I think we can safely say it is time to panic:
"United Kingdom — In an unprecedented trial a UK Crown Court jury has acquitted six Greenpeace UK volunteers of criminal damage to a coal-fired power plant.[...]
They were accused of causing £30,000 (US$53,000) of criminal damage to the Kingsnorth smokestack from painting. The defence was that they had a 'lawful excuse' - because they were acting to protect property around the world "in immediate need of protection" from the impacts of climate change, caused in part by burning coal."
We need to replace a huge share (PDF, pg. 67) of our generating capacity, at a cost of billions upon billions, in around a decade. The companies we are relying upon to do so already face a very tangible prospect of having the returns on their investment confiscated directly by windfall taxes or indirectly by threats of windfall taxes if they don't cough up. Their costs are constantly being pushed up by regulations and, when they pass that cost on to customers, they are demonised, in part by a Government funded pressure group.
Now when their property is damaged to the value of £30,000 the perpetrators will be let off on the basis of testimony from Al Gore's favourite scientist and the author of the insane (PDF) Quality of Life Policy Group report. I need to talk to some lawyer friends tomorrow to get my head around exactly how the law works in this area but, regardless, the message to energy companies is clear: invest in coal power and you are going to become a target with little defence for your basic property rights.
We're not going to get nuclear power built in time and wind provides pretty much no peak load capacity so we are going to become drastically more dependent on gas. Supply is increasingly constrained, major UK gas terminals are going months without deliveries (PDF, pg. 3), and is vulnerable to foreign political meddling. Campbell Dunford's warning seems likely to go unheeded; the lights are going to go out.
