Where does he find the energy?

Oil, fuel bills, environmentalists, blackouts, nuclear power… Malcolm Wicks has a lot to worry about as he plans a renewables revolution, says Tim Webb

Try as he might, energy minister Malcolm Wicks cannot escape Greenpeace, avowed enemy of anyone – especially him – who backs nuclear power. In the middle of a train journey to Bristol last Thursday evening, a man wearing a beige fleece and jeans calls down the first-class carriage to the minister. He comes over and hands a bemused Wicks a press release and thick report from the environmental lobby group about renewable energy. ‘It will help you come up with a response,’ he says helpfully.

The bizarre interruption brings some much-needed light relief. Wicks is a worried man. He is worried that Opec, which is holding an emergency summit this weekend in Saudi Arabia, can’t pump enough oil. He’s worried about soaring fuel prices. He’s worried about old people not being able to afford to keep their homes warm in a cold winter. And no wonder. Oil prices have doubled in a year and this month hit $140 a barrel. In the UK, utility bills are heading in the same direction and last month the worst power cuts for a decade plunged parts of the country into darkness. Britain is in the grip of a global energy crisis that seems to get worse by the day.

Wicks looks pained. ‘I always hesitate a bit to use the word crisis,’ he says. ‘But if someone used the word I wouldn’t necessarily quarrel. This is totally unprecedented. If oil prices double, you are in a totally different ball park. It worries me greatly, not least because of the impact on vulnerable households.’

Wicks, a former university lecturer, wrote a book called The Old and the Cold after the oil crisis of the 1970s, when fuel bills soared as now and the elderly struggled to heat their homes. So he knows all about oil shocks. But he’s not confident that oil prices will slump again, as they did in the 1980s.

‘A Liberal Democrat asked me in the House of Commons to predict what price oil would be in 2020. I said I can’t predict what it’s going to be next week. If I knew I would probably be a forecaster-stroke-liar and very well paid for that.’ Hardly reassuring, but honest.

This week, the government will issue what Wicks calls its ‘greenprint’ to bring about a ‘renewable energy revolution’. ‘We are talking about a revolution in how we build a house in the future, the kind of cars we drive.’ It is fighting talk, but this week’s consultation is by all accounts a radical departure from current policy. It has to be. The government has signed up to a binding EU target to source 15 per cent of its energy from renewable, non-fossil fuel sources.

That requires a more than 10-fold increase from current levels. Because it is difficult to heat homes or power cars using renewable energy, the heaviest burden for meeting the 15 per cent target will fall on power generators. Analysts estimate that at least a third of all electricity generated will have to come from renewable sources, such as wind or solar energy, to meet the overall target in 2020.

Only 5 per cent of the UK’s electricity comes from renewables today. That means thousands more wind farms and solar panels and mammoth projects like the Severn barrage, which would be big enough to provide some 5 per cent of the UK’s electricity, but cost at least £15bn and take more than a decade to build.

Wicks admits that even with all this, the target will not be reached without buying in renewable credits from other countries in Europe. He also admits that the EU targets will add even more to households’ utility bills: ‘At a time when prices are rising and given the state of technology, the measures we take like the obligation to bring on renewables do add to cost. The EU target will add even more.’

The Guardian reported last week that the government’s Renewable Advisory Board had concluded that the UK would only be able to source a maximum of 14 per cent of energy from renewables. Wicks is not perturbed: ‘It’s like a team bragging they’re going to win 10-nil and only winning nine-nil. I’m encouraged they are saying 14 per cent is do-able.’

Wicks was on his way to the site of the proposed project on the Severn when The Observer interviewed him. He admitted the government was in talks with the European Commission about counting the project’s electricity output to help the UK meet its renewable target, even though in 2020 the barrage would still be under construction. He denied this was ‘creative accounting’, saying it would ‘pass the common sense test’. ‘Although it’s a 2020 target, if the Commission and our colleagues in Europe see the thing is up and building but won’t come on stream until 2022… This is a grand project.’

Bird lovers, represented by the RSPB, are already up in arms about the barrage, which would involve the construction of a dam, or series of dams, across the estuary, which they say would destroy the habitat for bird and fish.

The subject of environmentalists provokes another pained expression from Wicks. ‘We have some environmental lobbyists who seem to be opposed to things we need to do,’ he sighs. ‘Some of these environmentalists who have good hearts but confused minds are almost a barrier to tackling climate change. Historically that will turn out to be sad.’

The controversy over the fate of the Severn estuary’s mudflats is nothing compared to that over building new nuclear reactors: ‘I find it genuinely disappointing and sad that some organisations seem to put their hatred of nuclear above their concern for global warming.’

Wicks insists that his support for nuclear power – which results in only low-carbon emissions – does not extend to intervening in the stalled £11bn auction of nuclear generator British Energy. The government owns a 35 per cent stake in the company, whose sites are best to build more reactors. French nuclear giant EDF is the only remaining bidder, but the board of British Energy is demanding that EDF pay more for the company.

‘How would we intervene – nationalise British Energy? We’re not going to do that. These are matters for BE. We have a shareholding and take an active interest. But we’re not going to start dictating to BE what they should do or what their next move should be.’

Asked if he was relaxed about the situation, he replies: ‘Relaxed is not a word I would use. It’s not a particularly relaxing time in energy at the moment.’ Quite.

The CV

Name Malcolm Hunt Wicks

Age 60

Education North West London Polytechnic and the London School of Economics

Career 1968-74, social policy analyst, Home Office; 1974-77, university lecturer; director of the Family Policy Studies Centre; 1992, MP for Croydon North; May 2005-November 2006 and June 2007-present, Minister of State for Energy

Family Married with three children

Recreation Music, walking, gardening

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jun/22/utilities.oil