EU Referendum

Forget the scary stories; the UK is indeed a strong country and won't disappear if it leaves the EU. But will the average UK Jo be better off? I don't think so.

My main concerns are:
1. Employment laws; the UK has been working at EU level to weaken employment protection laws. Essentially that means, less rights for workers, more freedom for employers. Thankfully, it hasn't succeeded to do so, but if we were to leave than you can be certain of weakening in employment protection.

2. Immigration; that's a joke really, but an effective one. Having failed huge numbers of its own people by not educating them and helping them get out of benefits the UK economy is in need of immigrants for way too many professions (not least education, healthcare, engineering and technology). Leaving the EU will not change the slightest bit of this. Plus leaving the EU and maintaining a trade agreement with the EU will automatically mean maintaining open borders for EU citizens. Just see Norway and Switzerland for examples. Open borders for trade means open borders for people. Period. Unless anybody thinks they don't need EU trade?

3. Lack of democracy? I know, I know the EU sounds like a bunch of unelected bureaucrats which really sounds undemocratic and we hate it. But is this how things are? I had to go through a couple of books and a lot of news reading to understand how the EU works (I guess there must be an easier YouTube video somewhere?!), but most of EU's decision making power is with people who have been elected. That's not the EU Commissioners (they still have to be approved by the elected EU Parliament) who actually cannot make final decisions by themselves. Commissioners only propose legislation which then has to be agreed by groups of ministers  - for example environment ministers of each EU country will discuss and decide on environment related policies.  

4. Environmental / energy laws
The rest of the world is marching towards renewables. Germany regularly regularly covers 70% of its electricity needs by renewables without polluting. Not saying they are perfect (far from, for many reasons); just saying it is doable and that this is the direction we should be moving to. That is if you (like me) mind breathing polluting emissions and contributing to climate change. Which is the only developed country in the world that removes subsidies for renewables and makes a point out of reducing investment in renewable energy? UK I'm afraid. And similar with employment laws the UK has been lobbying to weaken environmental protection and energy cleaning laws at EU level (sometimes succeeding). Even recently (post VW-scandal) the UK led the opposition to stricter vehicle emissions laws at EU level.

5. Economy
So you can't believe all the world's economists that tell you the UK will be worse off if it were to leave the EU? No IMF? No Bank of England? No way? They must all be lying (unlike Boris)! Like I mentioned in the beginning the UK, won't disappear, it's not about that. But get ready for our pounds to worth significantly less (already feeling the heat). Get ready for more action because of trade tariffs...

6. Corruption Tory style.
I'm not a fanatic of any party but I have been observing politics in this country for almost 10 years. I have been looking even closer to areas I understand well (energy/environment/economy with that order!). A lot of what I see recently makes no sense at all unless they are trying to push for their friends interests for some quick £££. Those that really stand to gain from BREXIT are those who can much easier convince UK ministers than EU wide governance, for their dodgy deals. Local corruption is always easier than wider/broader one.

Finally, yes, the UK is an important country but don't forget that the UK (and every single EU country, including Germany, France etc) is on a fast track to becoming a less important country. Asia is growing on unprecedented rate, that's not just China, that's many more Asian countries. Countries which because of fast population and economic growth rate will sooner or later be very important global players. The UK can see them as yet one more declining empire or as a very strong part of a powerful union. I'd choose the second.

PS: don't get me wrong with all this; I undoubtedly want the EU to change from its current mess to a really powerful union. The potential is there, but it needs nations and leaders that can see the vision to a United States of Europe. I can't believe I just agreed with Clarkson here!

Electricity Supply Security and Decarbonisation for China

Can China decarbonise its economy and if yes what will be the cost for its energy supply security?

We argue that continuous fuel mix shifting towards renewable energy will allow the Chinese electricity sector to improve its supply security while reducing its GHG emissions.

The Chinese economy is very carbon intensive. Substantial improvements in this front brought China from the worst end of the list of countries ranked by carbon intensity, closer to the middle. While the detailed determinants of the Chinese carbon intensity require further investigation it can be said that it is primarily owned to its largely manufacturing driven economy (services can generally be less emissions intensive) and the fact that China uses a highly carbon intensive fuel mix.

Carbon intensity is prevalent in the Chinese electricity sector where the fuel mix is moving from a simple 62% coal; 21% hydro; 17% oil in 1972 (see Figure 1) to a predicted 73% coal; 14% hydro; 7% nuclear; 3% wind; and about 0.5 for solar and biofuels respectively in 2020. (see Figure 2)

Figure 1: Electricity Fuel Mix in China (1972)

As it becomes obvious the role of coal has grown substantially to support China's economic growth. and no despite the record breaking investment in renewable energy, coal will remain the dominant fuel in China until 2020 and beyond.

Similar to several developed countries (USA, UK, Australia, Germany) China has relied on its indigenous coal reserves to fuel its economy. 

Figure 2: Electricity Fuel Mix in China (2020)

This approach reflected a supply security paradigm that focused on control of national resources against imports. While mature economies were forced to abandon this paradigm because of national resource depletion, costs, environmental concerns etc China is just about reaching that point. 

Figure 3: Import Dependence of Chinese Electricity Sector

Inevitably that leads to the current energy security paradigm, that of diversity. As it has been previously pointed out the Chinese persistence on coal is not only harmful for China emissions record but also for its own electricity supply security. We found that coal does not any more support independence of fuel imports since it is partly an imported resource.





China's efforts to reform its coal sector, mainly via shutting down small, inefficient and dangerous coal mines, needs to go further in reducing the impact of the coal pathway dependency.

Figure 4: Shannon Wiener Index (SWI) for Electricity Sector 

Since coal imports are rising (partly driven by record-low international coal prices as the rest of the world moves away from coal) then coal increases electricity sector import dependence (see Figure 3) and at the same time keeps its diversity very low (see Figures 4 and 5). Both HHI and SWI show that the diversity of the Chinese electricity sector is very low. Despite the absence of any absolute thresholds SWI is generally considered to be good when it is near 2 and HHI when it is near 2000. 

Figure 5: Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) for Electricity Sector 

We argue that China should reduce its dependence on coal and increase the presence of other resources in its fuel mix. All fossil fuels and nuclear energy are partially imported in China and while they will improve diversity they will also increase import dependence. However, if China substitutes coal with renewable energy sources then it will benefit both its independence (since renewable energy sources are predominantly indigenous) and its resource diversity.

This article is based on research conducted by Keagan Rubel and Konstantinos Chalvatzis and has been published at the Journal of Technological Forecasting and Social Change. The authors are grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the journal's editors for their constructive and helpful comments.

Is the new road tax a good idea?

The Chancellor's 2015 update budget surprised many, some of us with the new Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) that George Osborne introduced. Even though one has to acknowledge the simplicity of the new rules, this looks more like an oversimplification which will be bad news for the environment. 

Since 2001 the UK has used a Vehicle Excise Duty with a clear objective in encouraging consumers to consider environmental impact of vehicle use into their purchasing decisions. Roughly this looks like this (with minor variations for alternative fuel vehicles): 

Band	CO2 (g/km)	Annual Tax (£)
A	Up to 100	£0
B	101-110	£20
C	111-120	£30
D	121-130	£110
E	131-140	£130
F	141-150	£145
G	151-165	£180
H	166-175	£205
I	176-185	£225
J	186-200	£265
K*	201-225	£290
L	226-255	£490
M	Over 255	£505

This approach worked well in the past but more recently it has received criticism for two reasons. 

Firstly for the fact that it narrows down the environmental impact of vehicle use to the vehicles CO2 emissions ignoring all other relevant pollutants such as NOx, PMs, VOC etc. The focus of this criticism has been that although petrol and diesel vehicles perform similarly (perhaps slightly more favorably for diesels) when it comes to their CO2 emissions, diesel vehicles contribute significantly higher PMs. It is fair to say that new Euro 5 and Euro 6 diesel vehicles have PM filters that capture PMs successfully when they are maintained properly. In addition to that as identified in recent real conditions research diesel engines tend to emit significantly higher NOx emissions in real world traffic. All that means a lot for the UK where 9 urban cities have been named by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for breaching air pollution safety limits for PM10.  

Secondly the previous vehicle tax regime has come under pressure by the Government who realised that already a quarter of new vehicles are not liable for any VED as they fall below the 100g/km threshold. The Government also realised that continuous energy efficiency improvements and wide adoption of hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains will result in a substantial decrease of income. Therefore the new VED (valid 2017 onwards) excludes from any tax only zero emissions vehicles. Everyone assumes that this category refers to electric motor vehicles only, excluding for example plug-in hybrids but I have not seen any clarifications. The Government has previously encouraged plug-in hybrid vehicles by including them in £5000 purchase grant scheme and will continue to do so with the updated scheme post-2015. All non-electric (or non- plug-in hybrids) will pay a flat £140 with cars costing higher than £40,000 paying an extra £310.  

So, is this a change for the better? Will it encourage adoption of low emissions vehicles?

I would have much more preferred to see a new regime only intervening on the tax costs bringing them up by a couple or so bands in order to maintain Governmental income as required. That would have for example introduced a separate zero emissions category (for electric only vehicles) that would pay zero tax and ask for increased tax progressively with higher emissions. A system like that could for example charge ~£60 for a second generation Prius (currently £10 ~ 104g/km); ~£40 for a third generation Prius (currently £0 ~ 89g/km) and £20 for plug-ins (currently £0). This would certainly encourage the hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric segment of the market develop accordingly. At the same time it would encourage combustion engine manufacturers to produce more efficient engines (like they already do very successfully). 

If plug-in hybrids are included in the zero rate then the Government has successfully managed to encourage the zero and nearly zero emissions market segment. However, introducing a flat £140 tax for everything else only looks into Governmental income without advocating any policy or encouraging innovation or lower emissions. Simply put, road tax would be the same for a hybrid mini car that emits 75g/km and a large SUV that emits 200g/km. This is not an environmental friendly policy...

Furthermore, if my assumption is not correct and plug-in hybrids are not included in the £0 band then they will also be treated equally to all other conventional vehicles despite their clear emissions savings. 

Most electric vehicles do not provide a suitable substitute for combustion engine vehicles mainly due to range and cost. This will require several years to change. Despite technological improvements we will not see £15k electric vehicles that can do 300-400 miles at a charge and we will not see fast charging points everywhere in the next 3 years. Even if we were to see these developments followed by a massive uptake of electric vehicles, the electricity generation and supply infrastructure of this country would not be able to cope. 

The Government has rushed into a policy that does not provide the right incentives that are needed today; the incentives that will encourage adoption of lower emissions vehicles and the gradual exclusion of old combustion engines from the market.

TILOS project - Horizon 2020

Very proud to be part of this ambitious and promising research bid with a truly unrivalled consortium! 

A second dash for gas in the UK?

Most people are aware of the UK's "dash for gas" of the 90s. While controversial, mainly with the loss of jobs in the broader coal sector it has offered the country some reasonable benefits; namely in reducing electricity sector emissions and modernising the electricity sector overall. Some may even go as far to argue that it "liberated" the country from a heavily unionised mining sector that was deemed to be a serious threat to power supply security.

More recently, there has been a somewhat global interest for a new dash for gas. That has been mainly fuelled by the US success in accessing previously considered as unconventional gas reserves. What is known to most, as fracking (or hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling technologies) has been credited for lowering gas prices in the US, making the country the largest gas producer and sparking hopes of complete US energy independence in the foreseeable future. Sounds too good?

In the UK, the Coalition Government has been keen to revive the country's dash for gas era and at the same time replicate at least some of the successes of the US experience with shale gas. In this post I will just list a few of the related policies that demonstrate the Government's gas bias.

Shale gas
It does not take much to understand that this Government really wants to promote shale gas in the UK. Chancellor George Osborne puts together the "most attractive tax breaks in the world" for the shale gas industry, while cutting subsidies for the most promising of renewables. If case you had any, David Cameron should have left no doubt about the Government's intentions when he took the case for shale gas on his shoulders. Since the UK's population density was seen as one of the main obstacles in developing shale gas the Government decided to find a solution. How? by allowing drilling companies right of access underneath your house, for as a long as drilling is at least 300m deep. A target easily attainable by the shale gas industry.

You may have thought that's about enough support for the shale gas industry, but the UK Government did not think so. Imagine (and it's not hard to) that some shale gas drilling operations fail and causes widespread environmental pollution. It has happened in the US and it can happen in the UK. The small drilling companies will easily go bust and then it's going to be the British taxpayer paying for the environmental disasters. This is not a very good incentive for drilling companies to improve their safety record me thinks... Discussing the shale gas case is not the focus of this post; that is a topic I will return to quite soon. However, the Government's support for shale gas is quite clear.

Gas-fired power stations
It is true that as far as fossil fuel-fired power generation goes, Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGT) are the most environmentally friendly option we have. It can be argued that we also have Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS), but its commercialisation may be decades away. In the meanwhile the UK power sector requires £110bn of investment to substitute its old coal and nuclear power stations.

The Government's preference is, again, with gas. The expectation is that new power stations will be allowed to emit up to 450gCO₂/kWh; a target which is easily achievable by CCGT systems. Any gas power stations will be exempt from potential new targets until 2045. In the meanwhile, planning for decarbonising the UK economy by 80% until 2050 show that the electricity sector should be largely decarbonised by 2030. All that when reducing subsidies for onshore wind and solar energy. The result will be to lock-in the UK economy in expensive, gas-fired power generation and gas imports.  

Capacity market
Faced with a capacity crunch, the Government decided to create a capacity market.This market should ideally incentivise power stations to meet peak-power demand when needed. Because of their flexibility, a significant segment of this market will be met by open cycle gas turbines (most often these are different than the CCGT power stations). However, the demand-side response (DSR) systems can also play a very important role. Their contribution is well recognised and used in the US and elsewhere. Demand-side response systems offer an aggregated service to the grid which means that they interrupt certain eligible loads (consumptions) when the grid cannot cope with the demand. This service has widespread environment and financial benefits and is a first steps towards a smart-grid.

Even though the Government decided to allow DSR providers to enter the capacity market it also made sure to put them in a disadvantage by allowing them to bid for only one year contracts (instead of up to 15 years for gas-fired providers). As a result they are losing out in providing competitive prices and securing long-term income. It has also forced them to either take part in the capacity market now (Transitional Arrangements) or in the enduring market (from 2018 onwards).

One more way to make sure we are locked-in to an expensive and imported gas-fired future...