Yes efficiency makes a great deal of sense; in the U.S. I think we could cut use by about 75% without compromising production. Britain, being more efficient to begin with probably has a slightly lower potential -60% as a silly wild arsed guess But you have to get that remaining precent from somewhere. When it comes to electricity don't see why wind should not fill a great deal of the gap.
FWIW, an environmentalist friend of mine tends to the
> view that nuclear is perhaps the least worst solution.
He prefers nuclear energy to wind energy - because people don't want to look at windmills. This does not puzzel me. It appalls me. We are blasting the top off of mountains in the U.S. to mine coal; the UK has a fair sized coal industry too. And people oppose wind energy because wind generators spoil the look of the landscape? I mean I'm not doubting you. We have the same phenomena in the U.S. I think the problem with wind generators is that they are put up where rich people have to look at them. All energy forms have social costs (including efficiency - the mercury in flourescent bulbs for example.) Wind has about the lowest social costs of any energy form - but since they can't be mostly imposed on the poor the way the costs (for example) of coal or uranium mining our, it stirs up tremendous opposition.
I seem to remember that one in four children in Harlem have asthma - largely due to coal use.
Simon
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