10-point plan for a green revolution (points 1-5)

Last month the Government released its 10-point plan for a “green industrial revolution”, which it hopes will boost green investments, create 250,000 jobs and offer £12bn of government funding over the next 10 years.

The first five of these points are:

1.Offshore wind: The aim is to quadruple current outputs which would mean that it would power every home in the country. The plan does not say where the new farms will but another floating offshore windfarm will be built in “the windiest part of our seas”.

2.Hydrogen: Generating 5GW of low carbon hydrogen (made possible using carbon capture utilisation and storage) with this being used in homes and to heat the first town (as yet unnamed but, thought to be tens of thousands of homes, entirely with hydrogen.

3.Nuclear: Advancing nuclear as a clean energy source and developing small and advanced reactors. Although the location of these reactors is still to be confirmed, they will it is intended that they will play a key role in decarbonising our electricity systems.

4.Electric vehicles: Bringing forward the move to electric vehicles and accelerating the rollout of charging points. Key targets are rapid charge points on motorways and major roads and more on-street points to make re-charging as easy as refuelling, and we have already started to see this happen. Money will be spent over the next 4 years on the development and mass production of electric vehicle batteries which will include developing ‘gigafactories’ (very large factories).

5. Public transport: Investing in zero-emission buses and electric railway lines with routes expanded around regional cities to make public transport in the regions as good as that in London. Introducing new cycle lanes in towns and cities “worthy of Holland".

In my next blog I will discuss the remaining five points of this plan.