Stephen Littlechild, Professor emeritus at the University of Birmingham, fellow of Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge and a top regulatory from 1983 to 1998, explains how politicians and regulators have, by misunderstanding how markets work, regulated to boost energy firms' profits at the expense of higher bills for consumers.
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A new study by the Reason Foundation evaluates wind power and finds that wind power is limited in practice due to the increased need for power storage, the decrease in grid reliability, and the increased operating costs.
The government is spending enormous sums of money on renewable energy. This report assesses the economic and energy security cases for renewable energy subsidies, and finds that there is no prospect that renewable energy will be able to provide a substantial amount of Britain's energy needs.
The Forestry Commission has failed in its duties, and the government is right to sell off some of its holdings. This report argues that the government could sell off 92% of the Commission's holdings without affecting the broadleaf forests that the public values for their amenity and scenery. Doing this could raise up to £4.3bn, and end the woeful mismanagement of the country's woodland that the Forestry Commission has delivered.
In this extract from his new book, Chasing Rainbows, Tim Worstall fires a broadside against the environmentalist lobby and argues that the conventional 'solutions' to climate change don't even meet the environmentalists' own standards and defy their own advice. The book takes on the global warming alarmists on their own terms by accepting the IPPC’s science and using logic and economics to argue that the ends that environmentalists want is best achieved through more globalization and freer markets, not government interventions like cap-and-trade.
Technological advances, not "live more simply" environmentalism, will deliver a greener planet.
The Waste of Nations argues that pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) waste charges are the best way to encourage recycling and to boost profitable waste businesses. However, the report stresses that PAYT must not be used as a 'dustbin tax' and that its introduction must be accompanied by a corresponding fall in council tax. The report also calls for the full liberalization of the refuse collection sector. Such a move would keep prices down and increase customer satisfaction. It would also lead to innovation and encourage refuse collectors to recycle more waste. The final section of the report argues that recycling should be put on a commercial footing. Recycling facilities and providers should be allowed to merge and consolidate, and the free movement and trade of recyclables should be established. This would ensure a market for commercially viable businesses in the long run.
Land Economy proposes the most radical change in land use in decades, putting the case for redeveloping agricultural land into a combination of woodland, housing and infrastructure.
By converting just 3 percent of the farms in England and Wales over a ten year period, covering 90 percent of the land with trees and the other 10 percent with houses, we would create 950,000 new homes and almost 130,000 hectares of new woodland.
Rail's woes are due to bureaucracy, not privatization. It's time for the government to release the railway from its over burdening grip. A grip entrenched in regulation that has far too many officials, or any proper functionality. Iain Murray, the author, says that for the railways to work, "the train operation companies must be given more control, and have a major say in how station and track improvements are managed. This will lead to more customer-driven investment decisions," he insists, "providing in turn much more of what train users actually want."
In a new ASI paper, distinguished energy expert Prof Ian Fells says the government's energy policy is 'timid, complacent, and reckless'.
The Adam Smith Institute is the UK’s leading libertarian think tank...
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