> One difference with renewables and traditional fuel sources is that once renewable infrastructure is built you don’t need to continually import from another country.
This is exactly what I'm arguing against. The UK only has two real sources of renewable energy, solar and wind. The articles I linked showed that there were periods where we could barely get the energy we needed - and that included the imports from the EU. There is no real answer currently to storing that energy.
The UK historically had a strategic decentralised reserve of gas which were decommissioned (although articles do not show it). A prior government foolishly turned us into a "on-demand economy" for energy, and we had zero buffer to global prices. Fuels such as gas, diesel, petrol, coal, etc, can be stored for long periods and are very energy dense.
> Maintenance is definitely an issue and on going expansion and upgrades as well. I do think long term renewables wouldn’t have the same issues as oil dependency on another country though.
Solar panels have a lifetime, the entire fleet will need to be rotated within 10-20 years, but they are currently being purchased directly with tax payer money. The UK has not yet demonstrated that it can incorporate all of these costs at a similar or lower rate. These panels are not manufactured locally, and we are reliant on external countries to produce them. Wind turbines are a similar story.
This is exactly what I'm arguing against. The UK only has two real sources of renewable energy, solar and wind. The articles I linked showed that there were periods where we could barely get the energy we needed - and that included the imports from the EU. There is no real answer currently to storing that energy.
The UK historically had a strategic decentralised reserve of gas which were decommissioned (although articles do not show it). A prior government foolishly turned us into a "on-demand economy" for energy, and we had zero buffer to global prices. Fuels such as gas, diesel, petrol, coal, etc, can be stored for long periods and are very energy dense.
> Maintenance is definitely an issue and on going expansion and upgrades as well. I do think long term renewables wouldn’t have the same issues as oil dependency on another country though.
Solar panels have a lifetime, the entire fleet will need to be rotated within 10-20 years, but they are currently being purchased directly with tax payer money. The UK has not yet demonstrated that it can incorporate all of these costs at a similar or lower rate. These panels are not manufactured locally, and we are reliant on external countries to produce them. Wind turbines are a similar story.