Downing Street Says

Asked if there was any significance in the Prime Minister visiting a wind farm today and not a nuclear power station, the PMOS said that whilst the BBC might find it difficult to walk and chew gum at the same time, in terms of government energy policy you had to have a multiple approach. That multiple approach was about getting the right mix. Wishful thinking would not keep the lights on, you had to think hard about the reality of the energy gap. The reality was that if you did nothing the amount of energy that we got from nuclear would decline from 20% to 6%. At the moment despite the fact that with the exception of Denmark, we generated more offshore wind power than any other country in the world, it only contributed 1%. What people would see from the energy review was that there would be a big increase in renewable energy.

There would be a big increase in energy efficiency moves and that would deliver more electricity. That in itself would not be enough to make up the shortfall. Therefore you did need nuclear. Nuclear was by no means the only answer but neither was renewables the only answer, nor energy efficiency. You needed a mixed approach and therefore what we had to do was move beyond wishful thinking to the hard realities of a world in which energy has become more expensive, in which this country was moving from a state where it was self-sufficient in energy to potentially being 90% dependent on foreign imports and in which if we did nothing our carbon emissions would go up rather than down. We therefore needed to move to a situation in which we met our targets of climate change and addressed the issue of energy security. The way to do that was through a mix of renewables, energy efficiency and nuclear.

Asked what had changed since the Energy White Paper of 2003, the PMOS said that if you looked at the energy market between now and 2003, if you looked at the assessments of the change of the amount of energy that we would have to import, you could see the change. What had also changed was the amount of energy that could be generated from energy efficiency and renewables, but it was not enough to fill the gap. He thought that people would be the surprised by the depth and range of measures on renewables and energy efficiency but we could not indulge in wishful thinking. We had to deal with the reality and that reality was to make up the gap we needed nuclear installations. Furthermore if you looked at the expansion of India and China that meant that the worldwide demand for energy was growing faster than anybody could have predicted 3 years ago. There was a step change in worldwide demand for energy and that was what was driving costs and driving dependency on foreign imports.

Asked about what measures were being taken to improve energy efficiency within government, the PMOS said that there were arrange of measures such as energy efficient light bulbs, not having appliances on standby and so on. There were any number of helpful measures but again whilst there was a lot we were doing and would continue to do in that area, it was not in itself going to be enough.

Asked why it was any better being dependent on Uranium imports than gas imports, the PMOS said that in terms of precise detail people should read the review. Equally there was an issue of the variety of supply of energy. In terms of gas you would be dependent on a relatively small number of suppliers. Also in terms of emissions, which was the other side of the issue, gas gave off more carbon, therefore your carbon emissions went up. The issue was not just dependency on imports but also the impact on climate change. Asked how much of the change in supply would be born by the taxpayer, the PMOS said that the cost would not be born by taxpayers but by the private sector.

Asked how much in the energy review would actually be new, the PMOS said that he would leave journalists to judge how much was actually new, but he would say that the depth and range of proposals had expanded significantly. The amount of renewables and energy efficiency measures were growing all the time. People would see that we were pushing the envelope on all fronts. However we had to keep in mind that you couldn’t say that energy efficiency and renewables on their own would be enough.

1 Comment »

PMOS clearly feeling the strain here. Maybe the news of Levy’s arrest will add a little levity…
Comment by Chuck Unsworth — 12 Jul 2006 on 9:01 pm | Link

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» Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Energy

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