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“What the Holy Spirit is saying to us about the fuel we use”
An address given by Andrew Bell as part of the Mint
evening service
at 6.30 p.m. on Sunday 3rd
February 2008
Section 1: The looming
energy crisis
In this
passage from Isaiah we hear about a world in chaos; a world in which happiness is
banished and cities become ruins.
This prophesy could easily be applied to a world just a few years into our future
as we stand on the brink of a national and global energy crisis.
We live
in a world that is utterly dependent on fossil fuels. But there is one fuel
that we rely on most heavily for transportation, agriculture, construction and
manufacturing. That is oil.
The problem
is we are approaching, or may even have hit, is peak oil.
Peak Oil
is not about “running out of oil” – we'll never run out of oil. However, once
it takes an oil barrel's worth of energy to extract a barrel of oil, the
exploration, the drilling and the pumping will grind to a halt.
But you
don't need to run out to have a serious problem. An analogy is dying of
thirst—you are in a lot of discomfort long before you die and you die long
before you are completely out of water. As supply declines, either efficiencies have to improve or someone that was using oil
starts to do without.
Fundamentally,
Peak Oil is about the end of cheap and plentiful oil. When we’ve extracted
around half of all recoverable oil it gets more expensive to extract – in cash
and energy terms. It is also slower flowing and of lower quality. At this
point, for the first time in history, we aren’t able to increase the amount of
oil that’s coming out of the ground, being refined and reaching the market. So, oil supply plateaus and then declines.
And what
is even more alarming, is that the peak is occurring or will occur at a time of
increasing global population and growing energy demand.
Here are a few facts about the
depletion of oil:
· World consumption of crude oil is
approximately 64 million barrels per day.
· World reserves of crude oil are
reported to be around 680 billion barrels.
· Using present consumption, this
will provide crude oil for 29 years but this ignores increasing demand, most
notably in China and India.
· About 134 billion barrels are
likely to be discovered over the next 30 years. That is enough to meet current
world demand for just 4 and-a-half years.
· For every calorie eaten in the US,
10 calories of fossil fuel is used to get that calorie to the plate. You could
argue that obesity is a problem caused by eating too much petroleum.
So, we
are entering a period of energy decline – that extended period when, year on
year, we have decreasing amounts of oil to fuel our industrialised way of life
with potentially devastating consequences.
Since the
beginning of our short oil era around 1860, world population has increased
dramatically. Then there were less than a billion of us alive; today we are
moving towards seven billion. From a biological perspective that is enormously
successful, but it is a very perilous kind of success because the dramatic
growth rate of our species is based solely on and related directly to the consumption
of fossil fuels.
Take away
fossil fuels and what is the carrying capacity of the earth?
Well, I
don’t think we know the answer to that – indeed perhaps it is best not to
speculate. But let us remind ourselves of the passage we heard from Isaiah:
“Fewer and fewer remain alive. The grapevines wither; the wine is becoming
scarce.”
This is
not a new problem for humanity. Many societies throughout history have faced
resource depletion. History tells us that Plato deplored the deforestation in
Greece, and that the Greeks started aligning their settlements to maximize
solar heat when they ran out of firewood.
Archeologists have found many societies that disintegrated because they depleted
their resources with no concern for the future. Famously, the ancient
civilization on Easter Island cut down all their trees and couldn’t even make
crude boats to fish. Their civilization was finished.
Developed
and developing countries alike are highly dependent on oil, but for the richer
countries of the north, depletion is going to be especially difficult. We have
all grown up in an era when we have assumed that cheap energy in the form of
fossil fuels is going to be around for ever. Well, folks, the party’s almost
over!
But what
of the other two main fossil fuels: gas and coal.
In terms
of gas, the world has quite a good stock, enough it is estimated to last for
approximately 65 years— at the present rate of consumption. However, the dash
to gas for electricity generation taking place across the developed world could
mean that gas production peaks as soon as 10 years after peak oil. Furthermore,
the reliance on just a few countries to supply our gas makes us highly
insecure.
And what of coal? Well, coal is a serious problem. There is no shortage,
indeed some estimates put reserves at about 200 years. The problem is that if
we don’t leave it underground or somehow capture the carbon emissions when we
burn it, we risk runaway climate change. Coal is a dirty fuel producing massive
amounts of impurities such as mercury, arsenic, and sulfur
in addition to the huge carbon dioxide emissions. It is an often quoted and
terrifying fact that China is building a new coal fired power station every
week. They have realised there is no future in oil.
Climate change is of course an equally important and pressing problem and it is
important to see this as the other side of the same coin. If we extract and
burn all the remaining fossil fuels left on the planet, we will leave our
children and grandchildren a planet unfit for habitation, so serious would the
effects be on the world’s climate. But if we don’t continue to use fossil
fuels, will we face a future of energy starvation, with unprecedented social
and economic consequences.
So what
of the alternatives to fossil fuels? Could nuclear provide our electricity? And
will biofuels enable us to continue to travel as far and
as frequently as we have become accustomed? I will explore these questions
next.
Section 2: Filling the
energy gap: what about biofuels and nuclear
power?
A few
weeks ago the government finally gave the go-ahead for a new generation of
nuclear power stations, saying that the arguments in favour of nuclear were [quote]
"compelling". The government's view is that this is a vital way of
plugging the energy shortfall and is the cheapest source of low-carbon
electricity.
But
this decision smacks of desperation and a lack of imagination over the looming
energy crisis. It also follows a deeply flawed consultation process, but that’s
another story!
Basically,
nuclear is the option you turn to if you believe that business as usual is the
way forward (and I do mean business, as the decision to press ahead is largely
due to intense lobbying by the business
Nuclear
cannot solve the energy crisis. The earliest that a new nuclear power station
could come on stream in the UK is around 2017 – probably too late to fill the
energy gap.
And
globally, if as the nuclear industry suggests, nuclear power were to replace
fossil fuels on a large scale, it would be necessary to build around 2000
additional large reactors.
There
are currently around 450 nuclear reactors in operation around the world. Such
an expansion, critics argue, would mean that there would only be enough
economically viable uranium – the fuel needed for nuclear reactors – to fuel
the reactors for three to four years.
Even
with current expansion plans, particularly in China and India, uranium prices
are rising steeply due to a growing shortage and it looks increasingly likely
that peak uranium will follow peak oil fairly quickly.
In
terms of climate change, even if Britain built ten new reactors, Greenpeace
estimate that nuclear power can only deliver a 4% cut in carbon emissions some
time after 2025.
But also
for most of our energy needs in the UK nuclear is irrelevant. Around half the energy we use is for heat (mainly gas-based) while
the next biggest demand is energy for transport (mainly oil-based). So
unless millions of homes switch to electric heaters and we all start travelling
by electric cars, nuclear has no hope of filling the energy gap.
And
then there is the toxic legacy left to future generations.
Plutonium
is a product of the chain reaction in nuclear reactors. It is also one of the most
dangerous elements known to humans—so toxic that one-millionth of a gram is
carcinogenic. More than 200kg of plutonium is made annually in each
1000-megawatt nuclear power plant. Plutonium lasts for at least half a million
years.
Plutonium
is also the fuel for nuclear weapons – only 5kg is necessary to make a bomb. So
you cannot disentangle nuclear power from nuclear bombs: any country with a
nuclear power plant can theoretically manufacture 40 bombs a year.
So much for nuclear. But what of biofuels? After all, a large proportion of the
energy we use is used on transporting us and the goods we consume an ever
increasing number of miles each year. If biofuels
could replace oil, surely this would help fill the energy gap created by peak
oil?
Well,
firstly, let’s look at what biofuels are. They are
any kind of fuel made from living things, or from the waste they produce. In
recent years, the term biofuel has come to mean
ethanol and diesel, made from crops including corn, sugarcane and rapeseed.
These fuels can replace petrol and diesel used in transport.
In
principle, biofuels are a way of reducing carbon emissions
because although burning the fuels releases carbon dioxide in the same way as
burning petrol or diesel, the plants absorb a comparable amount of carbon from the
atmosphere as they grow. So in theory biofuels can be
regarded as carbon neutral.
However,
it is not as simple as that and there are serious environmental and social
questions regarding the growth of biofuel crops.
Let’s
look at Swaziland for a moment. This is one of the poorest countries on earth. Aids is taking a heavy toll with more than 40% of the
population believed infected with HIV. Average life expectancy for men is a
staggering 32, and for women 33.
Many
Swazis live in chronic poverty and food shortages are widespread. So what has
the government there decided to export? Biofuel made
from one of its staple food crops, cassava. The government has allocated
several thousand hectares of farmland to ethanol production.
Do we
really love our cars that much that we are willing to allow the world’s poorest
people to lose their food growing land so we can have biofuels?
Apparently so.
The
European Union and the UK government have both set ambitious targets for the
amount of biofules that should be available at the
pumps by 2010.
The
International Monetary Fund (IMF), not an organisation one might expect to very
vocal on such subjects, has warned that using food to produce biofuels [quote] “might further strain already tight
supplies of arable land and water all over the world, thereby pushing food
prices up even further.”
And we
are seeing this already. The cost of rice has risen by 20% over the past year,
maize by 50%, wheat by 100%. Biofuels aren’t entirely
to blame but by taking land out of food production they exacerbate the effects
of bad harvests and rising demand. Almost every single major development agency
is now warning against expansion. And almost all the major governments are
ignoring them.
And it
turns out that biofuels are not carbon neutral at
all. Far from it. A recent study by Nobel laureate
Paul Crutzen suggests that the official estimates
ignore the contribution of nitrogen fertilisers. These generate a greenhouse
gas - nitrous oxide - which is 296 times as powerful as carbon dioxide. These
emissions ensure that ethanol from maize causes up to one and a half times as
much global warming as petrol, while rapeseed oil (the source of over 80% of
the world’s biodiesel) generates up to 1.7 times the impact of diesel.
And this
is before you account for the changes in land use. Studies have revealed that protecting
uncultivated land – particularly if it is covered by rainforest – saves, over
30 years, between two and nine times the carbon emissions you might avoid by
ploughing it and planting biofuels.
The
only sustainable biofuel is recycled waste oil, but
the available volumes are tiny.
All
this has led Jean Ziegler, the UN’s special rapporteur to describe biofuels as
“a crime against humanity”.
The
investigative journalist and environmentalist George Monbiot
says that if the governments promoting biofuels do
not reverse their policies, the humanitarian impact will be greater than that
of the Iraq war. Millions will be displaced; hundreds of millions more could go
hungry.
He also
warns that the UK government and the EU are unlikely to reign back from their
ambitious targets on biofuels as they offer a means
of avoiding hard political choices. They create the impression that governments
can act against rising fuel prices and cut carbon emissions while continuing
the expansion of the transport networks and the economy.
So, I
have so far offered very little in the way of comfort for the looming energy and
climate crises. I hope that in the final part I can offer some hope and some
thoughts on how as Christians we can envision and enact a new post fossil fuel,
post carbon world.
Part 3: A new Earth
So, with this reading from Mathew in mind, should
we be worried by the looming energy crisis and the impacts of climate change?
Well, what this passage suggests to me is that if
we concern ourselves with the values and ethics of the Kingdom of God, our basic
needs will be met.
But I would go further than this. I actually believe
that a post fossil fuel age is far more likely to advance such values and
ethics. There would be more collectivism rather than individualism and greater sharing
of resources rather than selfish greed, consumerism and materialism.
That’s not to dismiss the very real difficulties
that economies, societies, communities and families are going to face as a
result of the energy crisis. There will be some very challenging times ahead
for both the rich world and the poor as we move away from fossil fuel
dependency.
And of course we need to think about what a post
fossil fuel world will look like and plan for it.
The Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales has
already helped us do this. They have drawn up a plan for how the UK can
eliminate emissions from fossil fuels in just 20 years and break our dependence
on imported energy. It says we can achieve this by halving our energy demand
and installing massive renewable energy generation while still maintaining high
levels of well-being.
The report concludes that the most effective
international policy framework to dramatically reduce emissions is Contraction
& Convergence. This framework identifies a ‘safe’ global carbon budget, or
cap, and within it an equitable portion for Britain.
The system would ultimately lead to an equal carbon
budget for every person on the planet. These carbon budgets would be tradable,
so rich countries could buy up excess quotas from poor countries, which had not
used up their carbon budget.
This would provide space for richer countries to
contract their energy use and reduce their carbon emissions while providing
incentives to developing countries to develop in a way that avoids fossil-fuel
powered industrialisation.
But what does this Zero Carbon Britain actually
look like?
Well here is a snapshot:
·
Domestic flights would become non-existent
·
Meat eating would have to be reduced, as it requires
a very large amount of land and energy to produce animal feed
·
Land would instead be used to grow renewable wood
fuels
·
Electric vehicles and trains would replace most
internal combustion engines. But we would probably have to accept travelling
slower, less far and less frequently.
·
And there would need to be a widespread insulation
programme together with the demolition and replacement of the worst-performing
buildings.
I pause here for a moment. We really need to think
about how our redevelopment here at the
Returning to a zero carbon Britain, wind would
provide the greatest proportion of electrical energy, around 45% of it with 90%
of it generated offshore.
Wave power, and tidal
power could also provide large amounts of our electricity. Other renewable
technologies, such as solar thermal, solar photovoltaic and hydro would all contribute
to the electricity supply in the report’s 2027 scenario.
Following efficiency measures, the much reduced domestic
heating demand would be met with heat pumps and combined heat and power (CHP)
plants running on wood chip, hence the need for growing
lots of trees.
Zero carbon Britain also assumes we would grow all
our own food, organically of course. This would mean a food revolution. We
would need to reconsider where we grow food, how we grow it and what we eat.
But that revolution has already taken place in Cuba. Faced with the collapse of
the Soviet Union and an oil blockade by the United States, the country has demonstrated
that an organic food revolution in a post oil society is not only possible but actually
improves the way communities work together and improves their health.
All this of course means a fundamental change in
lifestyles. But as I said earlier, I believe that although such fundamental
change would come with initial challenges and difficulties, it would ultimately
improve the quality of life.
It does of course mean an end to that mantra that
all the main political parties and businesses – and the majority of consumers
too – subscribe to: economic growth.
The new mantra would need to be economic
contraction.
With the exception of the Green Party, I am still
waiting for a politician to have the courage to say: “actually folks, what we need to do to address the energy crisis and climate change
is contract our economies”.
But what can we as
individuals, households, groups, a Christian community and a church actually do?
Well, I am not going to go through the change your
light bulbs, turn down the heating, shower instead of bath, recycle
your bottles list. I think we need to move beyond this if we are to have any
meaningful impact.
Having said that, there is one very important
measure I would recommend; something that can have an immediate impact on both
energy generation and climate change and that is to switch to a green
electricity supplier. And I don’t mean one of the energy giant’s so called
green tariffs. I mean a company that genuinely sells only electricity generated by renewable means.
Disputably, the only company that does that is Good
Energy. Such a move will add to the pressure for more renewable energy
generation and reduce your household carbon footprint substantially.
And let’s look at carbon footprints. This is a
measure of the amount of carbon each individual or household is responsible for
creating as a result of their lifestyle.
Increasingly, across the UK groups are coming
together to collectively look at and reduce their carbon footprints. Such
groups are often termed Carbon Reduction Action
The average carbon emissions per
person in the UK is currently around 9 tonnes per year. Under
contraction and convergence we would need to reduce this dramatically, perhaps
to as little as one tonne per person.
What CRAGS aim to do is to work collectively to
identify actions that can be taken to reduce the use of energy and to lower
carbon emissions.
A
And then there is the exciting Transition Towns
movement. The best known transition town in Devon is Totnes.
Basically
the ideas underpinning Transition Towns include:
·
life with less energy is inevitable and it is
better to plan for it than be taken by surprise
·
industrial society has lost the resilience to be
able to cope with energy shocks
·
we have to act together and we have to act now
·
infinite growth
within a finite system (such as planet earth) simply isn't possible.
·
the ingenuity and intelligence we have shown as a
species in the last 150 years as we have raced up the energy curve can now be
used to negotiate our way down
·
using creativity
and cooperation to unleash the skills within our local communities, so that we
can build a fulfilling and enriching future, more connected and more gentle on
the earth than the lifestyles we have today.
Exeter has an emerging Transition Town movement
through the Low Carbon Exeter initiative and I would urge you and us as a
Christian community to get involved in this.
Seek first the kingdom of God and his
righteousness, and all these things will be given to you.' (Matthew 6:33)
I feel sure that the kingdom of God on earth is a
post fossil fuel, low carbon kingdom and that good
things will be given to us in this kingdom.