Memorandum by Mr Richard Phillips
I write the following comments as a retired
professional research scientist, having spent the last 35 years
of my professional life with the UK Atomic Energy Authority at
the AERE Harwell. In retirement I have continued to have an active
interest in all matters concerned with energy generation.
QUESTION 1
The enquiry relates in its terms of reference
to "Energy". I will assume that this energy, in all
but a miniscule degree, will refer to electrical energy as the
final product. Bio-mass and bio-fuels are addressed later.
At the heart of this whole enquiry is the fundamental
nature of the various forms of energy which it is proposed to
harvest.
All the sources of "renewable" energy,
wind, solar, tidal (wave, tidal stream or tidal barrage), are
all, on the industrial scale, very dilute forms of energy. This
is in spite of their apparent power, indeed ferocity when encountered
by individual human beings. Humans, on the energy scale are extremely
feeble, our own rate of working, in a mechanical fashion, is unbelievably
low. It is very hard work indeed for one person to keep a 100
watt light bulb illuminated for any length of time. Thus the emotional
reaction to the possibility of deriving energy from a source which
seems so much more potent than ourselves, is very tempting.
These facts also account for the immense amount
of space or area needed to provide the energy.
By their very nature, "renewable"
sources are either chaotic in nature, or extremely variable with
time. The wind is not predictable on any long time scale and variable
in strength. Tidally associated energy is predictable, but continuously
variable. Solar energy is similar in character.
The scale of these vagaries makes it a necessary
demand that "renewable" generation is backed, to the
extent of 80%, by "spinning reserve", older, less economic
power stations idling until they are needed to make up the deficit
of renewable sources, in the main, when the wind drops or is too
strong.
Denmark has been in the position of importing
electricity in times of dearth, and paying to export it in times
of glut. They build no new turbines. And the Danes have closed
no fossil fuel power stations. Germany has a huge wind investment.
It is building, in spite of this three new spinning reserve stations
on the Baltic, and twenty six new coal fired stations else where.
This is to be compared with France which now
has miniscule "renewable" generation, but 83% nuclear
generation, and the smallest carbon footprint in Europe.
In my view there is very little place for "renewables"
in our energy policy. The exceptions are to the be found in those
remote places where it is very uneconomic to provide connection
to the National Grid. The huge expenditure on subsidies for "renewable"
energy would have to be boosted still further even to have some
nominal effect on our provision of energy. It is, in my opinion,
a poor investment, but a considerable business opportunity for
a copper-bottomed profit for certain sectors of the business world
who have little real interest in our energy provision.
QUESTION 2
The barriers to the development of "renewable"
energy lie in the nature of the energy. The harvesting of dilute
energy is an undertaking subject to the law of diminishing returns.
I do not believe that any but marginal improvements of the existing
technologies are possible. This, essentially, is due to the simple
methods employed. No alternative methods exist, neither do alternative
sources.
In my opinion, too much attention has already
been paid to these sources.
QUESTION 3
In my opinion, the likelihood of any significant
advance in "renewable" technology is not possible. This
a matter not affected by investment, from either the public or
private purse.
QUESTION 4
In my opinion, the already considerable investment
of Government funds has been made under a misapprehension that
the technology is viable on a very large scale. It is not. The
application of an administrative structure such as the ROCs and
associated measures are an overburden to a system which will be
costly and achieve very, very little in reducing our carbon footprint.
QUESTION 5
I am not in a position to comment quantitatively
to this question but without any doubt, the investment in connection
of a multiplicity of producers, including a large number at sea,
under very hostile conditions, and their maintenance, must be
much greater that connection to a large central producer In addition
there is the problem of unifying the output of a large number
of small producers (ie each wind turbine being a producer). This
is well illustrated by the Fair Isle experience. When asked if
they wanted a connection to Orkney, the Islanders politely declined,
it was simply too expensive for their small community. They opted
for wind power instead. Now that they have this facility, the
control of frequency has been found to be difficult, household
goods such as washing machines do not take kindly wandering frequency,
they like a stable 50 Hz. Many other appliances will behave in
exactly the same way. Now imagine connecting up twenty of thirty
times as much capacity as we have at the moment. Strong winds
in Germany have caused the grid to crash, blacking out some two
million consumers. Interconnection is expensive and difficult.
Central large generation is not.
QUESTION 6
I do know how the despoilage of the countryside
can be measured as a cost in any financial terms. It may be pointed
out, however, that one 1000 Mw nuclear or fossil fuelled station
would have to be replaced by rather more than 1200 3Mw turbines
(efficiency 27.5% of nameplate), The visual impact is difficult
to imagine. I have printed out 1200 turbine pictures, it is exceedingly
sobering, I recommend that the Committee do the same. At the same
time, these turbines have to have a power station in spinning
reserve, a structure which the turbines were supposedly replacing!
QUESTION 7
I would refer the committee to a letter which
I wrote separately to Lord Vallance and which is reproduced below.
I have attempted to obtain more up to date costs from BERR, but
find myself on an administrative merry-go-round. Each section
or person passes me to another until I arrive back to my original
advisor. I can only hope that your Lordships' enquiries carry
greater weight, I found merely confusion, perhaps it is all rather
new in BERR and needs time to settle down. But a pity.
In my opinion the only energy source which may
prove viable, and this depends much upon microclimate, is the
use of solar energy for heating. My own analysis of solar energy
shows that again it is a weak energy source, producing at best,
some 200w/m2 over a 24-hour period. If the situation of the collector
is favourable, and installation costs do not prohibit it, this
may be useful for domestic space heating. I see no real prospect
for photovoltaic production except, like wind, for small demands
in remote situations.
In my opinion the difficulties of CCS, carbon
capture and sequestration, mitigate very strongly against any
real possibility of its use. The CO2 separated from the flue gases
will have to compressed to some 850 pounds per square inch, pumped
over very considerable distances from its source to the point
of interment, and the pumped underground. As a rough guide, the
liquid will occupy over three times the volume of the fossil fuel
which produced it. It does not decay, as does radioactivity. Several
companies have already backed away from this technology which
has yet to be demonstrated in commercial situation. The new station
in Kent, supposedly having this addendum, will be built without
it. It has been deferred indefinitely. I consider this technology
to be quite uneconomic.
QUESTION 8
I find this question particularly difficult,
since the fashion in which it is asked seems to be muddled, in
as much as it appears to ask for a comparison between apples and
loaves of bread, it is not comparing like with like. I understand
that the real costs of "renewables" compare very unfavourably
with either fossil or nuclear generation of electricity.
Transport, however is in a different category,
if hydrogen is discounted for the moment, the only "renewable"
is bio-fuel. The more this is investigated, the worse bio-fuel
appears. The net energy gain appears to be much more marginal
than was at first mooted, since so much energy is expended in
its' manufacture. Secondly there has been a major impact in certain
geographical areas, on the price and availability of staple foods,
which have been diverted into fuel manufacture. My own opinion
is that the sooner bio-fuel is consigned to all but a tiny market,
the better. The use of vegetable matter as fuel for furnaces has
been shown to uneconomic if it is grown for this purpose. It should
be borne in mind that even in dry cellulose, more than half the
weight is in the form of combined water, and contributes no heat
when combustion takes place. It is chemically a carbohydrate,
a carbon/water compound. The combustion of waste has different
objectives, and deserves a much larger place in our economy. But
it has to be carried out to the highest technical standards.
QUESTION 9
As I believe is clear, in my opinion, "renewables"
should have little place in our, or the European economy. There
is no doubt whatsoever that a cardinal error was made by the EU
in separating nuclear and "renewable" sources. The objective
was, and if not should have been, the production of electricity
using processes minimally productive of CO2. I therefore maintain
the UK should follow the French example and maximise its expansion
of nuclear generation, and suspend further economically expensive
and ultimately unsuccessful investment in "renewable"
energy, whether in the UK or other EU countries.
QUESTION 10
I have little faith that a Carbon Market will
achieve any real change in the use of fossil fuels. I certainly
recognise that it opens business opportunities for carbon trading,
but the only way to reduce CO2 emissions is to burn less fuel.
This may sound only too blindingly obvious, but it seem to escape
recognition in so many quarters.
QUESTION 11
Bio fuels are derived in the first instance
from solar energy. A small proportion of the sunlight falling
on any crop is converted into plant material. Of the plant, the
seed element used for bio-fuel production, is a small proportion
again. Of the seed, a small portion is converted into bio-fuel.
Thus only a minute portion of the incident sunlight results in
the end product. There is great deal of processing which is energy
adsorbing, and in many cases, there is doubt that there is a net
gain in the whole scheme. This is to disregard the imbalance being
introduced into the global supply of food. We have limited arable
areas, should we be using them for such purposes. In the case
of the alcohol being put into our petrol, it has only about half
of the calorific value of the petrol it replaces, thus producing
a fuel with less energy and thus poorer mpg.
I must confess to being confused by the reference
to first and second generation bio-fuels, but as a chemist I would
see no great fundamental differences occurring. Perhaps I am mistaken.
As the story of bio-fuels unfolds, it would
certainly be showing all the signs of an impending environmental
tragedy. The sooner we start to move onto the real environmentally
friendly fuel, hydrogen, in my opinion, the better. But it must
be produced from nuclear energy, either by electrolysis, of directly
by the use of heat, through the Bunsen reaction, this shows great
promise.
The letter to which I refer in Question 7:
Dear Lord Vallance of Tummel,
May I introduce myself in a few words. I am
a retired research scientist, having spent the last 35 years of
my professional life with the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority
at Harwell.
I have seen the invitation to submit comments
to your HoL Committee on the Economics of Renewable Energy. The
following paper is allied, although not quite directly, to this
specific subject. I sincerely hope that you will be able to give
it your earnest consideration, I believe that there is no more
important a matter than our electricity supply, not even our national
economic policies, for without absolutely rock firm power supply,
we have no economy worthy of the name.
You will see that I am also greatly concerned
that the electrical generation industry is a predominantly technical
one, an aspect poorly understood by Administrations of all colours.
Indeed this situation is of absolutely no surprise; the careers
of senior administrators and business men has left no time for
the acquisition of the knowledge which it has taken a lifetime
for me to accumulate. Yet, paradoxically, it is this knowledge
which is so vital before objective judgments can be made.
I sincerely hope that my short paper will be
of interest, and please feel completely free to contact me at
any time, should you feel that I may be of any assistance, in
any way.
"A SUGGESTED RE-TITLING OF ENERGY SOURCES
WITH REFERENCE TO CARBON EMISSIONS
The Climate Change Programme, as it has emerged
into public perception, has at its core the role played by carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere. It has become overwhelmingly accepted
by both the scientific and lay communities that it is the steadily
increasing concentration of this gas in the atmosphere that is
in the process of bringing about seriously large terrestrial heating
effects, and thus radical changes in the climate in all areas
of the Earth.
In order to minimise, and eventually halt, this
effect, much attention has been focussed on alternative forms
of energy production; those whose reliance upon carbon based fuels
is minimised.
It has become common usage to refer to these
new methods of energy production as "Renewables", as
to a large extent they utilise energy sources such as wind, solar,
and oceanic flows as the energy sources; and these are not noticeably
affected by this energy abstraction, and thus seem to be self
renewing.
The use of this title,, "RENEWABLES",
was further emphasised by the EC when the central administration
adopted it in the pursuit of minimal carbon technology. At an
early stage in their deliberations, the EU Committee responsible
for these matters, made clear distinction between nuclear energy
and "renewables", instead of regarding both as low carbon
means of electrical generation, and then accepted it as official
nomenclature of the technology to be pursued. This literal adoption
thus prohibited the inclusion of the lowest of the carbon technologies,
namely nuclear power, amongst the technologies which the EC required.
The origin of this problem of separation, which, like Topsy "just
growed", would appear to be the lack of a scientific and
technical background by those drafting the European-wide Renewables
Obligation, and the emotional attraction of "something for
nothing", the wind is free. In the UK this was compounded
by a similar non comprehension of the consequences of the lack
of such technical knowledge.
This accentuation on these technologies has
detracted in very great measure from the primary objective of
aiming to produce energy from a source as low as possible in the
production of carbon dioxide. It is thus much more objectively
sound to refer to the new technologies as "minimised carbon"
technologies, since this is the their primary purpose.
Such a move allows a quantitative scale to be
introduced which would reflect the amount of carbon dioxide with
which each system was associated, when generating a specific amount
of energy. A relevant measure could be the amount of incidental
carbon dioxide, in grams, (or the weight of the carbon in the
carbon dioxide), generated for each kilowatt hour of energy produced.
Such a change in nomenclature would refocus the process on the
real objective of the exercise; to enhance the reduction in carbon
emission during energy production processes.
A suggested overall new title for such technologies,
truly reflecting the real objective, could be:
MINIMISED CARBON ENERGY
The following table has been drawn up by the
British Nuclear Energy Society using data from the Government's
Energy Technology Support Unit, and confirmed by the OECD. The
figures are taken over a complete life cycle of the relevant technology.
|
| Energy Source | Grammes of Carbon per KWh of electricity
|
|
| Nuclear | 4 (14.7g of CO2)
|
| Wind | 8 (29.4g of CO2)
|
| Hydro Electricity | 8/9 (29.4-33.0g of CO2)
|
| Energy Crops | 17 (62.4g of CO2)
|
| Geothermal | 70 (256.9g of CO2)
|
| Solar | 133 (488.1g of CO2)
|
| Gas | 430 (1,578g of CO2)
|
| Diesel | 772 (2,833g of CO2)
|
| Oil | 828 (3,039g of CO2)
|
| Coal | 955 (3,505g of CO2)
|
|
As of the end of January 2008, the situation had become more
critical as the European Commission increased the target for renewable
energy. The error of this process needs, therefore, more than
ever to be brought to public attention, and reversed."
I shall, of course be submitting my observations to your
Committee before 16 July.
(Footnote on technical knowledge
At the end of August 2007, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a programme
in the Costing the Earth series, entitled Wind Rush,
in which the Minister for Energy, Mr Malcolm Wicks personally
stated, quite definitively, that wind farms had an efficiency
of 40 to 46%, and that the energy was "carbon free".
Efficiencies have never in fact reached 30% as a whole, and the
carbon "footprint" of wind energy is twice that of nuclear
power. This error, to Mr Wicks' credit, has since been corrected.
On the Shadow Benches, I queried the accuracy of statements
in a video clip on the Energy Policy website. The response affirmed
that Mr Duncan had had a career in, and understanding of, the
energy industry. This was a business career including trading
in oil futures. This had no technical content relating to power
generation. The conversation continues.)
29 May 2008
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