A week ago the British government published a policy document entitled “Meeting the Energy Challenge”. It was followed this week by a slimmer but much more readable volume, Out of the Energy Labyrinth, by Lord Howell, a former UK energy secretary, and Carole Nakhle, an energy economist*. They cover similar ground: the security and environmental threats and the profitable – as well as socially desirable – opportunities to be found in alternative energy sources.

I cannot agree with everything in the Howell-Nakhle book, in particular the hint that the west should negotiate with the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the oil producers’ cartel. The proper reply to threats from the Opec secretary-general against the development of biofuels is to tell him to take a running jump.