Thames Water I spoke yesterday (Wednesday April 3rd) to Ruth Williams of Utility Week about the probable outcomes of the current debacle at Thames Water. I hypothesised that the financial challenges facing the company were so severe that it would inevitably end up in public ownership. The resulting article is here. I’ll attempt to provide the detailed numbers in this note to justify this view. But first I’ll try to give some background. The context. Yesterday’s Utility Week conversation follows an interview last year when Ruth talked to me about the first attempt by private equity to gain cont ..read more

This week the UK government welcomed the first transatlantic flight by a commercial airliner using 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). Prime Minister Sunak said ‘SAF is primarily made of waste oils and fats. … SAF will be key to decarbonizing aviation.   .. It could create a UK industry with an annual turnover of almost £2.5 billion, which could support over 5000 UK jobs’.[1] Unfortunately, this isn’t correct. Aviation fuel made from waste oil and fats is not zero carbon. Perhaps more importantly, the quantities available for use in the UK and elsewhere are not sufficient to ‘decar ..read more

Almost every week a new report quantifies the investment needs for part of British infrastructure. Without unfailingly consistency, the researchers specify requirements for large numbers of billions of pounds to modernise energy, transport, water supply or similar sectors. Strikingly, these figures are never put into context. We are not told whether the additional capital investment represents a large or a tiny fraction of GNP, nor how they compare to other countries. It’s time to change this. This article is an attempt to pull together some of the estimates contained in the recent analysis fr ..read more

Wholesale electricity prices are lower when the wind is blowing hard. This is true across the year. If the UK installs more turbines, there will be more wind power at all times, tending to further pull down the cost of electricity for all.   How much might electricity consumers benefit if the country added more wind capacity? I looked at the data for the last 12 months and found that just by adding the turbines that are already planned the UK might save over £3bn a year in electricity costs. This calculation is based on the assumption that the relationship over the last year between wind ..read more

Most of the largest European steelmakers are planning for the conversion to the use of hydrogen rather than coal. This article looks at the efforts of Salzgitter, the second largest German manufacturer, to decarbonise its production capacity. The rapidly developing plans involve the construction of ‘direct reduction’ furnaces, electric arc furnaces, the supply of hydrogen and the purchase of higher quality iron ore from Canada. By 2025 Salzgitter intends to have an output of 1.9 million tonnes of steel made using hydrogen. Its total production at the moment is about 7 million tonnes. (World p ..read more

On March 9th, the UK’s Climate Change Committee concluded that the UK could meet its electricity needs in 2035 and 2050 with a mixture of renewables, nuclear and what it calls ‘low-carbon dispatchable generation’, plus a small amount of unabated natural gas.[1] It made its positive assessment by studying typical and extreme weather patterns in the past. It then calculated whether the possible portfolio of wind, solar and nuclear envisaged by government targets would generate sufficient power, if combined with some combination of storage, natural gas with CCS, and hydrogen. The conclusion was t ..read more

People in Denmark living close to a new wind turbine or solar farm receive a yearly payment. In most cases, the amount corresponds to the value of the output of 6.5 kilowatts from the new renewable generator. I think the UK should consider a similar scheme here, but probably more generous - to increase local support for wind and solar power. We need to rapidly unlock the exploitation of the country’s fabulous coastal (and some inland) wind resources. Details of the Danish scheme (full text at bottom of page) ·      Any household living within 8 times the height of a wi ..read more

Decarbonising aviation is perhaps the most difficult challenge facing ‘net zero’. Earlier this week the UK’s Royal Society, its premier scientific research institution, produced a very useful summary of just how demanding the transition away from Jet A fuel is going to be. I thought a precis might be helpful, along with some comments about what I see as potential errors in the report. The Royal Society looked at five leading options ·      The use of biofuels, which resemble jet fuel but are made from organic wastes or foodstuffs ·      Using ..read more

Developing inexpensive capture of CO2 from power stations and other sources is a high priority. So far, progress has been slow at pushing down the cost and increasing the percentage of CO2 that is captured. A recent US study offered a more optimistic future for CCS.[1]  Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory developed a new technique and then did detailed modelling of how much a large scale plant attached to a power station would cost per tonne captured.. Their estimate – around $40 a tonne of CO2 for a coal-fired power station – is probably the lowest figure offered by scie ..read more

The Botley West solar farm will consist of three large areas of photovoltaic panels immediately to the west and north west of Oxford in central England. In total, the proposal envisages a plant of 840 megawatt capacity, making it larger than any solar farm currently operating in Europe.[1] Botley West now has to pass through a complicated and drawn-out approvals process, with a final decision by the UK government not due before 2025. Fields proposed to be used for solar PV in the central part of the development, just south of Blenheim Palace, north-west of Oxford. From the north to the south ..read more