Thursday 21 August 2008

Nick Clegg should Apollo-gise for this rubbish.

Nick CleggNigg Clegg, the true master of talking out of your arse is off again, this time he says we can be self-sufficient in energy by 2050 without building new coal-fired or nuclear power stations. He has announced a massive five page (yes five full pages!) ‘Apollo Project for UK Energy Independence’. The main thrust of his brilliant plan is to "Source all energy requirements from within the EU by 2030 so that the country does not need to import energy from unstable regimes." Sounds good but if Clegg were to pay a visit to this planet for a short while he would realise that the idea of sourcing our energy requirements from within in the EU by 2030 is a work of science fiction:

From the EurActiv Site:

Oil and gas reserves are unevenly distributed around the globe, and the largest reserves are situated in politically or economically insecure regions (Middle-East, Russia). North Sea oil and gas fields have already been exploited beyond their peak, leaving Europe dependent on non-EU countries for future supply.

The Commission Green Paper on security of energy supply (November 2000) drew a sobering picture of the EU's energy situation. If no action is taken, it predicted, the EU's energy dependency will climb from 50% in 2000 to 70% in 2030. The particular situation for the main imported fossil fuels was described as follows:

Oil:

45% of EU oil imports originate from the Middle East;
by 2030, 90% of EU oil consumption will have to be covered by imports

Gas:

40% of EU gas imports originate from Russia (30% Algeria, 25% Norway);
By 2030, over 60% of EU gas imports are expected to come from Russia with overall external dependency expected to reach 80%.

Coal:

By 2030, 66% of EU needs is expected to be covered by imports.

To back up this massive five page document, Clegg points us to his Liberal Democrat policy paper 82 (2007) in which he claims that the Lib Dems will Increase the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation to require at least 10 per cent of all fuel sold on UK forecourts to come from renewable sources by 2015. Isn't this just another example of the Lib Dems living in cloud cuckoo land when we know the damage Biofuels are causing?

9 comments:

J J said...

Welcome back!

Daily Referendum said...

Cheers JJ

William Gruff said...

I'm delighted that you're posting again, and not at all surprised.

Welcome back.

ScotsToryB said...

For some reason I never saw your last blog and since then I've been wondering where you were.

I think it may have been the 'Daily' bit that upset me.

FFS where is he?

WTF is he not blogging?

I understand the thought that goes into blogging(the reason I only comment!) and I, as one of your 12000(12000 FFS(!)I'd love to be read by that many per month) readers say; you have more then the average village reading you; more than a pub philosopher could hope for and more depth than most: yet still there is need for acceptance. You do not need acceptance, you make more than enough well thought out comments to justify your presence. We are reading and will continue to do so - we just will not always reply.

From now on, once a month, I'll send a message of support ;), OK, that's a lie BUT accept that there is one reason and only one reason why we come back; we like what you say and how you say it.

Keep up the good work.

STB.

Daily Referendum said...

Cheers Mr Gruff, I needed a break.

Daily Referendum said...

STB,

Cheers,

I'm hoping to be more relaxed over my blogging from now on.

Anonymous said...

Well, as a former serviceman (albeit in the RN) you should realise the dangers of an over dependence on fuel from dodgy parts of the world. Now the usual reaction of the Liberal’s opponents is to try and rubbish their policies, before adopting them. I don’t imagine Clegg has made himself a hostage to fortune and has got the scientific back up.

Daily Referendum said...

(albeit in the RN)? fuck you too!

Anonymous said...

welocme back