Good at Boasting Bad at Emission Reduction

The government of the United Kingdom have boasted that in the past twenty years the UK has cut its emissions of greenhouse gases by 25%. The government is very good at boasting boasters are invariably liars.

What Goes Around Comes Around

Our economic woes and the odd act of terrorism have distracted us from the fact that the weather in many places in the world is playing unusual tricks. In the United States of America, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Indiana and Iowa have suffered from record levels of rainfall. Properties that never suffered from flooding have flooded, people have been evacuated from their homes and five people so far have died as a result of the severe flooding, which has reached the state where it can properly be called a severe weather event. If the USA were not rich and well organised, many more people would have died.

Desperately Trying to Become a Cuckoo

If it were lawful for a multinational corporation to make money by breeding people in order to kill them and processing bones from specially bred humans fattened on special diets into expensive products, they would do so. If such a venture were profitable there would be many investors whose money would finance such venture. If the venture was very profitable and brought some poorly paid employment to a section of their governed, the business would be protected by governments and there would be many people (provided that they were not victims or likely to be victims of such ventures) who would be capable of expounding rational and wonderful arguments why such venture should be permitted. There would also be fine rules about corporate governance and spellbinding rhetoric as to the importance of these ventures.

The Renewable Heat Incentive

It is just not possible to run a renewable heat business in the United Kingdom.  Government politicians Mr Greg Barker and Mr Ed Davey who are in charge of renewable heat policies simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth when they publish a plan and they certainly cannot be trusted to stick to their announcement. You cannot simply believe anything that the Department of Energy and Climate Change publishes on its website about its plans for the Renewable Heat Incentive.

Wind Turbines and the foolishness of subsidising them

About ten miles north of Ramsgate, in the middle of the Thames Estuary some 175 offshore wind turbines have been installed and are now operating, as wind turbines operate, in their own misunderstood fashion. If it is windy, and not too windy, the turbines generate electricity. The publicity claims that the wind turbines will generate enough electricity for 470,000 homes but the publicity is imprecise. There are only 22.5 million homes in the United Kingdom and to power them all will need another 50 arrays of similar turbines but unfortunately it is not as simple as that.

The loss of rain forest – bad news disguised as good news.

Sometimes bad news is announces as good news. An example is the latest news about the destruction of the Amazon rain forest in Brazil. The rate of destruction has fallen by 27%, which means that “only” 4,600 square kilometres have been lost in the twelve months ending in July 2012, compared with 6,000 square kilometres the previous year. For small mercies we should give thanks but this is not a small mercy, but simply a statement that we are permanently destroying less of the rain forest now than we did a year ago.

Greenhouse Gases Reach a New Record

The World Meteorological Organization reports that 2011 saw greenhouse gases reach their highest ever. Carbon dioxide was at 391 parts per million and methane at 1,813 parts per billion. These are trace elements in the atmosphere but nevertheless play an important role in the radiative forcing that leads to global temperature rises.  

The Rationale for Green Policies

It seems that many people are blaming green policies for high energy costs and all our present economic woes. Green policies seem to be a convenient scapegoat. However there are good reasons why green policies should be continued, but I write those words on the basis that not all policies that pretend to be “green” are in fact useful or helpful for environmental protection.

Energy Prices Set to Rise as Risk of Power Cuts Increases

Already it has started. First the rumours of an energy price increase have gathered momentum. Although most energy companies have rules out an increase for the rest of this year, unless you have fixed your energy price, expect a swinging increase in gas and electricity bills from January onwards. There are probably several reasons why you should expect a price increase.

1. Natural gas prices remain linked to oil prices and as the world come out of recession demand for natural gas and oil will increase. Most of the UK’s electricity is generated by natural gas. Most of the UK’s heating is provided by natural gas.
2. Natural gas remains a regionally priced commodity whereas oil is an internally price commodity. Most of the UK’s natural gas comes from European sources, as natural gas production in the North Sea declines.
3. As with any regionally priced commodity prices are high when demand is high and low when demand is low. Demand is always higher in winter, and there is still very little natural gas storage in the UK. We and the energy companies therefore los the opportunity to buy and store natural gas in summer when the prices are low.
4. We have been reducing the “spare” electrical generating capacity for many years. If we are to avoid the possibility of power cuts we ought to have a “spare” capacity of around 50%, so as to cover for a very cold long winter. At the moment we have about 14% spare capacity and OFGEM, the regulator, expects this to fall to 4% in 2015.
5. We have closed our coal burning power stations rather quickly, and although OFGEM appears to blame EU legislation for this, the truth is that the UK has been rightly closing coal burning power stations for years. What the government have not done is to build sufficient new power stations. I know that many think that governments in the UK do not build power stations – that is the job of the generating companies – but in truth the generating companies will only build power stations if they receive huge government subsidies. The government has very little tax payers’ money left and therefore no there are no subsidies as one by one the generating companies refuse to take the commercial risks of building new nuclear power plants.
6. There has been insufficient investment in energy saving; the energy we require each year will be significantly less in terms of that required for space heat if we required all buildings to be properly insulated.
7. Investment in renewable energy has been, so far, in the wrong kind of renewable energy. We have wasted much money on wind farms and photovoltaic panels which produces little effective energy saving because electricity cannot be stored but have not spent anything on solar water heating, a simple and effective technology where the energy created can be stored until it is need.

All of these factors will mean that energy – both heat and electrical – will come in increasingly short supply, which creates a perfect situation for the energy companies who can all raise their prices for something that we need and cannot generally buy elsewhere except in the case of solar water heating, where we can but the power plant and install it on our roofs.

The taxpayer will pay in higher energy prices and will risk power cuts in very cold weather, because successive governments’ failure to develop a sensible energy policy.

International Spending on Renewable Energy

If you measure climate change measures that each country adopts by money spent and targets you get a fair idea of the importance that each nation places upon climate change. Of course measuring targets is foolish; targets are fairly meaningless, can be easily fiddled and often miss the point. For example the United Kingdom