2021-09-07
I know this because I took advantage to get back into the saddle and pedal my way around the local topography, resplendent in green and brown (the farmers were busy harvesting) and generally beautiful to the eye and challenging to the legs in equal measure.
It was a day when the call for power should have been pretty low, since no heating would be required, although perhaps there was some demand for air-conditioning.
Anyway, the sunshine was abundant and surely all those solar panels would be pumping the electric juice?
Apparently not. It seems that solar was meeting less than 12% of our energy needs, and wind-power not even 2%. Gas was meeting just under 50% of demand but at a high price amid high global demand (if it's high now, how much higher will demand climb in the winter?).
In fact the power supply situation was so dire that the UK had to ask EDF to fire up a coal-fired power station.
So we in the UK, as many have been predicting for years, now have the worst of all worlds - high power costs allied with low power resilience.
Should we be worried?
Paul Spare writing for Brexit Watch provides further background.
Why am I always drawn back to the common thread that undoubtedly underpins our government's approach to both Covid and Climate - the determination to pursue a specific political agenda regardless of all arguments to the contrary and all the well-qualified voices who deserve a proper hearing?
