Why should people concerned about climate change vote Green?

(This article was written in response to a call from climate scientist Myles Allen for voters to avoid voting Green in the UK general election. Myles' s piece in the Guardian is here.) Myles Allen wants the Greens to revert to being a party solely concerned with the environment. He says that by offering a full slate of policies we are weakening our appeal to people who those want a focus on climate change and other urgent ecological issues. He says that by linking our policies on the environment to wider ambitions for improving Britain, we are diluting our appeal to our natural supporters. In fact he thinks that our environmental concerns are little more than a cloak to disguise our ambitions for more equitable Britain. We aren’t really interested in arresting climate change, he seems to say. Our secret desire is to build a fairer society.

At the European elections in June of last year, Oxford voters like Myles cast more votes for the Green Party than any other political grouping. In any reasonably fair political system one of Oxford’s two MPs would be wearing a Green rosette on May 7^th. Why do so many of his neighbours support the party when Myles himself think that our approach is muddy and confused because it aims both at climate change objectives and at broader social goals? In my experience of talking to local voters, most of them see the strongest of connections between environmental and other political issues. Local Green councillors have shown that action on climate change is wholly compatible with improving the services offered by councils and public services.  For example, improving public transport is good for the environment and good for communities. Getting recycling rates up reduces methane emissions as well as reducing the need for new landfill sites. Investing in municipally-owned wind farms is profitable and will reduce council tax for Oxford voters. Improving access to locally grown food reduces energy consumption and helps bind communities together.

Dr Allen’s research group continues to warn us that fossil fuel consumption must eventually fall if we are to avert accelerating climate change. Partly as result of his work, most people know that economic growth based on the increasing use of fossil fuels is extremely unlikely to be possible or desirable.  So they back the Green New Deal, an attempt to rebuild Britain’s manufacturing, agricultural, forestry and building industries around low carbon alternatives to our wasteful use of coal, gas and oil. Our focus on clean technology is an attempt to use British engineering skills to decrease pollution levels and diminish the harm we impose on the environment. This is neither pointless from a climate change standpoint nor from the need to improve employment prospects for young Britons.

Right at the heart of the Green campaign is the slogan that Dr Allen seems most to dislike ‘Fair is worth fighting for’. Briefly, let me say why I think fairness is important. The UK faces some major challenges, of which reducing emissions is one of the most urgent and important. So far, Britain has transparently failed to achieve progress on this and many other issues. The Green hypothesis is that this failure partly derives from our unequal and fractured society. How can any political party build consensus on the need for large scale sacrifices or for difficult choices if some groups in society are so well off as to be insulated from the cost? Societies that put fairness at the heart of their policy-making, such as the Nordic countries or even less well-off states like Costa Rica, find it easier to build cohesion and a shared commitment to undertaking painful changes. Those who want action on climate change should vote Green both because of our commitment to taking action on emissions and because we are more likely to build the sense of fairness and shared purpose that will make it possible to achieve those reductions.

Much to my personal regret, Myles will not be marking his cross against the Greens in three weeks time. So who will get his vote in Oxford West and Abingdon? UKIP, the people who think that climate change is fabrication? Labour, which wants to build a third runway at Heathrow, and has expanded road building? And having been in power for thirteen years has pretty much the worst record on renewable energy of all European countries? The Conservatives, whose new prospective MPs are said to be agnostic on climate change and who have opposed almost every onshore wind farm?  Or finally, the LibDems, who have just proposed reducing fuel duties for transport and whose councillors blocked the nearest wind farm to Oxford for ten years while backing new local road schemes? Dr Allen wrote last year that ‘emission reductions are urgently needed to avoid dangerous climate change’. Who else does he trust more than the Greens to achieve these reductions?

Plastic versus cardboard

The CO2 footprint of packaging at Riverford Organics

Riverford Organics, one of the largest vegetable box schemes in the UK, has suggested it may move away from cardboard packaging and towards plastic. In this week’s note to customers, Guy Watson at Riverford says that plastic boxes could reduce the carbon footprint of the company’s packaging by 70%. He strongly hints that the company wants to move to plastic immediately but is frightened of the reaction of customers.

This issue is an important one. Householders continue to see plastic as wicked and paper-based goods as benign. But when considered over the entire life of the packaging, paper and cardboard embody far more greenhouse gases than their plastic equivalents. Paper products take substantial amounts of energy to make. Crushing a tree down into small fibres, mixing the wood pulp into a slurry and then passing the wet mass through huge rollers cannot be done without use of enormous quantities of power. Making paper and cardboard is almost certainly the third largest industrial use of energy on the planet. By contrast, plastic is light, durable and its manufacture is generally not particularly energy intensive – at least by comparison to paper. A second concern is that many paper and cardboard products, probably including Riverford boxes, end up in local authority landfill, where they rot down anaerobically, creating the greenhouse gas methane in the process. Plastic, as is well known, doesn’t rot and sequesters its carbon for ever.

Guy Watson’s company delivers its products to homes in cardboard boxes that can be returned to the delivery driver the following week. Watson says that the boxes are designed to last for ten delivery cycles  before being recycled. They typically only actually survive four outings before they are lost or made unusable.  Because these boxes are ‘free’, the householder doesn’t look after them properly. As a result, about 10% of the total carbon footprint of the business is derived from making and recycling the boxes. This is about the same figure as the carbon cost of shipping the Riverford vegetables to the local distribution hubs.  If I have done the calculations correctly, the carbon cost of its boxes would be greater than plastic replacements even if they did actually last 10 cycles and were never used, as the company says, ‘to let the dog give birth in’.

Riverford has done some of the best and most incisive work on carbon footprinting of any business in the UK. The company’s view seems to be that that plastic – far more reusable than paper and cardboard – is a far better solution that its current packaging both for the outer boxes and for carrying the individual products.  Its sense of frustration is palpable as it says

85% of our packaging footprint is made up of paper and cardboard yet our customers are very happy with this packaging; virtually all negative comments on packaging relate to plastic punnets and bags which contribute only 8% to the footprint.

It is the customer who is stopping Guy Watson and his colleagues using long-lasting plastic for any form of packaging, not economics or carbon accounting. Watson despairs of getting householders to understand the true environmental cost of paper goods and one can only sympathise as he demands government action to force suppliers to recognize and account for the full cost of packaging.

We all need to understand, far better than we do now, that anything that doesn’t last – like paper for packaging - is almost certainly a far greater problem than an almost infinitely recyclable plastic crate. Yes, of course, plastic is an increasingly serious litter problem, in the UK and elsewhere. But it is not a significant cause of CO2 pollution compared to paper.

As a devoted customer, my suggestion to Guy Watson is that he pushes ahead with plastic - perhaps only with customers who agree in advance – and gives us a small price reduction but imposes heavy deposits on each plastic crate left on our doorstep each week. If we don’t leave the box out next week, we get charged. Painful, but there is nothing like a punch in the wallet to get people to change behaviour. In the longer run, a ‘closed loop’ recycling system using plastic crates is infinitely more environmentally sustainable than one based on cardboard boxes.

More details on Riveford's carbon accounting at www.riverfordenvironment.co.uk. Interested in becoming a customer? www.riverford.co.uk

What should a green investment bank do?

The Guardian asked a range of commentators the following questions about a green investment bank, an ideal widely talked about for the UK. 1. How should it most effectively be set up?

2. What should it use its financial resources to support?

My response was

1, The German state investment bank KfW is an attractive model. This entity lent €60bn last year, almost half of which went to companies involved in environmental protection of one form or another. It raises money on the international capital markets but its conservative policies and long-term perspective have meant it has been able to continue supporting smaller companies and environmental projects throughout the last two difficult years. If implemented here, our equivalent should be located outside London, have lending offices spread across the UK and offer private individuals a chance to invest in its activities.

2. In 2009 KfW put about €9bn into building refurbishment. Its activities have been geared towards helping property companies and social landlords improve the poor insulation standards of post-war German housing and commercial property. It has helped improve many hundreds of thousands of homes, providing more comfortable accommodation that it is much cheaper to run. KfW's lending has also created an effective and flexible eco-refurbishment industry. This has improved employment and skills, particularly in the less prosperous eastern parts of the country. We should copy the German emphasis on housing renovation as a primary activity of the bank, rather than let the UK entity focus on risky venture capital investments

This year's Geneva Motor Show – what it means for the car industry in the 2010s

This column is a guest post from Carlo Ombello, who is translating Chris Goodall's Ten Technologies into Italian. Carlo reports from the world's most important showroom for new cars. I’ve been a huge fan of Geneva’s Motor Show for a long time, but to me this year’s exhibition marked a transition between the past and the future. In its last few shows I got used to my eyes bulging at the latest super-powerful sports cars, or the newest models from both mass and upper market makers, all inevitably featuring sporty versions (my favourite) with high acceleration – and fuel consumption – figures. But this year was different: a slew of new electric and hybrid models flooded the Geneva ‘Salon Auto’.

Virtually every major carmaker put on display one or more plug-in cars (Renault, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes, Peugeot, Citroen, Ferrari, Porsche, Audi, Seat, Volkswagen, Toyota, Lexus, Opel just to name a few) but, what matters most, those vehicles were the ones which generally grabbed most of the public’s attention. If style is what always attracts show goers first, the technology lying beneath the skin is the next wonder. So here we go, from the top down, giving a brief summary of the most attractive new models the Geneva Motor Show offered to car enthusiasts from all over the world, and what this may mean for the coming decade.

Porsche’s hybrid prototype Spyder 918 was perhaps the biggest surprise of the exhibition. Sporting both a 500-hp V8 and a pair of electric motors (one per axle) producing an additional 218 hp (160kW), this stunning concept car allegedly reaches 62 miles per hour in 3.2 seconds, 198 mph top speed, whilst achieving 78 miles per gallon and just 70 grams of CO2 per kilometer. Whether these figures are real is to be confirmed, but it’s the concept behind all this that counts. Porsche are seriously venturing in the plug-in market (and they usually bring their prototypes into production), something hardly anyone would have thought possible just a couple of years ago. This is probably due to the likes of Tesla, threatening to eat in Porsche’s market share with its full electric roadster, rather than to the German carmaker’s fuel-efficiency consciousness, but it nevertheless represents a huge step in a new direction, and a move that they will be unlikely to reverse.

Runner-up in the car enthusiast’s imagination was probably Ferrari’s 599 GTB Fiorano Hybrid prototype. The concept car boosts a 100+ hp electric motor in addition to the 6.0-liter, 611-hp V12 engine. Ferrari’s Hykers regenerative braking system (where 'Hy' stands for hybrid and 'kers' refers to the Kinetic Energy Recuperation System Ferrari used during the 2009 F1 season) helps recharging the floorpan-fitted lithium-ion batteries. "This is a first step of a long project and we want within three years, maximum four, to have a hybrid Ferrari car ready for every single product of our range. This is our goal," said Luca di Montezemolo, Ferrari’s Chairman. "In three years we aim to cut emissions by a minimum of 35 percent". Again, this is hardly an environment-conscious carmaker, yet their fast-growing engagement in experimenting hybrid powertrain technologies bears witness to the attention the car industry is now giving to alternatives to the century-old internal combustion engines. At a pace never seen before.

In the list of the most interesting and eye-catching new models and prototypes, Mercedes sported the F800 Style plug-in hybrid, a concept car that mimics the future style of its CLS model, and whose drive unit consists of a 300-hp V6 gasoline engine coupled to a 109-hp electric module. The vehicle has a certified fuel consumption of only 2.9 liters of gasoline per 100 kilometers, corresponding to CO2 emissions of 68 grams per kilometer, less than 50% of the average UK new car. With the performance of a sports car (0-60 mph in 4.7 s, top speed of 155 mph) its hybrid drive is set to appear in various future models from Daimler-Mercedes, while the German maker also puts down some roots in the full electric market through its partnerships with Tesla and the Chinese BYD, and the production of the Smart EV (also widely displayed).

General Motors’ Opel Flextreme GT/E Concept also premiered at Geneva, featuring the Chevrolet Volt / Opel Ampera drivetrain. Unlike conventional hybrids, the wheels of the Flextreme GT/E are powered at all times by electricity, with a small gasoline engine working as generator to provide electricity when the batteries are flat. With a battery-powered driving range of up to 60 km – with zero CO2 tailpipe emissions – and a total range of more than 500 km provided by the range-extending gasoline generator, average fuel consumption is estimated at 1.6 l/100 km, with CO2 emissions of less than 40 g/km. The motor in the electric drive unit delivers 120kW (163 hp) and 370 Nm of instant torque, giving the car a projected 0-100 km/h acceleration in less than nine seconds.

Seat surprised visitors with its beautiful IBE full-electric prototype. With a maximum output of 75 kW (102 hp) and 200 Nm of torque, its electric power unit delivers 0-100 km/h in 9.4 seconds. The 18 kWh battery pack allows the IBE to cover the daily mobility requirements of city life, while keeping its weight down to just 1,000kg. Anticipating the information network of the future, the car is capable of exchanging data about its status or safety alerts directly with other vehicles or the traffic infrastructure. Sources from the Volkswagen-owned maker claim the concept will be brought into production, consistently with Spain’s overall electricity grid strategy, to provide more and more power through renewable energy.

Audi featured the A1 e-tron prototype, the electric version of its latest model, also premiering in Geneva. The lithium ion battery pack has a capacity of 12 kWh, with a range of about 30 miles (48 km). The electric motor provides a standard output of 45 kW or 61 hp, with a peak power of 75 kW or 102 hp helping the car to perform 0-100 km/h in around 10 seconds. The motor and all of the power electronics reside in the car's front. A small Wankel engine sitting below the cargo floor of the car can extend the A1 e-tron's range to 130 miles.

Peugeot stunned show attenders with its gorgeous 3-seater convertible SR1 concept car. Its hybrid powertrain offers a 1.6 l engine, delivering 160 kW (218 hp) to the front wheels, coupled with a 70-kW (95-hp) electric motor to the rear wheels, for a total of 230 kW (313 bhp) with CO2 emissions of 119 g/km (0 in electric mode), 4 wheel drive and steering. 0-100 km/h in 4.7 s, top speed 250 km/h (155 mph).

More plug-in models were on display from Peugeot (the electric mini i0n and the diesel hybrid “5 by Peugeot”), Citroen (from the supemini sporstcar Survolt concept, to the future model C-Zero, both full electric), Toyota and Lexus (with their ever increasing fleet of hybrids), Honda (the stylish EV-N and the three-wheeled 3R-C), Volkswagen (their first hybrid Touareg), Hyundai (the diesel hybrid i-Flow), Nissan (the well known Leaf), Renault (their three creative EV concepts Twizy, Zoe and Fluence are ready for the “Better Place” battery-swap system) and other makers.

I could go on forever, but I prefer to finish my list with a couple of refreshingly simple electric models that got my attention more than others. The Kia Venga EV, a battery version of the normal production model, nicely demonstrates how the electric alternative to a production model needn’t look different; it features an electric motor with top power of 80 kW and maximum torque of 280 Nm, while its 24 kWh battery pack gives it a range of about 180km (112 miles). And finally, the BMW ActiveE concept, based on the 1 Series coupe, shows BMW’s growing commitment to pure electric vehicles, alongside their hybrid options also displayed on stage (most noticeably the new 5 Series ActiveHybrid). The ActiveE retains the 1 Series four seats and a 200 liters boot, boosting a 170hp electric engine capable of a 0-100 km/h acceleration in 8.5 seconds, with a range of about 100 miles (160km). 700 units of the Active E will be leased this year around the world for testing, similarly to what was done with the Mini E last year.

Geneva's pattern was clear.

The evidence is mounting: electric cars are no more the impossible dream of a few forward-thinkers, they are instead set to become mainstream. The automotive industry is heading full throttle towards hybrid and eventually full electric propulsion, and there is no turning back. What was shown in Geneva highlighted the car industry’s increasing desire and necessity to catch consumers’ attention through style and sustainability, in the attempt – made by every carmaker – to move ahead of their old and new competitors in this looming, unprecedented rush to the automobile revolution. Car 2.0 is coming, and it’s the real thing, a world-changing game. So real that for the first time in many years new brands like Tesla can dream of threatening the market share of well established European makers. Some companies like Nissan-Renault got the message and skipped hybrids altogether to get ahead in the race for the bigger electric prize. Others are still shy and keep experimenting a variety of solutions. But more and more plug-in prototypes and new models are announced month after month. It’s a rush that cannot be stopped anymore, and there are more reasons to its increasing pace than just competition and fear of losing ground to competitors.

China and India, not Europe or the US, will play the crucial role. They are devoting increasing funds and long term plans to developing their own renewable energy industry, smart grid and of course electric cars. We have already seen what it means to a worldwide industry, be it wind or solar to name but two, when China or India weigh in (suffice to see last year’s installed wind capacity in China, or both China and India’s projected solar and wind capacities for the coming decade). What is it likely to happen to the car industry, when their own EVs and batteries will flood the market, and will be bought by millions of Indian and Chinese people in the first place? Without even trying to make up unpredictable figures, we can easily anticipate one adjective for their impact to the automotive market: huge.

And if Asia holds the key to the energy and car markets destiny, there is one more key ingredient to the future of cars, which is worth stressing. Electric vehicles, Car 2.0, are in their nature – and industrial/marketing development potential – much closer to IT gadgets than to traditional cars. They belong to the Information Technology market. Forget about moving parts, oil leaks, expensive engine maintenance, EVs are the next IT frenzy after mobile phones, laptops, iPods and the likes. Like any IT gadget, the main required operation will be to plug them when idle (something that’s fair to say most of us are already used to). Like laptops or smart phones, EVs will be multi-tasking tools, sending and receiving data through the smart electricity grid, and even displaying messages to the public through their metal skin (seen in Geneva). But unlike laptops and phones, they will also feed power to the grid when required (turning into a nation’s precious asset). Like any IT gadgets, we will keep them for as long as swapping batteries will make sense, only to replace them when a cooler, up to date model will storm the market.

And most importantly, as any other IT gadget, the learning curve of EVs will be far steeper and quicker than that of the old-fashioned manufacturing industry, leading to incredible improvements in a very limited timeframe: months, rather than years. Battery research, already in a booming frenzy, will see breakthrough results pouring in faster and faster, possibly fading away range anxiety well before EVs do become mainstream. If Nissan is already claiming it will give a 200 miles range to its Leaf EV by 2015, chances are better results could come in even earlier. More energy-dense, lighter and cheaper battery packs are just round the corner. The critical mass has been reached.

A lot of old-fashioned energy consultancy firms and automotive analysts, let alone the International Energy Agency, keep posting studies showing very low percentages for EVs penetration in the car market by 2020, or even 2030 or 2050 (the oil industry is particularly good at making these self-indulging long-term predictions). They all miss the point: none of their projection models have built in the presence of new wildly powerful global market drivers (such as China or India, as suppliers and consumers), none of them seem to appreciate (purposedly?) the disruptive effect of even a slight under-supply of oil to the world’s economy and industry. All of them, finally, underestimate how customers could suddenly decide that electric cars are what they want to buy.

Is the UK subsidy for solar PV a good use of scarce funds?

The Guardian web pages are reverberating to the clash of arms between George Monbiot and UK supporters of feed-in tariffs for solar photovoltaic panels and other small-scale renewables. Monbiot claims solar power is an extremely expensive way of generating electricity in the UK and that the new scheme is another way of subsidising the wealthy middle class. The fans of feed-in tariffs note the success of similar schemes in other countries. They think that the cashback proposals will help create jobs in businesses that install and maintain low carbon energy sources. The UK scheme will help drive down the costs of renewable technologies and increase public support for wind and alternative sources of electricity. The argument has focused on solar photovoltaic panels installed on domestic roofs. This note tries to quantify some of the costs and benefits of the new scheme. I'll take one of  the simplest possible examples: an installation of 12 panels on the roof of a medium-sized house in the south west of England, where solar radiation levels are relatively high for the UK. Does solar energy make sense in this country?

Before considering interest costs

a)      The installation will generate a maximum of about 2 kilowatts in full sun on a south facing roof at midsummer.

b)      Over the course of a year, we can expect the panels to produce about 1800 kilowatt hours.

c)      The value of this output would be about £70 in today's UK wholesale market.

d)      The system will typically cost about £10,000. The price of the solar panels is tending to fall but the associated electronics are in very short supply worldwide. The most important component is the 'inverter', the device that takes the DC low voltage current from the roof and turns it into an 240V AC current that is precisely aligned to the frequency of the AC on the local electricity grid.

e)      A system will probably last about 25-30 years, although there will be some fall in power generated as the solar panels age.

f)        If we assume the system lasts thirty years - and make no deduction for the decreasing production at the end of its life - the full cost of the installation is about £330 per annum. This is without considering any interest costs, maintenance or the probable need to replace the expensive inverter at least once during the 30 year life.

g)      The absolute minimum annual cost of the installation is therefore at least four and a half times the wholesale value of the electricity generated. (£330/£70).

h)      We might choose to compare the cost of the system with the full retail price of the electricity produced. If the homeowner is paying 12.5 per kilowatt hour, the annual value of the electricity produced is £225 (1800 kWh times 12.5p).

i)        Without the huge subsidy provided by the feed-in tariff, the annual electricity output comes nowhere close to covering the costs of the installation over its thirty year life. At current electricity prices, the system will produce electricity worth £7,750 compared to an installation cost of £10,000. In conventional terms, this is an extremely bad investment for society as a whole. Because the feed-in tariff rewards homeowner with over three times the current retail price for electricity, it may nevertheless be good for homeowners that invest in solar. The people who pay for this generosity are all the other homeowners using electricity in the UK who don’t install panels on their roofs. This is the crucial point: a subsidy system that may be good for recipients may be damaging for the rest of society.

After interest costs

j)        If I have £10,000, I could put some solar panels or I could invest my money in 30 year government bonds. Today, these bonds will pay me about £450 a year before tax. If I pay tax at 40%, this falls to £270.

k)      When assessing whether solar panels are a good investment, the rational householder will consider the prospective disadvantage of not getting this income of £270 a year, as well as the cost of the initial purchase. He or she will factor this loss into their thinking on solar panels.

l)        Adding £270 a year to the annual cost of £330 produces a total figure of £600 a year as the full financial impact of putting up solar panels.

m)    This is almost three times the full retail of the electricity produced. Without large subsidy or huge increases in the future prices of electricity, solar panels are a terrible investment.

The proponents of feed-in tariffs seem to accept this broad logic. But they respond by saying that the scheme will assist in the development of a new industry and drive down prices. There may be something in this argument. However the cost of solar installations is largely determined by the world market for PV panels, of which the UK will always be a tiny part. We cannot make much of a difference to global prices. In fact, it can be argued that the new UK subsidies are likely to divert scarce inverters to the UK where they will typically produce about half the maximum output of an inverter in a sunny country. So the UK feed-in tariffs, at least as applied to solar PV, might be said to be actually decreasing the total amount of renewable energy produced around the world.

Does this analysis apply to wind power? No, not completely. A moderately sized wind turbine suitable for a farm – such as the Aeolus Power 50 kW model in a good location - will produce 100 times the electricity of a 2kw solar installation for about 25 times the cost. In other words, the productivity of the capital employed is about four times as great. This means that small scale wind power is almost economic. If, for whatever reason, we choose to subsidise small scale renewable energy in the UK we need to focus our money on wind energy. This argument applies even if electricity prices double or treble in the next decades. Wind we have in abundance, sunshine we are short of. By any standards, focusing on solar PV doesn’t make sense and will add to the energy costs* of householders not benefiting from the feed-in tariffs.

* Assume one million households (about 4% of the UK) install PV panels producing an average of 1800 kWh a year. The annual subsidy will be approximately £700m, all of which is paid for by other electricity users. If all this cost is eventually paid for by householders, the cost will be about £35-£30 a year, or perhaps 5% of current bills. (Only about one third of  UK electricity demand comes from homes but householders will eventually pay the whole subsidy cost because of higher prices for goods and services because of the increased price of electricity).