There's no denying it, we all want and expect energy in abundance. However as Ted Nield (editor of Geoscientist) put it "Everybody wants energy, as much of it as possible, and cheap. And nobody wants it to be generated - or its feedstocks extracted - by any method whatever, anywhere at all, and certainly not near where they live - unless they become rich in the process, in which case it’s fine, because they can move somewhere else."
Two stories have highlighted the dilemma that energy poses. Planning permission for an open cast coal mine in the Valleys has been refused because of competing local interests. Do we want the jobs and the energy security that this will bring or are we happy to import the coal that we all use and need from "somewhere else"? The BBC's Environment Editor has summed it up quite succinctly - "Why is everyone so angry about generating electricity?"
As a society we need to accept the geological, georgaphical and scientific realities of energy generation because we simply cannot have it all.
How do you think we should resolve these issues?
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