Friday 27 December 2013

Out of Control ..... Out of Control ....

Anyone else think we have a Westminster Government which has lost control, lost the plot and lost any common decency as it increasingly requires the use of English Police Forces to impose its policies by criminalising peaceful protesters, denying them the right of free speech and the right to freely congregate in protest?

The irony is the 'Libories' are trying to do this in the NW of England where the folk memory of the 'Peterloo Massacre' remains a powerful icon.

If the rush to 'frack' England stupid does not happen just how much of an energy 'black hole' will this bunch of dullards leave England with?  Given it is importing more and more electricity into England each year.

How much longer will the likes of Ian Taylor from Vitol continue to bankroll the Tories when his 'personal' £0.5 million contribution to the 'Better Together' campaign has failed to get the commercial extension to the Airth Field, near Falkirk, by Dart Energy any further forward than it was this time last year, even with supposedly tame Labour lead councils in Falkirk and Stirling?

The SNP Government has made very clear it will oppose any commercial fracking license in Scotland as long as it remains the majority party at Holyrood.  As a result Ian Taylor very publicly announced 'Better Together' would not get another penny from him. There is also silence from Mr Osbourne's father in law's company Caudrilla about their plans to expand 'fracking' on the 'Solway' field near Gretna which is contracted to supply gas to the National Gas Grid by mid 2014. The extension to the original license was refused by SEPA in mid 2013 and currently Five Quarter Energy based in Newcastle (part of Dart Energy PLC) are seeking to re-apply.

According to a SPICe briefing the price of North Sea gas could fall if the EU states agreed to decouple gas pricing from the price of North Sea Oil. Clearly Wee Eck found a way around this 'EU fix' in the deal he negotiated between BP and Ineos for North Sea gas at a reduced cost, while resolving the Grangemouth Refinery crisis.  Yet Bloomberg New Energy Finance state in their opinion that, even under the most favourable case for shale gas production,[coupled with] low demand, the UK will not be self sufficient in gas. The reliance on continued imports will ensure that UK gas prices remain tied to European and world markets and so the direct impact of shale on the cost of electricity in the UK will be limited.”

This all brings us back to the out of control government at Westminster and raises the question just who is benefiting from artificially keeping the price of North Sea Gas high and why is the UK Government not seeking the decoupling of North Sea gas prices from North Sea oil as a way of reducing gas turbine generating costs rather than pursuing either shale or coal bed methane, using a technique on shore which is causing environmental problems in the vastness of the USA, let alone in the high density population reality which is the UK. The British Geographic Survey may consider the damage caused seismic slippage due to 'fracking' is no worse than a lorry going by; but that is not how it felt to this dweller of the North Solway coast on the two tremors felt here when the Solway Field was actively being worked.


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