| Thesis Question: What politico-economic regime would most effectively reconcile the United Kingdom's consumption and generation of electricity with the broad tenets of 'Sustainable Development', whilst still providing reliable and affordable services?;The concept of 'Sustainable Development' increasingly has come both to inform political discourse and to have substantial influence in many areas of commercial activity. Simultaneously, orthodox market theory has spawned the specialised sub discipline of environmental economics to address the central and vexed issue of externalities. The subsequent literature cautions the reader against underestimating the extent to which complexities and uncertainties are inherent in 'monetising' such externalities. Nevertheless, the general impression remains that the "science" of environmental economics adequately operationalises the concept and philosophy of 'Sustainable Development'. With the advent of a technique for bestowing a financial value on the externalities of industrialisation, the characterisation of society as an essentially economic entity is complete.;Questioning the legitimacy of this vision of contemporary economic theory as a neutral scientific arbiter, overseeing, organising and optimising the diverse wealth of human activity forms the analytical core of this study. With specific emphasis on 'Sustainable Development and the Electricity Industry', the analysis scrutinises the theoretical consistency, ethical coherence and practical utility of the alleged market panacea, both in terms of its conventional commercial role and its more recent foray into environmental protection. Contrasting the competitive system with its centrally planned predecessor, the analysis draws parallels between the two systems, arguing that they possess underlying similarities which outweigh their structural differences and which ultimately leave them both ill-equipped to tackle the environmental effects of the electricity industry.;The generalised conclusion of this analysis is that the principal failings of these energy models to embrace the concept of 'Sustainable Development' emanate from their mechanistic and subsequently arrogant theoretical construction. Nowhere is this more evident than in the panacea of competitive free-market theory. As society has become increasingly embedded in the global ecosystem, and its internal structure evermore sophisticated, orthodox economics has endeavoured to keep pace by developing ever more abstract and tendentious adjuncts. By contrast, the analysis here suggests that 'Sustainable Development' can only be addressed adequately through interdisciplinary analysis. Specialist knowledge, whilst an essential prerequisite of effective environmental policy, is not in itself sufficient. An equally important, and all too often neglected component, is the understanding and insight gained from synthesising a breadth of detailed and disparate information from across a range of disciplines. With this in mind, the analysis concludes by outlining ail alternative strategic structure for the electricity industry, in which electricity demand, as well as supply, is an endogenous factor. This alternative model essentially rejects the mechanistic optimisation in preference for an industry that embraces wider environmental and social responsibilities through a more circumspect appreciation of current knowledge and hence a more flexible and responsive policy agenda. |
