Energy shortfall

SIR – The UK’S wind and solar power capacity is rising all the time. However both are subject to the uncontrollable vagaries of the weather – as in the past few days, when their contribution to the grid was only a few gigawatts.

Unless we have large-scale electrical power storage capacity or smart energy management to smooth out peaks and troughs in supply and demand, we will need to build many more closed-cycle gas power stations and import the gas required to run them. This week the National Grid warned that industrial users might experience gas supply interruptions.

Few of our politicians have any grounding in science or engineering, and are spending all of their energy on Brexit. It will matter little whether we are in or out of Europe if we grind to a halt as an industrial nation because of electricity and gas shortages. Jos Binns

Camerton, Somerset