This Isn't Science, It's Ideology - Kathryn Porter

The Reality of Energy Prices

Porter begins by addressing the widely experienced burden of high energy prices in Britain, confirming that the UK carries the highest industrial electricity prices in the developed world and the fourth highest domestic rates. This chronic state of elevated costs is not due to an inherent inability to produce energy efficiently or cheaply, but rather a result of poorly crafted and ideologically driven government policies. According to Porter, the UK's energy market is plagued by what she describes as "the dumbest policies," surpassing even Germany's in sheer inefficiency.

One of the core issues she explains is the government's use of the retail energy market as a stealth tax vehicle. Rather than raising funds through direct taxation—an approach subjected to economic scrutiny and public accountability—renewable energy subsidies are forcibly levied on consumers' bills. This approach conceals billions in taxpayer funding behind their energy payments, increasing costs without transparent oversight. Compounding that, renewables, often cited as cheap because "the wind is free," impose considerable hidden expenses. These include billions spent on connecting far-flung wind farms to the grid, the necessity of backup power sources for times when wind or solar output is low, and curtailment payments when wind farms are paid to shut down to keep the unstable grid balanced.

Porter cites the striking example of the Seagreen offshore wind farm off the Scottish coast, which in 2024 saw two-thirds of its output curtailed due to inadequate grid infrastructure to distribute its electricity where it was needed. Consumers thus pay not only for alternative generation in gas plants running to meet demand but also for paying wind farms not to produce, which makes renewables far from the cheap solution often portrayed.

Technical Challenges of Renewable Integration

Diving into the engineering side, Porter explains the critical issue of grid stability and inertia. Traditional power plants—especially those fueled by gas, coal, or nuclear—create electricity through rotating turbines, providing a stable alternating current waveform essential for reliable grid operation. These heavy turbines inherently provide "inertia," a resistance to frequency fluctuations on the grid, stabilizing voltage and frequency and preventing blackout cascades.

Renewables, however, generate power via electronic inverters producing direct current converted into alternating current. These inverters lack physical inertia, are more sensitive to fluctuations, and sometimes prematurely shut down in response to minor grid instabilities, worsening the problem. The unfortunate Iberian blackout of 2023 illustrates this dynamic vividly. Originating from a faulty solar inverter and exacerbated by widespread non-compliance with grid codes from renewable and conventional generators alike, the incident cascaded into a widespread blackout, causing fatalities and economic losses. France, with a high-inertia grid dominated by nuclear and hydro, experienced far less disruption, underscoring the protective role of traditional power generation.

Porter is unequivocal on the limitations of renewables, asserting that they will never achieve the reliability and security currently offered by conventional sources. While alternative grid designs like direct current microgrids exist in theory, scaling them nationally remains technologically unfeasible. Even breakthroughs like small modular reactors and nuclear fusion are years or decades away from impact.

Ideology Over Science

The crux of Porter's argument is that the UK's energy policy is not guided by scientific evidence or economic rationality but by ideological zealotry. She highlights how politicians and policymakers cling to green narratives despite mounting evidence of their economic inefficiency and reliability failures. This ideological capture leads to costly subsidies, grid instability, and growing fuel poverty, with thousands dying prematurely each winter due to unaffordable heating.

The government's refusal to conduct rigorous, transparent cost-benefit analyses of the net zero transition exacerbates the issue; vital projects and policy assumptions are based on unrealistic price forecasts and ignore full system costs. While offshore wind prices are often touted as falling, Porter reveals they remain significantly more expensive than equivalent gas-generated electricity when adjusted for subsidies and hidden costs.

This obsession with net zero at any cost also drives economic decline through offshoring emissions-intensive manufacturing, as factories close domestically and products are imported from countries with looser environmental standards. The impending carbon border adjustment tax, intended to offset this, threatens to further stoke inflation by taxing virtually all imported goods—steel, concrete, vehicles, and even renewable technologies themselves. This complex web leads not to lower emissions but higher prices, job losses, and increased global emissions—a classic example of virtue signaling disconnected from practical outcomes.

The Structural Governance Crisis

Beyond energy, Porter diagnoses a deeper systemic failure rooted in decades-long political and bureaucratic developments. She details how reforms introduced under former Prime Minister Gordon Brown effectively severed civil servants and independent regulators from political accountability. These bodies, designed initially to insulate technical decisions from politics, have morphed into ideological and unaccountable power centers.

This has paralyzed effective government action across multiple sectors, including energy, water, and immigration. Ministers often receive filtered or incomplete information, limiting their ability to govern effectively. The infamous Post Office Horizon IT scandal is cited as a case study where civil servants obstructed ministers' understanding of problems, underpinning a corrupt, opaque governance culture. The result is a hollow democracy where elected representatives are undermined by permanent bureaucracies with their own agendas, leaving the public frustrated and disillusioned.

The Path Forward

Despite the bleak picture, Porter sees potential for change. She commends certain current Conservative figures for starting to confront these challenges and working behind the scenes to develop more pragmatic policies, including streamlined regulation and reviving reliable energy sources like nuclear power and possibly coal in the near term. However, she cautions that widespread ideological entrenchment persists across parties and within the civil service, limiting progress.

The discussion touches on political fragmentation in the UK and the emergence of smaller parties like Reform, which capitalize on public dissatisfaction yet lack coherent, practical policies for energy and governance reform. Porter urges for realistic, evidence-based policymaking and the urgent restoration of parliamentary oversight over independent bodies to reclaim democratic control.