Renewables brings a £2.5b economy boost to the UK

Renewable energy in the UK is bringing almost £2.5billion worth of investment into the country.

Figures from the department of energy and climate change released over the Xmas period by Chris Huhne revealed more evidence of the economic benefits of renewable energy as he reaffirmed the coalition’s commitment to meeting EU renewable energy targets.

The figures came on the same day that the UK published an update on progress to source 15 per centof all energy from renewable sources by 2020.
The latest research from DECC shows that so far this financial year, companies have announced plans for almost £2.5billion worth of investment in renewable energy projects in the UK, with the potential to create almost 12,000 jobs across the country.

A separate report to the European Commission on renewable energy progress in the UK showed that the country achieved a 27 per cent increase in renewable energy consumption from 42.6TWh in 2008 to 54TWh in 2010,representing 3.3 per cent of total energy consumed and that there was a threefold increase in the use of biofuels in transport from 1 per cent of total road transport fuel supply in 2007/8 to 3.33 per cent in 2010.

Commenting on the figures Chris Huhne, Energy Secretary, said: “Renewable energy is not just helping us increase our energy security and reduce our emissions. It is supporting jobs and growth across the country, and giving traditional industrial heartlands the opportunity to thrive again.

He added that:“Our renewable target is less demanding than other EU member states, but the effect is bringing real jobs and investment. “I do not want the UK to be left behind by turning our back on the green economy. The agreement to negotiate a global deal secured at Durban has reinforced major nations’ commitment to cutting carbon. We cannot afford to stand alone while the world wises up.”

Household energy bill increases caused primarily by rising cost of gas, not environmental policies

A report out this morning from The Committee on Climate Change suggests that evidence suggests that recent bill increases are not due to environmental policy costs but instead are primarily due to increased wholesale gas costs.

The report found that up to 2020,policies to achieve a low-carbon economy will add
around £110 to bills, with scope to offset this if energy efficiency can be improved.

The Committee’s analysis focuses on the 84% of UK households (21 million) that
have dual-fuel energy bills that is that they use gas for heating rather than electricity or other fuels.

For these households, energy bills increased from around £605 per household in
2004 to £1,060 in 2010

Of this increase, around £380 (84%) was unrelated to low-carbon measures, with £290 due to increases in the wholesale costs reflecting increases in the price of gas and supplier costs, £70 due to increasing transmission and distribution costs, and £20 due to VAT.

Around £75 (16%) was due to policies that reduce carbon emissions, including £30 to support investment in lowcarbon power generation, and £45 for funding energy efficiency improvements in homes.

Lord Adair Turner, Chair of the Committee on Climate Change said:

“We were keen to provide a dispassionate analysis of household bill impacts in what has become a politically controversial area. We found that bills have increased primarily in response to increased wholesale gas costs and not due to environmental policies. Over the next decade, we anticipate a rise of around £100 in the average bill as a result of investment in low-carbon power capacity, which will benefit the UK in the long run. And if we introduce new polices to stimulate energy efficiency improvement then bills in 2020 could broadly be contained at current levels.”

10,000 jobs could be created if the North can become the world’s nuclear base says report

The North of England has the opportunity to become one of the world’s leading nuclear manufacturing hubs, creating many thousands of new jobs and generating substantial economic growth for the UK, according to a University of Manchester report.

The report commissioned by the Dalton Nuclear Institute, highlights the opportunity for the Government to invest in the vast potential of the region to meet the demands of the UK’s nuclear new build and use this as a springboard for providing goods and services to the £300bn global nuclear sector.

Already a world-leading centre for the nuclear supply chain with more than 50 per cent of the UK’s nuclear workforce, the North also contains the UK’s full fuel cycle capability, uranium conversion and enrichment, fuel fabrication, generation, spent fuel reprocessing, waste treatment and storage and decommissioning.

The global market for new nuclear build is estimated at more than £800bn over the next 20 to 30 years. The UK new nuclear build programme is estimated at £40bn, with the demand potential to support the rebalancing of the UK economy.

The report claims investment in the North of England would create at least 10,000 new jobs and secure many others in manufacturing and other professional services at a time when there are cut backs in other sectors. Many of the skills in sectors such as aerospace and oil and gas could complement the nuclear skills already available and pump billions of pounds into the UK economy.

One of the reports authors,Professor Peter Storey said:

“The UK Government and nuclear industry are faced with a choice,to do nothing and possibly watch the UK nuclear supply chain lose business and economic growth opportunities to overseas- based firms, or to develop a national policy to coordinate the development of UK nuclear supply chain and position UK based businesses for economic growth in the UK and overseas markets.

“This report makes it clear that commercial opportunities do exist. With a national policy that is coordinated with the nuclear industry, these opportunities can be realised.”

How sustainable is nuclear power asks Manchester study

Nuclear power could contribute significantly to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the UK but this would lead to considerable impacts on natural resources and the environment, a report from The University of Manchester claims.

The study by the SPRIng research consortium led by Professor Adisa Azapagic looks at the techno-economic, environmental, social and ethical sustainability of nuclear powerin the UK.

The research into the sustainability of nuclear and other electricity options in the UK shows that nuclear power could make a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2035.

However, that would require a huge expansion of nuclear, constituting 35% of the electricity mix by 2035, almost double the current contribution.

Given that most current nuclear power stations are due to close in this period, this scenario seems unfeasible, the authors claim.

At the same time, expansion of nuclear power would worsen other sustainability aspects, including depletion of natural resources, ozone layer depletion, toxicity and health impacts from radiation.

SPRIng found that meeting UK carbon emissions targets would only be possible with a huge expansion of both renewables and nuclear electricity. By 2020, renewables would have to contribute 55% to the UK electricity mix by 2020 and nuclear 35% by 2035.

The SPRIng report, which is released today, also shows that if energy consumption can be reduced significantly, nuclear power is not essential for meeting the UK climate change targets.

If, however, the consumption of energy continues to grow as it has in the past, the role of nuclear power becomes much more important in meeting climate change targets.

Expansion of nuclear power will depend on many factors, including availability of uranium, fuel used in today’s nuclear reactors. Uranium shortages could within a few decades constrain any significant global expansion of uranium nuclear plants, unless major new uranium reserves can be identified and exploited economically.

The findings suggests that carbon taxation could play a significant role in promoting low-carbon electricity options, including nuclear. For example, a carbon price of £100 per tonne of carbon dioxide would be sufficient to make nuclear plants of current designs highly profitable.

The research also shows that even when the radiological consequences of a large accident are taken into account, nuclear power remains one of the safest sources of electricity.

However, the research claims, nuclear power poses complex ethical questions regarding its intergenerational impacts as future generations, who will not benefit from today’s nuclear electricity, will have to bear both the risks and costs of nuclear decommissioning and waste management.

Professor Azapagic said: “Our research shows that there is no ‘best’ electricity option overall but the choice of sustainable options will depend on individual preferences of stakeholders, including the public and decision makers.

“For example, our findings suggest that solar, hydro and wind are the most favourable electricity options for the UK public. Nuclear power is favourable for 42% of the UK public while electricity from coal, oil and gas is least favoured.

“The Government should ensure that decisions on the future of nuclear power and other electricity options in the UK take into account a range of sustainability criteria rather than be based solely on a market-led approach dominated purely by economics.

“However, a market-led approach could play a role should it prove politically possible to set tight enough carbon targets with high enough penalties for non-compliance.

“Whether such leadership is possible is highly questionable. Even more doubtful is whether various stakeholders, including the UK public, would accept it.

Source-University of Manchester

To fly or not to fly

A cracking piece from Robert Green in Intelligent life who asks as95% of the world’s population has never been on a plane. Do the rest of us have a right to fly?

An emotive subject no doubt and as he writes

When it comes to flying, we split between those who believe asking individuals to rethink their choices is a bit impractical (ie, completely impossible) and those who believe, things being what they are, that there’s no longer a choice

But the disproportionalety of it is astounding.There are 2billion flights every year taken by 335m people with aviation adding 3.5 per cent of the CO2 to the atmosphere.

As Robert concludes

From one end, not-flying is an absurd gesture that will make no difference. From the other, cutting back on flying is probably the single biggest step you can take to shrink your carbon footprint. It’s a question of how we view politics. For Gandhi, the personal was always political, but for the rest of us the gap between the two is often about 30,000 feet.

It's earth day

Take a look at this video which suggests that instead of looking at our global emissions we should be looking at what we eat

New beginnings

I have written before on this blog about the opportunities that this recession will provide for the country to re-examine its growth policies.

One area is green technology which was sadly overlooked by the G20.

The Prime Minister though attempts to put that right in an exclusive interview with the Indy this morning.

He tells the paper that he wants

to make Britain "a world leader" in producing and exporting electric cars, hybrid petrol-electric vehicles and lighter cars using less petrol.

and that the budget in two weeks tine will see the first signs of this process.The country he says

could increase its output of environmental goods and services by 50 per cent to £1.5bn in the next few years.

as he heralds that 400,000 jobs could be created.

We have though heard this before and one wonders how this sits alongside yesterday's decision to pump more money into an ailing car industry.

The paper's leading article is optimistic

Mr Brown is certainly right when he argues that Britain will need to find some way of creating jobs in a post-recession world in which the City, our dominant employer of late, will be much diminished. Furthermore, we will need to expand our renewable industry rapidly if we are to meet our EU target of producing 15 per cent of our energy from low carbon sources by 2020. There is plainly scope for growth in the labour-intensive green economy.

New uses for old industry

With this morning's news on car sales maybe this posting from Robert Reich should be listened to.

It was written followong the latest US unemployment figures which came out on Friday

Energy independence and a non-carbon economy should be the equivalent of a war mobilization. Hire Americans to weatherize and insulate homes across the land. Don't encourage General Motors or any other auto company to shrink. Use the auto makers' spare capacity to make busses, new wind turbines, and electric cars (why let the Chinese best us on this?). Enlarge public transit systems.

Green shoots will also now divide the parties

Hot on the heals of the Heathrow announcenment comes the Tory proposals for a green future,no doubt timed to coincide with the Hoon announcement yesterday.

Peter Hoskin writing at Coffee House says that

After the Heathrow announcement yesterday, talk of a greener national infrastructure by the Tory leader is sure to irk a few Labour MPs, and could set the political dividing lines in his party's favour. What's more, the Tory policy idea - a £1 billion "investment" in what would apparently be a smarter, cleaner, more efficent National Grid - sounds like something that even the envirosceptics can sign up to; depending, of course, on where that £1 billion comes from.

So what is in the proposals?

David Cameron chose this morning's Guardian to give a lowdown on his thinking and at the head of them is

turning Britain's national grid into an online network in which consumers and suppliers will interact in a new process that will bring down prices and cut emissions.

Green v growth

Just some of the comment from this morning's newspapers following yesterday's confirmation of the new Heathrow runway

in the end, Britain's courageous, world-leading and scientifically rational response to climate change lived and died within the space of a few weeks. Born, with great hopes, in late 2008, when a new department was created and the Climate Change Act was passed, forcing aviation emissions to fall along with everything else, it was killed off yesterday when the transport secretary handed the aviation lobby what it wanted, a third runway at Heathrow

says the Guardian

In the same paper Martin Kettle writes that it will be a shrine to Labour's congenital frailty

No government in its right mind is ever going to stop people from flying. But the Heathrow decision was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to say something very big, very brave and very difficult about the fact that the permissive proliferation of aviation is not merely a symptom of what Desmond Morris has called the human infestation of the planet but also, at least as seriously, about the damage our lifestyles and consumption are doing both to ourselves as individuals and to the biosphere.

The Times thinks the decision a good one

The Government's proposal to build a third runway at Heathrow remains the most viable option for easing Britain's airport congestion

it says adding that

If building a high-speed rail link, as the Conservatives propose, would solve the problem, then we would champion it. But it is hard to see how better rail links alone would suffice.

In the Independent Steve Richards argues that

Better trains should be the overwhelming priority in a country with an unreliable railway system and adds that

The politics of the decision are toxic. The Government is placed on the wrong side of the important and fashionable environmental debate, allowing the Conservatives to look more forward looking as the next election moves into view. The environmentalists rage and are joined by a growing number of supposedly Labour-supporting celebrities. Business leaders are not universal in their support.

The paper's leading article agrees

the argument that the British economy will benefit from a third runway for Heathrow has always been – and remains – unconvincing. Bolstering the airport's status as a plane-changing "hub" would certainlybenefit Heathrow's owners, but it is hard to see how it would provide a significant boost to the national economy.

Cameron promises to deliver universal fibre optic connections for all

So let the battle commence as David Cameron launches his vision for busting the recession in Britain.

“We need to make a really big change: from an economy built on debt to an economy built on saving; from a country and government that has lived beyond its means to one that lives within its means.”

were his words as he also promises to help savers who have been left devestated by the low rate of return on savings.

Amongts his proposals

1 Green tech incubators, to help new green start-ups get off the ground

2. An environmental stock market, where green companies are listed and traded

3.Measures to ensure the majority of the population have access to fibre-optic broadband within five years – and as near as possible universal coverage within ten years

Stand Firm Gordon and make the difficult decision.

So Gordon Brown is to meet the oil chiefs or at least the British ones.

I am struggling to understand the purpose however of this meeting.The only solution to the price of oil is either an increase in supply or a drop in demand.Neither of which the UK oil industry can really affect.

After all as the Prime Minister recognises,this is a global problem.Writing in this morning's Guardian he says

The cause of rising prices is clear: growing demand and too little supply to meet it both now and - perhaps of even greater significance - in the future. Higher demand is one of the major results of the scope, speed and scale of globalisation as Asian economies, as well as Opec countries themselves, demand more oil.

I worry when I here that a government U turn over fuel duty may be on the cards.Firtsly from pure fiscal issues,where is the money going to come from other than another increase in borrowing.Secondly again this is simply pandering to the wishes of backbenchers and sectors of the population.The car tax issue as with the 10p tax rate is proving to be another error that can be traced back over 12 months.

Fuel duty is not and we need to use the rise in oil prices to force the agenda of looking at alternatives both of fuel itself and lifestyle.

This morning's Independent outlines the longer term issues on its front page

Gordon Brown has been urged to stand firm against calls to abandon green tax rises on fuel as environmentalists warned that scrapping the proposals would risk undermining Britain's drive towards a low carbon future and send the wrong message about the Government's commitment to tackling greenhouse gas emissions

So Gordon and Alistair.Stand firm and as you say make the difficult and unpopular decisions that have a long term benefit

Newsnight to run the green debate

I don't suppose for one moment they did look at my blog ,but tonight's Newsnight agenda looks remarkably similar to my post earlier this morning.Surely a coincidence?

Are green taxes dead?
Are green taxes a luxury we can no longer afford? In the face of an
economic downturn, should society be ditching the green agenda or
sticking with it?
Lines of lorries are clogging the country's main arteries today in
protest over the rising cost of fuel, their drivers demanding the
government scrap the planned 2p rise in fuel tax.
At the same time the Chancellor Alistair Darling is facing the fury of
Labour MPs over his plans to increase road taxes on older, more
polluting vehicles. He'll be addressing their concerns in a meeting next
week.
With the cost of fuel, travel and food rising - and house prices falling
- people are feeling a big squeeze. So, should the government ease the
pain in the short-term by scrapping the green agenda, or is it more
important to protect the planet for our grandchildren?

The tipping point for Green policy as fuel prices rocket

The papers have turned on the government over the price of motoring this morning.

The main gripe with the government is that the tax changes to older cars mean that according to the Telegraph

the changes to the Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) will affect nearly seven in 10 of the country's 26 million drivers.
Many of those who will be most heavily penalised by the rises are people on low incomes, who could have to pay up to an extra £245 a year to tax the family car.

This is really the first test of the conflict between the green argument and the economic realities for the public.

There has been much talk about how the political parties will be forced to drop green policies when voters realise that it is going to cost them more money.

Of course the real issue behind this increase in motoring costs is the rising price of oil,something that government's can do little about.

This in itself may force the public to cut back on carbon use but in reality,any cutbacks in the West will be balanced by increased use in the developing economies of India and China.

It is demand from these areas that is pushing petrol prices up.

This morning the business secretary John Hutton will make a speech in which he will argue that high oil prices must translate into action on investment on new energy sources whilst calling for action from oil producing countries to increase production and drive down prices.

The Independent adds he will say

"In the long term the only effective way to insulate ourselves and other oil consuming countries from future oil price spikes is energy efficiency and substitution.
"In the early 1970s the world faced comparable price volatility. Some economies had the vision to diversify and innovate. California blazed a trail, invested heavily in exploiting its natural resources, and is today a world leader in renew ables like solar and wind power. This should be the inspiration for responsible economies today."

As for today's fuel protests,well yes the government could take action over duty especially over commercial hauliers to protect UK firms.However there is little room for manoeuvre over domestic duty.