Did you know that Russia has banned exports of its wheat surplus, due to shortages by freak weather conditions over the country? The consequences of this will soon be drastic and painful, as the UK will see food prices rise steeply over the next year.
Posts Tagged ‘high energy prices’
What have food prices and energy got in common?
Friday, September 3rd, 2010Will peak oil make you think seriously about solar panels?
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010Climate change is a stealthy foe, hard to feel, see or identify. Unlike peak oil. So here’s another question: did western administrations know that the International Energy Agency (IEA) had been consistently concealin the imminence of peak oil?
The UK is at risk of a energy crisis, engineers warn
Monday, July 12th, 2010The UK’s competitiveness and future security will come under threat if the Government fails to act on energy policy, the Engineering Employers’ Federation (EEF) will warn today. The UK faces an unprecedented combination of energy challenges over the next decade and needs to invest billions of pounds in infrastructure, manage the risks associated with growing dependence on imported gas and meet renewable energy targets, the employment body says. (more…)
Mr Cameron – Time to get real over our looming energy crunch
Friday, May 21st, 2010David Cameron, Britain’s new prime minister, may have succeeded in bridging his country’s political power gap, but another looms that could very quickly short-circuit the Tory leader’s grip on national power, unless his coalition government gets real – and quickly – over energy and environment.
A volcanic wake up call for the UK
Monday, April 19th, 2010The volcanic disruption should force governments, business and individuals to think more about the alternatives, and how vulnerable our societies really are when nature decides to make changes. Wasn’t it the eruption of Krakatoa that plunged most of the northern hemisphere into continual half light leading to famine and the 30 years war? (more…)
The UK’s crude awakening
Monday, April 12th, 2010On Monday March 22 an Energy workshop was Hosted by the UK Energy Institute on Peak Oil with the Department of Energy and Climate Change and members of the Transition Network also in attendance. (more…)
Oil prices begin to rise again
Thursday, April 8th, 2010The oil price is back on the rise – hitting 18-month highs on both sides of the Atlantic this week, and sparking a flurry of predictions that it will be back at $100 per barrel before the end of the summer. (more…)
Coming to terms with peak oil
Monday, March 29th, 2010Jeremy Leggett’s scary view about the world running out of oil much faster than anyone expects is the foundation stones of the newly created feed in tariff scheme by the UK government. Known as peak oil, peak oil is the point when global demand outstrips supply.
“Security of energy supply is going to be a real issue so should we not be deliberately building a vertically integrated renewables industry on the British Isles? I think the world is going to change dramatically and globalisation, of necessity, is going to be massively set back by the unaffordability of oil, so trade routes are going to shrink and there is going to be an incredible explosion of independent thinking.
“Companies and governments are going to think much more than they do now about this. We need to be making much more stuff at home. We can’t be dependent on markets far overseas.”
Leggett has pushed the peak oil debate on to the political agenda by getting an increasingly broad church of industrialists – such as Sir Richard Branson, Brian Souter of Stagecoach, and Philip Dilley of Arup – to come on board. The bandwagon seems finally to have made its impact on the UK government, which is softening its former position that peak oil was being over-hyped.
Stuart Lovatt from Heat my Home, adds: “We are seeing the beginnings of peak oil every time you fill up your car with petrol. With petrol soon to be at £1.50 within the blink of an eye and domestic energy bills rising year on year , it is becoming very apparent that the basic costs of energy globally, but even worse in the United Kingdom, are becoming a real problem to most people and business.”
So what can we do, as we look further down the timeline. Basic energy saving measures such as low energy light bulbs, insulation and efficient boilers will ease the pain for a while, but then what else can homeowners do when a couple of more years down the line, energy pricing has increased further.
With a new outlook, investing further in your homes energy future is fast becoming an essential, rather than an extra. The UK government has recently introduced the Clean Energy Cashback Scheme, also known as a feed in tariffs. This gives homeowners a real chance to invest in generating their own electricity with PV solar panels. A generous 41.3p Kwh if installed within the next 3 years will give a guaranteed income from your solar panels for the next 20 years. A reasonable payback period of 10 years approximately, now gives us all the opportunity to secure our own energy future’s.
Original Source: The Guardian
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