Helm Talks - energy climate infrastructure & more

Helm Talks - energy climate infrastructure & more
Helm Talks - energy climate infrastructure & more

Helm Talks is full of short, 'pull no punches' insights into: Energy & Climate; Regulation, Utilities & Infrastructure; Natural Capital & the Environment. Professor Dieter Helm is Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford.

  1. 12 FEB

    Why are UK energy prices so high?

    The UK has very expensive electricity for both the industrial sectors and consumers, despite the government’s policies that are intended to deliver the exact opposite. It’s damaging not only the dwindling remaining energy-intensive industries in the UK, but also any potential future ones, including all the AI and data centres. A quick look at the existing energy generation assets in the UK, and the high energy costs are perhaps not such a surprise. These assets are relied upon to deliver secure, firm power, but fast-tracking the renewables generation route by 2030 means that all the energy sources become intermittent. While Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, continues to tell us that renewables costs are nine times cheaper, this is far from the reality of what the true system costs of energy are. If they were, the UK would already be outcompeting the US. It obviously isn’t. In this podcast, Dieter Helm looks at an alternative approach to setting competitive electricity prices, going back to how energy prices were set in the days of the Central Energy Generating Board, before privatisation.

    15 min

  2. 3 FEB

    Crossing the Rubicon – what it really takes to grow an economy

    Economic growth is the government’s new mantra, but what exactly does it mean, and how exactly is it achieved? Who is going to pay for it? The government does not appear to have answers – at least, not ones that are credible and likely to create sustainable economic growth. Growth involves a more than simply announcing big projects: three new runways and nine new reservoirs and the largest theme park in Europe – the government’s aspiration is to announce 150 projects by the end of this Parliament. Despite Tony Blair’s description of politics as being “and/and”, the reality is that it’s “either/or” – there are always trade-offs to be made. This podcast explores what really lies being these announcements: the real choices and the trade-offs that need to be made, and what actually causes economic growth.

    16 min

  3. 21 JAN

    Energy costs and economic growth

    The government’s number one mission is to grow the economy, by building more houses and sprinting to net zero by 2030. On the energy side, we’re told that investment in renewables will lower our electricity bills – costs come down, investment goes up. But despite the UK’s claim to be world leader in tackling climate change, the reality is that it has amongst the highest energy costs in the developed world and global warming is still rising. This podcast examines the challenges that the government is facing that run counter to its objective to reduce energy costs. These include the massive demands on the system that come from the new data centres that need to run 24/7, the back-up supplies required when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, and the materials needed to build the new green infrastructure, much of which needs to be imported and paid for by whatever it costs as a result of the sprint to achieve net zero in just 60 months. These high costs are making the UK a much less attractive place for investors, who are not flocking to its shores for its claimed low-cost electricity.

    15 min

  4. 27/11/2024

    The great COP-out

    As the many tens of thousands fly back home from Baku after this year’s COP, where have the 29 attempts among the world’s nations to tackle climate change got us? The concentration of carbon in the atmosphere continues to rise; 80% of the world’s energy still comes from fossil fuels; and the 1.5 ⁰C target is being passed. But why? What’s causing the relentless increases in emissions that are feeding through to the continual, year-on-year 2ppm+ increase in carbon the atmosphere? COPs are based on the failed objective of achieving a legally binding set of emissions targets, measured in carbon production and not carbon consumption. They encourage net zero targeting, which is at best ineffectual. Why would anyone think that another 29 COPs are going to crack the climate problem? It’s time to re-set climate policies, build bottom-up coalitions of the willing, and face up to the full scale of our carbon consumption.

    13 min

  5. 30/10/2024

    The UK’s new growth industry – regulation

    The British economy is going to see more regulators, more regulatory bodies, more intervention in the private sector – all requiring businesses, on the other side of the regulatory rules, to spend more time dealing with regulators and regulation. While all governments promise to “cut red tape” – and the new government is no different – sadly, the opposite appears to be happening. There are plans not only to beef up existing regulatory bodies (Ofcom, HMRC, Ofgem, Ofwat possibly, and the EA), but also to add new regulators, including NESO, the Regulatory Innovation Office, the Fair Work Agency. No doubt there are more to come. Why does regulation grow and grow? Do we need yet more regulatory bodies, on top of the government departments, the various offices of regulation, the plethora of quasi-regulators that surround them, and the regulators that regulate them? Does it lead to better outcomes? Not only does the new government want to do more, so, too, will the regulators themselves, as they tend to seek to expand in order to increase their budgets and make their mark. Hence the growing regulation industry, despite the efficiencies that one might expect new digital technologies to bring. But as regulation in the UK mushrooms, with this additive (not substitution) approach, what does it mean for the UK economy ahead?

    15 min

  6. 26/09/2024

    Transformation – a case of blood, sweat, tears … and many years

    The government is planning radical transformation, to health, education, rail travel, and with a view to achieving net zero electricity by 2030. These bold plans raise questions about what is going to be achieved, by when, and how. The politics is key, as is the timing. Such transformation takes years (many more than Starmer is anticipating). Thinking through the politics of what happens between now and when the election takes place in 2028–29, the government needs to face the difficult reality that radical reform will, in essence, mean that things will get worse before they can start to get better. Thatcher’s reforms in the 1980s, for example, took a decade to begin to turn the economy around. So, it’s worth looking at what is going to get worse through the period until 2030 before it gets better (as a result of transitioning to net zero, and turning around the NHS, education, housing and transport). To ensure that this transformation is embedded and to bring the public with it, the government needs to be honest with us and manage our expectations while we experience the pain and disruption of the transition in the interim.

    15 min

  7. 23/09/2024

    Britain's four fundamental economic problems

    The government’s overriding objective is economic growth, and it plans to get there by building lots more houses, and a dash for net zero electricity with the implausible target of 2030. There may be some merit in both, but economic growth is not caused by houses or wind turbines. What inhibits Britain’s economic growth is altogether more profound. The four fundamental problems are: not enough production, too much consumption, too little savings, and too much debt. We import rather than produce, and have almost no supply chain domestically for the net zero target. We live beyond our means, with imports exceeding exports, and calling capital maintenance “investment” supported by debt rather than paying as we go. We have virtually no savings net of capital depreciation, and hence rely on foreign investors not domestic savings. The result is too much debt, exacerbated by failing to realise that the great financial crisis of 2007-08 and the Covid-19 pandemic left us poorer, but without the willingness to accept an adjustment to our consumption.

    15 min

  8. 24/07/2024

    Zombie utilities

    ‘Easy money’ (quantitative easing and low nominal/negative real interest rates) has left a legacy of lots of zombie companies that should not still be in business, because they are not genuinely profitable. Cheap debt washed through the banking system keeps them afloat. For the utilities, easy money has had a devastating impact, encouraging widespread financial engineering. Thames Water is the extreme example, but there are many others among the unlisted, privately owned, UK utilities. The result is a set of companies that are highly vulnerable to economic shocks being kept on life systems. The impact is most obvious in the boardroom, where the focus is on servicing the debt, rather than on customers, future investment and R&D. As these are the elements that drive productivity growth, the long-term economic growth opportunities are seriously impaired. Facing up to the consequences of zombie companies in the utilities sector means Special Administration, pulling the plug on the zombies, restructuring them, and selling them on to new owners. The debt holders will have to take a haircut. But what’s not to like about more productivity, more investment, better customer service, boards focused on their customers and the business? This has to be done now if we’re serious about turning around not only the utilities sector but the wider British economy. Instead of endlessly kicking the Thames Water can down the road, Ofwat should call in the Special Administrator now. The costs of not doing so are serious.

    15 min
See All (65)

Ratings & Reviews

4.9
out of 5
13 Ratings

About

Helm Talks is full of short, 'pull no punches' insights into: Energy & Climate; Regulation, Utilities & Infrastructure; Natural Capital & the Environment. Professor Dieter Helm is Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford.

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