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Choose gas over wind for low carbon economy

Gas is better than wind for the low carbon economy, and the government should consider building more gas fired power plants than offshore wind farms according to a leading think tank.

Policy Exchange have argued that the Government should scrap 4GW of its planned 13GW of offshore wind by 2020, as annual savings of between £700 - £900 million could me made by building cheaper gas generation.

This saving would then be passed onto customers and could be used to insulate thousand more homes. It would also double public funding for research and development in key low-carbon technologies.

The report has argued that: “To achieve maximum overall emissions reduction and low carbon innovation, the electricity market needs to be allowed to invest in gas as a transition fuel, subject to a long-term EU emissions cap.”

According to the report, Policy Exchange’s suggestion would leave enough money to “buy and retire sufficient carbon permits each year to reduce emissions by six times as much as the 4GW of offshore wind”.

Retiring gas-fired power plants early would also be a “far cheaper” interim solution than building offshore wind while costs remain high.

However, this idea has come under criticism from environmental groups. Jenny Banks, policy officer at WWF-UK, said: “It’s ridiculous to expect that a dash for gas at the expense of building renewable generation would somehow lead to bigger carbon cuts.

“This is based on a very idealistic view of the effectiveness of the EU emissions cap.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .