Green Energy Republic

Renewable energy, responsible business

By Gabriella Wass

We first came across Gabriella Wass when she contacted Good Energy as part of her research into how individuals in business relate to the effects of their decisions on other humans – her thesis for an MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights. Participating as a case study sparked our interest further so we asked Gabriella to write a blog for us outlining her findings.

 
How does someone as influential and with as much responsibility as Juliet Davenport relate to the people affected by her business decisions? Quite easily, the answer seems to be – a response quite different from those given by many other business leaders and, arguably, contrary to what logic might predict.

For my Human Rights MA thesis, I interviewed the leaders of some of the world’s largest energy providers, supermarkets, banks and manufacturers, asking them how they relate to the people their business activity might affect: employees, consumers, those inhaling petrol fumes, communities living next to a factory, even society as a whole. A question open to (revealing) interpretation.

Backing up these interviews was a broad analysis of academic theories as to why business leaders would or wouldn’t relate to these ‘others’. At the pessimistic end of the scale humans were represented as fatalistic, greedy, self-interested animals. On the other hand, psychologists tend to paint us as a trusting lot on the whole, unlikely to question structures that prevent people from being able to relate to each other.

Evolutionary theory offers another angle; human brains are designed to deal with small social groups so that when our actions may affect millions we lose our capacity to compute such responsibility. Furthermore, one could argue that the self-selecting group of cold-headed business people who end up at the top of the pile represent a particularly ruthless section of society.

Lastly, there is the argument that our economic system prevents businesses and individuals from taking responsibility by tying us into irresponsible, competitive legal obligations. For more on this issue I recommend the documentary ‘The Corporation.’ This 2003 Canadian film shows the development of the contemporary business corporation, from a legal entity that originated as a government-chartered institution meant to effect specific public functions, to the rise of the modern commercial institution entitled to most of the legal rights of a person. You can watch the trailier here.

But on the positive side is the concept of humans as a moral, empathic species, capable of understanding one another’s needs and pain, consistently considering ourselves responsible for our actions throughout history. Laws and norms evolving from the UN and within individual countries provide benchmarks against which companies can measure their responsibility, not to mention the efforts that companies themselves are taking.

Yet despite this, as evolution and psychology would predict, it remains difficult for individual leaders to see quite how they relate to those most remotely affected by their business’ activity.

And this makes Good Energy a particularly fascinating case example. In a company geared towards responsible activity, it seems logical that it should be led by someone for whom a sense of responsibility towards customers and employees should be paramount. Yet Juliet Davenport’s answers to questions about ‘the impact of Good Energy on people’s lives’ (an intentionally broad question) were so comprehensive as to encompass humanity as a whole by relating Good Energy’s activity to climate change.

And that may be the key to responsible business – to accept that the scars of evolution have ensured it does not come naturally or easily to our species to see a child in a remote village affected by changing climate as our responsibility. Yet our logic and sense of morality can remind us that they are, and that through responsible and careful decision making we can make that chain of responsibility one of benefit rather than harm.

Companies like Good Energy stand out as being particularly valuable to the world’s business community because at the very root of their activity lies a commitment to taking responsibility for the business’ actions. As international business law eventually hauls itself towards this idea – that a company cannot be immune from respecting our world and its people – our market economy can allow space (currently almost non-existent) for businesses to be innovative about taking responsibility, with Good Energy an example of a shining leader.

Zero Carbon Britain – It Can Be Done

Britain has the potential, skills, and natural resources to lead the world in carbon reduction.

On October 16th our CEO Juliet Davenport will be speaking at this year’s Bristol Schumacher Conference, arguably one of the most crucial in its 33-year history. Bringing together major players in the renewable sector, this event will be addressing the huge promise of a Zero Carbon Britain – from Aspiration into Action.

Most people have almost no idea just how well endowed Britain is with renewable energy or that, as the Centre for Alternative Technology’s recent report shows, a zero carbon Britain is actually possible. The purpose of the 2010 Schumacher Conference is to open our eyes to these very real possibilities.

Juliet will be joined by two fellow leaders in the renewable field: Peter Harper, Head of Research and Innovation at the Centre for Alternative Technology and author of its major new report Zero Carbon Britain 2030; and Jacquline McGlade, Executive Director of the hugely influential European Environment Agency in Copenhagen.

Each speaker will be articulating their pathway to shifting the UK from where it is today to a brighter, greener, zero carbon future. Juliet will describe how Good Energy is applying its innovative thinking to identify the changes the UK needs to make to the process which takes power from a windy hilltop to a light switch at home; ranging from smart grids and demand side management to the true cost of energy – environmental as well as financial.

Juliet’s vision of the future looks very different to what we see today: energy companies will be transformed from leviathans to enablers and, maybe, by 2050, they will all look like Good Energy.

“The approach of powering down (reducing demand) and powering up (building a new, zero carbon energy infrastructure)...is the logical, achievable next step forward...a move towards entrepreneurship, resilience, connectedness and stability. It offers a return to scale, a bringing home of the impacts of our actions, and a shift to a world that we can hand on to our grandchildren with relief and pride, and with a twinkle in our eyes,” says Rob Hopkins, co-founder of Transition Towns 

For anyone interested in a sustainable future this is not an event to be missed. Book your ticket here.

'Solar' by Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan has just been awarded the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for Solar. As part of this quirky award for comic writing, McEwan will have a Gloucestershire Old Spot pig renamed Solar in his honour!

Here's what we thought of the book...

Reviewed by Sophy in the Good Energy marketing team 

A new novel by Ian McEwan is an eagerly-anticipated event – and when the plot of the novel revolves around finding solutions to climate change, it’s enough to make you pre-order the book from Waterstone’s (a first for me!)

So, does Solar live up to the anticipation?

First off, presumably to lighten what could be (arguably should be) such a serious subject, McEwan introduces humour for the first time into his work – with a series of comedic set-pieces mixed with much darker humour. The main protagonist, physicist Michael Beard, is a man of prodigious appetites – greedy for food and drink, greedy for sex and greedy for critical acclaim. And this unattractive combination eventually leads to his downfall. The analogy with our planet is clear – over-consumption is sowing the seeds of our own destruction.

A source of inspiration for the novel was McEwan’s trip to the Arctic in 2005 organised by Cape Farewell – the charity which promotes a cultural response to climate change, and a Good Energy partner. One wonders what happened to him there to lead to the farcical scenes (suspected frostbite to a very tender appendage, among other things) portrayed in the novel!

McEwan is known for his detailed and thorough research, and Solar deals with some huge scientific ideas and makes them easy for the layman to understand. As someone who works in the renewable energy business I loved how early on in the novel, a plan to develop an easy solution to climate change in the form of a rooftop wind turbine for urban areas gets abandoned later in the book in favour of massive-scale solar power from the desert in New Mexico.

For me, the most resonant part of the novel is when Beard presents to an audience of bankers his thoughts on climate change and the fantastic investment opportunities it presents – a speech I could easily imagine our own CEO making at a similar conference – only to be brushed off by the tall men in suits who are only concerned with the here-and-now and immediate returns.

McEwan chooses not to engage with climate-change scepticism in the novel – throughout the book man-made climate change is presented as undisputable fact. And when one of Beard's colleague’s expresses a concern that perhaps the climate isn’t changing after all, Beard reassures him: "It's a catastrophe. Relax!"

Opinions in the blogosphere are sharply divided as to the overall merits of the book. For me, the novel was not only entertaining but also managed to get a serious message across in a humorous way. But at times I felt McEwen was laying on the jokes with a sledgehammer, when a more subtle approach would have been more effective. Read the book, and make your own mind up – and please share your views with us by commenting on the blog.

The new government – what next for the environment?

By Juliet

 

When parliament resumes, roughly a third of all MPs will be taking their seats in Westminster for the first time. The key question now is, what are their views on the issues that matter? What do they believe needs to be done to tackle climate change? How do they think the Government should encourage people to move towards a low-carbon lifestyle? What do they believe should be for the Government to decide and what should be left to the market to deliver?

 

Of course, all of these questions will be framed by the backdrop of the largest Budget deficit since the Second World War; this is something that will obviously restrict Ministers’ ability to use public funding to implement policy. That means there will be more competition between Whitehall departments for what money is available, so the twin issues of energy and climate change will need more allies and champions in Parliament than ever. Good Energy will be working hard to identify the new generation of champions and be seeking to build new relationships with them once Parliament returns in a few weeks’ time.

 

In recent years, those of us having to deal with Government policymaking first hand have grown used to dealing with successive administrations with comfortable majorities. On the one hand this has meant that there has been a greater degree of certainty about policy implementation, but on the other it has meant policy has more often than not been dealt with through procedure and bureaucracy rather than through politics.

 

A Conservative- Lib dem Coalition Government completely changes this situation. Ministers will have to pay far more attention to the concerns of individual MPs in order to woo their support and get proposals passed. The Government will have to work harder to ensure that frontbench policy is broadly aligned with the range of opinions amongst backbench MPs by providing concessions in some areas of policy in order to get other proposals passed.

 

So what does this mean for Good Energy’s campaigning efforts in Westminster? Well, it means that there will be a more diverse, vibrant debate around the issues that affect Good Energy’s customers and generators. And it will mean less certainty in policymaking. We can expect to see weeks of hard work by civil servants undone by a single vote in Parliament if the Minister responsible hasn’t done his or her homework on the probability of their proposals being passed. 

But with this political risk comes opportunity and with that, Good Energy’s work in building relationships with politicians across the political spectrum becomes all the more valuable. There is greater scope for building networks of supportive MPs on key issues who can act as a important force in the debate in the Westminster, and it is those individuals that the Government will have to spend more time and effort paying attention to in order to push through their policy programmes.

Re-news

Countdown to Copenhagen: Obama’s in, but a deal is out

Just last week we heard some exciting news - President Obama will be attending the Copenhagen climate meeting beginning in just a few weeks. Well every silver lining has a cloud it seems, as it turns out he will be the bearer of bad news – he says it’s too late to reach a legally binding deal on how to prevent runaway climate change.

Green Energy Republic suggested a while back that the meeting should be postponed until something useful can come out of it. Obama is now supporting the Danish government’s call to re-purpose the meeting as establishing a “framework” for a deal, and that the legal deal date should be pushed back to 2010. The proposal was put forward by the Danes in an unscheduled meeting of 19 leaders (let’s call it an emergency meeting, in the spirit of optimism and hope that leaders are taking this business seriously) held in Singapore. Obama’s sound bite of the week was that we should not let the "perfect be the enemy of the good". Ah, climate change averted.

In one sense this is utterly pathetic. The international community has had ample time to prepare for this meeting, and yet all that has ensued is political stalemating.

On the other hand this is by far the most sensible option at this stage. To try and rush a legal agreement with huge debates unresolved and the US climate bill not even through the Senate could produce a fatally flawed document that nations would abandon very quickly.

Even to those of us feeling frustrated by the slow pace of negotiations, there are signs that the world is moving sluggishly towards a more unified vision, and that the crucial  relationship between China and the US is a lot warmer than a year ago. At a meeting today between Obama and China’s president Hu Jintao positive noises have come out about at least setting emissions reduction targets in Copenhagen.

Copenhagen should be a diplomatic parliament used to get as much of the world as possible drawn towards a unified vision. The legalities should be ironed out next year.

For those who disagree, consider this: Five years ago, if an international meeting was called to deal with climate issues, and leaders weren’t ready to negotiate, would the delegates have considered stalling the meeting? No. They would have cobbled something useless together and ignored it. By delaying the meeting, leaders are acknowledging that it is worth delaying, and that they need to be prepared.

UK Climate Denial

What couldn’t have come at a worse time, is the recent poll labelling the UK as a bunch of climate deniers. The Times has reported that less than half the population believes human activity is responsible for climate change, and 15% of us believe the world is not warming. This is not the kind of thing Ed Miliband wants to be reading on a Monday morning, just weeks away from the meeting where he is supposed to be fighting for a strong climate deal, especially as he has pledged to fight on despite the above proposal. The government has tried, and seemingly failed to convince their voters that global warming is something worth fighting with tax payers money.

Let’s hope they fight for their beliefs, rather than to win more votes in next year’s election.

Green Energy Republic

A Good Energy blog

Murder and sleaze at Good Energy

By Chris Welby, Good Energy’s Commercial Director


The point of a headline is to grab the reader’s attention, hence the above.  Today, the headline in the papers was: “60% rise in energy prices”, based on a report by Ofgem, the energy industry’s regulator. Actually, there is a much more cheerful headline from this report, but perhaps not as eye-catching, which is “Renewables will significantly reduce energy price rises”.

The 60% rise (above inflation, I might add) in energy prices is based roughly on 'business as usual' with a rapid move out of recession.  The scenario where we exit rapidly out of recession but invest in renewable shows a much smaller rise of 23%.  Okay, still a hefty increase but much more palatable than a jaw-dropping 60%.  (For low economic growth, figures are 22% to 14% in favour of renewable.)

The underlying reason is this: we have to build new generation capacity, come what may.  Existing traditional power stations are reaching the end of their lives and must close.  We therefore have a choice: build renewable or build traditional. 

If we build traditional, then we need to pay for carbon-based fuel for our generation, more and more of which will be sourced from other countries, not all of them stable.  If we go renewable, then nature provides the fuel for free.  It should be noted as well, that these figures assume no shocks to the system like rapid rise in oil prices - as seen last year.

The report also shows the renewable option as the best way of keeping the lights on when demand is high. 

Okay, you say, there must be a catch.  Well of course, the renewable option requires us to invest more, £200bn, whereas the 'business as usual' option is only £190bn. Hardly a big difference in the grand scheme of things, but if that extra investment means cheaper prices it is certainly worthwhile.

So when someone asks you if you read that report about energy prices, you can say: “Yes, wasn’t it great news?!”

Re-news

DECC feeling the heat
Ed Miliband’s Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is feeling the heat as its decision to scrap opening windows in favour of energy-guzzling air-conditioning has come under fire from environmental campaigners.

DECC, which is responsible for the UK achieving its carbon emissions targets, abandoned its plan to cut energy consumption by opening windows a mere three days into the trial! Apparently, an internal memo said that "Concerns have been raised about higher temperatures, reduced air flow, noise from the building works and security concerns”. This is a bit ironic – surely higher temperatures are exactly what they ought to expect if they insist on turning their air-conditioning back on?!  It is also worth noting that DECC’s newly refurbished offices have been awarded the lowest possible energy efficiency rating (G) - a classic case of do as we say, not do as we do.

Environmental organisations are, unsurprisingly, unimpressed with DECC’s apparent lack of commitment to energy-saving measures by the government body that should be fighting hardest for them. Come on DECC - we know you can do better than that!

East meets West as China gears up for Copenhagen
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has spoken about the need to stay focused on the bigger picture at climate talks in Copenhagen later this year during a recent visit to Beijing. He maintains that a definite, positive outcome could be threatened if leaders get too caught up in ‘precise percentages’ – basically, arguing about who should reduce emissions by how much.

We’re already seeing this kind of dispute: Beijing, for example, is keen that the West leads the way with massive emissions cuts, whilst the West is similarly pressing Beijing to give an exact target for its own reductions. That said, it looks like things are moving in the right direction. Though China is still the world's biggest emitter (read more about this in a previous post here) it is putting more and more cash into renewables projects, with a recent report in The Telegraph claiming the country now has a third of the world market for solar cells and is on course to build 100 gigawatts of wind turbines by 2020.

There’s no doubting that negotiations are going to be difficult, but we agree with Tony: Copenhagen must not be a battle between East and West.

The kids are united
Around 700 children from all over the world got together in Seoul, South Korea, last week to discuss their concerns about climate change ahead of the Copenhagen talks. They called for world leaders to take positive action saying: ‘We now need more actions and less talking.” It’s good to know that the future looks safe in the hands of the next generation.

Australia passes 20% renewable energy bill
The Australian parliament has passed a law to ensure that 20% of its electricity comes from renewable sources by 2020 - enough clean energy sources to power all of Australia’s households.

This is a positive move, but there are fears that it may not prove as successful as hoped. Critics have argued that, although the amount of renewable energy will increase, if this isn’t supported by strong cuts in greenhouse gas emissions the country’s CO2 emissions might actually increase over the next ten years. Australia’s climate change minister said “The only way we're going to be able to turn around the growth in our carbon pollution ... is to put a firm legislated limit on the amount of carbon that we produce and make those who create the pollution pay for it."

A politician with some sound advice – let’s hope that the Australian government takes it on board.

 And finally...
An ingenious idea to cut carbon using artificial trees could be a reality within 10-20 years. A new report from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers has suggested that this could be a viable way to ‘soak up’ CO2 in the atmosphere.

The trees would work by capturing carbon dioxide in a filter from which it would then be removed and stored. The technology would be developed alongside carbon storage techniques – which the government is already planning to use on a large-scale. The report claims that each tree would be around the size of a shipping container and could remove thousands of times more CO2 from the atmosphere than a real tree of the same size.

This invention is currently at the prototype stage so will need a lot more testing and development, but it’s certainly something we’re going to keep an eye on!  Although, it must be said that this isn't a solution long term, just a way of clearing up the mess we are making currently.

Green Energy Republic

Re-news

EDF “secret” nuclear talks
The Times is reporting that large energy companies have been in secret talks with the government about financing the next generation of nuclear power plants in the UK. They are proposing that public funding goes towards building these new power stations, contrary to former assurances.

The nuclear lobby has spent a lot of time and money convincing the government that nuclear power is the low-carbon, low-cost energy solution. And it’s worked – the latest energy white paper re-affirms the commitment to nuclear power, giving the go ahead for private companies to start building new reactors to replace those dying off in the UK. The plan was that private companies would finance the construction of these new plants and would be able to sell energy from them at affordable rates.

Meanwhile us greenies have been pulling our hair out knowing that the environmental and economic pro-nuclear arguments are highly flawed. The last generation of nuclear power plants in the UK were hugely expensive, highly polluting, and under delivering.

As for the next generation, a new generator being built in Finland is hardly an inspiring model of good practice. The setbacks and soaring costs of this project must have a few members of the UK parliament gritting their teeth and crossing their fingers. Olkiluoto 3 has been beset with safety concerns, raging arguments between the French constructors and Finnish government, and is €2 billion over budget. The reactor was originally due to be generating this year, but there are doubts it’ll even make its new deadline of 2012.

Speaking to the Telegraph, independent nuclear consultant John Large, predicted that new nuclear power stations would cost households “significantly more” than the £15 renewable subsidies.

EDF now wants the government to foot at least part of the bill – knowing it can’t afford to deliver new nuclear for the original budget. And it has Ed Miliband over a barrel. With an energy crisis in the UK looming EDF is effectively saying “You want the lights on, you pay for it.”

To rub salt in the wound, EDF is owned by the French Government. It’s asking British taxpayers to fund French profits. Time to re-think the nuclear argument?

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilities/article6797809.ece

Oil lobby to fund anti-climate change campaign
More bad energy news from the other side – another leak. The Guardian reports that the president of the American Petroleum Institute (API) has been out-ed for planning anti climate change demonstrations in an attempt to thwart President Obama’s Climate Bill, in an email obtained by Greenpeace.

The API strategy is to orchestrate demonstrations to generate press coverage and create the perception of a grass roots campaign against the Bill, which threatens the “business as usual” mentality of most oil companies. They will fund the events and have recruited an events planner and PR firm so that the API members just need to turn up.

Read more about this plan here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/14/us-lobbying

To any of our US readers – don’t fall for these spin doctored events!

Increase in UK coal production undermines our climate rhetoric
After a decade of decline in open-cast coal mining here in Britain, coal production has risen by 10% over the last year, as new mines get the green light. Coal imports have also increased by 13% in the first three months of 2009 compared with 2008.

The result is an extra 16 million tonnes of coal being produced since 2007, and all indications point to a further 15 million tonnes in coming months.

As the Guardian rightly points out, the increase in coal production surely contravenes the UK government’s transition to a low carbon economy? All the talk of renewable energy targets and green initiatives are completely undone by this huge increase in production of the most carbon-intensive fuel. It should simply be left in the ground.

More here.

So, to the Good news…

Single malt electricity
Mmmmmm, green whisky. Helius Energy has teamed up with whisky makers The Combination of Rothes Distillers (CoRD) to build an innovative renewable energy project. Whisky production by-products are being used to power a 7.2MWe Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant  in Speyside that will drastically cut the carbon footprint of the fine drink. Not only that, they will be turning the liquid co-product of whisky production into a concentrated organic fertiliser and animal feed for use by local farmers.

Perhaps it doesn’t give you a hangover either?

http://www.heliusenergy.com/media/170809.php

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Renewable economic update

Good news from Spain, where a renewable energy company has just launched the world’s largest and highly innovative solar tower near Seville, powering 10,000 homes. Generating 20MW, the "PS20" will contribute to Spain’s impressive peaks of 40% renewable energy vibrating through their national grid.

Recent news from the UK isn’t quite so uplifting.

Oil companies withdrawing investment from renewables
In a cycle that has repeated itself several times over the last 40 years, oil companies who have invested more in greenwash PR than they ever have into sustainable energy have pulled out of some major renewables projects.

In March, oil giant Shell announced (or, whispered) it was pulling out of all its wind, solar and hydro projects despite years of vast sweeping claims about securing a new clean energy future with renewables. Following this, BP has cut 620 jobs from BP solar, only months after a billboard campaign promoting a sustainable energy mix.

So, the oil companies have shouted a lot about investing in clean energy, backing it up by planning renewables projects, and then quietly cancelled the plans hoping everyone will remember the ads but forget to ask where the wind farms are.

Production industry going into decline
Last week Vestas, the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer, said it’s shutting down its plant on the Isle of Wight. A drop in demand has seen the company struggle over the last year and will result in the loss of 700 jobs from the UK plant which makes turbine blades.

There’s been a glimmer of hope from budget measures to support of wind power but it’s unlikely that will stimulate the market quickly enough for Vestas to justify keeping the plant open. 

Meanwhile Iberdrola, which own Scottish Power, has halved its renewables investments over the last year. Overseas, Siemens is to scale back 400 jobs in its Danish wind energy division.

Wind farm replaced with nuclear power station?
Last week the Guardian reported that a highly efficient wind farm near Kirksanton in Cumbria could be dismantled to make way for a nuclear power station. It’s a smack in the face for renewables from a government who should know it’s already running the risk of missing its renewables target.  Destroying perfectly working existing capacity just doesn’t seem to make sense.

And what’s really offended local wind supporters is the speed and ease with which planning was granted to the nuclear power station, in marked contrast to the rigorous and overcomplicated process which applicants for wind turbines must go through.

So what’s the problem?
Aside from the bizarre nuclear announcement, much of the above seems recession related. To be fair to BP, its cutbacks are a reaction to a drop in demand for its renewable products. It’s also planning to scale back oil and gas exploration over the next year, and has seen its profits drop to a third of what they were last year (don’t worry, BP still made over £2 billion in the first quarter of 2009). But this seems a convenient excuse to cancel all renewable plans having talked about becoming a leader in the field and discovering a life “Beyond Petroleum.”

Vestas is suffering from a lack of demand that seems to be mostly down to a reduction in investment opportunities, as there are less funds available. The weakening pound makes building a wind farm considerably more expensive and therefore harder to justify.

Last year Vestas expanded their operations in China - following the route of so many manufacturers. There have been no signs of closure there, so as with the case above of solar in Spain, the worldwide renewables industry is looking positive. It's just our home turf that could be falling behind.

While these setbacks have been portrayed by the media as damning for the renewables industry overall, in fact it’s just following the same trends as every other industry. And it hasn’t been propped up by huge government bail outs. If the measures announced in the recent budget materialises, the renewables industry shouldn’t need bailing out.

So it’s not good news, but we can’t expect weekly reports on joy and success in the current financial situation. What’s important is that there are reasons to be optimistic, and reasons to carry on supporting renewable with all our vigour. The industry can’t be expected to buck all trends and find finance where there is none, but it doesn’t spell unmitigated doom and gloom either.

An who needs big oil companies anyway? Ho ho.

Green Energy Republic

If you had £234 billion, what would you buy?

In order to meet our rising electricity demand and our carbon emissions targets, the UK is going to need to spend £234 billion by 2025. So says the recent Ernst & Young report Securing the UKs Energy Future.

So we have a dual problem.

1. The UK’s dirty old coal plants are coming to the end of their lifetime. At present no firm plans have been made to fill the gap in energy that will grow as these plants go offline.
2. We have to reduce our carbon emissions dramatically. We therefore need to replace the old plants with low carbon technologies.

The question of how to do so drags a rather large debate along with it, and a hefty bill behind. This report assumes that vast chunks of the £234 billion needed will go towards building new nuclear power. But nuclear is proving a gamble – the only nuclear power station to be commissioned in the last decade is being built in Finland. The project is running 3 years behind schedule, billions over budget, and has seen a string of misdemeanours that would be laughable, if not so threatening. The new generation of plants that have been given the green light in the UK are unlikely to be online before we start losing power from the old coal power stations.

The report also puts aside some huge chunks of cash for carbon capture technology. (capturing carbon from power plants and storing it, preventing it from entering the atmosphere). But not only is the idea highly controversial (it got a panning in the economist recently), the mechanisms for carrying it out are far from ready and estimates of cost are between £250 million - £1 billion per power station.

So it’s all getting rather expensive, with no guarantee that the energy gap will actually be bridged, which is slightly uncomfortable in this time of economic uncertainty. The likelihood is that the cost will be passed on to the consumer.£234 billion translates to roughly £85 per household per year extra. So it’s that or rolling blackouts like those in the ‘70s.

So there’s not much positive in this report – advice on how to secure the finance is a little thin. It does, however, suggest that decent energy efficiency programmes could reduce the total cost significantly, which we wholeheartedly agree with. "Supporting and educating consumers on ways to improve energy efficiency will play a pivotal role.
Investment in energy efficiency will play an important role in achieving the industry's objectives," said Steve Jenkins, head of Ernst and Young’s energy team.

Our instinct is that energy efficiency could reduce the costs even more dramatically than this report suggests. When it takes two power stations in the UK just to keep our TVs on standby, we have a long way to go. But we acknowledge that serious investment will need to be made. As you can probably guess, we’ll be fighting the corner for renewables, and particularly small scale renewable as part of the solution. The technology exists for buildings and local communities to start powering themselves with renewable energy. Solar power, geo thermal heating, wind turbines are all tools we should be using to ease pressure on the national grid as we will be able to generate our own at home – and even top up the grid when we are not using the energy ourselves.

Instead of ploughing investment into securing and storing our imported gas for example, that money could be better used to wean the UK off gas and replace it with solar thermal and ground source heating. Instead of throwing billions of pounds into nuclear technologies, let’s invest in offshore wind farms.

But we’d like to know what you think. If you had £234 billion to spend, what would you spend it on? What is your vision of energy in 2025?

Leave your comments below. We’ll send them back to you in 2025 and have a good ol’ laugh!

Once you've had a think, take a look at Greenpeace's Efficiencity vision, but no cheating!