A third way
While the use of renewable energy sources has increased substantially in recent years, encouraged by generous government grants, few people believe they offer a complete solution to our future energy needs.

And although, as we have seen, many experts, politicians and even environmentalists are pushing the nuclear solution, many others oppose this development just as vehemently as ever.

Our leaders, in particular Tony Blair and George W Bush, are largely putting their faith in new technology solving this problem but most scientists and environmentalists would agree that we cannot wait.

Fortunately, a third way of creating energy sources - that has actually been around for many years – has suddenly become economic to exploit. Known as renewed energy, to differentiate it from renewable energy, it uses the by-products from a variety of different human activities as its energy source. There are many different examples of this ranging from the slightly absurd – capturing methane from cows for example – to the frankly irresistible geo-pressure.

Advantages of the third way or renewed energy sources for generating electricity
The first advantage of renewed energy sources, such as geo-pressure, is that using them to create electricity adds little or no extra carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. (Geo-pressure adds none during the electricity generation process.)

The second advantage is that power generation is far more distributed than is currently the case with most electricity generation from fossil fuels and nuclear power. By distributed we really mean local to the consumer. This is known as distributed energy. The reason distributed energy is important is that it reduces both the installation and running costs since electricity can be consumed close to where it is produced. In the case of geo-pressure, it also significantly improves the efficiency of the electricity generation process.

The third advantage, for sources such as methane from bio-digesters used with combined heat and power units, is that they actually remove harmful gasses from the atmosphere.

But by far and away the biggest advantage is that these energy sources are available today and require only small amounts of political and commercial vision and will to fully exploit.

How could geo-pressure, in particular, help?
Let’s not forget the issue here is reducing carbon emissions.

In the UK alone, geo-pressure could account for nearly 9,000 GWh by 2010, equivalent to the current consumption of 2.5 million households. This would save 1 million tonnes of carbon, or 10% of the government’s anticipated shortfall in its 2010 carbon reduction target.

But, if adopted globally, geo-pressure could save between 100 and 400 million tonnes of carbon, or the equivalent of between 100 and 400 nuclear or fossil fuelled power stations. (This estimate assumes an international gas distribution infrastructure similar to the UK model and is based on the BP statistical review describing the world energy market and detailing annual production rates for various fuels, including gas.)

What are we waiting for?