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Onshore wind in the UK

A debate I was involved in today got me thinking about the apparent obsession in the UK with onshore wind farms. 

Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, said that opposing windfarms was ‘socially unacceptable’ (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/5045289/Ed-Miliband-says-opposing-windfarms-is-socially-unacceptable.html); a pretty daft statement to make, but it sort of picks up in this obsession with onshore wind as The Future. 

I’m a fan of windfarms, but we are not China. We are not the USA. We are a small country, and even a dozen turbines can make a huge aesthetic impact on the landscape of a region. We don’t invest in offshore wind or tidal power because it’s expensive, but these are much more viable, sustainable alternatives in the longrun. Onshore wind is characterised by inefficiency and the huge physical footprint the farms leave. 

The government seems to be all set on pushing onshore wind onto communities whether they like it or not, apparently due to the cost-effectiveness of the schemes. It’s interesting to note the rejection of the Severn tidal power project and the claims of horseplay in the process (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/08/severn-estuary-tidal-scheme). 

Let’s embrace The Big Society for a minute, and let communities decide if they want to own their own windfarms to generate their own electricity, but when we get to a national level, let’s be sensible. Onshore wind will most likely never produce a significant portion of our energy needs (without covering the whole country). Let’s get real, and spend money for a more sustainable energy future. 

Upcycling

I was introduced recently to the word ‘upcycling’. Upcycling is about finding new (and sometimes fairly innovative) uses for goods which may otherwise be thrown into landfill or recycled. Recycling requires energy & resources to collect, sort and process, and in the UK, 1.8m tons of clothing and textiles goes into landfill every year (that’s just clothing and textiles; the most useful ‘junk’ for upcycling).

The website http://www.upcycling.co.uk has plenty encouragement for budding upcyclers (upcyclists?) and illustrates the process with ideas such as turning an old woolly jumper into a cushion cover; stuffing an old sock with carrier bags to make a draft excluder; or making a comprehensive kids craft box containing old pens, egg cartons etc; or maybe turning an old book into a clock.

But it’s not these nano-level arts and crafts ideas that catch my imagination; it’s the contribution that this type of thinking can have on our consumption practices globally. I feel like there’s an attitude of ‘I recycle, so I’m doing my bit’, and that’s great for what it is. But as a civilisation, we consume far more than we can deal with, and we need to shift the paradigm of consumption towards every person thinking about stopping the goods being produced in the first place. Upcycling , freecycling, and the mantra of ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ all help us get towards a closed-loop system.

I find this rethinking of ‘waste’ fascinating. Sure, it’s just putting a name on something that people do every day across the world, but adding ‘upcycling’ to the language of consumption can help people think about material goods in a new way; even if it’s only a few people changing their attitudes, it’s done a job. And hey; what about this bit of upcycling: a project which converted a Boeing 727 into some sort of tree-top house.

Nevermind the three ‘Rs’, how about just one: rethink. 

HS2

The UK government has finally launched a consultation on HS2 – a £33bn programme to develop a 250mph high-speed railway between London and Birmingham (with further plans down the line (excuse the pun) to extend it into Scotland). Proponents make bold claims about ‘bridging the north-south divide’ and HS2 being ‘good for the economy’. It will ferry BUSY BUSY BUSINESSPEOPLE to and from The London (it’s anticipated that 30% of travellers will earn over £70,000 per year) and will be good for the economy. Did I say that already? Oops.

200 miles of new track will be built, but the nature of the lines means they will need to be very, very straight. Which means there are significant limits on any course deviations, which in turn means large parts of Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire and Derbyshire will be cut up, and people like the Campaign to Protect Rural England and the Green Party are understandably concerned.

(But it WILL be really really good for the economy.)

Now there are a lot of people railing (another pun: I can’t help myself) against opposition to these lines, saying things like “Basically the greens don’t want people to travel. They want to to stay in one place and preferably just die”. But this isn’t a tree-hugging, stuck-in-the-past obstruction of economic progress; this is a reasonable protest to a plan which could be harmful on many levels.

The environment will suffer, as railway lines career through the countryside, irrespective of what gets in their way. It’s not just about a thin scar across the landscape; it’s about fragmentation of green spaces and animal habitats (including breeding grounds). Secondly, as rich people transfer onto HS2, we could end up with a two-tiered railway system, with the poor on one line and the rich on another. This type of social stratification helps no one. Thirdly, how exactly will the north-south economic divide be bridged? As the train rattles down the line, perhaps a beautiful rainbow will stream from its rear, depositing shiny gold coins by the track for Northern Folk to pick up and spend. Or maybe the BUSY BUSY BUSINESSPEOPLE will throw money out the windows? Running a train track up the country will not magically make everyone better off. Businesspeople will travel from the north to The London and vice versa. Fourthly, we’re talking about eventually shaving off 30 minutes from an already reasonable journey time. Really? £33bn for THAT?

This project is uneconomical and a bad idea on so many levels. Why not electrify the whole system? Subsidise train tickets (which are already prohibitively expensive for many people), add more carriages upgrade the lines….these all make much more sense. It seems that rather than fix a faulty system, government would prefer to spend a King’s ransom on a NEW system.

But hey, it IS good for the economy…..