The poverty of Britain’s energy debate

How big does Shale have to get before our policymakers wake up to its implications? There is an Energy Summit in No.10 today where Chris Huhne wants to focus on the need “to help consumers save money on their gas and electricity bills”. A preview interview on the Today programme underlined the dire situation. First, Huhne was not asked about how his own green regulations have massively contributed to the problem. Then, the managing director of British Gas was invited on to say that “unless someone discovers huge amounts of gas and imports it into the UK…”. And, yet, one of BG’s rivals recently discovered 200 trillion cubic feet of gas near Blackpool. As Matt Ridley says in this week’s Spectator, that’s enough to keep the entire British economy going for many decades. And it doesn’t even need importing.
 
It’s being kept off the agenda because the big energy companies see this as competition from upstarts.