Green energy a lunatic hope

"A world economy run entirely on clean energy" ("Leaders in climate call", yesterday).

This is a pipe dream.

Currently, solar and wind provide only about 1% of our needs, and are unlikely ever to exceed 3% because the wind does not always blow and the sun does not always shine.

To replace fossil fuels with nuclear energy would require the building of a nuclear power station every day for the next 40 years and, if we did that, we would run out of uranium.

Carbon monoxide is the price we pay for our lifestyle, but we had better be certain that CO2 is the culprit in climate change before we engage in the economically destructive "solutions" being proposed.

Fossil fuels are not going to last forever. About 80% of our energy comes from burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) and 5% comes from burning biomass (wood and so on), of which only 1% is currently renewable.

But new technologies and inventions will evolve as fuel becomes more expensive and market forces push us in that direction.

Today we lead a lifestyle equivalent to owning 200 slaves, and this lifestyle is possible because the availability of cheap energy allows us to be 200 times more productive than we would be without it.

Without it we will live in the dark - cold, hungry and filthy. No access to water and power limits access to hygiene and safety.

We would die, quickly and brutally, and I'll be damned if I'm going to live an 18th-century lifestyle in the 21st century to satisfy the needs of alarmist "Greens".