Labour party announces national energy

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63046067

Well, perhaps they read last week’s blog. But judging by the analysis they appear to have done they seem to have done their own homework. But glad they agree with the point of view:

Though they did it with Electricity. I wrote this in a LinkedIn post on Monday

UK Electricity is priced at the marginal production cost. This is set by the price of gas. Recently this has meant that producers who use wind or solar have had no increase of costs but a large increase in sales price. This has led to large profits.

Some countries chose to place a windfall tax and distribute the proceeds to support consumer bills. The UK Government has chosen to support the profits by borrowing to subsidise consumers to help them pay the bill. Though there are likely to be lots of increases and difficulty paying in anycase.

The profits remain with the companies. Over 50% of offshore wind generation in the UK is owned by foreign state-owned companies. The UK is borrowing money (which will be paid back from future taxes) in order to underpin the profits of foreign states.

The other big beneficiary is the British Royal Familly. The crown estate owns and rents the sea bed out to 12 NM in return for a share of profits.

The monarchy, and the wealthy, also own large tracts of land which are similarly attracting rents from onshore turbines.

Coupled with Friday’s hood-robin of a budget annoucement do you think that political pressure for nationalisation will increase here?


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/24/uk-energy-system-state-coffers-britain-british-public

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/18/windfarm-windfall-set-to-spark-debate-about-funding-of-uk-monarchy

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/world/europe/england-land-inequality.html

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Gareth Davies

Innovation Expert with 30+ years of experience living and working across the world. I apply an engineering approach to helping companies innovate and achieve commercial success.