Britain to Be Plunged into Darkness in 9 Years as Experts Warn of Energy Crisis
In the News
Energy chiefs have warned Boris Johnson that unless he takes charge of energy policy soon, we will struggle to power homes, businesses and hospitals in 2030
Boris Johnson has been warned Britain will be plunged into darkness by 2030 unless he gets a grip on our future energy policy.
For more details: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/britain-plunged-darkness-9-years-22825464
The world is too big, too crowded, too tired and depleted for anyone to get a grip on the problems that are facing us. It is almost like burying their heads in the sand. There is nothing us 'little people' can do except conserve wherever we can, but unfortunately the 5% who own 95% of the world's wealth will never give up their luxuries. Let's face it, if we all searched our hearts would any of us bother turning down the heating, conserving water, using less disposable items and so on if we earned tens of thousands of pounds per week? Only the poor do these things as they cannot afford not to.
All countries of the world need to elect scientists, conservationists and other experts and their full time jobs should be to sort out this planet before it is too late. But little hope of that when countries cannot even live in peace with each other or agree on basic principles!
What about the huge boom in electric vehicles that will massively increase demand. Need a tariff system where each person is allowed a certain amount of power which they can get for a reasonable price but if you go above that a higher tariff kicks in. Some people are very wasteful of power. Many devices are becoming much more efficient perhaps tax high power devices much more like very large televisions or very powerful desktop computers. Luxury items that are not a necessity. Lots of ways of reducing energy demand rather than building more and more power stations. However with electric vehicles clearly more power stations will be necessary. I think electric vehicles will stabilise power demands though as many will recharge their cars overnight so power stations could be run at full capacity during the night to recharge cars. Maybe low cost electricity from 12am to 8am so people would charge their cars later so cars wouldn't add to the huge evening demands for power.
Just another way to tax the poor and the rich will continue to do as they like, when they like, with their seemingly unlimited supply of dosh. Any taxation always hits the poorer members of society. Whilst I agree we should not eat sugar (it is totally unnecessary to our diet), the sugar tax has only hit the poor. Rich folk can still afford to buy their spoiled brats plenty of sugar infested treats.
Lynibis There are lots of ways you can aim tax more at richer people and some taxes do so but others have the opposite effect. The sugar tax is to me a good tax, we are one of the most obese nations in Europe and that has meant we have suffered from Covid more than some countries. I just feel it pressurises companies to reduce sugar and helps make consumers make better choices. If you are someone who must have a certain high sugar product then yes you pay more and you maybe normal weight without an issue but unfortunately tax systems need to be simple and easy to implement. So there are always going to people who resent such taxation.
One scheme which unfairly benefits the rich is the cycle2work scheme. The higher your income tax rate the more you get back on a bicycle you buy/lease under the scheme. It could have easily been implemented in a way where the benefits were equal for everyone. I.e. claim 50% of the cost of the bike against your income tax whatever income tax rate you have. If I was going to weight the scheme to benefit people it would be poorer people on lower income tax rates. I think at the moment you can apply for the scheme every 3 years (could have remembered wrongly) but to me a bike should last 7 years or more so would limit applications to every 7 years. Many richer people are doing back to back schemes buying road bikes, ebikes, mountain bikes, childrens bikes etc so maximising use of the scheme motivated by a higher discount rate than low income people would get and choosing higher cost bikes. There used to be a ceiling of £1000 but that has been scrapped I believe now. So you can imagine in the real world the actual difference in how poorer people benefit from the scheme and how high wage earners benefit could be huge. Most poorer people couldn't afford to have a £7k ebike under the scheme. I actually felt the £1k limit was fair and reasonable but maybe allow upto £2k for a ebike and only offer the ebike option for people over a certain age or with a disability who may not be able to use a conventional bike.
Solar, wind and water power should be the future but that would involve the mega rich fossil fuel folks losing money and they won’t let that happen.
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