Just when you thought things could not get much worse for
energy policy in Britain, fracking was given another set of green lights with
the announcement last week that the government will seek to allow shale gas
extractors to drill underneath people’s homes without the need for consent.
Public rights seems to mean nothing to this government. Whilst renewable energy
is subject to the deepest cynicism and criticism; the dangers and down-sides to
fracking – and to the nuclear industry – barely seem to register on the
Coalition’s radar.
I cannot help thinking that the political elite and their
lobbyist have looked at the Simpsons and George Orwell for inspiration on how
to run ‘their’ country.
Simon Jenkins is able to publish ‘Renewable energy won't
rid us of the horrors of coal’. 1)
In this article he makes his case as indicated in the
headline and states that CO2 emissions from Germany are rising between 5-7%
yearly which is wrong. The carbon emission in Germany have risen some 1% year
on year between 2011-2013 but still achieving a reduction of 24.7% since 1990.
2) This increase in CO2 is a great shame and be assured if the Green Party
would still be in power in Germany this would have not been the case. While
Simon published his critical analysis of renewables some extraordinary news hit
the headlines in Germany.
Companies responsible for nuclear power generation in
Germany put over the years some 36 billion Euros aside, tax free I must add, to
deal with the nuclear heritage. The utility firms proposed to set up a public
owed trust were this money would go to and the public would have to stump up
anything missing. Asse one of our perfectly save nuclear resting places will
need alone some 6 Billon Euro and much more to come. Better still, some of this
money has been invested in coal power. 3), 4)
Simon, could this be the reason for the rise of coal?
Bjorn Lomborg writes in an article entitled ‘Putin fears
an EU fracking bonanza – but environmentalists don't have to’ 5) in which
admits …‘Of course, fracking is not a silver bullet’… Fracking uses huge amount
of water, pollutes drinking water and releases methane gas which has a bigger
impact on climate change than carbon dioxide. 6) Regarding subsidises, Germany
subsidised fossil with 52 and renewables with 10 Billion Euros in 2010,
worldwide fossil fuels receive between 400 Billion to 2.6 Trillion Euros
yearly! 7), 8), 9) Germany produced in 2013 the equivalent of 40% of Britain’s
electricity needs with renewables installed in just over a decade 10), 11) and
is not bankrupt and neither is Denmark, producing 33% of its electricity with
renewables.12) Spain installed enough electricity generating capacity using
wind turbines within 10 years to overtake nuclear power generation which taken
decades to build and will take decades to dispose off. 13) France the dreamland
of most nuclear fans is not the booming economy it aught to be 70% nuclear and
neither was Japan with 50 nuclear plants before Fukushima. Japan has one of the
highest debt ratio of developing countries in 2011 nearly 3 times that of
Britain, France or Germany. 14) China’s new renewable power capacity surpassed
new fossil fuel and nuclear capacity in 2013 for the first time.15), 16)
What can we do as individuals ?
Add to your news diet the following: Bloomberg, Deutsche
Welle (equivalent to BBC world service), Reuters, Tagesschau (equivalent to BBC
news) in German use internet to translate and share relevant stories.If you not done already change your energy supplier to a smaller renewable one.
Save energy wherever you can, install pv solar if you
have a south facing roof, banks are willing to lend, replace your boiler with
an pre-pressurised easy install air source heat pump £500.
If you get electricity from renewables get rid of gas, go
for induction cooker, instantaneous water heater, or air to water heat pump,
heat pumps and so on. The cost of most energy efficient appliances and energy
producing devises has fallen sharply. Do check out superhomes and center of
alternative energy http://www.superhomes.org.uk/
http://www.cat.org.uk/index.html
Sources consulted in order:
5)
http://www.cityam.com/article/1401379288/putin-fears-eu-fracking-bonanza-environmentalists-dont-need
10)
http://www.erneuerbare-energien.de/fileadmin/Daten_EE/Dokumente__PDFs_/ee_in_zahlen_update_bf.pdf
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