COP21 - The Talking Begins

An audio version of this episode was published on 4th December and is available at susbiz.biz and on iTunes.

Yes, COP21, the Paris climate change conference, is finally here. No results expected before the end of next week so I'm going to take the opportunity to review what this conference means for us, for our businesses, for families and for our future. Also in this episode, the minister takes control of fracking, business views of the climate conference and plans for a ministry of the future.

Welcome to the Sustainable Futures Report, the new, improved and upgraded Sustainable Futures Show brought to you without advertising, sponsorship or subsidy. So I can say what I like.  And a special welcome to friends and listeners on their way to Paris to take part in the official or unofficial events surrounding COP21. It's Friday 4th December 2015 and this is Anthony Day with news, views and ideas, and by the way your news, views and ideas are very welcome and important. Please get in touch and share them. I’m at mail@anthony-day.com. 

First this week, what’s this COP21 conference all about then, and why is it important? It's the UN conference on Climate Change, it involves 195 countries and 145 of them sent their prime ministers or heads of state to the opening ceremony where they each reiterated their country's commitment to cutting green house gas emissions. It’s important to you because if these leaders take truly effective action it’s likely to drive up energy costs in the short term. They will have to put a price on carbon, which means taxing or surcharging anything which emits greenhouse gases. Petrol will be more expensive at the pump. It will cost more to heat your home. Those extra costs will be added to existing production and distribution costs. Almost anything you buy will cost more - from food to fashion, from pharmaceuticals to furniture. The alternative, according to the scientists, is catastrophic climate change: drought, famine, floods and failure of food supplies. At first this will be worst in the developing nations, but our supply chains are global. We’ll be affected by what happens in far-off countries of which we know little. To start with we’ll see higher prices. As the situation worsens we’ll see shortages. As distant nations become uninhabitable will see massive movements of refugees across the world; far, far more than the numbers causing so much argument at the moment. 

The solution is twofold - mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation to stop climate change getting worse: adaptation to cope with and control the effects that are already here. Adaptation involves financial support to the developing nations which are suffering the worst effects of climate change even though they have done little to cause it. An agreement on financial support to these nations by the developed nations will be an important outcome of COP21.

Mitigation, to stop climate change getting worse, depends on a radical change in the way we produce and use energy. Everyone can protect themselves against rising energy prices. Driving more slowly saves fuel. Turning down the thermostat and wearing an extra jumper saves gas. Insulation keeps your home warm for less. It’s more difficult with industrial processes. Bread won’t bake and chemical reactions won’t react except at specified temperatures. Perhaps the answer here is greater efficiency through economies of scale. Beyond that we have to look at new forms of supply which don’t involve burning fossil fuels. Despite scepticism, renewables are becoming more and more viable, producing 25% of the UK’s electricity for the third quarter of this year. I spoke last week about the solar power station in Morocco which stores heat in molten salt and can generate electricity 20 hours per day. Battery storage is becoming more efficient. Domestic stores are already available from Tesla in the US, Sonnen in Germany and Powervault in the UK. If you have solar panels you can save some of your energy for use at night. Energy can also be stored as heat as with the Moroccan power station, as potential energy as in the Dinorwic pump storage scheme in North Wales or stored in massive flywheels. Apart from wind turbines and solar panels, a 320MW tidal power station is planned for Swansea Bay and there is potential for geothermal energy all over the world, including parts of the UK. It’s time to invest in these new technologies. Actually, these generation technologies are not that new. It’s time to invest in developing, refining and perfecting them. It’s time to invest in storage science, like the lithium-air battery under development at Cambridge University.

The fact that the vast majority of the world's leaders took time out to travel to Paris shows they think climate change is important. On Sunday 29th November 50,000 people marched in London to show that they thought it was important too. But people marched not just in London, but all over the world. In more than 2,000 cities - a million of them. It's probably the biggest international march ever. Not in Paris, though. In view of the security situation marches were banned. Instead, people left shoes, thousands of pairs of shoes, in la Place de la République, to symbolise the march they would have made. The Pope sent a pair of shoes. So did UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. What do all these people want, and what's in it for you? They all want nations to work together to stop global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and thereby avoiding dangerous climate change. How are they going to do that? Good question. 

Of course the politicians have to balance short-term politics with the need to save the planet. At the opening ceremony of COP21 President Obama said

“I’ve come here personally, as the leader of the world’s largest economy and the second-largest emitter, to say that the United States of America not only recognises our role in creating this problem, we embrace our responsibility to do something about it.”

“Let’s show businesses and investors that the global economy is on a firm path towards a low-carbon future.  If we put the right rules and incentives in place, we’ll unleash the creative power of our best scientists and engineers and entrepreneurs to deploy clean energy technologies and the new jobs and new opportunities that they create all around the world.  There are hundreds of billions of dollars ready to deploy to countries around the world if they get the signal that we mean business this time.  Let’s send that signal.”

He went on to say,

“I believe, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that there is such a thing as being too late.  And when it comes to climate change, that hour is almost upon us.  But if we act here, if we act now, if we place our own short-term interests behind the air that our young people will breathe, and the food that they will eat, and the water that they will drink, and the hopes and dreams that sustain their lives, then we won't be too late for them.”

In his speech, David Cameron asked what we would say to our grandchildren if the conference failed to reach an effective agreement.

“But they would ask us why is it difficult to reach a legally binding agreement when in 2015 there are already 75 countries …. that already have legally binding climate change legislation? …countries that are thriving with that legislation.”

“Why, they’d ask us, is it difficult to have a review after 5 years?

“Would we really be able to argue that it was too difficult?

Too difficult to transfer technology from rich countries to poorer countries?

Our grandchildren would rightly ask us: what was so difficult?

You had this technology, you knew it worked, you knew that if you gave it to poor and vulnerable countries they could protect themselves against climate change – why on earth didn’t you do it?

“What I’m saying,” said Mr Cameron, “is that instead of making excuses tomorrow to our children and grandchildren, we should be taking action against climate change today.”

Can’t argue with that.

But his grandchildren weren’t there to ask why his government has effectively banned new on-shore wind turbines, why it will only support new offshore turbines if they dramatically cut their costs, why it has cut the subsidy for clean solar energy at short notice, why it has terminated the low-carbon homes initiative, why it has modified the renewables obligation to work against renewable energy, why it has removed business start-up tax breaks from community energy projects and why it has withdrawn its financial support from carbon capture and storage, the only way of cleaning up coal and gas power stations. They weren’t there to ask why his government supports fracking, a technique for extracting carbon-emitting natural gas, either.

I expect somebody will ask those questions. Hopefully before it’s too late.

What can we expect from COP21? The majority of nations have submitted an INDC, an Intended Nationally Determined Contribution. A contribution to reducing global GHG emissions. These documents take various forms - different starting points, different end points, different percentage reductions. They have been analysed and the overall effect, if they are all achieved, will be to limit global warming to a 2.7℃ temperature increase over pre-industrial levels. That’s more than the 2℃ which is widely considered the danger level, but much better than the current trend which is rising towards 4℃ or 5℃. An overall draft agreement has been submitted to the conference. As I mentioned in a previous episode, this is really just a template. Every word, every phrase, almost every comma is presented with an alternative. This will be negotiated over the coming days and will determine how the nations will fulfil their INDCs, although not the specific measures that each nation must take. For an insight into the negotiation process listen to “Can we trust the IPCC?”, an episode of the Sustainable Futures Report from November 2014. Search on IPCC at susbiz.biz . In this episode Professor Piers Forster, one of the lead authors of AR5, explains the pressures and compromises involved in agreeing the final text of that document.

David Cameron calls for a binding agreement and we must support him on that. Unfortunately, the word is that the Americans will not accept it. This is because they believe that climate sceptic Republicans would block such a measure.

COP21 rolls on until Friday next week. Since I record these episodes at least a day in advance I won't be able to report on the final outcome in the next scheduled episode. I may possibly issue a special supplementary report early in the following week, or I may defer the next episode altogether until then.

In the meantime I suggest you have a look at “The most terrifying video you'll ever see.” It isn’t really terrifying. It’s a clear and logical examination of whether we should take action on climate change and what would happen if we didn’t. It just looks at our options: climate change is either real or not real and we have the choice to take action or take no action. It’s been up on YouTube for several years and been viewed by over 6 million people. It’s just as relevant as it was when it was first posted. Here's the link: https://youtu.be/zORv8wwiadQ 

Still to come: business views on climate change and a clear view of the future. First, fracking.

The Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, has announced that he will make the decision on whether Cuadrilla can frack for shale gas in Lancashire. You will remember that Lancashire County Council refused permission back in the summer. The minister says he is now calling the case in and will make the decision himself in the national interest. Not unexpected. Greenpeace are raising a petition in protest but that’s unlikely to change anything.

There was nothing in the Autumn Statement about the proposals to slash feed-in tariffs, so I suppose that we must assume that they will go ahead.

Last Friday Greenpeace sent an open letter to David Cameron in support of renewable energy and asked the government to “commit and put forward policies to support the growth of the UK renewables sector through the 2020’s, consistent with the critical role of the power sector in addressing carbon budgets under the Climate Change Act.” This letter was jointly signed by Unilever, Vodaphone, Nestle, Thames Water, BT, IKEA, M&S, Kingfisher, Tesco and Panasonic.

Other business voices were raised as COP21 started. CBI, the Confederation of British Industry, has published a report on what it would like to see from the conference. 

Rhian Kelly, CBI Director of Business Environment policy, said:

“We all know there is no easy answer to climate change. But, business and industry are part of the solution - developing innovative new products and services, and leading the way in cutting emissions, to propel us towards a low carbon future.

“Firms need confidence to invest in this future though, so the Climate Change Conference is a golden opportunity to create the long-term frameworks that businesses crave. This means a clear sense of direction, support for carbon pricing that can drive investment and getting finance and technology flowing.

“So much effort has been put into agreeing frameworks ready for Paris, we simply cannot afford to fall at the last hurdle, and delay a lasting, global plan for climate action. All businesses, especially energy-intensive industries, will be looking for an international deal which helps create a level playing field, and that keeps the UK competitive.”

“Clear sense of direction.” Let’s hope that the government one day comes to understand that short-notice changes of policy discourage investment. Maybe we should have a Ministry of the Future to concentrate on the long term. Sounds a silly idea? Ian Birrell, writing in the i newspaper, describes the Ministry of the Future which has been set up by the Swedish government to look 50 years ahead. Its head, Kristina Persson, says, “There is a need to see any dangers in time and create a narrative that holds together.” There are policies where the long view is essential. Climate change is one. Benefits, energy, pensions, health and social care all demand a long-term view.  Looking beyond the short term might have made us think twice about the interminable debt burden that is PFI. We now have a National Infrastructure Commission. That could be a step in the right direction, but we need a body with a wide perspective as well as a long view, and we need politicians who will listen. 

Meanwhile, are you taking the long view of your business prospects? Climate change, energy shortages, supply chain pressures - have you factored them into your business plan? Yes the future is always uncertain, but there’s nothing more uncertain than a future unexplored. 

Why not give me a call and we can talk through the type of things which could put your organisation at risk and decide how best to be prepared. Maybe we could talk about putting the issues into focus through scenario planning. The number is 07803 616877  or drop me an email at mail@anthony-day.com. Give me a call and a cup of coffee and I’ll tell you what I think. If you call me now we can get something in the diary before Christmas. Oh, and I’ll expect a mince pie as well. Black Friday? Cyber Monday? This is the bargain of the week. Here’s to Sustainable 2016.

Yes, that’s it, another episode of the Sustainable Futures Report in the can. I’m off to the North West sustainable Business Quarterly meeting in Manchester shortly, kindly hosted by Anthesis anthesisgroup.com at the Bruntwood Tower. I usually meet interesting people there. I’ll tell you about it. 

But for now, this is Anthony Day and that was the Sustainable Futures Report.

Going Underground

Published as a podcast at www.susbiz.biz on Friday 27th November 2015

Although recent episodes of the sustainable futures show might lead you to think that it's all about energy, that's certainly not the case. This week I do talk about energy, potential energy under our feet, and also about water, groundwater. Desalination, solar energy, failing monsoons, Moroccan salt and Californian almonds are also on the agenda. And the UK has abandoned plans for carbon capture and storage.

Hello. This is Anthony Day, and this is the Sustainable Futures Show for Friday, 27 November 2015. And from next month it's going to be called the Sustainable Futures Report.

Running Out

According to a report in Nature Geoscience we are running out of groundwater. Groundwater is the one third of the world’s freshwater which is below the surface of the earth. We are using it up more rapidly that it is being replaced. And less than 6% of the water in the top 2 km of the earth’s surface  is renewed in a human lifetime. Some groundwater is rapidly renewed by rainfall and is only a few months old. Other reserves of groundwater can be millions of years old.

In California groundwater from boreholes is used for agriculture. A farmer interviewed by Capital Public Radio reported that the water level in his well was falling by 800 mm each year. Not surprising when you consider that California is in its fourth year of drought. This farmer had decided to do what he could to replenish the groundwater by flooding his crops whenever there was heavy rainfall and surplus water. He was prepared to invest millions of dollars to divert floodwaters to irrigate his crops with far more than they needed so that the water would percolate away through the sandy soil and down into the aquifers. 80% of the world’s almonds are produced in California and the Almond Board is looking at flooding the plantations in order to restore the groundwater there. The problem is that not all agricultural soils are permeable and it is not clear whether all crops will accept excess water. There will also need to be canals and pipes installed to divert the floodwaters. The original farmer was growing grapevines and the excess water did not damage the crop and might even have slightly improved it. Elsewhere in California there is growing tension between farmers as they drill deeper wells in order to secure their own supplies.

The University of the United Arab Emirates reports that Abu Dhabi is likely to exhaust its groundwater completely within 15 years. At the moment 98% of drinking water in the emirates comes from desalination plants. The problem with this is that the process uses substantial amounts of energy, usually natural gas, and the hot liquid which is pumped back into the sea as a byproduct damages the marine ecosystem. Citizens of the emirates use on average 500 L per day each, which is one of the highest rates of consumption in the world. The government admits that the price of water is too low which leads people to have no concern about wasting it and they don’t bother about leaks. Raising prices could go part way to solving this problem and the Emirates are also introducing solar powered desalination plants which will not use gas and presumably will not produce CO2 emissions either.

According to the Times of India, Pune, south-east of Mumbai, is also suffering from falling groundwater levels. The 2015 monsoon was weaker than usual and some areas received as little as 50% of normal rainfall. In 2014 some 6,000 villages saw water in their wells fall by a metre or more. In 2015 this had more than doubled to 13,500 villages. Of these, nearly 3,000 saw the level fall between 2m and 3m and over 4,000 saw the level fall by more than 3m. These villages are on the brink of severe drinking water shortages. The authorities have banned deep wells in 80 locations and say they will have to recharge the aquifers, although it is not clear how they will actually do it.

All these places may be far from home, but that doesn't mean that we won't suffer water shortages in Europe. All too often our problem is too much water, rather than drought but how far do you and your business rely on water? Do you actually know where your water supply comes from? Probably yes, if you’re a farmer. Otherwise it might be worth finding out. In a future episode I plan to review the book “Let there be water” by Seth M Siegel. You can find it at sethmsiegel.com .

Unconventional Energy

Paul Younger is Rankine Chair of Engineering and Professor of Energy Engineering at School of Engineering, at the University of Glasgow. He was interviewed by Jim Al Khalili at the recent freethinking festival. He said his main concerns were keeping the lights on and keeping carbon emissions down. We urgently need to find new sources of energy. We need to find the lowest carbon alternatives and it is urgent because of continuing and increasing fuel poverty and the risk of winter blackouts. He was scathing about an energy policy which has left us with a very narrow safety margin in the event of a severe winter. Have I mentioned that before? What alternative energy sources do we have? As a geologist, Professor Younger has investigated geothermal energy and drilled boreholes deep into the earth. Anyone who has been down a coal mine knows that the deeper you go the warmer it gets. Deeper still and the rocks get extremely hot. It is possible to harness this heat to raise steam and generate electricity, but in many cases it is more efficient to use the heat as heat. Looking at the U.K.'s energy consumption, only one fifth of energy is used as electricity, 2/5 are used as heat and the remainder is used for transport. While it might be possible to use geothermal energy for combined heat and power, the main potential is for running district heating systems. This means that alongside the gas pipes, the water pipes and the electricity cables we would have a hot water main feeding the central heating of each property. It's a system which works well in other countries and if we have a source of free, zero carbon heat it's an opportunity to be seriously considered. Although test drillings have proved that the heat is there, the projects have run out of money.

In Africa, however, notably in Ethiopia, geothermal energy is providing clean, cheap electricity to communities that had little or none before.

Another potential source of energy is underground coal gasification (UCG). This involves drilling into very deep coal seams, way beyond the reach of conventional mining, oxidising the coal and extracting the gas. In fact, this gas would be more important as a source of chemical feedstocks than as a fuel. Many fertilisers, pharmaceuticals and fabrics that we all take for granted are manufactured from hydrocarbons: oil or gas. If we do use gas from this source for energy, the carbon dioxide could be re-injected into the exhausted coal seams. If everything could be done on-site then this would remove the need for long pipelines which seem to be part of the current carbon capture and storage initiatives. Current CCS plans involve piping the CO2 across the country and injecting it into caverns under the North Sea.

At least that was the plan. 

At the same time as the Chancellor, George Osborne, was delivering his Autumn Statement to Parliament this week, the Department of Energy and Climate Change was making an announcement to the London Stock Exchange. It said that the £1bn prize fund for the first company to develop commercial-scale carbon capture and storage was withdrawn with immediate effect. The pilot projects at Drax and Peterhead will not now go ahead, putting an end to four years of research and preparation. The schemes would have generated 2,000 construction jobs at Drax and 100 permanent positions, and a further 600 jobs at Peterhead. You could argue that with last week’s re-announcement of the closure of coal-fired power stations, carbon capture and storage is no longer needed. However the 25 gas fired power stations which they are planning to build will all emit greenhouse gases. Clearly they will now be emitted into the atmosphere without any form of abatement.

Going back to UCG.

Underground Coal Gasification is not the same as fracking, says Prof Younger although he believes that fracking is not as dangerous as some would claim. In his view, fracking in the United States has been carried out by unqualified cowboys, so no wonder there have been spills, escapes and pollution. If underground gasification is carried out by people with mining skills or people skilled in exploiting the oil and gas in the North Sea it can be carried out safely. After all, coal mines stretched miles out underneath the North Sea with never a leak. UGC and geothermal developments need to be done while these skills are still around, before these experts retire. Does he think it will happen? Sadly not. There will be no incentive until the population at large realises that energy and food and medicines and plastics are getting more expensive and demands that engineers find a solution. By then the only alternative will probably be to buy the technology and skills - technology invented in the UK – from the Chinese.

 The problem with unconventional energy, as with all other forms of renewable energy, is that oil is currently so cheap that it is difficult to be cost competitive, although on-shore wind is pretty close. For the moment. 

A Ray of Sunshine (lots, actually)

Meanwhile, the BBC, Daily Mail and many others report on the new solar plant about to open in Morocco. When it is complete it will provide enough power for a million people, 20 hours a day. Yes, even at night. The difference is that this is not a solar PV array. There are no panels which produce electricity when the sun shines on them. Instead there are banks of computer-controlled mirrors which track the sun and focus its rays on a heat exchanger. This transfers heat to molten salt, which in turn is hot enough to produce steam to drive a conventional steam-turbine generating set. The salt holds its heat well after dark. 

It is part of Morocco's pledge to get 42% of its electricity from renewables by 2020. The UN has praised Morocco for the level of its ambition. The UK on the other hand, a much richer country, is aiming for 30% by the same date. Of course the Moroccans don’t have George Osborne.

The Guardian explains how the whole of Europe could run on renewables, given the right distribution infrastructure. We could share geothermal power from Iceland, hydropower from Sweden, wind power from the UK and solar power from Spain. Where there’s a will there’s a way! No will, not enough vision, at the moment, unfortunately.

More Oil

If you were listening to the sustainable futures show in January you may remember that I asked you to predict the price of oil in January 2016. The oil price fell dramatically from over $100 a barrel in mid 2014 to only $47 by the start of this year. My prediction for January 2016 was $65. Today, 25th November, it’s $42, which doesn’t look good for me, or for renewables. OPEC warned this week that the price could spike. They said that they were not prepared to limit production raise prices unless other producers did the same. Their object was to maintain their market share. However the Saudi Oil minister warned that reduced investment as a result of the low price could lead to a supply shortfall which could drive up prices very quickly. According to the International Energy Agency the world currently holds stocks of oil equivalent to nearly 300 days’ net imports. This will be a buffer, but how effective it is depends on how quickly the industry can bring new supplies on stream, or - and this is surely preferable - how quickly we can we can find substitutes.

COP21

I’ve not mentioned COP21. It starts next week. Ban Ki Moon says that in the nine years that he has been Secretary-General of the United Nations he has seen first hand the consequences of climate change. He has seen the effects on the developing world and the likely effects on his grandchildren and future generations. 

“As the head of the United Nations,” he says, “I have prioritised climate change because no country can meet this challenge alone. Climate change carries no passport; emissions released anywhere contribute to the problem everywhere. Economic stability and the security of nations are under threat. Only through the UN can we respond collectively to this global issue.”

Mass demonstrations urging world leaders to come up with binding and effective solutions have been planned for months. Unsurprisingly, the French authorities have said that they cannot guarantee the safety of marchers after this month’s attacks. Indoor meetings can go ahead, but the march in Paris planned for this Sunday 29th November cannot. There will be marches in other capitals and major cities all round the world. A march is planned in Paris on 12 December to mark the end of the conference. We'll have to see whether that goes ahead or not. Apart from the marches, the world is on the threshold of something very big.

This is Anthony Day and that was another episode of the sustainable futures show. Thanks for listening. There is so much going on that again I have had to hold things over. Next time of course we will be in the middle of COP 21 the Paris climate conference and I shall certainly be monitoring that as it unfolds. That will dominate future episodes. It's all about sustainability. It’s about climate change, and energy and food and population and as you have seen in this episode, it’s about water and other scarce resources as well. The world is changing and change is affecting business as never before. It means you need to plan. You need to plan more than ever. If you're not sure how these things will affect your business, if you'd like to have a general chat on what's happening and how it may change your world, your market, your supply chain, give me a call. I’m Anthony Day and my number is 07803 616877 in the UK. Give me a call and let's talk. In any case I hope you'll be listening to next week’s Sustainable Futures Report.

 I'm Anthony Day and that's it for another week.

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.

The Great and the Good

This week I’m talking about the great and the good and what they have to say about climate change. I joined the mass lobby of Parliament on Wednesday to find out what my MP had to say about it. There’s a changing environmental policy in the wind, although we didn’t know that for sure until Thursday. On Thursday I was at the Energy Exchange in London talking about community energy. On Saturday 13th June I spoke to the Professional Speaking Association in London about sustainable futures and how to be here when you’re really somewhere else. And then there was that hippo coming down the High Street....

Last week the world leaders at the G7 conference (the great) made their pronouncements about phasing out fossil fuels. This week the Pope (the good)  issued his encyclical on taking care of the planet. This in spite of Lord Monckton  recently telling him: ”it is not the business of the church to pronounce on science.”

An encyclical is a letter of guidance to all catholics, seen as very important because they are not issued very often. The pope made it clear that he wanted to address this one to all the people of the world. He didn’t mention carbon pricing, but he was very specific about many things. He said that climate change was a risk to the world and particularly to poorer nations. He said it was caused by the use of fossil fuels, that these should be phased out and that renewable energy should be developed. He condemned the throwaway culture and said he wanted to contribute to December’s international conference in Paris on climate change, COP21.

Unsurprisingly there was a wide range of reactions. Greenpeace has been strangely silent, but Friends of the Earth’s head of campaigns Andrew Pendleton said:

“The Pope has shown impressive and inspiring leadership where many elected leaders have failed. He is both a friend of the earth and of the millions of people in poorer, vulnerable nations whose lives are already being shattered by extreme weather.”

Republican presidential hopeful and Catholic Jeb Bush said “I hope I’m not going to get castigated for saying this by my priest back home, but I don’t get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my pope,” Another Republican senator from Texas said: "I don't want to be disrespectful, but I don't consider him an expert on environmental issues.” Of course that’s an easy argument. It’s one that arch-denialist Lord Lawson has used against economist Lord Stern. Very few of us are experts. It's up to us to seek out experts and determine whether their opinions are credible and well-founded. After all, the senator from Texas must have got his information on climate change from somewhere, and presumably he is not personally an expert.

On Wednesday there was a mass lobby of MPs at Westminster to find out where they stood on climate change. I went down with others from York and while I was waiting for our MP to come out and meet us I wandered round and asked people why they had decided to come. You'll have to listen to the podcast to find out what they said. http://www.anthony-day.com/sustainable-futures-show/ One of them was an artist.

Our MP for York Central, Rachael Maskell, came out and spent half an hour talking to us. I didn't vote for her but I was quite impressed that she was well briefed and enthusiastic. She said she saw climate change as the priority because it is fundamental to everything else that we want to achieve. She's a very new backbench opposition MP so what she can achieve is limited. However she promised to keep in touch and offered to put down Parliamentary questions and enter in debates, so I'm sure we will certainly keep her to that.

The big news on Thursday morning was that new onshore wind farms would be excluded from the Renewables Obligation subsidy scheme from 1 April 2016, a year earlier than expected. Roger Harrabin, environment analyst at the BBC said: “The Conservatives promised in their manifesto to hold down bills and increase renewable energy, but onshore wind is the cheapest readily-available form of clean energy in the UK. That's why some experts have described their decision to kill the onshore wind programme as bizarre and irrational.”

New minister Amber Rudd told business leaders that it was time to shift subsidies from onshore wind to other technologies that needed them more. But she did not say what those technologies would be, and the government has not announced compensatory subsidies for other forms of energy. There was a lot of support for Amber Rudd when she took office as the new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. However green her ideals she seems to be imprisoned by the party and bound to enforce the dogma laid out in the election manifesto. The problem is that yet again the government is changing course at short notice, and once again this will cause loss of confidence and loss of jobs in an industry which is key to a low carbon future. We have a skills shortage, but if industry loses the confidence to invest we’ll lose what skilled personnel we have to more far-sighted competitors like Germany and the Scandinavian countries.

On Thursday I was at the Energy Exchange in Westminster; in fact I chaired four expert panels. The event was organised by Enterprise Events and was principally designed for local authority officers. The twelve panellists were experts in their fields and covered Energy Leadership, Community Energy Projects, Lessons Learned from District Heating and Opportunities in energy generation, distribution and supply. I can’t do them all justice, so I won’t pick any one out. Suffice it to say that they came from as far away as Halifax and Plymouth, Coventry and Camden and all points in between. There were some pretty interesting people in the audience as well. It is very encouraging to find so many committed and highly professional specialists despite the constant denialism in the popular press and the government indecision already mentioned. If you want to save money on energy why not consider a community generation scheme - wind, hydro or solar? Your council can help, and may already be backing schemes in your area. One idea I loved was solar canopies for carparks. Well it’s obvious. All that space. And it keeps the cars cool as well!

On Saturday 13th I spoke to the London group of the Professional Speaking Association about Sustainable Futures. They asked me particularly to talk about environmentally responsible travel, because if you’re a professional speaker, particularly an international speaker, you’re constantly on the move. Environmentally responsible travel? That’s walking, isn’t it? Or cycling. Public transport has a small carbon footprint per passenger, but a car with only one person in it is many times worse. And don’t mention air travel! The point I made was that when the oil price goes back up air travel could become extremely expensive. (Will it go up? Yes, it’s artificially low at present; the Saudis are causing a glut. Yes, it’s running out. Why else did BP need Deepwater Horizon, why else is Shell preparing to drill in the Arctic against all opposition and why else is the UK government doing everything it can to force through fracking? And yes, if governments are really serious about controlling carbon emissions at COP21 in December they’ll have to introduce a realistic price for carbon and that will drive up the oil price as well.) If there’s no substitute for oil for aviation and fares go up then established international speakers will probably be OK. Event organisers will still book people they can rely on. They are less likely to gamble the fare on newcomers, so it could be more difficult to break into the market. But don’t rule out electric planes. Siemens and Airbus have already got experimental ones flying. A subject for another day, perhaps.

But what if you can’t get to the conference? Is telepresence the next big thing? Telepresence is creating a 3D holographic image of a person in real time and broadcasting it to a remote location - or several locations. Prince Charles recently addressed a conference in Abu Dhabi. He was there on stage. Only he wasn’t. He was thousands of miles away in Windsor Castle. It will involve energy, it will involve bandwidth, but I bet the carbon footprint is a lot less than a return flight. You can hear the whole speech on The Sustainable Futures Show - episode 26-06-2015 - http://www.anthony-day.com/sustainable-futures-show/ 

And finally, image of the week. Did you see that picture of the hippopotamus charging down the main street of Tbilisi? It would have been funny if it wasn’t tragic. Exceptional floods overwhelmed the city and washed out the zoo, releasing animals into the streets. I think the hippo was tranquillised, but lions and tiger were shot dead because they were terrorising people. Climate change has a lot to answer for!

That’s it for another week. I hope you have a good one. This is Anthony Day and this blog is brought to you completely free of charge and totally without advertising. If you like it  please tell your friends. If you don’t, please tell me. If you’re an expert and would like to be interviewed on the Sustainable Futures Show I’d love to hear from you. I’ve got several topics coming up, including electric cars and the prospects for success at COP21. Always open for your ideas. Send them to mail@anthony-day.com. 

Energy and the Bubble Economy

On 20th May the Yorkshire Chapter of CASSE, Centre for the Advancement of the Steady-State Economy, presented this event at Leeds University Business School. I expected one session but there were two separate presentations.

Energy

Tiago Domingos of the University of Lisbon took the first module: “Can energy use and economic growth be decoupled?” Green growth is possible by reducing the energy/GDP ratio, and to do that we need to decarbonise the energy system. This proved to be a technical talk; knowledge of thermodynamics a distinct advantage. Apparently energy cannot be destroyed and in any energy transfer there are always losses. This is demonstrated by our present electricity generation process, where around 60% of primary energy is wasted in generation and transmission and only 20% of what’s left (Final Energy) is Useful Energy. The rest is dissipated as heat in the appliance. He claimed that an output of 0.02kWh needs an input of 25kWh, which seems to be overstating the case a bit, but even a loss of 90% is bad enough. We pay for final energy - and all the primary energy that goes into it - and waste most of it in inefficient appliances.

We now moved on to the thermodynamics bit and started talking about exergy. I hadn’t heard of it before, but this is what Wikipedia says:   

“In thermodynamics, the exergy of a system is the maximum useful work possible during a process that brings the system into equilibrium with a heat reservoir.[1] When the surroundings are the reservoir, exergy is the potential of a system to cause a change as it achieves equilibrium with its environment. Exergy is the energy that is available to be used. After the system and surroundings reach equilibrium, the exergy is zero.”

The professor then went on to propose that we should study exergy rather than energy, and gave examples of sources of exergy: electricity, coal, gas, biomass, oil, food. (Note that electricity is a source of exergy, but of course not of energy.) He stated that the important ratio is not energy/GDP but Useful Energy/GDP. There followed an analysis of energy statistics for Portugal since 1850 when the economy was agricultural, through industrialisation from 1920 and onwards. The Final Energy/GDP ratio dropped sharply and plateau’d from 1960. Useful Work/GDP was at the same level as 1850, although primary energy consumption went up.

Domingos quoted the economist, Nicholas Kaldor, who said that in the long term the wages/interest, interest/capital, capital/GDP and Useful Work/GDP ratios were constant in most economies. There are also thermodynamic limits to the efficiencies of transforming primary to final energy and final to useful energy. The whole thing seems to lead me to the conclusion that there is very little scope for decoupling energy from economic growth. What hope for growth? Having said that, surely it all comes down to efficiencies. And while electricity generation from coal, gas, nuclear and even biomass can have losses of as much as 70%, the losses in generation from renewables are less than 1%.

I found this on the internet: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/06/energy-green-politics#zoomed-picture 

The Bubble Economy

Our second speaker was Robert Ayres (from INSEAD in France) who will shortly publish "The Bubble Economy: Is There a Sustainable Way Forward?”. 

This was a very different presentation, and referred to Tulip Mania, the South Sea Bubble, the Trust Bust, the Dot-com Crash and the Sub-prime Disaster, among many others which litter history. Apparently there is a plausible story and investors start to pile in. Rumour builds on rumour, possibly helped along, until every man in the street sees a golden opportunity and mortgages his house to buy in. Canny investors get out at the top, confidence evaporates, prices crash and small investors lose their houses. Ayres predicts another bubble, this time involving fracking. Presumably that will happen in the US. After this week’s report from the UK Geological Survey few people in this country will surely invest!

Since 2008 we have seen pressures in the economy from climate change and the end of cheap oil, leading to inequalities and a slow recovery. In 2008 the banking system was under such extreme stress that governments had no choice but to rescue it. Household net worth collapsed and the middle classes have still not yet recovered. Oil price rises are inevitable because the rate of new discovery of oil is not keeping up with production. Saudi Arabia continues to be a major global oil producer, but its recoverable reserves remain, and have remained constant since 1988. (This is apparently justified by improving extraction techniques.) The oil price affects the global economy, but Ayres claims that it is only recently that the IMF has included the price of energy in its models. We need to decarbonise our energy and this is becoming more achievable as the average cost of onshore wind has been falling annually by 14%. The price of solar PV is falling faster; not yet to grid parity, but arguably coal generation benefits from hidden subsidies in that it does not pay the true cost of pollution. The costs of renewables and hydrocarbons are reaching a crossover point as new technologies, experience and economies of scale drive down renewable costs. Could we create a renewables bubble? Ayres told us that there are substantial reserves held by US corporates in overseas banks and doing nothing. Let’s not have a bubble, but let’s have some solid investment.

The future growth paradigm will be based on energy efficiency, not demand.

Questions

Questions came thick and fast and this a summary of what I picked up. 

Why will energy costs rise? asked a former Shell executive. Because Saudi is running out and the projected reserves in the US have been overstated and we are using it faster than we’re finding new reserves. Well, when he was at Shell they tried predicting the oil price and got it totally wrong….

Can we really substitute electricity for oil? Yes, but it is difficult and time-consuming which is why the price of oil matters…Is 30% the maximum share of energy that the UK can source from renewables? I would have thought that was pessimistic, myself.

If the future is efficiency, what about user behaviour? The rebound effect means consumers can spend the same and use more. Prices must be controlled by governments to prevent this. A green levy could keep expenditure at constant levels and raise a fund for green research and investment.

Will lower-quality reserves demand more energy? Energy in for energy out is a problem with fracking...Timescales for decarbonising the economy are a concern. There are big opportunities for improving efficiency - notably transport and home heating (cars are still very inefficient) - but if we are serious about our 2050 targets we have a serious problem. Current policies - and politicians - do not recognise the extent of the challenge.

Education is lacking in high places.

And my conclusion? As always, spread the word. Make people aware that business as usual is not an option. Make them aware that big business has generally taken all this on board, but small business and the consumer need to follow on. It’s not about a lower standard of living, it’s about doing things differently and more efficiently. It’s about not sacrificing the long term for the sake of the short term. 

Please tell any politicians you meet.

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?