The Cost of Cold

Today a respected UK charity released estimates of the death toll and the cost to the NHS of cold homes nationwide. These figures are included in The Cost of Cold (pdf).

It is a shocking state of affairs. The NHS is spending roughly £1.4bn per year treating conditions brought on my cold living conditions. Even after this expenditure  roughly twenty seven thousand people a year die from conditions brought on by the combination of shoddy housing stock and high energy prices.

While energy prices always hit the headlines, insulation and draftproofing are the less glamorous solutions that need more funding. For this reason Age UK has launched Spread the Warmth.

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Coal Plans in Scotland Shelved

A little bit of good news form Scotland. Plans for a new coal power plant at Hunterston have been shelved. This is at least in part due to campainging by Christian Aid and others who have consistently pointed out the difficulty of squaring coal power expansion with Scotlands ambitious climate targets.

Here is a potted history of the struggle to stop Henterston , writtem by the WWF.

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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

• The Cole Hole
• Greenpeace on Coal
  

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Emissions Performance Standard for Fossil Fuel Plant

I`ve just noticed that the Tories and Lib Dem's are supporting an Emissions Performance Standard in the current energy bill. An emissions performance standard is basically a limit on how pollouting a given application can be; in this case we are talking about power plants but similar regulations can be placed on cars or other vehicles.

In the case of Cars there does seem to be a certain sense to limiting the emissions of the most polluting cars. For me the key point is everyone playing their part. I don't think people are encouraged to buy efficient cars if sports cars and big four wheel drive vehicles getting 10mpg are used on the same roads. Why bother? Of course in Europe we have been persuaded to accept feet wide averages from car manufacturers so they can have both very polluting and very efficient cars.

Now emissions performance standards for the UK's generation fleet are being proposed but whilst i would support this for cars, i`m less sure for the generating network. The reason is intermittency. Renewables don't supply a constant level of power and some periods of high demand correspond with periods of low wind supply. Because we are dealing with rare events (very low wind and very high demand) actually running plants at these times produces very small amounts of polloution even if we are talking about unabated coal. So the key priority is having this capacity available at low cost.

A EPS for all new plant would make sense; the lib dem proposal is somewhat arbitarily linked to coal. An EPS for all existing plant would possibly be very costly. I`m all for getting coal out of our generating mix but this is most economically done by reducing the hours per year that they can work. This way they can still perform a valuable emergency service in the future whilst not significantly impacting carbon reduction goals.

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My favourite recent links.

Three of my favourite website finds of recent months.

1. Have an investment cost from 1980 and wondering how much that is in todays money? Ask this website.
   
2. Wondering how much power is being generated by the national grid, how much reserve is present and what the costs are? Check out national grid.
   
3. What interesting sessions (video) took part while the politicians bickered in Copenhagen?
   

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Electricity Grid Videos

How can we develop a"renewable rich" electricity grid?

• EESI Smart Grid Briefing on Capitol Hill
• Energy Efficient Electronics
• The Great Green Grid
• Grid 2.0
• EESI Transmission Technology and Regulation Briefing
• Wired for Progress
• Microgrids: providing power locally.

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Climate Scientists Tell Coal Companies to Take Responsibility

Via ABC

LEIGH SALES: Six of the nation's leading climate change scientists have written to the coal industry, telling them to shut down power stations and take responsibility for the damage coal burning does to the environment.

The scientists say the industry has the power to make a difference because it's the largest contributor to the nation's greenhouse gases.

The letter calls for coal-fired power stations to be closed in the near future, and for any new ones to have zero emissions.

DAVID KAROLY, UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE: We're not arguing that they will necessarily listen, but this issue of liability will be a growing concern in the future. Perhaps they've been able to hide from that issue of liability because of mixed messages.

We're trying to make it very clear that there is a liability and a responsibility associated with ongoing emissions of greenhouse gases.

PDF of the letter.

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100% Renewables? You will need a smart grid.

CCS is more expensive than normal coal. In the UK we have wind power which is likely cheaper than wind and a hell of a lot easier to plan for. Can we develop a 100% renewable power generation sector? If so, we are going to deal with intermitancy. There are many ways to do this but a basic preo-requisite is a far more intelligent grid technology. What sort of novel developments are there in this area?

> Selection of really good videos.

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Smart fridges...whatever next. Seriously, what next and when?

The UK is about to test drive 3,000 smart refrigerators that will know when to adjust their power use to match the needs of the grid. The fridges could mean both a massive cost savings and a boost to alternative energy use.

Refrigerators are big energy suckers and we’re always on the watch for more efficient models and tips on how to reduce their energy use. But if a fridge gets a brain, it can do all the adjusting needed to reduce its carbon footprint without us having to lift a finger.

The fridges, supplied by RLtec, are going to be given away by the UK government next year for a trial run to see how well the dynamic demand technology used in the fridges works.

Interesting little piece in Treehugger, just makes me wonder a. what the hell are we waiting for and b. how much scale do related technologies have. Using fridges nationwide there would be significant scope for saving but i`m sure that using industry and other applicances together the scale could be even larger....tastes like the future to me.

RLtec estimates that large numbers of appliances running with dynamic demand technology would create a "virtual power station" that could displace coal-fired generators. For example, fitting all the fridges in the UK with dynamic demand technology would allow the decommissioning of a 750-megawatt "back-up" power station.

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Beyond fossil fuels: a smart grid and renewable energy future.

It seems that everyone is quite used to calling for more renewables...in the UK this isn't likely to present problems for quite some time as our renewable energy generation is a couple of percent. Looking out a few years however, and we have some questions to answer about dealing with large a large portion of variable supply generating units. Bellow are a few videos that introduce the discussion on how we do this.

The Rocky Mountain Institute: Smart Garage, fleet meets grid.



University of California TV: The Future of the Grid



Research Channel: Bridges to the future Part 1: the smart grid.



Berkeley Lab: Saving Power at Peak Hours

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100% renewables in the US in 10 years

Just thinking about rate of renewables roll out and i came across an article mentioning Al Gore's challenge to America. I need to see if there are details behind the proposal because the ability to achieve such a goal--100% renewables in 10 years--would say a lot about the place for CCS in the global energy economy. Namely, there wouldnt be one.

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Gap in energy or imagination?

The govornment do bang on about an 'energy gap'. This isn't to suprising really, solutions to an energy gap might include nuclear power and more coal...just what the utilities want.

However, on the eve of the Camp for Climate Action where such old paradigme thinking is hardly flavour of the month a report comissioned by WWF UK was released by energy consultancy Poyry which explains--in easy steps that even a minister could follow--how we can solve the climate crisis and energy security simultaneously. That seems to make a lot of sense given Russia's actions in Georgia and the latest climate science.

This kind calculation by an NGO feeding into issues raised by the Camp for Climate Action is a really positive development and something that i hope we can have more of in the future. The dialogue between climate camp and NGO's is certainly still open to discussion.

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New Report: Cashing in on Coal

Important new report (source)

From concerns over air pollution and acid rain, to the recent rising awareness of carbon emissions and climate change, coal has been recognised as the dirtiest and most inefficient fossil fuel option.

Despite this, coal is experiencing a global boom, with corporations opening new mines and commissioning new power stations. High street banks are making millions by providing the financial fuel that drives this expansion of coal extraction and combustion. This report examines the role in the last two years of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), HSBC and Barclays in providing and arranging the financial means to the coal industry to extract and burn vast quantities of coal.

Published by BankTrack, Friends of the Earth - Scotland, People & Planet, Scottish Education and Action for Development, Stop Climate Chaos and PLATFORM.

Download the report from here.

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China set to lead the world in wind power.

It's nice to see that the US and Europe are being joined by a third renewable energy super power.

According to projections at Renewable Energy World, China is going to be a world leader in wind power by next year!

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Al Gore: America Needs to Get Off Fossil Fuels in 10 Years

Al Gore has sketched out his vision for taking america beyond fossil fuels for electricity in the next 10 years. That sort of timescale appeals to me, not because its what is required--which it is--but because the psychology as testified with the "moonshot" rhetoric is entirely more in line with the attitude required for major rather than marginal change. If attempted i believe it would be more likely to succede that a 60% target by 2050. There is a sense of real urgency, and empowerment as the decisions being are being made now...the plan is immidiate to anticipatory.

• Video of talk.
  

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Evolution in action

A MORI poll suggests that the British public are paying even less attention that I thought they were, but Nil Desperandum:

Whilst plans are afoot to provide at least the microgeneration infrastructure to enable a power-down.

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Energy Futures

As New Labour unveil their plan to achieve emissions reductions only 60% less than everyone else thinks is necessary, and even the World Economic Forum ask for 50% cuts and a firm legislative framework, our glorious leader heads for Jeddah to ask for some of the uber-profits to be ploughed into wind, wave and nuke back home. Just don't try enriching your own uranium, guys. That's not for the likes of you! But have some more jets, to be going on with.

Isn't it distractingly comfy to think that the Saudi oil supremo was once a shepherd boy? Sounds like a bad film.

Sorry it's all Grauniad today. Just the way it crumbled.

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Amory Lovins on Nuclear Power

In the wake of Gordon Brown's recent announcement on plans for new nuclear power in the UK there is a lively discussion about nuclear power, very liveley and very poorly informed for the most part.

In the video clip Amory Lovins, inernational energy policy guru takes nuclear to task.



Lovins has recently co-authored a report on nuclear power (pdf).

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Union of Concerned Scientists: Developments in Renewable Portfolio Standards

UCS have just produced a facinating report on the proliferation of RPS's in the US. It's starting to look like, just maybe, a federal system would be easier than the current patchwork? I realise that you Americans loving using the states as 'labs' to test various policies...can we consider the RPS policy tested yet?

• Report (PDF)
• Related: energy and efficiency.

[UPDATE]

LAURENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL LAB'S HAVE JUST RELEASED A COMPLIMENTARY REPORT. DOWNLOAD SUMMARY, FULL REPORT.

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Energy and Climate Forum at Princeton University

An interesting series of lectures from the University Channel Podcast that has just been uploaded; audio and video here.

Pt 1 - Welcome and Introduction. (length 48:09)

• H. Vincent Poor, Dean, School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Michael Henry Strater University Professor of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University
• Charles M. Vest, President, National Academy of Engineering, and President Emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Robert Socolow, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University: Living in a Greenhouse with the Help of Stabilization Wedges
  

Pt 2 - Interconnections between Air Pollution, Climate Change and Health (length 34:55)

• Denise Mauzerall, Associate Professor of Public and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University
  

Pt 3 - Carboholics: The Power Industry and Global Warming (length 49:43)

• David Crane, CEO, NRG Energy
  

Pt 4 - Sustaining African Landscapes: Fostering Conservation and Development through Science and Engineering (length 39:16)

• Daniel Rubenstein, Professor and Chair, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University
  

Pt 5 - How much technology do we need to solve the climate problem? (length 43:42)

• Stephen Pacala, Fredrick Petrie Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Director, Princeton Environmental Institute, Princeton University

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