UK Blackouts by 2016?

The government's new energy advisor, due to take his post on 1st October, has told the BBC that by the time coal and nuclear power stations go offline in 2016, energy customers could already be experiencing blackouts.

Professor David MacKay, author of Sustainable Energy - Without The Hot Air is currently a researcher at Cambridge University, but has been asked to join the Department of Energy next month. He said that government policy was 'going in the right direction' but that the severity of the situation had not been made clear to the British public.

"There is a worry that in 2016 there might not be enough electricity. My guess is that what the market might do is fix that problem by making more gas power stations, which isn't the direction we want to be going in," he said.

"So we really should be upping the build rate of the alternatives as soon as possible."

A synopsis and full PDF copy of Professor MacKay's book are available here: http://www.withouthotair.com/ and is recommended by The Economist, The Guardian, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.