Image by: Jill Motts

Plans for the largest wind farm in the Southern Hemisphere just rose from the dead.

At a cost of NZ$2 billion, Project Hayes was put forward by Meridian Energy, the country’s first carbon neutral energy company, a state-owned enterprise that provides renewable electricity in New Zealand. The proposal involved 176 turbines, each 160 metres high, erected across some 92 square kilometres of the Lammermoor Ranges in Central Otago, a stark and sparsely populated landscape.

By 2007, Meridian had secured consents from the Central Otago and Otago Regional Councils. After an appeal by opponents, however, the Environment Court refused consent in November 2009, stating that Meridian had failed to demonstrate the proposal was economically preferable to other possible schemes and sites. This decision was appealed in turn by Meridian Energy and, in August this year, the High Court upheld Meridian’s appeal, requesting that the Environment Court reconsider its decision. The new hearing is scheduled for 15^th November 2010. This date may change, however, after Save Central, an opposition umbrella group, filed notice to the Court of Appeal last week.

Opposition to wind farms is often chalked up to the NIMBY attitude (Not In My Back Yard). An analysis of submissions to Project Hayes, however, revealed that 60 per cent of local submissions were actually in favour of the proposal, while only 30 per cent of non-local submissions supported Project Hayes. The link between proximity and opposition, a central assumption of the NIMBY concept, is far from clear. What matters more, the research suggests, is the general context of the Project Hayes proposal, including the project’s size, the local impacts of construction, the cumulative effect of neighbouring projects, and public perceptions of the developer.

Crucially, the study found that one of the two most common reasons for opposing the proposal was ‘landscape context’. (The other was changes to farm boundaries, a clearer instance of NIMBYism.) Certainly, the iconic status of the region cannot be understated. One of the most high profile opponents of Project Hayes is local resident and artist Graeme Sydney whose finely rendered paintings are a celebration of the hardy landscape, appealing to popular ideals of a rugged and beautiful high country. As demonstrated by the recent backlash against mining proposals, New Zealanders are passionately protective of certain vistas, even when it defies economic ‘sense’.

What makes the issue so thorny is that, at its heart, it is a clash of identical values. The moral argument for Project Hayes is an appeal to the same environmental values that motivates the opposition. We want to reduce our greenhouse emissions because we want to protect the environment, so it seems deeply perverse to spoil our natural treasures in order to save the very same. A similar conflict gnaws at nuclear power, an ‘unenvironmental’ solution to an environmental problem. Morality loathes inconsistency, even if the real world rarely allows anything but.

This tug-of-war between environmental values creates opportunities for critics of green policy. Prominent climate change sceptics were recruited as witnesses in the Environment Court appeal, a worrying conflation of two distinct issues. After all, one can disagree with Project Hayes specifically while still supporting emissions reductions policies generally. If these two issues are merged, however, the debate over the merits of a single wind farm is subsumed into the more troubled debate over the existence of global warming, which paralyses any clear analysis of energy policy. In the same vein, one strident critic of climate change policy described Project Hayes as ‘environmental vandalism’, turning the proposal for clean energy against its own green aspirations.

Meridian Energy may have to tread carefully, more carefully than it has so far. While the Environment Court’s decision will have a significant impact on future wind farm proposals, so will the reputation that Meridian gains in the meantime. If perceptions of developers play a role in a community’s attitude toward wind farm proposals, then Meridian’s intractable attitude may handicap future projects. Nor has their image been helped by media reports that Meridian paid NZ$175,000 to the Department of Conservation in 2007 to drop its objections to Project Hayes.

A survey of landowners in the region found that 78 per cent would support a wind farm of less than five turbines, while 54 per cent would support a wind farm of more than fifty. Perhaps support dwindles further at 176 turbines, yet this research nevertheless suggests there is ample room to move. If Meridian continues going after its ‘big game’, however, it may end up with nothing or a bullish reputation, neither of which will help the advent of clean energy.

CCS is being tested for the first time in the UK on a working coal-fired Power Station, as energy company, Scottish Power, is bidding for a £1 billion government competition to test the technology which could lead to a full scale carbon capture plant becoming operational by 2014. (Source: www.timesonline.co.uk, 30-05-09)

“This is the first time that CCS technology has been switched on and working at an operational coal-fired power station in the UK.   It’s a major step forward in delivering the reality of carbon-free fossil fuel electricity generation.”

Quote: Scottish Power Chief Executive, Nick Horler

 In a consortia bid between Scottish Power, Aker Clean Carbon of Norway, which is developing the capturing technology, and Marathon Oil, the partners will work on the techniques to provide undersea installations, and the pipelines needed to transport and store carbon dioxide under the North Sea.

The project and the site

The UK government’s recent Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) competition has led to a new generation of coal-fired power stations who can demonstrate how to limit their CO2 emissions.   The report “Carbon Choices” assessed all three semi-finalists and announced that the winner is Longannet.

Longannet power station is based in Fife, Scotland and opened in 1969 and is the second largest energy generating station in the UK and the third largest in Europe, after Be?chatów in Poland and Drax in West Yorkshire, England.

The project will comprise of a 30-tonne test unit that will process 1,000 cubic metres of exhaust gas per hour. Carbon dioxide will be removed from the chimney using chemicals and turned into a liquid, ready for storage underground. The eventual aim is to capture about 90 per cent of the carbon dioxide that is emitted.

The process involved using nitrogen-hydrogen compounds called amines which stick to carbon dioxide, enabling it to be extracted from other exhaust gases was hoped to reduce the amount of energy used in carbon capture to about 12 per cent of Longannet’s power output. (Source: Times Online.

The project also aims to reduce the amount of energy needed to actually capture the carbon emitted. Current technologies would require between 25-30 per cent of Longannet’s electricity output to be diverted into carbon capture if all of the station’s emissions were to be cleaned up.

Project Outcomes and the future of CCS

The are potentially large economic and energy saving gains to the UK and globally if this project were to be a success, and the lessons and knowledge gained could be shared across EU counterparts and the rest of the world, which is said to account for an estimated 50,000 fossil-fuelled power stations.  Academics are involved in the scheme, one from The University of Edinburgh, to share in the project learning throughout the pilot delivery stage.

Whilst the WWF team are lobbying for government support in creating new Emission’s Performance Standards in CCS activities, similar to those in California, in an attempt to drive existing fossil-fuelled plants to cleaner operation.

In a recent WWF report, it also explains the economic benefits of CCS technology in that:

- If the technology is tested on a purpose built new coal power station as proposed at Kingsnorth in Kent, or Tilbury in Essex overall emissions from the power sector could increase by 32 million tonnes CO2 between 2014 and 2025 – roughly equivalent to running an extra 4.5 coal-fired power stations for a year.

- By comparison, fitting carbon capture to the existing power station at Longannet in Fife would reduce emissions by 14.5 million tonnes of CO2 over the same period – equivalent to turning off 2 coal-fired power stations for a year.

Solar shop, Ladakh. Photo: Flickr/Ajay Tallam

 

After a quiet quarter and a fairly dull interim budget, the government today launched an ambitious project as part of its climate change policy, falling under two of the missions laid out in the NAPCC: the National Solar Mission and the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency. Under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy’s project to increase the use of solar power, Nagpur, a town in the state of Maharashtra, is set to become the first of 60 ‘solar cities’ in India. These cities will source at least 10% of their power consumption from renewable sources and the city will be energy efficient. 

 

It’s well known that India suffers from acute power shortages. As the temperature rises, so does the demand for power, which stresses the already stretched power grids. For example, states like Karnataka depend on a mix of hydroelectric and thermal sources of power and, like Kerala, are dependent on the monsoon for meeting their electricity requirements. A bad monsoon or unexpected rises in temperature (like this year) invariably mean power cuts and load shedding.

As India’s policy on climate change points out, solar power has great potential in India for many reasons. Firstly, we get a lot of sunshine (over 300 days of sunlight a year); secondly solar power distribution can be decentralised, and in that sense it is ‘empowering people at the grass root level’. Thirdly, it will reduce our acute power woes and finally, India’s need for solar power supports innovation, technology transfer and international cooperation. Electrification of rural areas is also electorally powerful. 

This project has great potential economically. Renewable energy markets are becoming attractive investments – HSBC’s renewable energy wing is looking to invest heavily in solar and wind projects in Asia and as mentioned earlier, Gujarat’s latest investment summit attracted a number of private partners for renewable energy projects. Supported partly by the recession’s cost cutting nature and burgeoning awareness on environmental and energy management amongst people in India, energy efficiency is becoming more and more important as well. The recession may be good for the eco-realty sector as energy efficient and eco friendly buildings are becoming fashionable. Investing in solar projects like this will bring down the costs involved in setting up solar energy sources as well. 

As a government report on India’s energy security recommended in 2006, solar technology is “the only renewable energy source with sufficient potential to meet almost all our energy needs, we should give high priority to [the] development of solar technology”. The plan doesn’t give too many details into the hows and whys, but it comes at an opportune time when power, economic efficiency and the environment are becoming priorities on the Indian consumer’s list.