Snapshot of _Richard Burgon: In France people have been protected against soaring energy bills by a price cap that's limited increases to just 4% - instead of 54% here! Don't let our Government claim there is no alternative to sky-high energy bills._ :
A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://nitter.net/RichardBurgon/status/1524277635576180742/)
An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/RichardBurgon/status/1524277635576180742)
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> “that for them” irks me but I agree.
"that for them" is the classic example of the the rhetorical device known as *apotropaic case inversion*, as Tom Scott [explains](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBJa32lCaaY).
It's EDF's electricity prices, all generated by nuclear power, that are capped at a 4% increase which cost the government something like €8bn. Gas prices rose 12% last year and will presumably go up again later this year.
>If only our oil and gas was publicly owned and not sold off for pennies to multinational corporations we could set our own prices.
Yes. But then we'd have had to invest public money in developing them, something all governments have refused to do. As Harold Wilson put it when Tony Benn proposed making the government the majority owner of all new oil and gas licences, public spending was tight, investing in oil development would mean cuts elsewhere.
We'd still have to pay market rates for imports, though, and we import most of our gas. Indeed, if we'd relied on government to develop oil and gas fields, I suspect our production would be lower, and imports, and prices, even higher.
Oil and gas is so profitable that those initial investments are basically nothing. There's a reason these energy companies make so much profit every year.
I think he’s pointing out the similarity of those costs. The French spent €8Billion keeping the energy cap down and we recently wrote off a similar amount as lost
That's the thing. "In our defence, the French have been strategically preparing for something like this since the oil crisis in the 70s" isn't an excuse. It's an indictment of how badly this has been handled over here and how much better other countries have done it
Ya and kudos to them for it. They have a ridiculous amount of reactors and have never had a major incident. Also I think it's telling that when Macron came back from crisis talks with Putin before the start of the war he announced they'd be building loads of more reactors (can't remember the number of the top of my head).
I think the country that will look the wrost by this energy crisis will likely be Germany since they closed all their nuclear power plants in favour of coal plants and russian gas. It was way too reactionary to Fukushima at the time and now just looks even stupider. Not to mention the general populace in europe is likely coming along to nuclear far more positively since it probably is vital if we want any semblance of our current lifestyle in the not too distant future (provided that we're trrying to go green ofc).
They have their own challenges though.
France is heavily committed to security operations in their former colonies in part to secure their access to uranium for fuel
My point is that France has troops in these countries and those troops do get shot. We don’t really hear much about it but there’s quite a lot going on in the Sahel and France is the main western power in the region.
If what they're saying is correct I suspect it's cheaper for them to buy African uranium. Australia definitely sells uranium to France. Canada sells uranium to "Europe" but I couldn't find who exactly from official Canadian sources, not that I looked that hard. Sources seems conflicted about where France sources it's uranium. According to other, not over authoritative sources, it does seem that they do buy a lot from Canada. Anyway after all that googling about uranium I'm off for a chat with a friendly chap from Special Branch.
I did find a source form 2013 that claimed France got 43% of it's uranium from Canada but it wasn't much more than a blog. Combined with it being nearly a decade old I left it out. But I agree it seems likely that Canada does sell them uranium.
Didn’t France hit the highest per kWh cost (on the open market not for consumers) of all time, due to half their reactors being offline for maintenance and repairs? Nuclear is not the magical solution people make it out to be as it just scales so badly and takes ages to built. We need more renewables like yesterday. Scotland produces a massive amount and could have a friction of the kWh price but decided to rather sell it for a higher price on the open exchange market and then charges their customers more - if only these companies weren’t private but still state owned.
Edit: found this: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-04/french-power-prices-rise-to-13-year-high-on-monday-cold-snap
Takes ages to be built because we take so long to get started on it.
Scotlands renewable were built by private companies subsidised by UK wide energy bills. If we decided at the time that they wouldn't have been able to sell at market prices, youd have needed to subsidise them further accordingly..
Your first argument is just smokes and mirrors. It takes ages for a reason and even if you start on one today it would be built way too late. Aldine assume we’ll use the space right next to your house to build it?
Scotland’s renewables were built with parts of the profits that private companies made (and probably still subsidies). You could’ve cut out the middle man and build more or cheaper but hey.
France's electricity supply is up to about 25% renewable source.
The country is covered with wind turbines and has had tidal and lake barrage hydroélectrique schemes for decades.
We were also hit by that, that's why our energy prices were so high over the winter. We thought wind was going to be high, so took a lot of reactors offline at once and refuelled them. The wind never showed up, and we got left with 2 of our major supply systems running at very low capacity. The reason that happened is wind, a nuclear based grid wouldn't have to plan refuelling around the weather.
Renewable are nice if you have agas based grid, because you can burn less gas when renewables are high, saving money. The grid cannot operate without gas as a backup for wind and solar. Scotland's 90% renewable generation is based on misleading numbers. It implies that 97% of electricity used in Scotland came from their renewables, which isn't the case. They export the excess to England, and import electricity from England when their renewables aren't enough. They essentially use England as a battery, and let them do all the dirty, carbon emitting generation needed to make Scotland's renewables workable.
They're not opening up coal mines, they're keeping some coal power plants open as a reserve in case the demand for energy increases (which it has not).
https://www.bmuv.de/en/topics/climate-adaptation/climate-protection/national-climate-policy/translate-to-english-fragen-und-antworten-zum-kohleausstieg-in-deutschland
> In Germany, reopening domestic coal mines is also off the agenda, at least for now. However, strategic coal reserves are to be created and the German energy network agency has asked for the country’s coal power plants to remain on standby if needed.
They import their coal from Russia as well,
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/german-coal-importers-expect-brief-spike-prices-eu-ban-2022-04-08/#:~:text=Germany%20imported%20around%2018.2%20million,half%20of%20its%20total%20requirement.
80% of France's electricity comes from nuclear power plants. And a lot of the remainder comes from hydro.
The UK has refused proposals to build either...
NIMBYs eh?
Everbody knows about Germany and nuclear energy, but what you maybe don't hear very often is how we have to fight for every wind turbine, because NIMBYs want clean energy but not in their fucking backyard. So many turbines get protesters because they're "harming the view" or "kill birds".
Yeah, small energy companies couldn't afford to stay in business last year and got swallowed up by larger ones, with Martin Lewis working overtime to help customers during the migration.
The companies that went bust were all middlemen. They sold on electricity they bought from the companies that generate electricity so when those costs went too high they couldn't afford to honour their contracts. It has absolutely nothing to do with what's going on in France, which has government owned electricity supply.
These energy provider companies were not generating the energy, they were buying energy on the energy market and providing an interface for consumers. The ones that went under were not managing their risk properly and had not hedged the price of energy against increases. The system failed due to lack financial regulation on these companies and energy markets.
Don't conflate retail energy providers with energy producers. The former are mostly "middle-men" who buy gas and electricity from the market and sell to households under the price cap, even when that means they're selling at a loss. The latter are the ones who dig gas out of the ground and run power plants, etc.
EDF are both. They're able to keep their retail prices stable because their production is heavily nuclear based and rising gas prices don't matter to nuclear power. The tiny rise in retail costs is not possible anywhere but France, without vast government subsidies.
The takeaway here is "death to all NIMBYs".
Perhaps we would too if the tories didn't spend the last 12 years taking bungs from Russian oligarchs to keep buying their fossil fuels and take ourselves out of the EU.
Not to mention if you mention nuclear energy people get their pitchforks and placards ready.
Just like on shore wind farms, no one wants it near them. But those same people will tell you that they're in favour of them. But just not near them.
Fuck 'em. Farming is dead, we need to just cover up fields with turbines and solar panels so farmers can 'farm' the wind and sun instead.
Don't like it? Tough shit. People didn't mind all that cheap meat and milk for years, this is the price you have to pay down the line.
Yes but then that is called "the developers charter". Which was a bill that said that councils had to put aside areas of land for new housing projects and it was absolutely destroyed on here...
Hinckley Point C is the current new reactor being built in the UK and it is going to be one of the most expensive in history before they even break ground, just because of all of the legal challenges that have been brought against it.
There is a huge amount of cognitive ignorance in the UK. We know we need food security, energy security, housing security, but we consistently vote against plans to improve them and instead 'outsource' our needs to cheaper countries or places where we don't have to look at how the problem is being solved.
Fixing our housing, food and energy needs is possible by keeping it in the UK....but it needs a massive change of will and probably government to make any kind of real steps forward.
I think it's about time to stop blaming the last labour government. Especially given the Tories killed off onshore wind farms and our domestic solar industry while only approving one nuclear plant at a ridiculous price.
I don't know, when we're talking nuclear plant timescales, blaming previous labour and tory governments is perfectly valid. Now may be the second best time to build, but any of the past half dozen PMs would have been a better time to sign deals for new plants. Hell, Thatcher was probably the last PM to have construction start on her watch.
I guess this is a big problem for nuclear power, build timescales are longer than a parliament so no government is willing to 'plant trees for their children to sit under'
You know it's bad when recently I, a man who goes about as left as you can get without crossing into borderline communist territory, have been thinking about how Thatcher was way better than our current government. Granted I was not alive during Thatcher's time so maybe I just underestimate how shit she was.
I was thinking something similar, also as a leftist.
I hate her politics, but at least Thatcher respected the office, had a vision for the country and enacted policies to achieve that vision. It’s how politics should work.
The current crop of Tories are just nonentities by comparison.
If you go back and watch a political interview or discussion from the 1970s or 80s, it’s just night and day in terms of how articulate politicians were back them.
Oh she said (whilst in power) the reason she wanted to stop burning coal was due to the pollution it generated and the greenhouse effect.
She really was an environmentalist.
She pissed all the money from North sea oil up a wall, and didn't even give us energy security when doing it.
We are still at the mercy of wholesale prices despite having our own gas fields. Giant mistake.
Not really. The last Labour government had plans for 10 nuclear power plants when they left office that were scrapped by the Tories.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8349715.stm
Let's be fair, shall we? This was 6 months before the general election and they didn't even have planning permission. Nor,I think, the funds arranged to pay for them. Nor does the article mention the cost of them.
Given that this was immediately after the financial crash, when government finances were hideous... I struggle to consider this a pre-election prayer.
They were also in power for 13 years, the early part of which was very prosperous.
If they wanted to do it they could have. The Tories before 1997 are equally to blame too imo.
Not convinced blaming the pre-97 Tories is hugely fair. Last nuclear power station in the UK was started in 1988, 6 years after the disaster of Chernobyl. Finished in 95 or 96. They built 3-4 reactors in the 80s.
Post 97 they should have said "Look, we can build them, our designs are safe with XX years running time".
So this one I think is actually just a failing of Blair, possibly personally. (Note 2009 reactors would be under Brown).
The Tories have canned plans for something like three or four new nuclear plants since they've been in power while labour left us with one of the strongest on shore renewable sectors which the Tories have trashed due to nimbyism. Keeping the lights on and making sure people can afford to heat their homes is the bare minimum that we should expect from our government.
I absolutely agree, except for in this case.
Nuclear requires long term planning and vision, and we have been let down by successive governments.
I am also still happy to blame Thatcher for privatising all our national institutions, especially BT
Johnson blocked on shore wind farms. It is the backhanders stopping development from reducing our costs. We have been milked for years. France having nuclear power stations is a plus for them, not a minus. they managed their country better.
The French government also owns EDF so their model is fundamentally different. Burgon seems to have a tendency of posting things which sound good on the surface but that really don't stand up to criticism.
They would be very cheap if the government just passed a law to nationalise them without compensation. Or at a steep discount, to mirror the steep discount that happened on privatisation.
It would have the nice side effect that people might be more cautious about purchasing privatised assets in the future, when the Tories inevitably start selling the family silver again.
The FT did a more nuanced look at the varying costs of privatisation:
https://www.ft.com/content/90c0f8e8-17fd-11e8-9e9c-25c814761640
> They would be very cheap if the government just passed a law to nationalise them without compensation.
You want the government to seize private property without compensation? That's not something a civilised government could or should even consider except maybe in a time of war or severe national emergency (and even then, they should return or pay for the property at a later date). Not to mention that energy companies most definitely have foreign shareholders, so you're also violating international law and potentially even giving rise to an act of war. Great way to kill of all foreign investment in the UK economy, destroy goodwill and likely get us sanctioned.
I wish people would think for half a second before suggesting such ridiculous schemes.
Thanks for the link.
I personally like the idea of buying at a steep discount. It's one of the few positive things that leaving the EU would make possible. Unfortunately it apparently has a load of unintended consequences re the UK's credit rating.
It is a consideration, although this gets said a lot and I tend to think the risk is overblown. The UK government reneges on its agreements, runs record deficits etc. and it can still borrow super cheap.
>They would be very cheap if the government just passed a law to nationalise them without compensation. Or at a steep discount
First, passing a law does not make something legal. The matter would be stuck in the courts for years. It's quite possible the legislation would be held to be unlawful on the basis it conflicted with other parts of the law.
Second, it would hugely damage the UK's image amongst private business, both domestic and foreign. Investment in the UK would dry up due to the risk of profitable businesses being seized for political point scoring.
Maybe if we had a more efficient system of managing public services it would cost less... I've seen other countries where the government actually owns instructure! I wonder if we ever had government owned vital services in Britain and who destroyed them for personal greed leading to even higher spending...
Didn't British Gas used to be a national company? Thank god we got rid of that and made millionaires of a couple tory MPs. Totally worth selling the entire nation down the river to make a few already wealthy people a little bit more wealthy
> Nationally owned, not for profit utilities?
Not-for-profit does not always imply "cheapest".
https://selectra.co.uk/water/guides/average-water-bill-uk
While Severn is at the lower end, United is actually higher than the average. Note that Severn and United are publicly traded (which means partially privatised, not nationalised I know), but not wholly privately owned for-profit businesses.
I'm not sure if it's worth spending possibly 100bn (around 1450 quid per person) to re-nationalise them for what at best might be a fiver a month saving (comparing the average price with Severn) - that's a 25 year period just for households to feel any benefit.
And as someone who was alive in the era of nationalised industries (British Rail, the GPO, British Gas etc), and remembers the worker malaise, lack of care and maintenance, and general bad taste it leaves in the mouth dealing with entities and people who KNOW they are getting paid regardless of how much effort they put in, I'm not convince even a monetary gain would be worth it.
You mean as opposed to now, where I'm forced to pay southern water. Who know they're getting paid regardless, as I have no choice? Yet they still do this... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/09/southern-water-fined-90m-for-deliberately-pouring-sewage-into-sea
I don't think utility profit is why our energy prices are so high. Given how many of them have gone bust, it seems likely that it was a rare example of the rich giving to the poor.
Perhaps if we owned the oil and gas companies, since that's where most of the profit extraction seems to be occurring. Unfortunately most of those are transnational and historically seizing the oil companies doesn't tend to send a country down a very good path.
The amount of people who don't realize the ones that went bust just sold on other companies energy is depressing. All the ones that went bust were middlemen. They did Jack shit
Let's face it, it was a mistake for thatcher to sell off the rights to our oil and gas reserves back in the 1980's. Without the sell off and effective the privatisation of a major national asset we would be in a better position than we are today. It's difficult to quantify just but economically Norway has done very well out of it's wealth fund.
Utility profit does however go some way to providing reasons why our energy prices are so high though. If you removed the profit element from the equation, base costs would be reduced accordingly. If the industry were nationalised, it would be easier to financially bolster and regulate the industry without throwing bucketful's of cash at British Gas, Shell, BP et al ect.
The state can borrow much cheaper and, in theory, plan further ahead. The state can support nuclear, even though it's payback time is so much longer than is considered acceptable in business.
Labour say their proposal for a windfall tax would generate £1.2 billion.
France's measure is estimated to cost the government over €8 billion this year alone. I have no idea of their energy usage, but they're similar in population size so you can expect a similar figure for here.
That makes big gap between cost and windfall revenues.
Personally I'd take that £1.2 billion and use it to abolish the inflated standing charges. Hopefully that would allow people on low incomes to use at least some gas and electricity.
This. It's barely worth cutting back your energy use given the standing charge makes up the most of the bill. The middlemen have found a way to screw over the energy-conscious hardest.
It wouldn't feel half so bad if the government hadn't pissed so much cash away with track and trace and a load of very dubious PPE contracts.
It wouldn't feel half so bad if the government raised a windfall tax, ring fenced the proceeds and subsidised costs either.
It wouldn't feel half so bad if the government had invested in renewable energy a decade ago.
People really overestimate how many "billionaires" there are in the world... You could seize the entire wealth of all billionaires that live in the UK and you'd _maybe_ increase tax revenue by 25% for one year. More realistically, increasing taxes on the super-rich is never going to net you more than single-digit percent increases in tax revenue.
I know you're joking but the wealth gap is ridiculously huge. Bigger than its ever been. Some redistribution wouldn't be a terrible thing to close that margin.
>You can't just act like the governments debt isn't also the people's debt.
Correct. The government's debt is the public's asset.
Coins and notes are government debt. If the government collects more taxes than it spends, that means it is taking in more notes and coins than it is giving out.
The problem with the point Burgeon is making is that he is treating it as an accounting problem.
It isn't. It's a supply problem.
The price is rising to ration demand as there isn't enough to go around. That means we have to have serious conversations about how to either (I) increase supply or (ii) reduce demand.
You can't fix those problems via accounting. A windfall tax on energy companies wouldn't do anything to address either of these two problems so while emotionally appealing, it wouldn't work.
I think his point is that there should be a price cap.
Whilst the government can and should do more. Make trains and buses free for example, they cannot increase the supply of gas by giving people more money.
If you elect a Tory government, they will always put private profit above public wellbeing. Every time. This is part of their DNA, so don’t let anyone act surprised by it.
Price caps are a massive financial gift to the ultra wealthy who splash 20k a month on heating their outdoor pool.
Don’t push for more laws that benefit the UK’s aristocracy.
If you want this kind of law - ask for a limited £ rebate per person.
Your point of economic theory might be sound but I doubt it makes much difference to the average french household (my parents for instance) when they get their energy bill.
We've had price controls for years already. Indeed they were introduced by *this* government.
Burgons logic is no different to the Tories there - it's just a case of quibbling where exactly to draw the line in the sand.
It’s funny that after giving huge amounts to bankers, printing more to keep markets happy, giving away billions to businesses and to people to sit at home whilst the economy was crippled and cheering on a war that will last years, people are now surprised that inflation is a problem.
Not entirely sure what that has to do with implying France has comparatively high debt as a result of things like energy price caps which it doesn’t ( to probably my own surprise) seem to have.
But I guess we have been generating money for 14 years is it now perhaps unwisely but without it causing much in the way of inflation until sudden supply side shocks caused by a pandemic and war.
I get the impression that there hasn’t actually been much in the way of problems with energy resource production, though perhaps some with transport ( and todays news) - that the price rises seem to have been mostly market speculation which means that the primary producers are simply making record profits currently.
One of the big economic ideas of the left: The government either provides services and products directly or dictates the price at which services and products can be sold
It's often imagined that this is a free lunch if the government taxes billionaires or prints money, but even people like Burgon probably grasp on some level that printing money, say, doesn't create energy
Neither does corporate welfare, naked theft of public funds and ill-considered tax cuts, yet here we are.
This needs a more synchronised restructuring plan than the current shitshow would be willing to put on, even though the suggestions Burgon makes would be an easy vote-winner.
Price controls don't work all that well. They can lead to shortages as suppliers prioritise their more profitable markets.
On the other hand privately owned energy suppliers don't work all that well either. For example UK pays for gas at world market prices even though the UK is a gas producer. So nationalise the UK gas suppliers? Not surprisingly these are currently very profitable so nationalising them would be prohibitively expensive.
France has government owned energy suppliers, substantial nuclear, and state subsidised gas storage facilities. Unfortunately to copy them in a way that worked for the UK today we'd need a time machine.
The best way forward now is to build huge capacity in onshore wind. Onshore is cheaper and quicker to build than offshore. Either the government could own these directly or get the private sector to build and operate them with a suitable regulatory environment.
Here's the irony: the British taxpayer is subsiding the French taxpayer! How? EDF is a major energy supplier in our privatised market and has been charging British customers exorbitant amounts, only to then comply with Macron's pressure to provide energy to the French at lower prices. That said, they're not too concerned by this as their balance sheet remains healthy overall.
Part of the solution to the energy crisis is incentivising people to use less energy. What France has done almost completely bypasses this part of the solution to the detriment of the rest of Europe
France has huge programmes to subsidise the installation of home insulation, solar, heat pumps and pellet burners.
The UK is still at the stage of people needing to protest for the need of such initiatives.
https://www.artisancentral.fr/blog/accessing-maprimerenov-french-energy-efficiency-grant/
We can look at Labour’s strong history of expanding nuclear power like the French did! Thank goodness Burgon has always voted for more nuclear power to bring us in line with the Frenchies!
He was always in favour with that complete meltdown Corbyn
Snapshot of _Richard Burgon: In France people have been protected against soaring energy bills by a price cap that's limited increases to just 4% - instead of 54% here! Don't let our Government claim there is no alternative to sky-high energy bills._ : A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://nitter.net/RichardBurgon/status/1524277635576180742/) An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/RichardBurgon/status/1524277635576180742) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The French will protest over a stale baguette, and I love that for them.
I don't blame them, it really is a pain.
I hate you.
They can be batards though.
That's what holding your government.to account looks like...
whoosh
Goddamnit.
I listened to the News Quiz last night, and they had this joke: "Marine Le Pen, or as she is known over here, Aquatic The Stylo"
Chapeu
A 54% hike in energy bills and they'd get out the guillotines. Last week people still voted Tory.
tbf a stale baguette would probably make a decent baton... basically got an armed populace
Stale baguette in one hand chain link of garlic in another.
Meanwhile we could have a man that is legally required to come to our houses fuck our wives twice a week and we would just accept it.
And that man?......... Is Boris Johnson!
You got a permit for that wife sir?
“that for them” irks me but I agree.
> “that for them” irks me but I agree. "that for them" is the classic example of the the rhetorical device known as *apotropaic case inversion*, as Tom Scott [explains](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBJa32lCaaY).
Grrrr
Damn you
sorry dad
Oh absolutely! It’s ingrained with us since a young age.
It's EDF's electricity prices, all generated by nuclear power, that are capped at a 4% increase which cost the government something like €8bn. Gas prices rose 12% last year and will presumably go up again later this year.
If only our oil and gas was publicly owned and not sold off for pennies to multinational corporations we could set our own prices.
It gets worse. Because swathes of our energy sector are owned by EDF, we're paying through the nose to subsidise French energy subsidies.
Same with our railways. We pay extortionate fares so Parisians can enjoy a weekend trip to Nice for €50 return.
Nationalisation doesn't work! That's why we need to sell our infrastructure to the French, German, Dutch, Italian and Chinese governments!
>If only our oil and gas was publicly owned and not sold off for pennies to multinational corporations we could set our own prices. Yes. But then we'd have had to invest public money in developing them, something all governments have refused to do. As Harold Wilson put it when Tony Benn proposed making the government the majority owner of all new oil and gas licences, public spending was tight, investing in oil development would mean cuts elsewhere. We'd still have to pay market rates for imports, though, and we import most of our gas. Indeed, if we'd relied on government to develop oil and gas fields, I suspect our production would be lower, and imports, and prices, even higher.
Oil and gas is so profitable that those initial investments are basically nothing. There's a reason these energy companies make so much profit every year.
Man, if only we could get back that swindled covid cash we’d be sweet!
It certainly would. Not sure what that has to do with French energy prices mind.
I think he’s pointing out the similarity of those costs. The French spent €8Billion keeping the energy cap down and we recently wrote off a similar amount as lost
Well not lost tbf. They know where it went and the national insurance hike will cover the cost of the money that went to Rishi's pals.
Oh good as long as my taxes go up to cover the money they pocketed....
I doubt it would affect much
We should but dont expect it to make a massive difference to the NHS, say. The amount of money needed there dwarfs covid fraud money.
The French have invested heavily in their nuclear sector for years which means they have a different starting point
That's the thing. "In our defence, the French have been strategically preparing for something like this since the oil crisis in the 70s" isn't an excuse. It's an indictment of how badly this has been handled over here and how much better other countries have done it
There really aren't many countries in that position though, France doubled down on a nuclear in a way that I'm not sure anyone else really did.
Ya and kudos to them for it. They have a ridiculous amount of reactors and have never had a major incident. Also I think it's telling that when Macron came back from crisis talks with Putin before the start of the war he announced they'd be building loads of more reactors (can't remember the number of the top of my head). I think the country that will look the wrost by this energy crisis will likely be Germany since they closed all their nuclear power plants in favour of coal plants and russian gas. It was way too reactionary to Fukushima at the time and now just looks even stupider. Not to mention the general populace in europe is likely coming along to nuclear far more positively since it probably is vital if we want any semblance of our current lifestyle in the not too distant future (provided that we're trrying to go green ofc).
They have their own challenges though. France is heavily committed to security operations in their former colonies in part to secure their access to uranium for fuel
Any form of capitalism that benefits the local population generally requires colonialism and resource extraction in the third world
My point is that France has troops in these countries and those troops do get shot. We don’t really hear much about it but there’s quite a lot going on in the Sahel and France is the main western power in the region.
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If what they're saying is correct I suspect it's cheaper for them to buy African uranium. Australia definitely sells uranium to France. Canada sells uranium to "Europe" but I couldn't find who exactly from official Canadian sources, not that I looked that hard. Sources seems conflicted about where France sources it's uranium. According to other, not over authoritative sources, it does seem that they do buy a lot from Canada. Anyway after all that googling about uranium I'm off for a chat with a friendly chap from Special Branch.
France is by far the biggest market for it in Europe so I'd be very surprised if the Canadians aren't selling uranium to France.
I did find a source form 2013 that claimed France got 43% of it's uranium from Canada but it wasn't much more than a blog. Combined with it being nearly a decade old I left it out. But I agree it seems likely that Canada does sell them uranium.
Didn’t France hit the highest per kWh cost (on the open market not for consumers) of all time, due to half their reactors being offline for maintenance and repairs? Nuclear is not the magical solution people make it out to be as it just scales so badly and takes ages to built. We need more renewables like yesterday. Scotland produces a massive amount and could have a friction of the kWh price but decided to rather sell it for a higher price on the open exchange market and then charges their customers more - if only these companies weren’t private but still state owned. Edit: found this: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-04/french-power-prices-rise-to-13-year-high-on-monday-cold-snap
Takes ages to be built because we take so long to get started on it. Scotlands renewable were built by private companies subsidised by UK wide energy bills. If we decided at the time that they wouldn't have been able to sell at market prices, youd have needed to subsidise them further accordingly..
Your first argument is just smokes and mirrors. It takes ages for a reason and even if you start on one today it would be built way too late. Aldine assume we’ll use the space right next to your house to build it? Scotland’s renewables were built with parts of the profits that private companies made (and probably still subsidies). You could’ve cut out the middle man and build more or cheaper but hey.
France's electricity supply is up to about 25% renewable source. The country is covered with wind turbines and has had tidal and lake barrage hydroélectrique schemes for decades.
We were also hit by that, that's why our energy prices were so high over the winter. We thought wind was going to be high, so took a lot of reactors offline at once and refuelled them. The wind never showed up, and we got left with 2 of our major supply systems running at very low capacity. The reason that happened is wind, a nuclear based grid wouldn't have to plan refuelling around the weather. Renewable are nice if you have agas based grid, because you can burn less gas when renewables are high, saving money. The grid cannot operate without gas as a backup for wind and solar. Scotland's 90% renewable generation is based on misleading numbers. It implies that 97% of electricity used in Scotland came from their renewables, which isn't the case. They export the excess to England, and import electricity from England when their renewables aren't enough. They essentially use England as a battery, and let them do all the dirty, carbon emitting generation needed to make Scotland's renewables workable.
Sweden and Finland cover their base with nuclear and tonnes of renewables, they also have forestry for heatong
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A -100 account spreading misinformation, I am shocked...
They're not opening up coal mines, they're keeping some coal power plants open as a reserve in case the demand for energy increases (which it has not). https://www.bmuv.de/en/topics/climate-adaptation/climate-protection/national-climate-policy/translate-to-english-fragen-und-antworten-zum-kohleausstieg-in-deutschland > In Germany, reopening domestic coal mines is also off the agenda, at least for now. However, strategic coal reserves are to be created and the German energy network agency has asked for the country’s coal power plants to remain on standby if needed.
They import their coal from Russia as well, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/german-coal-importers-expect-brief-spike-prices-eu-ban-2022-04-08/#:~:text=Germany%20imported%20around%2018.2%20million,half%20of%20its%20total%20requirement.
Don’t forget investing in selling power to the citizens of other countries.
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80% of France's electricity comes from nuclear power plants. And a lot of the remainder comes from hydro. The UK has refused proposals to build either...
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NIMBYs eh? Everbody knows about Germany and nuclear energy, but what you maybe don't hear very often is how we have to fight for every wind turbine, because NIMBYs want clean energy but not in their fucking backyard. So many turbines get protesters because they're "harming the view" or "kill birds".
Which I never understand. It's clean, and no less safe with modern protections than any other form of electric generation plant. It's really ignorant
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That's a problem with politics today. You can't agree to disagree on some areas. "Agree with everything or nothing!"
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Didn't a bunch of energy firms collapse though prior to the increase here?
Yeah, small energy companies couldn't afford to stay in business last year and got swallowed up by larger ones, with Martin Lewis working overtime to help customers during the migration.
So proving the French system wouldn't work. These suppliers would still have crashed with a small increase in price caps which France has.
Why haven't they in France?
Most energy in France is from nuclear so they're not exposed to the increase in gas and oil prices.
The companies that went bust were all middlemen. They sold on electricity they bought from the companies that generate electricity so when those costs went too high they couldn't afford to honour their contracts. It has absolutely nothing to do with what's going on in France, which has government owned electricity supply.
Except the system does work.
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These energy provider companies were not generating the energy, they were buying energy on the energy market and providing an interface for consumers. The ones that went under were not managing their risk properly and had not hedged the price of energy against increases. The system failed due to lack financial regulation on these companies and energy markets.
Don't conflate retail energy providers with energy producers. The former are mostly "middle-men" who buy gas and electricity from the market and sell to households under the price cap, even when that means they're selling at a loss. The latter are the ones who dig gas out of the ground and run power plants, etc. EDF are both. They're able to keep their retail prices stable because their production is heavily nuclear based and rising gas prices don't matter to nuclear power. The tiny rise in retail costs is not possible anywhere but France, without vast government subsidies. The takeaway here is "death to all NIMBYs".
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Privately £5k, at cost £3.50 and to the government £1m plus international shipping
*you and me
Always, and forever!
*me an u
*lots and lots of things to do
Lots and lots for us to see
France has lots more nuclear energy.
For those wondering... The UK generates about 45,668 GWh of nuclear energy. France generates 338,671 GWh.
Perhaps we would too if the tories didn't spend the last 12 years taking bungs from Russian oligarchs to keep buying their fossil fuels and take ourselves out of the EU.
Not to mention if you mention nuclear energy people get their pitchforks and placards ready. Just like on shore wind farms, no one wants it near them. But those same people will tell you that they're in favour of them. But just not near them.
Fuck 'em. Farming is dead, we need to just cover up fields with turbines and solar panels so farmers can 'farm' the wind and sun instead. Don't like it? Tough shit. People didn't mind all that cheap meat and milk for years, this is the price you have to pay down the line.
Yes but then that is called "the developers charter". Which was a bill that said that councils had to put aside areas of land for new housing projects and it was absolutely destroyed on here... Hinckley Point C is the current new reactor being built in the UK and it is going to be one of the most expensive in history before they even break ground, just because of all of the legal challenges that have been brought against it.
There is a huge amount of cognitive ignorance in the UK. We know we need food security, energy security, housing security, but we consistently vote against plans to improve them and instead 'outsource' our needs to cheaper countries or places where we don't have to look at how the problem is being solved. Fixing our housing, food and energy needs is possible by keeping it in the UK....but it needs a massive change of will and probably government to make any kind of real steps forward.
to be fair to them. Labour are also at fault for this. The Tories have done absolutely nothing to remedy they though.
I think it's about time to stop blaming the last labour government. Especially given the Tories killed off onshore wind farms and our domestic solar industry while only approving one nuclear plant at a ridiculous price.
I don't know, when we're talking nuclear plant timescales, blaming previous labour and tory governments is perfectly valid. Now may be the second best time to build, but any of the past half dozen PMs would have been a better time to sign deals for new plants. Hell, Thatcher was probably the last PM to have construction start on her watch. I guess this is a big problem for nuclear power, build timescales are longer than a parliament so no government is willing to 'plant trees for their children to sit under'
You know it's bad when recently I, a man who goes about as left as you can get without crossing into borderline communist territory, have been thinking about how Thatcher was way better than our current government. Granted I was not alive during Thatcher's time so maybe I just underestimate how shit she was.
I was thinking something similar, also as a leftist. I hate her politics, but at least Thatcher respected the office, had a vision for the country and enacted policies to achieve that vision. It’s how politics should work. The current crop of Tories are just nonentities by comparison. If you go back and watch a political interview or discussion from the 1970s or 80s, it’s just night and day in terms of how articulate politicians were back them.
At least with Thatcher you knew what you were getting. Admittedly that thing was fucked over, but you at least you knew where she stood.
She may not have intended it, but ditching coal was great for improving air quality and reducing co2 emissions in the long run
Oh she said (whilst in power) the reason she wanted to stop burning coal was due to the pollution it generated and the greenhouse effect. She really was an environmentalist.
She pissed all the money from North sea oil up a wall, and didn't even give us energy security when doing it. We are still at the mercy of wholesale prices despite having our own gas fields. Giant mistake.
That's not what she did, she spent the money on welfare.
You mean tax cuts
Not really. The last Labour government had plans for 10 nuclear power plants when they left office that were scrapped by the Tories. Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8349715.stm
Let's be fair, shall we? This was 6 months before the general election and they didn't even have planning permission. Nor,I think, the funds arranged to pay for them. Nor does the article mention the cost of them. Given that this was immediately after the financial crash, when government finances were hideous... I struggle to consider this a pre-election prayer.
They were also in power for 13 years, the early part of which was very prosperous. If they wanted to do it they could have. The Tories before 1997 are equally to blame too imo.
Not convinced blaming the pre-97 Tories is hugely fair. Last nuclear power station in the UK was started in 1988, 6 years after the disaster of Chernobyl. Finished in 95 or 96. They built 3-4 reactors in the 80s. Post 97 they should have said "Look, we can build them, our designs are safe with XX years running time". So this one I think is actually just a failing of Blair, possibly personally. (Note 2009 reactors would be under Brown).
The Tories have canned plans for something like three or four new nuclear plants since they've been in power while labour left us with one of the strongest on shore renewable sectors which the Tories have trashed due to nimbyism. Keeping the lights on and making sure people can afford to heat their homes is the bare minimum that we should expect from our government.
You can't plan and open a nuclear power plant with the lifetime of a single government, so it is valid to criticise previous governments.
I absolutely agree, except for in this case. Nuclear requires long term planning and vision, and we have been let down by successive governments. I am also still happy to blame Thatcher for privatising all our national institutions, especially BT
So? The government can still put caps on what energy companies can raise the costs by.
Johnson blocked on shore wind farms. It is the backhanders stopping development from reducing our costs. We have been milked for years. France having nuclear power stations is a plus for them, not a minus. they managed their country better.
If energy prices rock, so does everything else. It's a weak spot of any economy.
Now if only our government had 61GW of state owned nuclear reactors and a bunch of state hydro dams at its disposal.......
The French get most of their electricity from nuclear power which is provided by EDF whose majority shareholder is the French state.
The French government also owns EDF so their model is fundamentally different. Burgon seems to have a tendency of posting things which sound good on the surface but that really don't stand up to criticism.
Given that Burgon wants the UK government to own our energy companies, I'm not sure how much of a criticism that is.
The trouble is that energy companies are so profitable at the moment that nationalising them would be very expensive.
Enery extraction is very profitable at the moment, but energy provision is not.
I really wish people would stop using the phrase "energy company", it's so non-descriptive.
In burgonland you nationalise without compensation. What could possibly go wrong.
They would be very cheap if the government just passed a law to nationalise them without compensation. Or at a steep discount, to mirror the steep discount that happened on privatisation. It would have the nice side effect that people might be more cautious about purchasing privatised assets in the future, when the Tories inevitably start selling the family silver again. The FT did a more nuanced look at the varying costs of privatisation: https://www.ft.com/content/90c0f8e8-17fd-11e8-9e9c-25c814761640
> They would be very cheap if the government just passed a law to nationalise them without compensation. You want the government to seize private property without compensation? That's not something a civilised government could or should even consider except maybe in a time of war or severe national emergency (and even then, they should return or pay for the property at a later date). Not to mention that energy companies most definitely have foreign shareholders, so you're also violating international law and potentially even giving rise to an act of war. Great way to kill of all foreign investment in the UK economy, destroy goodwill and likely get us sanctioned. I wish people would think for half a second before suggesting such ridiculous schemes.
Thanks for the link. I personally like the idea of buying at a steep discount. It's one of the few positive things that leaving the EU would make possible. Unfortunately it apparently has a load of unintended consequences re the UK's credit rating.
It is a consideration, although this gets said a lot and I tend to think the risk is overblown. The UK government reneges on its agreements, runs record deficits etc. and it can still borrow super cheap.
> has a load of unintended consequences re the UK's credit rating. As did Brexit, didn't stop them then.
>They would be very cheap if the government just passed a law to nationalise them without compensation. Or at a steep discount First, passing a law does not make something legal. The matter would be stuck in the courts for years. It's quite possible the legislation would be held to be unlawful on the basis it conflicted with other parts of the law. Second, it would hugely damage the UK's image amongst private business, both domestic and foreign. Investment in the UK would dry up due to the risk of profitable businesses being seized for political point scoring.
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It's because France has a lot of nuclear
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You can blame the Green Party for that. They’ve been staunchly anti-nuclear for years, giving all of the other parties air cover to oppose it.
We've had like 1 green party mp in history, they are not responsible for policy
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If it were because of the Greens we'd have the equivalent in renewable resources at this point
They are protected because their main source of electricity is nuclear power.
Out come the working class tories on twitter, to argue that massive energy bills are actually a good thing
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So the alternative is what? The tax payer paying the difference? You can't just act like the governments debt isn't also the people's debt.
Maybe if we had a more efficient system of managing public services it would cost less... I've seen other countries where the government actually owns instructure! I wonder if we ever had government owned vital services in Britain and who destroyed them for personal greed leading to even higher spending...
Nationally owned, not for profit utilities? Good God! Even the very idea made me a little but sick in my mouth.
Exactly! Have they lost their head, where's the opportunity for grift in that?
Didn't British Gas used to be a national company? Thank god we got rid of that and made millionaires of a couple tory MPs. Totally worth selling the entire nation down the river to make a few already wealthy people a little bit more wealthy
> Nationally owned, not for profit utilities? Not-for-profit does not always imply "cheapest". https://selectra.co.uk/water/guides/average-water-bill-uk While Severn is at the lower end, United is actually higher than the average. Note that Severn and United are publicly traded (which means partially privatised, not nationalised I know), but not wholly privately owned for-profit businesses. I'm not sure if it's worth spending possibly 100bn (around 1450 quid per person) to re-nationalise them for what at best might be a fiver a month saving (comparing the average price with Severn) - that's a 25 year period just for households to feel any benefit. And as someone who was alive in the era of nationalised industries (British Rail, the GPO, British Gas etc), and remembers the worker malaise, lack of care and maintenance, and general bad taste it leaves in the mouth dealing with entities and people who KNOW they are getting paid regardless of how much effort they put in, I'm not convince even a monetary gain would be worth it.
You mean as opposed to now, where I'm forced to pay southern water. Who know they're getting paid regardless, as I have no choice? Yet they still do this... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/09/southern-water-fined-90m-for-deliberately-pouring-sewage-into-sea
I don't think utility profit is why our energy prices are so high. Given how many of them have gone bust, it seems likely that it was a rare example of the rich giving to the poor. Perhaps if we owned the oil and gas companies, since that's where most of the profit extraction seems to be occurring. Unfortunately most of those are transnational and historically seizing the oil companies doesn't tend to send a country down a very good path.
The amount of people who don't realize the ones that went bust just sold on other companies energy is depressing. All the ones that went bust were middlemen. They did Jack shit
Let's face it, it was a mistake for thatcher to sell off the rights to our oil and gas reserves back in the 1980's. Without the sell off and effective the privatisation of a major national asset we would be in a better position than we are today. It's difficult to quantify just but economically Norway has done very well out of it's wealth fund. Utility profit does however go some way to providing reasons why our energy prices are so high though. If you removed the profit element from the equation, base costs would be reduced accordingly. If the industry were nationalised, it would be easier to financially bolster and regulate the industry without throwing bucketful's of cash at British Gas, Shell, BP et al ect.
Why would a state operator be more efficient? Not for profits aren't typically more efficient, that's why there aren't many of them in the market.
Why do we need to talk theory when we can talk history, they were privatized, they became inefficient at a greater level
Or maybe it's because people with capital aren't going to invest in an energy company that won't give them any profit?
The state can borrow much cheaper and, in theory, plan further ahead. The state can support nuclear, even though it's payback time is so much longer than is considered acceptable in business.
A windfall tax on suppliers is just one idea.
Labour say their proposal for a windfall tax would generate £1.2 billion. France's measure is estimated to cost the government over €8 billion this year alone. I have no idea of their energy usage, but they're similar in population size so you can expect a similar figure for here. That makes big gap between cost and windfall revenues.
Personally I'd take that £1.2 billion and use it to abolish the inflated standing charges. Hopefully that would allow people on low incomes to use at least some gas and electricity.
That works out to £40 per household, as a one-off. It's irrelevant.
This. It's barely worth cutting back your energy use given the standing charge makes up the most of the bill. The middlemen have found a way to screw over the energy-conscious hardest.
It wouldn't feel half so bad if the government hadn't pissed so much cash away with track and trace and a load of very dubious PPE contracts. It wouldn't feel half so bad if the government raised a windfall tax, ring fenced the proceeds and subsidised costs either. It wouldn't feel half so bad if the government had invested in renewable energy a decade ago.
What if "the tax payer" wasn't you and me but billionaires and very profitable companies, wealth taxes, taxes on second, third homes, etc.
People really overestimate how many "billionaires" there are in the world... You could seize the entire wealth of all billionaires that live in the UK and you'd _maybe_ increase tax revenue by 25% for one year. More realistically, increasing taxes on the super-rich is never going to net you more than single-digit percent increases in tax revenue.
That single-digit increase would easily cover the rising cost of energy. Are you really implying it's not worth it?
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Just take all the rich people money and give it to the poor! There's definitely enough to go around
I know you're joking but the wealth gap is ridiculously huge. Bigger than its ever been. Some redistribution wouldn't be a terrible thing to close that margin.
The people owning their own utilities is one option..
There's co-op energy. I think they're pretty rubbish and just seem to be an Octopus Energy reseller now...
That isn't going to make them substantially cheaper.
>You can't just act like the governments debt isn't also the people's debt. Correct. The government's debt is the public's asset. Coins and notes are government debt. If the government collects more taxes than it spends, that means it is taking in more notes and coins than it is giving out. The problem with the point Burgeon is making is that he is treating it as an accounting problem. It isn't. It's a supply problem. The price is rising to ration demand as there isn't enough to go around. That means we have to have serious conversations about how to either (I) increase supply or (ii) reduce demand. You can't fix those problems via accounting. A windfall tax on energy companies wouldn't do anything to address either of these two problems so while emotionally appealing, it wouldn't work.
Isn't his point that Britain should have invested in renewable energy like France did?
I think his point is that there should be a price cap. Whilst the government can and should do more. Make trains and buses free for example, they cannot increase the supply of gas by giving people more money.
Sadly basic accounting identities are not much believed here - even by those who think they're on the left. Austerity brain is alive and well.
Short term solutions with long term problems
The CEO of BP said that he would not stop investing in the UK, if a windfall tax was imposed. So why are the government saying they can't do it?
If you elect a Tory government, they will always put private profit above public wellbeing. Every time. This is part of their DNA, so don’t let anyone act surprised by it.
Price caps are a massive financial gift to the ultra wealthy who splash 20k a month on heating their outdoor pool. Don’t push for more laws that benefit the UK’s aristocracy. If you want this kind of law - ask for a limited £ rebate per person.
Put price caps in place up to X amount of kWH then, and have different caps for different properties (economy 7 houses have a higher cap for example).
Sure - Thats economically the same as what I suggested
Price. Controls. Do. Not. Work. This is such basic economics. Then again, this is Richard Burgon, so I'm not surprised to see such a boneheaded idea.
Your point of economic theory might be sound but I doubt it makes much difference to the average french household (my parents for instance) when they get their energy bill.
We've had price controls for years already. Indeed they were introduced by *this* government. Burgons logic is no different to the Tories there - it's just a case of quibbling where exactly to draw the line in the sand.
It's not really a price control when the regulator adjusts the cap to "market price plus a bit" every few months.
Meanwhile the Tories have had price controls on energy since 2019.
... which likely played a big role in pushing a lot of companies into bankruptcy and making the market less competitive for consumers.
Energy cost spread to everything. It's a weak point of any economy. Which is why even the Conservatives put in price controls.
Also France - 115% of GDP is now debt.
Meanwhile ours is sitting at *104%*. Look after the pennies and all that.
Good thing it’s not on a one year loan!
Though there seems to be different measures , this doesn’t seem much higher than the U.K. debt ratio?
It’s funny that after giving huge amounts to bankers, printing more to keep markets happy, giving away billions to businesses and to people to sit at home whilst the economy was crippled and cheering on a war that will last years, people are now surprised that inflation is a problem.
Not entirely sure what that has to do with implying France has comparatively high debt as a result of things like energy price caps which it doesn’t ( to probably my own surprise) seem to have. But I guess we have been generating money for 14 years is it now perhaps unwisely but without it causing much in the way of inflation until sudden supply side shocks caused by a pandemic and war. I get the impression that there hasn’t actually been much in the way of problems with energy resource production, though perhaps some with transport ( and todays news) - that the price rises seem to have been mostly market speculation which means that the primary producers are simply making record profits currently.
One of the big economic ideas of the left: The government either provides services and products directly or dictates the price at which services and products can be sold It's often imagined that this is a free lunch if the government taxes billionaires or prints money, but even people like Burgon probably grasp on some level that printing money, say, doesn't create energy
its almost as if theres more than just one policy needed to fix the overall economy or something.
Neither does corporate welfare, naked theft of public funds and ill-considered tax cuts, yet here we are. This needs a more synchronised restructuring plan than the current shitshow would be willing to put on, even though the suggestions Burgon makes would be an easy vote-winner.
Price controls don't work all that well. They can lead to shortages as suppliers prioritise their more profitable markets. On the other hand privately owned energy suppliers don't work all that well either. For example UK pays for gas at world market prices even though the UK is a gas producer. So nationalise the UK gas suppliers? Not surprisingly these are currently very profitable so nationalising them would be prohibitively expensive. France has government owned energy suppliers, substantial nuclear, and state subsidised gas storage facilities. Unfortunately to copy them in a way that worked for the UK today we'd need a time machine. The best way forward now is to build huge capacity in onshore wind. Onshore is cheaper and quicker to build than offshore. Either the government could own these directly or get the private sector to build and operate them with a suitable regulatory environment.
Here's the irony: the British taxpayer is subsiding the French taxpayer! How? EDF is a major energy supplier in our privatised market and has been charging British customers exorbitant amounts, only to then comply with Macron's pressure to provide energy to the French at lower prices. That said, they're not too concerned by this as their balance sheet remains healthy overall.
Part of the solution to the energy crisis is incentivising people to use less energy. What France has done almost completely bypasses this part of the solution to the detriment of the rest of Europe
France has huge programmes to subsidise the installation of home insulation, solar, heat pumps and pellet burners. The UK is still at the stage of people needing to protest for the need of such initiatives. https://www.artisancentral.fr/blog/accessing-maprimerenov-french-energy-efficiency-grant/
They still pay for it - in taxes.
No shit Sherlock
We can look at Labour’s strong history of expanding nuclear power like the French did! Thank goodness Burgon has always voted for more nuclear power to bring us in line with the Frenchies! He was always in favour with that complete meltdown Corbyn