“Flexible moronity” By IRINA SLAV
“It could be just me. Or it could be the word “flexibility” and its relatives are latest to fall victim to transition word-grinder with a view to subverting meanings and cancelling physical reality.”
Flexible moronity
NOV 18
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PAID
In early November, the FT reported that the UK’s National Energy System Operator had advised greater demand flexibility in electricity consumption in view of decarbonisation efforts.
In a little bit later November, the FT again reported that Ofgem, the UK’s energy regulator, had given the green light to five new interconnectors with continental Europe and Ireland to enhance the flexibility of the UK grid “in an age of increasing renewable power.”
Yesterday, the publication that has well and truly turned into a mouthpiece of the people whom I shall graciously call the unconventional greens at 10 Downing Street graced us with another report saying the abovementioned greens were open to “flexibilities” in their EV mandates in order to avoid the collapse of the car industry.
It could be just me. Or it could be that the word “flexibility” and its relatives are the latest to fall victim to the transition word-grinder with a view to subverting meanings and cancelling physical reality. Let’s take a moment of silence for flexibility. Because the above news reports have zero to do with flexibility proper, but you already knew that. What they have to do with is a rabidly desperate attempt to make the impossible possible. And no, they don’t seem to realise this is, um, impossible, either in the UK or anywhere else. We’re well and truly in the realm of moronity.
The first flexibility story I’ve mentioned earlier. It’s about so-called demand response, meaning energy rationing but sounding so much nicer as demand response. The news report is in fact an admission that the transition will not work and cannot work without substantial energy demand destruction but the admission is, naturally, phrased as more of an ambition to hit those green goals, which is top priority for every Briton, I’m sure.
While the NESO urge was bad enough, Ed Miliband’s harp-on about “homegrown clean energy” and lower electricity bills in the future is becoming unbearable and I’m not even in the UK. Meanwhile, “Environmental levies added to electricity bills in the UK are set to climb 23 per cent by the end of the decade.” The FT again. A proper mouthpiece.
More’s coming as well. Those five interconnectors that Ofgem approved are going to add to electricity bills as well — at a minuscule rate of between 2 and 5 pounds per year per household, at least according to the watchdog. The whole price tag: 7 billion pounds. The money will surely come from oil and gas taxes and not the average taxpayer.
It gets better, still. Two of the interconnectors would “connect the UK directly to wind farms in Belgium and the Netherlands.” The decision is possibly motivated by the assumption that when the wind doesn’t blow around the UK it blows around the Netherlands and Belgium. I may be wrong but this seems like a highly risky assumption based on the proximity of the three, which suggests similar weather patterns. Anyway, 6 GW of interconnectors are coming.
Speaking of interconnectors, they’ve been a blessing for Bulgaria these past few days. Our nuclear power plant is operating at half its capacity or so and one of the three biggest coal power plants is offline for transition reasons so we’ve had to import a lot of electricity. This is, of course, wonderful, because we’ve avoided blackouts and the price of electricity has not surged at all. And we’re totally not at risk of blackouts in the near future, not to mention higher electricity prices for all.
Back to the UK and its flexibility fixation, the unconventional greens’ mouthpiece reported Saturday Nissan was going to warn said greens that the car industry in the country was at a “crisis point” and it would crumble unless the greens relaxed their EV mandates. Which the greens are not going to do. But they are going to “create new flexibilities”, whatever this might mean. What we know for now is that transport secretary Louise Haigh is “in listening mode”, which is excellent, I’m sure, though I’m not so sure what it implies, since the industry is calling for more, as it were, active action.
“There are flexibilities in the current mandate, but we want to work with the manufacturing sector about whether these are working and whether we can address them,” Haigh told some radio station. I have questions about the syntax and the semantics but I’m sure the transport secretary was quite satisfied that the words sounded decisive and constructive. Which they didn’t.
The reason that the UK is so fascinating as a target for these rants is, of course, its unwavering determination to kill itself by means of energy policies. The UK is right now an even better example than Germany of doubling down on everything that doesn’t work. Germany is temporarily too busy with its government collapse.
In fact, I have the creeping suspicion that the more a thing doesn’t work, the harder the unconventional greens at 10 Downing Street double down on it. This phenomenon could make the basis for interesting scientific research in the future, possibly focusing on masochistic tendencies in liberal political elites. That and the complete lack of doubt that They Are Doing The Right Thing, characteristic of cults.
“It is a good thing that the UK is building them [the ingterconnectors] rapidly because we need them to keep the lights on,” some energy market expert from Oxford University told the FT. Not a shadow of a doubt that the course charted by the unconventional greens is the only possible one, even if that course would mean that the country meets between a fifth and a quarter of its electricity demand with imports — and “active demand management, which I call voluntary power cuts”.
It’s adorable, and by that I mean horrible because the meanings of words are subject to personal preferences and mood. Even so, I strongly feel that referring to demand destruction as a way of meeting demand is taking things a bit too far.
Alas, there is no other way but to take things too far with words. Words appear to be the last bastion of the transition as the actions of people and the immutable laws of physical reality gang up on the transition pushers. They’re the last refuge of the decarbonisation delusion and the greens will defend it to their last political breath, I’m sure. Meanwhile, the rest of Europe continues treating the UK as an example to follow rather than the disastrous cautionary tale that it is. Those blackouts cannot come soon enough. We are clearly past the point of milder, more sparing, dare I say flexible, treatments.
Meanwhile in headlines, Global offshore wind industry poised to miss big targets as obstacles mount, and European oil giants step back from renewables path. This is obviously the unconventional greens’ cue to build more offshore wind turbines and tax Big Oil even more.
