by Damian Kahya
Britain should get fracking, says the Mayor of London in a surprisingly detailed intervention into the UK’s energy policy in the Telegraph on Monday.
We give 10 of his claims the once over in the same good humour as he makes them – albeit with far, far too many numbers.
1) The cost of disposing of their [nuclear] spent fuel rods is put at about £100 billion – more than the value of all the electricity they have produced since the Fifties.
Unproven.
This refers to an article in the Sunday Times which adds up the cost of decommissioning with the cost of nuclear power stations and compares it to the cost of power generated from Nuclear power calculated in today’s prices.
The decommissioning cost is not discounted and the cost in today’s prices may not represent the actual cost. Furthermore Mr Johnson appears to have ignored the construction cost, discussed in the article.
2) A new building like the Shard needs four times as much juice as the entire town of Colchester
False – external source.
The zelo-street blog points to an Independent article in which The Shard’s architect argues the building uses less energy than a town of 8,000. Colchester, it points out, has a population of 104,000.
3) The total contribution of wind power is still only about 0.4 per cent of Britain’s needs.
Unclear.
It’s unclear what units Mr Johnson means here. Does he mean our electricity or energy – which includes, for example, the gas we burn for heating or oil we burn for transport.
In terms of our electricity needs, wind generated 16Twh of power in 2011 compared to total generation of 364.9Twh. That works out at 4.4%. Relatively modest by European standards. The government wants total renewable generation to triple from 9.4% in 2011 to 30% by 2030.
Perhaps the Mayor meant energy. In that case you want to divide wind generation in 2011 by primary demand in that year. By our calculations you get 0.6%, which is closer – but still not 0.4. It’s likely there is a calculation which yields that number for energy – we just don’t have it to hand.
4) We are prevented from putting in a new system of coal-fired power stations, since that would breach our commitments under Kyoto.
False – but we’re being pedantic.
Our commitments under Kyoto don’t specify what we can and can’t build, they relate to emissions. The government has decided to rule out coal new build as one of the ‘least cost’ ways of reducing emissions.
5) We are therefore increasingly and humiliatingly dependent on Vladimir Putin’s gas
False
Figures from UK Trade Info suggest we don’t import any gas at all from Russia.
We do import lots of gas from Qatar which – coincidentally – helped to build the energy guzzling (apparently) Shard.
6) ..Or on the atomic power of the French state.
True
We imported 4.7Twh of (almost certainly) atomic power from the French state. That’s 1.3% of our electricity needs. Some may find even this modest level of imports from France utterly humiliating.
7) There is loads of the stuff [shale gas], apparently – about 1.3 trillion barrels – we could power our toasters and dishwashers for the foreseeable future.
Unproven
Again with the units. Gas, being a gas, doesn’t really come in barrels. Oil comes in barrels. We presume Mr Johnson meant barrels of oil equivalent (BOE).
By our (rough and ready) calculations 1.3 trn BOE of gas works out at 7,293 trn cubic feet of gas, which is, as Boris might put it, oodles more than anyone, anywhere, has estimated for the UK.
8) The extraction process alone would generate tens of thousands of jobs in parts of the country that desperately needs them.
Unproven
Cuadrilla has forecast that it’s operations in the UK could generate 5,600 jobs with around 1,700 of them being in Lancashire over nine years – presumably a ‘part of the country that desperately needs them’.
Shale drilling is also expected to take place in the Mendips and East Sussex where Cuadrilla are prospecting.
Shale in the UK however would generate revenues for the Exchequer and could – if reserves are sufficient – help the UK’s balance of payments as Poyry point out irrespective of what impact it has on jobs or bills.
9) And above all, the burning of gas to generate electricity is much, much cleaner – and produces less CO2 – than burning coal
True – probably
Generating power from gas is about half as polluting as using coal.
However, fracking is slightly more complicated. The process involves repeatedly using high pressure water to break up rocks so the gas is released up the well. However the water used itself returns to the surface still containing large amounts of methane. If this is not captured, but released into the air, it is 21 times more polluting that Co2.
As a consequence of these so-called ‘fugitive emissions’ some studies – including this study of atmospheric data around fracking wells by the US National Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – has found shale to be almost as bad for the climate as coal.
10) As for the anxieties about water poisoning or a murrain on the cattle, there have been 125,000 fracks in the US, and not a single complaint to the Environmental Protection Agency.
False
The US EPA has recieved complaints about shale, like this one. UK regulations would be likely to be tougher than those in the US however, potentially reducing worries about localised environmental impact – according to the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering. Tougher regulation, however, may also drive up some costs.
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Damian Kahya is Greenpeace’s Energydesk editor, and a former foreign, business and energy reporter for the BBC. You can following him on Twitter @damiankahya.
a longer version of this post is here