Cheap energy is the key to our posterity

Published in the Daily Mail Letters, Friday 5th October

NEXT year Didcot Power Station will close to comply with the European Large Combustion Plant Directive. This is a strategic error that will cause economic and energy insecurity. Next year Oxfordshire will lose half of its power supply. This looming energy gap, due to decentralisation of energy production, could cripple industry in a disturbing echo of the 1979 ‘winter of discontent’. Look around your home or business and estimate how many electrical appliances you will need to throw away in order to achieve a 50 per cent reduction in energy use. No more electric guitars, computer games, kitchen gadgets, electric blankets or fast internet; the list is simply endless. There is a predicted energy deficit of around 10-16 GW by 2015 due to power station closures, which may lead to power cuts if 50 per cent household energy savings are not made. We are gaily walking headlong into disaster. Investment in wind technology alone will cost the taxpayer £200bn in the near future. OFGEM also estimates that £200bn of investment is needed for new infrastructure in the National Grid to prevent power cuts in the UK. In total at least £400-500bn more investment is needed to keep the lights on! Not including new nuclear power. This is a lot of money in times of austerity. The UK Is investing the gargantuan sum of money in order to prevent a hypothesised rise in temperatures. We are committing ourselves to the most stringent of carbon emissions in the entire world due to our unique 2008 Climate Change Act which was enacted by Ed Miliband when he was Climate Secretary. This money will also have to come from hard-working taxpayers. Consumers will be paying more for their green electricity tariffs yet receiving less energy for their money. Countries that do not need to comply with this European directive, such as China, are becoming increasingly prosperous while Europe is becoming bankrupt.

This article was plagiarised by journalist David Rose, who  also lives in East Oxford, who turned to use all the key concepts to write a full length feature for the Mail on Sunday. I also submitted a full length feature to the Daily Mail on this subject and they cut it very short.