Re: Gas Gas Gas : Wed Oct 30, 2013 5:07 pm
JerryChicken wrote:
...of course in the days when power stations were coal fired and UK PLC owned all of the coal mines, and owned all of the rail network to transport the coal, and owned all of the power stations to generate the electricity, and owned all of the grid to distribute the electricity, and owned all of the gas fields or coal gas producers, and owned all of the network of gas distrubution...
...then any such costs were just overheads and profit was not a primary motivator in distributing energy.
...then any such costs were just overheads and profit was not a primary motivator in distributing energy.
Yes, but all that still had to be paid for, so it doesn't really answer the question of whether the underlying per unit cost was relatively cheaper or relatively more expensive, whether it was genuinely more cost efficient. Whether we pay for energy through a retail bill or through taxation, or via some combination, we still have to pay, and the costs can be fiddled in all sorts of way to make x or y or z superficially cheaper, so what matters is the underlying unit cost after the smoke and mirrors are removed.