By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Commenting on reports that the Queen has taken delivery on Thursday, September 8, 2011 of two giant hydroelectric turbines that will be installed in the river Thames to power Windsor Castle with green energy, Friends of the Earth's Director of Policy and Campaigns Craig Bennett said: “This is exciting news – we urgently need to develop clean and safe energy to tackle climate change and build a greener economy and it's great that the Royal family is showing leadership in doing so.
“Obviously schemes should be carefully located to avoid any negative environmental impacts – and in this case the Environment Agency says there'll be no adverse effects on wildlife, navigation or flood control.
“It's not just the Royals who can take advantage of the UK's huge potential for renewable energy on and offshore – from our wind and sun to our waves and river weirs.
“The Government should get on with the job of greening all of our energy supplies and ensure that communities are properly supported to produce their own clean power.”
His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, has been a leader in the use of many of the new innovations at Highgrove and elsewhere on the Royal estates and the Royal Family should be commended for its stance on this.
Obviously, as Craig Bennett said, it should not only be something that should be able to benefit the Royals but should be available to all of us, in one way or the other.
Many of the locks on the canals and the rivers could, in fact, be used to generate some electricity as they all have water gushing through and the way that the locks “pump water from one end to the other should make this possible. It would be time that someone took a closer look into that.
Our biggest problem as to the uptake of green and renewable power simply is the fact that the government is in the pockets of the oil, gas and nuclear companies and thus there are no incentives there for them to push renewable energy.
Much like with recycling and all that there is lots of lip service but not real action. Most of our curbside recycling is a farce for you cannot recycle glass bottles and jars that have their lid on them and neither can you do much with all the different color thrown together into the same container. And that is but one of the bits.
It all looks good, and that is the same with the government's lip service to renewable energy but when it comes down too it they will support nuclear, or oil and gas, who give them some nice little backhanders.
© 2011
