The Greens have become the new puritans. With a sanctimony that hasn’t been seen since the seventeenth century - as practised by men in white ruffs and tall black hats - they urge us all to follow their example. They follow a fundamentalist creed that holds assertions as truths. They sit smugly under their photovoltaic roof, with their Toyota Pious on the drive, watching their wind turbine rotate slowly, looking down their nose at their unenlightened neighbours.
Most of us agree that global warming is an issue and is principally caused by burning fossil fuel. Even if we do not, we accept that we shall need to reduce our carbon footprints, if only because shall run out of fossil fuel sooner or later and, in any event, burgeoning demand will push up prices to eye-watering levels.
But are we going about things the right way? The big problem for the layman is trying to get accurate unbiased information. Be it for energy saving or energy generation investment, most of us might like to know:
· How much it will cost (net and gross)?
· How much it will save and on what assumptions about future energy and maintenance costs?
· What will its payback period be?
· How long will it last?
And for the more environmentally concerned:
· How much embedded carbon was involved in making it?
· What is its carbon payback period?
Most of the information available on costs and savings, comes from manufacturers of the kit – and as such is highly suspect. Even the experts cannot agree amongst themselves. The numbers are all over the place. (In reviewing research on the embedded carbon payback period for photovoltaics, Bankier and Gale (Energy Bulletin 2006) cite researchers’ estimates varying between 0.7 and 25 years.)
So we need agreed common bases of measurement. For example, what do we take into account in embedded carbon in manufacture and installation of generating equipment– human labour, transport from China, mounting and supporting structures?
Every time we hear about a new wind farm, we are told it will produce X thousand megawatts, enough to power a town of Y thousand homes. Fine for peak output, but what about the rest of the year, when it will run suboptimally – let alone when there is not enough wind to make it run at all, or when there is so much, it has to be switched off. Tell us average outputs – not peak performance.
And we delude ourselves both individually and as a nation on the economics of green energy generation. Home installations benefit from government subsidies on capital. Commercial projects benefit from being able to sell electricity at inflated prices. Without such large subsidies, hardly anyone would be doing green energy in the UK. How much will it cost the taxpayer either directly or indirectly (through higher power prices) to achieve the EU target of 20% renewables by 2020?
Salesmen of alternative energy projects tell householders how their product will add to the value of their home. Perhaps. But if you have an attractive period or faux period house, solar panels on the roof and a wind turbine in the back garden will do little for the aesthetics of the property – and could well reduce its value.
Come what may – be it in carbon or money terms, the best payback for most homeowners is insulation. Lagging the loft, double-glazing and cavity insulation are easy: solid wall insulation is less straightforward, but effective. As things stand, unless I have missed an announcement to the contrary, government is still committed to achieving zero carbon new build homes by 2016 – even though it will currently add c 40% to construction costs and the lack of ventilation and having to shower in a warm fog will not be too everyone’s liking. (Code for Sustainable Homes; CLG March 2010 shows costs 30-48% over 2006 Building Regs compliant specification.) If government were looking for best value in financial and carbon saving terms for the UK as a whole, it should replace the demand for Code Level 6 homes with a levy to be reinvested in insulating existing stock properly.
As part of its drive for more sustainable homes, government is looking for onsite power generation. Given problems with wind and solar power, a combined heat and power plant is often the only solution. This optimises total energy output – heat plus electricity. In the winter, houses can use most if not all of the heat. The problem is what to do with it in the summer. Some of the schemes I have seen merely dump it in the nearest river until they can find something sensible to do with it. Paradoxically the best use for this excess heat is to provide cooling by way of absorption chillers. But in the UK, the principal users of air-conditioning are offices (and some shopping malls). So here we have a good reason for proper mixed development – like Argent’s scheme at King’s Cross. But no-one at CLG seems to be putting this message across. The only game in town for the department – up to now at least – has been housing numbers and an inexorable drive to achieve Code Level 6.
Nuclear may be, no, could be, the solution to our power generation problems. Most of the opposition is simply on the grounds of “I don’t understand nuclear and it is evil.” More rational opposition is on the basis of: it may be prone to terrorist attack (but so are lots of things); there might be an accident (yes but the recent safety record in the West is pretty good); and lastly, we cannot get rid of the fuel safely. This third point carries the most weight. As things stand, we are simply storing spent fuel – often in dynamic conditions of cooling or drying. Government has simply twiddled its thumbs. The previous government was not prepared to commit the necessary resources to reprocessing – and has not been prepared to decide on a long-term storage solution in the face of opposition from the antinuclear lobby. But it wouldn’t tell you any of this. The new government has decided to disagree with itself.
So, what we need from government on energy, for both personal and national investment purposes is some clear and unbiased information setting out the facts and the assumptions on which those facts are based. If there is disagreement between scientists, let us know. Let us hear both sides of the arguments.
To date there has been more heat than light.
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