At present, despite plenty of Governmental talk about the need to create a low carbon economy, 90% of the UK’s energy supply in 2009 still comes from oil, gas and coal, fossil fuels which are finite and non-renewable, and high emitters of carbon. Renewable energy use is now over 5 times the level it was in 1990, but in 2007 contributed to only 3.3% of our energy demand. We loose energy due to inefficient conversion and use of supplies and poor conservation of the energy.

Loss of Energy due to inefficient Conversion (Source: Greenpeace)

The UK’s energy situation is deeply perilous. We are at the end of lots of very long pipelines, and North Sea oil and gas peaked several years ago and are now falling sharply. Much of our indigenous energy production was sold during the 1980s at a time when oil and gas prices were very low. Now we have become a net importer of energy, at a time when those prices are highly volatile. The imperative to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels is driven by the need to reduce carbon emissions with huge urgency, and also by the fact that we need to build energy security; as Fatih Birol, Chief Economist at the International Energy Agency puts it “we must leave oil before oil leaves us”.

The Government’s response is to talk of a new generation of coal fired power station, and also nuclear energy. Both of these responses are problematic. The UK has also seen a doubling over the last 4 years of the number of residents living in fuel poverty, that is, needing to spend more than 10% of their income on energy.

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