Over the weekend the Liberal Democrats published a new policy paper on how they envisage the energy market developing the next time they are in government. The document gives the impression of having been put together by a spotty teenager and perhaps one with mild learning difficulties. It is at once scary, laughable, naive, daft and soft in the head.
From it, we learn that Liberal Democrats intend all kettles and cookers to come with two sets of heating elements:
Households can maximise the use of electricity by prioritising flexible, or semi-flexible, electricity demands according to urgency or by enabling non-time-sensitive equipment to switch on when power is available. High energy using appliances like cookers and kettles can be designed with two levels of heating elements to select, based on the best match to the power available.
There is also a demand that homes should be built to minimise the need for airconditioning.
In future, erratic weather may reduce the need for winter heating but should temperatures rise, there is an increased risk that the need for air conditioning will lead to a significant rise in summer energy use. Liberal Democrats would...Amend the Code for Sustainable Homes, BREEAM and other relevant standards to ensurethat new buildings are designed to minimise any need for air conditioning.
In truth, I've picked these last two examples almost at random. The whole paper is full of similarly fatuous thinking, a hodgepodge of buzzwords and hypothetical technological innovations flung together by people who would clearly struggle to run a whelk stall. There is not even the hint of an attempt to cost any of the policy proposals made, or to demonstrate that they represent a cost-effective solution to the purported problem of global warming. It's as though the Liberal Democrat team got round a table and googled frantically until they had a document of sufficient length to justify their existence.