What should Mr Kwarteng do?

We read that Mr Kwarteng will be locked in more talks with the energy industries and Regulator today, after an intensive week  end of talks. With a chronic shortage of gas, little wind power and a dangerous dependence on imports he needs to change policy.

He needs to persuade the gas industry to open more gas storage. Germany has five times as much and France seven times  as much proportionate to demand.The government needs to build a strategic reserve if the industry cannot.

He needs to liberate new Uk production from existing fields and stimulate more exploration and development. The UK is going  to need a lot of gas for some years to come. It is cheaper, greener and safer to produce our own rather than import.

He needs to help the electricity industry boost its reliable generating capacity. Given the green driver of policy that may mean ensuring more biomass, hydro, battery and pump storage. There needs to be a bigger margin of capacity as we enjoyed in the last century.

He should work with the Agriculture department to deliver more UK wood and plant material for biomass, to cut import dependence we currently suffer.

He needs to review price controls. They cannot protect customers from major increases in the world price of oil and gas. They can help drive some businesses into bankruptcy. They can stand in the way of new investment in additional capacity.

The energy market is so rigged by regulation, tax and subsidy it will take government interventions to sort out the current shortages. Solutions which help restore market pricing would offer a better way forward.

 

 

273 Comments

  1. Mick
    September 20, 2021

    We should forget all this climate control rubbish and reopen the over 300 years of coal reserves were sat on

    1. Sea_Warrior
      September 20, 2021

      We should certainly retain – under state ownership, if necessary – those remaining coal-fired power stations and make sure that there are high piles of coal in their yards. But I’m sure we will still see some more demolition-porn on YouTube of colling towers being turned to rubble.

      1. MiC
        September 20, 2021

        Gas is a far better interim energy source than coal.

        The reaction against fracking does seem to be disproportionate, and further work should be done here, I think.

        Incidentally, I see that there’s a lot of chin-stroking going on about the UK’s plummeting birthrate. It’s hardly surprising, given that few of child bearing age can now afford a home in which to raise a family, childcare, or much else. Increased energy bills cannot help either.

        1. Richard1
          September 20, 2021

          Certainly we should re-visit the effective ban on shale gas. Birth rates are falling in all comparable countries.

        2. Micky Taking
          September 20, 2021

          I blame Brexit.

          1. MiC
            September 20, 2021

            Good for you – I don’t.

            I blame the Tories’ service to the rentier and banking class in pumping up the property bubble endlessly.

          2. Fedupsoutherner
            September 20, 2021

            Micky it’s good you got that in before the usual suspects. Lol.

        3. Lifelogic
          September 20, 2021

          Loads of people have apparently been put off having children by the absurd climate alarmist, weather event porn, propaganda from government and the appalling and totally wrong BBC. Surely time for alarmist doom-monger Roger Harabin to retire?

          Then we have hugely high taxes. Only the rather rich and people on benefits can afford to have them perhaps.

        4. Lifelogic
          September 20, 2021

          “Gas is a far better interim energy source than coal” Well in some ways yes, but not in others. Much more expensive and difficult to store and more difficult/expensive to transport by ship to. But yes get fracking please. US gas is 1/4 of the cost of UK gas.

      2. agricola
        September 20, 2021

        It will be imported coal when we have hundreds of years of stocks of our own. We need to apply science and engineering to the past noxious effect of burning coal to produce electricity.

    2. Ian Wragg
      September 20, 2021

      Well spoken. Let’s get fracking.
      Shutting the country down on some unproven whim I’d ludicrous.
      Get the green blob out and some technicians in.
      Net Zero is a farce. I hope Biden is pointing out to Boris that Britain in on the brink of blackouts when he’s striving for deeper cuts in the USA.
      Charlatans the lot of them.

      1. Fedupsoutherner
        September 20, 2021

        Ian. Agree. Fracking would be sensible but then government doesn’t do sensible. I can’t see how importing energy is more environmentally friendly than priducung your own. After all there is no difference in CO2 output for production if done here or elsewhere. Get rid of these XR wallies too.

      2. Lifelogic
        September 20, 2021

        “Net Zero is a farce” – it certainly is, even the solutions they propose wind, solar, EVs, heat pumps, tidal, wave
 really do not work (not even just in CO2 terms). It cannot possible do anything significant for CO2 let alone the climate.

      3. glen cullen
        September 20, 2021

        Start, or should I said re-start ‘Fracking’ today….its within the gift of government to make it happen

    3. Andy
      September 20, 2021

      Because that wouldn’t be beyond dim.

      Let me guess. You’re a Brexitist?

      1. Nig l
        September 20, 2021

        Brexit again. Just reveals your obsession. Sad.

        1. agricola
          September 20, 2021

          The man believes in fairies, but is as dangerous as any anti vaxer. On cue, a volcano in Las Palmas a Canary Island has decided to blow. Possibly putting more noxious gas and particulate into the atmosphere than China and Andy combined. Welcome to the real world, a dangerous and volatile place without any help from man.

      2. Fedupsoutherner
        September 20, 2021

        Andy. Oh, not long before you chirped up with your normal rubbish. Pensioners next?

        1. bill brown
          September 20, 2021

          fedsouthern

          Why don’t you come up with something constructive , like talking about the fact that we need much more storage capacity for gas in teh UK. This curently mean we pay 20 % more for gas than in Europe

          1. Peter2
            September 21, 2021

            It is a consequence of the net zero policy derived from the Climate Change Act bill.
            You support both policies.

      3. Lifelogic
        September 20, 2021

        Well if rational in one area like Climate/Energy you are more likely to be so on others like Brexit.

    4. Oldtimer
      September 20, 2021

      The Minister will, no doubt, keep on digging. But this will not be for coal, or even for gas, but to create an even bigger energy hole of this and prior governments making. This current and the recent generation of MPs are clueless.

      1. Timaction
        September 20, 2021

        Agreed.Totally useless fools. Climate change religion, then the lights go out. It’s not like power generation is a National security issue. Bit like the next atrocity waiting to happen with one of the many unknown boat people. Anything happens to my family the Government will be personally and collectively sued.

    5. Peter
      September 20, 2021

      The UK needs to take back the control of its energy industry.

      It is no good relying on other countries to build our power stations – often with unproven technology.

      It is even worse relying on a power supply itself from a foreign country, which that country can and does then threaten to switch off.

      1. Shirley M
        September 20, 2021

        +1, Peter

    6. glen cullen
      September 20, 2021

      +1

    7. MFD
      September 20, 2021

      +1
      Only fools and communists believe in mans influence to the climate. The green party really are melons – green on the outside and red to the core.

    8. The PrangWizard of England
      September 20, 2021

      And access the gas we have too. This must be done by home owned businesses, we must immediately stop selling out our assets to foreign interests- it can be done – and get some back. I hear that the two fertiliser producing plants which have been closed are American owned. No surprise then that they do this quickly. They have no care for UK interests, only those of their profitability and the benefit of the USA.

      Then I hear that this desperate and stupid complacent government is considering loans to troubled companies – most of them will be foreign owned of course. If they are foreign they must be returned to our ownership.

      How many times have we had to read how advantageous it is when we get ‘foreign investment’? How many times have those who, like myself, who think such a policy operated with disregard to strategic interests told we are wrong? Government spokesmen and apologists who support and have supported the prostitution of our country and leave us ruined ought to made to squirm. These people must be removed and policy changed.

      1. MiC
        September 20, 2021

        You are proposing energy supplies under the aegis of the State.

        You do realise that that is collectivism, right?

        So long as you know, but it looks like you have been voting for the wrong party for a long, long time if so.

        1. The PrangWizard of England
          September 21, 2021

          No, I do not favour or promote collectivism. My opposition is to the obsession with opening our markets and country almost without restriction to foreign ownership and operation. We have ended up where we are dangerously dependent on foreign countries in all manner of ways and are open to pressure and blackmail, which we often give in to.

          1. MiC
            September 21, 2021

            OK, well that’s protectionism and a curtailment of private property rights, then.

    9. GilesB
      September 20, 2021

      Absolutely right.

      Also we should stop worshipping at the feet of the shibboleth of competition.

      Competition can be a useful tool in some markets. But it is not a goal in its own right. Efficiency, quality of supply, and innovation are the goals for industry policy.

      Network industries are natural monopolies. Competition in network industries inevitably undermines efficiency.

      The U.K. should have a single Electricity supplier, a single Gas supplier, a single Water supplier. Telecoms is more complicated. Oh, and a single supplier of waste collection services!

      They all need to be regulated in a way that maximises their return on investment if, and only if, they are efficient, safe, reliable and innovative.

      (Margaret Thatcher brought competition to the coal industry, but that was to break the power of the unions, not as a structure for an industrial policy)

      1. MiC
        September 21, 2021

        There is only ONE objective for the private sector.

        It is to MAKE MONEY.

        They will use any legal means, and illegal ones too, if the risk of prosecution is sufficiently small.

        See “the sewage industry”. et al

    10. lifelogic
      September 20, 2021

      Indeed perhaps Boris (now in the US talking about the net zero lunacy) can abandon that pointless drivel and arrange to buy some US natural gas and then get it shipped to the UK.

      It now costs about 1/4 of the UK price in the US as they sensibly did not (effectively) ban fracking. Rather a competitive advantage for their businesses over the taxed and regulated to death UK’s ones.

    11. DavidJ
      September 20, 2021

      Indeed Mick. The climate change scam is simply a tool of oppression with no provable facts behind it. But then the UN wants to destroy life as we know it and the buffoon (I’m being kind here) in No. 10 is assisting them.

    12. RichardP
      September 20, 2021

      +1 Mick.
      Expand clean coal power generators and develop Carbon Dioxide capture for industrial use.
      Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant, it’s a valuable resource.
      We don’t want “Build Back Better”, we need to stop destroying things that aren’t broken.

    13. miami.mode
      September 20, 2021

      Mick, it’s all very well saying use coal and it may well be that we could burn it cleanly but bear in mind that mining is an extremely hazardous occupation and many miners suffer respiratory problems later in life and unless we can find some way to mine it remotely, as with fracking, then it would probably be better to import it.

  2. Mark B
    September 20, 2021

    Good morning.

    The energy market is so rigged by regulation, tax and subsidy it will take government interventions to sort out the current shortages.

    Pardon me ?!?!?

    Who is it that create the Climate Change Act, committing us to shut down all our coal and gas fired power stations? Who is it that allowed gas storage capacity to run down ? Who is it that failed to plan and implement replacements for our nuclear power plants ? Who is it that SUBSIDIES wind farms ? Who is it that allows one of our power stations to import wood chips from the USA ? Who is it that will not frack for shale gas ? Who is it that thought it would be a good idea to import energy from the French ?

    I’ll tell you who it is doing all this, the same people that created this mess in the first place – THE GOVERNMENT !!!. THe same people that our kind host wants to sort it out. No thanks !!

    Reply Only government can cancel or reverse the interventions you do not like

    1. Everhopeful
      September 20, 2021

      +many
      All road of destruction, as you say, lead to the “ Government”.
      Including the mad destruction it has created with its flailing response to the supposed plague.
      The best for everyone would be if it just sat still in its seats at Westminster, hands folded in laps and listened to a little soothing music.
      And left us alone!!

    2. Oldtimer
      September 20, 2021

      +1
      Clueless politicians got us into this mess. They are not capable of getting us out of it.

      1. Michelle
        September 20, 2021

        Only of making it worse I fear.

    3. matthu
      September 20, 2021

      + + +

    4. alan jutson
      September 20, 2021

      Looks like many organisations, businesses and Government are starting to learn that “Just in time delivery”, can mean “Just run out” !
      If you reduce stock to the minimum to save the cost of storage, you have little product left in reserve if ever there is a problem.
      Looks like many householders may experience temperature/climate change in their houses this winter.
      Good job we already have a number of heating options in our house, gas central heating, independent gas fire, a few old stand alone electric heaters, and an open fire, also have plenty of jumpers, and a few candles !
      Do not have a diesel/petrol generator, which I assume will also go up in price in the next few weeks.

      Next we will be learning that our troops only have enough ammunition in stock to fight for a couple of weeks.

      How much gas is left in the north sea John ?

      1. alan jutson
        September 20, 2021

        We still have VAT on insulation and home improvement products and services I see, is that going to change any time soon ?

        1. glen cullen
          September 20, 2021

          Once again, this government could today remove VAT from all products to revitalise the recovery

    5. Michelle
      September 20, 2021

      ++++++ It could only become more farcical if they brought in Miss Thunberg as a consultant, and I wouldn’t be non too surprised at that becoming an actual thing.

      1. Fedupsoutherner
        September 20, 2021

        Michelle. One coukd be forgiven for thinking she already was in charge. Perhaps through Carrie.

      2. glen cullen
        September 20, 2021

        Don’t say her name three times…or she appears

    6. Mark B
      September 20, 2021

      Reply to reply

      It has had nearly 12 years to do so, but if anything, it seems rather keen on doubling down on our misery.

      eg VAT on Energy bills. The proposed banning of petrol and diesel engined cars. etc. etc.

      1. Jim Whitehead
        September 20, 2021

        Mark B,

        +10000000. !!!!

      2. Timaction
        September 20, 2021

        +1. Total incompetent fools. Ego driven prats.

      3. glen cullen
        September 20, 2021

        +1

    7. Alan Paul Joyce
      September 20, 2021

      There is no problem so complex, no crisis so grave, no situation so dire, that cannot be made worse by the involvement of a politician – with perhaps a few notable exceptions. It does make one wonder sometimes why we allow them to rule our lives!

      I guess Churchill had it right when he said “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.”

      1. claxby pluckacre
        September 20, 2021

        Agreed

    8. NickC
      September 20, 2021

      Reply to reply: It is true that only Parliament can overturn the current government’s (and previous governments’) obsessions with the theory of catastrophic, and irreversible, global heating supposedly caused by industrial emissions of CO2. It is those obsessions which have made us strategically vulnerable to fuel supply disruptions. And it is not as though this government hasn’t been warned (repeatedly on this site, for example).

    9. Lifelogic
      September 20, 2021

      +1

    10. DavidJ
      September 20, 2021

      +1

  3. Lifelogic
    September 20, 2021

    Well first he should ensure we have large piles of coal in case it is needed. Then cancel COP26 to save energy and pointless activity. It is far easier and cheaper to store coal than gas. Plus they need to stop destroying coal fired power stations. Stop importing wood (young coal) to burn and just use cheaper and more efficient coal.

    He should mug up on energy, electricity generation, entropy, the economics of electricity production & storage (and so called (intermittent) renewables), the generally net beneficial effects of slightly higher atmospheric CO2. Also how manufacturing new electric cars increases CO2 not decreases it similarly for heat pumps (as we have no zero carbon sources of electricity to drive them anyway). Better still just replace him and Greg Hands with someone sensible like Peter Lilley or a younger version of him. Save these two history grads the bother of learning about energy realities and let them witter on about us being the “Saudi Arabia” of wind where they can do no damage!

    He could also look at the absurdly high costs and impracticality of retrofit heat pumps (Marr suggested ÂŁ10,000 could easily be nearer ÂŁ50,000. Plus (as they use expensive electricity) they are more expensive to run too despite producing 2-4 times as much heat as they consume.

    1. Everhopeful
      September 20, 2021

      +many!
      Oh yes!

    2. Nig l
      September 20, 2021

      Some of your suggestions are sensible but please stop ranting on about COP 26 etc because it only highlights your zero political antenna. This government (and the world) has invested far too much political capital, let alone economic spend to reverse course.

      And actually your ‘extreme’ right wing views on most things have less and less support as Boris has proved moving left taking the centre ground successfully.

      And whatever you say every major company in the West is working to zero emissions which can only be a good thing despite your views on CO2.

      Better to move on to work on how to achieve the Net Zero efficiently and mitigating the cost to us. There is a phenomenal amount of investment going on, batteries, storage, fuel cells, small nuclear etc and solar voltaic proves that costs will come down.

      To keep banging on about heat pumps when it is one technology thrown into the mix by uninformed politicians is a red herring. There used to be a programme called ‘Tomorrows World’. Followers of that will recall how many of the innovations actually went nowhere because both the world changed so quickly and other technologies emerged.

      However in terms of the topic, agree with Sir JR. What we have got is another situation where a government has totally failed to understand/prepare, just like the pandemic ignoring lessons from an exercise 2/3 years earlier and is now scrambling to find a solution and who is paying yet again, the taxpayer.

      Once again proving neither the politicians nor civil servants are fit for purpose.

    3. glen cullen
      September 20, 2021

      +1

    4. Wil Pretty
      September 20, 2021

      What did our Leader mean when he said we should become the Saudi Arabia of Wind?
      It would take decades of major investment in wind arrays to double our wind generation capability.
      Were we to succeed, we would destabilise our Grid as wind turbines are intermittent and cannot restart a grid that has gone down ( as they do sometimes) as they lack generation inertia.
      Germany has discovered this when they increased their wind generation.
      Saudi Arabia output of oil and gas amounts to 130 times the current UK wind output.
      One can only draw the conclusion that his words are propaganda intended only to mislead those foolish enough to listen to him.

      1. MiC
        September 21, 2021

        Remember Dire Straits, The Sultans Of Swing?

        Maybe it was something like that?

    5. NickC
      September 20, 2021

      Lifelogic, An excellent overview. Whether the government – and its supporters on here like Andy and Martin – will take any notice is doubtful. They are obsessed with CAGW; it’s a substitute religion – a mantra to clutch frantically in an uncertain world.

      1. Lifelogic
        September 20, 2021

        +1

      2. MiC
        September 21, 2021

        A “religion”, claims a Brexitian fundamentalist.

    6. Lifelogic
      September 20, 2021

      Some good news Professor Stephen J Toope is finally to resign as Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University. Not alas for another 12 months.

      Let us hope he has no say in his replacement and we get some one sensible this time. He had done appalling & profound damage to the University – no more funds from me until I see a sensible replacement and an about-turn in policy.

      1. Glenn
        September 20, 2021

        What are the odds on his successor being Chinese?

    7. DavidJ
      September 20, 2021

      +1

  4. Sea_Warrior
    September 20, 2021

    Quite an achievement, Sir John – not mentioning either fracking or nuclear power. The next time one of your party’s utterly useless ministers talks about ‘diversity’ it had better be in connection with a resilient energy supply. The only good news on R5L this morning was the absence of the Swedish pixie offering an explanation for the crisis.

    1. Timaction
      September 20, 2021

      …………like we’re surprised at their utter incompetence!!! Former conservative Party now socialist green fools.

    2. X-Tory
      September 20, 2021

      I suspect that the reason neither fracking nor nuclear energy (both of which I strongly support) were not mentioned is because they will both take some years to come on line, but the crisis we face is immediate and needs quick solutions – which is what were discussed.

      Incidentally, SMRs are without doubt the medium-term solution to our electricity shortage (until nuclear fusion is developed). RR could have the first of their SMRs on line by 2025 if the government pumped sufficient money in, but because they want ‘the market’ to fund them it will take longer and we will probably not see these until 2030. As for fracking, this will have a much smaller role to play, as there is some doubt as to how much gas is readily available. It will be part of our energy mix, but we should not have excessive expectations of it.

      1. Jeremy Zeid
        September 20, 2021

        Perhaps instead of pouring over ÂŁ100 billion into the now proven white elephant that is HS2, it was put into building and securing energy storage, getting fracking and funding those Rolls-Royce SMRs, we could secure the UK and avoid the inevitable blackouts and high costs that will destroy huge swathes of the economy while driving millions into fuel poverty.

  5. Lifelogic
    September 20, 2021

    An idiotic article my Matt Hancock in the Mail on Sunday yesterday.

    “In all my time in public life, I have never come across a group so blinkered and dangerous as anti-vaxxers” he says.

    Well I would have thought the “Independent” Committee on Climate Change (and the many climate alarmists like the BBC and all those idiotic MPs who voted for Miliband’s absurd Climate Change Act or supported Net Zero) are far, far more dangerous and blinkered.

    As are the supporters of huge Sunak/Boris tax increases that will damage the recovery, destroy jobs, investment and businesses, reduce the tax base and raise less tax. Also the people (like Hancock) who thinks rationed, state monopoly, communist, NHS, health care is just great.

    In his full page article 0f waffle he fails to point out that for some people (such as many people who have already had Covid or youngish people) taking the vaccine is rather more or even much more dangerous than not doing so. For some (older men like myself for example) vaccines make sense, for a 20 year old female who has had Covid already (like my daughter) certainly not. Especially as we do not know the long term risks. Her vaccine should surely go elsewhere to older people where it will do net good.

    Grow up Hancock and get numerate, it is far from black and white! Vaccines can be very good and very bad too! This the man who did not even adjust for gender risk (by age) in the vaccine roll out as the numbers indicated he and JCVI certainly should have done.

    1. Everhopeful
      September 20, 2021

      ++++1
      It is pretty dangerous to withdraw all healthcare I reckon!
      Not to mention what happened in Care Homes.
      Does he really think people will FORGET or FORGIVE?
      Fancy him sticking his head above the parapet.
      No shame!!

      1. Lifelogic
        September 20, 2021

        Indeed and only a tiny proportion of people who died from Covid in the UK actually received any intensive care treatment at all. Still births up 88% in the first lockdown also reported. I assume similarly grim figures with many other conditions alas.

        Still some good news all cause deaths this year (adjusted for age and population England and Wales) are only about 4% up on the pre covid 2015 to 2019 average. Well within the normal range and below the rates of very many years over the last 40 years or so. This despite the appalling NHS failures, closures and healthcare rationing.

        A 4% higher risk of dying this year is really nothing at all to concern us nor the government. It is only about the same increase as if you had been born 5 months earlier and were that tiny bit older.

        The economic damage this government have and still are inflicting on us is serious, as are their idiotic tax increases and other non “solutions”.

        1. Everhopeful
          September 20, 2021

          +1

      2. Timaction
        September 20, 2021

        No contrition, remorse or shame for his behaviour. An utter fool.

  6. DOM
    September 20, 2021

    Johnson’s a captured leader in a captured party with MPs who look to their careers. He’s allowed himself to be captured by an Marxist driven ideology and the people who have to absorb the consequences of his stupidity and complicity will pay the price, as always. They’ll pay higher prices in many ways not just higher energy prices

    And please, can we have less of the deceitful Marxist crap about ‘Build Back Better’ and ‘Levelling up’? You don’t believe it so please stop referring to it. It’s infantile and immature

    Reply I refer to it because it is government policy

    1. Everhopeful
      September 20, 2021

      Exactly!
      Johnson looks ill and terrified to me.
      And what happened to the health kick?
      It must be awkward to have such deep ties with journalism maybe?

      Agree re BBB and bloody “Levelling”. Globalist for “Open your mouthy..here comes the choo choo.”

    2. Oldtimer
      September 20, 2021

      Reply to reply: should we conclude that you too think that government policy “is infantile and immature”?

      Reply Not the words I have used. I have set out my criticisms of government policy here in my own words.

      1. Otto
        September 20, 2021

        Reply to the Reply Not the words I have used. If those words are not correct then say so, if you think they are correct then have the guts to say so. You are a Mr Weasel Words probably ‘cos you are frightened of blow back.

    3. Jim Whitehead
      September 20, 2021

      DOM, +1, emphatically!
      As for the reply, I’m seriously underwhelmed.

    4. Christine
      September 20, 2021

      Levelling up is a misnomer. For some people to move up others have to move down. This is all part of the Marxist agenda. Soon it won’t be worth working as the freebies for the unemployed and our hundreds of thousands of unwanted guests will be worth more than ordinary working people can afford.

    5. acorn
      September 20, 2021

      Naomi Klein wrote in “The Shock Doctrine”, that neoliberalism uses crises to impose unpopular policies while people are distracted: for example, in the aftermath of Pinochet’s coup, the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina, which Friedman described as “an opportunity to radically reform the educational system” in New Orleans. Covid trumped all of those.

    6. Timaction
      September 20, 2021

      And a wrong policy so stop supporting it!

  7. Everhopeful
    September 20, 2021

    Last night I had a strange dream.
    I dreamed of a black, shiny rock that was being dug out of our very own ground.
    It was most peculiar because when burned, this substance gave off a huge amount of heat.
    In my dream people were so grateful for this bounty of nature
so happy for their good fortune.
    In the face of the approaching stark, cold nightmare 
if only my dream were true!

    1. Andy
      September 20, 2021

      And then the burning black stuff poisoned the air, warmed up the world, led to millions of deaths and hundreds of millions of climate change refugees – many of whom came to live in your town.

      Oh look. Your dream is coming true.

      1. Everhopeful
        September 20, 2021

        There, there Andy. Calm down.
        That’s just your silly nightmare!
        Stop eating cheese before bedtime and have a nice milky drink!
        Oh
and don’t read left-wing newspapers.
        All that disinformation!đŸ‘»

      2. IanT
        September 20, 2021

        Well the total UK power consumption in 2020 was about 330 Gigawatts Andy – and we are now about 1% of global carbon emissions, although of course we have simply exported them elsewhere (together with the jobs) by importing so much that we used to make ourselves.

        In 2020 China built 38.4 Gigawatts of NEW coal-fired power stations (so over 10% of our total power consumption in one year) making a complete mockery of anything we might do to impact this situation. So it will be interesting to see how the political classes explain this to the voters when the lights go out and the heating fails (and they can’t charge their cars either).

        My conclusion is that the fate of the world is in the hands of others, so rather than faff around posturing we would be much better off trying to protect ourselves from the worst impacts of flood and drought – whilst also doing everything we can to be food and energy self-sufficient.

        So let’s have less talk of being a Lighthouse for the World (e.g. trying to lead it/set examples etc) and much more effort making sure we have a Lifeboat when we need it – because the people who might really make a difference really don’t give a damn (and there are no Extinction Rebellion protesters at the Chinese Embassy glued to the doors and burning their iPhones that I’m aware of).

      3. Bill B,
        September 20, 2021

        Well, Andy, we’d better get the Chinese to stop it, then. Any ideas about how we do that?

        Oh yes, of course – set a good example, I remember. Cripple our own economy and living standards, then the Chinese, Indians etc. will see the error of their ways. Because they’ll want to do the same as us, won’t they?

        Good luck with that.

      4. Fedupsoutherner
        September 20, 2021

        Andy. There, there. Get mummy to soothe your furrowed brow and give teddy a big kiss. It will be fine in the morning.

      5. NickC
        September 20, 2021

        Would you like to cite the evidence that burning coal has – on balance – led to “millions of deaths and hundreds of millions of climate change refugees”, Andy? The reality, of course, is precisely the opposite. But then you’re a Remain.

    2. glen cullen
      September 20, 2021

      Hope your dreams come true

      1. Everhopeful
        September 20, 2021

        +1

    3. Timaction
      September 20, 2021

      Indeed. Let’s import it from elsewhere at higher prices pretending we’re not whilst letting our generating capacity to be subject of blackmail from our historical enemies. Totally useless politicos. I wouldn’t pay them in washers.

  8. Javelin
    September 20, 2021

    It appears the Conservative party have gone to war with the British voter because they are not green enough or woke enough.

    1. Andy
      September 20, 2021

      On the contrary. If we were actually green then gas shortages would be irrelevant.

      And the Conservative Party has long since been at war with the 58% of voters who do not vote for them.

      1. Micky Taking
        September 20, 2021

        PARDON? – It feels more like Johnson is at war with the people who elected him!

        1. glen cullen
          September 20, 2021

          Only since the election

      2. Mark
        September 20, 2021

        If wewete as green as you want we would be spared your comments for lack of power for the Internet.

      3. NickC
        September 20, 2021

        Are you attempting to pretend that your policies would be in the majority, Andy? It is very often the case – here or elsewhere – that the government does not have a majority. That’s why referendums are so necessary. But then you don’t like referendums either.

        And if we were – your undefined – “green”, what would you use for a month long low wind environment as back-up – unicorn dust? Otherwise we would have regular “Andy” blackouts. And when your – minority – policy was criticised, is it jail for your critics as you have advocated jail for Leaves? Kim Jong-Andy, eh?

      4. Lifelogic
        September 20, 2021

        The Conservatives are currently mainly at war with Conservative voters actually. This as Boris blatantly ratted on his “read my lips” tax promises and the triple lock. He prefers to piss the money down the drain on HS2, the net zero religion, worthless degrees, the duff NHS, loackdowns, test and trace and a huge state. But he will not get the money anyway as the higher tax rates will just strangle the economy.

      5. MiC
        September 21, 2021

        Perhaps not Andy, if most of the essential hydrogen were coming from methane pyrolysis, say.

    2. DOM
      September 20, 2021

      Absolutely. Mr Redwood can cluck all he likes but he knows that the party he belongs to and represents is a cancer in our nation thanks to its leaders pandering to the fascist left and their extremist ideology that has come to dominate our every day, and yes it is extremist

      Race politics is MARXIST
      Green politics is MARXIST
      Gender politics is MARXIST
      Diversity politics IS MARXIST

      And the Tory party continue to embrace it simply because it’s too much effort to confront it

      1. Lifelogic
        September 20, 2021

        Much truth in this alas.

      2. glen cullen
        September 20, 2021

        +1

        1. glen cullen
          September 20, 2021

          Virtue politics is MARXIST

      3. Jim Whitehead
        September 20, 2021

        +1

      4. Timaction
        September 20, 2021

        +1

      5. DavidJ
        September 20, 2021

        +1

      6. Original Richard
        September 20, 2021

        DOM,

        I agree except to say that the fascist left are pandered by many of our leaders not because it’s too much effort to confront them but because the rich and powerful believe they are able to make themselves even more wealthy and powerful in times of instability, shortages and forced changes.

      7. Otto
        September 20, 2021

        DOM -I see Mr Redwood doesn’t disagree with that but too frightened to admit it.

    3. Everhopeful
      September 20, 2021

      +1

    4. Shirley M
      September 20, 2021

      Agreed, Javelin. Successive governments force us to accept mass immigration which reduces our ability to be self sufficient, and will eventually remove the potential to ever be self sufficient. It is almost as if we are on a deliberate path to self destruction. It will certainly increase poverty and lower the standards of living for the majority while the wealthy will still enjoy all their pleasures and privileges.

    5. Iain Moore
      September 20, 2021

      Wasn’t the Conservative party slogan ‘vote green go blue’ …or have I got that muddled up.

  9. Javelin
    September 20, 2021

    I stumbled across an article in the motoring press today that said the Government were stopping the requirement to have a license to drive a caravan. Freeing up 30,000 tests a year for HGV drivers who need a test every 5 years. But I don’t see this change of policy in any online newspaper.

    1. Javelin
      September 20, 2021

      It doesn’t appear to have made it to the UK Gov website but the change in policy is at the website uk.motor1.com/news

      “17 September 2021 at 08:00
      By: James Fossdyke
      The government has announced it will scrap towing tests for drivers as it struggles to deal with the ongoing lorry driver shortage. By doing away with the tests, which assessed drivers’ competence with a trailer or caravan, the Department for Transport (DfT) hopes to free up 30,000 HGV test slots every year.“

    2. MiC
      September 20, 2021

      It is not lack of licensees which is the main haulage problem.

      It is that – as in many sectors – the conditions to which employees are subjected are so grinding and demeaning that they will rather do something else if they can.

      That is the result of decades of Tory anti-union and anti-employee law.

      You get for what you vote.

      Reply Conservatives are pro improved conditions. They did not improve enough under Labour I seem to remember

      1. MiC
        September 20, 2021

        Yes, John, I think that New Labour were far too timid about reversing some of the anti-union laws brought in by the Thatcher governments.

        1. Peter2
          September 20, 2021

          Like secret ballots before strikes and no secondary picketing.
          Are those things you want reversing MiC?

      2. Mike Wilson
        September 20, 2021

        It is not lack of licensees which is the main haulage problem.

        Is there anything you are not an expert on? I will admit I know nothing about the haulage industry as I don’t work on it. Do you? Or are just regurgitating nonsense you read in The Guardian?

        1. MiC
          September 20, 2021

          You’re as capable of reading what the RHA etc. say in the FT as I am or anyone else.

          Maybe I should be more sceptical than I already am, but their information seems to be well-provenenced.

      3. Micky Taking
        September 20, 2021

        what about the drivers who had to go home, and stay home? You know Eastern European men who had no future work nor income in the immediate countries? Oh I suppose there is ample work in the EU? NO? Oh Dear.

        1. MiC
          September 20, 2021

          Yes, brexit threw into sharp focus a problem which as been brewing in this country for some years.

      4. glen cullen
        September 20, 2021

        This government set the conditions for the HGV sector to be over-run by foreign drivers bringing down standards and employment conditions across the board

      5. alan jutson
        September 20, 2021

        Mic

        Market forces at work, hours, pay and conditions, not enough for the responsibility they now have to undertake.
        It’s not just driving with all of those frustrations and hold ups, it’s knowing how to load up, secure and distribute the load which is equally important.

        1. MiC
          September 21, 2021

          Quite.

      6. GilesB
        September 20, 2021

        The vast growth of online shopping has created equally vast demand for local delivery drivers.

        Quite understandably, drivers would rather do a nine to five job around their local area and get home to their own bed every night than be away for three to seven days at a stretch, sleep in the cab, and for international haulage deal with hundreds of pages of documents, and queue boringly at ferry ports for hours/days. Wouldn’t you?

        The local jobs didn’t use to exit in anything like the same numbers as they do today.

      7. Hat man
        September 20, 2021

        MiC’s point is surely a valid one. As living conditions and prospects improved in E. European countries in recent years, working back home looked a better option for many Poles etc. than the existence of a lorry driver in Britain. That’s a fact that anyone who ever talks to E. Europeans will know. It’s not the whole explanation, but it is a key part of the problem. Of course, the way the DVLA slammed the brakes on new driver testing for over a year “because of Covid” is another big part of it.

      8. Hat man
        September 20, 2021

        MiC’s point is surely a valid one. As living conditions and prospects improved in E. European countries in recent years, working back home looked a better option for many Poles etc. than the existence of a lorry driver in Britain. That’s a fact that anyone who ever talks to E. Europeans will know. It’s not the whole explanation, but it is a key part of the problem. Of course, the way the DVLA slammed the brakes on new driver testing for over a year “because of Covid” is another big part of it.

      9. a-tracy
        September 20, 2021

        MiC don’t be ridiculous, driving conditions for employed drivers are fantastic, it is the self-employed and often foreign drivers that break the hours regulations that are in place, sleep overnight in lay-bys and on business estates because they don’t get the overnight allowance that British drivers get for overnights. Do you actually know all the rules and regulations of the British Haulage industry Martin? And the UK domestic driving hours rules?

        1. MiC
          September 21, 2021

          You’re in haulage management, right, Tracy?

          1. a-tracy
            September 22, 2021

            Not any more but I used to be Martin, 20 years, plenty of pals and partners who do work in it.

          2. a-tracy
            September 22, 2021

            Now your turn Martin, what are your haulage management qualifications that allow you to comment on it so profusely? By the by, I do have level 5 operational management qualifications.

      10. NickC
        September 20, 2021

        Martin says: “the conditions to which employees are subjected are so grinding and demeaning”. What, even under the EU employment law which you praised? Moreover the unions did far more to damage British industry in the C20th than any government did. You see, they only wanted political power for themselves, not to help the “cannon fodder” employees.

        1. MiC
          September 20, 2021

          Employment law, apart from that dictated by H&S, is an entirely sovereign matter for the member state, and always was, old chap.

          There is no such thing as European Employment law.

          Had there been, then I reckon that virtually no working people would have voted Leave in a million years.

          1. a-tracy
            September 20, 2021

            Martin – The Working Time Regulations (1998) implement the European Working Time Directive into GB law. The Regulations were amended, with effect from 1 August 2003, to extend working time measures in full to all non-mobile workers in road, sea, inland waterways and lake transport, to all workers in the railway and offshore sectors.

          2. Peter2
            September 20, 2021

            Wrong
            ThecSocial chapter was an EU treaty obligation.

          3. dixie
            September 21, 2021

            Twisting yet again … have you not heard of the “European Working Time Directive”?
            There is European Labour Law which defines “your” rights and obligations as workers and employers covering 2 main areas:
            – working conditions – working hours, part-time & fixed-term work, posting of workers,
            – informing & consulting workers about collective redundancies, transfers of companies, etc.

            In accordance with the Treaty – particularly Article 153 – EU members adopt and enforce laws (directives) dictated directed by the EU.

          4. MiC
            September 21, 2021

            WTD is H&S law, Tracy.

          5. a-tracy
            September 21, 2021

            I know it is Martin, incorporating European WTD into British Law, the Tories got an opt-out Blair signed us up to it.

            Companies (many large foreign-owned businesses) that used to employ people on poor terms simply made them all self-employed and still work around the regulations whilst their competitors that struggled on with employee models lost turnover and staff as their prices had to rise.

          6. MiC
            September 21, 2021

            Yes, Tracy, because UK sovereign employment law *allows them to do that*.

            It is different in other countries.

          7. hefner
            September 21, 2021

            Not quite true P2, PM Major secured an opt-out from the Social Chapter in 1992 before the Maastricht treaty became effective (so it was not, as you say, a EU treaty obligation). When Labour came to power in 1997, PM Blair opted out of this opt-out within the Treaty of Amsterdam.
            I have already asked you many times: do you ever check anything before you go on rambling on the EU. You really do not have any excuse as all EU treaties ever signed are available for anybody wanting to check.

          8. Peter2
            September 22, 2021

            The opt outs were not total
            EU legislation in this area developed into the UK via directives, rules and regulations.
            As others above have said.
            Try again heffy

      11. Lifelogic
        September 20, 2021

        This is the exact opposite of how it works. The more employment laws and protections you give the work force the most cost you lump on employers. So the fewer people the companies can afford to employ leading to less competition for workers and thus lower wages. The way to get better working conditions is the availability of lots of jobs you can take up if you dislike you current one. Same with housing provision too.

      12. Addanc Monster
        September 20, 2021

        Don’t forget the IR35 element, didn’t it result in a number of self-employed drivers retiring. Politicians and unintended consequences.

        1. Lifelogic
          September 20, 2021

          +1

  10. Bob Dixon
    September 20, 2021

    Have we got out pants below our knees.?

  11. Bill B.
    September 20, 2021

    What should Kwasi Kwarteng do? He should explain why he isn’t going to follow any of the policies you suggest, preferring instead for Britain to ‘go further and faster than any other major economy to achieve a completely carbon neutral future’, as he said in April. He should explain why he rooted for Agenda 2050 to become Agenda 2035, bringing in green hell 15 years earlier than proposed in the Conservative manifesto. He should tell his constituents just how much it is going to cost them, so they can judge at the next election whether they want this man in power.

    1. glen cullen
      September 20, 2021

      Bananas

      1. glen cullen
        September 20, 2021

        the situation not your comment

    2. Lifelogic
      September 20, 2021

      Except at the next election the only real alternative will be Labour/SNP who are even more insane on net zero and climate alarmism. Kwasi is one of the brighter and sounder MPs too. So is he lying or is he just totally ignorant on climate, energy engineering, CO2 and energy economics. Or does he just thing he has to go along with this totally insane group think?

    3. DavidJ
      September 20, 2021

      +1

  12. Alan Holmes
    September 20, 2021

    Your government’s obsession with the green aganda will ensure power shortages, huge cost increases and the decimation of any industry not already killed off in the last 18 months.
    Ridiculous plans for biomass- which will almost certainly be imported and not in any way good for the environment- are simply a money making scam for Tory donors- like most policies we are saddled with.

    1. Christine
      September 20, 2021

      I think you have hit the nail on the head. These climate change policies are only about putting more money in the pockets of rich party donors and landowners. It’s the biggest scam in history.

      Wait until energy rationing is introduced managed through peoples’ smart meters. The public will not support climate change once it impacts them directly.

    2. glen cullen
      September 20, 2021

      Does Alok Sharma MP (President COP26) realise that without the highest polluting countries like China and India not attending COP26 that the conference is meaningless
      It only leaves unelected delegates in the pay or receipt of funds from governments and universities with interests in promoting climate change, to agree policy of the green revolution on everyone else
      We need cheap energy not a green virtue revolution
you know, like what they have in china

    3. DavidJ
      September 20, 2021

      +1

  13. Oldwulf
    September 20, 2021

    Politically, I suspect that the Government needed a crisis such as this in order to gain public and Parliamentary support for the changes which need to be made to our energy policy.

  14. Dave Andrews
    September 20, 2021

    It would help if homeowners didn’t have to pay the heating bills of the illegal immigrants, as well as their own.

  15. Oldtimer
    September 20, 2021

    The West has dug itself into a hole over its energy policy. Why should a developing country abandon proven, efficient fossil fuels (on which the West’s prosperity was based) for unproven, hugely expensive alternatives at the behest of the West and which will only be available at great cost? There is no good reason at all. That is why countries like China and India will continue to promote their own growth using efficient fossil fuels. They have a pollution problem but that is a problem with solutions. The West, and Johnson, just look silly trying to persuade them otherwise.

    1. glen cullen
      September 20, 2021

      Spot On

  16. Bryan Harris
    September 20, 2021

    Well said — but this government doesn’t not have the courage or initiative to roll back Net-zero.

    With energy shortages already causing factories to close, affecting the food chain and other aspects of normal life, I fear we are in for a very cold winter.

    Mr Kwarteng, how many people are expected to die this year due to cold conditions, too expensive energy, or simply no money to pay to keep themselves warm?
    What do your psychologists say is a reasonable number if no solutions are forthcoming?

    1. glen cullen
      September 20, 2021

      Mr Kwarteng keeps saying the ‘supply’ is save, but never talks about energy bills going up ten-fold

    2. Iain Moore
      September 20, 2021

      We have the problem that Johnson is at the UN today trying to save his COP26 greenery summit, so there is a chance he will load further obligations and costs onto us.

    3. Ian Wragg
      September 20, 2021

      Ask SAGE no doubt in this case there would underestimate by a factor of 10.
      The Tories have been in power for almost 12 years so they own this problem there is no where to hide.
      This entirely predictable situation which any GCSE school kid could have predicted is unseen by our arts graduate politicians.
      No doubt Carrie is happy that fertiliser plants ate shutting down and reducing CO2.
      Oh wait, we need CO2 for a variety of reasons, Greta never mentioned that.

  17. Sakara Gold
    September 20, 2021

    An excellent post from Sir John. The climate change deniers that habitually post “greencrap” propaganda here should observe that it is the fossil fuel fuel industry that has forced these price rises upon us.

    Rolls Royce have a nuclear design ready with their SMR. RR are the country’s largest employer of nuclear engineers and with ARUP, Laing O’Rourke, McAlpine, Nuvia and Wood Group have a successful track record of delivering large-scale, complex engineering and infrastructure programmes on time and on budget.

    We should look closely at swiftly building a fleet of our own nuclear power plants. Proven, safe and reliable large-scale Light Water Reactors are currently available and are suitable for baseload electricity generation.

    By far the most cost effective large scale energy storage solutions are in physical storage such as compressed liquid air and large-mass pumped storage. For the future, hydrogen electrolysis is idealy suited to wind power where you need a permanent load. That makes surplus energy from wind an ideal companion for green hydrogen.

    1. glen cullen
      September 20, 2021

      Mr Kwarteng said in the House today that it would take 10 years to adopt Rolls Royce nuclear SMR, he failed to tell the House how long the tories have been in government

    2. Mark
      September 20, 2021

      Hydrogen from electrolysis powered by wind is an absurdly expensive route to manufacture it. It is intermittent, meaning that the electrolysis capacity will remain unutilised for much of the time, and it will never make sense to use the occasional periods of higher wind output fully. It’s simply a green pipedream that arises because finally there is some recognition that wind cannot provide sufficiently reliable output.

      1. Sakara Gold
        September 20, 2021

        @Mark
        Once again in your pathetic knee jerk efforts to knock any green solution to the climate emergency that we are faced with, you are mistaken in your assertions. The most absurdly expensive way to produce hydrogen is the fossil fuel scam known as blue hydrogen, promoted precisely because green hydrogen produced by renewable energy is by far the cheapest . The amount of electricity being produced by UK wind turbines is absolutely phenomenal and once utility scale storage systems are in place – and they are coming – the problem of the intermittent nature of renewable energy will disappear like your “greencrap” arguments

        1. Mark
          September 21, 2021

          You have included a description of the value of your comment within it. The economics of green hydrogen are utterly absurd, coming in at 10 times normal methane prices. Figures backed by analysis by industry consultant Timera.

    3. Peter2
      September 20, 2021

      Greens are anti nuclear.

      1. hefner
        September 21, 2021

        P2, Are they all? Greens for Nuclear Energy (greensfornuclear.energy) do not look to fall into your description. Neither are the members of the Finnish Green Party. James Hansen (the CO2 guy) is not, and the US Union of Concerned Scientists (uscusa.org) including some ‘green’ scientists is much more balanced in their views than your four-word statement.
        (‘Union of Concerned Scientists: Nuclear Power’).
        Did you do a teeny weeny bit of research before writing or are you as usual shooting your deep ignorance from the hip?

        1. Peter2
          September 21, 2021

          Yes they are heffy.
          Apart from a very few groups and one or two notable individuals who amount to a tiny percentage of the general hatred of nuclear power by the green movement that you have found on the internet.
          Called splitters by their lefty fellow environmentalists.
          I bet Greta isn’t pro nuclear

  18. SM
    September 20, 2021

    What Mr Kwarteng should do is read your concise post this morning and act upon it. Sadly, he won’t.

    Yesterday, I read – via Bloomberg – a precis of a report from the Economic Co-operation & Development organisation: developed countries made almost no progress towards their goal of providing $100 BILLION a YEAR to help poor countries tackle climate change. ‘”The data threatens to undermine the UN climate change conference that starts in Glasgow on 1 November”. “There is no excuse: delivering on the $100bn goal shows clearly how much further there is to go” said Alok Sharma. John Kerry, US climate envoy, assured India that it would get help in mobilising funds to step up its efforts. More than 70 countries, including China and India, have failed to come with more ambitious emissions targets for 2030.’

    So, senior politicians across the First World think that giving vast wealth to the utterly corrupt and malign governments of the Third World in order to (possibly, maybe, but pretty unlikely) change the climate of a complete planet is a really good idea?

    Words fail me … not something that happens very frequently!

    1. NotA#
      September 20, 2021

      @SM – unfortunately with all the best intentions, money as any sort of aid is just a headline. Aid gets consumed for alternative perposes and middle men

  19. Roy Grainger
    September 20, 2021

    Why should he do anything ? This is the government’s policy isn’t it ? Penalise the cost of fossil fuels so that people use less and they meet their net zero target. This is exactly what they want – they’ve told us this repeatedly.

    1. glen cullen
      September 20, 2021

      ”they’ve told us this repeatedly” AFTER THE ELECTION

    2. Fedupsoutherner
      September 20, 2021

      Roy. Just like driving. It’s being reported again today in the Daily Mail that we are going to have to pay per Mike to drive with the first 3k miles free. Big deal. It will price many off the road and make sure people find it difficult to keep in touch with distant friends and family.

      1. glen cullen
        September 20, 2021

        That will also require a box fitted to every car….big brother

  20. Mike Wilson
    September 20, 2021

    He needs to review price controls. They cannot protect customers from major increases in the world price of oil and gas

    It’s difficult to read comments like this. We wouldn’t have to consider WORLD prices if we used OUR OWN oil and gas! Global Britain!!

    As for price controls – of course they can protect consumers! The government will have to subsidise the price of oil and gas. Stop sending money abroad! Stop immigration! Stop HS2! Stockpile coal and keep the power stations open until you have sorted your insane mess out.

    Can’t your government do anything right?

    If you think Extinction Rebellion are a problem, you wait until people are living in unheated homes for weeks at a time.

    I wonder if you have any idea how bloody angry people are going to get when we are plunged back into the 1960s and 1970s and are sitting, wrapped in blankets, shivering in our homes.

    1. SM
      September 20, 2021

      But Mike, as global warming is allegedly happening right now, surely we won’t need blankets and fires and insulation as everywhere is going to be so much hotter?

    2. NotA#
      September 20, 2021

      @Mike Wilson – can’t they remember anything! The UK has not seen a credible leader in the last generation or so

  21. Narrow Shoulders
    September 20, 2021

    He could remove the VAT on our energy bills for a start.

    1. Narrow Shoulders
      September 20, 2021

      Then he can remove the price cap so that those of us who do shop around are not subsiding those who don’t

    2. glen cullen
      September 20, 2021

      …and the environmemntal levy etc

  22. Beecee
    September 20, 2021

    A major energy wake-up call for the Government!

    But I fear the the green obsessed Ship of State will sleep-walk serenely on regardless.

  23. Richard1
    September 20, 2021

    The key point is the energy market is now so rigged by tax regulation and subsidy – which it wasn’t when it was first privatised. mr Kwarteng is going to have to go to the heart of the problem and start to restore market pricing.

    It would be good if he could spend a few days undisturbed to understand the actual numbers: how much of energy consumption is accounted for by electricity (20%), how much of that comes from ‘renewables’ (about 40%), how much more generation do we need to electrify the whole economy bar such things as jumbo jets which will never able to be powered by electricity (3-5x). How might we get to such a level of electricity generation whilst minimising CO2 emissions (nuclear and natural gas). Etc

  24. Vernon Wright
    September 20, 2021

    Given the policies of this crypto-socialist P.M. and his family — his wife and father are actually running the government — you all might as well have voted Labour.

    Even after the Chinese Socialist Party allowed the escape of its biological-warfare agent — deliberately, carelessly or just accidentally (we’ll never know which and it hardly matters) — the anthropogenic-climate-change fraud is still the largest problem facing humanity … and ALL the World’s governments, how ever they describe themselves, are in it together.

    ΠΞ

    1. DavidJ
      September 20, 2021

      +1

  25. Mike Wilson
    September 20, 2021

    When I refurbished the property I bought a couple of years ago, I thought I’d do the right thing and not put in a log burner. I will be rectifying that now.

    1. Micky Taking
      September 20, 2021

      but replacing with what? Gas boiler – really? Electricity – so get cold as well as in the dark!

    2. Original Richard
      September 20, 2021

      Mike Wilson :

      A good idea to put in a wood burner except that the government will move to ban them when the situation gets worse.

      Just as they will ban the use of home generators when they start to ration electricity.

      1. Fedupsoutherner
        September 20, 2021

        O Richard. We’ll all be stuck at home, freezing cold, vegans. Oh boy, is that something to look forward to?

      2. Mike Wilson
        September 20, 2021

        A good idea to put in a wood burner except that the government will move to ban them when the situation gets worse.

        I am a law abiding chap. Until they send someone round on a freezing day when my central heating doesn’t work due to gas or electricity shortages and I have my log burner on. There are not enough coppers in the world to go around checking whether people have their log burners on. Or open fires. Or butane driven fires.

  26. Burning injustice
    September 20, 2021

    “The energy market is so rigged by regulation, tax and subsidy it will take government interventions to sort out the current shortages.” A better way of putting it might be ‘government needs to reverse all the perverse interventions it has made in the past decade and more’.
    Overall I agree with your analysis, but the emphasis must be on energy investments that deliver cheap and reliable energy in meaningful quantities. Not convinced biomass fits the bill here.

    1. Lifelogic
      September 20, 2021

      +1

  27. Iain Moore
    September 20, 2021

    Politicians obsession with their fashionable greenery has resulted in them neglecting their job of ensuring the necessities of life are available.

  28. agricola
    September 20, 2021

    Well most of us have been warning you for a long long time, but few of you were listening , seduced by the politics of virtue signalling and seduction by the sirens of the green opportunists and fanatics. In terms of UK energy the politicians have confirmed that they are not fit for purpose, in fact they have quite deliberately led us into a cul de sac of power deprivation. We do not even control much of the power we use and we are vulnerable to those who would wish us harm. As usual it is the general public who are the victims in waiting for this supreme act of self harm, they are expected to pick up the tab. The Greens, the anarchists of ER and the Nimbies have no viable solutions only protest as a way of life. They are of equal danger as any fifth columnist of yore. Government needs to ignore the vocal minority, in fact inconvenience them with prejudice, and sort the problem for the benefit of the majority.

    1. agricola
      September 20, 2021

      As an adendum to current insanity it is reported that we are short of CO2, yes CO2. Apparently the food and drinks industry are suffering a shortage of it when the virtue signallers are desperate to eliminate it. Cue Richard Littlejohn, you could not believe it.

  29. glen cullen
    September 20, 2021

    Talk of energy supply issues and rising consumer prises, taxes rising, petrol pump prices rising, high street in difficulty and small businesses closing and where’s our PM
at the UN urging people to plant trees and demanding that taxpayers to give more money to poor dictators
    ‘’The energy market is so rigged by regulation, tax and subsidy’’ what ever happened to conservative market forces
    I’ve used zero gas this past quarter and yet my domestic bill is still in the hundreds due to standing charges, VAT and environment levy
not looking forward to the winter bills

    1. SM
      September 20, 2021

      +1

  30. J Bush
    September 20, 2021

    “He should work with the Agriculture department to deliver more UK wood and plant material for biomass”

    Why not use our own coal, which is dead trees and vegetation, whereas biomass is live trees and vegetation?

    The UK is a small finite land mass, with an ever growing population and subsequently and ever increasing need of land for housing.

    All this achieves is that even more food will need to be imported, instead of biomass. Sorry, but I have lost the logic on this. Unless of course the Government is planning, despite the mass uncontrolled immigration, to reduce the UK population…

  31. Everhopeful
    September 20, 2021

    It seems to me that we are being nobbled, hobbled, hijacked.
    Our clever, innovative people are having their businesses taken away from them.
    We will no longer have the tools of self sufficiency and industry.

    Sports Day
a small lad winning the 100 yards
STOPS to let his friend catch up. “Friend” shoots on to win!

    That is what our government is doing ON OUR BEHALF!

  32. majorfrustration
    September 20, 2021

    How did we get into this position and what else has been overlooked?

  33. Newmania
    September 20, 2021

    More shortages ,drivers , food , skills in general . I wonder if we might not be better if seeing if we can these new submarines made in China ?

    On the EU army ( to revisit the last post. ) A European military capability has been discussed
    since the 60s. It was no closer to being a reality at the time of the referendum, and for the Brexit side to claim it was a “plan” is a bit like telling my employers I planned to play for Arsenal . I did …when I was about 10. Still like the idea.
    Same with the accession of Turkey and the millions of Syrians flooding our way , same thing for most Brexit propaganda .It was contrived by dredging around mountains of often contradictory documents finding anything that could be mis used as a current reality.
    When I hear the tramp of EU boots I will confess my error naturally

  34. hefner
    September 20, 2021

    Terawatt hours of gas in stockage: (weighted by population)
    Italy 165.8
    Germany 146.5
    France 113.2
    Netherlands 76.1
    Spain 27.8
    UK 8.8

    Also, but slightly O/T on the gie.eu site (Gas Infrastructure Europe):
    ‘Picturing the value of underground gas storage to the European hydrogen system’, June 2021, 54 pp.
    Just to be hoped that the UK will not (again) miss the departure time of the train?

    1. Peter2
      September 20, 2021

      Seems the UK is the most enthusiastic green nation out of the six you have given us.
      Is that good or bad hef?

      1. hefner
        September 21, 2021

        P2, what do you think? Do you need somebody taking you by the hand to help you fire your brain and figure it out by yourself?
        And to save you writing a further comment: if you ask a stupid question, do not be surprised to get a stupid answer.

        1. MiC
          September 21, 2021

          It would appear that the answer to your first question is “yes”.

          1. Peter2
            September 21, 2021

            Carrying on your tendency towards personal abuse at every opportunity MiC
            The caring, cuddly, lovely left in action.

          2. MiC
            September 22, 2021

            Do you never stop your endless victimhood whingeing?

          3. Peter2
            September 22, 2021

            Just stop your personal abuse towards anyone who holds a different political perspective to you and then maybe I will stop my criticisms.

        2. Peter2
          September 21, 2021

          Well dodged hef.
          It was a simple question which causes you to consider your dilemma.
          You support the net zero ambition and are a fervant believer in CAGW and believe the dire predictions made.
          Yet now, suddenly, you are posting complaining we should have greater gas capacity and complain that 6 EU nations have greater gas storage than us.
          Even a stupid answer would be better than your first response.

    2. glen cullen
      September 20, 2021

      thats outrageous

    3. Richard II
      September 20, 2021

      Very interesting, Hefner. I found this quote from May 2019, by a gas energy market analyst of some kind:

      “Gas is much cheaper now than a decade ago and that has considerably weakened the commercial value of storage,” says Ilaria Conti, head of gas programme at the Florence School of Regulation. “Nowadays, with the declining price of gas, that value has fallen and storage sites have even become a financial burden in some cases, forcing some companies to close down unprofitable sites,” she told EURACTIV in an interview.

      So it looks as if our energy companies decided they wouldn’t tie up too much of their assets in storage, because gas was so cheap, even though that would surely have been the time to buy gas and store it up. This looks to me like a crass management failure. This energy crisis can’t be laid at the government’s door.

    4. Mark
      September 20, 2021

      The key point is that limitations on import capacity mean that storage is needed on the continent to cover the cold winter peak demand. Last year at this point they had 1,050TWh in storage. At present it’s just 795TWh which will leave them s hort if the weather is cold and the wind doesn’t blow enough.

      The UK has long relied on the ability of North Sea fields to increase production to meet winter demand, coupled with capacity to import extra LNG. Both these are now less effective than they were.

  35. John Miller
    September 20, 2021

    The whole concept of burning “biomass” – known to we common folk as “Trees”-is deeply flawed. Transporting it by diesel powered ship from halfway across the world is insane.
    Nuclear is the only future. Get a Rolls Royce brochure.

  36. glen cullen
    September 20, 2021

    Est. 60 billion barrels of oil around the Falkland….what will this government do

  37. Nota#
    September 20, 2021

    Like most things the UK Government thinks it ‘should do’ all that does is delay. The only thing necessary for the Government to do is to release UK Industry and Enterprise from their over bearing, over dominating control. Some call it red tape.

    The weird thing with UK Governments, they stifle indigenous enterprise, yet encourage strategic ownership by foreign Governments. How much of the UK’s energy is directly in the hands of the political will of foreign states?

    ‘Insulate Britain’ is campaigning for the Government to do the ‘actual’ insulation of UK properties. That is the properties owned by these terrorists and the private homes etc. That total crap is born from the idea that Government promotes, in the UK it is they(the UK Government) and they alone that does everything – they even conjure up the money. These numpties(terrorists) don’t know how to insulate their own homes, they no longer see it as their personal responsibility, they certainly don’t want to pay for it themselves.

    If the UK Government releases the people of this country from the chains they have them in it will thrive. Things will happen, so-called levelling up will happen from the bottom up and so on.

    1. Nota#
      September 20, 2021

      @Nota# – The Government already takes ÂŁ5,000 from the taxpayer and gives it to those with uninsulated properties. Maybe these numpties are expecting Boris to come round and do the actual installation – An the wonderful UK Police are essentially aiding and abetting terrorist action.

      The UK Government need’s to get a grip, be simply the Government of ALL the People not the controller/lord master of the People

  38. The PrangWizard of England
    September 20, 2021

    Off Topic to some extent. I watched an interview with Ian Duncan Smith on GBNews last evening about China. It was magnificent, from a magnificent and courageous man. He spoke cleanly, strongly and bravely. He is just about the only one who speaks so about China, and tragically we get almost no really clear and decisive talk on any other subject from the other Tory MPs on their subjects, just waffle and a ‘wouldn’t it be nice if’ kind of coverage – never convincing that they would put their heads above the parapet for it.

  39. Martyn G
    September 20, 2021

    So we are now running out of CO2, affecting beer and meat production and hitting hard upon the sainted NHS, at the same working towards national bankruptcy by imposing the insane and impossible ‘net zero’ policies. Does it not strike any politician that manufacturing CO2 to preserve our way of life whilst striving to eliminate it from the atmosphere to achieve net zero is an insane dichotomy?

    1. alan jutson
      September 20, 2021

      Martyn

      +1

      My thoughts exactly, you could not make it up.

      But then they will say manufactured Co2 is good, green, and different to any other Co2 that happens to be around.

    2. MiC
      September 21, 2021

      What a hoot!

      So all the fizzy lager-drinking Leave voters will have a dry time at Tim Martin’s places, whereas the sandals-and-beards real ale LD voters will be just fine in the micropubs.

      Looks like there might be a famine of pork scratchings and greasy meat pies too.

      1. Peter2
        September 21, 2021

        Do you have proof that leave voters drink only fizzy lager MiC?
        Or are you making things up again?

  40. Nota#
    September 20, 2021

    The danger is the Government will as always no think things through. They will jump in with the bribes of ‘taxpayers’ money to subsidies these enteritis. In practice that means the UK taxpayer subsidising the Governments and consumers in the home countries of these enterprises.

    Taxpayer money for the benefit in so-called private companies, should also result in the taxpayer owning shares and having members on the board. Being hard nosed about it companies wanting UK taxpayer funding should be domiciled in the UK and paying tax in the UK

  41. ChrisS
    September 20, 2021

    If wholesale gas prices are going to remain high, as seems likely, our government needs to ensure that every extra cost associated with buying energy is removed. That means an end to the ludicrous climate change levy and VAT on fuel. We need to hold on to every alternative fuel we have available, including coal and gas. Forget more renewables, we are seeing what happens when the wind doesn’t blow
    and later in the autumn, the sun won’t be shining either !

    Turning to the real problem, what is happening now with energy costs is nothing compared with the tsunami of expense that the government is planning on heaping upon consumers in the name of climate change. Labour, the LibDems and the Greens want to go further and even faster. There will be no respite until Boris comes to understand the electoral reality of what he is doing.

    In Glasgow, when China and India, and possibly, the US, overwhelmingly the three largest polluters on the planet, sensibly refuse to sign up to the kind of extreme policies we are following, we will have to make a choice. Carrying on will be a futile gesture, given the minuscule contribution we make to Global Warming, because all we will achieve will be to make our economy ever more uncompetitive and impoverish our citizens for no purpose whatsoever.

    If Boris won’t then reign in the climate change extremists he is following, the public will eventually vote for someone else who will.

  42. Nota#
    September 20, 2021

    Even more amusing, there is a shortage of food being predicted – because there is a shortage of ‘CO2’

    No need to correct me – I just love the irony

  43. rose
    September 20, 2021

    Mr Kwarteng needs as a matter of urgency to get the Chancellor to remove the green levies and to reinstate the triple lock. Then he needs to eat his words on fracking which could level up as well as provide local gas. After that he needs to do all you say to secure a proper domestic energy supply. I would prefer a lot of little Japanese nuclear power stations around the country to one or two big Franco-Chinese ones. When gas and nuclear power have been secured, he can indulge himself with wind mills and solar panels but these must not be made in China with coal fired power. It would be better to concentrate on fusion which has always been twenty years away.

    1. Lifelogic
      September 20, 2021

      fusion really is now less than 15 years away. Much recent progress.

  44. Nordisch geo-climber
    September 20, 2021

    Biomass – forget it!!
    Destroying the Lake District agricultural scenery and heritage merely to fulfil an EU climate equation that is pointless.
    Biomass would not exist in an open market, it should not be subsidised.
    Has no one learnt from the palm oil and ethanol environmental disasters of the past thirty years?
    Use Coal for reduced emissions and better energy recovery.

  45. Micky Taking
    September 20, 2021

    …and in other news:
    Two new Tube stations have opened in the first major expansion of the London Underground this century. The first train on the new Northern Line route departed from Battersea Power Station at 05:28 BST following a ÂŁ1.1bn project. It called at the other new station, Nine Elms, before reaching the existing station of Kennington. London mayor Sadiq Khan said the services would play “a major role” in the capital’s recovery. This is the first major expansion of the Tube since the Jubilee line was extended in the late 1990s.
    The Greater London Authority borrowed ÂŁ1bn for the project, which will be funded through business rates from the local area and about ÂŁ270m of contributions from developers.
    Built to serve the ÂŁmillionaires in the luxury flats on the old 4 chimneys site. Well, where would you park a car, or hook up an EV? And will those owners rely on a Boris bike?
    After all its only another ÂŁ1bn.

  46. Original Richard
    September 20, 2021

    Mr. Redwood’s suggestions are correct for short-term measures.

    But for the longer term the government should :

    – Stop importing 300,000 new people into the country each year to call a halt to increasing energy demand.

    Stop the BBC propagating the King Canute myth that CAGW exists – frightening our children that the planet will burn to a crisp in their lifetime – and that we can save the planet by unilaterally crippling our economy.

    Simply ask any anthropological climate warming protagonist to explain why the Earth started to warm after the last ice age maximum 22,000 years ago.

    – Start a big program to begin building nuclear fission reactors – small and large – and research into new types of reactors which can use safer fuels and spent nuclear fuels.

    Not because nuclear power is CO2 free but because it is the safest fuel per KWhr, has the smallest footprint allowing more land to be used for farming and allows us to become energy independent.

  47. Peter from Leeds
    September 20, 2021

    Don’t forget Small Modular Nuclear Reactors – Rolls Royce are world leaders in developing small Nuclear reactors for submarines. These can be produced relatively quickly (compared to massive plants requiring additional foreign involvement) and have the additional benefit of not producing any CO2.

    1. MiC
      September 20, 2021

      They need highly enriched, weapons-grade type U235.

  48. Ed
    September 20, 2021

    This has been on the cards for years. Anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together could see it.
    Put these words in the correct order- home chickens roost come the have to

  49. BJC
    September 20, 2021

    Didn’t a certain Sir John Redwood identify the risks to energy supplies some time ago? Perhaps someone should have listened at the time. Perhaps Mr Kwarteng will now.

  50. X-Tory
    September 20, 2021

    The energy price crisis is affecting our food supplies and destroying our industry – and it is all the government’s fault. This is now critical and requires IMMEDIATE action. Of course we need to increase production and storage of natural gas, as you say. This is obvious to everyone but the cretins in charge. But the very FIRST thing that needs doing – literally TODAY – is to abolish (or at least suspend) the carbon tax.

    The carbon tax is not only increasing our energy costs, but is also the reason that we import electricity from the EU through the interconnectors instead of making our own, as French nuclear-produced power is not subject to carbon taxes and is therefore cheaper.

    The one suggestion you make which I strongly disagree with is the abolition of the price controls. Creating more energy poverty is neither politically sensible nor morally defensible, when the government is artificially inflating the cost of energy in the first place.

    Finally, if the companies that manufacture Britain’s food-grade CO2 – vital for the production of our food – refuse to re-open their factories they should be told that these will simply be nationalised. Our food supplies are far too critical to be allowed to be held to ransom by a couple of private (US-owned) plants. The government must take decisive action NOW. But they are far too weak, stupid and treacherous to do so. They are contemptible.

  51. Iago
    September 20, 2021

    Is it the first day of vaccination with whatever is in the vaccines in schools today? and the prime minister is out of the way in America.
    I was thinking of spending time in the old and beautiful public library this winter (having only electric heating in my flat) but the junta have a winter plan for their plague, so I realise now that the library will be closed or visits will be limited to fifteen minutes as in Lithuania.

  52. agricola
    September 20, 2021

    A solution to deal with ER and Insulate. Arrest with prejudice, transport under guard to a court in the nether regions of the UK , convict fine and discharge them from jail at as inconvenient a time as possible. Suggest 02.00 when no buses or trains are running. It would emphasise what a pain in the arse they are to the majority.

    Good news, GB News have woken to what Rolls Royce are doing to produce lacalised atomic generated electricity. Whats the betting that the Germans are the first to buy into it.

  53. acorn
    September 20, 2021

    The Death of Homo Economicus by Prof Peter Fleming, sums up the immense damage that the Conservative laissez-faire free market ideology of Neoliberalism has caused globally.

    Steven Poole wrote in the Guardian:- Neoliberalism has now given way to what Fleming calls “wreckage capitalism”, the continuation of financial operations in the rubble of the post-crisis order. The “free-market” principles of neoliberalism are, after all, conveniently ignored in favour of monopolisation and unproductive rent extraction by, for example, the publishers of academic journals or the bankers overseeing the privatisation of utilities. To illustrate the phenomenon of “taxpayers funding their own asset stripping”, Fleming here tells the depressing stories of Royal Mail and the British rail network.

    In the United States, the wealthiest 1 percent took home about 8.5 percent of the national income in 1976. After a generation of Conservative neoliberal policies; in 2014, they captured more than 20 percent of national income. In Britain, the top 1 percent captured more than 14 percent of national income—more than double the amount they took home in the late 1970s.

    1. Peter2
      September 20, 2021

      Well done acorn you got laissez faire, free markets and neo Liberalism all into one sentence.
      At a time when the size of the state and the amount legislation and its level of taxation is bigger than ever.
      And the richest pay the highest amount of income tax ever.

  54. a-tracy
    September 20, 2021

    If the government invests in gas storage do they charge the gas providers for the rent of storage space, does the tax-payer get a return on the investment? It seems these often foreign-owned companies take all the profits from these UK essential industries but don’t have to re-invest in improvements?

    Same question for housing associations who checks that they make the re-investments they promised and don’t just take out all the benefits for their own managers and workers? Why does government give them extra money to build and make property improvements when they have all the rent and bought all the houses for less than ÂŁ7500 per property any private landlord would have made a killing with that property portfolio and would have expanded it and improved the shops and land?

  55. NickC
    September 20, 2021

    What should we do?

    1. Re-instate (clean) UK mined coal as one part of baseload (maybe 20%?).

    2. Frack for gas in the UK, and use natural gas – the cleanest most reliable energy source – for baseload and for reserves for when the wind doesn’t blow, or it’s night time.

    3. Keep about 20% of baseload Nuclear. I don’t like Nuclear – 4.5bn years is a long time to clean up its pollution – but we’re already committed to that anyway from previous Nuclear plants.

    4. Halt continual government interference in the energy market by scrapping the 2008 climate act and all subsidies for any so-called “green” substitutes. CO2 is not pollution and is not a problem, it has been a benefit.

    5. Hence halt the Gadarene swine rush to electrify homes and road transport. If people genuinely want battery cars, solar roof panels, and heat pumps I would not stop them. But neither should they receive a penny of taxpayers’ money either.

    1. glen cullen
      September 20, 2021

      Agree

  56. paul
    September 20, 2021

    All part of the great reset controlled by the elite.

  57. Mark
    September 20, 2021

    Start by focusing on the immediate problems.

    Globally we need more gas supply quickly. Originally the IEA in Paris was set up to handle supply crises like the present one. If it cannot play that role now because it has become another climate quango it should be wound up. The PM and Foreign Secretary should be asking the US to increase gas supply and LNG exports. Likewise for other exporters. Any help we can give to speed turnarounds in gas fields and LNG facilities, including financing, and to speeding the opening of new pipelines such as Nordstream 2 should also be on the agenda. We also need to secure more coal.

    The PM should abandon COP 26. It is a distraction from the necessary actions, which include burning coal in power stations to save gas. Signing up to cutting methane emissions by 30% by 2030 as agreed in principle with Biden is yet another unnecessary imposition – although the main impact is likely to be a requirement to halve our dairy and beef herds. As nuclear power stations keep shutting down we are going to need every spare GW of dispatchable capacity we can find . Kwarteng should organise an early return of the bankrupted Calon’s CCGT assets, and offer extended capacity contracts and minimum utilisation guarantees to dispatchable coal in exchange for not charging gouging prices under the Balancing Mechanism: coal is in any case ill suited to stop start BM operation. He should devise ways to minimise carbon tax, which is simply adding to consumer bills much more than VAT. There will be an offsetting increase in tax on North Sea production anyway.

    The effect of the OFGEM cap is to squeeze retailers into gargantuan price increases on non controlled business: sales on fixed prices and innovative non standard tariffs, and to businesses. As suppliers go bankrupt these customers face swingeing increases as their existing contracts are set aside. Such increases risk making many businesses unprofitable and at risk of closure, and of causing energy poverty in many households, with all the knock on from inadequate heating on health and building condition. The cap in any case only defers the problem for supported households a few months until it is reset. Getting prices down by increasing supply and cutting taxes is thus crucial. Industry calls for removing charges for green programmes such as Ecohomes make sense. These programmes should be halted unless they support very rapid payback. With the current high prices, EMR Settlement have actually reduced CFD payments on account by retailers to zero. Since prices are now above many CFDs, they should instead be paying out to retailers.

    There needs to be urgent review of the counterparty risks caused by the volatile and soaring prices. There are huge risks for a generator that sold power forward being forced to buy it back at high prices if they suffer an unexpected outage. We don’t need more Calons. Banks and others acting as hedging counterparties are also a risk: the US example of Amaranth a few years ago springs to mind.

  58. Nota#
    September 20, 2021

    Quite a few Companies entered the UK Energy Market as in their home countries their supplies were subject to Government price controls. This permitted them to make money in the UK to subsidies their home market, while still having their home market as their tax domicile.

    In reality State interference and subsidies has been the main-stain of their existence.

    Then the Weird UK bit, the UK Government is pumping more taxpayer money into one of them to produce a power station in the UK. The amount of money the UK taxpayer is chucking at them is greater than the value of the whole Company(their Home and UK market combined), who owns the end product – a foreign Government. The UK taxpayer – well they have to go begging and hope for friendly ‘political will’ in a foreign land.

    The UK’s safety and security keeps getting thrown a way by the UK and placed under the control and will of Foreign Powers the UK taxpayer can never vote for. That is a neglect of duty and obligation by the UK Government.

  59. glen cullen
    September 20, 2021

    The PM is at the UN telling of the evils of co2 and insisting others to go co2 zero, while ministers back in blighty are having urgent discussions with co2 suppliers as the food industry are telling of massive shortages due to no co2
.who’d knew co2 was a key component of our food industry – well everyone apart from this government and the green party

  60. Iago
    September 20, 2021

    Many years ago a house was pointed out to me where the occupants, if I can call them that, had burnt the floor boards and then the back door. I expect the government to do this.

  61. Andy
    September 20, 2021

    This is Brexit in action.

    It is what all of you voted for.

    I wonder how many of those billionaires who bankrolled your Brexit have financial interests in energy markets? Putin does for a start. He is laughing all the way to the bank. “The Brexitists have paid for my new palace.”

    1. Mitchel
      September 21, 2021

      One “oligarch” has recently ordered the world’s first icebreaker private yacht for trips to the Arctic!

  62. David Williams
    September 20, 2021

    Mr Kwarteng should start a campaign against electricity waste. Heating on with windows open, aircon with no-one in the office, electric buses with no passengers (here in Guildford many), kettles boiled full for a single cup, etc, etc .

  63. Richard Lark
    September 20, 2021

    What should Mr Kwarteng do?
    1. Immediately suspend all moves towards NetZero.
    2. Instigate an urgent review of climate science.
    I wrote to my MP in March 2021 questioning Government policy on NetZero. One of the points I made was that the paper by physicist David Coe should be studied in detail. This paper concludes that their is no climate emergency due to greenhouse gases. In further correspondence I pointed out that there were other scientists who had come to the same conclusion. The reply that I received in August was that since the paper by David Coe “probably” wasn’t peer reviewed no action would be taken. There was no comment on the papers by the other scientists.
    I do not pretend to have more than a minimal amount of the knowledge of climate science, but what I am certain of is that no government should commit our Nation to spend ÂŁ50+ billion each year (low estimate and only obtained thanks to the Freedom of Information Act), unless all steps have been taken to ensure that the science on which their policy is based is on completely solid ground.
    Government scientists should be instructed to examine the papers by David Coe and others and publicly announce their conclusions. At least we might then have the much needed debate.
    If the Government has a minuscule amount of common sense they will take the spike in the price of energy as a serious warning. My fear is they will carry on regardless.

    1. Lifelogic
      September 20, 2021

      +1

  64. Addanc Monster
    September 20, 2021

    Memo to dim politicians.

    If there are large gas reserves that can be exploited through fracking, then start exploiting, it isn’t a beauty contest; wouldn’t this mitigate the storage problem?

    Do not push these fail catastrophically pressurised water reactors; also uranium isn’t exactly an abundant natural resource. If you want to invest tax payer money; while fracked gas is exploited the UK should be looking to thorium based nuclear reactors; biggest benefits of thorium reactors is lots of thorium and they can be designed to fail safely (hint USA had a prototype thorium reactor running in the early 1960s); modern material, robotics etc should make a thorium reactor feasible; oh look China is developing this technology.

    1. Mark
      September 20, 2021

      The time to push for thorium reactors will be when there are ones that work cost effectively. China has started a small 2MW research reactor, which reflects that there are still many problems to solve before it makes commercial sense. These include a number of technical issues that can compromise safety, such as corrosion of pipework from the hot molten salts.

  65. hefner
    September 20, 2021

    The Rough gas storage facility off the Yorkshire coast opened in 1985, it was closed in 2017 by Centrica over safety fears. When operational it contained eight days worth of gas consumption for the whole country. It could be reopened to play a ‘huge hydrogen role’ (?) in the future (business-live.co.uk, 06/07/2021).

    On the same site (29/06/2021) ‘Equinor triples Humber hydrogen ambition as Norwegian and UK energy ministers meet’.
    Isn’t it good to see our northern neighbour taking such an interest in poor us.

    BTW Equinor (of Stavanger) is a Norwegian company held at 70.26% by the Norwegian state.
    So stay tuned 
 when ‘the hydrogen economy’ finally speeds up, a good deal of the profits might feed the Norwegian pensioners.

    1. Mark
      September 20, 2021

      If Rough is re-opened for hydrogen its capacity would be less than three days of storage. I note that Centrica want a guaranteed return on the $1.6bn refurbishment through a CFD. It originally closed because storage was not making enough money to justify the refurbishment.

      1. MiC
        September 21, 2021

        A private company only exists to make a profit.

        Actually providing a service is an undesirable cost to be minimised.

        Will you Tory thralls never learn?

        1. Peter2
          September 21, 2021

          Why would anyone invest millions to only lose money?
          Would you MiC?
          But you want the taxpayer to.
          Very Odd

  66. John Hatfield
    September 20, 2021

    I don’t like biomass. I cannot see that it is green, except in the literal sense. The obvious thing to do is to get fracking despite the nimbys, while the safer thorium reactors are being sorted out.

    1. glen cullen
      September 20, 2021

      …and open a few coal fields

  67. Paul Cuthbertson
    September 20, 2021

    All part of the plan. Nothing will change until we remove the Globalist UK Establishment promoting the New World Order programme. Wake up people.

  68. turboterrier
    September 20, 2021

    All the while our “leader” flies across the pond to tell the rest of the world what has to be done. Head firmly where the sun ain’t. Those days are long gone. It’s all this stupid green crap paranoia that is strangling and destroying this countries very foundations. About time we had a leader with a vision to put this country first, second and third on the list of things to do.

    1. Fedupsoutherner
      September 20, 2021

      Too bloody right Turbo. Instead we seem to be last and forgotten.

  69. glen cullen
    September 20, 2021

    So Boris is about to promise billion of UK taxpayers money to third world dictators so they can be remade in our green image

  70. NotA#
    September 20, 2021

    We must never forget this Government is about the message but never the actual deed. They will sacrifice all reason and logic to dance to the tune of Socialism and ‘the great reset’

    They operate in fear of the people, so the default is control.

    This whole situation is not unexpected, it is a creation of Government. If as a Government you neglect your duty to provide the basic safety and security of the people, you create the situation we now find ourselves in. Unfortunately everyone else has pay for one man’s ego trip

  71. John McDonald
    September 20, 2021

    Would we have had this problem if a Conservative Government had not sold off our Utility industry to private companies ?
    If it had a bit more engineering input and not driven by politics and short term economics, we would have currently more of the things Sir John is calling for. It is not economic to have reserves and backup just in case. But going green too quickly is the real problem. But it is absolutely green not to have any gas and electricity being used.

    1. MiC
      September 21, 2021

      (Sorry, I posted in error earlier)

      No, but no one would have got any thanks for our not having this problem.

      That is the problem with responsible government.

  72. MiC
    September 21, 2021

    No, but no one would have got any thanks for our not having this problem.

    That is the problem with responsible government.

  73. Mark
    September 21, 2021

    My apologies for a lengthy comment you have not yet published, but you did ask what Kwarteng should do. I confined myself to just the short term actions to cover the winter ahead.

    I do have another suggestion if he fails to follow through. He should resign.

Comments are closed.