Sustainable Energy - Without The Hot Air David JC MacKay HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

For those of you who would like to have a proper understanding of the current situation regarding sustainable energy, David MacKay's 2009 treatise on how the UK could transition towards this, is highly recommended.

The goods news is David's treatise is freely available online at:

www.withouthotair.com

Welcome to 2016 - It's Time to Start Cleaning up our Mess (Originally published on Linked-in on 1 January 2016)

Not Quite The Best Solution, But Moving in The Right Direction


Humanity has, in effect, been defecating in our own back yard for the last couple of hundred years. We appear to be starting to understand this is not very smart. The process for changing this is actually very simple; all of our faeces must be cleaned up (in real time), otherwise the endpoint is an uninhabitable planet. The mechanism is very simple: the cost of cleaning up must be included in the cost of the product causing the mess.


Economists and therefore policy makers and politicians continue to avoid the most significant issue, which is the cost of pollution. Because this cost is considered difficult to quantify, it's simply avoided or put more bluntly, ignored. The vast majority of current economics dealing with the use of energy are fundamentally flawed because they ignore the cost of pollution thereby allowing hugely polluting fossil fuels to be "economic".


They are not.


It would appear that a global consensus has been formed as a result of the 2015 Paris agreement. In a nutshell, you could summarize it along the lines that most countries now understand we cannot continue burning fossil fuels as we did in the past and do now.


This is significant.


Even though coal is "relatively cheap", the global coal age is starting to close and I sense the global oil age will also start to close in a few decades. The global gas age will likely continue into the second half of this century.


It doesn't have to be this way. Fossil fuels could continue to be used so long as the pollution generated was removed. The technology for pollution remediation exists but of course it hasn't been scaled-up to allow large scale remediation; consequently in the first instance, it'll be very expensive. This reflects the true cost of burning fossil fuels. In the ideal World, Economists would have recognised this hugely significant cost and factored it into energy policy and we wouldn't be where we are today. Hindsight is wonderful.


Sadly Economics still largely ignores this issue and comes up with ineffective & costly schemes, for example subsidising solar power at medium latitudes, which is completely illogical, or you might be harsher and say, plainly stupid!


What's needed is widespread recognition that we have to actively remediate human produced pollution and that the cost of all energy sources must include the cost of remediation. Put in different words, Economists (and therefore policy makers & politicians) cannot avoid massive costs such as pollution.


Economics is, in fact, a holistic, global "science" where any human process (cost), that changes the planet, must be remediated.


No Batchelor's, Master's or Doctorate is required to understand this; however, getting all the human tribes to buy in and implement this, is the ultimate change management project.


I think we have started on this road; however, to speed up the process requires traction within Economics as well as within the general public. Going forward we need to remove human-generated pollutants, almost certainly in a mechanical sense.


Spread the Word...

The UK's Electricity Generation Problem...

The Economist had a provocative article entitled "Hinkley Pointless" ( http://econ.st/2b6nG0J 6th August 2016) where they questioned the economics of the UK's proposed nuclear power plant and recommended scrapping the project, plus investing in alternative renewables.

A large number of people will reference The Economist article in support of renewables without either knowing about the omissions (errors?) in the article, which were highlighted later by the company (EDF) planning to build the nuclear power station, see below:

"Why Hinkley matters

You (The Economist) urged the British Government to cancel the Hinkley Point nuclear-power project and instead spend the money on renewable energy (“Hinkley Pointless”, August 6th). There are a few things to bear in mind that were not mentioned in your leader. We take the construction risk. The consumer pays nothing before Hinkley starts producing electricity. The fact that prices decades from now are unknown is precisely why investors and consumers benefit from a set price today. It protects consumers from volatility. It makes investment possible. You also claimed that combined-cycle gas turbines are cheaper to run (“When the facts change…”, August 6th). That is only true based on today’s low gas and carbon prices and with the running costs of existing plants. The correct comparison is with future options. Under the government’s central forecast for gas and rising carbon prices, the cost of a gas-plant commissioning in 2025 is close to the Hinkley strike price.

Moreover, the government’s pledge to pay £92.50 ($120) per megawatt hour for Hinkley’s output is lower than the average £123 per MWh in renewables’ support schemes. You compared specific technologies without considering the whole-system cost. In fact, a low-carbon mix with nuclear is significantly more affordable than one without. Other technologies play a role but cannot replace the need for large-scale low-carbon generation.

Hinkley will create thousands of jobs as part of a real industrial strategy. Suggesting that Britain could “muddle along” is an unwise response to the issues of energy security and climate change. Hinkley Point is a wise response.

PAUL SPENCE
Director of strategy and corporate affairs
EDF Energy
London"

Conclusion: The Economist's article is incomplete and their conclusions, likewise.

Moral: Don't trust anything you read and if you're an economist it probably helps to get the same data as the actual players, rather than make potentially erroneous assumptions.