The European Energy Scene: Watt Committee Report 11 PDF

Foreword

Shortly after the formation of The Watt Committee on Energy, Sir Jack Rampton, then Permanent Under-Secretary at the Department of Energy, suggested that when we had established our general policy we should contact like-minded people on the Continent of Europe. This could be helpful to all concerned because their approach to the problems would be different, if only on account of the differences in their resources compared with those of the United Kingdom. The Watt Committee acted on this suggestion about a year ago by writing to a number of individuals who had demonstrated in other connections their enthusiasm and their willingness to discuss their problems with fellow professionals. Most of those whom I wrote to were known to me as major contributors to the work of the International Flame Research Foundation.

Potential speakers were asked if they would be willing to present a simple statement at our Consultative Council in May 1981 answering in summary form two questions:

(1) How did your country react to the 1973 oil crisis, and what action occurred from then till 1980 to meet the new position?

(2) What do you expect your national energy policy to achieve in the period 1980–2000?

Four of the five replied that either they would be glad to accept the challenge or they had found a man who was in a better position to answer our questions. The fifth seemed permanently absent from his native country, and was regretfully dropped from the team. It might be expected that the U.K. speaker would have been drawn from one of the 60-plus professional bodies in membership of The Watt Committee; in fact we decided that D.le B.Jones, who had made a most helpful intervention at an earlier Consultative Council, was the right man, and were delighted that he agreed to present such a paper, not as a representative of the Department of Energy, but in a ‘personal capacity’.

It was our initial intention to hold a ‘getting to know you’ type of meeting without necessarily publishing either the papers or the discussion. Following the Council meeting, which took place in London on 21st May 1981, our originator

Sir William Hawthorne, wrote to say how much he and others had enjoyed this free exchange of views and added that he hoped we would produce a report containing not only the full texts of the papers—which could not be presented at the Council owing to shortage of time—but also a report of the discussion. The Executive agreed, and the authors were asked to let us have complete manuscripts and edit their replies to the discussion. The delay between the meeting and the publication of this report was considerably longer than usual, owing not to the tardiness of any party, but to the need to watch our cash flow.

It is my intention in writing this Foreword not to summarise the contents of the report, but rather to quote its findings in a way that will tempt the reader to study the full text, and thereby broaden his or her outlook, and possibly see ways of tackling the energy problem that, rightly or wrongly, have not been adopted by other countries. Even a quick browse will suffice to show striking differences in the problems faced by these five European countries. Equally striking are the differences in the way the challenges have been met and the proposals for the next two decades

The United Kingdom is fortunate in possessing a large amount of coal— sufficient for 300 years at present rates of consumption (see Watt Committee on Energy Report No. 9, Assessment of Energy Resources). In addition it has large supplies of oil and natural gas, and a useful quantity of nuclear power. Given these facts it is not surprising that D.le B.Jones suggests that ‘the market must play a major part in determining the pattern of fuel production and use’. The alternative procedure—that central government should permit optimum allocation —is modestly declined on the basis that the government and its officials are not all-wise and all-seeing. He adds that ‘prices must give both the consumer and the producer reasonably accurate signals about the cost of energy supplies’. The government must of course have an energy policy that includes an investment programme and corporate plans for the nationalised energy industries

Author: Watt Committee on Energy Publications