"Electricity is around four times more expensive than gas because of costs passed onto the consumer from environmental programmes and social measures."

False.

Electricity is more expensive than gas because policy requires expensive generation. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/environment/2020/12/21/electricity-costs-high-make-heat-pumps-high-mps-warn/

And gas could be even cheaper, too, for example, if fracking were permitted.

What the @Telegraph article struggles to admit is that the claims being put to the government were that the cost of gas should be increased, to make "green" energy *seem* cheaper.

What the article also fails to explain is that Emma Pinchbeck is a green activist, previously chair of RenewableUK, and before that, at WWF.

She is asking for price rises here. She has zero experience in energy, only in political lobbying. She thinks policy is material reality.

And look: even if you DOUBLED the price of gas, it would still not change the fact that heating with electricity is more expensive than heating with gas! https://twitter.com/HG54/status/1341357732859940864

The evidence of "affordability and fairness in the energy market" was clear 12 years ago, when the Climate Change Act was passed.

Even now, policymakers don't understand the consequences of their ambition.

They intend to make energy too expensive to use. There's no alternative.

How can a major, flagship policy agenda have had 12 years WITH ZERO POLITCAL RESISTANCE, and yet still not have had its major issues resolved?

It is fundamental. We said, way back then, "this will be expensive". We said, "address the costs *first*.

Now they admit it.

This is not "climate change denial". It's not "ideologically motivated reasoning".

It is the bottom line. It is the physical reality.

If they were not intent on making life worse for most people, we would not have objected.

If journalists like @OliviaRudgard, who wrote the article, do not grasp this, then the @Telegraph will shed no light on the disaster that is unfolding. And worse, it will be complicit in it.

Here is how it started.

Nobody debated the ideological claim here, that "nobody should exceed their ecological limits".

Who decides what that limit is? How is it determined? What if you disagree?

And to bind future governments!

A final tweet, just to help @OliviaRudgard understand that 23 per cent is not equal to 400 per cent, which is her claim here:

Here's EAC Chair, @Dunne4Ludlow's letter to BEIS minister, @KwasiKwarteng, mentioned in the article.

They are insane.

They *KNOW* that this is going to be unaffordable for millions of people.

https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/4065/documents/40452/default/

Here is the EAC session, in which Emma Pinchbeck gave evidence on gas vs electricity prices and heat pumps.

Reminder: They have had 12 years of unopposed policy 'ambition', yet they still have not got the policies required to adjust physical reality.

https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/1297/html/

Look at this. She has a very, very nice job as the exec of an industry lobbying organisation. She can afford a nice home in London. And she can afford to renovate it.

Yet even she chose a gas boiler, and in retrospect believes she needed a "nudge" to make the right choice.

This is apparently a conversation between policymakers and industry experts about a policy agenda that will affect 25+ million homes.

They have no answers, and will hear no dissent from their agenda.

But the policy's nuts and bolts are nothing but fluff and promises.

In case you don't know, "dynamic pricing" and "flexibility" mean rationing.

The "brilliant conversation between suppliers and customers" will take place with one party sitting in a cold and dark house, no longer a home.

And here is a true sign that somebody doesn't know what they're talking about.

A smartphone is a terrible analogy for heating hardware, because processing is not equivalent to heating.

There is no Moore's Law for heating.

If processing was equivalent to heating, such that there was a Moore's Law of heating, it would now be possible to heat your home to 5 billion degrees C, for less than £5 a year. *

(* - figures are made up, but some calculation would produce the same astronomical result.)

And now we have it! All in one passage!

She is the head of an energy trade body, but has no idea how boilers work! All she knows is that they DO NOT WORK!

Recall that she had the opportunity to upgrade her home.

Now she admits that she has experience of heat pump technology.

She didn't like it.

That's why she chose a gas boiler for her own home, and for the health of her new baby.

Do the math.

Mother knows best.