Despite Ed Miliband's ukele ode to wind energy, nuclear power is the answer to net zero – Paul Wilson

As demand for electricity surges with the switch to heat pumps and EVs, the UK is going to have to dramatically increase generation or risk blackouts

“The answer is blowin’ in the wind,” warbled Ed Miliband as he strummed artlessly on a ukelele beneath a turbine in a desolate field. Labour’s Shadow Secretary for Energy and Net Zero posted the video online earlier this year from near Mansfield as part of his “tour around wind farms”.

The unspoken question is how the UK can decarbonise its energy use – as legally required and in accordance with the 2015 Paris Agreement – by 2050. The practical difficulties of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels are becoming more apparent.

Last winter there were fears of blackouts. If this winter is severe enough, we may see them this time around. Energy bills, along with inflation and interest rates, remain high. Perhaps we need to stop referring to energy bills as “high” if this is in fact the new normal.

The strain on the National Grid will only intensify as we require more and more electricity in the switch from internal combustion engines and gas boilers to electric vehicles and heat pumps. Then there is our requirement to drive down carbon emissions in sectors such as heavy industry, steel, construction and aviation.

But the system is already creaking. A leaflet came through my door the other day unlike any I remember receiving before. From SP Energy Networks and titled “Preparing for a power cut”, it warned of rolling three-hour blackouts this winter because of the “current energy landscape”.

Wind is the answer, says Mr Miliband, but last month no new offshore project contracts were bought by developers in the government’s annual auction. Firms argued that the price set for energy gathered by prospective wind farms was too low, in a sector that is already heavily subsidised. If something requires subsidy it is by definition economically unviable, it cannot stand on its own two feet.

US billionaire Warren Buffet, who knows about worthwhile investments, has said: “We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”

The growing expense of raw materials and maintenance is also putting firms off, with turbines now built that are almost the height of the Eiffel Tower. Anchoring these behemoths to the North Sea floor and keeping them in working order in the face of extremely hostile conditions is expensive.

Wind turbines, like solar panels, have a lifespan of around 25 years. We started building wind farms in earnest around 20 years ago, when the average UK household energy bill was around a quarter of what it is now. What’s going to happen when these wind farms come to the end of their lives and the UK is crying out for an exponentially increasing amount of green energy? And what happens to all the spent wind turbines? Landfill?

There are also growing concerns over the impact on wildlife, specifically bird, bat and cetacean populations. But there are problems that are even more fundamental. Oil, for example, can be extracted from the ground, put in a barrel, transported and then used to generate energy. Wind farms don’t generate energy, they harvest it from what is already out there. It’s then an expensive race against time and geography to put it to use before it dissipates.

Without back-up, we would run into problems when there is no or very little wind. Without back-up, would we collectively be expected to save up our activity for windy periods? Yet it seems we are going all in on wind. We are betting the farm on it.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who is expected to move into Downing Street next year, pledged this week to create a publicly owned renewable energy company to build new wind, solar and wave projects. It’s part of Labour’s bid to make the UK the first major economy to generate all its electricity without fossil fuels by 2030, rewiring the country with new transmission lines.

The UK’s legal obligation is to achieve net zero by 2050, not 2030. We have very little chance of doing so with renewables, but every chance of inflicting untold damage to the economy and living standards in the attempt. Our best shot is through nuclear, which is reliable, safe, high density, and involves negligible carbon emissions. We could have a network of nuclear power stations fully operational across the UK by 2050.

In the meantime, we should have access to the cleanest non-intermittent energy source widely available to us, which is natural gas. Fracking has been instrumental in achieving US energy security in the past few turbulent years. The risk of whole communities disappearing underground because of earthquakes appears to have been exaggerated.

The Americans have been so successful they export vast quantities of liquefied natural gas obtained through fracking to poor, benighted, energy-starved countries such as the UK. Germany, once the powerhouse of the European economy, set itself up as a renewables trailblazer. They shut down the last of their nuclear power stations just as Vladimir Putin turned the tap off on the natural gas supply on which Germany was heavily dependent.

Germany’s situation is more precarious than the UK’s to such an extent they are now furiously digging new coal mines in a bid to keep the lights on. In North Rhine Westphalia, Germany is opening a new open-cast mine to extract millions of tonnes of lignite by dismantling wind turbines, which take up a vast area for the amount of energy they intermittently harvest.

Mr Miliband should be singing something like this: “The answer, my friend, is a diverse energy mix that allows us to maintain a reliable and constant base load while we build up the infrastructure to become predominantly nuclear-powered by 2050.” It’s definitely less catchy, but it makes more sense.