Any Geeks Out There?

Last month DECC published the 2009 LA CO2 emissions statistics. Not surprisingly, where there have been big falls in emissions it has been mainly through the industrial and commercial sectors and I would guess strongly attributable to the recession. However, I dipped into the data for my own LA (Waverley) and noted that all sectors have been steadily, if slowly, declining since 2005. Vaguely encouraging. So, any geeks willing to do some wizzy stats analysis to really tell us what's going on?

Shale Gas Good for UK?

Listened to an interesting argument the other day - all suggesting that in the medium term US shale gas is good for the UK.

The argument went something like this:

North Sea gas is dwindling.
So the UK is becoming more dependent upon imports.
Renewables are not coming on-stream fast enough.
So UK will remain dependent upon imports for the medium term - especially for electricity generation.
With economic shale gas discoveries US gas reserves have risen from 800 Tcf to 2800 Tcf.
So US has over 200 years of gas resources at its disposal.
So it may well flood the market in the next 5 years or so.
So prices will fall.
And the UK is best positioned to receive US exports.

Simples!

Do you believe that? And what about the enviromental cost?

Not Surprised

Just caught up with research released by EOn last month. This gave various reasons for people not having their lofts insulated including:
> can't be bothered 10%
> too much clutter 9%
> no ladder 3%
> don't know how 15%
> can't afford it 17%.
Am I surprised? No. It's been clear to anyone in or near the industry that the message just isn't getting home. Unfortunately insulation isn't sexy. Thought's on turning this around anyone?

Oil Prices and Recessions

You might like to take a look at this Paul Hodges blog. It argues that the US (and by implication it should be true of other Western economies) has suffered a recession every time that oil costs rise above 3% of global GDP. Hodges points out that oil costs are currently about 5% of global GDP and guess what the economic state of the US is? I'm no economist but Hodge's arguments strike me as a tad simplistic; and he hasn't established a causal relationship. Nevertheless, there is plenty of food for thought surrounding dwindling oil supplies, slow progress to renewable forms of energy, the high costs of the latter, an exploding global population, increasing lifestyle expectations of emerging nations (especially the BRICs) etc. Worrying times!

Nuclear vs Renewables

I've recently quickly perused the CCC's blog post on nuclear vs renewables. A few things strike me:

1) Fascinating to see how close the CCC's scenario is to one I produced when working up some background information at the start of WWF's PowerSwitch campaign. Needless to say WWF wouldn't contemplate a scenario with nuclear in it so I had to excise it from my final report. Just goes to show that power generation technology hasn't moved on a lot in the last 8 years (You wouldn't expect it to, really).

2) The CCC uses discount rates of 7.5% and 10% in its charts for all technologies. I guess that it's reasonable to assume that all the various options included in the CCC scenarios will be mature by 2030 and therefore a single discount rate is applicable. When I was undertaking this kind of analysis we tended to use technology (and project) specific discount rates better to reflect the actual risks associated with the particular scheme under investigation.

3) The CCC uses costs derived from a report by Mott Macdonald (the CCC blog link, above, will link you through to this report). I've downloaded it but not read it yet (it's fat!). However, just from the CCC charts I'm struck by the wide range of uncertainty. For example, all at 10%, solar PV is estimated to be between 11.0 and 25.0 p/kWh (2010 prices); wave power is 15.5 to 31.5; and unabated gas is 5.0 to 14.0. I'm guessing that the big spread in the last of these is down to uncertainty in the gas price. It makes the cost estimates for nuclear (5.0 to 10.0 p/kWh) look staggeringly certain.

Get Recycling but not Energy Saving?

A survey by Ipsos/MORI for INCPEN suggests that peolpe "get" recycling but are much less with it as regards energy saving. The survey was a bit wierd, though. People were asked to pick 3 things they could do to help protect and improve the environment. Some 52% chose "recycle bottles, cans, paper and other materials", whereas just 22% chose "turn down the home heating". However, I wonder if it's not just different understanding of environmental impact that's led to these results. Recycling is relatively pain free - especially with significant kerb-side collection options. On the other hand turning down the heating thermostat could force one to wear a sweater (heaven forbid) - and it seems that many of us have become accustomed to shirt-sleeve living.

Ghost Customers

I've just picked up on a press release from Moneysupermarket claimimg that some one million households are not paying for their gas and/or electricity. It appears that about half of these have tried to identify their supplier but can't! Now, I know first hand that billing organisations can be a tad chaotic but you would have thought that with every meter having a unique identifier, and there being only 6 major suppliers (plus some minnows) it wouldn't be too difficult for the industry to get it's act together. Meanwhile, each of us who is a good egg and is paying up probably has a bill that's a good 4% higher than it ought to be! Hmmm!

Reversal for an Icon

Use of plastic supermarket carriers has the status of an iconic touch-stone of sustainability, even though its reduction is not the no.1 priority. It is disturbing therefore to learn that WRAP has recently reported an increase in single-use carriers. In 2010 6.4bn (yes, that's billion!) bags were used, up by 0.3bn from the previous year. This is still way below WRAP's first recorded figure of 10.1bn in 2006 but still an unfortunate trend. Why has this occurred? Has the great British public become blase? Does each and every one of us actully need to use 8.6 bags per month? Perhaps it's time to relaunch the drive to reduce plastic bag use.

DeIndustrialisation = Greater Emissions?

Well, that's something reported in "Climate Change and Public Policy Futures" a report issued by the British Academy. It suggests that emissions arising from the creation of goods in the UK fell by 15% from 1990 but those associated with the consumption of goods produced elsewhere rose by 19% in the same period. The report argues that the UK's market-centred green growth approach to climate change is ineffective (so what's new there then?) but we are stuck in this paradigm because stating the problem is easy but finding a solution much more difficult. Nevertheless, the argument goes, a much modified green growth approach is required.

Going back to my title, one key problem is that there is no mechanism within the Kyoto or UNFCCC frameworks to account for and rectify global emission flows. The report further argues that cap-and-trade, mandated market solutions, carbon taxes and subsidies are insufficient to the task. There is a requirement for policy integration across social, economic and environmental policy which has not been recognised, let alone implemented.

Heady difficult stuff!