text: Energy, economic growth and environmental sustainability: five propositions
  Topic(s): Energy efficiency, Economics
  This paper advances five linked and controversial propositions that have both deep historical roots and urgent contemporary relevance. These are: (a) the rebound effects from energy efficiency improvements are significant and limit the potential for decoupling energy consumption from economic growth; (b) the contribution of energy to productivity improvements and economic growth has been greatly underestimated; (c) the pursuit of improved efficiency needs to be complemented by an ethic of sufficiency; (d) sustainability is incompatible with continued economic growth in rich countries; and (e) a zero-growth economy is incompatible with a fractional reserve banking system. These propositions run counter to conventional wisdom and each highlights either a - blind spot‖ or - taboo subject‖ that deserves closer scrutiny. While accepting one proposition reinforces the case for accepting the next, the former is neither necessary nor sufficient for the latter.
  This report provides a summary and supporting documentation for Mott MacDonald's assessment of current and forward power generation costs for the main large scale technologies applicable in the UK. One theme of this report is that determining the costs of generation is not an easy matter. So much depends on the scope of the project, exact technology and scale, numbers ordered, suppliers selected, bundled warranties; the ruling market conditions, commodity prices, supply chain bottlenecks; and the ability of the developer to manage costs. This is especially so for the less proven technologies such as nuclear third generation pressurised water reactors, offshore wind and coal/gas plants fitted with carbon capture and storage. The main challenge for these less mature technologies is to understand the extent of the first of a kind premium and a large part of this depends on the responsiveness of the supply chains. More generally, uncertainty derives from the commodity prices for fuels and carbon, while performance variations play a secondary role. All this means that any assessment of levelised costs is subject to large bands of uncertainty which implies that the relative ranking of different technologies can shift markedly.