Dear Prime Minister,
I have taken the unusual course of writing you this open letter and have copied in all other MPs and other interested parties because writing a letter to number 10 is a complete waste of time and all you get is a bland brush-off letter that does not address any single point raised. I have tried to use non-technical language as much as possible.
The Carbon Trust was established in 2001 with the laudable remit to reduce our carbon footprint by innovation and develop alternative energy solutions to mitigate the effects of man-made global warming. Despite spending tens of £millions of taxpayers' money over the last nine years the Carbon Trust has failed to deliver and actually promotes the burning of finite reserves of fossil fuels, albeit more efficiently, as its full length video demonstrates. The strategy of finding new and innovative ways of burning fuels more efficiently that will, one day, run out is, quite frankly, a dead end strategy.
http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/emerging-technologies/Pages/full-length-video.aspx
The video available at the link above is the culmination of nine years' of operation by the Carbon Trust and starts off with Mark Williamson and Tom Delay waxing lyrical about working towards a low carbon future by burning Earth's finite reserves of fossil and woody biomass more efficiently! This is followed by a piece to camera from Garry Staunton who explains the Carbon Trust takes 'innovative ideas' and helps them journey the innovation trail
The three 'case studies' describe how Ceres Power uses natural gas to create Combined Heat & Power by burning it more efficiently; how Buccleuch Bioenergy can burn woody biomass more efficiently; and how Oxsensis monitor the burning process so that natural gas and aero-engine fuel can be burnt more efficiently. So nearly ten years on, the overarching message that the Carbon Trust comes up with is; "It is OK to carry on pumping CO2 into the atmosphere by burning fossil and bio-fuels for as long as they are available and that you burn them as efficiently as possible."
When I was about ten in primary school we were taught 'fractions'. The basic idea was that if you put 'apples' in the numerator you had to put 'apples' in the denominator as well to make it a 'proper fraction'. My teacher also told us that you cannot put a number of apples in the numerator and a number of oranges in the denominator because that would be an 'improper fraction'. This has not stopped the Carbon Trust from basing its results and targets on improper fractions!
To explain, there are essentially two kinds of electricity the 'apple' kind and the 'orange' kind. The former is the intermittent and random electricity that comes from renewable energy sources such as wind and wave power. The electricity from tidal streams is also intermittent but is not random because the tides are predictable. The latter 'orange' electricity is the constant secure kind that comes from thermal power stations that either burn fossil fuels or use nuclear fission to create heat that, in turn, raises steam to run their turbines.
The Government's Renewable Energy Strategy of producing 15% of renewable electricity by 2020 is really based on an improper fraction of 15 apples over 100 oranges. Clearly, renewable electricity needs to provide 100 'oranges' in the numerator to provide the UK with all of its electricity from renewable energy sources.
All of the UK's electricity can be generated by converting renewable energy into heat and storing it during times of 'feast'. Electricity can then be generated during periods of 'famine' to meet fluctuating demands from the renewable energy heat source without resorting to burninganything as advocated by the Carbon Trust. Heat stores can be built beside our existing stock of fossil fuel and nuclear thermal power stations so that their turbines will run on superheated 'green' steam. The government is been asked to provide £billions in funding for a new generation of coal and nuclear power stations and we will have to buy in millions of tonnes of expensive foreign coal annually to keep the lights on. If Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) is adopted we will need to be build an extra coal fired power station for every three built to compensate for the electricity used to run the CCS. Further the hardpressed taxpayer will be asked to shell out £billions to support renewable like tidal stream devices that generate puny quantities of intermittent electricity that requires full back up. This high level capital expenditure is not necessary - we can convert our existing grid connected thermal power stations into 100% green generators for less than £50billion.
I have already provided The Carbon Trust with the necessary details of how one 1000MW power station could be supplied with the necessary thermal power from deep oceanic waves to generate continuous load following (orange) electricity. (Jenny Martin from the Carbon Trust's Entrepreneurs' Fasttrack programme can provide you with the information including all the spreadsheets and mathematical modelling.)
We need to start preparing for a world without fossil fuels and bio-fuels now, if we are going have any chance of saving our planet on which we all depend. Another way of putting it is 'that we are all in this together' a phrase that I believe you are familiar with! To stop us blundering down this unsustainable dead end you should stop paying Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs), currently priced at around £56 per Mega-Watt-hour, for renewable electricity and pay, perhaps £20 per Mega-Watt-hour for renewable heat delivered to thermal stores near our power stations instead. At a stroke this simple act will put the UK, and the rest if the world, back on the right course by generating heat from the kinetic and potential energies in our abundant renewable energy sources making us free from imported fossil fuels for ever more.
The Carbon Trust has lost its way because it made the classic mistake of seeking advice from the Renewable Energy Industry. This is a bit like asking a fox to review the security arrangements for a chicken coup! There is no doubt in my mind that The Carbon Trust has been infiltrated by 'industry moles' whose sole remit it to strangle any new inventions at birth that threaten the deployment of more and bigger wind, wave and tidal stream turbines.
Several weeks ago I applied through the Entrepreneurs' Fasttrack for help in developing a tidal stream device that will deliver ten times more electricity 24 hours a day, seven days a week than that of an existing state-of-the-art tidal stream turbine. I pointed out that these turbines only convert 4.6% of the tidal stream resource into (intermittent) electricity yet the Carbon Trust has invested tens of £millions, and is still investing, in these inadequate and simplistic machines. My idea was rejected on the grounds that my invention 'had too many strands' for the assessor to understand! Again Jenny has all the information regarding this application.
The Carbon Trust is very expensive to run and is certainly not fit for purpose and should be scrapped because all of its so-called carbon reductions and future targets are based on dodgy maths and improper fractions.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew H Mackay
Greenheat Systems Limited
Causewayside
TAIN
Ross-shire
Scotland
IV19 1NE