Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for June 26, 2008

Fire Under the Arctic Ice

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An international team of researchers was able to provide evidence of explosive volcanism in the deeps of the ice-covered Arctic Ocean for the first time. Researchers from an expedition to the Gakkel Ridge, led by the American Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), report in the current issue of the journal Nature that they discovered, with a specially developed camera, extensive layers of volcanic ash on the seafloor, which indicates a gigantic volcanic eruption.

“The Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD and buried thriving Pompeii under a layer of ash and pumice. Far away in the Arctic Ocean, at 85° N 85° E, a similarly violent volcanic eruption happened almost undetected in 1999 – in this case, however, under a water layer of 4,000 m thickness.”

EurekAlert: Fire under the ice

Nature: Explosive volcanism on the ultraslow-spreading Gakkel ridge, Arctic Ocean

The Times: New Ice Age is On The Way

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‘Climate: New ice age is on the way.’ That was a headline from The Times newspaper on 21st October 1972.

On 23rd March 1970 the headline read: ‘Antarctic may be key to ice ages.’ According to Dr A T Wilson of Wellington University, New Zealand, the Antarctic may once again be approaching the point of instability at which an ice age is triggered off.

How do I know? The Times Archive invites you to explore 200 years of history as it appeared in the original pages of The Times newspaper from 1785-1985. Every issue of The Times published between 1785-1985, digitally scanned and fully searchable. During the free introductory period access all articles in the Times Archive free. Just register when you do a search and see the ‘R’ symbol.

Have fun!

UK’s Looming Energy Gap Suffers ‘Wind Chill’

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I’ve often thought that maybe the Kyoto Protocol could have been more aptly named the ‘Don Quixote Protocol.’ Why? Because ‘Kyoto’ sounds like ‘Quixote’ and, in the novel by Miguel de Cervantes, Quixote fought an imaginary enemy of giants that turned out to be windmills. Today, our imaginary enemy is ‘big warming’ driven by CO2 conjured up in computer models. One of the consequences of fighting this phantom menace is the UK’s looming energy gap. Instead of windmills, we have wind turbines. This brings me to a new report by the Centre for Policy Studies entitled: ‘Wind Chill’

The summary states:

Britain faces an energy gap of up 32 GW by 2015 as older coal and nuclear power stations are paid off. At the same time, Britain has made a binding commitment to deliver 15% of all its energy consumption from renewable energy sources by 2020.

Government policy is based on using wind power both to help close the energy gap and to meet its renewable energy targets

If the Government is to meet its renewables target, then the amount of electricity to be generated by wind farms
will have to increase by more than 20 times.

Expensive

This will be very expensive. Electricity generated by wind turbines already enjoys huge subsidies and tax breaks
through the Renewables Obligation scheme.

The Government has now accepted that the total costs of meeting the 2020 target will be £100 billion. This is the
equivalent of £4,000 for every household in the country.

WIND CHILL

The Royal Academy of Engineering has calculated that wind energy is two and a half times more expensive than other forms of electricity generation in the UK.

Unreliable

Wind generation does not provide a reliable supply of power. It must be backed up by other baseload sources.

Greater reliance on wind power could lead to electricity supply disruptions if the wind does not blow, blows too hard or does not blow where wind farms are located.

The experience of Denmark – often hailed for its pioneering development of wind farms – is that wind energy is expensive, inefficient and not even particularly “green”. There are signs that other countries are losing some of their enthusiasm for wind power.

Unpopular

There is no evidence that people are prepared to pay for wind power. Only 15% of people say that they are fairly or very willing to pay higher electricity bills if the extra money funds renewable power sources such as wind. The figures for “very unwilling” and “fairly unwilling” are 37% and 24% respectively.

This over-reliance on expensive wind energy, coupled with rising gas prices, will drive six million households
into fuel poverty.

Disrupting

Present wind farm planning applications do not take into consideration the economic viability of the project or whether the topography and meteorological conditions are suitable.

The planning system already favours wind farm developers. But if the Government is to meet its renewable target by 2020, then current planning regulations will have to be weighted even further in favour of wind farm suppliers.

The Ministry of Defence has recently lodged last minute objections to at least four onshore wind farms claiming
the turbines will interfere with their national air defence radar.

The alternative

The energy gap must be filled with equivalent baseload capacity as quickly as possible.

The UK should therefore now develop its nuclear, clean coal (including coal gasification) and other renewable supplies of energy (particularly tidal).

Wind energy, in contrast, should only play a negligible role in plugging Britain’s looming energy gap.

There is also an article about the report in the Daily Mail: Wind turbines are ‘unreliable and will cost each home £4,000’ claims think-tank