Want to understand why those energy prices really keep rising?

It’s been documented and explained for years by Richard North and Christopher Booker.  But those who have not seen their many warnings about what was in store for us as a result of policies, that so many people cheered for being ‘green’, might benefit from this very quick summary that Booker puts in his column today.

Two weeks ago, in a column headed “It’s showdown time for our insane green energy policies”, I observed that this is the moment when the roof is finally starting to fall in on a collective flight from reality that I have been reporting here for years.

But what few people yet realise is how far this catastrophic mess we are in was not only predictable, but has also been quite deliberately brought about, through the Government’s own policies.

Their central aim, though never openly explained, has been twofold. One leg has been to build, by 2020, some 30,000 wind turbines, so ludicrously expensive that we must pay double or treble the market rate for the power they so inefficiently produce.

The other leg is that, to make this seem competitive, we should also eventually be made to pay twice the going rate for all other forms of electricity: hence the “carbon tax” on coal and gas, and the colossal price we are to pay for power from Hinkley Point and other new nuclear power stations (four times the cost of nuclear, estimated by a Royal Academy of Engineering study only nine years ago).

That is why our energy companies pathetically try to explain that a third of the increased costs driving their latest price rises are made inevitable by the various levies we must pay directly for those “green” policies, such as the hidden subsidies being showered on the owners of our ever-growing number of wind farms and acres of solar panels.

Another third represents what we must pay for the thousands of miles of cabling needed to connect those “renewables” to the grid (which Ofgem estimated might, by 2020, cost us another £40 billion).

Then there are the other measures needed to counteract the unbalancing of the grid by the intermittency of “renewables”, such as hiring those thousands of diesel generators to provide back-up, which makes a further mockery of the “de-carbonisation” policy mandated by the Climate Change Act that Mr Cameron was so keen on.

The truth is that we are being brought face to face with the utter absurdity of everything this Government’s bizarre ragbag of policies has been trying to achieve.

For Mr Cameron to blame all this on Mr Miliband only shows that the fuses in his brain have at last begun to blow. By mindlessly going along with all this nonsense, it is our entire political class that has created this shambles. It is the rest of us, alas, who must now live with the consequences.

Given all this, does anyone believe a word these pompous hypocrites have to say, and does anyone believe the laughably and ridiculously low amount DECC claims we pay to support this insanity?  Little over £100 per year on energy bills doesn’t come close to covering the cost to energy consumers and taxpayers of all these politically mandated measures.

You might be asking yourself why the political class has done all this.  The answer to that is simple.  ’Sustainability’.  But it’s essential to understand that the notion of sustainability has been corrupted.  Instead it encompassing the development of low impact sustainable ways of providing sufficient energy, water, shelter and other basic human needs to meet the demands of a growing population – which technology can achieve – it has been twisted into meaning that people must use less of everything.  How can they be sure people will use less?  By restricting supply (e.g. unreliable turbines instead of reliable coal and gas, no new reservoirs combined with water metering) and driving up prices to a level that many people cannot afford.  Simple, and vicious.   But then, these are the very people who continually argue that the world population needs to be reduced because they consider humans to be a virus that is destroying the planet.  But the politicians believe that aligning with these people marks them as responsible and virtuous, therefore more electorally appealing.

In light of the anger these supply and price measures are provoking and the slowly growing awareness of just what lays behind these measures, I think back to those ‘enlightened’ environmentally aware people who queued up to ridicule North and Booker for their projections of the effects the policies would have.  One wonders where these previously vocal people are now, as the chickens are starting to come home to roost.

The pips are already squeaking and we are not even close to the full impact of this political insanity.  This issue is one that will keep coming back to the fore as the prices continue to be ramped up.  The politicians have created a mess they have no solution to.  Time to get the popcorn, while making sure you do what you must to stay warm this winter…