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The State of Britain by Richard Lyon

Checking the arithmetic behind Britain's energy bet — and the political economy around it. Physics first, tribe never.

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The Week in Energy — 15 August 2026

The week the state found three new places to put the price of its energy policy — and none of them is a cut.

Doing your bit in the dark

The moon is now a load-management event.

The Week in Energy — 8 August 2026

The week ‘consumer-led flexibility’ came to mean a licence to switch your appliances off.

Flying Blind

Britain’s 2050 electricity system has been modelled, costed and legislated around. Nobody has tested whether it runs. It doesn't.

The Week in Energy — 25 July 2026

£45 off your bill. Nothing off the cost. — A VAT cut that moves money from your bill to your taxes, a storage programme still 'being demonstrated', and a flexibility case DESNZ admits it can't price.

Who Investigates the Investigators?

On 23 June, the grid ran hotter than any official statement has admitted. The body now investigating itself is the one that ran it.

The £92 Billion Scheme Nobody Remembers

Part three of a weekly series taking the UK’s energy subsidies apart, one scheme at a time, using the Subsidy Clock. This week: the Renewables Obligation — the biggest bill of all.

‘Cheaper Than Gas’, Until You Build It

Part two of a weekly series taking the UK’s energy subsidies apart, one scheme at a time, using the Subsidy Clock. This week: Contracts for Difference.

The end of "studies show"

I've built a deterministic simulator of the British electricity system. It replays the last forty years of real weather, half-hour by half-hour, against any grid you care to describe.

Why Britain Switches Off Its Wind Farms

Part one of a weekly series taking the UK's energy subsidies apart, one scheme at a time, using the Subsidy Clock. We begin with the strangest of them: the money we pay wind farms to stop generating.