Sir Branson and fellow entrepreneurs ask Cameron to back renewables

Sir Richard Branson is one of 102 top business signatories of an open letter to David Cameron urging him to back wind and other renewable forms of power generation.

“March’s budget provides one of the biggest opportunities to tackle climate change in the UK," the Virgin tycoon says. “We must ensure it encourages investment rather than creates uncertainty and delays further serious investment in the renewable sector. As a country we need to be better prepared to deal with rising energy prices.”

The so-called ‘102 letter’ is conceived partly as a response to the actions of 101 backbenchers who last month wrote to the Prime Minister attacking wind power, and a call to the Treasury to re-establish a stable investment platform for renewable energy as a driver of the recovery out of the recession.

It is published on the website of the Entrepreneurs' Organisation (EO), the global network of more than 7,500 business owners in 38 countries.

“Cutting support for green energy is a false economy," comments Dale Vince, Founder and CEO of Ecotricity, one of Britain's most successful new energy companies trying to muscle in on the territory controlled by the Big Six.

His angle is energy security. “Britain needs to become energy independent once more, and with the North Sea all but depleted of fossil fuels we need to look to other forms of indigenous energy. We have them in abundance, in the wind the sun and the sea, enough to power our country many times over.

“While Britain remains dependent on global energy markets, our bills can only go one way: upwards."

His analysis is that the level of current support for green energy sources is relatively small in comparison to that for oil and gas.

In the last 12 months roughly ￡30 of our household energy bills has been spent on green energy support. Of this, the Renewables Obligation (RO) added just ￡15.15 to the annual energy bill of the United Kingdom’s 26.3 million households, with onshore wind power adding only ￡4.68, according to Ofgem's recently published RO annual report for 2010/11 and Ecotricity's analysis.

The RO is the main support mechanism for encouraging the growth of renewable energy in the UK.

Meanwhile, the rising cost of imported gas added around ￡120 to energy bills last year, according to Ofgem's Electricity and Gas Supply Market Report.

"We need to reverse those proportions; it's an incredible false economy to throw money at energy market speculators while penny pinching over the one thing we can do to solve the problem long term: make our own energy,” concludes Mr Vince.

The letter says that “as entrepreneurs, investors, economists, scientists, engineers, energy providers, community builders and Members of Parliaments, we are increasingly concerned about the lack of clarity around the future of government support for land-based renewables, such as solar, wind and biogas."

Decentralised energy

They call for a “decentralised energy market" as a means of making the costs of upgrading the U.K.'s “antiquated infrastructure and transmission losses" more efficiently, Claiming it will “deliver savings for taxpayers and provide frustrated investors with new opportunities".

It wants the Government to guarantee “the broadest possible ownership of the U.K.'s next generation of energy infrastructure", perhaps copying the situation in Germany, where over half of all energy supply is owned by individuals and communities, and which, they say, has “delivered a 25% cost reduction".

The letter, also signed by financier Ben Goldsmith, calls on the new National Planning Policy Framework to “recognise the huge value of this approach", and for planning inspectors to take into account “our collective needs, both local and national", in building our future low carbon economy.

"In wind alone, the UK has more than 40% of Europe's renewable energy resources – enough to power up our economy three to four times over, generate exports, and provide the tools for communities and entrepreneurs to do their job," they write.

Juliet Davenport, the CEO of Good Energy, another new entrant into the energy market, calls for “a more inclusive approach to the way we invest in our energy infrastructure" to make it “a vehicle for both economic and social investment in communities, towns and regions across the UK”.

“If there is no stable platform for investment in renewables, we cannot expect to generate the backing or scale of innovation needed to make a sustainable difference," adds Howard Johns, Chair of the Solar Trade Association.

The letter follows one from former directors of Friends of the Earth sent on Tuesday, slamming Britain's support for nuclear power, owned by foreign companies.

Mr Cameron is not short of advice: authors and campaigners George Monbiot, Stephen Tindale, Fred Pearce, Michael Hanlon and Mark Lynas have also written to him this week in support of nuclear power, which they claim cannot be ignored.

They point out that Germany and Japan, in their attempts to do without nuclear power, are increasing their carbon emissions.

However, Jonathan Porritt and his colleagues do not call for the closing of nuclear power stations overnight in Britain; there is no need to substitute their current generation capacity with coal or gas.

Lynas and co. also claim that nuclear power is cheaper; at issue is whether cost estimates given for building new nuclear power stations and accounting for their decommissioning and the care of radioactive waste are verifiable and accurate.

The Chancellor will be addressing some of these issues on Tuesday; amongst his policy tools for supporting all low carbon forms of energy is the proposed feed-in tariffs with contracts for difference, as set out in the Government's Electricity Market Reform White Paper.

Investors will also be listening for any announcements concerning the Green Investment Bank.

Wylfa nuclear newbuild favoured by Welsh Government; EDF abandons Heysham

Cardiff has announced that it expects to power Wales' future with a diverse range of low carbon technologies, including nuclear power, just as news emerges that EDF has cancelled plans for a new nuclear power station at Heysham, Lancashire.

The French company has annulled an agreement with the National Grid to set up any new connection to the grid from Heysham; all its plans for new stations are now focused on their sites at Sizewell and Hinkley Point.

Meanwhile, Wales expects to deploy new nuclear power at Wylfa on Anglesey as part of its transition to a low carbon economy, according to its new energy strategy, Energy Wales published yesterday.

This key policy document sees gas as the key transitional fuel because greenhouse gas emissions from it are "less than that of coal subject to the method of extraction". In the long term, it foresees the addition of carbon capture and storage to gas plants.

The document focuses almost exclusively on electricity, and to a lesser extent waste, almost neglecting the areas of heat and transport. It does share the UK Government's opinion that more electricity will be used in the future for transport and heating.

Its most controversial aspect is its support for nuclear power, the first time that the Welsh Government has been so unequivocal on this point.

Nuclear Wales

Energy Wales says the Cardiff Government supports the development of a new nuclear power station on Anglesey, which is being taken forward by Horizon Nuclear Power, a joint venture between E.ON UK and RWE npower.

The document uncritically repeats Horizon's claims that building a new nuclear power station at Wylfa B would "create around 800 permanent jobs and up to 5,000 during construction".

However, Horizon has not yet appointed the contractor to build a reactor on the site.

Both Areva and Westinghouse are in the running for this job. Westinghouse has warned that if Areva wins the contract it may call for an investigation under competition law because it would mean that Areva would secure the market monopoly, being already selected to build reactors for EDF Energy.

In addition, Westinghouse, owned by Toshiba of Japan, claims this would have a detrimental effect on jobs in Wales.

"It will have a permanent and significantly negative impact on the UK nuclear industry, jobs, manufacturing skills, supply chains and SMEs. Westinghouse have pledged to 'buy where they build' and source 70% UK content, Areva have existing supply chains in France and their UK commitment would be significantly less," says a legal document prepared on its behalf.

“There are undoubtedly risks associated with nuclear power but the risks posed by climate change are now so serious that we cannot dispense with a key proven low-carbon technology,” says the Energy Wales report.

This commitment was immediately criticised by Friends of the Earth Cymru, which said that it was the first time the Welsh Government had supported nuclear power in full.

"To believe that nuclear power can help build a prosperous Wales is misguided – renewable energy provides far more jobs than nuclear power per unit of energy generated,” said Gareth Clubb, its director.

Anglesey was the site over the weekend of a protest to mark the first anniversary of the Fukushima disaster in Japan by a group called People Against Wylfa B (Pawb).

But the energy document and support for nuclear power has won support from Plaid Cymru leadership contender Dafydd Ellis-Thomas and William Powell, the Liberal Democrat spokesman for Environment and Sustainable Development, who said the party accepted that non-renewables would continue to play an important role in Wales’ energy mix.

The international engineering and project management company AMEC has today been appointed by the Isle of Anglesey County Council as chief consultant for the Energy Island Programme, in a four-year contract with an unspecified value.

It will provide the Council with capacity and expertise in areas such as planning policy and development management, environmental impact assessment, consultation, Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) process and procedure as well as socio-economic regeneration aspects. The appointment recognises AMEC’s environmental, planning and engineering strengths in renewables and in the nuclear sector.

It is anticipated the programme could contribute nearly ￡2.5 billion to Anglesey and the North Wales economy over the next 15 years.

Renewables and energy efficiency

Energy Wales also sees a role for every other kind of renewable energy including the introduction of renewable bio-methane into the gas supply from anaerobic digestion, as well as for greater end use and conversion efficiency in space and water heating to reduce overall demand.

But little mention is made of Wales' vast resources of forestry timber for biomass generation of heat in the context of community heat and power generation.

The policy document vows to "relentlessly pursue energy efficiency so that we do more with less", but also exploit the principality's huge resources for marine and offshore wind power.

The Welsh Government is developing a Wales Infrastructure Investment Plan in which it will set out the strategic priorities for investment of what it sees as around ￡50 billion-worth of necessary low carbon electricity projects by 2025.

It expresses frustration that whereas some aspects of its legislature are devolved, such as planning, responsibility for large-scale energy development (above 50MW onshore and 1MW offshore) as well as the electricity transmission network that connects them, lies not with Wales but the UK Government.

It has commissioned Hyder to review current energy consenting systems, and its report is expected in the summer. Any necessary legislative changes will be fed into the Planning White Paper and subsequent Planning Bill. In the meantime it will continue to press for greater devolution of energy consenting powers.

Gerry Jewson, the chief executive of onshore wind energy firm West Coast Energy, said that the report showed that the Government "has listened to the representations of all stakeholders in Wales’ renewable future and has a real understanding of the issues" and called on "Cardiff to deliver action, not just aspiration".

He said that "specific and unambiguous commitments to targets for renewable technologies will be essential to focus the minds of planners and developers alike and catalyse the industry otherwise this good intent could be lost."

Other assets

Wales holds several major assets which are essential to the entire UK economy, such as the two LNG terminals at Milford Haven which are linked by a controversial pipeline to England.

It also holds deep sea ports which are potentially useful for establishing offshore energy infrastructure.

Although Energy Wales says that we "believe the development of the grid in Wales can and should be carried out in a way that is sensitive to its impact on our natural environment," no direct reference is made to the prospect of burying grid connection cables from onshore wind farms, a highly sensitive subject in Wales.

While the administration is opening its doors to developers to take advantage of a skilled workforce already with a tradition of the steel and coal industry, it expects developers to return the benefits of the investment to communities in Wales in the form of jobs, training and a share of the returns.

It sees a particular advantage in the fact that it can draw match funding from Brussels, such as through the European Regional Development Fund.

It points to its 'arbed' program and support the Anglesey Energy Island programme as examples of successful pilot projects, and sees that nuclear power on Anglesey as well as marine, solar, biomass, hydro and others can all play a part.

Launching ‘Energy Wales: A Low Carbon Transition’, the First Minister Carwyn Jones, said “Last year the renewable and low carbon sectors supported 29,000 jobs in Wales.

"I want to see these figures increase and see Wales securing the highest possible number of the 250,000 additional jobs predicted for the energy sector in the UK in the coming years."

Although renewable energy supplies only a little over 5% of Wales' electricity, 62% of this comes from wind and solar with a further 25% coming from thermal renewable generation and 13% from hydro generation.

Existing windfarms have a capacity of 562 MW, which will more than double next year when Gwynt y Môr offshore windfarm comes onstream to join a further 263MW from onshore developments.

On energy efficiency, Wales already has a comprehensive supply-chain, from manufacturing to installation, within its boundaries.

Insulation measures and micro-generation technologies are made in Wales by businesses including Rockwool, Knauf, Kingspan, and Sharp.

“Perfect storm" has arrived for efforts to reduce carbon emissions

Efforts to reduce carbon emissions in the UK and across Europe are facing a combination of factors strongly hindering investment in low carbon power generation and energy efficiency and promoting the burning of coal.

Now who do you believe? Today, one British tabloid newspaper is reporting that the construction of gas power plants is “twice government predictions", while another is reporting the exact opposite.

The Guardian reports Friends of the Earth analysis of the latest Government figures, from October, saying that while about 5GW of new gas-fired power generation will be needed to supply the UK in the coming decades, “power stations with more than 3GW of capacity are already now under construction and nearly 10GW of plants have received planning permission. In addition, nearly 10GW of capacity is in the earlier stages of planning".

Meanwhile, the Financial Times is warning that with 11GW of mainly coal-fired generation due to close by 2015 under the EU’s Large Combustion Plant Directive, we are burning more coal because it is currently cheaper than gas.

What is the truth?

Actually, both, at different time scales. Either way, however, it's not good news for the climate.

Coal is too cheap

Gas is today trading at just over 58p per therm, yielding baseload power for delivery today from gas generation of ￡45.20 per megawatt-hour. This does not leave much room for profit when electricity is trading at 45.50 ￡/MWh, and this is why coal generation is now favoured over gas.

The FT says “coal plants have been pumping at more than 75 per cent capacity, compared with 25 per cent a year ago".

This is a continuation of the trend of burning more coal over the last two years which is helping to push up the U.K.'s carbon emissions.

Partly as a result of increased demand, UK Coal moved from an interim loss of ￡93.2 million to a profit of ￡22.1 million in the six months to last June, following losses totalling ￡270 million over the previous three years. (However, this has not stopped it from announcing plans today to close the U.K.'s biggest coal mine, Daw Hill, near Coventry, by early 2014 when current seams are exhausted.)

The demand is driving strong imports of U.S. and Colombian coal into Europe, and prices have fallen to just over $100 (￡64) a tonne.

This figure is wildly different from that predicted by the government just six months ago: $124 (￡80).

(In fact, the price of coal wasn't even the price that DECC's report said it was at the time it was published; yet these now wildly inaccurate figures are those on which the Government bases its energy policy.)

The low price for coal is also partly the reason why Drax announced last month that it was scrapping plans for a new biomass power station, calling for more support for biomass generation from the Renewables Obligation to counter an increase in its fuel costs; although it put these fuel costs at just ￡33.3 per megawatt-hour, significantly less than that for gas.

Too many carbon credits

None of this is helping the UK, or Europe, meet its greenhouse gas emission targets.

The problem is that with coal prices low, a recession on, and an over-abundance of EU Emissions Allowances resulting in a low price of carbon, there is insufficient disincentive to burn coal, let alone gas, and consequently even less incentive to build renewable energy generation, nuclear power stations or develop carbon capture and storage.

Hence the need for DECC's
announcement this week of a ￡20 million competition to develop Carbon Capture and Storage technology, in the hope that it will reduce the price of this still unproven technology.

This combination of factors is the perfect storm for attempts to reduce carbon emissions this decade.

Carbon prices fell by over half during 2011 and are now still trading for under €8.

Despite rumblings from Brussels, the Commission is dragging its feet on moves to set aside allowances in order to restrict demand and stimulate the price.

Instead, it seems to be hoping that by the end of the year, when airlines begin being required to purchase carbon-emission allowances as part of their role in the Emissions Trading Scheme, this will stimulate a price rise. But that is still nine months away.

According to carbon market analyst Steven Knell, from IHS CERA, the ETS in no longer the main policy tool for reducing emissions ″because the supply and price of allowances are fixed and predetermined. The market is poorly equipped to deal with disruptions in demand levels," he says.

“This, plus the financial crisis, the consequent fall in emissions, and the fragile nature of the recovery, added to recent price decline due to the expectation that policy risks will deprive the market of demand, mean that action to fix the problem is urgently required".

The oversupply means that only 6.8% of all EUAs are trading; a poor proportion. This amounts to 550 million tonnes, which is equivalent to all the emissions of the non-power generation industry members of the market in Europe, i.e., the high energy users like steel and concrete; or, to put it another way, all of the U.K.'s allowances.

“This yields a long position and indicates what the price will be like in 2020: that it will not change sufficiently to stimulate the demand required for investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy lesser-known carbon capture and storage or nuclear power," says Knell.

The supply of carbon-emission allowances needs to decline more aggressively and prices need to be higher.

The policy overlap in Europe needs addressing, he says. “The latest agreements give the possibility to set aside some EU Allowances to promote energy efficiency in the draft of the Energy Efficiency Directive, but the amount set aside would need to be substantial," he says.

“Strong medicine is needed."

“Strong medicine is needed," concludes Knell. He points to an increase in European ambition for emission reduction cuts from 20% to 30% by 2020, which, he says is achievable due to the recession's effects.

However, Poland has just vetoed this target at last Friday's meeting of environment ministers because of its own addiction to coal-fired electricity generation. This vote is not binding on a Commission decision however, and it remains to be seen what will happen.

In the meantime, only two strategies are available to individual governments, because they can't control the price of oil, and these are to tax carbon and support the carbon price.

Therefore, any measure that favours the energy-intensive industries by reducing the impact of carbon-penalising policies in next week's Budget from the Chancellor, George Osborne, will send precisely the wrong signals to the market.

The setting of the carbon price floor, and reform of the energy market are urgently required to favour carbon-reduction investment and weather this storm.

But contrary to the impression given by the Financial Times article, whatever happens the lights will stay on in Britain, because of the number of gas-fired power stations that have received planning permission; they may not be built just yet, but they will be built when coal and nuclear generation comes off-line in the future, to meet any demand not met by offshore wind.

But whether it's coal or gas, it locks in more UK carbon emissions than desirable for the next 20 or so years. Chancellor: are you paying attention?

British consumers will pay dearly for French nuclear power, say environmental leaders

Flamanville-C in France, being built by EDF and Areva: over budget and overdue.

Today, four of the UK’s leading environmentalists have warned that the Government is about to hand over control of Britain’s future energy and climate security to the French government, leaving British taxpayers to pick up the bill.

Their claims are made in a letter and note sent to David Cameron, Nick Clegg, George Osborne, Edward Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Vince Cable, the Business Secretary and Sir Jeremy Heywood, Cabinet Secretary.

The letter is signed by:

• Jonathon Porritt, former chair of the Sustainable Development Commission and founder director of Forum for the Future
• Tony Juniper, environmental advisor, campaigner and writer
• Charles Secrett, co-founder of The Robertsbridge Group
• Tom Burke, founder director of E3G.

Mr Cameron recently made an agreement with French President Nicolas Sarkozy to boost nuclear co-operation.

However, "our analysis shows that building new nukes will be a massive rip-off for the the British taxpayer," said Mr Secrett.

The letter-writers say the French will only build new nuclear reactors in the UK if the financial risks involved are transferred from France to British households and businesses – leaving UK taxpayers to pick up the bill to protect the French nuclear industry.

This is because without a strong price for carbon, which is not on the horizon unless the Treasury sets a high carbon price floor, and which British consumers will end up subsidising, new nuclear power's figures don't stack up.

Should the French subsequently decide not to proceed, the UK would be faced with a humiliating policy melt-down.

″This is an invitation to EDF to bargain very aggressively for an agreement that transfers the lion’s share of the financial risk of new nuclear to British taxpayers and consumers. EDF will have us over a barrel,″ they say.

They also claim that the nuclear plans proposed by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and EDF, and approved by the Office for Nuclear Regulation, are based on a type of reactor that France has been advised to abandon.

EDF intends to construct four European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) at Hinkley and Sizewell, yet the French National Audit Office has recommended abandonment of the EPR as too complex and expensive.

On his blog, Tom Burke writes: "The French National Audit Office recently recommended dropping the EPR as too expensive. This repeated a recommendation made to Sarkozy two years ago by the former head of EDF, Francois Roussely, who saw no future for it.

"In any case, the decision to extend the life of EDF’s existing fleet of reactors in France will put huge pressure on its capital budget over the next decade."

The construction of two EPRs in Finland and France under construction by Areva (designers of the European Pressurised Reactor) has been beset by problems: both are already four years late and costs are running twice as high as originally projected.

The four previous reactors they built took an average of 17.5 years from the start of construction to the delivery of the first electricity.

There is also a growing risk that Centrica (a British energy company with an option to take 20% of the new build at Hinkley and Sizewell) will not take up its 20% option leaving two French companies, Areva and EDF, as the primary beneficiaries of large subsidies from Britain’s householders and businesses.

Tom Burke said, “It is shocking that the government is willing to turn over control of our energy and climate security to France in pursuit of a nuclear mirage.

"British householders and businesses will be compelled to pay for a French nuclear loser. To do so we will turn an admired liberal electricity market back into the centrally planned nightmare that Mrs Thatcher rescued us from.”

Electricity Market Reform

Commenting on the letter, Jonathon Porritt said, “The fixation of the current political establishment with nuclear power beggars belief. The entire energy system in the UK is about to be rigged in order to support nuclear power, through the Electricity Market Reform, at great cost to UK consumers, UK businesses and the long-term interests of the entire nation.

"Given its historical opposition to nuclear power, the LibDems should be feeling particularly uncomfortable at the analysis surfaced in our note to the Prime Minister – and the Coalition Government’s continuing pledge that any new nuclear programme will not get any additional public subsidy is now palpably dishonest.”

Continuing with the present policy will seriously distort our electricity market for decades to come, reduce the competitiveness of British businesses, add to fuel poverty, and suppress innovation and investment in industries where Britain has real competitive advantage, they say.

Tony Juniper added, “Ministers have been well and truly led up the garden path by the nuclear lobby. Our analysis of nuclear energy provides a timely reminder as to the danger posed by campaigns against sustainable energy sources, such as wind power.

"If the not-in-my-backyard anti-anything-anywhere brigade prevail, and nuclear becomes the default option, then that could cost us a great deal of money. The Prime Minister needs to step in and make sure that energy policy is truly working in the public interest, rather than to the agenda of a massive vested interest.”

Charles Secrett concluded, "How on earth can the Prime Minister justify paying billions of pounds of subsidy to French power companies when the Chancellor is slashing welfare budgets for poor people in Britain and there are a million young people unemployed?"

EDF is 85% owned by the French state. It has been the most committed supporter of new nuclear build in Britain. Preparatory site clearance will begin shortly at its Hinkley Point C site. However, until EDF orders the major reactor components there is no guarantee that they will actually proceed to construction.

Environmentalists who support nuclear power argue that it is necessary to combat climate change. The letter writers plan to counter these arguments with a series of briefings to the Prime Minister over the next six weeks, covering:

1. Market reform
2. Investor issues
3. Energy industry issues
4. Wider economic issues
5. Sustainability issues
6. Political issues.

They argue that viable options are available to meet our energy and climate security needs at much lower economic and political risk and will create predominantly British jobs and growth.

The letter is fully supported by Friends of the Earth, whose executive director Andy Atkins said: "This report is spot on – Britain must meet its energy needs while keeping to its legally-binding climate targets, but gambling on a massive nuclear building programme to achieve it is far too risky.

"Investing in clean British energy by developing the UK’s huge wind, wave and solar potential and slashing energy waste will keep the lights on and create thousands of new jobs."

An artist's response to Fukushima's legacy

OnlineSchools.org presents Japan One Year Later

THE GREENEST INSULATION : A huge opportunity to reduce atmospheric carbon may be about to be lost

This is the most eco wall insulation: wood fibre board internal and external insulation with lime render. But it's the fossil fuel based polystyrene insulation that is getting the contracts.

A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity may about to be lost under the Green Deal to lock up a huge amount of atmospheric carbon in Britain's buildings to help combat climate change.

Later this year, the implementation of the Green Deal will kickstart the rollout of insulation of the nation's 29,000 homes.

Last Thursday's news, that the energy efficiency skills gap is being tackled with new funding to train installers and contractors in properly insulating properties throughout Britain up to the right standard, is to be welcomed.

But a huge question mark hangs over the choice of materials to be used for this job.

Not all insulation materials are equal; some are more environmentally sound than others.

There is a wide variety, ranging from the conventional; polystyrene and mineral wool; to the traditional and novel, such as sheep’s wool and hemp.

There is also a wave of new materials, derived from organic sources, by which I mean, ultimately, trees.

Principally these are woodfibre boards and batts, manufactured and sold in their most user-friendly form by companies such as Steico; and recycled cellulose, predominantly made and marketed by Excel Industries.

Any construction material derived from trees or other plants locks up in a building the carbon that it has absorbed from the atmosphere while growing, thereby helping to combat global warming.

It's a fantastic and cheap form of carbon sequestration.

By contrast, the current most commonly used insulation materials, such as phenolic foam board, expanded polystyrene boards and beads, and extruded polystyrene boards, are products of the petrochemical industry.

During their manufacture they emit carbon into the atmosphere, thereby increasing global warming.

Environmental impacts of insulation materials

The relative environmental impacts of insulation materials is a topic I examined thoroughly in chapter two of my standard textbook on the subject: Sustainable Home Refurbishment: the Earthscan Expert Guide to Retrofitting Homes for Efficiency.

Some people will tell you that recycled cellulose or wood fibre boards are more expensive. This is not necessarily so.

Last year I designed and built my own timber frame studio, which is super-insulated, and compared the cost of different insulation materials, from different suppliers. There is a huge variation, but I have to tell you that recycled cellulose made from old newsprint and treated against pests and fire is by far the cheapest.

It comes out at ￡12.49 per cubic metre when bought in 8 kg bags. Some “eco-" insulants are up to 25 times more expensive!

According to the most accurate figures available from the Carbon Trust, BSRIA and the University of Bath, in the Inventory of Carbon & Energy (ICE), expanded polystyrene has an embodied energy cost of at least 2.5kgCO2/kg.

Woodfibre board stores carbon at a quantity of 0.2 tonnes per cubic metre.

Doing a rough calculation, if one dwelling uses 20 cubic metres of this insulation, this represents a potential storage of 100 million tonnes of carbon throughout the country.

Is this significant? Yes. According to ICE's author, Craig Jones, the embodied carbon in buildings, taking account the projected future UK energy generation mix to 2050, is responsible for one third of their overall lifetime carbon cost.

Using organic insulation

Recycled newsprint works best when used in horizontal surfaces, like lofts; like most soft insulation it cannot be compressed, and must be covered up after installation if the space is to be used, because of the dust. Besides my loft I also used it underneath my floor.

It's the most environmentally sound insulation material you can possibly imagine. Apart from anything else, it is making use of a waste material.

The batts and boards made from wood fibre which I used are designed by the manufacturers for many different applications: between studs in walls, supporting concrete floors, or as tongue and groove cladding for the exterior insulation of a building.

The fibres for the latter are treated with wax to repel water, and when covered with a render (I used a very cheap proprietary lime render; all of this is part of the same complementary system) not only are weatherproof, but also allow the building structure to breathe.

This means that there is no condensation inside wet rooms and the building has an enhanced ability to withstand fluctuations in internal humidity.

By contrast, fossil fuel derived materials are not hygroscopic and do not allow the building to 'breathe'. Hence, when used for wall insulation, they can increase the risk of interior condensation.

There is one advantage which fossil fuel derived insulation has, and that is to achieve the same level of insulation using less depth of material. Typically you might need half the depth of phenolic or polystyrene foam than you would of wood fibreboard to achieve the same level of insulation.

This means that where space is a consideration, say to protect the internal dimensions of a room in internal wall insulation, or on the outside wall where the space beneath the eaves is limited for external wall insulation, then you would probably want to use, externally, mineral (rock & slag) wool batts and rolls such as Rockwool, which is relatively environmentally sound, certainly not as bad as foam. (Fibreglass mineral wool batts and rolls have a higher embodied energy than woodfibre.)

Lobbyists

Recently, Greg Barker said that his department had been inundated by lobbyists from insulation manufacturers wanting to get their products on the approved list for the Green Deal, which the Department is currently compiling.

My concern is that accredited installers are only going to be trained to install insulation containing fossil fuel derived insulation such as extruded polystyrene as manufactured by the likes of Kingspan and Knaupf, and a huge opportunity is going to be lost to save carbon.

I know these manufacturers have been lobbying furiously to make their products standard for the Green Deal, because if they are, it will be worth millions to them.

It's very important to bear in mind that each material has its own method of installation, and therefore a different skill needs to be learnt by installers.

Whatever has been learnt by the army of installers that, after this autumn, is likely to descend on the country's homes, will determine which insulation materials are used. Once installed, they will be there for decades.

Talking of long timescales, these foams also do not decompose at the end of their life, but instead will stay around for hundreds of years.

By contrast, surplus or used wood fibre board and cellulose composts to beautiful fertile soil within a year. So easy to dispose of! So environmentally sound. So easy to work with during construction.

Ignorance

In my experience there is almost complete ignorance of the organic materials I am talking about amongst your average builders, contractors and installers. Only the members of the Association of Environment Conscious Builders and their friends seem to be aware of them.

This is because they have only recently become available in this country in any quantity. Previously, they were quite hard to source.

I don't mind praising Burdens, under the brand EcoMerchant for being the only mass market supplier to stock thee fantastic materials, as far as I know.

So there is a massive skills and awareness gap to fill.

Preferentially specifying the use of these materials on a large scale will stimulate the supply chain, create demand and bring the price down even more.

The use of these materials is also recommended by the Centre for Alternative Technology and the related campaign Zero Carbon Britain, which last year consulted the industry on which materials to advocate.

CITB-ConstructionSkills, which is delivering the training, says it will do so "to evidence competence against the Minimum Technical Competence as specified by PAS 2030 and the Competent Persons Scheme Operators for the specific annexes covered by this initiative".

When I asked them about this, they said “CITB-ConstructionSkills has no remit or authority to prescribe what materials are accredited for the Green Deal.

"It is the organisations that are applying to be certification bodies of products acceptable to the Green Deal who will make the choice. At present we are not aware of which organisations or standards will be used."

Of course, it is up to the suppliers and manufacturers of these materials to lobby for their products and standards.

I sincerely hope they have the budget and the lobbyists available to compete with the insulation giants who currently dominate the building energy efficiency sector.

I've asked them, but so far received no reply.

Government ready to abandon nuclear newbuild, says protest group

The government is prepared to abandon its nuclear programme if there is sufficient opposition from the public, and has in place an alternative strategy which involves a stop-gap implementation of combined heat and power plants, Stop New Nuclear's spokesperson Camilla Berens told me today.

She claimed that Chris Huhne told her this last year, when he was energy secretary, at a meeting arranged by the organisation.

"He said the strategy was that to start with most of these CHP plants would be fuelled by conventional gas, which would be replaced over time by an increasing amount of zero carbon gas from anaerobic digestion," she said.

This would fill the energy gap until a sufficient amount of renewable electricity come online from other sources: offshore wind and marine.

She said that, "a decentralised approach with a broad mix of renewable and energy-efficient technologies can help reduce any future stresses brought about by foreign energy providers.

"Arguably, if the gas-fed CHP route is taken, it’s possible the Europe might be hit by a repeat of the kind of disruption caused by Russia’s dispute with the Ukraine in 2009. But the nuclear sector faces similar uncertainty.

"The world’s leading uranium producer is Kazakhstan – a nation that offers no greater reassurance of future energy security than its Russian neighbour. Meanwhile, the long-distance transportation of uranium from mines in Canada and Australia also presents risks in terms of accidents and terrorism," said Camilla.

A further alternative strategy, which again uses the Government's own figures, has been proposed in a report published earlier this month called A Corruption of Governance?, by the Association for the Conservation of Energy and pressure group Unlock Democracy.

This document also accuses the government of a pro-nuclear stitch-up, .

Protestors mark Fukushima anniversary by blockade of EDF nuclear site

Jonathan Porritt addressing the crowd at this weekend's Stop Hinkley anti-nuclear rally slammed the LibDems for their U-turn on nuclear newbuild.

The one year anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami on Japan's north east coast was marked in the UK over the weekend by the first 24-hour blockade of a nuclear site in over 30 years.

Following a demonstration by over 1000 people at Hinkley Point C on the Severn estuary in Somerset, which veteran campaigner Martyn Lowe described as the largest anti-nuclear action in this country since protests against the Torness power station in 1979, 100 people blocked the main entrance to the site, stopping all traffic from entering or leaving for over 24 hours.

The peaceful demonstration and blockade were organised by Stop New Nuclear, a coalition of anti-nuclear groups which includes the Somerset-based Stop Hinkley. Its spokesperson, Camilla Berens, called this a “double record" for nuclear protest in this country.

The blockade formally ended at 2pm on Sunday when Japanese Buddhist monks performed a prayer for the victims of the tsunami that precipitated the Fukushima disaster and urged the UK government to take a more enlightened view on energy provision.

Martyn Lowe added, “It is clear that the tide is turning against the government’s push for a ‘nuclear renaissance’. The British public is waking up to the fact that ‘new nuclear’ is dangerous, expensive and completely unnecessary.”

Among those who addressed the crowd were Green MP Caroline Lucas, environmental campaigner Jonathon Porritt, and Makoto and Akiko Ishiyama, a Japanese couple who were evacuated from the area around Fukushima, Japan.

“The government says it is now safe and they want local people to come back, but it’s a total lie,” Makoto Ishiyama told the crowd. “There is still a risk, it’s not safe and the accident isn’t over.”

Jonathon Porritt, who is launching a new book which provides a 'warts and all' overview of nuclear giant EDF Energy’s influence on Whitehall and Westminster, told the assembly that new nuclear power stations like Hinkley C could never operate without massive public subsidies towards their costs, including insurance and radioactive waste management.

Such potential subsidies are currently the subject of a legal complaint to the European Commission.

Jonathon Porritt said he found it “unbelievable" that nuclear energy was being put forward as a solution to climate change due to the expense and the timescale, as well as EDF's recent record in constructing plants which have been over budget and over schedule, and he called on the government reconsider its energy strategy.

He added: “It is clear we can do everything we need to do without nuclear power. The whole thing is being fixed to suit the nuclear industry. In Germany, they are working towards a nuclear-free future that affordable and realistic. Why is it we don’t think Germany is a really good model to follow?”

Porritt slammed the Liberal Democrats as they gathered for their annual conference. Referring to the U-turn on their previous anti-nuclear policy, he said: “It seems there is no betrayal to which they will not stoop to keep in power.”

Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas, echoed Porritt’s call for an end to nuclear power in the UK. She added, “The ￡60 billion the government wants invested in new nuclear is ￡60billion that should be channelled into developing renewable energy sources and making them fit for purpose in the 21st century”.

Stop Hinkley spokesman Crispin Aubrey said: “This has been one of the biggest protests ever held at Hinkley Point and shows the strength of feeling against EDF’s plans. The new reactors would be a constant drain on public funds and we don’t need nuclear power to keep the lights on.”

Plans for new nuclear

Currently, EDF has permission to carry out “preparatory works” on the 400 acre Hinkley C site but does not yet have safety approval for their new nuclear plant or planning consent to build the twin reactors.

The Office for Nuclear Regulation, which overlooks the safety aspects of nuclear power in this country, has granted an interim Design Acceptance Confirmation (DAC) and interim Statement of Design Acceptability (SoDA) to two designs for new reactors in the UK: Westinghouse's AP100 and EDF / AREVA’s EPR (European Pressurised Reactor). All the reports supporting this are here.

However, Westinghouse has not found a customer in this country, leaving EDF / AREVA's design as the only one being progressed at the moment; the first instance of this design is intended to be Hinkley Point C.

These companies are this year to provide the ONR with further information in an attempt to achieve final Design Acceptance Confirmation (DAC) and a Statement of Design Acceptability (SoDA).

The ONR are says that EDF has missed deadlines due to "their resources being deployed on assessment of the impact of the Fukushima event".

The Environment Agency last month granted an environmental permit to EDF Energy's and Centrica's joint venture company, NNB Generation Company Limited (NNB GenCo), which will be constructing the power station, relating to discharges of waste water generated from site preparation and construction activities at the Hinkley site.

Clean-up costs

Luckily, no one has yet died of radiation poisoning after the Fukushima accident, but the Japan Centre for Economic Research has estimated the entire cost of compensation and decommissioning of the six Fukushima reactors at between ￡330bn and ￡415bn.

The Japanese government has already agreed to provide nuclear operator TEPCO ￡9bn and the company has asked for an additional ￡7bn. This does not include government funds used to underwrite the cost of compensating the victims of the disaster.

This puts in perspective the public liability of just ￡1 billion accepted by EDF for any accident at one of their new nuclear power stations. The UK Government has agreed that it would foot the bill for any amount over this, were the worst to happen.

Back at Hinkley, Crispin Aubrey said that the weekend's action followed an occupation by protesters at the end of February of a barn in the middle of the building site for Hinkley C.

This barn was occupied by the group for two weeks. Aubrey said that EDF obtained an injunction to remove the protesters but tried to extend the ban to any action by Stop New Nuclear.

"This was opposed successfully in the High Court by the organisation and by Stop Hinkley, on the basis of the right to free speech," he said.

He added that EDF still lacked the finance to proceed and there were strong doubts that the power station would ever be completed.

New Shari’ah green tech bonds to attract Muslim investment

A new type of financing has been developed to encourage millions of pounds worth of long-term investment in green technology, in particular from the Islamic community.

Hundreds of billions of pounds worth of investment in green technology is required around the world to create the low carbon future. However, many projects are unattractive to some investors because of their long-term nature.

Also, Shari’ah law forbids the lending of money for gain, yet many green energy projects are required in Islamic nations, such as Saudi Arabia, and yet there is a surplus of cash held in the Muslim world waiting to be utilised.

All three challenges are being tackled by the development of a type of bond called Green Suduk Climate Bonds.

The Climate Bonds Initiative, the Clean Energy Business Council of the Middle East and North Africa and The Gulf Bond and Sukuk Association are today launching a Green Sukuk Working Group, which will use market expertise to promote the issuance of sukuk for the financing of climate change investments and projects, such as renewable energy projects.

The Working Group is inviting participation from other organisations interested in the potential of green sukuk financing.

Suduk are financial certificates, or the Islamic equivalent of bonds, which are structured to comply with Shari’ah Islamic law, which prohibits the charging, or paying of interest.

To give an idea of the potential, Standard & Poor estimates that 20% of banking customers in the Persian Gulf and Asia would now choose an Islamic financial product over a conventional one with a similar risk-return profile.

Because the lending of money in Islamic culture has a moral dimension, rather than a financial one, then there is a good fit with the ethical aspect of green financing.

Aaron Bielenberg of the Clean Energy Business Council, a non-profit, non-governmental association established in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, said that projects in the region are desperate for finance.

“There is a significant and growing number of projects, for example renewable energy in the Middle East, that are ideally suited to sukuk investors," he said. "This group will help investors more easily identify Shari’ah compliant, clean energy investment opportunities.”

Nick Silver of the Climate Bonds Initiative, has identified an urgent need for it in order to "mobilize finance for both renewable energy and climate adaptation projects in both the Middle East and in other developing Muslim countries such as Bangladesh and Pakistan".

That there is capital seeking investment is confirmed by Farmida Bi, a partner at the Norton Rose law firm in London: "Banks need more high-grade paper (sukuk) to place their money in, but there is hardly any,” he says.

“There is a lot of pent up demand (for sukuk)," agrees Mohammed Dawood, the head of capital markets at HSBC Amanah, the bank’s Islamic arm.

Michael Grifferty of the Gulf Bond and Sukuk Association says this means the time is right for the launch: “Interest in both Shari’ah compliant and ethical investing is on the rise. Green sukuk can support this trend by expanding the range of available financial instruments. They also support national development strategies by offering longer term finance for essential infrastructure.”

Issuance of Islamic bonds, or sukuk, had a record year in 2011. This year looks set to be even better. In January, the biggest-ever sukuk from Saudi Arabia, and the first government-backed sukuk was struck: a SAR15 billion ($4 billion) 10-year deal for the General Authority for Civil Aviation, led by HSBC Saudi Arabia.

Climate Bond Standard

The scientific and technical aspects of the project eligibility criteria are derived from the International Climate Bond Standards scheme and developed with the help of International Finance Corporation (IFC), Standard & Poor’s, Aviva Investors and KPMG.

Last November, Greg Barker, Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change, led the launch of a prototype Climate Bond Standard, where he said that "the capital markets have a vital role to play in tacking climate change by meeting the financial challenge. Here in London we are well placed, if we can’t crack it – then who can?”

This first Standard is a screening tool for investors and governments to support investment in delivering a Low Carbon Economy and allows the certification of project development, corporate and other bonds linked to or backed by wind energy assets.

It is backed by a group of leading global institutional investors and environmental Non-Government Organisations, from America and Britain, including the US Natural Resources Defense Council, the California State Treasurers’ Office, the Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC), the Carbon Disclosure Project, and the Ceres Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR).

The Climate Bonds Initiative is an investor-focused not-for-profit organisation that promotes large-scale investment in the low-carbon economy.

It has identified many other types of bond besides the green sukuk, including:

• Index-linked bonds tied to inflation rates or carbon prices. For example, Climate Bonds could be issued with a low base rate of interest, but have bonus payments if carbon prices reach certain higher levels
• Carbon price floor bonds where the interest rate payable goes up if the carbon price does not meet stated targets
• Zero-coupon bonds that pay out a guaranteed rate upon maturity, whether 10, 20 or 30 years in the future.
• Convertible bonds which allow investors to convert their bonds to equity stakes at agreed points in the development
• Regulated Covered Bonds which provide guaranteed revenue streams from energy generation projects that qualify for feed-in tariffs that are used as collateral for AAA bonds; these are modelled on Germany’s 300 year-old Pfandbrief ‘covered bond’ property market.

To pay for renewable energy generation projects, project developers combine investor equity with money borrowed from banks acting for the bond-issuing intermediary.

Davey to challenge Polish roadblock over European emission targets

Ed Davey and his progressive colleagues in four other Western European governments are set to clash with their eastern European counterpart in Poland at today's vital meeting of the European Environment Council.

The U.K.'s Energy and Climate Change Secretary, attending his first such meeting in his new role, is backing a move to increase Europe's 2020 target for greenhouse gas emissions cuts from the current 20% to 25%.

This is less ambitious than his predecessor, Chris Huhne, who supported a target of 30% cuts by 2020.

Huhne had argued that this target was less expensive than many thought and that it would save money in the medium and longer term.

The Energy 2050 Roadmap

The EU is already on track to meet its binding goal of lowering CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020. Increasing it to 25% or even 30% is not considered overly onerous.

According to the Energy 2050 Roadmap published by the European Commission last year, without tougher targets the European Union risks locking in carbon-intensive generation plants for the foreseeable future.

The Roadmap seeks cuts in emissions of 95% by 2050 relative to 1990.

On the other side of the desk from Davey today will sit Polish Environment Minister Marcin Korolec.

Korolec will say that the only way Poland will sign up to an increase in the target is if it is granted free allowances for all of its 16 coal powered electricity generating plants under the Emissions Trading Scheme. Poland produces over 90 percent of its electricity using coal.

This risks undermining the whole European emissions-reduction project and is opposed by virtually all the other 26 member states.

Industry misinformation

Behind Poland's position is a campaign of industry misinformation from the Polish energy lobby including the Polish Chamber of Commerce (Krajowa Izba Gospodarcza), and the biggest Polish energy companies Tauron Polska Energia S.A. and PGE (Polska Grupa Energetyczna) S.A., that has been exposed by Polish energy campaigner Kuba Gogolewski amongst others.

For example, the Chamber of Commerce recently published a report which claimed that the costs of implementing the EU climate and energy package would cost Polish industry zł.22 billion a year from 2030; that's four times higher than estimations made by the World Bank and the European Commission (pdf).

However, as pointed out by a coalition of 22 Polish environmental groups, the report leaves out many factors, such as the external costs to Polish society of industrial energy production worth €10-19 billion a year, costs of coal subsidies (€650 million in 2010), and the €1.5 billion per year imports of coal, that emit 15 million tonnes of CO2, thereby grossly understating the baseline scenario against which the costs of the EU package are compared.

Gogolewski writes on his blog that “the dominant position of coal companies in Polish society weakens public debate, ensures that information about alternatives to coal fails to reach the general public, and thus prevents the country from developing a green economy with new jobs and opportunities".

He also points out that Poles are paying for this coal dependency with their lives: “pollution coming from coal lowers the life expectancy of the average Polish citizen by at least eight months, according to estimates by the World Health Organisation for the year 2000".

Today's meeting of environment ministers

Today's meeting is led by Danish Climate and Energy Minister Martin Lidegaard, who has called for a show of unity. “I think it will be a serious situation for Europe if we, for the second time, are not able to agree on climate policy which can send a clear signal to our industry, citizens and also to the rest of the world,” he said.

Senior Polish politicians in Brussels have questioned whether emissions from coal cause global warming at all. “What I think is worrying is if we are now seeing certain member states question the science behind [climate change], the fundamental values and objectives that have been in the treaty for a very long time and if that’s the case, its for the highest level to discuss,” a Danish presidency source said yesterday.

In Germany, despite having the highest electricity prices in Europe, energy bills are lower than in the UK, because of the emphasis on domestic energy efficiency, Greg Barker pointed out in the House of Commons yesterday, as he and Davey set out the Coalition Government's energy policy.

Besides the Roadmap, the other items on the agenda today include setting European positions on the follow-up to the Durban climate conference, and the EU negotiating position for the UN Rio+20 conference on sustainable development to be held in Brazil in June.

Ministers will also discuss the restriction or prohibition of the cultivation of genetically modified organisms in Europe, and a proposal for a new regulation on LIFE, which provides funds for climate action and the environment.

€3.2 billion of grant funding

The overall budget for the new LIFE programme would be raised to €3.2 billion, of which €800 million would be allocated to a new climate sub-programme, which will focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing resilience to climate change, and increasing awareness, communication, and exchange of information on climate actions.

€2.4 billion will be targeted at promoting resource-efficiency, using innovative solutions for better implementation of environment policy and integration of environmental objectives in other sectors.

Regarding Rio, ministers will discuss proposals for the establishment of Sustainable Development Goals and their level of ambition.

On GMO cultivation, Britain will argue for individual member states to be able to decide their own policy on the issue.

They will also be discussing resource efficiency and low carbon growth, issuing a call for rapid progress on the implementation of the Roadmap to a resource-efficient Europe and the mainstreaming of environmental and climate related issues into the economic agenda for growth and jobs.

￡3.5m for Green Deal apprenticeships

The Coalition Government has announced a new fund of ￡3.5m to train Green Deal assessors and installers, and a further ￡10m to improve the energy efficiency of non-domestic buildings.

In the wake of complaints from the Green Deal Skills Alliance (GDSA) about a lack of awareness amongst contractors of energy efficiency measures and the Green Deal, a fund of ￡3.5million has been announced today by Energy and Climate Change Secretary Edward Davey to help train hundreds of people in key green skills ahead of its launch.

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, had promised a year ago to create 1,000 Green Deal apprenticeships, and this funding, offered together with CITB-ConstructionSkills, is intended to make good on this promise.

That organisation, a member of the Green Deal Skills Alliance, is contributing ￡500,000 towards training installers of insulation, while DECC itself is putting forward the remaining ￡3m.

As pointed out by Brian Smithers, business development director of Rexel UK, there is still a widespread lack of understanding and awareness of how green technologies can help people improve the energy efficiency of their homes and reduce bills.

This is despite the fact that since October 2010, the government has been running a "Cut the Carbon campaign in partnership with the Federation of Master Builders and National Specialist Contractors Council, to raise construction companies’ awareness of the Green Deal legislation.

"Rexel’s recent energy efficiency survey found that over a quarter of Brits would be motivated to save energy if they had access to financial subsidies, yet 90% hadn’t heard of schemes such as Carbon Trust Loans," Mr Smithers said today.

The news was welcomed by industry bodies, including the National Insulation Association, and even greeted enthusiastically by Andrew Warren, Director of the Association of the Conservation of Energy, normally a critic of the government's action on energy efficiency, who said: “Whilst the energy efficiency industry has a proud track record on training, it is excellent news that the enormous size of the task before us is being recognised by the Secretary of State in such an immensely practical way”.

Solid wall insulation will be central to the success of Green Deal and ECO. Mike Threadgold, Chairman of the INCA Training Committee said, “this funding will help to increase capacity within the industry to meet the surge in demand. SWI requires highly specialist skills and, by investing in the training and qualification of the workforce, the industry will be able to continue to deliver the highest quality standards.”

The Green Deal is the Government’s flagship energy efficiency scheme aimed at renovating millions of draughty, energy-inefficient homes and office buildings across the UK.

The scheme will begin in the autumn of this year and will support an estimated 65,000 jobs by 2015, but the financial details have yet to be announced.

Ed Davey said: “This money will help hundreds of people gear up for the Green Deal and ensure this scheme is a real success on the ground. We hope this will encourage businesses across the country to fully prepare their staff for the launch of the Green Deal later this year.”

CITB-ConstructionSkills CEO Mark Farrar called on employers and the supply chain to also invest in sustainable skills training for their workforce, so they too can capitalise on the Green Deal.

A Green Deal Competency Framework is being prepared, which will be an integrated portfolio of National Occupational Standards and qualifications to identify the standards of work and knowledge required to become an energy assessor, adviser or installer; these standards and qualifications will span a range of occupations.

The British Standards Institute (BSI) recently launched a new PAS2030 standard for all installers. Co-developed between DECC and industry representatives to ensure robust and deliverable standards as well as peace of mind and protection for consumers; details can be found on the BSI website.

To raise awareness of the Green Deal, the alliance is running events and other schemes to help employers, trade unions, learners and providers to identify opportunities for them; details of these are available on its website.

The new training will be administered by the Sector Skills Councils on behalf of the Green Deal Alliance. This group is made up of several existing skills groups - Construction Skills, Asset Skills, Summit Skills, whose members themselves are made up of representatives of the industries concerned.

￡10 million competition

In addition, DECC is also funding a ￡10m competition to be launched in early May to support the incorporation of innovative technologies which can achieve significant energy savings in existing non-domestic buildings.

Non-domestic buildings, such as schools, shops, offices, hotels, are associated with 18% of the UK’s total carbon emissions so reducing energy demand in this sector will help the country meet its climate targets.

This programme will be delivered in partnership with the Technology Strategy Board. Details of how to apply will appear on DECC and TSB’s respective websites by early May. Innovative solutions will be encouraged from consortia of key supply chain players, including building owners and technology suppliers, to demonstrate the energy performance of innovative products or processes which could ultimately be accredited under the Green Deal.

State must pay more for flood protection to avoid ghettos, say insurers

Greater attention to social justice, with state support, is needed in the UK to prevent properties, businesses and whole neighbourhoods becoming uninsurable for flood risk, say insurers and NGOs.

At yesterday's National Flood Forum Conference, The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is calling for fairness and solidarity to be put at the heart of the coming review of flood insurance in the UK, arguing that a purely market-based approach would threaten to leave many thousands of properties uninsurable, leading to extensive social blight.

According to the Association of British Insurers, which is echoing the appeal, some 200,000 households may become uninsurable after June 2013, the date when there will be a fundamental change in insurance, as the current agreement of principles between the Government and the industry to manage risk and cost comes to an end.

Claims on insurance in high-risk areas have tripled in the last decade. The 2007 summer floods in England and Northern Ireland cost the economy more than ￡3 billion, and the Cumbria floods in 2009 resulted in ￡100s millions of damage, the loss of twenty road bridges and long term disruption for local communities.

The JRF is warning that a purely market-based insurance system covering flooding, that requires individuals to pay higher premiums that fully reflect their risks, will leave uninsurable many low-income properties that are vulnerable to flooding.

The coming changes to the insurance regime will have particular implications for the poor and disadvantaged because they are least able to move and afford higher premiums.

At stake is who pays for flood protection: the Environment Agency has previously projected that its flood risk management budget would need to increase by 9% between 2012 and 2015 to maintain adequate flood defences.

But instead, its budget for flood risk management has been cut by 10% during this period, according to the Public Accounts Committee, due to Defra's enthusiastic response to the Spending Review.

￡3.5 billion a year

The UK Climate Change Risk Assessment, published in January, puts flooding at the top of the list of climate change risks, especially noting the risk of flooding to high-value agricultural land, with farmers finding difficulty in obtaining insurance cover.

It says that flooding could cost between ￡1.5 billion and ￡3.5 billion a year by the 2020s, rising to ￡6.8 billion by the 2050s, and "would affect people’s homes, the well being of vulnerable groups in society, the operation of critical infrastructure systems, such as transport, energy and water supply and disrupt a wide range of businesses located in the floodplains".

These areas are likely to be widespread, especially in England, raising the possibility of whole neighbourhoods in which homes are unsaleable and uninhabitable, the Association of British Insurers has warned.

Speaking at the National Flood Forum Conference, James Dalton, the ABI’s Head of Property Insurance, said that “we are running out of time to ensure that people in high flood risk areas can continue to get affordable flood insurance when the Statement of Principles expires in June 2013.

"It is widely recognised that the current industry agreement with the Government is unsustainable, has thwarted choice for consumers, and is well past its ‘best by’ date.

“No action is no option," he said. "Insurers are determined to do everything possible to ensure that flood insurance remains as widely available to our flood vulnerable communities. But this cannot be achieved without Government help, as happens in other countries.”

Risk of ghettoisation

If businesses such as shops and light industry, frequently located in industrial parks on floodplains, find it impossible to obtain flood insurance, it could results in them relocating elsewhere, increasing a trend of depopulation or ghettoisation warns the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Furthermore, says the JRF, given that many who work in essential services are amongst the low paid, it would not be socially beneficial if they did relocate.

The ABI estimated that as a result of the 2009 Cumbria floods, 8,000 business premises had been affected, and, in June 2009 there were 35,000 insurance claims by businesses associated with the summer 2007 floods, far exceeding the number of commercial properties that were reportedly flooded.

The CCRA estimates that the costs due to flooding to businesses could increase in the future by approximately 75% in the 2020s, 140% in the 2050s and double in the 2080s.

The CCRA report says there are ‘orders of magnitude’ of deprived people affected by flooding in different parts of England and Wales, and quotes the Environment Agency saying that this pattern is projected to change and regional “deprivation hotspots” may emerge starting with the north east of England, where 100,000 properties will be at risk by 2050, and then followed by the north-west, London and Wales.

Since these areas also contain a high proportion of social deprivation, this underscores the severity of the risk.

Annex B of the CCRA's Evidence Report, quotes a survey (Tunstall, 2007) which confirmed this: that "those respondents living in vulnerable properties scored significantly higher on measures of general health, subjective severity and subjective stress".

Flood insurance in other countries

The ABI is asking: why should Britain be different from other countries?

"The UK is unusual in having the majority of domestic and business flood damage borne through a competitive insurance market, albeit with a history of cross-subsidisation between policy holders," says Defra's Water for Life (The Water White Paper).

The JRF and ABI are arguing that we should take a leaf out of other insurance regimes in other countries, by letting the state help the vulnerable. For example:

• In France, Belgium and Spain insurance is provided through a partnership between the state and the insurance industry, which collects a compulsory premium for natural disasters that is standard in policies and charge regardless of the level of risk. The state guarantees payments.
• In the Netherlands, flooding is typically excluded from policies, and the state is responsible for losses due to floods which are not covered by private insurance.
• In Iceland a public insurance company is responsible for a compulsory insurance regime for all natural disasters, while in Germany major flooding is coloured mostly by public compensation packages.
• Over in the USA, catastrophic flooding is usually excluded from private insurance policies for high-risk areas, instead being covered by a federal programme. In 'Special Flood Hazard Areas’ insurance is offered to those in communities which are part of the program, conditional on those communities of adopting flood mitigation and adaptation schemes.

Defra’s final report on flood insurance, Flooding and insurance: a roadmap to 2013 and beyond, published in December, outlines a number of principles to govern future flood insurance.

These include the wide provision of insurance cover for flooding, and that premiums and excesses should reflect the risk of flood damage to the property insured, taking into account any resistance or resilience measures.

Defra also wants provision to be fair, but at the same time not distort competition between insurance firms, as well as encourage investment in flood risk management activity; this would include direct Government investment.

Together with the Environment Agency, ABI and BIBA, Defra is still working out how to develop understanding of how a ‘standard of protection’ could be specified for property-level measures, and how any measures taken by householders or businesses could be taken into account by insurers.

For example, the Environment Agency accuses insurers of simply replacing damaged structures as they were before, returning them to their previous state, instead of, for example, making them more flood-proof.

Clarifying these issues is partly the purpose of today's conference.

Who pays for flood protection?

But the Joseph Rowntree report asks whether an insurance regime can really be fair and equitable to everyone, wherever they live, while being risk-sensitive?

Implicit, is the question of who should foot the bill for flood protection. The most vulnerable in society cannot be expected to do so.

The JRF contrast the situation in England with that in Scotland where, despite higher rainfall, communities face substantially lower flood risks.

While 5 per cent of Scottish households are at a 0.5 per cent flood risk in Scotland, 23 per cent of households in the England face a higher 1.0 per cent risk.

This is due to greater state intervention and regulation, which is what the JRF and ABI are calling for in England and Wales.

What a waste the car is.

Isn't it absurd that the average car in the UK weighs 1.3 tonnes, is used for 4% of the year, and when in use carries an average of only 1.6 occupants?

It means that most of the time most cars have excess capacity and/or underused and heavier than their cargo. What a waste of fuel and resources!

We are running out of raw stuff. To be more specific: global resources of minerals are becoming increasingly scarce.

This is not news; some farsighted policymakers and visionaries have been attempting to draw attention to the value of resource efficiency for at least 20 years.

Over this time the evidence of the cost of mineral extraction and the processing of raw materials has grown into a substantial body of well-documented data.

Amongst other things, we now know a lot more about the wasteful use of water and the high energy and climate-damaging affects of the dash for growth happening in many parts of the world.

For example, we know that five key materials: steel, cement, plastics, paper and aluminium, dominate emissions from industry and producing them accounts for 20% of all global emissions from energy use and industrial processes.

And this is before these materials are actually processed into their final form.

The situation is worse in China because of its dependence on coal and its inefficient energy system. There, construction and manufacturing adds a further 2% of global energy and process emissions.

If, therefore, we could concentrate on tackling the efficiency of use of these 5 materials we would be going a long way towards reducing pollution, emissions and water use globally.

This depends in turn on the ability of these five sectors to cooperate.

You might think that because of the trends of globalisation and consolidation in these industries, this would not be too difficult.

In fact they are still surprisingly fragmented.

The top 10 global companies produce less than a quarter of all steel, and the largest of these, ArcelorMittal, accounts for only 6% of the total.

The effect of this is that there is much competition for inputs, especially iron ore and coke, which, contradicting the ideology of free market thinkers, does not result in increased efficiencies.

A group of researchers from Cambridge University led by Julian Allwood and Jonathan Cullen have been exploring solutions to this issue.

I've been reading their book, ‘Sustainable Materials With Both Eyes Open’, and it is full of brilliant ideas.

It also illustrates how tough the mountain of resource efficiency is to climb; harder than climbing a mountain of slag wearing roller-blades.

One of their solutions is that if goods were designed to use less metal, global metal production could be reduced by a staggering 30% without any loss of final service.

Another solution is to change the practice of construction and deconstruction so that buildings are designed to be reused.

To achieve this, they say, we need some pioneers who, they suggest, might be retailers seeking brand advantage, or the government through its procurement policies, to stimulate demand.

The supply of re-used steel will follow the demand for it, and could be increased with changes to demolition practice, perhaps as an extension of the requirements of Considerate Construction guidelines.

The voluntary eco-standard BREEAM gives accreditation for the sustainability features of buildings. However, it does not set minimum targets for reducing the embodied life-cycle impact of buildings.

The authors note that it is surprising that only approximately 5% of total credits are allocated in BREEAM to reducing a building's footprint.

In contrast, the Australian Green Star rating system, revised in February 2010 to drive best practice in steel production, has much more rigourous standards.

Of course, we can make products which last longer, and which can be repaired and renovated more easily. Prime candidates for this are vehicles and household appliances.

But as long as companies obtain financial benefit from the early obsolescence of their products, this is not going to happen. It is therefore up to national and regional governments to create and impose standards, just as they are doing, for example, with the End of Life Vehicle Directive.

Alternately, we can rent the service of transport, clean clothes, or whatever, instead of owning a machine which provides this. It is then in the interests of the service provider to maintain in an efficient way the product that is on loan to us.

I am sure that in the future people will look back on our time and marvel at how wasteful we were.

There are many barriers to material efficiency strategies, but they boil down to two things: firstly, material efficiency requires a greater level of cooperation between the many companies involved in producing a product with metal components; secondly most changes the authors propose require a radical change in company strategy.

One of the biggest of these changes is that companies within sectors and even across sectors need to cooperate more instead of competing.

This is a strategy that has been followed, but not nearly widely enough, by the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme, which takes as its starting point the idea that one company's waste might be another company's raw material.

NISP, which receives some funding from Defra, but not nearly enough, is a free business opportunity programme that delivers bottom line, environmental and social benefits, and deserves credit for being the first industrial symbiosis initiative in the world to be launched on a national scale.

In an age of austerity, resource efficiency and industrial symbiosis makes sense. Costs can be saved and raw material usage and emissions reduced.

But it does require vision and almost unprecedented degrees of cooperation between companies. Farseeing firms are doing it already and reaping the benefit.
I don't know what the car of the future will look like. But I do know it must leave a far smaller scar on the planet.

Voluntary carbon offsetting using forests is on the rise despite climate risks

 Larch and oak trees affected by ramorum disease, which is killing thousands of trees in the UK. Such types of disease are on the rise with climate change.

Voluntary carbon offset schemes using forest plantations are being increasingly used around the world by governments and states despite an increase in drought and disease affecting forests that raises concerns about their reliability.

A new survey of 15 national and sub-national government agencies around the world that have incorporated voluntary climate change offsetting into their strategies shows that their use is on the increase.

Many of these schemes use the planting of woodland or forests to claim an amount of carbon dioxide sequestration equivalent to that emitted elsewhere.

In Britain, the Forestry Commission last year set up the Woodland Carbon Code for this purpose, even though the Commission itself confesses that it is worried about the impact of climate change on its own forests.

The report, by Ecosystem Marketplace, an American grouping of financiers and environmentalists, says that the prices for credits generated under these offsetting programmes averaged $11 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e), compared to a global average of $6 per ton.

It believes that participants prefer them to the “top-down methods" pursued by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), finding that 6.3 MtCO2e was transacted by respondents to its survey in 2011, and that governments anticipate that in the next three years another 48MtCO2e will be transacted, showing that the trend of using voluntary offsets is increasing.

The survey covers 15 states, all but three of which are using forestation to offset carbon emissions. Those using forest-planting are: Oregon, California, British Columbia, Oklahoma, Japan, Thailand, China, Australia, Costa Rica, the United Kingdom, Italy, and the Netherlands.

The Woodland Carbon Code

The UK Forestry Standard sets out the government's approach to sustainable forestry.

Its official position is that "forest management should contribute to climate change mitigation over the long term through the net capture and storage of carbon in the forest ecosystem and in wood products".

The Forestry Commission's Woodland Carbon Code (WCC) sets standards for claims about the carbon sequestered by woodland projects.

Though WCC projects can’t generate official government offsets due to the problem of double-monetisation, the Forestry Commission’s Pat Snowdon says the WCC shares many features with international standards, like a buffer pool, project grouping mechanism and independent certification.

In 2011, the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) updated its emissions reporting guidance to allow organisations to “net out” WCC credits from their total gross emissions, a move that is described by Ecosystem Marketplace as "a significant recognition of market-based private sector climate action on the part of a national agency".

But since the issue of double counting “remains a significant barrier to investment”, according to one stakeholder, the Forestry Commission is in discussions with credit agency Markit Environmental Registry about listing a “Woodland Carbon Unit” on its independent carbon unit registry system.

Pat Snowden says this would be "Good for transparency, to avoid double accounting. Markit is well-respected."

He says the the FC, "as part of government, is helping to get the voluntary market going. We are not acting as a broker. that's for the sector, but we will signpost people to help market get going.

They have been training the two certification partners, overseen by UKAS. One of these is SGS UK, a risk assessment business used extensively by the oil industry, also responsible for independent assessment of the environmental performance of the 2012 Olympic Games.

The value of this young market in "potentially huge globally," Snowdeo told EaEM. "It will be good for the UK's environmental impact investment market. Companies want to invest not just for economic reasons, but for CSR. They like the fact that clients can come and see the forests in this country."

He said a recent report by JP Morgan estimated the global market to grow to $500bn over the next five years. "We've seen lots of interest," he added.

So far, 60 tree-planting carbon offset projects are registered on WCC's website, covering 3000ha, a significant number given it is less than one year old; but only eight of these have actually so far been validated.

Plantations registered under the scheme will be regularly inspected every five years to determine whether the anticipated total sequestration of carbon is actually occurring.

The Forestry Commission uses a figure of 5.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide absorbed by forests per hectare per year.

To safeguard the CO2 absorbed, the trees should be harvested and stored at their peak growth to prevent it being re-emitted as the tree gradually rots and dies. The precise timing of this depends on the tree species.

Risk of disease and drought

However, the UK's national Climate Change Risk Assessment published last January by Defra observes that climate change in Britain and elsewhere in the world is likely to result in drought and disease which could kill or impair forests.

It says in particular that "the productivity of commercial tree species could change due to drought, and declining timber yield is particularly likely in England, where, without measures to prevent it, it could decline by between 10 and 25 per cent in South East England by the 2080s".

Moreover, there is “an increasing threat to trees and woodland from tree pests and diseases, many of which are likely to thrive in warmer conditions".

This is already happening. On 9 February, the Forestry Commission issued an alert that Phytophthora austrocedrae, a fungus-like organism, had been found infecting Juniper trees in Teesdale.

They called it “especially serious".

Diseases are also attacking Yew and other trees, and last year, 876 hectares of Japanese larch trees were found to be infected by ramorum disease in Wales.

These are having to be felled and disposed of to prevent them infecting other trees. Woodland owners have found themselves in possession of worthless stock.

Given this, what is the reliability of using forestation to offset carbon if there is no guarantee that the activity will result successfully in carbon being sequestered?

Nigel Dudley, one of the U.K.'s top experts on forestation, ecosystems and protected areas, told Energy and Environmental Management that, “the truth is that no one really knows whether using forests to offset carbon is really effective.

"That's because we can't be sure what effects climate change is going to bring. That's why designers of these schemes should build in significant safety margins, just in case areas of the forest do die."

“Of course, planting forests has many other values, but if the worst predictions of climate change come true, then planting forests to offset carbon could be a worthless activity," said Mr. Dudley.

In response, the Forestry Commission's Pat Snowdon said that WCC approved schemes allow for a buffer amount of 20% for estimation error, plus a risk buffer depending on assessment of site, of say 10-25%. giving roughly a 35% total.

"Having a buffer provides confidence in the market," he said. "We think the buffers are quite generous."

Of the Climate Change Risk Assessment, he said that "of course, uncertainty increases further into future. This is what the buffer is designed to deal with. The CCRA has to be open and cautious, and we need to think about what we plant. Some trees could grow better in the future; we should perhaps be planting species of Beech that currently thrive in Southern Europe."

However Mr. Snowdon did admit that the Commission has seen "an increase in recent years" of diseases affecting trees. "If we are looking more than forty years ahead, we have no idea what will happen. Only time will tell".

Renewable energy offsets

The carbon sequestered from the atmosphere inside timber will happen in the future as trees planted in these schemes grow and mature.

But the carbon emitted by the current activities that are being offset, is already in the atmosphere working to increase the greenhouse effect.

It is for this reason that the official UNFCCC climate offset projects under the Joint implementation and Clean Development Mechanism focus on renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Projects registered under these schemes are intended to prevent the emission of global warming gases in the first place.

For the sake of reliability it seems that investing in woodland, while beneficial in many respects, cannot offer cast-iron guarantees for climate mitigation.