UK Energy plc is not in the best of hands. Quite honestly, the Muppets could have come up with a more coherent script than that contained in the coalition’s new energy bill.
With investor interest in developing North Sea oil and gas fields running at an all-time high, and parts of the UK onshore and offshore sitting on potentially world class shale gas reserves, it beggars belief that David Cameron’s coalition partners could end up presenting UK energy as a bad news story.
Somehow they managed it.
Faced with a choice of looking across the English Channel to Europe or across the Atlantic to the United States to see how best energy is ‘done’, the new UK draft energy bill has ‘sponsored by Brussels’ stamped all over it. In short, the bill prioritises nuclear power and renewables overlooking what actually drives the economy (and will for decades): fossil fuels, especially shale gas. While nuclear is important in the mix, the UK would benefit greatly by extending the life of existing power stations – were it not for the pointless obsession of meeting EU emission targets. And, in electricity generation terms, wind and solar are just ‘kids’ stuff’: overly-expensive kids’ stuff at that.
Welllll, France isn’t doing to bad with nuclear. Still in the lowest electricity prices worldwide.