{"id":6501,"date":"2015-11-26T07:44:37","date_gmt":"2015-11-26T07:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6501"},"modified":"2015-11-26T07:44:37","modified_gmt":"2015-11-26T07:44:37","slug":"securing-the-uks-energy-future-maybe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2015\/11\/26\/securing-the-uks-energy-future-maybe\/","title":{"rendered":"Securing the UK\u2019s Energy Future \u2013 maybe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bath.ac.uk\/i-see\/index.html\">I-SEE<\/a> seminar on Monday was\u00a0given by Professor John Loughhead,\u00a0Chief Scientific Advisor at DECC \u2013 the Department of Energy and Climate Change. \u00a0His title, \u2018Securing the UK\u2019s Energy Future\u2019 could hardly be more important.<\/p>\n<p>This is what the Abstract for the talk said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>The UK has set itself one the most aggressive greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets in the world: an 80% cut by 2050. \u00a0Much of the reduction will have to come from our energy systems, and that will mean great changes both in their design and in how we all use energy. \u00a0What might our future electricity, transport, and housing systems look like, and from where will the energy come? \u00a0How will we ensure the highly reliable energy supply that is critical to modern society? \u00a0What are the engineering and social challenges that lie ahead?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Devising practical solutions to the problems of \u201ckeeping the lights on\u201d, at an affordable price, with security of supply, is challenging. \u00a0As CSA to DECC, at the heart of this debate, John will discuss some of the objective evidence behind the choices of a mixed supply of energy (imported gas, nuclear, tidal, PV, onshore and offshore wind, and Hydraulic Fracturing for gas). \u00a0This latter source is very topical here in South West England.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Loughhead\u00a0was slick, and here are the points that caught my ear:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>45% of energy goes into heating \u2013 mostly space heating<\/li>\n<li>electricity grids are 8 x the cost of gas grids<\/li>\n<li>no one with any sense\u00a0would use batteries for transport \u2013 something I thought about on the way home in my electric car<\/li>\n<li>By 2050 significant greenhouse gas emissions will come from agriculture<\/li>\n<li>We need innovation in business models around energy \u2013 and also in markets<\/li>\n<li>We need a continuous source of zero emission power to enable us to realise our targets; that means nuclear and\/or carbon capture &amp; storage<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Loughhead\u00a0was particularly good with graphs. \u00a0One, from an\u00a0outfit called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elexon.co.uk\/about\/what-we-do\/\">Elexon<\/a>, was particularly fine; it showed how electricity was generated from various fuels throughout a particular day. \u00a0What was striking was the steady contribution of nuclear and coal and the fluctuating dance of gas and wind as they (together but not always at the same time) provided most of the rest of the supply. \u00a0He said that if the UK has 20GW of zero-emissions power and 40GW of wind power, we'd be somewhere near the target. \u00a0As I write this, nuclear is providing 8GW (and coal 13). \u00a0Wind is 3 and a bit. \u00a0Umm.<\/p>\n<p>It was, I thought,\u00a0a strange meeting. \u00a0The room was full \u2013 some 200 souls \u2013 but there was next to no challenge to Loughhead.<\/p>\n<p>What was particularly odd was that there were many people there who regard nuclear, oil, coal, gas and fracking (especially fracking) as the work of the devil, but they didn't say boo to the Loughhead\u00a0goose; they just let him make the case for baseload nuclear and carbon capture without demur.<\/p>\n<p>I expect they went away muttering into the night though, explaining to each other (again) how he'd got it all wrong.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The I-SEE seminar on Monday was\u00a0given by Professor John Loughhead,\u00a0Chief Scientific Advisor at DECC \u2013 the Department of Energy and Climate Change. \u00a0His title, \u2018Securing the UK\u2019s Energy Future\u2019 could hardly be more important. This is what the Abstract for...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-talks-and-presentations"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}