• Question: What policies would you support to meet the demand for energy while ensuring an economically and environmentally sustainable future?

    Asked by Supriya to Jackie, Michele, Oliver, Vicky, Yelong on 9 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Vicky Bayliss

      Vicky Bayliss answered on 9 Mar 2015:

      wow big question. With any decision like that I just try to look at the actual facts involved and ignore all the hype. Like the whole fracking debate at the moment (about getting the oil from underground in the UK) – people are very concerned about the risks, rightly so, they should be taken into account. but some groups play on our natural fears to get us to follow their lead – they use big scary words and not necessarily about things they even understand. I read an article by the Institute of Mechnanical Engineers (who monitor and support engineers in the UK) and they said that when they tried to make a decision whether to support it or not, they just decided no-one actually knew because there wasn’t enough research. But if you read the newspaper you might be lead to believe that people had done extensive research and really knew what they were talking about.
      So, mostly I try to ignore all that and get to actual numbers and figures that I can compare.

    • Photo: Michele Faucci Giannelli

      Michele Faucci Giannelli answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      First of all what is the problem we want to avoid? I think every scientist will say that the major environment risk is due to global worming which is caused by emission of CO2 in the atmosphere. So we should reduce it by reducing fuel plants (oil or carbon) and invest in renewable and nuclear (fission) ones. So more research is the key since as we need new and more efficient renewable plants (high altitude wind farms) and safer nuclear plants which produces fewer nuclear waste which is the big drawback of using nuclear energy. All this should be done while waiting for the development of fusion power plants based on the results of the ITER prototype now being built in France. This last step will require even further investment in its research.

    • Photo: Jaclyn Bell

      Jaclyn Bell answered on 14 Mar 2015:

      I’m not really sure I can answer this as I’m not very well read in this area… Like Vicky said, we sometimes get caught up in what the media is telling us and I myself fall victim of this sometimes – and so I’m not 100% sure on the actual policies and facts to give an answer 🙁

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