The invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago has exposed the insecurity of the UK's energy supply.

We've long relied on imported fossil fuels, all fossil fuels dictated by international prices.

We're now deep in a winter of discontent where people face a severe cost of living crisis,

not helped by rising energy bills.

So looking ahead, how can the UK secure its energy supply to prevent another precarious situation,

as we've seen this winter, from happening again?

I'm Cindy Yu, the Spectator's assistant editor.

I'm joined on this podcast by Laura Sand, OBE, former Tory MP,

and who also chaired the government's energy data task force,

which investigated how more data could transform our energy system.

James Murray is an environmental journalist who founded the website Business Green.

And Greg Jackson, founder and CEO of Octopus Energy Group, who are currently sponsoring this podcast.

So welcome everyone. Now, to start with James, I wondered if you can start by giving listeners an idea of Britain's energy mix and by extension just how secure

our supply is, because over the last year has definitely felt precarious, were the government

still not ruling out blackouts and so on? Yeah, so the first thing to say is it's just changed

massively over the last decade, and it's a bit of an underreported story. So back in 2010,

the UK was getting three quarters of its power from coal and natural gas. And a huge chunk of

that was actually from coal. You know, that was kind of almost 40% of the mix. And then by the end of

the decade, so a couple of years ago, you know, fossil fuels were around 40% of the mix. And you

were seeing closer to 60% coming

from nuclear and renewables, and a sort of huge and growing chunk from renewables. Last year,

gas was 38.5% coal was virtually non-existent, and the large chunk was coming from sort of 26 upwards

...