• Question: With the election of Trump and the appointment of a climate change denier as head of America's EPA it looks like they will not fund green energy research. Doyou think Britain could move to fill that gap and where do you think research efforts should focus (in terms of green energy)

    Asked by to Hannah, James, Meggi, Olivia, Oli, Paul, Saiful on 3 Jan 2017. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Meggi

      Meggi answered on 3 Jan 2017:

      Lets see what will really happen in America. I doubt that they would fully cut all funding, as there are too many successful projects already.

      In general, green energy is a topic that every country should care about. Many countries cooperate already worldwide in order to fulfill the energy demands of the next generations. Britain plays a crucial role as many smart and motivated people from all over the world study and do science there.

      There are many ways of establishing a greener world. As an example, Singapore invests a lot in the development of smart housing. The temperature is 26-30 degree during the whole day, meaning that air conditioning is needed. This costs lots of energy. They have established many ideas for saving energy, like playing with the architecture and inventing glass that does not heat up from sun light.

      The same approach can be used for Britain. Can we invent windows that might heat up the room during winter and might block the heating (IR/UV-VIS) during summer?

      There are many important areas Britain should focus on like energy storage (like batteries), energy saving, energy sources like solar energy and wind, smart housing, smart grids, electric cars etc. The list is so long…

    • Photo: Oli Weber

      Oli Weber answered on 3 Jan 2017:

      We’ll have to wait and see, I don’t think anyone knows what is going to happen yet, but there is plenty of reason not to be optimistic. I think a lot of countries should step up clean energy research regardless of what happens in the USA over the next few years!

      I agree with Mechthild’s answer that there are a lot of successful projects and successful businesses in the USA already. In the UK we could focus on how this country is going to meet carbon reduction aims. This could be to do with new ways to keep buildings warm and also on how to better integrate renewables and energy storage onto the grid, maybe over the whole of Europe.

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