For some years I used to bet on the end year oil price with Ed Crooks. He usually won.
I thought for 2013 a wider challenge would be a better test for FT readers.
So here are six questions: Read more
Chatham House explores what's next for the oil and gas industry in its latest paper. Getty Images
Anyone wanting a little bracing reading material for the Christmas holidays should take a look at the excellent paper recently produced by the Energy and Environment Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs – Chatham House. The paper – What Next for the Oil and Gas Industry – provides an unusually wide ranging view of the energy scene and will be of interest to anyone involved in the industry – from investors to governments. Read more
What are we to make of the bizarre events in Whitehall where the prime minister has personally intervened to block the appointment of David Kennedy, the highly respected head of the Committee on Climate Change who had been chosen by a formal civil service process as permanent secretary of the troubled Department of Energy Climate Change. In the classic manner this piece of bad news was slipped out on the day of the Leveson inquiry, when most attention in the media was focused elsewhere.
Some issues are very unclear and deserve answers: Read more
Pilita Clark reviews ‘The Carbon Crunch’ by Dieter Helm, an adviser on energy policy
If you had to choose an energy policy for the 21st century, would you prefer a system based on “contracts for difference”, with a single-party counterparty, a levy control framework and a capacity market? Or would you go for “premium feed in tariffs”, with an appropriate tariff degression mechanism and a strategic reserve?
Not sure? Neither are a lot of energy ministers on their first day in the job. So think of their relief when they come across someone like Dieter Helm. This extensively published Oxford professor of energy policy is an economist with firm ideas about how to design an affordable, climate friendly electricity sector that he can readily explain in plain English. Read more
After Nick Butler’s post on David Cameron’s energy policy John Kay writes about the complexity of retail energy tariffs and how the simplification of these will not be easy.
Last week, David Cameron told the House of Commons that UK energy suppliers will be required to ensure that all their customers benefit from the lowest tariff. Coincidentally, Britain’s energy regulator Ofgem published a document proposing simplification of retail energy tariffs. The document demonstrated that simplification will be complicated. Certainly more complicated than the prime minister’s statement implied. Read more
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