EU Referendum


Energy: a policy goes wanting


13/10/2014



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In a very unusual development yesterday, we saw the story carried by Booker in The Sunday Telegraph also given front page treatment in the paper (pictured above). It also got page two in the Mail on Sunday.

Today, it is being carried by The Times and the Evening Standard and I've no doubt we will see more of this, as we close towards Wednesday, when Mr Paterson gives his lecture in London to the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).

There is no great need to repeat all the content of these pieces – much has already been covered in the Booker piece – but it is worth remarking, of the two pieces in the Telegraph, how in over 2,000 comments, so few people actually addressed the issues.

Mention climate change, of course, and this triggers the same ongoing debate that we have been seeing for years – endless repeating the same points - the participants oblivious to the fact that the pieces on which they were commenting were actually about energy policy.

Then, the highest scoring comments were of those that wanted to tell us that an ex-Conservative minister talking about energy was a good reason to vote UKIP. More than a few wanted to convince us that this - Helmer's attempt at an energy policy - was anything other than derivative, out of date, and a vague, aspirational mish-mash.

From the hostility exhibited by some critics to Mr Paterson's policy ideas, one felt that some UKIPites were trying to hide their own embarrassment at being caught out. Seeing what a real energy policy looked like, as opposed to the pastiche they had to offer, they were trying their best to demolish it.

And then there are those who either don't understand – or wilfully misunderstand – demand management. Because it has been hijacked by the greens to deal with wind variability, they seem unaware that the primary purpose of the systems, many developed in the free market US, was better asset management, to bring down supply costs and prices to the consumer.

It is a pity that the best explanations of one technique – dynamic response – are in the Guardian, here and here. Despite that, you would think some critics could transcend their own ideologies – and prejudices – and spend the time to find out more about the value of such systems, but apparently not. Presumably, they want to spend more on plants that are built to run, on average, for less than ten percent of the time.

Then, there is CHP. Interestingly, we can get people talking knowledgably about CCGTs, and other elements of the alphabet soup, but these three initials seem to defeat the commentariat. That the UK has the lowest uptake of CHP of all the major economies in the EU – apart from France – has to tell you something.

Yet, those who weren't trying to diss the system because Helmer hadn't thought of it – along with all the other things he hadn't thought of – were trying to misrepresent it, or simply failing to understand what was on offer. Perhaps they should be convincing Perhaps Helmer to spend less time on his leisure pursuits.

As for mini-nukes, we've had these commissioned in the UK for decades, in three separate locations to my knowledge – Harwell, Aldermaston and Derby - with no great drama. Tourists happily pay large sums to go to the North Pole, sitting on top of a nuclear reactor in a Russian icebreaker. Modern technology makes them fail-safe, and cogeneration makes them economic. But very few seemed to understand these points either.

Basically, though, we offered people a chance to discuss energy policy. And most of them talked about something else. Most that expressed a view simply aired their prejudices in an uninformed way that took us no further forward. Such people are quick to complain that the world is not to their liking but, if they can't rise to the challenge of discussing policy ideas sensibly, then they are not going to get what they want. 

The essence of politics – as so many people seem to have forgotten – is that innovation usually comes from outside the system. Policy demands sensible debate, and if we don't engage in the latter, we are not going to get the former. Instead, we will get what we are given – and the child-voter will prevail.

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