Renewables are just so wondrously cheap, aren’t they?

Great Britain is expected to pay some of the highest energy costs in Europe this winter as its reliance on imports to ensure a steady supply is forecast to deepen.

Energy system operators have said the country will have enough gas and electricity to meet demand over the coldest months – in part because of paying higher market prices than neighbouring markets to secure imports.

We are, as we’re repeatedly told, that shining beacon of hope for the rest of the world. Tackling that shift to green energy supplies with greater vigour than anyone else. We’re even going a stage further than most others and trying to do it without hydro in any great volume. But that’s fine, the wind and the Sun are free so renewables are really cheap.

There simply cannot be a flaw in the Grand Plan, can there? Which is where reality raises its ugly head.

Which is where our own objection comes into it. Leave aside whether to deal with climate change and concentrate on how to do so. All the big reports - Nordhaus, Stern, the technical rather than political bits of the IPCC reports - say stick on the carbon tax at the social cost of carbon then leave be. For if we do that then those things that are worth doing - where the benefit is greater than the cost, properly measured over the wider issues - will be done and those that are not worth doing - where the costs are greater than the benefits - will not be. Which is what we want to happen anyway.

Britain did not do that, instead we handed the keys to the Kingdom to those who would gurn at us over their slide rules as they planned everything. As ever, and as with nationalisation itself, state planning has led to less, worse and more expensive. All Hail state planning, obviously.

It’s obviously too late for this winter but not so in the grander scheme of things. It isn’t too late to do this the right and efficient way.

Tim Worstall