Monday, February 28, 2005

An ill wind

Even the biggest producer of wind power in the world admits its benefits are largely hot air.

The German Energy Agency has produced a report which suggests that wind power, so heavily promoted as a means of cutting carbon dioxide emissions, may be three times more expensive than other ways to cut emissions. It suggests that placing special filters at conventional power stations may be more cost effective.

While the position is a little different in the UK, the cost of wind power is still considerably more than for conventional power. This is only made possible by consumers and taxpayers paying more - £1billion per annum more by 2010, according to the National Audit Office. Moreover, wind farms are an unreliable source of energy, operating for only a small part of the time, meaning that conventional stations must continue to 'tick over', ready to be brought back online at a moment's notice - an utterly inefficient method.

Leaving aside the question of whether it is sensible to make cutting carbon emissions a priority in energy production, there is a 'clean' and reliable alternative to wind: nuclear power. Both in Germany and the UK, nuclear power seems to be a taboo subject. Yet, a report published in 2004 by the Royal Academy of Engineers suggests that nuclear power should cost fifty percent less than wind when the unreliability of wind generation is taken into account.

We can only hope that this critical discussion of wind power doesn't blow over.

Anti-wind farm report dismissed, BBC News, 26 February 2005

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Monbiot's dodgy forecast

With heavy snow affecting the east of the UK in particular, we recall the words of George Monbiot's Guardian column last week, advising us that climate change had fundamentally altered the timing of Britain's seasons:

'It is now mid-February, and already I have sown 11 species of vegetable. I know, though the seed packets tell me otherwise, that they will flourish. Everything in this country - daffodils, primroses, almond trees, bumblebees, nesting birds - is a month ahead of schedule.' Hope you're not relying on those veggies, George.

Mocking our dreams, Guardian, 15 February 2005

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Kyoto delusions

The Kyoto Protocol comes into force today. Is it the worst treaty ever?

It must be a contender. Put simply, Kyoto is an expensive way to fail to solve a problem that doesn't exist. The UK National Audit Office this week pointed out that the compulsory purchase of energy from renewable sources will cost £1billion per year in increased bills - and that's just one part of the UK strategy. Another, emissions trading, involves countries like the UK paying countries such as Russia for part of their carbon production allowance, carbon they wouldn't emit anyway since their industry has collapsed. So the UK pays a small fortune for an emissions reduction that only exists on paper.

After all this, Kyoto will have a negligible effect on real emissions - even the treaty’s biggest fans can only argue that it is 'a start'. And Kyoto is justified on the basis of an alarmist prediction of future climate change, which, if it occurs at all, is likely to be fairly small. There is no climate catastrophe waiting to happen. Far better to encourage development and adaptation, with the much wider benefits they can bring, than attempt to change our climate by tinkering with just one factor that effects it.

Read on:

Cool heads required, by Rob Lyons

Friday, February 11, 2005

An unhelpful climate for scientific research

I recently attended a Scientific Alliance conference on climate change at the Royal Institution in London. Apart from the fact that the discussion was much more level-headed than the hysterical headlines the day before about global warming, what really fired me up was the hatchet-job done on those attending by Royal Society president, Sir Bob May. His comments, which made the front page of the Guardian, basically suggested that anyone who didn't follow the orthodoxy on climate change, or criticised the Kyoto Protocol, was either deluded or in the pay of Big Oil.

This seemed to me a particularly lazy way of dealing with these arguments - particularly given the comments of one of the leading speakers, Richard Lindzen, who quite rightly pointed out that sceptics and orthodoxy shared a consensus, but a trivial one. Nobody seriously argues that carbon dioxide is not a greenhouse gas or that pumping more into the atmosphere won't make the world warmer. But carbon dioxide is just one element in a very complex system and it is not possible to say "more carbon dioxide necessarily equals higher temperatures". We need to work out how the interactions and processes involved work.

So, on the one hand we have a body of science which has made some progress in understanding an extremely complex issue - but with a lot of uncertainties outstanding. On the other hand, we have a highly politicised debate. What's the betting that the science is going to suffer?

spiked-science | Article | Cool heads required

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Ruth Kelly's 'low-level' idea

New Labour's big new initiative for education seems to be to stop children being naughty.

Not content with draconian measures to prevent anti-social behaviour more generally, UK education secretary Ruth Kelly is announcing plans to crackdown on 'low level misbehaviour' in the classroom too. Apparently, this regular, minor type of disruption is playing havoc with children's education. Talking on BBC Breakfast News, Kelly gave the example of using mobile phones and text messaging in the classroom as the 'sort of behaviour that disrupts the learning not just of the child who is showing poor behaviour but also of the other children in the schools'.

So in order to raise standards, the government will propose new schemes to micromanage the way that kids behave. But good discipline can't be imposed from on high by the secretary of state. It comes from teachers and children knowing why they are there, what their relationship is, and where the line of unacceptable behaviour lies.

Children, for the most part, do not need heavy-handed discipline if they are properly engaged in class - and a good education will certainly engage them. Unfortunately, our schools are fast becoming a demoralising mixture of social control and meeting targets at all costs. By making school a stimulating and rewarding experience, where teachers are properly accorded authority and autonomy, the government could give kids a reason to shut up and pay attention.

New moves on classroom disruption, BBC News, 1 February 2005