Re-energizing!

The appointment of the new government sees the return of Ed Miliband, who last held the energy brief in 2010. Then Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, now Energy Security and Net Zero, Miliband has made climate and energy, the beginning, midden and end fs his political narrative. This week we learned a little more about the new government’s plans, but not much.

It is a shame that Miliband didn’t spend the last 14 years reading this week’s podcast guest. In 2009 Professor James Woudhuysen and Joe Kaplinsky’s Energise! was published — which argues for a radical re-think of energy…

“…consuming more energy isn’t a problem if the right kind of supply can be arranged. With the right supply, climate won’t run out of control. But so long as the state’s ineffective, moralistic policy on energy is left unchallenged, it’s the state’s interventions in our everyday lives that look set to run out of control.”

We caught up with James for some of his reflections on the book, and how well it has stood up over the fifteen years that have passed.