By Roger Harrabin
Environment analyst, BBC News
Coal-fired power station
The lights could go out when coal and nuclear power stations are phased out
The government's new energy adviser says the UK could face blackouts by 2016 because green energy is not coming on stream fast enough.
Ministers have previously denied that the UK is heading for an energy gap.
But David MacKay, who takes up his post at the Department of Energy on 1 October, says that the public keep objecting to energy projects.
This, he says, is creating a huge problem, which could turn out the lights.
Professor MacKay is a researcher at Cambridge University.
His recent book, Sustainable Energy - Without The Hot Air, won applause for its examination of current government plans to keep the lights on whilst also cutting carbon emissions.
It concluded that policy is moving in the right direction, but the sums on energy provision simply do not add up - not enough power capacity is being built.
Speaking unofficially, he told BBC News that this meant that Britain could face blackouts in 2016 - when coal and nuclear stations are phased out.
Professor David MacKay: "The scale of building required is absolutely enormous"
"There is a worry that in 2016 there might not be enough electricity. My guess is that what the market might do is fix that problem by making more gas power stations, which isn't the direction we want to be going in," he said.
"So we really should be upping the build rate of the alternatives as soon as possible."
Professor MacKay blamed the public for opposing wind farms, nuclear power, and energy imports, whilst demanding an unchanged lifestyle.
You cannot oppose them all, he said, and hope to have a viable policy on energy and climate change.
Blackouts might make people realise we need to invest in modern nuclear power stations and other means of clean fuel
"We've got to stop saying no to these things and understand that we do have a serious building project on our hands," he said.
Professor MacKay said he looked forward to engaging the public in a more open debate about what he calls the realities of energy policy when he takes up his post.
His says his new masters in Department of Energy and Climate Change have impressive commitment to solve the issues.
Professor MacKay's many supporters will hope that he is allowed to continue speaking openly to the public after he takes office.
Showing posts with label ENERGY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ENERGY. Show all posts
Friday, September 11, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Barack Obama's $1.8bn vision of greener biofuel
• President takes on the powerful farming lobby
• Switch from food crops to fight climate change
The Obama administration took on the powerful farming interests in America's heartland today, making clear it does not see corn-based ethanol as part of the long-term solution to climate change.
The new proposals on the biofuel – in the face of intense pressure from agricultural companies and members of Congress from corn-growing states – were seen as the first test of Barack Obama's promise to put science above politics in deciding America's energy future.
Ethanol had once appeared to provide a transport fuel which did not increase carbon dioxide. But studies have suggested that the fuel needed to process the corn meant the ethanol could be more polluting than the fossil fuel it was meant to replace. Furthermore, the use of food crops for biofuel was blamed for a substantial part of the large price rises seen in 2008.
Administration officials set out a $1.8bn (£1.19bn) plan to develop a new generation of more environmentally-friendly biofuels that are not made from food crops and have a lower carbon footprint, while also providing an immediate bail-out of existing corn ethanol producers, which are suffering in the global economic crisis: falling petrol prices have undercut demand for ethanol at the pump.
Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, made clear she does not see corn-based ethanol as a permanent part of America's clean energy mix. "Corn-based ethanol is a bridge... to the next generation of fuels ," she said.
The EPA proposed a new standard for advanced biofuels, ensuring they are at least 50% cleaner than petrol. Jackson said existing bio-ethanol resulted in a 16% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
The agency said it would also take into account the environmental impact of turning land over to biofuel crops, a key demand of the industry's critics.
Environmentalists saw the move as an early indication that the Obama administration would stand its ground against powerful industrial interests.
"For an administration that has already staked so much on restoring science to the process of governing, this was a really critical test," said Nathanael Greene, a renewable energy expert at the National Resources Defence Council. "This was the first big industry where we are starting to see some of the potential changes required by climate policy and the administration is ready to stick to the science and not get rolled by industry."
The country's fuel producers gave a cautious welcome to the announcement, but added that they would continue to challenge the EPA's criteria for measuring the environmental cost of fuel crops.
The impact on the ethanol industry of the agency's proposal, which now undergoes public review, was softened by Obama's decision to put the agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, who is from the corn growing state of Iowa, in charge of a new task force that will oversee biofuel development. The officials also said there would be considerable sums available to farmers to make the transition from using corn to make biofuels to using pulp and agricultural waste.
The programme envisages $1.1bn to help ethanol producers market the fuel, and to convert their processing plants from fossil fuels to renewable energy. "There is over $1.1 billion of opportunity here," Vilsack said.
Energy secretary Steven Chu said there would be an additional $786m towards the development of new biofuel refineries and the design of flex-fuel cars.
The administration's move on ethanol comes nearly two years after Congress ordered fuel refineries to increase their use of ethanol, and by 2022 to step up the share of advanced biofuels in the country's fuel mix.
The law ordered all ethanol produced after 2007 to meet a standard 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and for advanced biofuels to meet a 50% reduction target.
Existing ethanol producers will be exempt from those targets, but new plant will be required to make the grade. That represents a big challenge for the production technology.
* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
• Switch from food crops to fight climate change
The Obama administration took on the powerful farming interests in America's heartland today, making clear it does not see corn-based ethanol as part of the long-term solution to climate change.
The new proposals on the biofuel – in the face of intense pressure from agricultural companies and members of Congress from corn-growing states – were seen as the first test of Barack Obama's promise to put science above politics in deciding America's energy future.
Ethanol had once appeared to provide a transport fuel which did not increase carbon dioxide. But studies have suggested that the fuel needed to process the corn meant the ethanol could be more polluting than the fossil fuel it was meant to replace. Furthermore, the use of food crops for biofuel was blamed for a substantial part of the large price rises seen in 2008.
Administration officials set out a $1.8bn (£1.19bn) plan to develop a new generation of more environmentally-friendly biofuels that are not made from food crops and have a lower carbon footprint, while also providing an immediate bail-out of existing corn ethanol producers, which are suffering in the global economic crisis: falling petrol prices have undercut demand for ethanol at the pump.
Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, made clear she does not see corn-based ethanol as a permanent part of America's clean energy mix. "Corn-based ethanol is a bridge... to the next generation of fuels ," she said.
The EPA proposed a new standard for advanced biofuels, ensuring they are at least 50% cleaner than petrol. Jackson said existing bio-ethanol resulted in a 16% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
The agency said it would also take into account the environmental impact of turning land over to biofuel crops, a key demand of the industry's critics.
Environmentalists saw the move as an early indication that the Obama administration would stand its ground against powerful industrial interests.
"For an administration that has already staked so much on restoring science to the process of governing, this was a really critical test," said Nathanael Greene, a renewable energy expert at the National Resources Defence Council. "This was the first big industry where we are starting to see some of the potential changes required by climate policy and the administration is ready to stick to the science and not get rolled by industry."
The country's fuel producers gave a cautious welcome to the announcement, but added that they would continue to challenge the EPA's criteria for measuring the environmental cost of fuel crops.
The impact on the ethanol industry of the agency's proposal, which now undergoes public review, was softened by Obama's decision to put the agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, who is from the corn growing state of Iowa, in charge of a new task force that will oversee biofuel development. The officials also said there would be considerable sums available to farmers to make the transition from using corn to make biofuels to using pulp and agricultural waste.
The programme envisages $1.1bn to help ethanol producers market the fuel, and to convert their processing plants from fossil fuels to renewable energy. "There is over $1.1 billion of opportunity here," Vilsack said.
Energy secretary Steven Chu said there would be an additional $786m towards the development of new biofuel refineries and the design of flex-fuel cars.
The administration's move on ethanol comes nearly two years after Congress ordered fuel refineries to increase their use of ethanol, and by 2022 to step up the share of advanced biofuels in the country's fuel mix.
The law ordered all ethanol produced after 2007 to meet a standard 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and for advanced biofuels to meet a 50% reduction target.
Existing ethanol producers will be exempt from those targets, but new plant will be required to make the grade. That represents a big challenge for the production technology.
* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Obama focuses on green economy in speech before Congress
Barack Obama greets members of the U.S. Congress before addressing a joint meeting of the two legislative houses. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
• Barack Obama presses Capitol Hill on energy reforms
• Budget will include $15bn a year for alternative fuels
* Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Barack Obama raised the development of a green economy to the top of America's agenda tonight, calling on Congress to pass a law cutting the carbon emissions that cause global warming.
The president, in a rousing speech to both houses of Congress, tried to put to rest fears that the economic recession would force him to scale back ambitious plans for energy reforms.
Instead, he made it clear that he sees a direct link between America's long-term economic interests and the development of clean energy, budgeting additional funds for research into wind and solar power.
The president also pressed Congress to push ahead on a new law to cut greenhouse gas emissions, defying critics who say cap-and-trade measures could be a brake on economic recovery.
"To truly transform our economy, protect our security and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy," the president said. "So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America."
Barely a week after the passage of his $787bn economic rescue plan, Obama came back to Congress with plans for further green investment.
The recovery plan devoted more than $100bn to making private homes and government buildings more efficient, developing wind and solar power and spending money on public transport.
But the president promised even more tonight, saying his budget, which will be announced on Thursday, would allocate $15bn a year to develop wind and solar power and more fuel-efficient cars.
"We are committed to the goal of a re-tooled, re-imagined auto industry," he said. "The nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it."
Obama also set out a plan to modernise the electric grid.
He said America needed to re-establish its leading role in the development of solar and other renewable energy technologies, after losing ground to China, Germany and Japan.
"I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders – and I know you don't either. It is time for America to lead again,"
The direct appeal for climate change legislation could re-energise efforts to produce legislation before global climate change talks get underway in Copenhagen next December.
White House officials admitted on Monday it was increasingly uncertain such legislation could pass in time, and that the deadline might slip to 2010.
* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Obama's stimulus bill green lights green spending
Obama's stimulus bill green lights green spending
BusinessGreen.com takes the microscope to the environmental spending in President Obama's wide-ranging economic stimulus package
John Sterlicchi, BusinessGreen, 17 Feb 2009
Barack Obama
US President Barack Obama will today sign the $787bn (£551bn) economic stimulus package in Denver, Colorado with proponents of green business celebrating that a tenth of the money will be directly targeted at environmental initiatives.
Echoing the sentiments of many environmentalists, Joseph Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and acting assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy during the Clinton Administration, hailed the bill as a landmark in America's transition to a lower carbon economy.
"Years from now, long after the economy has recovered, this moment may well be remembered as the time that progressives, led by Obama, began the transition to a sustainable economy built around green jobs," he said.
The final compromise on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed the House on Friday by 246-183 without a single Republican vote, having passed the Senate by 60-38 with the help of three Republican senators.
The stimulus bill initially passed by the House had a projected cost of $820bn and the Senate's was even higher at $838bn, but the lower final figure was agreed in an attempt to bring the Republican senators on board and assure the bill's speedy passage.
Environment America, a federation of state-based, environmental advocacy organisations, analysed the final bill and said there were $32.80bn in funding for clean energy projects, $26.86bn for energy efficiency initiatives and $18.95bn for green transportation, giving a total of $78.61bn directly earmarked for green projects.
Obama has said that he hopes the act will create or save 3.5 million jobs over the next two years, and a sizable chunk of these jobs are now expected to be so-called "green-collar jobs".
While some popular projects took a hit as a result of the compromise deal, environmentalists were as pleased almost as much at what did not make the final cut as what did.
For instance, in the Senate version of the package there was a provision for $50bn in federal loan guarantees that could have been utilised by the nuclear and coal industries. Its original inclusion caused 243 advocacy groups to send a joint letter to senators expressing their "dismay and anger over the inclusion by the Senate Appropriations Committee of a provision in the economic stimulus bill to provide up to $50bn in additional taxpayer loan guarantees that could be used for construction of new nuclear reactors and 'clean coal' plants" .
The provision was subsequently ditched from the final bill, in a move that Kevin Kamps of campaign group Beyond Nuclear hailed as "a big victory for common sense and the American taxpayer".
"This toxic nuclear pork had no place in a bill designed to put Americans back to work and salvage our economy," he said. "Our legislators are to be applauded for getting their priorities right and saying no to yet another blatant attempt to prop up an industry that has never stood on its own financial feet."
However, less contentious green investments also took a hit with the plan to upgrade the country's electricity transmission system to better take advantage of renewable energy and improve efficiency seeing proposed funding of $11bn cut to just $4.5bn. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission acting chairman Jon Wellinghoff said the funding was "seed money... but it really isn't enough money to make huge advances in the overall backbone grid that we're talking about to integrate substantial amounts of wind."
The full investment to meet the type of renewable growth that Obama's targeted would cost more than $200bn, he said, but added that based on the proposals already submitted to the agency he now expected the rest of the funding to come from the private sector.
The need for private capital to piggyback the US government’s initiatives was highlighted by University of Massachusetts economist Robert Pollin writing in this week's Nation magazine. Banks could be required to devote a percentage of loan portfolios to green investments, he wrote, while expanded tax credits could be provided to homes and businesses for installation of solar and other renewable energy. Funds from a cap-and-trade emissions programme or a carbon tax could also be recycled back to the public in rebates to spend on energy saving measures, he predicted.
Pollin also joined with green groups in praising a stimulus package that will simultaneously cut carbon emissions and create jobs.
"The central facts here are irrefutable: spending the same amount of money on building a clean energy economy will create three times more jobs within the US than would spending on our existing fossil fuel infrastructure," he observed. " The transformation to a clean energy economy can therefore serve as a major long-term engine of job creation."
His comments were echoed by the Solar Energy Industries Association, which forecasts that the stimulus package will create 67,000 solar jobs in 2009, and 119,000 in total through 2010. The stimulus plan will "catapult the US to be the world's largest solar market by the end of 2010", predicted Suvi Sharma, chief executive of Solaria, a solar-cell maker.
Striking a similarly upbeat note was Kevin Surace, president and chief executive of Serious Materials, a Silicon Valley company that makes green building materials. With the final document providing $5bn for a Weatherization Assistance Program, enough to supposedly prevent 9.7 million tons of global warming pollution and create 375,000 jobs, he predicted that the company would "be hiring hundreds of people over the next 12 to 18 months".
Plans to invest $8bn in new high-speed rail projects also secured praise from an unlikely quarter, when Florida Republican House representative John Mica, who voted against the package, issued a statement praising the focus on high-speed rail.
"I applaud President Obama's recognition that high-speed rail should be part of America's future," he said.
A spokesman for Mica said that he voted against the bill as he saw the high-speed rail provisions as just a "silver lining". It has become a popular tactic for politicians to tout in press releases local benefits of legislation they voted against in the hope that voters did not follow the debate too closely.
As well as green initiatives, the new act will provide money for road building, new bridges, new schools and the expansion of broadband networks to rural communities, all of which it could be argued could help curb overall emissions. There are also funds to computerise healthcare records, extend federal unemployment benefits and boost healthcare funding for low-income and disabled Americans. It also provides an estimated $280bn in tax cuts.
The White House is establishing a website to track the spending, and green groups can now be expected to be keeping a close eye on how and where the new funding will be spent.
"This historic step won't be the end of what we do to turn our economy around, but the beginning,'' President Obama said over the weekend. "The problems that led us into this crisis are deep and widespread. Our response must be equal to the task."
He could of just as easily been talking about climate change, as well as the economic crisis – and given the make up of his stimulus package, perhaps he was.
BusinessGreen.com takes the microscope to the environmental spending in President Obama's wide-ranging economic stimulus package
John Sterlicchi, BusinessGreen, 17 Feb 2009
Barack Obama
US President Barack Obama will today sign the $787bn (£551bn) economic stimulus package in Denver, Colorado with proponents of green business celebrating that a tenth of the money will be directly targeted at environmental initiatives.
Echoing the sentiments of many environmentalists, Joseph Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and acting assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy during the Clinton Administration, hailed the bill as a landmark in America's transition to a lower carbon economy.
"Years from now, long after the economy has recovered, this moment may well be remembered as the time that progressives, led by Obama, began the transition to a sustainable economy built around green jobs," he said.
The final compromise on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed the House on Friday by 246-183 without a single Republican vote, having passed the Senate by 60-38 with the help of three Republican senators.
The stimulus bill initially passed by the House had a projected cost of $820bn and the Senate's was even higher at $838bn, but the lower final figure was agreed in an attempt to bring the Republican senators on board and assure the bill's speedy passage.
Environment America, a federation of state-based, environmental advocacy organisations, analysed the final bill and said there were $32.80bn in funding for clean energy projects, $26.86bn for energy efficiency initiatives and $18.95bn for green transportation, giving a total of $78.61bn directly earmarked for green projects.
Obama has said that he hopes the act will create or save 3.5 million jobs over the next two years, and a sizable chunk of these jobs are now expected to be so-called "green-collar jobs".
While some popular projects took a hit as a result of the compromise deal, environmentalists were as pleased almost as much at what did not make the final cut as what did.
For instance, in the Senate version of the package there was a provision for $50bn in federal loan guarantees that could have been utilised by the nuclear and coal industries. Its original inclusion caused 243 advocacy groups to send a joint letter to senators expressing their "dismay and anger over the inclusion by the Senate Appropriations Committee of a provision in the economic stimulus bill to provide up to $50bn in additional taxpayer loan guarantees that could be used for construction of new nuclear reactors and 'clean coal' plants" .
The provision was subsequently ditched from the final bill, in a move that Kevin Kamps of campaign group Beyond Nuclear hailed as "a big victory for common sense and the American taxpayer".
"This toxic nuclear pork had no place in a bill designed to put Americans back to work and salvage our economy," he said. "Our legislators are to be applauded for getting their priorities right and saying no to yet another blatant attempt to prop up an industry that has never stood on its own financial feet."
However, less contentious green investments also took a hit with the plan to upgrade the country's electricity transmission system to better take advantage of renewable energy and improve efficiency seeing proposed funding of $11bn cut to just $4.5bn. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission acting chairman Jon Wellinghoff said the funding was "seed money... but it really isn't enough money to make huge advances in the overall backbone grid that we're talking about to integrate substantial amounts of wind."
The full investment to meet the type of renewable growth that Obama's targeted would cost more than $200bn, he said, but added that based on the proposals already submitted to the agency he now expected the rest of the funding to come from the private sector.
The need for private capital to piggyback the US government’s initiatives was highlighted by University of Massachusetts economist Robert Pollin writing in this week's Nation magazine. Banks could be required to devote a percentage of loan portfolios to green investments, he wrote, while expanded tax credits could be provided to homes and businesses for installation of solar and other renewable energy. Funds from a cap-and-trade emissions programme or a carbon tax could also be recycled back to the public in rebates to spend on energy saving measures, he predicted.
Pollin also joined with green groups in praising a stimulus package that will simultaneously cut carbon emissions and create jobs.
"The central facts here are irrefutable: spending the same amount of money on building a clean energy economy will create three times more jobs within the US than would spending on our existing fossil fuel infrastructure," he observed. " The transformation to a clean energy economy can therefore serve as a major long-term engine of job creation."
His comments were echoed by the Solar Energy Industries Association, which forecasts that the stimulus package will create 67,000 solar jobs in 2009, and 119,000 in total through 2010. The stimulus plan will "catapult the US to be the world's largest solar market by the end of 2010", predicted Suvi Sharma, chief executive of Solaria, a solar-cell maker.
Striking a similarly upbeat note was Kevin Surace, president and chief executive of Serious Materials, a Silicon Valley company that makes green building materials. With the final document providing $5bn for a Weatherization Assistance Program, enough to supposedly prevent 9.7 million tons of global warming pollution and create 375,000 jobs, he predicted that the company would "be hiring hundreds of people over the next 12 to 18 months".
Plans to invest $8bn in new high-speed rail projects also secured praise from an unlikely quarter, when Florida Republican House representative John Mica, who voted against the package, issued a statement praising the focus on high-speed rail.
"I applaud President Obama's recognition that high-speed rail should be part of America's future," he said.
A spokesman for Mica said that he voted against the bill as he saw the high-speed rail provisions as just a "silver lining". It has become a popular tactic for politicians to tout in press releases local benefits of legislation they voted against in the hope that voters did not follow the debate too closely.
As well as green initiatives, the new act will provide money for road building, new bridges, new schools and the expansion of broadband networks to rural communities, all of which it could be argued could help curb overall emissions. There are also funds to computerise healthcare records, extend federal unemployment benefits and boost healthcare funding for low-income and disabled Americans. It also provides an estimated $280bn in tax cuts.
The White House is establishing a website to track the spending, and green groups can now be expected to be keeping a close eye on how and where the new funding will be spent.
"This historic step won't be the end of what we do to turn our economy around, but the beginning,'' President Obama said over the weekend. "The problems that led us into this crisis are deep and widespread. Our response must be equal to the task."
He could of just as easily been talking about climate change, as well as the economic crisis – and given the make up of his stimulus package, perhaps he was.
Obama green stimulus to cut US emissions by at least 61m tonnes
Obama green stimulus to cut US emissions by at least 61m tonnes
New research finds "Green New Deal" spending plan could have equivalent effect on cutting carbon emissions as taking 13 million cars off the road
Tom Young, BusinessGreen, 10 Feb 2009
Barack Obama
The proposed "Green New Deal" environmental measures proposed as part of President Obama's $800bn economic stimulus package will deliver minimum greenhouse gas emissions savings of 61 million tonnes a year – equivalent to taking 13 million cars off the road – and could result in far deeper emission cuts.
That is the conclusion of a new report from climate change consultants ICF International (ICFI), commissioned by Greenpeace, which aimed to measure the impact on US carbon emissions of the president's wide-ranging green spending plans.
The report concluded that the impact of many of the proposed measures on carbon emissions were too difficult to quantify, and as a result the ultimate long-term savings arising from the plan could be far higher.
The proposed spending, which is still being debated on Capitol Hill and is expected to be passed by the Senate later this week, breaks down into 18 key areas. But while they are all expected to result in net carbon emission reductions, ICFI was only able to quantify the savings that will arise from seven proposals.
The report says that much of the estimated saving will come from building efficiency measures, calculating that plans to provide $6.9bn in grants to support local government energy efficiency schemes will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20.1m tons a year, while proposals to invest $6.7bn in improving the efficiency of federal buildings, $6.2bn in "home weatherisation" and $2.5bn in domestic energy efficiency efforts should cut emissions by 17.5m, eight million, and 7.28m tonnes respectively.
Proposed energy efficiency grants and loans to schools and other government institutions worth $1.5bn should cut emissions by 4.6m tonnes, according to the report, while $500m of investment in industrial energy efficiency programmes designed to pilot combined heat and power technologies promises to cut emissions by up to a quarter of current levels for those firms involved.
Moreover, plans for up to $300m in rebates for consumers who buy energy efficient and smart appliances that carry the Energy Star label are estimated to deliver emissions savings of more than 100,000 tonnes a year.
However, speaking to news agency Reuters, Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace, said that as the study focused only on those areas where carbon savings could be accurately quantified, the total savings were likely to be far higher.
ICFI concluded that there were too many variables attached to a raft of investment proposals designed to bolster clean technologies for it to accurately attach emission-savings figures.
For example, Obama's flagship plans to invest $11bn in rolling out smart grid technologies, provide $8bn in loan guarantees to renewable energy and transmission projects, and offer $2.4bn in funding to carbon capture and storage projects all have the potential to deliver huge emissions savings, but it is too early to estimate the precise scale of the savings and the timeline for their delivery.
Similarly, it is also difficult to quantify emissions cuts that will arise from a raft of projects to help cut transport emissions, such as the $2bn in loans to be offered to developers of advanced battery technologies; $600m earmarked for greening federal vehicles; $400m initiative for the government to purchase more fuel efficient buses and trucks; $300m in funding to help develop cleaner diesel technologies; and $200m to promote the adoption of electric vehicles and provide recharging infrastructure.
New research finds "Green New Deal" spending plan could have equivalent effect on cutting carbon emissions as taking 13 million cars off the road
Tom Young, BusinessGreen, 10 Feb 2009
Barack Obama
The proposed "Green New Deal" environmental measures proposed as part of President Obama's $800bn economic stimulus package will deliver minimum greenhouse gas emissions savings of 61 million tonnes a year – equivalent to taking 13 million cars off the road – and could result in far deeper emission cuts.
That is the conclusion of a new report from climate change consultants ICF International (ICFI), commissioned by Greenpeace, which aimed to measure the impact on US carbon emissions of the president's wide-ranging green spending plans.
The report concluded that the impact of many of the proposed measures on carbon emissions were too difficult to quantify, and as a result the ultimate long-term savings arising from the plan could be far higher.
The proposed spending, which is still being debated on Capitol Hill and is expected to be passed by the Senate later this week, breaks down into 18 key areas. But while they are all expected to result in net carbon emission reductions, ICFI was only able to quantify the savings that will arise from seven proposals.
The report says that much of the estimated saving will come from building efficiency measures, calculating that plans to provide $6.9bn in grants to support local government energy efficiency schemes will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20.1m tons a year, while proposals to invest $6.7bn in improving the efficiency of federal buildings, $6.2bn in "home weatherisation" and $2.5bn in domestic energy efficiency efforts should cut emissions by 17.5m, eight million, and 7.28m tonnes respectively.
Proposed energy efficiency grants and loans to schools and other government institutions worth $1.5bn should cut emissions by 4.6m tonnes, according to the report, while $500m of investment in industrial energy efficiency programmes designed to pilot combined heat and power technologies promises to cut emissions by up to a quarter of current levels for those firms involved.
Moreover, plans for up to $300m in rebates for consumers who buy energy efficient and smart appliances that carry the Energy Star label are estimated to deliver emissions savings of more than 100,000 tonnes a year.
However, speaking to news agency Reuters, Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace, said that as the study focused only on those areas where carbon savings could be accurately quantified, the total savings were likely to be far higher.
ICFI concluded that there were too many variables attached to a raft of investment proposals designed to bolster clean technologies for it to accurately attach emission-savings figures.
For example, Obama's flagship plans to invest $11bn in rolling out smart grid technologies, provide $8bn in loan guarantees to renewable energy and transmission projects, and offer $2.4bn in funding to carbon capture and storage projects all have the potential to deliver huge emissions savings, but it is too early to estimate the precise scale of the savings and the timeline for their delivery.
Similarly, it is also difficult to quantify emissions cuts that will arise from a raft of projects to help cut transport emissions, such as the $2bn in loans to be offered to developers of advanced battery technologies; $600m earmarked for greening federal vehicles; $400m initiative for the government to purchase more fuel efficient buses and trucks; $300m in funding to help develop cleaner diesel technologies; and $200m to promote the adoption of electric vehicles and provide recharging infrastructure.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The Greens are going nuclear
Angela Saini
Power struggle
For decades, it was the scourge of the environmental movement. But now, discovers Angela Saini, the greens are going nuclear.
The fight has already been lost. Exactly a year ago, the British government confirmed rumours that a new generation of nuclear power plants would go online by 2020. "They're wrong," insisted Greenpeace. "Nuclear power is not the answer," implored Friends of the Earth. But when their pleas fell on deaf ears, for many environmentalists, it was final, uncomfortable proof that most people simply don't hate nuclear power.
In fact some greens are even switching sides. Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy (EFN), a group that once may have been considered an oxymoron, today boasts more than 9,000 members in 60 countries. At its base in Paris, founder Bruno Comby is building extra space in his new eco-home to store the stacks of membership forms and correspondence he receives. The group has a catalogue of high-profile supporters, including James Lovelock, the so-called "father of environmentalism" and author of The Gaia Theory, and Patrick Moore, a former director of Greenpeace International. In 2008, green activists George Monbiot and Mark Lynas both also admitted that they would be prepared to consider nuclear power, under pressure to find non-carbon solutions to the energy crisis created by climate change.
"In some ways we think religiously about this topic," George Monbiot admitted as I filmed him for a documentary about nuclear power. "People start with a pre-existing position of being anti-nuclear and then go out and find the evidence to justify that position. Faced with this enormous challenge of climate change, we have to throw everything useful at the problem that we can, and it's now beginning to look as if nuclear power might be more useful than we first thought." This may seem a rational enough plea, but it flies in the face of the most entrenched tenet of the green movement: nature is not to be tampered with. Chopping down forests and endangering wildlife are reprehensible, but what could be worse than splitting nature's basic building block, the atom?
When the eponymous logo of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament turned 50 last year, it was remarkable to see that it had kept the power to evoke the same emotions felt by courageous protestors at Aldermaston decades earlier. And for those green activists belonging to the Aldermaston generation, the nuclear question cuts to the heart of their movement. Many have asked whether it is even ideologically possible to be both green and pro-nuclear, which makes it all the more incredible that a few have swallowed longstanding beliefs and embraced nuclear power.
"We've been opposed to nuclear power since our inception," Nathan Argent, a nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace, told me. "And our objections are made through a pragmatic appraisal of nuclear power. There are more effective and much cheaper ways of dealing with climate change." Even as more environmentalists begin to accept nuclear power, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have doggedly maintained that the solution lies in simultaneously slashing fossil fuel usage while ramping up the proportion of renewables in the energy mix. The trouble with this, in the UK at least, is that wind and solar provide only intermittent power depending on the weather conditions. A major move towards alternative energy would still need a constant, baseload source of power, which so far only fossil fuels or nuclear power can provide.
Scientists and engineers have been left with the mammoth task of convincing the public, many dedicating their lives to improving standards in the nuclear industry. In the effort to lose the chronic image problem it has endured under the dark shadows of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and Three Mile Island in 1979, nuclear power is now the world's most regulated energy source, overseen not only by dedicated national bodies but also the UN's eagle-eyed International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Consequently there hasn't been a major nuclear incident since the 1980s. The meltdown at Three Mile Island, which was by any estimate the worst nuclear accident in the West, raised local levels of radiation in the atmosphere to only marginally above everyday background levels. To this day, not a single radiation-related death has been attributed to the accident.
Len Green, an engineer who helped build Sizewell B nuclear power station on the Suffolk coast, explained that modern plants are engineered to meet every possible contingency, including the kind of employee negligence that lead to the explosion at Chernobyl: "The designs have to be thoroughly assessed, then every stage of construction is assessed, and when they're operating, they're assessed." According to Professor Robin Grimes, a materials physicist at Imperial College London and former researcher at the US Los Alamos National Laboratory, they're not just safe, they're foolproof: "The new designs of power stations use passive systems, which means that they automatically behave in such a way as to shut the reactor down. The operator doesn't even have to take any action at all."
The oft-repeated green allegation that nuclear is too expensive holds even less water than the claim it is unsafe. Although a new power station demands a hefty capital investment, when costs are averaged over its lifespan, it is cheaper than oil and gas. And when the costs of carbon capture and storage are factored into the price of fossil fuels, nuclear comes out firmly on top. Meanwhile, renewables cannot even hope to compete on price: a 2004 UK Royal Academy of Engineering report found the cost of generating wind power is more than twice that of nuclear. Also, massively increasing the proportion of renewables would introduce the huge expense of extending the national grid to meet solar panels, tidal barrages and wind farms.
Indeed the latest IAEA projections suggest that raw economics are helping to drive a nuclear renaissance. Nuclear power generation is expected to grow between 27 and 50 per cent by 2030, mainly in India and China. Even Lithuania, a small Baltic state still raising its economy out of the ashes of communism, is resolutely pushing for a new nuclear power station to replace its ageing old one near the small town of Ignalina. Offering cheap electricity and the tantalising assurance of energy independence, it makes economic sense, especially since a single reactor could provide Lithuania with all its electricity needs, plus some left over. In this nation, the director of the Lithuanian Energy Institute told me frankly, green groups haven't even attempted to block nuclear power.
"I think a number of other greens are slowly going to make the decision that nuclear power is better than the alternatives," Prof Grimes explained. Even the most common green objection to nuclear power – radioactive waste – is being resolved. Britain doesn't yet have a repository for spent nuclear fuel and continues to temporarily store it on the same sites as its power stations. After the new generation of reactors are switched on, they will eventually produce almost half a million tonnes of waste, some of which will remain dangerous for millennia. Contrary to green folklore, however, this is not an immutable problem. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, along with the country's best geologists and teams of nuclear engineers, has already begun the hunt for a new waste site. Encased in layers of lead, cement and under hundreds of metres of rock, they are entirely confident (as are those engineers constructing similar repositories in the US and Finland) that the waste will be safely contained. In fact their working timescale is a million years, which means that the repository will outlast not only our progeny, but probably also human civilisation.
For scientists like Grimes, the nuclear debate has become a simple matter of education. The green shift in the nuclear direction is, however marginal, a triumph of rationalism over fear. And the shift hasn't been only one-sided. Scientists and activists are used to finding themselves on opposite sides of a divide, violently clashing on topics like medical animal testing and GM crop cultivation. But pick up a copy of any science magazine these days and you are almost as likely to get advice about how to reduce your carbon footprint or recycle effectively as the latest research news. "The green argument challenges you, it makes you think about the way you apply your engineering and science. I welcome the debate," said Grimes. Climate change has united science and environmentalism as never before: where researchers have provided the critical scientific data, greens have supplied the political momentum, and this co-operation in turn has helped achieve the gradual consensus on nuclear power.
But the consensus remains limited. The nuclear debate is still riddled with irrationalism, to the point where pro-nuclear environmentalists are often criticised by more mainstream greens simply for daring to suggest that nuclear power might make ecological sense. Bruno Comby told me that fellow activists would not force him into silence: "We've been attacked with vitriol. But in the end our ideas will succeed simply because we are right on a scientific level, and the truth always comes out in the end," he said.
So how likely is it that the remainder of greens will be persuaded to join their growing list of dissenters and be swayed to the nuclear side? The signs aren't good. Greenpeace's opposition to anything remotely nuclear has gone so far as to slam one of the most exciting scientific endeavours of the century, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) at Cadarache in France. ITER is a multi-billion-Euro project funded by the European Union, Japan, China, India, the Republic of Korea, Russia and the USA. It aims to develop fusion power by binding pairs of atoms together, as opposed to atom-splitting fission that happens in a conventional nuclear reactor.
Fusion is a huge technical challenge, but if it succeeds it promises to bring almost limitless clean energy to future generations. It could be a green miracle, if only more greens would allow themselves to see it.
Published 2009-01-26
Original in English
First published in New Humanist 1/2009
Contributed by New Humanist
© Angela Saini/New Humanist
Power struggle
For decades, it was the scourge of the environmental movement. But now, discovers Angela Saini, the greens are going nuclear.
The fight has already been lost. Exactly a year ago, the British government confirmed rumours that a new generation of nuclear power plants would go online by 2020. "They're wrong," insisted Greenpeace. "Nuclear power is not the answer," implored Friends of the Earth. But when their pleas fell on deaf ears, for many environmentalists, it was final, uncomfortable proof that most people simply don't hate nuclear power.
In fact some greens are even switching sides. Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy (EFN), a group that once may have been considered an oxymoron, today boasts more than 9,000 members in 60 countries. At its base in Paris, founder Bruno Comby is building extra space in his new eco-home to store the stacks of membership forms and correspondence he receives. The group has a catalogue of high-profile supporters, including James Lovelock, the so-called "father of environmentalism" and author of The Gaia Theory, and Patrick Moore, a former director of Greenpeace International. In 2008, green activists George Monbiot and Mark Lynas both also admitted that they would be prepared to consider nuclear power, under pressure to find non-carbon solutions to the energy crisis created by climate change.
"In some ways we think religiously about this topic," George Monbiot admitted as I filmed him for a documentary about nuclear power. "People start with a pre-existing position of being anti-nuclear and then go out and find the evidence to justify that position. Faced with this enormous challenge of climate change, we have to throw everything useful at the problem that we can, and it's now beginning to look as if nuclear power might be more useful than we first thought." This may seem a rational enough plea, but it flies in the face of the most entrenched tenet of the green movement: nature is not to be tampered with. Chopping down forests and endangering wildlife are reprehensible, but what could be worse than splitting nature's basic building block, the atom?
When the eponymous logo of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament turned 50 last year, it was remarkable to see that it had kept the power to evoke the same emotions felt by courageous protestors at Aldermaston decades earlier. And for those green activists belonging to the Aldermaston generation, the nuclear question cuts to the heart of their movement. Many have asked whether it is even ideologically possible to be both green and pro-nuclear, which makes it all the more incredible that a few have swallowed longstanding beliefs and embraced nuclear power.
"We've been opposed to nuclear power since our inception," Nathan Argent, a nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace, told me. "And our objections are made through a pragmatic appraisal of nuclear power. There are more effective and much cheaper ways of dealing with climate change." Even as more environmentalists begin to accept nuclear power, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have doggedly maintained that the solution lies in simultaneously slashing fossil fuel usage while ramping up the proportion of renewables in the energy mix. The trouble with this, in the UK at least, is that wind and solar provide only intermittent power depending on the weather conditions. A major move towards alternative energy would still need a constant, baseload source of power, which so far only fossil fuels or nuclear power can provide.
Scientists and engineers have been left with the mammoth task of convincing the public, many dedicating their lives to improving standards in the nuclear industry. In the effort to lose the chronic image problem it has endured under the dark shadows of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and Three Mile Island in 1979, nuclear power is now the world's most regulated energy source, overseen not only by dedicated national bodies but also the UN's eagle-eyed International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Consequently there hasn't been a major nuclear incident since the 1980s. The meltdown at Three Mile Island, which was by any estimate the worst nuclear accident in the West, raised local levels of radiation in the atmosphere to only marginally above everyday background levels. To this day, not a single radiation-related death has been attributed to the accident.
Len Green, an engineer who helped build Sizewell B nuclear power station on the Suffolk coast, explained that modern plants are engineered to meet every possible contingency, including the kind of employee negligence that lead to the explosion at Chernobyl: "The designs have to be thoroughly assessed, then every stage of construction is assessed, and when they're operating, they're assessed." According to Professor Robin Grimes, a materials physicist at Imperial College London and former researcher at the US Los Alamos National Laboratory, they're not just safe, they're foolproof: "The new designs of power stations use passive systems, which means that they automatically behave in such a way as to shut the reactor down. The operator doesn't even have to take any action at all."
The oft-repeated green allegation that nuclear is too expensive holds even less water than the claim it is unsafe. Although a new power station demands a hefty capital investment, when costs are averaged over its lifespan, it is cheaper than oil and gas. And when the costs of carbon capture and storage are factored into the price of fossil fuels, nuclear comes out firmly on top. Meanwhile, renewables cannot even hope to compete on price: a 2004 UK Royal Academy of Engineering report found the cost of generating wind power is more than twice that of nuclear. Also, massively increasing the proportion of renewables would introduce the huge expense of extending the national grid to meet solar panels, tidal barrages and wind farms.
Indeed the latest IAEA projections suggest that raw economics are helping to drive a nuclear renaissance. Nuclear power generation is expected to grow between 27 and 50 per cent by 2030, mainly in India and China. Even Lithuania, a small Baltic state still raising its economy out of the ashes of communism, is resolutely pushing for a new nuclear power station to replace its ageing old one near the small town of Ignalina. Offering cheap electricity and the tantalising assurance of energy independence, it makes economic sense, especially since a single reactor could provide Lithuania with all its electricity needs, plus some left over. In this nation, the director of the Lithuanian Energy Institute told me frankly, green groups haven't even attempted to block nuclear power.
"I think a number of other greens are slowly going to make the decision that nuclear power is better than the alternatives," Prof Grimes explained. Even the most common green objection to nuclear power – radioactive waste – is being resolved. Britain doesn't yet have a repository for spent nuclear fuel and continues to temporarily store it on the same sites as its power stations. After the new generation of reactors are switched on, they will eventually produce almost half a million tonnes of waste, some of which will remain dangerous for millennia. Contrary to green folklore, however, this is not an immutable problem. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, along with the country's best geologists and teams of nuclear engineers, has already begun the hunt for a new waste site. Encased in layers of lead, cement and under hundreds of metres of rock, they are entirely confident (as are those engineers constructing similar repositories in the US and Finland) that the waste will be safely contained. In fact their working timescale is a million years, which means that the repository will outlast not only our progeny, but probably also human civilisation.
For scientists like Grimes, the nuclear debate has become a simple matter of education. The green shift in the nuclear direction is, however marginal, a triumph of rationalism over fear. And the shift hasn't been only one-sided. Scientists and activists are used to finding themselves on opposite sides of a divide, violently clashing on topics like medical animal testing and GM crop cultivation. But pick up a copy of any science magazine these days and you are almost as likely to get advice about how to reduce your carbon footprint or recycle effectively as the latest research news. "The green argument challenges you, it makes you think about the way you apply your engineering and science. I welcome the debate," said Grimes. Climate change has united science and environmentalism as never before: where researchers have provided the critical scientific data, greens have supplied the political momentum, and this co-operation in turn has helped achieve the gradual consensus on nuclear power.
But the consensus remains limited. The nuclear debate is still riddled with irrationalism, to the point where pro-nuclear environmentalists are often criticised by more mainstream greens simply for daring to suggest that nuclear power might make ecological sense. Bruno Comby told me that fellow activists would not force him into silence: "We've been attacked with vitriol. But in the end our ideas will succeed simply because we are right on a scientific level, and the truth always comes out in the end," he said.
So how likely is it that the remainder of greens will be persuaded to join their growing list of dissenters and be swayed to the nuclear side? The signs aren't good. Greenpeace's opposition to anything remotely nuclear has gone so far as to slam one of the most exciting scientific endeavours of the century, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) at Cadarache in France. ITER is a multi-billion-Euro project funded by the European Union, Japan, China, India, the Republic of Korea, Russia and the USA. It aims to develop fusion power by binding pairs of atoms together, as opposed to atom-splitting fission that happens in a conventional nuclear reactor.
Fusion is a huge technical challenge, but if it succeeds it promises to bring almost limitless clean energy to future generations. It could be a green miracle, if only more greens would allow themselves to see it.
Published 2009-01-26
Original in English
First published in New Humanist 1/2009
Contributed by New Humanist
© Angela Saini/New Humanist
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