A week in the life of….
It’s been an interesting week in the world of renewable. As mentioned yesterday, the G published leaked details of the Government ‘Renewable Energy Strategy:
“Revealed: UK’s blueprint for a green revolution”
So - we may actually be entering into a second industrial revolution if the government gets stuck in with that £100 billion. They’re making all the right noises…
But … the fact remains – we have to cope with a planning system not fit for purpose. In 1999 the House of Lords Select Committee on the European Communities first identified that the planning process is a “grave hindrance to achieving the necessary growth in renewables”. Nearly ten years on and nothing has changed –the planning system still remains the most significant barrier to achieving the delivery of wind energy.
It’s the only major generation source that depends for planning on District Councils – the government deals with all others for very good reasons.
Lord Adair Turner suggested that there may be a tweak in the planning process to ‘unstick’ more wind projects following my little piece on Radio4’s PM on Friday.
The planning bill was debated yesterday – it’s been heralded as the cure for all planning’s ills but it still leaves the majority of wind projects in planning hell while at the same time smoothing the way for New Nuclear and nice new runways.
With all this on his plate Prime Minister Brown couldn’t quite stop himself from running off to OPEC, asking ever so politely if it would be possible to “keep the price of oil down a little bit please … while I try and sort out our little energy problem” … and also to ask them if they wouldn’t mind investing some of their trillions of profit in ‘our’ nuclear programme…
It also seems there has also been no better time to be looking at electric transport (well - it would have been better to be looking at it a century ago, but better late than never!):
“Electric cars given official green light to boost climate change goals”
Most eco-towns are being turned down or criticised for lack of coherent transport policy.
Dyson has just entered the electric vehicle game… (I hope his cars don’t suck!)
It turns out Dyson is not entering the electric vehicle game!
McCain puts bounty on batteries
For those people who travel less than 30 or 40 miles to work (well more like 15 or 20 if you can’t charge at the other end) – a sub £1000 electric scooter has arrived in the UK.
Finally there is an interesting piece from The Register - it’s an analysis of a draft book by Professor David J C MacKay of the Cambridge University Department of Physics, which attempts to do some real number crunching when it comes to looking at our future energy choices. The draft e-book is available here - it makes interesting and thought provoking reading if nothing else. I haven’t had time to check his figures though!
Comment by Adam — June 27, 2008 @ 2:13 am
Comment by Scott — June 27, 2008 @ 12:20 pm
Ecotricity is certainly trying but is it worth broadning the portfolio? Solar technology is surely a good string to add to the bow. Maybe Ecotricity could also sell domestic wind turbines in local DIY centres. I like the idea of an electric car that joe public can afford but I do worry that there is an awful lot of hype around the electric supercar. Which to be honest isn’t a practical idea.
Also perhaps a way to get round our somewhat ridiculous planning laws would be to petition the prime minister to give incentives to industrial estates to build wind turbines and solar panels. These are often well away from residential sites and areas of natural beauty. Ecotricity could supply and maintain the gear!
I realise this isn’t always a practical solution as these sites aren’t necessarily endowed with lots of wind or sun. But each case could be assessed on merit.
What do you think?
Comment by Justin Noe — June 30, 2008 @ 10:02 pm
With the ‘nuclear heavy’ models - there is always going to be the little issues of sourcing the radioactive material (it doesn’t grow on trees!), and then disposing of it once we have squeezed some juice out. We already have massive stockpiles of waste from our few decades of dabblings with nuclear generation, and still the best we can come up with is to pay councils/local authorities to bury it. The archaeologists, miners and sandcastle makers of the future (if there are any) are going to have to be careful where and how they dig…
I didn’t realise solar was getting so efficient though. He is right that they won’t be much use in the UK though - particularly in the new mid-July ‘rainy season’ - we need to come up with a technology that harnesses the power of flash floods!
Comment by nommo — July 10, 2008 @ 8:41 am
I’m not sure about Geothermal costs but they must be favourable against this. Can anyone shed some light on this matter?
Was the Eastgate deep geothermal exploration borehole a glimpse into possible alternate future?
Comment by Justin Noe — July 16, 2008 @ 11:30 pm