Go With The Flow - Pissing In The Wind

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the 'go with the flow' campaign has picked up so much momentum. For those who've missed it, this is the campaign to encourage people to piss in the shower as a way of preserving valuable water resources. Picked up by the BBC (naturally), and subsequently it's gone pretty viral. How many people who take a sneaky leak in the shower knew they were making a political statement?

Personally, I find the whole thing pretty depressing. Is this what it's come to? The campaign hails from two students at the University of East Anglia (Climateh=gate central to you and me). It somehow says a lot for the limited horizons of today's student eco-activists. The poverty to ambition is there. The pant-wetting excitement and endorsement from our establishment. The focus on limiting our ecological foot-print, trying to make us as invisible as possible. The incredible smugness of it...

How is this radical? Access to clean water is a real issue in lots of parts of the developing world. But not in Norwich as far as I know. Last time I was there it looked like there was plenty of water to go round. Will the water saved from not flushing the toilet after peeing in the shower get shipped to parts of the world where it could be useful? Nope. This is more about the illusion of radicalism than anything else. If they really want to make a difference then why aren't they campaigning for access to cheap electricity and infrastructure devlopment that will make a lasting difference to poor people without access to clean water? Why aren't they campaigning for more development not less?

And why stop at peeing? If they really want to show solidarity with poor people without access to resources, then why not take a dump and use the dried turds as a cooking fuel? Why not disconnect from the electricity grid and go to burning dung inside - then they can really experience what it's like to have no resources.

Thank you, Australia

Thank you for ridding yourselves of the Labour Party, it's Green allies and the environmentalist dogma that still has the political classes in the rest of the Western world in thrall. Thank you repealing your carbon tax and showing us poor and oppressed masses in Europe and the US what is still possible. Thank you for showing that another world is possible.

Now, if you could just drop Al Gore into one of your croc-infested rivers we'd be even happier. And make sure you get Obama and Cameron to wade in to the same waters to rescure Al...

Guess What?

I was stunned, stunned I was, to read the headline on the BBC website: "Fracking 'could harm wildlife'".

Now I've been trying to avoid the BBC news site since I saw the Matt McGrath's article that pretty much said that climate change 'deniers' had come round to the truth because they now accepted that CO2 was a greenhouse gas and that the world had warmed. Either McGrath is a moron, or he's a slimy motherfucker deliberately playing the warmist game of 'we were right all along ...'. It really is one of the most outrageous bits of warmist propaganda I have ever seen, anywhere.

Anyway, mustn't think about it now, because my blood pressure rises and I end up ranting that we should privatise the BBC, or better yet just close it down completely. Our state broadcast is as despicably Orwellian as you can get when it comes to climate, environment, immigration, the EU, the cuts...ad infinitum.

So, back to the shock horror that fracking could - note the weasel word right there in the headline - harm wildlife. The source of this is a report from a completely disinterested group of environmental and green group, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (you know, the green charity that has tireless campaigned against wind turbines - or not, because chopping up birds is fine if they are collateral damage in the fight against global warming). The summary report, which is what the headlines are based on is available here: http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/shale_gas_summary_tcm9-365778.pdf

One would assume that such a document would largely be about the damage to wildlife that fracking has been shown to cause in countries where the technology has been used extensively - in other words based on the experience of the US. So I looked in the report for the evidence of extensive damage to wildlife habitats and the harm that this had done to wildlife. But no, there are some vague mentions of damage, but nothing substantive and most of the report is about climate change, methane, and vague 'could do...' prognostications. It's a science-light propaganda piece that is there just to agitate for tough restrictions on fracking because fracking is bad in and of itself. At the end of the day, these people would rather have birds sliced by wind turbines and the environment scarred by wind farms than go for a lower carbon fossil fuel like shale gas.

And of course, no such exercise would be complete without the BBC there to cheer-lead the way.

Tim Yeo Deselected

Good. A shame there's not a court case to go with the de-selection. He's another green spiv like Chris Huhne and deserves to spend some time in prison. Not that being a jail-bird has done much to dent Chris Huhne's green credentials...

Fracking - The Next Step In The UK

Tucked away on the BBC News site is a little piece of local news that is sure to have national ramifications later. The story is about the proposal from Sinn Fein that there be a referendum in the county of Fermanagh on fracking. On the face of it this should be a good thing - for those of us of a libertarian bent local referenda are a good thing to have. The problem is of course that where the opponents of fracking are well-organised, have access to the media and can call on support from a wide range of green and leftist groups. They also have the advantage that they do not have to stick to the evidence, all they have to do is sow the usual greenist fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Who'll counter the welter of lies from the anti-fracking lobby? A few national politicians, none of whom sound like they mean it or know what they're talking about. Representatives from the smaller energy companies? They'll be accused of bias and confused with the big energy companies scalping the public. Sceptic bloggers and a few columnists like Booker and Delingpole.

It will not be a fair fight. Which is why I suspect that the greens are going to latch on to this pronto...

Cameron, Fracking and Climate Change

There are some who will rejoice in David Cameron's recent pronouncements on the joy of fracks. For those of us jealously looking at what has happened in the US, fracking has seemed like an absolute gift and have been desperately hoping that we in the UK would take advantage of shale gas and oil in the same way. For a long time we've watched the liberal establishment, including large chunks of the government, spreading lies and disinformation or else pandering to the green lobby. We've watched the manoeuvring in the EU as moves have been made to block the advance to market of shale gas. And, let's be honest, we're still a way off commercial exploitation of shale. But, that said, the fact remains that the recent announcement of additional incentives to local authorities to allow exploratory drilling is step in the right direction. The question is, however, is it the right thing to do? And, further, does this mean that David Cameron is no longer a green true-believer?

The reason for doubting the wisdom of the new incentives - allowing local authorities to keep 100% of business rates collected from shale gas schemes - is that it plays into the hands of those who portray fracking as dangerous, unhealthy, polluting, toxic and so on. If, as those of us who support fracking contend, it is safe, non-toxic and non-polluting, then why allow the extra incentives? If it's so positive, why the bribes? This is exactly what opponents will say and are saying. People will be told that they are being bribed, that they are selling out to the energy industry, that their acquiescence is being bought cheaply. Furthermore, opponents will claim that this is a subsidy and that it is yet another example of the fossil fuel industry being heavily subsidised. Yes, it's nonsense, but opponents of fossil fuels play fast and loose with things like definitions of subsidies. So, to those people and the green propagandists in the BBC and mainstream media, giving local authorities more revenues is a subsidy, but the feed-in tariffs and the panoply of schemes that hand over our money to wind and solar farms are not subsidies.

The bottom-line is that the incentives may actually back-fire in that they fuel suspicion and play into existing green narratives that seems all forms of fossil fuels - including the lower CO2 emitting shale gas - as inherently evil and to be attacked and stopped at all costs.

Now, to the question as to whether this change of heart on fracking signals that David Cameron is no longer a true believer. There are those on the left who have always assumed that Dave is really a cynical opportunist who has played the green card for political reasons alone. But the evidence doesn't stand much scrutiny. Dave may not have many principles, but he subscribes pretty much to the liberal line on most issues and particularly when it comes to environmentalism. Which is why he continues to make alarmist comments about climate change and will continue to do so no matter what the scientific evidence shows. He can justify his support for fracking because it reduces carbon emissions compared to burning coal, and because the US has shown that it can reduce overall emissions while delivering reliable power. In other words, for a pragmatic green politician fracking makes a lot of sense, and it's only the out and out fanatic like Caroline Lucas of the Green Party who cannot see that fracking makes sense even within the logic of anthropogenic global warming.

David Cameron - Prime Minister and Climatologist Speaks

Experts tell me that the recent weather we are having is completely consistent with climate change. Now I'm not a scientist, but people who know these things, the experts if you like, they tell me that weather is not climate. We all know this to be true, they're spelt differently for a start. But that technicality aside, we do know that our carbon emissions are causing warming somewhere in the world. That warming's probably jolly nice, but it's causing cold and wet elsewhere. You don't have to know anything about science to know that's true, and as someone who knows nothing about science, I can tell you from experience that it's true.

Let me elaborate a bit on this fact, because so many so-called climate change sceptics do not know this. The climate system is a bit like the economy. If I get richer, you must get poorer. If I get hotter, you must get colder. Which is why it's important that we continue to take your money in taxes and give it to people like me, who have the land to build wind and solar farms. So, please remember that if you're shivering and can't afford to have the heating on, it's because we've taken the money from you to sort out the problems your carbon emissions have caused somewhere else in the world, where's it's probably jolly hot and sticky.

They Have No Shame

So listening to the warmists on the BBC this morning proved once again that they have no shame. Predictably the discussion with head honcho at the World Bank included an attribution of Typhoon Haiyan to man-made global warming. Sure, it was prefixed with 'scientists tell us that it's impossible to attribute a single event to climate change' but this segues into 'but we know that extreme events will become more frequent and more extreme, and this was an extreme event so...'

And so we have warmists using a natual disaster and the suffering of the people of the Philipines to continue to campaign for policies that will make such calamities worse in the future. As Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank, points out in the interview with Evan Davies, poverty makes the impact of such disasters much worse. So what does he suggest? More sustainable energy, a reduction in the use of fossil fuels and the rest of the green agenda. Access to cheap energy is essential for economic development to take place, and yet he advocates, and the BBC clearly promotes, the very policies that make energy more expensive and which hold back the development that means people can build homes that don't collapse every Typhoon season.

Of course, completely missing from the entire discussion, is any mention that warming stopped more 16 years ago. Where is the warming that is supposed to have made Haiyan more likely? The pause in warming is the most embarassing fact in climate science and yet it is routinely ignored by the warmist establishment.

Instead we get them using natural disasters as a cue to propagandise and promote failed environmental policies that actively work to keep the poor people of the world poor.

Really, they have no shame whatsoever and it's sickening.

Grangemouth and Fracking

Who said this?

Ineos has been flagging likely cuts for months but instead of engaging with the situation and organising a coherent plan to save jobs, Unite called a strike over a pathetic and petty issue related to Labour Party internal politics.  By the time the union woke up to the reality workers faced, it was too late.

Of course the threat to the refinery itself is palpable, and of course local MPs, MSPs and ministers will do everything we can to try to find another buyer for the closed plant. But what’s the proposition as it stands?  Come and enjoy a non-relationship with a militant union acting with its workers’ interests at the bottom of its priorities?

Ineos is a very tough, world-scale company and exists to make as much money as it can – what did people think was going to happen once the company’s offer was rejected following the stupidest of strikes for the most idiotic of reasons?

Workers at Ineos need proper union representation – right now, they’re getting the fumbling, dumbed-down, politicised opposite.

Some die-hard Tory? Someone from Ineos itself? A horrible libertarian?

Nope. This is Eric Joyce, Labour MP for Falkirk,

And let's remind ourselves of what the company offer was to the workers:

The plan would have seen bonus cuts, changes to working terms, a reduction in pension benefits and a no-strike pledge, sweetened by a £15,000 one-off payment. 

For those of us who've managed to cling to our jobs through the financial downturn this would look like a pretty good deal. Not to the Unite though.

Nobody can be surprised at the response of Ineos to the rejection of this survival plan. It's tragic that so many of the workers ignored common sense and voted the way the union said they should vote. The 50% who voted the other way have every reason to feel bitter and pissed off at their co-workers.

There is also another factor at play here, beyond the employer-employee conflict, which is that Ineos needed to invest heavily to cater for the import of cheap shale gas from the United States. A consequence of the reduced flow of gas from North Sea pipelines. This is yet another example of the revolution that fracking has brought to the US. An alternative option is to look to UK supplies of fracked gas - but of course this is a much higher risk proposition because of the opposition to fracking from environmentalists (in and out of government), from the Labour Party and the EU.

If Unite had any sense of vision it would have been pressurising the company and the government to invest in UK fracking as a way of securing jobs and investment locally.

Christiana Figueres Is An Irrelevant Old Hag

Oh for f*cks sake, do we really have to be treated to the sight of Christina Figueres shedding crocodile tears on stage? Of course this is faithfully reported by the BBC, where reporter Matt McGrath seems to be fitting comfortably into the shoes left by arch-warmist Richard Black (also known around here as the 'odious Richard Black'). The ostensible reason for Christiana Figueres (head on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) blubbing is that she is crying for 'the children' of the future, who are doomed by global warming.

Yeah, right. The only time I want to see Figueres and her like in tears is when she's sacked and the whole stinking edifice of UN climate structures is dismantled for good. Unfortunately this is as likely as Edward Davey finding a brain cell or the BBC admitting that the global warming game is up for good.

In the meantime, we have to put up with our licence fee being wasted on the daily vomit of warmist propaganda.

Insane Nuclear

I hope environmentalists are happy with the news of the government's deal with EDF and it's Chinese partners for the first new nuclear power station in the UK for a generation. Nuclear is the logical outcome of the climate alarmism that greenery has foisted on the world. A climate alarmism that the nuclear industry and it's supporters have largely supported along the way, knowing full well that 'renewables' could not deliver and that ultimately governments would have to turn to nuclear as the only acceptable option. It's the same logic that has seen a succession of high-profile environmentalists, like James Lovelock (who views carbon dioxide as more dangerous than the radioactive waste from power plants, nuclear accidents or bomb tests) and George Monbiot, opting for nuclear to keep the lights on.

For those of us interested in promoting new forms of energy, such as thorium power, this is a major setback as it sets huge trains of investment into a technology that is inherently expensive, has huge clean up costs and which has still not solved the problems of waste disposal. While nuclear may not be as dangerous as some of the more extreme anti-nuclear activists claim, it's still carries greater risks than existing non-nuclear generation.

It fails in economic terms too. What the government has done is signed us up for decades more of over-priced energy. Far from bringing our bills down, this guarantees that we'll be subsidising another energy gravy train to match wind and solar.

But we all know that energy policy is no longer about economics and the supply of cheap energy. It's about reducing CO2 emissions to avert 'climate change' that shows no signs on happening anyway. Nuclear, expensive and as dangerous as it is, fits the bill because it's proponents claim that it produces no CO2 emissions. It produces electricity, which is a bonus compared to wind and solar, but not at a cost that makes sense. Absent the concern about CO2 emissions and we'd be looking at coal and gas as the economically viable forms of energy generation.

And of course, what's missing from all of this is any discussion of what shale could do. The capital costs would be lower, the fuel costs lower and of course the potential problems should anything go wrong are significantly lower. In a sane world this would be a no-brainer. Unfortunately this is an insane world where people can think that carbon dioxide is more dangerous than radioactive slurry from nuclear power plants.

Up Is Down, Black Is White

Today's Daily Mail covers a speech that Nick Clegg gave to a group of young people in London in which he makes the bizarre case that cutting the green tax gravy train that is raising our fuel bills will actually lead to even higher bills. This is so far from the truth that it should count as science fiction. The Mail quotes the clueless deputy prime minister as saying:

Actually what will happen is that you will have less investment, probably higher bills over time and an increase in fuel poverty. That cannot be the right answer. The whole point of putting some of these levies on bills is to make sure that we do keep lights on

Surely if the point of all of this is to keep the lights on we'd stop funding useless wind farms and pump that money into shale gas exploration, research into thorium power and other new energy sources. We'd also stop closing down our coal and gas-fired stations that provide cheaper and more reliable energy supply than wind and solar.

But of course what Clueless doesn't say is that the real reason we're paying all these levies and taxes is not to keep the lights on, it's to cut down on the carbon emissions which are supposed to be driving 'climate change'. This is the same 'climate change' which has seen global temperatures flat-lined for the last 17 years, during which time CO2 emissions have gone up around 10%. And, of course, Clueless cannot say that we have to do this because of the Climate Change Act of 2008, (thanks to Ed Militard for that one), and because of our commitments under EU legislation.

If there is any better illustration of the insularity and divorce from the real world of our political classes I don't what it is. They insist that black is white in the face of all the evidence, this is Lysenkoism on steroids and there is no sign of any reigning back from people like Nick Clegg, Ed Davey, Ed Miliband, David Cameron and the rest of the rotten bunch.

Ed Militard - Time To Change The Narrative

There's no doubting the fact that the announced energy price rise from SSE, and soon to be followed by other providers, is a gift to Ed Militard and the Laborious Party. It means that he can get all worked up about unscruplulous capitalists exploiting the poor consumer and therefore pose as our friend and saviour. It conveniently ignores the part he played in bringing the high costs of energy through (hidden) green taxation - and the fact that he continues to support the same policies as part of a 'fight against climate change'. And lest we be accused of being one-sided here, Militard is doing no different to what that lying piece of shit Chris Huhne did. And brain-dead Ed Davey does the same thing - they all bleat about energy poverty but ignore the part they play in making this happen.

This is nothing new. We saw the same thing with the banking crisis. The popular narrative soon became that it was all the fault of the nasty bankers, conveniently ignoring the part that the politicians played. It meant that Gordon Brown and Barack Obama could both attempt to grab the moral high-ground and yet ignore the part that they had directly played in the fomenting the crisis. How many people really know that Obama pushed hard for policies for 'affordable housing' that ended up giving us the sub-prime crisis?

This isn't to say that the greedy energy companies meme is all wrong - but the problem is way more complex than pinning the blame on greedy executives and their shareholders. The fact is that governments have been dicking with the energy industry in all kinds of ways - green taxes, subsidies in 'renewables', changing the energy supply mix, closing down cheap coal-powered stations, dragging their feet on shale and much more.

So, it's important then that at every conceivable opportunity we remind people of the part that Militard, Davey and the rest have played  - continue to play - in creating the precarious energy supply situation and the high costs that we have to pay. We must not let the politicians do what they do best - create or exacerbate a problem, pin the blame elsewhere and then pose as our saviours.

Quotes like these, from Ed Militard, should be repeated again and again until the message gets through:

November 2009:  It needs a willingness to take the argument to people about the tough choices involved in tackling climate change. This is the starting point: a willingness to engage with people on, for example, the fact that to deal with the problem of climate change, energy bills are likely to rise.

January 2010: Yes, there are upward pressures on energy bills, and that makes life difficult for people, including those in fuel poverty, but it is right that we go down the low-carbon energy route.

Greg Barker - Warmist Tory Scum

To those who think that the labels Left and Right still carry an ounce of meaning, close your eyes and tell me whether this is a Leftist or a Rightist making this statement:

I think there is too much focus on trying to stimulate an increasingly sterile debate on the science, given the overwhelming body of opinion that there is now in favour of the science, and perhaps if they are wanting to have an active debate they should be talking about the policy responses to that science, rather than the science itself. I'm not trying to ban all dissenting voices but we are doing the public a disservice by treating them as equal, which is not the case.

This in the context of the BBC giving too much prominence to the 'sceptic voice' when it comes to climate change. The BBC??? Sorry, I must have blinked and missed it.

So, who is it that is completely unaware of what's going on in the world outside his window? Who is it that wants to shut down what little debate there is, and who believes still that the science is settled? A Labour politician? A Lib Dem?

Nope, this is none other than Greg Barker, a Tory Minister at the Department of Energy and Climate Change. A man close to Cameron, whom he famously accompanied on that husky hugging trip to the Arctic in 2006 (where's a polar bear when you need one, eh?).

When it comes down to it there is no difference - political parties are a flag of convenience for people like Barker. He would be at home in any of the three main parties, subscribing as they all do to the same core beliefs in environmentalism and statism.

Militard's Record on Energy

For those with short memories, a few reminders:

• First Secretary of State for the newly minted Department of Energy and Climate Change.
• Committed the government to cut CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050, up from a mere 60% that had previously been announced.
• Announced that any potential new coal-fired power stations would be unable to receive government consent unless they could demonstrate that they would be able to effectively capture and bury 25% of the emissions they produce immediately (even though, or perhaps because, no such technology exists).
• Represented the UK at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit, where he pushed hard for binding agreements to cut emissions.

All of these are policies which have cost, and continue to cost, billions and which have directly impacted our fuel bills.

That Militard Speech

So, let’s get this straight. The Labour Party were instrumental in putting into place the green subsidy gravy train that is screwing the UK consumer (and which our current leaders are in no hurry to dismantle). Having helped deliver fuel poverty the Labour Party sees no reason to do anything positive to address the problem – for example by aggressively supporting the introduction of fracking, stopping the rush to build more useless windmills, cutting down on other costly green subsidies. Instead, brave Ed Militard will take control of fuel pricing directly. Because, of course, price controls have been so phenomenally successful everywhere they’ve been tried.

Ed’s speech was supposed to impress us with his strategy and vision. Well, it’s impressed me with something, but it’s not strategy, vision or intelligence. What it has done, though, is show once again the nasty statist bent of Militard and the Labour Party. And, should he fail, it sets up his credentials for a cushy little number in the EU Commission...

Sadly, bashing energy companies and promising to make better the problems you’ve caused seems likely to be a more popular bet than being honest and helping to put right the wrong policies that you helped put into practice in the first place.

Vivienne Westwood Is An Irrelevant Hag

As you can imagine, I'm not really one for fashion - whether it's politics, music or sartorial - but every so often something will grab the headlines and eventually impinge on my consciousness. Vivienne Westwood was in the news a few weeks ago when she attended the 'anti-fracking' camp at Balcombe. She was dutifully interviewed by the massed ranks of the old media where she gave us the benefit of her vast insights into energy policy, climate science and economics. To call her clueless would be kind. The degree of vacuousness was unbelievable. But still she's a celebrity and had once, for a short while, been considered incredibly radical. Now she was spouting environmentalist drivel and sounding like a doddery old granny on day release from a hospital ward.


Fast forward a couple of weeks and her latest collection is in the news. Gasp! It's so radical again. So engaged. So... Clothes with the words 'Climate' on them! Models with zombie faces to symbolise the death and destruction we've wrought on Gaia. Yawn. This at the time when the climate scare is gasping from lack of oxygen and most people have realised that the game's up. But like a French aristocrat on the eve of the revolution, she has no idea that history is about to leave her and her brand of empty climate alarmism behind.

Thorium Power - In The News Again

I've written about the prospects for thorium power a few times in the past, here for example: http://progcontra.blogspot.co.uk/2006/07/thorium-powered-nuclear-reactors.html.

Periodically the subject rears it's head in the mainstream press, the latest example being a piece by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at the Telegraph. He finishes his article thus:

If the Chinese can crack thorium, the world will need less oil, coal, and gas than feared. Wind turbines will vanish from our landscape. There will less risk of a global energy crunch, less risk of resource wars, and less risk of a climate tipping point.

Well, forget the nonsense about climate tipping points, the real good news is that cheap power is essential for global economic development. And, as he rightly points out, a cheap source of power - like shale, as well as thorium - could finally tip the balance away from wind farms once and for all. And that's precisely why the greens will do all they can to fight thorium power in the same way they're fighting shale. Some of the more far-sighted environmentalists will even concede the point about wind farms but will advocate we go for fusion power instead - precisely because that's so far from reality.

Still, if does look as though the prospects for commercial thorium power are improving. However, it would be a shame if the cheapness and relative abundance of shale actually ended up stifling thorium research...

This Must Be Some Kind of Joke

You've got to be fucking kidding, right? Nobody in their right mind would be giving away £2bn of our cash to build windfarms in Africa, would they?

Not only is this a ludicrous waste of money we can ill-afford, it does bugger all to help Africa develop. Instead of a stable and managed power infrastructure, they'll get electricity when the wind blows. And whereas we can do something to ameliorate the uselessness of wind energy by backing them up with gas fired power generation, what will they do in Africa?

Under-developing Africa is a by-product of environmentalism - it's encoded in the DNA of rich white environmental leftists to keep the rest of the world poor while they work hard at dismantling our own economies.

It's nonsense but the green fascists are wetting themselves with delight and begging for more. The noxious scum bags...

New Energy Bill Is A Disaster - GWPF

The Global Warming Policy Foundation has issued a press release describing the UK government's new energy as a disastrous move to a centrally planned energy system. I've never felt the need to reproduce a press release before, but this really does deserve as wide an audience as possible. For those who have felt that the UK government was edging towards common sense, this is a reaffirmation of the fact that in the UK our political masters remained wedded to environmentalist dogma above all else.

Here's the press release:

With the publication of its draft Energy Bill, the government has announced its intention to reverse the course of energy deregulation.
The Global Warming Policy Foundation warns that any attempt to turn back the clock to the dark period of centralised energy planning will not only damage Britain’s economy, but will almost certainly end in failure, just like other attempts to impose a centralised system of energy controls have failed in the past.
Nigel Lawson, the GWPF's Chairman, who as Energy Secretary was the architect of Britain's energy market deregulation in the 1980s, warned:

"The Energy Bill constitutes a disastrous move towards a centrally planned energy economy with a high level of control over which forms of energy generation will be favoured and which will be stifled. The government even seeks to regulate the prices and profits of energy generation."

The government bases the case for green - and more expensive - energy in large part on the assumption that gas prices will significantly rise in the future. This argument is no longer credible in the light of the growing international abundance of shale gas, not to mention the likely shale gas potential in Britain itself.
North American gas prices have dropped from $15 per million British thermal units to below $2 in just 7 years. This price collapse is an indication of things to come in Europe, once its own vast shale deposits are allowed to be extracted.

"At a time when most major economies are gradually returning to cheap and abundant fossil fuels, mainly in form of coal and natural gas, Britain alone seems prepared to sacrifice its economic competitiveness and recovery by opting for the most expensive forms of energy," said Dr Benny Peiser, the GWPF's director.

In any case, the complex and inconsistent measures of the draft Energy Bill are unlikely to provide investors with the certainty they require to make substantial investments.
The proposed contracts for difference (CfDs) are extremely complex and convoluted. Neither the profit guarantees offered for different technologies nor the duration of CfDs is known. The government has not provided any numbers and price guarantees for its favoured green technologies. Investors are therefore thrown into limbo since they cannot calculate whether expensive renewables or nuclear reactors are viable and can compete with less expensive conventional power plants.
This lack of clarity will inevitably lead to constant government amendments and continual intervention, which will act as additional barriers to new entrants in the UK electricity market.
In light of government indecision and investors’ uncertainty, the Energy Bill proposes to give the Secretary of State the exclusive authority to offer green energy companies 'letters of comfort,' promising them that they will be guaranteed profits once the specifics of CfDs are finalised and introduced. This is both arbitrary and unconstitutional.
Moreover, it is doubtful that what is proposed is actually workable, let alone economically viable. After all, similar interventions in the past have proved inept and uneconomic. They will almost certainly prove to be highly unpopular when the costs of these measures are reflected in energy bills.