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.