Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for June 2008

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

The Eerie Parallel Universe of Blogging

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There has been some negative reaction in the blogosphere to a piece by David Burchell in The Australian newspaper entitled ‘Huddled Lasses Yearn to be Free’. The title is presumably with reference to the young Cuban blogger, Yoani Sanchez, whom Burchell suggests with some admiration has played a significant role in the struggle for freedom in Cuba.

But here in Australia, according to David Burcell, the blogosphere is mostly a “vast outpouring of pseudo-expertise and vituperation” serving mainly as “a testament to Western societies’ tendency for producing self-important, opinionated folks far in excess of our capacity to employ them.”

Burcell continues, “in this the blogosphere resembles the so-called literary low-life of the decades before the French Revolution. In those days resentful and under-employed scribblers amused themselves by illegally publishing salacious rumours about Marie Antoinette or the clergy, the better to strip away the sacred veil of monarchical rule. Except that, in those days, publishing even salacious rumours required a certain sort of bravery.”

Wow!

But then again, on reflection, as I see it, all writing requires a certain amount of bravery.

When it comes to blogging there is always the risk that the writer might get something seriously wrong and with it ruin reputations and any hope of financial security.

Indeed I have never met anyone who wrote primarily for notoriety, or job security, or in the hope of becoming rich.

Many bloggers, like myself, write primarily because we want to communicate, we feel a need to communicate, and in my case to provide an alternative perspective on important environmental issues.

But the real difference between a blog, and an article in The Australian newspaper, is that the blogger lays his thoughts and evidence open to criticism the moment the text is uploaded. There is no retreat and no hiding behind letter editors.

In the ‘mud-wresting’ (as Burchell describes it) that follows the posting of a blog entry there is much potential to have fun, test the strength of your argument, make friends, and even learn something important, new and interesting.

Thanks for reading and often wresting with the evidence and ideas.

The Need to Balance Environmental Policies Against Economic Growth

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There is an insightful short article in The Guardian by Irwin Stelzer, who is the director of the centre for economic policy studies at the Hudson Institute, and editor of the book Neoconservatism:

Gordon Brown is eager to prove that red is green, while David Cameron is urging voters to “vote blue, go green”. So far, so good. But the prime minister is having some difficulty answering the question “How green are your taxes?” – while the leader of the opposition’s promise to make green taxes “replacement taxes, not new taxes”, contains more than a dash of Brownian stealth.

Continue reading Brown’s pale green policies are more honest than most, Unlike Cameron, the prime minister grasps the need to balance environmental policies against economic growth.

Real Food Shortage Will Require Real Science and Technology?

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The British government is preparing to open the way for genetically modified crops on the grounds they could help combat the global food crisis.

At least that’s according to Andrew Grice, Policitical Editor with The Independent, reporting on a meeting between Britian’s Environment minister, Phil Woolas, and the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, amidst claims that “rocketing food prices and food shortages in the world’s poorest countries mean the time is right to relax Britain’s policy on use of GM crops.”

As Graham Young, Chief Editor of e-journal On Line Opinion, recently emailed me, “With food shortages becoming the new Greenhouse type issue, I think that all is set to change. Governments will be throwing money at scientists who say they can feed the world, and it will become a new glamour industry… it is perhaps ironic that hard science, rather than computer modeling, might come back into vogue now that we have a real, rather than potential, problem.”

Ken Willett Talking Transport in Brisbane

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The Institute of Public Affairs invites you to the third Brisbane Club Lecture for 2008. Entitled ‘Prescribing the right medicine for a city choked with congestion’ the lecture is on Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 5pm in The Brisbane Club’s The Oak Room (241 Adelaide Street, Brisbane CCBD).

After the talk, attendees are invited to come at their own expense to an informal dinner with Ken Willett at the nearby restaurant Zenbar at 7:00pm.

Ken Willett is a Senior Consultant for ACIL Tasman. Ken has worked in project/corporate for more than 38 years and is an expert in urban transport economics and natural resource economics. In recent years he has focused on anti-congestion policy and abatement of greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector. Before joining ACIL Tasman, Ken worked in the private and public sectors in three states and headed RACQ’s public policy department for nearly 5 years.

RSVP Andy Poon, Telephone 03 9600 4744, Email apoon@ipa.org.au

Impressions of humanity in wilderness

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BridalVeilFalls.jpg

We have an enlargement of this image printed on stretched canvas, hanging on the wall of our living room. In its abundance and purity, water underpins the richness of our rainforest home and this image beautifully captures the celebrity of its most central supply.

As a family, we spend a surprising amount of time discussing and enjoying impressions within the image, such as the somewhat maniacal moss-covered face at the centrepiece of the two major falls. Another, somewhat haunting depiction of what we agree appears to be a woman’s face, looks upward from the right-hand wall of the cascade towards the heavily-browed simian face to the immediate left of the upper fall.

In an absence of formal identity, I named these Bridal Veil Falls, for the splendid way that the water diverted to the left spreads, with such an even, parabolic descent.

In retrospect, I would have liked to have been able to provide a presentation service to this gorgeous feature deep within the Cooper Valley, but such an entitlement is vigorously prohibited, through application of the precautionary principle. Of course, being national park, public entry is an existing right, however, the provision of a guiding service is not allowed.

Ironically, I may be called upon to assist in the recovery of a lost hiker, along with perhaps another hundred or so volunteers, in an environment deemed too important to suffer the impact of a guide that might prevent the loss in the first place.