The baby and the bath water

Some readers might not be familiar with George Monbiot. Mr. Monbiot is a columnist with The Guardian newspaper and has written on issues ranging from the Iraq war to globalization to race relations, &c. In recent years though, his main focus has been climate change and he’s been quite vociferous in calling for both government action and personal responsibility in dealing with the problem.

Which makes his recent comments on microgeneration all the more confusing. In an article for the New Scientist, Monbiot writes that “small is useless” and lambasts “those who maintain that our own homes can produce all the renewable electricity and heat they need…[they] have harmed the campaign to stop climate chaos, by sowing complacency and misdirecting our efforts.” He cites Bill Dunster and Jeremy Leggett as examples of those who have been, shall we say, overly optimistic in estimating the potential contribution of microwind and PV. As a green architect and director of a PV installation firm respectively, the cynical reader might believe that the claims of these men were intentionally misleading.

I think it’s worth a detailed rebuttal of Monbiot’s column:
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The Golden Rule

Everytime I see something that looks like it might be relevant to the site, I add it to a list of “draft” posts. Unfortunately between the spate of recent microgeneration news and the distractions of life in the big city, the backlog has gotten bigger and bigger. So I’ve just picked one item at random to cross off.

It’s an article from the BBC, from early October, about funding for renewable energy. The gist of it is as follows:

“The Partnership for Renewables scheme will work with private firms to put the turbines on sites such as hospitals.

But the Lib Dems and the Energy Saving Trust say money from insulation and double-glazing schemes will pay for it.

The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the sum was never allocated to a specific project.”

It may seem like a minor thing – surely either way the money helps avoid greenhouse gas emissions, right? And in true academic style, the answer is a carefully hedged “yes but…”. However, the important point is that demand reduction should be the first priority of energy policy. Whether it’s achieved through efficiency or conservation, if you don’t need as much energy in the first place, then you don’t need to worry about how to supply it, how much it will cost, and how to clean up the mess. To this end, the UK Energy Research Centre has an entire research theme devoted to demand reduction and related research, such as the ECI’s 40% House report, only introduces microgeneration after reducing demand through efficiency measures.

Of course, the idea of “reduce demand, then provide clean supplies” shouldn’t be taken dogmatically and I wouldn’t be surprised if in the design of some microgeneration systems (e.g. district heat and power schemes), system optimization may not correlate with minimization of demand. Even in the case above, the preferential allocation of funds to renewables may be seen as a market-building exercise (i.e. a decision not taken strictly on energy grounds). However the guiding principle is worth remembering – it’s the closest thing this field has to a golden rule.