The Death Of Fossil Fuels

[bjn]

My standard rant about decoupling expensive foreign gas fired generation from the rest of the electricity market is starting to get mainstream attention.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ktank-says

[Lew Dolby]

Good, 'bout time.

Since moving to Shropshire, we've been all-electric. And, since we could afford the (poss) higher prices, we decided to buy from a sustainable-only supplier. They also use their profit/surplus to build more wind and solar. Really annoyed me that our tariffs went up and down with the international gas wholesale price. Grrr!!!

[IvanV]

...we decided to buy from a sustainable-only supplier. They also use their profit/surplus to build more wind and solar. Really annoyed me that our tariffs went up and down with the international gas wholesale price. Grrr!!!

A few years ago, my employer tried to source its energy from a proper sustainable supplier, rather than a greenwasher. Since we had recently done a project for the dept of energy, under whatever name it had at the time, on what the difference is, we felt particularly expert in detecting the difference. After surveying the options available to us, as a small office in a shared building, our conclusion was that there were only a couple of suppliers making a genuine attempt to be sustainable, the rest were all greenwashers to a greater or lesser degree. But at that particular time, at start of the Ukraine war, things were difficult for the sustainable suppliers, and they were not accepting any new customers, or at least not from the likes of us. Since we did not want to pay money for the usual greenwash, we gave up and bought our energy according to price.

I do feel annoyed that that is permitted for energy companies to make these greenwashing claims. The thought in government is to get people used to the idea of buying sustainable energy, and only later ensure it really is, at a time when the price premium for genuinely sustainable energy is not so large, and the contortions not so difficult. But that day keeps on being delayed, in part because our energy transition remains so far behind schedule. As usual, a powerful lobby exists to seek to maintain the status quo.