Nov 01 2007
Today ups its references to “global warming”
Today the "Today" programme parodied itself with its daily double dose of climate change propoganda.
A news story that people are going to spend four years cataloguing bird life in the UK was turned into a prove the global warming theory. We were told they would be watching to see if birds were moving further north to stay out of the fabled new equatorial climate on the south coast.
Then we heard that people are now in a state of panic about a phenomenon they have given the name "energy rebound". Apparently some clever people have just discovered that it a person or company saves money on their energy bills, they may spend that money on something else, which may in turn require some energy use! What a surprise.
John Humphries revealed his complete ignorance of a market economy when interviewing on this topic. He said that it would be surprising if companies put their energy savings in the bank, implying that he thought if they did that would prevent their savings being spent on any more energy.
Let us consider the position. A company that saves money on its energy bill may well in the first instance place the savings in the bank. If it does so the liabilities of the bank - its capital - increases. This allows the bank to expand its assets - to lend more money to more companies. This money may well in part be spent on energy use, directly or indirectly.
Subsequently the original company may decide to spend the savings on more staff or more bought in capital equipment. This spending also will entail some more spending on energy.
In either case an energy audit requires the calculation of an energy multiplier of extra spending to see what the overall result is once the full effects of the original savings have worked through.
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
This whole “Climate Change” religion has really got out of hand now hasn’t it?
The BBC seem unable to resist slipping it in to as many programs as it can; reporting it as fact as if it is universally accepted.
I will ask my question yet again:-
If climate change is caused by man, why are the polar ice caps on Mars melting at about the same rate as those here on Earth?(Source;NASA’s website)
I suspect the current climatic changes, (If they do exist at all) are caused by the giant nuclear reactor at the centre of our solar system in much the same way as it has since the Earth formed.
I repeat,yet again, it is sensible to recycle and save energy, but let’s not do it it the name of climate change, let’s do it because it is right to do so.
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How correct you are! However, you must realise that the use of such a level of logical reasoning is beyond the thinking of many in the media and, more importantly, does nothing to assist them in putting out their simple daily propaganda.
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His later “interview” of Cameron plumbed new depths. He hardly let DC speak and certainly didn’t listen, conducting the interview in the manner of a moody girlfriend rather than a serious political piece. They then lined up one of the political editors to between them rubbish DC’s position. Later, the ghastly Hazel Blears was asked about Labour’s position on immigration and was herself allowed to ignore the question and again rubbish DC!
Please, please, please, next time around, immediate privatisation for this lot.
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It’s glaringly obvious when you put it like that.
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Next they’ll discover energy saving light bulbs have mercury in them which makes their disposal a hazard and the heat the old light bulbs produced will have to be replaced by more central heating energy etc…
The problem with this debate is that there are too many trustafarian ‘eco’ activists and scientists, and not enough engineers and economists.
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JR:
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It is hard to see how any increase in the efficiency of any added value activity would not lead to increased energy consumption otherwise, since the more efficient an activity in an economy becomes, the more resources will be freed for consumption elsewhere.
Obviously, importing large numbers of people from the third world and presenting them with first world lifestyles, doesn’t help either.
The only possible solution I can think of is for Gordon Brown to continue the good work of NuLabour by creating far more than the additional 900,000 useless government employed functionaries to a point when the added value created in the economy is so small that we can become a fully UN accredited Developing economy. Investment is the key for which the motor will be increased productivity of red tape as jobs created per column inch of statute.
The Chinese solution which in practice is virtually the same as the company that just puts money in the bank doesn’t work either since they are obliged to lend their spare cash to the US which then engages in the energy intensive activity of (war - words changed by ed) in the middle east.
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Please read the Eon-Netz report on Wind Energy in Germany, available here: http://www.eon-netz.com/Ressources/downloads/EON_Netz_Windreport2005_eng.pdf
Whilst they are very gung ho and look forward to increasing capacity, (big money in subsidies), the real devil is in the detail:
“In order to also guarantee reliable electricity supplies when wind farms produce little or no power, e.g. during periods of calm or storm-related shutdowns, traditional power station capacities must be available as a reserve. This means that wind farms can only replace traditional power station capacities to a limited degree.
An objective measure of the extent to which wind farms are able to replace traditional power stations, is the contribution towards guaranteed capacity which they make within an existing power station portfolio.
In 2004 two major German studies investigated the size of contribution that wind farms make towards guaranteed capacity. Both studies separately came to virtually identical conclusions, that wind energy currently contributes to the secure production capacity of the system, by providing 8% of its installed capacity.
As wind power capacity rises, the lower availability of the wind farms determines the reliability of the system as a whole to an ever increasing extent. Consequently the greater reliability of traditional power stations becomes increasingly eclipsed. (The more wind farms there are, the more difficult the management of the grid).
As a result, the relative contribution of wind power to the guaranteed capacity of our supply system up to the year 2020 will fall continuously to around 4%. (Germany)
In concrete terms, this means that in 2020, with a forecast wind power capacity of over 48,000MW (Source: dena grid study), 2,000MW of traditional power production can be replaced by these wind farms.”
“The more wind power capacity is in the grid, the lower the percentage of traditional generation it can replace.”
(In other words, the more wind power, the more conventional power stations are needed because of increasing grid instability. This destroys the Greenpeace argument that if one farm is idle another one elsewhere will be running, that unreliability is the problem).
The Welsh Assembly is intent on covering the Cambrian mountains in wind farms, check out the results at the Cefn Croes site near Aberystwyth, this is the address of the campaign website. Unfortunately, they lost. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~hills/cc/
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Interesting discussion of GW (or otherwise) here..
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2007/10/15/all-quiet-alert/
As to “energy rebound” what did you expect?
As far as socialists are concerned, your property is only yours in so far as you use it to carry out their aims.
They have reciently perverted the charity laws to force charities to promote “social policy”. In otherwords, charities have been nationalised.
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On several occasions in the past couple of days BBC weather forecasters have said “temperatures are higher than they are supposed to be” - instead of “higher than the seasonal average”. Is it years of dealing with BBC centralised bureaucracy that they think there’s someone out there setting temperatures for the nation?
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It is true that people using less energy will release money to be spent elsewhere and that this spending will in itself have an energy requirement.
In reality this money must be taken out of circulation, the way of doing that is through taxation, anything else merely redistributes the money.
Any money taken should either be held or spent on projects that can be proven to reduce energy consumption.
Of course you want minimal taxation, allow uncontrolled spending with the attendant potential consequences you have so eloquently described.
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Show me a ‘Green’ and I’ll show you a hypocrite!
A lot of these green energy sources are nonsense on stilts for the reasons apl says. More efficient use and generation of energy by everyone is the answer for now, as is still prudent to save energy and better to spend your money on what you want, than what you have to.
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AndyW:
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John Redwood is absoutely right, any energy saving will have a rebound effect. This could be very large.
The only way we will stop runaway climate change, and so safeguard our economy and national security, is to have carbon rationing. This would cap total carbon emissions, and be both fair, and work extremely well with the market economy (i.e. let the market decide where the carbon that we can safely emit most benefits people).
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Hi Apl,
Quick explanation:-
1) John correctly identifies the fact that reducing expenditure on energy will result in spending on other activities that will increase energy consumption.
2) As that is the case the only way to ensure these savings are not spent in such a way is to remove the money from circulation, ie through taxation.
3) Where to keep it - well people like you may keep it under the stairs (or spend it on education so that you can spell stairs correctly), however the government could spend it, as I suggest, on projects that can be proved to conserve energy.
4) I agree, the current government is the worst for tax and waste, that doesn’t mean that taxation is wrong, it means that money raised through taxation should be spent wisely. My sentiments on Brown & his crew are probably identical to yours.
5) I would be interested to know how you would ‘take my money out of circulation’ (in a sensible manner) in such a way that you could guarantee there would be no increased use of energy.
6) I was agreeing with John, that money spent will increase energy consumption. The concept of lower taxation have the same effect as it will release more capital into the economy thereby fueling the increase in energy consumption. I realise that you will argue that the individual will spend the money more wisely than the government (easy to do with the current regime) however responsible government spending isn’t the evil that many people suggest. The word ‘potential’ means that exactly that, but in this case, as John suggests in his article, you can replace it by ‘will’.
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What all deniers don’t seem to understand is that oil is finite. It makes sense to start using it for the development of alternative renewable sources rather than continuing to waste it.
This is a classical conservative position (as is most environmental protection) and based more on common sense, trade offs of freedoms, welfare and responsibilities and consideration of both future and past than labelling it ’socialist’ or ‘econazi’
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The single mother selling her carbon emmisions to the businessman. Not real.
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Brian Pol:
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Dear AndyW, (I hope Mr Redwood will indulge me)thank you for your reply, with regard to your points:
1. If you rearrange your budget in such a way that you now have surplus funds, that is not a sufficient reason for the government to confiscate the surplus.
2. a) it is not established that it is desirable to reduce spending on energy. If you think so, you are welcome to switch off your central heating or stop buying fuel for your car or walk to work instead of using inefficient public transport. I will make those sort of decisions for myself thank you.
b) even if it were so established, there is no agreement that
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I think the scare mongering tactics of the Greens are both wrong and ultimately self-defeating. Most people value a clean environment, the preservation of other species, a fairly sustainable society etc., they just disagree on the trade offs needed to change this.
I am in favour of nuclear energy for many purposes, renewables and some limited biofuels (for a much reduced car pool) and not completely against the burning of oil/coal for now
However you have to be very unrealistically optimistic about the gaps in our scientific knowledge to presume that higher CO2 is not linked to global climate change with highly unpredictable (and admittedly not necessarily apocalyptic) changes.
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Nuclear energy is the most expensive way of boiling a litre of water in the history of mankind. How will you build and dispose of these power stations cheaply? The Poles will never do this! Sorry!
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Bazman: “Nuclear energy is the most expensive way of boiling a litre of water in the history of mankind.”
It strikes me as a little bit inconsistent to highlight the cost of Nuclear energy when there are some who would promote ‘renewables’; wind, solar, etc etc. Which *I think* are much more costly per kilowatt/hour.
You might be correct, I have not seen recent cost comparisons between nuclear and for example, windfarms. But in my estimation nuclear is more reliable, produces more power and is less reliant on the sun shining or the wind blowing.
Incidently, I can buy a solar panel from Maplin which will cost me about
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