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Can carbon capture and storage find its second wind?

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The UK government passed up the opportunity to lead the global carbon capture and storage (CCS) sector. Can they learn from offshore wind to give the much-maligned technology a genuine chance?

In 2014 then UK Prime Minister David Cameron sat before the House of Commons Liaison Committee to discuss the UK’s approach to staving off the threat of climate change. Reflecting on the strategies needed to decarbonise the UK’s economy, he singled out one technology as “absolutely crucial if we are going to decarbonise effectively”. Fast-forward four years and many readers would be surprised to know Cameron was referring to CCS.

In an industry understandably excited by the potential new era of smart grids, decentralised energy systems and renewables, advocates of this decidedly less glamorous technology have struggled to be heard. Like all good tales however the history of CCS is littered with plot twists, conflicts and lessons for those who appreciate the morals of the story.

The latest chapter of the CCS saga began in 2010 with the announcement of the second iteration of a £1 billion CCS Commercialisation Competition. This flagship programme was billed as the final push needed to take the technology from demonstration phase to commercial scale, pitting industry heavyweights such as Shell and Drax against each other in a race to build an economically viable CCS system. The government’s enthusiasm did not last long however and following the formal cancellation of the project five years later (by the now divisive Chancellor George Osborne) the competition’s last remaining project in Peterhead, Scotland, was shelved.

Today the North Sea storage sites proposed by the Peterhead projects remain conspicuously free of CO2. In the waters surrounding them however, a different low-carbon energy source is fast emerging as a significant force in the UK energy mix. 2017 saw a stunning 25% increase in wind power capacity in Europe, with the UK accounting for over half of this rise. Industry insiders were similarly stunned when two wind farms agreed to a Contract-for-Difference (CfD) price of less than £58/MWh in September, representing a drop of over 50% in just 2 years.

The contrasting fortunes of CCS and wind power offer many lessons for policymakers. The decision to abandon the CCS Commercialisation Competition, described succinctly by the then Scottish Energy Minister Fergus Ewing as a “disgrace”, seems emblematic of the thinking around CCS that has undermined attempts to get the industry off the ground. Economic assessments of CCS, whilst rightly pointing to the prohibitively high costs in the short-term, have given less thought to the wider picture. The remarkable drop in the wind energy prices show how costs can be driven down in an environment where companies can learn on the job in a competitive market. CCS has yet to be given the chance to realise the efficiency improvements that come naturally from operating a plant at commercial scale.

Through the CfD scheme wind has also benefited from the security of receiving a guaranteed ‘strike price’ for the energy it produces, providing vital stability to project funders. Subsidies for CCS have invariably come in the form of grants for initial capital costs, leaving organisations at the mercy of the market once the technology is in operation and spooking would-be investors.

The elephant in the room is that there is currently little financial incentive to develop CCS, meaning successive governments have kicked the technology into the long grass. There are however many future scenarios in which it becomes a commercially necessity (ramping up of carbon taxes being the obvious one), and if countries are actually serious about their emissions reduction targets the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) reckons widespread CCS is probably unavoidable. This, therefore, suggests a significant possibility of there being global demand for CCS technologies and expertise over the coming decades, and in the author’s opinion CCS could be a smart bet for any government willing to take a mature, long-term approach. The recently announced CCS Cost Reduction Taskforce is a start, but the chequered history of CCS suggests its wise not to count the chickens until they’ve hatched.

For all its successes the offshore wind boom is notable for its absence of UK-based organisations, and the key players in the industry’s growth from France, Denmark and Portugal have left little room for any British entrants. Supporting the British CCS industry at this stage however gives the UK a chance to be a world-leader in the sector. Whilst international carbon transport and storage infrastructure may seem a lofty ambition it will be vital in the long-term if CCS is to make a dent in global emissions. Taking a lead in the development of such infrastructure can extend the UK’s geopolitical influence.

With Brexit around the corner the opportunity to establish knowledge-exchange partnerships with countries at an earlier stage of their CCS journey and would also be an excellent source of soft power as the UK attempts to define its new role in the global knowledge economy. Perhaps CCS deserves another chance?

Jacob Ohrvik-Stott is a policy professional from London whose research interests span the relationships between energy, technology, and society.

‘Us versus Them’ – how immigrants are portrayed by the British press

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Why do some members of the electorate feel so irrationally hostile towards immigrants? The answer: a rabid and divisive press that has manufactured an ethnic consensus in which there is very little scope or variety.

The UK political landscape is becoming increasingly divided with debate and reason replaced by tribalism and emotion. Nowhere is this trend better witnessed than in the debate surrounding immigration.

The possibility of ever increasing migration into Britain ensures that immigrants and asylum seekers are highly valued as a newsworthy topic. This coverage is rarely positive however, and is dominated by a discourse that immigrants undermine ‘British culture’, ‘our’ culture; how ‘they’ take our jobs and offer ‘us’ terrorism and disease in return. This narrative is dominant in the mainstream media, with news outlets such as the Express and Daily Mail openly crusading on an anti-immigrant platform.

The press are able to maintain the salience of this negative rhetoric by producing content that is culturally resonant with the British population. They achieve this by constructing a binary opposition that casts migrants as criminals and immoral ‘invaders’, versus the lawful, hardworking and innocent British host society. Other depictions include migrants as dangerous and fearful, who threaten our ‘British values’ and the freedoms we hold dear. The employment of these negative terms by the press to describe immigrants encourages readers to make similar associations.

Another interesting component in the press’s coverage of immigration is its frequent use of language that degrades and dehumanises migrants to this country. By referring to migrants as a ‘swarm’ or a ‘flood’, the press questions their status as human being and subtly suggests that they have not risen above their animal origins; they are less than human. The description of migrants living conditions as a ‘jungle’ epitomises this. Why bother about people who live in a ‘jungle’, who are cast as primitive and uncivilised? Why bother about people who are not like us, civilised citizens in a democracy? This characterisation is unchallenged, and becomes normalised by politicians using similar rhetoric. The most notable instance of this involves former PM David Cameron, and his infamous pledge to get tougher on immigration and “end the swarm of migrants”. The use of this language compares migrants to insects. Not only are insects devoid of human emotions, but they are also disease carriers, pests, and potentially harmful. The press frame immigrants to be considered in the same way.

The effectiveness of the press’s representation of immigrants as threatening, as invasive creatures, is increased by the general uncertainty over the contextual and legal status of immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. It is difficult for the press to challenge refugees from a humanitarian perspective, as refugees have strong legal rights and are worthy of sympathy. It appeals to the public’s basic compassion to help other humans who face persecution or are fleeing from an oppressive regime. The tragic death of Alayn Kurdi – the three year old Syrian refugee found on a Turkish beach after his boat sank in the Mediterranean – illustrates this point.

The strategy is to reclassify refugees as something else. New labels such as ‘asylum seeker’ are applied which changes the eligibility for the status of a refugee. These labels are effective in removing the humanitarian frame, and reinforcing a negative association with asylum seekers. This allows the press and, by extension, the public, to stigmatise and dismiss the needs of asylum seekers in a normalised and acceptable fashion.

It is clear then that a negative portrayal of immigrants is well established in the British press. Themes of invasion and hostility are predominant, fostering a climate of unease, suspicion and resentment towards immigrants. By framing immigration as an ‘us versus them’ issue, the press has created a consensus where its readers are invited and encouraged to view the incomers as a threat. This has culturally resonated with the British population, allowing the press to manufacture an ethnic consensus in which there is very little scope or variety. This offers a partial explanation as to why positive depictions of immigrants – centred on their significant contribution to British society and public services – are less salient. It does not resonate with readers. What can we do to rectify this unjust narrative?

Ideally, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) would adhere to stronger guidelines concerning the demonisation of immigrants. This could be achieved by preventing irrelevant references to an individual’s immigration status in a negative story. This would avoid the generalisation that immigration status is the primary reason behind a person’s negative actions. IPSO could also be more proactive in challenging the press’s emotive rhetoric that has converted editorial opinion into fact. Even with a wealth of data maintaining that immigrants do, in fact, provide a positive contribution to British society, there is a common misconception that they are a burden on public services and the welfare system. These perceptions are based not on figures, but on inaccurate, divisive and unchallenged media portrayals. As long as these negative portrayals continue, along with the ‘us versus them’ mentality that the press adopts, immigrants will continue to be considered in a negative light by the British public.

Joel Wilson-Hunt is a recent politics graduate from the University of Essex and lives in Kent. His research interests include British politics, political communication and migration studies.

The EU project, as Britain diverges will Europe continue to converge?

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Brexit negotiations mean uncertainty not just for the UK but for the countries it leads behind in the EU, nowhere is this truer than on the issue of whether Brexit will lead to greater unity of disunity within the Union.

In the classic British satirical comedy Yes Minister the civil servant Sir Humphry explains to the bumbling Minister Hacker the reasoning for Britain joining the EU was a cynical way for Britain to maintain power and influence by ensuring disunity within the European project.

In reality, however, Britain’s history and relationship with the EU has, of course, been a little more complicated and complex than this; in many ways Britain’s position within the EU as a perceived obstacle to unity and greater convergence has ensured that divergent views are expressed and opposing ideologies met with compromise. The UK has historically encouraged a much more liberal approach to areas of trade and the social contract – a key example being its opt-out form the Schengen Visa system – often in stark opposition to the other central powerful EU state such as France and German.

Yet now that the UK is leaving a starkly different EU may emerge. Once the UK leaves the EU there will be a dramatic shift in the balance of power within the EU. The UK was one of the EU’s most influential players and alongside France and Germany was regarded as an economic and political pillar. Its strength and position, alongside its ambivalence to the grander EU project, allowed it more, than any other country, to extract the most exemptions and opt-outs, such as membership of the Euro and Schengen.

So with its departure, will the EU move to greater convergence after Brexit? This is surely the hope and wishes of Germany and now France (with one of its most pro-European presidents); both of which are pursuing greater cooperation and convergence, putting aside superficial differences in place of a vision for the post-Brexit EU.

Historically France and Germany have always been the drivers of the post-war Europe project, whilst British positions have more often than not been the brakes on European unity. This may be due to the fact that Britain only joined in 1973, 16 years after the Treaty of Rome, due mainly to French opposition.

However, Britain’s departure will also lay bare the stark and growing differences within the EU project, especially between the core and peripheral countries, in both the economic and political realm. Economically, Greece is still struggling; following near economic collapse and a number of issues need to be resolved in the country to ensure the stability of Greece and the EU such as Greece’s debt sustainability and management.

Furthermore, whilst the EU project has predominantly been an economic project, there is a clear political component to the EU, and this will no doubt be one its greatest tests post-Brexit. There is a growing collection of central and eastern European states which in many ways are avowedly pro-EU according to public sentiment but, in many ways, have deeply nationalist governments. Leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban have espoused the idea of “illiberal democracies” and seek political inspiration from international figures such as President Putin in Russia. Poland and the Czech Republic, to name two, also appear to seek similar political paths as Hungary.

How the EU deals with the rise of 21st century neo-nationalism will be one of its ultimate tests, especially for its future unity. This may be where Brexit will leave its lasting legacy. If countries with strong neo-nationalist forces, like Hungary, see Britain not only managing but thriving outside the EU, it may provide the ammunition populists like Viktor Orban need to argue for a Hungary outside the EU. Once the UK leaves, the EU will have to confront fundamental issues that for various reasons have been avoided. Its survival depends on reconciling in some cases paradoxical differences. Time will tell if the UK outside will be a unifier for the rest of Europe or a beacon for European disillusions.

When Britain leaves the EU, there will be great challenges facing those its leaves behind. Ensuring unity – or even seeking greater convergence – for the remaining EU member states will have to face a number of political and economic barriers in a markedly changed Union.

David Lee has a Masters in Diplomatic Studies and is a Policy Assistant at a national think tank. He lives in London.

Mining for answers in Britain’s ever-shifting coal policy

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Coal seems to many as a thing of the past, connotating miners is sooty uniforms and canaries in cages, yet we are still haunted by coal’s legacy even today. In the face of an ongoing climate crisis, why can’t the British government make up its mind about coal?

Modern society is undoubtedly in the era of Petroleum, with the fossil fuel characterising not just the way we live, from transport to energy, but also to how the world is run. Since the principal discovery and exploitation of the resource in the mid-1800s, our world was changed. However, none of this would have been without the boost in capacity for growth that its predecessor, coal, provided.

Even though we have transitioned from the era of coal to the era of petroleum, however, coal is very much an integral part of our society. Coal still makes up more than ¼ of the world’s energy mix, with it primarily being burnt to produce electricity in coal-fired power generation. Over the past few years, given the growing pressures and efficiencies of renewable energy sources, and even the cheaper price points of petroleum and natural gas, coal has slowly been put on the backburner in terms of national energy policy. Yet over the past few years, the British government can’t seem to make up their mind on what they think about coal – why?

There are several reasons for this. First – the coal industry in the UK has a complex history rooted in the heart of the Industrial Revolution. Coal allowed Britain to emerge as one of the cornerstones of the world, with a massive boost to its economy and enabling its military capacity to grow to the largest it has been in its entire history.

This leads thus into the second reason, being the institutionalised nature of coal in our national energy mix and infrastructure. While coal only makes up approximately 9% of the national energy mix, and has been gradually replaced by the more favourable natural gas (which in contrast makes up 43% of the mix), the phase out of coal power stations has been slow. Whilst the numbers may indicate that coal is not a big deal, it is still 9% of dirty fossil fuel that is being burned compared to natural gas which is marginally cleaner.

The slow phase out of coal has not been helped by the contemporary culprit: the lack of any concrete perspective on coal by the government for the past four years. After a shift from Liberal Democrat to Conservative hands following the 2015 election, the government has had three separate Secretaries of State for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs; the most current being MP Michael Gove. Additionally, the past three years have obscured the presence of any explicit department for energy with a concrete plan. What was once the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), no longer exists as of 2016 and is now a mere fragment of the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

What does all this mean? Quite simply, it means that the fight against climate change has been put on the backburner with regards to the government’s main focuses. The disappearance of DECC into BEIS indicates that climate change, whilst still a serious issue, cannot be prioritised over the economy. Current international ties, particularly to the United States appear to make coal a desirable part of the energy mix; given President Trump’s election promise to revive the coal industry, prompting “Trump digs Coal” signs to pop up at rallies along the campaign trail. Bilateral relations with China may have a stake in the presence of coal, particularly given China’s role in British nuclear power. Even relations with the EU, through which the UK receives most of its natural gas as a result of an agreement with the Russian Federation, may revive the importance of coal following Brexit.

The British government claims to be a ‘leader’ in the fight against climate change, with the conservative party claiming to be the ‘greenest party ever’, yet these statements beg questioning given the blatant contradiction-in-terms. It is clear that the presence of coal is still here in the UK, and it is going to take more than converting the skeletons of our sooty past like Battersea Power Station, and the flimsy plan to close all current plants by 2025 to change this.

Micheil Page is currently reading an MSc in Global Energy and Climate Policy at SOAS, University of London, specialising in Arctic governance. He is also the Director of UniSolar, the UK’s first student-led community energy enterprise.

Westminster Woes – Brussels Battering? Why government insecurity does not necessarily mean foreign weakness.

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Despite Theresa May’s weakness reasonable progress has been made in Brussels. No no deal. No Brussels trouncing. Why did her weakness not lead to weakness in the negotiations and what can we learn from this?

2017 was, at the very the least, an ill-starred year for UK Prime Minister Theresa May and her Conservative government. May was dogged by gaff, scandal and disaster at home, all whilst attempting to negotiate the Brexit settlement abroad.

Compounding the Prime Minister’s misery were the parliamentarians and pundits, on hand after every misfortune to explain why her crumbling authority would have negative consequences for Britain in the Brexit negotiations. Dire predictions abounded; the negotiations were going to be a Brexi-nightmare and Britain was to be Brexi-bulldozed.

And yet here we are. Many would argue that a seemingly reasonable compromise has been reached on the Irish border, citizens’ rights and the divorce bill. Furthermore, it appears that the UK has not been bullied into capitulating wholesale at the negotiating table despite May’s weakness. What are we to make of this state of affairs?

First, we should not be surprised. American political scientist, Robert Putnam, showed negotiations are two level games: the agreement is negotiated internationally at level 1 and ratified domestically at level 2. Each negotiating team has a set of all possible agreements which could be reached at level 1 (the international level) and that ratifiers (members of the cabinet, parliament and the public) could accept at level 2 (the domestic level).

Providing a deal does not fall apart then the negotiators at level 1 will usually arrive at an agreement somewhere in the middle where their domestic win sets overlap and they can be confident of ratification.

So, if we take the divorce bill and citizens rights both sides began by touting their preferred options before ceding ground until an acceptable middle ground was reached. This is how negotiations between relative equals proceed – domestic weakness does not mean foreign surrender.

Second, and more speculatively, perhaps the law of unintended consequences has helped May, albeit perversely. The stronger a government is, the greater the number of potential agreements they can accept at the international level because they know they can simply force them through at the domestic level. Strangely therefore, strong governments can end up ceding more at the negotiating table. Had May done well in the June election she would have gone to Brussels with a strong parliamentary majority and her own personal mandate. As it turned out her gamble backfired catastrophically leaving her with no parliamentary majority and a divided party. Perhaps this has allowed her to withstand demands from the EU for say, a greater amount in the divorce bill, on the grounds that she would not be able to get the deal ratified at home.

However, this does not automatically mean that a negotiating team will be able to gain concessions. This is only possible if a government’s best alternative to no agreement is credible. In the UK, this would be to separate without continuity from the EU, falling back on WTO rules in the critical area of trade. If the EU did not believe this was credible and could have negative implications for the EU as well then they may well have taken advantage of May’s weakness to try and force a punitive deal upon the UK. Yet they have not.

Therefore, finally, EU leaders are committed to securing a sensible deal for both parties. They do not want to see a no deal scenario and such a scenario now looks highly unlikely. This could explain why EU leaders are publically praising May. Perhaps they feel that it is better to prop up a weak but amenable Prime Minister than deal with her potential replacement who would possibly be more prepared to destabilise negotiations by playing the ‘no deal’ card.

Dire domestic politics does not necessarily translate into a dire position at the negotiating table abroad. It now appears that May and the EU will reach a deal. That deal will not be optimal for either side but if the wiser heads prevail it will be fair and Britain will not be bulldozed.

Chris Kunkler (24) is a graduate student and lives in London. He is currently studying for a master’s degree in global politics at LSE.

 

 

Decoding the Deterrent: What are Trident’s Cyber Vulnerabilities?

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The Cyber Offensive: WannaCry and Beyond

In civilian and military spheres alike, cyber technology has come to dominate the way we operate. Maintaining a grasp of what renders these systems vulnerable is of acute importance, whether for the security of emails or complex military weapons. It is in this lens that the scope of government activity, particularly in the civilian sphere, is changing to incorporate these systems into its broader security mandate. However, this task has proven to be far more challenging and ambiguous than previously conceived.

Offensive capabilities are not to be understood as the product of a hacker singlehandedly infiltrating a security system from his/her basement, but as specialised government programs designed for use on a defined adversary. The Stuxnet virus in 2007 is the primary example of a state-developed offensive technology successfully penetrating an “air gapped” system (fully independent from the internet and other public networks), however the scope of state offensive technology goes beyond that.

The already infamous WannaCry attack in May 2017 infected 200,000 systems running Windows platforms older than Windows 10 without the MS-17-010 update, including the Russian Interior Ministry. The WannaCry virus was based on a design vigorously developed by the NSA that was stolen by a criminal organisation known as the Shadow Brokers. In 2015 a state sponsored offensive cyber virus, code named Project Sauron, infected air gapped systems via a USB insertion. It brought to light how stealthy and insidious cyber-attacks can be that operate in the background gathering information.

When it comes to Trident, the UK’s £205 billion nuclear continuous-at-sea deterrent, designed to be ready to attack any adversary at any given point in time, understanding and securing its cyber vulnerabilities should be a top imperative.

Trident

The prominent government position highlights its impermeability by virtue of being air gapped. Quite rightly, this dispels the notion that one could hack into the cyber components of the nuclear submarine while on patrol at sea. However, the key cyber vulnerabilities of Trident centre around three main areas, listed below. These relate to different parts of the weapon system itself and may present challenges to the submarine’s stealth, the vessel’s internal functions, the control of the nuclear missiles and operational information secrecy. The prominent government position highlights its impermeability by virtue of being air gapped. Quite rightly, this dispels the notion that one could hack into the cyber components of the nuclear submarine while on patrol at sea.

However, the key cyber vulnerabilities of Trident relate to different parts of the weapon system itself and may present challenges to the submarine’s stealth, the vessel’s internal functions, the control of the nuclear missiles and operational information secrecy. As a consequence, they centre around three main areas: create three general categories for these areas e.g. stationing, software, procurement.

The first vulnerability develops from the time each of the four Trident-armed submarines spends docked at the Faslane Naval Base in Scotland, which is up to 40% of its service life. Stationed here, the system is vulnerable to cyber-attack by the physical introduction of malware, which is often how air gapped systems are compromised. A breach of security became a legitimate concern in 2015 after an Engineer Technician Submariner for UK’s Trident II D5 System warned that the poor safety procedures at the base and aboard the submarine itself left the system vulnerable to attack.

The second concern is that Trident currently operates on an outdated software design. As it was built almost thrirty years ago, the Vanguard submarines use a Windows XP operating system. In 2004 the government said that continued use of Windows XP was credible because of Microsoft’s long-term product support, however that support has since stopped. Moreover, it was precisely the lack of a Microsoft update on older Windows systems that left systems susceptible to WannaCry’s EternalBlue malware.

The third weakness relates to the forthcoming procurement of the Dreadnought Class submarines. Due to be completed by the early 2030s, the new submarines are to replace the Vanguard Class submarines that have housed the Trident nuclear capability since the 1990s. The physical introduction of malware into the system can occur during the long procurement stage and lay dormant in the system until activated by the adversary. One solution would be a tightly coordinated procurement process, where the Ministry of Defence itself is overseeing the production of each component. This would help to minimise the risk of a malware introduction. However, BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, Babcock and other firms are all part of the construction process and will subsequently take responsibility for the security of each stage of production. This distribution of procurement responsibilities would augment to the vulnerabilities.

Conclusion

Given the importance of the UK’s £205 billion nuclear option and the archaic nature of cyber warfare, securing any vulnerabilities should be a top imperative. Despite assurances, Trident is vulnerable and identifying its three key cyber vulnerabilities is the first step to addressing them. Special attention should be given to: securing the nuclear naval base, developing a robust and bespoke operating system and carefully monitoring the procurement already in place to replace Trident in 2030.

Aleem Datoo is co-Leader of Agora’s Defence & Security Programme.