The Energy Debate
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 5:56PM The debate about renewable energy/ energy use/ energy independence and all the associated anxieties is clearly growing in importance. Many people are just now becoming aware that there even is a debate, it’s a topic I no longer have to bring up. Anyone I meet, if they see me get out of an electric car or they see my solar panels will immediately express an opinion.
However, just as it is with me, these opinions are highly fluid, it’s a really complex debate, there is no right and wrong, no left or right, no simple, easy solution.
Doing something about our dependence on stuff we extract out of the ground and burn by the trillions of tons and gallons is seen as a good thing across party lines. How exactly we achieve that is obviously a lot more complex.
Yes, solar panels are almost exclusively used by middle class people who, as George Monbiot rightly says, own their own roof.
Wind turbines almost exclusively benefit the upper middle classes who get paid to have them on their extensive lands. The Royal family are a very good example of this. The lovely old Duke of E recently ranted on about how pointless they were, conveniently forgetting that HRH the Queen gets many £100’s of thousands a year in rent from off shore turbines (She owns a lot of sea.)
The easy dismissal of wind turbines is very popular among the certain sections of society, however over 2 weeks around Christmas and New Year, a full 12% of the UK’s electricity was from wind turbines.
Wind turbines are already on a par with burning gas to generate electricity and will soon be a far cheaper alternative. Why?
Because the cost of ‘natural’ gas which we mainly get from Russia has gone through the roof. We’ve already burnt through the stuff we found in the North Sea; in terms of burning fossils, only one thing is certain, it’s going to get more expensive.
All fuel costs have increased and the sources are at best unstable and at worse, highly volatile. This has had a huge effect on what we pay for electricity. But that’s complicated and awkward, wind turbines are much easier to criticise because if you’re posh and you live somewhere nice you don’t want them near you.
If you’re not posh and live next to an oil refinery (like my sister) and you’re not allowed to put glass in your windows (has to be heavy duty Perspex) and there are evacuation procedures you have to display in your house in the event of a massive fire or explosion, well, that’s just normal, we’re used to that.
In a recent ITV program many mentions were made of how the increasing use of renewable energy was going to increase our electricity bills. Not one mention was made of the traditional methods by which we produce the vast bulk of our power.
There is a classic moment in the program, it looks almost staged by a subversive researcher with a secret green agenda. A fairly posh land owner was sitting by his 17th century barn saying he’d had offers to install turbines on his land, he and his wife then went through the standard Daily Telegraph, James Dellingpole nonsense about how they don’t work and are an eyesore.
As they were speaking a massive domestic heating oil truck entered the scene behind them and very slowly worked its way toward the no doubt substantial oil tanks tucked discreetly behind the dovecot. So having heavy oil, extracted in Saudi Arabia, pumped, stored shipped, pumped, stored, refined, shipped and delivered is a sensible way to use our resources? Is it maybe time we questioned such insane behaviour?
In 2004-5 we did a lot of work on our house. I was cursing and sulky because I didn't fit grey water storage, ground source heat pumps, solar PV, solar water heaters and on and on. We had a nice kitchen instead. The one thing we did do that I’m very proud I fought for was install a staggering amount of insulation.
Our house is very warm, we've actually had the central heating on for 3 days so far this year. I do have a wood-burning stove we use at weekends and that's a CO2 nightmare but the logs are local, from coppiced woodland.
I do now also have solar PV that so far (fitted last May) has produced 1678.47 Kwh. The average UK house consumes 1,500 Kwh per year, so they have made a difference.
However the biggest difference of anything we've done is the insulation. Not just cavity walls, also windows and doors, triple glazed and they seal very tight.
It is, without question, just as important to use less energy as it is to generate your own, ask my kids, I'm obsessed with it.
'Turn out that light, and the telly! No one's watching it!'
My record number of lights turned off when I got home (this is very common with dads) is 12. 12 lights on for no reason. No one was affected by this action, I didn't leave my daughter weeping in the dark.
Knowing how much energy you use and trying to reduce it is as important as any other measures you can take, we all use hugely more than we did even when I was a kid. This year, I plan to install more solar PV, a domestic hydrogen fuel cell and a central isolator switch that kills all the standby electronics in the house at night. Imagine how popular I am with teenagers.
Oh, and notice that I didn’t mention climate change once. As the wonderful cartoon said, ‘What if we go to all the effort of making the world a better place and climate change is a hoax!’
Reader Comments (22)
Have you noticed that being frugal with energy or money is seen as deeply uncool, especially by the young? I don't know how long this has been the case - presumably its the result of years of endless consumerist propaganda and the association of energy consumption with success and status.
p.s. The scale of the problem becomes apparent when politicians say "we cant afford all this renewable green stuff at the moment because the economy's up the spout"!! The reason the economy's up the spout is because fossil fuels are becoming prohibitably expensive!! So they're basically saying "we cant afford green energy because the oil's running out!!"
Which depressingly enough is actually true and shows what a pickle we are in!!
Coincidentally today I was walking along the road on my way to work picturing that very same "But what if climate change is a hoax; we would have created a better world for nothing!" cartoon.
With wind power it does make me wonder (and I'm no engineer - probably for good reason) why they cant introduce a gearing ratio for higher winds? I mean like on a bicycle sprocket, drop down when its less windy, and up when in 40mph or higher winds. Blades spin faster but the generator wont burn out.
I'm always amused when people moan about "green subsidies". Perhaps they should look at how Governments have invested in fossil and nuclear power over the years..?
..and yes, you have to laugh at the "better world" rejection.
Great article Rob, having had similar discussions, it's funny how so many people discover the common sense behind the argument - if only they can get past the fact that the Energy/Green issue can really have nothing to do with Climate Change - just need to appeal to people's pockets !
Regarding the mention of Green Energy subsidies, I found this a surprising and enlightening article; http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/02/death-to-pv-subsidies It's based on the States.
Rob - Do you have some decent LED's in your house - lot's of new innovations - take a look at these guys http://p3energysaving.com - yes, I do have a little stake, but even so..it makes sense !
Dave
You are so right! I really can't understand people that think renewable energy is a waste of time. Whether climate change is happening as a result of our burning of fossil fuels or not, eventually they will run out and we will have to look to renewable energy sources, so why not invest money and scientific research into them now?
Sadly I know too many NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yards) that moan about wind turbines being noisy or ugly or whatever. Uglier than a coal power station belching out black smog? I don't think so. I think they're rather pleasant to look at actually, and surely their purpose is more important anyway.
Last year we decided to get solar pannels installed and I'm so pleased that we're 'doing our bit' for the environment. With the government incentives they are now a lot more affordable and hopefully people will begin to stop seeing them as a middle class thing. I certainly don't see myself as middle class- I come from a rural working class background and we only afforded the pannels because my partner had saved up profits from his business for the last ten years. We see it as a great investment though.
We also got an energy monitor to see how much we were using, and that has opened my eyes to ways I can save energy. I'm now getting very good at turning things off when I'm not using them. Sometimes you can't afford to make a big change, but if everyone made a small one then it would make a huge difference.
Re: the wood-burning stove.
My brother, who is more than half way through an engineering degree in green technologies, assures me that wood is carbon neutral when you burn it, and that this is a good thing. :)
@ Downfader : I'm also not an engineer (just a physicist!) but I assume that it is simply not economical to build windturbines that way. They are presumably designed to make maximum use of the average windspeed in an area. The fixed gearbox can already cope with a relatively large swing in windspeeds, and so you would have to add quite a meaty clutch mechanism (upto 3MW or so going through it!) just to make use of the very few times when it is above this limit.
@Robert - I agree with you, that 12% of electricity production over Christmas from wind is a good thing. But can you say what % it will be producing tomorrow, or in one months time? And what is it's average contribution over the year? (which is a more meaningful measure). Although the gas might be getting more expensive, it will always be there when it is needed...Until there is a way of storing energy on a huge scale then these variations in wind power will prevent it being useable for anything more than a small proportion of total demand.
I do agree with doing everything possible at home though (although there should be a clear list in order of payback to help those shorter on cash). The advantage of triple over double glazed windows (given their cost) probably means there is a long payback time! But if you have the money, then absolutely.
I have concerns that burning wood is deemed as carbon netrual, this is based on the oxygen produced during the trees lifetime is equal to the carbon produced when it burnt . We forget that trees play an important role in that they already manage some of the carbon dioxide we produce without adding to this by then using the wood to produce energy. Using less energy is the way forward as everyone can contribute to this without it costing vast amounts for renewables. It would appear that only those that can afford solar pv's can benifit from free energy and FIT through their providers. Energy companies should all help reduce usage instead of jumping on the green bandwagon to attract more business. They say the profits are re-invested then why not use the money to instal solar pv's and turbines on customers houses so we can all contribute to our depleting resources.
@Joe
Thanks! That makes sense.
'With the government incentives they are now a lot more affordable'
Where the hell do you think the government gets its money from??! The fact they've just cut the solar tariff by 50% shows just how UNAFFORDABLE the original tariff was. 43p/kWh has got to come from somewhere - most likely the poor bastards who dont own their own roofs.
@willbick-surely the government gets it's money from all of us that pay taxes? It's swings and roundabouts to me. The money for solar pannels comes from those who don't have them just as the money for benefits comes from those who don't claim them. All of us are paying for something that we don't see the benefit of one way or another.
I agree the original tariff was unaffordable, but now they have cut it by 50% surely that means it is now more affordable than before? I don't mean that now everyone can go out and buy them- of course they can't. All I mean is that it's getting cheaper and you see a lot more of them these days, whereas before they were very exclusive. Hopefully in the future the government will invest more money into them and make them more widely available.
@Tizzy Potts
"Sometimes you can't afford to make a big change, but if everyone made a small one then it would make a huge difference."
Well, no. If every household in the UK saved 1% of their energy use then the country would save... 1%. If, as seems more likely, 10% of homes save 1% the country saves 0.1%. Not a huge difference. I think the time for small changes has passed we need something dramatic.
It is difficult finding accurate figures for renewable energy contribution as our media seems merely to reprint press releases from various vested interests. This analyses one of them: http://www.straightstatistics.org/article/spinning-wind-powered-future which comes up with1.3% as a contribution from wind on one day last week.
@ Phil J
Here is an offical website, showing contributions from different generation types (although it only covers the last 24 hours). Lots of info on power from interconnectors, etc etc.
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm
So as I type, wind is contributing a grand total of 2.1% ... Peak generation is expected at 23:00, when wind will generate 635MW, out of a total nameplate capacity of 4GW. Tomorrow is going to be a windy one, 2.7GW!
RE Offshore wind turbines.
I think that I remember reading in Private Eye that Charles has been trying to renegotiate the Civil List.
(In 1760, George III reached an agreement with the Government over the Crown Estate. The Crown Lands would be managed on behalf of the Government and the surplus revenue would go to the Treasury. In return, the King would receive a fixed annual payment, which we call today the Civil List.)
Charles wanted a percentage of the Crown Estate earnings instead - obviously this was set to rise markedly because of the offshore turbines! At the moment, the Queen and Duke of Ed. are paid a fixed sum agreed by Parliament and financed by the Crown Estate earnings.
Anyway - does this not mean that the Royals don't actually earn the turbine money, the Government does, which mean that the offshore turbine rent earnings are paid to the Government and we pay for this via increased energy costs = Extra hidden tax?!!
I see you still haven't built the Industrial sized wind folly in your own backyard Robert? The one you said you would like to build, in order to supply cheap energy to the community with. The one you said can be built close to peoples homes. You will however be pleased to know, perhaps?, that the local Davis family forced out of their home as a place to sleep, by sound issues from wind follies lined up 930 meters from their home, have received an out of court settlement. The ones proposed for crown lands, (onshore) here, are still being contested by local residents, who are 83% against. Including of course, 100% of the closest residents, and the tenant farmers themselves.
I may be wrong, but i thought the blades on a wind generator were able to be feathered to take account/advantage of different wind speeds. If this is true then a gearing mechanism would not be necessary, surely.
@Downfader and @Joe, the wind turbines I've had experience with have a fixed gearing system to the turbine but they "feather" their blades into the wind similar to some propellers on planes. Basically, they can change the angle of the blades depending on the wind speed and as a result the blades turn at a constant speed.
When the wind speed gets over the tower's safety limit the blades are angled directly into the wind so they don't turn at all.
These are large, expensive turbines, though. I suspect smaller turbines don't do this.
Excellent post Rob,
I work in the Energy Industry (I'm Acting Environment Manager of the Electricity Distribution company that supplies your power - in fact my wife also works at the company and was in charge of the alteration work you had done on your house back in 05. She had a brand new 2005 Prius which you had a look around. Though she had no idea who you were at the time, describing you as " a really nice bloke who was fascinated by my car!")
Anyway, for me small scale micro generation and energy efficiency is the only answer. We lose around 10-12% of all the energy we generate in distribution. This equates to many millions of tonnes of CO2 needlessly released. When every house is a highly insulated micro powerstation with PV windows and roof and Ground source heating we'll be well on the way to a sustainable future. That vision requires a lot of investment in the distribution network but it beats the current, hugely wasteful centralised generation and tapered distribution model hands down.
Keep up the good work