AND IT came to pass that the people of that troubled land were downcast and dejected. They had been told they were causing the transmutation of the climate by polluting the atmosphere with their filthy oil and gas. This abomination had been condemned by the wise and learned ones who weighed and measured the air above them. They had been quickly joined in judgment by others who seemingly had found a way to acquire similar knowledge by osmosis. The people were ashamed. Well, some of them were.
No oil and gas in that country meant no electricity. What was to be done? Lo, the leaders realised they must set up a Mission for Clean Energy, and from that forsaken multitude their rulers chose the Prophet Stark* to be its head. His message would follow the earlier proclamations of the Prophet Miliband, who for many years had been preaching to his tribe the gospel of energy that was both clean and free.
This Sage seemed to think that Nature needed no payment for wind and sun; energy unlimited is there, he decreed, because the wind always blows and the sun always shines. The turbines will turn and the solar panels will glow for ever. His words were broadcast throughout the land and his message heeded by the rulers, though not so much by the people as it seemed the energy might be clean but it certainly wasn’t free.
‘Clean Power’ was the text these two Prophets used for many sermons, perhaps hoping that those sacrosanct words when repeated hundreds of times might eventually cast a powerful spell which would scatter turbines over the oceans and solar panels across the land. Or might convince the unbelievers, of which, alas, there were many.
The Word was broadcast, the Gospel was proclaimed: ‘Clean Power by 2030’. Stark’s message was clear. ‘It is something you can do quickly,’ he preached, ‘but has long-term benefits . . . The idea of a renewables-led system, with nuclear on the horizon, is just so clearly the obvious thing to do.’ It may have been clearly obvious to him but the ungrateful people thought they should have been told more about the benefits.
Prophet Stark also had some unexpectedly good news for industry in that benighted country. Apparently there would be ‘a whole package of things that will come on, over the next few months, into next year, that will make a big difference . . . For those industrial users, [it will] take those energy prices down very significantly.’
A great cheer went up from the hard-pressed industrial users, or at least it would have done if any of them had discovered this prophecy hidden away, casually mentioned during an interview on a website. ‘We’ll bring all sorts of benefits to the country,’ Stark promised in the same interview.’ Again it was unfortunate that he didn’t go on to more clearly define those mysterious benefits, say when they would appear, or even whether Prophet Miliband was aware of this wondrous and previously quite unlooked-for development.
Prophet Stark, like all his kind, preferred to stick with the Delphic method so was difficult to interpret at times. He seemed to be looking into a future that only he could see clearly but which, typically prophet-like, seemed unlikely to his followers. He had a vision of wind, North Sea wind, which would blow permanently and especially in a cold winter. ‘We are blessed in having high wind speeds,’ he pronounced, ‘and [it is] a pretty important requirement for extra energy when it’s cold over the winter.’
Now also in the land there dwelt some who were wise about weather, and on hearing this shook their heads and went away to study the ancient charts. And lo, they discovered that many years ago brave men had sailed out over this wild sea looking for oil. Having found it, and been tossed around more than somewhat, they thought to keep a measure of the ocean weather in order that future oil-men might learn of its whimsical behaviour.
For 60 years they watched, measured and marvelled. It seemed that the wind did not always blow, would sometimes not be strong enough even to start turning the blades of the big turbines, and could even fall calm or light in the very coldest winter.
When they listened to the weather-wise oilmen, one or two amongst those forsaken people began to have doubts. Began, even, to have some worries about these prophets and their curiously Manichaean distinction between clean (erratic and expensive but good) and dirty (constant and cheap but bad) energy. Surely, they reasoned, it is more important to be sure of energy that is always available, never cut off no matter what. Everything in the land either used or depended on electricity. Electricity is our very life-blood.
The people uttered cries of woe, and there were much louder and more practical cries of ‘We must have another U-turn.’ In future, the scribes and orators told their growing band of followers, they will make us all have heat-pumps and drive electric cars. Huge palaces will be erected to shelter the Artificial Intelligence monsters, whose imperious commands for electricity will have to be obeyed.
And behold, there will come a winter when a sudden stillness will calm the turbines, cloud and early sunsets will blind the solar panels and the AI dragons will gorge on the remaining dribble of energy.
There were many amongst those downtrodden people who prophesied a great darkness falling over the land.
* Chris Stark, ex-chairman of the Climate Change Committee, is now the head of the government’s Mission Control, ‘tasked with turbocharging UK to clean power by 2030’.
