Union pushes for urgent energy reform

Text of just the energy part of Simpsons speech at the Amicus Officers Conference Birmingham - 11 January 2006

"The main reason given for outsourcing production by manufacturing companies in the UK is no longer labour costs; it's high energy costs. We as a nation are hostage to the supply of gas from politically unstable countries to heat our homes and power our factories. The recent debacle between Russia and the Ukraine shows this is an unsustainable situation.

Thanks to the Tories we have the largest stocks of coal outside of China but no industry to extract it and no power stations to burn it in without catastrophic consequences for the environment.

Successive governments have shied away from difficult decisions and left us with ageing nuclear power stations and as yet no plans to start a new building program. Together both have contributed to our over reliance on foreign gas and foreign electricity generation.

With renewable energy sources several decades away from providing more than a tiny minority of our energy needs we urgently need government policy to promote clean coal technology and nuclear power new builds so we can meet our medium term energy needs, save thousands of jobs, avoid black outs, rocketing household bills and meet our targets for reducing carbon emissions."

'lieutenant of the Left'

Derek Simpson, begam the leader of the UK's second largest union Amicus in 2002.

The 57-year-old former Communist has been a Labour Party member for the past 14 years and describes himself as a "lieutenant of the Left". While he stresses that he is not a Blairite offering Downing Street "blind allegiance", he admits he is not anti-Blair. Indeed he once said he had no plans to cut union funding of the Labour Party despite agreeing that the UK now has the worst labour laws in Europe.

Mr Simpson left school in Sheffield at the age of 15 and took up an apprenticeship in a local engineering firm.
He quickly a career unionist, first attending the engineering union's youth conference then becoming a shop steward, then a convenor before being appointed the union's Sheffield district secretary in 1981.

He has an Open University degree in computing and mathematics and a keen chess player who enjoys listening to all types of music and spends a lot of time "messing about" with computers. He appeared on stage with Billy Bragg at the Glastonbury festival.

Now, he seems to be in the pocket of the nuclear industry, joining Tony Blair promoting the revival of nuclear energy in the UK.

It's black, dirty and desperately unfashionable, but without it the UK may be heading for winter blackouts. Could coal really be the future of British energy?

The last 25 years have not been kind to the British coal industry.Pit closures, the Miners' Strike and the so-called "dash for gas" of the 1990s have all left the black stuff in a precarious position. On Friday the industry will suffer another body blow, when the last pit at the Selby complex in Yorkshire shuts, ending the life of what was once the jewel in the crown of British mining.

Yet as coal appears to be on its last legs, power and engineering industry union Amicus is claiming the UK needs to be using more. It says the prospect of colder winters and over-reliance on gas imported from unstable countries will otherwise leave the UK exposed to power cuts - a claim the government dismisses.

Can coal really be the future of British energy and are UK mines in any position to meet extra demand anyway? Coal power currently accounts for just 28% of UK electricity production, down 4% over the past year, the latest government figures show. At the same time, use of gas is still rising and now makes up 44% of all electricity generation.

In 2003 the UK produced just 28.2 million tonnes of coal - less than 10% of the amount mined in 1900, when it fuelled the might of Britain's manufacturing and heavy industry. Current UK coal production is also exceeded by Britain's imports of 31.9 million tonnes.There are just nine fully working deep mines left, eight of them belonging to UK Coal and the independent Tower Colliery in Wales. These mines are operating at very near to capacity.

If the UK wanted to produce more coal, it would need to reopen old mines or sink new shafts - something easier said than done. "There are additional reserves that could be developed, deep reserves in various parts of the country," says UK Coal's Stuart Oliver. "But it is likely to take 15 years to get into full production, four to five years of getting planning permission and then 10 years before full production."

One possible site is the Witham "prospect" on the border of Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. To get a complex up and running there would cost in the region of £400m, a dangerous gamble without significant state intervention in a time of fluctuating energy prices.

Furthermore, mines closed during coal's years of doom and gloom cannot be resurrected, Mr Oliver says.
"It is not a simple matter. They don't exist. They have been demolished. Most of these old mines couldn't compete in the 1970s and 1980s and since then Mother Nature has filled up the holes. "The tunnels flood, they become gassed up, the whole thing can cave in."

Additional problems are posed by the fact that mines closing now will soon be unusable and that the industry has an ageing workforce. Dave Douglass, of the National Union of Mineworkers', represents the small band of men still working at the pit at Hatfield in South Yorkshire, mothballed a year ago. "Miners are mostly middle-aged now. There are no new miners," he says.

For its part, the Department of Trade and Industry says it is putting money into modernising coal power. But its focus is on renewable energy like wind power, and guaranteeing security of supply. The Lib Dems, meanwhile, are opposed to increased use of coal, its DTI spokesman Malcolm Bruce dismissing support for greater use of coal as "fantasy land", because "coal power pollutes".

His argument is given weight by Professor Ian Fells, chairman of the New and Renewable Energy Centre, who says current coal-fired plants produced a kilogram of carbon dioxide for every unit (KWh) of energy produced.
In contrast, gas produces only half a kilogram and nuclear just 30g.

Amicus and the National Union of Mineworkers are among those who claim the UK should be investing "clean-burn coal technology" to cut the risk of pollution. One alternative is for expensive new plants which operate by converting coal into gas and burning the gas in a similar way to a gas plant. Unfortunately for proponents of coal power, Britain's coal-fired plants are ancient, with the most recent plant, Drax, started in the 1970s.

Kenneth Fergusson, president of the Combustion Engineering Association, and a former head of the UK's Coal Authority agrees that finding cleaner ways to use fossil fuels is the next step. "We can and should be building our next generation of both coal and nuclear plants," he says. "In clean coal, the Americans are well on their way."

If supporters of clean-burn technology manage to persuade the government of the need to find more secure sources of energy, it could well be that coal plays a part. But even if that happens the part UK miners will get to play seems far from certain.

Until very recently the UK was an energy island, self sufficient in energy. This situation is changing rapidly. Domestic gas, oil and coal extraction rates are all crashing and the nuclear fleet is ageing, soon to be decommissioned. Whilst not impossible to sustain a successful economy and high standard of living on imported energy (see Japan). The rate of change could be devastating to the UK, both in terms of reduced security of supply and the negative effect on the trade deficit.

For the three months June 2005 to August 2005 compared to the same period a year earlier:

* production of petroleum fell by 16.2%;
* production of natural gas fell by 17.0%;
* production of coal and other solid fuels fell by 24.9%;
* electricity produced from nuclear sources rose by 11.8%;
* electricity produced from wind and natural flow hydro fell by 4.4%.

 http://www.vitaltrivia.co.uk/2005/11/39

We also know that 70% (capacity) of the UK nuclear fleet (providing 22% electricity) will be decommissioned within 9 years, North Sea gas (providing ~35% electricity) will be almost totally depleted by 2020 and UK coal (providing about half of the 35% coal fired electricity) reserves of 220 million tonnes has a R/P ration of 9 years!

With an increasing trade deficit we can't import the energy so where's it going to come from?

Actually, while people seem to suggest that nuclear energy in finite, in practical terms it certainly is not.

Uranium availability is the big issue. The OECD said that in 2002 there were 67,000 tonnes of uranium consumed, but during that period only 36,000 tonnes mined. Obviously not sustainable!

The extra needed came from diluting enriched uranium from decomissioned nuclear weapons, mostly from Russia.

However, Russia has decided not to sell more uranium, as they will need it themselves. As a result, most new nuclear plants under construction right now do not have long-term contracts in place for fuel supply. More plants will mean a bigger shortfall and much higher prices.

Before 2004 the price of uranium was well below 12$/lb. This was mainly due to Russia flooding the market with fuel from their decomissioned nuclear weapons. With the surge of oil and natural gas prices the market price for uranium price has almost doubled to to 22$/lb now and predictably is set to rise.

.

there is plenty of oil and we wont be running out any time soon (well, 40 years would be a good estimate)

the problem is not that we are running out of oil but rather that the rates of extraction are falling and the costs of getting at it is rising.

this means that there IS oil available to mine uranium for quite a while although the cost will increase and impact on the economics of switching to nuclear

however, nuclear can't replace oil (perhaps nothing can).

90% of all energy used for transport comes from oil. that makes sense since liquid fuels are easy work with and are a highly concentrated form of energy, nothing else comes close.

I don't see any choice but to include nuclear into the equation when trying to figure out how 7 billion people will make a reasonably painless transistion through the second half of the oil age.

We need to dowsize and go to renewables asap, nuclear is not an option as a lot of co2 is produced in the building and maintaining of nuclear powerplants, not to mention the waste issue.

article from the independent (Mon 16th Jan). (Have posted full article as you have to pay to see them after three days).


Environment in crisis: 'We are past the point of no return'
Thirty years ago, the scientist James Lovelock worked out that the Earth possessed a planetary-scale control system which kept the environment fit for life. He called it Gaia, and the theory has become widely accepted. Now, he believes mankind's abuse of the environment is making that mechanism work against us. His astonishing conclusion - that climate change is already insoluble, and life on Earth will never be the same again.
By Michael McCarthy Environment Editor
Published: 16 January 2006

The world has already passed the point of no return for climate change, and civilisation as we know it is now unlikely to survive, according to James Lovelock, the scientist and green guru who conceived the idea of Gaia - the Earth which keeps itself fit for life.

In a profoundly pessimistic new assessment, published in today's Independent, Professor Lovelock suggests that efforts to counter global warming cannot succeed, and that, in effect, it is already too late.

The world and human society face disaster to a worse extent, and on a faster timescale, than almost anybody realises, he believes. He writes: " Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable."

In making such a statement, far gloomier than any yet made by a scientist of comparable international standing, Professor Lovelock accepts he is going out on a limb. But as the man who conceived the first wholly new way of looking at life on Earth since Charles Darwin, he feels his own analysis of what is happening leaves him no choice. He believes that it is the self-regulating mechanism of Gaia itself - increasingly accepted by other scientists worldwide, although they prefer to term it the Earth System - which, perversely, will ensure that the warming cannot be mastered.

This is because the system contains myriad feedback mechanisms which in the past have acted in concert to keep the Earth much cooler than it otherwise would be. Now, however, they will come together to amplify the warming being caused by human activities such as transport and industry through huge emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2 ).

It means that the harmful consequences of human beings damaging the living planet's ancient regulatory system will be non-linear - in other words, likely to accelerate uncontrollably.

He terms this phenomenon "The Revenge of Gaia" and examines it in detail in a new book with that title, to be published next month.

The uniqueness of the Lovelock viewpoint is that it is holistic, rather than reductionist. Although he is a committed supporter of current research into climate change, especially at Britain's Hadley Centre, he is not looking at individual facets of how the climate behaves, as other scientists inevitably are. Rather, he is looking at how the whole control system of the Earth behaves when put under stress.

Professor Lovelock, who conceived the idea of Gaia in the 1970s while examining the possibility of life on Mars for Nasa in the US, has been warning of the dangers of climate change since major concerns about it first began nearly 20 years ago.

He was one of a select group of scientists who gave an initial briefing on global warming to Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet at 10 Downing Street in April 1989.

His concerns have increased steadily since then, as evidence of a warming climate has mounted. For example, he shared the alarm of many scientists at the news last September that the ice covering the Arctic Ocean is now melting so fast that in 2005 it reached a historic low point.

Two years ago he sparked a major controversy with an article in The Independent calling on environmentalists to drop their long-standing opposition to nuclear power, which does not produce the greenhouses gases of conventional power stations.

Global warming was proceeding so fast that only a major expansion of nuclear power could bring it under control, he said. Most of the Green movement roundly rejected his call, and does so still.

Now his concerns have reached a peak - and have a new emphasis. Rather than calling for further ways of countering climate change, he is calling on governments in Britain and elsewhere to begin large-scale preparations for surviving what he now sees as inevitable - in his own phrase today, "a hell of a climate", likely to be in Europe up to 8C hotter than it is today.

In his book's concluding chapter, he writes: "What should a sensible European government be doing now? I think we have little option but to prepare for the worst, and assume that we have passed the threshold."

And in today's Independent he writes: "We will do our best to survive, but sadly I cannot see the United States or the emerging economies of China and India cutting back in time, and they are the main source of [CO2] emissions. The worst will happen ..."

He goes on: "We have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act, and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can." He believes that the world's governments should plan to secure energy and food supplies in the global hothouse, and defences against the expected rise in sea levels. The scientist's vision of what human society may ultimately be reduced to through climate change is " a broken rabble led by brutal warlords."

Professor Lovelock draws attention to one aspect of the warming threat in particular, which is that the expected temperature rise is currently being held back artificially by a global aerosol - a layer of dust in the atmosphere right around the planet's northern hemisphere - which is the product of the world's industry.

This shields us from some of the sun's radiation in a phenomenon which is known as "global dimming" and is thought to be holding the global temperature down by several degrees. But with a severe industrial downturn, the aerosol could fall out of the atmosphere in a very short time, and the global temperature could take a sudden enormous leap upwards.

One of the most striking ideas in his book is that of "a guidebook for global warming survivors" aimed at the humans who would still be struggling to exist after a total societal collapse.

Written, not in electronic form, but "on durable paper with long-lasting print", it would contain the basic accumulated scientific knowledge of humanity, much of it utterly taken for granted by us now, but originally won only after a hard struggle - such as our place in the solar system, or the fact that bacteria and viruses cause infectious diseases.

Rough guide to a planet in jeopardy

Global warming, caused principally by the large-scale emissions of industrial gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), is almost certainly the greatest threat that mankind has ever faced, because it puts a question mark over the very habitability of the Earth.

Over the coming decades soaring temperatures will mean agriculture may become unviable over huge areas of the world where people are already poor and hungry; water supplies for millions or even billions may fail. Rising sea levels will destroy substantial coastal areas in low-lying countries such as Bangladesh, at the very moment when their populations are mushrooming. Numberless environmental refugees will overwhelm the capacity of any agency, or indeed any country, to cope, while modern urban infrastructure will face devastation from powerful extreme weather events, such as Hurricane Katrina which hit New Orleans last summer.

The international community accepts the reality of global warming, supported by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In its last report, in 2001, the IPCC said global average temperatures were likely to rise by up to 5.8C by 2100. In high latitudes, such as Britain, the rise is likely to be much higher, perhaps 8C. The warming seems to be proceeding faster than anticipated and in the IPCC's next report, 2007, the timescale may be shortened. Yet there still remains an assumption that climate change is controllable, if CO2 emissions can be curbed. Lovelock is warning: think again.

'The Revenge of Gaia' by James Lovelock is published by Penguin on 2 February, price £16.99

The world has already passed the point of no return for climate change, and civilisation as we know it is now unlikely to survive, according to James Lovelock, the scientist and green guru who conceived the idea of Gaia - the Earth which keeps itself fit for life.

In a profoundly pessimistic new assessment, published in today's Independent, Professor Lovelock suggests that efforts to counter global warming cannot succeed, and that, in effect, it is already too late.

The world and human society face disaster to a worse extent, and on a faster timescale, than almost anybody realises, he believes. He writes: " Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable."

In making such a statement, far gloomier than any yet made by a scientist of comparable international standing, Professor Lovelock accepts he is going out on a limb. But as the man who conceived the first wholly new way of looking at life on Earth since Charles Darwin, he feels his own analysis of what is happening leaves him no choice. He believes that it is the self-regulating mechanism of Gaia itself - increasingly accepted by other scientists worldwide, although they prefer to term it the Earth System - which, perversely, will ensure that the warming cannot be mastered.

This is because the system contains myriad feedback mechanisms which in the past have acted in concert to keep the Earth much cooler than it otherwise would be. Now, however, they will come together to amplify the warming being caused by human activities such as transport and industry through huge emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2 ).

It means that the harmful consequences of human beings damaging the living planet's ancient regulatory system will be non-linear - in other words, likely to accelerate uncontrollably.

He terms this phenomenon "The Revenge of Gaia" and examines it in detail in a new book with that title, to be published next month.

The uniqueness of the Lovelock viewpoint is that it is holistic, rather than reductionist. Although he is a committed supporter of current research into climate change, especially at Britain's Hadley Centre, he is not looking at individual facets of how the climate behaves, as other scientists inevitably are. Rather, he is looking at how the whole control system of the Earth behaves when put under stress.

Professor Lovelock, who conceived the idea of Gaia in the 1970s while examining the possibility of life on Mars for Nasa in the US, has been warning of the dangers of climate change since major concerns about it first began nearly 20 years ago.

He was one of a select group of scientists who gave an initial briefing on global warming to Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet at 10 Downing Street in April 1989.

His concerns have increased steadily since then, as evidence of a warming climate has mounted. For example, he shared the alarm of many scientists at the news last September that the ice covering the Arctic Ocean is now melting so fast that in 2005 it reached a historic low point.

Two years ago he sparked a major controversy with an article in The Independent calling on environmentalists to drop their long-standing opposition to nuclear power, which does not produce the greenhouses gases of conventional power stations.

Global warming was proceeding so fast that only a major expansion of nuclear power could bring it under control, he said. Most of the Green movement roundly rejected his call, and does so still.

Now his concerns have reached a peak - and have a new emphasis. Rather than calling for further ways of countering climate change, he is calling on governments in Britain and elsewhere to begin large-scale preparations for surviving what he now sees as inevitable - in his own phrase today, "a hell of a climate", likely to be in Europe up to 8C hotter than it is today.

In his book's concluding chapter, he writes: "What should a sensible European government be doing now? I think we have little option but to prepare for the worst, and assume that we have passed the threshold."

And in today's Independent he writes: "We will do our best to survive, but sadly I cannot see the United States or the emerging economies of China and India cutting back in time, and they are the main source of [CO2] emissions. The worst will happen ..."

He goes on: "We have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act, and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can." He believes that the world's governments should plan to secure energy and food supplies in the global hothouse, and defences against the expected rise in sea levels. The scientist's vision of what human society may ultimately be reduced to through climate change is " a broken rabble led by brutal warlords."

Professor Lovelock draws attention to one aspect of the warming threat in particular, which is that the expected temperature rise is currently being held back artificially by a global aerosol - a layer of dust in the atmosphere right around the planet's northern hemisphere - which is the product of the world's industry.

This shields us from some of the sun's radiation in a phenomenon which is known as "global dimming" and is thought to be holding the global temperature down by several degrees. But with a severe industrial downturn, the aerosol could fall out of the atmosphere in a very short time, and the global temperature could take a sudden enormous leap upwards.

One of the most striking ideas in his book is that of "a guidebook for global warming survivors" aimed at the humans who would still be struggling to exist after a total societal collapse.

Written, not in electronic form, but "on durable paper with long-lasting print", it would contain the basic accumulated scientific knowledge of humanity, much of it utterly taken for granted by us now, but originally won only after a hard struggle - such as our place in the solar system, or the fact that bacteria and viruses cause infectious diseases.

Rough guide to a planet in jeopardy

Global warming, caused principally by the large-scale emissions of industrial gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), is almost certainly the greatest threat that mankind has ever faced, because it puts a question mark over the very habitability of the Earth.

Over the coming decades soaring temperatures will mean agriculture may become unviable over huge areas of the world where people are already poor and hungry; water supplies for millions or even billions may fail. Rising sea levels will destroy substantial coastal areas in low-lying countries such as Bangladesh, at the very moment when their populations are mushrooming. Numberless environmental refugees will overwhelm the capacity of any agency, or indeed any country, to cope, while modern urban infrastructure will face devastation from powerful extreme weather events, such as Hurricane Katrina which hit New Orleans last summer.

The international community accepts the reality of global warming, supported by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In its last report, in 2001, the IPCC said global average temperatures were likely to rise by up to 5.8C by 2100. In high latitudes, such as Britain, the rise is likely to be much higher, perhaps 8C. The warming seems to be proceeding faster than anticipated and in the IPCC's next report, 2007, the timescale may be shortened. Yet there still remains an assumption that climate change is controllable, if CO2 emissions can be curbed. Lovelock is warning: think again.

Seems only way forward is to form semi-nomadic autonomous communities now prepared to survive anything,governments will only cover their own & corporate back. Green tech is most survivor friendly as well as best hope of possibly stopping catastrophe.
Hopefully we can come up with a way of healing the ozone layer by balancing our ozone.
Possibly the hole held back by global dimming aerosol can be filled by safe manmade ozone from ionizers, etc & we can survive if we seriously sort ourselves out using mutual cooperative aid, like Kropotkin advised.

If anyone is interested in setting up an autonomous community sail boat armada please contact me, maybe necessary.Used to be a EF group called sailscene, lets restart it, be nice for holidays & actions if we dont need it to sail to the artic like Lovelock reckons