Good News
Where does UK energy come from?
Posted on: 02/04/18
We don’t often think about where our energy comes from when we turn on the light.
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You might be surprised to hear that almost 60% of the UK’s energy comes from abroad. We import coal from Russia, gas from Norway and uranium from Kazakhstan.
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This fuel travels an average distance of over 2,500 miles before it reaches us – the same as a road trip to eight European capital cities and back again!
In fact, the UK is the only one of Europe’s five biggest energy users to be increasing its reliance on imported energy.
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Our dependence on imported fuels is now at a level not seen since the 1970s.
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But things are beginning to change, thanks to a quiet revolution that’s happening right now.
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Renewables have become the second biggest source of electricity in the UK, providing a quarter of our power needs.
Clean energy is picking up the slack where fossil fuels are being phased out.
Half of the energy generated from ‘home-grown’ fuels (including fossil fuels like coal and gas) now comes from renewable sources. That’s up from less than a third in 2013.
The UK is a true global leader in tackling climate change. We’ve got world-beating carbon targets and thanks to cleaner, greener energy sources we’ve made a good start towards reducing our emissions by 80% by 2050.