Britain abolishes the Department of Energy and Climate Change

The Global Warming Policy Forum welcomes the decision by the new Government to abolish the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Both the GWPF and its chairman, Lord Lawson, have been calling for this much-needed rationalisation for several years.

As the new government under Theresa May focuses on the much more important issues of economic growth, international competitiveness and leaving the European Union, the decision will provide vital savings. It is hoped that the abolition of DECC will also encourage a new emphasis on cost-effective policy-making.

“Moving energy policy to the new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy should give ministers a fresh impetus to ensure that the costs for consumers and businesses are driven down, not pushed further up,” said GWPF director Dr Benny Peiser.


The newspaper The Independent” calls this a “…plain stupid’ and ‘deeply worrying’ move“, see below:


The decision to abolish the Department for Energy and Climate Change has been variously condemned as “plain stupid”, “deeply worrying” and “terrible” by politicians, campaigners and experts.

One of Theresa May’s first acts as Prime Minister was to move responsibility for climate change to a new Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.

Only on Monday, Government advisers had warned of the need to take urgent action to prepare the UK for floods, droughts, heatwaves and food shortages caused by climate change.

The news came after the appointment of Andrea Leadsom – who revealed her first question to officials when she became Energy Minister last year was “Is climate change real? – was appointed as the new Environment Secretary.

And, after former Energy and Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd announced in November that Britain was going to “close coal” by 2025, Ms Leadsom later asked the coal industry to help define what this actually meant

Greenpeace said it was concerned that the new Government did not view climate change as a serious threat..

John Sauven, the campaign group’s executive director, said: “The voting record and affiliation with climate sceptics of key cabinet appointees are deeply worrying.

Full story here

No, what’s deeply worrying is that organization like Greenpeace have had so much power that they have effective infilitrated the government with activists. As far as I’m concerned, they have reaped the results of their years of overreaching alarmism, and the pushback we are seeing is the direct result of pushing too hard for things like the need to take urgent action when slow change would do. Perhaps if there had been some real investigative work done over Climategate, rather than the CYA whitewash job we saw from Muir Russell, DECC might not have got the total axe. Then of course, there is the added cost DECC was forced to reveal:

image

Closure of DECC is well deserved and well past due in my opinion.

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July 14, 2016 10:31 am

Bold move, and they look prepared to take the heat – why can’t our government be as bold (maybe it will….)?

Reply to  Taylor Pohlman
July 14, 2016 11:04 am

too much money to the ‘crony’ capitalists. check out how many retired military personnel get involved
with this hoax…a number of navy admirals etc…gov’t contracts.. spread the wealth of tax payer money to
political flunkies.

george e. smith
Reply to  Taylor Pohlman
July 14, 2016 12:00 pm

I would say that this is an example of British Un-obamination !
Good on ya Mates; I may just get out my British shingle I’ve been hiding, and polish it up a bit.
Hopefully the flies are not too thick in Europe this summer; because there’s a lot of folks standing around with their mouths wide open wondering ” Wot ‘appened ? ”
G

george e. smith
Reply to  Taylor Pohlman
July 14, 2016 12:27 pm

The British are famous for hemming an hawing (use your own speeling).
Telegram to Whitehall: ” Tiger eating Porter on Bombay railway station platform; please wire instructions ! ”
The (conservative) Republicans have been jawboning about eliminating EPA and dept of education and Dept of Agriculture since the last century; but they still can’t decide on what shape of table to sit down at to discuss it.
Europe better kick the British out pronto, so they can concentrate on getting their own houses in order, or they will be too late.
Well we’ll watch from over here, and think about it. Well I don’t know that Jerry Brown ever thought much about anything.
But then Joan Baez did do a 75th Birthday concert recently, so kumbaya, is still in vogue.
Duzz anybody remember Mary O’Hara, a wonderful Irish folk singer, who sung almost exactly like Joan Baez; except 20 years earlier ?? (played an Irish harp as well; ethereal)
G

Reply to  george e. smith
July 14, 2016 12:43 pm
george e. smith
Reply to  george e. smith
July 14, 2016 2:09 pm

Many thanx Vuc.
I saw her in concert (well her and her harp) way back in the plasticine era; she looked as pretty back then too, although I remember the hair being a little bit redder. Probably lousy film.
G

3x2
Reply to  george e. smith
July 14, 2016 7:04 pm

Never heard of “hemming an hawing” but I do know about some other stuff …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37iHSwA1SwE

Steve Fraser
Reply to  Taylor Pohlman
July 14, 2016 1:58 pm

US department structures are determined by congress, not by the administration.

Ernest Bush
Reply to  Steve Fraser
July 14, 2016 3:26 pm

You left out the word supposed in your statement.

JEM
Reply to  Steve Fraser
July 15, 2016 11:55 am

My understanding is that, whatever supposed legitimacy it gained from the Congressional appropriation process thereafter, the EPA was created by a Nixon executive order.
I don’t particularly want to see the EPA abolished, but a 50% headcount reduction and a substantial narrowing of its remit would be just about right.

Alan Kendall
Reply to  Taylor Pohlman
July 14, 2016 10:27 pm

Rather unfortunate turn of phrase there “take the heat”, or are you an undercover warmista and mean it literally?

Alan Kendall
Reply to  Alan Kendall
July 14, 2016 10:29 pm

Missplaced. Refered to Taylor Pohlman post.

Eugene WR Gallun
July 14, 2016 10:31 am

Brits rock! — Eugene WR Gallun

Harry Passfield
Reply to  Eugene WR Gallun
July 14, 2016 11:04 am

Ah…that would be Gibraltar. 🙂

george e. smith
Reply to  Harry Passfield
July 14, 2016 12:03 pm

Well the Barbary Apes are still there; so I guess it must be !
g

July 14, 2016 10:31 am

She doesn’t waist time! So yesterday’s article about only Trump denying CAGW is now outdated…

MarkW
Reply to  Jeff in Calgary
July 14, 2016 11:46 am

I personally hope she doesn’t waste time.
It’s past time for me to mind my waist.

george e. smith
Reply to  Jeff in Calgary
July 14, 2016 12:04 pm

The Ghost of Maggie !
G

Reply to  george e. smith
July 14, 2016 12:29 pm

and far more brutal than Mrs T ever was with her ‘vegetables’ , on a par with good old east European ‘чистка’.

Reply to  Jeff in Calgary
July 14, 2016 7:54 pm

Please, “waste” not “waist”.

July 14, 2016 10:32 am

Sorry, “take the heat” was an unintended Freudian slip, but now that I think about it, apropos. There may be political heat, but i doubt much thermometer heat…

July 14, 2016 10:38 am

You beauty!

Evan Jones
Editor
Reply to  GregS
July 14, 2016 5:30 pm

BTU?

Reply to  Evan Jones
July 19, 2016 6:41 pm

Beautiful Thermal Units?

Robert Kral
July 14, 2016 10:41 am

Over 100 Nobel Prize winners in science, including more than 40 winners of the prize in Medicine, have signed a letter slamming Greenpeace for its opposition to genetically engineered crops. Makes one wonder who the “science deniers” really are.
http://supportprecisionagriculture.org/nobel-laureate-gmo-letter_rjr.html

randy
Reply to  Robert Kral
July 14, 2016 3:17 pm

This was a weird piece because golden rice remains only theoretical. It hasnt actually been worked into a commercial product yet and greenpeace arent the ones blocking it, it just hasn’t worked yet.

Reply to  randy
July 14, 2016 7:57 pm

You mean this Golden Rice?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ricephotos/9404587235/in/set-72157626241604366
Golden rice has been a reality for quite some time now. But activists have managed to prevent distribution; including inciting violent acts and sabotage against Golden Rice test plots.
Placing blame for malnutrition and starvation that golden rice could alleviate directly on activists and their supporters.
http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?seq_no_115=193039

ozspeaksup
Reply to  randy
July 15, 2016 5:54 am

golden rice/golden corn
as below they managed to make it
eventually at a cost that would have done MORE sooner if used to grow normal high A crops suited to the areas
the problem is people have no money to BUY it..or much else.
vitA deficiency isnt the only lack in the kids simple poverty and malnutrition on many counts vit mineral etc etc

simple-touriste
Reply to  randy
July 15, 2016 10:38 am

randy, randy, randy…
Who is scaring people about “frankenfood”(sic)? (Almost no vegetable you can find in stores is in its historical “natural” shape or DNA. I hope you knew that.)
Who is saying that making children eat food enriched with a vitamin precursor is dangerous and unethical? Do you really believe that giving pro-vitamins to children is dangerous or unethical?
Who is saying that GM technology in general is risky and harmful, based on exactly zero evidence? The anti-GMO crowd.
Who is defending the flawed (to say the least) work of G.E. Séralini? Who propagated the ugly images of rats with ridiculously big tumors? The anti-GMO crowd, notably the “greens”.
Who is destroying GM seed experiments in many countries? Who is calling these destructions “non violent acts”? Who is advocating this sort of “non violence” where you forcibly enter labs and destroy everything? The “greens”, the anti-GMO crowd.
randy, can you accept reality?

photios
Reply to  Robert Kral
July 14, 2016 5:58 pm

A hundred German physicists said Einstein was wrong.
Einsten said: ‘Why a hundred?
If I was wrong, one would be enough…’

george e. smith
Reply to  photios
July 15, 2016 8:54 am

Why any ? Don’t need to point out the obvious.
g

Wrusssr
Reply to  Robert Kral
July 17, 2016 12:27 am

Comes down to who’s influencing or paying for your “science”. Similar to Rent-a-Mob. As in Rent-a-Scientist, LLC. Be surprised at what they’ll “discover” for you. As far as believing in the Nobelers? Everyone held their noses when “Peace is at Hand” Kissinger got one. But when Barry and polar bear Al got theirs, that award hit the credibility dust bin alongside the Pewlitzers.

Janice Moore
July 14, 2016 10:41 am

That is TERRIFIC!!!
Oh, if only the U.S. Congress would abolish the federal EPA (and state legislatures their EPA’s, too) and repeal and rewrite acts such as the Clean Air Act.
The United Kingdom is leading the way! #(:))

Gamecock
Reply to  Janice Moore
July 14, 2016 11:26 am

EPAs are needed. But their charters should be substantially restricted.

Janice Moore
Reply to  Gamecock
July 14, 2016 12:35 pm

Game: When a house has become as rat-infested, dry rot-eaten, and plumbing-failed as the EPA(s) have become, you don’t renovate — you tear it down and start from the ground up.
EPA (and several other agencies — along with their enabling legislation) are beyond remodelling. Costs less to build a brand new home than to remodel in many cases. This is one of them.

Gamecock
Reply to  Gamecock
July 14, 2016 1:54 pm

Semantics.
Same with IRS. Someone has to collect taxes.

Ernest Bush
Reply to  Gamecock
July 14, 2016 3:29 pm

I’m with the bunch who want to make the EPA a committee of state EPA organizations.

Janice Moore
Reply to  Gamecock
July 14, 2016 5:43 pm

Game: Your dismissive “semantics” reveals that you are not distinguishing among the various U.S. administrative agencies according to their function. An EPA does not serve a basic government purpose like an agency like the IRS… but, why am I even talking to you….
If you could understand what I’m trying to explain, you would not have needed to be told…..
So, I’ll just drop this and say….
HAVE A GREAT LIFE PLAYING GAMES, you funny person, you! 🙂
*******************
Re: “committee” of state EPA’s — the states already HAVE their own EPAs. I advocate abolishing them, also.

Reply to  Gamecock
July 14, 2016 6:58 pm

Class action lawsuit lawyers would be more effective than the EPA, more specific in their targeting, and not cost the taxpayers a cent.

Gamecock
Reply to  Gamecock
July 14, 2016 7:03 pm

The federal government has a legitimate function in regulating interstate pollution.
“Oh, if only the U.S. Congress would abolish the federal EPA” is childish.

Dinah Shumway
Reply to  Gamecock
July 15, 2016 9:14 am

The Heartland Institute has plan to form an EPA committee composed of State EPA’s . could work and would handle the intrastate issues. https://www.heartland.org/content/new-policy-study

Reply to  Gamecock
July 19, 2016 6:59 pm

Ernest Bush July 14, 2016 at 3:29 pm
“I’m with the bunch who want to make the EPA a committee of state EPA organizations.”
Only if that is what the sovereigns, states, members of the USA republic want to do! There need be no zentral commissar. Michigan with the lakes has way way different EPA concerns than Iowa or Texas! If they wish not to step on the toes of each other fine. The US government need only deliver the mail, prevent the enemy from occupying, and stay the hell out of my life!

B.j.
Reply to  Janice Moore
July 14, 2016 12:08 pm

I don’t think we are, just following Russia, China and Australia etc, about half the world, seems the U.S. is well behind on climate change.

Reply to  Janice Moore
July 14, 2016 12:39 pm

We need the same sort of Government action in New Zealand. Well done, Theresa May! She evidently understands that her duty is to implement the Brexit vote, and to ignore the sore losers!

george e. smith
Reply to  mikelowe2013
July 14, 2016 2:17 pm

Well I’ve been telling Jon Key for years now to go and tell Kyoto to go jump in the Tasman Sea.
But I guess his science advisor, a sir somebody, doesn’t agree with me.
G

dennisambler
Reply to  mikelowe2013
July 15, 2016 2:24 am

That is what she is saying at the moment. Politicians who wanted to leave the EU are in a minority in her new cabinet.

Owen in GA
Reply to  Janice Moore
July 14, 2016 1:44 pm

Janice,
I agree! they should rewrite the clean air and clean water acts to remove all phrases that begin with “the Secretary shall determine…” Maybe they can replace it with “the Secretary shall recommend to the Congress possible additions to the law which Congress shall weigh the cost and benefit thereof and pass or decline as determined”. I would then remove all enforcement mechanisms from the EPA and turn them over the the Department of Justice and relegate what is left of the EPA to a role of maintaining and monitoring a network of environmental quality sensors and issuing status reports to Congress for possible changes in law and to the Justice Department for reported violations of law. Justice would follow their current process of trying cases of violation of Federal Law in Federal Court – no more administrative courts run by bureaucrats!

Gary Hladik
Reply to  Owen in GA
July 14, 2016 3:14 pm

Rename it to the Environmental Monitoring Agency. Leave the “protecting” to Congress.

Janice Moore
Reply to  Owen in GA
July 14, 2016 5:47 pm

Owen! I think your ideas are great! I nominate Owen (down in Georgia) to the drafting committee for re-writing the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act (and lots of other acts)!
(P.S. What a JOY to be understood.)

Reply to  Owen in GA
July 14, 2016 7:01 pm

And they only need monitor the air and water as they cross state borders. Anything confined within a state should be the responsibility solely of the respective states.

dennisambler
Reply to  Janice Moore
July 15, 2016 2:21 am

Only a few days before the referendum, MP’s nodded through further emissions control under the UK’s unique Climate Change Act. The new energy minister, Andrea Leadsom, at that time a Minister for Energy and Climate Change, was saying Britain could be zero carbon by 2050. Our politicians are as untrustworthy as yours, we have to stay vigilant.
The referendum result doesn’t mean we have left the EU and many politicians are trying to make sure it doesn’t happen. John Kerry doesn’t want us to leave either:
http://en.mercopress.com/2016/06/30/kerry-not-convinced-uk-will-finally-invoke-article-50-for-leaving-eu?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily
“London, Kerry explained, does not want to find itself boxed in after two years without a new association agreement and to be forced out of the EU without one. And, he added, Cameron “feels powerless, and I think this is a fair conclusion, to go out and start negotiating a thing that he doesn’t believe in and he has no idea how he would do it.
”And by the way, nor do most of the people who voted to do it,“ Kerry said, apparently referring to ”Leave“ campaigners such as former London mayor Boris Johnson, now the frontrunner to replace Cameron as premier. [update: he is the new Foreign Secretary]
Asked by the panel moderator if this meant the Brexit decision could be ”walked back“ and if so how, Kerry said: ”I think there are a number of ways.“
”I don’t as secretary of state want to throw them out today. I think that would be a mistake. But there are a number of ways,” he said.
Washington has long supported a strong role for its British ally in the European project, and was dismayed when British voters chose last week to quit the Union.”
Boris Johnson’s first Brussels appearance will be Monday at the Foreign Affairs Council
http://bit.ly/29wuiIq John Kerry will also be there.
Check out the “European Global Strategy”, the EU’s hegemonic vision of the future:
http://europa.eu/globalstrategy/en

oeman50
Reply to  Janice Moore
July 15, 2016 7:10 am

The problem is EPA has already addressed the low hanging fruit. But they still have all of the mechanisms in place to increase regulation, so they are going after emissions that are less and less important and cost more and more to mitigate. So why do they continue to do this? Because 1) they can and 2) they can achieve other objectives unrelated to actual environmental impact, like revamping the entire energy sector.

July 14, 2016 10:47 am

Changing names is good for headlines but it doesn’t change the civil servants.
And remember, Amber Rudd has actually been promoted.
Don’t get carried away with adoration for the new UK Government.
Only Hammond has ever shown any sign of competence.

Harry Passfield
Reply to  MCourtney
July 14, 2016 11:07 am

Quite right, MCourtney. But Greg Barker has a good history of supporting Fracking. But, wouldn’t you want to be a fly on the wall at a Cabinet meeting where Rudd and Johnson get to sit close (Home and FCO)?

Newminster
Reply to  Harry Passfield
July 14, 2016 2:31 pm

Shame in that case, Harry, that it’s Greg Clark that is in charge, wouldn’t you say?

Phillip Bratby
Reply to  MCourtney
July 14, 2016 2:00 pm

Indeed. The Climate Change Act 2008 with all its targets is still driving the ruinous policy.

AGW is not Science
July 14, 2016 10:47 am

Congrats, UK! Sanity finally prevails! No the US needs to wake up and give the boot to every idiot politician who supports “action” to “tackle” “climate change,” which is akin to attempting to stop the sun from rising and setting.

AGW is not Science
Reply to  AGW is not Science
July 14, 2016 10:48 am

NOW, not NO

Tom Halla
July 14, 2016 10:50 am

I hope it is a real abolition, not just moving the former bureaucrats into a different department with the same duties. I blame Nixon for the EPA, which attracted zealots and activists.

rogerknights
Reply to  Tom Halla
July 14, 2016 12:07 pm

The story in the Independent says that no one has been fired, merely that DECC no longer exists as such, but as a sub-cabinet agency under a different department. So it’s only a first step.

In the Real World
Reply to  rogerknights
July 14, 2016 12:44 pm

The Independent is a bit left wing in its bias .
Here is the story by Delingpole who is a bit more on the reality side .
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/07/14/britains-new-prime-minister-drives-a-stake-through-the-heart-of-the-green-vampire/

Latitude
July 14, 2016 10:53 am

…pay attention
Germany Votes To Abandon Most Green Energy Subsidies
Germany’s government plans to replace most of the subsidies for local green energy with a system of competitive auctions where the cheapest electricity wins.
Germany’s wind and solar power systems have provided too much power at unpredictable times, which damaged the power grid and made the system vulnerable to blackouts.
http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/10/germany-votes-to-abandon-most-green-energy-subsidies/#ixzz4EPHQGAW1

Janice Moore
Reply to  Latitude
July 14, 2016 11:41 am

Achtung! 🙂 Great news, Latitude dude. Wunderbar!

Latitude
Reply to  Janice Moore
July 14, 2016 11:58 am

LOL…..morning Janice!!!
I’m surprised ANTHONY WATTS has not picked up on this yet….
(warming Will Rogers)

george e. smith
Reply to  Janice Moore
July 14, 2016 12:09 pm

Well great; may not have to set fire to Valhalla after all, to warm the place up. Might save a lot of Rheingold too !
G

Sun Spot
Reply to  Janice Moore
July 14, 2016 1:03 pm

Pop Pop

Robertvd
Reply to  Latitude
July 14, 2016 12:56 pm

Why do you think they made smart meters mandatory.

Wim Röst
Reply to  Latitude
July 14, 2016 12:57 pm

A very interesting overview of the technical problems a country will face when renewables will form a substantial part of the electricity production is given by the German Wolfgang Müller from the German EIKE – Europäisches Institut für Klima und Energie.
In a lecture in Paris at COP 21: Day of Examining the Data with The Heartland Institute, he was giving a very interesting overview. One of the subjects: the exploding number of interventions to stabilise the grid. A must-see:
“What the world can learn from Germany”

Starts at 5:39:40

Sun Spot
Reply to  Latitude
July 14, 2016 1:02 pm

Pop Pop

Kay
Reply to  Latitude
July 18, 2016 6:05 am

I followed the link to the German original and I’m afraid it isn’t quite so rosy– the article is just discussing a PROPOSAL for a new law… the article is from April (7.4.16 in German…), as far as I can recall they haven’t voted on this yet… still, the fact that it’s be proposed is encouraging.

GeologyJim
July 14, 2016 10:54 am

With Aussies leading the way, and now Great Britain, the Germans are quietly moving in the same direction in order to preserve their national economies from the stifling, hugely expensive, and completely worthless “combat climate change” regulations.
Trump is rising in the US polls and his election would produce similar common-sense roll-back of inane Obama-regime regulations from Energy, EPA, Defense, Commerce, and other Departments. And wouldn’t it be great to see NASA actually advancing space research and exploration and get them out of the Climate-change racket?
Dare to dream

Latitude
Reply to  GeologyJim
July 14, 2016 12:01 pm

inane Obama-regime regulations…
It’s amazing to me that a person was elected president…who’s only qualification was community organizer
….and no one realized what a community organizer does
create anarchy first…..

george e. smith
Reply to  Latitude
July 14, 2016 12:10 pm

Read “Rules for Radicals”, aka the Obamabible.
g

Robertvd
Reply to  Latitude
July 14, 2016 1:00 pm

His skin color.

tom gasloli
Reply to  GeologyJim
July 14, 2016 3:12 pm

Oh puh-lease! It is precisely because the “stupid party” decided to lose the election with Mr. Trump that we will NOT see any such reversal in the US. The Republicans took a dive, HRC becomes the Pres, and we will continue to destroy the energy sector and every other sector of the US economy.

Reply to  GeologyJim
July 14, 2016 4:08 pm

Aussies may be leading the way but some are not leading in the right direction.
South Australia has the most ‘renewable’ power in Oz but the inter-connector to Victoria mentioned in the link is to bring brown coal poweredelectricity in to supplement our irregular wind and solar power.
Of course, our illustrious treasurer has his head in the sand and trots out several excuses over which he supposedly has no control. ‘Market forces, perfect storm, weather delaying works” and other reasons, just not the closing of base-load power stations due to the mad push for ‘green’ power.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/sa-faces-years-of-power-prices-double-other-states/news-story/18d9236449dd7ee6c63b39841b401ce9

SOUTH Australia is facing wholesale electricity prices that are roughly double that of other states for more than two years, prompting grave warnings the burden will spark new job losses and lead to thousands of homes being disconnected.
The Advertiser yesterday revealed Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis had been forced to ask the privately-owned gas-fired Pelican Point power station to increase output, in a bid to avoid temporary shutdowns at the state’s biggest businesses as they battled skyrocketing power prices.

Analysts have blamed SA’s world-leading levels of wind and solar power for forcing the closure of baseload fossil fuel plants like that at Port Augusta, and leaving the state exposed to price shocks and unreliable supply at times when the wind isn’t blowing or sun isn’t shining.
The state was left unusually vulnerable this week because work on upgrading an interconnector to Victoria, which usually brings in coal-fired power to SA, was delayed due to bad weather.

Patrick MJD
Reply to  John in Oz
July 14, 2016 9:37 pm

Also has the highest unemployment rate in Aus too.

KEB
Reply to  GeologyJim
July 14, 2016 9:49 pm

I have repeatedly urged we remission NASA to do something really useful. I have no interest in sending a man to Mars, or using NASA scientists to push a political agenda.
What a waste of wonderful talent.
Let’s challenge them to develop new sources of cheap, reliable energy.

Reply to  KEB
July 15, 2016 6:45 am

I disagree completely. NASA should focus on space as it is the National Aeronautics and SPACE Administration.
I agree that using NASA to push a political agenda is wrong–especially when that agenda is climate change.
BUT NASA needs to get back to it’s charter and start getting us back INTO space. IF that means developing cheap energy in order to power space craft–all the better and exactly what they do. Let’s get NASA back to doing what it does best….”thinking sh&t up” in order to use it to get people into space and back home again safely.

george e. smith
Reply to  KEB
July 15, 2016 9:00 am

Why not let ENERGY COMPANIES develop new sources of cheap reliable energy.
After all, they have a real incentive to do that. Government has neither the incentive nor the brains, nor the means. Just get the hell out of the way, and let capitalism do it.
G

TA
Reply to  KEB
July 15, 2016 12:46 pm

How about an “X-Prize” for energy.

Bloke down the pub
July 14, 2016 10:57 am

A move that was long overdue. Theresa has gone up in my estimation.

Reply to  Bloke down the pub
July 14, 2016 3:27 pm

Mine too.

Patrick MJD
Reply to  Bloke down the pub
July 14, 2016 9:45 pm

She still a Social Justice Warrior (SJW) so I would not pay too much attention to this decision.

July 14, 2016 11:10 am

It is certainly good news that CC is now under Leadsom’s remit. But only if the former DECC budget of £5.7 billion is seriously cut will we know it is truely good news on the CC front. And only if present energy policies are seriously revised to enable economic flexible baseload CCGT will we know the UK is finally moving in sensible policy directions rather than toward killing winter blackouts. The grid’s spare safety margin is now zero for winter 2016-17. OFGEM was proposing ~£600 million in standby payments to past end of service life old coal and GT to bring the margin to 5% when it should be 12-15. Unreliable safety margin is no safe margin at all.

EricHa
Reply to  ristvan
July 14, 2016 12:21 pm

Leadsom has been promoted from energy minister to a full cabinet post as environment secretary DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs)
Not sure if this is a devious move on May’s part. Leadsom is pro fox hunting and fracking so whatever she does at DEFRA she will be shot by both sides.

EricHa
Reply to  EricHa
July 14, 2016 1:32 pm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/14/brutal-how-theresa-mays-cabinet-bloodbath-even-shocked-hardened/
To Andrea Leadsom, who had been Mrs May’s fiercest rival for Number 10, the Prime Minister awarded a promotion. Well, I say a promotion. The former junior energy minister was made Environment Secretary.
This job will, in due course, require Mrs Leadsom to explain to Britain’s farmers why they’re no longer receiving the subsidies they currently get from the EU – the membership of which Mrs Leadsom campaigned vociferously against.
I’m beginning to wonder which is worse. Being sacked by Mrs May, or being promoted by her.

mikemUK
Reply to  ristvan
July 14, 2016 1:46 pm

I have read elsewhere that a very large chunk of the DECC budget is committed to the ongoing dismantlement of early and defunct nuclear power stations, so I don’t think we’ll see much of a cut in the near future.

Reply to  ristvan
July 14, 2016 3:09 pm

Leadsom has nothing to do with it. CC comes under Greg Clark. A definite warmist

ShrNfr
July 14, 2016 11:27 am

Good. Now perhaps they will turn Drax back into the efficient coal fired plant that it was rather than an inefficient wood stove. At some point the climate/weather/etc. is going to snap back to where it was in the 1970s or worse, the early 1300s. Mathematically chaotic systems with strange attractors do that sort of thing. For myself, I will augment my solar system with some ng fired generation for the crashing of the grid in the US.

Paul
Reply to  ShrNfr
July 14, 2016 12:02 pm

“…for the crashing of the grid in the US”
Does your solar work when the grid is down? Most don’t.

Reply to  Paul
July 14, 2016 1:27 pm

“Does your solar work when the grid is down…?”
Here’s some food for the paranoid conspiracy theorists.
My solar array, which was installed in 2009, was designed to run off grid. To do that we had to install battery backup for the array controllers (Dual Sunny Islands), which manage failover during grid outages
For about 6 years they worked fine. In fact they still work fine if I test them by throwing the main breaker at the service entrance. They automatically switch to battery/array only, isolate service to an “essential loads” panel that only serves essential loads (obviously), then runs until the sun goes down and the batteries discharge to 50%, then manage a cuttover to a 15KwH propane generator that powers the property and charges batteries. When the batteries again hit 98% State of Charge (SOC) , they turn off the generator and go to batteries. The cycle repeats until the sun comes up or the grid does. These switchovers happen so fast I don’t need to reset the clock on my oven.
So here’s the beef; in 2011 my power company installed “smart” meters. Ever since, the system fails to provide backup power when the grid goes down. I have to go out to the shop and manually mess around with everything until it starts working again. It’s actually a black art and I can’t even write the procedure down. Hmm. Why? I’ve had experts out to look at the problem and they can’t figure it out either. As I say, when I throw the breaker it does everything right, it’s only when the grid fails all by itself that I have problems.
Maybe it’s just me, my system, and the fact these are moderately complex critters, but I find it interesting that it stopped working when the smart meters were installed. I’m an engineer and I do tend to ask “what changed” when doing failure diagnosis. Everything points to the grid operator. And these pieces of equipment (the meters, the islands and the inverters) are all able to talk to each other usint TCPI/IP over the internal power lines. Passing strange in my opinion.

jvcstone
Reply to  Paul
July 14, 2016 2:51 pm

will if you can isolate it from the grid.

Paul
Reply to  Paul
July 15, 2016 12:31 pm

Bartleby, thanks for the reply.
Interesting problem. Have you tried opening the main breaker at the service entrance when the grid goes down?
“the meters…are all able to talk to each other usint TCPI/IP over the internal power lines”
Your equipment can communicate with your Smart meter?

Reply to  Paul
July 16, 2016 5:36 am

“So here’s the beef; in 2011 my power company installed “smart” meters. Ever since, the system fails to provide backup power when the grid goes down. I have to go out to the shop and manually mess around with everything until it starts working again. It’s actually a black art and I can’t even write the procedure down. Hmm. Why? I’ve had experts out to look at the problem and they can’t figure it out either. As I say, when I throw the breaker it does everything right, it’s only when the grid fails all by itself that I have problems.”
Could be that the smart meter isn’t totally killing your draw, just restricting the number of amps (possibly by “pulsing your power… lots of little cut offs then back on”)? Since you aren’t at 0 amps for long enough, the other circuit doesn’t realize that there is a problem.
If it’s something like that, then you need a smarter control circuit on the automated backup that realizes other undesirable behavior as the same as “off”, and take appropriate action.

John Peter
July 14, 2016 11:34 am

Andrea Leadsom is Environment Secretary.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills becomes the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) department – led by Greg Clark, formerly communities and local government secretary
As a result, the Department for Energy and Climate Change has been scrapped, its brief folded into BEIS. Greg Clark is in charge of this expanded department.
So ristvan July 14, 2016 at 11:10 am seems to be wrong in stating “It is certainly good news that CC is now under Leadsom’s remit.”
Time will show if an element of sense has been injected into the new UK Government. Don’t hold your breath.
We need Trump to win the election and for GOP to retain control over the Senate.

Reply to  John Peter
July 14, 2016 12:05 pm

Yes. I was going on earlier British press speculation some hours ago that energy would be left in BEIS whence it came, and CC would be moved back to Environment, whence it came when DECC was formed. Got that part wrong. Rest of comment seems OK.

Rob
July 14, 2016 11:37 am

The UK still has a legislated goal of reducing CO2 emissions under the Climate Change Act (I forget the real title,) so there is no immediate impact of this change. However, simply by aligning energy with business and industrial development it signals the intent that energy production has other imperatives than climate change.
Now, if they could only do the same with agriculture and food production (get them out of the environment department) we would actually be getting somewhere.

Harry Passfield
Reply to  Rob
July 14, 2016 11:45 am

Thing is, Rob, if the UK Government failed to meet its target under the CC Act what would be the sanction? May could just raise her hands and say. ‘Sorry, we missed it’ – and nothing would be done about it. So, I hope she ignores the stupid Act.

Reply to  Harry Passfield
July 15, 2016 2:51 am

Good point Harry Passfield,
And May has form for this. She was in charge of reducing immigration to the target level.
Complete failure (as everything else she’s tried).
But no matter.

Lord Beaverbrook
July 14, 2016 11:39 am

ShrNfr
Unofficially the times they are a changing.

TonyL
July 14, 2016 11:42 am

Green energy laws and regulations have produced a vicious increase in energy costs which have hammered manufacturing and industry in general. But with the EU, they were all in it together (more or less). Now GB and Germany are breaking ranks with the AGW scare.
Everybody is paying attention.
The first country which reverses policy in a real and meaningful way will see a significant drop in energy prices. This will give them a big advantage in manufacturing and export relative to today. The other EU countries can not afford to just sit back and watch. They will be forced to act or go to ruin.
Some, no doubt, will choose ruin. The others may well start an energy war as they race to the lowest possible prices.

Mark from the Midwest
July 14, 2016 11:43 am

Looking at this from afar it seems that May is the most practical and forthright politician around.
By the powers vested in me, by me, I hereby declare Theresa May to be the leader of the Free World, (Obama, get a real job).

Resourceguy
Reply to  Mark from the Midwest
July 14, 2016 12:13 pm

Yes, it’s early in the process but I’m willing to watch and look for practical decision making. Such practicality would be a real maverick approach in the race to zero competence elsewhere. Meanwhile Russia and China are busy with monumental land grab opportunities that I predicted with Obama’s first election.

Phil's Dad
Reply to  Mark from the Midwest
July 14, 2016 5:07 pm

Spot on analysis.

climanrecon
July 14, 2016 11:46 am

An early test for Theresa May’s new focus on the struggling masses will be the decision on Swansea Bay Tidal Power, billions for a piddling amount of intermittent electricity, to be paid for by the struggling masses, advocated by those parties who claim to support the struggling masses, but who clearly don’t, hence Brexit.

Reply to  climanrecon
July 14, 2016 12:06 pm

That and stupid Hinkley Point EDF.

Grey Lensman
Reply to  climanrecon
July 14, 2016 8:34 pm

Nope, ratify Iceland geothermal M.O.U. Build H.V.D.C. to Scotland and Northern Ireland. Quarter price of electricity and make Belfast/ Clydeside global centre of geothermal engineering.
Simple

Wrusssr
July 14, 2016 11:58 am

YOU GO, ENGLAND! Keep the ax sharp.

Resourceguy
July 14, 2016 12:08 pm

Bravo! The next thing you know there will be some rational accounting of costs and rate impacts from all energy projects and program sources, including the EDF nuclear project.

Juan Slayton
July 14, 2016 12:11 pm

… much-needed rationalisation…
I think you mean rationality.
: > )

rogerknights
July 14, 2016 12:12 pm

What’s needed next is for Britain to hold hearings and sponsor debates on CAGW, to open the Overton window on global warming.

rogerknights
Reply to  rogerknights
July 14, 2016 1:05 pm

The minister who announces these hearings and debates, and maybe even opens a science court, or encourages universities to do so, should smooth the way by saying that “We all know climate change is real, but we don’t know how bad it will be. We’re debating about that, not AGW.”

ferdberple
Reply to  rogerknights
July 14, 2016 2:44 pm

The issue is much simpler. If green policies are good for us, why does the government feel the need to force them down our throats?

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