This just won’t work

….said Great British Energy would be headquartered in Scotland and invest in community wind and solar projects, as well as new technologies such as floating offshore wind, hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage. The company is the flagship of …..’s green energy pledge to roll out 100 per cent renewable electricity by 2030.

Simply not something that will work whichever party it comes from in this electoral period. We have 5.5 years until 2030. That’s all. We also have a planning system which takes years to approve of anything. Therefore we are not going to have a new, or revamped, electricity system in 5.5 years. It’s simply not going to happen.

That’s before we get to all the thoughts about new technologies. We’d certainly not be able to get new nuclear by 2030, offshore wind let alone floating won’t build out fast enough and so on.

This isn’t to just parp at an electoral claim, nor is it to say that a renewables driven system is a bad idea (it might be but that’s for another day). It’s to insist that the British planning system means that radical changes like this simply are not possible. Further, if we do want to have radical changes - we think sorting out the housing problem would be a damn good idea for example - then it’s that planning system that has to be sorted out.

Root causes really are root causes. The reason we can’t get anything done in Britain is because the law makes it incredibly hard to get anything done in Britain. Therefore if we wish to return to being a society where things can be done we’ve got to change the law about doing things.

Abolish the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors, proper abolish and blow up - kablooie.

Only then will we be able to save the planet or, even, have something better than hovels to live in.