healthier, happier and richer

The UK Energy and Climate Secretary has announced that, from 18 August 2010, local councils will be allowed to sell renewable electricity. This is fast and impressive work.

Robert Webb comments on the strengths and weaknesses of the ‘Energy Internet’ vision.

CER has now published my short policy brief ‘How to expand renewable energy after 2020′.

The UK has enormous wind potential, and is already the world leader in terms of installed offshore capacity. However, it achieved this with only 688Mw of operational offshore wind farms.

This week, another dispute has broken out between environmentalists in the UK, this time primarily between journalist and author, George Monbiot, and the head of the company, Solar Century, Jeremy Leggett, over whether it is sensible to offer householders in the UK large subsidies to install solar photovoltaic (PV) panels.

The South African government has published an energy plan which proposes a decline in the use of coal and six new nuclear power stations. The country is not short of coal, so the government should be commended for exploring alternatives.

The UK has a new government and the prospects for climate policy are mixed. The promised policies on aviation and coal are stronger than those of the former Labour government. The approach to renewables is similar to that of Labour. However, the approach on nuclear power looks like a recipe for muddle and delay.

Today, I attended a conference organised by Business for a New Europe and the Centre for European Reform on Is the EU good for business?. The general answers was (unsurprisingly, given the organisers) ‘yes, generally, but could be better’.

The horrific current events in Japan must make all who favour nuclear power question our support. I have spent much of the weekend doing so, but still believe that nuclear power is a necessary, low-carbon bridge-technology, until the world can be 100% reliant on renewables.

Is gas sufficiently low-carbon to be an adequate bridge technology? No – it’s emissions for every unit of electricity produced are over three times as high as emissions from nuclear power.

Global investment in renewables and energy efficiency increased 5% to $260 billion in 2011, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

On Saturday, I was on a panel at the World Science Festival in New York, with James Hansen of NASA and three others. Hansen’s position on nuclear can be summarised simply: it’s better than coal.

This month, the US Department of Energy has announced a Sustainable Energy Resources for Consumers (SERC) programme. This will offer grants totalling up to $109 million.

On Wednesday 15 July 2009, the UK government published its plan to make the UK a low carbon economy. It is good on electricity, quite good on energy efficiency and heat, but bad on transport.

The manifestos of the three main UK political parties, Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat, all agree that climate change is an extremely serious issue and that tackling it can be done in ways which enhance energy security and strengthen the UK economy.

In November 2009, 3% of OECD electricity was generated by renewables other than hydro. 14% came from hydro. And this was only 17% of what electricity was then used, not total energy used.

President Obama has done more to control climate change than President Bush ever did. However, that is hardly setting the bar very high.

Today, EU national governments are meeting to discuss who should be the next President of the Commission. The current president, Jose Manuel Barroso, wants a second term and will probably be given it. This would be good for the climate.

This month has seen two significant developments in plans to harness the power of the waves and the tides off the British Isles. On 2 March 2010, the Regional Development Agency for the South West of England announced the start of the construction of an onshore electricity sub-station at Hayle in Cornwall, so that power from its Wave Hub – a facility to test wave technology ten miles off the Cornish coast – can be fed into the electricity grid. And this week, the Crown Estate, the body that administers over half of the UK’s foreshore and all the seabed out to 12 miles, announced the successful bidders in the world’s first commercial wave and tidal leasing round, for ten sites in Scotland’s Pentland Firth and Orkney waters.

The Saudi Arabian government has announced that it will pursue nuclear and renewable electricity to meet the country’s rising demand for energy, driven by a rapidly expanding population and industrial base, and a growing need for desalinated water. It is not unusual for a government to announce support for nuclear or renewables, but it is quite striking for the country with the world’s largest known oil reserves, and the fifth largest gas reserves, to be planning to develop alternatives to fossil fuels.

This week, I have been to Brussels for meetings on energy efficiency, renewables, nuclear and CCS. The now-ratified Lisbon Treaty says that there will, in the future, be a common energy policy, but this is unlikely to have much practical impact, but the EU has achieved much in important areas.

On Thursday, I launched a report I wrote for the Centre for European Reform on how the EU should meet its 2020 target that 20% of all energy should be from renewable sources. Meeting the target would help control climate change, greatly increase EU energy security and create many new jobs and industries.

This week, the European Union and Iraq signed an agreement to strengthen their energy cooperation in areas such as natural gas, energy security and renewables.

President Obama has again asked the US Congress to agree a budget which cuts the more than $40 billion in tax breaks for oil, gas and coal producers over the next decade. The president’s budget proposals are sensible and should be passed by Congress. But they won’t be. The left-right divide on climate in US politics is unnecessary.

On Thursday 22 and Friday 23, I went to Clingendael, the Netherlands Institute for International Relations, for a seminar on how to meet the EU 20% renewables target. It certainly felt ironic for an Englishman to be invited to go and tell the Dutch what to do about renewable energy.

The European Investment Bank increased its lending to projects to help control climate change to €19bn in 2010. This was a 19% increase over the 2009 figure and meant that climate projects accounted for almost a third of total EIB lending.

A Greek utility is planning to build a 200Mw solar photovoltaic farm. This is welcome news, though only a faltering first step.

David Buchan has written a valuable paper on European electricity policy, in which he argues convincingly that harmonising the various national schemes would be more efficienct and so cut costs. The level of subsidy could continue to differ, but the design of the schemes should be made more consistent.

At a time when all the talk is of the need for massive cuts in expenditure, in the Budget on 22 April 2009, the UK Government managed to find some extra money to help control climate change.

The European Commission should focus on proposing specific policies, rather than modelling different scenarios. It has done well with its energy efficiency proposal; now it should propose strengthening the ETS and setting a 2030 renewables target.

The French government has called for tenders for 3Gw of offshore wind off France, and has given a grant to GDF Suez for a district heating network in Paris, which will use renewable heat.

The new UK government has now announced its legislative programme for the next 18 months and there is to be another energy bill. This is a good Bill and should be supported. The government has also announced how it will begin to reduce the deficit.

Ed Miliband was a good Energy and Climate Change Secretary, so the UK now has a ‘green’ Prime Minister, ‘green’ Energy Secretary and ‘green’ Leader of the Opposition. Now for some delivery…

This is a commentary on the UK government’s new microgeneration strategy. It is good that it recognises the need to address non-financial barriers, but lack of strong regulatory framework will not deliver microgeneration or climate protection.

Yesterday’s election in the German region Baden-Württemberg, one of Germany’s richest regions, saw Angela Merkel’s CDU lose power after over half a century in office and there can be little doubt that the campaign was heavily influenced by the Japanese nuclear issue.

Comments on Jonathon Porritt’s arguments against nuclear power.

Angela Merkel’s victory in Germany’s election was not unexpected. What was less clear was who her coalition partner would be, but we now know that it will be the FDP. This party is liberal, in both economic and social senses. It is also very pro-business and in favour of tax cuts and is now arguing for reductions in subsidies.

Yesterday I went to Brussels for a seminar on CCS with Ruud Lubbers, who used to be prime minister of the Netherlands and is now running the Rotterdam Climate Initiative.

The Obama Administration has given the go ahead for a 468Mw wind farm in Nantucket Sound, off the coast of Massachusetts. This will be the US’s first offshore wind farm and has been delayed in the planning process for almost a decade.

The lack of substantial progress at Copenhagen, though not unexpected, has left many people close to despondency on climate change. There is now a serious danger that they will lose interest. More worrying is the danger that the media will lose interest, leading to politicians doing likewise.

For the next six months, Spain holds the Presidency of the EU and, from the start of February, there will be a new European Commission. Spain and Germany lead the EU on wind and solar power, so there are good grounds to hope that the new leadership will result in a major speeding up of the low carbon transition.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I attended a conference on renewable energy in Scotland, on the stunningly beautiful island Skye. I talked about how to dispel myths about climate change and renewables.

Courts have put injunctions on the Spanish government’s plans to subsidise Spanish coal. This is welcome. Subsidies should go to coal with CCS, and to renewables.

Philip Lowe, the Director General, Energy in the European Commission, has responded to my criticism of the EU’s Energy Roadmap.

The Copenhagen Climate Summit starts today. Prospects are looking better than they were a few weeks ago and the fact that President Obama has decided to attend the final negotiating session, rather than just for a token visit at the start, is excellent.

Scotland has immense potential to expand renewables, particularly wind and the Scottish National Party (SNP), when it took over the Scottish government in 2007, set a target that half of all Scotland’s electricity should come from renewables by 2020.

Low carbon energy sources – renewables, CCS and nuclear – all require public financial support. In the UK, the new government has said that there will be no subsidy for new nuclear power stations. Before the general election, the Conservatives said that there would be no subsidy and the Liberal Democrats remain anti-nuclear. Without financial support, no new nuclear stations will be built. Nor will any renewables or CCS – offshore wind and CCS are, in the view of many, going to be even more expensive than nuclear.

President Obama’s meeting with the Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on 6 May understandably focussed on how to combat the Taliban and control Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

The EU has long prided itself on leading international efforts to control climate change. Today, the issue is nowhere near the top of the EU’s agenda, having been eclipsed by the economic downturn and the eurozone debt crisis.

One of Kevin Rudd’s first acts on becoming Australian prime minister was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which his predecessor refused to do. Now, he is trying to introduce a cap-and-trade system to help deliver up to a 25% reduction in Australia’s emissions by 2020. This isn’t enough, but it is certainly better than denying the reality of climate change, as many of his opponents still do.

It isn’t often worth commenting on the fact that an agreement has been signed. Too many politicians make too many promises about what they plan to do in the future. However, a co-operation agreement between the US, the world’s top polluter, and Iceland, the world leader on geothermal energy use, is an exception.

The Centre for European Reform has now published a short paper by John Peet, who is Europe editor of the Economist, and me on the EU Budget.

The EU summit on 4 February, billed as an Energy Summit, said little new or unexpected. The forthcoming Energy Efficiency Action Plan must be much more ambitious.

USHUAIA, ARGENTINA. Roald Amundsen, growing up in Norway, dreamt of going to the North Pole. Later, when he led the first team to the South Pole, he wrote in his diary, “How topsy turvy is that?”

BEAGLE PASSAGE, ARGENTINA. Today was a perfect day for walking – light cloud and much less wind than yesterday. We set off, straight after breakfast, to walk up to the place where there used to be a glacier.

The demand to ‘make the polluter pay’ by putting a price on the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced has been a major point of discussion and debate across Europe since the mid-1980s. This article summarises carbon and energy taxes existing in European countries and how effective they have been.

In my opinion, electric vehicles should be strongly supported. Those concerned about climate change too often take an overly anti-car position.

This is a summary of a longer paper by Prashant Vaze and Ed Mayo on how a new, low-carbon energy infrastructure can be financed at reasonable cost.

All three main UK parties take climate seriously and promise to reduce emissions and expand low-carbon energy. They all recognise the energy security and employment benefits. This article includes quotations from the relevant parts of the manifestos of the three main parties on heat and electricity – energy efficiency, fuel poverty and energy production.

Germany led the world on wind energy until 2007. In 2008, it was overtaken in terms of total installed capacity, though not percentage of energy coming from wind, by the USA. It remains the world’s top photovoltaic (PV) installer, accounting for almost half of the global market in 2007 – though this generates only about 1% of total electricity used in Germany.

The US federal government passed energy acts in 2005, 2007 and 2008, each aiming to increase energy efficiency and expand renewables. The 2009 Recovery Act also had money for these, However, to get a clear picture of American energy policy, we need to look not just at federal programs, but also at what state governments are doing.

As a result of its energy efficiency indicators and the expansion of its renewable programme, Italy has the capacity to lead worldwide production of renewable energy and set standards for an efficient model.

There are several myths or misunderstandings that have grown up surrounding climate change and renewable energy. Both sides of the debate can be at fault. This article tries to debunk some of nonsense that is often cited as fact.

Three months after the Fukashima nuclear reactor caught fire, Germany decided to phase out nuclear power. The decision stunned Europe’s energy policy community. Nuclear presently provides a quarter of Germany’s electricity – how would it plug the gap?

How well have Obama and Energy Secretary Chu done so far on promoting energy efficiency, renewables, CCS and electric vehicles? A very positive assessment is made by the Center for American Progress.

The UK government is strongly supportive of biomass as a means of increasing energy security. It also regards biomass as a major contributor to meeting the UK’s EU renewable energy target, and as an important contributor to carbon reductions – though it has stressed that not all biomass is sustainable.

Will it be possible to build all the necessary nuclear power stations in time, what emission savings can be made and will the nuclear industry close them down when and if they are not needed?

Shaun Bernie

People often use the word ‘energy’ when they actually mean electricity. Only 20% of EU energy consumption is electricity (although this will rise as transport becomes increasingly electric.). The rest is for heat and for transport and, therefore, it is essential to expand renewable heat very substantially.

Community-owned renewables are quite rare in the UK, but extremely common – mainly wind farms – in Germany and Denmark. The UK is at least now moving in the right direction, albeit slowly.

UK district heating schemes is an idea whose time has come. Those in Sheffield and Aberdeen are discussed in this article.

Freiburg has a well-deserved reputation as Germany’s green capital. It uses on about half of the energy that other European cities of 200,000 people do, and has become a world leader in solar. This article looks at what the city council has done to achieve this.

This is a case study of the Gigha community-owned wind farm in Scotland, carried out by Simon Dresner. Comments are welcome.

Rotterdam is now Europe’s largest port. It has a concentration of heavy industry, including oil refineries and power stations. So its contribution to climate emissions is substantial.

Austrian regions (Länder) play a significant role in energy, particularly regarding building efficiency and heating, including district heating. Upper Austria is one of nine regions, covering 12,000km2, with 1.4 million inhabitants. It is highly industrialised, with significant heavy industry (manufacture of steel and machinery).

This article is about how Upper Austria manages to get a third of its total energy use, and almost half its heat, from renewables.

Tiny Vermont is the second smallest state in the US by population and the fifth smallest by area. Its economic reconstruction efforts are understated. So too are its efforts to provide its homes and businesses with sustainable heat and power.

This is a paper that the three authors of the Repowering Communities book discussed with UK government officials and other experts at a seminar on 1 November 2010. It covers examples of which local governments are doing best on energy efficiency and renewables, and makes some recommendations.

This is the report, by the head teacher of Gillespie School in the UK, of his visit to a school in Niger. Climate Answers has paid for solar lighting at this school.

The ANC government has connected 80% of all South Africans to the electricity grid – one of its greatest successes. However, this mass electrification programme, combined with strong economic growth and rapid industrialisation, meant that demand for power outstripped supply in early 2008.

This is a summary and analysis of UK’s white paper on Electricity Market Reform and Renewables Roadmap, published this week.

Despite the grim economic context, the UK Government managed to find some extra money to help control climate change.

Why can’t we get to clean energy without using nuclear power?

Russell Frerichs

Question: Would OTEC – ocean thermal energy conversion – be a great solution for harnessing the stored solar power in the oceans?

Fachina