Release the white paper!
The Energy White Paper was released today and there must be a lot of interest in it; it took about six hours to actually get a decent connection to the DTI’s website and download a copy. I haven’t had a chance to go through it all yet but a couple things have jumped out from skimming the executive summary and news coverage.
- The big story over at the BBC is nuclear power. The white paper reiterates that nuclear could play a major role in reducing carbon emissions and improving energy security; indeed a consultation document on new nuclear stations was released at the same time. It should make for interesting reading: what will the government do if the private sector decides it’s not economic?
- Energy policy is about more than electricity supply though and it’s good to see that the white paper starts with demand reduction.
“The starting point for our energy policy is to save energy. It is often the cheapest way of reducing carbon emissions, certainly in the short-term. It can also contribute to security of supply, for example by reducing our need for energy imports, and reduce fuel poverty through lower bills.”
I’ll have to check but this may be the first time that the importance of the demand side has been stated so clearly.
- As an example of this interest in demand reduction, the white paper has confirmed the earlier rumours about home energy monitors. All new electricity meters starting next spring will have displays showing consumption (e.g. kWh) and cost. Apparently not everyone’s happy with this move but it’s certainly a step in the right direction.
As with anything, the devil will be in the details and it’s worth remembering that the 2003 white paper made many of the right noises too. In fact, a cynic might say that the whole purpose of the new white paper was to lay the groundwork for new nuclear power stations. But the nuclear issue shouldn’t overshadow the wider themes of the white paper, that a renewed effort in all sectors – industrial, transport, domestic, and so on – is needed to deliver a sustainable energy policy for the UK.
100 posts!
And with that, I’m up to 100 posts!
Coincidentally, this milestone has happened at about the same time as the Guardian launched a redesign of their website; I started this website in earnest just after they’d redesigned their print version.
Maybe I should do a redesign of these pages too?
An update on the LCBP
As you might have seen in the news last week, the government has restarted the Low Carbon Buildings Programme with a budget of £12 million. Though if this website was your only source of microgeneration news, you would be confused because I didn’t write about it being suspended in the first place. Tsk tsk.
The whole thing followed the usual pattern (official announcement → initial media response → angry industry response), demonstrating once again that these things are nothing if not predictable. But this sense of
Since before even the Major Demonstration Programme for PV, the government’s approach to microgeneration has been to provide a fixed (small) pot of grant funding. While this worked at first, i.e. to set up a few demonstration projects, it is an inadequate model for the wider expansion of these technologies and this was made perfectly clear when the March allocation of grant funds ran out in 75 minutes due to massive public demand. Of course, one solution would be to vastly increase the size of the pot allowing more households to get grants. But this wouldn’t address the problem of the whole scheme running for only a year or two, creating uncertainty for installation companies.
A much better solution would be to follow the example of the large-scale Renewable Obligation Certificate programme and create a long-term market mechanism that values microgeneration. This would give consumers and industry the confidence needed to invest in microgeneration and set the stage for its integration within the wider electricity network. Germany has shown how it can be done by implementing a feed-in tariff, which guarantees the rate paid for microgenerated electricity (fixed, but decreasing over time). And the results speak for themselves (from the articles above):
Since it was launched in April 2006, the LCBP has funded 2,175 installations in homes, including 242 mini-turbines, 313 solar PV projects and 1,467 solar thermal systems. Germany, by contrast has 300,000 PV systems in homes.
Dr Hermann Scheer, head of Eurosolar renewables association, told MPs in Westminster yesterday that the German system had been a success and the industry now employed 214,000 and had created 24,000 new jobs last year alone.
Unfortunately the DTI thinks this approach is too “interventionist” and to be fair, a feed-in tariff isn’t quite the same as the ROC system. But still, I sincerely hope that the upcoming energy white paper acknowledges that a) the public demand for microgeneration and the requirements of industry necessitate a different approach to support these technologies and b) if you’re trying to be a world leader on climate change and hit a 60% reduction target (or greater) by 2050, you might just have to rock the boat a little bit.
The importance of good typography
As a researcher, I spend a lot of time writing. Papers, reports, briefings, minutes, blogs – they all need to be done sooner or later and each format has its own challenges. There are some common features though and most importantly, each document must be tailored to the needs of the anticipated audience. This does not only mean adjusting the technical level of the content (e.g. a discussion of statistical tests isn’t very useful for a magazine article aimed at high-school students); the presentation of the document must be appropriate as well.
A well-designed document should draw the reader into the text, or at the very least, not put them off reading. Writers however often do not have the time, interest or expertise to properly typeset their own documents and as a result, texts tend to range from the abysmal to the mundane; beautiful readable documents are few and far between. While this criticism typically applies to the daily in-house documents of any office, it is equally relevant to professional academic publishers. I recently purchased a book from a major academic press which, although not poorly designed per se, is a rather uninspiring, 250 pages of boiler-plate Times New Roman. The spacing, headings, punctuation and so on are technically correct but it makes me think that I’m reading a well-formatted draft, rather than a finished product.
Typography should be an extension of the personalities of both author and text. So, just as this personal expression can be squashed by rigidly defining a style, a lack of interest in document presentation similarly deprives the author from an opportunity to present his or her content’s best possible face to the reader. In future, I plan to write more about typography here, especially for academic content in print and on the web. For homework though, try taking one of your favourite books off the shelf and look at the copyright page. You might see something like “Set in Adobe Caslon 10/12″ – typography at work!
It’s a ‘wow’ technology day
Every now and then, I have these little ‘technology epiphanies’. I can’t think of a better phrase but if you’ve ever marvelled at the ability to send email, talk over the internet, find an obscure fact in seconds, or order miscellaneous goods from far-off places, no doubt you’ll know what I mean. The internet lets you do some absolutely amazing things.
In the Economist this week, they suggest that the follow-up to this revolution in information technology and network communications will be found in wireless devices. With cheap small wireless chips, devices can communicate between themselves enabling a range of new products and services (e.g. how about a mousetrap that notifies you when it’s caught a mouse – or, alternatively, that the mouse ate all the cheese).
Apart from the Oyster card in London, I haven’t really seen much of this technology myself but the appeal of wireless technology, even in a fairly simple application, is clear. Today for example, I’m writing this post on a bus, stuck in traffic heading out of London. Static wifi has obviously been around for a few years but there’s something about having access while you’re on the move that is just amazing. This isn’t very exciting to those who spend a lot of time on trains in the UK but it’s the first time I’ve had a chance to try it out and I’m smitten!
The other technology I was impressed by today is on the energy front. This BBC story and video describes a giant solar concentrating generator in Spain. Using thousands of mirrors to focus sunlight, it heats water and drives a steam turbine. I think these types of plants have existed for years in the US but the scale and sophistication of this new facility – and the plans to build more larger facilities – make this particularly impressive.