Interesting ideas were bounced off today in one of our lectures. Although we all know those ideas, we sometimes lose focus of where the problem really lies when we are looking at decarbonising the electricity system. NASA has put a man on the moon about 40 years ago and compared to that decarbonising the electricity system is a piece of cake. If we really want we can just build loads of renewables and it’s done. The problem is the cost.
I can hear you already, well of course the cost is a problem, we all know that. And yes we do, but we must remember that. You hear a lot of discussions on how difficult it is to decarbonise the system and you think if only we can find this new breakthrough technology. The technology of course is there, all our efforts are concentrated on making it cheap.
There is therefore much more work to be expended on financial and policy issues then technological issues. Spending on R&D might be a good idea but we must start taking action and start learning by doing. If you spend on R&D you do increase your chances of finding that cheap efficient technology but is you spend on demo projects, you get something at the end plus the actual output of the project.
Learning by doing has always been a cornerstone of human advancement. The cliche example of edison and his light bulb applies here. At the end of the day if governments really attached a high value to the enviornmental issue as they do to banks, we can just pay our way out of it. So in risk of repeating myself, focus on the cost and learn by doing.
