Why the UK’s energy independence is more important than ever

Energy Independence is a term I first heard and started using more than 20 years ago. It has never been more relevant. Even our government is finally getting it.

Its origins are in sustainability, the idea of powering our entire country from our own renewable energy sources: the wind, sun and sea. Creating vast new industries, truly sustainable jobs – and great economic strength. I’ll explain that last part in a minute.

This focus has been prompted by the energy crisis which began last September and exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. And the realisation that we depend on some dodgy people and volatile global markets for our energy supplies.

Bizarrely, the idea of energy independence has been hijacked by some to call for further reliance on fossil fuels; the return of fracking, squeezing the last drops out of the North Sea and even a return to coal mining. But fossil fuels will run out one day. The whole point about renewable energy is that it does not run out.

But a return to relying on fossil fuels makes no sense, even if you forget the climate crisis for a minute.

It doesn’t matter how much we produce here, it won’t help us. Fifty per cent of our gas still comes from our North Sea, but that hasn’t saved us a penny during this energy crisis. We’ve been paying up to ten times the normal price for gas from our North Sea. Producers there have made windfall profits approaching £50 billion as a result. That money came from the energy bills that millions of Britons say they can’t afford to pay. Government should take that money (via a windfall tax) and put it back where it came from. But I’m digressing.

It also makes no sense because it’s not actually a long term solution. The Oil and Gas Authority says the North Sea will be depleted by 2030 – just eight years from now. And if fracking were up and running now, it too would be gone by 2030. Doubling down on fossil fuels is kicking the can down the road – and not very far.

It will take a decade to get the fracking industry up and running anyway – and the average time between exploration and production in the North Sea is 28 years. No fast answer there even if there is stuff there we’ve not yet found.

Nuclear energy got support in Johnson’s new energy strategy – but it takes ten years to plan a nuclear power station and ten more to build it, then 10 more for it to become carbon neutral, for those of us that care about these things. Oh and it’s the most expensive way to make electricity ever devised.

In stark contrast, wind and sun projects can be built within 12 to 24 months. They harness an energy source that will never run out and of course produce no pollution and no climate crisis. They break even in a carbon sense within 12 months and they are the cheapest way to make electricity we have v bar none.

Britain has an abundance of renewable energy. We could power the whole country 20 times over, create vast new industries, truly sustainable jobs – and real economic strength.

Before this crisis, the UK was spending £50bn a year bringing fossil fuels here just to burn them. That’s £1bn up in smoke every week. We need to free ourselves from the global fossil fuels and global commodity markets, which set the price. Right now our spending will be closer to £4bn per week to burn these single use fuels.

If instead we were to spend that pre-crisis £50bn a year on renewable energy equipment, we could make all the energy we need right here. It would take two or three years of that budget, cost wise spread over about ten years in development time, to build it all. It’s a transition we could easily make, we have the technology, we have the money, we have the need.

The benefits are pretty staggering. £50bn a year kept in our economy for one thing. And we can end the scourge of constantly rising energy bills and with it – energy poverty.

Yes there are challenges. The main one is keeping the lights on – renewable energy is famously intermittent. But it can be done, we have the technology for that too: the smart grid is coming. It’s not just me that says we could be running 100 per cent on green electricity as a country – the National Grid also says this – and they run the system.

Gas is a bigger challenge, we mostly use this to heat our homes and conventional wisdom has it that we need to switch this heating load from gas to electricity – using heat pumps. Government talks of a national heat pump program and banning new gas boilers but they can’t have crunched the numbers – £300 billion to replace gas with heat pumps and energy bills that are £500 a year higher per home as a result: £15 billion a year nationally.

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Grass power

We have, as usual, a simpler, cheaper, faster more sustainable answer – grass. Nope, not the smoking variety.

We can make all the gas we need to heat our homes, keep our the appliances we have, keep our national grid, by harnessing grass to make green gas. The cost of doing it this way is £30 billion, one tenth of the heat pump cost – and nobody has to change their boilers, their radiators – anything.

And we can create 100k jobs in the rural economy and save the burning of £9bn a year on single use fossil fuels. Green gas made with grass is carbon neutral over a 6 month lifecycle. And it is renewable.

Energy Independence is about making the energy we need, from indigenous renewable energy sources – electricity from the wind, sun and sea; gas from grass. Creating vast new industries, sustainable jobs, incredible economic strength – keeping our energy bill money in our economy. We need to take back control from fossil fuels, commodity markets and autocratic producer nations.

The best part is that every nation in the world has access to enough renewable energy to do this – it’s not concentrated in the hands of a few countries and geographies – it’s a globally available abundant energy source.

We can democratise energy and with it the world, free ourselves from the grip of dictators, cartels, commodity markets and the daily burning of foreign currencies.

This was originally published in The Independent’s Climate Warrior newsletter as part of Dale’s Dispatches. To sign up to the free weekly newsletter, written every Wednesday in turn by Lizzie Carr MBE, Dale Vince, Mitzi Jonelle and Mikaela Loach, visit our newsletters page or add your email to the box at the top of this article.