[Ironbridge ‘B’ Power Station (also known as Buildwas Power Station), Shropshire, England: this coal-fired power station can only run for up to 20,000 hours after January 1, 2008, and it must close by December 31, 2015]

The idea that the EU is fundamentally benign is increasingly undermined by its abject policies on energy. In recent weeks, these policies have been revealed to be potentially dangerous, hypocritical, inflexible, rose-tinted, and bureaucratic.

The Economist [‘Better than nothing?’, June 12; print version, p. 84] analyses the hypocrisy:

“... as Russia becomes an increasingly powerful energy producer, the EU should focus on safeguarding its security of supply, in particular by forming a common front in dealings with Gazprom and other Russian energy giants. By 2030 Russia will provide about 50% of the EU’s gas imports. Yet rather than working together, countries are striking bilateral deals with Russia.”

This undermines completely the whole purpose of an EU. As we all know, and as The Economist indicates, “Europe’s vertically integrated giants - especially Germany’s RWE and e.ON - will pursue their own foreign energy policy. And governments will do their very best to help their national champions.”

To which one can blithely add France and Électricité de France (EDF).

Inflexibility

Then, The Times today [‘EU rule kept half a million homes in the dark’, June 16: print version, p. 39] reveals the damaging inflexibility:

“Blackouts that plunged 500,000 homes into darkness last month [see: ‘Grid Locked’, May 28] were compounded by European environmental restrictions over the use of coal and oil-fired power stations...

... industry sources say that a key factor was the European Union’s Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD), which sets strict limits on the number of hours that some of Britain’s largest ... coal and oil-fired power stations can operate before they have to close in 2015. The time is measured in ‘stack hours’ - the length of time that chimney stacks, rather than individual generation units, are in use.

For power stations that have more than one burner, this has created a clear economic incentive for plants to be switched off unless they are being operated at full capacity, or until wholesale power prices increase enough for them to be economically viable to be turned back on.”

This policy is disastrous, the rules having contributed to “‘... mounting instability on the network because increasing numbers of power stations [are] not being run at any one time, reducing the margin of spare capacity and the ability of the National Grid to boost supply rapidly at times of crisis.’”

“Substantive Failure”

The Economist goes on to point out that, instead of dealing with these extremely serious issues, the main outcome of the EU’s regular talks [they are good at these] so far is merely “... unrealistic targets for the use of renewable energy.”

Thus, in summary, Dr. Dieter Helm, an expert on energy regulation at Oxford University, is reported as concluding that: “European energy policy has been a substantive failure”.

Just so. The EU Commission, of course, insists that it is making progress with [you guessed it] a new ‘Agency for the Co-operation of Energy Regulators’. Helm is scathing, and responds that this is yet another “... muddled compromise that will create cumbersome regulation and more bureaucracy.”

I fear that the EU could do for the UK where energy is concerned: it remains hypocritical, bilateral, inflexible, rose-tinted, but, above all, inefficient and bureaucratic. No wonder the Irish want to think again.

Yet, more worrying where energy is concerned, time is not on our side. We can no longer indulge these dangerous policies. How long can the UK continue to work within such a failing energy bureaucracy?

If the lights go out a couple more times, I suspect not too long. Can we have a referendum, please, on: “Do you want the lights to go out?”

And, is it not deeply ironic that the Ironbridge 'B' Power Station [pictured above], a coal-fired station that can now only run for up to 20,000 hours after January 1, 2008, and which must close by December 31, 2015, is located on the banks of the River Severn near to the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site, one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution?

Moreover, one final thought: how on Earth, I often wonder, do fundamentalist europhiles like Will Hutton excuse this hypocritical mess?

Coffee in the garden, that is, if Sr José Manuel Durão Barroso, the 11th President of the European Commission, allows our kettle to work! We could soon all be up the spout ..