Something I stumbled across earlier in the week during my travels on the internet was something our neighbours across the water in the United Kingdom have adopted as a government policy. What im referring to is the renewable heat incentive Scotland. This incentive provides homeowners with a incentive to purchase renewable energy that generates heat as they will receive set payments each month if they choose to invest in renewable energy. After reading more about I can tell that we need to take a similar approach here in the USA to have any sort of lasting positive impact on the USA in future.
What Are Renewables And How Do They Affect The Environment?
Renewables are renewable energy sources that can generate green forms of energy that can help to reduce the overall impact of pollutants as well as carbon dioxide emissions on the environment. Increasingly as more and more governments move towards green energy targets more action is being taken to ensure that these targets are met and this technology is adopted. One of the most remarkable things I noted was that homeowners were being paid several thousand pounds over a period of a few years in order to adopt this technology. Although there is an upfront cost the incentives help to ease the financial hit and the majority of the time it works out in the homeowners favour!
Renewables can come in a number of different shapes and sizes. One of the main forms of renewables available in the UK is the heat pump. A heat pump is a device that can generate heat from water or air and can heat properties without producing C02 or having a damaging effect on the environment.
How Can The USA Learn From This Example?
As many of you will know , we don’t have the best environmental record here in the United States. This is partly down to Government lack of action and awareness on climate change as well as a lack of a large coherent movement within the USA as a whole to highlight the issue. This contrasts with the UK where pressure groups highlighting climate change are very active and are constantly highlighting the issue to the public as well as the government.
So what can we do to learn from this and build our own legacy? Well the US clearly has a lot to learn from the UK in terms of renewable energy and how it can be implemented into everyday life. One of he great benefits of having a renewable heating incentive is that it should lead to an increase in renewable energy overall and motivate organisations in the US to produce more green technology to help the market as a whole.
From my experience networking as well as conferences would work best to spread awareness around the issue. Little by little the more we all talk about the issue the bigger the difference that could be made overall.
What Difference Will More Renewable Energy Make?
In the future renewable energy will help us to keep have less of an impact on the world and reduce climate change Its important we make sustainable changes now in order to help the future generations. The renewable heat incentive Scotland is a highly successful initiative which should be used as a model for success here in the USA
