Green Blogging

This is a marvelous book. Chris Goodall is a writer and broadcaster on climate change issues. In this book he considers ten separate technologies in some detail, discusses sensibly their strengths and weaknesses, the companies and individuals who are working in them and the stage each technology has reached. He then considers how important they will be in the total solution that will be needed to save our planet.

The ten technologies looked at are:

1. Wind power

This is particularly important in Britain of course, with our shallow continental shelf and strong winds. Although expensive to build, once put in place the turbines will produce energy which is more or less free (subject to maintenance costs) for some 25 years or more. Wind power technology is now becoming fairly mature, and will improve further now that the government has announced its intention to develop large offshore windfarms around the British coast. Many criticise wind power saying it is too erratic depending as it does on whether the wind is blowing. However apparently although this may be the case with an individual turbine or wind farm, taken overall, this is not necessarily so.  Anyway is never intended to be anything other than part of an overall solution, and other energy sources can fill in when wind farms are less productive.

2. Solar energy

This is has the potential to become a major source of energy, for example solar power plants in North Africa could provide a large proportion of the energy needs of Europe, the main problem being the building of transmission lines. Many different solutions are being researched, including a flexible material being developed by American company Nanosolar, which can be wrapped around buildings, and is being funded in part by the founders of Google (no doubt hoping that it will reduce the carbon footprint of their server farms). Chris feels that the best use of solar is to generate electricity rather than for water heating (which is what we tend to use it for in Britain).

3. Electricity from the oceans

This technology has had less investment, but there is substantial potential, for example in places such as Pentland Firth – the channel between mainland Scotland and the Orkney Islands where tidal currents are very strong. As well as running turbines from tidal energy, there are also many companies researching different ways to get energy from wave power, and a commercial wave farm is being developed off the coast of Northern Portugal.

4. Combined heat and power

This is where the heat, which is a by product of generating electricity in traditional plants is used instead of just being ‘frittered away in a cooling tower’. For example in district heating plants where heat is piped out to heat homes and offices. The CHP chapter looks in particular at these and also at storing the heat in fuel cells.

5. Super efficient houses

In this chapter Chris talks about the passivhaus buildings, which have to comply with stringent standards, and which require hardly any energy to heat. One problem we have in Britain however is that builders are not used to the fine precision which is needed to create buildings even approaching the passivhause standard, as sloppy practices will create cracks and ‘bridges’ which conduct cold into the house. However perhaps more important than energy efficient new buildings is the huge job of insulating the existing housing stock. This is going to be necessary as most of the existing housing stock, at least in Britain, is going to be with us for many years to come, perhaps hundreds of years.

6. Electric cars

Although many committed greens favour the development of public transport, in reality most people are not going to give up their cars. It is a genie of personal freedom and identity which is unlikely ever to go back into its bottle, certainly not voluntarily. There is a lot of investment going into the development of ‘greener’ cars, but Chris suggests that once the problems of developing a long lasting and reliable battery have been overcome, the advantages and cheapness of the electric car will make it a clear winner. Also car batteries connected to the grid overnight could release emergency electricity to cover unexpected dips in supply. A quick look on the internet shows that some electric cars are already with us as can be seen from this Green car site.

7. Motor fuels from cellulose

The possibilities of this have been known by many years, and Chris gives quotations from Henry Ford and Rudolf Diesel. Indeed had it not been for the availability of cheap oil, plant based ‘bio fuels’ could have been developed to be the main fuel of cars – indeed early cars apparently could also run on alcohol. Although Chris feels that ultimately the electric car will be the car of choice, most of the vehicles currently on the road will be there for many years to come, so it is important to develop a new fuel for them. The idea of using food crops to make fuel was popular a few years ago but now many are having second thoughts about it because of the problems that it brings. However there are proposals to make bio fuels out of genuine waste products, although it could be some time before it is ready to go into the pumps.

8. Carbon capture

Power stations produce a considerable part of the worlds emissions and there have long been proposals to ‘capture’ the carbon they produce and store it underground, for example in an aquifer as is done in the Norwegian Sleipner gas field. Environmentalists are often unhappy with the idea of carbon capture, preferring to envisualise a world without power stations burning fossil fuels. But the truth is that they will be with us for some time, so a solution which deals with the carbon that they produce is necessary. However development in this area has been slow, shockingly slow according to Chris, who says that although it is clear that there is urgent need for a program of reform very little has actually happened. He suggests having a carbon capture competition with a large prize. This chapter also discusses the possibility of using algae to store the carbon, and pehaps then turning it into oil. For example this is being looked at in Hawaii, funded by Shell.

9. Biochar

Biochar is putting carbon back into the soil in the form of charcoal. This apparently could be a major solution to the carbon problem, plus it can massively improve soil quality. Two initiatives are looked at. One is being developed by Rob Flanagan whose mission is to design a simple, cheap and reliable domestic cooking stove for poor rural communities, which uses local materials as fuel and provides charcoal for the householder to use to feed the soil. This could make a huge difference as not only do the stoves use less fuel but the biochar would help improve the soil for food crops. The other initiative is much larger, BEST energies in NSW Australia which has had spectacular results in the carbon poor Australian soil. Biochar solutions will be an important part of the overall solution in solving the planets carbon problems.

10. Soil and forests

This looks at how we can improve the carbon storage capabilities of the ground by suitable agricultural and animal husbandry methods. Zero Till is a method of intensive cereal farming where the land is never ploughed, Ploughing is believed to be counter productive as it reduces the soil carbon content and increases the loss of moisture. It is very different from the organic standards approved of by many greens, as it will, we are told, work best with genetically modified crops which have been bred to resist herbicides. Another benefit of zero till is that it will also reduce nitrous oxide emissions. The other solution seems extraorindarily simple – it involves reviving the worlds grasslands by changing the way animals graze on them. This can make a massive difference and the book illustrates this with two pictures of adjoining ranches in Mexico provided by proponent Tony Lovell (and you can see Tony himself explaining it here).

These ten technologies are, believes Chris, the best hopes for reversing the damage that we have done to our planet, and solving global warming. However it will take large scale organisation, and co-ordination. He suggests that countries should concentrate on their strengths, for example wind power in Britain, China should continue to develop small scale biogas digestors (discussed in chapter 10), forested countries such as Germany should concentrate on community heat and power plants, Spain on solar energy and Australia to soil improvements.

As well as being an interesting and inspiring book, it is extremely readable. If you are at all interested in these matters I suggest you buy it, as this review has only scraped the surface.

Incidentally I see from the internet that Chris Goodall, who writes a blog called Carbon Commentary, is also a Green Party candidate for Oxford West and Abingdon, so I wish him all the best for that.