Renewable energy still a trickle amid gushing demand
Re: “Scrapping new coal plants in Asia would save 50,000 lives”, Letters, January 24.
Twenty years ago I attended a UK Labour Party fringe meeting held by Greenpeace and posed a question. “Greenpeace is strongly opposed to burning fossil fuels and atomic energy at a time when Third World countries are developing and fuelling a global population explosion. The demand for energy is also increasing exponentially. How will this demand be met and should we consider encouraging birth control to avoid a total disaster?”
The solution I received from the platform was much the same as that in this letter: “To leapfrog outdated technology like coal and move to renewable energy.” That all sounds very sensible until the subject of “renewable energy” is addressed. The question of regulating demand not only for energy but also for food and essential resources was ignored.
Wind farms have proved to be not only an environmental disaster but quite incapable of meeting demands for energy. Greenpeace, even after 20 years of condemning fossil fuels and atomic energy, still has not been able to come up with affordable and realistic alternatives.
How many lives will be lost when the supply of energy and food is completely outstripped by the unsustainable demand? This obvious problem hardly requires a “groundbreaking” academic study. It is perfectly obvious that technology regarding food and energy is lagging far behind an exponentially increasing demand.
JC Wilcox
