Stories from October 2009
“I just want an energy plan that works,” says chief scientific adviser
Institute of Physics News
29 October 2009
Powering the UK solely using its own renewables would take up an area of land comparable to the size of the country, according to the new chief scientific adviser to the Department for Energy and Climate Change.
Speaking at an event organised by the Institute’s London and South East Branch and held at its London premises in October, Prof. David MacKay showed that even a windfarm the size of Wales would only supply around a sixth of the UK’s power requirements.
Solar energy is up to ten times more efficient, but to cover all our energy needs we would still need to cover an area half the size of Wales – or around 5% of the UK – in solar panels, he said. The efficiency can be further increased by concentrating solar power, but this is only effective in deserts. “Britain doesn’t have any deserts – yet,” he said.
MacKay is a professor of natural philosophy in the physics department at the University of Cambridge and author of the book Sustainable Energy: Without the Hot Air, in which he outlines how the UK can wean itself off fossil fuels.
He concludes that a country like the UK can’t live on its own renewables, and so must use other countries’ renewables or nuclear power, or some combination of all three. He said: “I’m pro-arithmetic. I just want an energy plan that works.”
MacKay suggested developing a diverse energy plan using various sources of energy and choosing the appropriate proportions of each, for example using a third each of nuclear power, wind energy and other countries’ renewables. “It’s a case of saying ‘these are the options’, and the public needs to understand them,” he said.
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