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You’re wrong, PM. We need higher oil prices
David Strahan, UK Independent
Once again Gordon Brown has energy policy all wrong. Even before OPEC announced an output cut of 1.5 million barrels per day, the prime minister had denounced the move as “absolutely scandalous”, fearing it would force the oil price higher just as the world slides into recession.
He needn’t have worried, since the cost of crude continued to fall on Friday to $64 per barrel. But what Mr Brown fails to grasp is that the recent collapse is as damaging in its way as the previous spike, and that had OPEC managed to boost the oil price it would have done us all a favour.
A falling oil price has real short term benefits. Petrol has dropped below £1 per litre for the first time in almost a year; domestic heat and power bills should eventually follow; food prices and inflation should also ease, giving the monetary authorities greater freedom to cut interest rates.
But these benefits may prove fleeting because the collapsing oil price is bad for supply in the medium term.
(26 October 2008)
Also appears in Strahan’s blog: Why the oil price slump is bad news.
Will the UK Face a Natural Gas Crisis this Winter? (part 1)
Rune Likvern, The Oil Drum: Europe
In recent years, natural gas consumption in the United Kingdom has grown rapidly. At the same time, there has been an abrupt change in UK natural gas supplies, brought about by depletion and decline. In the first part of this two part series, I look at historical developments in EU and UK natural gas consumption, production and imports and the challenges posed by declining production.
In the second part of the series, I use a simulation approach to test the likely adequacy of natural gas supplies during the upcoming heating season.
(29 October 2008)
UK industries to be forced to cut CO2 emissions
Louise Gray, The Daily Telegraph
British industries will be forced to make larger cuts in their carbon emissions due to the inclusion of aviation in new laws to stop climate change, it has been claimed. The Climate Change Bill will commit the UK to cutting greenhouse gases by 80 per cent by 2050.
At first the legislation did not include emissions from international aviation and shipping, causing outrage among green groups. However in the face of a backbench rebellion, Joan Ruddock, the climate change minister, yesterday agreed to include emissions from the industry in the Bill.
The law will now require the Government to take account of projected emissions from aviation and shipping when setting the five yearly budgets. However it will not force the industry to make particular cuts because as yet there is no way to measure accurately each country’s contribution to international transport emissions…
(29 October 2008)
Carbon footprint standard for all products drawn up by Government
Louise Gray, The Daily Telegraph
The world’s first standard to measure the carbon footprint of every product in our shops will be launched tomorrow by the Government in an effort to end the continuing confusion over “eco-labels”.
At the moment there are more than 300 “eco-labels” on the market, from the organic standard to food miles, all of which are confusing and exasperating to customers.
In an effort to simplify green labelling schemes and give the consumer the confidence to choose food which is genuinely environmentally friendly, the Carbon Trust, Defra and the British Standards Institute will this week launch the world’s first standard for measuring a product’s carbon footprint.
The document, known as a Publicly Available Specification or PAS 2050, will tell producers how to calculate a product’s carbon output, from the raw materials, through manufacturing and consumption, to the waste produced…
(28 October 2008)
