Nabucco is no more

Pending Azerbaijan's official announcement on Friday, we can say that the Nabucco pipeline, intended to lessen certain EU member states' reliance on Russian gas, is no more.

EUObserver reports that Austrian firm OMV, part of the Nabucco consortium, said on Wednesday (26 June) that Azerbaijan, the gas supplier, has opted for the rival "Tap" pipeline instead.

"[Azerbaijan's] Shah Deniz II consortium informed OMV, as a shareholder of Nabucco Gas Pipeline International, about the decision on their preferred gas transportation route to Europe. The Nabucco West project was not selected by the consortium," it noted on its website.

While Tap is also intended to bring "10 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas a year from the Caspian region to EU countries in the next five or so years to Europe" by-passing Russia, it is less useful.

Tap is to run from the Turkish border via Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, to Italy. Nabucco West was to have run from Turkey via Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, to Austria.

Greece depends on Russian gas for 58 percent of consumption, while Italy's dependence is just 22 percent.

Neither country was badly hit in the 2008/2009 Russia-Ukraine gas crisis.

But in Bulgaria, which depends on Russia 100 percent, street lights went out in Sofia and electricity supplies to hospitals were put at risk. Dependency is also high in Hungary (56%) and Austria (52%).

If these plans go ahead certain countries will remain vulnerable to Russian pressure and, not to put too fine a point on it, blackmail. On the other hand, of course, Russia badly needs to sell its gas as its income relies almost entirely on raw produce like gas and oil.

Then again, President Ilhan Aliyev of Azerbaijan is no slouch when it comes to using the country's gas reserves to extract various concessions from the EU (though he is less likely to start putting pressures on individual member states) and is said to be delaying signing the Tap agreement till the autumn, that is the next presidential elections.

Reasonable question - vague answer

Yesterday in the House of Lords (haven't heard from them for a while) Lord Kennedy asked HMG a somewhat disingenuous question:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, in the light of the announcement of price rises by British Gas, what action they will take to protect consumers from rising energy costs.

He got a disingenuous answer that gave notice of some more government spending on various projects and advertising thereof.

My Lords, protecting consumers from rising energy costs is a priority for this Government. Programmes such as the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target, Warm Front, Green Deal and the Energy Company Obligation make or will make homes more energy efficient. The Warm Home discount provides £1.1 billion of support until 2015 and helps around 2 million low-income and vulnerable households. The Government have also instigated the Big Energy Saving Week, to be held the week of 22 October, when there will be up to 400 events across the country providing direct advice on reducing energy bills.

It was Lord Willoughby de Broke's question that interested me:

My Lords, would not the simple way to reduce consumers' electricity costs be to stop paying huge subsidies to wind farms? The cost of those subsidies falls directly on to the consumer, particularly, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, mentioned, those in fuel poverty.

The answer was suitably vague (suitably for HMG, that is):

My Lords, this country needs a mix of different energy sources. Wind happens to be one of them and is carbon free. However, we recognise that we need to look at all sources and the subsidies we are providing to them, and we have taken it upon ourselves to reduce wind subsidies by 10 per cent.

!0 per cent is better than nothing but 100 per cent would be even better.

Missing the point

Lord Willoughby de Broke asked on Tuesday about the large combustion plants directive about which he had written on epolitix, expressing his view that the implementation of the directive (which, apparently, we have to do despite being told that Parliament is the sovereign legislator)"could mean lights out for Britain".

The European Union's Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) came into effect on January 1, 2008. It sets limits on the amount of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and dust particulates that coal- or oil-fired generating plants may emit. All these plants must comply by January 1, 2016 either by meeting the limits set out in the directive, or 'opting out' by reducing their total operating time to 20,000 hours by the end of 2015 and then shutting down.

As with so much EU legislation, this is well-meaning who could reasonably object to reducing environmentally harmful emissions? but is likely to give the UK serious difficulties in retaining adequate generating capacity for its needs. Under the LCPD, 14 power stations, generating 25 per cent of the UK's current energy requirements, would have to close by the end of 2015.

A leaked 2009 Whitehall briefing paper prepared for MEPs warned that the LCPD 'raises potentially serious issues about security of electricity supply'. In other words, the lights could go out under the LCPD's deadlines. The government's concerns have been echoed by the Confederation of British Industry, who stated that: 'Businesses want to help air pollution, but this directive must be implemented in a way that doesn't undermine the UK's energy security'.

So what is HMG's attitude? The Starred Question was:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what are their intentions as regards the large combustion plant directive and the generating plants concerned.

HMG's response, given by Lord Henley was tight-lipped:

My Lords, the Government's intention is that all combustion plants in the UK which are subject to that directive should comply with its requirements.

Lord Willoughby persisted, even suggesting that British legislation should be carried out by the British Parliament for the good of the British people.

My Lords, I am grateful for that frank Answer. However, can the Minister confirm that, under the provisions of that directive, 25 per cent of the UK's generating capacity is due to close down by 2015? Would it not be preferable for the United Kingdom's energy policy to be made by the Government and the Parliament in this country rather than contract it out to the European Commission?

Lord Henley dealt with that by simply ignoring it:

My Lords, I cannot confirm the noble Lord's figure; I would not accept that it will be as high as 25 per cent by 2015. I accept that a number of plants are so dirty in their emissions that they will have to close in due course, but I can confirm that other generating capacity is coming on stream in time to replace those that will close.

All a little vague, as was the rest of the debate, which consisted of several rather well-meaning comments (if somewhat catty at UKIP's expense) about certain problems being international and needing international solutions and, of course, everybody's health will be so much better if we get rid of the nasty emissions. Of course, people's health may take a turn for the worse if there is not enough power to provide everyone with light and heat but that is not going to happen. No, no, no.

Lord Pearson raised the subject of fuel poverty and the Minister deliberately misunderstood the question, pretending that it was about unemployment. When put right, he simply assured everyone that electricity prices will not go up by nearly as much as is feared. Of course, if they do, Lord Henley is not likely to be called to account for misleading the House.

Common sense triumphs for the time being

Thanks to James Delingpole's blog on the Telegraph site (see, I do read some Clogs) we find out that the Australian Senate has voted Kevin Rudd's cap and trade bill out by 42 to 30 votes.

Why did those Senators reject Rudd’s scheme, despite their prolonged drought and their bush fires? Well some - the green ones - did so because they didn’t think its emissions cutting targets went far enough. But the majority did so - duh - because they didn’t want their coal-dependent heavy industry hamstrung by still more pointless taxation and regulation, their consumers fleeced and their economy ruined in the middle of a thwacking great global recession. And, in at least the case of Senator Steve Fielding, because they’d done their research and discovered that Anthropogenic Global Warming is a figment of Al Gore’s imagination.

Having consulted scientific experts including Ian Plimer [whom I interviewed in the Spectator a few weeks back and whose views are neatly summarised here] Sen Fielding was inspired to visit the US to assess at first hand what evidence the Obama administration was using to justify its radical Waxman Markey cap and trade measures. He was not impressed and issued a challenge, emailing graphs to one of the US president’s energy advisers showing that, despite rising CO2 levels the globe has not warmed in over a decade.

He concluded: “Until recently I, like most Australians, simply accepted without question the notion that global warming was a result of increased carbon emissions. However, after speaking to a cross-section of noted scientists, including Ian Plimer… I quickly began to understand that the science on this issue was by no means conclusive….As a federal senator, I would be derelict in my duty to the Australian people if I did not even consider whether or not the scientific assumptions underpinning this debate were in fact correct.”

We may add that the bush fires have been known to be caused by arsonists and have often spread fast because in many places control of the wilderness had been abandoned in response to Green demands.

Bloomberg points out that this is not the end of the story.

Rudd, who needs support from seven senators outside the government to pass laws through the upper house, can resubmit the bill after making amendments. A second rejection after a three-month span would give him a trigger to call an election.

“We may lose this fight, but this issue will not go away,” Climate Change Minister Penny Wong told the Senate in Canberra. “Australia cannot afford for climate change to be unfinished business.”

Five members from the Australian Greens party sought bigger cuts to emissions while the opposition coalition and independent Senator Nick Xenophon wanted to wait for further studies on the plan’s impact on the economy.

I can't help being pleased that someone called Xenophon should emulate his namesake and approach matters with an open and enquiring mind.

AND TALKING of Clogs or Corporate Blogs, I shall be spending a good deal of today and tomorrow writing about them for the Total Politics Guide to Political Blogging. There's glory for you.

Wouldn't it be nice if Ministers answered questions

Or had some understanding of what they were talking about. This occurred to me as I saw the Starred Question asked yesterday by Lord Willoughby de Broke:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to communicate more widely the recent statement by the Rt Hon. Ed Miliband concerning the unacceptability of objecting to wind turbines.

This referred back to the extraordinary statement made by the egregious Ed Miliband (brother of the no less egregious David) that those who opposed wind turbines (an ever larger group as this article, for one, makes clear) should be viewed as socially unacceptable. Something your best friend wouldn't tell you, except that presumably you know, anyway.

Mind you it that involves not being invited to dinner parties where one might meet one or more Miliband, opposing wind turbines might become even more popular.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath replied on HMG's behalf:

My Lords, Her Majesty’s Government regularly communicate their support for wind generation as part of their commitment to developing renewable energy. We will reaffirm this policy in the renewable energy strategy, to be published this summer.

There are, alas, a few problems with wind turbines as Lord Willoughby pointed out in the follow-up question:

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for that Answer. Could he confirm that, because of the intermittent nature of wind power, all wind farms need permanent back-up from conventional generating plant? Does he agree, therefore, that supporting wind farms is as socially unacceptable as sneezing in public during a flu epidemic?

Whether Lord Hunt understood all that or not is not clear. After all, he has to say what his officials tell him and that is very unfortunate. Who'd be a Minister these days? He did, however, say, ignoring the subject of social acceptability or otherwise of the various Milibands:

However, as this House has frequently reminded me, that reinforces the need for a diversity of supply, which is why this Government have given their support to new nuclear and new coal under carbon capture and storage, as well as encouraging renewables.

Well that has to be good news though some action might be even better.

It was, however, Lord Lawson who cut across some of the rather odd comments made on a subject that often brings out the worst in people:

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, reminded the House, the Minister’s boss, the Secretary of State, declared that objecting to wind farms was socially unacceptable. Is the Minister aware that the distinguished scientist James Lovelock, in his recent book The Vanishing Face of Gaia, with a commendatory preface from the president of the Royal Society, no less—the noble Lord, Lord Rees—contains the most excoriating attack and demolition of the case for wind power that I have ever read and which every objector should use in every public inquiry? Does the Minister consider that Professor Lovelock is socially unacceptable?

Then again, would Professor Lovelock wish to attend dinner parties with any Miliband?