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UTILITY Week 15th May 2015

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UTILITY WEEK | 15TH - 21ST MAY 2015 | 31 Community Editor: Ellen Bennett, t: 01342 332084, e: ellen.bennett@fav-house.com; News editor: Jillian Ambrose, t: 01342 332061, e: jillian.ambrose@fav-house.com; Associate news editor: Mathew Beech, t: 01342 332082, e: mathew.beech@fav-house.com; Insights editor: Jane Gray, t: 01342 332087, e: jane.gray@fav-house.com; Research analyst: Vidhu Dutt, t: 01342 332026, e: vidhu. dutt@fav-house.com; Reporters: Lois Vallely, t: 01342 332080; e: lois.vallely@fav-house.com and Lucinda Dann, t: 01342 332083; e: lucinda.dann@fav-house.com; Business development manager: Ed Roberts, t: 01342 332067, e: ed.roberts@fav-house.com; Business development executive: Sarah Wood, t: 01342 332077, e: sarah.wood@fav-house.com; Publisher: Amanda Barnes, e: amanda.barnes@fav-house.com. General enquiries: 01342 332000; Membership subscriptions: UK £577 per year, overseas £689 per year, t: 020 8955 7045 or email membership sales manager Paul Tweedale: paultweedale@fav-house.com. ISSN: 1356-5532. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Printed by: Buxton Press, Palace Road, Buxton, Derbyshire SK17 6AE. Published by: Faversham House Ltd, Windsor Court, Wood Street, East Grinstead, West Sussex RH19 1UZ 3,580 Average circulation Jan–Dec 2014 Membership subscriptions: UK £577 per year. Overseas £689 per year. Email: paultweedale@fav-house.com Greg Barker @GregBarkerUK By putting a progressive, modern Conservative into #DECC, who totally gets the big chal- lenges of #Climate PM showing real green leadership Gregory Norminton @GDRNorminton Plenty of Cabinet appointments worry me, but on the environment, so far, we've got as good as we could hope for. Jessica Lennard @JessicaLennard Eric Pickles now Minister for Faith. Should be easy for someone who thinks they're God #reshuffle Matt Withers @mattwithers Funny old world in which you can resign as Pope but not leader of Ukip. Keith Hann @keithhann Greatest election disappointment ever? My toddler son's after mishearing "We're going to vote" as "We're going on a boat." William Marchant @richonlyinname Now that threat/excuse of Labour's price freeze has gone, one assumes the Big 6 will now cut prices. Honest guv. It was the only impediment. Greenpeace @Greenpeace Did Tesla just kill nuclear power? Ben Thompson @BBCBenThompson Weeks of coverage from 'experts', hours of 'analysis' and endless polls. Why did the media get it so wrong? #GE0215 3WhitehallPlace @3WhitehallPlace We are now consulting on proposals to replace Outdoor Wind turbines with shale gas fracking rigs. Please respond by 31 June Chris Hewitt @ChrisHewitt Clegg gone. Farage gone. Miliband about to go. If this were a House Of Cards episode, Cameron would be getting ready to smirk at the camera. Top Tweets Disconnector The last post They are gone forever, and we shall never see their like again. The great man is overcome with misty-eyed sentiment this week, not for last Sunday's VE Day commemorations – although the parade through London was both splendid and moving – but for the political slaughter wrought by the general election last week. What was supposed to be the opening skirmish in a drawn- out tactical battle for ultimate control of parliament turned out to be a decisive encounter, with Labour routed and the Lib Dems decimated. So farewell, then, Clegg, Cable, Davey, Alexander, et al. Plus Labour's entire Scot- tish army (bar one), and with them Ed Balls and the leader himself, Ed Miliband. Clegg and Miliband didn't lose their seats, of course, so they will be haunting the corridors of power for a while yet – but politically they are both as dead as Monty Python's Norwegian Blue parrot. Clegg seems to have elic- ited some sympathy from the country's various political observers, but journos and col- leagues alike seem to be falling over themselves to be the first to dance on Miliband's grave. He must be regretting getting his pledges carved on that stone slab more with each passing day. What was almost immediately a millstone around his neck has since become a gravestone on his career. Perhaps he can leave it to Disconnector posterity. It can mark the tomb of the unknown politician. Divide and rule The writing was on the wall for David Cameron to emerge victo- rious, for those with the eyes to see. He is a much more influen- tial chap than many of his critics give him credit for and his word carries a lot of weight beyond Westminster. Apparently. This is what Greenpeace found to its cost when the Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint against an anti-fracking advertisement it had run in The Guardian. At issue was the line in the advert claim- ing that experts agree fracking won't cut our energy bills. The ASA asked Greenpeace to justify the claim, and the lobby group duly sent 22 quotes from experts including ex-energy secretary Ed Davey, climate change economist Nicholas Stern and John Browne, the former chairman of Cuadrilla. All agreed that fracking wouldn't have an effect on price. Greenpeace also included a quote from Cameron claim- ing that fracking would lead to lower prices. From this, the ASA concluded there was "a significant division of informed opinion on the issue". When pressed by Guardian reporters, the ASA admitted the "division of opinion" it had iden- tified was between Cameron on one side and everyone else on the other. But that was enough. Greenpeace was told to pull the advert. Cheers There are many things that are "enough to drive you to drink", as the expression has it, but which professions are more liable to push you into exces- sive use of the hard stuff? Well, last week the US government released data on which sectors reported the heaviest degree of alcohol abuse and in at num- ber five – yep, you guessed it – the utilities sector. A staggering one in ten util- ity employees surveyed reported they were heavy drinkers. In fact, they were only margin- ally behind hospitality and the media, where heavy boozing is practically obligatory. At number seven in the list, somewhat curiously, the compilers abandoned the sec- tor categorisation and opted for job function, so we simply have "Management". Where this leaves a utility manager in the US, Disconnector could not guess. Half cut, probably. Worryingly, the first and second worst sectors in terms of alcohol abuse are mining and construction, at 17.5 per cent and 16.5 per cent, respec- tively, saying they hit the bottle on a regular basis. The moral of the story is that if any Utility Week readers are thinking of plying their trade in the US, please, please, please get a desk job and avoid heavy machinery. Even if you manage to stay sober, there's a good chance that the bloke in the digger next to you isn't.

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