environment 1

The US survey has long been criticised as inflated, but now even the optimistic IEA is having doubts. The agency is to reappraise its reliance on the survey figures for its long-term production forecast next year. It is difficult to see how it can do this without a huge downward revision of its forecast. Britain's official position is therefore built not only on sand, but the sand of an hourglass that is fast running out.

In. fact, peak oil may have arrived already. Production of crude is lower now than in February 2005, while total liquid fuel production, including marginal sources such as biofuels, is lower than in July 2006. Even if it's not peak oil as such, production is struggling. Meanwhile demand continues to surge; the soaring price sends a clear message.

Tony Blair wrote in last year's energy review that it was a principal duty of government to secure energy supply. He was right. Gordon Brown must now abandon the reliance on IEA forecasts, institute a truly independent assessment of global oil depletion and launch a massive programme of mitigation. Anything less would be dereliction.

But of course he won't. Even more than climate change, peak oil demands that governments confront voters with uncomfortable truths that will affect living standards. In Whitehall, legs will remain crossed and buttocks clenched as politicians and officials pray to God that it doesn't happen in their term of office, or before they draw their inflation-linked pension.

David Strahan is the author of The Last Oil Shock: A Survival Guide to the Imminent Extinction of Petroleum Man www. lastoilshock. com

The Shut Down Sizewell Campaign declines to answer the questions posed in the Former DTI’s consultation document, because they are based upon an unjustifiable presumption of the need for new nuclear power, which itself relies upon partial information and flawed argument, as has been conclusively shown by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.. That argument consequently cannot overturn the government’s own advice in its 2003 Energy Review that new nuclear build would be at best a last resort. The arguments against any necessity for new nuclear power not only stand firm, but have been augmented in two important respects since 2003.

The Campaign therefore makes its submission on these two aspects alone, which have a particular relevance to Sizewell where we have our main experience, yet apply much more widely and make it even less desirable than ever that the risk of new nuclear stations should be entertained.

The consultation document relies upon the study prepared by the Met Office, on behalf of British Energy, which reported in February of this year, using data that precedes that date by up to two years, and concluded that additional flood defences would be needed to protect coastal nuclear sites in general and Sizewell in particular. The same month a study by the Flood Hazard Research Centre, commissioned by Greenpeace, indicated that the impacts at Sizewell are less clear and less confidently made, making it more uncertain what degree of flood protection would be required and whether it would in the event prove adequate over the very long time-spans for which it would be necessary. The precautionary principle suggests, on the basis of this study, that both the risk of sea damage to any Sizewell plant and the costs of preventing it would be unacceptably high.

These two studies, however, must be seen in the context of a continuing trend of climate change acceleration, with increasingly dire impacts on the Sizewell coast. Since the studies were done, much more severe forecasts of sea level rise make even the Flood Hazard Research Centre’s forecast optimistic. The Worldwatch Institute reported on 13 September 2007 that the window to prevent catastrophic climate change is closing, and that not nearly enough is being done to prevent change from accelerating even more, thus both increasing the short term risk and decreasing the time before the onset of more severe risk at Sizewell.

The European Space Agency (ESA) reported on 17 September that the unprecedented shrinking this summer of the sea ice that covers the North Pole and the Arctic "flags that the ice may disappear much sooner than expected and that we urgently need better to understand the processes involved". This again invokes the precautionary principle against the risk to coastal nuclear stations, yet what is already clearly understood is the albedo effect. It is widely acknowledged that any replacement of global ice by water causes heterostasis – or positive feedback – to global warming. So the observed reduction in sea ice may be accepted as further direct reason to expect even graver and earlier climate change, mitigating against exposing nuclear stations to these more serious coastal risks.

The Jackson Consulting Report of May 2007 confirmed the trends in the Met Office and the Flood Hazard Research Centre studies, emphasising the additional costs that protecting against such risks would impose on the already enormous expense of new nuclear stations. However, nowhere does the Jackson Report suggest, as does the consultation document so blandly, that "this would represent a small percentage of the overall capital cost of new power stations". Instead it states that "extra spending on defences would add to the huge cost of construction, estimated at more than £1bn a plant" And the sums indicated in the Jackson Report are already underestimates, on the basis of the increased gravity of the more recent climate studies. Such expense could only be justified if nuclear power was unquestionably necessary, and this has not in any way been argued, except by the inadequate consultation document.

Concern has long been expressed over the long term effects of offshore dredging on the stability of the coast, on the basis of many international studies which suggest that the large scale removal of the seafloor for building aggregate leads to tidal and wave pattern changes that can cause a marked increase in coastal erosion at considerable distances from the dredging itself. The concern is the more worrying in that the controls on dredging required by DEFRA and the Crown Estate, in order to ensure that dredging is not endangering the coast, are inadequate to detect whether in fact that is the case or not. In particular, post-dredging surveys prior to reapplication for licences are made far too early to detect any of the long-term effects of the dredging that have been substantiated in other studies elsewhere.

It is therefore unsatisfactory that the consultation document fails to mention this concern at all, since this ensures that - in this area as in others - the document is partial and specious.

It is even more unsatisfactory that the reply given on 18 September 2007 by the Prime Minister’s Office, to a petition to him to cease commercial exploitation of sand and gravel from our seabed, is a meaningless platitude. It claims: "Modelling and field studies on the impact of both individual offshore dredging licences and of the cumulative impacts of such licences have concluded that UK offshore dredging has not contributed to coastal erosion." The Marinet Group of Friends of the Earth has clearly demonstrated that those models and field studies that have been done in the UK are inadequate to reveal damage to our coast, that they have been done largely by organisations selected incestuously by the dredging industry itself, and that international models and field studies, ignored by the Prime Minister’s Office, show very worrying signs of serious and lasting damage to coasts from offshore dredging.

What is more, these international studies indicate damage can still be caused by dredging much further away from the coast than is the case for dredging off East Anglia. It is therefore altogether anomalous for the Prime Minster’s Office to claim that "Defra takes a precautionary approach when assessing the Coastal Impact Study (for a proposed licence)", and that the Study "assesses whether the proposed dredging is far enough offshore for there to be no beach drawdown into the deepened area". Such a facile representation fails to consider the well-documented dangers of far offshore dredging.

The massive extent of active and proposed dredging off East Anglia, all of it within twenty five miles of the coast, from Great Yarmouth down to Sizewell itself, represents an unacceptable danger to the stability of the Sizewell coast. This is rendered all the more worrying because the intractable effects of such seafloor alteration on currents and tide patterns may make themselves obvious only some time after the dredging itself, and after protective sand banks have insidiously been eroded, leaving nothing to prevent nuclear stations from the severity of extreme climate effects.

For the consultation document to omit any mention of this grave area of concern, and for the Prime Minister’s Office to sustain the evasion, invalidates the consultation’s already inadequate data on the risks of erosion at Sizewell and other coastal nuclear sites.

ANNEX TO THE SUBMISSION

 WORK IN PROGRESS AT SIZEWELL

- by the sea, by the dredging companies

and by the Marinet Group of Friends of the Earth

 Summary

Evidence is widespread that offshore dredging for building industry aggregate can cause coastal erosion, by draw down of beaches, by intensifying wave action, by altering tidal patterns and by removing sand banks which have previously protected coasts. While Sizewell beach is said to be stable at present, each one of these processes may cause serious destabilisation of the beach during the time span of Sizewell B, let alone that of any new nuclear stations on the Suffolk coast. It appears that environmental impact assessments made before licences are granted, and after dredging has been carried out, are inadequate to reveal damage to the seabed and increased likelihood of coastal erosion.

 The Shut Down Sizewell Campaign is grateful to the Marinet Group of Friends of the Earth, who are primarily interested in these effects on the North Norfolk coast and the Eastern English Channel, for drawing these risks to our attention.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 Professor Pethick’s audience, at the Sizewell Stakeholder Group’s Public Meeting in Saxmundham on 16 October 2006, may have been disappointed that he did not tell us one way or another whether Sizewell’s coast was going to be stable enough in the face of coastal erosion for the safety of present and any future nuclear power stations there. An eminent coastal morphologist, he knew that no one knows what will happen. So the precautionary principle must give us pause.

                                           Map 1

Part of the Suffolk Coast showing Dunwich and Sizewell sandbanks

(Traced from the Hydrographic Office’s International Charts Series, Sheet 1504, Cromer – Orfordness, 1977)

What the Professor suggested is that at present the beach in front of the stations is stabilised as one of a number of swash bays along the Suffolk coast, this particular one formed by the outfall discharges at the Minsmere sluice. A question was raised at the meeting as to whether he had recorded the history of that outfall entirely correctly; but, whether that is so or not, he admitted that it was difficult to be sure where in the future such stable bays would form. Two other points he made were that the closing of the Minsmere estuary two hundred years ago had led to the loss of nearshore sand deposits, and that there was currently a loss of sand input from the north. Both of these are worrying, because it is the sedimentation from the north that replenishes beaches during the summer months, and without it the beaches may be expected to suffer a net loss of sand in the winter months.  The Professor has also said elsewhere[1] that nearshore sand deposits “protect these beaches from further erosion. It is essential that we should preserve those banks. We shouldn’t dredge them, we shouldn’t take material from them. We shouldn’t dump it on inshore beaches, because what that does is lower the banks and lets the waves in. Therefore this causes further erosion”. So we should be very concerned about the two remaining sand deposits which protect Sizewell beach – the Dunwich and Sizewell sandbanks, shown in Map1.

Attention to the role of sandbanks in protecting beaches has been drawn by the Marinet Group of Friends of the Earth. Their work[2], which is in progress at the moment, is concentrated elsewhere along the East Anglian coast and the English Channel, but their research has thrown light on the vulnerability of sandbanks in general to offshore dredging. It is the application of this to the Dunwich and Sizewell sandbanks that I feel the Sizewell Stakeholder Group should consider most carefully. 

 The two sandbanks are about a mile offshore. They move about a bit from year to year, but Professor Pethick seemed confident that they are at present protecting the Sizewell beach. However, they are not being added to any longer by deposition from the Minsmere river, nor by sedimentation along the coast from the north. What is happening then up north, that may be reducing the supply of sediment to the sandbanks and to the beach?

 Map 2 shows the massive extent of dredging off the Suffolk and East Norfolk coast. I chose the map because it is the most recent one I could obtain, correct as of January last year. And all that dredging is in the direction from which not only the sediment used to come, but also from which the tides and the wave energies affecting the Sizewell coast come. The pattern is for the energies and patterns of tide and waves to impact on the Sizewell coast from a north easterly direction.

Speaking about this dredging and the erosion of the coast, Suffolk Coastal MP John Gummer has said: “I’m more concerned with the effect on the ways the tides work”[3]. And his point is that the tides and the waves exert their energy in pounding the coast wherever they are directed by the contours of the sea bed, including the sandbanks and shoals. And if one alters those contours by dredging, one will alter the places where the energy hits the shore and where, therefore, the coastal erosion occurs. The Dunwich and Sizewell sandbanks were formed by the energy of waves and tidal patterns working on the sediment carried to the sea by the Minsmere river before they closed it off. And the energy hitting the shore was directed by the contours of the North Sea in pre-dredging times. As we read this, and as the dredging industry obtains ever more licences from the Crown Estate to extend its work in altering those contours, Sizewell’s defences may be literally washing away by changing wave and tidal energies.

 The dredging offshore deepens the sea bed, creating closer, greater and more erosive waves. Furthermore, the steepened seabed enhances the gravitational run-off of sand from neighbouring areas, thus extending the effect on the overall contours of the sea floor. If that were not enough, the traditional way for the Sizewell beach to be replenished each summer is with southward sedimentary drift from the very areas that are now being dredged. Yet the removal by dredging of the material that might drift south along the coast to replenish Sizewell’s beach, and the conversion of that material via the dredging companies into concrete in the built environment both at home and abroad – may be preventing it from reaching any beaches at all.

The evidence that this may be happening is manifold, though much of the research comes from abroad, for reasons that I shall explain in due course. An abstract of research done by the US Minerals Management Service in 2000[4], addressing the removal of sand shoals by dredging, states: “When a shoal is flattened (by dredging), the degree of wave energy concentration is likely to be reduced, resulting in greater wave energies hitting the coastal area. This may result in increased coastal erosion or unwanted, detrimental changes in longshore or nearshore current patterns. Significant coastal impacts could also be expected during storm events in that the increased wave energies which might have been somewhat dissipated by the presence of the shoal would now impact the coastal area with greater forces”. Note that longshore and nearshore are where the Dunwich and Sizewell sandbanks are.

 Between 1951 and 1979 the US Army Corps of Engineers dredged a channel almost 14 miles offshore of Canaveral Harbour, Florida.[5] Ostensibly for shipping, this dredging created a massive self-sustaining open pit mine offshore serving to denude the onshore coastline. The creation of the original channel caused the previously accreting shorelines to begin to erode over forty miles south of the dredging. Prior to the dredging, the shoreline was accreting tens of feet per year, so for the shorelines to erode in some areas hundreds of feet the offshore had to experience enormous losses in its seabed sediment resources. The effect of the dredging was to bring about a steepened and deepened offshore profile, allowing greater storm energies to strike onshore. That the dredging took place 14 miles from the coast and yet brought about so much erosion of the coast 40 miles to the south is highly significant.

                                                                         Map 2

Part of East Anglian Coast showing dredge areas

Cross-hatched: active dredge area.          Dotted outline: licence area

(Traced from the Crown Estate’s Active Dredge Areas for East Coast Region, 31/01/06)

 Two recent papers show how this may happen. In one[6], the effect of dredging on sand waves is examined. Sand waves are sand dunes on the sea bed, which are moved gradually by the sea’s energies in much the same way as dunes on land are moved by the wind. Under stable conditions this movement may be slow and fairly predictable, but under large-scale offshore sand extraction a previously stable seabed may become morphodynamically active, forming a phenomenon called a linear sand packet. I won’t attempt to explain what this underwater demon is, except that – ominously – it can usurp the sea’s energies, enabling itself to expand and migrate. That such an event might occur in the area from which Sizewell’s tides and waves emanate, bodes ill for the stability of the Sizewell beach.

The other paper[7] describes a variety of anthropogenic activities on coastlines: navigation and shore protection works, sand and gravel extraction and beach nourishment. The effects of these are described thus: “Although many of these activities have improved the quality of [human] life, they also have unintended effects on the coast … altering sediment transport processes, and accelerating sediment losses to the offshore”. That could mean losses to such things as the Sizewell and Dunwich sandbanks. Note too the mention of navigation works. How sad if the Great Yarmouth Outer Harbour construction brought about the destabilisation of the Sizewell stations.

One might suppose that the Crown Estate would carefully monitor the effect of the dredging it licenses, to ensure that it is not countenancing the erosion of the Crown’s own precious Estate.  And so it ought, but the sad fact is that it does not.  For the dredging area 430 (East of Southwold), it is true that a full bathymetric survey and wave model was conducted for the original Environmental Impact Assessment, prior to the granting of the first dredging licence. Common sense would dictate that, after the first dredging contract was completed and before a second or third licence were issued, a new bathymetric survey should have been carried out to check for any changes to the profiles of the coastline since the original licence was granted. However, the agents for the dredging company have argued that “a full record of changes to the profiles of the coastline since the original licence was granted is NOT a requirement of the current Government View Procedure and therefore will not be included in the scope of the IEA”.[8]

 Remarkably, it seems this gaping hole in the licensing requirements may still remain unresolved. Even more remarkably, current practice seems to fly in the face of the following high-sounding utterances of DEFRA:

“Human activities and demands that we place on the marine environment

1.16 Past management of our oceans and seas has often been fragmented, sectorally-based and driven by short-term economic gain through policies such as yield maximisation. Action was taken only when scientific evidence proved beyond reasonable doubt that there was a problem – with the effect that it was often too late to devise and implement a solution. And stakeholders were not always properly involved in policy-making and implementation.  …..Where scientific evidence is not conclusive, we need sensibly to apply the precautionary principle. This means, for example, taking preventive measures where there are reasonable grounds for concern that direct or indirect inputs to the marine environment may harm human health, living resources and marine ecosystems or other legitimate uses of the sea, even when there is no conclusive evidence of a causal relationship between the inputs and the outputs.”[9]

 One might suppose from this statement, made in 2002, that the current licensing arrangements would require dredging companies to carry out every appropriate survey, before and after their work, to ensure that harm was not being done to the seabed and its animate and inanimate contents. Unfortunately, this is far from the case. Such surveys and such scientific research would cost money, so they are not engaged in readily and the authorities are reluctant to antagonise the dredging industry by imposing such requirements. The dredging companies therefore habitually trot out the disingenuous quip: “There is no evidence to prove that dredging is harmful”, and continue to strip-mine the seabed of its resources, regardless of consequences. And the Crown Estate, which made £14 million the year before last out of dredging licences, is in no hurry to alter its own practices.

 Even when such badly needed research is carried out, a 2005 paper entitled “Flawed studies assess dredge-and-fill programs to protect coastlines”[10] reports that, despite expensive, multidecadal monitoring, the majority of studies of ecological impacts of beach nourishment (with material, that is, obtained from dredging) are scientifically inadequate and suffer from critical flaws, improper analyses and unjustified interpretations. The authors conclude that reform of agency practices is urgently needed as evidence of the cumulative risk of severe ecological impacts grows. Their survey discovered that monitoring is typically conducted by project promoters with no independent peer review.

 The Eurosion Project is contracted by the European Commission to a consortium led by the Dutch National Institute for Coastal and Marine Management (RIKZ) for the period 2002-2004. They are probably the world topmost authority on the problems of coastal erosion and their 2003 report[11]  provides a revised draft outline of the policy recommendations for coastal erosion and coastal flood risk management. This records that erosion is exacerbated by human activities which are implemented in some cases hundreds of kilometres away from their zone of impact.

 “This has proved to be particularly the case for aggregate extraction. Dredging of river and seabed for constructional purposes (e.g. sand and gravel mining) removes an important amount of sediments. This creates a sediment starvation which is in certain circumstances compensated by (re)activation erosion processes along the shore areas. This has proved to be the case in a significant number of cases including Cove do Vapor (Portugal), the Western Scheldt estuary (Netherlands and Belgium), Donegal (Ireland), Cavado (Portugal), and North Norfolk (UK). In some cases, dredging activities, by modifying the water depth in the near-shore area, induce wave refraction which in turn modifies the long-shore and cross-shore sediment transport patterns”.

Conclusion

The sandbanks that protect Sizewell beach from the effects of climate change today may not be here tomorrow, because the stability of the nearshore may be threatened by extensive and continuing offshore dredging. No confidence therefore may be placed in the long term safety from the sea of the Sizewell power station site. As both Sizewell A and B were constructed of aggregate dredged from off Great Yarmouth, there may be poetic justice in the sea claiming back its own. Yet prudence dictates that the precautionary principle is observed, until more reliable evidence is obtained to decide one way or another about the longer term future of the site. These uncertainties must also be taken into account in decisions for interim storage of existing nuclear waste.

 Let me finish by repeating that, as far as the Marinetza group is concerned, the developing picture presented here is work in progress, and I am their merely their unofficial but well-meaning raconteur, running beside them, trying to keep up. You, the members of the Sizewell Stakeholder Group, will greatly oblige if you will act as the peer reviewers of this effort. I submit it, on behalf of those local stakeholders the Shut Down Sizewell Campaign, for your information and comment.

 Peter Lanyon,

Vice-Chairman, Shut Down Sizewell Campaign                                                        August 2007

Sweden plans to be world's first oil-free economy

15-year limit set for switch to renewable energy

Biofuels favoured over further nuclear power

JohnVidal Environment editor

Sweden is to take the biggest energy step of any advanced western economy by trying to wean itself off oil completely within 15 years - without building a new generation of nuclear power stations.

The attempt by the country of 9 million people to become the world's first practically oil-free economy is being planned by a committee of industrialists, academics, farmers, car makers, civil servants and others, who will report to parliament in several months.

The intention, the Swedish government said yesterday, is to replace all fossil fuels with renewables before climate change destroys economies and growing oil scarcity leads to huge new price rises.

"Our dependency on oil should be broken by 2020," said Mona Sahlin, minister of sustainable development. "There shall always be better alternatives to oil, which means no house should need oil for heating, and no driver should need to turn solely to gasoline."

According to the energy committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, there is growing concern that global oil supplies are peaking and will shortly dwindle, and that a global economic recession could result from high oil prices.

Ms Sahlin has described oil dependency as one of the greatest problems facing the world. "A Sweden free of fossil fuels would give us enormous advantages, not least by reducing the impact from fluctuations in oil prices," she said. "The price of oil has tripled since 1996."

A government official said: "We want to be both mentally and technically prepared for a world without oil. The plan is a response to global climate change, rising petroleum prices and warnings by some experts that the world may soon be running out of oil."

Sweden, which was badly hit by the oil price rises in the 1970s, now gets almost all its electricity from nuclear and hydroelectric power, and relies on fossil fuels mainly for transport. Almost all its heating has been converted in the past decade to schemes which distribute steam or hot water generated by geothermal energy or waste heat. A1980 referendum decided that nuclear power should be phased out, but this has still not been finalised.

The decision to abandon oil puts Sweden at the top of the world green league table. Iceland hopes by 2050 to power all its cars and boats with hydrogen made from electricity drawn from renewable resources, and Brazil intends to power 80% of its transport fleet with ethanol derived mainly from sugar cane within five years.

Last week George Bush surprised analysts by saying that the US was addicted to oil and should greatly reduce imports from the Middle East. The US now plans a large increase in nuclear power.

The British government, which is committed to generating 10% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2012, last month launched an energy review which has a specific remit to consider a large increase in nuclear power. But a report by accountants Ernst & Young yesterday said that the UK was falling behind in its attempt to meet its renewables target.

"The UK has Europe's best wind, wave and tidal resources yet it continues to miss out on its economic potential," said Jonathan Johns, head of renewable energy at Ernst & Young.

Energy ministry officials in Sweden said they expected the oil committee to recommend further development of bio-fuels derived from its massive forests, and by expanding other renewable energies such as wind and wave power.

Sweden has a head start over most countries. In 2003,26% of all the energy consumed came from renewable sources - the EU average is 6%. Only 32% of the energy came from oil - down from 77% in 1970.

The Swedish government is working with carmakers Saab and Volvo to develop cars and lorries that burn ethanol and other biofuels. Last year the Swedish energy agency said it planned to get the public sector to move out of oil. Its health and library services are being given grants to convert from oil use and homeowners are being encouraged with green taxes. The paper and pulp industries use bark to produce energy, and sawmills burn wood chips and sawdust to generate power.

guardian.co.uk/oil»

Sweden will develop  biofuels from its forests

Standby Britain: How it fuels our energy crisis

Appliances on standby pump one million tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Wasted energy of appliances on standby could power 400,000 homes. Up to 85 per cent of power used by a video recorder is consumed on standby. Government says Britain would save 240,000 tons of C0₂ emissions by switching off televisions

Ben Russell, Political Correspondent

23 June 2005

One million tons of a damaging greenhouse gas is pumped into the atmosphere each year by televisions, DVD players and other appliances left on standby in British living rooms.

Gadgets apparently turned off, but with their standby lights illuminated, are a little-recognised but significant contributor to global warming, figures released yesterday show.

Each year they waste enough electricity to power a city the size of Birmingham for a year or keep Britain's street lights burning for four years, and are a major contributor to the emissions which are polluting the atmosphere. Millions of "sleeping" video recorders, set-top boxes, washing machines and radios in homes and offices accounted for one million tons of carbon emissions, approaching 1 per cent of the nation's total.

Researchers said they represented the equivalent of enough carbon dioxide to fill 80 million double decker buses. Up to 85 per cent of the power used by an average video recorder is consumed while it is not in use, while many appliances use as much power on standby as they do when they are turned on.

Next month, Tony Blair will host a meeting of G8 leaders at Gleneagles in Scotland, where agreement to take steps to combat climate change will be seen as a key element in the success or otherwise of the summit.

Campaigners urged the Prime Minister yesterday to tackle domestic sources of climate change as well as approaching the issue from a global perspective. Estimates suggest that electrical goods on standby across the G8 nations waste the equivalent of the electricity generated by 20 power stations.

Martyn Williams, of Friends of the Earth, said: "To achieve Mr Blair's ambitions at the G8 he also has to deal with the myriad issues at home that will cut carbon emissions. He has to cut British emissions by 3 per cent a year and dealing with this issue will go some way towards that."

Ministers insist they are leading efforts to tackle the problem. Elliot Morley, the Environment minister, will sign a new EU directive next month aimed at cutting European energy consumption by 20 per cent by setting standards for electrical appliances, boilers and fridges.

But environmentalists are demanding tougher international rules to cut the power that appliances use while on standby. Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrats' environment spokesman, who obtained yesterday's figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), said: "I am astounded by this. This is absolutely shocking with climate change the biggest threat we face appliances are pumping out millions of tons of greenhouse gases for no good purpose whatsoever.

"Manufacturers should ensure that appliances should only be put on standby by choice. When things are turned off they should stay off."

Mr Williams, of FoE, said cutting waste from equipment could meet a quarter of Britain's annual emissions target. "This is a big climate change problem. You start off with a television, then you have a video, then a DVD and then a set-top box. We can agree rules to prevent children injuring themselves with toys; why can't they have rules on this?"

Eighty-nine per cent of households have a video recorder, half own a DVD player, 99 per cent have a television, 58 per cent have a CD player and 58 per cent contain a home computer, according figures from 2003, the latest available. Research by the government-backed Energy-Saving Trust shows 62 million television sets used 8 per cent of their total average daily energy consumption while they were in standby mode. The average television set is left on standby for more than 17 hours a day while most set-top boxes and video recorders are never turned off.

Stephen Reilly, a spokesman for the trust, said it was "scary" that half of Britons were not aware household power consumption contributed to climate change. He said appliances left on standby contributed to 50 million tons of unnecessary CO₂ emissions from homes each year, putting an average £200 a year on energy bills. He said: "People don't think about this. This is definitely a contributor to climate change. It's wasted energy."

A spokesman for Defra said the department had negotiated a significant cut in the power consumption of television sets while on standby and was working to expand guidelines to cover other appliances.

Mr Morley urged consumers to ensure they did not waste power. He said: "The energy we use at home contributes to climate change so saving energy is not just good for people's pockets. It is good for the environment. About half of our target cuts in carbon emissions to combat climate change have to come through energy efficiency... switching off electrical appliances rather than leaving them on standby makes a huge difference and is a measure we can all take."

The mains offenders

* Dishwashers left "on" at the end of their cycle consume 70 per cent of the power used when they are running.

* The average television is left on standby for up to 17.5 hours a day  Last year Britain's 62 million television sets consumed about 8 per cent of their energy consumption in standby mode.

* Washing machines use just under 20 per cent of their normal electricity requirement on standby.

* Tumble-dryers can use 38 per cent of power while waiting at the end of a cycle.

* If lights were turned off when not in use it would prevent 375,000 tons of CO2 emissions and save £55m in bills.

* There is little difference between the power requirement of digital receivers when they are on and on standby.

* Experts say the total power used while an appliance is on standby can equal the electricity used during the time it is on.

* Other appliances with high standby power use are cordless telephones, radios and stereos.

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