The book doesn't actually use british solar numbers for the rest of the world, it even suggests shipping in solar energy derived fuels from other countries to the UK and that even including the extra conversion and shipping/transmission costs would be competitive with nuclear built in the UK, which implies its a no-brainer for those source nations to use it for their own power.
Where it feels a little parochial, is its focus on the UK as if the GDP or population of the UK matters in the context of a global issue like sustainable energy.
It simply doesn't and he has enough facts and figures available even at that time to put that together, but probably fell into the classic british position of assuming they are more important than they really are in a global context.
Anyone outside the UK must read it in the same way people in the UK would read a small island dweller writing "Yes this might work for most of the UK but the Isle of Man would need to import power, which is simply unthinkable, even though it already does, so maybe we should build nuclear there instead to maintain the islands sovereignty".
Or maybe we can discount the needs of half a percent of the population if they run counter to the needs of the other 99.5% and focus on the big picture?
In the end we didn't need to as the wind power, heat pumps, EVs and carbon fees required for the UK overlapped heavily with other nations but this was a clear blindspot which I think you are charitably interpreting as a silly mistake when really it's more akin to arrogance.
Where it feels a little parochial, is its focus on the UK as if the GDP or population of the UK matters in the context of a global issue like sustainable energy.
It simply doesn't and he has enough facts and figures available even at that time to put that together, but probably fell into the classic british position of assuming they are more important than they really are in a global context.
Anyone outside the UK must read it in the same way people in the UK would read a small island dweller writing "Yes this might work for most of the UK but the Isle of Man would need to import power, which is simply unthinkable, even though it already does, so maybe we should build nuclear there instead to maintain the islands sovereignty".
Or maybe we can discount the needs of half a percent of the population if they run counter to the needs of the other 99.5% and focus on the big picture?
In the end we didn't need to as the wind power, heat pumps, EVs and carbon fees required for the UK overlapped heavily with other nations but this was a clear blindspot which I think you are charitably interpreting as a silly mistake when really it's more akin to arrogance.