Reality Checkpoint 2026
News from previous year

STATEMENT FROM EDF ON GRID ALTERATIONS
One of Britain's biggest electricity suppliers, EDF, has said that the costs of altering the grid for Net Zero are threatening to spiral out of control. EDF, which operates the nuclear power stations in the UK, says that a £70 billion programme to adapt the grid for renewables faced a tripling of construction costs, vastly exceeding initial forecasts.

Rising prices mean that Labour's stated objective of decarbonizing by 2030 is likely to cost billions more than expected, much of which will have to be paid for by raising household bills.

Officials had estimated that altering the grid from a concentrated one to a more diffuse one would cost about £70 billion over the next five years, with renewables levies added to average bills moving from £44 to £105.

EDF says that it supports the network upgrade but says the 2030 scheme is now so expensive that the whole project should be re-examined.

22 Aug 26

BADENOCH CRITICISES NET ZERO PROJECT
Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, has said that scrapping the Net Zero target is the only way to bring down energy prices and grow the economy. She pointed out that the plan to go 'carbon neutral' by 2050 was a political fiction and was bankrupting the economy.

Her stance on this is perhaps the first sign that the Tories may be capable of becoming a credible party once again. It's a great pity that the party spent fourteen years in power promoting this foolish policy; one which does not benefit the country and which it cannot afford.

30 Jul 26

ANOTHER MONEY PIT: SOLAR FARMS IN SPACE
According to a report published by the Department for Energy, solar farms could be deployed in space to help Britain meet Net Zero targets. The report was compiled by consultancy company Frazer-Nash.

One wonders what this proposal will do to our electricity bills if it ever gets off the ground.

14 Feb 26

NET ZERO: DESTRUCTIVE ZEALOTRY
Energy costs are sky-high; bills are still rising for customers. Whole industries are closing down as crippling costs make it impossible to stay afloat. We are losing, or have already lost: aluminium manufacture, steel manufacture, fertiliser manufacture, glassmaking, Denby Pottery, a major sugar beet processing factory, the oil industry, industrial chemicals ... the car industry will probably be next, with the fines on those companies making too few sales on electric cars.

It appears that the Energy Secretary is disconnected from reality and is systematically destroying British industry.

We have energy prices which are double those of France and quadruple those of the United States. We are destroying our industrial base. Cement production is down to 1950 levels; car production has fallen to a 70-year low, and the petrochemicals industry has collapsed. This month, ExxonMobil closed in Fife because it was losing too much money. The Grangemouth plant in Scotland has also been forced to close.

Britain's energy policy is a story of breathtaking incompetence.

14 Feb 26

NEWS FROM ITALY
The Italian government is banning ground-mounted solar panels on agricultural land.

28 Jan 26

SIGNS OF WIND TURBINE SLOWDOWN
There’s a noticeable shift in today’s Herald, 20 Jan 2026. For the first time, a major Scottish newspaper is openly acknowledging what communities have been saying for years: the scale and pace of onshore wind and energy infrastructure has gone far beyond what rural areas can absorb - and the planning system is no longer functioning in the public interest.

The article highlights a pattern now impossible to ignore: communities facing multiple overlapping applications, planning authorities overwhelmed, and a development pipeline that bears no relationship to grid capacity or strategic need.

This isn’t just local opposition. It’s a structural failure.

Community councils across Scotland are organising because they’re being asked to respond to speculative proposals that may never be built, but still bring stress, division, and landscape impact simply by being lodged. The Herald’s coverage recognises this as a national issue, not a fringe complaint.

It’s a welcome change of tone.

20 Jan 26

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.

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.