Doubts & Dilemmas, Climate & Energy

My first post in this blog said "I'm starting from the position that I believe my 'home' is about to be spoiled, and I don't like it." and that "...we owe it to ourselves and our (grand)children to make sure the [GNRSP] proposals are challenged, and the 'benefits' evaluated in a balanced way." That's not changed.

Can't thinkers also be deniers?

This 'Doubts & Dilemmas' blog entry - certain to be substantially edited and extended over coming weeks - has been prompted by the SolarComment conversation responding to our MP's 20/12/2023 letter (to see the contents of any SolarComment post you need to have signed up, just email jgray.muskham@gmail.com if you want to be added to the mailing list). 

EDIT 29th March, 2024 

The 'doubts and dilemmas' at national and international level have also been surfacing with great rapidity, and revealing unanticipated threats, since I first posted this item in December 2023. Just yesterday, I came across another - hardly discussed until now, events in Africa that have potential knock-on effects for our UK electricity supply.

As I read (and paraphrase) it, the conversation's central message boils down to the belief that "Climate is an [...] existential threat to all of us." and that politicians at all levels should therefore be encouraging us to fully support the UK's sacrificial net-zero policies. There are undoubtedly MILLIONS who completely support those policies, but I can't. My Earth Science background, and 55-year exposure to 'the science' won't let me, nor will my equally long personal experience of Cold War threats and European politics - and that's before I even begin to factor in net zero's economic impact, most felt by people a lot worse off than we are.

For me, it's the loss of secure and resilient energy supply that dominates, not net zero. In 2024 the most immediately obvious threat to energy security could be expressed "Vladimir Putin is an existential threat to all of us, and his willingness to take advantage of our self-inflicted energy supply vulnerability is a serious risk in the near term rather than in 2050". Alarmist? In recent weeks the Royal Navy and allies have become focused on threats to pipelines, and the interconnectors we depend on increasingly are undoubtedly targets for sabotage.

So, at the strategic level of national energy policy, I am (and have been since the 1980s) simultaneously pro-solar, pro-wind and pro-nuclear. At the same time I'm still shocked by the strategic lunacy of unilaterally destroying our coal industry, and the Trent valley generating capacity that it supported.  I am bemused to see our national energy policy dominated by the dunkleflaute-ignoring belief we can ever have a 100% solar/wind energy mix that gives energy security, whilst failing to access our known onshore frackable gas. 

However, at the 'operational' level, I just don't think it makes a great deal of sense to base our support for, or against, local Solar Park plans on our advocacy of net zero or energy security. That decision has already been taken, national policy calls for 70GW of new solar generating capacity and, even though net zero scepticism is growing, the National Infrastructure Planning process is designed to make it happen. The tramlines set down by The Planning Inspectorate (TPI) process which, with the developers' EIA Scoping Report now accepted by the TPI, will limit what counts as 'relevant' to their ultimate assessment of the Elements Green application

My own mantra of  "'Not 100% for, Not 100% against, More 'OK, some of this but in a way that respects our needs'" is just a pragmatic (though conflicted) response to how I see that process shaping up. My focus remains unashamedly on us achieving consensus-led outcomes that optimises community benefits by being very concerned to understand (and game) those aspects of the situation that 'the process' requires that we are consulted on.

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