Reports question renewable energy potential
Wednesday, 25 Jun 2008 07:10
Wind power has come under fire today in a report
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Two reports have questioned today the benefits of two of the potential renewable energy sources that the UK could harness.
One says biofuels drive worldwide hunger and inflation while the other claims wind power is unreliable and expensive.
The reports' publication comes a day before the government is due to publish its energy strategy.
At the weekend energy minister Malcolm Wicks promised that the public will see this week "a real determination by the government to move towards 15 per cent of all of our energy from renewables by 2020".
Today's report from Oxfam claims that rich country biofuel policies have dragged more than 30 million people into poverty, based on evidence that biofuels have already contributed up to 30 per cent to the global rise in food prices.
It calls on the government, which introduced 2.5 per cent of biofuel in all transport fuel in April, to reverse its policy instead of doubling the amount by 2010.
"It would be shameful if the government decided to plough on ahead regardless of mounting evidence exposing the dangerous short-comings of biofuels," said report author Robert Bailey.
"Their biofuels policy is out of sync with its overall ambition to tackle climate change and promote development around the world."
The second report, published by the Centre for Policy Studies, says that it would be wrong for the government to call for a massive development of wind power.
It claims that wind power is expensive, overambitious and impractical.
Wind Chill: Why Wind Energy Will Not Fill the UK's Energy Gap concludes that the UK should develop its nuclear, clean coal (including coal gasification) and other renewable supplies of energy (particularly tidal).