Tag Archives: Hinkley Point

Britain, Climate Change, Energy, Government, Science

The UK’s energy dilemma

UK ENERGY NEEDS

Intro: Britain is facing a pressing problem in coping with its complex energy demands

DELAYS to the construction of the controversial Hinkley point raises a number of important questions on how the UK might meet its future energy needs. Pressingly, as the UK searches for options in how its future baseload power can be met without heavily polluting the environment, a solution in bridging the energy-gap will soon be required.

Britain is facing a pressing problem in coping with its complex energy demands. It needs to provide extra energy to meet rising demands for power in the future but at a reasonable cost – while also reducing carbon emissions by considerable levels in order to meet its climate change commitments. This will not be an easy combination to achieve. Hinkley Point, however, was considered by many experts to be a crucial determinant in reaching these goals.

Equipped with a massive 3.2bn watt capacity, Hinkley Point C has capacity in providing 7% of the nation’s electricity if completed. That would help to generate the power that would keep the nation working while renewable energy sources, mainly wind turbines, would provide the rest of the electricity needed by domestic households and firms. As one spokesperson from the Grantham Research Institute said: ‘You have to have some baseload source to provide power when it is utterly calm and renewables are not providing energy . . . Gas and coal plants – which can also supply that baseload – will no longer be viable in the future because of their carbon emissions (which cause global warming). You are then left with nuclear.’

This dilemma exposes a major drawback that affects renewable energy. Wind and solar plants are intermittent power supplies. They often provide power when it is not needed but fail to provide it when it is most needed. Until a method of storing energy on an industrial scale is developed, this drawback will continue to impede its deployment across the country. Research into ways to store energy on a large scale is now being pursued across the globe but may take decades. Other game-changing energy projects are also being worked on.

One of the most important of these future developments is fusion power (see annotation below).  This aims to recreate the process that provides the Sun with its energy. Nuclei of hydrogen atoms are fused together at colossal temperature inside huge reactors to create helium nuclei. The process also creates vast amounts of excess energy but with little pollution or radioactive contamination. Nonetheless, current devices – in particular, the international ITER fusion reactor, being built as a collaborative programme in France with British involvement – are years behind schedule and vastly over budget. Few experts believe fusion will get us out of our current energy problem.

Alternatively, we could continue to utilise carbon capture and storage (CCS), a process which uses fossil fuel plants which takes their carbon dioxide emissions, liquefies them and pumps them underground into porous rocks. Furthermore, Britain has huge, empty North Sea oil fields which many geologists and energy experts believe would be ideal for storing liquefied carbon dioxide. Several test projects were set up in recent years, with the government pledging to provide funding of up to £1bn. In November last year, though, it abruptly cancelled the programme, halting work on all major CCS projects. As devastating that announcement was to those engaged in development work, such technology is critical for the UK’s economic, industrial and climate policies.

Annotation:

Fusion.gif

A fusion reaction involves the combining (or fusing) of two or more atoms to make one single atom. Fusion reactions are the ones which power our stars. In a simple fusion reaction shown, two isotopes of hydrogen combine to form one atom of helium.

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Britain, Economic, Energy, European Union, Government, Politics, Society

Reduction in energy bills following the removal of green levies – a step in the right direction…

ENERGY BILLS

Householders will be somewhat relieved to hear that the UK government will be pegging back the recent increases made to electricity prices by all the major suppliers. The reduction is being made because the government is removing some of the green levies applied to bills to pay for policies designed to either reduce energy use or to encourage renewable energy development. These levies can be as much as 11 per cent that are directly added on to domestic bills. The impact of green levies on suppliers is to be lessened and the savings passed on to consumers. Utility bills will still go up by an average of around £70, rather than £123, a saving of about £50 this winter.

Changes are being made to two of these levies, the Energy Company Obligation, which commits energy firms under statute to assist with the costs and installation of better insulation, and the Warm Home Discount, which reduces bills for elderly consumers over 75. The idea is to transfer some of the money raised to pay from these schemes to general taxation so the taxpayer rather than the energy consumer foots the bill.

These charges are not being scrapped, but diverted. According to Ed Davey, the Energy Secretary, this will cost the taxpayer somewhere in the region of £600 million. The problem, however, goes much further than the bills themselves. Whilst Labour have proposed a freeze or cap on bills from 2015, this is wholly unrealistic since energy companies cannot control wholesale costs and will be required to invest for the future. The dilemma of market failure arising, something which is still to be investigated, will be attributable to Labour – because when the party took office in 1997, there were 17 companies in the energy sector that kept the market competitive. By the time Labour left office in 2010, there were just six remaining. Most analysts now perceive the energy market as operating like a cartel where energy prices are effectively rigged.

All the main political parties must share some responsibility for the confusing mess that passes for an energy policy. They are now engaged in a political battle over who can promise the lowest prices. Yet, the biggest problem concerns energy security.

Next winter looks certain to be affected by a coalescence of factors that will alter the capacity of the electricity system. A recently published report from the Royal Academy of Engineering suggests that the mothballing of gas-fired power plants and decarbonisation targets could lead to a ‘significant reduction in the resilience of the system’.

Undoubtedly, the cheapest way to generate electricity at the moment is by burning coal. The global price of coal has dropped substantially in recent months as coal mines in many parts of the world, including America, remain under-exploited. Yet, amendments to the UK Energy Bill are expected to force coal stations to close earlier than planned. In addition, there are also doubts in the medium term over the nuclear power programme planned at Hinkley Point, with questions in Brussels over the payments of subsidies to French and Chinese companies. Future supply, then, is the critical issue: energy consumers may be pleased to see their bills go up less than originally planned, even though many will still be paying for it through taxation. But they will be appalled if the lights go out. And for those who believe that green energy is greatly over-valued will complain that the government is just shifting the burden from one set of people to another.

The finer details of the changes also reveal that homebuyers will become eligible for a £1,000 contribution towards insulating their new home. Mr Davey has said this will be paid via a reduction in the stamp duty paid on the purchase price.

The changes to energy bills might just cause the energy companies and the government to be more transparent about exactly what makes up the unit price of gas and electricity on our bills. Hopefully, that might lead to them being more sensitive to that information, delivering consumers a far better deal in the longer term.

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