Reality Checkpoint 2026
News from previous year

GERMAN CHANCELLOR DOWNGRADES NET ZERO
The obsession with curbing carbon dioxide emissions rather than prioritising cheap energy is throttling the German economy. Chanceller Merz recently lamented the demise of Germany's nuclear industry, which has slowed down the push towards achieving 'Net Zero', as reality starts to bite. Net Zero is neither desirable nor achievable.

Merz said that Germany is now undertaking the most expensive energy transition in the world, and that he knew of no other country that makes things so expensive and difficult as Germany.

The climate-sceptic party AfD is ahead of Merx's CDU in the polls. With a deindustrialization policy like Net Zero in place, this is hardly surprising. The wholesale electricity price rose 13% last year.

Merz has recently secured approval for building more gas-fired power stations and has put forward a package to reduce power prices for industry. He has also watered down plans to phase out the internal combustion engine and has scrapped a law requiring most new heating systems to run on renewable energy. A replacement law will take a more rational approach.

19 Jan 26

USING CHINESE STEEL INSTEAD OF BRITISH
Ministers are due to speak to BP: to ask why they are using Chinese steel to build a taxpayer-funded net zero power plant on Teeside. The project is to build a gas plant with carbon capture.

Unfortunately carbon capture adds significantly to the cost of generating electricity. But a high energy price, caused by the government's own Net Zero policy, is the reason for Chinese steel being preferred in the first place!

You couldn't make this up.

18 Jan 26

THE EFFECT OF WIND ENERGY ON THE GRID
From Lyndsey Ward, Communities B4 Power Companies

Just been listening to Angela Knight former CEO of Energy UK talking sense as usual, explaining why our bills are rising and why renewables will continue to make them go higher. So many guaranteed payments to wind generators and no proper back up - no, BESS (battery storage) doesn’t do the job and won’t restart a downed grid.

She along with Kathryn Porter are able to clear through the energy fog and simply and with clarity. No waffle just facts.

Compare that to Team M & M (Miliband & Martin)! The professionalism and expertise of Angela and Kathryn knocks those two into comedy gold - except they are not funny, just clueless, delusional, unqualified and believe what the wind industry wants to tell them.

Kathryn Porter lays out what many communities have been warning for years: the energy system isn’t resilient - it’s brittle, over stretched, and increasingly unsafe. Here are the fault lines she highlights:

1. Britain’s near blackout wasn’t a freak event - it was a systems failure.