European Union figures yesterday showed that Malta has the second lowest renewable energy generation capability in the European Union, with only 4.7% of energy created from renewable sources.

We understand that Malta’s size is one of the main factors in this dismal performance, but it really is time to do something about it. When most people think of renewable energy, they think of solar panels and wind farms. The previous administration tried to get the ball rolling through creating electricity from waste gases at the landfill. The project took forever to take off and still only produces very small amounts of renewable energy.

Sometimes, though, it is not down to the size of a country. Sweden produces the most renewable energy in the whole of the EU, with 52.6% of its total. The UK, which is of comparable size only produces 7%, which is one of the lowest rates in the whole bloc.

The target is for the EU to produce 20% of its energy through renewable sources by 2020, in four years time. At present, the figure is 16%, so it looks to be achievable. However, the laggards continue to trail far behind and Malta is one of them.

Malta does not have the space to install solar panel farms, it’s just not feasible. The previous government toyed with the idea of off shore windfarms, but after millions were spent on studies, it was found that his was also not feasible. So what do we do? Perhaps we need to think a little outside the box. Malta does have abundant sunlight and perhaps we really ought to think of schemes to replace all glass on all buildings with new generation glass that contains energy generation cells. We could also look into the concept of having solar panelled roads and pavements. France is already looking into it and has already expressed a desire to construct at least 600 miles of them to start with.

We can also look into the possibility of having pavements that create energy out of people’s walking gait, turning it into energy that can feed integrated lighting systems.

We can never produce energy from the sun at the rate that countries such as Morocco and China can, but there are other ways. We could also update our landfill technology further to maximise methane extraction which can be used to power on the spot turbines. We could also use hydro power from waves and in the future, technology could be available to harvest the vast amounts of wind that Malta gets in the winter through a contraption that is not as massive as the windmills we know today. We really need to look into the future. Wind, solar and hydro power are the technologies of today. But what about Kinetics, for example. What if we could draw upon the Indian invention of a spinning bike to produce electricity from our own homes. It might sound far fetched but it is a very real contraption which scientists believe might be able to bring free electricity to the poorest parts of the world. Given that we are the fattest and laziest people in Europe, it could very well be a case of hitting two birds with one stone. We must catch up, and fast.