Sorry players, ‘miracle’ is NOT on the wheel …

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Britain’s energy policy: Betting on a miracle
CAPX
Rupert Darwall
1 December 2015

Ugly reality has broken into British energy policy. Last week’s speech by the climate and energy secretary Amber Rudd is a milestone that defines the end of the fantasy stage of the renewables fairy tale.

Policy makers must now grapple with the distortions and dysfunctions they created. Something has gone badly wrong and Ms. Rudd is the first serving minister to speak out about it. As Ms. Rudd observed, ‘we now have an electricity system where no form of power generation, not even gas-fired power stations, can be built without government intervention.’ For this reason alone, in acknowledging there is a problem, her speech is an important and positive development.

The speech is also a conceptual breakthrough in government thinking with Ms. Rudd’s welcome recognition that weather-dependent…