Energy realities

Published on 28/06/2012 00:00

IN SEEKING to “clarify” the situation on taxpayer subsidies for wind energy, Jenny Hogan is herself guilty of not telling the whole truth (Letters, 27 June).

While the bulk of energy price increases have indeed been because of the increasing cost of gas, the £75 increase to annual dual fuel bills attributable to renewables and energy efficiency measures is smaller only because so little of our current energy supply comes from wind farms.

If the Scottish Government persists with its ambitious plans for expansion of wind energy, this situation will soon change. The purported lowering of energy bills through expansion of renewables is achieved only by sleight of hand, with assumptions made of significant reductions in energy use and continued escalation in European gas prices. In reality, if the UK and its neighbours were prepared to exploit their large reserves of shale gas, European gas prices would drop as they have in America.

Comparing projected (but not necessarily achievable) plans to reduce the high cost of offshore wind with carbon capture and storage (CCS) is fatuous, as there are no large-scale, commercial power stations using CCS, nor any likelihood that the technology will be viable in the foreseeable future, despite several government attempts to fund demonstration projects.

In any case, lowering the construction costs for offshore wind farms may make renewable energy less expensive, but it remains an unreliable and intermittent source of supply which has to be backed up by equivalent fossil-fuel generating capacity.

Martin Livermore

Scientific Alliance

Cowley Road

Cambridge