New Directions
Recently I had a power cut. When this happens, it awakens you to our complete dependency on a few large energy companies - and the fragility of society once the grid stops.
Many of us are now experiencing rising energy costs, and the prospect of peak oil is around the corner. Oil is a finite product and we have an infinite demand for it. Now is the perfect time to re-assess the way in which our energy needs are met.
How do we secure energy supply for the future indefinitely? Importing gas and oil is not an option - we will end up broke and people will suffer greatly - low income families will not be able to afford to keep themselves warm in winter, goodness forbid. What we need is independency.
The problems we are facing with energy are not a question of technology or ideas, but leadership. Current establishments are still stuck in 20th century fossil fuel thinking, and at all times the economy is the measure of progress, never the ecology. But this value system, or throw away economy, may well be heading to the landfill. The sooner the better. But lets not wait and see our children suffer greatly because of our energy greed, today we need independence and that will come in the form of solar panels, off shore wind turbines and tidal energy systems. These developments need the tax breaks to get set up swiftly and rapidly. The designs to our energy needs should model themselves on the computer industry - offer every household their own micro-energy structure, independent from the national grid. Those households who have surplus energy can then sell back their energy to the national grid. This is the way ahead.
There is a great cost for making such changes and many of those profiting from the old system will intervene and stand in the way - but the times they are a-changing and energy independency is what will give us security and affordable homes for us and the generations who will inherit the Earth in the years to come.