I’ve spend more time this month considering the future for the UK and how we can move to become sustainable and successful in the long term. My main thought is that given the UK is so windy and we have such a large territorial water area that we need to fully embrace the potential for wind. I wrote about this in an earlier blog post, but the thought really has stuck with me.
We can become fully independent of geo-political risks around the world by moving completely away from oil and gas, by de-carbonising our economy we can generate all our needs by offshore and onshore wind power and at the same time sell surplus electricity to mainland Europe and Ireland.
Around 40% of electricity generation comes from renewables at present, which is on target to grow to over 50% in the next few years, but only around 9% of total energy usage comes from renewables, the rest is made up of heating, transport and aviation, which use fossil fuels at present.
There are Key changes:-
From the now earlier date of 2035 all new cars need to be zero emission, so no more petrol or diesel.
From 2025 all new home builds can no longer have gas central heating.
Local Government can do more to help also as transport can be moved to electric only vehicles, if we can move buses, taxis and all small vans to electric only during the next 15 years that will make a great difference
Tree planning – boosting natures ability to absorb carbon by replanting trees and designating more areas to be natural beauty or nature parks is a great supply side measure.
