According to Derek Simpson, general secretary of Amicus, the UK faces a "mounting energy crisis", which he warns will lead to blackouts, job losses and rocketing costs. He accused that successive governments had "shied away" from taking hard decisions on future supplies of energy even after the peak of north sea production and said that urgent action was needed.

Ironically, Blair is saying the same thing and the Amicus statement appears to be timed to simply back Blairs proposals. The unions will have a meeting of it's leaders tomorrow to plan a campaign aimed at building public support for nuclear power and so-called 'clean coal' technology.

Mr Simpson said: "The debate on the energy crisis is in limbo and we need urgent action or Britain will face the prospect of blackouts and soaring utility bills over the next five years. He certainly isn't wrong there, everyone seems to have been trying hard to ignore the inevitable world-wide energy crisis as oil production peaks and gas production follows suit soon after.

In the face of crippling energy costs and economic resession should 'unstable' states such as Iran or Saudi Arabia 'choose' to cut exports of oil, people are just starting to become aware of the post-peak problem.

"The nation's energy needs will be hostage to politically unstable states unless the Government's energy policy promotes clean coal technology and new nuclear power", bleated Mr Simpson during his statement that could have been written by Blairs own spin doctors.

So-called 'clean coal' technology certainly isn't the solution. For a start we don't actually have that much left to mine in the UK so we'd still have to import energy and be vunerable to geopolitical disturbances. Secondly, coal will never be clean and we can't afford to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere unless we really want to be certain of setting off runaway global warming and the end of life on this planet.

In many ways Nuclear can be seen as a partial solution, at least in terms of a transition. However nuclear is not renewable and there are only finite amount of fuel, all of which would need to be imported and fought over by other energy hungry nations.

The only sensible and sustainable answer is a massive campaign of reduction and conservation alongside a rapid transistion to renewable energy such as wind, solar and tidal. Only by doing this can we ensure we are in some way prepared for the massive global economic depression
that will follow peak oil and only this way can we be sure that we don't increase the problem of climate change.

Along with a switch to renewable energy we would also need to totally reshape the economy to a stable state system rather than chase impossible constant growth. We would also need to relocalise, cutting imports and growing much much more of our own food.

The implications of peak oil impact on almost every area of campaigning that people are currently engaged in, from anti-militarism, immigration, enivronment, bio-diversity, globalisation, and much more.

Next month, a grassroots conference on these issues will be taking place at the rampART social centre. They are asking that people email them if they would be interested in attending, or would like to help organise the event. The address is rampart @ mutualaid.org and their website is  http://rampart.co.nr