Emisisons & Cost

Ah another 'Analysis' from Lewis. Some crude back of the envelope calculations:

Greenhouse gas emissions from desalination are by no means trivial. Assuming that the 7kWh per tonne figure is correct then this equates to greenhouse gas emissions of 3.4kgCO2 per tonne (based on 0.48644kgCO2e/kWh). Current ghg intensity of water supply in the UK is 0.34kgCO2e per tonne so we're talking about supplying water with 10 times the GHG emissions as is done currently.

http://archive.defra.gov.uk/environment/business/reporting/pdf/110819-guidelines-ghg-conversion-factors.pdf for the factors

And people who hate on renewables (i.e. The Register) are always telling us how having backup plant is wasteful and expensive. But here Lewis is proposing constructing a load of desalination plants for the occasional drought. What is the cost of keeping this plant operating under capacity?

They're also telling us how renewables are putting intolerable burdens on our energy bills but here Lewis is suggesting adding £22 of OPEX (being kind and ignoring the suggestions in comments above that this is an underestimate) and £25 of CAPEX (assuming it's paid off over 20 years and I can't be bothered to calculate the NPV) per *person*.

That's an increase in water bills of over £100 per household per year which represents an increase of nearly 30% in the average water and sewage bill (£350). But that's the cost of water AND sewage so the cost of the water component of your bill would likely increase by well over 50%.

What a great suggestion this is!

Spot the difference:

Scientist says: “We showed that the Northern European climate events influenced climate conditions in Antarctica,”

Lewis says: "Medieval warming WAS global – new science contradicts IPCC"

Lame.

Just to put that amazing 500% well count increase in context...

Let's take a look at US oil production trends since 1860:

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPUS2&f=A

Oh.

Big numbers. What does it work out as per kWh?

Taking the worst case additional costs as £286m + £945m gives you £1.231bn

(and I imagine that operating reserve requirement isn't the marginal cost so it's probably going to be less than this).

According to DUKES, in 2009 we consumed 322,417GWh in the UK.

I make that 0.38p/kWh or about 3% of current retail prices.

I hope you'll understand if I don't worry too much about this.

2/3 of European Energy Consumption?

"All in all, it seems fair to say that human beings deserve to use, say, two-thirds as much energy as an average European of today does."

What's this based on? Is this number, say, plucked out of thin air?

Excuse me?

"Targeting the pot industry appeals to environmentalists in a number of ways. It allows several new bureaucracies to sprout forth, and more importantly, it also plays to "the haunting fear" (in Mencken's description of Puritanism) that "someone, somewhere, may be happy"."

Excuse me? I think you're confusing environmentalists with the Christian right or something.

Looking at the FAQs on his website and scanning the report, I would also suggest that calling the author a "policy analyst with a Puritanical streak" is quite wide of the mark (but par for the course).

This research is just one more reason why the criminalisation of marijuana is utterly wrong. The fact that in 2006 a third of the US's *total* weed crop was grown indoors in California (you really should pay more attention to your source material), a climate so perfectly suited for outdoor growing, is staggering and predominantly down to criminalisation.

Therefore I would expect the vast majority of environmentalists to lean towards decriminilsation rather than increased control.

The nuclear spin machine cranks into action...

But no one, even people living in an area that's tectonically inactive, is going to want one in their neighbourhood now.

Time of use best for plug ins

Plug in owners should be on time of use tariffs to push them towards off-peak. I wonder if California will introduce these if plug ins take off? Would make sense given their aims for high penetration renewables over the coming decade.

Cabs are ideally suited to being pure EVs

Daily mileage of a central London cab is unlikely to exceed 150 miles (9 hours is the maximum you can drive for in a day and average traffic speed in London is about 15mph if I remember right) which is an eminently achievable range. And it's a very stop start drive cycle - perfect for EVs.

Good news

Steady though Lewis! Bit early to call the current state of climate science wrong, but this is encouraging.

Lame Lame Lame

What a non-story and what a non-report (not surprising given where it comes from).

For example, it takes Global Action Plan to task for errr... having a view on climate change and taking money from Hackney Council to errr...hit the streets of one of the poorest wards in one of the poorest of London's boroughs, delivering advice and support for households living in fuel poverty during the coldest November in decades. Nice to see that the TPA view that as a waste of public money, what a delightful bunch they are..

I can't wait for the outcome of the charity commission investigation.

Waiting for solar PV costs to come down?

I don't get this bit. If the world were to suddenly stop investing in PV overnight and wait five or ten years, how would costs come down? These things don't just magically happen.

We needed to buy crystalline PV at dollars per watt in the early years so that companies could safely invest in the R&D to be churning out thin film at pennies per watt in later years. We're already below $1 per watt so I would say we're getting there.

"(literally) trillions" eh?

What a scientific statement!

Global GDP in 2008 was $60 trillion and it's going to be a very long time before a trillion is spent on climate action. Meanwhile, the world spends literally literally trillions (more than 2 of them) each year on oil.

I'd love to know what (if any) of the literature this guy has actually bothered to read. Judging by the language he uses I'd say he's mostly informed by blogs.

An article that oozes sneer

Yet another toweringly insightful environment piece on the register.

The Register's environment & energy coverage...

is absurdly biased and negative.

It essentially consists of two writers with very limited knowledge about the subjects they're covering. One disses any clean tech solution that he doesn't like, the other disses the IPCC and climate science and attempts to force his personal agenda on the reader, often without the option of a public response.

Not one story is in any way positive or contains anything approaching actual journalism.

It would be amusing if it wasn't so pathetic.

Diesel-electric cars

Mostly it hasn't been done because it's expensive - both electric and diesel drivetrains cost a fair bit. Peugeot have announced a new through the road diesel hybrid:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2010/08/3008-20100824.html

I believe range extender development is mostly focusing on petrol units, at a guess because they'll be lighter?

Good to see this

The 'battery as environmental baddy' meme is already quite entrenched so it's good to see this work corroborating existing life cycle assessments.

But as ever Lewis is spinning like crazy in order to push his belief that EVs aren't a good solution to decarbonising personal transport and reducing oil dependency.

A significant weakness in the study, as far as I can make out, is that they've assumed constant carbon emissions from grid electricity (they've gone with the European average which is a bit lower than the UK's grid factor).

But in reality, our electricity supplies are going to steadily decarbonise over the coming decades so while the diesel ICEV has the same emissions for its entire 14 year lifetime, the BEV emissions will steadily decrease so overall BEV lifecycle emissions will be lower even than the best diesels on the market.

Standard recharging will be plenty...

...for the vast majority of EV use. Using a full recharge of the Tesla Roadster battery (56kWh) as your example was a little disingenous (no surprise there though).

A 13A socket will deliver 3kW. Let's say charging efficeincy is 90% and you recharge for 6 hours from midnight until 6am in order to reduce the impact on the grid. That gives you 16kWh, enough to take you 100km @ 150Wh/km.

That'll easily cover most commuting needs in both directins but you could always top up at work, again with a standard socket (although paying much more for peak rate electricity). If you drive much more than that you can get a plug in hybrid or a high efficiency diesel.

As for biomethane, we're only going to see it in captive fleets. But there's no harm in demonstrating the technology in a context that everyone understands, i.e. a car. Much better to use the biogas in heat applicatins though as they have much hgher efficiencies than vehicle applications.

And so it happens...

The 'sceptic' arguments morph into the next phase.

First it was "it's not warming", then "ok it is warming but it's not man", now it's moved on to "ok it is warming and it is man but let's not bother trying to do anything about it".

Not half as fishy as...

...the other graph in Morner's testimony linked to in the article:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/12we22.gif

riiiiighhhhhhhht...

Keep clutching at those straws Andrew!

Prospeity without growth

Iglethal, posperity without growth is not about keeping "3/4 of the worlds population continue to live in relative (and often real) poverty", although it's frequently and wrongly characterised as such.

Here's what Tim Jackson, one of the leading proponents of the concept has to say about it:

"For millions in developing countries, growth is clearly still vital to deliver basic standards of living and well-being. But, in developed countries including the UK, far from increasing prosperity, our debt-driven consumption has created an unstable system which has put jobs and livelihoods at risk, as well as damaging us psychologically and socially."

Check out the graphs from p41 of this publication:

http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/prosperity_without_growth_report.pdf

After a certain point, increased GDP does next to nothing to improve life.

Alternatively, read Jackson's book of the same title (minus the '?')

I just ask because…

...a cursory search brings up:

“A broad coalition of more than 300 faith, human rights, social justice, and environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth, has composed and sent a letter to U.S. senators calling for energy and climate legislation…[which] must include immediate action on short-lived global warming pollutants, including black carbon and methane, to slow warming in the near term.”

http://www.foe.org/letter-senator-boxer

“Countries must actively look for additional policies and measures where international cooperation could bring added value and deliver additional emission reductions. One of the obvious candidates for coordinated action is black carbon... Its full climate impacts are still poorly known…The good news is that addressing black carbon would be relatively easy and cheap and it would have quick impacts.

http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/mind-the-gap.pdf

Just two examples I know but…

Care to provide a reference?

"Many greens don't want it discussed" ..."This usually angers the harder-green lobby, who tend to see such a plan as merely postponing the problem."

Cover up?

What's this cover up that's so dismaying the public then?

I think what's closer to the truth is that they're fed up with the transparent smear campaign that is being waged against science.

"This sort of thing has always been possible...

...of course, but it generally means a dwelling without heating, hot water, cooking or air conditioning (the latter often seen as essential to life in much of California) and not a lot in the way of electrical appliances either."

Now that's not quite true.

The Passivhaus design standard ( http://www.passivhaus.org.uk/index.jsp?id=668 ) allows for a building with no traditional heating system - solar water heating and perhaps a small wood burning stove would be more than enough.

And a decent sized (2-3kW) PV array could easily generate sufficient net electricity for an efficiently lit and equipped house over the course of a year.

It's definitely possible (although not cheap) to have the trappings of modern life with zero net energy. Indeed a Passivhaus designed dwelling would be a lot more comfortable to live in than anything else.

So if the earth warms by 5 degrees...

...we'll be just fine and dandy because these microbes won't cause the release of as much carbon as was originally thought??

Something's not right

He has a point that the UN report should have included transport infrastructure development, but that is small in comparison to direct transport emissions - sure it generates a lot of carbon to build a motorway but that pales into insignificance when you consider the amount of fuel burnt to propel vehicles down that motorway.

But here's the kicker that suggests something's awry in this new analysis:

"The prof says that in the United States, the true picture is that transportation accounts for 26 per cent of greenhouse emissions and cattle and pig farming just three per cent."

Apparently (I can't find the actual paper), it only looks at the US. Well the US isn't tearing down primary jungle to create new farmland for animals. Land use change is the cause of the bulk of livestock production GHG emissions.

This study stinks to high heaven though. Would *love* to know what the background to it is. The bit about spreading western farming technology might give a hint.

The Register's environment coverage 2010:

In reverse order...

Climate bashing

Met Office bashing

Snowball earth

Climate bashing

Toads

Climate bashing

Climate bashing

Climate bashing

Energy

Climate bashing

Energy

Climate bashing

Botnet bugging

Climate bashing

Energy

Climate bashing

Climate bashing

Climate bashing

Climate bashing

Climate bashing

Wow a sort of vaguely reasonable climate story (i.e not from LP or AO)

Climate bashing

Wow a sort of vaguely reasonable climate story (i.e not from LP or AO)

Climate bashing

Climate bashing

Energy

Computing

Snow

Climate bashing

There's balance for you!

Since when has the ASA decided...

...what our power stations emit?!

The carbon factor for grid electricity in the UK in 2007, the most recent year for which there is data, was a little over 0.54kgCO2/kWh:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/business/reporting/pdf/20090928-guidelines-ghg-conversion-factors.pdf (Table 3c)

So in fact the carbon savings quoted are a slight underestimate. And I wouldn't be surprised if in 2008 the carbon factor crept up slightly given that supposedly reliable nuclear capacity was out of commission for so long.

It's very easy to put a sinister spin on this...

But think about it for a moment. In normal operation, demand management works by reducing demand within certain parameters defined by the houselder or the device - they're not going to shut down your fridge completely but they may defer its cycle kicking in for 5 or 10 minutes to smooth the load.

In the extreme case of a catastrophic supply failure such as a black out, if end users can be shut down remotely and then progressively brought back online, you can restore power much more quickly.

What's the benefit of demand management to you the householder? By smoothing out demand, less plant is required to generate our electricity at peak times (very inefficient, very expensive). It also enables a much higher penetration of renewables on the grid (something Lewis is very scared of). This will keep costs down and allow for a much more flexible, diverse electricity supply.

So on the one hand...

...we have Orlowski criticising climate scientists for reporting the outcomes of their research, labelling them as doom-saying thermageddon merchants; while on the other hand we have Lewis Page claiming that high penetration renewables would result in the destruction of "modern society and remaking all of humanity as medieval (or if we're really lucky, 18th-century) eco-peasants".

This should be comedy gold, but sadly it isn't.

At least we've witnessed a small step towards balance and editorial credibility with the acknolwedgement of the reality of human induced climate change from The Register. Unfotunately you also demonstrate a disturbing readiness to condemn the developing world to abject poverty in order to maintain your precious, high energy consumption way of life.

If you think that adaptation to climate change will cost us less than overhauling our energy infrastructure you are very, very badly mistaken and you should seriously do some more research.