Budget 2009 - what's in it for me?

So I didn't manage to extract any thoughts from NERN members about the wish list for the Budget, but at least now we have our hands on the actual thing itself. I'm sure you'll all have been pouring over it to see to what extent it matched the "green budget" rhetoric, but for those who didn't have the chance (or willpower), here are some top level highlights.

Before I get into Chapter 7 of the 2009 Budget (Building a Low-Carbon Recovery) it is worth noting a couple of other relevant points. Firstly, Fuel Duty is expected to increase by 2% per litre from September 2009 and by a minimum of 1 pence per year for the next few years afterwards. Secondly, a car scrappage scheme has been announced that aims, from next month, to provide a £2000 discount on new vehicles for owners of vehicles older than 10-years. As far as I can see this scheme does not incentive the purchase of low carbon vehicles. Finally, there is mention in of a Strategic Investment Fund worth up to £750 million – it is likely that this money will include an element of green tech funds.

Moving into Chapter 7, it is fair to say that a number of 'green' measures have been announced, representing around £1.4bn of 'new' money. The Government has set the world's first carbon budget in committing the UK to a 34% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 (as recommended by the Committee on Climate Change - CCC). There is no commitment to the 42% target recommended by the CCC in the event of a global post-Kyoto agreement. The key fiscal measures are summarised below:

• 375 million pounds for energy and resource efficiency in business, public buildings and households, including 10 million for waste infrastructure
• 405 million pounds to support development of low-carbon and advanced green manufacturing sector in the UK
• Funding for at least two and up to four CCS pilot plants, from previous plans to support just one, to test pre-combustion as well as post-combustion processes as previously planned
  60 million pounds to fund engineering and design studies for carbon capture and storage
• 70 million pounds to support decentralized small-scale and community low-carbon energy
• 525 million pounds funding for offshore wind over the next two years under the Renewables Obligation scheme
• Combined heat and power (CHP) exemption from climate change levy from 2013-23, implying 2.5 billion pounds investment, potentially adding 3 gigawatts of new power by 2015

Additional, measures announced included tax cut incentives for companies to encourage further North Sea oil production. Landfill tax will increase by £8 per tonne each year on 1 April between 2011 and 2013 and £10 million of new grants are offered to businesses to deliver anaerobic digestion.

Personally, I'm finding it a little difficult to see how I am being incentivised by the budget to be 'greener'. For example, I've mentioned previously that I've done all the simple things in my house to improve energy efficiency and that now I'd like to install some low-carbon technologies. There is nothing here for me. Of course I realise that the incentives that I am after are enclosed within the current Heat and Energy Saving Strategy, but I won't be able to access these until 2011 at the earliest. The measures in this budget may well result in me lowering my carbon footprint because of grid electricity decarbonisation, but that strikes me as a lazy approach on my behalf. Besides, I want to be able to boast about my green credentials! I think perhaps I was hoping that this budget might empower me to do something that previously I couldn't…but it doesn't. Shame really.

If you were the Chancellor what would you include in the budget this year?

This week, I thought I would break the tradition of telling you things and instead I like to seek your opinion. The UK 2009 budget will be announced on 22 April – it’s the first budget since the Committee on Climate Change announced the carbon budgets and of course it’s also a recession budget. Rather than speculate on the rumours that are flying around, I thought it might be interesting to ask your opinion on the following:

“If you were Chancellor, what measures would you include in the budget that would firmly put the UK on a path towards a resilient, low carbon economy?”

You can leave your comments under the blog entry with the same name at the following weblink - http://ukerc.blogspot.com/. Don’t be shy!

After Easter (no newsletter next week) I’ll feature some of the comments (he said optimistically hoping to be inundated) in the newsletter. The comments will be anonymous so please feel encouraged to download what’s on your mind.

In other news, I delighted to report that NERN has officially passed 500 members (506 and counting). By the end of this year it would be fantastic if we could have more than 1000 members, so please do tell you energy research friends about us.

More acronyms for you - DTCs, EIT and KICs

Top of the news list this week is that there are heaps of excellent PhD studentships up for grabs at Sheffield and Leeds (and possibly I suspect elsewhere). Why? You may have heard that the EPSRC has supported 44 Doctoral Training Centres (DTC) across the UK. According to the EPSRC these DTCs:

"aim to provide a supportive and exciting environment for students to carry out a challenging PhD-level research project together with taught coursework. The new centres will each take in around 10 students per year for five years starting in 2009."

So if you are an energy student looking for a PhD opportunity then these are the DTCs you should be looking out for:
University of Bath - Sustainable Chemical Technologies
University of Birmingham - Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and their Application
University of Leeds - Technologies for a Low Carbon Future
University of Manchester - Nuclear Fission Research, Science and Technology AND
Industrial Doctorate Centre in Nuclear Engineering
University of Nottingham - Efficient Power from Fossil Energies and Carbon Capture Technologies
University of Reading - Technologies for Sustainable Built Environments
University of Sheffield - Sheffield Training in Interdisciplinary Energy Research: STIER
University of Southampton - Industrial Doctorate Centre in Transport and the Environment
University of Strathclyde - Doctoral Training Centre in Wind Energy Systems
University of Surrey - Industrial Doctorate Centre in Sustainability for Engineering and Energy Systems
UCL - Industrial Doctorate Centre in Urban Sustainability and Resilience AND
Doctoral Training Centre in Photonic Systems Development

Plenty of choice for even the most discerning graduate I would hope.

This week I've also been learning about the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). Rather than try and explain what EIT is, I've lifted a suitably vague description from the website:

"The EIT has the potential to become a key driver of European sustainable economic growth and competitiveness through the stimulation of world-leading innovation. Next to and beyond research and technology, EIT will focus on education, entrepreneurship, business creation and their capitalization in order to boost Europe's innovation capacity. This will be done in a cross-fertilizing effort with existing European programmes on Research and Technology, innovation and entrepreneurship."

You may wonder why I'm boring you by discussing the EIT (I'm not just filling space – honestly). Well as it happens there is an initiative in the pipeline that might be of interest to some of you. The EIT is soon launching a call for Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs). The call is expected imminently (although from experience don't hold your breath). You can read all the details about KICs here, but I thought it might be worthwhile giving the very top level highlights.

Three KICs are expected in the first call, and two are of interest for this community – one on sustainable energy and one on climate change and mitigation. A KIC is an international consortium of researchers, technologists, educators, business people, entrepreneurs (yes, non-EU partners can be involved). The difference between a KIC and other programmes is that the EIT is not giving money to fund research. The EIT wants to provide money (up to perhaps 25M euro per year) that will enable a KIC to do something dramatic and exciting. EIT funding is additive to funding already available to the consortium (e.g. won research grants, business grants, etc). This KIC funding (I'm refusing to say "KIC start" here) could be used for several purposes. One strong idea is to facilitate people movement to a central location where they can innovate to their hearts content. Another suggestion I believe I heard was for the money to be used to provide funding to small businesses to de-risk product development. The overall aim is that the KIC will:

"deliver a measurable impact on society from an economic, scientific, educational and entrepreneurial perspective."

So, as I mentioned, it's all a bit vague right now, but it did seem to me to be something slightly more exciting that I first imagined. I'll try to keep an eye out for the call (which may well debunk a number of the myths I've just propagated) and will update as and when appropriate.

Copenhagen

As I'm sure most of you have heard; there has been an International Scientific Congress on Climate Change this week in Copenhagen (10 – 12 March). The main aim of the congress was to provide a synthesis of existing and emerging scientific knowledge necessary in order to make intelligent societal decisions concerning application of mitigation and adaptation strategies in response to climate change. There was heavy emphasis on influencing policy.

The conference, which was attended by 2500 delegates from 80 countries, has produced a set of six preliminary messages, which have been handed to the Danish Prime Minister Mr. Anders Fogh Rasmussen ahead of the COP 15 meeting in December. I've reproduced these messages in full below:

Key Message 1: Climatic Trends
Recent observations confirm that, given high rates of observed emissions, the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised. For many key parameters, the climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived. These parameters include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.

Key Message 2: Social disruption
The research community is providing much more information to support discussions on 'dangerous climate change'. Recent observations show that societies are highly vulnerable to even modest levels of climate change, with poor nations and communities particularly at risk. Temperature rises above 2 Celsius will be very difficult for contemporary societies to cope with, and will increase the level of climate disruption through the rest of the century.

Key Message 3: Long-Term Strategy
Rapid, sustained, and effective mitigation based on coordinated global and regional action is required to avoid 'dangerous climate change' regardless of how it is defined. Weaker targets for 2020 increase the risk of crossing tipping points and make the task of meeting 2050 targets more difficult. Delay in initiating effective mitigation actions increases significantly the long-term social and economic costs of both adaptation and mitigation.

Key Message 4 - Equity Dimensions
Climate change is having, and will have, strongly differential effects on people within and between countries and regions, on this generation and future generations, and on human societies and the natural world. An effective, well-funded adaptation safety net is required for those people least capable of coping with climate change impacts, and a common but differentiated mitigation strategy is needed to protect the poor and most vulnerable.

Key Message 5: Inaction is Inexcusable
There is no excuse for inaction. We already have many tools and approaches - economic, technological, behavioural, management - to deal effectively with the climate change challenge. But they must be vigorously and widely implemented to achieve the societal transformation required to decarbonise economies. A wide range of benefits will flow from a concerted effort to alter our energy economy now, including sustainable energy job growth, reductions in the health and economic costs of climate change, and the restoration of ecosystems and revitalisation of ecosystem services.

Key Message 6: Meeting the Challenge
To achieve the societal transformation required to meet the climate change challenge, we must overcome a number of significant constraints and seize critical opportunities. These include reducing inertia in social and economic systems; building on a growing public desire for governments to act on climate change; removing implicit and explicit subsidies; reducing the influence of vested interests that increase emissions and reduce resilience; enabling the shifts from ineffective governance and weak institutions to innovative leadership in government, the private sector and civil society; and engaging society in the transition to norms and practices that foster sustainability.

Many of you will have noticed there have been a number of stories in the media relating to the congress. Here are a few snippets I've picked out.

One that caught my eye immediately was the headline 'Top scientist: don't trust politicians on climate change'. In essence, John Ashton told scientists that "the truth could be lost to political expediency or mischief and urged scientists to couch their conclusions in terms that could not be misunderstood or go unheard." And I thought I was cynical!

The Hadley Centre have suggested that even with drastic CO2 cuts there is only a 50:50 chance of restricting global temperature rise to 2 Celsius in 2100. This, 'best case' scenario would require emissions to peak in 2015 and decrease at 3% per year thereafter. For every ten year delay the additional temperature rise will be 0.5 Cesius.

Renewable power could account for up to 40% of global electricity demand by 2050 but only if there adequate financial and political support.

We should dump the "inefficient and ineffective" Kyoto protocol and replace it with a global carbon tax according to leading economist William Nordhaus.

And finally, according to Terry Barker, "combating climate change may not be a question of who will carry the burden but could instead be a rush for the benefits".

Energy career options

You'll have seen above that UKERC is organising a webinar on Delivering a sustainable energy system: Career options? It's aimed at A-level and undergraduate students who are interested in a career in energy, but who might not have appreciated the full breadth and complexity (and thus opportunity) of the energy system. As a presenter in the webinar I feel obliged to heartily endorse the quality of the speakers and make a plea for you to advertise the event to anyone, in our target audience, who you think might benefit from participating.

The UKERC webinar is part of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Festival of Social Science (FoSS). Since UKERC is participating, I thought I'd have a look at the "competition" with regards to other energy related events in the festival.

The FoSS, which runs 6 – 15th March is designed to communicate information about the social sciences and how social science impacts on our lives. The events take a variety of formats, from traditional lectures and seminars, to exhibitions, film screenings and topical debates. Furthermore, they are aimed at a range of different audiences, including policy makers, business, the media, the general public and students of all ages.

I've been looking through the programme and have cherry picked some events that interest me, and hopefully you as well.

Within the programme aimed at school and college students, in addition to the UKERC webinar, the Sussex Energy Group Climate Change Debate on 11th March will bring together three teams of sixth form students to debate possible solutions to climate change. Fulham Primary School are running an event on Lowering carbon emission by sustainable travel on 12th March – it sounds like a great idea to get the kids involved in this at such an early age.
For those who have a specific interest in a subject, the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods is organising a workshop on Climate Change: Social Science and Civil Society Perspectives on 9th March. The workshop aims to achieve a meeting of minds between academics, environmental groups and members of the policy community with interests in the social science research agenda (broadly conceived) into the climate crisis. On the next day, 10th March, RELU-Biomass are running a stakeholder meeting on "How will energy crops affect our landscapes?" at Rothamsted Manor.

Elsewhere in the programme, there are some really events that have caught my interest including:
Curious People
The Credit Crunch: Gender Equality in Hard Times
The Social Life of Plants
The 'Credit Crunch': Consequences for UK Households
Talent and Autism
Research and evidence in policy making debate

In the energy news this week, a couple of stories have snagged my attention. Scientists have been using satellite images of the gravitational force across the surface of the Earth to identify likely new of oil and gas fields. The method works on the basis that such deposits are surrounded by relatively light materials than have less gravitational force than surrounding materials. Worryingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, the tool is expected to be particularly useful for identifying resources that will be uncovered as the Arctic ice melts.

The Independent has followed up my breaking news story of last week to announce that "Britain fails to deliver on pledge to lead world to 'green recovery'". Well, perhaps they weren't exactly following up my story...

The solar industry is apparently celebrating a historic milestone due to the production of a solar module with a cost below $1 per watt of generating capacity. The Chinese car industry is also celebrating their achievement in coming from nowhere to producing the first commercial petrol plug in hybrid car. The car, made by Build Your Dreams Auto, can be recharged by mains electricity and can travel for 62 miles on a full charge before switching the petrol engine. For those interested in running off and purchasing one, it costs a rather reasonable £15,000.
For those of you wondering where the animal related news is, you be delighted to know that a brand new species of psychedelic bouncing fishhas been discovered. I'm struggling to work out the energy angle here, but it probably has something to do with the bouncing.