UK Investing $200 Billion in Renewable Energy

Written by Jaymi Heimbuch

Wednesday, 09 July 2008

Gordon Brown, the UK’s prime minister, has launched what he describes as his “green revolution” through investing $200 billion in renewable energy, a large portion of that going directly into wind power. The North Sea has peaked in its oil and gas supplies, and Brown is now looking to turn it into a wind farm, with 3,500 new onshore turbines and thousands more off-shore – perhaps including those enormous off-shore wind turbines they’ve been testing. This isn’t surprising considering the recent uptake in interest in wind farms in the UK.

The plan aligns with the EU’s agenda for countries to produce 15% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020. This gives the prime minister plenty of time to get cracking on this ambitious path. Brown’s revolution extends into the homes of UK residents, planning for up to 7 million roofs to be covered in thermal solar panels, and calling on citizens to reduce energy consumption through wall insulation, low-energy light bulbs, and any other way they can reduce their utility bills. Additionally, Brown says the renewable energy plan could create as many as 160,000 green-collar jobs.

Skeptics say this may be a whole lot of talk and not a lot of action, as has been the case in the past. That seems like a reasonable criticism. Yet, while not the greenest of PMs (he is still looking to build more nuclear power plants), this is a big step forward in the right direction for the UK. If even a few of the plan’s goals are met, it will be an overall improvement.

Via Ecoworldly, Greenpeace, The Guardian; Photo via andjohan

Comments (3)

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written by Clinch , July 09, 2008

Brown is not green.

And I think that rather than just "calling on citizens" to reduce their energy consumption, he should use some of the £100 billion to offset the cost of insulation and other energy saving methods, because the majority of people wont want to spend money, but can make the largest impact.

College Student
written by Kim S. , July 09, 2008

I'm so jealous! If only the United States government would take this kind of bold initiative that is so drastically needed in America, imagine what would happen! Clearly the demand for renewable energy is quite abundant; the United States government needs to step up to the plate on this issue, this is getting ridiculous. If we invested even a fraction of what we spend in Iraq on renewable energy and started subsidizing wind and solar companies then maybe we can start to regain our spot as a world leader in economic policy. I'm aware that nothing is going to happen at least until the end of the Bush administration in January 2009, for many obvious unfortunate reasons. But for now, we are sinking, and sinking fast. The EU is setting the trend for the rest of the world to follow, and hopefully us Americans can follow in their example.

Article is just gullible rubbish
written by Peter , July 09, 2008

First where is this $200 billion coming from. It doesn't exist. It is the sum Brown HOPES private industry will stomp up not money he is investing. Second this target is way BELOW the EU target as the EU figure is a % of ALL energy use whereas the Brown figure is a % of ELECTRICITY usage

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