Diesel Scrappage - Confused Messages?

There continues to be much chatter about diesel car scrappage schemes and, indeed, the launch of various bespoke initiatives by several manufacturers. What does this all mean and how is the proverbial "man in the street" likely to react.

The current round of angst is mainly around NOx emissions from diesel engines, coupled in varying degrees to particulate production. These pollutants are produced in greater quantities by diesel engines than by their petrol equivalents; and some 40% of the cars on the UK's roads are diesel powered following the successful push to promote these vehicles over petrol ones because of their better CO2 emission characteristics.

The currently proposed schemes mostly target Euro 1 to Euro 4 standard cars - some explicitly, some implicitly through defining a registration date cut off. Most schemes are diesel only, although the recently announced Ford one is for petrol engines as well. In some cases the new purchase has a threshold CO2 emissions limit, but this doesn't appear to be the case universally. Electric vehicles would seem to be another thing altogether (the still steep development curve and the problem of how the electricity is generated in the first place being two rather large elephants in that particular room). And let's not beat around the bush - new cars sales are on the wane so manufacturers will want to find ways of promoting their uptake. A scrappage scheme is not a bad "vehicle" to achieve this.

This could all be a tad confusing to the average punter. Should HMG be stepping in and running a national scheme? This has the potential of levelling the playing field but possibly on a "lowest common denominator" basis. Also I suspect that at Treasury level there is little appetite for such public expenditure.

I rather think that while manufacturers are taking a lead, however confusingly, HMG will be content to let them run ahead. There may be some tinkering with vehicle excise duty - but here HMG will be wary of angering those drivers who purchased Euro 5 and Euro 6 diesel models in good faith because of their CO2 emission characteristics.

Considering pollution generally all schemes would appear to be beneficial as far as NOx and particulates are concerned. CO emission may rise - the limits on petrol cars are twice those on diesel ones. For CO2? Probably beneficial again, but this is one area where the waters do seem really muddy and if there is one thing the manufacturers could do that is to incentivise CO2 reduction as an adjunct to other benefits in their schemes.

Earth Overshoot Day

I dislike the concept of "natural resource budgets" and their ilk which is why I didn't post this link about Earth Overshoot Day when it first appeared. However, the underlying message is an important one - we are increasingly denuding the world of resources that really should  be there for our children, grandchildren and their descendants. Frankly it is shameful that in this country we consume, on the basis used in the article, at 3 times a sustainable level.

Brexit and my MP - Part 14

My follow up:

21 August 2017

Dear Mrs Milton,

Thank you for your letter of 14 August 2017 in response to my email of 20 July 2017. In it you state “As I understand, leaving Euratom is a result of the decision to leave the European Union as they are uniquely legally joined”. Actually, Euratom and the European Union are legally quite distinct organisations although the former does use the same institutions as the EU including the ECJ. This is precisely why I wrote to you in the first place as, with a little compromise, it seems to me that the UK could retain its membership of Euratom avoiding the risks inherent in leaving. At the very least a proper risk/reward analysis should have been undertaken, something the Government failed to do as I pointed out in my original communication. I have not seen a reasoned explanation for the Government’s decision to leave but I presume that the main drivers are the Tory right’s pathological dislike of the ECJ and the continued free movement of nuclear specialists which ongoing membership would require.

You allude to the Nuclear Safeguards Bill as a replacement vehicle for continued safety standards and, indeed, the Bill does appear to address certain functions of Euratom (ensuring that civil nuclear material is not diverted from its intended use, for instance). However, it does not address other functions such as access to expertise and capital.

Among the issues you did not address in your letter are:

       1) Access to nuclear fuel. Approximately 20% of the UK’s electricity is generated in nuclear power stations, and there are plans for new stations (including Hinkley Point C, currently under construction) that will require fuelling. The UK has no indigenous sources of nuclear fuel, relying on imports especially from the eight countries with which Euratom has cooperation agreements and which control over 70% of the world’s uranium supplies. These arrangements would fall away on the UK’s departure from Euratom and would have to be replaced – no small requirement.

       2) Supply of medical isotopes. The UK has no reactor producing medical isotopes; these have to be imported with the Euratom Supply Agency currently having oversight of the market. Many of these isotopes have short half-lives making the proper functioning of supply chains time critical. Without the support of Euratom the UK is at risk of poorer, less controlled supply. I am sure that with your medical background this is something that you would not wish to see happen.     

      3) There are some 126 tonnes of plutonium stored at Sellafield owned and controlled by the Euratom Supply Agency. What happens to this after the UK leaves?

One is tempted to revert to the old adage: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

Yours sincerely

Richard Bawden

Brexit and my MP - Part 13

The latest load of tosh:

Sea-borne Plastics

Two articles have passed before my eyes recently that, taken together, present a worrying picture.

The first details the incredible build up of rubbish, most of it plastic, on Henderson Island, an uninhabited piece of land just 5 km wide located between Australia and South America. A recent expedition there found some 38M items of rubbish, in all weighing approximately 18 tonnes. On the beaches were an average of 239 items of junk per square metre. Much of this material is decades old attesting to the generally slow degradation of plastic.

The other article argues that there is actually much less plastic in the ocean than expected. The authors also note that the total amount in the waters appears to have plateaued, a situation that is difficult to explain by purely physical processes. They go on to proposed that this situation may be the result in an increase in the population of microbes with the ability to biodegrade plastic. (There is a counter argument that plastic is simply sinking to the sea bed as colonising organisms weigh it down). Even if the degradation hypothesis is correct it may still not be good news - all that may be happening is that the potentially harmful additives that are contained within many plastic are being released into the environment at an ever increasing pace.

So - there is a huge amount of junk floating around out there; and there is an even greater quantity of "missing" junk from which unpleasant chemicals may be being released. It's time to reinvigorate the old mantra - "reduce, reuse, recycle".