16 November 2004

The South West Energy Conference 'Renewable Futures' took place in Plymouth and was attended by over 300 delegates from academia, industry, NGOs, the farming community and the public. The event had a very busy programme including: addresses by guest speakers, break out sessions on a variety of renewable energy topics, project presentations on wave energy, wind power, biomass and biofuels. It also included a debate on the motion “Is wind power a blot on the landscape”.

The guest speakers included Tony Juniper from Friends of the Earth. Tony gave an eloquent presentation on the issue of elevated carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and the impact that greenhouse gases are having on the climate. He presented data showing a 30% elevation in atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1000 AD with the greatest increase being in the past 50-100 years. He pointed out some of the impacts that this is having on our environment including rises in surface air temperature, retreat of glaciers and perturbations in the climate such as the European heatwave in August 2003.

Tony also spent some time discussing the issue of nuclear power and current Friends of the Earth policy.

Dr Catherine Mitchell, University of Warwick, gave a talk entitled 'Can renewables stop the lights going out?' in which she discussed the causes of power outages in California (2000), North East USA (2003), Italy (2003) and Sweden/Denmark (2003). She discussed the management of electricity supply grids and the need to have flexibility in such management. She stated that there is no one technology that can be considered to be the 'perfect technology' and that the future will likely involve the incorporation of a diversity of technologies each of which will have different characteristics and which will need managing. Such diversity of technologies including size and location improves network security and will help prevent power outages. Dr Mitchell also commented that it is easier to integrate smaller-scale generating plants.

Matthew Spencer, Chief Executive of RegenSW, discussed progress that is being made in the South West towards developing renewable energy systems. He discussed four main technologies that have been instigated including: a centralised slurry digestion plant to produce biogas from farm slurry, a ground source heating system developed by Geoscience, a power plant to combust biomass, such as Miscanthus, grown in the Devon, Cornwall and Somerset area, and wind farms. Additionally, he discussed new and future projects including wave and tidal energy.

The key note address was given by the Energy Minister, Mike O'Brien, in which he outlined the Government's target of generating 10% of the UK's electricity from renewables by 2010 and 20% by 2020. He stated that new opportunities in renewable energy production will create new jobs. With respect to meeting the 2010 target he stated that wind power is the only technology that is likely to enable this target to be met and that most of this will be via on-shore wind farms. He discussed issues concerning planning applications and decisions for wind farms. He also emphasised the progress that has taken place in the SW in wave and tidal technologies and saw the formation of the SW Wave Hub as an important development. The minister finished by saying that with the UK soon to take over the presidency of the EU and chair of the G8 nations that dealing with climate change will be high on the agendas for these organisations.

The debate: “Is wind power a blot on the landscape?” was an interesting and sometimes emotive event! Speaking for the motion was a representative from the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England and Alan Nunn, Chairman of the Realistic Energy Forum. Speaking against it was Tony Juniper, Friends of the Earth, and Simon Roberts, Chief Executive of the Centre for Sustainable Energy. With over 300 delegates in the audience there was a lively debate the outcome of which was an almost unanimous rejection of the motion. However, of course, the audience was very select and hence biased, and did not represent the population as a whole!!!

Stuart Shales