Originally published November 4 2005
Katrina and Rita disasters reveal need for energy innovation
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Members of the UK energy committees are warning officials that the oil market spikes in recent months are a sign of the current energy crisis. Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks says there could be shortages as early as this winter.
From the Prime Minister's lips in Brighton to the howls of pain from motorists; and from the Gulf of Mexico to the polar icecap, the signs are converging: decisions on what the world does for energy are overdue.
Last week several events brought the problem into sharp focus.
In the UK, Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks warned there may be power cuts this winter due to a shortage of gas.
All this in a week that started with the London oil market remaining open at the weekend to deal with the impact of Hurricane Rita, while petrol prices edged up once again.
Neither Government policies nor levels of private investment in alternatives give much indication of a concerted effort to reverse this trend.
On the one hand energy demand can be moderated by including all its costs - including pollution via carbon trading such as the EU Emissions Trading Scheme; on the other, there are technical advances towards finding an alternative.
But alternatives do not derive from a single source as with fossil fuel; each involves its own start-up costs, which, compared with fossil fuels, can be very expensive.
So, in a UK context, the short-term solution to supplying sufficient power is to build more pipelines to import more gas.
It hopes the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, where industrial users must pay for permits to pollute over a set cap, and its own renewables obligation - which penalises companies that do not get a certain amount of electricity from non-fossil sources - will do the trick.
The IEA says: 'If government policies do not change, energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide will grow marginally faster than energy use.
Clean coal - capturing and storing CO2 emitted by power stations - has received �40 million in UK government funding, for example.
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