A lot of wind
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The time has come. I don't like to preach, so I'll simply lay out the facts as I understand them, and step back. We in the UK need to wean ourselves off non-renewable energy sources. They pollute the air, accelerate climate change (which is already barrelling out of control around our ears) and encourage reliance on centrally-generated systems. Also, one of them is nuclear power, which can't be good, surely? Any power source whose byproduct has to be buried for thousands of years before it's safe can't be an attractive choice. Some things are just wrong and nuclear is it.
In our house, we've recently switched our electrictiy supply from a partly-renewable supplier to Ecotricity, which is unique - it's 100 per cent renewable. You can do other things to save energy like not leave TVs and videos on standby, turn off lights when you're out of the room etc. but how much better to only use wind-powered energy in the first place.
They urge you to pass the message on, so that's what this is. Ecotricity, founded in 1995, has built 17.5MW of new wind energy and currently supplies enough electricity to power 12,000 homes. It's good, but it's not enough. They have 26 further wind turbines approved and ready to build (that's 15,000 more homes), and all they need to do so is sign up more customers. The target is 37,000 customers. Here's the good bit: it doesn't cost a penny more to switch over! To not do so, you would have to have a very good objection. Perhaps you disapprove of big windmills. If so, fair enough, you are entitled to that view.
Anyway, if you're even slightly interested, click on the Ecotricity link and have a read. As you were. Now, back to the reviews of telly programmes.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 1:36 PM
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10 Comments:
While I'm all for wind power, I can't help wondering what the effect on the weather would be if we massively increased the amount of energy we drew from the wind. It must have some effect, surely?
Hi Andrew. I reckon you might have read this when it was originally published, however, just in case
- http://tinyurl.com/kyyhr.
An interesting, and not wholely heartening, measure of just how far we've got to go. It's even scarier when you consider that we in the UK are the lucky few (globally speaking) that can afford to give a toss and fret about the energy efficiency of our coffee machines; most of the world's population would give their left legs to have a crack at living the gently-glowing-house-full-of-appliances dream and given half a chance (i.e. if we let them) will be trying to do that over the course of the next century.
This obviously doesn't mean we should give up trying, it just means that it's going to be an interesting few generations.
Cheers,
Toby
I have to leave my tv on standby because if I turn it off it goes on the blink when I turn it back on, switching itself off and refusing to come back on until I stop looking at it (or something). Trivial as this might be globally I wonder, ecologically speaking, if I should get a new one or stick with this one (because otherwise it's fine). Unnecessary lights do bug me, especially all the domestic outside lights you see - what happened to torches?
I don't quite get the whole Not In My Back Yard attitude to windmills. Would these objectors prefer a nuclear power station in their backyard? Or a gasworks? Didn't think so. Perhaps in that case they'd rather not have any power in their homes...
I quite like windmills, I think they look nice. Solar panels are also good. My aunt's house is almost entirely solar powered now, and she manages to store enough energy in the summer to heat the house in the winter.
Despite my preaching, though, I live in a (rented) flat and rely on gas.
Having just got back from a trip to Denmark and Sweden (my wife is Danish) I have been looking at windmills all week as they are quite a prevalent source of power there (I seem to remember they may be the biggest adopters of wind farms). I don't see what all the fuss is about. Certainly in Denmark they are an interesting addition to the landscape, there never seem to be more than 4 or 5 of them in a group and as you say they are surely preferable to more damaging energy production.
In those countries mind you there is probably less gas/electricity power consumption on the whole, they use a lot more wood burning heaters etc. Most houses I saw in Sweden had big piles of logs outside. Certainly, I think the Danes get taxed pretty big on their gas/elec consumption so wood burning is a great cost saver for them.
In response to Toby, whose link is to the George Monbiot column about renewables from the Guardian last year, I accept that we can't turn this thing around overnight by building some wind turbines, but it has to be a start, doesn't it? Anything that lessens our dependence on the National Grid. The real answer, of course, is to use less electricity. It's the same with the current water shortage (caused, I might add, by the privatisation of utilities under Mrs Thatcher, as much as it's caused by two dry winters) - if we all use less water, that can only be a good thing. We have water-saving devices in our toilet cisterns. It's amazing how much water you save, for very little cost. There are two responses to climate change: ignore it and hope for the best (for our children and their children), or do something about it. Governments move too slowly and are too compromised by ties to big business to do anything meaningful, so it's up to us, and to the small businesses like Ecotricity that seem to care.
Asbolutely, I'm all for people taking responsibility for the environmental consequences of their own actions (come round, there's still wee in my toilet because we're doing that not-flushing-after-every-trip thing!), I wasn't trying to say, "oh there's no point doing anything."
Governments do move (incredibly, given the mounting weight of scietific evidence) slowly on the environment, but I believe the big, meaningful changes will involve them and we shouldn't let them (or ours at least) off the hook for a second.
I'm not sure whether I am encouraged by this* or not, but did you know that the inaugral Environmental Performance Index presented in January this year listed the UK as the fifth most environmental country in the world? Here you go, if anyone's interested:
http://www.yale.edu/epi/
* Not sure whether I'm encouraged as if we're fifth what's everyone else like?!
Cheers,
Toby
In the grand scheme of things "ignoring it and hoping for the best" - the George W Bush solution, I might add - is, quite frankly, bollocks.
As for Thatcher, well, I got in trouble last year for putting the following on my blog:
"Margaret Thatcher is 80 today.
She'll be dead soon."
I've switched to ecotricity too (see my blog post) - they seem to be the best 'green' electricity supplier as most of the rest aren't actually investing much in new renewable sources.
I don't think individual action is enough though. Even nationally, the impact of the UK is miniscle compared with the rest of the world. We need strong government action across the world to tackle the big issues, and we need to accept that for some of us in the west, it may mean a reduction in some of the things we're able to do (low-cost air travel is surely wrong for a start).
On another note, we MUST stop the government from allowing new nuclear power stations to be built...
Thanks for the tip and recommendation Andrew. Now in the process of switching to Ecotricity and will urge others to do the same.
Renewable energy is quite clearly the way to go.
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