Johnson says UK energy production to go 100% green by 2035

London (AFP) - Britain will aim to shift all of its energy production to renewable sources by the middle of the next decade, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday.

"Looking at what we can do with other renewable sources, carbon capture and storage, with hydrogen, potentially we think we can get to complete clean energy production by 2035," the UK leader told broadcasters.

The aspiration comes as he prepares to host world leaders next month at a crucial UN climate summit when they will be under unprecedented pressure to decarbonise economies and chart humanity's path away from catastrophic global warming.

Johnson's comments also coincide with rising wholesale gas prices globally, which in Britain have contributed to rocketing bills for consumers and fears of a cost-of-living crisis this winter.

That average national annual total conceals very wide disparities - seasonal, local and temporal - in the temperate maritime climate of the British Isles, which is constantly variable. Here in the rural South West of England, for instance, we had 300 hours of sunshine in a month last May: and in the last few years there's been an unusual pattern of sustained periods of anticyclonic dry continental air. Other years and other seasons may be very different: but it's certainly not 'perennially overcast'.

All this means that although it would obviously absurd to rely on solar as the primary, let alone sole energy source, it can nevertheless make a very useful contribution to a diverse energy budget. In the UK solar and wind are actually quite complementary: when one is working, the other isn't. Even the modest rooftop array on my own house does a good job, even in overcast conditions: but since my house gets its energy from seven different sources (on-grid gas, nuclear, wind; off-grid solar, oil, coal, gas, wood) the variability doesn't worry me.

The big missed opportunity in the UK, as far as renewables are concerned, has been the failure to develop and exploit reliable and predictable tidal power, since the coast of the British Isles has some of the world's biggest tidal ranges.

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