We are trading away or undermining our energy security as a consequence of green thinking, the energy security of the country has been historically very high with natural gas , North Sea oil and coal under our control. So secure were our energy sources, that during the coal miners strike of the early 1980s , the country was energy-secure for a year without any detriment, the country had a 12 month stockpile of coal, I cannot see that today, coal-fired power generated electricity, probably the cheapest method, is replaced by electricity imported from France, solar power which has the least availability when our needs are greatest, and we import so much motor fuel , especially diesel, as we allowed our refineries to close. I support green measures, but when we depend on others, it leads to international war
"Historically " will not give us energy now.
We had high stocks of coal in the 80s because Thatcher wanted to have a reserve of coal for the impending miners' strikes and avoid the power cuts and three day weeks of the 70s which brought down Heath's government.
https://www.mylearning.org/stories/police-protests-and-public-order/932We still have supplies of coal oil and natural gas but it is best left underground.
As well as the damage to the environment burning it would do, the pits have been closed, allowed to flood, machinery left to rust, miners dead or too old to work.
Oil fields are being decommissioned. New supplies becoming increasingly inaccessible.
Fully agree, we are allowing our industries to be foreign owned, presumably for a quick fix buck.
Thatcher sold off council houses and now look where we are with social housing.
UK governments have also sold off the profits from North Sea oil instead of investing them in an energy fund like the Norwegians.
It's what the Tories do.
Yet people still keep voting for them.
Have attached a PDF with a couple of graphs from gridwatch site, is this the kind of 'reliability' we can use to run a country ? You will note that during the coldest months in UK ( October to March ) the solar almost disappears. Wind just shows up and goes AWOL when it feels like it. Without the 'quick reaction' Gas turbine generators we would be having regular 'power outages' in UK, as bad as any third world country. The telling phrase in my previous post about China carrying on with coal was 'there are a lot of engineers in Chinese government capable of doing simple calculations'.....
What we need is storage for the renewables
and the UK government ? Lawyers and accountants....
Liars , cheats and charlatans
