KPMG Energy Report Is Positively Orwellian

Only a few people, a dozen or so at most, have English language adjectives named after them that are in common parlance: Jeffersonian democracy, Keynesian economics, Dickensian England, etc. While I haven’t done a study on the subject, I would say that the term “Orwellian” is about as common a term formed like this as you’ll find, usually used to describe the self-contradictory doublespeak that lies at the core of the civilization Orwell describes his masterpiece 1984. We recall in horror the mantra “War is peace, slavery is freedom, ignorance is strength.”

In the real world of energy and the environment, we have our own horrific examples, including the oft-cited “Clear Skies Initiative” of the G.W. Bush administration, which aggressively weakened anti-pollution regulations.

Here’s a piece on a recently released KPMG energy report in the UK. The report concludes that wind, which makes up less than 1% of average household fuel bills, is largely responsible for the rise of those bills. It goes on to count only some of the costs associated with nuclear, and suggests that a proliferation of nuclear power would lower prices to consumers.