We can and must fix the energy efficiency of our workplaces and dwellings

The use of energy drives our economy - and hitherto it has been both plentiful and cheap. So cheap, in fact, that we could afford to import or extract huge amounts of fossil-derived fuel, waste most of it, and still maintain a price for the resulting energy that was only a fraction of the overall cost of manufacture, and a small part of household budgets. But that is rapidly changing, and changing for good. Energy will be costly from now on, both because mineral fuel will become scarce and sought after on the global markets, and because we have to factor in the carbon cost of all future fuel supplies.

We can react to this future truth through a number of different policy routes. We can, for a short while, stave off the impact of high energy prices by subsidies of one kind or another; but as a long-term policy fix, it simply won't work. The underlying problem is that both our industrial and domestic economies are built on the assumption of cheap supply and high wastage. Holding down prices while throwing - literally - the majority of the fuel we are purchasing out of the window (or up the chimney) must eventually bankrupt the economy such a policy seeks to protect.

Sustainable development must, therefore, be driven by alternative policy assumptions - primarily that we seek to extract every ounce of energy value out of what we do purchase, and that we invest alongside such efforts, in energy sources that will not deplete or become unobtainable through price, namely the free fuel that blows on us, shines on us, and washes back and forth on our beaches.

Of course we cannot just wish renewables into place, and we will need fossil fuel for many years to come. But should we, structurally, turn a blind eye to the 60 per cent of fuel that is wasted in our power stations before one kilowatt of electricity is produced, or for that matter, the 20 per cent that disappears between a power station and its final use in a turbine, a light or a television?

We can, and urgently need to, fix the efficiency of our workplaces and dwellings, both through standards on new build and retrospective re-engineering. We are beginning to make progress in that direction with the adoption of zero carbon building standards for homes - but we need to do it for commercial and industrial buildings as well.

We can - with more difficulty - fix the enormous loss of fuel in energy production by capturing and using the heat that is vented away and instead use it to heat and cool homes and commercial buildings. We should require all new fossil fuel power stations to capture the heat they produce, and provide long-term PFI types of finance to develop heat networks to deliver it. And conversely, we might consider the opposite: incentives for industry to replace existing works boilers with CHP plant. We would not need to build a heat network - it is already there, only it is called a factory. What we would gain, however, is an estimated, effectively free new capacity to supply electricity. DEFRA estimates that, if all major industrial boilers were replaced in this way, the UK would grant itself some six gigawatts of additional electricity generating capacity - or, to put it another way, the output of four new nuclear power stations.

Alan Whitehead is MP for Southampton Test

30 May 2008 12:28

 

Comments

• Posted by Steve on 30 May 2008, 7:00:33 PM

  My god finaly some sane thinking from the Labour Party, unfortunatly I doubt if Gordan will listen

• Posted by Frank Fitzpatrick on 31 May 2008, 1:28:23 AM

  Nice to hear a politician who thinks about our manufacturing base for what ever purpose. Unfortunately the life span of our factories today is far less than the life span of a power plant. Given the knowledge about declining energy/fuel resources I have never understood the race to switch coal powered power stations to fuel oils which as pointed out are inefficient and burn up oil reserves at phenominal rates. Given the rapid rise in house prices over the past decade and the previously experienced rises, why have we not seen a responsible government put in place surcharges on developers, who assist in pushing up prices by matching new builds to those over inflated prices in the moving-on market. These houses were built using lower cost materials as the manufactured product prices never caught up and as the importation of cheaper labour increased. Surcharges could and should be implemented to encourage the incorporation of solar technologies into new builds making it relatively cheap technology with little effect on the build profit. A good proportion of energy generated could be fed back into the grid at peak times and provide hot water when most used. Changing the amount of roof space relecting heat back into the atmosphere which creates altered thermals by absorbing that energy as open ground does. The benefits of such a programme would also have a positive knock on effect on research and development, the purchase prices, increasing diversity in the jobs market and development of new factories. Feeding the wishes of the articles author. Unfortunately the principles established by Thatcherite Britian live on, were greed is the prime mover of UK Ltd. Although nearly all of our energy industry is owned by outside interests. To meet our carbon footprint government actively encourages relocation of our manufacturing base to grossly unregulate, inefficient and polluting country's. Surely defeating the object of any green credentials and there-by hastening the effects on the planet. I for one do not look forward to the time when due to the declining and restricted fuel supplies we see Indian and Chinese shipping powered by nuclear energy, so that they can maintain their rapid growth and expansion plans and we have lost our skills and ability to redevelop.