<story><title>Wind is main source of UK electricity for first time</title><url>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65557469</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wepple</author><text>This is a bit buried but important:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; And electricity only accounts for 18% of the UK&amp;#x27;s total power needs. There are many demands for energy which electricity is not meeting, such as heating our homes, manufacturing and transport.
Currently the majority of UK homes use gas for their heating&lt;p&gt;Perhaps we should start talking about what % of “energy” comes from renewables? Probably far more difficult to calculate and we’ll never hit 100% I guess?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ZeroGravitas</author><text>One complication is that burning fuel is so much less efficient than electrical usage If you ignore that, then it radically changes the impression you get from these stats.&lt;p&gt;The technical terms are &amp;quot;primary energy&amp;quot; (the amount of energy you put in as fuel) and &amp;quot;final energy&amp;quot; the actual useful stuff you want done.&lt;p&gt;Cars moving to EV will reduce the need for &amp;quot;primary energy&amp;quot; by about 4x if the useful final energy remains flat. Similar for heat pumps for home heating.</text></comment>
<story><title>Wind is main source of UK electricity for first time</title><url>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65557469</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wepple</author><text>This is a bit buried but important:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; And electricity only accounts for 18% of the UK&amp;#x27;s total power needs. There are many demands for energy which electricity is not meeting, such as heating our homes, manufacturing and transport.
Currently the majority of UK homes use gas for their heating&lt;p&gt;Perhaps we should start talking about what % of “energy” comes from renewables? Probably far more difficult to calculate and we’ll never hit 100% I guess?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>detritus</author><text>Quite. I&amp;#x27;ve tired of pointing out to overly-optimistic responses on the internet about how well countries are doing in this regard, when if you look at the overall energy usage pie-chart, there&amp;#x27;s a big chunk covering industry and transportation that&amp;#x27;s a looong way off yet from being covered by renewables.&lt;p&gt;Not that I wish to be pessimistic, rather realistic.</text></comment>