back to article Cheap gas is a 'crisis' for Greens, but not for us

Energy Minister Christopher Huhne has an opinion piece in the The Daily Telegraph today – and it's really an 800-word explanation of why we need a new Energy Minister. The subject of Huhne's essay is new, cheap gas. The article finds the minister on the defensive about shale gas: it's why he's taking his argument into print. …

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  1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    We must burn the gas to save the planet

    Methane is about 75x more powerful a greenhouse gas then carbon dioxide.

    The only safe way to dispose of the billions of tons of this dangerous planet destroying time bomb under our feet is to burn it

  2. I know better
    Thumb Up

    Save on your fuel bills! Switch Huhne!

  3. Curly4
    Boffin

    Media Hysteria

    The events surrounding news like this is hysteria created by the media to keep up listeners, readers and/or viewers. In other words to improve THEIR bottom lines. This is short sighted though it may help the bottom line today but what dose it to the the nation (or world) tomorrow? But by whipping up the interest of the population the emotions can be manipulated by those who want a certain outcome to put pressure on the powers that be to get that outcome even though it may be the worst outcome in the long run.

    All forms of energy needs to be researched and developed depending to the effect that form of energy will have on the future. Until we know what the unintended consequences are we should go slow. We know what we have now and how to mitigate some of the consequences with what we have now so be slow to replace the devil we know with a devil we don't know.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Devil We Know?

      Do we know what the effect of taking energy from wind will be on weather patterns ? Do we know what the effect of taking energy from tidal flow will be on the earth's rotation?

  4. Richard 12 Silver badge
    WTF?

    Dear Mr Huhne.

    We should not bet the farm on wind and solar.

    Everybody in the electricity industry knows that high penetration of wind and solar can only be a disaster, with the lights actually going out fairly soon.

    Not this Parliament, and probably not the one after, but the one after that is ****ed.

    Once the lights go out, those student and civil servant protests will be nothing compared to the human wave that will engulf Parliament.

    Even today much of the UK's fuel poverty is directly caused by Government policy.

    Yours, a very much annoyed industrial electrician.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "A government's energy policy should remain focused on keeping the lights on, and costs low."

    Lights on (and allegedly cheap power) now, in time for this year's company results/bonuses and the next election?

    Or lights on (and any power at all) in time for the next but one generation (sic) of kids in the West to not have to grow up in the dark from time to time?

    The policy for the last couple of decades (leave it all to the market) gets us option 1.

    Unfortunately for our childrens' children, the markets have never been able to look more than a couple of years ahead, and most politicians can't either.

    Houston (as in Oil City), we have a problem.

  6. clean_state
    Thumb Down

    The Market save us all!

    Another article that forgets that capitalists markets do not work for non-renewables. They work great for renewable stuffs, like wheat for instance. Market prices can adjust supply and demand across seasons. Speculators buy wheat after harvest and resell it in the winter. For other produce like cherries, people eat them in spring when they are abundant and make do without cherries the rest of the year when the cost is prohibitive. It works because the next year, there is more wheat and more cherries.

    For a resource in fixed supply, like oil and gas, market forces optimize the speed of exhaustion! As we exhaust our limited supply, the stuff becomes rare hence expensive which is an incentive to go grab whatever there is left. The situation is even worse for overfishing. The last fish is going to fetch a million so you can be sure there will be a race to catch it.

    -1 to Andrew for not mentioning this and chanting "markets markets markets" with the liberal crowd.

    1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: The Market save us all!

      You'd be correct, but the supply of these things isn't fixed.

      -1 for not understanding that energy is actually a market, and putting your fingers in your ears won't stop it being one.

      It's just a reality you've avoided, but have to deal with.

  7. Britt Johnston

    cheap energy or free beer?

    Interesting article revealing the pressure on politicians to favour the next big cash cow.

    I don't agree that the political aim should be to keep energy prices low. Yes, there is probably a long-term correlation between cheap energy and growth, but this is not an argument to keep prices low, rather one to use energy sources wisely, also over long periods. Clearly, European growth is not related to the different prices given in the table, nor were energy price increases a major factor in the current lack of growth in Europe.

    Finally, earthquakes are expensive: not because I spilt my beer when the last one came around, but because people sue for damage to buildings. This is true whether the cause is fracking for gas or a green geothermal project. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/science/earth/11basel.html

    Could it be that part of the lobbying is for indemnities from such side-effects?

  8. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Pricing

    The impact of shale gas on the gas price is not directly determined by its price of extraction* - gas from non-war-torn Libya was pretty cheap to extract - but because it is sold on the spot market and, thus, not coupled to the oil price as most large gas deposits are. This applies to any non-conventional sources like shale and bio-gas or gas manufactured by catalysis on windy, sunny days.

    IIRC gas exploration and discovery has not yet hit the same kind of problems that oil has - tar sand extraction or those incredibly deep wells of Brazil - which drive up the price of exploration and extraction and, thus price. The gas price was historically tied to the oil price which kind of made sense when there were few suppliers and gas was less fungible. That arrangement makes less sense today when the price of extraction is so much lower in comparison and there are sufficient suppliers to guarantee a market even if the price falls.

    Fundamentally the problem remains that, until we understand that the cheapest energy is the energy we don't use, we're making ourselves dependent on one supplier or another.

    * I've yet to see anything covering the full costs of shale gas extraction over time - insuring against groundwater pollution and subsidence claims.

  9. Gorbachov
    Flame

    do as I say, not as I do

    Once free market types start demanding killing off subsidies for all fossil fuels then I will join the chorus. But when you subsidise one tech (e.g. gas) and cut subsidies to the other (e.g. solar) you don't get to say "see, gas is _much_ cheaper than evil, commie solar"

    Is gas cheap? Yes, for the moment. Will it be cheap tomorrow? I don't think so. And then you'll cry and moan that our entire infrastructure is geared to oil/gas/coal and that we can't afford to build a new one and must dig for fossils under national parks and in deep, deep water and consequences be damned.

    Wind and solar won't be 'enough' but at the rate we are growing _nothing_ will be enough. We simply cannot grow at this pace without some kind of substitute for oil (and no, there is not enough economicaly recoverable gas to replace oil). And maybe we shouldn't even try.

  10. johnwerneken
    Mushroom

    lol

    Iawait with glee the stragulation of the last environmentalist in the intestines of the last egalitarian.

  11. jonnyrad
    Childcatcher

    depends what you mean by costs.

    if you take costs = price then you'll end up in all sorts of trouble.

    like financial/environmental/social chaos.

    let's hope Governments can take the longer term view.

    oh, hang on a minute...

  12. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    @Strange

    WWI was partly over German access to Iraqi oil.

    Navies had started fueling their fleets with oil rather than coal and so it was vital that the Hun didn't get an advantage over the Royal Navy.

    The first battle of WWI was ironically on the road to Basra

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