Its all about power. Bit like rugby. But more… electrical. Because it seems that whoever rules the power supply rules the whole fucking world. And not just rules it, but can supply it, consistently and, if possible, cheaply.

The world is a massive consumer of power, I get that. I would say I had a ‘lightbulb moment’ but I simply can’t afford it in today’s post-April, no-government help, hyper-inflated electricity prices. So instead, I just had ‘a moment’.

A.I. is the future, right? You want to do your ‘personal statement’ to apply for uni? You want to improve your cv? You need to send a letter? Chatgpt will do it for you. Better than you ever could. In 92 seconds. Barely needs an edit. And I read yesterday that if you get that AI system to write you 5,000 words on anything, that uses enough electricity to power a microwave for an hour. Your broccoli would be cooked before AI has written “Dear Sir…” . AI is massively consumptive. That’s the point.

Not as consumptive as those who ‘mine’ for Bitcoin. A little dig around that area uses sufficient energy to power a city for a week.

And then there’s our steel industry. What’s left of it. Because we use blast furnaces whereas those pesky Chinese use electric ark ones, which are much cheaper to run and more energy efficient. But even if we get the ark furnaces here, as we will in Port Talbot, they run on electricity and we pay… shitloads more for it than the Chinese do.

So the answer to all the questions is: power. Preferably cheap power. And, obviously, to appease the Gretas, renewable power. Green power. Like in Wales. Massive wind farms out there; brilliant. They’re building a series of fucking great pylons across the beautiful, virgin countryside, to shift that power to a storage station. And the Welsh don’t like it one bit. ‘Dig the cables underground!’, they yell, in Welsh. But that costs 5 times what pylons do.

Build nuclear. It’s clean, cheap, easy. But has a bad rep. Solar panels, they look nice, but across 4 acres of farmland, not so nice, especially if the farmland was yours and was compulsory purchased.

Here’s the killer irony. Yes IRONY. We need to make steel at a competitive price to China. So we need cheap power. The power companies here are all owned, in part, by Chinese finance. The wind farms use Chinese parts. The solar panels are all made from Chinese components. To reduce the cost of these items we have to implore the Chinese to use younger children in their production. You only have to pay an 8 year old about a third what they currently pay 12 year olds.

Because as we move forwards, power demand increases exponentially.

Essentially, we’re either fucked, or we just accept the reality and all learn Mandarin.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx