Nope, no April fool - the Government is trying to fudge UK renewables targets – again. Splashed on the front page of the Guardian this weekend … the story had three threads:
1. The bonkers idea from Lady Whatshername, that the UK should be able
to build renewables projects in the developing world and count them towards UK targets for renewables.
First we had carbon offsetting, and now we have Target Offsetting. Renewable Energy is about more than just hitting government targets somehow - it’s about where the UK gets its energy from in the future, about how we keep the lights on in a world running out of fossil fuels. Building renewables in another part of the world isn’t going to do anything to provide the UK with power - unless we use some very long wires. Lady Whatshername just misses the point, Renewables targets are about where we get our power from, post North Sea oil and gas. Hitting them in China won’t help us.
What’s next, building hospitals in India and using them to meet NHS targets?
The whole idea sounds like something from a Monty Python sketch.
This Target Offsetting would provide the ultimate NIMBY argument – “don’t build them in my back yard, build them in China, it’s easier and cheaper” I can hear the NIMBY’s warming up now.
2. Then the equally bonkers idea that clean coal - an oxymoron in any event - should count towards renewable targets. It really doesn’t get any crazier than this. We burn coal, capture the carbon and count the electricity as green and renewable …!
Actually we need to stop burning things – it’s so very steam age of us (stone age really). We need to move to a cleaner way of doing things, using fuel sources that are combustion and carbon free, like the wind.
It’s nothing less than a second Industrial Revolution that we need.
3. Last week John Hutton said that Nuclear was the UK’s new North Sea Oil – Derr…
Does the UK have any Uranium mines John? How on earth can nuclear be considered a native fuel source. You might as well call nuclear our new Russian Gas - because that’s a much closer analogy.
Maybe Homer Simpson has taken a job in the policy unit of number 10. Anyone got a better explanation for all this..?
Bah! Two worlds of spin - worlds apart and very different kinds of spin!
* The government
* The wind energy sector
I totally agree with you on the energy independence front Dale. We really need to grow our own energy as well as our own food!! (and preferably no more fudge!)
Dale - I agree. The point about the renewables targets, surely, is how to improve UK energy security through the increasing use of renewable energy sources - which in turn reduces the impact of our energy use on the local and global environment… Transferring new technology to developing countries is another great idea - but that helps them meet their energy needs and renewables targets, not ours… E
Maybe we should be allowed target offsetting if we also included the carbon emissions released from UK companies abroad in part of our targets. Not sure Mr Hutton would go for that considering that up to 15% of global emissions can be attributed to the UK or UK businesses abroad according to Christain Aid…
Agreed Dale,
I have to say I’m starting to wonder if the government is committed to this at all!
This is constantly made out to be an untacklable GIANT! A task too great for human kind!! But the reality of it is, it’s ALL POSSIBLE!
For example, one of our biggest problems is rooted in the assumption that burning oil is the ONLY way to get around on land. Not only is it not the only way, but it’s one of the MOST inconvenient ways!! Ignoring the huge environmental impact of exploration, spillages, refining and usage of oil for a second… We have to import vast amounts of oil from all over the world, some from particularly unstable areas, at a high financial cost. Then at the end of that, we burn the oil up in cars, which only use about 25% of the energy pumped into them! The rest is wasted in idling, heat and breaking. It’s particularly wasteful and inefficient. Add to that, it’s a finite resource. So what happens to a finite resource as pressure on supplies increases? Its price increases dramatically, atleast causing much inconvenience on the way, as well as possibly increasing tensions and conflict.
How do we solve it? Electric vehicles. There are electric cars out there already that are cheaper, faster, easier to maintain, mostly recyclable and cleaner than equivalent motor cars (even if charged from a fossil fuel generated source!). Electric cars already on the market, use about 85% of the electricity channelled into them. (See the Think, G Wiz, MiEV, Aptera, Tesla, Lightning, Smart EV, Mini EV, EV1 and more!).
Add to that we COULD charge these with renewable electricity! Imagine this…
Starting in London and moving out from there, we bulldoze every ‘Shell’ petrol station in the UK. In their place we put ‘ECOTRICITY CHARGING STATIONS’! You drive in just as you would for petrol, hook up your car to a 100% green charging point and head into the station. In the station there’s a coffee shop, internet points, papers and magazines etc. Sit in a relaxing atmosphere for a few minutes and chill out while you charge!
Within years, every car in the UK is much cheaper to run/maintain, fully sustainable and carbon zero! Plus, Opec can never again have us over the proverbial barrel!
It seems to me that we have reached a tipping point. The advent of rice becoming a luxury good for many millions of poor people across Asia shows that sustainability is a real issue. Theses problems will only get worse if we keep fighting over dwindling resources. No real plausible solutions are being considered, only short term economic growth. It’s important in my view that goverment bodies step in and subsidise renewable energy and recycling projects. I like Chris Blount’s vision of the future, it sounds great but this will require substantial investment. The goverment needs to realise that we need to start investing now and invest heavily.
I agree completely that both Carbon offsets and your ‘Target Offsets’ are so much P.R. rubbish. On the other hand, it seems to me that allowing collaboration between different contries for the purposes of load balancing and effectively using global energy resources is a good idea. For instance, it makes no sense to generate solar power in Britain, when it would be far more resource efficient to generate it in Spain, and build an HVDC cable to allow us to import it from them. I realise that this isn’t at odds with what you’re saying, but it seems important not to left it unsaid.
What is your objection to “clean coal”? Ultimately, it is indeed feasible and possible to generate all our power from renewable sources, but this goal is unimportant compared to the goal of generating all our energy in a carbon-neutral way. If CO2 can be safely sequestered, then I cannot see any reason not to do it, provided that we are aware that this is a non-renewable resource, and that it must be replaced at some point in the future.
I dunno. The idea of the first world building renewable generation sites in the third world seems like a very rational long-term approach, regardless of “why” they are doing it.
Remember, we live on a tiny little rock. What would make more sense: put up a wind or tidal farm to power a relative handful of first world households so they can watch their plasma TVs? Or build the same in the third world to give power to many thousands who have never had reliable power before, so now they can do things like read at night, increase levels of education, keep lifesaving medicines on hand, etc.? Option 1 results in nothing very beneficial to the species. Option 2 results in the very real possibility of those third worlders becoming productive members of the world society, having done so on renewables rather than fossils. Hmmm… could some first worlders actually be afraid of that?
From a planetwide viewpoint, only option 2 is rational. Option 1 seems more like a John Cleese sketch.
I agree with Chris and Dale in their broad vision of the future- however, I cannot help but feel that one fundamental point has been missed- where will the money come from. As long as we are driven by the theory that competition and market forces will produce the goods we will never achieve the change necessary on the scale necessary. Only national governments have the resource, influence and power to achieve such results. Additionally we, the British public, must be willing to put up with tax hikes to reach this zero carbon goal, and I for one am perfectly happy to pay now for a better future. I suspect that a large proportion of the people who read this blog will also be those who believe in continued spending cuts in areas of the state that they do not agree with, like defence- and that this is where the money for the New Industrial Revolution to come from. This cannot be allowed to happen. Already we have soldiers with a lack of equipment and barracks that you would not keep chickens in because of years of defence cuts. Many people will say that the defence budget has actually risen year on year and they would be right, but the cost of military operation has risen by over 3 times the rise in budget, which effectively equals a cut in budget. Anyway, I digress.
I believe that any schemes revolving around UK power should remain within the UK, only moving overseas to the less economically developed world (LEDC)when we have put our own house, and energy security in order. We must be free of Russian gas, OPEC oil and Canadian and Australian uranium (there are other producers but these make up the lion’s share). We will only achieve this if the policy makers take the decision on the basis of the “greater good” and stop being in politics for the sake of getting re-elected rather than to do what is best for the nation.
Build the Severn Barrage, build more offshore turbines, make it law for all new build houses to have a percentage of their roof area as PV/Solar heating, utilise our rivers. Keep our population at a static level. There are bound to be some ecological knockon effects from all these activities but I think it’s worth it to achieve the zero carbon society we should be aiming for. Only after we have achieved this should we think about building up the energy infrastructure of LEDCs.
Thanks for your thoughts on this all
@Eazibee - I agree with that. These guys should have targets of their own (many do) and we should help them meet them. Though the Chinese don’t actually need our help, they have a 10% target and look on course to hit it. Unlike us.
@Baboonboy - That’s a great point to make, we do overlook all these emissions. Norway does the same thing by the way, it’s set itself this fab goal of being carbon neutral by 2050 but in the process refuses to count the carbon content of it’s massive fossil fuel exports - instead running itself on hydro to hit it’s targets. That’s some powerful BS.
@Chris - Couldn’t agree with you more. Frustrated at the lack of real progress and big car company hand wringing - we’re building our own electric car right now, though we prefer to think of it as a wind powered car (that’s where the power will come from). We share the same vision on garages of the future, except the knocking them down bit…
But seriously, garages all have the one thing you need for fast charging - three phase supplies, meaning that the infrastructure for electric car recharging is already in place - nationally. We don’t need to build a new one for Hydrogen supply, even if we could afford it. Rows of charging points, 20 minutes or less to ‘fill your tank’ and you’re off again - it’s around the corner I’m sure of that.
We’re also working on a domestic wind turbine which would provide about 5,000 miles of guilt free carbon free driving a year (plug your car in at home) - if we get it to do it’s job right. More on that later.
@Adam - The thing about carbon sequestering is it’s still theory. Even the people (power companies) pushing the idea admit they have no idea when it might be possible. Meanwhile it gets used to soften the impact of the idea of new build coal, everyone talks about capturing the carbon and there’s nothing to worry about. The UK is about to get it’s first new coal station for 25 years (in Kent), and carbon capture won’t be part of it on day one, but it’s in the story. That’s one objection - I’m for the principle of course. In the Renewables Fudge post I was objecting to the governments proposal to count electricity from these, as yet mythical carbon capturing stations, as renewable energy, helping us meet (sic) our targets. Clearly even with no carbon, coal is not renewable - except on geological time frames.
@Willy - I think building in the third world is a good idea, but not regardless of why - if the why is to avoid building in the UK, which it is. That leaves the UK with no power in the future and it allows our comfortable (for now) citizens to delegate their responsibilities and burdens (some people think wind is that) to somebody else - much like carbon offsetting. Of course with the ‘third world’ only responsible for 3% of the world’s carbon, it’s a statistically doomed idea anyway - like carbon offsetting.
@Moebiusdick - Right on, the fight against climate change should begin at home - and the barrage is a great idea, I’m for it. Percentages of renewables on new build is good but just the tip of the iceberg - 150,000 or so new houses get built each year, 24 Million exist now - we have to tackle the existing housing stock to really make a dent. Government keep ducking that one, their zero carbon homes policy (by 2016) gets a lot of airtime, but the fact is it’s only new build and therefore addresses less than one percent of the problem (in 8 years time..). Without a retrofit policy it’s just feel good stuff.
Dale, that’s exciting news! It’s refreshing to hear of a company that has a better balance of progress and profits in it’s manifesto.
Will these technologies (the car and also the turbine) be affordable?
When can I test drive the car?!!