Policy & Politics Blog

28 July 2011

Labour's wasted years in numbers

It's a bit of a nerdish activity but ploughing through the Annual Digest of Energy Statistics makes for fascinating reading. For example, today's publication reveals just how much as a country we are putting our energy security at risk through increased gas use, and just how much rising gas prices are hitting household budgets. But as interesting is the sheer lack of progress on energy over the last ten years. It suggests that David Cameron's promise to lead the "greenest government ever" may not so difficult to achieve.

Here are ten shocking facts.

The majority of energy investment is still into fossil fuels.
Final energy consumption is unchanged since 1980.
In last 10 years we've moved from energy exporter to be dependent on imports for 30% of our energy needs.
Coal stations still burn around 40 million tonnes of coal a year which has hardly changed since 2000 (although thankfully reduced from the 84 million tonnes in 1990).
Natural gas consumption has hardly changed in the last 10 years, despite dwindling output from the North Sea.
In 2000 we were a net exporter of gas and we are now a net importer (with net imports more than twice as high as our exports were 10 years ago).
We still only produce 3 per cent of our energy from renewable sources.
Real prices for domestic energy have increased by 60 per cent over the last 10 years (gas prices have doubled).
Fuel poverty has doubled over the last decade (it now stands at 5.5 million).
There were 600,000 workers in the energy industry in 1980. There are less than 200,000 now

Let's hope the Coalition look at these shocking statistics and see the sense in starting a home grown renewable energy revolution that could provide us with thousands of new jobs, provide greater energy security and increase resilience to ever increasing gas prices.

Posted by Mike Childs | 28 Jul 2011 | Energy