The Power Disaster Fee is simply one other Inexperienced Blob entrance – are you okay with that?
From DAILY SKEPTIC
by Ben Pile
Another day, another green report. This time, in response to rising energy prices, a report was published by an organization calling itself the Energy Crisis Commission. But the report contradicts sound economic considerations when it attempts to address the difficulties faced by millions of individuals and businesses due to moderately high energy prices by providing “a clear strategy to move away from fossil fuels, particularly gas.” demands. Well, guess what: That's because the “Commission” is just another sloppy Green Blob front! Who could have guessed?
“A new Energy Crisis Commission report published today shows energy experts support the Labor government’s clean energy mission by 2030,” tweeted Ed Milliband. Well, of course they do. Because if you visit the Commission's website, it quickly becomes clear that “The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit [ECIU] provides the Commission Secretariat.” The ECIU is a well-connected but dysfunctional pseudo-civil society organization fully funded by green charities, the European Climate Foundation (ECF) and the adjacent Meliore Foundation.
I feel like I write a lot about organizations that are fully or largely funded by the ECF, and often it feels like this is repeating itself. But that's because most climate-related organizations in the UK are funded directly by the ECF or by one of the half dozen or so ECF philanthropic grant-making foundations. The ECF does not disclose its sources of funding or its grant recipients, but it appears to be a green donor – the Guardian would call it “dark money” – that distances financial interests and corporate lobbyists stylized as “civil society organizations”. What is remarkable is how many organizations that appear to be self-contained and “independent” actually operate under the strategic direction of the funders with whom they share accommodation. The ECIU and ECF are located at the same “SE1 1LB” serviced virtual office address – their footprints as entities are as diffuse as their performance.
These are not real organizations; They are spirits summoned in a nebulous physical form by the will of money and ideology to carry out their malevolent work before disappearing. Green organizations – ECF grantees – have long advocated for higher energy prices and have long sought to distort the public discussion about how and why prices are rising, despite their false promises that renewable energy will become cheaper.
And so the Commission explains: “We consider that this crisis began in August/September 2021, when gas prices began to rise. However, the key turning point for record prices was in February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine.” And I feel like I’m repeating myself once again when I point out that the Commission’s lazy analysis is wrong.
Energy traders had told me well before summer 2021 that unusual price movements would signal very high future prices. In autumn 2021, spot prices for natural gas in Europe reached almost €100/MWh, well above the historical average of around €18. The immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion saw a small rise to around €119, followed by a summer rise to up to €240 as the ECF-funded Carbon Brief (also based on the Phantom “SE1 1LB”) produced its “wind power” is nine times cheaper than gasoline,” they say. This means that the greatest increase occurs before the outbreak of war. This becomes clearer when prices are viewed on a chart with a logarithmic axis, which shows relative growth better than a chart with a linear vertical axis.
In the 22 months between the collapse in demand in May 2020 and the month following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, natural gas prices in the EU rose by a staggering 2,753% – around 16% per month. Over the next five months to the peak in August 2022, the price rose another 68%, or about 11% per month. The evidence might as well prove the opposite of the Commission's claim: that the invasion actually caused gas prices to collapse. The opposite conclusion arises only from a misinterpretation of the linear graph, which appears to show a peak in the months after the invasion – a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. The far more significant features of the price signal occurred before the event – although Russia's supply reduction and post-invasion EU sanctions undoubtedly tightened supply and pushed prices further higher.
Over the months up to May 2023, the price then fell steeply. Speculation may have accounted for some of this volatility, but the biggest elephant in the room driving the big spike in high prices in 2022 was lockdowns, or more specifically the recovery from lockdowns, including the extraordinary money printing that affected the economy financed by inertia. Gas production capacity had been drastically reduced during this time and the recovery put pressure on supplies. Russia is largely a scapegoat for the catastrophic impact of Western climate and Covid policy failures.
A Green Blob organization that pays Potemkin commissions to write sympathetic reports on the problem of rising energy prices strikes me as a drug cartel that funds rehab centers. Just imagine the Green Blob's complaints if it were a “commission” funded by gas companies that found that the solution to rising energy prices was to invest more in gas production. The difference, however, is that increasing gas production would at least close the gap between supply and demand, thereby lowering the price. The histrionics of the Greens typically frame the problem of “interested parties” putting some advice into the public domain. But high prices benefit producers, while lower prices benefit consumers. Ironically, the Greens and the oil tycoons have the same interests here.
So who are these commissioners who lack economic fundamentals and claim to speak for the poor? Two members of the panel, former MP David Laws and Dhara Vyas, are from Energy UK – the industry lobbying organization from which the Climate Change Committee's new chief executive, Emma Pinchbeck, recently resigned. Blob. Louise Hellem is chief economist at the remain fanatic and lockdown advocate Confederation of British Industry. Blob. Jim Watson, Professor of Energy Policy at UCL, boasts many roles advising parliaments, governments and intergovernmental organizations on, among other things, energy security and emissions reductions. Blob. These people have produced exactly the report you would expect from them. However, they were joined by Gillian Cooper, executive director of partnerships and advocacy at Citizens Advice, and Adam Scorer, chief executive at National Energy Action (NEA), the “national charity working to end fuel poverty”. We expect these organizations to put the interests of their customers above ambitious goals.
Apparently not. “We need to pursue the twin goals of clean heat and warm homes in lockstep,” Scorer said on Although the NEA is supported by countless energy companies, charities and local and national governments, domestic energy prices in the UK have risen thanks to green policies – and also of foreign and Covid policy – tripled without the NEA having commented on it.
It appears that the British establishment, which includes Citizens Advice and NEA, is as good as the ECF at producing ready-made bloc fronts populated by people who are naturally happier to occupy such positions than the establishment, that they represent, challenging are part of. Millions of people are facing cold and rising bills this winter, and the “citizen advice” to the government appears to be to close more oil and gas fields and create more weather-dependent renewable energy without regard to reality.
“Successive governments have had the chance to reduce Britain’s dependence on fossil fuels and avoid some of the worst of these impacts,” the report said. But that's just a false Green Blob mythology. As discussed in previous posts, retrofitting homes with insulation and other energy efficiency measures that can significantly reduce energy consumption is simply not cost effective from a consumer perspective. Even with today's high energy prices, they would never “pay for themselves” within a reasonable time frame. And there are simply no technologies that can deliver so-called “clean heat” to consumers across the grid in the event of a dark and windless day or week. The Commission bases its claims on fantasies.
And what about the unhappy consumer? He is captured by the phantom institutions that represent the green ideology-driven British establishment rather than his own interests, while being fed the story that Russia is responsible for his predicament. The UK could produce its own gas and also export a lot, and an independent commission of energy experts could point this out. But this possibility has been rendered inadmissible by the flood of phantom “civil society” organizations that surround Westminster. The phantom “Commission”, summoned by this swarm of ghosts, completes the chorus. At some point the public will discover for themselves that Britain's energy and climate policies are far worse than any climate change and that their interests have been harmed more by the British establishment than by Russia. This experience will likely be very painful.
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