Public misconceptions of renewables must be overcome

摘要

Three recent phenomena ought to spur the development of renewables. One is the discovery that vehicle exhausts are a major factor in causing asthma. One in seven aged between 2 and 16 and at least 4 percent of adults in the U.K.are affected. Its incidence is on the rise. In 1990 11.6 percent of children under 5, now 21 percent, adults from 16 percent to 21 percent in 1996. Globally about 150m are affected. Remedy: the electric, hydrogen or fuel celled vehicle. The other was a potentially very serious nuclear accident at Tokaimura, Japan. It was due to human error. Staff hnd added 16 kg of uranium to a tank designed for no more than 2.4 kg, cf Edward Teller: '...with so many simians monkeying about with things they do not fully understand, sooner or later the fool will prove greater than the proof even in a fool-proof system' (P Hayes, Nuclear Power: the Fifth Horseman, World Watch Paper No.6, p.32). A third is the recent finding that the staff of Sellafield nuclear installation were getting bored with safety records and simply wrote fictitious records. Meantime the Irish are becoming justifiably annoyed by the nuclear effluent being poured into the Irish Sea. It is said that 40 tonnes of low level waste continaing plutronium has belched into the water and is carried right up the west coast of Scotland. Meantime no agreement has yet been reached on find depositories for high or medium level waste so far as known neither in the USA, Britain or anywhere. Also, storms including cyclones and hurricanes have become much more frequent in the last few decades, as have floods and droughts. The IPCC and 95 percent of reputable world climatologists are now convinced that global warming is at least in part due to human activity, particularly the burning of fossil fuel, changes in farming practices and forest felling or burning. The temperature increase in the last century is unprecedented in the last 10,000 years. On the 'smoking gun' principle it is obvious that the rise in greenhouse gases is guilty of causing the rise. Perhaps most significant is that the rate of temperature increase has accelerated during the last two decades and this is correlative with a huge increase in industrial activity and the use of internal combustion engines. In 1950, only 50 m vehicles spouted forth toxic cocktails now 600m make the air unbreathable in cities such as Los Angeles, Tokyo, Athens or London, especially in warm and windless weather. CRYING NEED FOR RENEWABLE PROPAGANDA IN LANGUAGE THE NON TECHNOLOGIST CAN UNDERSTAND. Delegates to WREC bring most attractive material with them but it is all couched in technical language which is gobbledegook to the man in the street, or the man with a roof crying out for a solar panel on top.