@lfg_uk energy campaigner @ycombinator alum
London
Joined April 2010
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It's time to pull the beaver lever.
Now Yorkshire brings back beavers to help reduce flooding. The return of native beavers - after an absence of centuries - is one of the most exciting things happening in conservation (and flood and drought mitigation) in Britain today: theguardian.com/environment/…
🎯
Why is the City Bridge Foundation funding “social justice” instead of fixing all of London’s bridges?
The charity was set up in 1282. Today, it’s worth almost *£1.5 billion*.
Yet… London’s bridges are falling apart.
Why?
The Foundation’s rules only require it to maintain 5 bridges. Funds can also be spent on “other charitable purposes” for the benefit of Londoners.
So what are some of these “other charitable purposes”?
👉 A “poet-in-residence”.
👉 Trans and sex worker sector capacity.
👉 A historian examining connections to the slave trade (they found links were “limited”).
👉 “Systems change”, islamic charities, migration support, climate crisis research… and a group campaigning against a new river crossing.
ENOUGH. Governments have failed to fix London’s bridges and one of our oldest institutions has not been directed to step in.
The City of London Corporation is the sole trustee of the Foundation. They have changed the rules before. The rules must change AGAIN to make all of our bridges the priority.
Change the rules. Fix the bridges.
Our research in The Times 👇
Deep down, I love Caroline – she is a throwback to the Green Party as a voice on climate.
But her views have not moved with the time.
UK climate 'leadership' is a delusion.
No-one is following a country whose policies have lumbered it w the highest elec prices in the world.
Government support for drilling at #Jackdaw takes a wrecking ball to any pretence of UK climate leadership & pours fuel on an overheating world - and for what? It’s equivalent to just 2 months of UK gas demand, creates just 27 direct jobs & has *no* impact on energy bills🧵1/4
It *could* mean cheaper bills...
... IF North Sea tax revenue is put towards bill support for all, as per @lfg_uk Emergency Energy Bill.
It must not be squandered on dubious projects / backhanded to certain voters.
North Sea reserves belong to us all
They must benefit us all.
‘Will this mean cheaper energy bills?’
‘No.’
@NickFerrariLBC quizzes @Miatsf about the government’s controversial decision to approve drilling in the Jackdaw North Sea gas field.
A win for LFG and our Emergency Energy Bill.
We campaigned hard for new licenses.
Britain is in dire economic straits and a cash-strapped populace will no longer accept virtue-signalling.
New tax revenue must fund bill support + the energy transition
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvze…
We can do... *both* 💡
The Norwegian Model.
Insulating Britain’s homes and investing in heat pumps would do more to cut the cost of living, create jobs and boost the UK’s economy than drilling for new oil @e3g
theguardian.com/environment/…
GB has a rigid grid, used to a simple movements of energy.
It must now adapt to intermittent wind, wobbly interconnectors, wild swings in demand.
Overall, it's very much like watching one's grandfather forced to ice skate.
Disaster feels imminent.
Reliable is power essential.
Yesterday, @neso_energy spent a record *£50m* in grid balancing costs….to keep the lights on.
In one day. A warm, sunny day.
This is unsustainable. What is going on at NESO? Why are their models so wrong?
A barmy PR fightback is underway from energy generators.
They are trying to defend the huge payments they receive due to Britain's mental curtailment problem.
Yday we turned off 11GW of wind in a single half hour - that's equivalent to THREE Hinkley Point Cs!
🧵
The argument from energy groups who are raking in curtailment cash?
"Most of this money doesn't go to the offshore wind farms being paid to turn off up north... most goes to gas plants that have to be turned on down south."
Key fact: they are often owned by the SAME COMPANY.
High gas prices are a double-edged sword.
They inflate energy costs for countries that rely on gas, like Britain.
They should also boost tax revenue for countries that PRODUCE gas… like Britain.
But only if you drill it 🤦♂️
We need new North Sea licenses approved, yesterday.
Will Hodson retweeted
We pay more than £200 million to this organisation to make our lives worse.
They have blocked homes, kite festivals, put millions onto the cost of our infrastructure, and found loopholes in laws to block new homes & make life even harder for young people.
We are talking about "Natural" England.
They are completely unelected and completely unaccountable
We’ve prepared some of their most rational moments for you to enjoy.
1️⃣ Made Hinkley Point C even more expensive by forcing a £700 MILLION "fish disco". This will save... one salmon... every decade.
➡️ If we don't have secure energy, Britain is at risk of blackouts.
2️⃣ Blocked a kite festival for charity because some grass might need to be mowed. The event had to be shut down after more than 30 years.
➡️ The only other government organisation to ban kite flying… The Taliban.
3️⃣ Shut down a paintballing centre because of "ground compaction". In other words, people walked on the land.
➡️ This was so despicable that Natural England deemed it acceptable to take this family-run business to court. The owners have spent more than £50,000 on their legal defence.
4️⃣ Designated part of the M25 as an "area of outstanding natural beauty".
➡️ Natural England has the power to designate land as an area of outstanding natural beauty. They’ve chosen the M25. Maybe the yellow emergency area looks stunning in summer.
5️⃣ Found loopholes to laws passed by our democratically elected government.
➡️ New planning rules mean that houses within 500 metres of a train station are more likely to be approved. So Natural England is designating areas just outside train stations as of "outstanding" natural beauty. No homes can be built here.
6️⃣ Blocked 27,000 jobs at a London theme park to protect… spiders.
➡️ Plans included what would have been the largest indoor water park in Europe.
We could continue.
Natural England is a very odd organisation, but one thing is clear. We do not need to deal with this. The Government can and must ABOLISH them. It has gone on for too long.
NO more Natural England.
Now, we need your help. Write to your local MP and tell them to ABOLISH NATURAL ENGLAND ⬇️
This is why we can’t get anything done.
The average age a young person buys their first home is 34.
Natural England is blocking new homes from being built NEXT to a train station.
Every 30 minutes a train leaves for Central London in Woldingham.
You might be thinking “don’t new planning rules allow housebuilding within 500 metres of a train station?”
You are *supposed* to be correct.
But… Natural England hates giving young people a shot in life.
So, they’ve come up with a loophole.
They are now designating areas outside train stations as having “outstanding natural beauty"
Now NO homes can be built here.
We could abolish Natural England tomorrow and be done with this for GOOD.
So, do you agree?
A 20% price rise in January will push people to the brink.
Having removed VAT from bills, I would expect the Government to remove levies too.
It'll look like a sinking hot air balloon throwing anything unnecessary out of the basket.
The news over the weekend is cementing the liklihood of around 20% or bigger rises in the energy Price Cap in January.
The graph shows UK natural gas prices (which strongly feeds into to our elec price too) peaking again over the latest salvos in the Middle East and Ukraine conflicts.
The dotted line and shaded area I've added into this Trading Economics graph show the assessment period for the Jan Cap (19 Aug to 17 nov). It's averaged over that period, so we're now over half way through, and each high day bakes the average in higher.
Miatta underestimates our children and grandchildren.
When we look them in the eyes and say "Grandma and Grandpa did everything they could to reach Net Zero 🥹.."
They may well say:
"But Britain accounted for 1% of global emissions – why did you sacrifice our economic future?"
Our children and grandchildren will not forgive us if we don’t tackle the climate crisis.
It’s the right choice for the economy and for the people and places we love.
Watch my full response on @bbcquestiontime 🔽
bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00328g…
Energy bills are coming down...
... for Labour voters.
🚨 NEW: John Healey is set to cut energy bills for households on certain benefits at the Budget
[@guardian]
To ensure a decent level of living for all, we have welfare payments 💸
To make energy affordable, we have energy policy ⚡️
Merging the two is lazy claptrap 💸⚡️👏🫶
@lfg_uk produced an Emergency Energy Bill whose impact would cut prices for everyone.
Get THAT in the budget.
🚨 NEW: John Healey is set to cut energy bills for households on certain benefits at the Budget
[@guardian]
Will Hodson retweeted
For over a year, LFG has DEMANDED that Britain leaves the Aarhus Convention.
Why?
It makes the British people PAY for delays to projects that would benefit them.
This must end.
Great to see this commitment from Katie Lam.
The Government must follow.
Only RADICAL ACTION will rescue Britain.
For anyone interested in the UK's energy conundra, @watt_direction's research is the first thing you read.
Nuclear could be the cheap, clean, firm power Britain so badly wants.
But it'll take many iterations to get it right.
We have to control costs and Ed's paper shows how.
Ten years ago, there is no way the British Gas CEO could have sported a moustache this dastardly.
There would have been calls for a public enquiry.
Back then, before the energy price cap, energy suppliers were the final boss bad guys of Rip Off Britain.
They had long overcharged their most loyal customers and the price cap was introduced to make that impossible.
Fast forward to 2026.
Even with a price cap, energy prices are out of control.
And nobody's blaming energy suppliers anymore.
As it turns out, the big problem was always upstream, in policy:
The UK had neglected to shift its reliance on baseload gas, resiling from nuclear.
It was overpaying for intermittent energy while underinvesting in the infrastructure we needed to use it.
But the public barely noticed amid the Punch and Judy show, as politicians merrily clarted energy bosses round the head in public.
This vilification of suppliers (not without merit) concealed the strategic blunders of government for too long.
Well no more. All eyes are on DESNZ now, however absurd the facial foliage of our energy bosses.
Only good government can lower the nation's bills.
Beware Britwashing
🇬🇧👏 🇬🇧🙇 🇬🇧🫡 🇬🇧🥰
Just because an idea is branded 'Great British', doesn't mean it's any good. And it may well be a gimmick.
Consider the 'Great British Grid', announced today.
The problem it addresses is real: energy projects which could reduce bills are not being connected to the grid fast enough.
But is the only solution a publicly-funded connection player?
Of course not.
We should start with the fundamentals.
1. Overhaul the planning laws that obstruct construction. We have to balance the interests of small communities that host infrastructure with the vast population that desperately needs it.
2. Challenge energy companies to bid at auction for their connection. At present, National Grid doesn't really care what it connects, and has no clear instruction to lower bills. Auctions would generate revenue from big demand projects (data centres) as well as lowering bills with big generation projects.
3. Ensure we have the supply chain to actually build the grid as required. We need transformers, we need steel... and our industrial strategy has abandoned them.
Simplicity is key.
Sound basics are essential.
Further layers of government intervention may be unnecessary.
