Zero Carbon Britain

This is a summary prepared by Sue Raikes for GreenTea in Feb/09. The complete document is also available - to download (but it's quite long !) or buy, Click here. Note that it's a selective summary - and also quite compressed; if you find it's too compressed, go the original.

Zero Carbon does not mean a return to hardships of the past - but it does require a change of attitudes. Read on . . . .

- halving energy demand
- installing massive renewable energy generation.

The report looks at the policy framework that can drive this rapid shift, and explores the technologies and lifestyle changes we can expect to see in the next two decades. It was commissioned by the Centre for Alternative Technology at Machynthlleth.

Halving Britain's energy demand while still maintaining high levels of well-being requires significant lifestyle changes. For example domestic flights would become almost non-existent and international flights would be severely reduced. Meat-eating would have to be reduced, as it requires a very large amount of land and energy to produce meat.

ZCB uses backcasting – rather than forecasting – "looking at where we need to be, then seeing what policies and technologies we need to get there."

If Britain listens to climate science and treats this as a serious emergency we could completely eliminate the need for fossil fuels within 20 years.

‘Island Britain’ provides a 20-year theoretical, unilateral, energy model - halving our energy demand by 2027 - it works on the hopefully unrealistic assumption that Britain is going it alone - all of the nation’s energy and food must come from within our borders and coastal waters.

ZCB looks at the role of governments, individuals and industries, but even at a local level, it's important to know what could be done nationally.

C&C and TEQs
The most effective international policy framework is Contraction & Convergence (C&C).
C&C first defines a ‘safe’ global carbon budget, based on the amount of carbon the world can risk burning in total, and then a fair portion of that for Britain. This budget is the remaining amount of carbon that will be burnt between now and day zero. The global quota is then reduced every year starting from our current level down to zero in 20 years. That's Contraction.

The objective of convergence is to move towards an equal per head share of entitlement for each person in the world to emit CO2. C&C allocates the entitlements to each country, over time reducing the share for rich countries until they converge with the (temporarily rising) share of poorer countries. Allocations can be traded - so poorer countries can sell part of their allocation to fund low carbon economic development.

In Britain, Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs) would distribute carbon allowances equally to individuals, and then auction the remainder to business. TEQs would become the driver for changing our behaviour.

Powering up – filling the energy gap
The report demonstrates that it is possible for Britain to provide and store all of its energy from a wide geographical distribution of renewable resources including tidal energy, biomass fuelled CHP (combined heat power), tidal energy, wind and solar power. The technologies for this already exist.

Britain has massive renewable resources. Wind would provide the greatest proportion of electrical energy - at around 45% of annual demand - 90% of it offshore.

Wave power and tidal power could provide large amounts of our electricity - alongside renewable technologies such as solar thermal, solar photo-voltaic and hydro. More efficient domestic heating demand could be met with heat pumps and combined heat and power plants running on biofuels such as wood chip.

The biggest engineering challenge is to balance supply and demand. There will be times when Britain can generate more energy than is needed in a local area and energy needs to be exported or stored.

Promising approaches include intelligent domestic appliances that ‘listen’ to the grid, large flow batteries, new pumped storage systems in existing hydro-electric sites and ‘vehicle to grid’ (or V2G) – electric vehicle batteries could also discharge back into the grid when supply is low.

Wind turbines and other technologies would also be spread around the coast of Britain, increasing reliability of supply.

National Policy
We need strong political leadership – with the introduction of Tradable Energy Quotas Britain could become zero-carbon by 2027.

Britain like all nations the world, would have its own individual national cap on emissions, based on first-year emission levels.

Achieving the target depends on our ability to transform the economy from one constrained by money, into one where the overriding constraint is carbon – TEQs would achieve this aim.

People will use TEQs to "buy" carbon. Flights will require huge amounts of TEQs. An inefficient fridge will need more TEQs than an efficient one.

Individuals would receive TEQs for free while business and industry would purchase TEQs through a weekly auction. Richer people can buy TEQs from those who are not using them – owners of gas-guzzlers will be able – at least initially – to buy TEQs from people who don’t have a car. TEQs will trigger a huge change in consumer behaviour. People will learn to reduce their dependency on carbon intensive activities.

TEQs will create an economy which would rapidly transform into an engine for rapid change – a race out of carbon.

Year by year the amount of TEQs available in the economy would reduce in line with the national cap on carbon emissions (derived from the C&C model). Businesses and individuals will have to move further towards ‘zero-carbon’ activities – but they have some choice about how they do that.

Powering down;

Energy Use
By 2027, Britain could reduce its energy demand by 50% while maintaining current levels of wellbeing.

Britain is a very wasteful country - cheap, abundant petrochemicals have led to highly wasteful practices and attitudes. Powering down does not mean a return to hardships of the past- but it does require a change of attitudes.

Businesses will be motivated to make emissions cuts because they will have to pay to pollute.
Technologies already exist achieve the necessary targets

Buildings
Under the "Island Britain" scenario heat demand for buildings would decline by 50% and electricity demand 10% by 2027.

New builds would be effectively zero-carbon from 2012, with a vigorous programme to refurbish older buildings for lower energy consumption. Most existing buildings were constructed with little regard for energy conservation and there is a large potential for improvement through refurbishment, demolition and rebuilding.

TEQs will ensure that homebuyers will be much more conscious of the amount of carbon allowances required to heat and service their new homes, and builders and will adjust their construction to remain competitive.

ZCB recognises the need to preserve Britain's heritage by omitting a significant proportion of energy inefficient houses from the refurbishment programme, but assumes that savings will still be made in these properties through behaviour changes.

Transport
Under the 'Island Britain' energy model there would be huge improvements in all forms of public transport and a shift toward local production, purchasing and activity.

Our entire transport system must be replaced with one that is powered almost completely by renewable energy. The report envisages that battery-electric vehicles will be the key technology. Electric motors are 4-5 times more efficient than internal combustion engines, giving an immediate energy saving and a Vehicle-to-Grid system (V2G) would contribute to balancing supply and demand.

Domestic air travel by 2027 is likely to be limited to emergency use, while international flights will have to pay their full carbon costs through the TEQs system – increasing in cost and thus severely reducing demand.

The expansion of high-speed, frequent, rail and sea services will see a dramatic reduction in domestic and short-haul flights. People will simply be travelling by less carbon-intensive transport. Train, ferry and coach fares would become cheaper, more frequent and more accessible.
Note that there are no easy technological fixes for international aviation.

Agriculture
Moving away from carbon intensive farming will require a move towards low energy agriculture - maybe largely organic. Our diet will change to support a 60% reduction in land use for livestock. Imports of non-seasonal and tropical goods will reduce as transport costs increase.

Global and national policies would drive up the costs of fossil fuels which in turn would create pressure on farmers to make different, carbon-conscious, choices. They would raise the cost of both petroleum based agrochemicals and the transport of produce.

Among the changes that would result is greatly reduced numbers of livestock and land dedicated to feeding them. Farmers would use their land instead for low-input production – with lower yields. Farmers would be encouraged to produce on-farm fuel and dedicate land for trees or other biofuel crops.

So what does this mean in Eynsham? We don’t currently have an international or national lead to produce the key drivers of C&C or TEQs. But ZCB offers a much-needed optimistic view of what we could achieve – and it's encouraging in its assertion that the knowledge and technologies are on place – we simply need more of them. It highlights that key areas are transport, and agriculture – suggests a focus on local food, public transport – all of which are highly relevant to transition initiatives.