Britannia Radio

One day the public will be very angry that this was well known and 
the government did absolutely nothing about it for 10 years.  Instead 
they fiddled around with totally useless windfarms which contribute 
no savings at all, and got support from both main opposition parties.

Cameron - stop waffling and attack the government for this betrayal 
instead of cuddling up to Brown [and Zac] over this

xxxxxxxxxxxx cs
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TELEGRAPH   17.9.08
Power cuts warning must be taken seriously
    By David Hughes

Wake-up calls do not come any more strident. Professor Ian Fells of 
Newcastle University, one of the country's foremost experts on energy 
conservation, warns today of a crisis in supply that could see the 
lights going out within a decade. In a disturbing assessment of the 
parlous state of power generation in this country, he says serial 
power cuts could cripple the economy and create mass unemployment.

Alarmist? Far from it. Professor Fells has crunched the numbers and 
exposed the shocking complacency of the Government.

Between now and 2020, 23 gigawatts of generating capacity will be 
lost as old coal and nuclear stations are de-commissioned. Yet Labour 
Ministers spent a decade twiddling their thumbs over energy policy.

Only last year, when our dangerous dependence on energy from either 
potentially hostile (Russia) or unstable (Middle East) sources 
finally registered, did the Government belatedly accept that there 
has to be a new generation of nuclear reactors to meet the shortfall. 
Since then, there has been precious little evidence of any sense of 
urgency in getting that programme under way.

Today's report shows how dangerously negligent this lackadaisical 
approach has been. It also confirms that wind power, on which the 
Government has expended the better part £1 billion a year in 
subsidies [directly passed on to the consumer in electricity bills -
cs], is little more than environmental window dressing. Its 
unreliability – wind is not a constant – means it cannot replace a 
single watt of permanent generating capacity.

One renewable project that could make a difference is the Severn 
Barrage for tidal power is utterly predictable. Professor Fells 
estimates it could be supplying five per cent of the nation's needs 
within a decade. What is the Government doing about it? It's 
commissioned yet another feasibility study.

But the real focus has to be on nuclear and coal. Professor Fells 
says existing power stations must have their lives extended to try to 
bridge the gap. At the same time, a new generation of nuclear 
reactors and clean coal-fired stations that use using carbon capture 
technology must be commissioned – and fast.

Yet as Philip Johnston argued earlier this week we are already 
lagging behind other countries in Europe in developing this 
technology of the future.

The most depressing aspect of this analysis is that it exposes the 
way a country that pioneered nuclear generation and sits on immense 
stockpiles of coal - together they could make us energy self-
sufficient – has, through a lack of political will, left us facing 
the threat of power cuts just a few years from now. Unforgivable.