‘Britain will need gas to avoid blackouts for decades’

By Paul Homewood

Thank heaven there’s a grown up in the room!

The man running Britain’s gas network has said the country will need fossil fuels to prevent blackouts for decades to come despite calls for the Government to begin shutting off the pipes.

Jon Butterworth, chief executive of National Gas, said a growing reliance on intermittent power sources such as wind and solar meant Britain would be increasingly reliant on gas to make up for shortfalls when renewable energy sources are not generating power.

Mr Butterworth said: “In 2022, the wind didn’t blow enough or at all for 262 days. And in those 262 days, we would have had rolling blackouts, or a full blackout across the UK if it wasn’t for gas.”

He believes Britain will still need gas to keep the lights on as far out as 2040.

“I actually think we’ll be moving more gas but we’ll be moving gas to power stations to make electricity rather than to homes.”

His conviction comes despite calls for the Government to begin shutting down the gas network as part of the shift to net zero.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/10/22/national-gas-jon-butterworth-britain-fossil-fuels-blackouts/

Even his target date of 2040 assumes that there is a full blown hydrogen network by then, as well as Carbon Capture, both extremely optimistic.

It is worth pointing out that Jon Butterworth is an energy industry veteran, so he knows much more about energy production than the bunch of eco-cranks who run our energy policy from their ivory towers: