Much is being made of climate change and carbon footprints - but that may turn out to be the least of our worries. It will at least ultimately be a self correcting problem. I remain a man made global warming sceptic - mainly because the science is so difficult to be definitive about. There is plenty of bad science in the climatology world - but it suits a lot of people to perpetuate it.
The BIG problem as I see it is that the fossil fuels are going to run out. Exactly when is hard to say, but as the recent volatility of the oil price has shown, demand is starting to outstrip supply. It took a couple of billion years to lay down the coal and oil reserves. We are burning them up in only a few centuries - with the rate of extraction increasing exponentially.
My personal revelation came from reading David MacKay's book, Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air (www.withouthotair.com). In it he does the sums to figure out how much energy we use in the home, transport and industry. for the UK it comes out as an average of 125 kWh per day per person, split approximately one third between each of the primary uses. He then looks at how much we might be able to realistically generate from renewable sources. If we cover the country in windmills, surround the coast with wave and tidal generation devices and switch to electric vehicles, we might just about make it. As he points out, renewable sources are diffuse, so we will need to cover the country and the coastline with a lot of generation capacity, be it wind, wave, tidal, solar, hydro, biomass or whatever.
One of the challenges today is with the economics of the problem. Installing one's own renewable energy sources is expensive with payback times often on the order of 15 to 20 years. As fossil fuels get more expensive and as economies of scale kick in, these payback times will reduce - but there isn't much financial incentive to "go green" at present. Of course, many people don't have the option - not living in places conducive to the installation of such devices.
Unfortunately I am not sure we have the luxury of time to allow these changes to come about through the natural course of things. I believe that legislation will be required to accelerate the switch-over and not just through carbon reduction legislation. More on that in the future.
The other problem that needs to be overcome is nimbyism. Everybody wants green energy, but not if they have to look at a windmill out the window - or a bird might fly into a rotor - or a myriad of other excuses. Frankly there are some very simple choices. Build a host of nuclear power stations to replace the existing oil, coal and gas fired stations, cover the country in renewable energy generators or wait for the lights to go out.
One of the challenges today is with the economics of the problem. Installing one's own renewable energy sources is expensive with payback times often on the order of 15 to 20 years. As fossil fuels get more expensive and as economies of scale kick in, these payback times will reduce - but there isn't much financial incentive to "go green" at present. Of course, many people don't have the option - not living in places conducive to the installation of such devices.
Unfortunately I am not sure we have the luxury of time to allow these changes to come about through the natural course of things. I believe that legislation will be required to accelerate the switch-over and not just through carbon reduction legislation. More on that in the future.
The other problem that needs to be overcome is nimbyism. Everybody wants green energy, but not if they have to look at a windmill out the window - or a bird might fly into a rotor - or a myriad of other excuses. Frankly there are some very simple choices. Build a host of nuclear power stations to replace the existing oil, coal and gas fired stations, cover the country in renewable energy generators or wait for the lights to go out.
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