Energy Security a Political Imperative
I seem to have spent a large part of my journalistic career fighting for lower fuel costs. I may have partly won the battle with the Treasury keeping fuel duty fixed for the last decade and saving ￡120 billion in duty and VAT, but defeating the oil majors, oil traders and OPEC is another story. Getting any sympathy out of that lot would be as easy as moving the Albert Memorial. But we should have known today was coming. Surrendering control of our road fuel and gas markets to opportunistic foreign cartels was always reckless. While we enjoyed the flat-white service economy of the last two decades, Russia was filling her boots with oil revenues, financing a huge military spend, and with the help of OPEC, locking us into a market of manipulated oil and gas prices. We were too busy enjoying our cappuccinos and Range Rovers to notice that we were being blackmailed by energy.
The events of the last 13 days must make us resolve to never make the same mistakes again. We must become energy independent. With reduced reserves in the north sea we may not be able to produce enough oil or gas to ever be self-sufficient, but we can try. We need to revisit the case for fracking, remove planning obstacles to onshore wind and look carefully at hydro and solar. Sustainable, low-carbon renewables must be a major part of our energy policy and we must forge stronger energy bonds with allies like Norway and the US. Successive governments have blithely ignored energy security but it must now become a central pillar of government policy. We're doing well with the electrification of passenger cars but must understand how important large static batteries will become to power our industries, towns and cities. Get the mix right and renewables could supply 50% of our energy needs, reduce fuel costs and create new industries providing highly skilled, highly paid jobs. And there's a tearing urgency to this.
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So no more hand ringing. Buckle down and craft a new energy policy for a new era. Because the apocalyptic vision of $200 to $300 a barrel for oil isn't impossible. The days of cheap energy disappeared the day Putin's tanks rolled into Ukraine. The next few years will be very difficult and our economy will be under siege, constrained by high transport, manufacturing and heating costs. The map of the world is being redrawn and with it the supplies of energy that we've so criminally taken for granted for so many years. Energy security must now be the UK's Number One political priority. Don't fail us.
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1 年Quentin, I'm surprised you have not mentioned the urgent need to expand our Nuclear capabilities to produce electricity. We have let this slip from 25% of our electricity supply to only 12% even though we lead the world in the treatment and disposal of Nuclear waste, bringing into the UK much of Europe Nuclear waste. I would personally advocate building Rolls Royce Mini Nuclear plants inside the security boundaries of some of our UK departure airports. I know nuclear is never popular with the local vote but taking a UK wide view we urgently need to build more and refresh what we have.
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3 年It’s about time we had a real conversation about being energy self sufficient and include all options available.
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3 年It's tempting to be wise in hindsight - but I don't think many of us believed Putin would go as far as he has. Certainly Germany didn't, or they would not have gone this far with Nord Stream 2. It is a massive wake up call that emphasises we must achieve better energy independence, almost certainly at extra cost. Smaller nuclear reactors are a step forward, but I have never fully understood how a small island, entirely surrounded by water, has not made more progress on tidal energy - may be now there will be more R&D in that area.
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3 年I think it has bought the energy security issue into focus Quentin, but then hindsight is a wonderful thing. Companies will tend to go for the lowest cost supplier to get their goods, and hope that that supply line is maintained. Last year we had the blockage of the Suez Canal, and everyone was in uproar because deliveries were delayed. Would that force companies to seek other suppliers? Probably not because they will still want to maximise their profits by going for the cheapest supplier. The UK is in the fortunate position that we only rely on Russia for 5% of our gas needs, but if that supply is jeopardised, we are then competing in the open market against the likes of China and Asia for supplies. The world very nearly got 'burnt' with the Iraq Wars that jeopardised the security of oil in the Middle East. Could we have predicted 10 years ago that Russia would invade Ukraine and jeopardise Russian supplies? Time and time again, a crisis arises that bring into focus how fragile our supply networks are around the world, not just in retail products, but also in the energy markets. So we need to learn that we really need to push and grow our own renewable energy sources to ensure our energy security for the future.