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DELUGES AFTER THE DELUGE.
Catastrophic floods in Pakistan are likely to recur as global warming combines with El Niño
The Pakistani crisis is already one of the very first order. Some 20 million people have been left homeless, along a path of destruction of more than 600 miles. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has even compared the challenges the country now faces to those during the 1947 partition of the subcontinent in which around half a million people were killed in mass violence.
It is small wonder that Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari has said that it will take at least three years for the country to recover from the disaster, and that he is thinking ahead to "prepare the capabilities and capacity" for the "next monsoon". Zardari's comments highlight the fact that one of the key questions arising from the crisis is whether the floods, the worst for at least 80 years (with one fifth of the country estimated to be under water), are linked to global warming and are thus likely to happen again.
The danger is that Pakistan, and the Indian subcontinent in general, will become the focus of much more regular catastrophic flooding with the problems this would bring for a state at the centre of the campaign against terrorism. This is not just therefore a question of better protecting against natural hazards, but also one with profound implications for geopolitics and international security.
Heavy monsoon precipitation has increased in frequency in Pakistan and western India in recent years. In July 2005, Mumbai was deluged by almost 950mm of rain in just one day, and more than 1,000 people were killed in floods in the state of Maharashtra. Last year, deadly flash floods hit northwestern Pakistan, and Karachi was also flooded.
This trend is fuelled both by global warming (which means extremes of rainfall are a growing worldwide trend) and potentially by any intensification and alteration of the El Niño/La Niña cycle. To understand the reasons why global warming is playing a role, one needs to look at the main climatic trends in South Asia. In addition to more extreme rainfall, there is also a reduction of ice over the Tibetan plateau and changing precipitation patterns, with less snow at higher levels, plus more rapid run-off from mountains.
How does climate change help explain this? First, the warming in temperatures leads to less snow. Second, the less stable atmosphere causes deeper convection and intense rainfall. The less stable atmosphere also leads to more airflow over mountains and less lateral deviation – so that the monsoon winds and precipitation can be higher in north-west India and Pakistan and weaker in the north-east. In 2006 there was an unusually intense drought in Assam and rain in north-west India. This year with the strong rainfall in the north-west, there is no pronounced decrease in the north-east. Recent US studies have also concluded that the mountain meteorology is changing, but as a result of the aerosols emitted from urban areas of south Asia.
To read the full article, written by Julian Hunt of The Guardian, CLICK here.
CHINA OVERTAKES U.S AS WORLD'S BIGGEST ENERGY CONSUMER.
This giant LED screen at The Place shopping mall in Beijing, China is just one key symbol of an energy-hungry nation which was announced last week to have overtaken the United States as the biggest consumer of energy in the world by the International Energy Agency. (Photograph: China Photos/Getty Images)
With total consumption equivalent to 2.26bn tonnes of oil in 2009, China edged past the US total of 2.17bn tonnes. However, the statement also highlights that they have quickly become a world leader in renewable energy, particularly wind and solar power.
The LED screen - shown above - has an environmental cost, consuming roughly 1,500kW of electricity; equivalent to turning on 150,000 energy saving bulbs. But last week Chinese state media announced a “spend” in the region of $735m on renewable energy production to reduce its dependency on coal from 70% to 63% by 2015. Perhaps this may even help alleviate current congestion issues on China’s highways, as highlighted by media coverage of the recent “9-day traffic jam”, where stalled traffic between Inner Mongolia and the Hebei province, part of the Beijing-Tibet expressway, is heavily used by lorries carrying coal from Inner Mongolia. Go to the BBC News Website for the full article.
As energy use is closely related to carbon dioxide emissions, economic expansion and the global balance of power, is the spotlight now intensifying on China? Their rising GDP sets to overtake Japan as the 2nd biggest economy and greenhouse emissions continue to rise way above the Kyoto Protocol’s agreed levels. This marks a key turning point, and China’s renewables obligation will surely need to surpass that of other developed countries to meet future targets, with Wind Farming set to contribute heavily to this.
To read the full Guardian article click here.
RECORD RATE MELTING!
A British led expedition measuring glaciers have found that one of the largest glaciers in the northern hemisphere is melting at a record rate.
106 square miles of the Petermann glacier in northern Greenland has broken away, which is the largest single area loss observed, equivalent to an area of ice three times the size of Manhattan Island as can be seen on the 2nd satellite image above.
This melting indicates that rising temperatures are affecting the arctic faster than previously anticipated, which is probably as a result of the abnormally high temperatures recorded, with the last 6 months being the warmest, globally since records began.
There are concerns of the effect the melting ice could have on the rising sea level and ultimately the ‘positive feedbacks’ as water absorbs more heat than ice, therefore speeding up the warming effect. Research from Pennsylvania State University demonstrate that a rise in temperature of 2-7OC, could cause the entire Greenland ice mass to melt, raising the sea level by 7 metres.
CHRIS HUHNE ANNOUNCES PLANS FOR AN INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF ONSHORE AND OFFSHORE WIND TURBINES
Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary has promised to support an increase in the number of onshore and offshore windfarms in an attempt to protect Great Britain from a looming energy crisis.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, the Lib Dem minister backed wind power over nuclear stressing that there was ‘no money’ for state subsidies for a new generation of nuclear power plants.
Mr Huhne also reaffirmed the UK’s need to become more independant in energy production to allow it to withstand shocks from the outside world and said that it was feasible for Britain to become totally self sufficient thanks to renewable energy sources such as wind and wave power as well as harnessing tidal streams.
There are currently 253 onshore and 12 offshore windfarms in operation in the UK providing a total generating capacity of 4,580 megawatts of electricity which is enough to power over 2.5 million homes. A further 27 onshore and 5 offshore windfarms are currently under construction and another 458 windfarms are planned.
Speaking ahead of a key policy statement to the Commons on Tuesday Mr. Huhne identified Dogger Bank in the North Sea as a prime are for further offshore development as well as highlighting that ‘It is becoming substantially cheaper to generate electricity from renewable energy sources’ and that ‘it is beautifully windy so it does actually produce a lot of electricity’ further reinforcing that wind power is a really important natural resource for the UK.
Mr. Huhne who will present an Energy Bill to Parliament by the end of the year also said that the way forward was to get more households and businesses to save energy through the use of more ‘smart’ lighting systems, which switch themselves off when rooms are unoccupied and greater uptake of cavity wall and loft insulation.
UK FALLING BEHIND IN GREEN TECHNOLOGY
With all the recent hype in the news of the BP oil spill, and the workings of our brand new coalition government, it is easy to see how environmental matters may be pushed aside. However, the recent political agenda is no reason for the UK to fall behind in carbon emission cuts. In a recent article it seems that this is the case.
It appears there are two options. To take the simple route would be to look at all the evidence against climate change supported by so-called climate sceptics, and adopt the ‘go on as normal’ approach, where climate change is a myth.
But is there another side to this story, where disregarding the environment as something of less concern would be a disastrous decision? The problem is, life depends on the environment and its quality, so to ignore the issue of climate change may seem like an inviting short term option, but in the long term could turn out to cost us more than we would like.
To cut spending in the environment sector would be “a move in the wrong direction” says the Chief Executive for the Committee on Climate Change, David Kennedy. If the UK takes much longer to move towards green energy, we risk falling behind the likes of China and the US. China have been busy developing new green technology, electric cars and improving energy efficiency of households, but the impression from the UK is that there is good incentive to move to a greener Britain, but not the action to get us there. Spending in the environment sector will have to increase to keep us up to speed with international standards.
Some critics say there is too much caution to adopt and develop new green technology, such as wind power; but surely for locals, the swish of a wind turbine would be preferred over the industrial noise of a nuclear or coal power stat ion? The difficulty is getting people on board to see that the majority of benefits of renewables are long term, while most costs are incurred initially, in the short term. For example a wind farm may look unsightly when being constructed and have high initial costs, but in the long term will provide 25-30 years of clean green renewable energy.
In the pamphlet ‘Green Gold’, published by the Tory reform Group, MP Mr Yeo pushes for road pricing schemes and motorway privatisation, as a means of encouraging people to adopt low carbon transport. Tradeable personal carbon permits are another potential way to build an incentive for people to ‘go green’. The country is yet to majorly develop any of these methods however, leaving the UK vulnerable to rapidly falling behind other countries in their carbon reduction standards. Time will tell as to whether the UK can become the leader of a low carbon economy, or the country will lie dormant in activity, and find in some 10 years that countries have moved far past developing a few offshore windfarms.
Onshore wind is found to be cheapest zero carbon electricity producer
According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) onshore wind is the “least cost zero carbon” technology for the near to medium future. The UK Electricity Generation Costs Update, produced by Mott Macdonald, the UK engineering consultancy, and commissioned by the DECC in early June, assesses forward power generation costs for the main large scale energy technologies in the UK. The report is based on work undertaken between October 2009 and March 2010, with costing being considered as generation assets and transmission interconnection to the nearest land based substation.
Renewable generation technologies investigated in the report include wind, hydro and various biomass / bio-methane and waste options. Solar, wave and tidal technologies are not included however. Mott Macdonald stress that their findings should be handled with care, as only costs borne by the owner in relation to the operation of a project have been considered, with additional subsidies such as the Renewables Obligations Certificates (ROCs) not taken into account. Furthermore, they point out that the findings are based on a complex set of factors which may change in the future.
Mott Macdonald when using their assessment summarise that onshore wind is the cheapest renewable energy technology option in the near to medium future with a cost estimate of £94/MWh, some £5/MWh less than nuclear on a first of a kind basis. Offshore wind is found to be considerably more expensive, with a range of £157 to £186/MWh, it is however envisaged, as noted in the report, that costs will reduce to approximately £110 to £125/MWh for projects commissioned from 2020, when compared to onshore wind. These costs compare favourably to a report produced by Parsons Brinckerhoff in March of this year, where they found onshore wind and nuclear to be the cheapest technologies for electricity generation in the UK.
In the near future it is expected that with the emergence of new players in the wind sector, delivery times and prices are likely to reduce whilst seeing an increase in demand. In the long term, the report finds that biomass plants could become even cheaper than onshore wind projects as carbon prices increase over time. Even so wind technology beyond 2020 is expected to see “real cost reductions” as suppliers scale up facilities and improve production costs.
Feed-in Tariffs for the Future
From the 1st April this year small scale renewable projects have been readily encouraged through the introduction of the new Feed-in Tariff (FIT), with the rewards of trying to live a greener life never being better. The new FIT scheme is essentially a rate of money paid by the government to homeowners, business and organisations such as schools and local community groups for their own electricity generation through small scale renewable energy installations.
Most types of renewable energy are encouraged through the scheme including anaerobic digestion, hydro, solar PV and wind, with varying tariff rates for the size and type of installation up to a maximum generation capacity of 5MW. However, wave, tidal and geothermal are amongst the systems not currently eligible for the scheme. By allowing all types of business including care homes, supermarkets, farms, hospitals and so on to utilise the tariff, virtually every property throughout the UK is eligible, so long as the qualifying renewable electricity system has been installed after July 15th 2009. Equivalent systems prior to this date will receive a cheaper tariff.
So how does it work? Financial support from the scheme is twofold, in that feed-in tariffs are received for both the generation of electricity (generation tariff) and for giving unused electricity back to the National Grid (an export tariff). The export tariff is currently fixed at 3p/kilowatt hour (kWh), while the generation tariff varies depending on the size and type of system being used. The level of payment also depends on whether the system is being fitted to an existing building or installed as part of a new build. Tariff rates can be found at www.fitarrifs.co.uk, along with some more useful information on the scheme. Furthermore, future payments are guaranteed for the next 25 years for solar and 20 years for wind and are index-linked for inflation.
What benefits are there to installing a system? Firstly, for every kWh hour generated from your system a varying price (between 4.5 and 41.3 pence, dependent on size and type of system installed) will be paid to you and secondly, every kWh exported to the national grid i.e. the electricity not consumed by the property will earn 3 pence on top of the money given in the first place for generation. This income is tax-free and supports the schemes intention of providing a 5-8% tax free return. With future payments guaranteed for a fixed period such a low risk investment is beginning to look like a better bet than traditional banking approaches. Further benefits include less reliance on your supplier, a more sustainable way of living and a greater awareness of electricity needs
Developers in the past have generally not been that interested in schemes less than 5MW, however the new FIT scheme has made systems ranging in capacity from 100 to 500 kW likely to be optimal investment opportunities. With fewer development constraints and planning difficulties, achieving planning consent for these will likely be easier than their larger counterparts. This should make the whole process quicker and easier and therefore accessible to many more households and businesses. With evolving legislation favouring small scale and sustainable energy systems, ever more people stand to personally contribute to reducing emissions and combating climate change
So what are you waiting for? If you would like to take advantage of this new, exciting and attractive scheme further information can be found on the Department of Energy and Climate Change website at http://www.decc.gov.uk/ and at http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/. If you are a land owner and you have land that you would interested in developing using the FIT scheme, visit our new website http://www.fitwindpower.co.uk/ to progress an enquiry.
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