Despite the government’s constant assertion that funding is impossibly tight and that any departure for a rigid status quo by the Labour party is unaffordable, there seems to be no limit to government subsidies gushing into the doomed nuclear project at Hinkley in Somerset. Last year the government offered the French energy company EDF the […]
Posts under ‘Energy policy’
Osborne learns to his cost that private markets don’t oblige
Jan 15th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.It’s really rich that Osborne has tweeted: “Vital this (drop in the oil price) is passed on to families at petrol pumps, through utility bills and air fares”. He’s spent the last 5 years lambasting Labour in support of the Tory free market mantra that the State should get out of the way and leave […]
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Fracking: Osborne’s latest 18th century-style ‘folly’
Dec 2nd, 2014 by Michael Meacher.It’s a safe bet that Osborne’s Autumn Statement this Wednesday will hail a fracking revolution as the start of a new energy cornucopia for Britain. Like everything else politicians say 5 months before an election, it needs to be taken with a piece of salt. Only one shale well has been fracked in […]
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Nuclear power is turning out badly: why is the government clinging to it?
Nov 21st, 2014 by Michael Meacher.The news for nuclear gets worse every day. The latest news is that the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset, the government’s flagship nuclear project is near the point of collapse. After Ed Davey, the LibDem secretary of state (there was a time before they joined the government in 2010 that the LibDems were […]
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Privatisation of energy risks lights going out this winter
Nov 17th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.The effects of the UK privatised energy system are now becoming clear, not only in cartel pricing and poor service , but also, critically, in loss of energy security. As a result of the latter there are real risks of blackouts this winter. The Big Six privatised companies’ failed to invest on a scale that […]
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Why energy policy should be devolved
Oct 22nd, 2014 by Dave Watson.Devolving energy policy would tidy up the often conflicting mix of devolved and reserved powers and enable Scotland to develop new approaches to energy policy. At present energy is a largely reserved matter to Westminster. Specific reservations in Schedule 5 of the Scotland Act 1998 include the generation, transmission, distribution and supply of electricity; the […]
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Falling oil prices could scupper UK shale production
Oct 19th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.Last Tuesday the share price of Chesapeake Energy, one of the leading US shale oil producers, fell 29% in a single day. With internationally traded Brent Crude now trading at below $88 a barrel, a 4-year low and down from $100 only a few weeks ago, and the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate at below […]
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Is fracking the new poll tax?
Sep 29th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.Just as Thatcher ploughed ahead with her ideological totem, the poll tax, in the face of clear evidence that it was deeply unpopular, so her modern-day acolytes around Cameron seem determined to do exactly the same thing over fracking, with very likely the same results. Despite the intense resistance demonstrated against Cuadrilla’s plans to set […]
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Time for Labour to lay out how it will re-set energy markets in 2015-7: here’s how
Aug 21st, 2014 by Michael Meacher.Current UK energy policy is a colossal failure. It is supposed to (1) deliver cheap and affordable energy to consumers, (2) provide security of supply, and (3) shift from carbon fuels to renewable energy as a key part of tackling climate change. But under the current privatised regime the UK is monumentally failing on all […]
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Osborne’s fracking oasis will rapidly turn into a wilderness
Aug 15th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.The American story about fracked gas since 2007 and fracked oil since 2011 is that it will continue to surge for years, turning the US into a blissful energy Eden – and Osborne wants a slice of the action. But research undertaken by US experts in the field independent of the big oil and gas […]
