Economy First: Britain Puts Decarbonisation On Hold
Allegra Stratton, The Guardian, 16 August 2010
The coalition is watering down a commitment to tough new environmental emissions standards, raising the possibility of dirty coal-fired power stations such as Kingsnorth going ahead.
Green groups are aghast that a flagship policy called for in opposition by both Lib Dems and Tories, and which they last year tried to force on the Labour government, will now not be implemented in the coalition’s first energy bill to be published this year.
Their criticism of the government’s commitment to green issues follows news last week that nature reserves could be sold off as countryside protection measures also bear the brunt of budget cuts in the Department for Environment.
Introducing a so-called “environmental performance standard” (EPS) for power companies would have restricted greenhouse gas emissions from coal and gas plants and encouraged companies wishing to build to use more efficient technology.
The introduction of an EPS was personally championed by David Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg when in opposition; their opposition to Kingsnorth became something of a cause célèbre – and even features in the coalition agreement – but was opposed by energy companies and Tory backbenchers.
The chief executive at one coal-plant operating company warned that the UK’s renewable energy technology – which would be used to help new plants meet the target – was too undeveloped to make the EPS feasible.
Now government sources confirm they will not be bringing forward legislation in the autumn and will instead spend the summer working on “the larger picture”. They will open a consultation on the idea in the autumn with the results being presented to parliament as a white paper in the new year.
Green campaigners believe this is noncommittal for a policy both parts of the coalition said could be implemented immediately when in opposition.
They believe a delay in the introduction of the standard until next year – with a few years for the legislation to pass through the house and for it to be set up – raises the possibility of new coal-fire power stations slipping through the system.
Greenpeace energy campaigner, Joss Garman, said: “David Cameron made the introduction of new rules to stop the most polluting power stations one of his flagship green policies, and Nick Clegg helped ensure it was a key part of the coalition agreement.
“Both Lib Dem and Conservative MPs voted for the introduction of such a measure just a few months ago, and if they U-turn on this and fail to put this measure into their new energy law, how can they claim to be the greenest government ever?”
The energy company Peel Power has already come forward with a proposal in Scotland to build a largely unabated coal plant.
The government’s advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, said if the UK is to meet its climate targets it needs to decarbonise the whole power sector by 2030.
If the EPS is abandoned it would almost certainly reopen the debate about what the industry needs to change and encourage utilities to push forward with their original plans for a whole new fleet of dirty coal stations in the UK (the first to be built here for 30 years).
The consequences would be that the battle of Kingsnorth could be refought.
WUWT readers may recall the Dr. Jim Hansen went to Britain to defend vandals of this station. Story here. My reaction here.
Most coal-fired power stations in the UK are now clean and non-polluting. They have retrofitted FGD (flue gas desulphurisation). At last a bit (a welcome but tiny bit) of common-sense is appearing in UK politics with regards to the energy policy. Unless they act quickly to build new coal-fired power stations, the lights will start to go out in a few years time.
Say it ain’t so. A 850 ton wind turbine tower is made from steel. It takes 1,350 tons of coal using the bessimer process to make the tower. (Algore says the wind stuff is carbon free) The tower base is 850 cubic yards of concrete most of which contains coal fly ash. Even Obama signed off on a 2 billion dollar coal plant last week in Illinois.
Coal is hot. I have shown it is not about the coal. It is about superstition caused when they think about coal.
The politicians are slowly backing away, there are plans to privatise, ( sell off ), the Met Office and most of our nature reserves, you should here the screams in the Guardian’s comment threads, most gratifying, I will enjoy an extra cold beer tonight and toast our governments baiting of the left.
I can only hope this comes true, alot of conservative back benchers are sceptical but couldnt say much as it didnt follow the party line, perhaps now when we can ill afford such luxurys as decarboniastion some sense will be seen. The greens wont lie down without a fight though and fight they will.
If it were about carbon or pollution or the environment, there would be thousands of studies on mammals and carbon dioxide levels–on intact creatures. There aren’t.
Because 100% CO2 is a popular way of killing excess lab animals, there are a few studies on the effects of 100 times atmosphere and more. Rats lose consciousness at 40% CO2 (400 000 ppm), 1000 times atmosphere and die at 70% CO2, about 2000 times atmospheric concentration.
But rats and other rodents are burrowing animals. Those typically have around 1% to 5% carbon dioxide in their burrows–50 to 200 times atmosphere. The greenies (so-called) are panicking about 10% increase in this life-giving gas.
I found two chicken egg studies which found that 50 times atmosphere would speed up hatching by about 3 hours (no wonder wild birds want well-protected nests–it will enable them to increase CO2 levels near their eggs and nestlings, hence speed development and enhance survival).
More CO2 at these levels means not only more food and more life–it means better heath, too. When we say so loudly enough, the world’s energy problems will be solved–life-giving energy sources are also the cheapest!
Esther Cook, August 16, 2010
Oh the irony is delicious. We finally have a Government (coalition) that is re-carbonising (apologies for the mangling of my Mother tongue) our energy sector so we don’t have to read by tallow light as our Green friends would have it.
My first reaction to the skyblue pinks we currently have in Government was that they were exactly the same as the last despotic lot. Now I see that they’re working some long-needed common sense back into the Legislature.
As both primary commenters post, coal fired power generation is 80-90% efficient at carbon capture. Our sack-cloth brethren are simply fanatical about any kind of carbon-consuming technology. What would they tell the crofters burning peat to do?
Henry chance says:
Say it ain’t so. A 850 ton wind turbine tower is made from steel. It takes 1,350 tons of coal using the bessimer process to make the tower. (Algore says the wind stuff is carbon free)… ”
Henry: There’s an excellent paper quantifying the direct generating and indirect including installation generation of CO2 from various power sources here:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf100.html
CO2 generation is a range depending on installation, but averages are 1,200 g CO2/KWh for coal, gas at 600 g/KWh, hydro has a big range but averages at 200 g/KWh, solar PV is 250, wind 30, and nuclear at 20 g/KWh. I expect they will add a category for solar concentrating when it grows to more than 1% of grid capacity.
That is, if you care about emitting CO2. Also, the UK is one of only four countries (along with Russia, France, and Japan) that reprocess nuclear power plant waste. You’d think they would build more nuke plants if they want low cost, low CO2 power.
Coal is the only solar energy that can deliver power efficiently on demand and at the lowest cost and it is clean (I dont count CO2 as dirty). Flue gas desulphurization units remove virtually all sulphur dioxide and particulates from off gasses, generating 10,900,000t of gypsum in the EU in 2008. In 2005, 9,790,000 of FGD gypsum was used in cement, plasters, wallboard, etc – virtually all of it. This beautiful technology continues to take hits from the self-hating nihilists that make up the brave new end-of-the-world set. I wish we could just stop apologizing and explaining for this industry and let this group shout their lungs out. It looks like this might be happening in UK and Germany which really means all of EU (the Spaniards are likely to remain quiet!!)
By George, welcome to sense and sanity!
As the German poet Schiller said: You may be coming late, but you are coming (spät kommt Ihr, doch Ihr kommt).
It was about Wallenstein; Wellington/Wellesley Waterloo (and Blücher) happened after Schiller’s death.
Deferring plans to abolish CO2 seems to be a growing trend. Perhaps the penny is starting to drop that ‘green’ renewable energy could only a satisfy a small part of our energy needs and traditional technology will still need to be used.
If it comes to a choice between nuclear and coal, give me fossil fuel generation every time. The risks to future generations from nuclear waste is still to great for it to be a larger part of the power mix.
Fantasy energy policy is for children’s books and I guess the pressure of having to make real decisions is starting to bite. Easy to appease ‘green’ until you are faced with the possibility of still being in office when the brown stuff starts hitting the rotating machinery.
Hoo-b****y-ray…
“…if the UK is to meet its climate targets it needs to decarbonise the whole power sector by 2030.”
There has been a lot of blather about wind in Britain. Someone in Britain must have finally read the studies that looked at Denmark, Texas and Colorado and discovered that CO2 emissions either were unchanged or went up as a result of wind penetration of more than a few percent. Also, no conventional power plants were closed. Every 1 MW of wind capacity needs 1 MW of reliable generation to back it up. Coal is a cheap source of reliable energy.
Perhaps eventually there will be announcements of a moratorium on constructing new wind farms in Britain until the performance (energy delivered, reliability, costs, impact on grid stability) of the existing wind farms can be assessed.
As the ‘renewable green pollution free’ rhetoric is shown to be logically impossible to realize, govt support for AGW will wane (now now now has to go!) There’s gonna be ‘responsibility timelines’ or something similar becoming the new push.
This isn’t left versus right, its nutjob new religionists versus humanity. So lets not alienate people by being ever more right wing; we need to bring everyone along if we want to see these nutjobs consigned to history.
“…and encourage utilities to push forward with their original plans for a whole new fleet of dirty coal stations in the UK (the first to be built here for 30 years).”
More power to you! 🙂
Eh, I know the headline comes from the Guardian, but it should be “England & Wales puts decarbonisation on hold” – sadly our Scottish politicians are hell bent on carbon capture technology, regardless of how expensive, in-efficient and totally unproven it is. Not to mention how insignificant the emissions saved would be (even if it worked), compared with how much CO2 China will be putting out in the next few years. Got to be seen to be green though. Slight change of subject but I came across this today – the Scottish Government’s official AGW curriculum / propaganda for indoctrinating our school children with post modern science and downright dishonesty – http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/exploringclimatechange/index.asp Much of it could have been written by Greenpeace or WWF.
Phillip Bratby says:
August 16, 2010 at 9:24 am
I agree. Let us hope that a strong whiff of reality is blowing through the new Government. A sensible mix of nuclear and coal would go a long way towards bringing sanity back to the UK’s energy policy.
That is the same David Cameron who a few years ago applied for permission to install a small wind turbine on top of his house in London (which would have supplied 60W, if I remember correctly). It’s a sort of a relief, in this case, to find out that he’s probably just another unprincipled politician rather than a CAGW ideologue. What this says about the state of British politics these days, well, that’s another issue.
I have left a space in my small outhouse containing my gas boiler for a diesel stand-by power generator in the certain expectation that within the next five years we would be on a three day week for electricity here in Scotland. Maybe -just maybe – I may not now need supplementary power generation if the politicians are now slowly beginning to see sense. There have been plenty of warnings that Britain would run out of power if the current energy policies were pursued and EU rules were adhered to.
When green eyed fantasy meets cold reality, in the words of that old song, something’s gotta give. In this case, green fantasy. Still, die hard enviro’s still have something to celebrate – the Carbon Reduction Comittment is not being shelved, and the September deadline for 30,000 organisations to register to be skinned alive, is fast approaching. Analysts believe that only about 1,700 will meet the deadline with the rest being shocked to receive official reminder letters from Defra. Pass the popcorn please!
Like Des I just hope it is true and that they keep backing away from the AGW hype.
. . . and so it begins, reality trumping the greenie dreams in fairies, unicorns and the utopian no energy future.
.
They probably started getting weighty reports similar to this, dumped on their ministerial desks.
Windpower, hopeless (and in ‘windy’ Scotland too):
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/news/Windfarms-only-giving-half-power.6426015.jp
This is the problem with our ‘changing’ weather patterns. The jetstreams all went south this winter, which gave us a very cold winter. That cold winter was a by-product of the resulting anticyclones that set themselves up over Europe, for weeks on end.
But guess what – windelecs (wind turbines) don’t work in anticyclones.
This is the difference between being in opposition, and being in government. Its all very well being holier than thou on Green issues in opposition, but as the governing party(s) they now realise that if the lights start going out across the nation, they will be out of office quicker than weasel sh*t off a shovel.
Time to ditch the pipe-dream windelecs, and to invest instead in something that works – reliably.
.
Common sense will prevail in the long run I hope. Maybe, just maybe, the powers that be have started to realise the implications of the green fiasco.
Didn’t England just say they were going to build 8 new nuclear power plants by 2018? Practically — My guess is all this carbon limiting nonsense, it’s all costing way too much, and they are broke.
Has anybody ever shown that the current levels of CO2 are too high and just not high enough? How would we know, since atmospheric CO2 levels have been far higher and far lower than they are today. I would like to see proof that we know what is the correct level of CO2 for earth. As far as I can recall, don’t greenhouses increase their CO2 so plants grown faster, using up the CO2? So why wouldn’t this be the case with more CO2 in the general atmosphere?
Except for it’s effect on the carbon credit market what’s not to like.
Bear in mind England has had far longer to fret about the problem than we have … And for that you can think Bush.
Coal is no longer as ‘dirty’ as it was and it’s a heck of a lot more efficient and effective that all the envirnoment and wildlife destroying wind turbines and tidal barriers that will change estuaries beyond recognition for ever.
Nail Greenpeace and their liars – they are the biggest threat to our society at present.
I was surprised when I heard this. It would be nice to think that some common sense is percolating through our leaders, but considering that Dave Cameron has backed down from most of his pre-election promises, this could simply be another….
Can we now call them the coal-ition?
Delingpole will be loving this – what has Huhne had to say??
A letter in the Sunday Times of 8th August is worth repeating:
I hate to agree with Jeremy Clarkson about anything, but on electric cars he is absolutely right (“Sizzling sandals, this is one hot eco-chariot”, last week). An electric car is only viable from an emissions viewpoint if the electricity that it uses is generated by renewable sources. In Britain this is not the case.
Unlike France, which has embraced nuclear power, Britain’s electricity is largely generated from fossil fuels. Worse, from 2015 we shall be suffering brownouts and blackouts, in the style of Heath’s three-day week, because the lunatics who ran our national asylum from 1997 to 2010 did not have the intelligence or moral courage to order a single power station of any kind, nuclear or fossil.
If we become dependent on electric cars we will have no personal transport as well as no light, no heat and no refrigeration. Citizens are well advised to fit solar panels on their roofs as soon as possible, not only to benefit from the generous feed-in tariff (which could easily be withdrawn by a cash-strapped government) but also to give themselves light and heat in the self-inflicted national power catastrophe that will hit us soon.
Professor Peter Wadhams,
department of applied mathematics and theoretical physics, Cambridge University
The post above should read “hear” not here, Doh!
The comments thread after this http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/13/plan-sell-nature-reserves-austerity-countryside wailing article are a joy to behold.
Chickens/roost
We will ALL be paying for the massive “take” that happened via the “global financial collapse” for many years to come. The actual (real) environment and it’s problems will suffer because of the “environistas” narrow focus on the wrong problem.
When we were brought to the brink of economic meltdown did any of the greens protest much? Yet any mention of “dirty coal” finds them scurrying out of their burrows, wringing their fists and squealing that they have been betrayed.
Why (why?, why?, why?, why? and yet again why?) are they so incapable of joined up thinking? How did their newspaper arrive and thrive? How did their computer? How did their Internet access?
Dumb. If only they were only dumb. But no, they are dumb and have too much time on their hands – courtesy, again, of an excess of electricity – so they may continually clog up the gears of progress with their revisionist claptrap.
Sorry, (not just for the rant) but they cannot have their cake and eat it. Either shiver in a cave with zero luxuries and long, dark nights or come into the light and work (yuk) toward a brighter future with no worries about a trace gas that sustains all life.
This can’t be right!? ….You mean we haven’t got our backs against the wall of China after all?
London Free….
http://libertygibbert.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/the-china-syndrome/
Ahh- from the pen O’ the Scottish poet Mr. Robert Burns ““The best laid schemes o’ mice and men Gang aft a-gley; And leave us naught but grief and pain For promised joy” .
The undermining (sic) of coal as an energy source always owed more Thatcher wishing to defeat left wing unions such as the miners NUM, than with any green policy. One of the most left wing and green politicians we have ( Tony Benn) has always opposed the closing of mines and the construction of nuclear power stations Why spend billions on nuclear power, when we have huge source of energy at our feet? Coal can be clean,we do not have to rely on dodgy middle eastern regimes and it provides work for our own people. Dig in folks!
“The consequences would be that the battle of Kingsnorth could be refought.”
They torture the language nearly as much as the data.
Well the fastest way to prove the economical efficacy of a coal or carbon free, renewable alternative free clean green energy system; is to simply put a fence around it, and then force it to duplicate itself; using only the energy that the system produces; and of course with availability of all the raw material resources of the universe in their natural state, and location, (which too must be obtained only with the expenditure of energy from your alternative plant.)
Then we’ll see who actually can prosper without coal or petroleum and natural gas. I have of late told vendors at our local street organic food fairs on saturday mornings, that I do not eat organic foods, because it contains carbon. You’d be surprised how many organic farm vendors have ensured me that their produce is certified carbon free.
Due to the balmy heatwave recently the government and some crazed Warmists have forgotten how cold winter can be and the 40,000 excess deaths this past winter in the UK.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8446523.stm
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/west-central/166745-kinbuck-residents-suffer-power-outage/
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10619380&pnum=2
Thank god that common sense has began to seep back into governance in Britain.
But reading your reference to Jim Hansen in you aricle above Anthony, makes it clear to me that he is an activist first and a scientist last. It explains to me all his actions in the ‘climategate’ saga. As for the jurist’s findings in the article referred to below, justifying vandalism as a defence for what is essentially a religious fervour – words fail me! This in Britain – the home of justice.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/kingsnorth-trial-breaking-news-verdict-20080910
Doug
Lady Life Grows says: “If it were about carbon or pollution or the environment, there would be thousands of studies on mammals and carbon dioxide levels–on intact creatures. There aren’t.”
There are a few here:
http://co2science.org/subject/m/mammals.php
But you seem to be correct. And your comments are interesting.
You made me wonder if the small boxes I’ve built as bird houses do have higher internal CO2 levels during the incubation period. My big old cottonwood trees have hollows in them that would act the same. When one of the trees falls or has to be cut down I cut that section with the hollow nest site out and hoist it back up in another tree and wire it in-place. I can’t get them very high so the effectiveness of this is unknown. Those big trees are an environmental treasure that take many years to develop.
John Peter says:
August 16, 2010 at 10:27 am
I have left a space in my small outhouse containing my gas boiler for a diesel stand-by power generator in the certain expectation that within the next five years we would be on a three day week for electricity here in Scotland.
John Peter:
I think your use of “outhouse” means an auxiliary building near your house.
You should be aware that the American colloquial use of “outhouse” implies some place where Al Gore puts his excrement. (In which case, there may be enough to fuel the “waste Beetle/VW” mentioned a week ago in WUWT.) Thanks for the inadvertent, but excellent language humor!
Reading the Guardian comments I’m not sure whether to laugh or weep. I always suspected that the professional environmentalist (as opposed to those of us who just simply care about nature) was slightly demented, if not worse. This collection of self-flagellating whinges only serves to confirm it.
Is there no Guardian reader who understands that a) if it’s a choice between cutting expenditure on the feel-good add-ons and the country going bankrupt then there really isn’t a choice, and b) there is nothing in the plans being proposed that necessarily makes any of the enviro-nuts’ nightmares come true.
If they’re that worried why don’t they go out and do something themselves? Most of them are not short of a quid or two.
Re- Scotland’s aspirations. This is the stuff peddled by our current administration, followed party-wide: Scotland”s Climate Change Declaration http://climatechange.sustainable-scotland.net/index.asp?…
And for no fee this group will be happy to meet for screenings of ‘inconvenient truths’ -after licensing.
Lunatics never had it so good ….
Alan Simpson not from Friends of the Earth says:
August 16, 2010 at 9:36 am
The politicians are slowly backing away, there are plans to privatise, ( sell off ), the Met Office and most of our nature reserves,
I’d like the Tory whelps to take their grubby mitts off the nature reserves and return the taxes they are levying on me that they said were going to pay for policies they are not now going to implement.
Thieves.
Max, thanks for clearing up that “outhouse” reference.
Good to hear the power plants are proceeding. Decarbonization. What rubbish. CO2 is harmless and in fact, it and a little warming are good for us and for all life.
I’m with Lady Life Grows – let’s let life move forward. I hope the mass of humanity starts seeing the warmistas as the Malthusian, nihilistic, enemies of society that they are.
Whilst I sincerely hope that this is indeed the first sign of a change of heart, I’m afraid many of the comments here very strongly remind me of the old saying about counting unhatched eggs.
One story in the Grauniad with a few choice quotes from Greenpiss and the Committee on Climate Change has my bullshit meter flashing at danger levels.
Don’t forget that both Cameron and Clegg don’t have a principle anywhere in their bodies and both have (through their wives) a direct financial interest in BigWind.
Don’t forget that Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change is Buff Huhne. As wild eyed a greenie true believer as you could wish for.
The Grauniad says “Now government sources confirm they will not be bringing forward legislation in the autumn and will instead spend the summer working on “the larger picture”. They will open a consultation on the idea in the autumn with the results being presented to parliament as a white paper in the new year.”
Let’s just wait to see what “the larger picture” looks like before we start breaking out the champagne. Or even the Newcastle Brown Ale.
As the coalition is brought face to face with the financial reality engendered by thirteen years of left wing pandering to the green lobbyists, common sense is forced upon them. The frivolity funding cupboard is bare and the colder winters that could now ensue might decimate the pensioners whose interest on savings is currently being appropriated from their income by means of a deliberately low bank rate in order to save the ruined economy.
The Office of Renewable Energy Deployment and the Department of Energy and Climate Change would seem at this time to be ideal candidates for the axe along with the incredibly stupid Chris Huhne who is convinced that NUCLEAR is not a low carbon alternative and should therefore not qualify for the liberal assistance lavished on wind and tide.
Here in “rights before responsibilities” Scotland, the never – never land of Alex Salmond, the lights will undoubtedly be the first to go out and that quite soon.
At this very moment wind is providing 0.1% of total consumption whilst the French interconnector is sending UK 5.7% to help meet our total demand.
Greenpeace is disappointed. That’s not a problem.
George E. Smith- “I do not eat organic foods, because it contains carbon. You’d be surprised how many organic farm vendors have ensured me that their produce is certified carbon free.”
Brilliant!
I have a bumper sticker on my 13-year-old Ford Explorer- “This vehicle is powered by Hydrogen-loaded carbon nanorods.” A few folks were surprised that the hydrogen economy had already arrived…
but but haven’t they left Brown’s carbon tax by stealth in place? All companies must declare their energy use and by association CO² output by the end of September 2010 and then prepare to pay tax on their consomption.
You don’t get re-elected if you let the lights go out.
With most of the UKs nuclear and coal capacity due to come to the end of its life in the next 10 years reality gets in the way.
“Jimbo says:
Due to the balmy heatwave recently the government and some crazed Warmists have forgotten how cold winter can be and the 40,000 excess deaths this past winter in the UK.” The link where the 40,000 excess deaths (and other statistics) comes from is the New Zealand Herald AND these are just predictions. I suspect that if the cold had really resulted in 40,000 more deaths than usual during the winter months that it would have made international news the way that that the thousands of French deaths resulting from a summer heat wave made the international news.
Cold is bad. Cold can kill, but I suspect that over-the-top statistics sound equally hysterical regardless of which side of the debate they’re on.
come on!!!
“The coalition is watering down a commitment to tough new environmental emissions standards, raising the possibility of dirty coal-fired power stations such as Kingsnorth going ahead.”
Why do you believe coal-fired power stations are “dirty”? Are they using poorly designed scrubbers, don’t they have ash management plans, are they poorly engineered? Or, does “dirty” = CO2?
Talking of Hansen and his activism:
http://tinyurl.com/mthz6t
If the left wing environmentalists are screaming, then the new coalition must be doing something right!
You may be correct though it is hard to find the last winters’ excess winter deaths in the UK.
Now click here [UK Office of National Statistics] and you will see that the excess winter deaths in England and Wales for the winter of 1999 / 2000 is over 45,000 people. Also in the winter of 2008/2009 you will see 35,000 excess winter deaths in England and Wales.
This last winter was the coldest for over 30 years so it doesn’t take much of the imagination to see why 40,000 is not unexpected. I did see the figure from other sources and I’ll post it here as soon as I find it. ;O)
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=574
George E. Smith says:
August 16, 2010 at 11:18 am
…Then we’ll see who actually can prosper without coal or petroleum and natural gas. I have of late told vendors at our local street organic food fairs on saturday mornings, that I do not eat organic foods, because it contains carbon. You’d be surprised how many organic farm vendors have ensured me that their produce is certified carbon free.
I absolutely believe it. I have seen advertisements for “organic water” also.
The latest “peak of green stupidity” hit for me was when I was shopping for a bathtub-faucet for my bathroom remodel. I found an ad for a “green” bathtub-filler faucet with built-restrictor to “save water” with 30% less water flow rate than an ordinary tub faucet.
Vince Causey says:
August 16, 2010 at 10:28 am
“……… Still, …….. – the Carbon Reduction Comittment is not being shelved, and the September deadline for 30,000 organisations to register to be skinned alive, is fast approaching. Analysts believe that only about 1,700 will meet the deadline with the rest being shocked to receive official reminder letters from Defra. ……..”
It’s not just reminders, but penalties of up to £45,000 for large businesses and fines of £500 for smaller businesses just for failing to register by 30 September, for this little known scheme, that most businesses haven’t yet even heard of.
One thing is certainly true: There is nothing which can directly replace fossil fuels. Leave aside the CO2 issue for the moment – it’s clearly becoming gradually more difficult and more expensive to obtain the coal, oil and gas that the world largely runs on, and the quality of those fuels is gradually diminishing. We know that we have to move to something else sooner or later. What do we do? Just leave the problem to the next generation? Hope some miraculous technological breakthrough will yield a cheap, dense, abundant and hitherto-unsuspected source of energy? Seems rather irresponsible and/or naively optimistic. So what is the solution? If ‘renewable’ (I like to call them inexhaustible) sources of energy like wind, wave and solar aren’t the answer, what is? How do we power a planet of >7 billion people who all want a first world lifestyle, if not with ever-diminishing fossil fuels?
Rhoda R
Here are reports of predicted excess winter deaths in the UK by UK newspapers.
—————————-
“Yvonne Doyle at the Department of Health has predicted up to 40,000 excess winter deaths this year thanks to the prolonged cold spell. This would be 3,000 more than last year which also had several shorter cold snaps. ”
Independent UK</a
————–
Britain has around 40,000 more deaths in winter than expected from death rates in other months of the year.
National Health Service (West Midlands)
See the followig [pdf] page figure 5 it looks like 100,000 excess winter deaths in 1950/1951. The trend has been down since then!!!
[Office of National Statistics]
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/hsq/HSQ20seasonal.pdf
@tenuc who said: “If it comes to a choice between nuclear and coal, give me fossil fuel generation every time. The risks to future generations from nuclear waste is still to great for it to be a larger part of the power mix.”
I am amazed at how many people think nuclear technology is still the first generation thermal variety. Read up on 4th generation nuclear plants aka fast neutron breeder reactors with integral fuel processing facilities. For example:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=smarter-use-of-nuclear-waste
Brazil, China, Egypt, Finland, India, Japan, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea and Vietnam are all ahead of the USA. After 30 years of no activity, in February Obama said he supported building two new plants in Georgia with federal assistance. We must wait to see if he remains on course.
Its quite simple really:
Money talks, bullshit walks.
Welcome to the world of real politik.
Global warming was a rich mans disease. Guess what? we are not rich , but we are still diseased.
Even with this announcement, we will struggle to keep the lights on.
Memo to other Brits reading this site: Candles, Hurricane lamps and lamp oil, dried foods, canned food , needles, thread, 20litre jerries, sulpha drugs, alcohol, are still a good bet. Crossbows, longbows, wakisashi and series 3 landys are still optional extras*.
*for now….
We had the chance to get out of this situation. Ten years ago, a comprehensive Nuke Power build programme would have resolved UK power problems. But no. No one had the balls to take on the greens head to head. Instead, we will still get blackouts.
Here’s a thought: You are 70 years old, living on the 6th floor of a high rise, its January and the power failed eight days ago.
This is not a game.
Dorme Bien.
Mike Core.
What is wrong with using coal to generate power? The U.S. alone has several centuries’ worth of coal and oil reserves.
The following letter appeared in the Rockhampton (Queensland Australia) morning Bulletin on December 22, 2009:
And the UK politicians want to ‘decarbonise’??
Nuclear energy. Just look how far France is?
Renewable energy could still be used to supplement nuclear where it is feasable and cost effective and not simply adopted wholesale and scattered willy nilly. Some locations might be ideal for windfarms, some for solar and some for wind.
Finally, can you imagine the progress that would have been made if all the billions wasted on AGW was spent on nuclear fusion research we might be decades ahead by now.
That’s MHO.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8485669.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/experiment_qa.shtml
Hearing of this has really made my day. Perhpas it is wishful thinking, but it seems as if the coalition government is actually listening to industry. Or perhaps not – maybe it is just the budget deficit that is providing clearer focus. Now we just need some movement on the Carbon Reduction Comittment. I really fear for small businesses.
I am reminded of the David Rockefeller quote:
.
“This present window of opportunity, during which a truly peaceful and interdependent world order might be built, will not be open for too long – We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.” Sept. 14, 1994 David Rockefeller while speaking at the UN Business Council
Looks like the “window of opportunity” is starting to shut. Between the Climategate whistle blower, the leaked “danish text” and China, the Copenhagen Accord was killed. That fiasco was compounded by the bankrupting of Iceland, Greece and near bankrupting of several other countries including the greenie poster child – Spain. Worse was the failure of Obama’s economic policies despite the doubling of the US money supply. According to economic theory the USA economy should have been going great guns by now, but the money evaporated and never made it into the economy.
Looks like the politicians are starting to worry about their own skins with the economic money spigot shut off and angry laid off workers pointing fingers at their idiotic policies.
Smokey says:
August 16, 2010 at 1:38 pm
“What is wrong with using coal to generate power? The U.S. alone has several centuries’ worth of coal and oil reserves.”
===========
I’ve followed many of your comments in prior posts and agree with this one to a point.
The USA Utility Industry spends very little on R&D. “Little” in relation to their industry as a whole.
The utilities who spend the most on R&D with grants from the DOE are focused on their immediate Brown-out issue.
The grid is old, the wiring within most homes is flawed, and the entire game at a household level is antiquated start to finish from the water heater that “needs” to be ON all day to the TV thst draws power “because” the resident has never been trained to “Turn It Off”.
So, “The AL” suggests we need “Smart Meters” to cover the stupidity. Swell solution if you never intended to address the “True Cause”.
It’s actually becoming very amazing Smokey, the general public are awakened to the issues. Its only a question of time before they finally lose the “Alarm” and start thinking.
Best,
John from CA
Phillip Bratby says:
August 16, 2010 at 9:24 am
Most coal-fired power stations in the UK are now clean and non-polluting. They have retrofitted FGD (flue gas desulphurisation)
This is utterly funny as neutralization of sulphur dioxide gas (SO2) is done in gas washing towers with a milk of lime suspension; this milk of lime, as everybody knows, is made with Calcium Oxide (CaO), which, in turn, it is obtained by BURNING LIME STONE (CaCO3-calcium carbonate) and thus producing CO2. ……In the mean time, while all these wise englishmen rest assure that everything goes GREEN, an unnamable volcano erupts is near Iceland emitting thousand of tons of SO2….Just roses, roses!
Everything happy while their country sinks in the abyss of blissful green poverty.
Gail Combs says:
August 16, 2010 at 2:33 pm
And if you think about the fallacy of any goverment of “creating jobs”.. with tax money!!, which is like saying ” I will get you a job”…..so “give me all your savings to help you”, it is a circular reasoning !!
Of course decarbonisation. When organizations are starting to get sued, the heads running ’em aren’t far behind getting sued from both sides.
And suddenly it doesn’t look to good being on the side that wanted all our money without being honest from the get go.
“because the lunatics who ran our national asylum from 1997 to 2010 did not have the intelligence or moral courage to order a single power station of any kind, nuclear or fossil”
Because the previous lunatics SOLD the existing ones to “private” industry.
Since the power generation is now owned and operated by private companies it would be hard to tell the taxpayers that they now have to pay the private companies to build more stations so that they can then charge them more to buy the electricity that THEIR OWN money paid for….twice.
And the coalition government is NOT going to build more nuclear….it MAY allow “private” companies to pay for them to be built. IF they can get them through the planning routine…which (at present) can take over TEN YEARS to get through because the green ativists are SO VERY GOOD at delaying things….
Did I bump into you looking for the in-organic food aisle?
I wouldn’t hold your breath. This is from the telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/car-manufacturers/toyota/7928827/Toyota-Prius-Plug-in-review.html
They are going to pay people to buy the plug in prius. By my calculation it creates twice as much co2 on electric as it does on petrol. (0.53kg co2 per kwh from defra figures, 5kwh battery 12 mile range on battery =124g/km whereas on petrol it is supposed to give 59g/km). That is without loss in charging or allowing for the energy to produce the battery. They are still nuts.
Icarus-Shale Gas, Pebble Bed Nuclear,Thorium Nuclear, what part of civilization do you
Not like?
Or is it a fear of Healthy, happy Dark Skinned Children?…
“CARBON CREDITS HERE!! GET YER RED-HOT CARBON CREDITS!! BEST PRICE YET, YOU’LL NEVER GET ANOTHER DEAL LIKE THIS!!”
larry says:
August 16, 2010 at 4:25 pm
In spanish we say something like this:
“When God wants you to lose yourself he just makes you lose your common sense”
Henry chance says:
“Did I bump into you looking for the in-organic food aisle?”
That was me, Henry. I was looking in the garden section for a bottle of malathion, vintage Dow ’86, if possible. I find that a dash of malathion on my corn-fed beef steak adds just the right tangy flavor. With a side of DDT for my mashed potatoes, and a spritz of Alar on my salad… Heaven!
☺
It is good to see reality filtering through to government. I live in the UK and was extremely worried that the renewable policies of the previous Labour government would, if carried through, have extremely dire consequences for the UK – no industry, no business and widespread starvation. Something like a cold Zimbabwe!
This gives some hope that the future will not be so bleak.
Now I would like to hear the government’s cancellation of the project to spend 150 billion on wind turbines at sea, and the cancellation of the 7 billion a year to subsidise small scale energy production [With the costs simply passed on to the consumer].
Finally, I would like to hear the cancellation of all subsidies for renewables. If it needs a subsidy it isn’t green : As was pointed out it takes a lot of energy to produce a wind turbine, solar cells take a lot of energy to produce and create large amounts of toxic chemicals, as do rare earths used in batteries.
I would be happy about large grants for R&D in to cost effective renewables – I want truly green products. Most renewables at the moment are ineffective and are really just ways of making rich people richer. [And poor people poorer]
It’s encouraging to see a return to real environmental concerns in the UK again. The biggest pollutant we’ve had for years is spleen grease. Finally, it looks like something may be done to tackle it.
Any sane person would readily recognise that Britain has no choice. At our high latitutes, Solar is not efficient and becomes even less efficient when the need for power is most, ie., winters and/or evenning times.
Wind power is even more rediculous. See the interesting article in the Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1303688/More-half-Britains-wind-farms-built-wind.html) discussing the poor siting of most wind farms! Not only has there been poor siting but wind is far too unreliable to be used for any significant contribution towards the nation’ s power needs. Last winter during the cold snap which lasted for at least 3 weeks (coldest winter in the UK for 30 years) there was all but no wind such that wind generators were producing no more than between 3% to 8% of their rated output. The average was probably less than 5% rated output. If the UK had been reliant upon wind power, there would have been power cuts for probably 22.5 hours a day for 3 weeks. This would have meant that UK homes would have been without heating for 22.5 hours per day for 3 weeks (even gas and oil heating require electricity for ignition and running circulating pumps etc) such that the death toll would have been horrendous.
A government cannot pursue an energy policy which would result in millions of its people dying every 30 years when a cold winter sets in.
For the UK, the only “green” energy solution that could have legs is tidal/wave power. Apart from that possibility (which is at least 20 years away) nuclear, coal and gas are the only viable options.
>>Andrew
>>Sadly our Scottish politicians are hell bent on carbon capture
>>technology, regardless of how expensive, in-efficient and totally
>>unproven it is.
What I fear most about Carbon Capture, apart from the cost, is a blow-out.
Can you imagine these geeks filling a subterranean void with CO2, under very high pressure under the North Sea, and then getting a Gulf of Mexico-style blowout. Never mind a few oil-soaked pelicans, this would result in an undulating mass of poisonous gas creeping across the North Sea and engulfing any east coast town (anyone on the rig would already be dead, and no support vessel or helicopter could get close, to shut the blowout down).
Millions of people may well die.
Look at what happened at lake Nyos.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos
Has anyone thought about what they are doing here? Or is this just the Green way of reducing populations, without letting on?
.
>>Peter
>>That is the same David Cameron who … installed a small wind
>>turbine on top of his house in London (which would have supplied
>>60W, if I remember correctly). It’s a sort of a relief, in this case,
>>to find out that he’s probably just another unprincipled politician
>>rather than a CAGW ideologue.
Not necessarily. He may well be a principled pipe-dream politician who has just come down to earth with a great thud.
It has been reported that the small windelec generators he installed, only average 7w – just enough for a small low-energy bulb. His great dream of powering London with personal windelecs probably just went ‘phut !!’, like a blown fuse.
The pipe-dream is probably fading fast, and he is grasping for reality.
Let’s hope he finds it, and soon.
.
>>Philip
>>I hate to agree with Jeremy Clarkson about anything, but
>>on electric cars he is absolutely right (“Sizzling sandals, this
>>is one hot eco-chariot”, last week). An electric car is only viable
>>from an emissions viewpoint if the electricity that it uses is
>>generated by renewable sources.
Some important things, NOT said about electric vehicles.
a. When using coal or oil for electrical generation, electric cars are more polluting than a good diesel car. My estimates of efficiencies are:
Petrol 22% 27mpg
Diesel 37% 45mpg
Battery 31% 35mpg
Hydrogen 12% 14mpg
(Imperial gallons. European cars – urban and country driving).
Electric cars just relocate their pollution from the towns to the countryside – so you eat the pollution, instead of breathing it.
b. If we all went to electric vehicles, we would have to triple the number of power stations. Yes, that is how much energy is used in transport.
c. Electric vehicles are only cheaper to run (in Europe) because the electricity is not taxed. If the same taxes were applied, as is levied on fuel, they would be more expensive than diesel cars to run. Electric vehicle users are just tax dodgers, not environmentalists.
d. Electric vehicles are much less efficient when it is cold (presuming you want a heater in the car). Then they become less efficient than petrol cars. (Modern electric motors are way too efficient to heat a car with waste energy.)
e. I will think about e. There are more issues here….
.
Gary Pearse says:
“Coal is the only solar energy ….. I wish we could just stop apologizing and explaining for this industry and let this group shout their lungs out….”
GeoFlynx – They would more likely cough their lungs out! “Rates of black lung are on the rise, and have almost doubled in the last 10 years.”(Wiki) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalworker's_pneumoconiosis
“”” chris y says:
August 16, 2010 at 12:32 pm
George E. Smith- “I do not eat organic foods, because it contains carbon. You’d be surprised how many organic farm vendors have ensured me that their produce is certified carbon free.”
Brilliant!
I have a bumper sticker on my 13-year-old Ford Explorer- “This vehicle is powered by Hydrogen-loaded carbon nanorods.” A few folks were surprised that the hydrogen economy had already arrived… “””
Well Chris I like yours much better than mine. But I once got my A*** in the ringer by suggesting that molecular links were actually like rods; and nobody liked my CO2 molecule layout.
But yes California is mandated under AB-32 to reduce the Carbon content of their fuels by 33% by 2020 or somesuch future date.
So if we guessesd that gasoline might be mostly C8H18 (although it isn’t) we would have a typical gasoline H/C ratio of 2.25 and the mandate would perhaps require us to use something more like C8H27; and I don’t know how you mechanize that. Well you need to get to a 3.375 H/C ratio, and you can get to 4.0 with pure methane; so perhaps some methane/ethane mix is required; sounds like natural gas to me ? of course you can imagine what a lousy Octane rating that has; so we probably have to go down to compression ratios of 4-5 so it doesn’t knock
Now I am sure that the law AB-32 does not think far enough ahead as to require that reduced carbon content on a per BTU or Joule basis; after all it was written and voted on by lawyers; not combustion chemists.
I’d like to push for including H2O in the list of dangerous GHG toxic pollutants that the EPA has to regulate for our health and well being.
“”” GeoFlynx says:
August 17, 2010 at 7:52 am
Gary Pearse says:
“Coal is the only solar energy ….. I wish we could just stop apologizing and explaining for this industry and let this group shout their lungs out….”
GeoFlynx – They would more likely cough their lungs out! “Rates of black lung are on the rise, and have almost doubled in the last 10 years.”(Wiki) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalworker‘s_pneumoconiosis “””
Blame it on environmentalists who won’t let them extract the coal in any safe manner. Of course modern day silicon wafer fab workers operate all day in bubble suits so they are not exhaling toxic pollutants to kill the silicon wafers. Clean room dust is the most expensive pollutant in the universe and someone estimated its value(cost) at something like $64B per kg; but that was maybe 20 years ago so I think you can call that $64T per kg today. The cost of course is the value of the lost computer, and memory chips due to particulate contaminants. I’m told that if you ever smoked, or lived with someone who ever smoked, that you cannot get a job in a fab clean room; because your lungs exhale tobacco particles for the rest of your life.
@ George: I’m told that if you ever smoked, or lived with someone who ever smoked, that you cannot get a job in a fab clean room; because your lungs exhale tobacco particles for the rest of your life.
The above statement is not true for modern automated Fabs
It was announced this week that “green” energy policies would add £50 per annum to the average electricity bill and that the coalition government plans to cut the winter fuel allowance for pensioners.
All this while we still have 30% of generation from our coal fired power stations and more than 15 % from our aging nuclear plant. Once the coal fired stations are closed by EU diktat during the next 5 years, the aging nuclear are phased out and the likes of Kingsnorth and the new nuclear plant remain unbuilt, we can expect electricity prices to more than double and to have widespread brownouts.
When this happens and the winter fuel allowance disappears altogether, how many freezing pensioners do you think will wish to continue voting for the coalition?
If Cameron et al are rowing back a little from the asinine Ed Miliband and Chris Huhne energy policies, is it perhaps that this prospect is beginning to exercise their tiny brains?
Personally I do not believe it. Chris Huhne is way too far down the Swanee ever to row back.
I fear for this country. The Energy Minister (didn’t get his name – not Chris Huhne) was on telly this morning, next to a nice new gas-fired power station, exhuding confidence that nuclear power stations would come on-stream within a quite ridiculous timescale – and that ‘renewables’ had ‘a part to play’.
They are going to get such a wake-up call any time soon – my prediction (has been ever since it was obvious that the Labour loons were kow-towing to the green goons) is that there will be humiliating power cuts during the Olympics…
You read it here first…