Who’s driving?

Published as a podcast on Friday 8th April at susbiz.biz

Hello, yes, it’s Anthony Day, it’s Friday 8th April 2016, there’s less than a week to go to the Sustainable Best Practice Exchange and this is the Sustainable Futures Report.

PEAK CAR

A while ago we were talking about Peak Stuff. Now people are talking about Peak Car. What are we going to drive, or are we all going to stop driving? And how will that change where we live? This week I'm talking about the new Tesla - 300,000 people want one -  about self driving cars, and about where we get the power from to run them. That could be a problem in the UK where we are closing power stations, but an opportunity in Saudi Arabia where Jeremy Leggett reports a major project to exploit solar energy. Must be good news for air quality. I'll talk about that as well. While some see the UK as a basket case in terms of energy and carbon reductions policies, the committee on climate change soldiers on with a new report out this week. And I expect we’ll slip in something about Hinkley C.

Yes, somebody has suggested that we’re approaching Peak Car, and from here on fewer and fewer people will own their own cars and fewer will drive. For the moment people are still wedded to cars, but they’re looking for something new. Elon Musk, inventor of PayPal and CEO of Spacex the rocket company, has just announced the launch of Tesla Model 3, his third electric car. Electric cars are already very sophisticated. If you’ve looked at the BMW i3 or the Nissan Leaf the comfort and specification is extremely high. The problem, though, is range anxiety. People are afraid that they will run out of charge, and they know that it takes at least 30 minutes to partially recharge and that’s only possible if there’s a handy charge point. The typical range of current models is 80 miles. More than enough for the average commute, but not enough for that unexpected journey or diversion. Tesla has addressed that problem. The original Model S has a range of over 300 miles. The new compact Model 3 has a range of over 200 miles. OK, that’s significantly less than the Model S, but the Model 3 costs $35,000 instead of $120,000. Nearly 300,000 people have already placed pre-orders for the new car, and to do that they have had to put down $1,000 or £1,000. Good news for Tesla’s cash flow.

If you go to the Tesla website it features Autopilot, a system of automatic steering, braking, lane changing and parking. Most of the technology for self-driving cars is therefore already available. It’s no secret that Google are trialling self-driving cars and Apple are strongly rumoured to be developing an electric car to rival Tesla. Apple should be well placed to turn it into a self-driving car. (Self-driving car: that’s a bit of a clumsy phrase. Time for a new name. Suggestions on an email please. The winner will receive a valuable prize.)

This week Highways England announced that it would spend £150m on trials of wirelessly connected vehicles and driverless cars on UK roads. These vehicles will be on motorways by the end of 2017. You can find out more from the Innovation strategy report which is available from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/highways-englands-innovation-technology-and-research-strategy 

What will driverless cars mean for the way we live?

Prof Andry Rakotonirainy of The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia believes that a road network full of self-driving cars will be far safer than today’s human-directed traffic, but what has him concerned is how to make the transition.

“We know that in over 90% of cases, crashes are due to human error,” he says,  “But we face a transition period of a mixture of automated cars, human driven cars and other road users like pedestrians and cyclists who are not automated.”

However, once cars are fully automated it opens a whole range of new possibilities. For example, when vehicles are able to continue driving, by themselves, after dropping their passengers at a destination, they can carry on to meet the needs of other commuters rather than taking up space in a car park. Car parks can be smaller as well. At present, car parks have to be designed so that every car always has a route to the exit. If cars are shared you just take the one nearest the door.

Jonathan Roberts, professor of robotics at QUT, foresees companies preferring to offer their cars as a taxi-style service rather than selling them directly to motorists. This is servicisation (horrible word) which we’ve discussed several times recently. It’s promoted by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation as one of the routes to the circular economy.

Regardless of whether such an arrangement becomes the transport norm, Roberts believes it is likely to be how driverless cars start out: Uber is investing heavily in robotics technology with dreams of an efficient fleet of self-driving vehicles.

“Uber hired dozens, if not hundreds, of robotics researchers,” Roberts says. “They are clearly serious and aren’t thinking 20 or 30 years ahead, but autonomous taxis in the next 10 years.” Bad news for Uber drivers!

Gilles Vesco is the politician responsible for sustainable transport in Lyon.

He has a vision of cities in which residents no longer rely on their cars but on public transport, shared cars and bikes and, above all, on real-time data on their smartphones. He anticipates a revolution which will transform not just transport but the cities themselves. “The goal is to rebalance the public space and create a city for people,” he says. “There will be less pollution, less noise, less stress; it will be a more walkable city.”

Vesco, played a leading role in introducing the city’s Vélo’v bike-sharing scheme a decade ago. Now he is convinced that digital technology has changed the rules of the game, and will make possible the move away from cars that was unimaginable when Vélo’v launched in May 2005. “Digital information is the fuel of mobility,” he says. “Some transport sociologists say that information about mobility is 50% of mobility. The car will become an accessory to the smartphone.”

The Vélo’v scheme is being extended, car clubs that use electric vehicles are being encouraged, and what Vesco calls a “collaborative platform” has been built to encourage ride-sharing by matching drivers with people seeking lifts. There is, he says, no longer any need for residents of Lyon to own a car. And he practises what he preaches – he doesn’t own one himself.”

Birmingham, which vies with Manchester for the title of England’s second city, (strange, when I lived in Manchester everyone there  thought the second city was London.) Anyway, Birmingham has been following the experience of Lyon and other European cities closely, and is now embarking on its own 20-year plan called Birmingham Connected, to reduce dependence on cars. For a city so associated in the public mind with car manufacturing, this is quite a step. The initiative is being driven by the veteran leader of Birmingham city council, Sir Albert Bore, who talks airily about imposing a three-dimensional transport plan on the two-dimensional geography of the city: “French and German cities all have an infrastructure which has a far better understanding of how you need to map the city with layers of travel.”

“Multi-modal” and “interconnectivity” are now the words on every urban planner’s lips. In Munich, says Bore, planners told him that the city dwellers of the future would no longer need cars. Bikes and more efficient public transport would be the norm; for occasional trips out of the city, they could hire a car or join a car club that facilitated inter-city travel. The statistic everyone trots out is that your car sits outside, idle and depreciating, for 96% of its life. There has to be a more efficient way to provide for the average of seven hours a week when you want it.

Bikes are great. Except when it rains.

Car clubs offer a second statistic. Whereas a personally owned car caters for an individual or a family, a car-club car can service 60 people.

London, which has pioneered congestion charging and has a well-integrated system of public transport, has led the move away from cars over the past decade, during which time 9% of car commuters have switched to other forms of transport. “People in London have a lot of options and there’s been huge growth across all modes,” says Isabel Dedring, the deputy mayor for transport in the capital. “There’s been a massive increase in investment in public transport.”

I think that’s well known. Not everyone is happy that the investment per head in London is 10 or 20 times the investment per head in other parts of the UK.

Dedring says the past decade has seen a 30% reduction in traffic in central London.

“Traffic levels have gone down massively, partly because of the congestion charge, but also because we are taking away space from private vehicles and giving it to buses through bus lanes and to people through public realm [developments].” And now to cyclists, too, with the planned “cycle superhighways” and cycle-friendly neighbourhoods being trialled in three London boroughs.

Many city developments are now predicated on there being no car spaces for residents. Developers worried about this initially, but have come to realise it doesn’t pose a problem for the young professionals likely to be buying their flats, so have accepted the demands of council planning departments. 

There’s a lot more on how cities all over the world are adapting to cars in a Guardian article by Stephen Moss entitled “End of the car age: how cities are outgrowing the automobile” Find the link in the text version of this episode at AnthonyDay.blogspot.com  

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/apr/28/end-of-the-car-age-how-cities-outgrew-the-automobile 

GRANTS FOR ELECTRIC CARS

Back to Tesla’s new car launch. CNBC asks, “With reservations for Tesla's new Model 3 topping 276,000 in less than three days, one key question remains for those who want to get in line: Will they be able to get a $7,500 federal tax credit for purchasing the electric car?

The Plug-In Electric Drive Vehicle Credit was created in 2009 as an incentive to get Americans to buy electric cars. It's offered to the first 200,000 buyers of an electric vehicle in the U.S. from each automaker. After a manufacturer hits that electric vehicle sales number, the credit is phased out.

There’s a grant of up to £4,500 for new plug-in cars here in the UK, but if electric cars and plug-in hybrids become popular maybe that will be abolished too. Probably at short notice.

WHERE DOES THE ELECTRICITY COME FROM?

If electric transport is the future, where will the electricity come from? In the UK we closed two coal-fired power stations on 31st March: Ferrybridge C and Longannet, with a combined output of 4.4GW. Rugeley B (1GW) is scheduled to close in the summer. Eggborough and part of Fiddlers Ferry power stations were also to close this year, but have been retained by National Grid on standby contracts. That means we will have lost 5.4GW by the end of the summer, and a further 3.5GW when those standby contracts expire. Total 8.9GW. Hinkley C, the new nuclear power station, will have an output of 4GW, so despite being the UK’s largest generator when it opens and accounting for 7% of the nation’s electricity, it won’t nearly fill the gap. And in any case it’s not scheduled to come into production until 2025 at the earliest.

Last winter the National Grid predicted a safety margin of just over 1% between electricity supply and demand in the event of a harsh winter. Of course it was very mild so there were no problems. Can they be as lucky in 2016? I’m looking forward to the Grid’s Winter Outlook Report.

In the UK  we’ll probably fill the gap - a gap which takes no account of significant use of electric transport - by using more gas power stations and diesel generators. 

According to Chandrakant Isis, quoted in my newspaper this morning: “As opposed to what Tesla supporters believe, electricity is not harvested from unicorns. In most countries, including the US, the majority of the electricity is generated by burning coal, natural gas, and other fossil fuels.” True, but petrol and diesel cars pollute, and particularly on short runs when the engine is cold. Cars running on electricity, even from fossil fuels, can be cleaner.

But in Saudi Arabia the approach is very different.

SAUDI SOLAR

I’ve mentioned Jeremy Leggett and his book “The Winning of the Carbon War” in previous episodes. He’s a tireless campaigner for clean energy with a string of academic and business credentials. You can find more at jeremyleggett.net

Anyway, he was recently invited by Saudi Arabia’s national finance daily to write a piece for publication on Saudi Arabia’s solar opportunities. Why should the world’s biggest oil exporter need to bother about another source of energy?

Well, if it stopped using oil to generate electricity it would have more  oil to export. But more than that, the Saudi government has just announced a plan to set up a two trillion dollar investment fund for the post-oil era. Here is an oil giant preparing for the end of oil.

In his article Leggett identifies the trends and developments which are making the move away from oil and fossil fuels inevitable. The most important factor is that the cost of solar installations has fallen by 80% since 2008 and is continuing to fall. In some areas solar power plants are already cheaper than those running on natural gas, leading to new solar plants being built in Dubai and Colorado. The one in Dubai was built by a Saudi company. Within three years Leggett expects solar to be cheaper in the UK, even with its much lower levels of sunlight. The rapidity of the change has taken many by surprise; even industry insiders. Up to 2007 the International Energy Agency was forecasting an installed solar base of no more than 20GW by 2014. The actual figure for 2014 was 180GW.

Apple, apparently, will have solar-powered cars within four years. Tesla, not just a car company, is producing battery packs for home and industry so that surplus solar energy can be stored for use after dark.

Maybe Saudi Arabia can be a world leader in this new industry. Certainly many saw the UN Paris Climate Conference as the beginning of the end for fossil fuels. Time for an oil state such as Saudi to consider diversification. Fortunately it has two trillion dollars to throw at the problem.

If we all go electric, it can only improve the world’s air quality.

AIR QUALITY

At a recent lecture on atmospheric chemistry Prof Lucy Carpenter of the Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratories at the  University of York told us that atmospheric pollution is second only to smoking as a cause of death in the UK, and way ahead of obesity. She explained that the atmosphere is far more  complex than was thought and new insights are due to advances in analytical technology. It is now possible to detect trace gases in the atmosphere when the concentration is as little as a few parts per trillion. Such gases may be unstable, so air samples cannot be shipped back to the lab for examination. They need to be analysed in the field, which could be the Cape Verde islands, the Antarctic or somewhere up in an aircraft.

It’s not just gases that affect the quality of the air, it’s particulate matter as well, which has been identified as causing heart disease, strokes and other illnesses. Many particulates come from motor vehicles and recent revelations have shown that emissions from cars are far greater than official tests seem to indicate.

Professor Carpenter told us about CFCs, the refrigerant gases which caused the hole in the ozone layer, and how the Montreal protocol brought countries together do something about it. As a result CFCs, which can persist in the atmosphere for 100 years, are declining and the ozone layer should be back to its 1980 thickness by 2030. CFCs are greenhouse gases and it has been estimated that removing them from the atmosphere has had an effect five times the size of the effect that was expected from the Kyoto Protocol.  That was the outcome of the UN Climate Change Conference held in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. An example of unintended consequences - this time, benign.

While CFC levels have been declining, so have levels of ethane and methane; both potent greenhouse gases. But since 2008 these two have been rising again. Climate change is causing increased emissions from wetlands, but the increase is more than expected. Professor Carpenter and her team have prepared a paper suggesting that fugitive emissions from fracking sites across the US could be responsible for this anomaly. Once it is published I hope someone in government takes time to read it.

So there we are, that’s another week. The world is going electric, our cars will drive themselves, this will change the character of our cities, we’ll get our electricity from solar power even in Britain (although obviously not under the present government) and we’ll all enjoy cleaner air.

And the Committee on Climate Change? Sorry - deadlines. I’ll look at that next week, along with floods in Karachi, Bernie Sanders’ strategy for renewable energy and any thing else sustainable which catches my eye.

For the moment this is Anthony Day, less than a week away from the Sustainable Best Practice Exchange sbpe.co.uk which looks like being an amazing event. I hope I shall see you there - you’ll be sorry you missed it!

That was the Sustainable Futures Report and yes, there will be another episode next week. I’d better start writing it now!

Looking Forward

Published as a podcast at susbiz.biz on Friday 1st April 2016

Here is the news

The government today has announced a radical redesign of its energy policy following its decision to abandon the planned nuclear power station which EDF had intended to build at Hinkley Point in Somerset.

Amber Rudd, Energy Secretary, said that construction would immediately start on the Swansea Bay tidal power project in order to make Wales self-sufficient in energy.

Feed-in tariffs for new solar panels, wind turbines and small hydro schemes will be restored to the January 2015 levels, and will apply to all installations completed since that date. To emphasise the government’s new commitment to renewable energy, the plans for the refurbishment of the Houses of Parliament will now include a 1GW wind turbine to be installed at the top of Big Ben.

The minister went on to say that the new policies would significantly reduce energy costs for hard-working families, although they, and work-shy families, should expect to spend more time in the dark.

The chancellor, in an amendment to his recent budget statement, said that in order to pay for these changes the annual winter fuel allowance for pensioners would have to be scrapped. Instead there would be a distribution each December of woolly jumpers, with bed-socks for the over-75s, knitted by the BBC.

A government spokesman said that anyone listening to these announcements after 12 noon on Friday should disregard them completely.

Welcome to the Sustainable Futures Report  for Friday 1st April, (yes 1st April),  2016

Hello this is Anthony Day. Have you booked for the Sustainable Best Practice Exchange yet? Still some places left and bookings must close on Friday 8th April. Go to sbpe.co.uk for more information and contact me for a deal you can’t refuse. 

In this latest episode of the Sustainable Futures Report; notes on fuel duty and VAT after the Chancellor’s budget. Good news from Queen Street Mill. I ask “Is sustainability killing our steel industry?” And most of our electricity still comes from coal. Do you care where the coal comes from?  I can’t avoid the fact that Hinkley C is in the news again. No, it hasn’t been cancelled.

Fuel Duty

James Spencer of Portland Analytics wrote to me this week. (That’s portland-analytics.co.uk) He says:

“Such was this year’s pre-Budget conviction that the Chancellor would increase UK fuel duty, many motoring campaign groups had already started their publicity to denounce the rises. This sentiment was also reflected in the UK fuel market, with many of the big diesel buyers frantically increasing their orders in the hope that they could “get-ahead” of the expected rise in costs. Therefore there was genuine surprise on March 16^th, when the Chancellor announced that for the 6^th consecutive year, there would be a duty freeze and that there would no fuel duty increases for another year at least.

Fuel duty in Britain was first introduced in 1908, was scrapped after the First World War but by 2010 the UK comfortably had the highest fuel duty rates in Europe. The duty freeze since 2010 has enabled some of our European neighbours to “catch-up”, and the Dutch have overtaken us.

For the moment bus operators still receive a hefty 34ppl rebate as part of the Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG), but generous treatment by the Treasury is rare indeed, such is the importance of fuel duty revenue. On current fuel consumption, duty rates generate revenue for the UK of £28bn per annum and if you add VAT (just on the duty element), a further £6bn is added. For a Government trying to balance the books, you would have thought that this kind of revenue is impossible to forgo. Moreover, it does beg the question why the Chancellor did not take the opportunity this time around, to impose a duty increase on a fully expectant population. A 1ppl tax rise would have generated an extra £0.5bn revenue per annum and for motorists now paying 30ppl less for their fuel than 18 months ago, it is difficult to see that public opposition would have been anything other than fairly muted.

My own view is that any increase would have reduced demand to some extent,  and therefore reduced carbon emissions and reduced the atmospheric pollution which kills 40,000 people in the UK each year. The extra revenue would have saved the chancellor from making some of his cuts.

Energy-saving Taxes

An article in the New Statesman of 23rd March co-authored by Lisa Nandy, shadow energy minister, recounts how the government accepted an opposition amendment to the Finance Act. http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/energy/2016/03/george-osborne-made-big-u-turn-nobody-talking-about-it The government’s original intention was to raise the VAT on solar panels and insulation materials from 5% to the standard 20%, thus adding an extra £1,000 to the cost of an average domestic  solar installation. Eurosceptic Tories and the Greens united behind Labour and the government caved in (or should that be U-turned?) and a Downing Street spokesman claimed, “It is an existing government position to reduce VAT on solar.” Apparently that came as a surprise to the solar industry and came too late for a local solar company near here which went into liquidation last month after 40 years in the energy-saving industry. 

The Energy Secretary recently conceded that her policies on solar were already expected to lead to up to 18,700 job losses and this tax raid would have caused even further damage to the industry.

As Friends of the Earth highlighted, the solar tax would also have created the perverse situation whereby people ended up paying more tax on solar panels and energy conservation than on energy from polluting sources like oil and coal who would have their low tax rates retained, which would skew the energy market away from clean energy and send Britain’s energy policy in precisely the wrong direction.

Dirty Coal

Where does the coal come from to fuel our power stations, and do we care? According to Andrea Leadsom, minister of state at DECC, in the first 9 months of 2015 (January to September) 32% of imported steam coal, which is predominately used by power stations, came from Colombia. Labour’s David Anderson (Blaydon) asked her:“Are you happy that, at a time when coalfield communities are still struggling, that your Government’s long-term economic plan is being fuelled on the back of child and slave labour?” 

According to reports from the US Department of Labor and others, some 1m children work in Colombia, often coerced by armed gangs. 5,000 of these are believed to work in mines. 

The minister’s answer concentrated on the government’s support for the managed closure of the UK’s deep mines and pointed out that imported coal was so much cheaper.

Dennis Skinner, MP for Bolsover and a former miner himself, pressed Ms Leadsom further, asking: “Are you admitting today, as it apparently seems to be, that this Government is more concerned about bringing in cheap coal from Colombia because it’s cheap even though it’s produced by child slave labour?

Ms Leadsom replied: “Well, what I can say to you is that private companies in the UK choose their suppliers. It’s not Government bringing in coal, you must understand that.”

So that’s all right then.

Heritage News

Good news from Queen Street Mill. I told you previously about this mill, the last working steam-powered textile mill in the world which was expected to close for good yesterday. Listener to the Sustainable Futures Report Richard Farr visited before Easter and found out that the mill - and four other museums also under threat, will now stay open least until September. Lancashire County Council are talking to people, as yet unidentified, about a long term solution.

The Steel Story

Bad news from Port Talbot and many other sites around the UK. The board of Tata Steel, owners of what was Corus and what was British Steel before that, decided this week to withdraw from the UK and sell all their assets. In Port Talbot alone 4,000 jobs are at risk in a plant which is said to be losing £1m per day. Unsurprisingly there’s been uproar. Labour has demanded the recall of Parliament from its Easter recess and the government has had a crisis meeting and promised urgent action but ruled out nationalisation. British-made steel is expensive and uncompetitive. Part of the expense is energy cost, with high prices because of taxes designed to reduce carbon emissions. 

Are we letting sustainability dogma kill one of our strategic industries? Writing in the i newspaper, Hamish McRae says that our high prices are driving customers to buy from China where emission controls are looser and manufacturing can be less efficient. Ironically our climate change policies could be said to be  indirectly leading to increased global emissions. It’s not just a question of price, although to be competitive prices are being depressed below the cost of production even in China. There is a global oversupply of steel. Everyone quotes China. China the major steel producer, shipping steel at way below cost. China the fastest growing economy, now growing not quite so fast and not needing all the steel it can produce. The global demand for steel - and other commodities - is also depressed by the increasingly efficient use of materials. The Report from the Office of National Statistics, which I mentioned in the episode of 11th March, recorded a clear decline in the material content of consumer goods. Why pay the cost of more material if you can do with less? Why pay the cost of distributing a heavy product if you can do with less? Maybe health, safety and strength considerations limit the amount you can reduce structural steel in buildings and infrastructure, but it’s not only possible to reduce the amount of metal in consumer products but metals have been displaced by plastics and other materials for years and the process is likely to continue. 3D printing is in its infancy, but it’s a whole new way of using materials, including metals, and only just as much material as you need - no scrap. The truth is that the world is changing, and as business journalist Russell Lynch said this week, “If I were a shareholder in Tata Steel, my one brutal question to the board would be: what took you so long?”

So what can we do? Probably not a lot at this late stage. If there’s a buyer out there who can afford  losses of £1m per day until the business can be turned around then the government should do everything it can to help close the deal. But is there really such a buyer? Industry experts can probably identify the likely players with sufficient resources and number them on the fingers of one hand. It shouldn’t take long to determine whether a bid is likely. Tata Steel have made no commitment as to how much longer they will keep the plants running while they wait for a buyer. It’s been suggested that they would prefer to close it all quickly rather than sell it to a company which would simply help to maintain the global oversupply and compete with Tata plants elsewhere in the world.

Is nationalisation the answer? It would keep 4,000 people in work in Wales and several thousand in other parts of the UK. It would continue to support suppliers and communities and small businesses. But it would still be a loss-making business. If steel industry professionals cannot turn it round then governments certainly cannot. Over time it would have to be slimmed down and closed down. Better for the government to let Tata take the blame for putting people out of work than bring it upon itself. One thing the government must do, and something it has failed to do successfully in the former mining areas for example, is invest to regenerate the steel-working communities. It won’t be easy and should have been planned long ago, but the government is the government of all the people and this time it must be done.

More about Hinkley C

And so to this week’s update on the planned nuclear power station at Hinkley C. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/mar/30/edf-hinkley-point-nuclear-power-station-on-track-engineers-reportedly-request-delay  You know, the one where there’s no actual commitment to start the project, although contractors EDF have already spent £2 billion and continue to spend £50 million per month on it. This week one of the EDF board directors has stated that he would vote against any decision to start construction at Hinkley C. Others have claimed that the reactor should be re-designed before going ahead and there should be a delay of two years to get all this sorted out before making a commitment. Ill-informed comment in the press has been saying that Hinkley C will produce 7% of the UK’s electricity, is a fundamental part of the government’s energy strategy and is due to start production in 2025. Well, partly right. The original target date for production to start was 2017. Yes, next year. EDF have said that the plant will take 10 years to build, so given that it’s not started yet that gives a completion date of 2026. That’s without taking into account delays which have affected EDF’s other similar plants, still not completed and running up to 8 years late. A fundamental part of the government’s energy strategy? It was intended to replace the worn-out power stations that we are now beginning to decommission, but it won’t be ready for 10 years at the earliest. You could argue that it’s already 9 years behind schedule. And of course it’s going to be the most expensive power station in the world and the government has guaranteed to pay nearly three times the current rate - index-linked - for the power produced. This will filter through to the energy bills of hard-working families. Hinkley C is planned to produce 7% of the nation’s electricity. A fundamental part of the strategy, but another 93% will have to come from somewhere else. Maybe fracking will be on stream by 2025, although the Royal Academy of Engineering doesn’t think so. Let’s leave that for another day.

Looking Forward

Both Hinkley C and the British steel industry show the need for long-term planning. I can’t believe that the government didn’t see the steel industry problems coming. Parts of the British steel industry, not part of Tata Steel, have developed special steels and are operating profitably. If I’m correct, the Port Talbot plant and the works at Redcar produced commodity steel - the basic steel from smelting iron ore. Commodity markets are volatile. It should not have come as a surprise to the government that these plants could cease to pay their way. I hope, but doubt, there is a Plan B. I hope, but doubt, that when Tata Steel took over Corus the government of the day imposed conditions over what should happen if they ever decided to pull out.

Strategic planning and scenario planning are very difficult. They cannot eliminate uncertainty, but anything that reduces uncertainty is worth doing insofar as it can help to avoid losses or identify opportunities. The government certainly needs urgently to create a strategic plan for the nation’s energy supplies. The risks of blackouts can only grow as our older power stations are retired between now and 2020. The government might take a moment to identify industries at risk as well, and to draw up plans to soften the blow when things go wrong.

And that’s it for another week.

Before I go, news just in: We are getting reports of the reaction of the French president to the news that Hinkley C will not now go ahead. He is believed to have said: Merde!

This is Anthony Day, that was the Sustainable Futures Report and there will be another one next week. Remember, 8th April is the deadline for booking the Sustainable Best Practice Exchange. Have a look now at sbpe.co.uk and see the great range of speakers that we’ve lined up for you.

Until next week.

Sustainable World

Published as a podcast at susbiz.biz on Friday 25th March

This is the Sustainable Futures Report in another week when terrorists have attacked civilians in another European capital. It seems only a couple of weeks ago we were mourning the deaths in Paris, and now the same sort of thing has happened in Brussels. We lived as a family in Brussels for most of the 1990s so we know Zaventem Airport well and frequently took the metro through Maelbeek station. Fortunately, our friends who remain there are all safe. We feel for those injured and bereaved in these latest attacks, and indeed for those still coming to terms with Paris and other attacks elsewhere.

A sustainable future must be built on a safe, stable and secure society. It’s a challenge for us all and a grim responsibility for our politicians and governments. 

In the sustainable world this week: solar-powered street lights, the hottest February, sitting in the dark for an hour, di Caprio on China, more on the idea of a basic income and more, I’m afraid, about that planned nuclear power station at Hinkley Point. Oh, and if you’re decorating this weekend, what are you going to do with the paint left over?

Hello, I’m Anthony Day and this is the Sustainable Futures Report for Friday 25th March. A quick word on next month’s Sustainable Best Practice Exchange - that’s on 14th April. We have some very interesting people signed up, both as speakers and as delegates. There’s a special rate for listeners to the Sustainable Futures Report and I’m delighted that several of you have taken it up already. Go to sbpe.co.uk and get in touch with me via the contact page and I’ll tell you more.

Solar street lights

This week I came across a company called Scotia. It makes solar powered streetlights. I was talking in an earlier episode about the United Nations global goal number seven, sustainable energy for all. One of Scotia's products is a streetlight which can be installed totally independently, storing the energy from the sun to power the light at night. It’s therefore ideal for installation in remote areas where there’s no existing infrastructure. Where there is infrastructure there’s a model which connects to the electricity grid and feeds surplus energy into the system during the hours of daylight. It can be part of an integrated community energy scheme. A third model is designed for smart grids. It has a buffer battery and can be set up to sell power to the grid when demand, and the price, is highest. It might sell all its stored energy and buy electricity to run the light at night when it’s cheapest. Smart, eh? It’s a great example of cutting carbon emissions and managing demand.

The company was founded in 2008 by Steve Scott and the chairman is Scott McCaw, but it’s not based in Scotland, it’s in Denmark. In fact it provided some of the lighting at the Copenhagen Climate Conference. It doesn’t manufacture in Denmark, but not in China either. The products are made in Austria.

Find out more at http://www.scotialight.com 

Have you noticed? It’s getting hotter

The year 2015 made history, with shattered temperature records, intense heatwaves, exceptional rainfall, devastating drought and unusual tropical cyclone activity, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). That record-breaking trend has continued in 2016.

The WMO Statement on the Status of the Climate in 2015 was released to coincide with World Meteorological Day on 23 March, which has the theme “Hotter, drier, wetter. Face the Future.”

“The future is happening now,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.

“The alarming rate of change we are now witnessing in our climate as a result of greenhouse gas emissions is unprecedented in modern records,” said Mr Taalas.

“Our planet is sending a powerful message to world leaders to sign and implement the Paris Agreement on climate change and cut greenhouse gases now before we pass the point of no return,” said Mr Taalas.

Key Findings of Statement on Status of Climate in 2015

• Large areas of the oceans saw significant warmth. Increased ocean heat content accounts for about 40% of the observed global sea level increase over the past 60 years. Sea level, as measured by satellites and traditional tide gauges was the highest ever recorded.

• The daily maximum extent of Arctic sea ice on 25 February 2015 was the lowest on record but this record was already beaten in 2016.

• Many countries saw intense heatwaves. Several new temperature records were broken (Germany 40.3°C, Spain 42.6°C, UK 36.7°C).

• North West USA and Western Canada suffered from a record wildfire season, with more than 2 million hectares burned during summer in Alaska alone.

• There were many cases of extreme rainfall, with 24-hour totals exceeding the normal monthly mean. For instance, the West coast of Libya received more than 90mm of rain in 24 hours in September, compared to the monthly average of 8mm. The Moroccan city of Marrakech received 35,9 mm of rain in one hour in August, more than 13 times the monthly normal.

• On the other hand, severe drought affected southern Africa, with 2014/2015 as the driest season since 1932/1933, with major repercussions for agricultural production and food security. El Niño induced drought exacerbated forest fires in Indonesia, impacting air quality both in Indonesia and neighbouring countries. The northern part of South America suffered a severe drought including North East Brazil, Columbia and Venezuela, hitting the agriculture, water and energy sectors. Parts of the Caribbean and Central America were also severely affected.

The announcement goes on: 

The theme Hotter, Drier, Wetter. Face the Future highlights the challenges of climate change and the path towards climate-resilient societies.

The increase in hot days, warm nights and heatwaves will affect public health. These risks can be reduced by heat-health early warning systems that provide timely alerts to decision-makers, health services and the general public.

Droughts must be addressed more proactively through integrated drought management, which embraces guidance on effective policies and land management strategies and shares best practices for coping with drought.

In the event of heavy precipitation and floods, impact-based forecasts enable emergency managers to be prepared in advance. Integrated flood management is a long-term holistic approach to minimizing the risks of flooding.

Building climate and weather resilient communities is a vital part of the global strategy for achieving sustainable development. The WMO community will continue to support countries in pursuing sustainable development and tackling climate change through the provision of the best possible science and of operational services for weather, climate, hydrology, oceans and the environment.

Let’s hope that governments are listening, but worryingly Republican front-runner Donald Trump said last year he did not believe in climate change, while his key rival Ted Cruz has dismissed it as "pseudo-scientific theory".

- See more at: http://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/state-of-climate-record-heat-and-weather-extremes#sthash.LFa6QV9I.dpuf

Earth Hour

Sponsored by Climate Action/UNEP United Nations Environmental Programme, Earth Hour was founded by WWF in Sydney in 2007, and is designed to increase awareness about energy consumption and environmental issues. I was going to remind you to turn off your lights for an hour on Saturday. Then I found out that it was last Saturday.

Still, the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building and Buckingham Palace were among more than 350 landmarks that turned their lights off between 8.30pm and 9.30pm GMT. Across the UK, The Palace of Westminster, The Shard, The Ritz, Old Trafford and Edinburgh Castle were among the famous buildings to turn off their lights, and nearly 10.5 million people participated. So did people in 178 countries.

But not me.

I forgot.

Showbiz news

Leonardo DiCaprio said on Sunday that China could become the “hero of the environmental movement” for its work in addressing climate change.

China is currently the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions but has taken significant steps to develop renewable energy and reduce air pollution in recent years.

You’ll remember that DiCaprio also used his acceptance speech at the Oscars in February to call on world leaders to combat climate change.

Celebrities often get criticised for entering debates and they are often written off as insincere publicity seekers. Leonardo di Caprio, however, has an established reputation for addressing climate change. You may have seen his 2008 documentary, The 11th Hour. There’s a rumour that there’s another one in preparation. He addressed the Mayors Summit at COP21 in Paris and he also spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year where he received the Crystal Award for artists and cultural leaders who are helping to address the world’s humanitarian and environmental challenges.

The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation was established in 1998 with the mission of protecting the world’s last wild places. It now has some 25 million followers.

Emma Thompson and Mark Rylance were among 12 celebrities who posed nude with dead fish this week. Miriam Margolyes looks like Medusa. The objective was to raise awareness of overfishing.

It’s easy to criticise these celebrities for having no qualifications for talking about the causes they support, but then, the majority of people who do support such causes have no qualifications either. We rely on those experts who have examined the issues in detail and we all have every right to promote their findings. Emma Thompson and her fish made it into the national press, including the Sun. That sort of publicity is priceless.

Do your green credentials stack up?

That’s a question posed by DS Smith Plc which claims to be a leading provider of corrugated & plastics packaging. They have a recycling operation and their website states that as the only integrated provider to pledge zero waste, they stay true to the waste hierarchy with the aim of making 100% of resources into something useful once more. There’s a series of graphics which warn that 82% of customers believe that packaging should contain more cycled materials, waste crime costs the UK economy £568m each year but General Motors generated $1bn from scrap and re-cycling.

Of course it’s a sales pitch, but there are some useful ideas there. Go to their website to find out more. 

http://www.dssmith.com/recycling/insights/blogs/2016/3/do-your-green-credentials-stack-up/ 

Basic Income

Last time I spoke about the idea of a basic income. I suggested that if artificial intelligence comes to displace more and more jobs, wages will no longer be an effective mechanism for distributing the nation’s income.

I found an article on opendemocracy.net about the basic income paid in Alaska. Alaska? Isn’t that the home of Sarah - drill, baby, drill - Palin? Indeed it is, and when she was governor she paid out the annual Permanent Fund Dividend with a special bonus. Sounds far too socialist.

The Alaska Permanent Fund was set up in the 1950s as a way of allowing all citizens to benefit from the state’s natural resources. Of course there was no oil industry then, but when that was established significant royalties were paid into the fund which was invested in a wide range of stocks. It wasn’t until 1982 that it was decided to distribute an annual dividend. The conditions to receive this dividend are that you must be a US citizen, you must be a resident of Alaska and have lived in the state for at least one full calendar year and you must fill in a form. There is no means test or work requirement. In 2015 the annual payment was around $2,100. That may not sound much, until you realise that there’s no age limit on the payment, so children are entitled on exactly the same basis as adults. A family of four therefore received just over $8,000 last year.

It may not be a perfect model and it may not be appropriate to all nations, but it bears thinking about.

And now Hinkley - Getting to the Point

I know I’ve covered this topic many times before, but it’s a major element of the government’s energy policy and if it’s built it will not only be the most expensive power station, it will be the most expensive construction in the world.

This week the Parliamentary select committee on energy summoned the parties involved in the development of this new nuclear power station at Hinkley point in Somerset. I watched the proceedings on parliament live TV. There is also a recording that you can see at parliamentlive.tv/commons. Look for proceedings on Wednesday 23rd March. 

The first witnesses were Dr Simon Taylor, Lecturer in Finance, Judge Business School, Cambridge University; Peter Atherton, Managing Director, of Jefferies, an investment banker and Dr Douglas Parr, Chief Scientist and Policy Director, Greenpeace UK 

They were first asked whether the plant should be built. Unsurprisingly, Douglas Parr from Greenpeace said no, but the other two thought it should go ahead. They were asked if it would be good value for money and both Dr Taylor from Cambridge and investor Peter Atherton expressed serious doubts.  Atherton said he had heard the figure of £18billion, but had also heard that the EU estimated the cost at £24.5 billion. He wasn’t sure which was correct.

They were asked if they expected the project to be on time and on budget. Panellists said they had no direct knowledge, but similar projects led by EDF had all failed to meet their targets.

Witnesses in the second half of the session included Vincent de Rivaz, Chief Executive Officer of EDF;  Zhu Minhong, General Director of UK Nuclear Projects at China General Nuclear and representatives of the companies involved in the construction and manufacture of the plant.

The first question was to CEO Vincent de Rivaz. When would a final decision be taken to start the project?

Of course, he said, they were committed to the project. They were all committed to the project. Indeed, they had already spent £2billion at the site (yes, that’s £2billion) and they were currently spending £55 million per month.

The question was repeated. When would a final decision be taken to start the project?

Very soon.

Yes, but you’ve been saying that for the last 6 months.

Politicians have a reputation for avoiding the question and M. de Rivaz proved that he was every bit as good at this. Finally he admitted that the French minister of energy had said that the decision would be made in May.

When in May?

Early May.

So it would be made before the 15th May.

de Rivaz protested that he could not give a firm date, but he was boxed in by  now and the committee proceeded on the assumption that the decision to proceed would be reached by 15th May.

He was asked about the financial security of the project and in particular about the recent resignation of EDF’s chief financial officer. He couldn’t possible comment about individuals.

Zhu Minhong, General Director of UK Nuclear Projects at China General Nuclear was asked similar questions. He acknowledge each question as a super question, but was as good as de Rivaz at avoiding a straight answer. He admitted that no legal agreement had been signed with EDF. 

When would this happen? By mid May? 

They were making huge progress, he said, they were confident that the plant would be built.

A member of the committee commented that if the plant were fuelled on confidence and passion it would surely be a success.

And so it went on. Every question, on technical difficulties at EDF’s Flamanville plant, on the fact that no similar plants were in operation anywhere in the world, that the UK Nuclear Inspectorate had not licensed the plant (and probably had insufficient staff to do so in time), that similar plants under construction were over budget and seriously delayed, they were all stone-walled.

In conclusion, the chairman of the committee said that if the decision to go ahead was reached by 15th May it could be announced in the Queen’s speech the following week. If not, EDF would be recalled to the committee.

And so it goes on. Watch this space.

Easter Holiday

Are you doing any decorating this weekend? What do you do with the paint left over when you’ve finished a job? Does it go to the tip, or do you put it on a shelf in the garage, only to find that it’s gone all hard and useless when you next open it up? It’s estimated that some 50 million litres of paint are unused each year in the UK, and are either stored or thrown away. Community Repaint, sponsored by Dulux, is a scheme for collecting unwanted paint from individuals and the trade and distributing it to community groups, charities and people in need. If you’ve got leftover paint or you know somewhere in the community that needs painting get over to http://communityrepaint.org.uk to find out more. It’s not quite the circular economy and it’s not exactly recycling, but if it keeps paint out of the waste stream and stops it cluttering the nation’s garage shelves, that’s got to be good news.

And finally, 

if you’re wondering how I’ve managed to keep up with the Sustainable Futures Report and do jury service, well it’s all a bit of an anticlimax, actually. Of the 10 days that I was summoned for I was actually required to attend court on three, and was never involved in a case. And now I probably never will be. 

Leaving me more time to finalise the details of the Sustainable Best Practice Exchange (sbpe.co.uk - tickets still available, discounts for listeners to this podcast) and to think about the next Sustainable Futures Report. And you know when that’s due!

This is Anthony Day, that was the Sustainable Futures Report and there will be another one next week.

Have a great Easter Holiday!