Energy Change for Climate Control
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  • Wind Powers #1 : Civitas Fictitious ?

    Posted on January 12th, 2012 Jo 2 comments

    [ An extract from the online Christian Ecology Link discussion forum : 11th January 2012 ]

    The Civitas report on wind farms.

    A couple of days ago, Civitas published a report entitled, “Electricity costs: the folly of wind-power” : http://www.civitas.org.uk/press/prleaelectricityprices.htm [ Download report PDF ]

    This report was produced by the Civitas economist, Ruth Lea. The report attracted a fair bit of publicity and even more antagonism from those within the renewables industry. Sadly, as usual the media have done rather less research than they should have; in particular they failed to check the background of the authorities quoted, though the Guardian did point to Lea’s views on climate change.

    The following YouTube link leads to Ruth Lea denying the significance of anthropogenic climate change and the ‘flaws’ in Britain’s expensive climate change legislation. She uses all the same sad old errors and, in so doing, limits her credibility as an effective researcher : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvmgUYGgqwU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcFfxUIRbyo

    Her comments seem to be straight out of the Chicago School mythology that economics overrides nature – the view of many scientifically illiterates.

    But it gets better, she quotes, as an authority, Dr Kees le Pair, but fails to mention that he is a member of the ‘Committee of Recommendation’ of the Fusion Energy Foundation. The development of nuclear fusion, if it happens, will require very significant investment, investment that could, perhaps, otherwise be made in wind farms and other renewables so there is an important conflict of interest that has been wholly ignored : http://www.fusionenergyfoundation.org/about-us

    This matters to all of us because it shows the dangerous level of uncritical evaluation that is made of so called scientific reports and information sources. I still remember the days past when research involved trips to libraries and hours of reading and, unless, the library had an academic connection, new information would not have been easily available.

    Perhaps it was the more difficult nature of research that made the media, and much of its audience, that much more careful. The advent of the Internet has provided for rapid transmission of information, straight to your computer or even your smartphone, but apparently at the cost of critical evaluation. So much information is available that even report writers seem to fail to check the background of their sources or the veracity of the information given by that source. Yet, that same Internet provides the means of checking and it’s far less tedious than back in the days of library visits.

    Careful use of a search engine can throw up evidence of partiality and YouTube can often confirm background beliefs that have overridden scientific evidence if not common sense. It’s not just
    in reports such as this one from Civitas but also within so many anti this, that and the other environmental groups that plague the Internet.

    Look carefully at Occupy, for example, and dig deeply enough, you will find some truly amazing YouTube material on the way in which the City of London is a part of worldwide Zionism that is somehow linked with the Vatican and Knights Templar ! Did you know that the Bank of England is owned by the Rothschilds ? The Internet, as well as giving freer voice to information also gives voice to conspiracy theorists and to the murk of prejudice. Just as it is both wrong and dangerous to spread unfounded rumours so it is to spread disinformation, so please use your search engine, take a little time and then critically assess whether this information that you have been given is likely to be both accurate and honest.

    RT

  • Open Letter to Renewable Energy Deniers

    Posted on January 10th, 2012 Jo 2 comments

    To all Renewable Energy Deniers,

    Things are getting so much better with renewable energy engineering and deployment – why do you continue to think it’s useless ?

    We admit that, at the start, energy conversion efficiencies were low, wind turbine noise was significant, kit was expensive. Not now. Wind and solar farms have been built, data collected and research published. Design modifications have improved performance.

    Modelling has helped integrate renewable energy into the grids. As renewable energy technologies have been deployed at scale, and improvements and adjustments have been made, and electricity grid networks have adapted to respond to the variable nature of the wind and the sunshine, we know, and we can show you, that renewable energy is working.

    It’s not really clear what motivates you to dismiss renewable energy. Maybe it’s because you’re instinctively opposed to anything that looks like it comes from an “envionmentalist” perspective.

    Maybe because renewable energy is mandated to mitigate against climate change, and you have a persistent view that climate change is a hoax. Why you mistrust the science on global warming when you accept the science on everything else is a continuing mystery to me.

    But if that’s where you’re coming from when you scorn developments in renewable energy, you’re making a vital mistake. You see, renewable energy is sustainable energy. Despite any collapse in the globalised economy, or disruption to fossil fuel production, wind turbines will keep spinning, and solar panels will keep glowing.

    Climate change has been hard to communicate effectively – it’s a huge volume of research, it frequently appears esoteric, or vague, or written by boffins with their heads in the clouds. Some very intelligent people are still not sure about the finer points of the effects of global warming, and so you’re keeping good company if you reserve judgement on some of the more fringe research.

    But attacking renewable energy is your final stand. With evidence from the engineering, it is rapidly becoming clear that renewable energy works. The facts are proving you wrong.

    And when people realise you’re wrong about renewable energy, they’ll never believe you again. They won’t listen to you when you express doubts about climate change, because you deny the facts of renewable energy.

    Those poor fools who have been duped into thinking they are acting on behalf of the environment to campaign against wind farms ! Wind energy will be part of the backbone of the energy grids of the future.

    We don’t want and we can’t afford the concrete bunkers of deadly radioactive kettles and their nasty waste. We don’t want and we can’t afford the slag heaps, dirty air and melting Arctic that comes from burning coal for power. We don’t want and we can’t afford to keep oil and Natural Gas producing countries sweet – or wage war against them to keep the taps open.

    Instead we want tall and graceful spinners, their gentle arms waving electricity from the breeze. We want silent and dark photovoltaic cladding on every roof.

    Burning things should only be done to cover for intermittency in wind and sunshine. Combustion is very inefficient, yet you support combustion when you oppose renewable energy.

    We must fight waste in energy, and the rising cost of energy, and yet you don’t support the energy resources where there is no charge for fuel. Some would say that’s curmudgeonly.

    When you oppose renewable energy, what is it you’re fighting for ? The old, inefficient and poisonous behemoths of coal hell ? We who support renewable, sustainable energy, we exchange clunky for sleek, toxic for clean. We provide light and comfort to all, rich and poor.

    When you oppose renewable energy, you are being unbelievably gullible – you have swallowed an argument that can ruin our economy, by locking us into dependency on energy imports. You are passing up the chance to break our political obedience to other countries, all because wind turbines clutter up your panoramic view when you’re on holiday.

    You can question the net energy gain from wind power, but the evidence shows you to be incorrect.

    If you criticise the amount of investment and subsidy going into renewable energy, you clearly haven’t understood the net effect of incentivisation in new technology deployment.

    Renewable energy has a positive Net Present Value. Wind turbines and solar panels are genuine assets, unlike the liabilities that are coal-fired power stations and nuclear reactors.

    Renewable energy deployment will create meaningful, sustainable employment and is already creating wealth, not only in financial terms, but in social welfare terms too.

    Renewable energy will save this country, so why do you knock it ?

    Quizzically yours,

  • Eco-Socialism #1 : Public Service, Private Profit

    Posted on January 8th, 2012 Jo No comments

    Public infrastructure and utilities are the skeleton of the national economy; the spokes of the wheel; the walls of the house.

    Private corporations can in many cases put muscle on the body, a tyre on the bike, and furnish the rooms, but without the basic public provision, private enterprise cannot thrive.

    Without taxes being raised – asking everybody for their appropriate contribution – there would be no guaranteed health service, education system, roads, water supplies, power networks.

    Federal or central government spending is essential, and often goes without question or inspection – including subsidies, cheap government loans, tax breaks and even rule-bending and regulatory exemption for specific sectors of the economy. This policy lenience also applies to private companies that take on the provision of public utilities.

    This explicit, but often glossed-over, support for public services means that private business can rely on this national infrastructure. Small businesses can rely on a power supply and waste disposal services, for example. Large businesses can rely on a functioning postal service and road network.

    It is questionable whether for-profit enterprise would be able to survive without the basic taxation-funded provision of public services and utilities.

    I can understand why governments feel the need to get public spending off the balance sheet, and outsource public utilities to the private sector.

    There is a lingering belief that private enterprise makes public services more efficient; makes manufacturing more reliable; makes construction better quality.

    In some cases, this belief in privatisation is justified. Where companies can genuinely compete with each other, there can be efficiencies at scale. However, the success of privatisation is not universal.

    Many parts of a developed economy are monolithic – there is no real competition possible. You get electricity through your power socket from a variety of production companies – you cannot choose. The road between your house and your office is always the same road – you don’t choose between different tarmac suppliers. Your local hospital is your local hospital, regardless of who owns and runs it – you have no choice about who that is – and the government contract tendering process is not something open to a public vote.

    Added to this lack of competition, in some cases, it is impossible to make a profit by operating a public service by a private concern.

    There should be no rock under which private business can hide when it claims to be operating profitable train and bus services – without public subsidies, public transport cannot be run at a profit.

    Liability for daily operations may have been outsourced to the British private train companies, but not the full cost of the services. Costs for locally-sourced services cannot be driven down because they cannot be made fully open to global competition.

    By contrast, the globalisation of labour has been making manufacturing industry significantly cheaper for decades.

    In order for globalised trade to work, finance has to be liberated from its nation-bound shackles, and so along with the globalisation of labour to nations where it’s cheapest, there has been the globalisation of finance, to the tax regimes less punitive.

    The globalisation of trade is a two-way bargain between those that want to see the development of primitive economies and those who want to create wealth for their companies and their shareholders.

    Globalisation has created a booming China, for example, and filled the pockets of any Western company that imports from China.

    However, the tide of globalisation has reached the shore, and the power of the waves is being stilled by solid earth realities. Labour costs in previously under-developed economies are starting to rise significantly, as those economies start to operate internal markets as well as maintain export-led growth.

    It could soon be cheaper to have manufacturing labour in the United States of America than China. But when that happens a curious problem will arise. Manufacturing industry has been closed down in the so-called industrialised countries – as companies have taken their factories to the places with the cheapest labour and the most lax tax.

    Wealth creation potential in developed countries has been destroyed. And it is for this reason that Western governments feel the urgent need to privatise everything, because their economies are collapsing internally, and public budgets may no longer be able to sustain current government spending.

    However, privatisation doesn’t work for everything. It doesn’t work for health, education, water, public transport. The European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a vehicle to compensate for agricultural sectors than cannot make a profit. I would contend privatisation doesn’t work for the energy supply and distribution sector either – but for a special reason.

    Normally, it is possible to run energy stations at a profit. The privatised sector inherited power stations and grid networks that were fully functioning, and the sales of power and Natural Gas were almost pure profit.

    However, much energy plant needs to be lifecycled after decades of use – replacements are in order, and this demands heavy public investment, in the form of subsidies, or pricing controls, or tax breaks or some such financial aid, in order to avoid crippling the private companies.

    Like the rail network, there is direct public investment in the power grids. This is to support new access for new energy plant. However, I think this doesn’t go far enough. I would argue that much more public tax-and-spend is required in the energy sector.

    In future, most electricity generation needs to become low carbon and indigenous. The primary reason for this is the volatility of the globalised economy – it will no longer be possible to assume that imports of coal, Natural Gas and oil for power station combustion can be afforded – especially in economies like the United Kingdom, where much wealth creation has been destroyed by de-industrialisation.

    It used to be easy to ignore this – as the North Sea was so productive in oil and Natural Gas that the UK was a net energy exporter. This is no longer the case.

    To avoid the risk of national impoverishment, energy independence is dictated, spelled out by a deflating British economy and by the depleting North Sea reserves.

    The easiest and fastest way to a power supply that is low carbon is by healthy investment in wind power and solar power. Yet with the turbulence in the global economy, spending on renewable energy has also been rocky.

    Now is the time for the UK Government to stop tickling corporate underbellies to get them to invest in British energy, and to start collected tax revenues to spend explicitly on the energy revival.

    It can be “matched” funding – the Renewables Obligation, for example, has drawn in massive levels of private investment into wind power. And the feed-in tariff scheme for solar photovoltaics had, until recently, been pulling in high levels of personal individual and private company investment.

    This is the kind of public-private financing that works – create a slightly tilted playing field to tip the flow of money towards new energy investment, and watch the river flow.

    Without public money ploughed into public infrastructure in non-profitable areas such as public transport and energy, private enterprise will not be able to make a contribution – they would quickly bankrupt themselves.

    The result of capping public subsidies for renewable energy is a halt to renewable energy deployment. Those who resist wind farms are in effect destroying the country. Those who cap public subsidies for solar power want to break the nation.

    We need socalist financing of new energy technology deployment, for the future wealth of our country.

  • Alchemic for the people

    Posted on January 2nd, 2012 Jo No comments

    I was less than a metre above current sea level, rooting about in the holy bookshelves of my Evangelical host, searching for a suitable title.

    I pulled out “Who Made God ?” from underneath a pile of books on their sides, letting the column slump downwards, alerting my companions to the fact that I had definitively made my choice for the evening’s reading.

    We were treated to gentle Christmassy music for an hour or so as we all gave up talking to read by candlelight and compact fluorescent.

    I didn’t read fast, as at first I didn’t have my newly-necessary reading glasses, and when I was encouraged to fetch them, the light was too dim to make reading easy. Those fashionable uplighters.

    I read into the second part, and I had already formed in my mind several disagreements with the author, Professor Edgar Andrews, despite him having taken several good lines of reasoning and made some humourous points which I had duly responded to with a slight audible giggle.

    I instinctively didn’t like his pitch about the impossibility of organic chemistry and I froze a little : personally I see no need for God’s personal, literal, physical intervention to make the ladders and spirals of genes – the DNA and RNA forming from the appropriate nucleotide bases – A, T, G, C.

    And then the book’s author blew away his credibility, for me, at least, by getting bogged down in the absolutes of Physics, and ignoring Chemistry. He quoted the Laws of Thermodynamics, and claimed Entropy as proof that God doesn’t play dice because he’s in the garage playing mechanic. The direction of the universe, the arrow of time, plays towards randomness, the author of the book proclaimed. Order cannot come from inorganic matter – Life is the organising force.

    At this, I took several forms of dispute, and immediately found in my mind the perfect counter-example – the formation of crystals from saturated solution – the building of the stalgamite and stalagtite from the sedimentary filtering of rainwater. Another example, I think, is chiral forms of molecular compounds – some chemicals behave in different ways if formed lefthandedly or righthandedly. The different forms behave predictably and consistently and this is an ordered behaviour that I believe – without the necessary university instruction in Chemistry – is an imposed denial of chaos.

    In fact, the whole of Chemistry, its world of wonder in alchemy, I think points to a kind of natural negation of the Laws of Physics. There is the Micro World, where Newton, and more introspectively, Einstein, are correct in their theoretical pragmas. But in the Macro World, there is Chemistry, and there are precursor compounds to organic essentials. Life forms itself from dead stone. For a Physicist this is “just not cricket”, it is a whole new universe.

    Why can Aluminium be used for containers in microwave ovens, but steel cannot ? And why is Aluminium so light ? Why does water expand when it freezes ? Here the Physicists can help out. But they cannot, when it comes to explaining, or even accurately predicting, all the chemical properties of alloys and compounds.

    I have been pondering, in a crude, uneducated way, about industrial chemistry for the last couple of months. How large volume reactions are encouraged, catalysed. How fluids work. How gases breathe. My conclusion is that most chemical engineering is a bit brutish, like the workings of the internal combustion engine. Things are a tad forced. It is probably not possible for chemical engineers to replicate photosynthesis entirely – it’s too dainty for them. But that is the kind of chemistry we need to overcome our climate and energy problems.

    We may not be able to match the leaves on the trees, but we can do gas chemistry and electricity and semiconductor physics, and it is gas chemistry and electricity and semiconductor physics that will save the planet. Electricity to replace much fuel. Semiconductor physics to bypass photosynthesis. And Renewable Gas chemistry – engineering the chemical building blocks of the future and providing backup to the other green energies.

  • The Storm

    Posted on December 30th, 2011 Jo No comments

    On my Christmas journey, on the train from Brussels, Belgium, to the Dutch border, besides the wind turbines, I counted the number of solar electric rooftop installations I could see. My estimate was that roughly 300 kilowatts of solar could be seen from the track.

    There has been an explosion of deployment. The renewable energy policies that are behind this tide of photovoltaics in Flanders seem to be working, or have been until recently.

    On my journey back from Holland to England, I pondered about the polders and the low-lying landscape around me. I don’t know what river it was we crossed, but the river was only held in place by narrow banks or dikes, as it was higher than the farmland around it – waterlogged fields in some places – where parcels of land were divided by stillwater ditches instead of hedges or fences.

    “Oh no, we don’t have “Mary Poppins” on Dutch TV any more at Christmas every year like we used to. We’re going to see the film “The Storm”…” said my host. Curiouser and curiouser. “De Storm” is a film that harks back to an actual historical event, the major North Sea flooding in 1953. “I remember what it was like afterwards,” says an older English relative, “I visited Belgium and Holland with my aunt and uncle just after the flooding – he wanted to visit the family war graves. We stayed in Middelburg. You could see how high the water reached. There were tide marks this high on the side of the houses, and whelks left stuck on the walls.”

    The film attempts to nail down the coffin casket lid of bad weather history. By telling the narrative of major, fearful floods of the past, people are distracted from the possibility that it may happen again. History is history, and the story tells the ending, and that’s a finish to it.

    However, for some people, those people who know something of the progress of the science of global warming, this film is like a beacon – a flare on a rocky landing strip – lighting the way to the future crash of the climate and the rising of sea levels, which will bring havoc to The Netherlands, Dutch engineers or no Dutch engineers.

    We have to be prepared for change, major change. If you or anyone you know has Dutch relatives and friends, think about whether you can invite them to live with you in future if things get really bad. One or two really bad storms combined with excessive tides and a few centimetres of sea level rise could be all it takes to wreck the country’s ability to organise water and destroy a significant amount of agricultural land.

    “I’ve been studying Climate Change science”, I told another host. “You believe in Climate Change ?”, he asked, somewhat incredulously. “It’s 200 years of science”, I replied, smiling, “but we probably shouldn’t discuss it. I don’t think it would be very productive.”

  • First Arcticane of Wintertide

    Posted on December 8th, 2011 Jo No comments

    Image Credit : Copyright 2011 EUMETSAT

    Something not completely dissimilar to a hurricane or a typhoon has been gusting at incredibly high speeds through the lowlands of Scotland today – and further afield.

    Yet, regardless of whether this heralds the start of a proper snow-and-ice winter, it’s not likely to prevent 2011 being one of the hottest years ever.

    July and August, worldwide, were nearly the hottest on record in 2011. Meanwhile, the Blob Chart tells the story in a way that nobody can deny.

    Meanwhile, in Durban, South Africa, the world’s governments struggle to make sense. A healthy economy is a carbon-emitting economy – because industrial energy causes high carbon emissions. What needs to happen is that the energy production businesses start to diversify their portfolio – increasing the amount of energy they produce from renewable, sustainable low carbon resources, whilst decreasing the amount of fossil fuel energy they supply.

    It can’t be left to individual “big hitters” to kick-start the renewable energy revolution – it requires transnational, international, multi-national and national energy companies to start to displace carbon from their products.

    If they don’t, they will face mass disinvestment, as ethical concerns rise up the agenda of investor groups and funds. So, BP, Shell and Exxon Mobil – if you don’t start switching from selling us hydrocarbons to selling us renewable energy, your businesses will under-compete. You have been notified.

  • Fossilised Minds : That’s Britain !

    Posted on December 3rd, 2011 Jo 2 comments

    Also, see another word cloud and another.

    I had the most dire misfortune to have sat through a television marvel on Wednesday – BBC One’s “That’s Britain”, which contained, in one short dumb-downed programme, enough propaganda about energy to warrant my total disdain.

    I had never seen this televisual abomination before, and I was amused at the opportunities for cynicism in audience participation. It is possible to e-mail the producers of the show with the subject heading of those things that annoy you the most.

    They call this activity “talking to the wall”, and they create a “word cloud” from the e-mail traffic several times during the course of the programme and discuss the results.

    Standing adroitly in front of the “wall” to not quite conceal the phrases “The Wall” and “That’s Britain”, which indicated that not all viewers are fans of the programme, the presenters batted between them disparaging thoughts on wind turbines – since “wind turbines” were almost as unpopular as “dog poo”.

    One wind farm, apparently, had been issued with a Noise Abatement Order !

    The solution to noisy wind turbines, they claimed with a snort, whinny and jeer, had been found – turn them off when it’s windy !

    They allowed the cognitive dissonance of this statement to ring in peoples’ minds. You, the audience, are intelligent. You know that wind turbines are designed to work when the wind blows. So, turning off wind turbines when the wind is blowing makes them useless.

    And then, almost immediately, we were treated to an investigative report scripted at the level of a childrens’ TV broadcast, with Adrian Edmondson, “The Insider”.

    To a background of stirring orchestral music, a helicopter surveyed Didcot Power Station. Oh mighty coal ! How grateful are we to thee, our succour and our strength ! Do you know that the UK relies on coal to generate 49% (or somesuch number) of our electricity ?

    With unparalleled access, Ade gets to see the guts of the barely legal coal burning power plant, and then play at God in the beating heart of the National Grid, where demand is matched with supply. Those “godless” electricity consumers ! They all turn their kettles on at the same time ! During the hymns of the Royal Wedding ! It caused a spike in demand !

    Nobody asks the question “Why are manufacturing companies still allowed to sell 3000 Watt kettles ?”

    One e-mail was read out, and the writer made to sound a bit of a killjoy, something along the lines of “It’s all very well complaining about wind turbines, but none of your viewers have suggested any means to produce sustainable energy.”

    Nobody questioned the source of the anti-wind power statements. Nobody questioned the truth and accuracy behind the scorn levelled at wind energy. Nobody questioned the deference to the major coal-fired power generation businesses. Nobody questioned whether the Reign of Old King Coal might be coming to an end. Nobody questioned whether supplies of fossil fuels might be challenged within a decade. Nobody questioned why wind power is such a successful, cost-efficient technology. Nobody questioned why the British energy-bill-paying public are going to be forced to pay extra for offshore wind power – turbines at sea – because of a small number of British landowners and false environmentalists that don’t want wind power on their land and their “precious landscapes”, but would rather have nuclear/coal/gas power plants – probably because they’ve got shares in fossil fuels and atomic energy construction companies.

    So, the BBC proves once again that it is biased and ill-informed. Worse still, the BBC is perfectly happy to propagandise its viewers.

    It’s no use complaining to the BBC itself, because their complaints system doesn’t work. And it’s no good complaining to the Press Complaints Commission because they’re toothless. All I can do is never watch this rubbish telly again. If you want my advice, I’d advise you to avoid it too. And if we all do the same, then, maybe, their lack of ratings might show them they’re treading water.

  • Sadly, concrete always seems to win

    Posted on November 29th, 2011 Jo 1 comment
    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 :-

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • Dances With Energy Bills

    Posted on November 24th, 2011 Jo No comments
    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.

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • Solar FIT to Bust #9

    Posted on November 23rd, 2011 Jo 2 comments

    The feed-in tariff proposals made by the UK Government Department of Energy and Climate Change would only add £6.00 a year to household bills by 2020.

    By comparison, the cost of supporting nuclear power through a carbon price floor and other measures could cost each home energy bill payer something of the order of £60.00 a year.


    Which, I ask you, offers the better value ? And will the UK Government double the Feed-in Tariff Budget, and slow down the reduction in solar photovoltaic FiT payments ?

    Besides wind farm development, solar microgeneration development appears to be the fastest-growing electricity generation resource in the UK. The amounts that are required from the public finances to support it are minuscule compared to the grand schemes of carbon pricing and other contract-based measures to encourage investment in large, centralised low carbon power plants.

    It’s a bitter truth, but carbon pricing won’t stop the burning of coal for power generation. Pricing carbon will only benefit already existing nuclear power plants – it won’t stimulate energy companies to build new ones. Only renewable electricity generation can displace the emissions from burning coal.

    Any pragmatist would conclude – let’s go with solar and wind ! And let’s keep the incentives that are working !

    Ask your democratic representative, a Member of the UK Parliament, to support the current levels of solar electric feed-in tariff : 0207 219 3000. The debate starts at 4pm today :-

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_9645000/9645195.stm

  • Solar FIT to Bust #7

    Posted on November 17th, 2011 Jo No comments

    Here we go again – time to compare apples and oranges :-

    Ask Leo and Lucy

    So when will solar power attain “grid parity”, then ?

    Renewable electricity generation plant has to be paid for up-front, remember, whereupon it becomes a asset. Conversely, anything that burns coal, oil or Natural Gas remains a liability, despite its ticket price and longevity, owing to the price of the fuel.

  • Rooftop Solar : Summer Highs

    Posted on November 7th, 2011 Jo 1 comment

    Image Credit : Intelligence Squared

    George Monbiot is right about a lot of things, but on rooftop solar power, I believe he is wrong.

    Yes, he’s right that solar photovoltaic systems are being incentivised more than other micro-generation, but there are several good reasons for that. For a first, the unit price of an adequate rooftop solar power system is in the region of the price of a car.

    Most people use finance schemes to purchase cars, with monthly charges for example.

    Similar schemes are not available for solar PV, where you have to borrow the whole amount for the system up-front – or take it from a savings account if you’re lucky enough to have one.

    It is the sheer size of the cost of home solar that means that people won’t do it without subsidy. The one overriding concern of people when I ask them about what green energy they could consider buying, is the size of the initial outgoings.

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • Renewable Gas : Balanced Power

    Posted on November 5th, 2011 Jo 1 comment

    People who know very little about renewable and sustainable energy continue to buzz like flies in the popular media. They don’t believe wind power economics can work. They don’t believe solar power can provide a genuine contribution to grid capacity. They don’t think marine power can achieve. They would rather have nuclear power. They would rather have environmentally-destructive new oil and gas drilling. They have friends and influence in Government. They have financial clout that enables them to keep disseminating their inaccuracies.

    It’s time to ditch the pundits, innuendo artists and insinuators and consult the engineers.

    Renewable Gas can stand in the gap – when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine and the grid is not sufficiently widespread and interconnected enough to be able to call on other wind or solar elsewhere.

    Renewable Gas is the storing of biologically-derived and renewably-created gases, and the improving of the gases, so that they can be used on-demand in a number of applications.

    This field of chemical engineering is so old, yet so new, it doesn’t have a fixed language yet.

    However, the basic chemistry, apart from dealing with contaminants, is very straight-forward.

    When demand for grid electricity is low, renewable electricity can be used to make renewable hydrogen, from water via electrolysis, and in other ways. Underused grid capacity can also be used to methanate carbon-rich biologically-derived gas feedstocks – raising its stored energy.

    Then when demand for grid electricity is high, renewable gas can be used to generate power, to fill the gap. And the flue gases from this combustion can be fed back into the gas storage.

    Renewable gas can also be biorefined into vehicle fuels and other useful chemicals. This application is likely to be the most important in the short term.

    In the medium-term, the power generation balance that renewable gas can offer is likely to be the most important application.

    Researchers are working on optimising all aspects of renewable gas and biorefinery, and businesses are already starting to push towards production.

    We can have a fully renewable energy future, and we will.

  • Solar FIT to Bust #2

    Posted on November 5th, 2011 Jo 1 comment
    Conversations about small scale solar photovoltaic panel electricity generation continue on the Claverton Energy Research Group online forum.

    You have to be prepared to dodge flying nuclear trolls, but apart from that you too can contribute, as long as you have an in-depth knowledge of the price of everything in the UK electricity generation network.

    Dear XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,

    Do you think it’s possible that nobody is immune to emotional reactions to the fate of the solar power industry ? For example, you say, “I find it most frustrating that others do not even attempt to contest the factual statements or assertions I make on the basis of evidence, but simply revert to the emotive and subjective.” And yet in the very preceding paragraph you say, “…the religious diatribe of the PV industry”, which some could validly claim is an emotive and subjective statement.

    You seem to be quite married to the idea that the sole focus of assessing the solar PV industry should be the differential pricing between installed cost and module cost. I’m not going to argue numbers with you, but let’s take a look at money questions, if that is your sole concern.

    You do not appear to take into account peripheral costs, such as the cost of the electronics necessary to hook a home solar system into the grid, nor the employment costs, nor practical details such as the cost of scaffolding.

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • How Soon Is Now ?

    Posted on November 4th, 2011 Jo 1 comment

    With almost daily updates on the climate change and energy crises, it seems like we should convert all our power generation and fuel systems to renewable resources. As of yesterday.

    It would seem that sooner rather than later is the best timeframe for any adjustment and renovation of energy systems.

    The current debate in the United Kingdom about state subsidies to solar photovoltaic electricity generation systems is strongly focused on financial aspects, but really should be centred on pragmatism.

    Privatisation of electricity generation has resulted in decades of under-investment. Many power stations and grid components needs updating or replacing. This needs to be done soon, as the Regulator Ofgem has reported in their “Project Discovery”.

    With such a short time to renew electricity generation, it would seem wise to adopt both a top-down and bottom-up approach, by investing in a range of electricity production systems of all scales.

    Yet there is a remarkable intransigence in the power industry. Those players with the access to credit and the capital that have the capacity to invest in new installations are simply not budging.

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • The Revolution Is Here

    Posted on October 27th, 2011 Jo No comments

    Sorry to say, but I think the people camping on the streets at @OccupyLSX and other places are not the real revolution. The real revolution is in energy. Democratisation of energy is the future – distributed, multi-level production systems, integrated pan-continental networks.

    What ? Power to the people ? This is why the energy companies don’t like it so much, and why the corporate masters of the developed countries, and their shareholders, don’t want to have people believe in renewable and sustainable energy.

    This is why the newspapers are full of people disparaging renewable energy – journalists and commentators who know nothing about energy, who are not engineers and who don’t know who thought their ideas for them first. Wake up, media people, the future of energy will be zero carbon and fully of the people.

    A little unauthrorised translation of what I could pick up from the trailer of a 2010 film (sorry, my German listening comprehension is very rusty) : “We are awash in energy. We are dependent on energy. How much energy is left for us ? Have we enough energy for a revolution ? How much must we pay for power ? Why must California nearly use as much electrical power as Africa ? (French) “We have this enormous potential – with the youth, the riches of Nature, the trees, the biomass, agriculture…but there is no progress…the catalyst is not there. And that’s electricity”. Do we need the big energy companies ? (German) “…energy concerns will become democratic…” The fourth revolution. Energy Autonomy.”


  • The European Union Question

    Posted on October 25th, 2011 Jo No comments
    David Cameron was on one screen, and CBeebies was on another. I was on the treadmill at the gym, interval training, pacing at the same rhythm as the blaring RnB, and reading the teletext translation of the Parliamentary debate.

    I smiled at Ed Miliband’s nasally-charged bluster. I rolled my eyes at the interventions from the Conservative dinosaurs.

    The Tories are the living example of the Bad Apple Theory, I thought to myself. One bad apple, or in their case, a clutch of Eurosceptics, spoils the crop.

    The Conservative Party of the United Kingdom harbours a number of corporatists and the stooge friends of corporatists, and this is their basic argument – deregulate and private companies will be more productive and save the economy from implosion. It’s the same argument that nursed the financial services market that went ahead and created derivatives of risk, and produced toxic credit progeny in abundance and caused the collapse of the banks which caused the current economic doldrums. Great job !

    We’ve got the Coalition Government’s Red Tape (Cutting Of) initiative in full-swing, as well as the Eurosceptics. Their argument is – the European Union is a hyperquagmire and over-regulates and stifles business and innovation, so the United Kingdom should secede. What they fail to acknowledge is that European Union legislation and regulation have created excellent conditions for trade, unifying the standards of production across the Common Market, and drawing on skillsets and technologies from across the region, has advanced productivity and standards of living for all.

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • Renewable Gas : Backup Storage

    Posted on October 25th, 2011 Jo No comments
    To me, the future of renewable gas is clear – the methanation of a combination of carbon-rich and hydrogen-rich gas feedstocks.

    Sticklers for detail will be asking “Why go to the bother of upgrading biomass-derived synthesis gas via methanation ? Why waste the energy ? Why not simply burn the BioSNG as it is ?”

    My answer is, well, it’s like fast-forwarding hundreds of millions of years.

    Instead of the fossil fuel process – where great extinctions of Life on Earth led to the deposition of biomass that got subducted under moving plates of the Earth’s crust and then cooked into useful hydrocarbons – making renewable gas does this in an instant.

    It’s the addition of the extra hydrogen – split by electrolysis from water, then combined to the carbon-rich gas by methanation – that raises the energy content of the biologically-sourced gases.

    The resulting methane-rich BioSynGas is a much more valuable fuel for electricity generation and, when cleaned of impurities, for use in vehicles and the gas grid network. It is easily stored, and readily available on demand.

    It can be used to burn in power stations, to provide backup, as and when required, for variable and intermittent sources of renewable electricity generation, such as wind power.

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • Renewable Gas : Hydrogen Economy

    Posted on October 25th, 2011 Jo No comments

    Image Credit : Audi e-gas Project

    Hydrogen Fuel Cells have their fans and their research projects, and the “Hydrogen Economy” will no doubt have a share in the world’s energy pie, but methane is an altogether more interesting fuel.

    Some will dispute this, but methane is easier to store and transport than hydrogen gas, and will play a very important role in balancing electricity supply in networks that have a high proportion of variable and intermittent renewable generation.

    After energy conservation (through efficiency and waste reduction) and renewable electricity generation, the use of renewable gas with a high methane content can act as the stabilising third leg of a sustainable energy tripod – raising the upper limit of zero carbon energy possible.

    Natural Gas is generally 80% to 85% methane, and many developed countries already have gas networks, gas appliances and power stations that can make use of renewable gas without modification. This is a pragmatic consideration that should not be ignored when choosing future fuels.

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • BBC : Craven Power Muddle

    Posted on October 17th, 2011 Jo No comments
    Once again, the BBC has allowed to pass unchallenged the impression that green power policy and renewable energy investment are behind the dramatic rise in British domestic energy prices.

    Disappointingly, this has come from John Craven, whose accuracy is renowned.

    However, on this occasion, he has allowed a blooper meme to consolidate in the public mind.

    Here’s how Countryfile went yesterday evening :-

    [ Countryfile, BBC One, 16 October 2011, 18:25. Part way through recording, starting at approximately 20 minutes 32 seconds. ]

    [ Ellie Harrison ] Earlier in the programme we were looking at the expected huge rise in wind power across the UK. But in the race to create more of our energy this way, who will win and who is set to lose out ? Here’s John again.

    [ John Craven ] Earlier, I discovered how the plan to put wind power at the heart of our future energy supply is creating a building boom in wind farms, both on land and out at sea. With billions being poured into wind power, and with it being at the centre of the Government’s strategy on renewables, the future seems certain. So who will the losers and winners be in this wind revolution ? The most obvious winner is the environment as less fossil fuels are burnt. But who else benefits ? Well, another clear winner is big business. Companies building the wind farms get a generous price for the electricity they produce. [...]

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • You cannot pay for carbon

    Posted on July 25th, 2011 Jo No comments

    http://e3network.org/social_cost_carbon.html
    http://coolgreenmag.com/2011/07/13/study-you-are-already-paying-9-per-gallon-for-gas/

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

    from: Jo Abbess
    to: Andrew Pendleton

    Hi Andrew,

    …I don’t like being told that carbon should be priced to solve climate change, because I simply don’t think it will work. All attempts so far haven’t worked, and for one very simple reason – nobody wants to be forced to buy a negative, virtual commodity.

    The history of environmental fines is poor. What makes anybody think that carbon can be cleaned up by pricing, when oil spills and air pollution cannot be cleaned up by pricing ?

    What’s the name of your Harvard economist again ?

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • Energy Poll #10 : Solar and Wind Power

    Posted on July 13th, 2011 Jo No comments

    Results from Question 2 : Do you think that campaigners will need to drop their resistance to wind turbines ?


    For the Energy Matrix survey “Are We Ready for Energy Change ?” click here.

    Question 1    How often do you see news about the global rise in solar and wind power ?







    Question 2    Do you think that campaigners will need to drop their resistance to wind turbines ?







    Question 3    Would you be happy to have more solar roofs in your area ?







    Question 4    Are you considering, or do you already have, a solar panel or a wind turbine at home ?







    Question 5    Do you think the energy companies can install enough wind and solar power to meet the UK’s renewable energy targets ?






    Background Information : please give a few brief details about what kind of person you are, to help us check that a representative sample of people have answered the survey.

    What region are you living in ?
    How old are you ?
    What gender are you ?
    How do you prefer to keep up to date with science ?

    Is Climate Change really happening ?
    Is Peak Oil really happening ?
    Do you know a lot about energy  ?
    Enter your e-mail address if you want the final results










  • Renewable Gas #5 : Beyond Biogas

    Posted on July 11th, 2011 Jo 3 comments

    I was speaking to a nuclear power “waverer” the other day. They said that George Monbiot or Mark Lynas was saying that since Germany has cancelled its nuclear power programme, Germany’s Carbon Dioxide emissions will increase, because they will be using coal and Natural Gas power stations :-

    http://www.davidstrahan.com/blog/?p=1130
    http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20665-germany-will-use-fossil-fuels-to-plug-nuclear-gap.html
    http://www.marklynas.org/2011/06/germany-italy-greens-nukes-and-climate-change/
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/jun/15/italy-nuclear-referendum
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/04/nuclear-industry-stinks-cleaner-energy
    http://www.monbiot.com/2011/07/04/corporate-power-no-thanks/

    I explained that this was a common misconception, and that Germany is still planning to meet their carbon targets, and that it can be done even with coal and gas power plants because in a few decades’ time the coal and Natural Gas power plants will only be used a couple of weeks a year in total to back up all the renewables, such as wind power and solar power, that Germany is building.

    This is not the end of the story, however.

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • What I Do, I Do For My Country

    Posted on July 10th, 2011 Jo No comments

    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…”

    Read the rest of this entry »

  • The Dearth of Sense

    Posted on July 7th, 2011 Jo No comments

    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.