Nuclear

Ideology

Category

Headline

Summary

Pro nuclear

Anti nuclear

Balanced

Pro fracking

Anti fracking

Balanced

Pro renewables

Anti renewables

Balanced

This disaster must not halt nuclear power

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/this-disaster-must-not-halt-nuclear-power-cnm33gs3nn0

There should be no implications for the wider nuclear debate, however, least of all in Britain which has no history of serious earthquakes. Some nuclear issues have to be fully resolved, including cost and waste. Conventional power stations have shown themselves vulnerable to flooding, so the sites of new nuclear plants need to be chosen with care. We should not allow Japan’s tragedy, great as it is, to exert a misleading influence.

Renewables

Fallout should not be more wind farms

THERE will be some smug faces among wind farmers and green campaigners today as Japan battles to avoid nuclear meltdown. This is just the evidence they crave against any switch from oil and gas power that doesn't involve renewable energy. What happens to nuclear waste, they always ask, if there's an earthquake? Well, in quake-hit Fukushima we are starting to find out…All this is powerful grist to the global warmers' mills — especially their windmills. It is precisely what they need to vindicate a fresh splurge on the ugly wind farms which already blight our landscape and cost the earth. Fukushima raises many questions. If Japanese engineers can contain the fall-out, it might deliver some answers. Whichever way it goes, those answers do NOT include windmills…The windmill industry claim they are capable of generating 15 per cent of all our energy needs without carbon emissions. That's if the wind blows at full blast whenever we need it. The fact is that when the wind stops, they are useless. Indeed, when wind power fails, we rely on imported energy — from French nuclear power stations!

Japan's disaster must prompt a new look at reactor safety

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/leading-article-japan-s-disaster-must-prompt-new-look-reactor-safety-2241004.html

Even the best-case scenario, however, will not suffice to allay the doubts about nuclear power that have nagged so many for so long. Granted that this was a natural disaster far off the scale of anything ever envisaged, even for Japan's fragile geology, the implications are still grave. If the Japanese, with all their understandable inhibitions about anything nuclear and all their world-leading technology, cannot build reactors that are invulnerable to disaster, who can?

Nuclear power: After the flood

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/15/nuclear-power-after-the-flood

For all the emotive force of events in Japan, though, this is one issue where there is a pressing need to listen to what our heads say about the needs of the future, as opposed to subjecting ourselves to jittery whims of the heart. One of the few solid lessons to emerge from the aged Fukushima plant is that the tendency in Britain and elsewhere to postpone politically painful choices about building new nuclear stations by extending the life-spans of existing ones is dangerous. Beyond that, with or without Fukushima, the undisputed nastiness of nuclear – the costs, the risks and the waste – still need to be carefully weighed in the balance against the different poisons pumped out by coal, which remains the chief economic alternative. Most of the easy third ways are illusions. Energy efficiency has been improving for over 200 years, but it has worked to increase not curb demand. Off-shore wind remains so costly that market forces would simply push pollution overseas if it were taken up in a big way. A massive expansion of shale gas may yet pave the way to a plausible non-nuclear future, and it certainly warrants close examination. The fundamentals of the difficult decisions ahead, however, have not moved with the Earth.

Nuclear power still realistic for UK

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nuclear-power-still-realistic-uk-177013

We need to build more wind turbines but it’s impossible to see beyond nuclear if we want to keep the lights on.

Renewables

There has been enough windy rhetoric already

FEW people would object to the proposition that some of Britain's energy needs should be met by wind turbines. After all, there are many parts of the nation that are typically fairly windy and this method of generation is almost pollution free. But the harsh reality is that wind is an unreliable, and, as yet, expensive form of energy and the advance claims on its behalf are not being borne out in reality. The truth is that the lights will go out in this country if Westminster does not press ahead as soon as possible with its nuclear power programme. The awful tragedy in Japan does not weaken the case for nuclear energy, it strengthens it. The plant there withstood perhaps the most powerful earthquake on this earth, and did not experience difficulty until the tsunami. Similar circumstances could not occur here. Despite the Greens, and others, who would take us back to paraffin lamps, nuclear power is the cleanest and most efficient power available to us today. By all means let us continue to invest in wind power - and wave power too - but nobody should think tough decisions about nuclear capacity and possibly new coal-fired stations can be avoided. That is just a lot of hot air.

Japan: Seeking higher ground

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/may/12/japan-seeking-higher-ground

This contrasts with the recommendation of Britain's climate change committee this week to increase reliance on nuclear energy. The Department of Energy and Climate Change is also considering a proposal that would cut the subsidy, through feed-in tariffs for generators of solar power. Disaster-stricken Japan is moving in the opposite direction, and it is brutally clear why…Tepco may apologise deeply and profusely, but Japan's nuclear industry has lost the stranglehold it once had over the energy debate. There are no votes in trying to defend it now.

Renewables

Wind farm craze blighting countryside and economy

https://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/246765/Wind-farm-craze-blighting-countryside-and-economy

They are too expensive, inefficient and they devastate the landscape. There are already far too many of these eyesores dotted across the country but Chris Huhne, the Climate Change Secretary, wants 11,000 more built.

UK climate policy

A Government that is not green enough

DAVID CAMERON is reported to have resisted pressure from some Cabinet ministers to water down Britain's emissions reduction targets. The Government will announce today that it will act on the recommendations of the independent Committee on Climate Change (CCC) and ensure that our national emissions fall by 50 per cent on 1990 levels by 2025… So can we assume the Prime Minister's pledge that this will be "the greenest government ever" is on course to be met? Sadly not. The acceptance of the CCC's advice is certainly welcome. But there is another side to this Government's environmental record that should not be obscured by this announcement. This Government has authorised the use of "hydraulic fracturing", a technique that some scientists warn is highly damaging to the environment, to search for natural gas in the countryside near Blackpool. Ministers have also given the go-ahead to drilling for oil in the deep sea off Britain's coast, despite the dangers exposed by last year's spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The Coalition's anti-regulation drive has put many environmental safeguards in jeopardy. The Green Investment Bank is disappointingly limited. Treasury funding for carbon capture has been reduced. And in the commitment on the carbon budget there is reported to be a get-out clause that allows these targets to be reviewed if our European peers fail to reduce their own emissions. Emissions reduction targets, even with get-out clauses, are worthwhile because they send a signal to potential investors in green industries. Yet more important are the practical emission-reducing policy decisions that are needed to ensure those targets are met. Though they will deliver long-term benefits, these decisions are likely to be unpopular, or costly, in the immediate term. A government's willingness to enact these tough measures, and make the public case for them, is a truer test of an administration's green credentials than the setting of long-term targets. By that standard, Mr Cameron's first year in office has fallen well short of his ambitious pledge.

The Arctic no place for oil companies

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/leading-article-arctic-no-place-oil-companies-2285367.html

Some years ago BP declared it would become the greenest of oil companies by refashioning its initials to stand for Beyond Petroleum. It should act on that now and turn the Rosneft debacle to its advantage by exploring the renewable and sustainable sources which are the real future of global energy strategy. Blundering into the planet's most pristine wilderness is not the answer.

German politics must not sway Britain's energy decisions

The decision of the German government to phase out nuclear power within 10 years offers a startling illustration of the capacity for an event on one side of the world to have almost instant repercussions on the other. It will be a long time before the full cost of the disaster at Japan's Fukushima plant is known, but the wider political implications are already clear. Chancellor Angela Merkel has now retreated to the policy of the pre-2005 centre-left coalition, which was pledged to shut all Germany's nuclear power stations by 2021…In solving one problem, however - the political unpopularity of nuclear power - Ms Merkel's government has created another: how to replace the power that will not now come from nuclear reactors, accounting for almost a quarter of the country's needs. Germany has a good record in renewables, with widespread use of solar power in the south. Ms Merkel herself is said to favour wind and wave power. Even so, a large proportion of new development could rely on coal, driving up carbon emissions…The Coalition currently supports the development of a new generation of nuclear power stations, on condition that they are not subsidised by the taxpayer. Many Liberal Democrats, though, remain reluctant and could well cite Germany in demanding a re-think. There may indeed be political and economic reasons for revisiting the nuclear power question. But any review should weigh the environmental pros and cons, while recognising how the British situation differs from that of both Japan and Germany. Decisions about Britain's energy provision are too important to be formulated on the run.

North Sea oil: Trading blows with Mr Osborne

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jun/03/north-sea-oil-osborne-editorial

What a contrast this makes from the Treasury's kid-gloves approach to the City. There, the bank levy was watered down to make sure it did not raise too much money. Energy executives are campaigning hard now – but when it comes to lobbying they evidently have a lot to learn from bankers.

Climate science

Britain cannot afford this green madness

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2002316/Britain-afford-green-madness.html

Yesterday, as some areas of the east of England were declared in a state of drought, Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman was quick to blame the shortage of water on the ‘big challenge of climate change’. It was the typical knee-jerk reaction of an obsessively ‘green’ government which – in order to justify its punitive environmental taxes and draconian targets to reduce CO2 emissions – sees evidence of global warming everywhere it looks. As former Cabinet Secretary Lord Turnbull said this week in a truly withering critique, ministers and their officials have deliberately ignored the huge doubts surrounding climate change science. ‘From our politicians we need open-mindedness, more rationality, less emotion and less religiosity; and an end to the alarmist propaganda and to attempts to frighten us and our children,’ he wrote. Already, the cost of what Lord Turnbull calls the Government’s ‘global evangelism’ is plain to see: with households paying an extra £200 a year in hidden green charges on their gas and electricity bills and power companies being forced to scar the countryside with 10,000 ineffective wind turbines. The cost to the fragile economic recovery could be even greater, with advisers warning David Cameron that the move to a low-carbon economy will cost 1 per cent of GDP, or £13billion a year. Worse, we are the only country in the world to have imposed on its economy a strict, anti-competitive and legally-binding requirement to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2025. China (whose annual increase in emissions is greater than the UK’s total emissions), India and the U.S. are all refusing to commit to significant reductions – rendering our own efforts as futile as they are foolish. In a devastating analysis on these pages, in which he wisely calls for the suspension of the current UK policy, former chancellor Nigel Lawson says: ‘It is curious, to say the least, that a government that came to power saying it wished to rebalance the economy ... should be determined to impose the most anti-manufacturing energy policy of any government in history.’ Sadly, the suspicion is that – as with his crazy, politically-correct commitment to increase international aid – Mr Cameron is expecting the country to foot a heavy bill for his own personal obsession with ‘detoxifying’ the Tory brand. This is total madness at a time when families are already finding it hard to pay their bills, and the economy is struggling to emerge from a deep recession.

Energy prices

Cool response to White Paper on energy market

AS A rule of thumb it is safe to assume that any measure introduced in the name of green politics or the EU is not going to do any favours for British taxpayers. And so it is with the changes to the energy market set out in a new White Paper, made with the aim of meeting EU targets for the generation of renewable energy. Electricity costs could rise by as much as 47 per cent as a result of these measures. For families already struggling to make ends meet this is catastrophic news and they are hardly likely to take comfort from Energy Secretary Chris Huhne's blithe assurances that he is simply trying to encourage competition in the market which will result in prices coming down. We will all believe that when it happens. Huhne is a wealthy green zealot who has no understanding of how real people live when he declares: "We've got to get off that oil and gas fuel hook." For families who are not going to be off the oil or gas hook (whatever that means) in the foreseeable future can't help but notice that barely a week goes by without an announcement from one of the big energy companies that their prices are going up. It is just one thing after another.

Still deeper

THE SHADOW of fracking continues to loom over Lancashire. Cuadrilla Resources has suspended its search for shale gas in the rocks beneath Blackpool after a series of local earthquakes. But the company is now planning to drill in Southport. The ecological impact of hydraulic fracturing - which involves shooting jets of water to fracture shale rock and dislodge gas - is still unknown. The French government is concerned enough to have banned it. Yet our own Government has thrown its arms wide open to the industry. It would be more comforting if ministers, rather than rolling out the welcome mat, were to demand a comprehensive scientific study of the environmental impact of fracking.

The case for a moratorium is overwhelming

THE ARGUMENTS against drilling for oil in the Arctic are so clear they should make themselves. Given that the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico proved such a challenge to technically-adept BP last year, the difficulty of shutting off a leak in a climate of sub-zero temperatures, which is pitch dark and frozen solid for six months of every 12, can only be imagined. The potential damage to the environment is equally extreme. The Arctic is indescribably hostile, but also fragile - a pristine, wilderness ecosystem barely touched by human interference. As Cambridge University's Professor Peter Wadhams, one of the world's most respected polar scientists, warns in this newspaper today, an Arctic spill could prove uncontrollable, and its impact catastrophic. In such a context, the case for an absolute moratorium on Arctic drilling is overwhelming…Such concerns only make the argument for fossil-free alternatives, from nuclear power to renewable energy generation to biofuels, stronger than ever. Against the backdrop of galloping growth in developing economies and a global population set to rise by a third by 2050, it is the development of sustainable energy supplies that must be the priority, not the false promise of Arctic oil.

Renewables

It's Chris Huhne’s windfarms that are inflating energy bills

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/8776624/Its-Chris-Huhnes-windfarms-that-are-inflating-energy-bills.html

Mr Huhne chose not to explain that one of the reasons energy prices are rising fast – government advisers say they will climb by another 30 per cent by the end of the decade – is the Coalition’s ruinous fixation with costly renewable power generation. Specifically, we are investing more in offshore windfarms than any other country, and the economics of the policy are crippling…A clean – and secure – energy future has to depend on nuclear generation.

Not a risk that it is worth Britain taking

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/leading-article-fracking-not-risk-it-worth-britain-taking-2358603.html

The case against fracking is impossible to ignore. In the US, where the shale gas industry is already up and running, there are allegations of heavily contaminated water from household taps bursting into flames and of increased toxin levels in the air around the drilling sites…Fracking is an unconscionable gamble with potentially catastrophic results. It has already been banned in France. It should be banned in Britain as well.

Energy prices

Now ordinary families face threat of poverty

WHEN people on average earnings start to fall into "fuel poverty" it is clear that Britain is in the grip of a living standards crisis…Politicians must ensure they do everything possible to relieve the burden on families, rather than add to it. So it is time for Britain to abandon unilateral and unrealistic targets for cutting CO2 emissions, especially where they will only be achieved by investing a fortune in expensive "renewables".

Energy prices

Britain running on empty

https://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/283902/Britain-running-on-empty/amp

Renewables

Wind farms warning

WE are fast approaching the stage where it is difficult to go into the country and not see, a wind farm in the distance. Our landscapes have been severely compromised in the headlong search for sustainable energy. Now, added to the growing antipathy towards wind farms from a variety of quarters are fears that they could be a health hazard to humans. Prolonged exposure to noise, vibration and the flicker effect of turbines can cause insomnia and stress and, in some cases, high blood pressure, according to research in Australia. Similar effects have been noted in Scotland.

UK climate policy

Climate change: Brownfield thinking

On the day the coalition was formed, David Cameron stood at the heart of the Department of Energy and Climate Change and declared his faith in the green economy. Eighteen months later, his chancellor told the Conservative party conference: "We're not going to save the planet by putting our country out of business." As today's autumn statement will only confirm, the political presentation of the climate change agenda has switched from asset to liability. Economic crisis has given the Treasury a stranglehold on Decc ministers' efforts to promote the green economy, and it is short-sightedly jeopardising the chances of Britain being a leading player in a field that can only grow. Investment is expected to double in the next 10 years. By the end of that time, some renewables - solar and wind - are predicted to be price-competitive with fossil fuels. But to develop, the sector depends on a settled framework in which investment decisions can be made with confidence. Instead it is being undermined by dithering and backtracking…Cameron's early green investment rhetoric has given way to spin about building roads, easing the fuel bills of energy-intensive industry and holding down fuel prices. Laying the foundations for green growth is no longer part of the solution but the cause of the problem. Wrong. Today's energy crisis is not about the cost of developing alternatives, but the volatility in fossil fuel prices. Even global warming sceptics might admit that investing in low-carbon technology is a matter of common sense.

UK climate policy

Britain can't afford to go cool on climate change

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/dec/03/climate-change-observer-editorial

Renewables

Wind farms will end up as expensive follies

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/leaders/article835694.ece

The scores of wind farms are more worrying. Renewable energy technology is in its infancy. Huge breakthroughs in solar, wave and other renewables will be made in the coming years. Mr Huhne envisages a “technology race” in the 2020s with the cheapest winning. It is important that the race is not fixed before it starts. The current generation of wind farms may quickly become outdated and remain as expensive reminders of a rush to invest. New, more effective and less intrusive energy technologies are on the way. The risk is that the door is closed to them if the government throws in its lot with wind farms. For reasons of cost as well as aesthetics, we must avoid falling into that trap.

International politics

Climate change: ambition gap

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/dec/12/durban-climate-change-conference-2011-climate-change

Renewables

Seat of power

YORKSHIRE folk aren't famous for the extravagance of their spending. And as a depressing report reveals the Government's green agenda is set to hike our already extortionate utility bills even further, here is one fact worth knowing: The four UK towns and cities with the most Government-subsidised solar panels are Doncaster, Rotherham, Barnsley and Sheffield. Not exactly sunshine resorts of international renown. But they ARE known for their no-nonsense people who are canny with money. If solar's working for them, it could just be worth looking into. Besides, before long it might be the only energy any of us can afford.

Renewables

Fuel fossils

MOTORISTS face another bumpy ride as the foreign owner of a major UK refinery goes bust, threatening fuel shortages and price rises. Once again, Britain's vital energy supplies are at the mercy of events elsewhere. The Government can't be blamed for the collapse of the Swiss firm that has resulted in the closure of Coryton refinery in Essex. But it can be blamed for stumbling on with no coherent strategy to secure Britain's energy needs. Despite years of talk, we're still no nearer opening desperately-needed new nuclear power stations. We still lack sufficient gas storage capacity, leaving British homes and industry in the hands of Russia and other risky suppliers. Lib Dem Energy Secretary Chris Huhne's response is to plaster the countryside with dud windmills so inefficient we have to pay to turn them off when the breezes blow. And now petrol may run short. Coryton supplies 20 per cent of the south east. When will the Government give energy policy the priority it deserves?

Japan's nuclear disaster: a long half-life

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/feb/28/japan-nuclear-disaster-fukushima-editorial

With just two of its 54 nuclear reactors in operation, Japan is importing coal and oil as if there is no tomorrow – and no Kyoto protocol, whose emissions targets it will now not meet. Japan's overreliance on nuclear power as a "clean" alternative to coal- and oil-fired stations should give the world pause for thought. Britain is now going down the same route. The debate is complex, but it must not assume the same thing couldn't happen here. That's what they said in Japan after Chernobyl.

Fuel on the Fire

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fuel-on-the-fire-9jpb5r5d2ct

Renewables

Wind farm plan a disaster

IF A nuclear power station were planned for Shetland, there would be almost universal outrage. The plan to erect no fewer than 103 wind turbines on the archipelago represents, however, a much greater act of government-backed vandalism. The John Muir Trust and the RSPB are dismayed, as are a majority of local people - so much for politicians taking a blind bit of notice of public consultation. Even so, the Scottish Government, determined to achieve its renewable targets, is all for ignoring public opinion and ruining the landscape and vital wildlife grounds. Energy Minister Fergus Ewing says islanders will benefit from the jobs created. There, possibly, will be 140 - mostly temporary - jobs at an initial cost of almost £600million. And that's before any of the electricity fromthis unreliable source even reaches local homes, let alone the Scottish mainland.

Fracking bonanza

https://www.ft.com/content/bf484d6a-8893-11e1-a727-00144feab49a

Earth tremors are not the biggest risk from fracking

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/leading-article-earth-tremors-are-not-biggest-risk-fracking-7654715.html

Gas Trick

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gas-trick-g8vkxknb5v2

Renewables

Talking a lot of hot air

AS billionaire Donald Trump prepares his case against wind turbines for the Scottish Parliament, a blizzard of proturbine propaganda is being released on the Scottish public. This newspaper is not against wind power; we believe that energy from the wind, and water, should be part of a mix of power sources that also includes nuclear, coal and gas. Unfortunately, the issue has become polarised, and the pro-wind turbine lobby, which includes a stubborn Scottish Government, is not helping us make sensible and sustainable decisions. This week, there will be much entertainment given Mr Trump's fame - or notoriety, depending on your point of view - but not much in the way of informed debate, we fear. A lot of wind, and little of it doing anyone any good.

Renewables

Tilting at windmills

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/9228942/Tilting-at-windmills.html

The Independent on Sunday

No easy answers to green energy

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/leading-article-no-easy-answers-to-green-energy-7768693.html

The latest fad is for shale gas. Lots of it is trapped in rocks underneath and around the British Isles (near Blackpool especially) and it was thought it could not be extracted at an economic price. Along came a new technique, known as fracking, which involves underground explosions, and great reserves of oil and gas become viable. Except that, on second thoughts, they do not. As we report today, the energy industry has accepted that shale gas offers limited scope for new supply. Just as with all those previous promises of plenty, it has turned out to be difficult and expensive in practice. This will come as a relief to the green-minded, worried that new supplies of cheap carbon-based fuel would compound climate change.

No alternative to nuclear power

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/leading-article-no-alternative-nuclear-power-7778724.html

Renewables

Wind of change

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9311499/Wind-of-change.html

International politics

Japan turns the power back on

https://www.ft.com/content/642bfba6-bbb1-11e1-9aff-00144feabdc0

Energy Equation

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/energy-equation-nqrfk7qw2sq

Renewables

Renewable energy: the chancellor is misguided to back a new dash for gas

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/30/observer-editorial-renewable-energy-good

Tough choices on nuclear power

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/editorial-tough-choices-nuclear-power-8219860.html

Energy prices

We need a vision for energy – not this fiasco

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/21/leader-britain-needs-energy-policy

Energy prices

Put heat on energy firms

https://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/354829/Put-heat-on-energy-firms

WITH Britons bracing themselves for the winter freeze five of the Big Six energy companies have cynically hit hard-pressed families with another round of inflation-busting price hikes (the other, e.on, has fixed its prices until January). Our electricity is now among the most expensive in Europe but families are still being asked to bankroll heavily-subsidised on-shore wind farms to meet pointless EU renewables targets. If David Cameron really wants to help struggling households this winter it's time to freeze out the renewables gravy-train.

Our energy strategy is still underpowered

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/9643142/Our-energy-strategy-isstill-underpowered.html

A boost for Britain's nuclear renaissance

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/editorial-boost-britain-s-nuclear-renaissance-8262183.html

UK climate policy

Energy: a charged debate

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/nov/11/coalition-energy-battle

US politics

Climate policy and the shale boom

https://www.ft.com/content/015e0f88-2fff-11e2-891b-00144feabdc0

Renewables

Yeo windbag

GETTING Britain's energy policy right is a tricky balancing act. We need reliable power at the best price while causing least environmental damage. Yet despite windmills being debunked as neither cheap nor efficient, the Government expects us to pay for more. Senior Tory MP Tim Yeo says higher bills are a reasonable price for more wind power. It might be reasonable to him. He pockets fees as a green energy adviser. But to householders hammered by relentless fuel hikes it's infuriating. Mr Yeo should try living on a pensioner's pittance before sounding so patronising.

Renewables

Power Play

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/power-play-bcdq5579cxf

Politicians can ignore this or act, and yesterday’s £7.6 billion clean energy levy was a bold step. It will raise energy bills at a time when many are already struggling to pay them. It will be seen as a defeat for Liberal Democrats who were hoping for a formal pledge to “decarbonise” British power generation. But if it is politically awkward, it is the braver for that. The challenge now is to spend the money on the right mix of energy sources. This would be relatively easy if the case for “renewables” — energy from wind, solar, tidal, geothermal and biomass — were clear even on purely environmental grounds. Unfortunately, it is not. This newspaper is as sceptical about many of the most expensively promoted solutions to Britain’s energy problems as it is concerned to emphasise that climate change is real and serious.

Backing fracking

https://www.ft.com/content/2dec6972-4531-11e2-838f-00144feabdc0

How to get the most out of shale

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/9743051/How-to-get-the-most-out-of-shale.html

The Fracking Question

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-fracking-question-vfnm7nlckjh

Fracking go-ahead is right

http://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/364592/Fracking-go-ahead-is-right

[T]he Government is right to give fracking trials the green light to start up again. This country faces a full-blown energy crisis. The very high cost of domestic heating is a key factor behind the tens of thousands of excess deaths that occur every winter. And environmental rules mean that many power stations will soon be taken out of commission. Of course fracking is not risk free, of course people living near these trials have a right to feel nervous and of course it needs to be closely monitored. But refusing even to explore its potential is simply not an option.

Fracked it

WE'RE often told there's no easy solution to the problems of debt, unemployment and soaring fuel bills. But part of the answer could lie right under our feet. There may not be gold in them thar hills ... but there could be plenty of gas. Nearly £1.5TRILLION worth, if some estimates are to be believed. Energy Secretary Ed Davey yesterday gave the go-ahead for exploratory drilling which could unearth a bonanza of jobs, cash and cheaper energy. He's right to listen to opponents who warn that fracking, as it's called, could cause environmental harm. But all fuel comes at a cost, be it high-pollution coal, nuclear power or costly and unsightly windfarms. Britain is far too reliant on foreign gas and could be importing 80 per cent of our supplies by 2020. It is vital that we find a cheap and reliable source of energy — even if it means exploring deep beneath our green and pleasant land. It's going to take at least six years until we know if it's viable. So what are we waiting for? Let's get fracking.

Renewables

Behind the wind turbine war is a lack of policy and joined-up thinking

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/06/policy-on-wind-turbines-inconsistent

Climate science

Global warming and an inconvenient truth

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2259934/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Global-warming-inconvenient-truth.html

Renewables

Wind fools

COMPLAINING loudly about the cost of wind turbines is not just hot air. The fields of offshore windmills are billed as supplying cheaper, greener electricity in the decades ahead when the price of oil and gas soars world-wide. Yet public scepticism about a crucial alternative source of electricity is heightened when suppliers are paid way over the odds. The £17billion deal to plug turbines into the National Grid is bad for consumers if household bills go through the roof. Wind turbines will never be popular as long a people feel ripped-off

International politics

Climate change is back on the agenda, at last

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/editorial-climate-change-back-agenda-last-8462263.html

Energy prices

No excuse for dithering on energy

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/editorial-no-excuse-dithering-energy-8501693.html

Energy prices

Energy prices: Political power play

In warning of "very tight power station capacity", Alistair Buchanan of Ofgem provoked the headlines about the lights going out that he must have expected. In truth, with the possible exception of a very occasional December evening, blackout Britain remains a remote prospect, and Mr Buchanan was careful to eschew direct use of such language. But if he is keen to engender a sense of crisis, that is understandable - and not only because a slothful regulator wishes to cover its back against the worst case. There is indeed, as Mr Buchanan insisted, an energy gap opening up. Coal power stations are being decommissioned. Even in the increasingly doubtful event than nuclear can fill the gap, it will not do so before 2020. In the interim, Britain will have to get by with less energy. Even while power continues to flow to the plug, that will mean higher and more volatile prices. If and when the economic recovery materialises, demand for energy will rise, so this is one problem that will only get worse. The government's response is a creakingly complex energy bill, which guarantees little but uncertainty. In the bizarre theology of a privatised electricity sector in which France's nationalised EDF is the biggest player, it is regarded as unacceptably retrograde for ministers to decide anything directly, and policy must operate through incentive schemes. Consequently, instead of having anything as coherent as a new dash for gas or a green light for new nuclear, we have various "capacity payments", "contracts for difference" and "feed-in tariffs". If all these disparate levers were pulled in one direction at once, then just maybe the quasi-market could deliver a strategy by indirect means. Sadly, political divisions preclude this. The coalition has failed to send stable signals - renewables, nuclear and latterly gas have been talked up as the future in turn. George Osborne dreams of Britain somehow defying its geology to cash in on America's shale revolution, while manoeuvring to kill off nuclear because of legitimate fears over cost. The Lib Dem energy secretary, Ed Davey, hankers for green alternatives, but the wind is taken out of his sails by his Tory deputy, John Hayes, who regards turbines as an ugly irrelevance. In sum, the means of getting anything done are intricate, and only a strong political grip - of which there is no sign - will make policy effective. Would-be investors in gas, green power and nuclear look on with no confidence at what return they can expect, and respond by walking away, leaving Britain with its energy gap. It is a frustrating position because - for all the complexity - the economics are at root quite simple. The price of electricity has two components: the cost of the energy itself and an insurance premium. The premium finances enough extra power to ensure that the grid can answer any plausible surge in demand. If the government wants to stick within the market paradigm, it should simply auction contracts to provide that surplus, leaving the companies to select the most efficient means. There would, however, have to be a requirement for the winning bids to comply with the UK's obligations on carbon. That could be done, but the need to manage a market again raises the question of whether it is time for a broader rethink, and a more directed energy policy. Ed Miliband hinted last week that he had ideas which could cut bills for hard-pressed customers, but said nothing about how. If, like the coalition and New Labour before it, he wants to stick within the architecture created at privatisation, he is likely to find that it is tricky to get anything done. If, on the other hand, he wants more radical change, he will soon have to give an indication of exactly what - not just because of the usual argument about oppositions building up credibility through detailed policies, but also because uncertainty about the policy of the potential next government could compound the metaphorical power cut which the coalition has already imposed on Britain's electricity sector.

Politicians posture as the lights go out

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2281437/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Politicians-posture-lights-out.html

In April alone, there will be a 10% fall in capacity when Draconian environmental targets force the premature closure of coal and oil-fired power stations. If the lights do go out, history will be harsh on a posturing political class that – in order to burnish its ‘green credentials’ – has left Britain at the mercy of foreign powers for heat and light...In a sane world, ministers would immediately suspend their green edicts, scrap green taxes on energy bills and keep open existing coal power stations until we are producing enough clean power to stand on our own two feet.

UK climate policy

Green posturing and the great gas fiasco

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2297855/Green-posturing-great-gas-fiasco.html

Zealots who will let the lights go out

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2298157/MAIL-ON-SUNDAY-COMMENT-Zealots-let-lights-out.html

One obvious and straightforward escape route [from power cuts] is available, the swift and widespread exploitation of shale gas, or fracking. As The Mail on Sunday shows today, this has transformed the energy position in the USA, simultaneously cutting costs and reducing carbon emissions. While Britain cannot expect a boom of the same size, there is no doubt that this country contains substantial shale gas reserves. Yet the Green lobby, for no clear reason, opposes such a move. Ministers must challenge this pig-headed dogmatism, before the lights go out.

Renewables

Too much green energy is bad for Britain

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/9949595/Too-much-green-energy-is-bad-for-Britain.html

There are good intentions behind a green energy policy, and no one would wilfully want to damage the environment. But green technology – in its current incarnation, anyway – is just too inefficient and expensive to meet our energy needs. In some of the worst weather for more than 30 years, green power still only provides a tiny fraction of our energy needs. Solar power is of limited use in our cold, dark, northern climate. And wind power isn’t much better – cold weather doesn’t necessarily mean windy weather.

Ignorance is the biggest enemy in the shale war

https://www.ft.com/content/6d5dfdd8-ae76-11e2-bdfd-00144feabdc0

Concerns over fracking cannot be bought off

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/editorial-concerns-over-fracking-uk-cannot-be-so-easily-bought-8594996.html

Fracked it

https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/701415/fracked-it-2/

Climate science

Climate change: Swift political action could still avert a carbon crisis

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/12/observer-editorial-carbon-dioxide-levels-high

Welling Up

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/welling-up-wwdtmmjpwkv

The shale revolution

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/10098232/The-shale-revolution.html

UK climate policy

Green energy: commitment phobia

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/04/green-energy-commitment-phobia-editorial

Renewables

Wind power has failed to deliver what it promised

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/10121584/Wind-power-has-failed-to-deliver-what-it-promised.html

Renewables

Dark clouds over the solar panels

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/10135661/Dark-clouds-over-thesolar-panels.html

US nuclear policy

https://www.ft.com/content/9a365032-d741-11e2-8279-00144feab7de

Fracking: energy futures

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/27/fracking-energy-futures

All hail shale

https://www.thegwpf.com/sun-fracking-solve-britains-energy-problem/

Fuel the Future

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fuel-the-future-mp92mcvxspj

Keeping the lights on

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2350374/Guantanamo-Bay-The-prison-camp-demeans-democracy.html

The announcement of major Government investment in the new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point is welcome but, on its own, nowhere near enough. More power plants must be commissioned as a matter of the utmost urgency, and every effort made to explore the potential – and of course the risks – of the huge shale gas deposits believed to lie under British soil...To return to growth, British industry must be able to fire on all cylinders.

Renewables

Britain can’t afford to throw money at wind power

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/10149472/Britain-cant-afford-to-throw-money-at-wind-power.html

Nobody with a sense of fiscal responsibility could endorse the massive subsidies being lavished on wind power which, as we report, are being maintained despite the Government’s proclaimed culture of austerity...There is no doubt that opposition to wind turbines is hardening. Their effect on the landscape can best be described as negative, while they create health and amenity problems for people living in the vicinity, as well as posing a threat to wildlife...In the context of all these disadvantages the Government’s EU-prescribed goal of providing 20% of the country’s energy requirements from ''renewables’’ by 2020 does not look realistic or financially responsible...Diversity is key to energy policy, rather than putting all our eggs in the renewables basket, and so is common sense.

UK climate policy

You watt?

IT is hard to believe that in 2013 Ministers are even considering asking Britain's firms to shut down for a bit to save electricity. The crisis in our energy supply has been flagged up for years. Yet thanks to their naive faith in wind farms, neither this Government nor the last has taken it seriously. Instead they have continued closing down viable power stations to observe EU climate change directives to the letter. Energy minister Michael Fallon insists homes won't be blacked-out. He'd better be right. But why should anyone be asked to cut back on electricity because of a lack of serious planning in Whitehall? Especially businesses fighting their way out of the deepest recession in a lifetime.

Get on your bike and go for growth

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/leaders/article1280823.ece

Shale gas may never have as big an impact on Britain as North Sea oil did. It may never reduce energy prices in the dramatic way it has done in America. But it does provide a reason for optimism amid the gloom — and it is not the only one...Even if only 10% of the Bowland Basin’s reserves are recoverable it could provide about 40 years of consumption. Coming amid uncertainty about power generation and worries about energy security, this would be a huge boon. The vital thing is to ensure a speedy go-ahead for this new energy source. That does not mean riding roughshod over the concerns of environmentalist groups and communities. It does mean getting the incentives and technology right...It is vital that shale gas does not get stuck at first base by Nimbyism and planning delays.

Fracking fans

IT is encouraging that 71 per cent of Sun readers back fracking. It could mean cheaper bills and a secure energy supply for decades. But a good number aren't convinced. The Government must do more to tell them how they will limit the impact on the environment. And persuade them of the potentially game-changing benefits of shale gas.

Let's step off the gas

THE headlong rush by this Tory-led Government to promote fracking suggests it has been bought lock, stock and barrel by the shale gas industry. Water UK is the latest group to warn that drilling deep underground to extract an energy source suddenly hailed as the answer to our problems may backfire on us. The threat of taps running dry cannot be dismissed lightly. The UK is a crowded place and the downside of fracking may prove much greater than in the United States, where vast areas are largely uninhabited. Working underground has an environmental cost as subsidence from coal mining - houses crumbling and roads sinking - has shown. Generous tax cuts for companies hoping to make a fortune from fracking raise questions, too, particularly when Tory lobbyist Lynton Crosby's firm makes money in the sector. The fear is that we're being bounced into fracking without weighing up the risks.

Frack, Baby, Frack

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/frack-baby-frack-0g9p3dcrswc

Time to release the UK’s trapped gas

https://www.ft.com/content/5f67c5da-dfe8-11e2-9de6-00144feab7de

Good news for the North

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/10211675/Good-news-for-the-North.html

Make haste slowly on UK shale gas

https://www.ft.com/content/102e3a72-fddd-11e2-a5b1-00144feabdc0

A fracking failure

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/fracking-failure-8752145.html

Fracking’s neighbours must share the riches

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/10233519/Frackings-neighbours-must-share-the-riches.html

Fracks break

YOU would hope the days when an establishment of upper-class chums ran Britain were a thing of the past. But under David Cameron the old boy network appears stronger than ever. Take the case of Lord Howell. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, a minister under Thatcher and until recently, Cameron. Oh, and he's George Osborne's father-in-law. The Mirror today reveals he's the head of a shadowy organisation that meets in Windsor Castle and has a big interest in fracking. It could be a coincidence the Chancellor recently announced tax breaks for the controversial industry. The Treasury won't tell us. What we do know is that cronyism should have no place in British politics.

Holy wrong

WHAT a brainless blast from the Church of England over fracking. Extracting shale gas risks wrecking "God's glorious creation", claims the Blackburn diocese. This is based on discredited scare stories in the States, which is already reaping the rewards of fracking. The diocese claims its website merely sets out arguments for and against. Rubbish. It is thinly-veiled propaganda for the green lobby whose fears over shale are almost as hysterical as their most absurd exaggerations over the threat from climate change. The Church should instead make it clear that fracking CAN be executed in safety. It should then point out shale gas's potentially huge benefits to its hard-up, possibly jobless, parishioners

Mob rule cannot win the day on fracking

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2395932/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Mob-rule-win-day-fracking.html

Energy policy: how not to win an argument

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/18/energy-policy-argument-editorial

Wasted energy

https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/963475/wasted-energy/

Fracking protests

https://www.ft.com/content/964ab3c6-0993-11e3-8b32-00144feabdc0

Green bullies and inconvenient truths

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2398552/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Green-bullies-inconvenient-truths.html

Fukushima: the global fallout

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/21/fukushima-nuclear-global-fallout-editorial