This week a major report will announce that the UK government’s carbon reduction targets are unachievable and illusory. The report, from the prestigious Institution of Mechanical Engineers implies that the official targets would require the  building of 30 Nuclear power stations in Britain by 2015 (an impossibility), and IMEchE has called for a huge rise in off-grid energy production as the only sensible way to take a big chunk out of UK  carbon emissions.

The report is based on ground-breaking academic research which shows that the UK government is amongst the most farcical in the world when it comes to reducing carbon emissions. I MEchE says that unless the UK massively ramps up “distributed energy production” the country will only achieve 25% of its planned carbon reduction, at most.

The report echoes the announcement last month from the government’s own Committee for Climate Change (the CCC) that the aim of reducing carbon emissions 34% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 is never going to happen under current policies.

Both reports are based on the work of an obscure but brilliant American academic – Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado.  Pielke’s work unravels the UK Climate Change Act of 2008 by working backwards from the targets set by the CCC, shows that it would require a revolutionary change for the targets to be achieved.  Pielke’s work relies on the so-called Kaya Identity which sets out clearly the only variables that can influence carbon emissions.

The formula of the Kaya Identity  consists of two primary factors: economic growth (or contraction), typically represented in terms of GDP, and changes in technology, typically represented as carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP.

The Kaya Identity looks like this: Carbon dioxide emissions = population × per capita GDP × energy intensity × carbon intensity

Each of the two primary factors is typically broken down into a further two sub-factors. GDP growth (or contraction) is comprised of changes in population and in per capita GDP.
Carbon dioxide emissions per unit GDP is represented by the product of energy intensity, which refers to energy per unit of GDP and carbon intensity, which refers to the amount of carbon per unit of energy. Together the four factors of the Kaya identity explain the various influences that contribute to increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, as follows:

(1) carbon dioxide emissions = population × per capita GDP × energy intensity × carbon intensity

(2) P = total population

(3) GDP/P = per capita GDP

(a) GDP = economic growth (contraction) = P ×GDP/P = GDP

4) energy intensity (EI) = TE/GDP = total energy (TE) production/GDP
(b) carbon intensity (CI) = C/TE = carbon emissions/total energy production

(5) EI×CI =‘carbon intensity of the economy’= TE/GDP×C/TE = C/GDP.

“According to the logic of these relationships,” says Professor Pielke, “carbon accumulating in the atmosphere can be reduced only by reducing (a) population, (b) per capita GDP, or (c) carbon intensity of the economy.”

No political will for carbon reduction

Clearly there is no sign of population decreasing in Britain in the next ten years – quite the opposite – thanks to the huge rise in immigration and the higher birth rate of immigrants, forecasters are expecting double digit growth in the time period.

Nor is there any political will for a further fall in GDP (such as the one the UK  is currently experiencing). The credit crunch, followed by the bank bailout means that it would be quite impossible to sell a fall in economic output to the British people.  The vast debts accumulated when the country bailed out its banking system means that GDP  has to grow at above trend for the next decade.

That leaves only one other option – reducing the carbon-intensity of the economy – i.e. the rate at which carbon is created per unit of GDP. But it is literally impossible for the UK to achieve the rates of “decarbonisation” needed – rates of about 5% per year – however many wind farms it builds, and however many nuclear power plants it (realistically) commissions — hardly any of which will be in operation by 2020.  “We have the smallest shift to renewables in the EU,” says British legislator Alan Simpson, MP. “Ministers and Civil Servants are beholden to the Big 6 (power companies) to keep the lights on.

Big Power is the roadblock

The big power companies are allowed a return on investment of 25% according to Simpson, who is energy advisor to Britain’s Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband.  And carbon incentive schemes like the Renewables Obligation are “entirely skewed in favour of the big companies.” says Simpson.

So actually one of the main aims of policy should be to reduce total power consumption and clean up the power industry – which has a vested interest in UK PLC continuing to burn energy.

The CCC said: “In the 5 years 2003-2007, emissions reductions averaged 0.5% per annum: going forward, reductions of 2-3%pa will be required to meet the carbon budgets. A step change in the pace of reduction is needed.

Declining economic activity is likely to have produced an emissions cut of around 2% in 2008, and recession could reduce emissions in the first budget period by a total of 40-70 million tonnes. But recession induced reductions must not be confused with underlying progress, which could be undermined by a recession induced fall in the carbon price. The UK should now aim to overachieve emissions reductions in the first budget period.”

Distributed Energy Production

Keith Millard, President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers said: “the UK is at a key point in determining how to secure its future energy supplies. “In the UK, 66% of our energy use is associated with electricity and heat sourced from central facilities via the grid.
“The emissions created by transporting this electricity and heat mean that there is a genuine benefit in looking for methods of generating and supplying energy nearer to its point of use.

“Distributed Energy Systems, are all about the local supply of electricity and heat which is generated on or near the site where it is used rather than centrally. This will help address a range of issues in addition to carbon reduction; these are energy costs, exposure to price volatility, distribution losses, and energy reliability. In addition, Distributed Energy Systems can provide opportunities for local economic development and provide energy for communities which are off the gas or electricity grids.

“A Distributed Energy System is a collection of energy sources, energy storage and distribution linked to local demand. They may contain a fossil fuel element (eg a gas-fired combined heat and power plant) but they will predominantly be based on local sustainable sources such as waste, geothermal, wind, biomass or, for coastal sites, wave and tidal power. They can truly be called a ’system’ when they have some interdependency and indeed the demand they meet also has some form of control. The recognisable features are low transmission distances (and hence losses) and small scale plant interspersed in other local facilities.”

Roger Pielke said: “The approach to emissions reduction embodied by the Climate Change Act is exactly backwards. It begins with setting a target and then only later do policy makers ask how that target might be achieved, with no consideration for whether the target implies realistic or feasible rates of decarbonization. The uncomfortable reality is that no one knows how fast a major economy can decarbonize.

“The failure of the UK Climate Change Act is yet to be broadly recognized, but when it is, it will provide an opportunity to recast carbon policies in a more effective manner…. Setting targets and timetables for sectoral efficiency gains and expansion of carbon-free energy supply would be a step in the right direction. Such a policy focused on incremental improvements in decarbonisation offers the only feasible approach to the challenge of mitigation.

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