WE’VE been here before. Looking at the current energy crisis I can’t help observing what has changed and what has not since the last time we faced large and rapid energy price rises.

In 1971, 3 gallons of petrol cost about £1. Ten years later, after wars and revolution in the Middle East, a gallon of petrol cost about £2 – a sixfold increase.

Apart from brilliant music and Scotland almost winning the football World Cup twice there was nothing good to say about the 1970s. A miserable decade of declining real living standards and incompetent government.

Petrol now is approaching £8 a gallon but general prices have risen broadly as much over the last 40 years. We have a major problem now because of the speed at which prices have risen but in fact we have enjoyed relatively cheap energy for many years. The key point is that we have been here before and we need to learn from what we did and didn’t do last time.

One of the key differences between the 1970s and now is that people expect the Government to “Do Something” for them personally, now.

This change in expectations has been accelerated by the response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Something bad happens and people want the authorities to step in to directly soften the blow.

Up to a point this is progress. Protecting economically vulnerable citizens from sudden economic shocks which force them to make choices between warmth and other basic needs for their families is surely a good thing. Extending the help to the point where people expect assistance with the basics of life whilst still going to the Costa del Sol for a fortnight is more difficult to justify. Help must be targeted to where it is really needed and it needs to be sufficiently large to make a real difference. The package announced by the UK Government last week is actually a pretty good effort.

The other marked difference between the 1970s and now is the Green agenda. When I was at school it meant eating your broccoli, now it means ensuring our planet can sustain future generations of our species.

What we thought was the smart thing to do at the 1970s – reduce reliance on OPEC by diversifying where our fossil fuels came from is, except in the very short-term, no longer smart.

What is required now is a massive increase in the search for economically viable alternatives to fossil fuels. In the very long run nuclear fusion is the holy grail, but we need also to look at novel nuclear fission technologies such as Molten Salt Thorium reactors. With the degree of urgency which we applied to the search for a Covid-19 vaccination we could make rapid progress towards new forms of safer nuclear power – but rapid still means decades before they could contribute meaningfully.

We need quickly to do three things.

First, we need to accept that current technology nuclear power has a role to play. The UK Government has a plan to build more nuclear plants but the Scottish Government is dragging its feet – it needs to grow up and accept that in order to keep the lights on at an affordable cost nuclear power is part of the solution. A swift “wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee” moment is required.

Second, we need to double down on the drive into renewables as well as – and this is the key – dealing with their intermittency problem. Wind and solar power is utterly useless on a still winter’s night.

We need to get imaginative. For example, harnessing the tidal flows which are moving somewhere round the coast of Britain every minute of every day or building a power line to Iceland to tap into their plentiful geothermal power.

We need to use excess renewable power generated at times when it is windy or sunny to produce green hydrogen which can then be fed into the energy system when required. We need to avoid the con of blue hydrogen – made from natural gas – which is being pushed as an environmentally sound alternative which it is not.

Third, we need to improve the energy efficiency of our homes, our industries and our transport. We are doing this but we need to go further and above all faster.

We must accept that this programme will be expensive. Fossil fuels are used because they are cheap to the user with the environment and our grandchildren picking up the tab. Green energy works the other way around, in the long run vital but in the short-term costly in terms of our bills. We need to shield those who cannot afford the transition which must be made to sustainable, secure and stable energy – and get on with it.