Devolve Power To The People

Photo by Gavin St Ours'

There's not quite panic on the streets yet, but looking at the fossil fuel industry there's clearly panic in the boardrooms.

Scottish Power announced whopping great price rises last week of 10% for electricity and 19% for gas. The Herald details the spiralling costs of gas and oil, linked with dwindling supplies. I'm surprised it wasn't bigger news last week that Wikileaks revealed that North Sea oil production was falling 8% annually.

Meanwhile the recently resurgent nuclear industry has taken a few body blows with country after country deciding that nuclear is quite possibly the stupidest way to boil water ever devised. Gas producers have taken to fracturing open rocks underground in order to capture the gas contained in them (and how bloody desperate does that sound?), and oil companies are licking their lips in anticipation of climate change melting the Arctic ice cap enough to let them drill for oil in the top of the world.

So how do we get off the treadmill? How do we get ourselves away from this panicked response to peak oil?

It's clear that the energy-producing big-concrete-box-on-the-coast has had it's day. As we head into a post-carbon planet, our energy will become increasingly localised. Not every house is suitable for installing solar panels or having a wind turbine in the back garden, of course, which means that we'll see a resurgence in communities.

Where Eigg and Fintry have led in producing renewable energy for the local residents, others are following. Wadebridge in Cornwall is the latest small town to realise the direction the big companies are going in isn't the one they want to be taking.

They've decided that by 2015, 30% of their energy will come from renewables, mostly solar. Hopefully they can be an inspiration to other small towns and villages around the UK who are looking aghast at the price increases of electricity and heating oil and wondering what they can do.

Here's their first YouTube video announcing their plans, and you can follow their progress on their website: