On 14/12/2012 12:05, John Williamson wrote:
....
In the '70s, '80s and '90s, we could have used the leeway that our
massive reserves of coal, oil and gas gave us to institute a programme
of nuclear power and some renewable sources.

Instead, we had the "dash for gas", used up all our resources building
gas fired power stations and stupidly closed the coal mines for
political reasons...

They were going to go anyway. It was cheaper to ship coal from Australia
than to get it from British mines.

Colin Bignell