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 emb
Do Britain’s Energy Firms Serve the Public Interest? [A]Capitalism is the best and worst of systems. Left to itself, it will emb
admin
2019-09-18
39
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 production logic of energy industry calls for an energy pooling which currently does not exist.
选项
答案
D
解析
根据关键词production logic和energy pooling锁定D段。D段第2句讲到能源公司之所以能够隐瞒其成本结构是因为目前没有一个总的能源汇集库(no general pool)来要求能源公司把能源卖到这里,而倒数第2句说能源行业的生产逻辑又需要(requires)这种能源联营。本题句子信息结合了这两句的内容。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/sjW7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
BackinthecarefreedaysoftheNoughtiesboom,Britain’syoungstersweresweptalongbythebuy-now-pay-latercultureembraced
A、Gettingrichquickly.B、Distinguishingoneself.C、Respectingindividualrights.D、Doingcredittoone’scommunity.B
A、Itistherightthingforworkertodo.B、Itisbadforourhealthbutgoodforourcareer.C、Itisbadforourcareerandfor
A、Ithasnotbeenverysuccessful.B、Ithaslongbecomeanewtrend.C、Ithasmetwithstrongresistance.D、Ithasattractedal
A、Takingnotesbyhandislesseffectivethantypingonlaptoportabletcomputers.B、Takingnotesbyhandismuchbetterforlo
Whilethemissionofpublicschoolshasexpandedbeyondeducationtoincludesocialsupportandextra-curricularactivities,the
FiveMythsaboutCollegeDebt[A]Thetrillion-dollarstudentdebtburdenhascausedmanydebatesaboutthevalueofcollege.
Thehealth-careeconomyisfilledwithunusualandevenuniqueeconomicrelationships.Oneoftheleastunderstoodinvolvesthe
A、HewantsothercountriestounderstandtheU.S.B、Hecallsonsomebigcompaniestocareaboutclimate.C、Hecallsonpeoplei
A、Sheisarrogant.B、Sheisinexperienced.C、SheisconfidentD、Sheisoffensive.C①四个选项都是形容女士的某个特征,在听录音时要特别留意对话双方的语气。②从女士的介绍话语I
随机试题
工人必需消耗的工作时问中,()是指为保证基本工作能顺利完成所消耗的时间。
总结我国多次行政管理机构改革的经验,主要有以下几个方面:
关于依沙吖啶羊膜腔内注射引产叙述错误的是
A.β内酰胺类药品B.某些激素类C.高致敏性药品D.青霉素类药品应当使用专用设施(如独立的空气净化系统和设备)的是()。
某依法必须公开招标的国有资产建设投资项目,采用工程量清单计价方式进行施工招标,业主委托具有相应资质的某咨询企业编制了招标文件和最高投标限价。招标文件部分规定或内容如下:(1)投标有效期自投标人递交投标文件时开始计算。(2)评标方法采用经评审的最低投标
花岗石幕墙饰面板性能应进行复验的指标是()
申请营业部负责人的任职资格,应当由拟任职期货公司向公司住所地的中国证监会派出机构提出申请。()
基金对外提供的会计报表不包括()。
A、B两站之间有一条铁路,甲、乙两列火车分别停在A站和B站,甲火车4分钟走的路程等于乙火车5分钟走的路程,乙火车上午8时整从B站开往A站,开出一段时间后,甲火车从A站出发开往B站,上午9时整两列火车相遇,相遇地点离A、B两站的距离比是15:16,那么,甲火
临界区是______。A.一个缓冲区B.一段程序C.一段共享数据区D.一个互斥资源
最新回复
(
0
)