Oliver L Campbell :Taking care of our planet

Former Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) Finance Coordinator Oliver L Campbell writes: The headlines last July on the Pope's visit to Australia read “Pope Benedict urges young people to look after the planet.” He addressed them because the young are generally more conscious of the damage being done to the environment, and also they are the ones who will inherit any worsening conditions. The Pontiff went on to point out our “insatiable consumption” has squandered the earth's resources and marred its face in the process.

During the short time we are here on earth, we are the caretakers for the next generation.

I cannot claim any “green” credentials but, having been in the oil industry all my working life, I know all fossil fuels like coal and oil give off carbon emissions which contaminate the atmosphere. Power plants are a major culprit because they spew out tons of particles into the atmosphere every day. For that reason, I strongly support any measures to switch to the so-called “renewables” as a source of energy for electricity generation.

Let me take some examples from the United Kingdom where oil production from the North Sea is steadily declining. Scotland produces a large amount of hydro-electric power and is also blessed, if that is the right word, with some of the highest wind speeds in Europe . The Highlands, The Hebrides, the Orkney Islands and the Shetland Islands all provide a fairly constant source of wind power. I once spent three days in winter at the Sullom Voe oil terminal in Shetland and it rained and blew a storm the whole time. Such places are ideal sites for placing groups of wind turbines in wind farms. Though the long, thin blades are designed to turn with little wind, the speed of the wind is important since "power in the wind is proportional to the cube of the wind speed." e.g. doubling the wind speed produces eight times the power.

The trouble with using renewable energy for electricity generation is its intermittency--drought reduces water flow, thick clouds obscure the sun, night blots it out entirely, the wind drops and so on. A start has been made with solar energy--there is a huge solar plant in the Mojave Desert in the USA , and in Europe we have solar power generated near Seville in Spain . There is talk of constructing solar plants in the Sahara Desert and exporting electricity to Europe .

However, the UK is not noted for its hot sun and wind power is the better bet. We shall soon have wind farms in Scotland and out in the North Sea where the wind is fairly constant. They will be out of sight of land, but not in shipping lanes, and so avoid the NIMBY (not in my back yard) reaction. We will have to live with more pylons carrying power from the north to the south, but this is a small price to pay if we can reduce carbon emissions.

The great problem with electricity is how to store it when you don't need it for the time when you do. Batteries and capacitors can store a certain amount, but not to the extent needed to supply a large community. Connecting many wind farms together increases their reliability and, the more this happens, the more reliability improves. There is talk of creating one giant grid on the European Continent with thousands of wind farms connected to it. This sounds utopian, but there must certainly be scope for connecting wind farms in countries with common borders.

Continuity of supply is now possible with Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants that can store energy for use after sunset because scientists have come up with the ingenious idea of using excess heat generated during the day to melt salt which is kept in huge, insulated tanks to retain its heat. This heat can keep producing steam to turn the turbines at night time. CSP plants are ideally located in deserts with high direct solar radiation. With wind farms, a solution has still to be found for providing energy at the times when the wind drops. Interconnecting geographically dispersed wind farms into one grid, on the expectation that if it does not blow in one place it will in another, is a help but only a partial solution.

Wave motion will be tapped one day. Tides are absolutely predictable but the capital cost of harnessing that power is extremely high. There are tides like the Severn Bore in the UK where the kinetic energy can be caught both incoming and outgoing, but what do you do in the mean time? Intermittency is once again a problem. However, in 2007 the world's first tidal-power station built for commercial use was installed in Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland . The water flow in the narrows of the Lough can reach four metres a second, and the partially submerged generator can provide power for a thousand homes.

As the Pope pointed out, we are a consumer society and often give preference to our own creature comforts at the expense of the planet we live on. How often do we consider if our actions are damaging the planet? I know I do not keep it top of my agenda and I wonder if the reader does. But it is our duty to take care of our planet for future generations. I have written this piece hoping you will support and, indeed, encourage measures to increase the use of renewable energy. Incidentally, from a strategic perspective, being less dependent on energy supplies from abroad has its advantages.

Oliver L Campbell , MBA, DipM, FCCA, ACMA, MCIM was born in El Callao, in 1931, where his father worked in the gold mining industry. He spent the WWII years in England, returning to Venezuela in 1953 to work with Shell de Venezuela (CSV), later as Finance Coordinator at Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). In 1982 he returned to the UK with his family and retired early in 2002.