A Labour government would not only lift the de facto ban on onshore wind farms in England but also force councils to “proactively identify” areas suitable for renewable generation, leader Sir Keir Starmer has announced.
Asked what would happen if a community did not want new onshore wind or solar power plants, Starmer told the BBC on Monday: “We have to have a mechanism where we can move forward.
“Otherwise you get to a situation where everybody says ‘there ought to be more renewables . . . but I just don’t want it near me’. We have to have a situation where we can resolve that.”
The Labour leader is in Edinburgh on Monday to announce a package of green policies that his party would adopt if it wins the general election, which is expected next year.
Labour had previously intended to borrow £28bn a year to spend on the transition to a net zero emissions economy but earlier this month said the figure would not be reached until halfway through the next five-year parliament.
Starmer has also announced that a proposed state-owned energy company called Great British Energy will be based in Scotland under a Labour government.
The party leader will on Monday emphasise how renewable energy projects could produce revenue that local authorities could use to cut council tax or invest in improving public services.
He has promised to use the net zero strategy to deliver investment “in the UK’s industrial heartlands”, in line with similar debt-fuelled green plans from US president Joe Biden.
“The whole world knows that the future of power is bound up with renewables,” he told the Radio 4 Today programme. “Look at what’s happening in America with the Inflation Reduction Act — it’s like a magnet for business and for investment. We can’t sit this out.”
Labour has committed to a target of Britain producing all of its electricity from low-carbon sources — such as nuclear, solar and wind — by 2030, an ambition seen as over-optimistic by many senior industry figures.
“That [target] will put us ahead of the world in developed economies, that is a massive plan,” he said. “Nobody in the sector is saying it’s not ambitious enough, if anything they are saying ‘it’s just about doable Keir but we’d have to work hard . . . and you’re going to have to take some tough decisions in relation to planning and the grid.”
The Labour leadership has faced a backlash from the oil industry and some trade unions for its pledge, first announced in November 2022, to stop granting new licences for the development of North Sea oil and gasfields.
However, under the policy Labour would not cancel existing licences in place at the time of the election. “Oil and gas will be part of the mix for decades to come under existing licences or licences that are granted in the near future,” Starmer said.
Equinor, the Norwegian state-owned energy company, is expecting approval for its Rosebank oilfield within weeks.
David Whitehouse, chief executive of Offshore Energies, a body representing the UK offshore energies industry, told the BBC that the Labour plan would “create a cliff edge” for businesses, given that 180 of the North Sea’s active 283 fields are due to close by 2030.
But Philip Evans, a campaigner for Greenpeace, said the idea that ending new licences would “lead to an overnight shutdown of the industry” was merely a “scare story”.
I think if local people could benefit from the cheap power the wind turbines generate there’d be far less opposition. Either give locals a discount on their bills, or give them a small shareholding in the company that sells the power to the grid. You’d have people begging for wind farms!
I’d be for it.
But until you’ve seen it, it’s hard to believe how vehemently opposed to wind turbines some people are.
You could tell them the world will actually be engulfed in flames 2 weeks from now if they don’t allow a single wind turbine in a field, several miles from their house, completely out of view, and they would still bombard the council with complaints.
The only retort they have is that they are ugly, which I completely disagree with as well. I find them quite appealing. But compared to a coal power plant gushing smog into the atmosphere…
My issue with wind has nothing to do with what they look like and everything to do with the fact that wind energy is just gas with extra steps. If you build a wind farm you still need a way to generate electricity when the wind isn’t blowing because wind is non-dispatchable and has shit capacity factor. The only realistic option for dispatchable backup supply for wind is gas, which is why the oil and gas companies are so keen to push wind over things like nuclear.
You’ve actually been mislead - it’s 100% possible and feasible for a 100% renewable energy supply - a mix of hydro, wind, solar and wave power with energy storage methods (such as pumped storage or molten salt) makes it entirely possible with today’s technology.
Nuclear power is comparatively expensive and also, with our current technology, it is also limited. There is no benefits that nuclear power holds over renewables.
Ah yes, the nebulous “energy storage methods” makes it’s appearance. Pumped hydro is great, but we aren’t exactly flush with vast areas of waste land we can flood.
It’s all possible in theory but in reality it’s not if we opt for a nuclear-based grid it’s when. You cite the cost of nuclear, but ignore the cost of storage when evaluating renewables and also I suspect fail to appreciate that more than half the cost of UK nuclear is in the financing costs and interest payments. Hinkley C would have been literally half the price if it’d been funded by government borrowing, and wind is more than double it’s stated cost once you account for the need for dispatchable backup or storage.
Ultimately renewables like wind and solar have nothing to add to a nuclear-based grid because they’re non-dispatchable. The only ones which may have some value are hydro and tidal, both of which I fully support. Nuclear is also not limited in any practical sense for a country like the UK. Is it a solution for the whole world? No. Is it the solution for a small geologically stable nuclear-armed island nation in the 48-49th parallel? Absolutely.
Look, I’m just trying to help you get informed, if you want to stay ignorant, that’s your business. I’m not going to argue with you, but I’ll give you this link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy
And this quote:
Whether you want to continue supporting nuclear for no good reason or join me in the 21st century is up to you.
The energy prices is different and separate problem, almost entirely caused by the privatisation of power production and distribution by Thatcher’s conservative government in the 80s. We could solve that problem by re-nationalising them.