Traditional fuels like coal, oil and gas have served us well – why change?
Fossil fuels such as oil and gas are becoming harder to access in some areas, and so we can expect prices to go on rising in the foreseeable future. The UK’s production of both has ‘peaked’, and is on the way down. The UK has plenty of coal, but as a carbon intensive fuel it therefore has the biggest effect on climate change. Burning coal also produces ‘acid rain’ which has devastated forests in some parts of Europe. Action to tackle the pollution means that coal power stations will become more expensive to operate. We have to take decisive action now to guarantee security of power supplies in future, reduce our dependence on imports, and improve both the local and global environment. We need to do this by embracing a range of energy production strategies that, when combined with increased efficiency and reduced waste, lead to a cleaner, greener, more secure electricity system for the UK.
