Claverton Group's comment on BBC Radio 4 "You and Your's" on the Energy Gap 13th October 2009 – its cheaper to save than to build.

David Porter of the AIP (founded originally by David Andrews as the AIEP to counter the monolithic anti market and anti chp bias of the CEGB – Ed.)  needs reminding that grants for A++ fridges etc (say we offer
£30 to reduce baseload from 600 to 120 kWh/yr = £750 to save 1 kW) are
cheaper than building Sizewell C = £5,000 to supply an average kW (£4,000
divided by capacity factor 0.85 be generous!! and T&D losses = 0.92)

So fridge grants are cheaper than nukes.

To sell energy efficiency then hand over to the marketing department as in
California, Connecticut, New York etc where there are financial incentives for utilities to save energy.

From: Phil Harris:

” Level of debate can be excruciating.
Lord Hunt when acknowledging the mix of UK’s home/imported coal failed to mention any recent figures, 20 million ton home, around 50mt imported, though he chose to emphasise the ‘security’ of home production.
Even if all the projected open-cast options get started (talk at end of August of perhaps ‘sitting on’  85 mt ), the few mt extra per year does not really make a serious dent in imports.
Quote from http://www.electric.co.uk/news/uk-coal-promotes-british-coal-supplies-12341133.html
” … Worry over gas supplied from Russia has already been the source of
political tension in London, even though Russia only supplies 2% of
UK’s gas, Lloyd points out. However Russian coal accounts for 38% of
the total coal burned by Britain. Colombia and South Africa supply
another 20%, and only 33% is supplied locally. …”
Even the figure of 33% for ‘local’ production in the link is misleading as it can only apply to coal used for electricity, not the total UK coal consumption.
Phil