US Edition
Don’t ever let it be said that this Government doesn’t know how to respond to a major crisis. Take energy security for example – the importance of which was underlined in spectacular fashion when Vladimir Putin attempted to hold the West to ransom after his invasion of Ukraine.
And as if that wasn’t a terrifying wake-up call for civilised society then there has been no shortage of reminders since of how fragile Britain’s energy system has become.
Only recently, in a desperately unconvincing attempt to justify a decision to build new gas-fired power plants as a back-up to renewables, the Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho warned that we faced “the genuine prospect of blackouts”.
She’s not wrong but what Coutinho conveniently forgot to mention is that it is a direct result of this Government’s failure, along with a steady procession of those that came before it, to tackle our dwindling energy resources that ministers are now reduced to doubling down on fossil fuels.
What is more troubling is that the situation is unlikely to improve in the near future. On the contrary, it seems destined to get worse because it is abundantly clear that there isn’t a politician in the land with the nous to tackle a problem of this magnitude.
On one side of the house, we have a Prime Minister who, even when presented with the genuine prospect of electoral annihilation and the death of his own party as we know it, is capable of offering nothing beyond the usual empty rhetoric.
Take the Government’s latest attempts – if you can call it that – to bolster Britain’s rapidly dwindling nuclear output. Surely it doesn’t need pointing out that if you are going to dispatch the leader of this country up to Barrow-in-Furness, a small town that sits at the very heart of Britain’s nuclear capabilities, to wax lyrical about the future of nuclear energy, then you better make sure he’s got something substantial to back it up with?
Apparently it does. Only Rishi Sunak would go to the trouble of travelling 300 miles to south Cumbria to declare that the industry is a “critical national endeavour”, before rummaging down the back of the sofa and producing £20m of public money “to support growth” in the area.
True, it’s not an insubstantial sum, nor should the promise of £180m a year over the next decade be entirely overlooked. It’s just that with the Tories needing a miracle to remain in power, the Government is making pledges it almost certainly won’t be able to keep.
If the Prime Minister really wanted to be taken seriously on such matters, then he would be moving heaven and earth to put the turbo-booster under nuclear power. Eight out of a total nine of the existing reactors are due to retire in the 2020s and only two new ones – Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C – are in the pipeline both of which have been beset by delays and ballooning budgets.
The last time Britain actually built a nuclear plant was Sizewell-B in 1995. Even nuclear minister Andrew Bowie concedes that Britain is “running to catch up”.
Meanwhile, someone thought it would be a terrific idea to hold a “competition” to decide who gets to build a new generation of mini-nukes despite the fact that we already possess a national champion with the skills, knowledge and experience to do so in the form of Rolls Royce. What a shocking waste of time. Rolls Royce has a 60-year track record of cutting edge nuclear technology.
Nuclear of course is just one part of the energy mix that is needed but as Labour points out: “The Conservatives have blocked onshore wind, crashed the market for offshore wind, stalled on energy efficiency, and failed to tackle an out-of-date planning system” that is holding back over £200bn of private sector investment.
But it’s not as if the Opposition has come up with any credible alternatives. Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to ditch its flagship green investment plan had already seriously damaged its credibility across the political spectrum. Now experts have poured cold water on Labour’s accelerated net zero plans, saying they will require a further £100bn of investment.
Plans for a publicly-owned energy company – given a fresh airing in North Wales – to build floating wind farms are unlikely to help. For a start, these are old proposals given a fresh spin and as critics have pointed out, the £8bn of taxpayer money that has been set aside for this venture, barely scratches the surface of what is needed.
There’s also a genuine question to be asked about whether the UK needs more renewable energy at present. Sir Keir claims that a state-backed energy provider will give the UK “real energy independence” but if the shift to clean power is accelerated, as he is suggesting without also building the massive infrastructure that is required, there is a risk that Britain becomes more reliant on fossil fuel imports, not less.
Better perhaps to concentrate on modernising the grid and building the vast electricity storage facilities required to store wind and solar-generated electricity before we double down on renewables. That means more batteries, advanced compressed air energy storage, pumped hydroelectric dams, and underground salt caverns for collecting hydrogen.
Starmer is right to tear into the Government’s track record but his attack plan contains a fatal flaw: Labour doesn’t have the answers either.
The Tories are clueless – but Starmer’s attack plan has a fatal flaw
Britain’s major parties are failing to offer real solutions to the energy crisis