Carbon-based life, the universe and everything

Published on Sunday 5 July 2009 22:12

THE Ultimate Answer in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has been given a new lease of life, thanks to the Scottish Parliament. In the Douglas Adams novel, a supercomputer takes 7½ million years to decide the number 42 answers the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything.

Holyrood took only 7 hours to arrive at the same conclusion – 42 is the percentage by which Scotland must reduce its carbon emissions by 2020. Green campaigners are delighted.

But if 42 is Scotland's Ultimate Answer, what is the Question?

It's one thing to agree certain gases should stop being released into the atmosphere from man-made sources – another to agree human behaviour can change to make that cut achievable.

The Ultimate Question is currently "What reduction do scientists want to achieve?" not "What changes in behaviour to cut can Scottish humans be persuaded to deliver?"

There's nothing wrong with ambition or science-driven targets – but if the battle against climate change means nothing more than a decade of target-led talk, the footsoldiers will quickly get left behind.

Getting motivated to achieve lasting change isn't easy.

Diagnosed with diabetes or high blood pressure, patients readily agree weight must be lost fast. The commitment tumbles out easily in the self-improving atmosphere of the surgery, but at home changing diet, outlook and habits is hard.

Achieving social change is tougher still. Take Dundee. Keen to make existing homes comply with tough insulation targets – housing accounts for 25 per cent of emissions – the council may find it cheaper to demolish rather than "retrofit". But if tenants decide saving their homes is more important than saving the planet, few wrecking balls will swing. Of course, government could switch cash from the new build budget – but would young families waiting for affordable homes approve?

The prestigious V&A is building a new art gallery. But if the new V&A is given a prime waterfront location, should the council insist on an entirely renewably powered building? Accessible tidal energy and copious supplies of winter sunshine make that a possibility – but it's far safer to build "normally" and join WWF instead.

Change is possible, but going cold turkey (which a 42 per cent change represents) demands discussion, honesty, trust, and intelligent debate of the highest order in the parliament, at the breakfast table, in the school queue and down the pub. Is Scotland aiming that high or hoping change can be slipped through on the sly? And how do Scots talk to one another these days beyond focus groups, Facebook, letters pages and phone-ins? Does anyone know or care?

Adding to the dilemma of harnessing public consent is the awkward fact that scientists don't all agree.

Take the vital area of tidal energy – predictable (unlike wind) though fluctuating (unlike nuclear). The Carbon Trust estimates Britain's tidal potential equates to 9gW of generating capacity or three nuclear power stations supplying heat and light to 1.5m homes by 2025 (assuming commercial deployment starts by 2015).

But currently in Britain, only two tidal devices are supplying 2.2mW power to the grid.

That's partly because the credit crunch has caused investment to dry up but also because prototypes must be tested rigorously to prove they are sufficiently robust to be commercially viable in rough seas, and eco-friendly enough to avoid harming seals, dolphins, and seabirds.

As the wind industry knows, disproving harm is a time-consuming and expensive business.

The world's largest environmental marine energy monitoring project, in Northern Ireland, has found no measurable impact of tidal turbines on seals, dolphins and birds after three years of a five-year observation period. But marine biologists say it could take a decade to be sure, developers say more expensive monitoring could cripple the fledgling tidal energy industry and academics hope "seal sonar" might be a compromise solution.

The Bristol-based developer Marine Current Turbines is spending 3m on detailed monitoring work around its twin-turbine SeaGen device, installed last year in the habitat-protected Strangford Lough near Portaferry. Biologists and engineers are recording changes in sea mammal and bird activity over five years, attaching transmitters to seals to establish movement patterns and pressing a stop button on SeaGen's control tower if an animal is sighted within 50 yards.

Martin Wright, managing director of MCT, is "profoundly relieved" turbines have had no measurable environmental impact so far, but says these monitoring costs are onerous.

"Tidal energy will not happen if an embryonic industry is made to carry such burdens – it's like guinea pigs having to jump Beecher's Brook." On the other hand Professor Ian Boyd from the St Andrews-based Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) says: "The marine industry isn't viable unless it can carry these costs."

Is there a compromise? SMRU and Orkney-based EMEC are "training" sonar technology to distinguish between seaweed and seal pups, hoping that "seal sonar" (at 15k per turbine) can replace some human seal-sighting work soon.

Equimar – an EU marine research project – will have to decide when it delivers industry guidelines in 2011. According to co-ordinator Dr David Ingram: "If seal sonar works, our protocols could recommend its use in test sites – but perhaps sonar isn't needed for successfully tested devices at sea."

Issues like these are hard to resolve. But fudging won't do. Scotland's name is proudly spattered over the world's headlines thanks to our 42 per cent commitment. Back-tracking will badly dent our credibility.

Douglas Adams described 42 as "the funniest of the two-digit numbers". MSPs have to engage with voters like never before to make sure the world isn't laughing at us in 2020.