The UK is currently responsible for the emission of 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions even though it only has 1% of the world’s population.
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Over a third of the carbon dioxide (54 million tonnes) produced by the UK is emitted from power stations.
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The Government has set targets for the percentages of the UK’s electricity supply it would like to see provided by renewable energy sources:
5% by 2005
10% by 2010
20% by 2020 (‘aspirational’ target)
Potentially 60% carbon emissions cuts by 2050.
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The Scottish Executive has set a target for Scotland to supply 18% of its power from renewable sources by 2010 and 40% from renewable sources by 2020.
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Renewable energy comes from continuously available sources: wind, sun, water, or from renewable organic matter or ‘biomass’.
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Renewable energy sources in the UK now provide 3.86% of the total electricity supply. |
| - Bio-mass |
: 0.94% (735 MW) |
| - Wind |
: 0.83% (649 MW) |
| - Hydroelectric |
: 2.03% (1579 MW) |
| - Wave |
: 0.006% (0.5 MW) |
- Solar
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: 0.051% (4 MW) |
To meet the 10% target by 2010, approximately 10,000 megawatts of additional renewable generation will be required. As a guide this equates to between 5,000 and 10,000 wind turbines, or 200 50-megawatt biomass power stations.
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The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) estimates that an additional 2,000 onshore turbines are required to meet the onshore wind element of the 2010 target. At present 1,043 wind turbines generate up to 649MW of power.
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The UK currently generates about 1.8% of its electricity from large-scale hydroelectric schemes.
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If hydro power from all of the streams and rivers in the UK could be tapped it would be enough to meet just over 3% of our total electrical needs.
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Wind energy supplies almost one fifth of the renewable energy contribution currently and about 0.3-0.4% of the UK’s overall supply.
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By the end of 2004, 22 new wind farm projects are scheduled to come online, representing an additional 474 MW of capacity. An additional 734 MW of onshore wind, and 845 MW of offshore wind is scheduled for construction beyond 2004, a figure which continues to increase rapidly.
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If you add the wind farms which are operating to those which have received consent and are about to be built, they represent a total of over 3,000 megawatts, a greater installed capacity than all the UK’s magnox nuclear power stations (2484MW at end of 2003).
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All electricity suppliers in England and Wales have an obligation to purchase a proportion of their energy from renewable sources, with a price cap limiting the costs they can pass on to consumers.
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Currently around 80% of the UK’s energy supply comes from finite sources: coal, oil and gas. 15.6 % comes from nuclear sources.
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Greenhouse gases occur naturally but their production and release to the environment has been exacerbated by human activity. Greenhouse gases include: water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides (NOx), ozone, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6).
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By 2020 the UK will need to import gas to cater for up to 80% of our energy needs (BWEA).
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It is estimated that around 385,000 jobs in the EU will be created by 2020 from biomass fuel production alone. (EC ALTENER study).
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Surveys have shown that more than 90% of the British public are in favour of renewable energy technologies.
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Electricity sales in 2003 increased by 1.6 % compared to the previous year. (source: DTI).
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An installed capacity of 1,000 megawatts (= 1 gigawatt) translates to approximately enough electricity for the needs of 604,833 households:1,451,600 people or around 1% of the UK electricity supply.
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Wind generated waves on the ocean surface of the world have a total (estimated) power of 90 million GW.
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Worldwide, approximately 3,000 gigawatts (GW) of energy is continuously available from the action of tides but only 2% or 60 GW can potentially be recovered for electricity generation.
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