I'm a big fan of solar power. Whenever I see news about interesting industry projects or science news about better technology I get my hopes up. Soon the western world community will come to accept that oil is actually not such a good idea. It's both very expensive and very bad for the environment. Renewable energy sources of any kind is a good thing and today I learnt something that both made me happy and made me a bit sad.
Sweden (where I'm from) is the top European country of using renewable energy at 39.8% and the UK (where I live) is the bottom at the list at a mere 1.5%.
It's quite sickening what a dangerous game the UK plays and I'm disgusted that we are the worst renewable energy user in Europe. I'm not sure what to do but hopefully by keeping the issue of solar power high I add some progress to it. And raising this will perhaps get people to think a bit more about it and with time we can make our government aware that this is important to us here in the UK.
Read the article and scroll down for the list of "EU renewable league"
Comments
Other sources differ a bit (state in 2005):
http://ec.europa.eu/energy/res/index_en.htm
Sweden 30%
CZ 4.5%
UK 1.5%
My home country being 3x better than the UK is not nearly enough in this case (usually it's just 3x cheaper ;)
I'd aim for 50% renewable and most of the rest to be nuclear, plus spend more research money on fusion.
Another worrying issue that I am aware of is waste recycling.. that almost doesn't happen in the UK, either.
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/government_still_failing_o.html
64% Austria (recycling 24 %/ compost 40 %)
33 % Sweden (25%/8%)
11 % UK (9%/2%) (2000/1)
Just dump it into the sea around the island, I guess..