Agenda item

(Please note – a PowerPoint presentation prepared by Dr Lee will be appended to these notes)

 

1.      Dr Lee explained that as an educator he had no agenda in the field of renewable energy other than his aims towards achieving sustainability and quality of life for the citizens of Kent.

 

2.      Hadlow College offers a Sustainable Land Management Degree which, so far, is the only such degree in the country and takes account of social as well as geographical issues.

 

3.      Dr Lee explained to the select committee that he was highly conscious of resource efficiencies and that we are moving into a position of considerable change. With ‘wobbly economics, resource depletion including oil depletion, climate change and other factors, ‘business as usual’ will not continue and we must think about what we put in its place to avert crisis by looking at possible scenarios. There are strong links between energy and food security.

 

4.      Mr Ferrin indicated the committee was interested to hear Dr Lee’s views and to learn of the issues on which KCC should make representation to the government, and those upon which we could act ourselves. Dr Lee had posed these questions to his students and it was evident that there were no easy answers.

 

5.      To begin with, it is necessary to understand the requirement across the county and what could be done about changes using a spatial geographical approach and GIS to clarify what, for the county, is an appropriate mix of technologies.

 

6.      Dr Lee believed that the offshore wind developments around the coast were potentially very successful. Regarding onshore wind in the county, having visited the testing site and seen demonstrations, he believed that medi turbines which are 15-20m tall (Quiet Revolution - QR) could be successful in Kent if correctly sited.

 

7.      Solar technology should be incorporated anywhere there was a new development and PV-T (combining photovoltaic and solar thermal panels for both electricity generation and heat production) were far more efficient than the single technologies. Crossways house featured on Grand Designs in Staplehurst had used this technology. The architect, Mr Richard Hawkes had stated to Dr Lee at a conference that 12 square metres of PV-T panels on an average house would provide most of the heating and electricity required.

 

8.      Anaerobic digestion provides around a 50:50 ratio of Carbon Dioxide and Methane (a greenhouse gas which if burned, is not a problem), and end products rich in nitrogen and phosphorus which are both used as fertilisers. The gas can be burned in gas engines to provide electricity and heat. Methane can also be used to drive petrol engines having first been scrubbed and stored in cylinders as for liquid propane gas (LPG). Dr Lee believes that all these are interesting developments which are in danger of passing us by in Kent.

 

9.      The amount of petrol and diesel now used (for transport) could in no way be replaced by the methane but some of it could.

 

10.For woody biomass there is also potential, as well as biodiesel from oil seed rape. For woody biomass Dr Lee felt that sweet chestnut coppicing in Kent should be reenergised and he used as an example a farmer near Canterbury who ran a soft fruit business and had successfully installed a large wood chip boiler.

 

11.If biomass boilers were installed in schools to replace oil-fired heating, this would be of great benefit. However this source of renewable energy would not provide heat or electricity for most people, though it could be of some use in rural areas.

 

12.Regarding biodiesel, from oily crops, and bioethanol from starchy crops it is Dr Lee’s view that these have no future due to food security issues. In this regard he believed that the situation now is similar to that in the 1930s. We can produce all our own wheat but in terms of overall food supply only enough for 2/3 of the country can be produced here and this is taking account of relatively high inputs to agricultural systems from fossil fuel-based fertilisers.

 

13.In the past, the horse had a high-energy diet and provided the work on farms. Now talented farmers have maximised crop yields, but only by relying on supplies of fertiliser and pesticides which are themselves dependent on natural Gas and oil. These are fixed resources and the evidence for Peak Oil and Peak Gas shows that demand will soon exceed supply; the problem being short-term access. New supplies are becoming increasingly difficult to access, and usually involve drilling for oil through deep sea and bedrock, pushing the technology to its limits. This risks catastrophic failures and environmental pollution, such as the current situation off the coast of the US.

 

14.Demand for oil is rising and so we are close to a situation where demand exceeds supply and this could be as soon as this, or next year according to some experts. An influencing factor is the economic recovery of Europe. However, UK recovery in the first quarter of 2010 has been limited and our GDP has only risen by 0.2% this year while the US was 3.2%. As Europe moves ahead, so will the demand for oil and gas which has a big impact on price and availability. Economists and governments are rightly nervous and as with July 2008, prices could go up very suddenly. For farmers this means the price of fertilisers go up along with the price of oil, they may not be able to make ends meet as the price of the inputs exceeds the value of the outputs they can achieve – meaning that yields would drop away. Instead of producing 2/3 of what the country needs, dependency on oil could reduce domestic food production  further.

 

15.It is then necessary to look at the worst case scenario to enable planning. Apart from climate change drivers, what would happen if supplies of oil and gas were compromised? What would happen to our way of life in Kent if petrol and diesel rose to £3, £4 or £5 per litre – in that extreme scenario people would not be able to afford to get to work, there would be interrupted supplies of food as agricultural inputs were scarce. We have seen how the media impacts on consumers and supermarkets, who operate on ‘just-in-time’- delivery, could see empty shelves within 48 hours.

 

16.The government would therefore like to see more self sufficiency. We cannot rely totally on on-farm production. We can reduce fossil inputs but without them we cannot achieve the same level of production. What is required is Zero Carbon Farms, and pilot projects are needed to find out how farms function with no fossil energy inputs. Organic farmers are already working on this principle. Bore Place in Kent is looking at this and the concept needs to be driven forward so that we can learn from the challenges that arise.

 

17.Furthermore, regarding food and energy, the urban and periurban areas are at the centre of the challenge. These are crowded areas and account for 80% of the population of the UK where energy, food and water supplies will be the biggest challenge over the next 30-40 years. Universities are not currently carrying many courses in this areas – a quick search revealed only a post graduate course at Reading University; in London there are NGO projects but there is little at government or regional government level.

 

18.Mr Ferrin indicated that the select committee was concerned about these issues and supported the view and the need for research, but what were the potential solutions?

 

19.Dr Lee said there was not enough known about tying the technologies together – it was not just energy generation and not just food production but more about how to fit these two things together and to empower communities, who would be much more faced with responsibility for food and energy generation at a local level.

 

20.Mr Ferrin indicated that for an area like Hadlow it was clear to see how this might work but for Cliftonville, for example, what is the potential and how could it be achieved? In response Dr Lee indicated the need for pilot projects and groups of households working together to achieve what was best in terms of food, energy and water.

 

21.For example a study could comprise 20-30 houses with 40-50 people to see how they could function over a few years. With the appropriate funding, houses could be retrofitted, with PV-T and in some cases ground source heat pumps though these are not so attractive energetically, and rainwater harvesting. The properties could be monitored for energy and water and people could share in a community allotment based on gardens or on adjacent land. This would be managed by a group of people in the mode of the Low Carbon Community at Hadlow, growing fruit and vegetables, keeping chickens; accessing renewable energy, harvesting rainwater, recycling and composting. Small-scale anaerobic digestion is a possibility. The biodiversity and social issues would also be monitored along with physical and mental health. In the past, large market gardens used to surround our cities so the concept is really nothing new.

 

22.Mr Ferrin said he was concerned about the provision of baseload electricity and Dr Lee said he was confident such a project could be self-sufficient in electricity and of more importance was the availability of food (and its transport). There followed a discussion about how this could work for supermarkets, offices and factories and Dr Lee advised it would depend on the location of industries and the riots currently being experienced in Greece were given as an example of the results of inaction.

 

23.Mrs Tweed commented that it was an exciting prospect to think of getting communities to focus in on the life of the community as part of the wider picture. She could see potential in Ashford for links with the North School, where there was planning permission to build houses, and which could provide the opportunity to try this out with householders from 20 of the new houses, in conjunction with the farm on the school site.

 

24.Dr Lee said that many groups were interested in this concept and that resulting from a pilot there could soon be units of 500 -1000 people functioning properly as a sustainable community (there is evidence that this is about the maximum size that can sustain an active community).

 

25.Mr Ferrin said he was sure this could be done and had himself found £10,000 for four projects in Kent. Dr Lee agreed and indeed Hadlow had been one of these; the four projects were significantly different but had shown progress and that it works.

 

26.Mr Ferrin referred to Deal and that having had proof of concept, what was now needed was proof of delivery and evidence of base energy load across the place, saying even if Kent were covered with turbines this would still not satisfy base energy needs unless there was some advance with technology such as cold fusion.

 

27.In Dr Lee’s view, we will never again be able to enjoy the energy richness of past decades since energy consumption per person per day was now 40 or 50 times more than it had been a few generations ago. Replacing this energy level with renewable energy was not possible and it was key to identify how we could work with people to gain their acceptance of change and that we could not, with renewables, have what we have now.

 

28.Mr Hibberd said he held a different view and believed that difficulties were caused by there being too many people. He believed that tackling this, and the location of people was the way to deal with the problem. He referred to the end of WW2 when London was overpopulated and it was agreed that people would be decamped out of London. This reduced the population by 4 million and as a result sustainable towns were developed. The population of Kent is now around 1.4 million which is too many for Kent’s natural resources, while in some areas of the country there is little population. As a result of this we will continue to have problems.

 

29.Dr Lee responded that this kind of thing was possible. Inducements could be offered for people to relocate to less populated areas however when Jonathan Porrit had talked about UK population being half what is, this message was not well-received. It is a long term issue and would be related to quality of life. If people found the energy supply (in Kent) was less then they needed, and there were food problems, then they may want to move away but the government would have to offer encouragement. Mr Hibberd agreed that the alternative was to ‘nibble at the periphery of the problem’ and that it was indeed controversial.

 

30.Mrs Tweed referred to the plans for development in the South East and that Ashford was trying to deliver 27,000 new homes.

 

31.Mr King pointed out that it was less to do with where, particularly, we live and more to do with the overall sustainability of food and fuel. If we rely on imports the cost of bringing food and fuel in will rise, so food costs would rise while at the same time they would become shorter in supply. A rethink was needed to identify how we can become sustainable and this would involve habits of travelling to work, eating; the whole character of which would need to be radically redesigned over the next 20-30 years.

 

32.Mr King referred to Parishes, indicated that only 50% of the county was Parished so while Mr King’s village was, for example, Parished, urban areas were not and in those areas people did not sit together and elect local representatives so politically there were not structures within which these issues could easily be moved forward.

 

33.Regarding the base source of underlying electricity this could not come from unreliable sources like wind or PV and Mr King asked Dr Lee what his views were on nuclear and tidal energy which were more reliable.

 

34.Dr Lee referred to interesting projects in Southampton and Birmingham where electricity was generated in the middle of a city and the problems of making it available. There were also district heating grids. In this regard the need for a national grid system could be reconsidered. Regarding a baseline supply, the days of dirty, coal fired power stations are numbered and dirty, coal-fired power stations will be taken offline in the next 10 years. This would mean there will be insufficient supplies and the national grid would crash. We could go back to looking at regional grids and the development of a base layer of electricity provided in urban areas, rather than expecting it to be brought in on pylons.

 

35.Though there are already efficient gas engines which burn natural gas, Dr Lee felt this would depend greatly on fossil energy availability and could only provide interim supplies while we are moving in the direction of renewable energy. Anaerobic digestion could, for example, provide energy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and the gas produced could be burnt in gas engines.

 

36.Tidal energy is promising and there is the nuclear option to which Dr Lee had no particular objection however the shortfalls in energy supply would be much more immediate than the period over which nuclear and tidal energy could be developed. These were decades away from providing what we need.

 

37.In response to a question about what proportion of energy supply renewable energy could provide over the next 10 years, if there was sufficient investment, Dr Lee indicated that first we would need to reduce consumption and focus on improved quality of life for residents if pilots for households were taken forward and rolled out. Industry would need to be looked at on a site by site basis. On this basis renewable energy could realistically provide 50% of needs in the next 20 years.

 

38.A significant barrier to achieving this is the planning law which can be a serious impediment. Dr Lee had been keen to employ a 2/3 MW anaerobic digester for the community in Hadlow but Tonbridge and Malling had informally indicated this would not get planning permission due to public nuisance as this would have meant 3-4 20 tonne lorries per week across a particular route.

 

39.Mr King indicated that the County Council planning function had experienced the same dilemma regarding waste to energy (thermal) and Dr Lee stressed the need for this to be addressed regionally with a shift in planning so that proposals are better received by the district planning committee.

 

40.Mr Hibberd refered to the IPC having control over large scale planning but also that AD locally would depend on the fuel being brought in by lorries so there was still a reliance on fossil fuel (diesel oil). Was there therefore a need to determine the absolute necessities for electricity supply e.g. hospitals, communications industry to avoid breakdowns and disorder? Domestic supplies were some way down the scale of relative importance.

 

41.Dr Lee indicated that the public would of course not want power cuts but that these could become a regular occurrence.

 

42.Mr Hibberd agreed that this could hit hard as we were used to a system that had frequently doubled in capacity over 10 year periods, which had worked in the past. However there was now a need for the public to accept that in future, when it gets cold in the winter it ‘was time to put on sweaters’.

 

43.Dr Lee agreed that it was important to focus on the fact that there would in fact be benefits for communities and that if this, and not the ‘penalties’ were the focus people would be more inclined to compromise. It was therefore important to identify how to divide up areas into community groups.

 

44.Mr Ferrin believed that there were perhaps more firmly established communities than might be thought, using the example of Farthing Corner and Parkwood where people knew the differences and already had established communities. Dr Lee found this encouraging.

 

45.Mrs Tweed referred to groups in Ashford that she believed were keen to take such ideas forward.

 

46.To progress it was agreed that there was a need to break down attitudes towards planning and that people needed to understand better the seriousness of the situation.

 

47.Ideas such as community allotments, adopt a garden, and work-based schemes could be important.

 

48.Mr Ferrin, in concluding the meeting asked Dr Lee about priorities for central and local government action and these were:

 

Central                     

 

 

 

 

Local                         

·        Pilot projects involving FE and HE establishments in monitoring  sustainable communities, to help us learn best practise and then replicate

 

·        Transport issues, car and taxi journeys – how to enable citizens to use cars less and still enjoy a good quality of life

·        Encouraging community involvement and a priority for  food self-sufficiency