Today I read that Portugal produced 70% of its energy from renewables in the 1st quarter.\u00a0 This is a dramatic increase.\u00a0 Is it possible to run a modern developed economy totally on renewable resources as its set up today?\u00a0 We obviously covered this in our book.\u00a0 This is part of what we said.<\/p>\n
“In our opinion, resource constraints will force globalisation into reverse, to be replaced by extreme localisation. There is no simple substitute for the oil which keeps the ships, planes and lorries moving goods around our globalised economy<\/em>.”<\/p>\n The problem is there is a lot more than to energy than electricity.\u00a0 There is confusion in the articles about this news-story, most them describe electricity but talk about energy.\u00a0 To run an economy entirely on renewables means renewable heat, renewable transport and renewable materials (like plastics) in addition to electricity.\u00a0 As we described in “No oil in the lamp”, this is a much more tricky proposition.\u00a0 Using energy demand now taken from David Mackay’s book “Sustainable energy without the hot air<\/em>” and making reasonable assumptions on what the UK could produce from the governments 2050 pathway analysis\u00a0 (both expressed as kWh\/per\/person) we found a gap.\u00a0 This energy\u00a0 gap was about the size caused by what David Mackay calls “stuff”, this means material goods.\u00a0 In our view (expressed in our book) “stuff” being oil based is not replaceable.\u00a0 In our view neither is a lot of transportation.\u00a0 Not having much “stuff” would roughly plug the gap for the UK.\u00a0 [Mackay has done analysis for the US as well in the same way in the book.]\u00a0 As Christians we think this is where the bible comes in as we wrote;<\/p>\n “The most challenging question is, should we use renewable energy to continue our current, highly energy-dependent lifestyle?\u00a0 Our view is that we should not.\u00a0 The reasons for this are very simple.\u00a0 Access to cheap energy has allowed us to do great ecological and social damage to ourselves.\u00a0 It has made us more insular, being increasingly cut-off from our fellow human beings (despite or perhaps because of easy foreign travel and electronic communications), disconnected from nature and materialistic.\u00a0 Even if we had plentiful cheap renewable energy we would use this to do other harm to our shared planet.\u00a0 We realise this is an unpalatable message (perhaps impossible for a politician to voice).\u00a0 But at the same time it is one that fits in very well with many passages in scripture, one example being Matthew 6v19-20:\u00a0 \u201cDo not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal \u201c.\u00a0 In the remainder of this book, we examine how Christians can face the challenges and opportunities that will come our way in the next few years, as the energy crunch starts to take hold.”<\/em><\/p>\n Neil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today I read that Portugal produced 70% of its energy from renewables in the 1st quarter.\u00a0 This is a dramatic increase.\u00a0 Is it possible to run a modern developed economy totally on renewable resources as its set up today?\u00a0 We … Continue reading