Getting renewable energy to the world's poorTwo billion people one in three of us on the planet live without the basic energy services such as electricity that the rest of us take for granted. Every day they have to meet their essential needs with expensive, dirty and unreliable energy sources such as kerosene lamps, candles and fuel wood. These damage people's health, reinforce the cycle of poverty and contribute to environmental destruction. This can and must change.
Posted by bex — 17 September 2001 at 8:00am
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The UK press has been full of speculation for over a year that the Government is ready to launch a new nuclear power programme. Over the first few months of 2005 many articles speculated that as soon as the General Election was out of the way in May, the Government would support the construction of new nuclear power stations.
Greenpeace today called for the Government to phase out nuclear power stations in the UK and massively increase its targets for renewable energy and energy efficiency. In a report to the Government's energy review, Greenpeace calls for:
A 50% reduction in final energy use within the next fifty years
A national aim to meet half of the UK's electricity needs from renewable energy within twenty years
Greenpeace welcomes the fact that the Government is reviewing energy policy. Current energy trends are unsustainable: greenhouse gas emissions and radioactive waste are leaving enormous burdens for future generations to deal with. The fifty year time-scale identified by the Government makes possible a visionary and bold approach which no previous energy review in the UK has achieved.
The Crown Estate, in its role of landowner of the UK Territorial Seabed, has completed the processing of lease applications for sites a month ahead of schedule. Developers can now begin their preparations for seeking the statutory consents required for offshore wind farm developments and in particular, begin their public consultations.
Despite the increasing frequency of very high energy gales, the power of the wind is hard to fully appreciate, probably because it seems to come out of 'thin air'. But a single modern wind turbine of 2MW power will produce as much electricity over a year as the electricity used by 1200 households i , and offshore wind turbines are set to be 3MW and even more powerful in future.
The combined global onshore and offshore wind resource that is technically recoverable is 53,000 Terawatt hours per year about four times bigger than the world's entire electricity consumption in 1998.
The G8 Renewables Task Force has produced a report that contains detailed and significant recommendations which, if agreed and implemented by the G8, will go a long way towards generating the global renewable energy revolution that is needed to combat climate change and improve the lives of billions of people world-wide.
Leading environmental organisation Greenpeace has joined forces with international high street retailer, The Body Shop today, to challenge world governments to provide access to renewable energy for all within ten years, in particular the two billion people who live without any power.
Greenpeace welcomed the Prime Minister's announcement today of an energy review but expressed concern that it could become a smokescreen to provide new subsidies to the nuclear industry. The Labour Party dropped its opposition to new nuclear power plants in its last manifesto.
Matthew Spencer, Head of the Climate and Energy Campaign at Greenpeace UK, said:
