a) Explain the possible impacts on UK energy
security of the trends shown. 10mrks
There are issues facing the UK’s energy supply as facing the
order to cut CO2 emissions the British government seek out viable
alternatives. The UK is currently producing 400gs of CO2 per kg and is facing
the shutdown of British coal stations to meet the EU quota of 50gs, a 75%
decrease. The two possible routes currently hitting the headlines are either to
follow the original plan into costly renewables and cleaner nuclear sources or
to continue with business as usual by “dodging climate change targets” says
Livermore and “dash for gas”. In this essay I will explore the trends shown in
figure 1 and how they may indicate future insecurities.
The Overall trend in the amount of energy use shown in
Figure 1 is not dramatically changed. The amount has only increased by
20million tonnes (in equivalent of oil) between 1970 and 2030, not much when
the overall use in 2030 is expected to be a staggering 230million tonnes. This
does not indicate insecurity as such because the increase itself is not outside
of our capabilities to obtain the energy. We faced an increase double that (between
2010 and 2030) in the decades between 1990 and 2010. Therefore this increase of
around 9million tonnes should not be impossible. The problems however are not
with the overall figure but instead the individual energy sources within that
figure and how we intend to replace our losses to meet this projection.
Coal is the primary issue. Looking at the trend, shutting
down these stations in 2020 to meet targets should not be an issue as in the
last 60 years the UK has decreased its coal output by almost 100million tonnes.
However, coal still accounted for around 38million tonnes in 2010, the use of
coal in 2030 is still predicted to be more than the usage for renewables and
nuclear combined. In addition to the overall increase of around 9million tonnes
this leaves a large deficit that if not filled may lead to energy insecurity.
There are further issues implied by the trend shown for
nuclear power. The use of nuclear power has fluctuated in the past 60 years,
rising by 10million tonnes between 1970 and 1990, and then decreasing back
10million tonnes by 2030. This is because the first stations in operation at
1990 had a short life and are now beginning to expire. This poses an issue for
energy security in the UK as even with immediate investment into nuclear energy;
the stations take 15-20 years to build. This leaves a gap as shown in the trend
(nuclear only at 10million tonnes in 2030) where the UK will be without nuclear
power, irrelevant of investment into it. This is estimated in the chart to be
filled by an increase in natural gas and renewables.
However, there are also issues with these sources as natural
gas is either found in the UK’s North Sea or is imported in liquefied form from
Russia or Qatar. The source in the UK is quickly running out, meaning we must
soon rely on imported gas. Qatar is a Middle Eastern country and is politically
unstable. This may lead to energy insecurity as the import pathway for liquefied
gas may be easily disrupted by war or revolution. Dependency upon Russia also
makes our energy security vulnerable as the Russian government have been known
to use their energy exports for political leverage. If both of these countries
were to cut off supply and we were dependent on our own dwindling sources then
loss of natural gas may lead to energy insecurity.
Furthermore, HEP and other renewables are also unreliable as
despite the government’s religious investment into wind power the chart shows
that renewables will only be less than 5% of the overall energy use in 2030.
This is because renewables are expensive and only have a low output which is
not constant. Furthermore oil is almost one third of overall energy use and has
remained constant over the past 60 years being the same usage in 2030 as it was
60 years ago. This means the UK has always been dependent upon oil, making this
difficult to change. This also makes the UK vulnerable to energy insecurity,
not through physical scarcity but economic scarcity as OPECC control the UK’s
provision of oil and have been notorious for changing these prices (such as the
increase triple fold in 1977). Therefore these energy sources cannot be relied
upon and the UK’s energy remains insecure.
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