20 Million Miles in a Nissan Leaf?

20,000,000++ Miles in a Nissan Leaf?

If North Mill Avoncliff had not been defrauded out of their water impoundment and abstraction license by EA officials in 2010 - electricity generating turbines would have been operational at Avoncliff from December 2011 and the integrity of structures in the river guaranteed. Lots of Green power.... NOT.

That's over 10 years of generation - using the numbers made up for The Environment Agency's hydroelectric scheme comparison at Avoncliff  taking one of the lower estimates for power from Avoncliff  weir of 422 MWh per year I've put together a table of some of what's already been lost....

Comparisons like  - how many London buses is that?  - are a bit difficult since the supposedly electric buses are having battery problems....

but the best available numbers have been thrown in... :-)  (the answer is v.roughly 15 buses a year).

So in terms of road transport / houses / tons of CO2 - here are the numbers of what's been lost through EA fraud, lies, incompetence, egregious waste plus £3 million++ (+/- 10% imho) of public money on lawyers, consultants, courts and The Ombudsman over the last 12 years:

Road Vehicles over 5 years
	Battery	Recharges	Miles (Manf claimed)
Tesla Roadster	53 kWh	39811	9,713,962
Tesla Model S	90 kWh	23444	6,212,778
Nissan Leaf	24 kWh	87917	10,550,000
Boris Bus	75 kWh	28133	2,813,333
"Standard" Houses a year
	Annual kWh		Houses supplied
Small	1650 kWh		256
Medium	3300 kWh		128
DECC "Average"	4800 kWh		88
Mansion	5000 kWh		84
"Tons of CO2" over 5 years
DECC 2014 average	0.527	kg per kWh	1,112

I have to say these are only guideline numbers and much could be quibbled in the detail - but the magnitude of the loss of "Green Electricity" here is hardly a national catastrophe - it is though - decidedly non trivial.

 Swerving many "Tons of CO2" using the "Grid Carbon Intensity" figures from renewables industry information sources would be ca. 2000 tons of CO2   

The willful intransigence and waste continues apace - via the repeated, deliberate and malicious awarding of further abstraction licenses (after the first was quashed at JR)  - now we have EA officials seeking to set their own punishment for Ombudsman found maladministration of the 12 year rolling renewable energy debacle at Avoncliff

 

Those additional abstraction licenses could not be implemented at Avoncliff since the license holders do not (and are unlikely to) own the land to build on. The EA have been aware of the blocking land ownership and covenant issues at Weavers Mill from the awarding of the first bent license and shows that EA are abusing their powers to indulge in vindictive antics to damage those who seek to challenge their mistakes and wrongdoings.

 

To save digging - here's a summary from earlier this year giving some context.

******** - Bonus Feature - ********

Very little news on the other purported hydroelectric scheme in Bradford on Avon - at Greenland Mills.

 

 - what happened there? 

Is it working ?

How many homes is it powering ?

Have more of identical design been built ?

Why hasn't one been built at Avoncliff ?

 

Some Deletions and Additions

 Hmmmm....

Well, things change.... one file disappears and another appears! The Environment Agency non compliance with The Ombudsman's recommendations persists.

Going back to look at the PACAC correspondence archive (i.e. on the Parliamentary record) I found the pdf  embedded below which perhaps... notionally replaces the document bundle saved here in a previous post...  All a bit stealthy really - even our MP's office (Michelle Donelan) has been trying to get sight of the full text reply for literally months...

 Well... "what could have caused this?" indeed!

Another document has appeared though, - by digital magick

Wouldn't have anything to do with swerving controversy around Sir James's March 2023 leaving do? - would it? /sarc. 

It's useful I feel to compare the August 2022 apparent receipt of Bevan's reply to the PACAC timeline laid out in the previous post

It would seem (given the date on Bevan's letter) that PACAC chair was aware of the EA's decision to evade compliance and chose not to share that with PACAC committee members and our MP Michelle Donelan. So did Mr Wragg make an "on the record" inquiry to the EA and hide the reply - for 9 months - past the annual PHSO scrutiny meeting where the matter in question was raised?

Given that Sir James's / EA peer reviewers have explicitly stated that no proper assessment of damages can be performed without a forensic financial audit - it seems rather clear that the EA have little interest in proper procedure where they can try and force through a minimization of their financial exposure and try and place themselves beyond any reasonable expectation of accountability...

The EA did the dirty deeds PHSO found, agreed to PHSO's recommendations as to remedy - and now seek to set their own punishment well outside the scope of what was the lowest estimate of their liability to damages (from PHSO).

It's worth repeating that the EA's own peer reviewers declared that any proper settlement of damages was reliant on a forensic financial audit - not some arbitrarily low figure arrived at by officials keen to distance themselves from their wrongdoing and set a figure that they know does not cover their victims out of pocket direct costs over the 12 years this debacle has been running let alone the actual financial impact on the people they harmed.

 

It looks like Sir James has expunged / deleted his EA Twitter account @JamesBevanEA

Absurd Hardly Covers It

 We can't store the power so National Grid spend £9.4 million dump it...  

The financial arithmetic of utility scale electricity storage is unworkable any way you slice it. The trick with balancing the grid it to have just enough dispatchable power available - that National Grid can't do this means that they are NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE.

Looks like they're deficient in the arithmetic department too!

Reply (partial) from Sir James Bevan re: EA non compliance with PHSO

 There is a bundle of documents "On The Record" at the PACAC Select Committee parliamentary web site correspondence section (dated 22nd March 2023) relating to EA CEO Sir James Bevan's response to an inquiry by William Wragg - Chair of PACAC Committee almost 1 year ago in July 2022 (See prior post and original letter).

Oddly, somebody at PACAC sees fit not to post the entire missive from Sir James and as one can see in her 5th March letter in the bundle - Thérèse Coffey The Secretary of State at DEFRA feels this is not proper....? 

 

  Then, again, rather oddly - a couple of weeks later a letter from William Wragg appears.

Then there's the "meat in the sandwich" - the broken out section of Sir James Bevan's response - not that we here believe for a moment that the EA CEO typed it up himself...

 

I absolutely dispute the veracity of much of the edited out "annex" above - but that can be addressed elsewhere.

In my reading of the "annex", the official who wrote the document cites their own peer reviewer negating all their claimed diligence:

S4.4

It is not possible to properly assess compensation in accordance with [the PHSO's]
guidelines in their Principles for Remedy, guidance on financial remedy and HMT's
guidance on Managing Public Money, without obtaining independent expert opinion of both a forensic accountancy and also a medical nature We are unable to make a recommendation as to what the amount of a future compensation payment should be.

As in : The peer reviewers say : “It is not possible to properly assess compensation without obtaining independent expert opinion of both a forensic accountancy and also a medical nature”

No evidence of any accredited expert opinion has been volunteered at any time by EA officials.  

 

Assessment of damages is a speciality skill which in many cases carries a requirement for training and accreditation. An assessment usually has a mandated report - no assessment documentation has been shared by the EA with the Earls at any time.

We have had an independent Forensic Financial Audit performed that the EA know that they are free to use - but they choose not to.

 

The EA are refusing to expose their methodology and evidence used for computing the damages they've agreed (eventually....NOT) with PHSO to pay - which is I think fair to say is exactly what William Wragg initially asked about nearly a year ago in July 2022.

In all, it seems that the EA are intent on finangling / evading paying what essentially they've agreed to - by any means they can dream up and are behaving in ways that the Ombudsman determined to be maladministration in the first place imho...  

The EA also have essentially refused to answer several FoI requests on whatdotheyknow.com (example) - related to the way that the damages are being handled by EA officials and seeking an explanation of the withdrawal of their chosen barrister-assessor and the clear cut evasion in employing a replacement. 

Private Eye