Bryan Leyland: The Onslow pumped storage scheme will NOT reduce electricity prices

The government has undertaken to spend $30 million or more on a study of the Onslow pumped storage scheme that, it claims, will provide up to 5000 GWh of dry year storage, reduce electricity prices, eliminate fossil fuel generation, and be in service by 2030.

This is the stuff of dreams.

Matt Ridley: A Pledge to Abolish Sin

If the British government declared the abolition of sin by 2050, commentators would be rightly cynical. The announcement last week that Britain will enact a net-zero carbon target for 2050 was instead welcomed, especially by “faith leaders”. Yet without specifying how it is to be achieved, setting this target is about as wishful as pledging to eliminate sin. It is not just a matter of cost – although £1 trillion is not small change (if you had been spending a pound a second and had now reached £1 trillion, you would have had to start when Neanderthals were still on the scene).

Too many Tories think that going green means getting into lucrative bed with the crony-capitalist wind and solar industries, putting profit-seeking lipstick on a subsidy-dependent pig. But this is a futile strategy, politically as well as practically.