Engineering news
David Cameron stressed today that renewable energy sources must be made “financially sustainable” if they are to meet the world's energy needs.
Addressing a meeting of international energy ministers in London, the Prime Minister underlined Britain's commitment to promoting clean energy.
"We don't just need greener energy, we need cheaper energy," he said, warning families were struggling with bills in the face of higher gas prices.
However, he also emphasis the importance of ensuring renewables such as wind, wave and solar power are financially viable.
“With global demand forecast to increase by more than 40% in the next two decades, we urgently need a more diverse, cleaner mix of energy sources that will give us energy security without causing irreparable damage to the planet,” he said.
“Britain has gone from virtually no capacity for renewables, to seeing them provide almost 10% of our total electricity needs last year. And we've added more capacity for renewables in the last two years than at any time in the last decade.
“Our commitment and investment in renewable energy has helped to make renewable energy possible. Now we have a different challenge: we need to make it financially sustainable.
Today companies also announced £350 million of new investment in UK renewables, representing 800 jobs, including a £300 million biomass project by Helius Energy at the Port of Bristol.
Environmentalists and the renewables industry want the Prime Minister to throw his weight behind clean energy after moves by the Chancellor George Osborne to champion new gas plants and give tax breaks to offshore fossil fuel extraction.
Shortly after Mr Cameron came to power, he pledged to lead the “greenest government ever”. But he has not made a major environmental speech in the past two years, while the Treasury has been accused of “anti-green rhetoric”.
This week the International Energy Agency warned that governments were failing to deploy available clean energy technologies quickly enough to avert “disastrous” climate change of up to 6C by the end of the century.
A series of polls have shown that the majority of the public backs moves to drive forward renewables such as wind, wave and solar power and to reduce the UK's dependence on expensive, imported fossil fuels, particularly gas.
And a report from the Renewable Energy Association in the UK released before the meeting showed that growth in clean energy was around 11% between 2009 and 2010, compared with 1.4% for the economy as a whole.