Don't worry, the windmills will save the day. If there is a case for registration of the population, it should be to identify those that voted green for the purposes of power rationing when the rolling powercuts come about, these folk will of course be in the forefront of those volunteering to have their power switched off.

I am sure Polly will be at the head of the queue.

Basicly the only other option is building large numbers of coal powered generators. Coal is not in short supply, as gas is. Windmills etc are a non-starter on grounds not only that they cost far more & that being intermitent they need full back up from conventional power stations but that, at about 1% of UK power now they are incapable of providing more than token amounts. Doing without ie "conservation" is also a non-starter beyond, possibly, a few per cent of our power – no nation has ever reduced power usage except as a result of massive economic collapse or genocide. A quick & worthwhile lash up would be to build a larger conductor from France, which is already effectively keeping the lights on in the south of England with there nasty nuclear which becomes nice non-nuclear as it reaches our shores.

Over the long term (40 years) fusion, ocean thermal & best of all solar power satellites offer unlimited power but none of these will stop the very real threat of the lights going out in the next few years.

Would any of you consider this as a viable alternative?

Reply: there are other ways forward. It should be judged on the costs, and there should be an urgent competition to see who can come up with the least cost environmentally solutions to generating energy.The governemnt should award the necessary permits to the best schemes, and any subsidy/carbon price they also judged necessary (as with renewables)

Agreed. We should have gone massively nuclear just like the French, who happen to be selling us their cheap electricity, often in the guise of environmentally clean energy. It is of course, but the greenoids would have an absolute fit if they thought their clean energy was actually nuclear generated.

Also because the British government helped to destroy the british nuclear energy industry, we are in a situation where if we decide to build more nuclear power stations they will be French designed and built.

Mr Redwood, I don't expect you to do requests, but would you consider an article about the financial state of the Labour party, touching on the coincidence of Labour enthusiasm for state funding of political parties?

Reply: Yes, I do respond to readers. I do not know enough about Labour party finances to write a good piece, but you make your point well.

The trouble, of course, has been the unionised labour force in the coal pits and now the global warming rumours. Both make coal out of the question. (Except in China, natch).
Then there is the oil/gas which is running out, as you say and have been saying. Russian oil/gas is totally unreliable and this has been proved in Ukraine. How we can be silly enough to rely on it beats me.
Finally, there is nuclear power which, of course, is anathema to the 1968 generation now in power. Atomkraft? Nie Danke! Last night on the news, the BBC noticed that there are huge piles of nuclear waste which we cannot get rid of. So that's a no-no then.

Why not emigrate to Jo'burg, where sometimes there is electricity, and see the future here?

The fuel price crisis is caused by us having a transport system dependent on one commodity.

We need to diversify it immediately – that the government has no plan for introducing electric (and hence coal, or nuclear, or CSP powered at our choice) cars is shameful.