Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
uneasy about the existing energy system, it has one enormous advantage over the
alternatives: familiarity. Though proverb tells us that familiarity breeds contempt,
psychology holds the opposite to be true. Numerous studies have shown that the more
exposure we have to a stimulus, the more we will tend to like it. The word itself holds a
clue. What is more familiar to us than our family? We may sometimes feel that we hate
them as much as we love them, but in the end we usually stick by them.
The power available at the flick of a switch from a faceless utility, the filling station
where we can also, conveniently, pick up a cold drink, the power stations comfortably
hidden from view - these things are part of people's expectation of the world, at least
in those countries fortunate enough to enjoy plentiful access to energy. The prospect
of switching to a vastly different system is frightening. The NIMBY attitude to energy
infrastructure shows that many people don't want to think too deeply about where their
energy comes from. Yet, the inexorable reality of global warming impresses upon us that
the entire world is our back yard. It doesn't matter whether carbon dioxide is emitted a mile
from our home or ten thousand miles away; we will feel its impact either way.
Oneofthekeydifferencesbetweenconventionalandrenewableenergiesisthatthelatter
do not lend themselves to massive hidden facilities. On the contrary, the great advantage of
renewable energy is that we
can
install it in our backyards. It invites us into a relationship
with our energy source. This may explain some of the resistance to renewable energy (for
example, to highly visible facilities such as wind farms), but is also one of its greatest
selling points. As we have shown in earlier chapters, the detachment we feel from our
energy source is very recent. Our ancestors used to live with or next to the animals that
tilledtheirfields,andtheyfelledthetimberthatheatedtheirhomes.Thereisnowaywecan
return to this idyll, if it can even be described as such. The world's population is expected
to stabilizes at 9 billion or 10 billion people over the next century. Most of these people
will live in cities or suburbs.
There are ways to engage more closely with your energy source, without actually
installing a biogas digester or wind turbine in your yard, or placing solar panels on
your roof. Throughout Europe, more than 2,400 renewable energy cooperatives have been
set up, with funding from the European Union, allowing citizens to invest and acquire
a financial stake in the energy they use. According to Adrien Bullier of the European
Commission, “We see great potential in this kind of model. It fosters acceptability” (Hall
The solution to our future energy needs will probably be renewable (otherwise the Earth
will be too hot to inhabit), and almost certainly far more decentralised than the current
system. That means, both urban and rural communities will have to become accustomed to
