After the dash for gas, the headache

Dave Powell

13 December 2012

This is going to be a short post, for two reasons.

Firstly, because I am feeling a tad delicate after indulgence at our work Christmas do last night.

Were things slightly less foggy, I could here embark upon an analogy which would compare clumsily the state of my bonce with the massive rise in energy bills to which the Chancellor's dash for gas is likely to expose us.

I'd start by talking about a new report by the Committee on Climate Change. It goes on the offensive over silly talk about "green costs" on bills - patiently pointing out that a bit of front-loaded investment now is a considerably wiser economic path than letting fossil fuel prices soar and/or frying the planet. (I previously blogged about the 2011 edition of this report).

I'd go on to tut about today's grim news of the Government's green light for shale gas 'fracking', which says it's OK to cause minor earthquakes to get our hands on all those lubberly fossil fuels.

I'd attempt to segway back to the CCC report and highligh its most eye-grabbing claim - that not getting off gas sharpish could push up energy bills by £600 by 2050 - far, far more than anything clean energy costs have in store.

Then I'd probably conclude with something like droll like, 'Osborne's gas party will come with a mighty hangover', ha ha.

But mercifully I don't have to do all that.  Because the second reason why this is a short blog post is that rather than spraff on any further here, I can link to a blog I have just written on Business Green about all this stuff instead.

Phew.