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The green mirage

Why a low-carbon economy may be further off than we think

A lot of hot air

THE GREEN MIRAGE
Why a low-carbon economy may be further off than we think
By John Constable
Civitas. 144 pages. £7.00
ISBN 978 1 906 837 309

In the context of current concerns over world energy and the recent announcement that UK electricity prices will rise by 10%, it might be hoped that a book entitled The Green Mirage might have something constructive to say.

In fact, the book is entirely negative and its purpose as stated on page xx is ‘intended to undermine confidence in the projections of consensus politics’. The central thesis of the book is that a range of international agencies, politicians and environmentalists are proposing a transition to a low-carbon economy and that transition will among other things give rise to an overall increase in employment as jobs disappear in some traditional sectors and are replaced by new jobs in ‘green’ industries.

Constable feels very strongly that this is wrong and throws up a succession of arguments and assertions which he feels demolishes this argument. In chapter 3, Constable has selected scenarios from a European study on the effect of different policies and economic scenarios on European employment. While several charts are given for a range of policy scenarios, the striking thing for this reviewer is how small the differences in predicted employment are. For most of the European Union there will be an overall gain in employment between 0.2 and 1.2%. The UK is exceptional, showing possible job losses of 10,000 in one scenario. Most observers experienced in business forecasting would say this is a neutral outcome with job losses and gains near enough in balance.

The broader argument is that governments intervene wrongly. Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s, which, at best, is a complex economic issue, is dismissed in ten pages based on one negative article from the USA. The 1940s UK government attempt to grow large quantities of groundnuts in East Africa at considerable expense is cited as another example, despite being more that 60 years ago, but illustrates how things go wrong when there is an over reliance on unproven technology. Constable’s view is that the technology for the low-carbon economy is unknown and unproven. This does not seem to be supported by reality; currently a total of 240 GW of wind and solar generating capacity have been installed worldwide, i.e about five times the UK electricity-generating capacity, and, despite Constable’s negative comments about Germany, day-time loads are being met by wind and solar generation and peak electricity prices have fallen.

Constable is director of a charity, the Renewable Energy Foundation, and yet nowhere in the book is his position on climate change and the necessity for a low-carbon economy stated. Surely the result of climate change from the current carbon-based energy world without corrective action will be far more severe than anything envisaged in this book.

Dr. Tim Bruton has nearly 30 years’ experience in development of solar cell technology and was head of global R&D in silicon technology at BP Solar until 2004.