Dominick Chilcott

France and the US: once again a revolutionary alliance

New Haven, West Virginia may seem an unlikely spot for a revolution. The town is dominated by American Electric Power's monster (1,300 mega watts) coal-burning, Mountaineer power station but is otherwise unremarkable. But that is where AEP and the French company Alstom began, last Friday, to show the world that there really might be such a thing as clean coal. If this carbon capture and storage pilot works out, the effect really will be revolutionary.
 
The conundrum is a familiar one. Human beings need electricity and, in many countries, the cheapest and most available source of fuel to produce that electricity is coal. 50% of the US's electricity is produced from coal-fired power stations. The figure is about 33% in the UK. China is said to be building a new coal-fired power station every two weeks to meet its growing energy needs.
 
But buring coal produces a lot of carbon dioxide; in fact, twice as much, per unit of power generated, as gas does. 
 
The science is not complicated. If we are to restrict the rise in the average temperature of our planet to 2 degrees Celsius (above which scientists estimate the effects of global warming become catastrophic), we have to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas (that cause the greenhouse warming effect) in the atmosphere. In practice, that means we have to drastically cut back the burning of fossil fuels, which produce CO2 and of which coal is one of the worst offenders.
 
Humankind appears to be caught on the horns of a dilemma. We can have the electricity that powers our lives but warms the planet to dangerous levels or we can preserve our climate and save the planet for future generations. But not both.
 
The philosopher's stone of climate change and energy is a solution that enables us to have our electricity and preserve our planet. For some time, scientists and engineers have talked about methods to capture carbon and store it away from the atmosphere. But it had never been attempted in an intergrated system at a coal-buring power plant.
 
Until last week. At the Mountaineer plant at New Haven, West Virginia. Alstom have built a CCS plant at AEP's power station that uses chilled ammonia to capture the CO2. The gas is then pumped thousands of feet underground into safe storage. Alstom reckons that its system will capture and store some 90% of all the CO2 passing through it. For now, that applies only to 20mw, a fraction, of the power generated at Mountaineer. But the intention is to scale up the CCS activity as it proves itself.
 
In Britain, the government are strong supporters of finding a commercially viable CCS system. Our target is to achieve this by 2020. For now, that means any new combustion plant must be designed to be able to retrofit CCS once it is commercially proven. Once the technology is proven, all new coal power stations approved after April 2009 will have five years to retrofit CCS to their full capacity. The UK is fortunate in being so close to the North Sea where there are a number of potential sites for storing captured CO2 in depleted gas and oil reservoirs .
 
So last week was a beginning, the start of a clean revolution in power generation, a shot heard around the world. And it was fired by an American company in alliance with a French one. But this time, unlike in the American revolutionary war, the British are on the same side as the US and France. And we all hope that the revolution succeeds.

Posted at 14:50 04 November 2009 by Dominick Chilcott  |  Comments[0]

Letters to the editor

I want to draw your attention to two letters to the editor I've written in US papers today. The first responds to inaccuracies about the NHS in The Washington Times. The second, which runs in The New York Times, points out that the UK has integrated climate change into its national security strategy.

Posted at 10:13 14 August 2009 by Dominick Chilcott  |  Comments[0]

The World Wildlife Fund and Climate Change

The theme of this week's annual World Wildlife Fund dinner, at the Newseum in Pennsylvania Avenue, was climate change.

At first blush, this might seem surprising. We're all familiar with WWF's symbol of a black and white Giant Panda. WWF is a conservation organisation. They try to save endangered species, don't they? Why the emphasis on climate change?

Actually, it's pretty obvious when you think about it. The broad description of WWF's work is to encourage people to share the resources of our planet with other creatures and the natural world at large. Their vision, according to the WWF web site, starts with the aspiration to "seek to save a planet, a world of life. Reconciling the needs of human beings and the needs of others that share the Earth, we seek to practice conservation that is humane in the broadest sense".

The fact is that climate change and conservation are inextricably linked. As the WWF says, "every day a new story emerges about a species, habitat or a community affected by the impacts of climate change".

New analysis reported in the science magazine, Nature, suggests that 15-37% of a sample of 1,103 land plants and animals could eventually become extinct as a result of climate changes expected by 2050.

The WWF's Living Planet Index measures the population of some 1,300 species of vertebrates. Their records show a 30% reduction in numbers between 1970 and 2003. As WWF says, we are degrading natural ecosystems at a rate unprecedented in human history.

So climate change is rightly a WWF concern. If we fail to reduce the harm done to nature by human activity, we shall be bequeathing a dying planet to future generations.

Posted at 09:33 16 October 2008 by Dominick Chilcott  |  Comments[2]

The danger and science of flooding

Last week, Prof. John Beddington, the British Government's Chief Scientific Advisor, was the guest of honour at a reception in the British Embassy for participants in a seminar on tackling the threat from flooding. You could be forgiven for thinking this was run of the mill diplomatic activity - a reception, a visiting British VIP, a serious topic of public policy. Doubtless, all very worthy but why should anyone else give a gnat's whisker about it? Well, let me try to engage your attention.

If you'll forgive the pun, flooding, as an issue, is on the rise around the world. As people get more affluent and populations rise, we are demanding more land for houses, roads, new shops and other buildings. In a small-medium sized country like Britain, the amount of land available is limited. So we have been forced to build in places where there is a greater risk of flooding.

At the same time, climate change is contributing both to rising sea levels (as polar ice, mountain snow and glaciers melt) and to more storms. This year Gustav and Ike have wreaked great damage. And Katrina remains a painful memory for many. The number and severity of hurricanes and tropical storms seems, anecdotally, to be rising.

The science points to the same conclusion. According to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007 Fourth Assessment Report), hurricanes have become more intense since the 1970s. The IPCC judge that it is "more likely than not" that there is a human contribution to this trend. In the future, they think "it is likely that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will become more intense, with larger peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation associated with ongoing increases of tropical sea surface temperatures."

These storms are likely to do even more damage in future because, with higher sea levels come bigger surges of water, more likely to breach sea defences. At the same time, coastal ecosystems, such as barrier islands and wetlands, are continuing to degrade. So just when our need for these natural sea defences is rising, we are increasing our vulnerability to the massive waves that severe hurricanes bring.

So we have been warned. In fact, the threat from flooding is now taken so seriously that facing up to it features in government national security strategies the world over.

It was against that background that the British Government set up the Foresight Flood and Coastal Defence Project, commissioned by Professor Beddington's predecessor, Sir David King. All parts of government concerned with flooding and the country's best geographers, scientists and other academics working in the field took part. The ambitious aim was to evaluate how the risks from flooding were likely to change in the next 30-100 years as a result of climate change and direct human activity such as building and land use. In Sir David King's words, it was "the most wide-ranging analysis of future flood risk ever made in the UK".

In April 2004, the project published its findings. It estimated that the cost of damage from flooding and coastal erosion in Britain could rise by 20 times over the next century. In the most extreme scenario and with existing defences, the damage could rise from about $2bn a year now to $40bn by 2080. The study called for a steady increase in spending on flood defences and better planning to avoid more homes being put at risk.

And here's the good bit. Because all relevant parts of government had taken part in the project and because it was the most thorough, serious and scientific assessment of the risks, particularly the risks of not taking more decisive action now, the British government responded by doubling the funding for flood protection. The Treasury bought the compelling argument that it was wise to invest now to prevent paying huge bills later.

The methodology of the Foresight Flood and Coastal Defence Project is perhaps as interesting and useful as the findings themselves. Getting disparate parts of government to come together and take a common view on any subject, even one as serious as flooding, can be complicated and frustrating. But it is probably necessary if governments are to put in place the funding and programmes that are needed to protect us in future.

Time will tell whether this experience is regarded as relevant and interesting in the United States. Certainly, government here can appear mind-bogglingly complex. But if the British experience catches on, then last week's reception with Professor Beddington may have made a small contribution to helping this country protect itself against future Katrinas, Ikes and Gustavs.

Posted at 15:14 25 September 2008 by Dominick Chilcott  |  Comments[0]