Changing the Way the World Works
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Walter C Patterson The Energy Alternative Changing The Way The World Works 1 For Amory Lovins, Gerald Leach and Peter Chapman, who started me thinking about energy. First published 1990 © Walter C Patterson Cover design by Vincent Design Design by Sarah Hall Typeset in Linotron Ehrhardt by Cambrian Typesetters Printed and bound in Great Britain by Richard Clay Limited, Bungay, Suffolk for Boxtree Limited 36 Tavistock Street London WC2E 7PI3 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Patterson, Walter C. (Walter Cram), 1936 The energy alternative: changing the way the world works. 1. Energy. Supply & demand 1. Title 333.7912 ISBN 1-85283-284-3 2 CHANGING THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS Walter C. Patterson What shall we do about energy? Official projections insist that less than forty years from now the world will be using twice or even three times as much fuel and electricity as we do today. But the more we use, the worse we make problems like acid rain, toxic wastes and the greenhouse effect. The financial cost of doubling fuel and electricity supply would be crippling. The environmental impact would be devastating. Must we accept this grim prognosis? Or is there another, more promising approach? The Energy Alternative is an introductory guide to the quiet, remarkable global revolution that is transforming how we think about energy, and what we can do about it. The revolution has been under way for two decades. It has seen gratifying successes and embarrassing failures; but the crucial battles still lie ahead. Their outcome will determine the shape and condition of the planetary society we bequeath to our grandchildren. Based on the InCA/Grampian series shown on Channel 4, The Energy Alternative tells how the energy revolution is happening, and why. But time is short. Before it runs out, can we change the way the world works? 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Energy Alternative draws on the work and thought of analysts all over the world; even to attempt to list them would fill many pages. I must however record the gratitude I owe to many friends and colleagues whose ideas and actions have influenced my own. They include Amory Lovins, Gerald Leach, Peter Chapman, Czech Conroy, Mike Flood, Stewart Boyle, Simon Roberts, Mike Harper, Jose Goldemberg, Thomas Johansson, Amulya Reddy, Robert Williams, John Surrey, John Chesshire, Jim Skea, Steve Thomas, Jonathan Stern, Jane Carter, Mans Loennroth, Bent Sorensen, Andrew Warren, Ian Brown, Gerry Foley, Ariane van Buren, Robin Grove-White, David Olivier, Hugh Miall, Mark Barrett, Brian Wynne, Mick Kelly, George Henderson, David Merrick, Jim Harrison, Irene Smith, Malcolm Edwards, Chris Whatley, Dave Feickert, Brian Parkin, Andy Holmes, Lucy Plaskett, Chris Cragg, Gerard McCloskey, Frank Gray, Zeba Kalim, Paul Lyons, Max Wilkinson, David Lowry, Brian Price, Colin Hines, David Green, Steve Andrews, David Hall, Brian Brinkworth, Paul Hofseth, Erik van der Hoeven, Florentin Krause, Wilfrid Bach, Dominique Finon, Chen Zhi Hang, Lee Schipper, Jim Harding, Lester Brown, Chris Flavin, Cynthia Pollock Shea, Tom Cochran, Jacob Scherr and Denis Hayes; and when this book is irrevocably in print I shall doubtless recall with embarrassment many others I should have thanked. The Energy Alternative is a companion to the television series of the same title, commissioned by Channel 4 in Britain and co-produced by Independent Communications Associates and Grampian Television. As series adviser I have been informed, challenged and stimulated by my colleagues William Woollard, Ted Brocklebank, John Shepherd and Thelma Rumsey, whose energy seems boundless. My agent Abner Stein, and Sarah Mahaffy, Janita Clamp, Elaine Collins, Penelope Cream and Charles Phillips of Boxtree have seen The Energy Alternative into print with skill, dedication and impressive speed. My invaluable assistants Cindy Yates and Karen Brockett have wrought heroically to keep me from being submerged by my material. My beloved family, Cleone, Perdy and Tabby, are the best energy supply anyone could wish, and the best reason to use it. Walt Patterson Amersham, Bucks, UK March 1990 4 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS PREFACE THE ENERGY DILEMMA WHAT IS 'ENERGY'? THE RISE OF ENERGY ENERGYINTURMOIL SUPPLYING DEMAND, DEMANDING SUPPLY WHO WANTS ENERGY? MORE FOR LESS SHOPPING FOR ENERGY POWER TO THE PEOPLE FUTURE ALTERNATIVE? APPENDICES INDEX 5 PREFACE Energy is dangerous. Using it can transform life on earth, for good or ill. We have long taken energy for granted; we use it without thought, and leave the thinking to others. This approach has served us well, many of us, for many years; but it now needs urgent reassessment, before the benefits of energy use are overtaken by its side-effects. This book is an introductory guide to energy - what we do with it, how we do it, and how we might do it better. Chapter 1 sets the scene, outlining the issues that energy now raises. Chapter 2 describes what 'energy' is, and the role it plays in life on earth. Chapters 3 and 4 survey how energy use has evolved, and the controversies it precipitates. Chapter 5 shows how traditional energy planning is breaking down, and how an alternative is emerging. Chapter 6 describes the fundamental ideas underlying the alternative approach. Chapter 7 considers the opportunities for using energy more effectively, and Chapter 8 those for supplying fuels and electricity more acceptably. Chapter 9 contrasts energy issues in the industrial world with those in the Third World, where energy use lags ever farther behind. Chapter 10 contrasts the energy tradition with the energy alternative, its problems and its promise. No single book can hope to do justice to a subject so vast. The particular examples cited herein are only a cursory sampling of activities now in train throughout the world; the appendices list sources that will provide many more examples and a wealth of further information. One word of warning at the outset; you venture into this territory at your peril. Every human activity involves energy, and the innumerable issues that arise can take over your life. Two decades of experience leave this writer in no doubt: energy is habit-forming. 6 1 THE ENERGY DILEMMA Strike a match. You have just done something uniquely human. No other living creature, so far as we know, can start a fire at will. When our ancestors learned to control fire, they took the first step toward becoming the dominant form of life on earth. Controlling fire was the key to using what we now call 'energy'. If you can control fire, you can keep your body comfortably warm wherever you are, - whatever the time of day, whatever the season. Instead of eating food raw you can cook it, vastly extending the edible menu. You can bake watertight pots and durable bricks. You can extract iron and other metals from the earth, and work them into strong and functional tools. We have come a long way since the first intentional fire threw dancing shadows on the walls of a cave. We now know how to burn not only wood, dung and fat from animals and plants, but also coal, petroleum and natural gas. We can capture usable energy from falling water and blowing wind, and even release it from uranium. We can transform energy through incredibly intricate processes, at every scale from gigantic dam to silicon microchip. By using energy, we humans have transformed much of the natural world to suit ourselves. We do not, however, know as much about using energy as we thought we did. With all our experience we still keep getting it wrong. An old adage is catching up with us: playing with fire can be dangerous. Indeed it may now be endangering our entire planet. We need to re-examine urgently this unique human ability, the ability to start a fire - that is, the ability to use energy on purpose. If we do not, it may soon be terminally out of control. Think about your burning match. What could you do with it? You could light a bonfire to bake your potatoes; or you could raze a forest. You could ignite your kitchen gas-ring; or you could level a shopping centre. You could fire up the coal in a factory boiler; or you could set off a disastrous explosion in a mine. Hazards like these are essentially immediate and local. People have lived with them for many decades. We try to minimize them; but we accept them in exchange for the obvious benefits we gain by using energy. Within our lifetimes, however, we have become acutely aware of other hazards, more subtle and indirect, more long-term and far-reaching. Anyone who reads the news headlines will long since be familiar with the dismaying litany. Choking smog turns urban air a dirty orange; eyes water and lungs inflame in Los Angeles, Athens, Madrid, Mexico City, indeed everywhere that too many cars burn too much petrol under too much sunlight. 'Acid rain' laden with sulphur and nitrogen 7 compounds from burning coal and oil poisons rivers, lakes and soil; fish die and woodlands wither. The explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear plant in April 1986 showed that even a single accident can affect geographical areas thousands of kilometres away, for years to come. In the 1990s, however, all these unintended consequences of energy use, alarming though they be, have been overtaken by yet another - the most awesome yet. Scientific evidence indicates that we are now upsetting the climate of our planet. Six of the hottest years ever recorded occurred in the 1980s, bringing droughts, violent storms, floods and extremes of weather to many parts of the earth. Leading scientists concur that we may be seeing the first warning symptoms of a so-called 'greenhouse effect'.