• UK Prime Minister sets out goal of powering all homes with wind by 2030, as well as supporting CCS

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      Patrick Lavery

      Combustion Industry News Editor


UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told a virtual conference of the Conservative Party that within a decade, all the kingdom’s homes will be powered by wind energy, leading the UK to be the world-leader in the technology. Mr Johnson said that the target was to have installed 40 GW capacity (up from the previous 30 GW target) by 2030, with wind supplying electricity for “your kettle, your washing machine, your cooker, your heating, your plug-in electric vehicle – the whole lot of them will get their juice cleanly and without guilt from the breezes that blow around these islands.” In an interesting emotional pull for perhaps sceptical Conservatives, Mr Johnson went on to say that ““I remember how some people used to sneer at wind power 20 years ago and say that it wouldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding. It was offshore wind that puffed the sails of Drake and Raleigh and Nelson, and propelled this country to commercial greatness.” The announcement is a striking one, but it is not clear how the UK will manage periods of still winds – more might be revealed as the government sets out the rest of its Build Back Greener plan later in the year. (The FT reports that hydrogen and carbon capture and storage will also form part of the Build Back Greener drive, with Mr Johnson having told UN climate talks two weeks ago that “We want to lead on carbon capture and storage, a technology I barely believed was possible, but I am now a complete evangelist for.”) Manufacture of the turbines is expected to take place chiefly in the UK, with the government pointing to the number of jobs the push is expected to generate – 2,000 construction jobs and up to 60,000 associated roles in ports, factories and supply chains.