By Roger Diamond
I see there is a new “race” between the US and China. This time it is to create as much green power as possible. The hype around this new race is good, with even the US president opening his mouth on the issue. Big green NGOs such as 350.org
are getting in on the action, promoting youth groups and green internet chat rooms to build up the momentum on this. This is all great and good, until you open the green packet a bit further and find that inside it is still very black. The same black that we’ve been running off for the whole of the 20th century — the black of oil and coal. Renewable energy generation globally sits at about 1% for true renewables like solar and wind. Hydro-electric power is another couple of percent and biomass (predominantly firewood for burning) adds another few percent. That leaves more than 90% of all primary energy generation coming from non-renewable coal, oil and nuclear! The green race is a race to paint a collapsing building green.
Futhermore, the green paint itself is just another form of energy consumption. Offset as much as you like, Balis, Copenhagens and Kyotos cost the earth a lot in plain old resource use. Sure, it’s better to have high-ranking officials talking about tackling climate change than talking about how to drill for deep offshore oil, but in the end I wonder if any of the hot air will reduce airline exhaust emissions in any significant way. The race for green power may become a publicity event, with internet space and hard media being used to build up the hype. At the end of all this is a pile of junked laptops, cellphones and a mountain of fly ash at the coal-fired power stations used to power the data servers that keep our electronic web alive.
Publicity and awareness are necessary, but isn’t it time for action? South Africa has basically nothing to show for
renewable power generation, despite so much talk at Johannesburg WSSD 2002, government policies and position papers on
renewable energy, Eskom’s similar documents and all the various NGOs and private people talking about it. OK, let me not be
one-sided — there has been some progress. A lonely few individuals have had solar water heaters installed, a few big industries are putting co-generation technologies in place and of course we’ve all changed our incandescent bulbs for compact fluorescents, or have we? I still see more halogen downlighters, which should be called downheaters, than CFLs in most homes and certainly in hotels and restaurants. Big cars are still popular and most days that I ride my bicycle along Main Road in Cape Town I am the only one powering my own way down the road.
We’ve got to green ourselves to the core. Change our colour inside. A slap of green paint and some feel good changing of
light bulbs or offsetting those ski holiday air tickets isn’t going to save us. The US and China are not on a race to generate
green power for their countries — they’re on a publicity stunt to produce another 0.1% in wind power while another 20% (of
their current generation) coal power is being built behind the scenes. The core of these economies is as dirty as ever.
Greening needs to be more than skin deep, individually, nationally and globally.
Compact fluorescent lights? Mmmm Did you know that they contain mercury and have to be disposed of separately which isn’t happening in this country? No wonder the landfills now contain a higher mercury concentrations which leaches into groundwater… Another bright green idea from big business. My downlighters last 8 months – 1yr. If you figure in the mfg and raw material costs to the environment, plus the fact that they do not contain poisonous mercury and offset that against power costs, I’ll stick with my incandencents until someone can come up with an actual improvement. If I only burn my lights with no other appliances going it works out to less than a unit per day on my meter, which is digital(I’ve made accurate repeated tests of this, for instance a full kettle takes 2 units to boil.). Makes you think, doesn’t it?
Green energy is far bigger than you think:
China- Last year, 10,129 sets of wind turbines were installed, totaling 13,803MW, up 124 percent over the previous year. By the end of 2009, China’s total installed wind turbines reached 21,544, amounting to 25,805MW, up 114 percent over the end of 2008.
So China generates half of South Africa’s current capacity from wind and is increasing its capacity at over 100% per year.
EU – the EU planning a €30 billion RE Supergrid, with more than 100 GW of offshore wind projects alone currently under development (equal to 100 large coal-fired power stations)? Worldwide wind capacity is now over 121 GW, with over 27 GW added in 2008, creating 440 000 jobs and worth over €40 billion. Solar PV totals more than 16 GW (70% growth in 2008), with all RE generation over 280GW, excluding solar heating of over 145GW.
And of course, “Solar Power Systems Become Cheaper Than Coal” http://www.nlpwessex.org/docs/solardawn.htm
New light bulbs: of a dozen bought last August at R39.95 each, 2 have already burst.
Old light bulbs: of 12 other fittings in my home, 5 have ‘died’ and been changed since I moved in ten years ago.
I’m still waiting for the free new one Eskom promised me — it never came…
In all this, sadly, the motivation must come from below (the voters). Don’t expect the state to have a single original idea; it’s not into original ideas, plans, strategies or policy; it’s just not into original. All it’s keen on is reinventing the wheel.
Whoever heard of a party that said a year is not long enough for long-term planning to develop? Our ruling party has had 16 years and we’ve reinvented the same wheel three times already. And the wheel will only become useful once it’s made of rubber and can be burnt during violent protest, giving off poisonous fumes.
In the 1973 oil crisis – The CEO of the largest producer of electric vehicles said electric was the future. The company went bust 4 years later. They had made electric vehicles for over 60 years but the amazing and continuous developments in petrol vehicles finally overtook them.
In 1973, we were told we had almost reached peak oil reserves and from then onwards, it would all be downhill. Strange, we now have several times those reserves and guess what, we’ve almost reached peak oil reserves, from now onwards, it’s all…
At the same time, a naysayer proved that alternative energy sources were inefficient, using more energy than they actually delivered. We shouted him down. Many (most) of the ill considered alternatives still use as much energy as they produce.
I’ve been there, done that, got the tee-shirt and lost the cap!
Global warming and all those other delightfully frightening horror stories…
Show me a credible model of our atmosphere detailing the effects of carbon and gasses like nitrous oxide? What part does ash and dust play in our atmosphere? Does the ash create more cloud cover and rain, thus cooling? Does the carbon create a shield in the stratosphere, therefore trapping heat or does it deflect infra red, causing cooling. What of the Thermosphere? What makes this more complex is that our climate isn’t one system but a huge number of small systems, each influencing others.
How can we fix a problem we don’t understand?