Plans to pay communities to erect wind turbines are already in doubt because of increasing chaos caused by the Government’s review of green subsidies.
Plans to pay communities to erect wind farms are under threat from a review of green subsidies.
In a heated debate in Westminster Hall Charles Hendry, the energy minister, set out a number of new policies that will encourage communities to allow wind farms.
One of the main mechanisms is to offer a new subsidy, known as a ‘Feed in Tariff’, that pays communities for the ‘green electricity’ generated from small scale renewables like solar panels or wind turbines.
But earlier this week the subsidy system was thrown into chaos amid growing concerns that most of the money is going to large developers building solar farms.
A review, that will report this summer, will look at whether any solar projects over 50KW should continue to receive the payments. A wider review of all FITs, including wind, will report at the end of this year.
Tony Bosworth, of Friends of the Earth, said that the review has made the market uncertain for building medium sized solar farms and other renewables because investors are unsure of subsidies.
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"More must be done to ensure that communities reap the huge financial benefits of local green energy developments, such as wind farms,” he said.
"But one of the best initiatives for boosting community-owned renewable energy schemes - feed-in tariffs - is currently under threat.
"Ministers are under pressure to reduce the size of the projects which qualify under the feed-in tariff scheme - and this would be a massive blow for community-led projects.
"The twin threats of rising fossil fuel prices and climate change make urgent action to develop the UK's vast green energy potential is more essential than ever - the feed-in tariff should be expanded, not shrunk."
However DECC insisted that the review was designed to protect the consumer.
The subsidy does not come from government money but from a tax on energy companies that will ultimately be passed onto household bills.
DECC said the reviews have been put in place to ensure only small scale renewables benefit, as there is another system of subsidies for big business, and to ensure cost of the subsidy does not escalate if too many big projects go ahead.
Mr Hendry also announced plans to ensure wind turbines are built in isolated windy spots, rather than near the centres of population.
But Andrea Leadsome pointed out that thousands of wind farms are already being built or have planning permission where local communities are protesting.
The Tory MP for south Northamptonshire accused the last government of concentrating subsidies on wind and called for a more balanced system that will not only pay communities to build wind turbines but also ground source heat pumps, biomass and other renewables.
The Government is committed to generating 15 per cent of energy from renewables by 2020.
Sunday, 13 February 2011
Bristol's biofuels plant must be refused planning permission
Burning biofuels in power stations is environmental vandalism on a staggering scale – both in terms of emissions and habitat loss
Today, the government will make what should be a very simple decision: whether or not to give planning permission to a power station in Bristol burning biofuels. The answer must be no.
Burning biofuels in cars is mad enough, as it causes more environmental destruction – in terms of both carbon emissions and the loss of habitats – than petroleum. I've been campaigning against it since 2004. But at least in this case it's a response to a limited set of options: finding a green substitute for liquid fossil fuels is a tough call (which is why electric cars are the best way forward).
Burning biofuels in power stations is environmental vandalism on a staggering scale. The operators, such as W4B which hopes to run the Bristol plant, have two options. They could burn the cheapest available vegetable oils, which means palm and soya oil. These are also the most destructive: driving massive deforestation in both south-east Asia and the Amazon. Growing palm oil produces so much CO2 that it makes crude oil look like carrot juice. A paper published in Science suggests that when (as they are in Indonesia and Malaysia), tropical forests growing on peaty soils are cleared to plant palm oil, it takes around 840 years for any carbon savings from burning this oil rather than petroleum to catch up with the emissions caused by planting it.
Alternatively, the operators could burn cheaper oils, such as rapeseed. In doing so, they cause two problems. The first, by increasing demand, is to raise world food prices. Such power stations, in other words, burn food which could otherwise have kept people alive. It's decadence of the worst kind. The second is to create a vacuum in the world edible oils market, which is filled by … palm and soya oil. Whichever kind of vegetable oil you burn, you'll end up trashing the rainforests of Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil.
What makes this so frustrating is that there's no shortage of ways to generate electricity. Renewables, nuclear and gas are all 100 times greener than burning biofuels. Even – God help us – coal burning is a lot less damaging than this idiocy. Yet somehow the government still classes burning edible oils to make electricity as green, and issues renewables obligations certificates for it – which is the only reason why it's happening.
In fact, you get twice as many certificates for producing a given amount of electricity from vegetable oil as you do by generating it from wind, even though it's far less green, and far less renewable. This situation is entirely an artefact of government policy and it's time the government brought it to an end. The planning secretary, Eric Pickles, can at least make a small start today, by turning the Bristol plant down.
monbiot.com
Today, the government will make what should be a very simple decision: whether or not to give planning permission to a power station in Bristol burning biofuels. The answer must be no.
Burning biofuels in cars is mad enough, as it causes more environmental destruction – in terms of both carbon emissions and the loss of habitats – than petroleum. I've been campaigning against it since 2004. But at least in this case it's a response to a limited set of options: finding a green substitute for liquid fossil fuels is a tough call (which is why electric cars are the best way forward).
Burning biofuels in power stations is environmental vandalism on a staggering scale. The operators, such as W4B which hopes to run the Bristol plant, have two options. They could burn the cheapest available vegetable oils, which means palm and soya oil. These are also the most destructive: driving massive deforestation in both south-east Asia and the Amazon. Growing palm oil produces so much CO2 that it makes crude oil look like carrot juice. A paper published in Science suggests that when (as they are in Indonesia and Malaysia), tropical forests growing on peaty soils are cleared to plant palm oil, it takes around 840 years for any carbon savings from burning this oil rather than petroleum to catch up with the emissions caused by planting it.
Alternatively, the operators could burn cheaper oils, such as rapeseed. In doing so, they cause two problems. The first, by increasing demand, is to raise world food prices. Such power stations, in other words, burn food which could otherwise have kept people alive. It's decadence of the worst kind. The second is to create a vacuum in the world edible oils market, which is filled by … palm and soya oil. Whichever kind of vegetable oil you burn, you'll end up trashing the rainforests of Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil.
What makes this so frustrating is that there's no shortage of ways to generate electricity. Renewables, nuclear and gas are all 100 times greener than burning biofuels. Even – God help us – coal burning is a lot less damaging than this idiocy. Yet somehow the government still classes burning edible oils to make electricity as green, and issues renewables obligations certificates for it – which is the only reason why it's happening.
In fact, you get twice as many certificates for producing a given amount of electricity from vegetable oil as you do by generating it from wind, even though it's far less green, and far less renewable. This situation is entirely an artefact of government policy and it's time the government brought it to an end. The planning secretary, Eric Pickles, can at least make a small start today, by turning the Bristol plant down.
monbiot.com
Peak oil: We are asleep at the wheel
Revelations that the Saudis have overstated their oil reserves are a timely reminder of the huge threat to the global economy
• WikiLeaks cables: Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices
Jeremy Leggett guardian.co.uk, Thursday 10 February 2011 15.20 GMT
John Vidal's report on US diplomatic cables from Saudi Arabia raises the spectre of premature peak oil: an unexpected deline in global oil production in an oil-dependent world. The US government is among many administrations that routinely reassure the public that supplies of oil can go on growing far into the future. But in private, top diplomats have been telling Washington that they hold deep concerns about supplies from the world's number one supplier. This is an issue that has far-reaching consequences for an oil-importing nation like the UK, and for the global economy.
The latest batch of leaked cables report the views of Sadad al-Husseini, a former board member of the national oil company Saudi Aramco and a geologist who headed exploration and production for the company from 1986 to 2004. He and the US consul-general met in November 2007, when Saudi Aramco were halfway through a $50bn investment programme aiming to lift Saudi maximum daily production capacity from 9.5 million barrels a day to 12.5m by 2009.
Al-Husseini told the Americans he believed that the 12.5m barrel a day target would prove impossible. The kingdom might get to 12m barrels a day given 10 years, but before then – perhaps as early as 2012 – global production would have hit the highest level it ever will, and given that demand won't be abating by then given levels of economic growth in China and India, the oil price will soar. He told the Americans plainly that the Saudis will not be able to ride to the rescue: the Saudi oil industry was overstating its recoverable reserves so as to spur foreign investment, he alleged, at the same time as it was badly underestimating the time needed for bringing new oil on tap.
By 2009, the Saudis were producing 9.7m barrels a day, and claiming more than 4m barrels of spare capacity: capacity beyond the daily production level that can be opened up in an effort to "swing produce" – that is to say, flood the market with oil and bring the price down. Many oil analysts question this figure, and the cables suggest there is good reason to for such scepticism.
Al-Husseini's gloomy view is known from public interviews such as the one he gave to the US Association for the Study of Peak Oil. What is interesting in the cables is the American diplomats' reaction to his view. "Al-Husseini is no doomsday theorist," the cable concludes. "His pedigree, experience and outlook demand that his predictions be thoughtfully considered."
Seven months later, in a June 2008 cable, they went further. "Our mission now questions how much the Saudis can now substantively influence the crude markets over the long term. Clearly they can drive prices up, but we question whether they any longer have the power to drive prices down for a prolonged period."
No US government official has come close to saying this in public. It is a conclusion of profound significance for the world economy, if correct.
So is it correct? Al-Husseini told the Americans in October 2007 that he didn't think there were enough qualified staff or contracting companies available to Saudis to meet their targets. . In a September 2007 cable the embassy reports hearing "constant complaints of shortages of materials, qualified workers, and infrastructure." Such was the desperation that workers were being hired who had fraudulent documentation. The June 2008 cable reports major project delays and accidents as "evidence that the Saudi Aramco is having to run harder to stay in place – to replace the decline in existing production."
After this graphic warning about the difficulties the Saudis are having even to replace existing production, much less grow it, the cable goes on to say "while this mission is far from embracing doomsday 'peak oil' theorists, Saudi Aramco's challenges are significant." Al-Husseini himself insisted to embassy staff that he "does not subscribe to the theory of peak oil", before going on to air precisely the concerns that advocates of premature peak oil do: that global demand has essentially met supply, and that a premature drop in global oil production lies a worryingly short way off.
Peak oil is not a "theory." Because oil is a finite resource, it is an inevitability. The debate is all about its timing. Al-Husseini is quoted in the 2007 cable as believing that beyond maximum possible global oil production lies a plateau of production lasting perhaps 15 years. Many others who have "pedigree and experience" think there will be a drop in production within just a few years, and we are in danger of that drop being so steep as to merit description as a collapse. In the YouTube interview al-Husseini recorded in 2009 he talks of a shortage of capacity withing just two to three years – by 2011, conceivably. He then says: "in the long term it's even worse."
The peak oil debate – whether one uses the "P" word or not – involves huge stakes. If US diplomats based in Saudi Arabia harbour fears that the Saudis can't produce enough oil to head off ruinous oil prices, then they are merely telling the US government what a spectrum of UK industry is already telling the UK government. We are asleep at the wheel here: choosing to ignore a threat to the global economy that is quite as bad as the credit crunch, and quite possibly worse.
• Jeremy Leggett is the founder and chairman of Solarcentury, the UK's largest solar solutions company.
• WikiLeaks cables: Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices
Jeremy Leggett guardian.co.uk, Thursday 10 February 2011 15.20 GMT
John Vidal's report on US diplomatic cables from Saudi Arabia raises the spectre of premature peak oil: an unexpected deline in global oil production in an oil-dependent world. The US government is among many administrations that routinely reassure the public that supplies of oil can go on growing far into the future. But in private, top diplomats have been telling Washington that they hold deep concerns about supplies from the world's number one supplier. This is an issue that has far-reaching consequences for an oil-importing nation like the UK, and for the global economy.
The latest batch of leaked cables report the views of Sadad al-Husseini, a former board member of the national oil company Saudi Aramco and a geologist who headed exploration and production for the company from 1986 to 2004. He and the US consul-general met in November 2007, when Saudi Aramco were halfway through a $50bn investment programme aiming to lift Saudi maximum daily production capacity from 9.5 million barrels a day to 12.5m by 2009.
Al-Husseini told the Americans he believed that the 12.5m barrel a day target would prove impossible. The kingdom might get to 12m barrels a day given 10 years, but before then – perhaps as early as 2012 – global production would have hit the highest level it ever will, and given that demand won't be abating by then given levels of economic growth in China and India, the oil price will soar. He told the Americans plainly that the Saudis will not be able to ride to the rescue: the Saudi oil industry was overstating its recoverable reserves so as to spur foreign investment, he alleged, at the same time as it was badly underestimating the time needed for bringing new oil on tap.
By 2009, the Saudis were producing 9.7m barrels a day, and claiming more than 4m barrels of spare capacity: capacity beyond the daily production level that can be opened up in an effort to "swing produce" – that is to say, flood the market with oil and bring the price down. Many oil analysts question this figure, and the cables suggest there is good reason to for such scepticism.
Al-Husseini's gloomy view is known from public interviews such as the one he gave to the US Association for the Study of Peak Oil. What is interesting in the cables is the American diplomats' reaction to his view. "Al-Husseini is no doomsday theorist," the cable concludes. "His pedigree, experience and outlook demand that his predictions be thoughtfully considered."
Seven months later, in a June 2008 cable, they went further. "Our mission now questions how much the Saudis can now substantively influence the crude markets over the long term. Clearly they can drive prices up, but we question whether they any longer have the power to drive prices down for a prolonged period."
No US government official has come close to saying this in public. It is a conclusion of profound significance for the world economy, if correct.
So is it correct? Al-Husseini told the Americans in October 2007 that he didn't think there were enough qualified staff or contracting companies available to Saudis to meet their targets. . In a September 2007 cable the embassy reports hearing "constant complaints of shortages of materials, qualified workers, and infrastructure." Such was the desperation that workers were being hired who had fraudulent documentation. The June 2008 cable reports major project delays and accidents as "evidence that the Saudi Aramco is having to run harder to stay in place – to replace the decline in existing production."
After this graphic warning about the difficulties the Saudis are having even to replace existing production, much less grow it, the cable goes on to say "while this mission is far from embracing doomsday 'peak oil' theorists, Saudi Aramco's challenges are significant." Al-Husseini himself insisted to embassy staff that he "does not subscribe to the theory of peak oil", before going on to air precisely the concerns that advocates of premature peak oil do: that global demand has essentially met supply, and that a premature drop in global oil production lies a worryingly short way off.
Peak oil is not a "theory." Because oil is a finite resource, it is an inevitability. The debate is all about its timing. Al-Husseini is quoted in the 2007 cable as believing that beyond maximum possible global oil production lies a plateau of production lasting perhaps 15 years. Many others who have "pedigree and experience" think there will be a drop in production within just a few years, and we are in danger of that drop being so steep as to merit description as a collapse. In the YouTube interview al-Husseini recorded in 2009 he talks of a shortage of capacity withing just two to three years – by 2011, conceivably. He then says: "in the long term it's even worse."
The peak oil debate – whether one uses the "P" word or not – involves huge stakes. If US diplomats based in Saudi Arabia harbour fears that the Saudis can't produce enough oil to head off ruinous oil prices, then they are merely telling the US government what a spectrum of UK industry is already telling the UK government. We are asleep at the wheel here: choosing to ignore a threat to the global economy that is quite as bad as the credit crunch, and quite possibly worse.
• Jeremy Leggett is the founder and chairman of Solarcentury, the UK's largest solar solutions company.