Letters special: renewable energy – Herald

Today, we focus on the diverse views of our readers on the subject of
renewable energy

I refer to the article by Professors McInnes and Younger on their clearly
described concerns that, in the absence of any informed analysis by those
who understand the physics of electrical energy, “we have little hope of
delivering a balanced supply” (“Why clean energy is far from secure in the
future”, The Herald, December 1).

With the demise of the Electricity Council and the breakup of the Central
Electricity Generating Board upon industry privatisation in 1990, the UK
was left with no supervisory or legally empowered controlling body charged
with the future long term engineering planning and safeguarding of the
security of supply of the national network.

No energy body operating in the UK carries any responsibility for keeping
the lights on.

Energy responsibility since privatisation rests only with the UK Government
politicians.

The UK has had 12 energy secretaries in the past 16 years, none with an
engineering background. This has not achieved any consistency of energy
policy. The UK has been 25 years without energy planning.

The physics of electrical energy will always prevail over the metaphysics
of the politicians and, as wind penetration increases, the stability of the
grid becomes more difficult to control and security of supply has
significantly diminished to the extent that the Ofgem/National Grid 2014
Report is forecasting only two per cent spare capacity over peak demand by
2015/16.

A further example of our vulnerability in Scotland is that Longannet, which
is 44 years old, remains crucial to grid stability due to its capacity,
design and resultant ability to cope with system disturbances in frequency
and voltage and so on. much of which result from the increase in wind turbines.

As renewables increase, how do we re-start the grid in future if Longannet
is not replaced by centralised generation of similar large capacity? In the
event of a major blackout, Cruachan pumped storage (or possibly Foyers if
Cruachan is low) would be used to “black start” Longannet which has the
capability to meet the instantaneous surge load presented by the grid when
re-starting. The Longannet generators will be able to meet the surge in
power required to get the grid up and running again. This is similar to the
power surge required from a weight lifter in raising the bar from the
floor. Renewables will be unable to provide this.

But Longannet may be withdrawn from the grid by its owners because of
disputes over its costs of connection when delivering to the grid.

Until the UK establishes an engineering body with the authority to identify
and secure our future energy needs we remain rudderless. As a chartered
electrical engineer, I find that numbing.

DB Watson,
Saviskaill,
Langdales Ave,
Cumbernauld.

Coal has been a major contributor to global warming over many decades and
hence is a major threat to global and indeed local public health. Engineers
and entrepreneurs of the 18th century such as James Watt and Matthew
Boulton had no inkling this was the case and nor had they the means to
measure and model the impact of carbon on our climate. We do now. The Davy
lamp often failed to work to protect miners but what it often did was allow
mine owners either to go deeper or extract coal from difficult seams that
hitherto could not easily be exploited. Vested interests were at play to
use technology to increase or maintain huge profits for the benefit of the
few and not for the community at large or for the workforce. There was a
conflict of interest for the engineer inventor who was being paid by the
coal owners.

These historical facts appear in some respects to be both similar and
relevant to the energy debates at present. Shale gas and coal bed methane
extraction are not answers to global climate change but will continue to
contribute to it as well as to global and local public health threats along
with a range of pollution threats.

I am not surprised that green groups are “aghast at the prospect of shale
gas exploitation” because they have learned the lessons of history well and
see better and safer alternatives available. Many would consider avoiding
risks smart and failing to manage risks that benefit the few and not the
many, as has often been the case, foolish . One contributor rightly flagged
up a string of past failures to take precautions as risks and hazards
emerged from ‘old’ technologies and materials, for example asbestos,
benzene and tobacco. This should lead us to advocate precautionary public
health policies for new and established processes, products and
technologies. Renewable energy seems to fit the precautionary approach
nicely. I like advocates of prudent technological development as history
has proved them right so often.

Professor Andrew Watterson
Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group,
School of Health Sciences, University of Stirling,

The article by Colin McInnes and Paul Younger of Glasgow University should
be required reading for the Scottish Government which is so obsessed with
windpower that sound engineering logic is ignored. Their much trumpeted
renewables targets are regarded as holy writ, unquestioningly accepted as a
means of saving the planet with little or no consideration of either their
effectiveness in that regard or of security of supply.

Since privatisation of the energy industries, no body has had
responsibility for the strategic planning of electricity resources and
leaving this to the market is putting future security of supply in the
hands of people whose sole objective is to make a profit for their
shareholders. The latest UK legislation on the electricity industry makes
provision for “capacity payments” to encourage electricity generating
companies to invest in conventional generating plant to keep the lights on
when the wind doesn’t blow; frequently during periods of high pressure
weather in winter when electricity demand is high but wind is almost
totally absent. These payments are effectively, a subsidy to mitigate the
adverse effects of subsidising windpower. Subsidy breeding subsidy. You
couldn’t make it up.

Andrew Mitchell,
4 Glenpark Avenue,
Prestwick.

Brown coal, lignite, is being extracted from the Janschwalde opencast mine
in Eastern Germany to provide fuel for electric power plants. Last year,
one quarter of the German gross electricity production was from lignite. So
what happened to the Green Germany that environmentalists loved with its
forests of wind turbines and solar panels? One explanation is that Germany
promised to shut down all of its nuclear plants by 2020 after the tsunami
and nuclear meltdown in Japan.

The other is that the cost of renewable energy is having a serious impact
on German industry’s ability (especially energy intensive industries) to
compete in the world market resulting in the social consequences from
rising unemployment. Europe is also importing cheap coal from America.

Looks like King coal will be around for a long time with the resultant
increase in CO2 levels. Britain’s green efforts are futile.

Dan Arnott,
St. Brycedale Court,
Kirkcaldy.

Fossil-fuelled plants do not burn a constant amount of fuel all the time
regardless of their output. Every joule of electricity provided by a wind
turbine to the grid is consumed, and is a joule fewer that needs generated
by a fossil plant. The unneeded heat is not simply wasted; it is fuel that
is not burned. And the national grid operators go to great lengths to match
supply with demand.

Alastair Runcie (Letters, November 29) repeats the fallacy that the world
is too big, and we are too small to make a difference. We must start
somewhere, and we can start here, now. I agree that we spend too much on
ill-advised subsidies. We should tax fossil carbon more instead. World
Trade Organisation rules allow us to impose tariffs on imports from
countries that lack equivalent taxes, so once adopted by the EU other
countries would be pressured into following suit.

Our future energy mix will be determined by the cost of building power
plants, and the marginal cost of actually running them. Wind and solar are
expensive to build, practically free to run, but will require backup.
Nuclear is expensive to build and, once built, it costs almost as much to
keep it idle as to run at full power, so it makes a poor backup.

Coal takes relatively longer to throttle up or down than gas, is dirtier,
and is more expensive to build, but cheaper to run at full power
(especially when we don’t bother to account for costs of pollution). So our
future energy mix could be mainly wind and solar, best backed up by natural
gas. Our existing coal plants will probably stay open, but hopefully run
less and less often, and burn a mixture of more biomass and less coal. I am
dubious that carbon capture will prove cost effective, and I have no idea
if new nuclear will be either cost effective or politically acceptable. And
wave or tidal generation, or better energy storage could also play an
important part.

Alan Ritchie,
2/2 72 Waverley Street,
Glasgow.