Decarbonisation of electricity must be delivered at any cost ...it read. Well of course there are those who believe exactly that, but we may diskard them uterly. We may diskard the sub-editor, too: read this extract from the article proper.
The government's energy market reform ... commits the country to decarbonising electricity generation to a very ambitious level and using a limited and predefined portfolio of technologies. Those conditions mean decarbonisation of electricity must be delivered at any cost, irrespective of what other countries do, and via central planning rather than decentralised choices led by competition in a market ...Thoughtful stuff - I look forward to reading more from the good Pierre. Can't see the Guardian hosting much more of it, somehow.
the real costs are ahead of us and will indeed be large. The government implicitly asks the public to trust that the international climate change negotiations will indeed deliver a meaningful agreement; that the cost of low-carbon technologies will fall significantly; and that fossil fuels, especially natural gas, will be expensive for decades to come. Under these conditions the cost of the policy strategy looks manageable. However the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit and its aftermath revealed that delivering an international climate agreement is an uphill battle and the unconventional hydrocarbon revolution – especially shale gas and liquids – dramatically changed the prospects for fossil fuels...
A politically sustainable approach has to acknowledge what we don't know and cannot know: will there be a meaningful climate treaty and what the cost of clean energy from each technology will be? Several implications follow from this. The eventual level of national emissions reduction should not be legislated; costs have to be revealed and not assumed
ND
5 comments:
Dunno if it was your post, but now @12:29 the sub-title is:
The Treasury and energy department are exploring fundamentally different approaches to decarbonising electricity
I don't see what the connection is between decarbonising electricity generation and international agreements, if the former is to be done "at any cost". Surely hamstringing our international competitors to match the autohamstringing is irrelevant if we are willing to take any cost hit whatsoever?
On the other hand if you actually believe that decarbonisation will herald a new era of green growth then we should be doing it irrespective of who else do it because it won't be a cost at all.
If the state green planners actually believed their own bullshit they wouldn't have to write still articles in the Guardian, they would have already persuaded even the most sceptical Tory-led Energy Secretary.
Raedwald - yes, a spectacularly stupid bit of subbing
Here's another, even worse (also Grauniad, of course): "Energy Price Manipulation 'could account for at least 50% of bill rises'"
(which is not what the article says in any way, shape or form)
No use for logic in this game, BE
Do you think we should use ... nuklear energy ?
several of t'readership do, Kev
I say, anything you like that doesn't want a sub
but the pass has been sold now and every man jack wants a bung for everything
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