Energy

Late on Tuesday afternoon, and within minutes of each other, two separate hearings in the Palace of Westminster examined the prospects for shale gas in the UK. In the upper house, the Economic Affairs Committee was taking evidence from Chris Wright, the straight-talking boss of an American shale gas company. Wright, a boyish forty-something, gave their lordships a crash course in shale gas development, explaining the approach companies like his took in order to get gas out of the ground. Because every shale well is different, he said, shale companies have to experiment a bit, trying out different fracking recipes and techniques until they find one that works for them.

Many plaudits this morning for ministers such as Michael Fallon who have catalysed the government’s push ahead with fracking. The only question, though, is whether enthusiasm in Whitehall will translate into enthusiasm in local communities. Ministers are pointing to a change in the incentives for communities which means they can now keep 100 per cent of business rates from extraction sites. But it certainly hasn’t impressed Ben Wallace, the Tory MP for Wyre and Preston North, who is a vocal spokesman for the group of MPs whose constituencies sit on the Bowland Shale. Wallace tells me: ‘What they are offering us today – an extra £850,000 of business rates is pathetic,

‘A very good deal for Britain,’ is how Ed Davey described the contract with EDF and Chinese backers to build a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset, when it was signed back in October. Yesterday, it became clear just how wrong the energy secretary was when Ineos chief Jim Ratcliffe revealed on the BBC that his company has just agreed a similar deal to build a nuclear plant in France – but at a strike price of 45 Euros (£37.94) per MWh rather than the £92.50 per MWh which the government committed the consumer to paying for energy from Hinkley Point. Think of the very worse PFI

At last week’s Spectator energy conference Michael Fallon appeared to steer government policy away from green ideology and in a more business and consumer-friendly direction.   But there was to  be a nasty sting in the tail.   Shortly afterwards Ed Davey’s Department for Energy and Climate Change  changed the rules on something called Final Investment Decision (FID) enabling.   The direct result is that the UK could lose a Yorkshire power station which is responsible for generating 4% of the country’s electricity.    Given that the reserve margin between maximum generating output and peak demand is projected to fall to just 2 per cent in the winter of 2015/16,

It’s 9.30 a.m. on a Friday and David Cameron is about to head for his Oxfordshire constituency and work from home. This is precisely the habit that his Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, is trying to beat out of the civil service, but the Prime Minister has a reasonable claim to some downtime. In the past five days he has met 150 businessmen and toured four Chinese cities. This morning, he has paid a visit to Tech City, London’s answer to Silicon Valley, and travelled to South Africa House to pass on his condolences following Nelson Mandela’s death. His last appointment, which will last for as long as it takes

At last night’s Spectator debate, the audience voted dramatically in favour of the motion Let’s Get Fracking! Despite impassioned speeches from Green party leader Natalie Bennett, Greenpeace’s Joss Garman, and Craig Bennett from Friends of the Earth, the crowd sided with Conservative MPs Peter Lilley and John Redwood and the energy consultant Nick Grealy, who said that it’s time for Britain to ‘peek into this Pandora’s box’ and at least explore the possibilities of shale gas. Peter Lilley opened the debate with a joke at Chris Huhne’s expense: ‘in my view he should have been jailed not for driving too fast but for driving the development of shale gas too slowly’. He went

The Conservative flirtation with environmentalism was never much more than a branding exercise. Now it is over. Today David Cameron wants to ‘cut the green crap’. Perhaps the Prime Minister has been influenced by David Rose’s cover piece in last week’s Spectator — which encouraged the government to repeal the Climate Change Act, abolish its targets, and stop the Energy Bill coming into force. Strong stuff. But let’s suppose the government really were to follow Rose’s strategy, what would happen? A shale gas revolution? Don’t bet on it. As the energy company Cuadrilla has admitted, domestic fracking would have an ‘insignificant‘ impact on prices. The US, which has seen prices fall,