RENEWABLES – THE FUTURE FOR ENERGY
It is an extraordinary paradox that Britain, with its offshore location in the Atlantic, has more renewable energy capacity from wind-power and wave and tidal power than the whole of the rest of Europe put together, yet is using only 1% of it. Given the soaring price of oil and gas, the gradual decline of coal, and the huge downsides of nuclear over cost, enormous stockpiles of radioactive waste and the risk of terrorism, it is a scandal that only 4% of Britain’s electricity generation currently comes from renewable sources of energy. By comparison Germany, France, Italy and Spain are now at 15-25% and Scandinavia is at 25-35%.
EU Directives are already demanding 20% before 2020. So why aren’t renewables coming on stream much faster here? There are 3 main reasons. First, the British Wind Energy Association and other renewables bodies are no match for the industrial organisation and political lobbying power of their main rivals, the nuclear industry. They need to win the debate both with public opinion and the politicians that renewables can offer the coverage, reliability and scale of service claimed for large-scale fossil fuel plants.
Secondly, some technical problems have not been tackled as vigorously as they should be – notably planning barriers, aviation navigational difficulties, grid network constraints (both distribution and transmission), and intermittency.
Third, the prices of some renewables are still too high, though they are tumbling fast. The price of solar power has already fallen 10-fold since 1980. And the No.10 Performance and Innovation Unit has estimated that by 2020 (before which no new nuclear power station could be built) on-shore wind and even possibly off-shore wind could generate electricity at half the price of nuclear.
All this concerns electricity generation; but what of powering transport? Even the Ford Motor Company believes that hydrogen fuel cells will become the main power source for transport within 25 years. And research at the University of California has recently found that when the hidden costs of petroleum well-to-wheels are taken into account, including the externalities of air pollution, climate change and military expenditures to protect the oil supplies, then when these are factored into the price of a car, a hydrogen car is already 25% cheaper.
However, a new debate is now opening up which was intriguingly developed at the Renewables Resources and Biorefineries Conference at the University of York a month ago. The debate turns on whether other alternative renewables like biofuels, ethanol and biomass can substitute for oil on a sufficient scale as the world rapidly approached Peak Oil, perhaps within the next 5-10 years, when production of oil reaches its global peak and thereafter declines even though demand for oil continues to accelerate, leading to the collapse of oil supplies within 40-50 years.
Promising energy crops include fast-growing woody crops like willow, hybrid poplar and eucalyptus, and tall perennial grasses like switchgrass and miscanthus, plus the organic portion of municipal solid waste. But big problems remain, notably the lack of adequate land area for biomass for the scale of substitution required. Thus Norfolk holds as much as one-third of the total UK crop area needed to produce the 5.75% biofuels mix required by the EU for car engines, yet Norfolk, even if the whole of its land area were planted with crops for fuels, could not produce anywhere near enough biofuels to run even its own cars – let alone the rest of Britain’s – on 100% biofuels. Worse still, an even greater area of short rotation coppice would be required to make more than a tiny dent in fuel use for electricity generation.
Then there is the climate change problem. If biofuels produced from low-yielding crops are grown on previously wild grasslands or forests and are produced with heavy inputs of fossil energy, they could generate even more greenhouse gas emissions than petrol. However, waste from agriculture and the food chain – animal manure, rotting greens, slurry, etc. – could be another story. If used to generate biogas, it could produce a double climate change win, preventing the escape of methane and nitrous oxide whilst also substituting for fossil fuels.
There may be real prospects for expansion here when currently 50% of food produced goes to waste, rising to 85% if sewerage is included, which is an ideal feedstock for biomethane. Indeed it has been estimated that methane gas could provide three-quarters renewables share of transport fuels by 2030 through the EU, with natural gas vehicles spearheading the transition from liquid to gaseous fuels.
There is a third, hidden problem from increased biofuel use, and that is the knock-on impact on food and health. Simply meeting EU quotas increasing the proportion of biofuel used in road transport from 0.8% currently to 5.75% by 2010 will take up 50-80% of the production of rapeseed, an important ingredient in margarine, thus forcing up its price. For every 1% rise in the price of margarine, there is a 1% fall in its consumption. The consequent switch from healthy vegetable oils to butter and animal fat will have a dramatic effect on public health.
This analysis suggests two conclusions. Renewables, as opposed to oil, coal, gas and nuclear, are overwhelmingly the way forward not only for electricity generation and heating, but also for transport fuels. But a hugely better orchestrated and more determined campaign is necessary to make the public case for them. Secondly, bioenergy and biofuels offer equally enticing scenarios, and technology is continually advancing the frontiers. But complicated trade-offs still have to be faced up to, and the best overall balance is almost certainly not yet achieved.
