 | Finally, somebody in the Coalition Government has admitted that the privatisation of energy was a very expensive mistake :-
“Energy prices: without reform, we’ll all be in the dark : It is vital that Britain prepares to provide far more of its own energy needs. : By Chris Huhne : 11 Jul 2011…Ofgem estimates that we need £110 billion of electricity investment by 2020. That is £30 million a day for 10 years – double the investment rate of the previous decade. It is the equivalent of 20 new power stations, together with the infrastructure to connect them to the grid. This money has to come from somewhere. Not even the big six energy suppliers are big enough for the challenge. We need new blood in the electricity market…” |
“But businesses are not charities; they will not invest without a realistic expectation of return. Inevitably, that will mean higher bills. If we were to leave the market as it is today, annual household electricity bills would rise by about the same amount as last week’s increase – about £200 higher by 2030…”
It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to see that the “tight ship” free market liberalised energy sector has basically not been doing enough investment in new power stations and other infrastructure.
And now all their profits have slipped through their fingers and the taxpayer will need to pay for a revitalised energy system.
Great ! We, the British people are going to have to bail out the energy sector, just like we bailed out the banks ! Now that’s what I call management (not) !
Clearly, we’ve either not been paying enough for our energy over the last thirty years, or the profits from our bills have been frittered away into corporate jets, stashes of CEO Rolexes, or Beverley Hills or Jersey/Guernsey mansions or something; instead of being spent on keeping the energy systems secure, safe, up-to-date and in working order; and getting new power stations built when needed.
Amusingly Chris Huhne recommends that energy customers “switch” suppliers between a small handful of players that are effectively a pseudo-cartel as their prices are all generally similar. And anyway, if the bill payers do score a competitive tariff deal, that’s not going to pay for the new round of power stations we need, now, is it ?
My say is this – if the British people are going to be forced to pay for new power stations, then we should be able to vote on which kind of power the stations produce. And that means no nuclear power.
Most of us want to see an end to nuclear power – which needs the largest amount of public support overall – remember we still haven’t paid for clearing up the nuclear waste – but we will, we will.
How about a national referendum on nuclear power, Chris Huhne, since we’re all going to be asked to pay for it ?
One reply on “Chris Huhne : Money from Somewhere”
A referendum on nuclear power could be very opportune at present.
However if we are to secure our energy future we need another: That fuel gas should contain an increasing proportion of from carbon neutral suources. (That means methane and hydrogen of carbon neutral origin, e.g. biomass)