Europe had exported CO2 emissions to China in the past few years by cutting manufacturing; globally, nothing had changed. Meanwhile, £100 billion was being invested across Europe in wind farms, which – along with solar panels – made precisely zero difference. Europe should invest just some of that money in research, a “European MIT”, and there were reasons for hope: solar energy could make a massive difference in the future as experts widened the light spectrum and found materials other than panels to apply solar energy. However, said Professor Helm, demand would not fall; energy would just be cheaper. Thanks to shale gas extraction or “fracking” the price of American gas was a quarter of that in Europe. For most of his career nobody had been much interested in energy as there had been massive excess supply; now, everybody cared. We didn’t have security of supply, we had less competitive and affordable energy, and emissions globally were still going up. The Uk was facing an energy crunch in the next 18 months and action was needed.
