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Carbon Floor Price Threatens Survival Of UK Manufacturing

Energy Bill: Britain May Soon Have World’s Costliest Energy



The government wants to replace Britain’s decrepit fossil fuel energy system with a shiny new low-carbon one. To guide the £200bn makeover, ministers have cooked up a melange of huge subsidies for low-carbon technologies and penalties for polluters. Supporters call the policy ambitious. A growing chorus of critics call it something else:the world’s most expensive energy policy, which the government is ramming through despite the seismic changes that have occurred since it was conceived. --Danny Fortson, The Sunday Times, 2 June 2013

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Between now and 2020, the CCC estimates, renewable energy developers will receive at least £7.6bn in taxpayer support. EDF, the French atomic energy group locked in talks with the government over two new reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset, is lobbying for tens of billions of pounds of support for that project alone. The Energy Bill would make law a subsidy regime that pays offshore wind developers roughly three times the wholesale power price. Guaranteed payouts for technologies such as biomass would be enshrined. --Danny Fortson, The Sunday Times, 2 June 2013 British manufacturers have accused the Government of failing to shield them from the full weight of its green taxes, leaving them at a disadvantage against European rivals. The complaints come as the final reading of the Energy Bill in Parliament this week risks degenerating into chaos, amid concerns over the security of power supplies and confusion over new tariffs for consumers. Heavy industry such as steelmakers and chemicals companies has been hit by the Government’s Carbon Price Floor tax, under which they are charged £16 per ton of carbon emitted for fuel used for power generation. This price floor will increase every year, to reach £30 per ton by the end of the decade – an average of £1.1 million per company. --Jon Rees, Mail On Sunday, 2 June 2013 When the crisis hits there will be three possible casualties, the government of the day, the consumer, and the investors who have funded the government’s radical energy policy. Whilst no doubt there will be plenty of pain to go around, in our view investors should be under no illusions that the government of the day will seek to protect itself and the consumer (who are also the electorate) by heaping most of the financial pain on to investors. --Peter Atherton and Guillaume Redgwell, Liberum Capital, 1 May 2013 Installations of cavity wall insulation have collapsed under the Green Deal, falling a staggering 97% in April compared to last year, Building can reveal. Figures collected by the Cavity Insulation Guarantee Agency, which monitors installations and guarantees issued, seen by Building, show only 1,138 installations were completed last month, down from 49,650 in April 2012. Sustainability expert and David Strong said the numbers were “absolutely shocking”. --Vern Pitt, Building.co.uk News, 30 May 2013


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