Politicians’ promises to go clean and green with net zero carbon emissions in the future conceal a dirty secret today — it’s called coal. Although most of us stopped burning the black stuff decades ago, the British government still relies on it to keep us warm.
Grant Shapps, the new energy security and net zero secretary appointed on Tuesday, tried to grab some good publicity by telling electricity companies that they must say how they will compensate people whose homes they wrongly fitted with prepayment meters. However, on the very same day, National Grid (stock market ticker: NG) quietly ordered two coal-fired electricity generators to warm up as part of “winter contingency plans”.
Coal is the dirtiest form of fuel because it produces more