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The Generator news service publishes articles on sustainable development, agriculture and energy as well as observations on current affairs. The news service is used on the weekly radio show, The Generator, as well as by a number of monthly and quarterly magazines. A podcast of the Generator news is also available.
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  • Are we moving towards a new oil crisis?

     

    The world is aware that the production of the existing oil wells is decaying and that new discoveries are more scarce and more expensive. Some experts consider that global oil production may have peaked at 94 million barrels a day [sic – the correct figure would be arround 84 Mb/d]. The current economic crisis can make the situation worse. The lower prices that we are enjoying now can be in fact bad news. At this price oil producers have been forced to postpone many necessary investments in new production capacity. These investments take decades to be accomplished. In consequence, if the current economic crisis finished and demand recovers we could be facing huge shortage of supplies that can lead to extremely high prices.

    How high? According to the Secretary General of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Nabuo Tanaka, oil prices could go up to as much as 200$ a barrel in the next 4 years. A quick look back on the situation of last year when prices were at a mere 147$ a barrel maybe gives an idea of what the consequences may be if the prices goes a 25% higher.

    The current relatively low oil prices give a respite to prepare for the coming new oil crisis. We have to reduce our dependency in all those areas in which black gold is not indispensable, such as heating, or electricity production. For those areas which will have to continue to depend on it, like transport, we need to accelerate the research for alternatives, like biofuels, electric cars or hydrogen. And in all sectors, we have to accelerate our efficiency being aware that every barrel of oil that we are using is one of the last.

    It is difficult to forecast when the next oil crisis is going to come. As Nobel Price Niels Bohr once put it “prediction is very difficult, particularly about the future”. But one thing is certain, one day we are going to run out of oil, and to prepare for that day we may be running out of time.

    There isn’t much to add to these lines, for anyone reading this post likely agrees fully with them.

    Taking the opportunity, it may be perhaps time to reflect on this Commissioner’s term. The Commission took office with oil prices below 40$ and saw them climbing above 140$, dealt with protests from professionals dependent on oil products: hauliers, fishermen, farmers. He leaves office during the worst economic recession since at least 1980. While during the first half of its term both the Commission and the Commissioner were reluctant to accept the hypothesis of serious Energy supply problems, they eventually aknowledged the situation.

    First with the setting of the 20-20-20 goals but especially with the second Strategic Energy Review, the Commission showed that it understood (even if partially) that Europe’s energy entitlement is at risk. Acknowledging the Union’s unsustainable dependence on imported Gas and the present importance of its Nuclear park, were two relevant steps. To that adds some interesting initiatives like the Mediterranean Energy Ring or the Solidarity Plan. But the most positive outcome to this Commissioner’s term ended up being the commitment to Energy Efficiency – the policy that can have most impact over the short term.

  • Study Halves Prediction of Rising Seas

     

    They also uniformly called for renewed investment in satellites measuring ice and field missions that could within a few years substantially clarify the risk.

    There is strong consensus that warming waters around Antarctica, and Greenland in the Arctic, will result in centuries of rising seas. But glaciologists and oceanographers still say uncertainty prevails on the vital question of how fast coasts will retreat in a warming world in the next century or two.

    The new study combined computer modeling with measurements of the ice and the underlying bedrock, both direct and by satellite.

    It did not assess the pace or the likelihood of a rise in seas. The goal was to examine as precisely as possible how much ice could flow into the sea if warming seawater penetrated between the West Antarctic ice sheet and the bedrock beneath.

    For decades West Antarctic ice has been identified as particularly vulnerable to melting because, although piled more than one mile above sea level in many places, it also rests on bedrock a half mile to a mile beneath sea level in others. That topography means that warm water could progressively melt spots where ice is stuck to the rock, allowing it to flow more freely.

    Erik I. Ivins, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, described the new paper as “good solid science,” but added that the sea-level estimates could not be verified without renewed investment in satellite missions and other initiatives that were currently lagging.

    A particularly valuable satellite program called Grace, which measures subtle variations in gravity related to the mass of ice and rock, “has perhaps a couple of years remaining before its orbit deteriorates,” Dr. Ivins said. “The sad truth is that we in NASA are watching our Earth-observing systems fall by the wayside as they age — without the sufficient resources to see them adequately replaced.”

    Robert Bindschadler, a specialist in polar ice at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said the study provided only a low estimate of Antarctica’s possible long-term contribution to rising seas because it did not deal with other mechanisms that could add water to the ocean.

    The prime question, he said, remains what will happen in the next 100 years or so, and other recent work implies that a lot of ice can be shed within that time.

    “Even in Bamber’s world,” he said, referring to the study’s lead author, “there is more than enough ice to cause serious harm to the world’s coastlines.”

  • Rudd finally gets renewables

    Government Press Release

    The Rudd Government will invest $4.5 billion to support the growth of clean energy generation and new technologies, and to reduce carbon emissions and stimulate economic activity in a sector that will support thousands of new green-collar jobs.

    The Clean Energy Initiative will support clean technologies and industries and assist Australia’s transition to a lower emissions path.
    The Australian Government is committed to ensuring 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity comes from renewable sources by 2020. This objective is supported by the Renewable Energy Fund and the Energy Innovation Fund, and by efforts to encourage deployment including through the Solar Homes and Communities Plan.
    The 2009-10 Budget further strengthens Australia’s domestic and international climate change response, with substantial new measures to encourage innovation in clean energy generation and low-emissions technologies.
    The Rudd Government will invest:

    • $2.4 billion in low emissions coal technologies, including new funding of $2 billion in industrial-scale CCS projects under the Carbon Capture and Storage Flagships program;
    • $1.6 billion in solar technologies, including new funding of $1.365 billion in a Solar Flagships program – helping position Australia as a world leader in this vital energy technology for the future; and
    • $465 million to establish Renewables Australia to support leading-edge technology research and bring it to market, including new funding of $100 million. The new body will advise governments and the community on the implementation of renewable energy technologies, and support growth in skills and capacity for domestic and international markets.

    This represents an unprecedented investment of $3.5 billion in new money by the Rudd Government in clean energy in this Budget.
    The Government’s commitment to establish the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute and the Flagships program will ensure that Australia continues to be a world leader in the development of low-emissions coal technology.
    The Institute supports the G8 target for 20 industrial-scale CCS projects to be operating around the world by 2020.
    In addition, the Flagships program supports the demonstration of large industrial scale projects in Australia, and may include a carbon dioxide storage hub.
    The Government will establish Renewables Australia to promote the development, commercialisation and deployment of renewable technologies. It will operate at arm’s length from government, using a strategic investment approach under an expert board.
    The Solar Flagships program will aim to create an additional 1,000 MW of solar generation capacity. This ambitious target is three times the size of the largest solar energy project currently operating anywhere in the world.
    Solar Flagships will seek to develop up to four individual generation plants on the national grid. These may demonstrate both solar thermal and solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies, and have electricity generation capacity equal to or greater than a current coal-fired power station.
    The specific technologies will be based on a competitive assessment, with an explicit criterion of industry development, including capacity to boost domestic manufacturing and future export potential.
    Solar Flagships projects will complement CCS Flagships projects, and demonstrate the Government’s commitment to helping to maintain the value of our coal exports and utilising our renewable potential. The two strategic technology priorities of CCS and solar will be underpinned by supporting specialised research, development and demonstration programs.
    These important clean energy initiatives will kickstart a range of critical low-emissions technologies in the marketplace.
    The Government will work with the private sector to position the Australian economy for a low-carbon, high-skilled future.

  • Rudd touts $4.5b solar project

     

    The project will include up to four individual solar plants generating on average the same amount of energy as a coal-fired power station.

    Currently the largest operating plant is in California in the United States.

    The Government’s Solar Flagships program hopes to create three times as much energy as that project.

    Tenders for the project will be called later this year.

  • The NHS must wake up to climate change

     

     

    We know that as temperatures rise, extreme climatic events will cause heatwaves, floods, and unusually strong storms. People in Britain will die. The incidence of infections, cataracts, and skin cancers will rise. More people will be admitted to hospital.

     

    But the greatest impacts will be on the poorest peoples in the world today. Africa will endure yet another crisis to add to its existing predicaments of poverty, disease, and economic collapse. The warming of the planet will trigger new epidemics of infectious diseases. Food yields will fall and millions of people will suffer starvation. 250 million more people in Africa will face water poverty by 2020. Poor housing and slums will be especially vulnerable to extreme climatic events. The millions of people who migrate away from places of climatic stress will create new tensions, precipitating violence and war.

     

    Climate change seems too big, too complex, too unpredictable, too global, and too distant. It’s tempting to give up when confronted by this prospect of human catastrophe. There is much that we don’t know about what climate change might do. We are frightened by this terrifying uncertainty. We need new technologies to pull us back from the edge of disaster. We need new ways to solve the stubborn problem of global poverty. We need ways to get the public and politicians to take climate change more seriously. Climate change should be a major priority for our political parties in the 2010 general election.

     

    Despite reasons for despair, our commission remains optimistic. We can do something, and the health community, in particular, can do a great deal to lead a movement to protect billions of people from the health effects of climate change. We did it once before. It took 20 years – from the 1940s to the 1960s – to assemble the science to prove that smoking damaged human health. It took another 40 years to translate that science into a ban on smoking in public places. We have reached the point where we can be confident of the cataclysmic effects of climate change on health. But we don’t have the luxury of 40 years to change public policy. Every decade of delay will push up the peak temperature of the earth to increasingly unsustainable levels.

     

    The NHS is Britain’s largest employer. If those who work in it now back a radical agenda to change our lifestyle to low-carbon living we will make a big and valuable contribution to saving our fragile human species. Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century. But health is possibly the best means to mobilise political action to face down that threat. Because without health there is no life for us or our children.

  • Why solar power can help us cycle round the world

     

    I had been a keen environmentalist for some time, starting up a sustainable-living blog in 2004. Now though, I turned my attention to solar energy.

    Investigations led me to the first solar-powered rickshaws operating in India. Always keen to seek out original challenges, I meandered onto the idea of taking one on a long distance journey. To my dismay, the rickshaw was not suitable for covering such distance.

    But the idea of undertaking an adventure to demonstrate solar around the world had taken root. If I couldn’t do it on a rickshaw I would do it in another environmentally-friendly way: by bicycle.

    I began to read about new flexible nanosolar panels, which would be ideal to power my technology in places far from a plug. In my research, I eventually found G24 Innovations, a Cardiff-based company specialising in dye-sensitised flexible thin-film solar technology. I gave them a call. “Of course we can make solar panniers. We can attach the panels to almost any fabric.” Really? Could I have a solar dress too?

    Sadly, the dress was deemed impractical but I convinced my friends Iain and Jamie to accompany me on this solar-powered journey. Today, starting in London on EU Solar Day, we set off for a 12,000-mile tour of solar power around the world.

    We are taking a satellite tracking device which, along with other communications equipment, will be powered using solar panels on our bike panniers. The independence of the solar kit will help us document the entire route – from Libyan sandstorms to ancient Iranian cities, 4000-metre passes in Kyrgyzstan to the lowest point of Death Valley – precisely and second by second.

    Our route has been chosen to take us through North Africa and the Middle East in order to visit a concentrated solar plant and profile the work of the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC), a project to supply huge amounts of green energy from the Sahara. We’ll go past the Quidam basin, where the world’s biggest PV solar power station is being built, across the pacific by cargo ship (we are hoping to be carried by Nippon who have just launched the first solar-assisted freighter) and on to America’s solar heartland, the Nevada desert.

    I hope the trip will demonstrate the potential of solar power in the run up to the Copenhagen climate summit this December. Follow us in real-time on The Solar Cycle Diaries, and wish us good luck with the weather.