A nasty crack has appeared in the ageing machinery that supplies British homes and businesses with electricity. The causes of the blackouts in Merseyside, East Anglia and London were papered over soon enough. But the energy crisis of which they were a symptom struck at the heart of domestic life: in the living room. Lights did not shine. Boilers failed to counter the unseasonably cool weather. Fans of EastEnders and Britain's Got Talent were denied their evening fix.

The power cuts are just one obvious way in which the Government's woefully inadequate energy policy has intruded on public and private life this week. Roads in the capital were brought to a standstill by lorry drivers intent on forcing the Government to ease the pain of soaring fuel prices. Ministers appeared prepared to abandon a planned increase in fuel duty. Changes to the cost of the tax disc required by older cars may go the same way in order to avert a rebellion of the sort that prompted the 10p tax U-turn. Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling met oil industry chiefs in Scotland in recognition of the problems being caused by oil at $130 a barrel. For what it's worth, the Prime Minister also called for G8 nations, due to meet in Japan in July, to develop a “comprehensive international strategy” for dealing with high oil prices. And new calculations about the cost of decommissioning nuclear electricity plants have added to policymakers' headaches even as they send a reminder that answers to power problems are neither easy nor cheap.

Without a rounded approach to the big issues, however, the stream of relatively small problems may turn into a permanent torrent. An emerging school of thought, championed by writers such as William Tucker, suggests it is wrong to talk of energy shortages. There is, it is said, plenty of power in the world. Much of it comes, directly or indirectly, from the Sun. The Sun is the motor that moves air and makes wind and waves. With the Moon it drives the tides and by depositing water on high ground through evaporation and rainfall, it is behind hydroelectricity. Since the Sun is responsible for photosynthesis it makes biofuels and gave the world its dirty and diminishing reserves of coal, gas, and oil.

In addition to these direct and indirect sources of solar power, there is so-called terrestrial energy. This comes from the nucleus of an atom. The energy contained in the tiniest of particles is enormous, as the bombs of Hirsoshima and Nagasaki demonstrated. Crucially, it is concentrated in a way that solar energy may never be. Solar energy is diffuse, however it is harnessed. Even a 1,000-megawatt electricity plant must be fed by the daily arrival of 100 trucks and 16,000 tonnes of coal, according to the Mr Tucker's estimates. To generate the same energy a nuclear plant requires a delivery of one solitary lorryload of fuel rods every 18 months.

Nuclear energy is not the only route to sustainable energy supply. Nor can anyone ignore the environmental dangers and long-term liabilities that come with nuclear power. But given that hydrocarbons pollute, and conventional renewables can be both expensive and inefficient, nuclear has a huge part to play.

Government must make careful choices about the type and scale of intervention. Market forces will provide most of the answers if its agents are confident that this Government, and future ones, are committed supporters. The role of the State may be as no more than a facilitator, but that still requires urgent and explicit facilitation.