Dr Will Jones: Norway’s Threat to Cut Off the UK Leaves Labour’s Net Zero Plans in Tatters

As Norway threatens to cut off the UK from electricity at times of low wind speeds, it’s a sign of a growing energy nationalism globally that leaves Labour’s short-sighted Net Zero plans in tatters, says Andy Mayer in the Telegraph. Here’s an excerpt.

Norway’s Government, whose coalition ended this week, is not the first to collapse over bad energy policies linked to mad climate politics. … It may, however, be even more consequential for the UK.

The politics of the collapse are quite dull, but echo growing global alarm over high prices linked to the high cost of a low-carbon transition.

The populist Eurosceptic Centre Party (and others on the Right) object to Norwegians paying more for their domestic power due to demand for their hydropower reserves abroad. They particularly object to EU Directives that would undermine their domestic sovereignty to withhold those reserves for their own use, or to shield them from an energy crisis. They take issue with the poor energy decisions made by their neighbours (especially Germany) which have inflamed the problem.

This leaves the pro-green, pro-EU Norwegian Labour party solely in charge, but with no working majority and a General Election no later than September, which on current polls is likely to favour a nationalist populist coalition.

The problem for the UK is this: our Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband has committed us to a target of decarbonising the power grid by 2030. It’s highly doubtful nuclear can be built that quickly, so this will rest largely on renewable power, meaning mostly offshore wind and a lot of pylons. He has done so while continuing the Tory ban on domestic fracking, extending it to new North Sea projects, and removing legal protections for those with prior approvals like Rosebank.

This simultaneously undermines the UK’s energy security – the wind doesn’t always blow – and makes any crisis solution dependent on increasing imports. The only viable solution to renewable intermittency today is putting gas turbines on standby, then firing them up at vast cost when needed using imported gas, over half of which is typically from Norway via a pipe. The Norway electricity interconnector (NSL) is less significant, with capacity to power 1.4 million homes, but would be entirely useless if the Norwegians made it one-way at exactly the times of pan-European low wind where it would be most needed. And it is that initially that is threatened, not the gas pipe.

But this misses the key point about rising populism. Energy nationalism is rooted in high prices, not types of technology. Exactly the same rules of supply and demand apply to Norway’s North Sea wealth if exported as to their power system. Our second-best alternative to Norway is shipped LNG exports from the US, vital during the 2022 crisis. However, the Trump agenda reasonably prioritises the needs of US manufacturing for cheap fracked gas over British pensioners.

Worth reading in full.

Dr. Will Jones is Editor of the Daily Sceptic. He has a PhD in political philosophy, an MA in ethics, a BSc in mathematics and a diploma in theology. This article was first published HERE