UK electricity CEO: Get used to not having any electricity, suckas!

The PJ Tatler » UK electricity CEO: Get used to not having any electricity, suckas!

UK electricity CEO: Get used to not having any electricity, suckas!

Steve Hollliday is the UK’s power czar, basically. He’s the CEO of National Grid. He is predicting that, because the UK is moving to more wind-generated electricity to meet government emissions targets, residents will end up with less access to electricity. And they’d better learn to like it!

The grid is going to be a very different system in 2020, 2030,” he told BBC’s Radio 4. “We keep thinking that we want it to be there and provide power when we need it. It’s going to be much smarter than that.

By which he actually means that First World UK will get a barely functional, and hideously expensive, Third World power grid. Win the future!

“We are going to change our own behaviour and consume it when it is available and available cheaply.”


Holliday has for several years been predicting that blackouts could become a feature of power systems that replace reliable coal plants with wind turbines in order to meet greenhouse gas targets. Wind-based power systems are necessary to meet the government’s targets, he has explained, but they will require lifestyle changes.

This is all because of global warming. It will produce a kind of energy-based fascism.

[T]he government-regulated utility will be able to decide when and where power should be delivered, to ensure that it meets the highest social purpose. Governments may, for example, decide that the needs of key industries take precedence over others, or that the needs of industry trump that of residential consumers. Governments would also be able to price power prohibitively if it is used for non-essential purposes.

And how are citizens going to feel when their power is artificially off because they’re deemed unworthy of having electricity, when the industry across the street, which just happens to be a major donor to whatever party is in power, has all of its lights brightly shining?

I doubt Mr. Holliday has thought through all the implications of his scheme. This grid of the future is an open invitation to corruption, resentment and revolution. Or maybe he has thought of all that, and will build in a way for the government to cut off electricity to all who dissent.

http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/03/07/uk-electricity-ceo-get-used-to-not-having-any-electricity-suckas/