Living in 2015

I hate politicians. Back in 2005, the coalition government they had then got a bee in its collective bonnet about how oil and gas were going to run out in 25 years’ time and how we’d better get ready for it. Talk about Chicken Little and the sky falling! Anyway, they started distorting the market by putting up energy prices and giving subsidies, grants and tax breaks to encourage the generation of all sorts of renewable energy. The big firms like Airtricity did well out of the taxpayer, of course, but a lot of smaller people did as well, particularly after a scheme came in which enabled communities to start generating their own heat and electricity and distributing it through their own networks of pipes and cables.

The present government is no better, it says that the higher prices we are paying for our power here are enabling the business sector and the general public to avoid making “stranded investments”. by which they mean investments that are totally inappropriate to a high energy cost world. Have you ever heard such jargon? And such nonsense! It’s them that are creating the high prices to reward their political supporters. It’s not a high cost energy world and other countries without these silly policies are growing faster than we are.

Is not up to government to worry about what will happen in the long terms. The market can do that and, when shortages really do appear, then firms can make money honestly by sorting them out.