Canada's Province of Prince Edward Island has made a bold visionary step enacting new legislation that requires utilities to source at least 15% of their electricity from renewable sources by the year 2010. But the really bold step was to require 100% renewable power by 2015 - a positively aggressive timeline. Sure, it's a small place but they had the vision to realise that 100 percent renewable power is achievable.
The UK, who is on track to meet their Kyoto obligations, recently issued a study saying that Micro-generation could contribute up to 30-40% of the nations electricity needs by the year 2050. Nice enough thing to say, and even though I'm a big fan of micro-generation I can't help bringing to mind the phrase "poverty of ambition." If you're going to water down your conclusion with a major caveat like "could", then why pull your punches? Frankly I'm absolutely certain that micro-generation could deliver 100 percent - yes, ALL of it. And a lot sooned than 2050 - let's say 2020. Why not? Bigger changes have happened faster in recent memory.
For instance today I'm handling almost 90% of my communication with people who are more than 10 feet away, via the internet. Just 10 years ago that would all have been by phone or mail.
With the right economic and lifestyle incentives and people embrace change rapidly. The money spent on the war on Iraq could have been spent more wisely incentivising renewables in the US and would have delivered new technological developments that could easily have ended our dependence on Middle East oil within 10 years. But I doubt any of Bush's friends would have benefited from such a move. So instead we continue pouring money down a drain that disrupts world peace and perpetuates our dependence on oil.
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