So what is “Green Energy”?

For more information on each of the specific types of Renewable Green Energy, visit our Types of Green Energy page.

If you are reading this, then you are already concerned with the impact of climate change and are interested in how you can be more environmentally friendly. Using Green Energy is one of the most significant ways in which you can help to save our planet. But what is Green Energy and why should you use it?

Green Energy – otherwise known as sustainable energy is produced from renewable energy sources, such as harnessing the power of the sun (solar energy), water (hydroelectricity), the wind (wind energy) energy, waves (wave power), the natural heat sources of the earth (geothermal energy), bioenergy, and the sea (tidal power).

Essentially, Green Energy is renewable energy,such as electricity, produced by environmentally friendly methods.

 

What’s Wrong with How We Produce Electricity Now?

The traditional method of generating electricity, and where the majority of the UK’s electricity comes from, is by burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. However, when fossil fuels are burned carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. That doesn’t really sound too bad does it? After all what’s the harm in a little extra carbon dioxide floating around up there?

The problem, as explained by www.direct.gov.uk – the UK Government’s digital information service, is that the release of this extra carbon dioxide causes an increase in the  ‘greenhouse effect’.  The carbon dioxide hangs about in the atmosphere above our planet trapping in too much heat from the sun and causing our planet’s climate to change unnaturally. It’s just like the sun pouring into a greenhouse in the garden, the heat does not escape and the temperature rises in the greenhouse, cooking everything inside if you’re not careful.

 

Why is Climate Change bad?

In 2005 alone, an extra 27 tonnes of carbon dioxide¹ from the burning of fossil fuels to create electricity was released into the atmosphere. In fact, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere is now higher than at any time in at least the last 800,000 years.

In the last 100 years, the Earth has warmed by 0.75 degrees Celsius. Global sea levels have gone up, glaciers and sea ice have melted, and extreme weather events, like floods and droughts, are already happening and are likely to happen more often. Climate change does appear to be happening.

However, there is an argument that says climate change would happen anyway – as a natural evolution – but in fact, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a scientific body set up by the UN to look at climate change, says that human activity is the main cause of the changes seen in climate during recent decades².

 

Should We Care About Climate Change?

Now whilst the increase in global temperature doesn’t seem like much at the moment. The effect of these temperature increases is becoming more apparent. The UK Energy Saving Trust³ puts forward the following argument:

“Weather patterns are becoming increasingly disrupted and unpredictable and significant warming trends have been seen over the last century. During the last 40 years, the UK’s winters have grown warmer, with heavier bursts of rain. The summers are growing drier and hotter – one of the starkest changes over the last 200 years is our summers have become drier causing widespread water shortages. The last 6 years have been the warmest years since records began. And during August 2003, the hottest temperature ever recorded in the UK was taken in Brogdale in Kent. It was 38.5°C.

 

Slowly but surely, much of the UK is experiencing extreme climates more associated with our European neighbours. The Thames barrier, which prevents flooding in London, was raised on average three times a year until 2001, a year in which it was raised 15 times. By 2030, it is expected that it will need to be raised 30 times per year.

 

However flooding is a looming threat over much of the country. Severe storms and rising seas – some 10cm higher than sea level in 1900 – are slowly eating away at our coastline. As rainfall comes down in deluges, rivers are bursting their banks more often, with flashfloods becoming a more common occurrence. The floods experienced in the UK during the summer of 2007 were the result of the heaviest rainfall since records began. The financial implications of climate change were highlighted in a recent report by the Association of British Insurers, which predicts an 8%, 14% and 25% increase respectively for inland flooding insurance costs for a 2, 4 and 6 centigrade increase in temperature.

 

By the end of this century, we could be facing intense heatwaves reaching up to mid 40°C in some places, more like the heat in 2003 that killed thousands of people across the rest of Europe. Temperatures as high as this have probably not been experienced since the last great warm period over 100,000 years ago, at the same time that hippos roamed England. As the summers become hotter and drier, drought could become a major threat. Anyone who lived through the long, hot summer of 1976 will remember the drought that reached crisis proportions: water rationing, building subsidence, withered crops, diseased trees, wildfires and deaths from the heat.

 

The animal and plant worlds could also be thrown into turmoil and many species that we traditionally associate with Britain may disappear. Needless to say, the white Christmas could become a thing of the past, while the UK’s green and pleasant land will become more brown and unpleasant as the climate becomes less suited to growing lawns and gardens.

 

The effects on health could also be profound. Aside from obvious issues like hay fever, there could be an increase in cataracts, skin cancer and even tropical diseases such as Dengue fever and West Nile virus. Even now, mosquitoes carrying such diseases are invading the US because of rising temperatures. Overall, it’s clear that the cost to society, the environment, our health and the economy is going to far outweigh any perceived benefits of a warmer UK”

 

Switch to Renewable Green Energy and Help to Save the Planet

So it’s obvious we are doing irreparable damage to our planet. Switching to Renewable Green Energy is going to help enormously towards saving the planet and it’s not just you that thinks so. The UK Government has already begun initiatives, through it’s Renewable Obligations Policy that require electricity suppliers to source more of their electricity from renewable, carbon-free sources, such as wind power. The goal, as outlined in the National renewable Energy Action Plan⁴ is to reach 15% of energy consumption from renewable sources by 2020. In 2009 the usage was just under 4%, so we do have some way to go.

However, by reaching our targets, not only will we contribute greatly to saving the planet and being a more environmentally friendly nation, we will also be able to decrease our reliance on domestic fossil fuels. Especially as they will eventually run out. We are already seeing sharp increases in the cost of gas and electricity, so it will pay in the long run to switch to Green Energy, if for no other reason than this.

 

References:

1: statistics from www.direct.gov.uk – the UK Government’s digital information service in England and Wales.

2: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

3: www.energysavingtrust.org.uk

4: www.decc.gov.uk