Tony Blair tells the TRUTH helps kick start a green revolution... and stirs a few memories

(Bateman cartoon coming on here). Yes. Tony Blair told the Truth....TRUTH.

It happened when he was entertaining the British Society of Magazine Editors at NO 10 Downing Street (See No 10 website) .... there he was explaining .."Now as I say people always talk about me as if I am sort of starry eyed about people who have made money, I am not,..."

Q: (Top shelf wank mags for kids) Question:It is a question about top shelf magazines ... vocal threat emerging from parliament ..... I wondered whether you felt it necessary that they should be displayed on the top shelf or that they should have age stamps?

Tony Blair: I don't know what I think about this actually. I don't really know, I don't know. The only thing I think is that, I mean I am not ...

Q: You don't read Nuts or Zoo for example?

Tony Blair: Look, compared with most of what I have to read, particularly about myself, it would probably be a welcome relief. (Ho.Ho. Ho.)

Then things started to get a bit more serious ..

Q. Why is the government moving towards a nuclear solution for Britain's energy production when there is ample evidence to suggest that the challenge of global warming and fossil fuel shortages can be better met through a decentralised energy production infrastructure embracing renewable fuels and energy sources?

Tony Blair : " ....there is a simple stark fact that I would just like to put in front of people, which is we are going to go over the next 15 or 20 years to a situation where: one, the 20% that we get of our electricity from nuclear is going to decline to virtually zero; and two, where we are going to go from being 80 or 90% self-sufficient in oil and gas, to 80 or 90% importing it."

" ... whether we replace the existing nuclear power component of our electricity, but if we are not going to replace it we are going to have to, well what is going to happen on renewables is going to have to be absolutely massive."

"I don't know that we were voted in on a non-nuclear ticket, I think we have always kept the option open. But even if we weren't frankly, the fact is you have got an energy problem. "

"...I think I do not want a situation where people turn around in 15 - 20 years time and say what on earth were they thinking of, you know they ended up with a situation where we ran down our nuclear power stations, we thought we could get it through renewables and now we are wholly dependent on very, very expensive imports of gas and oil." really cannot gauge." (He actually means forecast or control).

" ...But to take out of that nuclear power and say that is it, well it is a very, very big step for us to take and I would need a lot of convincing that renewables were going to fill the gap.

To those who have been following the Energy needs of the country this represents the biggest shaft of light, a Damascene revelation that Tony Blair finally realises we have the Forthcoming UK Energy Deficit (FCUKED) to face.

Tony Blair finally tells the truth about the fucking shambles the UK policy (for want of a better word) is in ... has anybody noticed ?

What is vitally important to note is that Tony now belatedly understands ;

1.) If we run the nuclear "fleet" down the energy it produces has to be replaced.
2.) Despite what their lame brained last Energy Policy said he now realises .." I would need a lot of convincing that renewables were going to fill the gap." ... which is what all the rational critics said at the time and have repeated ad nauseam ever since.
3.) 15 years is now the time horizon we face these problems ..." where people turn around in 15 - 20 years time". The crunch is coming quicker than we imagined, thought, talked about.(probably 10 years see later)
4.) The cost implications of imported oil and gas is finally seeping through ..." now we are wholly dependent on very, very expensive imports of gas and oil." ...... he says elsewhere about how China is driving commodity prices up..."danger is that you end up not merely being dependent on imports, but dependent on imports whose price you really cannot gauge." (He actually means forecast or control).

What made the Dear Leader tell us like it is? Well my view is that the 6th report of the the Joint Energy Security of Supply Working Group (JESS) recently this May (the fifth of what should be bi-annula reports was published November 04.

For an excellent exegis of JESS 6 got to the excellent and superbly well informed Chris Vernon at Oil Drum. The reports factual information says basically what Our Dear leader told the magazine Editors last week.

To quote Chris ...."They expect continued increase in gas demand in the face of indigenous depletion with this demand being met by imports. The magnitude and timescales of reliance on imports is surprising though, previous reports have suggested 80-90% reliant by 2020. Forecasting 80% reliant by 2014-15 is the most pessimistic outlook I have seen." Hence Tony shortening his horizon from 20 to 15 years.

Perhaps most frightening (to the realist amongst us) Chris says..."Together this means by the end of 2015 the UK will lose 28.5% (8.2GW) of coal fired and 59.5% (7.1GW) of nuclear generation capacity." ... again forcing Tony to shorten his horizons.

In summary says Chris ..." this report has failed in its objective to provide the market with future supply, demand and price information. The quantitative data presented is so optimistic to be virtually worthless with qualitative caveats that don't adequately describe the risk." A view which will be widely shared by both energy producers and consumers.

Finally it takes a blogger (zceb90) to hit the spot which Tony has finally realised ...this 80% of fuel is imported and needs paying for.... zceb90 calculates it with gloomy accuracy .."Assuming UK gas demand for 2005 was around 1.7m Barrels of Oil equivalent per day (BOE/d), escalating at 2.2% pa through 2014 and assuming 80% imports the JESS forecast assumes that UK will be importing 1.65m BOE/d NG in 2014 (8 yrs away!) i.e. imports will amount to just slightly short of UK's 2005 entire consumption.

Using an import price of $100/BOE (which may well be extremely conservative by 2014 given increasing 'scramble' for scarce enery imports) gas imports would cost UK trade balance US$5bn per month or £2.8bn per month @ 1.80 exchange rate. Put another way projected gas imports by 2014 would more or less double existing trade deficit which is running at around £3bn per month.

As the Dear Leader told the magazine Editors .." now we are wholly dependent on very, very expensive imports of gas and oil.""

Tony Blair kept out of the Limelight (well almost).

On Friday Tony Blair went to Teeside to officially open the newly built plant (Teeside 1, Seal Sands) of Biofuels Corp plc. the largest in the UK, which is now (only 5 months after start up) at 58% capacity producing biodiesel from vegetable oils such as rapeseed, palm and soya beans.He must have met Mike Buzzacott BA. FCCA the Chairman and accountant who took over in March this year after 34 years at BP and was Group VP Petrochemicals.


(British Sugar started on Work in January on the UK's first bioethanol production facility from sugar beet with a new £20m plant to produce 70Mn litres of ethanol at Wissington, Downham Market in Norfolk.)The U.S. biodiesel market tripled in 2005.

The BBC report Mr Blair saying: "If we meet our Kyoto targets, we will only stabilise gas emissions.

"There's a big debate about whether energy should be renewable, nuclear or other but the reality is that we will have to go for every single possibility we can." (There he goes, telling the TRUTH again!)Interestingly, whilst the MSM misssed this visit the Northern Echo headlined the visit with this this quote and said "Blair sounds warning during visit to biodiesel plant"

When complete and running at peak flow the plant has a capacity to produce at least 250,000 tonnes of biodiesel each year (to EN14214 and EN590 standards) from vegetable oils, 25% of the 2010 Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation target for diesel.(2003 the UK prdocued about 5,000-6,000 tonnes per annum)

In November 2005 a target was set by the Gubment of a 20 fold increase in biodiesel production and that 5% of all motor fuel must come from renewable sources by 2010. Biodiesel costs 2.5 times to produce more than petrol, so an incentive fuel rebate is driving the market currently which Gordon Brown introduced in the last Budget.The rebate ( 25p per litre ?) of course only applies to the 5% of the biodiesel that is mixed with regular diesel.Plants such as this one also benefit from the 100% Enhanced Capital Allowance scheme for biofuels.

The company had previously announced construction delays and cost overuns at the facility and its stock has lost about 40 percent of its value during the last couple of months.

Biofuels Corp shares were trading at 1.24 pounds at 1245 GMT on Friday, up 7 pence or 6 percent but far below its peak of 3.22 pounds reached in March 2005. No Photo-op, no mention on the No 10 website, and the BBC got this quick and badly posed and taken shot with the back of Mr Buzzacotts head. How odd.

FOOTNOTE IN HISTORY

The last time TB opened an Energy co. office was for Cairn Energy PLC in Edinburgh. Cairn is run by Bill Gammell (Sir Bill since the New Year's Honours). Well in the tight knit world opening oilco offices, it so happens that Bill and Tony were at Fettes together and played fives.

The supreme coincidence is that Dad Genmmell (as very Blue chip Edinburgh Merchant Banker Sime Ivory) helped fund an outfit called Zapata oil run by ...George Bush Senior .. whose son George Bush Jnr (now POTUS) ... who used to come and play in the summer on the Gemmell family Renfrew estate (and Bill went to Kennebunkport), such good friends were they that George was Best Man at Bill's wedding... and when George was POTUS and came over to see his school chum Tony in November 2003, Bill was at Buckingham Palace browsing and sluicing with the best.History does not record any schoolboy George and Tony meetings... but it is possible.

As a further footnote, the browsers and sluicers at Her Maj's invitation was another Yank. Mrs Quinn. Helpfully the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett, dog handler and father of the child William, then stirring within her loins, was able to accompany her - not that the Press noticed at the time.,, or of they did forgot to tell anyone.

Another footnote is that when Gemmell pere slid George Senior out of (loss making) Zapata Petroleum it changed a bit and ended up as the major company in Mr Glazier's stable of companies (including Man U) but selling fish oil.

I don't think Mr Buzzacot was at Fettes, but it's a small world.