Calvin Jones and Martin M. Jones argue that our future relies on learning to live with the sunshine that comes today
The past few weeks’ news of massive flooding throughout Wales and other parts of the UK has dominated news channels. The rain has hardly been biblical, but coming off the back of one of the wettest summers on record, and preceded by a spring almost shockingly characterized by widespread hosepipe ban, the notion of 2012 as a poster-boy year for an increasingly volatile climate is hard to escape.
Whilst we cannot say with certainty that any individual extreme weather event is a result of climate change, the increasing frequency of droughts, floods and storms leads inexorably to the notion of a hydrological cycle made more powerful and capricious by increased energy reserves – energy reserves placed there by our centuries-long emission of planet warming ‘greenhouse gases’.
As the years advance, the task of ‘adaptation’ – adjusting to the effects of climate change already rendered inevitable as a result of past emissions – will be a great challenge. But of course, as long as we continue to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the result of an economy and society underpinned by non-renewable fossil fuels, the challenge of adaptation is set to grow exponentially in future years.
The issue poses significant ethical and moral issues as climate ‘weirding’ affects poor populations in stark and unpleasant ways. However, climate change is also a matter of hard-nosed economics. Fossil fuels, by their very nature are inelastic in supply. We have long ago used the ‘easy’ oil and gas, and are scrabbling now for hard to access, lower energy and scattered deposits in remote or environmentally sensitive areas. As a result, prices will in the long term only continue to rise.
This is a powerful argument for massive investment in renewable energy, whose prices will be far more stable in the long-term and where economies of scale are often yet to be tapped. Recent discussion about the merits of the Severn Barrage or other renewable energy infrastructure investment across Wales are welcome as the public become increasingly ready to discuss the need for renewable energy projects and to debate exactly how we are to meet these targets.
The construction of the large-option Severn Barrage would contribute 5 per cent to the UK’s electricity needs, but this is based on (pun intended) current demand. If we need to (renewably) electrify transport in response to climate change and fossil fuel concern, we will need to double the capacity of the UK energy supply and distribution grid. Meanwhile, typically two thirds of every kilowatt generated is wasted in system losses before it is used as light, heat or power. This suggests the first canard of any energy policy should be reduce, reduce, reduce!
Now into its second phase, the Welsh Government’s Arbed scheme (Welsh for ‘save’, by the way), is a leading example of this. With a budget of £68 million, phase one invested in retro-fitting existing homes with energy-efficient measures from demand-reducing cavity and external-wall insulation, reducing a home’s need for energy, to Air Source Heat Pumps and Solar Thermal technology which allow homes to reduce their reliance on the Energy Grid for the remaining energy that they do need. This has huge benefits for some of the most vulnerable in society, literally insulating them from the perils of future rises.
Meanwhile, we have all read with similar sighs of resignation the astonishing increases in energy prices of the ‘Big Six’ energy firms in the past month, all the while claiming that the energy market is competitive. That several utility companies should raise their tariffs almost simultaneously, and by comparable inflation-shattering rates, is not the hallmark of a well-functioning, competitive market. Rather, it rather suggests dysfunction and oligopoly pricing. We are running out of coal, oil and gas and people should not be misled into thinking that nuclear power is a clean, low-carbon and renewable energy source. Construction of plants take years (often massively over-budget), disposal of the waste millennia and the fuel, uranium and plutonium, will soon run out if the world starts to adopt the technology en masse.
So long as our economy continues to be underpinned by an anti-competitive utilities market that is overwhelmingly reliant on energy sources that are increasingly scarce, it is unrealistic to expect energy prices to go any other way than up. This is basic economics. The future success of our economy is thus reliant on a wholesale shift from fossil fuels to more price-stable renewable energy; along with reform of the utilities sector that runs it.
Imagine what would be possible if the sums being discussed for investing in the Severn Barrage – some estimates put it at £30billion – were instead spent on schemes similar to Arbed, designed to reduce our need for energy rather than providing a short-term fix for our energy habit. A report commissioned by WWF Cymru has estimated that tackling energy inefficiency by retrofitting properties in Wales to bring all properties up to a minimum ‘D’ rating would remove 40 per cent of fuel-poor households in Wales from fuel poverty and cut housing-sector carbon emissions by a quarter.
Of course, this does not sit well with an energy market that currently, and astonishingly still charges profligate energy users a lower price per unit than those that use less. But how can we finance such an industrial-scale move to protect homeowners and tenants across the country from inevitably rising energy prices? In his Autumn Statement George Osborne has just announced new measures to promote the carbon-heavy shale gas and environmentally destructive ‘fracking’ process, thereby continuing to nurture our ongoing addiction to dirty energy with a short-term fix. But instead, given the recent Guardian revelations on energy market price fixing by the big players, he could have used this as an opportunity to announce a justified windfall tax on the energy companies to kick-start a country-wide roll-out of Arbed-style retro-fitting of domestic properties in the UK.
The move from a fossil-fuel based ‘carboniferous’ economy to one based on renewable energy would undoubtedly increase the price of energy in the short term from its current level. However, combined with a country-wide efficiency drive, its effect in the long term would be to massively reduce household costs, minimise uncertainty and provide for a truly sustainable basis for long-term prosperity. People forget that we currently benefit from an economy underpinned and subsidised by a million years of [fossilised] sunshine. Our future relies on learning to live with the sunshine that comes to us today.
Can I offer a clarification? It doesn’t negate the thrust of your article.
Two thirds of electricity is not wasted in distribution. Typical levels are 7-9%.
It’s true that roughly two thirds of the chemical energy in coal is wasted when it’s burnt to raise steam and generate electricity (unless it’s part of a CHP scheme). Gas-fired power stations have slightly higher (ie better) thermal/mechanical efficiency.
Running out of coal? In over 200 years of industrial mining we have extracted roughly 15 per cent of the available coal in South Wales. With modern technology most of the rest is accessible, although currently more expensive than strip-mined coal from Australia. Global warming is an imminent threat. Wales can do nothing about it – our total carbon emissions are equal to about one year’s growth of emissions from China. Still we have a moral obligation to make our contribution to restricting emissions. An economical scheme of carbon capture for coal or fracked gas would mean Wales could do that and be energy self-sufficient for hundreds of years. Yet oddly this finds few enthusiasts among environmentalists who prefer a masochistic approach. Why heal the broken leg if you can amputate is their refrain.
R. Tredwyn: Interested to hear your estimates, based in evidence, of how many equivalent years coal remains in proven reserves in South Wales (i.e. how long will that 85% last) based on projected energy use if Coal + CCS is adopted UK wide.
“Global warming is an imminent threat. Wales can do nothing about it ”
I suppose I could just curtly say ’nuff said, but I won’t
Would you like to tell that to your children and grandchildren R Tredwyn? Please invite others as witness/support for you.
@Ian yes well spotted that should have read in generation and distribution. Best CCGTs getting what, 60% thermal efficiency? Aberthaw probably at [cough] percent
Off topic but interesting how people lambast wind for cf. 25% actual generation to nominal capacity ratio whilst ignoring the fact they don’t use any fuel!
R.Tredwyn, Globally the good coal (anthracite, steam coal) gets used first and the remaining brown/lignite coal is of far lower usefulness. Richard Heinberg reckons we’ve effectively passed ‘peak coal’ in energy-generation terms even though there’s clearly quite a lot left.
Problem with the cf 200m tonnes of Welsh coal left is that (Margam aside) its mostly scattered in small deposits in & around flooded deep mines hence technically difficult & expensive to extract (there was a good report from Tower on this a number of years ago).
Or of course in some cases on the surface where it can be handily scooped up to the further detriment of Merthyr as well as the climate.
Alun Wynn Griffiths. I don’t think I understand your point. That the Welsh contribution to global warming is minute is simply a fact. I acknowledged that nonetheless we have a moral obligation to do our bit to restrict carbon emissions. What is it I am supposed to tell my grandchildren?
Calvin Jones. Why Margam aside? If we exploited Margam, with or without carbon capture, we could perhaps dissuade Tata steel from burning Australian coal. Burning Welsh coal may not be deep green but it is greener than freighting the coal 12,000 miles on carbon-emitting ships before burning it. Like you, I am in favour of sparing Merthyr.
R. Tredwyn,
What are you supposed to tell your grandchildren? How about that you did not abdicate your responsibility for the minute fraction of global GHG emissions you cause on the premise that it is minute.
Icebergs melt one drop at a time…
Well I have acknowledged twice now, in my original post and in my reply, that we have a moral obligation to do our bit. So I still don’t know what you are on about. People only see the bits of posts they want to see, it seems.