;)
Benedict Brogan sets out the painful truth that any developments on the shale gas front are likely to come too late to prevent a power crisis in the UK. With the energy policies of successive governments disjointed, disconnected, uncoordinated, unthinking and unfeeling we are left with the likelihood of power cuts, brownouts or, more likely in my opinion, price rises on an unimaginable scale.
The National Grid yesterday announced that its reserve supply of domestically produced electricity had dropped to troubling levels, and that only the availability of power from the Continent would prevent blackouts. Long before we might hope to begin banking the shale windfall, the lights will go out.
This is the inevitable consequence of handing over control of a key industry to politicians. It is planning that is the problem, not the solution.