III. Energy

When we last made a medium-term energy forecast, in 1967, we said that it was ‘highly speculative to express any view about the division of …. energy demand between primary fuels and in particular about the demand for coal’ because of two factors: the emergence of natural gas and the degree of protection given to coal. Meanwhile natural gas has been adopted on a substantial scale—it already accounted (in terms of coal equivalent) for about 5 per cent of the supply of primary energy in 1970—and significant deposits of petroleum have been discovered in the North Sea. The flow of oil from this source seems sure to have begun by 1975, and by 1980 a large part of crude oil requirements will be covered by ‘domestic’ supplies, though the quantity available remains uncertain. Social considerations apart, this could throw a different light also on the question of protecting coal. Moreover the EEC might well be operating a common energy policy by the end of the decade and in the meanwhile there are in our view a number of other aspects of present United Kingdom energy policy which in any case call for re-examination. Thus our present forecasts are no less speculative than the earlier ones, though for rather different reasons.