The EU wants to turn our lights off

 

 Not content with forcing the closure of eight working power stations producing relatively cheap power, the EU now wants to wreck or hold up the contract to build a new nuclear station for the UK.

  The older plants the UK has been forced to close would have produced cheaper power for longer if EU rules had not forced them out of business. That is bad enough. But surely the EU should let the UK get on with finding replacements, before the lights go out?

The EU may have a good case that the level of implied subsidy in the agreed nuclear power price is high. But what do they expect to happen, if they rule out generating power from the cheaper fuels? How can we generate CO2 free power, without massive subsidies and ramped up prices? How does the treatment of nuclear differ from windfarms, which they allow despite providing very expensive electricity with huge producer subsidies?

We used to show people the absurdities of the common agricultural and fisheries policy to show them just how expensive and unhelpful EU policies could be. Dear food in our time, and dumping fish back in the sea as they were the wrong type of fish to catch, were the hallmarks of EU policy for years. Now they control so much more.

Our energy policy is no longer our UK policy, but an imported EU one. It is driving  industry out of the UK as power is so dear, and it now threaten s us with insufficient power to get us through the next few winters. Give us a break EU. Try to understand that if you make us close down cheap power, we will have to generate some dear power and subsidise it.

I would myself rather have a dash for gas, as the US has done. The irony of this is that the US has cut its CO2 by more than the EU and helped its industry at the same time by its pursuit of shale gas. The EU is negative about most ways of generating power, and is now placing the UK in an impossible position.  Role on renegotiation and an In/Out vote.

 

155 Comments

  1. Arschloch
    December 14, 2013

    John a “dash for gas” is a great idea however it would unlikely be of much benefit to the UK economy as long as you have a toothless regulator who effectively allows for a cartel. Just have a look at a nat gas futures chart, prices have been in a state of collapse since 2009 and Sterling has appreciated quite a bit since the Spring so why are we not seeing lower bills?

    As an aside why do we put up with rule by mediocrities and the inexpert? Whenever you see this in operation you know disaster is not far off. Until recently with the banks, we had a situation were Terry Wogan was more qualified to run any of them as he has the Irish equivalent of the ACIB. Unlike HBOS with someone from ASDA , RBS a chartered accountant and the CoOp (a man with questionable skills and lifestyle ed). Similarly in the NHS, Nicholson had nothing more to his name than a history degree from Bristol Polytechnic. While if you look at some of the heads of local trusts you will find that some of them have no more than a few A levels, though they demand a pay package on a par with Dave’s for some reason. Why then are we we so slavish to EU which is again run by unelected people such as Ashton with such an uninspiring CVs?

    1. Lifelogic
      December 14, 2013

      Indeed, Terry Wogan would have been far better than most, he always seems quite a bright and sensible man from what I have heard/read of him.

    2. Hope
      December 14, 2013

      For me, JR’s comments demonstrate the lack of purpose there is in keeping the current parliament. What use is he and his fellow MPs to the public. Anyone wishing to vote for the LibLab Con must have lost all their senses. There is only one party offering a difference from EU rule and regain the country’s sovereignty and independence and that is UKIP. It is not too late JR to act in the country’s best interest, your party is a lost cause.

  2. Bernard from Bucks
    December 14, 2013

    I was with you 100% until that very last line.
    The EU doesn’t do ‘renegotiation’ does it, only ‘ever closer union’.

  3. Mike Stallard
    December 14, 2013

    “Give us a break EU.”
    These are some of the saddest words I have read on this blog.

    1. Boudicca
      December 14, 2013

      Yes.

      This is supposed to be a Sovereign Democracy. In fact it is just a satrapy of the EUSSR …… we have as much freedom as East Germany had under the USSR.

    2. Hope
      December 14, 2013

      It is fully delusional to think there will be any form of renegotiation of anything. This has been known for a very long time. It is difficult to understand why intelligent people like JR actually thinks Cameron will deliver anything other than upset and false hope.

      1. Mike Wilson
        December 16, 2013

        He doesn’t. It’s a charade.

  4. stred
    December 14, 2013

    With countries such as France so dead against shale gas, it is likely the EU will stop this too. However, oddly enough, the holding up of Hinkley Point could be doing us a favour, as the cost of the subsidy was far too high. We are paying the French much more than it cost them to build theirs, even after ironing out all their design problems.

    Similarly, it is not EU rules that prevent us building more efficient coal stations, as the Germans are doing. DECC chose to back the conversion of Drax and other stations to burn wood from the US. The whole system is in place and the generator has had the expensive system grandfathered for 25 years. Now that they have been rumbled and the CO2 savings are not really there, they cannot admit the mistake. Mr Milliband is on the front cover of their docunent on this and Huhne, Davey and Barker continued it. The alternative use of the forests which would have happened anyway and very long payback are the reasons for false accounting. See EU Scientific Committee document.

    We could reverse the goldplating of the Carbon Tax and convert to cheap coal like the Germans. Then in 10 years, cheaper standard small factory produced nuclear plant with underground reactors will be available, along with shale gas.

    We are also fortunate that the generators have realised that wind farms in a stormy sea with horizontal salt flying past at 110mph is not exactly sensible, mucho the disappointment of the pointy heads at DECC.

    1. stred
      December 14, 2013

      sorry -much to. For some reason I can’t see typos until it is rearranged, then they are obvious.

      1. miami.mode
        December 14, 2013

        stred

        …and there was me thinking you were using a bit of Spanish in deference to our EU masters. In view of the way we are (mis)ruled by them, it made sense!

    2. Frank H Little
      December 16, 2013

      You will be aware of this story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25390456

      Reply Indeed – the very case I have been making here for some time.

  5. zorro
    December 14, 2013

    Not totally unexpected…… I see that the French are turning up the heat over Calais and threatening to renegotiate current juxtaposed control agreements unless we ‘loosen’ our migration policy. Expect more of this with the threat of renegotiation……

    zorro

    1. zorro
      December 14, 2013

      I suspect that in the next year or so that the EU will test Cameron’s resolve to deal with some of these issues when deciding what to offer to him for renegotiation….

      zorro

  6. Mark B
    December 14, 2013

    John Redwood MP wrote;

    “It is driving industry out of the UK . . . . .”

    The EU is doing no such thing. The UK government took EU legislation and ‘Gold Plated’ it in the Climate Change Act. It is this that is causing the problems, not the EU. Previous Government’s new that our energy supplies would be stretched due to poor planning and political dithering. Also, with increased immigration, demand is also increasing. The number of people that demand electricity can easily outstrip the supply, as it takes time to build news power stations. All the EU does is add an extra layer of bureaucracy to the process.

    The EU is doing its function of insuring that the rules of the Single Market are being applied. This includes subsidies. Just because you think you can bribe companies with other peoples (Taxpayer) monies, does not mean that you should, and in this instance, the EU is actually doing a good service.

    Blaming the EU for all the UK’s woes will no longer wash with an increasing number of the electorate. We are better informed and a little less gullible.

    The Political Class have been too ready to play to the political gallery, grandstanding and pontificating, without doing the job that they have been employed to do. And that is to act in the best interests of the UK.

    You have no one to blame on this matter, other than yourselves.

    1. Jennifer A
      December 14, 2013

      Here here.

      Mr Cameron is taking us for chumps.

      1. lifelogic
        December 14, 2013

        Well he does seem finally to recognise it is all Green Crap. Alas it is a bit late now, the county and seas are plastered with expensive rotating white elephants and shiny PV roofs.

      2. Mark B
        December 15, 2013

        Thank you !

    2. libertarian
      December 14, 2013

      Total rubbish

      The EU large plant directive closed the perfectly functional Dungerness power station with the loss of 9,000 local jobs. As to your joke post about the EU ensuring ( learn to spell) that regulations are applied thats a real laugh, remind us of the rules for qualifying for the Euro, that worked didn’t it? Remind us of the EU monopoly rules “preventing” RBS from buying ABNAmro, that worked didn’t it? Remind us about the rules preventing bailouts?

      I do agree that the UK government need to grow a pair, but all that is required from them is the courage to take us out of this moribund, outdated, undemocratic nightmare

      1. stred
        December 14, 2013

        Dungeness power stations are nuclear. The first closed because it was one of the first built and the second was a gas cooled reactor which suffered many faults in construction and running. The French stations at Dieppe and elsewhere are water cooled. Dungeness B is closing because of the unsuccessful design and age. The proposed replacement, which would have been water cooled was excluded by the government because of the birdlife and possible flooding. The French station just over the Channel is built on the coast in a similar position. The reasons for closure are therefore only of British origin.

      2. Mark B
        December 14, 2013

        libertarian

        I may be a poor speller, and thank you for the correction by the way, but at least I have manners.

        You clearly do not quite understand how the EU works and that the UK Government have ceded powers to the EU, energy being one.

        Our politicians are not being straight with us, this is a simple truth.

        It is not necessary for, as you put it, “UK government need to grow a pair”. It is not about them not wanting to defy the EU, they actually support membership of the EU (ask our host) and all the damage that may come our way. Its a political project, not a economic one. So economics, business and the people, be damned. Do not believe me, look around !

        You said;

        “The EU large plant directive closed the perfectly functional Dungerness power station with the loss of 9,000 local jobs.

        Firstly, its ‘Dungeness’, not ‘Dungerness’. But that is an easy mistake to make, as I am sure you will agree. If there is another, please come back and let me know.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeness_Nuclear_Power_Station

        Secondly, I do not think ‘Dungeness’ comes under the LPD as it is a Nuclear Power Station and not a coal/oil/gas powered unit. Perhaps you were thinking of something else ?

        http://ec.europa.eu/environment/air/pollutants/stationary/lcp/legislation.htm

        And finally, what stopped the UK Government building alternatives, oh yes, I forgot, they did, they call them windmills.

        To conclude:

        Dear libertarian,

        I have been wrong on many things. But when fellow posters’, or our kind host point them out, they have done so with respect and with a genuine will to further knowledge. And for that I am truly grateful.

        You on the other hand have dismissed my post in a rather rude and uncharitable, not to mention, wrong !

        Enjoy the rest of your weekend. I know I shall.

        Thank you. :o)

      3. yulwaymartyn
        December 14, 2013

        Stick to the subject.

        If its rubbish get rid of it. Or persuade the Brits to put up with second rate power stations.

      4. stred
        December 15, 2013

        Dungeness A and B are nuclear and nothing to do with carbon. B is closing because it is out of date. C was refused because of birdlife and possible flooding.

      5. David Price
        December 15, 2013

        I disagree, it is not total rubbish and MarkB makes some valid points. Whether we stay in or get out of the EU our civil servants and government politicians only need to do their jobs, demonstrate proper resolve and strive to put our interests first. The overwhelming impression is that neither have done this for quite a while now.

        And it is not clear that UKIP will change the situation at all, despite the nice salaries, expense accounts and pensions they have been on they have not curtailed the march of the bureacrats, UK and EU combined. I doubt UKIP can guarantee anything till they have the approval and agreement of the civil servants and lawyers who are actually running the show.

        1. Beans Makuba
          December 19, 2013

          The suggestion that UKIP will make no difference can only be predicated upon your wishful thinking.
          Unlike the past-history parties, all of them are guilty of gross duplicity and incompetence and demonstrably so. Just as Labour, or the Socialists as they were once known, have always debauched the Currency and left both Power and the Country effectively bankrupt; so, this time, the Conservatives have demonstrated their dishonesty and unfitness for power by the creation and continuation of the myth of “Austerity” while the National Debt reflects the in continence of the Spending Departments and the re-inforcemeat of part-time working by Hidden Government benefits subsidy. As for considering the Lib-Dems, they are doomed as a Party. It won’t need a taxi to accommodate their MPs, but a hearse.
          UKIP has no broken promises to rue. It has said what it will do. Give us the Power….we certainly can’t do any worse and might just make a change for a lot better. Everybody wants to kick their MP in the slats, well be my guest!

          Reply What have UKIP MEPs done? Why have so many left the party?

    3. A different Simon
      December 14, 2013

      Markb ,

      Exactly .

      We now see in the Lords a coalition of Labour and Lib Dem peers trying to insert a clause which explicitly prevents operators of coal powerstations from upgrading them .

      Given this Govt’s and the lasts attitude to coal do these cretins really think that any operator would be stupid enough to invest a penny in upgrading existing coal power stations ?

      I thought this idiocy was confined to The Commons .

      1. Mark B
        December 15, 2013

        Did not know that Simon, but thanks for pointing this out.

  7. lifelogic
    December 14, 2013

    Role on renegotiation and an In/Out vote. – Well yes but Cameron cannot even tell us what he wants to renegotiate, anyway he will not be there after May 2015 and we know that he does not want a “Greater Switzerland” or Norway and his “heart and soul” is in the EU.

    He also, in the Spectator, this week says he wants to continue his offshore wind absurdities but have them subsidised from tax rather than (a tax/surcharge on fuel bills). He might also then understand the huge disadvantage of intermittent electrical energy when it cannot be stored cost effectively.

    He does however for one say something sensible. In the Spectator in an article:- “What would you tell your 14-year-old self?”
    He says,

    I was a late developer — I only came good academically when I was studying economics and history and history of art, subjects I loved. My advice would be really -boring: keep on with science subjects, because understanding of science will be so important in your future life. I’ve held seminars in No. 10 about graphene and quantum theory, which I love doing. But I have to read up a lot before I get started. So: a little more on the physics and chemistry, please, David.

    He should also have added basic arithmetic & maths to physics and chemisty, then perhaps he would not chuck so much of others cash down the drain on quack energy, HS2, a mad transport agenda, and the likes. A five runway Heathwick would also be well underway.

    Still let us hope he does finally learn to do some simple sums before making any more daft decisions. In 18 months he will have more time after 2015.

    A numerate Commons Select Transport Committee and Transport Secretary would also be very welcome. Clearly most of the members of that committee are not worth any salary at all, let alone £77K if they think HS2 is a good idea. How can they come to such a totally absurd conclusion?

    1. lifelogic
      December 14, 2013

      The problem with his advice is that in my experience people either naturally understand maths/physics or they do not, I suspect it is mainly genetic. Studying it, when you do not get it, may not help much.

      How many people, for example, understand something as obvious as to why an average bus passenger gets a totally inaccurate impression of the bus average occupancy? Unlike the driver who gets a far more accurate impression.

      It is often in fact as low as 6 or 7. So they are not very green at all especially as they take indirect routes, stop every few hundred yards, block the roads and are huge and cumbersome. Despite this we had absurd (government I assume) adverts, saying – one red bus is greener than 65 cars or something similar.

      1. Bazman
        December 14, 2013

        The only science you support is anything that supports your right wing views. Not real and ‘absurd’ Ram it.

      2. Edward2
        December 15, 2013

        You are quite right LL
        Most buses I see run empty for most of the day spewing out clouds of smoke.
        Or have a just few pensioners on them who travel for free.
        It would pay (in money terms and in green terms) to abolish buses and give everyone a sum of money to go by private taxi.

        1. Bazman
          December 16, 2013

          Euro 7 will put a stop to that and maybe all diesel engines. Not many in the US, but catching on due to things like Euro 7. What a tizz mung bean greens and right whiners must be getting themselves into?! Anyone care to tell us cleaner diesel engines are fake green and absurd regulations though? Though not. Ram it.

          1. Edward2
            December 16, 2013

            So I only need to wait until all the UK’s fleet of buses are all replaced by your nice clean Euro 7 ones then Baz.
            About ten more years of breathing in smoke in High Streets as convoys of empty buses stand waiting for a few free pass pensioners.

          2. Bazman
            December 18, 2013

            They will have to be converted to at least Euro 4 to be allowed in London. The rest of use will have to eat and breathe particles for the next ten years as you say.
            The great British bus success is a London which Thatcher exempted from her deregulation, so city hall chiefs like that well known Stalinist Boris Johnston, continue to set fares and routes. Unlike the rest of the country where privatisation and deregulation works for companies and not the passengers which are mainly just ­“beer-drinking, chip-eating, council house-dwelling, old Labour-voting masses” anyway. Putting millions into their pockets for poor services.
            Ram it.

  8. Roger Farmer
    December 14, 2013

    Do you think that the UK can afford to wait for this “Hall of Mirrors” re-negotiation. We the electorate know it is pure fantasy why are you in Westminster so blind to the fact. I will spell it out for you. Cameron is a heart and soul Europhile, so even if forced into a re-negotiation it would not amount to a bucket of worms. He will not be in a position to organise such a re-negation or the referendum to follow because he will not be in power come 2015. All the talk is merely there to stave off the demise of the conservative party at the next election. Enjoy the first course in this meal at the May 2014 European elections. Cameron and his acolytes are courting a bride called Europa who is terminal, both financially and politically. How many more messages from her deathbed do you all need.

  9. Denis Cooper
    December 14, 2013

    MPs who allow the lights to go out may find that blaming the EU will not be seen as an acceptable excuse by voters who still have some belief in the sovereignty of Parliament even if most of the MPs have abandoned that principle.

    1. Timaction
      December 14, 2013

      ……..”Now they control so much more.”
      So please remind me what political Parties gave away all this sovereignty via stealthy Treaty and how it sits with a current federalist Parliament?
      I’m afraid its all unravelling before our eyes.
      The spin, the lies, no longer washes with the electorate and the blame for all that failure can be laid squarely at the feet of the LibLabCon Party. They are all Europhile fanatics willing to cow tow to their masters in the EU. With a few honourable exceptions (Mr Redwood) there are few patriots left in Parliament.
      Taxed to borrow and give away billions in foreign and EU aid and provide all our health, housing (from the greenbelt), education and other public services to all who chip up here.
      There will be no renegotiation as our President Barrosso has said so. The only option is to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and we all know it!!

  10. lifelogic
    December 14, 2013

    Why on earth is Mr Gove blocking a new Grammar school for Sevenoaks? And closing down a free school in a lovely building, that could clearly have been improved very rapidly with a bit of leadership.

    The best thing he could do for education is just to enable schools to fire useless teachers freely, but that would be too radical I suppose for him. Instead they blight the education of children for years on end until they finally retire. They are almost never fired.

    Indeed just enable all companies and people to fire bad employees freely it would do wonders for efficiency.

    1. Lifelogic
      December 14, 2013

      Might get the remaining ones to cheer up and work better too through not having to work with the shirkers.

    2. Mark
      December 14, 2013

      I have noticed that the BBC has made a great song and dance about the free school, while quietly ignoring the fact that OFSTED have started to take a much tougher line with failing schools generally. Their statistics show some 96 state schools were closed while under special measures last year (to August 2013), and a further 33 closed while rated as having serious weakness. The number of schools under special measures increased from 352 to 456 in the same period, with 152 emerging from special measures having improved.

      http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/latest-official-statistics-maintained-school-inspections-and-outcomes

      1. Lifelogic
        December 14, 2013

        Indeed well it fits in the the BBC lefty big state, top down agenda and the dead hand of government (and local authorities) everywhere.

        1. Bazman
          December 16, 2013

          That ‘dead hand of government’ is often supplying infrastructure, security, education and the basic sceintific research that private companies cannot allowing companies and individuals to make profits and in some cases be benefit cheats and scroungers. This idea that you promote of the state being a burden is in many cases your own deluded propaganda.

      2. uanime5
        December 16, 2013

        When you say the schools were closed do you mean they were shut down permanently, or that they were closed then reopened as academies? Given that failing schools often have to become academies this may be why OFSTED had been taking a tougher line.

        1. Mark
          December 16, 2013

          I imagine “closed” means CLOSED. Why would it mean anything else? There are separate data on schools taken into special measures, and those that emerge from them (presumably mainly via conversion to academies).

  11. TGod
    December 14, 2013

    Are you now regretting your membership and support of a europhile party which took this country into the Common Market originally and subsequently signed so many of those damaging treaties. A party which is still europhile and still committed to all that climate change nonsense ?

    1. Bob
      December 14, 2013

      @TGod

      Just to keep you updated, that “climate change nonsense” formerly referred to as “global warming” and latterly as “climate disruption” has been reclassified as “green crap”.

      So the new slogan is, vote blue get green crap.

      1. lifelogic
        December 15, 2013

        We have had quite enough green crap already thanks. It is surely now very clear now that Cameron just wants to go over the cliffs and get a new job in 2015. Taking most of the Tory party with him, for a two terms at best, and probably not apologising either – in the John Major style.

        Doubtless he with become another BBC sage in a few years time. They do seem to like people who have been proved wrong on everything to tell us what to do next. They even have one as head of Trustees.

  12. Old Albion
    December 14, 2013

    “Roll on renegotiation and an In/Out vote”

    Amen to that. But who will grant it to us?

    1. Lifelogic
      December 14, 2013

      No one, nor on any fair basis that is for sure. The BBC will see to that under Lord Patten types.

  13. Richard1
    December 14, 2013

    Perhaps if UKIP have a very clear repudiation of green ‘crap’ in their manifesto for the European elections and win on that basis, the Conservatives will realize that they too must go ahead and drop green crap for the general election.

    On this subject interesting details are seeping out of the meeting of scientists organized by Lord Lawson. The Royal Society’s warmists insisted on secrecy when meeting the skeptical scientists for reasons unknown. The warmists have since claimed that all agreed on the science. But the skeptical scientists have corrected this and said that whilst the warmists continue to place great stress on climate models forecasting runaway global warming and catastrophic consequences, the sceptics set more store by the actual observed evidence, which now indicates clearly that the models have exaggerated the effects of man made CO2. As voters come to realize the global warming scare has been exaggerated there should be lots of votes for the first mainstream party to have courage and sense to drop green crap.

    1. uanime5
      December 16, 2013

      the sceptics set more store by the actual observed evidence, which now indicates clearly that the models have exaggerated the effects of man made CO2.

      Why haven’t they submitted this evidence to the IPCC or any scientific journal for peer review? Could it be because this evidence is deeply flawed or doesn’t exist.

      1. Richard1
        December 16, 2013

        Plenty of such evidence has been published in peer reviewed papers and is available to the IPCC.

      2. Edward2
        December 16, 2013

        I think what Richard means Uni, is that people like you still hold firm to a future of doomsday levels of increases in temperatures and sea levels despite actual current data showing an unexpected slow down of both items since 2000.
        You are now having to call a decimal point of one degree per decade increase as evidence that catastrophic global warming is continuing.

        You would think the IPCC would have reduced the level of their next lot of predicted increases based on actual current temperature and sea level data, but they have not and this is what is making people more and more detached from your movement.
        I challenge you to go back, as I have done, and re read the original IPCC report and watch once more the old Al Gore film from just a few decades ago and you can see that the dire predictions made back then have not come true.
        Its a fact and it needs repeating.
        I’ve spent my life in engineering looking at facts, figures and data.
        They are very different to predictions based on data, especially when previous predictions don’t come true.

  14. arschloch
    December 14, 2013

    as everyone should be in a mood for forgiveness after the non stop mandela, john is there any chance that you could put a motion down in the HoC asking that Sgt Blackman be given a royal pardon?

  15. acorn
    December 14, 2013

    “Role on renegotiation and an In/Out vote.” We are years away from any renegotiation or a referendum of any sort JR. As a leading Eurosceptic, why don’t you “take-it-to-the-people”; think outside the box! The box being the HoC.

    Your hated BBC has pioneered the use of Mobile Short Dial Codes (MSDC) technology, introduced last summer. The UK mobile phone networks agreed to a cheap fixed price vote from any mobile phone on any network. The BBC techies used it for the viewer vote for “The Voice” programme, I think. You wouldn’t bother with high security like one vote per mobile phone etc, (but you can make it very secure if needed). I bet one of the TV networks could turn it into a fun programme to get a fairly serious answer to a very serious question.

    We all know the little people are much more likely to vote on “Strictly” and “X-Factor”, than they will for a general election; they don’t even have to get out of the chair. What front bench would dismiss the outcome of such a vote.

    Don’t assume a new dash for gas will drop the price of natural gas that much it is traded and continental pipeline inflows, may get backed off somewhat, but the price won’t. The US has fracked more gas than it planned as you can get a license to drill baby drill at the supermarket check-out. They are building liquifying plants now to export the stuff and get the US on-shore price up.

  16. ian wragg
    December 14, 2013

    What a pathetic response John. Begging the EU to “give us a break”. It’s all part of the master plan to bankrupt us and give France and Germany an advantage. Did Germany have to go cap in hand to build 11 coal and lignite power stations. Does France get chastised for EDF and Alstom having a cosy relationship testing all their products. NO only the meek UK with its grandstanding PM who wants to stay in the EU at any price.
    Get a life John and leave that dying party before its too late.

    1. APL
      December 15, 2013

      Ian wragg: “bankrupt us and give France and ”

      Take some consolation from the fact that France is in equally dire economic condition.

  17. Brian Tomkinson
    December 14, 2013

    JR: “The EU wants to turn our lights off”
    Well, what are you and your colleagues going to do to stop it? Isn’t that what we pay you to do – protect our interests? Now, if you are telling us that you and your colleagues are impotent in the face of your masters in the EU what is your purpose other than obeying EU orders and drawing good salaries?

    1. Tad Davison
      December 14, 2013

      Not for the first time Brian, I find your points are difficult to dispute. Making a principled stand against the EU, requires the whistle-blower to do so well ahead of party unity. I think the political process in general is morally bankrupt and needs wholesale change.

      Tad

  18. Normandee
    December 14, 2013

    Again, we know all this, what are you going to do that can in any way have a positive effect or draw attention to it, other than here? I know it makes you feel like you are doing something, and you probably get some relief from that, but if you want to do something then write that letter to the 1922 committee, get rid of the biggest impediment to changing this. Not of course that you will, I think we can all understand why you don’t want to put your precious head on the block, but the letter is the least you can do if you believe in what you say.
    Otherwise like Hannan et al you have afoot in both camps, pro Cameron and anti EU the contradictions are too great.

  19. Leslie Singleton
    December 14, 2013

    All this is positively Kafkaesque, with a large dose of Feydeau, and what comes to my mind this morning is thank God we are In otherwise we wouldn’t have any of the influence the EU maniacs keep telling us about (Joke). Cameron should of course sack Davey without a reference and keep the Power Stations and if Clegg doesn’t like it he should be told, indeed encouraged, to do his worst.

  20. paul vickers
    December 14, 2013

    The insane ‘anti-CO2’ policy of the EU (and others) is both scientifically illiterate, since 92% of global annual CO2 is entirely natural (Mt Etna’s eruption alone produces more in a week than the UK does in a year) but the UK, with 1% of the world’s population, produces so little CO2 that it will make not a jot of difference to the world’s climate, whether we generate 100% of our power from nuclear and windmills – or 100% from coal.

    As INVARIABLY happens when HMG/the EU interferes in a free market, the distortions and unintended consequences cost the people dear.

    The solution, as always, is to scrap the rules and regulations negotiated by Ed Milliband (GCSE Dual Award science) and replace them with……….. nothing.

    Nothing at all – simply scrap the Climate Change Act and all its related insanity and allow the power companies to produce the cheapest, most reliable power they can – by whatever means they think fit.

    That means scrapping all subsidies and bribes, whether for ‘favoured’ methods of generation, or for insulation and lower energy using products: HMG/EU has no business interfering in the choices that customers make. As always, nominally good intentions are interpreted and enacted as costly, inefficient trade-damaging rules.

    Cheaper power has led, invariably throughout history, to the boom and flourishing of civilisation, and the converse is equally true: when energy is restricted or expensive, that civilisation collapses and ends.

    And that of the West/EU is no different than that of every other civilisation throughout history: the Climate Change Act (etc) is simply society’s equivalent of going on hunger strike and the end is equally certain, as commercial consumers move their industry abroad, and domestic consumers become impoverished and live increasingly poor lives.

    1. uanime5
      December 16, 2013

      Nothing at all – simply scrap the Climate Change Act and all its related insanity and allow the power companies to produce the cheapest, most reliable power they can – by whatever means they think fit.

      They’ve tried this in China and it produces huge amounts of air pollution. I doubt politicians will be very popular if they make cities even more polluted.

      That means scrapping all subsidies and bribes, whether for ‘favoured’ methods of generation, or for insulation and lower energy using product

      So no more subsidies for oil and gas.

      Cheaper power has led, invariably throughout history, to the boom and flourishing of civilisation, and the converse is equally true: when energy is restricted or expensive, that civilisation collapses and ends.

      There’s no evidence to support that claim. Most civilisations flourished because they could produce a surplus of food and goods to trade (Rome, the Italian city states, the United Provinces). By contrast most civilisations collapsed due to a lack of water (ancient Egypt and the Mayans) or they were invaded by another country (the Mongels ended many societies).

      It’s only very recently that civilisations have needed power and many have flourished with expensive power, such as Germany.

      1. Edward2
        December 16, 2013

        “no more subsidies for oil and gas”
        I’m mystified Uni.What subsidies are you referring to?
        Oil is one of the most highly taxed fuels.
        A litre of diesel or petroleum can be taxed in the UK over 70%.
        No such tax on windmills or PV panels.
        They are properly subsidised.

  21. DaveK
    December 14, 2013

    John,

    There appears to be a policy in the EU that embraces what is called “sustainability”, which believes that everything is going to run out and we will all be doomed.

    The idea is that “we” (not “them”) reduce what we use, whether it be fuel, energy or even water. To achieve this end you have to create a perceived rarity of these things. I imagine the great diamond houses have warehouses full of gems which are released on the market in a controlled way, otherwise they would just be shiny rocks.

    Under that umbrella we have seen expensive fuels used instead of cheaper ones, reservoir projects delayed or scrapped creating shortfalls of supply and even more delays on our ability to frack for gas. If you don a tin foil hat you would almost see this as an attempt to bring us down.

    It appears that the people of this country are seen as a cash cow to be exploited to the nth degree. I’m sure the energy companies don’t mind selling us subsidised electricity from windsticks or PV, whatever happens they will get their profits even if every house in the country is fully insulated. Just think if every house had all the necessary saving devices we would then supposedly use a fraction of the supply. I don’t imagine the providers would still charge the same unit costs and say “well done you”.

    Laymen like myself ask simple questions, such as why would anyone want to prevent my country from accessing a possible resource of energy that would help us. The obvious ones are vested interests. Who will we not be buying things from if this was to work? Russia (Gazprom), Qatar (Gas), France (Nuclear Electricity) etc. Some commentators say the price will not reduce even if we have a huge gas resource, but surely (I know don’t call me Shirley) if we have to sell the gas at the EU market price, it means we do not have to buy that amount from elsewhere. Could it not also be used in the gas power stations that we have idle/mothballed (up to 8 I have heard) to “freeze” the electricity prices.

    Apologies for the ramble

    Dave

  22. oldtimer
    December 14, 2013

    You are right of course. Related to this issue you may be interested in this blog post by the Climate Change Adviser for Shell:
    http://blogs.shell.com/climatechange/2013/12/spectrum/

    It is a comment on The Radical Emission Reduction Conference put on at the Royal Society by the Tyndall Centre. He comments, inter alia, “Much to my surprise I was not really at an emission reduction conference (despite the label saying I was), but a political ideology conference.” I think you will be as surprised as I was at the views expressed under the auspices of the Royal Society and the Tyndall Centre especially as much of it will have been paid for indirectly by us the long suffering taxpayers. It is a measure of what you are up against as the EU is deeply influenced by these views.

    1. Lifelogic
      December 14, 2013

      Indeed they are mainly a political/religious movements now.

  23. Gary
    December 14, 2013

    So why is Germany and other EU countries building coal power stations. ?

    I think the CO2 mania is British home grown and exported to the EU, where they largely ignore it, rather than the other way around.

    1. Tad Davison
      December 14, 2013

      So right, and they’re Lignite too Gary, the dirtiest of all! (source – Andrew Neil, Daily Politics Show).

      Tad

      1. A different Simon
        December 14, 2013

        Not much fun if you are one of the tens of thousand of Germans whose village will be bulldozed to make way for the open cast mines .

  24. John Wrake
    December 14, 2013

    Mr. Redwood,

    Why do you quite rightly deplore the interference of the European Union in our domestic affairs while remaining a faithful member of a political party whose leader is on record as being in favour of our continued membership.

    It is not enough to say that you are in favour of a re-negotiation of the rules governing membership, when those rules require unanimity on the matter and that has already been discounted by other members.

    Neither is it enough to look forward to a referendum offered by the same mendacious leader ‘if he is Prime Minister’ after the next election, which all agree looks increasingly unlikely.

    Your reputation as someone who wishes a radical change in our present relationship with the European Union is in danger of being lost. I think that the loss is to be deplored.

    John Wrake.

  25. Lifelogic
    December 14, 2013

    “The irony of this is that the US has cut its CO2 by more than the EU” and has got a better economy too despite Obama.

    Who cares about cutting CO2, hotter is better than colder anyway. It has not warmed for 15 years despite an increase in C02 concentrations. The CO2 will just be emitted in China anyway as the jobs move there. No purpose is served by the EU with all this green religion crap.

    Wind does not, all things considered, (construction and back up) save much, if any, CO2.

    Anyway there are far better ways of cooling the earth (if it is ever needed) than reducing c02 concentrations. Use the money now for stronger buildings in Hurricane and Earthquake zones, better Levees in New Orleans, clean water, inoculations, basic medical care and stopping pensioners freezing. Global warming exaggeration is a huge, quack science, exaggeration scare. It is largely a scam & totally immoral. Save real lives now with things that we know work now and deal with the future as maybe needed at the time.

    1. uanime5
      December 14, 2013

      Who cares about cutting CO2, hotter is better than colder anyway.

      Unless you live in Africa then hotter means more droughts, crop failures, and famines.

      It has not warmed for 15 years despite an increase in C02 concentrations.

      The scientific evidence has shown that it has warmed.

      Anyway there are far better ways of cooling the earth (if it is ever needed) than reducing c02 concentrations.

      Care to explain what these methods are.

      Use the money now for stronger buildings in Hurricane and Earthquake zones

      What sort of building can survive a category 5 hurricane?

      better Levees in New Orleans

      For some reason the private sector didn’t think they needed better levies, or wasn’t willing or able to pay for better levies.

      It is largely a scam & totally immoral.

      Then why does the scientific evidence show that it’s real?

      1. Lifelogic
        December 14, 2013

        You are wrong on all counts. In particular warmer and more co2 will lead to more rain and crops on balance not less. It has not warmed for 15 year (even the priests on your side admits that).

        Cat 5 is winds of 157 MPH so not to hard to get building to cope or safe cellars at least. Some planes can cope with 2000 mph winds and they have to be very light too.

        All sort of method to cool the earth but they probably will not be needed – reflective crops for example and countless other methods. Not cheap be better than reducing co2.

        1. uanime5
          December 16, 2013

          In particular warmer and more co2 will lead to more rain and crops on balance not less.

          Then why is Africa experiencing droughts, crop failures, and famines rather than a food surplus?

          It has not warmed for 15 year (even the priests on your side admits that).

          According to the IPCC report the increase in the average global temperature has increased at a slower rate than the previous 15 years. It has not stopped.

          Cat 5 is winds of 157 MPH so not to hard to get building to cope or safe cellars at least.

          Then why hasn’t the USA built hurricane proof building despite getting hit by several hurricanes every year?

          Some planes can cope with 2000 mph winds and they have to be very light too.

          Being able to fly at 2000 mph in one direction isn’t the same as being hit by a hurricane. Even turbulence can cause major problems for an airplane.

        2. Bazman
          December 16, 2013

          Some planes can cope with 2000 mph winds and they have to be very light too?
          Absolute drivel even for you. Few buildings other than military installations in the US can withstand 200mph winds.
          I once lived in a house that was a large Victorian terraced building of many houses three stories high. and as my room was on the gable end could feel the bed move in high winds as it was in a corner.

          1. Edward2
            December 16, 2013

            Nice to know you felt the earth move Baz.

      2. Hope
        December 14, 2013

        Drivel as normal. Peter Pan is not real eithe Uni.

      3. libertarian
        December 14, 2013

        Uanime5

        How many times do you want to be called out on posting verifiable untruths?

        As I’ve linked to you multiple times, not only is Africa NOT having more droughts, famines and crop failures in fact as I showed you with EVIDENCE crops are INCREASING in Africa whilst drought and famine decrease. What is it with socialists and their willingness to just spout total nonsense over and over and over.

        1. lifelogic
          December 15, 2013

          Well socialism is just like fake greenery just a belief system, soon (as with other religions) it will surely become illegal to offend them by pointing out what nonsense they talk.

          1. Bazman
            December 18, 2013

            How about fake capitalism as the state provides billions in subsidies to many private companies such as the oil/gas industry, utilities, roads, housing benefits, tax credits follow wages,universities to provide research, hospitals and education? The gap could never be filled by private companies for a reasonable price for all. The roads and rail are used by big and small business to compete in world markets and private ones run by toll would be expensive and inadequate. Same with most infrastructure. All modern society demands this and needs it. No 1900’s year zero is fantasy good enough. No problem with nuclear fake greenery and massive subsidy have we? We all know green is not green and that is the problem that needs to be solved not you do nothing cos’ I’m rich and will never effect me nonsense and drivel. Ram it.

        2. uanime5
          December 16, 2013

          How many times do you want to be called out on posting verifiable untruths?

          Well given that you’ve always failed to provide any evidence to back up your claims I still haven’t been called out on my claims.

          As I’ve linked to you multiple times, not only is Africa NOT having more droughts, famines and crop failures in fact as I showed you with EVIDENCE crops are INCREASING in Africa whilst drought and famine decrease.

          You have never provided any evidence to back up these claims. The fact that you didn’t include any evidence in this post indicates that you don’t have any evidence.

          Care to explain why if global warming is supposed to be providing more rain and crops there was a severe famine in a famine in the Sahel in 2010 and a severe drought East Africa in 2011. It seems that global warming doesn’t result in more food and rain but more famines and droughts. So your claims are false libertarian.

          1. Mark
            December 16, 2013
      4. Bob
        December 14, 2013

        @uanime5

        What sort of building can survive a category 5 hurricane?

        The kind that are not made with driftwood walls and corrugated iron roofs weighted down with old car tyres?

        1. lifelogic
          December 15, 2013

          If you are in the eye of it you just need a safe cellar/hole in the ground with a good door on it.

        2. Bazman
          December 16, 2013

          Do tell us what type of building bob and the cost in your laughable fallout shelter house. Maybe they could just live underground as livelogic says. Though if you asked him to price an excavation for as shelter would be surprised at the cost and technicalities involved. Simplistic nonsense and pseudo science as usual from both of you.

      5. Edward2
        December 15, 2013

        Uni
        I presume you do not agree with the figures shown on the UK Met Office’s own web site regarding temperatures since 2000?
        They come from peer reviewed sources.

        1. uanime5
          December 16, 2013

          The Met office’s figures show that the average global temperature has increased since 200o so why would I disagree with them?

          1. Mark
            December 16, 2013
          2. Edward2
            December 16, 2013

            Surely you can read a graph Uni?
            Have a look at Mark’s link.
            Look at the graph after 2000.
            Can you see that it is not going up any more?
            This the Met Office UK and they use carefully peer reviewed data.

          3. Bazman
            December 18, 2013

            Look at the time scale. It’s from 1850 and shows a steady rise from about 1900 which is when Industrialisation took off in big way and this is what global warming is saying. Draw a line through it. It is now 2014, so a fourteen year flattening means nothing. What will you say if the graph then continues to rise? Might fall but does not look that way does it? The factors are yet to be established as to why this is happening, but as the deniers like to claim it is complicated science. Can’t have it both ways. Stay with your propaganda mark and ram it.

          4. Edward2
            December 19, 2013

            The point Baz is firstly that the rise since 1850 is still less than one degree and secondly we were told that after 2000 there would be a rapid acceleration in temperatures.
            Instead, despite CO2 continuing to increase its concentration in the atmosphere, temperature rises have fallen back to levels of increases which are low decimal points measured over decades.
            The current data does not match the predictions.

  26. Sue
    December 14, 2013

    The choices are simple. Invoke article 50 or ignore them, just like other European countries do. It takes years for any court cases or decisions to be made and by that time, it’ll be too late.

  27. NickW
    December 14, 2013

    The EU’s determination to cripple our industry and economy with punitive energy costs is NOT symptomatic of stupidity. It is a policy intended to facilitate economic growth in the Eurozone by crippling the Eurozone’s ccompetitors.

    We need to understand that so that the appropriate responses can be made.

  28. Nick
    December 14, 2013

    You’ve signed us up for this nonsense. You gave away sovereignty.

    Why complain when you and other MPs are the one’s who’ve stitched us up.

    Still no progress on your promises on the pensions debts. Still no pensions on the accounts. Still no official numbers.

  29. Neil Craig
    December 14, 2013

    The EU is hardly alone in being to blame – all 3 traditional parties have been doing everything possible for the last 20 years to make electricity more expensive or unavailable.

    Hinkley would not need any support if all the parties hadn’t ensured that government parasitism hadn’t made up 80-98% of the price. Nuclear does not need and is not receiving government subsidy – all the subsidy is of government parasitism.

    From the start the nuclear industry paid a levy for decommissioning. The government have received over £40 bn but if account is taken of inflation, let alone interest, they should now have a fund of at least a couple of hundred billion. In fact, of course, the promise of such a fund was never kept.

    1. yulwaymartyn
      December 14, 2013

      No Neil but it is so much easier to blame the EU for everything. The worst and laziest form of politics.

  30. Bert Young
    December 14, 2013

    Using our low cost energy resource makes a great deal of sense , and , if the EU tries to to prevent fracking on some spurious green policy , it will drive yet another nail into the inevitable coffin . We really must make a stand against bureaucratic intervention ; the right to manage our own affairs is the bedrock of our democracy , it has been honed and manipulated over centuries into a reasonable and humane method of governance ; this is not the time to try to impose unacceptable change upon us .

  31. con
    December 14, 2013

    I do believe there is a degree of kow towing and gold plating by UK officials here.
    I simply refuse to believe France, Germany or Spain for example would close down eight perfectly viable power stations without replacement sources at least in progress, if not already up and running.
    Time for the UK government to develop some backbone and advise the EU we are not prepared to let the lights go out and will take whatever action / decisions are necessary.
    This should not be a matter for ‘negotiation’, it is a matter of common sense.
    It may be too late in the power station closure programme, but if not, what can the EU do if we simply do what is right and ignore the directive?
    We all know there will be no re-negotiation. The UK will meekly follow the edicts of the EU politburo just as it did on agriculture and fisheries and much else.
    If we haven’t got the will or the guts to defend what is ours by right, we deserve to lose it.
    Spineless, subserviant, obedient UK. Who would ever have thought it, while our politicians hide behind ‘EU law’?
    Truly depressing.

    1. A different Simon
      December 14, 2013

      Con ,

      Those powerstations were not perfectly viable though .

      The EU issued a large combustion directive that coal power stations had to cut their emissions of sulphur , mercury etc .

      In countries like Germany which did not outlaw coal they just upgraded/replaced their obsolete capacity with much improved coal powerstations .

      The UK Govt issued a climate change act in 2008 which set a limit of 380g co2/mWh for fossil fuel powered electricity generation specifically to outlaw coal in any form .

      Modern German coal powerstations chuck out over twice this ; 770g/mWh .

      No UK operator would invest in coal knowing the Govt’s attitude towards it so the obsolete powerstations continue to churn out more toxins than they need with deleterious effects on the health of people living close by .

      I hate the EU with a passion but the blame for this one lies firmly in Westminster .

      Far from overturning the 2008 climate change act Cameron is creating his own energy act to cripple us even further .

  32. yulwaymartyn
    December 14, 2013

    Does this apply all over the EU? Are the lights going to go out all over the EU? Or is the UK a special case? If it is a special case why?

    Answers please.

    1. uanime5
      December 14, 2013

      If the UK is a special case it’s because we’ve privatised our energy industry far more than other countries.

      1. Lindsay McDougall
        December 14, 2013

        Are you incapable of saying either “The EU has got it wrong” or “The EU has it in for Britain”? Does it never occur to you that two time World War users and cheese eating surrender monkeys don’t like us very much?

      2. waramess
        December 14, 2013

        Hardly privatised, government controlled and ultimately all owned by overseas government agencies.

      3. stred
        December 14, 2013

        Other countries have engineers planning and building the power supply systems. In the UK we have DECC with environmentalists in charge, regulators who insist on more paperwork and delays than anywhere else, and politicians who do not understand or wish to admit that they have made decisions which are going to cost a lot of lives and money.

      4. yulwaymartyn
        December 14, 2013

        Uanime5

        Thank you.

      5. con
        December 15, 2013

        How does privatisation of our energy industry lead to the closure of eight power stations?
        Something as imbecilic as this must have come from Westminster and / or the EU.

  33. Tad Davison
    December 14, 2013

    This typifies the madness of the EU. They want us to be commercially viable in order to feed the EU budget so they may continue to spend our wealth as they see fit. They then manipulate and manufacture the rules in order to stop us, stopping them bleeding us dry. Even placing obstacles in our way to prevent a UK veto wherever and whenever they can. Then, at a time when they need our money the most, to prop up a wrecked economic system, they try to shackle the British economy by seeing to it that we pay over the odds for energy, and thereby making our industry uncompetitive.

    Killing the goose that lays the golden egg, is something even a child could understand to be ludicrous, yet the EU persists with its interminable counter-intuitive nonsense. Worryingly though, we still haven’t heard from Mr. Cameron what his concept of a reconstituted and reformed EU might look like – the one he has so much enthusiasm for. That rather indicates that he already knows what he wants, but isn’t saying. Is that because he knows it would prove too controversial?

    Does anyone else smell a rat?

    If someone could show me how a remodelled EU might work to good effect, I might even support it too, but no-one thus far has shown me that the EU will ever be anything other than an unworkable, ungainly bureacratic monolith that Britain would be well rid of, and as John’s piece shows, it can’t come soon enough!

    Tad Davison

    Cambridge

  34. Kenneth R Moore
    December 14, 2013

    The ‘dash for gas’ in the 80’s and 90’s was a disaster for Britain – our precious reserves of North sea gas were squandered creating cheap electricity – much of the rest was sold of for a song when oil was trading at $25 a barrel.
    The remaining gas should be used exclusively for domestic and certain industrial uses – it’s far too valuable a resource to be used for generating electricity. We don’t need another dash for gas that would be extremely foolish – cleaner coal maybe as were sitting on maybe 300 years worth of supply (at present rates of consumption). Germany isn’t building much gas fired capacity to replace it’s nuclear fleet but is investing in coal. Don’t EU regulations apply to the Germans ?

    Shale gas isn’t that great an option either – the figures look very promising initially but production figures tail off rapidly without serious re-investment.

    1. A different Simon
      December 14, 2013

      Kenneth ,

      I agree with you that it would be better to use methane for something other than electricity generation and would include transportation in your list (as compressed natural gas rather than liquified) .

      Am enthusiastic about in-situ gasification of coal too .

      The type curve of production of every shale is different and even regions within that play but the total flow is made up of three different types of flow .

      The high initial flow rate is from gas which has migrated to the fractures over geological time periods . As the pressure in the reservoir drops due to production , gas in the matrix starts to flow and methane starts to desorp from from the surface of the rock .

      The issue is ultimate recovery per well . The high initial production means that the capex can be recovered quickly which is the opposite of renewables .

      A single lateral from a good shale well could produce an LNG tanker full of gas . Laterals in the UK are likely to be shorter due to faulting but with the thickness of shales we have have multiple laterals off the same well with maybe as 20 wells per pad .

      Of course the economics of production are not as good as for conventional high permeability reservoirs . That is one of the reason why shale plays are to be taxed lower than conventional plays . The whole point is that mankind is making use of an inherently less valuable resource than a large high permeability reservoir .

      For those people in Lancashire , Cheshire and elsewhere the continuous drilling is labour intensive and creates a lot of jobs .

      When reading your last sentence I couldn’t help but draw a comparison between the US and the UK .

      – In America they are entrepreneurial and developed shale hydrocarbon extraction and now they are giving the know-how to the rest of the world at no cost .

      – On the other hand in the UK we are only interested in get-rich-quick financial engineering and the tendency is to consign anything like shale which requires a lot of honest work to the “too difficult bin” .

      1. Kenneth R Moore
        December 16, 2013

        Simon,

        I want to share your positivity over shale gas but the figures that matter just don’t look great. America’s experience looks promising but lets see how the picture looks in a few years time – initial reports suggest production can fall by as much as 65% in the first year according to some reports.

        Do locals in Lancashire and Cheshire think that the disruption and mess caused by constant drilling is worth the extra jobs (and energy needed to extract a diminishing amount of gas) ?
        If we use oil extracted from say Saudi oilfields as a benchmark in terms of EROI (energy returned for energy invested) they are about 100:1. For shale gas it’s just 5:1 yet we are led to believe that shale gas is going to be our saviour.

        1. A different Simon
          December 17, 2013

          Kenneth ,

          If Nuclear fusion is ever perfected the E.R.O.E.I. could be 1:0.9 (i.e. if 90% of the energy produced was needed to sustain the reaction) yet it would still be doing because of two things ; the size of the resource and the scalability of the process of extracting energy from it .

          E.R.O.E.I. , so long as E.R.O.E.I. it is greater than 1 , the size of the resource and the scalability of the process of extracting it are more important than E.R.O.E.I.
          E.R.O.E.I. seems to be like crack cocoaine for most accountants .

          The Saudi fields are the biggest high permeability onshore fields around so why choose them as a benchmark ? How about a 30 million barrel recoverable field in the North Sea ?

          Obviously a nano-permeability reservoir is not as desirable as a high permeability fully connected reservoir bounded by a conventional trap .

          Rather than focus on decline rates it’s more useful to look at the ultimate recovery and the percentage of that ultimate recovery produced up front .

          Ultimate recoveries are lower but with longer horizontal laterals and multi-laterals , the recoveries per vertical and well head are worthwhile and drilling pads may be distributed less densely that petrol stations .

          If you are out of work then yes it’s worth having drilling for years .

      2. Bazman
        December 16, 2013

        How many jobs has the Morecambe Bay gas fields created for local labour? Not many and Barrow has one of the largest gas terminals in Europe few locals built it and even fewer work there.

  35. Anonymous
    December 14, 2013

    The EU demands that we take in many of its people and expects us to cut our energy consumption at the same time.

    The BBC supports it and (as with recent coverage of Syria) controls the political agenda.

    The Tory party is on a hiding to nothing with the BBC as it is.

    That said it was an ITV news reporter who said recently “There are bound to be more volcanic eruptions caused by man made global warming.” (Volcanic ash and new aircraft technology to get around it.)

  36. theyenguy
    December 14, 2013

    You write “Now they control so much more. Our energy policy is no longer our UK policy, but an imported EU one.”

    I respond, yes, this is the case.

    Liberalism’s three main drivers of economic life, creditism, corporatism and globalism, are failing to support investment choice, as is seen in Global Financials, IXG, Nation Investment, EFA, and World Stocks, VT, trading lower in value; thus evidencing the death of the Creature from Jekyll Island as well as the Milton Friedman Free To Choose Floating Currency Regime.

    Now, the singular dynamo of regionalism drives authoritarianism; regional nannycrats having pooled sovereignty and commanding seigniorage, that is moneyness, evidences the rise of the beast regime of regional governance and totalitarian collectivism.

    You continue, “It is driving industry out of the UK as power is so dear, and it now threatens us with insufficient power to get us through the next few winters. Give us a break EU.”

    I reply, inasmuch as liberalism’s fiat money and fiat wealth are both dead, liberalism as a paradigm and age, as well as its father Milton Friedman, is dead. Nation State Investment, EFA, and Global Financial Investment, IXG, and Global Industrial Producer Investment, FXR, were activities of the prior paradigm and age of liberalism, where democratic nation state and banker sovereignty, established dynamos of creditism, corporatism and globalism, that supported policies of investment choice and schemes of credit and currency trade investment, for investment return.

    Authoritarianism’s fathers are now emerging; and yes there be plenty, telling the UK what to do. Your report indicates growing EU regional economic governance where regionalism is the singular dynamo of economic life, in the paradigm and age of authoritarianism, with the beast regime of Revelation 13:1-4, manifests in regional governance, with policies of diktat, and in schemes of debt servitude, establishing regional security, stability, and sustainability, all for the purpose to secure debt servitude.

  37. Atlas
    December 14, 2013

    What you say John is very true.

    I think the problem lies in Cameron’s attitude – he really does not want to leave this EU Octopus – and they know it. All he can hope for is that the lights do not go out this Winter or next, otherwise his poor bluff will be called. Some of us remember Ted Heath and the lights going out in 1973/74. He ‘asked ‘who rules here’ and our answer was ‘not you mate!’

  38. BobE
    December 14, 2013

    We could just ignore them.

  39. Max Dunbar
    December 14, 2013

    It would be useful, first of all, to know some details about how we consume power, why we consume it, who consumes it and whether much of that consumption is necessary or not before deciding that the EU is to blame.
    We have arrived at this position because of the actions or inaction of our government. That is where the buck stops, not the EU. If there were a political will to sort this issue out then it could be sorted out. Perhaps that is an over simplistic view but there is no point in complaining about EU interference unless action is taken – now. And this applies to other issues such as immigration.
    We have a weak coalition government and a nation that is dividing along territorial as well as ethnic lines, hardly a recipe for concerted, strong and unified decision taking and action in the nation’s interests. As long as we remain in this mess then it will be easy for the EU to interfere and call the shots.
    We know that you will argue that remaining within the Tory Party will give you and your constituents more say and influence in affairs of state but what is the point in remaining with this party when there is no light at the end of the tunnel? Would you not now have more influence and respect outside the Conservative Party?

  40. John Wrake
    December 14, 2013

    I wrote a comment on this post earlier this morning, but it seems to have disappeared. I hope for a reappearance soon.

    John Wrake

    1. Bob
      December 14, 2013

      @John Wrake

      I wrote a comment on this post earlier this morning, but it seems to have disappeared. I hope for a reappearance soon.

      You need to change the expiry date of the cookie with the name beginning “comment_author_0cf….”.
      This will enable you to see your comments “awaiting moderation”.

      I have asked our venerable host to raise the issue with his webmaster, but he just ignores me.

  41. Martin Ryder
    December 14, 2013

    It is not the EU Commission that is closing our power stations; it is the little people who govern us. They are unable to think for themselves and can only do as they are told by the EU Commission. I am not only talking about the politicians who abase themselves before their masters in Brussels but also the civil servants and other public officials who toe the Brussels line.

    Their argument is that they must obey the law. Indeed they must where the law of the land protects the weak from the strong and the good from the bad but the laws being enacted by the EU Commission are simply administrative edicts resulting from treaties that we have signed with other countries in Europe. We signed the treaties in the belief that they would benefit the UK as well as others in the alliance. However it is clear that in certain instances – power generation, migration, etc – the treaties are doing us harm.

    In these cases I believe (I accept that others do not) that our government should inform the EU Commission, who should be our servants not our masters, that we are temporarily, or even permanently, withdrawing our consent to the aspects of the treaty that is harming us.

    It may be that the government should obtain the consent of Parliament before refusing the instructions from Brussels. It may also be that the fellow travellers in Parliament would, as they so often do, ignore, what appears to be, the wish of the electorate. But at least the people would know who is on their side and who is not.

    1. Denis Cooper
      December 14, 2013

      “It may be that the government should obtain the consent of Parliament before refusing the instructions from Brussels.”

      Yes, it would need the consent of Parliament, and the consent would have to be by primary legislation, an Act, to amend the European Communities Act 1972.

      It would need a new Act to over-ride Section 2 of the 1972 Act:

      http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1972/68/section/2

      “2 General implementation of the treaties.”

      “(1) All such rights, powers, liabilities, obligations and restrictions from time to time created or arising by or under the Treaties, and all such remedies and procedures from time to time provided for by or under the Treaties, as in accordance with the Treaties are without further enactment to be given legal effect or used in the United Kingdom shall be recognised and available in law, and be enforced, allowed and followed accordingly … ”

      Under that Section as it stands it is a matter of our current national law that the government is obliged to implement whatever rubbish may come from Brussels, and it would be breaking our current national law if it failed to do so.

  42. David Hope
    December 14, 2013

    Half of them see the dream as economic progress halting and everyone living in communes in the trees. There’s no hope of a sensible energy policy!

  43. Credible
    December 14, 2013

    John,
    How’s the censoring of posts going? Stalin would be proud.

  44. Bazman
    December 14, 2013

    Just build more waste incinerators this clean and cheap equipment producing almost free energy from our waste such as packaging, but not downwind of my house and preferably in expensive areas such as London to reduce emissions.

    1. libertarian
      December 14, 2013

      Blimey Bazzy I agree with you on something. Doesn’t matter about being downwind the outflow is minimal. Would happily have one close to me

      1. Denis Cooper
        December 14, 2013

        Are you sure you don’t want it built downwind of your house?

      2. Bazman
        December 14, 2013

        With that sort of attitude we’ll have nuclear within the M25 in no time!

  45. Mark
    December 14, 2013

    Hinkley C won’t be helping to keep the lights on for at least a decade. Moreover, it is three times the cost of similar capacity (same EPR technology, almost exactly the same output) being built at Taishan in China by the French and Chinese in half the time, and due on stream next year. For these reasons MPs ought to have questioned the Hinkley deal.

    If the station could be built at the same price as in China, and as rapidly, there would be no need of the elaborate inflation linked subsidy for its output. We’re being ripped off. For once, the EU is right to question the deal that ministers, the DECC and Parliament have failed to do. What favours were they trying to buy from the French and Chinese?

  46. Paul
    December 14, 2013

    It is not as though we are forced to remain a member of this club or trapped inside. If it was that bad a referendum could be arranged within weeks. The anger and frustration euroceptics feel should be directed at the useless LibLabCon parties that got us into this mess, not the EU.

  47. peter davies
    December 14, 2013

    In a nutshell our govt need to pass a law stating that ALL W’Minster legislation has primacy and any EU directive must go through a HOC vote. In reality we need this referendum bought forward – we have EEA status for free trade protection, we DO NOT need the EU

  48. English Pensioner
    December 14, 2013

    “Roll on renegotiation and an In/Out vote.”
    I’m sorry, but anyone who thinks there will be real negotiations with our present government in charge is living in cloud-cuckoo land!
    Those whom Cameron has put in charge of discussions with the EU and in various EU posts are all avid pro-Europeans. We will probably get a few trivial concessions which will then be hailed as a great victory, as when Blair gave up part of our rebate. Cameron has already indicated that he will campaign for an IN vote, even before the start of real negotiations, presumably regardless of the outcome.
    For real negotiations, we need those leading any discussions to want to leave EU forcing the EU to offer real concessions and change in the hope that we might stay in. When MPs like yourself or Douglas Carswell are the lead negotiators, I’ll believe that worthwhile negotiations are taking place.

  49. Lindsay McDougall
    December 14, 2013

    Roll on acting unilaterally and waving two fingers at the EU, the EC and the European courts. If we want sovereignty back, we will simply have to seize it.

    Has anyone noticed that Germany is now opening lignite fired power stations, the dirtiest coal of the lot? All Member States are equal…………………….
    BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.

  50. uanime5
    December 14, 2013

    The older plants the UK has been forced to close would have produced cheaper power for longer if EU rules had not forced them out of business.

    Under EU rules they can be reopened if they are upgraded to meet EU standards on sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions. Also they only have to close because the UK opted them out of several EU laws because it was cheaper than upgrading them.

    How can we generate CO2 free power, without massive subsidies and ramped up prices?

    We could try copying what other countries do. For example Germany gets 20% of it’s energy from renewable sources, while France doesn’t need to offer such massive subsidies in exchange for nuclear power plants.

    1. libertarian
      December 14, 2013

      Uanime5

      There you go again with Germany. Do you even know where it is? Germany is the biggest user of lignite and coal in Europe.

      France has 26 state built nuclear power stations what on earth are you dribbling about. You just make it up and hope no one checks.

    2. Bazman
      December 14, 2013

      The problem is uanime5 is that the Chinese and Indians are opening more than a thousand coal fired plants. We are selling technology not competing.

    3. Mark
      December 14, 2013

      Germany got 26.0 mtoe from renewables out of total energy consumption of 311.7 mtoe in 2012. That’s 8.3%. 25.4% of their energy (79.2 mtoe) came from coal. For the UK the figures were 8.4mtoe of renewables or 4.1%, and 39.1 mtoe of coal, or 19.2% of a total of 203.6 mtoe. Perhaps we should increase our coal consumption?

  51. Nick
    December 14, 2013

    John
    It is not believable to keep blaming the EU. The HOC has passed all the laws/treaties to allow the EU to operate.
    If you really wish to have cheap electricity, then you have to challenge the greens and the climate change agenda, because they wish to reduce electricity usage by cost increases.
    Here is a list of what to do, to reduce electricity costs.
    Use more coal. : Cheapest fuel source
    Abolish all green levies (not just switch to general taxation) : Save @11% on cost
    Abandon wind farms :2-3 times normal cost
    Drive through a plan for fracking :USA gas 1/3 of UK cost
    Abolish VAT on energy :Save 5% on cost

    How about a new slogan for the General Election
    “Cheap electricity – Vote Tory”

  52. Mark
    December 14, 2013

    This is the Bill (sic!) that Parliament is imposing on us:

    http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2013-14/energy/documents.html

    It is Parliament that wishes to turn off the lights, and ration us by price and quota.

  53. waramess
    December 14, 2013

    What a nonsence to blame the EU. British politicians have already caused a future UK energy crisis and the participation of the EU is really neither here nor there.

    Whenever politicians try to control a market it fails. No point in saying the EU policy of sustaining the price of agricultural products is flawed; it is, but so is UK energy.

    It beggars belief that even self styled Smithsonians should support such political interventions, but they do.

    Just let the market do the job and concentrate the collective government mind on ensuring the UK has a competitive market in energy (which it presently has not) and you might find the lights will not go out.

    Politicians should forget the EU requirements, for the EU is no more than a socialist club and has no real interest in free markets.

    No chance of any of this? Well, night njght and don’t forget to put the candle out .

    1. Bazman
      December 18, 2013

      The problem here is that “natural” market signals doesn’t always lead to ideal outcomes because those signals are based on demand that currently exists and will therefore provide a return on investments. Solar power as an example is loosing out the China as China subsidises their solar companies more than we do and sell them for less than cost to the rest of the world to build up a market share and pay for their research. Assembly is done abroad to avid ‘dumping’ claims China does not have free market fantasists undermining this and many other areas such as the internet. How you would have scoffed at such a thing 15 years ago and how much you admire Chinese progress. Ram it.

  54. matthu
    December 14, 2013

    Slightly OT, but worth it.

    Alan from Evesham wrote to his newspaper complaining about a response from the taxman to the question “Do you have any dependent?”

    Apparently his answer was inadmissible.
    Who did he leave out?

    (Person wrote about all the people he had to help via his tax bills ed)

  55. miami.mode
    December 14, 2013

    As many posters have pointed out it seems a bit of an exaggeration to suggest that the EU are forcing us to turn our lights off.

    No well-run business would undertake an indispensable aspect of their business without some sort of back-up in case of problems. Surely it should be possible to issue some sort of directive (a word the EU loves) to DECC that as a matter of national necessity generating capacity, without foreign imports, should always be say 10% in excess of known maximum demand.

    I can’t imagine any Parlianentarian disagreeing with this although I do feel that too many politicians are too busy politicking rather than trying to sort things out and make life better.

  56. forthurst
    December 14, 2013

    “the EU now wants to wreck or hold up the contract to build a new nuclear station for the UK.”

    Sometimes the EU, despite its best intentions is quite helpful. There is absolutely no point in installing new capacity unless it generates competitively priced electricity without subsidy. The Coalition is coming across as impotent and inept, continually running around like headless chickens whining about how the EU stops them doing whatever they want, supposedly in the national interest; did the EU instruct the Coalition to get itself stitched up by the French and Chinese or are our politicians and civil servants incapable of commercial negotiation without being taken to the cleaners?

    1. Edward2
      December 15, 2013

      Forthurst
      “….no point in installing new capacity unless it generates competitively priced electricity without subsidy”

      In which case we would just burn cheap coal and imported gas.

  57. Bob
    December 14, 2013

    Britain had iPhone technology before Apple, but Quango handed our advantage to the competition

    – Engineer Andrew Fentem was perfecting the touch-screen process in 1999
    – It was years before Apple took on Fingerworks – the system they now use
    – But his invention was stifled by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta)
    – Quango was set up by New Labour in 1998 to help innovation

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2523680/How-Britain-iPhone-technology-Apple-Quango-handed-advantage-competition.html

  58. margaret brandreth-j
    December 14, 2013

    Just more fodder for going independent with solar power. I agree John the EU is responsible for much of the c*** , but we are stuck with the outcome and cannot reverse the mess. Death of Britain wasn’t written by me , but I remember when they started going for my state status and selling off anything British and calling us dinosaurs and generally spoiling our lives, saying that it was the beginning of the Death of Britain. My ex husband said Britain was going to the dogs. We have certainly been roughed up and I find it hard to live the way of the UK now and change to aggression , competition, slovenliness, arguments , rudeness and fight for survival . Many seem to salivate for a kill , but shale gas will not change it.

  59. petermartin2001
    December 15, 2013

    How about commissioning a government report, maybe even a Royal Commission, on the sort of energy policy necessary to decarbonise the UK economy without killing off the country’s industrial base in the process? All relevant issues: cost, effectiveness, safety etc, to be included in the scope of the inquiry.

    I would expect that present policy of expanding the use of renewable energy would not fare too well. Firstly the energy produced is too expensive, secondly it is too unreliable, thirdly it is never going to be able to contribute more than about 20% to the UK’s energy supplies. Decarbonising 20% of energy supplies is insufficient. What about the other 80%?

    I would expect that the recommendation would be to phase out the burning of coal, and the replacement of coal fired power stations by gas and nuclear powered stations.

    I would also expect the safety issue to be a reason for why, rather than why not, the UK should have nuclear power. No source of energy is risk free, and that includes nuclear too of course. However, for all the well publicised problems with reactors, the safety record of nuclear power is a couple of orders of magnitude better than coal for example. Much better than oil and gas too!
    http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2010/nea6862-comparing-risks.pdf

    It’s no use just me saying that of course! And of course I could be wrong.

    I wouldn’t necessarily link the issue to EU membership at the present time. But, of course, if the country’s most informed experts recommend a course of action only to have the plan vetoed by some some EU regulation, that would be different.

  60. Martin
    December 15, 2013

    Where is the strong decision making in Westminster?

    1) Runways – yet another long grass commission – rumoured to be thinking of making a sort of decision – panic coming?
    2) MPs wages – another independent body set up – Oops it said do something and panic sets in.
    3) HS2 – five years of dither

  61. Barbara
    December 15, 2013

    Readers may be interested to know that thanks to an Irish engineer, Pat Swords, all the EU’s NREAPs (National Renewable Energy Action Plans) have been declared non-compliant with the Aarhus Convention (which the EU is signed up to). Mr Swords took the issue to the UN and obtained this judgement because the Convention says large-scale programmes like this, which affect the environment, must not be imposed top-down without proper transparent consultation with, and clear approval of, the population as a whole, which has not happened.

    In other words, the whole EU presumption in favour of, and imposition of, renewables is proceeding without proper authority.

    What a shame that it was only the time, effort and persistence of one concerned member of the public that achieved this, rather than one of our elected representatives.

  62. Peter Harris
    December 15, 2013

    This is all part of the EU wanting us to be dependent on them so we have enough power for this country.

    The best thing we can do is to build new power stations and to leave the EU, then we can do things first and foremost for the better of this country.

  63. fkc
    December 15, 2013

    I am alarmed that our GREAT COUNTRY can be brought to the position of even having to discuss whether our lights will be cut off. Then be told which power stations must be closed and why an alternative is not already up and running. How can the EU be allowed such control. I agree with all who say WE MUST COME OUT OF THE EU NOW. Do not hesitate.

  64. Mike Wilson
    December 16, 2013

    A ‘dash for gas’ eh? Oh boy, talk about dreaming of an easy way out.

    They have done a fair bit of drilling in Texas. Texas is 3 times bigger than the UK. Just that one state. Mile after mile of nothing. Less than half the people in a state 3 times the size.

    Shale gas is in Tory heartlands. It is NEVER going to be extracted.

    Scrap HS2 and build the Severn Barrage and 3 new nuclear power stations.

    1. Mark
      December 16, 2013

      Severn barrage power is about 10 times the cost of coal power. We can’t really afford expensive nuclear like Hinkley C either.

      You might be surprised where the wells are in Texas. Right in the middle of DFW airport for instance.

  65. Mike Wilson
    December 16, 2013

    The political party that is in power when the lights start going out can kiss goodbye to power for a generation (as it were).

    This is beginning to drive me nuts. For heaven’s sake – no, FOR OUR SAKE, tell the EU to get lost. Keep the power stations open, take control of our borders. You are sleepwalking towards UKIP taking over 20% of the vote in 2015. (Which is fine by me as it will shake things up, at least).

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