contribution by Will McCallum
As campaigners from No Dash for Gas finish their first week on top of the chimneys of West Burton power station, braving over 80 hours of high winds, rain and cold with minimal food and water rations, people might be right in asking – why all this effort?
For all those participating – from campaigns, unions and other NGOs across the country – they are united in saying one thing: the ‘dash for gas’ is a senseless and dangerous shift back towards fossil fuels at a time when we need major investment in renewables and energy infrastructure that works to resolve climate change and fuel poverty.
They’re there because West Burton, owned by EDF, is the latest development in the government’s planned attempts to construct 20 new gas-fired power stations. These plans are due to be confirmed in the already delayed Energy Bill; and therein lies the strategic reasons for this occupation.
The Energy Bill is a source of much controversy, with the most recent statements from John Hayes on windfarms highlighting just how conflicted the coalition is over Britain’s energy future. After a string of coalition U-turns going back to July 2010 and ranging from forests to pasties, a U-turn on the dash for gas is possible; and the longer West Burton power station construction is halted, the longer we have to talk about all the reasons why a dash for gas is exactly what we don’t need at this point in time.
In 2011, Ofgem reported that the average household energy bills went up £150, £100 of which was due to rising gas prices. With every 1% rise in energy bills, an estimated 40,000 more people enter fuel poverty; and last week, EDF raised their prices by 10.8%.
A government that cares about the people it is meant to represent would not allow the Big Six profiteers to continue to pull the rug out from under the feet of the poorest in our society by denying them heating and electricity.
The renewable technologies needed to supply the energy demands of the UK population already exist and yet because the profits from such a sustainable system are not so immediately obvious they are actively ignored.
It might seem like a radical way to make these points; but by stopping emissions, halting construction and highlighting the senselessness of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s latest whim, the activists occupying the chimneys are acting out their belief in the necessity to go beyond any legal framework when the basic needs the law is meant to protect are not being safeguarded against political whims and corporate profits.