Tuesday, December 11, 2007

7000 Wind Turbines at Sea

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7000 Wind Turbines at Sea for UK


UK Business Secretary John Hutton has plans to allow 7000 new wind turbines around the coastline of the UK. Power enough to keep every UK home going.

"It is going to change our coastline", but said the issue of climate change was "not going away". Now that’s what I call an energy plan. About time someone took the energy crisis seriously.

Overlooking the Biggest Source of Energy??

This lot may be overlooking the fact that the single biggest source of energy some 3850 Zeta Joules of it per year in fact – is the local nuclear furnace none other than the sun. Even in cold old Blighty or Ireland, the sun puts down masses of energy every day, even in mid winter. We only need to capture a tiny proportion of it to fill all our energy needs forever more.


We only need .013% of this Energy

The total energy used by humans in 2004 was .471 Zeta Joules. With 3850 zeta Joules hitting the planet we would need to capture only .013% of that energy to supply every toaster, fridge, washing machine, and heater on the planet.

So how do we do that? Solar Electricity is the main upcoming idea. PV Solar cells used to cost $7.50 a watt in 1990. That came down to around $4.00 a watt in 2005. Now the figure is looking like 40 cents per watt or less. At that price it would really pay to cover every roof in a city with solar cells. That city then could be largely self-powering.

What would it take? It would take balls on the part of the politicians to call the shots. It would take a lot of money, and it would take willingness on the part of the people.

That is all it would take.


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