Could Britain soon be facing blackouts? Over the past few years, EU rules have led to the closure of many coal-fired power stations. But after much prevarication by politicians, the generating capacity to replace these stations will not be available immediately. For the second half of this decade, the gap between peak demand and total power-station capacity will be close to zero. While much discussion focuses on increasing energy efficiency, the need to increase the absolute amount of energy available is still an urgent priority. 

While the situation will probably be managed with relatively little risk of serious harm, it does highlight both the technical challenges of ambitious planning for Britain’s energy future and the political ambivalence to such development. An enormous investment will be required in new power stations. By 2020, the UK is committed to generating 15 per cent of final energy demand from renewable sources. In effect, that means producing 30 per cent of electricity from renewables, mostly wind. By 2050, the UK must reduce total greenhouse-gas emissions by 80 per cent. Much of the delay in building a new energy infrastructure has come from competing pressures on each kind of technology. With the anticipated doubling of global demand for energy by 2050, when the world’s population is expected to reach nine billion, it is increasingly clear that innovative solutions will be required in order to maintain even current standards of living, let alone meet the needs of the rapidly industrialising developing world.  Yet we seem ambivalent about so many options that could solve the problem. 

There remains much nervousness about nuclear power, especially after the problems at Fukushima in 2011. Onshore windfarms generate as much opposition as electricity, it seems, while offshore windfarms are still extremely expensive, and both produce power intermittently. We are warned that biofuels push up food prices, that big dams displace the poor, and that subsidy-free and reliable wind and solar seem too far off to make a difference now. Meanwhile, shale gas - often touted as a low-cost, lower-carbon, ‘bridging’ energy source - has already attracted noisy opposition even from test drilling; environmentalists and nimbys have united to ensure ‘fracking’ is seen as highly contentious rather than a ‘no-brainer’ technical solution. All of this against the background of mounting anger at rising fuel bills and worries about relying on gas from unreliable regimes such as Russia.

Is it a positive development that a practical question such as energy production has become such a public hot potato? Are barriers to generating more sources of energy political, technical or environmental? If increased energy can be is secured, will it boost human prosperity by helping fuel economic growth, or will it simply accelerate the destruction of the planet? Can we make a positive case for increased energy production against a backdrop of disquiet about effects on the environment and ambivalence about economic growth per se?  How much power should we produce, where should it come from and what methods should be used to produce it? How can we satisfy competing demands, contested priorities and keep the lights on? 

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