Leader
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              Our greed for energy will be our downfall
                  The question is not: can we sustain our energy supply without learning to love nuclear? It is, or at least should be: can Britain and similar countries sustain present levels of energy consumption without causing economic instability and environmental disaster? Politicians look at this issue from the wrong end of the telescope. The public is equally culpable.

The six-month energy review initiated by Tony Blair is welcome. It will raise the quality of the debate about a subject on which views are polarised but often ill-informed. Both sides employ widely divergent statistics on the economic efficiency and the ecological effects of nuclear power. The industry - one of the most sophisticated lobbyists in the corporate world - claims that new-generation nuclear stations provide "clean" energy and that they perform enviably, producing few carbon emissions. Fact or fiction? Meanwhile, advocates of renewable energy, particularly wind turbines, argue that only a combination of government lethargy and local nimbyism is preventing rapid expansion of surely the least unlovable form of energy production. They point out that the government is withholding a £50m investment in wave power - a tiny sum, given the predicted tens of billions that will be required for eventual storing of nuclear waste.

The debate raises inevitable suspicions about the Prime Minister's approach. Such is the government's track record of launching commissions, only to prejudge, distort or ignore their findings, that it seems hard to imagine that Blair has not already made up his mind. He has dropped enough hints to suggest that, whatever else it says, he wants the review to conclude that nuclear power continues to have a foothold in our energy policy.

Atomic power provides a fifth of Britain's electricity. The projection is that, by 2020, when just one of the country's ageing reactors is scheduled to be operational, that share will fall to roughly 5 per cent. Cost remains the biggest obstacle. Not a single new reactor will be built without heavy state subsidies. Leaving aside the other issues, is this the best use of public funds? Even if a mass building programme were to take place, the role of nuclear in energy provision would still remain small. So what, one might say, would be the point?

While coal continues to stave off its eventual demise, we rely ever more on gas - and as North Sea fields dwindle, that means relying on Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union. Gas already produces roughly 40 per cent of our electricity, a figure that is expected to climb to 60 per cent by 2020. The problem with this is less economic and environmental than one of security, and international politics.

The world is still learning the lessons of its dependence on oppressive Middle Eastern regimes, particularly Saudi Arabia, for oil supplies during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. President Vladimir Putin now uses oil and gas deals - involving companies that are state monopolies in all but name - as his means of projecting Russian power. That power is growing, as a recent agreement with Germany attests. In one of his last major decisions as chancellor, Gerhard Schroder cut a deal with Moscow for a pipeline under the Baltic Sea which circumvents neighbouring states. The Kremlin was eager to portray this as a reward to a friendly state and a punishment to the likes of Poland. The EU has so far failed lamentably to construct a pan-European energy policy based on diversity, reliability of supply and environmental concern and which is also co-ordinated, preventing a divide-and-rule that will become ever more acute as demand around the world exceeds supply.

For all the focus on supply, ultimately it is demand that will determine our security. It is all too easy for citizens and politicians of the UK and the rest of the EU to make defeatist noises about China, India and other new mega-consumers of energy. There is much we can do on a governmental and individual level to cut consumption, but precious little of that is being done. In his powerful book The Long Emergency, an extract of which was published in the New Statesman in August, James Howard Kunstler pointed to the impending energy crisis, arguing that the remaining fossil-fuel reserves tend to be concentrated in areas of greatest tension. Nuclear or no nuclear, we will not solve the problem of supply, but we can begin to deal with our own increasingly precarious needs.



Welcome to the granny state

People of all ages are feeling the squeeze. Adair Turner says we will have to work until we are 68 or older. Supposedly enlightened newspapers trot out more fatuous claims about women no longer wanting to "have it all" (as if they ever did). Just when thirtysomethings want to develop careers, they are told they shouldn't for fear of damaging their young offspring (the jury is out on that one). Meanwhile, those in their sixties and seventies who want to mix paid employment with recreation and family time are warned that it is about to get harder.

Perhaps the UK should turn to the Continent, in particular Russia, for guidance? There it has long been the norm - under communism and capitalism - for the oldest generation to look after the youngest, perhaps handing them back to the parents at weekends. Boost grandparents' pensions as an incentive, then the problems are solved. Easy.
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