I have posted on my facebook page about the subject of switching to renewables and costs invloved and just want to give more of an explanation. The reason electricity bills went up dramatically is because with the solar farms and windfarms there are massive ‘up-front’ costs which are being spent with no guarantee that they will work. Solar Farms do not work at night and in Italy they get up to 10x more sunlight, so it is worth it there.
Remember as well that it will be generations away before we would reap any benefit by which time technology will have moved on. At least with the burning of fuel you are guaranteed power when you want it and this brings me on the another point. I have no problem with EVs etc except we keep getting told we will run out of oil etc soon. The reality is we have 600 years worth of oil at current rates of consumption—I repeat —600 years. This was highlighted recently when there was the issue in Venezuala which actully has the most oil reserves of the lot!
Lets wait until we know more about batteries etc because current EVs weigh twice as much as a normal car.
We have a drainage board, which is a public service provider that has to use electricity ‘on demand’, that pays a fortune in standing charges—simply because it has to be available to operate at any time. One board has had enough and runs all its pumping stations on diesel generators now. It is cheaper to buy the generators and burn diesel, than be connected to the mains. What a mess.