The World in 2030

The World in 2030 171
Since 1979 the National Coal Board, British Gas
and the Central Electricity Generating Board have
all been broken up. Energy trading, electricity pools,
auctions and futures markets first developed, but
they failed to solve the old energy policy problems
of security of supply and network integrity, and the
new ones of the environment and reliance on gas.
The government introduced a new regulatory regime
as a temporary necessity but regulation did not wither
away, rather it grew to be more pervasive. Changing
the ownership of the industries did not reduce the government’s
involvement, it simply changed its form. 325
And as Mike Childs, Head of Campaigns for Friends of the
Earth told me bluntly, ‘Energy policy is the single biggest
failure of market forces in our economy’.
This is a continuing problem. According to Dieter Helm,
in 2007 the current British government is in danger of failing
to develop an adequate energy policy for the future, so much
so that ‘by 2010 there is a danger that Britain will face a
severe shortage of energy.’ 326
The USA followed Britain’s lead and from 1996 onwards
began deregulating and, to some extent, privatising energy
generation and supply. But the international energy industry
remains wholly under the control of politicians who have
their own national interests as their top priorities. Less than
4 per cent of the electricity generated in Europe is exported
between EU nations. 327 This inflexibility in the European
energy market has grave consequences for the future security