Monday, February 28, 2005
British wind is better than German wind
Following the recent critical report on the wind power sector in Germany, the usual suspects in the UK have rushed to defend it. Both the DTI and Greenpeace, according to this BBC story (Anti-wind farm report dismissed) seem to think that the situation is different in the UK and have a touching belief that all problems will be solved by the time we have installed thousands more wind turbines, capable of contributing significantly to our energy requirements when the wind blows at just the right speed. Look forward to power cuts blamed on the "wrong kind of wind".
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Second thoughts about phasing out nuclear and relying on wind power
Germany currently has 40% of the world's installed wind power generation capacity: a staggering 16,000 turbines which are capable - occasionally - of generating up to 15% of the country's requirements. In practice, only 3% of the total power comes from wind, whereas one-third is from nuclear stations. The plans at present are to decommission each of these after 32 years, while still reducing carbon dioxide emissions to 40% below the 1990 baseline by 2020, by which time there would be no nuclear generating capacity left. This ambitious target is to be met by phasing out coal-fired power stations, but it is unclear what will replace them. There seem to be many in the country who are now questioning the wisdom of the strategy, and arguing for at least an extension of the operating life of existing nuclear stations. For more see the story Germany split over green energy on the BBC website.
Is a refreshing dash of realism finally entering the European energy policy debate?
Is a refreshing dash of realism finally entering the European energy policy debate?
UK orders another nanotech review
As detailed in this BBC report the UK science minister (at least until the forthcoming election), Lord Sainsbury, has provided the government's response to last year's Royal Society report on nanotechnology. Predictably, they have ordered a further review, to address gaps in the knowledge and contribute towards appropriate regulation. Equally predictably, they are providing no more money, and detailed plans will not be available until the autumn, more than a year after the Royal Society report was issued.
To some extent, this highlights the dilemma politicians find themselves in: they want to avoid new technologies suffering the same current fate as GM crops, but don't really know what the answer is. The natural temptation is to resort to precautionary regulation, but the evidence is that this does nothing to reassure people. The average citizen thinks that if something is highly regulated, there's probably something wrong with it.
There is a clear case for going forward on the basis of evidence: by all means being cautious, but not succumbing to the lure of unnecessary precaution to try (unsuccessfully) to address the concerns of the worried activist minority. We elect governments to lead and take rational decisions on our behalf, not to be swayed by those who shout loudest.
To some extent, this highlights the dilemma politicians find themselves in: they want to avoid new technologies suffering the same current fate as GM crops, but don't really know what the answer is. The natural temptation is to resort to precautionary regulation, but the evidence is that this does nothing to reassure people. The average citizen thinks that if something is highly regulated, there's probably something wrong with it.
There is a clear case for going forward on the basis of evidence: by all means being cautious, but not succumbing to the lure of unnecessary precaution to try (unsuccessfully) to address the concerns of the worried activist minority. We elect governments to lead and take rational decisions on our behalf, not to be swayed by those who shout loudest.
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Why we have nothing to fear from "toxic" food
"Carcinogenic dye in hundreds of food products" screams the headline in today's Guardian. "359 foods in cancer alert" is the Daily Mirror's take. According to this story - carried prominently by all the other UK dailies and a major item on yesterday's television and radio news - "More than 350 food products were swept off supermarket shelves yesterday in the biggest safety scare since the BSE crisis." The Food Standards Agency website was swamped with hits, and many people were doubtlessly sorting through their stocks of food (with shaking hands).
The truth is rather less frightening. A batch of chilli powder, imported from India, had been found to contain traces of a dye - Sudan 1 - which is not approved for food use. Before this was detected, the chilli powder had been used to make Worcester sauce, which in turn had been used as an ingredient of a wide range of prepared foods. So, a trace of a non-permitted additive was diluted, say, 100 fold when the sauce was made. This, in turn, was diluted probably another 100 fold when the sauce was used in the various recipes. The likelihood is that the dye was not even detectable in the Worcester sauce, let alone the food products on the shelf.
But this fact seems to be an even greater cause for concern. According to the Guardian article "Consumers are demanding ever greater information about the food they eat and the uncomfortable truth is that the dye seems to have been present often at undetectable levels." So we're told to worry about an infinitesimal potential risk when we are consuming much greater levels of known carcinogens from natural sources daily, with little apparent ill effect (I'm not aware that coffee drinkers like myself have an increased mortality rate, for example).
Not only that, but we don't even know that Sudan 1 is carcinogenic. According to the BBC on-line report (Food recalled in cancer dye scare), 'Dr Julie Sharp, of Cancer Research UK, said the people who had already eaten foods that had been contaminated had no reason to panic.She said: "The risk of cancer in humans from Sudan I has not been proven and any risk from these foods is likely to be very small indeed." ' But this didn't stop a good example of the kind of pithy quotes which journalists love. Turning this particular recall into an attack on the modern food chain, Joanna Blythman, a "food campaigner", said "But because supermarkets now control 80% of the nation's food basket, if there is a problem it spreads like head lice through a nursery."
Clearly, the affected foods had to be recalled, because they had been made with an ingredient containing a trace of an illegal colour. However, I'm willing to bet that much more harm befell the people clearing the shelves (in the form of cuts and bruises) than would have resulted if all the contaminated food had been eaten.
The truth is rather less frightening. A batch of chilli powder, imported from India, had been found to contain traces of a dye - Sudan 1 - which is not approved for food use. Before this was detected, the chilli powder had been used to make Worcester sauce, which in turn had been used as an ingredient of a wide range of prepared foods. So, a trace of a non-permitted additive was diluted, say, 100 fold when the sauce was made. This, in turn, was diluted probably another 100 fold when the sauce was used in the various recipes. The likelihood is that the dye was not even detectable in the Worcester sauce, let alone the food products on the shelf.
But this fact seems to be an even greater cause for concern. According to the Guardian article "Consumers are demanding ever greater information about the food they eat and the uncomfortable truth is that the dye seems to have been present often at undetectable levels." So we're told to worry about an infinitesimal potential risk when we are consuming much greater levels of known carcinogens from natural sources daily, with little apparent ill effect (I'm not aware that coffee drinkers like myself have an increased mortality rate, for example).
Not only that, but we don't even know that Sudan 1 is carcinogenic. According to the BBC on-line report (Food recalled in cancer dye scare), 'Dr Julie Sharp, of Cancer Research UK, said the people who had already eaten foods that had been contaminated had no reason to panic.She said: "The risk of cancer in humans from Sudan I has not been proven and any risk from these foods is likely to be very small indeed." ' But this didn't stop a good example of the kind of pithy quotes which journalists love. Turning this particular recall into an attack on the modern food chain, Joanna Blythman, a "food campaigner", said "But because supermarkets now control 80% of the nation's food basket, if there is a problem it spreads like head lice through a nursery."
Clearly, the affected foods had to be recalled, because they had been made with an ingredient containing a trace of an illegal colour. However, I'm willing to bet that much more harm befell the people clearing the shelves (in the form of cuts and bruises) than would have resulted if all the contaminated food had been eaten.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Carbon dioxide is not pollution
Today, as environmentalists celebrate the Kyoto protocol becoming part of international law, there is inevitably blanket coverage of the event. One example (see EU leads Kyoto "carbon revolution") is from the BBC website, where carbon dioxide is referred to as a "pollutant". This is an egregious misuse of the word, if ever I heard one. Carbon dioxide is a trace gas in the atmosphere. Animals (including ourselves) breathe it out, plants use it as food and return oxygen to the air we breathe. A somewhat increased level in the atmosphere is not pollution by any normal definition of the word.
It's unarguable that carbon dioxide levels are rising, and it's also clear that humans have a part to play in this. However, despite theorising and intensive computer modelling, there is still no reasonable proof that continued increases will lead to "dangerous" climate change. Within my lifetime, the concern being bandied about was that we were due to enter a new Ice Age, and our basic understanding of what causes glaciations and warm periods is no better now than it was then.
This is not to say that reducing our use of fossil fuels is a bad idea in itself. As technology progresses, our energy sources will change and the efficiency of use will increase. With or without Kyoto, I'm willing to bet that by mid-century our mix of power generation will look quite different from the present (and also that wind power will be but a small fraction of the total). We genuinely don't know what technologies will be economic by then. My guess is that we will have invested in considerably more nuclear capacity, but that this will probably have been superseded by other technologies (perhaps, finally, including nuclear fusion). We don't need the Kyoto protocol for that, and we certainly don't need to mis-label carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
It's unarguable that carbon dioxide levels are rising, and it's also clear that humans have a part to play in this. However, despite theorising and intensive computer modelling, there is still no reasonable proof that continued increases will lead to "dangerous" climate change. Within my lifetime, the concern being bandied about was that we were due to enter a new Ice Age, and our basic understanding of what causes glaciations and warm periods is no better now than it was then.
This is not to say that reducing our use of fossil fuels is a bad idea in itself. As technology progresses, our energy sources will change and the efficiency of use will increase. With or without Kyoto, I'm willing to bet that by mid-century our mix of power generation will look quite different from the present (and also that wind power will be but a small fraction of the total). We genuinely don't know what technologies will be economic by then. My guess is that we will have invested in considerably more nuclear capacity, but that this will probably have been superseded by other technologies (perhaps, finally, including nuclear fusion). We don't need the Kyoto protocol for that, and we certainly don't need to mis-label carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Tomorrow is Kyoto day
On 16th February, the Kyoto protocol finally comes into force, and fact which will be cause for much rejoicing among greenish people everywhere. In fact, this protocol is likely to be merely a barrier to economic growth, with a barely-perceptible effect on global temperatures. Bjorn Lomborg has made this case against it much more eloquently and authoritatively than I can. Now, on Kyoto-eve, Rosemary Righter also strongly criticizes this rigid and ineffective instrument of policy in today's Times (see link). Read it and weep...
The sooner the world's policy-makers realise that Kyoto is a dead-end, the better. This realisation may come when rapidly growing economies such as China, India and Brazil thank the currently-developed world for politely slowing its economic growth to enable them to catch up, but decline to follow our example. It may come as evidence builds up that average temperatures are not, in fact, inexorably rising around the world. Or there may just be an acknowledgement that the ability to model one small factor in global climate brings us no closer to understanding the major cycles which take the world in and out of Ice Ages. Whatever the catalyst, the sooner we start adapting to change rather than trying vainly to prevent it, the better off we will all be.
The sooner the world's policy-makers realise that Kyoto is a dead-end, the better. This realisation may come when rapidly growing economies such as China, India and Brazil thank the currently-developed world for politely slowing its economic growth to enable them to catch up, but decline to follow our example. It may come as evidence builds up that average temperatures are not, in fact, inexorably rising around the world. Or there may just be an acknowledgement that the ability to model one small factor in global climate brings us no closer to understanding the major cycles which take the world in and out of Ice Ages. Whatever the catalyst, the sooner we start adapting to change rather than trying vainly to prevent it, the better off we will all be.
Sunday, February 06, 2005
Organic food
Although this is not new, I thought I would bring to your attention an article in January's food monthly supplement in the Observer (see link). This compares the treatment of "organic" and "non-organic" fruit and vegetables, in a way guaranteed to increase the yuk factor and reinforce Guardian and Ob readers' prejudicies about the way their food is being "poisoned". The distance food is shipped, often from abroad, is also subject to criticism.
This tells us nothing about the nutritional value or eating quality of the produce. It tells us nothing about the many toxins and carcinogens naturally present in foods at much higher levels than any residues of synthetic pesticides. It tells us nothing about the harmful effect that local sourcing of all our food would have on the economies of developing countries, whose main competitive advantage lies in the supply of out-of-season fresh produce to the industrialised world.
In my view, unbalanced and partially-informed comment of the worst kind.
This tells us nothing about the nutritional value or eating quality of the produce. It tells us nothing about the many toxins and carcinogens naturally present in foods at much higher levels than any residues of synthetic pesticides. It tells us nothing about the harmful effect that local sourcing of all our food would have on the economies of developing countries, whose main competitive advantage lies in the supply of out-of-season fresh produce to the industrialised world.
In my view, unbalanced and partially-informed comment of the worst kind.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Second thoughts about wind power
A Daily Telegraph article this week entitled Germany shelves report on wind farm produced energy (see link; free registration required) says that 'A damning report warning that wind-farm programmes will greatly increase energy costs and that "greenhouse gases" can be reduced easily by conventional methods has been shelved.' It emphasises the high cost of wind power and the fact that standby capacity, running inefficiently, needs to be on hand to cope with the highly variable output of wind farms.
This is not to say that wind power is inappropriate under all circumstances; just that it is at best a small part of the move to a greater variety of power generation sources.
The way to avoid such mistakes is, as always, to concentrate on effects rather than slavishly pursuing politically correct routes to a solution. Flexibility of thought and action is the key.
This is not to say that wind power is inappropriate under all circumstances; just that it is at best a small part of the move to a greater variety of power generation sources.
The way to avoid such mistakes is, as always, to concentrate on effects rather than slavishly pursuing politically correct routes to a solution. Flexibility of thought and action is the key.
