Those there blackouts….
There’s been lots in the news lately about potential UK-wide blackouts as our existing fossil-fuelled power generation begins to decline. This isn’t new news (!), as the energy industry has been warning the UK government for at least the last five years that our coal and nuclear power plants are being decommissioned, and there’s nothing to replace them with. So the press must be bored of swine flu and financial apocalypse.

Anyhow I was reading an article in the Telegraph about the issue which seemed to be having a little dig at green energy for the shortcomings. It also gets to the crux of the matter (later) but this is something I have heard people discuss and it’s time we dispelled it. The idea being that a new generation of green energy will not be ready in time, and due to peaks and troughs in production, will cause power cuts. Now, let’s have a think here…

The UK government has known for a long time that power stations will come to the end of their lives. It has also known for a long time that carbon emissions from conventional power stations are one of the greatest threats to the future of humanity.

Now, the UK has on its doorstep 40% of the wind resource in Europe, and according to the BWEA enough to power us 8 times over. Wavegen, the world’s leading wave power company, claims recoverable wave energy resource on the UK seas also exceeds total electricity demand. We have one of the largest tidal ranges in the world at the Severn Estuary with enough to power up to 7% of the country just from just one source.

With this abundance of harnessable renewable energy, the National Grid has stated that it’s wholly possible to run the UK almost entirely on renewables.

So to clear this up once and for all – renewable energy can power the UK. It is the dilly dallying energy policies fumbled through over the last year that have prevented this from happening.  Perhaps they will be a result of political indecisiveness; lack of direction; poor vision in planning; failure to adopt new technology etc etc -- you get the picture.  Most importantly however, there is still plenty that can be done. The capacity of renewable energy that can be built between now and 2015 just be loosening red tape is enormous. With concerted efforts, new renewables could go plenty of the way to filling the gap.

Well, if they do happen, at least the power cuts will go some way to hitting our 2020 emission reduction targets. That and the economy will collapse...

So why aren’t we doing enough?
As much fun as it is to point the blame at politicians, unfortunately it’s not all their fault. Mostly, but not all. It turns out that despite 85% of us Brits considering climate change to be an imminent threat, two thirds of us freely admit to “not doing enough” to change it. The Telegraph has a useful summary of the recent poll results here.

It raises an interesting question. Why are we failing to act? Is it a lack of knowledge on what to do? This is a funny one: you hear people uttering in the same breath that they are not informed about what actions they can take, alongside the fact that they have been over saturated and desensitised to climate news. An odd conundrum.

Is it fear of green measure costing too much? Well, almost all low carbon moves are also thrifty ones – moving to low energy bulbs will save you money, as will insulating your home, turning appliances off standby etc…

Perhaps we feel it is not our responsibility to act? That climate fighting should be government and industry led. But the fact that 2/3 of people think they are not doing enough acknowledges that they know they CAN do something. Hmmm….

The New Scientist try and shed some light on the issue here, but we need more solutions. How can we inspire people to act without boring them or coming ccross as preachy? Please comment on why you think this lethargy is preventing action, and what you think we can do about it.

Prescott throws weight behind wind, and at Nimbys
Former Deputy Prime Minister and famous eco warrior (ho ho) John Prescott has been attacking the “Not In My Back Yard-ers” stalling and even stopping wind farm developments. You get em John!

http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/prescott_nimbys_26082009.html

The cost of adaptation… again
The original UN estimates for the cost of adjusting to rising temperatures, sea levels and damaged land caused by climate change have tripled in recent research to £300 billion per year. The worldwide spend would be purely on adaptation – building things like flood defences, new homes, increased disease resistance, mass refugee support and so on.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE57Q2YY20090827

It’s hard to imagine how any study can put an accurate figure on how much adaptation will cost, but the clear implication from all reports of this nature is that it is a lot more than the cost of avoidance now. The £300 billion a year puts “expensive” geo-engineering projects and transition to a low carbon energy network into perspective.

Hopefully this message will sink in before Copenhagen. Whilst measures to avert climate change seem to worry politicians, the consequences of not taking action should scare the hell out of them!

Michael

Green Energy Republic

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