The paradox of sustainability

One of the obstacles to sustainability can be human nature. Scientists and engineers have a habit of seeing everything as a numbers game. If we reduce the carbon footprint of something by X amount an apply that across the board that will be good….right? Well sometimes not, sometimes such measures can increase pollution by making it easier and cheaper to consume more. We are not factoring in cause and effect.

For example, back during the 80’s it became a bit of trend to install conservatories in houses, either purpose build or retrofitted to existing homes. One of the arguments for this is that by absorbing solar energy in spring and summer, they can reduce the heating bill for the house as well as providing somewhere to grow plants. Similarly, office buildings can use large glazed facades to cut down on heating and lighting costs. And its worth noting that historically, before we had oil fired central heating and electric lighting, many Victorian era homes would have a conservatory for these very reasons.

However, in order to prevent overheating in the summer (and glare from too much sunlight), its important that such areas have shading devices. And in the winter they can get quite cold, so you’ll need to have a way of isolating them from the rest of the house (Victorian houses would often shut off such areas of the house for the winter). However, many modern buildings didn’t have shading devices (so you’d come in to the office and find all the blinds down and the lights on in the middle of the day) or the buildings were open plan, so any energy savings in heating were cancelled out by more energy devoted to cooling in the summer. And some homeowners took to install radiators in their conservatories, effectively increasing their heating bills.

Different types of shading devices, critical if you are using glazed facades in buildings

Energy efficiency improvements haven’t always produced the level of gains expected. For example, we have the effect of low energy light bulbs. While they have reduced electricity demand, but not by as much as was hoped. Why? Because people are more likely to leave light on. Case in point, its daytime while I’m writing this and I’ve just realised the light’s are on in my kitchen, even thought there’s nobody in there. When I was growing up the instruction was that if you were the last person to bed, you turned off all the lights (and there would be hell to pay if you forgot). Now when I’m back home its that you should turn off most of them.

Similarly improvements in building energy efficiency have led to average indoor air temperatures to increase in cold countries and decrease in hotter countries (I remember having to wear a hat to bed in Singapore because it was so cold inside the bedrooms!). And more fuel efficient cars have run hand in hand in an increasing number of driving miles in some countries (thought not always and these increases might be related to other factors such as new roads encouraging driving, or more cars making it less safe to cycle).

My point is, its important to consider the consequences of any action and look at how it may effect patterns of behaviour. Some of these can be positive, e.g. plastic bag taxes very rapidly led to a reduction in plastic bag use. But that’s not always the case (at the same time in the UK that the plastic bag came in, there was a large increase in trolley or shopping basket thefts!). It also serves to highlight that, while energy efficiency is important, on its own it can’t solve the problems of climate change and sustainability. Only by moving away from fossil fuel altogether can these problems be solved.

With sustainability the devil can often be in the detail. Biofuels for example can lower carbon footprints, but this largely depends on how the plants are grown, processed and then transported. Even a slight change in how they are grown, for example draining bog land to create area for the trees (which results in a big pulse of green house gases) or transporting them long distances, can significantly increase the carbon footprint.

With biofuels there can be quite a wide variation in the carbon footprint, which are often governed by very small changes in production methods

We see a similarly issue with alternatives to plastics. On paper by moving away from fossil fuels this can can lower the carbon footprint. But if you are growing material, how is it grown? Does it require fertilisers? (which come from fossil fuels) or climate control (which might also require energy input from fossil fuels). If its much heavier and bulkier that’s going to make it harder to transport (more fossil fuel’s burned). If its harder to mould into shapes compared to plastic (which can be injection moulded), again more waste. And how is it disposed of? If its not recyclable that’s going to be a problem unless we have a means to collect and incinerate it safely (and that incineration process is also going to produce some emissions).

Its here were life cycle analysis is key. This is a process by which engineers can undertake an accounting exercise to work out the carbon footprint of each step of a product’s life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials, its production phase, transportation to customer, its use phase and its end of life (is it recycled, incinerated, or does it go into landfill).

This data not only allows for good decision making, but also tends to highlight where the main issues are. For example, with a car, the main source of carbon emissions is going to be the usage phase when its driven around for hundreds of thousands of miles. Anything you can do to cut this down is generally going to be a good idea, for example by making the car lighter. Even if this pushes up the carbon footprint of the production phase, this will be off-set by lowering the impact of the usage phase. By contrast, in some consumer products it can be either the material production phase or the end of life phase that has the most dramatic impact. This tells engineers where to focus their efforts next in improving the product.

But again, this can have the problem that engineers are working in isolation and not understanding what’s going on in the real world. The cautionary tale of Jatroba is a good example. This appeared (at least on paper) to be an excellent potential source of biofuels with a low carbon footprint (in some cases negative as it helped to lock away greenhouse gases into the soil). It could grow on non-arable land (thus not taking away land from food production), with little need for fertiliser. However, the yields from Jatroba grown under such conditions were low, leading to it being grown on arable land with fossil fuel based fertilisers used to increase its grown rate (largely negating the supposed benefits).

And the switch from meat to vegetarian foods has created a high demand for such foods as asparagus, avacado’s and coconuts, all of which have quite a high carbon footprint and water demand, at least compared to other vegetarian options. While this doesn’t mean that a vegan diet is worse than a meat based one, it again serves to highlight its a trade off, a least worse option. And the benefits are going to depend a lot on how and where its grown, e.g. out of season fruit in green houses (which is then imported long distance by truck or air) is going to be a lot more carbon intensive than fruit grown in season in a field locally.

The problem with climate change and sustainability is that they are very large and complex problems. If there was some easy silver bullet solution it would have been implemented ages ago. There are solutions, but they require a bit more of a complete understanding of what the problem is and how people are likely to react to the proposed solutions.

The life cycle analysis of any product can become quite complicated

This had led some to suggest the solution is to use smart technology. So for example if a driver has a heavy foot (lots of acceleration and heavy braking) the cars computer could be programmed to recognise this and switch to a more energy efficient driving style (so it won’t allow the car to accelerate as quickly, de-rate the engine, and if a hybrid, try to extract as much energy from the braking phase as possible).

Similarly home appliances could be programmed to de-rate at night to reduce energy consumption. If you dial up the thermostat and your home heating system knows you feeling cold has nothing to do with temperature, but instead its the humidity, so it ignores your request and adjusts the humidity instead.

I’d note that this sort of technology is nothing new, its used in aviation where the planes computer is programmed to fly the plane in as fuel efficient and safe a manner as possible, by interpreting the pilot inputs and not necessarily doing exactly what they ask it to do. If the pilots do something they are not supposed to do (e.g. try to pull off a manoeuvre the computer knows would exceed the aircraft’s envelope) the computer will adopt a more moderate response, or even override the pilots completely.

However, I’m not sure how people would react to this. Some might argue its an affront to their freedom (just look at the anti-vaxx / anti-mask brigade). Already there’s a people who have been hoarding incandescent light bulbs or insist on rolling coal. In short we need to appreciate that human nature is as much a part of the climate and sustainability problem as anything else.

Pyongyang on the Thames

I came across a documentary from French TV about the North Korean “Ghost Fleet” of fishing vessels. Large fleets of North Korean fishing boats have been raiding the fishing grounds of neighbouring countries, most notably making intrusions into Russian waters, overfishing and using banned techniques such a drift netting. Which is causing all sorts of environmental problems. And as many of these fishing boats aren’t terribly seaworthy, there is believed to be a fairly high death toll from ships sinking, or their engines failing and ending up adrift and becalmed until the crews starve.

Anyway, it was interesting to watch Russians and Chinese fishermen complaining about how they have to follow all of these complex rules, yet the North Korean don’t. They seem to be allowed to do whatever the hell they like. Now why does that sound familiar? Because that’s what the brexiters want. They see brexit as their chance to get Singapore on the Thames. However, in reality what they are actually pitching for is Pyongyang on the Thames, where the UK becomes a Pariah state, who routinely breaks international law and gets by through a combination of criminality, intense propaganda and brainwashing (even now in UK schools, as if control of the media wasn’t good enough) as well as constant threats if they don’t get their way.

Consider that in the last week the UK government has broken international law twice, unilaterally reneging on parts of the EU trade deal, before the EU’s even had a chance to ratify it. And meanwhile many Tory MP’s and cheer leaders are urging for even stronger action, such as fighting a trade war with the EU, or banning EU made bottled water, or forcing people in the UK to eat more shellfish (I’d love to see these brexiters try that outside a Glasgow takeaway on a Saturday night, they’ll likely just get stabbed with a plastic fork).

Up in Northern Ireland the DUP are trying to undo the trade deal (which in December they’d been praising) by any means necessary, including simply not building the infrastructure to enforce it (so basically they campaigned for brexit, the results of which they are refusing to implement). They’ve also begun to use threatening language, including calling for “Guerilla warfare” against the EU, clearly a dog whistle to their terrorist allies. Which was received loud and clear, as shortly afterwards several loyalist terrorist groups announced their break with the Good Friday agreement.

And, as regards corruption and criminal behaviour, we have the health secretary being found to have acted unlawfully in the award of PPE contracts during the pandemic to his chums (of course he’s not going to resign, don’t be silly!). The prime minster setting up a charity slush fund to redecorate his flat and using taxpayers money to pay for fake news articles (adverts masquerading as real news) to sell brexit as a success.

Consider for a minute if anyone else behaved the way the brexiters behave. Imagine if a Muslim stood up and talked about launching Guerrilla warfare. How many seconds before they’d be arrested? Consider how the Tories were calling for Nicola Sturgeon’s head for the last few weeks, while ignoring the far greater scandals from within their own party. If labour had won the election and they heard Corbyn was going to use taxpayers money to fool Daily Mail or Telegraph into reading articles promoting his socialist policies, how would they have reacted? Likely by rolling around on the ground and chewing the carpet, then calling for him to be arrested for misuse of state funds. There is one rule for brexiters and another one for everyone else.

I recall a conversation I once had with someone who worked for the Brazilian government (under the previous left wing administration) who bemoaned the fact that any time the country implemented any sort of left wing policy, stronger environmental protections, raising taxes for the wealthy, better labour laws, the credit rating agencies in the west would cut the country’s credit rating. Yet whenever the right wing parties did something, such as lowering taxes for the wealthy or selling off state industries to the private sector, the credit ratings would be raised (even when the measures were clearly going to lead to higher levels of borrowing and a higher risk of default for investors).

So we now have the situation where the UK has essentially imposed sanctions on itself and its led by politicians who are deliberately trying to sabotage the UK economy, yet the UK’s credit ratings aren’t being cut. Again, one rule for one group and another for everyone else.

Of course there is a difference between North Korea and the UK. North Korea survives on the basis of the CFC gambit. Or Crippled (anyone attacking North Korea will be stuck with the bill for rebuilding a crippled country from scratch), Fearsome (as they have a vast arsenal of conventional, as well as nuclear, biological and chemical weapons) and Crazy (while they would be all but guaranteed to loose any war they are just about crazy enough to use this arsenal as an act of national suicide). In short, its better for its neighbours to treat North Korea with kid gloves….because Kim Jung un’s gloves are likely made from real kids!

In short, CFC works for North Korea because they are an impoverished nation whose leadership have nothing to lose by self isolation. Its a little different with the UK. The EU’s likely response will be targeted sanctions and tariffs. These will be used to cause maximum pain to the the UK and Tory politicians in particular, while minimising the harm to the EU. So likely measures could include heavy tariffs on fish or agricultural products, or a financial transaction tax on UK/EU trades (which would hit Tory voters and donors hard).

And while some cosmetic tabloid friendly retaliation from the UK might happen, the UK can’t really do much, given how dependant it is on things like food, medicines, electricity and energy supplies from the EU. In fact customs checks they should currently be undertaking, which they delayed till July (illegally), might be watered down even further due to fears of possible food shortages (so they wanted brexit so they can shut the border…but now they are angry because they don’t want anyone to shut the border WTF!).

The GFA is underwritten by the US. They will take a very dim view of any effort to undermine it. Measures they could take could involve, joining in with EU’s sanctions, ruling out any trade deals (or making it plain to other countries that they should drop their trade deals with the UK if they want to remain friends with Washington) or boycotting of international events (such as the upcoming G8 meeting).

Its also not clear how they will react to any resumption of violence. There were some Americans back in the troubles who argued for a more robust American stance (e.g. refusing to sell miltary hardware to the UK until it negotiated with the Irish), or an American led UN peace keeping force in NI (the unionist wake up one morning to find US Marines standing on every street corner). So its kind of up in the air what happens next, particularly if its seen as the UK provoking a unionist bombing campaign in the Republic.

So the brexiters are in for something of a rude awakening. And its clear they still don’t know what brexit means. And even if they do, they are plugging their ears. They want a fantasy brexit, where they still have all the benefits of EU membership, but (much as North Korea pretends they won the Korean war) they get to pretend they’ve also gotten their Empire 2.0.

The Dumb-Dom effect:

Dominic Cummings is billed as Boris Johnson’s “idea’s” man. However there’s a problem, most of his ideas are sh*t. We need only look at the satellite fiasco, where they bought a company that makes the wrong kind of satellites for GPS. His track and trace app that didn’t work because of all spyware it came with. And his original plan for covid was herd immunity (i.e. let hundreds of thousands die to save Pret). And this is before we bring up his involvement with both the leave campaign, and the Scottish referendum, his connections to the Kremlin, nor his little trip to Bernard’s castle, which has produced a recognised “Cummings effect” that is in part responsible for a 2nd wave worse than the first wave.

I’ve heard Cummings and Boris compared somewhat unfavourably to pinky and the brain (the difference being that Cummings thinks he’s a genius… and he’s also insane). In truth, he hasn’t got a clue, he’s yet another point on the Dunning-Kruger scale. While yes at the extreme end you’ve got the likes of Trump, but a little further along we meet Cummings. And you could argue he proves that a little bit of intelligence (what I’m calling the Dumb-Dom point), combined with an overly inflated ego and an posh upbringing, can be a very dangerous thing.

Moscow Dom

Take for example defence, with word that Cummings has been visiting UK military facilities as part of a Tory spending review (yes, its considered ok to let someone with connections to Moscow into UK military bases, go figure). Although I should perhaps call it a what not to spend review. Already there’s rumours that the UK is going to cut out all of its Challenger 2 tanks and Warrior IFV’s and replace them with Cyber warfare. Ya, to Cummings the way we’ll stop Russian tanks rolling up the M2 is by having a team of nerds posting meme’s. Good luck with that one.

Cummings was also seen going into Downing street with a copy of a Reagan era letter related to defence research. As I mentioned in a prior post the Reagan administration funded all sorts of hair-brained schemes and squandered vast sums of public money in the process. Of course, unwilling to admit they’d made a mistake, republicans came up with the retroactive argument that ya we knew none of it would work, but we were trying to get the soviets to spend themselves into bankruptcy (in truth Russian military spending did not increase significantly during Reagan’s tenure, it was only 7% of their GDP and it was what was going on with the other 93% that was the problem).

Either way, the UK just doesn’t have the defence budget to finance these sorts of programmes. As I discussed in a prior post, previous efforts by the UK to compete with the major powers during the cold war failed, the TSR2 being a good example. Only with European co-operation can the UK hope to keep pace with the US and China. And a hard brexit is pretty much going to scupper that.

I’d also note that we need to factor in the UK’s geography. The whole reasoning behind trident (which is an American weapon system, one they can withhold support for and effectively disarm the UK…if say the UK were to break international law for example), is that anything else (no matter how advanced) is vulnerable to a sneak attack. This is less of a problem for Russia, China or the US as they can position their facilities well in land and they have vastly more conventional forces with which to guard them.

In some respects, I get the impression that Cummings and the Tories have latched onto a defence spending theory that basically says you don’t need conventional forces if you’ve got nukes. However, this is not true, it ignores certain geopolitical realities. It could leave you vulnerable to Salami tactics (where the enemy gradually weakens your position by engaging in a series of acts that would not constitute grounds for war, never mind threatening a nuclear attack), as this skit from the satire Yes Prime Minster discusses.

In reality its a choice between the UK having conventional forces, plus maybe trident as an optional extra. Or if you want to save money and cut military spending, then trident is the first thing you’d ditch. Its one or the other. But for the Tories trident is a phallic totem. If they give it up they will be abandoning their dreams of empire 2.0. Hence the conventional army must too be sacrificed on the high altar of brexit, even if this ultimately compromises the UK’s actual defences.

And we have to consider the international consequences of such a policy. Given that the Challenger 2 tanks are really more designed for large scale tank engagements (such as in the Middle Eastern deserts or the Fulda gap) even proposing to get rid of them could be interpreted as a signal that the UK will not be getting involved in such conflicts in future.

Now while that might actually be a good thing (no more being America’s lap dog), it could mean allies (such as the US) are less supportive (i.e. they take back their missiles). And enemies may decide to make a move against a UK ally (or nationalise a UK company’s holdings), as they will be assuming the UK will not take any action. This is pretty much what caused the Falklands war. Tory cuts to the Royal Navy convinced the Argentine Junta that the UK wouldn’t try to retake the island. And the UK almost lost that war (something even the British commanders have admitted), they only didn’t because the Junta hadn’t really planned very well for how they’d defend the Island (largely because they were so convinced the UK wouldn’t take any action!).

Hell, Cummings military policy is so bad it would only make sense if you were a Russian agent looking to deliberately sabotage the UK’s defences….oh wait!

Speaking of nukes….

Cummings has also proposed that we solve unemployment in northern England by building lots of nuclear reactors in the North (I didn’t know there were loads of unemployed nuclear engineers in northern England!). As I pointed out in a prior post one of the consequences of brexit on the energy industry is that it will make it harder to recruit new workers. Industries like nuclear or fracking will need EU workers to come in and make up for skill shortages.

So we have a load of working class communities in the north, who voted leave because they are xenophobic about foreigners and feel threatened by technology (as its reducing the number of blue collar jobs). And Cummings plan is to have a load of white collar workers move in, some of them from overseas (mostly from France & China for nuclear and Romania for fracking), pushing up house prices and living costs. How’s that going to go down? And leaving the EU means leaving Euroatom, who is going to certify and supply the fuel?

In all categories the UK’s readiness to manage its own nuclear industry post-brexit is still in category red

Also, nuclear projects take forever. Hinkley C was proposed in the 2000’s with construction starting 15 years later and power production will be a good ten years after that….so Cummings is proposing jobs in the 2030’s & 2040’s. By contrast we can start building renewable energy systems, council houses, hospitals, etc. tomorrow. But of course while the Tories will happily shell out a small fortune for anything nuclear (empire 2.0 and all that), but they won’t spend a penny on anything that might actually help people.

UK house building, most notably of social housing fell under Thatcher and has never really recovered, likely because home owning Tories prefer their to be an artificial shortage, pushing up prices and rents

Dot Dom bubble

And according to Cummings the real benefit of brexit is how the UK can become a hub for the next trillion dollar IT company, once we are free from burdensome EU regulations. Why is that all the big IT firms are set up in the US?

Well the thing is the UK WAS the centre of an IT revolution, back during the dot-com era of the late 2000’s, at the start of the Tony Blair government (the most pro-EU PM the country has probably ever had), when London and Dublin saw themselves at the centre of the European tech revolution. These were heady days. You could go to a “first Tuesday event”, put on a green badge (indicating you were an IT person looking for funding) or a red badge (indicating you were a venture capitalist) and do a deal for several million over a handshake and a glass of bubbly.

So what went wrong? The dot-com bubble burst. While silicon valley caught a cold, London came down with pneumonia. It boiled down to market size, the UK is a very small pond compared to the US. And back in 2000 not everyone had access to the internet in the UK (or the EU for that matter) and many that did were still using dial up (which made internet shopping tediously slow). The end result was that while Amazon made enough money to keep the wolf from its door, its UK competitors (boo.com or handbag.com) went bankrupt.

And this still applies today. After the US, the other major hub for IT companies these days is China, which is got to be the most un-libertarian country in the world. They are practically taking tips and pointers out of black mirror episodes. Yet, they have far more IT companies in China than in the UK or the EU and they may well overtake the US in this field. Why? One billion people with mobile phones. How exactly Cummings thinks that shrinking the UK’s potential market is going to help I do not know.

Case in point, Ireland wasn’t as badly effected by the dot-com bubble as the UK. It took a wallop yes, but weathered the storm a lot better. This is because Ireland had focused more on the hardware side of things. There was a big drop in demand for computer parts after the millennium, but the market soon recovered. And this was largely driven by demand from the rest of the EU, to which Ireland could export tariff free, thanks to the expanding single market.

And contrary to what Cummings says, the problem in London back in 2000 (then again he was in Russia at the time) is it became a bit of a wild west. A lot of the dot com firms were operating fairly dubious business models, some were badly run and government oversight was lacking (as the Blair government was terrified of the “old labour” label and would run a million miles if the tabloids brought that up). The aforementioned Boo.com being a good example. This meant a whole generation of investors got burned and swore off tech investments for some time.

Boo.com demonstrated everything that was wrong with dot.com “unicorns” in the early 2000’s, and serves as a case study in why investors need to do due diligence on tech stocks

And how does Cummings propose to get around this? Why we use UK government money to found and start these tech “unicorns“. Well firstly, tech start ups are pretty risky investments. A lot of them are just regular companies who call themselves a “tech” stock to attract money from moron’s who don’t know any better (like Cummings!). And, like during the dot com bubble, some have fairly dubious business models. Its questionable if this is sensible use of taxpayers money (particularly if we are so hard up we can’t afford to fully fund the NHS!).

Secondly, he does know that, as part of the EU, UK firms and universities were part of many collaborative projects which benefited from matching EU funding (a sort of public private partnership), which the UK used to do very well out of. Indeed any money the government comes up with will struggle to plug the gap. The only difference is, the EU was very careful about who they gave money too. While the Dumb-Dom approach is, to throw bags of cash at anyone who can bamboozle Cummings & Boris with a flashy presentation.

Again one is forced to conclude that Cummings proposals would only make sense if you were a foreign agent attempting to sabotage the UK economy.

The failed state of Dumb-Dom

Finally, one has to acknowledge the undemocratic nature of how Johnson and Cummings operate. The whole point of democracy is so that any proposed idea gets subject to proper scrutiny. Politicians, from both sides of the house, are allowed to ask awkward questions and seek professional guidance as well as public opinion. There have been plenty of other times in the past where a government has proposed something that would be a really bad idea, which has been killed off once its been subject to proper due diligence.

However, instead the UK government now operates under a model whereby a small cabal come up with policies (that may well be unworkable, illegal, break international law or squander public money), there is no scrutiny or due diligence, no bidding process. And anyone who asks awkward questions (even if you are an expert, or a Tory MP who voted leave) is accused of being “an enemy of the people” and a remoaner for daring to suggest we should like you know read the bill before voting on it.

If you ever wondered how totalitarian regimes can get away with say, building a gold statue of the leader that always faces the Sun, this is how. Their policies, like Cummings, aren’t subjected to any sort of rational scrutiny or oversight, which is why these countries tend to be poorer. Hence Cumming’s risks turning the UK into a failed state.

But fortunately for us (and unfortunately for Cummings), you live by the sword you die by it. Sooner or later he will be forced out of office (either Boris will be forced to sack him, or Boris will be forced out and Cummings will follow). And the new PM will immediately issue instructions to cancel or reverse everything Cummings. Anyone he employed will either be sacked or re-organised (put in charge of stationary supplies or made cultural attaché to North Korea).

Much like how the golden statues of dictators can be airbrushed out of history, so too can Cumming’s legacy. And while a Tory government probably won’t reverse brexit, its entirely possible that a future labour one (or an independent Scottish one) will do so.

Not going out

The great outdoors, Rannoch Moor Scotland, with the mountains of Glencoe in the background

You may, or may not, have heard the story that Penn State university has banned their outdoor recreation club, because its too dangerous for their students to be let out in public. Which from a PR point of view doesn’t exactly send out the right message. Come to Penn state and you’ll be so hopeless at everything you can’t be trusted to go outside.

Let’s be clear this has little to do with “elf & safety”. I cannot help but notice that the American football team, water sports (generally anything involving water carries a certain level of risk), skiing (who tend to be more at risk from avalanches than hikers) and boxing clubs aren’t being closed down, even though some of these would be much more risky. And any contact sports is where we’d expect to see the bulk of injuries to students. Instead this is more a case of “liability avoidance” or what I refer to as Save Ass Policy Schemes or SAPS for short.

Admittedly, being a mountaineer and a bit of an outdoorsy type myself, it has to be said that the risks involved with such activities are difficult to quantify, as is often the case with many adventure sports. A route that some would find suicidally dangerous (e.g. the Cullin ridge on Skye), experienced climbers will do while wearing boxing gloves and roller blades….or riding a bicycle. Similarly even the most experienced climber in the world would be putting himself at an unnecessary risk if he went up certain routes in the wrong kind of weather (the guides on Skye won’t go up the aforementioned Cullin ridge in bad weather, its just too dangerous).

One person’s inaccessible pinnacle is another person’s Sunday morning bike ride

So context is very important. Indeed this is kind of an important life lesson mountaineering teaches you, how to manage risk. Which, can be a useful thing to put on one’s CV or cover letter. But clearly the SAPS in Penn State are too dumb (or scared) to understand that. I bet employers will be queuing around the block to hire these graduates after they hear of this!

I would note that said SAPS are probably reacting to parental pressure. US universities are increasingly having to deal with not so much “helicopter parents”, but what are referred too as “snow plough parents” who expect every possible obstacle to their little darling to be swept out of his or her way. I’ve seen several situations where students stuck with a course that they didn’t like simply because their parents insisted. And when he got caught cheating, it turned out that this was the parents idea. That is kind of what universities are having to deal with right now.

You could argue the most insulting thing you could say to a mountaineer is to call him “experienced”. Because often you learn from your mistakes (so when I say I’m an “experienced” mountaineer, that means I’ve “extended the trip” or “explored alternative routes” on a few occasions). The trick with student clubs is to create a safe environment for people to learn without putting them in danger.

In Scotland we have a pretty good system set up in which the university clubs and the various mountaineering organisations (the mountain rescue teams, guides & instructors, RAF/RN rescue, McOS, BMC, SMC, etc.) arrange various safety courses towards the beginning of term. There’s events in early autumn (just a few weeks into the 1st semester) focusing on general mountaineering safety with further courses run in January/February focusing on winter mountaineering skills (just about the same time the snow’s started to accumulate). This allows new recruits to clubs to pick up the necessary skills pretty early. The clubs also tend to ease people into it, taking them on easier routes first, so they can learn some sense…rather than taking them straight up Tower ridge on Freshers week.

And this is the thing, far from improving the safety of students by shutting down this club, instead Penn state is putting them at risk. The reason for all the courses in Scotland I mentioned earlier is a little statistically anomaly. University clubs rarely get into trouble (given all the precautions they take and the fact they tend to be pretty well equipped). However, students in general are involved in a very high proportion of mountaineering accidents.

So by removing this “safe space” in which students can learn good practice, Penn State is arguably putting its student’s at risk. I won’t be surprised if, irony of ironies, they are sued in a few years time after a student gets into difficulty after being denied access to safety equipment and denied the opportunity to learn safety skills by the university.

Of course I’m going to guess America being America there’s probably a gun club in Penn State and I’m going to assume that there’s no way they’ll get banned (as nobody in senior management would want to pick a fight with the NRA). And given that Pennsylvania is an open carry state, that they ain’t going to say a word about anyone carrying a gun on campus.

Well there’s the solution, change the name of the Outing club to the Outing Gun Club. They carry on as normal, just always carry guns around while doing it (you don’t have to shoot, or go hunting or anything, just carry guns while muttering about your 2nd amendment rights). In addition use NRA style language to get out of answering any pesky questions from uni admin e.g. “Where are we going this weekend? That sound’s like an attempt to run a background check. Deep state! Deep state!”. When in Rome, do as the Romans do!

But either way, this sends out all the wrong messages. It suggests the uni doesn’t trust its own students. In which case why should any employer consider hiring them? People accuse millennial of being “snowflakes”. Yet when they try to do anything remotely adventurous, they get told not to do it. If you don’t let people learn how to manage risks, they’ll either never try anything adventurous, or worse, go out and do something incredibly reckless and foolhardy. Which hardly sounds like the sort of life skills a university wants to encourage in its students.

A closer estimate on nuclear energy cost options

I stumbled across a tool from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, which purports to calculate the full cycle cost of nuclear energy. While it has its limitations, I think does highlight a few interesting points.

Figure 1: The Bulletin of Atomic Scientist (BoAS) costs, baseline & adjusted with various options compared to DoE estimates for renewables & fossil fuels

Firstly, the baseline cost they suggest for nuclear power works out at about a LCOE of $ 84.4 per MWh (the site quotes in cents per kWh, however, I’m converting to $/MWh because its what we usually use when quoting LCOE’s). This is a bit less than the DOE’s estimate of $95/MWh for nuclear. The DOE also quotes costs of $74/MWh for wind, $125/MWh for solar. By 2022 they expect costs in the range of $96/MWh for nuclear, $74/MWh for solar, $56/MWh for wind, with gas and coal between $54/MWh and $196/MWh depending on future prices and whether or not we are sequestering the carbon. Recall we are talking in terms of LCOE so this accounts for the intermittent nature of some renewables.

So first off this would suggest that nuclear might be competitive with coal, if there’s efforts to force CCS on the industry (i.e. no Trump, no climate change denial) and if fossil fuel prices go up. But that’s lot of if’s. It also suggests that nuclear isn’t competitive against renewables, and even if it is, that window is about to close. Indeed, we can use the Bulletin tool to get a better estimate on its current price, given that the cost of the Hinkley C project is known….well it will probably go up, but we at least have some ball park figure. The latest estimate for its overnight cost is £22.3 billion, which is $28.7 bn so that’s $8,696 per installed kWe, and its going to take 10 years and we assume 40% efficiency. So running that through our model gives a figure of $134/MWh, or about £104.6/MWh. You will immediately notice that this is well above the strike price of £92.5/MWh, suggesting that Hinkley C is going to lose money with every kWh it generates.

Figure 2: UK new nuclear costs (E/MWh) compared to various renewable energy options [Source: The energy transition.de, 2015]

And by comparison at a recent strike price auction agreed to a price of £57.7 per MWh (approximately $76/MWh) for offshore wind. One of the arguments in favour of Hinkley C was that the high costs of off shore wind, even though many experts warned the government at the time that this would likely be wiped out by future advances in offshore wind technology (which was at a very early stage of development when Hinkley C was first proposed, the widely held assumption is that the price of offshore wind would fall rapidly, as indeed it has).

So okay, we’ve proved Hinkley C is a crap sandwich, well I think we all knew that one already. What I think is interesting about this tool is what happens when you start playing with the settings. For example, if we increase the efficiency of our nuclear reactor from the baseline of 33% (again industry standard for new build reactors would be closer to 40% these days) to 55% (the best you could possibly hope to get with a Brayton cycle) you only cut the cost of electricity by 2%. This confirms a point I made some time ago, there is no point spending a lot of money on some super expensive Brayton cycle kit, greatly increasing the construction costs only to make a tiny improvement in the plant’s electricity output.

However, if we decrease the capacity factor of our plant, from a baseline of 90% to say 70%, the price goes up by 25%. Pull it down to 60% the price goes up to +50% of the baseline price and at a capacity factor of 50% we are paying 74% more for our electricity. Its is often argued that nuclear can operate without any form of backup, but this ignores how grids work. But everything needs back up not least because demand is not constant all of the time. In the absence of storage, there will be times when some plants will see their capacity fall significantly. Load following power plants will typically operate at between 70-50% capacity factor, while peaking power plants can be less than 50%. At such cost levels it would simply be more economic to build energy storage than add more nuclear plants…so why not just do the same thing with renewables and save some money?

The model doesn’t appear to consider the costs of decommissioning or the clean up costs of fixed infrastructure related to the nuclear fuel cycle, which is something of an oversight. Keep in mind those costs aren’t small, its currently costing more to decommission some nuclear plants than it cost to build them. Including the costs of decommissioning Selafield the UK’s current bill is about £117 billion. That said, it is difficult to quantify this down to the level of an individual plant or MWh.

Figure 3: UK Nuclear decommissioning costs breakdown

What they are able to do is estimate the spent fuel storage costs. Doubling the cost of that (as high as it will go) only increases the cost per MWh by 2%. Now okay, as noted there’s a whole raft of things we are leaving out. But even so, it does suggest that its not a linear relationship between clean up costs and electricity costs. There is a fixed cost we are stuck with regardless (i.e. even if we abandoned nuclear energy tomorrow, much of that bill would still have to be paid) and some small amount for every reactor year beyond that.

However, and here’s where it gets interesting, if we switch from the once thro fuel cycle to the fast reactor based full recycle option, the baseline price jumps by 64% to a whopping $139/MWh. And again, this baseline model, isn’t really accurate. For example, it assumes a capacity factor for the fast reactor of 90%, something that no FBR has ever achieved (most struggle to exceed 40%, the best is closer to 60%). Putting in more accurate values for both the LWR and FBR costs and performance, we get a price of $264/MWh.

Figure 4: Estimated fuel inventories for different nuclear energy options, MOX reprocessing or fast reactor reprocessing means a modest reduction in HLW in exchange for a significant increase in LLW [UCUSA, 2014]

This confirms one of the arguments I’ve long made, fast reactors make no sense, unless you are allergic to money! They’ll end up greatly increasing the costs of nuclear electricity to well past the point where anyone would be willing to pay for it. Yes once-thro does mean throwing away most of the fissile material, but the cost of recovering that material is simply too high. This was essentially the conclusion of both the 2011 MIT report into the nuclear fuel cycle and the Harvard study of 2003. The only situation where either report thought fast reactors (or Thorium) would make the slightest sense would be if renewable costs failed to drop as predicted, energy costs skyrocketed and the cost of uranium soared. None of those have happened, in fact the opposite has happened in all three cases.

Finally, the baseline Bulletin model suggests that using the MOX recycle route will cost $227.5/MWh, although its closer to $254/MWh (£196/MWh) for my “adjusted” model. Some nuclear advocates see MOX recycling as a happy compromise. Yes, we know the fast reactor route isn’t really viable on a technical level, but we can at least get some reuse out the fuel rods via the MOX route and save some money in the process. Well this model suggest no, that’s not the case. Indeed, it suggests that for the UK we’ll be paying more than double the strike price for every kWh of Hinkley’s electricity. And when I say “we” keep in mind that at least half of those costs are being met by the taxpayer not EDF. Indeed, given that the strike price amounts to a subsidy rate of 68% per kWh (paid for by UK bill payers), the actual cost to EDF will be closer to 15% of the cost per MWh of Hinkley….and that still might be enough to break them!

So this model seems to confirm what I’ve heard from one or two in the nuclear industry, who see MOX as the hill on which the nuclear industry is going to die on. As they see it, if and when the dead certificate for nuclear power is written, we won’t be listing “Greenpeace” or “Hinkley” as the cause of death, no it will be “suicide by MOX”. Most of the spiralling costs we associate with nuclear are often those associated with MOX reprocessing (if you think Hinkley is bad, look up the fiasco of Throp or Rokkasho sometime!). Most of the recent accidents have been related to MOX reprocessing and most of the main flash points with protestors are MOX fuel shipments. In short MOX fuel reprocessing is a supersized crap sandwich with a side salad of BS. If the nuclear industry is to have any future this madness has to stop and MOX plants need to close and let us never talk of it again.

So all in all, what this model does show is that the nuclear industry does have some problems. But some of the proposed solutions doing the rounds e.g. making plants more efficient, building them quicker or smaller, FBR’s, MOX or alternative fuel cycles, they don’t make a lot of sense as regards the economics of nuclear energy. In many cases these would actually increase the cost of nuclear energy not reduce it. As I’ve pointed out before, the business model of the industry, that of large LWR’s with once thro fuel processing, might not look great, but there is a reason why the industry has stuck with it since the 70’s. And that because the alternatives are so much worse.

The Case for Space?

Figure 1: Could space travel and eventual colonisation help solve some of the world’s environmental problems?

I’ve been doing a bit of speculation recently on my energy blog about who space policy and sustainability might interconnect. In short, can space colonisation offer a possible solution to resource shortages or over-population? I’ve broken the answer down across three posts below:

Space a sustainability solution? A critical review

In the first article I look at the goals of space colonisation as well as the technical obstacles involved, notably in terms of propulsion technology and launch vehicle design. And to be clear, we are talking about space colonisation here, not space exploration, that’s two entirely different things.

Is it possible to significantly reduce the costs of launching payloads into space? The answer I suspect is, yes, which could make exploration cheaper and easier, but probably not by enough to make colonisation possible any time soon.

Space a sustainability solution – Part 2: Living on the high frontier

Not least because, as discussed in this second article, the problems associated with getting into space are small compared to the issues that come with living in space. Certainly, its possible for humans to live for extend periods on world’s like Mars or the Moon. But its far from proven if permanent habitation is possible.

And its also far from proven that we can sustain life support off earth for any colonists without regular resupply from earth, so any such colonies wouldn’t be a “backup” earth, as they’d be wholly dependant on earth for survival.

And one also has to question the motivations. With the exception of low level extraction of rare earth or precious metals, its difficult to build a credible and economically viable plan for space colonisation. I doubt we’ll be moving large number of people off the planet any time soon.

The case for space – Part 3: Martian delusions

Finally, I look at the recent announcements from groups such as Mars One, the Mars Society and Elon Musk’s proposals for Mars exploration and colonisation.

In short, one is left to ask if Mars one is an outright scam or merely a textbook example of the Dunning Kruger effect.

Bob Zubrin’s Mars Direct plan has some merit, although there are some holes in it, notably as it relies on a number of untested elements.

Unfortunately Elon Musk’s plans, which are based on Mars direct (just on a larger scale) also has a number of possible holes and potential show stoppers. Its possible they might be able to overcome these issues, but my guess is that it will take a lot longer that he proposes to get such a program off the ground and cost an awful lot more. And again, the jury is out as to whether Martian colonisation is even possible, or even a good idea.