All parties are in favour of rebalancing the deeply lop-sided and grossly imbalanced British economy, but it isn’t happening. It’s true that Jaguar Land Rover achieved a 14% year-on-year increase in sales in the first half of this year and that the company (owned by the Indian conglomerate Tata) is one of the UK’s largest […]
Posts under ‘Energy policy’
Rebalancing the economy will never happen without dedicated government input
Aug 5th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.
Investors beware unburnable carbon
Jun 20th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.An LSE report ‘Unburnable Carbon 2013′ has produced some startling conclusions – for investors, not just climate change policy-makers. What they show is that burning known reserves of fossil fuels is incompatible with the climate change targets which governments have committed themselves to meet, so that investors would be wise to discount both the value […]
Share:
Why the Tories want Fracking
Jun 6th, 2014 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.While the bulk of the commentariat have picked up on the recall plans in yesterday’s Queen’s speech, the government’s single-minded pursuit of fracking has caused less excitement. Philip Pearson of the TUC sums it up: Removing the responsibility for companies to notify individual landowners of their intention to frack. Underground access: proposing changes to trespass laws […]
Share:
Fracking may be coming to somewhere near you – without your permission
May 22nd, 2014 by Michael Meacher.It is scarcely credible that the government is including in the Queen’s Speech on 4 June the right for the shale industry to drill on your land without your consent. Such a gross infringement of the rights of private property would be unthinkable, especially for a Tory government, were it not to secure a bonanza […]
Share:
Nuclear gets a glowing review
May 16th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.One major reason why UK governments fail to advance the drive towards renewables, with which Britain is uniquely endowed, is the colossal burden of the nuclear legacy. The nuclear clean-up now swallows up about tw0-thirds of the entire DECC budget. Sellafield alone costs £1.7bn a year, almost as much as the nearly £2bn spend supporting […]
Share:
The dreams peddled by the oil and gas industries turn out to be fantasies
May 3rd, 2014 by Michael Meacher.The one thing Osborne loves to tell us, constantly, is that the future of energy production lies in fracking and that he will do everything in his power to maximise shale drilling in Britain, even to the extent of allowing drilling to be carried out on private land without permission. However this oasis of future […]
Share:
Without renewables, you get fracking and human rights abuses
Apr 24th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.Britain as an island off the mainland of Europe potentially has greater capacity for production of renewable energy than almost the whole of the rest of Europe put together, mainly from onshore and offshore wind, wave and tidal power, and Scottish hydropower. Yet UK electricity production from renewable energy, though it has increased in the […]
Share:
The fight against fracking continues
Apr 20th, 2014 by Caroline Lucas.Balcombe, one of the first places in the UK to be earmarked as a potential fracking site, has been the new frontline in a major struggle over the search and exploitation of yet more fossil fuels – and with mounting evidence of the urgent need to tackle climate change, the stakes could hardly be higher. […]
Share:
Is Cameron mad, or the cat’s paw of wacky backbenchers?
Apr 8th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.If one wanted a clear example (out of many) where ideology trumps common-sense in Cameron’s Tory party, you couldn’t do better than energy policy. And specifically, the government’s latest knee-jerk reaction against onshore wind turbines. They are a significant and fast-growing source of electricity in the UK and by far the cheapest source available to […]
Share:
Today’s Budget and the crisis in Ukraine
Mar 19th, 2014 by Ann Pettifor.This year’s Budget takes place at a time of high international tension. The issue of energy security has once again shot to the top of the political agenda. The crisis in Ukraine demonstrates once again the extent to which Britain is exposed to political and economic risks beyond our control. The fact is Britain’s dependency […]
