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Written by Paul Spare
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Monday, 17 September 2007 |
Dear Sir,
Exclusive to the Times
The opening of the Libdem's conference has seen considerable publicity
about their policies on energy use/climate change. Energy supply is
however not an abstract intellectual pursuit. A policy must be
supported by engineering reality, or it is worthless.
Renewable energy supplies may be 'low carbon', but they are not all
equal. The acceptable renewables (solar, wind tidal etc) produce only a
percent or two of our electricity. It is rarely admitted that the bulk
of current 'renewables ' output is attributable to landfill gas, large
hydro and waste incineration that would not be encouraged. The Libdems
scheme would require selected renewables to increase by 50 or 100 times
to supply all our electricity and that is only the tip of the iceberg.
The average home uses about five times as much energy in the form of
gas is it does in the form of electricity. To replace the natural gas
and gasoline that we now use for domestic heating and vehicle fuels by
electricity will involve an increase in total electricity generation to
perhaps ten times present consumption. Almost every house would require
the upgrading of its wiring system, the grid transmission and
distribution networks would have to be strengthened massively.
Combining these two factors will require renewable output to be
increased by as much as 500 times. It is just not credible that any
form of electricity generation (especially one not even discovered by
the UK or similar industrial power) could be expanded so quickly in the
next 40 years. Since the complications from the intermittency of
renewables have also to be accommodated, it is clear that the energy
policy needs to be re-examined.
Yours truly,
Paul Spare
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