Day 2790: When the Wind Blows

Thursday:


I am DELIGHTED to hear Mr Clogg's latest plans for ENERGY INDEPENDENCE.

He was off to visit a wind farm to see how it can be done and he pledged an Apollo Project for renewable energy: kind of appropriate to mention the Sun God when Solar Power has got to be up there in the mix!

Regular readers will know that it is the sort of thing I blather on about ALL THE TIME. That is because I think that apart from being jolly sensible in itself, it is a good way to sell the benefits of GREEN ENERGY to those people who are sceptical about the environment but can see the ECONOMIC advantage in not getting clobbered by the energy companies. Basically, Conservatories.


Listening to Mr Clogg on the The Today Programme show, I thought that he was very good EXCEPT for the one question that he ducked, which was about cars.

Now, fair enough, he was on there to talk about plans for generating electrical energy from renewable sources, and it really was a case of the interviewer either totally missing the point or DELIBERATELY missing the point, but actually you CAN answer this one as well.

The first and most obvious thing to say is "One step at a time, Sarah. First we want to deal with securing our domestic power generation in a way that is sustainable and independent."

But you can go further than that. When SERIOUS car companies like MERCEDES are saying that they will phase out producing petrol cars by as soon as 2015 then you CAN say: "but the next step is to look at moving to clean fuel for cars, with technology making advances in areas like hydrogen fuel cells and electric vehicles."

Now, I know that using electric power for cars means we will need a lot MORE electricity than just what we use at the moment. But the thing is we have GOT the capacity – great big open spaces called "The North Sea" and "The Atlantic Ocean" – that is perfect for wind power and wave power.

Green IS going to be the technology for the next generation (assuming that civilisation doesn't accidentally end because the oil runs out too soon or because Prince Vlad and the Monkey-in-Chief get into a "Whose Missiles are Bigger" contest!), and the Germans are already forging ahead.

We need to get into the game if we're to have a bright future.