Tyndall Centre’s Radical Emission Reduction Conference

By Paul Homewood

 

http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/radical-emission-reduction-conference-10-11-december-2013-register-here

 

The publically funded Tyndall Centre, set up to “To research, assess and communicate from a distinct trans-disciplinary perspective, the options to mitigate, and the necessities to adapt to, climate change, and to integrate these into the global, UK and local contexts of sustainable development” has been holding its “Radical Emission Conference” this week.

Hosted by the Royal Society, the conference had this agenda:

 

Today, in 2013, we face an unavoidably radical future. We either continue with rising emissions and reap the radical repercussions of severe climate change, or we acknowledge that we have a choice and pursue radical emission reductions: No longer is there a non-radical option. Moreover, low-carbon supply technologies cannot deliver the necessary rate of emission reductions –they need to be complemented with rapid, deep and early reductions in energy consumption –the rationale for this conference.

While there is a wealth of research and experience in delivering incremental reductions in demand, there is little cogent analysis of non-marginal, step-change and systemic reductions –either from a research or from a practitioner perspective. This conference is intended to catalyse such a critical transition in the climate change agenda and provide an evidence-base for developing radical-mitigation strategies.

More specifically the conference will consider how to deliver reductions in energy consumption of at least 8% per year (~60% across a decade). It will foster an upbeat and can do mentality. Obstacles, barriers and hurdles need to be considered, as do practical attempts that have failed to deliver. But lessons need to be learned; translating failure into programmes of successful mitigation is paramount not just to the framing of this event, but more importantly in tackling the very real challenges of climate change.

 

This is interesting, because they admit that the current strategy of renewables and other low carbon technologies simply won’t supply the country’s energy demands. (I could have told them that!) If we are to drastically cut emissions, we will have to start using an awful lot less power.

Just imagine a world where you can only turn the heating on, drive the car, or cook at weekends?

The conference featured a number of presentations, but the first, “Setting the pace of change in the world through change in the home”, by Charlie Baker really gets down to the nitty gritty.

Below are the main points from his Abstract.

 

1) 80-90% reductions in energy demand from homes is feasible for pioneers now.From our work in the TSB’s Retrofit for the Future program and DECC’s Go Early program we have proved that through radical fabric-first demand reduction we can get homes down to total primary energy demands of <120kWh/m2A-1 emissions of <17kWh CO2/m2A-1 for about £39,000. 

 

Only £39000? There are some 26 million households in the UK, so that would give a total cost of over a trillion.

Assuming an interest rate of, say, 5%, the annual interest would be £1950. The potential energy savings would be less than £1000 pa.

 

2. Energy price rises will increase the attraction of radically reducing its use
As energy prices continue to rise we will soon reach parity on both PV (Solar) and Retrofit, PV prices already challenge the conventional assumption about orientation having to be due south and latitude. Energy prices will continue to rise over the coming decades, 7%/A for the last decade.

 

Higher energy prices are clearly part of the strategy to make us use less. It is no surprise that the Tyndall Centre is so opposed to shale gas.

 

3. Supply chain improvements and increased volume reduce prices
Demand reductions this large are still a fringe industry, so volumes of materials are not optimised. Details are still being worked out, methods of application improved. Research carried out in 2011 suggest that a 50% reduction in cost may be feasible over the next 10-15 years. This will soon make the process more attractive for the less extraordinary consumers.

 

Sounds a bit like wishful thinking. We know, for instance, that the manufacture of solar panels has been heavily subsidised in China, particularly, something which is not sustainable.

If demand increases rapidly, the laws of supply and demand, along with the likelihood of shortage of materials and production bottlenecks, is more likely to lead to higher prices, not lower.

 

 
4. Self-learning systems and monitoring can speed up evolution of best practice
Data needs to be collected from almost every installation and collated with the methods and details used, feedback from contractors, designer and householder. Data needs to be shared to maximise reach. This will enable measures evolve at speed, successful measures then redeployed and so precious time is not wasted on less useful or simply inappropriate technologies that don’t deliver the results. 

 

Inappropriate technologies? What, like wind farms and solar?

 

 

5. Small power needs can not reduced by 80% so require decentralised generation, currently PV .
So far we have found that almost all houses can accommodate PV, the average on our houses so far is 3.28kW. Allowing for flats, even if we assume an average of 3kW of PV this produces a generation capacity of 66tW of PV generation capacity producing about 75% of the non-heat electrical needs of a UK household. 

 

 

Baker is getting muddled up here, (which is slightly worrying!), confusing capacity and usage. The total UK generating capacity is around 80GW, and 1TW = 1000GW, so his talk of 66TW capacity is nonsensical.

It would appear he is referring to an annual consumption of 66TWh. Currently, annual domestic electricity usage is 115TWh, and, at a rough guess, half could be “non-heat”, which would come to 58TWh, so we seem to be in the right ball park.

Bear in mind, though, that an average household would spend as much on gas as electric, and that domestic heating needs to be decarbonised, i.e. converted from gas to electric, if emission targets are to be achieved. This would imply domestic electricity usage increasing to at least 200TWh a year. So, at best, PV would only offset a quarter of total energy usage.

In reality, it would likely be far less, since solar output is much reduced during winter months, when demand is greatest. In 2012 for instance, solar output in Q4 was just 12% of the annual figure.

 

 

6. PV becomes a substantial contributor to a future energy mix provided by renewables if there is also decentralised storage .
Technology exists to use the batteries of electric vehicles instead of static large single purpose storage systems as the means to buffer and smooth out supply from intermittent renewable supply and domestic demand. Web connected charging points would allow for appropriate billing and repayments to make this work for individual owners of both car and PV array.

 

The idea is that you can charge up your cars at night, when demand is low, then feed this power back to the grid during the day. In which case, when can you drive the darn things?

And what happens when there’s no wind at night?

 

 

7. Retrofit on this scale requires financial delivery to be radically overhauled
This project could cost nearly £500billion. Cost of finance needs to be radically reduced, availability radically increased. This can be done by shortening or closing finance loops, short enough so that savers can simply see returns of 3.5-4% on their savings instead of 1- 1.5%. Short or closed loop financing allows people to see the work their pension funds are doing in their communities, not in the tar sands of Alberta, further encouraging participation.
This would also demonstrate a model of economic activity predicated on low or even zero growth, a target if we are to reframe capitalism for a viable future.

 

This is where Baker really loses the plot. When I invest in my pension fund, I expect a decent return. I do not want to settle for a paltry pension when I retire, just so I can have the warm fuzzy feeling inside that it has subsidised the “community”.

This really does show how he has lost touch with reality, as often happens to those reliant on government subsidies.

The embrace of zero growth is also worth noting. We often hear comments like this, but we need to remember that, with population forecast to continue to increase, and with life expectancy ever growing, we need economic growth just to standstill.

As we have already seen above, the cost is more likely to be closer to a trillion. This money has to come from somewhere, which means other parts of the economy are starved of funding.

 

8. Trusted, transparent, accountable community organisations are need to act as intermediary aggregators  
We have helped set up Carbon Co-op as just such an organisation. It has so far delivered more pay-as-you-save loans than any of the country’s Green Deal providers, supporting households through the process of change and putting them in charge of it.

 

According to Baker’s own website at the URBED organisation, the Carbon Coop is funded  “through a zero interest loan to householders, funded by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), and money from the Energy Company Obligation (ECO)”. Unfortunately money does not grow on trees in the real world.

 

9. Retrofitting homes this way will turn ordinary consumers homes into enlightened ones
This will precipitate a demand for other change in how their key services are delivered, leading to a consumer-led demand for change. Businesses that only deliver lip-service instead of actual change will see their market share reduce. This will create an economic imperative to change more familiar to the current economic models while further change is more gradually assimilated. Participation in renewable generation will ensure that objections to its greater roll out will be better calibrated relative to other less crucial concerns. 

 

Rather sounds like a load of Marxist mumbo jumbo to me!

 

 

10.  We would be able to demonstrate global leadership from one of the world’s top 10 economies
While politically we are nowhere near as powerful we’d love to think we were, more of the world is influenced by our consumer demand and attendant culture. As we achieve a cultural shift here in the UK we have a better chance than many nations of this having influence more widely.

 

To which I would reply, what planet are you living on?

 

And this presentation is one of the more coherent ones! Wait till we get to the fruit loops tomorrow!