When is Zero not Zero?

I'd missed this - it is now proposed that 0%=56%. That's the gist of the Zero-Carbon Hub's proposal for 2016 building regs: a "zero-carbon home" may have emissions as great as just 44% below 2006 building regs. This is nuts. These buildings will be around for years and years - not going for stringent regs now will simply burden all of us with the need to cut emissions even further in other walks of life. This was supposed to be the "greenest government ever" - it's hardly khaki at the moment. Oh, and to top it all the HCA will not be required to achieve Code Level 4 for new homes funded via it as previously announced.
What's the matter with the country when its building industry's core competence is lobbying ministers so that it can remain a bunch if feeble fannies foisting crap homes on the poor captive public? Shame on the lot of them.

Proposing the right sorts of actions

I've been enjoying a spell of fairly intensive contract work - hence the gap in blog posts. However, I've now had a chance to glance at DECC's electricity market reform proposals. All-in-all they aim to do the right sorts of things:
1) Long-term firm(ish) contracts for clean generation. These should reduce uncertainty and encourage more clean generation provided that the details can be sorted out. The preferred model is one based on contracts for differences which the market knows all about from privatisation. The trick is pitching the original PPA correctly.
2) Capacity payments. (Bring back LOLP*VOLL??!!??). These are needed to encourage potentially uneconomic peaking/reserve plant. My initial reaction to the proposed capacity margin manager (system operator?) and tender process is that it feels rather clunky and a bit of a step into the dark. My comment re LOLP*VOLL is not entirely tongue in cheek.
3) Carbon price support. Well - I've banged on about this before in this blog. The one thing that will worry a lot of people is that it is likely to benefit nuclear. This is not an issue as far as I'm concerned but does purturb some of my "greener" friends.
4) Emissions performance standard. Again, the devil will be in the detail but, clearly, coalers without CCS will be disadvantaged.
So far so good.

Cancun

I guess I have to say something.

Well, it was largely a diplomatic triumph with no big issues settled and a lot of the agreements being of the "agreeing to agree" type. But it was a step up from Copenhagen and at the periphery there are good news stories. Take Brazil's fight against deforestation, for instance. So what is it with Bolivia? Was this essentially President Morales in teddy-throwing mode?

One has to remain hopeful.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

Today in a report on Boris's change of air quality targets the Grauniad repeats it reporting, first aired in June, that poor air quality results in 4267 (exactly??) Londoners dying prematurely each year. Of course, the Grauniad fails to say anything about the distribution of those deaths. How many are estimated to be 10 minutes premature, or 10 hours, or 10 days, or 10 months? I just hate it when shock horror stories are promulgated without the information to allow one to understand just what's going on.

Sustainable Hospitality

Edie has a short article describing a report from Whitbread on sustainable hospitality. Apparently ten recommendations flow from it:-

·Sharing is the solution for improvement

·Talk the same language

·Educating employees is vital

·Retro-fitting the estate is where the real gains can be made

·The UK hospitality industry needs its leaders to step up

·Sustainable hospitality does not mean living in a 'yurt economy' nor is it 'eco bling'

·The UK hospitality industry has an essential role to play in raising awareness of sustainability

·Consumers care

·Management needs to move away from simple forecasting strategies for business growth and embrace 'back-casting'

·There is a 'green pound' and more should be done to help consumers make informed choices

Seems like another case of stating the bleedin' obvious. Edie's article implies that the report will not be universally available but will be shared with government, the industry and its supply chain. Frankly, if the above is all it really says then it doesn't matter where it goes - it's another case of spouting motherhood and apple pie when some action is what is really required.

To Pair Or Not To Pair

Did you enjoy all that kerfuffle about whether Chris Huhne would be flying back for the fees vote or not? According to Edie it was partly due to the opposition not being willing to pair. Huhne is quote as saying "It is hugely regrettable that Ed Miliband's Labour Party has decided to put short-term political point scoring ahead of the long-term interests of the planet. They are putting the next two days ahead of the next two generations". Of course, Labour has a counter argument about management of parliamentary time to avopid such clashes. Don't you just wish that the whole lot of them could grow up and avoid sounding so infantile in public?

Camden's "Green" Fleet

Edie today reports that Camden has become the first council to launch a fleet of vehicles powered entirely by renewable energy. We're actually talking biomethane from a landfill site here. I always feel slightly equivocal about describing this as "renewable". Afterall, it would be far better not to have the landfill in the first place. However, given that it does exist, congratulations to Camden for taking this initiative.

That Football Thing

Now that the fuss has died down a few words on that football thing. Both the Sunday Times expose and the Panorama programme were good bits of investigative journalism into an organisation that appears to grossly corrupt. So why all the hand-wringing about delaying the broadcast/publication? This would have just been playing along with Fifa and its unpleasant activities - and that would have been utterly shameful. If Fifa doesn't like its dirty linen to be washed in public then it would be better that they cleaned it up themselves. So England will not host the 2018 tournament - tough - at least we still have press and tv that has a semblance of freedom.

Low carbon gas-fired power plant

There's a report in the FT today that Powerfuel and Calix are to build a demonstration plant incorporating a CO2 removal process pioneered by Calix. This process appears to be a spin-off from Calix's core activity which is calcining minerals (particularly limestone and dolomite) which, of course, normally results in significant CO2 emissions. There's no way of telling from Calix's website just how their emissions capture technique works, nor what impact it has on the overall efficiency of the generation process (a big drawback of other CCS technologies). We watch with interest.

The same article quotes Michael Gibbons, director of Powerfuel Power who are hoping to build a syngas-fired powerplant (it looks hellishly complicated) at their Hatfield Colliery site, indicating that a carbon price of at least £20/tonne is required to make the project commercially viable. I must say, just looking at the nature of the gasification plant and the treatment plant, that £20/tonne feels rather light to me. Even so it's well above the current traded price of carbon (below €15/tonne last time I looked) and makes an interesting adjunct to DECC's theoretical musings on carbon prices.

Oh! Come On Vince

What is it with the atmosphere at Westminster? Is there some virus floating around that only attacks people with MP after their name? Or is there a tiny bug that seeps up through the floor of the Commons and, via a process of osmosis, enters the feet of all who tread therein? Vince Cable is reportedly thinking of abstaining on the tuition fee policy that he, himself, has developed. This is just daft. OK - so the party was pledged to do something different if it got into power and clearly had not thought through the consequences of power sharing (actually, I suspect had never really thought about being in power at all!) - a problem for the party in general. But for VC it should be clear - he must vote for what he is now proposing. I'm more and more tempted to rip up my membership card.

Testing the Efficacy of a Carbon Tax?

From page 99 of Ireland's Recovery Plan - the carbon tax, introduced in the 2010 budget at €15 per tonne will increase by €10 in 2012 and a further €5 in 2014. This is dressed up in the document as a climate change measure, and so it is, but one has to wonder whether a doubling over 4 years would have happened if Irish finances had not been in such a dire state.

As do many others, I worry about carbon taxes because they pre-determine a price for carbon and do not necessarily deliver the required emissions reduction. That's not to say that cap and trade does not have its problems either - especially all the issues around grandfathering rights. However, it will be fascinating to see if it is possible to discern any effect from this fairly steep increase. Somehow I think the general noise from all the other measures being undertaken by the Irish Government will thoroughly mask any meaningful analysis - and the perennial counterfactual issue remains.


P.S. And I see that there is also a pledge to charge for domestic water by 2014 (page 77). Now this really does set up the possibility of a wide scale experiment in the effects of per unit charging on demand. Incidentally, the document is commendably honest in portraying this primarily as a cost saving measure, not as a demand reduction, conservation, measure.

Science Museum's New Climate Science Gallery

HRH Prince of Wales will open the Science Museum's new gallery on climate science on 3rd December. Professor Chris Rapley CBE, Director of the Science Museum, said, “The Science Museum’s role is to make sense of the science that shapes our lives – our latest addition, atmosphere, aims to make sense of one of the biggest issues today, climate change." Amen to that. I have recently been engaged in a frustrating exchange with a deep sceptic who will simply not accept the basic principles on scientific investigation and who will quote any old sceptical blob in support of his stance. The trouble is he is articulate and the whole of his discourse has a veneer of reasonableness which could easily sway the unpersuaded. So, good luck Science Museum (and hopefully we won't have any of HRH's more bizarre beliefs on show).

Applied Demonolgy

Just look at this: Applied Demonology. I do so like elegant experiments!

Ecologist Debate re Biotechnology

Did you follow this? I must admit I came rather late to it but I find the result interesting. The motion was "This house believes that biotechnology and sustainable agriculture are complementary, not contradictory". It was defeated 62% to 38% and, judging from my, admittedly hasty, scan of comments the main reason was that 'biotechnology' was translated by many as 'GM'. This appears to have really polarised things. Fun and games with the Economist's servers are worth reading about, too.

If my assumption of polarisation is, indeed, a fair assessment then I think it's a pity. As with any technology, there are potentially beneficial applications and other harmful ones. I am all too well aware of the problems that could arise from further promotion of mono-cultures by the development of, say, herbicide resistant strains. However, with an ever growing global population there is a crying need for yield improvement and biotechnological techniques have their place.

Parenthetically, isn't it interesting how technology is the only 'ology' (as Beattie would say) whose meaning has moved away from 'the study of' and now actually refers to the equipment and techniques that arise from application of that study?

An Exercise for the Reader

Just been reading an obituary of Robin Day, the designer of the polyprop chair. It struck me that a full lifecycle analysis of its environmental impact would be very interesting. Plastic - extracted from the "black stuff" - but amazingly long lasting.  Has anyone done the deed?

 

Climate Policy Tracker

Ecofys and WWF have just launched a climate policy tracker that they claim is the first up-to-date tracker of climate policy controls (Is that really true? Not that it matters). In summary what it suggests is that the combined action of EU states is only 1/3 of the way to decarbonising for 2050. What I found particularly depressing was that support for renewable energy was widely covered but that energy efficiency was much less comprehensive. This is just so nuts when you think of all the effort that has been put into the EE message. It's back to the old problem of what is sexy grabs the headlines.

No country comes out particularly well - the best rating is a D. The UK ranks somewhere in the middle of the pack with an E. I've not yet looked at the full report (registration to obtain access does not appear to be instantaneous) but from the country summaries I worry that there may have been some (probably unintentional) bias included. Just compare summaries for, say, Austria with the UK. Of course - the full analysis may well be pukka - in which case my apologies for misreading the summaries. Whatever, this provides just one more indication that not enough is being done - anywhere.

Global Carbon Budget

The latest report from the Global Carbon Project suggests that  atmospheric CO2 had risen to 387 ppm by the end of 2009. This is on the back of a 1.3% fall in emissions from fossil fuels - significantly lower than had been predicted. The trouble is that these bald numbers mask a continuing rise in emissions from developing nations offset by falls from developed nations caused by the financial downturn. So, all in all, this is not good news - just likely to be a one-year blip with overall emissions predicted to be on the rise again this year. What price Cancun?

Economic Nonsense

There's an article in a recent New Scientist indicating that investors are pricing alternative energy stocks at a level suggesting that they don't think renewables will replace fossils for another 130-odd years. But no-one lives for 130 years so why would any investment decision be taken on that basis? I can't think of any stocks that are that illiquid so markets would move much earlier and quicker. This is a case of an economic model departing from reality and wasting good publishing space.

HMG Spending

Just thought I'd join everyone else and have a little play with the published HMG departmental spending information. In particular I looked at DECC, given that indirectly they paid much of my EST salary.

As most of the commentators have said - it's all pretty useless without some sort of context. Indeed a cursory look at the DECC numbers rather triggered a desire to yawn but there are one of two things that make one stop and think. I looked a bit more closely at the September spend (DECC publish items down to £500). In that month alone there was an outlay of £323,330 on hire of agency staff. Now, there's little indication of the grade of hirees but it looks like a fair number of bums on seats to me.

Then there are some interesting inter-departmental transfer charges. For instance some £9,692,000 was paid in grants to BIS in September. Now what's all that about? Defra received £222,063 for "minor works".

But the one that really caught my eye was £2,350 of professional subscriptions to Stonewall. Really?

Huhne and the CBI

Upbeat minister, downbeat director general. It was ever thus!

I have much more sympathy for Richard Lambert's analysis than Chris Huhne's exhortations and hand-wringing, especially over changes to the CRC. To switch from a revenue recycling scheme, with all the incentives that are thereby entailed, to a plain environmental tax strikes me as just crass. Huhne signalled a little bit of reigning back but only on time-tabling and exemptions, not on the basic taxation principle.

Lambert also identified the possible damp squib of a Green Investment Bank, the lack of any discernible movement in public attitudes, and the close-your-eyes-and-wish situation with the Green Deal as further worrying issues.

I couldn't agree more.

CABE Faces Up To The Future

The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) is one of the organisations whose public funding is being withdrawn as a result of the Comprehensive Spending Review. The organisation has now finally admitted that it will have to change radically if it is to survive. I have to own up to being somewhat equivocal about all this. CABE has done some excellent work but whenever I've really wanted to get into some detailed advice - we've recently been reviewing our local public spaces, admittedly rural rather than urban - I've found that their publications rather skim the surface. Perhaps if they can find another source of substantial funding they will find focus along with it.

A New Plan A?

Unilever has unveiled it's Sustainable Living Plan - and on the surface it looks a lot like the M&S Plan A. There are some bold targets - halving the environmental impact of their products is, for instance, one of their headlines. When one delves a little more closely this actually translates into halving GHG emissions, water use and end-of-life waste; and sourcing 100% of their agricultural raw materials sustainably. And delving even further there is an interesting mix of "hard" technical targets and "softer" social action ones. In my quick wizz through I spotted that they aim to change their customers' showering habits, quite correctly identifying that the biggest impact from their shower products is the amount of time that people spend under the shower using them. We know that heating water is a significant source of CO2 emission from domestic premises. All this is within the context of Unilever still growing, so there is still the whole natural resources demand issue to tackle but if they can pull off what they claim to be targeting it willl be a significant step forward and might even have a wider market impact.

We All Do It

A recent Telegraph article, quite rightly, points out the similarities between the Deep Water Horizon and Chernobyl disasters in that both resulted from a string of human errors - and, to some extent inexplicable ones at that. The article suggests that over-confidence is a root cause of these skilled operators taking plainly stupid decisions - and even quotes my old colleague Brian Edmondson's summing up of Chernobyl: the operators had lost their fear of the reactor.

We all do this to a greater or lesser extent. I have been guilty of ignoring warning lights in my car because of false alarms in the past and because I have it properly maintained, don't I. Why am I so confident that it's the warning system that's at fault and not the car engine or brakes or whatever? It's something to do with that "It won't happen to me" syndrome.

How one manages to avoid such errors in big systems such as Deep Water Horizon is a difficult question. Perhaps we should not rely on the long-term expert but always have someone on the steep part of the learing curve in charge - always retain the fear factor. Any good industrial psychologists out there?

Another Nuclear Step

The HSE has recently announced that the Regulatory Issue (RI) placed on the proposed control and instrumentation system for the European PWR has been closed and that the remaining concerns now equate to the status of a Regulatory Observation (RO). So, it looks as thought the GDA process is still on course.

Since my last post several colleagues have berated me for my support for nuclear - most of them pointing me to the recent Ecologist interview with Raul Montenegro. While I understand his argument about legacy issues, and cannot deny that they are serious in the case of nuclear, we are right now creating legacy consequences for our descendants by using fossil fuels. I cannot see renewable sources of energy coming on-stream quickly enough to provide for today's energy demands; and I cannot see that there is sufficient political will to reduce global consumption to the extent that renewables will be sufficient. So, do we leave our descendants to cope with inevitable climate change or do we present them with a nuclear waste problem that they may be able to contain? I propose the latter.

Persuading Consumers

Many thanks to Jon for pointing out the latest post on the Green Living Blog about branding the Green Deal. The post has some interesting and pertinent things to say - many of them very familiar from my time at the Energy Saving Trust. It's worth a quick read.

What it doesn't cover, though, is the value of peer pressure and the establishment of norms. I've recently observed this right outside my front door. Our home faces onto a piece of common land which, inevitably, attracts dog walkers. For years the excrement problem was just that - a problem - and an issue that was raised at almost every Village Assembly. Now, everything has changed. Almost every dog walker 'picks up'. There's never been any enforcement of anti-fouling legislation around here, and the number and location of litter bins has remained the same for years. It has simply become the norm.

Now, I admit that dog fouling is much more visible that, say, cavity wall insulation (apart from the tell-tale mortar repairs) but there must be someone out there who's clever enough to suggest how norming energy efficiency activity could take place.

Lighter Later - Undecided

I admit it - I haven't done my homework (the dog ate it, Miss). The Ligher Later campaign is urging people to contact their MPs ahead of the planned vote on December 3rd to push for a permanent 1 hour shift in the clock. Having got up pretty much in the dark this morning (7.00 if you must know) I can't subscribe, personally, to the "wasting daylight" argument. However, if the clamour from bodies supposedly in the know (those that have done their homework) is anything to go by then I'm not typical. This is one area where I shall simply watch with interest.

Short Term Rules

The latest CDP Europe 300 Report was published today. While I haven't ploughed through all 72 pages of the report (old age appears to be reducing my geekiness index) I was struck by the fact that although some 80% of companies have set an emission reduction target the majority of these expire in 2012 - just a couple of years away. And less than a quarter have targets beyond 2015. I'm not surprised. There's a parallel with the old agency theory stuff about the tension between actions promoting short-term gain and those needed for sustaining long-term value; and how they are incentivised. Emissions reduction is a long-term game and hopefully some of the laggards will take notice and act accordingly. One lives in hope!

Gas Plant Eligible for CCS

The Grauniad says that Chris Huhne will tomorrow announce that gas plants are eligible for the CCS demonstration programme. Is this a fig leaf to cover the embarrassment of the poor showing so far from coal plant? Certainly it is suggested that Huhne will not back the idea with mandatory teeth at the moment.

Future Car

The Future Car Challenge Brighton-London rally on Saturday was neatly juxtaposed with the London-Brighton Veteran Car Run on Sunday. It made me ponder that the love affair with the car really does seem to be on the way out. The vintage cars are loved, pampered, polished, cherished. What of today's cars, and those of the future? They seem to me to have entered the world of the utilitarian. Provided it gets me from A to B in reasonable comfort that's all that matters, seems to be the pattern. For the future car, then, the onus has to be practicality - exemplified by reliability and comfort - at the right price. What actually happens under the bonnet is a secondary issue. Therein lies the opportunity, and the threat, for future clean cars (and I see that Boris is launching a new charging network for EVs - now roll on de-carbonisation of the grid!).

Bottom of Bag is Further Away - and Cheaper

The Welsh Assembly's single-use bag charge is not now going to appear until October next year - and will be set at 5p rather than the 7p previously mooted. Will that make a big difference? A delay is unfortunate, of course, but I wonder how effective the charge will be anyway. Already the voluntary agreement involving many of the big retailers has achieved a near 50% reduction - will 5p make the difference to those who are immune to social pressures? I think not - for many the cost will simply get lost in the noise. That would, of course, be a pity - normalising behaviour is often the most effective change agent.

Calling All Green Megalomaniacs

Interesting new game launched in beta version by Red Redemption yesterday - Fate of the World. It puts the gamer in charge of an environmental organisation with the potential to save mankind from the excesses of climate change through emissions reduction or even (according to Edie) by introducing a virus to control the world's population. This is not as crass as the 10:10 video of climate criminals' executions but could still prove to be controversial. Having said that, this game has the potential to capture new audiences for the climate cause - and young audiences at that  - just the people who will benefit most from early mitigation and adaptation action.

Apparently the underlying prediction model was provided by Myles Allen who is head of the climate dynamics group at Oxford - so there should be some realism about the whole thing. This is important for breaking from any "fantasy" element into an appreciation of real-world issues. What is also important is that it should be a good gaming experience. This is why it will be bought in the first place and if it fails that test then no amount of worthiness will substitute.

What is quite exciting is the possibility that there will be more understanding of the complexity of the issues, of their inter-relatedness, and of the difficult decisions that have to be made by legislators.

Green Deal Timetable

There's a little bit more information about the great Green Deal on DECC's web site. It sets out the three stage process that we've all been expecting:
1) Survey to identify best options
2) Finance made available
3) EE package delivered.

What is not clear to me is to what extent the availability of finance is linked to the most cost effective measures (e.g. to make sure insulation measures are installed ahead of generation measures). Nor is it clear just who the "accredited finance providers" will be and what conditions will be laid upon them and around the loans. Edie suggests local authorities - which has been the thinking all along - but in this "age of austerity" will they have the capital to make such provision? Measures will be installed by accredited suppliers. Of course, some accreditation schemes already exist - such as MCS. This hasn't had the best of press - being regarded as expensive and bureaucratic by some suppliers, especially smaller companies, and not necessarily being all that transparent to the customer. There are some lessons to be learned here if HMG is going to go down the "universal green kit mark" route. I guess this will be a case of the devil being in the detail.

Which brings me onto the timetable:
Next month - Bill introduced
Autumn 2011 - Royal assent
Early 2012 - Lay secondary legislation
Spring 2010 - Detailed guidance (whoopee!)
Autumn 2012 - First green deals.
So - don't hold your breath.

Wonersh Litter Pick

Only 8 of us turned up for the village litter pick today - not a stunning result. However, between us over one hour we removed more than 25kg of rubbish from the verges. Most of it was from the through road - so almost certainly derived from passing cars. It makes me MAD.

Previously Developed Land?

The recent "clarification" that gardens are not regarded as previously developed land, and are therefore not brown field sites as far as planning policy is concerned raises some interesting question about trade-offs.

In this quite(ish) corner of commuterland (SW Surrey to be particular) there is a crying need for affordable housing. One of the few resources available without resorting to special case circumstances enabling annexation of Green Belt has been garden use. This brings with it a degree of urbanisation (inevitably) and we lose whatever ecological benefit the garden was providing. But is this an optimal outcome? We are faced with losing our allotments in this village because the landowner now sees the opportunity to develop. A conundrum!!

Has the world gone nuts?

I'm not in the habit of copying stuff verbatim - but the following from the Ecologist just had to be posted:-

"Locals 'unable' to oppose Scottish coal power station

Dearbhla Crosse

October 15th, 2010

Campaign groups including RSPB challenge decision not to allow environmental objections to a new coal-fired power station in North Ayrshire

Locals in North Ayrshire are powerless to contest proposals for the UK's first new coal-fired power station for 40 years because of a flaw in government planning regulations.

The application to build Hunterston coal-fired power station was one of 14 major projects across Scotland, including some for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014, which are to be decided upon by the National Planning Framework (NPF).
However, the Hunterston application was submitted five months late thereby missing the main public consultation on all the proposed developments. It was also not advertised locally as required under EU law with campaign groups complaining local residents were largely unaware of the plans.

Clare Symonds, from Plannning Democracy, which campaigns for a more locally-accountable planning system, says Ayrshire residents had been 'disempowered' and had no 'meaningful public participation.'

'Unless you had any interest in planning you would never have heard of this [application]. It has huge implications for the future of Scotland's energy policy, climate change and the local environment.'

Now that the public consultation has closed, only aesthetic objections can be made to developments on the NPF list. Environmental concerns about carbon emissions and the untested nature of carbon capture and storage (CSS) technology, which developers plan to trial, are inadmissible during the consultation process. This is despite claims on the NPF website that it ‘addresses the major contemporary challenges of global competition, climate change and resource depletion.’

‘This means that during the consenting process it would be invalid to argue that Scotland does not need new coal-fired power stations to provide its energy, even if it can be shown that our energy needs can easily be met from renewable sources,’ Zoe Clelland, Senior Conservation Officer at the RSPB Scotland told The Ecologist. ‘We were very surprised to see such an environmentally damaging and unnecessary proposal being included.’

Although an Environmental Impact Assessment of the proposed £3 billion power station has taken place, the RSPB has raised serious concerns that water temperature of the sea could rise by up to 14C affecting biodiversity in the area.

If the development goes ahead on the SSSI, it would result in the direct loss of over 30 of some of the best intertidal habitats in the Clyde which is so rare on the Ayrshire coast,’ Clelland said.

Organisations such as WWF and RSPB Scotland have now formed a coalition challenging the proposal, with more than 16,000 objections having been raised. A judicial review on the proposal is due to take place in November.

Protests against the coal plant proposals earlier this week led to local activists shutting down the headquarters of the developers, Ayrshire Power in Glasgow"

NI186 - the Future?

I've just been looking at the summary table of NI186 results. It's by no means perfect - but then we knew that would be the case didn't we? However, it produces some very useful background information so that lobbying local government may be done from an informed perspective. This, for me, adds some urgency to ensuring that whatever replaces the national indicators - as signalled by CLG recently - simply must allow one to hold local government accountable to at least some extent for local emissions. Mr Pickles???

Slightly Khaki Games?

The London Assembly's Environment Committee issued a report today suggesting that the 2012 Games may fall short of their environmental aspirations. It's not all bad news, though. The report praises the organisation's approach to carbon footprinting and commends the aim of recycling 90% of temporary materials.

On the downside the committee particularly picks up on the lack of EVs, the potential to miss renewable energy use targets and expected problems over air quality, particularly around major access routes.

As a potential volunteer to the Games (my application is in - with a preference to work in the sustainability arena) I had already been pondering whether I could lessen my own impact. The answer so far is 'not by much'.

Here's hoping LOCOG don't fall too far short.

Valuing Biodiversity

I've been banging on a bit about accounting for externalities and now here's an example writ large. The World Bank has an initiative aimed at accounting for the "value of biodiversity" to be integrated into countries' development and poverty reduction strategies. Sounds to me like something that could be somewhat of a slow burner. Apparently there's a lot of arguing about whether (and how) this shold be integrated into national accounts.

Of course, this will not fully monetise the value of biodiversity - and is unlikely to do anything until a tax/incentive/obligation scheme hits companies' P&L accounts.

STEEPER - cutting down energy waste from gadgets

The BEEB reports on a project aimed at refining transistor technology markedly to reduce energy wastage from gadgets in stand-by or off mode.

How about educating people to turn the damned thing off at the wall socket?

Marine Planning System

So - we're going to have a marine planning system with two pilot areas off the NE coast (prosaically named East Inshore and Eats Offshore). Sounds fine and dandy, doesn't it? Afterall - there's a lot going on out at sea - oil & gas rigs, cable laying, pipework, wind farms, fishing, shipping, sailing and the odd madman up to some sort of stunt. Shouldn't it all be organised?

Steve Brooker, head of the Marine Management Organisation's marine planning, said: "As a country, we can .... take informed decisions about the development of our sea area and our priorities, based on shared understanding, a common baseline and sound evidence." The MMO said it was the first organisation in the world to develop an integrated planning system for the sea "mirroring the terrestrial planning regime, which has, over 60 years, become an established and trusted mechanism for integrating and balancing land use". Hmmm - I've had to deal with the terrestrial planning regime, albeit only at a local level of late, and it can be a nightmare of mistakes, illogical decision making, obfuscation, incoherent application of policies and bureaucratic bungling. Hopefully these aspect won't be mirrored!

Marine planning activities will be driven by the Marine Policy Statement which should fully see the light of day in spring 2011 (consultation on the draft has recently closed). So - don't hold your breath.

Scrapping Western Extension - Upsides and Downsides

So the Western Extension to the London Congestion Charge is to go. I haven't seen any statistics as to how successful it has been but I do have a general affinity for traffic control schemes such as this. On the upside it makes my trips to Opera Holland Park cheaper! (No - public transport Guildford - Holland Park - Guildford in the evening is not an option!)

Forest Sell-off

Recently both the Indie and the Grauniad have reported to likely announcement by Caroline Spelman of the sale of a significant area of forestry. Now, it is quite legitimate to ask why the government (via the Forestry Commission) owns and manages trees in the first place. However, it does, and recently the FC has moved away fom rows of conifers for industrial use and is actually doing something to create and sustain bio-diverse forests. So, it is to be hoped that any sale
(a) ensures that forests are not lost
(b) ensures that biodiversity is not diminished - preferably the revers should happen.
We shall see. After all, this is supposed to be the greenest government ever. And, as Defra's web site states:

Domestic forestry has a key role to play in meeting the government’s priorities of:

• supporting and developing British farming and encouraging sustainable food production
• helping to enhance the environment and biodiversity to improve quality of life
• supporting a strong and sustainable green economy, resilient to climate change

Quite so.

Most Cost Effective Technologies?

Just musing on DECC's announcement the other day that the FITs review will include a focus on the most cost effective technologies. Such thinking is very likely to influence the design of RHI tariffs, too, I would have thought. That raises quite a conundrum: It is acknowledged that a lot can be done by engagement at household or small community level (Jim Watson's post on the visit of Charles Hendry to SPRU gives some useful pointers) but at this level one does not necessarily achieve optimum paybacks. For instance, in early work on the subsidy costs required to make RHI work, solar thermal was shown to requires some £172/MWh(heat) - more than double the next technology cost. But solar thermal is one of the choices that householders will (relatively) readily install. So, how does HMG incentivise and encourage small-scale engagement and yet avoid a very expensive outcome? (Answers on a postcard, please).

Carbon Price Floor

This seems to be a recurrent theme at the moment. The FT reports that the big six utilities are lobbying for the carbon floor price to be set significantly higher than many commentators think will be the case, or for some other incentive to be put in place, in order that new nuclear can be incentivised.

For instance, it reports that Volker Beckers of npower is arguing for extension of the Renewables Obligation to cover nuclear on a "level playing field" basis. That is an argument that a lot of people have a problem with because of the huge rents that may be afforded to some technologies as a result. It's a long-running debate that's been knocked back and forth ever since the RO was first mooted. I don't think Mr beckers will get his way.

Shock! Horror! Richard Agrees With Stanley Johnson

I never thought the day would come but Stanley Johnson talking on the TV the other night about the pensionable age actually made (some) sense.

It's all to do with this kerfuffle about raising the pensionable age. Whilst ever the state scheme is a pay-as-you-go one and life expectancy continues to rise there will be increasing pressure on those paying NI. Surely it make sense to squeeze the gap between the age one takes one's pension and average life expectancy?

Oh dear - am I leaning too far to the right?

CCS - And then there was one

I missed that E.ON have shelved their plans for CCS at a new coal plant at Kingsnorth. They have cited poor economics as the reason - current power prices being depressed by lower demand because of the recession. This is yet another indicator that the power market mechanism must be changed - again.

The problem of prices trending towards short-run marginal cost whenever there is over-capacity is one that exercised me and colleagues when I was part of the industry years ago. Immediately after privatisation it wasn't a problem as there were really only two price setters in the market - PowerGen and National Power - everyone else was a price-taker. However, enforced divestment and revised market rules changed all that. The consumer has benefitted in the short term by enjoying relatively low prices. However, the pay-back may yet be to come unless some way of properly pricing in carbon and of getting more long-term certainty of prices can be found. If not, we could head towards the extreme economic signals of blackouts!

Fancy a Purple Wind Turbine?

I just love this.

Some research at Loughborough has suggested that white and grey, the usual colours of wind turbines, are among the colours most attractive to insects and therefore, turbines sporting these colours are the most hazardous to birds and bats feeding on the bugs. The suggestion is that purple is the optimum colour!

I can just imagine the NIMBY reaction to a proposal based on this!

100% Renewable UK Power by 2050?

According to Edie, at the Schumacher Conference last weekend Juliet Davenport of Good Energy suggested that by 2050 the UK could have 100% renewable electric power. And she coupled this with increasing switching to electricity for transport, heat and industrial requirements. This is a very brave new world!

Some years ago I did a small pilot study for a campaigning NGO on senarios for future electricity generation. At the time I couldn't see a good route out of the intermittency (e.g. wind) and variable demand problem because I could not forsee economical storage being developed. (The company I had previously worked for had hoped to bring forth such a technology but the challenges, and costs, led to the project being sold - and it seems to have sunk without trace). I still don't see a complete solution. Furthermore, I worry about the power density issue with renewables if we really are going to see an increase in electricity demand.

As a result, although I'd love to subscribe to Ms Davenport's brave new vision, I'm afraid I can't.

A Curate's Egg

Hmmm.

Could have been better - could have been worse.

Mr Osborne's announcements, of course.

The three big things everyone has been worried about are still there, but there's something rather mealy-mouthed about it all:
RHI - no indication of how the £860M will be allocated so nothing to get excited about yet. And that's somewhat less than the numbers trailed in February.
FITs - watch his space! What does HMG consider to be the most cost effective technologies?
Green Investment Bank - OK £1Bn is £1Bn but how much is that going to contribute in the long run?

Hopefully piloting CCS will crack on - it's needed.

DECC put a brave face upon it in their press statement but I bet there are some civil servants there who are smarting somewhat given the slashing of their administration budget.

Centrica Vision

I've been catching up on some archived reading (a never ending task!) and have just looked at Sam Laidlaw's speech to the RSA in September on transforming the energy sector. What leapt out at me was "We need to encourage low carbon capacity not just the lowest short run marginal cost. This means a strong price on carbon, so the polluter pays......the market will need to be reconstructed to reward all forms of low carbon generation." This really chimes with my previous post.

Of course there was a lot of puff about Centrica's role in any transformation and how they are already ahead of the curve etc etc but there were some good pointers to where we must be. Market restructuring, as mentioned above, is fundamental. Only by doing that will we properly incentivise grid decarbonisation - to include renewables, nuclear and CCS (I know some of my erstwhile colleagues will hate my mention of the 'n' word - but I'm convinced it has to be part of the mix). And of course energy efficiency has a huge role to play. Here again, the market requires transformation - will the Green Deal be up to it?

What I also found encouraging (I think) was some up-front acknowledgement that the consumer has to be convinced, that attitudes have to change, and that power companies have a major role to play in doing that - enabling people to manage their energy use - and part of that will be spelling out that the technological fixes noted above have a cost and the only way Joe Public has of minimising that cost is by not being profligate in his energy use.

Greenest Government?

We've all heard about the Government's wish to be the greenest ever but do we have the economic structures to actually achieve something meaningful? If green technologies are to take off - and let's concentrate on green energy for the moment - then either they have to compete within the current economic framework or that framework has to change. The latter seems like a step too far so how can the former work? The obvious answer is that externalities should be priced in to energy production technologies - in particular, the cost of CO2. We do have a carbon market of sorts but I'd argue that it's not yet coherent. Why? Possibly it is because it has to be a global market - CO2 distributes right across the planet - but we have a major player refusing to take part (i.e. the US not supporting Kyoto and not looking likely to change its stripes in the near term). This is depressing because until such time as we do have externalities properly priced in we will continue to over-consume fossil fuels, damaging the environment, until they become sufficiently scarce for the "traditional" economic signals to kick in. Potentially that will be too late.

What could happen, of course, is that emerging nations - China, India, Brazil, become the new engines of growth fuelled by clean new technologies and leave the US and Europe behind in the old ecomonics. Can they survive on their current major export - financial services? Having just seen those industries mess up big time one has to be doubtful.

Expanding out from the narrow confines of CO2, we need to think about all those "commodities" that we should regard as scarce. We need now to create markets in biodiversity, watersheds, forests that are designed to limit the consumption of these resources. This is a huge transformation in thinking. Do we have the time?

Letter to MP

Sent today:

Dear Ms Milton
I have been reading, with increasing concern, speculation that a number of climate change initiatives may be watered down or scrapped altogether. In particular, there have been suggestions that the Renewable Heat Incentive will never be launched; that the Feed-In Tariff  payments could be reduced well ahead of the previously published review date; and that capitalisation of the Green Investment Bank could be in jeopardy. Any one of these actions could spell severe problems for nascent UK green technology industries.
The FITs programme, as recent solar PV uptake statistics have shown, has proved to be a success story in stimulating interest in renewable power generation. To inject uncertainty into the industry at this stage would be a case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Similarly, with the closure of the Low Carbon Building Programme, there is a desperate need to keep the solar hot water sector alive. RHI could do this and signaling now that the government will retain this initiative will do much to retain confidence in the industry. Finally, for the longer term, a vibrant GIB is essential for the promotion of green industries and green jobs in the UK.
The government has claimed that it will be the "greenest ever". The initiatives noted above are key building blocks to achieving that ambition and I urge you to ensure that the Treasury protects them in the current spending review.
I look forward to reading your reply,

Bonfire of the Quangos

Tomorrow is supposed to be announcement day for a number of non-governmental bodies - possibly including my old haunt the EST. There's been much talk of the domestic advice remit going elsewhere - thereby really cutting into the Trust's core business. Already the funding from DECC has been severely cut back (and decision-making from that estwhile body while I was still at the Trust was painfully slow, thus making the management of a meaninful service really difficult). There has been chatter about an EST/CT/Ofgem threesome - something of a dog's breakfast I think - but it could still be on the cards. It rather depends upon how HMG wants to play things. With both EST and CT being essentially independent bodies one likely scenario is simply that funding is cut massively (even completely - think of the Sustainable Development Commission). Some insiders suggest that EST will have one more year to pave the way for the Green Deal - and that will be at a much reduced cash settlement such that the contribution from the Scottish Government next year could exceed that of DECC. What price a move of HQ to Edinburgh?

Indian Summer

Another glorious day! Our solar panels had delivered a tank full of hot water by noon - a few more pence toards break-even.

Shadow Cabinet Take 2

Well - the decision was made more quickly than anticipated. The shadow chancellor post was a nice bit of ducking and diving considering the Balls/Cooper issue.

Caroline Flint is back shadowing CLG - I stand by my earlier comments.

As for Meg Hillier shadowing Energy and Climate Change and Mary Creagh doing Environment Food and Rural Affairs, neither exactly has a track record so there's quite a learning curve to be climbed. Watch this space!

Looks as though Hilary Benn is being put out to grass.

Shadow Cabinet

I guess there weren't too many surprises in the shadow cabinet elections (but isn't a wierd way of going about selecting your top team?). A couple of names to conjure with:

Yvette Cooper I found deeply unimpressive when she was at CLG. I can't really comment upon her performance at the Treasury. Does she have the oomph to be shadow chancellor?

Hilary Benn did good stuff at Defra - a certain amount subsequently undone by someone named Miliband! What's the betting on him having that shadow portfolio?

Caroline Flint I thought was a disaster at CLG. I'm not sure quite where her star is in the Labour firmament.

John Healey I found very impressive when I was party to the early discussion about a retailers' initiative on consumer electronics (he was at the Treasury at the time). I guess given his poll rating he'll get a reasonably senior shadow post.

So possibly Hilary Benn could get the shadow environment post - but who will cover Energy and Climate Change? I can't spot any obvious candidates.

Rare Earths

A while ago I was debating with a good friend whether rare earth mining companies were worth investing in. This followed a report suggesting that demand for rare earths is likely to grow rapidly. The report suggests that supply may be insufficient to match this demand thus putting the brakes on electric vehicle and wind turbine production.

Now there's a report in the FT that China, producer of 97% of the world's rare earths last year, is consolidating production and cutting export quotas - the latter presumably in the expectation that the country can move out of low value-added ore extraction and processing and into finished product manufacture.

This rather throws the spotlight on other countries that have deposits but currently little market share because they cannot compete against China's low wage costs and lax pollution controls. There are plenty of reserves elsewhere (US, Canada, the former Soviet Republics, Malaysia, Australia, Greenland) but none of these has a developed supply chain and putting one in place could take years.

What price the UK government becoming the "greenest ever" under these circumstances?

Political Symbolism

News of two political symbols:

The White House will, after all, be installing solar thermal and PV panels (next spring)

and

HMG departments' energy use is now on-line.

Of course, as with much in the world of energy efficiency and sustainable energy, these individual acts will not, in themselves, make a huge difference to actual usage. However, they are very visible and do something to deflect the cynical argument that governments demand that we do as they say, not as they do.

The rating web site has some teething problems - as of today it is comparing the first  4 days in October (including 2 weekend days) with the totality of September and so is, not surprisingly, appearing to show large month on month savings - obviously a nonsence. However, what one can do is drill through to the energy rating certificate of each department's principal building. Both DECC (at Whitehall Place) and Defra (at Nobel House) are in E-rated buildings. What would be interesting to see over time would be what physical and behavioural measures are being put in place in each building in order to improve those ratings. If the White House can install solar panels how about government departments in Whitehall? Also, what about other departmental buildings? My memory of Defra's Ergon House (and my memory can play me false) is that it has a worse than E rating. To DECC's credit they also have (almost) instantaneous demand displayed on their home page. Hopefully this display will be adapted over time to cover more than the 24 hours currently shown. It's a good start! Are other departments doing the same (a quick search failed to find anything similar for Defra)? Spreadsheet-based datasets are available from the energy rating pages but that requires a bit of digging and then some user-analysis.

Barkham's Butterflies

Just read a review of Patrick Barkham's Butterfly Isles and viewed some of his photos on the Grauniad site. Having had several attempts at getting decent butterfly photos myself (I need a longer lens!) over the summer I can really appreciate some of his examples. This book has to go on the Christmas present list.

Schizophrenia in the Tory Ranks?

Interesting to hear the noises being made by Oliver Letwin at the conservative's conference about green policies. After all the negative noise being generated from within DECC and elsewhere suggesting that several green policies may go, or at best, be watered down Letwin essentially extolled the virtues of a "one coherent whole" policy package. So the Green Deal, FITs, electric vehicles etc all got a thumbs up.

Big Question: How influential is Letwin? Is this a rearguard action by someone sliding out of power or is he still a strong broker behind the scenes?

Let's hope that the latter is true.

He had some interesting things to say about NPV approaches to investment decisions - arguing that such an approach is OK for short term decisions but would never have allowed, for instance, Chartes Cathedral to be built. Actually, I don't think it's the approach itself that's flawed, more a case of too short an analysis period and/or a poor grasp of terminal values. Perhaps one could also add in not taking account of externalities correctly (which he did cite in a slightly different context).

So - we continue to watch this space.

Royal Society Climate Change Science Summary

The RS yesterday published an absolutely excellent layman's guide to climate change science. I commend it to anyone not completely immersed in the detail.

Mind you, I shared it with other respondents to one of Linked:Energy's discussion groups (The Darker Side of Green) and very soon had someone suggest it's a summary of "Junk" science. You can't win them all.

Statin' the Beedin' Obvious

Shock, horror! The Grauniad today reports Which's claim that "Free solar panels may not be the bargain that they appear to be". Surprise, surprise! Did anyone think that the companies making these offers would do it out of the kindness of their hearts? Just 5 minute thinking about the typical cost of capital for such concerns should persuade anyone that a standard loan and purchasing the equipment oneself will almost certainly be a better bet.

Ed and the Environment

One must hope that Ed Miliband's stint at DECC will not be forgotten as he works to develop his "new" Labour policies, though there was little encouragement in his conference speech and generally the lack of green issues on the conference agenda is woeful.

While at DECC he appeared to demonstrate a strong understanding of the threat from climate change, and the many challenges facing the UK if we are to adhere to our environmental targets and still "keep the lights on". There is now a genuine need for him to bring environmental policy to the fore to challenge the government where there seems to be Tory backsliding which the LDs are failing to arrest - FITs and and the RHI being two obvious issues.

Here's hoping

FITs to be downgraded?

Uh oh! No sooner do I sing the praises of FITs than there is an article in the FT suggesting that there are moves afoot to review the tariff levels well before the published 2013 date. This has the potential to be another stop-go fiasco (rather like the problems the CWI industry has been experiencing with EEC/CERT). If the government really does want to see "up to 250,000 green jobs" being created - as stated by Chris Huhne at the Lib Deb conference - then they absolutely must provide some stability and certainty. Perhaps there is an argument that FITs are a tad generous, with payback potentially of the order of 10 years, but there has to be some allowance for Joe Public's psychology. Most people seem to have a relatively high discount rate in the back of their minds when making major investment decisions such as installing PV (I bet most don't actually do a DCF calculation!) and there is a political decision to be made as to whether to allow for this, make the rewards slightly generous, and achieve extensive uptake of renewable technologies or to be purist and them bemoan slow penetration. It's a case of "watch this space" but HMG could well be shooting themselves in the foot with this one.

No Retrospective RHI

Surprise, surprise: There is to be no retrospective RHI and solar hot water early adopters will just have to be content with the "warm glow of being pioneers". I went ahead with my installation not expecting any such reward but it is somewhat galling to anticipate that others will not only be recipients of incentive payments but will also benefit from the scale economies that will be flowing through. It will not stop me making such investments in the future (and I will be going into solar PV soon which does benefit from FITs, so I'm not that much of a pioneer) but I wonder how many early adopters will be put off?

DECC in the Firing Line

There was an article in the Guardian yesterday (I still hanker after typing Grauniad) suggesting that Chris Huhne has a fight on his hands to keep DECC as a stand-alone department and to secure adequate funding. I can well imagine the troubles that the department is having. In my last year at EST it was clear that this relatively young and small department had few friends in the Treasury. One has to hope that Huhne succeeds, though. It would be a major blow to the claim that this government is "the greenest ever" if DECC were to be swallowed up - after all, its creation at last suggested a willingness to break down the barriers and conflicts that have existed for years between civil servants with the business/energy brief and those on the environmental/climate change side. Having said that, as with, I guess, most departments, there are some woefully inadequate members of staff who would not be missed.

These reported moves also bring into question just what form the proposed green bank will take, what powers it will have (lending etc) and whether there will be any government funding. I'm with Caroline Lucas in thinking that tackling climate change should take priority over spending cuts (but then I would be, wouldn't I?). The signs as not good for Treasury to provide significant, or even barely adequate, funding.

Back from Greece

Just had a great belated 60th birthday party on Alonnisos. Wonderful. (I hardly feel guilty about the air miles).

On reflection I am struck by a number of contradictions in the Greeks' attitude to the environment. Solar hot water is almost universal. As are CFLs. But the houses I'm sure could be bettter constructed for heat retention in the winter (especially) and minimising solar gain in the summer. And the rubbish (which is a darn sight better than in a lot of Greek islands) is still scattered around. This is notwithstanding the fact that Alonnisos is in a marine conservation park.

I guess we're all alike. As I said at the top - I contributed a lot of CO2 by flying there!

2016 Regs to be Watered Down?

The problems of defining, and then actually supplying, zero-carbon homes continue. There does seem to be some muddled thinking going on here. Somehow HMG needs to really think through (i) high quality, low energy-requiring homes and (ii) grid decarbonisation. A community energy fund just feels like the worst kind of off-setting and it's no wonder that the building industry is against it. But I'd be more sympathetic to their case if they'd sort out all the quality issues that exist in their sector. Passivhaus or similar is easily doable - why can't the UK building industry train their employees properly, manage their on-site quality control well, and produce decent homes? And why on earth have we had no prosecutions for homes failing minimum standards?

Lawson vs King

Woh! Just seen that the CBI is to host a debate between Nigel Lawson and David King. It would be fun to be present at that given that I find both to be somewhat outspoken. Will there be a decent referee? And how many judges?

Lomborg U-turn?

The Grauniad (I guess that's showing my age!) has an "exclusive" suggesting that Bjorn Lomborg's new book will declare that climate change is "undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today". The book will apparently call for significant investment in ways of resolving the climate change issue by the end of the century. That's an interesting timescale. Sure, climate effects show huge hysteresis but there's something a tad complacent about the way Lomborg's argument is put across. To be fair, it may be dodgy reporting rather than anything else but I just don't get any sense of urgency from the article. Also worrying is the implication that climate engineering is high on Lomborg's list of interventions. I quail at the thought of the law of unintended consequences once again letting rip!

Still, if the report is half-way accurate it's an interesting and timely publication given the problems that the IPCC faces at the moment. Perhaps Lomborg should not be compared with Hitler after all. (Actually I thought that was an absolutely crass statement by Pachauri and totally unworthy of someone in his position).

Nuclear Delays

Piece in the Guardian yesterday about the HSE's 2nd quarterly report on their Generic Design Assessment of proposed nuclear stations. As you might expect, the Guardian has a more sensational take on the situation than the HSE. One thing that struck me was HSE's comment that they are having to use more "technical support contractors". I chatted to some old colleagues a few weeks ago who vouchsafed that they are being inundated with work - particularly training up scientists and engineers for future operational work. The country has a huge skills gap given that the last station to be built was Sizewell B, that the research and engineering expertise was scattered to the four winds upon privatisation (20 odd years ago - tempus fugit!) etc. It rather makes one wonder if there are going to be a few repetitions of mistakes from the past.

Which reminds me of when I started at EST and became aware of all the problems that there had been with condensing boilers. Of course, those problems were just the same as we'd experienced in the power industry for years. Interesting that there'd been no cross-fertilisation - and it begs the question of how much more knowledge is being re-discovered, how much research is being duplicated, just because we are not good at cross-sector learning.

Back to the HSE. Their report does highlight a number of areas where the plant designers have been slow in bringing forward information or (more worrying, this) where the quality of what is being provided is poor. Delays happen, of course. This puts pressure on HMG ultimately to ensure "the lights don't go out" which I think they will achieve by breaking CO2 pledges (see my post from 24th August). Time will tell. But if there are quality issues now, what is likely to be the situation further down the line - especially if delays mount up and there is generated a tendency to cut corners?

Solar PV on the up

Encouraging article in the FT today (sorry, can't add a link - I've used up this month's free allocation and I'm too mean to subscribe) noting that a record number of homeowners have installed PV panels this month (2200 homes). It's all down to FITs which have really converted the economics (just wait until my inheritance rolls in!). Hopefully the vast majority of those installations will perform well (we don't want a repeat of the old double glazing salesman scenario). What is not clear is how many people are funding the installations upfront and how many are taking up the "rent your roof" offers. Also, there's nothing about advice on optimal usage (timeshifting appliance operation, for instance). Hopefully that is being given but one wonders.

Parenthetically, this summer has been great for my solar hot water system - my gas usage has been way down - I know the payback period is horribly long but none-the-less it gives me a sense of satisfaction.

On the double glazing front, our local paper this week carries an advertorial for a glazing concern trumpeting the fact that its windows have BFRC ratings. Without outwardly lying the article is misleading in that it states that the BFRC rating range is A to G (true) but doesn't say anything about Building Regs requirements (soon to be Band C or better under Approved Document L1B). It would be very easy for the uninitiated to think they were really "doing their bit" when all they are in fact doing is complying with minimum standards! I feel a letter to the press coming on.

Charles Hendry and the Energy Gap

There's a badly written piece on Energy Minister Charles Hendry in the Telegraph - but it does contain some interesting pointers. He is obviously keen to see strong investment in nuclear capacity and "sees it as his job to remove barriers to investment". This doesn't yet amount to direct subsidies, that would rock the coalition boat too much, but there's obviously a certain amount of scratching around for wriggle room - somehow increasing the cost of carbon to benefit all non-carbon generators (watch for rising energy bills). Don't get me wrong - I think there's a need for nuclear and C-pricing is one way of helping that happen - but why can't we be upfront with the debate? Incidentally, he's reported as saying there's a prospect for Magnox fleet life extension. I think that's sloppy reporting - aren't only Oldbury and Wylfa are still operating/ Presumably the comment was about the AGRs?

There's also mention of relooking at FITs and the RHI. The legislation has reviews of the former built in - so no surprise in comments about that. And the RHI looks expensive so expect that to be watered down if and when it comes forward.

No mention at all about the demand side (surprised?). Makes one wonder how joined up they are in DECC.

All-in-all I'm not convinced that there's a coherent approach to meeting electricity demand - and 2015 is getting awfully close.

Peak Oil

Hmmm. The Guardian online today picks up on a bit from the Observer suggesting that minister are more concerned about peak oil that they have hitherto let on. About time too! "Experts say they have received a letter from David Mackay, chief scientific adviser to the DECC, asking for information and advice on peak oil". DECC officials did not deny this but said it was a 'routine' enquiry. Why can't they just come out and say that peak oil is a concern? Later on in the article there's apparent official endorsement of the IEA's position that there is sufficient resource until 2030 as long as investment in new reserves is maintained. But 2030 is only 20 years away. Isn't this complacency rather worrying?

ETI Initiatives

I had a quick look at the details of the ETI's initiative in domestic retrofitting. There's some good stuff about recognising the enormity of the problem, the need for a trusted supply chain and also for product assurance. However, I wonder do we really need some of the things being proposed - models of CO2 impact and optimum interventions, for instance? Surely we have enough of these already. And isn't is a pity that DECC have chosen to axe the ETF field trials being undertaken by the EST, especially the one on solid wall insulation. This would have gone a long way down the product assurance road for this particular intervention.

Also on the ETI's news page are details of their recently announced call for energy storage demonstration proposals. I couldn't help smiling as I thought back to my days at Innogy and the hopes that Regenesys would be the wonder technology. We were talking exactly the same language back then - managing intemittency from renewables. Hopefully someone will come through with a winner!

GE announce new fast charging points

I picked this up from Edie today: GE Charging Points
It's a month old so I guess a lot of people will be aware; however, it prompted me to think again about motivation vis-a-vis personal electric transport. This technology boasts a 4-hour charge time which still seems to me to be not yet in the league for mass uptake. I think we still await substantive grid de-carbonisation and a significant liquid fuel/electricity price differential before EVs take off.

Incidentally, I've been playing with DECC's 2050 calculator. There's much food for thought there; perhaps a later post, too.

Waste Britain: UK's emissions could be cut at flick of a switch

That's a headline from the Indie. There's nothing new in the notion that many small actions can have a significant effect. However, what the article is really highlighting is some research from Imperial College suggesting that the marginal electricity emission factors used by DECC are too low. I wonder though. In the days of the old Power Pool system that might have been true, provided that the demand reduction was large enough, but these days the electricity market doesn't work like that - it's all about bilateral agreements - and on the assumption that demand volatility won't change then there won't be any change in the plant required for system balancing. I may be wrong - this is top of the head stuff - but I shall carry on using DECC's factors for the time being.

Shamley Pond Project Concludes

I was down in Shamley this afternoon when the funds donors were able to view what their donation had enabled: One dead village pond very much brought back to life. Congratulations are due to all those involved: it's great to see even the smallest of environmental projects succeeding.

Voluntary Responsibility Deals on Waste

So Defra is proposing voluntary deals with businesses on waste, the thinking being that they should "be encouraaged to do the right thing, rather than [be] tied down or penalised with excessive rules or regulations". All well and good - and an encouragement to many companies' CSR policies - but ultimately it's the bottom line than counts in business decisions. In many cases reducing waste is cost effective, and does improve the bottom line, so perhaps Defra could look beyond exhortations to "do the right thing" and do more to ensure that businesses understand the inherent benefits in waste minimisation.

Defra Press Release