Financial crisis? That’s nothing

The coming energy crisis is going to dwarf the financial crisis, says the head of Shell: if only he were wrong

Why is anyone talking about anything apart from the looming power gap?

The news that we’re about to return to the age of coal is no surprise to anyone who’s been following energy developments in this country or even globally.


The simple truth is that we’re in a pretty woeful position, thanks to government dithering: in the next couple of years some of the UK’s aging nuclear and coal-fired plants are due to be shut down, and there is not really much – green or otherwise – lined up to replace them. Moreover we, like the rest of the world, are desperately in need of low-carbon energy sources, as CO2 levels in the atmosphere just rise and rise and rise.

Yes, in the government’s happy daydreams we will be providing much of our power through off-shore wind by 2020. Other countries too are working as hard as possible to find solutions to the problem, but most of them are a long way from being realised. In the meantime the head of Shell, Jeroen van der Veer, warned the Confederation of British Industry on Monday that we “had better make speed, or else the lights would go out. A sense of urgency is needed”.

Van der Veer pointed out that the financial crisis would be a problem for a couple of years, “but the energy challenge will be a problem for at least 50 years”.

Guardian