The Ecobuild 2012 exhibition at the London Excel Centre included a debate Rio 2012: 20 years on – what have we achieved since rio 1992 (‘the earth summit’)?

The Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 was unprecedented for a UN conference, in terms of both its size and the scope of its concerns. The UN sought to help Governments re-think economic development and find ways to halt the destruction of irreplaceable natural resources and pollution of the planet. Hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life were drawn into the Rio process. The Summit’s message — that nothing less than a transformation of our attitudes and behaviour would bring about the necessary changes — was transmitted by almost 10,000 on-site journalists and heard by millions around the world. Twenty years later, following the recent meeting in Durban, there is to be another summit in Rio in June 2012. So what changes have happened and what progress has been made, and is the outlook for the world better or worse?

Michael Portillo, journalist, broadcaster, a regular participant on BBC 1’s ‘This Week’ programme, former Conservative MP and Cabinet Minister holding various positions including Secretary of State for Defence and Shadow Chancellor
Rt Hon Jack Straw, MP, former Cabinet Minister holding a number of positions including UK Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary, Leader of the House of Commons and Justice Secretary
Rt Hon Michael Meacher, MP for Oldham West and Royton, former minister of state for the environment
Professor Jacqueline McGlade, Executive Director, European Environment Agency

Professor Chris Rhodes at Café Scientifique

What happens when we run out of oil? – Professor Chris Rhodes, director of Fresh-lands Environmental Action 7:30pm Tuesday 13 March 2012 – Prof Chris Rhodes

In his talk ‘What happens when we run out of oil?’, included as one of the Oxford Café Scientifique series at Science Oxford last night, Professor Chris Rhodes pointed out that whatever alternative energy sources may be available in future (electricity, or hydrogen from electricity), we’re stuck with a transport infrastructure relying on a liquid fuel.

In his view, our political leaders are in a ‘state of denial’ about the dwindling supplies of oil, and no technology is on the horizon to deal with the inevitable supply issues, meaning only demand side issues are capable of addressing the inevitable shortfalls he foresees as early as in the next five years.

With petrol, he projects, then at £5 a litre and rising, any response will need to manage  wholescale societal changes. To ease the adjustment to lower energy lifestyles, he proposed the implementation of an ‘energy descent plan’ to avoid anarchy.

His foresees the answer to his question of what then happens as a change toward ‘localism’.

Professor Chris Rhodes is Director of Fresh-lands Environmental Actions and is based in Reading. He has written numerous scientific articles and recently published his first novel University Shambles, a black comedy on the disintegration of the British university system.

These are my notes of the talk- with all opinions therein those of Chris Rhodes…

We rely on oil for almost all our transport energy requirements, but also for food, pharmaceuticals, plastics and water production. Oil produces 38% of all energy demand, with gas at 23%, coal at 29%, nuclear 6%, hydropower 6%, and solar and other renewables at just 0.1%.

Current demand for oil is  30BN Barrels a year, 84 million a day; with a the US responsible for a quarter.

The problem is that oil production has, in many parts of the world, passed its peak, and the remaining sources will require increasing energy to extract (as the most easily accessed sources are exhausted first). The supply problems are exacerbated by the fact that the return from the oil extracted will be less and less as the remain crude oil will also require more energy to refine.

Such a energy rich fuel means we don’t have a ready technology to replace it however. For the UK, we would need 70,000 wind turbines, or double our available arable land of sugar beet for ethanol, to replace the energy demand.

Chris Rhodes suggested that if research had been funded over the last 40 years there could be solutions but this had not happend.

Possible solutions that could be developed he suggested could be biodiesel from algae. Plants growing algae on waste water, which would also treat the water and extract CO2 from the air could be a win-win solution. The technology was investigated by the 1970s, but the idea was dropped during the Carter Administration, due to cost but then oil was at $10/barrel compared to $125/barrel at present. Oil companies are investing in technologies such as this, but a fraction of what they spend on prospecting for oil.

Impacts

Professor Rhodes sees no chance that electric vehicles could replace the current fleet of 34M cars in the UK. Personalised transportation has less of a future; we will need to go back to working closer to home for instance.

Professor Chris Rhodes at Café Scientifique

Cheap foreign holidays for ordinary people will also become a thing of the past.

Peak Oil will also result in ‘Peak Phosphate’. Much of agriculture depends on phosphate based fertilisers that  are dependent on oil. Nitrogen based fertilsers will, likewise, be under stress.

Managing the energy descent - tackling the demand side

1. Permaculture.  Permaculture is a method of food production designed for more efficient use of inputs; such as not ploughing fields, recycling phosphates (such as by composting, and use of human waste).

2. Grow more food locally

3. Working locally

A Happy ending? – Transistion towns

Transistion towns were suggested as an example of a possible ‘happy ending’  – where local econonies implement an energy descent plan: ways of living for low energy lifestyles, including sustainable jobs, more practical skills, and growing food locally.

Chris ended his talk citing Charles Kingsley “We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about”.’

The Court of Appeal has upheld a High Court ruling that Government cuts to the Feed-in Tariff were unlawful.

The three Lords Justices of Appeal announced their reserved judgement this morning following a hearing 10 days ago.

Today’s decision is a damaging blow to Ministers and officials at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, who must now introduce the contingency date of March 3 for the start of the 21p rate for solar PV and not the original December 12 deadline.

The court judgement also means customers who have had solar panels installed and are registered ahead of the new March 3 cut-off point will now receive the original 43p rate for 25 years.

Customers who register on or after March 3 will qualify for the current higher rate until April 1, when it will drop to 21p.

DECC was also ordered to pay the full costs of around £125,000 for the appeal hearing. In a Twitter message immediately after the ruling was handed down, Energy Minister Greg Barker, wrote: “Win, lose or draw today, important we move forward together, drive down costs + step up deployment.”

The original legal challenge was made by Solarcentury, Friends of the Earth and HomeSun, and the High Court ruled on 21 December that a Government proposal to cut payments for any solar scheme completed after 12 December 2011 – 11 days before an official consultation into the proposal had even closed – was unlawful. The Court of Appeal has upheld a High Court ruling that Government cuts to the Feed-in Tariff were unlawful.

The three Lords Justices of Appeal announced their reserved judgement this morning following a hearing 10 days ago.

Today’s decision is a damaging blow to Ministers and officials at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, who must now introduce the contingency date of March 3 for the start of the 21p rate for solar PV and not the original December 12 deadline.

The court judgement also means customers who have had solar panels installed and are registered ahead of the new March 3 cut-off point will now receive the original 43p rate for 25 years.

Customers who register on or after March 3 will qualify for the current higher rate until April 1, when it will drop to 21p.

DECC was also ordered to pay the full costs of around £125,000 for the appeal hearing. In a Twitter message immediately after the ruling was handed down, Energy Minister Greg Barker, wrote: “Win, lose or draw today, important we move forward together, drive down costs + step up deployment.”

The original legal challenge was made by Solarcentury, Friends of the Earth and HomeSun, and the High Court ruled on 21 December that a Government proposal to cut payments for any solar scheme completed after 12 December 2011 – 11 days before an official consultation into the proposal had even closed – was unlawful.

Planned government changes to subsidies on solar power may deal the industry a “fatal blow”, two parliamentary committees are warning.

The Environmental Audit Committee and Energy and Climate Change Committee say ministers are right to make changes, but are doing so “clumsily”.

Government plans include restricting access to solar subsidies to houses meeting energy efficiency standards.

Thousands of solar industry jobs could be at risk, the committees warn.

On Wednesday, a group of companies and environmental groups won a legal judgement against one of the changes.

Central to their campaign was the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s (Decc) plan to halve abruptly the level of feed-in tariff (FiT) that small-scale solar installations attract, from 43p per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to 21p.

John Willmer OBE

Back in April at an open NFU meeting on renewables in Charlbury in April,  John passionately described the benefits of renewable energy generation for farmers, despite being in at least his 91st year. In his home environment, what also stood out was his amazing life story, and the reasons that inspired him to be so active in this field.

“To my mind”, he said to us, “solar energy generation is common sense and so easy, and I’ve seen many things in my time. I’ve been over 80 a long time!”.

“My father was tenant on the farm, and from the 1920s supplied hay and straw to the GWR, and Welsh collieries. So when I went to sign up with the RAF at the start of the war with four of my best friends, they wouldn’t let me in because the farm to too valuable for the war effort.”

John joined the Home Guard instead (“I was part of the secret army and learned to silently kill”) but within two years all of his four friends had been killed in action.

“I decided to put back into society what they had fought for”. So, for sixty years he was Methodist preacher and proponent of renewable energy. “Reneables make the world a better place to live” he added.

After the war he diversified, with a caravan and moorings on the mile of Thames bordering the farm,  and under his management the farm thrived. “It was a good time for farming after the war.”

Nowadays the farm is a beautiful wedding venue operated by his son and partner plus there are other businesses operated from outbuildings.

He also has displays of renewables as well as a wind mast with anemometer to test wind speeds and two arrays of solar panels with one due to be installed next April.

‘An idea that he intends to see through’.

An idea that he intends to see through’ was the headline of a 1987 feature in the Oxford Mail about his solar powered grain drying oven he devised, assisted by a Professor Brinkworth form Cardiff University – and indeed he did use it to dry 800 tonnes of grain per year.

Seven years ago, with a 50% grant, requiring a £10k expenditure, he installed a 4.5kW Solar array in a corner of his cow field – which has harvested £1000 per annum (with no more than 5% variation in that time, roughly 5000 units) with zero maintenance.

“This was so successful, I ordered two more; both 9kW – so I should receive about £5000 income a year. What’s really good is that it’s a total tax write-off”.

He expects the lifetime of his arrays to be 50 years.

Asked of the benefits could equally apply to ordinary householders rather than landowners, John thought smaller locations could benefit just as well.

“I can’t see how having solar pv is anything but a positive. If you need to move on from a property you could sell it with an additional positive benefit.”

The Secret of John’s  success

With characteristic modesty John concluded his tour saying, “Everything I do is simple. If I can do it, anyone can”.

“Thinner, lighter, faster” – Apple explains why you should buy an iPad2. Notice it doesn’t say, “Because it’s fabulously profitable for us.” Profitability is its agenda. There’s no reason to suppose that Jo Public shares that, so Apple doesn’t talk about it. Instead, it focuses on what Jo Public does care about. 

How do we get that kind of uptake for sustainable lifestyles?

By marketing. If we’re trying to get people to buy more sustainable products and services, or to buy less, or to change their lifestyles, or to travel differently, or to get our employees to change what they do at work, then we’re trying to change their behaviour. That is, we’re marketing. So let’s do precisely what successful marketers do. Talk about what “customers” care about, and be willing to shut up – perhaps completely – about what we ourselves care about.

The first ‘independent’ review of the Fukushima nuclear disaster was published today and it does not make reassuring reading.

Japan is perhaps the most technologically advanced nation on Earth and yet, time after time, the report finds missing measures that I would have expected to already be in place. It highlights the fundamental inability for anyone to anticipate all future events and so deeply undermines the claims of the nuclear industry and its supporters that this time, with the new generation of reactors, things will be different.

I used quote marks on the word “independent” because the report comes from the International Atomic Energy Association (pdf) (IAEA) which, while independent of Japan, is far from independent from the nuclear industry it was founded to promote. But this conflict of interest only makes the findings of the IEAE’s experts more startling.

…
To sum up, when you build a reactor you are committing to controlling the nuclear fury at its heart for half a century or more, and controlling the waste produced for many thousands of years (using methods no-one has yet developed).

On those timescales, unforeseen events are a certainty, with hugely costly consequences. The earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan were extreme, and the IAEA report tries to argues that new nuclear safety regulations should learn lessons from the failure of the system at Fukushima to cope.

But the real lesson is that it is impossible to cover all eventualities. That means nuclear power is not safe or, given the colossal clean-up costs, cheap. Regretfully, I believe it is an illusory answer to the problem of rising greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

1. Duncan Brewer, Associate Director, Savills. with a “Review of current government incentives for renewables” covering the different incentives including Feed in Tariffs, Renewable Heat Incentive, Renewable Obligation Certification, Carbon Trust Loans, Carbon Reduction Committment, Green Deal etc. etc.
2. Yolande Barnes, Director Residential Research, also Savills, with a “Briefing on the residential market in the context of government initiatives. Yolande’s message that all discussion on the future housing market had to bear in mind the underlying supply shortage, and inequality in proportion of equity among property ownership. Price growth, she said, is largely governed by distribution of equity and an influx of roughly £2.7BN of value form overseas to central London. A market trend to private tenancies looks set to continue, which will have an increasing impact on FITs – so landlords are important. Other factors are skills shortages and lack of skills – so quality targets are not likely to be met. So the market is likely to be price led and she sees use of renewables and green measures as not a factor in increasing demand. top down planning in her view is not likely to work, although there are examples of ‘sustainble urbanism’ meaning concentrated hence convenient planned neighbourhoods that have gained in value as developments.
3. Richard Wade, Blake Lapthorn: “An update on the legislation and regulation around sustainable development.” He pointed out that a quarter of UK carbon emissions are from homes, and that by 2050 still only 5% of homes would be new builds, a ‘deep retrofit’ is required. Richard mentioned a scheme called Supahomes under which example retrofits could be funded in return for access to visitors once every month, and in order to reach the 2050 targets a minimum of one home would need to be retrofitted each second until then…

An interesting link mentioned by Richard is to Superhomes – “The Sustainable Energy Academy promotes education and action to reduce the carbon footprint of buildings and communities. We are currently spearheading Old Home SuperHome – a network of exemplar, old dwellings which have undergone an energy-efficiency retrofit. We aim to create a network of homes that are local and publicly accessible, within 15 minutes, to nearly everyone in the country.”

It’s nearest example retrofit is at Wooton – see Chapel-hill-wooton-by-woodstock

Slides of all the talks were promised – on the bllaw.co.uk site (not yet on their site).

Low quality – a responsibility issue?
In questions afterwards I followed up Yolande’s points regarding continued low quality and therefore likely heat inefficiency of house building. Contrasting with trends of the car industry I suggested to the panel of speakers that lack of emphasis on quality could be seen as a responsibility issue. . and suggested that developers should take a lead…
Richard Wade equated my rephrasing energy efficiency as a responsibility issue with Corporate Social Responsibility (I don’t know if energy efficiency is included in CSR policies) as said energy efficiency was relevant to commercial development. Yolande appeared to agree with me while suggesting the reasons were that developers tend to make money more on the land than the housing and cited a lack of competition between developers. Earlier she also made the point that developers’ interests tended to be short term while sustainability interested were over much longer timescales.

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