Europe faces bulging energy bills because of oil Europeans are facing big increases in their energy costs this year and beyond as the effect of soaring oil on wholesale power and gas prices hits customers' bills. Crude oil prices have doubled in the last year. As a result, wholesale forward and gas power markets have also surged to record highs in the last few weeks and are showing little sign of retracing in the foreseeable future. (...) Only the 99 percent of French households that benefit from relatively low state-set electricity prices look like being sheltered from the wave of surging prices, largely because the French government responded to the oil shocks of the 1970s by building Europe's largest fleet on nuclear power plants. Their electricity bills have been unchanged since August 2007 and look immune to the latest oil crisis. "In the contract that we have with the state, we are not authorised to raise tariffs above the inflation," a spokesman for state-run power giant EDF said.
Europeans are facing big increases in their energy costs this year and beyond as the effect of soaring oil on wholesale power and gas prices hits customers' bills.
Crude oil prices have doubled in the last year. As a result, wholesale forward and gas power markets have also surged to record highs in the last few weeks and are showing little sign of retracing in the foreseeable future.
(...)
Only the 99 percent of French households that benefit from relatively low state-set electricity prices look like being sheltered from the wave of surging prices, largely because the French government responded to the oil shocks of the 1970s by building Europe's largest fleet on nuclear power plants.
Their electricity bills have been unchanged since August 2007 and look immune to the latest oil crisis.
"In the contract that we have with the state, we are not authorised to raise tariffs above the inflation," a spokesman for state-run power giant EDF said.
Will they remember the other bit of French policies: it was not just building nuclear plants, it was also government-set tariffs for a monopoly provider.
It is the explicit intention of the European commission to kill the regulated tariff, as it suppsoedly prevents competition. The French are going to just loooove competition if all is does as allow EDF to charge them a lot more because that's were market prices will be - and when you look at brokers' analyses of EDF, they are all waiting for the end of the tariff to encourage investors to buy EDF shares, ie they know that the only result will be higher prices for EDF. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
It is the explicit intention of the European commission to kill the regulated tariff, as it suppsoedly prevents competition. The French are going to just loooove competition if all is does as allow EDF to charge them a lot more because that's were market prices will be - and when you look at brokers' analyses of EDF, they are all waiting for the end of the tariff to encourage investors to buy EDF shares, ie they know that the only result will be higher prices for EDF.
France might have to consider a "surgical strike" on Brussels if these deregulation idiots get their way. Far better would be to generalize French regulation and tariffs throughout the EU. (Good luck on that.) At least they have a proven track record of efficiency and safety. Is it that EU officials and/or other member states can't stand the existence of a shining example that so clearly illustrates the bankruptcy of their policies.
At least when the Republican Administration in California, after 16 years of appointees to the Public Utility Commission, managed to push through policies that "deregulated" electricity, public utilities such as the Los Angeles DWP were allowed to retain their large hydro base. When Enron stuck a straw into the big orange out in California and Enron traders were joking back and forth about bankrupting grannie, Los Angeles was barely affected.
I am no longer amazed but remain appalled at the ease with which people are recruited to conspire in their own oppression and plundering. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
And EDF is going to make a killing, courtesy of the British consumer, freed at last from the horrendous burden of regulations by the invisible hand of the Market™ Almighty®.
I absolutely love this!
It's the funniest thing since, since... Well I don't know if I have ever heard of something as funny as this!
French. State-owned. Regulated. Companies. Run by Engineers. Saves. UK. Free Market. Lawyers. Who have campainged against and complained at the former for decades!
In the end, the UK switched from UK state companies not to private UK companies, but to French state companies!
Bwahahahaha! Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
