[tt] Independent: Greener power to the people: the real energy alternative?

[Allen Smith]

Is there some particular reason not to do _both_ solar cells _and_ nuclear
reactors? From the evidence available, to avert having more than tolerable
levels of climate change (tolerable in more-developed countries, that
is...) while still having a technological civilization that makes
technological/scientific progress (i.e., having one worth existing), barring
major breakthroughs (e.g., efficient fusion) we're going to need _all_ of
solar, nuclear, and other sources.

	-Allen

In message <Pine.NEB.4.64.0806011613470.4033 at panix2.panix.com> (on 1 June
2008 16:15:36 -0400), checker at panix.com (Premise Checker) wrote:
>Greener power to the people: the real energy alternative?
>http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/greener-power-to-the-people-the-real-energy-alternative-837821.html 
>8.6.1
>
>[Thanks to Sarah for this, who notes: "Solar panels on British houses could replace five nuclear power plants and 
>reduce CO2 emissions as much as taking all truck and cars off British 
>roads by 2030."]
>
>British householders can produce their own energy, but official
>policy has led to Britain lagging behind the rest of Europe.
>Geoffrey Lean reports
>
>
>Ministers could avoid building nuclear reactors by encouraging
>families to fit solar panels and other renewable energy equipment to
>their homes, a startling official report concludes.
>
>The government-backed report, to be published tomorrow, says that,
>with changed policies, the number of British homes producing their
>own clean energy could multiply to one million - about one in every
>three - within 12 years.
>
>These would produce enough power to replace five large nuclear power
>stations, tellingly at about the same time as the first of the
>much-touted new generation of reactors is likely to come on stream.
>
>And, it adds, by 2030, such "microgeneration" would save the same
>amount of emissions of carbon dioxide - the main cause of global
>warming - as taking all Britain's lorries and buses off the road.
>
>The conclusions of the report - approved and partly financed by the
>Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) -
>sharply contrast with initiatives hurriedly launched by Gordon Brown
>last week in reaction to the lorry drivers' fuel-price protests.
>
>In his most pro-nuclear announcement to date, the Prime Minister
>indicated that he wanted greatly to increase the number of atomic
>power stations to be built in Britain. And he met oil executives in
>Scotland to urge them to pump more of the black gold from the North
>Sea's fast-declining fields - even though his own energy minister,
>Malcolm Wicks, admitted that this would do nothing to reduce the
>price of fuel.
>
>Even more embarrassingly for the embattled Mr Brown, the report
>closely mirrors policies announced by the Conservative Party six
>months ago to start "a decentralised energy revolution" by "enabling
>every small business, every local school, every local hospital, and
>every household in the country to generate electricity".
>
>Yesterday Peter Ainsworth, the shadow Environment Secretary, said:
>"We have found that there are huge economic, social and
>environmental gains to be made by doing this. It is good that, at
>last, part of the Government seems belatedly to be coming to the
>same conclusion, and we can only hope that the Prime Minister can
>rise above his panic-stricken clutching at old technologies and
>grasp the opportunities microgeneration offers for clean and more
>secure energy supplies."
>
>The 130-page report, due to be launched by Mr Wicks, has been
>produced by a consultancy, Element Energy, after a wide-ranging
>survey of public attitudes on installing household renewable energy
>systems. It has been financed, and steered by, 14 official and other
>bodies including DBERR, the official Energy Savings Trust, five
>regional development agencies, British Gas, the Micropower Council
>and the Ashden Trust.
>
>The department's approval marks something of a revolution in itself,
>since its predecessor, the Department of Trade and Industry, was for
>decades hostile to renewable energy and microgeneration. Its
>mandarins hated the thought of allowing millions of ordinary people
>to affect energy supplies by generating their own heat and power.
>
>As a result, Britain is almost bottom of the European league for
>exploiting renewables - above only Luxembourg and Malta - despite
>having the best resources in the entire continent. Though ministers
>claim their efforts have been "highly successful" in boosting these
>clean sources of energy, they now account for only about 4 per cent
>of electricity - compared, for example, with 14 per cent in Germany.
>
>Ministers also boast that 100,000 British homes now have
>microgeneration, mainly solar thermal panels that heat water - but
>in Germany they adorn more than a million roofs.
>
>Last year just 270 solar photovoltaic panels, which produce
>electricity, were put on Britain's homes, compared with 130,000 in
>Germany. At this rate, David Orr, chief executive of the National
>Housing Federation told MPs last month, it would take the UK 1,500
>years to equal the number Germany has. Britain's only manufacturer
>of the panels, Sharp, calculates that less than a week of its
>year-round production actually gets installed in this country, with
>the rest exported to the continent.
>
>The new report shows that, unlike in Germany, government incentives
>to householders fail to persuade them to invest in renewable energy.
>It concludes that they are daunted by the high initial cost of
>buying and installing them and want to see returns within three
>years.
>
>The Government gives grants to help with the initial costs, but
>these are too small and too restricted to be effective. Indeed,
>ministers deliberately cut them back at the very point when they
>looked as if they were inspiring a rooftop revolution.
>
>When first launched two years ago, the grants - which, for example
>offered up to £7,500 to install photovoltaic panels - were an
>instant hit. Payments soared to £1.4m in November 2006 alone,
>exceeding expectations more than four times over. But instead of
>welcoming it, ministers determined to dampen down the soaring
>demand. First they rationed payments to just £500,000 a month - with
>the result that, in February 2007, this entire allocation was used
>up in just two hours.
>
>When this was ridiculed, they suspended the scheme altogether,
>relaunching it with the grant for photovoltaic panels slashed by
>two-thirds, and the one for wind turbines cut in half. Demand duly
>slumped.
>
>For the past year, payments have been running at just £200,000 a
>month, far beneath the original target. But in April ministers
>rejected pleas from environmentalists and the renewable energy
>industry to increase the grants. Statistics to be released tomorrow
>will show that, partly as a result, only 18,000 new microgeneration
>installations have been completed over the past four years.
>
>The new report instead suggests that Britain adopt the same approach
>as has been successful in Germany, which pays householders for
>feeding the electricity they produce from microgeneration into the
>national grid; the rate of these "feed-in tariffs" for photovoltaic
>panels is especially generous, fuelling their rapid expansion. At
>least 15 other European countries have also adopted them.
>
>Last November, Gordon Brown appeared to back them, indicating that
>it should be "made easier for people to generate their own energy
>through microgeneration, and sell it on to the grid". But little has
>happened since, with ministers promising only to "look" at feed-in
>tariffs. They failed to include them in the Government's Energy
>Bill, sparking the biggest rebellion of Mr Brown's premiership, when
>33 Labour MPs last month defied the whips.
>
>A staggering 278 MPs have now signed an early-day motion calling on
>the Government to adopt them. Yet, last Wednesday, speaking for the
>Government in a House of Lords debate, Lord Jones, a junior DBERR
>minister, called feed-in tariffs "a regulatory nightmare and
>extremely expensive". He added: "If we were to change now we would
>destroy the consistency and stability that business craves and
>private sector investors need."
>
>The report also gives a fair wind to a proposal by the Micropower
>Council to set statutory targets for household renewables, to give
>the industry the certainty it needs to expand.
>
>The confusion in Government over micropower echoes the chaos of its
>entire energy policy on display last week. Ministers panicked at the
>fuel price protests, which blocked the A40 on Wednesday, just as
>they did seven years ago when larger protests paralysed the country.
>
>Then Gordon Brown, as Chancellor, rapidly backed away from green
>taxes, despite having promised to put "the environment at the core
>of the Government's objectives for the tax system". Last week he and
>his ministers were scrambling over themselves to react to the new
>protests, contradicting each other over whether they would perform
>U-turns over plans to raise fuel duty by 2p, and increase road tax
>disproportionately on bigger cars.
>
>The Prime Minister also increased his backing for nuclear power.
>Previously he had only suggested that new reactors should be built
>to in place of old ones as they were closed down. But on Wednesday
>he said he would be "more ambitious", adding: "We are pretty clear
>that we will have to do more than simply replace existing nuclear
>capacity in Britain."
>
>The report offers a very different future, as do the Tories, who see
>microgeneration as central to their philosophy of redirecting power
>to individuals. David Cameron sees "decentralised energy" as "a key
>part of our political vision, energy for the post-bureaucratic age".
>He believes microgeneration could make Britain, and individual
>communities, "self-sufficient in energy".
>
>Opinion
>
>"There are huge economic, social and environmental gains to be made
>by doing this"
>
>Peter Ainsworth, Shadow Environment Secretary
>
>"We will have to do more than simply replace existing nuclear
>capability. We will be more ambitious"
>
>Gordon Brown, Prime Minister
>
>"A large proportion of homes in the UK could be generating their own
>energy, saving tons of emissions"
>
>Philip Sellwood, Chief executive, Energy Saving Trust
>
>"We are not going to make any progress in the fight against climate
>change if we have to rely on piecemeal initiatives"
>
>Steve Webb, Lib Dem environment spokesman
>
>"Thirty-five per cent of our maximum demand for electricity should
>come from nuclear. We have plenty of uranium"
>
>Sir David King, Former chief scientific adviser
>
>"This levelling of energy demand will make it possible for nuclear
>power to supply virtually all of our energy needs"
>
>John Ritch Director general, World Nuclear Assoc_______________________________________________
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-- 
Allen Smith, Ph.D.		  http://cesario.rutgers.edu/easmith/
September 11, 2001		   A Day That Shall Live In Infamy II
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin