How small increases in renewables produce big cuts in carbon emissions

Wind and especially solar PV production is accelerating and the renewable energy era is just starting to replace the fossil fuel era

The global energy debate today is weighed down by fossil fuel supporters who support their case by pointing out the alleged ‘small’ share of renewables in the world energy economy, as measured by ‘primary energy’. In fact the energy statistics are built to suit the fossil fuel and nuclear industries, not renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies. In this post I show how even small increases in the share of renewables produce much larger proportional reductions in carbon emissions.

A model of how renewables eat fossil fuels

In the model I use below, renewable energy increases by just under a quarter of current world energy consumption, but carbon emissions are reduced by over half. As this happens the total amount of energy needed to sustain the world economy contracts as the waste is eliminated.

The so-called small share of renewable energy compared to so-called ‘prmary energy’ is not only growing fast, as can be seen n Figures 2 and 3. Also this renewable energy eats fossil fuels at an increasing rate. It does this by two essential means. First, using renewable sources like solar and wind involves no wasted energy in their production. In the case of fossil fuels and nuclear power something between 50 and 80 per cent of their energy is wasted in their production of electricity. The majority of energy goes up cooling towers. Even higher proportions of fossil fuel power are wasted in providing services like heating and motive power for vehicles. The second means by which renewable energy ‘eats’ fossil fuel consumption is because electrified technologies which are used by water, wind and solar (WWS) are three times more efficient users of energy. I use the examples of electric vehicles (EVs) and heat pumps in the model below.

The result is that when renewable energy replaces fossil fuels then the amount of energy consumed falls to a small fraction of what is reflected in so-called ‘primary energy’ statistics. The dominant way of counting energy use is so-called ‘primary energy’, which simply counts the number of energy units sold across the world. But this gives us a distorted view of the energy world. As Professor Jan Rosenow says: ‘The primary energy fallacy is the idea that all primary energy from fossil fuels must be replaced with an equivalent amount of clean energy.’ (see HERE) Primary energy counts the (majority of) energy that is wasted, whilst renewable-electric systems are much less wasteful.

A more useful concept is, yes, the concept of ‘useful’ energy. Hannah Ritchie defines it thus: ‘It is the energy that goes towards the desired output of the end-use application. For a lightbulb, it’s the amount of light that is produced. For a car, it’s the amount of kinetic (movement) energy that is produced.’ (see HERE)

In the fossil fuel era energy technologies were invented and then energy suppliers sought to supply that market. Most of the energy is wasted before it is turned into useful energy. In the renewable energy era, just starting, the most practical energy efficient solutions are given priority to be supplied, almost always by renewable electricity sources. Electrically based solutions, such as heat pumps for heating and electric vehicles in transport, are invariably the most efficient ways of using energy. They are three times more efficient than their fossil fuel equivalents, the internal combustion engine and gas/diesel boilers respectively. These gains in efficiency are on top of the reductions in wastage in making electricity compared to fossil fuels or nuclear power (mentioned earlier).

Essentially decabonisation relies on two things. First, renewables becoming an increasing proportion of electricity supply, and second, electricity becoming a larger and larger proportion of total energy.

In the first case, the Figure 1 shows how renewables are becoming a larger and larger share of world electricity supply. Indeed almost all of new electricity generating capacity is now renewable. See my earlier post HERE.

 

Figure 1

 

Source: 2025 Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy (EISRWR)

In Figures 2 and 3 we can see the rapid increase in generation of solar power and wind power.

Figure 2

 

Figure 3

Regarding the second trend, towards electricity becoming a larger and larger provider of useful energy, there are a range of energy technologies that are leading towards electrification. For an analysis of this trend, see HERE.

Below in Figure 3 I produce a ‘primary energy’ analysis of world energy supply. Both renewable energy and nuclear energy are visualised here simply for the amount of energy that is generated as electricity. Indeed some agencies even include the nuclear energy that is wasted in cooling towers, which articifically multiplies the energy produced by nuclear power 2-3 times. The counting method I use does not do this, but it still includes all of the energy wasted by fossil fuel technologies. I do this to show how the dynamic effect of increasing renewables reduces carbon emissions (see Figures 4 and 5).

Figure 3

This Figure 3 compares with Figure 4 where, I model most of electricity, transportation and and the bulk of space heating being provided by renewable electricity (WWS). I call this a ‘partial transition’. Of course in time there will be full transition, but I use the concept of ‘partial transition’ to show how even this produces radical reductions in carbon emissions.

In Figure 4 total energy needed to provide exactly the same energy services as were provided in 2024 (see Figure 3) is reduced by 16 per cent. This reduction, combined with the substitution of fossil fuels by renewable energy produces a reduction of carbon emissions of 52 per cent compared to what actually happened in 2024. This reduction in carbon emissions is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 4

As can be seen in Figure 5 the reduction in carbon emissions from this partial trasnsition is over 52 per cent.

Figure 5

It should be emphasised that the model I use here deals only with a rather more limited process of electrification than will occur. I deal only with electrification of transport and space heating, and not all of these. I assume that 90 per cent of transport is electified, alongside 80 cent of space heating. I assume that 90 per cent of electricity is provided by renewables (WWS), the rest of electricity coming from nuclear power and some residual fossil fuels.

Future trends

Passenger vehicles and light goods vehicles are turning towards EVs. Heavy goods vehicles will be next. Even battery-powered electric aircraft are on the horizon. Batteries tested in the laboratory already have sufficiently high energy density to power large aircraft around Europe.

There are also significant shifts towards electrification of space heating. For example, in European countries such as the UK, France and Germany heat pumps are effectively mandatory in new buildings, and incentives and regulations are promoting heat pumps heavily in China. All of these changes would not happen without the spur of the realisation of how protecting the climate also aids energy security.

These trends will intensify throughout the world in the coming years. Politicians like Donald Trump may slow progress for a small period, but after them others will come along. They will give a push to the markets to advance the green energy revolution. It is unstoppable. This new realisation and policy trajectory represents a much more proactve and institutionally-led drive towards energy efficiency. This is as opposed to the case before climate politics became important where efficiency gains happened mostly because of market pressures.

Of course it can be argued that by the time all these changes take effect world energy demand will have moved on. World energy production increased in the years 2014-24 by an average of 1.3 per cent per year (according to the EISRWR) . However, electricity makes up a lot of this increase at around 2.6 per cent per annum. 2024 saw a much more rapid increase at 4 per cent largely because of the very big rise in use of air conditioning in what was a very hot summer in many parts of the world. The IEA reported that: ‘As a result of higher power consumption, natural gas saw the strongest increase in demand among fossil fuels in 2024. Gas demand rose by 115 billion cubic metres (bcm), or 2.7%, compared with an average of around 75 bcm annually over the past decade.’ (see HERE)

But why should gas use for electricity (or for that matter anything else) be increasing? It is mainly because of the gas burning technology that is already in place. The gas generation is increasingly being replaced by renewables, which now constitute most of new generation. We need to make sure it is replaced as soon as possible. Most of it will, indeed, be replaced with the current rate of deploying renewable energy in the electricity sector. We must make sure that the self-described ‘net zero sceptics’ do not slow this trend.

The point here is that in future, with renewable energy making up almost all of the new generation being installed, the increase in world energy consumption will mostly be renewable anyway. However, not only will renewable energy be ‘eating’ the increases in energy demand it will also be replacing much of the existing fossil fuel conumption with less, but more efficient, renewable energy. New areas of electrification (which produce new markets for renewables) will also open up, besides the ones already mentioned, which will also ‘eat’ fossil fuel energy demand. Added to this battery and other storage technologies are becoming cheaper and ever more common. These help integrate renewables and propel forward vartious aspects of green technology

Conclusion – Pressing the energy revolution forward

I cannot say exactly how far into the future this type of model will be realised in practice. However the ‘revolution’ is already under way. It is inevitable, but it will be speeded or slowed (respectively) by the politics of climate advocacy and fossil fuel resistance. What is certain, however, is that leaving things to the market and the big corporations to follow targets set by Government is far from enough. We need a big increase in grass roots climate actions to make sure the policies are in place to speed the transition. This climate action involves people at the grass roots organising green energy initiatves.

This post was reproduced from https://davidtoke.substack.com/

 

Share this page:

After decades of exploiting consumers, oil companies abandon renewables – good riddance?

The oil companes have recently been scaling down their investments in renewable energy – such as they were. This allows them to focus on their prime goal – soaking the consumer for massive profits. This is something they have done for many decades – at a world rate of over $1600 billion a year on average so far this century.

In recent months Total, BP, Shell, BP, Chevron and Equinor have all cut their investments in renewables. Exxon, the other major western based oil company has never invested much money in wind and solar anyway. This is against a backdrop of record investments in renewables according to the IEA (see HERE). In 2024 renewables, mostly solar and wind, provided 93 per of new electricity generating capacity in 2024 (see HERE). It is not as if oil companies ever spent that much on renewables – spending on renewables amounted to a mere 4 per cent of investments in 2023 (see HERE).

I am not saying that oil company excutives are recruited on the basis of immorality. Rather it is the way that oil and gas company investments are structured that is the problem. Put simply the oil business runs on making massive profits very quickly. Any major deviation from this is likely to lead to oil company executives receiving severance pay.

The renewables industry, by and large, is predicated on modest profit levels made over long periods. Renewable energy is usually funded mostly by bank loans which have relatively low interest rates. On the other hand oil companies make big use of ‘‘equity’ – shareholders’ money – for which shareholders demand high returns.

Oil and gas company shareholders want big, sustained profits. The excuse is that oil drilling is regarded as a ‘risky’ business needing ‘equity’ ie shareholders capital, rather than bank loans. Banks will limit the proportion of total project finance that they will agree to fund through their loans. But on average the oil drilling projects make loads of money. So their projects make more money than renewable energy usually produce.

The oil companies exploit consumers

As can be seen from Chart 1, it is not just in 2002-23 that the world’s energy consumers have been soaked by oil and gas. It has been the same thing, year in, year out since oil companies existed. But oil companies thrive especially during fossil fuel energy crises.

 

Chart 1 World Oil and gas company profits 1970 – 2022 in 2020 $billion

Source: Verbruggen Aviel, The geopolitics of trillion US$ oil & gas rents, International Journal of Sustainable Energy Planning and Management, Vol 36 (2022), pp. 3-10, 10.54337/ijsepm.7395 ; note 2021 and 2022 profit figures are added; they were sent to me from Aviel Verbruggen (sources in turn from the IEA), which I have deflated to 2020 prices using an inflation calculator

There were spikes in oil and later gas prices from 1973-85, from 2004 until 2014 and then the Ukraine War in 2022-3. These periods maximised oil and gas profits, as can be seen from the Figure 1. The paper from which this chart is taken includes a discussion about how geopolitical factors have produced scarcity in oil resources. This scarcity has led to prices (and thus oil company profits) being much higher than they would otherwise have been. Such geopolitical forces include the actions of OPEC in trying to ration supplies at various times, and sanctions on oil producing nations said to be hostile (to western interests) such as Iran, Venezuela, Libya and most recently Russia.

Vergbruggen concludes: ‘Since 1973, oil & gas rents (super-profits obtained without effort) have been an important objective of the major supply-side players in the business, the oil & gas exporting nations and the multinational companies like Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell, Total, and more’. Since the year 2000 profits have average around $1600 billion a year in 2020 prices. This average profit rate is nearly 50 per cent higher than the GDP of The Netherlands, and approaches the GDP of Mexico.

The oil and gas companies have a knack of avoiding the sort of taxes that other companies have to pay. As can be seen in Figure 2 (prepared by Karl Matikonis) the tax take from oil company revenues from UK waters is very low indeed. Matikonis comments:

‘Historically, tax collections from oil and gas producers look quite low compared to their revenues………This is primarily because of generous allowances and reliefs from the UK government. The tax regime for oil and gas production differs from standard corporate taxation in the UK. Companies are liable to higher tax rates and it is “ring-fenced”. This means the extraction of gas and oil is isolated from most of the energy company’s other activities.’ (see HERE)

 

Figure 2 Tax collected versus revenues from oil and gas extraction in the UK

Chart depicting tax receipts versus revenues reported recently by BP & Shell, as described in the paragraphs above and below.

 

Source: Karl Matikonis, The Conversation, ‘Why energy companies are making so much profit despite UK windfall taxes’, February 8th, 2023, See HERE 

Why oil companies investment strategies do not suit renewables

As argued in the beginning of this blog post oil and gas companies will usually make more money out of the consumer from oil and gas investments compared to renewable energy. That is about the nature of oil and gas investments and returns compared to the (state) regulated returns that renewable investments are allowed to make. I apologise here, but it is necessary to go into some detail to explain this point!

Debt and equity investing

Oil and gas companes will use high proportions of ‘equity’ – effectively shareholders money – in the investment portfolios for oil drilling projects. This is compared to most major reneweable energy developments. According to a survey by Wind Europe ‘For onshore wind farms using project finance, the debt/equity ratio was 89:11. For offshore wind it was 78:22’, (see HERE, report page 8).

This means that wind investments will be mostly financed by bank loans. In Europe this is made possible because of secure Government-backed contracts such as ‘contracts for difference’ (CfDs) which give guaranteed fixed rate payments for energy that is generated. Bank loans carry much lower rates of return (interest charges) compared to equity investments. So wind and solar farm projects financed through CfDs will make lower profits for the developers compared to largely equity financed oil drilling projects.

There is no institition in the USA that is directly comparable to CfDs. However renewable energy developers have to offer cheap prices to sell their energy. This is because of the fiercely competitive nature of US power markets which are dominated by incumbent utilties. These utilities have gotten the expense of the capital costs of their power stations through charging the the consumers – the ratepayers, through their bills.

The utilities build in a profit margin as part of the charges and then bill them again for the energy the power plant generates. There is certainly no room for renewable energy developers to engage in grift. The utilities have creamed that off already!

On the other hand oil and gas projects tend to have much ‘lower gearing’, that is much lower debt to equity ratios compared to most renewable energy projects. A typical oil and gas drilling project will have a debt equity ratio of under 50% (see HERE). But planned returns to equity are much higher compared to bank loans, say 15%. That is justified on the basis that spending on the balnce sheet reduces profits and share values.

This rate of return to equity is much higher than the rate of return needed to repay bank loans. Bank loans will track one percent or so above the ‘base rate’. Base rates are set by the central banks – the European Central Bank (ECB, the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve in the USA etc .

Indeed in the 2014-2022 period European bank loans could be secured by large corporations for next to nothing. This was because the European Central Bank was setting negative interest rates during this period. Of course since then the interest rates sdet by central banks have jumped. This partly explained why renewable energy CfD prices increased.

The overall required internal rate of return (IRR) for a given project will be a mixture of the debt and equity charges. This is weighted according to the debt/equity ratio to produce something known as the ‘weighted average cost of capital’ – WACC. So from this is can be seen that oil drilling involves a much higher rate of return compared to renewable energy investments. This is because the higher the proportion of investment that is derived from equity, the higher the WACC will become. It can also be understood that oil companies may not be so keen on making renewable energy investments if they are going to make less money out of them compared to oil and gas investments!

So oil companies engage in a sort of cyclical activity. Every ten years or so they persuade themselves to show green intentions and proclaim their support for climate initiatives. However then they draw back on them when they realise that, in effect, they cannot soak the consumers as much by investing in renewables compared to oil and gas.

Let’s defend CfDs against the interests of oil companies

Oil and gas companies could potentially make more money out of renewables if CfDs were abolished. Oil and gas companies could get the full wholesale price from the investments, and thus make more profits. Under government-regulated CfDs, which are auctioned off to the lowest bidder, this will not happen. CfDs are the most popular choice among European nations for producring renewable energy projects.

There has been a policy battle over CfDs. Renewable trade associations have been trying to protect CfDs from efforts to end them. Indeed in Germany, The Netherlands and Denmark, the Governments decided to move away from CfDs, They introduced a system whereby developers put in ‘negative bids’, ie pay money to governments, to secure rights to develop offshore wind projects. This has allowed oil interests to outbid mainstream renewable developers for offshore wind licences.

However it is doubtful whether many offshore wind projects will result from this, and if they do, it will be at higher cost to the consumer. Jerome Guillet, who is a leading offshore wind advisor, has made this sort of point arguing that, in effect, oil companies should keep out of renewable energy investments. He backs CfDs as the preferred mechanism. See his blog post HERE

The move towards ‘negative bidding’ for offshore wind licenses has led to furious opposition from renewable energy interests. Both the Euopean Wind Energy Association and a large coalitoon of renewable energy interests are trying to get this polcy revesed and get CfDs reinstated. There has been some success in the case of Denmark, which has now moved back to CfDs. (see HERE and HERE). CfDs remain the most popular means of incentivising offshore wind amongst European countries, including the UK.

Essentially, oil and gas companies should be told ‘hands off renewables’. We should defend the sort of government regulated renewable energy projects that have been organised through CfDs and also feed-in tariffs. CfDs should not be scrapped so that oil companies can make more money out of energy consumers!

Now, if companies want to develop renewable energy projects outside the framework of CfDs, that’s fine. Indeed there may be excellent reasons to do this – eg to sell equity to community owners of solar farms or windfarms. However, this sort of activity should be a supplement to funding renewables through CfDs. CfDs provide a cheap, well regulated means of funding renewables and this process should be enhanced, not watered down or removed.

The high price of oil and gas investments

In Figure 3 I illustrate how much more expensive a typical onshore wind becomes if it is financed under terms used by oil companies as opposed to conventional renewable energy developments. A 2% internal rate of return (IRR) produces the lowest project price for an onshore windfarm at just under £55 per MWh. This may have been possible in about 2018 given negative interest rates set by the European Central Bank.

Today, an IRR of around 6% might be more realistic, and a 6% IRR would give a project cost of around £70 per MWh. But if the project is financed at a higher rate of return, say 12%, then the project cost rises to around £99 per MWh. The 12% IRR is the sort of minimum planned project rate of return (WACC) that would be typical for a an oil company investment. This demonstrates that oil company energy projects will cost a lot more than ones usually organised by the wind industry!

Figure 3

Conclusion

The most important thing is that oil and gas supplies are phased out to save the planet from climate disaster. Oil company advocates claim that such a strategy is expensive. Yet as the evidence in this post shows it is the oil and gas companies with their exploitative relationship with consumers that produce the economic menace that needs to be superceded. Oil companies thrive on the misery of people’s suffering high energy prices during oil and gas price spikes.

The oil and gas companies cannot help themselves but fail to effectively invest in the energy transition. It is the way that their investment portfolios and and practices are structured that produces this outcome i.e. failure to transition to anything that does not involve continued use of hydrocarbons. Investments in renewable energy are regulated through institutions such as contracts for difference (CfDs). Such institutions do not allow developers to make super-profits comparable to the incredible billions earned by the oil and gas companies every year.

By contrast the system over which the oil and gas companies preside plunges the world into regular economic crises – and profits from it at the same time in a way that pays no heed to the policies of governments or the needs of its peoples. Meanwhile an alternative system based on energy efficiency and renewables is supressed by the oil industry’s investment patterns. These demand massive profit levels.

Renewable energy, as regulated by governments (involving CfDs), provides security, consistency and much less economic risk compared to oil and gas. Renewable energy can help save the planet from the climate crisis. The oil companies, by contrast, thrive on environemntal destruction.

by David Toke

This post was first published in ‘Energy Revolutions’, the substack blog which can be accessed at https://davidtoke.substack.com/

 

Share this page:

UK home insulation programme virtually grinds to a halt

Despite the election of a Government dedicated to give a big boost to the programme of insulating buildings in the UK, the programme has virtually ground to a halt. Applicants report a string of excuses being given by contractors as to why installations cannot be done.

Continue reading full article…

Share this page:

How French nuclear output has declined faster in France than Germany

Whatever one thinks of the German decision to phase-out nuclear power, a really strange thing is that the French are coordinating an unintentional phase-out of nuclear energy. At the same time as Germany has been running down its nuclear production. Much attention has focussed on criticising German policy, but much less on criticising what is a continuing failure of French energy policy.

Continue reading full article…

Share this page:

How Miliband’s Great British Energy deal will make offshore wind a lot cheaper

The recently published proposals for Great British Energy could radically reduce the costs of offshore wind compared to what would otherwise happen under the increasingly expensive existing way of building offshore windfarms in the UK. This will be very important for rolling out the large number of GWs of offshore wind that are needed to meeting the exacting targets for clean energy by 2030.

Continue reading full article…

Share this page:

How economists get it wrong about the value of home solar pv and batteries

One of Oscar Wilde’s characters in a play said that “a cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”. Much the same could be said of some (usually neo-liberal inclined) economists who report about the much higher costs of home green energy installations compared to large-scale ones. Not only do they not understand the value of the home energy installations, but they are actually remarkably choosey in the prices that they quote when comparing home with large-scale installations.

Continue reading full article…

Share this page:

Nuclear black hole could deal a knock-out blow to Labour’s renewable targets

Labour’s ambitious target for offshore wind could be quietly shelved to make way for the giant funding commitment to pay for Sizewell C nuclear power plant

Much of Labour’s manifesto commitments for clean energy, a state-owned ‘Great British Energy’ company to promote new technologies and funds to support buildings-based insulation and low carbon measures, have been widely flagged already. But there’s not much attention being given to two big, interlinked, threats to Labour’s clean energy strategy. One is the looming black financial hole that the incoming Labour Government will trigger as it gives the financial go-ahead for Sizewell C. The second is the problem of organising a much more rapid build-up of renewable energy than the Conservatives have managed to achieve. Both will involve the Treasury having to commit themselves to supporting forward spending, and we know that money is tight!

Continue reading full article…

Share this page:

The astonishing growth of renewable energy – Renewable energy is taking over the world!

As I say in my forthcoming book  Energy Revolutions, Profiteering versus Democracy (PlutoPress): ‘if recent growth trends in renewable energy continue, then sustainable renewable energy sources (mostly wind and solar PV) will make up 100 per cent of world energy consumption (all energy, not just electricity) by the year 2050. ……..Based on trends over the last ten years, nuclear power would be projected to supply only around 3 per cent of world energy in 2050. There is a consistent trend in the last ten years of world growth in renewable energy (mostly wind and solar power) of 12.6 per cent per year…….By contrast, the total primary energy consumption (that is, all energy, not just electricity) is showing an average growth of 1.4 per cent per year over the previous ten years’ This is shown in a Table below taken from my new ‘Energy Revolutions’ book (published by Pluto Press):

Continue reading full article…

Share this page:

Storage and balancing for a 100% Renewable Energy UK!

See the updated storage and balancing guides for 100 per cent renewable UK scenarios and issues – and also studies on 100% renewable energy systems around the world. This includes including the summary document ‘options for energy storage’ at our webpage HERE

There’s lots of fantastic links including links to videos and top papers and reports!

Share this page:

Exposing myths about building French nuclear power – How French nuclear construction times and costs have been getting longer and longer – for a long time

It has been standard in the UK to talk about the wonders of the French nuclear programme and how if only we copied them nuclear power would get cheaper and cheaper. The story has gone ‘If only we built a series of nuclear power plant like they did’. But it turns out that the idea that the French nuclear programme was ever getting any cheaper was a myth.

Continue reading full article…

Share this page:

How the Government is gaslighting us about offshore wind costs

The offshore wind schemes that will be given contracts by the Government this year will cost the public a great deal less than the budget implies and might even save consumers’ money

On March 6th the Chancellor announced what amounts to one the greatest pieces of energy gaslighting that I can ever remember (and that is saying something!). Jeremy Hunt claims that the Government is set to subsidise offshore wind to the tune of £800 million. In reality, the offshore wind schemes that will be awarded contracts (that will pay guaranteed prices for electricity output) will cost the consumer very little, and might even save them money. It is monumentally ridiculous to claim that the Government will spend anything approaching £800 million of its published budget supporting offshore wind. That is, given the electricity price projections for the future.

Continue reading full article…

Share this page:

Why the UK’s claim to be effective in cutting greenhouse emissions should be doubted

It is now very well known that the UK has achieved big cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in recent decades. But the notion that the UK is in the lead in action on climate change need to be taken with a bucket load of salt. Britain’s apparent big reductions in greenhouse gas emissions reductions since 1990 are heavily based on British de-industrialisation and domestic impoverishment and less on deliberate policies to reduce emissions than may be claimed.

Continue reading full article…

Share this page:

SMRs are useless says the UK’s leading SMR analyst! – 100 per cent renewable energy is much more feasible!

Professor Stephen Thomas, the UK’s leading analyst of ‘small modular (nuclear) reactors’, has concluded that the idea faces a dead end, with no future. Yet the UK continues to give large grants to hopeful companies to develop these white elephants. The Government has proclaimed the need for ‘billions of pounds‘ of investment in SMRs. Meanwhile badly needed district heating networks to be supplied by large-scale heat pumps and a range of other realistic clean energy initiatives go unfunded!

Continue reading full article…

Share this page:

Rise of the Britsh solar farm that doesn’t have government support

Increasing numbers of solar farms are going ahead without any contractual support from the Government and some of them are based on cooperative or community support

Voltalia is among the latest to signal the start of construction of a solar farm which has no financial support organised by the UK Government. The project is being backed by the Co-op. I want to avoid the term ‘subsidy-free’. That is because the UK Government only gives out contracts for difference (CfDs) to renewable energy generators to pay them guaranteed prices that are well below the UK wholesale power prices.

Continue reading full article…

Share this page:

100 per cent renewables rather than Small Modular (nuclear) Reactors Come to the webinar on Wednesday February 21st!

Leading experts will support the petition calling on the UK Parliaments’s Environmental Audit Committee to conduct an enquiry into the practicalities of a 100 percent or near 100 percent renewable energy system for the UK. That is rather than the one-sided hearing held in December for small modular reactors (SMRs).

Continue reading full article…

Share this page: