British energy policy is in a mess. Tony Blair was willing to stick his neck out over a war in the desert to achieve who-knows-what, but wasn’t willing to stick his neck out politically to secure the basic needs of citizens at home. So no new nuclear power stations for us then.
Instead of a timely decision on replacing ageing coal-fired power stations, we are apparently now faced with a single option: to build a lot more gas ones. According to the Economist (8th August 2009) the government prevaricated so long that the other options…aren’t any more. Neither renewable sources (too weedy) nor nuclear power (too slow to build) can plug the gap in energy capacity looming over the next decade or two.
Once again the system of British politics and government failed to deliver on the basics. While politicians spout endless hot air, our reliance on fossil fuels ticks on. In 2008 coal accounted for almost a third of the electricity supply. (Gas accounts for 46% and nuclear for 13%).
The sad thing is that a sensible energy policy really isn't difficult to concoct. The aspirations below are a rough stab I’ve made. The overall effect would be to slash UK carbon emissions by 90%.
Demand side
* The human population is out of control. Just look at a graph like this, showing how it’s mushroomed. The international community should aim to reduce the world population to 1bn souls in the long term, through peaceful and voluntary means. In such a world the UK might be expected to have a of population around 15m, reducing demand by 75%
* Roll out ‘smart’ electricity meters – to control demand more efficiently, reducing peak loads on the National Grid
* More energy efficient appliances and devices – notably boilers, lightbulbs and standby mode (Much progress is indeed being made here already)
* Improved insulation in buildings (ditto)
Supply side
* Nuclear: 40% of supply
Accept the inevitable and get on with building it
* Gas: 30%
Not great environmentally - but better than oil and coal
* Renewables: 20%
Mainly offshore wind and wave/tide – plus a bit of biomass, anaerobic digestion, hydro etc
* Coal & incineration: 10%
Dirty, but somebody’s got to do it
Three things that should be done but aren’t…
1. R&D funding for low-efficiency solar panels. These could be produced as roof tiles, possibly looking similar to the slate tiles on rooftops today. They need to be cheap and robust. Get it right and even in the UK there’s room to produce (hazarding a wild guess) 10% of our electricity.
2. Making more from raindrops. They may be small but let's face it, there are a lot of them. They already power the vast turbines inside dams, but the potential of rain on rooftops has (to my knowledge) not been explored. What if the kinetic energy of water falling down guttering could be harnessed? I suggest research into such micro-generation of electricity. The power from each downpipe might be tiny, but there are a lot of downpipes in this world. The trick, clearly, is to produce an exceedingly cheap and robust device.
3. One of the problems with renewable electricity is that you can’t turn it up on demand. When power surges on the National Grid at half time during that crucial World Cup qualifier, the wind won’t suddenly pick up in the North Sea. As a result “25GW of wind power…would be worth only around 5GW of fossil fired generation,” according to the Economist. Fair enough. So isn’t it time them that the scientists get their thinking caps on to work out better ways of storing renewable energy? Instead of building a huge excess of windmills, power generated on windy days needs to be held in reserve. One way is to pump water uphill into a reservoir. Modest facilities like this currently exist, but it strikes me that this is an area ripe for investigation and expansion. If British scientists and engineers got really good at it, this could be an interesting niche for UK plc.
If you can think of other possibilities, let me know…
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