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    Re: No surprises: Monbiot didn't like Michael Moore's latest Archived Message

    Posted by Ian M on May 10, 2020, 11:27 am, in reply to "No surprises: Monbiot didn't like Michael Moore's latest"

    On the claim:

    'in the third quarter of 2019, renewables in the UK generated more electricity than coal, oil and gas plants put together. As a result of the switch to renewables in this country, the amount of fossil fuel used for power generation has halved since 2010.'

    This is indeed what the Carbon Brief analysis Monbiot cites shows: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-renewables-generate-more-electricity-than-fossil-fuels-for-first-time However there are a number of caveats in the analysis that makes the over all result sound much less impressive. First the breakdown:

    'In the third quarter of 2019, some 39% of UK electricity generation was from coal, oil and gas, including 38% from gas and less than 1% from coal and oil combined.

    Another 40% came from renewables, including 20% from wind, 12% from biomass and 6% from solar. Nuclear contributed most of the remainder, generating 19% of the total.'

    Oddly hydroelectric power isn't mentioned here despite being named in the title and one of the graphs, but I see from wiki that it amounts to around 2% of the UK total, which would fit in with the percentages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity_in_the_United_Kingdom However a lot of that might more accurately be viewed as energy storage rather than generation, as CB themselves note in an earlier analysis:

    'these are net electricity users after accounting for what is needed to pump water to their uphill storage reservoirs' - https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-electricity-generation-2018-falls-to-lowest-since-1994

    Biomass shouldn't be classed as renewable since around 2/3 of it comes from massive power stations burning woodchip, often imported from forests in the US and elsewhere:

    'Some two-thirds of electricity generated from biomass in the UK comes from “plant biomass”, primarily wood pellets burnt at Lynemouth and the Drax plant in Yorkshire. The remainder comes from an array of smaller sites based on landfill gas, sewage gas or anaerobic digestion [...] Using biomass to generate electricity is not zero-carbon and in some circumstances could lead to higher emissions than from fossil fuels. Moreover, there are more valuable uses for the world’s limited supply of biomass feedstock, the CCC says, including carbon sequestration and hard-to-abate sectors with few alternatives.'

    An important factor to note is that there has been a background context of lessening demand for electricity in the UK since 2005. Much of this has been due to the offshoring of manufacturing and the financialisation and 'serviceisation' of the economy as CB note in their earlier article:

    'The reasons for this decoupling [between power generation and economic growth] are not fully understood. There are several known contributory factors to the decline in UK electricity generation and demand since 2005. They include product energy efficiency regulations, energy-efficient lighting, environmentally conscious consumers and economic restructuring, including offshoring of energy-intensive industries.

    For example, low-energy lightbulbs can cut electricity use by up to 90% while newer “white goods” such as fridges, freezers and washing machines can use up to 75% less electricity each year than the oldest models. There is significant untapped potential to continue cutting electricity use by replacing old appliances at the end of their lives with the latest models, according to the Committee on Climate Change (CCC).

    There will also have been some impact from rising electricity prices since 2003 in the face of rapidly increasing wholesale gas prices, economic hardship following the 2008 financial crisis and price increases due to the growing costs of government climate and social policies. [In contrast to rising electricity and gas prices, average UK energy bills have fallen overall since 2008.]

    A similar, if less extreme version of the UK decoupling of GDP and electricity use has been taking place in many other developed countries as their economies shift away from energy-intensive industries towards services and high-value manufacturing. This includes the US, where electricity demand has been flat for a decade after more than half a century of uninterrupted growth.

    Manufacturing accounted for 17% of the UK economy in 1990, but this fell to 11% by 2005, with services picking up the slack. Manufacturing has held steady at 10% of the UK economy in 2017. Moreover, UK manufacturing output has been growing steadily since the financial crisis.

    This shift towards a service-led economy initially saw growing imports of goods and their associated CO2 emissions. However, the outsourcing of UK emissions stopped growing around 2007.'

    There's also the weasel word (apologies to weasels): 'power generation' which doesn't equate to the amount actually used because it doesn't take account of the approx 6% of electricity imported to the UK from Europe via undersea cables. Tucked away at the bottom of the article is this:

    'In contrast to Carbon Brief’s analysis, figures published by consultancy EnAppSys for the third quarter of 2019 suggest that fossil fuels generated slightly more electricity than renewables. There are several reasons for this difference.

    First, the company’s analysis is for Great Britain only, whereas Carbon Brief’s covers the UK overall. Second, it reports on electricity “supplied” in the country, including imports, whereas Carbon Brief estimates the amount of electricity “generated” within the UK only.'

    And the other article does into more depth:

    'Generation and supply

    The figures in this article and analysis are based on UK electricity generation. This is the amount of electricity produced at power plants within the UK’s borders. [...] [T]he UK imported around 6% of its electricity supplies in 2018, Carbon Brief analysis shows. Most of the UK’s imported electricity comes from France, via the 2 gigawatt (GW) electricity interconnector between the two countries that opened in 1986.

    The UK imported 4-6% of its power in the 1990s via this link. The share of imports in UK supplies halved during the 2000s before rising back to its current level of 6%. The UK also has a 1GW link to the Netherlands and a 0.5GW cable to Ireland. A 1GW link to Belgium is to open early this year.

    After accounting for imports, the amount of electricity supplied in the UK in 2018 is about the same as that seen in 1995. UK electricity demand has fallen significantly since 2005, though the 47TWh reduction is slightly lower than the 65TWh fall in generation. This is because of increased imports.

    A large number of new interconnectors are being developed and government projections suggest imported electricity could supply as much as a quarter of UK power by the mid-2020s.'

    It's unclear what percentage of this imported electricity is from renewable (sic) sources, but if it's from France I'd imagine most of it comes from nuclear.

    Also unanswered are the usual questions about embedded emissions in mining, manufacture, installation, maintenance, replacement etc of windmills, solar panels, hydro plants and biomass operations, and to what degree they have to be backed up by more reliable fossil fuel plants.

    The devil's in the detail!

    I

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