First off some facts. Almost 50%of our electricity needs were met by wind power in the. early months of this year. With fast falling costs wind power does not need or get any subsidies. renewable energy contributed £46 billion turnover to the economy. The UK really is the world leader in wind generation and it could treble in then next decade.
Which is just as well as we phase out fossil fuels completely! It would seem sensible to lift the total ban on onshore wind farms, although nobody wants to see the industrialisation of rural landscapes. Future expansion will need to be co-ordinated carefully. Surplus electricity can be used to manufacture hydrogen for use on short haul train routes and buses. Battery capacity will increase.
Our many deep mines could use their mine shafts to raise heavy weights which could then generate electricity when needed by allowing them to fall generating electricity. For many year I have thought the same thing could happen in peoples homes with the unused chimneys. Unfortunately I doubt the chimney in my bungalow is high enough. (Martin will verify that I suggested this a few years ago whilst pondering what to do with a mostly redundant chimney?
Like everything else we need to move away from centralised government to smaller local projects. In Somerset we have the potential for exploiting tidal power – not necessarily with a mega scheme, but with smaller ones as the technology becomes more efficient. And around here we have seen a huge (and I mean huge) project to build new pylons, and an underground cable across the Mendips involving building a new road. Why can’t the pylons have wind turbines on them?
Housing and buildings need to be as efficient as practical, Car journeys reduced as much as possible, and the electric car switchover made as practical as possible by fast development of the infrastructure.
So Bullshit Johnson announces more figures he has dreamed up – and then spoils it my announcing that the figure for investment is £150 million (or about £2 per head, or £15 per household!). Maybe he could start with the 32,770 schools in the UK. If all had solar panels and heat exchange pumps not only would they save many thousands a year, but have a great teaching resource (maths, economics, environment, geography, English, Science, technology, ICT, and more).
Driverless cars – I do not think these will work practically on the open road or in cities – nor are they needed in cities. However road trains (or lorries with computer systems to allow them to follow in each others slip streams would seem sensible.
And finally whilst I am creative mode! Supermarket deliveries. We are informed that supermarkets do not make much from home deliveries. But if they allocated different areas a time slot they could at least co-ordinate deliveries; and people could make what ever necessary decisions to have the deliveries received. Delivery slots could be allocated to Post Code areas. It might not work for all areas, but certainly in the village I can see the potential for a driver to make double or even treble the number of deliveries?
OK that’s all for now!