MorganEnergy

As I expected, environmental groups are not happy with the British government’s plans for an 8GW tidal barrage across the Severn Estuary. In theory the government has whittled a long list of 10 tidal power projects down to a short list of 5, and will eventually choose the best project. In practice no one expects them to opt for anything other than the massive 8GW scheme because that’s the one that will deliver the most generating capacity. Unfortunately it may also be the project that causes most environmental damage.

Britain’s environmentalists are not taking this lying down. A coalition formed by the National Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the WWF and the Anglers’ Trust has commissioned a report from the engineering consultancy, W.S. Atkins. That report has now been published, and it casts significant doubt on the process that produced the short list from the long list. In particular Atkins alleges that the government report:

• Assumed that two-way generation would produce similar or less power to ebb-only generation; and
• Used 30-year-old calculations that seriously underestimate the potential output of some schemes

The two-way generation issue is particularly important as such schemes are believed to be less environmentally damaging than ebb-only generation. The government short list eliminated the “tidal reef” project based on this technology that was the preferred candidate of the environmental groups.

You have to have a certain amount of sympathy for the government bureaucrats for wanting to avoid a scheme that bills itself as a, “Totally new concept in tidal power generation”. On the other hand, this debate isn’t going to go away, and trying to eliminate a major rival candidate early on was perhaps not a good idea.

More coverage in The Guardian.

I had a visitor today. He claimed to be from Scottish Power and he needed to read the electricity meter. Although he very carefully didn’t say so, it was pretty clear that what he wanted was to get information about my usage levels so that he could give me a quote with a view to luring me away from my current supplier. I sent him packing, and thought no more about it until I saw a blog post by a friend who had experienced a similar visit.

The difference here is that the meter here is on the wall outside the house, whereas Juliet’s meter is inside the house. Consequently the Scottish Power salesman was keen to get entry to her home. Once again he wasn’t admitting to being a salesman, but instead spouted the nonsense about needing to do a “tariff check”. Because this involved someone trying to get into the house, Juliet not only sent the fellow away, she reported him to the police.

Is this reasonable? Actually I think it is. It is one thing for an electricity salesman to come to the door. It is quite another for him to try to trick his way into someone’s house. Juliet can look after herself (she’s a black belt at something dangerous), but older people could easily be quite frightened by this. That’s particularly so because the British media keep warning us against “distraction burglaries”, where one man distracts the householder with some fancy tale while the other sneaks into the house to rob it.

Given the scale of the operation (Juliet lives quite a long way from where I am), I have no doubt that this was a legitimate Scottish Power sales campaign, though I note that such things are often outsourced to specialist doorstep sales companies so the staff involved, and even the choice of tactics, may not have much connection with Scottish Power. It is, however, a rather stupid campaign, and one that is likely to backfire on the company. I’m writing this post in part in the hope that someone from Scottish Power will see it and ask some hard questions of their subcontractors.

More generally, however, I wonder about a retail market in which these things happen. The intention in opening up residential supply to competition was always to introduce healthy competition to the market. But experience has shown that customers are not interested in switching supplier for any reason other than price, and the savings available are often so small that no one can be bothered – hence the high pressure sales techniques. This new “tariff check” scam is quite mild compared to what used to go on before Ofgem got a grip on proceedings. We might have competition, but whether it is healthy or not appears to be open to debate.

The irony of the whole affair is that I’m currently staying with a friend, and when she got home she informed me that she’s already with Scottish Power, so clearly whoever is running the campaign isn’t bothering to check which households are already sold.

The UK Government has published a list of 11 sites at which it hopes new nuclear power stations will be built. According to The Guardian, the sites are:

Dungeness in Kent; Sizewell in Suffolk; Hartlepool in Cleveland; Heysham in Lancashire; Sellafield in Cumbria; Braystones in Cumbria; Kirksanton in Cumbria; Wylfa Peninsula in Anglesey; Oldbury in Gloucestershire; Hinkley Point in Somerset and Bradwell in Essex.

The majority of these locations (9) already house existing nuclear installations. The other two are close to the nuclear re-processing facility at Sellafield. The government hopes that the choice of brownfield sites will ease the process of planning inquiries, though anti-nuclear protesters are already lining up to challenge the process.

Meanwhile the companies involved are busy courting local public opinion. Here in Somerset homes have received leaflets from EdF that talk enthusiastically about the new jobs that will be created, and about the nuclear skills training center that will be established in conjunction with a local college. Hinkley Point is a particularly interesting site as it overlooks the Severn Estuary more or less exactly where the proposed tidal barrage would be built. This gives local people a genuine choice as to how they want their future electricity generated: by a nuclear power station, or by a renewable energy project that environmental campaigners say will be disastrous for local wildlife. The next year or so could be interesting.

Despite having plenty of good prospects for wind energy, the UK has lagged behind both other European countries and America in deployment of wind farms. The problem is well known: planning permission. NIMBYism is a major issue – the British public has got it into its head that a wind farm is a terrible eyesore than is to be resisted at all costs. However, environmental groups, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), have also campaigned strongly against wind farms on the grounds that they are a danger to our feathered friends.

Not any more. Much to the delight of the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA), the RSPB has published a report titled Positive Planning for Onshore Wind. Produced by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), the report states that risks to wildlife can be minimized by sensible planning and choice of location. Ruth Davis head of Climate Change Policy at the RSPB said:

“This report shows that if we get it right, the UK can produce huge amounts of clean energy without time-consuming conflicts and harm to our wildlife. Get it wrong and people may reject wind power. That would be disastrous.”

Actually, of course, the British people rejected wind power en masse a long time ago, and the RSPB should accept a large share of the blame for that. But it is good to see them change their stance. Possibly their minds were powerfully concentrated by the government’s enthusiasm for the Severn Barrage scheme which, if it goes ahead, is predicted to destroy large areas of wetlands that are vital to many bird species. The main advantage of the barrage, as far as the government is concerned, is the ability to get a huge amount of new generation from only one public inquiry, rather than have to fight environmental protesters in many small battles all over the country.

The full RSPB report is available here.

Over at Knowledge Problem, Michael Giberson reports that a shake-out is occurring in the Texas retail market and asks whether vertical integration might have been a better option for Texas.

I don’t have Sally Hunt’s book to hand, and I know that there are complex issues involved in this case, but here are some quick thoughts.

1. The end result of vertical integration is a situation like we have in the UK where there is no serious wholesale market in electricity, and consequently much less transparency in the market. Transparency, in general, is a good thing, and I don’t like doing without it.

2. Texas is experiencing a shake-out of retailers because it, like California, made the foolish assumption that the retail market would see enthusiastic and successful new entry. All of the experience around the world suggests that this does not happen. Energy retailing is a business in which economies of scale are everything, and new entry is practically impossible. The Texas market will eventually settle down to a small number of very large companies all of which, I suspect, will also have retail businesses in other states.

A while back I linked to a story about a catastrophic failure of a UK wind turbine that people were speculating might have been caused by a passing UFO. Sadly the real explanation is much more prosaic. As this Guardian report reveals, the actual explanation was metal fatigue in some of the bolts holding the turbine together. Enercon, who made the turbine, is embarrassed; Ecotricity, who own the site, are disappointed that their time in the limelight appears to be over; and the British newspapers are off looking for the next promising alien invasion story.

The consortium formed by Scottish & Southern (SSE) and Iberdrola, with the purpose of building new nuclear plants in the UK, has a new member. The BBC reports that Gaz de France (GdF) has joined the group. The article also mentions a rival consortium comprised of RWE and E.ON. It is getting crowded in that market.

The February 2009 issue of EEnergy Informer is now available. Here is the contents list:

• Is Exxon’s Carbon Tax Part Of Obama’s Sea Change?
• Nuclear Eyes On Britain
• Energy Demand, Like Everything Else, to Slip In 2009
• Mounting Unpaid Utility Bills Pose New Challenge For Smart Meters
• Future Of Coal: Rhetoric vs. Reality
• Can DOE Make A Difference?
• Sempra Finds The El Dorado In Solar PVs
• AREVA’s Setbacks In Finland Cause for Nuclear Alarm
• New Year Letter To Obamas Warns On Factories Of Death

The article on Finland is available for free. All other articles currently require a subscription to the paper edition of the magazine. To subscribe to EEnergy Informer click here.

In the UK news today is a report by Ernst & Young commissioned by National Grid. The report extols the virtues of biogas (gas created by decomposition of landfill waste) as a solution to the country’s energy troubles. Janine Freeman, head of National Grid’s Sustainable Gas Group, said:

Biogas has benefits on so many fronts. It is renewable and could help to meet the target of 15% of all our energy coming from renewable sources by 2020. It provides a solution for what to do with our waste with the decline in landfill capacity and it would help the UK with a secure supply of gas as North Sea sources run down

As a company with a gas distribution business, National Grid is obviously keen to push solutions that use its own networks, but the company does have a point that the infrastructure to support development of biogas use is largely in place.

Environmentalists are, of course, speaking out against the report. Any form of renewable energy that involves making use of landfill waste rather than stopping creating it in the first place always provokes their ire. Also other people in the renewables business are upset at National Grid apparently trying to hijack the agenda.

However, the main issue will remain planning permission. It is extremely difficult to get permission to do any energy-related development in the UK, so any solution that requires a large number of small installations is pretty much doomed to failure. That is why Gordon Brown is much more interested in huge projects such as new nuclear power stations and the Severn Barrage.

Press coverage of the story is available from the Telegraph and the BBC. The full report is available here.

The UK government has published a short list of 5 projects it is considering for extracting energy from the Severn Estuary. Included on the list is the option of a gigantic barrage stretching from Cardiff to Weston-super-Mare. The other projects are for smaller barrages and for tidal lagoons.

The large barrage project is opposed, not only by environmentalists, who fear the destruction of much wetland habitat, but also by the port of Bristol which has plans to develop a deep water container terminal – a project that would be a non-starter if the barrage prevented shipping from traveling into Bristol.

Judging by the local news last night, many people feel that the government has already made up its mind which project to back, and the consultation over the short list is a just sham to keep protesters happy. It is easy to see why. The big barrage will generate massively more energy (up to 8GW) and the tidal lagoon system favored by environmentalists are less proven technology.

Further coverage is available in The Guardian and The Times. A BBC Wales video with graphics showing the sites is available here.