Parliament was conned by New Labour and the ConDem coalition into supporting new nuclear power stations by distorted evidence and research that ignored important alternatives to achieve emissions cuts, including energy saving measures.
The truth behind this massive deception is revealed in new report that describes the way the decision was taken to build 10 new nuclear power stations as “a corruption of governance”.
MPs were told that without an expansion of nuclear energy, the UK would be unable to meet its target for reduction of harmful greenhouse gas emissions. The phrase "unable to keep the lights on" was used time and again.
In reality, the decision to build the 10 power stations was taken first, behind the scenes, and all the research and modelling from then on was designed to prove they were needed. Figures for future energy demand were largely invented and placed at the absolute highest level.
Unlock Democracy and the Association for the Conservation of Energy, joint authors of the report, made repeated requests to the Department for Energy and Climate Change to see the demand projections justifying nuclear claims. Finally, they received this admission: "DECC has not made any long-term projections of electricity demand supply. Our latest projections were published up to 2022 and we have previously published figures to 2025. DECC is developing scenarios of potential electricity demand/supply to 2050 but don’t have any definite figures for this yet."
The government claimed that by 2025 an additional 60 gigawatts of power generation would be needed. But the consultants employed by the government were not even asked to assess actual need for new capacity, and they did not do so. They simply assessed the options for achieving the government's stated goal of achieving 29% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020. As the report explains:
"In a nutshell what [the consultants] did was add up the government’s proposed policies, including the 29% renewables figure and the proposed new nuclear capacity (plus other proposed new capacity) and call that a ‘central assumption’ of need'. However this is not an assessment of need, it is an estimate of predicted generating capacity, which is altogether different."
Then the Brown New Labour government referenced this simple addition as the independent analytical source for their assumption of future need, say the two organisations who point out that they are not formally opposed to nuclear energy.
"In other words, the pre-determined policy of 10 new nuclear power stations created the ‘central assumption’ of the need for them. Rather than the need driving the policy, the policy dictated the so-called need," the report states.
The incoming coalition government commissioned some further research, modelling 16 different “pathways” to meeting both future energy needs and emissions targets by 2050. These were the basis for last year's vote accepting the need for an expansion nuclear power, but they were based on the same assumptions.
The claim is that the demand for electricity will double or even triple by 2050 but there is no evidence for this. In fact one of the government's own documents states that four different scenarios were modelled on the need for electricity until 2025 and these “scenarios all suggest that electricity demand in 2025 will be at approximately the same levels as today”. And the National Grid is planning on the basis of a similar assumption.
Just before this report was published, realising the cat was out of the bag, the DECC did finally publish some figures showing that focusing on funding for energy saving brought cost savings and greater CO2 reductions.
So it is clear that under pressure from the energy corporations, the government agreed in principle to build 10 new nuclear power stations and then manipulated the data to prove they were needed. These will cost the taxpayer billions of pounds, require public provision of storage for dangerous waste, and keep people on the treadmill of ever-increasing bills.
It would be cheaper for the public purse, and cheaper for consumers, to focus instead on energy saving. But there's no profit for the energy giants in that scenario, so it was hidden from MPs. Will they now revisit this decision and rescind it? Not likely!
Penny Cole
Environment editor
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Showing posts with label greenhouse gas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label greenhouse gas. Show all posts
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Monday, October 01, 2007
Biofuels increase emissions - and profits
Straight from a most unlikely source comes news of another eco-scandal. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has exposed the fact that the European Commission is colluding with renewable energy corporations and investors. The aim is to ensure that environmental standards are not allowed to interfere with profitability and investment opportunities in biofuel production. The OECD says that Europe has adopted ambitious targets for switching to biofuels “without an in-depth understanding of a sustainable production level and from where this biofuel could be supplied”. It warns that there is “a serious risk that biofuel quotas are higher than potential sustainable supply, creating a strong incentive to ‘cheat’ in the system”.
And this cheating is already well under way. Biofuel corporations are actively opposing the introduction of mandatory sustainability standards by the EC, as a new report published by the Transnational Institute explains. Most “renewable energy” businesses responding to an EC consultation rejected the idea of safeguards that would ensure that biofuels sold in Europe would have lower greenhouse gas emissions than the petrol or diesel they replace. They proposed voluntary regulation, and stressed that nothing should be done to interfere with market growth.
British Sugar, for example, stated that: “We fully support minimum environmental standards for biofuels in the European Union, but do not think a certificate system is the best method. In introducing these standards, there is always the danger of slowing development in the market.” The Renewable Energy Association (UK), whose members include BP Alternative Fuels, British Sugar and Shell International, said that minimum environmental standards would be “an ill-considered approach, which... will risk undermining future investment in the European biofuels market and could blight existing investment”.
British Sugar, BP, Du Pont and Associated British Foods are partners in two joint ventures to establish multi-million pound biofuel production plants in Norfolk and Hull. The European Investment Bank is finalising its approval for the provision of £120m of project financing for both ventures, at attractive interest rates - the first direct financing provided by the EIB for a biofuel project.
Targets are now being set, and subsidies and loans are being granted, without addressing fundamental sustainability issues. When asked whether the 10% target for switching to bio-fuels would be dropped or adjusted if negative impacts were demonstrated, the European Commission responded that this would not happen, as it would create too much uncertainty for investors. They propose that in future they will look at just two issues to measure sustainability: greenhouse gas balance and impact on high biodiversity values. Excluded from consideration are social impacts such as food security, land conflicts and water and soil degradation. The EC is hiding behind World Trade Organisation market competition rules to avoid including such social criteria.
To meet EU and US biofuel targets means clearing virgin forest and grassland, bush and jungle, in the world’s poorest areas, releasing carbon stored in earth and vegetation that will outweigh any reduction in emissions achieved. The planned large-scale monoculture of palm oil, soya and other crops needs massive inputs of fertilisers, releasing NO2 - a greenhouse gas more potent than CO2. The reality is that the global rush to biofuels will actually increase emissions of greenhouse gases. But as long as it also increases emissions of profit, that’s fine by the European Commission and the new biofuel corporations.
Penny Cole
AWTW environment editor
And this cheating is already well under way. Biofuel corporations are actively opposing the introduction of mandatory sustainability standards by the EC, as a new report published by the Transnational Institute explains. Most “renewable energy” businesses responding to an EC consultation rejected the idea of safeguards that would ensure that biofuels sold in Europe would have lower greenhouse gas emissions than the petrol or diesel they replace. They proposed voluntary regulation, and stressed that nothing should be done to interfere with market growth.
British Sugar, for example, stated that: “We fully support minimum environmental standards for biofuels in the European Union, but do not think a certificate system is the best method. In introducing these standards, there is always the danger of slowing development in the market.” The Renewable Energy Association (UK), whose members include BP Alternative Fuels, British Sugar and Shell International, said that minimum environmental standards would be “an ill-considered approach, which... will risk undermining future investment in the European biofuels market and could blight existing investment”.
British Sugar, BP, Du Pont and Associated British Foods are partners in two joint ventures to establish multi-million pound biofuel production plants in Norfolk and Hull. The European Investment Bank is finalising its approval for the provision of £120m of project financing for both ventures, at attractive interest rates - the first direct financing provided by the EIB for a biofuel project.
Targets are now being set, and subsidies and loans are being granted, without addressing fundamental sustainability issues. When asked whether the 10% target for switching to bio-fuels would be dropped or adjusted if negative impacts were demonstrated, the European Commission responded that this would not happen, as it would create too much uncertainty for investors. They propose that in future they will look at just two issues to measure sustainability: greenhouse gas balance and impact on high biodiversity values. Excluded from consideration are social impacts such as food security, land conflicts and water and soil degradation. The EC is hiding behind World Trade Organisation market competition rules to avoid including such social criteria.
To meet EU and US biofuel targets means clearing virgin forest and grassland, bush and jungle, in the world’s poorest areas, releasing carbon stored in earth and vegetation that will outweigh any reduction in emissions achieved. The planned large-scale monoculture of palm oil, soya and other crops needs massive inputs of fertilisers, releasing NO2 - a greenhouse gas more potent than CO2. The reality is that the global rush to biofuels will actually increase emissions of greenhouse gases. But as long as it also increases emissions of profit, that’s fine by the European Commission and the new biofuel corporations.
Penny Cole
AWTW environment editor
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