Comments on: Green Tony Juniper’s View More People Should be Employed Obtaining Energy and Food

By: Nuclear Power

Nuclear Power — Sun, 09 May 2010 10:57:21 +0000

Cleaner and safer source of energy will be inevitably necessary in near future. I think we need more research into aneutronic nuclear fusion as an energy source free of neutrons and radioactive wastes.

By: David Vincent

David Vincent — Thu, 06 May 2010 18:18:31 +0000

Isn’t it reasonable to expect people to pay more for their food, in the same way that it seems to be reasonable to expect people to suffer cuts in all public services to pay for the collapse of the banking “industry”. If we can accept there is no more cheap credit, why can’t we accept there is no more cheap food?

By: Richard Taylor

Richard Taylor — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:07:57 +0000

A Severn barrage could provide 5% of the UK’s energy needs:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/4352742/Severn-barrage-10-miles-long-among-tidal-power-scheme-shortlist.html

What we can “reasonably expect” depends on where we invest and how we balance the different environmental impacts of either building or not building tidal schemes.

Tidal stream generators have much fewer environmental impacts and could be installed in many locations around the UK.

By: Tony Eva

Tony Eva — Thu, 06 May 2010 15:17:14 +0000

According to Dave MacKay (”Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air”) we could reasonably expect tidal schemes to contribute ca 5% of future UK energy consumption. This is after allowing for a 40% drop in current per capita energy consumption after implementing successful energy efficiency programmes. Tidal is potentially useful, but not a game changer.

By: Frugal Dougal

Frugal Dougal — Wed, 05 May 2010 20:41:24 +0000

I’m with you on tidal power - but I think we need to be harnessing the deep tidal currents, which denies some politicians the chance to point at something they’re doing, even if that something, however imposing, is ultimately innefectual. I don’t know what you think about this.

When Norman Borlaug died last Septembr, one obituary called him “the man who saved more lives than any other person who ever lived” for bringing modern agricultural technology to parts of Africa. More mature greens admit that lobbying US organisations to ostracise Borlaug because of the pollution tractors etc would cause was the nadir of their movement. Tony Juniper and Julian Huppert don’t appear to have reached that point.