Energy Review condemned

Speaking at the British Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual festival in Norwich, Peter Smith – a professor of sustainable energy at the University of Nottingham – said the rate at which atmospheric carbon is being emitted means that the UK has only 10 years to develop new technologies to generate clean electricity before global warming runs out of control.

He said the government’s recent energy review had failed to address the problem and had simply reiterated two long-held assumptions: that wind power should provide 15% of electricity by 2020 and that renewable energy alone could not fill the gap left by decommissioning of nuclear and the demise of fossil-fuel power stations. The solution presented was to build a new generation of nuclear power stations.

“Astonishingly, the review pays hardly any regard to the principle energy asset that this country enjoys: its rivers, estuaries, coastal current and waves,” said Smith. “Huge amounts of energy could be harvested using existing technologies, which could meet the nuclear shortfall several times over.”

Scientific opinion says that there is a ceiling limit of 440 parts per million (ppm) of atmospheric carbon before there is a tipping point, a step change in the rate of global warming. According to Smith, the rate at which we are emitting now, around 2 ppm a year and rising, we could expect that that tipping point will reach us in 20 years’ time. That gives us 10 years to develop technologies that could start to bite into the problem.

•September was on track to become one of the hottest months on record as BSJ went to press. The four hottest months on record have occurred in the past 23 years according to the Met Office – adding to the evidence that Britain is growing significantly warmer.

As well as monitoring air temperature, the Met Office also uses soil temperatures. Temperature readings down to 1 m below the ground surface also show a consistently rising trend in temperatures.