{"id":285,"date":"2014-04-16T19:38:36","date_gmt":"2014-04-16T19:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/global-environment-society-academy\/?p=285"},"modified":"2014-07-29T14:55:31","modified_gmt":"2014-07-29T14:55:31","slug":"counterfactual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/global-environment-society-academy\/2014\/04\/16\/counterfactual\/","title":{"rendered":"The Counterfactual Geography of More Sustainable Energy."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"dan-van\"<\/a>In this blog post Dan Van der Horst <\/a>explores our very human relationship with energy.\u00a0 He challenges us to peek over the garden fence at the smorgasbord of sustainable energy practices being creatively devised and adopted by our European Neighbours.\u00a0\u00a0 Dan argues that a ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ attitude may well be what we need to inspire us to reimagine our Nation’s energy options – and may even motivate us to aspire to be future leaders in the sustainable energy market.<\/em><\/p>\n

Energy is like blood; we can\u2019t do without it but we don\u2019t want to see it. When it comes to the energy debate, much of the focus is about what we don\u2019t want. There are backbenchers who don\u2019t want wind farms in one\u2019s pleasant green, and parties who proclaim they don\u2019t like nuclear. Where there was once a political reluctance to depend on domestic coal, these days our dependency on oil or gas from parts of Asia does not sit comfortably either. Collectively we sound almost like a protest party; blaming the government du jour or politicians in general, distrustful of those foreign \u2018Big Six<\/a>\u2019, we want power returned to us, without too much of a plan as to how that\u2019s done. . \u00a0Some of us have dreams, for sure; \u00a0fracking revolution<\/a>, 100% renewables, nuclear renaissance, take your pick.\u00a0 And then we are rudely woken up by another IPCC report <\/a>about climbing emissions and pathetic little mitigation and adaptation to date.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Given the threats of climate change, our creaking energy infrastructure, the ongoing depletion of easily accessible resources and the growing issue of fuel poverty it is very clear that significant changes and investments are needed in our energy system. It\u2019s not a shortage of good science that\u2019s standing in the way. It\u2019s a dearth of imagination, of ourselves as citizens and of the governments we elect.\u00a0 We don\u2019t even have to be original in order to be imaginative, there is plenty of inspiration out there, for us to bring home.\u00a0 How much renewable energy would we have if we had been as imaginative as the Danes or the Germans?\u00a0 How much safer and cleaner would your city be if it had reversed the urban pecking order between bikes and cars, like the Dutch have done, or had introduced congestion charges like London has? \u00a0How much wind power would we have if we lined up all our motorways (already noisy and lacking in aesthetic appeal) with wind turbines? \u00a0How much heat is being dumped into the atmosphere by our electricity-only power plants, and how many people in neighboring communities could be lifted out of fuel poverty<\/a> is this heat was offered to them through district heating<\/a> at a competitive price?<\/p>\n

These are just some ideas that have been widely adopted by our neighbours.\u00a0 It is not something futuristic or utopian, it is \u2018normal\u2019 next door. We should not waste much time with alternative history (if only we had done x in the past), but devote more effort to imagine a counterfactual geography; comparing ourselves with the best and keeping up with the Joneses in terms of more sustainable energy practices. \u00a0Maybe even beat them to it one day, and then watch in glee as they run to catch up with us. \u00a0\u2018green\u2019 with envy, if you like.<\/p>\n

The above questions are not just rhetorical. Get a pen, calculator, back-of-an-envelope and google; every geeky citizen could do this.\u00a0 I had a go at the first question. Turns out that we would have to quadruple our current on-shore windfarms before we can match the Germans on a MW\/km2<\/sup> basis, and increase them by 6.5 times before we match the Danes on a MW\/capita basis.\u00a0 That is a lot of energy we allow to blow right past us, wasted. The Danes and Germans are not radical people. They are trying to be responsible citizens, taking their little steps towards the goals set out in the IPCC reports. We don\u2019t have to follow them slavishly. Filling the land with wind turbines is not the only way forwards. But if you want to forego one particular solution, then you have to be extra imaginative with the remaining options. \u00a0Go get your pen and recycled paper. And share your imaginative solutions, also with your MP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this blog post Dan Van der Horst explores our very human relationship with energy.\u00a0 He challenges us to peek over the garden fence at the smorgasbord of sustainable energy practices being creatively devised and adopted by our European Neighbours.\u00a0\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,127,104],"tags":[140,145,141,144,138,146,148,142,136,139,149,137,68,147,7,143],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/global-environment-society-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/global-environment-society-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/global-environment-society-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/global-environment-society-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/global-environment-society-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/global-environment-society-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/global-environment-society-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions\/326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/global-environment-society-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/global-environment-society-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/global-environment-society-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}