As the UK’s Prime Minister struggles to remain in post, doubts arise regarding his ability to deliver the legislative programme set out in the King’s Speech delivered yesterday. If he fails to deliver the programme, it may be just as well, given that its contents are about as confused and dysfunctional as his government.

Whatever the desirability of airport expansion from the perspective of the UK economy (“Legislation will be introduced to unlock the benefits of airport expansion [Civil Aviation Bill]”) and expanding the road network “enable roads to be built at pace including the Lower Thames Crossing [Highways (Financing) Bill]”) such measures sit extremely uncomfortably alongside this government’s Net Zero agenda.

As for this:

My Ministers will also introduce legislation to enable peerages to be removed [Removal of Peerages Bill].

Perhaps the answer is to stop appointing dodgy people to the House of Lords. Or better still, expedite the proposal contained at page 108 of your general election manifesto:

Labour is committed to replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations. Labour will consult on proposals, seeking the input of the British public on how politics can best serve them.

But I digress. There are some other issues that I wanted to talk about, such as this:

My Ministers believe that energy independence must be a long-term goal of national security and that the nation’s energy security requires long-term investment and reform, as demonstrated by recent events in the Middle East. Increased production of clean British energy will help to ensure that enemies of the United Kingdom cannot attack the economic security of the British people. My Ministers will therefore introduce an Energy Independence Bill to scale-up homegrown renewable energy and protect living standards for the long-term [Energy Independence Bill].

I don’t know how many times we have to point this out, but the extension of renewable energy in the UK is damaging the UK economy by increasing costs for both commercial and domestic energy users. It is leading to increased reliability on interconnectors with mainland Europe, as UK generation fails to come up to snuff. The interconnectors were supposed to be a two-way street, but whenever I look at the generation data, we seem to be importing quite a lot of electricity through them, regularly between 10% and 30% of our needs, and usually at high prices. I have just randomly checked the statistics, and I see that we’re currently importing a a net 14.7% of our electricity through the interconnectors, and the price is £127.02 per MWh as I write (it is £132.34 per MWh at the time of posting).(Gas is also generating more electricity than is being generated by renewables at this time). Indeed, for the whole of the past week, we have been importing a net 13.6% of our electricity, and the price has averaged £102.23 per MWh.

The interconnectors are vulnerable to hostile acts by bad actors, so I fail to see how all this “will help to ensure that enemies of the United Kingdom cannot attack the economic security of the British people.”

And there’s this:

My Government will remain a leading advocate for tackling climate change and achieving a world free from poverty.

It’s interesting to note that reality may be dawning. No longer does the government seem to be talking about “climate leadership” or the “Clean Power Alliance” (“a coalition of countries at the cutting edge of climate action”) (page 123 of the Labour Party manifesto). Gone is the restoration of “the strong global leadership needed to tackle the climate crisis”. No, now we’re reduced to being “a leading advocate for tackling climate change”. It’s good that the hubris is being diluted, or at least it would be if that were consistently the case. In the very next line of the King’s Speech we are told: “The United Kingdom will also take action to reduce humanitarian need and conflict around the world.” Amazing. I don’t know why we haven’t done this before. Who needs Superman?

Page 35 of the Labour Party Election Manifesto included this:

We will ensure our industrial strategy supports the development of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) sector, removes planning barriers to new datacentres.

This is something which is also missing from the King’s Speech, and perhaps that’s just as well too. But then again, the government made a pretty astonishing announcement about AI “Growth Zones” almost exactly six months ago. Perhaps, then, there was no need for it to feature in the King’s Speech. After all, the government is already rolling over to have its belly tickled, announcing things like “supporting all AI Growth Zones through the Connections Accelerator Service”; “Prioritising AI Growth Zones by reserving and reallocating grid capacity”; “to help prioritise projects identified by government as strategically important, such as AI Growth Zones, for grid connections”; discounts for “a 500 MW data centre this will be up to: £24/MWh in Scotland; £16/MWh in Cumbria; and £14/MWh in the North East…”.

How do AI datacentres fit in with “decarbonising the grid” by 2030 and Net Zero by 2050 (both of which are also government objectives)? Well, it’s fair to say that the Guardian seems to be extremely hostile to AI datacentres, and to be running a campaign against them and, as with all such Guardian campaigns, what they say must be treated with caution. Nevertheless, there seems to be quite a lot in the case that says that AI datacentres en masse are incompatible with “decarbonisation” and Net Zero objectives. An article that appeared on the Guardian website yesterday claims that “Datacentres using 6% of electricity supply in UK and US, research says – Industry body says energy consumption driven by AI up 15% globally in two years as it warns of societal backlash”.

In early 2025, the UK government estimated UK datacentres used 2.5% of electricity, but predicted this would increase fourfold by 2030. In the first half of 2025 the queue to connect to the grid grew by 460%.

The UK, where 5.9% of electricity is used by datacentres, and the US, where the figure is 6%, are well above the global average of 2%.

Earlier in the week, the Guardian also claimed that “Google developers significantly misstate carbon emissions of proposed UK datacentres – Emissions understated by factor of five in Essex plans for tech giant, while Greystoke’s Lincolnshire plans show similar error”.

“Google has serious questions to answer about its dubious datacentre pollution figures,” said Tim Squirrell, the head of strategy for Foxglove, which discovered the errors. “By comparing one year of datacentre emissions with five years of UK emissions, they’re making the environmental impact look five times smaller than it really is.”

He added: “Unless they can explain themselves, it looks like they are seriously misleading the council and the public over the climate pollution their facility will cause.”

These apparent misstatements are another example of a pile-up of faulty calculations surrounding AI development and its environmental footprint in the UK…

…The two government departments behind these plans appeared to differ on their estimates for how much UK energy datacentres will use – by a factor of 10….

Last month, the Guardian joined the dots – the ones the government is failing to join – even more explicity: “UK departments at odds over energy demands of AI datacentres – Discrepancy in forecasts raises questions over government planning for net zero”.

One vision of the UK’s future involves a decarbonised economy powered by clean, renewable energy. Another involves making the UK an AI superpower.

The government departments responsible for these two visions do not appear to have agreed on their numbers.

The Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) thinks AI datacentres will consume 6GW of electricity by 2030. The Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) appears to think they will use less than a tenth of that.

Tim Squirrell, the head of strategy for the NGO Foxglove, said: “The government’s cluelessness over the environmental impact of datacentres would be laughable, if it weren’t so alarming.”

I think that’s an appropriate point on which to end. The UK government, and its policies over a whole range of areas, but especially with regard to Net Zero, “decarbonisation” and energy policy, would be laughable if it weren’t all so terribly alarming.

24 Comments

  2. miab,

    I found it pretty astonishing, but I have no problems with “delusional”. 😊

    Like

  3. Can’t help but comment on the post head pic. Tradition is great, but maybe time to tone down the outfits.

    Anyway, this quote caught my attention –

    “Increased production of clean British energy will help to ensure that enemies of the United Kingdom cannot attack the economic security of the British people”.

    1st, what enemies, Russia I take it. Look how vulnerable UK is thru it’s connectors!!!

    2nd, “the economic security of the British people”, do we still rely on gas & oil. If yes, that’s a bullsh*t statement Charlie was made to repeat.

    Like

  4. dfhunter,

    Believe it or not, the picture was generated by AI. I’m afraid I was lazy, and it’s easier to ask AI to give me what I want than to spend ages searching the web and uploading one that is copyright-free. I’m not always a fan of AI, but I think it did a great job in this case, not least because I think it pretty accurately captured the ermine and all the rest of it. I wonder what it all costs the taxpayer?

    Like

  5. Ed Miliband vows permanent shutdown of the North Sea

    One of the great issues is what will be in the Energy Independence Bill (i.e. what went unspoken in the KIng’s Speech). See Paul Homewood’s piece above, which in turn comments on a Telegraph article which contains this:

    …Labour is to ban new oil and gas fields in Britain, making it far harder for any future government to reopen the North Sea.

    A legal prohibition on new drilling will be included in the energy independence bill, part of the raft of new legislation set out by the King in his speech opening Parliament on Wednesday.

    The bill will make Ed Miliband’s temporary moratorium on new drilling permanent, ensuring it would be far harder for a future government to reverse the ban. Labour also plans to legally ban onshore fracking.

    A detailed note released by the Energy Secretary’s officials after the King’s Speech said the bill would “meet [Labour’s] manifesto commitment not to issue new licences to explore new fields, including delivering the commitment to ban fracking”.…

    Liked by 1 person

  6. We need an elected upper chamber, ASAP. This could be elected 2 years after each general election. It would still retain the convention that it would not oppose policies in manifestos. I suggest 325 “senators,” one for every 2 Westminster constituencies. We need to get rid of all these appointed cronies. Maybe the “Lords” should be apolitical? In that case, only appoint oldish people who are stars in their field, not failed politicians and their mates. And have a nice split of people with knowledge of things other than the received wisdom of the chattering class.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Thanks Jit,

    First of all, I completely endorse your comments regarding the profoundly undemocratic House of Lords, well-renumerated retirement home for has-been politicians, cronies and glad-handers. The honourable exceptions (and there are some) are not sufficient to render it anything other than a disgrace, IMO.

    As for Kathryn Porter, one paragraph from her sums it up nicely:

    It’s not “cheap” because imported hydrocarbons are more expensive than Britain’s own and more exposed to volatile international markets. It’s clearly not “home-grown” or “secure”, as it increases dependence on imports and exposure to geopolitical shocks. And it’s not “clean”, since North Sea oil and gas are relatively low-carbon compared with imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), which has higher carbon intensity due to the energy needed for liquefaction, transport and regasification.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Regarding “delivering the commitment to ban fracking”, made me recall a BBC ? passing mention of a quake in LANCASHIRE (mag 2.3) a few days ago. Prompted me to have a look at this website –

    Earthquakes in and around the UK in the last 60 days

    Then tried to find what size quakes led to fracking by Cuadrilla being stopped.

    The best I could find with any info – Why Was Fracking Stopped in the UK? Envirotech Online

    Won’t “bore” readers, so will just list mag they quote –

    the initial tremor registered a mere 0.4 magnitude

    including two of 0.8 magnitude on the Friday and Saturday after the hiatus and another of 1.1 magnitude at the end of October

    Then this link from 2 November 2011 – Fracking tests near Blackpool ‘likely cause’ of tremors – BBC News

    Quote – “One tremor of magnitude 2.3 hit the Fylde coast on 1 April, followed by a second of magnitude 1.4 on 27 May.

    A study by The British Geological Survey placed the epicentre for each quake about 500m away from the Preese Hall-1 well, at Weeton, near Blackpool.

    The Geo-mechanical Study Of Bowland Shale Seismicity , external report, carried out by independent experts, said the combination of geological factors that caused the quakes was rare, and would be unlikely to occur together again at future well sites. It said: “If these factors were to combine again in the future local geology limits seismic events to around magnitude 3 on the Richter scale as a worst-case scenario.”

    However, it said that “even the maximum seismic event is not expected to present a risk”.

    So listen to the experts when it suits your agenda & ignore otherwise.

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Just to reinforce the point about the futility of believing that renewables energy will solve our problems regarding reliability, cost, and energy security, the electricity generation figures in the late afternoon on this day in the lightest quarter of the year are as follows:

    Gas: 31.1%

    Solar: 10.6%

    Wind: 10.3%

    Interconnectors: 29.3% (net).

    Price: £119.59 per MWh.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. On the question of power for data centres, this article on WUWT makes a strong counter-argument:

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/05/15/the-electricity-myth-data-centers-arent-the-villain/

    These paras summarise:

    “The primary mechanism behind the electricity price drops amid data center expansion trend—as seen in multiple states—is utilities’ ability to distribute the high fixed costs of building and maintaining grid infrastructure across a higher total consumption of electricity. As demand rises, those expenses spread across more kilowatt hours, lowering the cost per unit.

    Data centers add a lot of steady, predictable load. Consistent round-the-clock electricity consumption at high volumes sells more kilowatt-hours, bringing more stable revenue for the utility. A lower cost per unit of electricity results. Grids operate more efficiently because demand spikes become relatively smaller compared to demand overall, reducing prices for everyone.”

    Like

  12. MikeH,

    I think that’s an argument that might work better if you have stable base-load despatchable power. With heavy reliance on unreliable renewable energy, it looks like a more difficult case to establish. I haven’t read the WUWT article, but does it mention the massive water requirements of AI datacentres?

    Like

  13. Mark, This is where the contradictions come in. We do have, aiui, plenty of generating capacity which could be run at higher output to meet an increase in basic demand – gas-fired, of course, and therefore unacceptable to Milliband & Co.

    After posting my comment, I realised that the argument is based on normal, logical market conditions. Therein greater utilisation will lower unit costs. I should have recognised that does not apply here with all of the restrictions, subsidies, etc..

    Wrt cooling water requirements, I haven’t seen any numbers but I’m slightly sceptical. We have de-industrialised massively in recent times and many of the lost industries were heavy users of cooling water: steel; chemicals; refineries; coal-fired power stations; etc.. So I would expect our consumption of water for cooling to be well down on the levels of a decade or two ago. Of course location could be a problem but would be factored into site selection.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. “Drill Baby Drill to Drive Growth and Improve Productivity

    Oil and gas extraction is one of our highest productivity industries so it makes sense to restart drilling.”

    https://davidturver.substack.com/p/drill-baby-drill-to-drive-growth-productivity

    …Last week’s King’s Speech has indicated that Labour will enshrine in law a prohibition on new exploration licenses and a ban on fracking….

    …Labour’s pre-election promise to cut energy bills by £300 has been watered down to a vague notion of cutting bills from a higher base by £20-40 by 2040.

    New laws to ban drilling and fracking amount to energy suicide in the face of an energy crisis because oil and gas extraction is one of the highest productivity. For a Government supposedly focused on growth, it would make much more sense to drill, baby, drill to drive the economy and solve the productivity problem….

    …Low-energy, low-productivity sectors have been growing faster than the economy as a whole and high-energy, high productivity sectors have been growing more slowly. It is hardly surprising there is a productivity problem. Moreover, these industries tend by their nature to be capital intensive. Expensive energy, high taxes and an onerous regulatory regime has led companies such as Ineos to abandon new investment in the UK. As these companies move abroad Britain also loses out on investment that would lead to further growth.

    Energy is the foundation stone of modern economies. The UK has imposed a swathe of legislation that has increased the regulatory burden and made energy scarce and expensive. In addition, new exploration drilling in the North Sea is effectively banned which is leading to job losses in one of our highest productivity industries. There is also a moratorium on fracking that means the UK is missing out on another source of energy and the associated jobs. Jobs and investment are also being lost in vital downstream refining, chemicals and petrochemicals industries producing the vital building blocks of a modern economy.

    It should be obvious to all but the most brainwashed zealot that instead of banning new drilling we should be restarting the UK oil and gas industry. More exploration and development will reverse energy austerity, deliver more highly productive well paid jobs, higher growth, improve energy security and begin to solve the dual productivity and investment problems. In other words, drill baby drill.

    Liked by 2 people

  15. Right now (mid-afternoon on a bright, breezy day in the second half of May), 29.1% (net) of our electricity is coming via the interconnectors. Energy security?

    Liked by 1 person

  16. The Energy Independence Bill makes it clear that “Miliband is determined to do as much irreversible damage to the country as he can” as Paul H said. They intend to salt the earth.

    There is no logic or sense to this. It is all too easy to imagine future scenarios where there will be a desperate need for oil and gas production outside the Middle East. Government has a duty to plan for major disruptive events and take reasonable measures to mitigate their impact. This is like removing the lifeboats from a liner before sending it into berg-strewn waters. It is malevolent. Evil.

    Whatever legislation may be forthcoming, this announcement alone is a mortal blow to our N. Sea industry. No chief exec of an oil/gas company is going to invest in the UK. Indeed, I would expect all of the companies currently operating there to be drawing up – or updating, more likely – plans of how to extract maximum value while avoiding further commitment: managed decline. They would also be prudent to look at ways of moving financial assets to other countries.

    There is a sting in the tail: decommissioning. Years ago the companies were setting aside large sums to cover that future liability. The govt of the day (Blair?) wanted that money to be declared as revenue so they could tax it. A deal was done whereby the companies declared the extra revenue – and paid more tax. In return the govt authorised them to offset eventual decommissioning costs against tax liabilities. Further, they were promised that, if they did not have sufficient tax liability to cover those costs, the govt would pay the difference.

    So Rachel-from-Accounts can expect to see tax revenues declining faster than predicted and may face paying the companies for a part of their decommissioning costs. Given the character of this crew, I would fully expect them to renege on the deal. The oil companies should be thinking how to get to a position where they can walk away and leave Milliband to clear up.

    Liked by 1 person

  17. “More than 100 UK datacentres plan to burn gas to generate electricity

    Requests for gas connections by operators amount to more than 15 terawatt hours per year, endangering climate targets”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/may/18/uk-datacentres-plan-to-burn-gas-to-generate-electricity

    …Officials, businesspeople and activists attending the event in Glasgow acknowledged a marked shift over the past year in willingness of UK developers – and authorities – to consider using fossil fuels to power the UK’s AI ambitions.

    Silvia Simon, the head of research at Future Energy Networks, which represents the UK’s natural gas suppliers, said the group had received “more than 100” requests for gas connections from datacentre operators in the past two years.

    These requests amounted to more than 15 terawatt hours of energy each year, she said: enough to power London for roughly four and a half months.

    “Gas networks are seeing a lot of interest from datacentre developers looking to secure a gas connection,” she said. “Not just for resilience, but for primary supply. So this is already an indication that they’re really struggling to get through to the electricity networks.”…

    …developers are now increasingly turning to fossil fuels, “in some cases requesting over 100MW of gas power on a permanent basis”.

    Julian Leslie, the director of strategic planning at the UK’s National Energy System Operator (Neso), said this gas buildout could complicate Britain’s climate goals.

    “The target was to get less than 5% of unabated gas supplying electricity in the system,” he said.

    “But obviously if we’ve got datacentres not connected to electricity but powered by unabated gas then it does raise an interesting question about what that means for the Clean Power 2030 target.”…

    Liked by 1 person

  18. It would be nice to think that when the much-touted forthcoming heatwave (sic) arrives, solar will contribute rather more to the grid than the 11.7% it is currently putting in. The downside is that if high pressure builds, presumably wind’s contribution to the grid will drop.

    At the moment (just a month away from the summer solstice) we are dependent on interconnectors for 18.1% (net) of our electricity. The price is £109.88 per MWh. It has averaged £106.76 for the last week.

    It’s going well, isn’t it?

    Liked by 1 person

  19. Just had to put the heating on for a burst in the dreary Isle of Man.

    Think It was a reaction to the “heat wave” narrative, which had me get the budgie smuggler out in anticipation 😦

    Like

  20. “Scotland’s ‘green datacentres’ policy ignores emissions impact of AI, analysis shows

    Definition of green facilities made in 2022, before release of ChatGPT, says Action to Protect Rural Scotland”

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/may/25/scotland-policy-green-datacentres-emissions-impact-ai-analysis

    A Scottish government policy designed to encourage datacentres to build in Scotland could lead to a massive volume of carbon emissions being ignored, according to an analysis by a Scottish charity.

    “Green datacentres” are at the heart of Scotland’s ambitions to develop economically. Enshrined in national policy, they are part of a larger, UK-wide effort to attract big AI investment to Scotland.

    But Scotland appears to have no clear definition of what a “green datacentre” is. This means that current AI developments might call themselves “green” while their impact on the climate are ignored, according to Action to Protect Rural Scotland (APRS), an Edinburgh-based charity.

    The Green MSP Ariane Burgess, representing Highlands and Islands, said: “We urgently need transparency around what constitutes a ‘green datacentre’ and how their huge energy demands will be accommodated by our grid infrastructure….

    …More than a dozen datacentres in Scotland are in the process of getting planning permission, including an AI growth zone in Lanarkshire, near Glasgow, which claims to be backed by £8.2bn in private investment.

    Collectively, they stand to use roughly 6.2GW of power – one-and-a-half times more than the peak power use of all of Scotland in the winter.

    In April, Fintan Slye, the chief executive of the UK’s National Energy System Operator (Neso), encouraged datacentre developers to build in Scotland, where they could take advantage of its greater proportion of renewable energy, with fewer grid constraints. “If in the audience you have a big datacentre and you want to go to Scotland, please come talk to me, we will help you,” Slye said to a conference in London, reported by the Financial Times.

    APRS said that calling a datacentre project “green” and presenting it as aligned with Scotland’s goals, even if it had significant emissions, could allow developers to receive favourable treatment from local authorities.

    A datacentre in Edinburgh this year appeared to have argued it was a “green datacentre” in submissions to local authorities, despite the fact it will include 200 diesel backup generators – the equivalent of 100,000 idling cars, according to APRS.

    A planning committee appeared to have accepted this definition, albeit while conceding there was no definition of “green datacentres” in Scotland’s underlying policy, the National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4)….

    Liked by 1 person

  21. See the new Pope has chimed in – Pope Leo presents ‘Magnifica humanitas’ calling for disarmament of AI – Vatican News

    “Pope Leo presents ‘Magnifica humanitas’ calling for disarmament of AI

    Pope Leo XIV presents “Magnifica Humanitas” as the Church’s response to the challenges posed by artificial intelligence, calling for AI to be “disarmed” from logics of domination, exclusion and war. Drawing parallels with Rerum Novarum, the Pope urges the global community to place technological progress at the service of human dignity, solidarity and the common good.”

    Sure the news said “existential threat”. No offence to Leo but he spouts the usual platitudes.

    Like

  22. It keeps getting worse. Right now:

    Gas: 51.3%

    Solar: 1.7%

    Wind: 22.5%

    Net interconnectors imports: 2.4% (presumably not a lot of renewables energy to spare under a European anticyclone).

    Price: £158.52 per MWh.

    Liked by 1 person

  23. Early evening on a sunny, breezy day within three weeks of the summer solstice. Gas is providing more of our electricity than wind and solar combined. We are reliant on the interconnectors for a net 12.8%. the price is £121.80 per MWh.

    So much for energy security. So much for cheap, plentiful renewable energy.

    Liked by 1 person

  24. As I type, we are importing over 20% of our electricity. This happens very frequently, as noted in many comments, and has been going on for years. I struggle to believe that all those other countries are able to sell us power at below the marginal cost of gas on such a regular basis.

    Putting on my tin-foil hat, my suspicion is that there is a concerted effort to minimise the use of gas. Obviously this reduces our emissions tally since the imported power is deemed to be 100% zero-carbon. While that is true for imports from France and Norway, it may well not be the case for other countries.

    More seriously, running a few gas plants at low output levels (so that they can ramp up quickly, when needed) cannot be good for their mechanical reliability and longevity since the majority were designed to serve as baseload generators. In addition, their efficiency when just ticking over is poor so gas consumption is relatively high for the power being produced. For the owners these factors must weaken the business case for keeping the plants running so retirements become likely, rather then refurbishments, which will weaken the resilience of the whole system. “Sabotage” may be too strong a word but it’s close.

    Liked by 1 person

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