Just when you thought things could not get much worse for energy policy in Britain, fracking was given another set of green lights with the announcement last week that the government will seek to allow shale gas extractors to drill underneath people’s homes without the need for consent. Public rights seems to mean nothing to this government. Whilst renewable energy is subject to the deepest cynicism and criticism; the dangers and down-sides to fracking – and to the nuclear industry – barely seem to register on the Coalition’s radar.

I cannot help thinking that the political elite and their lobbyist have looked at the Simpsons and George Orwell for inspiration on how to run ‘their’ country.

Simon Jenkins is able to publish ‘Renewable energy won't rid us of the horrors of coal’. 1)

In this article he makes his case as indicated in the headline and states that CO2 emissions from Germany are rising between 5-7% yearly which is wrong. The carbon emission in Germany have risen some 1% year on year between 2011-2013 but still achieving a reduction of 24.7% since 1990. 2) This increase in CO2 is a great shame and be assured if the Green Party would still be in power in Germany this would have not been the case. While Simon published his critical analysis of renewables some extraordinary news hit the headlines in Germany. 

Companies responsible for nuclear power generation in Germany put over the years some 36 billion Euros aside, tax free I must add, to deal with the nuclear heritage. The utility firms proposed to set up a public owed trust were this money would go to and the public would have to stump up anything missing. Asse one of our perfectly save nuclear resting places will need alone some 6 Billon Euro and much more to come. Better still, some of this money has been invested in coal power. 3), 4)

Simon, could this be the reason for the rise of coal?

Bjorn Lomborg writes in an article entitled ‘Putin fears an EU fracking bonanza – but environmentalists don't have to’ 5) in which admits …‘Of course, fracking is not a silver bullet’… Fracking uses huge amount of water, pollutes drinking water and releases methane gas which has a bigger impact on climate change than carbon dioxide. 6) Regarding subsidises, Germany subsidised fossil with 52 and renewables with 10 Billion Euros in 2010, worldwide fossil fuels receive between 400 Billion to 2.6 Trillion Euros yearly! 7), 8), 9) Germany produced in 2013 the equivalent of 40% of Britain’s electricity needs with renewables installed in just over a decade 10), 11) and is not bankrupt and neither is Denmark, producing 33% of its electricity with renewables.12) Spain installed enough electricity generating capacity using wind turbines within 10 years to overtake nuclear power generation which taken decades to build and will take decades to dispose off. 13) France the dreamland of most nuclear fans is not the booming economy it aught to be 70% nuclear and neither was Japan with 50 nuclear plants before Fukushima. Japan has one of the highest debt ratio of developing countries in 2011 nearly 3 times that of Britain, France or Germany. 14) China’s new renewable power capacity surpassed new fossil fuel and nuclear capacity in 2013 for the first time.15), 16)

 We live in an exciting transition period the overwhelming evidence speaks for renewables, but this undermines the authority of the utility firms which use to have a licence to print money, and that why everything is done to discredit and suffocate renewables.

What can we do as individuals ?

Add to your news diet the following: Bloomberg, Deutsche Welle (equivalent to BBC world service), Reuters, Tagesschau (equivalent to BBC news) in German use internet to translate and share relevant stories.

If you not done already change your energy supplier to a smaller renewable one.

Save energy wherever you can, install pv solar if you have a south facing roof, banks are willing to lend, replace your boiler with an pre-pressurised easy install air source heat pump £500.

If you get electricity from renewables get rid of gas, go for induction cooker, instantaneous water heater, or air to water heat pump, heat pumps and so on. The cost of most energy efficient appliances and energy producing devises has fallen sharply. Do check out superhomes and center of alternative energy http://www.superhomes.org.uk/  http://www.cat.org.uk/index.html

 

Sources consulted in order:

1) http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/15/renewable-energy-horrors-coal-extraction-turkish-mine-disaster

2) http://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/klimawandel/treibhausgas-emissionen-in-deutschland

3) http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/rueckstellungen-atomkraft100.html

4) http://m.dw.de/english/mobile.A-17629231-11798.html

5) http://www.cityam.com/article/1401379288/putin-fears-eu-fracking-bonanza-environmentalists-dont-need

6) http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-14/leaks-in-natural-gas-system-seen-exceeding-epa-estimate.html

7) http://www.dw.de/fossil-fuel-subsidies-outstrip-renewables-funding-by-billions/a-17465775

8) http://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/publikationen/environmentally-harmful-subsidies-in-germany-0

9) http://m.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/27/wind-power-subsidy-fossil-fuels?cat=environment&type=article

10) http://www.erneuerbare-energien.de/fileadmin/Daten_EE/Dokumente__PDFs_/ee_in_zahlen_update_bf.pdf

11) http://www.erneuerbare-energien.de/fileadmin/Daten_EE/Bilder_Startseite/Bilder_Datenservice/PDFs__XLS/ee-energiedaten_ohne_formeln_2012.pdf

12) http://www.dw.de/denmark-leads-the-charge-in-renewable-energy/a-17603695

13) http://www.aeeolica.org/en/about-wind-energy/wind-energy-in-spain/installed-power/

14) http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GC.DOD.TOTL.GD.ZS/countries

15) http://www.ren21.net/Portals/0/documents/Resources/GSR/2014/GSR2014_full%20report_low%20res.pdf  

16) http://www.dw.de/developing-countries-are-catching-up-on-renewables/a-17685065

It’s been three years since Fukushima hit the headlines and one should ask if lessons have been learned.

 

Germany is phasing out nuclear and not because the tree-hugger community has taken over the government but it’s the realisation in all political spectra that nuclear does not work and that renewables bring huge benefits. But against the general perception Germany is still producing more electricity with nuclear than Britain and at its height three times as much as Britain now. Germany tried really hard to make the dream work, having endless amounts of energy with no risk building some 36 nuclear power stations, many of them in ground-breaking designs. Germany has also quite a few sites where nuclear waste is stored and Gorleben, Morsleben and Asse jump to mind. The latter two were supposed to be perfectly safe ‘Endlager,’ (deep geological repository) but they turned out to be not so safe consequently the cosily search for a perfect last resting place for the nuclear waste goes on.

http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/asse312.html

 

http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/atommuell-endlagersuche100.html

 

ARD Tagesschau is the equivalent to BBC news

As proven over the last so many decades the nuclear lobby manages again and again to mix wishful thinking with some science and sell that science fiction in glossy brochures to the government.

http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/milliardengrab-atomkraft100.html

 

Here we are in 2014 in Britain and if it all goes to plan we will subsidise yet another nuclear folly with billions in exchange for some electricity to be on the grid in 10 years time. How much exactly will we get for our money is anyone’s guess? To put it in perspective, the 16 nuclear reactors currently on the grid produced 64 Terawatt hours of energy in 2012. That is one-third less of electricity generated in Germany from renewables installed between 2002 and 2012. Let me put this another way, over 10 years enough generating capacity from renewables was installed in Germany to increase the electricity supply by over 92 Terawatt hours to 136TWh that’s some 37% of Britain’s electricity needs, leaving the 64TWh the 16 nuclear plants produced well behind.

http://www.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails.aspx?current=GB

 

http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/renewable-energy-data

 

 

The Greens, whilst in power in Germany put a political framework into place to encourage electricity generation from renewables. After Fukushima Merkel went back to the nuclear phase out policy the Greens negotiated but different to the Greens still subsidising with vast amounts of fossil fuel and sadly in particular coal.

 

 

The rush to renewables in Germany has also contributed to the relative health of the German economy and different to Britain has had less black outs and is exporting plenty if electricity. Different to any other form of electricity generations the costs of renewables have steadily declined while all others gone up and that will not change. But just when you thought things could not get any worse, the government decided to go full steam ahead with fracking. The catalogue of problems which come with this technique are very well known, proven and still the government is sleepwalking into the next disaster just like with nuclear. Who is profiting?

 

 

 Fracking as well as nuclear makes economically and ecologically no sense, well it makes perfect sense for a few lucky ones but not for the majority of humanity nor the environment. Subsidising fracking in the form of tax breaks, subsidising nukes by milking every electricity costumer is simply insulting. Fracking does create tremors or even earthquakes, does impact on drinking water in particular as it uses huge quantities of water and releases methane as well as other gases and radioactivity. All proven and well documented,  we are not only gambling our own but also our children and their children’s future creating a catalogue of very difficult problems.

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-14/leaks-in-natural-gas-system-seen-exceeding-epa-estimate.html

 

What makes matters worse that we can choose much better well proven and established technologies. We are fortunate today more than ever before being in the position to harvest affordable, plentiful energy, create substantial employment, economic growth and prosperity for many rather than just a few. But in order to do so we have to desperately upgrade the electric grid. It’s known that in order to utilise renewables to their full potential, in particular solar and wind the electric grid has to be able to distribute the electricity quickly and efficiently. Somewhere the sun will shine or the wind blow and somewhere else somebody is needing that electricity. Unfortunately through the lack of investment, a Wild West style capitalism of the ugliest form and a government run and controlled by lobbyists the national grid was never upgraded to take the electricity generation fluctuations which can come with some established renewables.  In fact it is in the interest of the energy generating and supply lobby to keep the grid ‘as it is’ old and tired incapable to distribute the power quickly and efficient it in order to maintain their monopoly.

 

In times of austerity money has to be spend wisely and only if the grid is upgraded we can use renewables to their huge potential. Therefore, billions of pounds have to made available for the grid not HS2. Poor and in particular short-sighted energy policy and/or bad governance are to blame for fuel or general poverty but not renewables nor the 'green crap'.

 

 Still, despite all the odds energy generation from renewables has increased at a tremendous speed in Britain, hopefully more and more people will see the benefits renewables bring and the press will nourish a more constructive debate on these matters.