By Simon Hardeman
Friday, 5 August 2011
Londoners have become used to their distinctive blue "Boris bikes", but from today, a much more outlandish fleet of two-wheelers will be available. Called WOW Bikes, they have been customised by top creatives and after being used by visitors to a West End hotel for the next 10 weeks, they will be auctioned to raise money for the Elton John Aids Foundation.
The basic bicycles are the work of a London-based, designer, Benedict Radcliffe, who once created a pedal version of a Lamborghini. They have been customised by the designer Ron Arad, singer Paloma Faith, illustrator Natasha Law and fashion designers Patrick Cox and Alice Temperley.
Faith's bike "oozes vintage glamour and music", according to Radcliffe. Piano keys feature on the mudguard, a Fifties radio is set into the handlebars and the whole bike is covered in a feather design. Arad "uses biomorphic shapes created from his favoured medium, steel... reinventing the wheel, quite literally". Cox's bike is "based on an old-school three-wheeled, two wheels at the front Miami ice-cream bike... the fact that there is a big box on the front means things can be hidden in there – a 12-volt battery powering the music system, fluoro lighting and a coffee machine."
The bikes will be based at W London in Leicester Square. The auction will be held at www.facebook.com/wlondonhotel. Bidding from 11 August
Friday, 5 August 2011
The Secret Millionaire launches rooftop solar scheme
Organisations looking to fit PV panels can apply for grants of up to £150,000 until fund expires
BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 August 2011 12.24 BST
A partnership forged on the TV show The Secret Millionaire is launching a "significant" new fund to provide a helping hand to rooftop solar energy projects.
Grants of up to £150,000 to fit photovoltaic panels are being offered to public and private organisations by Freetricity, a company formed by businessman Paul Williams and entrepreneur and environmentalist Ben Way, who met on the Channel Four programme.
It was reported earlier that the fund could reach £500m, but one of the listed investors, Octopus Investments, told BusinessGreen on Thursday it had not yet signed a deal, and although an agreement was likely this week, its own funding would not be more than £30m.
Williams, Freetricity's chief executive, admitted the fund would not necessarily extend to £500m, byt said he was "reasonably confident" other sources of investment would be forthcoming to bring the total figure well above £30m.
"We're hopeful it will reach a significant figure," he told BusinessGreen.
Nevertheless, the panels are available on a first-come, first-served basis to building owners across England and Wales until the funding is exhausted. Organisations taking up the offer will get free electricity, while Freetricity keeps the feed-in tariff payments related to the panels.
In a company statement, Williams said the fund represented the biggest project of its kind in the UK and would help businesses and organisations to curb rising energy bills at the same time as cutting carbon emissions.
"It will be especially attractive to those who are interested in reducing their carbon footprint but concerned about the cost of doing so," he added. "We hope that this deal will allow them to see that solar is a genuinely viable alternative to traditional energy sources."
The scheme, also backed by developer LightSource Renewables and energy efficiency solutions company Anesco, is the latest in a series of free solar programmes.
Utility giants British Gas and E.On have both made panels available to domestic customers at no upfront cost, while SolarCentury and Homesun are among a number of specialist firms offering panels to business and domestic consumers.
In related news, US solar developer K Road Power has this week reached a deal with Barclays Capital that will see the investment bank part fund the development of solar installations.
A statement from K Road said Barclays Natural Resource Investments would "make a substantial commitment" to supporting the 11 solar projects the company has in development, including the 850MW Calico project in California it acquired in January.
• This article was amended on 4 August. BusinessGreen had originally reported that the fund could reach £500m, but later altered this figure to £30m.
BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 August 2011 12.24 BST
A partnership forged on the TV show The Secret Millionaire is launching a "significant" new fund to provide a helping hand to rooftop solar energy projects.
Grants of up to £150,000 to fit photovoltaic panels are being offered to public and private organisations by Freetricity, a company formed by businessman Paul Williams and entrepreneur and environmentalist Ben Way, who met on the Channel Four programme.
It was reported earlier that the fund could reach £500m, but one of the listed investors, Octopus Investments, told BusinessGreen on Thursday it had not yet signed a deal, and although an agreement was likely this week, its own funding would not be more than £30m.
Williams, Freetricity's chief executive, admitted the fund would not necessarily extend to £500m, byt said he was "reasonably confident" other sources of investment would be forthcoming to bring the total figure well above £30m.
"We're hopeful it will reach a significant figure," he told BusinessGreen.
Nevertheless, the panels are available on a first-come, first-served basis to building owners across England and Wales until the funding is exhausted. Organisations taking up the offer will get free electricity, while Freetricity keeps the feed-in tariff payments related to the panels.
In a company statement, Williams said the fund represented the biggest project of its kind in the UK and would help businesses and organisations to curb rising energy bills at the same time as cutting carbon emissions.
"It will be especially attractive to those who are interested in reducing their carbon footprint but concerned about the cost of doing so," he added. "We hope that this deal will allow them to see that solar is a genuinely viable alternative to traditional energy sources."
The scheme, also backed by developer LightSource Renewables and energy efficiency solutions company Anesco, is the latest in a series of free solar programmes.
Utility giants British Gas and E.On have both made panels available to domestic customers at no upfront cost, while SolarCentury and Homesun are among a number of specialist firms offering panels to business and domestic consumers.
In related news, US solar developer K Road Power has this week reached a deal with Barclays Capital that will see the investment bank part fund the development of solar installations.
A statement from K Road said Barclays Natural Resource Investments would "make a substantial commitment" to supporting the 11 solar projects the company has in development, including the 850MW Calico project in California it acquired in January.
• This article was amended on 4 August. BusinessGreen had originally reported that the fund could reach £500m, but later altered this figure to £30m.
China to cap energy use in national low-carbon plan
Limit is expected to form cornerstone of five-year plan to curb surging greenhouse gas emissions
Tania Branigan in Beijing
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 August 2011 17.24 BST
A cap on energy consumption is expected to be at the heart of a Chinese low-carbon plan to be issued this year, experts believe, amid reports that officials have now agreed its level.
China is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, making up a quarter of the global total. Experts say setting an energy limit would add certainty to the country's attempts to rein in emissions and should make it easier for emissions trading schemes to get off the ground.
The cap has been anticipated for some time but is now thought likely to emerge in the low-carbon plan understood to have been broadly approved by a panel set up by the state council, China's cabinet, and chaired by the premier, Wen Jiabao. It should be formally passed later this year.
Reuters reported that officials have settled on a total energy cap of 4.1bn tonnes of coal equivalent (TCE) by 2015 – a level more than 25% higher than last year.
Analysts warn that the plan has yet to be nailed down and that a cap could still be delayed by disagreements, to re-emerge in a later policy document.
The government in March unveiled its five year-plan for 2011-2015. Setting out the economic course for the nation, it aims for a more sustainable pace of growth and includes a new carbon intensity target – trying to slow emissions growth relative to GDP by 17% – as well as a goal of improving energy intensity by 16%. Officials are fleshing it out.
A cap "is significant, because it makes it much clearer to provinces what they have to do regardless of what GDP growth rate is", said Deborah Seligsohn, a climate policy expert working for the World Resources Institute in Beijing.
"The cap they have been talking about is essentially based on the growth rate they expect overall; it doesn't mean cutting further, but it does add certainty."
She said it would also make pilot emissions trading systems in six provinces and cities more effective. Although people have been looking at ways to base systems on carbon intensity, a cap would make matters much more straightforward.
A level of 4.1bn TCE would be higher than many had expected. Zhang Guobao, formerly China's top energy official, told the state news agency Xinhua in April that there would be a cap of 4bn TCE.
"There were some very aggressive suggestions from scholars. Some have suggested [4.1bn TCE] would be rather conservative, but from where I stand I think it is very positive," said Changhua Wu, the Climate Group's China representative.
"When you set a cap you obviously are going to set an attitude towards shifting the structure ... Part of the big lesson we learned in the last five years is that you could grow wind and solar and nuclear energy aggressively but keep consuming more."
Another key issue will be whether the plan spells out targets for individual provinces on energy and carbon intensity.
China's commitment to meeting environmental targets was underlined when provinces abruptly shut down plants last year to try to meet the goals of the last five-year plan.
With the central government keeping a closer eye on the progress of provinces, the National Development and Reform Commission – the country's top economic planning body – recently published the names of those struggling to meet targets.
"The Chinese government has made it pretty clear they expect these targets to be met. This time the provinces know that now, so they will be working from the beginning," said Seligsohn.
Tania Branigan in Beijing
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 August 2011 17.24 BST
A cap on energy consumption is expected to be at the heart of a Chinese low-carbon plan to be issued this year, experts believe, amid reports that officials have now agreed its level.
China is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, making up a quarter of the global total. Experts say setting an energy limit would add certainty to the country's attempts to rein in emissions and should make it easier for emissions trading schemes to get off the ground.
The cap has been anticipated for some time but is now thought likely to emerge in the low-carbon plan understood to have been broadly approved by a panel set up by the state council, China's cabinet, and chaired by the premier, Wen Jiabao. It should be formally passed later this year.
Reuters reported that officials have settled on a total energy cap of 4.1bn tonnes of coal equivalent (TCE) by 2015 – a level more than 25% higher than last year.
Analysts warn that the plan has yet to be nailed down and that a cap could still be delayed by disagreements, to re-emerge in a later policy document.
The government in March unveiled its five year-plan for 2011-2015. Setting out the economic course for the nation, it aims for a more sustainable pace of growth and includes a new carbon intensity target – trying to slow emissions growth relative to GDP by 17% – as well as a goal of improving energy intensity by 16%. Officials are fleshing it out.
A cap "is significant, because it makes it much clearer to provinces what they have to do regardless of what GDP growth rate is", said Deborah Seligsohn, a climate policy expert working for the World Resources Institute in Beijing.
"The cap they have been talking about is essentially based on the growth rate they expect overall; it doesn't mean cutting further, but it does add certainty."
She said it would also make pilot emissions trading systems in six provinces and cities more effective. Although people have been looking at ways to base systems on carbon intensity, a cap would make matters much more straightforward.
A level of 4.1bn TCE would be higher than many had expected. Zhang Guobao, formerly China's top energy official, told the state news agency Xinhua in April that there would be a cap of 4bn TCE.
"There were some very aggressive suggestions from scholars. Some have suggested [4.1bn TCE] would be rather conservative, but from where I stand I think it is very positive," said Changhua Wu, the Climate Group's China representative.
"When you set a cap you obviously are going to set an attitude towards shifting the structure ... Part of the big lesson we learned in the last five years is that you could grow wind and solar and nuclear energy aggressively but keep consuming more."
Another key issue will be whether the plan spells out targets for individual provinces on energy and carbon intensity.
China's commitment to meeting environmental targets was underlined when provinces abruptly shut down plants last year to try to meet the goals of the last five-year plan.
With the central government keeping a closer eye on the progress of provinces, the National Development and Reform Commission – the country's top economic planning body – recently published the names of those struggling to meet targets.
"The Chinese government has made it pretty clear they expect these targets to be met. This time the provinces know that now, so they will be working from the beginning," said Seligsohn.
CBI: Energy-intensive companies should be exempt from carbon floor price
Britain's largest business lobby says forcing heavy industry to pay a set carbon price will drive businesses out of the country
Fiona Harvey and Damian Carrington
guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 August 2011 09.44 BST
Energy-intensive companies should be spared the government's planned penalty on carbon dioxide emissions or they will migrate overseas, the UK's biggest business organisation has demanded.
The CBI employers' organisation has said that companies in sectors such as steel, cement-making and chemicals could not sustain the planned minimum price for carbon dioxide, which the government plans to introduce as a way of propping up carbon prices that have fallen too low to stimulate investment in the green economy.
Such energy-intensive companies make up only about 1% of the UK's annual gross domestic product, but they are regarded as politically vital.
"The irony is that these companies are key to the green economy," said Rhian Kelly, director for business environment at the CBI. "These are the chemicals companies making lubricants for wind turbines, the aluminium [smelters] making supplies for electric vehicles, the cement companies responsible for the concrete that glues wind turbines in place."
At present, the price of carbon under the European Union's emissions trading scheme is about €11 per tonne, having languished since the financial crisis. This rate is widely considered to be far below that needed to stimulate investments in energy-saving and renewable energy technologies, which experts put at between €20 and €50.
The so-called carbon floor price would be achieved by means of complex regulations on businesses that would add up to a levy on carbon emissions. But many companies are opposed to this because they argue it will put the UK at a disadvantage to other European countries, where the carbon price is entirely decided by the markets.
The CBI said that energy-intensive companies should be exempted from the carbon floor price, and that EU state aid could be used to "create a level playing field so that all member states are able to protect the competitiveness of their energy intensive industries equally".
Companies putting in place industrial energy efficiency programmes should also be eligible for funding from the government's planned green investment bank, the CBI suggested.
However, separate research has shown that many companies are gaining from the EU market in carbon. Research from Sandbag, an environmental pressure group, has found that European companies will hold an accumulated cache of carbon permits worth €7bn to €12bn next year. This is because companies were awarded too many free permits when the quantity was set before the financial crisis, and their falling output since then has given them a windfall of free permits that they can sit on and use in the next phase of the trading scheme, which will run from 2013 to 2020.
The companies gaining most include the steelmaker ArcelorMittal, with a current surplus valued at €1.7bn. Tata Steel, which has unused permits valued at nearly €400m, recently announced 1,500 job losses at its plants in Lincolnshire and Teesside, blaming emissions regulations as well as the economic downturn.
Karl-Ulrich Köhler, chief executive of Tata Steel Europe, said at the time: "EU carbon legislation threatens to impose huge additional costs on the steel industry."
The CBI's recommendations came in a report entitled Protecting the UK's Foundations: a blueprint for energy-intensive industries, published on Friday.
Fiona Harvey and Damian Carrington
guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 August 2011 09.44 BST
Energy-intensive companies should be spared the government's planned penalty on carbon dioxide emissions or they will migrate overseas, the UK's biggest business organisation has demanded.
The CBI employers' organisation has said that companies in sectors such as steel, cement-making and chemicals could not sustain the planned minimum price for carbon dioxide, which the government plans to introduce as a way of propping up carbon prices that have fallen too low to stimulate investment in the green economy.
Such energy-intensive companies make up only about 1% of the UK's annual gross domestic product, but they are regarded as politically vital.
"The irony is that these companies are key to the green economy," said Rhian Kelly, director for business environment at the CBI. "These are the chemicals companies making lubricants for wind turbines, the aluminium [smelters] making supplies for electric vehicles, the cement companies responsible for the concrete that glues wind turbines in place."
At present, the price of carbon under the European Union's emissions trading scheme is about €11 per tonne, having languished since the financial crisis. This rate is widely considered to be far below that needed to stimulate investments in energy-saving and renewable energy technologies, which experts put at between €20 and €50.
The so-called carbon floor price would be achieved by means of complex regulations on businesses that would add up to a levy on carbon emissions. But many companies are opposed to this because they argue it will put the UK at a disadvantage to other European countries, where the carbon price is entirely decided by the markets.
The CBI said that energy-intensive companies should be exempted from the carbon floor price, and that EU state aid could be used to "create a level playing field so that all member states are able to protect the competitiveness of their energy intensive industries equally".
Companies putting in place industrial energy efficiency programmes should also be eligible for funding from the government's planned green investment bank, the CBI suggested.
However, separate research has shown that many companies are gaining from the EU market in carbon. Research from Sandbag, an environmental pressure group, has found that European companies will hold an accumulated cache of carbon permits worth €7bn to €12bn next year. This is because companies were awarded too many free permits when the quantity was set before the financial crisis, and their falling output since then has given them a windfall of free permits that they can sit on and use in the next phase of the trading scheme, which will run from 2013 to 2020.
The companies gaining most include the steelmaker ArcelorMittal, with a current surplus valued at €1.7bn. Tata Steel, which has unused permits valued at nearly €400m, recently announced 1,500 job losses at its plants in Lincolnshire and Teesside, blaming emissions regulations as well as the economic downturn.
Karl-Ulrich Köhler, chief executive of Tata Steel Europe, said at the time: "EU carbon legislation threatens to impose huge additional costs on the steel industry."
The CBI's recommendations came in a report entitled Protecting the UK's Foundations: a blueprint for energy-intensive industries, published on Friday.
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