Wasting energy

Tweet We have a classic example of the failure of government to act in a 'joined-up' way on climate change with the proposal to build a LNG-fired power plant at Pembroke, and probably another one on the other side of the Haven near Milford Haven.

Natural Gas is promoted as being a 'clean' fuel. It is certainly cleaner than say coal or oil, but burning it still produces massive amounts of Carbon Dioxide - about 6 million tonnes per year for each of the two stations. To put it in context, 6 million tonnes would be adding around 15% to Wales' annual CO2 emissions, at a time when we have governments in both Cardiff and London which claim to be committed to reducing emissions.

Worse than that, the type of power station proposed is extremely wasteful in the way the gas is burned. In fact, less than half of the energy content of the gas will be turned into electricity - the rest will just be wasted. Most of what will be lost will be lost as heat, probably dissipated into the Haven by use of water for cooling. FoE Pembrokeshire have calculated that the amount of heat wasted from two such power stations will be equivalent to around 80% of Wales' total electricity demand - a staggering waste of scarce energy resources – and roughly equivalent to the potential output from a barrage across the Severn.

Does it have to be this way? No, of course not. It would be possible to build a larger number (3-4) of smaller Combined Heat and Power stations. If some of these were sited closer to the Natural Gas terminals in the Haven, the 'waste heat' could be used to re-gassify LNG imports. Others could be sited in other locations where the heat could be used for other purposes. Using the waste heat in this way would increase the energy efficiency of the use of the gas from less than 50% to possibly 85%. Put simply, we could get twice as much useful energy out of the same volume of gas; and that would halve the CO2 emissions per unit of energy.

So why aren't we doing that? Simply because the government has abdicated its responsibility for energy policy. Since the Electricity and Gas industries were fragmented and privatised by the Tories, decisions on which power stations to build where are taken not in the interests of the overall energy needs of the country, nor on the basis of a plan for reducing our carbon footprint, but in the interests of the profits of the energy companies. If they can make more profit by building the most wasteful type of power station, then that is what they will do.

The underlying message here is that no government can ever achieve the changes which are needed in our patterns of energy generation and use as long as they leave the key decisions to individual companies competing with each other. We need a clear national strategy for energy, and the government must be prepared to enforce it. As long as Labour-Tory politicians simply welcome the construction of wasteful power stations because of the jobs they will bring, we are unlikely to get a sensible or coherent energy policy. And their commitment to action on climate change is shown to be a very shallow one.