Public Service Europe: Shale gas critics 'on scare-story bandwagon'

Carbon capture and storage is a 'preposterous' idea and wind power is 'ridiculous', but shale gas could supply the UK for decades – and George Osborne should be less cautious in his approach, claims UKIP's energy spokesman

What would bring such unlikely bedfellows together as Greenpeace and Gazprom? Opposition to fracking, that's what. Yesterday, the United Kingdom's chancellor George Osborne announced his new gas strategy, which includes plans for 26 gigawatts of new capacity by 2030. Memo to Osborne, by the way: How much of this is real mainstream capacity, and how much is simply back-up for the ridiculous quantities of wind power we are planning? You know about back-up, George – that is the capacity that has to be supported by payments for available capacity standing idle, underused and used inefficiently in the name of green posturing.

It includes a billion pounds for carbon capture and storage.  This is the preposterous idea that we can collect CO2 from power station chimneys and put it somewhere safe for the next million years.  Even Greenpeace, which you might have expected to like CCS, has serious worries about its viability. The rest of us should have serious worries about its cost.  It has not been demonstrated commercially, and may never work, but cost estimates suggest it could add 50 per cent to the price of coal-generated electricity. I like to compare CCS in the climate debate with subsidiarity in the European debate. It is a spurious idea that's bandied about to reassure gullible sceptics – but it is not something you actually do.  MORE