Wednesday 1 January 2020

Godfrey Boyle- visionary and activist

2019 had its ups and downs and one of the latter was the death of Godfrey Boyle..

 In his pioneering 1975 book Living on the Sun, Godfrey Boyle argued that “… it is entirely possible for the industrial nations of the world to terminate their dependence on non-renewable sources of energy and to create a gentler, fairer, more ecologically conscious civilization based on the indefinitely-sustainable energies of the sun, the geothermal heat of the earth and the tidal motion of the oceans”.

That was a bold assertion, for the mid 1970s, but by the early 2000s it had begun to look much less utopian- although still some way off. In a chapter in a 2007 compilation of reviews of the sustainable energy options, in which he looked at a range of global energy scenarios, he concluded: ‘There seems leave little room for doubt that a rapid deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency improvements can - and should - play the leading role in enabling the world to make the vital transition to a zero-carbon energy future. Doubts remain, however, about the willingness and ability of national & international political and economic systems to implement the measures required to make such a transition a reality’.

However, the way ahead seemed clear. He noted that ‘In the scenarios surveyed... those that lead to the lowest atmospheric carbon emissions during the 21st century are generally those with the highest proportions of energy from renewable sources, coupled with rapid improvements in the efficiency of energy use. Renewables and energy efficiency ought therefore to be given the highest priority in national and international programmes of research, development, demonstration, deployment & dissemination’.

12 years on, its clear he was right, though scenarios debate rumble on- ever more convolutedly and with contrarian views emerging.  Godfrey, who sadly died recently, was a pioneer in computer scenario development (the DREAM model) and he would no doubt have been amused by that. But he was not just a system modeler- he also tried to change the system. And not just the energy system! 

He was maybe best known for the book he edited on Renewables Energy- based on an earlier OU teaching pack. That involved corralling together a bunch of OU and other renewables energy buffs to do chapters of each area. He covered PV solar and also contributed to an incisive analysis of integration issues, helped by Bob Everett, who, with Janet Ramage and others, also helped him on the less well known, parallel, but also excellent book on Energy systems covering all the non-renewable energy options. These two books were produced for various OU energy courses, and like the courses, they went through upgrades/updates, with Godfrey at the helm. He also set up and ran the OU Alternative Technology Group, later to become the Energy and Environment Research Unit which carried out a range of hardware and policy research projects- as well as supporting NATTA, a renewable energy outreach network and its sill running journal Renew.  

However, he also did many other thing- not least setting up a housing co-op in Milton Keynes (still running), helping to plan a wider Green Town project in MK (sadly it was blocked), and producing a brilliant OU teaching text on community technology. It identified community-scaled energy and craft based systems as being a key way ahead.  That and his early book ‘Living on the Sun’, represent some really original thinking ‘out side the box’. Which is what you’d expect of a 1960’s student radical who went on to set up Undercurrents, the pioneering Alternative Technology magazine in the 1970s, and co-edited the splendidly wide-ranging 1976 Undercurrents book, Radical Technology.  But he didn’t just write or edit innovative books, he also made things happen, helping to create a vision that we are all still trying to turn into a reality.   

Legacy texts and videos

As, latterly, an academic and professor of renewable energy at the Open University, Godfrey left us a body of valuable work. In addition to the various editions of the Oxford/OUP text book Renewables Energy, and the Community Technology OU unit (for T361 Control of Technology), he also edited a pioneering monograph on the technical and policy options available for managing variable energy resources such as wind and solar power, in 2007 for Earthscan ‘Renewable Electricity and the Grid’, with contributions from many of the UK top experts. He also wrote a range of papers and book chapters looking at PV solar and other renewables, as well as scenarios (as in the example above). But scholarly text books & papers aside, his solo book ‘Living on the Sun: harnessing renewable energy for an equitable society’, set out his pioneering views. So does the epic Radical Technology which he played a major role in shaping, along with Peter Harper. It was the subject of the retrospective conference in 2016. All the above are available from Amazon and other stockists.  All the back issues of Undercurrents, up to its demise in 1984, are available on line, thanks to the late Chris Hutton-Squire, another key Undercurrents team member, who archived them digitally. 

There are also some web-accessible videos. Godfrey revisited the scenario field in one of his last public lectures, at a CND conference in 2018. In a somewhat different context, his Professorial Inaugural lecture at the OU in 2011 is worth viewing. And, in a less formal setting, so is the talk he gave at the Small is Beautiful Festival in 2012. It was one many such grass roots talks he gave, around the country and at CAT in Wales, where he spent some time – he also helped with their Zero Carbon Britain plan. What a guy! We will all miss him.

Please note this will be the last posting in this monthly Renew Extra blog. It is being replaced by a new Renew Weekly: https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com
Back issues of Renew Extra will remain accessible from the old link.

Sunday 1 December 2019

The UK Party energy plans compared

In the run up to the general election, what is on offer so far in terms of energy and climate policy from the political parties? The Conservatives, in government, have had a mixed record. In common with the other main parties, they supported the expansion of the climate target from a 80% Green House Gas emission reduction by 2050 to 100%- or at least to zero net emissions by 2050. To get to that they have backed off-shore wind, plus some large biomass conversion projects, while phasing out coal plants. But they have also backed nuclear and blocked on-shore wind development, withdrawing access to the Contracts for Difference support system and toughening up planning rules. Same for large solar.   

With Extinction Rebellion noisily demanding ‘zero carbon by 2025’, the Liberal Democrats proposed a plan for cutting GHG emissions by 75% by 2030, with renewables supplying 80% of electricity, and then moving fully to net zero carbon by 2045, with no use of new nuclear, beyond Hinkley. On shore wind and solar PV would be fully reinstated, tidal power looked at more, but large biomass plants would be opposed. Energy saving and local energy projects were heavily backed: https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/libdems/pages/46346/attachments/original/1564404765/139_-_Tackling_the_Climate_Emergency_web.pdf?1564404765

An outline plan produced for Labour looked to a 77% cut in GHG emissions by 2030, but retained 9GW of nuclear- kept at that (current) level with some new plants. Renewables were strongly backed, including on-shore wind, with more wind & solar in place by 2030 (117 GW- 82GW of wind, 35GW of PV) than in the Lib Dem plan (83 GW- 53GW of wind, 30GW of PV), though in the latter plan, that rises to 149 GW by 2045 (92GW of wind, 52GW of PV).

Labour’s plan backed energy saving, aiming to reduce the need for energy across the UK by a minimum of 20% for heat and a minimum of 11% for electricity, relative to current levels.  Solar heating would account for 6% of total heating, biogas heating 5%, but large scale district heating was downplayed, except for networks using using waste heat/CHP. 3GW of tidal power was also mentioned, along with support for 2.5 GW of carbon capture for heavy industry: https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/ThirtyBy2030report.pdf

Labour’s outline plan suggested that zero-carbon electricity could potentially be anticipated as early as 2034-2040, and zero carbon heating 2036-2040,’ but it didn’t specify the supply mix. However, that does beat the Lib Dems 2045 target date for net zero emissions. A bit of a choice, and a race, then, with the Green Party coming up as an outsider with a plan for a £100 bn a year climate action programme, focussed on renewables and energy saving- and no nuclear: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50305284 The SNP is similarly very pro-renewables (in 2017 Scotland got 70% of its power from renewables and its now near 75%) and it wants no new Scottish nuclear: https://www.scottishrenewables.com/forums/renewables-in-numbers/

We’ve been here before…with more promises  

The Lib Dems backed a non-nuclear future once before, but in its 2010-15 coalition with the Tories, it relented, while Labour too switched from non-nuclear (when in opposition) to pro­-nuclear (when in power earlier in the 2000s), earning this (ineffective!) reprimand: http://herbeppel.blogspot.com/2009/09/professor-david-elliot-open-university.html

Labour didn’t come off too well this time around either, with some worrying that the new plan was just an electro-fantasy plan, with gas much reduced and nuclear pushed, but its locations misspelled/misplaced! http://drdavidlowry.blogspot.com/2019/10/nuking-labours-progressive-energy-policy.html

However, as the election timetable moved on, we got more promises. The Tories had already promised to back Electric Vehicles more, and then announced that there would be £900m to support EV charging net work extensions and £490 m for other transport investment. However, the government has also allocated £222m to nuclear fusion research. It also imposed a moratorium of shale gas fracking- an option that all the other parties have long since opposed. But the government rather blunted the welcome but r maybe temporary fracking halt, by also backing a new coal mine, and by a commitment to invest £800m in CCS clusters – presumably to allow for the continued use of fossil fuel. Overall then, the Tories, unsurprisingly, didn’t get too much backing from the Guardian:  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/17/scientists-and-climate-advisers-condemn-tory-environmental-record

Labour came out with a £30m Warm Homes for All plan to install loft insulation, double glazing & renewable technologies in almost all of the UK’s 27m homes. That’s on top of its already announced plan to invest £6.2bn from its proposed £250bn national transformation fund in 37 new offshore windfarms - 52GW by 2030. That contrasts with Boris Johnson’s subsequent commitment to a ‘clean energy revolution’ with UK offshore wind capacity raised to just 40 GW by 2030.

There was a bit of last moment reiterations of Labours plans, with Barry Gardiner, Labour’s shadow trade secretary, saying that the aim was to get the power sector ‘90% powered by renewables by 2030’, rather than a commitment to zero carbon across the board by then, which some saw as the original target that Labour had agreed to work towards: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-climate-change-carbon-zero-emissions-general-election-a9206781.html

The Manifestos

However, we had to wait for the Manifestoes to see what actually was promised. In the event, Labour settled on 90% of power and 50% of heat from renewables & low carbon sources (which presumably includes nuclear) by 2030: https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/a-green-industrial-revolution/ The Lib Dems stuck to  80% renewable electricity by 2030, and net zero Carbon by 2045: https://www.libdems.org.uk/plan The SNP too: www.snp.org/general-election-2019/  The Greens went for net zero carbon by 2030: https://campaigns.greenparty.org.uk/manifesto/ The Tories stayed with 2050 – the governments target: https://vote.conservatives.com/our-plan But they did say ‘we will use our £1 bn Ayrton Fund to develop affordable & accessible clean energy that will improve lives & help us to lead the world in tackling climate change’. And it mentioned 40GW of offshore wind.  There will also be £9bn for energy efficiency in homes, schools and hospitals, including £6.3 bn to improve the energy efficiency of 2.2 million disadvantaged homes: https://www.energylivenews.com/2019/11/22/greater-manchester-businesses-offered-energy-efficiency-funding/

The Tories noted their support for nuclear, including fusion, but surprisingly, there was no mention of nuclear  by the Lib Dems, while Labour said ‘We will build new nuclear power needed for energy security’, with no further explanation. However, Labour did say that its Green New Deal aimed to achieve ‘the substantial majority of our emissions reductions by 2030’, with help from a share of the new £250 bn Green Transformation Fund- a big spend.  It also mentioned tidal power.  And its programme would, it was calculated, create 1 million green jobs: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/21/labour-manifesto-promises-1m-green-jobs-to-tackle-climate-crisis All of which got a fair degree of expert support: https://theconversation.com/does-labours-green-industrial-revolution-tackle-the-climate-crisis-experts-weigh-in-127542

During the Channel 4 debate on the climate crisis, with Boris Johnson conspicuously absent, the party leaders vied with each other offering better zero carbon targets dates than his ‘2050’, the greens leading the pack with their 2030 target. They and the SNP also both dissed nuclear, but Corbyn said it had a role.  Otherwise, although they differed on the details, they all seemed to agree - we need more renewables, more trees- and less flying and less meat!

A race to the polls

So now it’s up to the voters. Few take election promises too seriously, but there does seem to be an appetite for change in terms of energy policy.  Public opinion polls suggest that renewables are overwhelmingly popular (84% for, at the last BEIS count), nuclear and shale gas fracking very much less so. It is interesting that business leaders seem to have backed a position somewhere in between Labour and the Tories, but nearer to the former, with the CBI backing nuclear and Carbon Capture, but also on-shore wind:  http://www.cbi.org.uk/media/3716/cbi-low-carbon-2020s-report-4-november-2019.pdf


Climate change has moved up the public and political agenda a lot recently, with two thirds in a poll saying it was the most important global issue and that 47% of Conservative voters backed a zero-emissions target by 2030, as opposed to the Tory governments 2050 target: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/07/majority-of-uk-public-back-2030-zero-carbon-target-poll However, with BREXIT still the leading issue for many voters, all bets on who might win most seats in the election are still off! http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/general-election-latest-environment-climate-change-policies-poll-pollution-jeremy-corbyn-labour-a9206571.html