E.ON boss's 'joke' falls flat

When Mark Owen-Lloyd, head of power trading at energy company E.ON said last week that the worst-case scenario for his company in the current difficult economic conditions was "more money for us", he was quick to assure people that he was only joking. If so, against a background of rapidly rising fuel bills and predictions of a harsh winter on the way, it's a joke that seemed to many people to be in spectacularly bad taste.

It rightly attracted a storm of criticism, leading some papers to speculate that Mr Owen-Lloyd is well on the way to becoming the Gerald Ratner of his generation (Ratner, of course, being the jewellery company boss who famously destroyed his company almost overnight by the inadvertent public admission that its products were 'crap').

On closer examination, Owen-Lloyd was obviously not joking, but simply stating his company's position - rising energy costs translate into more profits for them, and a harsh winter means more fuel is needed - all in all an excellent time for them to make money. In fact, E.ON have yet another profit maximising trick up their sleeves that he neglected to mention - they've been deliberately choosing to burn coal at Kingsnorth instead of less climate damaging fuels like oil which can also power the plant (not that burning oil for electricity is a great idea either, of course, E.ON should be investing in technologies that don’t rely on any fossil fuels) simply because it is now cheaper - and to hell with its contribution to climate change.

Thankfully this attitude was exposed at last week's Kingsnorth Six trial, where it didn't play at all well. After hearing the evidence presented by witnesses such as the world's leading climate change scientist, Professor Jim Hansen, the jury concluded that the need to act on climate change is so urgent that shutting down Kingsnorth power station in order to prevent the damage caused by its emissions was a legitimate tactic. 

Far from being a joke then, Mr Owen-Lloyd's comments are best interpreted as a genuine statement of E.ON's management strategy - they really do see maximimising shareholder profit as being far more important than small matters such as serious climate change and pensioners unable to pay heating bills. If new coal-fired power stations such as the one planned at Kingsnorth will give them that profit, then damn the consequences for everybody else.

How embarrassing for Gordon Brown as he rolls out fuel measures to help people with soaring bills and speaks of the urgent need to tackle climate change, that one of the key energy partners that he's chosen to help deliver his vision has been exposed in this way. E.ON of course, don't have to appease anyone except their shareholders, while Mr Brown has to answer to the voters. If the result from the Kingsnorth trial is anything to go by, once those voters understand the threat they want to see genuine action on climate change, and are no longer willing be fobbed off by the vague promises which mask his government's unchanging, 'business as usual' attitude on energy generation.