{"id":59912,"date":"2021-10-16T07:18:19","date_gmt":"2021-10-16T12:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=59912"},"modified":"2022-03-12T08:31:32","modified_gmt":"2022-03-12T13:31:32","slug":"a-publicly-owned-energy-industry-could-help-tackle-energy-poverty-and-increase-renewables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=59912","title":{"rendered":"\u00a0A publicly owned energy industry could help tackle energy poverty and increase\u00a0renewables"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n

\u00a0A publicly owned energy industry could help tackle energy poverty and increase\u00a0renewables<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
Recent queues at petrol stations across the UK point to significant issues with fuel\u00a0supply chains<\/a>\u00a0in the wake of Brexit. But a lack of fuel where it is needed has been causing problems in the UK for years.Before the pandemic, an estimated\u00a013.4%<\/a>\u00a0of households \u2013 that\u2019s 3.18 million people \u2013 lived in fuel poverty in England. According to research by fuel poverty charity National Energy Action, insufficiently heated homes kill nearly\u00a010,000<\/a>\u00a0people every year in the UK.<\/p>\n

Now, we\u2019re also facing the problem of sharp rises in gas prices. This hits especially hard in countries such as the UK, where gas is the\u00a0major fuel<\/a>\u00a0used to heat households.<\/p>\n

These problems reflect the ongoing \u201cenergy trilemma<\/a>\u201d: how to provide households and businesses with stable, low-carbon and affordable energy. By itself, nationalising energy systems wouldn\u2019t solve all these problems.<\/p>\n

Increasing public ownership of energy systems is one, more reasonable option. The growing threat of climate change, outside influences such as Brexit, and market pressures driving price increases would still exist. But publicly owned systems do have key advantages over their private counterparts.<\/p>\n

Evidence suggests public ownership of gas and electricity grids alone would deliver huge savings to UK consumers compared with the current system. Instead of paying out rewards to private company shareholders, publicly owned and controlled transmission systems would ensure any financial surplus is either reinvested to improve the service or used to reduce energy prices.<\/p>\n

\"Electricity<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s energy system is largely privatised.\u00a0AshrafChemban\/Pixabay<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Private UK grid companies make good money supplying our energy needs. National Grid shareholders earned\u00a0\u00a31.4bn<\/a>\u00a0from the company\u2019s profits in both 2020 and 2021 and a record\u00a0\u00a33.2bn<\/a>\u00a0in 2017, thanks to the National Grid\u2019s decision to\u00a0sell stakes<\/a>\u00a0in its grid to new\u00a0private owners<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0A publicly owned energy industry could help tackle energy poverty and increase\u00a0renewables Recent queues at petrol stations across the UK point to significant issues with fuel\u00a0supply chains\u00a0in the wake of Brexit. But a lack of fuel where it is needed has been causing problems in the UK for years.Before the pandemic, an estimated\u00a013.4%\u00a0of households \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[31978,1574,15442,680,31977],"class_list":["post-59912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-david-hall","tag-power-grid","tag-renewables","tag-resilience","tag-vera-weghmann"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59912"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62193,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59912\/revisions\/62193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}