British PM calls for $200B renewable energy
push
Jun 26, 2008 - The Associated Press
LONDON (AP) - British Prime Minister Gordon
Brown called for a $200 billion investment to reduce the
nation's dependence on oil and to help meet European targets
for developing renewable energy sources.
Brown proposed spreading that expenditure
over 12 years as the government attempts to meet a European
Union target of producing 15 percent of the country's energy
from renewable sources by 2020.
"This is a green revolution in the making,"
Brown said in a speech at a conference on a low-carbon economy.
"It will be a 10-fold increase on our current
deployment of renewables, and a 300 percent increase on
our existing plans -- the most dramatic change in our energy
policy since the advent of nuclear power."
Under the plans, Brown said, renewables such
as wind farms would account for more than 30 percent of
Britain's electricity supply, 14 percent of heating and
nearly 10 percent of transport fuels by 2020. He estimated
that the renewables program would create a quarter of a
million jobs.
"If the government actually means it this
time, then Britain will become a better, safer and more
prosperous country," said John Sauven, executive director
of Greenpeace.
"We could create jobs, reduce our dependence
on foreign oil and use less gas, and in the long run our
power bills will come down. But it won't happen without
real government action," Sauven said.
Renewable energy could grow to 35 percent
of the nation's electricity supply by 2020, said Nick Winser,
executive director of the National Grid, which owns the
transmission network.
"It is a massive undertaking, and one which
will require major investment in the transmission network,
along with the reforms set out in the planning bill and
a new offshore regulatory framework," Winser said.
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