Using tidal stream (ocean current) and tidal range technology the UK could supply at least 10% of its electricity (around 5% from each).
The Sustainable Development Commission has just published its long-awaited report on tidal power and this is its conclusion.
It says: "Such a substantial prize deserves very close attention as part of much wider action aimed at tackling the twin challenges of climate change and energy security", the goals of the Energy White Paper.
It says a barrage in the Severn Estuary could supply 4.4% of the above total (17TWh), generating electricity for over 120 years.
This is certainly four times longer than a nuclear power station.
But to mitigate its efects on the environment, they say it should:
• be publicly led as a project and publicly owned as an asset to avoid short-termist decisions and ensure the long-term public interest
• be fully compliant with European Directives on habitats and birds and with a long-term commitment to creating compensatory habitats on an unprecedented scale
• investigate a habitat creation that addresses the impacts of climate change over the long term.
The best tidal stream sites are in the north of Scotland, with significant potential also around north Wales (Anglesey where it could replace the power lost by the closure of Wylfa nuclear power station with marine current turbines), Northern Ireland, and the Channel Islands.
The tidal range resource is concentrated in the estuaries off the west coast of Britain, including the Severn, the Mersey and the Humber.
The UK is leading the world in the development of a wide range of tidal stream devices, several of which are at the testing stage. The UK must ‘stay the course’ in developing these technologies, as the export and climate change benefits are potentially very large.
Despite the encouraging progress made so far, Government could do more to assist these emerging technologies, particularly through flexible financial support, and by providing additional resources to the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney.
On tidal lagoons, the SDC found that there is a lack of available evidence on the costs and environmental impacts, mainly due to the absence of any practical experience. We have called on Government to support the development of one or more demonstration project, which would help provide real-life data on their economic and environmental viability.
> Tidal Power report
Showing posts with label energy white paper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label energy white paper. Show all posts
Monday, October 01, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Nuclear vs solar water heating and carbon impacts
New nuclear build is carbon lighter than fossil fuels but not as light as some renewables.
All renewables have a carbon impact, but it varies enormously from technology to technology. For example, much electricity is used for water heating. Solar water heating has negligible carbon emssions associated and can provide 30-50% of hot water over a year, depending on the location and orientation.
Electricity is used for space heating, and so is gas. Again, with new buildings, passive solar designs and high efficiency can reduce to almost zero the amount of fuel required. Heat pumps can triple the value of the energy input.
Figures from the LCBP show solar water heating was by far the renewable energy installation of choice for householders obtaining this grant. At the end of May, the figures showed that since it launched in April 2006 the LCBP has directly funded 2175 installations on homes, including 1467 (over two thirds) solar thermal heating systems, 313 (14%) solar PV projects and 242 (11%) mini-turbines.
That proves its popularity and effectiveness. The Energy Act should make it mandatory that all new buildings install this technology, and set retrofit targets. But as far as I can see it doesn't even mention this technology.
Space and water heating counts for 83% of domestic energy use (BNDH12, quoted in EST's Rise of the Machine, page 14) and about the same for office use. Together, offices and homes account for around 35% of UK energy use. Ie, 28% of total UK energy use.
Providing 40% of this by passive solar, solar water heating, heat pumps, domestic CHP, and woodchip/pellet boilers, would account for a significant proportion of the amount of power requirement as that required to compensate for the loss of old nuclear power stations.
It would have almost as great an impact in a shorter time scale and far cheaper but with little environmental impact than building new nuclear power stations, as well as creating more, sustainable jobs.
The above forms my answer to question two of the government's nuclear consultation
All renewables have a carbon impact, but it varies enormously from technology to technology. For example, much electricity is used for water heating. Solar water heating has negligible carbon emssions associated and can provide 30-50% of hot water over a year, depending on the location and orientation.
Electricity is used for space heating, and so is gas. Again, with new buildings, passive solar designs and high efficiency can reduce to almost zero the amount of fuel required. Heat pumps can triple the value of the energy input.
Figures from the LCBP show solar water heating was by far the renewable energy installation of choice for householders obtaining this grant. At the end of May, the figures showed that since it launched in April 2006 the LCBP has directly funded 2175 installations on homes, including 1467 (over two thirds) solar thermal heating systems, 313 (14%) solar PV projects and 242 (11%) mini-turbines.
That proves its popularity and effectiveness. The Energy Act should make it mandatory that all new buildings install this technology, and set retrofit targets. But as far as I can see it doesn't even mention this technology.
Space and water heating counts for 83% of domestic energy use (BNDH12, quoted in EST's Rise of the Machine, page 14) and about the same for office use. Together, offices and homes account for around 35% of UK energy use. Ie, 28% of total UK energy use.
Providing 40% of this by passive solar, solar water heating, heat pumps, domestic CHP, and woodchip/pellet boilers, would account for a significant proportion of the amount of power requirement as that required to compensate for the loss of old nuclear power stations.
It would have almost as great an impact in a shorter time scale and far cheaper but with little environmental impact than building new nuclear power stations, as well as creating more, sustainable jobs.
The above forms my answer to question two of the government's nuclear consultation
Monday, September 24, 2007
The cost of nuclear new build
The UK Government’s public consultation on the possibility of building new nuclear power stations runs until October 10. Have your say.
This blog looks at the cost of nuclear new build and its context.
There are 76 reactors on drawing boards worldwide - and uranium is scarce.
China aims to build 30 nuclear plants over the next 15 years. India is planning 19 and Russia is switching a quarter of its energy supply to nuclear power.
The US is looking at 17 plants over the next six years.
According to a New Economics Foundation report published last month, the costs involved in building new reactors is up to three times higher than supporters say.
"Nuclear power has been promoted as a solution to climate change and an answer to energy security. It is neither," the report concludes. "As a response to global warming it is too slow, too expensive and too limited."
The think tank rejects the government's cost estimate of 2.2-5.0 pence per kilowatt hour of power produced by new nuclear power plants, instead putting the cost at 3.2-7.5 p/kWh.
Another recent report agrees. Poyry Energy Consulting says the commercial case for building new nuclear plants is shaky and that none will be built without a higher long-term carbon price than that set by the current European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
A nuclear power programme requires a huge capital investment of up to three-quarters of its costs, compared to a gas plant’s 25%. Interest costs during construction mean that delays can make or break a nuclear project.
"Despite the rhetoric, it is difficult to see much new nuclear capacity coming into the market before 2020," Poyry director Andrew Nind said.
"Beyond then prospects look better, but the future of nuclear probably depends on the creation of a long-term carbon price guarantee. In its current form, the ETS will not suffice."
Several recent estimates of future carbon price movement show that it won't reach €35, the price the White Paper argues makes nuclear economically feasible, for a long time.
Market forecasts say there will be an over-supply of credits from developing countries, and a continuing over-allocation of credits in Europe. The price has mostly been below 20 euros a tonne over the last year. This market over-saturation will keep the price low.
For this reason the nuclear lobby is arguing in Brussels that nuclear should be classed as renewable in order to be eligible for ETS-subsidies, like solar and wind are.
This would be barmy. But of course that wouldn't deter the EC.
As I said, uranium is scarce and the price will rise. The future of the ETS after 2012, however, is uncertain, and investors don't like that.
Here in Wales, Hugh Richards, of the Welsh Anti-Nuclear Alliance, also believes there are strong grounds for believing that new nuclear power stations may prove financially unviable.
He has examined the four power station designs that were registered with the nuclear regulator last month for pre-licence assessment. (The Government is moving to pre-license standardised designs and streamline planning procedures in order to reduce the lead times for nuclear construction.)
(However this increases the risk that the public will lose confidence in the regulatory process, and experience suggests that it will not speed up projects. In England, where public inquiries were scrapped for all the advanced gas-cooled reactors, an average 10-year construction over-run resulted.)
None of the four Generation III designs submitted to the regulators for pre-licensing assessment in July are proven commercially; they are design concepts without working prototypes to test their safety. No attempt has been made to test their financial robustness, says Richards.
British Energy, bought back out with £5bn of public money in 2002, has the only experience of operating nuclear reactors in Britain.
Of the six foreign operators expressing an interest in building reactors here, from Germany, France, Spain and Belgium, five say they want to have a choice of the best available designs, but none of these designs are proven.
The Finnish reactor under construction now, whose economic model is widely touted as being the way forward, by preselling power to private buyers, will not work here, and anyway has been shown to be based on faulty accounting.
Three of the operators have non-nuclear plants in the UK - Scottish Power recently acquired Iberdrola, npower is owned by RWE, and Eon-UK. Ironically, they all put great emphasis on renewables in their marketing.
And actually as the price of oil and gas rises coal becomes more and more economic.
Which is why they're currently trying to build the largest open cast coal mine in Europe in South Wales.
And all because the civil servants are allergic to renewables.
(And we haven't even talked about transport, responsible for more global warming than electricity.)
This blog looks at the cost of nuclear new build and its context.
The international picture
There are 76 reactors on drawing boards worldwide - and uranium is scarce.
China aims to build 30 nuclear plants over the next 15 years. India is planning 19 and Russia is switching a quarter of its energy supply to nuclear power.
The US is looking at 17 plants over the next six years.
The UK picture
According to a New Economics Foundation report published last month, the costs involved in building new reactors is up to three times higher than supporters say.
"Nuclear power has been promoted as a solution to climate change and an answer to energy security. It is neither," the report concludes. "As a response to global warming it is too slow, too expensive and too limited."
The think tank rejects the government's cost estimate of 2.2-5.0 pence per kilowatt hour of power produced by new nuclear power plants, instead putting the cost at 3.2-7.5 p/kWh.
Another recent report agrees. Poyry Energy Consulting says the commercial case for building new nuclear plants is shaky and that none will be built without a higher long-term carbon price than that set by the current European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
A nuclear power programme requires a huge capital investment of up to three-quarters of its costs, compared to a gas plant’s 25%. Interest costs during construction mean that delays can make or break a nuclear project.
"Despite the rhetoric, it is difficult to see much new nuclear capacity coming into the market before 2020," Poyry director Andrew Nind said.
"Beyond then prospects look better, but the future of nuclear probably depends on the creation of a long-term carbon price guarantee. In its current form, the ETS will not suffice."
Several recent estimates of future carbon price movement show that it won't reach €35, the price the White Paper argues makes nuclear economically feasible, for a long time.
Market forecasts say there will be an over-supply of credits from developing countries, and a continuing over-allocation of credits in Europe. The price has mostly been below 20 euros a tonne over the last year. This market over-saturation will keep the price low.
For this reason the nuclear lobby is arguing in Brussels that nuclear should be classed as renewable in order to be eligible for ETS-subsidies, like solar and wind are.
This would be barmy. But of course that wouldn't deter the EC.
As I said, uranium is scarce and the price will rise. The future of the ETS after 2012, however, is uncertain, and investors don't like that.
The nuclear companies' new plans
Here in Wales, Hugh Richards, of the Welsh Anti-Nuclear Alliance, also believes there are strong grounds for believing that new nuclear power stations may prove financially unviable.
He has examined the four power station designs that were registered with the nuclear regulator last month for pre-licence assessment. (The Government is moving to pre-license standardised designs and streamline planning procedures in order to reduce the lead times for nuclear construction.)
(However this increases the risk that the public will lose confidence in the regulatory process, and experience suggests that it will not speed up projects. In England, where public inquiries were scrapped for all the advanced gas-cooled reactors, an average 10-year construction over-run resulted.)
None of the four Generation III designs submitted to the regulators for pre-licensing assessment in July are proven commercially; they are design concepts without working prototypes to test their safety. No attempt has been made to test their financial robustness, says Richards.
British Energy, bought back out with £5bn of public money in 2002, has the only experience of operating nuclear reactors in Britain.
Of the six foreign operators expressing an interest in building reactors here, from Germany, France, Spain and Belgium, five say they want to have a choice of the best available designs, but none of these designs are proven.
The Finnish reactor under construction now, whose economic model is widely touted as being the way forward, by preselling power to private buyers, will not work here, and anyway has been shown to be based on faulty accounting.
Three of the operators have non-nuclear plants in the UK - Scottish Power recently acquired Iberdrola, npower is owned by RWE, and Eon-UK. Ironically, they all put great emphasis on renewables in their marketing.
So where are we?
- Environmental regulations could force many of Britain's coal fired power plants to close over the next decade
- all but one of its nuclear power plants are expected to shut by 2020
- The government has refused to pay for nuclear or build the plants with public money
- A spokeswoman for BERR said on 17.09 the government was already trying to work out how the country will cope if no nuclear power plants are built
- It has admitted that the current target of getting 20 percent of its power from renewable sources of energy by 2020 is already "very challenging"
And actually as the price of oil and gas rises coal becomes more and more economic.
Which is why they're currently trying to build the largest open cast coal mine in Europe in South Wales.
And all because the civil servants are allergic to renewables.
(And we haven't even talked about transport, responsible for more global warming than electricity.)
*Sigh* The nuclear 'consultation'
I haven't posted on this blog for ages because the whole sham of the consultation process depresses me.
I've gone over the arguments against nuclear and for renewables of many types many times before. Yet the government is persistent and persistency tends to pay off.
My friend George Monbiot and my girl Kate Doubleday the eco-singer insist I keep up the blog however. So here goes.
I said to George I thought the green movment had made a mistake by withdrawing from the consultation process, since the government was using this as propaganda, and the votes at the end of the seminars (however rigged), without their presence and influence, have been used to suggest most people support nuclear power.
He disagreed. He believes that, like the Big Conversation sham of a couple of years ago, also seen as a sham and which sank without trace, this will come to be seen the same way.
He thinks that if Greepeace did take part, it would be seen as hypocritical, since they have attacked the process and succeeded in court once.
However, I believe that as this consultation is going to end in an Energy Act, whatever the spun outcome is, it will be used to justify the Act's content.
No doubt the civil servants have told everyone to get nuclear in there at all costs, and no doubt the lobbyists from the four companies lining up to build new nuclear power stations have a good reason to believe they've already got the green light.
The government's favourite pollsters, Populus, founded by two Tories and published in the Times, have produced a convenient poll proving conclusively that the public backs new build.
No doubt people like me and other grenies are all deluded, and we only choose to believe the info that fits our preconceived ideas.
Well, whichever is the correct tactic, only time will tell, but I do believe this - the government is going around saying that the nuclear waste problem is solved, when it isn't; that Scotland and Wales don't want nuclear power; and that the Royal Commision is right to be worried about the security implications of the waste issue.
When renewables could deliver, sooner than nuclear, through tidal energy principally, but also through a myriad of other technologies, the solutions to our energy 'gap' and our energy security, without endangering the lives of future generations or international security, and by backing new techologies that will last far longer than nuclear power once the uranium is all used up in 80 years max, it doesn't make sense to back nuclear on any grounds - not even cost.
I've gone over the arguments against nuclear and for renewables of many types many times before. Yet the government is persistent and persistency tends to pay off.
My friend George Monbiot and my girl Kate Doubleday the eco-singer insist I keep up the blog however. So here goes.
I said to George I thought the green movment had made a mistake by withdrawing from the consultation process, since the government was using this as propaganda, and the votes at the end of the seminars (however rigged), without their presence and influence, have been used to suggest most people support nuclear power.
He disagreed. He believes that, like the Big Conversation sham of a couple of years ago, also seen as a sham and which sank without trace, this will come to be seen the same way.
He thinks that if Greepeace did take part, it would be seen as hypocritical, since they have attacked the process and succeeded in court once.
However, I believe that as this consultation is going to end in an Energy Act, whatever the spun outcome is, it will be used to justify the Act's content.
No doubt the civil servants have told everyone to get nuclear in there at all costs, and no doubt the lobbyists from the four companies lining up to build new nuclear power stations have a good reason to believe they've already got the green light.
The government's favourite pollsters, Populus, founded by two Tories and published in the Times, have produced a convenient poll proving conclusively that the public backs new build.
No doubt people like me and other grenies are all deluded, and we only choose to believe the info that fits our preconceived ideas.
Well, whichever is the correct tactic, only time will tell, but I do believe this - the government is going around saying that the nuclear waste problem is solved, when it isn't; that Scotland and Wales don't want nuclear power; and that the Royal Commision is right to be worried about the security implications of the waste issue.
When renewables could deliver, sooner than nuclear, through tidal energy principally, but also through a myriad of other technologies, the solutions to our energy 'gap' and our energy security, without endangering the lives of future generations or international security, and by backing new techologies that will last far longer than nuclear power once the uranium is all used up in 80 years max, it doesn't make sense to back nuclear on any grounds - not even cost.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Miliband's complacency
The Planning White Paper has been attacked by many on the grounds that it would increase, not reduce, overall greenhouse emissions
This is because it will permit fast-tracking of motorway widening, new ports, runways, bypasses and so on.
The overall climate impact of all of this has, unbelievably, not been calculated by the government despite "lip service" to the topic in the white paper.
Nevertheless, at Hay-on-Wye Literature Festival, David Miliband asserted that the central philosophy of the government's climate change programme is that "as long as overall emissions from the UK come down it doesn't matter where the cuts are made” and therefore transport emissions could continue to rise without necessarily contradicting policy.
Such complancy is shocking. How can he know that overall emissions will come down if the impact of the planned transport expansions haven't been calculated?
The plans will make it easier for homeowners to install microgeneration, but grants for these are pitifully few and low. You have to be rich to do it like David Cameron.
The Low Carbon Buildings Programme (LCBP) has just received and from yesterday made available an extra £11.9m for housdeholders' solar, wind, groundsource etc.. power. This will last a month and then that's it.
What a way to support the renewables industry and meet the overwhelming public demand.
> Respond to the Planning consultation
The deadline for responses is 17 August.
This is because it will permit fast-tracking of motorway widening, new ports, runways, bypasses and so on.
The overall climate impact of all of this has, unbelievably, not been calculated by the government despite "lip service" to the topic in the white paper.
Nevertheless, at Hay-on-Wye Literature Festival, David Miliband asserted that the central philosophy of the government's climate change programme is that "as long as overall emissions from the UK come down it doesn't matter where the cuts are made” and therefore transport emissions could continue to rise without necessarily contradicting policy.
Such complancy is shocking. How can he know that overall emissions will come down if the impact of the planned transport expansions haven't been calculated?
The plans will make it easier for homeowners to install microgeneration, but grants for these are pitifully few and low. You have to be rich to do it like David Cameron.
The Low Carbon Buildings Programme (LCBP) has just received and from yesterday made available an extra £11.9m for housdeholders' solar, wind, groundsource etc.. power. This will last a month and then that's it.
What a way to support the renewables industry and meet the overwhelming public demand.
> Respond to the Planning consultation
The deadline for responses is 17 August.
Decommissioning delays
Decommissioning the nuclear reactors at Harwell in Oxfordshire and Winfrith in Dorset could be delayed by up to five years, the UK Atomic Energy Authority says.
This is down to a budget cut from £101m this year to £60m by 2008-09, caused by the closure of the Thorp reprocessing plant in Sellafield for more than two years following a radioactive fuel leak.
Reprocessing overseas fuel formed much of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA)'s income, as did the sale of electricity from the Magnox power stations at Oldbury, Gloucestershire, which has been temporary shut down.
The best locations for the Energy White Paper's expected new nuclear plants would be the sites of existing ones.
But if Oxfordshire and Winfrith are to remain open for longer, new locations will have to be investigated, such as the sites of existing coal and gas stations in the south-east of England. This could run into plannning permision delays.
This is down to a budget cut from £101m this year to £60m by 2008-09, caused by the closure of the Thorp reprocessing plant in Sellafield for more than two years following a radioactive fuel leak.
Reprocessing overseas fuel formed much of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA)'s income, as did the sale of electricity from the Magnox power stations at Oldbury, Gloucestershire, which has been temporary shut down.
The best locations for the Energy White Paper's expected new nuclear plants would be the sites of existing ones.
But if Oxfordshire and Winfrith are to remain open for longer, new locations will have to be investigated, such as the sites of existing coal and gas stations in the south-east of England. This could run into plannning permision delays.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Miliband at the Hay Festival
Environment Secretary David Miliband, son and heir of the family of comedians sired by the late Spike Miliband, shared a panel today at the Hay Festival with Solar Century's Jeremy Leggett and climate change author Mark Lynas.
David's brother Ed was also at Hay, together spreading the Brownite smile as wide as they could.
David's body language spoke volumes:
What does this reveal about future energy policy? That, I feel, it is to be just as aggressively impotent as before.
That is, a policy of doing as little as possible to support the indigenous renewables industry or to harm road building and our love of cheap air flights, a policy pursued with reckless enthusiasm and empty promises.
Afterwards the Low Carbon Kid buttonholed the man, before he sprang off to join his family, and asked him: wasn't he scared by the fear that if the UK builds more nuclear power stations, then it would give the green light to other nations whose security and safety procedures were not quite as rigourous as ours?
He said: they already are building them.
Er, like Iran?
That's alright then.
The breathless complacency of the energy policy extends, then, to a breathless complacency about safety and peace in a more nuclear world.
David's brother Ed was also at Hay, together spreading the Brownite smile as wide as they could.
David's body language spoke volumes:
- he was the only member of the panel to remove his jacket
- the only one to put his foot on the table
- the most animated in both attack and defence
- he peppered his speech and head movements with mannerisms that would have been equally at home on Tony Blair
- and was the only one to spread his legs alarmingly wide while scratching the inside of his thigh.
What does this reveal about future energy policy? That, I feel, it is to be just as aggressively impotent as before.
That is, a policy of doing as little as possible to support the indigenous renewables industry or to harm road building and our love of cheap air flights, a policy pursued with reckless enthusiasm and empty promises.
Afterwards the Low Carbon Kid buttonholed the man, before he sprang off to join his family, and asked him: wasn't he scared by the fear that if the UK builds more nuclear power stations, then it would give the green light to other nations whose security and safety procedures were not quite as rigourous as ours?
He said: they already are building them.
Er, like Iran?
That's alright then.
The breathless complacency of the energy policy extends, then, to a breathless complacency about safety and peace in a more nuclear world.
Friday, May 25, 2007
The Energy White Paper - a snail responds to an emergency
There's a feeling of deja vu about this.
We've been here before - twice in the last four years.
And still the Government refuses to take the bold decisions it needs to take to embrace the potential of mid and long term future renewable technologies, making the country a dynamic world leader in tidal, marine current, off-shore wind, wave, heatpump, CHP, solar water heating and other generators.
Significant investment (say, the amount spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) now in these would leapfrog us into the claimed twin goals of energy security and climate protection.
The government also refuses to outlaw high-energy-consuming behaviour, instead wanting to tinker round the edges.
Britain will need around 30-35GW of new electricity generating capacity (about one-third of existing capacity) as coal and nuclear plants retire over the next two decades, with around two-thirds of that needed by 2020.
The UK government's new energy strategy, said Alistair Darling, paves the way for a mandatory, auction-based carbon trading scheme for businesses, such as banks, supermarkets and central government departments.
It also promises, again, an end to fuel poverty, more renewable energy, technologies to bury heat-trapping gases and the possible expansion of nuclear power.
"I am quite clear in my mind that it is important that we have a mix of energy supply ... that we don't become overly dependent on imported gas," Alistair Darling told MPs.
Below I summarise some of the many policies signalled in the document, with its many accompanying downloads, that include the various consultations, whose deadlines begin half way through August. I also detail some reactions.
This scheme will build on the Energy Efficiency Commitment (EEC) - a requirement on energy suppliers to bring real savings to their customers by encouraging prudent energy use. EEC2 (2005–2008) deliveed carbon savings of 0.50 MtC/y. The Carbon Emission Reduction Target (CERT) is expected to deliver 1.143 MtC/y and run until 2011. Ofgem and energy suppliers should prepare for its start in April next year. The carbon savings to be attributed to each energy efficiency measure allowed under CERT have already been published.
The government is continuing to investigate the feasibility of personal carbon allowances, and will develop further ways of educating consumers about energy efficiency.
A UK mandatory cap and trade scheme, the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), will secure savings of 1.2 Mega-Tonnnes of carbon per year by 2020. The Climate Change Bill will be used to introduce this. Under it, as many as 5,000 large firms and public sector organisations could be allowed to buy EU ETS allowances. Last year's energy review broached emission trading for large energy users not included in the EU ETS. Last winter's consultation showed that business supports the idea. CRC allowances will be issued to participants via an auction process. It will only affect organisations whose mandatory half hourly metered electricity consumption is over 6000 MWh per year. CRC will be revenue neutral to the Exchequer. The auction revenue will be recycled to participants by means of annual payments proportional to average annual emissions since the start of the scheme, with a bonus/penalty depending on how successfully they reduce emissions.
The Energy Demand Research Project, co-funded by the Government and industry, will involve several thousand households receiving meters displaying real-time energy use from 2008 to 2010. There is a consultation on the idea that energy suppliers will give all business users advanced and smart metering services within the next 5 years. This will not apply to the smallest business users, nor to larger businesses with half hourly meters. In addition all business premises will be required to have an Energy Performance Certificate when they are built, sold or rented out. This will describe its energy ratings and the steps to be taken to improve its performance.
The Market Transformation Programme is consulting on how the performance of energy using products will need to improve between now and 2020, including proposals for product standards and targets to phase out the least efficient products. An online calculator is to be developed which could be used by retailers and manufacturers to test if their products will meet the Government’s standards (e.g. for stand-by power and energy efficiency). It could be used to examine the scope for changing specifications or sales volumes to improve their carbon footprint and help retailers and manufacturers tell Government about their achievements and plans.
A Low Carbon Transport Innovation Strategy backed by funding of £20m is to be made available for public procurement of low carbon vehicles. A £30m R&D ‘Innovation Platform’ and a further £5m for the Energy Technologies Institute is intended to stimulate the developoment of low carbon transport.
The government already has an aim to deliver new zero carbon homes but the real challenge lies in the existing housing stock. For example, seven million solid-walled homes in the UK are technically difficult to insulate. A new 5–7 year research programme - the Technology Strategy Board's Innovation Platform on Low Impact Buildings - will look at cost-effective solutions for both by financing R&D into clear innovation gaps and building on existing work, such as the EST’s Best Practice Programme and microgeneration field trials.
There is a key point in the discussion on nuclear power where it says that the Government has modelled different future scenarios as part of the Energy White Paper. "The modelling indicates that it might be possible under certain assumptions, to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions by 60% by 2050 without new nuclear power stations." However, it says, "if we were to plan on this basis, we would be in danger of not meeting our policy goals" of security of supply and cost-effectively reducing carbon emissions.
The choice is therefore to be made on economic grounds alone. However, the economics of nuclear are calculated as making sense with a price for carbon of at least €36 per tonne. Is this feasible? Perhaps: in May investment bank UBS said it thought the price will reach €30 in 2008.
A number of sites for new power stations are proposed in the south of England including Brighton and Oxford. This was inevitable after the new Scottish Assembly ruled out nuclear power stations in Scotland.
As for the nuclear waste legacy resulting from new build, a report from the NRA published with the White Paper estimates a required increase in the country's nuclear waste storage needs of half as much again.
The go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power plants to replace the 18% of electric power the old ones provide, required by 2023, includes a consultation on how applications should be made. The accompanying proposed planning regime changes announced by Ruth Kelly are intended to speed up the planning permissions process.
None of this guarantees the building of a single new power station however.
The Renewables Obliation (RO) system and requirements to be put on energy utilities would triple electricity from renewables such as wind and tidal wave to 15% by 2015. This compares to the European Union target to get 20% of its energy (not just electricity) from renewable sources by 2020.
The RO will be banded to provide differentiated levels of support for different technologies and modified to maintain ROC (certificate) prices if they become oversupplied - but this won't take effect until 1 April 2009 at the earliest. A consultation is now on to determine what technologies (PV, CHP, biomass, etc.) should receive exactly what level of support.
The national grid will continue to be developed to accommodate new renewable and distributed generators.
Tidal power could in theory eventually yield a significant proportion of the UK's electricity needs. The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) is currently investigating this and after it has reported in September the Government will decide on its strategy.
To encourage more local or decentralised low-carbon electricity, the DTI and Ofgem will consult later this year on options for more flexible market and licensing arrangements within the licensed framework to be implemented by the end of 2008. The paper says all six major energy suppliers have now committed to publishing easily accessible export tariffs so installers will know how much they will get for the electricity they sell back to the grid. A new Distributed Energy Unit is being set up within the DTI to monitor the development of markets for these technologies.
There are few measures to support more sustainable heating, other than to publicise more widely the benefits of combined heat and power, and the biomass strategy.
The new Biomass Strategy sets out to stablise this emerging new fuel sector, and tease apart the many types of fuel and technologies to determine what level of suport is required for each. It looks at co-firing and the sustainability of biomass, including a requirement on larger generators to report on the source and sustainability of the biomass they incinerate.
Energy-from-waste is the most cost-efficient, but apart from this, the most cost effective options are small to medium commercial/industrial boilers operating throughout the year (80% load) on wood chips or, less cheaply, pellets.
It is currently cheaper to use biomass to heat buildings than convert it into a fuel for transport, so the consultation document looks towards second generation technologies to make biodiesel and bioethanol more competitively priced. At present imported sources for both biofuels are cheaper than those made from UK crops but have a higher carbon footprint.
Details of a plan to build the world's first end-to-end carbon capture and storage (CCS) plant are also provided. The 300 megawatt plant is expected to be commissioned after 2011. Alistair Darling told MPs that Britain was at the forefront of CCS technology and that he foresees major export potential. After publication of the plan BP withdrew from bidding to build a CCS plant at a North Sea former oil well because the timescale had slipped too far. The grant award competition will start next November, but had previously been scheduled for March.
French power giant EDF welcomed the White Paper and said it and the world's largest maker of nuclear reactors, Areva, would ask British authorities to certify the latest "EPR" reactor.
Greenpeace director John Sauven commented: "Reaching for nuclear power to fight climate change is like an obese person taking up smoking to lose weight" and worried that finance for nuclear would distract from R&D for new renewable technologies. He continued: "The government had a good plan in 2003 which they failed to deliver on. Now they want to waste even more time and energy on nuclear power, a wasteful energy system of the past."
Last February the High Court found that the public consultation leading up to this White Paper was flawed. John Sauven said: "It appears the government has not learned from the verbal lashing it got in the High Court. Already Tony Blair has said the policy will not change."
The Energy Institute (EI), the leading professional membership body for energy professionals, welcomed the announcements on new metering, carbon capture and storage and energy efficiency but worrried about whether the UK had sufficient skill levels to meet the challenge.
Fuel poverty charity Energy Action Scotland thought the new meters "will not be sufficient, but that truly ‘smart meters’ are required which can be recalibrated and read remotely, thus avoiding the delays that can lead to debt build-up".
BWEA worried that the Government lacked sufficient conviction to turn its ‘aspiration’ to gain 20% of our power from renewables by 2020 into a firm target. It pointed out that, given the small amounts of heating and transport currently satisfied by renewables, the electricity target will need to go beyond 20%, "the only resource that can take us significantly beyond 20% is... offshore wind".
The Conservative Party said the White Paper "offers nothing definite on nuclear or anything else. It heralds the collapse of carbon capture, while continuing an irrational regime for carbon penalties and incentives. It provides little or no prospect of hitting renewables targets and it does not offer the security that the country so urgently needs."
The response from business however was concern about the 'energy gap' in eight years, between 2015 and 2020 when nuclear power stations start closing. "Time is against us if we are to avoid power shortages," CBI Director General Richard Lambert said.
However, it takes around 13 years to commission a new nuclear power station. "The White Paper suggests the government understands what is needed to avoid this energy crunch. The real test now will be delivering these proposals," Lambert concluded.
There is no clear evidence that private sector finance will be on offer for nuclear industry that needs huge initial investment, even if it can later generate power at relatively low cost. The mid-term energy future is still uncertain.
A series of meetings will be held, advertised on the DTI website. The invited public will be demographically representative of the UK population through direct approaches to random homes on selected electoral registers. NGOs, industry, local authorities and many other organisations will be invited to send representatives to meetings to explore their views. The documents are on the following web sites:
> The Energy White Paper
> The nuclear consultation
> Consultation on consumer electronics standards
We've been here before - twice in the last four years.
And still the Government refuses to take the bold decisions it needs to take to embrace the potential of mid and long term future renewable technologies, making the country a dynamic world leader in tidal, marine current, off-shore wind, wave, heatpump, CHP, solar water heating and other generators.
Significant investment (say, the amount spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) now in these would leapfrog us into the claimed twin goals of energy security and climate protection.
The government also refuses to outlaw high-energy-consuming behaviour, instead wanting to tinker round the edges.
Britain will need around 30-35GW of new electricity generating capacity (about one-third of existing capacity) as coal and nuclear plants retire over the next two decades, with around two-thirds of that needed by 2020.
The UK government's new energy strategy, said Alistair Darling, paves the way for a mandatory, auction-based carbon trading scheme for businesses, such as banks, supermarkets and central government departments.
It also promises, again, an end to fuel poverty, more renewable energy, technologies to bury heat-trapping gases and the possible expansion of nuclear power.
"I am quite clear in my mind that it is important that we have a mix of energy supply ... that we don't become overly dependent on imported gas," Alistair Darling told MPs.
Below I summarise some of the many policies signalled in the document, with its many accompanying downloads, that include the various consultations, whose deadlines begin half way through August. I also detail some reactions.
Demand management
Carbon Emission Reduction Target
This scheme will build on the Energy Efficiency Commitment (EEC) - a requirement on energy suppliers to bring real savings to their customers by encouraging prudent energy use. EEC2 (2005–2008) deliveed carbon savings of 0.50 MtC/y. The Carbon Emission Reduction Target (CERT) is expected to deliver 1.143 MtC/y and run until 2011. Ofgem and energy suppliers should prepare for its start in April next year. The carbon savings to be attributed to each energy efficiency measure allowed under CERT have already been published.
The government is continuing to investigate the feasibility of personal carbon allowances, and will develop further ways of educating consumers about energy efficiency.
Carbon Reduction Commitment
A UK mandatory cap and trade scheme, the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), will secure savings of 1.2 Mega-Tonnnes of carbon per year by 2020. The Climate Change Bill will be used to introduce this. Under it, as many as 5,000 large firms and public sector organisations could be allowed to buy EU ETS allowances. Last year's energy review broached emission trading for large energy users not included in the EU ETS. Last winter's consultation showed that business supports the idea. CRC allowances will be issued to participants via an auction process. It will only affect organisations whose mandatory half hourly metered electricity consumption is over 6000 MWh per year. CRC will be revenue neutral to the Exchequer. The auction revenue will be recycled to participants by means of annual payments proportional to average annual emissions since the start of the scheme, with a bonus/penalty depending on how successfully they reduce emissions.
Smart meters
The Energy Demand Research Project, co-funded by the Government and industry, will involve several thousand households receiving meters displaying real-time energy use from 2008 to 2010. There is a consultation on the idea that energy suppliers will give all business users advanced and smart metering services within the next 5 years. This will not apply to the smallest business users, nor to larger businesses with half hourly meters. In addition all business premises will be required to have an Energy Performance Certificate when they are built, sold or rented out. This will describe its energy ratings and the steps to be taken to improve its performance.
Consumer electronics
The Market Transformation Programme is consulting on how the performance of energy using products will need to improve between now and 2020, including proposals for product standards and targets to phase out the least efficient products. An online calculator is to be developed which could be used by retailers and manufacturers to test if their products will meet the Government’s standards (e.g. for stand-by power and energy efficiency). It could be used to examine the scope for changing specifications or sales volumes to improve their carbon footprint and help retailers and manufacturers tell Government about their achievements and plans.
Transport
A Low Carbon Transport Innovation Strategy backed by funding of £20m is to be made available for public procurement of low carbon vehicles. A £30m R&D ‘Innovation Platform’ and a further £5m for the Energy Technologies Institute is intended to stimulate the developoment of low carbon transport.
Buildings
The government already has an aim to deliver new zero carbon homes but the real challenge lies in the existing housing stock. For example, seven million solid-walled homes in the UK are technically difficult to insulate. A new 5–7 year research programme - the Technology Strategy Board's Innovation Platform on Low Impact Buildings - will look at cost-effective solutions for both by financing R&D into clear innovation gaps and building on existing work, such as the EST’s Best Practice Programme and microgeneration field trials.
Supply strategies
Nuclear new build
There is a key point in the discussion on nuclear power where it says that the Government has modelled different future scenarios as part of the Energy White Paper. "The modelling indicates that it might be possible under certain assumptions, to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions by 60% by 2050 without new nuclear power stations." However, it says, "if we were to plan on this basis, we would be in danger of not meeting our policy goals" of security of supply and cost-effectively reducing carbon emissions.
The choice is therefore to be made on economic grounds alone. However, the economics of nuclear are calculated as making sense with a price for carbon of at least €36 per tonne. Is this feasible? Perhaps: in May investment bank UBS said it thought the price will reach €30 in 2008.
A number of sites for new power stations are proposed in the south of England including Brighton and Oxford. This was inevitable after the new Scottish Assembly ruled out nuclear power stations in Scotland.
As for the nuclear waste legacy resulting from new build, a report from the NRA published with the White Paper estimates a required increase in the country's nuclear waste storage needs of half as much again.
The go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power plants to replace the 18% of electric power the old ones provide, required by 2023, includes a consultation on how applications should be made. The accompanying proposed planning regime changes announced by Ruth Kelly are intended to speed up the planning permissions process.
None of this guarantees the building of a single new power station however.
Renewables
The Renewables Obliation (RO) system and requirements to be put on energy utilities would triple electricity from renewables such as wind and tidal wave to 15% by 2015. This compares to the European Union target to get 20% of its energy (not just electricity) from renewable sources by 2020.
The RO will be banded to provide differentiated levels of support for different technologies and modified to maintain ROC (certificate) prices if they become oversupplied - but this won't take effect until 1 April 2009 at the earliest. A consultation is now on to determine what technologies (PV, CHP, biomass, etc.) should receive exactly what level of support.
The national grid will continue to be developed to accommodate new renewable and distributed generators.
Tidal power could in theory eventually yield a significant proportion of the UK's electricity needs. The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) is currently investigating this and after it has reported in September the Government will decide on its strategy.
Local energy
To encourage more local or decentralised low-carbon electricity, the DTI and Ofgem will consult later this year on options for more flexible market and licensing arrangements within the licensed framework to be implemented by the end of 2008. The paper says all six major energy suppliers have now committed to publishing easily accessible export tariffs so installers will know how much they will get for the electricity they sell back to the grid. A new Distributed Energy Unit is being set up within the DTI to monitor the development of markets for these technologies.
Heating
There are few measures to support more sustainable heating, other than to publicise more widely the benefits of combined heat and power, and the biomass strategy.
Biomass
The new Biomass Strategy sets out to stablise this emerging new fuel sector, and tease apart the many types of fuel and technologies to determine what level of suport is required for each. It looks at co-firing and the sustainability of biomass, including a requirement on larger generators to report on the source and sustainability of the biomass they incinerate.
Energy-from-waste is the most cost-efficient, but apart from this, the most cost effective options are small to medium commercial/industrial boilers operating throughout the year (80% load) on wood chips or, less cheaply, pellets.
It is currently cheaper to use biomass to heat buildings than convert it into a fuel for transport, so the consultation document looks towards second generation technologies to make biodiesel and bioethanol more competitively priced. At present imported sources for both biofuels are cheaper than those made from UK crops but have a higher carbon footprint.
Carbon capture
Details of a plan to build the world's first end-to-end carbon capture and storage (CCS) plant are also provided. The 300 megawatt plant is expected to be commissioned after 2011. Alistair Darling told MPs that Britain was at the forefront of CCS technology and that he foresees major export potential. After publication of the plan BP withdrew from bidding to build a CCS plant at a North Sea former oil well because the timescale had slipped too far. The grant award competition will start next November, but had previously been scheduled for March.
Reactions
French power giant EDF welcomed the White Paper and said it and the world's largest maker of nuclear reactors, Areva, would ask British authorities to certify the latest "EPR" reactor.
Greenpeace director John Sauven commented: "Reaching for nuclear power to fight climate change is like an obese person taking up smoking to lose weight" and worried that finance for nuclear would distract from R&D for new renewable technologies. He continued: "The government had a good plan in 2003 which they failed to deliver on. Now they want to waste even more time and energy on nuclear power, a wasteful energy system of the past."
Last February the High Court found that the public consultation leading up to this White Paper was flawed. John Sauven said: "It appears the government has not learned from the verbal lashing it got in the High Court. Already Tony Blair has said the policy will not change."
The Energy Institute (EI), the leading professional membership body for energy professionals, welcomed the announcements on new metering, carbon capture and storage and energy efficiency but worrried about whether the UK had sufficient skill levels to meet the challenge.
Fuel poverty charity Energy Action Scotland thought the new meters "will not be sufficient, but that truly ‘smart meters’ are required which can be recalibrated and read remotely, thus avoiding the delays that can lead to debt build-up".
BWEA worried that the Government lacked sufficient conviction to turn its ‘aspiration’ to gain 20% of our power from renewables by 2020 into a firm target. It pointed out that, given the small amounts of heating and transport currently satisfied by renewables, the electricity target will need to go beyond 20%, "the only resource that can take us significantly beyond 20% is... offshore wind".
The Conservative Party said the White Paper "offers nothing definite on nuclear or anything else. It heralds the collapse of carbon capture, while continuing an irrational regime for carbon penalties and incentives. It provides little or no prospect of hitting renewables targets and it does not offer the security that the country so urgently needs."
The response from business however was concern about the 'energy gap' in eight years, between 2015 and 2020 when nuclear power stations start closing. "Time is against us if we are to avoid power shortages," CBI Director General Richard Lambert said.
However, it takes around 13 years to commission a new nuclear power station. "The White Paper suggests the government understands what is needed to avoid this energy crunch. The real test now will be delivering these proposals," Lambert concluded.
There is no clear evidence that private sector finance will be on offer for nuclear industry that needs huge initial investment, even if it can later generate power at relatively low cost. The mid-term energy future is still uncertain.
How to take part
A series of meetings will be held, advertised on the DTI website. The invited public will be demographically representative of the UK population through direct approaches to random homes on selected electoral registers. NGOs, industry, local authorities and many other organisations will be invited to send representatives to meetings to explore their views. The documents are on the following web sites:
> The Energy White Paper
> The nuclear consultation
> Consultation on consumer electronics standards
Responding to the nuclear new build consultation
If you want to object to the support for new nuclear power stations made in the Government's new Energy White Paper, you might wish to do so on the basis of the following assumptions it makes.
There is a key point in the discussion on nuclear power where it says that the Government has modelled different future scenarios as part of the Energy White Paper.
"The modelling indicates that it might be possible under certain assumptions, to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions by 60% by 2050 without new nuclear power stations." However, it says, "if we were to plan on this basis, we would be in danger of not meeting our policy goals" of security of supply and cost-effectively reducing carbon emissions. (See Chapter 5 page 194-5.)
The choice is therefore to be made on economic grounds alone. However, the economics of nuclear are calculated as making sense with a price for carbon of at least €36 per tonne. Is this feasible? In May investment bank UBS said it thought the price will reach €30 in 2008.
If you want to challenge the government you have to come up with persuasive figures.
The models:
> The UK MARKAL model in the 2007 Energy White Paper
> Final Report on DTI-DEFRA Scenarios and Sensitivities using the UK MARKAL and MARKAL-Macro Energy System Models
Siting and waste
A number of sites for new power stations are proposed in the south of England including Brighton and Oxford. This was inevitable after the new Scottish Assembly ruled out nuclear power stations in Scotland. I can't really see Brighton saying yes, can you?
As for the nuclear waste legacy resulting from new build, a report from the NRA published with the White Paper estimates a required increase in the country's nuclear waste storage needs of half as much again. The NRA thinks this is "not much".
The go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power plants to replace the 18% of electric power the old ones provide, required by 2023, includes a consultation on how applications should be made. The accompanying proposed planning regime changes announced by Ruth Kelly are intended to speed up the planning permissions process.
None of this guarantees the building of a single new power station.
How to take part
A series of meetings will be held, advertised on the DTI website. The invited public will be demographically representative of the UK population through direct approaches to random homes on selected electoral registers. NGOs, industry, local authorities and many other organisations will be invited to send representatives to meetings to explore their views. The documents are on the following web sites:
> The Energy White Paper
> The nuclear consultation
> Consultation on consumer electronics standards
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)