New forms of energy are great. I would love to see the day when electric cars run as powerfully and cheaply as petrol-powered ones. But that is very different from jacking up prices to consumers by imposing ridiculous targets for renewables, especially given the growing uncertainty surrounding mainstream climate change predictions. The only answer is to scrap the renewable targets and to find other, more efficient ways of meeting Britain’s energy needs. That will probably mean better gas-powered plants; it might even mean more nuclear. It certainly shouldn’t mean building thousands of expensive wind farms regardless of cost at a time when firms and families across the country are facing years of austerity.
