For many decades now British governments of all political colours have neglected to address the long term issue of energy security.
Our present government has only just taken up the building of new nuclear power stations: Britain went from being the pioneers of nuclear energy to forgetting about it !
There was also the “dash for diesel” of twenty years ago. This had strong support from the green lobby because diesel engines produce less CO2 than comparable petrol engines. However this is the only benefit and diesel engines produce some unpleasant and poisonous gases as well as particulates.
Another dubious drive of the green lobby was for biofuels. This is mainly in the output from the Drax power station which converted from coal, mined in the Yorkshire coalfields, to burning wood chips. Burning wood chips produces about a third less electricity than the coal it replaces. It involves laying waste woodland across the Atlantic (about thirty square kilometres a year) and transporting the millions of tons of woodchips required in ships: a questionable “green” solution. Another negative is that burning wood creates lots of particulate pollution.
One of the reasons for a huge increase in gas prices is that this country declined to investigate and exploit the probable huge shale gas resources we have under our feet.
As a result we have to import much of our gas from unreliable sources such as Russia.
Whatever the “green lobby” suggests, this country (& the world) will rely on gas for decades to come.
Wind power provides a lot of electricity but only when the wind is blowing. The whole of Britain could be covered in wind turbines but if there were no wind then no electricity would be produced.
The fact that electricity cannot be stored and has to be produced at the instant of use seems to be lost on many in the green lobby.
There is an interesting website called “Gridwatch” which gives the generation of electricity from the the various sources. The figures for the last month show that at times wind provided almost 50% of our needs but there were times when it provided less than 5%.
The shortfall for when there is no wind is made up by gas.
The Institute of Mechanical Engineers produced a video on July 1st 2016 called “Fracking will solve our gas shortage” which emphasises the strict regulations that exist in the UK.
The IME have also issued a link called “Let’s talk about shale”
The solution to high gas prices could be the shale gas beneath our feet!