What will be quantitively different in our lives in Birmingham in 2050 – table 1

Catherine Burke

Corrado di Maria

Lynsey Melville

Ian Forsyth

Thoughts from this table

 

• More people in the city
• More immigrants?
• More things will rely on energy – we expect a higher quality iof life, so needs and wants are larger, although energy use is lower.
• Efficiency could though lead to more energy use because we have more electrical devices
• Local community generation might create more of a moral emphasis on saving energy.
• When you know your energy is green you consume more!
• Bigger split between the haves and the haves not -
• People wont have their own boilers – will that also encourage them to use more energy, because they don’t know what’s on when.
• Per capita demand will decrease – even though we will have more things to power
• Fossil fuels will have to be priced out of the market – but then low carbon fuel prices will rise.
• Possibly more public transport
• Fewer cars
• More highrise blocks?  Communities developing around energy systems.
• Pricing for the grid will be very complicated – but energy supplies will be interconnected
• At the moment limit of the size of  community is also shaped by technology – a small generator can’t economically supply energy more than 500M from the energy source.