Is 85 the new 35?

When it comes to setting targets, is 85 years the new 35? I'm not talking about some strange fitness plan for keeping elders as sprightly as youth, but instead looking far (?) into the future at climate targets for the years 2050 and 2100.

Those of us who follow the climate debate are well aware of targets - often expressed as a percentage of 1990 emissions. Now it would be nice to believe that they choose 1990 as being the year that I started work in the sector, but it's really just a convenient baseline, roughly matching the break up of the Soviet empire and a couple of years before the seminal Earth Summit in Rio. So we have ended up with an abacus of number - 20% improvements in energy efficiency by 2020, 30% cuts in CO₂, the main gas causing climate change, by 2030 and 80% cuts by 2050. So just when you are wondering whether we will meet any of those targets, here's a new one: full decarbonisation by 2100. Suddenly the goalposts have moved from 35 years to 85. Is 85 the new 35 - and does it matter?

It's worth asking where these numbers have come from. Are they carefully though out by scientists, or are they a cynical attempt by climate change deniers to push the time horizon so far out that no-one has to take any action. Or are they a realistic long-term goal to overlay onto the other targets that we know (and perhaps love)? Well they are from an impeachable if not impeccable source: Chancellor Merkel of Germany and President Hollande of France.

"The benchmark is the two-degree ceiling on global warming. The impacts of climate change will only be controllable to any degree if we manage to keep global temperature rise down to no more than 2° Celsius as compared to the pre-industrial period"

Merkel explained. French President François Hollande, who will be hosting the Paris conference marking 20 years from Kyoto on climate change this autumn, stressed that the national emission reduction targets announced so far fall well short of what is needed to keep global warming under the two-degree ceiling and noted that so far only 40 of the 194 countries planned to attend have published targets.

Merkel and Hollande jointly called on the international community to completely renounce the use of oil, gas and coal over by 2100.

"All energy needs should be met using renewable sources. We must decarbonise our economies in the 21st century,"

added the German Chancellor.

So will it happen, or will the cynics be proved right? I am hopeful that it can, and believe that it is quite helpful to have a very long term goal - not least to give us a point against which to recalibrate if we slip, as I fear we inevitably will, on some of the intermediate ones. And is it achievable? With political will - which must include the USA, China, Russia and key developing countries as well as Britain and other EU countries - yes. 85 years is still a long way away, although young children alive today in developed countries will probably live to see it.

If we reflect back 85 years, it takes us to 1930 - and the energy systems then were even more depdendent on fossil fuels than today, with coal the principal source. The age of oil was only just beginning, with fewer than 10% of the number of cars on the roads globally than we have today, and natural gas was just a nuisance to be flared off beside oil. Nuclear power was a remote theoretical possibility, with solar electricity also in the realms of science fiction. True there was some hydro (and biomass), but diesel was seen as a new and innovative fuel - at least in Europe with the Americans wedded to gasoline for their burgeoning vehicle fleet. (That's a 1930 map of Belgium showing the latest in petrol station design!) So I don't think we should look at energy sources today and say that it's not possible to decarbonise fully in the next 85 years - and that's even without moderating demand through improving energy efficiency.

200 years of data shows climate changes accelerating

The Radcliffe Meteorological Station in Oxford has just celebrated 200 years of daily weather observations, possibly the longest run of daily records for any single location in the world. Now located in the garden of Green College beside the old observatory building, adjacent to the new Mathematical Institute, it has temperature and rainfall records continuous from January 1815, as well as irregular observations of rainfall, cloud and temperature from 1767 to 1814.

"Green Templeton College in Snow 2009". Note the weather station's Stevenson screen visble on the right of the photo.
Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikipedia.

These records show some worrying statistics, indicating that Britain's weather is becoming more extreme as it becomes warmer (a phenomenon due to in part to warmer air being able to carry more energy and moisture). 2014 was Oxford’s warmest year since records began in 1815, and part of a very warm trend since 1990. The average annual temperature for 2014 was 11.5°C (53°F), 1.8 degrees Celsius (over 3 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 200-year average of 9.7°C (49½°F), a significant difference in weather terms. This was accompanied by extremes of wet or dryness. September 2014 was the second driest on record and yet the winter rainfall total for December 2013 to February 2014 was the wettest winter quarter again since 1815. As a single month January 2014 was the wettest of all winter months with rainfall of 146.9mm (almost 6 inches) was nearly three times the month’s long-term average in Oxford of 52.9mm.

Although these figures may sound quite unexceptional,they are a clear indication that weather is changing, and much more rapidly over the past couple of decades than for most of the previous 180 years.

Does your car achieve its official miles per gallon?

My car gets 60.47mpg¹.  How do I know?  Because I have recorded every litre of fuel put into it since I bought it three summers and four winters ago, and trust that the odometer gives me a reasonably accurate mileage driven.

So am I pleased – it does sound like a decent fuel economy, after all?  Well, not wholly, as although it is almost twice the number of miles per gallon of its predecessor, it is still a lot lower than the 85.6mpg the manufacturer's website would have you believe that I should be getting.  And if you've been sold a promise of fuel economy, to get a result that's almost 30% worse is more than a little disappointing. Of course, that also means I am pumping out 30% more CO₂, the main gas contributing to climate change, than I expected.

So does that mean I am a poor driver?  Probably not; when I shared a car with another driver I consistently got better consumption than she did, largely through more gentle acceleration.  I am always conscious of my consumption and try to avoid sharp braking, and hardly ever use the air-conditioning (which can be a huge draw on engine power, thereby reducing miles per gallon).  What it really means – and this seems to be an effect that is particularly pronounced with smaller more economical cars, that the official figures are wrong.

And how can this be?  Well, the official test figures are undertaken using something called the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) test.  This places the test car on a rolling road, and a highly trained driver then drives as gently as he or she possibly can, to achieve the reported figures.  Moreover there are some tricks of the trade that be used to flatter the results.  Tyres may be over inflated to reduce rolling resistance; the car may be run in a higher gear than would be normal for the speed; special lubricants (and never oil that's been in the engine for a year) can be used, and weight is minimised by removing the spare wheel.  In extremis, the alternator may even be disconnected, the radio aerial removed or door handles and other protrusions taped over to reduce resistance.  All are apparently permitted – and of course there are no traffic lights, roundabouts, head winds or traffic jams to reflect reality.

A report from the International Council on Clean Transportation confirms this.  According to their website:

Comparison of official and "real-world" fuel consumption and CO₂ emission values for passenger cars in Europe and the United States, shows that the average discrepancy between them rose from less than 10% in 2001 to 25% in 2011.

The EU has got wise to this.  They realise that the tests, which are fundamentally unchanged since first introduced in 1970 no longer reflect reality and are too easily "gamed".  Instead they would like to introduce a new World Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP).  However most manufacturers are opposing this, as they fear that they will be unable to meet EU-mandated fuel economy standards for new vehicles and incur huge fines.

I have some sympathy for the manufacturers, but not for their attempt to delay the introduction of WLTP and more realistic estimates of miles per gallon and emissions.  There have been great improvements in energy efficiency of private cars over the past couple of decades, as engines have been designed to burn more leanly, aerodynamics have been improved and weight has been reduced by the introduction of more plastics and composite materials.  And if moving to a new calculation basis means that the EU's targets, set using the old method, are unachievable in the timescale, then maybe the targets should be adjusted to match any adjustment between the old NEDC and newer WLTP methods.  But consumers should demand more accurate and realistic estimates of typical fuel consumption, rather than being given increasingly unrealistic ones.

This is important because comparisons are not made between cars, but between cars and other forms of transport.  If my official consumption implies lower CO₂ emissions for driving between London and Manchester than taking the train (which it does), I may well end up making a misguided choice if I want to minimise carbon emissions.  (And of course the official train consumption is not the marginal emission from my joining an existing train, but the average emissions across all passengers, but that's another story).  It also distorts comparisons between figures for fossil fuelled cars (like mine) and electric vehicles, not to mention my trusty bicycle…

Moreover, as the gap between official and typical miles per gallon has now grown so large (some commentators estimate that it has doubled in the last 7 years²) it risks bring the whole concept of an energy label into disrepute. If you can't believe car labels, why should you believe those on fridges or homes?  (And yes, I know that there is also a well known performance gap on homes in particular, but we can at least explain most of the difference from lifestyle choices. It's different with cars as we don't choose to drive at 30mph in top gear with the windows taped up…)

So the car manufacturers should get real and give us real estimates of fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions.  And who knows, in a future blog, I may even be able to claim that I have bettered the official consumption by 10%!

¹ The UK average figure, based on retail fuel sales into the domestic market of 27.4mn tonnes of retail motor fuel (approx. 7.02 billion gallons) and DfT estimates of 242.3 billion miles driven in 2013 works out at an unimpressive 34.5mpg. However this is about 4% better than the equivalent figure for 2008, showing that there has been some real improvement, bearing in mind that almost two thirds of the cars on the road today were also on the road five years earlier; it also includes some non-passenger vehicles when they refuel through retail outlets.

² The ICCT report says that "the gap was especially pronounced after 2007–2008, when a number of European Union Member States switched to a CO₂-based vehicle taxation system and a mandatory EU CO₂ regulation for new cars was introduced."

Who dunnit? How to attribute CO2 emissions between nations

In my last blog, I referred to the relative simplicity of calculating an (approximate) carbon footprint.  Of course there's a lot of mystique around it (and an increasing number of relatively well-paid experts), but the fundamentals are not exactly rocket science.  Maybe some of the solutions should be kept equally simple and not made overly complex.  So if we can calculate our footprint here and now, perhaps we can also travel back in time and find out how much we have been responsible for historically?  This is not just a matter of academic interest, as developing nations contend that those that have been industrialised for longer periods have been greater contributors to the problem, and so should bear more of the burden in reducing future emissions and mitigating damage caused by past emissions.

There have been a number of attempts to do just this, and work out the share of cumulative greenhouse gas emissions attributable to each country.  It's far from being an exact science, as there are inevitably gaps in data and some pretty broad assumptions need to be made, but it's still - in my view - a worthwhile exercise.

The latest estimates can be found in Environmental Research Letters, an open access academic journal published by IOPscience.  As with personal or corporate footprinting, the key decisions are around boundaries and scope.  The boundaries are quite simple - nation states - but have a time factor as well: in this case going back to 1800 as being roughly the start of the industrial revolution, when coal began to display wood (and to a lesser extent wind or water power) as the main source of energy.  Pre-1800 use of coal was globally so low as to be lost in the rounding errors of carbon calculations.

This choice is however controversial, as early industrialised nations, such as the UK, were using fossil fuels in complete ignorance of any potential risks to the climate. It contrasts sharply with (say) the Sandbag Report on Sovereign Emissions (direct link to PDF report) which starts measurement at 1990, when the first IPCC report was published assessing the dangers of climate change.  Prior to that, most governments and citizens were unaware of the real risks from using fossil fuels (although the science had been understood for a while).

The Environmental Research Letters Report differs from most other estimates in a second important respect; as well as looking at emissions of the main greenhouse gases, it takes into account land use change and the effect of aerosols (not the ones used for deodorant, but a form of air pollution arising from sulphates emitted in burning fuels such as coal and that have a generally cooling effect on the climate.  These factors are quite significant and lead to some surprising countries having a net global cooling effect - including Chile and Kazakhstan.

The Report also converts cumulative tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (that snappy measuring units that geeks like myself love, but is hardly user friendly) into a contribution towards global temperature rises.  As you would expect, the top three contributors are the usual suspects: the USA, China and Russia, but Brazil slips in at number 4 and the European nations are headed by Germany, the UK and France at 6, 7 and 8.  On this metric, the USA is responsible for 0.151°C of global climate change, with China less than half that at 0.063°C.  Britain's 0.032°C  is actually double that of France, just one position below it in the league table.  And of the positive nations, Chile and Kazakhstan's reduction is less than 0.005°C:

Of course this is quite largely about population so the Environmental Research Letters Report goes one better, and relates to changes per billion inhabitants.  (It could do it per person, but that would give teeny numbers.)  This can be seen graphically below and has a surprising (to me) nation heading the table - the UK:

On this measure, red is bad (major contributor to global temperature change).  The UK has 0.54°C temperature rise per billion inhabitants, the USA 0.51°C, with Canada, Russia and Germany filling out the top five places.  China and India are near the bottom with around 0.04°C.  It should be added, that the report's authors only consider the top 20 emitters in this table, so although India is listed 20th on a per capita basis, it would be a lot lower if other countries were included.  It's also likely that the UK would lose its top spot in this "naughty league" to a smaller energy intensive user, such as Luxembourg or even Qatar or United Arab Emirates, which although they have only become large users of energy in relatively recent periods, are among the very largest users today.

So is this a fair measure?  I'm inclined to say "no", for several reasons.  Firstly, it's a little unfair to blame us for actions taken in complete scientific ignorance - I might not start the clock as late as Sandbag's 1990 baseline (as I personally was well aware of the likely problem in the late 1980s, and indeed so was Mrs Thatcher).  Maybe we should look at a weighted emissions, with 1800-1980 ones less culpable than more recent ones.  Secondly, the method looks only at direct origins of emissions, and ignores the fact that many of China's emissions (for example) may be attributed to Western demand for cheap goods, sometimes manufactured to less environmentally exacting standards.  Thirdly, there is always a problem of blaming children for the sins of their fathers; we should be judged on our current efforts to minimise emissions more than on what has gone before.  And at a national level, should recent immigrants be penalised for what long-standing residents have done?  (Even someone as apparently English as I am can point to a great-grandfather who immigrated from Ireland around a century ago, although at the time Ireland was part of the UK, too...)

But, even if it's not quite fair, it is still a useful exercise to help us think about long term responsibility.  And this doesn't just mean looking backwards at what our parents did, but also the responsibility that we have to future generations not to trash the world that they will be inheriting.

Calculating Carbon Footprints

Moving home often gives us a chance to take stock and think about all the changes since we first set foot in the old home. Moving websites can offer a similar opportunity for reflection, so as I have just moved the Simple Carbon Calculator (www.carbon-calculator.org.uk) I thought I would reflect on changes in that field.

By way of background, this Carbon Calculator (and there are others, I admit) has its origins as a challenge to myself and to support those in the Energy Efficiency Accreditation Scheme. Back in 2001, the UK's Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had not long published its first guidance to companies on calculating and reporting carbon dioxide (CO₂)emissions. Meanwhile, I had been tinkering with websites, and rather fancied seeing if I could convert their guidance into a simple calculator using a newfangled tool called JavaScript. So I took an open source bit of code and - necessarily - simplified Defra's factors a little to produce a basic calculator that you could enter energy use in normal units (kWh, litres, tonnes or other everyday values) and end up with a CO₂ value compliant with Defra's numbers.

Over the years, both Defra and I (quite independently, I must add) have enhanced the tools. But as Defra's has become ever more complex with over 4,000 conversion factors at the last count, I have tried to keep mine...simple. That's not to say that it's not useful; I believe that over 90% of households or companies could use the Simple Carbon Calculator to calculate their footprint within 5 minutes (assuming they had their energy consumption data to hand). And Defra's guidance notes and tables, along with 50 pages of assumptions are always available for the other 10%. (Incidentally the background paper, written by Ricardo-AEA is fascinating for use carbon nerds, but lacks the actual factors deduced from their discussions.)

This leads to a key point: calculating a footprint need not be terribly complicated; it's just a question of (a) having all the right data to hand and (b) knowing which are the right factors to use - and the aim of the Simple Carbon Calculator was to at least partly meet the second bit.

At the start, though, I said I would reflect on the changes to the actual calculation, rather than to website techniques which have rendered my old JavaScript "not modern enough" to stay on the previous host site.

First and foremost, the electricity factors have changed conceptually, twice, over the past12 years. When first created Defra thought it was best to use a marginal factor - ie. the emissions associated with generating an extra unit of electricity. In the UK, this was assumed to be electricity from a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) as they could be switched on and off most easily (try doing the same with a nuclear power plant...) However CCGT emissions (which were fixed for several years at 0.43kgCO₂/kWh) tend to be lower than average UK emissions (which included older gas stations and coal). So although it might be fine for a company or person at the margin, if you started adding up emissions from everyone calculated on this basis, you severely underestimated total emissions.

Recognising this problem, in the mid-2000s Defra moved to a five year rolling average. This captured longer term trends and wasn't unduly buffeted by abnormal power stations (such as nuclear power stations breaking down, which they seemed to have a distressing tendency to do). However over the past few years this has tended to lead to the opposite error, as coal power plants were mothballed and new zero energy generation - especially from offshore wind - has come on stream.

So, for 2013, we have all moved onto a prior year basis, on the grounds that the generation mix last year is probably the best indicator of what it will be this year. This has meant restating prior years (and miraculously losing emissions for the average user), but is probably the correct answer intellectually, unless someone can develop a 12 month forward weather forecast to estimate future wind energy production! However, we may find the downward trend reversing as US shale gas depressing the demand (and hence global price) for US coal, leading to more imports into Europe for power generation.

As you might expect, emissions for fuels (both gaseous and liquid) have tended to be less variable. However even there we find some trends emerging over the last 12 years. Natural gas, which once came almost wholly from the North Sea, is now increasingly coming in by ship from North Africa as LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) - as much as 20% in recent years. And although the Simple Carbon Calculator is designed for Scope 1/Scope 2 emissions (not full "Well to wheel"), Defra's factors do recognise the much larger carbon footprint of LNG.

Road fuels have also changed. Partly as a result of the EU biofuels directive, both diesel and petrol have a small biofuel component, and this has led to a slight drop in the carbon intensity of the fuel, as carbon from renewable sources is not included. That's not to say that biodiesel or bioethanol have anything like a zero carbon footprint; just that it's a bit lower than the equivalent fossil fuels.

Emissions from aviation are a great concern, as the fastest growing source globally. We have always known that the effects of planes flying at high altitudes was not just as simple as their CO₂ emissions, but that there were other effects, such as vapour in contrails that also exacerbated climate change. Well, finally this year Defra has accepted the arguments and included an uplift for "radiative forcing". Of course this means that for a typical middle class household flights are suddenly a much larger component of their carbon footprint...

As the calculator has grown in popularity I have added refinements and extra categories, while keeping to the concept of keeping everything on a single easy to use page. This year's enhancements included a much wider variety of default vehicles for those who know the approximate distances driven, but don't have records of fuel purchased. And, as an antidote to higher flight emissions, I have added Eurostar emissions - although these always seem unnaturally low as they are largely based on purchases of French nuclear electricity, and hurtling across Northern France at 300km/h may not be wholly environmentally benign!

So if this has whetted your appetite to find out your own footprint, I ought to tell you where the calculator has moved to. It's still at www.carbon-calculator.org.uk (and don't forget that hyphen), and may also be returning to its old host if I can negotiate with the new style gurus. Or it may be demolished and replaced with something even better, though perhaps not quite so simple to use.

Mrs Thatcher and Global Warming

I didn't vote for Mrs Thatcher. This is not just the slogan that launched a million tee-shirts but, in my case, absolutely true, even though I was old enough to vote for her Conservative Party. But this short blog entry, written the day after she died, is neither an attempt to hurl abuse at her nor a recognition that some – but not all – of the things that she did (and which I may have opposed at the time) were probably necessary to move the UK out of its stupor in the 1970s. Instead this will focus on one facet that has gone almost unremarked in the obituaries today: Mrs Thatcher was the first major Western leader to "get" Climate Change.

Trained as a research chemist at Oxford, Mrs Thatcher was proud to undertake a dispassionate analysis of the facts placed before her; this sometimes led her to intellectually appealing but socially divisive (and ultimately foolish) policies. But when presented with the relatively immature findings on the science behind climate change (still then known as global warming) she understood that this was an existential threat – more dangerous for the UK, even, than the European Union!

As far back as September 1988 she said in a speech to the Royal Society:

For generations, we have assumed that the efforts of mankind would leave the fundamental equilibrium of the world's systems and atmosphere stable. But it is possible that with all these enormous changes (population, agricultural, use of fossil fuels) concentrated into such a short period of time, we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of this planet itself.

This was later emphasised when she told the party conference:

The core of Tory philosophy and for the case for protecting the environment are the same. No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy—with a full repairing lease. This Government intends to meet the terms of that lease in full.

And by 1990 she was confident enough to say:

The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations. … The need for more research should not be an excuse for delaying much needed action now.

This led to an early lead by the UK Government in taking measures to combat climate change and a broadly bipartisan attitude to the subject. Sadly the early lead has gone, and the UK is not doing much better than most of its peers in the move towards a lower carbon economy, and certainly behind that other great nation led by a right of centre female chemist – Germany under Angela Merkel. And many of Mrs Thatcher's successors in the Conservative Party would do well to heed those early words spoken almost 25 years ago – especially the UK's current Prime Minister who should note that her words were supported by action as national and international levels.

No longer Beyond Petroleum?

BP has indicated that it is looking to sell its US wind farms, at a possible loss of over $2 billion.  With this move, BP will once again be focused almost exclusively on petroleum ending the ground-breaking diversification into alternative energy under the leadership of Lord (John) Browne.  The vision of forming a company that provided the energy its customers needed to power their lives, but from a mix of increasingly low carbon sources encapsulated in the "Beyond Petroleum" slogan has long disappeared.  Of course, the strapline hadn't really been used for several years, and was being downplayed even before Lord Browne left the company in 2007.

Just over a decade ago, around the time of the BP-Amoco merger, BP looked as if it might become the first of the oil majors to diversify away from fossil fuels, and address the need to create a lower carbon economy.  Throughout the 1990s, BP was one of the leaders in solar cells and Amoco – through its Solarex subsidiary – was a large player in the growing US market.  BP exemplified this by adding solar panels to the canopies of many of its Connect filling stations and prominently displaying the amount of carbon-free energy generated.  After the merger with Amoco, in 2000 the company also adopted a new "helios" logo to replace the shield that had been used for over 60 years: this could be seen as signifying solar energy, or crops such as sunflowers.

So what went wrong and why were the wind farms such a poor investment?  BP's investment in US wind has suffered from two factors outside its control and largely unpredictable. The first is that despite high oil prices, other energy prices have not risen as much as anticipated, most recently due to the discovery of how to extract vast quantities of cheap gas from US shale formations.  This has had a knock-on effect on electricity prices, making renewable energy even less competitive on purely financial grounds.  And though Lord Browne knew that climate change should have led to an effective carbon tax, this has never been introduced into the US, keeping conventional electricity more competitive.  Despite the low prices for renewably generated energy, the cost of new wind turbines has fallen faster than anyone foresaw due to over-capacity among Chinese manufacturers.  This has had a knock-on effect on asset valuations for existing wind farms; it is often cheaper to build a new one than it would be to take on an old one at its depreciated value.  (A similar Chinese effect has affected solar, contributing to BP's exit from that renewable after more than 40 years at the end of 2011.)

BP has a third factor, unique to the company – a need to raise capital to fund the clean up and fines after the Macondo disaster.  Inevitably this has made it focus on non-core assets that can be sold – and wind farms, often held in joint ventures – were an obvious candidate. 

Despite this, BP has not totally abandoned alternative energy.  For the time being it remains a major player in liquid biofuels, especially in the USA where it is still named by Biofuels Digest (alongside Shell, but no other petroleum companies) as one of the 10 leaders in the field.  Of course this is an area much closer to BP's traditional road fuels business, and one where its lower cost of capital than smaller start-ups can still give it a competitive advantage.

But I for one will be sad to see the end of the idea of BP as a truly integrated energy company, investing in new cleaner forms of energy, with the hope that it might in our lifetimes achieve what we all find so hard to do: it might really have moved Beyond Petroleum.

Where's that gas coming from?

Britain is an island of coal set in a sea of oil and gas

The sentiment above has driven much of the UK's energy policy over the past 40 years, since North Sea gas first started flowing at the end of the 1960s. But no more; Britain became a net importer of energy in 2011 and its conventional gas reserves are drying up alarmingly fast. Data from DECC, the Department of Energy & Climate Change shows that production in 2011 (the last available full year) was 21% lower than in 2010, and that for the first three quarters of 2012 shows a continuing decline. So where is (or should) the gas be coming from?

Oddly, it is largely from the near continent, with over 50% of gas imports from the Norwegian North Sea, and almost 15% from Belgium and the Netherlands (although some of this may ultimately have come from Russia). The balance of around a third is from liquified natural gas (LNG) and, perhaps surprisingly, this has been declining. Energy flows are always difficult to analyse, but it appears that higher demand for gas in Asia has raised prices in Qatar, which in 2010 was the largest single supplier of LNG into the UK, using ships that the one shown here.

ShipSpotting.com

© Knut Helge Schistad

Britain continues to get LNG from North Africa - notwithstanding recent difficulties in Algeria - as the recession in Southern Europe reduces demand there.

In one sense this is to be welcomed; LNG has significantly higher emissions than piped natural gas, largely due to the energy used in the compression of the gas (but also due to some needed for decompression, and the fuel oil used by ships bringing the LNG to the UK from Qatar). But it also shows a risk: when a Norwegian pipeline (Langeled) was recently out of commission due to a power cut, prices spiked and the UK was temporarily suffering a significant shortfall of supply. In the third quarter of 2012 this one pipeline provided 33.6TWh of gas, compared to total national consumption of 65.5TWh. As always, diversity of supply is important for security, especially as Norwegian production has also peaked.

So is shale gas the answer? Almost certainly not in the UK for other environmental considerations, although the development of US shale resources has lowered global gas supplies as they too are importing less LNG. Going back to coal is not an option either, for both CO2 and practical reasons (although it is sad that an underground fire has led to the loss of the UK's largest remaining coal mine). I am afraid that the real answer in the longer term is that we still need to cut demand, through greater energy efficiency, and to support this with other offshore technologies - wind, tide and wave. So finally we may one day be able to say:

Britain is an island of efficiency set in a sea of wind and waves

In praise of Paris's Vélib!

It's all too easy for a blog to sink into negativity, carping at all the things that are wrong, misleading or inexplicable. So, this for entry I'll focus on something good…well, not 100% perfect, but perhaps something from which we could learn.

Cycle hire schemes are all the range in capital cities. Berlin is installing one, London has its Boris bikes and even Washington DC has a scheme (above). But the granddaddy (or should that be grandpère?) of the all is Paris's Vélib, launched in 2007 and with 1,200 docking stations and some 16,000 cycles, the second highest number in the world (after Hangzhou, apparently). That's around 3 times as many bikes and docking stations as in London, and 15 times the number of bikes in Washington. And last weekend I was lucky enough to be in Paris on a dry day, with a number of destinations to visit, so able to test it for myself.

Firstly, it's user friendly. Arriving at the Vélib station nearest to my budget hotel (which was just outside the famed Boulevard Peripherique orbital motorway) it happily gave me instructions in English and accepted my non-French credit card to give me a 24-hour code, asking me to add my own 4 digit PIN. And the daily hire charge was exactly the same as single ticket on the Metro or for a bus. Once done, it was simply a question of choosing a nearby bike and working out the correct angle to pull it to remove it from the locking device. (OK, I'll admit it, I was 90° out the first time and had to re-key in my details to get a second chance.) Thereafter it was plain sailing (no, plain cycling).

Vélib bikes are rather like Boris bikes: heavy and unlikely to be attract cycle thieves, but quite practicable for a reasonably flat city like Paris. They have a 3-speed gear change which I found a bit too ready to change: I only had to wiggle my wrist to find myself unexpectedly in the wrong gear. And, like many hire bikes, for a regular cyclist the top gear was almost the only one necessary.

Why this paean of praise to Paris? Because the Vélib seems to work better than the London bikes (or those in some other cities that seem to discourage non-native users). The key feature is the density of docking sites – they are typically no more than 300m apart, and most have large numbers of stands. This means that there is nearly always space to return a bike near to your destination (a real problem in London) and in most cases there are bikes available.

Of course Saturday may not be a typical day for the system, and returning late at night to Porte d'Orleans Metro station I found the rack empty – but no problem, as the one round the corner still had seven available cycles. And earlier on I had taken the past available bike at the Parc des Expositions. Conversely, I did also find two full racks (both near the Bastille) but only at locations where I was tempted to swap over my bike to avoid the 50c penalty charge for exceeding 30 minutes' use.

It's not perfect: one bike I took out of the rack without a proper inspection proved to have only one pedal (and so had to be swapped over hurriedly.) I am not sure if on a weekday the distribution of bikes may have been more of an issue, although Paris's layout may help, with few skyscrapers inside the Boulevard Peripherique meaning workplaces are more evenly dispersed across the city than in London, and the high density of Metro lines permitting more Vélib stations to be located at termini.

Then, of course there are French drivers. Even when they can see a Vélib bike on the bike lane (and yes, I was wearing my hy-viz jacket) the concept of indicating if they are planning to turn right in front of the cyclist still seems a bit foreign to them. French drivers are also prone to double parking with their hazard warning lights on, and seem to enjoy pulling off without indicating precisely as a cyclist overtakes them. And there seemed to be a significant minority of drivers (largely, but not exclusively taxis and vans) who regard cycle lanes as convenient short-term parking. In fact some of the cycle lanes seem to have been planned by sadists (well the Marquis de Sade was French), such as one dropping cyclists off on the wrong side of the road (well, the English side) at the entrance to the Place de la Bastille, requiring them to enter in the middle of the roundabout over what were really quite uneven cobblestones.

So I suppose I could summarise by saying that the cycle scheme is great value and well organised (each time I rented a new bike it remembered to tell me what to do in English), but that French drivers need to be more aware of the cycles in their midst. I am a reasonably experienced and confident cyclist, but it needed a degree of faith to keep pedalling on in some situations. But if there's one lesson that we could learn it must be that a successful scheme needs a lot of bikes and a dense network of docking stations to be of use. For despite my reservations, I still hope to use the Vélib next time I'm in Paris.

Climate Change can be mentioned again!

We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise. That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure – our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That's what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.

Well it probably doesn't need me to tell you that the quote comes from President Obama's second inauguration address, delivered in front of 800,000 people yesterday. Strip away the rhetoric though and two things shine through: a recognition that the effects of climate change are visible and damaging, and a commitment to lead the transition on the path towards sustainable energy sources. This is to be welcomed, although it's not perfect.

Sustainable energy sources are but one half of the solution; arguably managing energy demand is even more important, and can often be achieved quicker and at lower cost. And hidden behind this is often a need for stronger economic signals - of which carbon taxes in one form or another are often most efficient. How refreshing it would have been if President Obama had spoken of being able to revamp America's tax code by not adding taxes to the (not so) broad shoulders of a rising middle class, but instead taxing profligate energy use through a broad carbon tax. But maybe that will come; at least Climate Change is back in the lexicon of the president and I don't have to hide behind the euphemism of "weird weather" when speaking to my US colleagues.

(Oh and as everyone else seems to have been counting words, that's 159 out of 2,137 in the entire address or about 7% devoted to climate change.)

And now...liquid ammonia???

Researchers at Texas Tech University believe they have found a new solution to storing surplus energy from renewable sources - liquid ammonia!

It is claimed that by using a new kind of transformer the researchers expect to produce hydrogen at almost half the cost of traditional electrolysis methods. The hydrogen is then pumped into a compression chamber causing it to heat up to around 400°C. It is then vented into a second chamber compartment where an iron oxide catalyst starts the conversion to ammonia, using nitrogen from the air. The ammonia and leftover hydrogen is then allowed to cool down and decompress in a third chamber. Some of the decompression energy drives a piston that helps in the compression part, reducing the overall electric consumption. The ammonia must then be cooled to -75°C and pumped into a tank for use.

It is claimed that many modern cars can use ammonia as a petrol additive without modification (up to 10%) and flex-fuel cars could be modified to use ammonia in conjunction with ethanol, allowing for a mixture of 85% ammonia. The TTU team are variously reported as saying the fuel could end up costing as little as between 75c and US$1 a (US) gallon as the raw materials are essentially free. It's not clear if this includes any amortisation of the plant needed to make and store the liquid ammonia.

The overall process is offered as a way of creating a liquid energy store from intermittent renewable energy sources, such as wind or PV.

I'm dubious about the TTU process. My knowledge of chemistry is a little ancient, but I never recall ammonia being touted as a possible fuel, especially if it has to be cooled to -75°C to liquefy: it does have a reasonable energy density (about half that of petrol) but is a nasty, caustic and poisonous substance. (Not that different from some other fuels, I guess, and easier to handle than liquid hydrogen!) And although there are many ways of creating a hydrocarbon (or similar) from air and water (usually using CO2 rather than N2 as the air component) but they almost all fall down on the overall system efficient. Sure, in the context of a way of storing surplus renewable energy from wind or solar to drive the electrolysis and compression/cooling cycles it doesn't have to be quite as efficient as if it were part of a fossil fuel storage cycle, but I'd still be surprised if the system efficiency came anywhere near some of the other storage mechanisms. On the plus side, water and air are pretty widespread raw materials, and liquid fuels for cars may be easier to market than electric vehicles. The idea of using bioethanol as the base in a flex fuel vehicle is also intriguing, and if it reduced the land take for biofuels by five-sixths, would surely be welcome.

Cheap energy is not always best

It's disappointing that David Cameron has jumped onto the bandwagon and committed the Government to forcing energy utility companies to move customers onto their lowest price tariff. During Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Mr Cameron made a surprise announcement promising to legislate "so that energy companies have to give the lowest tariff to their customers". Although this might sound like a no-brainer at first, by focusing just on price and not on the need to incentivise companies to invest in truly green (renewable) supplies, the Government is sending the wrong signal.

One side effect of a move to force consumers onto a single (lowest price) tariff is that the fledgling green tariffs, whether those offered by the Big 6 under Ofgem's Green Energy Supply Certification Scheme¹ or ones from independent suppliers will become less attractive to consumers. In particular those who have signed up to certified Green tariffs from the Big 6 will find they are moved back onto a brown tariff periodically, and will have to take positive action to reconfirm their greenness - and it's likely that simple inertia will stop many from doing so.

Moreover, I'm not totally convinced that profits in the sector are actually excessive, given the need to de-carbonise the UK's electricity supply (not to mention the Rest of the World...). Cheap electricity may be available today from gas - whether imported from Russia or obtained by environmentally dubious fracking techniques from shale - but this is not low-carbon, unless compared to coal. And if the US fracks all their shale, then global CO2 emissions are most unlikely to start falling in the near future. Of course, the consequences of this are hard to sure about, but as an inherently cautious observer, I would like to see proof that the US droughts this summer were not caused by the jet stream being further South than normal, and that in turn this was not caused by higher than normal melt water from a rapidly warming Arctic Ocean.

But to come back to the UK, politically motivated pressure on prices (from all parties, not just the Conservatives) will lead to short-termism and poor investment decisions about cleaner (and more secure) energy resources. And the Prime Minister's statement was opportunistic as neither the Energy Secretary nor Ofgem, who are about to issue the latest version of their Retail Market Review into how the consumer energy markets work, appear to have known anything about it. The last thing that the UK (and the environment) needs is an energy policy made up on the hoof in order to get a favourable sound-bite and the approval of the Daily Mail.

¹ Disclosure of interest I am professionally connected with this Scheme

Total won't drill in the Arctic...because a spill may damage its image!

In an interview with the Financial Times, the French energy company Total is reported as saying

Energy companies should not drill for crude in Arctic waters, marking the first time an oil major has publicly spoken out against offshore oil exploration in the region. Christophe de Margerie, Total’s chief executive, told the Financial Times the risk of an oil spill in such an environmentally sensitive area was simply too high. “Oil on Greenland would be a disaster,” he said in an interview. “A leak would do too much damage to the image of the company”.

Call me a cynic, but I am not impressed by this apparent volte-face. Mr de Margerie does not seem to be concerned about the environmental damage per se, but about what it might do to the image of Total. Don't worry about the polar bears or the near pristine environment, just think about poor old Total...

Of course it's worse than than that. A Macondo-style spill might kill some wildlife, or pollute a few ice floes, but successful drilling could be even worse for the environment. If there really are billions of barrels of oil locked away under the Arctic Ocean or the Barents Sea, releasing it to the market would add many more millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide. And in turn that could lead to catastrophic climate change that could affect wildlife across the globe, not just around Total's rig.

Am I being too harsh on Total? Probably not, although the other big oil companies are equally culpable. True Shell has suspended drilling for this year due to environmental concerns and it did seem slightly less concerned about its image, but not before it has spent a reported US$4.5 billion: I suspect that they won't abandon the Arctic after making that investment in it.

So is there an alternative? Well, conservation - energy efficiency and investment in better public transport - has to be the starting point for reducing demand, with alternative fuels still worthy of consideration. There have been some interesting developments in algae-based biofuels recently, and I may blog on those in the near future. Or we could look instead at trying to capture solar energy to generate electricity, which can drive land vehicles directly, or through creating hydrogen from electrolysis of water. And here Total may get a small plaudit from me, as they have at least one public hydrogen refuelling station in Berlin, in partnership with Norway's Statoil.

CO2 emissions from cycling

The Environmental Transport Association (ETA) Trust (always an interesting website) reports that the European Cyclists Federation (ECF) have compared the CO2 produced by cycling with other modes of transport.

According to the report cycling is responsible for CO2 emissions of 21g per km. The calculations included emissions associated with production, maintenance and fuel. The figures were based on a heavy 19kg European-style town bike built using 14.6kg of aluminium, 3.7kg of steel and 1.6kg of rubber and the cost of producing the extra calories consumed by a cyclist rather than a motorist. The report calculated that an average car produced 271g and a bus 101g.

It concludes that Europe could reduce its overall emissions by one quarter if its population cycled as regularly as the Danes. In Denmark the average person cycles almost 600 miles each year – far more than the EU average of almost 120 miles per person per year and a total of 46 miles in Britain. ETA comment that this is largely due to better facilities in Denmark, as the climate and generally flat urban areas are similar in both.

Figures like this are always fun, but a little misleading. Although it’s right to consider the embodied emissions in the bike itself, an even more favourable comparison would be to look purely at the marginal emissions for those who already own a bike (and that’s most of us) – mainly tyre wear for a bike (plus a teeny bit of oil, brake blocks and wear & tear on other components).

When I cycle to work (2.5 miles each way, not very flat) I usually reward myself with a bun or a few biscuits, but the calorific value consumed (and net carbon emissions) are lower than the marginal energy that I exert compared to the wet days when I drive. In other words I’m eating into my fat resources on cycling days, and adding to them on other days. So there’s not too many extra CO2 emissions from that. I have attempted to use a more direct carbon conversion from, say, the footprint on some packets of crisps but it’s very hard to know exactly how much energy I use cycling (and I do know I use less energy now that am I fitter than when I first started regularly cycling to the office 6 years ago).

Finally, there’s one thing to avoid – that tempting shower on arrival at the office. If heated by electricity, the emissions from an extra shower are likely to undo all the good work cycling. A 3 minute shower using an average 8.5kW (based on electric ones advertised in the UK) and Defra grid average emissions would use 0.425kWh, equivalent to about 223g of CO2 (see the NEF's Carbon Calculator for an easy converter). Longer showers - baths - only add to the net emissions.

Sayonara, nuclear power?

Japan has - temporarily at least - closed its final nuclear power station, for testing and maintenance, in the continuing aftermath of last year's disaster at Fukushima. Some pundits are suggestion that this may simply be a Japanese way of ending nuclear power in the country for good, with pro-nuclear commentators claiming that they have ducked taking the tough decision to keep nuclear operational, instead creating the risk of summer power cuts as air-conditioners are switched in in Japan's humid weather.

However it may be that the right decision is to admit that relying heavily on nuclear power in an area noted for its seismic activity wasn't such a good idea after all. If fracking is leading to a global fall in gas prices (albeit unevenly distributed), then maybe LNG is a safer prospect (in both senses of the word safe). And a nation that is collectively as keen on high-tech solutions as Japan will likely find more cost effective ways of storing energy from renewables, if they know that they have not got the base load of nuclear on which to fall back. Moreover, Japan is also a world beater in finding ways of cutting energy demand without damaging industrial competitiveness, and is socially cohesive enough that a call for citizens to show restraint in cooling their homes or offices in summer in order to conserve energy is likely to succeed. So it may be a smart decision to go for the short sharp shock and end nuclear power in the country now.

Ironically, this may then make nuclear a better option in the UK, as if LNG is being swallowed up by Asia, the cost of delivering to Milford Haven shoots up. And that makes our CCGT generation look less attractive. Of course, we can always wait for the Japanese to solve the energy storage issue...

Have Eon/RWE killed nuclear power in the UK?

The two large German-owned UK energy suppliers Eon and RWE Npower have announced that they are abandoning their plans to build two new nuclear power stations through their Horizon joint venture. If they are unable to find a buyer for Horizon, it is unlikely that new nuclear power stations will be built at Wylfa, on Anglesey, or Hinkley Point in Gloucestershire. So is this an early warning sign for the end of the Government's plans to revitalise the UK nuclear power sector?

This view is to some extent supported by Npower's chief executive, who is quoted as saying that "the payback is too long compared with conventional and renewable sources of power". However it may be too early to write off nuclear power completely, as both partners in Horizon have German parent companies, and are being forced to close nuclear power stations in their home market and to invest heavily in new conventional sources. Investors in the other six sites earmarked by the UK Government for new nuclear plants may be able to take a longer investment view, even though it is likely to be 2022 before any new power stations come on stream.

Nuclear power is still an important part of the UK energy mix, providing around a quarter of all electricity. On the same day that Horizon announced its withdrawal from building new nuclear power stations, the Government announced that emissions of carbon dioxide, the main gas contributing to global climate change, had fallen to their lowest levels for 40 years in 2011. While there are several factors, including a milder winter and reduction in manufacturing, the largest single factor was that output of nuclear power rose 11% in the year.

So what does all this mean for UK consumers? Firstly, it shows that that the cost of renewable electricity is already competitive with (or lower than) new nuclear power, so creating demand for more green energy will encourage companies to invest in it. But it also shows that the UK still has a long way to go if it wants to limit both carbon dioxide emissions and the use of nuclear power. Although UK renewables output rose by nearly 10% in the year (mainly due to large - often offshore - wind), it is still only a tint fraction of the overall total.

And finally, it should remind us that reducing demand, usually by encouraging greater energy efficiency, is still most important, especially if we are to rely on a greater proportion of renewable energy sources rather than building more giant nuclear power plants. The time lag in building any plants also means that we may have to (again) extend the life of existing plant if we are to avoid the danger of damaging power cuts towards the end of this decade.

A Summer of Climate Disasters

OK, I haven't posted for a long while, but thought I would just share this, from 350.org:

Sometimes 'climate change' can seem like an abstraction. That is, until you see it in action, as we have this summer in Pakistan, in the mountains of China and in the overheated peat bogs of central Russia.

This is all part of the reality we face in our current world of 392 ppm CO2. Our main work is to try and slow down the climate crisis before it gets worse--by getting to work on climate solutions that can get us back to 350.

But working to create a safe climate future doesn't mean we don't need to try and help the victims of the climate crisis along the way. When our comrades and colleagues issue a call for assistance, we do everything we can to respond.

The recent floods in Pakistan have displaced 20 million people, and nearly a fifth of the country is literally underwater. The scale of the suffering is difficult to fathom.

And to us, more comfortable Westerners, not only could it happen here, but aren't we in some (not so little?) way responsible for it, though? So we also have a responsibility to help alleviate the suffering, through DEC, Oxfam, or even 350.org itself, as well as working to change the causes of climate change.

Peak Oil and Demand - Again

I have been thinking again about my recent post on high oil prices and the possibility of our having reached “peak oil” (ie. maximum supply levels). In the last post, I noted that there was some evidence that Saudi Arabia and other swing producers were unwilling – or unable – to increase their production so as to take global supplies of oil above around 85 million barrels per day. (Bear in mind, that's still around 35mn tonnes of CO₂ pushed out into the atmosphere every day, too.) Looking at a graph of global production, I now see that we have not yet reached a plateau, although there is still no guarantee that production can exceed this level unless countries such as Russia, Nigeria or Iraq get their act together.


Oil production (and roughly consumption) has been rising steadily at an average of around 1 million barrels per day since the early 1980s, from a level of just under 60mn bbl/day to current levels. Over the past few years the net growth in demand has been a little higher – perhaps 1.5mn bbl/day on average over the past 5 years. Almost all of this extra demand has been in industrialising or developing countries, with China responsible for almost a third of the total.

Now conventional wisdom might say that these poorer countries are likely to be the first to cut back in response to higher prices. However, much of their demand is driven by our insatiable demand for cheap consumer goods in the West, and while China (and other industrialising countries) can continue to pare costs through greater efficiency (not necessarily of oil, but in the overall manufacturing process) then they can swallow the costs. And with a strong renminbi against a weak dollar, coupled with relatively high domestic inflation, even Chinese consumers – with their rapidly escalating personal income – can cope with higher oil prices.

Outside China, many of the same factors apply; and some of the largest increases in demand for oil (and electricity) are coming from the Gulf, where they are cushioned against high prices by high oil prices! Even so, some Gulf Cooperation Council countries are looking seriously at stopping using oil or gas to generate electricity, preferring to sell it on the global market at high prices; instead they are looking at moving to cheaper imported coal or even building nuclear power plants.

This suggests that if we do indeed have a capped oil supply it is more than likely to be Western countries that reduce consumption, not the fast developing economies (who use much less oil per capita in any case). The Western countries are instead likely to invest more in capital initiatives to reduce oil consumption – energy efficiency and investment in alternative supplies. That’s not to say that industrialising countries are uninterested in these technologies – they too can see the need for energy efficiency as part of an efficient manufacturing process (and to a lesser extent in the domestic sectors, although transport efficiency often leaves much to be desired in the shift towards private cars), and are interested in renewables, especially if it comes with support through Kyoto credits.

So will high oil prices give a fillip to energy efficiency in the West? Many commentators seem to think so, especially when backed with strong policies against climate change, including emissions trading systems that include a cap and trade element. I personally am not so sure; high energy prices will certainly improve payback periods or NPV calculations, which may lead to more rational investment decisions in efficiency in the next few years. But most consumers – in the UK at least – seem to be more concerned about grumbling a little, possibly kicking out the politicians in power (whose fault it probably isn’t, except insofar as they should have been encouraging greater energy efficiency over many years), and driving a little less far until such time as they have got used to the new higher prices. This may pressurise Governments into reducing fuel taxes (French and British truck drivers can really frighten a Government) and let demand slip back up. Unless of course the creep back upwards of demand cannot be met by extra supplies, as a result of really having reached peak oil...

Peak Prices, Peak Oil – and Peak CO2 emissions?

I have resisted the temptation to comment over recent energy prices, especially that of oil. There’s a real danger of gloating over the high prices that may make renewable energy look a whole lot more attractive (in economic terms at least), even though it may simultaneously be driving as many as 2 million UK households back into fuel poverty. When oil prices first $100/barrel, my reaction was that it would be short-lived, especially as it seems that the first trades were done by a small player keener to be the record breaker than to set a sustainable price.

But now we have had oil prices of over $100 for several weeks, and Goldman Sachs are predicting $200 by the end of the year. Again my instinct is to say that if they are talking oil prices up, there is only one way that it can go (and that’s down). And yet the men in braces are willing to commit to $140 oil on futures (and as I write West Texas is around $135/barrel)¹. But we have got a real surge in oil prices: almost back to 1973 levels when inflation adjusted, and certainly well above the trend of the last decade. So what might this do for sustainable energy?

Firstly, it must provide added impetus to energy efficiency. The cheapest barrel of oil is always the one not used, and even though efficiency may have significant upfront costs, there is something very compelling about not having to buy oil when you are saving over $100 a barrel. (And we must remember that it’s not just oil: global gas prices tend to follow oil, as does tradable electricity in open markets such as the UK. Hence my concerns about fuel poverty.)

Secondly, it may also add to pure energy conservation – the avoidance of waste. US gasoline consumption fell by 0.4% in February 2008², the first recorded fall for several years, as hard-pressed consumers avoided unnecessary trips to the local supermarket, planning their shopping trips more carefully. Now a single month’s data may be unreliable, but the strong price signal being given when gasoline is $3.50-$4.00 a (US) gallon can’t be totally ignored, especially by those feeling the double whammy of an incipient recession. Even in New Jersey (where – somewhat perversely – US gas prices are lowest, despite a state-wide ban on self-service), the $2.99 gallon is fast becoming a fading memory. Of course, Western European consumption has been falling for years, partly due to a switch to more efficient diesel cars (not the Energy Don’s favourite, it must be said, as he doesn’t like particulates and the carbon emissions are hardly lower), but also – in countries such as the UK – due to lower average mileages. (This latter effect is reported by DfT, but not wholly understood, but may be linked to “anti-car” policies such as parking restrictions and the London congestion charge, or to broader economic issues such have been seen in the USA. Alternatively, it may be related to higher fuel prices, as the AA say³.) What's more, this does not just extend to road travel; American Airlines are reported to be cutting a significant proportion of their flights due to lower passenger numbers and higher fuel prices.

Thirdly, it will support the development of low-carbon renewables, most of which have high initial costs built low or zero running (fuel) costs. We are seeing this at a macro level in the planned floatation by EDP (Electricity of Portugal) of part of its renewable energy subsidiary (EDP Renováveis) – taking advantage of both high electricity prices and the need to raise additional capital to raise further investment. EDP is a specialist in wind power and at the current level of €65/MWh many turbines are profitable without any support mechanisms. But other renewables are also looking more attractive: my friend Steve claims that he can sell me PV with a payback of 7 years, and even allowing for his usual mathematical tricks, I suspect that his imported Chinese units may have a true payback of 15 years.

So how does this relate to peak oil? It seems that global production is stuck in a rut of around 85 million barrels a day (a back of the envelope calculation still suggests that this is equivalent to the realise of a further 35 million tonnes of CO₂ a day) and that non-OPEC countries cannot raise production and OPEC countries won’t (or maybe cannot either, although they are understandably a bit coy on this point). This may act a cap on production at any price, and hence as a peak CO₂ emission. (OK, I have forgotten coal, and there’s an awful lot of heavy oil in Canadian oil sands.) But if this is a peak figure it may help climate modellers establish the worst-case CO₂ concentration on a business as usual scenario. That’s the good news; the bas it that with global concentrations still rising by 1.7 to 2 ppm per annum, there is s dangerously high level of new emissions, with the risk of really catastrophic global warming by mid-century.

In the meantime, we should be slightly thankful for the high prices, as they should act as a spur to more sustainable energy systems. And that applies not just in Europe and America but in the rapidly developing countries; if China’s central planners foresee high oil prices, they may wish to encourage Chinese industry to be more energy efficient, and Chinese cities to allow for better public transport as well as more cars and highways.

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¹ BBC website (22/5/08) says "US light, sweet crude for July delivery reached $135.04, taking its gain for the year so far above 40%." See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7414093.stm

² Financial Times, 20 May 2008

² Edmund King of the AA, speaking on Radio 4's Today, 22 May 2008