by 
If
you
want
to
know
what’s
happening
in
a
place,
ask
a
cab
driver.
On
a
Sunday
afternoon,
during
a
short
ride
to
the
British
Museum,
I
asked
our
cabbie
about
his
energy
bills
and
what
he
thinks
of
the
British
government.
For
the
next
12
minutes,
we
got
an
earful.
Our
driver,
Adrian,
who
was
in
his
50s,
ranted
about
the
British
government
and
its
climate
policies.
He
explained
that
over
the
past
four
years,
his
energy
bill
has
gone
“from
three
hundred
pounds
a
month
to
now
a
thousand
pounds
a
month…Yeah,
a
thousand
pounds
a
month
just
to
keep
the
lights
on
in
my
house.”
When
I
asked
why
the
prices
were
increasing,
he
replied,
“It’s
the
energy
policy
on
green
renewables
right?
It’s
not
letting
the
market
dictate
things.
We’ve
got,
I
think,
we’ve
got
the
most
expensive
energy
in
the
world
now.
It’s
a
suicide
policy.”
Adrian
isn’t
far
off.
As
Matt
Ridley
pointed
out
last
month
on
Twitter/X,
Britain
now
has
the
most
expensive
electricity
in
the
OECD.
“That’s
what
happens,”
Ridley
said,
“if
you
try
to
rely
on
using
the
landscape
to
try
to
extract
useful
energy
from
the
thin,
weak,
dispersed
and
unreliable
source
that
is
wind.”
Adrian,
the
cab
driver,
isn’t
the
only
Briton
talking
about
suicide.
At
the
ARC
conference
on
Tuesday,
Sir
Paul
Marshall
delivered
a
scathing
assessment
of
Europe’s
infatuation
with
alt-energy.
He
said
Britain’s
push
for
net
zero
—
and
the
staggering
energy
costs
that
have
come
with
it
—
are
“acts
of
national
economic
suicide.”
After
spending
a
week
in
London,
the
signs
of
the
country’s
decline
and
the
frustration
of
Britain’s
citizens
are
apparent.
Near
the
entrance
to
the
British
Museum
is
a
room
that
discusses
the
museum’s
future.
Near
an
impressive
model
of
the
envisioned
additions,
a
placard
on
the
wall
talks
about
the
museum’s
“ambitious
cultural
redevelopments”
and
notes
that
among
the
next
steps
is
to
“build
a
new
Energy
Centre
to
make
the
Museum
more
sustainable
and
pave
the
way
to
reach
net-zero
targets.”
While
Britain’s
elites
are
talking
about
net
zero,
the
country’s
industry
is
heading
for
the
exits.
And
despite
massive
oil
and
gas
resources,
the
British
government
refuses
to
allow
more
drilling
and
continues
its
idiotic
ban
on
hydraulic
fracturing.
Last
September,
Tata
Steel
closed
the
last
two
blast
furnaces
in
Britain.
The
shuttering
of
the
Port
Talbot
steelworks
in
Wales
resulted
in
the
loss
of
2,800
jobs.
However,
the
symbolism
may
be
as
significant
as
the
job
losses.
By
closing
the
blast
furnace,
Britain,
the
home
of
the
Industrial
Revolution,
will
no
longer
be
able
to
produce
virgin
steel
from
iron,
coal,
and
limestone.
Instead,
it
must
now
rely
on
electric
arc
furnaces
that
recycle
scrap
steel.
The
union
that
represented
many
of
the
workers
at
Port
Talbot
called
the
closure
of
the
blast
furnaces
“industrial
vandalism.”
In
mid-January,
INEOS
closed
the
Grangemouth
synthetic
ethanol
plant
in
Scotland,
which
resulted
in
the
loss
of
several
hundred
jobs.
The
facility
was
one
of
only
two
in
Europe
that
produced
synthetic
ethanol,
which
is
used
in
the
production
of
numerous
pharmaceuticals.
Here’s
how
one
trade
publication
described
the
closure:
High
energy
prices
and
high
carbon
taxes
have
forced
the
closure
of
this
strategic
UK
asset.
The
UK,
which
used
to
be
a
major
force
in
chemicals,
employing
a
large
and
highly
skilled
workforce,
has
seen
the
closure
of
ten
large
chemical
complexes
in
the
last
five
years
alone
and,
in
complete
contrast
to
the
USA,
has
not
had
one
new
chemical
plant
built
for
a
generation.
Energy
prices
have
doubled
in
the
UK
in
the
last
five
years
and
now
stand
five
times
higher
than
those
in
the
USA.
The
UK
cannot
compete
with
such
a
huge
disadvantage.
When
the
plant
closed,
the
chairman
of
INEOS,
Sir
Jim
Ratcliffe,
said,
“We
are
witnessing
the
extinction
of
our
major
industries
as
chemical
manufacture
has
the
life
squeezed
out
of
it.”
Britain
has
enormous
oil
and
gas
resources
and
could
quickly
reduce
its
energy
prices
if
it
began
drilling.
Earlier
this
month,
Deloitte
published
a
study
commissioned
by
Egdon
Resources,
which
estimated
that
the
shale
formations
in
Lincolnshire,
in
a
formation
known
as
the
Gainsborough
Trough,
could
contain
16
trillion
cubic
feet
of
natural
gas,
enough
fuel
to
supply
all
of
Britain’s
gas
needs
for
several
years.
Deloitte
estimated
the
gas
field
could
generate
some
$180
billion
in
GDP
for
Britain
and
dramatically
reduce
its
need
for
imported
gas.
The
Labour
government
quickly
pooh-poohed
the
idea
of
producing
domestic
shale
gas.
A
spokesman
for
the
government
said,
“We
intend
to
ban
fracking
for
good
and
make
Britain
a
clean
energy
superpower
to
protect
current
and
future
generations.
The
biggest
risk
to
our
energy
security
is
staying
dependent
on
fossil
fuel
markets
and
only
by
sprinting
to
clean
power
by
2030
can
the
UK
take
back
control
of
its
energy
and
protect
both
family
and
national
finances
from
price
spikes.”
This
is
national
insanity.
As
seen
above,
20
years
ago,
thanks
to
drilling
in
the
North
Sea,
Britain
was
self-sufficient
in
gas.
Since
then,
production
and
consumption
have
been
falling,
and
the
country
now
relies
on
imports
for
nearly
half
of
its
gas
needs.
Further,
the
idea
of
“sprinting
to
clean
energy”
is
not
working.
As
I
reported
here
on
February
5
with
the
launch
of
the
Global
Renewable
Rejection
Database,
rural
Britain
is
in
an
uproar
over
the
encroachment
of
massive
alt-energy
projects.
Local
regulators
rejected
four
solar
projects
in
January
alone,
including
ones
in
Wakefield,
Springwell,
Norfolk,
and
Kelham.
At
the
ARC
conference
on
Tuesday,
Marshall,
who
owns
GB
News,
The
Spectator,
and
Unherd,
said
Britain
and
Germany
are
“the
patsies
of
Net
Zero.”
(My
speech
at
ARC
on
energy
humanism
was
also
on
Tuesday.
The
video
has
not
been
posted
on
YouTube
yet.)
Marshall
noted
that
electricity
prices
for
British
industry
are
five
times
higher
than
those
in
the
US
and
seven
times
China’s.
He
said
renewables
are
“essentially
a
parasitic
form
of
energy.”
In
the
1990s,
he
said,
nuclear
energy
provided
a
quarter
of
Britain’s
electricity,
“but
now
Britain
only
has
five
remaining
plants,
four
of
these
are
slated
for
closure
in
the
next
five
years.”
And
this:
Britain
and
Germany,
he
said,
are
“the
patsies
of
Net
Zero.”
Britain,
he
noted,
has
“enough
gas
reserves
in
the
North
Sea
to
cover
35
years
of
consumption,
yet
since
2019,
the
UK
has
refused
to
grant
any
new
oil
and
gas
licenses
and
we’ve
even
levied
a
specially
designed
windfall
tax
on
the
existing
producers.”
He
concluded
that
net
zero
is
immiserating
and
its
main
victims
are
the
poor…Cheap
and
abundant
energy
is
the
foundation
that
underpinned
our
prosperity.
Industry
knows
this.
America
knows
this.
Nations
in
the
Gulf
know
this.
And
China
knows
this.”
He
went
on,
saying
that
unless
Britain
changes
course,
it
will
“simply
continue
down
the
path
to
unilateral
economic
disarmament.”
During
our
stay
in
London,
I
have
asked
numerous
people
about
energy
costs.
In
nearly
every
instance,
the
response
has
been
a
shake
of
the
head
or
a
raising
of
hands
in
despair.
A
bartender
at
the
pub
across
from
our
hotel
said
his
energy
bill
has
doubled
over
the
past
four
years,
Our
friend,
Maddie,
who
is
in
London
studying
journalism,
told
us
she
is
paying
$150
per
month
to
heat
her
tiny
flat.
British
citizens
understand
what
is
happening
to
them
but
feel
powerless
to
do
anything
about
the
situation.
They
have
been
betrayed
by
the
current
Labour
government
and
the
Tories.
In
November,
the
Labour
Prime
Minister,
Keir
Starmer,
traveled
to
Azerbaijan
to
the
UN
climate
meeting
to
declare
that
Britain
would
aim
to
cut
its
emissions
by
81%
by
2035.
The
BBC
noted
that
the
new
“target
updates
a
78%
pledge
by
2035
under
the
previous
Conservative
government.”
Starmer
claimed
that
the
British
government
would
not
“tell
people
how
to
live
their
lives”
and
that
the
“race
is
on
for
the
clean
energy
jobs
of
the
future.”
What
total
and
utter
bullshit.
While
the
rest
of
the
world
is
awakening
to
the
disaster
that
is
alt-energy,
Starmer
continues
to
push
the
discredited
notion
that
“clean
energy”
creates
jobs.
It
doesn’t.
It
destroys
jobs.
Britain
is
now
losing
jobs
at
the
fastest
rate
since
the
2008
financial
crisis.
While
at
the
British
Museum
on
Sunday,
I
struck
up
a
conversation
with
an
American
who
lives
in
Britain.
He
runs
a
private
equity
firm
and
splits
his
time
between
New
York
and
his
place
in
the
English
countryside.
I
asked
him
about
Britain’s
economy.
He
replied,
“The
last
place
people
are
putting
money
these
days
is
in
central
Europe.
The
second-to-last
place
they
are
putting
it
is
in
Britain.”
London,
of
course,
is
as
charming
as
ever.
The
pubs
and
shops
seem
busy,
and
there
appear
to
be
plenty
of
tourists
on
the
streets,
even
in
the
gray
days
of
February.
The
manager
at
our
hotel
told
me
that
90%
of
his
rooms
are
booked.
But
tourism
doesn’t
create
durable,
high-paying
jobs.
Britain
became
a
world
power
by
making
ships,
steel,
and
automobiles.
Today,
it’s
becoming
a
place
that
has
to
rely
on
sales
of
pub
grub
and
hotel
beds.
Short
of
a
massive
course
correction
on
energy
–
that
exceeds
what
President
Trump
is
doing
in
the
US
—
it’s
clear
that
Britain’s
days
as
an
industrial
and
economic
power
are
finished.
‘Tis
a
pity.
This
piece
first
appeared
at
Robert
Bryce
Substack.
Robert
Bryce
is
a
Texas-based
author,
journalist,
film
producer,
and
podcaster.
His
articles
have
appeared
in
a
myriad
of
publications
including
the
Wall
Street
Journal,
New
York
Times,
Forbes,
Time,
Austin
Chronicle,
and
Sydney
Morning
Herald.
Photo:
courtesy
Robert
Bryce
Substack
Go to Source
Author: Robert Bryce
