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March 29, 2006
Climate: a confused debate
Almost everybody is now talking about climate change and it’s a confused debate.
What exactly do we make of the Environment Secretary, Margaret Beckett, telling us we will fail to meet the target of reducing CO2 emissions by 20% by 2010, and then hopping into her Jaguar? Meanwhile according to the Archbishop of Canterbury, God is sending us a warning and we should take notice.
Chris Huhne got it right when he said, “Even the modest progress made on the Kyoto basket of greenhouse gases is largely an accidental result of the switch from coal to gas-powered electricity generation, and has nothing to do with government policy.” The government has never prioritized climate change except in Tony Blair’s speeches.
Mark Lazarowicz, the excellent Edinburgh North MP, is quoted as saying, “Nuclear power is neither safe, secure, cheap nor renewable. As long as the debate remains focused on the fors and againsts of nuclear power, the full potentiality of renewable energy will not be realised.”
This states the Labour government policy in reverse: the full potentiality of renewable energy will not be realised (because of all the tedious problems involved with planning, bureaucracy etc.) so we will have to build new nuclear power stations.
This is defeatist. If the public were presented with concrete policies (road speed limits, energy saving in homes, clean fuel incentives, air travel taxes etc.) they would be support them. People are not indifferent to the issue of climate change. Many things can be done now, relatively inexpensively, before we tackle the harder, more difficult and more expensive questions.
Meanwhile what about the international context? What does climate change imply for our relationship with the USA? Is the alliance still viable if America refuses to take measures to reduce emissions?
www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1741461,00.html?gusrc=rss
news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=484112006e
Posted by Simon Holledge at March 29, 2006 11:30 AM
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Comments
An alliance with that bastard Bush, or that bastard Blair, or any other bastard lickspittles of big business is not viable if we want to survive. I would not express it in nationalist terms however. Welcome to the brave new irradiated world.
Posted by: Vicus Scurra at March 29, 2006 05:25 PM
Thanks for your comment. Should I assume you are against nuclear energy?
Posted by: Simon Holledge at March 29, 2006 06:58 PM
No, don't assume, let me be specific. I don't want to live near Chernobyl. I do not want to wipe out humanity with cancer. If I did, I would vote Conservative.
Posted by: Vicus Scurra at March 30, 2006 11:52 AM
There is a good deal of hatred of Bush in the first comment above. It is a minor matter, but Bush signed an executive order in 2001 requiring the federal government to purchase products with low standby, and preferably below 1 watt. That had a major effect in reducing standby power waste in the US.
The first national initiative was in Australia and these two countries continue to compare notes. There is a comparative, technical study by McMahon on minimum energy performance standards from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on
www.energyrating.gov.au/library/pubs.
Is there comparable work in the UK?
Posted by: Norman Lawrie at May 2, 2006 12:36 PM
This is interesting. I have heard that there is a lot of 'wastage' (or is it 'leakage'?) on the national grid, although I haven't seen in quantified. Do we have any idea of the extent of the problem?
Posted by: Simon Holledge at May 2, 2006 01:22 PM
As for leadage from the grid, Paragraph 2.14 of the Report on Energy Efficiency by the House of Lords’ Science and Technology Committee (2nd Report of session 2004-5) makes useful comments on the ‘inefficiencies at every stage of the process of converting primary fuel sources into useful outputs.’ The comment on Distribution is that 'all transmission and distribution systems lose energy. Within the United Kingdom it is estimated that 1.5 percent of electricity is lost via the transmission network, and a further 6 percent between grid supply points and customers’ meters – a total of 7.5 percent, or some 30 TWh/year.'
Posted by: Norman Lawrie at May 4, 2006 09:45 AM