Breakthrough Senior Fellow Roger Pielke, jr., comments on reports from the UK that energy demand will far outstrip supply in the near future.
By Roger Pielke, Jr., crossposted from Prometheseus
The BBC reports today that the United Kingdom may be on the verge of a major mismatch between energy supply and demand:
The UK will experience prolonged power cuts in about five years unless urgent action is taken now, a report warns.
It said a third of generation capacity was due to be decommissioned by 2020, but was not being replaced fast enough.
The report, by nuclear supporting Fells Associates, said new reactors would not be ready in time, and questioned spending on renewable energy.
Energy Secretary John Hutton said the report overstated the risks and that the issue was a national priority.
The report being referenced can be found online here in PDF. Here is how the executive summary begins:
Security of energy supply must now be seen as taking priority over everything else, even climate change. UK imports of both gas and oil are accelerating, just as the fragility of supplies from Russia and the Middle East becomes more apparent and the UK heads towards the loss of one third of its generating capacity over the next 12 years. A new energy policy must be scheduled to meet the impending energy gap with an overarching long-term vision that will ensure security of supply, protect the environment, and at the same time, be deemed feasible by the engineers, financiers and utility managers who will have to implement it.
The choices facing the UK involve a host of trade offs -- Continue to depend upon coal? Rely to a greater extent on continental gas? Or repeat the troubles of South Africa? The Fells Associates report lays out a few other options, not of which are particularly palatable to some vested interest.
How energy policy plays out in the UK is well worth watching, particularly for those of us in the US.
