The cautionary tales arising from European-style progressivism just got another jolt, if you’ll pardon the expression, of reality last week. On Wednesday, British utility giant Scottish Electric announced that the gas and electricity bills of five million customers would go up by a whopping 19 and 10 percent respectively, beginning August first. Six other major power providers in Britain are expected to follow suit. The move follows a 30 percent increase in the wholesale costs of energy since last November, and will push average annual household costs for fuel as high as $2050, the highest level ever recorded. Yet rising wholesale costs are only half the story.
“Wholesale prices for gas and electricity have increased significantly since the end of last year and continuing unrest in global energy markets means future prices are volatile,” said Raymond Jack, Scottish Power’s chief executive. ”We understand times are difficult for many people, and we have done what we can to absorb these additional costs for as long as possible to minimize the impact on our customers.”
Mr. Jack then said something that should sound distressingly familiar to Americans. “The rising burden of non-energy costs faced by Britain’s energy suppliers–including the cost of meeting government environmental and social programs and the cost of distributing electricity on the national grid–has also placed further upward pressure on energy bills.”
What Mr. Jack is referring to is government regulations which essentially decide who the “winners” and “losers” are in the energy game. These regulations are designed to intentionally drive up prices, and then give the extra money to the owners of renewable power generators. One of these regulations is called a Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) in which an inflated price is paid to the owners of massive wind farms or those who put rooftop solar panels on their houses. This cost is then added onto everyone’s electric bills. Since those who can afford wind farms or solar panels tend to be people who are better off economically, the net result is that poorer Brits are subsidizing the power consumption of those who are better off.
Another of these regulations is the Renewables Obligation, where “loser” power suppliers are compelled to show the government Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) which represent a percentage of the electricity they produce each year, measured in mega-watt hours. Where do the losers get the ROCs? The government issues them to the “winning” owners of any power plants it defines as producing “renewable” energy. The winners then turn around and sell them to the losers as a means of offsetting “buy out fees,” (read: fines) the losers incur for producing “dirty” power. Since government has escalated the percentage of electricity produced by loser companies that must be covered by the ROCs — currently 11 percent, expected to reach 15 percent in 2015, where it will remain until 2037 — it forces energy prices up, irrespective of free market forces.
Read on about the Crap and Tax BS http://frontpagemag.com/2011/06/13/cap-and-trade-catastrophe/print/
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