This topic has offered prescriptions for change at the level of the individual home. To end, the argument for change should be reinforced by placing it in its wider context. It may seem there is a wide gulf between the actions of a single home owner and the geopolitical forces that are shaping up for a contest in the global arena. The reality is that it is people that have the critical mass to shape the destiny of nations and corporations if they choose to exercise their influence.
It has to be accepted that the payback time for some of the measures described here is quite long. Payback time is the period it takes to recover the cost of the installations in terms of energy saved. This is because fossil energy is artificially cheap due largely to the fact that it is subsidized to the tune of $300 billion a year. In addition, it is not penalized for the damage it inflicts on health, ecosystems and above all the atmosphere by driving climate change. The last is often referred to as the external costs. Thus, the cost-effectiveness of insulation and renewable energy are measured by making a direct comparison with delivered fossil energy saved or produced by the installations, ignoring subsidies and the external costs. There is hope that, in due course, the EU will rectify the anomaly of a system skewed so heavily in favour of the interests vested in the fossil fuel industries.
Large organizations like the fuel giants with their bureaucratic hierarchies, their heavy investment in plant and people and their commitment to a particular technology tend to resist a ‘disruptive’ technology, like renewable energy. They have an interest in maintaining the inequality of the status quo. They may invest in the occasional wind farm or produce PV cells, but their heart remains firmly committed to oil and why not since it is still highly profitable. Studies of technical innovation have shown that radical innovations have never been introduced by market leaders.
Even international treaties like the Kyoto Protocol are geared towards making the fossil fuel industries more efficient rather than replacing them with renewable energy. The Iraq war brings the protagonists into much sharper focus.
Being, for a moment, the devil’s advocate: energy, as stated, is relatively cheap, still abundant and generally reliable, so why, at this stage, go to the trouble and expense of refurbishing our homes? As for the moral argument, yes climate change is now virtually an established fact, but for the UK the benefits might well outweigh the penalties. We may have to improve coastal defences and sacrifice some land to the sea, but that will be a small price to pay if Bournemouth comes to have the climate of Biarritz, as one member of Parliament put it. All manner of new flora and fauna will flourish in our Mediterranean climate.
The counter argument is that unless there are drastic CO2 abatement strategies even the UK will not escape the fallout from climate change. For example, there will be the displacement of whole populations due to rising sea levels and crop failures arising from drought. Climate change refugees will be numbered in the millions placing enormous strains on northern Europe. The economic structures of the world will collapse and even the balmy UK will not be spared.
As briefly alluded to in topic 1, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Scientific Committee has asserted that, if CO2 emissions are to stop increasing in the atmosphere, there must be at least a 60 per cent reduction in emissions of the gas by 2050, as against 1990 levels. To its credit the UK Government in its Energy White Paper of February 2003 accepts its obligation to achieve this goal. However, the latest information from the scientists at the Meteorological Office’s Hadley Centre in the UK is that the rate of climate change is proving to be significantly greater than earlier predictions. One contributory factor is the prediction that the Amazon rainforest is likely to disappear within a few decades due to die-back caused by rising temperatures. This will release as much as 77 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, raising temperatures significantly above IPCC estimates. This means that CO2 levels will rise well above the ceiling of 500 ppmv regarded by the IPCC as the safety limit (New Scientist 8 February 2003, p. 55). The only remedy is virtually to eliminate the use of fossil fuels in the developed countries in the shortest possible time. So, where do we stand at present?
In the industrialized countries the demand for electricity, mostly fossil generated, is rising inexorably due to a combination of accelerating urbanization and the proliferation of electrical devices coupled with increased spending power. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), an arm of the OECD, the demand for energy rose 60 per cent between 1971 and 1990 within its member states. Its prediction for the period 1990-2010 is for a further increase of 48 per cent in consumption, based on a medium growth forecast. The IEA forecast shows that, by 2010, the OECD countries will have increased consumption by 77 per cent above the reference date of 1990. The IPCC assumed that if CO2 emissions are stabilized at 60 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050 this would assume an increase in atmospheric concentrations of the gas from the present 380 parts per million by volume (ppmv) to 500 ppmv. There would be inevitable serious climate damage at this concentration. However, on present performance there would seem to be little chance of achieving the IPCC target by that date. It is more likely that we can expect CO2 concentrations reaching 700-1000 ppmv with consequences that are unimaginable (New Scientist, op cit).
Unless something radical is done to overturn these IEA predictions on fossil energy expansion, the planet is in for an extremely bumpy ride a few decades from now. What are the chances? At the moment they seem slim.
Henry Ford emancipated Americans. Cheap personalized transport meant that urban populations would no longer be confined within compact cities. So the current tension within the Middle East is as much to do with town planning as military planning. The rapid growth of the US led to the exponential growth of its major cities -not in their down-town centres, but in the green and pleasant peripheries. Economically liberated millions opted to escape to the vast suburban hinterlands of Los Angeles, Dallas, Phoenix, Houston, etc., in endless low density developments which could only exist on the basis of private transport. When the author visited Albuquerque some years ago it had the same superficial area as Los Angeles with only a fraction of the population. The car is the machine which makes the US function. It is impossible for these places to be served economically by public transport. So, America is understandably locked in to an oil-based economy. Worldwide, motor vehicles account for about 33 per cent of oil consumption; in the US it is nearer 65 per cent.
The oil-based economy is a major component of corporate power which is increasingly controlling the destiny of nations through highly centralized networks of influence. Solar energy threatens the hegemony of this system, offering individuals release from the corporate grip. It raises the prospect of individual home owners becoming energy autonomous – a frightening prospect for the major oil and power generating companies who are mostly in denial about the prospects of a post fossil fuel world. Yet such a world is inevitable.
The US Geological Survey estimates that confirmed oil reserves amount to 118 billion tonnes. Even using the most optimistic estimate of reserves, these will be exhausted by 2035. Gas reserves are likely to disappear by 2040, though UK domestic reserves in the North Sea will have gone by about 2016. This leaves us with a relatively short time in which to replace an oil-based world economy with one centred on renewable energy.
The killer punch as perceived by the sceptics is that renewable energy sources could never fill the vacuum created by the demise of oil. Dr Hermann Scheer, a member of the German Parliament, challenges this view, using his own country as the example. Here the aggregate annual electricity demand is around 500 billion kWh. He calculates that if this were to be met by PVs alone it would require 5000 km2 of solar panels. If mounted on walls and roofs of existing buildings, this target could be achieved using only 10 per cent of the building stock.
If wind power were to be the sole energy source, using the industry standard 1.5 MW turbine, that country would need 166,666 machines to be installed in areas with a sufficient wind regime (Scheer, 2002). Obviously neither is a realistic option on its own; a mix of renewable energy sources would be employed: burning of biomass produced by rapid rotation crops (zero net CO2), biogas from the anaerobic digestion of waste, and wave and tidal power. In the UK, for example, a single tidal barrage in the estuary of the River Severn would provide 6 per cent of its electricity needs.
In the light of this analysis, it looks as though the initiative for driving down CO2 emissions rests with the people rather than governments and multi-national corporations. Householders have a key role to play in this operation. They, more than any other group, hold it in their gift to achieve substantial abatement targets. Yet how can one householder be of any significance in the titanic battle which is emerging between energy ideologies?
The UK Government is coming to terms with the fact that the energy infrastructure will have to undergo radical change from a highly centralized to a dispersed or ‘distributed’ system. As Scheer puts it, ‘The familiar pattern of centrally managed supplies of electricity, fuel, heat and process energy will be replaced by a comprehensive decentralized supply. The essential prerequisite for all this is the deployment of renewable energy, because only from renewable sources can energy be supplied overwhelmingly without long supply chains. Only then can decentralized technologies truly lead to a truly decentralized system’ (op cit, p. 200).
What makes this a realistic option is the development of information technology (IT) which makes possible a system based on a proliferation of mini-grids. Communities may decide to collaborate to generate electricity from individual homes forming a local mini-grid, called ‘islanding’ in current government parlance. Information technology is now capable of managing the complexities of a system with any number of supply and delivery nodes without centralized control. It can deal efficiently with the interplay of supply and demand, providing hour by hour best outcomes for both suppliers and consumers.
This revolution in the realm of energy will be driven by a number of factors:
• The security factor. In the present international political climate the vulnerability of large power plants especially nuclear sites is a major concern.
• The inefficiency of long delivery chains with consequent line losses.
• The growing pressure to reduce CO2 emissions and, at the very least, meet internationally agreed abatement commitments.
• The fact that the Middle East now controls the price and rate of production of oil creates uncertainties. Reducing reliance on areas of political instability is a high priority for the industrialized countries.
• The technological developments across the spectrum of renewable technologies.
Developing the last point, there is considerable research and development into more efficient and cost-effective low to zero carbon energy technologies.
There should soon be a quantum improvement in the cost-effectiveness of PVs even in the context of the extremely uneven playing field enjoyed by fossil fuels. Thin film technology on flexible substrates is well advanced; cells using a range of light-sensitive dyes are producing promising results with more exotic technologies on the horizon. PV cells which mimic photosynthesis are already in the laboratory: photoactive materials using photochemical processes.
Rapid improvements are promised in the efficiency and cost of fuel cells with the miniaturization of electrolysis units producing hydrogen feeding fuel cells suitable for a single dwelling or vehicle. We have noted how compact, high-performance Stirling engines are on the verge of being market-ready; work on heat pumps has the aim of raising their coefficient of performance (COP) to 8:1 (8 units of heat to 1 unit of electricity), which will make them significantly better than heating with fossil-based energy. Improved biomass and waste gasification technology will give additional impetus to the formation of community mini-grids.
The first priority outlined in this topic has been the need to reduce the demand for energy. It is possible for householders to cut energy use by up to 60 per cent by employing measures described here. If, at the same time, a home can further reduce its demand for electricity by generating its own from PVs or wind etc., then the whole housing sector has the potential to head the march towards a near fossil-free future. If a 60 per cent demand reduction were spread across the housing sector in the UK it would result in a 12-15 per cent reduction in the nation’s CO2 emissions. The 2003 Energy White Paper recognizes that, as well as promoting renewable energy, there must also be government support for drastically reducing demand for electricity and gas. By the end of this decade, 90 per cent of gas in the UK will be imported, mostly from eastern Europe. At the same time, within about 15 years from 2003 all nuclear power stations will have been decommissioned.
The housing stock is the largest single cause of CO2 emissions, larger even than industry or transport. To tackle the housing sector head on would be the most rapidly achievable and cost-effective way of reversing the present trend of year on year increase in emissions occurring in the UK. At the same time a national upgrading programme would create a new workforce. It has also been calculated that it would make a significant inroad into health service costs directly attributed to poor housing. (Goodacre et al., 2002).
In conclusion, the first priority for home owners should be to reduce their reliance on energy. Good insulation coupled with efficient air tightness with heat recovery ventilation should reduce the heating requirement for the average home to a mere 1.5 kW – well under the rating of the smallest central heating boilers.
This topic amounts to an invitation to householders to side with the ever-growing battalions who have opted to go with the flow of nature in their lives, drastically reducing their reliance on commodities that are threatening the planet and compromising the security of future generations.
Scheer signposts the way forward:
Global civilization can only escape the life-threatening fossil fuel resource trap if every effort is made to bring about an immediate transition to renewable and environmentally sustainable resources and thereby the end of the dependence on fossil fuels (op cit, p. 7)
