The 2050 Pathways Analysis
By Paul Homewood
In 2010, the UK Government published the “2050 Pathways Analysis”, to look at at the various ways forward to achieve the decarbonisation targets laid out under the Climate Change Act.
As Chris Huhne stated in the Foreword.
Six alternative Pathways were considered.
Let’s concentrate on the first two.
Pathway Alpha
The key points built into this pathway are:-
1) Electricity demand doubles by 2050, as a result of decarbonising domestic heat, transport and industry.
2) All electricity will have to come from “low carbon” sources by the 2040’s. (In other words there will be no standby fossil fuel capacity, unless with CCS).
3) New nuclear capacity will have to be built at the rate of 1.2 GW pa, effectively one Hinkley Point every 32 months.
4) CCS (Carbon Storage) capacity will be added at 1.5 GW pa after 2030.
Over the 40-year period, up to 2050, the new nuclear would therefore add up to 48GW, compared to the current capacity of 10GW. (In my earlier post, I guesstimated 55GW).
There is one other paragraph worth highlighting.
So, despite stressing the “growing demand for food”, the plan is to take 10% of UK land for biofuels. Quite astonishing! [This seems to be the default option for all six pathways].
They also add this graph for Pathway Alpha.
Pathway Beta
This is the option where there is no CCS, other than the trial plants currently planned. Given that CCS on a commercial scale is unproven, this is maybe the most realistic option at this stage.
To compensate for the lack of CCS, the pathway calls for:
1) A “significant” increase in offshore wind.
2) Significantly increased bioenergy imports.
3) A very significant increase in energy storage capacity, demand shifting and interconnection.
The increase in offshore wind would be meaningless without a similar increase in standby capacity, which cannot be fossil fuel, as this has been ruled out under the plan. So, unless we find some way to build storage capacity, we are back to adding yet more nuclear.
One other problem that arises in Beta particularly, but also in Alpha, is what happens to the surplus power when demand is below peak, which is most of the time. It is not economic to operate nuclear plant on a limited, intermittent basis, and new reactors will certainly not be built unless guaranteed are given to take electricity from them all the time, as the contract for Hinkley Point C specifies.
This leaves wind farms, but it is hard to see them prepared to run effectively on a standby basis either.
It is worth taking a quick look at two of the other Pathways, which seem to be based in cloud cuckoo land.
Pathway Gamma
This is where no new nuclear is built. Electricity production would look like this, with virtually all renewable and CCS. Even then, as the plan says, even more than in Pathway Beta, the challenges of balancing the electricity grid are very substantial: we would need an extremely substantial increase in storage, demand shifting and interconnection.
Clearly, we cannot rely on CCS coming to the rescue, so, given 10-year lead times, we would need to commit to building the nuclear capacity needed now, making this option unrealistic.
Pathway Delta
No extra renewable generation. This involves expansion of nuclear from 57 TWh in 2007 to 633 TWh in 2050. The latter represents about 90GW of capacity, or 28 Hinkley Points.
There is also a sizeable dollop of CCS included in this pathway.
There would also need to be even greater imports of biofuels.
The comment, though, that without renewables in the system, it is easier to balance the electricity grid and no additional back-up capacity beyond what exists today is required.
Offshore Wind
It is worth taking a closer look at the options for offshore wind. The analysis offers this graph of four potential trajectories for offshore wind. [Note the reference to 20 years life!]
Pathway Alpha assumes Level 2, and Beta is Level 3. (No pathways use Level 4).
Level 2 is based on 60 GW of capacity by 2050, supplying 184 TWh pa. (Current capacity is 4 GW).
Level 3 needs a capacity increase to 100 GW / 306 TWh.
Based on the Strike Price for 2018/19 of £140/MWh (at 2012 prices), and current wholesale electricity prices of around £50/MWh, the annual subsidy paid out for Level 3 would be £29.1 billion.
Given the difficulty of finding suitable sites for future developments, and the likelihood of them having to be built in deeper water, it is hard to see costs coming down during the 2020’s and beyond.
Conclusions
The above pathways are not mutually exclusive, in other words can be mixed and matched. Nevertheless, it is plain that whichever options are followed, there will be an enormous cost to pay, and that this fact is being hidden from the public.
The basis of any national energy policy should be to provide cheap, secure and reliable energy, not to attempt to manage the climate.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Some folk, unfortunately (for us) seem to think that electricity can be generated at the drop of a hat. That used to be so a decade ago, but no longer, because we simply have nothing to fall back on, except maybe a few stand-by diesel generators – which makes a mockery of all the pollution drivel.
I have attempted to read (and digest) all these so-called ‘pathways’ and cannot get beyond alpha, for the unmitigated twaddle that bogs the brain.
In response to the first ‘pathway’, there is zero concerted effort to reduce energy demand, apart from a few homes being insulated, and a couple of major consumers (eg metal smelters) going elsewhere for their production – hence the massive drop in consumption over the last decade.
The level of ‘effort’ from nuclear and fossil fuelled power stations is nil (or even negative), and the addition of renewables to the grid will only add more problems, eg, fluctuating voltage.
I really hope that the stand-by diesel that could power the House of Commons in the event of a black-out fails to start.
Folks used to say such plans were “all smoke and mirrors” but now with no smoke it is only mirrors. Also, folks say “hand waving” – not sure of the origin of that but here it is:
“ storage, demand shifting and interconnection.
Watch out for “demand shifting” – you will be cooking your holiday dinners 3 days before in the middle of the night.
“Storage” doesn’t even deserve a comment.
And here’s me thinking the works of the Brothers Grimm were fairy stories!
You have put a lot of effort into summarising this report; but it is over 4 years old and has been replaced by more recent work – twice. Today’s policies date from March 2013 and modelling which was entirely re-done in https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-future-of-heating-meeting-the-challenge .
The most pertinent bits are slides 17 and 20 of the Baringa modelling report https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/197562/baringa_heat_paper_analytical_support.pdf which describe how gas supply and gas domestic use are likely to change as we meet the 2050 climate change target for the UK.
You will see that gas will be retained for peak use, as it would be very expensive to provide electricity grid supply for heating buildings during the peak hours of the coldest days. The GHG emissions, so long as gas is only used infrequently, are quite manageable within the targets.
Fancy doing an update?
The Pathways Analysis essentially addresses options re electricity.
The more we continue to use gas , the more decarbonisation will be needed on electricity. They are all just different scenarios at the end of the day, but I don’t see that anything on the domestic heating side has any real effect on the options presented for electricity.
Note particularly that “Cooking fails to decarbonise in the model as although it could be electrified, the peaks in demand for cooking coincide with the wider system peak”