By Helen Dunne

The world has changed for Tara Lindstedt, managing director of EP Global Energy. A childhood fascination with oil has been replaced by a voracious interest in renewable energy, and the desire to develop real and viable sources of alternative power.

Cyprus-based EP Global Energy evaluates and backs projects that not too long ago would have seemed the stuff of science fiction writers' imaginations.

The company has invested in wind farms and gas power station developments, but is also considering solar power and bio fuel projects, where waste and foodstuffs such as oil and grain, are transformed into energy.

"This is the fastest moving thing that I have ever been involved with. In the 80s the only people talking about wind farms were the sandal-wearing brigade. Now people are genuinely interested; they believe in it."

It is almost as if Tara has turned her back on her childhood ambition to head an oil company. As a child growing up in Iran, she was seduced by the glamour of the black stuff.

She was gripped by the documentaries starring Red Adair, the fearless fire fighter called upon to extinguish some of the most ferocious oil well fires.

"I was absolutely fascinated. The oil industry seemed so fashionable and glamorous at the time," recalls Tara. "I was determined that I was either going to be the Prime Minister or run an oil company."

Having ruled out the first option, Tara launched plans to achieve the other. But when she graduated as a chemical engineer from University College, London, the world had changed. "Oil was no longer as glamorous as it once appeared. It was now the cause of wars and environmental disasters," she recalls.

A disaster at a Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) facility in Qatar in the late seventies, when seven people were killed and an area of 100 metres radius was devastated, led to Tara's PhD at Imperial College, London in catastrophic LPG/LNG Tank failure assessment, and, her first job as a quantified risk analyst.

After the birth of her daughter - she found out she was pregnant while working in the Amazon forest - Tara moved into investment banking. Today, both those skills of technical and economic evaluation have come in extremely handy.

EP Global Energy, where Tara works closely with her sister Nasrin, a qualified biochemical engineer, was founded and backed by Efthvolous Paraskevaides, the son of the legendary George, who in the 1940s co-founded J&P Construction, which initially worked on projects to help the Allied war effort. Today it is one of the world's biggest construction companies.

Tara is currently evaluating the pros and cons of renewable energy projects. And the market is booming. "This is the fastest moving thing that I have ever been involved with," she says. "In the 80s the only people talking about wind farms and other projects like that were the sandal-wearing brigade. Now people are genuinely interested; they believe in it."

Some may view wind farms as blights on the landscape, but Tara sees an exciting part-solution to the world's energy problem. The supply of fossil fuels, such as oil, is running out, while the existing infrastructure to support the energy industry is becoming obsolete. Over the next decade or so, the UK alone will lose as much as 20% of its existing energy capacity. Almost all of Britain's remaining nuclear reactors are to close as they reach the end of their working lives, while one third of the UK's coal-fired power stations will also close under the terms of a European pollution directive.

"The reality is that things are going to change. It is fact of life that electricity will have to be produced in a more efficient and environmentally friendly way."

At the same time, individual governments have committed to reduce their country's carbon emissions. In the UK, the government has set a target of a 10% reduction by 2010.

Wind farms can help, although the amount of electricity produced depends on the size of turbines used. "If you take a tower of between 50m and 150m high, then, usually, it would have a turbine that could produce half a megawatt of electricity," explains Tara. "That's a lot of electricity. You could run a small town on that for quite some time."

But while the wind is free, the construction cost for each tower is expensive. A 100m tower can cost between £1m and £2m, and will last up to 20 years. "The capital expenditure can be prohibitive," concedes Tara.

A wind farm needs only a reasonably steady wind to operate efficiently; gale force winds or strong gusts are not suitable. "The turbine stops operating in high winds or gale conditions, while most turbines do not work at wind speeds of less than three meters per second. That's the cut off point."

But she admits that wind farms cannot produce enough power to replace fossil fuels. "It is not possible. Wind is too localised and cyclical," she says. "There are also problems with storing the electricity generated, although several companies and university departments are working to produce a viable solution."

But used with other sources, such as solar and hydro power or alternative fuels, Tara believes that wind power has huge potential to partly solve the world's energy problems and reduce its dependence on fossil fuels.

"Energy management will also be important," she adds. "Architects must learn to design and build energy management systems into new buildings. Air conditioning units are playing havoc with old buildings, which were not designed to accommodate them and are not ventilated in an efficient way.

"The reality is that things are going to change. It is fact of life that electricity will have to be produced in a more efficient and environmentally friendly way."