ABSTRACT
The humbug about energy in London is also enormous. In line with Coalition government policy, rhetoric fastens on cutting emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), at the expense of assuring a reliable, cheap supply of energy for London's growing needs. Unlike financialisation as a process, the machine production of energy has a clear material aspect to it. It is true that energy futures are traded in the City, and that energy utilities quoted on the London Stock Exchange concern themselves more with prices, business models and billing regimes than they do with keeping the lights on. London officialdom is like Britain in its insouciance about energy. For seven months in 2011, the Treasury's newly established unit dedicated to infrastructure, Infrastructure UK, did not have a permanent chief executive and when it did get one, he had a background with Deutsche Bank, HSBC and the Treasury's own much-loved Private Finance Initiative.
