Ecotricity’s boss: “Animal agriculture needs to be reduced to make room for renewables”

Dale Vince has said solar and onshore wind could power the whole UK 20 times

The share of land being occupied by animal agriculture needs to be reduced to give space to the expansion of renewable energy projects.

That’s the suggestion from the boss of energy supplier Ecotricity who spoke during a session of the Environmental Audit Committee about the transition from fossil fuels and the country’s energy security.

Dale Vince has hailed solar farms and onshore wind as the most cost-effective renewable energy sources.

Mr Vince said: “Onshore solar, the field version, not the rooftop version is as equally fast and almost as cheap as onshore wind and has enormous capacity as well.

“So, both of those together could power our whole country 20 times over and to get to 100% electricity by using the wind and the sun we need 1% of our land area. Often people say we don’t have the room for it. We easily have the room.

“75% of our country today is used by farming and as our diets change to get to zero carbon we just need a small percentage reduction in animal agriculture to make room for renewable energy.”

A few weeks ago, Ecotricity announced it began construction of a green gas mill near Reading in Berkshire that will make gas from grass.

The Founder of the company has also described nuclear power as “the slowest, dirtiest and most expensive form of electricity we ever tried to make”.

He said: “It should have no part in our zero carbon planning. It can’t help us keep bills down. Fossil fuels can’t help us keep bills down either because this winter, 50% of the gas we used in our country came from our North Sea, but it did not save us a penny because we let global commodity price set the price for fossil fuels even when we make them here.

“So, it does not make sense to frack our way out of this problem or squeeze the last drops out of the North Sea because we will still pay the same, globally inflated prices.”

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