True cost of fossil fuels

SIR – Nick Timothy (Comment, September 14) is right to urge price transparency in the energy market.

However, it would be a mistake to reduce Britain’s carbon price significantly. If the true cost of renewable energy should include the costs of intermittency, then the cost of electricity generated from fossil fuels should include the social and environmental costs of their carbon emissions.

It would also be wrong to postpone serious emission reduction until nearer 2050. The Climate Change Act mandates the Government’s independent advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, to analyse the best economic evidence available and to recommend the cheapest path towards our 2050 target. The pace and depth of emissions cuts should continue to be based on their advice. Sam Hall

Senior Research Fellow, Bright Blue London SE1

SIR – Why are we having a seemingly endless discussion on the merits of wind power versus solar versus nuclear when there is a tidal lagoon waiting to be built in Swansea? Julie Wellard

Llanelli, Carmarthenshire