JB

@Aultonus @SimonMahan @MatthewWielicki @7Kiwi @KathrynPorter26 It is a complete red herring to cite renewables as being free. All the earth's 'goods' are free at the point of extraction. The cost is in getting to that point and then converting into something useful. Absolutely no different for FF

@SimonMahan Renewable energy is UnrEL1abLe. Sure, it's basically free once you're up and running but an energy grid needs to provide power 99.9% of the time all the time. Wind and solar are 48% at best even on good days. That is third world quality and unacceptable for first world countries.

Renewable energy prices don't ~f L u C t U a T e~. Total cost is known at construction and recouped over 15-30 years. For folks worried about power bills spiking and rapid increases...it isn't because of renewables - those prices are set. Natural gas prices are wildly variable.

@7Kiwi @CarolineLucas from the English Lit and Women's Studies grad. We are all better off listening to these people when talking about the science of the atmosphere.

More domestic gas production will reduce bills because it will displace expensive LNG imports. More production will also create jobs, deliver tax revenue, cut the trade deficit, improve energy security and emit less CO2. What's not to like?

@SteveBakerFRSA Well done Stevo! Every single instance of perceived 'market failure' has Govt hiding in the shadows building in costs. Always. Most commentators are incapable of looking beyond the obvious.

😡Governments often drive up prices. 🤷🏻‍♂️Expect interventions to be incompetent. 💡We could drive up real wages by allowing competitive markets to work.

@SteveBakerFRSA Often? Always would be much, much better.

📣 Politicians can often help by getting out of the way.

@LoftusSteve @labourlewis He's locked in even more cost increases for the future.

@labourlewis I'm pretty sure it's due to the £104 billion being spent on infrastructure upgrades that you asked for.

Today your water bill is rising again, after a 26% hike last year on average. This is because the regulator is allowing extractive private companies to rinse the public. In Parliament I'm calling to end the failed experiment of water privatisation. Time for public ownership.

@Vectis64 Every single 'market failure' is the same. Govt hiding in the shadows, adding cost and making outcomes worse. Lazy people shoot at the last organisation in the chain but lift the bonnet and the carcinogenic effect of Govt is always there. Always.

This is absolutely spot on, and it’s not just supermarkets but in housebuilding, energy, manufacturing etc., companies are often very efficient but government keeps piling on the costs. Our grocery market is one of the most competitive in the world.

@Telegraph I've been a Telegraph subscriber for 35yrs. Why are comments on the Derby incident here on X and on the App blocked? What is your policy for allowing and excluding subscribers to be able to comment on your stories?

@KathrynPorter26 @TheSolarShed Presumably we have no further need to build any more renewable capacity and no further subsidies. I mean, why would we when what we have is capable of this?

You're celebrating the exact thing that is giving us the highest electricity prices in the developed world Intermittent renewables are the most expensive form of generation We pay a massive cost for this. And a few days ago it was the opposite as there was no wind (went down to 1 GW vs 32 GW installed) Massive waste of money and natural resources

Oh, where has she gone? Where have her army of fossil funded bots gone? Where have the right wing opinionated anti renewables lobbiest gone? Where the Putin apologists and petro state funded anti British industry 'experts' gone?

@CutMyTaxUK My former party did this. Absolute shisters

North Sea operator Enquest paid an effective tax rate of 99.7% in 2025 & retained a post-tax profit of a tiny $1.6m. Without the UK windfall tax the profit would have been $125.5m. No surprise that Enquest is giving up on the UK. "At a time when the UK fiscal regime remains challenging, we also took decisive steps to accelerate our diversification into high-growth Asian markets," they said.

@KathrynPorter26 @BrknMan If wind is so much cheaper than fossil fuel generated electricity why don't those promoting it simply advocate a move away from allowing wholesale gas prices to set the price of wind electricity? It's crazy for them not to want to sever that cord.

How do you propose we do that exactly? Wind works 30% of the time. Solar 10%. Batteries that can back this up don't exist And electricity is less than 20% of total UK energy consumption In heating the government wants to install 600,000 heat pumps per year. At that rate it will take 47 years to electrify heating. But we're not achieving anything like that rate The reality is we're going to use oil and gas for decades to come. So we should focus on how we secure affordable supplies and stop fantasising about a gas free future that's decades away

Illiteracy really doesn't cover it. There are already 28 approved licences. Those taxes only apply when gas prices are high, meaning bills are high. Periods of low price the tax is negative, we pay them. So the economic solution is to move away from gas as fast as possible

@LoftusSteve @janrosenow @KathrynPorter26 Views?

@janrosenow The report says it was not the direct cause. What it says is that there was too much reactive power in the system (more power than demand) that caused voltage instability. There was too much power because of renewables.

BREAKING: The blackout in Spain and Portugal in April 2025 did NOT happen because of renewables. The final ENTSO-E report on last year's Iberian blackout is out — and it's essential reading for anyone working on the energy transition. entsoe.eu/news/2026/03/2…

@LiamHalligan Appreciate the comparison you are making with Blair's reps and their apparent financial literacy but be under no illusion they completely trashed the economy. Doubling debt as % of GDP, smashing pensions +++. They were completely illiterate but Rayner cant even count her fingers

This story below reveals the true extent of Angela Rayner's cluelessness when it comes to economics, the public finances and financial markets. I say that not with glee - but deep alarm and regret. If this is really how the probable next Prime Minister of the UK thinks - betting markets put a more than 50% chance on leadership coup by June - then the ousting of Starmer/Reeves by Rayner (or Miliband) is likely to spark an instant spike in gilt yields, from their already elevated levels. Just the fact that Rayner has said what she has below will put yet more upward pressure on the market-driven borrowing costs – whatever the Bank of England says is these days mere mood – that drive the interest rates faced by firms and households. I have nothing against more social housing – on the contrary, the arguments in favour of building more are at the heart of my book "Home Truths", along with policy mechanisms that could get that done. But if you think that, in the current environment, hard-nosed international creditors do - or even should - give a monkey's about the "social benefits" of subsidised housing then you are utterly and dangerously deluded. Again, I say this in sorrow, not glee. I knew plenty of smart people at the top of successive Blair governments. The architects of New Labour – at least the Blairites – always made sure there were financially literate and market-savvy people in the room when big decisions were made. That was important back then - when the national debt Britain had to service was 35pc of GDP. Now – with the same metric pushing 100pc of GDP and Britain paying more than Morocco to borrow money – it is absolutely vital. It seems that there is no-one – NO-ONE AT ALL – near the top of today's Labour government who has the first clue about the realities of public accounts and global finance. These are – once again – NOT tribal or party-political points, but statements of cold fact ....

@KathrynPorter26 @iealondon @mayerandrew All natural resources are free at the exact point of extraction. Its just you have to get there in the first place and then do something with what has been extracted. All cost money. There is no system cost that is free.

"Wind and sun are free* Correct. But the machines to turn that free energy into electricity are very expensive As is the grid infrastructure to deliver it to homes And the backup for when it's not windy and sunny And the other generation that has to turn up and down to balance the grid in real time due to the real time intermittency Added together it's actually very expensive to use that free wind and sun in practice

💡 "Selling sunlight and breezes as free energy, without mentioning the cost of capturing, converting and backing them up, was always a catastrophic folly." IEA's Energy Analyst @mayerandrew on Britain's energy crisis. 👇

@KateFantom @LoftusSteve If you want to reduce emissions have you thought about ditching your smartphone & laptop? And the hundreds of other products you use every single day that are derived from fossil fuels? Your TV, white goods, interior of your beloved EV... And on it goes.

The current wholesale cost of electricity is -9p/kWh. However, gas sets the price in the UK 98% of the time. So that 4% stitches us all up. Gas will not bring down your energy bills, decoupling electricity from gas will. Gas will not reduce emissions, renewables will.

No cheating, post the last saved dog pic on your phone

@_River_Defender @LoftusSteve Take me back to the gold days of nationalised providers. The dual role of poacher and gamekeeper coupled with woefully low standards led to catastrophic river ecology outcomes. Check out the Control of Pollution Act 1974

@LoftusSteve @JonathanPieNews Isn't he some sort of journo Steve? A basic and cursory review via AI of Ofwats website would tell him that. Maybe it's better for the click bait journo to spread mis-information than fact.

Except consumers don't pay them. OFWAT sets bills and they certainly don't factor in fines.

@LoftusSteve @Heccles94 Whilst Billionaires self evidently create an awful lot of wealth for themselves they create far far more for others. Harry doesn't understand the rudimentary basics of wealth creation.

@Heccles94 All the things that people decided they would rather have than money, which is why they have the money. TV shows, books, trains, planes, processed food, cars, movies, social media, computers, clothes, mobile phones, medicines, software, electricity, houses etc etc etc

What do billionaires contribute to society?

@LoftusSteve @sebastiandelfs He has no idea how river water quality was measured pre-privatisation and how it's measured now.

Well, considering fish populations are up over the the 40 years I'd be happy to speak to them. Species like Salmon and Trout are down, but that's nothing to do with pollution, and I can prove that 100% from fish and invertebrate surveys and from water sampling. Maybe people just like the truth?

Tell me you’ve never had a conversation with an angler without telling me. Why anyone not directly connected to these parasitic water companies would seek to defend them is beyond me.

@LoftusSteve @sebastiandelfs Sebastian is harking back to the good old days pre-privatisation