黑洞社区

As the evidence on climate change gets ever more alarming, there鈥檚 an understandable, and laudable, impulse to rush through ideas to cut greenhouse gas emissions. However, there is a danger that we鈥檒l end up taking a scatter gun to the problem, thereby convincing ourselves that we鈥檙e taking effective action when in reality we鈥檙e doing nothing of the sort.

This concern is becoming increasingly apparent in our industry, and is reflected in letters to the magazine and comments posted to the 鈥渨hat you think鈥� link on our website. The question of sustainability in general, and the issues of wind power and microgeneration in particular, have generated more debate than any other issue. For our part, we鈥檝e devoted a supplement to the issue (Learning the New Rules, published with this week鈥檚 黑洞社区). On the website, a proposal by London Eye architect Marks Barfield to install thousands of wind turbines across the capital elicited responses ranging from 鈥渋t鈥檚 a wonderful idea鈥�, to 鈥渃omplete load of cobblers: wind turbines don鈥檛 work in urban areas鈥�. That said, it鈥檚 infinitely more workable than the idea of installing wind turbines on every suburban rooftop, which most agree would achieve little more than hiking the share price of B&Q.

As Davis Langdon argued in our 30 March issue, the best way to cut emissions is energy reduction, but that doesn鈥檛 mean we shouldn鈥檛 install renewable generators, too. Each scheme has an optimal, site-specific solution. Biomass boilers fuelled by rice husks may be perfect for the Dongtan eco-city in China, but they鈥檙e not going to work for offices in Westminster.

If the industry is going to make sense of these rules, products and aspirations we need to establish some basic principles. Four candidates would be:

鈥� Establish a national framework for the industry to work within. The Code for Sustainable Homes should provide much of this, but it risks being undermined by a plethora of other piecemeal measures imposed by councils. We look forward to seeing what the planning white paper has to say on this.

鈥� We need to find a way to make sure manufacturers鈥� green products do what they say on the tin. And find people to maintain them.

鈥� We need the utilities to work with housebuilders to set up community energy networks, rather than relying on back-garden generation.

鈥� Someone must provide practical details in the context of a carefully thought through policy. For example, how should the national balance be struck between micro and macro generation? At present the government doesn鈥檛 seem to be doing this, a fear borne out by this week鈥檚 National Audit Office report. Hopefully we鈥檒l be proved wrong in the forthcoming energy white paper; and there is some reason to hope that Brown鈥檚 proposal to combine energy with the environment will turn out to be a very sound idea.