Good luck with that: just like the world economy, energy production can't be flipped on and off like a light switch

The new British PM lifts ban on fracking.

British Prime Minister Liz Truss said Thursday that she is lifting the ban on fracking to help her country reduce exorbitant energy prices.

Truss, who was appointed as the new Conservative Prime Minister on Tuesday, announced in the House of Commons that she will enable oil and gas developers to seek permission from the government to increase domestic fuel supplies as the U.K. looks to combat its energy crisis. Truss said she hopes to get fracking operations started within the next six months and is also approving 100 new exploration licenses for oil and gas drilling in the North Sea. (RELATED: British Pound Hits Lowest Level Against US Dollar In 37 Years)

“We will make sure that the U.K. is a net energy exporter by 2040,” Truss told parliament. “We are supporting this country through this winter and next, and tackling the root causes of high prices so we are never in the same position again.”

Fracking, a process that harvests oil and gas from buried shale rock, was banned in England in 2019 by the Conservative Party due to concerns about the safety of the practice, according to the 2019 Conservative Party Manifesto.

It’s a good start, but as we’ve seen in our own country, one administration’s attempt to return us to a sane energy policy can be overturned and reversed in an instant. I imagine that oil producers are sadly aware of that after Keystone, and won’t be rushing in to sink capital and resources into projects with a possible lifespan of no more than two or three years.

And Truss may be overly optimistic in her hopes to get existing wells restarted within a year; you don’t just shut down a well, cap it and walk away, and then return three years later and pick up where you left off. Germany has sort of the same idea about its nuclear power industry, and just received a bucket of cold water to its face this week:

German nuclear powerplant operator breaks the news to the government: it doesn’t work that way.

PreussenElektra, the operator of Essenbach’s Isar 2 plant, declared in a letter to the German government that Economy Minister Robert Habeck’s Monday proposal to close two nuclear reactors at the end of 2022 while keeping them ready to go online at a moment’s notice to address future electricity shortages was “technically unfeasible,” according to BR24. The operator said that the proposal to quickly restart the nuclear plants to address an energy emergency after shutting them down could be unsafe.

The operator, which is a subsidiary of the German utility company E.ON, also told the Economy Ministry on Tuesday that the state’s national electrical grid stress test determined that the power generated by the three remaining nuclear plants is necessary to help the nation get through winter. Germany is working to stockpile and save fuel to prevent winter shortages as Russia continues to shut off natural gas flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. …

PreussenElektra announced in August that the plant’s power output is not flexible, reported BR24. Such limitations prevent the reactor from starting up again to provide power at such short notice if the plant is shut down at the end of the year per the government’s mandate.

That said, at least Truss is attempting to right the course of her nation; our government is determined to keep us on the path to total destruction, and I wonder why?