**The UK Doesn’t Need to “Slow Down”.It Needs to Wake Up.**

Britain is being told that the energy transition is failing because we are “stuck in fossil time” — that fossil fuels made life too fast and too convenient, and now Net Zero simply needs more patience. This is nonsense. The transition isn’t delayed because people expect speed; it’s delayed because the strategy is technically impossible.¹

[1] National Grid ESO, Beyond 2030 – System Transformation Requirements (2024).

The idea that society must “slow down” is a distraction from the real problem: the renewable-first model collapses the moment it meets engineering reality. Britain’s grid was never built for thousands of intermittent generators, yet politicians continue to pretend it can be bent into shape by ambition alone.²

[2] National Grid Electricity Transmission, System Criticality Review (2025).

The failures we face are not cultural but structural. Transmission corridors are full. Super Grid Transformers are delayed into the 2030s. Substations in Yorkshire, the Midlands and the North East are in critical overload. These are not philosophical problems — they are the predictable consequences of ignoring the physics of electricity.³

[3] Northern Powergrid, January 2025 Appendix G Network Statements.

The defence of North Sea “tieback” licences as evidence of fossil dependence is equally absurd. Tiebacks exist because without them the UK would face blackouts, industrial collapse and even higher energy bills. Renewables cannot meet winter demand, and storage cannot bridge the gap. This is not addiction; it is survival.⁴

[4] North Sea Transition Authority, UK Oil and Gas Production Outlook (2025).

Carbon capture retrofits are portrayed as heroic milestones, yet they remain some of the most expensive illusions of Net Zero. Cement plants still require vast fossil heat. CCUS captures only a portion of emissions. It adds billions to costs and does nothing to fix the underlying dependency. Calling this “progress” is an insult to engineering.⁵

[5] DESNZ, Industrial Carbon Capture Business Models Update (2025).

We are told the grid queue is overwhelmed because the public expects “speed”. No. The queue is overwhelmed because policymakers allowed speculative renewables to clog the system for a decade without enforcing readiness, while the physical grid remained static. This is not impatience — it is incompetence.⁶

[6] NGESO, Connection Reform Consultation Response (2024).

The narrative that “we must slow down” is the most dangerous lie in modern climate politics. It converts failure into virtue. The more Net Zero misses its targets, the more its architects insist that delays are natural and expected. This is not humility — it is a refusal to admit the model cannot work.⁷

[7] Climate Change Committee, Progress Report to Parliament (2019–2024).

No country in history has ever powered itself reliably on weather-dependent energy. The UK will not be the first. You cannot electrify heat, transport and industry without tripling grid capacity. You cannot replace gas with batteries that store hours, not seasons. You cannot build the required transmission lines in the time politicians claim. These are not opinions. They are physical limits.⁸

[8] Imperial College London Energy Futures Lab, Great Britain Energy Review (2024).

Britain’s problem is not a mismatch of expectations. It is a mismatch between what the political class promises and what the physical world can deliver. Targets were written backwards from ideology, not forwards from engineering. That is why the system is failing. It could never have succeeded.⁹

[9] UK Energy Research Centre, Technical Feasibility of Rapid Decarbonisation (2023).

What Britain needs is not slowness but honesty. A grid-first rebuild. Nuclear and gas as the backbone of national resilience. Domestic SMRs. Realistic timelines. Local rooftop solar film instead of industrial solar farms that destroy farmland and overload substations. And an end to the CCC’s quasi-legislative grip over national policy.¹⁰

[10] UK Energy Security Group, Strategic Energy Authority Proposal (2024).

The UK doesn’t need to slow down. It needs to stop lying to itself. It needs to stop pretending that physics can be negotiated or bypassed. It needs to stop taking comfort in excuses and start dealing with the reality that Net Zero, as designed, is structurally unworkable.¹¹

[11] National Infrastructure Commission, Electricity Networks Assessment (2024).

The truth is simple: the transition is failing not because the public expects too much — but because policymakers promised what they knew the system could never deliver. Britain must wake up, before the consequences become irreversible.

12] House of Lords Industry and Regulators

Shane Oxer Campaigner for fairer and affordable energy