More Carbon Reduction, More Premature Deaths?
The Paris climate talks meeting is convening on Monday 30th November to a background of coincidentally-timed scare stories, dutifully carried by the BBC and generated, as usual, by the University of East Anglia and the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation. The aim, as ever, will be to establish binding agreements between countries to reduce carbon emissions by setting ever lower targets. The fact that some of the main producers of carbon dioxide will not be party to any agreement to significantly reduce their levels, means that such agreements may well be largely symbolic. After all, with just five countries, China, the USA, India, Russia and Japan contributing over 60% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, it clearly indicates where the main efforts of the conference should be targeted. Although some of the steam (interestingly a greenhouse gas) may well be running out of the campaign to convince us all that man is responsible for global warming, it could always be pointed out that it would be a better world anyway if most of our energy came from renewables. However, it all depends on how a better world is defined, and for whom. But to attain this goal at the current rate is by no means a benign exercise.
The UK Office of National Statistics defines the term “excess deaths” as the number of deaths during December to March above the preceding and following three months. It indicates the effect of the coldest months of the year on mortality rates. It was disturbing to hear this week that the excess deaths due to cold-related illnesses for 2014 were the highest recorded since 1999, at an estimated 43,900 and well up on the previous year which was less than 20,000.
Clearly something that could perhaps have reduced such illnesses and deaths, such as adequate heating, may well have been too expensive for some. Last year, 2014, saw the highest rise in “green taxes” from where the subsidies for renewable energy – wind and solar farms – reached a massive £3 billion. These subsidies pushed up energy bills even when oil prices were dropping like the proverbial stone for the last 5 months of the year. In the words of the chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, Jonathan Isaby, “Our myriad green taxes push up energy bills for hard-pressed families and pensioners across the country at a time when we can ill afford it”.
The reason that wind farms need to be subsidised is because they are wholly uneconomic. As can be seen from the graph above, the electricity from onshore wind farms costs about four times as much as from coal, gas and nuclear, and that from offshore wind farms costs five times as much. In 2013, the UK taxpayer subsidy paid for wind farms was £95 per megawatt- hour. But almost as worrying was the fact that the UK’s subsidy cost 30% more than the international average of £70.
It gets worse. There’s another subsidy that’s rarely spoken about. The time when the energy requirement for heating is at its highest is during winter periods of high pressure, when the temperature is at its lowest. Unfortunately these periods are when the wind is least active. During these periods the rest of the energy sector (the non-renewables) then has to make up the shortfall. Extended periods of high pressure would result in power cuts. This situation would be greatly exacerbated with a larger proportion of renewables, so beware the Paris talks. In order to overcome the energy deficiency during winter periods of high pressure, National Grid has instigated a link-up by computer with the diesel generators used, for example, by factories, hospitals and other government institutions, to control and feed any unrequired electricity into the national grid. The generator owners are being offered such generous subsidies that others are seizing the opportunity to make businesses out of establishing mini power stations using diesel generators located across the country. At a time when the pollution from diesel engines is under scrutiny, let alone the carbon emissions, it might make more sense, even environmentally, to have a couple of the current, nearly life-expired coal-fired power stations upgraded and put under care and maintenance as likely a more worthwhile and cheaper contingency.
To put things into perspective, the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions are less than 5% of China’s, 9% of the USA’s, 30% of Japan’s and about half of Germany’s. The whole of the industrialised EEC contributes only about 10% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Considering how insignificant the UK’s contribution to this output is, it’s truly amazing how the government and many in the UK have been seduced by an unproven theory perpetuated mainly by those who benefit greatly from it. The solution that the adherents of man-made climate change forcefully urge, taxation subsidising renewable energy sources to reduce carbon dioxide, could be regarded as being at the cost of the health and welfare – and even the lives – of some of our most vulnerable citizens. The responsibility and priority of any government should be towards its citizens and not to some sacrificial and vague notion of planetary altruism.
