Do we need wind turbines to tackle climate change or is their impact on our greatly valued landscapes a too high a price to pay? Join us to discuss whether we should invest in other sources of renewable energy like wood fuel?  

The advertising poster had a picture of the Surrey Hills alarmingly dotted with several wind turbines so I expected an angry meeting with lots of local people protesting about ruining our local landscape.  In fact it was not like this at all.  There were three main speakers who between them made a strong case for developing wind and wood as renewable energy sources.  Amongst the points made were:

• The South East Area Plan requires 25 wind turbines to be constructed in the region
• Most of the region has an adequate wind speed for wind farms
• There are ample wood resources in the UK – much waste wood presently goes to landfill
• Modern wood stoves are 80-90% efficient and can be used in smokeless zones.

However all three speakers spoke generally and did not mention Surrey Hills.  I tried to ask whether anyone had studied possible renewable energy sites across the South East and knew how Surrey Hills compared with rival sites, but did not get the chance.  I can only assume no-one has done such a study yet.

There were also three others on the panel who were asked questions about what they’d heard.  One was a leading farmer from the Surrey NFU who impressed me a lot.  He said Surrey’s agricultural land is under-used at present and Surrey needs an agricultural renaissance, and he wants to see anaerobic digesters installed to treat farm waste sustainably.  He bemoaned all the objections to proposals like this.  The other two were local politicians.  Perhaps predictably they didn’t attempt to challenge the speakers, but just said that Surrey Hills is the wrong place.  There were lots of questions from the audience and I was pleased and surprised that most were hostile to this NIMBY attitude.

I came away none the wiser about whether there are any serious proposals for renewable energy projects on the Surrey Hills.  The meeting probably gave a good foretaste though of the battle that will break out if we propose a good renewable energy project in Ashtead.

Derek Smith

He started by summarising the mess the world is in with climate change and peak oil and told us that the world needs a new economic model.  I don’t suppose he’s in a transition group, but at this point he was sounding like he was.  Most of the talk however was on the sorts of technologies needed to make buildings and communities sustainable, including:

• Anaerobic digesters that produce bio-gas and compost from food waste and sewage
• Mining waste for valuable materials (apparently New York’s landfill is potentially the world’s biggest cooper mine)
• Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants in North Africa can meet all Europe’s electricity demand
• Urban planning to reduce the need to travel and get cars off the road
• Urban farming incl. trees to help cool streets, food growing on roofs
• Grow algae in hot water on sides of buildings and send to anaerobic digester.

The overall message was upbeat – solutions are available and this is an exciting time to be an engineer.  However he admitted that all this needs political will and when his talk moved away from his engineering expertise I found him less impressive.  Here are some examples. 

1. He repeated the official government line that we need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions 50% by 2050 and UK emissions 80% by 2050 to be sustainable.  The science says we need to reduce much more than this to have any hope of limiting global average temperature rise to 2 deg C.
2. He said the all the UK’s housing should be upgraded street by street (hurray), but blithely said that “pension funds will pay”.  Surely pension funds are obliged to make the best return for the pensioners?
3. He said water shortages can be met by desalination of seawater.  But these plants are heavy energy users and not cheap.  How can poor countries possibly afford them? 

I’m glad I went but I didn’t identify anything that is immediately relevant to Transition Ashtead.  However the other Science Festival talk I attended was called ‘Energy from the Surrey Hills: Wind and Wood?’ which promised immediate local interest.  I’ll report on that within a day or two. 

Derek Smith