I have mentioned here before the miserable performance of the British economy over the past 15 years, during which per capita income has not risen at all.
Some of this is about Brexit, which has absolutely hurt Britain economically. The NY Times recently ran an article on another interesting factor, the intersection of electricity supply problems with anti-development activism.
In the past five years, the number of applications to connect to the electricity grid — many of them for solar energy generation and storage — has increased tenfold, with waits of up to 15 years. The underinvestment is restricting the flow of cheap energy from Scottish wind farms to population centers in England and adding to the delays for those with high power needs, like laboratories and factories. Laws that give local planning authorities considerable power are blamed for Britain’s shortage of housing and blocking the construction of pylons needed to carry electricity from offshore wind farms. Residents’ objections to noisy construction and changes to the landscapes have been a stumbling block.
Many people in Britain feel that quite enough of their island has been paved over, and they show up in force to protest every scheme to build anything on green fields. But that has economic costs, especially when the nation desperately needs more power infrastructure to bring electricity from the offshore wind farms to growing cities.
1 comment:
Many people in Britain feel that quite enough of their island has been paved over, and they show up in force to protest every scheme to build anything on green fields.
Meanwhile, in the remote Orkney Islands, the local economy is currently booming, because the isolated, rural, highly traditional greater Orcadian community has enthusiastically embraced modern technological developments in energy production, and have built tons of renewables.
The have invested massively in wind power - both onshore and offshore. Crucially, the turbines are community owned, rather than being the property of some distant corporation - rather than money being taken out of the community so it can go fill the bank vaults of giant faceless company that doesn't give a damn about the locals, the profits all go straight back into the community, enriching the local economy..
This is of particular note, because between their extensive wind power and their growing tidal power installations, the Orkney Islands produce a very large surplus of energy beyond their own needs, and they sell that extra power on to the UK mainland.
Additionally, this surplus of energy is also directly helping them to invest heavily in green carbon production, to provide zero-emission fuel for both marine and land transport across and around the islands.
And on top of THAT, the heavy investment in all of these renewable resources has actually made the Orkneys into a major center for renewable energy education and development, drawing students, scholars, and researchers from around the world to the islands to study and learn from their successes - which is in turn reversing the long term trend of "brain drain" that the islands have been has suffering from for generations, as a decent number of such people choose to stay and live in the islands. This is not only attracting entirely new migrants, but also luring back old expatriated Orcadians - and in both cases, it's chiefly drawing young people.
I think if we want people to get on board with renewable energy, the way to do it is to ensure the locals themselves are the ones who profit - not some far-off, disinterested, wholly unaccountable corporate monolith whose ONLY motivation will be to extract wealth from the local community to siphon off into their own bloated pockets and please "The Shareholders".
Post a Comment