As a long term ‘greeny’ sort of person Climate Change and future Climate Chaos worries me. Along the road I’ve become a parent and have even more interest in helping create sustainable future for them and their peers.

A great Friends of the Earth report in March 2006 “A bright future – Friends of the Earth’s electricity sector model for 2030” showed clearly that relatively simple policy changes would ensure a much safer and greener energy future for us all. It placed heavy reliance on encouraging Combined Heat and Power and phasing out nuclear power stations.

Combined Heat and Poweris where you generate electricity by burning something – gas, biomass, whatever – and use the spare heat left over from generating hat electricity in district heating systems. Generally it is twice as efficient as letting that heat escape directly into the atmosphere.

Gas electricity production is 49-52% efficient, coal 38%. You see huge chimneys for such plants letting out unused heat. CHP plants usually attain 80%+ efficiencies.  CHP plants also have to be smaller and closer to where the end district heating system is so they also avoid 7% loss of efficiency of the electricity being lost in being converted to high voltages and back again to be carried over long distances.

On a national scale, I was horrified to hear Lib Dem Secretary of State talk about nuclear power. It has to be one of the most wasteful forms of generating electricity and takes so long to build that it’s an irrelevance to our future energy needs.

On a local scale to see the new Labour run Southwark Council making it very possible for the Elephant & Castle to not have a CHP plant under a MUSCo arrangement (MUSCo is where you run CHP district heating pipes in and while you’ve a hole in the road also put the telecoms and other utilities in).

We’ll fight to ensure common sense at both levels to ensure all our low carbon futures.