You could be forgiven for thinking the latest story about Britain’s wobbling energy market is meant to provide yet more ammo for the insurgent forces setting themselves against net zero. The news that we have spent £1bn just to turn off excess wind farm capacity so far this year – and that this number is only going to grow – certainly implies that it’s the wind farms that are in danger of bankrupting UK PLC. Down with this sort of thing.

Actually, though, that £1bn bill stems not from the fact wind power is bad but because it’s too good. According to , “most of the cost comes from paying gas-fired power plants to fire up to cover for wind turbines that have to be turned off because of” – here comes the kicker – “insufficient cabling capacity”. As more wind power has come on stream, more capacity to transport it to actual people hasn’t. That, thanks to Britain’s esoteric energy market, means we’re now paying renewable energy suppliers in rural areas to switch off (so as not to overload the network), and fossil fuels nearer actual people to switch on (because we still need the power). And the more turbines we have, the more that bill will go up. Oops.

These figures come from the Wasted Wind website supported by Octopus Energy, which is currently lobbying the government to end this madness by replacing national energy pricing with a more regional scheme. For those without such skin in the game, though, this mess provides proof of a much simpler thesis: that Britain has lost the ability to build the infrastructure it needs to function.

When you go looking for evidence for this problem, you start seeing it everywhere (or rather, you don’t, because nobody’s built it). The largest, most expensive and highest profile mess is HS2, which as originally conceived would have connected almost every major British city and, by adding capacity and removing bottlenecks, benefited smaller places far off the route, too.

After spiralling costs and repeated cutbacks, alas, it will instead serve mainly to create a third mainline route between London and Birmingham and not a lot else. The reasons for this have more to do with political chaos and over-scoping in a doomed attempt to assuage Nimbys than with the project itself, but nonetheless, this is not a lot to show for a bill of £100bn+. It’s all a little embarrassing for the nation that invented the railways.

That’s just the start. Since the passage of the Leeds Supertram Act in 1993, the largest city in Western Europe without a fixed transport system has laid not an inch of track. (France, in that time, has managed to build 22 different networks.) A third runway at Heathrow was first proposed in 2009. It’s currently slated to open in 2040, and if you believe that timetable won’t slip I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

Talking of bridges, London’s Hammersmith Bridge closed to motor traffic due to structural problems in 2019. The original bridge on the site took three years to build; the current one five. Seven years into this closure, alas, there is still no plan for reopening. Downriver, the Lower Thames Crossing is finally under construction after nearly two decades of planning. The fact it’ll cost around £1bn per mile suggests one reason it took so long to get started. Just talking about it cost over £1bn, too.

Most pressingly of all, Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1991, and attempts to do so have repeatedly got stuck in planning hell. It is just possible this could become a problem.

You don’t have to think every one of these projects is good to see that something has gone wrong. Once upon a time Britain could build the stuff it needed, and the economy grew. Now it can’t, and it doesn’t. It seems unlikely there’s no connection.

And now, when we do build turbines, we don’t build the cables we need and end up paying not to use them. This country is sick.