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Attempts have been made to clean up the coal fired power stations. There are flue gas desulphurisation filters, for example a new type of filter system came on stream at Fiddler's Ferry (near Widnes) on 29th June 2005. Other measures are being taken against nitrous oxide. Sequestration - the use of carbon dioxide to fill old mine workings or to pump it into the rock strata which formerly held oil, has also been suggested. However, the situation with conventional electric power is seen as so dire that luminaries like James Lovelock, (the inventor of the 'Gaia' hypothesis) are advocating an increase (!) in the use of nuclear power, as a clean answer to the threat of Global Warming. [BBC report, 16th May 2005] There are also pollution problems associated with coal mining. The major pollution effect is said to be iron oxide in acidic suspension contaminating water supplies. It is possible that methane gas could be recovered from coal seams in abandoned mines, and converted into electricity. It should be noted that methane is a greenhouse gas. In opencast coal mining, 80% of fireclay dug up is wasted - it could be used in the manufacture of decorative tiles and brickwork.

Hydrogen fuel cells

A fuel cell is something like a large car battery. It uses hydrogen and oxygen as fuels, and generates electricity. An average fuel cell is said to give off 0.25 lbs of water vapour per mile. [19] Presently they cost $3,000 per KW power created. The main types of fuel cell are the phosphoric acid type (PAFC) used in hotels, hospitals, offices and buses; and the Proton Exchange Membrane type (PEM). used in small cars.. The fuel cell industry was said to be worth $3B worldwide in 2000, and will be worth $9B by 2007.

Currently Canada, Japan and Germany are researching fuel cell technology. Dr Geoffrey Ballard, of Ballard Systems, in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada developed systems used to drive buses in Chicago. Similar fuel cells are also on trial in Britain.

Electrolysis

The hydrogen fuel has to be created somehow, and this is a downside. It may be obtained by electrolysing water, but from where does the current come from to do this? It may well be taken from the UK grid, in which case the bulk of it will be from burning gas or from burning coal. It has been suggested that very large banks of solar cell arrays (photovoltaics) should be set up across the deserts of sub-Saharan Africa, in countries like Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso. These would turn sunlight into electricity. This power could then be converted into A.C. using inverters, and brought from there along chains of 400 KV electricity pylons up to the Straits of Gibraltar, and from there through submarine cables in to Europe, through Spain. As an alternative method of transmission, it might be possible to build hydrogen fuel supertankers, similar to the LPG tankers currently sailing the oceans, to bring the hydrogen fuel to Europe or to North America, perhaps from an offshore terminal near Dakar.

The hydrogen and oxygen is obtained by electrolysing water. The countries with the solar arrays are short of water. One answer to this would be to build traps to remove vapour from the air by reducing its temperature - air is cooled by passing it into greenhouses first, through cardboard filters which are soaked in water, and then passing the air over pipes and vanes (similar to refrigerators). The metal pipes are cooled by pumping water through them. Some of the power from the banks of cells would be taken to drive the circulating pumps. Food can be grown inside the greenhouses. It may also possible to use the gas tankers to bring water on their return trips.

Of course, this would be a massive undertaking - comparable to the building of the electricity grid or the motorway networks in the developing world, or the refineries and supertankers of the present oil industry. Why is this not possible though, any more than the oil industry would have seemed like science fiction to a Welsh miner in the year 1900? Some means of paying for the electricity and hydrogen would need to be set up, and it could be that the sub-Saharan African region may come to be the worlds' most energy rich people in the future, rather like Saudi Arabia is at present. All this implies there would be a system to distribute the fuel in the high streets of Europe and North America, similar to that used to distribute petrol and diesel in the present. Again, all it really needs in the economic and political will to do this.

Wind farms

Even at present, large offshore wind farms are being built, for example in Liverpool Bay, Morecambe Bay and off Great Yarmouth. Various onshore wind farms, for example on the moors above Hebden Bridge, have stirred up controversy, being seen by some people as spoiling a visual amenity. Others in Wales and the Yorkshire Dales are likewise controversial. In 2002 a 1,000 KW machine was put up in Norfolk, and each of the offshore turbines is of a similar size to this. The obvious problem with wind power is that the wind does not blow all the time.

Wave and sea current energy

The largest hydroelectric scheme in Britain is Lock Sloy, Scotland, which gives 130 MW. More typically, hydro schemes are at about the 30 MW mark. Could more power be derived out of waves, tides or currents? A Severn Estuary tidal barrage has long been suggested. This would deliver 8,600 MW, or more than twice the power of Drax. However, there are worries about the environmental implications of such a scheme for bird life. A barrage might bring a greater concentration of water pollutants, and cause eutrophication. Turbines could be set up off the Yorkshire coast, turning the energy eroding the coast into electricity. A similar scheme might be put up off the Suffolk coast near Sizewell. There have been tidal and current schemes on Islay in Scotland, one giving 180 MW.

Biofuels

Methane gas taken from landfill sites can typically create 1 - 5 MW of electricity. Sewage plants like Beckton near London, can also use methane. The SELNEK consortium scheme in London burns rubbish. Several schemes have been set up to grow willow, and use this to create electricity. These schemes are termed 'closed loop'. The carbon dioxide given off by burning the crop matches that taken up in the growing of it, and so it is in balance. Willow and poplar give off less particulates, and less nitrous oxide than coal. Such units can also burn paper waste, and Miscanthus, a large oriental grass. The McNeil scheme in Burlington, Vermont, USA, a 50 MW demonstration plant, was established in August 2000. Another at Dunkirk, New York state, was supplied by 400 acres of willow. Under SRC (Short Rotation Coppicing) the trees take 4 years from planting to harvest, and are coppiced every 3 years on a 22 year replanting cycle. [20] A 100KW plant has been built at Londonderry in Northern Ireland, and a 200 KW plant established in Armagh. [21] There was an attempt to create such a power plant in Yorkshire. Kelda (formerly Yorkshire Water) tried to set up the ARBRE project at Eggborough, near Selby. It was claimed 7 tons of dry matter could be grown per hectare per year. The crops were chipped, and then dried using the waste heat from the plant, then gassified. Tars and impurities were filtered off, and the gas used to drive a 4.75 MW gas turbine, and a 5.25 MW steam turbine. It was claimed the process was cleaner than coal, and the waste products could be recycled as fertilizer. ARBRE would be supplied by 2,300 hectares of willow, and would be followed with a 31 MW straw burning plant near Cambridge, and a forest waste plant near Carlisle. Unfortunately, the project collapsed in September 2002. [22]

Ethanol

Brazil turns sugar cane into biodiesel, and other people have been looking at this idea. A Lancashire firm, D1, turns Ghanaian nuts into biodiesel. The Australians, the Canadians, and Japanese have all been looking at ways of distilling ethanol from sugar beet. In Ireland, beet as well as cornstarch and wood waste materials are being examined. A University of Strathclyde study examined crop yields if UK set aside land was used to grow corn and sugar beet on a rotational basis. It found that 2.7 B litres of fuel equivalent could be distilled, or enough to replace about 9.7% of the 2002 UK petrol demand. [23]

The EU commission has set a target of 5% bioethanol in fuels by 2009. A report prepared for the House of Lords by British Sugar Federation described how the sugar beet industry uses the produce from 8,000 farms, safeguarding 23,000 rural jobs, and that it creates a profit of £300M / yr for the British economy. CHP (Combined Heat and Power) plants were installed at the 7 major sugar refineries, and the bi-products from the distilling process can be recycled as animal feed. [24] Some of these refineries are located at Bury St Edmunds, Cantley near Norwich, Ely, West Dereham near Downham Market, Kings Lynn, Newark, and Bardney near Lincoln. Until recently they were connected to the railway network, and those links could readily be restored. It is quite possible that in the near future the ethanol fuel distilled from the sugar beet molasses could be used to drive bio-diesel powered railway locomotives.

Finding substitute raw materials

First, and most obviously, we must eliminate unnecessary products. So much of what we buy in the shops is packaging, almost all plastic, dependent upon oil. This was particularly driven home to me when I had to clear out a short length of hedge. Crisp packets, chocolate bar wrappers, detergent containers, ice lolly wrappers, a plastic baseball cap, and numerous wrappers - all plastic, along with aluminium drinks cans; enough to fill a large bin bag, and all from a 35 foot length of hedge. Anything light and loose will blow about in the wind, until it lodges in a hedge somewhere. So calculate how many thousand tons of rubbish is presently stuck in all the hedges of Britain, on top of all the packaging down the bottom of that landfill. What a waste of resources.

How much of what is made and what we use is unnecessary? Not being able to fly to Tenerife every summer will not kill you, nor will being unable to buy tacky jewellery or plastic Princess Diana statuettes. For things which definitely are still needed, the substitutes are often clear. We can use plywood, aluminium or mild steel instead of plastics. We will have to spend a certain amount of Research & Development effort in finding plastic substitutes.

Below, the table sets out some of the problems and answers:

Recycling

Much of the 28M tons of rubbish produced each year could be composted. Paper waste can be repulped. For the rest, the key to effective recycling is separation at source, with different colour coded bins for metals, steel, aluminium, glass, plastics. Periodically, there are scares, for example fears about tyre mountains in Yorkshire spontaneously combusting, or CFCs from scrap fridges escaping. 8 Billion plastic carrier bags are given out each year, 65,000 tons of plastic. It is a crisis. Over 3,000 computers a day are thrown away in the UK. The average computer has 4 lbs of lead in it, but only three ounces of this can be reclaimed. Each 6 inch silicon chip wafer uses 2,275 gallons of de-ionised water, 285 KWh of electricity, and 3,200 cubic feet of bulk gases in its manufacture. From August 2005, under the European 'Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive', used electrical appliances will have to be collected and re-used or recycled. Shops will be obliged to have 'take back' schemes. [25]

Safeguarding the essentials

The essentials are water, food, clothing and shelter. None of these are absolutely threatened by the coming oil crunch, unless it translates into a nuclear war. In the normal run of things, even without oil our taps will keep working, we can grow the food we need, we can still transport it, refridgerate it, cook it, without oil. We can still have cloth, woollens, cotton, though we may have to do without synthetic fabrics.

This implies a simplification of life, cutting out of the frivolous. The future will be austere. Elimination of non-essential transport will cut down vehicle emissions, and this will have a positive effect on air quality. The recession consequent on the oil crunch will also cut demand for transport. The response to the crisis implies co-ordinated action, government policies, changes to taxation to favour renewables, sustainability, and the mobilisation of industrial and human resources.

The five policy recommendations

1. Encourage renewable energy sources; wind power, wave power, sea current, tidal, solar, short rotation coppicing (willow) and biofuels like ethanol. Use tax incentives on renewables, and tax penalties on fossil fuels
2. Halt and reverse the dismemberment of the British coal industry. Expand the coal fired power station inventory slightly, invest in better flue gas desulphurisation plant
3. Subsidise the setting up of ethanol distillation, and the development of ethanol diesel powered railway locomotives. Subsidise farmers and bus companies to switch to bio-diesel
4. Begin a campaign of public education. Use public money to assist R & D and technology demonstrators in hydrogen fuel cell technologies. Install some on public transport
5. Establish an overseas aid package to prove the concept of solar cell / water electrolysis as a source of hydrogen fuel

To some extent, as individuals, you can take action to protect yourselves today, but whether or not society as a whole has the sense to engineer an orderly transition from oil to sustainable energy sources depends on concerted preparation and planning, the political and economic will to address the problem. I can see this, you can see it, but can the politicians and the captains of industry?

–  S.B. 2005

REFERENCES [19] Jeremy Snyder, Desert Research Institute study [20] Zia Haq Biomass for Electricity Generation, EIA (USA) [21] IEE report The Environmental Effects of Electricity Generation 2002 - www.iee.org [22] John Sheard ARBRE Project Collapses Yorkshire Dale net - www.daelnet.co.uk [23] University of Strathclyde Bioethanol Production, 2002-03 [24] House of Commons Select Committee on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, report, 14th January 2002 [25] www.wastewatch.org.uk

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