Relaxnews
Friday, 17 December 2010
The 44th International CES lists over 100 exhibitors under the category of Connected Home, the majority of which focus on smart grid integrated appliances and intelligent home products. With the smart grid set to become integrated into all aspects of everyday life, International CES is a chance to see what the big names in smart technology are developing and how these products can help reduce our energy consumption and environmental impact. Later in the year, Enertec in Germany and Home Eco in France give a glimpse into the household applications of the latest renewable energy technologies.
44th International CES
January 6-9, 2011
Las Vegas Convention Center/Las Vegas Hilton
Las Vegas,USA
One of the biggest consumer electronics events of the year CES, which has been running since 1967, is often used as a launching pad for the latest consumer gadgets. This year's event has a distinctively environmental angle with many companies showcasing their latest intelligent, energy saving smart grid appliances. Exhibitors of energy saving appliances at CES 2011 include, Energy Hub, Belkin and HomeGrid Forum. The event attracts over 126,600 visitors each year and is one of the most important dates on technology enthusiasts' calendars.
http://www.cesweb.org
Enertec
January 25-27
Leipzig Exhibition Center
Leipzig, Germany
An international trade fair dedicated to all aspects of energy generation and distribution and in particular renewable energies. In 2009 Enertec attracted 237 exhibitors from 11 countries and over 10,000 visitors from 49 countries around the world. One of the foremost topics at Enertec 2011 will be the role of the smart gird in energy distribution and storage with particular focus on Southeastern Europe. The fair is open to trade professionals and members of the public interested in energy distribution.
http://www.enertec-leipzig.com/
21st BioFach & Vivaness 2011
February 16-19
Exhibition Centre Nuremberg,
Nuremberg, Germany
BioFach is the oldest and largest trade fair dedicated to organic products, and will this year extend from food products into holistic health and wellness through its partnership with the Vivaness event. Key special themes include Organic Wine and Organic Olive Oil. Larger in scope and size than the other comparable European organic and natural ingredients trade fair - the Food Ingredients Europe and Natural Ingredients Expo, which is being held at the end of November in France. Last year's BioFach event attracted 2,557 exhibitors and nearly 44,000 visitors in an exhibition space of nearly more than 89,000 m2. The event has a global presence with events in Shanghai, Sao Paolo, Tokyo, Mumbai and Baltimore.
http://www.biofach.de/de/sitemap/
2nd Home Eco
February 18-20
Espace Encan
La Rochelle, France
Now in its second year, Home Expo is dedicated to natural living and renewable energy technologies. The event attracts around 70 exhibitors from around France. Visitors to the event primarily comprise architects, energy specialists and other industry professionals, but environmentally conscious members of the public are able to attend. This exhibition is more focused on individual actions and household technologies than Enertec, which exhibits large-scale and industry distribution of renewable energy technologies.
http://www.salon-home-eco.fr/ (website available in French only)
Saturday, 18 December 2010
California approves first US cap and trade scheme
California regulators approve nation's first system that gives polluters financial incentives to emit fewer greenhouse gases
Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 December 2010 10.13 GMT
California regulators yesterday approved the first system in the United States to give polluting companies such as utilities and refineries financial incentives to emit fewer greenhouse gases.
The Air Resources Board voted 9-1 to pass the key piece of California's 2006 climate law – called AB32 – with the hope that other states will follow the lead of the world's eighth largest economy. State officials are also discussing plans to link the new system with similar schemes that are underway or being planned in Canada, Europe and Asia.
California is launching into a "historic adventure," said Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the state's air quality board.
"We're inventing this," she said. "There is still going to be quite a bit of action needed before it becomes operational."
California is trying to "fill the vacuum created by the failure of Congress to pass any kind of climate or energy legislation for many years now," said Nichols.
A standing-room only board chambers featured testimony from more than 170 witnesses. Outside the chambers, climate change sceptics held signs reading "Global Warming: Science by Homer Simpson."
Some businesses that would fall under the new rules say the system could dampen California's already flagging economy, complicate lawmakers' efforts to close a $28.1bn (£18bn) revenue shortfall and lead to an increase in the price of electricity.
The rate increases, however, would still need approval from the state.
The governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, told the board he is sensitive to the recession, but argued that many of the new jobs being created under the system are in the clean technology industry.
"The real jobs we're creating right now are green jobs. Since 2006 or so green jobs have been created 10 times faster than in any other sector, so it's also an economic plus," he said.
But he said reducing greenhouse gas pollution is not just about climate change, but about human health and national security.
"I despise the fact that we send $1bn a year to foreign places for our oil and to places that hate us. We send this money to people that hate us and that are organising terrorists and trying to blow up our country," he said.
Supporters say the system will help spur economic recovery and innovation, pushing business to invest in clean technologies.
They say the billions of dollars the state collects in the system could help fund clean air programmes and help offset any increases in utility rates. Details of the uses of these new funds is still uncertain.
California has already enacted the strictest climate-related regulations in the country involving renewable energy mandates for utilities, tighter fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles and low-carbon fuel standards.
The state's landmark climate law had a 1 January 2011 deadline for devising and enacting the so-called cap-and-trade system.
In the US, New Mexico narrowly approved its own cap-and-trade programme last month and approved the state's participation in a regional market. There is another market proposed in the Midwest and in New England.
Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 December 2010 10.13 GMT
California regulators yesterday approved the first system in the United States to give polluting companies such as utilities and refineries financial incentives to emit fewer greenhouse gases.
The Air Resources Board voted 9-1 to pass the key piece of California's 2006 climate law – called AB32 – with the hope that other states will follow the lead of the world's eighth largest economy. State officials are also discussing plans to link the new system with similar schemes that are underway or being planned in Canada, Europe and Asia.
California is launching into a "historic adventure," said Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the state's air quality board.
"We're inventing this," she said. "There is still going to be quite a bit of action needed before it becomes operational."
California is trying to "fill the vacuum created by the failure of Congress to pass any kind of climate or energy legislation for many years now," said Nichols.
A standing-room only board chambers featured testimony from more than 170 witnesses. Outside the chambers, climate change sceptics held signs reading "Global Warming: Science by Homer Simpson."
Some businesses that would fall under the new rules say the system could dampen California's already flagging economy, complicate lawmakers' efforts to close a $28.1bn (£18bn) revenue shortfall and lead to an increase in the price of electricity.
The rate increases, however, would still need approval from the state.
The governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, told the board he is sensitive to the recession, but argued that many of the new jobs being created under the system are in the clean technology industry.
"The real jobs we're creating right now are green jobs. Since 2006 or so green jobs have been created 10 times faster than in any other sector, so it's also an economic plus," he said.
But he said reducing greenhouse gas pollution is not just about climate change, but about human health and national security.
"I despise the fact that we send $1bn a year to foreign places for our oil and to places that hate us. We send this money to people that hate us and that are organising terrorists and trying to blow up our country," he said.
Supporters say the system will help spur economic recovery and innovation, pushing business to invest in clean technologies.
They say the billions of dollars the state collects in the system could help fund clean air programmes and help offset any increases in utility rates. Details of the uses of these new funds is still uncertain.
California has already enacted the strictest climate-related regulations in the country involving renewable energy mandates for utilities, tighter fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles and low-carbon fuel standards.
The state's landmark climate law had a 1 January 2011 deadline for devising and enacting the so-called cap-and-trade system.
In the US, New Mexico narrowly approved its own cap-and-trade programme last month and approved the state's participation in a regional market. There is another market proposed in the Midwest and in New England.
Paris to introduce self-service electric car scheme
Mayor Bertrand Delanoë unveils environmentally friendly Autolib project in latest attempt to reduce Paris traffic
Kim Willsher in Paris guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 December 2010 16.33 GMT
First Parisians were urged to get on their bikes with an innovative self-service cycle scheme. Now residents of the French capital and tourists who embraced the Vélib bicycle hire scheme will soon be able to zip around town in environmentally friendly electric cars for less than the price of the average bottle of vin de table.
The Autolib scheme, due to be introduced next autumn, will see 3,000 bubble-shaped, battery-powered cars stationed at 1,000 self-service hire points across the city and its suburbs.
The mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, has announced that the city authorities have selected a four-seat vehicle produced by the French company Bolloré, run by the charismatic industrialist and businessman Vincent Bolloré.
The Bluecar, designed by Bolloré's Italian partners Pininfarina, is powered by a lithium metal polymer battery created by the company allowing them to travel about 250km (155 miles) between charges. Thebatteries will take four hours to charge.
With a maximum speed of 130kph (approximately 80mph) and acceleration of 0 to 60kph in 6.3 seconds the blue car will not break any records, but is designed for short journeys around town for the 58% of Parisians who do not own a car and the additional 16% who own a car but use it less than once a month.
Autolib drivers will need a full driving licence and will have to subscribe to the scheme for €12 – just over £10 – a month. After that they will pay €5 for the first half an hour, €4 for the next and €6 for each subsequent 30-minute slot, encouraging short hops.
Annick Lepetit, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of transport, said she hoped the scheme would attract between 160,000 and 200,000 subscribers to break even.
Delanoë has made no secret of his ambition to reduce the number of cars in Paris introducing restrictive road schemes and establishing a vast network of cycle lanes, much to the chagrin of drivers.
In 2007 he introduced the Vélib scheme – the name combines vélo and liberté, the French words for bicycle and freedom. Despite problems with theft and vandalism, the scheme has taken off and has been copied by cities around the world including London. Today the clunky grey 20kg Vélib bicycles are an established feature of Paris life.
The Paris city authorities said a study they commissioned showed the average car in the capital spends about 95% of its time parked.
Bolloré has invested €60m in the Autolib project, which is expected to cost more than €110m in total.
For those worried about finding their way around the French capital, the Autolib will come with built-in GPS and an emergency call button.
• This article was amended on 17 December 2010. The original referred to acceleration of 0 to 60 in a snail-like 6.3 seconds. This has been corrected.
Kim Willsher in Paris guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 December 2010 16.33 GMT
First Parisians were urged to get on their bikes with an innovative self-service cycle scheme. Now residents of the French capital and tourists who embraced the Vélib bicycle hire scheme will soon be able to zip around town in environmentally friendly electric cars for less than the price of the average bottle of vin de table.
The Autolib scheme, due to be introduced next autumn, will see 3,000 bubble-shaped, battery-powered cars stationed at 1,000 self-service hire points across the city and its suburbs.
The mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, has announced that the city authorities have selected a four-seat vehicle produced by the French company Bolloré, run by the charismatic industrialist and businessman Vincent Bolloré.
The Bluecar, designed by Bolloré's Italian partners Pininfarina, is powered by a lithium metal polymer battery created by the company allowing them to travel about 250km (155 miles) between charges. Thebatteries will take four hours to charge.
With a maximum speed of 130kph (approximately 80mph) and acceleration of 0 to 60kph in 6.3 seconds the blue car will not break any records, but is designed for short journeys around town for the 58% of Parisians who do not own a car and the additional 16% who own a car but use it less than once a month.
Autolib drivers will need a full driving licence and will have to subscribe to the scheme for €12 – just over £10 – a month. After that they will pay €5 for the first half an hour, €4 for the next and €6 for each subsequent 30-minute slot, encouraging short hops.
Annick Lepetit, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of transport, said she hoped the scheme would attract between 160,000 and 200,000 subscribers to break even.
Delanoë has made no secret of his ambition to reduce the number of cars in Paris introducing restrictive road schemes and establishing a vast network of cycle lanes, much to the chagrin of drivers.
In 2007 he introduced the Vélib scheme – the name combines vélo and liberté, the French words for bicycle and freedom. Despite problems with theft and vandalism, the scheme has taken off and has been copied by cities around the world including London. Today the clunky grey 20kg Vélib bicycles are an established feature of Paris life.
The Paris city authorities said a study they commissioned showed the average car in the capital spends about 95% of its time parked.
Bolloré has invested €60m in the Autolib project, which is expected to cost more than €110m in total.
For those worried about finding their way around the French capital, the Autolib will come with built-in GPS and an emergency call button.
• This article was amended on 17 December 2010. The original referred to acceleration of 0 to 60 in a snail-like 6.3 seconds. This has been corrected.
Giant windfarms are lifting hopes – but could the east coast miss the boat?
Ports such as Grimsby hope to cash in on the turbines boom but fear others may profit
Share11 David Conn guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 December 2010 18.45 GMT
In an airless Westminster committee room this week a shirtsleeved energy secretary came close to promising the earth. Laying out government plans to make renewable electricity more profitable to produce than smokestack, greenhouse gas-producing power, Chris Huhne said the market reforms would mark "a seismic shift" towards cleaner energy, underlining David Cameron's vow to be "the greenest government ever".
Up on the windy north-east coast, recession-lashed ports such as Grimsby and Hull have been eyeing the prospect of building huge windfarms for the North Sea for many years now.
But here at the sharp end they remain to be convinced that Huhne's long-term changes to the market are quite the kick-start that is needed to revolutionise the UK's industrial future.
Throughout the UK it is striking how unaware most people are of the enormous scale and ambition of Britain's planned "round 3" offshore windfarms.
Thanet, a "round 2" site with 100 turbines so far, located about seven miles off Foreness Point, Kent, opened two months ago and is now the largest offshore windfarm in the world. Yet it is a mere drop in the North Sea compared to the nine "round 3" sites set out on the coastal map produced by Crown Estates, which owns the rights to British waters.
The three sites to the east of Britain are on a staggering scale. Dogger Bank, off the Yorkshire coast, will fill close to 3,475 square miles, with 1,700 wind turbines. The Norfolk windfarm will cover an area larger than the county itself, while Hornsea, off Grimsby and the Humber, will be nearly as wide as England is from Hull to Liverpool.
"Looked at in their entirety," said the energy specialist Andrew Reid, of consultants Douglas Westwood, "these are certainly the largest construction projects ever undertaken in the world."
The mammoth windfarms are designed to generate sufficient electricity to meet the EU target for 30% of the UK's energy to come from renewables by 2020. More than that, for a country still figuring out how to rebuild a working economy from the wreckage of the banking crisis, renewables promise industrial reinvention.
Grimsby has held on to chemical manufacturing, steel production and food processing, but is still reeling from the collapse of fishing. The town views work on the windfarms as a natural extension of its marine tradition, and down on the docks, you find weathered industrial companies, former fishermen and the local council all hungry for it to start in earnest.
Kurt Christensen, who was born in Denmark and moved to Grimsby in 1955 with his fisherman father, left school at 15 and spent his life in the fishing industry, before the 1970s cod wars and, later, overfishing and quotas, meant the Grimsby boats dwindling from 450 to almost none. "In its heyday, Grimsby was a profitable town," he said. "Fishing was flourishing and people made a lot of money. The industry died by a thousand cuts, people lost their jobs, boats were decommissioned, and there was a lot of heartbreak."
Still involved in selling fish, he watched the "round 1" windfarms, Lynn and Inner Dowsing, take shape off Skegness, and dived in. He bought two boats, and secured a contract with the industrial company Siemens, supporting operation and maintenance work on the turbines as well as servicing the "floating hotel" ship for workers at sea.
"Fishermen are resilient, incredibly hard-working. People always looked for new work. We never became a call-centre town," Christensen said, an assertion you hear everywhere in Grimsby. "Offshore wind offers a great opportunity for people to work again in a real industry, and we feel the town deserves it."
Green shoots are visible. Lincs, a large "round 2" site, is under construction, the energy company Centrica is planning an operation and maintenance plant on Grimsby docks, and at the Catch industrial college, three apprenticeships have been created to train electrical engineers for the turbines.
The area of vast opportunity, though, is "round 3". In the Grimsby and Humber area 25,000 precious jobs could be generated, according to North East Lincolnshire council.
Scratch a little, however, and you find impatience with the government. Many people feel the government should lead solidly, not just reshape the market. There is, too, fury with the banks, for withholding finance from small firms. Christensen, despite his years of marine experience and contract with Siemens, could not get a loan from any bank. So, at the age of 56, he remortgaged his house. "Don't count on anything from the banks," he said. "Companies from overseas, particularly Denmark and Germany, are queuing to get involved in our waters, and it would be tragic if we don't make the most of this."
The government has already promised £60m in grants to upgrade whichever port Siemens selects as the site for a huge turbine manufacturing plant. Both banks of the Humber are vying for it: Able UK has earmarked a site on the south bank near Immingham, while Associated British Ports plans a "green port" on Hull's Alexandra dock.
In his smart new offices on a Grimsby business park, Winston Phillips assessed the situation. He is managing director of renewables for Cosalt, the only plc based in Grimsby. It began life in 1873 as The Great Grimsby Coal, Salt and Tanning Company, and between the wars was the world's largest fishing equipment supplier. Now it specialises in marine again, employing 45 technicians to service windfarms for Siemens. Phillips says the government should be more active and co-ordinate the emerging industry; otherwise British firms, and towns like Grimsby, will not secure enough of the work generating electricity off the UK coast.
"I went to a renewables conference recently attended by manufacturers and consultants," he said. "All the manufacturers were overseas companies – German, Danish, where the governments have invested heavily in industry. But all the consultants were British."
One of those consultants, Reid, calculates that just one 10th of all the investment made in UK offshore windfarms has so far gone to British firms. "Continental companies have typically won around 90% of contracts," he said. Alongside Siemens, big manufacturers committing to the east coast include GE, a US company, and Gamesa, based in Spain. There are concerns that unless "round 3" moves more quickly, smaller British companies will find it difficult to be involved even in the supply chain. "The government here is leaving everything to private companies and the market. But we need certainty. There is too little vision or leadership," said Phillips.
Sam Pick, a consultant with the Renewables Network, which represents smaller firms in the Grimsby area, agrees. He is sceptical about the government's planned "green investment bank", which Huhne admitted this week would not open any time soon. "Companies need to gear up now. We have heard constantly about the green investment bank, but it does not exist, and mainstream banks are not lending, even to people doing everything they can to be part of this revolution."
The view from the steel yard
The cold, muddy yard of the steel fabricating company SC4, in the shadow of the old Corus plant at Scunthorpe - now owned by Indian company Tata – seems another world from the air of satisfaction in Huhne's Westminster.
Shay Eddie's father, Edwin, started the business in 1983; it has survived the decimation of the steel industry, but this recession, Eddie grimaces, is "the worst we've ever seen," because the banks, hit themselves, have withdrawn finance.
"Three of our customers went bust last week," says Eddie, plain and factual. "It's like being in a forest fire, and it has accelerated since the government's cuts were announced in October."
Pointing with pride to men working on heavy equipment secured before the credit lines were cut, fabricating steel for customers including London's 2012 Olympic Stadium and Crossrail, Eddie reflects on the dilemma for companies like his. They can see great projects planned, at sea, but cannot do anything to touch them.
"There is work out there for generations," he says. "I'm banging the drum; we've been to every meeting and exhibition going. But the banks have cut off the lifeblood, and companies are going to the wall. The government talks about our industry, this area, being able to benefit, but it needs action fast. We're surviving by the skin of our teeth. It could be last man standing gets the work."
Wind rush gathers momentum
The sheer scale of the oil and gas industry shocked people when it arrived in Britain in the 1970s. Whole regions were transformed; remote places became sites of frantic industrial activity. In the rush, fortunes, and mistakes, were made.
The offshore wind energy revolution may be just as shocking.
The giant wind farms expected to be built in the second and third rounds of commissioning from 2014 onwards will need a new generation of ports. Thousands of miles of cable will have to be laid. The industry expects to spend £2.4bn just on new service craft.
So far, 25 British ports have registered to become "windports". Some are already beginning to feel the wind rush.
"In the next 10 years Britain will have to build around 50 times more offshore than it has so far to meet its 2020 target," said Nick Medic of the British Wind Energy Association. "People have no idea how big this project is. It will be colossal ... as transformative as the building of the rail systems."
But he admits it comes at an environmental price. The long road from fossil fuels to a greener Britain will be rancorous and full of surprises.
Share11 David Conn guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 December 2010 18.45 GMT
In an airless Westminster committee room this week a shirtsleeved energy secretary came close to promising the earth. Laying out government plans to make renewable electricity more profitable to produce than smokestack, greenhouse gas-producing power, Chris Huhne said the market reforms would mark "a seismic shift" towards cleaner energy, underlining David Cameron's vow to be "the greenest government ever".
Up on the windy north-east coast, recession-lashed ports such as Grimsby and Hull have been eyeing the prospect of building huge windfarms for the North Sea for many years now.
But here at the sharp end they remain to be convinced that Huhne's long-term changes to the market are quite the kick-start that is needed to revolutionise the UK's industrial future.
Throughout the UK it is striking how unaware most people are of the enormous scale and ambition of Britain's planned "round 3" offshore windfarms.
Thanet, a "round 2" site with 100 turbines so far, located about seven miles off Foreness Point, Kent, opened two months ago and is now the largest offshore windfarm in the world. Yet it is a mere drop in the North Sea compared to the nine "round 3" sites set out on the coastal map produced by Crown Estates, which owns the rights to British waters.
The three sites to the east of Britain are on a staggering scale. Dogger Bank, off the Yorkshire coast, will fill close to 3,475 square miles, with 1,700 wind turbines. The Norfolk windfarm will cover an area larger than the county itself, while Hornsea, off Grimsby and the Humber, will be nearly as wide as England is from Hull to Liverpool.
"Looked at in their entirety," said the energy specialist Andrew Reid, of consultants Douglas Westwood, "these are certainly the largest construction projects ever undertaken in the world."
The mammoth windfarms are designed to generate sufficient electricity to meet the EU target for 30% of the UK's energy to come from renewables by 2020. More than that, for a country still figuring out how to rebuild a working economy from the wreckage of the banking crisis, renewables promise industrial reinvention.
Grimsby has held on to chemical manufacturing, steel production and food processing, but is still reeling from the collapse of fishing. The town views work on the windfarms as a natural extension of its marine tradition, and down on the docks, you find weathered industrial companies, former fishermen and the local council all hungry for it to start in earnest.
Kurt Christensen, who was born in Denmark and moved to Grimsby in 1955 with his fisherman father, left school at 15 and spent his life in the fishing industry, before the 1970s cod wars and, later, overfishing and quotas, meant the Grimsby boats dwindling from 450 to almost none. "In its heyday, Grimsby was a profitable town," he said. "Fishing was flourishing and people made a lot of money. The industry died by a thousand cuts, people lost their jobs, boats were decommissioned, and there was a lot of heartbreak."
Still involved in selling fish, he watched the "round 1" windfarms, Lynn and Inner Dowsing, take shape off Skegness, and dived in. He bought two boats, and secured a contract with the industrial company Siemens, supporting operation and maintenance work on the turbines as well as servicing the "floating hotel" ship for workers at sea.
"Fishermen are resilient, incredibly hard-working. People always looked for new work. We never became a call-centre town," Christensen said, an assertion you hear everywhere in Grimsby. "Offshore wind offers a great opportunity for people to work again in a real industry, and we feel the town deserves it."
Green shoots are visible. Lincs, a large "round 2" site, is under construction, the energy company Centrica is planning an operation and maintenance plant on Grimsby docks, and at the Catch industrial college, three apprenticeships have been created to train electrical engineers for the turbines.
The area of vast opportunity, though, is "round 3". In the Grimsby and Humber area 25,000 precious jobs could be generated, according to North East Lincolnshire council.
Scratch a little, however, and you find impatience with the government. Many people feel the government should lead solidly, not just reshape the market. There is, too, fury with the banks, for withholding finance from small firms. Christensen, despite his years of marine experience and contract with Siemens, could not get a loan from any bank. So, at the age of 56, he remortgaged his house. "Don't count on anything from the banks," he said. "Companies from overseas, particularly Denmark and Germany, are queuing to get involved in our waters, and it would be tragic if we don't make the most of this."
The government has already promised £60m in grants to upgrade whichever port Siemens selects as the site for a huge turbine manufacturing plant. Both banks of the Humber are vying for it: Able UK has earmarked a site on the south bank near Immingham, while Associated British Ports plans a "green port" on Hull's Alexandra dock.
In his smart new offices on a Grimsby business park, Winston Phillips assessed the situation. He is managing director of renewables for Cosalt, the only plc based in Grimsby. It began life in 1873 as The Great Grimsby Coal, Salt and Tanning Company, and between the wars was the world's largest fishing equipment supplier. Now it specialises in marine again, employing 45 technicians to service windfarms for Siemens. Phillips says the government should be more active and co-ordinate the emerging industry; otherwise British firms, and towns like Grimsby, will not secure enough of the work generating electricity off the UK coast.
"I went to a renewables conference recently attended by manufacturers and consultants," he said. "All the manufacturers were overseas companies – German, Danish, where the governments have invested heavily in industry. But all the consultants were British."
One of those consultants, Reid, calculates that just one 10th of all the investment made in UK offshore windfarms has so far gone to British firms. "Continental companies have typically won around 90% of contracts," he said. Alongside Siemens, big manufacturers committing to the east coast include GE, a US company, and Gamesa, based in Spain. There are concerns that unless "round 3" moves more quickly, smaller British companies will find it difficult to be involved even in the supply chain. "The government here is leaving everything to private companies and the market. But we need certainty. There is too little vision or leadership," said Phillips.
Sam Pick, a consultant with the Renewables Network, which represents smaller firms in the Grimsby area, agrees. He is sceptical about the government's planned "green investment bank", which Huhne admitted this week would not open any time soon. "Companies need to gear up now. We have heard constantly about the green investment bank, but it does not exist, and mainstream banks are not lending, even to people doing everything they can to be part of this revolution."
The view from the steel yard
The cold, muddy yard of the steel fabricating company SC4, in the shadow of the old Corus plant at Scunthorpe - now owned by Indian company Tata – seems another world from the air of satisfaction in Huhne's Westminster.
Shay Eddie's father, Edwin, started the business in 1983; it has survived the decimation of the steel industry, but this recession, Eddie grimaces, is "the worst we've ever seen," because the banks, hit themselves, have withdrawn finance.
"Three of our customers went bust last week," says Eddie, plain and factual. "It's like being in a forest fire, and it has accelerated since the government's cuts were announced in October."
Pointing with pride to men working on heavy equipment secured before the credit lines were cut, fabricating steel for customers including London's 2012 Olympic Stadium and Crossrail, Eddie reflects on the dilemma for companies like his. They can see great projects planned, at sea, but cannot do anything to touch them.
"There is work out there for generations," he says. "I'm banging the drum; we've been to every meeting and exhibition going. But the banks have cut off the lifeblood, and companies are going to the wall. The government talks about our industry, this area, being able to benefit, but it needs action fast. We're surviving by the skin of our teeth. It could be last man standing gets the work."
Wind rush gathers momentum
The sheer scale of the oil and gas industry shocked people when it arrived in Britain in the 1970s. Whole regions were transformed; remote places became sites of frantic industrial activity. In the rush, fortunes, and mistakes, were made.
The offshore wind energy revolution may be just as shocking.
The giant wind farms expected to be built in the second and third rounds of commissioning from 2014 onwards will need a new generation of ports. Thousands of miles of cable will have to be laid. The industry expects to spend £2.4bn just on new service craft.
So far, 25 British ports have registered to become "windports". Some are already beginning to feel the wind rush.
"In the next 10 years Britain will have to build around 50 times more offshore than it has so far to meet its 2020 target," said Nick Medic of the British Wind Energy Association. "People have no idea how big this project is. It will be colossal ... as transformative as the building of the rail systems."
But he admits it comes at an environmental price. The long road from fossil fuels to a greener Britain will be rancorous and full of surprises.
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