'History will be harsh on a posturing political class that, to burnish its ‘green credentials’, has left Britain at the mercy of foreign powers for heat and light,' Editorial, UK Daily Mail. Why shouldn't extra costs be paid by Prince Charles?

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3/22/13, "Green posturing and the great gas fiasco," Editorial, UK Daily Mail

"As the country was hit by snow and freezing weather yesterday, analysts warned that Britain’s gas reserves could run out in only 36 hours – leaving us at the mercy of expensive foreign imports.

At one stage, real panic gripped the markets when one of the four gas pipes bringing vital supplies from mainland Europe stopped working.

The problem was fixed in a few hours, but it was a terrifying insight into just how precarious the UK’s position has become. Alarmingly, some experts fear that the big gas suppliers could be forced to ration their supplies in coming days.

Even if the worst doesn’t happen, it’s widely predicted that a shortage of gas will inflate prices by as much as 15 per cent before next winter – adding £200 to already cripplingly-high household bills.

How did Britain – once a leading energy producer – come to be so reliant on imports from Russian gangsters, an underwater pipeline from Norway and ships bringing liquefied gas thousands of miles from Qatar?

The reasons are brutally simple: our power industry can no longer produce or store anything like the energy we need to keep the lights on.

Ministers sold off Britain’s big power firms to foreign companies more interested in profit than this country’s future needs. Coal-fired power stations were forced to close by green edicts.

Instead of commissioning replacements for our ageing nuclear power stations, and creating new storage facilities for gas, politicians fixated over building  useless countryside-scarring windmills.

The result? Britain has witnessed soaring energy costs that really hurt families. And gas is in desperately short supply. The UK has a maximum 20 days of gas storage capacity, compared to 92 in Germany and six months in the US.

Britain can only hope the pipelines do not break down over the coming days – which are expected to be bitterly cold.

But when – and this paper thinks this is inevitable at some stage – the lights do go out, history will be harsh on a posturing political class that, to burnish its ‘green credentials’, has left Britain at the mercy of foreign powers for heat and light." via Lucianne


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