“Making predictions is difficult, particularly about the future”, but we can learn an
awful lot from the past, but regretfully generally choose not to do so. The EU attaches
considerable importance to its renewable programme, and indeed, in early 2020 the
‘European Green Deal’ of striving to be the first climate-neutral continent, is the most
important objective of the new EU presidency. Before analysing the EU’s methods for
assigning its priorities, it is worthwhile reflecting on how some other ‘walks of life’
follow due process in their designations of value and substance.
In comparison to the EU, which has only existed for a few decades, the Catholic
Church spans two millennia through times of considerable upheaval. So how does
the Catholic Church decide on its most important honours, i.e. that of sainthood? In
reality the position of advocatus diaboli, or devil's advocate, has existed at the
Vatican for centuries, and as explained by the ‘The Catholic Encyclopedia’:
• The duty of the Promotor Fidei was to oversee every aspect of the
beatification and canonization process, ensuring that no person received the
honors of sainthood rashly, that proper juridical form was observed, and that
every potential weakness or objection to the saints canonization was raised
and evaluated in order that only those who were truly worthy would be raised
to the dignity of the altars. Because the Promotor Fidei took a juridical
position against the canonization of any given saint, it was joked that he was
taking the devil's part in the proceedings, hence the common appellation
"Devils' Advocate" (advocatus diaboli).
Science has also existed for a long period, and while the application of new scientific
knowledge in the last century has transformed the quality of life enjoyed by
humankind, science has had a few failures on the way, such as eugenics. So how
does science decide that a hypothesis is of value, where a hypothesis is a proposed
explanation for a phenomenon?
The widely accepted, traditional ‘scientific method’ is based on formulating and
testing hypotheses, in which from the results of subsequent experimentations, a
deduction is made as to whether the hypothesis is presumably true or false. In its
essence, it is a form of critical thinking and deductive reasoning, but at its core is the
principle that the hypothesis and the resulting testing of the hypothesis must be
inherently falsifiable. In simple terms, to be acceptable as a scientific theory, there
must be a possible negative answer.
The null hypothesis is therefore the hypothesis, which the researcher tries to
disprove, reject or nullify. For example, if people take Aspirin and their headache
regularly goes away, then a valid hypothesis is that Aspirin is an effective pain
medication. However, the null hypothesis would point out that headaches have
always come and gone. This is why in pharmaceutical research blind placebo trials
are used. If the group taking the Aspirin demonstrate an improved response with
respects to headaches, then it is appropriate to adopt Aspirin, as an accepted proven
medication for these purposes.
As far back as 1660, with the founding of the Royal Society in England, which is the
oldest national scientific institution, they adopted as their motto: Nullius in verba (Latin for "on the word of no one" or "take nobody's word for it"). Equally, the
portrayal of Einstein is often that of an older wise man, but he was young and
essentially unknown in 1905, when he published his theory of relativity. A theory
challenging the Newtonian physics established for more than 200 years. Some
considered him an upstart and a scientific book was even published "Hundert
Autoren Gegen Einstein (One Hundred Authors against Einstein)". Einstein alleged
reply was that to refute relativity one would not need the word of a hundred scientists,
just one fact, which no one had produced.
Consensus may therefore be at the core of politics, but it is not science. Richard
Feynman was another famous physicist, who worked on the Manhattan Project to
develop the atomic bomb and was a Nobel Prize winner. As he stated with respect to
scientific consensus: “It does not matter who you are, or how smart you are, or what
title you have, or how many of you there are, and certainly not how many papers your
side has published, if your prediction is wrong then your hypothesis is wrong. Period.”
Science therefore moves forward in incremental steps by attrition, at its heart is an
inherently sceptical approach, while the Catholic Church by formalising the role of the
advocatus diabolic also demonstrates, as to how it values such scepticism.
It is of course appropriate that the scientific literature represents various hypotheses,
but a more recent development is how the drive for researchers to obtain publication
in the more prominent journals, has led to more exaggerated attention grabbing
claims to be made. Even the mainstream media has noticed that there is now a
reproducibility crisis in science, such that when researchers try to reproduce
published experimental work, they frequently get significantly different results. Yet
replication of experimental research is at the heart of the scientific process.
The previous reference to scientific academics publishing papers on their favourite
hypothesis, peer reviewed by like-minded academics, might initially appear
somewhat harsh, but it does not seem to bother them much when they get it wrong.
For example, the ‘ex-post’ analysis of the original assessment for the 20% renewable
energy programme does not make pretty reading. Despite this, the PRIMES model
and its academic developers are a key component of the economic analysis of the
next phase of the EU’s climate strategies and targets.
The difference with engineering is that as previously highlighted, it is the practical
application of science. For example, the fundamentals of bridge design are not
scientific hypotheses, but the output of previously validated research and testing. The
consequences of getting it wrong are simply too high, which is why there is such
criticism coming from experienced engineers, with respect to the manner in which
this whole renewable energy programme has been progressed.
How to Assign a Value to this Renewable Programme
This leads to the final claim in Section 5 ‘Conclusion’ of the 2006 Renewable Energy
Road Map namely: “The value of this significant reduction in greenhouse gas
emissions would nearly cover the total additional cost under high energy prices”.
As Section 4.1 demonstrates, the Road Map is concluding with a completely circular
form of reasoning to justify the value of the greenhouse gas savings made. In that the
carbon price per tonne is effectively, a tax placed on fossil fuels. While the use of
renewables is exempt from this tax, so increasing the use of renewables leads to a
tax saving, which in turn helps cover the additional costs spent on renewables. This may well be adequate political reasoning for some, but there are a number of equally
valid questions others require answering:
• Firstly, the “additional cost associated with reaching the proposed share of
renewable energy” were grossly underestimated, such that a complete
bonanza occurred for those supplying wind turbines, solar panels and wood
chips, which the ‘hard pressed’ citizen had to fund in addition to the €25 per
tonne carbon tax added to the use of fossil fuels. Why did this happen, when
under Article 3(3) of the Lisbon Treaty (TEU) the Union shall work for “a
highly competitive social market economy?”
• Why is the ‘hard pressed’ citizen having to pay this carbon tax and if its
justification is the ‘polluter pays principle’, on what basis was €25 per tonne
evaluated?
• When scientific logic and reasoning is applied, what valuation is appropriate
to these greenhouse gas savings?
As regards the first question above, citizens should seek an explanation of this
nature from those allegedly elected to represent you.
As regards the second question, carbon prices are in 2020 currently trading at circa
€25 per tonne, where the allocation of free ‘allowances’ largely determines the price
on the EU ETS. As explained in Section 4.1, the allocations of free allowances is
solely a political decision, hence the EU ETS is a tax applied to fossil fuels and as to
why it is applied, where it is applied and as to how much is applied is solely a political
decision. There is no connection to the environmental damage cost, i.e. external
cost, of CO2. So again, citizens should seek an explanation from those allegedly
elected to represent you.
What is also glaringly obvious with the ‘Renewable Energy Road Map’ and the
subsequent renewable programme, is that the carbon reductions were sole decision
criterion. There was no connection to any other externalities; such as if you force one
type of energy delivery system off the market to promote another, other significant
externalities may arise. For example, as reported in the European Environment
Agency’s Air quality in Europe - 2016 report. “The use of wood and other biomass
combustion for household heating is growing in some countries, owing to government
incentives/subsidies, rising costs of other energy sources, and an increased public
perception that it is a 'green' option”. This Report has a specific section on
“Residential biomass combustion: an important source of air pollution”, as levels of
fine particulates, which have the highest health impact of the common air pollutants,
are increasing due to this biomass use.
Regretfully, this renewable programme is having a serious impact on the prior
successes achieved under the CAFÉ programme, as particulate levels in urban
areas, where these fine particulates are the most damaging of the common air
pollutants in terms of health, are rising again. Equally, the German wild animal
foundation points out with respect to the unacceptable impacts of any further
installations of wind turbines in forested areas, some 250,000 bats and 12,000
raptors (birds of prey) being killed by wind turbines each year in Germany. After
several years of intensive conservation measures in the 1980s and 1990s, the
number of successful raptor breeding pairs, which was increasing, is now once again
in decline. While, Section 4.4 has already highlight the serious concerns associated with low frequency noise from wind turbines and the WHO’s position on this
externality.
To derive a value based on externalities, one has to weight up both the positive and
negative externalities and do so in a competent and transparent manner. However, to
complete the former, one should logically first assign an estimate to the actual carbon
savings being realised? Section 6.3 shows how the majority of the predicted
emission savings were to occur in electricity generation. While as previously
evaluated, there are significant questions in relation to the validity of emission
savings reported for this sector, not least due to the negative impact of intermittent
renewable sources on conventional generation and the actual life cycle of emissions
associated with bioenergy. However, let us assign an annual emission saving
attributed to the implementation of the whole programme of 300 Mt, on the basis that
the data does not really support a value either double that or half that.
Section 3 already articulated as to how ExternE in 2000 finally recommended the use
of a ‘central estimate’ of the external cost of CO2 of €2.4 per tonne, with a ‘minimum’
value of €0.1 per tonne and a ‘maximum’ value of €16.4 per tonne. Simple sums to
convert these to a price basis in 2020 and multiplying by 300 Mt, results in the
annual valuation of external costs avoided as documented below:
Essentially the external cost avoided ranges from €0.04 billion to €6.9 billion, with €1
billion as the central estimate. Yet as documented renewable electricity in Germany
alone is resulting in surcharges of €26.5 billion per annum, plus additional costs
related to inefficient operation of power station and for the funding of allowances on
the EU ETS. Equally, the data shows that renewable investments in the EU, which
typically have a lifespan of 20 years, are already in the scale of a trillion Euros, which
over that timeframe is an average of €50 billion per annum, to which it is necessary
to add operational costs, taxes and profit.
No matter how one looks at it, the ratio of financial costs to benefits is pretty awful,
which also indicates, that for this programme to make sense from a cost benefit
perspective, the ExternE assessment of the external cost of CO2 would need to be an
underestimate by several multiples. However in this regard, as documented already
in Section 3 in relation to the work of Professor Richard Tol, a Dutch economist, who
in a later 2009 publication on the “Economic Effects of Climate Change” stated:
• “Projections of future emissions and future climate change have become less
severe over time - even though the public discourse has become shriller”.
Ultimately, we all have to sit down to a banquet of consequences; the statement
above is accurate, while assumptions as to the value of these CO2 savings are just
assumptions. Another metric for expressing the value of 300 Mt of CO2 savings is a
comparison with annual global emissions as shown in Figure 8.1 overleaf. These
have now reached and slightly exceeded 35 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent per
annum. Therefore, annual savings from the EU’s renewable energy programme
amount to 0.9% of the global total.
- Extract from Pat's book :
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