Carbon reduction commitment (CRC) scheme has 'perverse effect' of threatening zero-carbon energy research
World-class research into future sources of green energy is under threat in Britain from an environmental tax designed to boost energy efficiency and drive down carbon emissions, scientists claim.
Some facilities must find hundreds of thousands of pounds to settle their green tax bills, putting jobs and research at risk.
The unexpected impact of the government's carbon reduction commitment (CRC) scheme is so severe that scientists and research funders have lobbied ministers for an exemption to reduce the bills.
Among the worst hit is the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, a flagship facility for research into almost limitless carbon-free energy. The lab faces an estimated £400,000 payment next year, raising the spectre of job losses and operational cutbacks.
"Considering our research is aimed at producing zero-carbon energy, it seems ironic and perverse to clobber us with an extra bill," a senior scientist at the laboratory told the Guardian. "We have to use electricity to run the machine and there is no way of getting around that."
The laboratory operates the Joint European Torus (JET), the largest fusion reactor in Europe. The facility has led the way in scientific research on fusion energy, and is a forerunner for the first demonstration plant, ITER, to be built in France over the next decade.
Under the CRC, the Culham lab faces a significant bill because while energy savings can be made in other areas of the site, the machine draws an inevitably large electricity bill when it is running.
Concerns over the tax have led the Prospect union to lobby government for an exemption on energy use at experimental facilities where the focus of research contributes directly to public good and government policy.
"This will have a negative impact on important research into low carbon energy sources and that cannot be the right consequence of a policy the government is pursuing to promote a low carbon economy," said Sue Ferns, head of research at Prospect.
"There is a potential for the scheme to impact on employment and it adds to pressures to run the equipment less. Even if it doesn't lead to substantial job losses, these are world-class scientists and every job, every piece of research makes a difference.
"The UK cannot afford to lose its edge in this area," she added.
Britain's main funding body for research centres, the Science and Technology Facilities Council, has separately approached government to persuade ministers to rethink how the scheme applies to scientific laboratories. The STFC's bill will "inevitably" mean less funding for research across its centres, the Guardian has been told.
Representations from scientists, the research council and Prospect have so far been dismissed by government, but the chief scientist, Sir John Beddington, passed on researchers' concerns to Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) for an ongoing review of the scheme.
Across the UK, laboratories will be required to pay around £1m in annual CRC bills to DECC. Almost all of that will be met by diverting grants given out by other areas of government, such as the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, a situation Ferns described as "a nonsensical recycling of funds".
In October's spending review, the government shelved plans to recycle money raised by the scheme to participants, and stated that it expected to earn £1bn in revenue to support public finances instead.
Another Oxfordshire laboratory, the Diamond synchrotron light source, anticipates a £300,000 bill under the CRC. A spokesman said the laboratory hoped to offset some of the cost by investing in more efficient water cooling systems for the machine, better climate control, and motion-sensitive lighting.
At the Daresbury laboratory in Cheshire, the CRC bill will exacerbate financial woes that have already forced managers to draft redundancy packages and consider cutting back on equipment. "Science is already struggling here and now we are being charged an additional premium to go about our everyday business while working to address the government's own stated grand challenges in science for the 21st century. It doesn't seem a very joined-up approach," said Lee Jones, an accelerator physicist at the laboratory.
The DECC said the CRC scheme aimed to deliver "ambitious" carbon reductions by improving energy efficiency at large energy users.
"All parts of the UK economy will need to play a part in using energy more efficiently. The measures encouraged by the CRC can make organisations more competitive via the cost savings on their energy bills. We are currently working on simplifying the CRC scheme to make it more straightforward and reduce burden on participants. Further details of how we plan to do this will be published in the coming months."
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/30/environmental-tax-threatens-green-energy-research
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