Britain ‘Faces Energy Crisis Unless Ministers Abandon Green Policies’

Britain must abandon its bias towards green policies or face an energy crisis, a key parliamentary adviser has warned. Peter Lilley, a member of the Prime Minister's Parliamentary Advisory board, has warned that the UK's hesitance to embrace shale gas comes at great expense to the country. He claims that the green lobby is in control of the Department for Energy, dominates the EU and is institutionalised in Whitehall via the Climate Change Committee. He also accuses them of deploying "scare stories with reckless disregard for the truth" on a scale comparable to the MMR scare. --Amy Willis,The Daily Telegraph, 9 May 2013

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The scandal of official reluctance to develop Britain’s shale gas potential is at last beginning to surface. It may prove to be the dress rehearsal for the ultimate drama — the inexorable collapse of our whole energy strategy. The battle over shale gas is only the prelude to the impending energy crisis if we continue to pursue the government decarbonisation agenda. Greens in and out of government imagine that if shale gas can be kept in the ground or little is recoverable, decarbonising the British economy will be plain sailing. As imported gas becomes ever more expensive, the alternatives will grow cheaper by comparison. –Peter Lilley, The Spectator, 9 May 2013 John Hayes, the former energy minister, has warned a council it is “unsafe” to plan a new wind farm because the Government is about to crackdown on unpopular developments. In his role as energy minister Mr Hayes described wind energy as “a bourgeois Left article of faith” and promised to make sure no more turbines are put up against the will of the local community. --Louise Gray, The Daily Telegraph, 9 May 2013

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In a speech to ministers and tropical forest scientists, Prince Charles said his work on climate change could be "disheartening" but action was needed because the risk of doing nothing was "too great". Politicians must have "the courage to face down a storm of opposition from all sides", he added, describing those who questioned the need to act as "the incorporated society of syndicated sceptics and the International Association of Corporate lobbyists". But Dr Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation sharply criticised the prince. "He doesn't make himself popular by attacking half the British public, who are known to be sceptical." Dr Peiser said the heir to the throne should "have a conversation with his father," who is known to be a sceptic. "It's not about the science," he said. "It's about about the apocalyptic rhetoric that is poisoning the debate." --BBC News, 9 May 2013 Anti-turbine protesters from Scotland last night joined a European-wide action challenging the development of wind farms across 24 countries. In a case brought at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, EPAW (the European Platform Against Windfarms) argues that the extension of the EC’s renewable energy programme violates the Aarhus Convention. The international association, representing 596 groups across the continent, insist that the convention, adopted by the European Union in 2005, has been ignored. The case is expected to extend for at least 12 months. --Mike Wade, The Times, 9 May 2013 The ripples of the North American shale boom continue to spread, as a growing number of European utilities are forced to mothball modern gas-fired power plants that can’t compete with growing imports of cheap coal dislodged from the U.S. Much of this coal is displacing natural gas as a fuel for electricity generation in Europe. In the U.K., for example, the proportion of electricity generated from coal rose to its highest level in 17 years in 2012, while gas fell to a corresponding low. “Companies are struggling to operate gas-fired power plants economically, even in case of modern, state-of-the-art facilities,” said IHS Energy analyst Kash Burchett. --Jan Hromadko, The Wall Street Journal, 8 May 2013 Without much fanfare, the Department of Energy (DOE) recently updated the list of loan guarantee projects on its website. Unlike in 2008, when Barack Obama pledged to create 5 million jobs over 10 years by directing taxpayer funds toward renewable energy projects, there were no press conferences or stump speeches. But the data are nonetheless revealing: for the over $26 billion spent since 2009, DOE Section 1703 and 1705 loan guarantees have created only 2,298 permanent jobs for a cost of over $11.45 million per job. --Institute for Energy Research, 8 May 2013 You probably didn’t know that yet another round of international climate negotiations was going on last week in Germany. Don’t feel bad, we were just as ignorant. Fortunately, you didn’t miss much: The conference in Bonn ended without any commitments. This is what we’ve come to expect, given the international community’s track record at these grand climate talks. With so many moving parts, growing uncertainty in climate modeling, and disagreement about who is most responsible for the problem, these conferences seem destined to fail. These meetings do a fair job as an employment program for a cadre of globe-trotting diplomats—and that’s about where the utility of these summits ends. --Walter Russell Mead, Via Meadia, 8 May 2013

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