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Consumers to pay ‘dirty’ coal power subsidies for years
Posted by Independent: Oliver Wright on July 21st, 2013
Independent: Britain’s dirtiest coal power stations are to be allowed to bid for hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of subsidies that could allow them to stay open well into the 2020s. Senior ministers are so worried about the possibility that the UK could suffer electricity blackouts over the next few years they have agreed to let Britain’s coal stations bid for “capacity payment” handouts – paid for through people’s energy bills – which could allow them to upgrade their facilities. If successful, the money...
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United Kingdom: Will George Osborne hail the shale gas in his own backyard?
Posted by Independent: Oliver Wright on December 3rd, 2012
Independent: It is what you might describe as the politician's ultimate Nimby dilemma. On the one hand you represent two of the more beautiful constituencies in England's green and pleasant land – with voters well used to protecting it. On the other you're a firm believer in a technology that could ruin them – turning green fields into gas fields with the added bonus of a minor earthquake or two.
That, The Independent can reveal, is the unfortunate quandary facing the Chancellor George Osborne and the Environment...
United Kingdom: George Osborne slammed by his own climate change advisors over ‘dash for gas’
Posted by Independent: Oliver Wright on September 13th, 2012
Independent: George Osborne is today under attack from the Government's own official climate change advisors who have warned unequivocally that his 'dash for gas' is putting Britain's legally binding carbon reduction commitments in jeopardy.
In a highly significant intervention the Climate Change Committee (CCC) has sent an open letter to ministers criticising their “apparently ambivalent position” on whether the Government is trying to build a low-carbon or a gas-based electricity generating system.
Mr...
Land grab for housing angers National Trust
Posted by Independent: Oliver Wright on August 30th, 2011
Independent: Land "twice the size of Leicester" is to be released by the Government in order to tackle the shortage of housing across the UK.
Home-ownership in England is predicted to fall from 72 per cent to just 64 per cent over the next decade, the lowest level since the mid-1980s.
At the same time the average house price is predicted to rise from £214,647 this year to £260,304 in 2016.
Grant Shapps, the Housing Minister, admitted that not enough houses had been built, but claimed that this could...
Climate change panel in hot water again over ‘biased’ energy report
Posted by Independent: Oliver Wright on June 16th, 2011
Independent: The world's foremost authority on climate change used a Greenpeace campaigner to help write one of its key reports, which critics say made misleading claims about renewable energy, The Independent has learnt.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up by the UN in 1988 to advise governments on the science behind global warming, issued a report last month suggesting renewable sources could provide 77 per cent of the world's energy supply by 2050. But in supporting documents released...