Who do you think you are kidding, Mrs Merkel?

From the BBC:

Mr Zelensky [Ukraine's president] opposes the pipeline, which he says threatens Ukraine's security. It will run under the Baltic Sea and double Russian gas exports to Germany...

Mrs Merkel, who is standing down as Germany's chancellor this autumn after 16 years in office, said Berlin agreed with Washington that Nord Stream 2 should not be used against Ukraine. She said sanctions could be used against Moscow under an agreement between Germany and the US, if gas was "used as a weapon".

Mr Zelensky said he was concerned about what would happen in three years when the contract to deliver Russian gas through Ukrainian pipelines runs out. The loss of billions of dollars in transit fees would hit Ukraine's economy hard. Mrs Merkel, who held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, promised to provide more than a billion dollars to help expand Ukraine's renewable energy sector.

Russia already supplies about 40% of the EU's gas - just ahead of Norway, which is not in the EU but takes part in its single market. The new pipeline will increase the amount of gas going under the Baltic to 55 billion cubic metres per year.

Mrs Merkel has tried to assure Central and Eastern European states that the pipeline would not make Germany reliant on Russia for energy.

Where do you start? A few facts which must be patently obvious to everybody else:

1. Russia IS using its oil and gas as economic 'weapons', always has done, always will. Same as the Saudis.

2. Russia has every incentive to build its own pipeline under the Baltic. They won't have to pay Ukraine 'billons of dollars' and Ukraine won't be able to (threaten to} just turn off the taps.

3. Putin is quite happy for Ukraine to go bankrupt, that's a bonus as far as he's concerned.

4. The money which Germany is offering to pay Ukraine to help it 'expand its renewable energy sector' will have zero effect on anything.

5. Germany IS completely reliant on Russian gas for energy. They shut down their coal fired plants (having been bamboozled by the wrong explanation for the Greenhouse Effect) and started phasing out their nuclear plants after the Fukushima disaster (even though Germany isn't an earthquake zone).

6. IIRC, Germany has been reliant on Russian gas for decades. The Russians even gave former the previous Chancellor a (no doubt very well-paid) psuedo-job with Nord Stream, the organisation running the new pipeline.

7. Germany is not going to impose proper harsh sanctions on Russia, as Putin could simply cut off the gas supplies. He can hold out longer than Germany can. The impact of sanctions is slow, drip-drip. The impact of having your electricity sector shut down is immediate.

Gassing off

This is just one of many articles about the government's "ambitious" target to phase out new gas boilers by the mid 2030s. All the articles I've read take the saving in "greenhouse gases" to be a good and vitally necessary thing, naturally, stating that they do (not may) cause global warming.

However, this like every other article I could find on the internet completely ignores the fact that the amount of gas used in domestic heating is 26 million tons of oil equivalent per year, which just happens to also be the total consumption of electrical energy in the UK. So, to phase out gas heating, the electricity generating capacity of the UK will have to double, without using fossil fuels, as replacing gas burned in boilers with gas burned in power stations would be a pointless and extremely expensive exercise.

Not only that, but the whole distribution network right down to the feeds to the meters will have to be uprated to carry the additional load. Needless to say, there is no announcement from the government about starting either of these upgrades.

I would like to think that the government's targets are just pious hopes expressed with an eye to a general election in 2024, but I'm not going to hold my breath. We live in an era of policy-based evidence, after all.

synthetic fuels vs electric battery cars

If carbon neutral synthetic fuels can be produced cheaply enough, are the considerable costs of turning our transport system over to battery powered one worth it? And as batteries are powered by the grid,  this isn't going to be carbon neural  for the foreseeable future.

There are many methods for producing synthetic fuels, I think those using sea water look most interesting, so we'll use those as an example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-neutral_fuel

"The U.S. Navy estimates that 100 megawatts of electricity can produce 41,000 gallons of jet fuel per day and shipboard production from nuclear power would cost about $6 per gallon."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Willauer

"In 2012, Willauer estimated that jet fuel could be synthesized from seawater in quantities up to 100,000 US gal (380,000 L) per day, at a cost of three to six U.S. dollars per gallon."

So, that basically means that the wholesale electricity cost of 41,000 US gallons (155201L) is 2400mw/h x £40(today's wholesale per mw/h) = 61p per Litre.

Internal combustion engine(ICE) cars are now edging towards achieving 100 mpg. There are new engine technologies hoping to improve this, such as  http://achatespower.com/our-formula/opposed-piston/

Hybridisation using batteries, flywheels or compressed gas can improve efficiency still further by regeneration energy lost under braking.

Point is, if we can get the cost of a 100 mile journey using ICEs to £2.77 (61x4.55) that is also carbon neutral, is it worth pursuing an expensive transition to battery only powered cars? Where a 100 mile journey, which is not CO2 neutral, costs around 30kw/h at 12p per kw(retail), adding up to £3.60

Of course I am not comparing like for like ie wholesale vs retail. But then a large manufacturer of synthetic fuels would probably have their own plant or negotiate low prices. Maybe it would be worth building a dedicated nuclear power plant for the job?

The UK currently uses 45 billion litres of petrol/diesel every year. If continuing efficiency can half this we'd need  around 45gw of extra electric generation to make the equivalent in synfuel. 

That's roughly the equivalent of 12 Hinkley Point C, to end our dependency on petrol and diesel imports, and reducing net CO2 emissions by 120 million tonnes per year.  

Hybrid cars may be a good idea. What may not be a good idea is to replace the internal combustion engine and all the infrastructure created for it, with a technology that is more expensive,  less convenient,  and will require an massive and expensive upgrade in infrastructure. 

Making sense of numbers (green c**p edition)...

The table below is the projected income statement from a 'community' hydro-electric project doing the rounds in Aberdeen.  Do have a glance at the whole prospectus here.

I checked the 7% claim by putting the payments schedule into an APR calculator and it checks out.  But the payments to investors are backloaded, the £500k share capital (the opportunity being promoted) is obviously being used to repay earlier backers.  They are in a hurry to get it commissioned before mid September when the FIT reduces by about two thirds or so.

Now I'm presuming the "£400,00" in column one is a misprint for "£400,000" and "£500,00" for "£500,000".  And I reckon the bank closing balance at the bottom of column one is supposed to say "£400,000" and not "£500,000" otherwise £100k just disappears.  So the typos, as careless as they are, aren't the issue.

I'm trying to work out what the 'scam' is, because it's bound to be a scam.  As far as I can see, this hydro thing is basically being 'flipped' onto members of public in the form of untradeable illiquid securities that promise to start paying out profitably in a decades time, once another tier of debt investors have been paid back, and once the FIT and leecy prices have grown at a compounded 2%/2.5%.

Anyone else?

Nuclear Plan B

Total UK primary energy consumption is the equivalent of around 2200 tw/h per year, of which electricity accounts for around 350 tw/h. This illustrates our reliance on fossil fuels and the mountain we face if we want to reduce and eliminate them.

We have two models in Europe we can already compare on how we might go about trying.

France has low cost (12p kw/h), low CO2 electricity,  75% of which is supplied by nuclear power plants.

Germany on the other hand shows that even a limited penetration of wind and solar (3.5% of total primary energy consumption) leads to high electricity prices. Getting on for double that of France at 23p kw/h. It’s energy companies have also been suffering record losses.

Energy taxes and subsidies more or less cancel themselves out. Graph above taken from Euan Mearns

The system costs incurred by dispersed , intermittent wind and solar rise with market share. So, if fossil fuels are to be reduced in any meaningful way, wind and solar will be a cripplingly expensive way of doing it.

Only nuclear can power a modern economy at reasonable cost free from fossil fuels.  But due to the large upfront capital costs it has to be planned and financed in the way the French did. Settle on one design, build lots of them quickly, and finance them from Government bonds.

French nuclear supplies electricity at a wholesale price a third of what Hinkley Point C is being offered. It also exports £3bn a year of it at profit.

There is no reason whatsoever that we should ever pay a penny more for our energy than the French are now. That means a reduction in our current bills.

Areva took an existing design, and added more systems and defence in depth. This has proved difficult to build, and it the reason why EDFs finances are in such bad shape.

As reported recently, the Hitachi ABWR could come in at £70 mw/h, when privately financed. Good, but we can do better.

GE-Hitachi have taken that design and gone in the opposite direction of Areva by simplifying and modularising it. The ESBWR has been approved by the American regulators, and is reported to be the safest reactor to get such approval. Designed to be easier to construct, it also has the lower operating costs.

If the UK built twenty of these, over 15 years, financed by bonds, we can benefit from learning curve cost reductions in exactly the same way the French did.

Having a standardised fleet, rather than the nuclear zoo we are currently on course to build, would have other cost and safety advantages too.

Furthermore, there is new fuel technology currently undergoing regulatory approval that can further cut costs and increase safety.  For example Lightbridge all metallic fuel rods can increase power by 30% in a new build reactor, while reducing the fuels operating temperature.

Reactors can make hydrogen from electrolysis or thermochemistry, to power fuel cells or existing gas turbines. High temperature reactors(FHRs), being developed and commercialised in China and the US, can substitute for natural gas using the air Brayton cycle(NACC), thereby reusing existing CCGT infrastructure. This also gives them faster ramping up rates than any current available technology, making them the perfect partner for the limited load following of BWRs.

High temperatures can make CO2 neutral synthetic fuels, using the existing infrastructure for internal combustion engines.

And all nuclear power stations produce lots of hot water as waste, which could instead be used as district heating, making use of the hot water systems most UK households have for gas central heating.

We cannot afford the costly grid and infrastructure upgrades needed in order to accommodate a wind, solar and battery economy.

France has shown us that cheap CO2 free energy is doable. We should copy their example, just don't buy their EPR reactor.

"when the government called on energy providers to simplify their tariffs, this was presumably not what they had in mind"

and what is it that has happened and that Ed Gill, head of external affairs at Green Energy, which offers 100% renewably sourced tariffs, seems to believe is all the government's fault and the obviously unintended consequence of the demand from David Cameron that the energy companies simplify their tariff's?

Five of 'big six' energy companies drop green tariffs

Campaigners fear the move to scrap tariffs for new customers could undermine national drive to tackle climate change

A Department of Energy and Climate Change spokesman said: "We're making bills easier to understand, cutting the confusing array of tariffs currently on offer, and getting people off poor-value dead tariffs. A number of green tariffs remain on offer for consumers who wish to choose them, including many with smaller suppliers outside of the big six".

So the smaller, wholly green suppliers should presumably be quite pleased, what with most of the big suppliers retreating from the field of 100% Green Tariff's and leaving it open to them. So am I the only person who finds Ed's reaction a little confusing?

One day later deja vu

It would appear that what we discovered yesterday wasn’t a ”one off”

The delay reflects difficulties in coordinating the rollout as there are a variety of standards and features attached to the meters and little agreement on the technology. There are also differing opinions on how the meters should be paid for.

Angela Knight***, chief executive of Energy UK, which represents the industry, said the delay was prudent and that it took account of the scale of the programme and the need to prepare for the switch to the new meters.

"Allocating extra time to the programme will mean that it can be completed in a more efficient and cost-effective manner, and to greater effect," Knight said.

*** Yes, it  is “that” Angela Knight

Far be it from me to suggest that it might have been prudent for some sort of agreement to have been reached on “standards and features attached to the meters and the technology” before this “initiative” was announced, and it then been accompanied by a clear, direct and honest, no BS, explanation as to what the meters can and can’t do – and what Energy providers were going to be allowed to do with them and then maybe the reaction to this news amongst the great unwashed might not be – as I suspect in many cases it is – “who cares” or even “good, the more delays the better”.

Is this the best they've got?

From a recent City AM:

The UK should not leave the EU – the single market has greatly strengthened the British economy. To continue trading so much with the rest of Europe, the UK would still have to follow the rules set to regulate the single market. But from outside the EU, we would have no influence over what rules are set. Much better to be in the club and able to shape their design.(1)

The EU also plays an important role over energy and climate policy, both linked to future economic growth. Europe needs a modernised and extended electricity grid, including a North Sea grid. Building this would enable the UK to harness enormous quantities of offshore wind power, thus increasing UK energy security as the oil and gas runs out.(2) It would be possible if the UK leaves the EU, but easier and more efficient if we remain a member.(3)
------------
Oops, I pressed send too early (I meant to save as draft and finish off once at work). My point was, surely, there must be some advantages to being in the EU which everybody accepts (yes there are: but no clues), not flim-flam like this? Or at least they could stick to the Big Fat Lie that "Three million UK jobs depend on us being in the EU" which isn't true either, but a lot of people seem to believe it.

1) James James had already covered this in the comments by the time I got back.

2) I think we've seen through all this wind nonsense by now, and it's the EU demanding that the UK shuts down its perfectly servicable coal-fired power stations. So energy supply is a bit of a worry. But there are two forces which will hopefully sort all this out.

a) Governments know that they have to make sure that "the lights stay on" and that petrol is always available on the forecourts, because if they don't or it isn't, they'll become very unpopular very quickly (even if there is little they can do about it).

b) Markets. There is a fantastic network of infrastructure spanning the globe, there are oil and gas pipelines linking Russia and Norway (not EU members) with most of Europe; they're laying electricity cables across the North Sea; we buy liquified natural gas from Qatar; the Iranians are quite happy to sell us oil (even though they are not in the EU and their openly stated wish is to attack the West, I wonder what they'll do for customers then?). And these are just a few things off the top of my head, there's plenty more where that came from, fracking near Blackpool, oil rigs in the North Sea, the list goes on.

3) Exactly, that's one heck of an admission. Maybe there is a teeny, tiny slight advantage to EU member states if they can all gang up against e.g. Russia, Middle East and negotiate one big contract, but there are equal and opposite disadvantages (if it were in the UK's interests to buy oil from Iran, despite EU embargo, for example) that these can be ignored on both sides.

Chris Huhne: Put out more flags!

Nick Drew suggests we celebrate this momentous occasion by hanging out the bunting. I don't have any bunting handy, so I'll just repost a caricature of him looking glum:For good measure, here's his ex looking smug:

The cost of commonsense in a dying government

Of all the riff raff and dross in the Gummint, there are - bear with me here - a couple who occasionally think and speak clearly:

John Hutton, at the recent Labour Conference: "Tories say no to new coal and have sent mixed messages on nuclear. The Liberal Democrats say no to new coal and new nuclear. But no coal plus no nuclear equals no lights. No power. No future."

Phil Woolas, Environment Minister, explaining why imposing a windfall tax on energy companies was a bad idea: "[There is] no guarantee that a windfall tax would not be passed on to the customer. We can only regulate in the UK; we can’t regulate Saudi Arabia.”

Guess what. Hutton and Woolas have been reshuffled out of their posts.

Hutton has ended up as Secretary of State for Defence. Possibly a huge mistake, as there is more than a slim chance he actually knows what he is talking about: His hobbies include military history and he recently published a book on the experiences of King's Own Royal Lancasters during the First World War.

Woolas is now Immigration Minister. Oops! He actually knows a thing or two about this and is one of the few MPs* who have had the nerve, gall and temerity to point out:

... that marriages between first cousins are a factor in birth defects and inherited conditions. "Part of the risk, I am told by the health service, is first-cousin marriages. If you are supportive of the Asian community then you have a duty to raise this issue." It is estimated that 55 per cent of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins. The likelihood of unrelated couples having children with genetic disorders is about 100-1, but it rises to one in eight for first cousins. British Pakistani children account for as many as one-third of birth defects, despite making up only three per cent of all UK births.

... so I doubt whether either of them will last very long in their new posts.

* It's just him and Ann Cryer (Lab, Keighley), actually, AFAIAA.

New Labour Minister* talks sense - shock!

John Hutton at the Nulab Conference, in among the inevitable dross is this: "No coal and no nuclear equals no lights, no power, no future."

Guess what The World Development Movement, who received a modest £129,710 from the EU back in 2005 (page 9 of this), the last year for which they could be arsed to prepare accounts, have to say...

"John Hutton’s pro-coal stance ... is not founded on science, economics or reason."

Erm, coal burns to boil water to drive turbines to produce electricity, that's the science covered; extracting coal and burning it in power stations is a profitable activity that doesn't need subsidies - in fact, it creates tax revenues and employment, so that's the economics covered; and people like having electricity, that's the reason. Have I missed anything?

The World Development Movement has a parent charity, which spent a cool £1 million on a new office building in Ruffley Road, London SW9 0LS in 2006 (page 8 of this). The accounts bemoan "the widespread persistence of poverty after half a century of international effort to eradicate, or at least appreciably diminish it" without any apparent trace of irony. The possibility that aid payments cannot, and will not ever 'eradicate poverty' is of course off the radar - if they ever admitted it, they'd lose their raison d'être.

* Yes I know that he is a Secretary rather than a Minister, the difference appears to be that a Secretary is more senior and is in the Cabinet. So why is the Prime Minister not called Prime Secretary?

John Hutton

"Britain faces power cuts threat"

The BBC have done a fair write up of a press release.

The killer sentence - and not even the Beeb seems to bother denying this - is "And an EU Directive that requires the most polluting coal- and oil-fired power station to close would result in the likely loss of a further 12GW generation capacity."

As a taxpayer and electricity user* who lives on a small, windy island built on coal, may I suggest that ... er ... coal may the way forward? Unlike nuclear or windmills, it doesn't need subsidies - we can collect tax from the mines, the miners and the generators. It's a safe and reliable energy source under our own feet. And BTW, CO2 is not a pollutant, FFS, it's a perfectly natural, airborne plant food. The coal will last us for centuries, and if and when it runs out, future generations can fill the empty shafts with household waste or something.

* In common with presumably 99% of the rest of this island's inhabitants.

What a difference two-and-a-half years make ...

Alan Duncan MP speaks:

"The economics are absolutely crucial. The only power station anyone's going to build in a free market at the moment is a gas-fired one... If, and again this might come out of the review, it looks as though coal and oil can capture and not emit carbon, then they can contribute to an emissions target." FT 2 February 2006

"I believe that the role of Government should be to set the right framework of incentives reduce emissions, including a long term price for carbon, and ensure energy security... I believe that there is a risk that without the right framework of incentives, the default option for generators will be to invest in new gas or coal plants rather than in lower carbon emitting alternatives." ConservativeHome 14 June 2007

Alan Duncan, shadow business secretary, said the intent of the government to develop coal "at any cost", was a decision that would leave future generations with a "massive carbon headache". He added: "That means they can only keep the lights on by being dirty." FT 1 July 2008

"The Government’s attitude has set back our ability to deploy [Carbon Capture & Storage] technology by as much as a decade and, as elsewhere, is making Britain an increasingly unattractive place to invest... This is why we have pledged to fund a minimum of three CCS plants here in the UK. That’s the sort of policy ambition that UK plc needs to secure competitive advantage in the new energy economy." ConservativeHome 9 September 2008

Damn. He's actually quite consistent for a politician, albeit consistently in thrall to this Global Cooling nonsense.

The Return Of King Coal

Amidst all the doom and gloom, there were a couple of related articles in the FT today:

"Rising prices fuel unexpected renaissance in British coal"
The renaissance of UK coal is the result of a steep rise in world prices, caused by soaring oil and gas prices and a growing demand for electricity in the developing world. It is once again profitable to mine many of the UK's deposits and power companies are increasingly choosing local coal because of concern about shortages in the international market. Several power companies have indicated they will import less foreign coal and rely more on local supplies. In July, Scottish Power signed a deal with Scottish Coal to buy 2m tonnes a year - half of its output - for the next five years, which the mining group said would lead to the opening of new open-cast pits and more than 100 new jobs.

"Rising fuel prices give Welsh mines new lease of life"
The Unity Mine at Cwmgwrach in the Neath Valley closed 12 years ago. Now it is back in business, thanks to spiralling world energy prices. Around 220m away from the tunnel's end lies a 3m deep seam of high-quality coal. Processed for specialised industrial use, it could be worth as much as £300 a tonne - making miners on £30,000 a year eligible for bonuses that will double or triple their pay.

Don't forget that the UK coal industry went so horribly wrong last time because it was nationalised, unionised, subsidised and politicised. Unlike oil and gas production which is privately-owned and taxed to within an inch of its life, but is still going strong. If there is a threat to UK oil and gas (or coal, for that matter), it's the MMGW and windfall tax nonsense - maybe that's the real threat, the politicisation, if that's an actual word.

As long as we learn those lessons, it will all be fine.

Energy policy (2)

I had originally adopted Nick Drew's energy policy, which amounted to 'Do very little'.

There was an even better one in yesterday's FT, which amounted to 'Do even less. In fact, do nothing.'

Lord Howell of Guildford, Deputy Leader of Opposition in The House of Lords, you rock!

Energy policy

I've been meaning to come up with one for ages, but Nick Drew has saved me the bother.