Ridiculouser and ridiculouser

““Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).””

Alice got quite a lot of surprises in Wonderland. Wonderland, in fact, would be a fitting name for the world envisioned by our brave climate crusaders, who tirelessly keep amazing us with their ideas, drawing well deserved appreciation and admiration.

The British have been particularly inventive lately. We already mentioned Ed Miliband’s genius idea about storing excess windosolar energy in giant flywheels set in “frictionless vacuum” to avoid energy losses during the storage periods, which could certainly be a contender in a special Darwin Awards section on energy policies.

But the brave Starmer government is not stopping there. Not at all. Now, it wants to divide the national wholesale electricity market into separate segments — based on prices. Regions with more abundant electricity output and less demand would enjoy lower prices and those unfortunate enough to live in a place with lower output and higher demand would pay more. Whatever could go wrong, right?

According to proponents, nothing. As the FT reports, “Proponents argue this could make the market more efficient and keep system costs down by encouraging consumers to use electricity when it is abundant nearby, rather than letting it go to waste, as frequently happens.”

Oh, so it won’t be just based on regions but on demand patterns, too, meaning those patterns would need to change in response to changing supply levels because windosolar cannot deliver on demand, which is something we only talk about in positive terms, lest anyone starts doubting they’re as great as advertised.

Alas, someone is already doubting the market split is a good idea and that someone is in fact multiple someones from four industry associations, namely UK Steel, Make UK, RenewableUK and the Global Infrastructure Investor Association. These irreverent people argue that the idea, if implemented, would actually sap investments in new windosolar, because this is the worst thing that could happen anywhere these days.

Decline in Renewable Investments is the new boogeyman and business associations are putting it to good use. It is apparently the only thing that could scare certain governments into not pursuing utterly idiotic policies. As far as boogeymen go, that’s a pretty good one — tell them policy X will discourage investments in the transition and watch them cave.

So, those four associations are waving the DRI flag and warning that the market split idea would cause deindustrialisation, because “A miles-wide steel plant simply cannot up and leave to get access to lower power prices elsewhere,” per the climate policy director of UK Steel.

You’d think this is obvious. Alas, it isn’t. Nothing you think is obvious is actually obvious to the people with the ideas. In fact, they seem to believe that moving steel plants is not only possible but a great business opportunity.