Power in the Hands of the People

Is the answer to secure, sustainable, cheap power blowing in the wind or staring us in the face when we look in the bathroom mirror?

It’s said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I happen to find wind turbines aesthetically pleasing. For me, they don’t detract from the natural landscape in which they sit. For others they are like gigantic technological parasites, a vision of a dystopian future where wind turbines seemingly rise from the ground, an alien army consuming the rural beauty of our green and pleasant land.

Few doubt we need alternative sources of energy. Whether it is to head off global warming and all its unthinkable outcomes, or more parochial reasons of future energy security, the coming decades will look very different from our late, post-industrialised present. The problem is, while everyone wants cheap fuel bills, no one wants the means of production in their backyard, be it a massive wind farm spoiling their view, or a nuclear power plant tapping into fears of long-term health issues, or a short term depletion in the value their homes. Given the summer we are having, it may seem like a no-brainer to cover the UK in wind farms. But the naysayers are not simply concerned about the loss of unspoiled vistas.

A white paper, proudly waved last week by energy secretary, Chris Huhne, hailed a £110 billion investment in wind and nuclear energy, as ‘the cheapest, cleanest way of keeping the lights on.’ But already, many doubt this is the case. While there have been some smaller, ideologically-driven companies producing a tiny percentage of the UK’s energy demands, we fool ourselves if we believe the multinationals are going to shutdown along with their fossil fuel fired power plants. The big utilities are at the heart of Chris Huhne’s vision, and that’s when it begins to unravel.

Energy executives are keen to point out that the £110 billion figure doesn’t include the infrastructure needed to deliver the energy produced to the end user. The real figure is going to be at least £200 billion, and the only people paying for that will be the bill payer. Even if Huhne is right (and politicians are not renowned for their economic projections) it will require the six main utility companies to invest 12 billion a year for a decade to create the necessary infrastructure. If you consider that the industry only spent £3 billion last year, then you don’t need a degree in economics to know that the business model is fundamentally flawed.

Last week I found myself in Totnes, an early adopter of the Transition Town movement. I’m not sure what I expected to find, but it didn’t seem that different to any other small market town I’d ever been in. The car parks were full (my car included), the buildings were mainly old and looked as drafty as my Edwardian terrace and few, if any, had been adorned with solar panels or wind turbines. What’s more, the shops sold just as much imported stuff as locally produced goods.

Slightly disappointed, I walked down to the river to meet my partner and daughter who had been on a boat trip. As we played in a nearby park a little boy was pleased to inform me, “I live in a caravan.” His slightly embarrassed mother explained that this wasn’t quite true. Their static home was in fact an eight month temporary place of residence while their actual home was converted into a passivhaus – an ultra efficient, ultra low energy consuming home that will be carbon neutral. Signs of transition after all. But more than that, here was a different vision – not a centralised, government and corporate-led multi-billion investment in energy production, but a localised, personal commitment to use less energy. One is a vision that says, how do we keep producing enough energy for people to consume, the other asks the question, how can we reduce the amount of energy we need to consume? One way forward has people demonstrating against the means of production – ‘not in my backyard’. The other looks no further than one’s own backyard and takes personal responsibility for the crisis we all face. At least one report to come out of Cambridge University has suggested that it is possible to achieve a 75% reduction in the energy we use by altering the way we use it in both the home and industry.

Of course, there are still significant monetary costs involved. Retro-fitting the UK’s housing stock won’t come cheap. There will still be a need to find alternative ways of producing energy. There is also the personal cost of proactively choosing to live differently. To use less energy hungry devices in our homes. To live simpler (but no less fulfilled) lives. But if we all commit to reducing the energy we consume, then there will be less of a cost to our countryside as we won’t need the vast amounts of wind turbines currently proposed, nor the number of nuclear power stations. It may not feel like it when massive utilities are currently hiking our fuel bills by up to 45%, but the future of power is in our hands far more than we realise.

Photograph: Julie Howden

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