Our energy minister recently gave a speech on fuel poverty where he was heard to say that "we are not going to sacrifice fuel poverty on the altar of climate change".
It's almost a statment of the obvious - no democraticaly elected government is going to remain elected if they bankrupt their voters.
Of course, with the recent rise in oil prices (which for reasons that I don't understand force a rise in gas prices), coal is once again one of the cheaper options of generating electricity.
CCS will of course make it more expensive and I've heard that it may double the cost of generation (but remember that the cost of electricity is set by much more than the cost of generation).
Where does this leave UK energy policy? Probably somewhere between improving insulation and energy efficiency, increased winter fuel payments, and higher taxes / bills for the test of us.
...oh yes, and a new government (one which can point out that the price hikes were the fault of the previous one, and not theirs).
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