A longer term solution would be to move towards more sustainable energy sources, including nuclear. I’d love for there to be large-scale nationalised nuclear energy production in the UK, as well as others such as solar and wind. Bioenergy, too. Relying on fossil fuels has led to the current extinction as well as leaving us reliant on the global market to heat homes here in the UK
Renationalised. As in all gas from British gas and power from your local electricity board. Or not for profit like Dwr Cymru (Welsh Water)
There’s always a very strong case for utilities companies like this being nationalised. It should never have been privatised in the first place.
The issue though is the cost of doing so, especially with an economy recovering from covid. We can’t just seize assets, that will start a flight of captial that will be far more expensive than just handing billions over to the already wealthy.
They knew what they were doing when they sold the nations silverware for peanuts to friends and doners.
I see no reason why the transmission and supply side and the big producers like nuclear and hydro shouldn’t be nationalised as long as small generators can still sell into the grid.
I closed my late fathers electricity account before Bulb went under. 2 weeks before it was announced, Bulb sent me a final bill showing the account was £164 in credit and that I would take 14 days to process. Will I still get this back?
I’m kinda more interested as to why Julian Jones ever thought that privatisation was a good idea to start with.
I mean he has used four and 5 syllable words in his article so he’s not exactly Brexit level dumb.
The case against natural monopolies was never bloated inefficiency, or civil service mentality, the only case against natural monopolies was the private sector missed out on being rentiers. We have a mixed market economy. Market efficiency is an integrative model. Not Tory neoliberalism, merely exploiting the public.
The moment you take services which people need to live (water, energy) and give them to someone who wants to make a profit, something has already gone wrong
My only concern with nationalising energy suppliers is the extent to which we currently rely on private sector expertise. The government could handle all the administrative aspects of energy supply well enough, but im thinking that there’s currently a lot of partnering that happens with firms like EDF, especially when it comes to building new infrastructure. Renationalising could throw a bit of a spanner in the works there.
I work on a power station and think that both production and supply of power should be nationalised. I hear from the old boys how much better everything was as well- things were built to last, rather than maximise short term profit for the directors portfolios.
It would have been if Corbyn had been elected instead of that clown
Couldn’t believe it, but presumably knew they were trying to pull loans out of customers by demanding they pay massive top up fees in advance, or increased the direct debits by huge and unnecessary amounts.
How did they not realise something was wrong?
Bulb going out of business was due to the price rise in wholesale prices, and the price cap.
Bulb being private or nationalised would have absolutely zero impact on this, and this appears to be little more than “I always thought they should be nationalised and now here’s an excuse to claim why it should be”.
> the 1.6 million households who will be relying on Bulb to heat their homes this winter
It isn’t Bulb that heats their homes. Bulb just acted as an energy intermediary, sourcing from major gas suppliers on behalf of consumers they would sell onto at retail prices.
The fact is that investors got rinsed because Bulb wasn’t hedging even though variable retail prices are capped and most fixed price deals were agreed when wholesale prices were much lower.
The dynamic energy market in the UK is a huge success in driving adoption of green energy and improving customer service.
The regulators think about a dozen or so market players (six big, six challenging them) is about right. Let the reckless operations go to the wall. Their customers are protected and the shareholders invested unwisely in greedy unsafe ventures.
I am sure this guy would love a job guaranteed by the state. But fuck giving British Gas a state monopoly.
With good governance, there’s a good argument for it. With these guys… not sure.
I thought the argument against Corbyn was that he was a communist who wanted to nationalise the utilities and rail.
So far i hear two rail companies have come back under gov control and now people say utilities should be too.
But then again “get brexit done”
>Eastern Railway
​
>drafty
Good article, but I wish editors still existed
It was regulation that’s caused all these bankruptcies so more intervention should help.
>The government is subsidising an inefficient business model because we forced them to in order to protect capitalists and their customers, therefore the government should run its own terrible business
Or… just let the company collapse as you are supposed to in capitalism. If they offered fixed energy prices without paying for energy in advance then it’s on them isn’t it.
If it cannot be allowed to fail, then it cannot be allowed to be for-profit.
Why? Bulb failed to have a robust hedging policy in place. By hedging in the prompt Bulb we’re able to undercut their competitors in 2018/19 when prices reduced but were caught out this year when prices increased. It is poor management plain and simple that caused Bulb to fail. There is a question however over the government policy costs being in your energy bill or in general taxation. If it were the latter then around 30% of your bill would vanish.
Fucking hell. I turned down the chance of job at Bulb a few months ago. They were really keen to push me further through the interview process for a very senior position, but I decided to stay where I was and ride out some management changes in my current job to see how things went.
Sounds like I really dodged a bullet there.
This is such a nonsense article.
Opening up the energy market has led to great innovation and frankly a huge uplift in customer service. The new energy companies have been great to use and has forced the bigger one’s to step up their game.
Let’s not pretend this recent energy crisis has got anything to do with privatisation. It has everything to do with a massive increase in wholesale prices.
The customer is much worse off under a national service and/or just the big four.
I’m very pro nationalisation. But we do need to consider that the energy sector isn’t one thing – there a lot of different components, it just happens that the main components we interface with and the ones that keep collapsing are glorified call centres.
I for one think the delivery network should be wholly nationalised, as it’s a critical state asset. I believe end user billing should be nationalised, because it’s incredibly formulaic and basic – there’s large profit margins in what is a reseller mixed with a call centre.
But energy generation, I’m not so sure. Energy generation is where all the actually useful innovation can occur, I believe we should be investing to own large portions of the basics we rely on but also allowing innovation to drive delivery to support that. So IMO no nationalisation of generations but maybe we should be asking why the French think running everyone else’s is a good idea and whether it would be good for us to catch up.
It could work but only if there isn’t pressure to reprivatise as soon as the market conditions are more favourable.
Given that we are all actually receiving electricity and gas through a fixed network of infrastructure, the whole idea of different suppliers is a bit of a nonsense anyway. They’re all just brokers, and so what value do they add to the market?
I can see the value in private competitive industry in energy *producers*, selling to the grid. There’s lots of scope for innovation and competition there. But in supply? No.
It’s 2021, almost 2022, and we are still doing the “I am xxx and therefore I’m entitled to say my personal opinion about yyy”
26 comments
A longer term solution would be to move towards more sustainable energy sources, including nuclear. I’d love for there to be large-scale nationalised nuclear energy production in the UK, as well as others such as solar and wind. Bioenergy, too. Relying on fossil fuels has led to the current extinction as well as leaving us reliant on the global market to heat homes here in the UK
Renationalised. As in all gas from British gas and power from your local electricity board. Or not for profit like Dwr Cymru (Welsh Water)
There’s always a very strong case for utilities companies like this being nationalised. It should never have been privatised in the first place.
The issue though is the cost of doing so, especially with an economy recovering from covid. We can’t just seize assets, that will start a flight of captial that will be far more expensive than just handing billions over to the already wealthy.
They knew what they were doing when they sold the nations silverware for peanuts to friends and doners.
I see no reason why the transmission and supply side and the big producers like nuclear and hydro shouldn’t be nationalised as long as small generators can still sell into the grid.
I closed my late fathers electricity account before Bulb went under. 2 weeks before it was announced, Bulb sent me a final bill showing the account was £164 in credit and that I would take 14 days to process. Will I still get this back?
I’m kinda more interested as to why Julian Jones ever thought that privatisation was a good idea to start with.
I mean he has used four and 5 syllable words in his article so he’s not exactly Brexit level dumb.
The case against natural monopolies was never bloated inefficiency, or civil service mentality, the only case against natural monopolies was the private sector missed out on being rentiers. We have a mixed market economy. Market efficiency is an integrative model. Not Tory neoliberalism, merely exploiting the public.
The moment you take services which people need to live (water, energy) and give them to someone who wants to make a profit, something has already gone wrong
My only concern with nationalising energy suppliers is the extent to which we currently rely on private sector expertise. The government could handle all the administrative aspects of energy supply well enough, but im thinking that there’s currently a lot of partnering that happens with firms like EDF, especially when it comes to building new infrastructure. Renationalising could throw a bit of a spanner in the works there.
I work on a power station and think that both production and supply of power should be nationalised. I hear from the old boys how much better everything was as well- things were built to last, rather than maximise short term profit for the directors portfolios.
It would have been if Corbyn had been elected instead of that clown
Couldn’t believe it, but presumably knew they were trying to pull loans out of customers by demanding they pay massive top up fees in advance, or increased the direct debits by huge and unnecessary amounts.
How did they not realise something was wrong?
Bulb going out of business was due to the price rise in wholesale prices, and the price cap.
Bulb being private or nationalised would have absolutely zero impact on this, and this appears to be little more than “I always thought they should be nationalised and now here’s an excuse to claim why it should be”.
> the 1.6 million households who will be relying on Bulb to heat their homes this winter
It isn’t Bulb that heats their homes. Bulb just acted as an energy intermediary, sourcing from major gas suppliers on behalf of consumers they would sell onto at retail prices.
The fact is that investors got rinsed because Bulb wasn’t hedging even though variable retail prices are capped and most fixed price deals were agreed when wholesale prices were much lower.
The dynamic energy market in the UK is a huge success in driving adoption of green energy and improving customer service.
The regulators think about a dozen or so market players (six big, six challenging them) is about right. Let the reckless operations go to the wall. Their customers are protected and the shareholders invested unwisely in greedy unsafe ventures.
I am sure this guy would love a job guaranteed by the state. But fuck giving British Gas a state monopoly.
With good governance, there’s a good argument for it. With these guys… not sure.
I thought the argument against Corbyn was that he was a communist who wanted to nationalise the utilities and rail.
So far i hear two rail companies have come back under gov control and now people say utilities should be too.
But then again “get brexit done”
>Eastern Railway
​
>drafty
Good article, but I wish editors still existed
It was regulation that’s caused all these bankruptcies so more intervention should help.
>The government is subsidising an inefficient business model because we forced them to in order to protect capitalists and their customers, therefore the government should run its own terrible business
Or… just let the company collapse as you are supposed to in capitalism. If they offered fixed energy prices without paying for energy in advance then it’s on them isn’t it.
If it cannot be allowed to fail, then it cannot be allowed to be for-profit.
Why? Bulb failed to have a robust hedging policy in place. By hedging in the prompt Bulb we’re able to undercut their competitors in 2018/19 when prices reduced but were caught out this year when prices increased. It is poor management plain and simple that caused Bulb to fail. There is a question however over the government policy costs being in your energy bill or in general taxation. If it were the latter then around 30% of your bill would vanish.
Fucking hell. I turned down the chance of job at Bulb a few months ago. They were really keen to push me further through the interview process for a very senior position, but I decided to stay where I was and ride out some management changes in my current job to see how things went.
Sounds like I really dodged a bullet there.
This is such a nonsense article.
Opening up the energy market has led to great innovation and frankly a huge uplift in customer service. The new energy companies have been great to use and has forced the bigger one’s to step up their game.
Let’s not pretend this recent energy crisis has got anything to do with privatisation. It has everything to do with a massive increase in wholesale prices.
The customer is much worse off under a national service and/or just the big four.
I’m very pro nationalisation. But we do need to consider that the energy sector isn’t one thing – there a lot of different components, it just happens that the main components we interface with and the ones that keep collapsing are glorified call centres.
I for one think the delivery network should be wholly nationalised, as it’s a critical state asset. I believe end user billing should be nationalised, because it’s incredibly formulaic and basic – there’s large profit margins in what is a reseller mixed with a call centre.
But energy generation, I’m not so sure. Energy generation is where all the actually useful innovation can occur, I believe we should be investing to own large portions of the basics we rely on but also allowing innovation to drive delivery to support that. So IMO no nationalisation of generations but maybe we should be asking why the French think running everyone else’s is a good idea and whether it would be good for us to catch up.
It could work but only if there isn’t pressure to reprivatise as soon as the market conditions are more favourable.
Given that we are all actually receiving electricity and gas through a fixed network of infrastructure, the whole idea of different suppliers is a bit of a nonsense anyway. They’re all just brokers, and so what value do they add to the market?
I can see the value in private competitive industry in energy *producers*, selling to the grid. There’s lots of scope for innovation and competition there. But in supply? No.
It’s 2021, almost 2022, and we are still doing the “I am xxx and therefore I’m entitled to say my personal opinion about yyy”