This page contains an article, paper, news item or other source of evidence referred to in The Case Against Windfarms
Energy
The Times June 25, 2007
Energy crisis cannot be solved by renewables, oil chiefs say
Carl Mortished, International Business Editor
The world is blinding itself to the reality of its energy problems, ignoring the scale of growth in demand from developing countries and placing too much faith in renewable sources of power, according to two leaders of the global energy industry.
The chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell today calls for a “reality check”. Writing in The Times, Jeroen van der Veer takes issue with the widespread public opinion that green energy can replace fossil fuels.
Shell’s chief gives warning that supplies of conventional oil and gas will struggle to keep pace with rising energy demand and he calls for greater investment in energy efficiency.
Instead of a great conversion to wind power and solar power, Mr van der Veer predicts, the world will be forced into greater use of coal and much higher CO2 emissions, “possibly to levels we deem unacceptable”.
Alternative energy sources, such as renewables, will not fill the gap, says Mr van der Veer, who forecasts that even with major technological breakthroughs, renewables could account for only 30 per cent of energy supply by the middle of the century.
“Contrary to public perceptions, renewable energy is not the silver bullet that will soon solve all our problems,” he writes.
The warning from Royal Dutch Shell coincides with a critique of public energy policy by Rex Tillerson, the chief executive of ExxonMobil.
Speaking at the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London, Mr Tillerson pointed to a widespread failure by policymakers to understand the extent to which the aspirations of people in developing countries are fuelling growth in demand for energy.
Mr Tillerson said that world energy demand would rise by 45 per cent by 2030, and fossil fuels – oil, natural gas and coal – were the only energy sources of sufficient size, adaptability and affordability to meet the world’s needs.
Mr van der Veer casts doubt today on the oil and gas industry’s ability to keep up with accelerating demand. “Just when energy demand is surging, many of the world’s conventional oilfields are going into decline,” he writes.
Although there is no shortage of oil and gas in the ground, Mr van der Veer says, the industry currently lacks the technology to recover even half of that resource.
Mr Tillerson, speaking at Chatham House, expressed doubts about the oil industry’s ability to raise its game significantly without access to the oil reserves of the Opec countries of the Middle East.
“The supply outlook for nonOpec countries will be modestly up or flat,” Mr Tillerson predicted. He was sceptical about the drive by governments to increase use of biofuels and said that a fifth of America’s corn crop was being used to produce four billion gallons of ethanol, compared with targets of 12 billion gallons by 2012.
The ExxonMobil chief criticised the EU’s carbon trading system, calling it an administratively complex system that lacked transparency and failed to deliver a uniform and predictable cost of carbon. “It’s all about moving the money around,” he said.
Mr Tillerson said he would prefer a carbon tax that would enable the cost of carbon to spread through the economy in a uniform way, letting governments use the revenues to mitigate its effect by reducing employment or income taxes.
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bio fuels
http://business.timesonline.co.uk
Bio Fuels
The UK has assumed a leadership position in Europe which enjoys the active support of the biofuels industry
Love them or loathe them, it is certain that you can’t keep biofuels out of the headlines. Last year the financial pages hyped biofuels as the next big green investment opportunity.
This year the column inches paint an emotive picture of biofuels as the root of many evils currently afflicting the planet - rainforest destruction, starvation, poverty. It is probably safe to assume that neither picture is accurate.
But given that biofuels will almost certainly be part of our low-carbon energy future there is a genuine need for greater transparency and understanding, both with regards to the scale of benefits that biofuels can bring, but also over the risks that they carry.
When considering the scale of the impact, it is worth observing the normal modus operandi of the detractors of all forms of renewable energy, which is to pick on a single technology or process, present it as a ‘universal’ solution and then to ridicule this proposition.
Remember the images of a countryside swathed in wind turbines, as Bernard Ingham protested that wind ‘is not an answer to global warming’? Now we are told that there is simply not enough land to meet global demand for both fuels and food, but it is still not apparent who presented this as a serious proposal.
Given the scale of the challenge that we face, one might have hoped that the debate over climate change would have grown up, and those with a serious interest in securing stabilisation of CO2 concentrations at 550ppm would have accepted the reality that only a diverse combination of measures – each with their own advantages, limitations and risks – can together deliver progress.
There is no magic bullet.
Biofuels have a part to play, and in reality it is modest - the EU has limited its ambition for biofuels to 10% of the transport fuels market by 2020. The UK government estimates that its Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation will be saving 1 Mtonnes of carbon annually by 2010; by no means the complete solution to the crisis of burgeoning transport emissions.
But this limited scope is no reason in itself not to pursue the opportunity: it is the sum of a series of actions, each pursued vigorously and effectively that will mitigate climate change. Dismissing a solution because it alone fails to deliver salvation, plays directly into the hands of those with a vested interest in doing no more than preserving the status quo.
So what of the well-publicized risks? It is true, there are risks inherent in a biofuels supply. As indeed there are in many of the steps that we must take in the path to tackling climate change, and at times society faces difficult decisions. But the suggestion that these are not being recognized and managed, whilst it might make good campaign fodder, is far off the mark.
The EU’s 10% biofuels target is itself rooted in the research of the European Environment Agency, which found that European agriculture could meet - sustainably -17% of our primary energy needs. The report carried the caveat that specific steps must be taken to develop these resources with proper environmental safeguards. The UK is doing just that. To support this, the Government has established an ambitious programme of carbon reporting for biofuels that has as its end goal an incentive framework that rewards biofuels not on volumes supplied, but on the basis of verified carbon savings.
In taking these steps the UK has assumed a leadership position in Europe which enjoys the active support of the biofuels industry. Indeed, the industry has gone a step further, proposing an ambitious timetable for the move to carbon-based incentives.
This is simply a case of good risk management for business. Any environmental policy that ignores sustainability, or any carbon abatement policy that cannot demonstrate its capacity to deliver carbon savings, is itself unsustainable and presents unacceptable risk to investors. The timetable provides a clear way forward, whilst accepting that we cannot regulate on the basis of carbon until we have the data to make accurate and informed decisions.
In the real world this takes time, but will result in a better system that is built on the solid foundation of reliable data, not an artifice that presents the illusion of progress but delivers no real safeguards. The UK biofuels supply chain is working towards implementing a system that is robust, credible and enduring, rather than dashing to deliver a quick fix that would inevitably unravel.
And there may be a bigger prize from this approach. A leadership position is only of value if others follow, and while the UK may be pursuing biofuels for carbon abatement goals, the motivation elsewhere in Europe today can be decidedly different. The only prospect for more widespread adoption of the UK approach will be if the Commission and other Member States are persuaded that it is a reliable, workable and effective tool for securing carbon savings. Biofuels’ detractors have far more to gain from supporting the UK policy than attacking it.Oct 23 2007 <http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/countryside-farming-news/countryside-news/2007/10/23/> by Steve Dube, Western Mail
Environmental groups warn over dangers of bioenergy schemes
BIOENERGY has been hailed as a great opportunity for Wales, but a line-up of environmental groups are warning it could do more harm than good.
They are making an urgent plea to government not to downgrade other environmental concerns in promoting bioenergy to help tackle climate change, when they publish the forthcoming consultation on a Wales Biomass Energy Strategy.
Wales Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing Jane Davidson revealed earlier this month that she hopes shortly to publish a consultation paper for a Wales biomass energy strategy to look at the possible way forward.
Bioenergy in the UK, a new report supported by Wales Environment Link, the umbrella for environmental non-governmental organisations in Wales, is the green movement getting its response in early.
The report warns that large areas of Britain could end up covered with crops grown for energy generation, such as willow, oil-seed rape and miscanthus – elephant grass.
And they say the result would be a series of monocultures that would provide little sustenance for wildlife.
Without proper management, the cultivation of such crops for fuel, electricity and heat could cause further declines of farmland wildlife, damage the character of landscapes, harm historic and archaeological sites and damage soil and water quality.
The report calls for a UK-wide assessment of the potential drawbacks of bioenergy. And it wants certification of bioenergy schemes to ensure they cut greenhouse gas emissions and planning policies that guard against unsuitable bioenergy developments and inappropriate changes in land use.
And where farmers are paid to grow bioenergy crops, they should be required to assess their environmental impact.
Jeff Davies, RSPB Cymru’s agricultural policy officer, who chairs Wales Environment Link’s land use working group, said the report welcomes the opportunities that could be created by bioenergy development and says the potential for environmental harm from new energy schemes can be avoided.
Mr Davies said, “It is vitally important that, in the course of producing bio-energy with the aim of reducing carbon emissions and lessening the impact of global warming, we do not inadvertently cause environmental damage,” he said.
The sentiment was echoed by Russel Hobson, of Butterfly Conservation Wales, who said, “Care must be taken that wildlife does not suffer in the rush to grow biofuels. Suitable safeguards must be put in place to avoid damage to wildlife sites.”
Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales director Peter Ogden also warned of a threat to the quality and diversity of the landscapes of Wales.
“Whilst we need to grasp every opportunity to increase the ways we produce energy and power in the future, the last thing anyone wants to see is yet another subsidy-driven monoculture dramatically transforming the character of our landscapes and swamping the signature of our heritage.”
Clean coal
Is energy solution beneath our feet?
by Robin Turner,
Black to the future
Forget about wind farms and nuclear power stations. The answer to Britain ’s looming energy crisis could be cheap, plentiful and planet-friendly coal
Richard Girling
At 16 minutes after midday on October 17, 1956 , at Calder Hall in Cumberland , the Queen pulled a lever and declared open the world’s first nuclear power station. In a high wind that crackled the pages of her script, she spoke of the “limitless opportunities which providence has given us”, and predicted that the peaceful application of nuclear power would be “among the greatest of our contributions to human welfare”. When the cheering died down, men with watch chains spoke of “epoch-making” events, and “energy too cheap to meter”.
Fifty-nine years later, in 2015, someone in the UK will flick a switch and nothing will happen. Eight years from now, the country will have only a fraction of the power it needs. Towns and cities blank out as the National Grid fizzles and dies. Pensioners die of cold, then putrefy in unchilled mortuaries. The only light comes from families burning their furniture. Streets after dark belong to armed gangs operating black markets in everything from clean water to butchered pets. Shop staff flee as customers brawl in the aisles over torch batteries and out-of-date Pot Noodles. The prime minister declares a national state of emergency but nobody hears him.
Fantasy it may be, but it’s hardly more preposterous than the government’s faith in miracles. Somehow, it seems to think, by native genius, good luck and the glad hand of beneficent world markets, the looming energy deficit will not take so much as a kettle off the boil. It invites us to have faith in the power of prayer. North Sea oil and gas are running out and world oil stocks are falling. The UK ’s last few nuclear plants are of interest only to demolition contractors; so are its older coal-fired power stations. A third of the UK ’s current generating capacity will be out of use by the middle of the next decade. International supplies of natural gas will be controlled by unstable countries on the wrong side of the ideological divide, while worldwide demand will soar. Sellers, not buyers, will rule the market. We’ll be okay, though. We can cover the fields in windmills; burn straw and cow dung; dam a few estuaries…
The problem for the politicians is that there are conflicting imperatives and no consensus on what should be done – you would more easily achieve agreement on the existence of God. It is not so much a debate as an aural riot, voices shouting against one another like dealers on a trading floor. All claim to be driven by high principle. All promise “sustainable” energy and low carbon emissions. But no lobby ever changes another’s mind, and all argue that the best chance for mankind lies in whatever technology they happen to be commercially, professionally or ideologically attached to. Various hard-hat divisions are gung-ho for coal, gas or nuclear. Greens bicker over wind (onshore and off), biofuels, tidal and wave. They pelt each other with wattages, price projections, bar charts, climate forecasts and abuse. Onshore wind power to the hard-hats lies somewhere between Blue Peter and a money-laundering scam. Nuclear to the bean-eaters is the final phase in the Fall of Man. Everyone speaks, nobody listens, and the government calls for yet more talks.
The problem is easily stated. On current trends, the world will need 50% more energy in 2030 than it does today, which is a lot more than it’s got in the tank. Worse: energy-related emissions of greenhouse gases by then will be 55% higher, which means we’ll fry our grandchildren if not ourselves. These, I should say, are the government’s own figures, published in this year’s energy white paper, not some doodle on a muesli packet by the People’s Yoghurt Collective. To keep itself humming, and to compensate for the exhaustion of North Sea oil and the closure of power stations, the UK pretty desperately needs a strategy. For all its length (342 pages), the white paper is much more about “need to do” than “how to do”. It leaves that to “ UK companies”, which will “need to make substantial new investment in power stations, the electricity grid, and gas infrastructure”. On how that investment is to be assured, or even encouraged, it remains largely mute (carbon-trading schemes are its best shot).
Top of the “need to” list by around 2015 is finding another 30-35 gigawatts of power. If electricity were a solid substance you could visualise, you’d be looking at a mountain. A gigawatt is 1,000m watts – enough to meet the peak load of 130,000 average British households. Simple arithmetic says we’ll be short of 4.55m homes’ worth if nothing is done in time. And power stations are not all we need. To keep the furnaces hot, the government reckons that by 2020 we’ll need to increase our “gas import capacity” by 15-30%. Which means doing deals with countries having “gas export capacity” that we can afford to buy. Norway can supply part of it, but that still leaves a lot to be met from other sources. As most of these – in the Middle East, North Africa, Russia, Iran – are not famous for their stability, reliability or goodwill to the British, and because we will be bidding for their limited output in competition with America, our European neighbours and the fired-up economies of India and China, buying gas is not going to be a simple matter of phoning in the weekly order. The term most often used to describe the likely outcome is “price-shock”.
Keeping the power on is only half the challenge. The other half is reducing greenhouse emissions. Indeed, “environmental protection” heads the government’s table of priorities, ahead of security of supply and affordable energy. It’s as if forward and reverse gears have to be engaged simultaneously, with no loss of momentum or swerving off the highway. On current evidence, this will require a more skilful driver than the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (Berr, the thinly disguised successor to that world champion procrastinator, the Department of Trade and Industry).
Statistics thud like dough into the brain, impossible to digest. The UK and EU between them have signed up to the inevitable think-of-a-number targets. Britain is supposed to produce 10% of its electricity from renewable sources (wind and tide, etc) by 2010, 15% by 2015 and 20% by 2020. At the moment we are managing just 4%. At the same time, it proposes (one can hardly say “plans”) a 26-32% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020, and 60% by 2050 (both against a 1990 baseline). The European Union, meanwhile, is looking for a 20% cut in total energy consumption (not just electricity) by 2020. Hands up anyone who can pick their way through that lot and come out the other end with all boxes ticked and the lights still on.
Officials in the former DTI told ministers earlier this year that Britain had no chance of meeting the EU’s 2020 energy target, and suggested they should use “statistical interpretations” (ie, spin the figures) to get out of it. There is, in short, an orthodoxy of hopelessness in which wriggling deputises for action. The only excuse offered by friends of the civil service is that ministers failed to understand the difference between “electricity” and “total energy”, and that Tony Blair thought it was safe to back unattainable targets because the French and Polish would block them (they didn’t).
Three ideological war zones stand in the way of concerted effort. The major battle, green dragon versus red, sets “renewable” against “conventional” power – good versus bad, or whimsy versus science, depending on which flag you salute. The other two conflicts, more messily, are strike-from-the-hills skirmishes between subdivisions of the greens and reds – onshore versus offshore wind; wind versus tide; tide versus wave; wave versus biomass; biomass versus solar; all these versus coal, gas and oil, and the whole lot versus nuclear. Some of these are nudged forward by government subsidies, carbon trading and tax breaks; others are driven by the market, or are hanging on to ground they already hold. Most are held up by shortfalls in investment or research, or by long delays in the planning system or difficulties in connecting to the National Grid.
Nor are these the only contradictions. When burnt as fuel, for example, municipal waste counts as a renewable resource and helps the government meet its renewables target. But this diverts stuff that might be composted, re-used or recycled, and threatens recycling targets. And here comes the EU, wanting 10% of all transport fuel consumption in Europe to be from biofuels by 2020. This sounds as green as springtime, but alas…
With world population increasing, and cropping areas being reduced by climate change, we can ill afford to take land out of food production to grow fuel for cars. Worse: when forests are felled to clear ground for biofuel crops (typically oil-palm), the intended reduction in carbon emissions not only fails to happen but is thrown into reverse. Forest trees absorb nine times more CO2 per hectare than biofuel crops do. There is no such thing as a free tankful, and it confronts us with the ultimate contradiction – an environmental policy that actually makes global warming worse. Ten million hectares of rainforest have been sacrificed in Sumatra and Borneo , and the 5.5m already lost in Indonesia will rise to 16.5m.
Back on the green and pleasant hills of Scotland , Wales and England , the two most divisive issues are wind and nuclear. Onshore wind farms have a good stiff breeze of green opinion behind them, but there is a green tinge to the opposition too – it is argued, with some vehemence, that wind turbines are noisy, ugly and disruptive to wildlife. The Renewable Energy Foundation (Ref) complains of a “widespread and unplanned industrialisation of the countryside”, and “a developer-led feeding frenzy that is neither green nor sustainable”. The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) warns that “decisions based on flaws in the current wind farm planning regime could spoil fine upland landscapes and leave areas of ‘ordinary’ lowland countryside marred by multitudes of turbines”. It will oppose large-scale developments anywhere near areas of outstanding natural beauty or national parks – which of course includes many of the upland areas where potential for wind energy is greatest.
Though it is withdrawing its mystifying claim that “the UK has 40% of Europe ’s entire wind resource”, the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) refuses to give ground. It supports with a blizzard of statistics its claim that, with a nationwide total of 5,000 turbines – a prospect that shocks landscape campaigners – onshore wind could provide 10% of Britain ’s electricity by 2020. There is a titanic clash over the economics. Critics argue that tradeable Renewables Obligation Certificates, introduced by the government to encourage carbon-free energy, have created an artificial market that disproportionately benefits onshore wind at the expense of others. The energy regulator Ofgem, the Carbon Trust and Ref are all demanding change; so, in its Blueprint for a Green Economy, published in September, did the Conservative party’s quality-of-life policy group.
This is just one muddle among many. Every technology has its advocates and its raspberry-blowers. Like pantomime dames, the parties have thrown themselves into a yes-we-can, no-you-can’t hissing contest. Given such a parade of prancing hypotheses, in which untried theories and unprovable projections glitter like sequins, it is difficult for us to suspend our disbelief.
We know the lights are going to dim; we don’t know who’s going to turn them on again, though we have our suspicions. Tony Blair, before he left Downing Street , set the nuclear hare racing again, and most people – supporters and opponents alike – suspect a new crop of reactors is now inevitable. Environmental groups, including WWF, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, have rejected the latest round of consultations as “a sham”.
Conspiracy theorists believe the government’s entire performance – the absence of leadership and lack of urgency; the disproportionate amount of support given to fringe technologies – is explicable only if it has been a deliberate ploy designed to leave nuclear the only viable option. If so, the conspirators have botched it. It will take an extended period of political foreplay before anything like a nuclear policy emerges; then the siting, planning, financing and construction of new power stations will take far too long to fill any shortfall by 2015. You need a long-term policy for that kind of thing; and the problem now is short-term and immediate. Like it or not, onshore wind farms will plug part of the gap; so will offshore wind. The Severn barrage – theoretically capable of supplying 5% of the country’s electricity – yet again is under review, but faces opposition from environmentalists who fear damage to the ecosystem. Other renewables may contribute their mite.
In all this Ref sees only futility. Its policy and research director, John Constable, complains that the government, in pursuit of its environmental targets, has placed far too much emphasis on electricity. Energy is not just electricity, he says, and power generation is not the only source of greenhouse gas. Electricity accounts for only around 17% of the UK ’s energy consumption, and power stations contribute only 29% of its carbon. He argues that transport emissions are not only as damaging as those from power stations but are actually getting worse – vehicles may be getting more efficient, but the growth in number more than wipes out any gain from cleaner engines. Air travel, too, is increasing and – for all the talk of zero carbon – the government’s housing target (4m new homes by 2020) will give the biosphere another big hit of CO2. Meanwhile, India and China are adding to the global overload exponentially faster than the UK ’s puny attempt to reduce it. China alone is adding two new dirty, old-fashioned coal-fired power stations every week. “Against this background,” says Ref, “the present renewables policy seems practically irrelevant.”
“In view of the fact that the UK produces only 2% of the world’s emissions, it is axiomatic that our policy should aim to provide a qualitative rather than a quantitative example. It is only by providing an economically compelling lead that we can hope to draw the developing world with us… Self-harm in the UK will be a poor advertisement for clean energy.”
So what can we agree upon? If we ignore the zealots who believe that either wind or nuclear could provide a full and permanent solution, then there is a consensus on two important points. No single technology offers a complete answer, so there will have to be diversity. And the mix will have to include conventional power stations. If we ignore the government and listen to the professionals, another truth emerges. As Dr Paul Golby, chief executive of the UK branch of the energy giant E.ON puts it, “It’s five minutes to midnight and the clock is still ticking.” If we don’t agree a plan of action before the witching hour, then the 2015 energy gap will not be filled.
It’s already too late for nuclear (though Golby insists it must have a role in the longer term), and it’s beyond the scope of renewables to do the job on their own. If the lights are going to stay on, then the “substantial new investments” the government wants from UK companies will have to be made pretty damn quick. But no company is going to chance its millions unless it can be sure of a return – impossible without government assurances and, in the case of low-carbon technology, enforcement by law. Golby agrees that currently there is “no coherent energy policy that allows companies to invest”.
“We have to make some big long-term decisions,” he says, “and we need to make them quickly, because a third of our generating capacity will be lost in the next decade or so.” This is the plughole around which uncertainty swirls. If the government expects industry to provide, but industry lacks the confidence to oblige, then the whole “policy” goes down the drain. “The broad dilemma,” says David Kerr, who chairs the Institution of Civil Engineers’ (ICE) energy panel, “is that the government have said they are determined to have a wholly market policy. Only time will tell if that will provide security. Some people take the view that that’s too high a risk.”
Given what is at stake – ie, pretty much the whole apparatus of life as we know it – time seems a particularly chancy arbiter. Every passing day now limits the options. What Paul Golby most dreads is what the white paper and ticking clock now make most likely – a renewed “dash for gas”. In lieu of any determined effort to develop alternatives, gas is the default mode – Ref, too, believes it is now “all but unavoidable”. The technology is proven (70% of our electricity is generated this way) and there is – just – time to build more before we have to switch ourselves off. But the risks are enormous.
It would mean placing our fate – economy, health, lifestyle, everything – in the hands of people who, at best, are ambivalent, and at worst hostile to our national interest. Vladimir Putin has already shown the potency of gas as a political and economic weapon against Ukraine , and neither Russia nor any other country with its finger on the valve is going to pass up an opportunity to assert itself. Starving us of gas would do far more damage than bombing the London Underground. It needn’t even look like an act of war – just the normal operation of a market in which the UK government has voluntarily placed its trust. Free markets are economic Darwinism: they are genetically programmed to ensure their own survival, but otherwise are directionless and blind to government objectives. Markets produce winners and losers. What complaint would we have if we found ourselves among the latter?
Going down this route, says Golby, would be “foolhardy”. Neither would it do much for the biosphere. “We have to remember,” he says, “that gas is half as dirty as the average coal-fired station.” Which is very dirty indeed, and which makes all the more surprising the enthusiasm that Golby and others profess for the fuel they think should drive us into the future.
Coal. The very same filthy fossil fuel, dirtiest of them all, that powered the industrial revolution and let global warming out of its cage. The very same that rotted miners’ lungs, blotted out the sun and choked London with smog. The very same that still generates a third of the UK’s electricity and which David Kerr describes, for all the above reasons, as an “undesirable trend”. And yet coal has a lot going for it. The domestic industry may have been Thatchered into the ground, and 80% of our supplies may now be imported, but coal worldwide is plentiful and can be sourced from countries in Europe and the Americas which are far better disposed towards us than the gas merchants of the East.
But nobody wants to fill the air with smoke. Atmospheric pollution was a public enemy long before climate change became an issue, and there can be no going back to it. If coal is to resume its historic role, then it will have to clean up its act. And this is exactly what Golby and others propose. “Clean coal technology” (CCT) is not an oxymoron. Various processes that can be summarised as “carbon capture and storage” (CCS) have been designed to do exactly what the name suggests – remove or intercept CO2 from coal and store it deep underground. It can be done before combustion by a gasification process, or afterwards by stripping carbon from flue gas. The efficacy of the technique has been shown in small-scale trials, but high development costs are holding it back commercially and it’s not something “the market” can afford to deliver.
Yet Golby, head of Britain ’s biggest gas and electricity company, is unequivocal: “I believe that this is one of the really critical technologies,” he says. “Unless we can solve the problem of coal, we are going to lose the climate-change battle.” It is a problem that extends far beyond the UK ’s ability to power itself sustainably. China and India are going to burn coal – more and more of it – come what may, and unless a way can be found to cut their carbon emissions, and those of every other coal-burning economy, nothing we do in Britain is going significantly to impede humanity’s march to self-immolation. “It will require an international effort not dissimilar to the US putting a man on the moon,” says Golby. “It will take tens of billions of pounds. Some of it will come from industry. Some will have to come from governments.”
So what would it take to get it off the ground in the UK ?
“The government would have to support the first one or two development plants.” Ref, too, argues that the Renewables Obligation has placed too much emphasis on renewables and has diverted attention and investment away from technologies such as clean coal. Under-investment in energy research, it says, is “a national disgrace”. Neither is it impressed by the government’s intention, announced in the white paper, to launch a competition “to demonstrate commercial-scale CCS on power generation in the UK ”. Not only is this a waste of taxpayers’ money, says John Constable, but it could actually retard investment by making CCS look like an immature technology in need of development. “We don’t need to see whether we can capture carbon dioxide from power stations,” he says. “We know we can. We don’t need a competition. We just need to get on with it.”
For many others, the principal lunacy of the UK ’s position is not that it ignores the potential for clean energy from imported coal, but rather that it ignores the wealth under its own feet. Accounts vary. One expert tells me that 75% of the coal that ever existed in the UK still lies undisturbed – a buried mountain of pent-up energy that could fuel the country for centuries. Another says the likelier figure is 98%. Either way, it’s a lot of coal. The problem, of course, is getting at it. If it was easily accessible, then the whole energy equation might look rather different. Coal would still be king, and CCS would be a no-brainer.
But there is a powerful body of opinion that says not only that much of it is accessible, but that it can be extracted with minimum environmental impact – ie, without open-cast mining – and with great benefit to national security and the carbon economy. The key to it is “underground coal gasification” (UCG), a technique devised by the Scottish chemist Sir William Ramsay. The Coal Authority thumbnails it as “a method of converting unworked coal deep underground into a combustible gas”, which, through CCS, contains no CO2. The result is “clean energy with minimal greenhouse emissions”.
A few minutes’ Googling will provide technical detail for those who want it – for a simplified account, see the diagram on page 83. It’s enough to know that the plant is more like an oil rig than an old-fashioned coal mine, and so is much smaller and less intrusive; that it taps previously unmineable reserves, including those under the sea; and that the technology has been proved by trials in Europe, America and the old Soviet Union (which actually employed it for energy production in the 1970s – at least one plant in Uzbekistan is still operational). Most coal-producing countries, including India , China , South Africa and Australia , are working towards UCG, but the UK once again lags behind. It has not always done so. The old DTI for a while was a world leader whose guidance on UCG had near-biblical status.
But somewhere, somehow, there has been a change of policy or personnel, and the emphasis is now all on gas and nuclear.
This seems no less extraordinary to energy professionals than it does to laymen. “The government should be putting a big push at getting gasification technology on the road,” says the ICE’s David Kerr. “It’s the most promising technology currently available,” says Graham Chapman, managing director of the energy consultant Energy Edge. Since 2005, the campaign to promote UCG, both in the UK and worldwide, has been led by the UCG Partnership, an independent organisation in Woking , Surrey , whose members include oil and gas companies, banks, regional development agencies, universities and governments.
One of its two founding directors, Rohan Courtney, quotes the British Geological Survey, which concluded that UCG could unlock an extra 17 billion tonnes of indigenous coal – enough for another 300 years at current rates of consumption. (Compare this with the range of 200m to 2,000m tonnes estimated for “mineable” reserves). Like a schoolmaster delivering a favourite lesson, Courtney runs through the advantages at dictation speed. UCG does not suffer from the same negative public image as coal mining. It does not endanger lives underground; does not ruin the countryside; does not involve high transport and labour costs. Production, too, would cost less than either mining coal or buying oil and gas from elsewhere. We would have security of supply.
“We own the coal,” says Courtney. “We would not be subject to market forces on the price of importing energy, high transport costs and the political risks of purchasing oil, gas or coal from a country with a different agenda.” Instead of importing, we could export the technology. Best of all, with directional drilling, UCG can be used under the sea. Rich seams lie under the Firth of Forth and southern North Sea – at least five billion tonnes, and possibly much more.
At the current rate of progress, one cannot be optimistic that the Queen will reign long enough to celebrate the limitless opportunities of providence from an offshore coal-rig. The hills and seas will bristle with turbines. The Scottish Highlands will wear a new woolly coat of willow, grown for biofuel. Municipal garbage, straw, animal dung and wood-waste will be shovelled into furnaces. The arguments over nuclear power will rage on into the darkening night. A few of us in our homes will tinker with solar panels, wind generators and geothermal heat pumps. The price of gas will make us wince.
And all the time, as the power ebbs and, just possibly, flows, the climate poisoned by junkyard technology will be cracking its knuckles. Five minutes to midnight ? If only it were that early.
Pipe dreams
GAS With North Sea gas supplies dwindling, the government says that by 2020 we’ll need to import 15-30% more gas. Notable exporters include Russia , the Middle East and North Africa – not renowned for their love of Britain
NUCLEAR POWER Championed by Tony Blair, nuclear power stations and waste-storage facilities require planning
WIND TURBINES Many more new wind farms like one in South Lanarkshire will have to be built if the government is to meet its target of generating 10% of UK electricity from renewable sources by 2010. With three years to go, the figure is just 4%
BIOFUELS The European Union wants 10% of all transport fuel consumption in Europe to be from biofuels - fuels derived from biological material, such as hemp - by 2020. But land is needed to grow food for the world's growing population, and felling trees to grow biofuels makes global warming worse.
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Methane Hydrates
The Economist
MUCH effort is quietly going into the pursuit of what is probably the world’s greatest store of fossil fuel—caches of methane, the primary component of natural gas, stored in structures called methane hydrates, or clathrates (a general term for gas molecules trapped by water molecules). Looking just like ice, they are methane molecules trapped within tiny cages of water molecules. They form where temperatures are low and pressures are high, which is to say, on the sea-floor at the continental shelves, and within the permafrost at the Earth’s poles.
As with all fossil-fuel resources, it is hard to estimate just how much methane is trapped in clathrates worldwide. But there is a lot. One litre of clathrates can hold more than 150 litres of methane. Numerous deposits have been identified off the coasts of all of the continents. Even a few of the lakes in Central Asia are just frosty enough to support clathrate formation. Some guess that clathrate methane reserves could equal twice the rest of the world’s fossil fuel supplies combined.
America's National Energy Technology Laboratory put together a consortium of other government agencies and petroleum companies to drill for clathrates with some success in the Gulf of Mexico; they were promptly hired by India to perform the trick there. A Japanese government collaboration has drilled about 30 wells, with a timeline to start production and distribution of methane from hydrates by 2016. In June China reported having pulled up some first methane-bearing samples from the South China Sea.
All of this might sound like the beginnings of the solution to the world’s energy problems. And it may yet be. But, as always, there are some daunting details to sort out first. Many deposits will yield just a fraction of the hoped-for methane, and harvesting even that will be difficult. The little cages of water around the methane are dangerously delicate, so that collection has to take place on the sea-floor. Much work is now under way on adapting conventional drilling equipment for large-scale deep-sea methane recovery.
Clathrates are suspects in a number of geo-crimes great and small. Mixed with sea-floor sediment, they can constitute vast unstable deposits prone to underwater landslides. Such a landslide 8000 years ago in the North Sea created a tsunami that flooded much of coastal Scotland and Norway.
Vast releases of methane from clathrates are widely thought to have played a part in two global temperature spikes that led to mass extinctions about 250m and 55m years ago
And, given their delicate nature, clathrates tend to release their methane bounty during these landslides. Methane is the cleanest of the fossil fuels when burned; but released directly into the atmosphere, it is a “greenhouse gas” significantly more potent than carbon dioxide. Vast releases of methane from clathrates are widely thought to have played a part in two global temperature spikes that led to mass extinctions about 250m and 55m years ago.
Because the icy slush left over after methane removal is less structurally stable than the clathrates, stripping the seafloor of some of its methane might result in frequent landslides that release much more methane. Many clathrate deposits sit atop grand reservoirs of free gas, so that drilling might unleash a methane burp of enormous size, with environmental impacts to match.
One brilliant-sounding idea, now being studied, calls for pumping carbon dioxide into the clathrates. The carbon dioxide would make the clathrates more stable; and, its presence would case them to give up their methane, sequester the carbon dioxide, and let off a little heat that kept the reaction going.
The technological challenge is vast, but no more so than the potential economic rewards. The trick is to get the gas, without the pains.
Home wind turbines in UK warming the planet: study
LONDON (Reuters) - Many wind turbines mounted on homes in British
cities are contributing to global warming, not fighting it, according
to a new study.
And although many environmentally-
their bills by generating their own power, most micro-turbines will
never save as much money as the equipment costs, according to the
study by the Building Research Establishment Trust.
"In large urban areas such as Manchester, even with very favorable
assumptions about efficiency, lifetime and maintenance, micro-wind
turbines may never pay back their carbon emissions," the report says.
"Even in the most favorable location considered in the study, there is
no financial payback within the expected life of the systems, with the
current system and electricity costs."
The study analyzed the likely performance of three of the most common
household wind turbines in Manchester and Portsmouth in England and
Wick in Scotland.
In many cases -- and across most of Manchester -- more climate-warming
carbon dioxide is produced in the manufacture, installation and
maintenance of the turbines than they save by generating "green" power
over their expected lifetime.
"These studies have shown a large variation in the expected CO2
payback periods from a few months in good locations to situations
where they never pay back, in poor locations," the report says.
Only those climate-conscious homeowners in the best locations in the
two smaller cities studied can expect to save more carbon dioxide than
their turbines are responsible for producing.
(Reporting by Daniel Fineren; editing by James Jukwey)
nuclear
EDF chief executive officer Pierre Gadonneix backed greater use of nuclear power as a way of combating climate change, saying that politicians must be more active in making it acceptable to public opinion, which remains the main obstacle.
He said the contribution of wind power to limiting CO2 emissions would remain small.
Nuclear power makes up nearly 80 pct of EDF’s power production. The company has an interest in wind power projects through its renewable energy unit,
EDF Energies Nouvelles.
Thomson Financial
AFX News Limited
Solar
Thursday August 09 2007
The Guardian
If you were hunting for the future of solar power, Wales might not seem the most obvious place to look. Yet in a factory in Cardiff, technology that could finally harness the energy of the sun in an affordable way is quietly rolling off the production line. Such claims may sound familiar. Advocates have talked of the potential of solar power to offer clean and green energy for years, yet the technology has remained stubbornly on the fringes. One reason is the cost. Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels to provide an average home with electricity will set you back about £10,000 to £18,000.
Now those behind the Welsh operation think they may have made a crucial breakthrough. Their solar cell works in a different way from most, and is not based on silicon - the expensive raw material for conventional solar cells. G24 Innovations (G24i), the company making the new cells, says it can produce and sell them for about a fifth of the price of silicon-based versions. At present, it makes only small-scale chargers for equipment such as mobile phones and MP3 players. But it says larger panels could follow - large enough to replace polluting fossil fuels by generating electricity for large buildings.
"This has been at the laboratory stage for 18 years and now we are ready to take it into a huge amount of applications," says Clemens Betzel, president of G24i.
G24i's technology is based on a coloured dye and tiny crystals of titanium oxide - a common pigment in white paint. It exploits a discovery made in 1991 by a Swiss chemist called Michael Graetzel, who found that the combination could be used to copy photosynthesis. When struck by sunlight, the dye spits out an electron, which is immediately captured by the specks of titanium oxide. By collecting the electrons at one side of his new solar cell, and replacing them at the other with an iodide electrolyte solution, Graetzel produced an electric current.
The new so-called Graetzel cells offered a simpler and potentially cheaper way to generate solar power. (Traditional silicon cells are more complicated because they require the generation of an electric field within the silicon to carry away the liberated electrons.) And because they work in a different way, Betzel says the new cells offer other advantages too. They work better in low light levels, including indoors, he says, and they are lighter and less fragile than silicon cells, which are usually mounted on glass or rigid plastic.
At least one big hitter in the renewable energy industry agrees with him: Bob Hertzberg, founder of venture capital firm Renewable Capital, a backer of the G-Wiz electric car, has invested in G24i and talks of it making annual profits of £130m within five years. The company has not yet found a major buyer for its technology, but Betzel says there are some in the wings.
Design students have also been involved with the development process. Earlier this year, the company ran a competition with 45 product design students at St Martin's college of art and design in London, who were asked to think up new uses for the Cardiff solar cells. The winning entries include portable safety lights mounted on life buoys, and lamps to mark scaffolding and hoardings around roadworks and on building sites. They also featured solar-powered security lights, fire exit signs, and window blinds, which could cut electricity use.
The first commercial uses are likely to be in the developing world, where access to electricity is difficult. The firm is working with mobile phone companies including Nokia and Motorola to test whether the G24i cells could charge handsets in rural Africa. For £6-£8, he says, the company can supply a flexible strip of solar cells that can produce 0.4 to 0.5W of power. It's a relatively meagre output, but more than enough for at least 10 minutes of phone calls a day. And that, says Betzel, can make a big difference. "Over two billion people live without access to energy. This isn't about providing expensive, Rolls Royce- quality solutions. It's about improving their quality of life." Similar solar chargers made of silicon cost about £30.
The company believes its technology is also suited to those who work in remote places where access to electricity is unreliable, such as by providing low-cost and lightweight power, lighting and water purification for the disaster relief and emergency services. It is also developing wearable "smart" fabrics, into which the solar cells have been woven, and which could be used to charge connected electronic devices. These can be made in a variety of patterns, the company's PR material notes, including camouflage. Unsurprisingly, the military is another of its target markets.
Jim Watson, deputy director of the Sussex Energy Group at the University of Sussex, is cautiously optimistic about the technology: "It takes a long time for people to take up this kind of technology, but if it works and it's cheap enough, it could play a part."
Watson says solar cell technology is likely to remain targeted at niche applications for the foreseeable future, and is more suited to preventing additional carbon emissions from the proliferation of electronic devices, rather than cutting emissions from existing sources. "What's good about that approach is that it takes renewable technologies into the consumer market, and if they can be presented in that way, they help to get the message across."
In time, G24i envisages companies being forced to "account for their carbon footprint and offset power usage", which it argues its solar technology can help them achieve. Betzel envisages large buildings hanging coloured flexible ribbons of the company's solar cells down the centre of large atria in future. He says there is no reason why the technology couldn't replace PV solar panels on the roofs of homes and other buildings, though the company has not yet proven the longevity of such large versions.
It also claims its technology will "put an end to dead batteries". There is still some way to go - the Cardiff factory's entire annual output of solar cells currently generates just 30MW, about the same as a handful of modern wind turbines (although it plans to expand to 200MW capacity next year). But Betzel insists that solar power is now a viable mass-market future technology. If he is right, then Wales may soon have an unlikely new export.
Copyright Guardian News and Media Limited
Tidal Barrage
SEVERN BARRAGE FORUM FORMED 08:50 - 01 October 2007
The Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) has launched a Tidal Power Forum which, it claims, will be an independent body which will provide academic, scientific and environmental information on tidal energy.
Target number one for REF is the proposed Severn Barrage, which is set to become the most controversial renewables project yet proposed for the UK.
The Severn Barrage would reliably generate strategically significant quantities of low-carbon electricity.
However, REF points out that, as with other large infrastructure projects, there would be local and regional environmental and, possibly, social impacts, both positive and negative.
"An independent appraisal is needed, which along with other broad and well informed discussions, can lead to a public consensus," said the organisation chaired by TV personality Noel Edmonds.
Initially supportive, REF is yet to reveal its true colours on the Severn project, bearing in mind that Edmonds famously condemned wind technology shortly after the lobby group was established.
http://www.thisisnorthscotland.co.uk
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2531329.ece
Environmental groups reacted with alarm today to news that the Government was backing a multi-million pound feasibility study on the construction of a Severn barrage to generate up to 5 per cent of the UK’s electricity.
Campaigners said that a dam across the Severn estuary could have massive environmental impacts and called on the Government to look at alternative ways of harnessing the river’s massive tidal power.
The estuary, which has one of the largest tidal ranges in the world, provides mudflats, saltmarshes, rocky islands and food for some 65,000 birds in winter. In August the Government sought to designate the estuary a Special Area of Conservation, but did not rule out proposals for a tidal barrage across the Severn.
John Hutton, the Business and Enterprise Secretary, announced the feasibility study - which could result in one of the world’s biggest civil engineering projects - in a speech to Labour’s annual conference in Bournemouth today.
He described the project as "truly visionary" and added: “The Government Gordon Brown leads will not be among those who say they want to tackle global warming by moving to low carbon energy sources but then oppose every opportunity to do so.”
But the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), whose Slimbridge Wetland Centre is on the banks of the River Severn, said the Government must give full consideration to the wildlife in the estuary.
Its chief executive, Martin Spray, said: “WWT fully backs a shift toward low-carbon energy sources and recognises the potential benefits of harnessing the power of the massive movement of water in and out of the Severn Estuary each day.
“However the construction of a huge dam across the estuary could have a massive environmental impact on this delicate ecosystem and the wildlife that depends on it. There are alternative methods of harnessing that tidal power and WWT is calling for fair and balanced assessment of all the options and implications for the estuary’s international conservation importance so the best deal can be struck for people and wildlife.”
The RSPB said that thousands of birds and fish would be put at risk and a number of sites protected by UK, international and European law would be damaged by a tidal barrage.
Dr Mark Avery, the RSPB conservation director, said: “The Severn Estuary is one of the UK’s most important sites for water birds. A barrage would do enormous damage and its layers of legal protection are there for good reason.
“There could be much better ways of harnessing the Severn’s power and the feasibility study should examine tidal lagoon and tidal stream schemes which could cost less, do less damage and generate more energy.
“Renewable energy is hugely important and the Government should be choosing options that provide long term benefit and, just as importantly, safeguard the natural environment.”
Neil Crumpton, energy campaigner with Friends of the Earth, said that the environmental group favoured a series of “tidal lagoons” which could harness the estuary’s energy without damaging the environment.
The lagoons, around a mile offshore, would generate electricity from tidal water flowing through turbines as the tide went in and out. Mr Crumpton criticised the Government for announcing the study into the Severn barrage before the green energy watchdog, the Sustainable Development Commission, published its report on tidal power options.
“It’s unhelpful to a proper debate about the subject,” he said. “We think that tidal lagoons would be a much better option environmentally, economically, in terms of generation costs and shipping access and because lagoons have great energy storage potential.
“It’s a great pity the Labour Government seems to be closing down what should be healthy and open debate about tidal technologies, particularly lagoons as distinct from the Severn barrage.”
He also said the lagoons could be combined with a smaller barrage, the Shoots barrage, situated just below the second Severn Crossing, which could provide rail links to Wales, rather than the road proposals suggested as part of the barrage scheme.
Tidal Lagoons
E.ON UK, Lunar Energy to build tidal stream power station off Wales
E.ON UK and Lunar Energy announced on Thursday 25 October plans to develop an underwater tidal stream power project off the coast of Pembrokeshire.
They have submitted a scoping report to Berr for the project that would generate enough electricity to power up to 5,000 homes.
If approved, the plant would be operational by 2010-11.
Wave power
WEST COUNTRY WAVE HUB GETS THUMBS-UP 08:50 - 01 October 2007
The Uk Government has given the green light for the world's first "large scale" wave farm off the coast of Cornwall, in south-west England.
It means the £28million Wave Hub project, which has been developed by the South West of England Regional Development Agency (SWRDA), has cleared the last major regulatory hurdle.
Funding for the project is about twice the near £15million that the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney has attracted to date. Wave Hub had already been approved by the RDA in April this year, prior to last month's consent announcement by John Hutton, Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.
Wave Hub is described as a world first and will include an onshore substation connected to electrical equipment on the seabed about 16km offshore in the Bristol Channel via a sub-sea cable.
Companies developing wave energy technology will be able to plug into Wave Hub to test their wave energy devices on a scale never seen anywhere before. Four companies have already been chosen to use Wave Hub.
SWRDA says Wave Hub will put the English south-west and the UK at the forefront of emerging wave energy technology by providing a leased and consented area of sea for the pre-commercial testing of wave energy devices.
A new independent economic impact assessment commissioned by the RDA has shown that Wave Hub could catalyse creation of 1,800 jobs and £560million of business in the UK economy over 25 years.
Almost 1,000 of these jobs and £332million would be generated in the West Country, it is claimed.
Wave Hub could generate enough electricity for 7,500 homes, directly saving 300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide over 25 years. This would support south-west England's target for generating 15% of the region's power from renewable sources by 2010. The project will cover a sea area measuring 4km by 2km and each wave device developer will be granted a lease of five to 10 years in an area of about 2sq km. The water at the deployment site is about 50m deep.
Four wave device developers have already been chosen to work with the South West RDA on the project. They are Oceanlinx, Ocean Power Technologies, Fred Olsen and WestWave, a consortium of E.On and Ocean Prospect, using the Pelamis technology of Scottish company Ocean Power Delivery.
Eventually, the plan is that up to 30 wave energy devices will be deployed at the site, which is expected to become operational in 2009.
While the purpose of the Wave Hub project is to complement other initiatives elsewhere in Britain, including EMEC in Orkney, it will be important for the London and Edinburgh governments especially to ensure that these two sizeable schemes do, in fact, complement each other, and not compete against one another.
http://www.thisisnorthscotland.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=149235&command=displayContent&sourceNode=149218&contentPK=18540342&moduleName=InternalSearch&formname=sidebarsearch
Storing wind power
The British arm of German utility E.ON said on Thursday it was developing a giant battery to store wind and solar power for times of high demand.
The prototype will be the size of four large shipping containers and contain the power of 10 million standard AA batteries — 1MW of electricity for four hours, said E.ON UK.
The battery should be operational by late 2009 and will help solve one of the main problems of wind and solar power, added the power firm, which has around 8.1 million electricity and gas customers.
“Green power is only generated from wind farms when the wind blows, and that might not be when the power’s needed by customers,” said Bob Taylor, MD of Energy Wholesale and Technology.
“By researching and developing this battery we can store the power generated by wind farms any time and then use it when our customers need it the most. A school with solar panels can store the power generated at weekends and use it when the kids are back in school.”
E.ON also announced a 40 million pounds research fund for energy storage and other promising energy technologies.
reuters.co.uk
13 September 2007