Last week, I reported on Jonathon Porritt’s visit to Sheffield and his comments about Defend Our Juries. This week, let’s see what he said about energy.
RENEWABLES
On Renewables, he proclaimed, “The massive reduction in the cost of renewables is proving to be something that even the fossil fuel industry can’t really do anything about because the costs keep coming down and the efficiencies keep going up and supply chains keep getting stronger and awareness builds in people’s minds.”
So many people have invested in solar for their homes in Australia that Prime Minister Albanese declared that electricity will now be free between 11 and 2 pm. This has led to a massive uptake in home batteries, so Australians can use their free electricity in the evening. This led to the leader of the opposition in Australia branding Albanese a Solar Communist!
“Here in England, we have a wretchedly low number of community energy schemes, which are by far the best way of providing more affordable low-carbon electricity in comparison to Scotland, where a much higher percentage of the population is served by community energy schemes. Why did it happen in Scotland? Just different politics.”
Sheffield Renewables do a great job, but they deserve much greater backing from the Council so that far more roofs can benefit from solar power. But there is good news from the Council. The Green Bonds scheme has already raised nearly a million pounds, which can now be invested in solar panels for school roofs.
In the UK, 2025 was a historic year for clean energy, with renewable approvals reaching a record-high 45 GW — nearly double that of 2024. There was an exceptional rise in battery storage capacity, which almost doubled to 28.6 GW, alongside strong growth in offshore wind and solar.
NUCLEAR
Jonathan was asked if nuclear power might not be such a bad thing. His reply was unequivocal.
“I am as opposed to nuclear power as I was when I joined the Green Party in 1974, and I was opposed to it then partly because of the links with nuclear weapons. When anybody tells me, “But we’ve got to do nuclear because we can’t just do it with renewables and efficiency and storage and different grids and community energy, that won’t be enough”, that is not true. We will be able to do this transition with that combination as long as we don’t waste billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money and opportunity costs going down umpteen nuclear rabbit holes.”
Attempts by campaigners to force a Judicial Review on the decision to build Sizewell C have unfortunately failed, so two huge new reactors at Sizewell C on the Suffolk coast will now be constructed. They will be next door to Sizewell B, which is still operating, and Sizewell A, which is being decommissioned.
Sizewell C will cost somewhere between £50 and £60 billion. In your energy bill, you will notice a new “contribution to nuclear future”. Households pay, and if you’re a business, you’ll be paying at least £100 a month extra to build Sizewell C. It will be 15 to 20 years before it generates a single kilowatt of electricity. If all goes to plan and it comes on stream in 2045, it will generate electricity for 60 years. The waste generated throughout the lifetime of that reactor will be stored by Sizewell C, through to 2160. The average projected sea level rise by 2160 is between two and three metres. Sizewell C is on one of the most rapidly eroding coastlines in the whole of Europe. Look up some recent photos of what happened at a place called Orford Ness, which is only three miles away from Sizewell C, with not a particularly bad storm, but some tough weather.
So on nuclear, Jonathon concluded, “This is just madness. Nuclear power is mostly just a massive diversion.” Unfortunately, our Regional Mayor is totally behind the increase in nuclear power, wanting South Yorkshire to be the home for American firm Holtec’s Small Modular Reactor factory.
GREEN HYDROGEN
Jonathan was asked about ITM, a Sheffield Company that makes electrolysers to produce Green Hydrogen.
Green hydrogen is produced by using renewable electricity to power an electrolyser, a device that splits water into its components, hydrogen and oxygen, without releasing carbon emissions, making it a clean fuel source. Electrolysis separates the water molecules, capturing the hydrogen gas for use in various industries or as a clean energy carrier.
Jonathan was very sceptical about green hydrogen.
It costs a lot of money to make. Something like 90% of the world’s hydrogen comes from basic gas-fired hydrogen plants. Two huge blue hydrogen plants have just been cancelled in America because of the cost. Green hydrogen could get cheaper, and it could be helpful to have green hydrogen in the mix for storage, but also for those industries that are really difficult to decarbonise, like steel and concrete.
He concluded, “The way the government bigs it up is highly dangerous. I don’t think it’ll ever be more than a small part player in global decarbonisation.”
I think Jonathon is right- we can transition away from fossil fuels by using renewables, efficiency, storage, modern grids and community energy. But we may need to reconsider power-hungry projects with questionable benefits, such as massive AI centres.
Graham Wroe
Here is Cllr Alexi Dimond talking about the success of the Green Bonds scheme.
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