alt Hacker NewsThis is poor reporting by Elektrek. The article compares wind and gas costs but completely fails to explain:
* the gas price in the article includes the government’s self-imposed carbon tax. The actual cost of gas (£55) is FAR lower than the £91.20 strike price Milibad has set for wind. And Miliband has locked in this terrible pricing for 20 years!
* there are huge extra costs for wind power that are not accounted for in this quoted strike price. The grid must be upgraded. Expensive new power generation capability will need to be built to compensate for the intermittency of wind
* the stated power capacity of wind generation is a theoretical maximum, and the actual capacity will be much lower in practice.
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>* the gas price in the article includes the government’s self-imposed carbon tax. The actual cost of gas (£55) is FAR lower than the £91.20 strike price Milibad has set for wind.
Is that unreasonable? Carbon dioxide is an externality, and it needs to be accounted for accordingly. Suppose the government is tendering contracts for milk for school lunches. One farm runs a CAFO[1] that pollutes the local river. The other has cows on a pasture that doesn't. Is it that unreasonable for the government to be like "well hang on, the CAFO farm might be cheaper the grass fed farm, but it'll cost us money to clean up all the shit they're dumping into the river, so we're going to impose a tax on the CAFO farm for their pollution"?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_animal_feeding_op...
Nothing you've said actually means anything.
The self-imposed tax is there and isn't going anywhere, so it's included in the price.
The other two points are accounted for in the strike price, because this capacity came into being and is now offering electricity at the strike price.
> new power generation capability will need to be built to compensate for the intermittency of wind
The new wind power is mostly idling natural gas power plants, which can spin up on the rare occasions there's no wind in the North Sea. Then the UK only uses the expensive shipped LNG a few days a year. The much cheaper piped natural gas is already allocated.
> The actual cost of gas
The actual cost has to price in the impact of using it.
For example, it's cheaper for UK water companies to pump sewage into rivers and onto beaches:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz9kz8ydjpno
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-67357566
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yprnd848ko
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/16/sewage-o...
But maybe it's a nice idea to force them to deal with sewage properly so you don't have to live in rivers of shit.