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New Nuclear : Credibility Strained

As rumours and genuine information leak from central sources about the policy instruments and fiscal measures that will be signed into the United Kingdom’s Energy Bill, the subsidy support likely to be made available to new nuclear power is really straining credibility from my point of view. I am even more on the “incredulous” end of the spectrum of faith in the UK Government’s Energy Policy than I ever was before.

The national demand for electrical power is pretty constant, with annual variations of only a few percent. It was therefore easy to project that there could be a “power cliff” when supply would be curtailed from coal-fired generation under European legislation :-

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-energy-climate-change/series/energy-trends

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21501878
https://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/feb/19/ofgem-higher-household-energy-bills
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9878281/Ofgem-boss-warns-of-higher-energy-prices-in-supply-roller-coaster.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9878281/Ofgem-boss-warns-of-higher-energy-prices-in-supply-roller-coaster.html
https://metro.co.uk/2013/02/19/consumers-face-higher-energy-bills-as-the-uk-becomes-more-reliant-on-gas-imports-3503130/
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/decc-statement-on-alistair-buchanan-s-comments-on-energy-security-and-rising-gas-prices

The pat answer to how we should “Keep the Lights On” has been to wave the new nuclear fission reactor card. Look ! Shiny new toys. Keep us in power for yonks ! And hidden a little behind this fan of aces and jokers, a get-out-of-jail free card from the Coal monopoly – Carbon Capture and Storage or CCS. Buy into this, and we could have hundreds more years of clean power from coal, by pumping nasty carbon dioxide under the sea bed.

Now, here’s where the answers are just plain wrong : new nuclear power cannot be brought into the National Grid before the early 2020s at the very earliest. And options for CCS are still in the balance, being weighed and vetted, and very unlikely to clean up much of the black stuff until well past 2025.

When put through my best onboard guesstimiser, I came up with the above little graph in answer to the question : how soon can the UK build new power generation ? Since our “energy cliff” is likely to be in one of the winters of 2015 or 2016, and we’re not sure other countries we import from will have spare capacity, we have little option but to increase Natural Gas-fired power generation and go hell-for-leather with the wind and solar power deployment.

So no – it’s of no use promising to pay the new nuclear reactor bearer the sum of 40 or more years of subsidy in the form of guaranteed price for power under the scheme known as Contracts for Difference – they still won’t be delivering anything to cope with the “power drain” of the next few years. If this is written into the Electricity Market Reform, we could justifiably say this would destroy competition, and destroy any market, too, and be “central planning” by any other name – this level of subsidy is not exactly “technology-neutral” !

https://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/feb/19/edf-40-year-contract-nuclear-plant
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9879257/Government-drawing-up-ludicrous-40-year-contracts-to-persuade-power-companies-to-go-nuclear.html

And offering the so-called Capacity Mechanism – a kind of top-up payment to keep old nuclear reactors running, warts and all – when really they should be decommissioned as they are reaching the end of their safe lives, is not a good option, in my book.

Offering the Capacity Mechanism to those who build new gas-fired power plant does make sense, however. If offshore wind power continues with its current trajectory and hits the big time in the next few years, and people want the cheap wind power instead of the gas, and the gas stations will be feeling they can’t run all the time, then the Capacity Mechanism will be vital to make sure the gas plant does get built to back up the wind power, and stays available to use on cold, still nights in February.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/66039/7103-energy-bill-capacity-market-impact-assessment.pdf
https://gastopowerjournal.com/regulationapolicy/item/1405-eurelectric-discards-eu-wide-capacity-mechanism-as-premature
https://www.eaem.co.uk/news/doubts-gas-strategy-will-lead-new-plants

Oh, people may complain about the idea of new “unabated” gas power plants, and insist they should be fitted with carbon capture, but new gas plants won’t run all the time in future, because renewable electricity generation will be cheaper, so forcing gas plant owners to pay for CCS seems like overkill to me. And, anyway, we will be decarbonising the gas supply, as we develop supplies of Renewable Gas.

I say forget the nuclear option – build the gas !

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Energy Bill : Hydrogen Ready ?

Forget capturing carbon, the key test of the usefulness of the United Kingdom’s upcoming Energy Bill will be whether it’s designed to be “hydrogen ready”.

It is almost certain that there will be a second “dash for gas” – that Britain will sanction and possibly underwrite a new fleet of gas-fired power stations. Those who wield modelling software are insistent that this will break the carbon bank – that new “unabated” gas plants will prevent the UK reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

The proposed solution technology – to be fitted to both coal-fired and gas-fired power plants, is known as Carbon Capture and Storage or CCS.

The British Labour Party are pushing for the Energy Bill to enshrine CCS on all new gas-fired power plants after 2020, in order to meet the carbon targets set out in the 2008 Climate Change Act.

“The Labour Party has put itself on a fresh collision course with the Government over its dash-for-gas policy, proposing that after 2020 all new, gas-fired power plants be forced to install technology to reduce their carbon emissions that will double the cost of the electricity they produce … Dr Robert Gross, director of Imperial College’s centre for energy policy and technology, said: “I welcome Labour’s sentiment on CCS. It’s saying that if you want new, gas-fired power plants, then that’s fine, but you have to make it consistent with emissions targets.” … Bloomberg New Energy Finance calculated that fitting CCS to new gas-fired power plants would add up to £200m to the building cost, doubling the price of the electricity…”

https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2239904/labour-challenges-coalition-to-decarbonise-energy-bill?WT.rss_f=&WT.rss_a=Labour+challenges+coalition+to+decarbonise+Energy+Bill&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Twitterfeed&utm_campaign=BusinessGreen
https://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2013/1359479253.19

Although I have met a number of people who believe that widespread CCS is not only desirable, but viable, the carbon capture capability of Britain has not yet been proven – particularly whether CCS can be made marketable, as it is likely to be costly.

CCS is just a way to make carbon dioxide “disappear” – in most designs by pumping it underground. It is a caveat – it permits the energy industry to plan to continue to burn fossil fuels. It is not entirely clear if it can ever be secure or cheap enough to meet the UK’s plans. Just one leak from a carbon dioxide storage cavern, and the whole programme would be rendered irrelevant.

However, even if CCS becomes law, there is another clause that should be inserted into the Energy Bill, and I was discussing this with some industry players at Portcullis House, Westminster yesterday evening.

If European plans for low carbon, renewable gas production take off, what will matter for new gas-fired power plants is if they are flexible enough to combust a range of gases with varying chemical composition and energy density.

Deploying suitable flexible gas turbines is likely to happen – but for another reason. The UK is rapidly advancing with the capacity and supply of wind power, and solar power. Like Germany, pretty soon there will be so much spare, unused wind and solar power, that it will be sensible to consider using it, rather than shedding the load, particularly at night.

An excellent way to make use of spare and “stranded” wind and solar power, and balance the power grid at the same time, is to make gas when people don’t need power, and burn gas when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining. Gas can back up variability in wind and solar power. But for gas-fired power plants to be able to “follow” wind and solar power and fill in the generation gaps, the power stations need to be highly flexible – something that new gas turbines can provide.

From now on, as an increasing amount of the gas the nation burns for backup will need to be Renewable Gas, a range of green gas streams that include Renewable Hydrogen, the new gas power plants that are built must utilise flexible gas turbines.

Of note – there are several plans for Carbon Capture and Storage on power plants that use a gasification technique to separate the carbon from the fuel before burning it – and the end result is gas that is high in hydrogen. This “incidental” production of hydrogen could become a useful addition to the country’s Renewable Gas stocks.

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Academic Freedom Carbon Capture Peak Oil

Biofuels : Less Than Zero

Science journalism sometimes make me sigh out loud, and if you caught me reading it, you might see me visibly deflate, sinking into my padded commuter train seat with a look of anger-changes-nothing what’s-the-point despair painted across my empty sadface.

This time the source of my resignation and defeat is the magazine. I present you an article from issue 2894 of 10 December 2012, written by Bob Holmes, cleverly entitled “Less Than Zero”, with part of the O in Zero rubbed out as a design device to catch the eye (it does). The online version has the headline “Biofuel that’s better than carbon neutral”, with the subhead, “The race is on to create a biofuel that sucks carbon out of the sky and locks it away where it can’t warm the planet”

Why should the prospect of carbon-sequestrating vehicle fuel leave me so unexcited and underwhelmed ? Because of the fudges.

Fudge #1 : Carbon dioxide concentration levels

“The green sludge burbles away quietly in its tangle of tubes in the Spanish desert. Soaking up sunshine and carbon dioxide from a nearby factory, it grows quickly. Every day, workers skim off some sludge and take it away to be transformed into oil…”

This first paragraph is about algae being grown using concentrated industrial carbon dioxide from a nearby cement factory. The second paragraph confuses algae oil production using high levels of carbon dioxide with growing biomass in normal air with normal levels of carbon dioxide :-

“Indeed, this is no ordinary oil. It belongs to a magical class of “carbon negative” fuels, ones that take carbon out of the atmosphere and lock it away for good. The basic idea is fairly simple. You grow plants, in this case algae, which naturally draw CO2 from the atmosphere. After you extract the oil, you’re left with a residue that holds a substantial portion of the carbon…”

Let’s get this straight – the algal oil production of the first paragraph does not belong to “a magical class of “carbon negative” fuels…that naturally draw CO2 from the atmosphere.” In the first paragraph, the algae is being grown using industrial concentrations of carbon dioxide, not atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.

Fudge #2 : Net carbon dioxide emissions

The algal biodiesel oil being produced in the first paragraph depends for its growth on carbon dioxide that would have been vented to the atmosphere from a “carbon positive” process – in other words, from a process that is a source of net greenhouse gas emissions to air. The algae grown using this diverted carbon dioxide will only temporarily capture this carbon dioxide – as (most of it) will be released again when it’s burned as fuel.

There is no way that the algal biodiesel oil mentioned in the first paragraph can be “carbon negative”.

Confirmation of this comes later on in the article, when actual representative numbers are used :-

“…Bio Fuel Systems, (BFS) a small company in Alicante, Spain, that uses cyanobacteria to make its “Blue Petroleum”…The numbers given to New Scientist by BFS president Bernard Stroiazzo illustrate the fraction of carbon that can be trapped by the process. To make a single barrel of oil, the algae suck a little over 2 tonnes of CO2 from the smokestack of the cement works. Not all of that stays out of the atmosphere, though. The algal cultures need regular mixing, which takes energy, as does supplying fertiliser and creating the oil through a patented process involving high heat and pressure. All the fossil fuels needed for these processes release about 700 kilogrammes of CO2. Burning the oil itself – in car engines, say – emits another 450 kg. The rest of the carbon – the equivalent of about 900 kg of CO2 – stays in the leftovers, an inorganic carbonate sludge that can be buried or mixed into concrete. “That will never go back in the atmosphere,” says Stroiazzo…”

So, let’s unpack that.

a. The cement works emits 2,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide that is captured for the algae growing process. These would have been direct greenhouse gas emissions to air had they not been diverted. So at this point we are 2,000 kg “carbon negative”.

b. Supplying fertiliser (which may or may not include accounting for manufacturing and transporting fertiliser) and making the oil through their patented pyrolysis (high heat and pressure) technique, causes 700 kg of carbon dioxide emissions (not to mention the carbon embedded in the equipment required). The numbers do not specify whether other kinds of greenhouse gas emissions are implicated, so let’s just stick with carbon dioxide. Subtacting this from the previous number makes us 1,300 kg “carbon negative”.

c. Burning the oil in engines releases another 450 kg of carbon dioxide. That makes us 850 kg “carbon negative”. Apparently this is “the equivalent of about 900 kg of CO2”, which is in the “leftovers”, which can be buried or used in hardcore or surfacing material.

So, a total of 2,000 + 700 + 450 = 3,150 kg of carbon dioxide is emitted, and only, say, 900 kg of carbon dioxide is sequestered. That’s around 29% of the total of the emissions, and at first glance, that looks rather good, but it disguises something. The 700 kg of emissions that were caused by the processing of the algal biofuel were unnecessary, and only 900 kg of the carbon dioxide is left sequestered at the end. That’s not a very good trade-off. In fact, that’s a very poor efficiency of overall carbon capture.

Fudge #3 : Dependency on industrial sources of concentrated carbon emissions and heat

And none of this would work without a source of concentrated carbon dioxide. “A few companies are developing technologies to extract and concentrate CO2 from the air. Global Thermostat, based in New York, has patented a process that uses chemicals and low-temperature waste heat – about 90 °C – to capture CO2 from a stream of air. Its pilot plant has been operating near San Francisco for more than a year, and a second is on the way, says co-founder Graciela Chichilnisky. The company has already signed an agreement to supply its technology to Algae Systems and is in talks with several other algal biofuel companies, she says.”

From the Global Thermostat website, under the heading “Exclusive Benefits”, “Highly flexible location – GT technology can be located anywhere – the only inputs needed are heat and air”. What this actually means is that the DAC (direct air capture) system being developed can only operate on the back end of an industrial facility. So this “GT technology” is only parasitical.

Fudge #4 : Not addressing the problem at the source

In the final paragraph of this article, Bob Holmes writes, “Since we can’t seem to keep the CO2 from entering the atmosphere, we’re left with only two ways to avoid trouble. We could embark on grand geoengineering schemes to cool the planet, all of which bring huge risks of unintended consequences (New Scientist, 22 September, p 30). Or we could try to pull some of the CO2 back out of the atmosphere, one car trip at a time…”

I would challenge him on that statement “…we can’t seem to keep the CO2 from entering the atmosphere…”. The alternatives are rather poor in terms of efficiency and potential harmful side effects. In all of this article there is no attempt to address whether all the carbon dioxide and heat coming from the industrial facility, and the transportation that requires low carbon fuels, are “necessary” in the first place – if consumer demand, globalised trading patterns and industrial processes were streamlined, the global economy could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and waste heat output without the need for inefficient tinkering.

Fudge #5 : Progress is not as good as it seems

“…To date, the research facility has produced only a few thousand litres of fuel. However, a pilot plant – bankrolled by investors including Google, BP and GE – will start operation near Los Angeles this month… Cool Planet’s results are encouraging…”Even if carbon-negative biofuels turns out to be just a bit player, they will have done at least a little to reduced carbon emissions.”…”

“Encouraging” ?

Ah…BP. The oil and gas giant that distracted us away from their highly polluting hydrocarbon fuel production by setting up a solar power business.

It’s just more greenwash.

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Herşeyi Yak : Burn Everything

There’s good renewable energy and poorly-choiced renewable energy. Converting coal-burning power stations to burn wood is Double Plus Bad – it’s genuiunely unsustainable in the long-term to plan to combust the Earth’s boreal forests just to generate electricity. This idea definitely needs incinerating.

Gaynor Hartnell, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Association recently said, “Right now the government seems to have an institutional bias against new biomass power projects.” And do you know, from my point of view, that’s a very fine thing.

Exactly how locally-sourced would the fuel be ? The now seemingly abandoned plan to put in place a number of new biomass burning plants would rely on wood chip from across the Atlantic Ocean. That’s a plan that has a number of holes in it from the point of view of the ability to sustain this operation into the future. Plus, it’s not very efficient to transport biomass halfway across the world.

And there’s more to the efficiency question. We shouldn’t be burning premium wood biomass. Trees should be left standing if at all possible – or used in permanent construction – or buried so that they don’t decompose – if new trees need to be grown. Rather than burning good wood that could have been used for carbon sequestration, it would be much better, if we have to resort to using wood as fuel, to gasify wood waste and other wood by-products in combination with other fuels, such as excavated landfill, food waste and old rubber tyres.

Co-gasifying of mixed fuels and waste would allow cheap Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) or Carbon Capture and (Re)Utilisation (CCU) options – and so if we have to top up the gasifiers with coal sometimes, at least it wouldn’t be leaking greenhouse gas to the atmosphere.

No, we shouldn’t swap out burning coal for incinerating wood, either completely or co-firing with coal. We should build up different ways to produce Renewable Gas, including the gasification of mixed fuels and waste, if we need fuels to store for later combustion. Which we will, to back up Renewable Electricity from wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower and marine resources – and Renewable Gas will be exceptionally useful for making renewable vehicle fuels.

Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage : the wrong way :-
https://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/BECCS-report.pdf

Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage : the right way :-
https://www.ecolateral.org/Technology/gaseifcation/gasificationnnfc090609.pdf
“The potential ability of gasifiers to accept a wider range of biomass feedstocks than biological routes. Thermochemical routes can use lignocellulosic (woody) feedstocks, and wastes, which cannot be converted by current biofuel production technologies. The resource availability of these feedstocks is very large compared with potential resource for current biofuels feedstocks. Many of these feedstocks are also lower cost than current biofuel feedstocks, with some even having negative costs (gate fees) for their use…”
https://www.uhde.eu/fileadmin/documents/brochures/gasification_technologies.pdf
https://www.gl-group.com/pdf/BGL_Gasifier_DS.pdf
https://www.energy.siemens.com/fi/en/power-generation/power-plants/carbon-capture-solutions/pre-combustion-carbon-capture/pre-combustion-carbon-capture.htm

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Cross-Motivation

A fully renewable energy future is not only possible, it is inevitable.

We need to maximise the roll out of wind and solar renewable electricity systems, and at the same time fully develop marine, geothermal and hydropower energy, and of course, energy storage.

We need strong energy conservation and energy efficiency directives to be enacted in every state, sector and region.

But we need to get from here to there. It requires the application of personal energy from all – from governments, from industry, from society.

In arguing for focus on the development of Renewable Gas, which I believe can and will be a bridge from here to a fully renewable energy future, I am making an appeal to those who view themselves as environmentalists, and also an appeal to those who view themselves as part of the energy industry.

Those who cast themselves as the “good guys”, those who want to protect the environment from the ravages of the energy industry, have for decades set themselves in opposition, politically and socially, to those in the energy production and supply sectors, and this has created a wall of negativity, a block to progress in many areas.

I would ask you to accept the situation we find ourselves in – even those who live off-grid and who have very low personal energy and material consumption – we are all dependent on the energy industry – we have a massive fossil fuel infrastructure, and companies that wield immense political power, and this cannot be changed overnight by some revolutionary activity, or by pulling public theatrical stunts.

It definitely cannot be changed by accusation, finger-pointing and blame. We are not going to wake up tomorrow in a zero carbon world. There needs to be a transition – there needs to be a vision and a will. Instead of a depressive, negative, cynical assessment of today that erects and maintains barriers to co-operation, we need optimistic, positive understanding.

In the past there has been naievety – and some environmentalists have been taken in by public relations greenwash. This is not that. The kind of propaganda used to maintain market share for the energy industry continues to prevent and poison good communications and trust. I no more believe in the magic snuff of the shale gas “game changer” than I believe in the existence of goblins and fairies. The shine on the nuclear “renaissance” wore off ever before it was buffed up. And the hopeless dream of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) becoming a global-scale solution for carbon emissions is about as realistic to me as the geoengineering described in Tolkein’s “The Lord of the Rings”.

Nuclear power and CCS are actually about mining and concrete construction – they’re not energy or climate solutions. I’m not taken in by token gestures of a small slice of wind or solar power or the promise of a segment of biofuels from large oil and gas companies. Public relations and lobbying are the lowest form of faked, usurping power – but simply attacking brands will fail to make real change. I think honesty, realism and pragmatism are the way forward – and there is nothing more practical than pushing for Renewable Gas to back up the accelerated deployment of renewable electricity to its fullest scale.

My appeal to those in control of energy provision is – to see through the fog to the unstoppable. State support, both political and financial, of new energy technologies and infrastructure has to be a short- to medium-term goal – because of the volatility of the economy, and the demands of your shareholders. The need to build public support for new energy means that we the citizens must all be offered the opportunity to own energy – and so that means building a common purpose between the energy sector and society – and that purpose must be Zero Carbon.

There is and will continue to be a porous border between the energy industry and governments – energy is a social utility of high political value. However, the privilege and access that this provides should not automatically mean that the energy industry can plunder public coffers for their own profit. What contribution can the energy industry make to society – apart from the provision of energy at cost – in addition to the subsidies ? Energy, being so vital to the economy, will mean that the energy sector will continue to survive, but it has to change its shape.

You can dance around the facts, but climate change is hitting home, and there is no point in continuing to be in denial about Peak Oil, Peak Coal and Peak Natural Gas. These are genuine risks, not only to the planet, or its people, but also your business plans. We need to be using less energy overall, and less carbon energy within the eventual envelope of energy consumption. So the energy sector needs to move away from maximising sales of energy to optimising sales of energy services and selling low carbon energy systems, power and fuels.

You would be wrong to dismiss me as an “eco warrior” – I’m an engineer – and I’ve always believed in co-operation, expertise, professionalism, technology and industrial prowess. What impresses me is low carbon energy deployment and zero carbon energy research. Progress is in evidence, and it is showing the way to the future. Realistically speaking, in 20 years’ time, nobody will be able to dismiss the risks and threats of climate change and energy insecurity – the evidence accumulates. We, the zero carbon visionaries, are not going to stop talking about this and acting on it – as time goes by, the reasons for all to engage with these issues will increase, regardless of efforts to distract.

Nothing is perfect. I no more believe in a green utopia than I do in unicorns. But without reacting to climate change and energy insecurity, the stock market will not carry you, even though the governments must for the mean time, until clean and green energy engineering and service organisations rise up to replace you. Lobbying for pretences will ultimately fail – fail not only governments or peoples, but you. You, the energy industry, must start acting for the long-term or you will be ousted. As your CEOs retire, younger heads will fill leadership shoes – and younger minds know and accept the perils of climate change and energy insecurity.

This is the evolution, not revolution. It is time to publicly admit that you do know that economically recoverable fossil fuels are limited, and that climate change is as dangerous to your business models as it is to human settlements and the biosphere. Admit it in a way that points to a sustainable future – for you and the climate. The pollution of economically borderline unconventional fuels is wrong and avoidable – what we need are renewable energies, energy conservation and energy efficiency. One without the others is not enough.

How can your business succeed ? In selling renewable energy, energy conservation and energy efficiency. You have to sell the management of energy. You have to be genuinely “world class” and show us how. No more spills, blowouts and emissions. No more tokenistic sponsorship of arts, culture and sports. The veneer of respectability is wearing thin.

As an engineer, I understand the problems of system management – all things within the boundary wall need to be considered and dealt with. One thing is certain, however. Everything is within the walls. And that means that all must change.


https://houstonfeldenkrais.com/tag/cross-motivation/ “…Of course, the money would be great. But adding in the reward/punishment dimension is a sure way to sabotage brilliant performance. Moshe Feldenkrais observed that when one is striving to meet an externally imposed goal, the spine shortens, muscles tense, and the body (and mind) actually works against itself. He called this “cross motivation,” and it occurs when one forsakes one’s internal truth to maintain external equilibrium. There are lots of examples of this: the child stops doing what she’s doing because of the fear of losing parental approval, love, protection. The employee cooks the books to keep his job. The candidate delivers the sound bite, and dies a little inside. Feldenkrais attributed most of our human mental and physical difficulties to the problem of cross motivation. If you watch Michael Phelps swim, you can’t help but notice that he makes it look easy. He is clearly strong and powerful, but all of his strength and power are focused on moving him through the water with the greatest speed and efficiency. There’s no wasted effort, no struggle, no straining. He is free of cross-motivation! Would straining make him faster? Of course not. Unnecessary muscular effort would make him less buoyant, less mobile, less flexible. Will dangling a million dollars at the finish line make him swim faster? Probably just the opposite, unless Michael Phelps has some great inner resources to draw upon. The young Mr. Phelps has already learned how to tune out a lot of the hype. He’ll need to rely on “the cultivation of detachment,” the ability to care without caring…”

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Energy Together : I’m just getting warmed up

The human race – we have to solve energy together. And to do that, we need to harness all our personal, purposeful, positive energies, and let me tell you, personally, I feel electric – and I’m only just getting warmed up.

So let’s hear less of the nonsense from authoritatively-accredited people who want to put a dampener on green energy, who say that saving energy cannot, simply cannot be done, sigh, sigh, sigh, collective groan. We have so much energy together, we can do this.

We have the will power, the staying power, the investment power, and we will navigate the obstacles in our path.

Let’s not waste any more time on expensive trinkets, and iddy-biddy fancies with high unit costs and low compatibility to the future. Yes, I’m talking nuclear power. I’m talking the nobody-really-wants-to-do-it-and-nobody-thinks-it-can-be-cheap-enough-to-work-at-scale Carbon Capture and Storage. And yes, I’m talking carbon markets – tell me again, where are they now ? Oh yes, still in the starting blocks.

And don’t even start to talk about pricing carbon to me – in this world of rollercoaster, highly volatile energy prices, what on Earth could costing or taxing carbon actually achieve ? And fusion power ? Nah, mate, forget it. It’s been 50 years away for the last 50 years.

Shale gas, oil from shales, tar sands, coal bed methane collection and underground coal gasification are once-abandoned messy ideas from way back. They’re still messy, and they’re still retro, and they’re not going to get us anywhere. If the United States of America want to completely ruin their lithosphere, well, that’s up to them, but don’t come around here toxifying our aquifers and poisoning our European trees !

What we need is marine energy, geothermal energy, hydropower, solar power, wind power, and Renewable Gas, because gaseous fuels are so flexible and store-able and can come from many, many processes. And we need the next optimistic generation of leaders to push through the administration ceiling and get green energy policy really rolling, attracting all the green investment will.

If I were a power plant, I would be cranking out the current and making everything shine very, very brightly just now.

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We Need To Talk About Syria

Kofi Annan has thrown up his hands and backed away from his role as UN-Arab League special envoy to Syria tasked with a peace mission. In one sense it is all too predictable. The United Nations Security Council is divided, reflecting deep faultlines in the policy positions of the main body of the UN.

It is probably too early in the evolution of global human governance to expect military violence to be declared illegal, but at least there are voices starting to speak up demanding that there be no armed foreign intervention in Syria. The trouble is that although warfare by foreign parties in Syria has not been publicly declared, there are, by many accounts, military and security operatives of a number of external country administrations already in play inside its borders. Foreign ministers in several major countries have pledged support to either the Syrian “regime” – you know – its “ruling government”, or to the “opposition” “rebels” – otherwise known as gangs of armed thugs. Or quite possibly people from a nebulous ill-defined shadowy organisation known as “Al-Qaeda”.

There are some reports that foreign involvement was behind the bombing of members of President Bashar al-Assad’s government in July, a near “decapitation” – as Assad himself could have been easily killed in the incident, and that a reprisal attack took place several days later – possibly severely injuring or even killing Prince Bandar, newly recruited chief of intelligence in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – recently drafted in – apparently with a mission to topple Syria’s “regime” – you know, Syria’s “legitimate administration” – a former ambassador to the United States of America. Although this is not yet confirmed. Or denied.

Despite conciliatory moves, countries of stern influence in the United Nations continue to call for Assad to quit, for reasons that nobody really delves into. Oh yes, as a mild-mannered London-trained ex-ophthalmologist, he’s supposed to be some kind of Hitler character, killing thousands of “his own people”. This story clearly doesn’t stick very well to the man, particularly since this narrative was also recently falsely used against the former leader of Libya. Another story that hasn’t been washing is that the Syrian “regime”, you know, the “proper authorities of administration”, has been responsible for starting all the violence in Syria – but there is now plenty of evidence to the contrary. So why has it been necessary to demonise Assad ? Why has it been that – allegedly – various governments have decided to get dirty hands and stir up violence in Syria in means overt and covert ?

And with the risks to global oil supply, why has it been necessary for the United States of America and the European Union to implement and enforce an oil embargo on Syria ? I mean, you would have thought it would be in everybody’s best interests to keep the oil flowing from every source possible. But no, sanctions it is, and Syria’s had to give up a considerable amount of their production. I know, I know, before the embargo Syria’s output was only 10% of Iran’s current production (see below), but it has meant a lot for Syria’s trade balance. According to the CIA Factbook on Syria (under “Economy”), nearly three quarters of all oil produced has been for export (although it was consuming more Natural Gas than it could produce – presumably for power generation). Plus, it’s national debt put it in the bottom ranks of the world’s countries meaning it can ill-afford to become more impoverished.

So remind me again, what was the oil embargo for ? To depose Assad by making him unpopular because of a nosediving economy ? And why does Assad need to go, actually ? Nobody’s saying that the country has been run perfectly. Gruesome tales have been told of what can happen in Syria – but then, horrible things happen in every country, including in the United States of America, and yet the United Nations is not insisting that Barack Obama stand aside.

Several key cities in Syria have existed in tolerant civilisation for thousands of years. Why does war have to come to Syria ? Why is there civil war being conducted in Damascus ? Even stoics are finding this hard to bear. Wikipedia notes despairingly and ungrammatically “In the second decade of the 21th century Damascus was damaged from the ongoing Syrian Civil War”.

The more I think about it, the more I come circling back to the same theory – that the economic attack on Syria, and the now almost indisputable accounts of outside meddling that is provoking the conflict (and may have even instigated it in the first place), is simply part of a plan to make the oil and gas resources of all Middle Eastern countries available to global markets at reasonable prices. I mean, look at Iraq, whose oil production was severely hit as a result of military destruction by the international warfare community, but which is now making a splendid recovery (see below) and most of the profits are pouring into the coffers of the multinational oil and gas companies, and diesel and petrol stay relatively inexpensive. Or not, as the case may be. The plan for countries across the Middle East is probably the along the same general line – first accuse the country’s government of heinous crimes, then apply economic sanctions or energy sanctions of some kind, then apply diplomatic and media pressure, (and then, these days, send in the spooks to kick up an “Arab Spring”) and then send in the gunships or gunchoppers – attack helicopters. This narrative has been successfully applied to bring Iraq to heel, and then Libya, and now it seems Syria is being talked down the same blood-paved road, and Iran is being pushed along a parallel track.

Iran. Now there’s an interesting case. Iran is not a pushover. It has taken nearly seven years of manoeuvring to make the completely unfounded case that Iran is building (or planning to build) nuclear weapons. Iran has been enriching uranium for its stated aim of developing a civilian nuclear power program, and this has been used as the justification to impose sanctions against Iran, including an oil embargo, which is having an impact on their production (see below). Besides painting the leader of Iran as an evil dictator, the propagandists of this world also seem to be trying to wield a new stick to beat Iran with – in the form of the call to end fossil fuel subsidies. Billed as a climate change policy by the G20, it is more a punitive measure against developing countries who have been using fossil fuel subsidies to make sure their citizens can get cheap energy. If Iran is no longer permitted to subsidise energy for citizens it will be forced to sell the oil and gas abroad – a buyer’s market only too pleased to suck dry the world’s second largest oil and Natural Gas producer. That volume of oil and gas being made available on the world’s markets would definitely keep global prices of oil and gas as low as possible.

Anyway, back to Syria. Clearly, there are problems, although reports of enormous and desperate increases in violence are probably not accurate. Painting the story as increasingly agitated is a common media device to engage the readers with the situation – but if it gets too sensationalised the narrative could start to affect decisionmakers, and may lead to illegitimate and inappropriate influence being exerted from abroad. Instead of William Hague MP, British Foreign Secretary for the United Kingdom, offering tactical support to the Syrian “rebels”, he should announce an immediate diplomatic mission to the Syrian government, and the various rebel groups, offering the undoubted skills of his secret service personnel in mediating a ceasefire between the authorities and the opposition. Otherwise we could end up with NATO committing to tens of thousands of weaponised air sorties over Syria and destroying a large part of this ancient culture, just as they did with Libya. All economic and energy sanctions and embargoes against Syria should be dropped, as they are aggravating the conflict. If the international community uses the language and action of peace, then perhaps Syria can be encouraged back to the ways of peace.

In the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, “Regime change is not our profession.”





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We Don’t Got No Revolution

After addressing the Stop Climate Chaos coalition Annual General Meeting on Friday 20th July 2012, Tony Juniper, sustainability consultant, and Colin Butfield of WWF, responded to questions from the audience. There was a sense of unease in the room, dissatisfaction with the UK Coalition Government appearing to roll back commitment to the Climate Change Act, and their failure to enact their manifesto declaration of being “the greenest government ever”.

People expressed doubts about the design of climate change communications, about collaboration with companies over climate change action, and what would be suitable campaign actions for protest groups and charities. Several groups found their ongoing campaigns disparaged, in effect, by dismissive comments from others. It wasn’t altogether a pleasant experience. Here are just a few paragraphs attempting to summarise the question-and-answer session from brief notes made at the time.

One of the attendees proposed that climate change communications going forward should make use of the fact that people are questioning the legitimacy of the current economic system, and said that there was a failure to offer a programmatic response. He said that if people were given a systemic critique, they would “get it” – and that the Green New Deal formulation was ideal. He projected that if climate change communications campaigns don’t go against the corporations, that it will be less and less likely in future that governments will respond to corporate abuse of the environment.

Tony Juniper responded by saying that he didn’t see the backing for that level of challenge to the current system. He said that even though there is an economic meltdown in progress – it’s been shown that “a pack of bankers are nicking the peoples’ money” – there has been no revolution. The Non-Governmental Organisations have carried on as normal. At the General Election, people voted for the party of the financial system. The Green New Deal, he said, simply hasn’t got the backing it should have. It suffers from the same lack of attention that faces any different economic formulation that is put in front of people. Time is so short that we have to have something more pragmatic – plausible decisions about realistic proposals. He said it was down to the NGOs to formulate this – and that emphasising jobs was essential.

Another questioner put it to the speakers that the cost of deploying wind turbines was cheaper than not doing it and that contrary to the myths they were actually rather beautiful – and that even the pylons carrying new power lines to connect new wind generation to the grid could be made to be beautiful too. New technology is something to embrace rather than fear.

Tony Juniper replied that a small minority of people have managed to poison the debate on wind power, and that they are part of the Conservative Party core backing. He said that there is lots of support for renewable energy, and that this needs to be reflected back to the media. He said that the media is “pretty poisoned”, too – the Daily Telegraph for example, although The Guardian and The Independent were more open. He suggested that industry players start talking more to the Government and get more organised. He said that Government Ministers find it easier to deal with the nuclear lobby as they have one [professional] body and one message. After the failure of Copenhagen – where the Government predicted they would come away with a successful, positive outcome and didn’t – the atmosphere as a whole has been poisonous. The NGOs didn’t react to this disappointment.

Phil Thornhill, the National Co-ordinator of the Campaign against Climate Change, criticised the NGOs who he said have stopped focusing on climate change. He said it hard to find the next “really sharp point” – the really unifying thing – the way we did with the Climate Change Act. He said that action had to be more than just signing the odd letter, and questioned the approach where action has been fixed to a time or an event – with the obvious risk of collapse. He suggested that climate action should be a continuning goal.

Colin Butfield of WWF responded to the questions – he said that the problem with promoting renewable energy was the peril of ignoring NIMBYism – people may be generally positive about wind farms, but not want one in their own back yard. He said people wanted a genuine local conversation about renewable energy development. He said that on economic proposals, that people need to be presented with solutions they can easily adopt. He suggested one call to action that could easily draw people would be to ask “do you want your pension going into that ridiculous investment ?”, and then asking people to choose more sustainable investments and funds. He said that “normal” people are a “bit terrified” by the idea of collapse of the current economic system [and so may not react well or buy into the ideas]. He said that many pensions were a “climate bad”. He said that in the current economic situation, people could be brought to think about the link between the way banks invest money and climate change – as people are very unhappy with the existing system – “a blindside force for bad”. He said that an example of positive change had been in the campaign to demand buisiness carbon reporting.

Herbert Williams, Chief Executive Officer of A Rocha UK, holding up a credit card, said that positive investment change in the economy was unlikely to form a groundswell as people are in thrall to the current financial system, and that most public communications were advertising to direct the flow of money. He said that there was a danger in repeating the styles and actions of the past.

Peter Robinson of the Climate Alliance said that people are very demoralised about the economic situation – and that climate change arguments have to be involved in any policy proposals.

Tony Juniper said that a suitable goal for campaigning would be shifting anger about the economic situation to a call for green jobs. He asked whether this would still require “grassroots” activism and answer this with a qualified “yes”, because he said it would require different strategies. He said that the key requirement was to work out how to engage people and get them involved. He said that a different body of expertise would be needed in these campaigns. He mentioned that he has been considering employing psychologists – people from public relations companies – and said “we need to get some of these helping us.” He asked how many people would be a significant number to sign up to a campaign. He mentioned that the Climate Change Act campaign had got 200,000 people to urge their MPs to sign the Early Day Motion in Parliament, but that it was only successful because there had been more political jigsaw pieces in place. The 200,000 would not be enough to move to the next phase. To get real action on the Climate Change Act he suggested that the campaign would need to broaden the base – and that would need more people than just those from campaign organisations to be involved. He said that he was still seeing a lot of the same faces – even though it was “lovely to see you all”, but that the campaign needs to go wider. He said that there are difficulties with anything that involves infrastructure, as the Government has just ripped up the planning system in Local Authorities – 50 years of accumulated wisdom on how to do development.

Phil Thornhill said that Martin Luther King didn’t have a communications expert or a consultant psychologist. He had passion to get his views across. Climate change is perhaps less tangible that civil rights – therefore needs more passion. The idea that psychologists or public relations techniques can give you a shortcut to understanding your audience better was not helpful. Advertising and public relations are mostly about selling things to people. Climate change communications have been shown to not be getting through to people – the message to change can be unappetising.

It was asked if it is possible to hold together progressive politics and the traditional NGO approach.

It was noted that the think tank battle is very important – and their public relations. This style was planted 60 years ago – fundamentally anti-state – based on the Austrian school of economics – it’s very easy for them to point at any efforts by governments and claim “the faceless state is coming to take your money”.

Colin Butfield answered to a question about social media – could we get millions of young people to join in ? He said you can’t, but that we’d nearly got there with the Green Deal on loans. In regards to the 200,000 mentioned for the Climate Change Act he said that in the current less urgent political atmosphere, those numbers are always going to be ignored. By contrast, he’d had millions of people on the Facebook page for Earth Hour – and that was sufficient to get David Cameron to talk about it.

A questioner raised issues about coopting NGOs and the social movements to enact policy goals. Energy goals can’t be simply about deploying renewable energy, but must also answer questions on access to energy, land rights, food versus fuel, fuel versus forests. You cannot leave questions of justice aside.

Tony Juniper, in replying to a warning that it is important to keep vigilant about the dubious underbelly of corporate public relations agendas, said that although one could damage their brands for a while, and companies and campaigns could have battles to capture each others’ agendas, that we are not going to get anywhere without all sorts of compromise – finding shared values.

Later, over a spiffing Marks & Spencer buffet outside in the Westminster School walled garden, I spoke with a campaigner about the rationale and purpose of campaigning. I asked whether it could be seen as rather patronising to assume that we are the ones with the better ideas and information, and that we have to “engage” other people with a view to them adopting our position and taking our recommended actions. The campaigner asked what we would do if we didn’t do campaigns – how would we involve people in these issues ?

I thought to myself – therein lies the problem. A campaign should not be about keeping people running around like headless chickens trying to put across messaging and persuading other people to take action. Keeping concerned people busy with communications tasks is not a genuine achievement, I would suggest. It certainly doesn’t appear to be resulting in genuine, widescale political, economic and social change. There was a brief flicker of purpose when the previous Labour Government had promoted climate change communications (although they alienated a good portion of the population with their strategy and messaging), but now there’s no political lever.

We don’t got no revolution, and a new round of consultation with communications specialists is not going to change that.

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George Monbiot : Peak Agitation

My electronic mail inbox and Twitter “social media” timeline are full of people sparking and foaming about George Monbiot’s latest kow-tow to American academia. Apparently, he has discarded the evidence of many, many researchers, energy engineers and market players and poured luke-warm, regurgitated scorn on the evidence and inevitability of “Peak Oil”.

The level of agitation contradicting his stance has reached a new peak – in fact, I think I might claim this as “Peak Agitation”.

Here is just one example from Paul Mobbs, author of “Energy Beyond Oil”, and a multi-talented, multi-sectoral educator and researcher.

I initially read it in my inbox and nearly fell of my chair gobsmacked. When I had recovered from being astonished, and asked Mobbsey if I could quote him, perhaps anonymously, he wrote back :-

“No, you can quite clearly and boldly attach my name and email address to it ! And perhaps ask George for a response ?”

Sadly, George Monbiot appears to have jammed his thumbs in his ears as regards my commentary, so he is very unlikely to read this or become aware of the strength of opposition to his new positioning. But anyway – here’s for what’s it’s worth (and when it comes from Paul Mobbs, it’s worth a great deal) :-


Re: Peak oil – we were wrong. When the facts change we must change.

Hi all,

I’ve sat patiently through the various emails between you all — mainly to
take soundings of where you’re all at on this matter. In addition, over the
last few days I’ve separately received four dozen or so emails all asking
to “take on” Monbiot. I wasn’t going to reply because I’ve so many more
pressing matters to take care of, but given the weight of demands I can’t
avoid it.

I don’t see any point in “taking on” Monbiot; the points he raises, and the
debate that he has initiated, are so off beam compared to the basis of the
issues involved that it there’s no point proceeding along that line of
thought. You can’t answer a question if the question itself is not
understood!!

Let’s get one thing straight — present economic difficulties are not simply
to do with “oil”, but with the more general issue of “limits to growth”.
That’s a complex interaction of resource production, thermodynamics,
technology, and relating all of these together, economic theory. Reducing
this just to an issue of oil or carbon will fail to answer why the trends
we see emerging today are taking place. Instead we have to look towards a
process which sees energy, resources, technology and human economics as a
single system.

The problem with this whole debate is that those involved — Monbiot
included — only have the vaguest understanding of how resource depletion
interacts with the human economy. And in a similar way, the wider
environment movement has been wholly compromised by its failure to engage
with the debate over ecological limits as part of their promotion of
alternative lifestyles. Unless you are prepared to adapt to the reality of
what the “limits” issues portends for the human economy, you’re not going
to make any progress on this matter.

Monbiot’s greatest mistake is to try and associate peak oil and climate
change. They are wholly different issues. In fact, over the last few years,
one of the greatest mistakes by the environment movement generally (and
Monbiot is an exemplar of this) has been to reduce all issues to one
metric/indicator — carbon. This “carbonism” has distorted the nature of
the debate over human development/progress, and in the process the
“business as usual” fossil-fuelled supertanker has been allowed to thunder
on regardless because solving carbon emissions is a fundamentally different
type of problem to solving the issue of resource/energy depletion.

Carbon emissions are a secondary effect of economic activity. It is
incidental to the economic process, even when measures such as carbon
markets are applied. Provided we’re not worried about the cost, we can use
technological measures to abate emissions — and government/industry have
used this as a filibuster to market a technological agenda in response and
thus ignore the basic incompatibility of economic growth with the
ecological limits of the Earth’s biosphere. As far as I am concerned, many
in mainstream environmentalism have been complicit in that process; and
have failed to provide the example and leadership necessary to initiate a
debate on the true alternatives to yet more intense/complex
industrialisation and globalisation.

In contrast, physical energy supply is different because it’s a prerequisite
of economic growth — you can’t have economic activity without a
qualitatively sufficient energy supply (yes, the “quality” of the energy is
just as important as the physical scale of supply). About half of all
growth is the value of new energy supply added to the economy, and another
fifth is the result of energy efficiency — the traditional measures of
capital and labour respectively make up a tenth and fifth of growth. As yet
mainstream economic theory refuses to internalise the issue of energy
quality, and the effect of falling energy/resource returns, even though this
is demonstrably one of the failing aspects of our current economic model
(debt is the other, and that’s an even more complex matter to explore if
we’re looking at inter-generational effects).

The fact that all commodity prices have been rising along with growth for
the past decade — a phenomena directly related to the human system hitting
the “limits to growth” — is one of the major factors driving current
economic difficulties. Arguably we’ve been hitting the “limits” since the
late 70s. The difficulty in explaining that on a political stage is that
we’re talking about processes which operate over decades and centuries, not
over campaign cycles or political terms of office. As a result, due to the
impatience of the modern political/media agenda, the political debate over
limits has suffered because commentators always take too short-term a
viewpoint. Monbiot’s recent conversion on nuclear and peak oil is such an
example, and is at the heart of the report Monbiot cites in justification of
his views — a report, not coincidentally, written by a long-term opponent
of peak oil theory, working for lobby groups who promote business-as-usual
solutions to ecological issues.

Likewise, because the neo-classical economists who advise governments and
corporations don’t believe in the concept of “limits”, the measures they’ve
adopted to try and solve the problem (e.g. quantitative easing) are not
helping the problem, but merely forestall the inevitable collapse. For
example, we can’t borrow money today to spur a recovery if there will be
insufficient growth in the future to pay for that debt. Basically, whilst you
may theoretically borrow money from your grandchildren, you can’t borrow
the energy that future economic growth requires to generate that money if
it doesn’t exist to be used at that future date. Perhaps more perversely, a
large proportion of the economic actors who have expressed support for
limits are not advocating ecological solutions to the problem, they’re
cashing-in by trying to advise people how to make money out of economic
catastrophe.

Carbon emissions and resource depletion are a function of economic growth.
There is an absolute correlation between growth and carbon emissions. I
don’t just mean that emissions and the rate of depletion fall during
recessions — and thus “recessions are good for the environment”. If you
look at the rate of growth in emissions over the last 50 years, the change
in energy prices has a correlation to changes in carbon emissions as the
price of fuel influences economic activity. That’s why carbon emissions
broke with their historic trend, halving their previous growth rate, after
the oil crisis of the 1970s; and why they then rebounded as energy prices
fell during the 90s.

The idea that we can “decarbonise” the economy and continue just as before
is fundamentally flawed. I know some of you will scream and howl at this
idea, but if you look at the research on the interaction between energy and
economic productivity there is no other conclusion. Due to their high
energy density and relative ease of use, all fossil fuels have an economic
advantage over all the alternatives. That said, as conventional oil and gas
deplete, and “unconventional” sources with far lower energy returns are
brought into the market, that differential is decreasing — but we won’t
reach general parity with renewables for another decade or two.

Note also this has nothing to do with subsidies, or industrial power —
it’s a basic physical fact that the energy density of renewables is lower
than the historic value of fossil fuels. On a level playing field, renewable
energy costs more and has a lower return on investment than fossil fuels.

We do have the technology to develop a predominantly renewable human
economy, but the economic basis of such a system will be wholly different to
that we live within today. Unless you are prepared to reform the economic
process alongside changing the resource base of society, we’ll never
see any realistic change because all such “ecological” viewpoints are
inconsistent with the values at the heart of modern capitalism (that’s not
a political point either, it’s just a fact based upon how these systems
must operate). E.g., when the Mail/Telegraph trumpet that more wind power
will cost more and lower growth/competitiveness, they’re right — but the
issue here is not the facts about wind, it’s that the theory/expectation of
continued growth, which they are measuring the performance of wind against,
is itself no longer supported by the physical fundamentals of the human
economy.

The present problem is not simply “peak oil”. Even if volumetric production
remained constant, due to the falling level of energy return on investment
of all fossil fuels the effects of rising prices and falling systemic
efficiency will still disrupt the economic cycle (albeit at a slower rate
than when it is tied to a simultaneous volumetric reduction). Allied to the
problems with the supply of many industrial minerals, especially the
minerals which are key to the latest energy and industrial process/energy
technologies (e.g. rare earths, indium, gallium, etc.), what we have is a
recipe for a general systems failure in the operation of the human system.
And again, that’s not related to climate change, or simple lack of energy,
but because of the systemic complexity of modern human society, and what
happens to any complex system when it is perturbed by external factors.

The worst thing which can happen right now — even if it were possible,
which is entirely doubtful — would be a “return to growth”. The idea of
“green growth”, within the norms of neo-classical economics, is even more
fallacious due to the differing thermodynamic factors driving that system.
Instead what we have to concentrate upon is changing the political economy
of the human system to internalise the issue of limits. At present, apart
from a few scientists and green economists on the sidelines, no one is
seriously putting that point of view — not even the Green Party. And as I
perceive it from talking to people about this for the last 12 years, that’s
for a very simple reason… it’s not what people, especially the political
establishment, want to hear.

Rio+20 was an absolute failure. In fact what annoyed me the most was that
the media kept talking about the “second” Rio conference, when in fact it
was the third UNCED conference in the Stockholm conference in ’72. If you
contrast 1972 with 2012, the results of this years deliberations were worse
than the policies sketched out in the 70s ! Seriously, the environment
movement is being trounced, and as I see it that’s because they have lost
the intellectual and theoretical rigour that it possessed in the 70s and
80s. Rather than having a clear alternative vision, what they promote is
“the same but different”. Once environmentalism became a media campaign
about differing consumption options, rather than an absolute framework for
evaluating the effects of consumption, it lost its ability to dictate the
agenda — because its the ability to look forward and observe/anticipate
trends unfolding, however unwelcome those truths might be, which gives
groups political power.

Politicians have lost control of the economy because their materialist
ambitions no longer fit to the extant reality of the economic process. This
outcome was foreseen over 40 years ago by economists like Georgescu-Roegen
and Boulding but ignored, even amongst many liberals and especially the
left, for political reasons. These same principles, based around the issue
of limits, were also the founding reality of the modern environment
movement — but over the last 20 years the movement has lost this basic
grounding in physics and economics as it has moved towards an
aspirationally materialist agenda (green consumerism/sustainable
consumption, etc.).

Unless you’re prepared to talk about limits to growth, and the fact that
the economic theories developed over two centuries of unconstrained
expansion now have no relevance to a system constrained by physical limits,
then you will not solve this problem. Just as with Monbiot’s “change” on
the issue of nuclear, his failure is a matter of basic theory and
methodological frameworks, not of facts or data. Unfortunately people keep
throwing data at each other without considering that the framework within
which those facts are considered and understood has changed, and that
consequently their conclusions may not be correct; and until the movement
accepts that the rules governing the system have changed we’ll not make
progress in advancing viable solutions.

To conclude then, Monbiot’s mistake isn’t about peak oil, or climate
change, it’s a failure to internalise the physical realities of the
“limits” now driving the human system. Unless you consider the interaction
of energy, economics and pollution, any abstractions you draw about each of
those factors individually will fail to tell you how the system as a whole
is functioning. Those limits might dictate the end of “growth economics”,
but they DO NOT dictate the end of “human development”. There are many ways
we can address our present economic and environmental difficulties, but that
cannot take place unless we accept that changing our material ambitions is
a prerequisite of that process.

Let’s be clear here. The principles which drive the economy today would be
wholly alien to Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and others who first laid down
the rules of the system two centuries ago. Likewise Marxism and similarly
derived ideas have no validity either because they were generated during an
era when there were no constraining limits. There is no “going back” to
previous theories/ideologies on this issue because we face a scenario today
which humans society — with the exception of those ancient societies who
experienced ecological overshoot (Rome, Mayans, Easter Islanders, etc.) —
have never had to face before.

We have to move forward, to evaluate and understand is the role of
ecological limits within the future human economic process and how this
changes our advocacy of “solutions”. That debate should be at the heart of
the environment movement, and the issue of limits should lead all
discussions about all environmental issues — not green/sustainable
consumerism and other measures which seek to reassure and pacify affluent
consumers. That said, especially given the demographic skew within
membership of the environment movement, we have to begin by being honest
with ourselves in accepting the “limits agenda” and what it means for the
make-up of our own lives.

In the final analysis, you cannot be an environmentalist unless you accept
and promote the idea of limits. That was at the heart of the movement from
the early 70s, and if we want to present a viable alternative to disaster
capitalism then that is once again what we must develop and promote as an
alternative.

Peace ‘n love ‘n’ home made hummus,

P.

.

“We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government,
nor are we for this party nor against the other but we are
for justice and mercy and truth and peace and true freedom,
that these may be exalted in our nation, and that goodness,
righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity with
God, and with one another, that these things may abound.”
(Edward Burrough, 1659 – from ‘Quaker Faith and Practice’)

Paul’s book, “Energy Beyond Oil”, is out now!
For details see https://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/ebo/

Read my ‘essay’ weblog, “Ecolonomics”, at:
https://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/ecolonomics/

Paul Mobbs, Mobbs’ Environmental Investigations
email – mobbsey@gn.apc.org
website – https://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/index.shtml

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Gas in the UK (3)

Bursting the Nuclear Bubble

The UK Government appear to have seen the light about their, frankly, rubbish plan to covertly invest in (by hidden subsidies) a spanking new fleet of nuclear power reactors.

Dogged by Electricite de France (EdF) as they have been, with Vincent de Rivaz continuing to proffer his begging bowl with outstretched pleading arms, it just might be that before the Energy Bill is finally announced –

when the Electricity Market Reform (EMR) dust has settled – that this new thinking will have become core solidity.

After all, there are plenty of reasons not to support new nuclear power – apart from the immense costs, the unclear costs, the lack of immediate power generation until at least a decade of concrete has been poured, and so on (and so forth).

Gas is Laughing

It appears that reality has bitten – and that the UK Government are pursuing gas. And they have decided not to hatch their eggs all in one basket. First of all, there’s a love-in with Statoil of Norway :-

https://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_072/pn12_072.aspx
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9316935/French-president-Francois-Hollande-cuts-retirement-age.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18344831
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-praises-uknorway-energy-linkup-7826436.html
https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2012/jun/07/energy-uk-norway-oil-gas-renewables

Then, there’s the new “South Stream” commitment – the new Azerbaijan-European Union agreement, spelled out in a meeting of the European Centre for Energy and Resource Security (EUCERS) on 12th June at King’s College, London :-

https://www.eucers.eu/2012/06/07/5-eucers-energy-talk-the-southern-gas-corridor-at-the-home-stretch/
https://abc.az/eng/news/65475.html
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Azerbaijan-Turkey-Deepen-their-Energy-Ties.html
https://euobserver.com/19/116394
https://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/NC23Ag02.html

Meanwhile, the “North Stream” gas pipeline is going to feed new Russian gas to Europe, too (since the old Siberian gas fields have become exhausted) :-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15637244
https://www.nord-stream.com/pipeline/
https://www.gazprom.com/about/production/projects/mega-yamal/
https://www.gpilondon.com/index.php?id=325

And then there’s the amazing new truth – Natural Gas is a “green” energy, according to the European Union :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/29/gas-rebranded-green-energy-eu

The UK will still be importing Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) from our good old friends in Qatar. Never mind the political interference in the nearby region and the human rights abuses, although NATO could be asked to put a stop to that if Europe needed to bust the regime in order for their energy companies to take ownership of the lovely, lovely gas. I mean, that’s what happened in Iraq and Libya, didn’t it ?

A Fossilised Future

So, despite all the green noises from the UK Government, the underlying strategy for the future (having batted away the nuclear buzzing insects around the corpse of British energy policy), is as Steve Browning, formerly of National Grid says – “gas and air” – with Big Wind power being the commercialisable renewable technology of choice. But not too much wind power – after all, the grid could become unstable, couldn’t it, with too much wind ?

There are several problems with this. First, the commitment to fossil fuels – even Natural Gas with its half the emissions profile of coal – is a risky strategy, despite making sure that supplies are secure in the near term. The reasons for this are geological as well as geopolitical. Natural Gas will peak, and even the UK Government accepts that unconventional gas will not keep fossil gas going forever – even with the “18 years” ultimate recoverable from under Lancashire of shale gas (that’s “18 years” of current gas annual demand – but not all drilled at once – perhaps amounting to about 1.5% of current UK gas supply needs per year, stretched out over 40 years) , and the billion tonnes of coal that can be gasified from under the sea off the east coast of England. As long as Carbon Capture and Storage can work.

Not only will Natural Gas peak and start to decline in the UK, it will also peak and decline in the various other foreign resources the UK is promising to buy. By simple logic – if the North Sea gas began depletion after only 30 years – and this was a top quality concentrated resource – how soon will poorer quality gas fields start depleting ?

Whilst I recognise the sense in making Natural Gas the core strategy of UK energy provision over the next few decades, it can never be a final policy. First off, we need rather more in terms of realistic support for the deployment of renewable electricity. People complained about onshore wind turbines, so the UK Government got into offshore wind turbines, and now they’re complaining at how expensive they are. Then they botched solar photovoltaics policy. What a palaver !

Besides a much stronger direction for increasing renewable electricity, we need to recognise that renewable resources of gas need to be developed, starting now. We need to be ready to displace fossil gas as the fossil gas fields show signs of depletion and yet global demand and growth still show strength. We need to recognise that renewable gas development initiatives need consistent central government financial and enabling policy support. We need to recognise that even with the development of renewable gas, supplies of gas as a whole may yet peak – and so we need to acknowledge that we can never fully decarbonise the energy networks unless we find ways to apply energy conservation and energy efficiency into all energy use – and that this currently conflicts with the business model for most energy companies – to sell as much energy as possible. We need mandates for insulation, efficient fossil fuel use – such as Combined Heat and Power (CHP) and efficient grids, appliances and energy distribution. Since energy is mostly privately owned and privately administered, energy conservation is the hardest task of all, and this will take heroic efforts at all levels of society to implement.

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Gas in the UK (2)

…Continued from https://www.joabbess.com/2012/06/12/gas-in-the-uk/

Questions from the floor

[Tony Glover]

…increasing electricification of heat and transport. I was interested in what Doug said about heat. [If energy conservation measures are significant and there is] a significant reduction in gas use for heat…interested in the Minister’s response.

[Terry ? (Member of PRASEG)]

I’m interested in gas that would need CCS [Carbon Capture and Storage] [in future] …[since there would be no restriction there would be an] incentive to build new gas in next few years away from CCS-usable infrastructure. Maybe encouraging gas stations over next few years to be built in view of CCS.

[ ? ]

[There have been mentions of the] Gas [generation] Strategy and gas storage. Is it your intention to have both in the Energy Bill ? [Need to improve investor confidence.]

[Charles Hendry MP] I’m more confident than Doug on CHP…[in respect of energy conservation we will begin to increase our use of] CHP [Combined Heat and Power], geothermal energy, don’t need District Heating. I think we’ll see more people switch to electric heating. The likely pricing on gas will mean people have to look at other sources – such as localised heat storage, intelligent ways to produce hot water and heat in their homes […for example, a technology to store heat for several days…] The first [new gas power] plants will be where they are already consented – where originally coal plants – need to have identified in advance – no new plant is consented unless…We’ve asked Ofgem to ask re securing gas supplies. If we can stretch out the tail of North Sea gas – can stretch it out 30 – 40 years […] technology […] Centrica / Norway […] develop contracts […] Is there a role for strategic storage [Centrica asking] […] Buying and selling at the wrong price (like the gold) [widespread chuckling in the room]. Some of it may not need legislation. Gas Strategy will be published before the Energy Bill.

[David Cox] Get very nervous about gas storage. Don’t think there’s a need to put financial incentives in place to increase gas storage. We think the hybrid gas market is successful – a market and regulatory framework – [gas storage incentives] could damage.

[Doug Parr] I’m not downbeat because I want to be downbeat on heat. [Of all the solutions proposed none of them show] scaleability, deliverability. I’d love that to come true – but will it ? […] Heat pumps ? Biogas is great but is it really going to replace all that gas ? If we’re going to be using gas we need to make the best use of it […] Issues around new plant / replacement – all about reducing risks no exposing ourselves to [it] – security of supply, climate risks, issues about placement [siting of new plant]. If CCS can really be made to work – it’s a no-brainer – do we want all that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or … ? Our entire policy becomes dependent on a technology that hasn’t even been demonstrated. Other technologies that people thought were great – years later they still haven’t arrived [for example, rooftop wind turbines]. If we say CCS is the only way it’s going to work – what’s Plan B ? We are going to use [fossil fuels] – should not become wholly dependent on technology not yet demonstrated.

[Alan Whitehead] Perhaps people should be asked – which would you prefer – a CHP / DH [Combined Heat and Power / District Heating] plant in the valley here, or a couple of wind turbines on that hill ? That would [shake things up].

Questions from the floor

[ X ? ] See […] as the ultimate destination. Most important – gas can be made zero carbon – not pie in the sky. 1. Start contributions of carbon-neutral gas and 2. will need far less if [we act] like Japan – force installation of microCHP. Their aim is to do same as for washing machines [bring prices down – make widely available for the home]. MicroCHP [with] heat pumps – reduction as good as decarbonising gas or electricity. But can also decarbonise gas.

[ X ? ] The Minister mentioned the importance of CHP but recently dropped […] mandate. If CHP so important what measures is the Government taking to ensure its installation ?

[ X ? ] Electricity is a rubbish fuel for heating buildings – very peaky load – need something cheap to store, cheap to […]. Fits very well with forcing down demand. Where we’re getting our gas from. At the moment our waste is being incinerated. For a cheap additional cost, where currently incinerating we can do anaerobic digestion [AD], producing a fungible asset – the gas – can gradually decarbonise our grid.

[ Thomas Grier ? ] …a decision [?] of London – CHP in London over the next few years. If we want to use electricity for heat, we need to reinforce the electricity grid [by 60% to 90% ?] In rural situations – use electrical heating. In urban, use decarbonised energy. [This model projection] shows the gas grid disappearing – it will collapse at some point if all we have on the gas grid is cooking.

[ X ? ] …[encouraged CHP then a few days later] stood up then said all support [removed ?] for CHP next year. A Heat Strategy that said there is enormous [scope / potential] for CHP. We want to see gas, we want to see efficiency. Are we moving towards […] without it they won’t build it.

[David Cox] Microgeneration – couldn’t get it down economically. Reliability [issues]. Full supporter of biogas – AD got a contribution to make – but never more than 5% – no matter how much [we crack it]. Electricity is not very good for heating – but how to we decarbonise the heat sector ? Always been an advocate of CHP. Government need to do more incentivising of that.

[Charles Hendry MP] Innovation and invention […] Government can’t support all emerging technologies. Best brains around the world [are working on] how we move fundamentally in a low carbon direction. On the waste hierarchy – burning of waste should be the final stage – finding a better use for it. [I visited] the biggest AD plant in Europe in Manchester – biogas and electricity generation. We are seeing Local Authorities taking a more constructive long-term view on how to manage waste. CHP – we all want to see more of it – to what extent does it need support ? That depends on whether new build – building a community around it. [By comparison, urban retrofitting is probably too expensive] Iceland [took the decision and] retrofitted almost every home – I’m now more convinced than before. What is the right level of subsidy and what makes good economic case ?

[Doug] We do keep missing opportunities. [For example in Wales, Milford Haven, the new Combined Cycle Gas Turbine at the Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) refinery to process the gas] should have been CHP. I am enthusiastic about lots of heat technologies [but the same questions/issues apply] scaleability and deliverability. District heating [DH] – an infrastructure asset ! [Can change priorities about what gets built – for example in Denmark (?)] they’re building large-scale solar farms to top up the DH. In the Treasury’s infrastructure plan [see DH could be…] Heat is the poor relation in energy debate. Other networks have been identified in the National Policy Statements (NPS) – but not heat.

[ Leonie Green, Renewable Energy Association ] [I must] defend heat pumps. In Sweden 90% of new builds [hav e heat pumps ?] – heat pump efficiency is a function of the energy-efficiency of the building […] Just on AD – National Grid report said it could provide 50% [of the nation’s supply. Our members think] that’s a bit too high – we think 25%. My question is really about the benefits. We are hearing anxiety about costs, but it’s piecemeal on benefits. We’ve been strong on jobs, balance of trade, exports [all benefits of renewable energy investment and deployment]. Pleased to see DECC put out [report from] Oxford Economics [on the] wider economic benefits. How can we get more and more balance in reports. [An example] Deutsche Bank renewable generation opportunities.

[ ? ] We would also support more than 5% from renewable gas – also about hydrogen – we used to do it when it was town gas – why not again ? As regards injecting biomethane/biogas from AD into the National Grid [last year ? to this year ?] 130 enquiries to connect AD to our network – none have progressed. Please sort these [registrations] out.

[ ? ] Minister, we’re not expecting you to fund all technologies – we need some logic – especially with transport. The Government doesn’t recognise the difference between Renewable Natural Gas if used in transport and fossil fuels. Would be simple – a tax on gas if used in a vehicle. What’s the problem over […] ?

[Colin Snape, University of Nottingham] We are looking at reducing the costs of carbon capture – we have a section of PhDs… One other gas source not mentioned – gas from underground gasification of coal [UCG]. In UK […] 2 billion tonners of coal – slightly offshore – on the energy coast of the UK – where all the action is on CCS – obviously UCG needs to be coupled with CCS to be carbon neutral. Would [be operational] in a very short time period […incentives…]. Significant proportion of UK needs.

[ ? ] What is the purpose of the Gas Strategy ? Shale gas isn’t a miracle. The “Golden Age of Gas” [report by the International Energy Agency (IEA)] doesn’t mean cheap gas, because [it will be put to] lots of uses. Renewable electricity and nuclear are not going to come until the 2020s. How do we avoid building loads of gas generation that is not necessary after that time ? What’s the role of mothballing (relatively cheap to bring CCGT out of mothballs comparing to build new). No sign of reduction in electricity demand reduction – therefore there will be high gas use.

[ Doug Parr ] On UCG, the IEA had two scenarios in the “Golden Age of Gas” – both took us over 3.5 degrees Celsius [in additional global warming]. Even if there is unconventional gas sources, still a huge danger of going down the road of unrestrained gas use. What is the alternative ? We should not end up becoming dependent on gas. Should not build gas to fill a short-term hole – they will lobby for their own interests – to keep open.

[ David Cox ] CCGTs won’t be built without guarantees greater than 20 years. Also renewable energy might not provide in the way that we hope. The CCC report – what caused the rise in energy prices ? The wholesale gas price – not renewable energy, green policies. However, that was slightly dishonest – the counter-factual was […] renewable energy significantly still more expensive than fossil fuel there. Until we can get costs of renewable energy down to the prices of fossil fuels… [The industry] don’t give the impression [they will build] on the basis of short-term need. Gas isn’t clean, I admit that […] CCS – that will work.

[Charles Hendry MP] A lot comes back to a need for a balanced approach – carbon targets and security of supply. If you haven’t sorted out security of supply, the electorate will not give permission to go low carbon. Gas is a hedging fuel currently but don’t know where costs going over time. As a politician, I like pipelines – know where it’s going (not like LNG, where there was limited use of new LNG import plant). If we want Scandinavian gas, we need security of demand to build the new pipeline. How we deal with issues of biomethane – in 2 years – need to make more progress. Some of these [techologies] will be gamechangers – some, look back in a couple of years… [Need a] permissive framework to allow a lot of ideas and technologies. There is no source of energy that hasn’t required subsidy in early days. Fanciful to suggest new forms of energy can come through without support. The letters we get [from the public, from constituents] are on vehicle fuel costs, not how much their gas bill went up last winter…

Official end of meeting

A gaggle of people gathered in the hallway to discuss some items further.

The Electricity Market Reform (EMR) was generally criticised – as it contains measures likely to specifically benefit nuclear power. Electricite de France was identified as very involved. The Government had said “no nuclear subsidy”, but the EMR measures are equivalent to hidden subsidies.

The Levy Cap was criticised as it would disturb investor confidence – if several nuclear reactors came on-stream in 10 years time, in the same year, they would eat up the whole subsidy budget for that year – and other technologies would lose out. If was felt that a number of the EMR proposals were “blunt instruments”, not overcoming shortcomings of former levies and subsidies.

Although the EMR was designed to addressed economic fears, it wasn’t assisting with financing risks – if anything it was adding to them. Rates of return have to be guaranteed for loans to be made – chopping and changing subsidies doesn’t allow for that.

Leonie Green said that the REA members don’t like the Premium Feed-in-Tariff (FiT). She also said later that they were not pleased about the cuts in support for AD.

Since my personal interest is in using Renewable Gas of various sources (including Biomethane / Biogas) to displace Natural Gas from the gas grid, I spoke with various people about this informally (including a woman I met on the train on my way home – who really got the argument about decarbonising gas by developing Renewable Gas, and using that to store excess renewable electricity, and use it as backup for renewable electricity. Although she did say “it won’t be done if it won’t confer benefits”.). One of the key elements for developing Renewable Gas is to create a stream of Renewable Hydrogen, produced in a range of ways. Somebody asked me what the driver would be for progress in Renewable Hydrogen production ? I said the “pull” was supposed to be the fabled “Hydrogen Economy” for transport, but that this isn’t really happening. I said the need for increased sources of renewably-sourced gas will become progressively clear – perhaps within a decade.

One of the persons present talked about how they think the Government is now coming out of the nuclear dream world – how only a few of the proposed new reactors will get built in the next decade – and how the Government now need to come up with a more realistic scenario.

It was mentioned that is appears that the Biogas technologies are going to have the same treatment as solar photovoltaics – some sort of subsidies at the start – which get cut away far too early – before it can stand on its own two feet. This was said to be the result of an underlying theory that only a fixed amount of money should be used on launching each new technology – with no thought to continuity problems – especially as regards investment and loan structures.

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Gas in the UK

“The role of gas in the UK’s energy mix” 12 June 2012 17:30 – 18:30, Committee Room 5, House of Commons with speakers Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change, Charles Hendry; David Cox, Managing Director of The Gas Forum and Dr Doug Parr, Chief Scientist of Greenpeace UK. Chaired by Dr Alan Whitehead MP, Chairman of PRASEG, the Parliamentary Renewable and Sustainable Energy Group, who called the seminar : https://www.praseg.org.uk/the-role-of-gas-in-the-uk-energy-mix/

UNVERIFIED COMMENTS : Please check with the speakers to confirm their statements and do not take this account as verbatim.

[Alan Whitehead MP] Questions about gas. Will it be business as usual ? If not – too “much” gas ? What does that mean for Climate Change targets ? New gas generation – about 11 gigawatts coming on-stream in the next 5 years – “grandfathered” (no obligations to control emissions with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)) throughout the life of the power plant – does produce questions about Climate Change targets – CCS may change that landscape in the medium-term future. Question about emergence of biogas into system [which would bring] a down-trend in emissions.

[David Cox] The wonderful future that gas offers us. Have to look at whole low carbon [framework] – gas has a place. Not a war [between gas and renewable energy technologies]. Both needed [in the advance towards carbon-free] energy. Without gas, not going to make it. Make sure we can afford it. Gas has a role. The recent [International Energy Agency] IEA report on the “Golden Age of Gas” – tight gas, shale gas – has doubled reserves. Nobody knows for sure – there’s so much there. Perhaps 250 years of gas – no shortage of gas [although some of it is in] sensitive areas. Getting it from those areas with political problems. [There are uncertainties about] unconventional gas. There is plenty around the world – “pretty good”. Gas is not at war with renewables. Gas isn’t just a transition fuel – it’s a destination fuel. Got to prove CCS technically. If we can do that gas becomes a destination fuel. Can decarbonise not only electricity. Heat. Heat pumps won’t do it on their own. Sorry. [Gas can help decarbonise] transport – electrify the transport system – that’s what we believe is possible. Hope the Government will support CCS.

[Doug Parr] First and foremost – we are not going to eliminate gas from energy systems any time soon – don’t think of gas as a destination – I would warn against policy that gas is allowed to become the default and become too dependent on gas. A lot of policy on gas – but only over part of the energy system [electricity]. Heat is going to rely on gas fo a long time. If follow the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) logic – [heat is a] strategic sector – to getting away from carbon emissions. If gas is going to be what gets us out of energy problems – the so-called “trilemma” of decarbonisation, security [of supply] and cost. [New gas power plants amount to] 11 gigawatts [GW] over the next 5 years – 120 TWh – a quarter of current gas [still in service] out to 2030. If one take CCC target of 50 gC / KWh (grammes of carbon per kilowatt hour). Look at CCGT [Combined Cycle Gas Turbine gas generation power plant in operation] – that target is a fraction of [current] unabated [CCGT] – not that great. Any substantial role of gas has to make some pretty strong assumptions about CCS. Remember, this is not yet working – let us not have a decarbonisation policy relying heavily on CCS when not at the first stage. The CCC have warned that grandfathering of the 11 GW new generation – emit without restrictions – and issue until 2045. Can’t say gas is somehow the answer to decarbonisation issues. In media – don’t [swallow] the media froth. [As for] security of supply – already going to be quite reliant on gas for heating for quite some time – hard to see [otherwise]. Heavily reliant on imports – around 80%. Where do we import our gas from ? Qatar and Norway mostly. The former head of the Navy argued [recently] changing gas prices is the single most significant factor. DECC [UK Government Department of Energy and Climate Change] recent report on price shock. REA [Renewable Energy Association] said that just by hitting renewables targets would displace £60 billion of imports. [As for] shale gas : both Ofgem research and Deutsche Bank reports that shale gas is very unlikely to help on security [of supply] issue. Citing American example [of shale gas exploitation] is just irrelevant. [So the UK Government must be] supporting gas because of costs ? The biggest rise in consumer bills is from fossil fuel [price increases]. Not renewable energy, not green energy [measures] – it’s the rise in the wholesale gas price. Is that going to stabilise and go down ? Not according to Merrill Lynch and DECC – [strong] prices for Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) and therefore for gas [as a whole, will stay]. Clearly we will be using gas – as [electricity grid load] balancing. What I’m railing about is that gas doesn’t get us out of our energy trilemma. Gas will not [save us]. We know we can deliver through renewable energy, wind – acceleration of new technologies [such as tidal] – perhaps CCS will work, who knows ? and efficient use for example Combined Heat and Power (CHP) on industrial scale. If we are using gas we are using at it’s most efficient.

[Alan Whitehead MP] [recounts tale of how he got into trouble with Twitter commentators when he insisted the recent rise in consumer energy bills was due to the rise in the cost of wholesale gas, not green energy measures] [To Charles Hendry] I’m sure you don’t Tweet.

[Charles Hendry MP] No. absolutely not. I have enough people telling me I’m wrong without… We have to look at the role of gas. It would a dereliction of Government not to look at the role of gas going forward. […mentions developments in gas production…] seismic profiling [enabling better understanding of gas fields] horizontal drilling [improving access to complex fields]. [As for] unconventional gas – the IEA “Golden Age of Gas” – but don’t assume [it’s that simple – supply may go up but] demand for gas is going to go up dramatically. Japan – major user of LNG and diesel. Consequence of Germany’s decision to close nuclear power plants – will use much more gas. China…India…growth rate – massive growth of demand. Anticipate new resources to be found – Iraq for example – but cannot assume [what has happened in the United States of America with the development of shale gas where gas prices are now] a quarter [of what they were] – a massive boost to America – will they allow this to be exported to Asia – or use cheap gas to [relocating] industry back to the USA ? Have to look at implications for us. Reasons why shale gas is different in Europe – legal [situation] – the mineral rights [in the US, these can be acquired from underneath a landowner]. Don’t have the same commercial drives as farmers in the US. The reason why gas prices collapsed in the US and not here – if we saw a price benefit here, it would go out through the [gas] interconnectors [to neighbouring countries]. For real practical reasons won’t see shal gas develop [significantly] here. [It is a] global gamechanger – but… The US is fundamentally shifting from coal to gas – with the implications for emissions. The change from coal to gas was a major driver in European control of emissions [in the 1990s] […] Investment…technology…practical constraints. EdF [Electricite de France] will go ahead with new nuclear [by the end of the year ?] but the plant will not come online until the end of the decade. Major renewable energy resources also in 2020s [not immediate] – the cost of offshore wind power is two times that of onshore. We’re saying to industry to reduce by 40% by the end of the decade – otherwise simply not affordable. Contributions from tidal, CCS ahead. It’s going to be very end of this decade to see if CCS can work. Worrying gap [in power generation between now and next decade]. Megawatts (MW) of coal being turned off in 2015. [Coal plants are] getting through their [legally permitted] generating hours too quickly. By 2023, the only nuclear plant still operational will be Sizewell B. We have to have more gas in the mix. As we look towards more intermittent resources (renewables), gas is an important source of backup. [Will have/need] a capacity mechanism to ensure [optimisation when] mismatch between supply and demand – auction to include gas – could be [North Sea] gas, gas from the interconnectors [from abroad] or demand side response [demand reduction] – a more sophisticated capacity mechanism than historical. I’m more optimistic about CCS [than Doug Parr]. CCS is a requirement. It is something we have to deliver – no scenario I’ve seen where we’re going [to be] using less coal, oil and gas than today. [Out to 2035] our basic needs [will still rely for a good percentage on] fossil fuels. Broadening CCS [demonstration competition] out to pre- and post-combustion on coal – [expand] to gas. Can be applied to gas as well as coal. I think CCS is a fundamentally critical part of this equation. If so, can see gas as a destination fuel. The GW of gas being built in the next few years [some questions] – currently gas is being mothballed [some plants being shut down effectively putting them into disuse] because of [fuel] prices. I consented more in gas and also wind on- and offshore last year. But that gas is not being built. If we want that gas built we need a more coherent strategy. Look at what is necessary to encourage that gas – and carbon emissions [reduction] alongside. EPS [Emissions Performance Standard] […] to stop unabated coal – limit 450 gC / kWh – significant proportion of plant would need CCS. But ddin’t want to disincentivise gas. Have also said a point where CCS on gas will be necessary. But if we had people building gas now and then 15, 20 years later they would have to fit very expensive [CCS] equipment… Volume of gas coming forward meets our supply issues. Over the next few years, grandfathering. If see enough gas coming through can change the mechanism in due course. [We will be] responding officially to the CCC in Autumn. Need to [fully] decarbonise electricity in the course of the 2030s if we want to meet out climate change objectives. I think that [the] reality [is that] gas and important element. Nuclear is important. Want to see significant amount of renewable energy and what Doug is calling for – significant commitment to [energy use] efficiency in the country. [We should concentrate particularly on] energy efficiency.

The meeting then opened up to questions from the floor… To Be Continued

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It’s got to be gas

Public Enemy Number One in energy terms has got to be burning coal to generate electricity. Although the use of some coal for domestic heating to supplement varying supplies of biomass in home stoves is going to continue to be very useful, using coal for power production is wasteful, toxic and high carbon.

Public Enemy Number Two in energy terms is nuclear power – a weight round our collective neck. Costly to build, costly to underwrite, costly to decommission: although its proponents claim it as a low carbon solution, even they admit the management of nuclear power can be polluting, risky and wasteful.

Public Energy Number Three in energy terms has to be the incredible amount of water required to keep the first two enemies in operation. Climate change is already altering the patterns of rainfall, both in geographical areas and in seasons. Any energy solutions that don’t require water supplies will be preferable.

Many environmental researchers oppose a growing dependence on Natural Gas for power generation in industrialised countries – they claim it will lock in carbon emissions production without Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). Carbon Capture and Storage is way off in the never-never land at present, so it should not be factored in to analyses of carbon management. Ignoring CCS, it can be seen that substituting in Natural Gas power generation where coal has been the principal fuel is in fact a very good way to lower greenhouse gas emissions in the near term.

Natural Gas is not forever, not even with environmentally-ensured unconventional production, such as shale gas. Yet the Natural Gas infrastructure is highly important for developed and some parts of developing countries too. If we can re-imagine the future of gas, making gas fuels renewable, the already existing distribution of gas and appliances and equipment that use it, become a valuable asset.

The climate change crisis is an energy crisis. My position is that we need three vital things to solve this energy crisis : rationalised energy, renewable electricity and Renewable Gas. My key projection is that a 100% renewable energy world is possible, and in fact, inevitable, and to get from here to there we need to use gas fuels, but they need to become progressively renewable in order to meet the climate change crisis.

Natural Gas can not only be a “bridge fuel”. Supporting its use now, on the understanding that it will be replaced by Renewable Gas in the medium term, will enable links to be made between society and the energy industry, and break down the barricades between those who are against high carbon energy and those who sell high carbon energy.

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Psy Ops Gone Wrong


I’m not a conspiracy theorist, even though what I’m about to summarise may sound like I wear a tinfoil hat and don’t use wi-fi, but I assure you this is not true.

I would like you to consider the proposition that disbelief in climate change science is nothing more than an exercise in public mind-bending gone very, very wrong.

In the 1970s, climate change science began to accumulate some serious evidence and intelligent students. It became clear to a number of powerful players that the policy implications of global warming included a drastic reassessment of oil and gas dependence in the global economy.

Defence and national governance institutions all over the Free World, but most significantly in the United States of America, began to discuss the security implications of policy to combat global warming. The energy companies realised that the game was up if they didn’t act – they had their business profits to lose if carbon dioxide emissions became regulated.

Academics and researchers such as Naomi Oreskes and James Hoggan have documented what happened as a result – connivance from the oil, gas and coal companies to launch public relations exercises to qualm apocalyptic fear amongst the general population.

Certain scientists and engineers in the pay of the energy sector, and also close to the American federal administration, and some even in the US Department of Defense, took it as their personal mission to undermine confidence in climate change science, using tried-and-tested techniques from the public relations industry, sowing doubt in science.

Universities were targets for this psychological operation – the early versions of the Internet were ideal pathways for communicating the disinformation. Even very intelligent people became suspicious of climate change science, using the same route by which some environmentalists were invited to become suspicious of microwave ovens – but that’s a whole other story.

We all know what happened next – governments became shy of carbon policy : the result was a promotion of economic consumption at the expense of precaution. Developed economies around the world abandoned energy conservation for more extreme fossil fuel use.

An uneasy international balance was achieved by the USA devoting significant diplomatic effort to their relationship with Saudi Arabia, and protecting energy supplies by sending young white (and black) Christian martyrs into unholy wars on oil and gas producer nations.

It must be hard for some entrenched positions to hear that climate change is actually really serious, after all. We can end the conversation with these sceptics – there are other issues we need to focus on, such as the risks from the militarisation of the melting Arctic.

Climate change “dissenters”, “dismissers” and “deniers” might find it hard to listen to the US Department of Defense trying to be upbeat and re-capture the agenda and the platform. Here’s Leon Panetta outlining some of the new story :-

“Panetta: Environment Emerges as National Security Concern : By Nick Simeone : American Forces Press Service : Washington, May 3, 2012 : Climate and environmental change are emerging as national security threats that weigh heavily in the Pentagon’s new strategy, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told an environmental group last night. “The area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security,” Panetta said here at a reception hosted by the Environmental Defense Fund to honor the Defense Department in advancing clean energy initiatives. “Rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief,” Panetta said. Panetta cited the melting of Arctic ice in renewing a longstanding call for the Senate to ratify the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea. More than 150 nations have accepted the treaty, which has been in force since the early 1990s, and a succession of U.S. government administrations have urged ratification. Among other things, the convention would guarantee various aspects of passage and overflight for the U.S. military. Panetta urged his audience to use their influence to push for treaty ratification. “We are the only industrialized nation that has not approved that treaty,” he said…”In the next fiscal year, we are going to be investing more than a billion dollars in more efficient aircraft and aircraft engines, in hybrid electric drives for our ships, in improved generators, in microgrids for combat bases and combat vehicle energy-efficient programs,” he said. “We are investing another billion dollars to make our installations here at home more energy-efficient, and we are using them as the test bed to demonstrate next-generation energy technologies.”

So, how will the international defence and intelligence communities take down the Frankenstein’s monster of opposition to climate change science that in effect they spawned themselves ? How are they going to bust the barricades of intransigent denial of the temperature and sea level gauges ?

You will find that the major meteorological research institutions in most developed countries are closely allied with their ministries of defence and intelligence. For example, the Met Office in the UK. There are competing issues at stake – the scientists cannot get too loud about climate change, because national security depends on economic stability – which rests partly on the profit and loss accounts of their energy sector businesses.

One or two scientists in the extended national security apparatus speak out – like James Hansen at NASA. But most people just keep their heads down.

This is where independent voices are so important to roll back the decades of climate change science scepticism. I hope knowledgable journalists and activists really rip to shreds the latest Heartland advertising campaign.

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Ocean Warming : False Security

The human race has been treating the World Ocean as a dumping ground for global warming and excess carbon dioxide emissions.

It’s where most of the heat ends up, and almost half the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions as well.

Research shows that as humanity pours more carbon into the sky, the oceans are able to react by taking up more of it.

The Southern Ocean in particular is showing a healthy response, pulling more and more of our emissions down from the atmosphere.

On the face of it, the oceans are increasing their capacity to suck carbon out of the air, either by biological means or through simply mixing with the air, so some argue that we should relax and rely on these carbon sinks to avert dangerous warming of the ground level atmosphere – maintaining a healthy atmosphere for all land-based life.

However, this net reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide due to this increased ocean carbon pump is masking the effects of global warming – for the time being. The oceans are warming, and this combined with increased overturning is resulting in the oceans giving up more carbon dioxide from their depths as a result.

For now, the ocean carbon sink is holding up and compensating for some global warming, but there are concerns should the carbon pump fail, or the effects of global warming overtake it.

The very latest research into changes in the World Ocean show clear trends in salinity – how fresh or how salty seawater is. These changes are associated with the higher energy in the Earth system : more heat captured by the ocean is making wind patterns more powerful, which makes ocean overturning stronger.

Of special concern is the effect this could have on the Southern Ocean. A stronger overturning would increase the upwelling of deep ocean water, which would draw long-sequestered carbon-rich gases from the deeps to the surface of the sea, where it would outgas to the atmosphere.

This is the scenario recently suggested to explain part of the process of how the Earth came out of the last glacial period over 15,000 years ago (“What causes the CO2 rise?”)

The biological productivity of the oceans, the levels of greenhouse gases in ocean water, and the strength of the carbon sinks will continue to be of intense concern as time passes.

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On Being Climate Pragmatic



When it comes to proposals for climate change policy, most studies indicate technological efforts : some, fiscal measures.

Few, if any, really consider the pragmatic likelihood of their proposals being taken up.

I’d like to offer the first in a series of totally made-up statistics to show my view on the likelihood of some of these proposals being implementable (or is that “implementible” ?) and efficacious (effective).

I honestly don’t know why the media continue to discuss and discuss the merits and/or disbenefits of new nuclear power and geoengineering (which includes Carbon Capture and Storage or CCS).

They are not likely to be able to help in the next few decades, and so they might as well not be on the proposals table or board.

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Solar FITs and Starts

The British Government’s solar power policy is not really going very well.

Ah well, at least the “nuclear power renaissance” is progressing…err, maybe not :-

“New nuclear electricity costs hit utility ratings – Moody’s : 27 Mar 2012

“Building a nuclear power plant is perceived as risky by credit rating agencies – and in some cases could lead to a ratings downgrade of the utility concerned, a senior analyst at US-based Moody’s told ICIS on Tuesday.”

“The analyst, who wished to remain anonymous, said an unfavourable attitude towards nuclear power stemmed largely from the scale of investment required, together with future uncertainties surrounding power prices.”

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Carbon Captured #2 : Socialising Cost, Privatising Profits


Image Credit : Michael Sterner

Carbon dioxide is a fuel. And I don’t mean plant food.

As petroleum oil and Natural Gas production hit peaks that cannot be surpassed, and the world begins to realise that depletion is inevitable, the world’s energy producers will turn to alternatives, including various forms of fuel and gas made from carbon dioxide, chemically adjusted with hydrogen derived from renewable resources.

It seems to me hypocritical for the large oil and gas companies to pitch for public funds to support their investment in Carbon Capture and Storage. Why ? Because this public funding will get converted into private profits the day they start to pump the carbon dioxide back out of storage to make Renewable Gas.

From a personal perspective, I find the argument for public financing of Carbon Capture and Storage particularly toxic when it is proposed to raise the revenue by placing an artificial price or tax on carbon. This would mean that the taxpaper-consumer pays for the emissions burden of hydrocarbon fossil fuel energy, and then gets to pay again for alternative energy, produced using the stored waste gases that they already paid for.

Charge energy customers twice. What a great bailout for fossil fuels !

I suspect that the only reason that Royal Dutch Shell and BP admit to climate change is so they can push their Carbon Capture and Storage schemes – bid tendering for public subsidy.

Forget the subsidies currently in place around the world for wind and solar power. Global carbon finance pushed at Carbon Capture and Storage will be of a much higher order of expenditure.

If the oil and gas companies want to build Carbon Capture and Storage facilities – let them pay for them themselves. After all, in many cases, they have been able to economically justify them by using carbon dioxide pumping to increase oil production – what’s known as Enhanced Oil Recovery.

Or if they insist on public finance for geo-sequestration of carbon dioxide in Carbon Capture and Storage projects, let them give us the carbon dioxide back for free when we need it for Renewable Gas production in the coming decades.

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Carbon Captured : The Ultimate Bailout

Image Credit : SCCS

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a collection of actual and proposed technologies to return the carbon dioxide from fossil fuels back underground, or somewhere else where they can stop interfering with the global carbon cycle.

An excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is causing a range of problems, including acid ocean and most seriously, climate change.

Carbon Capture and Storage, or Sequestration, was first seriously proposed back in the 1970s, by a range of scientists and engineers, including Cesare Marchetti, (“On Geoengineering and the CO2 problem”, Climatic Change, Volume 1, Number 1, Pages 59 – 68) who is reputed to have coined the term “geoengineering” (see “Geoengineering: Could or should we do it?”, Stephen H. Schneider, Climatic Change, Volume 33, Number 3, Pages 291 – 302).

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Academic Freedom #5 : More Natural Gas power stations is a Good Thing

Energy policy in the United Kingdom is a constant battle. A number of environmental commentators and campaign groups are up in arms about the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). Again.

Somebody with influence should have a quiet word with DECC about their public relations – they seem intent on leading people a merry dance about their true policy intentions – and then blasting everybody with piecemeal pronouncements, without giving the concerned public the full picture.

Personally, I think the strategy of building new Natural Gas-fired power plants is rather good. Yes, I will explain why. But first I will cover some of the complaints.

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Academic Freedom #4 : Carbon pricing cannot work #2

Image Credit : AVGLOB.net

Carbon pricing is the ultimate antisocial policy.

The trouble with carbon pricing or taxation is there’s nowhere really that consumer spending can fly to to avoid carbon pricing.

In the United Kingdom, for example, around 90% of the country’s energy is derived from fossil fuels. A carbon price will make everything more expensive – mostly for consumers.

Despite the phenomenal, almost exponential, growth in renewable energy deployment, not everybody can choose to use green energy – there simply isn’t enough to go round.

The theoretical basis for carbon pricing, taxation, and quota markets (as known as cap and trade, or cap-and-something) is that the polluter should pay. The thing is, it’s not clear in the theory whether the polluter is the energy company who produces dirty energy, or the consumer of the dirty energy (who doesn’t have a choice about the carbon content of the energy they use).

Let’s be honest here – pricing high carbon energy is not a cost that’s going to be paid by energy producers – they are simply going to pass the costs on to their consumers.

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How little progress has been made since 1973

Last year I was watching a couple of TEDs, and I came across this one given by Richard Sears, former Vice President of Royal Dutch Shell.

When he showed a chart of depletion curves for various energy resources, I thought to myself “I’ve seen this somewhere before”. As indeed I had. Nearly 30 years ago. How time flies.

Memory is a patchy thing – the past is a set of blurred images of places, people, things – snapshots and summaries, little stories that we retell ourselves to encapsulate the moment. Things people said. I seem to recall emotional responses with the most clarity, so I cast myself back, trawling through my internal notebook for clues, hooks on which to recall.

This may be a false memory, but it may not be, considering it allowed me to research the past. There I was, in the University Library, with all its institutional glass windows, and the sun beating down. It was too hot to think. In my hands I had an article from my undergraduate Physics degree reading list, probably provided by the Engineering Department for our study module on Energy. I recall that for some reason it was a translation. And had some complex formulae. My head buzzed. I couldn’t quite take it in.

It didn’t take much Googling to remind me : Marchetti.

Back in the 1970s, engineers were promising a hydrogen economy for the 21st century, and Cesare Marchetti was optimistic about Carbon Capture and Storage.

How little progress has been made since the First Oil Shock of 1973.

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Carbon Capture and Syngas

Back in the 1970s they were expecting global cooling – of the economy. There were oil shocks and shocking prices, and petrochemists beavered away, sweating over test tubes the size of football fields, whisking up synthetic fuels.

It was not the first time that the world had tried to synthesise liquid vehicle fuel. Hitler famously did it during the Second World War, and had it not been for Bergius and Fischer-Tropsch, Nazi Germany would have collapsed much sooner under the anvil of global economic sanctions. I mean, the history books insist the multi-pronged military assault was responsible for the Victory in Europe, but the final push would never have succeeded without the suspension of energy trade.

Various syngas and synfuel projects have continued in various places, mostly America, and although the first plants used coal and Natural Gas to make other things, these days the emphasis is on biomass.

We can expect to see a dramatic rise in the amount of Biogas and Bio-syngas produced over the next few decades, along with renewably-sourced hydrogen. It will all get fed into the global syngas refineries, and out will pop power, vehicle fuel and chemistry.

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Solar FIT to Bust #5

Germany can do it, but not the British. The Collected Republic of the People can install solar power with great will and nerve, but not Johnny English.

Let’s be clear here – the people in Scotland have a vision for future Renewable Energy, and so do many people in Wales and Ireland, but it appears English governance listens to fuddy duddy landowners too readily, and remains wedded to the fossil fuel industry and major construction projects like nuclear power, and carbon capture and storage.

What precisely is wrong with the heads of policy travel in Westminster ? Do they not understand the inevitable future of “conventional” energy – of decline, decimation and fall ?

It really is of no use putting off investment in truly sustainable and renewable power and gas. There are only two paths we can take in the next few decades, and their destination is the same.

Here’s how it goes. Path A will take the United Kingdom into continued dodgy skirmishes in the Middle East and North Africa. Oil production will dance like a man with a stubbed toe, but then show its true gradient of decline. Once everybody gets over the panic of the impending lack of vehicle fuel, and the failure of alternatives like algal biodiesel, and the impacts of a vastly contracted liquid fuel supply on globalised trade, then we shall move on to the second phase – the exploitation of gas. At first, it will be Natural Gas. But that too will decline. And then it will be truly natural gases. As gas is exploited for vehicles, electricity will have to come from coal. But coal, too, is suffering a precipitous decline. So renewable energy will be our salvation. By the year 2100, the world will run on renewable electricity and renewable gas, or not at all.

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Rooftop Solar : Summer Highs

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.