The risks of peak oil and climate change spelt out to businesses

Sometimes a report comes out that is so significant it is really worth shouting about. Lloyds of London are one of the oldest and largest insurance companies in the UK and operate all over the world. As insurance is all about managing risks, Lloyds have a team dedicated to predicting trends and risks on global issues, called 360 Risk Insight.

Their latest report is called Suatainable Energy Security, co-authored with think tank Chatham House, and is available to download for free here.

What is so astonishing is that it could have been written by a team from Transition Network. The language used does not beat about the bush, laying down in very stark terms that energy security is an issue that every business needs to be taking very seriously.

In future the effects of depleting fossil fuel reserves will be compounded by rising demand and falling availability.

Businesses can now be under no doubt about the risks posed by both climate change and depleting resources, in particular peak oil.

Energy Descent

Today's Western industrialised society can be definitely categorised as "energy intensive". We use vast quantities of liquid fuels to get us and our goods from A to B, we consume a lot of electricity and everyone relies (directly or indirectly) on other gas and solid fuels.

But how would society operate without access to vast quantities of cheap fossil fuel energy? This is an interesting question, but one that should be treated more than just a hypothetical question. The signs are that we have passed the point of peak oil, which is the point at which the easiest, purest and cheapest liquid oil is used up. From here on oil gets more expensive and more difficult to extract - all in the context of a rising global demand.

This in essence is what Transition is all about - the transition from today's society to a future society in the context of climate change and peak oil as the main drivers of change. But getting from current situation to future vision needs careful planning. The goal of every Transition initiative is to produce an Energy Descent Action Plan, which is the route map to that vision.

Transition Town Totnes have just produced their Plan, which is a great bit of work and a fascinating read. It's all available online here and is highly recommended.

Renewable energy potential

Here on Scilly we have one of the best potentials for generating power from solar, wind and wave in the entire UK. Given the relatively low population of around 2,000, a combination of good sunshine levels, high winds and powerful waves and tides indicates that we should have no trouble generating all our energy needs from renewable sources, with more to spare.

There are several issues to contend with however. Firstly, planning. This is a minor issue for solar PV or thermal, a moderate issue for wave and a huge issue for wind.

Secondly, capital cost. The only systems affordable for individuals and families are solar thermal and PV (the latter being more expensive) and even then they require several thousand pounds. That's not to say however these systems are not a good investment - they are, and will be even more so with the recent introduction of the Feed In Tariffs.

For wind turbines, efficiency and pay back periods really require moderate to large installations (tens of thousands upwards), meaning either collective community ownership or company owned ventures. Wave generation is another level of cost entirely (over £1 million), but fortunately a couple of companies are seriously interested in Scilly as a site for wave generation.

Lastly, a big obstacle remains around perception of energy security. At the moment there aren't any serious obstacles surrounding energy supply - liquid, gas or solid fuels and electricity, and all are relatively cheap. However as peak oil starts to take its grip energy costs could become very volatile, with the trend being upward price rises and reduced availability.

Only when energy security is compromised will we realise that we need every energy saving measure and renewable energy installation we can get our hands on. But at this point it will be too late to avoid some uncomfortable situations arising.

However, if it is widely recognised throughout the community that we need to plan for our future energy resources now, we could avoid compromising situations and have a very resilient, sustainable and bright future.

Earth Hour

On Saturday 27th March at 8.30pm local time people across the planet are being encouraged to turn off their lights for an hour.

Earth Hour is a very visual support for action on climate change and reducing energy usage. Individuals, organisations, companies and Governments are getting involved and it's estimated 1 billion people will turn off their lights.

Have a look at the Earth Hour website for some great videos and ideas for Earth Hour: http://earthhour.wwf.org.uk/

Tar Sands

In Alberta, Canada lie vast reserves of bitumen, known as "Tar Sands". Essentially this is shale and sand with a high oil content that can, with a high input of energy, be refined in to liquid oil that can be refined in to petrol, diesel, aviation fuel, gas, etc.

Theoretically, this is an answer to the shortage of oil that North America faces, but it comes at a very high cost. Besides the threat of oil spills, conventional oil production is relatively unobtrusive as it's pumped from vast underground reservoirs. Tar sands however are the complete opposite.

It's like open cast mining on a vast scale. Vast tracts of pristine wilderness disappear, water courses are heavily polluted, there's severe localised air pollution and devastating effects on both wildlife and humans. The energy required to refine tar sands in to oil is immense.

A new film called "Toxic Fuels" is being released on March 15th, supported by The Co-Operative Bank. Have a look at the website here: http://toxicfuels.com/

This is a trailer for the film:

First film screening

This Thursday sees the launch of a series of film screenings from Transition Scilly. First up is a big budget film The 11th Hour, written and presented by Lenardo di Caprio.

Film starts at 7.30pm on Thursday 25th February in the Old Wesleyan Chapel on St Mary's. There will be tea and cakes, entry is free and anyone is welcome. Doors open from 7.00pm.

Rather than a description from me, judge for yourself from the trailer:

Biodiesel

I recently went to a Cornish organic farmers and growers' low carbon farming event at Cusgarne Organics near Truro. The farm is beautiful, set in a secluded valley away from main roads, producing veg boxes, beef, eggs and chickens. They've also planted up more orchards and some nut trees including sweet chestnuts and almonds.

One really interesting project was Biodiesel production from waste cooking oil from the surrounding area. "Biodiesel Dave" from Cleaner Combustion produces this stuff in a workshop on the farm to a high standard - i.e. that can be run in modern cars, not just dirty old Land Rovers and tractors.

It certainly gave me a further jolt of inspiration for use of waste oils to power machinery. The photo (above) on the side of his car, whilst going against the ethos of healthy organic food, gave everyone a laugh!

A vivid description of oil in society

Rob Hopkins is an eloquent speaker and this video, from the TED talks in Oxford earlier this year, vividly describes the role oil plays ion our society, how oil will become less available and what impact this has on climate change. It's encapsulating:

The extent of localisation possible

Local Food is a really important area to focus on for many reasons - resilience, health, wildlife, landscape, local economy, climate change and much more besides. As little as perhaps 75 years ago, the vast majority of food required by local populations up and down the UK would have been provided close to home. The only exceptions to this rule would have been major cities, which would have acquired food from a regional or perhaps national basis.
But before today's era of international travel and transport, imported food would have consisted largely of goods like bananas, spices, tea, coffee and cocoa. Today imported food can be anything from beef to vegetables and fruit to milk and thousands of items in between. In this mad world, where for example the UK exports about as much dairy products to the Netherlands as it imports from the same country, our food is entirely linked to cheap oil.

The question therefore remains, in the light of dwindling oil availability and a need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% as soon as practically possible, could we largely feed ourselves from our local area? Transition Town Totnes have just completed a seminal piece of work, titled "Can Totnes and district feed itself?" A detailed study, this has been carried out in a very professional manner and comes to some interesting and enlightening conclusions.

In a nutshell, the answer is "yes", Totnes could (largely) feed itself, BUT it would require some major changes in diet - mostly by eating less meat and dairy and ensuring that arable land was producing cereals for human rather than animal consumption.

From a back-of-the-envelope calculation, Scilly would fall in to a similar situation to Totnes...the tricky bit is that economically Scilly is 85% dependent on 120,000 or so visitors per year. Feeding these people as well as the local population shifts the goal posts considerably.

This will be the subject of future Transition Scilly work. In the meantime you can download the full Totnes report here.

Transition Network conference

A big Transition Network conference is happening in Battersea, London at the moment which looks very exciting. If you're interested in what's going on, have a look at Rob Hopkins blog, Transition Culture and hear some interviews on Traydio.

There are lots of regular updates, interview and reviews.

Fair for the future - Penwith

If anyone happens to be in West Penwith over next weekend, there's a really good event organised on Saturday 9th May at Plan-it Earth in Sancreed.

Titled "a celebration of sustainability in Penwith", it will include all sorts of wonderful elements - local food, traditional crafts, renewable energy, recycling, music and much more besides.

It's co-organised by Transition Penwith and should be a brilliant day out. If they can do it, why can't we?! An idea for the future perhaps...

Read more detail about the event here.

Energy day on St Mary's

We're co-organising, with the AONB, an open day on renewable energy and energy efficiency on Wed 22nd April. You are welcome to come along to a drop-in session between 10.00 and 14.00 in the Old Wesleyan Chapel on St Mary's. Importantly, refreshments will be provided!

We will have a range of display materials, with experts on hand to answer questions. This is targeted as householders, with an aim to help people reduce the amount of energy used in the home through energy savings, improvements in efficiency and a reduction in heat loss.

There will also be information about micro-renewable technologies.

If you run a business, there is an afternoon talk with presentations covering renewable energy experiences and options for your business. Featuring a mix of both local and mainland-based speakers, this is an important event not to be missed. 15.00 to 17.00 in the Old Wesleyan Chapel.

Both events are free. We look forward to seeing you there.

Earth hour

It's all about a day of mass action. Organised by the WWF, the aim of Earth Day is to get everyone to switch off all their lights for at least on hour in the evening at 8.30pm local time. The slogan is:

On March 28 you can VOTE EARTH by switching off your lights for one hour...Or you can vote global warming by leaving your lights on.

Cynics may claim this is a bit of a gimmick, but I think this has a powerful message - that action en masse can have a major impact. It started in Sydney 2 years ago, where 2.2 million buildings switched off. You can't say that doesn't have a big impact on energy demand and must have been massively noticeable on the grid.

So get involved - sign up, spread the word and switch off for an hour (or more!) on March 28th.
www.earthhour.org/home

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

Margaret Mead

Renewable energy opportunities

The third in my series of blog write-ups from mine and Clare's short trip to Devon and Cornwall is about renewable energy. We went over to North Cornwall, to the small fishing village of Port Isaac for a meeting of St Endellion Climate Friendly Parish (which is a parish adjoining Port Isaac). They're a very well organised group with a lot of energy; indeed they've been so pro-active they've been shortlisted to the last five of a national competition called "Future Friendly".

The village hall was very busy, in excess of 75 people there, a magnificent array of food and drink on offer and a good line up of speakers. The local MP Dan Rogerson gave an introduction to the issues, correctly stating that "tackling climate change issues must come hand in hand with tackling economic issues" - i.e. create so called 'green-collar jobs'. He also pointed out that renewable energy gives communities and nations energy independence from economic and political pressures and fluctuations.

And if anyone doubted that individuals don't have influence on the political process, Dan Rogerson MP confirmed that "a letter writing campaign has a huge impact"!

Four speakers gave their personal views on the costs, efficiency and effectiveness of four renewable technologies: solar hot water, solar photovoltaics, wind and ground source heat pumps. They key points to pick up were:

• Get the roof aspect right for solar projects - i.e. as close to due south as possible
• The economic situation still isn't overly helpful to allowing people to install their own renewable technologies
• Technology is improving all the time with all the different technologies
• There is some fantastic software available now to monitor outputs and monetary savings from various renewable sources - all to use with home computers
• Whilst payback times should not be the whole consideration, they are coming down over time as costs of installation reduce whilst energy costs are rising
• Ground Source heat pumps have noise issues, but can be very effective
• Tenants need educating on how to get the most out of renewable technologies fitted in or on their house

A couple of wider points were raised: (1) ensuring insulation is maximised is critical in reducing energy demand and (2) maximising passive solar gain is very important in buildings - and there's no excuse on new builds.

Neil Farrington from Cornwall Energy Plus outlined a very interesting scheme called Community Power in Cornwall. This is a model more akin to some continental countries where there's a stronger culture of co-operation. The idea is simple - a number of people pool their investments in to larger scale renewable energy installations - in this case wind power.

These larger scale installations are more efficient, more cost effective and enjoy better support from the community, because they're owned by members of the community. It's an excellent principle that should be explored for Scilly.

Finally, the summary was made that whilst there are many realistic renewable energy options, there is no perfect technology and every situation is different. As communities and as a nation we need to explore the right mix for each location, with an aim to maximising our energy independence and minimising our carbon emissions.

Jonathan Smith

Energy descent action planning

Last week I talked about a visit Clare and I made to the mainland to gain some more experience of projects and work being carried out by other Transition initiatives in the south west. We visited orchards, a community recycling project and attended a very interesting renewable energy evening. But perhaps the most interesting and brain taxing was an afternoon we spent in Totnes.

The main goal of Transition initiatives, be they on a city or village scale, is to design and help implement an energy descent action plan for the community. Just as an increase in the use if fossil fuels, from the industrial revolution onwards, has brought about significant changes to our climate and major depletion of fossil fuel reserves, so energy descent is the opposite.

Throughout the country there is largely an acceptance that we must reduce carbon emissions to tackle climate change. But there is a reluctance to give up the way of life we have become accustomed to. Because Transition is a positive process, our response to that is a lower energy future does not have to be a bad thing.

Our high energy society has brought us benefits but many negative effects too. For instance, are we happier for being able to fly around the world? Does electrical entertainment in our homes make us a stronger society? And no-one wins from badly insulated, poorly-deigned homes except energy companies.

One of the techniques Transition Town Totnes are doing in their Energy Descent Action Plan is to take positive visions and put them at the end of a timeline - in this case 2030 (see photo above). They then ask "if this is the vision we want, what are the steps we need to get there?" This is a process known as backcasting and is a very liberating and positive exercise. People put suggestions and visions next to a year - see photo.

The power of taking a backcasting approach is that it takes away those cultural and social barriers we come across when proposing new or radical ideas. "Oh, it won't work because..." or "good idea, but with all the current Government policies in place it just won't happen". This is a very negative approach.

My response to this would be:
(a) many of the solutions to both global and local problems are local and can be achieved by all of us every day of the year - think food, transport, powering our homes, etc.
(b) there aren't any technological problems, merely social and cultural. We can all elect MPs, we are all a part of society and we can influence Government. Talk to friends, family, neighbours, build that network and help move that groundswell; think if you talk to 100 people you know, then they do the same...it works out to be a very large number! Obama's campaign worked because it had the support and momentum at grassroots level.

No-one would argue this is an easy process, but it is a positive one that holds much promise in the face of a negative situation. Transition Scilly will be working towards an energy descent action plan; in the meantime we've got lots of exciting project and ideas planned - we'll keep you posted here.

Jonathan Smith

Solar panels

Over the half term holiday Plug in to the Sun have been hard at work installing solar panels on St Martin's primary school. It is a 2.5kW system, and after installation it was knocking out up to 1.8kW, even in the relatively low intensity sunlight of November. The excess electricity will be sold to the National Grid and earn the School money.

This is a tremendously exctitng development that may help to stimulate the installation of more solar panels on public and private buildings in the future. We will need as many as we can get, to combat climate change and provide us on Scilly with energy independence.

Transport and carbon footprint

Working out your carbon footprint is a measure of the carbon dioxide emissions created by you in your activities over a year. In the UK emissions from transport make up about 20% of total UK emissions - so it's really important to minimise your impact of transport to reduce your carbon footprint.

This graph shows how far you can go, using different modes of transport, to create 1kg of CO2:


















Flying is a hideous waste of energy, creating enormous emissions - especially given most flights cover vast distances. One return flight to Australia will use as much energy needed to heat and power your home for six years.

On the other hand, the bicycle, one of the most efficient machines ever invented, allows you to travel reasonable distances, carrying a reasonable weight, yet has the lowest emissions of any mode of transport.

Reducing how much you fly and drive, changing instead to public transport is the most important starting point to reducing your carbon footprint, and hence global climate change. Walking or getting on your bike is the best thing you can do - and there are few excuses for those local journeys!

Cutting carbon and building resilience

This is, in a nutshell, how Rob Hopkins tries to explain the necessary steps that communities must take (in a Transition concept) to ensure we overcome the challenges of Climate Change and Peak oil. There's no point me trying to explain more here, but watch Rob's fantastic talk from the Findhorn Positive Energy Conference this April - it's very inspirational.

It goes on for about an hour, but is split in to six parts on YouTube - linked on this page.

The first installment is below...it's really worth watching.

"I'd like to support renewable energy, but..."

Energy use in the home is hugely significant to your carbon footprint and accounts for around 25% of the country's total greenhouse gas emissions. Of this 25% total, three quarters is due to heating (by electricity, gas, oil or solid fuels). So, what is important in reducing your home's energy requirements are three factors:

• Reduce the amount of energy you use - especially for heating
  
• Increase insulation - on the building and you
• Use renewable energy
  

The first measure after energy saving is very simple - change your electricity supply to a renewable tariff, such as Good Energy or Ecotricity. This a very simple action, it will cost you very little extra (if anything) and will drastically reduce your carbon footprint. And, as the price of fossil fuels rises, so renewable energy becomes even more cost effective.

What gets more exciting, and is more appropriate for Transition, is to become energy independent. The Energy Saving Trust gives a good overview of all the different types of renewables and what grants are available to support home installations.

So what are the costs like? It varies massively and depends on what you want. Solar panels, for example, are less cost effective than solar water heaters - but you can only heat water with hot water tubes (like the ones pictured).

But what is more interesting is this concept of "payback" on renewable energy installments for homes. If you buy a new car, laptop, kettle, fridge, have a holiday, meal out - does payback come in to the equation? No. Of course, some renewable energy technologies are significant investments, but so are cars, home improvements and many electrical appliances. Rather than ask about payback periods (based on current prices for energy) there are bigger questions to ask:

• Will it improve the value of your property? Probably yes - to at least the value of the installation
  
• What will happen to the price of fossil fuels? Increase significantly as the effects of Peak Oil hit home
• Will it give you energy independence? Depends what you install, but to a certain degree, yes
• Will it give you greater resilience? Yes, which frees you from forces beyond your control - political, market, physical

The Community Energy Plus website is a useful resource. Transition Scilly will be doing more on renewable energy in the near future - checkback here for details.

Eyes on the Arctic

The enormous Arctic ice shelf is a clear indicator of the state of Climate Change. The polar regions of the planet contain enormous amounts of frozen water, which if they were to melt would cause sea levels worldwide to rise by an enormous amount.

Worryingly, this enormous ice shelf is showing signs of breaking up - at a much faster rate than previously expected. A report called 'The Big Melt' was completed by an organisation called Carbon Equity last year and exposed disturbing facts about the speed of melt, with the prediction that global sea levels could rise by as much as 5 metres by 2100 - and that's without further rises in greenhouse gases.

A report by the BBC's David Shukman confirms many of those fears - Arctic ice is breaking up very quickly and at an accelerating rate.

On Scilly we are extremely vulnerable to such sea level rises and it should be a big concern for everyone who lives here. All the more reason to engage in Transition Scilly and reduce your carbon footprint, and therefore your contribution to sea level rises.

There are many things you can do to move towards a low carbon lifestyle and they do not have to reduce your quality of life at all - from signing up to a renewable energy electricity tariff to massively reducing the amount of flying you do. The Guide To Low Carbon Lifestyles is an excellent place to start and lays out the facts very clearly.