What should be the UK’s priorities in low-carbon energy?
This country has 31 years until it has pledged that carbon emissions will be eliminated. This “net zero” goal seems like some distance off, and there are undoubtedly other things on the minds of those involved in the carbon-emitting sectors, from politicians through the electricity-generating and distributing industries, to automotive and all the other industries which currently burn fuels for any reason (cement production and the chemical sectors are notable contributors to carbon emissions). However, deadlines have a habit of coming around faster than anybody thinks, especially while they are concentrating on other matters, so the importance of thinking about net zero should not be underestimated.
We would like to know where our readership thinks the UK should focus its efforts on preparing for a low-carbon future. There are many possible options. Positioned off the edge of the world’s largest landmass, UK is blessed with the among the best potentials for wind energy in the world, and despite the large installed base, there is undoubtedly room for more wind capacity. Alternatively, perhaps we should focus on another abundant source, although one that is rather more challenging to access: the sea, in the forms of wave and tidal energy. Soggy north-western Europe may not be the most blessed region for insolation, but photovoltaic energy is proving increasingly interesting, with costs falling and R&D in the UK particularly strong for low-cost technologies based on perovskite crystals rather than silicon.
Opinions still differ on whether nuclear energy should be classed as low-carbon. It certainly produces no emissions in operation, but the embedded carbon in nuclear facilities – particularly in the millions of tonnes of cement and steel necessary to build them – takes many years to offset, and production of nuclear fuel requires high-energy mining and metal processing. Nuclear fusion is a different matter, of course, and it remains to be seen how much carbon will be embedded in its equipment and fuel production (lithium extraction is not a low-energy process). However, the UK is involved in developing new technologies for fission generation in the form of small modular reactors (SMRs) and is also part of the consortium building the huge ITER fusion reactor in France, while privately-funded fusion technologies are also being developed in Britain.
You may, however, think that the priority should not be electricity generation but the long-term and large-capacity storage of electricity, without which many renewables cannot effectively contribute to supplying the distribution grid. Another possibility (although not one we had room to include in our options) is that decarbonising the non-electricity parts of the energy landscape, such as heating or transport, might be a bigger priority in readers’ eyes. Please let us know in comments.
As ever, we positively encourage discussion of this matter. Readers should familiarise themselves with our guidelines for the content of comments before submitting, and bear in mind that all comments are moderated to ensure that discussion remains on topic. We will publish the results of this poll on 17th August.
I think there’s an option missing – onshore wind would apparently be much cheaper so I think we should get over the objections and just build it. I’m also not an expert enough to understand the storage situation but from the outside it seems absolutely essential to preventing us from having to build huge capacity for peak demands. Companies that are developing these technologies need a market so we should be buying some of it to help it to become cheap like wind has become.
In my opinion, it’s got to be Nuclear. We need a distributed nuclear infrastructure based on SMRs to provide the majority of the baseline capacity. The technology now exists to enable safer systems with reduced waste. However, as covered by ‘the Engineer’ previously fusion technologies appear to be a bit of a white elephant, so investment in SMRs would be better.
Wind and Solar obviously should play an important part in the mix, but ‘we’ don’t want our countryside and shorelines blighted by millions of solar arrays and giant windmills that ultimately cannot support a baseline capacity. Ignoring the ‘greenwash’, Wind and Solar obviously still have a carbon footprint albeit, maybe, reduced but they also have an environment impact with regard to materials used and recycling limitations – a balanced assessment needs to be applied.
I’m not sure what a ‘net zero’ goal is supposed to mean ? But the reality is, there is no energy source that is 100% clean and there is no such thing as free energy. Whatever happens I don’t expect to see my energy bills ever reduce.
If the answer to electric power and concerns about the environment is “Nuclear” then the question was very poorly worded. Until we come up with a real solution to nuclear waste (and include the cost of storage in the price we pretend nuclear power costs) we should not consider it as a serious form of generation. I’m all for continuing research but not for proliferating many more power stations.
Storage has to be part of the answer but it’s only part of the answer. It’s not a generation source in it’s own rite.
“Marine” has so much to offer the UK. The tides swirl around the UK such that there is always generation available somewhere around the country . If designed with a little planning there is no intermittency with tidal power the way there is with wind and solar. Where there is slack tide at one point, the tide is in full flow in another. This is a huge opportunity for the UK and it’s a terrible loss to see us focus elsewhere.
What about geothermal? It’s a long way down to the hot rocks, but once you get there it’s free & no carbon.
The UK doesn’t have the best geothermal resource potential compared with, say, Iceland.
Opinion is not divided on whether nuclear is low carbon. It vies with wind power to be the lowest carbon source of electricity we have.
For the future, it’s got to be nuclear and wind with storage. Nuclear has disappointed to date, but there is still a chance for next gen or small modular reactors.
Solar may be great in southern Europe, but we need more electricity on the winter, when solar is next to useless.
Marine energy has great potential and is not so depndent as wind on a variable source of motive power yet the goverment appears to abandon the various schemes as soon as there is a “financial” difficulty. surely some of the tidal pond schemes could be combined with food producing ideas too!
Another option that is missing which doesn’t involve any research whatsoever, is low tech, low cost is fitting every building in the country with decent insulation. Starting with social housing at no cost to the occupants. One of the biggest problems is stopping it turning into a financial feeding frenzy by the companies who are contracted to do the work.
Buildings that it would be difficult to insulate such as glass covered skyscrapers should be made to offset their energy consumption by paying for other buildings to be insulated. Minimising the energy consumption of new buildings should be built into the planning regulations to a much greater extent than is currently the case.
Back in the 1970s, schemes to construct a barrage (power generation + road/rail crossing) across the Severn Estuary were dismissed by a government committee following an outcry from the ‘environmental lobby’ which cited problems with fish migration. If we had gone ahead with a scheme at that stage then we wouldn’t be asking such questions today; the second scheme would have been around the Firth of Clyde, or somewhere else where the tides are 180deg out of phase with the Severn Estuary., so as to obtain a guaranteed power supply for 24/7.
I wonder if the environmentalists would ‘vote’ the same way nowadays? (The original scheme would also have acted as a second Severn crossing, thus saving the construction of a second massive bridge.)
It was hard to choose but I plumped for storage. But there is still plenty of R&D that needs to be done in high temperature materials and insulation that is common for (advanced) nuclear – and of course the cost reduction (and size if domestic option) – including the gas/steam turbines required for electricity recovery.
— So that the same research could be used for high temperature solar and affordable nuclear.
I think that there are limited opportunities (sites) for hydro/marine (in the UK) and costs might be prohibitive.
The variability and intermittancy issues of wind and solar led me to thinking there still needs to be a base capacity – which might also be required for stability purposes
Ian/Stuart there are a few good or at least prospective geothermal sites in the UK notably Cornwall (~150°C)
Nuclear, certainly … for all the rest we need to see a pricing structure like £10 per MW-h per % capacity factor. So solar PV gets say £10, wind £30 – and this structure would support £90 for new nuclear and perhaps restart some recently mothballed projects.
Why so cheap for renewables? Simply because storage is just too expensive, so we need to encourage a lot of new heavy electrical demand industries prepared to operate on an interruptible basis directed by National Grid when they run and when they don’t, in return for very cheap electricity. Examples are the venerable all-electric CLAUDE process for ammonia-fertiliser manufacture, displacing Haber-Bosch process (natural gas) and ALUMINIUM production which could displace steel in motor manufacturing – construction – food packaging and no doubt other industries if the price is right. It may not be possible to structure this without some intervention – subsidies and/or taxation but it is the only way to address renewables’ intermittency without resorting to a crippling multi £trillion storage ‘solution’
sorry that should of course be £1 per MW-h per % capacity factor:
Solar PV ~ 10% capacity factor > £10 / MWh
Wind ~ 30% capacity factor > £30 / MWh
Nuclear ~ 90%+ capacity factor > £90 / MWh
It also generally involves fracking. Good luck with getting that accepted!
And there are reports that geothermal projects produce low level earth quakes similar to fraking – needs investigating at least.
Some interesting ideas coming up here.
Fracking, geothermal and (hydrogen) storage seem to share much of the same rock fracturing and pumping technologies (and, if reports from the USA suggest similar issues with groundwater..) – so perhaps “dry” fracking projects could be converted to one of the others?
The mention of (tidal?) barrages brings up issues of environment (fish migration, river silting, salination of ground water…) . A speculative idea; there is already a tidal barrage in place.
Would it be worth putting some Pelton wheels in it and see what happens with the Thames? ;-?
Might be wrong, but I don’t think geothermal uses the same type of fracking technique as shale gas production.
Mark Byrne: something like https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/home-grants/article/home-grants/energy-company-obligation-eco ?
I think the Jubilee Pool in Penzance was planned to be heated by geothermal means this year but the idea had to be abandoned due to drilling problems not reaching the hot areas required. It will now be conventionally heated.
I think there are two very important component of the decabonised energy system missing here. I don’t think transport and electricity will be much of a problem; renewables are cheaper and its fairly straightforward, once some storage issues are sorted out.
The two factors that are missing are carbon capture and hydrogen production. There is no other way to decarbonise industry; cement, chemicals (such as ammonia etc) and metal production all produce CO2, and pipelines are needed to carry this CO2 to storage sites. This needs government investment to achieve, and indeed BEIS are fully committed to this. Various projects are in different stages of planning, such as Humber etc.
The second factor is hydrogen production, which can either use variably-priced renewables (offshore wind, for example), nuclear (there are various projects going ahead now) or natural gas, either via autothermal or steam methane reforming or the Hazer Process using an iron ore catalyst.
Hydrogen is needed essentially to replace natural gas, and if steam or autothermal reforming is used, then hydrogen production will also require a CO2 pipeline. Gas turbines are being retrofitted by MHPS, there is transport etc.
So, really, the answer to decarbonising the wider economy is most definitely carbon capture and hydrogen. There is no other option. Much more focus should be applied to this fact.