The future of farting

It's a fact: farts harm the planet. Everybody talks about carbon dioxide, but no one mentions methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas about 20 times more potent than the carbon dioxide we breathe out through our mouths.

Extreme offenders, in the post-Kyoto world, will be convicted of crimes against humanity.

Therefore I am founding a company called Fart Neutral.

Fart Neutral will neutralise the effect of your farting by investing the money you give us to compensate your farts in schemes to sequester methane under the earth, or burn it to generate heat and power, capturing the carbon dioxide instead.

We will also invest in educational programmes to teach people which foods - beans, lentils - cause the most methane production from rear ends.

Eventually such diets will be taxed out of existence.

We will also manufacture special rubber underwear, sealed tightly round the waist and legs, with a built in inflatable balloon at the rear. When the balloon has fully inflated from your methane production, it will be sealed, detached and replaced.

We will pay you for the return of full balloons and send you an empty one in return. We will then trade the balloons on the open market - methane trading, or, as the trade refers to it, the Fart Mart.

Variations on the underwear will be manufactured for farm animals and pets. Cows are well known as a major producer of this greenhouse gas.

Under post-Kyoto legislation it will be illegal for animals and humans not to wear such methane-capturing apparel. Eventually farm animals will be phased out for a compulsory vegetarian diet, which will, anyway, release more land for food and biofuel production.

This will give rise to a new age of fashion, a revival of the 18th Century style of exaggerated derrières. Men will wear pantaloons with large flaps at the back, and women long skirts with seams to accommodate the balloons at the rear. These will be considered sexy, and the smelling of farts, since they are forbidden, will provide sexual frissons.


Special offer: Send me £5 ($10) now to neutralise your farts for the next year. Hurry! After June 30 the cost will inflate.

Comments from the earlier posting on MySpace:

Lucy:
David, can I assume that a vaginal fart is harmless?

David Thorpe:
Assume nothing. I will have to come round and test this.

Lucy:
Well, I'll put the kettle on but I don't think I can do them to order ..

David Thorpe:
Thank you. I'll be over soon. Do not fret yourself about 'doing them to order'. The important thing is to be relaxed. I have been specially trained with techniques for just such a situation. And besides, in the disinterested pursuit of scientific truth we must above all have patience.

shell:
My boyfriend emits some right humdingers. It lingers for ages too.
Mine smell of roses so there is no way they can harm the environment.

David Thorpe:
I'm afraid that the delightful feminine smell is caused by your sexually aroused pheronomes, and has nothing to do with the methane, which is the carrier gas.
Therefore you both still need to be neutralised.
We do a special discounted deal for couples - £8 for a year.

Mr. Pillowcase:
Wow, you have certainly planned this out very well!

David Thorpe:
Well, thank you, but let's give some tribute to the European Union's Farting Directive (2007).

Poetica™:
You are a visionary! I will start working on my business plan to design the fluffiest Fartaloons and Firts the world has ever seen.

David Thorpe:
I look forward to seeing them. It's important for the designs to be cute and risque, don't you think.
I'm glad to see you are taking the positive attitude, following the Government's decisive leadership on global warming. Rightfully, they say climate change is not a threat, but an opportunity to make loads of money.
This is why we in the business community welcome climate change as a chance to reinvigorate our faded product lines, introduce new styles and fashions, and find new reasons why the public should continue to buy our products, even when they don't need them and can't afford them.
Let us celebrate climate change with a new line of fluffy, methane offsetted underwear!

Lucy:
We're all immature adults here!

David Thorpe:
Speak for yourself. I have the interests of the planet at heart. And making money. You can't get more mature than that.

Adam Horovitz:
Oh god, as a vegetarian I'm in deep trouble...

David Thorpe:
No, Adam, you are half way to salvation, for your meat-free diet is not dependant on the unseen emanations of distant ruminants.
The best way to narrow your methane footprint is to eat less beans and become anorexic.
The most selfless act would, of course, be suicide - that way you have no footprint at all, and we at Fart Neutral can give you a zero methane funeral, by offsetting the methane produced by your decomposing body - for a small fee of course.
However such martyrdom is for the saints amongst us only, and at Fart Neutral we know there are few of those - that is the reason for our existence - to provide guilt free farting for everyone.
Hence our motto: Supporting Farters with a Clear Conscience.

Adam Horovitz:
Beanless anorexia it is, then. No more being mistaken for a passing herd of cattle for me!! Thank you Fart Neutral - I don't know what I would have done without you...

Public opinions and market opinions

Some recent statistics on Employment and financial benefits of RE and public opinion on climate change policies

Public opinion

According to a Eurobarometer survey in all European Member States, 87% of Europeans are concerned about the climate change.

About the same number (82%) think that their energy use has an impact on the climate and 83% would support a minimum target for renewable energy sources.

Almost two thirds (62%) of the citizens think EU-agreed measures are the best way to tackle energy-related issues.

There is less agreement on how such measures should be implemented.

One third prefers taxing, one third thinks public funding of research would be the best option and the others think that prohibiting inefficient technologies would stimulate energy innovation best.

Nuclear energy is not generally seen as the best way to reduce CO2 emissions.

About 60% of Europeans want to decrease the share of nuclear energy, and only 30% want to build more nuclear power plants.

Employment and financial benefits of RE

The world is on the brink of an energy revolution that will dominate financial markets for years and provide a huge stimulus to global economic growth, according to the latest issue of Barclays Capital's influential Equity Gilt Study.

Investments in alternative energy sources are expected to grow to between $6.2bn and $8.8bn by 2009 as decades of U.S. and European research and development mature.

In 2005 Britain's environmental industries had a turnover of £25bn, according to the DTI, a figure projected to grow to £46bn by 2015.

With 13% growth last year, Germany’s renewable share in overall energy demand caused a renewed growth of jobs in the renewable energy sector.

In 2006 the number of employees working in the German renewables industry passed the 200,000 threshold.

Scottish Renewables has revealed the results of research into the economic impact of its members, the first study of its kind in Scotland.

The results show that 2,596 people are employed by SRF members in Scotland, and that the members of SRF had a combined turnover of £550m in 2006.

Employment in the 'renewables sector' is expected to grow sixfold by 2010 in the south west of England.

Meanwhile, a report from the investment bank Lehman Brothers, set out the position starkly - companies that adapt to the challenges of climate change will win friends and make money.

Those that do not will struggle to survive.

The value of concentrated solar power is underestimated

I'm taking the trouble to direct readers to n article by ProEnviro on this topic. I've mentioned it several times before and it keeps being ignored.

Nuclear power costs anywhere between 5p and 8p per kWh, with new power station under construction in the United States expected to deliver at half that price.

However in 2003 The National Academy of Sciences, through research from the engineering and analyst firms Sargent and Lundy, showed CSP, with a free, renewal and infinite supply to be viable with costs of 4-6 cents (US) per kWh for solar troughs.

Needless to say Bush vetoed the idea when he came to power.

Read more on ProEnviro's web site

Nuclear new build costs: prepare for fraud and deceit

I am revisiting the news that Dr. Tim Stone, chairman of KPMG's Global Infrastructure and Projects Group, has been appointed by Alistair Darling at the DTI to lead the development of arrangements for the costs associated with any decommissioning and waste management.

His brief is "to ensure that participants in nuclear new build deal with these costs". How effective will he be? Perhaps looking at his past might give us an idea.

KPMG and PFI

KPMG is an accountancy firm relied upon heavily by New Labour especially in connection with PPP/PFI schemes.

These are well documented (eg, in Private Eye) as being bad for public finances as they appear to be 'off the balance sheet' for the Treasury, yet commit taxpayers to decades of funding for what by then will be old infrastructure, eventually costing far more than they would have otherwise.

Stone's past

KPMG partner Dr Tim Stone was the Ministry of Defence’s adviser on the ‘Future Strategic Tanker’ PFI scheme, which is estimated to have a value in excess of £13billion. Under the scheme aerial tankers that enable planes from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to bomb targets in distant Iraq by refuelling them mid-air were supplied and partly staffed by private firms.

Stone is also a lead advisor on the £20billion Military Flying Training Services deal.

Stone advised the Department of Health on the PFI, while his company acts at the same time for firms bidding for hospital privatisation. KPMG advised on the first ever hospital PFI, at Dartford. The firm’s fees soared from an original £152,000 to £960,000.

The National Audit Office (NAO) found the scheme made no financial savings, but did reduce bed numbers.

In 2001, KPMG handled the figures on the PFI contract for the West Middlesex University Hospital in Isleworth. The NAO found that when KPMG worked out privatisation would be disproportionately expensive the accountancy practice discovered £12.5m of imaginary public-sector ‘risks’ so the sell-off could go ahead.

Stone has been heavily involved in many major acute hospital transactions, road and IT PFI deals, including the NHS' infamously wasteful and inefficient £3.2bn national IT programme and the similarly disastrous Department for Work & Pensions Accord deal which is the largest non-military IT procurement in Western Europe.

Involvement in fraud

In 2001 Xerox paid the US' Securities and Exchange Commission (Sec) $10m after admitting it had inflated its accounts by £3.9 billion between 1997 and 2000. Guess who passed the fraudulent books? Yep, KPMG, which was then also subject to a Sec investigation and in 2005 was ordered to pay $22m to settle the litigation.

In April 2002 a new auditor took over from KPMG at its client German software firm Comroad. It found that 97 per cent of Comroad's reported 2000 sales came from a non-existent company.

Also in 2002 KPMG paid $45m to creditors of German drilling firm FlowTex. A KPMG audit had approved the firm's books even though they were padded with pretend business.

Par for the course in the nuclear industry

Is this how the nuclear industry is going to appear to be dealing with all the costs of decommissioning?

It has a long and noble tradition of deceit and fraud, cover-up and evasion, not to mention cooking the accounts.

Darling evidently has found the perfect man to continue the tradition.

Nuclear energy continues to rise

Here's the global new nuclear picture:

Globally, nuclear power supplies are projected to grow 30% over the next 20 years with some two dozen power plants scheduled to be built or refurbished during the next five years.

China: eight new nuclear power stations under construction in 2006.

US & Russia: Presidents Bush and Putin announced significant new nuclear build programmes at recent G8 meetings.

These three countries will account for almost 38% of global nuclear output in 2010. By 2030, this is predicted to rise to over 45%. America’s share of total atomic production will slip to 26% during this period. China’s will increase from three percent to nine percent.

India: nine power plants under construction, including a fast-breeder reactor that generates its own fuel.

Pakistan: China is building its second of four power plants.

Canada: Last December, the Ontario Power Authority proposed plans to build 12 new nuclear plants. Bruce Power is to rebuild two other reactors.

Europe: New 1600-MW European PWRs are being built, one in Finland and one in France, with respective power-up dates of 2008 and 2012.

The failure of climate change initiatives will drive new nuclear power build, says Datamonitor.

The sham of a consultation

The Low Carbon Kid said from the start of the Energy Review 'consultation' that it was a sham and a foregone conclusion.

The Review was the reason for starting this blog. Now Greenpeace's courageous action in challenging the result has been vindicated by the High Court.

Greenpeace's Emma Gibson told the BBC: "The government's so-called consultation was a sham and we are very pleased the judge has agreed with us on that."

Mr Justice Sullivan said "something has gone clearly and radically wrong".

LibDem environment spokesman Chris Huhne said: "It's a real slap in the face for prime minister's sofa style of government."

Shadow trade and industry secretary Alan Duncan said: "The government has been shown up as fundamentally deceitful."

The government should immediately channel the money devoted to laying policy foundations and R&D in new nuclear power to the most promising emerging renewable technologies, in particular local power and marine energies.

There is no safe solution to nuclear waste.

Can I claim my £12m please Mr Branson?

The Low Carbon Kid has two ideas for reclaiming carbon from the atmosphere and locking it away - the subject of Richard Branson's technology challenge.

I'm afraid they're both fairly lo-tech, but hey, as long as they work, who cares? It makes them all the more easily implementable.

Here they are:

1. Grow trees, harvest the wood, turn it into charcoal, which is an inert form of carbon and won't decompose, and sell the charcoal as a soil conditioner to farmers and everyone with a garden. This solution is the subject of an article in the Jan/Feb issue of Renew, the publication of the Open University's NATTA, the independent national UK 'Network for Alternative Technology and Technology Assessment' (Though maybe not the online version). The solution is basd on research conducted in the Amazon rainforest where charcoal hundreds of years old has been discovered and analysed, and its usefulness as a soil stabiliser revealed. The charcoal, as I say, is a permanent lock-up for the carbon, and by selling the charcoal the scheme becomes self-financing.
2. Grow hemp and use it as a building material, mixed with lime to form 'hempcrete'. Hemp is fast growing and a very good absorber of atmospheric carbon. Once secure in the lime concrete, it gives the material great strength, and locks the carbon up for as long as the house exists. A conference is being held in April to discuss the technology at the Centre for Alternative Technology.

Can I have my money please Mr Branson?

One day, will it be an offence to exhale CO2?

The EC want to make environmental offences criminal and Gore and Branson want to reward someone for a wheeze for taking carbon out of the atmosphere.

Soon it will be an offence to exhale!

Not to mention fart.

I jest perhaps. But animals breathe and fart, and there are two climate change questions associated with this:

1. Methane from animals for human consumption contributes 5-10% of GHG globally (source: FAO.
2. Land use - it takes about two to four times as much land area to support a meat diet as opposed to a vegetarian diet. [Different sources give different estimates depending on the type of meat, its feed, the alternative possible land uses, not to mention the amount of meat in the diet.]

With increasing pressure on land for biofuels, we should be encouraged to eat less meat, regardless of whether it is organic.

Branson - Green?

Finally, can the man who runs an airline and founded a space tourism company really be green? £10m of his own money is poultry feed (sorry) and, for him, an investment to continue his carbon-profligate Catch-23 lifestyle and businesses.

He thinks if someoone can take the carbon out of the atmosphere that he puts in, it lets him off the eco-hook.

Wil he succeed?

Don't hold your breath. (But on the other hand, if we ALL held our breath...]

Technorati Tags: Energy; Environment; ClimateChange;

America still has way to go with investment in renewables

A lot of fuss is being made over the fact that Bush is allocating in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Fiscal 2008 budget, approximately $1.2 billion to the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy - up $60 million or 5 percent from 2007.

But that's chicken feed to what Germany is spending. Germans invested more than $10 billion in new sources of renewable energy last year, using the country's pioneering electricity feed law.

Given the huge difference in populations between these two countries, Germany spent $122 per head compared to $3.36 - more than 36 times more.

The new Declaration of Energy Independence sponsored by Southern States Energy Board (and the so-called 'American Energy Security Partnership') is full of ironies. That the 'Project for an American Century' should so soon turn into for a project for independence from the world (most American wars have been fought over oil), is wonderful.

But if it means mass exploitation of American oil fields that's not good for the environment - although at least it's American biodiversity that will suffer, not that in victimised countries like Iraq and Nigeria.

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange; Nuclear;

Why carbon offsetting should be a last resort

I've published a revised article on this topic here: Cyberium website

Local energy, especially renewable heat, needs more support - Gov Committee

The government should do more to support local energy, according to the House of Commons Trade and Industry Committee.

Preferring the term "local energy" to “microgeneration” because it "is easier to understand and less restrictive", it argues that "there is too much emphasis on electricity production and not enough on local heating schemes - household or community-based." Roughly 1.3 million homes replace gas boilers each year, and Centrica estimates that micro-CHP systems could displace as many as 30% by 2015. It suggests that new housing schemes be fitted with CHP district heating. Furthermore it complains that Government payback figures, particularly for solar water heating panels, are far too pessimistic.

It urges energy suppliers to offer local energy systems with energy efficiency measures as part of a package of services to customers. Planning restrictions on rooftop wind turbines and solar panels should be removed, incentives streamlined, and the electricity distribution firms must pay a proper market rate for any surplus produced by such systems.

It acknowledges thast most forms of local energy are not suitable for all locations or uses. Micro-wind power's potential is "in danger of being oversold", according to one witness, so the government must ensure adequate information is available to consumers.

It says smart metering will be an excellent tool for promoting energy efficiency and export measuring, and calls for a deadline of 1 July 2008 for establishing standards and interoperability and a national roll-out scheme as in Italy.

However, local energy "cannot make a significant contribution in the next decade to closing the capacity gap created by the decommissioning of coal-fired and nuclear power stations—local energy is not a panacea that will 'keep the lights on'."

> Download the report

Free power for all of America - available now!

A new MIT report says there's more than enough feasibly extractable hydrothermal energy in the US to generate the entire 27 trillion kilowatt-hours of energy consumed in the US in 2005.

It can be tapped with current technology and would last at least 2000 years.

> Read the report here

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange;

Please arise, a UK visionary company like this

I've just stumbled across an American company that has the perfect business model for installing domestic or business renewable energy.

It's an Energy Services Company (ESCo) model, that goes two steps further than either WindSave's model or the Woking Council model, in taking ALL the hassle out of having a renewable electricity supply for your building, while guaranteeing a price for 25 years that's competitive with brown electricity. Here's the blurb on their web site:

Citizenrē REnU program packages solar power for you in a simple and smart way. Plainly put, the Citizenrē Corporation pays for, installs, owns and operates the solar installation.

You don’t have to worry about maintaining the equipment or any of the other concerns that come with making an investment into solar power.

All you are required to do is pay for the electricity generated from these panels, at a fixed rate that is at or below your current electricity price, for up to twenty-five years.

Well. Small print aside, I'd buy that. Who wouldn't? A no risk, no hassle, service arrangement.

I hope this business model can work (I assume they've crunched their figures) we'll soon see some British companies try and roll a similar offer out.

> Go to Citizenrē's web site

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange;

Renewable energy grants

Two recently announced grants:

Support for biomass heat

If you want help with the installation of biomass-fuelled heat and combined heat and power projects in the industrial, commercial and community sectors, including local authorities and schools, you have until 9 March to apply for support.

The £10-15m Bio-energy Capital Grants Scheme is part of the Government response to the Biomass Task Force report.

> www.aea-energy-and-environment.com

Low Carbon Building grants

Applications for grants are now being accepted for Phase 2 of the DTI's Low Carbon Building Programme (LCPB) which will provide around £50M of grants over the next two to three years to encourage uptake of renewable energy technologies here in the UK.

Use this chickenfeed up fast and they'll see what demand there is.

> www.lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk

Technorati Tags: Energy; Environment; ClimateChange;

Nuclear power stations are at risk from rising sea levels - official

The Low Carbon Kid has always worried about the effect of global warming's projected sea level rises on nuclear power locations, which are often by the sea for remoteness and access to cooling water.

In the past, it has been impossible to get official reactions.

But now we have one, from the most reliable of sources - the weather men.

The Met Office officially acknowledge that rising sea-levels, increased wave height and increased storm surge height must all be considered in the planning of the UK's future nuclear stations.

Their report was commissioned by the debt-ridden nuclear power company British Energy. It concludes future power plants will need to be further inland and may need added protection.

The government is likely to release its criteria for possible sites in March.

Flood risk

At Sizewell in Suffolk, for example, site of Britain's most modern reactor, the prediction is for the most severe storm surges to be 1.7 metres higher in 2080 than at present. But that's only if the Greenland ice sheet doesn't melt. If it does, much of it will be underwater.

At Dungeness in Kent, the storm surge increase could be up to 0.9 metres. Already this plant, which is sited on land only two metres above sea-level, is protected by a massive wall of shingle which needs constant maintenance in the winter. Waves erode so much of it that it needs to be topped up constantly with 600 tons of shingle every day.

Met Office researcher Rob Harrison told the BBC, "very large potential changes are in prospect; what we're trying to do is avoid a catastrophic effect.

The rise in storm surge heights will be most extreme along the coast of south-east England.

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange; Nuclear;

Petition the PM about Trident

There are now many petitions on the Downing Street web site. And you can start one of your own. Is this e-democracy in action, or a PR exercise?

Whatever, if you feel like asking the Prime Minister to champion the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, by not replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system, whic currently has a lot of votes (9195) compared to other petitions, then please click here: petitions.pm.gov.uk/trident/.

More details from petition creator

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is the greatest defense humanity has against a world in which many countries seek to acquire nuclear weapons, and in which the probability of nuclear accidents and even nuclear terrorism is unacceptably high.

However, this treaty is greatly under threat. Kofi Annan has said: "If we want to avoid a cascade of nuclear proliferation, we need a major international effort to strengthen the regime before it is too late."

The UK could lead this international effort. To do so, we would have to renounce our nuclear weapons system, Trident.

This would be an historic decision; it would rank among the few truly moral actions ever carried out by a nation-state; and it would give the UK the moral standing needed to champion the Treaty and help turn the world back from possible catastrophe.

This petition therefore calls on the Prime Minister not to replace the Trident nuclear weapons system, and so to champion the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Technorati Tags: Nuclear;

'Doomsday Clock' hands to be moved

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to underscore 'Most Perilous Period Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki'.

Maybe - in view of the following and with Blair wanting to build a new generation of Trident missiles, and a new generation of nuclear power stations (the Environment Agency has just published its criteria for evaluating the 'environmental impact' of new build nuclear so it can be sped up) - it's time to join CND again. What do you think?

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS), a top level group of concerned academics and nuclear scientists founded in 1945 that includes Stephen Hawking, will move the minute hand of the 'Doomsday Clock' on January 17, tomorrow. This is the first such change to the Clock since February 2002, and marks a serious cocnern about world stability.

They are worried about a 'Second Nuclear Age' marked by grave threats, including:

• nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea
• unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere
• the continuing 'launch-ready' status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and Russia
• escalating terrorism, and
• new pressure from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks.

The BAS news event will take place simultaneously on January 17th at 9:30 a.m. ET at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., and at 2:30 p.m./1430 GMT in London at The Royal Society.

News event speakers will include:

• Stephen Hawking, professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of The Royal Society;
• Kennette Benedict, executive director, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists;
• Sir Martin Rees, president of The Royal Society, and professor of cosmology and astrophysics and master of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge;
• Lawrence M. Krauss, professor of physics and astronomy at Case Western Reserve University; and
• Ambassador Thomas Pickering, a BAS director and co-chair of the International Crisis Group.

A live, two-way satellite feed (with full Q&A) will connect the Washington, D.C., and London news events.

What is the clock?

In 1947 the Bulletin introduced its clock to convey the perils posed by nuclear weapons through a simple design. The Doomsday Clock evoked both the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero).

In 1949 Bulletin leaders realised that movement of the minute hand would signal the organization’s assessment of world events.

The decision to move the minute hand is made by the Bulletin's Board of Directors in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 18 Nobel Laureates.

The Bulletin's Doomsday Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to nuclear weapons and other threats. Additional information is available at www.thebulletin.org.

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange; Nuclear;

Chucking out the offsetting cowboys

Carbon offsetting is flavour of the month. As the Low Carbon Kid's always said, it's Catch-23 - having your cake and eating it.

Two reasons it doesn't work:

One: there are lots of scam compnies around, and it's unregulated.

The Government is expected to make an announcement on Thursday (day after tomorrow), setting standards for carbon offsetting schemes in the UK.

57 schemes are expected to fail and only 4 to comply with the new rules when they are announced.

Just goes to show how much green hot air there is around.

Two: It doesn't work anyway

I agree with those like Ed Gillespie who say cash payment to an offset company is actually counter-productive and represents a 'get out of carbon jail free' card.

I fear that carbon offsetting, rather than encourgaing 'carbon literacy' and increasing the transparency of our own personal carbon impacts, instead tends to absolve us of any moral responsibility or accountability to reduce our own carbon from air travel.

The end result being: "I've offset so it's OK to fly".

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange; Nuclear;

Tackling nuclear NIMBYs like me

The Government (DTI) has published a number of future scoping research papers commissioned from MORI/Ipsos, to help tell it what to do. Among them is one on how to tackle the anti-nuclear power movement.

It actually doesn't tell you much that any of us couldn't have told them. For example it says:

"Public resistance towards radioactive waste may lead to there being few, if any, acceptable domestic sites on land for storage/burial Governments and the waste managers may have to find alternative ways of disposal."

and: "This could either force the minimisation of use of nuclear resources (therefore driving the development and use of alternative energy sources), or drive companies to dispose of their waste in other locations without public knowledge."

It warns specifically that James Lovelock and other pro-nuclear 'environmentalists' can help swing public opinion.

And that the government should watch out for "increasing membership of anti-nuclear NGOs and other groups; decreasing support for nuclear power plants; and radioactive waste disposal companies unable to find suitable locations due to public outcry" as indicators that they may not be able to reach their nuclear targets.

It therefore advocates "campaigns to educate the public on real risks of radioactive waste; improving management of radioactive waste; and development of new methods for its disposal."

In terms of 'Parallels & Precedents' it mentions: "Nirex exposed as having identified 12 secret sites for radioactive waste disposal in England and Scotland; a number of incidents have occurred when nuclear waste was improperly disposed of in some cases, these incidents involve people being injured or killed due to the release of radioactive contamination."

Well. No-brainer or what?

See: the paper here.

On the same site are a number of other interesting papers on global warming including, bizarrely, "What would Jesus drive?: the birth of green spirituality and creation care".

Perhaps Tony thinks God can save us.

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange; Nuclear;

Green Bollocks Award for 2006 goes to Windsave

The Low Carbon Kid's Green Bollocks Award for 2006 goes to Windsave, David Cameron's and B&Q's friends who make wind turbines. They are pants.

The Low Carbon Kid has watched this company from the start. They are total crap.

They started off making physically impossible claims (due to the conservation of energy principle).

Then, when I questioned this, for two years wouldn't publish any specs.

Yet at the same time won over politically advantageous friends such as Brian Wilson, former energy minister and others close to the Scottish Executive to win backing.

Their sales literature only included photocollages of turbines on roofs.

I have questioned them at several NEMEX trade shows. Last time - when I pointed out how poorly sited a turbine was - I got some bullshit about things off frame I couldn't see compensating for it.

None of the reps ever seems to know how the things really perform - because they haven't been properly independently tested at BRE (to my knowledge).

I'm impressed by Mark Brinkley's blog on Windsave, which contains some good facts on how poorly they perform - there's so much misunderstanding and therefore misinformation about smallscale windpower.

This is going to cause a public backlash in the future when they find the reality doesn't match the hype.

(The same thing happened in the nineties when Greenpeace overhyped solar electric panels).

You want a proper and honest small scale windpower assessment, probably cheaper than rip-off Windsave? Talk to the master - Hugh Piggott at Scoraig.

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange;

McDonalds Biofuel Madness!

A German company is going to collect and import to Germany used cooking fat from French McDonalds burger bars, turn it into biofuel and send it to fuel British cars.

By the time the carbon cost of all that transport and processing is taken into account, just how low carbon is that fuel going to be?

Wouldn't it be better if people didn't use their cars to go to McDonalds and eat overpackaged crap food grown on trashed Amazon rainforest land in the first place and save all that trouble?

>> Read the Reuters report.

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange;

Shell booted out

As the Low Carbon Kid predicted on December 12 Gazprom has bought Shell out of the Sakhalin Energy group to snatch for Putin a controlling interest in oil and gas exploitation in that environmentally sensitive nature reserve.

It used as an excuse that Shell was breaching environmental law around the Pacific island of Sakhalin.

Now that the environment has been used as a political football for Putin's strategic games, let's see how many fresh abuses of green law the the World Conservation Union finds in the future, and their tactic will be exposed for the sham it is.

Yet another example of Russia's actual disdain for nature is exposed this week as Greenpeace International takes the government to court to prevent them destroying thousands of hectares of virigin forest as part of their bid for the Winter Olympics.

The least bad loser around Sakhalin - if we're lucky - is the environment in that area. But for how long?

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange

How green are 'green' electricity tariffs?

How green are 'green' electricity tariffs - and how honest are energy suppliers about what you get for your money and and what the environmental benefits really are?

We're often told that switching to a green tarriff is on of the simplest ways to cut carbon emissions from houses and workplaces.

But a study by the National Consumer Council shows that most green tariffs don't live up to the environmental benefits claimed.

The best ones are Good Energy and RSPB Energy from Scottish and Southern. Go there and switch now to reduce your carbon load on the planet!

But so only 1% of households have signed up to the renewable energy tarriffs - despite it being simple to do so - anybody can do it - reflecting the complex and confusing publicity and information from the utility companies.

So why don't they want you to join their schemes?

For instance, no supplier, whether 'green' or otherwise, makes it clear that every GB household is already supporting renewable electricity to the tune of £7 a year through their normal electricity bills (via the Renewables Obligation).

Also the complex rules that encourage all energy suppliers to source renewably can mean the electricity's 'greenness' is oversold (sold more than once). Even choosing a green tariff that offers to plant a tree would not contribute anywhere near enough to offset a household's carbon emissions.

Furthermore, good practice 'green supply' guidelines issued by the energy regulator Ofgem in 2002 are being patchily enforced.
The end result is that not enough NEW renewable energy is being installed.

Green Tarriffs examined

There are three distinct types of green tariff:

• a green electricity supply tariff, where the supplier guarantees that the electricity it sells to customers is covered by the electricity it buys from renewable sources, backed by the necessary contractual evidence; <..li>
• a green energy fund tariff, where the supplier invests the premium consumers pay into new renewable energy, or other environemental projects
• a carbon offset tariff, where suppliers offer to offset the CO2 emitted by the consumers' electricity and gas supply – by planting trees or by investing in other CO2-reducing projects in the UK or in developing countries. These are becoming more common.

Many tariffs are a hybrid of two or more of these types.

There is a cost to suppliers for providing consumers with 'additional' environmental benefits. To reflect this, suppliers will usually charge a premium for their green tariffs over the standard credit tariff. Consumers may also forego certain discounts that other customers enjoy.

Some suppliers will guarantee to match any premium consumers are paying.

In general, green tariffs with premiums can be expected to offer greater environmental benefits than those without.

The table below shows whether tariffs are based on green supply, a green fund or carbon offset, or a combination of these. It also shows whether or not each tariff attracts a premium over and above the standard credit tariff. It sets out the contractual evidence suppliers use to back up the tariff. This evidence is in the form of certificates issued under the various government instruments explained on page four.

	Green supply	Green Fund	Carbon Offset	Premium rate?	Backed by Renewable Electricity Guarantee of Origin?	Backed by retired Levy Exemption Certificates?	Backed by Renewables Obligation Certificates? (Ie, over the regulatory minimum?
British Gas – Climate Aware			x	x	n/a
British Gas – Green Electricity	x		x		x
EBICo - Equiclimate			x	x	n/a
Ecotricity – New Energy	x	x			x
Ecotricity – Old Energy	x			x	x	x
EDF Energy – Climate Balance	x		x	x	n/a
EDF Energy – Green Tariff	x	x		x	x	x
Good Energy	x		x	x	x	x
Green Energy – UK 100	x			x	x	x
Green Energy – UK 10	x				x	x
Npower – Juice	x	x			x	x
Powergen – GreenPlan	x	x		x	x	x
Scottish and Southern Energy – Power 2	x	x		x
Scottish and Southern Energy – RSPB Energy	x	x		x	x	x	x
Scottish Power – Green Energy Fund		x		x	x
Scottish Power – Green Energy H20	x				x

>> NCC's report 'Reality or rhetoric? green tariffs for domestic consumers' is here

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange; nuclear;

Who is the greenest of us all?

Who would you think? The old? The young?? Sun readers? Independent readers?

The answer is not what you'd expect. Below i examine three separate polls which give differing answers, but all agree on one thing - we don't do enough.

The Electricity Policy Research Group (EPRG) at the University of Cambridge commissioned YouGov to survey 1000 UK residents on issues ranging from the future of the electricity supply to their current purchasing decisions.

While climate change concerns are voiced most strongly among the young, Liberal Democrat voters and Guardian/Independent readers, these attitudes are not translated into personal action.

The poll showed, for example, that Guardian/Independent readers are no more likely to have taken any specific energy saving actions than tabloid readers, and are actually less likely to have insulated their homes.

Older people who are least concerned with climate change are also far more likely to have taken concrete action to save energy, including buying energy efficient light bulbs, insulating their homes and lowering their thermostats.

I think this is due to the fact that the old, and the poorer, are more likely to insulate due to the need to cut bills.

The survey revealed that while half of the respondents had changed electric or gas suppliers in the past five years, 90% cited reasons of price and just 4% claimed greener energy as the reason they switched.

The EPRG report ranked environment and fuel prices among the top ten issues facing the UK and placed climate change as the top environmental concern.

But another poll, conducted by YouGov two months ago of 2,455 adults, found those living in the West Midlands were the least likely to be green, whereas people in Yorkshire were most likely to engage in eco-friendly activities. The Green Net Apitude (GNA) scale was conceived by npower and Adrian White, a psychologist from the University of Leicester.

"People who are able to delay gratification - to invest in their future - are much more likely to make green choices," said White. "For example teachers have a high GNA score compared to estate agents who may be working in a culture of short-term commission."

This one found that, "perhaps surprisingly", drivers of gas-guzzling Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) were more inclined to recycle or use energy-efficient light bulbs than drivers of small "greener" cars.

The poll discovered significant support for investing in renewable energy, with over two-thirds of respondents saying they would support wind farms even if situated in their own locality.

Roughly half of the people surveyed by Cambridge supported the building of new nuclear power stations, provided they were based on existing sites. Surprisingly, one-third supported the establishment of new sites around the country.

Coal-power was considered the least popular energy option, although opinions improved when those surveyed learnt more about developments in carbon dioxide capture and storage technologies.

But yet another poll, an 'old Europe'-wide Harris poll published by the Financial Times last month, found 85% in favour of their governments spending more on renewable energy. In France and Spain, more than 90% backed increased investment in renewables.

In Europe, the debate on global warming is over. Even in the UK, the most sceptical country, 77% believe human activity is contributing to climate change, and in the other four countries polled the proportion is close to 90%.

There is "significant resistance" to the idea of building more nuclear power stations across old Europe. Only 30% "strongly or somewhat" support building new nuclear plants, while 46% oppose it.

However, when asked about costs, just 5% say they would pay over a week's wages to fight global warming, and 33% wouldn't pay anything.

Dr David Reiner, Course Director of the MPhil in Technology Policy at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge and author of the Cambridge report, said: “There is a real engagement among the British public on questions of energy and environment, particularly over climate change. There is a willingness to support government policies, but even those groups that are the strongest supporters of policy action do not translate this support into their personal energy saving behaviour. They show a clear divergence between their views as citizens and their actions as consumers.”

So although all three polls disagree on exactly what we do, they all agree that we care, but we don't do enough.

My conclusion? The government should just make it harder and harder for us to conduct wasteful and polluting activities by removing that element of choice.

Ban wasteful and inefficient goods, and tax heavily climate-harming actions like air flights.

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange; Nuclear;

Tools for Tanzania

Wanted: Tools for Tanzania
We've just had a flying visit from Joseph Sekiku, who runs Fadeco, a grassroots development project in NW Tanzania. This remote area of Tanzania is informally twinned with the Dyfi Valley where i live.

I'm chair of Friends of Fadeco, which i and some friends started eight years ago after I visited the region and met Joseph.

Joseph is a beautiful man after my own heart, a total inspiration, modest and visionary, and supremely resourceful as Africans have to be.

He is one of three people in an area the size of Wales with a population of 500,000 that have a degree. Most are illiterate and subsistence growers.

I am fully aware of the dangers and ambiguities of much so-called 'development', but we support Joseph's work because it is appropriate, sensitive, and necessary.

In particular we are now supporting the building and fitting out of a training centre - The Eden Centre for Sustainability. They need equipment to train people so they can become self-reliant, and gain an income.

Tools for Self-Reliance is making a delivery to the area in January 2007. We want to get as many tools as possible on this trip. The tools they need are:

Sewing machines: treadles, hand or even electric; carpentry sets: saws, planes, etc; mechanics tools: spanners, car jacks, ladders, wielding tools, soldering tools; masonry tools: brick making machines, trowels, squares, tape measures. etc. A 4X4 motor cycle which can pull a small trailer.

Please donate anything you can.

If you're local perhaps you can leave them at in Machynlleth: Peter Harper/Andy Rowland's houses (21 Heol Pentrahedyn, Machynlleth) or Taliesin: Flic and Richard's /Temperance House or Corris: mine (Glanydon, by the bridge). Or we can pick them up. Someone can then take them all down to TFSR Crickhowell (Is anyone going that way in January?).

If you're not local, TFSR has many local branches. Or go to the FoF web site - link above - and join/make a donation.

We're also supporting a radio station - Joseph has just got a licence from the govt. If anyone has a transmitter, or can donate £1000 to buy one. This would allow the broadcasting of vital health and ecological information to an illiterate and rural population otherwise unreachable.

Thanks!

Shell in deep water

Gazprom is now saying it could land a $30bn damages claim at Shell's door.

The deputy head of Russia's energy agency, Gazprom, Oleg Mitvol, has repeatedly accused Shell of breaching environmental law on the Pacific island of Sakhalin where it's exploiting a massive oil field in a highly environmentally sensitive area.

Accusations include illegal forest clearance, dumping soil in rivers and polluting one of the island's bays.

It won't be the first time Shell has made a mess of a beautiful place - cf Nigeria.

The Royal Dutch Shell-led Sakhalin Energy group also includes Japan's Mitsui and Mitsubishi.

But I believe the environment is a convenient football here, and the real goal of the Kremlin is to make billions and take better control of its energy assets for the sake of a higher profile on the global political stage.

When it flogged off its energy assets in the early '90s the deals weren't what it now thinks it can get. Russia does not receive the full benefit until Strategic International investors receive the cost of their investments back in full.

Shell was claiming a large increase in costs, thereby deferring further the profit Russia wants, even though the costs were probably at least partly justified.

Investors in Russia must align themselves with the government. The Kremlin sees the future for Russia's global dominance very largely in energy terms.

Elsewhere in Russia, for example in the selling off of millions of hectares of virgin forest to China, we can tell that Russia dosn't give a damn for the environment.
In this battle royal between two giants, we can only hope that the environment - and with it the Western Pacific gray whales that use the seas around Sakhalin for mating - is, even if incidentally, a winner.

And by the way full marks to IUCN for keeping watch and alerting us to the damage. And to Greenpeace for forcing Russia to make 74,400 hectares of ancient forest the ‘Kalevalski National Park’.

The creation of this new national park, which plays a vital role in preserving the biodiversity of northern Europe, marks the culmination of an eleven-year-long campaign by Greenpeace and conservation groups in Russia.

The less oil you use, the healthier our planet is.

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange;

Llwybr Diogel i Benegoes - Safe Route for Penegoes

We're supporting this campaign to put pedestrians and cyclists first over road vehicles!

Only a slightly greener shade of Brown

The Chancellor's Pre-Budget Report announced a package of environmental measures, but revealed that the greening of Gordon Brown is still a work very much in progress.

It included a doubling of all rates of Air Passenger Duty, an ambition that all new homes to be zero carbon within a decade, with a time-limited stamp duty exemption for the majority of zero-carbon homes, and plans to make the City the hub for a mature global emissions trading market.

But the rise in air passenger duty is unlikely to put enough people off flying, or reverse steeply rising emissions from aviation unless the revenue is reinvested in improving energy efficiency.

The stamp duty waiver will only affect a fraction of the market in new homes.

There was no carrier-bag tax and no VAT relief on carbon-friendly goods and services.

The measures add up to much less than the 1% of GDP on preventive measures advocated by Sir Nicholas Stern.

Gordon has taxed the poor and left the rich alone.

If he really wanted to make his mark as a true socialist, he would have taxed the Chelsea Tractors, multiple car owners, raised the lower threshold for stamp duty and added an extra band at the top.

This would tax the people that could afford it - but he is frightened of upsetting them. Brown as Prime Minister - not something I'm looking forward to.

Why didn't we get lower Council Tax and Stamp Duty for greener houses (apart from new, zero-carbonn ones) and higher ones for wasteful homes, and adjustment of the rates of VAT and Planning Gain Supplement for developers who build homes to high environmental standards, as called for by the cross-party Environmental Audit Committee, led by Tim Yeo?

Levels of R&D expenditure in the UK are among the lowest in Europe for low carbon tech. Much more funding from a revised Renewbales Obligation needs to go into developing and installing renewable technologies, especially in the marine and offshore wind sectors.

APD (aviation tax) is a "blunt instrument" that does not differentiate between the relative carbon-efficiency of different flights.

APD could be levied per flight, rather than per passenger. Differential landing fees could be introduced, which could be used to complement a reformed and increased APD by specifically targeting the fuel efficiency of different models of aircraft.

Part or all of the revenue generated should be put towards investment in improving rail services and to accelerating the development and introduction of more energy efficient aircraft designs.

And why are airport vehicles are allowed to run on [untaxed] "red diesel"? Although it is true that these do not run on public roads, given that airports are major sources of both carbon emissions and air pollution.

Finally, carbon offsetting payments should be a compulsory charge on all airline tickets.

Unbelievably, the Department for Transport does not quantify the carbon emissions resulting from transport as a sector in its PSA.

Yet the Department is able to claim credit for being on course to meet the UK's Kyoto target, even while presiding over the worst performing sector of the economy in terms of trends in emissions.

The existing differentials in VED between different categories of cars should have been widened substantially. Gordon has abandoned the fuel duty escalator even though it has played an important role in helping to reduce the increase in CO2 emissions from road transport.

The Department for Transport does not intend to reinstate the Low Carbon Bus Grant programme. So how is it going to incentivise bus operators to introduce low carbon vehicles on a large scale?

For the record, below is a summary of all the new 'green' initiatives in PBR2006:

Aviation

From February, air passenger duty on flights to the EU - 75% of all flights - will double from £5 to £10. Duty on long-haul flights for the lowest class of travel will rise from £20 to £40 while business-class trips to destinations outside the EU jump from £40 to £80.

The scope of the European rates of air passenger duty will also be widened to include all of the signatories to the European Common Aviation Area Agreement, from 1 February.

Emissions Trading

In parallel with talks with the French Finance Ministry (on economic instruments around climate change, particularly to improve the EU ETS) and the New Zealand Government (on emissions trading), the Government will bring together leading City and international players to examine the accounting, legal and institutional steps needed to support a mature planet-wide emissions trading market.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)

The Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) is to tender for engineers to evaluate the costs of a CCS demonstration plant, and the best development route - for example a challenge fund. Meanwhile the UK and Norway hope to have completed by July a study into the infrastructure, market framework and value chain are needed to transport and store carbon dioxide below the North Sea.

Microgeneration

The Finance Bill 2007 will excuse from income tax any revenue generated by small scale renewable technologies on homes, in order to support wider uptake.

Climate change levy (CCL)

CCL rates will increase in line with inflation from 1 April to maintain the levy's environmental impact. The new rates will be:
• Electricity 0.441p per KWh
• Gas 0.154p per KWh
• LPG 0.985p per kg
• Solid fuels 1.201p per kg

Energy Efficiency Commitment (EEC)

New investment of £7.5 million goes to Warm Front and the Energy Efficiency Commitment to allow 300,000 more households to receive free insulation and central heating.

By the end of 2008, the Chancellor said 2.7m homes would have been insulated through the Warm Front scheme.

The Winter Fuel Allowance for pensioners will also be continued, but not increased. Households with somebody aged over 60 will receive £200 and those aged over 80 will receive £300. But consumer champion energywatch expressed disappointment that there are still many fuel poor who "appear to have been ignored".

Energy efficiency in buildings

The Treasury is still investigating whether an energy services model for delivering greater efficiencies can be achieved. So it is looking into ways of
financing energy audits and other energy-saving measures.

It hopes, via the Code for Sustainable Homes, that by 2016 all new homes will be 'zero-carbon'. Stamp duty will therefore be abolished for most new zero-carbon homes.

For the rented sector, it plans to expand the Landlords Energy Saving Allowance (LESA) to corporate landlords, its sunset clause from 2009 to 2015, and extend its allowance of up to £1,500 for cavity wall and loft insulation to each property rather than each building, including floor insulation in the measures to be compensated for.

In the public sector, higher standards are to be explored for new and refurbished schools to reduce their carbon emissions by up to 60% over existing standards, and in some cases up to carbon neutrality.

Road transport

A 1.25p per litre increase in petrol duty for unleaded fuel, in line with inflation, the first increase since 2003.

Mr Brown ruled out a return to the fuel duty escalator that used to imposed inflation-beating increases each year, much to the dismay of environmentalists and the Environmental Audit Committee. The differential with LPG is reduced by 1p but compressed natural gas (CNG) keeps its differential.

The Treasury is looking at extending the current duty incentive for biogas - equivalent to almost 40p per litre - and will update the position at Budget 2007.

Regulations to ensure the widespread availability of sulphur-free diesel and sulphur-free 'super' grades of petrol will enter into force in late 2007.

The 20p per litre fuel duty differential for biofuels will be extended to enable a pilot involving the use of biomass in conventional fuel production to go ahead. The definition of biofuels will be amended to include biodiesel that is capable of being blended in excess of 5%.

A rate of 7.69p per litre will apply to biofuels used on the railways, as operators are to conduct pilot schemes exploring their use in trains.
On company cars, the government is looking at the case for incentivising the take-up of 'flex-fuel' vehicles, capable of using high-blend bioethanol E85.

Critics complained that the existing differentials in VED between different categories of cars were not widened.

The Environmental Audit Committee pointed out that the Department for Transport does not quantify the carbon emissions resulting from transport as a sector in its PSA.

Yet the Department is able to claim credit for being on course to meet the UK's Kyoto target, even while presiding over the worst performing sector of the economy in terms of trends in emissions.

This was not changed in the PBR, nor was the fact that airport vehicles are allowed to run on [untaxed] "red diesel".

'Chelsea Tractors' escaped the higher tax measures many had expected, in light of falling sales of 4x4 cars, said Mr Brown.

Waste

Landfill Tax is to be increased from 1 April by £3 to £24 per tonne, and may increase more steeply from 2008 onwards, or go beyond the £35 per tonne already committed to for the medium to long-term. The Aggregates Levy will be extended for a further year (2007-08).

> Read the Report

Technorati Tags: Energy; Environment; ClimateChange;

Planning overhaul would an improvement for the environment

The Barker Review, by Bank of England policymaker Kate Barker on planning regulations for England, has put sustainability at the heart of the planning system, identifying planning as playing a vital role in the mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

Kate Barker said rooftop wind turbines to cut carbon dioxide emissions should not be hindered by planning laws, and planning permission should take account of future flooding from climate change.

Planning applications should be approved unless there were strong reasons against them - streamlining the planning process could save businesses and local authorities hundreds of millions of pounds. The Review argues that "Statements of Strategic Objectives" should be drawn up for energy, transport, waste proposals and strategic water proposals (such as new reservoirs).

These should be given locations or areas where they might be built, using the term "spatially specific", "to give greater certainty and reduce the time taken at inquiry discussing alternative sites. Regional Spatial Strategies and local plans should reflect these national Statements and indicate, in particular, where regional facilities are needed."

The British Wind Energy Association welcomed the proposal as it would substantially reduce the waiting time for approval, currently an average of 15 months. The Review called for:
• a rapid increase in the turnaround of planning decisions
• an increase in planning resources to reflect changing priorities
• ring-fencing business rates for local communities
• permitted development rights for micro-wind installations.

The Review will now be considered by the Treasury which said that "in the context of the increased competitive climate caused by globalization the Government is committed to further reform, to ensure that planning delivers the development that England needs."

> Barker Review

Technorati Tags: Energy; Environment; ClimateChange;

Boxer to fight for action

The California Senator who helped steer through July's groundbreaking legislation on climate change, Barbara Boxer, has replaced the denialist Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe as head of the influential US Senate environmental committee.

This means at last there may be a breakthrough on the international negotiations for caps on carbon emissions under Kyoto, stalled for years by Bush regime oil-interest negativisim.

Perhaps the best news for the environment for five years, Boxer has already promised major policy shifts on global warming, air quality and toxic-waste cleanup.

She was a co-sponsor of the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act. She said on Aug 31 when California introduced caps on emissions:

"California's bill has a goal of a 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020. Senator Jeffords’ bill [which she co-sponsored] shares this goal, and then continues with an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

“President Bush has not only failed to act, he is actively trying to stop California’s efforts to control global warming emissions from automobiles.

“The risks are too great to turn our back on this serious problem. The federal government should follow California’s lead in addressing global warming, for the health of our economy and the future of our country.”

Perhaps now it can.

This pint-sized Boxer packs a punch alright.

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange;

Cracks in the cores of nuclear reactors in the UK

A Nuclear Installations Inspectorate documents publicised yesterday state that cracks in the graphite cores of nuclear power stations across the UK are leading to serious safety concerns.

See:

http://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/releases/hinkleyb2.htm
>>http://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/releases/hink2b.pdf
http://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/releases/hink2c.pdf
http://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/releases/hink2d.pdf

Dr John Large report:
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/MultimediaFiles/Live/FullReport/7810.pdf

Technorati Tags: Energy; Environment; Nuclear;

£60m solar energy boost for Wales

G24i - one of the global leaders in the production of solar energy - is investing £60 million in a revolutionary solar panel production plant that will create 300 highly skilled jobs at Wentloog Park in Cardiff.

The plant will be the UK 's first zero carbon manufacturing facility.

Cardiff Council has signalled that it wants to make the city a world-class centre for renewable energy technology. The Welsh Assembly government has given much support but the project does not involve any public money.

It is the biggest single investment in Wales since 1999.

The plants's product, thin film dye sensitised solar cells for which G24i has bought the licence, can be made into small plastic foil or film patches for use on clothing or products, or into much larger surface areas up to the size of a roof top. Tthe initial market is expected to be for mobile consumer led products such as mobile phone chargers, smart textiles (incorporating the technology into fabrics), emergency and homeland security applications, MP3 players, laptop computers and handheld game consoles.

G24i plans to begin manufacturing early in 2007. 200 Megawatts (MW) of production capability will be on stream by the end of 2008.

Paul Turney, Chief Executive of G24i, said: “With the tremendous global explosion in the use of mobile electronic devices, there is a huge untapped market for G24i’s ground-breaking technology and products that will provide individuals with the opportunity to personally contribute to mitigating climate change on our planet.”

> G241

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange

The naked truth about renewables

Women come clean - calendar girls go naked for green power

Awel Aman Tawe is launching its 2007 Calendar. AAT is a community energy project in the Upper Swansea and Amman Valleys. It aims to contribute to local regeneration and implementation of Agenda 21 objectives through the development of 'Community Energy Schemes'.

It is in the style of Calendar Girls - nothing too rude, but it's fun, informative, practical and a little bit saucy. Each month features a different renewable energy or energy saving technology.

The naked truth is that climate change is the biggest threat we face, and the most important cause is our burning of fossil fuels for energy. The time for action is now. Make 2007 your year for clean energy and enjoy 12 months of saucy yet informative displays of renewable energy and energy effi ciency measures that you can implement. Are you ready to embrace the revolution?

‘Natural Power’ Calendar 2007.

> AAT website

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange

Nuclear - bad for business?

British Energy shares have suffered dramatically in the last two days as reports confirm multiple problems affecting most of its plants across the UK.

This is heaping even more pressure onto the already shaky financial status of the company, and casts further doubt on the viability of an industry already hugely subsidised by the taxpayer.

British Energy has confirmed that it is to close some of its nuclear plants, including Hunterston, due to cracks in boilers and in coolant pipes. The company has admitted that only one of its plants, Torness, appears to be working 'normally'.

British Nuclear Group which operates Sellafield, was also fined £500,000 yesterday for pollution.

For further information on the impact these multiple problems are having on the viability of the nuclear industry see: The Guardian and Reuters.

South Scotland Green MSP Chris Ballance has demanded a report on the state of Torness nuclear plant in East Lothian. Although not as old as Hunterston it is the same reactor design. He is calling for the company and the Nuclear Inspectorate to make the latest results publicly available as soon as possible.

Chris Ballance MSP, Green speaker on nuclear issues said: "This incident, the latest in a long string of problems, emphasises the cost and dangers of relying on nuclear power for electricity needs. When something goes wrong, it really can go badly wrong, both in terms of the environment and for the already disastrous finances of nuclear power. I want assurance that checks are being made at Torness, and for a report to be made publicly available without delay."

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange; Nuclear;

Renewables - good for business?

A study into the performance achieved by investors in low-carbon energy technology companies in Europe has shown an average annualised return of 86.7% per annum.

The European Clean Energy Venture Returns Analysis (ECEVRA), which was commissioned by the organisers of the European Energy Venture Fair, looked at the returns achieved by a sample of 19 investors who had invested in 57 companies in the sector since 1999. Among the other key findings were the following:

• Of 57 portfolio companies sampled, five had completed an Initial Public Offering (IPO) and three had been sold to a trade buyer. This group of companies had produced an average annualised return of 476% for their investors
• A further nine had undergone a second or subsequent venture investment round at a higher valuation, yielding an average annual return (on paper) of 14.9%.
• Six companies had been liquidated, with the majority of money invested being lost.
• The remaining 34 portfolio companies had not undergone any subsequent investment round, and so were valued for the purpose of the study at the same value as at the time of the initial investment. Many of these were quite recent investments, and could prove highly attractive.
• The 57 companies in the sample had raised a total of €130.8m of venture capital money, and €449m in follow-on funding from the public markets.
• The companies in the sample have created a total of 2,700 direct jobs.
• It is estimated that in total European venture capital-backed clean energy companies have created a total of just under 9,000 direct jobs and a total of 24,000 direct and indirect jobs in the European economy.

On the other hand, in the States, whereas in 2005 solar stocks outperformed the average NASDAQ stock by an amazingly wide margin -- almost 100 times, despite California passing major pro-solar legislation and state after state following suit, as of the end of the 3rd quarter, solar has been was one of the worst market sectors to be invested in.

- Average Loss for US solar stocks in 2006 = -11.98%
- Average Gain for Leading US Indexes in 2006 = +6.13%.

According to Wall Street analyst J. Peter Lynch "the solar sector is currently oversold and is certainly due for at least a technical "bounce" up. But it is still suffering from short-term emotions and fears. There is no doubt in my mind that the future of the solar industry is brighter than ever. As with any new industry, there will initially be greater volatility and will more than likely be more losers than winners."

In the longer run the Low Carbon Kid expects a shake-out rather as has happened in the internet sector - small companies pioneering the way, but we end up with a few giants at the end, and these may well be the traditional oil giants, reconfigured. After all, they've got the capital and muscle.

The question is, how green will they really be?

> www.newenergyfinance.com
Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange; Nuclear;

Can biofuels reduce climate change emissions?

It is often claimed that biofuels are carbon-neutral because when they are burnt they only release the CO2 that was already in the atmosphere.

There are, however, considerable CO2 emissions from the refinery and distillery process needed to produce biodiesel or bioethanol, as well as from transport, the use of farm machinery, and fertilizer production.

Biodiesel in particular is linked to high emissions of the potent and long-lasting greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, which is released by microbes when nitrogen fertilizers are applied to soils, and also during the production of nitrogen fertilizers. Some, though not all studies, also link biodiesel to higher tailpipe emissions of nitrous oxide and nitrogen oxide. Nitrogen oxide is a precursor to tropospheric ozone, a strong but short-lived greenhouse gas.

And, finally, there are emissions of CO2 from soils as more land is put under the plough.

SE Asia Peat Fires

An urgent email alert run by Ecological Internet urges people to support strong international action against the destruction of peat forests in south-east Asia. Peat drainage and burning is linked to palm oil and timber expansion and logging and is a major contributor to global warming. Emails must be sent before 4th November.

NPower and Palm Oil

Npower (RWE) want to burn palm oil from SE Asia - linked to deforestation, evictions, human rights abuses, and to peat and forest fires causing around three times the greenhouse gas emissions that the Kyoto Protocol is meant to save. Tell Npower to drop their plans!

Thanks to email and letter-writing campaigns, all major UK supermarkets have now agreed to join Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.

More: www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

Parliamentary Lobby 28 November 2006

Oppose the Government’s proposal that ‘nuclear has to play a role in the future UK generating mix’.

Come to the mass lobby and join some of the leading experts on nuclear issues in persuading MPs to oppose some of the provisions in the forthcoming Energy White Paper.

Mass Lobby of Parliament : 28 November 2006
- Book to see your MP in Portcullis House (or Houses of Parliament)
- Invite her/him to listen to presentations in:
The Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House, Westminster, 1-5pm
Full lobby information available from:
info@NuclearPowerNoThanks.org
www.NuclearPowerNoThanks.org
Tel. 01603 631007
The Greenhouse, 42-46 Bethel Street, Norwich NR2 1NR.

Four Crucial Themes

Introduced by Ian Gibson, MP
- The Way Forward: decentralisation, renewables and energy conservation (1-2pm): Allan Jones, MBE, Prof Sue Roaf and Dr Rajat Gupta; chaired by Michael Meacher MP
- Nuclear Economic Liabilities (2-3pm): Antony Froggatt and David Lowry; chaired by Chris Huhne MP
- Nuclear: not the solution to climate change (3-4pm): Dr Kevin Andersen and Dr Bridget Woodman; chaired by Tim Yeo MP
- The Nuclear Nightmare: contamination and proliferation (4-5pm): by Dr Frank Barnaby, Dr Kate Hudson and Dr Rebecca Johnson; chaired by Hywel Thomas MP

Low energy lighting - the challenges

The energy used in lighting worldwide could be 80% higher in 2030 than today if no action is taken to hold back the expected surge in demand, according to the International Energy Agency.

But, says its executive director Claude Mandil, "if we simply make better use of today's edition lighting technologies and techniques, the global demand need be no greater than today."

Lighting currently consumes more electricity than is produced by either hydro or nuclear power and results in carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to about 70% of the world's cars.

At the G8's Gleneagles summit of July 2005 the IEA was asked to come up with recommendations for lighting efficiency. It found in a report published a year later that lighting is routinely supplied to spaces where no one is present and/or far brighter than it needs to be.

Even more savings could be realised through the intelligent use of controls, lighting levels and daylight. Mandil says that following such simple measures would save more than 16,000 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and 2,600 billion US dollars through reduced energy and maintenance costs.

The International Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL) Harmonisation Initiative is seeking a single international testing method to measure energy efficiency, which will reduce manufacturing cost, make it easier for manufacturers to sell their products throughout the world, and facilitate more effective regulation.

This should help promote universal market penetration of the bulbs.

Light Emitting Diodes

Light emitting diodes (LEDs) are much more efficient than even CFLs, and will last a lot longer. The Market Transformation Programme (MTP) has estimated that LED lighting in homes could save 12.7 terawatt hours per annum by 2020.

Despite this, in countries like the UK, the choice of which lamp to buy is not so much based on running costs as on style. If LEDs are to make an impact on the domestic lighting market policies will need to be developed that will encourage synchronous development of them together with the luminaires that use them.

Manufacturers will not start to use LEDs in their designs unless they are encouraged to.

LEDs have several major benefits: they are long-lived, they provide the kind of sparkle light effect popular in the home, and they already exceed the energy efficiency of tungsten filament and trunks and halogen lamps.

If a luminaire is well-designed, the bulbs can last for all the usable lifetime of the luminaire itself. This means from a builder's point of view, they can be placed in inaccessible places. Even fittings used for six to eight hours a day would last between 17 and 20 years.

The drawback with CFLs is that even the "warm white" lamps have a colder appearance than GLS bulbs. It is partly for this reason that tungsten halogen lamps have made large intrusions into domestic lighting, and also office lighting.

However the newest white light LEDs are giving about 70 lumens per watt, expected to rise to 160 by 2020.

The MTP hopes that the Lighting Association's DEELs programme can be extended to include LED luminaires.

A good DEEL in the UK

Over £3,500,000 of The Lighting Association's DEELS (Domestic Energy Efficient Luminaire Scheme) subsidies have been claimed so far, equivalent to over 706,000 energy efficient products in the marketplace.

DEELS enables the retail of energy efficient luminaires at the same competitive price as conventional (GLS) luminaires. This gives the more energy conscious customer an increasing variety of designs at realistic prices, whilst saving on their energy costs. The manufacturers of the lights are subsidised per lamp and ballast used in each approved product.

In addition, over 928,000 energy efficient lamps have been supplied by the Energy Efficient Lamp Scheme (EELS) for independent retailers. This is because independent stores could not compete with major retailers on price where compact fluorescent lights are concerned. The Lighting Association therefore purchases them wholesale just like a large company such as IKEA, which is able to sell them for under £1.

This scheme establishes a competitive route to market for energy efficient lamps. Assured that the lamps are of the highest quality, retailers also have a large choice of styles, including stick, look-a-like, candle look-a-like, halogen and a variety of wattage and cap types.

Technorati Tags: Energy; Environment; ClimateChange;

Stop Climate Chaos march/cycle protest timetable

10.00am Cycle protest assembles at Lincoln's Inn Fields, South side (Holborn/Temple tube). Goes via ExxonMobil offices, Australian Embassy and Downing Street to arrive at US embassy at 11.30 am.

11.00am Rally opens : Messages from around the world, performance poetry & musical protest with "Seize the Day" and others.

12 noon Main Rally at US Embassy, Grosvenor Square. Speakers include George Monbiot, Colin Challen MP, Caroline Lucas MEP, Norman Baker MP, Zac Goldsmith.

1.00 pm March for Global Climate Justice from US embassy to Trafalgar Square

1.45 - 2.00 pm March joins i-Count's Mass Gathering in Trafalgar Square

1.00 - 3.00pm i-Count Mass Gathering in Trafalgar Square

Stop climate chaos are limiting their activities to the UK but the march organisers, CCC, are keen on international solidarity, more on: http://www.campaigncc.org/.

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange; Nuclear;

From cardboard to caviar - an exemplary sustainable winner

A novel closed-loop project, which converts waste cardboard into valuable Siberian sturgeon and caviar with the help of socially disadvantaged groups and energy from a renewable source, has won an award and is the type of project that warms the carbon-free cockles of the Low Carbon Kid's heart.

The Green Business Network’s (GBN’s) ABLE project at Caldervale sewage treatment works in Wakefield is a partnership with Yorkshire Water, East Wakefield Primary Care Trust, and West Yorkshire Probation Service for the regeneration of a 34 acre former landfill site. It has won the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management’s (CIWM) inaugural ‘Innovative Practice in Wastes Management and Resource Recovery Award 2006’.

Siberian sturgeon and caviar are produced from waste cardboard that is first shredded for animal bedding. The used bedding is composted using worms, and excess worms are fed to the sturgeon. In the future, worms from food composted on site will also be used. The project provides training to aid in the rehabilitation of offenders recovering from substance misuse.

The output of composted sludges from the sewage treatment works will be used to grow willow, which will then be burnt as a biofuel to heat water in the fish tanks, saving Yorkshire Water and the environment the cost of its transport. In addition, along with many other activities, the project will create a 3km wildlife trail using recycled plastic groundblocks, manufactured by Intruplas Ltd, a recycling company previously set up by the GBN. The path will also use recycled glass substrate.

The project is a superb win-win-win demonstration of sustainable development, providing training and development of job skills for groups from the probation service and youngsters from across the West Yorkshire area in danger of being excluded from school. They will receive training in aquaculture, horticulture, land and countryside management and will grow plants and vegetables in planters made from recycled plastic again from Intruplas. Fencing from the company will also be used around the site.

Project Manager, Graham Wiles explained: “The project conserves the resources of today for use tomorrow. At the same time it uses those resources as a catalyst for the training and education of disadvantaged people, enabling them to be integrated back into society. Some of these people have severe learning difficulties and the horticultural side is extremely beneficial”.

> www.greenbusinessnetwork.org.uk

Technorati Tags: Energy; Environment; ClimateChange;

Micro CHP - bringing power to the masses?

Those in favour of Micro CHP argue that it has the power to be a disruptive heating technology, because of its revolutionary impact in getting so much more for less. But how effective is it?

Micro CHP is considered to be anything up to about 10kW, although the larger models are generally sold to small businesses such as restaurants. At the lower end, a 1kW model called Ecowill has sold very well in Japan -- in the last financial year 10,000 units were shipped. Manufacturer Delta estimates that 16,000 units were sold in 2005, representing about 31MW of generating capacity. Although only five companies offer products on a commercial basis, several others express confidence that they will have a product ready for the market by next year or the following year. Micro CHP markets may see an exponential growth over the next three to five years, enthusiasts say.

But critics argue that the technology is still untested. Units, typically the size of a fridge, can sit in the kitchen and run continuously in order to provide heat and electricity. Running on gas, they share the same advantages as large scale CHP -- in other words more benefit for the same amount of gas. Nevertheless, the units are expensive with a long payback time, although recent legislation in the UK may help to reduce this is especially if surplus electricity can be exported back to the grid.

Does it really save carbon?

A study at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh of residential micro CHP (Stirling engine) in four different climate conditions concluded that there was a slight benefit - 0.4 to 0.8 tonnes per year of carbon per kilowatt, depending on the technology. This depended to some extent on the coincidence of the demand for heat and the demand for electricity; and whether it was possible to store excess electricity or export it to the grid and gain carbon credits for doing so. This was highlighted as being particularly desirable for future policy change. The tick-over gas usage and power management regime would also need to be tightly controlled in order to ensure the carbon benefits required.
Jon Slowe of Delta argues that a Stirling engine product costs around £600 more than a conventional boiler but will save between £100 and £200 a year.

Looking slightly further into the future, fuel cell driven micro CHP will be a more efficient option, and is being introduced in Japan now. This is likely to have a much better carbon impact. Government support is required to encourage mass production of units and therefore bring the price down.

Mark Hinnells, at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, has modelled a whole series of policy initiatives leading to a 60% reduction in the carbon impact of our homes by 2050 which include the promotion of fuel cell powered CHP.

Additionally, if you think about it, running one of these units is like leaving the motor of car running continuously -- therefore in an expected lifetime of say 13 years, if it were a car, it would be travelling many hundreds of thousands of miles – like going to the moon and back several times. Moving parts wear out, and therefore maintenance might be expected to be expensive (accelerated testing is being conducted). Service agreements will therefore need to be entered into by consumers with a cost impact similar to those currently used for gas combi boilers.

Micro CHP in the short term is therefore expected to establish itself only in niche markets. More aggressive growth is possible towards the end of the decade if HVAC manufacturers engage more firmly with the technology. Hinnells argues that the only way this is like this to happen on a large scale is if energy service companies (ESCOs) take up the management of energy in the home and implement Micro CHP on a wide scale. They should see the technology as a good investment.

Virtual power plants

However, an experiment in the Netherlands shows a slightly different model. Drawing on a real-life research that used 15 Stirling engine power micro CHPs in the same housing estate, Renee Kamphuis of the Netherlands’ Energy Research Centre argues that in the future such clusters can be aggregated to create what they call 'virtual power plants'. These intelligent clusters can draw power on demand as the grid requires it.

Householders would receive the benefit of selling their surplus electricity drawn in this way, but would have to accept that for some of the time their units might be remotely controlled. Naturally such a system implies the introduction of an IT network into every home.

However such networks are likely to be introduced into homes anyway in order to roll out so-called smart meters, which can be read remotely by the electricity or gas utility company. It is a small leap from this to imagine that they could actually draw power from your unit and pay you for it when they needed it. This would create a truly distributed decentralised grid.

Technorati Tags: Energy; Oil; Environment; ClimateChange

Stop climate chaos Trafalgar Square, 4th November, 1-3pm

Trafalgar Square, 4th November, 1-3pm.

Join us for the biggest event of the year to stop climate chaos.

Blow for community renewable energy

Awel Aman Tawe community wind farm has lost its appeal against an adverse planning decision by Neath Port Talbot County BoroughCouncil.

It has been in development for six years. As the Inspector himself says, "it It has been highlighted as an example in a number of case study documents, awards and at conferences" as a good example of community involvement.

But the inspector said the size of the turbines and their location, and the fact that the community was deeply divided, plus the relation of the proposal to national policy, were reasons to turn the appeal down.

Project Manager Dan McCallum expressed his disappointment saying "The decision seems an extremely conservative interpretation of TAN8 planning policy which we feel may have serious implications for the development of the wind sector in Wales."

The long-winded nature of the whole processs leaves no doubt as to why there are so few community-based renewable energy projects in the UK, and why we are so slow to meet our targets on renewables.

The Inspector criticised the community aspect by saying that the rewards to the community "do not relate to such matters as highway improvements, mitigation for any adverse impacts from construction activities or payments to overcome adverse implications for telecommunications. In consequence any community benefits that would arise from this development cannot be a consideration in any assessment of the acceptability or otherwise of the proposed scheme in planning terms."

It would seem that more coperation from the Council in the spirit of the enterprise would have saved everyone a lot of time and money.

The inspector's conclusion is particularly sad:

"I accept that renewable and sustainable energy development is to be generally supported and encouraged and that the Assembly Government is committed to playing its part by delivering an energy programme which contributes to reducing carbon emissions.

"However such support is not, in relation to this particular type of development in this location, unqualified. I am not convinced that, in this case, the environmental impacts arising from this proposal can be avoided or minimised or that the proposed development would accord with local planning policies in the development plan or emerging UDP.

"In this connection I have had regard to the planning conditions discussed at the inquiry and to the Section 106 unilateral undertaking relating to funding for the restoration of the site. I have noted all the other matters raised, including general observations concerning the desirability of urgent action in relation to climate change issues, but find that none are of sufficient weight or importance to override the considerations that have led to these conclusions."

In other words, go away, put it somewhere else, and I don't care if it takes another five years.

Will our children thank us in 50 years time for the wisdom of decisions like this?

Technorati Tags: Energy; Environment; ClimateChange;