Renew Extra Weekly

The UK has been setting new renewable generation records, while also pushing its share of imported energy, particularly gas, to the lowest level since 2004.  The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) has used new government data to show that 46% of primary energy used to supply electricity to the UK was imported in 2025, down from 48% in 2024, and well down on the peak of 67% in 2013. ‘The expansion of renewables is more than making up for the ongoing decline in North Sea gas output which has happened even under decades of policy to maximise extraction.’                         However, not everyone is so sure that all is going well. Electricity is too expensive- and renewables aren’t helping. So says Justin Rowlatt in a recent BBC news report , under the heading ‘Why cheap power could matter more than clean power in the push to net zero.’  He says that, on the supply side ‘solar power has seen dramatic co...

 We are producing too much climate changing carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels. The obvious answer is to stop using them. But if it is too hard, then perhaps we can capture and store the carbon dioxide, or find other ways to offset the impacts of climate change. Various geo-engineering ideas are getting attention these days, so it is interesting to see how they are being received by the general public.   Engaging 323 lay-people across the world, a new technology foresight study explores imagined futures where climate interventions, such as solar radiation modification and large-scale carbon removal, are widely implemented in 2030. The participants generated 299 distinct ‘futures’, each characterized by an imagined newspaper headline. Some were positive, some negative, some neutral. For example, in terms of Solar Radiation Management, the study says ‘futures were on balance more positive for Marine Cloud Brightening, evenly split for space-based approaches, and more n...

 The UK is doing quite well with renewables, with over 65GW now installed and much more planned, helping it reduce carbon emissions . It should also mean that it is better able to cope with global fossil energy price rise shocks - it can provide a buffer.  ‘Let's get control of our own energy so that whatever is happening in the world, we control what's happening in this country’, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer says, adding ‘what gives us control is renewables, our own homegrown energy, which is then more secure & more independent, which is why I think that we should go further & faster in relation to renewables’. That’s good news, with more new jobs also being created as a result.  Employment  in ‘green’ jobs has expanded by nearly 28% over the last year, with  much of that being in renewable energy and related areas, and many more are expected.  However, there are issues. For example, Max Lacey-Barnacle, a researcher at Sussex University Centre f...