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Tony Lodge: Found at last, a clean and renewable fuel that could help to solve power crisis
BRITAIN has more than 2,500 wind turbines to generate electricity. Thousands more are being built. Huge numbers are now planned for Yorkshire.
Their critics claim they are unreliable, unsightly and uneconomic. It is certainly true that they are dependent on the weather; they do incur the wrath of local opponents on grounds of environmental blight and they are controversially funded by public subsidy through a tax on our electricity bills.
Wind energy suffers a major PR problem. No matter how it is dressed up by wind's apologists, this form of energy has performed miserably when we have endured energy intensive periods such as the cold snap
in February.
While Britain shivered in the heaviest snow for 20 years, Britain's wind farms supplied a risible 0.3 per cent of electricity demand.
The story so far is a damning indictment of wind energy. So long as wind is regarded and used as a primary source of energy it will incur the wrath of its numerous opponents who are familiar with its failings.
Instead, we should be supporting wind as a secondary energy source, as a kind of back-up which can generate energy which can be stored and used later, when it is needed. Only then can wind become regarded as a
vital and indispensable renewable.
Today's ideal energy policy needs to identify a solution that provides a clean, environmentally neutral fuel that is not geographically constrained, so can be generated anywhere.
We must also recoup our vast investment in intermittent and unreliable
wind energy. A recent written answer in the House of Lords highlighted the cost of subsidies for renewable energies at over 30bn between now and 2020 – at today's prices.
This is staggering and completely unjustifiable unless we carve out a more reliable and valuable role for renewables, particularly wind and solar.
The answer could lie with Sheffield-based ITM Power. This pioneering company has designed and deployed technology which can go a long way to resolving the renewables dilemma we face.
ITM has developed specialist electrolysers which could answer wind's critics. These are devices that split water into hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis.
Using electrolysers, electricity generated from wind energy can produce an alternative environmentally neutral clean fuel, namely hydrogen. This can then be stored in large quantities and used later in hydrogen cars and to power the zero carbon home.
Importantly, when the wind blows at 3am, we waste the electricity generated because it isn't used or stored. If electrolysers were deployed, we could store the energy as a clean fuel to be used whenever we need it.
Hydrogen is nothing new. In fact, town gas that was supplied to fuel towns and cities before North Sea gas came on stream used to comprise 50 per cent hydrogen.
Hydrogen is compatible with today's engines and can, in principle, be used in our growing number of gas-fired power stations so to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and gas, as the North Sea runs down. We are often told we lack gas storage facilities for foreign gas imports. If this technology were supported, we could also be storing our own hydrogen gas provided by our own wind fleet.
ITM has gone further, applying hydrogen to fuel today's vehicle engines. A modified ITM Ford Focus is participating in June's London to Brighton Eco rally.
The car can be powered by hydrogen or petrol and can be changed at the flick of a switch. The Government was wrong to only support electric cars in the Budget.
The company has also developed the zero carbon home which they will demonstrate in June.
Readers will recall that David Cameron was ridiculed when he announced plans to stick a wind turbine above his London home. It is certainly fair to say that the turbine as a primary energy source for his home would have been effectively useless, but Mr Cameron could still take the lead and support such technology as part of the Conservatives' future housing policy.
A roof top wind turbine with solar panels, linked to an electrolyser would produce enough hydrogen to then power a new family size home through a small generator. The only by-product would be water. Cameron could then genuinely proclaim his Party's eco-credentials using British technology.
World oil and gas reserves are rapidly depleting. Policy-makers should now move to support the hydrogen economy and consequently resolve the renewables dilemma by giving them a crucial and more direct secondary role in providing energy back up, slashing emissions and boosting security of supply.
Yorkshire is also leading in this area with Powerfuel's plans to turn coal into hydrogen to generate electricity at Hatfield Colliery near Doncaster.
Many of us are fed up of hearing politicians say that Britain can "lead the world" when a new home-grown technology is developed, only
to see it rolled out abroad due to a lack of support.
If we are to meet our ambitious 2020 carbon targets and resolve the growing renewables dilemma, the answer lies in Yorkshire and
the Government should take a look.
Tony Lodge is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies. His new pamphlet, Resolving the Renewables Dilemma, will be published in the summer
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: East
