Is this Tory Government the greenest ever?

British Conservative politicians are spearheading efforts to phase out coal and go net-zero – and that’s just the start of their Green policy-making. What's going on?

This is an updated version of an article published on The Fifth Estate on 10 April. 

Claire Perry, Energy and Clean Growth Minister

Britain’s Energy and Clean Growth Minister, Claire Perry, has called for Parliament to draft new laws that will cut emissions to net-zero.

This follows her trip to New York last week when she attended the Bloomberg Future Energy Summit in New York last week where she set out the case for making coal history. “By phasing out traditional coal power, we are not only taking active steps to tackle climate change, we are also protecting the air we breathe by reducing harmful pollution. The Powering Past Coal Alliance sends a clear signal that the time for unabated coal fired electricity has well and truly passed,” Perry told her New York audience.

The Powering Past Coal Alliance was launched by Perry and her Canadian counterpart Catherine McKenna, the Minister for Climate Change, three days after the COP23 climate change conference last November. Its members number 27 countries plus a host of regions and businesses. Ireland, one of the most recent to join, has pledged to close its one remaining coal plant by 2025 at the latest.

Catherine McKenna, Canadian Minister for Climate Change

“The UK leads the world in tackling climate change – we have reduced emissions by more than 40 per cent since 1990,” Perry said.

She is not wrong. UK carbon emissions dropped 2.6 per cent in 2017 compared to the previous year, a 43 per cent reduction since 1990. Renewables powered more than coal and nuclear combined during the final quarter. Emissions are now at a level not seen since the end of the 19th century when the industrial revolution was in full swing.

Wales is fast switching away from coal to renewables (it once was the world’s biggest coal exporter) and in Scotland wind power supplied 173 per cent of Scotland’s entire electricity demand on March 1. Even on the worst day for wind during the first quarter of 2018, January 11, wind powered the equivalent of over 575,000 homes there.

Perry said she hopes Australia and more countries, businesses, and regions will soon join New Zealand, France and Italy and sign up to the Powering Past Coal Alliance.

“Australia has different choices to make, and it would be wrong of us to sit here in Britain and prescribe what Australia’s energy policy should be, what we’re trying to do is to help and to show that there is a way through this,” she said.

A statement on the Canadian government’s website states the reason for the Alliance:

"Coal is one of the most greenhouse-gas intensive means of generating electricity, and coal-fired power plants still account for almost 40 per cent of the world’s electricity today. This reality makes carbon pollution from coal electricity a leading contributor to climate change.

"As a result, phasing out traditional coal power is one of the most important steps that can be taken to tackle climate change and meet our Paris Agreement commitment to keeping global temperature from increasing by 2 °C and pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 °C. An analysis shows that, to meet this commitment, a coal phase-out is needed by no later than by 2030, in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and in the European Union, and by no later than by 2050, in the rest of the world."

Drax power station

Drax Power Station in Yorkshire, Britain’s largest electricity generator, stands as a symbol of this change. It was once dubbed ‘the dirty old man of Europe’ for being the most polluting British power station and a focus of climate change campaigners' actions. The activists have won. No longer does it burn coal; three of its six generators burn wood, albeit controversially imported from the USA.

But although she is against coal and has today said the UK government will ask its climate watchdog to consider how the UK could meet 1.5C Paris target and become net zero, Perry has also said she supports the UK oil and gas industry. In January she told the Maximising Economic Recovery Forum held by the Oil and Gas Authority in Aberdeen: “We want to squeeze every last drop at the right economic price out of the North Sea basin. I think we’ve underestimated what we still have in terms of reserves,” for which she was criticised by Aberdeen’s own MP. Does she speak with a forked tongue? Time will tell.

It’s not just action on climate change

 

Margaret Thatcher 30 years ago warned the world about climate change 

Thirty years ago the Conservative’s patron saint, Margaret Thatcher, was one of the first politicians to warn the world about climate change. She went on to say that “no generation has a freehold on this Earth. All we have is a life tenancy – with a full repairing lease.”

Former Conservative Party leader David Cameron’s coalition government in 2010 promised to be “the greenest government ever”, although his efforts were undermined by his own Treasury and by political appointments to the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

Yet this shows that conservation is, in Britain at least, naturally a core conservative ideal, even though, the Conservative Party being a broad church, it does contain a number of vociferous climate sceptics, such as former DEFRA Secretary of State Owen Paterson and former Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson.

Whilst the environmental credibility of the current Conservative leader Theresa May is debatable, the current DEFRA secretary, Michael Gove, has been praised by Greenpeace, WWF and, albeit cautiously, Green Party leader Caroline Lucas.

Michael Gove, Defra Secretary of State

Gove has seen an opportunity to rebrand himself as a progressive since his self-inflicted downfall due to a botched bid to lead his party after his team-up with Boris Johnson drove the pro-Brexit bus to victory and kicked out David Cameron from the post. Theresa May, in a surprise move, put him in charge of DEFRA, since when he has hardly seemed to be the same person as the Gove who was once in charge of the Education Department, overseeing a return to ‘traditional teaching values’ and alienating virtually every teacher in the country.

His promises (and most of them are still promises in the form of consultations) include banning ivory sales in an effort to reduce elephant poaching, banning all petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2040 (critics want it sooner), committing to safeguarding coral reefs, introducing a deposit scheme for all drinks containers across England, support for a total ban on insect-harming pesticides across Europe, and making farming subsidies dependent on farmers proving that they are genuinely improving biodiversity and soil quality.

The Brexit factor and Trump’s trade issues

Much of the UK’s environmental policy derives from its membership of the EU, which has raised standards arguably well beyond what they would have been otherwise.

Concern has been loudly heard that, post-Brexit, these protections will be weakened. The British public overwhelmingly backs retaining these food and environmental standards. In response, Gove has promised a consultation on a new, independent body to enforce environmental law, although the future extent of its powers is uncertain.

But Trump’s White House has stressed that any new trade deal it forges with the UK cannot include current EU food standards that block the import of American products such as chlorine-washed chickens, hormone-treated beef, and crops washed with various herbicide chemicals. Further environmental battles over trade deals clearly lie ahead.

The Climate Change Act

It remains a small miracle that the 2008 Climate Change Act, a product of the Labour government, has not been repealed by the Tories. It is a phenomenal piece of legislation that enshrines in law a long-term goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 relative to 1990 levels.

This impels the UK economy towards a more sustainable future and is the underlying reason for much of the above. Under it, every five years, the government of the day – of whatever hue – must adopt a legally-binding carbon budget that sets, 15 years ahead, limits on the economy’s total greenhouse gas emissions for the following five year period.

If that sounds ludicrous to some right-wingers, it is what businesses and investors want, because it gives them the time and confidence to plan ahead. It has been extremely successful.

If Australians seek allies in persuading Abbott to change his tune, they really need to look no further than Britain’s Tories and their business supporters.

David Thorpe’s two new books are Passive Solar Architecture Pocket Reference and Solar Energy Pocket Reference. He’s also the author of Energy Management in Building and Sustainable Home Refurbishment.

The European Union is losing its way on climate change

New EU rules agreed on 31 July mean Europe’s 3000 large combustion power plants – coal burning for the most part – will have to cut pollutants such as nitrogen oxide, mercury and particulate matter by 2021. But this is not as good news as it seems.

A version of this article was published on The Fifth Estate last week.

Eighty-two per cent of the EU’s coal-fired plants are estimated to be be non-compliant, emitting excessive levels of pollutants. The cost of compliance is estimated to be over €15 billion (AU$22.4b) according to the European Climate Foundation. This seemingly sounds the death-knell for the coal industry in Europe. But will it?

European climate policy is succeeding in decoupling GDP from energy use, but enthusiasm for climate action is waning.

Christian Schaible, a member of the working group that helped draft the revised standards, explained that “not all plants will have the will, the financing, or even the access to the equipment needed to reduce pollution levels”.

“Investments in plants that are already essentially on life support in order to meet climate commitments simply doesn’t make sense.”

He said that plants committing to close could “under strict conditions and in exchange for reduced operation, be granted exceptions in the short-term”.

This is a nod partly to Eastern European countries still struggling with and committed to the legacy of inefficient Communist-era power systems.

Poland is the biggest polluter of NOx gases from these plants, followed by Germany.

Fossil fuel subsidies

Subsidies for coal continue to abound, as highlighted in a new study, which shows that in Europe, loans of €47.7b (AU$71.1b) have gone to fossil fuel projects since 2013, and many of these projects will continue.

The study, from the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL), also shows that 89.1 per cent of preventable deaths from air pollution in Bulgaria come from fossil fuel pollution.

“Fellow Eastern European countries Romania and Poland could also cut air pollution-based deaths by 71.3 per cent and 51.3 per cent, respectively,” it says.

The Rise of the Visegrad Factor

The Berlin’s Institute for International Political Economy Cenk Olgun said: “The most vehement opposition to ambitious European climate policies have historically come from the post-Soviet eastern member States,” in particular the Visegrad Group (founded in 1991 by Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia) because the bloc “still struggles with a post-communist economic legacy and conventional power sectors”.

Energy prices and domestic fossil fuel consumption are especially important issues in these countries. They are highly dependent on imported gas and oil.

The Visegrad Group has succeeded in obtaining a high number of free emission allowances from the EU:

Hungary currently holds the presidency of this group and its declared objectives for the coming year are to promote energy infrastructure, security (meaning more gas and LNG, both seen as a way of weaning off coal) and competitiveness, striking its own idea of a “balance between economic growth and meeting climate policy goals”, and expressing anxiety about “carbon leakage” and “investment leakage”.

Permitted emissions

These Eastern European countries are being permitted to increase their greenhouse gas emissions up to 2020 under rules announced on 20 July. These permits to increase are proposed in the Effort Sharing Decision limits released by the European Commission.

These allocate climate targets to each member state within the overall European target in order to decarbonise the non-Emission Trading Scheme sectors – transport (except aviation and maritime shipping), buildings, agriculture and waste.

The overall European emissions target is a 30 per cent reduction on 2005 levels by 2030. The UK’s share of this will be 37 per cent – equivalent to a 45 per cent reduction on 1990 levels. The UK has a domestically agreed Fifth Carbon Budget, which has passed into law and commits it to cutting emissions by 57 per cent on 1990 levels by 2030 – further than the proposed European limits.

Then there’s Brexit

The effect of the UK leaving the European Union has not yet been translated into the effect on Europe’s climate goals. As the UK’s emissions savings compensate for emissions increases in other nations, there will be a knock-on effect. Other nations will have to improve at a faster rate.

But this is not reflected in the above 2030 limits. By 2030 the UK will, on its present path, have been out of the EU for a decade.

This oversight is part of the impression coming out of Europe that its climate policy is in disarray.

We saw this in June with the passing of an ineffectual draft of the revised Energy Efficiency Directive.

In addition, the Energy Performance of Buildings directive – agreed by the national governments and the European Parliament – is not being effectively implemented, according to energy efficiency expert Andrew Warren. He complains in a recent piece that “Article 27 of the Directive requires our government to introduce ‘effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties’ for non-compliance with the directive. These don’t exist.”

Countries very rarely prosecute building owners for non-compliance. The last study of compliance in 2015 found: “In general, information flows and data collection systems across member states for MEP requirements were not fit for purpose” – amongst many other problems with implementation.

The Energy Union strategy and the Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement commits to staying “well” below 2°C, while pursuing efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C. Taken with other countries’ pledges the EU’s would lead to global emissions of at least 55 GtCO2-e by 2030. But the absolute maximum level of emissions for staying below 2°C would be 40 GtCO2-e. To close this gap, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has asked all countries to reduce their 2030 emissions by at least another 25 per cent.

The currently proposed EU energy efficiency target of 30 per cent is too low to meet the Paris Agreement goals. Looking at energy savings alone, by totalling the amount of savings reported by member states in 2014 and 2015 the total savings target is currently on track to be below zero.

One of the few good signs is in France’s newly published climate action plan. This states that France will push the EU to increase the ambition of its emission reduction targets. Wendel Trio, director of Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, said this “sends a clear message to the whole EU that the full implementation of the Paris Agreement means much deeper emission cuts”.

There is now only a five per cent chance that the planet can avoid warming by at least 2°C come the end of the century, according to research published in Nature Climate Change.

The recent deadly heatwaves in southern Europe look likely to be just a taste of what is to come unless far more drastic action is taken by the European bloc. It could mean over 150,000 people a year dying from heat by 2100 if nothing is done, said The Lancet Planetary Health journal.

The European Union used to lead the world on climate change action. This is not the time for it to lose its nerve.

David Thorpe is the author of Energy Management in Buildings, Solar Technology and Sustainable Home Refurbishment.

The world is heading for a ”carbon cliff” - PwC

PwC's Jonathan Grant says "we are heading for a carbon cliff" unless habits are changed.

PwC is warning today that the world is heading for 6°C warming unless emissions of greenhouse gases go into reverse.

The annual rate of reduction of carbon emissions per unit of GDP needed to limit global warming to 2°C has passed a critical threshold according to new analysis in the PwC Low Carbon Economy Index, published today. This measures developed and emerging economies' progress towards reducing emissions linked to economic output.

It demonstrates that at current rates of emissions growth, at least 6°C degrees of warming could be possible by the end of the century, which would result in large parts of the world becoming uninhabitable.

While last month, Britain topped a European league table for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, it is by no means clear that this reversal will continue, as Government policy is to maximise oil, gas and coal extraction, and to build a new generation of gas-fired power plants.

The PwC report

The PwC report shows that to limit global warming to 2oC would now mean reducing global carbon intensity by an average of 5.1% a year, a performance never achieved since 1950, when these records began.

PwC's director of sustainability and climate change, Jonathan Grant, says that "we are heading for a carbon cliff" unless habits are changed. "Even doubling our current annual rates of decarbonisation globally every year to 2050, would still lead to 6oC, making governments’ ambitions to limit warming to 2oC appear highly unrealistic.”

Andrew Sentance, PwC's senior economic advisor, says that "Government policies must radically change", and that for business this "represents an opportunity as well as a risk".

“The challenge now is to implement gigatonne scale reductions across the economy, in power generation, energy efficiency, transport and industry, as well as REDD+ in forested nations,” added Grant.

With less than four weeks to the UN Climate Summit in Doha, the analysis illustrates the scale of the challenge facing negotiations. The issue is further complicated by a slow market recovery in developed nations, but sustained growth in E7 economies which could lock economic growth into high carbon assets.

Emerging markets’ previous trends on carbon emissions reductions linked to growth and productivity have stalled, and their total emissions grew by 7.4%.

By contrast, the UK, France and Germany achieved record levels of annual carbon emissions intensity reductions, but were helped on by milder winters.

Examining the role of shale gas, PwC’s report suggests that at current rates of consumption, replacing 10% of global oil and coal consumption with gas could deliver emissions savings of around 3% a year (1gt C02e per annum).

However the report warns that while it may “buy some time”, it reduces the incentive for investment in lower carbon technologies such as nuclear and renewables, and could lock in emerging economies with high energy demand to a dependence on fossil fuels.

America has been exporting the coal it would have burnt had shale gas not displaced its domestic use, so, globally, a shift to shale gas in one country alone makes little difference to overall emissions.

This underlines the importance of reaching a global deal at Doha, PwC says.

UK oil, gas and coal extraction

At home, British policy on reducing carbon emissions no longer appears as consistent as it did until recently.

On 25 October, Energy Minister John Hayes announced 167 new North Sea oil and gas licences, saying that every last economic drop of oil and gas from the North Sea will be extracted.

In answer to a question from Green MP Caroline Lucas last Friday, about whether the effect of this on achievement of the UK's domestic carbon budgets had been calculated, he gave no indication that it had, instead repeating that the Government “aims to secure over time the maximum economic recovery" of the "20 billion barrels of oil equivalent left on the Continental Shelf".

If all this were to be burnt, it would lead to the emission of 872 trillion kgCO2.

Meanwhile, despite a decline in the demand for coal caused by six British power stations having to close by 2016, the coal industry, through CoalPro, their producer’s association, hopes that the industry will be able to maintain a total of approximately 36 working surface mines across the UK, according to the Loose Anti Opencast Network (LAON).

LAON’s latest review of the stage at which 22 current and possible opencast planning applications across the UK have reached, has just come out.

LAON is calling on the Government to align its planning policy with its energy policy. Steve Leary, its coordinator, says: “It is the Government's intention to phase out the use of coal for power generation purposes, leading to a 75% decline in the use of coal for such a purpose over the next 10 years, whilst at the same time, through provisions in the Growth and Infrastructure Bill, it is possibly making it easier to dig the coal out".

He says this coal would probably be exported if not burnt at home.

This morning, activists from the No Dash for Gas campaign who have been protesting at the Government's policy to build a new generation of 20 gas-fired power stations, are ending a seven day occupation of the 300 foot high chimneys of EDF's West Burton 1,300MW Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) plant, currently under construction in Nottinghamshire.

Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Davey, has guaranteed that if built, these stations will be exempted from emissions regulations and can continue emitting CO2 unabated until 2045.

Call to decarbonise
  -->

In a timely move, the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, the Nuclear Industry Association and RenewableUK have today issued a joint call to Energy Secretary Ed Davey to largely decarbonise the power sector by 2030.

The three associations, representing over 1,000 corporate members, make the request  in a letter  copied to the Chancellor, Prime Minister, Business Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State at the Cabinet Office.

The letter states that including a reference to the objective to largely decarbonise the power sector by 2030 in the Bill would reassure potential investors by lowering political risk and bring the cost of capital down for lower carbon generation.

The organisations stress, however, that any target set in legislation should serve a specific and necessary purpose and not contribute to so-called "target fatigue" in the energy sector; and it

Emissions from coal burning are rising. The Energy Bill must stop this.

Electricity Market Reform must address the continuing problem that the poor price of carbon is incentivising the burning of coal to generate electricity.

More bad news: burning coal to generate electricity in the UK increased by over a third in the first half of 2012, compared with a year earlier, as doing so became more profitable.

This has caused analysts at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon to forecast that the country's greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector will hit 158.7 million tonnes in 2012, up a staggering 14% on the previous year.

The news comes in figures released last Thursday by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which show that coal-fired plants produced 67.2 terawatt-hours (TWh), compared to 49.56 TWh the year before in the same period.

This trend was helped by a drop of 50% in the price of carbon permits over the year, which meant that it became, and continues to be at times, cheaper to burn coal than gas. Coal is more than twice polluting as natural gas in greenhouse gas emission terms.

At the same time, the output of nuclear power fell by 5%, or 2.6TWh, due partly to the retirement of plants at Oldbury and Wylfa, Anglesey.

On the positive side, output from renewable sources increased over this period, with wind power rising 28.3% to 7.17TWh.

Even so, the whole of the UK's energy sector emitted 139.8 million tonnes of CO2 in 2011, according to EU data, causing it to leap 28 million tonnes above its permitted cap in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, which translates to the expensive purchase of emission credits.

The high profitability of coal means the UK is becoming more reliant on the dirtiest form of energy production, a trend that has been ongoing for the last few years, as I have warned before, both last December and in June this year.

The UK's greenhouse gas emissions increased in 2010 by 3.5%, more than double the 1.3% growth in the economy, and the previous years' statistics also show an increase in net carbon dioxide emissions of 3.8%.

Coal use hasn't been this high since the winter of 2007, and is attractive to generators due to the record low CO2 prices in the EU-ETS, which now stand at €7.65. These are prices which the European Commission seems unable to do anything about.

Hopes this week, that a linkup with the Australian carbon market would boost prices, were short lived.

U.N.-issued CERs also fell, even further, to a new record low of €2.5 last week, after a U.N. website showed that chemical companies were issued with almost 4 million offsets for destroying the potent greenhouse HFC 23, confounding expectations that the credits wouldn't be released for at least another few weeks.

Clearly the carbon market is failing abjectly, and having the opposite effect to what was intended.

If the European Commission and the United Nations cannot do anything about this, then there is a chance for the British government to show leadership, through its reform of the electricity market, the details of which are currently being finalised.

The bottom line is that the price of polluting must be higher than the price of buying renewable energy. This is the only way to reverse this trend.

If the combined weight of the Carbon Reduction Commitment and the European Emissions Trading Scheme is still failing to have the desired effect, the Energy Bill must rectify this.

As it stands, text of the draft Bill actually removes the obligation on the part of utilities to purchase renewable energy. This obligation must be kept.

Secondly, the Feed-in Tariffs with Contract for Difference (CfD) must be weighted so that the system rewards the purchase of renewable energy, and the carbon price floor should be set so that the relative cost of purchasing the most polluting forms of energy, i.e. coal, is always significantly more expensive.

This is more or less what was recommended by the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change, in July, when it sent the Government's plans back to the drawing board.

The Treasury should welcome such a move, since taxing coal-generation would raise further finance which could be directed into subsidising new renewable generation infrastructure, or paying off government debt.

The move would also guarantee that the country's emissions fall within those permitted by the Emissions Trading Scheme and that the UK remains on course to meet its 2020 reduction targets.

The International Energy Agency warned earlier this year that we are in the last moments in history for us to take action to avoid heading towards a 5°C increase in average global temperature and the most catastrophic of those scenarios predicted by the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) report.

In the last two weeks we have heard warnings from other impeccable sources. Richard C.J. Somerville, Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Research Professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography issued his warning last week, saying that "if the world as a whole continues to procrastinate throughout the current decade, allowing emissions to continue to increase year after year, then it will almost certainly have lost the opportunity to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius."

But Defra's scientific adviser, Prof. Sir Bob Watson, a former chair of the IPCC, went even further on 23 August by saying that any hope of restricting the average temperature rise to 2°C was already "out the window".

"If we carry on the way we are there is a 50-50 chance that we will get to a three-degree rise," he said, and he called upon the Chancellor, George Osborne, to reconsider his opposition to tough measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. He said that we should instead “demonstrate to the rest of the world that we can make significant progress here".

“We need more political will that we currently have," he concluded.

Well, Coalition Government, as you put the final touches to the Energy Bill, there is still time for you to demonstrate that leadership.

UK coal generation, emissions, up due to low carbon price

Burning coal to generate electricity in the UK increased by over a third in the first half of 2012, compared with a year earlier, as it became more profitable.

This has caused analysts at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon to forecast that the country's greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector will hit 158.7 million tonnes in 2012, up 14% on the previous year.

Figures released yesterday by the Department of Energy and Climate Change show that coal-fired generation increased by over a third in the first half of 2012, compared with a year earlier. Coal-fired plants produced 67.2 terawatt-hours (TWh), compared to 49.56 TWh the year before.

This trend was helped by a drop of 50% in the price of carbon permits over the year, which meant that it became, and continues to be, at times, almost cheaper to burn coal than gas.

At the same time, the output of nuclear power fell by 5%, or 2.6TWh, due partly to the retirement of plants at Oldbury and Wylfa, Anglesey.

But output from renewable sources increased over this period, with wind power rising 28.3% to 7.17TWh.

The whole of the UK's energy sector emitted 139.8 million tonnes of CO2 in 2011, according to EU data, cuasing it to leap 28 million tonnes above its permitted cap in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, meaning it will have to purchase emission credits.

The high profitability of coal means the UK is becoming more reliant on the dirtiest form of energy production, a trend that has been ongoing for the last few years.

“Perfect storm" has arrived for efforts to reduce carbon emissions

Efforts to reduce carbon emissions in the UK and across Europe are facing a combination of factors strongly hindering investment in low carbon power generation and energy efficiency and promoting the burning of coal.

Now who do you believe? Today, one British tabloid newspaper is reporting that the construction of gas power plants is “twice government predictions", while another is reporting the exact opposite.

The Guardian reports Friends of the Earth analysis of the latest Government figures, from October, saying that while about 5GW of new gas-fired power generation will be needed to supply the UK in the coming decades, “power stations with more than 3GW of capacity are already now under construction and nearly 10GW of plants have received planning permission. In addition, nearly 10GW of capacity is in the earlier stages of planning".

Meanwhile, the Financial Times is warning that with 11GW of mainly coal-fired generation due to close by 2015 under the EU’s Large Combustion Plant Directive, we are burning more coal because it is currently cheaper than gas.

What is the truth?

Actually, both, at different time scales. Either way, however, it's not good news for the climate.

Coal is too cheap

Gas is today trading at just over 58p per therm, yielding baseload power for delivery today from gas generation of ￡45.20 per megawatt-hour. This does not leave much room for profit when electricity is trading at 45.50 ￡/MWh, and this is why coal generation is now favoured over gas.

The FT says “coal plants have been pumping at more than 75 per cent capacity, compared with 25 per cent a year ago".

This is a continuation of the trend of burning more coal over the last two years which is helping to push up the U.K.'s carbon emissions.

Partly as a result of increased demand, UK Coal moved from an interim loss of ￡93.2 million to a profit of ￡22.1 million in the six months to last June, following losses totalling ￡270 million over the previous three years. (However, this has not stopped it from announcing plans today to close the U.K.'s biggest coal mine, Daw Hill, near Coventry, by early 2014 when current seams are exhausted.)

The demand is driving strong imports of U.S. and Colombian coal into Europe, and prices have fallen to just over $100 (￡64) a tonne.

This figure is wildly different from that predicted by the government just six months ago: $124 (￡80).

(In fact, the price of coal wasn't even the price that DECC's report said it was at the time it was published; yet these now wildly inaccurate figures are those on which the Government bases its energy policy.)

The low price for coal is also partly the reason why Drax announced last month that it was scrapping plans for a new biomass power station, calling for more support for biomass generation from the Renewables Obligation to counter an increase in its fuel costs; although it put these fuel costs at just ￡33.3 per megawatt-hour, significantly less than that for gas.

Too many carbon credits

None of this is helping the UK, or Europe, meet its greenhouse gas emission targets.

The problem is that with coal prices low, a recession on, and an over-abundance of EU Emissions Allowances resulting in a low price of carbon, there is insufficient disincentive to burn coal, let alone gas, and consequently even less incentive to build renewable energy generation, nuclear power stations or develop carbon capture and storage.

Hence the need for DECC's
announcement this week of a ￡20 million competition to develop Carbon Capture and Storage technology, in the hope that it will reduce the price of this still unproven technology.

This combination of factors is the perfect storm for attempts to reduce carbon emissions this decade.

Carbon prices fell by over half during 2011 and are now still trading for under €8.

Despite rumblings from Brussels, the Commission is dragging its feet on moves to set aside allowances in order to restrict demand and stimulate the price.

Instead, it seems to be hoping that by the end of the year, when airlines begin being required to purchase carbon-emission allowances as part of their role in the Emissions Trading Scheme, this will stimulate a price rise. But that is still nine months away.

According to carbon market analyst Steven Knell, from IHS CERA, the ETS in no longer the main policy tool for reducing emissions ″because the supply and price of allowances are fixed and predetermined. The market is poorly equipped to deal with disruptions in demand levels," he says.

“This, plus the financial crisis, the consequent fall in emissions, and the fragile nature of the recovery, added to recent price decline due to the expectation that policy risks will deprive the market of demand, mean that action to fix the problem is urgently required".

The oversupply means that only 6.8% of all EUAs are trading; a poor proportion. This amounts to 550 million tonnes, which is equivalent to all the emissions of the non-power generation industry members of the market in Europe, i.e., the high energy users like steel and concrete; or, to put it another way, all of the U.K.'s allowances.

“This yields a long position and indicates what the price will be like in 2020: that it will not change sufficiently to stimulate the demand required for investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy lesser-known carbon capture and storage or nuclear power," says Knell.

The supply of carbon-emission allowances needs to decline more aggressively and prices need to be higher.

The policy overlap in Europe needs addressing, he says. “The latest agreements give the possibility to set aside some EU Allowances to promote energy efficiency in the draft of the Energy Efficiency Directive, but the amount set aside would need to be substantial," he says.

“Strong medicine is needed."

“Strong medicine is needed," concludes Knell. He points to an increase in European ambition for emission reduction cuts from 20% to 30% by 2020, which, he says is achievable due to the recession's effects.

However, Poland has just vetoed this target at last Friday's meeting of environment ministers because of its own addiction to coal-fired electricity generation. This vote is not binding on a Commission decision however, and it remains to be seen what will happen.

In the meantime, only two strategies are available to individual governments, because they can't control the price of oil, and these are to tax carbon and support the carbon price.

Therefore, any measure that favours the energy-intensive industries by reducing the impact of carbon-penalising policies in next week's Budget from the Chancellor, George Osborne, will send precisely the wrong signals to the market.

The setting of the carbon price floor, and reform of the energy market are urgently required to favour carbon-reduction investment and weather this storm.

But contrary to the impression given by the Financial Times article, whatever happens the lights will stay on in Britain, because of the number of gas-fired power stations that have received planning permission; they may not be built just yet, but they will be built when coal and nuclear generation comes off-line in the future, to meet any demand not met by offshore wind.

But whether it's coal or gas, it locks in more UK carbon emissions than desirable for the next 20 or so years. Chancellor: are you paying attention?

Davey to challenge Polish roadblock over European emission targets

Ed Davey and his progressive colleagues in four other Western European governments are set to clash with their eastern European counterpart in Poland at today's vital meeting of the European Environment Council.

The U.K.'s Energy and Climate Change Secretary, attending his first such meeting in his new role, is backing a move to increase Europe's 2020 target for greenhouse gas emissions cuts from the current 20% to 25%.

This is less ambitious than his predecessor, Chris Huhne, who supported a target of 30% cuts by 2020.

Huhne had argued that this target was less expensive than many thought and that it would save money in the medium and longer term.

The Energy 2050 Roadmap

The EU is already on track to meet its binding goal of lowering CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020. Increasing it to 25% or even 30% is not considered overly onerous.

According to the Energy 2050 Roadmap published by the European Commission last year, without tougher targets the European Union risks locking in carbon-intensive generation plants for the foreseeable future.

The Roadmap seeks cuts in emissions of 95% by 2050 relative to 1990.

On the other side of the desk from Davey today will sit Polish Environment Minister Marcin Korolec.

Korolec will say that the only way Poland will sign up to an increase in the target is if it is granted free allowances for all of its 16 coal powered electricity generating plants under the Emissions Trading Scheme. Poland produces over 90 percent of its electricity using coal.

This risks undermining the whole European emissions-reduction project and is opposed by virtually all the other 26 member states.

Industry misinformation

Behind Poland's position is a campaign of industry misinformation from the Polish energy lobby including the Polish Chamber of Commerce (Krajowa Izba Gospodarcza), and the biggest Polish energy companies Tauron Polska Energia S.A. and PGE (Polska Grupa Energetyczna) S.A., that has been exposed by Polish energy campaigner Kuba Gogolewski amongst others.

For example, the Chamber of Commerce recently published a report which claimed that the costs of implementing the EU climate and energy package would cost Polish industry zł.22 billion a year from 2030; that's four times higher than estimations made by the World Bank and the European Commission (pdf).

However, as pointed out by a coalition of 22 Polish environmental groups, the report leaves out many factors, such as the external costs to Polish society of industrial energy production worth €10-19 billion a year, costs of coal subsidies (€650 million in 2010), and the €1.5 billion per year imports of coal, that emit 15 million tonnes of CO2, thereby grossly understating the baseline scenario against which the costs of the EU package are compared.

Gogolewski writes on his blog that “the dominant position of coal companies in Polish society weakens public debate, ensures that information about alternatives to coal fails to reach the general public, and thus prevents the country from developing a green economy with new jobs and opportunities".

He also points out that Poles are paying for this coal dependency with their lives: “pollution coming from coal lowers the life expectancy of the average Polish citizen by at least eight months, according to estimates by the World Health Organisation for the year 2000".

Today's meeting of environment ministers

Today's meeting is led by Danish Climate and Energy Minister Martin Lidegaard, who has called for a show of unity. “I think it will be a serious situation for Europe if we, for the second time, are not able to agree on climate policy which can send a clear signal to our industry, citizens and also to the rest of the world,” he said.

Senior Polish politicians in Brussels have questioned whether emissions from coal cause global warming at all. “What I think is worrying is if we are now seeing certain member states question the science behind [climate change], the fundamental values and objectives that have been in the treaty for a very long time and if that’s the case, its for the highest level to discuss,” a Danish presidency source said yesterday.

In Germany, despite having the highest electricity prices in Europe, energy bills are lower than in the UK, because of the emphasis on domestic energy efficiency, Greg Barker pointed out in the House of Commons yesterday, as he and Davey set out the Coalition Government's energy policy.

Besides the Roadmap, the other items on the agenda today include setting European positions on the follow-up to the Durban climate conference, and the EU negotiating position for the UN Rio+20 conference on sustainable development to be held in Brazil in June.

Ministers will also discuss the restriction or prohibition of the cultivation of genetically modified organisms in Europe, and a proposal for a new regulation on LIFE, which provides funds for climate action and the environment.

€3.2 billion of grant funding

The overall budget for the new LIFE programme would be raised to €3.2 billion, of which €800 million would be allocated to a new climate sub-programme, which will focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing resilience to climate change, and increasing awareness, communication, and exchange of information on climate actions.

€2.4 billion will be targeted at promoting resource-efficiency, using innovative solutions for better implementation of environment policy and integration of environmental objectives in other sectors.

Regarding Rio, ministers will discuss proposals for the establishment of Sustainable Development Goals and their level of ambition.

On GMO cultivation, Britain will argue for individual member states to be able to decide their own policy on the issue.

They will also be discussing resource efficiency and low carbon growth, issuing a call for rapid progress on the implementation of the Roadmap to a resource-efficient Europe and the mainstreaming of environmental and climate related issues into the economic agenda for growth and jobs.

The case of the missing carbon emissions

Little did I realise when I wrote last September that an "opencast mine could come to your back yard - and there is little you can do about it", that it would happen in my own back yard!

I have moved recently to a village in Carmarthenshire, where my fiancée lives, and discovered last December that a planning application for an open cast mine in this very village was going through the planning department.

The first we heard about it was on the day of the planning committee meeting at which the application was to be determined, and we had no time to put in an objection. So much for public consultation.

The application is for 330,000 tonnes of material to be removed over 5.4 years from a greenfield site, very near to peoples' homes, by Bryn Bach Coal Ltd. of nearby Ammanford, from which 92,500 tonnes of anthracite will be sold to a brick maker.

The planning officer had already recommended it for approval.

I do not believe the decision has been made correctly and I am continuing to object to it, on several grounds, which are discussed briefly below.

But the most serious issue I've come to realise is that there exists a gap in climate change policy that allows certain emissions to escape anyone's responsibility.

The orphan carbon emissions

The Climate Change Strategy for Wales stipulates the following targets:

1. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 3% per year from 2011 in areas of devolved competence, against a baseline of average emissions between 2006-10
2. To achieve at least a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in Wales by 2020 against a 1990 baseline
3. The 3% target will include all ‘direct’ greenhouse gas emissions in Wales except those from heavy industry and power generation, but including emissions from electricity use in Wales by end-user.

It is unclear whether or not open cast coal mining is included under "emissions from heavy industry and power generation".

Emissions from "heavy industry and power generation" are excluded because their emissions are already catered for by the Climate Change Levy (CCL).

The applicants for this proposal have explicitly said that the customers for the anthracite they will extract, a brick-making kiln, are not covered by the CCL.

The Planning Officer actually misunderstood this to mean that he did not have to address the climate change aspects of the application's objectors!

This last ludicrous incident aside, this raises the wider question of who, in planning law, has responsibility for the emissions that will result from the extraction of fossil fuels if they are not burnt by end users covered by the CCL?

The answer appears to be: no one.

As I wrote last month, the UK's greenhouse gas emissions are increasing as a result of burning more coal.

Wales is supposed to have put sustainable development at the heart of every planning decision taken in the principality. This should mean, accounting for climate change.

The emissions resulting from open cast mining like this must be taken into account in Wales by planners, since they certainly won't be in any England-based planning decision but affect total UK emissions.

Carmarthenshire Council would be taking a brave stance if it were to do so and refuse the application. Unfortunately, this is unlikely since it has been voted the runner up in the 2011 Private Eye rotten borough awards (unless it wanted to redeem itself)!

Be that as it may, Welsh and UK legal advice certainly needs to be clearer on the matter of the extraction of hydrocarbons, a tough call in a nation emotionally still wedded to coal mining.

Planners need to be able to take into account the end use of the material to be extracted when deciding whether to grant permission for a coal-mining proposal to proceed, i.e., whether the emissions resulting will be accounted for so that attempts will be made to reduce them.

The 500 metre buffer zone

Moving on briefly to other objections, in Wales, unlike England, there is allegedly a stipulation that there should be a 500 metre buffer zone around such workings.

I say allegedly, because the Minerals Technical Advice Note 2: Coal (known as MTAN2) is controversial and open to interpretation.

Some authorities do uphold the 500m rule, others, particularly in former coal mining areas of Wales, too frequently find an excuse to ignore it, because several exceptions are allowable.

The closest properties to the mine are approximately 140m to the east of the site boundary and 250m from the limit of excavation.

In this case, the specific exception criteria noted by the planning officer is "where topography, natural features such as woodland, or existing development, would significantly and demonstrably mitigate impacts".

Yet a casual visit to the site shows that it is fairly flat, open, and relatively high, exposed to the prevailing wind, that would cause dust and noise easily to travel over this terrain to the nearby properties.

Planners have presented no evidence in support of their allowed exception.

Carbon neutralising open cast mining

Para 225 of MTAN2 also says that the planners must require the developer to make their operations carbon neutral.

Again, Carmarthenshire County Council planners have not presented any evidence that they have calculated the carbon impact of the operation and what should be done to neutralise it.

Instead, they have assumed that planting 1.8ha of trees, after the mine is closed, will be sufficient, a calculation based on the unsubstantiated evidence in MTAN2's paragraph 225 itself, a figure very different from that obtained using Forestry Commission figures of 5.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide absorbed by forests per hectare per year and assuming the trees are harvested and stored at their peak growth to sequester this CO2 after 30 years.

Notwithstanding the widespread criticism of using tree-planting to carbon-neutralise emissions in the first place, a widely deprecated practice.

Open cast mining is responsible for more than half of all coal extracted in the UK.

An attempt to include provisions to limit it in the Localism Act were over-ruled.

MP Andrew Bridgen's Private Members' Bill Planning (Opencast Mining Separation Zones) still has had no time allocated to it for its Second Reading.

Will any MP or Assembly Member take this up?

Will Britain exceed its carbon reduction targets? Post 2

This is the second of two posts that examine the UK's claims and efforts to reduce its carbon emissions.


Its conclusion: the UK must stop burning coal to win the battle to cut carbon emissions.

The Government claimed last week in its Carbon Plan that it is on track to meet its carbon reduction target, but this is contradicted by other independent evidence.

Emissions and carbon intensity are increasing

This evidence shows that the UK's greenhouse gas emissions actually increased last year by 3.5%; more than double the 1.3% growth in the economy, according to the PwC Low Carbon Economy Index published two weeks ago.

And this is a trend. The previous years' statistics from the UK government also show an increase in net carbon dioxide emissions of 3.8%.

If we carry on in this trend, the UK will undoubtedly miss its 34% reduction target.

Worse, the PWc report shows how, globally, national economies' carbon intensities are increasing everywhere.

Carbon intensity is a measure of how much Gross Domestic Product is produced per unit of energy generated from fossil fuels.

PWc's modelling shows that globally, the annual reduction in carbon intensity required to meet the 2° reduction target in carbon emissions by 2050, required to avoid climate chaos, has increased in the last year from 4.7% to 4.8%.

The UK's requirement is higher than this global average. The carbon intensity of its economy is actually increasing by 2.2% a year, and the annual decarbonisation rate now required to meet the 2° reduction target is 5.6%.

Much of the cause of the previous decarbonisation of the UK economy is actually due to the “dash for gas" which happened in the 1990s and resulted in a decarbonisation rate of 3%.

Its recent rise, correspondingly, is due to an increase in coal burning. The latest energy statistics show that in the last financial year, instead of renewables generating 10%, as is commonly believed, they provided 6.5% of our needs.

We are burning more coal

Coal provided 35.7% and natural gas 48.9%, with the shrinking contribution of nuclear power contributing 5.2%.

(The global warming potential of coal is nearly three times that of natural gas: 910gCO2/kWh compared to 360gCO2/kWh.)

This increase in the burning of fossil fuels to generate our electricity underscores how unfortunate it is that the U.K.'s carbon capture and storage programme is suffering delays.

PWc observe that “the longer the delay in significant action to tackle emissions growth, the steeper the path becomes to stay on track with a 2° reduction target," and the more it will cost us.

In industrialised countries, meeting this target will require massive emissions reductions in the order of 80-95% according to another annual report, the EU Climate Policy Tracker, out today from ECOFYS and WWF.

On the other hand, energy intensive industries have been complaining loudly about the cost to them of carbon reduction policies, and in his Autumn Statement, the Chancellor George Osborne promised to reduce this cost, which has the effect of reducing their incentives to save carbon.

PWc warn that there could be a large funding gap in the amount of investment which the UK needs not just to decarbonise the power sector (£89 billion) but to meet energy needs with coal and gas (hundred and £10 billion).

The big 6 utilities in the UK would have to triple their investment to meet the government's target, and in the current economic climate this does not seem likely.

The government suggested last week that pension and insurance funds could contribute to the sums required.

But for this to happen there must be a stable return with limited downsides risk.

Matthew Brown, the CBI's head of energy and climate change policy, has said that although the government's Carbon Plan gives investors a "clearer" picture of how the nation can transition to a low-carbon economy, "we now need this to be backed by consistent, long-term policies, avoiding any sudden changes of direction which put investors off."

What is the solution?

In an ideal world there would be plenty of funding available for low carbon technology, shale gas would not have been discovered, the Fukshima nuclear disaster would not have happened, and the European Emissions Trading Scheme would be operating perfectly to give a high price for carbon that would allow the necessary investments to take place.

Instead, we have to live with what we've got. Either you believe that there is an almost 100% certainty that we have to reduce emissions very fast in order to his avoid global disaster, or you believe that we should have other priorities, namely, our short-term national economies.

The Chancellor clearly believes the latter. The U.K.'s Energy and Climate Change Department believes the former.

The Chancellor believes that European legislation is holding back British business.

But half of the environmental performance of the average European member state is directly related to European legislation. Without it, the European natural environment and carbon emissions would be in a much worse state.

While the UK is one of the better performers in the European Union in legislation to fight climate change, we must not forget that under the Spending Review the Warm Front Scheme was cut, and the aspirations or funding for the Renewable Heat Incentive, Zero Carbon Homes and Carbon Trust were scaled back.

The Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme has now been transformed into essentially a carbon tax with revenues going to the Treasury instead of scheme participants.

Back in June 2011, the UK Committee on Climate Change warned that UK policies are failing to achieve the needed step change.

Since then there have been many delays in policy decisions and changes of tack, which all impact on investor confidence.

In just one snapshot of the challenge ahead, The Centre for Low Carbon Futures and the Energy Saving Trust warned on Monday that "one building every minute must be retrofitted with carbon cutting solutions to meet 2050 energy targets".

Their report argues that the Government must invest in interdisciplinary research which brings together technical, social and economic expertise.

This is both a huge challenge and a huge opportunity, both for job creation and to save energy costs.

I firmly believe that the nation is hungry for this kind of action, for the sake of jobs, the economy and reduction of energy bills.

But the most important thing we can do is to stop burning coal.

The world must wean itself off coal or face catastrophe

News that climate-warming gas emissions are increasing faster than expected means that the world must put a stop to building new coal-fired power stations as soon as possible, in order to prevent future emissions being "locked in" for decades.

Greenhouse gas emissions reached a record high in 2010, said the International Energy Agency over the weekend, although their website provides few details at present.

The IEA's Dr Fatih Birol, Chief Economist at the IEA who oversees the annual World Energy Outlook, said that after a dip in 2009 caused by the global financial crisis, emissions are estimated to have climbed to a record 30.6 Gigatonnes (Gt), a 5% jump from the previous record year in 2008, when levels reached 29.3 Gt.

This means that it will now be extremely hard for the world to limit the projected future average global temperature rise to less than 2°C, the target agreed by global leaders at the UN climate change talks in Cancun in 2010.

For this target to be achieved, global energy-related emissions in 2020 must not be greater than 32 Gt. Therefore over the next ten years, emissions must rise less in total than they did between 2009 and 2010, a virtually impossible demand.

If true, this is very frightening. “Our latest estimates are another wake-up call,” said Dr Birol. “The world has edged incredibly close to the level of emissions that should not be reached until 2020 if the 2ºC target is to be attained. Given the shrinking room for manœuvre in 2020, unless bold and decisive decisions are made very soon, it will be extremely challenging to succeed in achieving this global goal agreed in Cancun.”

The IEA's report highlights current construction worldwide of fossil fuel burning plants as a major cause for concern, estimating that 80% of projected emissions from the power sector in 2020 are already locked in, as they will come from power plants that are currently in place or under construction today.

Coal is the biggest GHG emitter, globally; 44% of the estimated global CO2 emissions in 2010 came from coal, 36% from oil, and 20% from natural gas.

Paradoxically, with the German government now committed to abandoning nuclear power by 2021 - good news in one respect - there is a real danger that carbon emissions will increase in the short term.

Chancellor Merkel said on Monday that her country is still committed to its goal of reducing its carbon emissions by 20% of 1990 levels by 2020. But it has yet to set out how it can reconcile these two opposing policies.

It will be extremely demanding, involving substantial demand reductions through greater efficiency, while temporarily increasing emissions from fossil-fuel burning plants to make up the shortfall caused by the mothballed nuclear plants.

And unfortunately Germany is currently set to build 10 coal-fired power plants, which will lock in emissions for decades to come.

These new plants would emit 69.4Mt of C02 a year, over 25% of its electricity sector's 2008 total carbon dioxide emissions.

China, India, Poland and many other countries are also building new coal-fired power stations at an unprecedented rate.

If this trend continues, even a catastrophic three degree average global temperature rise may become inevitable.

It's imperative that the world agrees as soon as possible to leave coal in the ground, to stop burning it and oil for electricity, and to gradually wean itself off the most carbon-intensive forms of energy.

The death toll of fossil fuels - and my new book

Who said this, and when?

"Eventually industry will no longer find in Europe the resources to satisfy its prodigious expansion... Coal will undoubtedly be used up. What will industry do then?"

It was solar pioneer, Augustin Bernard Mouchot, after demonstrating an early industrial application of solar thermal energy as long ago as 1880.

Four years earlier he had demonstrated the use of solar power for cooking, by making a block of ice using a parabolic dish collector.

The solar age is undoubtedly coming - and it's been waiting to arrive for a long time, continually frustrated by the aggressive marketing of cheap energy.

I have just finished writing my latest book, The Earthscan Expert Guide to Solar Power for Power, Heating, and Cooling.

In writing it I have discovered some astonishing facts about just how long the technologies have been around... and how different the twentieth century would have been if we had been forced to rely on solar and other renewable sources of power instead of fossil fuels...

...if we hadn't been cursed - as well as blessed - with nature's bequest of such huge quantities of oil, gas and coal.

Because from the first world war - partly fought over access to the newly discovered oilfields of Iraq, which was created as a result of that war - through the Six Day War and the recent Iraq wars, not to mention hundreds of other conflicts, access to fossil fuels has been the cause of millions of deaths.

With growing awareness of the impact of climate change, their aspect as a curse on the global scale has become increasingly apparent.

In 1913, Frank Schuman, who designed the world's first solar power station, dreamt of a completely solar powered world. It was theoretically possible then, as indeed it is now.

Nowadays, the phrase “energy security" is being used by those who want to see local, sustainable sources of clean energy replace dirty fossil fuels.

This is because the sun, wind and other renewable sources of energy are available abundantly, everywhere on the planet, with no need for conflict over their use. Looking at the history of solar power it is clear how its development has suffered as a result of the abundance of fossil fuels.

Humanity - or its leaders - are now faced with a clear choice: whether to stick with the status quo and vested interests that aggressively promote as inevitable, a continued dependence on fossil fuels; or whether to accelerate the deployment, research and development into solar and other renewable, sustainable technologies and practices.

My new book makes the case for the latter, looking at all the available technologies, and the sunrise ones:

• passive solar architecture


• solar water heating


• solar thermal electricity generation.

Here is a not-exhaustive list of the technologies it looks at from the point of view of their end use:

• Heating and cooling space: passive solar design, urban planning, passive stack ventilation, phase change materials, unglazed transpired collectors, solar-powered chillers and coolers
  Lighting: glazing, special glass coatings; sun pipes


• Heating water: solar water heating systems; evacuated tubes; swimming pool heating; active solar cooling; applications for large buildings and districts
  Cooking, food drying, desalination and water treatment


• Electricity: thermoelectric devices, photovoltaic modules, system design, process heat, concentrating solar power


• Transport: solar vehicles, hydrogen production.

The potential of these technologies is completely clear and proven. The scientific case for the likelihood with business-as-usual of a runaway greenhouse effect, has been conclusively established.

The stakes could not be higher and the choice more stark.

The Earthscan Expert Guide to Solar Power for Power, Heating, and Cooling will be out next year.

Carbon capture and storage is an end-of-pipe dream

The Government is basing its enthusiasm for new coal-burning power stations on the notion of retrofitting CCS (carbon capture and storage) in the future once the technology is developed.

But is this feasible?

"Even the most optimistic proponent of CCS would not envisage any demonstration plant to be operational much before 2015, which would put wide-scale deployment as far away as 2020 or later after lessons from the pilot have been learned and digested," says a submission from The Royal Academy of Engineering to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (EAC).

In July the EAC published its examination of CCS and found it to be a pipe dream. In fact, an end-of-pipe dream. It estimates that the cost of building the first CCS plant could be anything up to £500m, on top of the £1bn cost of a new coal-fired power station. Retrofitting CCS at a station like Kingsnorth is likely to cost over £1.1bn. This is a huge figure by any standard, and would have a massive impact on energy prices.

The EAC urges: "We cannot emphasise strongly enough that the possibility of CCS should not be used as a fig leaf to give unabated coal-fired power stations an appearance of environmental acceptability." Furthermore, "Replacing old coal-fired power stations with new ones, rather than using alternative energy sources, locks Britain in to a high level of emissions for many years to come."

Hutton has said that a high carbon price under the EU-ETS will mean that CCS-retrofitting so-called 'CCS-ready' new power stations becomes economical. The EAC slams this notion on three counts:

1. Lack of knowledge of the technology: since the eventual nature of CCS technology is currently unknown, how can a plant built now be designed to have the technology retro-fitted on?

2. Carbon emissions: "The EU ETS is a mechanism designed to reduce emissions; using it as a cover for choosing high emissions technology goes against the purpose of the scheme."

3. The price per tonne of CO2 for retrofitting CCS required to make it commercially viable is unfeasibly high: estimates of this vary from the rather optimistic €40 (E.ON UK) to €90-155 per tonne (Climate Change Capital) and €70-100 per tonne (UK Energy Research Centre). How much it will really be is anybody's guess, but the Government cites an EU estimate of a forward price of carbon of €39 for 2013-2020 (EU-ETS Phase 3). The UK Energy Research Centre predicts around €30. The EAC concludes from this: "the gap between the carbon price and the cost of CCS is enormous".

The EAC concludes: "Coal should be seen as the last resort, even with the promise of CCS."

[Sources available in the EAC report on CCS].

King Coal returns to the battleground

24 years after the miners strike, coal is at the centre of a new battle.

This weekend activists are attempting to close down Kingsnorth power station, protesting against government plans to build a new coal-fired power station at the site in Kent.

This is just one of many anti-coal protests around the country, as public feeling against coal mining and coal burning is mounting. Simultaneously, the industry has plans to open many new mines, and the government is deciding whether to give the go-ahead to seven or eight new coal-fired power stations, the first for 30 years.

Yet concerned climate scientists argue that leaving coal in the ground is the best form of carbon capture and storage - the planet just cannot survive that much more CO2 put into the atmosphere. The burning of coal for electricity and heating, the logic goes, is far easier to halt and to replace than is the use of oil for transportation.

Coal is primarily used for electricity generation, which is the largest source of UK greenhouse gas emissions. Of all power stations, coal-fired ones are most CO2 intensive.

Today, globally, burning coal is responsible for around one quarter of our global CO2 emissions. And currently, approximately 1,000 tonnes of CO2 are released into the Earth's atmosphere every second due to human activity. But around half of all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now, due to us, is from burning coal. The majority of this came from Western developed nations who industrialised before China and other emerging indistrialised powers.

This is why developing economies like China and India argue, in the current round of climate control talks, that as today's climate change is due to our historical emissions, developed countries should curb their emissions before they do. Climate campaigners argue that if we want these countries to stop building new coal-fired power stations (China is opening two a week), we must set a good example.

James Hansen

James Hansen is described by many as the world's leading climate scientist. He first alerted Washington politicians to the dangers of climate change in June 1988 and has been an outspoken advocate of action to stop it ever since. He is the director of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies at NASA and adjunct professor at earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University. He has called for a moratorium on building coal-fired power plants and for a 350ppm target for the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. (Currently it is 385ppm.)

"It's very difficult to see how we can prevent the oil from being used and the carbon getting in to the atmosphere because it comes from vehicles, but in the case of coal if we're going to use that, we could restrict it to power-plants and we should say it can only be used there if you capture the CO2," he says. He argues that it's easier to make electricity and heat buildings with other sources of energy than coal, than it is to find alternatives to the fossil fuels which power our vehicles. Therefore we should do this first. "I think it's a better way than saying let's reduce CO2 80% or 90% or 60% or any particular number because we really can't let 40% or 20% of the coal to continue to be used; that's the one source that we really need to cut off."

Hansen has written to Gordon Brown requesting that the Government doesn't build any new coal fired power plants without carbon capture and storage. "Coal is the largest contributor to the human-made increase of CO2 in the air," he wrote. "Saving the planet and creation surely requires phase-out of coal use." We don't know if Brown replied. Source.

In June Hansen on Monday told listeners on Capitol Hill, Washington, that the heads of oil and coal companies who knowingly delayed action on curbing greenhouse gas emissions were committing a crime. “These CEO’s, these captains of industry,” he said in the briefing, “if they don’t change their tactics they’re guilty of crimes against humanity and nature.” He compared cordons of coal cars heading to power plants to the death trains of the Holocaust (because of the mass extinctions foreseen by many biologists should warming go unabated).

Hansen said in an interview in March: "I would say within a decade or so, that these coal plants are simply not compatible with keeping a planet resembling the one in which civilisation developed. And I think there is going to be eventually pressure to in effect bulldoze those plants, so economically they just don't make sense. You are not going to be able to leave them there 50 years."

Hanen argues that we will have to "restore the point of energy balance because as it stands now we will lose the Arctic sea ice without any more greenhouse gases, as there is additional warming in the pipeline. That means we would have to reduce the amount of CO2 at least to the 350ppm level, and we are already at 385. So, we've actually got to go backwards and it's really too bad that we didn't realise this earlier."

Does Hansen believe it's possible to reverse the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere?

"Yes, yes, it's still possible. If we get on the stick very promptly, it's still practical to do that in ways that are quite natural. The most important thing is to have a moratorium on new coal fired power plants that don't capture CO2 and then to phase out the dirty coal use over the next 2-3 decades.

If we do that, you know that the system does still take up CO2, the ocean and the soils and things, so that other things being equal, CO2 would only go up to a bit more than 400 if we phase out coal use. But then we have got to take at least 50ppm out of the atmosphere, and that is possible with improved agricultural and forestry practices, things that we have not being paying much attention to."

Britain's coal resources

The coal industry estimates there are 45 billion tonnes of recoverable UK coal reserves, which at current rates would last us 300 years. This represents around 150 billion tonnes of CO2. The industry says new mines are in development because it is becoming more cost-effective to mine rather than import, which currently costs Britain around £3 billion a year.

But just-released government energy statistics show that coal consumption fell by just under 7% in 2007, with an 8.5% decrease in consumption by the major power producers (consumers of 81% of total coal demand). Electricity supplied  from coal in 2007, actually fell from 37% in 2006 to 34% in 2007. Burning coal at home only uses 1% of coal.

The only reason the government wants to burn more coal is to reduce the demand for imported gas and replace currently offline or closing nuclear power stations. But it should invest in renewables, the power of the future, instead.

The government's BERR and coal supporters talk about using ‘Carbon Capture and Storage’ (CCS) at coal-fired power stations as a solution to climate change. This technology does not yet exist and the industry itself says it won't be ready for at least 10 years. It is also likely to be highly expensive. In America the Bush administration withdrew its support for the FutureGen CCS project in February for this reason. Despite this, the government is now deciding whether to allow seven or eight new coal fired power stations.

Opencast coal mining

Where will the coal come from? There are 17 opencast mines in the UK now, with a staggering 25 in planning or proposed (see table below).

Opencast coal mining recovers over 90% of the coal deposit, more than deep mining but leaves a huge scar on the landscape. Soil and rock are first broken up by drilling and blasting with explosives then removed by draglines or by power shovels and trucks. With the coal seam exposed, it is also drilled and blasted. Large trucks or conveyors then take it to where it will be used. These activities have the following effects on local communities, notwithstanding the climate damage:

• Noise, such as blasting and vehicle movements
• Dust and dirt
• Health problems: respiratory, eye and skin conditions
• Traffic congestion
• Adverse visual impact and change to local landscape
• Long term environmental damage
• Reduced investment and lowering of property values
• Loss of local countryside for recreation.

For example, Ffos-y-Fran is one of the biggest opencast coal mines in Europe, on the outskirts of Merthyr Tydfil. Merthyr residents have opposed the scheme for many years as the mine comes within 36 metres of the nearest homes. In England and Scotland, the scheme would have been rejected because the law requires a 500 metre buffer zone between opencast mines and residential areas.

Elsewhere, protestors have occupied Prospect Farm off Bell Lane, Smalley, Derbyshire, site of a proposed open cast mine and occupied by activists since June 2008. They were evicted on August 7.

If Britain is serious about climate change, it cannot sanction new coal mines and power stations.

Opencast coal mining sites in England and Wales: Currently producing:

Licensee	Name	Location
Celtic Energy Ltd	Margam Opencast	Bridgend, S Wales
Celtic Energy Ltd	Nant Helen Extension	Powys
Celtic Energy Ltd	Selar	Neath, Port Talbot, S wales
Dynant Fach Colliery Company	Dynant Fawr	Carmarthenshire
Energybuild Ltd	Nant-y-Mynydd	Neath, Port Talbot, S wales
H J Banks Developments	Delhi Site	Northumberland
H J Banks Developments	Shotton Surface Mine	Northumberland
UK Coal Mining Ltd	Cutacre	Bolton
UK Coal Mining Ltd	Lodge House	Derbyshire
UK Coal Mining Ltd	Long Moor	Leicestershire
UK Coal Mining Ltd	Maidens Hall Extension	Northumberland
UK Coal Mining Ltd	Oxcroft	Derbyshire
UK Coal Mining Ltd	Sharlston	West Yorkshire
UK Coal Mining Ltd	Stobswood	Northumberland
Minerals (UK) Ltd	Bwlch Ffos	Neath, Port Talbot
Ward Brothers	Prestwick Pit	Northumberland
Miller Argent	Ffos-y-Fran	Mid-Glamorgan, Wales

Opencast sites proposed/in planning process in England and Wales

Licensee	Name	Location	Status
Bryn Bach Coal Ltd	Cwn Yr Onen Colliery Reclamation	Carmarthenshire
Celtic Energy Ltd	East Pit East revised	Neath, Port Talbot, S wales
Celtic Energy Ltd	Margam Extension	Bridgend, S Wales	Planning applied for Oct 2007
Draeth Mining	Pentre Mawr	Carmarthenshire
H J Banks Developments	Alcan Farms	Northumberland	planning put in Oct 2007
H J Banks Developments	Brenkley	Northumberland
H J Banks Developments	Cavil Head	Northumberland	planning put in Oct 2007
H J Banks Developments	Houndalee, nr Widdrington	Northumberland	Planning put in Oct 2007
H J Banks Developments	Newton Lane Surface Mine	Leeds
H J Banks Developments	The Cockles, nr Ulgham	Northumberland	Planning put in Oct 2007
Hall Construction Services Ltd	Skons Park, Burnopfield	Gateshead, Newcastle	Planning rejected 2007. New submission expected
Parkhill Estates Ltd	Caughley Quarry	Shropshire
Shires Development Ltd	Corporal Lane Quarry	Calderdale, yorks
UK Coal Mining Ltd	Bradley	County Durham	Planning expected April 2008
UK Coal Mining Ltd	Butterwell, nr Ulgham	Northumberland	Planning expected 2008
UK Coal Mining Ltd	Chesterfield Canal	Derbyshire	Planning expected 2008
UK Coal Mining Ltd	Highthorn, nr Widdrington	Northumberland	planning submitted Oct 07
UK Coal Mining Ltd	Huntington Lane	Telford,Shropshire	Planning expected 2008
UK Coal Mining Ltd	Minorca	Leicestershire	Planning expected 2008
UK Coal Mining Ltd	Park Wall North	County Durham
UK Coal Mining Ltd	Potland Burn	Northumberland
UK Coal Mining Ltd	Steadsburn	Northumberland
UK Coal Mining Ltd	Whittonstall, nr Consett	Northumberland	planning submitted Oct 07
UK Coal PLC	Temple Quarry	Kirklees, yorks
Unknown	Whittle Colliery	Northumberland

Sources:

• www.ukcoal.com/sm-locations
• www.hjbanks.com/energy/sites
• www.miller.co.uk/argent
• www.coal.com/operations.htm