首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Do Britain’s Energy Firms Serve the Public Interest? [A] Capitalism is the best and worst of systems. Left to itself, it will em
Do Britain’s Energy Firms Serve the Public Interest? [A] Capitalism is the best and worst of systems. Left to itself, it will em
admin
2017-12-07
84
问题
Do Britain’s Energy Firms Serve the Public Interest?
[A] Capitalism is the best and worst of systems. Left to itself, it will embrace the new and uncompromisingly follow the logic of prices and profit, a revolutionary accelerator for necessary change. But it can only ever react to today’s prices, which cannot capture what will happen tomorrow. So, left to itself, capitalism will neglect both the future and the cohesion of the society in which it trades.
[B] What we know, especially after the financial crisis of 2008, is that we can’t leave capitalism to itself. If we want it to work at its best, combining its doctrines with public and social objectives, there is no alternative but to design the markets in which it operates. We also need to try to add in wider obligations than the simple pursuit of economic logic. Otherwise, there lies disaster.
[C] If this is now obvious in banking, it has just become so in energy. Since 2004, consumers’ energy bills have nearly tripled, far more than the rise in energy prices. The energy companies demand returns nearly double those in mass retailing. This would be problematic at any time, but when wages in real terms have fallen by some 10% in five years it constitutes a crisis. John Major, pointing to the mass of citizens who now face a choice between eating or being warm—as he made the case for a high profits tax on energy companies—drove home the social reality. The energy market, as it currently operates, is maladaptive and illegitimate. There has to be changed.
[D] The design of this market is now universally recognised as wrong, universally, that is, excepting the regulator and the government. The energy companies are able to disguise their cost structures because there is no general pool into which they are required to sell their energy—instead opaquely striking complex internal deals between their generating and supply arms. Yet this is an industry where production and consumption is 24/7 and whose production logic requires such energy pooling. The sector has informally agreed, without regulatory challenge, that it should seek a supply margin of 5%—twice that of retailing.
[E] On top the industry also requires long-term price guarantees for investment in renewables and nuclear without any comparable return in lowering its target cost of capital. The national grid, similarly privately owned, balances its profit maximising aims with a need to ensure security of supply. And every commitment to decarbonise British energy supply by 2030 is passed on to the consumer, rich and poor alike, whatever their capacity to pay. It will also lead to negligible new investment unless backed by government guarantees and subsidies. It could scarcely be worse—and with so much energy capacity closing in the next two years constitutes a first-order national crisis.
[F] The general direction of reform is clear. Energy companies should be required to sell their electricity into a pool whose price would become the base price for retail. This would remove the ability to mask the relationship between costs and prices: retail prices would fall as well as rise clearly and unambiguously as pool prices changed.
[G] The grid, which delivers electricity and gas into our homes and is the guarantor that the lights won’t go out, must be in public ownership, as is Network Rail in the rail industry. It should also be connected to a pan-European grid for additional security. Green commitments, or decisions to support developing renewables, should be paid out of general taxation to take the poll tax element out of energy bills, with the rich paying more than the poor for the public good. Because returns on investment take decades in the energy industry, despite what free market fundamentalists argue, the state has to assume financial responsibility of energy investment as it is doing with nuclear and renewables.
[H] The British energy industry has gone from nationalisation to privatisation and back to government control in the space of 25 years. Although the energy industry is nominally in private hands, we have exactly the same approach of government picking winners and dictating investment plans that was followed with disastrous consequences from the Second World War to the mid 1980s. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the consumer got unfair treatment because long-term investment plans and contracts promoted by the government required electricity companies to use expensive local coal.
[I] The energy industry is, once again, controlled by the state. The same underlying drivers dictate policy in the new world of state control. It is not rational economic thinking and public-interested civil servants that determine policy, but interest groups. Going back 30 years, it was the coal industry—both management and unions—and the nuclear industry that dictated policy. Tony Benn said he had "never known such a well-organised scientific, industrial and technical lobby". Today, it is green pressure groups, EU parliamentarians and commissioners and, often, the energy industry itself that are loading burdens on to consumers. When the state controls the energy industry, whether through the back or the front door, it is vested interests (既得利益) that get their way and the consumer who pays.
[J] So how did we get to where we are today? In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the industry was entirely privatised. It was recognised that there were natural monopoly elements and so prices in these areas were regulated. At the same time, the regulator was given a duty to promote competition. From 1998, all domestic energy consumers could switch supplier for the first time and then wholesale markets were liberalised, allowing energy companies to source the cheapest forms of energy. Arguably, this was the high water mark of the liberalisation of the industry.
[K] Privatisation was a great success. Instead of investment policy being dictated by the impulses of government and interest groups, it became dictated by long-term commercial considerations. Sadly, the era of liberalised markets, rising efficiency and lower bills did not last long. Both the recent Labour governments and the coalition have pursued similar policies of intervention after intervention to send the energy industry almost back to where it started.
[L] One issue that unites left and many on the paternalist right is that of energy security. We certainly need government intervention to keep the lights on and ensure that we are not over-dependent on energy from unstable countries. But it should also be noted that there is nothing more insecure than energy arising from a policy determined by vested interests without any concern for commercial considerations. Energy security will not be achieved by requiring energy companies to invest in expensive sources of supply and by making past investments redundant through regulation. It will also not be achieved by making the investment environment even more uncertain. Several companies all seeking the cheapest supplies from diverse sources will best serve the interests of energy security.
[M] The UK once had an inefficient and expensive energy industry. After privatisation, costs fell as the industry served the consumer rather than the mining unions and pro-nuclear interests. Today, after a decade or more of increasing state control, we have an industry that serves vested interests rather than the consumer interest once again. Electricity prices before taxes are now 15% higher than the average of major developed nations. Electricity could be around 50% cheaper without government interventions. We must liberalise again and not complete the circle by returning to nationalisation.
The British energy industry switched between nationalisation and privatisation for over two decades.
选项
答案
H
解析
根据关键词nationalisation和privatisation锁定H段。H段第1句说英国的能源工业在过去的25年里从国有化变为私有化,最后又回到政府控制中。题目中的switched between…与原文中has gone from…to…and back to…对应,for over two decades对应原文中in the space of 25 years。本题句子是对H段第1句的同义转述。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/9ZU7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteashortessayentitledOnUniversityAutonomousEnrollment.Youshouldwrite
FeedingtheMassesaLoadofManureTheGreenRevolutionMyth,NormanBorlaug,andWorldHunger[A]Mostpeopledon’tkno
Webuybooks,andthentheywaitforustoreadthemDays,months,evenyears.Booksare【C1】______That’sOKforbooks,butnotf
Peoplewantactiononnoise,arecentpublicmeetinginBrisbaneshowed.Somewanttechnicalimprovementssuchasquieterairco
MarieCuriewasthefirstfemaleprofessoratSevres,acollegeforgirlswhowantedtoteachhighereducation.Thesetwenty-yea
A、DianaandScott.B、TheWomanandDavid.C、TheWomanandScott.D、DianaandDavid.C推理题。题目是问谁将是婚礼上的伴娘和伴郎。对话一开始女士称呼男士为Scott,由此可知
A、Theschoolswanttomaintaintheordersoftheclass.B、Theschoolswanttoreducestudents’studypressure.C、Thepoliceare
A、Becausetheywantedtobeclosertothegovernment.B、BecauseTokyowasthehistoricalcommercialcapital.C、Becausethepopul
A、All-arounddevelopment.B、Creativityforthefuture.C、Basicsocialskills.D、Academiccapability.D演讲者提到现在我们的教育体制建立在学术能力的概念上,
A、Thecostofmakingpaper.B、Largemachinesandpaper-making.C、Thedevelopmentofpaper-making.D、Howtomakepaperbyhandto
随机试题
2006年3月20日,上海的甲公司与北京的乙公司签订了一份买卖合同,约定:甲公司向乙公司购买1000吨化工原料,总价款为200万元;乙公司在合同签订后1个月内交货,甲公司在验货后7日内付款。双方没有明确约定履行地点。合同签订后,甲公司以其办公用房作抵押向丙
Jameswroteaplay【31】television,aboutanimmigrantfamilywhocametoEnglandfromPakistan,andtheproblemstheyhadinEngl
A.血性B.乳糜性C.渗出液D.漏出性肝硬化自发性腹膜炎腹水
下列有关骨折的叙述正确的是
急性感染性多发性神经炎患者脑脊液的蛋白一细胞分离现象是指
进行普通混凝土立方体抗压强度测定时,其受压面应垂直于成型抹平面。()
作为工程预付款的抵扣方式之一,业主可以从未施35/12程尚需的主要材料及构件的价值()工程预付款数额时开始起扣。
TPO原则是人们着装的总原则,其中“T”是指()。
2014年1月3日,中国在南极建设的“泰山站”完成主体结构封顶。2月8日上午11点国家海洋局宣布,中国南极泰山站正式建成开站,“泰山站"是中国在南极建设的第________个南极科学考察站。
Americanthisyearwillswallow15,000tonsdrugsofaspirin,oneofsafestandmosteffectiveinventedbyman.【M1】______
最新回复
(
0
)