Wednesday
Mar202013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Budget moments
Mar 20, 2013 Climate: Parliament Energy: gas A few interesting moments from the budget:
- a new shale gas field allowance, presumably removing the supertax
- new planning guidance for shale
- shale is "part of the future"
- reform of universities (whatever that means)
- New CCS projects
- some industries to be exempted from the Climate Change Levy
- no fuel duty increase in September
Reader Comments (24)
Wow, new CCS projects - and people say the government don't have money to burn (or should that be 'burn and then bury'?).
Watching it now. I thought it a very good budget. Milliband up now. So far just ad hom and nothing else.
I think the penny has finally dropped with regards Shale.
Just wait for BB/Entropic Man/ZDB to start foaming at the mouth.
Should be fun :-)
I look forward to buying pottery from my local power station once it starts using the "excess" heat from it kilns to generate electricity.
Don,
Unfortunately, the £2 coin is still very much stuck regarding CCS.
If one branch of one industry in one location is to be allowed to be exempt from CCL, why should non-domestic energy users everywhere else have to pay it?
Presumably, the Pottery industry in Midlands will have their National Insurance employers' rate reduction "offset" reset.
The "reform of universities" bit looks like a reference to past actions (e.g., tuition fees), not new proposals:
Exempt all industry from Carbon Tax .
Compete with the rest of the world then.
@Cosmic- silly me there was me thinking the Government was being sensible and going for Combined Cycle Systems, rather than Carbon Capture Systems..
@don keiller
You say
'Just wait for BB/Entropic Man/ZDB to start foaming at the mouth'
I always imagine Entropic as the model for this memorable album cover
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Court_of_the_Crimson_King
Terry S, I thought there were no significant pottery manufacting facilities left in the Midlands... images of stable doors and bolting horses?
According to a tweet from Business Green Drax is to get £75m loan to convert to biomass, yet Friends of the Earth are tweeting about it being 'another fossil-fueled budget'. They can't make up their minds, can they?
Harrabin's upset, so the chancellor must have done something right ;)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21865485
I'm not a great Tory lover (in fact I gave up voting) but I thought Millipedes response was a disgrace. All ad hom and nothing else to contribute. What a loser.
The BBC piece starts off with:
Perhaps I missed it but I can not see any tax breaks for the oil industry in the budget.
Can someone let me know what the tax breaks are?
I'm not a great Tory lover (in fact I gave up voting) but I thought Millipedes response was a disgrace. All ad hom and nothing else to contribute. What a loser.
Another budget akin to the Curate's egg. Is the CCS a sop to the greens? At least the research might generate something useful by way of a spin off. Good to see Harrabin upset as mentioned above. His default setting is to mention the subject then straight into what the environmentalists think. The comments against two of his recent articles bit him in the @rse. His assertion that drivers would save money from CO2 cuts got a resounding raspberry and the Hinckley C planning approval got huge support. Poor old Roger.
TerryS
There was some mention of the North Sea but I don't recall the details. That is probably what the Beeb is referring to.
Joe Public
This is a very clever move by Osborne who, whatever anyone may say about him, is not stupid. His hands are tied by the continuing troublemaking of the Lib-Dems and the contingencies of the Climate Change Act which, my usually reliable sources tell me, the Tories will repeal at the first sniff of an overall majority.
How much pottery is still made in Stoke is irrelevant. Energy intensive industries have been told that exemption from the Climate Change levy is a possibility. They have also been encouraged to lobby their local (Tory) MP and press their case.
This is the first Budget that I can recall when the Chancellor has made reference to specific MPs and has made it clear that he has taken on board their concerns and those of their business constituents. I think you will find that when the Lib-Dems look at the re-run of today's speech and see the reference to an MP swiftly followed by a shot of that MP (in a full chamber? how did the director know where they were going to be sitting? or more importantly why did he know?) they will go ape-shit. George has screwed them and there is nothing they can do about it.
So how many exemptions can we expect next year? And 2015? And by that time the levy's teeth will be well and truly drawn. Politically there is no way of applying the same concession to the domestic consumer.
Yet.
Re: Mike
Found it:
@Steve Jones
My immediate thought as he enumerated the energy / climate related changes was that CCS is just diversionary fluff. The meat is in the breaks for shale.
mrsean2k,
A patronising pat on the head for the LibDems methinks!
Sorry but whenever I see a refence to 'CCS', I always think of the Collective Conciousness Society and Tap Turns on the Water, one of the most brilliantly original pop singles of all time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqjITYuzdus
Exempt all industry from Carbon Tax .
Compete with the rest of the world then.
Mar 20, 2013 at 2:24 PM | jamspid
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The consumer always eventually pays.
If companies have to pay the carbon tax, they will pass this onto the consumer in the form of higher price for the products/services that they sell.
If companies do not pay the carbon tax, who is going to pay this expense, ie., the expense associated with green energy production. Does this not mean that consumer will have to pick up more of the tab on a first hand basis, rather than on a second hand basis.
This proposal may be good for industry as far as exports are concerned, but there may yet be a sting in the tail as far as the domestic consumer is concerned.
richard verney
"The consumer always eventually pays."
Agreed. Every tax that has ever been invented is paid down the line by real flesh and blood human beings. I wish more people understood that. Indirect taxes enable politicians to subvert market choice, but more importantly make it impossible for taxpayers to see the full horror of the total tax take.
We could do with the full extent of all relevant taxes being shown on our energy bills as someone I believe said is done in Spain. A reform along those lines would strike fear into the hearts of the eco-fascists here.