The Magazine: Energy

Coal in Swansea Bay

January 2012

The Department of Energy and Climate Change has issued 18 conditional licences for the extraction of gas from coal measures. One of the lucky licence holders is Clean Coal Ltd and their patch is Swansea Bay and the Burry Estuary. The plan has met with support from the WG and from some Swansea Counsellors. Cllr Darren Price said members of the public would welcome potential job creation, adding “From a personal point of view, I want to see a lot more research and analysis in terms of the process and any potential negative impact environmentally."

So what is happening here?

This is not fracking (hydraulic fracturing), the process that some think causes minor earthquakes and pollutes ground water. These licences are for underground coal gasification (UGC), first proposed in 1868, supported by V I Lenin’s Pravda article of 1913 "Great Victory of Technology" and put into practice in the Donets Basin, Ukraine, by J Stalin. There is nothing new about UGC. It rears its head whenever energy prices are high.

How it works

Sink two narrow bore holes down to the coal measure. That’s relatively easy. Then drill a horizontal bore between them. That used to be impossible but directional drilling is now an everyday technology. Pump air down one bore hole, ignite the coal underground. Regulate the supply of air so as to get incomplete combustion just like making old fashioned town gas. Collect the gas at the second bore hole. That’s it. Off you go, try it in the back garden.
There are no miners; nobody risks their lives down the pit.

Off-shore coal

The licence to Clean Coal covers the off-shore measures in Swansea Bay (stand at Mayals Road and look to Porthcawl, everything on your left is the coal measure) and the Burry Estuary (all of it). The work is under water. We can speculate that there will be drilling platforms while the bores are sunk and permanent, smaller, extraction platforms after that. We are a long way from having the details. I am betting that the Swansea Bay gas is landed at Baglin to feed the present gas turbine electric plant and the one that will be joining it shortly. They both run on gas anyway.

There isn’t an obvious land fall for the Burry production.
This is shallow water, the chart seldom shows more than 15m, a drop in the ocean to men raised on North Sea rigs.

How green is this?

Not very. The gas is pretty much the same as the smelly stuff our Victorian forefathers made. The gas starts out as non-green. It contains around 20% carbon dioxide because coal must be burned to create the necessary temperature. That’s unavoidable. The natural gas that feeds our power stations contains virtually no CO₂. Developers say they will remove the CO₂ but they always say that. The world is hungry for carbon capture but you can’t buy it off the shelf. There are plenty of experiments but few working examples. Just like Victorian town gas, UGC contains about 5% carbon monoxide which is toxic. That’s why they added the foul smell. Clean Coal may avoid that, we have better ways to sniff carbon dioxide

So why extract dirty gas?

Our best non-nuclear fuel for power stations is (imported) natural gas. And that is just the point. Foreigners can’t shut off our supply of UGC gas or hold us to ransom. It’s Welsh coal producing Welsh electricity and nothing to do with the turbulent Middle East. Give UGC marks for security.

Long term effects

Most extractive industries cause subsidence. UGC is bad at this because nearly all the coal is burned and there are no pit props. Offshore this has little effect. The sea bed sinks a bit. The burn creates all the usual coal nasties: phenols and benzene. These can leach into the aquifers. Swansea water comes from high reservoirs not artesian wells so we are less vulnerable. Expect the Green lobby to probe all this when the project comes to planning.

Documents:

Chart of Swansea Bay
Background paper from UCG Partnership... includes map

Tidal Barrage

January 2012

The Severn Barrage is one of those projects that refuse to lie down and die. Scrapped by Energy Secretary Chris Huhne last October, it popped up its head again as a plan from construction consortium Corlan Hafren, major partners Halcrow. The Department for Energy said “This is an interesting proposition, particularly if it can contribute to 2020 renewables targets”.

This plan is quite different to anything from RWE/Atlantic Array: it actually takes into account the needs of people in Wales and Devon. It vision is quite startling. The barrage generates electricity but that’s only the start. It also creates new, deep water docks at Port Talbot to take ships that would otherwise go to Tibury and Europort. It builds a motorway and rail link across the barrier to tie together the economies of the Mor Hafren in a way that will undoubtedly benefit them. And most of its £34bn cost will end up in the wage packets of local workers with knock-on effects to all our communities. Its goal is to improve our sad little Welsh economy, three cheers for that. Read the proposal on our web site. You will be impressed. When you read the RWE plan you are just insulted.

Will this ever happen?

It might. The big difference is that Corlan Hafren says it has private finance on hand, at least for the main project. They will want a hand with motorways and rail links, which sounds fair enough. All previous plans have fallen on the financing hurdle. This one might work.

Tidal range

To create energy from the tides you need a large tidal range. Nova Scotia has the highest ranges at 35 ft and more but the Mor Havren is an impressive second at 28 ft. It is a natural advantage we have. The 1987 “Shoots” proposal was for a barrage just upstream of the second Severn Crossing. It would have been relatively cheap but could generate only 2.8 TWh. Subsequent plans moved downstream where the channel is wider to generate 17 TWh. Wide is good. The present plan is to construct a 10 mile barrage between Lavernock Point, Cardiff and Brean Down, Somerset and to generate 16 TWh of electricity a year. That’s about three times the likely output of Atlantic Array.

High quality energy

Tidal power is of higher quality than wind power. Tides ebb and flow in a way that is predictable. You know in advance when power will be generated (during ebb and flow) and when it will not (at slack water, twice daily). You don’t need conventional power plants running for days at an expensive, polluting tick over just waiting for the unpredictable wind to drop. They will know when to kick in.

What about the birds?

Wild life enthusiasts have always opposed a barrage because it might remove the tidal mud flats on which waders feed. No doubt this battle will be joined again. Others have pointed out that there will still be a tide upstream of the barrage, that it is not a dam. Recent work has shown that the quality of feeding on the Severn flats is very poor because the water is turbid and does not support much food. You only have to drive across the bridge to see that. A reduced tidal range would reduce turbidity and could actually increase the quality and quantity of feeding.

You only have to drive across the bridge to see that. A reduced tidal range would reduce turbidity and could actually increase the quality and quantity of feeding.

The Rance

The amount of electricity generated from tidal power is disappointingly small. The earliest of the tidal schemes is on the estuary of the Rance near St Malo, commissioned in 1966. It demonstrates the longevity of tidal barrages, thought to be about 200 years compared to 20 years for a wind turbine. It is very pretty to cycle across and has certainly not devastated the upstream estuary. Most locals think it has improved things, they run a delightful bar. Although the tidal range here is nearly as good as the Severn, the Rance power station generates a puny 0.6 TWh, largely because it is only a mile wide. If you want a lot of power for little money, get a gas turbine. Tidal power is not in the muscle league, but it does last. There are no projects built or under construction anywhere near the scale of the Corlan Hafren plan, anywhere in the world. It’s new territory.

More than energy

Corlan Hafren and Halcrow know that they are not going to get rich on the electricity alone. They need to make the barrage work as a bridge as well. They claim to have a “vision” here. St Paul had a vision on the road to Damascus. If you or I went to Scurlage Surgery complaining of “visions” our kindly doctors would recommend us to a psychiatrist, possibly with some speed. So what is the Corlan Hafren idea? If all the communities of the Mor Hafren – Bristol, Cardiff, Swansea, North Devon – were joined together with the equivalent of the M25, they would constitute an economic zone of about 3.3m people. They would be able to compete with London, Birmingham and Manchester in a way that is impossible for them today. That makes sound sense. To achieve this we might have to join with the English and see ourselves as the people of the Mor Hafren. You will see that this is not just about tidal power. It is not just about renewable energy. It is about a new future for South West Britain.

Documents:

Corlan Hafren's "Vision"

Atlantic Array: It’s all about taxes

January 2012 No sane investor would contemplate investing £5 billion in the middle of the Bristol Channel with huge engineering risks to produce electricity at double the going cost. Not without the magic of taxes. Here are the main ones in Britain, actual and proposed.

Emissions Trading System (Europe, since 2004)

Electricity generators, steel works and other emitters of carbon dioxide are issued with certificates, the number of which declines over time. If they have been prudent, they may have some over. They can sell these to other concerns who have used more carbon that planned. It is the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. The certificates are trading low at the moment, a consequence of recession. In 2011 a team of cyber hackers stole €28 million of certificates. At least they believe there is profit in the system.

Renewable obligations (UK, since 2002)

Green electricity suppliers receive certificates for their production, dirty suppliers have to buy to cover their shortfall. In 2010/11 this came to a tidy £335 million. This biggest beneficiary was SSE (was Scottish and Southern Energy, includes SWALEC) but those lovely oligarchs at Gazprom also had a tickle. At least this Ofgem scheme does something if it’s only to increase electricity prices for everyone. Did you know you were paying this tax by another name?

Climate Change Levy (UK, since 2001)

This is the most pointless of the lot: a straight tax of 0.509p (about 5%) on dirty electricity, payable by businesses. The Treasury say they use it to keep National Insurance down. It will probably be dropped in favour of....

Carbon Floor Price (UK, 2013?)

In this brilliant bit of thinking we tax people who are bright enough to buy fuel at below a pre-set limit.

No advocate of a free market should ever consent to such a ludicrous idea. It is as though you could only buy oil and gas and coal from the Government acting as a monopoly, an idea worthy of the late Joseph Stalin. The fine for having the temerity to safeguard your business goes to the Treasury, that pit from which nothing escapes. It makes wind farms more competitive at the expense of wreaking destruction on the presently reviving coal industry in Wales on a scale undreamt of by Margaret Thatcher. Efficient production rewards only the tax man. It should be opposed.

Feed-in Tariff with Contract for Difference (CfD) (UK, traditional)

This is the sly way in which we give nuclear stations a preferential rate wrapped up in a long term agreement so ordinary people don’t know that it’s there. This may be extended to wind farms as well.

What it adds up to

The effect of these taxes and quasi taxes is to increase you fuel bills, that much must be clear to all. They will also encourage the building of power infrastructure which could never compete in an open market. Labour and now the Coalition have all connived at this and none of them have been clear about how you are paying and how a high energy cost is a body blow to a flagging economy.

And you probably don’t want the world’s biggest wind farm as your neighbour either. It might be the least of your troubles.

Atlantic Array

November 2011 Atlantic Array is a proposal for a massive wind farm in the Mor Havren between Rhossili and Lundy. It will probably be the world’s largest, at least for a few years. It will be very visible. We sketch in some of the background to this £5 billion venture. We have chosen to use the Welsh “Mor Havren” (Severn Sea) rather than the English “Bristol Channel” throughout this article to emphasise the fact that a wind farm in our waters generates no power for Wales, it is as though we did not exist.

Who wants to build this?

RWE npower is a subsidiary of the German electric power and natural gas public utility company RWE AG based in Essen, previously Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk AG. In 2008, npower faced allegations over the conduct of its door-to-door salespeople. It was eventually fined £1.8million by the UK energy regulator Ofgem. Npower have also been criticised for their customer service, having been rated the lowest of all energy suppliers in the Which? Switch 2010 customer satisfaction survey.

Who gets the electricity?

The power will be landed in Devon. It will not contribute to Welsh energy. For a decade South Wales has been a net importer of electricity which adds to bills. Atlantic Array will not help but the new gas turbine station at Pembroke will. The maximum capacity of the wind farm is 1,500 MW but it will run at much less that this in light winds and storms. Pembroke will produce 2,000 MW whenever needed.

Will I be able to see the turbines? Or hear them?

You should have a lovely view from Cefn Bryn. The wind farm will be 12 miles away and the size of the Isle of Wight. You won’t need binoculars. The top of the rotors will be about 600ft high (Cefn Bryn is 617ft) so you will see Lundy (466ft) through them. The precise height will vary according to the turbines selected. They may exceed this estimate. Generally, the higher the tower, the better the performance. You will also get spectacular views from the Worm and from Llangennith beach. For our analysis of likely noise go here.

How many turbines will there be?

Again, this depends on the choices made in designing the wind farm. Think of 400, can you picture that? If you can’t sleep, try counting them.

Will I get cheaper electricity?

Not a chance. This costs £5 billion and will be lucky to generate 500MW on average. Pembroke B costs 1/6 of that and will reliably generate 4 times as much. It may come as surprise that RWE are planning to build both Pembroke B (fabulous value for money) and Atlantic Array (ludicrous). Surely this can’t make financial sense? What RWE are relying on is not the wind but the subsidies which you cough up as taxpayer and energy user. Without this subsidy Atlantic Array could never be considered.

What does power really cost?

This data comes from US Government figures. If an amount of electricity from a coal fired station cost £1, this is what it costs from newer plant:

Source	Cost of power	CO₂
Coal	£1.00	100%
CCGT	70p	44%
Wind – onshore	£1.02	1%
Nuclear	£1.20	7%
Wind – offshore	£2.57	1%

These figures include capital, fuel and operating costs but not subsidies. The consumer and the taxpayer pay the difference so that all the more expensive forms of energy can compete. Some people think these subsidies are getting out of hand. The Scottish Government has reduced onshore wind subsidies and many developers have withdrawn their planning applications.

Will the towers harm wild life?

There has been talk of birds crashing into rotors but there is little evidence to support this. Clearly the construction phase will disturb the sea floor, the towers need to be deeply bedded. There is concern that dolphins will be affected by all the noise which will travel a long distance through the water. Commercial fishing will be banned within the wind farm.

Are there alternatives?

When Pembroke B goes on stream South Wales will once again become a net energy exporter and we might hope for lower electricity prices. Scottish & Southern are proposing an additional gas turbine station at Abernedd, Baglan so we will go from energy famine to feast. There is no economic need for Atlantic Array. It is a massive experiment largely at your cost from which you get nothing except a re-styled view from your Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. German shareholders take a different view.

Are there other projects?

Plenty. This is our list of large energy projects looking for planning permission on both sides of Mor Havren

Atlantic Array	Offshore wind	1,500MW
Oldbury, South Gloucs	nuclear 3 x PWR reactors	3,300 MW
Hinkley Point C	nuclear	3,260MW
Avon Severnside	CCGT	950MW
*Pembroke B	CCGT	2,000 MW
*Severn	CCGT commissioned 2011	848 MW
*Abernedd, Baglan	CCGT	450MW

*provides power to Wales

What are these gas turbines (CCGT)?

Gas turbine stations burn natural gas and produce electricity. They are not green –they emit carbon dioxide-but they are much greener than the coal fired plant they replace. They use a better fuel and they are more efficient. They have a very quick start up time (so they can generate when the wind farm is becalmed) and they have a clean exhaust. There is trouble about the Pembroke B design because it discharges waste heat into the estuary which may damage crustaceans. The Severn plant discharges heat into the atmosphere, no one in Newport seems upset about that. The best designs are Combined Cycle Gas Turbine, CCGT. Image the engine from a jumbo jet engine bolted to the ground. It turns a generator and produces electricity. The exhaust gases are at 500°C, more than hot enough to generate steam which goes on to run a steam turbine and another generator. Two bites at the cherry makes the CCGT the most efficient thermal power station by a mile. That efficiency cuts the cost and cuts the carbon footprint.

What about nuclear?

There are no nuclear stations planned on the Wales cost of Mor Havren. That does not mean that the English proposals at Oldbury and Hinkley Point are out of harm’s way and should not concern you. These are new designs, not to be compared to the bogeys of Fukushima Daiichi and Chernobyl.

More modesty, please

The campaigning zeal of wind power developers should recognise the significant achievements of the thermal power producers. The development and deployment of CCGT stations has more than halved CO₂ emissions compared to traditional coal. The adoption of carbon capture technology, already running in some German stations, will cause a further cut to about the level of nuclear but at lower cost and lower catastrophe risk. Since every wind farm requires standby CCGT capacity it is the improvement in the thermal CO₂ emissions that determines the total carbon footprint.

Why can’t the Welsh Government do something?

They don’t have the power. Planning for anything larger than a pint sized 50MW resides in England. There have been plenty of calls to change this, the most recent on 6 September. Conservative Wales Office Minister David Jones said: “There is no compelling evidence to support such a change.”

Can I object to Atlantic Array?

Yes. The project is in the earliest stage with the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC). You should voice your concerns to RWE npower, your Community Council and Swansea Council. If you feel that consultation has been inadequate you may also notify the IPC. Adequate consultation is a key issue. The project is expected to be sent to the IPC in about 12 months. From that time you will be able will be able to register to put your case to the IPC. Caution: The IPC was scrapped by the Coalition Government and will become the Major Infrastructure Planning Unit within the Planning Inspectorate early in 2012. There is plenty of scope for confusion here.

What can I object about?

Most of the people we have talked to are upset –even devastated- by the visual intrusion. But it is one thing to have an eyesore in the next field, quite another to have one 14 miles away. Planning Inspectors brief us that this may be weak grounds. On the other hand the economics are so utterly dependant on subsidy it might be argued that the project is unsustainable. If you don’t want Atlantic Array it is better to object than to keep quiet.

Turbines in the channel

September 2011 WE ARE ALL FOR renewable energy and low-carbon technologies but not at any cost. There are too many wind turbines erected as political statements in wholly inappropriate places. These may never recoup the (non-renewable) energy used in their manufacture. The Atlantic Array falls into different category.

Atlantic Array

The plan is to put 350 wind turbines in the Bristol Channel midway between the Worm and Lundy and have them working by 2016. Be in no doubt, you will be able to see these monsters. They are designed to produce 90% of the domestic electricity consumption of Wales, according to developers RWE-nPower. So will this work? It has a much better chance than most land-based schemes. The wind flows faster over the sea than over the land. The sea is relatively smooth, there are no ploughed fields or trees or mountains to slow it down. The world‘s largest operational off -shore wind farm is at Thanet off the North Foreland, Essex. It started generation in September 2010 with a nominal capacity of 300MW. Atlantic Array is five times the size. This is a big deal.

Made in Wales?

Mostly not. At Thanet only 20% of the construction contract went to British firms. The big cost items are the turbines— but they aren‘t made in Wales. Engineers Mabey Bridge (First Severn Crossing) have a brand new factory at Chepstow dedicated to manufacturing turbine towers, no doubt with a view to Atlantic Array. There will be a good deal of civil engineering to do out in the channel since the towers will be in an average of 150 feet of water, clearly jobs for specialists. Thanet cost nearly £800m so think over £4bn for this one. Even a small amount of that would be a shot in the arm for Wales.

But the power is expected to make landfall at Alverdiscott, Devon because the South Wales transmission system is currently unable to take the load. Welsh ports will have their work cut out to get any trade. Devon is already lobbying hard, we seem to have missed a trick.

Long term jobs for Wales?

Mostly not. Thanet created just 21 permanent jobs, so think in terms of 100 here. The big work is in construction –estimated at 2,000- not the running of the array. If Devon wins the competition for the home port then there will be no obvious Welsh connection and few jobs. The real money will be with Danish engineers Vestas, the largest turbine manufacturers in the world. In second and third place are Sinovel (China) and General Electric (USA). Why is the Welsh Government so quiet on this issue? We should be out pitching for business as Devon is. This is not a time for yet more 'Initiatives', it‘s a time to glad hand the men with the money and promise them whatever they want.

Call the Coastguard

The construction of 250 towers in 150 feet of water in the middle of the Bristol Channel may be expected to create a few dicey moments. It would be reassuring to know that the Coastguards were at hand, in Mumbles not miles away in Pembroke. Happily councillors and AMs are supporting the campaign to keep the Mumbles centre, as are communities in Devon who benefit equally. Any sailor will tell you that fancy navigation toys save work but, when things get rough, knowing the waters counts for everything.
Adam Psmith