The smart money is not behind fossil fuels
J COLLIER (M.E.N, Viewpoints, Saturday, November 25) points to independence from foreign powers controlling our supply of fossil fuels as a good reason for switching to renewables, but as someone who spent part of their pension lump sum on installing solar panels, I can point to another.
Quite simply, they save us pots of money.
We don’t get nearly as much feed-in payment as we should have done if the government hadn’t cut it by 65 per cent a couple of years ago (pole-axing a growing, job-providing industry), but it is still nice to get a cheque for the sun shining and our energy bills have very radically fallen – perhaps in part as you become aware of the free electricity you are making and so we do the washing in the morning rather than late at night.
And, of course, the air quality isn’t damaged.
This should be a real consideration with an increasing population and respiratory problems.
We’re lucky – we could afford to do it – but why is it that decent solar generation isn’t demanded on all new buildings? Roofs could be orientated optimally.
For social housing it is even more desirable – the token number of panels you often see should be greatly increased as it liberates poorer people from bills. I know the sun doesn’t shine every day, but with new technologies (which our universities should be leading on) and the rapid development of electrical storage, engineering is minimising this problem quickly.
We may need fossil fuels at the moment, but their market is dwindling by the month and the smart money is moving into the future where you aren’t burning a finite resource that harms you. Why won’t people recognise this? William Black, Hulme