The venerable organization Greenpeace ( well in environmental movement terms it is old ) recently sent John Sauven for a chat with Steven Sackur on BBC's HardTalk. It seems that Greenpeace is trying to re-brand itself as the solar worshippers for an new millennia. It is all about the sun! I will ask you to watch the Interview and then I will point out some problems with this environmental expert's "vision" of the world and critiques of society.
HardTalk - Interview
Mr Sauven in his opening statements claims that "if we could capture all the energy from the sun for 70 minutes we could power the world." Done for effect and to make his point that we are "awash" with energy, well except in the dead of night.
Mr Sauven claims that no new nuclear power stations have been built in the last 30 years, except the Areva project in Finland. Now I am reading the IEAA web site and I see that there are 324 reactors world-wide that are 30 years or less of age. So if none have been built where did these come from?
Then the recent report about micro-site generation in the UK that could produce up to the equivalent of 5 Nuclear Power Plants, WOW! The UK needs to build about 25-50 Plants to meet it's energy needs as it retires coal plants and demand increases. So they cover every building and square metre they can with solar panels and come up to about 10-25% of the total required capacity, solar has an efficiency rating of about 40% ( means reliably generates about 40% of installed capacity ) so in actuality would provide 4-12% of requirements or about the same as 2 Nuclear Reactors. Yet because of the unreliable power levels generated we will still need reliable generation. Just ask Denmark how many coal plants they shut down by going 20% installed capacity wind power, what the efficiency of the system and what actually the power generated by wind is used for. ( Answers are : ZERO, 18% of Installed Capacity and Export any generated excess after consuming about 3% of what is generated ).
On Carbon Capture he says to build demonstration plants, put up or shut up! There are currently 3 sites underdevelopment in North America at this very moment ( 2 in the USA and one in Canada). So he really needs to get out more and stop reading the Greenpeace propaganda as his sole source of information. These plants takes years to develop, construct and test. Clearly shows he does not think in a reality based timescale as witnessed by his WWII reference, is he suggesting we convert all our factories to producing solar panels?
He also blames the western world for deliberately going to China with manufacturing because they were the dirtiest producers of energy, like is some sort of sinister plot. They went there because of lower labour, construction and material costs plus government policies and incentives for foreign investments. What he does not say is that pressure from Environmentalists forced multi-nationals to develop in regions of regulatory stability, the proposed price on carbon and the auto-out supplied to emerging markets made investment in western countries for manufacturing a riskier opportunity, so the money flowed into the emerging markets. He insinuation is emotional and driven only by his personal beliefs and his organization's lack of understanding of the way the world actually works.
I will only say this about the GM (Genetically Modified) foods, his organization has produced so much propaganda and pressure that African Nations are refusing GM foods from being imported and the technologies being used. Again Greenpeace is directly responsible for the lack of investment in agriculture in the third world because of his group's propaganda campaigns of fear mongering regarding the science to the under-developed world.
This just shows that Greenpeace is so disconnected from reality that is actually on the verge of irrelevancy in the current environmental landscape with as they discussed the rapid emergence of smaller groups and the growth of giants like the WWF and The Sierra Club. I for one actually appreciate the irony of the anti-capitalists falling victim to loss of market share.