Physics First Energy Policy

Physics first delivers cheap abundant energy and is kindest to the environment.

Introduction

The current UK energy policy is focused on intermittent renewables. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband is still intent upon implementing his Clean Power 2030 (CP2030) plan that seeks to reduce unabated gas generation to just 5% of overall generation and assumes nuclear power is reduced to a rump. Miliband’s plan calls for the vast bulk of electricity generation to come from intermittent renewables in the form on onshore and offshore wind and solar. As we have covered before, the plan is already behind schedule with shortfalls in capacity and the rate of delivery.

We already have the most expensive industrial electricity prices in the developed world and domestic prices are also very high. The overall plans for Net Zero by 2050 assume overall energy use per person will halve. There is plenty of evidence to show high prices, reduced energy use and emissions will lead to economic stagnation and poverty. There are no low-energy rich countries.

If we are to thrive as a nation, it is clear we need a vastly different energy policy. This means abandoning renewables ideology and moving to a physics first approach.

Physics First Energy Policy

What is meant by a physics first energy policy? There are five things we should focus on:

• Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI)

• Reliability and Flexibility

• Overall Environmental Footprint

• Energy Security

• Cost

Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI)

Physics first energy policy means focusing on energy sources that have a high Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI). Every energy source requires some energy to be consumed in its creation, be that drilling gas wells, making solar panels or wind turbines or chopping down trees to burn.

If EROEI falls, society spends more of its collective effort gathering energy meaning less is available for higher pursuits. This is neatly illustrated by the Net Energy Cliff in Figure 1 below, courtesy of Euan Mearns.

Figure 1 - Net Energy Cliff (credit Euan Mearns)

As system-wide EROEI falls, society begins to degrade and as it gets into single figures, modern society cannot continue to function. A physics first energy policy would focus on only high EROEI energy sources.

The seminal paper on EROEI by Weissbach compared the EROEI of different energy sources as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 - EROEI EROI comparison from Weissbach 2013

We shall discuss the EROEI of the different energy sources below, but it is obvious that intermittent renewables are on the low end of EROEI scale, meaning they should be excluded from a physics first approach.

Reliability and Flexibility

Second, to run a modern economy we require our energy sources to be reliable and flexible to meet our needs. For instance, a nuclear power plant is on pretty much all the time but is not very flexible. However, a CCGT gas turbine can flex its output more readily and an OCGT can flex even more rapidly. Hydro power can also flex output to match demand fluctuations. Wind and solar on the other hand produce only when the weather is favourable and their output is not correlated to the consumer demand. A physics first approach would focus on reliable and flexible generation.

Overall Environmental Footprint

Third, we should look at the overall environmental footprint. For too long, the prime focus of the Government has been on the carbon dioxide emissions of different energy sources. However, if we are to be good environmentalists we should look at mineral intensity and land use. We should also consider the environmental and economic impact of building thousands of miles of new transmission lines to connect remote wind and solar farms.

Energy Security

A physics first energy policy cannot ignore the realities of geopolitics. With increasing global tensions, then energy security should also be a major consideration. First, intermittent sources like wind and solar should be excluded because we cannot rely upon the weather to run a modern economy. Moreover, increasing penetration of renewables has led to a greater reliance upon interconnectors to the Continent. We cannot rely upon these to deliver power at a reasonable price at times of low wind. Undersea cables to North African solar farms, thousands of miles long, should also be ruled out on energy security grounds.

With countries such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran and Indonesia joining BRICS alongside Russia, the West does not control a sizeable proportion of global oil and gas reserves. This is a reason for the UK to maximise production of hydrocarbons to mitigate the risk of being held to ransom by despotic regimes.

Cost

Last, but by no means least, we should focus on cost. Cheap and abundant energy is a fundamental pre-requisite for a thriving modern economy. Cost here means total system cost, not the marginal cost of generation. As we have covered before, various bodies (such as the Commons Library, the Climate Change Committee and even the Government) are spreading misinformation about the cost of renewables. Others, like Hannah Ritchie, focus on very low marginal costs, ignoring the cost of subsidies. All ignore the extra costs of renewables such as grid balancing, backup and the massive extra costs of grid expansion to connect remote wind and solar farms.

In a free-market with sensible regulation, the highest EROEI energy sources should be the cheapest because it requires less energy and by extension material and labour to produce a unit of usable energy. However, under this measure, nuclear power in the UK scores poorly because it is over-regulated and so costs at least twice as much to build a large nuclear power plant as in South Korea and takes too long. But as Figure 3 below shows, even Hinkley Point C is cheaper than most existing renewables, including biomass, and comparable with the full cost of new wind and solar projects awarded contracts in Allocation Round 6 (AR6) when the costs of balancing and backup are included.

Figure 3 - Total Cost of Electricity by Technology and Subsidy Scheme (£ per MWh)

Note also that Orsted has cancelled the flagship AR6 project Hornsea 4, because it is uneconomic. The true cost of new offshore wind is likely much higher, made all the worse by offshore wind being the backbone of CP2030 and that will also require floating offshore wind which is even more expensive and thousands of miles of extra transmission cables.

Energy Source Comparison

There is a range of technologies we can consider to meet our electricity generation requirements. Let us briefly summarise them.

Biomass

Biomass, particularly in the guise of burning trees at Drax to be an environmental and thermodynamic disaster. It requires lots of land for the forests and has a low overall EROEI. The Royal Society of Chemistry estimated an EROEI of just 2 for burning biomass pellets from North America, lower even than the Weissbach analysis. If they add carbon capture, then EROEI falls below 1, meaning BECCS becomes a net energy sink. Biomass only qualifies for “green” subsidies because we choose to ignore the CO₂ emissions, comforting ourselves that the trees might grow back in the next half-century. The particulate emissions, emphasised as a problem for coal, are quietly ignored for biomass. Biomass should not be part of a physics first energy policy. However, we are currently short of firm generating capacity, so we must keep Drax going until it can be replaced or perhaps even converted back to coal.

Solar PV

At UK latitudes, solar PV is another low EROEI, mineral intensive solution that on a grid scale requires vast amounts of land that would be better utilised producing food. It could be argued that new solar panels are more efficient than older models and therefore today’s EROEI is better than Weissbach’s calculations. However, even if the EROEI has doubled, grid-scale solar is still not a satisfactory solution for the UK. The World Bank ranked us as the second worst country in the world, after Ireland, for solar power. The basic physics do not work because solar PV produces most on summer days when demand is low and nothing at all on winter evenings when demand is highest, so requires back up.

Most of the solar panels in use today are made in China, often using slave labour and energy from coal-fired power stations. There is no place for grid-scale solar in a physics first electricity generation mix. If individuals want to install solar panels on their homes or offices, then by all means go ahead, but without subsidy.

Although Solar PV is more viable at tropical latitudes, energy security cannot be guaranteed from panels located in North African deserts, so tropical solar is also discounted on energy security grounds.

Wind Power

As shown above, wind power, particularly in offshore guise, is an extremely expensive solution. Even with technological improvements since the Weissbach paper, the EROEI is low on a standalone basis and even lower if “buffered” to produce firm power. Although Weissbach assumed hydro as his buffering mechanism, batteries are likely to be even worse from an EROEI perspective because they are highly mineral intensive. Buffering with hydrogen is also a non-starter from an EROEI perspective. In addition, wind requires cobalt, most of which is mined in Congo often with child labour, and rare earth metals that are largely controlled by China. WE should not overlook that onshore wind turbines kill raptors and there are concerns about the impact of offshore wind on marine mammals.

All the current installed wind capacity will likely have been decommissioned by 2050. In a physics first energy policy, there is no reason to replace it and no reason to expand wind capacity.

Wave and Tidal Power

Wave and Tidal power are technologies that have held been promoted for several decades but never delivered anything of significance. The small tidal stream projects that won contracts in AR6 cost even more than floating offshore wind with current strike prices of £246-248/MWh. Wave and tidal power are therefore ruled out of a physics first energy policy.

Coal

Coal has been the mainstay of baseload generation for decades in many countries. EROEI is high and utilisation of critical and bulk materials is low. Coal has been demonised in the West, but nevertheless China started construction of 50GW of coal power in 2022 and 106GW of new coal capacity was permitted. We decommissioned our last coal-fired power station last year. Coal is frowned upon because of its emissions of carbon dioxide as well as noxious particulates, SOx and NOx. However, we do have 77m tonnes of coal reserves. If energy security and reliable power are paramount, then provided we can scrub the emissions with ultra-supercritical plants, we should not rule out new coal as a source of reliable power.

Waste Incineration

We already generate power from waste incineration. Power exported from these plants was 8.6TWh in 2021. There might be scope to increase this further, but it is unlikely to deliver more than a trivial amount of our power in the future, so can be ruled out as a technology to focus on.

Natural Gas

In the UK, natural gas makes up a large share of electricity production today. Gas comes to the rescue when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining. Gas has a high EROEI, low land use and requires little in the way of critical or bulk materials. CO₂ emissions are about half those of coal per TWh generated. We are blessed with significant offshore gas reserves and as yet untapped onshore resources in shale rocks, mainly in the North of England. Gas is also used to produce fertiliser, chemicals and plastics. There is no pressing need to stop using gas as a fuel for electricity. However, our existing gas fleet is aging and new gas power plants have a lead-time of about 8 years. If we lift the bans on new North Sea development and onshore fracking, gas makes a lot of sense as a fuel. But lead-time practicalities may dictate we have to consider coal as a solution in the interim.

Hydro Power

We already have about 4.7GW of hydropower installed, including 2.8GW of pumped storage. Hydro can deliver reliable power with high EROEI, does not use much land or critical minerals. However, it does use a lot of bulk materials (concrete) for the dams. Of course, any energy delivered is very secure because all it relies upon is rainfall on UK territory. Pumped storage is especially useful to balance the grid at times of changing demand and should be retained. There are six projects underway to increase pumped storage capacity to 7.7GW. As the total power delivered increases, this extra capacity will be needed to balance the grid. Further expansion of hydro is constrained by geography so will only ever be a small part of our generation mix.

Nuclear Power

That leaves nuclear power. Zero-emissions, extremely high EROEI, low mineral use and extremely low deaths per TWh generated. Nuclear power plants deliver reliable power for many decades. Moreover, five-eyes allies Australia and Canada have large Uranium resources, so access to fuel should be assured, enhancing energy security. Nuclear power should be the backbone of a physics first energy policy, covering both large power plants, Small Modular Reactors and even fast Advanced Modular Reactors to help mitigate the nuclear waste problem. However, current nuclear technology is not good at varying output in response to changing demand, so needs to be supplemented with flexible technology like gas and hydro. Moreover, we have to address how nuclear is regulated so new plants can be built much quicker and much more cheaply, as discussed here.

Conclusions

This analysis is drawn together in Figure 4 below.

Figure 4 - Comparison of Different Electricity Generation Technologies

If we are to focus on a Physics First energy policy we need high EROEI solutions that deliver secure, cheap and reliable power with a small overall environmental footprint. From this it is clear we need to focus on delivering nuclear power. However, nuclear has a long lead time, so we need hydro, gas and possibly coal in the interim. We also need to overcome the barriers to cheap nuclear power by delivering a radical overhaul of nuclear regulations. We will also need to rely on hydro and gas to provide flexibility until more flexible Gen IV reactors come online. To mitigate the risk of foreign powers, some of them hostile, controlling much of the world’s hydrocarbon reserves we should also maximise domestic oil and gas production.

Sadly, we are focused on the worst possible energy sources in the form of wind and solar power. Low EROEI, intermittent and with poor sustainability ratings if you look beyond carbon dioxide emissions. We are also taxing hydrocarbon production into extinction. A physics first energy policy cannot come fast enough if we are to avoid penury.

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