Brace yourself for a cold, dark winter

THIS could be the winter when our crazed policy of closing coal-fired power stations and building windmills finally produces the power cuts that we richly deserve. In a way, I hope it is. It might make us wake up before things get much worse.

Green dogma is quite a bit dafter than the beliefs of the Mormons that fashionable people like to mock. That is why I call these fanatics ‘Warmons’. But it has taken over the minds of our politicians and civil servants to such an extent that – on this issue – our official policy is as crazy as anything in North Korea. Let me sum it up. On the basis of an unproven theory about global warming, we are shutting down perfectly sound, high-capacity, coal-fired power stations and instead peppering the country with windmills that tend not to work when it is cold. This is unhinged anyway. But since China builds a new coal-fired power station every few weeks, and we share the same atmosphere as China, this action does no good, even if you believe the theory. In any case, our ability to cope with big surges of demand in a cold winter gets less all the time. Our nuclear generators are near the end of their lives. France’s nuclear stations, which often fill the gap by sending French power under the Channel, are having problems of their own just now. It could be that the only way to meet demand will be by activating reserve banks of diesel generators now on standby, perhaps the most polluting form of power there is.

The closure of coal-fired stations should stop now, and we should also immediately build new gas-fired plants in defiance of the Warmon fanatics. Our exit from the EU actually makes this much easier.