£10–25 billion: the cost of replacing Trident, the British nuclear weapon
system. (£170–420 per person in the UK.) [ysncks].
$63 billion: American donation of “military aid” (i.e. weapons) to the Middle
East over 10 years – roughly half to Israel, and half to Arab states.
[2vq59t] ($210 per person in the USA.)
$1200 billion per year: world expenditure on arms [ym46a9]. ($200 per year
per person in the world.)
$2000 billion or more: the cost, to the USA, of the [99bpt] Iraq war according
to Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. ($7000 per person
in America.)

According to the Stern review, the global cost of averting dangerous
climate change (if we act now) is $440 billion per year ($440 per year per
person, if shared equally between the 1 billion richest people). In 2005,
the US government alone spent $480 billion on wars and preparation for
wars. The total military expenditure of the 15 biggest military-spending
countries was $840 billion.

Expenditure that does not run into billions

£0.012 billion per year: the smallest item displayed in figure 28.5 is the UK
government’s annual investment in renewable-energy research and development.
(£0.20 per person in the UK, per year.)

Notes and further reading

215Figure 28.2. I’ve assumed that the solar photovoltaic farms have a power per unit area of 5 W/m2, the same as the
Bavaria farm on p41, so each farm on the map delivers 100 MW on average. Their total average production would be
5 GW, which requires roughly 50 GW of peak capacity (that’s 16 times Germany’s PV capacity in 2006).
The yellow hexagons representing concentrating solar power have an average power of 5 GW each; it takes two of these
hexagons to power one of the “blobs” of Chapter 25.

217A government report leaked by the Guardian... The Guardian report, 13th August 2007, said [2bmuod] “Government
officials have secretly briefed ministers that Britain has no hope of getting remotely near the new European Union
renewable energy target that Tony Blair signed up to in the spring - and have suggested that they find ways of
wriggling out of it.”
The leaked document is at [3g8nn8].

219... perfume... Source: Worldwatch Institute
www.worldwatch.org/press/news/2004/01/07/

221...wars and preparation for wars... www.conscienceonline.org.uk

Government investment in renewable-energy-related research and development. In 2002–3, the UK Government’s
commitment to renewable-energy-related R&D was £12.2 million. Source: House of Lords Science and Technology
Committee, 4th Report of Session 2003–04. [3jo7q2]
Comparably small is the government’s allocation to the Low Carbon Buildings Programme, £0.018bn/y shared between
wind, biomass, solar hot water/PV, ground-source heat pumps, micro-hydro and micro CHP.