Energy Policy

In their Comments feature, the Institution of Engineering and Technology published this article in Engineering and Technology in December 2016. In this critique, I highlight the misleading use of language and units in describing renewable generation technologies.
Typical claims for a percentage of electricity mean nothing, as you cannot have a percentage of something that is not a measurable unit. Similarly, using energy and power as interchangeable words for the same thing is deliberately misleading. The oversimplification has spread within the professional institutions; bodies that ought to be challenging the errors made in the public domain.

The evidence I gave to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee was published in 2016. The report on their inquiry on the Economics of UK Energy Policy will be published in 2017. My message was that carbon reduction by energy policy was a technical challenge for engineers. Treating it as an exercise in economics will guarantee failure.

In spite of their claims, electric cars are not zero emission. Not having an exhaust pipe does not mean that the energy used has come from a green source. This article asks just how green are electric cars and compares them with internal combustion engine cars. It goes on to take account of the carbon footprint of all cars and then their whole life emissions. The problems raised suggest that there is a doubtful future for electric cars. What are the alternatives?