Media
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Media articles by Dieter Helm
Nuclear alone won’t keep the power flowing
11th November 2009
From The Times - by Dieter Helm Britain’s energy policy is an incoherent mess. We need a simple and explicit carbon tax to fund the greenest alternatives. FULL ARTICLE:
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Media articles by Dieter Helm
Don't blow our £100 billion on wind power
16th July 2009
Article in The Times - may also be found HERE. Instead of pouring money into renewable energy, we should invest in technology that will really tackle climate change. Climate change is an existential threat. It presents huge challenges to governments and, inevitably, we will have to pay a significant price to keep the temperature from rising by more than two degrees. Politicians across the world increasingly understand this. This is in itself a big step forward in the build-up to the Copenhagen...
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Media articles by Dieter Helm
Britain must save and rebuild to prosper
4th June 2009
Financial Times piece. How did the UK get into such an economic mess? There are many causes, but central to any explanation is that consumption has been unsustainably high at least since 2000, and this excess has been based upon ever-higher levels of private and public debt. In simple terms, we have been writing a large mortgage on future generations, without bequeathing them a compensating set of assets. The implication is that a sustained economic recovery depends upon a major rebalancing of...
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Media articles by Dieter Helm
'Badly designed' regulatory framework driving equity investors away from utilities
8th May 2009
UTILITY WEEK article The UK's "badly designed" regulatory framework has been responsible for driving equity investment from privatised utilities, a process which could see them return to public ownership, according to Dr Dieter Helm, professor of Energy Policy at the University of Oxford. Addressing the Competition Commission, Helm said: "On current trends, it is quite possible that equity will be eroded further, and more mutuals and de facto nationalisations may follow. Though privatisation...
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Media articles by Dieter Helm
April Fool article in Utility Week 2009
1st April 2009
Government plans joint water and energy watchdog Written by: Ralfi Loop | 01 April 2009 The government has drawn up plans to create a unified regulatory body covering the water and energy sectors across mainland Britain. UtilityWeek understands that that the new organisation will be known as Ofsweg (the Office for Sewerage, Water, Electricity and Gas). This move will be highlighted in the Budget announcement later this month. The new watchdog will bring together Ofgem, Ofwat and Wics, the...
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Media articles by Dieter Helm
It’s now or later
1st October 2008
Review of A QUESTION OF BALANCE: WEIGHING THE OPTIONS ON GLOBAL WARMING POLICIESBy William Nordhaus Yale University Press: 2008. 256pp. US$28 Is a slow, measured approach to reducing emissions more cost-effective than taking immediate action?
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Media articles by Dieter Helm
Sins of emission
16th March 2008
From the Wall Street Journal Europe: EU leaders will gather today and tomorrow in Brussels to sign off on the European Commission's proposals to cut carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 -- with the added bait of a 30% reduction if the U.S. and other countries make meaningful commitments. For the U.S., it appears that the question is no longer about whether it will adopt targets, but rather about how and what.
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Media articles by Dieter Helm
EU to the rescue
2nd March 2007
Regulation guru Dieter Helm tells Steve Hobson why Brussels could fill the vacuum left by the UK government's indecision on energy policy.
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Media articles by Dieter Helm
PowerUK interview 2006
18th December 2006
Dominic Maclaire interviews Dieter Helm for PowerUK magazine. At the heart of the so-called Austrian school of economic theory, that has underpinned energy liberalization, is the concept that the market and alertentrepreneurs will be more effective at adapting to changing conditions than any central planner. And the market can often surprise and have unintendedconsequences. For instance, an unanticipated outcome of the 'dash for gas' in the 1990s was the large fall in carbon dioxide emissions...