This is a _very_ important point. I spent a long time as an economist working on energy and environment issues - but the detail often obscures rather than elucidates. The question to focus on for energy policy is what kind of world to aim for - one of radical simplicity, or one supporting the "moderately affluent lifestyles" that David takes as a benchmark. The economics can follow once the broad lines are set.
I do keep coming back to the question of the UK focus of the book. Here are some questions:
- is the UK's case generalisable? (what would be the point of finding out the UK can live sustainably if the rest of the world can't?)
- is this intended simply to make the numbers mean something more directly?
- so ... I keep coming back to the question of how to get this book localised. Maybe, rather than having a blank wiki for each country, a wiki with the current text and all the national references highlighted, so it would be easy to know what numbers to go and work on ...
One kilowatt-hour per day is roughly the power you could get from
one human servant. The number of kilowatt-hours per day you use is thus
the effective number of servants you have working for you.
I've been there and stood on it whilst waiting for the boats to pass through the lock :-) My French wasn't good enough to read the signs explaining how it works.
The government could make a start by chucking some money at a huge renewables project (like the Severn barrage) to show that it means it. Twiddling with market forces aint going to work is it? Its an easy option that gives the impression that "something" is being done, when actually they don't really want to do anything for fear of it losing them (more) votes