© Copyright Harleston Grapevine 2009

Cleaner energy for all

The Gulf of Mexico oil disaster on 20th April highlighted some fairly interesting facts. The US consumes 25% of the world's oil. A barrel of oil contains 42 gallons of crude oil. It will make 19.5 gallons of petrol, 9.2 gallons of fuel oil, 4.1 gallons of jet fuel, 2.3 gallons of heavy fuels used in industry, 1.9 gallons of liquefied gases, 1.9 gallons of still gas, 1.8 gallons of coke, 1.3 gallons of road oil asphalt, 1.2 gallons of petrochemical feedstock, 0.5 gallons of lubricants, 0.2 gallons of kerosene, 0.3 gallons of other.

The spill may well have exceeded 150 million gallons of crude leaking into the ocean. A truly staggering figure that will have done untold damage to the environment.

The Ixtoc disaster in 1979 lasted nine and a half months after an oil rig collapsed in the Gulf of Mexico and has parallels with the BP disaster. There are still traces of this disaster on the seabed off the coast of Mexico, so this sort of thing lasts a long time. All the more worrying when the Government is about to give the go ahead for deep sea drilling off the Shetland Isles.

We as a world, not just a town, county, or nation need to look at cleaner forms of energy, solar energy being my favourite. In a time of financial difficulty and uncertainty you have to give incentives like the feed-in-tariff in this country. I know there have been mutterings about big business using the feed-in-tariff to make money, but what is the difference between a farmer covering a field in solar panels or EDF building a power station? They are both commercial ventures. There are even companies that will rent your roof so they can install solar on it, but that's for another day. Surely it's good to encourage people and business to invest their capital in green energy.

Many towns have started up bulk buy schemes for solar energy. This has meant that many more people have been able to have solar energy installed because being able to purchase and install lots of systems has brought down the price. Recently, Framlingham ran such a scheme and has plans to run the scheme again. Totnes in Devon has a scheme where a hundred systems are being installed. With a scheme of such a size the savings can be impressive. With the added bonus of local businesses (scaffolders, electricians etc.) getting work in a very difficult time, it has been a boost for the local economy.

Solar Simon