Fracking - the saga continues

Will fracking be David Cameron's Poll Tax?

But first, here’s a date for your diary. Thursday 5th November 2015 at the Harrogate International Showground will see the Sustainable Best Practice in Business Conference: ESOS and energy, supply chain and skills. We’re inviting the minister from DECC, Amber Rudd; the CEO of Unilever, Paul Polman; Lord Redesdale from the Institute of Energy Managers and other industry representatives. It will be an opportunity to learn from experts and to network and share best practice with your peers. Registration opens shortly. More details soon.

This last week was a busy week and events developed almost faster than I could keep up. Fracking is once more in the news, there’s a report that soil erosion in East Anglia could seriously affect our food production, electricity could be cheaper but dirtier, what’s going on in Battersea Park?, it’s getting hot in the Tube and I talk to Daniel White from Global Energy Systems on why you need a heat pump. Well, perhaps not today, but the word is that this weather won’t last, in spite of global warming.

Last week I reported that the application for test drilling and test fracking at Roseacre Wood was refused by Lancashire county council. This week, against the advice of planners and legal experts, the council also refused the application for Little Plumpton. I expect there was dancing in the streets. This looks like a very high risk strategy because councillors were warned that they were very unlikely to win on appeal and the council would have to pay all the legal costs. On the other hand, an appeal will be a landmark case. It will meet the government head-on on one of its flagship policies. There was a debate in parliament this week and it revealed all sorts of things which I'm sure the government would like to keep quiet, but which will almost certainly come out if the case goes to court. I’ve been reading Hansard, the official Parliamentary record, and here are some of the things that I found in the record of last Tuesday’s debate.

Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con) in North Yorkshire opened the debate and commented that France, Germany, New York state and others had all banned fracking. He then spoke about “Shale Gas: Rural Economy Impacts” a report from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and told us that it had 63 redactions within 13 pages. That means that 63 items had been blacked out or censored, including of a whole section on the impact on house prices. The Government’s position that “There is a strong public interest in withholding the information” did not go down well with his constituents.

Then, a day after this debate, the government was required to publish the DEFRA report in its uncensored form. It includes admissions such as:

• people living near fracking sites could see their house prices fall by up to seven per cent.
• a UK shale gas boom could lead to an increase in global greenhouse gas emissions. 
• waste fluids leaking from fracking operations in the US have resulted in environmental damage.
• properties could incur additional insurance premiums if they are within a five mile radius of fracking operations.
• the report includes "early, often vague, assumptions which are not supported by appropriate evidence”.

No wonder they wanted to keep all that quiet!

 Kevin Hollinrake had other concerns as well. He said he would like to see a clearer, more robust and independent monitoring regime for the regulations.

“The operator commissions and pays for the services of the well examiner… This might be someone employed by the well operator’s organisation.” 

He quoted evidence provided to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee stating that  "the weakest point of the regulatory process concerns the Environment Agency”, which appears to have “insufficient in-house expertise.”

He also told us that fracking company Third Energy, had stated that it might drill 950 wells in less than a third of his constituency, which would require hundreds of thousands of lorry movements, all in one of the country’s most beautiful counties, with an economy heavily dependent on agriculture and tourism.

Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab) was concerned about projected production figures from DECC as they were based on the maximum output from any well ever achieved in the US. He thought this was an unrealistic baseline. He said that 10,000 to 18,000 wells would be needed nationally to replace the gas which we currently import from Qatar. These would not be scattered all over the country but would be concentrated in Lancs and the Weald in the southeast. They would have a life of about 20 years, but would need re-drilling every 7 years or so. New pipelines would have to be built across the country or lorries would have to collect the gas. This is in addition to the thousands of lorry journeys needed to deliver the fracking fluids. After 20 years the sites would be abandoned. He suggested that AD, converting agricultural waste to gas, should be considered as an alternative. This process could continue as long as farmers were in business, not just for 20 years.

Farmers in South Ribble are particularly concerned about fracking. Seema Kennedy MP said any pollution of groundwater could contaminate their crops and destroy their business. The Ribble Valley is one of the most fertile parts of the country and produces a major part of the nation’s salad crop.

The debate continued, with concerns raised about the regulations, the disposal of used fracking liquids and the effects on house prices and on public health. Two MPs were firmly in favour of fracking, two were cautious, most were opposed.

Andrea Leadsom The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, responded to the debate emphasising the need for energy security and stating that “We are likely to continue relying on gas to provide much of our heat, as well as to generate electricity into the 2030s…Flexible electricity generation, such as that fuelled by gas, is also needed to help balance the electricity grid as our policies bring forward relatively inflexible and intermittent low-carbon generation.”

She talked about the benefits of a successful shale gas industry, not just in energy security, but in direct benefits to jobs, growth and community investment. And she promised a sovereign wealth fund - with the industry’s commitment to putting £100,000 per exploration well to local communities and then a minimum of 1% of any subsequent production revenues. Local councils would retain 100% of the business rates that they collect from productive shale gas developments.

“Ernst and Young, she said, has estimated that a thriving shale industry could mean 64,500 jobs nationally or over 100 jobs per year at a typical site. The value of the supply chain for the industry has been estimated at £33 billion between 2016 and 2032. This is an incredible opportunity. We are at a pre-beginning phase, but there is a huge amount to play for. British engineering is at the forefront of the world and we have the opportunity to showcase that further by developing for ourselves a safe and environmentally sound shale gas industry.”

What do I think?

It’s still a fossil fuel. It still has a carbon footprint. We have a commitment to reduce the nation’s carbon footprint. 

When he heard that the applications had been rejected the chief executive of Cuadrilla repeated the point that sourcing gas locally was far more secure than buying it from Qatar or Russia. True, and there’s no doubt that we have an energy problem as our power stations age and the margin between supply and winter demand gets tighter and tighter. But gas is not the only answer, and we don’t yet know that it is an answer. That’s why they are carrying out test drilling. On the other hand we already know that solar panels and wind turbines and anaerobic digesters all work. Yes, they are intermittent, (not the digesters), but the old complaint that electricity cannot be stored is increasingly untrue. Tesla recently announced new domestic battery packs: technology is advancing rapidly. And there are other technologies apart from batteries that can store energy. To anyone who says we haven’t got time I would simply say that even if everything goes strictly to plan, it will be at least five years before fracking starts producing gas commercially. And it will be a very, very long time before we have 10,000 wells in production. But what about demand? We waste vast amounts of energy. Managing demand is essential. Bring back the Green Deal - or at least something like it that actually works. (That will create jobs, too!)

And why do I call fracking David Cameron’s Poll Tax? Well the poll-tax was brought in by Margaret Thatcher against the advice of her ministers and against strong opposition in the country which led to riots. The poll-tax was repealed and replaced with the council tax and it was the beginning of the end for Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister of Great Britain. The majority of MPs who opposed fracking in this debate were from David Cameron’s own Conservative Party. He is going to find implementing this policy extremely difficult. Almost as hard as the Third Runway at Heathrow. But that’s another story.

Meanwhile, in other news this week, Moody’s published a report suggesting that electricity is likely to get cheaper as we increase our capacity to import it from the continent. Their electricity is cheaper because at least in Germany their lower carbon taxes encourage them to generate more electricity from coal. Cheaper, but dirtier.

The Committee on Climate Change warns that agricultural land, particularly in East Anglia, could become unviable within a generation unless something is done. We’ll have to add still more to the 40% of food that we already import, with consequences for food security and food prices. East Anglia grows acres of wheat and farmers have removed trees and grubbed up hedges to make fields ever larger and to give ploughs and combine harvesters long straight runs. Britain has lost 84% of its fertile topsoil since 1850, and these changes in land management are accelerating the problem. Without trees as windbreaks the wind is blowing the soil away. As climate change reduces rainfall and warms the soil it crumbles to dust and the problem only gets worse. When rain does come, and increasingly it comes in violent storms, it washes the soil away. It’s time to take action and recognise that topsoil is another vital non-renewable resource that is rapidly running out.

What has been going on in Battersea Park? Last weekend saw the final race in the international Formula E series that started in Beijing last September and saw meetings in Buenos Aires, Miami, Monte Carlo, Berlin and Moscow before the final in London. Yes, it’s Formula 1, but not as we know it! For example, when the drivers make for the pits it’s not to change the tyres, or top up the washer bottle but to pick up a completely new car - with a fully charged battery. My petrolhead friends say it’s not the same. It’s not as fast and it doesn’t make that roar as the cars go past. I’m sure J Clarkson hates it as much as he hates my Toyota Prius. Nevertheless, names like Trulli, Prost and Yamamoto; Renault, Audi and Virgin are taking it seriously. Formula 1 has always been seen as an essential testbed for new automotive technologies. Welcome to the future.

Wednesday 1st July was the hottest July day on record, at 36.7℃. It got up to 35℃ in the London Tube as well. I remember reading somewhere that waste heat is a problem for the network in normal times, with heat from passengers, from the trains, the lights, the escalators and all the other plant. What could they do with it? Maybe they need a heat pump! It so happens that this week I was talking to Daniel White from Global Energy Systems.

Go to www.susbiz.biz to listen to this blog as a podcast and hear the interview with Daniel.

I'm Anthony Day, The Sustainability Coach, dedicated to spreading the word about sustainability, about better ways of doing things so we can all, in all countries, enjoy a comfortable lifestyle in spite of the challenges from rising population, climate change, energy shortages and all the other sustainability issues. 

Let’s get out there and find opportunities!

Climate Change is bad for your health - official

I’m talking about fracking - of course, about wind - again, about suing the government and about waiting for trains.  But first of all - it’s official. Medical opinion states that climate change is bad for you!

The Lancet, a peer-reviewed medical journal, this week published its second review on climate change. There’s a short video on thelancet.com which is worth a look. Review authors Helen Wang and Richard Horton state that the risks from climate change are not only serious but potentially catastrophic. Loss of life can be directly caused by extreme weather, such as floods and heatwaves. Indirect causes are poor water quality, air pollution and ecological change. Global warming leads to sea-level rise, which in turn causes mass migrations, pressure on resources and can lead to conflict. As heatwaves become more common, more people are affected. Those over 65 are more vulnerable, and population statistics show a disproportionate number of older people concentrated in areas likely to experience extreme temperatures.

The report, like the G7 ministers and Pope, calls for fossil fuels to be phased out. 80% of the world’s energy currently comes from fossil fuels and emissions cause poor air quality which in turn causes heart attacks and lung disease, as well as long-term effects on health. For the authors it’s not all bad news. They see that responding to climate change could be the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century. The level of understanding of the importance of climate change varies widely across the world, with some of the poorest  understanding in some of the most developed countries. The science is clear, the technological solutions are available. It is now entirely  a matter of political commitment. The report urges medical  professionals to go out and spread the word.

Incidentally there’s a heatwave currently affecting Pakistan, where temperatures of 45C and more are proving fatal. The situation is made worse by water shortages and because many people are fasting for Ramadan. There’s a serious drought in Puerto Rico and other parts of the Caribbean as well.

Talking of political commitment, I noted last week that the government was cutting subsidies to on-shore wind by withdrawing the Renewables Obligation scheme from April 2016, a year earlier than originally promised. Minister Amber Rudd told Parliament this week that as a result some 250 schemes were unlikely to go ahead. She also hinted that Contract for Difference, a key factor in determining project viability, could also be withdrawn. Once again investors have been encouraged to develop long-term infrastructure projects, only to have the rules changed at short notice. The Scottish government is particularly annoyed by this as around 70% of the projects likely to be affected are located in Scotland. Fergus Ewing, the Scottish Energy Minister, has invited Ms Rudd for talks in Scotland. The local industry fears that the changes could cost it as much as £3bn. It will be interesting to see if the minister accepts the invitation, and even more interesting to hear what she has to say.

Fracking is in the news again. Cuadrilla has applied for planning permission for test drilling followed by test fracking in Lancashire. There are two sites involved: Little Plumpton  and Roseacre Wood. The council has been advised by its planning officers to approve the application, but there is much local opposition. The council rejected the Roseacre Wood scheme on the grounds that there would be an unacceptable increase of heavy vehicle traffic in the area. 

The decision on Little Plumpton was deferred until Monday 29th to allow councillors to take legal advice. This advice has now been published, and warned that if councillors refused the application it was unlikely that they would win on appeal, and if they lost the council would have to bear the legal costs. It seems highly likely that the Little Plumpton application will be approved, even though many councillors oppose it and so do many residents.

As I’ve mentioned before, the government have promised local residents the last word on any applications for wind turbines while making sure that local residents have no say at all in applications for fracking. The greenest government ever! Well perhaps it doesn’t have to be any more, now that it hasn’t got the LibDems looking over its shoulder.

Citizens in the Netherlands have called their government to account and claimed that more must be done to tackle climate change. 886 private citizens went to court to demand urgent action - and they won. The Netherlands are on the way to a 17% reduction in GHG emissions  from 1990 levels by 2020, but that’s not good enough for the litigants. They persuaded the judge to rule:“The State also has to ensure that the Dutch emissions in the year 2020 will be at least 25 percent lower than those in 1990." Of course the government will appeal. It’s also not clear how the government could be held to the judgement. If they fail to comply would they get fined? What good would that do? At least the case demonstrates that there are concerned citizens across the world, and the case is robust enough to be held up in law.

Not a good week for transport, especially electric transport. The British government announced yesterday that they were “pausing” two major rail electrification schemes for lack of funds. The Great Western electrification is now expected to cost three times the original estimate and other schemes are also over budget. This means that the electrification of the Midland main line and the link from Leeds to Manchester are postponed indefinitely. So much for the powerhouse of the north! Leeds and Manchester are 45 miles apart. Most trains take 56 minutes for the journey. Bits of it are quite fast, but for some reason the second part is usually at walking pace or less. The government has blamed Network Rail, now legally part of the civil service and therefore under the direct control of ministers. The chairman has been fired and senior executives won’t get bonuses. Cold comfort for the many passengers who won’t now get new trains!

The other bad news was an electric bus which burst into flames in York. The Optare Versa is a widely-used bus, available as a diesel, diesel-electric hybrid or, as in this case, pure electric. In electric form it has a range of 70-90 miles and York recently took delivery of a fleet of 12 to provide a shuttle service to the park and ride locations on the edge of the city. No-one was hurt in the blaze, but the rear of the bus was severely damaged. A loud bang was heard, and popular headlines claimed that the engine blew up. More probably it was a fault in the lithium-ion batteries. Battery technology has moved so far that we don’t need trolley buses any more; buses can carry as much power as they need in batteries. This means that we are pushing battery technology to the limit. Do you remember Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, grounded a few years ago because of fires in the lithium-ion batteries? York’s remaining 11 electric buses are back in service today after full safety checks. They won’t let one mishap prejudice the future of clean transport. (Although if you look at the pictures of the smoke, that burning bus must have had one hell of a carbon footprint!)

That’s nearly it for this week. But not quite! Don’t forget that the next instalment of “The Winning of the Carbon War” will be out on 1st July. It’s free. Find it at jeremyleggett.net  I told you that I made a presentation to the Professional Speaking Association in London. . It will be out on Video shortly, both the full 30-minute version and edited highlights, which will probably come down to 2 minutes.

Either way, there will be another episode of the Sustainable Futures Show next week. Listen at http://www.anthony-day.com/sustainable-futures-show/ , and if you have any comments ideas or suggestions get in touch via mail@anthony-day.com.

Lucky for some!

Yes, it's Friday the 13th! Lucky for some, and lucky for you, you’ve found another episode of the sustainable futures show. You can listen to this as a podcast here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/sustainable-futures/id313473372?mt=2&uo=4

The objective of the sustainable futures show is to send the message that green business is good business. And I'm not just talking about business, we’re talking about the public sector, we’re talking about schools, we’re talking about hospitals, we’re talking about all sorts of organisations and even about what you’re doing at home.

This week I've had a very busy week in a sustainable sort of way. I've been to some fascinating presentations, I've met some very interesting people and I hope to be able to introduce them to you in future episodes. In this episode I'm going to talk about bio renewables, about the biggest manufacturer of frozen French fries in the world, about fracking and about sustainability in schools. And I'll also mention sustainability in business schools and the sustainable cities index, and the global divestment movement. What’s that? You’ll have to wait to find out!

First of all, Insider Media hosted a biorenewable breakfast this week. The panel consisted of Joe Ross, director of the bio renewables development centre, Ernst Kloosterman, managing director industrial biotech network Norway, Mark Chesworth, managing director, Vivergo Fuels, and Harold Vandenberg, director, critical processes limited. A bio economy strategy for the UK will be published later this month. This follows the report to the House of Lords science and technology select committee, published in March last year. This document starts with the arresting statistic that 300 million tons of waste per annum are generated in the UK. This is equivalent to 200,000,000 cars or slightly more than six times as many cars as we have in the UK. A large part of any bio renewable strategy is to minimise the amount of waste which goes to landfill. On the panel we had representatives of two organisations dedicated to knowledge transfer: one from the UK, one from Norway. We had Vivergo Fuels, which takes feed wheat and produces bio ethanol and animal feed. We had Critical Processes, an organisation developing techniques to extract usable material from previously un-recyclable waste, and then scaling these processes to industrial levels. Every member of the panel had a story to tell and I want to bring these to you in more detail in a future episode. But two messages came across strongly to me. First, we need engineers. There's a shortage in the UK of engineers, particularly process engineers and chemical engineers. Secondly, we need public awareness. The potential of the bio renewable sector is very difficult to explain, but the potential in terms of saving organisations money by saving costs of landfill and the potential of creating new materials to be fed back into the circular economy is enormous. After this week’s meeting at least the 100 or so people in the audience have a much better idea of what bio renewables are all about. Watch this space and I’ll bring you more!

Next I went to hear the corporate affairs director of McCain Foods talk about his organisation’s sustainable path. McCain is the biggest supplier of frozen French fries in the world. One in every three French fries is one of theirs. This is a major global corporation and it is committed to sustainability, because sustainable business is good business. McCain is a family company and it prides itself on family values. It has adopted ISO 14001, the environmental management system standard, across the group and is in the process of upgrading to the revised version of the standard recently issued. In the UK it works with 300 potato farmers, and with many more across the world. It helps its farmers develop best practice with techniques including water reduction, carbon footprint measurement and shared equipment helping growers to reduce their capital investment. It offers a guaranteed price for a quality product. At the factory there is emphasis on managing energy, water and transport. Moving 750,000 tonnes of potatoes on vehicles with a capacity of 27 tonnes means there are just under 30,000 vehicle movements per year. And presumably that’s just the raw materials. Careful management of logistics reduces road miles, reduces fuel use and reduces the transport carbon footprint. £16 million has been invested in renewable energy. Three 120 m turbines produce 70% of the energy required by the factory. An anaerobic digester produces methane which in turn produces another 10% of the electricity requirement. McCain sends less than 1% to landfill. Potato waste goes to animal feed, cooking oil to biofuel, surplus food to a food bank, recycled soil, compost and the digester residue go back to the land, and starch goes to the paper industry. The bio renewables panel would be proud! One message. We need to train more engineers. There’s a shortage of food engineers.

On to a presentation by Liam Herringshaw of Durham University on Fossils and Fracking. The F-word, (the second one) assured a packed house. This was a dispassionate account of the geology of shale and the process of fracking to extract oil and gas. We learnt about the vast quantities of water needed for the process, the fact that about half of it seeps away we know not where and that the rest needs specialised treatment. Apparently waste water from Quadrilla’s test site in Lancashire was passed through the local sewage farm, which was unable to stop the radioactivity being flushed away into the Manchester Ship Canal. Although the government is very much in favour of fracking, the British Geological Survey has severe reservations about how much of the reserves could actually be recovered. The audience included several people with clear and strong views, but the discussion which followed was well-informed and constructive. See refine.org.uk for more about the research on fracking and shale carried out jointly by Newcastle and Durham Universities. My own thought is that with oil hovering around $50/barrel, half what it was six months ago, it will be hard to make fracking economically viable. Quite apart from whether we can justify producing more fossil fuels. Whatever happens, we surely need more engineers!

Where are we going to get the engineers and technologists to carry us forward to a sustainable future? Only from our schools and universities. Next month I shall be speaking on sustainability in schools at the education show at the National exhibition Centre in Birmingham. I'll be talking about running schools as sustainable businesses, about engaging students with the idea of sustainability and environmental responsibility and about career opportunities in a sustainable world. I believe there are some in engineering.

This week I met Harriet Ennis who leads the environmental and sustainability initiatives at Bootham School in York. The school itself aims to be energy efficient through careful energy management and has also installed solar panels on new buildings. Bootham School is part of the eco-schools network. It will shortly receive its fourth green flag award, it has ambassador school status and will host part of the eco-schools roadshow in July. Many activities take place after school, but the ethos of environmental and social responsibility goes on all the time, coordinated by students appointed as eco-reps. Students are involved at all levels and gain experience of the difficulties of managing change. Activities range from offsetting the carbon footprint of school trips, through collecting waste, to the Dangerous Game, a computer-based attempt to solve the world’s problems with real-world consequences. For example, people who get it wrong get only a lettuce leaf and some rice for lunch. Thing I really liked was Terracycle. This is an organisation which takes low-level waste like biscuit wrappers, transforms them into useful products - great for the circular economy - and awards points which can be used to support third-world development projects. Look at terracycle.co.uk. In this world of scepticism and denial it is so encouraging to find an organisation taking issues seriously and encouraging students to do something about them. I expect some of them will become engineers.

And if not engineers, perhaps some of them will go to business school and become the leaders of the future. According to The Guardian this week sustainability is now a key selling point for business schools attracting students. Students used to consider sustainability in business irrelevant and would resent paying fees to learn about it. However the attitude seems to have changed, reflecting changed attitudes in boardrooms. This is good news after the mixed messages which came out of Davos. If you remember, Al Gore made a presentation on the threats from climate change, but at the same time the PwC global CEO survey excluded climate change altogether.

Also in the news, the sustainable cities index published a report. Frankfurt is now the world’s most sustainable city, with London coming second. It was interesting to see how different parts of the press presented this.”Frankfurt beats London to most sustainable city title” says The Guardian. “Only one city in the world is more sustainable than London” says The Telegraph.

And finally, what’s all this about the global divestment movement? We’ve heard how the Rockefeller Institute, certain universities, the Vatican and the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund are all selling their fossil fuel investments. The Global Divestment movement exists to encourage everyone to abandon fossil fuels. There’s no doubt that we have to do this if we’re going to stop catastrophic global warming. It’s not something we can do overnight, but we need to start making plans now. Which means we need to make governments start making plans and taking action, now. Today and tomorrow mass demonstrations are planned across the world. It will be interesting to see how much support they get and whether the press picks up on it. gofossilfree.org

That ends a quite busy week. Well, for podcasting anyway - I’ve still got a lot of other things to do. Have a great weekend, a sustainable weekend, and I’ll be back with you with another episode of the Sustainable Futures Show next Friday. 

With Legal Force!

With legal force! That’s the phrase of the week.

This week, China and the United States have come to an agreement on climate change - Chancellor George Osborne has said he will set up a sovereign wealth fund for all the riches which will be generated from fracking in the north-east - and at the NextGen 14 conference in Derby I had the pleasure of hearing Rohit Talwar give us his take on some pretty amazing futures.

This week President Obama visited China and issued a joint statement with the Chinese Premier stating that the two countries would work together on a climate accord. 

There's been some scepticism in the press but I've read the press release from the White House and to my eyes at least this looks like something different. The most important bit is where it says that the two Presidents will work together to adopt a protocol with legal force at the United Nations Climate Conference in Paris in 2015. With legal force. If they truly achieve that it will be groundbreaking. Every conference since Kyoto in 1997 has come out with advisory protocols, apart from those which came out with no conclusions at all. Obama and Xi Jinping talk about climate change as one of the greatest threats facing humanity. They talk about specific reduction targets. They talk about paying specific attention to vehicles, smart grids, carbon capture, energy efficiency, greenhouse gas data management, forests and industrial boilers. They even talk about promoting trade in green goods. 

We have to hope that this is not mere rhetoric. With both the US Senate and the House now in the hands of the Republicans there has to be some question over what President Obama can actually deliver. What is clear though, is that if the Americans do not go through with this they will be out of line with the global community and out of line with China, now the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. You may remember from an earlier episode that Professor Piers Forster, one of the lead authors of the IPCC report, believes that China and Europe will push the United States into supporting the consensus for a binding decision. 

Of course some people are very sceptical about China and we constantly hear the question, “Why should we do anything if the Chinese are opening a new coal power station every two weeks?” The truth is that the Chinese government has realised that this cannot go on, but a radical change can never happen overnight. China has already introduced regulations to control the quality of coal which it imports. It restricts the sulphur content so although it will continue to burn coal, it will be slightly cleaner coal and the smog should be reduced to some extent. China has said that all coal-fired power stations within the Beijing area must close by 2020 because of the chronic smog conditions. China is rapidly becoming a world leader in renewables technology. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that some, if not all, of the Chinese government ministers have engineering degrees. And we shouldn't forget that one reason why China has become the world biggest emitter of greenhouse gases is that many of us in the west have outsourced our manufacturing to China. Their factories are pouring out pollution to manufacture goods for our western consumers. We pat ourselves on the back for reducing our emissions, but a lot of this is achieved by outsourcing our manufacturing. China’s plan is to bring its greenhouse gas emissions to a peak in 2030 at the latest, by that stage to create 20% of its primary energy from non-fossil fuels and to continue to phase fossil fuels out.

Chancellor George Osborne seems obsessed with another type of fossil fuel

 – the oil and gas recovered through fracking. We've already seen tax breaks for the drilling companies and promised bonuses to the local authorities that permit fracking to take place. Now he's talking about setting up a sovereign wealth fund based on the riches which will be developed in the north-east of England from these fossil fuels. Fracking is attractive because it will release resources within our own country. It can't be interfered with by the Russians or by Somali pirates and theoretically it will be available whether or not the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. There is, however, increasingly vocal opposition to the idea of fracking from many people who don't like the idea of drilling beneath their homes. There are also concerns about the vast amounts of water required, about what will happen to the waste water and whether there is a risk of pollution to groundwater and drinking water supplies. 

We can't say too often that the oil and gas recovered from fracking are fossil fuels and continued use of fossil fuels can only make it more and more difficult, even impossible, for us to achieve our national carbon reduction targets. The British Geological Survey has expressed doubts about the size of the recoverable reserves and until exploratory drilling is carried out they cannot be verified. This week the UK Energy Research Centre was equally sceptical of the Chancellor’s claims. Even exploratory drilling is targeted by the protest groups. 

Why not put the subsidies into renewables? 

It’s secure because nobody can interfere with our wind, waves or solar power. And while renewables are not a constant source of power there are methods of storing energy and as part of the mix, renewables can keep our power generation carbon footprint down. We need a carefully thought-out energy policy. We need to base it on the best expert advice. We need to recognise that we are talking about 30 to 50 year timescales and despite all the political pressures, we must have a constant and consistent policy that stands firm for decades at a time. As I noted in an earlier episode, if we don't have a proper energy policy then the chances of us sitting in the dark in the winter become more and more real.

This week I attended the NextGen 14 conference in Derby 

- and I had the pleasure of listening to Rohit Talwar, the futurist and strategic advisor. Find him at fastfuture.com. Fast is certainly the word. He gave as a whole array of facts and ideas packed into a 30 minute presentation. I certainly won't attempt to repeat them all; just a few of the examples. The fundamental message is that the world is changing and is changing radically. And this has fundamental implications for how we make our future a sustainable future. Apparently if you are under 50 you may well live to 100 and your children will probably live to 120. I'm sure this will have implications for population statistics and it's something I will investigate for future episode. If organisations are to be future proof, they need to plan on three horizons. Very short, 1 to 2 months, the medium-term 1 to 3 years, and the long-term: anything from 4 to 10 years plus. I'm with you there Rohit! I run a workshop called “Planning to survive – sustained success in challenging times.” It's about making broad predictions about the future and then assessing whether your present business model will be viable in that scenario. If it will, which is highly unlikely, then you need do nothing. If it won’t, which is more likely, you need to take action now so your organisation morphs gently into something which is always relevant in a changing world.

Innovators are by-passing the system. 

Think of BitCoin, which is a currency controlled by no governments and no central banks. Think of Uber, the app which has upset taxi drivers from London to Berlin and delighted passengers. Think of 3D printing which has moved some manufacturing from distant factories to the point of use. But also think of HS2, the high-speed rail line based on the assumption that Britain’s industrial landscape will still be the same as today’s, when it opens in 2035. Oh, and apparently we’re not far off from uploading a human brain into a computer. Does that mean I could be around forever? (All those in favour!) Of course he said much, much more than all this. Have a look at fast future.com and hear him speak if you get the chance. He closed with 

“Step into your fears. Standing back achieves nothing.” 

This article is also available as the Sustainable Futures Podcast.

I’m Anthony Day, and if you’ve enjoyed this, please write a comment. And if you don’t like it, please let me know why - mail@anthony-day.com. Use that address too if there’s a particular topic you’d like me to cover. Next week I’m attending a conference to be addressed by Sir Stuart Rose, the CEO who brought Plan A to Marks & Spencer. I’m also presenting my Sustainable Futures Keynote to postgrads at the University of Huddersfield. After that I’ll set about the next episode of the Sustainable Futures blog.

Will we all freeze in the dark this winter?

We’ve had a number of people warning us about blackouts this winter. Strange. I read a report 10 years ago called “Mind the Gap” which predicted that the lights would go out in 2015. Now we’ve heard from the heads of npower and edf, and the National Grid has just published its annual Winter Outlook Report. Ed Davey, Environment Secretary, has told us that there’s absolutely no cause for alarm, so now we know it’s really serious! Or do we?

Our problem is that electricity demand grows year by year and our power stations get older and older. As they get older they get less reliable, and this year we’ve had two major fires and four stations taken off-line for urgent boiler repairs. If there’s another breakdown, will we be plunged into darkness? And is darkness all we have to worry about?

National Grid is responsible for the distribution of gas and electricity across the United Kingdom. It doesn’t generate power and it doesn’t sell gas or electricity to consumers. It just provides the energy super-highway, and the generators and the energy companies pay to use it. National Grid must balance supply with demand and ensure that power is available wherever and whenever it’s needed. December and January are the months of greatest demand; hence the Grid publishes a Winter Outlook Report. The press have made much of the suggestion that the safety margin, the amount by which supply exceeds maximum demand, has fallen from 17% three years ago to only 4.1% now. 

These statistics, as always, have to be looked at in context. The 4.1% margin is against Average Cold Spell (ACS) demand, the coldest part of winter. Winter weather is unpredictable, so we could have a cold spell which lasts longer and is even colder than predicted. National Grid admits that it cannot predict the weather, but then, even the Met Office struggles at times. Apart from bad weather, the other risk factor is power station breakdowns. Although some are much bigger, the average power station accounts for around 1% of supply. So theoretically we could lose four of them, in the coldest weather, and still struggle by. Of course, this is a very unlikely scenario, and National Grid has in any case taken steps to increase the safety margin. Three power stations that were mothballed have been recommissioned and placed on standby. Two of them are gas turbine plants and can come up to full power very rapidly. 

On the demand side, National Grid has agreements with major industrial users to accept power cuts if usage exceeds available supply. Taken together, these measures bring the safety margin, in the worst weather, up to 6.1%.

So is everything all right then? Probably a lot better than the tabloid press might make you think, but there are surely underlying problems. As economic growth continues, energy demand increases. Many of our power stations are due for replacement, but energy policy from all governments has been fragmented and vague. It’s difficult to plan a power station with a 30 or 40 year life if the politicians’ horizon goes no further than the next election. My prediction is that things can only get worse, because there is no quick fix to a shortage of generating capacity. Even with a 6.1% safety margin National Grid can’t rule out localised blackouts, although they do expect to hold them to no more than 36 minutes. 

The popular reaction to blackouts is to rush out and buy candles, and that is certainly what we did when we had regular power cuts in the 1970s. The world has changed dramatically since then. We didn’t have mobile phones and we didn't have cash machines. We certainly didn’t have computers. Many families still kept warm in front of open fires. Remember, you may have gas central heating, but it goes off when the electricity goes off because all the controls are electric. Quite a lot of infrastructure has back-up generation. For example, you’ll usually find a diesel generator tucked away at the back of your supermarket. Generators support mobile phone masts - the remoter ones, anyway, - but a blackout is likely to close ATMs. If the weather turns really cold, make sure you stock up on cash. And it might be worth buying a camping gas stove so you can have a hot drink. And a wind-up lantern is so much safer than candles! In business, data is your most precious resource. You do always back up, don't you? Keep your laptop and your phone charged up. And a UPS - uninterruptible power supply - should be in place to let your larger computers power down smoothly if the power goes off.

All this is about electricity, but National Grid is responsible for gas as well and we use a lot of that in a cold winter; for industry, for central heating and for generating electricity. We still get gas from the North Sea, but it’s declining and we now import a significant proportion of our gas. The predictions of the Grid’s Winter Outlook are that we have a substantial margin of reserves and production over maximum demand - around 24%. The key risk factor here is political. Russia is a major supplier of gas to Europe and much of it is routed via Ukraine. If Russia restricts supplies to Ukraine, as it has done in the past, then the rest of Europe suffers. The UK does not import gas directly from Russia, but if supplies to Europe were cut any imports to the UK from the Netherlands or Belgium would probably be cut as well. 

The Winter Outlook takes this into account and assumes that any shortages would be made up by increased imports of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). Last year just under 20% of our imported gas was LNG and most of that came from Qatar in the Persian Gulf - not the most stable region politically. National Grid makes the point that we could maintain supplies by increasing these imports, but only by paying world prices which are highly likely to escalate if there is a shortage. As far as gas supply is concerned, we’re in a secure position. Cost is something else, so turn down the thermostat a degree or two, fit that double glazing and roof insulation, upgrade the boiler and enjoy as much heat as you can from as little gas as possible.

The supply and distribution of energy to the UK is clearly a highly sophisticated operation. Now there’s another factor to add to the risks from breakdowns, bad weather and politics. This week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its fifth assessment report (AR5), warning that we must cut co2 emissions by drastically reducing fossil fuel use. Launching the report, Ban Ki-moon, UN General Secretary, said, “Science has spoken. There is no ambiguity in their message. Leaders must act. Time is not on our side.” At the moment, well over half the electricity in the UK is generated from fossil fuels - coal and gas. The UN urges nations to divest from fossil fuels and invest in renewables to prevent global warming from exceeding a 2℃ rise. The report shows how this path can improve economic performance. 

This is a big issue for the UK, where the government is offering substantial tax incentives and subsidies for the development of fracking. Fracking produces oil and gas securely, free from interference by foreign governments, but oil and gas are fossil fuels. Should we be going this way, when even the Rockefeller Foundation, based on the fortunes made from Standard Oil, is selling off its fossil fuel investments and investing in renewables? Surely the tax breaks and subsidies should be going into continued development of renewables. 

Whatever happens, we need some hard and urgent decisions made by government. Unfortunately the present government seems inclined to ignore the evidence, pushing on with fracking, talking about “green crap” and the “green blob” and with a former environment minister calling for our Climate Change Act to be suspended. Despite all this we need decisions. 

Decisions which will determine whether or not we spend our future winters freezing in the dark!

Sanctions on Russia - the best argument for renewable energy!

When the idea of a gas pipeline from Russia to Europe came up in the 1980s US president Ronald Reagan was strongly against it. At the time I couldn't see why, but the reason has become blindingly obvious in the last few weeks. Europe now gets up to a third of its natural gas from Russia and cannot afford to do anything that would cause Russia to turn it off. Of course loss of exports would hurt the Russian economy, but turning out the lights in Europe would have a devastating effect in only a few days. That's why Angela Merkel's response to Russia's involvement in Ukraine has been so low-key. David Cameron, on the other hand, has made much more fuss. He can afford to: the UK gets its gas elsewhere - from the British North Sea, from the Norwegian North Sea and from the Middle East. For the moment! Resources in the North Sea are running out, while Russian reserves are enormous. 

Britain, as much as the rest of Europe, needs to look at energy security, at energy that we can control within our own borders. That's why fracking is so attractive. It's exploiting British gas and oil. As commented elsewhere, fracking is no silver bullet. It's likely to be costly, there's no guarantee that the reserves can actually be recovered, there are pollution risks, there's strong public opposition and it produces fossil fuels which emit co2 when used. 

We need to explore all the options. Nuclear - under our control, but apart from all the arguments about pollution and waste disposal the plain fact is that it's no short-term solution. It will take a decade to bring a new nuclear station into production. Renewables. There's nowhere near enough capacity at present and it will take years of research and development to increase it significantly. Time to start now. Many people will complain that it can never be as cheap as coal, oil or gas. Probably true, but the age of cheap energy is over. Which would you rather have, expensive energy or none at all? 

The third step to securing our energy supplies is to minimise waste. Are you sitting in an office enjoying the sunshine with all the lights on as well? How many public buildings have the lights on 24/7? Lighting is only part of it. In a few weeks we'll have the heating on again. How hot is your home? What mpg do you get from your car? We need a government lead to encourage energy savings, otherwise we’re never going to do enough. Unfortunately the Green Deal didn't work so we need something else. Pushing energy prices up would do it, but it would make any government that did that unelectable. We need more public education, more investment in renewables, and a subsidised Green Deal ( the one that didn't work failed largely because it was too expensive, too inflexible and in many cases unlikely to yield the promised savings). Governments need to take action, because if they don't they'll be thrown out when the lights go out - and that will be the least of our troubles!

And when our energy supplies are truly secure we’ll never be held to ransom by foreign powers.

Fracking - no silver bullet

The government today invites applications for licences to frack for gas and oil across the country. We need an energy security policy, but fracking is not the answer.

We used to be self-sufficient in energy with limitless reserves of coal. Then we found North Sea oil and gas and the party went on. Now these reserves are running out and we are importing significant amounts of energy.

Although most people believe that much of our gas now comes from Russia that’s not true. About 70% comes in equal proportions from the British and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea and some 20% by ship from Qatar in the Persian Gulf. North Sea reserves are declining and although Qatar is a stable state that is certainly not true of the rest of the Middle East. The ISIS fundamentalists have already taken over large parts of Iraq, including a major oil refinery, and their aim is total domination. Supplies from the Middle East are at risk. If we can extract oil and gas from shale beneath our feet in Britain it’s surely the obvious way to control the supply and the cost of essential energy. In the USA fracking has revolutionised the energy industry. Energy prices have fallen with significant benefits to US industry. The increased use of gas has pushed down the world price of coal (which is one of the reasons why we are using more coal for electricity generation in Britain at present.) 

There have been protests against fracking in the US and the same arguments are now being made here. “Fracking pollutes the groundwater - people’s drinking water is at risk.” “Fracking causes earthquakes.” “Fracking uses vast amounts of water, some of which is recovered and is polluted.” Some of the  pollution arguments are difficult to support. Yes, in the US some people have turned on the tap and been able to light a stream of gas bubbling out of the water. The question is whether this is due to fracking or is naturally occurring. Fracking, which involves driving high-pressure water, chemicals and sand into shale beds to split them apart and release gas, takes place 650m - 800m below the level where drinking water is extracted [British Geological Survey], so it’s unlikely to affect it. There are certainly concerns about water in general. Yes, fracking does use vast amounts of water in the initial stages and this is usually trucked in. Constant lorry movements will be a major impact on local communities. About half the water injected into the shale bed is recovered and has to be treated. Among other things, it’s mildly radioactive. It cannot be sent to the normal sewage treatment works. And what about the water that is not recovered? Where does it go?

Earthquakes? Earth tremors were recorded after exploratory drilling near Blackpool, but they were very minor and about the same magnitude as natural tremors which occur all the time. They are not house-shaking events: they can only be detected with special equipment.

Apart from lorries carrying water to the wellheads, how will the gas or oil be carried out? Either by building pipelines or connections to the national gas grid, or by sending in yet more lorries. It has been suggested that unlike conventional wells, fracking wells can dry up in as little as four years. The only solution is to up sticks, move on and drill somewhere else - not necessarily very far away.

So is the inconvenience of fracking justified by the benefits of energy security, cost control and job creation for the nation? Maybe, if it works. The British Geological Survey has found that there is significant oil beneath the Weald in southeast England and significant gas in the north. It cannot say how much of this is commercially recoverable. It cannot at this stage say whether the geology is similar to the areas in the US where fracking is successfully established. It is possible that the shale beds are folded or uneven because of geological activity, making extraction difficult or impossible. 

Oil and gas from fracking will not be cheap. Extraction is an expensive process and the high level of popular opposition to fracking indicates that there will be policing and security costs as well. It won’t provide a new source of energy overnight. It won’t avoid the blackouts that have been predicted for Winter 2015 in reports since 2005. Oil and gas from fracking are still CO2-bearing fossil fuels, not helping our carbon-reduction targets.

Fracking is no silver bullet.

No surprises!

 No surprises in the Autumn statement after all the leaks. No surprise that Labour criticised the whole thing. Sadly, no surprise that energy policy, which is crucial to the long-term prosperity of the country, is being treated as a short-term political football. Obligations on energy companies have been relaxed so they are now able to save consumers about a pound a week on bills. Once again an increase in fuel duty has been scrapped. Subsidies for onshore wind power have been reduced and at the same time the duty on gas produced from fracking is cut in half.

In the short term, reductions in energy bills and the fuel duty freeze will help with the cost of living, (though Is £1 per week really important when the average energy bill is now some £1200 per year?) It’s suggested that the reduced support for onshore windfarms is designed to head off a threat from UKip, which is totally opposed to them. All these are good political points in advance or the 2015 election. Not sure why George Osborne is so desperately keen to promote fracking, when it’s clearly so unpopular!

Altogether, these measures are symptomatic of a chaotic energy policy. There are three issues that have to be taken into account when planning energy supplies - cost, security and pollution. 

Let’s look first at fracking. Driving high-pressure water down into shale deposits to drive out oil and gas looks like a good idea. It’s been very successful in the US. The Americans have reduced their carbon footprint by using shale gas, which is a much cleaner fuel than coal. They calculate that they are sitting on reserves of shale oil which are greater than all the oil left in Saudi Arabia. Certainly ticks the security box - as it would for the UK. We’re talking about resources firmly within our borders and under our control.

The trouble with fracking is that it doesn’t tick the other two boxes. Gas is still a fossil fuel which produces co2 when burnt. Globally, we cannot afford to burn all our fossil fuels because if we did the co2 would cause runaway global warming and extreme weather events which would damage food production and make some parts of the world uninhabitable. (Of course George Osborne doesn’t believe in this. He’s with the 5% of scientists who believe it won’t happen. The other 95% are sure it will.) Fracking uses vast amounts of water, it causes minor earthquakes and it releases methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Then there’s the cost. Nobody knows what gas from fracking will cost. Looks as though George expects it to be very expensive. That’s the second time he’s cut the duty! The sad thing is that fracking is no silver bullet. Nobody even yet knows whether it will work outside the US. In the UK the geology is different, the population density is different and the planning laws are different.

Relaxing the obligations on the energy companies means that they can slow down the process of offering free insulation for cold homes. Well-insulated homes mean less energy and lower bills. There are some (a very, very few) high-spec council homes that cost no more than £20 a year to heat. That’s the dilemma of the privatised energy companies. The less we spend, the less profit they make. In the long term more insulation, more efficient heating and lower bills are good for the consumer and good for the balance of payments. (Don’t forget, we import 20% of our gas from the Middle East, much of our coal from Russia, even electricity from France!) So who will win this one? The consumer or the energy companies? Don’t hold your breath.

Has the government really got an energy policy? Some of us have been warning for years that the lights could go out in winter 2014 or 2015, as power stations are retired before new ones are built. The government has announced a new nuclear power station that won’t be ready for 10 years, they’re offering subsidies to fracking but they don’t know if that works - and it will probably also take 10 years to commission. Meanwhile they are preserving demand by cutting back on insulation  and scrapping the fuel duty rise, and limiting supply by cutting wind power subsidies. Is that a credible policy?

Energy Bill - who pays?

The Energy Bill makes its way through Parliament with an important vote later today. Why important? Because there is going to be a revolt. 

Just announced - the government defeated the amendment which means there will be NO decarbonisation target - unless the Lords overrules.

The government does not want to include a carbon target for electricity generation. It wants to defer a decision until after the next election. Why is this a problem - and why the revolt? The carbon target will define how clean and efficient our electricity generation must be. In turn that will define how much of the supply must come from renewables, from nuclear and it will determine how urgently (or not) the industry should be cleaning up coal and gas generation with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). In energy policy the government is gaining a reputation for dithering. The Feed-In tariff, revised down well before the promised deadline, is a key example. The market for solar panels collapsed overnight and more than a few installers went out of business. 

Carbon targets are as important as guaranteed prices for energy generators. If they are planning plants which will take years to build and will operate for decades they need to be sure that tariffs and taxes - and carbon targets - can be relied upon. Otherwise they will reject the risks and go and look for business elsewhere.

We are on the threshold of a new phase of generating plant. The chancellor is committed to a new dash for gas, powered by gas extracted by fracking from deep beneath Lancashire. Announcements made yesterday claim there could be 7 years’ supply down there. Could be. Nothing is proven yet. Well, we can still get gas from Norway, the Middle East and in time from Russia. Leaving aside the energy security arguments, (would you prefer to rely on gas and coal from thousands of miles away, or to use wind, solar and tides freely available at home?), if the generators go ahead anyway and build new plant, what happens in 2016 when the targets are finally set?

Either we bring in standards which will make a sensible contribution to reducing the UK’s emissions, (and maybe bankrupt generators who can’t meet the new standards), or we decide that all the controls we need fit nicely with exactly how these new power stations operate. 

We have a declared target to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. 

But that’s still a very long way off, and it won’t be this government’s concern!

Keeping the Lights On

Back in October I predicted major power cuts on 18th January 2013. In the event, some 5,000 people in Wales lost their electricity as the result of bad weather, but nothing catastrophic happened. This weekend's weather caused power cuts for 10,000 people in Scotland and up to 200,000 in Northern Ireland. 

There are two issues here. One is the ability of the network to stand up to bad weather. The other is whether the system can cope with increased demand. 

Running out of Gas?

Saturday's papers were full of government denials that we're going to run out of gas. Apparently we have some of the smallest reserves of any country in Europe, and they are down to 10% of capacity. That's not a problem as long as gas flows into the system at least as fast as it's used up. The key issue is where we get the gas from. Yes, we still get about half of what we use from the North Sea. About 20% comes from Norway and about the same from the Middle East in ships. All our gas, whether it comes from the North Sea or elsewhere, is governed by world prices. Middle East gas - mainly from Qatar - is also governed by Middle East politics. The US is rapidly increasing its domestic production by exploiting shale gas and by 2030 could no longer need the Middle East. Who will attempt to keep the peace there then? Norway is a friendly, stable nation but its government already recognises that its gas may last little more than another 10 years. The biggest reserves in Europe are in Russia, at the end of a very long pipeline from the UK. In recent years Russia has been in dispute with Ukraine and others about gas prices and has simply cut the gas off - affecting innocent countries down the pipeline as well.

Powering the Future

In view of all this it's a bit of a worry that George Osborne has announced a policy of building a fleet of gas power stations. They are cheap and quick to build, they can react rapidly to fluctuating demand, but although they are much cleaner than coal they still burn fossil fuels and still create CO2 emissions. And where is the gas going to come from, George? Why not shale gas like they've discovered in the US? George announced special deals for "fracking" in the budget, and fracking installations which extract the gas from shale are likely to be fast-tracked for planning. (Locals will not be involved in the planning decision.) Why not? I'll tell you why not.

1. Although there has been test drilling, shale gas reserves have not been proved in the UK.
2. There are suspicions that the test drilling caused an earth tremor near Blackpool. 
3. There are fears - yet to be proved or disproved - that the fracking process can contaminate the water table. Certainly it generates a lot of dirty water which has to be dealt with somehow.
4. Shale gas, like any natural gas, is a fossil fuel and releases CO2 when burnt.

In the short term the question is whether existing systems and existing supplies will keep the lights on in the face of this terrible weather and increased demand. (Did anyone ever predict the consequences of rising emissions and resulting climate change? Wasn't there something about unseasonable weather? Did you read that Sir John Beddington, retiring chief government scientist, says that climate change is more serious than ever?) 

The Nuclear Option

Of course planning permission was awarded last week for a new nuclear power station at Hinckley Point, but that will take at least 10 years to build. All but one of our existing nuclear plants are scheduled to close by 2020. 

And if we run out?

What will happen if the nation does run out of gas? Probably, the lights will go out. That's because it's very much easier to turn off a major gas user like a power station than thousands of individual users. Let's hope it doesn't happen, because the consequences would be horrific. Last time we had nationwide power cuts - which, incidentally, brought down the government- was in the 1970s. At that time we had no ATMs, no computers, no barcode scanners, no electronic tills, no mobile phones. Which of those would you be happy to go without? And remember, your gas central heating has electronic controls and an electric pump. You won't just be sitting in the dark, you'll be sitting in the cold as well!

Cheer up, it's Spring!