US Congress vote on Syria: a precursor to western involvement in a regional war?

President Obama's announcement that he will give Congress a vote on whether to attack the Assad regime may seem like a step back from the brink of military action for now, but it is just as likely to re-boot a slide towards ever-deeper western involvement in a widening Middle East conflict.

No doubt Congress, egged on in the spirit of response to '9/11' (what has that got to do with the Syrian civil war?), will give enough legitimacy to Obama to launch the missiles at Assad and his men. Obama will proclaim that this is a ‘limited’ action. But far from being limited, in reality a precedent will have been created that will suck the west ever deeper into the Syrian civil war. The 'limited' strike will achieve nothing except to inflame the already insoluble carnage. Very little damage will be done to the Assad war machine. More atrocities from the Assad regime will follow (with the anti-Assad atrocities receiving less publicity in the west). The action will be condemned as a failure. But paradoxically this very failure will be used as the argument for further action by the west. Plans for 'no fly zones' will be drawn up and implemented and bit by bit we will be part of the war with the Assad regime.

 There will be the added danger that we are up against, in this dispute, not some isolated tyrant as in the case of the Libyan intervention, but a deadly combination of not just bewildering ethnic and political complexity but the involvement of forces with which the west is already almost at war. These include Hezbollah and Iran - not to mention a Russian presence with whom we could, in theory, actually come into military conflict. Remember the Russian's have their own military base in the Syrian port of Tartus.

The situation in Syria is so convoluted and so toxic (in many different meanings of the term) that the results of growing western intervention, will, in hindsight make western intervention in Iraq look like a blinding success by comparison. In Syria, realistically, the best that can be hoped for in the medium term is a cease-fire that will, for the foreseeable future, create an effectively divided country - with a severe danger of an internal civil war simmering amongst the rebels (and a lot of them no friends of the west). Even if western action did succeed in defeating the Assad regime, at very great cost, the ethnic divisions would remain, and rear up soon again, just as they have done in Iraq. Western involvement will make a mockery over our efforts to mediate between Israel and Palestinians since the Syrian civil war, with western involvement, will extinguish the already flickering hopes of progress. In a worst case, but still plausible, scenario, western involvement could promote a wider regional conflagration.

 It is tremendously ironic that the west is cranking up its expensive war machines for 'humanitarian' purposes, when Syrians inside the country are dying and starving. Yes, they want ‘their’ side to win and be helped by the west, or Hezbollah, or whoever to help them 'win'. But if humanitarian assistance is really our aim, and not just the use of this emotive appeal to promote more war, then we should be spending on genuine food, refugee relief, medical help, not in spending on the firing of tomahawk missiles.

 

DEFRA poised to cover up negative impact of shale gas on house prices

Owen Paterson's much publicised prospect of what appears to be a contrived attack on the 'rural economic' impacts (on house prices one presumes) of onshore windfarms is most likely to feature a big cover-up of the impacts of shale gas extraction on rural economies (and house prices!). DEFRA has commissioned a report on the subject of the impact of energy activities on rural economies (ie constituencies that are largely held by the Tories and subject to loss of votes to UKIP).

 

The simple fact is that there is no data on the impact of shale gas extraction on rural economies in the UK since, as yet, there is no shale gas extraction! Therefore DEFRA will be able to commission research on rural impacts of shale gas extraction safe in the knowledge that no impacts for shale gas will be discovered and that it can interpret the future for shale gas extraction as being wonderfully rosy.

 

Now, I have never heard of a report that has been commissioned by a government department about energy that does not support government policy and satisfies the political aspirations of the government in power. In this case DEFRA is under the control of a politician who doesn't like windfarms but does like fracking, and DECC is run by a politician that supports both windfarms and fracking. Hence the end result is likely to be a report that is moderately critical about the impact of windfarms on house price but says that fracking will have a clearly positive effect on the local economy.

 

In fact the evidence from the US, in so far as it is comparable, suggests that the impact of shale gas on house prices is likely to be significantly negative. I base this on a report done by academics at Duke University. They identified a positive effect on property prices associated with an increase in land values because of the mineral rights that go with them (in the USA), but, on the other hand, a very big negative effect (a 24 per cent decline) impact on property prices owing to fears about groundwater contamination from shale gas extraction.

 

Now the point to make in comparisons with the UK is that here mineral rights do not accrue to the landowners as in the USA but to the Government. This means that there will be no positive pressure on house prices UK if shale gas is extracted nearby, but only negative effects from perceived loss in value because of fears about pollution.

 

Now I am confident that, despite the uncertainty, such fears will be brushed off or consigned to report annexes by DEFRA in favour of headline attention to be given to allegations about declines in house prices caused by windfarms. In fact the research here is rather inconclusive, and does not imply a significant negative impact. There may be small effects at the time of the planning application process when anti-windfarm campaigners are in action, but little if any lasting impacts on properties close to the location of the windfarm.

 

In short, the danger to house prices is likely to be much higher in the case of local shale gas extraction than it is in the case of nearby windfarms. Of course this message certainly will not be broadcast by DEFRA. Instead there will be a lot of talk about extra money to local communities being made available (as in the case of winfarms), even though this will have no impact on house prices themselves. House prices, of course are the top concern in the world for many readers of the 'Daily Telegraph' and the 'Daily Mail'.  Fears about shale gas extraction will be brushed aside on the basis of analysis of 'objective' evidence. Of course as we social scientists know, what matters is what people's perceptions are, not what specially appointed government scientists say. In this case there is a lot of uncertainty revolving about how people interpret the uncertainty, if you see what I mean, and some evidence from the USA that pollution fears will have a significantly negative effect on property prices.

 

The history of energy policy in the UK is replete with Government reports written to satisfy particular interest groups and to justify what the Government held to be its policies. The reports may thus be erroneous, and do not stand the test of time. In recent years we have witnessed a string of government reports explaining, for example, how cheap nuclear power is. Eventually reality catachs up, as it will, no doubt, in the case of house prices and shale gas.

 

You can see a summary of some research into the impact of windfarms on house prices at

www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN05221.pdf

 

 

You can see the report on the impact of shale gas extraction on US property price at

http://public.econ.duke.edu/~timmins/w18390.pdf

 You can see some coverage of the proposed DEFRA report at:

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2290666/reports-defra-to-examine-impact-of-wind-farms-on-house-prices

 

 

 

King backs solar after Monbiot attacked King for backing nuclear

David King, former Chief Scientist for the UK Government and perennial nuclear power champion has boosted establishment support for solar power by urging a major effort to ensure that solar pv can supply 'bulk power' at unsubsidised prices by 2025. You can see the article at:

 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/71d11096-fa14-11e2-b8ef-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2atiyZtzc

 David King has, hitherto, appeared to put a high proportion of his efforts to combat climate change behind support for nuclear power, so this is a most welcome change of emphasis, though I suspect he has not yet realised the pointlessness of continuing to promote nuclear power. I don't know what has changed his mind.  I would like to think that my previous observation that the apparent wish of scientists to support nuclear power reflected their status as old males rather than that they were scientists has persuaded him to be a bit more forward-looking. However, probably he doesn't read my blog. I suspect that it is the reality of rapidly expanding deployment of solar pv at much reduced prices that has proved persuasive.

 
Some of you who are used to George Monbiot's support for nuclear power and sometimes quite outspoken attacks on support for solar pv may be confused by my headline on this blog post. It may be a bit postmodern, but it is still the case that George Monbiot DID attack David King for his support for nuclear power. This was back in 2005 when Tony Blair announced the need for new nuclear power stations, and David King joined in to support this argument. George Monbiot said:

'Sir David may have political reasons for “trying to sell” new nuclear power stations – at the Labour Party conference Tony Blair said he wants to re-examine the nuclear option...- but he would, I suspect, have as much trouble identifying a scientific case as he had at the meeting last month. The figures leave him stranded'

 I couldn't agree more with this comment, and George quoted a report from Amory Lovins which pointed out how uneconomic nuclear power was compared to renewable energy sources such as wind power. What has changed since 2005? Well, the nuclear industry's PR campaign that there was a new cheap generation of nuclear power stations has proved to be as nonsensical as all of such claims over the last 50+ years. But solar power has gotten a lot cheaper. So it is a pity that George Monbiot changed his view and decided to support nuclear power and started making prominent attacks on the viability of solar pv.

 You can see George Monbiot's blog post at:

 http://www.monbiot.com/2005/10/25/our-own-nuclear-salesman/

 Meanwhile there is more bad news for nuclear power prospects (not that there is likely to be any good news!). EDF has postponed a 'decision' on whether to give final investment go-ahead to Hinkley C yet again.  A highly resourced PR campaign is dedicated to perpetuating the myth that the project still has life in it. The fact is that the Government has already offered better terms to nuclear than is being offered to renewable energy, so it cannot really be expected to go any further unless it decides to tear up Thatcherism and reinvent a nationalised energy industry. Ed Davey says about as much in another recent interview. See

http://www.building.co.uk/sustainability/sustainability-issues/interview-ed-davey-energy-secretary/5058198.article

Of course the Government seeks to keep up appearances that nuclear is not dead. There are still too many older males who cling to their youthful expectations for 'atoms for peace' that they learned at junior school in the 1950s!

The Government managed to pour balm on nuclear supporters at the time of the budget by offering a stupendous £10 billion of loan guarantees (and promises of 35 year contracts) for Hinkley C in June's budget. This surprised me and looked for a moment that the Treasury had been hit by something and made to offer a blank cheque for nuclear. But it seems that the PR effect, once again, may have hid something rather more modest. It is not just that the Treasury do not want to give the strike price that EDF want, or index it to inflation in the way that EDF prefer, or give (and this is the big one) an 'underwriting' guarantee for the whole project, but the Treasury loan guarantee itself may not all be exactly as it might seem.

It has been pointed out to me that something similar to what happened in the USA with nuclear power may be going on in the case of the Treasury ‘offer’. Despite the fact that the US Government is offering many billions of loan 'guarantees' for nuclear power, the only nuclear power projects (in South Carolina and Georgia) that are going ahead have what effectively amounts to cost construction 'underwriting' agreed by their state regulatory agencies. This is possible because their electricity companies are monopoly suppliers. But in other states the nuclear loan guarantees have proved unworkable. This is because the US Government has demanded that the nuclear companies take out insurance on the guarantees. The point here is that unless the state, at some level, offer an underwriting guarantee, the cost of insurance will be very large indeed, jacking up the required rate of return for the project up to much the same level as if the loan guarantees did not exist. The Economist, which discussed this situation in an article in 2010, mused that maybe this was a way of the Obama Government appearing to back nuclear power whilst in reality not offering a loan guarantee scheme that was as useful as it appeared in PR terms.

Could the British Government be involved in a similar exercise to the US Government? There could be more similarities between Conservative approaches and the Obama Administration than the mere sharing of election campaign advisers!

See the 2010 Economist article:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/45932259/The-Economist-2010-10-16 page 75

Like the Obama Administration, the British Government does not want to be held responsible for loading up the British state and taxpayer with the consequences of near-inevitable nuclear cost-overruns.
 Remember: nuclear power is a dead duck; it is just some people don't realise it yet!

 

Energy Security is what dominant interests want it to mean says academic study

A wide-ranging study of the relationship between energy security and climate change concludes, among other things, that there is little consistency between notions of energy security in different countries. Climate change objectives appear to be subservient to dominant conceptions of energy security.

These discussions are contained within a Special Issue of the leading academic journal 'Environmental Politics' which is edited by David Toke (me!) and Eleni Vezirgiannidou. I author a paper looking at the evolution of current British electricity policy and  electricity market reform. The paper examines British 'securitisation' of energy policy, something that is framed to give priority to nuclear power. There was not enough room in the paper to comment on the historical background to the elite construction of the notion of 'security' in Britain. However, it is worth commenting that in the context of Britain, with its emphasis on maintaining an 'independent' nuclear deterrent, this 'security' carries with it the baggage of the nuclear weapons-inclined British establishment. The language itself suggests a priority for nuclear power. Public opinion, which gives greater priority to energy efficiency and renewable energy, is downgraded in favour of elite conceptions of 'security'.

Rather, we should have a discussion about what measures can best achieve 'climate change' objectives. Renewables and energy  efficiency are  a much better bet on grounds of innovation and increasingly on cost.  'Security' is something that can be defined in many ways. Ironically the spread of nuclear power also encourages nuclear weapons proliferation, which reduces our security in international terms (we're telling the Iranians not to have nuclear power!). So let us not start using 'security' as a criterion that boosts nuclear power.

I must say that this makes me very sceptical about pressing climate change objectives in terms of 'climate security'. As Rita Floyd has indicated in her book 'Security and the Environment' (on policy in the USA), environmental security discourses tend to put the military in the box seat to say what our environmental policies should be. The notion of 'security' can carry with it notions of secrecy and top-down control and what the 'establishment' (usually older males) knows best.

You can see the Special Issue on the Politics and Energy Security and Climate Change at http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/fenp20/current#.UfY2pcxwZ89

Public prefers reductions in room temperature to nuclear power as an energy solution says key survey

A comprehensive survey published by the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) of attitudes of the British public has found low support for nuclear power as a solution to the UK's problems compared to energy efficiency and renewable energy. Indeed, when ranked as a solution to the problems of energy security, climate change and affordability, nuclear power was perceived as being less preferable than reducing the heating temperature inside the home.

 The research was funded by several research councils and even involved officials from the Department of Energy and Climate Change. The results show that just about any energy solution is preferable to nuclear power. By contrast, the Government is giving nuclear power clear priority when it comes to allocating key financial incentives over and above solutions, whether they be onshore of offshore wind, energy efficiency, or other options that are clearly preferred by the British public.

 See in particular Figure 1 page 11 of the report on http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/resource/11460.32688.file.eng.pdf

In recent times the Government has announced £10 billion of Treasury guarantees to EDF to build Hinkley C nuclear power station. Ed Davey has said (see two blog posts earlier) that nuclear power will receive premium rate payments for 35 years while his Government has just announced that the premium price contracts for renewables will be cut from 20 years under the Renewables Obligation to just 15 years under the proposals for ‘Electricity Market Reform’ . One could list other things, but it is already clear that the Government strategy is completely out of step with the priorities of the electorate. If the Government is going to give such massive help to nuclear power, then why not offer state guarantees and premium prices to companies that can go around persuading people to lower the temperatures on their heating thermostats next winter? - That would be closer to popular priorities than the support being given to nuclear power (!) Of course, the Government is going to do no such thing of course, even though it would be more popular and rather more practical than giving out more and more money for nuclear power. I am talking a bit tongue-in-cheek here. We need to support various types of energy efficiency and renewable energy as a priority, not nuclear power.
 
The survey, which was led by a team based at the University of Cardiff, was based on the attitudes of a total of 2441 people. In fact plenty of other surveys have turned up results which are complementary to this - they all show that renewable energy and energy efficiency are much more popular with the British public than nuclear energy. However, you would not understand that from the press releases generated about such surveys by pro-nuclear organisations.

So how is it that nuclear commands such support from within the establishment? One clue can be found from survey evidence itself which tends to show that the most pro-nuclear parts of the population are older people and males, and the least supportive of nuclear power (and most supportive of real green energy solutions) are young people and females. But guess which general type of person makes up the scientific and engineering establishment? Well, older males of course. Indeed you will often find these older male scientists appearing on the media asserting that they know best because they are scientists, and leading scientists support nuclear power. Now, I don't want to do injustice to those older male scientists who are not so sure about nuclear power (after all I am an older male myself!), but could the fact that the scientific and engineering establishment is so supportive of nuclear power have nothing to do with the fact that they are scientists?
 
The Government is set to announce the ‘strike price’ for nuclear power in the next couple of weeks. This will suggest what level of subsidies that nuclear power generators will be paid. Prepare yourself to be bombarded by truly elaborate public relations on this issue.

DECC to give Big Six 'license to skim' off renewable independents

In an attempt to defuse the problem that independent renewable generators will not be able to obtain 'contracts for difference' (CfD) under arrangements set out in electricity market reform, the Government is proposing a compromise that will favour the Big Six.

Under the so-called 'Backstop PPA' proposal as mooted in House of Lords amendments by Lord Teverson to the Energy Bill, electricity suppliers will be required to offer power purchase agreements (PPAs) to independent developers, and things will be made easier for small electricity suppliers. See http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2013-2014/0030/amend/su030-ivb.htm
However, the price of this compromise is that inevitably the Big Six will give PPAs to the independents that are worth rather less than the value of the CfDs  are to the Big Six. In effect, the Big Six will be able to extract an economic rent for themselves of 10 per cent or more.

This system will mean that the Renewable Energy programme will work with less cost-effectiveness for the consumer and will deliver fewer renewable energy projects than if a system was used that allowed independent developers to earn more-or-less the same amount of money from renewable energy projects as the Big Six. This would happen under a 'fixed' Feed-in Tariff system (see the report which I wrote for Friends of the Earth), or also the GPAM proposal. The GPAM proposal, still supported by some Lords in their amendments would work in the context of the CfD system and would be a more efficient system of making the renewables programme work under a 'CfD' system. See http://www.cornwallenergy.com/Latest-news/Blog/Energy-Bill-amendments-give-green-generators-cause-for-optimism
However big electricity suppliers may not like this (GPAM) system since they have very little opportunity to extract premiums from the PPAs which would have to bought and sold on a competitive 'auction' basis. This is just like the Government used to sell old 1990s renewable energy contracts to its own Renewables Obligation to raise money for the Treasury (via the Non-Fossil Purchasing Agency) rather than give money away to the electricity suppliers.  But now the Government appears to have caved in to the demands of the electricity majors and given them a system that they want rather than one which would allow independent generators to build more projects for the same cost to the consumer.

In many ways this is something of a return to the inefficiencies of the Renewables Obligation, wherein in order to obtain a long term power purchase agreement, independent developers have to give away part of the value of the renewable obligation certificates (ROCs) to the electricity suppliers.

In fact independent developers are becoming increasingly important and in the future are tipped to develop the bulk of renewable energy. This is because the major electricity companies are very short of money to invest in equity, and so will leave it to others to invest in new projects as much as possible. With the 'Backstop PPA' the electricity majors can earn lots of money out of the renewables programme without having to invest anything!

Davey denies offering EDF a nuclear blank cheque

Energy and Climate Change Secretary of State Ed Davey has denied that the Government is offering EDF a blank cheque for Hinkley C nuclear power plant. He is reported in the Guardian as putting his reputation on the line (' a personal test'), saying that "I am determined that the consumer or the taxpayer will not bear the risk of construction over-runs. Nuclear will get no preference in comparison with other low-carbon technologies."

 Now the first part of the sentence is more important than the second, assuming the Government does stick to that position, because the Government appears not to be keeping to the second part. Nuclear power is being offered much more favourable terms compared to renewables since nuclear, according to the same (Guardian) article, is being offered a 35 year contract for premium prices. Moreover, the Treasury announced ten days ago that EDF would be offered £10 billion worth of loan guarantees. Meanwhile contracts offered to renewable generators are only to last for 15 years, a reduction compared to the Renewables Obligation where the premium prices last for 20 years. And of course, renewables have not been offered £10 billion of loan guarantees! See

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jul/05/davey-minister-nuclear-power-hinkley-point

 But that still leaves the point that the Government still says that it will not underwrite EDF's construction costs. That is very significant and barring some incredibly high 'strike' price, is enough to stop the project. Why? Well, nuclear power is so very uneconomic partly because of the tremendous uncertainty over how much the plant will cost and how long it will take investors to get their money back. So the city will downgrade any investment that is dependent on hopeful cost estimates for construction costs. That is why 'underwriting' is so important for new nuclear power. It seems the Government has not offered (yet) to guarantee to pay for any construction costs overruns. Barring some national French Government priority being made for Hinkley C (that seems unlikely) investing in Hinkley C looks like a very unattractive prospect for EDF unless the construction costs are underwritten. This is in addition to being offered a higher strike price than the Government are apparently considering. The gap between the £10 billion offered by the Government and the £14 billion (or more??) that the project is set to cost according to EDF has to be filled by somebody, and banks will not do it without guarantees. Other sources of capital will not lend their money without very big profits being assured, and no assurances are on offer even if the prices offered by Government were good enough.

The strike price is another issue, with Hinkley C being unattractive at less than around £100 per MWh even with the 35 year contract and £10 billion worth of loan guarantees. The Treasury has been talking about around £80 per MWh. There is more to come as well. Renewable generators have been offered a deal based on the 'consumer price index' (CPI) being used to uprate the contract-for-differences (CfD) strike price which (as discussed in a recent blog post) is inferior to the retail price index (RPI). This matters to EDF since its future income stream would be much less using CPI as an inflation adjustment as opposed to using RPI.

 All in all, Hinkley C looks, on the basis of the Government policy, to be an unattractive investment. That is not because the Government are giving preference to renewables - quite the contrary since nuclear is being offered a better deal on key issues - but it is a measure of just how uneconomic nuclear power is. Indeed, some people are even calling for electricity to be part re-nationalised so that we can have nuclear power. See http://www.utilityweek.co.uk/news/news_story.asp?id=198843&title=Come+back+CEGB

Given that the UK is so firm on the notion that liberalised, privatised markets are the best way to achieve best value for the consumer in industries like electricity, why is it suggested that state ownership is the way forward for nuclear power? Could it be precisely because nuclear power does not represent good value for the consumer?

 You would think that no other country in the world could get by without building more nuclear power stations! Why do some British people think we need them so bad? Maybe it is a feeling for the old times - after all, the UK was the last country to phase out steam engines from mainline railways!
 I respect Ed Davey for announcing his refusal to budge as a personal test, but the Government has already shifted its ground so much towards offering nuclear power better terms than renewables, that Ed had better watch out before he risks getting a lot of egg on his chin. After the Lib Dems debacle over tuition fees, anyway, their credibility on sticking to cast iron commitments is not exactly riding high!
 But the point is that if Ed is telling us the truth, and he’s not going to budge, why not give the loan guarantees to renewable schemes.....tidal stream and offshore wind projects could do with that £10 billion, and we would get more renewables going as a result.