Clean Energy Isn’t Clean if it Doesn’t Protect The Environment It Delivers For

This week Underpin attended the Liberal Democrat conference as an observer. As a passionate communicator on the environment, we were pleased to hear on the future of parliament's involvement in solving the climate crisis.

Since coming to power, the new Labour government has relied heavily on harnessing expertise to solve the issues facing the UK, from James Timpson to help with prisons, to Patrick Vallance as Science Minister. One such appointment is a new “clean energy Tsar” in the form of Climate Expert Chris Stark.

Chris Stark has been appointed to lead the UK’s "mission control centre" on clean energy, a task force aimed at delivering clean and cheaper power by 2030. The aim of the centre is to work with energy companies and regulators and focus on the transition to clean power. Stark is the former head of the UK’s Climate Change Committee, and his expertise and leadership in climate policy is widely respected.

Is Clean Energy ‘Clean’ If It Unnecessarily Damages The Environment?

Clean energy should not solely focus on the reduction of carbon emissions. To be truly clean it also must prioritise protecting local ecosystems and the environment as a whole.

A pressing example of this is at Hinkley Point C, a nuclear power plant under construction in Somerset. The builders, EDF, have been working to remove a necessary environmental protection, the Acoustic Fish Deterrent (AFD), for nearly eight years. The Acoustic Fish Deterrent (AFD) is part of the environmental protections package that was included to ensure the nuclear power plant’s environmental impact was minimised. Removing the AFD would cause the death of approximately 182 million fish annually, including sensitive species like shad, sprat, and herring, according to a Welsh Government Commission.

As well as being the right thing to do, an AFD at Hinkley Point C is the best thing to do, being tested both in the real world, and by The Welsh Government, a UK Government Public Inquiry, and the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, who have mandated the necessity of the AFD. Alternative ideas, such as replacing the AFD with a nature reserve, have received widespread criticism as unworkable.

If clean energy is truly to be clean, we must hold projects like Hinkley Point C to the highest environmental standards, which include installing an AFD that is essential and already part of the plant’s design.