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Solving the energy puzzle
By DAVID HOWELL
LONDON -- Energy security and politics do not mix well. Energy security requires
huge long-term investment, freedom from political interference and social
tranquillity. Politicians live in the short term, love to interfere and tend to
deliver nasty surprises that economic forecasters usually fail to foresee.
Four vivid examples of this conflict are currently bedeviling the British energy
scene, where the government is trying to piece its ideas together in an
increasingly dangerous world.
First, after years of self-sufficiency Britain is again becoming a major
importer of oil and gas. The North Sea cornucopia is running down fast and the
question now is how much reliance can be placed on safe delivery of these key
fuels from distant and often politically shaky sources.
Second, there is the deeper question of how quickly dependence on both these
fossil fuels can be reduced anyway, given that burning them creates large
volumes of carbon dioxide, which is believed to be heating up the planet and
melting the polar icecaps.
Third, there is the question of civil nuclear power, which emits no carbon
dioxide but has all sorts of other snags. Should more nuclear power stations be
built, how long would that take, can the poisonous radioactive waste be safely
handled and what would be the real long-term cost of nuclear power?
Fourth, there are the apparently benign "renewables" such as wind and wave and
solar power. But these require an expensive new infrastructure, can blight the
landscape and will never produce enough "base-load" power to supply future
electric needs.
So none of these options looks very appetizing, all involve risks and require
enormous expenditure commitments and all face short-term political opposition,
some of it insuperable. Energy planners tend to take refuge in vague assurances
that the future must contain a bit of everything and that diversity of sources
is the best protection. They also argue that big increases in energy efficiency
will somehow reduce energy demand. But this overlooks some awkward facts about
our future thirst for electricity and mobile power, and about the swelling needs
of the developing world for cheap fuel sources, India and China being the
leading examples.
Continuing to import oil, from whatever source, leaves consumers exposed to the
huge price spikes. We are currently experiencing a particularly vicious one. The
main suppliers are politically unreliable, especially big suppliers like Iran,
and the terrorist threat to installations is always present, as the latest
attempt to blow up a key Saudi Arabian oil plant reminds us. Some experts
believe that world oil reserves are running out anyway, and that what remains
will get increasingly expensive to recover.
Pipeline gas also looks tricky. Lately the British have found themselves at the
wrong end of gas supplies from the Continent, where big French and German
distributors give priority to their own domestic customers, starving the
liberalized British market. Nervousness about Russian supplies to Western
Europe, amounting to more than 40 percent of the total, has made the situation
worse.
Anyway, carrying on burning these fossil fuels, at least in the conventional
ways, means rising carbon emissions at a time when they are meant to be falling.
The nuclear option is just as problematic. The industry has made great strides
but popular feeling remains far from reassured. Building new stations would
cause political uproar and anyway take years.
As for the green or "renewable" alternatives, they are bound to be marginal,
high cost and, in the case of both wind farms and hydro-electric schemes,
environmentally aggressive.
So is there a better way out of these energy dilemmas? There may be. The first
modest step could be to shift generally from oil to gas, which burns somewhat
cleaner than oil. And there is a massive amount of gas around, including vast
fields in the Norwegian North Sea, the Arctic, the Arabian Gulf and Algeria.
The escape from gas pipeline dangers could come via importing from these areas
more frozen, ship-transported gas (LNG) and gas converted to diesel. These fuels
still emit carbon, but they are far cleaner and much more flexible than the
pipeline stuff. Japan has been relying on LNG for decades, and this could now be
the emerging pattern in Western Europe as well. Britain is rapidly building new
terminals to receive LNG.
The escape from oil dependence could be further reinforced from a surprising
source, namely coal. But how could that be? Surely coal is the ultimate dirty
fossil fuel. But that was yesterday. Scientists now see ways of filtering out
the poison and burning coal with zero carbon emissions. An alternative is to
burn the coal underground, turning it to gas.
The beauty if this way forward is that there are massive coal deposits in
Britain, in America and in China, all of which could ease the pressure on oil
demand, offer safer homegrown sources of supply and deliver cheaper light and
warmth than almost any of the alternatives.
So a surprising answer to the energy puzzle of the future could still rest on at
least two of the three main fossil fuels -- coal and gas -- but both of them
used in far more advanced, far cleaner and far more economical ways.
Combine this prospect with high-mileage hybrid vehicles, with much more
efficient power grids, with low-energy domestic equipment and with general
common sense in energy consumption and the puzzle begins to unravel. All that
are needed are a few brave, long-term decisions by politicians. Is that too much
to ask?
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