Origin North West

Here in the North West of England, the home of water, we have the very unusual event of a hosepipe ban and the reservoirs are well down.  There was  a dry spell in Spring but since then it seems to have rained a reasonable amount without making up the loss.   At this moment the whole of the UK is in a block of cooler air because the jet stream has moved over France.

In East Europe there is a heatwave that has lasted several weeks and at the boundary of the heat wave  over Asia colder air has caused torrential rain that is flooding Pakistan. This also seems to be driven by the jetstream moving south.

Areas of the USA, South America, China and Australia are having exceptional weather and some say the change from La Nina to El  Nino in the Pacific is causing upset effecting the overall climate.

Temperatures and extreme weather events seem to be on the increase which appears to match expectations of climate change. Yet fluctuations in climate are not unusual.  Potential food shortages caused by reduced grain harvests might also manifest in greater instability in the world.  At this moment it appears there is increasing evidence to support greater investment in preventing climate change, even if the evidence isn’t conclusive. Certainly this years weather has been very unusual.

After bad news in chocolate and steel manufacturing some good news in cars and nuclear engineering. Most of it with the help of government loans.

Nissan announced that their new electrically powered car, the Nissan Leaf, will be produced in Sunderland from 2013. Up to 50,000 cars a year will be made.  Nissan stated that the UK commitment to providing the infrastructure and education to operate these cars helped the decision.  The North East has agreed to fit 13,000 charging points and London 25,000. Also a novel leasing arrangement for batteries will ease the cost of ownership and another plus the batteries will be made in Sunderland as well.  Photographs of the car look quite smart with nothing to make it look different. Ironically the ‘green’ car will be produced next to the Juke urban off-roader which doesn’t sound quite as green.

Ford announced about £1.5bn investment in new efficient engine R&D and manufacturing in the UK.  A significant portion of the money will be loans from the UK Automotive Assistance Programme and the EU. Ford will test 15 electric vehicles as well as work on low carbon engines.  Ford produce 25% of their world supply of engines in the UK.

Sheffield Forgemasters received government loan support to make a 15,000 tonne forging press, making the company one of two companies in the world capable of making specific nuclear components. The government said the UK can produce 50% of the parts for a nuclear power station and the investment will take it to 70%. The government is also to support up to 1000 apprentice places a year in the nuclear industry.

It is a curious business the offering of loans to keep manufacturing in a country. Subsidising has long been illegal in the EU. However such large scale investment is often only possible with government assistance. Vice versa governments often say that infrastructure projects, for such as energy, cannot be afforded without industrial investment.  Does one balance the other out or is it just convenient to make the best of both worlds. No doubt a company has to get the best deal it can so an existing plant must count for something and make the loan required less than it would be from a place without a plant or who didn’t have other incentives to offer such as car power point infrastructure. We can only welcome this as good news.

Global Warming: is it an issue or will it be more pleasant here at 53degrees north?  Will it be goodbye to Lancashire west of Preston?  Some simple stuff.

Global Warming is said to be caused by the increased concentration of the suns heat in the atmosphere as the level of certain gases increase.  This effect can be simply created in a laboratory by heating a large container that is filled with different concentrations of gas.

There are several of these gases but Carbon Dioxide is the one most commonly quoted and it’s concentration has increased to just under 400 parts per million (ppm) an increase of about 30% in 50 years.  This is known because records have been kept.

Data from much earlier times is obtained from the air trapped in samples of arctic ice that are drilled out like removing the core of an apple. The deeper the ice the older it is. Also rates of growth of plants like trees and from fossil data show how temperature changed in the past. The carbon and temperature data is compared to give a temperature v carbon chart.

For most of the time carbon remained below 300 ppm until relatively recently and tended to go as low as 200. It seems that cold periods coincide with low levels of carbon dioxide.

The last decade has seen several years of the hottest on record and this appears to align with the carbon increase.

Experiments can be wrong, the weather is a complicated beast and humans are relatively puny in world terms.  But in terms of risk there does appear to be a good chance that the science has some substance and that if carbon dioxide continues to rise then temperatures will also rise. 

Carbon worries can be supplemented by worries about the effects of increases in population.  Also at this time large areas of forest are being cut down when we’ve always been told the Amazon forest provides the oxygen of the world.  Very large countries like China and India are significantly increasing their resource demands and emissions of gases so the levels of carbon are expected to continue to increase.  It is forecast that annual carbon emissions will increase by about 14% in the next 10 years and recent discussions were meant to reduce it by about 5% overall from that emitted now ( now 47bn tons a year, forecast 54bn tons, target 44bn tons).

The effects of increased temperature are already visible in the polar regions and on glaciers where the ice is retreating. Much of the ice is above the water and on land so more water is flowing into the sea and increasing its level. Heat is causing areas of desert like the Sahara to spread and causing famine in many countries.  Increased temperatures were also said to have created larger than usual hurricanes in the Caribbean a couple of years ago and even if this was not global warming it is a warning of what increased temperature can do.  There are a lot of forecasts about potential weather effects including a change to the Gulf Stream which will effect the UK perhaps making it colder.  Although detailed forecasts are probably one of the most uncertain parts of the debate.

So is it worth spending money now to reduce gases, slow deforestation and it’s effects.  Well I have several insurance and security measures at home and I’ve never seemed to need any of it.  But they give me peace of mind and if they weren’t there I’d probably be sorry.  In conclusion the science has so many credible aspects that, like an insurance policy, measures are worth taking to stabilise and reduce emissions. Otherwise it will be a gamble with the future of cities like London and New York and many other coastal regions including Lancashire west of Preston.

It was cold this week in Northern Europe.  The 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen, December 7th to 19th 2009 (COP15 for short) took place. 15,000 delegates debated the heating of the atmosphere, while several thousand chanted outside. The conclusion of the discussion being something only a little more than existed on December 6th. Some vague statements were issued, including limiting climate change to within 2degC, limits to deforestation and it is said a quantity of money is available but not who is providing it.

It was lost on the climate concerned delegates that one of them travelled 8000 miles in a special Boeing 747 and only stayed a few hours.  Then after 15,000 delegates had sat for 14 days, the final statement was agreed by a handful of delegates representing only themselves in a short meeting.  To temper this I’ve always been a supporter of Parkinson’s Laws relating to the number of people needed to make a decision and the time allowed to make a decision. So to have 15,000 involved in making a decision for 2 weeks sounds a recipe for disaster.

It seems Europe will reduce carbon output although the main emitting countries, the US and China, are not committed to reduce and not in absolute terms.

There is always a nagging fear that climate change measures suit the socially cossetting and spending governments of Europe who in general don’t take too much notice of the opinions of their populations.  Whereas in libertarian countries like the USA the population don’t want cossetting and if the tide washes up over their houses they just move and build elsewhere.  I do admire that, although I like my social insurance.

Also is there any truth in the Chinese stance that Europe and the USA created all the carbon and therefore they should reduce first. At least this might be an acknowledgement that carbon is man-made and therefore if that is the case then those named are guilty.  On the other side is whether having seen someone going down the wrong path would you follow them. Of all the countries China would appear to be in a good position to significantly increase it’s clean power output as it is so good at manufacturing and has cheap labour costs.

Most systems have a natural limitation and at some point break down and stop the cycle. Although sometimes the cycle stops and is irrepairably broken. How the planet reacts to increases in warming gases, population growth and the stripping of resources is to be seen.  Will the system slow down naturally or will there be a dramatic event.  COP15 didn’t do as much as it might but there is no dramatic instance yet. It seems those who might help are further away from being impacted so don’t see a need.

Is the Smart Meter going to provide the benefits claimed?  They say the unreliable wind power will mean less peak capability so incentives will be given to turn off power at peak times and that home generators can sell back into the grid.

This sounds good but surely issuing these meters to people with home generators would be a first priority. Then a second priority will be those whose energy use exceeds the norm.

I’d be amazed if having one in our house saved a penny. There must be millions like me who keep an eye on their heating timer and setting. There is a compromise between the budget allowed and how warm the house is.   The opposite might be true as it could encourage energy use if it was cheaper off peak and more expensive at peak time.

Also we have just had our gas and electricity meters changed. What happens to these old meters? Who is making the new ones?  Should they be British made meters or will 26million electricity meters and 21 million gas meters be bought from China so save pounds but cost jobs, well-being and health.

What alternatives are there? If I was to ensure minimal peak power use the biggest savings in our house would be a timer on the electric water heater to ensure it is off at peak (there already is one).  The biggest user of fuel by far in our house is the central heating and that is already on only for a limited time as we’ve gone more into heating individual rooms around the time we use them.

How much incentive are we going to get to improve our energy use. The people on the trials with these units are like the well known Hawthorn experiment where people being watched worked harder and harder.  In reality the meter will soon just be a background item that no-one notices. Surely it will be preferable that  its introduction should come with some cost offsetting incentive like going to a new tariff or buying a wind generator to give you a new meter rather than a blanket change over. 

Who is paying for this?  It seems the government is announcing this when surely if it is so wonderful the utility companies would be launching it. I would imagine the utility companies see it as good business just fitting these new units.  Who wouldn’t with some 50m meters to change sounds like a good earner.

Overall without further education it appears the strategy for rolling out the new meters is flawed and that the benefits of their use are not as great as claimed.