Brass Monkey Britain - part 1,863

You may have noticed there's a cold snap on, so here's my (occasional) audit of which energy source is providing power to British homes and businesses.

During the past five days, coal has contributed an average of 44% of the UK's energy, while wind (it never blows when you need it, but we have 2,800 turbines just in case!) supplied 0.98%. Who'd have thought it?

How wind power works

You may have noticed that the City experienced a light dusting of snow on Monday - which meant that we all cranked up the heating a notch or two.
So which energy sources provided most of the electricty to the National Grid that day? Here are the Grid's figures - which have fallen into my lap - showing exactly why wind power is a great oxymoron.

Gas: 30.4%
Coal: 48.6%
Nuclear: 16.4% and er,
Wind (it never blows when you need it): 0.3%