Author: janet.crompton

Poverty, energy and social justice

Posted on by janet.crompton

On June 18th, as part of Big Green Week, the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute hosted an event entitled ‘Poverty, energy and Social Justice’, at Hamilton House in Stokes Croft.

‘Social justice’ relates to making sure that current and future generations can fulfil their needs, whatever they may be, to live life to an acceptable standard. The term is often linked to ensuring that human rights are maintained and that equality is promoted within society. ‘Energy poverty’ is “a lack of access to modern energy services, defined as access to electricity and clean cooking facilities” (International Energy Agency).  In the UK, a household is said to be in ‘fuel poverty’ “if more than 10% of its income is spent on fuel, to maintain a satisfactory heating regime” (Department of Energy & Climate Change, 2013).

Definitions covered, the first part of the event involved presentations from three speakers which provided an overview of poverty, energy and social justice at a variety of scales, introduced various interesting themes and shared some surprising statistics.

Simon Roberts, CSE

Firstly, Simon Roberts, Chief Executive at the Centre for Sustainable Energy, provided a national perspective on poverty, energy and social justice. The presentation brought up some interesting comparisons between the highest and lowest income households in the UK. It turns out that households with the top 10% of income emit around 16 tonnes of carbon per person per year, with aviation being a major contributor to that, whilst households with the lowest 10% of incomes emit just 5 tonnes of carbon per person per year, almost entirely from fuel and energy for their homes. It was pointed out that the lower income households emit so little largely because they can’t afford the fuel rather than because they have chosen to live low carbon lifestyles.

Energy policies, such as ‘feed-in tariffs’, in which energy companies will pay you and reduce your bills if you produce renewable or ‘green’ energy in your home, do not consider social justice or energy poverty, in that it is only the reasonably well-off – those with investable capital, that can afford such schemes. This has lead to the lower income households emitting less carbon, contributing to the cost of energy policies (like feed-in tariffs) through their bills and benefiting from the policies the least.  In fact, it has been found that current energy policies have lead to the highest income households receiving reductions in their energy bill of around 12%, whilst the lowest income families are only receiving reductions of 7%. Considering how much more the lower income households could benefit from those reductions, it seems incredibly unfair that current energy policies end up benefitting those that need the reductions least. I didn’t get the impression that this outcome was aimed for by policy makers, but rather that energy policies really do need to be re-assessed so that they benefit those that need it most.

Next up was Mareike Schmidt, the Strategic Energy Programme Manager at Bristol City Council, who provided a more Bristol-centric view on matters. Mareike highlighted that, whilst there is no obligation for councils to engage with energy policy, Bristol City Council is very much eager to do so. Although funding is limited, BCC specifically would like to decrease energy bills in the city, increase jobs in the environment sector and keep energy-related money in Bristol – hopefully addressing both energy poverty and social justice in the process.

The final presentation of the evening was given by Dr Karen Bell, from the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol, who provided us all with an international perspective. Dr Bell argued that energy prices cannot rise as this would not only make getting electricity even more unattainable for those that already don’t have access to it, but it would increase the number of people, globally, who live without energy by making it unaffordable to a greater proportion of the population. Some of the options left for dealing with energy poverty then appear to be the uptake of renewable energy, the reduction of energy consumption (by decreasing emissions from non-essential things, rather than making the poor reduce their consumption) or the redistribution of wealth amongst society – moving towards a more equal and ‘just’ society.

Dr Bell explained that inequality in society leads to greater consumption, as the people with the least want to have the same things are those in higher income households, leading to more consumption, more waste, and increases in behaviours such as the consumption of meat and flying around the world. By redistributing wealth within society, perhaps consumption would decrease as people may feel that they ‘need’ fewer material things when they compare themselves to others, more people would be able to afford adequate fuel to achieve a reasonable standard of living and it would even benefit the environment.

This idea of addressing inequality, rather than energy poverty directly, was one of the most memorable ideas of the evening for me; a number of other members of the audience commented on this as well.

Having gone in with very little knowledge of energy policy, poverty or social justice, I came out much more aware of all three and feeling quite enlightened, with a new perspective on problem solving in the context of society – sometimes the seemingly obvious solution (energy policy) is not the most appropriate way of going about dealing with an issue in society (e.g. energy poverty). Sometimes we need to go right back to the cause of a societal issue (inequality) to fix the symptoms.  Hopefully we will begin to see change in this direction over the next couple of decades.

This blog has been written by Sarah Jones, a Geography PhD student at the University of Bristol.

Sarah Jones, University of Bristol

Oligocene discussion day

Posted on by janet.crompton

On the 16th of May, the University of Bristol held a half-day meeting devoted to the discussion of the Oligocene epoch (34 to 23 million years ago [Ma]). The Oligocene is a period of relative climate stability following the establishment of permanent ice sheets on Antarctica (34Ma). By the early Miocene (23Ma), atmospheric CO2 was low enough to allow the development of northern hemispheric ice sheets1. As a result, the Oligocene may have been the only time in the Cenozoic era (65-0Ma) during which a unipolar glaciation could exist.

Despite this, the Oligocene has received little attention from the Cenozoic palaeoclimate community. The aim of this event was to promote awareness of the Oligocene and encourage future research within this field.

Ellen Thomas, currently in Bristol on sabbatical from Yale, and David Armstrong-McKay, from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), began the morning session with a series of talks devoted to the late Eocene and early Oligocene. Ellen discussed the Eocene-Oligocene transition (34Ma) from both a modern2 and historical3 perspective while David outlined the competing hypothesis put forward to explain the event4.   Dierderik Liebrand, also from the NOC, followed this with a talk on late Oligocene and early Miocene (24-19Ma) cyclostratigraphy5.  Following lunch, Bridget Wade gave an hour-long seminar on the Eocene-Oligocene boundary (34Ma)6 and the middle Oligocene (24-30Ma)7. Bridget’s talk doubled as a departmental seminar in the School of Geography.

Figure 1: A compilation of benthic foraminifera oxygen isotope values. During the Oligocene, this reflects a combination of ice volume and temperature7

The event was hosted by Gordon Inglis, a PhD student in the School of Chemistry, and was funded by Professor Rich Pancost (Global Change) and Professor Paul Valdes (School of Geography).

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For more information, please consult the following references:

  1. Zachos, et al. (2008) An early Cenozoic perspective on greenhouse warming and carbon-cycle dynamics: Nature, v. 451, p. 279-283
  2. Liu, Z. et al (2009) Global cooling during the Eocene-Oligocene transition: Science, v. 323, p. 1187-1190
  3. Kennett and Shackleton (1976) Oxygen isotopic evidence for the development of the psychrosphere 38 Myr ago: Nature, v. 260, p. 513-515
  4. Merico, A, et al. (2008) Eocene/Oligocene ocean de-acidifiation linked to Antarctic glaciation by sea level fall: Nature, v. 452, p. 979-982
  5. Liebrand, D., et al. (2011) Antarctic ice sheets and oceanographic response to eccentricity forcing during the early Miocene: Climate of the Past, v. 7, p. 869-880
  6. Wade, B., et al (2011) Multiproxy record of abrupt sea-surface cooling across the Eocene-Oligocene transition in the Gulf of Mexico: Geology, v. 40, p. 159-162
  7. Wade, B. And Palike, H., (2004) Oligocene climate dynamics: Palaeoceanography, v. 19, PA4019

The nature of the beast – an APPCCG event on fracking and climate change

Posted on by janet.crompton

The term ‘fracking’ has a tendency to evoke strong feelings in many and the speakers at the APPCCG event were no different. As explained by the panel’s chair (Caroline Lucas the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion) the high level of enthusiasm for the exploration of shale gas across party lines in Westminster has led to concern. This concern is amongst not only those that question the safety of the technique itself but those who consider unconventional gas exploration/production to be counter intuitive to the UK’s attempts to reach its emission targets. Support for an early day moratorium on fracking (introduced by Caroline Lucas) has so far received support from a mere 25 MPs.

Fracking is a method used to release and extract unconventional gas. It involves injecting wells at high pressure with water, proppants, tracers and chemical additives to fracture the formation in which the gas is trapped. The technique is the subject of much controversy and it should be understood that the panel was structured in such a way that the speakers focussed on concerns surrounding fracking and consequently none were proponents of the technique.

The environmental concerns that accompany drilling and fracking for unconventional gas were impressed upon the panel with Dr Mariann Lloyd Smith (Of the National Toxics Network in Australia) emphasising that due to the ‘nature of the beast’ a safe industry was an idealists dream. The best that could be hoped for was a regulatory system that ensured a safer industry developed. Such feeling is echoed in the UNEP global environmental alert of 2012 which stated that not all fracking safety/environmental concerns could be removed through regulation. Some examples of the prominent concerns are the contents of not only fracking fluids but also drilling fluids. The chemical content of these fluids were described as a mixture of chemicals some of which have failed to be assessed in terms of their use in the fracking process. Even with the level of these chemicals composing a very low percentage of the fluids themselves, the level of chemicals (in kg) that remain in the ground can reach high levels. (For further details and figures from the Australian experience see http://www.ntn.org.au/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/NTN-Toxics-in-UG-Activities-Briefing.pdf). In addition to such chemicals the naturally occurring contaminants that can be released during the process are a cause for concern particularly as exposure pathways mean that such materials have the potential to cause damage to land, people and livestock.

It was not just health and environmental risks that were raised as prominent issues. The social costs of fracking and unconventional gas extraction were a key concern for many of the speakers. Eve McNamara (from the Ribble Estuary Against Fracking) emphasised that the community in West Lancashire have received no input from regulators and the authorities leaving them in a position where their only information resource is the actual company exploring for shale gas in the area, Cuadrilla. The lack of communication and consultation has meant that the only engagement the community has had with regulators has arisen from the proactive behaviour of REAF itself. The issue has sadly led to division in the community particularly in relation to the leasing of agricultural land where neighbouring farmers oppose the exploration for gas.

The protection of the public interest is not just a concern for the communities affected by fracking. Tony Bosworth (Friends of the Earth) emphasised that the upcoming planning guidance and Environment Agency guidance as well as the regulations on fracking need to be based on the precautionary principle and full public consultation with a full EIA conducted for every application. So far, the provision of information, consultation and explanation of how the public interest is being protected is considered by FOE to be a failure.

The question of whether the exploration and production of unconventional gas should be pursued in the UK is not only a question of environmental safety. Its implications for climate change and the UK’s emission targets are significant. Dr John Broderick (from the Tyndall Centre) emphasised that in seeking to reach our targets it is the cumulative emissions over a period of time that cause the degree of climate change we will experience.  It would seem that our probability of avoiding a greater than 2oC rise in temperature is already history. As such the use of unconventional gas as a ‘transition’ would mean that the continued consumption of fossil fuels would require a drastically higher annual reduction in emissions in the future to compensate, leaving little room for any future emissions from fossil fuels. Whilst the US experience has arguable shown that US coal emissions have decreased since the production of US shale gas, the US’s coal production has remained constant simply resulting in the export of coal. Unless shale gas can prove to be a true substitute leaving the coal in the ground, the argument for shale as a replacement loses its force.  Overall, Dr Broderick’s central point was that we need to focus on leaving more fossil fuel in the ground if we are to meet emission targets and as such shale gas is incompatible with this aim. It is clear that he is not alone in this consideration with FOE clearly taking the stance that fracking and unconventional gas are simply a risk we should not take.

So what does the future hold for fracking? Will communities receive greater information and support? Will a safer industry be enough to quell concerns and will our desire for domestic gas trump our desire to reach our emission targets?

This blog post is by Joanne Hawkins.
A PhD Researcher looking at the challenge of hydraulic fracturing: energy resilience, the environment and effective regulation at the University of Bristol Law School.

Joanne Hawkins, University of Bristol

The sinking Pacific – climate change and international aid in Tuvalu

Posted on by janet.crompton

Sarah Hemstock (University of the South Pacific) came to visit the Cabot Institute on 20 March 2013 and presented the case study “Impacts of international aid on climate change adaptation in Tuvalu”.  Here I sum up the main points raised by Sarah during her lecture.  Please note all figures mentioned below are from Sarah’s talk.

Tuvalu

Climate change

Tuvalu is a microcosm for what is going on with climate change globally.  There are issues with waste management, sea level rise, politics, energy, food production and others.

Tuvalu grows taro, a staple carbohydrate which is sensitive to saltwater.  Due to rising sea levels, Tuvalu is affected by high tides called king tides.  These tides can contaminate agricultural land with saltwater and thus the staple crop will not grow.

Flood defences have been built by aid agencies to try to stop sea level rise.  Unfortunately they do not work as seawater bubbles up through the island at king tide, flooding the airport and villages.  There is now no fresh water and villages are completely dependent on collecting rainwater. 

International aid and the economy

Sarah began to explain why Tuvalu needs to move away from aid to become more self empowering.   She started to list the facts.  Globally, $140bn has been given to international aid between 1970 and 2010, it certainly is a lucrative business.  There are four agencies who accept international aid in the Pacific.  Three of these agencies have mandates for climate change, fisheries, GIS and mapping etc which prevents any market driven approach to getting aid.  Another problem with these agencies is their size.  For example, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC)  has grown from 300 employees at its inception to 3000 today.  Large numbers of employees can see international aid going towards feeding these agencies rather than having a smaller administrative group and diverting the main bulk of funds to helping save the islands of the Pacific.  It could be argued that these large companies provide jobs for people in the Pacific, but in reality, these jobs are not very likely to go to people from the small island states such as Tuvalu (for which the aid is supposed to be for), which are isolated and poor.

Tuvalu has a weak economy. There is a lack of exports but a lot of imports to people who are not native to the island and want a little something from home.  83 % of Tuvalu’s energy comes from oil and a shocking 50% of Tuvalu’s annual GDP comes from aid.  People in Tuvalu are subsisting on less than $2 a day.  However, because Tuvalu receives a substantial amount of ‘aid’ they are recognised as a middle income country, but this aid does not filter down to the people and in fact Tuvalu should be considered as a low income country.

Tuvalu spends $6m on policy development, although these policies rarely do anything and could be considered a waste of money which could be better used in the community.  The amount of diesel used for electricity consumption has increased.  However, petrol usage has decreased, mainly due to people going back to using traditional canoes as they are cheaper to run. 

A desperate situation – a sinking community

Between 2004 and 2007, fossil fuel use increased by 21%.  Sarah felt that this was because funders ignore policy.  For example, a Japanese company gave Tuvalu three diesel energy generators.  Tuvalu asked for generators that could run on coconut oil in line with environmental policy but due to cost, the donators could not provide these.  Tuvalu couldn’t afford to run the diesel generators so Japan donates $2m of oil every year to run them making Tuvalu totally dependent on donations for its energy supply.

There is no market, no money and no tourist industry in Tuvalu so there is no way of generating money.  It is an isolated island and boats to Fiji run every 5-6 weeks.  When weather is bad, food, oil and supplies are not delivered.

Sarah explained how there is no joined up thinking with international aid and no long term plans after the aid has disappeared.  An example of this is where water tanks were given to each home in Tuvalu and they were also made in Tuvalu.  The problem with the design was that it has a sealed top which meant it could not be stacked.  This meant it would have taken 25 years to get everyone a tank, as only six tanks would fit on each ship.  The good news was that they managed to get a barge to ship them out, but it is this lack of foresight which hampers the success of aid activities.

Sarah also mentioned how 35% of aid goes straight back to the company who gave the money to pay for ‘technical assistance’ and admin fees.  There are other fees which come out of international aid. In fact if aid was taken away from Tuvalu, it wouldn’t affect the people much as the aid hardly reaches them anyway. 

Interestingly, the people of Tuvalu are extremely mentally resilient to the threat of climate change.  When asked if they would move off the island if climate change flooded their islands, they were determined to stay on the island no matter what.  When the question was framed in an economic sense, for example would they move off the island for work, they were more open to the idea of moving off the island.  This is a difficult ethical argument.  What right do we have to move the islanders to safety, to move them to a different country, culture and language when they do not want to go?

Climate change may be physically sinking the small low-lying islands of the Pacific, but it is the international aid agencies which are arguably sinking them beyond recovery.  A drastic change is needed in the management and distribution of international aid in order to save these dying islands from the rest of the world’s actions.

Listen again to Sarah Hemstock’s Cabot Institute seminar.
  

This blog was written by Amanda Woodman-Hardy (@Enviro_Mand), Cabot Institute

Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Cabot Institute

Chasing Ice with the All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group

Posted on by janet.crompton
Watching the film of a self-confessed reformed climate skeptic with members of parliament and Lords isn’t how I usually spend my Tuesday morning, but it was what I found myself doing last Tuesday. The occasion for this unlikely meeting was a special screening of photographer James Balog’s film Chasing Ice for the All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group (APPCCG), of which the Cabot Institute is a member. The film, which documents the work of the photographer’s Extreme Ice Survey, follows James and his team on a journey to record the retreat of 13 glaciers across the globe continuously over a two year period. 

I won’t spoil the film too much (and strongly encourage you to see it if you can) but suffice to say placing 28 cameras at locations across the globe in some of the most difficult terrains and extremes of temperature is a challenge for both the men and technology involved. The aim to take one photo every hour of daylight for two years solid was massively ambitious, but worth the effort and the pain, as the result is a spectacular demonstration of how our hydrocarbon based economy is changing the face of the planet.

“What the public need […] is something spectacular that grabs people in the gut”
James Balog

James’s desire was to capture what is perhaps the most visually compelling effect of climate change. Retreating glaciers are a clear indication of the effects of rising global temperatures and one (despite the attempts by some to highlight the minority which are advancing) which is hard to ignore. Of course the glaciers highlighted in the film are only a small proportion of global land ice (which has the power to raise sea level) but can be seen as an important “canary in the coal mine” demonstrating the processes which are happening in the really large ice sheets too. Over the last twenty years, mass loss of ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica are estimated to have contributed 0.59 ±0.20 mm yr -1 to global sea level rise (Shepard et al., 2012). While that may seem like a small number, the effects over the next century could be dramatic, especially as, if last year’s unprecedented Greenland melt are anything to go by (Tedesco et al., 2012), this rate could be accelerating.

“If you had an abscess in your tooth, would you go to dentist after dentist until one told you not to pull it out?”
James Balog
 

Before the screening there was an introduction to the film by Chris Shearlock, Sustainable Development Manager at The Co-operative Group who explained the Co-op’s involvement in the film, and their outlook on sustainable and ethical investment. The Co-op has invested £1billion in renewable energy, and he estimated that they have refused £300 million of investment opportunities in hydrocarbon extraction, and so when following the film, the questioning turned to exploitation of the soon-to-be summer sea ice free arctic the voice of the Co-operative was clear – that they will not be investing in hydrocarbon extraction. That question was dealt with very differently by Chris Barton, Head of International & Domestic Energy Security at the DECC who put forward the UK government’s current position that whilst we should reduce demand, in order to maintain cheap oil and gas for UK consumers “sensible” and regulated extraction in the arctic should be a priority for UK plc. What to do with the resulting CO2 emissions in order to hit the < 2 °C target? Well in Chris Barton’s mind carbon capture and storage will come to the rescue.

The debate moved to whether, as we are not an Arctic state, we can do anything about the regulation of commercial activity in a basin which is a combination of the territorial water of eight nation states, and open ocean controlled under the international law of the sea. The DECC view seemed to be that it is largely none of our business and out of our control, but interestingly Jane Rumble, Head of Polar Regions Unit at the FCO, had a different perspective. She suggested that we should be (and can be) working constructively through the Arctic Council, towards a similar regulatory framework to that which controls the other end of the Earth via the Antarctic Treaty, and by influencing Canada (one of the eight bordering nation states) through the commonwealth. Colin Manson, Director of Manson Oceanographic Consultancy and member of the IMO Polar Code working group spoke of the frustration of many in the shipping industry that talks on the Polar Code had stalled and encouraged UK intervention as a broker. He also pointed that one little talked about impacts of the opening up of the Northern Passage would be dramatic reductions in the time and fuel needed for bulk cargo shipping from the far east to Europe. With the representative routing of Shanghai – Rotterdam dropping to 5 weeks, vs the current 8 week route via the Indian Ocean. Colin, along I think with many in the audience, hoped thoughtful regulation and consideration of the impacts of this increased shipping through the arctic would come before it was too late.

Julia Slingo OBE, Chief Scientist at the Met Office closed proceedings with an impassioned plea to take care with the interpretation of our current generation of climate models following questions from the audience, and highlighted the importance of sustained development of what are our best hopes for accurate and precise predictions of future climate change.

All in all it was a fascinating day, and I was grateful to be exposed to a beautiful film, as well as an insight into the minds of those at the policy end of climate change science.

“We think we need new oil and gas production whether people like it or not”
Chris Barton, Head of International & Domestic Energy Security, DECC

This blog is by Dr Marcus Badger (Chemistry) at the University of Bristol. He writes about the APPCCG meeting held on 5 March 2013.
Marcus Badger

More than a woman

Posted on by janet.crompton

It is International Women’s Day today and the Cabot Institute has much to celebrate.  We are an organisation filled with amazing and inspiring women (and men) who conduct valuable environmental research inevitably for the greater good.  In this blog I would like to celebrate some of these women.

Firstly I will talk about how I feel about being a woman and why International Women’s Day is so important.  As a youngster, I suppose you could call me a tomboy with a love of playing outside, and hanging out with my dad, a mechanic, and watching him tinker with engines.  Going to secondary school was when I first encountered sexism.  I was really good at design and technology, the only subject I got A* in, but one of my teachers would not let me use the drills and other machinery because I was a girl, he would have to do the drilling for me.  This made me so angry I was put off the subject.

When I entered the work environment I encountered glass ceilings and male-dominated top management, yet I worked closely with women at lower levels who could probably do the top jobs with their eyes closed.

Things are improving but there is still a lot of work to do. International Women’s Day is important to me because there are women across the world that are not safe and are not equal.  It is women like the Cabot Institute women who help ensure that the future for girls is bright, equal, safe and rewarding.  Through their work, they are highlighting the importance of women in the world and are intelligent, beautiful and courageous role models to many.

Here’s a small selection of female researchers and academics at the Cabot Institute to celebrate today:

 

Tamsin Edwards – a climate scientist with a popular blog All Models Are Wrong.
Kathy Cashman – a world-renowned volcanologist, this lady certainly deserves all the credit she receives.
Sue Porter – an amazing woman who looks at environment and disability.
Wendy Larner – a formidable force in environmental social science and a key player on our steering group.
Margherita Pieraccini– specialises in environmental law
Jo House – looks at greenhouse gas emissions, land use change and climate change mitigation, Jo is a key contributor to IPCC reports.
Jemma Wadham – carries out world-class research into melting ice sheets and their effects on the planet.
Becky Whay – drastically improving animal welfare on farms
Susanna Jenkins – looks at disaster risk reduction, helping to make the world a safer place.
Ellie Cosgrave – a courageous systems engineer looking at sustainable cities, read her brave International Women’s Day blog about sexual harrassment on the Tube.
Philippa Bayley – the manager of the Cabot Institute, I’m not just saying this because she is my manager but because she is truly an inspirational person and has driven the Institute forward in so many ways.

There are loads more women in the Cabot Institute who I haven’t mentioned but who are just brilliant.  I would like to wish them all a very happy International Women’s Day .  You go girls!

This blog is by Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Cabot Institute

All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group – decarbonisation targets

Posted on by janet.crompton
This month’s All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group (APPCCG) meeting centred on the age old problem of setting decarbonisation targets; the question being, are they useful milestones, or millstones around the necks of the energy industry.
David Kennedy, CCC
Joining the discussion at the meeting were several senior figures in the field, including David Kennedy, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), and until recently a frontrunner for the top civil service job at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). Mr. Kennedy’s appearance at this meeting comes on the heels of an open letter presented by his organisation to Ed Davey, the minister at DECC, urging swifter action on establishing carbon intensity targets. Mr. Kennedy explained his concern that lingering doubt over whether legislative targets will be set dissuades investors in renewable energy technologies, and ultimately hampers efforts to decarbonise the electricity market.

It’s worth noting that the UK already has binding targets for reducing carbon emissions; indeed, it was the very first country to enact such legislation. However, these targets will ultimately be assessed only in 2050, which on the political timescale is several lifetimes away. Further, the 2008 Energy Act that carries this legislation allows successive governments to exceed carbon emission budgets in the short run, so long as they reduce future budgets accordingly. Without intervening milestones between now and 2050, one can certainly see an incentive for incumbent governments to neglect decarbonisation- procrastination on a national scale.

Opposing this view was David Hone, the climate change advisor for Shell. Mr. Hone explained that UK energy policy should not be viewed as a closed system- indeed, our policy is linked directly to those of our European partners though EU-ETS, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. His view was that by enacting further legislation, the government would be unfairly constricting energy producers in the UK. Further, any emissions savings made in the UK could be offset by additional emissions in Europe, as the EU-ETS would simply sell emissions rights elsewhere.

Guy Newey, Policy Exchange
Another significant contribution was made by Guy Newey, Head of Environment and Energy at the think tank Policy Exchange. While Mr. Newey agreed in principle with the idea of bringing forward decisions on decarbonisation targets to 2014, he also made the point that uncertainty on this topic was a significant disincentive to investors, and that a quick and firm resolution to this question was essential; to that end, he could live with an imperfect answer.

This blog is written by Neeraj Oak, University of Bristol

Neeraj Oak

Neeraj Oak reports on the APPCCG meeting on the UK Energy Bill

Posted on by janet.crompton

Ever since the birth of commercial nuclear power at Calder Hall, Cumbria in 1954, fission-based reactors have been an important part of the UK energy mix. Today, policy makers stand at a crossroads. Increasing demand for electricity and the constraints of carbon reduction treaties are forcing the government to consider renewal and expansion of our existing nuclear power generation capacity. At the same time, the old spectres of safety, cost and nuclear waste still haunt the industry.

I was recently lucky enough to attend a meeting hosted by the APPCCG and NCG on the current UK Energy Bill and its relation to new nuclear generation capacity. Among the large number of attendees were  Hergen Haye (head of new nuclear, DECC),  Dr. Nigel Knee (head of nuclear policy, EDF energy), former Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP as well as representatives of academia, trade unions and environmental organisations. The meeting was chaired by Joan Walley MP (Labour). Interestingly, the only major party not represented at this meeting were the conservatives, which left the burden of defending government policy to the DECC.

Points of contention at the moment are numerous, but a few do stand out. The government appears not to be upholding its commitment not to subsidise nuclear energy, at least in the eyes of the Green Party and present academics. The current energy bill details a change in the subsidy mechanism for low-carbon energy sources, known as the contract-for-difference feed-in tariff (CfD). While CfD is openly referred to as a subsidy in the renewable energy industry, the fact that the nuclear energy industry is also eligible for its benefits has raised significant criticism.

The time and cost of constructing nuclear power stations was also in the spotlight, with special ire reserved for EDF’s ongoing EPR reactor project at Flamanville in France, which is currently 4 years behind schedule and is projected to cost more that €8.5 billion despite initial estimated cost of €3.3 billion. Further, such time and cost overruns have been alarmingly common in Europe in recent years. The preferred configuration for new nuclear in the UK is similar to that of Flamanville, an EPR reactor administered by EDF. There were calls, especially from academics, for other options to be tabled.

Finally, in the wake of the Fukushima crisis, safety and disposal of nuclear waste are also raising considerable concern. With the commitment of Germany to a nuclear-free energy sector, the possibility of the UK following suit is slightly more likely. However, this will depend on how this change affects Germany’s progress towards carbon-reduction targets. It’s too early to say, but for now it appears as though the government will look to retain the status quo, renewing nuclear generation capacity without necessarily expanding it.  This leaves environmentalists opposed to nuclear energy in somewhat of a dilemma, as they must choose between supporting new nuclear energy, or siding with more carbon-intensive alternatives until renewable energy technologies mature.

Neeraj Oak

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Blog entry by Neeraj Oak
Bristol Centre for Complexity Science (BCCS)
Neeraj.Oak@bristol.ac.uk
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