All change - as oil gets cheap

With oil prices being cut, the energy policy scene is getting increasingly fraught.  Keeping OPEC oil production levels high has forced prices down as oil seeks to see off the boom in coal use. That in part has been due to the shale gas boom in the USA- which has been able to export more cheap coal.  But these market manipulations are set in the context of climate change polices which seek to reduce fossil fuel use (coal especially) and promote the use of renewables.  That has had a big impact in Germany, where, with the Feed In Tariff system supporting renewables,  gas plants find it hard to compete and coal plants are frowned on- though still used. And nuclear is on the way out. One results has been that, following the lead of RWE and Siemens, who exited nuclear some while back, E.ON, the largest utility, is to back away from nuclear and fossil fuels- hiving them off into a separate new company, the rump company then focusing on renewables and smart grid management systems: www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2384209/eon-unveils-bold-plan-to-focus-on-renewables-and-ditch-fossil-fuels                 

There was speculation that this might be an attempt to abandon uneconomic nuclear plants and their associated decommissioning debts, but more likely it was just a case of following the market.  Nuclear and fossil plants had no long-term future, although the question does arise, who will provide the power input for grid-balancing services for variable renewables? Some just saw it cynically as an exercise in chasing green energy subsidies- although equally it may be that operating marginal cost renewables will be much more lucrative than trying to rely on capacity market balancing payments.

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/12/german-fossil-fuel-giant-jumps-on-renewables-bandwagon

Nevertheless, not everyone likes this trend anti-fossil trend. And fossil fuels are clearly far from dead. Indeed they make stage a comeback. In this context it is interesting that the competition to replace Maria van der Hoeven as head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has heated up, with Fatih Birol, a former Opec oil technocrat, emerging as a potential candidate. van der Hoeven has overseen a what some see as a radical shift in the IEAs views, with renewables and energy efficiency heavily promoted, but it still backs nuclear and has strong links to oil. Will those be strengthened, given current oil issues?

There are certainly worries. It was bad enough Russia playing market and geopolitical games with gas exports, threatening European energy security, but oil price cuts can have major impacts on all economies- beneficial for most in the short-term, but no so welcome long term, especially for oil and gas exporting countries. Russia has been hit hard for example. More worryingly, they could impact on renewables. Peter Atherton, utility analyst at Liberum Capital, says a prolonged period of $60 oil could drive down UK electricity prices below £45/MWh, which ‘would destroy value on existing renewable energy projects and make it difficult to raise financing for future projects’. But this may all also be the last straw for nuclear..as well as undermining the case for shale gas.             

Meanwhile there are those who worry about relying on renewables, and want to see gas and even coal used, along with nuclear, instead. In the UK, the Civitas think tank has made this sort of case yet again. http://t.co/y9mQzt58Qj In the USA, Forbes warned that superficially attractive comparisons of renewables and fossil fuel costs, based on using Levelised costings, disguised the cost of dealing with variable renewables: www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2014/11/29/levelized-cost-of-electricity-renewable-energys-ticking-time-bomb/

By contrast it is often taken as a matter of faith that shale gas will carry all before it. Certainly shale gas continues to flourish in the USA, with shale gas overtaking conventional natural gas production, a big change from 2007 when it only produced 8% of the total.  And the U.S. Energy Information Administration  says that new technology has enabled producers to lower the market price of natural gas: www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=18951 Whether this will be a short lived speculative bubble remains to be see: well productivity falls off quickly so more wells have to be drilled.  It’s also unclear if the same thing will happen elsewhere. Gas was always expensive in the USA, unlike in the EU, and the geology is different. And population densities are generally much higher. But as noted above, the economic impact of cheap US shale gas has spread widely.  Optimist may see shale gas as offering a lowish carbon interim option while renewables are ramped up, pessimists will see it as delaying just that, and environmentalists worry about local and global impacts.

Overall then there’s a bundle of conflicting beliefs, pressures and concerns, although the fossil lobby’s power remains strong…stronger maybe than the multifaceted climate lobby.

The Big issues: a communications revolution

  ‘eGaia: Growing a peaceful, sustainable Earth through communications’       

It’s good to start the New Year on a positive note! And the new revised edition of Gary Alexander’s eGaia book certainly helps.  It is, as he says in the introduction, like the first edition  ‘very much utopian, in the sense of trying to figure out what kind of a society and what kind of relationship with the Earth would work best for us all, humanity in all its diversity, and the rest of life on Earth. That's the big question. Can we imagine a society in which human activities preserve and enhance rather than destroy the natural world? And in which all the other issues raised above were at least significantly better, if not fully resolved? What might it be like? What sort of jobs would people do? What kinds of social structures would be needed? What would their relationships with one another be like?’

His approach is based on the conviction that human beings need to communicate better to understand each other, and he sees modern technology as helping with this. But the core message is the need to develop shared understanding via community experiences. He’s an exponent of the transition movement, which he says provides a context for sharing and growth. He sees this as prefiguring the future. But he says ‘I have come to the reluctant conclusion that these starting points are unlikely to become significant until the economic collapse that I see as imminent actually occurs. Then the real significance of these starting points, and the visions in this book, also becomes clearer. The stronger they are, the easier it will be for the world to escape the worst effects of a collapse, to come to a soft landing in the kind of society we all dream about’.                 

That’s a view that has been common in ‘alternativists’ movements ever since the 1960s;  when the system collapses it’s best not to be underneath. But this is not a ‘survivalist’ tract, aimed at a few, leaving the rest out, or a proposal for minor changes. Instead, it calls for a radical transformation, caterpillar to butterfly like, of the global system. ‘Tinkering around the edges won't have much effect. The radical Utopian image of eGaia both clarifies the present problems and provides a pointer to practical steps in that direction: co-operative social groupings, information systems, improving human skills of communication and relationships. The image of eGaia is of the Earth coming to function with the coherence and wholeness of an organism with humanity analogous to its nervous system. The parts of an organism don’t fight each other or destroy the health of the whole. A nervous system is as much controlled by its body as it controls the body. It is part of the body and responds to its needs. The 'e' in eGaia is there because a nervous system is a communication system. If humans are the nerve cells of a global nervous system, then our electronic communication technologies will enable us to connect to each other in a way rich enough to form locally and globally self-organising and self-regulating social structures’.

The bulk of the book is made up of expositions of how bad thing have got (our current system is a global cancer) and how it might be in practice, after the transition, focussing on every day issues; new patterns of trade and e-exchange systems rather than a money economy, new ecological approaches to food, transport and energy- all familiar enough parts of the transition/alternativist prescription. There will be constraints, though ‘the amount of renewable energy available would be ample on current projections. But the total of humanity's requirements in the future depends upon how our societies are organised. All of humanity could live materially comfortable lives with much lower overall energy use than at present if it were organised collaboratively,’ as is proposed in this book.

Doesn’t all this fly in the face of human nature and inevitable conflicts over resources? No, he says, stressing the role of Gaian symbiosis, collaboration and the growth of order and balance.  A nicely positive view, reflecting the overall tone of this fascinating, optimistic book, which is packed with ideas and examples of how to do better, co-operatively and ecologically.

Free download (or buy the book) from http://earthconnected.net/egaia-2nd-edition/buy-or-download-egaia/

Almost as positive, but much more down to earth and much less radical, is the report from the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, ‘Better Growth, Better Climate’, which says that economic growth and action on climate change can now be achieved together: there are major opportunities in three key sectors of the global economy – cities, land use and energy. By improving efficiency, investing in infrastructure and stimulating innovation across these sectors and the wider economy, governments and businesses can deliver strong growth with lower emissions.  Former President of Mexico Felipe Calderón, Chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, said the report  ‘refutes the idea that we must choose between fighting climate change or growing the world’s economy. That is a false dilemma,’ and  ‘shows how technological  and structural change are driving new opportunities to improve growth, create jobs, boost company profits and spur economic development.”  

Lord Stern, one of the Commission team, has stressed that what’s changed is that, crucially renewables, are now getting cheap and we are also realising that the cost of continuing to use fossil fuels is not just their ever rising direct costs, as resources deplete, or the huge social and environmental impacts of climate change, growing long term, but also the huge and immediate health costs of emissions from coal -as witnessed by the air pollution crisis in China.  It’s said that this may be costing around 10% of their GNP. It’s similar elsewhere. So now making the transition to renewables and fuel use efficiency makes massive economic sense and will strengthen economies. http://newclimateeconomy.report/

The UK DECC has said similar things in its report ‘Securing our prosperity through a Global Climate Change Agreement’, looking forward to the next UNFCCC COP in Paris

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prosperity-and-growth-hand-in-hand-with-carbon-reduction

Not all ‘greens’ will agree with the claim that ‘green growth’ across the board is possible or desirable: innovation, increased efficiency and substitution of green fuels can certainly reduce impacts, but on a finite planet there have to be limits on all types consumption at some point. Though that may be true, if we are to have growth, especially for those who are currently at the subsistence level, then, for the moment, green growth may be the best bet.

A grim future?

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In my last two posts I looked at the way changes in technology interacted with employment and at how green energy technology might create new jobs. That's part of a wider process of economic change. I want to round off this discussion with some more high kevel thinking, before I get back to my more usual focus of   looking at what the technological options are. 

Technology is not autonomous- its development and deployment is driven by larger economic and political forces. As I described in the first post, it has enabled capitalism to avoid profit squeeze and productivity expansion crises. And some hope that with luck it may also help avoid terminal exploitation of the planet and its natural resources and ecological processing.  Maybe, for a while. But whether it can allow economic growth to continue unabated for ever is less clear.

The usual argument is that capitalism needs growth to survive- given  potentially terminal competition between rival chunks of capital. It can only continue if markets and demand continually expand. But this can’t continue for ever on a planet with finite resources and bio-carrying capacity, even with clever eco-technologies.

In a recent book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Thomas Piketty, a professor at the Paris School of Economics, doesn’t looks much at resources or the environment, but he does look at growth and capital. While he argues that the process of accumulation of capital is central and so is growth, he says they may not always coincide. He says that, globally, the rate of return on capital, which historically has been around 4.5%, rose during the industrial revolution to around 5% , but after around 1913 collapsed, falling to 1% , only recovering after about 1950. It is still rising, and will eventually, after 2050 or so, head back to nearly 4.5%. In parallel, economic growth (global economic output), which had historically been rising, accelerated even more in the 1950s and reached a peak of nearly 4%, but has recently begun to fall, and may never recover, falling to 1.5% after 2050. There was thus a golden (mid last century) era when both were rising with everyone doing well relatively, but now they are heading in opposite directions- capital up, growth down, a squeeze for the majority. He sees this as explaining the rise of the very wealthy- the so called ‘1%’, who own most of the wealth on the planet and will get more. He says its not just earning power (very high salaries) but the ownership and control of capital and crucially the ability to pass it on to offspring. 

www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/may/08/thomas-piketty-new-gilded-age/

Be that as it may, it’s not too clear from his analysis why growth has fallen off  (are the rich just skimming more off?) and, perhaps more crucially, how the capital accumulation process can continue without growth, with its consequent major environmental and resource implications. Some of this wealth is created by manipulating and exploiting intangible or at least non- material assets such as ideas, information and money, and by speculation. It’s almost a virtual world, a big game- with presumably little direct environmental/energy impact, at least from the ‘gaming’ activities themselves. A bit like IT.  But there still has to be a real economy, with real trade in real good and services, if only to support the lifestyles of very rich elite.  And to maintain (albeit very unequal) social stability, some affluence has to spread more widely. That does have material impacts. And they are growing.  

Could it be that, to avoid dealing with that, and the small trickle down share getting out of control, and given ever reducing planetary resources, the elite will seek to limit this trickle down process to the minimum? That certainly is the assumption in may dys-utopian sci-fi films of recent years. A protected elite (in the extreme, off planet) and a vast suppressed underclass.  If so, then we are back to Marx, relentless immiseration, and, as a result, world revolution! And/or, optimistically, a shift to an egalitarian, stable state global economy, with less emphasis on materialism, using low impact technologies to meet genuine needs. 

Some of the necessary energy technologies are already emerging and are being adopted. The system is starting to run on a new fuel mix. But is that enough?  Unless social structures and social expectations change, probably not.

Some optimists see the rise of a new technocracy of middle ranking technical experts coming to the rescue. Certainly the new world of ICT does have some independence from the old capital owning classes, but not much, and it is reliant on a mass of addicted cyber consumers and poorly paid IT kit producers. Not much change there. See Lanchester’s upgrade of Marx: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n07/john-lanchester/marx-at-193

We could be in for a rough ride. While the planet prepares to teach us the error of our ways.  A new NASA-linked report seems to come to similar conclusions: http://mic.com/articles/85541/nasa-study-concludes-when-civilization-will-end-and-it-s-not-looking-good-for-us

   

I would like to be hopeful, but that's hard given, for example, the spectacle of Australia being hit by an unimaginably dire series of major weather episode (droughts, fires, floods), but then going on to elect a government that all but abandoned  its climate policies. The situation elsewhere may be a bit better (even, now, in the USA), but overall, apart from some good but patchy efforts at local transitions and the continuing development of decent technologies, I’m not too hopeful for the future. A revolt by the global underclass is possible, mass defection from consumerism maybe less so. But either way that could lead to a global economic collapse- not something that many would benefit from in the short term, the poor would just get poorer. We need a more gradual transition. But is that likely, and even if it is, would slow be fast enough?  As far as I can see, the best those of us with technical skills can do is to ensure that the technology is ready. Showing that alternatives are possible does change the situation slightly…and may helps create a new basis for wider changes. 

 Is that possible?  I took some heart from Gary Alexander’s very positive, if utopian, new eGaia book: http://earthconnected.net/egaia-2nd-edition/buy-or-download-egaia/ . And from this World Futures Council report: http://worldfuturecouncil.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Climate_and_Energy/Cities/Policy_Handbook_Online_Version.pdf

Green jobs 2

 

It is claimed that a transition to green energy will create a lot of employment - maybe 20 million globally by 2020.  I looked in my last post at how the adoption of green energy  might be the logical outcome of historical trends. However the type of work can vary- and not all of it might be welcome. As one Trade unionist has put it, ‘a green boss is still a boss’.  There are all the usual issues of pay and conditions. For example, PV solar cell production has boomed in Germany, but much of this has occurred in the poor east of the country where wages levels are often low and trade union rights sometimes absent. More recently there has been a boom in PV cell manufacture and export in China, where wages are likely to be even lower and working conditions possibly worse, although improving (ILO, 2012). There has also been a boom in biofuel production for vehicles, with major plantations in developing countries like Malaysia, where working conditions may be very poor and environmental impacts significant, opening up a ‘food versus fuel’ and development policy debate.

Even in the industrialised countries, there are issues rated to safety and working conditions. Most renewables-related work is relatively risk free, and mostly compares well with that in other areas of energy supply (IRENA, 2012).  However, care has to be taken working at heights, and with the toxic materials sometimes used in making PV cells.  Some of the new work will be in factories, but much of it will involve on-site installation and maintenance, often in harsh environment, including offshore.  On the smaller scale there will be jobs fitting systems to houses and offices, with regular maintenance: the classic small company with a White Van. Some of this work may be outsourced to individual operators and much of it may be non-union.

Trade unions in the UK and elsewhere have been relatively quick to recognise the importance of this new pattern of employment. However, while they have welcomed the growth of green jobs, they also worry about pay and conditions.  The UK’s Trades Union Congress (TUC) has been campaigning for what are sometimes called  ‘Just Jobs’- green jobs which are sustainable and safe as well as properly paid, as part of a  ‘just transition’. The positive side of this reflects the workers’ plans for socially useful work that emerged in the UK in the 1970s (Wainwright and Elliott, 1982)

There is also a wider dimension to the transition concept. It is sometimes argued that, in order to deal with climate change and other environmental constraints, there will have to be a reduction in the level of economic growth. More immediately, the transition to renewables will mean the loss of jobs in conventional energy industries, where unions are often well established. These issues can lead to conflicts between environmentalists and workers, and sometimes quite bitter confrontations. While it may be true that longer-term there will be more jobs, in the short term there could be painful disruptions, especially for older people who cannot easily retrain or adapt.

The Unions have therefore sometimes fallen back on a more defensive line. For example, the TUC report 'A Green and Fair Future', says that union support for environmental policies is ‘conditional on a fair distribution of the costs and benefits of those policies across the economy, and on the creation of opportunities for active engagement by those affected in determining the future wellbeing of themselves and their families’.

However, in general, the trade union movement backs change via a Just Transition. In its policy document ‘Equity, justice and solidarity in the fight against climate change’ the International Trade Union Confederation says ‘Just transition is a tool the trade union movement shares with the international community, aimed at smoothing the shift towards a more sustainable society and providing hope for the capacity of a “green economy” to sustain decent jobs and livelihoods for all.’ (ITUC 2009)

The ITUC position emphasises the production process as well as products, as part of a transition to a ‘fairer, environmentally responsible society that respects human and labour rights’ and it is campaigning on that (ITUC 2010). It is a big project. Radicals hope that it will be pursued by grass roots initiatives, which can lay the basis for the new society. As Kolya Abramsky puts it ‘the most important single factor determining the outcome of this change will be the intensity, sophistication, and creativity of grass-roots social mobilization.’(Abramsky, 2010)  But he also recognises that there could be problems. For example, he says ‘The quest for renewable energy could result in a new and perhaps unprecedented land-grab by companies and investors, which would create the potential for even more extreme patterns of displacement and appropriation of land than other forms of energy have done’. He also points to disputes over pay, conditions and job security within the renewables industry.

While there are clearly battles ahead, there are some radical strands in union thinking, sometimes building on common interests. For example the American Wind Energy Association and the United Steelworkers have created a ‘Partnership for Progress’ to accelerate wind-power development and deployment in the U.S. The European union body ETUC has called for a binding EU target to cut greenhouse gas emissions 75% by 2050, and has called for a tripartite dialogue to address negative social effects of restructurings (ETUC, 2013). And in general, although some unions remain committed to nuclear power, most are very pro renewables, given their job creation potential and are keen to build links with environmental groups and campaigns.

For example, Guy Ryder, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation has backed a radical energy transition proposal by Greenpeace. He commented ‘While many additional ‘Just Transition’ policies will be needed to ensure workers will reap the benefits of a new low-carbon economy- skills, social protection, quality of jobs; the Energy Revolution report introduces interesting ideas which will scale up investments in renewable energies, something crucial if we want to fight future unemployment in the energy sector and avoid the poorest of the planet, whose jobs depend on natural resources, paying the costs of business-as-usual’.

Moreover, pushing ahead to positive targets, a report from the UK Campaign against Climate Change Trade Union group called for ‘One Million Climate Change jobs now’, outlining how cutting emissions by 80% by 2030 would create jobs in energy, building, farming and transport sector (CaCC, 2012, 2014). Overall then there are some hopeful signs around the world (Räthzel and Uzzell 2013).

The availability of what the International Labour Organisation calls ‘decent work’ (congenial, safe, properly remunerated and sustainable employment), could be seen as an ethical requirement, a basic right. It seems possible this can be achieved as part of the process of converting to green energy, but it is not automatic. It will need political struggle- to ensure it is done right. Surely we do not want to have sweated ‘zero hours’ labour for low pay in bad conditions. It is not a matter of jobs at all costs.

References

Abramsky, K (ed)  (2010) ‘Sparking a World-wide Energy Revolution’ AK Press, Oakland,  http://www.akpress.org

CaCC (2012, 2014)  ‘One Million Jobs- Now’, Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Group Campaign and Booklet, http://www.campaigncc.org/greenjobs

ETUC (2013) ‘ETUC Position on the Fight against Climate Change in Europe and the World’ European Trade Union Confederation, Brussels, http://www.etuc.org/a/11400

ILO (2010) ‘Study on Green Employment in China’, International Labor Organisation, http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/asia/ro-bangkok/ilo-beijing/documents/publication/wcms_155395.pdf

ITUC (2009) ‘What is Just Transition?’  International Trade Union Confederation, Brussels, http://www.ituc-csi.org/what-s-just-transition

ITUC (2010) Resolution on Combating Climate Change through Sustainable Development and Just Transition’, International Trade Union Confedertaion, Brussels, http://www.ituc-csi.org/resolution-on-combating-climate

Räthzel, N. and Uzzell, D (eds) (2013) ‘Trade Unions in the Green Economy,  Working for the Environment’,  Earthscan, London

Wainwright, H and Elliott, D (1982) ‘The Lucas Plan’, Allison and Busby, London update at . http://www.redpepper.org.uk/a-real-green-deal/

Green Jobs 1

 

It is claimed that the transition to green energy will lead to more and better jobs.  I’m going to look at this issue in two posts, this first one focusing on the historical dynamic. 

A common starting point in the analysis of the relationship between energy and employment, and indeed technology and employment generally, is the distinction between capital intensive and labour intensive projects. In the former the hardware dominates, in the extreme in a completely automated plant, in the latter, workers dominate, in the extreme performing traditional farming or other purely manual tasks (though of course land is also capital).

On this view, everything else is strung out between these extreme and, as a society, we are in the process of moving from manual to high tech, with capital constantly replacing labour.  The main driver for this process is said to be the increased productivity obtained when machines replace (or at least augment) people. The result is increased profitability, on the assumption that the cost of investing in major new expensive capital plant will be paid back by an increase in output, and the reduction in the need to pay large numbers of workers. Industrial history has been shaped by this process, which has often displaced unskilled labour in some sectors, but also replaced skilled labour in others, as craft work and small batch production has been replaced by mass production in factories using unskilled labour. But, in turn, mass production has then given way to automated process production, with a few highly skilled staff. 

In reality the process is more complex, dynamic, and uneven.  While labour is replaced in some sectors, it expands in others e.g. in services and retail, until some of them are automated. The debate over the impacts of automation in the 1970s/1980s assumed that this process would continue. Optimists looked to a future of leisure with reduce work hours and a cornucopia of automated production, pessimists to a future of mass unemployment and deskilling, driven by a triumphant capitalism, benefiting only an elite. In the event, capitalism has triumphed, but so far has managed to spread affluence to some degree by accelerating growth in both production and consumption, using advanced technology.  We have seen the creation of mass consumerism and global markets, often based on new advanced products, with new groups of workers in newly developing

countries taking over from the earlier unskilled workforce and the rise of technically skilled workforce alongside a vast new service and retail sector.

Whether this process can continue indefinitely has long been the subject of debate. While exploitation of natural resources and the planet has deepened (O’Connor 1991), it has been argued that there may be internal economic contradictions in the process. Karl Marx saw this in terms of the falling rate of profit, as rival chunks of capital tried to expand, forcing capitalist to reduce wages.  The vast increase in productivity through technology has mostly avoided that outcome for the moment: some of the benefits have spread.  However there is of course a vast underclass of sweated labour, who barely enjoy any benefits, and the potential still for a major confrontation, and certainly continued struggle (WFTU 2011, Lanchester 2012).

The Marxist and radical view has also been updated into an analysis of the limits of technological advance.  For example in his seminal 1976 book ‘The Poverty of Power’, Barry Commoner argued that the cost of new more advanced capital plant was rising faster than the increases in productivity it would yield, so there would be a shortage of capital for continued expansion (Commoner 1976).  He focussed on energy technology and illustrated his analysis by showing how nuclear power plants were far more capital intensive than those they replaced, but did not yield sufficient extra profits to sustain further investment.  On this view the capitalist system was running out of productivity gains. It has replaced most labour, so there were few savings available from further replacement or exploitation (with lower wages) and there was no way for its raw capital base in the energy sector to improve and expand.

However, in the event, a new energy technology emerged that, for the moment, has avoided or limited, this problem, namely gas fired combined cycle turbines. From the 1990s onward in the UK and then elsewhere, there was a ‘dash for gas’, with cheap simple gas turbines using the cheap natural gas that had been found in the North Sea and elsewhere. The dash for gas also to some extend reduced the emerging problem of carbon emissions. Clearly, although it was cheaper than nuclear and even coal  (in the UK), this was no long-term solution. Despite the discovery of shale gas reserves, the resource was limited and it was still a fossil fuel. So although emissions per unit of energy produced were around half that from coal, expanding the use of gas would still lead to climate problems and in any case could not be continued indefinitely. 

If the capital expansion process was to continue, then given environmental and resource limits, a new technology would be needed. The initial default focus was back to nuclear: surely this could be made cheaper with new technology? So far the reality has proved different. Nuclear has become increasingly expensive, in part due to the need to ensure its safety after a series of major accidents. It is one of the few technologies that have negative learning curves (with prices going up not down as the technology develops) and as fissile fuel reserves are depleted that will get worse. Enthusiast still point to new technologies that they claim will be better (e,g. fast breeders using  thorium) but they are long off, with many unknowns, and it is clear that the renewables are already doing much better, with costs falling dramatically. Given that they are also by definition renewable, with no resource limits, it does look likely that this set of options will dominate.

In my next post I will look at what the employment implications for this new set of technologies.  UNEP say we might see 20 million people working in this area globally by 2030. What sort of work will that be?

Refs

CES/CNS Pamphlet 1, Centre for Ecological Socialism, Santa Cruz..

UNEP (2008) ‘Green Jobs’, United Nations Environment Programme, http://www.unep.org/publications/search/pub_details_s.asp?ID=4002

Commoner, B (1976)‘The Poverty of Power’, Knoph, New York

Lanchester, J (2012) ‘Marx at 193’, London Review of Books, Vol. 34 No. 7 · 5 April pp 7-10, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n07/john-lanchester/marx-at-193

O'Connor, J. (1991) Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, Conference Paper

WFTU (2011) World Federation of Trade Unions, Conference declaration on Global Environmental Problems, Athens, http://www.wftucentral.org/wp-content/wftu_congress-documents_for-the-global-environmental-problems_2011_en_esp_fr.pdf

This post and the next draws on a chapter I have produced for a book on science, technology and environmental ethics: Engineering Ethics, International and Environmental Stability ed Marion Hersh, to be published by Springer.

Wires or pipes?

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There is a fascinating debate over whether long distance High Voltage Direct Current supergrids are the right way ahead for energy transmission. In theory they allow variable local supplies  and demands to be balanced across wide geographical areas and are much more efficient, in terms of energy losses over long distance transmission, than conventional AC links.

However there are problems.  It is much harder to shift power up and down from HVDC to and from local AC- expensive converter transformers are needed. That’s why HVDC is usually seen as best for very long distances, with transformers just at each end. Another approach, a bit of a compromise, is an HVDV ring, with tap offs along the way. Others argue that a HVAC overlay grid may be best for regional distribution.   It can get quite technical.  AC allows for easier local, regional or even national frequency balancing, whereas a fully optimised HVDV system would require central control of all the resources.  Some say that we ought to simply interlink national AC systems, so as to retain local autonomy, although some long distance HVDC could also be added as a feed in (and out) to and from strong points in the systems. At the extreme is the idea of local ‘island generation’, with each region operating more or less independently on AC, but linked to others for trade and balancing. That raises all sorts of grid stability and reliability issues as the experience in the fragmented USA shows.

Germany is planning a major series of HVDC ‘corridors’ 660 km long in an €10 bn project to shift electricity from the north, which is where most of the wind resource are located, to the south, which is where there are some large cities. http://carbonnation.info/2013/05/01/germany-jumpstarts-the-supergrid/ and http://carbonnation.info/2013/06/18/german-parliament-oks-bold-hvdc-grid-upgrade/

HVDC is of course already widely used for undersea links, and China has used it for bringing electricity from its huge but remote hydro projects to cities on the coast. A series of High Voltage Direct Current links have been built to East and South China, over distances of around 1,000 km, to transfer electricity from the Three Gorges hydro plant. The total capacity of the HVDC links is 7,200 MW, with line losses put at about 3%.

Another idea entirely is to down-play electricity transmission and make much more use of gas and gas transmission.  Energy losses are even lower and buried gas mains are much less invasive, once installed, than power grid towers and cables.  The gas grid already handles four time more energy than the electricity grid in the UK, and in effect acts as a buffer store, helping to deal with variable demand: demand for heat varies much more, both daily and over the year, than demand for electricity.  That approach can be expanded with large gas stores (gas is easier to store) and we could switch to green gas, methane from bioenergy sources (e.g. AD biomass using farm and food wastes) and from wind-to-gas electrolytic conversion, making use of the excess energy produced from wind at times of low demand. Some of the gas could of course be used to make electricity locally where needed.  Some of the gas can also be exported and imported. So we don't need electricity supergrids. Green gas could provide a cheaper and more flexible balancing and transmission option.  And if the combustion of green gas is combined with carbon capture and storage, then you get negative carbon emissions.  Sounds like a winner! Pipes not wires!

Some of these ideas are already being explored in Germany. Biogas is being added to the gas mains and 'wind to gas' projects are spreading, with some developing synfuel production using captured CO2 and electrolytically produced hydrogen: http://www.itm-power.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Platts-April13.pdf and http://www.iwes.fraunhofer.de/de/publikationen/uebersicht/2010/towards_100_renewablesandbeyondpowerthepossibilityofwindtogenera.html.

Heat production, transport and storage is another possible winner –storing energy as heat is even more efficiently than storing it as gas, and although heat transmission is less efficient it can be sent quite long distances with low losses- the longest example so far is 65km from a rural waste to energy power plant to the city of Prague, linked with a 200MW capacity pipe.

www.copenhagenenergysummit.org/applications/Prague,%20Czech%20Rep-District%20Energy%20Climate%20Award.pdf

So rather than distributing electricity, or for that matter fossil or green gas, to individual domestic consumers for heating, wherever possible, heat could be supplied via district heating (DH) networks, fed from high-efficiency community-scaled green energy fired Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plants. While heat can be sent long distances, in economic terms, building local DH distribution networks only makes sense in urban and perhaps suburban areas where there are good heat loads. The heat can be from a range of sources.  Biomass and solar-fired DH is now moving ahead across the EU, usually linked to heat stores, and in some cases inter-seasonal heat stores. Most of these will be sited to meet local loads, but in some case long distance transmission might be appropriate. For example, Oslo’s district heating network is fed via a 12.3 km pipe from a waste burning plant in the city outskirts. In Denmark there is a 17km link from a CHP plant to the city of Aarhus. Helsinki has a CHP/DH system, supplying over 93% of Helsinki’s heat, including a plant linked in via a 30km pipe in a tunnel.  So that is an extension of the ‘pipe’ rather than ‘wire’ approach, with piped heat as well as piped gas.

Probably though a mixed system would be best, capitalising on the strengths of each. However the best balance between heat, gas and electricity and which will, or should, dominate in future, is unclear. It will be influenced by the location of the sources and the demand. For example, access for pipes may be hard in some locations. Technological change could also tip the balance of advantage between these vectors. The wind to gas route may prove too expensive, whereas the availability of cheap storage of electricity might make electricity more attractive. The debate continues.

One way follow it is via the Claverton Energy Group e-conferences:

 http://www.claverton-energy.com/

*This post was delayed from its usual start of the month slot since I was away on holiday!

Politics and energy: election issues

Soon we’ll see election positions being taken up, with energy being one key issue: some first shots have already been fired- e.g. Labour’s pledge to freeze power prices. And (see below) its new ‘green gas’ commitment.

Setting the wider scene, the Conservative Party’s manifesto in the recent Euro election outlined what it saw as its achievements in relation to the EU, including: stopping EU attempts to ban further offshore oil and gas drilling, stopping EU attempts to over-regulate the UK’s emerging shale gas industry, and ensuring that the proposed 2030 renewable energy target is non-binding on individual EU countries. What will be in their 2015 national election manifesto? An on-land wind freeze?

www.conservatives.com/~/media/Files/Downloadable%20Files/MANIFESTO%202014/Large%20Print%20Euro%20Manifesto_English.ashx 

The Lib Dems oddly didn’t mention their support for nuclear in their Euro election bumph, Labour is also all for it, so is UKIP (and very hostile to renewables), leaving just the Green Party as the only pro-renewables/anti-nuclear option, the SNP in Scotland apart.

However, to be fair, investment in renewables has doubled under the present government, with renewables now supplying 15% of UK electricity, although whether they can claim to have aided or hindered that is another matter. In terms of overall expansion plans, a Parliamentary answer a minister indicted that by 2015 on shore wind was expected to deliver 5.6-6.6% of UK electricity, offshore wind 3.4%, solar 1.3 and nuclear 1.5-16.7% (Hansard 14/5/14 : Col 595W).

Will rival parties push for more in the election run up? And new support options? DECC had made proposals for an Offtaker of Last Resort (OLR) system, to support independent renewable generators by guaranteeing a route-to-market and therefore improving their ability to raise project finance. That seems to be designed to help small generators, but details are scarce. Could there be other new forms of support, or is it just the standard Contracts for a Difference system, shared with nuclear ? If so, then the new £205m p.a. CfD cap limit on renewables will slow things down.. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/over-200-million-boost-for-renewables

More immediately, there’s the Scottish Independence referendum. What does that means for energy and in particular, renewables?  Carbon Commentary.com  suggested that about 15 GW of 2020 renewables will be in Scotland or in Scottish waters and only about 18 GW will be in England and Wales. So Independence would mean that around 40% of total renewables will ‘disappear’, but only 10% of UK electricity consumption. The UK rump would have to import this green power to meet its targets. Also it claimed that Scottish renewables would only need a subsidy of on average £44/MWh as against £93 for England and Wales. (CarbonCommentary, quoted in issue 62 of NuClear news: http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclear-news/)

Whatever happens in relation to Scotland, there will be room for new interventions.  Labours energy spokesperson Caroline Flint says if Labour won the general election, they would commission the Committee on Climate Change, with National Grid, to report by the end of 2015 with advice and recommendations on reforms needed ‘to maximise the potential for the development of green gas’. She claimed that the cost of minor gas grid upgrades for green gas injection, so as to continue to provide heating, would be much less than for the electrification of the heating systems in the UK (the current government plan is to do that mostly via electric powered heat pumps) which would require an electricity transmission and distribution system four times its current size. It’s an interesting idea. Landfill gas and sewage gas production is effectively free and its use offers some of the cheapest electric power we have, but these are relatively limited resources, and probably best left for electricity production. AD biogas production is a potentially much larger resource, using farm and food wastes and possibly energy crops, like short rotation coppiced willow. Though it’s more expensive than using landfill/sewage gas. There may also be land use and eco-limits to the use of some energy crops: www.theguardian.com/big-energy-debate/biogas-green-energy-environmental-damage

However it’s surely vastly preferable environmentally to use biogas than (fossil) shale gas. And if, tragically, the wind programme stalls, or is stalled, and nuclear is delayed (which seems very likely) or abandoned (which would be sensible), then this, along with energy saving, might be part of the way ahead for heat supply, rather than massive reliance on electrification. And biomass/waste-fired CHP linked to district heating, ought to appeal to Labour, with its urban emphasis. 

I will be looking at some of these technical options in my next post.  But on the politics side, there was a time when the Labour left was anti nuclear and pro-renewables and the right pro nuclear and anti-renewables . However, these days energy choices don't always map onto politics in any immediately obvious way, at least in the UK. Elsewhere it can be different, though party positions do vary- who would have thought a right of centre German government would be pioneering a nuclear phase out and a green future? This sort of speculation may be of little value,  especially since policies and contexts keep changing (see Ben Sovacool and Scot Valentine’s  2012 Routledge book ‘The National Politics of Nuclear Power’), but one cross-EU study did find some clear left-right political correlations on sustainable energy and nuclear power: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148112002479. 

For what it’s worth, very roughly, there is, as far as I can see, a spectrum in terms of positions on sustainable energy and climate change, but not often linked to governing party politics, from very progressive and radical to reactionary and conservative. So at one end, for example, there’s Denmark, Germany, Austria and Scotland and at the other extreme Russia, along with ex-Soviet countries like Hungary and Poland, and tragically now Australia, and maybe Canada.   I’d put the UK in the centre right in this range, drifting ever more to the right. Despite differing party policies, Spain and France seem to have ended up in the middle too. Where you might put China and USA in this framework who knows! China to the centre left, the US to the centre right?  It’s much easier to locate organisations within this framework, with for example the World Future Foundation, along with Greenpeace, WWF and maybe FoE, at one end and the Global Warming Policy Foundation and the UK’s Renewable Energy Foundation, plus many US anti-renewables groups, at the other!

Hard to place Renewable UK: it’s clearly progressive, but seems happy to accept nuclear power- or at least not oppose it publicly. Though it’s clear where its loyalties lie: in its self-styled ‘election manifesto’ it says onshore wind should be the cheapest new source by 2020, while offshore wind should be at £100/MWh, and by then ‘wind should be meeting a quarter of the UK’s electricity need’. It wants the Government to ‘set a clear path for investors by setting a 2030 decarbonisation target, with an accompanying extension of the Levy Control Framework, and an indication of how different technologies will play their part. The strongest signal of all would be a 2030 renewables target.’ There was also a need for continued support for technological innovation to get costs down e.g. for offshore wind. Interestingly it notes that 61% of Conservative voters, 72% of Labour and 79% of Lib Dems back wind, as do a majority of UKIP voters.  If so, then maybe renewables are in with chance: www.renewableuk.com/en/publications/guides.cfm/general-election-manifesto