Time to wake up to the reality – Warren Report
In September, the Warren Report was headlined “The Silent Revolution in UK Energy Use”. In it, I revealed that over the past fifty years UK GDP wealth has increased by almost threefold while at the same time overall energy consumption across the economy has actually fallen (by about 5 per cent).
The level of interest in this simple juxtaposition of two trends, heading in opposite directions, was astonishing. I have been writing monthly columns on energy for over 30 years but I can honestly report that never before has a single column of mine stimulated quite so much interest.
The reactions have ranged from amazement: “Why didn’t I know this before?” to disbelief “Are you really interpreting these statistics right”?
from concern that such revelations may cause complacency “every possible saving measure has been made,” to shock that nobody in public life seems to have recognised what was happening “the Government must surely now treat energy saving as the First Fuel”.
For most people, the reaction was one of great positivity: “Why didn’t I know this before?” The chief executive of one of the largest energy consultancies told me that they would be tweeting and blogging the welcome news everywhere. The head of a large charity promised to send links to the column far and wide as did the secretary of one of the main all party energy groups in parliament.
One of the first challenges: “Are you really interpreting these statistics right?” came from a veteran BBC correspondent. Concentrating on the residential sector, if domestic electricity sales were lower today than in 1997, and home gas consumption had returned to 1984 levels, then doesn’t that simply mean that fuel poverty is on the increase? A leading Oxford University academic raised the same point.
I accept fuel poverty is sadly on the increase. And that some households do deliberately try to eliminate heating, cooking and lighting usage in consequence. But that still affects, thank heavens, a relative minority. And some of these run up high fuel bills, forced instead to reduce other expenditure.
What has revolutionised consumption patterns for heating is a combination of better insulation, better glazing and more efficient boilers.
To read the full article see the latest October edition of EiBI.
