| If the UK is the David faced with two Goliaths in the form of the US and EU's green reforms, as the Readout said yesterday, then today we got the slingshot. Well, not the only "slingshot" — since the Chancellor took to the pages of The Times this morning to say more details on energy security would be coming in the Autumn Statement. It was an odd start to a rather messy day, as Bloomberg's Todd Gillespie captures in this piece. The subsidies announced in the government's 1,000 page new energy security strategy did not include the power station in the north of England owned by Drax — a company hanging on the government's every word waiting for a guarantee of support for its particular model of carbon capture and storage. The stock plunged 12%. By lunchtime the government had to clarify Drax would receive help after all, shooting its share price back up.  Cooling towers at Drax Power Station Photographer: Ian Forsyth/Bloomberg It goes to the heart of the rather dogmatic difficulty the government finds itself in. Jeremy Hunt's Times piece saw forthright language on the US Inflation Reduction Act: "We're not going to go toe-to-toe with our friends and allies in some distortive global subsidy race." This bullishness comes from an apparent conviction the US is going to cut them in on a number of the Inflation Reduction Act subsidies currently favoring US manufacturers. But Drax is evidence that companies around the UK need intelligent support from their government — call it contract for difference or call it subsidy. Other than this, the main energy security strategy — called Powering Up Britain — was pretty familiar. Not much new money and mostly expediting existing ideas rather than seismically new elements. Former COP26 President Alok Sharma spoke for many when he said there was "no big bazooka." Opposition parties said it was a "rehash." Non-partisan experts I know think this plan will end up challenged in the courts too. To be fair, it is important to clear the way for existing policy programs to work better — electric vehicles got the mandate which will require manufacturers to ratchet up EV production; the financial support for heat pumps will be extended and so on. It's also important to crack on with long-talked-about policy ambitions like £240 million for green hydrogen technology; or small nuclear reactors getting some oomph with the appointment of executives to Great British Nuclear. But the funding question still looms as Bloomberg's Will Mathis and Ellen Milligan write: "However, it's unclear how [GBN] will solve the most vexing problem for nuclear power in the UK, finding the billions of pounds needed up-front to build new plants." The newer developments were speeding up the planning process for renewables. This came alongside more cash for home energy efficiency. Bloomberg's team report that for the various different sectors, this may not be enough: "The details may disappoint both the renewable power industry and the fossil-fuel one — and environmental groups said it falls well short of what's needed to achieve the UK's ambition of eliminating carbon emissions by 2050. While permitting reform is a key ask for green energy developers, there's little by way of fresh funding and no sign that the government will budge on the terms or budget for an upcoming auction round to support new wind farms."
Some campaigners' fury was targeted at the government's £20 billion over 20 years for carbon capture. They worry it's business as usual for oil and gas companies. The projects selected for carbon capture include two projects under development from BP — one is Net Zero Teesside Power and another H2Teesside: "Both projects in the northeast will rely on offshore transportation and a storage network that would be operated by BP." Now, many will look to the Autumn. The Tories have a point when they say they can't match the multibillion US spending, but they also should make sure they aren't giving themselves a pass on the smaller, but no less transformative, double digit billions that a muscular energy transition is going to require. Major business, finance and tech centers like Manchester, Bristol and London continue to see a rise in work-from home jobs. In Edinburgh, nearly 30% of ads allow for flexible-working arrangements — a record. But, as Irina Anghel reports, post-industrial parts of the UK are being left behind in the boom of remote-work opportunities sweeping British cities. The portion of remote-friendly vacancies in post-industrial or tourism-oriented towns such as Doncaster or Hull didn't reach 20% at any point since 2019, and has recently slipped to nearly single digits. | 
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