Energy

Contents:

Articles, Resources, Tips, Videos, Recommended Reading

The fossil fuel model has run out of road. We have no option but to transition to a new energy system. Most of the time available has already been wasted by the oil lobby and its political allies. Useless old men who run city councils and national governments continue to make the wrong decisions.  It is time to get serious about this. And implacable. And unreasonable. But only selectively destrictive, for above all we need to create a new system, and that needs intelligence and order. Carbon needs a high and stable price, but for that price to result in avoided emissions, carbon capture and renewable energy solutions, a global market is also needed. Otherwise we'll be sitting in the cold and dark on our own, while the seas rise and the super-hurricanes approach. - By Dr Julian Caldecott

Increasing the efficiency in which we generate, distribute, transmit energy in conjunction with improvements in the efficiency of energy using products has a vital role to play in ensuring sustainability. Linked to improving the efficiency of energy use is the concept of Energy Demand Reduction. This concerns not only reducing the amount of fossil fuel derived energy used but also reducing the demand for energy in totality. Energy Demand Reduction can be achieved through a number of complementary routes on both the demand and supply side. Possibilities include:

• Low carbon building materials
• Improved building insulation
• Low energy lighting
• Adoption of large and small scale renewable technologies e.g. wind, solar etc
• Lower carbon fuels

Resources

WHO’S WINNING THE CLEAN ENERGY RACE? Growth, Competition and Opportunity in the World’s Largest Economies

Videos:

Recommended Reading:

Hot, Flat & Crowded By Thomas L Friedman
Friedman explains a new era—the Energy-Climate era—through an illuminating account of recent events. He shows how 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the flattening of the world by the Internet (which brought 3 billion new consumers onto the world stage) have combined to bring climate and energy issues to Main Street, but not very far. Friedman sets out the clean-technology breakthroughs we, and the world, will need.

High Noon By J F Rischard
In this age of instant communication and biotechnology, on this ever-smaller planet, what kinds of problems have we created for ourselves? How do we tackle them in a world where the accustomed methods used by nation-states may be reaching their natural limits? In High Noon, J. F. Rischard challenges us to take a new approach to the twenty most important and urgent global problems of the twenty-first century. Rischard finds their common thread: we don't have an effective way of dealing with the problems that our increasingly crowded, interconnected world creates. Our difficulties belong to the future, but our means of solving them belong to the past.

The Constant Economy By Zac Goldsmith
A constant economy is one in which resources are valued not wasted, where food is grown sustainably and goods are built to last. It is a system whose energy security is based on the use of renewable sources, and where strong communities are valued as a country’s most effective hedge against social, economic and environmental instability. The constant economy operates at the human scale and, above all, it recognises nature’s limits.
The author shows that almost everything we need to do, is already being done somewhere in the world. Where governments, communities or companies have done the right thing, they have been rewarded. Solutions exist, and they are brought together and set out in this ground-breaking book.

Heat By George Monbiot
Monbiot demonstrates a necessary 90% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 - without bringing civilisation to an end. Combining his unique knowledge of campaigning and environmental science, he shows how we can transform our houses, our power and our transport systems. But he also shows that this can happen only with a massive programme of action which no government has yet been prepared to take. His exciting, disturbing ideas expose the cowardice of our politicians. By showing that we can save the biosphere without losing our comfort and security, Monbiot sweeps away their perpetual excuse for doing nothing: that it would be too painful and expensive to sustain life on earth.