Europe faces bulging energy bills because of oil

LONDON (Reuters) - 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.

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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.

(ok, this is not directly a pro-wind message, but it's a pro-long term energy policy, anti-deregulation,  and pro-carbon-poor, State-funded electricity sources)

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes