According to the Telegraph, electricity consumers in the Southeast of England will either have to pay more or face blackouts. Citing a National Grid executive’s candid remarks, the paper reveals the problem is one of the network’s congestion, compounded by the variability – or unreliability, in fact – of wind and solar power, on which the U.K. is increasingly dependent. Urgent reform is therefore needed, claim the executives of the monopoly – one the largest investor-owned utility companies in the world – which will benefit from the hundreds of billions of pounds of “investment” required to “save the planet”.
The market reform will allow utility companies to charge more in areas that face greater grid demand, in much the same way that London, for example, has a Congestion Charge to limit usage of the city’s central roads. As London’s population grows, and as Net Zero policies require the electrification of heat and transport, and more renewable energy sources are added to the grid, this congestion will increase. Wind farms are typically built miles offshore, or in rural areas far away from the capital, so users further away from the sources of power must pay the extra transport and congestion costs.
National Grid has been lobbying Government for this rule change for some time. Back in March, the PLC welcomed the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s Review of Electricity Market Arrangements (REMA). “Great Britain’s electricity transmission system requires an expansion at unprecedented scale and pace,” said the article, adding the far less plausible claim that that zonal pricing could produce savings to the consumer of around £1 billion a year.
It’s funny how expensive all this “investment” that is going to “save consumer’s money” has become. Also in March, National Grid announced a £60 billion investment in transmission infrastructure to meet the then Government’s 2035 target for the grid’s total decarbonisation. The problem, according to Andrew Montford of Net Zero Watch, was that the £60 billion was additional to a £54 billion package announced in 2022. Moreover, that investment only covers the “20,000 kilometres of the transmission grid”, says Montford, not the 800,000 kilometres of distribution cables – transmission being the main arteries of the network, while distribution being the fine blood vessels, carrying the power to its point of use. The £114 billion investment will add an extra £150 per year to the average household energy bill, Montford estimated. And now the new Government has brought the date of decarbonisation forward to 2030, those costs are going to rise.
How does this save anyone money? National Grid cannot explain. The Government cannot explain. Armies of Westminster wonks cannot explain. Yet somehow, the notion of “cheaper bills” drives the argument for every policy that requires astronomical amounts of “investment”, which, presumably, need to be paid for by you and me.
One similar such scam is the proposal for the Time of Use (TOU) pricing. According to its proponents, energy consumers can take advantage of times of greater supply or lower demand, at which there may be lower or even negative prices. This may make sense for certain large industrial consumers. But for domestic consumers it means organising one’s life around the weather. In a developed, First World industrialised economy, utilities ought to be there when people need them, not when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. As energy prices rise and power becomes more scarce, this de facto rationing will hit the poorest consumers the hardest.
Environmentalism is a deeply regressive ideology. And the moral degenerates who celebrate it claim the poor will be better off because… they can get up in the middle of night to use their washing machines. Lower energy prices… when you don’t need the power. It’s a trick. A lie.
No less extortionate and regressive is this notion of making energy cheaper by charging people in London more for electricity than people elsewhere. And no less pig-headed, either: “Our mission is for clean power by 2030 because this is the best way to achieve energy independence and protect billpayers,” a DESNZ spokesperson told the Telegraph. And this is a clue as to how National Grid, and countless other chancers, are getting away with it.
The repetition of dogma in the face of challenging questions from a journalist about a looming and regressive shift in energy policy signals that it’s not up for debate. National Grid and its subsidiaries have been engaged first and foremost to service a political agenda, not to develop infrastructure of the kind that the public desperately needs. Hence National Grid has been brought directly into the new Government’s “Mission Control” under the direction of former Chief Executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), Chris Stark – or Sir Chris Stark as he will no doubt shortly be.
In a normal world, such proximity between private or corporate interests and policymaking would be widely viewed as inappropriate. But saving the planet changed all that. There is no time for scrutiny of superheroes! And anyway, the cost of saving the planet is peanuts compared to the cost of destroying the planet. So get your chequebooks out. The most fantastic inversion of reality has occurred and it is now those who question relationships between government and business that are viewed with suspicion and accused of having ulterior motives. Questioning Net Zero policy? You must be a fossil fuel shill!
The questions “How much is it going to cost?”, “How is this going to be done?”, and “What are the consequences if this policy fails?” are routinely met by the same smears. But promises of “energy security” and “lower bills” do little to allay fears that, as it rolls on, the policy agenda looks ever more like a rent-seeker’s paradise. Now you will be charged more based on where and when you use electricity because utility companies, once publicly owned, are now merely landlords who can charge ever more rent by producing scarcity and congestion, rather than the movement of electrons.
I have long wondered why officials, politicians and wonks are so intransigent. Why did the likes of the CCC not engage with critics, answering them in good faith? The answer is that they don’t have to. Legislation doesn’t require them to be scrutinised and doesn’t require them to answer criticism. And the same holds true for the dodgy relationships forged by the new Government and its agency suppliers. They are opaque and unaccountable. They do not answer to the people who they claim they will provide with lower bills and “energy security”.
The only sanction I can think of in response to such intransigence is the threat of nationalisation without compensation. I am not in favour of state confiscation. But it seems obvious to me that any company that lobbied for such an agenda in the hope of vast profits – legalised confiscation, via a monopoly, after all – ought to have calculated the political risk of undermining democracy.
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Quickie update from Joel Smalley on excess deaths in Sweden. Yep, totally vindicated. And interesting comments below, including from our Elizabeth Hart, asking the same as me; why on earth did the Swedish government then urge/coerce its citizens to get a jab they demonstrably didn’t need? If they didn’t lockdown, mask up or close schools then they can’t say it was the restrictions which saved them from certain death, but get vaxxed anyway…? Makes zero sense.
https://metatron.substack.com/p/sweden-cant-explain-away-the-fact
Simple.. because it was all about getting that jab of toxins (nanotechnology) into peoples arms..
Hydrogel Interfaces for Merging Humans and Machines – MIT Research Review
I can’t answer your question…but people didn’t always act as we would hope or think…..and that what we see as totally illogical, might not have seemed so to them….??
It’s very difficult to answer…was it money?..a genuine belief they would work?….
Panic? Stupidity? Evil? Collective Insanity? An overriding sense of being seen to do something..even if it was the wrong something? Shame?
Who knows?
This is a good substack from Thorsteinn Siglaugsson….(try saying that fast ten times!! LOL!)
“The Cheerleader Who Demanded Lifelong Quarantine for the Unvaccinated Now Admits Nobody Under 50 Should Have Been VaccinatedWhat is it that prompts Dr. Stefánsson to come forward now, years after it became abundantly clear how useless the vaccines were and how dangerous to the young and healthy?”
…and again, it’s as if they know they were wrong, but just can’t get to actually admitting it wholeheartedly….
https://thorsteinn.substack.com/p/the-cheerleader-who-demanded-lifelong?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
All you need to know about Sweden in two handy graphs…
Why was Hancock not hauled over the coals at the inquiry when he proudly announced if it happened again, he’d lockdown even harder.
In essence, he stated publicly “I am a Sociopath”
I am slightly mystified by Sweden. Yes, they didn’t lockdown, but they did have huge “care home issues” in the early days (which caused them to look bad compared with other Scandinavian countries), and they did roll out the vaccines quite aggressively (with mandates, I think). Their excess death performance would have been much more understandable (to me, at least) if they had also rejected the vaccines, but they didn’t.
Any thoughts?
Hard to know for sure. There has been at least one study, covered here I think, which analysed adverse “vaccine” events by batch and found huge variations, leading the authors to think that a lot of the batches were close to a placebo. Maybe Sweden got mostly placebo batches, or maybe the vaxx is less harmful to people who had covid before they were “vaccinated”.
One thing is for sure – there won’t be any state connected body doing serious studies into all of this.
“Why was Hancock not hauled over the coals at the inquiry when he proudly announced if it happened again, he’d lockdown even harder.”
This was Handicock announcing to the Davos Deviants:
‘Gissus a job!’
Getting himself in position for the next one.
OFF TOPIC!
any chance of a private members forum for all of us at this amazing place? So we can meet chat, and become friends (or enemies)
should we wish? Toby?
Dinger, if you go to the Forums at the top of the page you’re able to private message people from there. I don’t know how a group one would be set up though.
Oh right, sorry, not up on all this stuff!
thanks mogs
I’ll give it a look
I’ve always enjoyed David Bell’s articles and I’ve always agreed with him. This is a notable exception, as he writes about how the toxic gene therapies should not be removed from the market and people should have the choice to get jabbed or not. I think they should be ditched, but it is rather a moot point anyway given that they’re not going anywhere anyway. Too many vested interests in this lucrative but proven dangerous mRNA tech for them to ever be investigated let alone ditched. Plus, if they were ever removed from the market how will the globalist psychos ever be able to say ”No jab no travel” and all the rest of the restrictions on daily life they have planned for us with the vax pass? These shots are necessary for their agenda to progress.
”Mass vaccination in this context is obviously a flawed policy. Mandating a non-transmission blocking vaccine for immune people at minimal intrinsic risk could only be driven by gross ignorance or corporate profit. The use of behavioral psychology to instill fear and the use of coercion are clearly unethical by any modern ethical standard. The many people who have lost their jobs and homes, and were publicly vilified for standing on principle and refusing to submit to such practice, have a clear right to redress. Those who committed fraud should have to answer for it. Those who abandoned the precautionary principle and informed consent should be required to justify their actions and their right to continue to practice.
None of this should remove the right of the public to make their own decisions on accessing these new genetic vaccines as a currently marketed commodity. Where expected harm clearly outweighs benefit, no medical practitioner should offer it, just as it would be inappropriate to offer Thalidomide to a pregnant woman with nausea. Where there are plausible grounds for overall benefit, if should be available as an option. These individuals can decide, based on the information available. While this group of potential beneficiaries appears diminishingly small, it remains conceivable that elderly obese diabetics with no prior Covid infection may benefit. Market forces can then decide whether the product is viable, rather than authoritarian dictates.”
https://brownstone.org/articles/theres-no-need-to-ban-these-vaccines/
I agree with you that they should be removed from the market – they are purportedly being used in animal “vaccines” and the traditional “vaccines” are being changed to mRNA technology. The stuff is everywhere.
“Why they hate cars”. I have long thought that the view of these smug idiots who tell us cars are not necessary generally live in the leafier parts of London, with everything on the doorstep, and have no concept at all about rural (or even semi-rural) living. We have one bus a week to a local town, that’s it. I would love it if there was an hourly bus to our nearest shopping centre ten miles away, but no bus company would run it because there’s no money in it. In fact, bus services in local areas are constantly being amalgamated and withdrawn due to lack of use.
I remember, with amusement, the person who got a lift into the village for some reason, but then wanted to get out. He approached me near the bus stop (no details of bus times are displayed!) and asked how he could get a taxi. It turns out that he thought he would simply phone for an Uber. He was even more dismayed when I told him that if you want a taxi you have to, generally book it a few weeks in advance. I suggested he stuck out his thumb.
I think they might alter their views if they lived here for a bit.
“Don’t say ‘black’ – say ‘financial’.”
I think I get it:
“This is the worst bank crisis since Financial Monday.”
“The Financial Death wiped out a third of Europe.”
“Justin Trudeau often appears in financial face.”
“Come and see my new financial labrador.”
That should stop the prejudice, eh?
What about the financial box in planes? Some people are great fans of Financial Sabbath Financial seems to be a very popular colour for doors and window frames at the moment. Financial ice is a problem in winter.
Etc. etc.
Makes sense doesn’t it?
Stop that immediately Gefion.. or you’ll end up with an ether delivered financial eye..
You have a down tick! As have I. I wonder what was going in the mind of the downticker. If there is a mind….
Actually, ‘financial’ does sound like a shade Farrow and Ball would come out with.
Wow it gone dark, it’s a financial out!
I’m blinded by the snow, its a white out!
Why one rule for one?
“Don’t say ‘black’ market, say ‘illegal’ instead, Finance U.K. says”
They’ll be coming after Brilliant White next.
Space, the final frontier, is a vast illegal place full of illegal holes and…. I can hear lawsuits being busily prepared on the Enterprise. May the daftness continue…
Not to mention ‘Old English White.’
Please don’t ever mention that again…
‘Whiter than white’
‘Black spot’
‘Black mark’
‘Lily white’
‘White noise’
The list is long!
How about an illegal cab? Might be a few of them on the road. None in Bristol, though; they have to be blue.
A whiter shade of pale?
“Pink noise” is probably “problematic.”
“Nigel Farage says NatWest in ‘panic mode’ after new data request delayed”
They must have run out of printer ink!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12362697/Greens-senator-Nick-McKim-melts-climate-sceptic-politician-Matt-Canavan-Mate-shut-mouth.html
This is very funny…the Green Party Senator Nick McKim absolutely loosing his marbles over global warming….
The article isn’t behind a paywall and has the video…LOL!
This is a good video, which someone has gone to a lot of trouble to cobble together…
Showing the Democrats doing exactly what they are prosecuting and accusing Trump of doing (election interference and questioning the result)!
Someone commented that the Democrats have clear double-standards..but those are the only standards they’ve got…LOL!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX2Ejqjz6TA
12 Minutes of Democrats Denying Election Results.
That is very amusing. And all based on the Russian collusion argument that we now know to have been a complete hoax.
I attach a link to a clip on Twitter showing a GB News interview yesterday with a US journalist called Jan Halper-Hayes, where she argues that the latest Trump indictment is a big mistake by the Dems.
“2020 election is going to be RE-LITIGATED over this..they made a huge mistake… Biden is..president of what is now the bankrupt US Corporation..that was a treaty in 1871…Sept 12th 2018 Trump created an Executive Order..specifically for the 2020 election”
https://twitter.com/MaajidNawaz/status/1687361516931092480?s=20
Why the outrage? What else would one expect from the BBC? Who on earth watches their output or pays heed to their pronunciations. Me? R5 & Extra for Sport, occasional R3 (now also hugely dumbed down). Otherwise they may as well not exist. In essence, they are talking to themselves.
We junked our TV nearly 20 years ago. Not missed it for one day.
Admission. I do occasionally switch on Today. Why? To remind me why I never listen to it.
Always works.
Oddly, I’ve never heard the term ‘whitewash’ and took offence based on skin colour. I see it as completely unrelated. Perhaps I have missed a trick here and should be demanding some form of reparations?
Why isn´t Stefánsson in prison or, at least, debarred from practising medicine?
OFF TOPIC!
any chance of a private members forum for all of us at this amazing place? So we can meet chat, and become friends (or enemies)
should we wish? Toby?