One in four British homes could be fitted with solar heating equipment and 3,500 wind turbines could be erected across Britain within 12 years as part of a green energy revolution to be proposed by the government next week. The long-awaited renewable energy strategy, a copy of which has been seen by the Guardian, will say Britain needs to make a £100bn dash to build up its clean power supply if it is to reach its EU-imposed target of producing 15% of the country's energy from renewable sources by 2020. But at a time of mounting consumer anger over rising fuel prices, it also concedes that greening Britain's power supply will push up energy bills and increase fuel poverty.

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Until a few months ago it was thought impossible for Britain to approach generating 15% of its energy from renewables by 2020 as required by the EU. But next week the government will lay out an ambitious blueprint for what it says is an achievable energy revolution. It will affect everyone in Britain and raise electricity costs, the government concedes, but may also reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide long-term energy security.Over the next 12 years, under the plan, there will be six times more onshore wind turbines as there are now and a series of vast offshore windfarms built in the equivalent of a new North Sea oil rush.

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...The above points suggest that natural gas prices on average in 2008 in UK will have to put on 150 - 200% resulting in average prices through 2008 of 75 - 90 p/therm at the beach. Recently natural gas is now trading at 60 - 65 p/therm. It is difficult to predict the weather for the upcoming heating season and this is often the one factor having the greatest effect on short term natural gas prices. Given the seasonal nature of natural gas consumption it should come as no surprise if UK natural gas prices at the beach move north of 100 p/therm before the upcoming Christmas.

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Four major western oil companies, Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP and Total are about to sign U.S.-brokered no-bid contracts to begin exploiting Iraq's oil fields. Saddam Hussein had kicked these firms out three decades ago when he nationalized Iraq's oil industry. The U.S.-installed Baghdad regime is welcoming them back. Iraq is getting back the same oil companies that used to exploit it when it was a British colony.
Afghanistan just signed a major deal to launch a long-planned, 1,680-km pipeline project expected to cost $8 billion. If completed, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline (TAPI) will export gas and later oil from the Caspian basin to Pakistan's coast where tankers will transport it to the West.

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James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer. Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.

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