David MacKay

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Solar thermal water heaters are a no-brainer. They will work almost everywhere in the world.

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Just like Britain, Europe can’t live on its own renewables. So if the aim is to get off fossil fuels, Europe needs nuclear power, or solar power in other people’s deserts (as discussed on p179), or both.

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So, while markets may play a role, it’s silly to say “let the market handle it all.” Surely we need to talk about legislation, regulations, and taxes.

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Trying to reduce emissions from oil and gas is of secondary importance because supplies of both oil and gas are expected to decline over the next 50 years.

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If we ramp up electric vehicles at the same time as ramping up wind power, roughly 3000 new vehicles for every 3 MW wind turbine, and if we ensure that the charging systems for the vehicles are smart, this synergy would go a long way to solving the problem of wind fluctuations.

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Fusion power is speculative and experimental. I think it is reckless to assume that the fusion problem will be cracked, but I’m happy to estimate how much power fusion could deliver, if the problem is cracked.

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I feel nuclear waste is only a minor worry, compared with all the other forms of waste we are inflicting on future generations.

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Nuclear power is not infinitely dangerous. It’s just dangerous, much as coal mines, petrol repositories, fossil-fuel burning and wind turbines are dangerous.

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nuclear power’s price is dominated by the cost of power-station construction and decommissioning, not by the cost of the fuel.

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Heat pumps are superior in efficiency to condensing boilers, even if the heat pumps are powered by electricity from a power station burning natural gas.

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So I conclude that switching to electric cars is already a good idea, even before we green our electricity supply.

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my prediction is that after all the “zeroemissions” trumpeting is over, we’ll find that hydrogen cars use just as much energy as the average fossil car of today.

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I think hydrogen is a hyped-up bandwagon. I’ll be delighted to be proved wrong, but I don’t see how hydrogen is going to help us with our energy problems.

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People love renewable energy, unless it is bigger than a figleaf. If the British are good at one thing, it’s saying “no.”

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But realistically, I don’t think Britain can live on its own renewables – at least not the way we currently live.

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While wave power may be useful for small communities on remote islands, I suspect it can’t play a significant role in the solution to Britain’s sustainable energy problem.

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Obsessively switching off the phone-charger is like bailing the Titanic with a teaspoon.

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I think one conclusion is clear: biofuels can’t add up – at least, not in countries like Britain, and not as a replacement for all transport fuels.

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I am sure that photovoltaic panels will become ever cheaper; I’m also sure that solar panels will become ever less energy-intensive to manufacture, so their energy yield ratio will improve.

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planes are already almost as energy-efficient as they could possibly be. Planes unavoidably have to use energy for two reasons: they have to throw air down in order to stay up, and they need energy to overcome air resistance. No redesign of a plane is going to radically improve its efficiency.

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Britain’s onshore wind energy resource may be “huge,” but it’s evidently not as huge as our huge consumption.

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if we covered the windiest 10% of the country with windmills (delivering 2 W/m2 ), we would be able to generate 20 kWh/d per person, which is half of the power used by driving an average fossil-fuel car 50 km per day.

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So to fix climate change, we need to sort out a new way of getting energy. The climate problem is mostly an energy problem.

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A more realistic mantra is: if everyone does a little, we’ll achieve only a little.