The energy hierarchy

Last week the Low Carbon Kid attended a seminar at the Energy Saving Trust as he is one of about 30 'Green Ambassadors' for energy efficiency.

Its director Philip Sellwood (an unusual bloke, previously director of off-licence chains Threshers and Victoria Wine, and a Home Office advisor) was offloading all sorts of gripes about goverment attitudes to energy efficiency. Here are three titbits:

1. Does the EST support new nuclear power?

Not as such - but in practice it works out that it doesn't.

This is because the Trust argues that all means of both saving and generating energy should be looked at for cost-efficiency and ranked accordingly.

You then proceed up the hierarchy until you've met everyone's needs. They've worked out that everyone's needs would be met before there's a need for nuclear new build.

(This chimes with CAT's analysis - Zero Carbon Britain.)


So, given that investment in energy efficiency is always more cost-effective than building new generating capacity, this comes first.

Then comes microgeneration - solar water heating, heat pumps, water power, wind power, biofuels (wood boiler), solar electricity (in that order and if available).

Then we have combined heat and power - still on decentralised energy. Gas for electricity and heat supplied locally.

Then clean coal.

Then large scale renewables (wind farms), then tidal and other marine energies.

Finally nuclear power stations. The total life cycle costs - including looking after that waste for thousands of years - make this the least cost-effective.

Unsexy cavity filling

The most cost-effective energy efficiency measure if you have a cavity wall in your house is to fill it with insulation. It takes a day for a contractor and pays for itself in about nine months.

Despite this, millions of homes have yet to be treated and yet it would go a long way to reducing our carbon emissions.

Philip has tackled the Treasury several times on providing funds to support this.

Treasury bright boffins: "Obviously it's perfectly the rational and obvious thing to do, so people will do it."

Philip: "But people aren't rational. They prefer to spend money on sexier things."

Treasury: "Then they should be more rational. Sorry, we've got a military machine to support."

So lots of money and carbon continue to be wasted.

Non-eco schools

The government is committed to rebuilding every secondary school in the country. A massive undertaking.

Several schools are now eco schools and have solar panels and wind turbines to educate the pupils. This is, you would think, (rationally?) a perfect opportunity to make every school an eco-school.

Clearly, if we teach children energy efficiency, it's the best we can do for our energy future. And what better way than for the schools themselves to demonstrate what it means?

But Philip has found out that:

a) No energy-efficiency or renewable energy features are in the specifications for the buildings

b) He asked all government departments to cooperate with energy efficiency week next week - they all signed up to help out - except the Department for Education and Skills. It said it had too many messages already to get across to schools.

I wonder how Philip keeps from tearing down the walls with his fingernails. Perhaps he has a few bottles left over from Threshers to calm his nerves.

Your name on a paper plane

I had a nice letter from Asi Sharabi asking me to promote "the WWF (World Wildlife not the wrestling...)'s new campaign to strengthen the UK Climate Change Bill".

I agree with him when he describes the Climate Change Bill (which was hard fought for by grassroots groups) as "one of the most important pieces of legislation ever to go before the UK Parliament".

But surprise, surprise a funny thing's happened on the way to the statute book - it's been watered down. 

What's needed from you and me is pressure to include carbon emissions from international aviation and shipping – the fastest growing sources of emissions – in the bill's targets.

"Excluding them is  a bit like going on a diet but not counting the calories from chocolate!" he says.

So WWF plans to build a massive paper boat and paper plane, put all the names of the people who signed the petition on the boat/plan, and then deliver them to the Houses of Parliament. 

Your name could be on it, if you click here.!

He adds: "PS: Funnily enough my wife bought me Hybrids recently (she said I spend more time with my laptop then with her but thats just not true.... ) I didn't have the chance to read it yet but looking forward!"

While we're on the subject I've also been asked by the Energy Saving Trust to encourage people to pledge to commit to save their 20% of their energy use.

Currently only 106,000 have signed up, and they aim to reach one million by Christmas!

Energy Saving Week is next week, so I suppose I'll be banging on about this again then.

Darling, I fluffed my policies - Pre-Budget Report and Comprehensive Spending Review

Ken Livingstone explains basic economics to Gordon Brown at the launch of Crossrail

Alistair Darling's first Pre-Budget Report and Comprehensive Spending Review missed so many opportunities to green the economy and carry out the recommendations of the Stern Report commissioned by his own Treasury that even Robin Hood with his bow and arrow, blindfolded, could have missed less.

And far from stealing from the rich to give to the poor (in the case of private equity raiders) or from the fossil fuel lobby to give to the sustainability lobby, his efforts are like a sailor furling a single sail when a hurricane is on the way.

The Low Carbon Kid agrees with the BBC's assessment of the measures announced, more or less, but presents below, as usual in the interests of objectivity, a summary of the relevant policy changes.

He wades through the verbiage so you don't have to.

Rail networks

The largest was already public news - £15 billion of Government funding in the rail network over five years, through a national target to increase the network's capacity, including provision for Crossrail.

A new Public Service Agreement is intended to improve the transport networks that support economic growth by managing urban traffic routes and the strategic road network and on the rail network.

Crossrail, a monumental engineering project that has been a dream for many for 15 years, will be financed one third each by businesses, taxpayers and passengers.

The Government's third is a DfT grant of over £5 billion during Crossrail’s construction.

The Crossrail Hybrid Bill is likely to receive Royal Assent in summer 2008 with construction underway during 2010 and trains running from 2017.

Flood prevention

Mr Darling also announced an increase in funding for flood and coastal erosion risk management from £600 million in 2007-08 to £800 million in 2010-11, which was criticised by insurance companies and local government chief executives as insufficient and too late.

But the Government said it would also spend around £10 million a year introducing a flood adaptation toolkit to help communities adapt to change where constructing defences is not the most appropriate means of managing flood and coastal erosion risk.

Waste

£2 billion of funding will be provided through the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) to help local authorities invest in more sustainable waste management options.

PFI credits for local authority waste projects will rise from £280 million in 2007/08 to £700 million in 2010/11.

Fuel poverty

The Warm Front programme, which tackles fuel poverty and energy efficiency, will continue and the related Carbon Emissions Reduction Target obligations on energy suppliers will expand.

Environmental Transformation Fund

A £1.2bn Environmental Transformation Fund, first announced in June 2006, will support the deployment of new energy technologies in the UK and abroad.

An "£800 million international window" for the Fund was already proclaimed in March, "to finance overseas development projects" for "poverty reduction and environmental benefit".

To this has been added £400m from Defra, over three years, to "provide investment in new energy technologies here at home", Mr Darling said.

The idea of the domestic part of the EFT is to "provide the sector with the confidence it needs to invest in innovation," said John Hutton, BERR minister.

He said the EFT would work closely with the Technology Strategy Board and the new Energy Technologies Institute, which has a £1bn budget over ten years.

The latter are engaging in R&D in these technologies.

Promising ones emerging from this process will then be helped to become attractive in the marketplace by the ETF through the Carbon Trust, in programmes such as their work to accelerate cost-effective organic solar photovoltaic cells (see other news item).

The Fund will also finance interest-free energy efficiency loans for small and medium-sized businesses via the Carbon Trust, and through Salix Finance in public sector revolving loan schemes.

Reducing emissions from deforestation is also "a key aim" of the Fund and £50m of it will be used for this purpose in the Congo Basin, by promoting sustainable forestry.

The international side of the Fund is handled by the Department for International Development, and the World Bank will deliver this.

The fund may increase further in the future, for example to encompass support for the UK carbon capture and storage demonstration project, which is not currently included.

Air travel

Air Passenger Duty is to be replaced with a ‘per plane’ tax from 1 November 2009 toencourage airlines to make more efficient use of flights.

The Government will hold a consultation on this in the New Year.

Also, from 1 November 2008, passengers on ‘business class only’ flights will become liable for the standard rate of APD, correcting an anomally.

APD rates will remain at their current level for 2008-09.

Aid

Overseas aid as a share of national income (GDP) is to rise from 0.37% in 2007-08 to 0.56% in 2010-11, returning it to levels in earlier years and meeting promises made at the Gleneagles Summit.

A PSA aims to reduce poverty in poorer countries through quicker progress towards the Millennium Development Goals.

Emissions Trading Scheme

Hilary Benn said that the Government will press the EU for a scarcity of allowances and an increase the use of auctioning for EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) permits for Phase III, post-2012, with a "significant" increase in that level for large electricity producers to "tackle windfall profits that have occurred in this sector".

Meanwhile just 7% of allowances in Phase II (2008-12) will be auctioned, plus any from closures or surplus from the New Entrants Reserve.

The European Commission is expected to publish its proposals on the future of the EU ETS post-2012 in December.

Microgeneration

A disincentive for business to install solar panels and other renewable energy technologies has been removed.

Currently, this can trigger an increased liability for business rates.

However, the Government will no longer include microgeneration investments in ad hoc re-assessments of business rates liability from 2008.

These will only be taken into account at the five-year re-valuation of business rates, providing up to five years' worth of benefit to ratepayers.

Transport and biofuels

An earlier decision to seek state aid clearance for the inclusion of the cleanest biofuel plant in Enhanced Capital Allowance (ECA) has been reversed, because it's not seen as worth the trouble.

Instead, the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation will target production of the cleanest and most sustainable biofuels.

Biofuels producers can still seek financial assistance to ensure cleaner fuel production through investing in good quality CHP installations, which are eligible for ECAs.

Also, the current duty incentive for biofuels will be extended to biobutanol on a pilot basis.

Climate change agreements

Over 50 energy intensive sectors can now get an 80% discount on the Climate Change Levy in return for signing climate change agreements (CCAs) under which firms agree to improve energy efficiency and/or reduce emissions.

This scheme will now continue until 2017.

Housing

To help deliver the Government’s target of 2 million new homes by 2016, a new Housing and Planning Delivery Grant has been allocated £500m over three years.

Over the same period £1.7bn has been allocated for infrastructure such as schools and transport in Growth Areas, the Thames Gateway, New Growth Points and eco-towns.

The Government announced a new PSA to increase long-term housing supply and affordability, with increases in spending on housing from £8.8bn in 2007-08 to £10bn in 2010-11.

Concentrated Solar Power could power Europe, the Middle East and Africa

Harnessing the sun's energy on just 6,000km² of desert in North Africa would supply energy equivalent to the entire oil production of the Middle East of nine billion barrels a year, according to the German Aerospace Centre.

It believes that solar thermal power plants could supply 68% of North Africa's as well as all of Europe's electricity by 2050.

One company that agrees is Flabeg, a German manufacturer of parabolic trough mirrors.

Its new mirror can concentrate 92% of the sun's rays onto an absorber tube with a diameter of 70mm or less.

It expects to sell these to CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) stations in Spain and North Africa and is already supplying 210,000 to the 50 megawatt solar thermal power plant, Andasol II, in Spain, the biggest in Europe.

Europe's first commercially operating solar thermal tower plant went into operation in April in Sevilla, Spain, generating 11 MW.

The German Aerospace Center has built an experimental solar thermal tower power plant in Julich, Germany, to be commissioned in 2008.

A European Commission-funded research programme report published in September also argued that CSP is "clean energy that can help the EU to meet its 20% target for renewable energies and its broader energy goals."

CSP technologies could make a "significant contribution to developing a more sustainable energy system" especially in southern Europe and North Africa.

Under FP5 and FP6 (5th and 6th EU Research Framework Programmes), the EU contributed €25 million to research projects to develop CSP technologies.

Solar research will be promoted within the FP7 that runs until 2013 with €50 billion in four main components.

> Report explaining the progress of numerous demonstration projects

Peak oil begins here

The screw is tightening.

As the main oil supply countries' own consumption of oil is rising, so they are exporting less. Oil prices are starting to rise. New sources are hard to get at.

Read on....

Six of the largest oil suppliers to the US are poised to cut their global exports by nearly 2 million barrels a day by 2012, ramping up pressure on supply and price, and intensifying the focus on one of the last great deposits open to private investment: Canada's oil sands.

The projected cut, amounting to 7% by Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nigeria, Algeria and Russia, reflects the growing struggle in these countries to grow production and manage their own soaring rates of oil consumption, says Jeff Rubin, chief market strategist and chief economist, at CIBC World Markets, who will discuss his latest findings at the firm's Industrials Conference in New York City.

The trend of oil producing countries becoming major oil consumers extends beyond the top US suppliers, says Mr. Rubin.

When similar conditions are factored in among the other major oil producers including OPEC, the supply crunch deepens to 3 million barrels a day, or an 8% cut in global exports.

"Soaring domestic demand is cannibalizing export capacity, and will increasingly do so as productions plateaus or declines in many of these countries."

Last year, OPEC members, along with independent producers Russia and Mexico, consumed over 12 million barrels of oil a day, roughly 60% more than China and slightly more than all of Western Europe says Mr. Rubin.

As a group, they now are second only to the U.S. in terms of market size.

Much of the demand in these countries is driven by heavily subsidized prices that keep a barrel of oil down to a cost of between US$10 and US$20.

"The cheap supply is fuelling some of the fastest growth in domestic demand anywhere in the world," says Mr. Rubin.

Russia, now the world's largest oil producer, has filled the oil supply gap in recent years. However, internal demand there is growing at about twice the pace of production, and is claiming all of the country's production gains.

Mexico faces even great obstacles in maintaining its export levels.

Production in the giant Cantarell field, home to half of the country's 3.5 million barrels per day of crude production, is already in the throes of rapid depletion. With production diminishing and internal demand growing, the country's export capacity looks to be lethally challenged.

Mexico's crude exports have already been falling since 2004 and could well become insignificant by 2012 - a loss of some 1.5 million barrels per day to world markets.

Mr. Rubin says diminished global supplies and resulting higher prices will lead the markets to rely more on higher cost unconventional deposits, like the Canadian oil sands which he believes will surpass deep water wells as the single largest source of new oil exports by decade end.

"Canada's oil sands will become increasingly coveted as they represent one of the last great reserves of supply open to private investment," says Mr. Rubin.

He estimates they represent anywhere from 50-70% of the world's oil reserves open to private investment, depending on one's view of the investment climate in Nigeria and Kazakhstan.

"For multinational oil firms, the world is rapidly shrinking," say Mr. Rubin.

"Increasingly they are shut out of the backyards of all the state-owned oil patches and then have to bid against those state firms in places still open for investment.

"Canada remains one of those few places where governments have been content to take their share of economic rents through royalties and not be concerned about the ownership per se."

Mr. Rubin's remarks were made at today's CIBC World Markets Industrial Conference where more than 50 big oil addicts - firms spanning the aerospace, defense, industrial services, chemicals, building products, steel, industrial multi-industry and industrial diversified sectors - are gathered to try and borrow more dosh from institutional investors.

Tide turns for sea power

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

Germany eyes North Africa's sun

Having become a world leader in wind turbines and photovoltaic panels, Germany is now turning its sights onto solar thermal generation.

Harnessing the sun's energy on just 6,000km2 of desert in North Africa would supply energy equivalent to the entire oil production of the Middle East of 9 billion barrels a year, acording to the German Aerospace Centre. It believes that solar thermal power plants could supply 68% of North Africa's as well as all of Europe's electricity by 2050.

One company that agrees is Flabeg, a German manufacturer of parabolic trough mirrors. Its new mirror can concentrate 92% of the sun's rays onto an absorber tube with a diameter of 70mm or less. It expects to sell these to power stations in Spain and North Africa and is already supplying 210,000 to the 50 megawatt solar thermal power plant, Andasol II, in Spain — the biggest in Europe.

Europe's first commercially operating solar thermal tower plant went into operation in April in Sevilla, Spain, generating 11 MW. The German Aerospace Center has built an experimental solar thermal tower power plant in Julich, Germany, to be commissioned in 2008.

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

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.

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"

So we may have to become still more dependent on imported gas, while slashing demand.

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.

A disaster affecting 200 million people doesn't make news

Floods:

• millions of hectares of farmland submerged
• more than 200 million people affected
• over 500 killed
• hundreds of thousands of homes damaged or destroyed
• more flash floods, downpours and landslides expected in the coming days

Not the UK or the US, but China. If it were the US or UK it would be all over the media.

These are the worst floods in ten years in China where every year at least 5000 people die in floods.

Five thousand years ago, soil depletion and flooding due to deforestation led to starvation and disaster in China (source: Clive Ponting's Green History of the World). They are still repeating the same errors.

Some say only a huge disaster will wake us up and force us to do something abut global warming and unsustainable land management. 200 million affected is clearly not a sufficient scale.

I am not confident that those who typically lead human communities are able to make long-term and rational decisions, while the majority of the rest of us quite naturally want to have our cake and eat it, if it's available.

Is the mood of the country changing?

• The Scottish and Welsh assemblies have green and anti-Westminster coalitions. Both are pro-peace, and anti-nuclear power and nuclear weapons


• Seven British cabinet ministers have admitted to smoking dope


• The super-Lotteries have been scrapped


• The Daily Mail attempt to smear the Labout Administration has failed


• Here in Wales the new cabinet gives fresh hope for international peace and justice:
  
  
  • Of the three Plaid Cymru ministers, Rhodri Glyn Thomas is a former Chair of
    CND Cymru and Elin Jones and has been a speaker at all the peace and justice demonstrations in Aberystwyth over the past 5 years
  
  
  • Labour cabinet members include: Brian Gibbons, who spoke regularly at anti - nuclear medical campaign against Nuclear Weapons meetings in the 1980s;
  
  
  • Jane Hutt is an ex-Greenham Common campaigner
  
  
  • Edwina Hart supported the Stop the War protests in 2002-3
  
  
  • John Griffiths is against nuclear power was involved in Stop the War
    protests
  
  
  • Jane Davidson has recently pledged to work to reverse the senseless House of Commons vote to replace Trident.

I've always been too much of an optimist whilst writing dystopic narratives. Perhaps with Blair out of the way, we have a window of opportunity to work with more chance of success for a fairer, more peaceful and environmentally sane world.

It's Live Earth. So is there hope for the planet?

Yesterday I attended the Sustainable Development UK conference - "Global Challenges - Local Change" at the QEII Conference Centre, London.

A quick look at the speakers on the above link will show you it was a high level affair and there were plenty of delegates from public sector bodies all over England present.

As a veteran of these talkshops I've heard all the hot air before - there's nothing much new. However there were a lot of people who might never have attended such an event in the past, so it is mainstreaming.

The general mood was "Enough talk, let's get on with it".

We haven't got much time to do so, if we are to believe Al Gore and David King (who gave a very good succinct summary of the case for global warming and how dire our state is. He was less convincing on the need for nuclear power and our future energy policy. That depends totally on political willpower.)

Radical climate change is happening faster than was predicted a few years ago, and could render much of the planet unoccupiable, and displace millions. The net cost of taking action now is almost zero compared to the cost of doing nothing, which would be catastrophic.

"Sustainable" communities?

A couple of asides. I was shocked to hear a director of Barratt's homes - talking apropos their development of "sustainable communities" in east London - say they allowed 4 weeks for consultation with the public on what they would like in their community.

In my experience it tkes at least 6 months because many people just don't know how to respond and are inarticulate or busy or lack confidence. And how can a community become sustainable if it is not fully engaged?

Virgin or recycled paper?

Secondly I tackled a director of Virgin Trains (thank you for the free First Class ticket down - I've never travelled First Class before and thoroughly enjoyed it) - on whether they recycle all the rubbish they collect on the trains.

He said they'd started doing it and it was separated at selected stations and they sold it on. He said they did this not for the money - negligible - but because people asked for it.

Really? How many people? And how many people had to ask for something before they did it?

He couldn't say but was totally adamant both the recycling and the motivation for it were true.

I said I'd never ever seen staff separating rubbish - all those papers and plastic and cans go in one bag. And I travel on Virgin a lot.

He swore it was done - although perhaps some cleaners hadn't been trained properly.

Is it in their job description to do it? I asked. He couldn't say.

So on the way back last night I watched a cleaner come round three times and put all the rubbish in one bag. I asked her if she'd ever been told not to. She said no.

In fact, recycling the rubbish is something it is hard for all the train operators to do as they all share stations and some are owned by them and some by Network Rail. The processing facilities would need to be available at each major stop.

Therefore it is something that we ought to lobby not just the operators and Network Rail about but also the Association of Train Operating Companies.

Of course all this would have been much easier in the days before privatisation.

A long way to go

This tiny story - of corporate greenwash and practical difficulty in such an important but small part of the overall picture - shows how far we really are from sustainability.

And that Live Earth, although a great event, is just a tiny step near the start of a very tough journey which there is every likelihood we will never successfully complete.

Boring democracy stuff

Happy solstice day everyone. So, politics is boring and too difficult and they always do what they want anyway.

A totally understandable position. And yet ... isn't it things like Make Poverty History and Greenpeace occupying incinerators that makes them change tack? Or p'raps you think they're a waste of time too and we should just blow up the House of Commons.

Well whatever you think, energy, waste and planning are the subjects of three public consultations running until September-ish.

Want more or less nukes? Motorways and runways in your back yard? To be able to have a loft conversion without going to court? Lots of flytipping? Exciting stuff, eh?

But these policies - once enshrined in law - will shape the country's future for the next decade and be implemented by Gordon Brown's government.

So, only 'cause it's my day job mind, to write these in the first place, I've kindly posted up handy summaries of the points in three pdf downloads to help you have your say.... if you feel like it.

Or you could just go and drive a car bomb into number 10 and go down in history. Who knows, we may be lighting bonfires for you in 500 years' time.

UK Energy White Paper 2007 | UK Planning White Paper 2007 | UK Waste Strategy 2007

Oil from algae

OK, so perhaps we have here a biofuel that isn't problematic.

Judge for yourselves.

Algae represent a feedstock for oil and fuel - biodiesel and ethanol production.

Many of the problems present with the traditional oilseeds such as palm & soy, and with ethanol feedstock such as corn and molasses/sugarcane are not present in algae.

Algae can grow fast, practically anywhere in the world, do not contribute to deforestation and do not interfere with the existing food crop value chains.

Add to this the fact that the fossil oil we use today was formed primarily from algae.

All these may be reasons enough to explore algae as a potentially important feedstock for our future oil and energy needs.

Check out the Oilgae link on the right for more info and let me know what you think.

Google goes solar

Now you can search with a green conscience:
Google Powers Up 1.6 MW Solar System & Hybrid Initiative.

But it doesn't say how much electricity Google actually uses.

New nuclear build doesn't stack up

The new nuclear power station being built in Finland is often pointed to by nuclear advocates as showing that new plants can be built without subsidies.

This is thrown into doubt by more than 1,000 breaches in safety standards reportedly identified by the Finnish safety executive STUK since work began 18 months ago.

It means that safety is being compromised to cut costs.

Activists from countries including the UK blockaded the entrance and occupied giant cranes at the Olkiluoto 3 site early on Monday, May 28, in protest over safety and work standards.

The project is also being attacked by lawyers at Brussels on rounds that it violates on two counts state aid laws - ie that it is really subsidised.

Government proposals on managing radioactive waste 'incoherent and opaque'

The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee have attacked the government's proposals for the next phase of the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely (MRWS) programme.

In July 2006 the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) recommended geological disposal of the UK's radioactive waste.

CoRWM also recommended the setting-up of an independent body to oversee the MRWS programme-echoing a recommendation made by the Science and Technology Committee as far back as 1999.

The government have accepted the use of geological disposal but currently propose merely to set up an advisory group, rather than a truly independent overseeing body.

• The Lords Committee therefore recommend that the government should establish a statutory body, independent of day to day government control and accountable to Parliament, to oversee the implementation of the geological disposal programme.
• The Committee also criticise the institutional framework for the implementation stage of the MRWS programme. They label the government's plans 'incoherent and opaque' and urge the government to establish independent expert scrutiny and clear lines of accountability for the next stage of the MRWS programme.

The Committee also raise concerns about the government's approach to site selection for geographical disposal for radioactive waste.

The Committee emphasise the importance of transparency and impartiality, and recommend that the government begin by 'screening out' geologically unsuitable areas, before looking at socio-economic criteria and inviting interested local communities to come forward with offers of participation.

This phased approach is vital to avoid suspicion that site selection is politically driven, and to ensure that partnership with local communities is maintained.

Other recommendations the Committee make include:

• Progress in radioactive waste management should be steady and measured. So far we have had 'years of procrastination followed by ... unseemly haste'.
• The government should delay the publication of their forthcoming consultation document on MRWS, until an independent body has been put in place to scrutinise the programme>

Commenting Lord Broers, Chairman of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, said:

"We have serious concerns about the way the government are moving forward with the MRWS programme. The decisions we take now on radioactive waste will affect future generations for thousands of years.

"The government's stop-start approach creates the impression that these decisions are being driven by short-term energy policy goals, rather than by careful and impartial consideration of the scientific and practical realities.

"The proposals they have announced so far have been incoherent and confusing.

"If the government want people to be confident about the safety of nuclear energy and the disposal of nuclear waste it is now time to appoint a truly independent, democratically accountable body to oversee the whole process.

"People don't have enough confidence in politicians or the government to support any scheme on nuclear waste that is controlled from Whitehall. Only an independent, accountable and expert body will be able to convince people nationally and locally to sign up to the programme."

> The report

Solar water heating is tops with the Low Carbon Buildings Programme

Solar thermal heating for hot water is clearly by far the most popular form of domestic renewable energy, proving that it works technically and economically.

That is clear from the Low Carbon Buildings Programme (LCBP)'s project successes: 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.

In other words solar water heating is six times more popular than micro-wind. Deservedly.

The application process for the grants has been streamlined and it reopened to bids for the remaining £11.9m of grant money two days ago.

There's now no monthly cap, a £2,500 maximum limit on grants per household, a requirement for advance planning permission required and a re-designed form.

No doubt this will run out in a few weeks - then what?

The Low Carbon Kid says: if solar water heating is so popular why has it been left out of the Energy White Paper?

> Apply for a Low Carbon Buildings Programme grant here

Consultation on renewable energy technologies

The Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology - a cross-party bunch containing some usually reasonable MPs - is conducting an inquiry into renewable energy generation technologies.

The Committee invites evidence on the following points:

• The current state of UK research and development in, and the deployment of, renewable energy-generation technologies including: offshore wind; photovoltaics; hydrogen and fuel cell technologies; wave; tidal; bioenergy; ground source heat pumps: and intelligent grid management and energy storage.

• The feasibility, costs, timescales and progress in commercialising renewable technologies as well as their reliability and associated carbon footprints.

• The UK Government’s role in funding research and development for renewable energy-generation technologies and providing incentives for technology transfer and industrial research and development.

• Other possible technologies for renewable energy-generation.

The Low Carbon Kid comments that give the government's record on supporting renewable energy companies at the SME level, his first comment would be to up the subsidies and not create funding breaks that result in companies going to the wall or laying staff off because of the delays in getting funding.

Just such a point has been made by many including Jeremy Leggett of Solar Century, in relation to the Low Carbon Building Programme.

Leggett also said the other day at Hay that senior civil servants - at DTI and Treasury - are the ones who constitute the biggest block in government against renewables, especially at the small end. Hence the lack of a feed-in law, which has given the German renewables industry such a boost. He was told by them when he was on a government renewables advisory committee not even to float the idea of a feed-in law as it would be sunk straight away.

Deadline: Monday 2 July 2007.

Evidence should be submitted in Word format (version no later than word 2002), via e-mail to scitechcom@parliament.uk . The body of the e-mail must include a contact name, telephone number and postal address. The e-mail should also make clear who the submission is from.

Submissions should be as brief as possible, and no more than 3,000 words. Paragraphs should be numbered, and the document should include a brief executive summary. Evidence should be original, not previously published. Further guidance: here

The "most affordable" solution to climate change

The building, transport and power sectors in the G8 countries, together with five leading developing countries (Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa) have the biggest potential for saving energy.

In fact, they could increase energy efficiency by a total of 20% by 2020, according to a report commissioned by WWF.

"There is no one silver bullet to stop dangerous climate change, but energy efficiency is the largest and most affordable solution available to avert the current crisis," says Hans Verolme, Director of WWF's Global Climate Change Programme.

He claims that endorsing these targets is technically and economically feasible for all countries. The report estimates the efficiency potential for each sector by the year 2030 as:

• the transport sector: 25-50%
• the building sector: 30-45%
• the power sector: 4-45%, depending on the country.

Recommended measures include standard setting, labelling for energy efficiency, fiscal instruments such as subsidies or tax credits, and a CO2 or energy tax.

Increased energy conservation would result in cost savings, an increase in energy security, and provide new business opportunities and increased employment.

> Read the report, Making Energy Efficiency happen: From Potential to Reality [PDF link]

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.

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.

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:

• 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.

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.

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

Power companies make a mint from the ETS

Europe’s power companies have made well over €1 billion profits from the EU ETS (Emissions Trading Scheme) to date and the sector will make net profits of €tens of billions during Phase II of the ETS, according to the Carbon Trust.

The EU-ETS needs reforming since it is perversely encouraging some signatories to increase carbon emissions.

Most National Allocation Plans (NAPs) offer free carbon allowances to new entrants. In around half of the NAPs, including the German plan, the new entrant rules actually give higher numbers of free allowances to more carbon intensive fuels, such as coal and lignite, which creates a perverse incentive to build new power facilities that emit high levels of CO2.

Professor Michael Grubb, Chief Economist at the Carbon Trust and Executive Director of Climate Strategies, says:
“Too many countries are using special provisions to try and protect carbon intensive investments. [Instead] policy, on a national and pan-EU level, should be focused on investing in low carbon alternatives.”

The Trust is arguing that Member States adopt a higher level of auctioning in Phase II.

They should also rapidly define a third Phase that addresses the problems surrounding new entrant rules and creates sufficient certainty to encourage long lived investments.

The Carbon Trust also found that:
• the EC last year turned a set of proposed allocation plans that represented a 5 per cent increase on CO2 emissions above verified 2005 levels, into a five per cent decrease below 2005 levels

• Carbon price remains uncertain

• if the carbon price remains positive, this will drive some abatement, particularly in power generation and cement manufacturing

• Power companies will still make big profits

• More auctioning will be important in Phase II and beyond - the current NAPs only propose a small amount of auctioning but governments retain the right to decide to auction more. This could be effective to improve incentives for low carbon investment by using auction revenues to support such investment; by reducing peverse incentives and by enabling a reserve auction price that would help to stabilise price expectations

• Attention to detail will be critical in Phase III – real focus needs to be placed on the details of scheme design that affect individual investment incentives, in particular new entrant and closure rules, in Phase III - going beyond the focus on volumes and prices that has dominated debate on Phase II allocations.

The future of farting

It's a fact: farts harm the planet. Everybody talks about carbon dioxide, but no one mentions methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas about 20 times more potent than the carbon dioxide we breathe out through our mouths.

Extreme offenders, in the post-Kyoto world, will be convicted of crimes against humanity.

Therefore I am founding a company called Fart Neutral.

Fart Neutral will neutralise the effect of your farting by investing the money you give us to compensate your farts in schemes to sequester methane under the earth, or burn it to generate heat and power, capturing the carbon dioxide instead.

We will also invest in educational programmes to teach people which foods - beans, lentils - cause the most methane production from rear ends.

Eventually such diets will be taxed out of existence.

We will also manufacture special rubber underwear, sealed tightly round the waist and legs, with a built in inflatable balloon at the rear. When the balloon has fully inflated from your methane production, it will be sealed, detached and replaced.

We will pay you for the return of full balloons and send you an empty one in return. We will then trade the balloons on the open market - methane trading, or, as the trade refers to it, the Fart Mart.

Variations on the underwear will be manufactured for farm animals and pets. Cows are well known as a major producer of this greenhouse gas.

Under post-Kyoto legislation it will be illegal for animals and humans not to wear such methane-capturing apparel. Eventually farm animals will be phased out for a compulsory vegetarian diet, which will, anyway, release more land for food and biofuel production.

This will give rise to a new age of fashion, a revival of the 18th Century style of exaggerated derrières. Men will wear pantaloons with large flaps at the back, and women long skirts with seams to accommodate the balloons at the rear. These will be considered sexy, and the smelling of farts, since they are forbidden, will provide sexual frissons.


Special offer: Send me £5 ($10) now to neutralise your farts for the next year. Hurry! After June 30 the cost will inflate.

Comments from the earlier posting on MySpace:

Lucy:
David, can I assume that a vaginal fart is harmless?

David Thorpe:
Assume nothing. I will have to come round and test this.

Lucy:
Well, I'll put the kettle on but I don't think I can do them to order ..

David Thorpe:
Thank you. I'll be over soon. Do not fret yourself about 'doing them to order'. The important thing is to be relaxed. I have been specially trained with techniques for just such a situation. And besides, in the disinterested pursuit of scientific truth we must above all have patience.

shell:
My boyfriend emits some right humdingers. It lingers for ages too.
Mine smell of roses so there is no way they can harm the environment.

David Thorpe:
I'm afraid that the delightful feminine smell is caused by your sexually aroused pheronomes, and has nothing to do with the methane, which is the carrier gas.
Therefore you both still need to be neutralised.
We do a special discounted deal for couples - £8 for a year.

Mr. Pillowcase:
Wow, you have certainly planned this out very well!

David Thorpe:
Well, thank you, but let's give some tribute to the European Union's Farting Directive (2007).

Poetica™:
You are a visionary! I will start working on my business plan to design the fluffiest Fartaloons and Firts the world has ever seen.

David Thorpe:
I look forward to seeing them. It's important for the designs to be cute and risque, don't you think.
I'm glad to see you are taking the positive attitude, following the Government's decisive leadership on global warming. Rightfully, they say climate change is not a threat, but an opportunity to make loads of money.
This is why we in the business community welcome climate change as a chance to reinvigorate our faded product lines, introduce new styles and fashions, and find new reasons why the public should continue to buy our products, even when they don't need them and can't afford them.
Let us celebrate climate change with a new line of fluffy, methane offsetted underwear!

Lucy:
We're all immature adults here!

David Thorpe:
Speak for yourself. I have the interests of the planet at heart. And making money. You can't get more mature than that.

Adam Horovitz:
Oh god, as a vegetarian I'm in deep trouble...

David Thorpe:
No, Adam, you are half way to salvation, for your meat-free diet is not dependant on the unseen emanations of distant ruminants.
The best way to narrow your methane footprint is to eat less beans and become anorexic.
The most selfless act would, of course, be suicide - that way you have no footprint at all, and we at Fart Neutral can give you a zero methane funeral, by offsetting the methane produced by your decomposing body - for a small fee of course.
However such martyrdom is for the saints amongst us only, and at Fart Neutral we know there are few of those - that is the reason for our existence - to provide guilt free farting for everyone.
Hence our motto: Supporting Farters with a Clear Conscience.

Adam Horovitz:
Beanless anorexia it is, then. No more being mistaken for a passing herd of cattle for me!! Thank you Fart Neutral - I don't know what I would have done without you...

Public opinions and market opinions

Some recent statistics on Employment and financial benefits of RE and public opinion on climate change policies

Public opinion

According to a Eurobarometer survey in all European Member States, 87% of Europeans are concerned about the climate change.

About the same number (82%) think that their energy use has an impact on the climate and 83% would support a minimum target for renewable energy sources.

Almost two thirds (62%) of the citizens think EU-agreed measures are the best way to tackle energy-related issues.

There is less agreement on how such measures should be implemented.

One third prefers taxing, one third thinks public funding of research would be the best option and the others think that prohibiting inefficient technologies would stimulate energy innovation best.

Nuclear energy is not generally seen as the best way to reduce CO2 emissions.

About 60% of Europeans want to decrease the share of nuclear energy, and only 30% want to build more nuclear power plants.

Employment and financial benefits of RE

The world is on the brink of an energy revolution that will dominate financial markets for years and provide a huge stimulus to global economic growth, according to the latest issue of Barclays Capital's influential Equity Gilt Study.

Investments in alternative energy sources are expected to grow to between $6.2bn and $8.8bn by 2009 as decades of U.S. and European research and development mature.

In 2005 Britain's environmental industries had a turnover of £25bn, according to the DTI, a figure projected to grow to £46bn by 2015.

With 13% growth last year, Germany’s renewable share in overall energy demand caused a renewed growth of jobs in the renewable energy sector.

In 2006 the number of employees working in the German renewables industry passed the 200,000 threshold.

Scottish Renewables has revealed the results of research into the economic impact of its members, the first study of its kind in Scotland.

The results show that 2,596 people are employed by SRF members in Scotland, and that the members of SRF had a combined turnover of £550m in 2006.

Employment in the 'renewables sector' is expected to grow sixfold by 2010 in the south west of England.

Meanwhile, a report from the investment bank Lehman Brothers, set out the position starkly - companies that adapt to the challenges of climate change will win friends and make money.

Those that do not will struggle to survive.

The value of concentrated solar power is underestimated

I'm taking the trouble to direct readers to n article by ProEnviro on this topic. I've mentioned it several times before and it keeps being ignored.

Nuclear power costs anywhere between 5p and 8p per kWh, with new power station under construction in the United States expected to deliver at half that price.

However in 2003 The National Academy of Sciences, through research from the engineering and analyst firms Sargent and Lundy, showed CSP, with a free, renewal and infinite supply to be viable with costs of 4-6 cents (US) per kWh for solar troughs.

Needless to say Bush vetoed the idea when he came to power.

Read more on ProEnviro's web site

Nuclear new build costs: prepare for fraud and deceit

I am revisiting the news that Dr. Tim Stone, chairman of KPMG's Global Infrastructure and Projects Group, has been appointed by Alistair Darling at the DTI to lead the development of arrangements for the costs associated with any decommissioning and waste management.

His brief is "to ensure that participants in nuclear new build deal with these costs". How effective will he be? Perhaps looking at his past might give us an idea.

KPMG and PFI

KPMG is an accountancy firm relied upon heavily by New Labour especially in connection with PPP/PFI schemes.

These are well documented (eg, in Private Eye) as being bad for public finances as they appear to be 'off the balance sheet' for the Treasury, yet commit taxpayers to decades of funding for what by then will be old infrastructure, eventually costing far more than they would have otherwise.

Stone's past

KPMG partner Dr Tim Stone was the Ministry of Defence’s adviser on the ‘Future Strategic Tanker’ PFI scheme, which is estimated to have a value in excess of £13billion. Under the scheme aerial tankers that enable planes from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to bomb targets in distant Iraq by refuelling them mid-air were supplied and partly staffed by private firms.

Stone is also a lead advisor on the £20billion Military Flying Training Services deal.

Stone advised the Department of Health on the PFI, while his company acts at the same time for firms bidding for hospital privatisation. KPMG advised on the first ever hospital PFI, at Dartford. The firm’s fees soared from an original £152,000 to £960,000.

The National Audit Office (NAO) found the scheme made no financial savings, but did reduce bed numbers.

In 2001, KPMG handled the figures on the PFI contract for the West Middlesex University Hospital in Isleworth. The NAO found that when KPMG worked out privatisation would be disproportionately expensive the accountancy practice discovered £12.5m of imaginary public-sector ‘risks’ so the sell-off could go ahead.

Stone has been heavily involved in many major acute hospital transactions, road and IT PFI deals, including the NHS' infamously wasteful and inefficient £3.2bn national IT programme and the similarly disastrous Department for Work & Pensions Accord deal which is the largest non-military IT procurement in Western Europe.

Involvement in fraud

In 2001 Xerox paid the US' Securities and Exchange Commission (Sec) $10m after admitting it had inflated its accounts by £3.9 billion between 1997 and 2000. Guess who passed the fraudulent books? Yep, KPMG, which was then also subject to a Sec investigation and in 2005 was ordered to pay $22m to settle the litigation.

In April 2002 a new auditor took over from KPMG at its client German software firm Comroad. It found that 97 per cent of Comroad's reported 2000 sales came from a non-existent company.

Also in 2002 KPMG paid $45m to creditors of German drilling firm FlowTex. A KPMG audit had approved the firm's books even though they were padded with pretend business.

Par for the course in the nuclear industry

Is this how the nuclear industry is going to appear to be dealing with all the costs of decommissioning?

It has a long and noble tradition of deceit and fraud, cover-up and evasion, not to mention cooking the accounts.

Darling evidently has found the perfect man to continue the tradition.

Nuclear energy continues to rise

Here's the global new nuclear picture:

Globally, nuclear power supplies are projected to grow 30% over the next 20 years with some two dozen power plants scheduled to be built or refurbished during the next five years.

China: eight new nuclear power stations under construction in 2006.

US & Russia: Presidents Bush and Putin announced significant new nuclear build programmes at recent G8 meetings.

These three countries will account for almost 38% of global nuclear output in 2010. By 2030, this is predicted to rise to over 45%. America’s share of total atomic production will slip to 26% during this period. China’s will increase from three percent to nine percent.

India: nine power plants under construction, including a fast-breeder reactor that generates its own fuel.

Pakistan: China is building its second of four power plants.

Canada: Last December, the Ontario Power Authority proposed plans to build 12 new nuclear plants. Bruce Power is to rebuild two other reactors.

Europe: New 1600-MW European PWRs are being built, one in Finland and one in France, with respective power-up dates of 2008 and 2012.

The failure of climate change initiatives will drive new nuclear power build, says Datamonitor.

The sham of a consultation

The Low Carbon Kid said from the start of the Energy Review 'consultation' that it was a sham and a foregone conclusion.

The Review was the reason for starting this blog. Now Greenpeace's courageous action in challenging the result has been vindicated by the High Court.

Greenpeace's Emma Gibson told the BBC: "The government's so-called consultation was a sham and we are very pleased the judge has agreed with us on that."

Mr Justice Sullivan said "something has gone clearly and radically wrong".

LibDem environment spokesman Chris Huhne said: "It's a real slap in the face for prime minister's sofa style of government."

Shadow trade and industry secretary Alan Duncan said: "The government has been shown up as fundamentally deceitful."

The government should immediately channel the money devoted to laying policy foundations and R&D in new nuclear power to the most promising emerging renewable technologies, in particular local power and marine energies.

There is no safe solution to nuclear waste.

Can I claim my £12m please Mr Branson?

The Low Carbon Kid has two ideas for reclaiming carbon from the atmosphere and locking it away - the subject of Richard Branson's technology challenge.

I'm afraid they're both fairly lo-tech, but hey, as long as they work, who cares? It makes them all the more easily implementable.

Here they are:

1. Grow trees, harvest the wood, turn it into charcoal, which is an inert form of carbon and won't decompose, and sell the charcoal as a soil conditioner to farmers and everyone with a garden. This solution is the subject of an article in the Jan/Feb issue of Renew, the publication of the Open University's NATTA, the independent national UK 'Network for Alternative Technology and Technology Assessment' (Though maybe not the online version). The solution is basd on research conducted in the Amazon rainforest where charcoal hundreds of years old has been discovered and analysed, and its usefulness as a soil stabiliser revealed. The charcoal, as I say, is a permanent lock-up for the carbon, and by selling the charcoal the scheme becomes self-financing.
2. Grow hemp and use it as a building material, mixed with lime to form 'hempcrete'. Hemp is fast growing and a very good absorber of atmospheric carbon. Once secure in the lime concrete, it gives the material great strength, and locks the carbon up for as long as the house exists. A conference is being held in April to discuss the technology at the Centre for Alternative Technology.

Can I have my money please Mr Branson?

One day, will it be an offence to exhale CO2?

The EC want to make environmental offences criminal and Gore and Branson want to reward someone for a wheeze for taking carbon out of the atmosphere.

Soon it will be an offence to exhale!

Not to mention fart.

I jest perhaps. But animals breathe and fart, and there are two climate change questions associated with this:

1. Methane from animals for human consumption contributes 5-10% of GHG globally (source: FAO.
2. Land use - it takes about two to four times as much land area to support a meat diet as opposed to a vegetarian diet. [Different sources give different estimates depending on the type of meat, its feed, the alternative possible land uses, not to mention the amount of meat in the diet.]

With increasing pressure on land for biofuels, we should be encouraged to eat less meat, regardless of whether it is organic.

Branson - Green?

Finally, can the man who runs an airline and founded a space tourism company really be green? £10m of his own money is poultry feed (sorry) and, for him, an investment to continue his carbon-profligate Catch-23 lifestyle and businesses.

He thinks if someoone can take the carbon out of the atmosphere that he puts in, it lets him off the eco-hook.

Wil he succeed?

Don't hold your breath. (But on the other hand, if we ALL held our breath...]

Technorati Tags: Energy; Environment; ClimateChange;

America still has way to go with investment in renewables

A lot of fuss is being made over the fact that Bush is allocating in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Fiscal 2008 budget, approximately $1.2 billion to the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy - up $60 million or 5 percent from 2007.

But that's chicken feed to what Germany is spending. Germans invested more than $10 billion in new sources of renewable energy last year, using the country's pioneering electricity feed law.

Given the huge difference in populations between these two countries, Germany spent $122 per head compared to $3.36 - more than 36 times more.

The new Declaration of Energy Independence sponsored by Southern States Energy Board (and the so-called 'American Energy Security Partnership') is full of ironies. That the 'Project for an American Century' should so soon turn into for a project for independence from the world (most American wars have been fought over oil), is wonderful.

But if it means mass exploitation of American oil fields that's not good for the environment - although at least it's American biodiversity that will suffer, not that in victimised countries like Iraq and Nigeria.

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange; Nuclear;

Why carbon offsetting should be a last resort

I've published a revised article on this topic here: Cyberium website

Local energy, especially renewable heat, needs more support - Gov Committee

The government should do more to support local energy, according to the House of Commons Trade and Industry Committee.

Preferring the term "local energy" to “microgeneration” because it "is easier to understand and less restrictive", it argues that "there is too much emphasis on electricity production and not enough on local heating schemes - household or community-based." Roughly 1.3 million homes replace gas boilers each year, and Centrica estimates that micro-CHP systems could displace as many as 30% by 2015. It suggests that new housing schemes be fitted with CHP district heating. Furthermore it complains that Government payback figures, particularly for solar water heating panels, are far too pessimistic.

It urges energy suppliers to offer local energy systems with energy efficiency measures as part of a package of services to customers. Planning restrictions on rooftop wind turbines and solar panels should be removed, incentives streamlined, and the electricity distribution firms must pay a proper market rate for any surplus produced by such systems.

It acknowledges thast most forms of local energy are not suitable for all locations or uses. Micro-wind power's potential is "in danger of being oversold", according to one witness, so the government must ensure adequate information is available to consumers.

It says smart metering will be an excellent tool for promoting energy efficiency and export measuring, and calls for a deadline of 1 July 2008 for establishing standards and interoperability and a national roll-out scheme as in Italy.

However, local energy "cannot make a significant contribution in the next decade to closing the capacity gap created by the decommissioning of coal-fired and nuclear power stations—local energy is not a panacea that will 'keep the lights on'."

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