Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Amber Rudd, Britain’s Energy Secretary, has officially stated energy security is Britain’s top energy policy priority, ahead of Climate Change.
According to The Guardian;
The energy secretary, Amber Rudd, is to “reset” Britain’s energy policy on Wednesday in a direction that downgrades tackling climate change from its highest priorities but commits to closing all traditional coal-fired plants by 2025.
In her biggest speech in the job, Rudd will say she wants policy to focus on making energy affordable and secure. She will say the aim is a “consumer-led, competition-focused energy system that has energy security at the heart of it”, and will suggest the balance has swung too far in favour of climate change policies at the expense of keeping energy affordable.
Green campaigners are likely to be somewhat mollified by the fact she is likely to pledge to restrict coal-fired power by 2023 and all but eradicate it within the decade.
Amber Rudd started her Energy Secretary post with an almost evangelical desire to bring leading British climate skeptics into the tent, to persuade skeptics of the importance of tackling climate change. This effort to build a unified position fell apart, when skeptics asked alarmists what they thought of the pause; Royal Society scientists replied that the pause would have to continue for another 50 years, for them to admit that their climate models might be wrong.
Since those early days, the reality of Britain’s desperate energy situation seems to have forced a reevaluation of priorities. To her credit, Amber Rudd has set aside her obvious personal desire to tackle climate change, in favour of trying to ensure Britain doesn’t suffer potentially lethal power blackouts during winter.
I personally have high hopes for Amber. While she obviously completely embraces climate alarmism, my impression is she has a deep seated need for her world to make sense. Before entering politics, Amber worked in banking. If there is one thing dealing with business and finance teaches you, that lesson is not to ignore inconsistencies – an inconsistency is a red flag that something is wrong, that your understanding of the situation is incomplete. This refusal to tolerate unanswered questions, our refusal to be satisfied with blind submission to self proclaimed scientific authority, our need for answers which make sense, is what led many of us into climate skepticism.
Some kinds of self defeating policy decisions will eventually reveal themselves to be such, when they demonstrate precisely the effects that the critics of these policies predicted.
In the case of the system of energy subsidies it has been clear all along to sensible observers that the system is designed to reward the most ineffective and expensive forms of “alternative” electricity generation.
And also clear that this would lead to unreliability of the system and rapidly rising costs to consumers.
Since at every turn we have chosen to pour cash into the most expensive and unproven sources of supply, then reality cannot but reveal itself.
Formerly people used planning and thinking ahead to analyze the potential outcome of policies.
These days only Beijing and the Kremlin are taking such an approach.
The west seems to have become caught in a trap of its own making whereby rational criticism of any sort is labelled as “d*n**lism” and heavily censored from the MSM.
Certainly. here in the UK the official state media has placed a total sanction upon any criticism of the dumb leftist takeover of the electricity supply system.
Nobody is allowed to mention that their may be any concerns, whatsoever.
Just as with Lysenkoism, where even the starving peasants were not allowed to believe that peasants were starving.
So facts are disallowed – but eventually the system will start to gobble up so much money that the error will be impossible to hide. Since stupidity is its own punishment.
I’m 82 years old. I’m a Canadian, and I worked and lived in the UK for over a year (1962-63). It turned out to be the coldest winter in decades. The snow never melted. Our house was equipped with a central fireplace that didn’t provide nearly enough heat. The bedroom windows had ice on the inside. I’ve never experienced such discomfort in my life, and I have great admiration for the strength of the British people who cheerfully put up with the cold, often sending their kids to school wearing shorts. Anybody who blithely declares that we can do away with fossil fuels is dreaming in technicolour or hasn’t experienced the reality of trying to sleep through a brutally cold night. Talk is cheap. Promises and commitments about a distant future are easy, but when push comes to shove, I can assure you, altruistic concern for people who will live 100 years from now will quickly give way to the imperatives of self preservation and a comfortable life in the here and now.
Trebla,
The reason we put up with it was back then we didn’t know any different. In the 1960 the UK was still a relatively backward country, at least for the working class. No double glazing – slngle glazed badly fitted windows that let the draft in, badly fitted doors with gaps underneath that let the draught in, no central heating, no carpets on the floor only linoleum which was ice cold on the feet, usually only one room in the house heated and the rest completely unheated, water pipes on the outside of the house so they froze up. My kids just can’t understand how we survided in those days. But as I said we didn’t know, or couldn’t afford, any better.. .
You have just accurately described the conditions in which I currently live, here in 2015 in the UK.
Except that I do not have linoleum. And I also have no mains water or electricity.
So, a slight advance on the stone age.
And whilst I do know better, I cannot afford to significant improve this situation.
Apart from basics such as sealing up the frames with repairs and draught excluder.
I have friends who receive housing and benefits from the state, who appear to live in a far more luxurious condition, and without the burdens and responsibilities of home ownership.
Amber Rudd is a politician. She’s quite smart, but she’s a politician.
This statement of policy is quite smart. It squares the crcle, for a bit anyway.
It’s not a damascene conversion. Expect a promotion.
“…the pause would have to continue for another 50 years, for them to admit that their climate models might be wrong.”
Your models never predicted any kind of a pause, so they’re already wrong.
trebla:
I can assure you that I experienced the same thing in the 1980’s in Northern England. It was, and probably still is, seen as a sign of progress if the unemployed and low paid can afford to shift ice-formation outside of the building during a hard winter spell. A bit of local Global-warming would be a fine thing to escape the misery.
It is still grim up-north when the the wind blows in winter.
Correction: ‘It is still grim up-north
when the wind blows in winter.🙂First, good luck shutting down coal power plants. That will cost you big time. Heading into renew(un)ables. Second, it will not be pause we’ll be seening for the next 30 years, it will be cooling for a degree. The sun has been slowing for years and that will continue. So back to start for AGW. That will be harder for the alarmists to explain than a pause.
Knut
Fully agree.
A bit of a degree warming – at least in temperate or pole-ward latitudes – is to be welcomed.. [I note and appreciate that this will not end weather, and storms/heatwaves/deluges/droughts and so forth].
And, like other posters here, I prefer warmth to chilling.
What’s not to like??
Auto
And should it cool a degree in 30 years, then the pause will go back to 1850!
Even when a Maunder minimum combines with a net-ocean-cycle downtrend, the average global temperature only declines at about 0.18 K per decade. Determined from the graphs in http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com where calculated temperature trajectory matches measured 97% since before 1900.
In the land of the blind the one-eyed woman is preferable. Something like that I would think.
Is this (making energy security #1 priority) about common sense or is it a hint of the health of Britain’s electrical grid? After all if the grid IS going down you at least want to tell people you want to fix it before the first black out.
The positive spin to her stance is that if the continuing solar changes are truly leading into a grand minimum event in the near future, then the cooling conditions should be very apparent prior to 2023. Once that cooling trend is plainly visible for the world to see and feel, then public sentiment will change drastically against the warmists and CAGW. The politicians who haven’t already rejected the CAGW claims will then have to pay attention to the public mood as well as Nature’s mood.
Common sense, concern for the stress of high energy prices on the poor and middle class, finding ways to encourage the economy growing, solving today’s problems instead off 100 years into the future “could be” problems…
They must have put something in the water for this unusual governmental behavior.
Alx, this is what they’re doing:
As energy prices rise (“necessarily skyrocket”), the poor will be squeezed the most. The gov’t will then come in and ‘rescue’ them with handouts, making them not only more dependent on the gov’t, but in fear of losing the crumbs being thrown to them. The message will be clearly understood by all: you get these subsidies as long as you cooperate. And that means: “support us, and vote the right way.”
So the bureaucrats have them by the short hairs. The poor will do as they’re told, in order to eat and have warmth. Yes, it is that insidious.
NEVER take a career politician’s word for anything; always look at their actions. That will clarify everything.
IANAR, and never have been (nor a Dem), but this is how I see it: the Democrat Party used to represent the workers. The Republican Party used to represent business owners. That has been turned on its head. Now the Republicans are supported by millions of donations from taxpaying workers, and the Democrats have carved out a specialty niche of extremely wealthy business owners, and unions; mostly in the public sector.
But the rest of the Democrats’ tenuous support comes from the unemployed, and those on welfare, and now from the fastest-rising demographic of all: illegal aliens, and the citizens of foreign countries that are brought in by the shipload and set up, complete (at least in California) with ballots handed to them to vote. In case everyone doen’t know: in the U.S. it is illegal for any non-citizen to vote.
California just passed a law requiring its Secretary of State to issue voter registration forms to anyone who applies at the DMV for a drivers license, and for anyone collecting public assistance money. The illegals’ friendly neighborhood MS-13 enforcers will make it clear that they must sign and send in their ballot requests. Their neighborhood contact will take care of the rest, including being on hand when the voting ballots arrive.
That follows a law that forbids any state worker from questioning the immigration status of anyone applying for a drivers license or for state aid. Those laws follow the “Motor Voter” law, which paved the way for Gov. Moonbeam Brown’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ immigration policy (the ‘Motor Voter’ law registers people to vote automatically when they renew their annual car registration).
And speaking of Gov. Brown: he is serving his 4th term as governor — after the state’s voters specifically voted to restrict all officeholders, including the governor, to a maximum of 2 terms. Courts ruled against Brown… but he’s still ‘Governor’!)
California leads the country in laws like this. So watch what they do. Because politicians will lie to your face. Watch their actions, and ask yourself: ‘What are they trying to do?’
It is already crystal clear to many state residents: the voting process is being rigged to allow and encourage illegals to vote. That in itself is illegal. Only citizens may vote. But California’s legislature is already three-fourths Democrats, with a state Attorney General and their Governor.
So who is going to stop them? The same folks who tried to stop Brown from illegally running for Governor?
“You get these subsidies as long as you cooperate”. Absolutely, this is the new reality.
Here in the UK, I have just last month installed a stove that burns wood.
I am currently burning wood cut down by myself this last spring on my own land.
My stove is not approved, since it is a beautifully constructed (and super efficient) stove from 1981, renovated lovingly by me.
My flue is not approved, since I used 8mm wall stainless, and the approved flue is 0.5mm crap which corrodes through.
I do not qualify for any subsidy. In fact, a council assessment would doubtlessly require me to remove my stove and fit one according to the rules. Rules created by the intellectually defective.
Whereas, if I used an approved pellet burner, with approved fitting by an approved installer, and then I burnt approved imported pellet chips in it – only then could I receive the approved subsidy payment for heating my own home.
Other people are doing this and my taxes are paying for these people to heat their homes on imported pellets. Meanwhile I am breaking all the regulations by attempting to quietly live my life without intruding upon others and whilst using my own trees as a renewable source of heat.
A world where 5 out of 10 people receive a state subsidy is identical to one in which 5 out of 10 receive a state penalty. Since the state is zero-sum. It giveth as it taketh away.
This is communism by the backdoor.
in..frog;
Google ‘Electricity Freedom’. For about $200 you can build a small composter/generator using any plant debris etc. as fuel and have free power for life. Basically a 40+ gal pressure vessel, pump, and alternator. Scavenge from scrap if $200 is too much. Email me; I paid the full $39 for the designs, but have the right to distribute as many copies as I want. brianfh01@yahoo.ca with subject “Power Generator”.
She is covered, no matter which way the wind blows.
So what ?
Never trust what the Grauniad says. Go the DECC website and read what Amber Rudd actually said. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/amber-rudds-speech-on-a-new-direction-for-uk-energy-policy
“Amber worked in banking. If there is one thing dealing with business and finance teaches you, that lesson is not to ignore inconsistencies ”
For sure, and in banking if you are short at the end of the day it out of your pocket, same as in many stores etc. As it should be for the Warmististas.
getitright:
It seems you need to get it right.
There is only one overarching principle in banking and it is the following.
If you rob a bank you go to jail
but
if a bank robs you the bankers are awarded a bonus.
Richard
It reminds one irresistibly of the dialogue between Thomas Carlyle and Margaret Fuller, the 19C American idealist and transcendalist.
Fuller: I have decided to accept the universe.
Carlyle: Madam, you had better!
Why on earth anyone ever thought that the UK, doing one or two percent of the total global emissions of CO2, could do anything whatever to ‘tackle global warming’ through its energy policy, that’s a total mystery. If the UK were to stop emitting totally tomorrow the effect would be too small to measure.
Sometimes you read that if the UK acts, the world will follow their inspiring example. As if they were all looking anxiously at what the UK does so as to imitate them!
Is it madness? Idiocy? Wishful thinking? A bit of all three?
Yeah, the world is going to follow our inspiring example.
Once the E.U. and U.K. have finished kicking themselves in the nuts, then the rest of the world is going to ask us how we did such a fantastic job of raising out energy costs whilst making no measurable change to the world’s climate. And whilst the U.K. could actually benefit from slight warming even if the theory were precisely correct.
We are now world leaders in off-shore wind.
We are world leaders because nobody else in the world is daft enough to try to imitate our huge error.
“If there is one thing dealing with business and finance teaches you, that lesson is not to ignore inconsistencies”
That’s absolutely false, it implies that people are coherent. Many aren’t and can say contradictory things even in one period.
Hey there is even one ideology made on it: Marxism.
And i even met Communist entrepreneurs, the $$ were all logically assessed, outside that was a mambo jambo of incoherent thoughts.
I often wonder if there’s not a covert agenda behind the “move to renewables”…if governments are reacting to Peak Oil by trying to conserve their coal supplies to make synthetic oil for their militaries and essential transportation. I’ve read the US Air Force is already experimenting with coal-liquefication to keep their planes flying. So they do know about oil depletion and are planning for it. I know the British government put together a panel with some big name British companies to study Peak Oil. By referring to “climate change” instead of Peak Oil, they could be trying to keep the population from freaking out about having no more gas for private use in 25-30 years.
Anyone else think this may be the reality behind the propaganda curtains?
AndyJ:
‘Peak Oil’ is nonsense. It will never happen.
Synthetic oil (syncrude) from coal has been commercially conducted for more than a century by use of the Fischer-Tropsch process and the Sasol process developed from it. Since 1994 syncrude from coal has been possible at economic cost by use of the Liquid Solvent Extraction (LSE) process.
So, no, your suggestion is not the “reality behind the propaganda curtains”.
Richard
I believe peak oil will happen. Not because oil will actually run out but because the “run out” will be manufactured.
Patrick MJD:
“Believe” whatever you want, but Peak Oil cannot be “manufactured”.
Until oil is no longer needed (as food for horses is not now needed for transportation), if existing sources of oil are restricted then others will be found (as last resort by making syncrude). I suggest you research the Oil Crisis of the 1970s.
Peak Oil is a nonsensical notion: it will not happen because it cannot happen.
Richard
The problem with that plan is that we have proven reserves that represent over 50 years supply, and a lot more than that in expected reserves, and even more than that available if prices get high enough. By the time we get there, we expect technological improvement to make even more accessible. There’s no propaganda involved. There is just no shortage of oil in the foreseeable future.
The Coal-to-Oil process was invented in 1925 and made viable under the Nazi regime (Germany has no oil reserves, but a lot of coal and chemists), and it has been improved since then. You can make oil out of anything that can burn. It’s just more expensive than drilling it.
There is no peak oil pushing people to renewables. There never was.
Well whatever her motives sh has got the green ‘blob’ screaming. Take a look at this:
https://youtu.be/zrq-m12Cuhs
Having known some of the climate scientists personally in their young days nothing on earth would get me into their camp. The contemptible comment that the pause would have to be for fifty years to admit they were wrong when they jumped on the band wagon after ten is the sort of base opportunist dishonesty I remember being the hallmark of them way back.
Wait till she discovers CO2 doesn’t affect climate!
The “REAL” reason Amber Rudd is in that position in government has NOTHING to do about “merit or ability”. The only reason SHE was placed into that position is because she is a Woman. No other reason. PC or in that case “Affirmative Action” once again rears it’s ugly head.