work alongside it. Their Net Zero compliant backup system has completely failed in its core function at the first time of asking.
“We know diesel generators work as backup systems. If this is correct, and I have no reason to believe it’s not, they are guilty of gross negligence of the highest order.”
MailOnline has asked Heathrow to comment on Mr Tice’s claims. Its 2022 Net Zero plan confirms it is “investigating renewable-based alternatives that can still meet the stringent performance criteria” – but it is not clear how far along those plans are.
Senior sources at the airport have insisted that Heathrow does have back-up power systems but “activating contingencies for the whole airport requires some time” and “isn’t immediate”, one insider said to the Times. Bosses are expected to be hauled before Parliament to explain.
Julian Bray, one of the UK’s leading aviation experts said: “We are all amazed that Heathrow does not have a viable standby independent of the grid emergency power supply but relies on the National Grid. It’s not as if Heathrow is short of money – it has a substantial war chest for building the third runway.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Counter terrorism police are leading the probe into the fire amid claims it could be a Russian sabotage attack.
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It’s not a good thing to have happened, but of all the possible causes PLEASE let it be this one! Something needs to wake these retards up.
Even if it’s proven beyond doubt it’s their biomass bullshit, it will still be the Russians
Who orwhat caused it and why the backupo did not work are two equally important questions. Do not allow TTK and Co try to deny responsibility by blaming Russia or whatever or whoever did this.
Whether it was a technical failure, terrorism or something else, the backuo should have worked.
Don’t let them pile the blame only on the airport operators (although resignations should have been received by now). Government agencies should have satisfied themselves the systems were safe and secure. Clearly they were not: no blast protection between parallel transformers, no protection from (for example) FPV drones, seems inadequate physical security and no backup.
Why did National Grid ask questions?
On a much smaller scale Ipswich Hospital back-up generator didn’t start up on 9th August 2019 because though “Fred” checked the battery with a voltmeter the day before nobody had recently checked whether the battery would start the motor that started the diesel motor that powered the generator. The latte nearly went cold and the report spread the blame thinly.
The Russians?
This is an enlightening speech to the EU by Professor Geoffrey Sachs confirming the large numbers of wars, including the war in Ukraine caused by the USA:
‘Europe needs an independent foreign policy’: Professor Jeffrey Sachs at European Parliament
But don’t forget that 2.5 years ago he demanded 0.1% of global GDP for the WHO, and wanted the WHO to oversee GOF research worldwide.
The full transcript is attached [in LibreOffice format] and here is an extract:
AN EXTRACT OF THE TRANSCRIPT
2:34 contexts and I’ll include not only the Ukraine
2:41 crisis but Serbia 1999 the wars in the Middle East
2:49 including Iraq Syria the wars in Africa including
2:55 Sudan Somalia Libya
3:01 these are to a very significant extent that would surprise you
3:07 perhaps and would be denounced about what I’m about to say
3:13 these are Wars that the United States led and caused and this has been true
3:21 for more than 40 years now what happened more than 30 years
3:30 I should say to be more precise the United States came to the
3:38 view especially in 1990 91 and then with the end of the Soviet
3:44 Union that the US now ran the world and that the US did not have to
3:52 heed anybody’s views red lines concerns
3:58 security viewpoint or any International obligations or any
4:05 un framework I’m sorry to put it so
4:11 plainly but I do want you to understand I tried very hard in
4:20 1991 to get help for gorbachov who I think was the greatest Statesman of our
4:25 modern time I recently read the archived memo of the National
4:33 Security Council discussion of my proposal how they
4:39 completely dismissed it and laughed it off the table when I said that the
4:44 United States should help the Soviet Union in financial stabilization and in making its
4:52 reforms and the memo documents including some of my former colleagues at Harvard
4:59 in particular I saying we will do the minimum that we will do to prevent
5:05 disaster but the minimum it’s not our job to help quite the contrary it’s not
5:11 our interest to help when the Soviet Union ended in
5:18 1991 the view became even more exaggerated and I can name chapter and
5:26 verse but the view was we run the show Cheney wolfowitz and many other
5:34 names that you will have come to know literally believed this is now a US
5:42 World and we will do as we want we will clean
5:48 up from the former Soviet Union we will take out any remaining
5:54 allies countries like Iraq Syria and so forth will go
6:01 and we’ve been experiencing this foreign policy for
6:07 now essentially 33 years Europe has paid a heavy price for
6:15 this because Europe has not had any foreign policy during this period that I can figure
6:20 out no voice no Unity no Clarity no
6:26 European interests only American American
6:32 loyalty there were moments where there were disagreements and very I think
6:38 wonderful disagreements especially in the last time of significance was 2003 6:45 in the Iraq War when France and Germany said we don’t support the United States
6:52 going around the UN Security Council for this war that war by the way was
6:58 directly concocted by Netanyahu and his colleagues in the US
7:06 Pentagon I’m not saying that it was a link or mutuality I’m saying it was a
7:14 direct war that was a war carried out for Israel it was a war that Paul Wolowitz
7:21 and Douglas feith coordinated with Netanyahu and that was the last time
7:28 that Europe had a voice and I spoke with European leaders
7:35 then and they were very clear and it was quite
7:43 wonderful Europe lost its voice entirely after that but especially in
7:50 2008 now what happened after 1991 to get to 2008 is that the United States
7:59 decided that unipolarity meant that NATO would enlarge somewhere from Brussels to
8:07 Vlados step by step there would be no end to Eastward enlargement of
8:14 NATO this would be the US unipolar World if you play the game of Risk as a
8:21 child like I did this is the US idea to have the peace on every part of the
8:29 Border any place without a US military base is an enemy
8:35 basically neutrality is a dirty word in the US political lexicon perhaps the dirtiest word at
8:43 least if you’re an enemy we know you’re an enemy if you are neutral you’re
8:49 subversive because then you’re really against us because you’re not telling us you’re pretending to be
8:57 neutral so this was the mindset and the decision was taken formally in
9:03 1994 when President Clinton signed off on NATO enlargement to the east
The spin-machine will have come online faster than the generators to prove that it’s the fault of not going Green enough.
Keir Starmer will probably blame ‘right-wing thugs’ and throw a few more innocent people in prison.
The Reverend Starmer has stopped referring to anything ‘Far Right’ in his now commonplace addresses to the congregation from The Holy St Downing Street Pulpit.
It may have something to do with a series of FOI requests made on WhatDoTheyKnow. The requests are for information evidencing Rev’d Starmer’s evidence to back up his “Far Right” allegations.
Downing Street FOI team have taken to refusing to answer the requests claiming they are not valid when it is obvious to a Russian mental health impaired squirrel gluing itself to 500 kV Heathrow’s power supply’s bushbars that the FOI requests are valid but they cannot answer because they would have to admit Rev’d Starmer does not have the evidence.
See following comments for the links to the requests.
FOI request to Prime Minister for evidence of:
‘Dangerous right wing politics’ of Nigel Farage and/or Reform UK.
Refused to answer.
FOI request to Prime Minister for:
Evidence Reform UK’s Memberships is “Far Right”
Refused to answer.
FOI request to Prime Minister for:
FOI Requests Received About the ‘Far Right’
Awaiting response
Due in a few day’s time.
And for those interested although a little off topic here is an FOI request to Rev’d Starmer for:
Data on What a ‘Smashed Gang’ is and on ‘Gangs’ ‘Smashed’ since 5th July 2024
Awaiting response
Refused to Answer – and awaiting a reply to this:
Dear FOI Team Mailbox,
Thank you for confirming your view is that “your request has not properly identified the information you seek”.
Kindly advise what it is about the request that fails to properly identify the information I seek?
I am merely seeking to know what the evidence is for the Prime Minister to keep on referring to the “Far Right” and to whom or to what he refers.
If the Prime Minister cannot tell us to whom or to what he refers and why he considers them or it to be “Far Right” then I and the public are entitled to know.
At the present time these exchanges make it appear the Prime Minister has made the “Far Right” allegations out of thin air.
So if that is not so then the public also has a right to know.
Accordingly, I look forward to learning what it is about my request that prompts you on behalf of the PM to claim section 8(1)(c) applies because the request has not properly identified the information sought.
And how would you phrase such a request to meet your objection.
Many thanks,
REFUSED TO ANSWER AND AWAITING A REPLY TO THIS:
Dear FOI Team Mailbox,
Thank you for your email in which you again claim falsely that my request does not comply with section 8(1)(c).
The request is valid and at all time complies and has complied with section 8(1)(c).
I wrote asking if the Prime Minister holds specific information:
“Does the Prime Minister hold information about the ‘dangerous right wing politics’ of Nigel Farage and/or Reform UK. If so, what information is held please?
Can I please have copies?
If providing copies would exceed the financial limits for FOI requests can I please have copies of the most recent information held.”
Under the Freedom of Information Act the Prime Minister’s first obligation is to confirm whether or not he holds the information concerned. He has not done so. The Information Commissioner’s Office agrees with me that your replies to my requests to date have failed to confirm that.
So the Prime Minister is yet again breaking the law. He is deliberately not complying with the Freedom of Information Act. Two-Tier Keir. One law and justice for Labour Party supporters and violent Far Left fascist racist thugs who support him calling for genocide of Jews in Israel and another law and justice for the majority of law-abiding members of the public. I should be pleased to be corrected if thought wrong but that goes alongside what seem to me to be emerging here: dangerous fascist Far Left and law-breaking tactics of the Prime Minister which threaten the fabric of democracy by clamping down on free speech, flouting the Freedom of Information Act.
The right to know is part of our centuries old free speech laws as confirmed by the UK’s Supreme Court.
US Vice President JD Vance told the Prime Minister to his face last Thursday about how the Prime Minster’s anti-free speech policies are undermining democracy. These fascist Far Left tactics were proven in the 1930s by the then national socialist party in Germany. The Prime Minister leads another national socialist party which recent revelations reveals more continuing anti-semitism in comments made by some members of the Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Party. It is truly shocking that a US Vice President felt the need, in the Oval Office of the White House, before the US President and the world’s media, to lecture the Prime Minister about free speech to his face.
Further, your reply on the Prime Minister’s behalf is:
“Public authorities are not required to create new information in order to comply with a request for information under the FOI Act. Section 84 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI Act) defines information as “information recorded in any form”. Hence, a public authority only needs to consider information already in existence at the time of the request.”
So you are indirectly claiming the Prime Minister does not have any evidence to back up his claims.
In other words, you appear to be saying the Prime Minister is a liar.
So I ask again for you to confirm that the Prime Minister does not have any evidence to back up his claim of ‘Dangerous right wing politics’ of Nigel Farage and/or Reform UK. You have already admitted that to answer the request would require the Prime Minister to create new information. But that means the Prime Minister does not have the evidence to back up his claims.
You also wrote claiming the request concerned is seeking “requests for explanations, clarification on policy, comments on the authority’s business and any other correspondence” and so it “does not meet the definition of a valid request for information”.
However, as I am seeking specific information that makes the Prime Minister’s entire FOI Team appear to be liars also.
You also wrote: “your request has not properly identified the information you seek”.
Kindly advise what it is about the request that fails to properly identify the information I seek?
I am merely seeking to know what the evidence is for the Prime Minister to refer to the “Dangerous right wing politics of” Nigel Farage and/or Reform UK.
If the Prime Minister cannot tell us to which politics he is referring and his evidence for those politics being “Far Right” then he should say so. That to date is the implication of the responses provided to date. That information sought is specific and identifiable – were it to exist, which it seems it does not.
It the Prime Minister does not have the evidence necessary to back up his claims I and the public are entitled to know.
At the present time these exchanges make it appear the Prime Minister has made his allegations up out of thin air. That also makes the Prime Minister look like a liar.
However. if the Prime Minister does have the evidence concerned then the public also has a right to know.
Accordingly, so that I can properly understand your objections I look forward to your advice and assistance in explaining what it is about my request that prompts you on behalf of the PM to claim section 8(1)(c) applies because the request has not properly identified the information sought.
And how would you phrase such a request to meet your objection.
If the Prime Minister and his entire FOI Team are liars then it is difficult to anyone to believe anything they say. So I offer you and the Prime Minister the opportunity to clear the air and prove none of you are liars nor part of a government pursuing or supporting fascist Far Left violent politics of genocide and the removal of free speech from the UK.
Millions of brave soldiers, British, Irish and of other nations died fighting fascists and for the right to free speech but anyone reading these exchanges might conclude the Prime Minister and his FOI Team show in these exchanges they support Far Left fascist anti-semitic anti-democratic anti-free speech genocidal policies.
Do please note that any incidental remarks in this email not directly addressing the Freedom of Information request are just that – incidental. They are not seeking any comment nor “explanations, clarification on policy, comments on the authority’s business and any other correspondence”.
Furthermore, any information which comes to the Prime Minister’s attention after the original FOI request of 24th February 2025 will of course not qualify as information held so in response the dates during which the information concerned was held should be stated with documentary evidence proving that.
After all, as it seems to me the entire Prime Minister’s FOI Team has been caught lying along with the Prime Minister, verification will be necessary for all claims made.
Many thanks,
Have a nice day.
Some future Hallett will find that (i) it was a squirrel which, owing to Climate Change, was active unprecedentedly early in the year in using the switchgear as a gym; (ii) this would not have happened if there had been a windmill there instead of a transformer; (iii) the squirrel had mental health problems and believed it was Saving The Planet by gluing itself to 500kV busbars. Rachel says more taxes are needed to “tackle” the squirrel problem. The US media have already thoroughly investigated the cause and found it to be Russian interference and uncontrolled immigration of gray [sic] squirrels. Trump has bought Heathrow Airport and will convert it into a crazy golf course. The Chinese have already shipped a replacement transformer and the Japanese installers will be finished by noon tomorrow. Meanwhile the pot-hole outside my house has just celebrated its first birthday.
LOL
‘kin brilliant
Yes, indeed.
I hope the tell us in advance when they are going to start using new Net Zero compliant biomass foe the actual planes. Just so I can stop flying.
I see, so Putin ordered his military to bring down 6 drones that were on their way to Ukrainian energy facilities as a sign of good faith to Trumps peace deal BUT he decided to blow up one in Heathrow instead?
The Western media become more delusional day by day.
The media just can’t help themselves it seems. I’m surprised Trump and Musk aren’t getting the blame too.
Those 220,000 are now looking for dinghies to escape the country.
There are plenty of Hotels…Oh wait!
I am going to sticky neck out and say what I believe we’re not being told ..:
The National Grid is suffering increasingly with brownouts, i.e. sudden, unplanned and unpredictable but usually relatively brief power cuts.
Heathrow, along with other airports, was coming to depend increasingly on their backup diesel generator during brownouts so much that people started to forget its primary function and instead began to see its primary purpose as merely complementing the Grid.
When they decided to “save the planet” by replacing the diesel generator with a biomass generator, they only provided for the purpose of complementing the Grid (prevent brownouts), but did not build for the eventuality of total power loss, because they either forgot or couldn’t get the capacity from a biomass setup.
Then when the local Grid substation caught fire (we don’t yet know why that happened), the biomass generator couldn’t cope, and bang – 220,000 stranded people.
Incompetence at every level.
“… but “activating contingencies for the whole airport requires some time” and “isn’t immediate”…”
No, no, no. Diesel generators are set to fire up immediately in the event of power failure. The delay should be less than about a minute before power is restored.
In large enterprises, the immediate back-up is for critical systems, not the whole operation, so even if the whole airport is not served by the immediate back-up, essential services should be maintained so the airport can continue to continue its basic function – like handling incoming and outgoing flights.
If this is not the case, then there has been serious failure in management to plan for foreseeable adverse events. Power cuts, given the instability that has been introduced into the grid over the last 10 to 15 years, should have been top of the list to guard against.
The grid company also would be able to supply powerful mobile generators fairly quickly for non-critical services.
If as Mr Tice is saying, back-up reliance is on biomass powered generators, there would be a significant delay in firing up the boilers and bringing the steam turbines up to speed. This is why gas-powered generators are best for grid back-up as they can become fully operational within a few minutes, and diesel generators for on-site back-up.
This episode is a fore taste of things to come as we hurtle towards Net Zero with unreliables backed-up by elaborate, costly but equally unreliable alternatives like batteries, fly-wheels, hydrogen, once we are transitioned away from fossil fuels.
Absolutely. Well said.
What are the ramifications of such a useless system being fitted to, oh, I don’t know, let’s say a hospital…?
In this example I’d expect they mean gas generators, reciprocating or turbine, using bio-gas (methane) generated from the local tip / food waste etc? Heathrow has tons of food waste, so that makes sense. Any gas generated would be stored anyway, and backed up by grid supply if the generators were for standby power, vs grid supply for cash (and subsidies).
I’m sure they have online UPS for truly critical loads, ie. Control tower, fire systems, parts of baggage handling, however full near time generator backup power for the whole airport would be quite an ask – it’s bloody huge
9th August 2019 was the first day that over half (??) of the UK electricity power was, for a few minutes, being provided by wind [renewables??. Drax???]. Then a squirrel shorted Little Barford, a gull flew into a windmill blade at Hornsea. All the electric trains stopped and my local hospital (Ipswich) realised some manager had sold the battery that starts the emergency diesel generator on eBay the day before. (Some of the preceding is true. Ish.)
The London Underground has a gas turbine to provide back up and they test it regularly as shown on Secrets of the Underground.
“If this is correct, and I have no reason to believe it’s not…”
…If the green biomass back-up generator story is true, nemesis inevitably lies waiting to pounce, when the hubris of South Midland Arts College graduates in Politics, Philosophy and Economics over-rides continued deployment of tried and tested diesel back-up generators.
Meanwhile fear not, Telegraph reporting Kommissar of Energy Insecurity Miliband is on the case.
Quick, blame the Russkies! The current “universal boogeymen” to blame for the results of utter incompetence and failure…
However it occurred. If Tice is correct, he appears to know more about what happened and why this has shut down Heathrow than Milliband.
Now, that is worrying.
Not really Tice operates in the real world and Milipede is in clown world.
I saw some quote, apparently from Millibrain, saying the local power stations had blown up… very worrying if our energy minister doesn’t know the difference between and power station and substation… he wouldn’t know a transformer if it fell on him
Referring to my comment on the other article: The other question is, is the organisation a real “Political Party” by definition? Or a protest group? At any rate, there is evidently a range of different opinions, which may or may not be compatible, or capable of implementation in the real world set up by the bureaucrats and industrialists etc.
On the issue of Heathrow’s power supply, yes it may well be that money talks about investing in various subsystems, but hopefully they do have a degree of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for things like local air traffic control (the main air traffic control is elsewhere down south). However, they are perhaps too reliant on the external firm that runs the local distribution network outside the fence.
Looking at the site of the failed sub, according to Google, it looks like there is a lot of redundant land alongside. I can’t remember the name of the old factory there, near to Hayes & Harlington station on the GW Main Line. No doubt there are several buried cables from there along by the river and through the country park (sic) to the airport, to various parts of the site. After all, it’s grown like topsy over the years.
Nestlés – hence the street name alongside the empty sight.
If anyone was planning an attack on Heathrow, the most chaos would be caused at Christmas or during the summer. November February and March are all off peak.
As usual with Blair’s Britain, it is yet more hopeless incompetence.
Russia is even more incompetent. The bovine morons of the FSB would never have been able to predict the complete failure of back up power systems.
No problem. Ed MIliband is going to build a few windmills near Heathrow and these will provide reliable back-up power. That’s what nurse told me.
” it could be a Russian sabotage attack.”
Or it could be the Chris Packham types.
It could be Special Kamikase Assault squirrels trained at Packham’s rewilding centre to glue themselves to single-point-of-failure switchgear, believing that they are saving the planet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY9GBl7UmVs
Back in the day I recollect that major computer centres had grid power supplied by two separate and independent routes, and a UPS that automatically switched to battery power long enough to allow the diesel generators to spin up. This didn’t always run smoothly but was well beyond depending on a single substation.
I shall await the failure report with interest, although I expect the publication will take some time and be released over a Bank Holiday weekend.
Publication likely in 2030.
The report will cost more than the transformer(s); the lawyers’ fees will be even higher.
Like that report on the Diesel Land Rover that mysteriously burst into flames at that airport taking 1500 other cars with it…..ummmm
Putin’s fault.
I knew it.
Mind you, could you really blame him if it was –
Giving billions to Ukraine and no doubt we have “boots on the ground” anyway.
How many dead Russians are we responsible for one wonders.
Most of these prats have never heard of net zero nevermind the scam that constitutes it. By their stripes they will be healed. They will have far more to worry about than flight cancellations. Eventually even the most suboid creature might utter a timid ‘why?’ Fully gimped out and his vital energy rogered out of him. “Please master, why do you torment me so?”
The Russians? Much more likely it’s simply an overloaded transformer letting go, vast amounts of EVs around that area to avoid congestion charging…
The transformer (and the overall installation) doesn’t seem to have been supplying a safety-critical system, such as communications and key aircraft movements. It was handling the vast number of passengers in the terminal that was consequently put out of action. At the risk of trivialising inconvenience, I’d suggest that the saving on not duplicating the power supply to non-safety-critical equipment might be the better trade-off against one day in a decade inability to dispense caramel latte or flush the toilets. Still, the US online media are having a field-day with clickbait about Russian/Iranian Involvement. From latest gossip, it looks like it was essential to completely power down the site (notably two key transformers) to enable the fire teams to access the site, even though it was confined (?) to one transformer. If this is the case, once the emergency is over and some damage investigation has been started there might be some temporary workaround to enable some degree of normality by Monday. I know the politicians, media and influencers (and litigation lawyers) will try to milk what is technically a fairly familiar glitch in order to gain money or support for their cause! Perhaps Miliband, and all of us, are now increasingly aware of the importance of a resilient 24/7 cheap electricity supply rather than a third-world yet expensive sacrifice to a False Green God and prophets.
PS: from my (distantly-remembered, possibly apocryphal bar chat) university course module on heavy power engineering, on average one transformer, albeit one of the smallish pole-top types, catches fire each day in the UK, typically because a JCB goes through a cable, but also because they have a random though finite lifetime. And never underestimate the cumulative disruption caused locally by sacrificial squirrels doing their gym work-outs on cables. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_disruptions_caused_by_squirrels
Indeed – caramel lattes are more of a priority for Heathrow than actual flights from a profit point of view. At these voltages, aren’t the squirrel gymnastics taken care of in a flash – wouldn’t have expected that to down a transformer – depends how the workout ends I suppose…
Some of the Davos Deviants might be having twitchy bottoms. Just imagine if there had been a calamitous plane crash and the occupants had included people such as Billy, Klaus, Carnage Carney, Tedros.
Well if they will insist on utterly incompetent machines like Kneel, Lammy, Thieves and the rest what should they expect? I suspect heads might roll.
“The Russians” eh?
Let’s face it, the Establishment will claim it was caused by anything they can come up with …. rather than admit it was caused by the Net Zero Lunacy.
Tice has shown himself to be an idiot on this by confusing the Combined heat and power plant that is used to generate a paltry 1.8MW of power and 8MW of heat with some form of back up system for an airport that has a peak demand of 55MW. The airport has reported that its backup generation including diesels is only there to provide a minimum amount of power to vital systems. The sub station itself is interesting as it consists of 3 separate transformers to supply the power with one being offset for increased security in the event of a fire. It would seem that for a reason as yet unknown all 3 went up in flames.
Why is the f’ing Irishman fronting up the Heathrow shutdown explanation? Show me an Irish f’up fronted by an Englishman.