Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Note on CCS Policy

There are limits to what you can say in 140 charachters so here is a quick note on my thougts about CCS. I`m not an expert but it is a topic that i have been looking at for some time.

I started out enthusiastic about CCS and annoyed with environmentalists who where against the technology. My positions was due to my concern about the development of China and India and the potential for shifting these economies over to renewable forms of power(1).

However, after reading a superb report (2) by the Wuppertal institute i started to question both the merrits of ccs and the promise when compared to alternatives. The big point that comes out of this report is that when you consider total carbon emissions from coal rather than just the percentage of emissions that you can capture from the coal you end up with carbon reduction of around 65% rather than 90% when we look purely at direct coal emissions.

It is also worrying to me that by simply swapping coal for coal + ccs will give you a more pollouting plant in terms of local air quality. Given the air quality in asia i do have some feeling about the morality of promoting a very expensive and more pollouting form of power that has the sole advantage of reducing carbon emissions.

I realise that there is some interest in these technologies within Russia, hopefully more than in asia. I don't have references to hand but i did some reading on political/technical/scientific opinions in China about CCS and the attitude was one of extreme skepticism. Let me know if you want the paper.

These are my concerns about CCS. With limited govornment budgets i do think that offshore renewables should be a priority for the UK. So i do have some concerns about expenditure on CCS displacing expenditure on what i think deserve to be national priorities exploiting our natural advantage.

If money is to be expended on CCS technologies then i would not disagree with this so long as the warnings of the Environmental Audit Committee are taken seriously:
'“The possibility of ccs should not be used as a fig leaf to give unabated coal-fired power plants an appearance of environmental acceptability” .

In order for CCS to be seen as anthing other than an expensive and distracting measure, it will have to be tested on entirel ccs plants, not 20% CCS plants. Indeed, we alread have plenty of old coal plants to test post-combustion technology on.


REF:

(1)
My initial view that CCS isn't nessicary for UK electricity supplies and is more usefully considered an export technology is unchanged. We have a vast offshore wind resource, soon to be quantified more acurately by Boston Consulting Group. The key question is one of transmission: r&d and investment in infrastructure would be an alternative to investing in CCS which is VERY expensive.

(2)
The Wuppertal institue report is so notable because it looks not only at emissions per net unit of energy produced, but also at transport, mining and processing emissions.
http://www.wupperinst.org/en/projects/proj/index.html?projekt_id=25&bid=155

(3)

http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/environmental_audit_committee/eac_220708.cfm

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'Green' reception to 2010 budget.

MORE ROADS

RT @cpre £285m for motorways "Mr Toad rubbing his hands with glee" but "not the right priority" for carbon-cutting or rural communities

MINI-INVESTMENT BANK

RT @james_randerson : Richard Gledhill at PwC says green bank "very small beer compared to the scale of new investment required" #budget

USING THE BANKS WE ALREADY OWN

RT @globaljusticeuk : WDM says RBS should go green otherwise throwing good money after bad: Indy: http://bit.ly/cnsNoT & Guardian: http://bit.ly/aeRWdN #budget

MORE AMBITION ON FINANCE

RT @forum4thefuture CEO Peter Madden response to #Darling's #green investment bank #budget announcement http://bit.ly/buMg06 #budget2010

POOR FOCUS FOR FINANCE
RT @BusinessGreen : Budget 2010: The Green Business Reaction http://bit.ly/acjeO7

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UK Budget 2010 : Climate Change Aspects

This years budget is not likely to surprise to many people but there are a few interesting proposals and a couple of delayed measures that we are reminded are about to come into force.

The new measures:
  • Up to £60 million "for the development of port sites to support offshore wind manufacturers looking to build new facilities in the UK"

This is superficially similar to a Lib Dem proposal for upgrading actual ports. However the lib dems proposed spending £400 M on upgrading up to seven existing ports and a further £100 M on training and testing facilities.



  • "A summer consultation on mechanisms to provide greater certainty for low carbon investment."

This sounds a lot like the recently announced plans for a carbon tax set out by the Tories.

  • The launch of UK Finance and Growth " to streamline the Government’s SME
    finance support – including to help businesses seeking to commercialise low-carbon technologies" this new organisation will bring together projects currently administered by DECC, The Carbon Trust and Regional Development Agencies.

The Tories suggested a similar idea recently.

  • Establishing a Green Investment Bank from the funds raised by selling two pieces of government infrastructure. Starting with around £1bn of government and £1bn of private equity.

A small investment bank is certainly a worthwhile project, but £2bn doesn't go a long way in the energy sector. Lib dem proposals for a British Development Bank along with productive use of government owned banks and a restructuring of the whole banking sector better illustrate the size of the challenge we face. The Tories had already proposed a green investment bank, the details for which are expected out before the general election.

Delayed measures:

  • During the first year cars will be subject to VED that is dependent on their carbon emissions. Vehicles emitting less than 130g/Km will pay no VED while those above 165g/Km will pay increasing amounts up to 255g/Km. The top first year VED is £950.

When this policy was being discussed the environmental audit committee stated strongly that in order to effect behaviour of those buying powerful cars brand new the tax should be nearer to£2000. They also supported a scheme where revenues raised from the most polluting cars are paid back to those in the least polluting cars--a so called bonus/mallus scheme as already practiced in France.

  • Fuel duty will be raised by 3p over the course of a year in 3 individual stages.

Not much to say about that, other than the importance of providing really good alternatives to cars if you are going to increase their running costs. In terms of climate policy this failure to provide alternatives to 'auto-culture' is one of the Labour governments major failings.

The UK green building council have a good information page on this idea, including a radio interview on the topic. The UK proposal would have the loans provided by commercial banks wher as in the US a Californian scheme allows the loan to be linked to the property via property tax (equivalent to council tax), which is an interesting alternative.

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Monday, March 22, 2010

2nd UK Coal Mine Occupation in Two Weeks


A press release sent ouy by activists occupying Blair House Open Cast Coal Site says that the latest occupation started last night:

"Last night twenty five activists occupied the site of the Blair House OpenCast
Coal Site in solidarity with near-by communities and in directintervention of
the environmental destruction that it will cause."

The other recent site of occupation is the Defend Huntington Lane camp (twitter) in shropshire. Both of these occupations come around two months after the eviction of Mainshill Solidarity Camp in South Lanarkshire.

One of the interesting aspects of the press release sent out by activists is their sympathy for local councillors who despite local opposition dare not refuse planning permission for the mine:

"The Council, in their defence, wouldn't dare refuse another open cast
coal mine application after their refusal of ATH Resources mine at Muir
Dean on the insistence of Crossgates residents, was overturned by the
government and cost them financially."

A similar situation occoured in my temporary home of Brentford west London where an unpopular development was opposed by many in the council but where the legal costs of refusing planning and loosing on appeal prevented the council from acting in the interests of the local population.

Campaigners use 3 main arguments against the mine:

  • Impacts on local people.
  • Impacts on the local environment.
  • Impacts on climate change and meeting our carbon emissions reduction targets.
Campaign website: Black Wood Solidarity Camp
Press Contact: 07806926040

Related:
  • Article about the occupation: STV.

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Sunday, March 14, 2010

Stopping Coal Power in The UK : How's it going?

An update on coal power in the UK:
  1. Coal power without ccs would have been ruled out if Labour rebels, Lib Dems and Torries had sucesfully passed an emissions performance standard. The EPS fell six votes short.
  2. Hunterston energy plant is planed to have some CCS Ayrshire Power, owned by Peel Energy Ltd. Planning permission is likely to be submitted to the scottish govornment shortly. This 1600MW power plant is likely to have 300MW of CCS. Some don't believe that a 80% dirty power plant is clean enough.
  3. EON (Kingsnorth) and Scottish Power (Longgannet) won a joint award for basic CCS preperation and study. One will win funding.
  4. E.ON is looking for companies to carry out environmental assesment of a project to pipe co2 across Kent and into the north sea.
  5. The infrastructure clearance work has begun at Huntington Lane Opencast Mine site in Telford, acres of mature, and immature trees have already been felled ready for constructing the haul road to link the two sites together.
  6. E.ONs' Kigsnorth plant was put off for at least 3 years earlier in the year.

The most important piece of news is that the EPS failed and that plans for largely unimitigated coal plants, most immediately Hunterston, are now to be introduced into the planning system.

Stay up to date with coal in the UK

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Tuesday, March 02, 2010

UK Renewable Energy Support and Information

Ed Milliband has just announced the govornment's latest energy efficiency plan for homes, and it is reported to include long term energy efficiency loans that are fixed to the building rather than the person taking them out. This approach allows a 'pay as you save' approach wherby the income generated from the feed-in tarrif and from energy savings allows householders to see a net reduction in total enerergy related expenditure. The loans take a long time to pay back but wouldn't you rather be paying for solar pannels on your roof than for energy companies profits? The report's name 'warm homes, greener homes' suggests that DECC is starting to take advantage of the way energy saving measures can be used to attack fuel poverty. This isn't quite how some people see it however!

If you are interested in taking advantage of the feed in tarrif then check out the rates here. The feed in tarrif starts on April 1st, but as Monbiot point's out the payback is nothing to laugh at, his problem with it is that the middle classes will benefit handsomely while everyone will have to foot the bill. So if you like renewable energy and you can handle the guilt of someone else paying your bills then go right ahead. Otherwise we all need to start looking at larger scale community schemes that can finance themselves without the subsidies.

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