General: Huge hike in energy prices

181 to 199 of 199

- CommentAuthorSimonD
- CommentTimeMay 1st 2022
Posted By: WillInAberdeenDon't think that's accurate - the world overall energy consumption has increased by far more than the growth of renewables.

I don't think that's what she's saying. It's more subtle than that. 1st she's highlighting the immense challenge we face in transfering from energy dense sources, to much less energy dense sources. 2nd it's that despite agreements going back to 1995, the growth in renewables has not reduced or replaced fossils fuels overall but the net effect so far is that renewables have increased overall energy consumption (although she is critical of an overly technology reliant approach to achieving net-zero as I am, I believe in this instance it's more about a criticism of implementation and that the renewable technology itself is completely reliant on fossil fuels, which is problematic).

In my mind this is an interesting perspective that warrants some further investigation and consideration..

Posted By: WillInAberdeenIf this was caused only by offshoring manufacturing,

That isn't what I or she said in the book, which was that off-shoring has played a large part. This is fairly self-evident in that off-shoring permitted significant manufacturing and production savings but with an environmental cost associated with dirty energy sources coupled with less environmental protections, at least to begin with (I'd argue still to a great extent). One would then expect, as those new off-shored manufacturing bases increased their knowledge together with technological advances, efficiencies would be achieved that reduce energy demand at source (which is somethng we've seen happening in China).

The problem with off-shoring is that once it's started on a large scale, we enter into a merry-go-round of producers chasing the next and cheapest source of manufacturing etc. IIRC E F Schumacher wrote about this tendency back in the 1960s

Posted By: WillInAberdeenUK has reduced from 59 to 46 MWh per person per year in last two decades.

She uses 1995 as the starting figure for illustration and taking that into account, we've only seen a reduction of 3mWh (49 - 46) in the UK.
- CommentAuthorWillInAberdeen
- CommentTimeMay 1st 2022 edited
Mmm, but where's the counterfactual? If renewables hadn't grown, would fossil fuel consumption have increased: faster, the same, or slower than actually happened?

As mentioned, it is deemed that ~3-5x as much coal or oil 'primary energy' deliver the same useful work as 1 unit of renewables - so if renewables hadn't grown, then overall 'primary energy' consumption (and CO2, more importantly) would have increased significantly faster than it actually has done. And Fossil has been generally cheaper at point of use, so people might have used even more of it.

Likewise, if heavy manufacturing had remained in the UK, who says that we would have done it more energy-efficiently than other countries? Growing up in a steel town, I had summer jobs in a mill built in the 1960s, where they had zero concern for energy conservation as there had been plentiful coal available nearby to repeatedly reheat the same slab. They seemed surprised when it turned out a tonne of steel could be made in Japan or Korea with much less energy, by companies who cared about avoiding waste.

If we pick our baseline year carefully (1700 perhaps? ) then yes, our energy consumption has increased, because we were on the upward part of our development S curve back then. The point is that we should help other countries to join us on our more recent downward trajectory.
- CommentAuthorrenewablejohn
- CommentTimeMay 2nd 2022
If your using 1995 as a starting point your just fiddling the figures to make the statistics fit your theory. I have no time for people like that. You cannot ignore the dash for gas which allowed the peak of 60GW to happen so the reduction to 40GW of which half is renewable has to be seen as a step in the right direction.
- CommentAuthorSimonD
- CommentTimeMay 2nd 2022
Posted By: renewablejohnIf your using 1995 as a starting point your just fiddling the figures to make the statistics fit your theory. I have no time for people like that. You cannot ignore the dash for gas which allowed the peak of 60GW to happen so the reduction to 40GW of which half is renewable has to be seen as a step in the right direction.

It's not my theory, I'm simply remarking on what I thought was an interesting and different take on the situation by a pretty renowned political economist.

However, 1995 is not an arbitrary date. I should have perhaps made it more clear in my earlier post as to why this was used in the book. It's the year of COP1, so the year of the very first international agreement on climate change. For any analysis, this is quite important because it allows us to measure the effectiveness of such international agreements and subsequent policies without the use of an arbitrary date to fix the numbers
- CommentAuthorphiledge
- CommentTimeMay 2nd 2022 edited
Posted By: renewablejohnthe reduction to 40GW of which half is renewable has to be seen as a step in the right direction.

Intrigued to know where you get the figures showing half of our energy consumption is renewable? Everything I see says we're a long way off that. Politicians claiming 50% low carbon maybe, but not renewable(in a reasonably defined way)
- CommentAuthorSimonD
- CommentTimeMay 2nd 2022 edited
Posted By: WillInAberdeen Mmm, but where's the counterfactual?..And Fossil has been generally cheaper at point of use, so people might have used even more of it.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. We'd need to properly control for price in a well constructed counterfactual, which although it's regularly acknowledged as a motivator, is often left to one side when making comparison. E.g if renewable didn't grow, would fossil fuels... whereas we perhaps need to ask ourselves, if fossil fuels weren't so cheap and unfairly subsidised, would uptake of renewables have replaced fossil fuel use?

Price is a major factor here which is illustrated in this piece from a couple of years ago (https://phys.org/news/2020-05-scientists-impact-renewable-energy-economies.html), where it states:

'In Italy and the UK, there is a clear dependence of the level of emissions on energy prices: The more expensive they are, the lower the CO2 emissions are.'

This piece also says that:

'The study proved that renewable energy sources and energy prices contribute to improving the environmental situation'

The key piece for me here is that environmental benefit is not independent of price.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenLikewise, if heavy manufacturing had remained in the UK, who says that we would have done it more energy-efficiently than other countries? Growing up in a steel town, I had summer jobs in a mill built in the 1960s, where they had zero concern for energy conservation as there had been plentiful coal available nearby to repeatedly reheat the same slab. They seemed surprised when it turned out a tonne of steel could be made in Japan or Korea with much less energy, by companies who cared about avoiding waste.

We do know, as a fact, that trade volume generally increases emissions. We also know, as a fact, that during the 1990s and 2000s producers rushed to off-shore manufacturing due to price competitiveness. The off-shoring was to many locations, but mostly China and at that time, including now, there are less protections and safeguards both on an environmental and employment basis. This has permitted companies to off-shore their emissions. But not only that, it has also helped to usher in even more of a throw away culture.

What we also know is that from an industrial and manufacturing perspective there was a drove of very poor management in the UK. This, more than anything, contributed to the decline of the industry, coupled with pricing. Off-shoring doesn't necessarily have a lot to do with this as manufacturing had already declined significantly before the mass off-shoring happened in late 1990s as China, in particular, opened up shop and the UK had already moved into a service economy and was now full-steam ahead into the new knowledge economy - the effect of some wishful thinking about decoupling growth from the real world maybe?

Posted By: WillInAberdeenIf we pick our baseline year carefully...The point is that we should help other countries to join us on our more recent downward trajectory.

As I replied to renewablejohn, 1995 is the year of COP1 so a fairly good baseline to assess climate change policy effectiveness.
- CommentAuthorWillInAberdeen
- CommentTimeMay 2nd 2022 edited
Eh? The UNFCCC was agreed in 1992 and always uses 1990 as the baseline year, unless I am much mistaken - Rio, Kyoto, Doha all refer to 1990.

Sorry, I'm not really convinced by the assertions that trade increases carbon emissions compared to not trading, or that manufacturing in other countries causes more energy usage than UK manufacturing industry would have caused.

UK industry is far more focused on controlling labour and capital investment costs (IME), which are relatively more expensive here than in many other countries. Energy costs are relatively cheap here in comparison to our labour and capital, and fall far down our to-do list. In some other countries, energy and materials are relatively more expensive than labour is, and so those get far more attention. So waste is systematically driven out (see eg Kanban and Lean) and capital is invested in energy-efficient modern facilities.

Incidentally, the 1960s era UK steel strip mill I mentioned is still operating and uses slabs that are heated at another plant 50 miles away, allowed to cool on the rail journey, before being reheated. The coal and ore are all shipped in from abroad. Other countries would have replaced that mill twice since then, near to the source of the heavy materials and without taking the hot product on a rail journey in the middle of the manufacturing line.

There's a nostalgia in some places for UK heavy industry, but I feel that it is misplaced, that isn't what we are best at any more. That's not to overlook the social consequences for people in my home town, or the national security issues with loss of strategic supplies.
- CommentAuthorrenewablejohn
- CommentTimeMay 2nd 2022 edited
Posted By: philedge
Posted By: renewablejohnthe reduction to 40GW of which half is renewable has to be seen as a step in the right direction.

Intrigued to know where you get the figures showing half of our energy consumption is renewable? Everything I see says we're a long way off that. Politicians claiming 50% low carbon maybe, but not renewable(in a reasonably defined way)

Energy trends in March 2022 reporting 2020/21 shows on P15 quite a few months when renewable generation higher than fossil fuel. Can ignore nuclear as it will always be there as baseload and renewables will always be shut down rather than modify nuclear output.
- CommentAuthorphiledge
- CommentTimeMay 2nd 2022
Posted By: renewablejohn
Energy trends in March 2022 reporting 2020/21 shows on P15 quite a few months when renewable generation higher than fossil fuel. Can ignore nuclear as it will always be there as baseload and renewables will always be shut down rather than modify nuclear output.

There may be the odd period when renewables have produced more than fossil fuels but thats not the same as renewables producing half our generation.

If you scroll to the next page the key info says 39% generation was from renewables in 2021, made up as follows-
Onshore wind- 9.4%
Offshore wind- 11.4%
PV- 4%
Hydro- 1.6%
Bioenergy- 12.9%

As I understand things a large proportion of bioenergy entails clear felling large tracts of forest overseas to burn in the UK. Whilst this may be "renewable" over half a century its not sustainable and not renewable in a reasonable way.

In my book we have 25-30% renewable generation!
- CommentAuthorSimonD
- CommentTimeMay 2nd 2022
Posted By: WillInAberdeenEh? The UNFCCC was agreed in 1992 and always uses 1990 as the baseline year, unless I am much mistaken - Rio, Kyoto, Doha all refer to 1990.

"The first UNFCCC Conference of the Parties took place from 28 March to 7 April 1995 in Berlin, Germany. It voiced concerns about the adequacy of countries' abilities to meet commitments under the Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (BSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI). COP 1 agreed on "Activities Implemented Jointly", first joint measures in international climate action."

Source: https://www.downtoearth.org.in/climate-change/cop-01

"The official record showed that the outcome was adopted by acclamation, and the worldâ€™s long and tortuous process of dealing with the climate crisis got under way, thanks in no small way to Merkel."

Source: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/media-interest-in-cop1-in-1995-was-lukewarm-times-have-changed-1.4716321

Posted By: WillInAberdeenSorry, I'm not really convinced by the assertions that trade increases carbon emissions

"The long-term impact of global trade on carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions has been largely ignored.."

"global trade is projected to grow by a factor
of 4.1 from 2010 to 2050 (in constant value). The
weight of trade (in tonnes of goods moved) will grow
less, by a factor of 3.8, reflecting changes in the
product composition of the world trade and more
specifically the fact that countries are moving up in
the value chain, producing more high value goods."

"Growth in trade will result in significant emission
growth unless action is taken. Even assuming
technological development and efficiency
improvements over the next three-and-a-half
decades, CO 2 emissions from international trade-
related freight transport will grow by 290% to 2050
in the baseline scenario, i.e. to nearly three times
todayâ€™s level. "

Source: https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/docs/cop-pdf-06.pdf

Current supply chains are obviously key here too, with one of the articles I link to below providing some clear data.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenUK industry is far more focused on controlling labour and capital investment costs (IME)

Regardless of the focus of UK industry, what matters is the net effect of the activity.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenSo waste is systematically driven out (see eg Kanban and Lean) and capital is invested in efficient modern facilities.

Investment in efficient modern facilities where and by whom?

Take this article, for example: https://www.themanufacturer.com/articles/offshoring-manufacturing-same-as-offshoring-pollution/

"The report â€“ which was conducted by the University of Nottinghamâ€™s Energy Innovation and Collaboration team â€“ found that 47% less emissions are created by manufacturing clothes in the UK, in comparison to a similar operation in an overseas textiles production base.

The UK has significantly lower carbon emissions per unit of electricity compared to overseas production hubs such as China, Bangladesh and Turkey; meaning production in the UK has lower direct carbon emissions â€“ making it a more sustainable manufacturing base.

For example, according to the report â€“ a manufacturer in China would typically release around 90% more greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) while using the same energy as in the UK. Turkey and Bangladesh would release around 70% and 24% more GHG respectively â€“ making UK production more environmentally viable, the report concludes."

This doesn't even include uptream or transportation figures but the article does mention these.

If to the contrary you've got references showing off-shoring as beneficial to the environment, I'd be happy to read to understand more.
- CommentAuthorJonti
- CommentTimeMay 3rd 2022
Posted By: SimonD

The UK has significantly lower carbon emissions per unit of electricity compared to overseas production hubs such as China, Bangladesh and Turkey; meaning production in the UK has lower direct carbon emissions â€“ making it a more sustainable manufacturing base.

For example, according to the report â€“ a manufacturer in China would typically release around 90% more greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) while using the same energy as in the UK. Turkey and Bangladesh would release around 70% and 24% more GHG respectively â€“ making UK production more environmentally viable, the report concludes."

Does this not therefor suggest it would be best to ignore any sort of offsetting through 'carbon credits' and the like and also introduce a carbon tax on all goods based on the impact goods have. This would not only go someway to encouraging companies to invest in lowering their carbon footprint but also make the marketplace a more level playing field.
- CommentAuthorWillInAberdeen
- CommentTimeMay 3rd 2022 edited
"The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed by 154 states at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992.

"Annex 1 countries are called upon to take corresponding measures with the aim of returning individually or jointly to their 1990 emissions levels."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Framework_Convention_on_Climate_Change

Edit: The "very first international agreement on climate change" could be said to be even earlier, eg the UN agreement on "Protection of global climate for present and future generations of mankind" in 1988 which set up the IPCC
https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/54234?ln=en

TBH I think any conceivable point can be made by selectively picking dates and quotations, and switching reference frame between "primary energy", "electricity" and "emmisions", while ignoring the absence of counterfactuals.

I don't believe the UK has had enough marginal supply of unallocated renewable energy in recent decades to have powered an additional fleet of steel mills (especially if they were to avoid using coal as the reducing agent), or textile mills, shipyards, metalbashers, etc, so I don't buy the "if only it were made with UK electricity..." argument. Our total energy mix (not just electricity) is not significantly better than many other countries'.

The growth of those industries in other countries after 2000, obviously means that they built many plants after 2000. So are more modern than legacy UK industries from last century.

I also don't buy the quote about shipping emissions - in general the shipping emissions are a fraction of the manufacturing emissions, and are reduced if you ship only the finished product to the UK, rather than shipping the heavy/bulky ores and raw materials for processing here.
- CommentAuthorSimonD
- CommentTimeMay 3rd 2022
Posted By: Jonti
Posted By: SimonD

The UK has significantly lower carbon emissions per unit of electricity compared to overseas production hubs such as China, Bangladesh and Turkey; meaning production in the UK has lower direct carbon emissions â€“ making it a more sustainable manufacturing base.

For example, according to the report â€“ a manufacturer in China would typically release around 90% more greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) while using the same energy as in the UK. Turkey and Bangladesh would release around 70% and 24% more GHG respectively â€“ making UK production more environmentally viable, the report concludes."

Does this not therefor suggest it would be best to ignore any sort of offsetting through 'carbon credits' and the like and also introduce a carbon tax on all goods based on the impact goods have. This would not only go someway to encouraging companies to invest in lowering their carbon footprint but also make the marketplace a more level playing field.

I certainly believe that the market for carbon credits and offsetting is not fit for purpose and really does require significant overhall. I read recently that a director of one of the largest forestry companies and carbon credit seller in the US became a whistleblower about the inadequacy of this system and that due to the way the market works it was possible to buy/sell the same pieces of forest multiple times and sometimes what was sold didn't cover the actual carbon credits being sold. In some cases the forest bought for carbon credits and theoretically protected were felled. In this article is was mentioned that carbon credits are much too cheap to sustain and care for the forests being traded for carbon credits and therefore the system is in this sense unsustainable.

I think it would be a good idea to implement some kind of system that weighted products by their carbon footprint, but I would be even more keen on a wider environmental footprint that conisdered things such as circular economy in such a way that products are encouraged to be recycled at the same level of product value.

What I mean by this is that concrete, for example, can be recycled (and is often counted in a positive environmental basis in construction/demolition). However, it can only be recycled to a much lower value in the form of rubble etc.
- CommentAuthorSimonD
- CommentTimeMay 3rd 2022 edited
Posted By: WillInAberdeen
TBH I think any conceivable point can be made by selectively picking dates and quotations, and switching reference frame between "primary energy", "electricity" and "emmisions", while ignoring the absence of counterfactuals.

Seriously Will? I very clearly said the frame of reference in terms of dates was 1995 (as that was the date used by the book so it was a basis for discussion) and I've provided references in support of everything I've said, providing links to the whole piece to check my quotations - I thought that was fairly standard practise. As I said, you're welcome to provide references to the contrary. You'd also be very welcome to select relevant quotations from those sources. As I'm sure you're aware, counterfactuals need to be constructed and used with care to be of any real value. Whether there is an absence of a counterfactual to be ignored, remains to be shown.

Posted By: WillInAberdeen

I don't believe the UK has had enough marginal supply of unallocated renewable energy in recent decades to have powered an additional fleet of steel mills (especially if they were to avoid using coal as the reducing agent), or textile mills, shipyards, metalbashers, etc, so I don't buy the "if only it were made with UK electricity..." argument. Our total energy mix (not just electricity) is not significantly better than many other countries'.

The growth of those industries in other countries after 2000, obviously means that they built many plants after 2000. So are more modern than legacy UK industries from last century.

I also don't buy the quote about shipping emissions - in general the shipping emissions are a fraction of the manufacturing emissions, and are reduced if you ship only the finished product to the UK, rather than shipping the heavy/bulky ores and raw materials for processing here.

I'm sure you know that supply chains just don't work like that any more. Long gone are the days a lump of raw materials arrived at the factory door to be processed and out the other door came a finished product. Actually, I don't know if that's ever happened has it? White goods, electronics, clothing, diy and construction tools, to name a few are made up of many components that are produced and assembled at various different locations. Even running shoes are actually shipped between multiple factories and back again to be made.

As for marginal supply, I have a feeling that if demand were there, together with a sensible long term energy policy that supported it at the time, it would have sensibly been developed and provided.How's that for a counterfactual for you?

But of course both capital and r & d investment has been in decline for decades now, particularly following the 1980s - dare I actually mention a date in case I get accused of picking something out of the air? - so corporate practice hasn't helped at all in that as they simply ran to the lowest bar to reduce costs no matter what.
- CommentAuthorrenewablejohn
- CommentTimeMay 3rd 2022
Posted By: philedge
Posted By: renewablejohn
Energy trends in March 2022 reporting 2020/21 shows on P15 quite a few months when renewable generation higher than fossil fuel. Can ignore nuclear as it will always be there as baseload and renewables will always be shut down rather than modify nuclear output.

There may be the odd period when renewables have produced more than fossil fuels but thats not the same as renewables producing half our generation.

If you scroll to the next page the key info says 39% generation was from renewables in 2021, made up as follows-
Onshore wind- 9.4%
Offshore wind- 11.4%
PV- 4%
Hydro- 1.6%
Bioenergy- 12.9%

As I understand things a large proportion of bioenergy entails clear felling large tracts of forest overseas to burn in the UK. Whilst this may be "renewable" over half a century its not sustainable and not renewable in a reasonable way.

In my book we have 25-30% renewable generation!

No bioenergy is mainly gas derived from AD plants the miniscule amount of wood pellets going through Drax should be banned as there is nothing renewable about shipping wood pellets around the world. (Drax is now a big producer and exporter of pellets so just because pellets have been shipped to UK does not mean if has been used by Drax for power generation) We do have home grown timber utilised at other biomass plants together with a home grown straw and miscanthus feed stock also used in the biomass plants. Because the AD gas is injected direct into the grid I believe the fossil gas generated is overstated and some of that should be allocated to renewable. It will become more important when 20% of Gas will be from renewable hydrogen injection. The other error recorded in the report is the under declaration of solar generation which their hoping to fix.
- CommentAuthorphiledge
- CommentTimeMay 4th 2022
Posted By: renewablejohn
No bioenergy is mainly gas derived from AD plants the miniscule amount of wood pellets going through Drax should be banned as there is nothing renewable about shipping wood pellets around the world. (Drax is now a big producer and exporter of pellets so just because pellets have been shipped to UK does not mean if has been used by Drax for power generation)

Wikipedia and a Reuters report seem to suggest that Drax alone produces 6% of UK electricity with Drax's own web site saying their biomass comes from overseas forestry.

If the other 6.9% of electricity generation is truly renewable then that gives us 33% renewable generation. Would be great to see some breakdown figures for the sources of of the 6.9% if anyone knows one??
- CommentAuthorrenewablejohn
- CommentTimeMay 4th 2022
Posted By: philedge
Posted By: renewablejohn
No bioenergy is mainly gas derived from AD plants the miniscule amount of wood pellets going through Drax should be banned as there is nothing renewable about shipping wood pellets around the world. (Drax is now a big producer and exporter of pellets so just because pellets have been shipped to UK does not mean if has been used by Drax for power generation)

Wikipedia and a Reuters report seem to suggest that Drax alone produces 6% of UK electricity with Drax's own web site saying their biomass comes from overseas forestry.

If the other 6.9% of electricity generation is truly renewable then that gives us 33% renewable generation. Would be great to see some breakdown figures for the sources of of the 6.9% if anyone knows one??

Wish full thinking by wiki and reuters. In the days when it was coal fired 6% was the general figure quoted across the 6 generating units. Four of which have been converted from coal to biomass with plans originally to convert the others to gas but that seems to have been abandoned and the last coal was supposed to have been delivered in 2021 but knowing Drax they will take the current situation with Ukraine as a means to get the coal side reopened. The biomass units do burn other biomass besides wood pellets.
- CommentAuthorrenewablejohn
- CommentTimeMay 4th 2022
Energy mix for UK is all pretty academic at the moment whether its fossil or renewable the main criteria seems to be push as much electric as possible into europe via all the interconnectors. To that end I have never before seen over 5GW being pushed into Europe but now it appears to be happening on a regular basis.
- CommentAuthorphiledge
- CommentTimeMay 4th 2022
Posted By: renewablejohn
Wish full thinking by wiki and reuters. In the days when it was coal fired 6% was the general figure quoted across the 6 generating units. The biomass units do burn other biomass besides wood pellets.

Drax own web site says they produce 12% of UK "renewable" electricity from almost 100% wood pellets sourced from overseas forestry. I make that 4.8% of UK 2021 total

Would still love to know the source/proportion of the rest of the bioenergy generation. Anyone know??

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