In his letter to the Craven Herald (October 12th) in response to the letter by Paul Morley welcoming Sunak's decision to scale back green pledges, Richard Sykes states that it is a choice between science and salesmanship. I quite agree.

Science tells me that between 16.00 hrs and 24.00 hrs on Sunday 16th October, the 1000s of wind turbines, built in our quest to go 'green' and which the green lobby constantly tells us we need more of, contributed a grand total of between 2.5% and 4% of our total electricity demand. Science also tells me that with the banning of fossil fuels to heat our homes and drive our cars, amongst other things, the UK will need to increase the amount of electricity we generate by 4 or 5 times the capacity now (with National Grid already struggling with demand over winter). Science tells me that if you increase the amount you generate by 400%, you will then have to spend £billions to upgrade the grid to carry all the extra energy - who will pay?

So where is all this additional energy going to come from? Science tells me that, at present, there is no large scale, cost effective and practical way of storing energy in the quantities required. We are constantly being told that green energy is cheap, really. To use an analogy, if you went to buy yourself a new car, which was considerably cheaper than the competition, you would probably feel quite pleased with yourself. However, if the salesman then told you that said new car was so unreliable and unpredictable that you had to buy yourself a second car as a backup, the figures would not look quite so rosy. That is the reality with wind and solar power, add to that the government's failed recent auction for a new round of wind farm licences, because the price on offer was not high enough to tempt anyone to bid, and you can see that it is not as cheap an option as its supporters like to make out.

So in reality, as of now, science tells me there are only two forms of green energy that is both reliable, predictable, practical and can generate at scale, nuclear and traditional power stations with carbon capture technology which is just about proven. Nuclear is opposed by the greens, whilst carbon capture is also sacrilegious because it uses fossil fuels, even though it can potentially trap over 90% of the carbon emitted. So again, the question to be asked is, where all the electricity we will need going to come from? because, as Sunak recognised, the science is not remotely ready to allow us to replace all forms of fossil fuel use within the time frame specified.

Andrew Diggens

ELdroth