Where to for energy
Professor David MacKay, the UK’s chief scientist on energy and climate change, said the UK wants to tackle climate change and has fears about energy security.
He said that oil and gas are on their way out at some point and even if you covered the entire UK with crops, they could not produce enough biofuels for the country’s transport leaving electric cars which would produce the need for doubled or even tripled electricity production.
The two options to meet this demand: wind and nuclear, given that solar, tidal and carbon capture are still in their infancy. This is quite a problem given that he calculated that it would require either need wind farms the size of Wales or 50 large nuclear power stations dotted around the country.
I would like to see serious consideration to growing algae on sewage to produce biofuel. And obviously less or much more efficient travel is needed.
Wouldn’t it be great if it was easy to simply use less?
The problem is that it is not all that easy. We have all been wasting energy for so long in the western world and the urgency in the way we lead our modern lives means that we jump into the car when it would make more sense to hop on a bike, catch a bus or walk but time prohibits.
I have been noticing this especially recently. My parking space is off a narrow lane at the rear of my house. Over the last week my rear neighbours have been pulling down their old fence, landscaping and building a roller door so that they can park in their rear courtyard. Their builders have been blocking the lane and I have had numerous “urgent dashes” that caused them to move their gear and me to wonder how I can reduce the number of trips.
Aren’t we lucky that greater resources and larger spaces do give us more options in Australia than in the UK? Does it make sense to you to try to live environmentally sustainable lives given some of the outcomes if we continue as we are?
So wouldn’t it be great if it was easy? What makes sense to me is having cost effective and readily available ways to produce energy from all our wastes and reducing the travel and transport. David MacKay gives us real food for thought.
Jean is an award winning small business management expert. She gives you the almost paperless ISO Quality, Safety and Environment certification that protects your business and saves you time and money. For more information go tohttp://www.integratedisosystems.com
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