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Britain's New Gas Strategy Includes Up To 40 New Gas Power Plants

George Osborne Gives Green Light For Shale Revolution



George Osborne, the UK Chancellor, today confirmed the UK will give chase to a US-style shale gas boom by consulting on what tax incentives to give the controversial fuel source and creating its own department, a new Office for Unconventional Gas. The move will give certainty to developers in the UK including Cuadrilla Resources whose CEO recently suggested they would not wait forever to invest in the UK. However it is sure to be a bitter blow for environmental campaigners opposed to “fracking”. --Vicky Ellis, Energy Live News, 5 December 2012
Today we publish our Gas Strategy to ensure we make the best use of lower cost gas power, including new sources of gas under the land. We are consulting on new tax incentives for shale gas and announcing the creation of a single Office for Unconventional Gas so that regulation is safe but simple. We don’t want British families and businesses to be left behind as gas prices tumble on the other side of the Atlantic --George Osborne, House of Commons, 5 December 2012 As part of today’s Autumn Statement, George Osborne is expected to approve the building of 30 gas-fired power stations, simplify the regulatory process for fracking and provide tax breaks for shale gas production in Lancashire as early as next year. This is good news for Lancashire, for the British economy, for manufacturing firms and for the global environment. To do anything else would risk economic self-harm. Cheap energy is the surest way to encourage economic growth. It was cheap coal that fuelled the Industrial Revolution, enabling British workers with steam-driven machinery to be far more productive than their competitors in Asia and Europe in the 19th century. The discovery, 12 years ago, of how to use pressurised water to crack shale and release gas has now unleashed an energy revolution almost as far-reaching as the harnessing of Newcastle’s coal. --Matt Ridley, The Daily Telegraph, 5 December 2012

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The Treasury has set out plans for gas up to 2030 that include building 40 new plants, equivalent 37GW or around half the UK's entire current electricity generating capacity. But without an extraordinary technical innovation in gas, this would mean the UK breaks its own climate change target that aims to half emissions by 2025. –Louise Gray, The Daily Telegraph, 5 December 2012 Fundamental ideological disagreements within the government about renewable energy have turned away droves of potential investors in crucial new green electricity generators, according to damning new research. Alarming new research shows that investment in essential industrial-scale wind, water, solar, biomass and nuclear power projects has more than halved in the past three years, in the face of government indecision over its green energy policy. --Tom Bawden, The Independent, 4 December 2012 Britain yesterday pledged almost £2 billion in “climate aid” to help finance foreign projects including wind turbines in Africa and greener cattle farming in Colombia. The disclosure is sure to provoke anger among hard-pressed families. Conservative MPs were furious last night at the scale of the bill, which was unveiled as George Osborne prepares to announce a series of tax rises and spending cuts in today’s Autumn Statement. Lord Lawson of Blaby, a former Chancellor, also criticised the “appalling waste of money” at a time when household budgets are already squeezed. Senior Conservatives were also dismayed at the timing of the announcement, but Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, hailed the cash as “fantastic news”. --Rowena Mason and Louise Gray, The Daily Telegraph, 5 December 2012 Charles Dickens must be turning in his grave. We have a government that tells struggling families here at home to buck up and shell out to build wind farms in the developing world. Fanatical, self-righteous, and bent on evangelisation, the green religion stalks the land. Its priests preach apocalyptic visions of a future so bleak that ordinary mortals fear for our lives – even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Now, the green lobby want to spread the word to the Third World. Yes, let there be wind turbines across Africa, and low carbon farming across Colombia! And let it all happen with the British taxpayer footing the bill – to the tune of £2 billion! --Cristina Odone,The Daily Telegraph, 5 December 2012 In a report released Thursday at the United Nations pop culture summit in Finland, a consortium of leading entertainment scientists confirmed that the year 2012 has witnessed the hottest celebrities in recorded history. “We are seeing an unmistakable pattern: Celebrities across the world are extremely hot, and they are only getting hotter,” said U.N. entertainment agency director Michael Carver, who confirmed that 2012’s celebrities were more gorgeous and charming than those in any year since data on hotness was first collected in 1955. “The chance that natural variability produced such an unprecedented slew of good-looking superstars is vanishingly small.” Citing “overwhelming evidence,” the scientists went on to suggest that the present rate of increase in celebrity hotness was unsustainable, and urged leaders to pursue alternative entertainment sources in an effort to curb it. --The Onion, 30 November 2012


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