BP announced recently it is to build the biggest alternative power business in the world, capable of producing $6-billion worth of revenues a year from projects in Britain and abroad within 10 years.
The move came on the eve of an announcement by British Prime Minister Tony Blair that he would launch a six-month energy review that many believe will open the door to a new generation of nuclear plants.
The world’s second-largest publicly quoted oil company said a period of experimentation with no or low carbon business was over and now was the time to invest $8-billion by 2015 building wind farms, solar panels and hydrogen plants.
Chief executive Lord Browne dismissed suggestions that this was a public relations exercise designed to please the government and head off potential North Sea tax rises. ”We are now at a point where we have sufficient new technologies and sound commercial opportunities within our reach to build a significant and sustainable business in alternative and renewable energy,” he said.
The company is already proceeding with plans to build a wind farm at the Isle of Grain in Kent, south-east England, plus a hydrogen plant at Peterhead in Scotland.
The new business, BP Alternative Energy, will be based near London.
Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, welcomed the BP move as a ”step in the right direction” but relatively small scale given that the oil company invested $15-billion a year, nearly all on its hydrocarbon business. ”We need the government to do more to back up these kinds of initiatives.” The green group appealed to Blair to support renewables more, cut energy waste and not ”rubber stamp” a new generation of nuclear power stations.
The cross-government energy inquiry is to be led by the Department of Trade and chaired by Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks. The commission will produce its report on nuclear power early next year. There are fears that the government review could be biased towards the atomic sector, a charge rejected by Wicks.
Previous energy reviews in 2002 and 2003 kept the door open to nuclear power, but industry is looking for a clear signal that the goverment recognises that a new programme is necessary to replace ageing stations and meet climate change goals. — Â