Jo Abbess » Vote Loser

Urbanity, Durbanity

Jo — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:40:05 +0000

People working for non-governmental, and governmental, organisations can be rather defensive when I criticise the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change or UNFCCC. What ? I don’t back the international process ? Climate change, after all, is a borderless crime, and will take global policing. Well, I back negotiations for a global treaty in principle, but not in practice.

The annual wearisome jousting and filibustering events just before Christmas do not constitute for me a healthy, realistic programme of engagement, imbued with the full authority and support of global leadership structures and civil society. People can try to spin it and claim success, but that’s just whitewash on an ungildable tomb.

The Climate Change talks that have just taken place in Durban, South Africa, were exemplary of a peculiar kind of collective madness that has resulted from trying to navigate and massage endless special interests, national jostling, brinkmanship, unworkable and inappropriate proposals from economists, communications failures and corporate interference in governance.

The right people with real decisionmaking powers are not at the negotiating table. The organisations with most to contribute are still acting in opposition – that’s the energy industry, to be explicit. And the individual national governments are still not concerned enough about climate change, even though it impacts strongly on the things they do consider to be priorities – economic health, trade and political superiority.

Over 20 years ago, the debate on what to do to tackle global warming and still maintain good international relations was already won, by the commonsense approach of Contraction and Convergence – fair shares for all. Each country should count on their fair share of carbon emissions based on their population – and we would get there by starting from where we are now and agreeing mutual cuts. The big emitters would agree to steeper cuts than the lower emitters – and after some time, everybody in the world would have the same, safe emissions rights.

What has prevented this logical approach from being implemented ? Well, we have had the so-called “flexible mechanisms” pushed on us – such as the Clean Development Mechanism which essentially boils down to the idea that the richer high-emitting countries can offset their carbon by paying for poorer low emissions countries to cut their carbon instead. Some have been attempting to make the CDM carbon credits into a commercial product for the Carbon Trading market. Some may contest it, but the CDM and carbon trading haven’t really been working very well, and anyway, the CDM doesn’t aim for emissions reductions, just offsets.

Other carbon trade has been implemented, such as the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), which doesn’t appear to have caused high emissions industries to diversify out of carbon, or created a viable price for carbon dioxide, so its usefulness is questionable.

Many people have put forward the idea of straight carbon pricing, mostly by taxation. The trouble with this idea should be obvious, but rarely is. Over four-fifths of the world’s energy is fossil fuel based. Taxing carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels would just make everything, everywhere, more expensive. It wouldn’t necessarily create new lower carbon energy resources, as the taxes would probably be put into a giant climate change adaptation fund – a financial institution proposed by several people including Oliver Tickell and Nicholas Stern, although in Stern’s case, he is calling for direct grants from countries to keep the fund topped up.

On the policy front, there has been a continuing, futile attempt to force the historially high-emitting countries to accept very radical carbon cuts, as a sign of accountability. This “grandfathering” of emissions responsibilities is something that no sane person in government in the richer nations could ever agree with, not even when being smothered with ethical guilt. One of the forms of this proposal is “Greenhouse Development Rights“, essentially allowing countries like China to continue growing their emissions in order to grow their economies to guarantee development. The emissions cuts required by countries like the United States of America would be impossible to achieve, not even if their economy completely toppled.

Sadly, a number of charities, aid and development agencies and other non-governmental organisations with concern for the world’s poor, have signed up to Greenhouse Development Rights not realising it is completely untenable.

The only approach that can work, that both high- and low-emitting countries can ever possibly be made to agree on, is a system of population-proportional shares of the global carbon pie. And the way to get there has to be based on relative current emissions, ignoring the emissions of the past – your cuts should be larger if your current emissions are large. And it should be based on the relative size of the population, and their individual emissions rates, rather than taking a country as a whole. Yes, there will be room for a little carbon trade between nations, to enable the transfer of low carbon technologies from wealthy nations to un-resourced nations. Yes, there will be space for enterprise, as corporations have to face regulation to cut emissions, and will need innovation in technology to divest themselves of fossil fuel production and consumption.

This is Contraction and Convergence – and you ignore it at our peril.

A few suggestions for further reading :-

“Contraction and Convergence The Global Solution to Climate Change” by Aubrey Meyer. Schumacher Briefings, Green Books, December 2000. ISBN-13: 978-1870098946

The Greenhouse Effect : Science and Policy” by Professor Stephen H. Schneider, Science, Volume 243, Issue 4892, Pages 771 – 781, DOI: 10.1126/science.243.4892.771, 10 February 1989.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/243/4892/771.abstract
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/Publications.html

“Climate Change : Science and Policy“, edited by Stephen H. Schneider, Armin Rosencranz, Michael D. Mastrandea and Kristin Kuntz-Duriseti. Island Press, 10 February 2010. ISBN-13: 978-1597265669

“The Greenhouse Effect : Negotiating Targets” by Professor Michael Grubb, published by the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) in London, 1990.

“Equity, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Global Common Resources” by Paul Baer, Chapter 15 in “Climate Change Policy : A Survey” by Stephen H. Schneider, Armin Rosencranz and John O. Niles, Island Press, 2002. ISBN-10: 1-55963-881-8 (Paper), ISBN-13: 978-1-55963-881-4 (Paper)

“Kyoto 2 : How to Manage the Global Greenhouse” by Oliver Tickell, ISBN-13: 978-1848130258, Zed Books Ltd, 25 July 2008
http://www.kyoto2.org/
http://www.kyoto2.org/docs/the_land_1.pdf

Sadly, concrete always seems to win

Jo — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:39:39 +0000

I had no intention of actually dirtying my hands by buying The Times of London to read today, but I scanned its headline on the display. “Search for growth lifts estuary airport hopes”, it proudly announced.

And that’s when I realised, that, sadly, even after the lessons of decades of poorly planned infrastructure development, concrete still always seems to win over common sense.

Some people may be most concerned at the Chancellor or the Exchequer’s diktat on freezing public sector pay, just to “put the boot in” conveniently ahead of a national one day strike over worsening pensions management.

But I’m more concerned about his sudden conversion to Keynesianism. He seems to want to create lots of construction jobs, widening roads and motorways, laying foundations for nuclear power reactors, and perhaps throwing Portland cement over large parts of the Essex coast for a new “hub” airport.

Yes, this would create economic growth of a kind. Productivity would rise, employment would rise, income tax revenue would rise. But it would be the equivalent of sending a team of workpeople to dig a trench for no reason whatsoever, and sending another team to fill it in the next day.

What this country needs is assets, not liabilities. We need to build infrastructure that will enable economic productivity and social wellbeing and not place a long-term drain on society and the public purse. Roads, nuclear power plants and airports are all potential liabilities. Here’s just a few reasons why :-

1. We don’t need more or wider roads

The health disbenefits of building roads are documented. Besides the air quality problems that increased traffic produces, more people driving is bad for the obesity statistics. There is, in fact, a direct correlation between how much more we’ve been driving and how much fatter we are. The fat epidemic may not be down to peoples’ diets – it may be down to their drive time. Centralised employment and social services has been behind a lot of extra road miles, so you could say that cutting local hospitals, Post Offices and shops is directly responsible for jammed roads and bulging waistlines.

With Peak Oil here, or just around the corner, nobody can guarantee that car ownership or car use will increase as it has in the past. No matter that George Osborne has prevented a rise in fuel duty, if global oil markets continue their crawl upwards in a scenario of impending scarcity, people will have to pay more to keep driving for retail, work, education, health and administration needs. It could be that fuel costs start to enforce re-localisation of public amenities. And so, if vehicles become too expensive to run, will the roads start to empty ? If we build more roads now, will we actually need them in 15 years’ time ?

And what about the valuable land that gets covered in tarmacadam ? At what point do we need to start removing roads to increase food production ?

2. Nuclear power plants are a lead necklace

Despite the worldwide public relations lobbying for the benefits of a nuclear power renaissance (which the Iranians seemed to actually believe for some reason), nuclear power remains expensive and can often turn out to be unreliable. It’s costly to operate nuclear reactors with a certain amount of flexibility, which is what we would need to backup wind and solar power, so most operators want to run them all the time at full capacity. The United Kingdom still hasn’t resolved the issue of where we put all the radioactive waste from 50 years of civilian nuclear power generation, which is going to cost lots of money whichever way it’s handled. And there is no guarantee that nuclear power projects will see completion in the turbulent economic framework in which we find ourselves.

The behind-the-scenes discussions between the UK Government and the nuclear power industry have almost certainly included promises that the public purse will put up the money for risk insurance, guaranteeing a long-term price for the nuclear electricity generated (which will affect our bills), and decommissioning the reactors at the end of their safe working lives. There is even a possibility that nuclear power operators will get a competitive edge if a “carbon floor price” is introduced. Despite these sweeteners, the nuclear power industry does not appear willing or capable to make firm plans for more than two new nuclear facilities, one at Hinckley and other at Wylfa.

All in all, it seems that the underlying economics of nuclear power, and all the publicly-financed costs at the start and at the end of reactor lives, means that atomic energy is a lead necklace on society.

So, putting people to work to build the concrete foundations for new nuclear reactors may seem like growth, but it isn’t.

3. We don’t need no new airport capacity

Whether or not there is a comprehensive policy on restricting the growth of air travel, or taxing aviation fuel, which could naturally slow down expansion, there is every reason to suspect that volumes of flights will reduce, simply because of economic conditions.

We don’t need a new airport in England. We certainly don’t need to pour some runways over large areas of Essex marshland. The increase in road traffic between a new hub airport and the centre of London could in itself wreck targets on congestion and air quality, I expect. Plus, if air travel does start to plummet because of economic constraints on globalised trade and passenger movements, we wouldn’t need this white elephant.

Yes, George Osborne, put people to work pouring concrete and hail some temporary economic growth. But in 10 years’ time, watch out for these liabilities to weigh heavily on the neck of the British people. The construction industry, in the doldrums because you won’t subsidise zero carbon social housebuilding, solar power or energy renovations, they’ll leap at any chance to do some work, however short-term it is. But not everybody will come on board with your concrete plans.

Dances With Energy Bills

Jo — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 20:04:17 +0000

After the recent notorious Panorama programme on energy prices, and yesterday evening’s debate on renewable energy and the costs of green energy policy, in the House of Commons, a number of people have commented that Members of Parliament and Ministers of the UK Government appear to know very few facts – and those they can remember they seem to quote in the wrong context.

This state of affairs is disgraceful, and allows mendacious narratives to persist in the mainstream media.

RenewableUK contacted me and asked me to embed a YouTube offering some corrective information. I was very pleased to do so. I can assure my readers that I have not and will not be paid for doing so.

The key problem is not the cost to energy bill payers from direct subsidies such as the solar photovoltaic feed in tariff. The contribution from this is minor. The largest effect on energy bills is likely to come from two sources – the Energy Company Obligation and the plans for Carbon Pricing and other measures in the Electricity Market Reform.

The Energy Company Obligation, or ECO, is essentially a bailout for the big energy supply companies. They are being told to make sure that their customers can buy not only energy, but energy conservation services. These companies will end up selling less energy overall, and may suffer profit penalties. They have demanded compensation for this loss of earnings. After all, they have shareholders, and pension funds who are shareholders, and nobody should be deprived of their dividends, should they ? So the energy companies will be permitted to charge their customers extra to fund the ECO

“The ECO is in effect a levy on everybody’s energy bills. There is an amount collected by energy suppliers and then used to fund energy efficiency programmes. Current programmes such as Warm Front are being wound down and will be replaced by Green Deal Finance and the new ECO. The Government’s intention is that ECO should be used to supplement Green Deal Finance to pay for energy efficiency improvements in hard to treat properties (e.g. where there is no cavity wall insulation) and/or for those in fuel poverty.”

http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/consultation/green-deal/3607-green-deal-energy-company-ob-cons.pdf
http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/what%20we%20do/supporting%20consumers/green_deal/1732-extra-help-where-it-is-needed-a-new-energy-compan.pdf
http://www.consumerfocus.org.uk/files/2010/12/Green-Deal-ECO-v1.pdf
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2127605/treasury-confirms-gbp200m-introductory-green-deal-offer

The second major factor in rising energy bills in future will come from carbon pricing and other energy market manipulation. There have been a number of measures considered in the Electricity Market Reform, but the key contenders include a “carbon floor price” (making sure that carbon charges have a minimum price below which they cannot fall), “contracts for difference” (where electricity sale contracts would be written to guarantee supply companies a fixed profit) and “capacity payments” (where power stations will be paid to remain on standby as backup to low carbon alternatives). A carbon price would benefit nuclear power generators, as nuclear power is considered low carbon. It won’t create an incentive to build new nuclear power stations, however, whereas the promise of guaranteed profits from the “contracts for difference” arrangement could persuade EdF and other nuclear power construction companies to invest.

The Electricity Market Reform and the Energy Company Obligation, considered in addition to the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, could cost each household energy bill payer something of the order of £170.00 per year :-

This is far, far larger than the feed-in tariff budget.

Personally, I think carbon pricing is a dangerous waste of time, and will not and cannot displace carbon dioxide emissions. There are always carbon-intensive industries and companies who will make the case for special treatment and avoid paying. And the end consumers will always shoulder the added cost burden. After all, we can’t have the profits and share price of our major energy companies dented, can we ?

Much education needs to take place – the debating chamber of the British Parliament is only one place. We also need to get proper energy reporting from the mainstream media. It’s wrong to continue to blame solar panels and wind farms for future energy bill price rises.

Tom Heap : Panoramic Nonsensity

Jo — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:39:57 +0000

Date: 9 November 2011
From: tim b
To: jo abbess

Hi Jo,

Just picked up on your blog following leads on Tom Heap – I’m writing a piece for my website (www.biggreenbang.co.uk) on the panorama / KPMG saga – just wanted to say what a great blog it is~!! Don’t find so many to-the-point sites in the UK – have picked up on guys like Joe Romm in the States but you seem to have your finger right on the pulse in the UK!

…Should explain that my site has been initiated by a load of IT techie nerds who are already working in telecoms and are about to launch a zero carbon mobile phone company (by a combination of using low carbon technology, buying into renewable power and carbon offsetting) They are committed to putting part of their profits into green projects and are setting up BGB in the hopes that it will be a vehicle for making sustainability issues available to a wider public – they have ambitions to develop it as a community resource too – They obviously hope to get spin-off business for their mobile phone network but I believe their motives are genuinely good and they seem to be giving me a fairly free rein!

look forward to hearing from you

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

Date: 10 November 2011
From: jo abbess
To: tim b

Hi Tim,

Good luck with the Panorama research.

Another person to follow on this is Christian Hunt at Carbon Brief :-

http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/11/looking-into-panoramas-sources
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/11/kpmg-not-sure-if-written-report
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/11/another-correction-from-the-mail-group-on-energy-bills

…Keep the green flag flying !

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

Date: 11 November 2011
From: tim b
To: jo abbess

Hi Jo,

Thanks for getting back,

I would like to send you a link to the article but for some strange reason its not been published yet – not so much research on Panorama as a general review of Knowns and Unknowns that a report based on figures from and unpublished draught press release throws up!! – It was a Carbon Brief piece that made me take the tack i took.

What I was really interested in was the cut of Tom Heap’s jib – I picked up on your site because I Googled his name – and lo and behold you critiqued the Beeb’s Climategate coverage saying, “some of the mistakes made by the reporter, Tom Heap, were laughable”.

My deeply sceptical mind started to wonder – especially given his Countryfile role, if he’s not one of the “farmer boy climate sceptics” (living in rural XXXXXXXXX with lots of Telegraph reading Hooray Henrys – I meet lots of them!) That is pure speculation on my part but even if it’s just a case of a young ambitious journalist trying to make a name for himself (and aware that good sceptic record will be a great career move for anyone wanting to work for Murdoch, The Mail, The Express… its a long and tragic list!) – he’s hardly generous with information!

…We are still sticking the nuts and bolts of the site together at the moment – my responsibility is writing relevant stories – and my background in environmental issues goes right back to the early days of the Sullom Voe oil terminal in the Shetland Islands (1970′s) I’ve been immersed in this stuff most of my adult life – starting out as a “back to the land idealistic greeny” and ending up a cynical old man – but still believing that this is the most improtant issue we have ever faced!

best wishes

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

Date: 11 November 2011
From: jo abbess
To: tim b

Hi Tim,

Don’t grow old and cynical. Instead, grow wise and excited about the prospects for positive change.

It won’t be your generation that fixes climate change with renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and a steady-state economy. It won’t be my generation, either – I’m older than many of the “senior” figures in the UK Government.

We owe it to the next generations to share our hope, knowledge and encouragement; and believe in them.

Scotland will have wind and marine power to replace the oil and gas economic compromise with the English. Wales and Ireland can become energy-independent and shake off Westminster. There will be more sanity, more loft insulation and peace.

I would suggest caution in trusting the BBC for energy news. The BBC people that actually know anything about energy appear to be sidelined by those rolling with the “national interest” programme, supporting UK energy companies and their tainted arguments; not realising that it’s in the interests of the energy business to transition out of carbon. I am looking forward to work by Fair Pensions and other organisations on how companies, and banks, can only survive by investing in renewable energy.

…Stay in touch,

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

Date: 15 November 2011
From: tim b
To: jo abbess

Hi Jo,

Fear not – Old and Cynical is a bit of a pose – having reached 60 this year I feel entitled to a degree of curmudgeonlyness – I am indeed excited by the positives, but I’m aware of the extent of change that is needed and the scale of resistance. I suppose the old cynical bit comes from an acute awareness of the political trickery and media manipulation being used by the energy industry in particular – The ST/Panorama thing is a case in point – they’ve sucessfully run a well publicised negative story with a headline figure of £34 billion savings on a report that still (as far as I know today) remains unpublished. The manipulation of media, astroturfing and funding of front organisations in the USA by the likes of Koch and Exxon has led to a political fantasy world over there – with climate denial held as orthodoxy by the right. There’s evidence this ultra neo-con agenda is influential in the current [UK] government.

Liam Fox’s Atlantic Bridge charity had close ties with ALEC – a well funded influence peddling machine that gets its money from similar sources – (check out ALEC Exposed for a bit more insight) – two of its trustees [William] Hague and George Osborne (and especially Osborne) are leaders of the climate denial lobby within the Cabinet (Osborne’s father-in-law – is David Howell – and he’s apparently a prominent Climate Change denier). The gulf between the Government’s promises on carbon targets etc and its actions is growing at a rate – and it doesn’t seem beyond the realms of possibility that a beleaguered David Cameron would offer a withdrawal of support for renewables against a get out of jail card on Europe.

I’m not saying that the Panorama report is deliberate manipulation – but I don’t think it’s a possibility that should be ruled out. The technique of “reporting” on unpublished reports has popped up a few times this year – if memory serves me correctly the [Daily] Mail ran a whole load of spurious headlines on the costs of the new Electricity Reform Bill on pure speculation.

So yes, agreed that we have to be positive and hopeful – but feel we have to keep an eye and a voice on the “rich old white men” who seem to be determined to use no holds barred dirty tricks to stop a move towards a decarbonised world – as for it being future generations that will be the ones who change things – well The [International Energy Agency] IEA are saying we have 5 years to get on top of carbon emissions – not a body exactly renowned for making provocative extravagant claims. One of the things they highlight is that future carbon consumption is locked in by the investments we make today – build a coal power plant and we’re locked into burning coal for the next 40 years etc – I’m sure you are a aware of these issues as I am – so I feel I have to disagree about leaving it to younger generations – we are all in this together and my year old grandson has no voice – I have to speak for him!

Good grief – all this stuff sounds terribly like a conspiracy theory – I’ve fought against believing it but the evidence train is so strong that it has to be taken seriously

best wishes

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

Date: 15 November
From: jo abbess
To: tim b

Hi Tim,

As Cameron says, “calm down, dear”. You’re not a conspiracy theorist – you’re just doing some critical thinking.

It is now clear that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will be ineffectual in delivering a workable carbon treaty. The International Energy Agency and the US Energy Information Administration are powerless. The G20 Governments are incompetent. Carbon taxation and carbon trading are dead in the water – because they are based on faulty economics. The Climate Finance Fund for mitigation and adaptation will be as poorly funded as the international aid programmes. Deforestation will continue apace.

Stupid old white men do not have an evil agenda – they seriously believe they are doing the right thing (especially if it ups their share price). However, they do have an agenda – business as usual – and this does need to be critiqued.

There is no prospect of “business as usual” for a number of reasons – Peak Oil being one of them. We could discuss different opinions about the causes of Peak Oil for several weeks, but the data is in. The “business as usual” approach to tackling Peak Oil is a ramshackle plan to drill more, in more places, including the Arctic; to do Coal-to-liquids, Gas-to-liquids projects; to try to coax algae to produce biodiesel, a whole range of ethanol and methanol projects. All of these will fail. Where was the Arctic physically during the Permian ? Paleogeography indicates there’s not much oil in the Arctic. Algae breed messily and slowly. Coal is also peaking. Gas is going to peak in 2030 – 2035.

The problem with these problems is that most people are not paid to see them, or they are paid not to see them, which is why you have the climate change denial lobby, and the renewable energy rubbishing lobby.

My view on these matters is that there is no evil, just incompetence. And this needs to be continually shown to the light with sanity and clarity.

Keep on at it (and do keep in touch – although I rarely enter into lengthy correspondence),

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

Date: 15 November 2011
From: jo abbess
To: tim b

Hi Jo

…should emphasise that I don’t believe the evidence points to a conspiracy theory. Rather the opposite – its so strong it’s clearly not a conspiracy theory. A year ago I would have thought the notion that corporate power in the [United] States was systematically funding the stuff it funds ridiculous – now I feel a bit silly not knowing it was going on!

As for “not being evil” – Well I guess that depends how evil is defined – in my demonology spreading deliberate lies in order to knowingly pursue a path that will cause harm to others ranks fairly high on “the things I would define as evil” scale. Pursuing a course that gives a favourable balance sheet but putting the global eco-system at risk definitely justifies the tag! Having said that, I’m not concerned with moral judgements so much as trying to explore ways of getting a broader mass of people to recognise the biggest obstacle to the kind of paradigm shifts we need to make are political rather than technological – it’s as if we are fighting against a Goebbels style propaganda campaign but no one even knows its happening. I suppose part of the point of BGB is to try and introduce these notions to the “wanna be green by means of farmers markets and good recycling” to the harder nosed side of the issues in as gentle way as possible.

cheers

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

The European Union Question #2

Jo — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:07:37 +0000

Image Credit : Debbie Portwood

Unbelievably, yesterday, people in the British Government sacrificed their careers rather than vote with David Cameron’s three line whip against a Referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union. I say “unbelievably”, but I know full well why it happened. Democracy is broken in Britain, and there is every reason to point the finger of blame and accusation at the media, for their continued massacre of the issues in political debate. They should be observers and reporters; but instead they are influencers and arbiters.

Here’s how it goes : the Daily Mail, to take just one example, raises the outrage level, and repeats arguments that have little substance. People act on the basis of what they read in the papers and see on TV, and they develop poor reasoning, and do things like sign an ePetition. The thing gets publicly debated, partly in the media of course. And then finally the democratic representatives, the Members of Parliament, have to make a choice to stand with the stirred-up outrage or instead, vote with sanity.

A vote on Europe would be a disaster. The wording would be over-simplistic and hide the true agenda. It would be too easy to sway people to vote for the worst option.

Remember the Referendum on the Alternative Vote ? It was the only thing that could have broken the stranglehold of First-Past-the-Post politics. Instead, seats are going to stay safe – the party that holds an area’s vote will continue to take the vote. Democratic contests cannot happen in safe Constituencies, particularly if the boundary lines are changed to fit the demographics. The First-Past-the-Post system in easy-to-hold political wards – that’s one way in which democracy has been killed. If a seat is safe, no will in the world can create a political debate in a Constituency.

But why did people vote against the Alternative Vote ? Because of the media-assisted rubbishing of the idea.

David Cameron makes the point that a third of the population, if asked, would ditch the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union. They would have very little foundation for doing so, but they would vote for it, just like they demanded weekly refuse collections, and immigration controls, and an 80 miles an hour speed limit, because the newspapers and the television and the radio told them to.

The people have been manipulated, so democracy doesn’t work.

Every mechanism for enabling democracy appears to have withered away.

Campaign organisations and charities are usually given the task of convincing the public to vote with their ethics, with knowledge and with empathy. But with the recession, grants have dried up, so there are not the funds, the staff or the resources to get good things done.

Demonstrations and protests and marches are routinely blacked out of media presentations of political activity.

Writing letters to your democratic representative can be like shouting into an empty well.

Signing online petitions is useless. Signing real petitions is doubly useless.

What forums do people have to debate issues with real information at their fingertips ? What channels do groups of well-informed citizens have to take their well-considered and researched demands to their democratic representatives in sufficient strength to justify their MPs taking the issues on to the Parliament and raising them in the House (of Commons) ?

What ways can citizens use to do politics in their local town ? With Councillors bowled over with insane levels of trivia, can they be expected to engage with genuine informed citizen concerns ?

The news is awash with some inexplicable language :-

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/86398,news-comment,news-politics,eu-debate-exposes-camerons-cack-handed-leadership-
“The eurozone crisis may eventually call for a new treaty, and in that case a referendum is already a legal requirement. It would make sense at that moment to repatriate powers to Britain.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2053011/EU-referendum-David-Cameron-shows-strain-biggest-Tory-mutiny-Europe.html
“‘We’re not going away’ say rebels as PM insists UK will have to wait years to claw back powers from Brussels”

What sovereign powers are these people talking about ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15425256
“Education Secretary Michael Gove insisted on Tuesday that the time was not right for a referendum to take place. He told the BBC: “The most important thing is to make sure we get powers back, so we take more decisions here about employment, about growth, about jobs. These are critical issues. “At the moment David Cameron is battling in Europe in order to make sure that we can have those decisions taken here. It may be that in the future as a result of the battle David Cameron is fighting for Britain that a referendum may be needed, but my judgement is that we need to get those powers back.”"

What on Earth could he possibly mean ? Employment Law ? The right for businesses to make everybody into serfs by increasing working hours at will, reducing wages at will, and demanding high flexibility of the workfoce ? Or maybe Human Rights ? Denying people their human rights so they can be deported or put in inhumane private prisons ?

The right to abandon renewable energy targets, just when we need to seriously develop sustainable power as the North Sea oil and gas are in firm decline ? The right to abandon environmental regulation ? The right to set taxes too low for the rich and too high for the poor ? The right to deny people a living wage and a roof over their head because they can’t work, because there are no jobs for them to slave away at ?

Is it all about banking, then ? Or industrial policy ? I seriously don’t know what Michael Gove’s real agenda is, but I suspect it has something to do with continuing with the neoliberal privatisation agenda – putting all social goods into private hands for profit.

What has Europe ever done for us ? Britain’s involvement in the European Union project has been right at the centre, in agreeing excellent labour law, human rights, technological performance, business accountability, renewable energy. The European project is a British project. Why would anybody want to leave ?

In my humble view, the Conservative Party should expel the Eurosceptic rebels. They do no good to the Coalition Government, and they offer no progress in democratic advancement.

And, I would suggest, the Conservative Party ask the media to inject some reality and pragmatism into their presentation of European Union issues. It’s not the 1970s or the 1980s any more, Mr Newspaper Editor. Like it or not, the European Common Market and its safety and success are in the British national interest.

We’re never going to solve environmental problems like climate change without working hand-in-hand with Europe. And we are definitely not going to address the energy crisis without staying in the Common Market.

It’s time for David Cameron to ditch the dinosaurs.

Occupy your mind #3

Jo — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 09:55:20 +0000

There are some people that believe that political goals are best pursued by public agitation; disturbance to the social order that will inevitably incur state repression of one form or another.

They tell you to go out and protest against violence in society, knowing full well that you will be met by violence in society. They want you to play the victim, the underdog. It serves their agenda – of keeping the population in abject despair.

Well, I’m here today to tell you that this is a fabulous deceit, and a monumentous waste of your time and energy.

Demonstrations, marches, rallies, postcard writing campaigns, charity donations and sign-ups, banner dropping, occupation, camping out in tents on the street, web log tirades against injustice, Twitter tsunamis, viral web videos, online voting, in fact all of the commonly-undertaken forms of resistance – they don’t work. And all you will get for your trouble is disappointment. And possibly some physical incarceration or a bruise or two if you dare venture outside your door. And the opprobrium of your online forum, should you care to not join in with the staged protest.

If you want to know why political opposition to injustice is not effective, all you have to do is look at the mechanisms that are recognised forms of protest. Anything that provokes the coordinated response of the police forces is going to fail. Anything that takes people away from the production of social goods in their daily work is going to fall flat on its face. Anything that puts a strain on public service is going to step on its own toes.

Don’t be a patsy ! Don’t follow the leadership of those who would encourage you into a street battle with the forces of law and order !

Don’t listen to the instigators, who whisper that the solution to child poverty, inequality, stagnating incomes, lack of dignity in healthcare, lack of social provision, injustices and disgraces is to take part in an event that will inevitably be kettled, cordoned and dispersed by the Metropolitan Police.

Don’t #OccupyLondon #OccupyLSX #OccupyLDN #Occupy. It’s simply a tool of public manipulation. It’s a way to permit a voice to the forces of disquiet, whilst at the same time preventing riots. It’s considered a safe outlet valve for the social pressure resulting from higher unemployment, lower standards of living and huge social budget cuts. It won’t create a new world.

Effective political opposition has to start from another place. Take another angle. Have another form of organisation. Opposition doesn’t have to be rebellion, resistance or rage.

Organisation must be collaborative to create a new reality. Opposition must be incarnated in the construction of a parallel social order, a way of living that subverts by neglecting to follow the unjust practices of the opponents. The Big Society (and here, of course, I don’t mean David Cameron’s “Big Society” which is, as far as I can tell, a mocking travesty, and would have the privatisation of all public services), the True Big Society would create value without money, serve without reward, organise without power, create without destruction, produce without pollution, educate without revisionism, build without enclosure, own without theft.

What do I think about Ed Miliband’s opposition to organised labour strikes ? I think he’s wrong. If you are engaged in the game of employment, you need some mechanisms to retain a balance of power between the employers and the workforce. The unions need tools to make sure that their members are not denied basic human rights, social protection and a living wage. The right to strike to protect the workforce is an essential thing to maintain.

And as for other injustices, we need to retain the right to withhold our labour, our participation, there, too. Don’t buy capitalism – it’s destroying the environment, progressive society and the economy. Don’t shop. Don’t drive. Don’t watch television. Don’t read advertisements. Don’t engage in trivial pursuits – don’t follow celebrities, don’t discuss pop stars, don’t (and this one is going to upset some people) get sucked into the fake competition of football and other widely-reported sports – it’s all a way to keep you from effective political and social engagement. It is, if not bread, at least circus. The television and radio news are propaganda. Even the campaigning organisations and charities are there to soak up your energy and keep you from a productive life.

Remember : they don’t own you, so stop allowing yourself to be wrestled to the ground by people in uniform; and trapped into bowing down to power by the ringleaders of dissent, all bearing uniform ideas.

Don’t pop up a tent at the London Stock Exchange this afternoon. You won’t win anything. Not even fame.

Ed Miliband : Squeezed Middle

Jo — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 21:02:26 +0000

Ed Miliband, leader of the British Labour Party, addressed the pre-party conference cameras in uncustomary casual attire, shelving his favourite suit, dazzlingly shiny tie and white shirt, you know, the one with the fat turned-over cuffs.

He sought to assure the nation that his one man mission is to relieve the financial pressure on the hardworking “squeezed middle” – fighting their corner against the profiteering railway companies and the moneygrabbing energy companies.

The little snippet of BBC TV News 24 that I saw cut to the correspondent raising doubts about whether this cost-of-living protection strategy would have any impact on the wider economy – whether measures to control transport fares and energy bills would create economic growth.

What does this little word “growth” mean to the BBC TV reporter, I asked myself. Does he think it means increasing employment, increasing incomes ? And how could employment be increased ? By increasing the “consumption” of goods, energy, water, transportation and knowledge economy services ? And how can this “aggregate demand” consumption be increased, if unemployment remains high and incomes remain stagnant ?

Allowing the utility and transportation companies to raise their prices allows them to remain profitable and build their businesses, presumably creating employment as well as giving a return to investors – those who have their savings in pension funds – where the fund managers invest in energy and transport. Why not allow energy and transport prices to rise ? People can learn to spend more on these valuable services, surely ? Pensioners will have their funds protected, and energy and transport businesses will stay profitable, paying tax into the state.

By squeezing the profits of the transport and energy companies, Ed Miliband is effectively declaring war on profitmaking, which is the source of most economic growth – these companies can expand and create employment if they are allowed to charge what they like – or rather – what they think are the market rates for their goods and services.

Obviously, some people who are unemployed, or who no longer work full-time because they now have part-time jobs will find rising energy and transport costs a burden, but they’ll just have to adapt and make do – because it’s important to protect business profits. These are hard times, after all. Business leaders desperately need those hotlines to Government Ministers.

Capitalism has hit a brick wall. After extracting the value of the relatively cheaper labour in Asia. After exploiting the mineral resources of Africa at knock-down prices. After the supermarkets and food majors having farmed the soil away. Every single system is suffering entropy.

After having creamed the “base of the pyramid”, giving expensive mortgages to low-paid workers. After having put everyone in debt by credit.

Ignore for the minute that these public services of energy and transport are being provided by private companies. There is much evidence that this arrangement is inefficient and drains public funds into unhealthy economic spending.

However.

What if the prices of transport and energy are affected by fundamental change in the cost of things ? Speculation in technology and manufacturing stocks and shares retreated as globalisation took hold, and moved into property; but the property bubble has now burst, because of the unstable house of cards in financial services.

So, where can roving capital turn to to get rewards, returns on investment ? The international oil and gas markets have seen trading prices rise quite sharply since around 2002. In parallel with increasing energy costs, most mineral commodities and intensively produced food have been climbing. Yet, this is not added value that is being seen, or even the results of intensive speculation. Share prices in agribusiness, metals and energy have been rocketing skywards, but new wealth has not been created, neither have new assets been established.

In agriculture, climate change-related stress, such as unusual temperature variations and water stress have placed fundamental new costs on production. In energy, there is a tight squeeze in the production of good quality crude oil and gas, and companies are venturing into deeper, marine fields, and more energy-intensive lower quality fossil fuels.

Minerals analysis shows that there are looming limits for several key metals, and prices have risen so high, that the very infrastructure of countries is at risk from metal theft. The people stealing the lead from church roofs, the copper from central heating systems, and the cables from railways are part of a burgeoning underclass, impoverished by the continued concentration of wealth in the hands of the metal markets.

It seems that the wealthy are continuing to do well, and the wealthy business class are shredding the implicit social contract that they have – to do good to society and environment – part of corporate responsibility.

To call them “evil corporations”, or “greedy fat cats”, ascribing emotional values and intent doesn’t help.

As the economy contracts under recessive forces, and unemployment and social marginalisation continues, business leaders cannot be expected to take up the slack. They are going to hedge their bets, and ring fence their operations, to stay afloat. As the cost of raw materials and energy rises, and they can no longer shave employment fixed costs, they will need to make staff redundant.

The net result is a larger number of people with less means, facing higher domestic energy bills and transport costs.

If Ed Miliband wants a future Labour Government to protect the weak and bolster the position of the poor, perhaps the only way to keep the prices of social goods affordable – things such as energy, transport, water, telecommunications, food – is to nationalise their production.

Society needs to be ordered so that none are in want or need. Ed Miliband issued this Tweet : “The way Britain is run lets people down and holds our country back – but powerful interests seem to do what they want.” One Twitter user @DarkestAngeL31, replied “And when is @Ed_Miliband going to stop talking about the ‘squeezed middle’ and start talking about the crushed bottom?”

What I Do, I Do For My Country

Jo — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 15:25:26 +0000

Recently, pro-nuclear, anti-wind power climate change-sceptic and early publisher of Resurgence magazine, Hugh Sharman, announced to the Claverton Energy Research Group forum that he had been published in European Energy Review. “The clock is ticking”, reads the headline, “Energy policy has become a hotly debated topic in the UK. No country in Europe has more ambitious climate change goals. But the UK has taken few concrete steps yet. It is estimated that £200 billion is required until 2020 to start the UK on the its energy transformation. [...] Energy Secretary Chris Huhne is expected to come out with a White Paper setting out the framework that should persuade utilities and investors to sign on to the government’s vision. Will it work? Energy consultant Hugh Sharman has grave doubts. With some like-minded specialists, he has started a website bringing together people who are alarmed at the UK’s energy situation. He [...] sketches a sombre perspective…”

In his piece, Hugh pokes sticks at the UK Government (which a number of people do, all the time, regardless of which party is in power). “7 July 2011 : The coming UK energy meltdown : By Hugh Sharman : The UK desperately needs a new energy strategy based on a realistic assessment of its assets, its needs and the options available to it. Unfortunately, its freedom for technical and financial manoevre is deeply restricted by its self-imposed Climate Change Act and its commitment to the EU’s 20-20-20 targets. Its technically illiterate, if financially canny politicians and civil service do not appear to understand that the world’s financiers are not likely to place the required £200 billion of long-term investment into their vision of a “low carbon” infrastructure while this concept remains so woolly and badly defined. If the UK government continues on this course, it will lead the country toward certain energy failure…”

I agree that the statistics are poor regarding the technical training of the British Civil Service and the UK Parliament. The country’s governance could scarcely be less science, engineering and technology-aware, and they seem to believe anything that’s put in front of them. And those with the largest public relations budgets usually succeed in being the ones to put things in front of them. And sometimes, the “revolving door” is in operation, and the people who put things in front of the government for consideration used to be in the government :-

http://www.aeat.co.uk/cms/aea-recruits-leading-international-climate-change-expert-2/“7 July 2011 : AEA recruits leading International Climate Change Expert : AEA has appointed Chris Dodwell as Knowledge Leader in International Energy and Climate Change. Chris joins AEA from the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change where he was Head of International Climate Policy…”

I agree with Hugh Sharman that the UK needs a plan for energy, “a new energy strategy based on a realistic assessment of its assets, its needs and the options available to it”; however, as I voiced to him in an e-mail :-

“…I do not agree with you when you say that the UK’s “freedom for technical and financial manoevre is deeply restricted by its self-imposed Climate Change Act and its commitment to the EU’s 20-20-20 targets”…”

“…The aims and ambitions of the Climate Change Act are completely parallel to the aims and ambitions of Energy Security, and in fact, the concrete actions to be taken are exactly the same. With a joined-up suite of energy security policies, it would be possible to (a) turn around the profligate waste of North Sea oil and gas (b) reduce imports of oil, coal and gas and (c) not be “flapping about” trying to attract energy investment to the UK…”

“..What are these Energy Security measures ? These include Energy conservation, end-use electricity demand management, substitution of liquid and gaseous fossil fuels with those of biological origin, wind power, solar power, geological/atmospheric/kinetic energy storage…”

“…The European Union, by the way, are ahead of the game in researching the full potential of Renewable Gas. Several car manufacturers and their pet universities have been looking at the business of making liquid vehicle fuels from mostly biomass feedstocks and have come up with pretty similar proposals…”

Hugh Sharman kindly provided me with a copy of his article, and it contained a number of things to commend it – as well as some things I could never agree to because they appear to me to be incorrect. There was some spin on a number of things which annoyed me, one of which was his dismissal of the solar Feed-in-Tariff scheme, after taking a swipe at the Renewable Energy Obligation which preceded it :-

“…The typical value of an ROC to any renewable energy generator since it was launched has been between £30 and £50; it is the subsidy the generator receives on top of the market price. So far, this subsidy has cost consumers £5 billion, with £1 billion in 2010 alone. This is set to rise exponentially to £7 billion per year by 2020, representing an accumulated transfer from consumers to (mostly) wind developers of roughly £40 billion – enough money to pay for a respectably sized nuclear capacity. So far this incentive is delivering only 6.5% of the UK’s electricity whereas the target for 2010 was 10%. The transparent failure of this incentivization programme to achieve its targets should have given the in-coming Government some warning. Instead, it ploughs on regardless, introducing continental–style feed-in tariff (FITs) for roof top PV (annual capacity factor about 6%) costing consumers anything up to 40p/kWh. This is a great way to further transfer funds from poor consumers to rich house owners. None of these renewable energy sources will deliver any firm capacity…”

I disagree completely – the solar photovoltaic assets that are being created by Feed in Tariffs across Europe are delivering “firm capacity”. It’s true that there are weather-related, diurnal, seasonal and cloud-related variation in the solar power that is supplied, but it is definitely displacing fossil fuel use – measurably so, so it’s disingenuous to claim that solar power doesn’t provide power that can be relied on.

There is a thread running through public discourse, principally on the theatrical stage of the news press, claiming that renewable energy doesn’t work. It is a ridiculous, damaging claim, and undermines progress. This kind of negative myth is only one of the things damaging the uptake of solar electricity, but the key thing limiting growth is the very small base from which the technology starts. There are very few solar power installations, and the Feed in Tariff is a good way to incentivise more.

In a further e-mail to Hugh Sharman, I commented :-

“…I’m going solar. That’s where we should all go, FiT or no FiT. I’m not a “rich” property owner, I’m just a homeowner, and I think the FiT is an excellent way to grow the UK’s energy generation capacity, regardless of who gets the FiT payments [...] I know it seems like the FiT is a redirection of tax revenue into only certain peoples’ pockets, but I’m entitled to some compensation for carrying a generating station on my roof, I think. But because of your accusations that only the rich will benefit from the FiT, I’m going to donate some of the proceeds to a charity that fits solar on the roofs of social organisations or hospitals or whatever I can find. With care, I have cut my energy bills by around 30%, so that gain is mine, but the FiT I can share. People won’t fit solar PV to their roofs without some help, and the FiT is the way to justify it to them. You can’t go round offering people the full capital cost of a low carbon installation – the country couldn’t afford it. The FiT is ideal – it makes the “opex” turn in a positive direction, so that people feel that the initial “capex” is worth it…”

What I’m about to do, I do for my country. Fitting solar photovoltaics to my roof is my contribution towards saving the taxpayers and energy bill payers the cost of massive subsidies for new nuclear power stations.

I am going to host part of the nation’s new distributed solar power station on my roof, and pay to do so. I think it’s only fair that I receive a small amount of public finance as compensation for the inconvenience of generating the nation’s power.

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[ UPDATE : NOTES FROM THE CLAVERTON ENERGY RESEARCH GROUP FORUM ]

Subject: Gregor Czisch’s European supergrid book out now
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 11:51:52 +0100
From: Herbert Eppel
To: Claverton Discussion

The hot off the press publication of Gregor Czisch’s European supergrid masterpiece (which my team translated into English) is very timely [...]

http://www.theiet.org/publishing/books/renewable/scenarios.cfm

As we know, Gregor demonstrates that an electricity system based 100% on renewables is not only possible but also cheaper than options involving nuclear.

Regards

Best wishes

Herbert Eppel

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On 10 July 2011 13:36, Hugh Sharman wrote:

Thanks.

I wish I could put a scintilla of trust in Gregor’s super-grid! But I cannot.

I strongly recommend you and Claverton to discuss Paul-Frederik’s masterly analysis of wind power and its ramifications here in DK and all around, including our malfunctioning, already constructed Nordic “super-grid” at

http://www.pfbach.dk/firma_pfb/statistical_survey_2010.pdf

Hugh

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From: Dave Andrews
Sent: 10 July 2011 12:55
To: Hugh Sharman; Claverton Supergrid group
Subject: Re: Fwd: Gregor Czisch’s European supergrid book out now

Hugh – can you explain what possible relevance analysing the Nordic Supergrid can have to the Czisch super grid?

The Czisch scenario areas is far far larger than the Nordic supergrid, which connects several areas with different weather systems, time zones and load shapes, and shares all of Europe’s existing hydro, and needs to be analysed as such, not by reference to Paul’s analysis…which I have not doubt is a good one.

To criticise Czisch from a scientific point of view you need to read the Czisch book and state where it is in error.

Kind Regards

Dave Andrews

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To: Claverton Energy Discussion
From: David Hirst
Sent: 10 July 2011 16:07:51

Paul-Frederick’s paper is a good statistical analysis of the workings of the Danish system, as it currently stands. A helpful, constructive and thoughtful piece of work. It also analyses the Norwegian hydro system status, and so provides good evidence of the limits to which this hydro can act as a battery for the rest of Europe (one day).

There is good evidence that depending on wind will produce times (and days) of low wind, and so low output, even over large (even continental) areas. This is a key issue for wind, and is, I think, well recognised in most literature. The system needs to be engineered to cope at as low a cost as possible, and with as few emissions (CO2 and other) as possible. There is no doubt that filling these gaps will need technology, some of which can come from demand participation. Participation will need new thinking, in political, social as well as technical areas.

This is challenging, and needs creative and constructive, forward looking thinking. Many in Claverton do this, and aim to contribute and explain aspects of possible solutions. Most of which will play a part. Paul-Frederick’s paper gives some helpful analysis against which one can test possible solutions.

Sharman does not do this at all. His criticism is unconstructive, unhelpful, and cynical. It reads like a dictator’s manifesto. It condemns everybody and everything, and attacks the easiest targets (like forecasts or government policy), without offering any sort of constructive criticism or solutions. It does so using derogatory and emotive language. And subverts statistics by being highly selective in the ones he quotes. So far as I can tell, what he wants is no wind and lots of nuclear, but is not so honest as to make that clear.

It is a shame he cannot be despatched like NoW [The News of the World newspaper]

David

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The Dearth of Sense

Jo — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:31:58 +0000

While everybody’s busy discussing ethics in the media, today’s been a great day to bury bad news – the shelving of the Energy Bill – and with it the Green Deal, the only hope Britain had left of economic recovery in the short-term.

And what of the Electricity Market Reform white paper and the National Policy Statements on energy ? Into the round wastepaper-bin-shaped recycling receptacle, possibly.

What next ? The revocation of the Climate Change Act and the dissolution of the Committee on Climate Change ?

I don’t know whether I should make overt political statements, but I think this news sugar ices the brioche, so I will : David Cameron’s “greenest government ever” has failed.

We need Van Jones, right here, right now.

George Monbiot : New Clear

Jo — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 10:31:13 +0000

It is a newer, clearer tone that George Monbiot uses in his piece “The nuclear industry stinks. But that is not a reason to ditch nuclear power“. He seems to have lost his dirty annoyance with filthy anti-nuclear activists and moved onto a higher plane of moral certitude, where the air is cleaner and more refined.

He is pro-technology, but anti-industry. For him, the privately owned enterprises of atomic energy are the central problem that has led to accidents both of a radioactive and an accountancy nature. “Corporate power ?”, he asks, “No thanks.” The trouble is, you can’t really separate the failings of nuclear power from the failings of human power. It’s such a large, complex and dangerous enterprise that inevitably, human power systems compromise the use of the technology, regardless of whether they are publicly or privately owned. For a small amount of evidence, just look at the history of publicly-managed nuclear power in the United Kingdom. Not exactly peachy. And as for those who claimed that a “free” market approach to managing nuclear power would improve matters – how wrong they were. In my view, on the basis of the evidence so far, nobody can claim that nuclear power can be run as an efficient, safe, profit-making venture.

Added to that, even with moves towards privatisation and market liberalisation, though it’s assets were transfered to private ownership, and it’s liabilities left with the citizens, privately-owned nuclear power could never shake off the responsibilities it owed to the state, and it never will. As George says, it’s “far too close to government”. There is an automatic accountability built in to running such an invasive and risky electricity generation system. The UK Government recognises it can never fully devolve responsibility for nuclear power to private operators – it is preparing to take nuclear power companies into state administration if they fail financially – as part of the new Energy Bill and Electricity Market Reform policies.

So that means, that in addition to a raft of stealth and open taxpayer support for new nuclear power, there is, embedded and hinted at in these new regulations, the assurance that if the nuclear power industry continues to fail, it will be re-nationalised, and the private operators will not have to bear the financial losses. Nuclear power investment is being set up to become financially secure, even if it continues to be physically insecure. This deal will be worse than the generous arrangements made under the privatised construction industry – which built piles of energy-poor shoddy public buildings at ongoing extortionate cost.

The lack of transparency about this new nuclear deal, and the inevitable wrangling, is bound to lead to poor outcomes. As George says, “It is through such collusion that accidents happen.” So it’s rather strange that he calls for the guardrail that “new generation of nuclear power stations should be built only with unprecedented scrutiny and transparency”, when all the evidence points to the conclusion that it can never be done. You cannot have nuclear power without the spin, it seems, so George will not win change by “favouring the machines and opposing the machinations”.

We do have to work on the basis of evidence in technology. When I say “technology”, I don’t mean the science – they are entirely different things. Yes, nuclear power designs can be verified by the science of theoretical physics and improved by engineering expertise, but the factual evidence from over 50 years of nuclear power technology is that the industry, as George Monbiot puts it, “a bunch of arm-twisting, corner-cutting scumbags”, invariably misses the safety, productivity and engineering standards that one would hope would be expected from it based on scientific recommendations. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s privately or publicly managed. This suggests it’s not corporate mismanagement that’s always at fault, but rather the human management of the nuclear power technology itself. What we are trying to achieve with nuclear power may be too complex to be stable with humans in charge.

The learning process in nuclear technology has produced some gains, and George Monbiot is confident that, “Today’s technologies are safer still”. The central problem with this hopeful, optimistic, technodream argument is that it will still be Homer Simpson managing the day-to-day operations at nuclear power plants. The other central problem (since it’s a multi-piered core) is that the unexpected keeps happening in nuclear power. But so does the expected. Tritium gas build-up in pressurised water reactors was a known, calculated problem, but how is it that leaks are still occurring ? Have we not mastered this ? Will we ever be able to ?

I do not think we can ever be absolutely sure of nuclear power, regardless of developments. What the people in the management of the industry have said has not been backed up by facts on the ground, nor by the confidential whistleblowing reports of the engineers.

A large nuclear accident would be a catastrophe, but the chances of it occurring are slim, although Fukushima Daiichi proved they’re fatter than we were led to trust. However, the two most certain risks posed by nuclear power are its unreliability and its cost, neither of which have been improved after over half a century of development.

Nuclear has not provided, and Germany has decided it cannot provide. George Monbiot repeats the erroneous logic that because Germany has cancelled its nuclear programme, and is building more fossil fuel plants, that their carbon emissions will rise, “Angela Merkel announced a possible doubling of the capacity of the coal and gas plants Germany will build in the next 10 years”. What he neglects to factor in is that with the rapid rise of renewable energy in Germany, the new coal and gas plants will only be needed for the equivalent of a few weeks each year to back up wind and solar power in inclement weather conditions. He says “The renewable technologies which should have replaced fossil fuels will instead replace nuclear power.” In fact, what will happen is that Germany’s well-funded renewable energy technology deployment programme will replace both – when load balancing is improved and backup for renewable power becomes obselete.

George Monbiot makes a poor argument about energy demand reduction. “But even with a massive cut in overall demand, getting the carbon out of transport and heating means increasing electricity supply.” Getting the carbon out of transport requires either (a) massive production of biofuels or (b) rapid conversion of the entire vehicle fleet to electrical power, at massive cost to the public, coupled with a massive rapid increase in low carbon power generation. Can nuclear power provide ?

Personally, I don’t see low carbon biofuel production growing very much. And as for speed in growing renewable power supply, well, that’s pretty much scuppered by low ambition currently, and anti-wind farm sentiment. Nuclear power can never be built at speed, so it rules itself out of the strategy. No, getting carbon out of transport requires rationalisation of transportation – so more re-localisation of food production and service provision. And it also requires the refitting of vehicles currently in use to run on compressed biogas.

And as for George Monbiot’s argument that nuclear power is required to provide heating services, well, the “Centre for Alternative Technology’s radical and optimistic plan” that he cites doesn’t assume nuclear power for that task. The rule is “insulation, insulation, insulation”, and you won’t find nuclear power making up much more than a tiny slice of the CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain projection.

As for George recommending “fourth generation technologies” in nuclear power, I’d like him to point us to a single instance where these technologies have been tried, succeeded and are likely to be rolled out further. Generation Three technologies are not magnificent perfomers, so can we expect better of Generation Four ? Only the nuclear industry public relations firms are sure on that one.

And finally, George Monbiot gives the impression that besides Fukushima Daiichi, all the rest of the Japanese nuclear power plants are safe, tidy and wonderful when he writes, “The best evidence for the safety and resilience of nuclear power plants can be found at Fukushima. Not at Fukushima Dai-ichi, the power station where the meltdowns and explosions took place, but at Fukushima Dai-ni, the plant next door. You’ve never heard of it? There’s a good reason for that. It was run by the same slovenly company. It was hit by the same earthquake and the same tsunami. But it survived. Like every other nuclear plant struck by the wave, it went into automatic cold shutdown.” Massive earthquakes and tsunamis are rare, but ordinary everyday failings are sadly, rather common. In addition, two thirds of those reactors that failed on 11th March 2011, are still not operational again. The closer George Monbiot looks at the nuclear power industry, the more faults he will see.

http://www.monbiot.com/2011/07/01/nuclear-power-the-big-debate/
“Nuclear Power – The Big Debate : George Monbiot : On Thursday 7th July, I’ll be thrashing out the issues with Greenpeace and others. Come along if you can…”