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The big three myths about renewables are dying…

It’s desperation time for the dwindling anti-renewables brigade.

The last ten years have seen a concerted effort to downplay and denigrate renewable electricity. But their three main lies have lost all their power, as the world’s renewable revolution just keeps on gathering speed.

Here’s how it’s gone:

First they said renewables would be too small to make any meaningful contribution. It’s now at over 20% of UK electricity:

% of renewable electricity in UK quadruples in 7 years

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then they said renewables cost too much. Solar farms and onshore wind are now cheaper than new nuclear power, ten years before we’ll get a single watt out of Hinkley Point C, and their price keeps on falling:

Costs of solar wind nuclear electricity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now they’re on their last lie – that renewables are unreliable. We’re at 20% renewables. Seen any lights go out? And Germany, Portugal, Spain and Denmark all have a far greater proportion of renewable electricity than we do, and their grids are doing just fine:

% renewable electricity 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Renewables can and will keep growing. The Government predicts 40% UK electricity from renewables by 2020. It can be over 80% by 2030. Of course, this is a transition. We’ll still use burn coal and gas for electricity for a while yet. But as the years pass we’ll burn less and less, and new forms of energy storage and management are being developed so fast that this will happen sooner than the Government thinks. See this briefing for more info.

Renewables are mainstream now. Keeping on trying to sow doubt about renewables is the desperate, failing tactic of an electricity old-guard with nothing left in its tank. They cannot stop the inevitable. Renewables are taking over, globally. They can no longer be stopped, only slowed.

And that’s the choice our Government needs to make: to embrace the renewables revolution, or hold it back.

At the start of the Paris climate talks David Cameron warned “the Earth is in peril”, yet back home he’s been taking a wrecking-ball to the UK’s flagship renewables policies. Renewables are a main part of the solution to climate change – the UK Government needs to stop holding them back.

Post written by Simon Bullock, 3 December 2015

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