Already a subscriber?A cardinal fallacy reigns over the debate on green energy and global decarbonisation. It taps into deep Malthusian instincts and creates near-universal confusion.
A close rival is to conflate “investment” and “cost”. Investment delivers a return, and clean tech pays for itself with a high multiplier. The LED bulb will last 15 or 20 times longer. It will not lose 80 per cent of its energy in heat. It will not set the lampshade on fire. Bingo. If you switch from a Volkswagen Golf to an electric Volkswagen ID3 charged at night off British wind, or charged during the day off Australian solar, you cut primary energy use by 75 per cent at a stroke.
The beauty of ground source heat pumps for office buildings, blocks of flats, or light industry is that the ground itself acts as a giant battery in non-tropical climates. It does half the work of heating in winter and of cooling in summer.About 15 per cent of the world’s primary energy demand is to extract and refine oil and gas, so that will partly disappear. Fossils account for 40 per cent of the world’s blue water shipping.