24 February 2011
Climate loans made up 30% of the European Investment Bank’s (EIB’s) lending in the EU last year, with the development bank financing €20.5 billion ($28.2 billion) of projects involving renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainable transport, forestry, innovation and climate adaptation.
This was up from €16 billion of climate loans in 2009, the EIB said yesterday, releasing its annual lending report.
Sustainable transport projects took the largest slice of the pie, with €7.9 billion, or nearly 40%. Another €6 billion went to financing renewable energy projects and €2 billion to energy efficiency projects. By contrast, the EIB loaned €440 million to coal and lignite power projects and €1.3 billion to natural gas power projects.
“We have succeeded in our mission to support recovery in Europe by financing projects that stimulate growth, innovation and jobs, and we are very proud of our record volume on climate action projects,” said Philippe Maystadt, president of the EIB. “Building a better and more sustainable future is the driving force behind everything we do.”
The UK’s giant offshore wind project, the London Array, received the largest single ‘climate action’ loan last year, for €842 million.
Although the EIB’s primary mandate is development within the EU, it financed €2 billion of climate action projects elsewhere in the world last year and expects to increase this financing in the next three years. This ranges from large pots of money distributed via local financial institutions, such as €500 million for climate change mitigation projects in China, to smaller deals, such as a €79 million loan to Iberdrola for construction of a wind farm in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Funding for the bank’s energy sustainability facility – which allows it to make loans to projects outside the EU in 'investment grade' countries – has been increased by €1.5 billion to €4.5 billion and the European Parliament and Council are in discussions over a €2 billion climate mandate, also to be spent outside the EU.
To meet the bank’s criteria for a ‘climate action project’, a project must meet the EIB’s criteria on carbon dioxide reductions, sequestration or energy efficiency. Projects where climate adaptation accounts for at least 50% of the total cost can also qualify.
In total, the bank lent €72 billion in 2010 to 460 projects, of which €9 billion was spent outside the EU. The EIB also published a detailed breakdown of the projects it financed during the year. It made a net profit of €2.1 billion.
Jess McCabe
Monday, 28 February 2011
Buy Now, Pay Later
New financing programs help homes and businesses become more energy-efficient—without shelling out big money upfront
By LIAM PLEVEN
Champions of energy efficiency argue that upgrading homes and businesses saves billions in the long run.
But who will pay for it now?
The upfront cost of energy efficiency can be a stumbling block to more efficient lighting, insulation, air conditioning and other equipment. Entrepreneurs, utilities and governments are experimenting fervently with financing arrangements that attempt to show property owners that some energy upgrades are not only feasible but economically smart.
Currently, 221 energy-efficiency loan programs are offered in 48 states by utilities and federal, state and local governments, according to the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency , funded by the Department of Energy. Meanwhile, utilities and start-up companies are expanding financing programs and rolling out their own new models.
Here's a look at some of the methods being tried nationwide:
Efficiency-Services Agreements
For some commercial building owners, the problem isn't finding the money to pay for upgrades—it's losing the opportunity to use that cash for their core business.
Metrus Energy Inc. is road-testing a new vehicle, known as an efficiency-services agreement, that gets around that issue. For the life of the deal, Metrus owns the new energy-efficiency equipment, not the building owner.
Metrus, a San Francisco energy-efficiency company started in 2009, has struck two such deals in the past year with BAE Systems PLC, for facilities BAE owns in New Hampshire and New York. Metrus pays particular attention to big-ticket items, such as boilers and furnaces.
Under the agreements, BAE continues to pay the utility bills. But as the facilities become more energy-efficient and the bills shrink, BAE will pay Metrus an upwards-sliding fee slightly less than the energy savings.
"It becomes very much like their utility bill," Bob Hinkle, Metrus's founder and chief executive, says of the impact on building owners.
Metrus contracts with a third party to install the equipment; in the BAE buildings, its partner has been Siemens AG, the German electrical services giant. And Siemens promises to pay Metrus if the energy savings don't materialize as expected.
The deals are in their infancy, but the annual energy savings at BAE's Merrimack, N.H., facility are projected to exceed one million kilowatt-hours—reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by an equivalent of taking 137 cars off the road for a year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Other companies are rolling out similar deals. Green Campus Partners LLC, has four projects under development, says Jim Thoma, a managing director.
Managed Energy-Services Agreements
In a similar type of deal, an energy-efficiency company pays a building owner's energy bill and charges the owner a fee pegged to current energy use. The company pays to upgrade or retrofit the building itself, and if the utility bills go down, it pockets the difference.
The building owners don't share directly in the energy savings during the deals, which typically last for 10 years. But they still can come out ahead.
"The upside for the deal is that we have new equipment," says Roger Waesche, chief operating officer for Corporate Office Properties Trust, a real-estate investment trust based in Columbia, Md., that has signed deals involving 24 of its roughly 200 buildings. New equipment means better service for tenants, he says. Plus, after the deal expires, the savings can flow directly to the owner.
The company has struck its deals with Transcend Equity Development Corp., which pioneered the structure. So far, Transcend has put about $30 million into roughly 30 projects, according to Steve Gossett Jr., the company's vice president.
Mr. Gossett says Transcend has cut Corporate Office Properties Trust's energy use by 25% in the buildings under contract, and eliminated 6,000 tons of carbon-dioxide emissions—about the equivalent of burning more than 612,000 gallons of gasoline.
On-Bill Financing
For some businesses, the main hurdle to energy-efficiency upgrades is the risk that the work won't pay for itself.
Thus, some utilities try to sell customers on the benefits of borrowing: The companies include the monthly loan payment on the utility bill, and structure the loan so that the energy savings are often more than enough to cover the payments.
United Illuminating Co., a utility serving New Haven and Bridgeport, Conn., started such a program for commercial customers in the 1990s. The utility makes hundreds of loans a year, and has deals with close to 10,000 customers so far—about one-third of its commercial base. United focuses on commercial customers in part because it's relatively simple to save significant energy and money with lighting, which businesses tend to have lots of, says Michael West, a spokesman for UIL Holdings Corp., the parent of United Illuminating. But the company is planning a residential program in the spring.
San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Gas Co.—both owned by San Diego-based Sempra Energy—have followed United's example. They have made $13 million in loans to fund efficiency upgrades for close to 600 commercial and government customers since late 2006. According to the company, the upgrades have saved an estimated 45 million kilowatt-hours—equivalent to eliminating carbon-dioxide emissions from nearly 4,000 homes for a year.
The Sempra utilities structure their loans to make the payments equal to or below what customers save in energy use. Loan payments are included on regular monthly bills.
The utilities charge no interest on the loans, which can range as high as $100,000 for commercial buildings and $1 million for state facilities, says Mark Gaines, director of customer programs for the utilities. But they manage to benefit, too. The program helps them meet California's energy-efficiency targets. Moreover, Mr. Gaines says, the utilities can charge more to customers who don't make the upgrades.
On-bill financing is still relatively uncommon in the residential market, says a December report from the National Home Performance Council, which found that of 126 programs offering comprehensive retrofit programs for homeowners, only seven offered on-bill financing.
Municipal Programs
For years, homeowners paid for energy-efficiency improvements by using local-government funding collectively known as Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE, loans.
Loan repayments were attached to property tax bills, thus ensuring repayment even if the borrower were to sell the property. By September 2009, 17 states had PACE programs, according to a February 2010 report by an arm of the California Clean Energy Fund.
Many PACE programs came under a cloud last summer because they often use liens that give local governments priority in getting repaid. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan banks, said in July that PACE loans with priority liens over outstanding mortgages "present significant risk to lenders." Fannie and Freddie, government-sponsored entities that purchase mortgages from private lenders, said they would stop buying new mortgages with first-lien PACE loans.
But not all municipal loan programs operate the same way, so some have been largely unaffected. The state of Maine plans to start making loans soon under a new PACE program that will feature loans secured by a subordinate lien.
Also, through a Federal Housing Administration pilot program called PowerSaver, homeowners with qualifying credit soon will be able to borrow up to $25,000 to finance selected energy-related improvements.
Mr. Pleven is a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal in New York. He can be reached at liam.pleven@wsj.com.
By LIAM PLEVEN
Champions of energy efficiency argue that upgrading homes and businesses saves billions in the long run.
But who will pay for it now?
The upfront cost of energy efficiency can be a stumbling block to more efficient lighting, insulation, air conditioning and other equipment. Entrepreneurs, utilities and governments are experimenting fervently with financing arrangements that attempt to show property owners that some energy upgrades are not only feasible but economically smart.
Currently, 221 energy-efficiency loan programs are offered in 48 states by utilities and federal, state and local governments, according to the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency , funded by the Department of Energy. Meanwhile, utilities and start-up companies are expanding financing programs and rolling out their own new models.
Here's a look at some of the methods being tried nationwide:
Efficiency-Services Agreements
For some commercial building owners, the problem isn't finding the money to pay for upgrades—it's losing the opportunity to use that cash for their core business.
Metrus Energy Inc. is road-testing a new vehicle, known as an efficiency-services agreement, that gets around that issue. For the life of the deal, Metrus owns the new energy-efficiency equipment, not the building owner.
Metrus, a San Francisco energy-efficiency company started in 2009, has struck two such deals in the past year with BAE Systems PLC, for facilities BAE owns in New Hampshire and New York. Metrus pays particular attention to big-ticket items, such as boilers and furnaces.
Under the agreements, BAE continues to pay the utility bills. But as the facilities become more energy-efficient and the bills shrink, BAE will pay Metrus an upwards-sliding fee slightly less than the energy savings.
"It becomes very much like their utility bill," Bob Hinkle, Metrus's founder and chief executive, says of the impact on building owners.
Metrus contracts with a third party to install the equipment; in the BAE buildings, its partner has been Siemens AG, the German electrical services giant. And Siemens promises to pay Metrus if the energy savings don't materialize as expected.
The deals are in their infancy, but the annual energy savings at BAE's Merrimack, N.H., facility are projected to exceed one million kilowatt-hours—reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by an equivalent of taking 137 cars off the road for a year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Other companies are rolling out similar deals. Green Campus Partners LLC, has four projects under development, says Jim Thoma, a managing director.
Managed Energy-Services Agreements
In a similar type of deal, an energy-efficiency company pays a building owner's energy bill and charges the owner a fee pegged to current energy use. The company pays to upgrade or retrofit the building itself, and if the utility bills go down, it pockets the difference.
The building owners don't share directly in the energy savings during the deals, which typically last for 10 years. But they still can come out ahead.
"The upside for the deal is that we have new equipment," says Roger Waesche, chief operating officer for Corporate Office Properties Trust, a real-estate investment trust based in Columbia, Md., that has signed deals involving 24 of its roughly 200 buildings. New equipment means better service for tenants, he says. Plus, after the deal expires, the savings can flow directly to the owner.
The company has struck its deals with Transcend Equity Development Corp., which pioneered the structure. So far, Transcend has put about $30 million into roughly 30 projects, according to Steve Gossett Jr., the company's vice president.
Mr. Gossett says Transcend has cut Corporate Office Properties Trust's energy use by 25% in the buildings under contract, and eliminated 6,000 tons of carbon-dioxide emissions—about the equivalent of burning more than 612,000 gallons of gasoline.
On-Bill Financing
For some businesses, the main hurdle to energy-efficiency upgrades is the risk that the work won't pay for itself.
Thus, some utilities try to sell customers on the benefits of borrowing: The companies include the monthly loan payment on the utility bill, and structure the loan so that the energy savings are often more than enough to cover the payments.
United Illuminating Co., a utility serving New Haven and Bridgeport, Conn., started such a program for commercial customers in the 1990s. The utility makes hundreds of loans a year, and has deals with close to 10,000 customers so far—about one-third of its commercial base. United focuses on commercial customers in part because it's relatively simple to save significant energy and money with lighting, which businesses tend to have lots of, says Michael West, a spokesman for UIL Holdings Corp., the parent of United Illuminating. But the company is planning a residential program in the spring.
San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Gas Co.—both owned by San Diego-based Sempra Energy—have followed United's example. They have made $13 million in loans to fund efficiency upgrades for close to 600 commercial and government customers since late 2006. According to the company, the upgrades have saved an estimated 45 million kilowatt-hours—equivalent to eliminating carbon-dioxide emissions from nearly 4,000 homes for a year.
The Sempra utilities structure their loans to make the payments equal to or below what customers save in energy use. Loan payments are included on regular monthly bills.
The utilities charge no interest on the loans, which can range as high as $100,000 for commercial buildings and $1 million for state facilities, says Mark Gaines, director of customer programs for the utilities. But they manage to benefit, too. The program helps them meet California's energy-efficiency targets. Moreover, Mr. Gaines says, the utilities can charge more to customers who don't make the upgrades.
On-bill financing is still relatively uncommon in the residential market, says a December report from the National Home Performance Council, which found that of 126 programs offering comprehensive retrofit programs for homeowners, only seven offered on-bill financing.
Municipal Programs
For years, homeowners paid for energy-efficiency improvements by using local-government funding collectively known as Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE, loans.
Loan repayments were attached to property tax bills, thus ensuring repayment even if the borrower were to sell the property. By September 2009, 17 states had PACE programs, according to a February 2010 report by an arm of the California Clean Energy Fund.
Many PACE programs came under a cloud last summer because they often use liens that give local governments priority in getting repaid. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan banks, said in July that PACE loans with priority liens over outstanding mortgages "present significant risk to lenders." Fannie and Freddie, government-sponsored entities that purchase mortgages from private lenders, said they would stop buying new mortgages with first-lien PACE loans.
But not all municipal loan programs operate the same way, so some have been largely unaffected. The state of Maine plans to start making loans soon under a new PACE program that will feature loans secured by a subordinate lien.
Also, through a Federal Housing Administration pilot program called PowerSaver, homeowners with qualifying credit soon will be able to borrow up to $25,000 to finance selected energy-related improvements.
Mr. Pleven is a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal in New York. He can be reached at liam.pleven@wsj.com.
Kentucky split between coal past and clean energy future
SolveClimate: Kentucky's bashing of the US Environmental Protection Agency and almost complete reliance on coal is overshadowing its efforts to pursue cleaner energy
Maria Gallucci for SolveClimate guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 February 2011 15.31 GMT
Kentucky is heading toward its energy future paddling in opposite directions. Some lawmakers want to boost the use of alternative energies, especially biomass, to diversify its fuel mix. But coal remains the backbone of its manufacturing-driven economy, and others are determined to keep it that way.
The political dynamic playing out in Kentucky offers a local window into the larger national energy dilemma. The state is seeking the benefits of a clean economy, but coal is still the source of 92 percent of its electricity and brings in $3.5 billion in export revenue.
Currently, state legislators are deliberating three bills to spur economic growth and rein in soaring electricity rates. One would foster clean energy development. The others would shelter the coal industry from Obama administration regulations on greenhouse gases that opponents say would kill industrial jobs.
While it's true that Kentucky cheap coal has long attracted manufacturing industry — which currently employs 213,000 people in the automotive, steel and aluminum sectors — new figures suggest times are changing.
Electricity rates have risen 41 percent on average over the last five years, delivering a blow to the state's big industries. Kentucky's cheap energy has become less of a competitive advantage.
Manufacturing jobs have fallen 30 percent in the last decade, hitting the one-third of Kentuckians who live in low-income housing the hardest.
At the same time, the state's smaller mines have become more expensive to operate, and newer machine-intensive technologies have cut back on manpower. As a result, coal mining jobs in Kentucky have fallen from 50,000 positions in 1979 to 18,000 today, according to the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (MACED).
Today, mining accounts for one percent of total non-farm employment in the state.
"The price of coal — to mine it, generate it and to try to manage the waste — is getting more expensive," said Elizabeth Crowe, director of the Kentucky Environmental Foundation. "Meanwhile, the number of jobs created through clean renewable energy like wind, solar and hydro are really [rising] in some of our neighboring states" but not in Kentucky.
Government Overreach 'Costing Us Jobs'
However, many legislators from both parties would disagree with the suggestion that coal can't power a jobs engine.
In the Senate, the Natural Resources and Energy Committee approved a largely symbolic measure on Feb. 17 to make Kentucky a "sanctuary state" for the coal industry by exempting mines and power plants from "the overreaching regulatory power" of the EPA.
Under the bill, the state's Energy and Environment Cabinet would go so far as to issue permits to coal mines previously denied by the EPA because of concerns over water pollution.
"As the overreaching EPA impact settles in on us, it's costing us jobs, it's putting us in a very perilous situation," said Chairman Sen. Brandon Smith, a Republican from the coal-mining town of Hazard, and the bill's sponsor.
That same day, the committee's House counterpart approved a bill that would exempt Kentucky mines which produce coal for the state's use — not for export — from federal Clean Water Act requirements. The legislators contend they are protecting states' rights.
But such pro-coal views are being met with growing citizen opposition.
Earlier this month, Wendell Berry, the Kentucky author and poet, occupied the governor's office with 13 others for four days to protest government support of coal, while 1,000 protesters held a demonstration against mountaintop removal mining at the state Capitol.
EPA Bashing 'Temporary Diversion'
Len Peters, secretary of the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet, told SolveClimate News that the pro-coal lawmakers introduced the bills as a way to show EPA their displeasure, and have even acknowledged that the state would lose substantial federal Clean Air Act funding if they're passed.
Peters said the bills are merely a "temporary diversion" from Gov. Steven Beshear's long-term goals to diversify the state energy supply, which includes a seven-point strategy to get 25 percent of Kentucky's energy demand from energy efficiency, renewable energy and biofuels by 2025.
The proposed Clean Energy Opportunity Act on the House floor, or H.B. 239, would take the Democratic governor's initiatives even further.
Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, a Democrat from Louisville, introduced the bill earlier this month to establish a renewable and efficiency portfolio standard (REPS) for the state.
Under the mandatory standard, renewable sources would account for 12.5 percent of utility retail sales by 2021, and utilities would achieve annual efficiency savings of up to 10.25 percent of retail sales in that period by reducing demand from manufacturers, businesses and homes.
Jason Bailey, research and policy director for MACED, said that the House measure would take the first steps needed for a green energy transition.
MACED is part of the Kentucky Sustainable Energy Alliance (KySEA), an organization of 30 businesses, nonprofit organizations and faith groups that drafted the bill.
First Signs of Green Manufacturing
"We've built an economy around cheap electricity from coal-fired power that is coming to an end," Bailey told SolveClimate News.
"What we're really talking about for the next 10 years is that we need to take the first steps to position ourselves for the next phase, where by all indications, because of technology and policies, clean energy alternatives will take off [nationwide]."
Bailey said the REPS could help attract clean technology industries in an otherwise pro-coal state.
"You see a real correlation between states that are friendly to renewable energy and the location of renewable energy component and system manufacturing," he said. "Manufacturers want a market for their products, and if Kentucky itself is not purchasing renewable energy systems, then it makes us less appealing. They want to go where the market is."
Kentucky is starting to encourage green manufacturing ahead of its renewable energy market. Last August, the state received $53.4 million in federal stimulus funds from the U.S. Department of Energy to distribute clean energy tax credits and grants.
Since then, the state finance authority has given Alternative Energies Kentucky Inc. preliminary approval for up to $390,000 in funding to build around 25,000 to 30,000 solar panels a year at its plant.
ZF Steering Systems LLC also received a $28.6-million tax credit to make electric power steering gears for vehicles that consume 90 percent less energy than traditional hydraulic gears. General Electric in Louisville received $11.3 million of the same credit to make residential-scale heat pump clothes dryers, which use half the energy of standard dryers.
Defining Renewables: Are Biomass, Coal Clean?
Not surprisingly, state officials and green groups differ in defining how to develop actual renewable energy sources in Kentucky.
The governor has assembled a biomass task force and expects the industry to account for more than half of renewable energy production by 2025. The task force estimates that biomass production could reach 25 million tons annually, or $3.4 billion in net output, and create about 14,000 jobs in rural communities.
Earlier this year, the state finance authority awarded preliminary approval for up to $15 million in state tax credits to EcoPower LLC. A planned 58.5-megawatt biomass power generating facility is expected to operate in 2013.
But whether burning tree parts for electricity should even qualify as clean renewable power remains up for debate in the United States. Conservationists say that biomass combustion produces more CO2 than burning fossil fuels, while the industry claims it's carbon neutral. For its part, the EPA is still considering both sides.
Also disheartening to environmental groups is that coal would still make up more than 60 percent of the state's electricity portfolio under the governor's plan — though "clean coal" technologies would be implemented at 50 percent of coal-based facilities in the next 15 years to offset the harmful greenhouse gases emitted by the plants.
An additional 15 percent of energy would come from nuclear power and natural gas, with biomass, hydropower and other renewables rounding off the top.
Peters noted that carbon capture and storage (CCS) techniques are largely experimental for coal-fired plants and could take decades to carry out, while the biomass task force is still developing strategies for sustainable agricultural and forestry practices.
Crowe of the Kentucky Environmental Foundation, which is also a KySEA member, told SolveClimate News that the state should instead bolster its utility-scale wind and solar energy industries, as those renewable sources don't require burning crops or proliferate coal practices that destroy the environment or pose health risks to Kentuckians.
With No Wind, Negawatts are 'Paramount'
Kentucky might not compare to California in terms of solar radiation, she continued, but it averages about as much solar radiation as New Jersey, a state with the second-most grid-connected solar capacity nationwide, at 127 megawatts. Kentucky has less than 0.1 megawatts in installed solar power.
Wind energy, on the other hand, poses a real challenge to the Bluegrass State.
Kentucky could potentially install about 61 megawatts in wind capacity, and only 0.01 percent of its land is considered a windy land area, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Neighboring states like Ohio have the potential to install 55,000 megawatts of wind power with 10.3 percent of land available for wind, while Indiana could install 148,000 megawatts and is one-third windy land area.
Both groups agree that energy efficiency measures are paramount to picking away at Kentucky's dependency on coal-fired electricity.
Industrial energy use in the state is nearly double the national average, and residents consume more energy per-capita than in almost any other state, according the energy cabinet.
Peters said Kentucky had allotted $5 million in federal stimulus funds to hire energy managers in school districts statewide to retrofit and weatherize older buildings, install solar panels and minimize energy use so that savings can be poured into school curricula.
According to the House clean energy bill, lower-income Kentuckians spend $1 of every $5 on home energy costs due to older housing and inefficient heating and cooling systems.
Crowe said: "Most people understand the problem it poses to society – it's less money for everything else that they need."
• This article was changed on 25 February to reflect the wind capacity figures were potential installations, not actual installations
Maria Gallucci for SolveClimate guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 February 2011 15.31 GMT
Kentucky is heading toward its energy future paddling in opposite directions. Some lawmakers want to boost the use of alternative energies, especially biomass, to diversify its fuel mix. But coal remains the backbone of its manufacturing-driven economy, and others are determined to keep it that way.
The political dynamic playing out in Kentucky offers a local window into the larger national energy dilemma. The state is seeking the benefits of a clean economy, but coal is still the source of 92 percent of its electricity and brings in $3.5 billion in export revenue.
Currently, state legislators are deliberating three bills to spur economic growth and rein in soaring electricity rates. One would foster clean energy development. The others would shelter the coal industry from Obama administration regulations on greenhouse gases that opponents say would kill industrial jobs.
While it's true that Kentucky cheap coal has long attracted manufacturing industry — which currently employs 213,000 people in the automotive, steel and aluminum sectors — new figures suggest times are changing.
Electricity rates have risen 41 percent on average over the last five years, delivering a blow to the state's big industries. Kentucky's cheap energy has become less of a competitive advantage.
Manufacturing jobs have fallen 30 percent in the last decade, hitting the one-third of Kentuckians who live in low-income housing the hardest.
At the same time, the state's smaller mines have become more expensive to operate, and newer machine-intensive technologies have cut back on manpower. As a result, coal mining jobs in Kentucky have fallen from 50,000 positions in 1979 to 18,000 today, according to the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (MACED).
Today, mining accounts for one percent of total non-farm employment in the state.
"The price of coal — to mine it, generate it and to try to manage the waste — is getting more expensive," said Elizabeth Crowe, director of the Kentucky Environmental Foundation. "Meanwhile, the number of jobs created through clean renewable energy like wind, solar and hydro are really [rising] in some of our neighboring states" but not in Kentucky.
Government Overreach 'Costing Us Jobs'
However, many legislators from both parties would disagree with the suggestion that coal can't power a jobs engine.
In the Senate, the Natural Resources and Energy Committee approved a largely symbolic measure on Feb. 17 to make Kentucky a "sanctuary state" for the coal industry by exempting mines and power plants from "the overreaching regulatory power" of the EPA.
Under the bill, the state's Energy and Environment Cabinet would go so far as to issue permits to coal mines previously denied by the EPA because of concerns over water pollution.
"As the overreaching EPA impact settles in on us, it's costing us jobs, it's putting us in a very perilous situation," said Chairman Sen. Brandon Smith, a Republican from the coal-mining town of Hazard, and the bill's sponsor.
That same day, the committee's House counterpart approved a bill that would exempt Kentucky mines which produce coal for the state's use — not for export — from federal Clean Water Act requirements. The legislators contend they are protecting states' rights.
But such pro-coal views are being met with growing citizen opposition.
Earlier this month, Wendell Berry, the Kentucky author and poet, occupied the governor's office with 13 others for four days to protest government support of coal, while 1,000 protesters held a demonstration against mountaintop removal mining at the state Capitol.
EPA Bashing 'Temporary Diversion'
Len Peters, secretary of the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet, told SolveClimate News that the pro-coal lawmakers introduced the bills as a way to show EPA their displeasure, and have even acknowledged that the state would lose substantial federal Clean Air Act funding if they're passed.
Peters said the bills are merely a "temporary diversion" from Gov. Steven Beshear's long-term goals to diversify the state energy supply, which includes a seven-point strategy to get 25 percent of Kentucky's energy demand from energy efficiency, renewable energy and biofuels by 2025.
The proposed Clean Energy Opportunity Act on the House floor, or H.B. 239, would take the Democratic governor's initiatives even further.
Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, a Democrat from Louisville, introduced the bill earlier this month to establish a renewable and efficiency portfolio standard (REPS) for the state.
Under the mandatory standard, renewable sources would account for 12.5 percent of utility retail sales by 2021, and utilities would achieve annual efficiency savings of up to 10.25 percent of retail sales in that period by reducing demand from manufacturers, businesses and homes.
Jason Bailey, research and policy director for MACED, said that the House measure would take the first steps needed for a green energy transition.
MACED is part of the Kentucky Sustainable Energy Alliance (KySEA), an organization of 30 businesses, nonprofit organizations and faith groups that drafted the bill.
First Signs of Green Manufacturing
"We've built an economy around cheap electricity from coal-fired power that is coming to an end," Bailey told SolveClimate News.
"What we're really talking about for the next 10 years is that we need to take the first steps to position ourselves for the next phase, where by all indications, because of technology and policies, clean energy alternatives will take off [nationwide]."
Bailey said the REPS could help attract clean technology industries in an otherwise pro-coal state.
"You see a real correlation between states that are friendly to renewable energy and the location of renewable energy component and system manufacturing," he said. "Manufacturers want a market for their products, and if Kentucky itself is not purchasing renewable energy systems, then it makes us less appealing. They want to go where the market is."
Kentucky is starting to encourage green manufacturing ahead of its renewable energy market. Last August, the state received $53.4 million in federal stimulus funds from the U.S. Department of Energy to distribute clean energy tax credits and grants.
Since then, the state finance authority has given Alternative Energies Kentucky Inc. preliminary approval for up to $390,000 in funding to build around 25,000 to 30,000 solar panels a year at its plant.
ZF Steering Systems LLC also received a $28.6-million tax credit to make electric power steering gears for vehicles that consume 90 percent less energy than traditional hydraulic gears. General Electric in Louisville received $11.3 million of the same credit to make residential-scale heat pump clothes dryers, which use half the energy of standard dryers.
Defining Renewables: Are Biomass, Coal Clean?
Not surprisingly, state officials and green groups differ in defining how to develop actual renewable energy sources in Kentucky.
The governor has assembled a biomass task force and expects the industry to account for more than half of renewable energy production by 2025. The task force estimates that biomass production could reach 25 million tons annually, or $3.4 billion in net output, and create about 14,000 jobs in rural communities.
Earlier this year, the state finance authority awarded preliminary approval for up to $15 million in state tax credits to EcoPower LLC. A planned 58.5-megawatt biomass power generating facility is expected to operate in 2013.
But whether burning tree parts for electricity should even qualify as clean renewable power remains up for debate in the United States. Conservationists say that biomass combustion produces more CO2 than burning fossil fuels, while the industry claims it's carbon neutral. For its part, the EPA is still considering both sides.
Also disheartening to environmental groups is that coal would still make up more than 60 percent of the state's electricity portfolio under the governor's plan — though "clean coal" technologies would be implemented at 50 percent of coal-based facilities in the next 15 years to offset the harmful greenhouse gases emitted by the plants.
An additional 15 percent of energy would come from nuclear power and natural gas, with biomass, hydropower and other renewables rounding off the top.
Peters noted that carbon capture and storage (CCS) techniques are largely experimental for coal-fired plants and could take decades to carry out, while the biomass task force is still developing strategies for sustainable agricultural and forestry practices.
Crowe of the Kentucky Environmental Foundation, which is also a KySEA member, told SolveClimate News that the state should instead bolster its utility-scale wind and solar energy industries, as those renewable sources don't require burning crops or proliferate coal practices that destroy the environment or pose health risks to Kentuckians.
With No Wind, Negawatts are 'Paramount'
Kentucky might not compare to California in terms of solar radiation, she continued, but it averages about as much solar radiation as New Jersey, a state with the second-most grid-connected solar capacity nationwide, at 127 megawatts. Kentucky has less than 0.1 megawatts in installed solar power.
Wind energy, on the other hand, poses a real challenge to the Bluegrass State.
Kentucky could potentially install about 61 megawatts in wind capacity, and only 0.01 percent of its land is considered a windy land area, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Neighboring states like Ohio have the potential to install 55,000 megawatts of wind power with 10.3 percent of land available for wind, while Indiana could install 148,000 megawatts and is one-third windy land area.
Both groups agree that energy efficiency measures are paramount to picking away at Kentucky's dependency on coal-fired electricity.
Industrial energy use in the state is nearly double the national average, and residents consume more energy per-capita than in almost any other state, according the energy cabinet.
Peters said Kentucky had allotted $5 million in federal stimulus funds to hire energy managers in school districts statewide to retrofit and weatherize older buildings, install solar panels and minimize energy use so that savings can be poured into school curricula.
According to the House clean energy bill, lower-income Kentuckians spend $1 of every $5 on home energy costs due to older housing and inefficient heating and cooling systems.
Crowe said: "Most people understand the problem it poses to society – it's less money for everything else that they need."
• This article was changed on 25 February to reflect the wind capacity figures were potential installations, not actual installations
UK firm develops way to store hydrogen
Cella Energy used nanotechnology to develop microbeads that can trap hydrogen and release it when heated
One of the biggest stumbling blocks on the road to hydrogen power has long been the difficulty in storing the fuel. Hydrogen atoms are so small that they can slip between the spaces in molecules of other materials, and the gas can be a hazard if it escapes.
But a cheap and practical way of storing hydrogen has been developed by a British company. Cella Energy used nanotechnology to develop microbeads – about the size of a grain of sand – that can trap hydrogen and release it when heated. The energy can then be used safely to power vehicles – drivers could simply top up with microbeads on filling station forecourts. What's more, the beads are not just for hydrogen vehicles - they also work in standard combustion engines, in which they can be used as an additive to help the petrol burn more cleanly, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Cella's invention, developed at its lab in Oxford, was in the limelight on Tuesday after the company scooped this year's Springboard award from Shell.
Stephen Voller, chief executive, said the prize was "a great boost [that] will give us real credibility in the eyes of customers and potential investors alike". Cella received £40,000 from Shell, which the company will use to scale up its technology to an industrial scale.
Second place in the awards went to VPhase, a Chester-based company, for a voltage optimisation product for households. This works on the basis that standard voltage is variable, meaning some devices are using more energy than they need to run. So installing the device should result in instant savings on electricity bills.
Among the runners-up and regional winners from the 200 small businesses that entered were Ashwoods Automotive, with a product that lengthens the life of electric car batteries, and Naked Energy, with a solar panel that generates both electricity and hot water in cool climates.
The Springboard awards have been running since 2005, in which time 53 companies have shared more than £2m.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks on the road to hydrogen power has long been the difficulty in storing the fuel. Hydrogen atoms are so small that they can slip between the spaces in molecules of other materials, and the gas can be a hazard if it escapes.
But a cheap and practical way of storing hydrogen has been developed by a British company. Cella Energy used nanotechnology to develop microbeads – about the size of a grain of sand – that can trap hydrogen and release it when heated. The energy can then be used safely to power vehicles – drivers could simply top up with microbeads on filling station forecourts. What's more, the beads are not just for hydrogen vehicles - they also work in standard combustion engines, in which they can be used as an additive to help the petrol burn more cleanly, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Cella's invention, developed at its lab in Oxford, was in the limelight on Tuesday after the company scooped this year's Springboard award from Shell.
Stephen Voller, chief executive, said the prize was "a great boost [that] will give us real credibility in the eyes of customers and potential investors alike". Cella received £40,000 from Shell, which the company will use to scale up its technology to an industrial scale.
Second place in the awards went to VPhase, a Chester-based company, for a voltage optimisation product for households. This works on the basis that standard voltage is variable, meaning some devices are using more energy than they need to run. So installing the device should result in instant savings on electricity bills.
Among the runners-up and regional winners from the 200 small businesses that entered were Ashwoods Automotive, with a product that lengthens the life of electric car batteries, and Naked Energy, with a solar panel that generates both electricity and hot water in cool climates.
The Springboard awards have been running since 2005, in which time 53 companies have shared more than £2m.
Rising oil prices should be a catalyst for decarbonisation
The quicker we can move to a post-oil society, the better for the environment, the global economy and for democracy
I write this from the Green party's spring conference in Cardiff, where events in Libya and throughout the Middle East are providing a deeply worrying backdrop to policy discussions and debates.
Over the past few weeks, we have witnessed an incredible wave of grassroots protest across the Middle East, which has sent shockwaves across the geopolitical landscape. We've seen courageous people rising up against the repressive leaders who have failed to respond to the economic, political and social challenges of the day – and to offer their citizens a more positive future.
And what support or encouragement has our prime minister offered to those bravely struggling for democracy and the rule of law? When I first saw him on TV in Tahrir Square, I genuinely thought for a moment that David Cameron was there to express solidarity with the pro-democracy movement. Then I realised the horrifying reality: he was there in the Middle East, at a time of such violence and chaos, with a delegation of arms traders, to sell more arms.
As well as recognising the importance of an ethical foreign policy, Greens also understand that, deep at the heart of most major conflicts – between countries or within them – is a tug-of-war over primary access to the natural resources which power our global economy.
And we know that, where dire poverty and inequality collides with increasingly scarce resources and ecological instability, the tug-of-war becomes ever more intense – and the consequences for populations ever more severe.
In a fascinating article in the Lebanese Daily Star last week, executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development in London, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, highlighted the fact that economic want, environmental crisis and inequality were as crucial as political repression in sparking the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions.
And he is right that just changing governments in those, and other, Middle Eastern countries mired in crisis will not make the economic and ecological problems disappear.
The Arab world accounts for 6.3% of the world's population but only 1.4% of its renewable fresh water. Rapid population growth has demanded a huge expansion in industrialised agriculture, which in turn has driven ever increasing water consumption.
The World Bank has predicted that, over the coming decades, the availability of fresh water in the region will halve. Competition to control water is already playing a key role in regional geopolitical and local ethnic tensions as demand increases.
Add to this the effects of climate change and rising global average temperatures, and you have an environmental and economic crisis of potentially catastrophic proportions.
Thanks to our dangerous dependency on oil, the situation in the Middle East is of paramount concern to national governments and global economic actors as turmoil in Libya and elsewhere escalates.
In the UK, we are in the age of dependency on foreign oil. We currently import 8% of our oil, but by 2020, it's predicted to be 50%. Our economy is already hugely vulnerable to instability. Three out of five last recessions were the result of oil price spikes arising from geopolitical upheavals.
So the news that oil prices have surged to $120 (£75) a barrel as a result of tensions in Libya, with the International Energy Agency warning that surging oil prices could pull the rug out from under global economic recovery, should act as a loud rallying cry for more urgent decarbonisation.
Whether it is via a managed transition or by painful last-minute shock as oil stocks are depleted, the UK will and must decrease its dependence on oil. On a positive note, this could mean a new politics in which foreign policy is no longer about propping up unsavoury regimes to protect oil interests.
What's clear is that the quicker we can move to a post-oil society, the better for the environment, the global economy and for democracy.
Public bodies bill - the coalition at its most dangerous and dishonest
The fierce public debate over the government's proposed forest sell-off not only forced the coalition into its most embarrassing U-turn yet - it also shone a bright light on a particularly insidious piece of this government's legislative agenda: the public bodies bill.
This bill, which is going through the Lords as we speak, essentially gives the government the power to destroy public bodies specifically designed to hold it to account - without even consulting with parliament.
Naturally the coalition has couched this brazen attempt to dodge democracy for its own gain in the langauge of "giving power back to the people" and "increasing the accountability of public services". In tabloid terms, it's a logical continutation of the Tories' "bonfire of the quangos" rhetoric.
In fact, this bill will shrink the level of accountability and allow central government to do whatever it pleases, at mere whim and without debate, to the very bodies put in place to prevent ministers from abusing their power.
In among the complex clauses and schedules, you can find the words which give this government the power – without the agreement of parliament – to scrap the Forestry Commission, the Climate Change Committee, the Environment Agency, Natural England and others.
How are we supposed to hold ministers to account in this "greenest government ever" if all the independent watchdogs which monitor environmental policy have been abolished or disempowered?
Though the government will do all it can to convince you otherwise, the bill is an affront to our democratic processes – with worrying consequences for environmental regulation.
Brighton cycle lanes
There has been much talk in my Brighton Pavilion constituency this week about the decision by Conservative-led Brighton and Hove council to remove our cycle highway - at the cost of £1.1m.
The plans to scrap one of the most effective tools we have to encourage more people to cycle and improve road safety for cyclists make a mockery of the council's transport policy - and threatens progress towards a greener local transport system.
If the council goes ahead with this baffling proposal, perhaps it should hand back the Transport Authority of the Year award given only last year for improvements that have seen cycling in the city increase significantly?
The plans have been rightly met with anger and frustration by local people who value our reputation as a cycling friendly city - and I will be doing what I can to persuade the council to reconsider.
I write this from the Green party's spring conference in Cardiff, where events in Libya and throughout the Middle East are providing a deeply worrying backdrop to policy discussions and debates.
Over the past few weeks, we have witnessed an incredible wave of grassroots protest across the Middle East, which has sent shockwaves across the geopolitical landscape. We've seen courageous people rising up against the repressive leaders who have failed to respond to the economic, political and social challenges of the day – and to offer their citizens a more positive future.
And what support or encouragement has our prime minister offered to those bravely struggling for democracy and the rule of law? When I first saw him on TV in Tahrir Square, I genuinely thought for a moment that David Cameron was there to express solidarity with the pro-democracy movement. Then I realised the horrifying reality: he was there in the Middle East, at a time of such violence and chaos, with a delegation of arms traders, to sell more arms.
As well as recognising the importance of an ethical foreign policy, Greens also understand that, deep at the heart of most major conflicts – between countries or within them – is a tug-of-war over primary access to the natural resources which power our global economy.
And we know that, where dire poverty and inequality collides with increasingly scarce resources and ecological instability, the tug-of-war becomes ever more intense – and the consequences for populations ever more severe.
In a fascinating article in the Lebanese Daily Star last week, executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development in London, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, highlighted the fact that economic want, environmental crisis and inequality were as crucial as political repression in sparking the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions.
And he is right that just changing governments in those, and other, Middle Eastern countries mired in crisis will not make the economic and ecological problems disappear.
The Arab world accounts for 6.3% of the world's population but only 1.4% of its renewable fresh water. Rapid population growth has demanded a huge expansion in industrialised agriculture, which in turn has driven ever increasing water consumption.
The World Bank has predicted that, over the coming decades, the availability of fresh water in the region will halve. Competition to control water is already playing a key role in regional geopolitical and local ethnic tensions as demand increases.
Add to this the effects of climate change and rising global average temperatures, and you have an environmental and economic crisis of potentially catastrophic proportions.
Thanks to our dangerous dependency on oil, the situation in the Middle East is of paramount concern to national governments and global economic actors as turmoil in Libya and elsewhere escalates.
In the UK, we are in the age of dependency on foreign oil. We currently import 8% of our oil, but by 2020, it's predicted to be 50%. Our economy is already hugely vulnerable to instability. Three out of five last recessions were the result of oil price spikes arising from geopolitical upheavals.
So the news that oil prices have surged to $120 (£75) a barrel as a result of tensions in Libya, with the International Energy Agency warning that surging oil prices could pull the rug out from under global economic recovery, should act as a loud rallying cry for more urgent decarbonisation.
Whether it is via a managed transition or by painful last-minute shock as oil stocks are depleted, the UK will and must decrease its dependence on oil. On a positive note, this could mean a new politics in which foreign policy is no longer about propping up unsavoury regimes to protect oil interests.
What's clear is that the quicker we can move to a post-oil society, the better for the environment, the global economy and for democracy.
Public bodies bill - the coalition at its most dangerous and dishonest
The fierce public debate over the government's proposed forest sell-off not only forced the coalition into its most embarrassing U-turn yet - it also shone a bright light on a particularly insidious piece of this government's legislative agenda: the public bodies bill.
This bill, which is going through the Lords as we speak, essentially gives the government the power to destroy public bodies specifically designed to hold it to account - without even consulting with parliament.
Naturally the coalition has couched this brazen attempt to dodge democracy for its own gain in the langauge of "giving power back to the people" and "increasing the accountability of public services". In tabloid terms, it's a logical continutation of the Tories' "bonfire of the quangos" rhetoric.
In fact, this bill will shrink the level of accountability and allow central government to do whatever it pleases, at mere whim and without debate, to the very bodies put in place to prevent ministers from abusing their power.
In among the complex clauses and schedules, you can find the words which give this government the power – without the agreement of parliament – to scrap the Forestry Commission, the Climate Change Committee, the Environment Agency, Natural England and others.
How are we supposed to hold ministers to account in this "greenest government ever" if all the independent watchdogs which monitor environmental policy have been abolished or disempowered?
Though the government will do all it can to convince you otherwise, the bill is an affront to our democratic processes – with worrying consequences for environmental regulation.
Brighton cycle lanes
There has been much talk in my Brighton Pavilion constituency this week about the decision by Conservative-led Brighton and Hove council to remove our cycle highway - at the cost of £1.1m.
The plans to scrap one of the most effective tools we have to encourage more people to cycle and improve road safety for cyclists make a mockery of the council's transport policy - and threatens progress towards a greener local transport system.
If the council goes ahead with this baffling proposal, perhaps it should hand back the Transport Authority of the Year award given only last year for improvements that have seen cycling in the city increase significantly?
The plans have been rightly met with anger and frustration by local people who value our reputation as a cycling friendly city - and I will be doing what I can to persuade the council to reconsider.
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Green ISA plans under threat
Key Tory policy would have put an estimated £2bn a year into low-carbon technologies and fund the green investment bank
• Green economy needs 2% of every nation's income, says UN
Fiona Harvey and Damian Carrington guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 February 2011 16.10 GMT
The government is expected to scrap a green policy that would have allowed individuals to take a stake in the low-carbon economy, in a move that could starve environmental projects of billions in potential investment, the Guardian has learned.
Green ISAs were a key Tory policy, to be introduced within two years as a way to help savers benefit from the growth of the green economy, as the billions raised from their sale would fund the state-backed green investment bank.
But objections from Treasury mandarins mean the savings accounts are to be dropped, choking off a funding stream that would have channelled an estimated £2bn a year into windfarms, electric vehicles and other low-carbon technologies.
The demise of green ISAs – widely regarded as the most potentially effective instruments the bank could use – is an embarrassment to George Osborne, chancellor of the exchequer, who came up with the idea three years ago and repeatedly championed the accounts. In February 2008, he said: "Green ISAs will engage the public in a new way in the issues around climate change and show them very clearly the economic benefits of green investment."
Bob Wigley, the ex-investment banker who drew up the blueprints for the bank at Osborne's request, estimated that sales of green ISAs would bring in £2bn a year. Savers would receive tax-free returns on the sums they invested in the accounts, and the bank could direct the investments towards buying shares in a portfolio of green projects, as well as reaping a commission to help fund its operations.
Treasury ideology was behind the scrapping of the policy, according to government insiders. As there are a small number of green ISA products already on the market, government-backed accounts could be regarded as competing with the private sector, a definite "no" as far as the Treasury is concerned. There was also a fear that it would be a risk to open up the bank to small individual investors.
The shutdown of green ISAs – one of the earliest policy measures mooted for the bank – may be part of a wider move within the Treasury to curtail the potential operations of the bank before it is set up. The Treasury said: "The final form of the bank still being subject to further design and testing work which the government hopes to complete by May."
The Department for Business Innovation and Skills said: "The government is continuing to consider the case of green ISAs as a source of funding for the green investment bank. However, retail deposits [such as ISAs] are not likely to be an initial source of funding for the bank because of the infrastructure needed."
But the loss of the savings accounts leaves a large funding hole.The government is committed to giving the bank an initial £1bn with up to £2bn more coming from asset sales. Under the Treasury's plans, the bank would not be able to take on loans or raise further money from the private sector.
Despite the Treasury's objections, the Guardian has found the UK's investment industry would welcome a government-backed green ISA rather than viewing it as unfair competition. Penny Shepherd, chief executive of the UK sustainable investment and finance association, which represents institutional investors, pointed out that the government already offers ISAs through National Savings and Investments, which could be used to offer green ISAs.
She said: "What's important here is the principle – if government chooses not to make these available to retail investors, they will have lost the opportunity to build wider support for the low-carbon transition."
Emma Howard Boyd, of Jupiter Asset Management, told the government during its consultation: "Institutional investors may provide the majority of funds for the bank, but retail investors could also prove an important source of funding. Indeed, the public's ability to participate in a green investment bank is in many ways as important as any funding they may bring ... Introducing a green ISA could be a cost-effective way to give everyone a chance to be an investor in our low-carbon future."
Research by the sustainable investment and finance association, UKSIF, found that half of investors in the UK said they would like to make money and "make a difference" through their savings and investments.
At present, individual savers have only limited opportunities to back clean technology. The small number of renewable energy companies listed on the stock market tend to be small in size and difficult to trade shares in. In the case of the bigger companies with an interest in clean technology, such as General Electric and Siemens, low-carbon products form only a small part of their overall portfolio, which means investors in them are also backing technologies they may find unpalatable, such as fossil fuel power generation and nuclear energy.
Forms of commercial green ISAs are offered by a handful of companies including Smile, Fair Investment Company and Virgin, which has a climate change ISA that invests in "businesses with a lighter carbon footprint".
The Treasury's move to scrap green ISAs may also mean that other financial instruments that could have been used to finance the bank will never make it past the drawing board. These include green bonds, which could be sold to investment houses to raise money for low-carbon projects.
The Treasury is set against allowing the bank to behave like a normal investment house, by raising money and loans, because these would show up on the government's balance sheet, potentially increasing the government's liabilities and the size of the deficit. Chris Huhne, climate change secretary, has fought to keep these options open, arguing that without such powers the bank is only a fund, and will have little real effect.
Green NGOs said they were disappointed with the move to abandon green ISAs. "The Treasury is putting ideology above any serious ambition to drive green jobs and growth," said Louise Hutchins, head of UK energy campaigns at Greenpeace.
"This is very short-sighted," said Matthew Spencer, of the Green Alliance. "[The government] has not engaged the public in the mission to rejuvenate the UK's infrastructure, and a green ISA would have been one way to raise enthusiasm as well as new funds."
• Green economy needs 2% of every nation's income, says UN
Fiona Harvey and Damian Carrington guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 February 2011 16.10 GMT
The government is expected to scrap a green policy that would have allowed individuals to take a stake in the low-carbon economy, in a move that could starve environmental projects of billions in potential investment, the Guardian has learned.
Green ISAs were a key Tory policy, to be introduced within two years as a way to help savers benefit from the growth of the green economy, as the billions raised from their sale would fund the state-backed green investment bank.
But objections from Treasury mandarins mean the savings accounts are to be dropped, choking off a funding stream that would have channelled an estimated £2bn a year into windfarms, electric vehicles and other low-carbon technologies.
The demise of green ISAs – widely regarded as the most potentially effective instruments the bank could use – is an embarrassment to George Osborne, chancellor of the exchequer, who came up with the idea three years ago and repeatedly championed the accounts. In February 2008, he said: "Green ISAs will engage the public in a new way in the issues around climate change and show them very clearly the economic benefits of green investment."
Bob Wigley, the ex-investment banker who drew up the blueprints for the bank at Osborne's request, estimated that sales of green ISAs would bring in £2bn a year. Savers would receive tax-free returns on the sums they invested in the accounts, and the bank could direct the investments towards buying shares in a portfolio of green projects, as well as reaping a commission to help fund its operations.
Treasury ideology was behind the scrapping of the policy, according to government insiders. As there are a small number of green ISA products already on the market, government-backed accounts could be regarded as competing with the private sector, a definite "no" as far as the Treasury is concerned. There was also a fear that it would be a risk to open up the bank to small individual investors.
The shutdown of green ISAs – one of the earliest policy measures mooted for the bank – may be part of a wider move within the Treasury to curtail the potential operations of the bank before it is set up. The Treasury said: "The final form of the bank still being subject to further design and testing work which the government hopes to complete by May."
The Department for Business Innovation and Skills said: "The government is continuing to consider the case of green ISAs as a source of funding for the green investment bank. However, retail deposits [such as ISAs] are not likely to be an initial source of funding for the bank because of the infrastructure needed."
But the loss of the savings accounts leaves a large funding hole.The government is committed to giving the bank an initial £1bn with up to £2bn more coming from asset sales. Under the Treasury's plans, the bank would not be able to take on loans or raise further money from the private sector.
Despite the Treasury's objections, the Guardian has found the UK's investment industry would welcome a government-backed green ISA rather than viewing it as unfair competition. Penny Shepherd, chief executive of the UK sustainable investment and finance association, which represents institutional investors, pointed out that the government already offers ISAs through National Savings and Investments, which could be used to offer green ISAs.
She said: "What's important here is the principle – if government chooses not to make these available to retail investors, they will have lost the opportunity to build wider support for the low-carbon transition."
Emma Howard Boyd, of Jupiter Asset Management, told the government during its consultation: "Institutional investors may provide the majority of funds for the bank, but retail investors could also prove an important source of funding. Indeed, the public's ability to participate in a green investment bank is in many ways as important as any funding they may bring ... Introducing a green ISA could be a cost-effective way to give everyone a chance to be an investor in our low-carbon future."
Research by the sustainable investment and finance association, UKSIF, found that half of investors in the UK said they would like to make money and "make a difference" through their savings and investments.
At present, individual savers have only limited opportunities to back clean technology. The small number of renewable energy companies listed on the stock market tend to be small in size and difficult to trade shares in. In the case of the bigger companies with an interest in clean technology, such as General Electric and Siemens, low-carbon products form only a small part of their overall portfolio, which means investors in them are also backing technologies they may find unpalatable, such as fossil fuel power generation and nuclear energy.
Forms of commercial green ISAs are offered by a handful of companies including Smile, Fair Investment Company and Virgin, which has a climate change ISA that invests in "businesses with a lighter carbon footprint".
The Treasury's move to scrap green ISAs may also mean that other financial instruments that could have been used to finance the bank will never make it past the drawing board. These include green bonds, which could be sold to investment houses to raise money for low-carbon projects.
The Treasury is set against allowing the bank to behave like a normal investment house, by raising money and loans, because these would show up on the government's balance sheet, potentially increasing the government's liabilities and the size of the deficit. Chris Huhne, climate change secretary, has fought to keep these options open, arguing that without such powers the bank is only a fund, and will have little real effect.
Green NGOs said they were disappointed with the move to abandon green ISAs. "The Treasury is putting ideology above any serious ambition to drive green jobs and growth," said Louise Hutchins, head of UK energy campaigns at Greenpeace.
"This is very short-sighted," said Matthew Spencer, of the Green Alliance. "[The government] has not engaged the public in the mission to rejuvenate the UK's infrastructure, and a green ISA would have been one way to raise enthusiasm as well as new funds."
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Newcastle hopes to tap deep heat with 2000m geothermal probe
Britain's greenest city begins drilling for supplies of groundwater naturally kept at 80C to heat parts of the city centre
Martin Wainwright guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 February 2011 16.58 GMT Article history Britain's greenest city has launched a hunt for virtually free hot water more than a mile below its central streets. Drilling has started in Newcastle Upon Tyne on a borehole which hopes to tap inexhaustible supplies of groundwater naturally kept at 80C (176F) by geothermal heat.
The project, based at the former home of the city's most famous previous liquid – the old Scottish and Newcastle brewery – expects to tap the water and start pumping in early June. By then, the drill operated by scientists and engineers from Newcastle and Durham universities will have reached 2,000m (6,500ft).
The £900,000 project is confident of pumping out enough steady supplies to heat the 24-acre Science Centre, which has replaced the brewery, and large parts of the city centre. Newcastle's main shopping mall, Eldon Square, is expected to be an early customer, using the recirculated water to heat 140 shops.
The Newcastle project is part of a programme which earned the city top place in the Forum for the Future's 2009 and 2010 sustainability tables. The borehole, funded by the local Newcastle Science City partnership and the Department of Energy and Climate Change, follows a successful trial of geothermally heated water in Upper Weardale, County Durham.
Martin Wainwright guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 February 2011 16.58 GMT Article history Britain's greenest city has launched a hunt for virtually free hot water more than a mile below its central streets. Drilling has started in Newcastle Upon Tyne on a borehole which hopes to tap inexhaustible supplies of groundwater naturally kept at 80C (176F) by geothermal heat.
The project, based at the former home of the city's most famous previous liquid – the old Scottish and Newcastle brewery – expects to tap the water and start pumping in early June. By then, the drill operated by scientists and engineers from Newcastle and Durham universities will have reached 2,000m (6,500ft).
The £900,000 project is confident of pumping out enough steady supplies to heat the 24-acre Science Centre, which has replaced the brewery, and large parts of the city centre. Newcastle's main shopping mall, Eldon Square, is expected to be an early customer, using the recirculated water to heat 140 shops.
The Newcastle project is part of a programme which earned the city top place in the Forum for the Future's 2009 and 2010 sustainability tables. The borehole, funded by the local Newcastle Science City partnership and the Department of Energy and Climate Change, follows a successful trial of geothermally heated water in Upper Weardale, County Durham.
From the maker of BedZed comes ... PortZED, the self-powered apartments
UK's largest off-grid housing development includes traffic lights indicating energy use and will be powered by renewables
Bibi van der Zee guardian.co.uk, Thursday 24 February 2011 09.00 GMT
The UK's largest ever off-grid housing development will have a traffic light system prompting residents to keep their energy use low, say developers awaiting planning permission.
PortzED is the 67-apartment development dreamed up by Bill Dunster – the architect famous for the BedZed eco-development in Sutton – and it is designed to be entirely self-powered.
The six apartment buildings, to be built at the mouth of Shoreham port near Brighton, will be linked by wind turbines, and their southern face will be tiled in solar thermal and photovoltaics panels.
Batteries will be charged during the day in order to keep the lights on at night, and the apartments themselves will be heavily insulated in order to keep power use as low as possible.
But resident behaviour will also play a key role, says the developer, Colin Brace of Bohogreen, who has worked on previous low-carbon projects. "We can't tell people that you only have so much power, and no more. But there are studies showing that if you give people renewable energy they think, oh good, it's free, and their energy use actually goes up. So an important aspect of the project will be to educate people about their energy use.
"The apartments will be designed to encourage communal living as much as possible," says Brace, "rather than having everyone in their own rooms using their own sources of power." There will also be LED lights on the wind turbines which light up red, amber and green to show which block is using power most heavily, in order to foster "a healthy sense of competition between residents to keep their power use low".
"The most important thing is that residents have a sense of ownership," he adds. "There will be resident panels, and if there's something like a football match coming up, the idea is that they will be able to talk through how to handle the attendant surge in power demand."
Rachel Shiamh, who built her own off-grid house in Wales last year, and who is organising an off-grid conference this summer, argues that being off-grid makes her more aware of her power use. "When the sun comes out I think 'oh brilliant, I can use the hoover.' It's made me far more aware of the elements. And I think it's really important that this isn't just seen as some hippy and low-budget thing; this kind of development is so important for getting off-grid into the mainstream."
The apartments in Portzed will be up to 22% more expensive than an "on-grid" development, due to the extra costs of installing high-spec insulation and renewables. At current market rates, that could add £20-24,000 to the final price of a two-bedroom flat. The developers believe however that there is a high demand for this kind of home due to their rarity. The financing for the project is already in place and the project is expected to be financial viable.
The final decision over whether the housing project will be off-grid, or remain online, will be made at a later date, depending on the feedback from potential buyers. "I'm not absolutely sure that the market is ready for it yet," says Brace. "But that [off-grid] would certainly be the ideal."
The development is generally seen as a rare bit of good news from the housing industry, which has flatlined since the recession, and is still struggling to reach agreement with the government over the target for zero-carbon homes. In 2006, Labour announced a world-leading target to make all new housing zero carbon by 2016; when the housing minister, Grant Shapps, came into office last year he confirmed that the target would remain in place, and announced that they would have nailed the definition by the end of the summer. Nearly a year later, however, a final definition has still not been announced.
"We are now two-thirds of the way to having a working definition for 'zero carbon'," said John Alker, policy director at the Green Building Council. The government's Zero Carbon Hub believes that, as of last week, agreement has been more or less reached on the standards for the fabric and the energy use of new residential buildings.
But the third part of the definition is the tricky 'allowable solutions', section. If builders cannot make a building entirely zero-carbon they are permitted to try off-site solutions, such as investing in a community energy scheme. Opponents of the allowable solutions argue that it should be possible to achieve zero-carbon fully onsite. But the building industry say that in some sites this is just not practicable.
"There just isn't enough sun or wind on some sites," says Alker, who points out that the position of Portzed – right on our south coast with lots of wind and sunshine – gives it an advantage that other sites just don't have.
"There are only a very few zero-carbon homes in the UK at the moment, so it's wonderful to see something like Portzed come along," he said. "It's this kind of exemplar which gets us all excited about it again."
Bibi van der Zee guardian.co.uk, Thursday 24 February 2011 09.00 GMT
The UK's largest ever off-grid housing development will have a traffic light system prompting residents to keep their energy use low, say developers awaiting planning permission.
PortzED is the 67-apartment development dreamed up by Bill Dunster – the architect famous for the BedZed eco-development in Sutton – and it is designed to be entirely self-powered.
The six apartment buildings, to be built at the mouth of Shoreham port near Brighton, will be linked by wind turbines, and their southern face will be tiled in solar thermal and photovoltaics panels.
Batteries will be charged during the day in order to keep the lights on at night, and the apartments themselves will be heavily insulated in order to keep power use as low as possible.
But resident behaviour will also play a key role, says the developer, Colin Brace of Bohogreen, who has worked on previous low-carbon projects. "We can't tell people that you only have so much power, and no more. But there are studies showing that if you give people renewable energy they think, oh good, it's free, and their energy use actually goes up. So an important aspect of the project will be to educate people about their energy use.
"The apartments will be designed to encourage communal living as much as possible," says Brace, "rather than having everyone in their own rooms using their own sources of power." There will also be LED lights on the wind turbines which light up red, amber and green to show which block is using power most heavily, in order to foster "a healthy sense of competition between residents to keep their power use low".
"The most important thing is that residents have a sense of ownership," he adds. "There will be resident panels, and if there's something like a football match coming up, the idea is that they will be able to talk through how to handle the attendant surge in power demand."
Rachel Shiamh, who built her own off-grid house in Wales last year, and who is organising an off-grid conference this summer, argues that being off-grid makes her more aware of her power use. "When the sun comes out I think 'oh brilliant, I can use the hoover.' It's made me far more aware of the elements. And I think it's really important that this isn't just seen as some hippy and low-budget thing; this kind of development is so important for getting off-grid into the mainstream."
The apartments in Portzed will be up to 22% more expensive than an "on-grid" development, due to the extra costs of installing high-spec insulation and renewables. At current market rates, that could add £20-24,000 to the final price of a two-bedroom flat. The developers believe however that there is a high demand for this kind of home due to their rarity. The financing for the project is already in place and the project is expected to be financial viable.
The final decision over whether the housing project will be off-grid, or remain online, will be made at a later date, depending on the feedback from potential buyers. "I'm not absolutely sure that the market is ready for it yet," says Brace. "But that [off-grid] would certainly be the ideal."
The development is generally seen as a rare bit of good news from the housing industry, which has flatlined since the recession, and is still struggling to reach agreement with the government over the target for zero-carbon homes. In 2006, Labour announced a world-leading target to make all new housing zero carbon by 2016; when the housing minister, Grant Shapps, came into office last year he confirmed that the target would remain in place, and announced that they would have nailed the definition by the end of the summer. Nearly a year later, however, a final definition has still not been announced.
"We are now two-thirds of the way to having a working definition for 'zero carbon'," said John Alker, policy director at the Green Building Council. The government's Zero Carbon Hub believes that, as of last week, agreement has been more or less reached on the standards for the fabric and the energy use of new residential buildings.
But the third part of the definition is the tricky 'allowable solutions', section. If builders cannot make a building entirely zero-carbon they are permitted to try off-site solutions, such as investing in a community energy scheme. Opponents of the allowable solutions argue that it should be possible to achieve zero-carbon fully onsite. But the building industry say that in some sites this is just not practicable.
"There just isn't enough sun or wind on some sites," says Alker, who points out that the position of Portzed – right on our south coast with lots of wind and sunshine – gives it an advantage that other sites just don't have.
"There are only a very few zero-carbon homes in the UK at the moment, so it's wonderful to see something like Portzed come along," he said. "It's this kind of exemplar which gets us all excited about it again."
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
Target 'black carbon' to tackle climate change, recommends UN
Report says soot is neglected in climate debate, and reducing particles polluting the air could cut global warming by 0.5C
Fiona Harvey guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 February 2011 17.59 GMT
Cutting the amount of soot we pour into the atmosphere, and emissions of methane from agriculture, would be one of the most powerful ways to tackle climate change (pdf) , a new report from the United Nations environment programme (Unep) has concluded.
Preventing "black carbon" – particles of soot from industry and cooking fires – from polluting the air would help to cut global warming by as much as 0.5C, and reduce warming in the Arctic by about two thirds by 2030. Scientists say a rise in temperature of about 2C is the limit of safety, beyond which climate change would become catastrophic and irreversible.
Black carbon, methane and ozone are known as "short-lived climate forcers", because they have a strong warming effect but do not persist in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide, which has been the main focus of international emissions-cutting efforts until now.
Soot is a particular problem because when it falls on snow and ice it darkens the surface, increasing the absorption of sunlight, in turn hastening the melting process. Black carbon has been shown to have a dramatic effect in the rapid melting of the Arctic, and affects the water cycle in regions such as the Himalayas.
But a variety of measures could be put in place relatively easily that would dramatically reduce these short-lived emissions. For instance, fitting diesel vehicles with exhaust-pipe filters, using clean-burning stoves in place of open wood fires, capturing methane from coal mines and landfill sites, and banning the burning of agricultural waste in fields.
A key reason for pursuing the short-lived emissions is that it could be a quick gain, in contrast to carbon policies which take years to have an effect. "The very good news is that, unlike carbon dioxide and other long-lived greenhouse gas emissions, where cuts will require many decades before temperature reductions can be measured, mitigation strategies for reducing short-lived climate forcers can be implemented quickly, and positive results can be expected over a much shorter time frame," says Ellen Baum, senior scientist at the Clean Air Task Force, a campaigning group in the US.
Unep concludes: "Widespread implementation is achievable with existing technology but would require significant strategic investment and institutional arrangements."
Cost is a key issue, adds Baum. Fitting filters and other technology adds an extra burden to car manufacturers or vehicle owners, for instance. Another obstacle is the lack of availability of clean-burning stoves and alternatives such as solar stoves.
In some countries, new regulations are bringing down emission rates. Baum points to China and Vietnam, where soot from brick kilns is now coming under strict regulations.
Governments should wake up to the advantages of tackling the short-lived emissions, according to Unep. Measures to reduce soot would have many additional benefits, such as improvements to health from lower air pollution.
Unep estimates that if its recommendations are fully adopted, 2.4 million premature deaths could be avoided annually and the global production of staple crops including wheat, rice and soybean would be 1% to 4% higher each year.
Fiona Harvey guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 February 2011 17.59 GMT
Cutting the amount of soot we pour into the atmosphere, and emissions of methane from agriculture, would be one of the most powerful ways to tackle climate change (pdf) , a new report from the United Nations environment programme (Unep) has concluded.
Preventing "black carbon" – particles of soot from industry and cooking fires – from polluting the air would help to cut global warming by as much as 0.5C, and reduce warming in the Arctic by about two thirds by 2030. Scientists say a rise in temperature of about 2C is the limit of safety, beyond which climate change would become catastrophic and irreversible.
Black carbon, methane and ozone are known as "short-lived climate forcers", because they have a strong warming effect but do not persist in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide, which has been the main focus of international emissions-cutting efforts until now.
Soot is a particular problem because when it falls on snow and ice it darkens the surface, increasing the absorption of sunlight, in turn hastening the melting process. Black carbon has been shown to have a dramatic effect in the rapid melting of the Arctic, and affects the water cycle in regions such as the Himalayas.
But a variety of measures could be put in place relatively easily that would dramatically reduce these short-lived emissions. For instance, fitting diesel vehicles with exhaust-pipe filters, using clean-burning stoves in place of open wood fires, capturing methane from coal mines and landfill sites, and banning the burning of agricultural waste in fields.
A key reason for pursuing the short-lived emissions is that it could be a quick gain, in contrast to carbon policies which take years to have an effect. "The very good news is that, unlike carbon dioxide and other long-lived greenhouse gas emissions, where cuts will require many decades before temperature reductions can be measured, mitigation strategies for reducing short-lived climate forcers can be implemented quickly, and positive results can be expected over a much shorter time frame," says Ellen Baum, senior scientist at the Clean Air Task Force, a campaigning group in the US.
Unep concludes: "Widespread implementation is achievable with existing technology but would require significant strategic investment and institutional arrangements."
Cost is a key issue, adds Baum. Fitting filters and other technology adds an extra burden to car manufacturers or vehicle owners, for instance. Another obstacle is the lack of availability of clean-burning stoves and alternatives such as solar stoves.
In some countries, new regulations are bringing down emission rates. Baum points to China and Vietnam, where soot from brick kilns is now coming under strict regulations.
Governments should wake up to the advantages of tackling the short-lived emissions, according to Unep. Measures to reduce soot would have many additional benefits, such as improvements to health from lower air pollution.
Unep estimates that if its recommendations are fully adopted, 2.4 million premature deaths could be avoided annually and the global production of staple crops including wheat, rice and soybean would be 1% to 4% higher each year.
Researchers Create Novel Light-Emitting Material
February 17, 2011 – 1:05 pm
Researchers have developed pure organic phosphorescent crystals.
Pure organic compounds that glow in jewel tones could potentially be used in biosensors and in new types of display screens. University of Michigan researcher Jinsang Kim and his colleagues have developed the new class of material that shines with phosphorescence—a property that has previously been seen only in non-organic compounds or organometallics.
Kim and his colleagues made metal-free organic crystals that are white in visible light and radiate blue, green, yellow and orange when triggered by ultraviolet light. By changing the materials’ chemical composition, the researchers can make them emit different colours.
The new luminous materials, or phosphors, could improve upon current organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and solid-state lighting. Bright, low-power OLEDs are used in some small screens on cell phones or cameras.
“Purely organic materials haven’t been able to generate meaningful phosphorescence emissions. We believe this is the first example of an organic that can compete with an organometallic in terms of brightness and color tuning capability,” says Kim, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, chemical engineering, macromolecular science and engineering, and biomedical engineering.
The new phosphors exhibit “quantum yields” of 55%. Quantum yield, a measure of a material’s efficiency and brightness, refers to how much energy an electron dissipates as light instead of heat as it descends from an excited state to a ground state. Current pure organic compounds have a yield of essentially zero.
In Kim’s phosphors, the light comes from molecules of oxygen and carbon known as “aromatic carbonyls,” compounds that produce phosphorescence, but weakly and under special circumstances such as extremely low temperatures. What’s unique about these new materials is that the aromatic carbonyls form strong halogen bonds with halogens in the crystal to pack the molecules tightly. This arrangement suppresses vibration and heat energy losses as the excited electrons fall back to the ground state, leading to strong phosphorescence.
This new method offers an easier way to make high-energy blue organic phosphors, which are difficult to achieve with organometallics.
“This is in the beginning stage, but we expect that it will not be long before our simple materials will be available commercially for device applications,” Kim says.
Former doctoral student Kangwon Lee discovered the unique properties of these materials while developing a biosensor—a compound that detects biological molecules and can be used in medical testing and environmental monitoring. The phosphors have applications in this area as well.
The university is pursuing patent protection for the intellectual property, and is seeking commercialisation partners to help bring the technology to market.
More information on the jewel-toned organic phosphorescent crystals is research is available from the University of Michigan.
Researchers have developed pure organic phosphorescent crystals.
Pure organic compounds that glow in jewel tones could potentially be used in biosensors and in new types of display screens. University of Michigan researcher Jinsang Kim and his colleagues have developed the new class of material that shines with phosphorescence—a property that has previously been seen only in non-organic compounds or organometallics.
Kim and his colleagues made metal-free organic crystals that are white in visible light and radiate blue, green, yellow and orange when triggered by ultraviolet light. By changing the materials’ chemical composition, the researchers can make them emit different colours.
The new luminous materials, or phosphors, could improve upon current organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and solid-state lighting. Bright, low-power OLEDs are used in some small screens on cell phones or cameras.
“Purely organic materials haven’t been able to generate meaningful phosphorescence emissions. We believe this is the first example of an organic that can compete with an organometallic in terms of brightness and color tuning capability,” says Kim, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, chemical engineering, macromolecular science and engineering, and biomedical engineering.
The new phosphors exhibit “quantum yields” of 55%. Quantum yield, a measure of a material’s efficiency and brightness, refers to how much energy an electron dissipates as light instead of heat as it descends from an excited state to a ground state. Current pure organic compounds have a yield of essentially zero.
In Kim’s phosphors, the light comes from molecules of oxygen and carbon known as “aromatic carbonyls,” compounds that produce phosphorescence, but weakly and under special circumstances such as extremely low temperatures. What’s unique about these new materials is that the aromatic carbonyls form strong halogen bonds with halogens in the crystal to pack the molecules tightly. This arrangement suppresses vibration and heat energy losses as the excited electrons fall back to the ground state, leading to strong phosphorescence.
This new method offers an easier way to make high-energy blue organic phosphors, which are difficult to achieve with organometallics.
“This is in the beginning stage, but we expect that it will not be long before our simple materials will be available commercially for device applications,” Kim says.
Former doctoral student Kangwon Lee discovered the unique properties of these materials while developing a biosensor—a compound that detects biological molecules and can be used in medical testing and environmental monitoring. The phosphors have applications in this area as well.
The university is pursuing patent protection for the intellectual property, and is seeking commercialisation partners to help bring the technology to market.
More information on the jewel-toned organic phosphorescent crystals is research is available from the University of Michigan.
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Green economy needs 2% of every nation's income, says UN
Global green investment drive 'would pay off in terms of jobs, cleaner air and energy use'
Obama, Hu Jintao and big business back call for every country to contribute
Fiona Harvey The Guardian, Monday 21 February 2011
The United Nations will call on Monday for 2% of worldwide income to be invested in the green economy, a move it says would boost jobs and economic growth.
The call is expected to be matched by statements of support for low-carbon investment from heads of state including President Barack Obama of the US and Hu Jintao of China, and several chiefs of multinational companies.
An investment of 2% of global GDP would more than pay for itself in the form of millions of new jobs, the development of new industries, health benefits from cleaner air, energy efficiency savings and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the UN is expected to say.
These findings are also backed up by a report to be published today by the German government, which warns that Europe will suffer continued low growth rates unless investment in green projects is increased. Raising the level of ambition in the EU's climate targets would increase European GDP by up to $842bn, a 6% rise, and create up to 6m additional jobs across member states.
The world stands at a critical point in terms of low-carbon investment, according to the UN. While India has a national action plan expected to stimulate $1tn of investment in the next decade, and China - already the biggest producer of wind power and solar panels - is pushing ahead with a five-year plan for a "clean revolution", other economies are wavering.
In the US, investment in renewable energy has stalled, and an HSBC analysis found that Republican plans currently before Congress would more than halve federal spending on low-carbon projects, including high-speed rail, carbon regulation and contributions to international climate funds. Plans put forward by Obama, by contrast, provide for a 20% increase in climate and clean energy funding above 2010 levels, paid for by the repeal of $4bn in fossil fuel subsidies and research.
Nick Robins, head of climate change at HSBC, said: "We expect tough negotiations to close this gulf in budgetary priorities between the president and Congress... Although we do not expect all the proposed cuts to materialise, key climate initiatives look set to be curbed."
In the European Union, politicians, green campaigners and businesses are at loggerheads over whether to adopt more ambitious climate targets. Several member states, including the UK, want to toughen the current goal of cutting emissions by 20% by 2020 to a cut of 30% by the same date, arguing that a more stringent target will create new jobs and allow the EU to keep up with China in the race to dominate the green economy. Their case was strongly boosted by a confidential European Commission analysis, seen by the Guardian, showing that if existing policies are followed through, the EU will comfortably exceed its current target, with a fall in emissions of about 25% by 2020.
The German environment ministry's report, also seen by the Guardian, added to this case, concluding that the current 20% target "has become too weak to mobilise innovations". Sticking with it, the authors say, "is the equivalent of digging deeper while still being stuck in a hole", while the 30% target is not only achievable but "economically beneficial".
In the UK, a group of leading businesses will unite today to urge George Osborne, the chancellor, to include measures to stimulate low-carbon development in his March Budget. Peter Young, chairman of the Aldersgate Group, said: "The chancellor has promised a budget for growth but we believe this must be a budget for green growth. The UK needs an explicit strategy to take advantage of the global shift to a green economy, driving jobs and exports. Cuts alone will not deliver a competitive economy."
Obama, Hu Jintao and big business back call for every country to contribute
Fiona Harvey The Guardian, Monday 21 February 2011
The United Nations will call on Monday for 2% of worldwide income to be invested in the green economy, a move it says would boost jobs and economic growth.
The call is expected to be matched by statements of support for low-carbon investment from heads of state including President Barack Obama of the US and Hu Jintao of China, and several chiefs of multinational companies.
An investment of 2% of global GDP would more than pay for itself in the form of millions of new jobs, the development of new industries, health benefits from cleaner air, energy efficiency savings and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the UN is expected to say.
These findings are also backed up by a report to be published today by the German government, which warns that Europe will suffer continued low growth rates unless investment in green projects is increased. Raising the level of ambition in the EU's climate targets would increase European GDP by up to $842bn, a 6% rise, and create up to 6m additional jobs across member states.
The world stands at a critical point in terms of low-carbon investment, according to the UN. While India has a national action plan expected to stimulate $1tn of investment in the next decade, and China - already the biggest producer of wind power and solar panels - is pushing ahead with a five-year plan for a "clean revolution", other economies are wavering.
In the US, investment in renewable energy has stalled, and an HSBC analysis found that Republican plans currently before Congress would more than halve federal spending on low-carbon projects, including high-speed rail, carbon regulation and contributions to international climate funds. Plans put forward by Obama, by contrast, provide for a 20% increase in climate and clean energy funding above 2010 levels, paid for by the repeal of $4bn in fossil fuel subsidies and research.
Nick Robins, head of climate change at HSBC, said: "We expect tough negotiations to close this gulf in budgetary priorities between the president and Congress... Although we do not expect all the proposed cuts to materialise, key climate initiatives look set to be curbed."
In the European Union, politicians, green campaigners and businesses are at loggerheads over whether to adopt more ambitious climate targets. Several member states, including the UK, want to toughen the current goal of cutting emissions by 20% by 2020 to a cut of 30% by the same date, arguing that a more stringent target will create new jobs and allow the EU to keep up with China in the race to dominate the green economy. Their case was strongly boosted by a confidential European Commission analysis, seen by the Guardian, showing that if existing policies are followed through, the EU will comfortably exceed its current target, with a fall in emissions of about 25% by 2020.
The German environment ministry's report, also seen by the Guardian, added to this case, concluding that the current 20% target "has become too weak to mobilise innovations". Sticking with it, the authors say, "is the equivalent of digging deeper while still being stuck in a hole", while the 30% target is not only achievable but "economically beneficial".
In the UK, a group of leading businesses will unite today to urge George Osborne, the chancellor, to include measures to stimulate low-carbon development in his March Budget. Peter Young, chairman of the Aldersgate Group, said: "The chancellor has promised a budget for growth but we believe this must be a budget for green growth. The UK needs an explicit strategy to take advantage of the global shift to a green economy, driving jobs and exports. Cuts alone will not deliver a competitive economy."
Wind farm to be built off Jurassic Coast
A huge off-shore wind farm is to be built off the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, England’s only geological World Heritage Site, prompting concern for tourism and sea views.
By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent 3:48PM GMT 18 Feb 2011
About 250 450ft tall turbines will be built across a 76 square mile area of the English Channel , making the development twice as big as the world’s largest offshore wind farm, which is currently 100 300ft turbines off Kent.
The turbines, which will be sited in a depth of 120ft of water, will provide enough energy to power up to 820,000 homes.
But protesters claim that the wind farm could spoil the view and effect tourism.
The turbines will be situated just eight miles east of Swanage, Dorset, which makes up part of Britain's World Heritage Jurassic Coast and will be seen from the shore.
It will also be 10 miles from Bournemouth and visible to the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit its beaches every year. The horizon is 17 miles away from the resort's cliffs.
Related Articles
World's largest offshore wind farm opens off Kent 23 Sep 2010
They will also be lit up at night-time so they don't present a danger to shipping.
The Crown Estate, which owns the seabed, gave Dutch energy company Eneco permission to build the farm across a 279 square mile area of sea between Dorset and the Isle of Wight.
After examining the location the firm decided on the 76 square mile section in the most northern part of that area but local people remain concerned about the site.
Tony Williams, environment director at Bournemouth Borough Council, was worried about sea views.
"We support the wind farm in principle,” he said. "But in terms of visibility we recognise that the 150 metre high turbines maybe an issue and we are concerned they will be located at a distance of 10 miles."
Author Rodney Legg, who has written books on the Jurassic Coast, said a wind farm off the Dorset coast would be a disaster.
"It's England's only geological World Heritage Site which is up to 400 million years old and you don't want those things in the background,” he said.
"They would be an incredible distraction. Shipping is one thing because you would expect it in a maritime nation, but wind turbines would be cluttering things up.
"It would be spoiling a view that is half as old as time itself. We have got into a habit of cluttering up all our open spaces.
"And there is the army firing ranges at Lulworth that send shells 14 miles out to sea, so I doubt who ever came up with this location had considered that.
"So perhaps the country will be saved by the army once again.
"If these things are ever put up the army can use them as target practice."
However Chris Sherrington, director of the project for Eneco, insisted the public will be consulted.
"After comprehensively evaluating key aspects of the project in relation to wider stakeholder interests we have chosen the most suitable location for the wind park.
"This is an important milestone in the lifetime of the development of this project and enables us to look to the future and consider wider impacts such as the positive economic benefits our project could bring to the area."
By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent 3:48PM GMT 18 Feb 2011
About 250 450ft tall turbines will be built across a 76 square mile area of the English Channel , making the development twice as big as the world’s largest offshore wind farm, which is currently 100 300ft turbines off Kent.
The turbines, which will be sited in a depth of 120ft of water, will provide enough energy to power up to 820,000 homes.
But protesters claim that the wind farm could spoil the view and effect tourism.
The turbines will be situated just eight miles east of Swanage, Dorset, which makes up part of Britain's World Heritage Jurassic Coast and will be seen from the shore.
It will also be 10 miles from Bournemouth and visible to the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit its beaches every year. The horizon is 17 miles away from the resort's cliffs.
Related Articles
World's largest offshore wind farm opens off Kent 23 Sep 2010
They will also be lit up at night-time so they don't present a danger to shipping.
The Crown Estate, which owns the seabed, gave Dutch energy company Eneco permission to build the farm across a 279 square mile area of sea between Dorset and the Isle of Wight.
After examining the location the firm decided on the 76 square mile section in the most northern part of that area but local people remain concerned about the site.
Tony Williams, environment director at Bournemouth Borough Council, was worried about sea views.
"We support the wind farm in principle,” he said. "But in terms of visibility we recognise that the 150 metre high turbines maybe an issue and we are concerned they will be located at a distance of 10 miles."
Author Rodney Legg, who has written books on the Jurassic Coast, said a wind farm off the Dorset coast would be a disaster.
"It's England's only geological World Heritage Site which is up to 400 million years old and you don't want those things in the background,” he said.
"They would be an incredible distraction. Shipping is one thing because you would expect it in a maritime nation, but wind turbines would be cluttering things up.
"It would be spoiling a view that is half as old as time itself. We have got into a habit of cluttering up all our open spaces.
"And there is the army firing ranges at Lulworth that send shells 14 miles out to sea, so I doubt who ever came up with this location had considered that.
"So perhaps the country will be saved by the army once again.
"If these things are ever put up the army can use them as target practice."
However Chris Sherrington, director of the project for Eneco, insisted the public will be consulted.
"After comprehensively evaluating key aspects of the project in relation to wider stakeholder interests we have chosen the most suitable location for the wind park.
"This is an important milestone in the lifetime of the development of this project and enables us to look to the future and consider wider impacts such as the positive economic benefits our project could bring to the area."
Go-karts go green
No noise, no petrol, no emissions… A new generation of go-karts is in pole position at the UK's first eco track
Martin Love The Observer, Sunday 20 February 2011
The macho world of go-karting – stalwart of a million stag nights and much podium-topping laddishness – is changing gear and reinventing itself as a carbon-neutral, eco-friendly pastime for environmentally enlightened speedsters.
TeamSport, the country's biggest indoor-karting operator, has just opened Britain's first green go-kart venue. The double-storey 750m track has been created in an old industrial unit in Bermondsey, just a 10-minute walk south of Tower Bridge in London, and the karts themselves are completely silent and fully electric. Ultra-light, they offer astonishingly abrupt acceleration. Each one costs £6,000 and can reach speeds of up to 40mph on the straight. In fact the karts, specially developed by Enfield-based Biz Karts, are so powerful they outperform their traditional petrol-engined cousins.
America is well ahead of the game when it comes to eco karting and many of its indoor venues already run electric cars. But this is the first one in Britain. However, TeamSport's ambition has been to create an entirely carbon-neutral arena, from the karts to the building. As director Dominic Gaynor explains: "The energy the karts use is relatively small; the real issue is the power needed to run the heavy-duty extraction units that recycle the air when using petrol karts. Here there are no emissions. So the power savings are enormous." And even these reduced-energy needs are being offset with projects in China.
Arriving at the venue on the opening night at the end of January, the first thing that struck me was how clean and polished everything is. It's clearly aiming for the corporate market. The changing rooms are all matt-black walls, red details and uplighters, and wouldn't look out of place in a high-end Japanese restaurant. As it's the first night, the publicity team has invited the Stig along to show us amateurs how to do it. It's not the new Stig though – rumoured by some, gasp, to be a woman – or the one who outed himself recently as being an actual man and not an alien after all. No, it's the original Stig. The one who wore all black and drove off the Ark Royal in an old Jag at 109mph, never to be seen again.
Yet here he is. And he hasn't lost his edge. He posts a lap time that's five seconds faster than anyone else's. But His Stigness has a bit of local competition. TeamSport have their own man. They can't call him Stig (for legal reasons), so they've called him, erm… Bruce. This being an eco-conscience venture, Bruce is all in green, which makes him look like a human-sized praying mantis.
Like Stig I, Bruce is pretty handy on the track, but when I ask him what he thought of the eco karts in the bar later – which is tricky as he won't/can't take off his full-face green helmet – he just nods slowly. In his visor I see my own sweaty face reflected and for a crazy moment I wonder if he is, in fact, a robot from another planet. Then I notice he's wearing old tennis trainers, and one is untied, so on balance he's probably not. Later I learn his real name is actually Matt…
We pull on our helmets for the final race. There's a frenzy of squealing tyres, the racing is fast, furious and clean, but soon enough the yellow hazard flag is flying as someone spins. Then it's bumper-to-bumper stuff for another six laps. I manage to cling on to a flukey second place. And the fact my average speed is only 13.7mph doesn't tarnish the silverwear at all.
Sessions from £42.95pp. To book call 08444 109 109 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 08444 109 109 end_of_the_skype_highlighting, or go to team-sport.co.uk/towerbridge
Cars reunited
When Laurie Cross's dad decided he wanted to track down all the past cars he'd owned in his life, Laurie saw an opportunity to let the internet do the work. Along with his brother, the three of them have now set created classiccarlink.com. It's a sort of Friends Reunited for much-loved vehicles. If they can bring enough people together, then they'll be able to build a site through which past and present owners can share stories and photographs. The site has only been running for a month or two and currently has just over 300 members, but already they've managed to reunite one fellow with his old cars after 45 years. Sign up and see whatever happened to that Austin Healey you wished you'd never sold.
Peer pressure
There's only one way to find an honest opinion about a particular model and that's to speak to someone who already owns one. Autotrader.co.uk has just launched an Owner Review section and in the first two months has already attracted a jaw-dropping 9,000 reviews. From a consumer perspective, these owner reviews allow people to get the low-down on cars from people who've owned them for a longer period of time – so you'll get the truth whether it's good, bad or ugly. But what are the car's most people want to talk about? Here's the site's current top 10:
1. Ford Focus hatchback (2004–2011)
2. Ford Focus hatchback (1998–2004)
3. Volkswagen Golf hatchback (2004–2008)
5. Volkswagen Golf hatchback (1997–2004)
6. Ford Mondeo hatchback (2000–2007)
7. BMW 3 Series saloon (1998–2005)
8. Ford Fiesta hatchback (2002–2008)
9. Vauxhall Corsa hatchback (2000–2006)
10. Vauxhall Vectra hatchback (2002–2008)
Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/martinlove for all his reviews in one place
Martin Love The Observer, Sunday 20 February 2011
The macho world of go-karting – stalwart of a million stag nights and much podium-topping laddishness – is changing gear and reinventing itself as a carbon-neutral, eco-friendly pastime for environmentally enlightened speedsters.
TeamSport, the country's biggest indoor-karting operator, has just opened Britain's first green go-kart venue. The double-storey 750m track has been created in an old industrial unit in Bermondsey, just a 10-minute walk south of Tower Bridge in London, and the karts themselves are completely silent and fully electric. Ultra-light, they offer astonishingly abrupt acceleration. Each one costs £6,000 and can reach speeds of up to 40mph on the straight. In fact the karts, specially developed by Enfield-based Biz Karts, are so powerful they outperform their traditional petrol-engined cousins.
America is well ahead of the game when it comes to eco karting and many of its indoor venues already run electric cars. But this is the first one in Britain. However, TeamSport's ambition has been to create an entirely carbon-neutral arena, from the karts to the building. As director Dominic Gaynor explains: "The energy the karts use is relatively small; the real issue is the power needed to run the heavy-duty extraction units that recycle the air when using petrol karts. Here there are no emissions. So the power savings are enormous." And even these reduced-energy needs are being offset with projects in China.
Arriving at the venue on the opening night at the end of January, the first thing that struck me was how clean and polished everything is. It's clearly aiming for the corporate market. The changing rooms are all matt-black walls, red details and uplighters, and wouldn't look out of place in a high-end Japanese restaurant. As it's the first night, the publicity team has invited the Stig along to show us amateurs how to do it. It's not the new Stig though – rumoured by some, gasp, to be a woman – or the one who outed himself recently as being an actual man and not an alien after all. No, it's the original Stig. The one who wore all black and drove off the Ark Royal in an old Jag at 109mph, never to be seen again.
Yet here he is. And he hasn't lost his edge. He posts a lap time that's five seconds faster than anyone else's. But His Stigness has a bit of local competition. TeamSport have their own man. They can't call him Stig (for legal reasons), so they've called him, erm… Bruce. This being an eco-conscience venture, Bruce is all in green, which makes him look like a human-sized praying mantis.
Like Stig I, Bruce is pretty handy on the track, but when I ask him what he thought of the eco karts in the bar later – which is tricky as he won't/can't take off his full-face green helmet – he just nods slowly. In his visor I see my own sweaty face reflected and for a crazy moment I wonder if he is, in fact, a robot from another planet. Then I notice he's wearing old tennis trainers, and one is untied, so on balance he's probably not. Later I learn his real name is actually Matt…
We pull on our helmets for the final race. There's a frenzy of squealing tyres, the racing is fast, furious and clean, but soon enough the yellow hazard flag is flying as someone spins. Then it's bumper-to-bumper stuff for another six laps. I manage to cling on to a flukey second place. And the fact my average speed is only 13.7mph doesn't tarnish the silverwear at all.
Sessions from £42.95pp. To book call 08444 109 109 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 08444 109 109 end_of_the_skype_highlighting, or go to team-sport.co.uk/towerbridge
Cars reunited
When Laurie Cross's dad decided he wanted to track down all the past cars he'd owned in his life, Laurie saw an opportunity to let the internet do the work. Along with his brother, the three of them have now set created classiccarlink.com. It's a sort of Friends Reunited for much-loved vehicles. If they can bring enough people together, then they'll be able to build a site through which past and present owners can share stories and photographs. The site has only been running for a month or two and currently has just over 300 members, but already they've managed to reunite one fellow with his old cars after 45 years. Sign up and see whatever happened to that Austin Healey you wished you'd never sold.
Peer pressure
There's only one way to find an honest opinion about a particular model and that's to speak to someone who already owns one. Autotrader.co.uk has just launched an Owner Review section and in the first two months has already attracted a jaw-dropping 9,000 reviews. From a consumer perspective, these owner reviews allow people to get the low-down on cars from people who've owned them for a longer period of time – so you'll get the truth whether it's good, bad or ugly. But what are the car's most people want to talk about? Here's the site's current top 10:
1. Ford Focus hatchback (2004–2011)
2. Ford Focus hatchback (1998–2004)
3. Volkswagen Golf hatchback (2004–2008)
5. Volkswagen Golf hatchback (1997–2004)
6. Ford Mondeo hatchback (2000–2007)
7. BMW 3 Series saloon (1998–2005)
8. Ford Fiesta hatchback (2002–2008)
9. Vauxhall Corsa hatchback (2000–2006)
10. Vauxhall Vectra hatchback (2002–2008)
Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/martinlove for all his reviews in one place
Friday, 18 February 2011
Break-even for low-carbon economy is $100 a barrel oil, says Chris Huhne
The billions being invested in renewable energy, nuclear and 'clean' coal will pay off financially if oil is over $100 a barrel in 2020, says the energy and climate change secretary
The UK's ambitious low-carbon energy plans will mean energy consumers paying lower bills in 2020 if oil is over $100 per barrel, compared to a fossil-fuelled future. That price is the break-even point, said the energy and climate change secretary, Chris Huhne, today.
I think it is an important number, because it clearly shows why a failure to invest the large sums of money needed into renewable energy, nuclear power and carbon capture and storage would be a false economy.
Here's what he told a conference at the Royal Geographical Society in London today. Bear in mind the price of oil (Brent crude) is $104 as I write:
If we relied on oil and gas, and the price stayed relatively low at $80 a barrel then consumers will pay more under our policies – about an extra 1% on their bills by 2020.
At the oil price reached this month - $100 a barrel or more – consumers will pay less through the low carbon energy policies than they would pay for fossil fuel policies.
And if the US administration is right, and the price is $108 a barrel in 2020, then our consumers are winning hands down.
So, as Huhne put it, when people say the energy policies his government are pursuing are far too costly, the reply is "hang on, what is this other world?" Predicting oil prices is a black art of course, but the question is do you think the price of oil is going to remain flat for the next nine years?
He also made another argument for low carbon energy investment: insulation from oil and gas price shocks. He said:
I asked economists at DECC to look at how a 1970s style oil price shock would play out today. They found that if the oil price doubled, it could lead to a cumulative loss of GDP of around £45 billion over 2 years. [The oil price rose fivefold in the 1970s].
And this is not just far-off speculation: it is a threat here and now. The Office of Budget Responsibility forecast that if oil prices rose by 20% - as they have since October – the total cost to the economy would be £4.5bn.
Oil and gas will play an important role in the low-carbon shift. But in the long term, getting off the oil hook will make our economy more independent, more secure and more stable.
We rightly hear a lot about the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and are promised that the UK's economic recovery should include an industrial resurgence based on clean technology. In terms of the three crucial tests of energy policy - low carbon, security and cost - it's the latter that had been least convincing, making the arguments above significant.
One other part of the speech stuck out for me: more startling numbers from China, which just might change the world with its new five year economic plan. China is undoubtedly running fastest in the race for leadership in green technology.
Huhne reeled the numbers off - China's $34bn pumped into the low-carbon economy in 2009 - by way of arguing that even if the UN climate talks look like dragging on for years, some countries were acting anyway. These two stuck out for me:
China will build 24 nuclear power stations in the time it takes us to build one. By 2020, their nuclear capacity will have increased tenfold.
They will complete 16,000km of high-speed rail in the time it takes us to go from London to Birmingham.
The UK's ambitious low-carbon energy plans will mean energy consumers paying lower bills in 2020 if oil is over $100 per barrel, compared to a fossil-fuelled future. That price is the break-even point, said the energy and climate change secretary, Chris Huhne, today.
I think it is an important number, because it clearly shows why a failure to invest the large sums of money needed into renewable energy, nuclear power and carbon capture and storage would be a false economy.
Here's what he told a conference at the Royal Geographical Society in London today. Bear in mind the price of oil (Brent crude) is $104 as I write:
If we relied on oil and gas, and the price stayed relatively low at $80 a barrel then consumers will pay more under our policies – about an extra 1% on their bills by 2020.
At the oil price reached this month - $100 a barrel or more – consumers will pay less through the low carbon energy policies than they would pay for fossil fuel policies.
And if the US administration is right, and the price is $108 a barrel in 2020, then our consumers are winning hands down.
So, as Huhne put it, when people say the energy policies his government are pursuing are far too costly, the reply is "hang on, what is this other world?" Predicting oil prices is a black art of course, but the question is do you think the price of oil is going to remain flat for the next nine years?
He also made another argument for low carbon energy investment: insulation from oil and gas price shocks. He said:
I asked economists at DECC to look at how a 1970s style oil price shock would play out today. They found that if the oil price doubled, it could lead to a cumulative loss of GDP of around £45 billion over 2 years. [The oil price rose fivefold in the 1970s].
And this is not just far-off speculation: it is a threat here and now. The Office of Budget Responsibility forecast that if oil prices rose by 20% - as they have since October – the total cost to the economy would be £4.5bn.
Oil and gas will play an important role in the low-carbon shift. But in the long term, getting off the oil hook will make our economy more independent, more secure and more stable.
We rightly hear a lot about the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and are promised that the UK's economic recovery should include an industrial resurgence based on clean technology. In terms of the three crucial tests of energy policy - low carbon, security and cost - it's the latter that had been least convincing, making the arguments above significant.
One other part of the speech stuck out for me: more startling numbers from China, which just might change the world with its new five year economic plan. China is undoubtedly running fastest in the race for leadership in green technology.
Huhne reeled the numbers off - China's $34bn pumped into the low-carbon economy in 2009 - by way of arguing that even if the UN climate talks look like dragging on for years, some countries were acting anyway. These two stuck out for me:
China will build 24 nuclear power stations in the time it takes us to build one. By 2020, their nuclear capacity will have increased tenfold.
They will complete 16,000km of high-speed rail in the time it takes us to go from London to Birmingham.
Co-operative Group commits to ambitious ethical operating plan
Co-op aims to cut carbon emissions by 35%, increase Fairtrade product lines and invest £1bn in green energy
Tom Bawden The Guardian, Friday 18 February 2011
The Co-operative Group is launching an ethical operating plan that it hopes will set a benchmark for corporate responsibility on carbon reduction, fair trade and community involvement.
The group, which employs 120,000 staff, also plans to increase its membership from 6 million to 20 million and double its support for green energy to £1bn. In addition, it will increase its involvement with schools and create 2,000 apprenticeships in the next few years, as well as invest £5m a year to tackle poverty around its stores and branches.
Chief executive Peter Marks believes that the recession represents a major opportunity for the Co-op to grow by trading on its ethical traditions. "Trust in business has taken a real knock in recent years as the credit crunch has caused people to seriously question the capitalist model," he told the Guardian in an interview. "The mutual is an alternative business model which chimes with the times. People want a business they can trust, with a strong sense of social responsibility. This is our DNA."
The most ambitious target is to reduce the group's operational carbon emissions by 35% by 2017, which the Co-op claims is the most progressive policy of any major business in Britain. It will also reduce the environmental impact of its packaging and continue to cut down on carrier bag use.
There are also plans to increase the number of Fairtrade product lines. The Co-op says that by 2020 it wants 90% of its developing-world primary commodities to be certified as Fairtrade.
Harriet Lamb, executive director of the Fairtrade Foundation, said: "Always a pioneer of Fairtrade, The Co-operative's commitment to ensuring that virtually all primary commodities that can be Fairtrade will be Fairtrade sets the bar anew for the corporate world."
Marks also said that he was planning to widen the Co-op's involvement in communities by helping to set up local worker co-operatives through the "enterprise hub" he established last year. These include Sunshine Care, a care home in Rochdale run by a group of former local authority workers, and a garden-furniture factory employing disabled people in York.
Marks is hoping these projects could be the start of something bigger, possibly seeing the enterprise hub develop into a consultancy business "providing advice and limited funding, that shows people how to do it for themselves".
"We are toying with ideas and looking around to see what we can do. Maybe a consultancy arm, giving advice, helping schools and other initiatives to set up. It would be very much a self-help project – we're not going to do it for them, we're going to show them how to do it."
Interview: guardian.co.uk
Tom Bawden The Guardian, Friday 18 February 2011
The Co-operative Group is launching an ethical operating plan that it hopes will set a benchmark for corporate responsibility on carbon reduction, fair trade and community involvement.
The group, which employs 120,000 staff, also plans to increase its membership from 6 million to 20 million and double its support for green energy to £1bn. In addition, it will increase its involvement with schools and create 2,000 apprenticeships in the next few years, as well as invest £5m a year to tackle poverty around its stores and branches.
Chief executive Peter Marks believes that the recession represents a major opportunity for the Co-op to grow by trading on its ethical traditions. "Trust in business has taken a real knock in recent years as the credit crunch has caused people to seriously question the capitalist model," he told the Guardian in an interview. "The mutual is an alternative business model which chimes with the times. People want a business they can trust, with a strong sense of social responsibility. This is our DNA."
The most ambitious target is to reduce the group's operational carbon emissions by 35% by 2017, which the Co-op claims is the most progressive policy of any major business in Britain. It will also reduce the environmental impact of its packaging and continue to cut down on carrier bag use.
There are also plans to increase the number of Fairtrade product lines. The Co-op says that by 2020 it wants 90% of its developing-world primary commodities to be certified as Fairtrade.
Harriet Lamb, executive director of the Fairtrade Foundation, said: "Always a pioneer of Fairtrade, The Co-operative's commitment to ensuring that virtually all primary commodities that can be Fairtrade will be Fairtrade sets the bar anew for the corporate world."
Marks also said that he was planning to widen the Co-op's involvement in communities by helping to set up local worker co-operatives through the "enterprise hub" he established last year. These include Sunshine Care, a care home in Rochdale run by a group of former local authority workers, and a garden-furniture factory employing disabled people in York.
Marks is hoping these projects could be the start of something bigger, possibly seeing the enterprise hub develop into a consultancy business "providing advice and limited funding, that shows people how to do it for themselves".
"We are toying with ideas and looking around to see what we can do. Maybe a consultancy arm, giving advice, helping schools and other initiatives to set up. It would be very much a self-help project – we're not going to do it for them, we're going to show them how to do it."
Interview: guardian.co.uk
Thursday, 17 February 2011
Business needs a clear message on renewables
Business is key to a low-carbon future, but the government must show more clarity and consistency
Earlier this week, I was invited along to the Business and a Sustainable Environment conference in London to give my views on the government's green business policy. The question was "how is government engaging with business to deliver the transition to a low-carbon economy?" My answer was: "not very well".
Innovation and entrepreneurship by the business community will be at the heart of the transition to a low carbon and sustainable economy. But if we are to create the right conditions to foster such a transition, the government must engage better with business by showing more clarity, consistency, and certainty than it is right now.
Let's start with clarity – or rather lack of it, as amply illustrated by the green deal. The government wants this to be a "framework" within which the private sector will deliver much-needed energy efficiency programmes in homes. But ministers appear to believe that a market free of government targets is more likely to succeed than government-defined programmes.
The consequence is that no one can say what the green deal is expected to deliver, either in numbers of homes treated or in CO2 emissions reduced. There is no target to meet, or to measure delivery against – and therefore no means of assessing success.
What's also deeply frustrating about the green deal is that it misses a big opportunity to maximise the potential of the green investment bank (GIB). In Germany, green deal-type loans for energy efficiency are subsidised through the government's equivalent to the GIB to bring the interest rates down to low single figures. Unless we do that here, take-up is expected to be woefully low.
Which makes you wonder: where exactly is the deal in the green deal? It seems to me that business could really do with a little more clarity and joined up thinking on how to scale up the role that energy efficiency will play in a greener economy.
The business community also needs to see consistency in government policy. All too often, what we get is the very opposite. The original carbon reduction commitment (CRC), for example, is set up in such a way that some companies or large local authorities with onsite renewable power have to report and pay for emissions that they did not emit. The reason is that the CRC only measures energy efficiency and onsite renewable power is treated as equivalent in carbon content to average grid mix electricity (produced primarily from gas, coal and nuclear). Yet under greenhouse gas reporting guidelines, organisations are permitted to report zero carbon emissions for renewables. The same is true under the EU emissions trading scheme.
That means we effectively have a scenario in which anyone switching to a less carbon intense fuel would, quite sensibly, be rewarded under the CRC with less reportable emissions, but any switch to renewables could be penalised. All of which is bad news for the renewable energy industry.
It's not just me saying this. Tesco has told trade body the Renewable Energy Association that they anticipate the CRC will have a positive impact on business cases for energy efficiency projects - but a negative impact on renewables. The water industry, likely to be the biggest single emitter under the CRC, has also raised concerns about the impact on its renewables investment.
Then we come to certainty. The government's disarray over feed-in tariffs (Fits) – reveals the degree to which uncertainty can hamper progress. Just last week the government announced a fast-track review of Fits for all solar PV above 50 kW, the size of an average school installation. This effectively pulled the rug out from under the industry, creating significant job uncertainty in one of the few industries to create thousands of new jobs in the UK in the past 10 months.
Fits have been, by the government's own admission, one of its most successful programmes to date. This review seems to have been a kneejerk reaction to concerns about super size solar and comes on top of the comprehensive spending review's cap on Fits.
Constantly changing the Fits regime breeds uncertainty, with the result that companies are put off investing in decentralised power. This is reflected in the UK's poor performance – and in weak projected performance.
Solar photovoltaics (PV) are one area which could really help us deliver on capacity under FIT, yet the UK anticipates delivering just 2.7 gigawatts (GW) of PV by 2020. Germany anticipates 40GW by the same year, Italy 26GW. Even Belgium anticipates delivering more than us.
Yet the UK boasts internationally significant companies working in PV. We have the largest cell assembly plant in Europe. We boast companies like Solarcentury and Romag. But unless the government starts delivering a consistent message on support for renewables, this massive potential may never be realised – to the detriment of our economy and our environment.
Only with greater clarity, consistency and certainty will we stand a chance of achieving a good relationship with business to deliver the dynamic, sustainable and low-carbon economy we so urgently need.
Forests sell-off U-turn
On behalf of the many hundreds of my constituents who have written in to oppose the sell-off of our public forest estate, I warmly welcome the government's decision to ditch its reckless plans . I am encouraged by the commitment given to me by the secretary of state, Caroline Spelman, that those people who led the inspirational grassroots movement against the sell-off will be included in the new panel of experts set up to consider the future of the forests. Now it will be vital to ensure that the panel itself operates in public. This major U-turn exposes the shambolic nature of the government's policy-making – and is the inevitable consequence of ministers blindly charging ahead with ideologically driven cuts.
Earlier this week, I was invited along to the Business and a Sustainable Environment conference in London to give my views on the government's green business policy. The question was "how is government engaging with business to deliver the transition to a low-carbon economy?" My answer was: "not very well".
Innovation and entrepreneurship by the business community will be at the heart of the transition to a low carbon and sustainable economy. But if we are to create the right conditions to foster such a transition, the government must engage better with business by showing more clarity, consistency, and certainty than it is right now.
Let's start with clarity – or rather lack of it, as amply illustrated by the green deal. The government wants this to be a "framework" within which the private sector will deliver much-needed energy efficiency programmes in homes. But ministers appear to believe that a market free of government targets is more likely to succeed than government-defined programmes.
The consequence is that no one can say what the green deal is expected to deliver, either in numbers of homes treated or in CO2 emissions reduced. There is no target to meet, or to measure delivery against – and therefore no means of assessing success.
What's also deeply frustrating about the green deal is that it misses a big opportunity to maximise the potential of the green investment bank (GIB). In Germany, green deal-type loans for energy efficiency are subsidised through the government's equivalent to the GIB to bring the interest rates down to low single figures. Unless we do that here, take-up is expected to be woefully low.
Which makes you wonder: where exactly is the deal in the green deal? It seems to me that business could really do with a little more clarity and joined up thinking on how to scale up the role that energy efficiency will play in a greener economy.
The business community also needs to see consistency in government policy. All too often, what we get is the very opposite. The original carbon reduction commitment (CRC), for example, is set up in such a way that some companies or large local authorities with onsite renewable power have to report and pay for emissions that they did not emit. The reason is that the CRC only measures energy efficiency and onsite renewable power is treated as equivalent in carbon content to average grid mix electricity (produced primarily from gas, coal and nuclear). Yet under greenhouse gas reporting guidelines, organisations are permitted to report zero carbon emissions for renewables. The same is true under the EU emissions trading scheme.
That means we effectively have a scenario in which anyone switching to a less carbon intense fuel would, quite sensibly, be rewarded under the CRC with less reportable emissions, but any switch to renewables could be penalised. All of which is bad news for the renewable energy industry.
It's not just me saying this. Tesco has told trade body the Renewable Energy Association that they anticipate the CRC will have a positive impact on business cases for energy efficiency projects - but a negative impact on renewables. The water industry, likely to be the biggest single emitter under the CRC, has also raised concerns about the impact on its renewables investment.
Then we come to certainty. The government's disarray over feed-in tariffs (Fits) – reveals the degree to which uncertainty can hamper progress. Just last week the government announced a fast-track review of Fits for all solar PV above 50 kW, the size of an average school installation. This effectively pulled the rug out from under the industry, creating significant job uncertainty in one of the few industries to create thousands of new jobs in the UK in the past 10 months.
Fits have been, by the government's own admission, one of its most successful programmes to date. This review seems to have been a kneejerk reaction to concerns about super size solar and comes on top of the comprehensive spending review's cap on Fits.
Constantly changing the Fits regime breeds uncertainty, with the result that companies are put off investing in decentralised power. This is reflected in the UK's poor performance – and in weak projected performance.
Solar photovoltaics (PV) are one area which could really help us deliver on capacity under FIT, yet the UK anticipates delivering just 2.7 gigawatts (GW) of PV by 2020. Germany anticipates 40GW by the same year, Italy 26GW. Even Belgium anticipates delivering more than us.
Yet the UK boasts internationally significant companies working in PV. We have the largest cell assembly plant in Europe. We boast companies like Solarcentury and Romag. But unless the government starts delivering a consistent message on support for renewables, this massive potential may never be realised – to the detriment of our economy and our environment.
Only with greater clarity, consistency and certainty will we stand a chance of achieving a good relationship with business to deliver the dynamic, sustainable and low-carbon economy we so urgently need.
Forests sell-off U-turn
On behalf of the many hundreds of my constituents who have written in to oppose the sell-off of our public forest estate, I warmly welcome the government's decision to ditch its reckless plans . I am encouraged by the commitment given to me by the secretary of state, Caroline Spelman, that those people who led the inspirational grassroots movement against the sell-off will be included in the new panel of experts set up to consider the future of the forests. Now it will be vital to ensure that the panel itself operates in public. This major U-turn exposes the shambolic nature of the government's policy-making – and is the inevitable consequence of ministers blindly charging ahead with ideologically driven cuts.
World Bank: Power in Rural India Should Go Local.
By Arlene Chang
High voltage electricity towers on the outskirts of New Delhi. A new World Bank report says decentralizing electricity production and distribution will increase electricity supply in rural areas.About 56% of households in rural India have no access to electricity, but generating power locally and supplying it through distribution channels which already exist in rural areas can help solve this, according to a World Bank report released Tuesday.
Generating and supplying power from local electricity grids is not new in India, but so far this has been only used in very remote areas. The report has found that this is a model that should be actively encouraged, rather than one to fall back on. It suggested it should be implemented in areas where electricity supply is poor and where dependence on diesel and kerosene high.
Based on studies conducted in Kolhapur district of India’s state of Maharashtra, the report said that the state’s unexploited renewable energy sources could harness substantial economic gains – not just for the rural population, for the state as a whole.
The study found that the most cost-effective and feasible way of doing this, is through a decentralized system - something it calls distributed generation and supply (DG&S) franchises. This model, based on consumer cooperatives, can be successful in regions with renewable resources like high solar insulation, perennial local streams, and, in the case of farming communities , surplus biomass.
Some of the greatest perks of this model, the report says, is that it could increase supply and save expenditure for the consumer, reduce losses for the utility company and help meet the government’s goal of improving availability of electricity in rural areas across the country.
For example, the report estimates that this model can decrease the cost of electricity from 11 rupees ($0.24) per kilowatt hour to 6 rupees ($0.13) per kilowatt hour. It found this model would also increase the supply of electricity per day from an average of 8-10 hours to day-long supply.
The local power generation and distribution network could also help draw private investment in these sectors in rural areas, parts of the country that otherwise rarely attract this kind of interest. By allowing rural franchises to collect revenues on the ground, this system could also bring direct economic benefits to local communities too. Rural consumers would also be guaranteed access to a minimum percentage of the power generated through this system and any surplus electricity could be redistributed to neighboring areas. All this could help limit the all-too-common power outages.
“The involvement of the local community leads to socio-economic development in the area, thereby promoting inclusive growth,” Inger Andersen, vice president at the World Bank’s Sustainable Development Network unit, said.
It remains to be seen if, and when, the Indian government will ever take up the World Bank’s recommendations.
“India has, no doubt, undertaken several policy initiatives to enhance access and extend its national grid, but much still awaits to be achieved,” said John Henry Stein, senior director of the World Bank’s Sustainable Development Network, in a note to the press.
High voltage electricity towers on the outskirts of New Delhi. A new World Bank report says decentralizing electricity production and distribution will increase electricity supply in rural areas.About 56% of households in rural India have no access to electricity, but generating power locally and supplying it through distribution channels which already exist in rural areas can help solve this, according to a World Bank report released Tuesday.
Generating and supplying power from local electricity grids is not new in India, but so far this has been only used in very remote areas. The report has found that this is a model that should be actively encouraged, rather than one to fall back on. It suggested it should be implemented in areas where electricity supply is poor and where dependence on diesel and kerosene high.
Based on studies conducted in Kolhapur district of India’s state of Maharashtra, the report said that the state’s unexploited renewable energy sources could harness substantial economic gains – not just for the rural population, for the state as a whole.
The study found that the most cost-effective and feasible way of doing this, is through a decentralized system - something it calls distributed generation and supply (DG&S) franchises. This model, based on consumer cooperatives, can be successful in regions with renewable resources like high solar insulation, perennial local streams, and, in the case of farming communities , surplus biomass.
Some of the greatest perks of this model, the report says, is that it could increase supply and save expenditure for the consumer, reduce losses for the utility company and help meet the government’s goal of improving availability of electricity in rural areas across the country.
For example, the report estimates that this model can decrease the cost of electricity from 11 rupees ($0.24) per kilowatt hour to 6 rupees ($0.13) per kilowatt hour. It found this model would also increase the supply of electricity per day from an average of 8-10 hours to day-long supply.
The local power generation and distribution network could also help draw private investment in these sectors in rural areas, parts of the country that otherwise rarely attract this kind of interest. By allowing rural franchises to collect revenues on the ground, this system could also bring direct economic benefits to local communities too. Rural consumers would also be guaranteed access to a minimum percentage of the power generated through this system and any surplus electricity could be redistributed to neighboring areas. All this could help limit the all-too-common power outages.
“The involvement of the local community leads to socio-economic development in the area, thereby promoting inclusive growth,” Inger Andersen, vice president at the World Bank’s Sustainable Development Network unit, said.
It remains to be seen if, and when, the Indian government will ever take up the World Bank’s recommendations.
“India has, no doubt, undertaken several policy initiatives to enhance access and extend its national grid, but much still awaits to be achieved,” said John Henry Stein, senior director of the World Bank’s Sustainable Development Network, in a note to the press.
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
Renewable energy could revive council coffers
Councils facing budget cuts could make savings and create jobs by using green energy incentives, says Simon Parker
Simon Parker
The Guardian, Wednesday 16 February 2011
In the late 19th century, Birmingham faced a crisis. The city's poor had to put up with putrid wells and slum housing, while the council struggled to find the money to improve things. A big part of the answer for the mayor, Joseph Chamberlain, was to buy the local gas and water works. Armed with the income from these utilities, Chamberlain set about transforming the face of his city.
Just as poor sanitation and miserable living conditions were the defining problems for cities in that era, so climate change is arguably the great challenge for our generation. And some of the answers look remarkably similar to those that emerged in Chamberlain's day. Once again, cash-strapped local government is set to lead the way.
Key are the government's feed-in tariff and renewable heat incentives. These pay over the odds to encourage the development of greener energy. Definitive figures are hard to come by, but a New Local Government Network report, Power and Money, estimates that the total subsidy is about £12bn over the next 20 years.
This creates some exciting opportunities for councils. At a time when some local government budgets are being cut by nearly 9% a year, renewable energy provides a rare source of new funding – and one that appears to come with Eric Pickles's blessing. Local authorities are starting to talk about solar panels on the roofs of car parks and maybe even wind farms in the midst of council estates.
Some are already acting. Wrexham council plans to install solar panels on about 3,000 council properties. It is projecting a profit of about £29m, doubling its investment over 25 years.
But direct returns are only one part of the benefit. All this green investment can also soften the blow of public job losses by creating new eco-friendly jobs in the private sector. Kirklees council's Skills for Climate Change programme, for instance, is providing support for local businesses to take advantage of the green economy – the council has already created 130 local jobs through a scheme to insulate homes in the area.
In Devon, the council has successfully promoted the deployment of woodfired central heating and hot water systems that will shortly be eligible for the renewable heat incentive. At the same time, it has provided support and advice to help local landowners make a profit from their woodlands, by converting unused land to provide wood fuel and improving the quality of existing forests.
There is huge scope for councils to use this new gas and water municipalism to help tackle the cuts – either by investing themselves or working with business to deliver cheap energy. But the development of these schemes is being held back by a lack of clear policy from Whitehall. The feed-in tariff is under review after less than a year in operation. The renewable heat incentive has had its launch date put back.
This prevarication is severely limiting the public sector's appetite for renewable energy. Of nearly 20,000 feed-in tariff installations last year, only 275 were on community properties.
While councils are being encouraged to think differently, the government is sending mixed messages about how entrepreneurial it wants them to be.
• Simon Parker is director of localism thinktank NLGN. Power and Money is available at nlgn.org.uk
Simon Parker
The Guardian, Wednesday 16 February 2011
In the late 19th century, Birmingham faced a crisis. The city's poor had to put up with putrid wells and slum housing, while the council struggled to find the money to improve things. A big part of the answer for the mayor, Joseph Chamberlain, was to buy the local gas and water works. Armed with the income from these utilities, Chamberlain set about transforming the face of his city.
Just as poor sanitation and miserable living conditions were the defining problems for cities in that era, so climate change is arguably the great challenge for our generation. And some of the answers look remarkably similar to those that emerged in Chamberlain's day. Once again, cash-strapped local government is set to lead the way.
Key are the government's feed-in tariff and renewable heat incentives. These pay over the odds to encourage the development of greener energy. Definitive figures are hard to come by, but a New Local Government Network report, Power and Money, estimates that the total subsidy is about £12bn over the next 20 years.
This creates some exciting opportunities for councils. At a time when some local government budgets are being cut by nearly 9% a year, renewable energy provides a rare source of new funding – and one that appears to come with Eric Pickles's blessing. Local authorities are starting to talk about solar panels on the roofs of car parks and maybe even wind farms in the midst of council estates.
Some are already acting. Wrexham council plans to install solar panels on about 3,000 council properties. It is projecting a profit of about £29m, doubling its investment over 25 years.
But direct returns are only one part of the benefit. All this green investment can also soften the blow of public job losses by creating new eco-friendly jobs in the private sector. Kirklees council's Skills for Climate Change programme, for instance, is providing support for local businesses to take advantage of the green economy – the council has already created 130 local jobs through a scheme to insulate homes in the area.
In Devon, the council has successfully promoted the deployment of woodfired central heating and hot water systems that will shortly be eligible for the renewable heat incentive. At the same time, it has provided support and advice to help local landowners make a profit from their woodlands, by converting unused land to provide wood fuel and improving the quality of existing forests.
There is huge scope for councils to use this new gas and water municipalism to help tackle the cuts – either by investing themselves or working with business to deliver cheap energy. But the development of these schemes is being held back by a lack of clear policy from Whitehall. The feed-in tariff is under review after less than a year in operation. The renewable heat incentive has had its launch date put back.
This prevarication is severely limiting the public sector's appetite for renewable energy. Of nearly 20,000 feed-in tariff installations last year, only 275 were on community properties.
While councils are being encouraged to think differently, the government is sending mixed messages about how entrepreneurial it wants them to be.
• Simon Parker is director of localism thinktank NLGN. Power and Money is available at nlgn.org.uk
China enters race to develop nuclear energy from thorium
Scientists and private firms in China have embarked on a major new push to develop liquid-fluoride thorium reactor technology
Imagine how the nuclear energy debate might differ if the fuel was abundant and distributed across the world; if there was no real possibility of creating weapons-grade material as part of the process; if the waste remained toxic for hundreds rather than thousands of years; and if the power stations were small and presented no risk of massive explosions.
What you're imagining could fairly soon be reality judging from a little-noticed development in China last month.
Two years ago, as part of the Manchester Report, a panel of experts assembled by the Guardian selected nuclear power based on thorium rather the uranium as one of the 10 most promising solutions to climate change.
Thorium – which is found in large quantities across much of the world – could be used to create nuclear energy in various ways. But the approach that impressed the Manchester Report panel so much was a currently obscure technology called the liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR).
I wrote at the time:
"This technology was developed by the US military in the 1950s and 1960s and was shown to have many benefits. For example, reactors of this type can be smaller than conventional uranium reactors, partly thanks to their low-pressure operation. Despite its early promise, research into liquid-fluoride thorium reactors was abandoned – the most likely reason being that the technology offered no potential for producing nuclear weapons."
There's a big difference between a demonstrably good idea and a multimillion-dollar research and development programme, however, so it's exciting to hear about a major new push to actually develop LFTR technology in China. Thorium-energy expert Kirk Sorensen recently blogged about the announcement of the new scheme at the Chinese National Academy of Sciences in late January. Technology journalist Andrew Orlowski followed up with a story claiming that a private company in China is aiming to build a prototype within five years that can produce electricity at for as little as 6.8p per kilowatt hour (much cheaper than the retail price of power in the UK today).
Despite not making a ripple in the wider press, there's a chance this development could be very significant. If the advocates of LFTRs are proved correct – and their arguments are certainly very compelling – then the Chinese could be taking one of the first substantial steps in a new type of nuclear race. And the stakes are high: as Sorensen reports, the project "aims not only to develop the technology but to secure intellectual property rights to its implementation". It will be very interesting to see what happens next.
Imagine how the nuclear energy debate might differ if the fuel was abundant and distributed across the world; if there was no real possibility of creating weapons-grade material as part of the process; if the waste remained toxic for hundreds rather than thousands of years; and if the power stations were small and presented no risk of massive explosions.
What you're imagining could fairly soon be reality judging from a little-noticed development in China last month.
Two years ago, as part of the Manchester Report, a panel of experts assembled by the Guardian selected nuclear power based on thorium rather the uranium as one of the 10 most promising solutions to climate change.
Thorium – which is found in large quantities across much of the world – could be used to create nuclear energy in various ways. But the approach that impressed the Manchester Report panel so much was a currently obscure technology called the liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR).
I wrote at the time:
"This technology was developed by the US military in the 1950s and 1960s and was shown to have many benefits. For example, reactors of this type can be smaller than conventional uranium reactors, partly thanks to their low-pressure operation. Despite its early promise, research into liquid-fluoride thorium reactors was abandoned – the most likely reason being that the technology offered no potential for producing nuclear weapons."
There's a big difference between a demonstrably good idea and a multimillion-dollar research and development programme, however, so it's exciting to hear about a major new push to actually develop LFTR technology in China. Thorium-energy expert Kirk Sorensen recently blogged about the announcement of the new scheme at the Chinese National Academy of Sciences in late January. Technology journalist Andrew Orlowski followed up with a story claiming that a private company in China is aiming to build a prototype within five years that can produce electricity at for as little as 6.8p per kilowatt hour (much cheaper than the retail price of power in the UK today).
Despite not making a ripple in the wider press, there's a chance this development could be very significant. If the advocates of LFTRs are proved correct – and their arguments are certainly very compelling – then the Chinese could be taking one of the first substantial steps in a new type of nuclear race. And the stakes are high: as Sorensen reports, the project "aims not only to develop the technology but to secure intellectual property rights to its implementation". It will be very interesting to see what happens next.
Could underwater nuclear stations be headed for the English channel?
Ecologist: Plans for undersea nuclear reactors around the coast of France could see a boom in uptake of the technology – but serious questions about costs and waste remain unanswered
Robert Williams for the Ecologist guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 February 2011 11.35 GMT Since the oil shocks of the 1970's the French government has invested heavily in nuclear power. At that time, most of the electricity in France came from oil fired power stations, and the oil was imported mostly from the Middle East. With no oil or gas fields of its own and coal fields almost exhausted, it began a large-scale nuclear energy programme.
There are now 58 nuclear reactors in France, which provide nearly 80 per cent of the country's electricity supply. Now, in a bid to bring dependable energy to remote coastal communities, the French government has decided to give the green light to a different kind of nuclear power programme - smaller nuclear reactors to be based on the ocean floor.
In January, France's naval construction firm DCNS agreed on a joint two-year study of a concept for submerged nuclear power plants together with French company Areva, Electricité de France and the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). Promoters say these could provide energy for millions of people in coastal locations worldwide.
The concept for the nuclear submarine, known as FlexBlue, involves a cylindrical vessel about 100 meters long and 15 meters in diameter that would encase a complete nuclear power plant with an electrical capacity of between 50 MW and 250 MW. By comparison Sizewell B power station in Suffolk has an output of almost 1200MW.
Flexblue would comprise a small nuclear reactor, a steam turbine-alternator set, an electrical plant and associated electrical equipment. Submarine power cables would carry electricity from the Flexblue plant to the coast.
With costs significantly cheaper than traditional onshore reactors - estimated at several hundred million Euros compared to about 5 billion Euros for a full-sized reactor - French engineers believe it could lead to a boom in the uptake of nuclear power.
The French are not the only ones interested in offshore nuclear power. The Russians have already developed the design for a floating nuclear power plant which uses two 70-MW reactors derived from those used in Russian submarines and icebreakers and launched a prototype last year.
The French's flexblue plants would be designed to be moored on a stable seafloor at a depth of 60 to 100 metres a few kilometres off shore. A system of ballast tanks would be used to raise or lower the plant during installation and for major maintenance, refuelling or dismantling.
The reactors would be adapted for continuous power generation. Flexblue would use power plants of a standard design requiring very limited site-specific tailoring. This makes these plants fundamentally different from land-based nuclear power plants, which must be tailored in terms of civil engineering to accommodate local site constraints.
Flexblue nuclear plants would be stationary subsea installations with no independent means of propulsion. They would be transported by purpose-built vessels similar to those currently used to install offshore platforms. These same vessels would carry Flexblue plants to approved shipyards for refuelling, major maintenance and eventual dismantling.
DCNS aims to design Flexblue plants so that they can be remotely controlled from a shore-based facility. Each plant would, however, include an onboard control room giving operators local control over critical operations, including startup and some maintenance phases. The plant would also be directly accessible at all times by mini-submersibles. Maintenance would be based on proven procedures similar to those used by DCNS for many years to maintain, update and extend the life of naval vessels.
The cost of the reactors is estimated to be in the region of several hundred million Euros, compared to about 5 billion Euros for a full-sized reactor. DCNS Chairman and CEO Patrick Boissier said, 'preliminary studies show that we should be compatible with the cost of renewable energies, and better than solar power.'
Long-term storage plans for highly radioactive waste are still to be decided but DCNS confirmed all dismantling and decommissioning would be done onshore.The company claims that Flexblue plants would be designed from the outset to prevent any contact between nuclear materials and the marine environment. Underwater submersion would also provide a natural means of cooling the reactor, they say, as well as enhancing security, and the only substance released into the environment would be the seawater used for cooling.
Cores would be protected by three barriers: fuel cladding, reactor vessel and hull. The designers argue that immersion in sea water would ensure an infinite natural means of passive cooling and permit inherent safety and security. In addition, each plant would also be protected against potential intruders. The French argue that a submerged power plant would be less vulnerable to earthquakes, tsunamis, or floods, and would be far less vulnerable to terrorist attack.
Sceptics are concerned that warmer water released from the reactors could be dangerous for local ecosystem. And, should there be a nuclear accident 'the sea will be destroyed,' according to the President of Anti-nuclear organisation Crilan, based in Cherbourg. 'The fierce warming-up of the water will cause a massive thermal shock that will destroy sea life.'
However, supporters of Flexblue have attempted to downplay concerns suggesting the undersea reactors would be based entirely on proven technologies, simply combined in a new way. They say with two-thirds of the world's population currently living within 80 kilometres of the sea the new technology could make nuclear power more attractive to countries. For more remote locations, the nuclear reactors could allow for a fast and efficient way to add electrical supply to the region without needing any surface-based infrastructure, including the kind of supply systems needed for coal or oil-powered stations.
Robert Williams for the Ecologist guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 February 2011 11.35 GMT Since the oil shocks of the 1970's the French government has invested heavily in nuclear power. At that time, most of the electricity in France came from oil fired power stations, and the oil was imported mostly from the Middle East. With no oil or gas fields of its own and coal fields almost exhausted, it began a large-scale nuclear energy programme.
There are now 58 nuclear reactors in France, which provide nearly 80 per cent of the country's electricity supply. Now, in a bid to bring dependable energy to remote coastal communities, the French government has decided to give the green light to a different kind of nuclear power programme - smaller nuclear reactors to be based on the ocean floor.
In January, France's naval construction firm DCNS agreed on a joint two-year study of a concept for submerged nuclear power plants together with French company Areva, Electricité de France and the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). Promoters say these could provide energy for millions of people in coastal locations worldwide.
The concept for the nuclear submarine, known as FlexBlue, involves a cylindrical vessel about 100 meters long and 15 meters in diameter that would encase a complete nuclear power plant with an electrical capacity of between 50 MW and 250 MW. By comparison Sizewell B power station in Suffolk has an output of almost 1200MW.
Flexblue would comprise a small nuclear reactor, a steam turbine-alternator set, an electrical plant and associated electrical equipment. Submarine power cables would carry electricity from the Flexblue plant to the coast.
With costs significantly cheaper than traditional onshore reactors - estimated at several hundred million Euros compared to about 5 billion Euros for a full-sized reactor - French engineers believe it could lead to a boom in the uptake of nuclear power.
The French are not the only ones interested in offshore nuclear power. The Russians have already developed the design for a floating nuclear power plant which uses two 70-MW reactors derived from those used in Russian submarines and icebreakers and launched a prototype last year.
The French's flexblue plants would be designed to be moored on a stable seafloor at a depth of 60 to 100 metres a few kilometres off shore. A system of ballast tanks would be used to raise or lower the plant during installation and for major maintenance, refuelling or dismantling.
The reactors would be adapted for continuous power generation. Flexblue would use power plants of a standard design requiring very limited site-specific tailoring. This makes these plants fundamentally different from land-based nuclear power plants, which must be tailored in terms of civil engineering to accommodate local site constraints.
Flexblue nuclear plants would be stationary subsea installations with no independent means of propulsion. They would be transported by purpose-built vessels similar to those currently used to install offshore platforms. These same vessels would carry Flexblue plants to approved shipyards for refuelling, major maintenance and eventual dismantling.
DCNS aims to design Flexblue plants so that they can be remotely controlled from a shore-based facility. Each plant would, however, include an onboard control room giving operators local control over critical operations, including startup and some maintenance phases. The plant would also be directly accessible at all times by mini-submersibles. Maintenance would be based on proven procedures similar to those used by DCNS for many years to maintain, update and extend the life of naval vessels.
The cost of the reactors is estimated to be in the region of several hundred million Euros, compared to about 5 billion Euros for a full-sized reactor. DCNS Chairman and CEO Patrick Boissier said, 'preliminary studies show that we should be compatible with the cost of renewable energies, and better than solar power.'
Long-term storage plans for highly radioactive waste are still to be decided but DCNS confirmed all dismantling and decommissioning would be done onshore.The company claims that Flexblue plants would be designed from the outset to prevent any contact between nuclear materials and the marine environment. Underwater submersion would also provide a natural means of cooling the reactor, they say, as well as enhancing security, and the only substance released into the environment would be the seawater used for cooling.
Cores would be protected by three barriers: fuel cladding, reactor vessel and hull. The designers argue that immersion in sea water would ensure an infinite natural means of passive cooling and permit inherent safety and security. In addition, each plant would also be protected against potential intruders. The French argue that a submerged power plant would be less vulnerable to earthquakes, tsunamis, or floods, and would be far less vulnerable to terrorist attack.
Sceptics are concerned that warmer water released from the reactors could be dangerous for local ecosystem. And, should there be a nuclear accident 'the sea will be destroyed,' according to the President of Anti-nuclear organisation Crilan, based in Cherbourg. 'The fierce warming-up of the water will cause a massive thermal shock that will destroy sea life.'
However, supporters of Flexblue have attempted to downplay concerns suggesting the undersea reactors would be based entirely on proven technologies, simply combined in a new way. They say with two-thirds of the world's population currently living within 80 kilometres of the sea the new technology could make nuclear power more attractive to countries. For more remote locations, the nuclear reactors could allow for a fast and efficient way to add electrical supply to the region without needing any surface-based infrastructure, including the kind of supply systems needed for coal or oil-powered stations.
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
Biodiesel Boom Catches Drivers In Grease Trap
By JEFFREY BALL
Filling up his Ford Excursion is a headache for Eric Sobalvarro. So many choices: Taco joint or sandwich shop? Scent of banana peppers or of tempura?
Mr. Sobalvarro is a greaser—one of a small but growing band of drivers who fuel their cars and trucks with used frying oil.
It takes grit to be a greaser: Stalwarts must recruit restaurants as back-alley sources, filter the smelly liquid in the garage or backyard, and modify a vehicle with a diesel engine to burn it. Drawbacks include finding dead raccoons in restaurant grease vats.
Now greasers have another worry: corporate competition. Vegetable oil is a main ingredient of biodiesel, and demand for used oil has soared along with government subsidies and mandates for the alternative fuel. Over the past six months, the market price for grease has jumped some 70%, to about $3 a gallon.
The big boys in the grease market are middlemen known as "renderers." They buy used grease, clean it up and resell it at the market price. Some goes to cattle lots, which feed the grease to cows to fatten them up. Some goes to makers of biodiesel, which generally doesn't gum up engines as much as straight grease does, especially when it's cold outside.
When grease was cheap, restaurants typically gave it to anyone who would take it. Those were good times for greasers, who are happy to spend Sunday afternoons picking up leftover grease from their favorite lunch spots.
But with grease prices heating up, many processors are paying restaurants for used oil. That's squeezing greasers.
"I'm a little paranoid about the whole thing," says Glenn Carlin, a greaser from Kent, Conn. He recently lost one of his local sources, the Fife 'n Drum, to a processor that began paying the restaurant $15 per 55-gallon drum for its grease.
Mr. Carlin filters grease for his Volkswagen Passat with a setup of tanks and tubes in the converted barn where he and his family live. But now he's down to one supplier: Mohawk Mountain, a nearby ski resort. "The less people thinking about grease, the better," he says. "I don't want the competition."
Steve Fugate, who runs a co-op in Iowa City, Iowa, that collects and processes grease and sells it mostly as biodiesel, also is scrambling. Shakespeare's, a local bar, switched from Mr. Fugate, who doesn't pay for grease, to a renderer that agreed to give the bar $50 per barrel.
Each year, Shakespeare's fills only about four barrels, bringing in about $200 from dirty oil. "But it's better than when I got nothing," says owner Susie Spalj.
In protest, Mr. Fugate has stopped eating at Shakespeare's.
Greasers, though, have limited muscle. What they're doing may not be legal. The Environmental Protection Agency hasn't approved grease as a fuel for cars and trucks, although it has blessed biodiesel.
Running on grease requires a car or truck with a diesel engine, because a vehicle made to burn gasoline can't handle the stuff. Rudolf Diesel used peanut oil to power the eponymous engine he patented in the 1890s.
But today's greasers typically tweak their rides with kits that can cost a few thousand dollars, to avoid gumming up modern filters and hoses.
The grease wars are getting particularly sticky in Colorado.
Last year, grease processors in Colorado pushed through a law requiring anyone who acquires and transports grease to pay the state a registration fee of up to $1,140 a year.
Rocky Mountain Sustainable Enterprises, a Boulder-based processor that led the charge, wanted to thwart what it saw as unfair competition, says Aaron Perry, chief executive of the company, which has since changed its name to recycOil. After filtering used oil, some greasers and rendering companies dump the leftover gunk into the environment, avoiding the fees recycOil incurs when it sends off its dregs for disposal, he says.
By "dumping it on the back 40, they're avoiding those costs," he says.
Seething, several Colorado greasers are talking with a Denver lawyer about fighting back. Although the law sets a much lower annual fee for greasers who keep a minimal amount of the goop on hand, many greasers say it's still too restrictive.
"If I go to Costco, I can buy a pallet of vegetable oil," notes Mr. Sobalvarro, one of the Colorado greasers in on the legal fight. "Explain to me why it is that it's considered a hazardous material if it touches a chicken wing."
Mr. Sobalvarro's anger bubbled up several weeks ago, when a processor snagged one of his sources: the Longmont, Colo., location of Snarf's, a sandwich chain. The Snarf's had been supplying Mr. Sobalvarro with soybean oil in which its banana peppers came packed.
Greasers debate which kinds of restaurants cast off the best used oil. Typically, they say, oil from burger joints and bars requires the most filtering, because it's full of food bits and water from frozen french fries and chicken. They prefer oil from vegetarian and Japanese eateries—anywhere, really, that changes its oil often and doesn't fry a lot of frozen food.
The stuff from Snarf's, Mr. Sobalvarro says, "was really good oil." The processor, Boulder-based Sustainable Oil Service, "sweet-talked" Snarf's into switching, he grouses.
Sustainable pays Snarf's not in cash but in bottles of Dark Majic, a kitchen cleaner Sustainable manufactures using a grease byproduct.
Chelsea Pohl, a Snarf's manager, says it doesn't make sense for restaurants to give away grease. "A lot of people don't realize this is a commodity."
Kurt Lange, Sustainable's president, says he wasn't aware Snarf's had been giving its oil to a backyard producer.
Having lost Snarf's, Mr. Sobalvarro is hustling to stay in the good graces of his remaining sources, particularly a sushi place with quality tempura oil.
His strategy: Eat there often, pay in cash and tip well. "It's a symbiotic relationship," Mr. Sobalvarro says. "It's the only way a little guy like me is going to be able to get oil."
Write to Jeffrey Ball at jeffrey.ball@wsj.com
Filling up his Ford Excursion is a headache for Eric Sobalvarro. So many choices: Taco joint or sandwich shop? Scent of banana peppers or of tempura?
Mr. Sobalvarro is a greaser—one of a small but growing band of drivers who fuel their cars and trucks with used frying oil.
It takes grit to be a greaser: Stalwarts must recruit restaurants as back-alley sources, filter the smelly liquid in the garage or backyard, and modify a vehicle with a diesel engine to burn it. Drawbacks include finding dead raccoons in restaurant grease vats.
Now greasers have another worry: corporate competition. Vegetable oil is a main ingredient of biodiesel, and demand for used oil has soared along with government subsidies and mandates for the alternative fuel. Over the past six months, the market price for grease has jumped some 70%, to about $3 a gallon.
The big boys in the grease market are middlemen known as "renderers." They buy used grease, clean it up and resell it at the market price. Some goes to cattle lots, which feed the grease to cows to fatten them up. Some goes to makers of biodiesel, which generally doesn't gum up engines as much as straight grease does, especially when it's cold outside.
When grease was cheap, restaurants typically gave it to anyone who would take it. Those were good times for greasers, who are happy to spend Sunday afternoons picking up leftover grease from their favorite lunch spots.
But with grease prices heating up, many processors are paying restaurants for used oil. That's squeezing greasers.
"I'm a little paranoid about the whole thing," says Glenn Carlin, a greaser from Kent, Conn. He recently lost one of his local sources, the Fife 'n Drum, to a processor that began paying the restaurant $15 per 55-gallon drum for its grease.
Mr. Carlin filters grease for his Volkswagen Passat with a setup of tanks and tubes in the converted barn where he and his family live. But now he's down to one supplier: Mohawk Mountain, a nearby ski resort. "The less people thinking about grease, the better," he says. "I don't want the competition."
Steve Fugate, who runs a co-op in Iowa City, Iowa, that collects and processes grease and sells it mostly as biodiesel, also is scrambling. Shakespeare's, a local bar, switched from Mr. Fugate, who doesn't pay for grease, to a renderer that agreed to give the bar $50 per barrel.
Each year, Shakespeare's fills only about four barrels, bringing in about $200 from dirty oil. "But it's better than when I got nothing," says owner Susie Spalj.
In protest, Mr. Fugate has stopped eating at Shakespeare's.
Greasers, though, have limited muscle. What they're doing may not be legal. The Environmental Protection Agency hasn't approved grease as a fuel for cars and trucks, although it has blessed biodiesel.
Running on grease requires a car or truck with a diesel engine, because a vehicle made to burn gasoline can't handle the stuff. Rudolf Diesel used peanut oil to power the eponymous engine he patented in the 1890s.
But today's greasers typically tweak their rides with kits that can cost a few thousand dollars, to avoid gumming up modern filters and hoses.
The grease wars are getting particularly sticky in Colorado.
Last year, grease processors in Colorado pushed through a law requiring anyone who acquires and transports grease to pay the state a registration fee of up to $1,140 a year.
Rocky Mountain Sustainable Enterprises, a Boulder-based processor that led the charge, wanted to thwart what it saw as unfair competition, says Aaron Perry, chief executive of the company, which has since changed its name to recycOil. After filtering used oil, some greasers and rendering companies dump the leftover gunk into the environment, avoiding the fees recycOil incurs when it sends off its dregs for disposal, he says.
By "dumping it on the back 40, they're avoiding those costs," he says.
Seething, several Colorado greasers are talking with a Denver lawyer about fighting back. Although the law sets a much lower annual fee for greasers who keep a minimal amount of the goop on hand, many greasers say it's still too restrictive.
"If I go to Costco, I can buy a pallet of vegetable oil," notes Mr. Sobalvarro, one of the Colorado greasers in on the legal fight. "Explain to me why it is that it's considered a hazardous material if it touches a chicken wing."
Mr. Sobalvarro's anger bubbled up several weeks ago, when a processor snagged one of his sources: the Longmont, Colo., location of Snarf's, a sandwich chain. The Snarf's had been supplying Mr. Sobalvarro with soybean oil in which its banana peppers came packed.
Greasers debate which kinds of restaurants cast off the best used oil. Typically, they say, oil from burger joints and bars requires the most filtering, because it's full of food bits and water from frozen french fries and chicken. They prefer oil from vegetarian and Japanese eateries—anywhere, really, that changes its oil often and doesn't fry a lot of frozen food.
The stuff from Snarf's, Mr. Sobalvarro says, "was really good oil." The processor, Boulder-based Sustainable Oil Service, "sweet-talked" Snarf's into switching, he grouses.
Sustainable pays Snarf's not in cash but in bottles of Dark Majic, a kitchen cleaner Sustainable manufactures using a grease byproduct.
Chelsea Pohl, a Snarf's manager, says it doesn't make sense for restaurants to give away grease. "A lot of people don't realize this is a commodity."
Kurt Lange, Sustainable's president, says he wasn't aware Snarf's had been giving its oil to a backyard producer.
Having lost Snarf's, Mr. Sobalvarro is hustling to stay in the good graces of his remaining sources, particularly a sushi place with quality tempura oil.
His strategy: Eat there often, pay in cash and tip well. "It's a symbiotic relationship," Mr. Sobalvarro says. "It's the only way a little guy like me is going to be able to get oil."
Write to Jeffrey Ball at jeffrey.ball@wsj.com
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