2021-11-19
"We have only one way out in the short term, and that’s for Britain to start using the UK’s massive gas resources ... "
Red rag to the green lobby bull?
But do we really want to hamstring the entire nation this winter by continuing to pretend that all fossil fuel is the work of the Devil, and we'd rather freeze and stay at home for the highly dubious proposition that such an act of self-flagellation will help save the world?
More likely it will just encourage the Indians and Chinese to build yet another coal-fired power station, knowing that we in the UK are too stupid to realise that we are giving them the freedom to do so!
Like all government initiatives, energy policies that they hope will lead us to "Net Zero" do have unintended consequences.
If they would only get their "nudge unit " to advise them of the likely unintended consequences of their proposed policies so that they could get them right in the first place, rather than tasking the "nudge unit" to scare us all into supporting those flawed policies ... But I digress.
If we have to keep burning fossil fuel at least in the immediate future, then it would make sense to frack it in the UK rather than importing it at huge cost. And gas is pretty clean when compared to the alternatives. Yes, it would need to be controlled and no, the government is not the right body to do that because it has shown itself to be influenced by the big corporates rather than the electorate, so there is still a problem there to sort out.
The other problem of course is that it will take time to develop our indigenous gas supplies. But if we never make a start, we will never achieve anything. As they say in business, "perfection is the enemy of progress" (attributed to Winston Churchill).
"Net Zero Watch says that the government needs to ... put energy costs and security of supply at the centre of national security"
They make a good point, as far as it goes.
