Energy Security

I recently read an interesting article in Time magazine (25th Feb edition) by Baron Lawson former Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary of State for Energy. He describes how discussion of energy in Europe is dominated by environmental issues; carbon emissions, global warming, etc. But this is happening at the expense of security of supply. Europe's sources of primary energy are potentially unreliable; oil from the endemically unstable Middle East, and the increasing dependence on Russian gas to fuel power stations. Alongside this is the growing gap between demand for electricity and the capacity of power stations to supply it. This gap grows ever larger with decisions such as Germany's to close down all of its nuclear power stations which will lose it 25% of its generating capacity by 2023. You can also add to this the reluctance to build new coal-fired power stations until carbon-capture and storage technology is in place; a technology that doesn't yet exist and according to some, never will.
All of this points to the likelihood of of the lights going out in Europe at some point in the next 20 years having never been greater.
But, all is not lost. With industries migrating to China and India and electricity prices rising substantially the gap between supply and demand will shorten.
We will have huge utility bills and no jobs, but the lights will stay on, cool...