Excellent article & great to see an alternative energy policy v the net zero madness we have at the moment. Reform party please take note of these proposals & ……. David Turver as energy minister in 2029? 🤩
"Some might think that simply stopping the subsidies is the answer, but these subsidies are enshrined in contracts and if we want English Law to remain pre-eminent, then contracts should be honoured."
The contracts were based on UK govt policies, subsidies, tariffs and limits. If those things change so will the basis of the contract and I've no doubt the energy companies have a get out clause. If they don't they are badly run, or more likely corruptly making profits from these contracts and deserve to go bust.
These globalists always create a network of laws to try and protect their plans, the only way to deal with it is NOT to create yet more legal complexity but to scrap the laws. You cannot sue because the law has changed (to my knowledge) and no Parliament may bind another is the foundation of our constitution. Scrap the laws, make things simpler, then open up the market and that will do the work for you. Some very rich people will lose their shirts, tough. That's what capitalism is about, reward for RISK.
Reform simply needs to remove the framework for this nonsense and to insist that UK generated energy remains in the UK to supply UK energy and not be sent on the merry-go-round of the European market. I have a very strong suspicion that energy is just shunted around Europe and the price increased every time it changes countries and eventually ends up back in the UK.
There is also the issue of what happens if countries change their own laws and refuse to sell us energy; Brownouts and blackouts with no capacity in the UK to deal with it.
Yes you can sue when the contract explicitly states that if the law changes you can sue for compensation. Which these contracts do. Without that guarantee the contracts would not have gone ahead, precisely because of the risk of backsliding on the subsidies. If you want to ride roughshod over such agreements no-one will trust you, and you will create huge problems. Like not being able to fund government debt, a crashing currency and rapid descent to the economics of Zimbabwe.
We pay more for our energy because we have to bid to import it because we don't produce enough ourselves, and because we have imposed very expensive ways for producing what we do produce as well as cutting the amount. So you stop future new contracts with subsidies, but you have to accept the current ones. You can look at ways to reduce their impact that don't contravene the contracts, but you also need to keep the lights on. You can let the market help you navigate away to a better system.
And they can sue under a law or a ruling, which could be changed by a law.
Nothing that is written cannot be unwritten.
The second paragraph is wrong. We do not pay more for our energy because we import it. Greece imports over 80% of its energy, the UK imports 15% of its energy. You really need to do some research before making statements like that.
Of course politicians are free to pass any laws they like, but there really is no need to impose unforced errors. There has been far too much of that already.
I think it is you who need to research our energy supply. Start here (a new publication is due shortly)
You will find that we import almost all our coal, over half our gas, over half our oil products (and we are now producing less than half our crude oil consumption with actual refinery input dominated by imported oil and the majority of production exported) as well as 15% of electricity. Gas consumption to make electricity depends on imported gas. If we didn't use it we would import less. Gas consumption for electricity generation is about twice the generation in GWh. So the import dependence is twice the share of gas generation plus the share of electricity direct import.
"Suppose that regulation was changed. Instead of all producers, whether of gas or electricity, being paid the price of the highest cost supplier in their market they were instead paid their own fair marginal cost of production, including a reasonable profit margin.
Then presume that the energy regulator priced the onward supply of wholesale gas and electricity to the energy distribution companies on the basis of the actual cost to produce (including fair profit) of the gas and electricity actually sold into the market each day.
I stress, that for much of the renewables sector and for nuclear this will not be hard to do because of the nature of the government price guarantees that are already in place.
For gas, simply mix internationally priced gas with UK-produced gas at its fair price of production. That's all that is required.
This would, though, require a change in the law. There would be yelling, screaming and shouting from some energy companies, despite what I have noted, and legal threats galore. These will need to be ignored for one straightforward reason. This is that the state should not support a market rigged by its own regulation."
Its time to change uk energy pricing - Funding the Future
'Climate change' was weaponised into a tax system. It's simply the latest control system to restrict and limit human freedoms. The favoured are rewarded, the disfavoured are punished. Denial of fuel is the Left's latest attempt at a power grab to control people.
The energy element is a side issue to reach that ultimate aim. That this will fail is a given: Left wing ideology always does, but how many will suffer in the meanwhile?
Referencing Reform with these sort of policies the party is almost grabbing at headlines rather than presenting a battle line to campaign on. I'm very worried that they simply don't grasp the enormity of the task in front of them. Same for tax policy. Where is the discussion on business taxes being passed on directly to employees? Where is the call to cut stealth taxes that hurt you after you've been mugged for your earnings? What about taxes on saving, inheritance - the entire state line is now to create and ingrain dependence rather than work, earn, save and pass on to your cildren.
If we don't get real change and media tested policies that the BBC can't take apart then what's the point? If they don't understand the real goal of 'climate change' lawfare and thus energy what hope has the country?
Using modern prospecting and extraction techniques there are hundreds – perhaps thousands of years’ worth of available petroleum resources left as yet untouched.
Then, using the steerable drilling techniques used for shale extraction and in situ gasification which produces synthesis gas, feedstock for the Fischer-Tropsch coal to oil process, there are trillions of tons of coal accessible in the UK alone.
And then there is the vast amount of methane available as hydrate on the ocean bed and in the arctic permafrost which is even now being investigated with a view to commercial exploitation, see here:
“At the same time, new technologies are being developed in Germany that may be useful for exploring and extracting the hydrates. The basic idea is very simple: the methane (CH4) is harvested from the hydrates by replacing it with CO2. Laboratory studies show that this is possible in theory because liquid carbon dioxide reacts spontaneously with methane hydrate. If this concept could become economically viable, it would be a win-win situation, because the gas exchange in the hydrates would be attractive both from a financial and a climate perspective.”
We have plenty of shale gas we should use for home heating and we could invest in SMR and micro reactors in quantity to have a electrical baseload. Add in to the coal and gas for a variety of fuel sources (so we're not dependent on one fuel type).
If someone said 'Could we put a micro reactor in your car parking bit in exchange for free electricity?' folk would tar their arm off. We'd all turn our heating up 2 degrees and keep our water heaters on eco rather than timed so we always had hot water.
David, might be worth trying to make contact with Matt Goodwin. It seems to me that he is driving a lot of the "social" side of Reform policy and I was only thinking the other day that he could do with someone who can speak knowledgeably about Net Zero and the energy supply crisis.
I think it was encouraging that GBN managed almost an hour of in depth interview with Prof Gordon Hughes which covered many of the issues well. Available here:
Reform are going to need a Parliamentary team for energy issues, but also to have lined up key replacements to take over at OFGEM and the CCC and NESO and the ONR and the Environment Agency for starters. Probably plus getting them to line up recruits to serve as heads of important departments in each quango. They will need to line up replacements for the current short list of consultancies employed by these quangos, many of which are green sockpuppets. They will need a plan to professionalise the energy department with people who understand the business. They will need to establish contacts with the industry to start working out plans that can be implemented and getting the industry to prepare for that. That will be tricky because they will be defending entrenched subsidised positions. Perhaps it will be necessary to help the industry to recruit new CEOs. They will need a plan for legislative reform with an order of execution that works.
Of course, they are going to need to do something similar with all areas of policy. Having people who really know what they are talking about is essential. It was why Nick Gibb was able to achieve reforms at Education to impose the best methods of teaching children to read: he had the facts to outscore the blob.
Please keep pushing Mr Turver. It is so important that the energy market rigging is understood and the hoax unravelled and exposed.
No one wants to shove litter or leave the heating on when it's 30'c outside but we do want the choice over how we live and the deliberate intent to ration energy is nothing more than state control over our lives.
I guess it's not his forte either. Evidently Clive Moffat is known to Farage, who has interviewed him several times on his programme. Might be a more fruitful way in: Clive himself gave up trying to re-educate the Tories I think, although now there is a nexus in the DESNZ Shadow roles that is far more aware of the issues and is seeking out sound advice. I know they read your blog for a start. I recall Claire Coutinho posting on X that @7Kiwi should be part of a Red Team...
What about the demand side in all of this? Can we really afford to keep building data centres and sucking our grid dry? I’m not convinced that AI is really what we need...
We do rather. If we're left behind in an exponential new area we'll never catch up. Demand isn't the issue. Provision should already be well ahead of what the public want.
The idea that government should manage supply and demand is absolutely mindless. Markets manage supply and demand. The only role the state has is ensuring safety - not restriction.
The reason energy is so expensive is precisely because this useless, miserable obsession with 'climate change' - itself nothing more than a tax scam - is because of government breaking the market.
We will agree to differ. I would argue that many of the profits of the markets depend on externalities such as pollution and societal disruption being outsourced to the rest of us. 'What the public want' is a slippery concept, as much of this is shaped by powerful industries like advertising creating artifical demands. But where we do agree is that Net Zero is not the solution that it pretends to be. ;)
Net Zero as a policy to reduce emissions of CO2 is flawed in so many ways. Those who have designed the policy have an obvious lack of knowledge of physics, but we are not dealing with rational people who might listen to alternative ideas. Here's one simple fact, there are a myriad of others.
The Earth is basically a water planet, with over 70% of the surface area being water. The volume of water in all its forms is beyond measurement. CO2 in the atmosphere is slave to water temperature and atmospheric pressure. Henry's LAW (not a hypothesis) controls the volumes in the air and water. No amount of our fiddling with insane ideas like carbon capture will make an iota of difference. I put the foregoing to Reform at a local meeting before the election... blank faces stared back at me. They seemingly know nothing of this fact. You really do need to have a grip of the principles, and an ability to understand how our climate works, in a broad sense.
Net Zero is a belief system, and when it fails, as it will, due to it being in conflict with basic laws of physics. They will comfort themselves by saying it was the right thing to do. What state the country will be in if they get to that point, I don't know. But for sure it will be unrecognisable as a first world country.
Anyway, good stuff as usual David, keep it up, we may yet prevail.
David: from across the pond I am not nearly sufficiently versed in U.K. politics to offer advice, but I am confident in this:
Somehow you need to wrangle a meeting with Reform leadership. I believe you are about the only person in the U.K. who has a comprehensive set of Model Policies that has a chance of dismantling NetZero.
NetZero is a dead man walking…but without smart policies and leadership it will keep walking for quite a while, damaging the U.K. every day.
You are correct in stating that madman Milliband and his crew will fight a pitched battle.
The way to fight him is to ensure the public knows two things: a) Nothing the U.K. does, or doesn’t do, will ever have ANY effect on global CO2 levels or climate; your contributions are so small that your emissions matter not.
b) There has still never been a successful demonstration of grid-scale non-dispatchable NetZero power generation. The U.K. can add VRE until the cows come home but no matter how much is added, you’ll still need either imports or more internal firm capacity to keep your lights on.
The reason NetZero cannot be successful is that reasonably priced power storage has not yet been invented: it doesn’t exist.
To get through winter a grid would need weeks of storage. The U.K. barely has minutes, and it would cost many multiples of GDP and hundreds of years to manufacture what U.K. would need.
Make Millibrain state exactly how much storage would be needed to retire all hydrocarbons-fueled generators, and how many more wind turbines.
And even the U.K. were successful at a cost of £trillions, climate would never be effected; your contributions are a rounding error in Asian totals.
Countries such as Norway are tiring of being U.K.’s backup. Currently your lights would go out without imports. The U.K., for security reasons, needs to be able to generate all needed power, with imports reserved for true emergencies.
I understand that CO2 is now detached from temperature and that it is increasing at a faster rate than temperature, so CO2 is not the control knob and it is pointless pursuing net zero. We should be more concerned about much colder temperatures up to about 2045 where we can expect to see the Thames freeze again.
Maybe David T should stand for Reform with the aim of being their energy spokesman.
Of course none of this matters if the next catastrophic event arrives on time as this will do the Malthusians work for them.
If such does occur and we are not prepared for it people will die. Miliband will be one of them but decent people who simply can't pay the £250-300 a month bills despite using barely any energy will be the real victims.
Reform aren't going to command a majority anytime soon but for sure could be a kingmaker and then they will really need compromise positions. Reality is the green/climate agenda has got too far into peoples heads to be undone anytime soon so any policy needs to find a halfway house that recognises that. We can't undo what is already contracted but we are already in a position where most of the ROC supported assets are nearer to their end date than start date. There needs to be a policy response to this to ensure even intermittent generation is replaced with something. So overall I feel there is support for an element of (unsubsidised) renewables in the generation mix and better let the experts in running the power system say whether this 10, 20% or more but beyond that we need dispatchable generation and that ought to contain an element of nuclear topped up gas that can load follow efficiently.
As an aside I'd also say the more there is threat to Milibrains policies the more he will double down to ensure its irreversible in four years. So opposition parties would be wise to see this threat and actually be far more challenging in what Millibrain is proposing and not try and politically point score. Stitch him and his cohort up with evidence that David, Kathryn Porter et al produce these same issues can be flooded into MPs accounts using writetothem and they will have to refer it to DENZ for answers.
I think Reform are actually in with a very good chance of being the next government. They've already had polls that would place them as the largest party in Parliament, and with votes now so fractured achieving a majority comes in the low 30s of polling support, while the mid 30s gives a landslide, just as Labour achieved last July. The fact they are now taking votes from Labour is a big and important development that can lead to huge swings in seats.
Probably the biggest obstacle to that is being seen to be capable of doing the job: public doubt in the polling booth would see many voters retreat to the parties they know even though they know them to be incompetent. That is why it is so important to professionalise the effort and move away from simplistic slogans that sound good at a student demo but don't work in the real world. It's very hard to do with just 5 MPs who have to prioritise what they do, and when you are also trying to establish an electoral base in local elections (here again, some really competent councillors will help enormously - if they can call out bad local policies and spending and recommend good policies and how to economise on spending that will help enormously - it has long been the secret of the Lib Dems that their local councillors are often surprisingly competent, even if their national politicians are not.
It would be almost as disastrous to get in and then stumble through being inadequately prepared - as happened to Truss and the current Labour government. Trump and his team have shown how you need to prepare. It will be harder here, because you can't just sack half the civil service by Executive Order. The more you can put in a manifesto that the Lords cannot obstruct the better.
We need to ensure compromise doesn't turn into the dog sh1t yoghurt fallacy. If someone offered you dog sh1t yoghurt, you wouldn't compromise with them if they offered to replace half of it with raspberries.
The wind and solar renewables mania may have brainwashed the masses, but they have been duped into accepting dog sh1t yoghurt
I have always believed folk should be given the choice. Personally I quite like the idea of the solar panels on my roof and batteries as the less I pay the better, bu I fundamentally believe those are for me to pay for.
For us, that investment should save us money. For other families without our opportunity energy should be vastly, vastly cheaper by default. Investment should just further reduce your long term costs.
“Reform aren't going to command a majority anytime soon”. It could happen, if only enough people can be persuaded not to vote for the Lab/Con/LibDem/SNP Uniparty. I always cite the example of the separatist SNP here in Scotland who have been in power for almost twenty years because votes for the unionist Lab/Con/Lib Dem parties get split three ways.
Like Trump in his forced interregnum, Reform have a few years to prepare for office. Trump has clearly used his time supremely well, with many of his moves well camouflaged, and is likely to achieve much more this time than he would if the 2020 election had not been stolen. He is not even deigning to give the green blob a formal rebuttal of their climate change hoax, he is simply ignoring the establishment's climate change so-called consensus.
Reform needs a chainsaw-wielding DOGE unit to cut away the bureaucracy and NGOs which prevent elected politicians doing what the people want them to do. Liz Truss did a fascinating interview recently thinking along these lines, saying that a reforming government will need to repeal most of the laws that have been passed over the last forty years: https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/liz-truss-in-interview-with-andrew-gold-her-awakening/.
She's right. The evidence is in the UK & EU economic performance that the cosy consensus in place since Thatcher is not working. In fact, it's getting worse and although it sounds hyperbolic, I really do think we are facing an existential crisis in a number of policy areas, not just energy.
My understanding is that repealing the innumerable destructive laws made by Blair, and the Conservatives, must be approved by parliament. Assuming Reform did win the next election, the margin by which they win, and the official opposition, are vital. Without a large majority, most reforms will fail. Bearing in mind, energy is not the only egregious law on the books, the Equalities Act must be repealed or reformed, the Supreme Court needs to be abolished to restore parliaments democratic decision making.
Our judiciary needs an enema with a Christmas tree, the College of Policing must be eliminated and numerous NGO's defunded completely with laws passed to ensure they can never again compromise our democratic system.
Police forces across the country need to be reformed and recruitment and training overhauled. Peter Hitchens thinks things are so bad the only solution is to evolve a parallel police force, to be trained with no regard to DEI and, when ready, a wholesale replacement of all leadership and conformist officers.
Then there is the question of personal freedoms, particularly around freedom of expression and Non Crime Hate Incidents, has there ever been a more ridiculous and authoritarian bureaucratic process, masquerading as a criminal process, supported by our justice system?
These are just a few off the top of my head, but there is also the overriding concern of the public - stopping and reversing mass migration. Reform can repeal as many laws as it wants, including the UK support for the ECHR, but as Nigel Farage pointed out, many migrants are here to stay, the damage has already been done.
What Reform can't afford to do is frighten people away from the party who still believe climate change is an important consideration.
The same can be said for the covid fiasco. 80% of the country accepted jabs, and most simply refuse to accept they may have been coerced into make the wrong decision.
According to polling I have seen over recent years, there is still a majority who support climate action without question. Self flagellation is back in vogue these days, and many people will simply refuse to admit they were ever wrong about the climate or covid, despite their bills rising, quality of life falling, and life expectation threatened.
The best thing we can do is support Reform rather than berating them, and you are doing a fine job providing them the ammunition they need, David.
Hopefully, the rumours that the most dangerous man in politics today, Dominic (cunning) Cummings, will join Reform are true. I daresay he rather fancies the idea of being the Elon Musk of British politics.
All of this is a massive task which cannot be achieved in a single parliament. Reform need to ensure they have the staying power to win at least two or three terms in office.
How do you eat an elephant? One small piece at a time.
If you keep people afraid they'll agree to anything.
You raise a good point over the covid jab. I still get odd looks about my not having had it.
However I remember big government saying something like:
It's your choice not to have it... but if you don't, you can't have a bank account, own a home, drive a car, use the NHS, get insurance, go shopping.....
It was egregious abuse of power to force people into something but still say 'but it is, of course 'your choice'.
Folk cling on to 'climate change' because they're lied to. They've been lied to for so long, and so often, from supposedly trusted, respected sources that they no longer question it. That doesn't mean they've not been lied to. Oh there are true belevers and they'll never change but there's really not many of them.
You are right that polled support for net zero and climate policy remains high. It is, however, mostly quite soft, ranking a long way down people's priorities especially where the policy makes people poorer and colder and hungrier, denies them a car, kicks them out of their jobs and soon their homes under EPC regulation. There are of course noisy zealots whose function is to enforce uniformity of opinion.
It will be very interesting to see what happens now. The scuttlebutt is that Miliband is toast, and Rachel from accounts will be repurposing green funding to defence, which will bring out a long quiescent CO faction and resistance to fighting other people's wars. The recent strongly pro nuclear policy did sound like a real change for the better - cutting nuclear red tape, and getting building (even if it wasn't explored for its impact on renewables, with which nuclear has an uneasy coexistence) . Then Rachel decided she wasn't going to fund it.
NESO only contract for the small volumes procured or shut in under the Balancing Mechanism, although those can sometimes come with eye-watering costs. Almost all electricity is traded via bilateral contracts, with subsidies collected via subsidiary mechanisms such as ROCs and CFD payments.
Trying to impose a true cost (inclusive of subsidy) merit order system would amount to QCiL type changes that would potentially crystallise large compensation bills. The Tories didn't impose their generator levy on subsidised generation precisely because of these features of existing contracts and law under which renewables were established. The Reform plan to try to do so is unworkable.
You have to work with the contracts. You can probably halt further wind farm build out by promising no bailout where wind farms find themselves in line for curtailment, which would include no subsidies for hydrogen projects beyond the pitiful initial projects promised money already, and no REMA rejig to provide more subsidy by the back door. You could also impose site cleanup costs, just as has been done for oil and gas.
You have to becsure that whatever you do doesn't simply create capacity shortages and blackouts. You need careful planning, but that should not be by NESO and OFGEM. You need to get the industry to help you sort it out, and you need OFGEM replaced by people whose remit is consumer and national interest, expunging the net zero types.
Re. your comment that "Almost all electricity is traded via bilateral contracts", do you have up to date quantitative information on that (a link would be great if you have one)? How much is traded ahead of say the front month or the front week, how much is involved in the day-ahead auction, and how much is re-traded - in say the front week - by generators trying to unwind long or short positions as a result of variable weather impacting on physical delivery of "Renewables"?
You can see that OTC trade dominates, but bear in mind that covers all timescales from years ahead to last minute trades before gate closure. N2EX (Nord Pool) naturally attracts offers from CFDs on IMRP pricing: these are priced to sell and have no impact on the cleared price unless it is very low or negative. It provides a risk free pass through for retailers as well: they will pay the difference to average strike price day by day when invoiced by the LCCC. I know Nord Pool counts each leg of a trade as volume with N2EX nominally standing in the middle, but I don't know if OFGEM has corrected for that and I can't verify as the actual data is behind a paywall. Other trade simply records the contract volume between a buyer and a seller without double counting.
The boost in trading (with extra demand keeping prices higher than they would otherwise have been) to cover forward hedging shows up clearly, as does the collapse in hedging when the energy crisis made it costly and risky. There has been some pick up in hedging volumes of late associated with the restart of some longer fixed price offers in the market.
Also bear in mind that often hedging for further into the future is often a multi stage process, with trade in liquid nearby months setting a basic price level, with the actual cover in later months provided via spread trading that involves selling a prompter month and buying a later one simultaneously from the point of view of the hedge buyer. So you end up with 3 trades to secure cover in a forward month. Sometimes still further spreads are necessary if you want to hedge a long way forward, but this can soon start becoming costly in transaction fees and buy-sell price differences. Finding counterparties to take the other side of longer hedges is often much more difficult. Less competition makes for less attractive prices.
All very sensible suggestions, but even if Reform adopts them, the way things are going at the moment is that this corrupt Labour government will cancel a General Election citing emergency powers necessary because we are in a state of war with Russia - and considering Tice and Farage's stance on the Ukraine, they will probably agree!
Excellent article & great to see an alternative energy policy v the net zero madness we have at the moment. Reform party please take note of these proposals & ……. David Turver as energy minister in 2029? 🤩
"Some might think that simply stopping the subsidies is the answer, but these subsidies are enshrined in contracts and if we want English Law to remain pre-eminent, then contracts should be honoured."
The contracts were based on UK govt policies, subsidies, tariffs and limits. If those things change so will the basis of the contract and I've no doubt the energy companies have a get out clause. If they don't they are badly run, or more likely corruptly making profits from these contracts and deserve to go bust.
These globalists always create a network of laws to try and protect their plans, the only way to deal with it is NOT to create yet more legal complexity but to scrap the laws. You cannot sue because the law has changed (to my knowledge) and no Parliament may bind another is the foundation of our constitution. Scrap the laws, make things simpler, then open up the market and that will do the work for you. Some very rich people will lose their shirts, tough. That's what capitalism is about, reward for RISK.
Reform simply needs to remove the framework for this nonsense and to insist that UK generated energy remains in the UK to supply UK energy and not be sent on the merry-go-round of the European market. I have a very strong suspicion that energy is just shunted around Europe and the price increased every time it changes countries and eventually ends up back in the UK.
There is also the issue of what happens if countries change their own laws and refuse to sell us energy; Brownouts and blackouts with no capacity in the UK to deal with it.
Yes you can sue when the contract explicitly states that if the law changes you can sue for compensation. Which these contracts do. Without that guarantee the contracts would not have gone ahead, precisely because of the risk of backsliding on the subsidies. If you want to ride roughshod over such agreements no-one will trust you, and you will create huge problems. Like not being able to fund government debt, a crashing currency and rapid descent to the economics of Zimbabwe.
We pay more for our energy because we have to bid to import it because we don't produce enough ourselves, and because we have imposed very expensive ways for producing what we do produce as well as cutting the amount. So you stop future new contracts with subsidies, but you have to accept the current ones. You can look at ways to reduce their impact that don't contravene the contracts, but you also need to keep the lights on. You can let the market help you navigate away to a better system.
And they can sue under a law or a ruling, which could be changed by a law.
Nothing that is written cannot be unwritten.
The second paragraph is wrong. We do not pay more for our energy because we import it. Greece imports over 80% of its energy, the UK imports 15% of its energy. You really need to do some research before making statements like that.
Of course politicians are free to pass any laws they like, but there really is no need to impose unforced errors. There has been far too much of that already.
I think it is you who need to research our energy supply. Start here (a new publication is due shortly)
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-trends-december-2024
You will find that we import almost all our coal, over half our gas, over half our oil products (and we are now producing less than half our crude oil consumption with actual refinery input dominated by imported oil and the majority of production exported) as well as 15% of electricity. Gas consumption to make electricity depends on imported gas. If we didn't use it we would import less. Gas consumption for electricity generation is about twice the generation in GWh. So the import dependence is twice the share of gas generation plus the share of electricity direct import.
Did we start something?
"Suppose that regulation was changed. Instead of all producers, whether of gas or electricity, being paid the price of the highest cost supplier in their market they were instead paid their own fair marginal cost of production, including a reasonable profit margin.
Then presume that the energy regulator priced the onward supply of wholesale gas and electricity to the energy distribution companies on the basis of the actual cost to produce (including fair profit) of the gas and electricity actually sold into the market each day.
I stress, that for much of the renewables sector and for nuclear this will not be hard to do because of the nature of the government price guarantees that are already in place.
For gas, simply mix internationally priced gas with UK-produced gas at its fair price of production. That's all that is required.
This would, though, require a change in the law. There would be yelling, screaming and shouting from some energy companies, despite what I have noted, and legal threats galore. These will need to be ignored for one straightforward reason. This is that the state should not support a market rigged by its own regulation."
Its time to change uk energy pricing - Funding the Future
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/02/25/its-time-to-change-uk-energy-pricing/
FYI
Climate Change: Choosing to Fail, with Climate Scientist Kevin Anderson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVFSJINGueM&t=4862s
'Climate change' was weaponised into a tax system. It's simply the latest control system to restrict and limit human freedoms. The favoured are rewarded, the disfavoured are punished. Denial of fuel is the Left's latest attempt at a power grab to control people.
The energy element is a side issue to reach that ultimate aim. That this will fail is a given: Left wing ideology always does, but how many will suffer in the meanwhile?
Referencing Reform with these sort of policies the party is almost grabbing at headlines rather than presenting a battle line to campaign on. I'm very worried that they simply don't grasp the enormity of the task in front of them. Same for tax policy. Where is the discussion on business taxes being passed on directly to employees? Where is the call to cut stealth taxes that hurt you after you've been mugged for your earnings? What about taxes on saving, inheritance - the entire state line is now to create and ingrain dependence rather than work, earn, save and pass on to your cildren.
If we don't get real change and media tested policies that the BBC can't take apart then what's the point? If they don't understand the real goal of 'climate change' lawfare and thus energy what hope has the country?
Using modern prospecting and extraction techniques there are hundreds – perhaps thousands of years’ worth of available petroleum resources left as yet untouched.
Then, using the steerable drilling techniques used for shale extraction and in situ gasification which produces synthesis gas, feedstock for the Fischer-Tropsch coal to oil process, there are trillions of tons of coal accessible in the UK alone.
And then there is the vast amount of methane available as hydrate on the ocean bed and in the arctic permafrost which is even now being investigated with a view to commercial exploitation, see here:
“At the same time, new technologies are being developed in Germany that may be useful for exploring and extracting the hydrates. The basic idea is very simple: the methane (CH4) is harvested from the hydrates by replacing it with CO2. Laboratory studies show that this is possible in theory because liquid carbon dioxide reacts spontaneously with methane hydrate. If this concept could become economically viable, it would be a win-win situation, because the gas exchange in the hydrates would be attractive both from a financial and a climate perspective.”
http://worldoceanreview.com/en/wor-1/energy/methane-hydrates/2/
We have plenty of shale gas we should use for home heating and we could invest in SMR and micro reactors in quantity to have a electrical baseload. Add in to the coal and gas for a variety of fuel sources (so we're not dependent on one fuel type).
If someone said 'Could we put a micro reactor in your car parking bit in exchange for free electricity?' folk would tar their arm off. We'd all turn our heating up 2 degrees and keep our water heaters on eco rather than timed so we always had hot water.
David, might be worth trying to make contact with Matt Goodwin. It seems to me that he is driving a lot of the "social" side of Reform policy and I was only thinking the other day that he could do with someone who can speak knowledgeably about Net Zero and the energy supply crisis.
I think it was encouraging that GBN managed almost an hour of in depth interview with Prof Gordon Hughes which covered many of the issues well. Available here:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2025/02/27/the-net-zero-lie-it-will-destroy-britains-economy-for-decades/
Reform are going to need a Parliamentary team for energy issues, but also to have lined up key replacements to take over at OFGEM and the CCC and NESO and the ONR and the Environment Agency for starters. Probably plus getting them to line up recruits to serve as heads of important departments in each quango. They will need to line up replacements for the current short list of consultancies employed by these quangos, many of which are green sockpuppets. They will need a plan to professionalise the energy department with people who understand the business. They will need to establish contacts with the industry to start working out plans that can be implemented and getting the industry to prepare for that. That will be tricky because they will be defending entrenched subsidised positions. Perhaps it will be necessary to help the industry to recruit new CEOs. They will need a plan for legislative reform with an order of execution that works.
Of course, they are going to need to do something similar with all areas of policy. Having people who really know what they are talking about is essential. It was why Nick Gibb was able to achieve reforms at Education to impose the best methods of teaching children to read: he had the facts to outscore the blob.
He was good and hopefully a dress rehearsal for a C4 programme as the message needs to be hear loud and clear on the channels majority still watch.
I did some time ago, but didn't get a response
Please keep pushing Mr Turver. It is so important that the energy market rigging is understood and the hoax unravelled and exposed.
No one wants to shove litter or leave the heating on when it's 30'c outside but we do want the choice over how we live and the deliberate intent to ration energy is nothing more than state control over our lives.
I guess it's not his forte either. Evidently Clive Moffat is known to Farage, who has interviewed him several times on his programme. Might be a more fruitful way in: Clive himself gave up trying to re-educate the Tories I think, although now there is a nexus in the DESNZ Shadow roles that is far more aware of the issues and is seeking out sound advice. I know they read your blog for a start. I recall Claire Coutinho posting on X that @7Kiwi should be part of a Red Team...
What about the demand side in all of this? Can we really afford to keep building data centres and sucking our grid dry? I’m not convinced that AI is really what we need...
We do rather. If we're left behind in an exponential new area we'll never catch up. Demand isn't the issue. Provision should already be well ahead of what the public want.
The idea that government should manage supply and demand is absolutely mindless. Markets manage supply and demand. The only role the state has is ensuring safety - not restriction.
The reason energy is so expensive is precisely because this useless, miserable obsession with 'climate change' - itself nothing more than a tax scam - is because of government breaking the market.
We will agree to differ. I would argue that many of the profits of the markets depend on externalities such as pollution and societal disruption being outsourced to the rest of us. 'What the public want' is a slippery concept, as much of this is shaped by powerful industries like advertising creating artifical demands. But where we do agree is that Net Zero is not the solution that it pretends to be. ;)
Net Zero as a policy to reduce emissions of CO2 is flawed in so many ways. Those who have designed the policy have an obvious lack of knowledge of physics, but we are not dealing with rational people who might listen to alternative ideas. Here's one simple fact, there are a myriad of others.
The Earth is basically a water planet, with over 70% of the surface area being water. The volume of water in all its forms is beyond measurement. CO2 in the atmosphere is slave to water temperature and atmospheric pressure. Henry's LAW (not a hypothesis) controls the volumes in the air and water. No amount of our fiddling with insane ideas like carbon capture will make an iota of difference. I put the foregoing to Reform at a local meeting before the election... blank faces stared back at me. They seemingly know nothing of this fact. You really do need to have a grip of the principles, and an ability to understand how our climate works, in a broad sense.
Net Zero is a belief system, and when it fails, as it will, due to it being in conflict with basic laws of physics. They will comfort themselves by saying it was the right thing to do. What state the country will be in if they get to that point, I don't know. But for sure it will be unrecognisable as a first world country.
Anyway, good stuff as usual David, keep it up, we may yet prevail.
David: from across the pond I am not nearly sufficiently versed in U.K. politics to offer advice, but I am confident in this:
Somehow you need to wrangle a meeting with Reform leadership. I believe you are about the only person in the U.K. who has a comprehensive set of Model Policies that has a chance of dismantling NetZero.
NetZero is a dead man walking…but without smart policies and leadership it will keep walking for quite a while, damaging the U.K. every day.
You are correct in stating that madman Milliband and his crew will fight a pitched battle.
The way to fight him is to ensure the public knows two things: a) Nothing the U.K. does, or doesn’t do, will ever have ANY effect on global CO2 levels or climate; your contributions are so small that your emissions matter not.
b) There has still never been a successful demonstration of grid-scale non-dispatchable NetZero power generation. The U.K. can add VRE until the cows come home but no matter how much is added, you’ll still need either imports or more internal firm capacity to keep your lights on.
The reason NetZero cannot be successful is that reasonably priced power storage has not yet been invented: it doesn’t exist.
To get through winter a grid would need weeks of storage. The U.K. barely has minutes, and it would cost many multiples of GDP and hundreds of years to manufacture what U.K. would need.
Make Millibrain state exactly how much storage would be needed to retire all hydrocarbons-fueled generators, and how many more wind turbines.
And even the U.K. were successful at a cost of £trillions, climate would never be effected; your contributions are a rounding error in Asian totals.
Countries such as Norway are tiring of being U.K.’s backup. Currently your lights would go out without imports. The U.K., for security reasons, needs to be able to generate all needed power, with imports reserved for true emergencies.
I understand that CO2 is now detached from temperature and that it is increasing at a faster rate than temperature, so CO2 is not the control knob and it is pointless pursuing net zero. We should be more concerned about much colder temperatures up to about 2045 where we can expect to see the Thames freeze again.
Maybe David T should stand for Reform with the aim of being their energy spokesman.
Of course none of this matters if the next catastrophic event arrives on time as this will do the Malthusians work for them.
If such does occur and we are not prepared for it people will die. Miliband will be one of them but decent people who simply can't pay the £250-300 a month bills despite using barely any energy will be the real victims.
Reform aren't going to command a majority anytime soon but for sure could be a kingmaker and then they will really need compromise positions. Reality is the green/climate agenda has got too far into peoples heads to be undone anytime soon so any policy needs to find a halfway house that recognises that. We can't undo what is already contracted but we are already in a position where most of the ROC supported assets are nearer to their end date than start date. There needs to be a policy response to this to ensure even intermittent generation is replaced with something. So overall I feel there is support for an element of (unsubsidised) renewables in the generation mix and better let the experts in running the power system say whether this 10, 20% or more but beyond that we need dispatchable generation and that ought to contain an element of nuclear topped up gas that can load follow efficiently.
As an aside I'd also say the more there is threat to Milibrains policies the more he will double down to ensure its irreversible in four years. So opposition parties would be wise to see this threat and actually be far more challenging in what Millibrain is proposing and not try and politically point score. Stitch him and his cohort up with evidence that David, Kathryn Porter et al produce these same issues can be flooded into MPs accounts using writetothem and they will have to refer it to DENZ for answers.
I think Reform are actually in with a very good chance of being the next government. They've already had polls that would place them as the largest party in Parliament, and with votes now so fractured achieving a majority comes in the low 30s of polling support, while the mid 30s gives a landslide, just as Labour achieved last July. The fact they are now taking votes from Labour is a big and important development that can lead to huge swings in seats.
Probably the biggest obstacle to that is being seen to be capable of doing the job: public doubt in the polling booth would see many voters retreat to the parties they know even though they know them to be incompetent. That is why it is so important to professionalise the effort and move away from simplistic slogans that sound good at a student demo but don't work in the real world. It's very hard to do with just 5 MPs who have to prioritise what they do, and when you are also trying to establish an electoral base in local elections (here again, some really competent councillors will help enormously - if they can call out bad local policies and spending and recommend good policies and how to economise on spending that will help enormously - it has long been the secret of the Lib Dems that their local councillors are often surprisingly competent, even if their national politicians are not.
It would be almost as disastrous to get in and then stumble through being inadequately prepared - as happened to Truss and the current Labour government. Trump and his team have shown how you need to prepare. It will be harder here, because you can't just sack half the civil service by Executive Order. The more you can put in a manifesto that the Lords cannot obstruct the better.
We need to ensure compromise doesn't turn into the dog sh1t yoghurt fallacy. If someone offered you dog sh1t yoghurt, you wouldn't compromise with them if they offered to replace half of it with raspberries.
The wind and solar renewables mania may have brainwashed the masses, but they have been duped into accepting dog sh1t yoghurt
I have always believed folk should be given the choice. Personally I quite like the idea of the solar panels on my roof and batteries as the less I pay the better, bu I fundamentally believe those are for me to pay for.
For us, that investment should save us money. For other families without our opportunity energy should be vastly, vastly cheaper by default. Investment should just further reduce your long term costs.
“Reform aren't going to command a majority anytime soon”. It could happen, if only enough people can be persuaded not to vote for the Lab/Con/LibDem/SNP Uniparty. I always cite the example of the separatist SNP here in Scotland who have been in power for almost twenty years because votes for the unionist Lab/Con/Lib Dem parties get split three ways.
Fantastic article David. Thank you.
Like Trump in his forced interregnum, Reform have a few years to prepare for office. Trump has clearly used his time supremely well, with many of his moves well camouflaged, and is likely to achieve much more this time than he would if the 2020 election had not been stolen. He is not even deigning to give the green blob a formal rebuttal of their climate change hoax, he is simply ignoring the establishment's climate change so-called consensus.
Reform needs a chainsaw-wielding DOGE unit to cut away the bureaucracy and NGOs which prevent elected politicians doing what the people want them to do. Liz Truss did a fascinating interview recently thinking along these lines, saying that a reforming government will need to repeal most of the laws that have been passed over the last forty years: https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/liz-truss-in-interview-with-andrew-gold-her-awakening/.
She's right. The evidence is in the UK & EU economic performance that the cosy consensus in place since Thatcher is not working. In fact, it's getting worse and although it sounds hyperbolic, I really do think we are facing an existential crisis in a number of policy areas, not just energy.
My understanding is that repealing the innumerable destructive laws made by Blair, and the Conservatives, must be approved by parliament. Assuming Reform did win the next election, the margin by which they win, and the official opposition, are vital. Without a large majority, most reforms will fail. Bearing in mind, energy is not the only egregious law on the books, the Equalities Act must be repealed or reformed, the Supreme Court needs to be abolished to restore parliaments democratic decision making.
Our judiciary needs an enema with a Christmas tree, the College of Policing must be eliminated and numerous NGO's defunded completely with laws passed to ensure they can never again compromise our democratic system.
Police forces across the country need to be reformed and recruitment and training overhauled. Peter Hitchens thinks things are so bad the only solution is to evolve a parallel police force, to be trained with no regard to DEI and, when ready, a wholesale replacement of all leadership and conformist officers.
Then there is the question of personal freedoms, particularly around freedom of expression and Non Crime Hate Incidents, has there ever been a more ridiculous and authoritarian bureaucratic process, masquerading as a criminal process, supported by our justice system?
These are just a few off the top of my head, but there is also the overriding concern of the public - stopping and reversing mass migration. Reform can repeal as many laws as it wants, including the UK support for the ECHR, but as Nigel Farage pointed out, many migrants are here to stay, the damage has already been done.
What Reform can't afford to do is frighten people away from the party who still believe climate change is an important consideration.
The same can be said for the covid fiasco. 80% of the country accepted jabs, and most simply refuse to accept they may have been coerced into make the wrong decision.
According to polling I have seen over recent years, there is still a majority who support climate action without question. Self flagellation is back in vogue these days, and many people will simply refuse to admit they were ever wrong about the climate or covid, despite their bills rising, quality of life falling, and life expectation threatened.
The best thing we can do is support Reform rather than berating them, and you are doing a fine job providing them the ammunition they need, David.
Hopefully, the rumours that the most dangerous man in politics today, Dominic (cunning) Cummings, will join Reform are true. I daresay he rather fancies the idea of being the Elon Musk of British politics.
All of this is a massive task which cannot be achieved in a single parliament. Reform need to ensure they have the staying power to win at least two or three terms in office.
How do you eat an elephant? One small piece at a time.
If you keep people afraid they'll agree to anything.
You raise a good point over the covid jab. I still get odd looks about my not having had it.
However I remember big government saying something like:
It's your choice not to have it... but if you don't, you can't have a bank account, own a home, drive a car, use the NHS, get insurance, go shopping.....
It was egregious abuse of power to force people into something but still say 'but it is, of course 'your choice'.
Folk cling on to 'climate change' because they're lied to. They've been lied to for so long, and so often, from supposedly trusted, respected sources that they no longer question it. That doesn't mean they've not been lied to. Oh there are true belevers and they'll never change but there's really not many of them.
You are right that polled support for net zero and climate policy remains high. It is, however, mostly quite soft, ranking a long way down people's priorities especially where the policy makes people poorer and colder and hungrier, denies them a car, kicks them out of their jobs and soon their homes under EPC regulation. There are of course noisy zealots whose function is to enforce uniformity of opinion.
It will be very interesting to see what happens now. The scuttlebutt is that Miliband is toast, and Rachel from accounts will be repurposing green funding to defence, which will bring out a long quiescent CO faction and resistance to fighting other people's wars. The recent strongly pro nuclear policy did sound like a real change for the better - cutting nuclear red tape, and getting building (even if it wasn't explored for its impact on renewables, with which nuclear has an uneasy coexistence) . Then Rachel decided she wasn't going to fund it.
Is it possible and what would be the implications if the rule that NESO had to take renewable generation before any other was removed?
NESO only contract for the small volumes procured or shut in under the Balancing Mechanism, although those can sometimes come with eye-watering costs. Almost all electricity is traded via bilateral contracts, with subsidies collected via subsidiary mechanisms such as ROCs and CFD payments.
Trying to impose a true cost (inclusive of subsidy) merit order system would amount to QCiL type changes that would potentially crystallise large compensation bills. The Tories didn't impose their generator levy on subsidised generation precisely because of these features of existing contracts and law under which renewables were established. The Reform plan to try to do so is unworkable.
You have to work with the contracts. You can probably halt further wind farm build out by promising no bailout where wind farms find themselves in line for curtailment, which would include no subsidies for hydrogen projects beyond the pitiful initial projects promised money already, and no REMA rejig to provide more subsidy by the back door. You could also impose site cleanup costs, just as has been done for oil and gas.
You have to becsure that whatever you do doesn't simply create capacity shortages and blackouts. You need careful planning, but that should not be by NESO and OFGEM. You need to get the industry to help you sort it out, and you need OFGEM replaced by people whose remit is consumer and national interest, expunging the net zero types.
Yes.
https://x.com/EyesOnThePriz12/status/1896151157728493574
Re. your comment that "Almost all electricity is traded via bilateral contracts", do you have up to date quantitative information on that (a link would be great if you have one)? How much is traded ahead of say the front month or the front week, how much is involved in the day-ahead auction, and how much is re-traded - in say the front week - by generators trying to unwind long or short positions as a result of variable weather impacting on physical delivery of "Renewables"?
OFGEM has a nice chart here - scroll down for Liquidity data
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-data-and-research/data-portal/wholesale-market-indicators
You can see that OTC trade dominates, but bear in mind that covers all timescales from years ahead to last minute trades before gate closure. N2EX (Nord Pool) naturally attracts offers from CFDs on IMRP pricing: these are priced to sell and have no impact on the cleared price unless it is very low or negative. It provides a risk free pass through for retailers as well: they will pay the difference to average strike price day by day when invoiced by the LCCC. I know Nord Pool counts each leg of a trade as volume with N2EX nominally standing in the middle, but I don't know if OFGEM has corrected for that and I can't verify as the actual data is behind a paywall. Other trade simply records the contract volume between a buyer and a seller without double counting.
The boost in trading (with extra demand keeping prices higher than they would otherwise have been) to cover forward hedging shows up clearly, as does the collapse in hedging when the energy crisis made it costly and risky. There has been some pick up in hedging volumes of late associated with the restart of some longer fixed price offers in the market.
Also bear in mind that often hedging for further into the future is often a multi stage process, with trade in liquid nearby months setting a basic price level, with the actual cover in later months provided via spread trading that involves selling a prompter month and buying a later one simultaneously from the point of view of the hedge buyer. So you end up with 3 trades to secure cover in a forward month. Sometimes still further spreads are necessary if you want to hedge a long way forward, but this can soon start becoming costly in transaction fees and buy-sell price differences. Finding counterparties to take the other side of longer hedges is often much more difficult. Less competition makes for less attractive prices.
Thanks! A bit for me to think about there.
All very sensible suggestions, but even if Reform adopts them, the way things are going at the moment is that this corrupt Labour government will cancel a General Election citing emergency powers necessary because we are in a state of war with Russia - and considering Tice and Farage's stance on the Ukraine, they will probably agree!