Rebecca Willis

What the UK now needs is an open, positive political debate about how to meet its carbon targets, in place of the quiet ambiguity that has characterised the past decade.

So familiar has the social economy of energy become in modern societies, so routine its extraordinardinary wastefulness, so toxic its effects, that the capacity for a better way can be missed. By questioning the how, why and what of energy use, new possibilities – of living, travelling, eating, working and buying – can open.

Co-operatively-owned energy generation is a vibrant and growing sector in the UK. The first co‑operatively-owned wind turbines, Baywind in Cumbria, started turning in 1997. Since then, over 7,000 individual investors have ploughed over £16 million into community-owned renewable energy. This report summarises insights gained from visits to five co-operatively owned energy projects during the summer of 2011.

For generations, human development has been fuelled by ever greater amounts of energy. The discovery of fire by our earliest ancestors allowed them to harness the energy stored in plants to keep warm and to cook. Agriculture is essentially a means of diverting sunlight into crops to provide easily accessible food. Farming liberated people from the daily hunt for sustenance, and allowed populations to grow. Exploitation of coal fuelled the industrial revolution and the development of urban societies. Oil for transport, and the development of electricity systems enabled modern society, with its ever increasing consumption and mobility. Energy use and social progress have been inextricably linked. Until now. Now, it makes sense to use less energy, not more.