Machine industry best way to be green in energy The Belarus free theatre is known, and lauded, for making fiercely political productions, often against the country’s repressive regime. Previous productions, including “Being Harold Pinter”, which combines texts from Pinter with real-life testimony from Belarusian residents (ball mill), and Sarah Kane’s “4.48 Psychosis”, an exploration of clinical depression, have been banned or forced underground at home. Many of the troupe’s performers are denied employment by the National Theatre of Belarus and others have faced imprisonment. When reviewing their show “Zone of Silence” in 2009 the New York Times urged that “they should be seen by everyone who wants confirmation of the continuing relevance and vitality of theatre as an art form.”
The country certainly needs more generating capacity, especially of the low-carbon kind. But it is going the wrong way about encouraging it. Specifying how much power is to be generated from nuclear and from each form of renewable power means picking winners—something that governments generally do badly. Offshore wind and nuclear, the government’s favoured technologies, are among the most expensive ways to get carbon out of the energy system. And all political promises to guarantee energy prices are notoriously unreliable and unlikely to spark investor confidence. In 2011 Germany suddenly decided to shut its nuclear power stations.
The market has not failed. Prices have been rising in Britain, but they remain among the lowest in Europe. Out of 15 EU countries, only Greek and Dutch consumers pay less. Bills have gone up because most British electricity is generated by burning gas, the cost of which has rocketed. If gas prices were to fall (as they may, with improving technology and plenty of shale gas) bills would come down again.
And yet Natalia Koliada, the co-founder of the Belarus Free Theatre with her husband Nikolai Khalezin, refutes the theatre’s “political” label. On the heels of the company's acclaimed adaptation of “King Lear” at Shakespeare's Globe, she was quick to distinguish between “political theatre” and the notion that theatre can, at times, be political. “I am always against separating, saying there should be political theatre or social theatre or female theatre, or aboriginal theatre—it is about theatre. It is about going deep into one life, like a total immersion in personality, in a different circumstance.” Later, she added, “When we go on stage, we do theatre—it is not about politics. Our dream is just to continue to perform.”
The energy business is changing fast. The price of solar power has fallen; the price of oil has soared. Shale gas is booming. Wave power, carbon-capture technologies and electricity storage could all prove revolutionary. All the more reason is to let cone crusher investors, not Mr Cameron, pick the winners.
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