It has taken ten years of talking big about climate protection for the United Kingdom Government to turn its attention to removing the barriers that impede environmental and climate protection. These barriers are often imposed by the Government so correcting them is well within the gift of the authorities; when I explain the Government’s proposals you might be astonished that it has taken so long to bring these proposals forward.

The proposals were announced by John Healy, who is the United Kingdom Minister for Housing and Planning. He proposes that home owners, businesses and developers should be able to install micro generating technology such as solar panels, wind turbines up to 15 meters high and heat pumps without having to apply for planning permissions, and similarly install charging points for electric cars again without the red tape and expense of planning.

These proposals have only just been released and will now go through a consultation.

I have lost count of the number of consultations that the United Kingdom Government has initiated about microgeneration and climate protection. I do not understand why they simply do not get on with the job in hand. Consultations are mainly a way to enable people to have their say and let off steam; I cannot remember a single energy or climate protection consultation in which the Government has adopted any of the proposals or advice of the consultees. Indeed, the way the questions are framed on consultations indicates that there is no room for changing proposals, only for generating wasted effort and paper.

Anything that makes it easier to install microgeneration has to be welcomed. Microgeneration is the key to climate protection, as the Government will one day understand.

There has already been some loosening of planning regulations on microgeneration. Most properties will not need planning permission to install solar panels which do not protrude beyond the roof, even in conservation areas provided that the panels are installed facing the rear of the property.

However authorities do not like to give up power and control; there have been instances of people in conservation areas being required to apply for full planning permission and a number of councils have decided that building controls should apply to solar panels in order to ensure that their weight does not affect the integrity of the roof. This is the case notwithstanding that solar panels are lighter than they tiles that they replace and an installation usually places much less weight on a roof than  a roofer places when he or she walks across it.

One measure, which the Government has not proposed, would be to abolish planning and building control fees for applicants who wish to install microgeneration. Those people are already making a large financial commitment to climate protection and having them pay fees in order so to do fails to recognise that part of what they wish to do will benefit the community at large.

Finally, in order to speed up the processes why not create a rule that if permission is not given within a relatively short period – say fourteen days – it is deemed to be granted. These changes should focus the minds of decision makers into understanding that climate protection should take precedence.

Around fifty years ago energy was relatively expensive and formed a large part of most people’s budgets. Then in the United Kingdom there were few homes with central heating and most homes had one light bulb for each room. Water was generally heated by an electric immersion heater (usually made of copper and un-insulated) and people bathed less frequently than they do now. Most heating was by coal, which was cheap. I remember my parents having to fret over the electricity bill far more than they fretted over the coal bill.

Today, of course, most homes are centrally heated by gas and if you do a quick count you will find the number of light bulbs in the average family home with three bedrooms comfortably exceeds thirty. There is almost no burning of coal and water is now usually heated by gas sometimes by condensing boilers and many homes have energy efficient flickering yellow bulbs.  From a single car her ten or fifteen households there are many mutli-car households. A household without a car is a rarity, rather than the norm.

Our energy transition over the past two generations has been from expensive and carbon intensive units of energy to less carbon intensive units of energy but we are using far moiré units, as is the entire developed and developing world. We have lost more on the swings than we have gained on the roundabouts. Emissions of greenhouse gas have increased as have the proportion of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere.

As energy became cheaper so we could lead more luxurious lives. We could bathe or shower every day and the expense was not prohibitive. We can buy many electrical appliances and electronic gadgets – in fact as many as we wanted almost, and become careless about leaving them switched on.  We can buy huge refrigerators which we could fill with food only to throw away much of it uneaten. We can buy some electric gadgets for some apparent labour saving that needed more effort to operate than mechanical gadgets.

So humanity has progressed. It has progressed in the number of luxuries it has enjoyed and in the intensity of energy use. It has also progressed in its relationship with the environment in which it lives and upon which it depends.

Progress is not always beneficial and kind. Often progress is along a path that leads to ruin.

The progress from relative climate stability to likely violent climate change has been driven by huge amounts of fossil fuel which we burned to keep moving and that burning has created much more carbon dioxide than our planet could absorb. Carbon is an essential prerequisite of life but like every essential thing, there is poison if the dose is too large.

The excess carbon dioxide has stayed in the atmosphere, where it acts as a layer of insulation in preventing heat from escaping from the atmosphere. For millennia our climate depended upon heat escaping but as we have now cut off many of the escape routes we have to plan for a changing climate.

I have, perhaps somewhat laboriously, described how we are, as a planet with more than six billion souls, threatened by events that we have created. Other animals may not say “tis sport to see the engineer hoist with his own petard” because the petard we have built will hoist and hang most of them too.

So having created this vicious cycle which now threatens our survival how do we break the cycle? Certainly not by words or statements of intent, or climate change conferences which in a few weeks time will waste the energy and fuel not only by the attendees but also by those new organisations that will report news from Copenhagen that the reporters do not understand to a world that does not want to understand it.

We can only break the vicious circle with hard action which means sacrificing some of our luxuries. We show neither the desire nor do we have the courage to do so.

If we lived with as few energy devices as those who lived two generations ago, modern efficiencies in heating, lighting, car transport may provide a safer climate for future generations. In essence the safety of future generations depends on the willingness of the present generations to be less selfish.

Economic growth is assumed to be a Good Thing, by most economists but it is responsible for most of the environmental problems that affect us, because the growth is uncontrolled and rewards greed. Economic growth is presented as a benefit to society but it is actually a cancer infecting the environment which will ultimately destroy society if we are not careful. It is necessary to find a sensible alternative to economic growth and one of the ideas out there has originated in the United States by Professor Brian Czech. He calls it the Steady State Economy and founded CASSE in order to promulgate its concepts.

You can access CASSE at http://www.steadystate.org/

CASSE is offering itself up as a candidate for $15,000 of marketing services from Free Range Studios, who made “the Story of Stuff”. If it wins it can increase awareness about the alternatives to unrestrained economic growth.

I have just voted for CASSE, and perhaps you might want to do the same. Everyone has three votes and voting is quite simple.
1. Go to this URL: http://youtopia.freerangeproject.com/
2. Click on Vote Now.
3. Click on “sign up” in the upper right corner.
4. Click on “Signup” at the lower left.
5. Enter your information, check the “Accept terms of service” box, and click the Sign Up button.
6. Click on Sustainable Living in the list of categories on the right.
7. Find “Grow better, not bigger!” in the list that appears.
8. Click on “vote”.
9. Click on 3 to answer “How many votes?”

One of the fears of climate scientists was that as the planet got hotter so weather patterns would change radically and that one of the changes would be that some parts of the world would have droughts and others would experience heavier than normal rainfall. This fear has proved well grounded. Unfortunately many people only believe what they can see and experience; Hurricane Katrina made many Americans aware of the weather changes and the effects of climate change on weather. Droughts in the Horn of Africa were more severe, longer lasting and killed more people than Katrina but they were far away from the developed world and perhaps out of sight is out of mind.

In Britain we have been experiencing unusual weather patterns that are probably the result of climate change. In the past few days a great deal of rain has fallen on the Western side of Britain. Some places have experienced around 70mm of rain in twenty four hours and the Met Office has warned that higher ground may have over 250mm of rain in the next day or so. These are unusually large amounts of rain and have caused flooding. They have caused flooding because the amounts of rainfall are far higher than the engineering tolerances built into flood defences and water discharge systems.

The west coast is affected because in the United Kingdom the winds tend to blow from the west, over the vast Atlantic Ocean, where they become charged with moisture which condenses as rain when it meets the British Isles. Flooding has been experienced in Dumfries, Galloway, Cockermouth, Anglesey and parts of South Wales. Seathwaite near Cockermouth recorded 314mm if rainfall in twenty four hours which is the most rainfall ever recorded in England. Previously, in 1955 in Dorset, 280mm of rainfall was recorded in 24 hours. That was itself 40mm higher than previous records.

Of course flooding is not the only danger from unusually heavy rains. Landslips have close part of the West Coast railway line and some power pylons are down causing the disruption of power supplies. There is always a possibility that the storm and sewage systems will be comprised during heavy flooding, providing a risk to health.

So the Arctic Ice may be melting, parts of Africa and Australia may be without normal amounts of water for extended periods but for the inhabitants of Britain floods may bring climate change and the need for climate protection into greater focus. It should focus us into spending more on extreme weather defences but, as prevention is cheaper than cure, also compel us to use far more clean renewable energy and burn far less.

There are a number of ways of fitting Genersys panels to your roof but the best and most aesthetically pleasing to have a roof integrated installation, which we call “an in roof system”. Fitting the panels “in roof” prevents unnecessary heat loss, especially in winter when the wind may blow around panels that are installed parallel to the roof, take heat away from them. In roof installations look neater and are usually worth the extra money.

If you are interested in seeing how the panels are connected to the roof to become roof integrated you can click on the links below and watch the Genersys video showing how this is done.

• How to install a solar panel (in-roof) Part 1 / 2
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqtNvxNaacM

• How to install a solar panel (in-roof) Part 2 / 2
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5DqTnMKIuo

The United Kingdom Government has published its programme of legislation for this the last Parliament before A General Election. Many doubt whether any of the proposals will be enacted in law before Parliament is dissolved. Many of the proposals are simply window dressing but among the more useful pieces of legislation, if passed, will be some aspects of the proposed Energy Bill.

Energy prices are going to rise, inevitably as a result of the additional energy taxes that the Government is imposing to finance insulation and other energy saving measures. Energy prices will almost certainly rise as a result of market forces; as economies around the world recover and re-grow (as indeed they are) more energy will be used and prices will rise. In these circumstances energy needs to be better regulated than it is by the present free market.

The energy proposals are a mixture of good but long overdue provisions and misguided hope.

The good is that the energy companies will have to supply “social tariffs” for poorer customers. Ofgem will be given the power to protect such customers and must include in their work a duty to help emission cuts. Ofgem has been established as a consumer “watchdog” and its duty is to get the cheapest prices for the consumer. This has brought it into conflict with climate protection, as the best way to protect the climate is not to keep energy prices low, but to ration energy and encourage, by rationing and pricing, the installation of renewable energy as a precursor to mandating renewable energy. Quite how Ofgem will use those powers, if the bill becomes laws, remains to be seen.

The misguided hope relates to that old chestnut, carbon capture and storage or CCS. Asking for demonstration CCS projects and incentivising them by means of a competition was the previous policy. I remember Malcolm Wicks when he was Energy Minister calling for CCS projects; then the government ran an ill fated CCS competition. Now it seems that the Government will throw our taxes at the power generating companies who will use them to endeavour to find a viable CCS technology. It all sounds very impressive until you think it through. There is no proven method of CCS. It strikes me that if there is any possibility of CCS it should be explored by academics and practical engineers working directly for a Government agency rather than the energy companies. If a methodology of CSS is discovered the patents should belong to the people, and can be exploited for the common good.

However, that is just one part of the misguided hope that the Energy Bill engenders. The truth is that CCS is really a pipe dream at this stage, and CCS needs huge investment in research before it becomes viable. The level of research is greater than trying out a few demonstration projects.

CCS runs the risk of being the snake oil sold as a cure all to climate change despite the fact that there are plenty of existing viable technologies out there that ought to be installed because they could bring immediate and real reductions in emissions.

I have been trying to understand the basis of measuring the United Kingdom’s carbon dioxide emissions. The country’s much publicised and apparently legally binding emission reduction targets depend upon these being accurately measured. If they are not accurately and consistently measured then they are not real targets at all, just froth and bluster. What, then, is the truth?

There are some inconsistencies in the measuring process that I cannot explain. The first is that there seems no rule about measuring emissions from aircraft and shipping. Should these be measured and attributed to the destinations of ships and planes or by some other method? Measuring by destination would in some cases be unfair; for example large amounts of goods are shipped from China to the United Kingdom but many ships return to China empty. It is at least arguable (and probably right) that the emissions created by the ships that return empty are also attributable to the United Kingdom, but the counting of emissions ignores them.

The second inconsistency has at the moment a small potential for showing lower emission figures than reality, but will in time provide really false information about the United Kingdom’s actual emissions. This relates to biomass.

Biomass produces in terms of emissions just as many emissions per kilowatt hour as a fossil fuel. However the theory goes that biomass is sustainable in emission terms because new growth sequestrates the carbon dioxide emitted by burning biomass.

I have in these posts already shown (I hope) this to be a fallacy in that there is a proportion of biomass emissions that are not sequestrated and it is far better to leave the biomass where it is and plant more trees.

However we are apparently on course to build some biomass power stations, such as the one planned at Port Talbot and the one planned near Scunthorpe.  These will be fuelled by wood chip mainly from Canada and Russia. Will their emissions count as the United Kingdom’s emissions or do we claim the davings from replanting that will supposedly take place in the countries from which we import the biomass?

If we claim the emission savings from foreign replanting then we must claim the emissions created when goods abroad are made for the United Kingdom. We cannot have it both ways, at least not if we are to have emission reduction targets that mean anything.

Mechanical Engineers are probably the most important engineers; civil engineers construct great and important building works, electrical engineers create things that work with electricity and in electronics but mechanical engineers concern themselves with the design and manufacturing of things, drawing upon the laws of physics and mechanics. They number in their ranks Archimedes, Ma Jun, Al-Jazari and George Stephenson, who founded the Institute of Mechanical Engineering.

The thing that always struck me about mechanical engineering is that it is one of those disciplines that has to work in practice. There is no point is designing a flushing toilet that does not flush or a power station that does not produce power. Mechanical engineering is founded upon laws that are demonstrably provable and upon principles of mathematics.

The Institute of Mechanical Engineering has been looking at the United Kingdom Government’s plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2050. They have, after a careful study, concluded that the Government will fail in its proposals because there is not enough capacity to do so successfully by 2050. The Institute has not concluded that the reduction cannot be done, but rather that upon existing plans and proposals that it will not be made until 2100, some fifty years past the target date that the Government has imposed upon itself.

Rather curiously the Government has dismissed the institutions findings out of hand; the Department of Energy and Climate Change has accused the institution of having a “can’t do, won’t do attitude”, which was reflected by Mr Miliband recently when he appeared on television.

What the DECC has done is to extend the argument of the institution beyond its natural limits and argue against that extension. The institution did not argue that the target could not be met, but argued that with present policies and capacities it will not be met. Responding that the institution has a “can’t do won’t do attitude” is the dialectical trick usually used by one who secretly believes that his argument is wrong. DECC is also, by advancing their argument, appealing to emotion rather than reason.

Whether we have enough capacity to build the requisite nuclear power stations and wind turbines, and whether we have the policies to secure the installation of widespread microgeneration from renewable energy is a matter of fact, not a matter of emotion. We all want to reduce the emissions significantly and probably most people who have studied climate science believe that the government’s targets are too soft and too distant.

We have the existing means and facilities to reduce the emissions – it is nothing to do with an attitude and if anybody is exhibiting a “can’t do won’t do attitude” it has to be DECC, who have no policies to provide for heat generation by small scale clean renewables, no policies to build nuclear power stations other than in reliance of private companies and no significant expenditure on renewable energy.

The institution has carefully analysed our existing and planned capacity for wind farms and nuclear power; its analysis is that our own policies are wanting and the government would do well to listen to what the mechanical engineers have found and analyse their findings, rather than using arguments that are specious. Climate protection policies can only be implemented if the climate change lobby wins the argument. Using tricks to try and win an argument is transparent; the public see through them and in doing so DECC does a great disservice to those, including the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, who, like me and many others, have been calling for a war on climate change.

It is a bit like torturing yourself, listening to a politician talk about climate change. I inflicted some self torture when I watched and listened to Ed Miliband, the United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change on Sunday morning.

Mr Miliband dismissed some research by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (I shall write about that research tomorrow) which showed that the United Kingdom will not meet its climate change promises, which are “legally binding”. He was quite certain that the Institute of Mechanical Engineers had got their figures wrong in calculating how short we in the United Kingdom would be of renewable and low carbon measures. It is an easy slur to make about a reputable body of professionals that has no greater or lesser interest in climate protection than the rest of us and no political affiliation. The Institute is far better qualified to advise than many of the consultants that Mr Miliband’s department employs, who cannot even get their facts right about solar thermal.

He also claimed that the United Kingdom lead the world with the most aggressive legally binding climate protection promises. All these promises of future reduction of greenhouse gas emissions were, if you believe Mr Miliband, something rather special.

It is all very odd. Does Mr Miliband really think that the world is impressive by legally binding targets which have no means of fulfilment? Does Mr Miliband think that it is climate change leadership for the United Kingdom to spend, so it is claimed, a piffling £1.9 billion a year on renewable energy, some of it of no climate protection value like biomass?

Is this the right amount of money for a Government to spend on what they claim is the most dangerous long term problem facing humanity? If so, it is hardly surprising that less than half the inhabitants of the United Kingdom accept that climate change is man made.

Clearly, Mr Miliband is a clever gentleman. He must know, in his heart and in his mind that the United Kingdom is like most nations merely re arranging the lifeboats on the Titanic when it comes to dealing with climate change.

Perhaps, if he has any lingering doubts he can discuss the question of climate protection with his partner, and environmental lawyer at a leading City firm of solicitors. She should know.

I rather get the impression that Mr Miliband has not quite made up his mind whether climate protection comes before or after temporary economic prosperity. We cannot have both, can we?

Politicians need to be courageous when dealing with climate protection. It seems unlikely that the UN climate conference at Copenhagen will be successful. It also seems that President Obama will not be attending it, presumably in order not to be associated with its failure. This is quite wrong.

Politicians must be courageous and tell the public the truth, rather than pretend that what they are proposing will protect the future generations. There is no place for cowardice when it comes to protecting the climate. There is no place for pandering to the demands of the wealthy multi nations or large nation corporations, or for pretence that all will be well.

If it is not worth being courageous and truthful about the sacrifices and changes we must all adopt to protect our long term climate, then it is not worth being brave and courageous about anything. We might as well give up now and tell our children that they will have to solve a problem that we saw coming and refused to do anything about.

The UK Government just has published (on 9^th November) a series of draft policy statements and will “consult” on them.  One of those statements is supposed include ideas which if enacted will speed up planning processes for nuclear energy; another will similarly deal with large scale renewable energy such as wind farms. I have not yet had the time to work my mind through the statements, the “overarching” energy policy in conjunction with which these statements are meant to be read.
Perhaps, we shall see the beginnings of a sensible energy policy for the twenty first century, but somehow I doubt it. A quick glance and search through the renewables statement does not flag any mention of solar, whether PV or thermal, and concentrates on wind and biomass.

I hope that when I read these documents and report to you on them I shall not do so with the same heavy heart and sense of helplessness for the future that I feel every time I read a government document on energy and energy policy. I also fear the “consultation” will be no more than window dressing. We shall see.

You can find the starting point for the consultation and the draft statements at

https://www.energynpsconsultation.decc.gov.uk/energy/