by Philip Proefrock, 08/13/10
Solar panel manufacturer Solimpeks is offering a hybrid solar panel that is capable of providing both electricity and water heating from the same panel. The panels are ideal for applications where there is limited roof space available, but both solar electricity and solar hot water are desired. Even better, the combination of the two functions actually improves the efficiency of the electrical generation of the photovoltaics.
These hybrid panels address a problem most solar panels have: as photovoltaic (PV) panels get hotter, they get less efficient at generating electricity. A PV panel is about 1% less efficient for every 3.5 degrees F temperature increase. The Solimpeks panels address this by using water to absorb excess heat and keep the panels cooler. Water cooling is far more effective than air cooling, making this a very effective combination. The heated water is then used to provide the additional benefit of hot water for the building.
Testing has shown the efficiency of electrical generation to be as high as 28% while at the same time producing 140-160 degree F water. This works out to an improvement of 20% over a similar sized electric-only PV array, and without the added hot water benefit, either.
Keeping the panels cooler has the additional benefit of extending their lifespan, keeping them in service for a longer period of time. These panels will also be able to pay back their installation cost more quickly since they are providing both electricity and hot water.
Read more: Photovoltaic Solar Hot Water Panels Reap Multiple Benefits | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World
Monday, 16 August 2010
Can 'Green Cement' Make Carbon Capture and Storage Obsolete?
By JOHN J. FIALKA of ClimateWire
Published: August 13, 2010
The conventional wisdom among utilities, the Obama administration, many scientists and some major environmental groups is that the future of coal-fired electricity under an eventual cap on carbon dioxide emissions will require an overhaul that will be technologically complicated, politically difficult and financially expensive.
More News From ClimateWire
How the GOP and a Slumping Economy Killed a 'Republican Instrument'
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Dueling Pollsters Add Heat to Torpid Climate Debate
A Man Who Doesn't Want His Work to Go Up in Smoke
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A blog about energy and the environment.
Go to Blog .Policy experts say that to "decarbonize" the future power system, we will need a new generation of power plants that can separate CO2 from their emissions. They must be connected to a large network of pipelines and injection facilities that can transport the odorless, transparent gas and pump it deep underground. Finally, it will require a regime of new state and federal laws and regulations, probably backed up by insurance policies, to protect against long-term damage from leakage.
There are a growing number of companies and investors that are betting this conventional wisdom is wrong. They are supporting technologies that will separate and then trap carbon emissions in a series of "beneficial products" that can be shipped to markets and sold at a profit. That, they assert, will avoid the need for much of the carbon capture and storage (CCS) infrastructure now on energy planners' drawing boards.
The most outspoken salesman for this approach is Brent Constantz, who has spent much of his career studying, patenting and marketing new ways to make cement. He believes that what he calls "green cement," which starts as a milky precipitate made from injecting carbon dioxide from power plant emissions into seawater, can be made and sold at a profit.
In the Constantz scenario, his "green" cement and "green" aggregate that is used to make concrete would begin to take market share from conventional cement makers, which are the nation's third-largest source of CO2 emissions behind the utility and transportation sectors.
That is because normal cement is made by heating limestone to high temperatures in kilns. The limestone gives off CO2 in the process, and so do the kilns, which are usually coal-fired.
Rather than adding emissions to the atmosphere, green cement and cement aggregates are made by subtracting CO2 emissions and then locking them permanently in construction materials. A price on carbon emissions imposed by states or the federal government would help it replace conventional cement, asserts Constantz, a consulting professor at Stanford University's School of Earth Sciences.
Helping China and India clean up
What he is really counting on, though, is that the product, by itself, will turn a profit -- a message that would resonate in China and India. Their economies are heavily dependent upon coal-fired electricity and also feature soaring demands for concrete. Neither country will be swayed by U.S. legislative moves to require CCS, Constantz believes. "The only way you're going to clean up the environment in China and India is to make it profitable," he adds. "If it's profitable, the Chinese are going to get there before we are."
Constantz's company, Calera Corp., of Los Gatos, Calif., recently appeared on a list of six winners of $106 million in federal stimulus grants awarded by the Department of Energy to demonstrate the "beneficial use" of CO2. The competition was not open to foreign companies. Steven Chu, secretary of Energy, described it as part of a "broad commitment to unleash the American innovation machine."
Elaine Everitt, a project manager for the National Energy Technology Laboratory, which selected the winners, said DOE still believes carbon capture and storage "is the best way to go." But officials have continuing concerns that not all areas of the United States have the right geology to store CO2 underground permanently.
Ten years ago, her agency began exploring the potential of "beneficial use" of CO2. It found few companies interested then. Last year, 115 companies applied for grants. She said her office is preparing to track the six winners to see whether their technology is feasible and "what it would take to scale up to larger commercial use."
In a 233-page CCS report issued by a 14-agency task force of the Obama administration yesterday, it appears that the innovators have failed to convince government policymakers that there is an alternative to CCS. Buried in the back of the report are three pages on "CO2 Reuse" that conclude that none of the alternative ideas will be commercially viable by 2016, when the government is preparing to "roll out" its CCS strategy on a national basis (see related story).
Among the winners of the DOE awards, Constantz, a tall, confident inventor given to professorial lectures as well as sweeping statements, found himself in interesting company. Alcoa Inc. and Eastman Kodak Co. were among the winning teams, as well as Joe Jones, whose company, Skyonic Corp., will use its $25 million grant to build a demonstration plant that turns CO2 emissions from a San Antonio cement plant into bicarbonate of soda for animal feed and other industrial products.
More News From ClimateWire
How the GOP and a Slumping Economy Killed a 'Republican Instrument'
Another Symbol of the Arctic's Complex Ecosystem Finds Itself on Thin Ice
Dueling Pollsters Add Heat to Torpid Climate Debate
A Man Who Doesn't Want His Work to Go Up in Smoke
Calif. Climate Law Foes Face Uphill Battle, Despite Court Ruling
A blog about energy and the environment.
Go to Blog .None of the winners has made the case for an alternative approach as doggedly as Constantz. He built a small but solid base for himself in the concrete business by inventing a super-strong cement that orthopedic surgeons use to cement broken bones back together. It sells for $200 a gram.
Addressing 'the entire problem'
As Constantz describes his green cement, the process that makes it mimics the way corals, shellfish and other deep-sea creatures create their shells and skeletons out of calcium and magnesium in seawater. In the late 1980s, he decided it could be scaled up to produce the equivalent of portland cement, the binding ingredient of most concrete.
In 2007 he invited Vinod Khosla, the Silicon Valley investor, to his laboratory at Los Gatos, where he was beginning to make concrete from seawater.
Constantz, who knew relatively little about global warming then, noted that success was limited by the relatively small amount of CO2 dissolved in seawater. He said he turned to Khosla and asked: "Where can we get large quantities of carbon dioxide?"
Three years and about $50 million of Khosla's money later, Calera has a pilot plant operating on at Moss Landing on California's Monterey Bay. It bubbles some of the emissions from a natural gas-fired Dynegy power plant next door through seawater.
The additional CO2 and a patented low-energy electrochemical process increased the production of the chalk-like precursor to synthetic concrete and aggregate by about eight times, according to Calera. The plant makes the equivalent of about a ton of concrete a day, Constantz says.
Testifying last year before a House committee, Constantz asserted that his process could be scaled up at multiple facilities to produce 12.5 billion tons of concrete a year -- roughly as much as world markets consume. If it locked that much CO2 in concrete, the process could begin to cut global CO2 emissions by itself. Or, as he put it more bluntly during a lecture at Stanford: "We can address the entire problem."
He envisions selling "carbon-negative building materials" -- products such as cement, sand and aggregate -- under a regulatory regime that would give credit for products that contained CO2 removed from the atmosphere. One ton of green cement would reduce a building's carbon footprint by almost half a ton, he calculates. Part of the credit could come from providing builders with materials that avoided the emissions from mining and transporting the ingredients of traditional concrete, he adds.
Confronting the 'World of Concrete'
In an interview, Constantz called the Department of Energy's current preoccupation with CCS projects that inject and store carbon underground a "big scam" created by lobbyists from the oil industry. "For every dollar set aside for CCS, you will need to set aside $2 to take care of liability issues."
In his lectures, he has also lashed out at the concrete industry for having a "Phillip Morris problem" with regard to its emissions and climate change, reminiscent of the tobacco company, which spent years fighting charges that cigarettes caused cancer.
In February of 2009, Constantz showcased his idea at a seminar held for cement experts at the annual "World of Concrete" convention in Las Vegas. "There was a lot of interest. It was a packed room," recalled Steven Kosmatka, vice president of research for the Portland Cement Association, sponsor of the convention.
"People are waiting to see what products will be developed and how they will perform," said Kosmatka, who explained that experts do not fully understand Calera's process because some of the critical details were not revealed. "They [Calera] have some proprietary issues they need to protect."
Clay Perry, a spokesman for the Electric Power Research Institute, the nonprofit research arm of the nation's private utilities, said it is examining Calera's technology but cannot comment on it because it has signed a nondisclosure agreement with Constantz's company.
More News From ClimateWire
How the GOP and a Slumping Economy Killed a 'Republican Instrument'
Another Symbol of the Arctic's Complex Ecosystem Finds Itself on Thin Ice
Dueling Pollsters Add Heat to Torpid Climate Debate
A Man Who Doesn't Want His Work to Go Up in Smoke
Calif. Climate Law Foes Face Uphill Battle, Despite Court Ruling
A blog about energy and the environment.
Go to Blog .Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist and fellow professor at Stanford University's Department of Environmental Earth System Sciences, said he regarded some of Constantz's earlier claims as "chemical fantasy without any real bounding in reality." Since then, he says, Calera has modified its approach. "There is a whole family of strategies that they are intending to pursue."
"The question is whether they can do this at a scale that's interesting and at a price that's interesting," he said.
Over the past two years, Calera has attracted some potent allies. Peabody Energy, a global leader in the coal industry, bought a $15 million equity position in the company in March. Beth Sutton, a spokeswoman for Peabody, said her company has invested in at least a dozen promising carbon sequestration projects around the world. "This is our philosophy of pursing the ultimate goal of near zero emissions from coal."
(Constantz may have fanned the flames of the industry's interest by asserting to the House committee that his process will help existing coal-fired plants continue operating under government regulations on carbon emissions. "This will save jobs at coal plants, mining sites and in transportation," he said.)
In December, Calera signed an agreement with Bechtel Corp., one of the world's largest engineering and construction firms, to develop carbon capture facilities around the world. Ian Copeland, president of a Bechtel subsidiary, said "the fundamental chemistry and physics of the Calera process are based on sound scientific principles." Its cement-making process can be integrated with power plants, Copeland added.
Aiming too low?
Calera has received $7 million from Australian authorities to build a pilot plant to make building materials out of emissions from a power plant that uses some of the world's dirtiest coal. In April, a federal minister, Martin Ferguson, called the venture "very exciting" and said if the project proves feasible, Australia will contribute up to $40 million more.
One person whom Constantz hasn't been able to sell on the idea is Jones, president and founder of Skyonic. A chemical engineer who spent most of his career in the semiconductor business, Jones founded his company in Austin, Texas, in 2005. Jones thinks Constantz is aiming too low. Entering the concrete market, he says, is "like competing with dirt."
Jones says his invention, called the "SkyMine Process," will use the CO2 emissions from a San Antonio cement plant to make carbonates and bicarbonates, solids and liquids that capture the CO2 molecule. The end result, he says, will be an array of more valuable industrial chemicals including sodium bicarbonate, calcium carbonate, hydrochloric acid, hydrogen and chlorine gases.
While Constantz has Khosla backing him, Jones has another Silicon Valley investor, Carl Berg, helping to bankroll his venture. Jones said he has already proved his products can be sold at a profit, using emissions from a coal-fired powered plant along with salt, electricity and water as basic ingredients. "There has been considerable interest from utilities," he added.
His new plant, to be located next to Capitol Aggregates Ltd., a cement plant in San Antonio, will be in production by mid-2012. That, he said, will give his products access to a potential $3.5 billion market of chemicals "mined" from an invisible gas that what would otherwise have been wafted into the atmosphere.
Making "green cement," he says, is way down his list of product possibilities from "sky mining." "You want to do the lucrative stuff first and have it power your R&D," he said.
Copyright 2010 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
Published: August 13, 2010
The conventional wisdom among utilities, the Obama administration, many scientists and some major environmental groups is that the future of coal-fired electricity under an eventual cap on carbon dioxide emissions will require an overhaul that will be technologically complicated, politically difficult and financially expensive.
More News From ClimateWire
How the GOP and a Slumping Economy Killed a 'Republican Instrument'
Another Symbol of the Arctic's Complex Ecosystem Finds Itself on Thin Ice
Dueling Pollsters Add Heat to Torpid Climate Debate
A Man Who Doesn't Want His Work to Go Up in Smoke
Calif. Climate Law Foes Face Uphill Battle, Despite Court Ruling
A blog about energy and the environment.
Go to Blog .Policy experts say that to "decarbonize" the future power system, we will need a new generation of power plants that can separate CO2 from their emissions. They must be connected to a large network of pipelines and injection facilities that can transport the odorless, transparent gas and pump it deep underground. Finally, it will require a regime of new state and federal laws and regulations, probably backed up by insurance policies, to protect against long-term damage from leakage.
There are a growing number of companies and investors that are betting this conventional wisdom is wrong. They are supporting technologies that will separate and then trap carbon emissions in a series of "beneficial products" that can be shipped to markets and sold at a profit. That, they assert, will avoid the need for much of the carbon capture and storage (CCS) infrastructure now on energy planners' drawing boards.
The most outspoken salesman for this approach is Brent Constantz, who has spent much of his career studying, patenting and marketing new ways to make cement. He believes that what he calls "green cement," which starts as a milky precipitate made from injecting carbon dioxide from power plant emissions into seawater, can be made and sold at a profit.
In the Constantz scenario, his "green" cement and "green" aggregate that is used to make concrete would begin to take market share from conventional cement makers, which are the nation's third-largest source of CO2 emissions behind the utility and transportation sectors.
That is because normal cement is made by heating limestone to high temperatures in kilns. The limestone gives off CO2 in the process, and so do the kilns, which are usually coal-fired.
Rather than adding emissions to the atmosphere, green cement and cement aggregates are made by subtracting CO2 emissions and then locking them permanently in construction materials. A price on carbon emissions imposed by states or the federal government would help it replace conventional cement, asserts Constantz, a consulting professor at Stanford University's School of Earth Sciences.
Helping China and India clean up
What he is really counting on, though, is that the product, by itself, will turn a profit -- a message that would resonate in China and India. Their economies are heavily dependent upon coal-fired electricity and also feature soaring demands for concrete. Neither country will be swayed by U.S. legislative moves to require CCS, Constantz believes. "The only way you're going to clean up the environment in China and India is to make it profitable," he adds. "If it's profitable, the Chinese are going to get there before we are."
Constantz's company, Calera Corp., of Los Gatos, Calif., recently appeared on a list of six winners of $106 million in federal stimulus grants awarded by the Department of Energy to demonstrate the "beneficial use" of CO2. The competition was not open to foreign companies. Steven Chu, secretary of Energy, described it as part of a "broad commitment to unleash the American innovation machine."
Elaine Everitt, a project manager for the National Energy Technology Laboratory, which selected the winners, said DOE still believes carbon capture and storage "is the best way to go." But officials have continuing concerns that not all areas of the United States have the right geology to store CO2 underground permanently.
Ten years ago, her agency began exploring the potential of "beneficial use" of CO2. It found few companies interested then. Last year, 115 companies applied for grants. She said her office is preparing to track the six winners to see whether their technology is feasible and "what it would take to scale up to larger commercial use."
In a 233-page CCS report issued by a 14-agency task force of the Obama administration yesterday, it appears that the innovators have failed to convince government policymakers that there is an alternative to CCS. Buried in the back of the report are three pages on "CO2 Reuse" that conclude that none of the alternative ideas will be commercially viable by 2016, when the government is preparing to "roll out" its CCS strategy on a national basis (see related story).
Among the winners of the DOE awards, Constantz, a tall, confident inventor given to professorial lectures as well as sweeping statements, found himself in interesting company. Alcoa Inc. and Eastman Kodak Co. were among the winning teams, as well as Joe Jones, whose company, Skyonic Corp., will use its $25 million grant to build a demonstration plant that turns CO2 emissions from a San Antonio cement plant into bicarbonate of soda for animal feed and other industrial products.
More News From ClimateWire
How the GOP and a Slumping Economy Killed a 'Republican Instrument'
Another Symbol of the Arctic's Complex Ecosystem Finds Itself on Thin Ice
Dueling Pollsters Add Heat to Torpid Climate Debate
A Man Who Doesn't Want His Work to Go Up in Smoke
Calif. Climate Law Foes Face Uphill Battle, Despite Court Ruling
A blog about energy and the environment.
Go to Blog .None of the winners has made the case for an alternative approach as doggedly as Constantz. He built a small but solid base for himself in the concrete business by inventing a super-strong cement that orthopedic surgeons use to cement broken bones back together. It sells for $200 a gram.
Addressing 'the entire problem'
As Constantz describes his green cement, the process that makes it mimics the way corals, shellfish and other deep-sea creatures create their shells and skeletons out of calcium and magnesium in seawater. In the late 1980s, he decided it could be scaled up to produce the equivalent of portland cement, the binding ingredient of most concrete.
In 2007 he invited Vinod Khosla, the Silicon Valley investor, to his laboratory at Los Gatos, where he was beginning to make concrete from seawater.
Constantz, who knew relatively little about global warming then, noted that success was limited by the relatively small amount of CO2 dissolved in seawater. He said he turned to Khosla and asked: "Where can we get large quantities of carbon dioxide?"
Three years and about $50 million of Khosla's money later, Calera has a pilot plant operating on at Moss Landing on California's Monterey Bay. It bubbles some of the emissions from a natural gas-fired Dynegy power plant next door through seawater.
The additional CO2 and a patented low-energy electrochemical process increased the production of the chalk-like precursor to synthetic concrete and aggregate by about eight times, according to Calera. The plant makes the equivalent of about a ton of concrete a day, Constantz says.
Testifying last year before a House committee, Constantz asserted that his process could be scaled up at multiple facilities to produce 12.5 billion tons of concrete a year -- roughly as much as world markets consume. If it locked that much CO2 in concrete, the process could begin to cut global CO2 emissions by itself. Or, as he put it more bluntly during a lecture at Stanford: "We can address the entire problem."
He envisions selling "carbon-negative building materials" -- products such as cement, sand and aggregate -- under a regulatory regime that would give credit for products that contained CO2 removed from the atmosphere. One ton of green cement would reduce a building's carbon footprint by almost half a ton, he calculates. Part of the credit could come from providing builders with materials that avoided the emissions from mining and transporting the ingredients of traditional concrete, he adds.
Confronting the 'World of Concrete'
In an interview, Constantz called the Department of Energy's current preoccupation with CCS projects that inject and store carbon underground a "big scam" created by lobbyists from the oil industry. "For every dollar set aside for CCS, you will need to set aside $2 to take care of liability issues."
In his lectures, he has also lashed out at the concrete industry for having a "Phillip Morris problem" with regard to its emissions and climate change, reminiscent of the tobacco company, which spent years fighting charges that cigarettes caused cancer.
In February of 2009, Constantz showcased his idea at a seminar held for cement experts at the annual "World of Concrete" convention in Las Vegas. "There was a lot of interest. It was a packed room," recalled Steven Kosmatka, vice president of research for the Portland Cement Association, sponsor of the convention.
"People are waiting to see what products will be developed and how they will perform," said Kosmatka, who explained that experts do not fully understand Calera's process because some of the critical details were not revealed. "They [Calera] have some proprietary issues they need to protect."
Clay Perry, a spokesman for the Electric Power Research Institute, the nonprofit research arm of the nation's private utilities, said it is examining Calera's technology but cannot comment on it because it has signed a nondisclosure agreement with Constantz's company.
More News From ClimateWire
How the GOP and a Slumping Economy Killed a 'Republican Instrument'
Another Symbol of the Arctic's Complex Ecosystem Finds Itself on Thin Ice
Dueling Pollsters Add Heat to Torpid Climate Debate
A Man Who Doesn't Want His Work to Go Up in Smoke
Calif. Climate Law Foes Face Uphill Battle, Despite Court Ruling
A blog about energy and the environment.
Go to Blog .Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist and fellow professor at Stanford University's Department of Environmental Earth System Sciences, said he regarded some of Constantz's earlier claims as "chemical fantasy without any real bounding in reality." Since then, he says, Calera has modified its approach. "There is a whole family of strategies that they are intending to pursue."
"The question is whether they can do this at a scale that's interesting and at a price that's interesting," he said.
Over the past two years, Calera has attracted some potent allies. Peabody Energy, a global leader in the coal industry, bought a $15 million equity position in the company in March. Beth Sutton, a spokeswoman for Peabody, said her company has invested in at least a dozen promising carbon sequestration projects around the world. "This is our philosophy of pursing the ultimate goal of near zero emissions from coal."
(Constantz may have fanned the flames of the industry's interest by asserting to the House committee that his process will help existing coal-fired plants continue operating under government regulations on carbon emissions. "This will save jobs at coal plants, mining sites and in transportation," he said.)
In December, Calera signed an agreement with Bechtel Corp., one of the world's largest engineering and construction firms, to develop carbon capture facilities around the world. Ian Copeland, president of a Bechtel subsidiary, said "the fundamental chemistry and physics of the Calera process are based on sound scientific principles." Its cement-making process can be integrated with power plants, Copeland added.
Aiming too low?
Calera has received $7 million from Australian authorities to build a pilot plant to make building materials out of emissions from a power plant that uses some of the world's dirtiest coal. In April, a federal minister, Martin Ferguson, called the venture "very exciting" and said if the project proves feasible, Australia will contribute up to $40 million more.
One person whom Constantz hasn't been able to sell on the idea is Jones, president and founder of Skyonic. A chemical engineer who spent most of his career in the semiconductor business, Jones founded his company in Austin, Texas, in 2005. Jones thinks Constantz is aiming too low. Entering the concrete market, he says, is "like competing with dirt."
Jones says his invention, called the "SkyMine Process," will use the CO2 emissions from a San Antonio cement plant to make carbonates and bicarbonates, solids and liquids that capture the CO2 molecule. The end result, he says, will be an array of more valuable industrial chemicals including sodium bicarbonate, calcium carbonate, hydrochloric acid, hydrogen and chlorine gases.
While Constantz has Khosla backing him, Jones has another Silicon Valley investor, Carl Berg, helping to bankroll his venture. Jones said he has already proved his products can be sold at a profit, using emissions from a coal-fired powered plant along with salt, electricity and water as basic ingredients. "There has been considerable interest from utilities," he added.
His new plant, to be located next to Capitol Aggregates Ltd., a cement plant in San Antonio, will be in production by mid-2012. That, he said, will give his products access to a potential $3.5 billion market of chemicals "mined" from an invisible gas that what would otherwise have been wafted into the atmosphere.
Making "green cement," he says, is way down his list of product possibilities from "sky mining." "You want to do the lucrative stuff first and have it power your R&D," he said.
Copyright 2010 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
Mankind is using up global resources faster than ever
The growing world population and increasing consumption has pushed the world into ‘eco-debt’ a month earlier this year, according to the latest statistics on global resources.
By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Published: 6:45AM BST 16 Aug 2010
Think tank the New Economics Foundation (NEF) look at how much food, fuel and other resources are consumed by humans every year. They then compare it to how much the world can provide without threatening the ability of important ecosystems like oceans and rainforests to recover.
This year the moment we start eating into nature's capital or ‘Earth Overshoot Day’ will fall on 21st August, a full month earlier than last year, when resources were used up by 23rd September.
Carbon Trust rebrands support for green entrepreneursAndrew Simms, Policy Director at NEF, blamed the growing global population and increased consumption.
He said people in developing countries like China are consuming more meat and demanding cars and other energy-intensive goods. Even with green developments and energy efficiency, rich countries are also consuming more as individuals demand the latest technology, food fad or car.
He explained that the earlier humans use up Earth’s resources, the more strain is put on resources, forcing up fuel prices and driving climate change. Ultimately ecosystems like fisheries and even the Earth’s climate system will suffer and future generations will experience food shortages and rising global temperatures.
Mr Simms called for a transition to a more sustainable way of living to prevent poverty and starvation in the future.
"The banking crisis taught us the danger of a system that goads us to live beyond our means financially,” he said. “A greater danger comes from a consumer culture and economic policy that pushes us to live beyond our means ecologically."
By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Published: 6:45AM BST 16 Aug 2010
Think tank the New Economics Foundation (NEF) look at how much food, fuel and other resources are consumed by humans every year. They then compare it to how much the world can provide without threatening the ability of important ecosystems like oceans and rainforests to recover.
This year the moment we start eating into nature's capital or ‘Earth Overshoot Day’ will fall on 21st August, a full month earlier than last year, when resources were used up by 23rd September.
Carbon Trust rebrands support for green entrepreneursAndrew Simms, Policy Director at NEF, blamed the growing global population and increased consumption.
He said people in developing countries like China are consuming more meat and demanding cars and other energy-intensive goods. Even with green developments and energy efficiency, rich countries are also consuming more as individuals demand the latest technology, food fad or car.
He explained that the earlier humans use up Earth’s resources, the more strain is put on resources, forcing up fuel prices and driving climate change. Ultimately ecosystems like fisheries and even the Earth’s climate system will suffer and future generations will experience food shortages and rising global temperatures.
Mr Simms called for a transition to a more sustainable way of living to prevent poverty and starvation in the future.
"The banking crisis taught us the danger of a system that goads us to live beyond our means financially,” he said. “A greater danger comes from a consumer culture and economic policy that pushes us to live beyond our means ecologically."
Charles to embark on sustainable living tour
Monday, 16 August 2010
The Prince of Wales is to embark on a tour of the UK next month, taking in Bristol when he will be joined by the Duchess of Cornwall, to champion examples of sustainable living.
The five-day tour will visit projects such as a community-run city farm in Newcastle and a grow-your-own scheme in Yorkshire.
Travelling on the Royal Train, which runs on biofuel, Charles will visit Edinburgh, Carmarthen, Bristol, Newcastle, Todmorden, Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham and London.
The tour is part of the Prince's Start initiative, a scheme to celebrate sustainable living.
It begins in Glasgow on September 6.
The Prince of Wales is to embark on a tour of the UK next month, taking in Bristol when he will be joined by the Duchess of Cornwall, to champion examples of sustainable living.
The five-day tour will visit projects such as a community-run city farm in Newcastle and a grow-your-own scheme in Yorkshire.
Travelling on the Royal Train, which runs on biofuel, Charles will visit Edinburgh, Carmarthen, Bristol, Newcastle, Todmorden, Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham and London.
The tour is part of the Prince's Start initiative, a scheme to celebrate sustainable living.
It begins in Glasgow on September 6.
Have ethical funds lost their green credentials?
Oil, banking, drugs … some investors are in for a shock when they see where ethical funds are putting their cash
Patrick Collinson The Guardian, Saturday 14 August 2010
Pensions company Zurich has a fund that it promises will invest in "companies and institutions which actively enhance the global environment and community". It tells savers that the Environmental Opportunities fund will seek out companies across the globe which take a positive attitude to environmental issues. So its investors may be more than a little surprised to learn 13.5% of the £16m fund is in shares in oil groups BP and Shell, and 4.3% in Rio Tinto, one of the world's biggest mining companies.
Indeed, it's difficult to spot any names among its top 10 holdings that are conspicuously environmental. After BP, Shell and Rio, the fund's stock list is a rollcall of the FTSE 100: HSBC, Vodafone, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Tesco and so on. They are all names popular with investment managers, but are they what an environmentally minded retail investor would really think their money is going into?
The fund is this week named and shamed in a report by Britain's biggest firm of ethical financial advisers, Barchester Green, into the heroes and villains of the ethical and environmental investing world. "Its holdings in BP, Shell and Rio would put this fund high on an environmental investor's blacklist," says Barchester Green director Jonathon Clark. "BP may be developing alternative energy sources, but this is a minuscule part of the business compared, for example, with the pollution caused by the Deepwater oil spill. It is difficult to see how these companies can possibly be included in a fund with this name. The remaining companies in its investment portfolio seem to embody little (if anything) in terms of environmental opportunities."
BP and Shell have faced a barrage of criticism over the environmental and financial cost of their tar sands oil exploration projects.
In a statement, Zurich said: "We recognise the interpretation of ethical and environmental investment is subjective, which is why we offer a wide range of funds, including alternative ethical and environmental options, through our investment and pension products. We believe we need to take into account financial and non-financial considerations when making investment decisions to ensure our customers benefit in the long run."
Clark also dubs M&S's £14m ethical fund "very disappointing". He adds: "M&S is a brand normally associated with a generally positive record in corporate social responsibility. But it turns out to have 4.6% invested in Shell and 4.3% invested in BP." M&S has taken Clark's views, and those of other investors, on board. It said: "M&S Money regularly reviews the companies in the ethical fund to ensure they meet the criteria. A recent review has led to a downgrading of BP and Shell, meaning these no longer meet our investment policy ethical criteria and will not form part of the fund."
Other funds, such as ones from Scottish Widows and Prudential, find themselves in the "villains" list because they invest in banks. "More and more ethical investors feel a general disquiet over the behaviour of the banks, their selling practices and their lending criteria," says Clark.
But by excluding oil companies and banks from an ethical or environmental fund, are shareholders missing an opportunity to engage with these companies and change practices? Indeed, the ethically-minded Co-operative has been leading a shareholder revolt over tar sands investments – and it can only do so because it's a shareholder.
Clark thinks investors in ethical and environmental funds prefer to exclude, rather than engage. "Clients are quite clear about what they don't want to be invested in, and equally clear about the things they do like." And what they like is Jupiter's Ecology fund, probably the most "deep green" fund in the UK.
Managed by Charlie Thomas, it is nearly £350m in size and pursues a policy of screening out companies. It's up 39% in five years. Its big holdings include Danish wind power firm Vestas and United Natural Foods, the biggest independent distributor of organic produce in the US. "Nothing is invested in the financial sector. It is a fund which invests in what it says. It is also one of the few environmental funds which applies ethical, as well as environmental, criteria to stock selection," says Clark.
Although no individual fund from Aviva appears in Barchester's hero list, Clark says that as a fund management group it deserves "an extremely honourable mention. In a table of total overall offerings, rather than single funds, it would be our number one".
Of the other heroes, IM WHEB Sustainability invests in companies offering alternative energy solutions and the provision of clean drinking water, through purification and conservation technologies; BlackRock New Energy Technology specialises in solar, wind and wave power; Aegon Ethical Equity adheres to strict ethical criteria in choosing its investment portfolio and, significantly says Clark, excludes banks; and Impax Environmental Leaders focuses on alternative energy, water treatment and pollution control/waste technologies.
Heroes and villains
Three cheers
1. Jupiter Ecology
2. IM WHEB Sustainability Fund
3. BlackRock New Energy Technology
4. Aegon Ethical Equity Fund
5. Impax Environmental Leaders
Three jeers
1. Zurich Environmental Opportunities Pension Fund
2. Jupiter Environmental Opportunities – OEIC
3. Marks & Spencer Ethical – OEIC and Isa
4. Scottish Widows Environmental Investor
5. Prudential Ethical
Source: Barchester Green
Green tips for your portfolio
Choosing funds Eiris, the Ethical Investment Research Service, offers an independent guide to 90 UK green and ethical funds at yourethicalmoney.org.
Ethical or environmental? Traditional ethical funds screen out arms, tobacco and polluters. More recently, climate change funds investing in new energy opportunities have appealed to younger investors.
Performance They've not done well in the financial crisis, they are more narrowly invested and suffer higher levels of volatility. In a rising market they do well, but in a bad market they can drop like a stone. Check individual performance at trustnet.com.
DIY or adviser? You can buy cheaply direct at fund supermarkets such as Hargreaves Lansdown (h-l.co.uk). For advice, try the Ethical Investment Association at ethicalinvestment.org.uk, which has a directory of professional advisers and their contact details.
Patrick Collinson The Guardian, Saturday 14 August 2010
Pensions company Zurich has a fund that it promises will invest in "companies and institutions which actively enhance the global environment and community". It tells savers that the Environmental Opportunities fund will seek out companies across the globe which take a positive attitude to environmental issues. So its investors may be more than a little surprised to learn 13.5% of the £16m fund is in shares in oil groups BP and Shell, and 4.3% in Rio Tinto, one of the world's biggest mining companies.
Indeed, it's difficult to spot any names among its top 10 holdings that are conspicuously environmental. After BP, Shell and Rio, the fund's stock list is a rollcall of the FTSE 100: HSBC, Vodafone, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Tesco and so on. They are all names popular with investment managers, but are they what an environmentally minded retail investor would really think their money is going into?
The fund is this week named and shamed in a report by Britain's biggest firm of ethical financial advisers, Barchester Green, into the heroes and villains of the ethical and environmental investing world. "Its holdings in BP, Shell and Rio would put this fund high on an environmental investor's blacklist," says Barchester Green director Jonathon Clark. "BP may be developing alternative energy sources, but this is a minuscule part of the business compared, for example, with the pollution caused by the Deepwater oil spill. It is difficult to see how these companies can possibly be included in a fund with this name. The remaining companies in its investment portfolio seem to embody little (if anything) in terms of environmental opportunities."
BP and Shell have faced a barrage of criticism over the environmental and financial cost of their tar sands oil exploration projects.
In a statement, Zurich said: "We recognise the interpretation of ethical and environmental investment is subjective, which is why we offer a wide range of funds, including alternative ethical and environmental options, through our investment and pension products. We believe we need to take into account financial and non-financial considerations when making investment decisions to ensure our customers benefit in the long run."
Clark also dubs M&S's £14m ethical fund "very disappointing". He adds: "M&S is a brand normally associated with a generally positive record in corporate social responsibility. But it turns out to have 4.6% invested in Shell and 4.3% invested in BP." M&S has taken Clark's views, and those of other investors, on board. It said: "M&S Money regularly reviews the companies in the ethical fund to ensure they meet the criteria. A recent review has led to a downgrading of BP and Shell, meaning these no longer meet our investment policy ethical criteria and will not form part of the fund."
Other funds, such as ones from Scottish Widows and Prudential, find themselves in the "villains" list because they invest in banks. "More and more ethical investors feel a general disquiet over the behaviour of the banks, their selling practices and their lending criteria," says Clark.
But by excluding oil companies and banks from an ethical or environmental fund, are shareholders missing an opportunity to engage with these companies and change practices? Indeed, the ethically-minded Co-operative has been leading a shareholder revolt over tar sands investments – and it can only do so because it's a shareholder.
Clark thinks investors in ethical and environmental funds prefer to exclude, rather than engage. "Clients are quite clear about what they don't want to be invested in, and equally clear about the things they do like." And what they like is Jupiter's Ecology fund, probably the most "deep green" fund in the UK.
Managed by Charlie Thomas, it is nearly £350m in size and pursues a policy of screening out companies. It's up 39% in five years. Its big holdings include Danish wind power firm Vestas and United Natural Foods, the biggest independent distributor of organic produce in the US. "Nothing is invested in the financial sector. It is a fund which invests in what it says. It is also one of the few environmental funds which applies ethical, as well as environmental, criteria to stock selection," says Clark.
Although no individual fund from Aviva appears in Barchester's hero list, Clark says that as a fund management group it deserves "an extremely honourable mention. In a table of total overall offerings, rather than single funds, it would be our number one".
Of the other heroes, IM WHEB Sustainability invests in companies offering alternative energy solutions and the provision of clean drinking water, through purification and conservation technologies; BlackRock New Energy Technology specialises in solar, wind and wave power; Aegon Ethical Equity adheres to strict ethical criteria in choosing its investment portfolio and, significantly says Clark, excludes banks; and Impax Environmental Leaders focuses on alternative energy, water treatment and pollution control/waste technologies.
Heroes and villains
Three cheers
1. Jupiter Ecology
2. IM WHEB Sustainability Fund
3. BlackRock New Energy Technology
4. Aegon Ethical Equity Fund
5. Impax Environmental Leaders
Three jeers
1. Zurich Environmental Opportunities Pension Fund
2. Jupiter Environmental Opportunities – OEIC
3. Marks & Spencer Ethical – OEIC and Isa
4. Scottish Widows Environmental Investor
5. Prudential Ethical
Source: Barchester Green
Green tips for your portfolio
Choosing funds Eiris, the Ethical Investment Research Service, offers an independent guide to 90 UK green and ethical funds at yourethicalmoney.org.
Ethical or environmental? Traditional ethical funds screen out arms, tobacco and polluters. More recently, climate change funds investing in new energy opportunities have appealed to younger investors.
Performance They've not done well in the financial crisis, they are more narrowly invested and suffer higher levels of volatility. In a rising market they do well, but in a bad market they can drop like a stone. Check individual performance at trustnet.com.
DIY or adviser? You can buy cheaply direct at fund supermarkets such as Hargreaves Lansdown (h-l.co.uk). For advice, try the Ethical Investment Association at ethicalinvestment.org.uk, which has a directory of professional advisers and their contact details.
BP oil spill: Barack Obama dives into safety debate with Gulf of Mexico swim
• Beaches clean and open for business, says president
• Coastal states could lose $23bn in tourism revenue
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent guardian.co.uk, Sunday 15 August 2010 23.03 BST
Barack Obama plunged up to his neck into the debate about the safety of Gulf waters after the BP oil spill yesterday when the White House released a photo of the president taking a dip at a Florida resort town.
The White House had cast the trip to Panama City by the president, Michelle Obama and daughter Sasha as a solidarity mission that would help restore public confidence in the resort towns, which have suffered heavy cancellations during the peak school holiday season. Obama has faced a growing chorus of criticism for not heeding his own advice that Americans vacation in the Gulf.
The president and his family were pictured playing mini golf and taking a boat trip around St Andrews Bay looking for dolphins.
The White House also released a single image of Obama swimming with his daughter by the official photographer Pete Souza. Other photographers were kept away from the beach.
The resort towns of the Florida panhandle are on the eastern edge of the oil spill but the beaches were still hit by tar balls and an oily sheen.
A study by Oxford Economics for the US Travel Association estimated the spill could cost coastal towns in the four Gulf states nearly $23 billion dollars in lost tourism arrivals over the next three years.
On Friday, Alabama became the first state to sue BP for damage from the oil spill. Louisiana sustained the most damage to its coastline following the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig three months ago.
The state's attorney general said it was suing BP, Transocean and Halliburton for "catastrophic harm" caused by the spill.
On Saturday, Obama sought to shore up businesses along the entire Gulf coast.
"As a result of the clean-up effort beaches all along the Gulf Coast are clean, they are safe and they are open for business," Obama told reporters. "That's one of the reasons Michelle, Sasha and I are here."
He promised that his administration would continue to monitor the oil as it hit the shore and to make sure the clean up was completed.
But the first family's own holiday in the Gulf was over within just 27 hours with the Obamas returning to Washington by lunchtime today. They leave on their real holiday – a 10-day stay in Martha's Vineyard midweek.
No new oil has entered the Gulf since July 15 when a BP crew fitted a new cap over the well.
The administration's lead official on the crisis, Coast Guard commander Thad Allen, on Saturday directed BP to conduct a new set of pressure tests on the well before launching the operation to kill it for good with a relief well.
It could be later tomorrow or early on Tuesday before officials know the results of those tests.
• Coastal states could lose $23bn in tourism revenue
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent guardian.co.uk, Sunday 15 August 2010 23.03 BST
Barack Obama plunged up to his neck into the debate about the safety of Gulf waters after the BP oil spill yesterday when the White House released a photo of the president taking a dip at a Florida resort town.
The White House had cast the trip to Panama City by the president, Michelle Obama and daughter Sasha as a solidarity mission that would help restore public confidence in the resort towns, which have suffered heavy cancellations during the peak school holiday season. Obama has faced a growing chorus of criticism for not heeding his own advice that Americans vacation in the Gulf.
The president and his family were pictured playing mini golf and taking a boat trip around St Andrews Bay looking for dolphins.
The White House also released a single image of Obama swimming with his daughter by the official photographer Pete Souza. Other photographers were kept away from the beach.
The resort towns of the Florida panhandle are on the eastern edge of the oil spill but the beaches were still hit by tar balls and an oily sheen.
A study by Oxford Economics for the US Travel Association estimated the spill could cost coastal towns in the four Gulf states nearly $23 billion dollars in lost tourism arrivals over the next three years.
On Friday, Alabama became the first state to sue BP for damage from the oil spill. Louisiana sustained the most damage to its coastline following the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig three months ago.
The state's attorney general said it was suing BP, Transocean and Halliburton for "catastrophic harm" caused by the spill.
On Saturday, Obama sought to shore up businesses along the entire Gulf coast.
"As a result of the clean-up effort beaches all along the Gulf Coast are clean, they are safe and they are open for business," Obama told reporters. "That's one of the reasons Michelle, Sasha and I are here."
He promised that his administration would continue to monitor the oil as it hit the shore and to make sure the clean up was completed.
But the first family's own holiday in the Gulf was over within just 27 hours with the Obamas returning to Washington by lunchtime today. They leave on their real holiday – a 10-day stay in Martha's Vineyard midweek.
No new oil has entered the Gulf since July 15 when a BP crew fitted a new cap over the well.
The administration's lead official on the crisis, Coast Guard commander Thad Allen, on Saturday directed BP to conduct a new set of pressure tests on the well before launching the operation to kill it for good with a relief well.
It could be later tomorrow or early on Tuesday before officials know the results of those tests.
Environment cuts: fight to preserve the health of the seas
Ecologists warn cuts will hamper efforts to set up marine conservation areas and safely build offshore windfarms
Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent The Guardian, Saturday 14 August 2010
Plans to set up a network of marine conservation areas and safely build vast offshore windfarms and deep-sea oil rigs around the UK could be hampered or irreparably damaged by spending cuts, senior ecologists have warned.
They fear that 40% cuts in the government's environment funding will hit crucial research programmes into the health of Britain's seas at a time of unprecedented pressures on marine habitats.
Conservationists believe the cuts will severely affect a marine research centre in Aberdeen, an outpost of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), where 30 scientists and support staff lead crucial surveys and scientific studies on fish stocks, marine biodiversity and the seabed around Britain.
One senior government adviser said that this would leave the UK exposed to legal action and potentially the loss of funding from the European commission for breaching its duties under EU birds and habitats directives, which require ministers to protect vulnerable species such as dolphins and sea birds.
Legal action and uncertainties about the suitability of sites could delay the offshore renewables programme and cost industry and the taxpayer more in future. "It's a double bang: it gets in the way of development and if we make mistakes we'll be clobbered by the [EU] commission. We'll get whopping great penalties, to say nothing of the reputational damage," he said.
Energy companies are installing thousands of offshore wind turbines around the British coast, while the oil industry, led by BP, is pushing for licences to drill test wells in deep but poorly studied waters off western Scotland and Shetland.
Under legislation passed by the Labour government, the UK is also committed to setting up a network of marine conservation zones, dedicated to preserving the most vulnerable and significant areas of sea, as the first step towards introducing marine protection areas where tough controls on industry, fishing and pollution will be enforced.
Stuart Housden, director of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Scotland, said the JNCC's work in Aberdeen played a vital role in establishing where to set up marine protection zones and where it was safest to build offshore windfarms or tidal and wave power machines, or to sink oil wells.
"These are very expensive and difficult to do, and these processes have already been starved of funds, but at the same time governments in Edinburgh and London are very anxious to see opportunities for offshore renewables and oil and gas pursued with vigour," he said. "But to do that we need to have good environmental assessments; we need to know what's out there and where to declare the best protected areas. They're trying to cut corners and save money when the pressures to do developments at sea are so fast and furious, and before the best sites are identified, with serious damage potentially being done."
Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent The Guardian, Saturday 14 August 2010
Plans to set up a network of marine conservation areas and safely build vast offshore windfarms and deep-sea oil rigs around the UK could be hampered or irreparably damaged by spending cuts, senior ecologists have warned.
They fear that 40% cuts in the government's environment funding will hit crucial research programmes into the health of Britain's seas at a time of unprecedented pressures on marine habitats.
Conservationists believe the cuts will severely affect a marine research centre in Aberdeen, an outpost of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), where 30 scientists and support staff lead crucial surveys and scientific studies on fish stocks, marine biodiversity and the seabed around Britain.
One senior government adviser said that this would leave the UK exposed to legal action and potentially the loss of funding from the European commission for breaching its duties under EU birds and habitats directives, which require ministers to protect vulnerable species such as dolphins and sea birds.
Legal action and uncertainties about the suitability of sites could delay the offshore renewables programme and cost industry and the taxpayer more in future. "It's a double bang: it gets in the way of development and if we make mistakes we'll be clobbered by the [EU] commission. We'll get whopping great penalties, to say nothing of the reputational damage," he said.
Energy companies are installing thousands of offshore wind turbines around the British coast, while the oil industry, led by BP, is pushing for licences to drill test wells in deep but poorly studied waters off western Scotland and Shetland.
Under legislation passed by the Labour government, the UK is also committed to setting up a network of marine conservation zones, dedicated to preserving the most vulnerable and significant areas of sea, as the first step towards introducing marine protection areas where tough controls on industry, fishing and pollution will be enforced.
Stuart Housden, director of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Scotland, said the JNCC's work in Aberdeen played a vital role in establishing where to set up marine protection zones and where it was safest to build offshore windfarms or tidal and wave power machines, or to sink oil wells.
"These are very expensive and difficult to do, and these processes have already been starved of funds, but at the same time governments in Edinburgh and London are very anxious to see opportunities for offshore renewables and oil and gas pursued with vigour," he said. "But to do that we need to have good environmental assessments; we need to know what's out there and where to declare the best protected areas. They're trying to cut corners and save money when the pressures to do developments at sea are so fast and furious, and before the best sites are identified, with serious damage potentially being done."
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