What would our grandparents think of our failure to build green energy infrastructure? - Yorkshire Post Letters

My grandparents' generation will think we’re getting soft. Exhausted by the second world war and almost bankrupt, that generation invested in ambitious energy infrastructure projects.

The work on a new electricity grid in 1950 was delivered for the benefit of their offspring, my parents, who made good use of it for the benefit of the country.

Are we so soft that we can’t do the same thing now, because the need is just as real? Don’t we want a grid able to avoid the waste that will increasingly occur as we build out the essential clean energy infrastructure?

Our average disposable income is much higher than when my grandparents were making this investment. China’s GDP per head is half ours, but they’re busy building a grid fit for the future.

The North Sea is running out of gas. With AI datacentres growing, the demand for gas in the USA and elsewhere will grow, pushing the price up again.

I feel that my generation took the gift of the grid investment for granted. Surely we need to be prepared to dig deep, as my grandparents' generation did and invest in a cleaner, better future for our grandchildren.

This isn’t easy and we need to accept change, but it’s clearly necessary and those who are telling you otherwise are selling our children's futures for short-term political gain.