Last week was one of those rare occasions when I couldn't resist 'phoning in' to Julian Worricker on You & Yours on Radio 4 to put in my fourpenneth about energy conservation.
I proposed that the 50,000 new homes a year, that this government has promised, should ALL include solar panels (photo voltaic) not only to provide their power needs but also to feedback into the National Grid. This would soon equate to a Nuclear Power Station and the mass production would substantially reduce the cost (and promised subsidies from the tax payer) of providing solar panels for existing homes.
Surely a far better use of the experienced engineering skills we have in the country rather than subsidising the cost of manufacturing vehicles which consume more energy and produce more CO2 during manufacture than that saved by running a new car on tap water. How crazy are we, the tax payer, to pay £2,000 for people to scrap their 10 year old cars (like mine) in order to 'consume' a new car which will spend 95% of it's time stationary? We should be incentivising drivers to 'keep and repair' their vehicles to reduce CO2 emissions and generate employment for mechanics.
It was interesting that Lord Hunt's concern was that Power Stations are designed to provide energy to individuals NOT to have energy provided by individuals. Sounds like an ideal 'Green VRM' project to me!
