Committee on Climate Change

There has been a debate going on in the blogosphere lately over the relative cost of nuclear and renewables, citing analysis we produced for Government in our Renewable Energy Review.

On entering office, Secretary of State Chris Huhne asked our Committee to conduct a Review into Renewable Energy to provide advice on whether the renewables target for 2020 should be raised; and on the potential for renewable energy development beyond 2020 to 2030. The need for a portfolio approach In May 2011, we published the review, the headline recommendation of which was that renewable energy could make a major contribution to decarbonising the UK economy, providing between 30-45% of our energy by 2030, compared to around 3% today.

In this blog post, Alice Barrs, a lead economist on the review, delves into some of the finer detail of our work, to explain what we actually said, and more importantly, why…………