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EA the Protectors!

Fri 9th Jul 2021

With concerns over looming shortages of sewage treatment chemicals , the Environment Agency (EA) issued guidance in September 2021, telling water companies that if they ran out of chemicals they could break their permit conditions over discharging effluent without fear of enforcement action. The agency declared that if waste water treatment plants can't get hold of chemicals because of supply problems they can simply get permission from the EA to discharge sewage without treatment.

Following a legal challenge from campaigners pointing out that the EA can't simply decide for itself that illegally dumping untreated sewage is now legal, the agency was forced to backtrack. A worrying fact was uncovered during this sorry episode for the EA. Water companies are being encouraged by the EA to prioritise treating water for release into England's cleanest rivers to ensure the most sensitive sites are protected. But this means that extra pollution is heading for rivers that are already struggling. These watercourses considered to fall into category 'A' by water companies are most at risk of having incompletely treated sewage dumped in them. A Fish Legal spokesperson said, "It is a revelation that these rivers are considered to be less important environmental protection."

Can water companies or the EA be left to police the environment? Well in 2021 Southern Water was fined £90m for deliberately dumping billions of litres of raw sewage into protected seas over a period of five years for its own financial gain. It must be noted that this was happening for five years with no apparent intervention from the EA.

UK imports more than half its gas

Wed 1st Sep 2021

Oil and Gas UK's (OGUK) annual economic report said 56% of the requirement for homes and power stations for the first three months of 2021 came from abroad. The industry said the figures were as a result of a rise in demand coupled with a drop in UK production due to the pandemic.

The OGUK report says that the UK government faces the choice of investing in its offshore industry for a managed green transition or relying on other countries for energy needs. This report shows the reality of cutting domestic production is an increased reliance on other countries for gas and oil.

The attraction for the government of refusing permission for the Oil and Gas industry to invest £21bn over the next five years on exploration and production is that even though the UK will be buying and using gas and oil from abroad the government will be able to claim there has been a reduction in UK output.

That's Politics my friends.

Climate Change

Sun 3rd Oct 2021

During the past few years the UK has been through Brexit which has become an ongoing, painful process. Largely because the majority of MPs at Westminster never wanted to leave the EU. They buried their heads in the sand for two years hoping Brexit would go away. Of course it never did, so we are going to pay the price of their inertia for many years to come.

Covid came to the rescue of parliament and took Brexit off the front pages. Did MPs act well during the pandemic, of course not. The only beacon of light was the vaccination programme which was successfully rolled out across the nation. The reason for this success was because the government had a contingency plan should mass vaccination ever be required. The rest of what they did was 'policy on the hoof'.

Now we come to Climate Change. Brexit and Covid by their very nature will eventually be forgotten as their 'newsworthyness' fades but alas not Climate Change. This is here to stay but can we be confident there are any MPs in Westminster remotely able to make the genuinely tough decisions that most of us will not like?

In order to genuinely combat climate change we are all going to have to give up things we don't want to give up. Personally, I like angling, a pastime I have pursued for many, many years. Without exception none of the places I fish is accessible by public transport. So should I give up angling to do my bit for the planet or should I be like everbody else in the world and only give up those things I don't really care about giving up.

As we come to the end of 2021 and it is time to make a New Year's Resolution perhaps we should all give up three things that we definitely don't want to give up to reduce our carbon footprints.

Or we could give it another twenty years to see how things go!

Power from Norway

Sun 3rd Oct 2021

Today the world's longest under sea electricity cable began transferring green power between Norway and the UK.

At full capacity 1400 megawatts of power will be bought by the UK annually to power 1.4 million homes. The National Grid said the £1.37bn joint venture with the Norwegian power operator Statnett would help to reduce UK carbon emissions by 23 million tonnes by 2030.

So it's pink gins all round at the Dept. of Energy and at Statnett but for different reasons.

UK Officials have simply bought a short term reduction in carbon emissions whereas the Norwegians are getting the UK government to pay for the infrastructure to future proof Norway against future electricity supply problems. When fossil fuels become fully redundant and Norway needs more electricity to power cars and all the rest of it, guess what the plan is?

Energy Security UK style

Mon 11th Oct 2021

The UK government purports to be making great strides in providing carbon free electricity and all electricity providers are really pushing their 'green' credentials to provide their customers with the feel good feeling that we are all doing our bit. But where does this electricity come from? We have to tell you it doesn't come from a socket in the wall.

At the moment 7.4 gigawatts, which equates to 7.4 million homes are being supplied with green energy that is supplied using under sea cables from the continent. The UK government plan another 10 bringing capacity to almost 18 gigawatts by 2023 according to Ofgem. This means 18 million homes being supplied from abroad.

All the countries supplying the UK, are producing excess green electricity, which they then sell to the UK. This means the citizens of the UK are paying to build up the power generation infrastructure of other countries.

The real question for us in the UK is 'What is going to happen when these countries switch from gas to electricity to heat their homes and stop using fossil fuels to power their cars in favour of electricity?'

Well they are simply going to stop supplying the UK as they will need all the electricity they produce for themselves.

What Then?

Environment Bill

Wed 20th Oct 2021

Environmental campaigners have expressed disappointment after the government confirmed it would reject almost all the changes made to the Environment Bill by the House of Lords. The changes included greater protection for ancient woodland, and a legal duty on water companies to reduce sewage damage to rivers. The Lords' amendments, without ministers' support will be rejected by MPs.

The government said it would be bringing forward its own changes to the bill, to demonstrate "global leadership" before the conference in Glasgow. The law sets up a new independent watchdog - the Office for Environmental Protection - to monitor progress on improving the environment. The House of Lords, peers voted for an amendment which sought to strengthen the watchdog's powers. They also voted to reverse a government move to exempt defence, national security and fiscal policy from a requirement to consider environmental principles when making policies. None of which the government is having.

Campaign group Surfers Against Sewage said it was "astonishing that, in this critical decade for the environment, the government is opting out of amendments designed to better protect the planet and all its precious inhabitants. Beccy Speight, chief executive of the RSPB, accused the government of "falling short of its pledge to leave the natural environment in a better state than it inherited it". She urged the government to commit to "a goal of halting and reversing the loss of our wildlife, with regular binding milestones so we can all see the progress being made".

In a modern, forward looking country such as the UK it is an indictment of the governments commitment to the environment that an organisation such as 'Surfers Against Sewage' actually exists and that all the government is prepared to do on the environment is to extend charges to single use items other than plastic bags.

Instead of stepping up to the challenge and opportunity to truly be the greenest, most progressive nation, the UK government is siding with a status quo of inaction.

Hydrogen Powered Cars

Fri 22nd Oct 2021

Hydrogen is already a proven fuel source, having been used by NASA since 1958 for various space trials and travels. Hydrogen being more than three times as powerful as gasoline (when burnt) is a big driver for this. It's therefore positive to know that hydrogen has driven various space tests forward and been central to their success, because it reinforces that it's not some vague, experimental fuel source but something with defined successes over multiple decades.

Hydrogen fuel cell cars, were first introduced by Toyota in 2014 and are making a strong case for changing the way we power our travel.

Hydrogen cars are powered by electricity they produce internally through chemical reactions between hydrogen and oxygen. The only tailpipe emissions are water since the by-products of the chemical reaction which powers the hydrogen fuel cell are just heat and water.

The electricity generated either powers the car directly, or charges a battery which stores the energy until it's needed. This traction battery is significantly smaller and lighter than the battery of a fully electric car. The hydrogen fuel is stored in a high-pressure tank and can be refilled in much the same way as petrol and diesel.

How to Produce Hydrogen

Fri 22nd Oct 2021

Steam reforming is a hydrogen production process from natural gas. This method is currently the cheapest source of industrial hydrogen. The downside to this process is that its byproducts are major atmospheric release of CO₂, Carbon Monoxide and other greenhouse gases. Depending on the quality of the feedstock (natural gas, rich gases, naphtha, etc.), one ton of hydrogen produced will also produce 9-12 tons of CO₂. Obviously not a satisfactory conclusion although CO₂ may be captured.

Electrolysis is another way to produce hydrogen and consists of using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen which results in no emissions of greenhouse gases.

Water electrolysis can operate between 50-80°C, while steam methane reforming requires temperatures between 700-1100°C. The difference between the two methods is the primary energy used; electricity for electrolysis or natural gas for steam methane reforming. Due to the use of water, a readily available resource, electrolysis and similar water-splitting methods have attracted the interest of the scientific community. With the objective of reducing the cost of hydrogen production, renewable sources of energy have been targeted to allow electrolysis.