For anyone attracted to unintended consequences, contrary results, unexpected or perverse outcomes and counterintuitive conclusions, energy policy is the place to study.

All round the world, governments are finding that moves in one direction — for example toward energy reliability, energy affordability and cleaner energy — are having frustratingly opposite results from those intended.

A current case in point is the plan by the United Kingdom to restart and renew its civil nuclear power fleet. This, it is worth noting, goes flatly in the opposite direction to Germany, where they are closing theirs down, along with Austria and Switzerland. It also diverges from France, which in the past had a superb and massive civil nuclear sector but now has doubts about its renewal. On the other hand, it is broadly in line with China, Russia and South Korea and the oil-rich United Arab Emirates. The German decision, taken on green grounds, has incidentally had particularly perverse results — to which we shall come to in a moment.