A Green Degree Blog: New Angles On Sustainability

December 6th 2012

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

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,.

October 25th 2012

Somehow, UK Leads (Mostly) Europe-Wide Overachievement Towards Kyoto Targets

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Well I must admit, I for one did not see this news coming, and it has come at quite the shock to me, and I would like to think much of the developed world and climate hawks all around. The EU is set to meet and surpass the greenhouse gas emission targets set out in the Kyoto Protocol way back in 1997, cutting overall amounts by at least 5% per country involved, which is a sizeable amount whichever way you cut it.

Considering many other developed nations have either long given up on reaching these goals, or have simply backed out in the interests of domestic markets (think Canada and their precious tar-sand resources), or never actually ratified the Protocol in the first place, the fact that the EU has achieved this is quite some show of progress in the right direction.

What surprised me even more so, and this is undoubtedly where my powerful cynicism comes into play, or what I like to think of as realistic cynicism at least, is that the United Kingdom is leading the pack in slashing GHG emissions in real terms (actual tonnes of emissions), cutting them by 6% in 2011, equivalent to roughly 36m tonnes of CO2. Compare this to 5% for France and just 2% for solar-rich Germany, and you see what all the fuss is about. Personally, and I don’t believe I was alone in this thought, I always mostly ignored the government’s claims of how well we were doing and how we would easily meet our targets and surpass them, and given recent developments in our energy policy, I would be mad to think of it as truth; but apparently I was wrong.

Now, there are multiple reasons as to why this sudden drop in emissions came to be, and when combined, they would seem to account for much of the cuts we are now seeing and inevitably will be boasting about on the global stage. Firstly, a milder year for weather all round depressed gas and electricity usage, and secondly, cleaner wind and solar energy has steadily been coming online since the mid-noughties, and even though there are relatively few numbers of MWs being produced via renewables, they obviously have a impact.

However, and possibly more importantly, a practically stagnant European economy drove down the use of any form of energy, be it fossil or renewable, in part forcing the decline in emissions, and in others the maddeningly new high bill costs supposedly ‘needed’ to keep the Big Six running our country’s supply of juice.

Posted at 10:00am and tagged with: energy, climate, emissions, EU, europe, UK, kyoto protocol, cut, carbon, pollution, canada, china, us, germany, france, nuclear, solar, wind, greenhouse, government, politics, economy, growth, investment, osborne, hayes, cameron, policy,.

August 5th 2012

The Next Solution To Our Legion Of Global Issues…? ‘Neo-Environmentlism’

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The man you see above is Stewart Brand, a man of many talents, interests, circles and followings. Some of you may have seen him talking at length and with much passion on the subject of nuclear power over at TED, battling it out on the stage with equally intelligent minds who don’t quite hold the same love for atom-splitting. Alongside these appearances, he is a highly regarded environmentalist and President of the Long Now Foundation, a group which aims to seed longterm responsibility in all things sustainable and cultural, I’m assuming in an attempt to align our global conscious in the right direction. Personally I like him; he holds good values and is a smart man, and I too share his like of nuclear power despite its negative press.

Well now Mr. Brand can add yet another qualification, if you can call it that, to his growing list - spiritual leader of the newest in green movements, ‘neo-environmentalism’. This fashionable but youthful ideal mirrors many aspects of the neoliberal movements of times past, where radical solutions to sweeping problems and optimism in every corner reign supreme. In effect, this fad hopes to replace the ageing and withered currently held belief that science and data will eventually turn society around and set it back on the path in which we survive far into the future.

It isn’t hard to see that this science-lead approach has had its fair share of hard times, with many die-hard scientists and professional circles now coming out in almost complete despair at the chances of peer-reviewed evidence ever pulling the wool from our eyes. With so many things going wrong in modern times, from climate change to food crises, the public are consistently battered from all sides by doom and gloom news, and there’s no doubt the majority is starting to simply switch off and crawl into their denial shell. Those that power on through and keep on the science debate are fighting a monumental war, even if once-proclaimed deniers such as Koch finally come out and agree with what many of us have known for decades. Even though I still firmly believe that this approach is one of the best we have in our arsenal against stupidity and ignorance, it would seem that now is the perfect time for something a bit fresher.

Neo-environmentalism manages to tap this resource by looking at it down the lens of economics and business. Everybody knows that politicians and economists are [far too] powerful in their abilities to influence all levels of governance, technology, funding and society, and by choosing to take their viewpoint more practically, you instantly win over a large group of people.

Within this, the role of technology, Western ideals and rapid advancement alongside growth take a much more important seat next to sustainability, rather than the more, shall we say, realistic view of the current movement, which sees tempered growth, inclusion of the environment in economic measurement and persistent projection and mitigation of oncoming disasters. Of course, both of these can easily blur together, and often do even now, but this new form seems to want to take things slightly more to the extreme business side of things, for better or worse.

July 18th 2012

Japan Has Reached Tether’s End, But Can It Afford To Fall Apart Now?

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Japan has always been a nation that many others look up to in their strives towards achieving a society that is happy and content with its position in things, which can stand up to most problems and smash right through them without a second thought. As a country, the Japanese are renowned for their extreme politeness, obedience and determination in doing what is expected for their proud country, a trait some see as borderline subservience, and others as the key to a successful government and industrial powerhouse.

However, it’s easy for us to forget the Japan has been through some tragically harsh times in its history, especially in recent times. I feel it a shame that, in many cases, we ignore these facts because of the developed status that Japan holds, sitting high as one of the most technically and economically advanced countries in the world, which can cloud reality. Japan has experienced horrible conflicts, extreme natural disasters and serious economic downturn, the last of which many of us had the pleasure of partaking in too, and now more than ever is this the case. Even so, despite their hardships, the Japanese people sure now how to rise from the ashes, more powerful than before and with an even stronger resolve to live on; it’s something of a personality that the entire world recognises. This however, seems to be changing.

The past two years have been undoubtedly hard for the humble nation. Recovering from poor economic climates, Japan was hit by one of the biggest ever recorded earthquakes, only to be followed up with an equally record-breaking and devastating tsunami. As the Fukushima-Daiichi plant blossomed radiation, thousands were relocated in an instant from the huge quarantine area imposed by the government, and even now many are not allowed back to their homes and see no hope of that changing anytime soon. Whilst this happened, horrendously high numbers of people were killed by the quake and tsunami, a combination of nature frightening in its ability to trash whole towns and render the landscape unrecognisable.

Despite this, the Japanese, although wounded, did what they do, and began to rise from the rubble, the composed and determined people we are used to seeing. We applauded them for their courage, and vilified their government. Now more than ever, the effects of this are being rapidly unwound. With all nuclear reactors shutdown in Fukushima’s wake, a shortfall of 30% in the nation’s electricity generation capacity was instantly apparent, and fears of blackouts nationwide set in.

July 13th 2012

The ‘No More Solyndras’ Act - A Direct Threat To US Domestic Markets

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As I write this, the US government is mullung over claims by the GOP that the highly controversial, but equally highly successful government-backed solar loaning programme, is no longer worth anybody’s time or money, including the taxpayers of America.

The so-called ‘No More Solyndras’ Act, a cleverly named piece of legislation that aims to shut down all workings of the loan system is being hotly debated in the Houses involved, and there is no sign of Republican backing slowing. Standing on the shoulders of all those who were wronged and misguided during the entire Solyndra debacle and buoyed by the seemingly never-ending support for discontinuing further loans, it’s looking possible that the damn thing might actually get through the legal process.

Firstly, a quick recap. The US doesn’t employ feed-in-tariffs like those of the relatively successful European and Asian nations such as Germany or Japan, meaning that to raise funding and popularity in the renewable markets, other measures must be taken not involving direct payments to consumers or utilities. To this end, the US government, under the peruse of George Bush, set up the solar loaning programme in 2005, which would aim to invest taxpayer and private investor money directly into companies producing, manufacturing and selling solar cells, panels, technologies and the like. By propping up the as-yet immature industry and lending them a helping hand to wade their way into the global market, there was really no other way to go about it.

For a good time the programme was rather successful, if not very, lending money to multiple solar ventures which ultimately allowed the US domestic market to regain leadership status in the global trade, rising up to join the ranks of its eastern cousins who had been running clever programmes for years before. All in all, 33 separate companies were funded through government loans, with a total of $10bn set aside for mitigating any losses during loaning of up to $26bn, the original figure accrued for investment. Without this, it’s highly likely the US solar industry would have stagnated, or at best regained a tiny proportion of the status it has today, and in a world where Chinese and European solar is booming, that is a necessity.

Given how paranoid the US is over its domestic markets and anti-competitive trade, this is a godsend; you only have to look at the current trade war with Chinese solar companies to see this paranoia in its rawest form.

Posted at 10:28am and tagged with: GOP, republicans, energy, solyndra, solar, carbon, science, US, government, beacon, loan, bankrupt, renewable, feed-in-tariff, fracking, asia, china, trade, markets, economy,.

July 9th 2012

Fukushima All Down To Human Error, Not Nature’s Wrath

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http://02varvara.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/a-photo-essay-two-weeks-after-the-japanese-tsunami-the-russian-report/04j-tsunami-two-weeks-later-29-03-11-fukushima-npp-fukushima-prefecture-tohoku-region/

With Japan turning on the first of potentially many nuclear reactors shut down in the wake of the horrendous Fukushima disaster, the entire ordeal has come round full-swing and back under public scrutiny once again. Many of the Japanese public have rallied against this switching back on, of what is deemed as crucial supplies of electricity with the coming warm summer, and the whole country has been experiencing protests and demonstrations the likes of which are rarely, if ever, seen within the kooky nation.

Unfortunately, the flipping of the nuclear switch could not have come at a worse time in terms of global public opinion, with the release of the final report from the Japanese government pertaining to why and how Fukushima came to not only lose all power including backup, but to explode in quite an impressive fashion, spraying the surrounding landscape with nuclear fallout, albeit resulting in no deaths or serious injury, at least up until now. The conclusion of the investigation was brutal and to the point - nature was not to blame, but poor regulation, collusion between multiple governing bodies, safety issues and a complete lack of any effort to solidify the plant against possible disasters. In short, it was manmade.

(http://www.treehugger.com/energy-disasters/fukushima-disaster-declared-manmade-final-report.html)

Going further, the report finds that since 2006, the plant executives and safety managers knew full-well that a large tsunami had the potential to severely damage the plant and shutdown the seawater pumps which lead to the hydrogen release and explosion. When the disaster struck, they were “quick to blame the tsunami and that further investigation into the earthquake impact was needed”.

In the end, it was seen that a lack of care for public welfare and an apparent focus on mitigating risk to the organisations involved ultimately led to poor handling of the situation both before and after the incident, with safety protocol and radiation measures all but ignored in the proceeding weeks. So all in all, it was a haymaker to the face of all those governing bodies tasked with dealing with Fukushima, and any talk of nature being the prime suspect were all but swept under the rug in an instant. Silly, naughty Japanese government.

Personally, I feel this report, of which I’m sure was extremely professionally handled and undoubtedly raises some serious questions over safety and nuclear regulation worldwide, still takes the issues far too deeply into the human end of things. Yes, safety measures were weak and outdated with little likelihood of being updated, and the ridiculous amount of dotted lines and red tape the nuclear fission process has to go through almost certainly leads some to cut corners, but there are other issues afoot.

When the earthquake struck, it was far beyond even the most extreme projections the Japanese officials had tested, hitting a whopping 9.0 on the Richter Scale, making it not only in the top five world’s largest quakes, but the largest Japan has ever recorded. Combine this with the shallow depth at which it struck, just 20 miles below sea level and only 43 miles off the coast, and the tsunami produced reached heights only Hollywood movies could conceive. In effect, it was a perfect storm of natural disasters.

July 5th 2012

The ‘Polluter Pays’ Principle V.2: Time For An Upgrade

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With Rio+20 long gone, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise to me that most of the global populace has quickly and without bother discarded any knowledge of the convention, as well as the few and flimsy results that come of it, as though the whole thing was one pointless affair.

You could easily be fooled into thinking this is the case, considering so little of any worth, useful to effectively nobody matured from the talks, of which a large majority of the human race were crossing their fingers in the hope of a final resolution on all our woes and sufferings. Yes, there were a few pieces here and there, and the aptly-named ‘Future We Want’ paper was signed, but you only have to look a little further to see that anything with possible leanings towards a solid commitment and legal bindings within text was literally wiped away, replaced by ‘ifs’ and ‘taking steps towards’.

So coming from this, I felt it prudent to look back on one of the key agreements signed and ratified under the ancestor of this failed attempt at global democracy, the Rio 1992 Declaration, which actually managed to achieve what practically all other conventions that have come our way have failed to reproduce since - something worthwhile to the global community, which has stuck to this day and actually made an impact on ALL of our lives.

The ‘polluter pays’ principle is at its most basic, a very simple law pertaining to pollution from industry, whereby those who pollute must pay for the damage and degradation they bring upon the surrounding environment, whether it be through monetary forms (hard cash), incentives or compensation, effectively ‘making up’ for their shortsightedness.

This principle had one major point when it was conceived and globally upheld, namely that the inclusion of ‘pollution’ meant such things as fertilisers or insecticides, but has been rapidly adapted since to include greenhouse gases which pollute the atmosphere, for instance methane or CFCs. Due to this principle, and many others working in tandem, values of damaging pollutants in the environment has dropped significantly, and we have been able to see a tangible change in our way of life involving these materials.

May 27th 2012

UK Energy Policy Takes Yet Another Muddled Route - Solar Cut By 50%

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UK energy policy is sure one confusing and constantly changing subject, with many recent news stories no deviation from this pattern. Us English and our government just love mixing and muddling our energy futures as much as we cash, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, and sometimes it seems like it’s just for the kicks.

A little over half a year ago, I went to an open day for a course in environmental technology, energy and renewables at Imperial College London, and there I was given a brief talk regarding one of the key course options, aptly named ‘Energy Policy’. This was all very interesting and the main reason I intend to do a master there, but there was one particular comment which stuck with me, made by the course convenor.

He stated halfway through his introduction that, as a whole, “the UK government has tried every single energy policy ever thought of, and failed at most of them”. I feel this comment is pretty appropriate given the latest news on that very subject, of which I’ll brush over below.

Of late, the UK government and David Cameron have come to the decision to cut the solar feed-in-tariffs (FiTs) which are music to every solar-owner ears, which effectively pay the user for producing clean solar energy and feeding it back into the grid. This once sat at 21p per KWh, but is set to drop to 16p by August 1st, with similar drops on a 3 monthly basis, until the price is either frozen or adjusted once more.

This idea has provoked a stern response from many consumers of solar energy, who feel that these uncertain prices and abrupt slashes will deeply hurt the UK solar industry, which as we all know, is absolutely booming, both here and globally, and would be detrimental to everyone. However, these cuts must be made if the government is to be financially able to continue providing such FiTs, although many could argue their seemingly pointless endeavours into fossil fuel and nuclear could easily be rerouted to this sector.

On the other hand, this new FiT is still highly competitive in the global market, and as we’ve seen in Germany, has continued to drive strong growth in solar sales and installations, and so we shouldn’t be too hasty to condemn it.