More reasons why successive governments caused our energy crisis

Started by klondike, September 20, 2022, 09:43:56 AM

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klondike

We just paid Belgium 50 times the going rate to keep London's lights on – how did it come to this?
We need a public enquiry to get to the bottom of Britain's energy humiliation


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/09/17/just-paid-belgium-50-times-going-rate-keep-londons-lights/

I'm not sure what good a public enquiry would be but they sure as hell need to start fixing the mess a succession of poor policy decisions has landed us in and stop trying to shift the blame.
Still it will all be sorted by 2030 won't is as there will be no new internal combustion engine cars on sale then...   :lipsrsealed: :lipsrsealed: :lipsrsealed:

Article extracts

Britain's energy crisis is a national political humiliation. It is a direct result of a generation of cross-party policy failures and contradictions which have conspired to deliver a perfect storm.

Grave errors by a range of past energy ministers range from: Patricia Hewitt's opposition to  nuclear power in 2001; Ed Miliband's refusal to back new clean coal plants in 2009; Ed Davey supporting wood pellet plants over new gas in 2013; Amber Rudd overseeing the end of carbon capture funding in 2015; Greg Clark allowing the closure of the Rough gas storage site in 2017 and Andrea Leadsom banning fracking in 2019, to name just a few.

This brief summary of just some of the failures and short-term policy-making mistakes of recent years ran in parallel with the conscious and consistent run-down of reliable UK electricity generation. Between 2000 and 2017 over a third of the UK's firm baseload electricity generating capacity was closed to meet EU rules without any comparable net replacements.

Alongside a long list of former energy secretaries (17 since 1997), ex-premiers Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson should also be called as they led governments which oversaw the running down of British energy security, diversity and resilience.

Whilst backbenchers are told to keep citing Russia and Ukraine as the reason for this very avoidable energy crunch, the real story is much more damning, concerning and home-grown. Years of ministerial dithering alongside bad and conflicted planning by Whitehall and network managers have helped deliver the perfect storm of high electricity prices, tight supplies and insufficient power.


Michael Rolls

Thank you for the days, the days you gave me
[email protected]

Ashy

Now we have thrown off the yoke of the eu, we should be re-opening anything we closed for their benefit, if it is still standing.

klondike

I heard somebody mention coal mines. I's assumed that as they would have flooded reopening them would be difficult.

Michael Rolls

it couldn't be done quickly - and where would you find the miners - more immigrants?
Mike
Thank you for the days, the days you gave me
[email protected]

klondike

Well the skills almost certainly don't exist here any more.

Alex

What happened to our nuclear power company which was Government owned ?  British Nuclear Fuels was a world leader in the manufacture of nuclear fuel. By 2009, BNFL had been split upand sold off all its assets.  Who allowed this to happen  ? Labour. :evil:

klondike

Best not to start allocating blame. The Tories took power in 2010 and presided over reducing out gas storage to just about enough to cook a big turkey along with plenty of other stupid things. Not sure what genius thought it would be a good idea to ship wood pellets across the Atlantic to burn in the Drax power station. Can somebody remind me who it was that shut down just about all the pits too?

Neither party comes up smelling of roses when you delve into just what got us into this mess when we used to be self sufficient in energy.

Alex

The break up of BNFL was started way before 2009 when assets were finally sold.
Labour didn't/doesn't like nuclear power, in spite of what SKS says..

Ashy

The current problems are caused by sanctions. Sanctions are supposed to hurt the party being sanctioned (at least that's what I thought) but, not not only are 'we' not hurting Russia but we are damaging the world economies. Politicians these days are so stupid, they have a shallow grasp on economics and virtually every other subject under the sun, and live in a bubble completely insulated from real life.