Cold Spell Deaths

Dear Sir,

Today,  on a cold and windy January 3, gridwatch.co.uk shows the following sources of our electrical energy: Gas 41%; Interconnector imports 23%; Wind 17%; Nuclear 11%; Hydro 6%; Biomass 5; and Other 1%. The above demonstrates the futility of reliance upon wind and solar power and the nation’s overreliance upon energy imports. We are at this moment only producing 58% of our energy requirements from conventional 24-hour sources (gas, nuclear, hydro and sometimes coal), and importing 23% of our needs. Indeed, a bad cold spell in Europe will mean that these interconnector imports will stop. We will have extensive power cuts.  Intermittent renewables such as wind and solar will always require 100% back-up from conventional sources of energy, and at some time soon we will have to give up biomass imports from North American forests, as even the EU is realising that biomass is hardly ‘green’. A severe cold spell will reduce the availability of imported energy and cause weather-related deaths.. It is time to stop subsidising renewable forms of energy, to build up conventional supplies rather than import, and bring back energy bills to reasonable levels. Energy bills will be more than halved. China, India and Indonesia are building hundreds of massive new coal power stations – while tiny Wales is being plastered with even more wind ‘turbines’ intermittently supplying the National Grid. You can put these monsters on every square foot of Britain and still have to rely upon conventional power generation. We desperately need more clean (CCGT) gas power stations – building nuclear sites will take too long to avert winter catastrophes. It is utterly impossible to rely upon so-called ‘green energy’ to meet the nation’s present needs, let alone the massive increase in enforced demand for electric vehicles. I read recently that just one of 650 MPs is a scientist – the same could probably be said of their hordes of special advisors and civil servants. Numeracy lessons for MPs?