1. A World Problem

Is our industrial civilisation changing the climate of the world?

It has been known for well over a hundred years that putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere changes the rate at which heat can pass through it. Incoming infrared radiation from the sun is not affected. The heat reflected off the earth going outward is hindered, so the surface temperature rises.

In more recent years other gases are also having this effect: the freon compounds of fluorine, chlorine and carbon are more powerful than carbon dioxide, and methane from agricultural practices, and leakages from natural gas supplies is also effective. Methane is also released from Tundra as it melts.

 Are these in fact changing the climate?

The Inter-governmental panel on climate change (IPCC), a UN appointed panel of the world's climate scientists, believes the evidence is that these gases are affecting the world's climate. Its reports can be found on the Web. (see this page.

 There are a small number of dissidents - scientists who disagree - but their credentials all too often seem to be compromised by the fact that their money can be traced to industries which do not wish to believe that change is occurring. They are also associated with the fanatical free market rightwing political bodies in the United States. These well-funded dissidents tend to blame all the changes now being observed on non-human agencies, such as changes in the solar output, or in some cases deny that the observed changes are occurring, or claim that the changes are real but not harmful.

A recent high profile opponent, Bjorn Lomberg, turns out to be an American-trained economist rather than a scientist. We may need to ask ourselves whether we should trust scientists whose life's work is studying the world's climate, rather than economists whose study is human behaviour, and are often proved fallible. We may also wonder where the money comes from that fuels the dissidents' campaign, and what is the purpose of those paying it. While it is true that there have been climate changes in the past resulting from non-human causes - the little ice age that caused the union of Scotland and England is a good example - the evidence produced by the IPCC very strongly suggests (1) that at present human activities are the larger part of the influence.

 The change in the transparency to outgoing heat of the atmosphere has a very complex effect on the climates of every world region, possibly including a drastic cooling (2) of western Europe, rises in sea level, greening of some deserts and drying of some agricultural areas, such as the grain growing areas of the United States. Increased intensity and frequency of hurricanes is a likely outcome. The El Nino effect seems to be happening more often and more intensely.

These changes would be very disruptive of the human social order, as our present economic and political arrangements have grown up during a particular type of climate. (It is a wild exaggeration to say that the earth itself is in danger, though the change is occurring rather fast and many species might be lost during the change). Some islands are likely to be submerged. River deltas such as Egypt and Bangladesh are also at risk. This could cause millions of people to be made homeless.

 2. What can be done
The IPCC says there needs to be a drastic cut (60%) in the output of the industrial gases that are causing the problem. The aim would be to get the atmosphere back to the composition it had before industry began to burn coal in the 18th century. Even if we stopped using oil and coal altogether right now it is not clear how long it would take for this to occur - probably several centuries.

To do this we would have to use less oil and coal to power the mechanical needs of our civilisation. At this point those who are afraid of change say they believe we would have to go back to the preindustrial state. Clearly this is impossible, as the current world's population could not be sustained using horses and sailing ships without mechanical transport. At present this fear is the dominant factor in policy, and clearly influences the current ruling group in the United States, composed as it is of representatives of the oil and coal industries.

There are other sources of energy some of which have been used for much of human history. These are the energy sources derived from the energy of the sun.

The solar-derived energies are:

• direct heat from the sun
• electricity from sunlight
• wind
• wave motion in water
• energy from green plants (even now firewood is a major source of cooking energy in much of the world.)
• OTEC (see below)

(I will say nothing about nuclear energy which has too many problems to be worth expanding, and is too expensive anyway.)

Tidal motion of the sea and geothermal heat are also sources of energy that can be used.

I am sure we could. However, one source of the fear is that probably we won't be able to do all the things we do now in exactly the same way. Change is needed. People who are attached to the 'right' to ride around in vehicles as large as they wish as fast as they wish may find that they can't. Many people find this thought unsettling, to say the least. The cure might be to emphasise that changes will come gradually, much as the changes that brought us to where we are now.

Another factor of course is that oil reserves must have a finite limit. Some proponents of oil claim that discoveries are still being made, although others say the rate of new discoveries is much lower than it used to be, which means exhaustion is in sight. If oil is limited then the transition to a solar economy will be forced on us for that reason. http://sepwww.stanford.edu/sep/jon/world-oil.html

However, Peak Oil postponed George Monbiot thinks everyone was wrong about "Peak Oil". So much unconventional oil has been found that supply is going to increase for the foreseeable future and the price to come down. So, if we have been relying on higher oil prices to encourage or force solar energy soon we will be disappointed.

 3. Removing the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

A former member of the IPCC, Professor Emeritus Richard Grantham(3) of the Université Claude Bernard in Lyon, has proposed that a new industry of growing algae on a very large scale and making long lasting plastics from the algae could absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The plastics would be used for construction and thus would remain as a store of carbon to replace the stores now found in the coal fields and oil deposits. I don't know if this has been costed. The hydroponic production of spirulina might take place in the western Sahara, with desalinated water from an OTEC plant.

I mention it because this represents a more realistic way of reducing the carbon content of the atmosphere than the proposal to plant more trees - which is not actually very practical or effective. Planting trees is not effective because eventually the wood is burned or decays, releasing the carbon.

Prof. Grantham has also suggested some types of emergency engineering on a large scale that might be useful. This would include filling certain depressions in the Sahara with water to mitigate the rise in sea level. (This could happen without engineering if rainfall increases in the Sahara area, as some models predict).

(3) Spirulina Grantham, Richard. Seeking a biological solution for the greenhouse dilemma. Institut d'Evolution Moleculaire, Univ. Claude Bernard Lyon. Villeurbanne cedex, France, 1988.

 4. Things we could do

We need to replace carbon-emitting energy sources for as many of our everyday needs as we can. I propose that people start by doing what they can, as the apparatus to do it becomes available.

Right now everyone could do a number of things to be effective on a small scale. If every household in Britain did them it would make a measurable difference.

 1) energy efficiency
- use more efficient ways of electric lighting. All lights that are used continuously for long periods should be the most efficient available, until recently compact fluorescent. Lights that are switched on, used for short periods and then switched off frequently should continue to be incandescent. New types of very low energy lights, Light Emitting Diodes, are going to be on the market soon.

- the main use of electricity in most houses is the refrigerator. New ones should be more efficient than older ones, and the energy usage is displayed in the shop, by European regulation. John Lewis has a policy of offering the most efficient in the A band. Solar power users pay more and buy even more efficient types. Lovins, Lovins and Weizsaecker say that further increases in efficiency are still possible.

- cooking and heating water by gas rather than electricity. Burning gas directly is a more efficient way of producing heat than burning gas or coal to produce electricity. The electric kettle may seem more convenient but it emits more carbon dioxide if you consider the losses in transmission and the inefficiency of the power station.

- water heating. For about six months of the year most water heating could be supplied by solar apparatus. At present these are not mass produced on a large scale and are thus more expensive than they could be. If all new houses were required to have them the industry would reduce the price considerably. Even so, it is unlikely that they would pay for themselves in pure monetary terms as the capital cost of retrofitting to an existing house is still high. I paid about £3000 in 2000. In southern England solar water heating is already surprisingly common. (In France it is almost unknown).

(The rather cool and cloudy summer of 2002 showed the limitations of water heating, but 2001 was sunnier and hot water was available on most days between the equinoxes.) 2012 has been an even cloudier period - perhaps the kind of summer we can expect more of as the Climate changes.

 Amory Lovins, Hunter Lovins and Ernst von Weizsaecker in their book Factor 4 showed that saving energy by greater efficiency can be very profitable for industry, and give many examples of how some of the largest corporations have increased their profits by adopting more efficient methods of using energy. This gives the lie to the Wall Street Journal school of thinking that saving energy will cost the industrial world too much to be worth doing - one of the main factors in the hostility of American business to Kyoto.
2) Using solar and wind power to generate electricity.
It is a paradox that in the United States where the government and the ruling group are so hostile to any talk of doing anything about global warming there are an estimated 180,000 households (4) using solar energy for all or most of their needs. This represents a formidable movement of people determined not to wait for government action. Moreover these people support a considerable industry of manufacturers, suppliers and installers and are a large body of people with the knowledge of what solar and wind power can do. As solar electricity is more expensive they are fanatical about reducing energy needs and so support an industry devoted to supplying low power household devices.

(4) According to Home Power magazine. see http://www.homepower.com

In Europe, where many governments have a policy of doing something to combat global climate change, there is nevertheless a much smaller grassroots movement.

I have installed a small photovoltaic system which does some of my lighting most of the year and works the pump of my solar water heating system. I also have a small wind generator.(5) On the rare occasions when there is no mains power I can sit in my house with a light on. I don't yet have enough power to work a refrigerator or desktop computers (but I would have enough to work a laptop, if I had one).

(5) For a supplier try: http://www.windandsun.co.uk

 One can of course buy one's mains electricity from such companies as Good Energy which claim to supply it from wind power. I am still considering this but have in fact switched to the Cooperative.

There are two main ways of using solar electricity.
1) Collecting electricity during the day, storing it in a battery and using the surplus at night;
2) Collecting electricity and selling it to the grid during the day and using electricity from the grid at night. In the US this is called Grid Intertie System.

Both these methods have their advocates. The advantage of the first is that solar power can be used in places where there is no grid, or where grid power is unreliable. Intertie power saves the cost of batteries and lessens the load on the grid, during the day. However, Intertie power needs government regulation to force companies to accept the power at the retail price. In this case all that is needed is a meter that will flow backwards when power is being exported to the grid, and forwards when power is being imported. Some states in the US have it. I am not certain of the regulations in Britain. There are a few houses in Britain with grid intertie systems - promoted by Solar Century.

The British government introduced Feed-in Tarrif in 2010 and then discovered it was so popular that they cut it in half in December 2011.

Government Feed-in Tarrif is now encouraging intertie systems - but it is also encouraging semi-criminal companies.

 3) Transport

Transport is going to be a serious problem in the medium term. Our use of vehicles burning oil products continues to rise, and so does the use of aeroplanes, growing even faster.

The ordinary person can cut the use of oil products by such means as: walking and cycling more for short distances; using public transport wherever possible; using trains instead of air for those journeys where suitable. But so far for the use of cars there is no real alternative to burning oil products. The use of LPG instead of petrol produces fewer local pollutants but the emissions of carbon dioxide remain much the same. Biodiesel - oil derived from plants - does certainly reduce net production of carbon, but so far the production of vegetable oil is not nearly large enough to power the world's vehicles, and could only be achieved at the expense of food or the natural forests. It is possible to burn waste oil from such sources as fish and chip shops, and a few vans tour the world doing it - they can be detected by the kitchen smell of the exhaust.

Electric vehicles are a possible replacement for oil driven cars for local journeys but the manufacturers are slow to put them on the market. (Converting ordinary cars is possible, and in the US some people do it as a hobby) There are disadvantages, too, as they need heavy lead-acid batteries. If the electricity to charge them comes from wind or sun they cut the reliance on carbon derived fuels. Hydrogen and fuel cells may be a more promising technology - quick to recharge, no lead acid batteries needed. Methanol also may be a replacement for other liquid fuels, especially if it is derived from hydrogen. But these latter are not available at all for cars. Buses using compressed natural gas are gradually becoming available, but so far hydrogen buses are only experimental.

 Kyoto agreement

I have little good to say about it. The negotiators had an inadequate sense of urgency and the agreement did not amount to anything that would be effective. The best that could be said is that it was a token gesture pointing in the right direction. I think grassroots action is necessary first. If carbon trading actually occurs, home users of renewables should agitate to obtain carbon credits, instead of letting them sit in the Treasury. What is needed is investment in non-carbon energy sources, the more the better. Would the Kyoto regime assist this? It is hard to say it would.

 A possible future

Many writers have imagined a future not reliant on oil and coal. Primary energy would be from the solar derivatives: photovoltaics, wind generation, wave power, with some tidal power and geothermal. There may well be a role for the biofuels - especially biogas, which I used in Nigeria and Kenya.

Distribution of energy would be largely by means of hydrogen, or methyl alcohol (methanol) produced by reacting hydrogen with carbon dioxide. Those areas of the planet with strong reliable sunlight would tend to have an energy advantage over the cloudier areas. Britain with its wind power would also be an area of good energy.

The hydrogen future will probably first be tested in Iceland where there is a firm government plan (6) to replace imported oil with hydrogen derived from the geothermal power they already use for much of their heating, and the hydro power they use for electricity. Already the government has involved motor manufacturers, oil companies and other major corporations to design and build the infrastructure and vehicles that will be needed. The first vehicles will probably be buses in the next few years. They plan also to convert their fishing fleet.

Hydrogen will be used to power fuel cells which produce electricity directly from hydrogen and the oxygen in air. The only product is water.

Iceland could become a sort of North Atlantic Kuwait of hydrogen power - and could as well export electricity direct to Scandinavia and Britain by undersea cables (feasible now for a decade).

Hydrogen is not yet a suitable technology for home use. Hydrogen generation is still very expensive (it needs exceptionally pure water). Fuel cells are not yet available off the shelf - though may well be quite soon to generate electricity in the home from the gas supply.

The hydrogen future of course implies many changes. Our whole pattern of settlement in low density suburbs assumes the availability of cheap oil and the ability to drive cars as we wish. This aspect of the modern western lifestyle may not be possible. Of course this is why so many people react negatively to thinking about the future. I think the right response is to do what we can as and when the apparatus becomes available, while at the same time agitating for changes in government policy. Some of the changes will occur gradually enough for people to adjust without even noticing it.

(6) Try putting 'Iceland hydrogen' into google or: BBC

Supergrid to link wind and other renewables.