Section 18 of Ireland’s Electricity Regulation Act 1999 forbids the building of nuclear power stations.  This apparently “environmental” measure hides a multitude of sins.  Most notably, as Germany has recently discovered, banning a low-carbon source of electricity without dramatically lowering demand tends to result in the use of high-carbon electricity …

Between now and April, the media will have a field day publicising the personalities of the various contenders for the position of Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition for the remainder of the decade.  There is the centrist millionaire working class boy made good; the metropolitan liberal woman who makes …

As the old saying has it, “the media wants to tell you a story, not the story.”  And the economic story they want you to believe is that there is nothing wrong, it is just that lots of people are shopping on Amazon, lots of other people are worried about …

The 2020s began with the usual round of happy-clappy greenwash about so-called “green energy.”  Typical was Julia Kollewe’s New Year’s Day Guardian piece proclaiming that “Zero-carbon electricity outstrips fossil fuels in Britain across 2019:” “Following a dramatic decline in coal-fired power and a rise in renewable and low-carbon energy, 2019 …

This morning’s news was a perfect example of media reporting priorities. War – or at least the rather unlikely prospect of a war between Iran and the USA – has always been the media’s favourite topic.  Not least because they no longer need to pretend that they are not engaged …

The development of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) for computing has served to lull a generation into believing a fantastical version of what economists call “substitutability.”  According to the economists, when the supply of any input to the economy dries up, “market forces” will cause another input to take its …

Some years ago I got into one of those online spats that can never be resolved with just 280 characters.  It was in response to someone who, in November 2016, claimed that “conservatives just cannot get over the fact that we [the left] keep winning the arguments.”  This, I suggested, …

After four decades of neoliberalism, Britain’s political geography has changed for good.  The enduring result of last night’s general election is that there is no longer such thing as a “traditional Labour seat.”  The old pattern in which working class voters unthinkingly voted for a Labour Party that was their …

The announcement of the 2017 general election drew the comment, “not another f**king one!”  This time around, the rage appears to have dissipated into a generalised apathy among anyone who is not a party activist.  Polling expert Sir John Curtice has referred to it as an “unpopularity contest,” describing Boris …

It is fairly common these days to come across somebody on social media who thinks that leaving the freezer door open or running the air conditioner outside might provide us with a means of halting global warming.  And while engineers and physicists might be tempted to laugh at the suggestion, …