Wednesday 23 May 2007

NuLab Energy Policy: Left Hand, Right Hand ... Win Some, Lose Some

Well would you believe it? On the very day that yet another Energy White Paper hits the DTI website, BP announces it won't be going ahead with its much-vaunted plan for a carbon-capture-and-storage (CCS) project for a coal-fired power station in Scotland.

The ostensible reason is that the government won't be deciding something-or-other (perhaps it hasn't made up its mind whether it likes the sound of clean-coal electricity?) until November. Not good enough, says BP.
What a dreadful coincidence of timing: and there was us thinking that BP was wired into NuLab - Anji Hunter and all that.

Is it just that, as any fule kno, CCS is grotesquely uneconomic? Or do we detect a bit of the legendary BP brinkmanship here? McBroon has to be shown he can't take BP for granted?

What a happy honeymoon this is turning out to be for Wee Gordo. And what a good job John Browne already has his peerage, eh?

5 comments:

  1. BP will eat him. I've seen these boys at work.

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  2. Anonymous3:18 pm

    Goodbye forever to you, too.

    Luckily, Bimbo Boris doesn\'t know who you really are! But I DO.
    Who pays your Council Tax?
    Astroturfing RIP. IZNEWMANIA RIP. Paul Staines RIP. BAGWHINGER RIP

    The Kat

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  3. Anonymous5:41 pm

    We really need to make decisions on our future energy soon, I dread the day when we rely on Russia because we couldn't get it right in time.

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  4. James - me, too: a long history of BP policy victories over HMG. Let's see what the new Dept of Energy looks like, after DTI is scrapped.

    Ellee - under NuLab an extreme but unthinking laissez-faire has 'governed' energy policy (and indeed industrial policy as a whole) - the enthusiasm of the convert (G.McBroon). Don't expect any positive decisions at all!.

    (I made some comments on future reliance on imports a few posts ago.)

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