Energy policy turns a little towards commonsense

One cheer for the government approving the Jackdaw field. We need the gas, We need the well paid jobs. We need the tax revenue. It will mean less world CO2 as imported LNG which home gas will replace generates much more CO 2 when compressed, transported and regassified.

One and a half cheers if and when the government approves Rosebank, as the OBR expects it to do. That brings more jobs, much more tax revenue and will displace other oil that would be produced elsewhere for the world market. Producing more in the UK does not mean more oil is used worldwide.

Two  cheers if the Chancellor means what he wrote yesterday in the Times. He said it makes no sense to sign up for more windpower with expensive contracts and grants if the grid cannot handle the extra electricity. We are already paying a small fortune to wind power providers when they produce more electricity than the grid can handle. It makes no sense to commission more power which would incur yet more of these crazy payments.

To make it three cheers there need to be many more changes of policy. If the PM is serious in saying we need to get the prices of power down, and we  need more national supply then these too need to happen

1. Allow drilling for more oil and gas onshore and offshore. Encourage tie backs of oil and gas into existing North Sea production facilities and pipelines to use them for longer. Decommissioning them prematurely means extra costs and extra CO 2 generated for no good reason, which is what Mr Miliband wanted to do.
2. Extend the lives of our existing fleet of nuclear power stations where the safety case allows. We are about to lose all but one of our stations to old age.
3. Extend the lives and contracts for our existing gas power stations as they are crucial to keeping the lights on.
4. Place a price cap on how much we are prepared to pay for imported electricity other than in an emergency when we have otherwise run out of power. Avoid importing power other than renewable given the government’s environmental concerns.
5. Acknowledge that an aggressive net zero policy in the UK closing  down our energy using industries to rely on imports is not only bad for our economy, undermines our national security and increase world CO 2.