Monthly Archives: May 2010

International Renewable Electricity


(Offshore wind farm)
Just got back from a very interesting conference in London, titled “International Renewable Electricity: An essential system?” It was jointly organised by Claverton Energy Research Group, UK Energy Research Council (UKERC) and University College London (UCL) and participants representing many universities and research institutions were present. This was the “Big Renewables Scenario” that I talked a lot about in my evening classes, and is in many ways the polar opposite of the Transition Towns kind of approach.
An HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current – click here for Wikipedia article) supergrid is the key technology facilitating the roll-out of large scale renewables. Wind is famously fickle in any one time and place, but the larger the area and the greater the range of climatic zones the more dependable it becomes. A worldwide energy grid, in some ways like the world wide web for digital information, is the theoretical extreme. HVDC interconnections are being built now and will grow rapidly, linking Europe together, and to North Africa and the Middle East over the coming decade, with plans afoot to link to the Russian grid, and then later perhaps spanning the Atlantic to the North American Grid.
There are three bodies of work which were much discussed, and all show that utilizing large scale renewables is technically possible, economically sensible and ecologically necessary from a Co2 reduction standpoint.
Gregor Czisch’s PhD thesis written about 5 years ago on the benefits of very large scale wind is now being drawn upon by governments across Europe. As Gregor wasn’t there in person Andrew Smith of London Analytics gave an excellent synopsis of his highly technical thesis.
One of the key speakers was Mark Delucchi, who in Nov 09 co-authored with Mark Jacobson (click here for Wikipedia reference) the influential Scientific American Article on 100% renewable energy futures, including the challenging transport sector, in which he is an expert.
The Offshore Valuation (Offshore Valuation Group) is a just-published appraisal by UK government, research bodies and industry of the economic case for large scale wind and marine renewables, and was presented by Tim Helweg Larsen, one of the co-authors.
All excellent stuff, and considered in parallel with Desertec Solar (Desertec website)and an energy efficiency revolution, the Big Renewables vision begins to take shape. Humanity didn’t exit the Stone Age because the stone ran out but because we thought-up smarter ways of doing things. Hopefully we’ll exit the Fossil Fuel Age long before it all runs out!

Links

Caplor Farm , Fownhope, Herefordshire : a family-run business – details about recent carbon footprinting placement, and info about the Prince’s Mayday Network of businesses committed to a low carbon community

UK Election


(Caroline Lucas, first Green Party MP)
I’m writing this at 9.15 on the morning of Friday 7th May 2010. A historic election has just taken place in the UK, the results of which are still far from clear. So far only 612 of the 650 seats are declared and it may be some days before we know who’ll be Prime Minister. The LibDems have failed to make a breakthrough, but may play a decisive role in forming a coalition government. The Conservatives will be the biggest party, but probably not with an absolute majority, and with a greater resistance to forming a coalition with the LibDems than Labour does.
But what does any of this mean for the politics of climate change? My hopes had been that the Green Party would make a breakthrough and win 3 or 4 seats. Caroline Lucas has been elected in Brighton Pavilion, which is certainly something to celebrate. Having her strong voice representing a radical shift toward an ecologically sustainable and socially just future is invaluable. But she is on her own: Adrian Ramsey in Norwich South, despite doubling his vote to 7,095 still came in fourth place, as did Tony Juniper in Cambridge with 3,804 votes and Darren Johnson in Lewisham Deptford with 2,772. Disappointing.
The Conservatives, who will be the biggest single party, are deeply divided on Climate Change with Climate Sceptics perhaps most numerous, yet committed environmentalists like Zac Goldsmith believing that the party is changing. If they do form a Government this may be the issue that splits them as Europe did in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
For the LibDems, despite getting fewer MPs than in the last Parliament might see their influence grow. This may help push the environment up the political agenda, but not in the radical way which is needed. And with New Labour we’ll get more of the hesitant and confused incremental steps toward sustainability.
Meanwhile atmospheric Co2 is at 391.06 and rising. The future of humanity is being determined by factors that politicians the world over are failing to get to grips with. Sadly this election gives little reason for optimism.