Outside the Beltway

The U.S. Isn’t Alone With Natural Gas Concerns

Steve Verdon · Wednesday, November 23, 2005 · 3 comments

Looks like England is having some issues with the rising cost of natural gas. According to the article, natural gas is the most expensive energy source in the country.

UK January gas prices closed at a record 1.17 pounds a therm on Tuesday as freezing weather stoked fears of a gas crunch. That makes the contract more than $50 a barrel higher than U.S. gas in oil equivalent terms and 10 times the price of European coal futures, analysts at Barclays Capital said.

Ouch.

Update: Despite this problem, the Minister of the Environment, Dick Roche, is disappointed that there are plans for a new generation of nuclear power plants. Tranlsation: Roche wants natural gas prices to remain at their current high levels, but to go even higher. Brilliant.

FILED UNDER: Economics and Business, Environment, European Union, gas prices, natural gas, United Kingdom

About Steve Verdon

Steve has a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and attended graduate school at The George Washington University, leaving school shortly before staring work on his dissertation when his first child was born. He works in the energy industry and prior to that worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Division of Price Index and Number Research. He joined the staff at OTB in November 2004.

Comments

kb says:

Thursday, 24 November 2005 at 03:29

well dick roches is the enviroment minister for the Republic Of Ireland and not the UK. So his remit is to worry about the irish enviroment rather than fuel prices in another country.
Steve Verdon says:

Thursday, 24 November 2005 at 23:19

kb,

So…natural gas prices are really low in Ireland then…or are they soaring there too?
James Aach says:

Sunday, 27 November 2005 at 13:44

You might be interested to know there is a techno-thriller novel about the American nuclear power industry, written by a longtime nuclear engineer (me). This book provides an entertaining and accurate portrait of the nuclear industry today and how a nuclear accident would be handled. It is called Ã¢Â€ÂœRad DecisionÃ¢Â€Â, and is currently at RadDecision.blogspot.com. There is no cost to readers.

I’m not sure what our energy future holds, but I think we’ll do a better job of deciding if we understand our energy present.

James aach

http://RadDecision.blogspot.com