Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor
Britain’s upland birds are in danger of being driven off hills and mountains by onshore wind farms.
Scientists have found that birds, including buzzards, golden plovers, curlews and red grouse, are abandoning countryside around wind farms because the turbines act as giant scarecrows, frightening them away.
The impact is small now because there are few wind farms but researchers warn that, with hundreds more planned, plus an increase in the size of turbines, the effect could become much worse.
“We found evidence for localised reductions in bird breeding density around upland wind farms. Importantly, for the first time, we have quantified such effects across a wide range of species,” said James Pearce-Higgins, an ecologist with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Scotland.
His research was conducted with scientists from Scottish Natural Heritage and the Scottish government’s environment research directorate. It is one of the first scientific analyses of how the wind-farm construction programme might affect wildlife.
The UK has 259 onshore wind farms, of which 108 are in England, 91 in Scotland, 33 in Wales and 27 in Northern Ireland. Planning permission has been granted for a further 222 and there are plans for another 270 after that.
In the study Pearce-Higgins surveyed the populations of 12 bird species around a dozen upland wind farms in Scotland and northern England.
These were compared with a similar number of control sites that had no turbines, but which had similar topography and vegetation.
Upland areas were chosen because they have the strongest winds and so are preferred by wind-farm developers. They are also favoured, however, by some of Britain’s most vulnerable bird species.
Writing in the Journal of Applied Ecology, Pearce-Higgins and his colleagues said birds tended to stop nesting within half a mile of any turbine. Since the effect extends around each machine, up to two square miles could be affected by one turbine.
Pearce-Higgins said: “Our results highlight significant avoidance of otherwise apparently suitable habitat close to turbines in at least seven of the 12 species studied, with equivocal evidence for avoidance in a further two species.”
The RSPB does not oppose wind farms but wants them sited away from areas where birds feed or breed and from migration routes. Pearce- Higgins said: “This work lets us assess prospective sites more accurately.”
It follows planning failures in America, Spain and Germany where the wind-farm boom has seen them built in prime bird areas. The danger is that the birds will be caught in the blades of a turbine: one wind farm in Altamont, northern California, has been blamed for killing 1,300 migratory birds of prey a year.
The British Wind Energy Association has said the idea that UK wind farms affect birds is a “myth” and warns that climate change is a far greater threat.
Sunday, 3 January 2010
Run your car on recycled rubbish
A new type of process can turn waste into bioethanol
Danny Fortson
Yesterday, like every day, you produced 3lb of rubbish. A third of it will be recycled, and some of it will be burnt. Most of it, though, will be tossed into a hole in the ground to rot away over several decades.
As it decays it will generate methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more harmful than carbon dioxide, and leachate, a putrid black liquid that must be pumped out of the ground to keep it from fouling the water table. Some material, such as plastics, will never break down fully.
The government is, belatedly, trying to change Britain’s standing as among the worst recyclers in western Europe. It has imposed a swingeing landfill tax that is rising every year. The scramble to avoid it has led to a new generation of rubbish tycoons, all hoping to cash in on the move to waste less and recycle more.
One of them is Philip Hall. The 62-year-old serial entrepreneur has developed a technology that converts waste into bioethanol, a green alternative to petrol. His company, Reclaim Resources, built its first demonstration plant in Bournemouth last year.
The idea came to him in 2005, when an incinerating company asked his previous firm, X Technology, to fit its odour-control kit to its ovens.
Hall said: “We either set fire to our garbage or bury it. I thought, there has to be a better way.” The result was Reclaim’s Vantage Waste Processor, which blasts rubbish with high-pressure steam as it passes through a giant rotating cylinder. The process breaks down all organic material into fine fibres with high calorific value. The plastic and metal is removed and taken away for recycling.
The biological leftovers are converted into sugars through hydrolysis and acid treatment and then fed into large fermentation tanks. These break them down into fuel that can be blended for use in cars and aircraft or to feed the gas turbines of a power station.
Turning the country’s waste into a limitless source of biofuel sounds too good to be true — and so far that seems to be the view taken by Britain’s councils and developers.
The company’s handful of orders are all from foreign firms. “I have to say the UK has been pretty disappointing,” said Hall. “The real interest is coming from the developing world — China, Malaysia, Russia. I imagine the first 30 plants will be built overseas before we have one running in England.”
What is certain is that Britain needs to do better with its waste. We bury 58% of the 220m tonnes of waste we produce every year. By 2013, landfilling must be cut to half of 1995 levels. If that level is not achieved, Britain will violate the EU landfill directive and be subject to hefty fines.
To prod the industry into action, the government has raised landfill taxes and offered generous subsidies for waste-to-energy developers. AMA Research, an American consultancy, said Britain will have to invest £30 billion to put the infrastructure into place.
Apart from Reclaim’s demonstrator plant in Bournemouth it has made only one other unit and is near to completing a third in Latvia, where labour costs are a fraction of those in Britain. Hall has sunk £3m of his own money and cash from private investors into the company and is now trying to raise another £10m to step up production.
Hall’s is just one of a handful of waste-to-energy alternatives being developed. Anaerobic digestion, for example, uses giant steel tanks filled with microbes to break down organic waste. J Sainsbury, the supermarket group, is building several anaerobic digestors to get rid of date-expired food. The process takes 40 days.
Reclaim, on the other hand, takes only three days to start producing ethanol and then its plant can operate continuously.
A syndicate of underwriters has enough confidence in the technology to offer performance bonds covering loss of income in case the ethanol production is less than capacity. “As long as there is a continuous waste source,” Hall said, “it’s like a tap.”
Danny Fortson
Yesterday, like every day, you produced 3lb of rubbish. A third of it will be recycled, and some of it will be burnt. Most of it, though, will be tossed into a hole in the ground to rot away over several decades.
As it decays it will generate methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more harmful than carbon dioxide, and leachate, a putrid black liquid that must be pumped out of the ground to keep it from fouling the water table. Some material, such as plastics, will never break down fully.
The government is, belatedly, trying to change Britain’s standing as among the worst recyclers in western Europe. It has imposed a swingeing landfill tax that is rising every year. The scramble to avoid it has led to a new generation of rubbish tycoons, all hoping to cash in on the move to waste less and recycle more.
One of them is Philip Hall. The 62-year-old serial entrepreneur has developed a technology that converts waste into bioethanol, a green alternative to petrol. His company, Reclaim Resources, built its first demonstration plant in Bournemouth last year.
The idea came to him in 2005, when an incinerating company asked his previous firm, X Technology, to fit its odour-control kit to its ovens.
Hall said: “We either set fire to our garbage or bury it. I thought, there has to be a better way.” The result was Reclaim’s Vantage Waste Processor, which blasts rubbish with high-pressure steam as it passes through a giant rotating cylinder. The process breaks down all organic material into fine fibres with high calorific value. The plastic and metal is removed and taken away for recycling.
The biological leftovers are converted into sugars through hydrolysis and acid treatment and then fed into large fermentation tanks. These break them down into fuel that can be blended for use in cars and aircraft or to feed the gas turbines of a power station.
Turning the country’s waste into a limitless source of biofuel sounds too good to be true — and so far that seems to be the view taken by Britain’s councils and developers.
The company’s handful of orders are all from foreign firms. “I have to say the UK has been pretty disappointing,” said Hall. “The real interest is coming from the developing world — China, Malaysia, Russia. I imagine the first 30 plants will be built overseas before we have one running in England.”
What is certain is that Britain needs to do better with its waste. We bury 58% of the 220m tonnes of waste we produce every year. By 2013, landfilling must be cut to half of 1995 levels. If that level is not achieved, Britain will violate the EU landfill directive and be subject to hefty fines.
To prod the industry into action, the government has raised landfill taxes and offered generous subsidies for waste-to-energy developers. AMA Research, an American consultancy, said Britain will have to invest £30 billion to put the infrastructure into place.
Apart from Reclaim’s demonstrator plant in Bournemouth it has made only one other unit and is near to completing a third in Latvia, where labour costs are a fraction of those in Britain. Hall has sunk £3m of his own money and cash from private investors into the company and is now trying to raise another £10m to step up production.
Hall’s is just one of a handful of waste-to-energy alternatives being developed. Anaerobic digestion, for example, uses giant steel tanks filled with microbes to break down organic waste. J Sainsbury, the supermarket group, is building several anaerobic digestors to get rid of date-expired food. The process takes 40 days.
Reclaim, on the other hand, takes only three days to start producing ethanol and then its plant can operate continuously.
A syndicate of underwriters has enough confidence in the technology to offer performance bonds covering loss of income in case the ethanol production is less than capacity. “As long as there is a continuous waste source,” Hall said, “it’s like a tap.”
Scottish HQ for Logan Energy
Kenny Kemp
Logan Energy Limited (LEL), an industry leader in low-carbon fuel cells, has moved to Scotland to capture a surge of interest in greener energy technology.
The company, a sister of Logan Energy Corporation of the US, is now based in Edinburgh and has operated in the UK for more than three years. It recently installed a 200kW fuel cell at Transport for London’s Palestra building, LEL, previously based in Nottingham, has also been commissioned to design install and operate a pilot 200kW combined cooling, heat and power fuel-cell project at the new southern operations centre of Scottish and Southern Energy in Havant, Hampshire.
SSE has a 21% stake in LEL along with Scottish Enterprise’s Co-investment Fund. SSE also invests in Intelligent Energy, a fuel-cell development company.
Bill Ireland, the operations director of LEL, said: “We are seeing increased interest in fuel-cell technology as organisations realise their responsibilities to decrease the impact on the environment.
“Fuel cells have been around for a long time. What is new is the cost per kilowatt, which has dropped substantially.”
Logan Energy Limited (LEL), an industry leader in low-carbon fuel cells, has moved to Scotland to capture a surge of interest in greener energy technology.
The company, a sister of Logan Energy Corporation of the US, is now based in Edinburgh and has operated in the UK for more than three years. It recently installed a 200kW fuel cell at Transport for London’s Palestra building, LEL, previously based in Nottingham, has also been commissioned to design install and operate a pilot 200kW combined cooling, heat and power fuel-cell project at the new southern operations centre of Scottish and Southern Energy in Havant, Hampshire.
SSE has a 21% stake in LEL along with Scottish Enterprise’s Co-investment Fund. SSE also invests in Intelligent Energy, a fuel-cell development company.
Bill Ireland, the operations director of LEL, said: “We are seeing increased interest in fuel-cell technology as organisations realise their responsibilities to decrease the impact on the environment.
“Fuel cells have been around for a long time. What is new is the cost per kilowatt, which has dropped substantially.”
Shell accused of abandoning solar power buyers in the developing world
Row over responsibility for sold-off systems has left Sri Lankan communities unable to replace faulty equipment
Terry Macalister
The Observer, Sunday 3 January 2010
Shell has become embroiled in a major row with the World Bank and green energy companies after allegations that it is unfairly refusing to honour warranties on solar power systems sold to the developing world.
A widespread breakdown of its equipment in Sri Lanka and elsewhere has left the oil firm accused of abandoning a responsibility to impoverished communities while damaging the prospects of the wider renewable power sector in a world desperate to reduce carbon emissions following the Copenhagen climate change summit.
The rural electrification business under which the Shell systems were sold has now itself been passed on – as have most other parts of the group's solar business – but critics say that Shell, which made profits of $31bn in 2008, has a continuing role in ensuring former customers are not left vulnerable.
"Shell exited solar on a global basis, seemingly without due consideration to how after-sales service and warranty replacements would be provided, thereby damaging the very local solar industries it had earlier helped to create," said Damian Miller, a former Shell manager who now heads his own solar business, Orb Energy.
"In Sri Lanka, poor customers with average earnings of $1,500-$2,000 a month have bought Shell's solar systems. The system is equivalent to 30% of their annual income," he added. "They could only afford a system because they could get a loan from microfinance institutions or other banks. But now there are reports of thousands of Shell's [branded] solar panels failing in the field and Shell seemingly is not replacing them."
The World Bank, which provides financing packages to the developing world, said it too was very worried about a situation in which about 700 solar systems appear to have failed and local suppliers risked going out of business.
Anil Cabraal, an energy specialist at the bank's Washington headquarters, has written to Shell asking for action. "I would like Shell to honour these commitments. We are not talking about millions of dollars here but hundreds of thousands," he told the Observer.
The company argues that it is being unfairly targeted and is doing all it can to sort out the problem. It points out that its Shell Solar Sri Lanka business has been transferred to a third-party purchaser, Environ Energy, along with all liabilities. The Anglo-Dutch oil group says the bulk of its former solar module manufacturing operation has also been switched to a new owner, Solar World.
"In October 2007, Shell sold Shell Solar Lanka Ltd to Environ Energy Global PTE Ltd. Specifically in order to protect customer interests, the terms of the transaction explicitly covered the management of all past, present and future liabilities, including warranty issues," said a Shell spokesman in the Hague.
"Environ Energy Global understands that resolution of this issue rests with Environ, but [its] own management team in Sri Lanka continues to approach Shell. We have asked Environ Energy Global to clarify responsibilities with [its] own management team in Sri Lanka."
The situation has been complicated by the fact that Environ claims Solar World will not replace any modules unless it has the appropriate warranty documents. Environ claims those papers were destroyed by Shell prior to the handover to Solar World, although Shell told the Observer this was not true.
Terry Macalister
The Observer, Sunday 3 January 2010
Shell has become embroiled in a major row with the World Bank and green energy companies after allegations that it is unfairly refusing to honour warranties on solar power systems sold to the developing world.
A widespread breakdown of its equipment in Sri Lanka and elsewhere has left the oil firm accused of abandoning a responsibility to impoverished communities while damaging the prospects of the wider renewable power sector in a world desperate to reduce carbon emissions following the Copenhagen climate change summit.
The rural electrification business under which the Shell systems were sold has now itself been passed on – as have most other parts of the group's solar business – but critics say that Shell, which made profits of $31bn in 2008, has a continuing role in ensuring former customers are not left vulnerable.
"Shell exited solar on a global basis, seemingly without due consideration to how after-sales service and warranty replacements would be provided, thereby damaging the very local solar industries it had earlier helped to create," said Damian Miller, a former Shell manager who now heads his own solar business, Orb Energy.
"In Sri Lanka, poor customers with average earnings of $1,500-$2,000 a month have bought Shell's solar systems. The system is equivalent to 30% of their annual income," he added. "They could only afford a system because they could get a loan from microfinance institutions or other banks. But now there are reports of thousands of Shell's [branded] solar panels failing in the field and Shell seemingly is not replacing them."
The World Bank, which provides financing packages to the developing world, said it too was very worried about a situation in which about 700 solar systems appear to have failed and local suppliers risked going out of business.
Anil Cabraal, an energy specialist at the bank's Washington headquarters, has written to Shell asking for action. "I would like Shell to honour these commitments. We are not talking about millions of dollars here but hundreds of thousands," he told the Observer.
The company argues that it is being unfairly targeted and is doing all it can to sort out the problem. It points out that its Shell Solar Sri Lanka business has been transferred to a third-party purchaser, Environ Energy, along with all liabilities. The Anglo-Dutch oil group says the bulk of its former solar module manufacturing operation has also been switched to a new owner, Solar World.
"In October 2007, Shell sold Shell Solar Lanka Ltd to Environ Energy Global PTE Ltd. Specifically in order to protect customer interests, the terms of the transaction explicitly covered the management of all past, present and future liabilities, including warranty issues," said a Shell spokesman in the Hague.
"Environ Energy Global understands that resolution of this issue rests with Environ, but [its] own management team in Sri Lanka continues to approach Shell. We have asked Environ Energy Global to clarify responsibilities with [its] own management team in Sri Lanka."
The situation has been complicated by the fact that Environ claims Solar World will not replace any modules unless it has the appropriate warranty documents. Environ claims those papers were destroyed by Shell prior to the handover to Solar World, although Shell told the Observer this was not true.
Hydrogen cars come one step closer to the mass market
Mercedes-Benz announced this week that it has started production of the B-Class F-CELL, its first series-produced electric car with a fuel cell.
Initially, the firm plans to build 200 models which will be delivered to customers in Europe and the US from spring 2010. The B-Class is an evolution of the company's A-Class F-Cell, unveiled back in 2004 and currently in active service at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen.
Mercedes-Benz claims that the B-Class F-CELL will have a range of up to 400 kilometers (248 miles), with a 136 horsepower electric motor delivering performance comparable with that of a 2.0 litre gasoline car. Top speed will be 170 kph (105 mph). The vehicle will also be able to start at temperatures as low as -25°C (-77°F), traditionally an area of concern with fuel-cells, which use internal vapor at risk of solidifying below freezing point (0°C/32°F). The B-Class overcomes this by taking electrical energy from an on-board battery as it warms up in cold temperatures.
German car-maker Mercedes-Benz is the latest entrant to the fuel-cell market, which is only just beginning to move from theory to reality. Lack of a hydrogen infrastructure such as filling points is still a major issue for the fledgling industry, although several energy suppliers are believed to have plans for a network in the pipeline. Honda was the first manufacturer to bring a production fuel cell vehicle to market with the FCX Clarity which is currently for sale or lease in Los Angeles, US and Japan. Mercedes-Benz is also planning to offer the first B-Class models to select customers through a leasing program.
Initially, the firm plans to build 200 models which will be delivered to customers in Europe and the US from spring 2010. The B-Class is an evolution of the company's A-Class F-Cell, unveiled back in 2004 and currently in active service at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen.
Mercedes-Benz claims that the B-Class F-CELL will have a range of up to 400 kilometers (248 miles), with a 136 horsepower electric motor delivering performance comparable with that of a 2.0 litre gasoline car. Top speed will be 170 kph (105 mph). The vehicle will also be able to start at temperatures as low as -25°C (-77°F), traditionally an area of concern with fuel-cells, which use internal vapor at risk of solidifying below freezing point (0°C/32°F). The B-Class overcomes this by taking electrical energy from an on-board battery as it warms up in cold temperatures.
German car-maker Mercedes-Benz is the latest entrant to the fuel-cell market, which is only just beginning to move from theory to reality. Lack of a hydrogen infrastructure such as filling points is still a major issue for the fledgling industry, although several energy suppliers are believed to have plans for a network in the pipeline. Honda was the first manufacturer to bring a production fuel cell vehicle to market with the FCX Clarity which is currently for sale or lease in Los Angeles, US and Japan. Mercedes-Benz is also planning to offer the first B-Class models to select customers through a leasing program.
Saturday, 2 January 2010
The wasteful avalanche of 12 million light bulbs
Ben Webster, Environment Editor
Twelve million low-energy light bulbs were posted to households over Christmas by an energy company as part of its legal obligation to cut carbon emissions, despite government advice that many would never be used.
Npower sent out the packages last month to escape a ban on issuing unsolicited bulbs, which came into force yesterday. The German-owned company saved millions of pounds by giving away the bulbs. Alternative ways of meeting its obligation, such as insulating homes, are much more effective but up to seven times more expensive.
It faced a fine of more than £40 million, or 10 per cent of its turnover, if it failed to meet its target for improving efficiency in homes under the carbon emissions reduction target scheme.
Households have received more than 180 million free or subsidised low-energy bulbs in the past 18 months. A survey in July by the Energy Saving Trust found that the average home had six unused ones lying in drawers and cupboards.
In 2008 the Government ordered the big energy companies to invest in measures for improving energy efficiency and cutting fuel poverty.
Companies can choose how to meet their obligations. Each measure they fund is given a score for the lifetime carbon savings that it achieves.
The scheme made assumptions about the usage of light bulbs that turned out to be wildly optimistic.
Companies were allowed to register immediate carbon savings from every bulb issued on the assumption that all recipients instantly installed them in some of their most intensively used light sockets. In reality, many people either stored the bulbs or threw them away, often because they were the wrong fitting or wattage.
The companies can also meet their obligations by paying for homes to be insulated. This guarantees energy savings but is much more expensive.
According to the latest government estimates, each low-energy bulb costs an energy company £2.97 and saves 0.04 tonnes of carbon over its lifetime. Insulating the external solid walls of a three-bedroom semi-detached house costs £8,760 and saves 18.08 tonnes. A company can achieve the same score of 18.08 tonnes by posting 452 bulbs, costing only £1,342.
In the first 18 months of the scheme, companies issued 182 million bulbs but insulated only 17,000 solid-wall homes. Britain has 6.6 million solid-wall homes requiring insulation.
Companies can pass on all the costs of the scheme to their customers. Over three years it is expected to add more than £100 to the average household’s energy bills.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change quietly admitted in June that the scheme was flawed and resulting in significant wastage.
In a paragraph buried in a 30-page “impact assessment”, the department said: “Government is increasingly concerned that the number of lamps already distributed has been so high that it may work out at more than the average number of highest-use light fittings in a house.
“As such, there is an increasing risk to carbon savings under the scheme where lamps are not used, are installed on low-use light fittings, or replace existing [low-energy bulbs].”
It said that direct mailouts of bulbs would be banned from January 1, 2010, allowing six months for companies to wind down their schemes.
Npower, which had a turnover of £427 million in 2008, initially focused on home insulation but was named a few months ago as the energy supplier that was farthest from achieving its green energy target. Companies that fail to meet their obligations by 2011 will be fined up to 10 per cent of their turnover.
It began posting 12 million bulbs on November 27, five months after the ban had been announced and just as the postal system was struggling to cope with the volume of Christmas mail.
A spokeswoman for the energy company said that the scheme was designed to be completed on New Year’s Eve, hours before the ban came into force at midnight.
She admitted that Npower did not know how many of the bulbs would be used. “There is nothing under [the carbon emissions reduction target scheme] that means we have to get evidence that bulbs are being used. It’s up to the customer,” she said.
Twelve million low-energy light bulbs were posted to households over Christmas by an energy company as part of its legal obligation to cut carbon emissions, despite government advice that many would never be used.
Npower sent out the packages last month to escape a ban on issuing unsolicited bulbs, which came into force yesterday. The German-owned company saved millions of pounds by giving away the bulbs. Alternative ways of meeting its obligation, such as insulating homes, are much more effective but up to seven times more expensive.
It faced a fine of more than £40 million, or 10 per cent of its turnover, if it failed to meet its target for improving efficiency in homes under the carbon emissions reduction target scheme.
Households have received more than 180 million free or subsidised low-energy bulbs in the past 18 months. A survey in July by the Energy Saving Trust found that the average home had six unused ones lying in drawers and cupboards.
In 2008 the Government ordered the big energy companies to invest in measures for improving energy efficiency and cutting fuel poverty.
Companies can choose how to meet their obligations. Each measure they fund is given a score for the lifetime carbon savings that it achieves.
The scheme made assumptions about the usage of light bulbs that turned out to be wildly optimistic.
Companies were allowed to register immediate carbon savings from every bulb issued on the assumption that all recipients instantly installed them in some of their most intensively used light sockets. In reality, many people either stored the bulbs or threw them away, often because they were the wrong fitting or wattage.
The companies can also meet their obligations by paying for homes to be insulated. This guarantees energy savings but is much more expensive.
According to the latest government estimates, each low-energy bulb costs an energy company £2.97 and saves 0.04 tonnes of carbon over its lifetime. Insulating the external solid walls of a three-bedroom semi-detached house costs £8,760 and saves 18.08 tonnes. A company can achieve the same score of 18.08 tonnes by posting 452 bulbs, costing only £1,342.
In the first 18 months of the scheme, companies issued 182 million bulbs but insulated only 17,000 solid-wall homes. Britain has 6.6 million solid-wall homes requiring insulation.
Companies can pass on all the costs of the scheme to their customers. Over three years it is expected to add more than £100 to the average household’s energy bills.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change quietly admitted in June that the scheme was flawed and resulting in significant wastage.
In a paragraph buried in a 30-page “impact assessment”, the department said: “Government is increasingly concerned that the number of lamps already distributed has been so high that it may work out at more than the average number of highest-use light fittings in a house.
“As such, there is an increasing risk to carbon savings under the scheme where lamps are not used, are installed on low-use light fittings, or replace existing [low-energy bulbs].”
It said that direct mailouts of bulbs would be banned from January 1, 2010, allowing six months for companies to wind down their schemes.
Npower, which had a turnover of £427 million in 2008, initially focused on home insulation but was named a few months ago as the energy supplier that was farthest from achieving its green energy target. Companies that fail to meet their obligations by 2011 will be fined up to 10 per cent of their turnover.
It began posting 12 million bulbs on November 27, five months after the ban had been announced and just as the postal system was struggling to cope with the volume of Christmas mail.
A spokeswoman for the energy company said that the scheme was designed to be completed on New Year’s Eve, hours before the ban came into force at midnight.
She admitted that Npower did not know how many of the bulbs would be used. “There is nothing under [the carbon emissions reduction target scheme] that means we have to get evidence that bulbs are being used. It’s up to the customer,” she said.
Green technology to be used by top firms to overhaul UK homes
• Sustainability scheme could create tens of thousands of jobs • 'Retrofitting' homes could make Britain a pioneer in field
Nick Mathiason
guardian.co.uk, Friday 1 January 2010 18.32 GMT
Some of Britain's leading firms are partnering top academic institutions to develop projects that will overhaul household energy, water, transport and waste provision to drastically cut carbon emissions.
The groundbreaking partnership, led by Arup's global planning chief, Peter Head, involves 25 international companies including GE (the world's biggest company, according to Forbes). HSBC, French energy firm EDF, Thames Water, Marks & Spencer and waste management firm Biffa are also behind the plan.
Politicians and regulators are calling for a "green new deal" to help lift the economy out of recession. "Green industries alone could support a further half a million jobs over the next decade," Alistair Darling wrote in the Guardian last week.
The companies involved hope that in five years their work could create tens of thousands of jobs and push Britain into the vanguard of environmental technology. They are working with Imperial College and University College London to "retrofit" hundreds of thousands of homes, using the latest clean technology to transform energy and water efficiency.
Head, who will become chairman of a new charity, the Thames Gateway Institute of Sustainability, said: "We want to connect new developments with retrofitting technology combining energy, water and waste, improvements to recycling and the introduction of electric cars and better cycling facilities… there are tremendous advantages and business opportunities."
The "retrofitting" of Britain is the focus of the new institute, which will open a research centre this year in Dagenham, east London, as part of a 24-hectare sustainable technology business park. The centre will focus on green technology breakthroughs that can be cheaply "scaled up" to industrial proportions. "We need to move to a new industrial model. And we genuinely need this institute to power demonstration projects," said Head.
Part of the plan is to develop new financing for green projects and the group is in advanced talks with pension funds. Financiers at international investment bank Sustainable Development Capital want to see part of household and business energy and water bills ringfenced in a special fund for green developments that will be matched by pension funds.
The plan aims to take advantage of savings for firms when consumers use less energy. It implies households utility bills will not come down in spite of the savings envisaged from the scheme. The model assumes that it will cost £1bn to convert 200,000 new homes, into which communities will be divided. They could then see their neighbourhoods converted street-by-street into sustainable communities complete with energy-from-waste facilities, electric car power points and advanced water capture technology.
The Institute of Sustainability has been building up for a year as a shadow operation but has now completed the formation of a 12-strong board. Other than Head, it includes Professor Malcolm Grant, president and provost of UCL, and Keith Riley, managing director of Veolia Environmental Services. Ian Short, deputy chief executive at the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation, will be the Institute's interim chief executive.
Focusing on close-to-market environmental technology projects that are now ready to be applied on housing developments, the institute will use the huge building programme on the Thames Gateway – a 40-mile ribbon of land either side of the Thames in east London, where tens of thousands of new homes are planned – to be its worldwide showcase. Two major housing developments in north Kent are likely to be pilots for the new plan.
It will also draw on lessons learned from the 2012 east London Olympics, where a number of facilities are using the latest environmental technology to reduce emissions as well as a "soil hospital" to clean and re-use contaminated soil.
Head was the principal planning adviser on the Chinese sustainable city project at Dongtan. Though the project has stalled for internal political reasons, it has inspired the launch of the new institute in Britain, which is forging links with the Chinese authorities in what Head hopes will provide huge business opportunities.
Nick Mathiason
guardian.co.uk, Friday 1 January 2010 18.32 GMT
Some of Britain's leading firms are partnering top academic institutions to develop projects that will overhaul household energy, water, transport and waste provision to drastically cut carbon emissions.
The groundbreaking partnership, led by Arup's global planning chief, Peter Head, involves 25 international companies including GE (the world's biggest company, according to Forbes). HSBC, French energy firm EDF, Thames Water, Marks & Spencer and waste management firm Biffa are also behind the plan.
Politicians and regulators are calling for a "green new deal" to help lift the economy out of recession. "Green industries alone could support a further half a million jobs over the next decade," Alistair Darling wrote in the Guardian last week.
The companies involved hope that in five years their work could create tens of thousands of jobs and push Britain into the vanguard of environmental technology. They are working with Imperial College and University College London to "retrofit" hundreds of thousands of homes, using the latest clean technology to transform energy and water efficiency.
Head, who will become chairman of a new charity, the Thames Gateway Institute of Sustainability, said: "We want to connect new developments with retrofitting technology combining energy, water and waste, improvements to recycling and the introduction of electric cars and better cycling facilities… there are tremendous advantages and business opportunities."
The "retrofitting" of Britain is the focus of the new institute, which will open a research centre this year in Dagenham, east London, as part of a 24-hectare sustainable technology business park. The centre will focus on green technology breakthroughs that can be cheaply "scaled up" to industrial proportions. "We need to move to a new industrial model. And we genuinely need this institute to power demonstration projects," said Head.
Part of the plan is to develop new financing for green projects and the group is in advanced talks with pension funds. Financiers at international investment bank Sustainable Development Capital want to see part of household and business energy and water bills ringfenced in a special fund for green developments that will be matched by pension funds.
The plan aims to take advantage of savings for firms when consumers use less energy. It implies households utility bills will not come down in spite of the savings envisaged from the scheme. The model assumes that it will cost £1bn to convert 200,000 new homes, into which communities will be divided. They could then see their neighbourhoods converted street-by-street into sustainable communities complete with energy-from-waste facilities, electric car power points and advanced water capture technology.
The Institute of Sustainability has been building up for a year as a shadow operation but has now completed the formation of a 12-strong board. Other than Head, it includes Professor Malcolm Grant, president and provost of UCL, and Keith Riley, managing director of Veolia Environmental Services. Ian Short, deputy chief executive at the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation, will be the Institute's interim chief executive.
Focusing on close-to-market environmental technology projects that are now ready to be applied on housing developments, the institute will use the huge building programme on the Thames Gateway – a 40-mile ribbon of land either side of the Thames in east London, where tens of thousands of new homes are planned – to be its worldwide showcase. Two major housing developments in north Kent are likely to be pilots for the new plan.
It will also draw on lessons learned from the 2012 east London Olympics, where a number of facilities are using the latest environmental technology to reduce emissions as well as a "soil hospital" to clean and re-use contaminated soil.
Head was the principal planning adviser on the Chinese sustainable city project at Dongtan. Though the project has stalled for internal political reasons, it has inspired the launch of the new institute in Britain, which is forging links with the Chinese authorities in what Head hopes will provide huge business opportunities.
Government must 'green economy and create jobs' FSA chief says
• Lord Turner champions environmental taxes• Investment in renewable energy would boost employment
Ashley Seager
guardian.co.uk, Friday 1 January 2010
Adair Turner, the outspoken head of the City regulator, believes that, whichever party wins the next election, the government should embark on a tax and spend programme to green the economy and create jobs.
Lord Turner, head of the Financial Services Authority, created a stir last year when he said that much of the City's activities were "socially useless". He could find himself on a collision course with the Conservatives, who have pledged to take an axe to public spending immediately after the election, if they win it.
"If we have to raise taxes – and we will to some extent – we can deliberately design those to tax bad environmental things, like overuse of fossil fuels, rather than good welfare-enhancing things, like employment for people," says Turner, who also heads the government's committee on climate change, in an interview with BBC Radio 4 to be broadcast tonight.
"There is therefore a very strong argument whenever one is in the environment of tax rises for trying to make them skewed as much as possible to things that make sense in the long-term."
He goes on to say that spending should be carefully targeted, rather than cut sharply. "In the expenditure side, obviously it is the case that some expenditures are particularly valuable at this time in the cycle, in particular ones where the leakage into imports is least.
"So, things like insulating peoples' homes [thereby] employing people from the construction industry, which has been hit particularly hard by the recession."
Turner's comments echo those of the chancellor, Alistair Darling, who wrote in the Guardian that green industries as a whole could add half a million jobs to the economy. He added that the Conservatives' plans to reduce the budget deficit "further and faster" than Labour could wreck the economic recovery.
On the World Tonight programme, Turner will also tell Andrew Simms, of the New Economics Foundation, that when it comes to investing in the low-carbon and energy-saving technologies of tomorrow, the government may have to take a direct role because the market cannot be relied upon to deliver what is needed.
"I don't think we should exclude the possibility ... that we may need to think about whether we need more direct, public supported or investments in low-carbon electricity generation if we find that the market isn't directly delivering that," Turner says.
"So concepts like investment banks or elements of guarantee, or particular categories of bond finance, I think are within the set of things that we should think about."
Turner's ideas chime with those of the NEF, which, with other campaigners, has been calling for a "Green New Deal", to push huge investments into renewables and energy-saving technologies, which it says would create thousands of jobs and boost tax receipts, as well as saving billions of pounds in imports of carbon energy sources, such as coal and gas.
In a report last month, the group argued that the fledgling economic recovery in Britain was supported only by low interest rates and a fiscal easing, and would tip back into recession this year (2010) if public spending is slashed in response to the government's ballooning budget deficit.
If £10bn of the Bank of England's £200bn of quantitative easing were invested in offshore wind energy, it could easily create over 100,000 new jobs, the group says.
Turner says he is concerned that the swing during the 1970s and 1980s towards the idea the private sector would always deliver outcomes better and cheaper than the public sector, which he used to agree with, had gone too far.
Turner adds that the government should avoid pursuing economic growth. "If you spend your time thinking that the most important objective of public policy is to get growth up from 1.9% to 2% and even better 2.1% we're pursuing a sort of false god.
"We're pursuing it, first of all, because if we accept that we will do things to the climate that will be harmful, but also because all the evidence shows that beyond the sort of standard of living which Britain has now achieved, extra growth does not automatically translate into human welfare and happiness."
Ashley Seager
guardian.co.uk, Friday 1 January 2010
Adair Turner, the outspoken head of the City regulator, believes that, whichever party wins the next election, the government should embark on a tax and spend programme to green the economy and create jobs.
Lord Turner, head of the Financial Services Authority, created a stir last year when he said that much of the City's activities were "socially useless". He could find himself on a collision course with the Conservatives, who have pledged to take an axe to public spending immediately after the election, if they win it.
"If we have to raise taxes – and we will to some extent – we can deliberately design those to tax bad environmental things, like overuse of fossil fuels, rather than good welfare-enhancing things, like employment for people," says Turner, who also heads the government's committee on climate change, in an interview with BBC Radio 4 to be broadcast tonight.
"There is therefore a very strong argument whenever one is in the environment of tax rises for trying to make them skewed as much as possible to things that make sense in the long-term."
He goes on to say that spending should be carefully targeted, rather than cut sharply. "In the expenditure side, obviously it is the case that some expenditures are particularly valuable at this time in the cycle, in particular ones where the leakage into imports is least.
"So, things like insulating peoples' homes [thereby] employing people from the construction industry, which has been hit particularly hard by the recession."
Turner's comments echo those of the chancellor, Alistair Darling, who wrote in the Guardian that green industries as a whole could add half a million jobs to the economy. He added that the Conservatives' plans to reduce the budget deficit "further and faster" than Labour could wreck the economic recovery.
On the World Tonight programme, Turner will also tell Andrew Simms, of the New Economics Foundation, that when it comes to investing in the low-carbon and energy-saving technologies of tomorrow, the government may have to take a direct role because the market cannot be relied upon to deliver what is needed.
"I don't think we should exclude the possibility ... that we may need to think about whether we need more direct, public supported or investments in low-carbon electricity generation if we find that the market isn't directly delivering that," Turner says.
"So concepts like investment banks or elements of guarantee, or particular categories of bond finance, I think are within the set of things that we should think about."
Turner's ideas chime with those of the NEF, which, with other campaigners, has been calling for a "Green New Deal", to push huge investments into renewables and energy-saving technologies, which it says would create thousands of jobs and boost tax receipts, as well as saving billions of pounds in imports of carbon energy sources, such as coal and gas.
In a report last month, the group argued that the fledgling economic recovery in Britain was supported only by low interest rates and a fiscal easing, and would tip back into recession this year (2010) if public spending is slashed in response to the government's ballooning budget deficit.
If £10bn of the Bank of England's £200bn of quantitative easing were invested in offshore wind energy, it could easily create over 100,000 new jobs, the group says.
Turner says he is concerned that the swing during the 1970s and 1980s towards the idea the private sector would always deliver outcomes better and cheaper than the public sector, which he used to agree with, had gone too far.
Turner adds that the government should avoid pursuing economic growth. "If you spend your time thinking that the most important objective of public policy is to get growth up from 1.9% to 2% and even better 2.1% we're pursuing a sort of false god.
"We're pursuing it, first of all, because if we accept that we will do things to the climate that will be harmful, but also because all the evidence shows that beyond the sort of standard of living which Britain has now achieved, extra growth does not automatically translate into human welfare and happiness."
Five economic reasons why 2010 will be greener
Economics, rather than politics, will be the main driver of the fight against global warming in 2010.
By Pierre Briancon, Reuters Breakingviews Published: 12:01AM GMT 01 Jan 2010
In 2009, the global recession had a greater impact than all the diplomatic efforts that ended in the Copenhagen flop: energy production hadn't declined on such a scale since 1981, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Here are five economic reasons for the world to become slightly greener in the coming year (just a few of them could be wishful thinking...)
First, high oil prices. Pricier crude encourages investments in alternative energy sources. Crude oil has been trading in a fairly narrow - and reassuringly expensive - range of $64 to $80 a barrel since June. It is not likely to fall below that level.
True, inventories are abundant, and in the longer term the Iraqi industry is emerging from the rubble. But there are several reasons to think oil prices will hold up through 2010 and beyond. Demand growth in big emerging nations like China and India is a solid support. Downward pressure on the dollar would probably help sustain prices. And OPEC probably still has enough power to keep prices from plummeting. So while the oil price is not likely to shoot up to recession-inducing highs, it is likely to stay high enough to keep alternative energy resources profitable.
Second, the low price of natural gas. Cheap gas encourages utilities to build more gas-fired power plants, which are cleaner than coal-powered ones. The current gas supply glut is not likely to go away soon. Even the always-possible Russia-Ukraine row, or a colder than usual winter, probably would not be enough to boost world prices. Unconventional gas production is expected to rise in the United States. That will force Qatar and other exporters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to divert exports from North America to Asia and Europe. The alternative supply should strengthen the hand of European buyers in dealing with their big supplier - Russia.
Third, more research on, and subsidies for, clean energy. The wishful thinking, or reasoned optimism, may be starting here, but Western governments may at last realize that that the United Nations-style approach to global warming is doomed to failure. A focus on domestic priorities would lead to more determined public efforts to encourage research in lower-carbon sources of energy, lowering their costs and making them more competitive.
Fourth, deterrence could achieve what diplomacy could not. The mere prospect of a carbon tax on imports, which the European Union is currently debating, might help concentrate Chinese minds. The World Trade Organization has hinted such a levy would not necessarily run counter to its rules. To forestall this sort of virtuous tariff, China might come forward with serious proposals to curb its own carbon emissions.
Finally, carbon prices should rise again. True, they took a hit after the failure of the Copenhagen conference to achieve much in the way of international cooperation. But steps being taken in several major countries will ultimately help make carbon more expensive on the exchanges where emission rights are traded: for example the U.S. cap-and-trade bill, coupled with the Obama administration's intention to consider carbon emissions as health hazard, the British government's energy efficiency scheme or France's domestic carbon tax.
While these trends could make for a greener year ahead, worrying signals are accumulating for the longer term. If the IEA is to be believed, without major policy changes the world is on path for a temperature rise of up to 6 degrees Celsius, far above the stated international goal of limiting the rise to 2 degrees Celsius. Growth will resume, pushing energy demand 40 percent higher in 2030 than in 2007, with non-industrialised counties accounting for 90 percent of that increase. Demand for coal - driven by emerging countries' growing needs - will rise faster than for other energy sources.
At the same time the financial crisis has depressed energy investment, whether in oil and gas upstream production, or power plants. In other words, by 2030 the world could face the absurd situation of having to cope both with global warming and energy shortages. Green will only prevail if the world's major powers take the Copenhagen dud as a call to arms.
By Pierre Briancon, Reuters Breakingviews Published: 12:01AM GMT 01 Jan 2010
In 2009, the global recession had a greater impact than all the diplomatic efforts that ended in the Copenhagen flop: energy production hadn't declined on such a scale since 1981, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Here are five economic reasons for the world to become slightly greener in the coming year (just a few of them could be wishful thinking...)
First, high oil prices. Pricier crude encourages investments in alternative energy sources. Crude oil has been trading in a fairly narrow - and reassuringly expensive - range of $64 to $80 a barrel since June. It is not likely to fall below that level.
True, inventories are abundant, and in the longer term the Iraqi industry is emerging from the rubble. But there are several reasons to think oil prices will hold up through 2010 and beyond. Demand growth in big emerging nations like China and India is a solid support. Downward pressure on the dollar would probably help sustain prices. And OPEC probably still has enough power to keep prices from plummeting. So while the oil price is not likely to shoot up to recession-inducing highs, it is likely to stay high enough to keep alternative energy resources profitable.
Second, the low price of natural gas. Cheap gas encourages utilities to build more gas-fired power plants, which are cleaner than coal-powered ones. The current gas supply glut is not likely to go away soon. Even the always-possible Russia-Ukraine row, or a colder than usual winter, probably would not be enough to boost world prices. Unconventional gas production is expected to rise in the United States. That will force Qatar and other exporters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to divert exports from North America to Asia and Europe. The alternative supply should strengthen the hand of European buyers in dealing with their big supplier - Russia.
Third, more research on, and subsidies for, clean energy. The wishful thinking, or reasoned optimism, may be starting here, but Western governments may at last realize that that the United Nations-style approach to global warming is doomed to failure. A focus on domestic priorities would lead to more determined public efforts to encourage research in lower-carbon sources of energy, lowering their costs and making them more competitive.
Fourth, deterrence could achieve what diplomacy could not. The mere prospect of a carbon tax on imports, which the European Union is currently debating, might help concentrate Chinese minds. The World Trade Organization has hinted such a levy would not necessarily run counter to its rules. To forestall this sort of virtuous tariff, China might come forward with serious proposals to curb its own carbon emissions.
Finally, carbon prices should rise again. True, they took a hit after the failure of the Copenhagen conference to achieve much in the way of international cooperation. But steps being taken in several major countries will ultimately help make carbon more expensive on the exchanges where emission rights are traded: for example the U.S. cap-and-trade bill, coupled with the Obama administration's intention to consider carbon emissions as health hazard, the British government's energy efficiency scheme or France's domestic carbon tax.
While these trends could make for a greener year ahead, worrying signals are accumulating for the longer term. If the IEA is to be believed, without major policy changes the world is on path for a temperature rise of up to 6 degrees Celsius, far above the stated international goal of limiting the rise to 2 degrees Celsius. Growth will resume, pushing energy demand 40 percent higher in 2030 than in 2007, with non-industrialised counties accounting for 90 percent of that increase. Demand for coal - driven by emerging countries' growing needs - will rise faster than for other energy sources.
At the same time the financial crisis has depressed energy investment, whether in oil and gas upstream production, or power plants. In other words, by 2030 the world could face the absurd situation of having to cope both with global warming and energy shortages. Green will only prevail if the world's major powers take the Copenhagen dud as a call to arms.
Wheels come off an American romance
Is America beginning to fall out of love with the automobile, asks Geoffrey Lean.
By Geoffrey LeanPublished: 5:54PM GMT 01 Jan 2010
Is America beginning to fall out of love with the automobile? It is, as Zhou Enlai famously said about the consequences of the French Revolution, far too early to tell. But next week a new study will report that the number of US cars actually dropped last year, after a century of apparently unstoppable growth.
The Washington-based Earth Policy Institute – a small think tank with a knack of spotting new trends – will announce that the US passenger-vehicle fleet fell from 250 million to 246 million in 2009. Nothing on this scale has happened before; it stagnated in 1998 and fell slightly during the 1991 recession, but otherwise has been growing by an average of 3.69 million annually since 1960.
Is this just a blip, caused by deeper recession? Maybe. But Lester Brown, president of the institute, thinks something fundamental is happening, and that numbers will continue to fall throughout this decade.
One reason, he says, is "market saturation"; there are now five cars in the country for every four registered drivers. But he also cites rising fuel prices, increasing congestion, "mounting concerns about climate change" and "the declining interest in cars among young people who have grown up in cities".
Of course, any decline will be more than offset by increases elsewhere, especially in China and India. But a cultural shift in the country that is home to nearly a third of the world's vehicles would still prove a landmark
By Geoffrey LeanPublished: 5:54PM GMT 01 Jan 2010
Is America beginning to fall out of love with the automobile? It is, as Zhou Enlai famously said about the consequences of the French Revolution, far too early to tell. But next week a new study will report that the number of US cars actually dropped last year, after a century of apparently unstoppable growth.
The Washington-based Earth Policy Institute – a small think tank with a knack of spotting new trends – will announce that the US passenger-vehicle fleet fell from 250 million to 246 million in 2009. Nothing on this scale has happened before; it stagnated in 1998 and fell slightly during the 1991 recession, but otherwise has been growing by an average of 3.69 million annually since 1960.
Is this just a blip, caused by deeper recession? Maybe. But Lester Brown, president of the institute, thinks something fundamental is happening, and that numbers will continue to fall throughout this decade.
One reason, he says, is "market saturation"; there are now five cars in the country for every four registered drivers. But he also cites rising fuel prices, increasing congestion, "mounting concerns about climate change" and "the declining interest in cars among young people who have grown up in cities".
Of course, any decline will be more than offset by increases elsewhere, especially in China and India. But a cultural shift in the country that is home to nearly a third of the world's vehicles would still prove a landmark
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