Mersch, MatthiasMatthiasMerschCaton, PatrickPatrickCatonMarkides, Christos NChristos NMarkidesMac Dowell, NiallNiallMac Dowell2024-10-282024-10-282024-10-25Cell Reports Sustainability, 2024, 1 (10)2949-7906http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/115401The current geopolitical climate has led to a renewed emphasis on energy security. Although many nations target net-zero carbon emissions by mid-century, questions as to whether this remains possible while maintaining security and affordability of energy supply have shifted more into focus. The aim of this study is to provide insights into the cost-benefit trade-offs between energy supply security and sustainability in the UK transition to net zero. A key observation is that, in our default net-zero scenario, 50% of the maximum possible resource import diversity can be achieved with a near-negligible increase in total system costs of 3%. Reaching the maximum diversity has a more substantial cost impact, with an increase of 9%. These results suggest that net-zero transitions in the UK are not in tension with energy security and affordability imperatives but that appropriate energy policy is required, as the cost-optimal solution shows poor resource import diversity.© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Journal Articlehttps://www.dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crsus.2024.100236http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crsus.2024.100236