A Green Degree Blog: New Angles On Sustainability

December 8th 2012

My Response To James Delingpole’s Sensational Outburst On The Recent WWF Wind vs Gas Report

James Delingpole, the infamous ‘interpreter of interpretations’ recently posted on his Telegraph blog an article on the latest report by the Cambridge Econometrics think tank for the WWF and Greenpeace, which stated that the UK economy would be £20bn better off if it decided to focus more heavily on offshore wind than gas in the coming decades.

It was a report which garnered widespread praise and support from many in the energy field, and detailed effectively how going down George Osborne’s ‘dash for gas’ path would inevitably lose us money in the long run, something many no doubt already had guessed.

However, Delingpole clearly seems to take an almost unbelievably sensational offense to this piece of science, and proceeds to write one of the most overblown and frankly prejudiced pieces of work I’ve come to read in a very long time, and on an influential media site such as the Telegraph to boot. This is my rebuttal to just some of his lamentable points made, many of which come straight out of a similarly acerbic blog from the ‘Eureferendum’ blog which shares his views.

The article instantly starts out by attacking personally and completely irrelevantly the status of the Cambridge Econometrics group and their head, Dr Terry Barker, as follows;

Turning to the source of this wisdom, we find the “think tank” originator named as “Cambridge Econometrics”, but to call it a think tank is something of a misnomer. The company actually describes itself as “an independent consultancy”, its business being the application of economic modelling and data analysis techniques to the needs of clients in business and government.

As to its “independence”, the company is a trading subsidiary of a charity, theCambridge Trust for New Thinking in Economics, which receives income from the company to pursue its registered objects.

What is interesting here is that Cambridge Econometrics seems to be a very profitable company, which, according to theaccounts submitted to the Charity Commission, turns over a cool £2-million-plus each year and giving its effective owner, Dr Terry Barker, a very comfortable living, plus pension. And Dr Barker has a certain amount of baggage. Hiscv says he is:

… the Chairman of Cambridge Econometrics, having founded the company in 1985. He is also Senior Departmental Fellow at the Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research (4CMR), Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Economic Systems Research, the International Journal of Climate Strategies and Management, the International Journal of Global Warming, and the Scientific Advisory Board of the World Wide Views on Global Warming. He was a member of the Scientific Committee of the Climate Change Congress, Copenhagen, March 2009, and was on the Writing Team of the Synthesis Report of the Congress.This is a warmist personified, which might suggest a certain bias in his approach to the subject of windfarms. And, if that isn’t enough to set an odiferous rat running, we find that the report itself is produced forGreenpeace and WWF-UK, which funded the work.

Posted at 12:46pm and tagged with: delingpole, gas, wind, sensational, media, public, perception, shale, turbines, birds, death, telegraph, wwf, greenpeace,.

December 6th 2012

George Osborne Shows Us He’s Ready To Do Just As We Expected: Create Yet More Hot Air

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George Osborne today finally made crystal clear exactly what he thinks of the green agenda and renewable energy economy - that unless he gets smacked round the head by a spinning wind turbine, which lets face it, may do some good to his outrageously deluded mind, he won’t give it the time of day, or night, or anything inbetween. It’s all about the gas my friends.

With his Autumn Statement came many expectations from the climate and energy hawks amongst us, and it’s pretty safe to say that effectively all of them came to fruition as he stood defiant and commanding at the microphone, with an air which seemed to suggest he knows what he’s doing, and what he’s doing is in the best interest of us all. May have to think again on that one George.

It’s no secret that Mr Osborne and fellow energy minister Ed Davey generally sit at either end of the scale when it comes to the future of renewable energy and a low-carbon economy in this country, with the Treasury becoming increasingly characterised as the evil, gas-guzzling, fund-slashing body that it pretty much is. All the while, Davey is effectively fighting an uphill battle on every aspect of energy policy within the coalition, and despite having what should be powerful and influential bodies backing him, such as DECC, BIS and the CBI, he is being consistently shortchanged.

I will admit just quickly however that what Davey managed to achieve with the Energy Bill announced just last week was most probably the very best he could have gotten out of such a confused and lost government, and in many ways there’s plenty to praise about it. Contracts for difference and a multi-billion pound fund set for low-carbon projects and the development of a single counter-party setting the price alongside a capacity mechanism which could work means there’s plenty of good things going renewable’s way.

There was of course a huge omission in the delaying of the decarbonisation target decision until 2016, and the idea of excluding carbon-intensive industry just boggles the mind, but considering what Davey was actually up against, I find it hard not to applaud him. When you’ve got people like John Hayes and George Osborne throwing their weight and silly statistics around it’s damn surprising he got anything done at all.

So it must be a real kick in the teeth, groin and all other areas to Davey to hear what the Chancellor has planned for the UK energy market over the coming years, whilst he fights even harder to produce the goods over in Doha. Undoubtedly he knew some, if not all aspects of the announcement today, but that can’t make it any easier.

Posted at 10:00am and tagged with: osborne, treasury, gas, shale, fracking, AS2012, money, energy, davey, government, news, politics, climate, carbon, UK, renewables, low-carbon, coal, wind, data, science, education,.

November 29th 2012

The Beginning Of The British Nuclear Renaissance?

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9642199/Hitachis-700m-Horizon-nuclear-deal-to-create-up-to-12000-British-jobs.html

Call me optimistic, and trust me, that’s not what I’m often called, but to me it’s starting to look like nuclear may finally be back on the radar for the UK, at least in the form of tentative steps towards kickstarting once-ailing projects and renewing ageing others. There may even be some hope lingering in the recently announced Energy Bill, of which there are unfortunately many negative aspects covering some surprisingly positive ones for the industry and it’s future in terms of project certainty and subsidies.

The acquisition of the infamous Horizon nuclear site has undoubtedly proved as the catalyst for this, and has been the butt of many coalition-directed jokes for some time now, after E.ON and RWE put the project up for sale in March following that fateful nuclear-backlash from Fukushima (brief thoughts on that coming later). Many thought it signalled the gradual and undignified death of the industry at the hands of public outcry and atrocious safety hazards, and I included believed it highly unlikely to be seeing any new reactors planned for some decades to come, if at all. Fortunately, it seems our overseas Asian friends think otherwise.

Hitachi recently completed the sale of Horizon at £700million and plans to begin construction of two to three plants at each of the two sites, and more importantly is planning on implementing cutting-edge technology in an attempt to reduce costs and build times, as well as to placate those who feel nuclear is dirty, dangerous and likely to kill us all one day. These AWBRs, or Advanced Water Boiling Reactors are apparently the ‘only advanced nuclear reactors licensed and in production around the world, and have been built on time and within cost’, unlike pretty much any other European reactor currently being constructed.

They intend the plants to produce 1.3GW of electricity each, and to create over 12,000 jobs in the process, yet again boosting one of the only sectors to truly be growing in this current climate, the green and low-carbon economy. With this much extra juice and investment flowing into our ‘green and pleasant lands’ without the added worry of carbon emissions during use, a rather large hole which would have inevitably formed as old plants were shut down can hopefully be plugged.

Posted at 10:00am and tagged with: nuclear, hinkley, horizon, somerset, project, energy, climate, fossil fuels, oil, gas, death, explosion, fukushima, 3-mile island, chernobyl, energy bill, EDF,.

October 23rd 2012

The UK’s Changing Energy Supply; A John Hayes Approach (Another Shambles!)

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There are an almost endless number of perks to being a student at Imperial College, and in particular one studying the environmental and energy sciences, not least the free wine nights held ‘traditionally’ every Thursday night after a guest talk. However, this week’s treat was one of a slightly higher and more professional calibre - a talk by the recently crowned energy minister of state at DECC, John Hayes, the man leading the ‘greenest party ever’ forward unto the dawn.

I was unashamedly quite excited about this guest spot, as not only was it to be my first experience with a powerful politician in a public speaking environment, but it was also a man who was directly responsible for much of what I define as my most passionate of interests and enjoyments, the energy debate, and within that, the UK’s shambles of an attempt. So with this confidence, and of course a rather large expectation for something to annoy/anger/depress being said, I went to watch him speak to an audience of students, professionals, politicians and interested parties yesterday evening. The focus of the topic? The changing UK energy supply. Fascinating and current stuff for sure.

Unfortunately, it was not to be the case. Not only did I come out the talk feeling let down, disappointed, confused and kinda angry at the whole thing, but these feelings were far stronger than I thought I would experience going in. Politics never fails to surprise eh.

From start to finish, John Hayes, a man who recently replaced the much-loved by all (even greenies) Charles Hendry from an utterly un-environmentally linked background, gave us a masterclass in dodging the elephants in the room, not answering questions but doing enough to move on and being wholly like a Tory politician should be; funny in a way which boils the blood and patronisingly cocky at the same time.

When he finally stumbled onto the topic of energy sources and generation, with me believing at one point that he was never going to mention the words ‘sustainable’, ‘renewable’ or ‘climate change’, it was a speech filled with techno-political babble and attempts at covering everything possible with as little information as possible. He screamed past the likes of biomass production, solar PV and onshore wind without even mentioning offshore or tidal, focusing on the topic long enough to merely list their names, avoiding going into any deep, or even shallow conversation in regards to deployment, costs, future developments or the coalition’s stance. It was all behind us in a matter of seconds and yet it couldn’t have been more of an important topic when debating energy supply.

He only delved into onshore wind briefly when he wanted to point out, in a manner I felt similar to veiled hostility, that he had called for investigations into their costs and effectiveness, and to how best the communities affected by their development could be compensated. Of course, he was basically saying that he wasn’t prepared to talk at any length about them unless he was 100% sure they didn’t piss people off or ruin the countryside. Seems his anti-wind stance people had hoped he had dropped was still living on.

CCS, nuclear and natural gas, spiced up with some North Sea offshore drilling then became the main subjects of conversation, with each one generously fleshed out and described in a detail which was rarely employed anywhere else in his entire talk.

Posted at 9:50am and tagged with: john hayes, UK, energy, policy, politics, science, coalition, DECC, ofgem, ccs, carbon, gas, oil, wind, solar, fracking, shale, supply, anti, green, low carbon, debate, uni, talk, imperial, offshore, drilling, nuclear, market, big six,.

October 20th 2012

The Latest Terror Threat? The ‘Environmental Taliban’…What, What?

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Oh George, we marvel at how you consistently manage to spout something new and controversial, almost on a daily basis. You really are a character I don’t think people will be forgetting for some time to come, be that for better (unlikely) or for worse. So what has he done now? That’s if you haven’t already stumbled across the latest gobsmackingly stupid comment from the man who has simultaneously managed to upset both the wider public, most of the UK government including his own Party (22% of Tory’s voted for him out in a recent poll), the EU and most of the powerful energy industry players out there, and all roughly within a week or two. Amazing.

Mr. Osborne has now begun referring to those within Parliament who are campaigning for greener futures and a strong climate agenda as the ‘environmental Taliban’, in a stunningly short-sighted comment no doubt directed at Ed Davey and his keen followers, who in most cases are the majority of the public who know a thing or two about clean energy. It would seem that environmentalists have now moved on from being a Satanic cult (no joke, this was a real thing said by a real US political speaker) worshipping the devil that is the Earth/Gaia, and are now a group of radicals akin to dangerous terrorists. And he’s Chancellor of the Exchequer? Satan save us.

This name-calling comes at a very sensitive period for the entirety of UK energy policy, which is, for lack of a better phrase, a complete shambles, primarily driven by Osborne and his cohort of Tory followers who variously are either anti-wind, solar or renewables, and pro-offshore and fracking. Even if he meant the ‘Taliban’ reference as a joke, there will undoubtedly be people out there who do not take it so, and by extending his terminology to environmentalists as a whole, he’s including a huge number of people who believe climate change is real, we are responsible for the majority and that low-carbon is the only real solution. Hence why protests and Twitter campaigns such as #greenisworking have exploded in favour of condemning his actions (I’ve even seen one called #killgeorgeosborne, which is a likelihood seeming ever more likely…).

According to reports, the comment came as Ed Davey desperately attempts to push through a binding emissions cap on power plants for 2030, as well as clarifying legislation on the approaching switch to ‘contracts for difference’, a policy which aims to lock in value for renewable projects and promote low-carbon development, with the Treasury fronting the responsibility of guaranteeing support. Of course, Osborne doesn’t like this idea, and is rapidly becoming an aura of clean-tech skepticism and a loss of interest in decarbonising the grid, and as many fear, a reflection of the general Tory party backbench’s opinion.

Instead, Osborne has long rallied for a ‘dash for gas’, whereby abundances in domestic natural shale gas could be exploited to lower energy costs and secure resources for the future, a notion no doubt triggered by the explosion in gas extraction and a tumbling in energy costs over in America. While the idea of energy security and low costs are his way of appealing to a nation where 9% gas bill hikes are almost common place and keeping the house lit is becoming increasingly painful on the wallet, there are some rather major flaws in his plan.

Posted at 9:21am and tagged with: george osborne, Environment, taliban, energy, debate, policy, politics, ed davey, UK, parliament, Cameron, big six, coal, gas, fracking, oil, wind, solar, tidal, money, terror, green, jobs, PTC, US, Tory, climate, clean, low-carbon, Earth,.

September 22nd 2012

The Wind Industry Is Booming, But Boy Do Some Bleak Futures Lay Ahead

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Of all the renewable technologies open to us these days, there’s no doubt that wind is the outright winner in the capacity and cost race, and more specifically, onshore wind, those gleaming white towers some countries are lucky (and tolerant) enough to have dotting their countryside and coastal regions.

Global wind deployment was once again up last year, this time by a relatively humble 6%, equating to just shy of 42GW of energy capacity installed, when compared to the average of 23% for the five years leading up to 2010, but is nonetheless signs of rampant and continued uptake the world over. Asia takes the biggest bite, with 52.1% of the global share, most of that in China, in which a recent study undertaken by multiple parties has concluded that Chinese capacity could reach 300GW by 2020, and 400GW by 2030; they are absolutely HUGE numbers, and if achieved, mark a seriously devoted agenda from the communist-cum-capitalist nation.

Closer to home, Europe has fallen in the rankings, taking just 24.5% of new installations for 2011, with again, a large majority of that down to one country, Germany, whose brilliant FiTs and policies allow for cost-effective and quick deployment of wind turbines throughout the country to the tune of almost a 1/3 of all European cumulative additions.

However, a draft government regulation released a few weeks ago in Germany seems to be stifling this growth just as it gets some real pace, or at least in the offshore department. Offshore has unfortunately been a much less avidly followed form of wind energy, due to its high costs, difficult maintenance and installation issues and generally poor policy and regulation worldwide, but Germany has always been one of the leaders. This new announcement would slash incentives for offshore generation prices, from 1 Euro/MWh to 0.75 Euros; whilst this cuts costs slightly for consumers on the renewable section of their bills, it will ultimately put future projects off and may stunt growth of a crucial area for the industry.

On the plus side, the UK achieved a milestone for wind energy generation recently by producing 4.1GW of electricity, over 10% of the country’s needs, using those spinning blades to boil cups of tea and burn toast, beating the previous 3.8GW record set in May. Some decided to lessen this triumph by stating that 4.1GW roughly equals the output of just one single coal and biomass-fired plant, Drax, which is not only more reliable but not as expensive. Surely they can’t be serious? When Germany produced over half their energy needs via solar and wind earlier this year, I don’t remember seeing any rabid comparisons to numbers of coal or gas plants over there, so why here?

Posted at 10:00am and tagged with: wind, energy, sustainable, renewable, emissions, coal, gas, turbines, economy, politics, policy, rewards, windfall, farm, clean, green, asia, china, trade, war, onshore, UK, america, USA, elections, europe, electricity, germany, investment, PTC,.

September 7th 2012

Carbon-Capture & Storage: Why All The Bother?

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I’m sure many of you have, at some point in your journeys through the energy and renewable world heard the term ‘carbon-capture and storage’, or more simply ‘CCS’, but might not have known fully what it was, how it works or why it is being given such prominence in modern policy discussion. Well here’s my attempt at giving you a brief but hopefully in-depth look at the technology and the science surrounding some of the obsession associated with big oil companies, the Republicans and general economists.

CCS does mostly what it says on the tin; it aims to capture carbon or CO2 from the fumes and emissions given off by dirty industry, such as oil, coal or gas burning power plants, usually by grabbing the stuff out of the air with scrubbers or biological substances, before condensing it down into liquid form which can be easily transported. This lovely carbon-ooze is subsequently pumped elsewhere, generally far from the source, and deep into the Earth’s crust, within depleted fossil fuel reserves or geologically appropriate formations, such as aquifers or rock beds.

Via this technology, it is greatly hoped that carbon emissions from our already well-established dirty fossil industries can be hugely reduced, without radical changes in attitude and infrastructure required. We’ll see why this is not the grand idea is sounds to be.

The whole science of capturing the CO2 has been relatively well-tested on a small scale, with multiple projects spanning from the start of the millennia, such as simple scrubbing of power plant chimneys. However, capture on a larger scale has proved a much more ambitious and expensive venture, with price-tags commonly running into the hundreds of millions if not billions just for the initial CCS stages. Examples of these include projects in Denmark through Vattenfall, pilot capture facilities in Sweden and Norway and greater Europe, with plenty more in the planning stage (http://www.bgs.ac.uk/qics/). Unfortunately practically all of the projects currently in play, whether they’re still in planning or near-completion, only involve the ‘capture’ part of CCS, merely test-beds for working out the kinks in collecting the stuff for subsequent storage, with the resultant carbon being released into the atmosphere once the experiments are complete. Only eight (in 2011) CCS plants were actually injecting CO2 back into the ground worldwide, with at least three of them acting purely as partners to deep-sea offshore drilling platforms, collecting their waste and pumping it back into the seabed, to no real net gain to society.

As for the larger scale storage aspect of CCS, nearing 100 projects are in place since mid-2012, but current financial and political woes have all but put the majority of these on the shelf, no doubt for the indefinite future, seen as far too expensive, risky and a distraction from the real issue at hand. Specifically, the EU recently slashed its fund for CCS from a prospective £4.8bn to just £1bn, with finalised figures coming in a month or so, meaning that the 12 projects originally guaranteed funding are no in serious jeopardy. Similar issues are being experienced by the industry globally, as the idea of big, high-risk, high-dollar energy resources such as nuclear rapidly fall out of favour with both the public and professionals.

This however does not seem true in the US, where the [unfortunate] boom in shale gas extraction has fuelled great interest in ways to reduce the already disgustingly damaging practice of fracking and shale prospecting. Shell has been a major player in this region of the world, jumping on the natural gas bandwagon without hesitation, setting up shop in Alberta, where one of the world’s largest reserves of shale gas resides. Just google this yourself and switch to images and before long you will understand why myself and many others recoil at the very idea of extracting this utter mess. Anyway, back on topic.

Posted at 9:48am and tagged with: carbon, CCS, capture, storage, oil, coal, gas, fossil, fuels, industry, climate change, risk, fields, power plants, energy, dangerous, science, technology, money, CO2, wind, solar, renewable,.

August 31st 2012

Anyone For A Smart Meter? The Fuss Around Privacy & ‘Spying’

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Ah the humble smart meter. Look how sweet that thing looks, I mean that is seriously cool technology. It means no harm either, really; all it wants to do is sit happily in your home, be it in the cupboard, by the electricity meter or proudly on your table, its sole job to read your energy use in real-time and display it in such a way that even the most technophobic amongst us can understand. So why all the bloody fuss and anger?

For those who aren’t too familiar with the ‘smart meter’, here’s a brief summary of them. Smart meters are clever electronic displays which hook up to your house’s energy systems, such as the electricity and gas meters, allowing it to analyse your daily usage and study how you go about your daily energy guzzling life. These can be plugged into almost any system you could throw at it and come in a HUGE variety of types, ranging from portable displays like the GE-invested Onzo one in the picture above, wall-mounted boxes, integrated meter systems, mobile and desktop applications and more, all with the key goal to make reading your energy usage as easy and simple as possible.

Most governments and energy suppliers in Europe and the US are beginning to roll out these smart meters in the millions to each household, generally for free (not something often advertised by energy companies), with installation taking mere minutes and the effects instant. The UK alone is attempting the world’s biggest smart-meter giveaway, planning to install 27 million starting now, a huge proportion of the country’s households. Considering how small and unobtrusive they are physically, they can be implemented in practically any household environment and barely impinge on your routine way of life.

Now here’s the crucial part - these meters, by reading your energy usage in real-time, can allow you to directly see how much electricity is being used, by what appliance if also hooked into the program, and how much this will cost you. All of these values can be quickly compared to past usage, say yesterday or at the same point last week, so that a proper context is given, rather than the potentially confusing and sterile lists given in your usual energy bills.

From these hubs, which could be your smartphone, TV, computer or wall-display, you can then choose to limit the usage on certain items, set alarms or reminders of when not to use so much energy, such as around peak-load times when everyone is putting the kettle on between Eastenders, and generally control your consumption much more efficiently than previously capable. This is also useful from the suppliers and grid controllers point of views, as they will now be dealing with energy consumption on a much more predictable level, meaning that overloads or blackouts will become less frequent and power stations can be ramped up and down more accurately and avoid the loss of energy and release of heat when it is not necessary.

For instance, you may receive a bill one month stating ‘x’ amount of electricity and gas used. The following month, you utilise the smart meter for the first time and see that the washing machine, cooker and TV are all using a majority share of the energy, or that lights being left on is dribbling money out of your bank account. You turn these appliances off, or begin using them only during times of low-demand on the grid, when prices are slightly lower per kW (known as tariffs, which vary depending on time of day), meaning you consume less AND spend less. The next months bill comes in, and bang, you’ve knocked £40 off of it, all because you began smartly managing your consumption. What could be bad about that?

Posted at 10:00am and tagged with: smart meter, energy, demand, consumption, electricity, gas, shale, fear, spying, texas, privacy, rights, house, uk, USA, guns, locals, grid, technology, science, politics, society, money, monitor, usage, smartphone, app, hack, wifi, wireless,.