The Independent reports:
Nick Clegg will today unveil plans to make Britain an exporter of green energy by 2050, as he called for a programme “on the scale of the Apollo moon landings” to transform Britain’s dependence on foreign oil, gas and coal supplies.
In an interview with The Independent, the Liberal Democrat leader demanded the scrapping of new nuclear and coal-fired power stations, instead proposing the establishment of a renewables delivery authority to oversee a massive expansion of wind, solar and wave energy, funded by guaranteed premium prices for green energy.
He said: “Renewable energy is no longer a pipe dream. It is realistic and achievable. All it requires is the leadership and vision that has been lacking under years of tired Labour thinking.
“That’s why I will set out Liberal Democrat proposals to become energy independent by 2050. This will require the kind of ambition and political will that succeeded in putting man on the Moon.”
You can listen again to Nick’s interview on Radio 4 this morning via the BBC website, which also reports that:
Mr Clegg told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he wanted to see the creation of a renewables delivery authority – similar to the Olympic Delivery Authority – to make a “complete revolution” in energy supply a reality.
“We’ve only just started, I think, making the first tentative steps to see what’s possible,” he said.
“The thing that I think has gone wrong in this debate is that the government has spooked everyone into thinking that we need nuclear by saying there’s going to be a terrible energy gap – the lights are going to go out in the middle of the next decade.
“There’s actually no evidence that’s the case at all. They’ve raised the wrong problem in order to push the wrong solution.
“The real problem is that our energy mix is not green enough and we’re over dependent on oil and gas from parts of the world that aren’t very reliable.”
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40 Comments
Great! I am glad we are to call the bluffs of the nuclear power and the gas/oil lobbies.
I havn’t for a long time seen a policy which pleases me more.
Only a mandatory programme will really take renewables forward; targets are easy, but only rules work.
Locally, we pushed our conservative council into signing the “Nottingham Agreement” and the “Merton Rule” both of which commit councils to introduce a percentage of renewables into all new developments.
But the latest development of 150 new dwellings has no microgeneration whatsoever.
This is such a pity because, particularly with appartment blocks it is so much more economical to install photovoltaics at the construction stage, and the payback time is much shorter.
I went along to the “sales suite” and asked why Bellway Homes had not offered microgeneration and was told, ” when it is mandatory they will do it, but at present they don’t have to”
It is exactly the same as with recycling; for years our con. council managed only 10% of domestic waste; but when it became mandatory this moved upwards to the present 45%.
Elizabeth
Oh dear. Where are the statistics that back up the proposal for “the scrapping of new nuclear and coal-fired power stations”? Renewables are nowhere near advanced enough to produce that kind of power, especially when this country is already struggling to meet our energy needs. Sounds great in theory Mr Clegg, but a bit of common sense and putting forward the figures to back up your claims wouldn’t go amiss.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
While I’m not convinced of our ability to take coal and nuclear out of the energy mix completely (at least not in the time-scale envisaged currently), I think it is the right argument to make, provided the substitute forms and sources of energy provision can be indentified adequately in a way which makes economic sense.
I think Clegg does that here and he identifies a huge investment opportunity which could support plenty of additional high-skilled high-value added jobs which would be a boon to our economy into the distant future.
The economy and the environment are not exclusive concerns as all the other parties attempt to persuade us, but they can actually be combined successfully – now that’s both prudent and visionary!
Good stuff. But Nick dodged the question of cars in his Today interview, although he does address this in the Indie interview.
“he called for a programme ‘on the scale of the Apollo moon landings'”
So has he just committed us to £130bn of new spending (the cost of Apollo in today’s money) at the same time as a radical tax cutting agenda?
Impressive stuff from Clegg, but is he willing to go as far as demand that work on a Severn barrage begins immediately? Not just thinking about it, or having reviews or consultations, but getting started as soon as possible. Tidal energy is one of the most reliable forms of renewable energy, and is probably essential to make the ‘mix’ work.
Nice idea on the renewables front. But…
From what I’ve read “clean coal” is a very good short term solution to plug our energy gap.
I’m undecided on nuclear.
The one thing that really irritates me about this announcement is the obsession with “energy independence”. It is an unachievable, and undesirable goal. Why, when we support global interdependence in ever other aspect of the global economy, are we so backwards about energy? How is energy independence going to be more efficient (it won’t)? If we have totally renewable energy independence (hypothetic – obviously), what would happen if we had a cloudy summer, or a still autumn? Would we not import energy? And what if we produced an excess? Would we not export it, thereby destroying other countries ability to have “energy independence”? There is an argument (which I don’t fully buy into), not a perfect one, for making us less reliant on Russian gas and OPEC oil, but this is a far cry from energy independence.
Its a stupid notion brought over from the US presidential campaigns. I’m sad that Nick has lowered himself to that level.
There was a wonderful segment in Andrew Marr’s Britain from Above where we watch the demand spike (1 megawatt and more) which results from a million kettles being boiled to coincide with the end of Eastenders, a phenomenon specific to this country.
To cope with this sudden spike the grid must import energy from France within a 30-second period or serious outages occur. Our hydro-electric capacity simply cannot cope with this sudden demand so we depend upon French nuclear power for the rest.
Perhaps energy independence will be achieved by banning television soap operas, or else we’d better stop drinking tea!
James – Nick hasn’t said that we wouldn’t import energy at all, and certainly on the Today programme he advocated that the UK became a net exporter again.
What he has said is that our future energy needs shouldn’t be dependent on Russia and Central Asia and that we shouldn’t also have to be importing huge amounts of coal from Russia.
Apart from all the environmental arguments, I think the events of the last few weeks show why we would not want to rely on Russia for energy supplies. Just look at what Russia did to Ukraine when they got in to a dispute on gas prices.
Politicians and their big projects – a guaranteed disaster…
Energy independence should send shivers down the spine of any liberal – it smacks of petty nationalism. Its the sort of talk which leads to fiascos like the biofuels mess. Government simply cannot decide all this for us, it is beyond its capability.
Are we going to declare ‘food independence’ then? What about ‘computers independence’? (yes I know some in the romantic green lobby would love this – but I prefer living in the 21st Century rather than the 11th)
Ban tea. What a great idea.
Anders, Russia can’t cut off our gas because they need the money. Its a massive bluff until they hugely diversify their economy, which they’re not doing effectively.
I agree with Tristan that energy independence isn’t liberal, or sensible.
Renewables, good. Fewer fossil fuels, good. Independence, not.
I think Nick has shown us to be bold on the environment – although I am undecided on nuclear. His overall focus is right though, that Britain is failing to think long term on investment in energy through renewables and other new technology. The tories have gone quiet on the environment, so this was a good time to reclaim the agenda, which was our traditional territory. The Labour party look a little less than pathetic on the issue. Energy independence is not nationalist! It’s pragmatic considering most of our fuel is taken from rather unsavoury regimes. It will be one of the biggest threats to national security in the 21st century and so we must be secure. I’d agree with sentiments relating the environment to the economy. Environmental industries will be a huge growth area for the 21st century. I’d advocate tax cuts for business in this area to enhance development and work with universities and business to get more people educated in this area as part of the knowledge economy
the Russians cut it off to the Ukraine a couple of years back due to pricing disputes that affected a large part of Eastern Europe. I was in Romania at the time. Am all for liberal internationalism, but that can only work if there is a greater balance in bargaining power. Nations like Russia still think only in terms of national interest. They have little time for international law.
I will continue to bang on about the Green Party. It now seems very likely that the modernisers project is going to suceed. The referendum on having someting like a single leader has been passed and they are currently holdig a leadership election with Caroline Lucas MEP as the leading candidate.
If she wins we have to be prepared for a scrappy, anti establishment, psuedo liberal insurgency on our left wing. They will fish in a familar pool. urban intelligence, disallusioned Labour voters, students as well as the genuinely enviromentally concerned.
As the credit crunch turns to slow down and it seems possibly recession there wll be huge pressure to abandon faddish enviromentalism as being to expensive and as a middle class obsesion for when times are good. The party desperately needs its own political space or USP as the vice like pressure on the centre ground increases. Going a deper shade of Green is one option. We could be the party hat holds it principals but also makes the case that Green need ot be more expensive but in the long run cheaper.
With regard to the specifics such as they are.
1. the idea of a Delivery Authority is excellent subject to appropriate checks.
2. Energy Independence is credible given the win resources we have. I take the poit that it can sound crudely nationalistic and protectionist but if we have the resources then why not use them. I’m sure belgium could be chocolate independent it it wanted but it doesn’t have a protecionist policy toward chocolate.
3. the Moon landings reference is good. As well as being a sound bite it also introduces a little obama-lite idealism into the manegerial consensus we currently have.
. As Hywel says all of this sounds very “war economy”. How does that fit with shrining state expenditure as proportion of GDP ?
“As Hywel says all of this sounds very “war economy”. How does that fit with shrining state expenditure as proportion of GDP ?”
Well, the article quoted says it will be funded “by guaranteed premium prices for green energy”. I don’t understand what that means, and funding is obviously rather crucial.
Looking at the policy paper on the party website, I see that the funding is going to come from “feed-in tariffs”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed-in_Tariff
“the article quoted says it will be funded “by guaranteed premium prices for green energy”. I don’t understand what that means,”
AUI it is a government guarantee that providers of green energy will receive at least Xp per unit so that companies investing in new technologies will be able to project a secure level of income.
using legislation to enforce electricity prices isn’t that far removed from a Tax. And if we are leaving it to the free market albeit one given a big shove what is the Delivery Authority all about. To take up Cleggs point about Apollo did the US get to the MOOn by setting a guarenteed price for Lunar rocks ?
David, surely you’re using inverted thinking.
It sounds to me like the Delivery Authority would be designed to regulate and manage the ‘shove’; the US did guarantee funding allocations for research facilities which they calculated would be compensated by the subsequent benefits they’d acrue in military applications and did contractually guarantee supply volumes for vital space technologies to make their production economically viable (even though that meant subsidies in some cases); tax equates to a coercive attempt to recognise and redistribute invisible costs such as some forms of venture capital seed funds (just like health and education create value additions let’s not forget).
It’s not ideal to depend on coercive authority I know, but it is realistic to accept that it is necessary.
This is a desperately disappointing plan that simply doesn’t measure up.
Make no mistake; energy is one of the biggest problems we face over the next few years. Irrespective of the environmental dimension (and heaven knows that’s enough all by itself) there is the little matter of oil. The World is as near as makes no difference at ‘peak oil’ meaning it’s maximum possible output of this finite resource. Within the next few years and at the very latest by 2015 oil production will begin a rapid decline irrespective of price. Indeed export volumes are already trending down (as demand surges in countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia) so I for one think that the oil crunch will come much sooner than that. I hope I’m wrong, but …
The problem is of course that almost everything depends on oil – not just cars, but agriculture, construction, ships, planes etc. Yet Clegg would not/could not answer the Today question about how cars were to be fuelled in his vision of the future. The Indie article suggests he thinks the answer is an electric moped. Wow! There’s a vote winner. I’m not surprised he didn’t answer that question.
The concept of ‘negawatts’ – saving power rather than generating it then wasting it – is of course dead right as far as it goes but existing building regs are actually quite good. The problem seems to be that they are being widely ignored/not enforced so I question whether stricter regs is really the problem. This is something that councils could do now without waiting for Whitehall. New houses should be certified as compliant before they can be sold.
Renewables are important but no panacea. Like everything they have a downside and not just the visual impact. How many people know for instance that large windfarms cause climate change? Moreover, there are huge issues in integrating them with the grid. Denmark’s impressive share of wind generation works only because it is a small country that can trade huge amounts of power with its neighbours.
The policy paper is right about one thing when it says, “Britain has no credible energy policy” (actually you could leave out the “credible” and the statement would still be true). But why, oh why, does this imply that we should have a new quango; the proposed “Renewables Delivery Authority”. Maybe I missed something but I thought we were against quangos. And in any case, this should be done by BERR. If BERR isn’t up to it (which it evidently isn’t) then we need to cut some dead-wood staff, not duplicate its staff and bureaucracy. Wasn’t there another announcement of a plan to save $20 billion recently?
Obviously the aims of this are laudable, but I have two concerns about it.
(1) A really strong case needs to be presented for the proposition that the “energy gap” is a fantasy, and that we are going to be able to cope without either new nuclear power stations or new coal-fired power stations. Obviously our opponents will attack these proposals as unrealistic, so the numbers really need to add up.
(2) The expansion of renewables would effectively be funded by increasing the price of electricity – a tax in all but name, as has been pointed out, and a regressive tax that would hit the poor hardest. This is on top of existing proposals for green taxes (and the impact of proposed public spending cuts). We are in danger of developing an “unfairness” agenda, particularly in relation to those who pay little or no income tax, and will not benefit from the accompanying tax cuts.
I think the key point in this is The feed in tariffs( for Renewables only). This guarantees producers large and small a return on their investment. This has transformed renewables in Germany and many other places.
Rather like the way guaranteed farm prices via the CAP – led to farmers investing in production until we had food mountains – Not a problem with energy for some time I expect.
The idea of a feed-in tariff for renewables is actually dead right although there are many variants on the theme. (according to Wikipedia there were 47 jurisdictions around the World using some or other form by 2007.
The basic concept is to guarantee renewable suppliers preferrential access to the grid and a premium price but, as a quid pro quo, require them to supply at that price even if/when prices generally rise above it.
For the renewable generator this removes the price risk and enables equipment suppliers to move down the learning and cost curves as they accumulate experience.
For the consumer this amounts to a small insurance premium in return for corresponding protection against a price rise. In essence this is simple and prudent portfolio management where components with dissimilar prices and risks, when bundled together, achieve a bundle price and risk lower than any one component would achieve alone.
The Govt appears not to like this approach because, like the Tories, it is wedded to a market-fundamentalist approach where ‘cheapest takes all’ irrespective of wider considerations.
How will cars be fuelled in the future: less.
“For the consumer this amounts to a small insurance premium in return for corresponding protection against a price rise.”
But can we be sure it would still be only a small premium, if 30% of electricity were to be generated from renewables?
CCF
Because obviously this is not an open ended price committement timewise. There are many ways this could be done but, for example say a rolling 10 years ahead schedule. As equipment prices come down Govt would set a different price. Thus as 2019 comes over the horizon they might feel emboldened to set the price for 2019 at 10% less than that for 2018. Or not as the case might be.
It’s a tradeoff: lower prices = slower build up and visa versa. Certainly as renewables get to be a significant part of the market the feed-in tariff will increasingly approximate the general market price.
However, I think there is evidence (though please don’t ask for the reference because I don’t have one) that feed-in tariffs depress the general market price of power because increased supply depresses the general market price in a textbook supply/demand fashion. In commodity markets generally, marginal supply has a wholly disproportionate impact on price across the whole market so this is a reasonable scenario.
Is Nick Clegg all wind?
http://prisonersvoice.blogspot.com/2008/08/is-nick-clegg-all-wind.html
Clegg approves wind farms
Liberal Eye
I thought (perhaps naively) that the problem was simply that renewable energy was more expensive to produce. Is that not the case?
There are many fine sentiments in this Lib Dem policy.
However, while the party continues to oppose green energy schemes at a local level if they think it will earn them a few votes, please forgive me if I don’t take it too seriously.
The Guardian comments on the cost of this programme.
The government’s renewables advisers say it will cost £100bn to boost our renewable energy provision to just 15% by 2020. The cost of the decade long Apollo programme in today’s money? £70bn. Compared to fighting climate change (or tackling energy security), putting a man on the moon is small change.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/21/carbonemissions.carbonfootprints
I’m not clear whether that 15% is enough to avoid the need for new nuclear or coal-fired power stations, as Clegg proposes, but at any rate the cost of that seems to be £10bn a year.
I must say that, just when I thought Clegg’s presentational skills had picked up a bit, I was left wondering what planet he lives on by this report, “I feel your financial pain, says Clegg as he gives up Ocado”:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/i-feel-your-financial-pain-says-clegg-as-he-gives-up-ocado-905445.html
Talk about bloody clueless …
“gravitating away from Ocado towards Sainsbury’s, just on price. I have to say, the difference is pretty big”
Ouch.
CCF
In general renewables have been a bit more expensive than traditional power sources. But who is to say that will remain so?
We have already seen a huge run up in gas prices which are roughly linked to oil prices and over the next few years with oil getting ever scarcer we should plan for the expectation of further price hikes if we are prudent. This matters because gas accounts for a huge part of our electicity generation. Moreover, all sorts of things can interrupt gas supplies – Putin, terrorism or as yesterday a leak in the North Sea which has caused wholesale gas prices to jump 15% in two days.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7575197.stm
This is simply the folk wisdom about not putting all your eggs in one basket.
On the other side of the equation renewables are expensive at the moment because everyone involved is working flat out.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7562847.stm
Additionally, going offshore is horribly expensive. Not only are there the obvious problems associated with building foundations but heavy lift cranes are required and there just aren’t enough of these in the World to meet the targets we need to hit.
Onshore is cheaper but has difficulty getting planning permission. Even where this is granted AC grid systems (like the National Grid) have problems handling big net transfers of power from one region to another – it makes them unstable. Because of this and the limited number of power lines coming south there just isn’t enough capacity to move power from Scotland/northern England (which has some of the best wind resource in the World) to SE England where it is needed.
Assuming that the Scots want to develop their wind resource (I would have thought this a no-brainer, but …) then
there are two things Govt could do to dramatically increase wind power capacity quickly and reduce its cost.
a) Develop special planning guidelines so that it is clear where investors can reasonably expect to get a result and where they shouldn’t. (eg not in national parks, not near any house, visual impact???).
b) Lean on Nat Grid to build extra capacity to bring onshore power south. I am not a power engineer but I think this means a dedicated high voltage DC (not AC) transmission line down to the London area. HVDC has lower transmission losses and does not imperil the stability of the Grid. This is horribly expensive (£ billions) but is a necessary ‘unlocking’ investment and something that market forces alone will not provide. (This is how the Chinese get power from the Three Gorges dam to Shanghai).
Laudable but laughable. Don’t get me wrong. Renewable energy is necessary and the idea of energy independence is highly desirable but to rely entirely on windsolar and tidal for our energy needs is patently infeasible. First of all if you add together all of the power that you could reasonably expect to make by putting a windmill on every prominent point in the coutry and several deep on all the shallow sea areas offshore, clad every warehouse and similar large building in solar panels and implemented every proposed tidal scheme, you still wouldn’t come anywhere near the total capacity of the current installed generating capacity, and even then solar wind and tidal each only generate between 10 and 30% of the time.
But that is only part of the problem. These are all forms of electricity generation. We use oil gas and coal for heating and transport. Using renewable powered electricity for heating is very expensive. Electricity production from gas is about 40% efficient with modern equipment, but renewable powered electricity is say twice as expensive as electricity from gas fired plant (hence the feed in tariff). But that means using renewable electricity for heating is five (=2/40%) times as expensive as just burning gas.
Swweden has set less demanding targets, but they can produce about 50% of their electricity from hydro, have much higher availability of wood biomass per capita and they will still use coal and nuclear power for power generation.
Clegg is correct that there will be an energy gap but if he just relies on renewables the lights will go out before 2050.
“Using renewable powered electricity for heating is very expensive.”
Does the idea of solar powered storage heating exist. It always seemed to me to be a logical possibility as the heaters could charge up during the day and be at full charge in the evening.
“Does the idea of solar powered storage heating exist.”
Yes, and if you mean on a large scale there are district heating systems in Germany that take heat from CHP plants and store it underground throughout the year, recovering it from storage in January and December, but they take up a lot of space and are very expensive – figure £4,000 per household just for the storage let alone the means for heat production.
Putting solar panels on your roof has never struck me as a great idea. The time you need the heat is the time when the sun is weakest. On the other hand geothermal heat seems to achieve the same effect as solar panels and heat storage. After all it is the energy from the sun that stops our planet from cooling to 0 degrees Kelvin or thereabouts, so extracting geothermal energy through heat pumps is pretty much the same as treating the whole earth as a sort of solarpanel / heat storage system.
“The time you need the heat is the time when the sun is weakest.”
Generally a problem with alternative energy sources. The technological problem that needs to be solved is not the generation as such but the storage of the power generated so it can be used when required.
“Putting solar panels on your roof has never struck me as a great idea.”
Depends when and what for as they coudl be for hot water as well as electrcity. AIUI at the new build stage the additional cost is not that great
“The time you need the heat is the time when the sun is weakest.”
It is also the case that many office & commercial properties spend more on cooling the buildings than they do heating them. In part that’s because a lot of computers produce a lot of heat which is a design issue but it is something for which solar would be a useful energy source.
“Depends when and what for as they coudl be for hot water as well as electrcity. AIUI at the new build stage the additional cost is not that great”
AFAIK these are two different sets of panels, and you need an awful lot of roofspace to collect all the energy you need for a typical family. Running flat out solar panels produce 300kWh per square metre per year (so you need at least 10 m2 for a typical family), which sounds a lot, but unless you can store the electricity at night, you will lose most of it. The common solution is to sell your power to the grid and buy power back at night – which is fine as lonfg as there are non-solar forms of generation.
The capital costs for solar are still very high. In Germany, the REFIT for solar power is 45 cents per kWh, much higher than the few pence per kWh we have here for gas powered electricity. With a lower tariff the Germans would not have managed to install more solar capacity than the UK has installed wind power.
(so you need at least 10 m2 for a typical family)
Most roofs are 5m by 2m though (mine is and I don’t have a large house) so that sort of space isn’t out of the question. Though I think we’re pretty much agreed on the “produces power when you don’t need it” issue (at least domestically).
One thing that’s been talked about is using “surplus” solar power to power hydrogen power plants. IE in the day the solar power is used to convert water to hydrogen & oxygen. The hydrogen can then be burnt to generate power when it is needed. Sounds good in theory but I don’t know how practical it is in actuality.
I think that is the point at the heart of this policy. The technological solutions may not be out there at the moment. What Nick is saying is that there needs to be a huge governement commitment to making them available. That’s the Apollo analogy. In 1961 the technology wasn’t there for moon landings either.