UK Energy Research Centre blog

Climate Change and Alternative Energy Program – Part 6

2009-11-09T08:48:00.000-08:00

This is the final entry from the trip, and thanks to a hectic final day in Washington State, it’s been written on my first day back in the office in the UK.

An early start to the day as we were bundled into our van at 08.00 to drive across to the Washington State capital, Olympia. Our first meeting was with State Senator Karen Fraser, which was held in the magnificent State Capital building. Karen was kind enough to give us a US politics 101 class at the start of the meeting which helped clear up some things that had been confusing me (that’s not me saying I now understand everything by the way!). I’ll not delve into this here, but it is worth noting that each US State has its own Constitution, and that any law passed must be in line with the Constitution or it can face legal challenge. It’s also worth noting that States have freedom to act where there is an absence of a National initiative; the emergence of State level GHG initiatives (such as cap and trade schemes) is an example of this. Washington State has not yet passed a cap and trade initiative, although one is in the legislative pipeline (it has been knocked back once already).

In a wide ranging discussion, a number of interesting points arose. The first is that people are feeling oppressed by the level of US debt and therefore there is a pushback on new spending programmes. Action on climate change is being directly affected by this. It is easier to deal with water and air quality issues as these are more tangible to the public.

Washington State is somewhat distrustful of nuclear power, due to a rather chequered history. The State has one of the most contaminated nuclear sites in America, and there is a perception of significant feet dragging at Federal level over clean up of the site. It was noted that a failed bond scheme for new nuclear build has further soured public opinion.

Regarding other power sources, I’ve already mentioned that the State derives around 60% of its power from hydro. Coal is unfavourable in the State and in fact there is only one coal power station in Washington. Natural gas is less disfavoured than coal. I’ve also mentioned previously the existence of NIMBY opposition to wind power as well as issues of grid connection. The fact that certain power sources are disfavoured is important because elected Representatives and Senators tend to represent their districts more strongly than there parties (because elections come around so frequently), so a strong local bias is likely to be reflected in the voting on Bills.

Our next visit was to the Washington Department of Ecology (DoEc), where we had an interesting discussion on climate change adaptation. Washington has 2200 miles of coastline and is already experiencing erosion problems and models are predicting further pummelling through storms and waves. Currently the DoEc is hoping to incorporate some forward planning into a forthcoming State Act (I missed the title) to help mitigate against these impacts.

In Colorado we heard that there are potentially serious problems relating to water availability and I asked if the same was true in Washington. From models, it appears that the overall quantity of freshwater will not change appreciably; but there less snow melt and more rainwater as things warm up. Additionally there may earlier low river flow in summer, which is bad news for salmon, which are already in trouble in the State.

We heard that the DoEc is being encouraged to save energy, as are other Departments within the State. What was interesting was that the DoEc will be allowed to keep up to 50% of the savings as long as they reinvest into energy efficiency. All Departments have targets, but there isn’t really a penalty of missing them - other than the shame factor.

Dave Sjoding, from Washington State University, described some of the DoEc energy from waste projects. As with many places, the State is running out of landfill space and is therefore examining options to reduce waste being buried. What I liked about this CHP proposal was that it was more holistic than simply burning rubbish; co-products were considered, such as phosphorus and nitrogen for fertiliser.

We headed back to Seattle for the final formal meeting of the day, which was with Kevin Schneider, a smart grid expert from the Pacific North West National Laboratory. Kevin gave an absolutely fantastic overview of the US power system and noted that idea of a smart grid is somewhat of a misnomer. He suggested that it is more likely that a smart grid will be a way to operate the electricity system in a more flexible way utilising communications and information technology. He suggested that such a grid would have more information on how electricity is consumed, would have better utilisation of assets and would integrate renewables.

He noted an experiment in the Olympic Peninsula – a community that is served by a single power line that is rather congested. Smart devices were deployed to each dwelling that relayed information to a central computer and had the ability to control certain household devices, such as hot water, heating systems, fridges and dryer loads. Consumers were supplied with a simple dial that allowed them to set it to “more comfort” or “more saving”. Each dwelling had an account set up into which a portion of their previous energy bill was placed, and were told that any money remaining in the account at the end of the project would be theirs (i.e. there was a fiscal incentive to save energy). The master computer then conducted real time auctions between the dwellings, based on the dial settings. At times of peak, dwellings set to "more saving" could have applicances turned of briefly to flatten the demand. The result of the one-year trial was threefold:

There were no interrupted load complaints
Peak load was reduced by up to 30%
The power demand was much smoother – in fact during one 12-hour period it was almost completely smooth, which is virtually unheard of!

Kevin noted that Smart Grids may not necessarily cut bills, but they can make a difference in power quality and infrastructure use efficiency. He also noted that it is expensive to install such technologies in the house and perhaps in the short term better gains might be had through smart control of the T&D infrastructure.

Hype and overselling has been a key feature of Smart Grids and fears about invasion of privacy (e.g. the Government is controlling your AC unit) or overstated benefits (e.g. a report estimated vehicle to grid technologies could earn EV owners up to $6,000 per annum, when the figure is likely to be closer to $50) have set its reputation back somewhat.

Our final appointment was a social engagement in the hotel bar with Craig Gannett , a local lawyer working in the field of renewable energy.

All in all a fantastic trip with some great highlights! Many thanks to the US Embassy in London and the US State Department (and ultimately the US tax payer) for hosting us and to the various local bodies in Washington, Denver and Seattle who arranged the programme. I’m absolutely sure that all I’ve learned will be useful in the future, although right now I haven’t quite worked out what to apply it to!

Climate Change and Alternative Energy Program - Part 5

2009-11-06T10:25:00.000-08:00

Our first of four meetings was with Climate Solutions (CS). They are a not for profit organisation seeking practical solutions to climate change in the Pacific North West (Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Montana). CS is funded by Foundation money and contributions from other organisations such as industry.

NOTE: Whilst Idaho is included, they are not active because they have a staunch Republican Governor - it was quite obvious to us that they are only included because they border with Montana and therefore it would be odd if they were excluded.

CS reiterated many of the points we have already heard regarding the state of play of climate legislation and also the fact that much of the recovery funds is going to large companies rather than SMEs.

CS are engaged in a number of activities in partnership with others. An example is a recently launched report "Carbon free prosperity 2025" which highlights opportunities for the NW alongside a refreshingly honest approach to capacity to deliver.

CS are engaged with an organisation, New Energy Solutions, to develop energy efficiency strategies bespoke to different communities. For example they are working with high end (middle class) and lower end (manufacturing) communities to understand and implement measures that will be most effective in efficiency gains. For example, in the high end communities, people prefer a whole house service, delivered by trusted tradesmen.

CS also work at the Federal level also, keeping up to date on current policy. They have found that the best mechanism to have impact is to cultivate relationships with stakeholders who can access Senators. One such group is Business Leaders for Climate Change which comprises over 100 business leaders.

Interestingly CS had a better handle on policy impacts than I am used to seeing. For example, their work contributed to Republican Senators voting for the Waxman - Markey Bill.

Our next visit was to an SME - Bionavitas. The company specialises in technology to grow algal biomass. Their basic technology is to use fibre optic cables to permeate light through algae growth tanks resulting in a greatly enhanced (factor of 10) yield per unit light.

The company is founded and funded by a board of business angels, of which there are many in Washington (for example Microsoft started here).

Whilst Bionavitas is interested in biofuels, their core business is remediation. Washington State has a number of phosphorus mines which are leaching selenium into water sources causing downstream problems. Bionavitas are growing algae that remove and fix selenium and filtering the water.

Another profitable line is to grow astaxanthin producing algae. Astaxanthin is the nutrient that turns salmon flesh pink (it's found in shrimp etc) and is a valuable commodity for fish farms.

The CEO noted that it is difficult to raise funds from Federal money as the application process is complicated and long (100 page plus proposals). Some recovery money is slightly easier to access.

Our final meeting was with Democratic State Representative John McCoy.

Washington State has 49 districts and each or these has two Representatives (98 total) and one Senator. The legislative system is similar to Congress in that legislation must pass through both houses. There is a Governor who signs off the final bill. Don't get confused here with the 2 senators and several representatives who sit in Congress in DC and represent Washington…we did!

John is Chair of the Committee on Transport, Energy and Climate Change and was therefore knowledgeable on all the issues we had previously heard about. He agreed with us that the numerous utility companies did not make for easy application of legislation and initiatives in energy and climate change and hinted he would like a single state utility to do everything. Of course, as a realist, he was sceptical about this ever happening, but has commissioned some university research to examine the possibility.

There is interest in a feed in tariff type mechanism, which is often called a Standard Offer Contract. The idea is to enter into a contract for say 20 years with a price of unit electricity delivered based on the technology and with allowance for a small profit by end of contract. There are a large number of issues with this proposal at both federal and state level, so I wouldn't expect to see any movement soon.

We also learned that the utility penalty of $50 per MW for missing RPS is to be paid to State funds and will be used to deploy new renewable technologies or energy efficiency measures.

Washington State has a silicon business providing materials for solar PV and is interested in bringing other aspects of the supply chain to the State. There is also interest from Boeing on biofuels and wind power. There is also interest in electric vehicles and there is ongoing work on the recharging infrastructure.

Our final appointment of the day was dinner with Joe McDermott, a State Senator, who was kind enough to answer all my questions about the political system. I’ll not summarise this here, but feel free to ask me about it.

Climate Change and Energy Program - Part 4

2009-11-06T09:39:00.001-08:00

Tuesday 2nd November

On Tuesday we spent a day at Tacoma Power (TP), a municipal (public) owned energy company established in1893. TP serves 160,000 customers and proved to be an interesting model to explore what we previously learned at FERC.

TP is a very low carbon company, deriving the majority of their energy from hydro power - a commodity that Washington State is blessed with. TP only produces half the energy it requires, the rest it buys from Bonneville Power Administration - a large DoE agency based in the Pacific North West that runs a number of Federal hydro dams and also a nuclear power plant.

Stepping back for a minute, it is clear that Washington State is a good example of the complexity of the US electricity system. It has numerous Public Owned Utilities (POUs) and Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs) and also Rural Cooperatives. The T&D infrastructure is owned by numerous players (including all of the above) and there is significant inter-company energy trading. As we have heard previously there is a Renewable Power Standard (RPS) in place in the State, which requires 15% electricity to be derived from Renewables by 2020_on top_ of what is already produced. Energy efficiency measures do count toward this, although as discussed below, some measures do not.

As already noted, TP portfolio is almost exclusively hydro power and already they have a surplus, so building additional renewable power is uneconomical. Therefore TP propose, in the most part, to achieve the RES through efficiency measures, which they call conservation. They also see this strategy as a means to avoid building significant new power in the future. They noted that current demand grows about 2% per year.

A quick aside here - Washington State has considerable wind resources and these are being exploited by other companies to meet RES. Already this has resulted, on windy days, in an excess if power on the market. Hydro companies must generate to moderate river flow, and in this situation it has resulted in them paying customers to accept power that they need to dump on the system. This is something that we might expect to see in the UK as wind power levels come up.

Returning to conservation, TP has a conservation pathway to meet their RPS obligation which boils down to monthly aspirations. They have three broad initiatives ongoing which are industrial, domestic and NEEA. Broadly speaking the first two include efficiency measures we have previously heard about such as low energy lights, reduced cost for efficient HVAC equipment, work with large companies on efficiency projects and preferential customer rates on energy star whites goods. NEEA (the North West Energy Alliance) is a Trade Association that numerous energy utilities pay fees to in return for a share of their large energy efficiency projects (such as hospital energy efficiency). Broadly speaking it seemed that TP were on track to meet the RPS. A good job as there is a $50 per MW fine for missing the target! They were aware that they are hitting the low hanging fruit and that more difficult things will have to be examined in the future.

Curiously, behavioural measures, such as advertising campaigns, even if they result in lower energy usage, do not count toward the RES target, which to me seemed completely perverse. I’ve asked a few people about this and it turns out that this is a consequence of the poorly written Public Bill that passed into legislation. It appears that Bills can only be changed after two years, and the first time they tried to change this bill in the State it failed to pass through the legislative process (in other words it didn’t get the majority vote). This means it’ll have to wait until next year.

TP have a smart meter project ongoing and have rolled it out to 16,000 customers. Communication is based on fibre optics and they have actually started a cable and broadband company to take advantage of the fact they are laying the cable anyway. This system has enabled a pay as you go tariff for customers on the poverty line (which comprise 40% of their customer base!). The system allows customers to buy credit (as little as $5 at a time) and then warns them when it's time to top up (they will be cut of off if they don't pay). In contrast to the UK system, this system works out cheaper for customers, as service charges are based on how much power is used.

We also had the opportunity to visit one of TPs hydro projects, which was great fun. We learned that in some of the dam systems where you might have five dams in a cascade on one river, it may be the case that each project is owned by a different company, meaning that there has to be close collaboration to regulate river flow (e.g. one company cannot generate flat out if others don't want the flow).

A final point - as a POU, TP are not supposed to make a profit. It's OK for them to have a surplus as long as the money is reinvested into necessary projects. This means that potentially investment in infrastructure is possible, albeit at a slow rate. Obviously this isn't necessarily the case for IOUs.

Climate Change and Alternative Energy Program - Part 3

2009-10-31T09:28:00.000-07:00

Finally Denver is living up to its reputation as a 300 sunny days a year city – it’s a beautiful morning. Yesterday we had three great meetings, starting at the Governors’ Energy Office.

Colorado’s Governor, Bill Ritter, is a fan of renewable energy, and there are good reasons for him to be so in Colorado. The State has good wind and solar resources and is also a farming and forestry State. The presence of a number of national laboratories, including NREL, and a number of Universities, means that there is a highly educated and motivated workforce and good support for cleantech businesses. Colorado has a Climate Change Plan (20% GHG reduction by 2020 based on 2005 levels) and also a Renewable Energy Standard (RES, 20% renewable power by 2020). Interestingly the RES was then result of a populous movement – a bottom-up demand rather than a top-down one.

In case it’s not clear, Standards in America, like the RES, are targets that must be met. In the case of Colorado, consumers are protected from steep price hikes by a cap on the maximum increase on energy bills of 2%. If measures would take the price above this, the obligation on suppliers is removed.

Colorado, like all States, has received Recovery Funds. In this case the annual energy budget has risen from $10M to $90M. The majority of this fund is being deployed towards weatherisation of homes (insulation and the like). The increase means that up to $6K can be spent on homes (up from $2K) and the qualifying income bracket has been increased so that more homes can be refurbished. Also energy companies have schemes such as low-carbon design assistance for new buildings and also price reduction on best in class technologies for business such as fridges.

Colorado is aggressively promoting itself to companies and has had major success in attracting wind companies (including Vestas) and solar companies. Companies are offered tax incentives and help with staffing if they move to Colorado.

There is a forthcoming Renewable Energy Deployment Initiative which has mapped out Colorado’s energy priorities, which are essentially:

More investment in wind and solar
Greater emphasis on energy efficiency
Improved HV transmission infrastructure
Coal power (Colorado has significant coal resources)
Natural gas development and its integration in a high RE grid

After the Governors’ office we moved a couple of blocks over to meet with the Western Governors’ Association (WGA). As you are probably aware, in the absence of National action on global warming, individual States, such have California, have taken it upon themselves to commit to action. Additionally, groups of States have cooperated, and the WGA is an example of this.

WGA represents 19 Western States, including Colorado, Washington (which we visit on Monday) and California. Such associations are a good way to “beat up on” Federal Government and are also a route to explore climate change measures such as GHG cap and trade schemes. Currently a number of Western States and also four Canadian Provinces (who have autonomy to set law) are exploring setting up such a system, although it’s unlikely to be operational until 2012. There are two other State collaborations in the US, a mid-West group (comprising 5 States) and a North East (comprising 13 States) how are active in developing cap and trade systems and in fact the NE market is active, although the carbon price is low (a couple of dollars per tonne).

The WGA noted the problems in building new transmission and distribution (T&D) infrastructure that we heard about in Washington DC; citing particular issues around habitats, water, NIMBYISM – all of which are typically dealt with by different authorities at both the State and Federal level. WGA are looking to carry out a project to examine the Western energy resources (and limits such as water availability) and then map out a potential transmission system to move the power around (at a size commensurate with the resource rather than the initial development). They are hoping to get around $20M to carry out this work. Once again the problems with bringing renewable electricity from the resource (i.e. the north for wind) to the demand (i.e. California) through numerous States was emphasised – there is no good model to work how pays/benefits.

We discussed the possibility of a National policy on Climate Change and once again it was apparent that this is still a ways off. One opinion was that it could be 3-5 years before there is such a policy, which means that the emphasis remains very much on State level initiatives. I should also say that WGA has an agreement on climate adaptation as a number of States, including Colorado are already seeing significant impacts, such as reduced water and forest degradation. It was noted that the rather conservative water utilities are already leading the way on adaptation measures.

Interestingly we also learned that there have been no new coal power stations built in the US since the 80’s, nor any nuclear new build. Most new power has been derived through natural gas, which there have recently been new finds nationally, improving security of supply.

I have to say that this was a really interesting meeting – lots of knowledge exchange and some opportunities for further discussions. Good luck to the WGA!

Out final meeting was with the Colorado Cleantech Industry Association (CCIA), which is a relatively new body (8 months old). The CCIA already has 115 members, 90% of which are SMEs, with clusters around smart grids, biofuels, transportation and solar. A key role of the CCIA is to keep track of policy at both the Federal level and State level, which is a pretty tough task considering so far there are only two employees!

A key priority for CCIA is investment in innovation, particularly for small companies; the State tends to prefer relationships with large companies. It was noted that the Waxman-Markey Bill contains a proposal for innovation hubs, one of which (solar, wind or energy efficiency) might well come to Colorado. It was also clear from the meeting that a there is a shortage in the executive workforce (e.g. business savvy directors etc) particularly for SMEs, which is a similar situation to the UK. There are some interesting programmes in the US to encourage skilled people into the sector, although the schemes are quite small currently.

CCIA will also be active in networking its members and encouraging technology transfer between them.

Climate Change and Alternative Energy Program Part II

2009-10-30T07:25:00.000-07:00

Our last meeting in Washington was with the Federal Energy Regulation Commission (FERC). FERC is essentially responsible for regulating the following industries:

Electric power
Natural gas
Oil pipeline
Hydroelectric

In a jam packed meeting, we learned a huge amount. Firstly, the American energy system is completely and utterly different to the UKs. Nowhere is this more apparent than in electricity, but let me start with the simple example of natural gas. FERC tend to own and regulate the national infrastructure, such as gas stores, LNG stores and the pipelines that take these into the different States. They don’t own the infrastructure for extracting and processing the gas nor do they own or regulate the infrastructure within the State; that is regulated by the State itself. The price of gas used to be set be FERC, but is now deregulated as there is sufficient competition in the system. So the lesson here is that it’s up to individual States to distribute the gas, once it’s been delivered. This lessons, crudely, applies to most energy services – they are managed and regulated at the State level.

So, gas is fairly simple, electricity, however, is not. In fact it’s so complicated I’m going to really struggle to explain it. The role of FERC is to regulate sales from generators to distributors. Distributers then sell power to customers (which might be other distributors, in which case FERC regulates again), which is regulated by the individual States. Electricity price has never been deregulated, so the role of FERC is to ensure a “just and reasonable price” to consumers, which I think means agreeing a reasonable price for sale from the generator (and assuming that mark-ups down the chain aren’t too high).

In the whole electricity system, FERC owns virtually nothing. Almost all power plants and transmission and distribution infrastructure is either privately or State owned, and there are literally thousands of companies involved. There are basically three sorts of arrangements:

Investor owned utilities – these date back to the days of Edison where the Federal Government allowed monopolies in return for a guarantee of universal, safe, reliable service. Curiously, the power companies did not receive payment per unit electricity, but rather had a profit based on sunk capital meaning they were encouraged to build. Apparently the rate of return was set at a rather healthy 10-11%!
Cooperatives – These formed in low-population areas, such as farming States, where it would be expensive to lay power lines. Essentially the Federal Government offers a low cost loan (the “Rural Utilities Service”, which is paid back over time by the co-ops. The co-ops are run by a board of directors, which has in some instances lead to corruption.
Municipal/Public Authorities – is where the State has invested in the supply and transmission and distribution infrastructure. These bodies are essentially self-regulating.

I should also mention that there are a number of Regional Transmission Organisations, where the States or private owners have pooled resources to service a number of States (so that the mnost efficient system can be developed).

Overall, the infrastructure in America is as old as it is in the UK, and it’s very difficult (because of the number of different players) to incentivise new build. Also the private/State ownership of land and T&D networks means that it is extremely difficult to put new power lines down that cross through different States as each one will want to negotiate and have the power to block progress. This means it is difficult to move wind power down from where the resource is, in the North of America, to the demand (typically on the coasts).

The market for electricity is somewhat complicated. It’s regional/local and is typically divided into 24 1-hourly slots per day (where people bid for the next day). Both supply and demand sides bid for power (e.g. supply says I have 200MW available at 13.00 for $X, demand wants 200MW at 13.00 for $Y). Bids are matched, with cheapest dealt with first. This process continues until the gas power is reached (the most expensive/volatile) and at this point the price is set for the next day’s generation at that hour (which can make it very profitable for cheaper technologies). This sort of made my head spin!

The way the market works means that certain areas, such as New York City, which have high demand, little supply and suffer transmission congestion, can face very high spot prices. This is dealt with to a certain extent through demand management. Big users of power will get paid by suppliers if they cut back their demand within 30 minutes of a reliability warning. FERC would like to roll this out more broadly whereby users could get the market price per unit of power not used during crunch times.

It follows that there great interest in smart grids. We saw a strategy that estimated up to 20% of peak demand could be avoided through active demand management of technologies including air conditioners, fridges and electric vehicles. There are some very big plans for smart grids and FERC is currently writing a Strategy paper for Congress. NIST is currently consulting on standards for smart meters, and are open to international collaboration so if this is something you are interested in I can probably get you a contact.

Microgeneration, such as PV, have to be accepted back into the grid with the consumer typically being credited for the power exported (i.e. the meter runs backwards). I didn’t get a feel for whether there is any incentive other than this for consumers to invest in microgeneration (for example capital loans). I think probably not.

So, I’ve mainly learned that the electricity system is hugely complicated. It's a mix of state and private level companies with some cross-State relationships. Federal Government has little power over the system, other than in protecting consumers from excessive prices. If new capacity is required States have to demand and incentivise the producers to do this. Nimbyism is potent in America and is a real problem for upgrading T&D infrastructure. There are extremely ambitious plans for smart grids but it is unclear how these would be deployed.

I am writing this blog on my iPhone as we hurtle west towards Denver. I think the whole group is really looking forward to this part as not only are we visiting national laboratories but we are also going to be celebrating Halloween with American families. I'm glad I bought the Harrods chocolate with me now! We are also looking forward to a visit to the rocky mountain national park on Sunday.

UPDATE

Snowed in!

Denver is under a foot of snow! It's a real shame as it means that we can't visit NREL or indeed the Smart Grid house that we had planned.

Am currently sat in a coffee shop inside a giant sports store writing this after a chilly and slushy walk through a rather beautiful Denver.

Our hotel, the Brown Palace is magnificent, it's 120 years old (which is old over here) and features a superb cigar bar (not that I've been in there, honestly) and a superb, but jaw droppingly expensive breakfast.

Hopefully the weather will clear tomorrow so that we can visit the State energy team at the state.

UPDATE 2

Weather looks much better today (Friday), so the visits are on. This should be really interesting to see how the individual State deals with energy policy. More to follow...

Climate Change and Alternative Energy Program Part I

2009-10-28T05:05:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 27th October

Greetings from Washington DC!

I’ve been here since Sunday 25th, but thanks to a rather busy business and social programme I am only just able to commit some text to this blog I promised to deliver. My brain is a bit fried so I apologise if this doesn’t make perfect sense (not that I often make perfect sense…). If you remember, I am here on the Climate Change and Energy Program, which is sponsored by the US State Department. Our intrepid band of travellers comprises seven people representing DECC, UKERC (that’s me by the way), Edinburgh University, Sustainable Development Commission, the Welsh Assembly, the Nuclear Industry Association and House of Commons ECC Select Committee. We’re here, as reasonably early career people, to learn about how things get done here in America. The Washington DC programme is focussing on Capitol Hill and on the passage of the various Climate Change Bills through the two Houses and also to some extent on how the recovery funds are being deployed.

So far we have met with policy think tanks, the Department of Energy, staff for a Republican Senator and the Environment Protection Agency. I haven’t got time to delve into the details, and I don’t want to get in trouble for attributing comments, so I’m going to keep this extremely high level and make just a few observations. The fact that it’s 30 minutes until dinner has nothing to do with it at all…

1) Don’t get your hopes up about Copenhagen. The strong message is that there won’t be a global deal at Copenhagen – I’m sure that this isn’t a massive surprise to most. There are a number of reasons, but key is that no domestic US Climate Change Bills will be ready in time. Currently, there appear to be three documents circulating:

The Waxman-Markley Bill, which has been passed by the House of Representatives (you need to get through both Houses before something can become law, like in the UK).
The Boxer-Kerry Bill, which is the new Bill, which is currently being discussed at the Senate.
The Bingaman Bill, which is also being discussed in the Senate

I daren’t get into details on these as they are all extremely complicated (the first runs to 1400 pages or so), but in essence most rely on a cap and trade system with permits (to emit GHGs) either allocated (e.g. current EU ETS) or 100% auctioned (e.g. future EU ETS). At the moment, allocation is favoured in the Bills, but many people we have talked with would prefer 100% auctioning. In the meantime, EPA is starting to collect data on GHGs from the relevant industries (those emitting more than 25,000 tonnes per year), which is compliant with Kyoto reporting. The main point is that there isn’t any hope of any of these Bills getting through the system before December, and without a domestic policy there isn’t a hope of signing up to a global agreement.

It’s not wholly negative as there is optimism that some of the really tricky elements that could lead to a global agreement could be cracked in Copenhagen, paving the way for agreement.

2) There is a lot of recovery money sloshing around. For example we have learned that the DoE budget for low carbon technologies in 2009 was $5.5bn – that is some serious cash. I did a back of an envelope calculation and I reckon that this (on a per capita basis) is the equivalent of an injection of £611M into the UK. Remember that the budget of the ETI is around £600M over 10 years; so this, for example, would represent a 10-fold increase for a given year, and likely the same again the following year.

There are some interesting issues over how the money can be spent, since it all needs to be spent (or committed) over 2-years. From what I’ve seen, there will be numerous big projects, kind of similar to ETI projects, with a focus on delivering products to market within 3-5 years. I think we’ll find out more about these when we visit the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Denver on Thursday.

3) There is a Plan B. If none of the Climate Change Bills pass the Houses, then the EPA does have the power to regulate GHGs under the Clean Air Act, because they represent a hazard to human health. Because this approach would be clunky, bureaucratic and prone to legal challenges, it is far from ideal, but there is work ongoing to set it up as a fall back.

I do hope in a later post to touch upon a “Green Bank” proposal and also the way in which things seem to get done in the Senate, but haven’t the time right now.

We fly out to Denver today where we will see some of the national research laboratories and also learn about State level policy and politics.

UKERC Energy 2050 report launched

2009-05-01T07:43:00.000-07:00

This week I honestly thought there was no going to be no chance for me to get a newsletter out as today is the only day I've been in the office. However, there has simply been too much going on for me not to broadcast it.

Of course the most important event was the launch of the UKERC 2050 Energy report yesterday. Nearly 350 people were registered for the event and over 200 attended. The audience were thrilled by a succession of talks by the authors and insightful commentary by invited guests. The audience were provoked by a series of electronic polls an there were some very interesting answers. In due course we'll put these on the website, but as taster we found that 72% of our audience thought that the UK would achieve only a 60% or lower reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, despite the fact that 31% believed that a >90% emissions reduction was technically and economically feasible. There was also a full and frank discussion between the audience and speakers and I know that we have gleaned a number of excellent ideas for research in Phase II.

I'm sure some of you are interested in what the report actually says, so I have repeated the key messages, summarised by Professor Jim Skea, below:

Achieving a resilient low-carbon energy system in the UK is technically and economically feasible at an affordable cost
There are multiple pathways to a low-carbon economy. A key trade-off is the speed of reduction in energy demand versus the decarbonisation of energy supply
Driving down energy demand plays brings multiple benefits. It insures against: The possible failure of key technologies to deliver; Social resistance to the use of certain supply side technologies; and Price shocks and import dependence
Aggressive promotion of energy efficiency and conservation technologies is the least cost means of driving down energy demand

For the detail I strongly recommend that you read the full report.

In addition to the launch event there was also a media briefing event on Wednesday organised through the Science Media Centre. This event registered a huge amount of interest and a number of stories in the popular media. I've dedicated the news section of NERN to this but for those interested the pieces in the Times (and also here), Reuters and the FT were all good.

In addition to the UKERC 2050 report launch (and the following celebrations) this week also saw the last workshop of Carbon Crucible. Our participants worked on their project proposal in a workshop in Oxford and have generated 14 ideas so far. At UKERC and NESTA we are now turning our attention to how we might continue Carbon Crucible in the future. If anyone has any ideas for UK, EU or international funding schemes that we might tap into then please them to me. You can also post me large bags of money as well if you feel so inclined…

Elsewhere in the news I'm sure many of you will have seen the press release from DECC regarding carbon capture and storage. The intent can be summarised as follows - No new coal without CCS demonstration from day one. Alongside the Government's ongoing competition to build a post-combustion demonstrator, up to three further projects including pre-combustion technology, will be funded by a new levy mechanism. This strikes me as a major new development and a very clear message about the future of coal.

Budget 2009 - what's in it for me?

2009-04-23T07:20:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-04-03T04:01:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-03T03:57:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-03T03:55:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-03T03:53:00.000-07:00

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.

Green spending in the economic downturn

2009-02-27T04:12:00.000-08:00

Firstly, a big thanks to those of you who responded to last call for discussion on low carbon heat and my house. Thanks to NERN members I've learned the importance of sealing skirting boards and also have a bundle of literature comparing low carbon heat technologies.

Perhaps it's a sign of the economy woes, but I'm struggling to spot any job and funding opportunities at the moment - if you have heard of anything please do let me know.

This week I've been inspired by a piece in the Guardian – "Great clean up – can economic rescue plan also save the planet " – in which the green claims of the global economy recovery plans are scrutinised. Thanks to whoever pinned that up on our notice board!

So how much do experts think we should be spending on green measures? Sir Nick Stern thinks that green measures should comprise 20% of these plans. The UN has suggests an annual target of 1% GDP.

How do the various economic recovery plans match these ambitions? I should place an important caveat here that I'm going from a HSBC table in the Guardian – I just thought I'd make it clear that these figures might not stand up to scrutiny (particularly since the article itself seems to contradict them).

Unsurprisingly, it is a rather mixed picture. South Korea is leading the way, devoting nearly 70% (3% of its GDP) to green measures in their $36bn package. China is next, pledging one third of their mighty $581bn package (I estimate 4.6% GDP) to green measures, with a focus on energy efficient (which as we see is a good thing). You'll note I haven't mentioned the UK yet – I'm getting there. What about the USA? Well, of the whopping $825bn recovery package, around 16% is pledged to green measures (which by my rough calculations is around 0.9% US GDP) – so quite reasonable. In Europe, out of an overall recovery package (announced so far) of $253bn, 14% appears to be attributed to green plans. Germany is the leading light here, pledging 19% of their package to green investments (although representing just 0.3% of their GDP). In Europe both Spain (10%) and France (8%) have pledged a greater proportion of their recovery packages to green measures compared to the UK (7%). Of the total UK recovery package, at $29.9bn (about the same in euro and dollars at current exchange rate – only joking), representing about 1% of UK GDP, only $2.1bn appears to be earmarked for green things (0.07% GDP). Bottom of the pile are Japan (2%), Italy (1%) and India (0%).

So overall the packages represent a 13% spend on green measures. Although this is lower than Sir Nick Stern's proposal for 20%, it strikes me as better result than it could have been had everyone retreated into an "economy first, green second" shell. Assuming of course I'm no being greenwashed.

For those who are interested, the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at LSE have released a policy briefing "An outline of the case for a 'green' stimulus ", which ranks green measures on economic factors and climate change impact. The central argument is that a 'green' fiscal stimulus "can provide an effective boost to the economy, increasing labour demand in a timely fashion, while at the same time building the foundations for sound, sustainable and strong growth in the future". The paper then goes on to score various measures against both economic and climate change criteria and produces a league table of measures. Perhaps unsurprisingly, those that score most highly are all related to energy efficiency. Some may raise an eyebrow at the fact that carbon capture and storage and advanced battery development prop up the bottom of the table. The reason is that neither offers an immediate shot in the arm for the economy; however, both are important medium- and long-term priorities so should be supported by appropriate measures.

DECC Heat and Energy Saving Strategy

2009-02-20T03:28:00.000-08:00

Not a huge amount of interesting news this week, so I've decided to share with you some selected highlights of the DECC Heat and Energy Saving Strategy that is now open for consultation. Or to put it another way, I've had to read the whole thing and therefore I'm going to inflict it upon you.

My first impressions are that it is really quite ambitious. Its overarching aim is for emissions from all buildings to be approaching zero by 2050 (I had an immediate mental image of a motorist claiming to be approaching zero speed after removing their foot from the accelerator at 100mph – I'm too cynical!). In practice the aim is that overall emissions from buildings will be reduced by more than 80% in 2050. Greater emission cuts [than the UK 80% target] from buildings are required in order to take up the slack from other sectors that will find it tougher going (for example transport). The top level policy measures proposed are as follows:

All lofts and cavities will be insulated where practical by 2015. This represents a significant acceleration of the current strategy. The current CERT scheme may be superseded by a new Community Energy Savings Programme (dependent on how a trial scheme performs).
Numerous accredited home energy advisors and plentiful information on energy saving and low carbon technologies will be available to homeowners and landlords to help them save energy and money.
Innovative financial support packages will be developed in order to encourage people to install more expensive energy saving (for example solid wall insulation) and low carbon energy generation technologies (for example heat pumps or solar thermal). This is an area that fascinates me and I'll come back to it below.
An examination of Building Regulations to see whether energy saving measures can be installed alongside other necessary building work. A new voluntary code of practice relating to energy efficiency and energy saving will be discussed with the building trade.
District heating and combined heat and power (CHP) will be re-examined and mechanisms to encourage uptake will be scrutinised.

My interest was piqued by the discussion of financial mechanisms to encourage the installation of low carbon technologies in buildings. The premise that installing such technologies will save energy and make homes more attractive for sale seems sound to me. The fact that the up-front costs puts people off is also true. So what is the Government proposing here?

One option is for Government to provide a bigger subsidy for the technologies – perhaps 50% or more (or less) of installation costs.

Option B, crudely put, is that you will take out a loan to pay the up-front costs of technology installation (for example solar thermal can cost £2-3K to install) and you will then pay back the loan plus interest, over an extended period of time (think mortgage lengths), out of the money you save. The key thing is that the loan repayments are less than the total money that you save, so, in other words, you will be paying less on energy monthly after you install the technology. So what happens if you chose to move house? On average we move house about every 9 years in the UK (I am way above average!) – what happens to the shiny new technology and of course your loan? So far it's not quite clear, and in fact the Government is looking for innovative ideas (ask the banks how they are feeling about innovative financial ideas right now). One possibility is the loan will be passed onto the new owners through an as yet undefined mechanism. Who will be giving the loan? Energy companies and mortgage companies are possibilities as both are used to long term customer relationships. What happens if you want to switch to a better deal for energy or mortgage? This is yet to be worked through, hence why they are consulting.

Option C is to apply an Energy Services Company (ESCo) model. Here companies would install the low carbon energy generation equipment, at no up-front cost, and charge consumers for the use of the services over a contract period. The ESCo would also maintain the equipment. How does the customer save money and the ESCo make a profit? The ESCo would receive any subsidies such as the feed-in tariff (or ROCs) and Renewable Heat Incentive and use these to offset the charge paid by the householder. If the householder moves then in theory the contract could be passed to the new home inhabitant. What if they don't want the service? I guess some technologies (but all) could simply be removed and installed elsewhere.

I've just used the EST tool to self-assess my house (a 1985 mid-terraced house) for its energy efficiency and achieved a B rating. I've pretty much exhausted the energy efficiency measures that I can easily install (double glazing, cavity wall insulation, condensing boiler, thermostatic control and low energy bulbs) and my energy usage has been significantly reduced. I'm now seriously considering adding a low carbon heat technology (probably solar thermal or air source heat pump) to my house; this is why, in addition to the day job, that I'm interested in the incentives and mechanisms proposed. Of the three options I'm probably more attracted by A and C. Option C is would potentially be the least effort on my behalf but I have sneaking suspicion that I'd be able to save more money with A (and I'm a very stingy Northerner). I'd love to hear your thoughts on the mechanisms (especially if I've totally misinterpreted them) and also the technology choices. I know the NERN newsletter isn't supposed to be a "help Jeff make decisions" forum but if I don't get to abuse my position now and again then I feel I would be missing out.

I promise to write about energy news next week.

Happy eco-valentine's day

2009-02-20T03:26:00.000-08:00

Its official, energy consultation season 2009 is now open. I'm aware of three that are currently circulating the policy world, the DECC Heat and Energy Saving Strategy (HES), the Ofgem one on introduction of charging arrangements associated with Offshore Transmission Networks and the Energy and Climate Change Committee inquiry into the future of Britain's electricity networks. I'm almost certain that I've missed one or two as well. Is suspect UKERC will be responding the DECC heat and energy saving consultation.

From a personal perspective, as someone interested in fitting low carbon heat technologies at home, I was pleased to see in the DECC consultation mention of loans to cover the system costs (probably). I was slightly disappointed to when I realised that it's unlikely that any such system will be in place before 2011 though. On the home front, the Scottish Government's budget was passed after some last minute adjustments. Now included is a £30M commitment to energy efficiency in Scottish homes.

In European policy, MEPs have backed a proposal for an 80% cut in EU emissions by 2050. The proposal is outlined in the Laperouze report on the Second Strategic Energy Review. Other measures suggested include, making the 20% 2020 energy saving target a legally binding one and increasing this to 35% in 2050, and generating 60% of EU energy from renewables in 2050. There are also a number of interesting proposals relating to the EU grid.

In the news this week there are some clever ideas for adding energy generation to existing structures. The first is to converting the kinetic energy of cars passing over sleeping policemen (that's speed bumps for the non-UK readers) into electrical energy. It sounds like a good idea, although when I tried it out on a friend (the idea, not driving a car over him) he did express concerns over digging up the UK's roads and the price of copper wire (always interesting to take a natural reaction to new ideas).

The other idea is to fit wave energy generation technologies to offshore wind turbines to increase the output from a single installation. The proposal, by Green Ocean Energy, could generate an additional 500kW per wind turbine. I wonder if it is a step too far to consider the possibility of fixing a tidal stream turbine to the platform somehow?

Finally, the Guardian newspaper has suggested some eco-friendly Valentine's Day options for those who will be celebrating tomorrow – yes even love has a carbon footprint (albeit a soft and furry one I'd imagine). In a situation reminiscent of a myriad of low budget horror movies, I'll actually be braving a Valentine's celebration tonight on Friday 13th! If you don't hear from me next week, assume the worst…

Let sleeping koala's lie

2008-12-04T08:34:00.000-08:00

UKERC Phase II issues have been occupying my mind for the majority of the week; however, there have been some news stories that have captured my interest.

I should point out straight away that both the Energy Act and the Climate Change Act both entered the stature books this week, having received Royal Assent.

The first was an interview with Wulf Bernotat, the boss of E.ON, who essentially told it like it is. In relation to the UK's energy predicament he said "You have old nuclear plants, old coal, expensive gas, a need to invest in renewables to reach unrealistic targets, and a slow [planning] process. Doesn't that sound like a problem to you?" he said. "The situation in the energy sector in the UK is more difficult than a number of other countries in Europe, without people fully realising it." And the solution? "We need a framework that enables and encourages investment." Fair enough.

The second was two articles highlighting how different the religions are approaching the climate issue. The Vatican has responded by covering the roof of the "Nervi Hall", where popes hold general audiences and concerts are performed, with 2,400 photovoltaic panels. In a broader gathering, hundreds of representatives of the worlds leading religions have met at a summit in Sweden with an aim to set a manifesto to encourage far-reaching policy goals from the United Nations. Although, as we'll see below, jetting vast numbers of people to far flung locations may not exactly be the way to solve climate change.

The carbon footprint of climate scientists has come under scrutiny in an article in Nature. The scrutiniser was an environmental scientist named Andreas Stohl. Andreas estimated that his colleagues at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research were responsible for around 5 tonnes additional carbon dioxide each due to all the air travel required for them to attend meetings all over the world. The figure is comparable to scientists from other disciplines and also business people. Andreas points out that whilst climate scientists should be setting an example, the Norwegian funding system in fact encourages collaboration with follow scientists in North America and elsewhere, thus leading to additional travel.

Finally, I was delighted to read a story about how researchers have used mobile phones to eavesdrop on koala bears. "Koala bellows can go from really quite short, sharp, and quite agitated sounding bellows to long, slow, deep bellows that can last for over a minute," said researcher Bill Ellis. "Interestingly most of the bellowing seems to occur around midnight, not around dawn or dusk when we thought it might've occurred." Are they absolutely certain that weren't recording koala bear snores? The tenuous link to energy here is that the mobile phones were charged by solar panels.

Can we avert a future ice age by venting CO2 into atmosphere (I'm not being serious)?

2008-11-21T08:02:00.000-08:00

November, it seems, is the month for energy meetings in London (or perhaps it is only now that I'm starting to get invited). Over the last two weeks I have attended the final meeting on the UK Carbon Capture and Storage Consortium, a Policy Exchange seminar on Combined Heat and Power, a Deutsche Bank meeting on Low Carbon Cities and finally the Royal Society discussion meeting – Towards a Low Carbon Future.

I could go on to write an essay about each, as there were a number of thought provoking presentations, but instead I'm going to crudely sum up what I thought were the overarching common lessons to be learned.

1) It is an absolutely critical time for low carbon research and despite the financial crisis (see below) we must double our efforts (see caveat in point 3 below).
2) Unfortunately it appears to be the case that the credit crunch has set back progress in low carbon technologies because credit is harder to come by and more expensive. However, it is anticipated that the sector will emerge leaner and fitter and will, because of a positive and (hopefully) long term policy framework, be a sound long term investment for the future. In other words, when cash is available again, the low carbon sector will look like a safe bet.
3) The need for speedy deployment of low carbon measures is no excuse for doing things sloppily or making elementary mistakes because projects were ill thought through. An excellent example was cited by Tadj Oreszczyn at the Royal Society meeting. In a domestic retrofit project a team was dispatched to improve the insulation of dwellings, and they did a good job reducing heat loss resulting in a 14% improvement. Once the dwelling was well insulated, a second team was brought in to upgrade to a more efficient central heating system. Measurements of the building heat loss after this operation showed that now the building was actually 1% worse than before any measures were applied. Why? Because the central heating team had drilled holes throughout the building allowing heat loss.

There's going to a cold snap this weekend, however, unlike previous years, there don't appear to be the fears over gas supplies to the UK. There are several reasons, but a key fact is that the recession is driving down energy demand (people are making less stuff). Coupled with this is the fact that gas prices, whilst falling, are doing so at a slower rate than coal and thus it is expected that power companies will switch to coal over winter. Obviously this will have knock on effects to carbon emissions.

Whilst gas supplies do not seem to be a danger this year, it has been argued that an electricity shortage is just around the corner and could be a real problem by 2015. The BBC surveyed a number of energy experts and the majority expressed concerns that the closure of coal fired power plants due the to the EU Large Combustion Plants Directive. The directive aims to reduce acidification, ground level ozone and particles throughout Europe by controlling emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) and dust (particulate matter (PM)) from large combustion plants (LCPs) in power stations. The result of the directive is that a number of coal and oil fired power plants will close around 2015 and there is uncertainty about replacement capacity to fill the gap. Curiously, when I was working at the Royal Society of Chemistry, we were more worried about the period around 2023, where all but one of the UK nuclear power plants is due to close. Perhaps we were thinking too far ahead!

The ambition for a significant EU demonstration programme of coal fired power plants designed to capture, transport and store carbon dioxide is in danger of being curtailed. France has proposed to scale back the programme budget, which aims to demonstrate 10-12 CCS plants in Europe by 2015, from €10 billion to between €2 and 4 billion.

Finally, amidst all the fears and efforts on global warming, it appears that we are heading, in 10,000 years or so, for an ice age. However, don't panic, as the event will probably be averted because of the global warming we are committed to. Even if global warming has been completely negated, then we will have accrued rather large reserves of CO2 trapped underground that could be released to warm things up a bit (I'm joking here, although perhaps I may be being foolish to assume someone wouldn't consider this).

Congratulations to Barack Obama

2008-11-11T08:56:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Barack Obama! I don't know about any other NERN members but I stayed up until the early hours of the morning awaiting with glassy eyed fascination the result of Ohio!

This week I attended the Euro-CASE annual conference 'How can the EU meet its 2020 renewables targets?' at the Royal Academy of Engineering earlier this week (3rd November). In case you haven’t heard of it, Euro-CASE is a non-profit-making organisation of national academies from 21 European countries. I was going to summarise the key points of the meeting here, but thankfully Alok Jha of the Guardian has beaten me to it. Lord Browne made a point that stood out for me. He stated that there needs to be a level playing field for all technologies in terms of pricing in the externalities (e.g. carbon emissions), removing regulatory and planning barriers and the dismantling of fossil fuel subsidies.

UKERC has been in the news once again this week. I managed a personal first and was quoted in the Times Higher Education Supplement in an article about the European Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Technology Initiative. I think that this betters my personal previous best quote on the front page of The Sun (not this one (different Jeff Hardy) but rather this one)! UKERC’s Research Director, Jim Skea, was quoted in Nature discussing the approval of the UK Climate Change Bill.

In the news this week, there was a slight theme on electronic equipment. It seems that companies are wooing consumers at technology shows with their green gadgets. Examples of green gadgets include wireless smart meters, electric scooters and bamboo laptops. All very exciting I’m sure, but one question that springs to mind is “what happens to the gadgets that you replace?” Fortunately, BusinessWeek has examined the issue in their article the dirty secret of recycling electronics. The volume of E-waste is expected to surge next year in the US and also the UK as people switch from analogue to digital TV. A portion of this electrical and electronic equipment ends up being exported (in some cases illegally) to Asia and elsewhere where the valuable parts are recycled and where the rest is dumped allowing metals and chemicals to leach into the environment. I remember back in my days as a green chemist at the University of York we were interested in whether the European Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive (WEEE) would lead to the application of green product design (where products are designed with recycling and the environment in mind). It’s probably still a little too early to be able to tell whether green product design is taking hold or not.

Solar photovoltaic records once again have been tumbling! A new breed of organic dye sensitised solar cells (so called Grätzel cells) has achieved 10% efficiency. This doesn’t sound so impressive when compared to the 40.8% record of silicon PV but bear in mind that the advantage of the organic cells is that they are significantly less expensive than there silicon cousins. Not content with one record breaking achievement the PV scientists have pushed on and broken a second record. This time a coating for a silicon PV cell has been developed that boosts the absorption of sunlight from a typical 67% to a whopping 96%. The invention also means that PV arrays can now absorb sunlight from angles meaning that there in no longer a need for any automated system that follows the sun. If you’ll excuse the pun, the future is certainly looking bright for solar power.

Diary of a travelling network manager

2008-11-11T08:54:00.000-08:00

This week I've been out and about a fair bit so I thought I would bore you with extracts from my travel diary.

On Tuesday (28 October) I was at the open meeting of the Defra Science Advisory Council which was really quite interesting. In essence the Council basically has a normal meeting in public – it put me in mind of the filming of a quiz show in front of a studio audience or something similar. Whilst the agenda was not particularly energy heavy, there were some useful snippets to be gleaned from Professor Bob Watson (Chief Scientist at Defra) and Professor John Beddington (Government Chief Scientist). Bob Watson confirmed that the Defra functions relating to climate change mitigation will be moving to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), however, all function relating to climate change adaption and emissions from agriculture remain in Defra. Forestry was a little less clear as it appears DECC will have the lead on international forestry policy (relating to climate change) but Defra will have UK forestry responsibilities. It was also noted that the Department for Transport (DfT) will retain responsibility for emissions from transport and the Department for Communities and Local Government responsibility for emissions from buildings. It is likely that DECC will eventually appoint their own Chief Scientist, but in the interim, that role will be shared between Bob Watson and Professor Brian Collins (DfT).

On Thursday (30 October) I was at a UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) workshop on a UK Energy Excellence Mapping Tool that they are seeking to develop. In essence UKTI is seeking to develop a website that fulfils several functions:
It will act as a marketing platform for promoting interest in UK energy capability.
It will provide evidence of this capability through carefully constructed case studies.
It will offer a comprehensive map of the UK energy industry linking to key companies and organisations in a structured manner, searchable by carefully chosen key words.
It will offer the opportunity for raising awareness within the UK energy community of technology advances which could be transferred to other sectors.

The process is very much in its scoping stage, but if it ultimately matches its aspirations then it will be a very useful resource. One of our interests is whether the UKERC Energy Research Atlas could be exploited within the UKTI website. If anyone is interested in further information about this project please let me know.

Elsewhere this week it was very pleasing to see praise for UKERCs dissemination activities from the Government this week in their response to the House of Commons IUSS Committee Renewable Electricity-Generation Technologies report. The response stated that "all [ESRCs] award holders are required to ensure dissemination and engagement with appropriate bodies and groups, examples include the UK Energy Research Centre which regularly produces and disseminates technology and policy assessments."

UKERC in the news

2008-11-11T08:51:00.000-08:00

UKERC has had a rather good week for being quoted or featured in things. We got six mentions in the House of Lords European Union Committee report 'The EU's Target for Renewable Energy: 20% by 2020', which was published today (Friday 24 October). The Committee was interested in what we had to say on energy efficiency, renewable power, wave and solar energy, the Severn barrage and intermittency issues. A couple of special mentions are deserved here, Professor David Infield (UKERC and University of Strathclyde) was instrumental in putting the UKERC submission together and Dr Rob Gross (UKERC and Imperial College) was Special Advisor to the Committee. The report has been picked up by the popular media and featured on the BBC news website.

Congratulations to Professor Paul Ekins (UKERC and Kings College London) who came 51st in the The Independent on Sundays' list of Britain's top 100 environmentalists. Within the list Paul rubs shoulders with the likes of the Sir Stuart Rose, KT Tunstall, Professor Bob Watson and the Queen.

To complete the success story UKERC's Executive Director, John Loughhead, has been quoted in New Scientist on their feature Graduate Special: Best of Britain and also in The Guardian commenting the world's largest algal biofuel project which will be sited in the UK.
In this week's news, which you can examine on the slightly redesigned NERN news pages, there were a couple of excellent articles that caught my attention. Fred Pearce has scribed an excellent diatribe about the great green swindle in which he outs companies that are making exaggerated or absurd claims about their green credentials. New Scientist has a really interesting piece why the financial system is like an ecosystem. The article suggests that the current way in which the system is treated is too simple because it treats the economic world as a series of simple, largely separate transaction-based markets; in reality the system is far more complex system of interrelating networks. It is proposed that insights could be gained by studying complex systems such as electricity networks or eco-systems such as a pond or swamp. Perhaps there are lessons that could be learned from the work UKERC is conducting within our Energy 2050 project.

Three scientific breakthroughs have caught the eye this week. Tropical Cyclones, which may perhaps become more frequent, or stronger, with climate change, are also responsible, to some extent, for burying away greenhouse gases. Basically the storms are responsible for washing vegetation and soils into the sea where they sink to the bottom, locking carbon away. Its one of those pieces of research that's quite obvious when you think about it, but one which you had probably never thought about until now. CIP Technologies has claimed that they have increased the efficiency of thermal PV by a third to 12% and have aspirations for a device that is 15% efficient. Finally, Carbon Sciences have announced a new technology to convert carbon dioxide into gasoline. Their process avoids the necessity to use molecular hydrogen, which is rather energy intensive to make, and instead uses hydrogen atoms formed through a biocatalytic process that mimics processes that occur in all living organisms.

As a football fan I was interested to see that Ethical Consumer magazine has ranked football teams, not according to sporting success, but environmental friendliness. Manchester City came top (and I'm sure they are happy to be the top of at least one table) whilst my team, Liverpool, worryingly finished behind Manchester United and Arsenal – I hope that's not a sign for the season ahead!

National Energy Research Network continues to expand

2008-10-21T02:24:00.000-07:00

So NERN now has 400 members. Since I started as manager, membership has been growing steadily at a rate of about 17 new members per month. In case you are wondering I've now been in post for nine months and NERN had 250 members when I started. I have yet to embark upon a significant campaign to advertise NERN to the wider world (although this is coming) so I think that new members are probably finding NERN through a variety of means. Word of mouth is important and I've certainly been flapping mine ever since I started. It also helps that NERN is a top hit in Google when you search energy research network. I hope that you are all encouraging colleagues and friends to join. I'm considering a special prize for our 1000th member – any suitably low carbon suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Where do the NERN members come from? I was mildly surprised and pleased to see that 25% of NERN members are based outside of the UK. In fact 14% of NERN members hail from outside of the EU. Within the EU, NERN has proved most popular in Germany, but the network has members in 11 different EU countries. Outside of the EU, NERN has been a hit in both the USA and India and has attracted members from 14 different countries. I'd be really interested in hearing from members about how they heard about NERN, particularly if you heard through what might be considered an unusual route.

NERN is a predominately male network with men outnumbering women by a factor of three to one. How do members feel that this reflects the gender balance of people in energy research?
The NERN membership is dominated by academics, who comprise 57% of NERN members. The other key NERN member groups are industry (15%), consultants (7.5%) Government and regulators (7.5%) and NGOs (7%). The remaining members include a suspiciously high proportion of policy specialists from learned and professional societies which are essentially a number of colleagues from my previous position who I've bullied into joining NERN (hello to all of you).

So what lies ahead for NERN now that it has grown into such a mighty cohort? Well, one of my aims is to grow NERN still further and in fact by the end of UKERC Phase I (April 2009) I hope we can achieve 1000 members. Should we be fortunate enough to be granted funding for UKERC Phase II then I have a number of plans in the pipeline, but actually, before I bore you these, I'd really like to hear any ideas that you might have about the future direction of NERN. Please send me an email or call me (+44 (0)20 7594 1572) with your thoughts.

Holding their nerve

2008-10-21T02:21:00.000-07:00

It might not be often that I get to say this but I think this week we should applaud the UK Government and the EU leaders. Locally, our newly appointed Climate Change and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has agreed with the analysis Committee on Climate Change (CCC) and agreed to cut UK greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050. It has proven to be a popular choice amongst many key groups, however, some have expressed concern that aviation and shipping are excluded from the target. Lib Dem energy spokesman Steve Webb summed it up as "It's like telling everyone you're going on a calorie-controlled diet but not counting cream cakes". The eagle eyed amongst you will also have noticed that Ed Miliband made specific reference to amending the Energy Bill to include a feed-in tariff for microgeneration. We will all now wait with bated breath for the CCC to publish their first greenhouse gas budgets, and therefore the trajectory through which we will seek to meet the target, in December this year.

There have been further announcements and the launch of a website for the new Department of Energy and Climate Change. We now know that in addition to Ed Miliband, DECC will be served by three ministers. Mike O'Brien will be responsible for delivering a low carbon economy and ensuring secure and affordable energy supply. Lord Hunt of Kings Heath will be responsible for energy innovation and emerging technologies, heat supply (including locally distributed energy) and coal liabilities including coal health payments. Finally, Joan Ruddock will be responsible for taking forward the Government's fuel poverty policy and, delivering the PM's fuel bills initiative, energy savings (in the residential sector), Carbon Reduction Commitment, behaviour change and Act on CO2, Climate Change Levy and Climate Change Agreements and Bill Minister for the Climate Change Bill.

In Europe, EU leaders stood firm against a last minute rebellion by several countries against the EU climate goals. Unsurprisingly the vexed countries cited worries that keeping the targets would further damage their industries already weakened by the current financial crisis.

As you have probably figured out by now, I am obsessed by the credit crunch. I have been doing some back of an envelope calculations about the costs of the UK bail out package in comparison to the 1-2% of GDP that the CCC predict that it will cost to reduce greenhouse gas 80% by 2050. Current UK GDP is approximately £1.4 trillion. The recent bail out of HBOS and other banks cost around £40bn (2.8% of GDP). You could add to this the £127bn (9% of GDP) of mortgage debt that the Government has acquired through nationalising Northern Rock and Bradford and Bingley. In fact the full scale of the bail out package is a whopping £500bn (35.7% GDP) amounting to a potential liability of each taxpayer of £20,000. Wow! Now I know it's an utterly unfair and completely pointless thing to do, but how about contrasting this number with the cost of low carbon technologies? For example, each MW of wind power costs (very roughly) £500K and the proposed E.ON 1.6GW nuclear power stations cost £4bn each. As you can see we are talking very big numbers.

A new department is born

2008-10-07T08:39:00.000-07:00

Breaking news – I'll not get say that often in a weekly newsletter! We have a new Department of Energy and Climate Change to be headed by Ed Milliband. The new Department (DECC) has snaffled responsibility for energy from BERR and climate change from Defra. The formation of DECC has been welcomed by several key organisations including CBI and SDC.

So after the excitement it's back to what I was going to talk about. This week I thought I would return to the subject of how the credit crunch affects low carbon technologies. I heard wonderful quote at the superb Earthscan Sustainability 2.0 event earlier this week that summed up the differences between the financial and low carbon technology sectors that went something along the following lines:

When you are talking 2050 for low carbon technologies you mean the middle of the century, when you say 2050 in the banking sector you mean ten to nine tonight.

So what else have we learned about the impacts of the credit crunch over the last couple of weeks? Firstly I'd like to come back to my open question about its effects on public spending. Barack Obama has admitted that the proposed bailout may impact his ambition to free the United States from reliance on Middle East oil imports within 10 years. He has been quoted as saying "I'm not willing to give up the need to do it, but there may be individual components of it that we can't do". On the flip side of this, the bailout package has been sweetened by the extension of several tax relief schemes, including tax credits for business R&D and also renewable energy incentives both of which are probably good news for the low carbon technology sector. Curiously the package also includes a measure to exempting wooden practice arrows used by children from an excise tax of 39 cents per arrow. I suspect that this is a feature of what happens when things get rushed.

There has been further analysis on how the credit crunch is going to effect particular energy technologies. In the US, the booming wind sector could be hit badly. Large companies, including the bankrupt Lehman Brothers, have previously invested in wind power to take advantage of the tax credit mentioned above. However, this is not an investment without risk and under the current climate, risk is something that investors are not actively seeking.

The solar power industry may also be adversely affected, particularly those with projects in the pipeline that need dramatic scale up and hence investment. There has been a scale back in Initial Public Offerings (first opportunities to buy a company's stock as it goes onto the public market) for solar and other energy companies. Once again the collapse of Lehman Brothers is cited as a problem because the bank has become a principal underwriter for solar energy companies raising money or financing debt to build factories and solar farms. There is a fear that in the short term there may be a consolidation of companies. Fortunately, for those companies that survive the picture is rosier in the long term (2010 onwards – the year not the time).

The credit crunch may also dent the ambitions of the biofuels industry, for many of the same reasons as cited in the two examples above.

The upshot of what I have read this week is that progress in some of the key low carbon technologies is going to be slowed in the short term. By how much is unclear, but there may well be knock-on effects to goals, such as the 2020 UK 15% renewable energy target. The prognosis in the longer term seems to be good – always assuming the financial markets don't meltdown completely.

Money, energy and pies...

2008-09-26T07:53:00.000-07:00

Perhaps it's just because I wrote about the credit crunch last week (and thank you to all who responded to my question about public spending – I'm still gathering evidence about this), but it seems that there has been a lot of talk about money and energy in the news this week.

I'm sure many of you will have noticed the EDF plans to buy British Energy for £12.5bn. There has been a lot of debate about what this means for the UK. On the one hand it seems that a total of four new 1.6 gigawatt EPR nuclear reactors could be built at two sites, Hinkley Point in Somerset and Sizewell in Suffolk. On the other hand there are fears this takeover could lead to an increase in energy prices for consumers. On the third hand (or perhaps foot) there is a fear about job losses, particularly in Scotland.

A McKinsey study has shown that CCS could be economically viable by 2030, but that it will take subsidies of around £8bn to get achieve this. Both Al Gore and the Environment Agency are keen to see CCS fitted to coal fire power stations as soon as possible. In fact they have both gone so far as to recommend that no new coal fired power plants should that cannot capture and store carbon dioxide. Al Gore event went on to urge young people to engage in civil disobedience to stop non-CCS plants being built!

There have been several other announcements on the energy front this week. Google has teamed up with General Electric to develop a "smart" electric power grid and promote clean energy. Three Scottish developed Pelamis wave power devices have been installed off the coastline in Portugal and will generate 2.25 MW peak power. Naturally there were some questions about why the technology had not been installed in Scotland, where it was developed. The answer, if you are interested, appears to be because the Portuguese feed-in tariff offers a better investment return than the UK Renewables Obligation in this case. Moving across the border, Portugal's neighbour Spain has just announced that they have somewhat blunted the sharp cuts in their solar power subsidy scheme.

Moving away from money, three other stories have caught my attention this week. Firstly, my favourite quote of the week was delivered by the Scottish Green's who have compared the aviation opt out in the Climate Change Bill to "diet plan with an opt-out for pies". A high tech solution has been proposed by a rocket scientist to track what's happening inside a Greenland glacier – he has put 90 rubber ducks onto the glacier and is looking to find out where they end up. This reminded me of the story of how the adventures of a container of rubber ducks, frogs, turtles and beavers that fell off a cargo ship in the Pacific Ocean provided extremely valuable evidence about global ocean currents. The Met Office has told climate sceptics that they have their head in the sand. This stern response comes after prominent sceptics claimed that global warming has stopped (presumably due to the rubbish summer we've just suffered). In fact we'll all be reassured to know that global warming is continuing unabated. Finally, ecotarianism appears to be the new way to save the planet – it is all about eating sustainably, which seems much harder than it sounds particularly when you take into account the minefield of global food supply chains.

Oh, and one final thing, apparently some bloke called Jeff Hardy was quoted in New Scientist in an article about careers for chemists in energy.

Will a low carbon phoenix rise from the ashes of the financial meltdown?

2008-09-20T03:57:00.001-07:00

It has been very difficult to ignore the financial meltdown resulting from the global credit crunch |this week. The question that has been circulating my brain throughout this saga is "what effect will the credit crunch have on investment in low carbon technologies?" It's a somewhat daft question because it all rather depends what aspect of low carbon technologies you are talking about. Fortunately, far more intelligent people than me have been pondering this.

Jeremy Leggett |, founder and chairman of Solarcentury, thinks that the renewables sector will not only survive the credit crunch, but it will actually prosper. He cites the significant growth of investment (>$100bn in 2007) in renewables and the growth in key technologies, such as solar PV (67% growth in 2007). To some extent others agree, although the prognosis seems somewhat gloomier in the short term.

Rabobank green energy executive Tanja Cuppen |has suggested that the credit crunch will have a major impact on renewable energy and the worst is yet to come. Because credit will be harder and more expensive to obtain it is estimated that the European renewable energy sector will experience a shortfall of €21 billion up to 2020 |. This represents almost a quarter of the €85 billion worth of investment that wind, solar and other forms of zero-emissions power will require between now and then to meet the EU's target for 20 per cent of electricity to be generated from green sources by 2020.

It is likely that the different sectors of low carbon technology will feel different effects from the credit crunch |. Established industries such as wind and biofuels will find it tougher and more expensive to raise finance from banks and other institutions ultimately meaning that energy from such projects will cost more. The private venture capital for early stage companies, however, seems to be unperturbed by the crisis thus far and continues to flow. For companies with new technologies the pinch point comes where finance needs to be raised to finance the gap between product development and commercialisation. Overall the long term prognosis for investment in low carbon technology remains good – like all other sectors it will just have to tighten its belt during this period.

I have found it difficult to find any reference to what might happen to public (government) investment in low carbon projects. For example, will the credit crunch have an effect on the timescale for the global demonstration of CCS technologies? I'd be happy to hear from anyone on this subject – if only to put my own mind at rest and so that I stop annoying friends and colleagues with my incessant questions.

We are all still here...

2008-09-18T08:47:00.000-07:00

Well, we all seem to still be here, so the switching on of the Large Hadron Collider hasn't generated a black hole. Although I think they would probably need to collide something to make that happen. I swear that some journalists are almost a little disappointed. So how many of you have been discussing the Higgs Boson over your cornflakes? Purely for my own interest, does anyone know how much energy it takes to start and run the LHC?

Some political news has passed across the radar this week. Firstly, the American Presidential candidates have been turning their minds to the energy matters. Barack Obama has outlined plans for creating 5m new green collar jobs, ensuring 25% of electricity comes from renewable sources by 2025, and putting a million plug-in hybrid cars on the road by 2015 and has set a goal to end the US' dependence on oil from the Middle East within ten years. Meanwhile John McCain has suggested that the US "will produce more energy at home. We will drill new wells offshore, and we'll drill them now. We will build more nuclear power plants. We will develop clean coal technology. We will increase the use of wind, tide, solar and natural gas. We will encourage the development and use of flex fuel, hybrid and electric automobiles".

In domestic news the high energy prices are threatening to push 5.7 million households (25%) into fuel poverty. Fuel poverty occurs where households spend 10% or greater of their income on fuel bills. However, help is at hand because the Government is due to announce a package of energy efficiency measures for 10 million households. The measures are expected to include help for households to install insulation and double glazing. Furthermore, according to a price guide published by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) such energy efficiency measures are good value for money. However, the RICS report is less kind to new boilers and solar photovoltaic cells.

Finally, in order to save fuel and carbon emissions train drivers are being encouraged to switch off their engines and coast on downhill sections of track. It all sounds like a good idea as long as they remember to turn the engine back on!

Big annoucements!

2008-09-05T07:12:00.000-07:00

Big announcements in the news! Well, at least quite big anyway...

Of course the most Earth shattering announcement is the double whammy that the NERN members' database is now searchable and that the Carbon Crucible online application is now open.

Coming a close second is a triumvirate of proclamations. Firstly, Mayor London Boris Johnson has broken his silence on environmental matters with a double announcement. Firstly, the London's Climate Change Adaptation Strategy has been launched. The strategy proposes to prepare London for warmer, wetter and drier climate as well as extreme weather events. In addition to an adaptation strategy, London also has a target to reduce carbon emissions 60% by 2025. In order to assist the Mayor in achieving these goals, Isabel Dedring has been appointed as a new environmental advisor. Secondly, it appears that Germany has taken the lead on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) with commissioning of a 30MW oxyfuel coal fired power plant complete with CCS. It is a lot smaller than the UK CCS competition , which aims to demonstrate the capture of 90% of the CO2 emitted by the equivalent of 300-400MW generating capacity. UKERC's Stuart Haszeldine was on hand to explain to the BBC how carbon storage works . Finally, we might soon be seeing giant 'eco-rigs' in the coastal waters around Japan. These 'eco-rigs', which may be up 1.6 square kilometres in size, are essentially floating 300MW renewable energy power stations bristling with wind turbines and hexagonal photovoltaic cells exporting energy to the mainland. In a clever addition, some of the power will be siphoned off to shine LED arrays under the platforms onto special seaweed beds promoting biomass growth. Not only is CO2 absorbed as the seaweed grows but the seaweed also provides food for fish and plankton. In a final innovation essential minerals for the seaweed will be pumped from deeper water using the renewable power. It all sounds terrifically futuristic!

A few other news snippets piqued my interest this week. My favourite was the title 'Charge an iPod with Vodka?' – this is about a direct ethanol fuel cell used for educational purposes. Norwich-based Trident Performance Vehicles, has managed to produce a car it claims can do 60mph in 3.9 seconds and achieves 70 miles per gallon and is capable of travelling 2,000 miles on a single tank of biodiesel. Impressive stuff! Elsewhere Greenpeace has challenged ten European countries including the UK to develop a North Sea high voltage grid connecting 10,000 wind turbines together. Finally, it seems that eight out of ten Brits are annoyed with the Government forcing green values upon them and would rather be green on their own terms.

No energy animal news this week although I was amused to see the headline 'Bumblebees outwit robotic spiders' on the BBC News website.

Wind bad for bats

2008-09-02T05:55:00.000-07:00

The last two weeks has seen a mixture of gloom and hope in the news. In stark contrast to the way news is presented on TV I thought it might be quite nice to focus on the good news (except for the bats).

It appears scientists and engineers have been busy responding to the energy challenge in a variety of ways. The announcement that caught my eye this week relates to a claimed battery breakthrough. A company in Texas claims to have developed a barium-titanate based ultracapacitor that could "replace the electrochemical battery". A bold claim – I'm waiting with baited breath to see if this leads anywhere. Since the Olympics have just finished I thought you might also like to hear about a new world record – this time for photovoltaic cells. The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory has claimed device that is 40.8% efficient (in laboratory conditions). Less ambitious, but no less impressive, a student at the University of Portsmouth has built a working wind turbine from recycled materials for less that £20. With an output of 11.3W it is not exactly the answer to the energy crisis but an impressive effort nonetheless.

This week's animal related news brings bad news for bats. Bats, it seems, have a blind spot for wind turbines. While the chance of them being hit by a turbine blade is small, the low air pressure around turbine blades appears to be lethal as it causes their lungs to burst. Apparently birds don't have the same problem because they have more robust lungs.

Harnessing and avoiding wind

2008-08-15T08:21:00.001-07:00

The UNEP Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2008 Report makes some interesting reading. It appears that sustainable energy is on the rise; nearly $150 billion of new money was raised in 2007 representing a 60% increase from 2006. Wind energy appears to be leading the way and this trend is set to continue according to the European Wind Energy Technology Platform . In their recently published Strategic Research Agenda they indicate that wind energy could provide up to 28% of EU electricity consumption by 2030. Certainly it appears that the UK will be have more wind capacity online soon with the recent announcement that a 315MW wind farm off the coast of Norfolk have been given the thumbs up by Government. However, a word of warning has been sounded about a shortage of skilled operation and maintenance teams for wind farms – it appears that in the US up to 60% of turbines may be behind in critical maintenance.

Moving from wind to solar energy, scientists at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute have proposed to turn asphalt roads and car parks into a giant solar collector. The idea relies on capturing the heat by passing water in pipes through the hot asphalt roads. The hot water could be used "as is" for heating buildings or in industrial processes, or could be passed through a thermoelectric generator to produce electricity.

Maintaining a surprisingly consistent animal theme it has been proposed that Australia should switch farming focus from sheep and cows to kangaroos. It has been estimated that belching (cows) and flatulent (sheep) livestock contribute a whopping 11% of Australia's carbon emissions. Kangaroos, of which there are around 60 million or so (that's three kangaroos to every Australian if my calculations are correct), have a more climate friendly digestive system that means they produce virtually no methane.

Carbon capture and corrections

2008-08-15T08:18:00.000-07:00

It has been a rather quiet week in the energy news. UKERC's personal highlight was a letter published in the Guardian in response to George Monbiot's column about carbon capture and storage (CCS). In related news a post-combustion carbon capture pilot plant has been officially launched in Beijing, China. The plant is designed to capture (in a liquid – presumably an amine of some sort) around 3000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

The proposed emission banding of Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) has been debated at length this week. The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) report into VED declared it to be a "step in the right direction" but suggested that it did not go far enough and that there should be "really penal rates for high-emission cars and really attractive 'carrots' so that tax is almost nothing on the greenest models". Furthermore a car scrappage scheme to pay drivers of high emission cars to switch to a more environmentally friendly model was also advocated.

The Renewable Fuels Agency has released its first monthly report on the supply of biofuels under the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO). The report contains some interesting statistics. Biofuels now account for 2.14% of UK road fuel; the majority (86%) comprises biodiesel with bioethanol making up the rest. The market is dominated by imported biofuels (percentage not given) with America being the most important supplier of biodiesel and unsurprisingly Brazil being most important for bioethanol. Only 19% of biofuels met the UK environmental standards and in total biofuels accounted for a 42% reduction in greenhouse gas savings (presumably compared to the petroleum displaced). These savings did not account for changes in indirect land use as noted in the Gallagher review.

In energy news elsewhere, Nissan has developed an eco-accelerator pedal that pushes back if you are being heavy footed. In a more startling eco-car development students at Stuttgart University have developed a vehicle powered entirely by wind . Defra's Chief Scientist, Professor Bob Watson, has warned that the UK should take steps to prepare for a temperature rise of up to 4C . Closer to home for me (being a Cumbrian lad) Cumbria has announced a £2 billion Energy Coast vision that focuses on both nuclear (with an emphasis on power and skills) and renewable energy. Finally, continuing an extended bovine theme it is proposed that homes in a new Pembrokeshire eco-village could be fuelled by cow dung.

Birds, cows and electric cars

2008-08-05T03:38:00.000-07:00

There has been heavy traffic in the news about cars this week. For starters, the future for electric cars is looking bright. In Spain the government aims to have 1 million electric cars on the roads by 2014 as part of a plan to cut energy consumption and dependence on expensive imports. In the shorter term the Spanish also plan to cut speed limits around cities by up to 20 percent. Closer to home, the mayor of London, Boris Johnson has announced that the number of electric vehicle recharge points in London will be almost trebled. This is good news if you are thinking of splashing your cash on one the new high performance electric sports cars unveiled at London's International Motor Show.

Electric vehicles aren't the only ones benefiting from positive news this week. A new thermoelectric material has been developed that could convert the waste heat from internal combustion engines into electricity and boost efficiency by up to 10 percent. Elsewhere second generation biofuels have been receiving attention with breakthroughs announced in converting yard waste and sawdust into biofuels. The optimism regarding biofuels is not shared by EU leaders. Recent press regarding sustainability and food vs fuel issues has changed minds and they are considering reducing the EU biofuels target in favour of increased targets on saving energy.

Moving away from cars, a few stories have caught the eye this week. Firstly, Hewlett Packard are proposing to deploying trillions of sensors to measure and diagnose what ails the Earth and presumably to prescribe a treatment. Geologists are also in on the global act and have stripped the Earth naked to reveal a digital map of her geology. Fuel cells also made the headlines with the announcement that the new World Trade Centre will have a 4.8MW fuel cell capacity as well as other renewable energy generation technologies. Further good news on this subject was announced by Professor Daniel Nocera of MIT who has developed a new efficient catalytic system to produce hydrogen from water.

In animal related news, it seems that climate change is good news for the Dartford Warbler. The bird, which almost died out in the cold winter of 1962-1963, is now positively thriving in the milder Kent weather. Continuing a previous theme of burping cows, but focusing rather on the other end, it has been postulated that cow dung, via anaerobic digestion, could provide up to 3 percent of the power for North America.

Fuels woes and burping cows

2008-06-13T09:48:00.000-07:00

It has been another energy intensive week in the news. Not all that surprising considering that fuel prices have remained high. This has started to have a knock-on effect on fuel use with retailers reporting a 20% fall in demand. Curiously, amongst all the angst, it has been argued that high fuel prices could, under certain circumstances, be beneficial for truckers.

Elsewhere carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been attracting significant coverage. A consortium of science academies from various countries has urged G8 leaders to commit to fitting power stations with carbon dioxide capturing technology to curb climate change. In the meantime it has been argued in a report that the UK has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the race for the development of CCS. Several NGO’s have clubbed together to state that there should be an emissions limit for power stations of no more than 350g of CO2/kWh to encourage CCS. Finally it appears that, perhaps unsurprisingly, companies are in a race to be second when it comes to adopting CCS technology; no-one is willing to be a potentially disastrous frontrunner.

On the bright side (perhaps) European energy and emission targets appear to be helping member states partner up with each other. Germany and France have now jointly agreed to a European Commission goal of cutting average carbon dioxide emissions for new cars. Not to be outdone, Germany, Britain and Poland are urging EU ministers to allow nations to join forces in pursuing their renewable energy targets.

Finally, you’ll all be relieved to know that scientists in New Zealand think they have cracked the problem of methane burping cows.

Another gloomy week in energy

2008-06-05T07:56:00.000-07:00

It has in all honesty been another rather gloomy week for energy. For starters the IEA have told that it will cost $45 trillion to halve world emissions, which is a lot of money in anyone’s book. More worryingly, despite our efforts it appears that energy consumption by UK businesses has been increasing and more widely EU industries within the EU emissions trading scheme have increased their emissions slightly. It would be unfair if I didn’t point out that businesses have been growing economically faster than their emissions, so to some extent growth is being decoupled from emissions.

High fuel prices continue to make motorists grumpy, and evidence emerges that fuel demand in Europe will drop for the first time in a decade this in 2008. Amidst the gloom, it appears that motorists should be having celebrating as the cost of motoring has actually reduced by 4% since 2005. The high cost of fossil fuels does appear to be having a positive effect on the price of carbon under the EU ETS which has shot up by 25% over the past three months.

There have been several proclamations of note over the past week. WWF have launched a report that examines the meaning of carbon ready. It appears that some tension has developed between environmental groups over carbon capture and storage. The UK Government has announced that up to 7,000 off-shore wind turbines could be deployed by 2020. Finally, GM has claimed that they will be launching their all-electric Chevrolet Volt in 2010.

Ending on a positive note, two stories have caught my eye this week. Firstly, the first green TV cable channel, Planet Green, has been launched by Discovery that will deliver eco-tainment to our living rooms. Secondly, Origo Industries claim to have invented a technology that not only captures and stores the CO2 from a vehicle but also uses the same CO2 to feed algae and produce a biofuel that you can use to fuel your car. It sounds too good to be true, but then again…

A week of contradictions

2008-05-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

It has been a week of contradictions. For example, there is great confusion over whether record oil prices are good or bad for the environment. On the one hand there appears to be evidence emerging that the era of cheap air fares may be over and that people are switching to more efficient cars and public transport. On the other hand it seems that high oil prices could be an ecological disaster as more carbon intensive resources, such as the Canadian tar sands, become economically viable.

To emphasise the contradictions, it worth having a look at what has been a very long week for the Labour Party. The increases in Fuel Duty and Vehicle Excise Duty announced in the budget have come under severe pressure, most notably through the HGV fuel protest in London. There is the possibility of a Government U-turn on both these measures. In addition the UK Government has been attempting to persuade OPEC to increase oil supply and challenging industry to squeeze more oil out of the North Sea. Naturally, it has been questioned how these potential policy decisions fit with the Government's commitment to reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

On the flip side there has been a call, led, perhaps unsurprisingly, by George Monbiot, for OPEC to ignore the call for increased supply. In other quarters it has been questioned whether the proposed 2 pence Fuel Duty increase goes far enough. In fact there have been several calls for the reinstatement of the Fuel Duty Escalator, brought in by Chancellor Norman Lamont in 1993, which committed the Treasury to increasing petrol duties by inflation plus 3 per cent every year.

It is no surprise that these contradictions are confusing consumers. For example, in a letter to the Guardian newspaper, one person, having bought an hybrid car on the basis of Fuel Duty and Vehicle Excise Duty messages, questioned whether they would be due compensation by the Government for this unnecessary purchase. They'll probably be even unhappier when they learn that hybrid may have higher lifetime costs than conventional vehicles.

Energy wonks and the acronym factory

2008-05-09T04:34:00.000-07:00

by Jeff Hardy

Can you speak sustainable energy? Are you an energy wonk? Is a new global language being born? Can you speak in megawatts? Can you speak in negawatts?!? Confused? I am…

I’m not talking about the technical terms associated with these fabulous new energy widgets and gubbins; I’m talking about the language used in the popular press, the blogsphere and in social circles. I’m worried that I might have accidentally become an energy wonk! How did this happen? I’ve only just found out what a wonk is and now I might be one. Apparently policy used to be the predominant domain of wonks, but now wonkism (is that even a word?) has branched out into energy.

What is a wonk? Wikipedia tells us that a wonk is…

…an expert who studies a subject or issue thoroughly and excessively. This word is most often encountered in the term "policy wonk".

The origins of the word wonk appear to be a bone of contention between two camps. One believes that wonk is “know” spelt backwards (which of course is true). The other contest that it is an acronym derived from “WithOut Normal Knowledge”. Personally, I’m steering well clear of this debate…

Who is the daddy of the energy wonks? The earliest reference I can find (after an extensive minute of Googling) is Amory Lovins. For those of you who haven’t heard of Amory, he’s the chap who thinks it’s possible to wean the United States off oil (see Winning the Oil Endgame). I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Amory speak before and I have to say he makes a compelling argument. My personal favourite quote from Amory is "Energy efficiency isn't just a free lunch, it's a lunch you are paid to eat". You can read more about his research at the Rocky Mountain Institute website.

Wonk, if indeed it is an acronym, isn’t the only acronym that is commonly associated with energy. Those involved in sustainable energy planning are all too aware of NIMBY’s (Not In My Back Yard) but are becoming increasingly aware of the NOTEs (Not Over There Either), the BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) and the LULUs (Locally Unwanted Land Use). Perhaps we need some SENSE (Supportive Environment Needing Sustainable Energy) here (I’ve just made that up).

Are NIMBYs, NOTEs, BANANAs and LULUs cynical because of the Greenwash? Does anyone believe anything that they hear, or do we assume that all environmental claims are seen through green tinted spectacles? Who can we trust to tell us the truth about all this energy stuff? My money is on those who are conducting the energy research as when this community makes claims they get peer reviewed…and let’s face it, researchers like nothing better than to shoot down spurious claims.

Coconut power and rocket planes

2008-04-11T04:41:00.000-07:00

by Jeff Hardy

The aviation industry has been under environmental spotlight for quite some time now. It’s a rapidly growing industry and as it expands so does its carbon dioxide footprint. Two tools can be brought to bear on aviation to reduce its footprint, behavioural change and technological innovation. Since I don’t want to turn this blog into a rant about travel choices I think my best bet is to stick to technology.

Very crudely speaking, the way I see it is that there are three technological options for reducing the carbon emissions for aeroplanes, weight, design and fuels. Here I’m going to concentrate mainly on fuels but it is worth briefly discussing the other two as they are equally important.

I’m going to pick on the Boeing 787 to demonstrate how advances in lightweight materials and engine design can lead to lower carbon emissions. The 787 is constructed 50% from composite materials (carbon fibre reinforced plastics) leading to significant weight reductions. Some versions of the 787 will be powered by advanced Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines which are very efficient and quiet engines. Combined these measures mean that some versions of the 787 will burn almost 30 per cent less fuel than previous generation airliners.

Whilst there plenty of room for further advances in reducing weight and innovative design, the inescapable fact is planes are currently fuelled by fossil fuel derived kerosene. So what are the options here? Well, if you believe a group of gifted and talented youngsters I taught when at the University of York green chemistry group then the answer is as follows. Take a standard passenger plane. Fill the back half with cows. Feed the cows a diet guaranteed to produce copious methane. Use the methane to power the plane. Provide passengers with gas masks and free milk. Inspired thinking, but perhaps not so practical.

More realistically there appear to be two options for fuels – biofuels and hydrogen. Both off these have been recently trialled with some early success.

In the case of biofuels, Virgin flew a jumbo jet between London's Heathrow and Amsterdam with one engine being fed enough biofuel to provide about 20% of its power. The biofuel was derived from Brazilian babassu nuts and coconuts. The key problem with using fuels derived from natural oils, according to Virgin, is that there exists the possibility that they could freeze at the low temperature at high altitude (for reference note how olive oil goes cloudy and viscous in cold weather). Not an insignificant problem it would appear.

A potential way around this is to make the biofuel in a different way. Biomass derived kerosene can made by converting biomass to synthesis gas (a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen) by a process called gasification and converting the synthesis gas to kerosene through the Fischer-Tropsch process. I’d be happy to go into the chemistry of this if anyone is interested. The advantage of this route is that the kerosene produced is quite similar to that already used and thus should be compatible. In fact Airbus has successfully tested a fuel based on the similar gas to liquid technology, where natural gas is used instead of biomass as feedstock.

It is important that biofuels are derived from sustainable sources and that they have minimal carbon emissions across their whole life cycle. If the biofuel falls down on either of these criteria then it is difficult to see the advantage in its application. This has made the headlines recently in relation to the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation.
Looking more to the future, you may have seen that Boeing have successfully tested the first manned, hydrogen-powered plane in Spain. The plane, powered by a hybrid battery and fuel cell system developed by UK firm Intelligent Energy, flew for around 20 minutes and landed safely. It’s unlikely that this technology will be suitable for powering commercial passenger aircraft, but it may be capable of providing a secondary source of energy.

This doesn’t rule out hydrogen as a potential aviation fuel in the future, far from it if you believe the claims of the European Space Agency. They are proposing a hydrogen fuelled supersonic passenger jet plane potentially capable of up to Mach 8 – blimey! Concorde on a good day managed a sluggish Mach 2. The plane could be capable of flying from Brussels to Sydney in 4.6 hours – that’s barely time to get comfy. The so called A2 is based on a special engine technology named Scimitar which seems to be described as a rocket engine with a turbo booster! It’s all rather exciting, but I think someway off so I should probably calm down a little.

For now it appears that the introduction of the A380 and the 787 may achieve some savings in carbon dioxide emissions per passenger (assuming they have a full quotient of passengers). However, it appears that in the short term, the only mechanism to reduce the environmental impact of flying is for people to fly less…

Water, water everywhere…

2008-04-04T05:02:00.000-07:00

By Jeff Hardy

This week I have been inspired by water and energy, in fact specifically by a paper by French scientists [1] on harvesting energy from raindrops. In the authors own words “Our system recovers the vibration energy from a piezoelectric flexible structure impacted by a water drop”. What?!? Put more simply, some materials (in this case polyvinylidene fluoride) can convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. This is called the piezoelectric effect, and is similar to that which I described previously in power dressing. So as rain drops hit the material it generates an electrical current (naturally it’s a bit more complicated than this).

So how much power can you generate? The authors estimate that the available rain power in French regions with a continental climate to be almost 1 Wh per square metre per year. For comparison, in Scotland a south-facing roof receives between 700 - 1100 kWh/m2 of solar radiation during a year – oh dear. It’s probably a bit unfair to make this comparison now since this is very early in the development path of this technology. I also like this idea since I’m from the North West of England where it is very wet indeed.

This idea got me wondering about other novel ways in which water could be used to generate electricity. I thought it best to steer away from the classics such as watermills, hydroelectricity, wave and tidal power and generation of hydrogen through electrolysis or thermochemical methods. Instead I have dug out a couple of examples from the literature which interested me.

It appears that engineers at the University of Alberta in Canada have found that pumping water through microchannels in a glass disk can generate an electrical current [2]. In fact they claim “[that it is] the first new way to produce sustainable electricity in 160 years”.

How does it work? Forcing water through tiny glass channels is known to be tough because the channel walls become charged which creates an electric field that hinders the flow of charged ions through the channel. For example a negatively charged channel wall will result in negatively charged ions being forced to the centre of the channel where they will move faster than their positively charged colleagues which are attracted to the walls (because opposites attract). Over time this means a positive charge is built up at one end of the channel and a negative charge at the other – not unlike a battery! By wiring up the ends of the channel a (rather small) current can be produced. It needs some further work as the current is so small that it would take years to charge a mobile phone, but it is an interesting idea.

It is possible to generate electricity from estuaries where fresh water streams flow into the sea. This is known as salinity-gradient energy but thankfully is also referred to as blue energy. Blue energy can work either on the principle of osmosis (the movement of water from a low salt concentration to a high salt concentration) or electrodialysis (the movement of salt from a highly concentrated solution to a low concentrated solution) where the saline water and fresh water be separated by a selectively permeable membrane. In the osmosis process water pressure is created that can drive a turbine. In the electrodialysis case the movement of ions creates the electricity. The only by-product of blue energy is brackish water which would naturally occur in an estuary anyway. The global energy output from estuaries is estimated at 2.6TW, which represents a whopping 20% of the current worldwide energy demand. With figures like these it sounds rather exciting, but once again it is early days in the development of this technology and I think only a couple of test units exist in the Netherlands.

It is amazing what you can turn up when you look into a subject. Of these three topics, blue energy was the only one I had come across before this week. I’m sure if I looked a little harder I’d be able to find other interesting examples. It seems reassuring that there is so much work going into future low-carbon energy technologies. If only we could make better use of the ones available today…

[1] R. Guigon et al., Smart Mater. Struct., 17, (2008), 015038-9
[2] J. Yang et al., J. Micromech. Microeng., 13, (2003), 963

Green Budget?

2008-03-13T09:13:00.000-07:00

By Jeff Hardy

On Thursday we witnessed the first budget from Alistair Darling. How did you feel about it? I don’t think anyone was expecting anything dramatic as there isn’t really the wriggle room for big spending and grand gestures. It was built up as a green budget, and there were certainly some announcements relating to sustainable energy within it that were interesting.

Transport featured quite heavily. Gas guzzling cars (greater than 255 gCO2 per km labelled band M) took a bit of a hammering. Vehicle Excise Duty will be raised to £425 in 2009 and in 2010 you will also have a pay a one off cost of £950 when you buy such a car. Additionally, fuel duty will be raised by 2p per litre in October this year.

Biofuels have come under the policy microscope and sensibly the Government is looking to prioritise the most sustainable biofuels – although I’m not convinced that a sustainable biofuel has yet been defined anywhere. I’m also a little dubious of the table on carbon dioxide savings of biofuels compared to fossil fuels (page 98 of budget document) in light of recent studies examining land-use changes.

The aviation sector didn’t escape and the new per flight tax (replacing the per passenger tax) is to be increased by 10% in the second year of operation from whenever it starts – it’s under consultation currently.

New homes are to be zero carbon by 2016 and non-domestic buildings by 2019 according to the budget and this seems a worthy ambition. What I didn’t see, and perhaps I missed it, is any mention of measures to improve the energy efficiency of the existing housing stock. Without a major demolition programme the majority of houses in the UK in 2050 are already built. I’ll come back to this briefly later.

The humble plastic bag is to be phased out! Well, actually the plan is to put a cost (tax) on it so that we stop using it. Whilst I don’t think that this will halt climate change I’m glad that it has finally happened as it has proven successful elsewhere (see for example the Republic of Ireland). One caveat to my enthusiasm is that it’s important that this doesn’t have undesirable knock-on effects such as a switch by supermarkets to paper bags or something else. The idea should really be to encourage people to bring the means to carry their shopping home with them.

I want to comment on the proposed increase in winter fuel duty. I think that everyone should enjoy an affordable and comfortable home in winter (and indeed all year round). Is paying winter fuel duty every year the best way to achieve this or are there other ways to approach this? One thought would be to radically improve the insulation and efficiency of the heating systems in the homes of those at risk of fuel poverty (and in an ideal world, all homes). As a one off cost this is more expensive in a given year, but surely it would significantly reduce heating bills and must be cost effective in the long run? Energy efficient homes require less heating meaning lower heating bills, lower carbon dioxide emissions and ultimately reduced fuel poverty.

What do all these measures mean in terms of carbon emissions reductions? In all honesty, I have no idea! The environmental impacts of the measures are listed on page 107 of the Budget document. I was hoping to add them all up and present it as a lump of carbon dioxide savings. Unfortunately it’s not quite that straight forward as the ways in which the data are reported is not terribly helpful. If it helps then I think that there will be some reduction in carbon dioxide by 2020. Hopefully the very recently formed Committee on Climate Change, including UKERCs own Professor Jim Skea, will be able to help Government present these figures in a clearer and more transparent way.

So was it a green budget – does it put us clearly on a path towards significant carbon dioxide emissions reductions? No, not really. With just 11 more budgets before the Climate Change Bill 2020 target of a 26% carbon dioxide reduction, based on 1990 levels, we’ll need to see a much greater effort coming through. I think that the Committee on Climate Change will have a vital role in this and wish them good luck.

Power dressing - Jeff Hardy

2008-03-06T08:04:00.000-08:00

Is it just me or are there more and more unusual energy related technologies getting into the popular media in recent times? Perhaps it's just a function of my daily news trawl for the National Energy Research Network, but several things have surprised me recently.

It appears that scientists and engineers have been busily devising ways of usefully capturing some of the energy we expend whilst wandering around. The driving force, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the need to charge electronic devices away from the grid – I suspect particularly by the military.

In its simplest incarnation, the idea is to turn us into mobile solar power platforms. For example, backpacks fitted with solar photovoltaic cells and lithium ion batteries are already available. These mainly provide power for mobile phones and other small electronic devices on the move. PV cells are also being fitted to other things, including laptops and mobile phones.

Scientists in Canada and America have developed a knee brace that captures the kinetic energy of walking. The device works in a similar way to regenerative braking in hybrid electric and can generate around 5 watts of electricity at a typical walking pace. This is approximately enough to charge 10 mobile phones simultaneously. It looks like a rather sturdy knee support and currently weighs in at a rather hefty 1.6 kg; however it is a work in progress. The device could potentially be built into prosthetic knees, or other such implants, which could negate the need for further surgery to replace batteries that these devices require.

Not to be outdone, nanotechnologists in America are proposing to make clothes from nanofibres that generate electricity from movement, literally opening the door for power dressing. The technology works through the piezoelectric effect, which converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. The electrical energy is generated when pairs of zinc oxide fibres (one of which has been coated in gold to act as an electrode) rub together. The inventors estimate that up to 80 milliwatts of electricity could be generated per square metre of fabric, which is about enough to power an iPod.

An idea struck me when I was writing this article. I use the gym frequently (although not as frequently as I should…) and I spent a lot of time rowing, cycling and running. Could I be putting all this kinetic energy to use by converting it into electrical energy? Unless you are a genius, then any idea that you have thought of will already have been explored (and then probably rubbished/exploited) by someone else. A quick internet trawl proved this to be the case. The answer to the question is a resounding "sort of". I'll not go into the full details as you can read them for yourself, but in essence, my 10 minute slog on the rowing machine equates very roughly to enough energy to run a light bulb for 30 minutes. I can assure you that it feels like more work than that.

This idea has actually been brought into reality in a Hong Kong gym. Here they reckon that the average person produces around 50 watts of electricity per hour of exercise. They harness this by placing a generator in the machine and storing the electrical energy generated in batteries. The electricity is used to contribute to the gyms lighting and apparently inspires the members to push themselves harder knowing that their efforts are not wasted.

So, will we see people plugging themselves into the grid to sell their daily harvest of electricity anytime soon? Probably not, but it's fascinating to see the ways in which scientists and engineers are approaching energy generation and also that that these inventions are being picked up by the popular press. Is this just a function of energy being such a media buzz word at present or is it an indication that more and more bright minded people are rising to the energy challenge in a variety of novel and unexpected ways?