The religion of climate

I have to have a laugh sometimes. Someone said to me recently “Do you believe in Climate Change?”. My answer? “I didn’t know it was a religion”. I asked the person if they had looked at the science behind climate change. They said yes. I said “do you accept the science”. They said no. I said “what alternative analysis do you have”. They looked at me blankly. I think really they didn’t want to accept the premise of consequences that the science of climate change predicts from changing our atmospheres 200ppm of CO2 to 350ppm CO2. There is always a consequence to changing a balanced condition. The answer is if we change the conditions back (to 200ppm) can we recover from climate change. The scientist proposition is if we hold carbon to less than 400ppm we should hold climate change to 2C. That sounds like a feasible goal and a desirable goal. So why are we arguing rather than acting?

Because we don’t want to accept the presented science facts. We have accepted the science on skin cancer….. so we keep out of the sun. We have accepted the science on CFC’s and the Ozone hole, so we have created substitutes. We have accepted the science of lead and heavy metals as a poison, so we have modified paint and substituted lead in petrol. We have accepted the science of Acid rain, so we scrub coal fired power station exhaust from SO2 by-products. We have accepted the science of increased food production from Genetically modified plants, we have accepted electricity, electronics, Xray machines, antibiotics, plane flight, cellular telephones, TV, computers… all the results of science and legitimate research…..but apparently we listen to a plethora of non-climate scientists tell us not to “believe” in climate change. We might as well ask a geologist to do brain surgery since we want to ignore the specialist we have trained and educated to tell us about climate and the consequence of 400ppm.

So, when someone next asks you if you believe in Climate Change, ask them what religion they are pedalling, because it’s not an opening for true fact based scientific debate.

Townsville – can it break the nexus of high power costs?

After 3 weeks in Townsville (on the Townsville Smart City Challenge) I am energised at community spirit and support around sustainable practices and energy conservation efforts in an Australian city.

The two accelerators driving escalating (and almost runaway) costs for electricity in Australia are peak demand and fuel source costs. (refer AGL report)

Peak demand drives sizing for an electrical distribution network to a level that is uneconomic, or unsustainable. What Townsville have done in a community engagement program, and district cooling programs is commendable. Reshaping demand so that the network does not require 3 times the base load capacity for a few hours on the hottest days in the hottest weeks; because engineering this type of network is like building a road network that provides no congestion in a large city between 8am and 9am. Imagine, building a 12 lane highway and on-off ramps that doesn't congest in peak hours but is almost empty the rest of the time! Too, too expensive……… but that’s how we build energy networks today. They have the capacity to run everything connected at peak load times, and they sit relatively under capacity the rest of the time. The alternative is like road congestion; in electricity we could shed load which means turning off suburbs – and largely we have avoided that to date. Where I live in Brisbane there is a classic example. For 90% of the time the load is less than 3GW in the entire city. For less than 0.01% of the time the load is over 4.5GW. So the capacity for the extra 1.5GW is used less than 100^th (actually less than 1000^th) of the time; but Energex has to supply that capacity. In poles and wires and substation capacity let’s just say an extra 50% capacity has to be added. That’s a lot of money in a multi-billion $ grid.

Townsville have started to address this with mechanisms such as, white roof initiatives to reduce maximum heat absorption in houses and therefore maximum cooling load. District cooling that cools water down outside peak hours and uses the cold stored water for cooling during peak hours (relieving the need to run air-conditioning compressors at peak time). There are many other initiatives – such as LED lighting, all to be commended for the way it reduces consumption and peak load. Simply put, the city becomes more affordable!

The next issue is source fuel cost. Peak Oil that I have written about before has occurred. Peak Oil means production of oil based fuels is reducing whilst consumption (driven by the economies of China and India) is increasing. The result here is obvious. Any commodity; that gets scarcer, or particularly where supply is less than demand increases at an unsustainable rate. We even saw this with Bananas in Queensland after cyclone Yasi. Bananas went from $3.50 to $4 per kg to $12 - $14 per kg after the cyclone and floods. Of course this will come back down when supply increases…. But on the fuel front supply won’t increase… read more on peak oil and you’ll understand the false sense of security we have now.

Listen to the ABC science show podcast

Read further - Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris:- IEA reading also see his video

Oil price increases (or constraints) will knock on to gas prices and coal prices as substitution occurs. All fossil fuel sources are linked to the price of oil….

Cooper String, a clean energy corridor is part of an answer to relieve Townsville of the need to source fossil fuel based energy from South Queensland. It is renewable based which is reducing in cost of construction over time, whilst fossil fuel based energy is increasing. It doesn’t take a mental giant to see that a point in time the renewable source cost will be less than the fossil fuel costs – making Townsville and surrounding communities a more affordable place, with a higher intrinsic level of energy security.

On top of this, the other impact of Townsville sourcing coal based generation from South East Queensland is the water impact. Water is scarce in south east Queensland the majority of the time. However 1KWh of power generated by a coal fired power station uses up to 15 litres of potable (drinking) water. In Queensland’s case the figure is much lower, probably around 2 litres per 1KWh (given constraints and the hi water efficiency coal fired generators used) – we are drawing water from South East Queensland - an area that has built a desalination plant to supply enough drinking water for Brisbane! For every cubic litre of water made through desalination we need over 2.5KW of power to create it. Does anyone see the sense in that? No, unfortunately we plan water and power quite separately. So water uses lots of power, power uses lots of water – renewables are potentially a non-water using source (ie wind and PV). Conservation and renewables are part of a bigger picture of survival and economically healthy futures. Releasing Northern Queensland from coal fire power in South Queensland looks after the precious commodity of potable water and its associated high energy requirements (to run desalination).

Sense from a high level planning point of view releases Townsville from southern coal fired power production. Cooper String is one such answer to this power / water dilemma. In the above scenario a carbon tax in Australia also accelerates an important departure from fossil fuel and becomes a strategic element for sustaining our affordable way of life.