Article Tags: Christopher Booker
Neither of the main parties seems to have any idea how we are to meet the looming shortfall in power.
As the election approaches, two issues should transcend all others.
One, obviously, is what the parties propose to do about the £178 billion deficit in government spending. But another, equally terrifying – as this column has warned for years – is what is to be done to avert the fast-looming crisis in Britain’s electricity supplies. With 40 per cent of our generating capacity due to disappear in the next few years, as 14 of our major nuclear and coal-fired power stations are forced to close, how do the parties propose to keep Britain’s lights on and our computer-dependent economy functioning?
The energy policy of the Conservative Party appears to rest on four main pillars. The first is that electricity companies should not be allowed to replace those coal-fired power stations which help provide us with 35 per cent of our electricity unless new ones are fitted with a system to pipe off their CO2 emissions and bury them under the North Sea. The Government has allocated some £4 billion for four new plants to pioneer this unproven technology (to be paid for by all of us through electricity bills), but the Tories say that no new plants should be permitted unless carbon capture is already in place.
Source: telegraph.co.uk