The man powering our path for change
THE boss of the world’s first green energy company has teamed up with the Daily Express to let our readers know what they can do to play their part. Entrepreneur Dale Vince, 59, founded his windpower firm Ecotricity after using a small windmill on top of his campervan to take care of his energy needs. Thirty years later, he presides over a company with a turnover close to £250million and has invented an electric car, the Nemesis, which holds the UK land speed record for e-cars.
There is also an electric motorbike, the Ion Horse, named after its batteries, and a hovercraft powered by renewable energy on the way.
Dale has bought his local football team, Forest Green Rovers, led it into the Football League, turned it vegan and won the title of the world’s greenest football club from FIFA. Even the pitch is mown by a solar-powered robot.
One of his latest ventures involves taking carbon out of the sky and turning it into diamonds. Dale, whose work has been recognised with an OBE, said of his Skydiamonds project: “We’re making diamonds from the sky, actual diamonds made only from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – something we have too much of turned into something we quite like to have.
“The air we put back into the atmosphere is cleaner than the air we take out – which is an industrial first.” Dale, who is married with three sons and two grandsons, had his first brainwave in the winter of 1991 when he was camping on a hill near Stroud, Gloucestershire.
He said: “I had begun to power my life with windmills. The little one I had on the roof of my trailer made 50 watts when the wind was blowing hard.
“The amount of energy being used by the town below me was so much more than I was able to make – but I knew wind energy needed to become mainstream. It was this combination of thoughts that led to the epiphany I had.”
He teamed up with Triodos Bank and now has more than 70 windmills and powers 200,000 homes and businesses.
His commitment to renewables and call for a greener Britain is detailed in his book Manifesto. He said of the climate crisis: “It’s super-serious but totally solvable.We have all of the technology that we need, in all cases it’s cheaper to adopt it than persist with the old stuff.
“We just need to adjust our thinking and embrace the new industrial revolution that has already begun.”
He says Britain must tackle three key issues – energy, transport and food – if it is to go green. Over the next few weeks he will be explaining to Express readers how they can play their part.
He said: “I’m looking forward to this – the more people that join us the faster and bigger we make the change.”
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