Growing energy demand adds stress to water supply

AFP

Wednesday, 24 August 2011

A Google search for "world water shortage" will produce more than four million results in 0.17 seconds. It will also use a tenth of a teaspoon of water, experts say.


Given water's role in power generation, the impact of about 300 million Google searches a day is around 150,000 litres (40,000 gallons) daily - in a world where water supplies are increasingly a major concern.

"These two things - water and energy - come together and that's a big thing for the world to understand," says Len Rodman, a US-based water and energy expert.

"If you squander water, if you indiscriminately use power, then in the long run that will have implications for the world," the chief executive of Black & Veatch, a major global water and energy company told AFP in an interview.

Water is used not only to generate power through dams and steam but also as a coolant for nuclear, coal and gas-fired power plants, which are competing with agriculture, industry and urban consumption for water supplies.

The Asian Development Bank has forecast the region's energy demand to double by 2030 to 6,325 million tonnes of oil equivalent, or about 74 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.

Water will play an increasing role as a power source for Asia but supplies are already under threat, said the ADB.

China and India, the world's most populous nations, are expected to have a combined shortfall of one trillion cubic metres (35 trillion cubic feet) of water within 20 years.

Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Vietnam are already under "water stress" conditions, meaning they are experiencing periodic or limited water shortages.

During an international water conference in Singapore in July attended by Rodman, industry players and government officials called for better integration of water and energy policies to help find solutions to looming shortages.

"There is a growing realisation that we can no longer think about energy and water separately," Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute in California, said at the conference.

A recent survey of more than 700 US utilities firms by Black & Veatch showed that for the first time, water supply was the top environmental concern among the respondents.

Asia is likely to face the same problems, Rodman said.

"It will truly be exacerbated in this region because of the urban densities that are there. You've got tremendous numbers of highly concentrated urban areas," he said.

The needs of the region's agricultural sector can also affect power supplies.

In 2008, 2.2 billion cubic metres of water were diverted from three major hydroelectric plants in Vietnam for agriculture, leading to a shortfall of 430 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, Black & Veatch said.

Research is continually being carried out on water treatment technologies that require less energy as well as power-generation facilities that would need less water, experts said.

Advanced technologies to treat polluted water as well as recycle water from toilets, kitchen sinks and sewers for use in homes and industries will help address Asia's future needs, they said.

Companies like Siemens Water Technologies are doing research aimed at integrating desalination - an energy-intensive process to purify seawater - with solar power.

Rodman said encouraging people to change their consumption patterns of water and energy by helping them understand the link between the two is equally important.

"Gone are the days when water is independent from energy," he said.

Spray-on solar may be future for green energy

Relaxnews

Thursday, 25 August 2011

As Japan seeks to optimize its use of environment-friendly energy sources in the wake of the nuclear crisis triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, a company here may just have come up with a major breakthrough: spray-on solar cells.


Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. has developed technology that enables solar cells to be applied to buildings, vehicles and even clothing in the same way that paint is applied. The breakthrough means that the places where energy from the sun can be harvested are almost limitless.

The new solar cells utilize carbon compounds which, when dried and solidified, act as semiconductors and generate electricity in reaction to being exposed to light. Most existing solar cell technology requires crystalline silicon to be sandwiched between glass sheets and positioned on the roofs of homes and office buildings, or in space-consuming "solar parks."

Scientists have been attempting to increase both the energy-gathering efficiency of solar panels and make them easier to install and use.

Mitsubishi Chemical is the first company to create prototype spray-on solar cells, which at present have a practical conversion level of 10.1 percent of light energy into electricity.

That figure is still some way behind the 20 percent that is standard in traditional crystalline silicon solar cells, but the firm expects to be able to improve the efficiency ratio to 15 percent by 2015 and is aiming to eventually reach 20 percent.

The company said the new painted-on solar cells would be particularly effective when applied to round or curved structures, such as chimneys or the noise-reduction barriers that line many highways in built-up areas of Japan.
It could also be applied to the exteriors of cars and theoretically used to help power the vehicle and even to such flexible surfaces as clothing.

The sprayed-on solar cells are less than 1 millimeter thick - far thinner than existing solar cell technology - and weigh less than one-tenth of crystalline solar panels of the same size, the company said.

Mitsubishi Chemical said it plans to work with domestic carmakers to build a car coated with the new solar cells with the aim of giving the vehicle sufficient power to travel 10 km after being exposed to sunlight for two hours.

The spray-on solar cells are a breakthrough concept, but other organizations are working on similar research to get the most out of energy from the sun. Scientists from The Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization, the University of Melbourne and the University of Padua in Italy are collaborating on 'printable laser' technology which could impose nano-particles onto wafer-thin panels which could then eventually be developed into into paper-thin solar panels.

Jack Kelly on Al Gore's global-warming credibility problem..

Columnist Jack Kelly writing Aug. 22 in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:


Former Vice President Al Gore went on a profanity-laced tirade at the Aspen Institute Aug. 4 against the rising number of Americans who are skeptical about man-made global warming.

According to a Harris poll in July, only 44 percent of us now believe carbon dioxide emissions are warming the Earth, down from 51 percent in 2009 and 71 percent in 2007.

Global temperatures peaked in 1998. People have noticed winters are getting colder.

When evidence emerged in 2009 that scientists affiliated with the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Britain were "hiding the decline" by fudging data, few journalists paid much attention.

But a lot of Americans did, apparently. In a Rasmussen poll Aug. 3, 69 percent of respondents said it was at least somewhat likely scientists have falsified research data. . . .

Mr. Gore's alarmist predictions have proved false. Polar ice caps are larger. So is the polar bear population (and the scientist upon whom Mr. Gore relied for his claim that the polar bear is endangered is facing accusations of scientific misconduct). The rise in sea levels—which has been going on since the end of the last ice age—is slowing down.

Mr. Gore can respond only with curses, and ever more hysterical predictions of imminent doom. His credibility is in tatters. In the public mind, he's gone from Nobel Prize winner to Chicken Little.

Anthropogenic (man-made) global warming is a "contrived phony mess that is falling apart of its own weight," said Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a candidate for president. It's the most harmful hoax in history, because President Barack Obama bases job-killing policies on it.

Fusion power: is it getting any closer?

For decades, scientists have been predicting that, one day, the same process that powers the sun will give us virtually unlimited cheap, clean electricity. Are they wrong?


Leo Hickman
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 August 2011 21.00 BST

A star is born. And, less than a second later, it dies. On a drab science park just outside the Oxfordshire village of Culham, some of the world's leading physicists stare at a monitor to review a video of their wondrous, yet fleeting, creation.

"Not too bad. That was quite a clean one," observes starmaker-in-chief Professor Steve Cowley. Just a few metres away from his control room, a "mini star" not much larger than a family car has just burned, momentarily bright, at temperatures approaching 23 million degrees centigrade inside a 70-tonne steel vessel.

Cowley sips his coffee. "OK, when do we go again?"

Last year, when asked to name the most pressing scientific challenge facing humanity, Professors Stephen Hawking and Brian Cox both gave the same answer: producing electricity from fusion energy. The prize, they said, is enormous: a near-limitless, pollution-free, cheap source of energy that would power human development for many centuries to come. Cox is so passionate about the urgent need for fusion power that he stated that it should be scientists such as Cowley who are revered in our culture – not footballers or pop stars – because they are "literally going to save the world". It is a "moral duty" to commercialise this technology as fast as possible, he said. Without it, our species will be in "very deep trouble indeed" by the end of this century.

If only it were that simple. Fusion energy – in essence, recreating and harnessing here on earth the process that powers the sun – has been the goal of physicists around the world for more than half a century. And yet it is perpetually described as "30 years away". No matter how much research is done and money is spent attempting to commercialise this "saviour" technology, it always appears to be stuck at least a generation away.

Cowley hears and feels these frustrations every day. As the director of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, he has spent his working life trying to shorten this exasperating delay. Fusion energy is already a scientific challenge arguably more arduous than any other we face, but recent events have only piled on further pressure: international climate-change negotiations have stalled; targets to ramp up renewable energy production seem hopelessly unrealistic; and the Fukushima disaster has cast a large shadow over the future of fusion's nuclear cousin, fission energy, with both Germany and Italy stating that, owing to safety concerns, they now intend to turn their back on a source of energy which has been providing electricity since the 1950s.

But today Cowley seems upbeat, chipper even. After an 18-month shutdown to retile the interior of the largest of the centre's two "tokamaks" – ring doughnut-shaped chambers where the fusion reaction takes place – he is bullish about the progress being made by the 1,000 scientists and engineers based at Culham.

"By 2014-15, we will be setting new records here. We hope to reach break-even point in five years. That will be a huge psychological moment."

Cowley is referring to the moment of parity when the amount of energy they extract from a tokamak equals the amount of energy they put into it. At present, the best-ever "shot" – as the scientists refer to each fusion reaction attempt – came in 1997 when, for just two seconds, the JET (Joint European Torus) tokamak at Culham achieved 16MW of fusion power from an input of 25MW. For fusion to be commercially viable, however, it will need to provide a near-constant tenfold power gain.

So, what are the barriers preventing this great leap forward?

"We could produce net electricity right now, but the costs would be huge," says Cowley. "The barrier is finding a material than can withstand the neutron bombardment inside the tokamak. We could also just say damn to the cost of the electricity required to demonstrate this. But we don't want to do something that cannot be shown to be commercially viable. What's the point?"

At the heart of a star, fusion occurs when hydrogen atoms fuse together under extreme heat and pressure to create a denser helium atom releasing, in the process, colossal amounts of energy. But on Earth, scientists have to try and replicate a star's intense gravitational pressure with an artificial magnetic field that requires huge amounts of electricity to create – so much that the National Grid must tell Culham when it is OK for them to run a shot. (Namely, not in the middle of Coronation Street or a big football match.)

The fusion reaction occurs when the fuel (two types, or isotopes, of hydrogen known as deuterium and tritium) combines to form a super-hot plasma which produces, alongside the helium, neutrons which have a huge amount of kinetic energy. The goal of plasma physicists such as Cowell is to harness the release of these neutrons and use their abundant energy to drive conventional turbines to generate electricity. The JET tokamak has been shut down for the past 18 months while the interior has been stripped of its 4,500 carbon tiles and replaced with new tiles made from beryllium and tungsten. The hope is that these new tiles will be far more "neutron resilient", allowing for shots to be conducted for longer periods and at much higher temperatures.

Over lunch at the staff canteen, Francesco Romanelli, the Italian director of the European Fusion Development Agreement, the European agency that funds JET, explains why the new tiles are so crucial: "We now understand how a plasma works. We have demonstrated with JET that we can contain the reactants; we reach temperatures 20 times hotter than the sun's core and we produce an intense magnetic field, 1,000 times that of Earth's normal magnetic field. But the main problem we face is plasma turbulence. To compensate for this loss, we have to add more heat and energy. So we are always looking for materials that can withstand these extraordinary conditions inside the tokamak."

Last year, bulldozers began clearing land 60km north-east of Marseille in southern France. By 2019, it is hoped that the world's largest and most advanced experimental tokamak will be switched on. The €15bn International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is being funded by an unprecedented international coalition, including the EU, the US, China, India, South Korea and Russia. Everything learned at Culham will be fed into improving the design and performance of ITER which, it is hoped, will demonstrate the commercial viability of fusion by producing a tenfold power gain of 500MW during shots lasting up to an hour.

But ITER's projected costs are already rocketing, and politicians across Europe have expressed concern, demanding that budgets be capped. Fusion energy also has its environmental detractors. When the ITER project was announced in 2005, Greenpeace said it "deplored" the project, arguing that the money could be better spent building offshore wind turbines. "Advocates of fusion research predict that the first commercial fusion electricity might be delivered in 50-80 years from now," said Jan Vande Putte, Greenpeace International's nuclear campaigner. "But most likely, it will lead to a dead end, as the technical barriers to be overcome are enormous." Meanwhile, there is criticism from some plasma physicists that the design of ITER is wrong and alternative designs might produce better results for much less money.

Romanelli rejects this analysis. We simply must make this investment, he says: "The prize on offer is too tantalising to ignore. Fusion doesn't produce greenhouse gases, it is intrinsically safe and it leaves no burden on future generations. The primary reaction does not produce nuclear material, only helium. There's a limited problem in that you produce neutrons, but this only makes the reactor chamber itself radioactive. Within 100 years, you could recycle the chamber so there's no need for geological-timescale storage as there is with the waste from fission energy. And the fuel is virtually unlimited. All you need is lithium and hydrogen. Sea water alone could fuel current human consumption levels for 30 million years."

Another major positive promised by fusion, says Romanelli, is that reactors would be so safe that they could be located amid urban centres where the power is most needed. "A tsunami, earthquake or bomb could hit a fusion reactor and the problems caused would only ever be structural. With fission, you have to release the energy if there's a problem, whereas fusion shuts down instantly if disrupted."

If fusion offers such glorious bounty, it prompts the question – given, say, our concerns over climate change and the global political instability caused by the pursuit of oil – why the world isn't concentrating much harder on delivering it as fast as possible. Yes, €15bn is a lot of money to be spending building ITER. But, by comparison, the global cosmetics and perfume industry is worth some $170bn a year. And, in 2010, the US's military budget was $663bn. If the motivation was there, the global community could find the money to fund 10 rival fusion projects to fast-track the process of finding the optimum design. So, why haven't we seen a Manhattan Project-style push for fusion such as we did during the second world war when it was deemed by the allied forces that they must beat the Nazis in the race to build the first atomic bomb?

"People – and particularly politicians – still remember fission's early claims that it would produce electricity that was 'too cheap to meter'," says Cowley. For most people, fusion is the realm of science fiction and it is hard to convince them that it should be a strategic priority, he says. "We scientists have to be honest, too: we thought it would be easy to crack fusion. But there's no other comparable challenge. There is no model for this technology. The first flying devices looked like birds because those early inventors looked to nature for solutions. But we don't have a model in nature to look to. The sun is not a good model for fusion here on earth. We're having to start from the very beginning."

Cowley says a Manhattan Project for fusion would, of course, greatly speed up its delivery. "ITER will cost around €15bn, but that is not expensive when you consider the prize. At present, all we can hope for is, if oil prices are still high in 2015 and we pull off a big shot demonstrating parity of power, this gets us the international attention – and therefore the funding – we need to really push on. JET was first funded and built during the 1970s due to the oil crisis. That is not a coincidence: there has always been a direct correlation between investment in fusion and the price of oil. Interestingly, though, China is now putting a lot of money into fusion."

This raises another big question: who will stand to benefit financially from its commercialisation? "The global energy market is worth $5-6 trillion a year: somebody will make a lot of money out of this," says Cowley, who predicts that once ITER provides a demonstration model for a fusion reactor all the major countries involved will then attempt to build their own version. "We handed our advantage away with fission. We really don't want to make the same mistake again." One area where the UK already has an edge, says Cowley, is making the very specialised steels required for next-generation tokomaks.

It's hard not to look at the potential of fusion and scream: "We need this right now!" But Cowley says we still face a 30-year wait for the magic day when we flick a switch and electricity generated from fusion flows from the socket. "After ITER, we will then have to build a demonstration plant. We hope to have that built by 2040. This is why there needs to be, in my mind, a 10-fold increase in fission power by 2050. We still need fission because it is a bridging technology until fusion becomes commercial. By 2100, fusion could be producing 20-25% of all our energy." (Romanelli's outlook is a little more optimistic: he believes fusion will be providing 50% of the world's energy by 2100.)

What Cowley is admitting, though, is that as long as fusion research remains underfunded (a term he doesn't utter, but the implication is there) then it will never save humanity from climate change, oil wars and the poverty and underdevelopment caused by ever-higher energy costs. As if to prove his point, he admits that on occasion he has even turned to eBay to buy spare parts for the smaller UK-owned tokamak at Colham which is known as Mast (Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak).

But such things do not deter him from pushing forward as best he can, he stresses. He is first and foremost a plasma physicist.

"Saving the planet is a nice thing to do," he laughs. "Doing something that no one else has ever done is attractive, too. But, ultimately, this is fascinating. I work at the best fusion laboratory in the world, where we conduct day-to-day physics with an incredibly high level of intellectual activity. Every night on the train home I prefer to do a calculation rather than a sudoku. I try to work out things such as how a 200-million-degree-celsius plasma behaves in a magnetic field. Such things are critically important for the future of our world, but they're bloody good fun, too."

China's love affair with the car shuns green vehicles

Country overtakes the US to become world's largest automobile market, as global sales pass the 1bn mark

Jonathan Watts in Beijing
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 August 2011 09.08 BST

Beijing used to be famous for the millions of bicycles thronging its streets. But it is the success of the motor car there and in other Chinese mega-cities that has now tipped the number of cars in the world over the 1bn mark.

According to a report by the trade journal Ward's, 35m new cars and lorries were sold worldwide last year – the second-biggest increase ever recorded. That is 95,500 extra vehicles being added to the global traffic jam every day.

Almost half of the new growth is in China, which recently overtook the US as the world's biggest car market thanks to the sales of 13.8m new passenger vehicles. Despite the surge in sales, car ownership in China is still only half the global average.

But hopes that the country will also become a pioneer in the shift towards "clean car" technology have suffered a setback as the Chinese show little sign of interest in electric and hybrid vehicles despite ambitious government plans. Last year, Toyota managed to sell only one Prius – the world's most commercially successful hybrid car – in the fastest-growing market. Sports utility vehicle sales, by contrast, are surging.

This is not just affecting Toyota. It had been hoped that government subsidies and policy support would help China's manufacturers, such as BYD, to leapfrog better established overseas rivals by mass-producing electric cars.

But BYD has scaled back its ambitions after failing to find a market because of costs, safety concerns and underdeveloped battery technology. Reflecting the lack of progress, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao recently published an article in a Communist party journal calling for a rethink of China's "road map" towards alternative powertrain vehicles – those that do not rely only on a conventional internal combustion engine.

In a report earlier this week, IHS Automotive, a Shanghai-based consultancy, said the takeup for such vehicles was far behind the government's time-frame. It noted, too, the lack of interest in the Prius, which has witnessed sales in China fall from about 200 in 2009 to just one in 2010. It is not known who made that solitary purchase – industry analysts said it was unlikely to be an individual as there is little technical support for the model. "It may be a domestic rival that bought the hybrid to strip it down and see how it works," said one industry observer who did not want to be named.

Among registrations of new passenger cars were 850,000 SUVs – a rise of 24% – including 425 Hummers. Since then car sales have flattened but the luxury sector is still surging.

Thanks largely to its business in China, Mercedes announced earlier this year the highest monthly worldwide car sales in the company's 110-year history. BMW, Audi and Rolls-Royce are also recording strong sales which have pushed China to the forefront of their global strategies.

This runs directly opposite to the government's stated goal of creating a more equal, environmentally friendly nation, suggesting a change of strategy may be needed. The state is unlikely to completely abandon its promotion of "clean" car technology, but it may have to revise its plans.

The government's current aim is to put 1m "new energy" vehicles on the roads by 2015 – electrics and plug-in hybrids – but this now looks overambitious. Despite subsidies of 60,000 yuan (£5,700) for pure electric vehicles and 50,000 yuan (£4,700) for plug-in hybrids in five pilot cities, there have been few buyers because regular cars are still cheaper and more reliable. According to IHS Automotive, electric vehicles sales are unlikely to reach a tenth of the state's target over the next five years. Rather than jump directly to electric cars, it now expects bureaucrats to pay more attention to hybrid cars and fuel-efficient conventional vehicles. Although "in the long term pure [electric vehicles] may still become mainstream, it is welcome to see the government slowly but surely recognising that its targets are inflated," IHS noted.

Many are still betting on the Chinese market. GreenTech Automotive of the US recently announced a venture with Shengyang ZhongRui to create a plant in Inner Mongolia with capacity to build 300,000 electric and hybrid cars a year.

Between 2000 and 2010, the number of cars and motorcycles in China increased twentyfold. In the next 20 years it is forecast to more than double again, which means there will be more cars in China in 2030 than there were in the entire world in 2000.

The big brands argue that there is room for growth. Only one in 16 Chinese people owns a car, which is less than half the global average. If the country were to match the three-in-four ownership levels of the US, that would mean an extra 900m vehicles.

Given the frequent traffic congestion and smog even at current levels, it is hard to imagine that ever happening. Even if all the new cars were hybrid or electric, the congestion would be incredible. Beijing has already begun restricting new licence registrations. Sales have flattened.

"Green growth" now looks a less likely prospect than a simple market slowdown.

Carbon credits for farming endorsed

Tuesday, 23 August 2011

Australia's parliament yesterday endorsed the world's first national scheme that regulates the creation and trade of carbon credits from farming and forestry, complementing government plans to put a price on carbon emissions from mid-2012.


The laws, the first major bills passed by the government with the Greens' support in the Senate since the Greens took the balance of power on 1 July, are a precursor to the carbon-price legislation to be put before parliament later this year.

Land use including agriculture accounts for 23 per cent of Australian emissions. REUTERS

Energy-saving 'setsuden' campaign sweeps Japan after Fukushima

Neon lights are switched off, trains are running slower and billboards flash energy savings as Japan looks to alternative sources of energy beyond nuclear power

Suvendrini Kakuchi in Tokyo for IPS, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Monday 22 August 2011 12.24 BST

After decades of not bothering to switch off the lights in unoccupied rooms in their Tokyo home, Masayoshi Sakurai and his children now meticulously make sure they do.

"My wife used to badger us to switch off the lights because she was worried about high electricity bills. Now all of us have begun saving energy, by reducing the use of air-conditioners, turning off the computer and so on," explained the corporate employee.

Sakurai is part of a growing movement in Japan, led by a media campaign called 'setsuden' (power saving in Japanese), that has begun to spread support for limiting electricity consumption.

"Public support is strong for setsuden mostly because they fear power blackouts of the type caused by the disastrous Fukushima nuclear accident," says Kazuko Sato, of Soft Energy Project, a non- government organisation that lobbies for renewable energy expansion.

Sato told IPS that the energy saving mood sweeping the country is a new trend in Japan that gives an opportunity to push for clean energy over national policy that favours nuclear power.

She explained that the challenge facing green activists is to link the setsuden mood to banning nuclear energy.

"To push renewable and safe energy to the national forefront and reduce Japan's reliance on nuclear energy, it is important to sustain the current public setsuden mood. I am worried that the public support could be temporary," she said.

Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind provide for less than two percent of Japan's total power consumption.

Tokyo, a bustling capital famous for its neon lights, has now turned into a city of darkened buildings and slower running trains. Billboards at major crossings flash daily rates of power consumption that tell whether the city has conserved sufficient energy to avoid a blackout.

Hisayo Takada, energy expert at Greenpeace Japan, a leading environment organisation, says such developments are important but do not necessarily translate into public anger against nuclear power.

"The public setsuden sentiment is merely symbolic. Everybody is joining the bandwagon as an expression of solidarity at a time of distress. What is more important is to create a deeper front against dangerous nuclear power," she told IPS.

A massive earthquake and tsunami on Mar. 11 destroyed Japan's largest nuclear power plant at Fukushima, forcing the government to review the national policy on nuclear energy that currently meets 30 percent of the national demand.

Japan has 54 nuclear reactors of which only 15 are in operation currently, with some of them set to undergo stress tests as a precaution after the Fukushima disaster.

As a result, the total electricity supplied by the ten major utilities in July dropped by almost nine percent, or 83 billion kilowatt hours, in comparison to supply in 2010, according to the Federation of Electric Power Companies.

Well-known Japanese author Kazutoshi Hanto, in an interview on Japanese television, likened the current power-saving efforts to 1945 post-war Japan when people worked hard to rebuild their country.

"National unity in the form of setsuden mirrors the early post-war diligence of the Japanese who worked single-mindedly to rebuild the country.

"There are new ideas and efforts rising from the worst nuclear disaster in Japan," Hanto said.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan is pushing a national goal to generate 20 percent of electricity from alternative energy sources such as solar and wind. Japan will legislate to mandate utilities to buy electricity generated from these sources at prices set by the government.

Such steps are long overdue, environmentalists say. There is also increasing interest among equipment manufacturers to develop energy saving products.

Major companies such as Toshiba Corp and Mitsubishi Electric Corp announced collaboration last month to promote next generation energy-saving housing that will use solar panels and home appliances linked to a computer network to save power.

The fear that the Fukushima accident is threatening massive radiation contamination has led to rising opposition in Japan to nuclear power. Its operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, is struggling with huge compensation payments.

"The difficult times we face today present an opportunity which we must not miss. Post-disaster Japan has to change and we can only do this through a long-term approach to develop a safer Japan," Sato said.

World's forests absorb almost 40 per cent of man made CO2

The world's forests are much more important than previously thought in absorbing CO2, according to a paper published in Science.

The study showed that forests are absorbing almost 40 per cent of the 38 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide created by mankind every year Photo: Rex

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent

6:00PM BST 18 Aug 2011

The University of Leeds research found forests absorb nearly 40 per cent of man made fossil fuel emissions every year.


The first study to look at all the world’s forests together found that established forests, from boreal forests in the north to tropical rainforests in the south, absorb 8.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.


Scientists work out how much carbon is being absorbed by measuring the density of wood, height and width of different tree species over time.


A further 6 billion tonnes is “mopped up” by newly planted forests around the world.


However 10.8 billion tonnes is released as a consequence of deforestation as trees are chopped down and a further 28 billon tonnes is generated by cars, factories and other sources of fossil fuels.


The study showed that forests are absorbing almost 40 per cent of the 38 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide created by mankind every year.

Dr Simon Lewis, a tropical ecologist from the University of Leeds and co-author of the study, said trees are much more important to tacking climate change than previously thought.

He pointed out that halting deforestation and planting more trees could make a huge different.

"Humans are altering the world's forests in a number of ways, from their outright destruction to the much more subtle impacts on even the most remote forests caused by global changes to the environment.

"Our research shows these changes are having globally important impacts, which highlights the critical role forests play in the global cycling of carbon and therefore the speed and severity of future climate change.

"The practical importance of this new information is that if schemes to reduce deforestation are successful they would have significant positive global impacts, as would similar efforts promoting forest restoration."

World's forests absorb almost 40 per cent of man made CO2

The world's forests are much more important than previously thought in absorbing CO2, according to a paper published in Science.

The study showed that forests are absorbing almost 40 per cent of the 38 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide created by mankind every year Photo: Rex

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent

6:00PM BST 18 Aug 2011

The University of Leeds research found forests absorb nearly 40 per cent of man made fossil fuel emissions every year.


The first study to look at all the world’s forests together found that established forests, from boreal forests in the north to tropical rainforests in the south, absorb 8.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.


Scientists work out how much carbon is being absorbed by measuring the density of wood, height and width of different tree species over time.


A further 6 billion tonnes is “mopped up” by newly planted forests around the world.


However 10.8 billion tonnes is released as a consequence of deforestation as trees are chopped down and a further 28 billon tonnes is generated by cars, factories and other sources of fossil fuels.


The study showed that forests are absorbing almost 40 per cent of the 38 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide created by mankind every year.

Dr Simon Lewis, a tropical ecologist from the University of Leeds and co-author of the study, said trees are much more important to tacking climate change than previously thought.

He pointed out that halting deforestation and planting more trees could make a huge different.

"Humans are altering the world's forests in a number of ways, from their outright destruction to the much more subtle impacts on even the most remote forests caused by global changes to the environment.

"Our research shows these changes are having globally important impacts, which highlights the critical role forests play in the global cycling of carbon and therefore the speed and severity of future climate change.

"The practical importance of this new information is that if schemes to reduce deforestation are successful they would have significant positive global impacts, as would similar efforts promoting forest restoration."

Massive protest at White House against Alberta tar sands pipeline

Campaigners say the two-week protest will be the biggest green civil disobedience in a generation

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Friday 19 August 2011 17.31 BST

A protest at the White House against a pipeline from the Alberta tar sands is emerging as the biggest green civil disobedience campaign in a generation, organisers said.


Approximately 1,500 people signed up to court arrest during the two-week action outside the White House, which begins on Saturday morning.


The campaign is seen as a last chance to persuade Barack Obama to stop a planned 1,600-mile pipeline that will carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta across rich American farmland to the Gulf of Mexico.


The State Department is expect to produce its final environmental analysis of the pipeline by the end of the month. Obama will then have 90 days to decide whether going ahead with the project would be in the national interest.


The Keystone XL project has been a major focus of environmental protests. Greenhouse gas emissions of tar sands crude are 40% higher than conventional oil, and the open-pit mining has devastated Alberta's boreal forest.


Recent pipeline accidents in Michigan and Montana have also deepened fears about potential dangers along the pipeline's route through prime American farmland.


The veteran environmentalist Bill McKibben, who is leading the protest, describes it as the biggest civil disobedience action in environmental circles for years.


It also puts Obama on the spot to make good on his promises as a presidential candidate in 2008 to act on climate change.


Congress failed to act on the main plank of Obama's green agenda – climate change legislation – and pressure from Tea Party activists has forced the Environmental Protection Agency to delay or weaken regulations on dealing with climate change.


This time though, Obama has freedom of action – or at least that is McKibben's hope.


Obama must personally sign off on the pipeline, if it is to go ahead. "We think we may have a chance because for once Obama gets to make the call himself. He has to sign – or not sign – the permit," McKibben said.


"As environmentalists this is the one clean test we are ever going to get of Obama's real commitment to climate issues."


The protest will begin at about 11am on Saturday morning when a first group of 100 activists will gather at the gates of the White House, an area that is supposed to be kept clear, and wait to be arrested.


Unlike other campaigns, the next fortnight's actions have geographical reach – with protesters descending on Washington from areas along the pipeline's route.


One group from eastern Texas, has hired an RV to make the journey.



The campaign against the pipeline has steadily been gaining in momentum amid concerns about pipeline safety.


The pipeline route crosses rich farmland and important aquifers.


Campaigners argue the thick heavy tar sands crude could do far more damage than conventional oil, and that the State Department has rushed through its environmental review.


The oil industry, meanwhile, pushed back with a study this week claiming the pipeline would create 20,000 new construction jobs.

Windfarms prevent detection of secret nuclear weapon tests, says MoD

Plans for hundreds of wind turbines have been blocked over claims that vibrations will interfere with recording station

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is blocking plans for hundreds of wind turbines because it says their "seismic noise" will prevent the detection of nuclear explosions around the world.

The MoD claims that vibrations from new windfarms across a large area of north-west England and south-west Scotland will interfere with the operation of its seismological recording station at Eskdalemuir, near Lockerbie. The station listens out for countries secretly testing nuclear warheads in breach of the 182-nation Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

At a meeting today, Carlisle council rejected the latest application for six wind turbines at Hallburn Farm, near Longtown, because of the MoD's objections. The noise from the turbines would increase interference to an unacceptable level, the MoD said.

The company that made the application, REG Windpower, warned that plans for many other windfarms in the area were similarly affected. As much as one gigawatt of renewable power was being held up by the MoD, the company told the Guardian.

This is equivalent to about a quarter of the UK's current onshore wind capacity, and could make an important contribution to meeting UK targets to cut the pollution that is causing climate change, REG Windpower argued.

But according to the MoD, the swishing blades of wind turbines cause vibrations in the ground that can be detected by the sophisticated monitoring equipment at Eskdalemuir. The UK has an international obligation to protect the operation of the station to help prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, it said.

An expert study for the MoD concluded that although the station could cope with some seismic noise, increasing this beyond a certain level would cause interference. The limit has now been reached so the ministry is objecting to every new wind turbine within 50km of Eskdalemuir.

This has generated frustration among wind power developers because the area has many attractions for them. It has good wind speeds, is sparsely populated and is close to centres of electricity demand.

But REG Windpower's development director, Matt Partridge, was hopeful of a breakthrough in finding a technical fix for the problem. "We're optimistic there will soon be a solution," he said.

One idea is to hang weights like pendulums inside turbine towers to deaden the vibrations from the blades. The MoD promised it would reassess its opposition if there were a proven technological solution.

Eskdalemuir was a "unique facility in the UK", said an MoD spokesman. "It detects and accurately interprets seismic signals worldwide to detect nuclear explosions and deter the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Wind turbines can affect the readings."

He added: "The MoD would not object to a planning application without due reason. Objections are only raised where such action is considered vital to adequately protect MoD interests."

Vestas: new wind turbine factory will create 2,000 UK jobs

Chief executive says that if UK orders for its offshore turbines are confirmed, Kent factory could be built within a year

James Murray for BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment Network, and Fiona Harvey
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 August 2011 11.48 BST

Vestas, the world's largest wind turbine manufacturer, has confirmed it could build a factory in the UK within a year as soon as it has secured sufficient orders for its new offshore wind turbine.

Speaking to BusinessGreen, chief executive Ditlev Engel said that having secured the option to develop a new factory at a 70-hectare site at Sheerness in Kent, the company was poised to green light the project as soon as sufficient orders are confirmed for its 7MW V164 turbine.

"We have the manufacturing site ready as long as we get the orders to go ahead and manufacture them," he said, adding that if Vestas does proceed with the factory it will create up to 2,000 jobs and could be completed within a year, allowing the company to begin delivering turbines ahead of the next wave of offshore wind farm construction in 2015.

He also revealed that the company was already talking to a number of its customers about the potential orders and investment that would allow it to move forward with its plans for the Kent facility.

The move could complete a remarkable turnaround for Vestas in the UK, after the company controversially closed a smaller turbine blade factory on the Isle of Wight in 2009. The company has subsequently stepped up investment in a number of research and development centres, including a major new facility on the Isle of Wight. However, the Kent site promises to bring turbine manufacturing for the first time.

Engel also told the Guardian that sales in Asia could be hampered by a lack of available financing and infrastructural issues.

China has been one of the biggest growth regions for wind turbine manufacturers for the past five years, but Engel said that there were problems with grid connections for Chinese wind farms, which are sometimes built without connections and are left stranded for months or even years at a time while the necessary infrastructure is built to catch up. That lack of grid infrastructure has in turn discouraged financing, and Engel said it was a potential brake on growth in the world's biggest market for wind farms, and the biggest generator of wind energy.

Engel's comments came as Vestas released its financial results for the first half of the year, confirming that revenues and profits were in line with expectations as the company continued its recovery following a tough 2010.

First-half revenues rose 31 per cent year on year to €2.47bn, while pre-tax profits reached €8m – a significant improvement on the €219m loss recorded during the first half of 2010.

Engel said the results confirmed that the company's performance had returned to a "normalised level" following a weak first half of 2010.

Significantly, the company reported that it boasted a solid order pipeline with firm and unconditional orders covering almost all the expected revenue of €7bn for 2011.

As a result, the company said it would maintain its outlook for the full year, predicting that it will deliver revenues of €7bn and a pre-tax profit margin of seven per cent.

"In spite of the macro-economic and financial uncertainty, Vestas still expects an intake of firm and unconditional orders of 7,000–8,000MW in a market that remains fiercely competitive," the company said.

Barack Obama bets on next generation of biofuels industry

In the US biofuels industry, corn ethanol is king. But a new $510m plan could give advanced fuels a chance

The evidence against ethanol is clear. Now the White House is betting on the next generation of biofuels.

Barack Obama used a campaign tour through the mid-west to announce he would spend up to $510m (£311m) to help build new refineries which could produce fuel from wood chips, grasses, or corn cobs. "Biofuels are an important part of reducing America's dependence on foreign oil," he said.

What's far from clear, however, is whether biofuels production is the most efficient way to do that, or to move the US towards greener forms of industry.

The biofuels industry has been slow to take off in the US – aside from corn ethanol, of course which has enjoyed 30 years of government support. But in a conference call with reporters, officials said the initiative from the departments of agriculture, energy and the navy could break the long losing streak.

Under the plan, the US government will provide matching funds to private companies building new biofuels refineries, or retrofitting existing plants. None of the funds are new, but have been redirected from other programmes, the officials conceded.

But for once, there is a guaranteed customer for biofuels, and that could make all the difference, the navy secretary, Ray Mabus, said. "The navy can also be the market. We have a big need for biofuels."

The US navy has been working on greening its fleet for several years. The navy wants to power half of its operations by nuclear and renewable energy within a decade.

Mabus argued the navy's efforts to test biofuels on jet fighters and river boats had already helped put biofuels prices within range of conventional fuels. "Prices from suppliers have been coming down very dramatically over the last year or so," he said.

It will be interesting to see whether private companies think the time is now ripe to jump into the market. Campaigners have long argued that corn ethanol's dominance has shut out efforts to develop a next generation of biofuels.

The Environmental Protection Agency had to scale back its targets for cellulosic ethanol, or fuel made from woodchips and inedible parts of plants, from 100m US gallons to just 6.5m US gallons a year – and even that modest target will go unmet.

As an article in Scientific American pointed out this month, biofuels still have a long way to go before competing with gasoline.


Despite the best hopes of scientists, CEOs and government policy makers, hundreds of millions of dollars in government money, more than two dozen US start-ups financed by venture capital and decades of concentrated work, no biofuel that can compete on price and performance with gasoline is yet on the horizon

Tuesday's announcement could be the last best chance, said Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity. "One granting programme obviously isn't going to be a game changer in terms of advanced biofuels," he said.

Cutting the $6bn subsidies for corn ethanol would be a far bigger boost. But Livermore added: "It's kind of a reality test to ensure that there is genuine interest and this is not just a government boondoggle. If they don't show interest, it is a real sign that maybe this isn't such a good avenue in the future."

The women bringing solar power to Sierra Leone

An Indian college has trained 12 Sierra Leonean women to become solar engineers as part of a drive to bring electricity to rural communities

A group of 12 women from villages in Sierra Leone is in the frontline of a battle to bring solar-powered electricity to rural communities. No small feat, given that rural Sierra Leone is not connected to power.

The women were all trained at Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, in western India. They are now back in Sierra Leone assembling 1,500 household solar units at a new Barefoot College in Konta Line village, Port Loko district, which is to be formally opened next month. They sit at long wooden tables fitting tiny coloured resisters to circuit boards – heads tilted, deep in concentration, as smoke puffs up from their soldering irons.

The women are all either illiterate or semi-literate – they used to be subsistence farmers, living day-to-day like millions in Sierra Leone. But now they are proud graduates, having travelled 6,000 miles to India to learn – in the women's words – "how to make light from the sun".

"The idea of solar was so surprising that I had to be a part of it," says Mary Dawo from Romakeneh village.

"Snakes, rodents, reptiles and biting insects crept and crawled into our homes with the dark at 7pm. Children couldn't study, and we couldn't relax, socialise or plan our lives after a long day's work," says Fatmata Koroma from Mambioma village.

The Barefoot College in Sierra Leone is the first in Africa. It will enrol up to 50 students on four-month residential courses in solar engineering. The Sierra Leone government has invested about $820,000 in the project. Though the college is funded by the government, the women hope they can run it independently, in what they describe as the "Barefoot way". The solar equipment the college runs on, and the equipment for 10 villages, was provided by the Barefoot College in India, and the initial training was sponsored by the Indian government as part of its south-south co-operation programme.

"In India, the first problem was vegetarian food," says Koroma. "The desert was too hot and everything was different. But, within months we could assemble circuits and construct systems. Anything was possible after that."

The graduates now live in the college hostel, where they will stay until they have trained their replacements "for the service to our villages and our country", says Nancy Kanu. She was in the first female batch of students to train in India, in 2007, the same year that Konta Line village, where she's from, was declared the first solar village. She is now chief solar engineer. "I teach full-time, but I'm on call – even at night – to fix a fuse, change a bulb or charge a phone," she says.

People interact differently now in Konta Line, says Aminata Kargbo. "People socialise more – they're nicer," she says. The advent of solar energy has saved the village about $1,000 in candles and kerosene so far; money that is being kept for the upkeep of solar equipment.

However, the solar units are expensive [$500-$800] and far beyond the reach of most rural households. "There's a 45% import tax … You need electricity to manufacture solar equipment here," says Idriss Kamara of the Safer Future Youth Development Project. The local NGO tackles the country's 60% youth unemployment, training people in vocational skills, including solar. But, Kamara says, few solar trainees find work because hardly any households use it. The government says it is looking to reduce the tax so benefits are passed on to customers and access to solar power increases.

However, while Sierra Leone's government supports the Barefoot College project, people have wider energy needs, says Yvette Stevens of the ministry of energy and water. "We are developing a broader rural energy programme focusing on community, productive and social needs," she says. Renewables such as solar, biofuels and hydro form the basis of this programme, supported by an upcoming World Bank project. "There's a lot of donor money for renewables now, given their impact on climate change," says Stevens. The government envisages local solar systems will provide power for clinics and schools, and for "water pumps, communal television, and computer centres", she explains. Energy is not set out as a separate MDG, but it's vital in meeting them, she says.

Sierra Leone is still catching up after the lost years of the decade-long civil war that wiped out the country's fragile infrastructure. More than 60% of people (about 3.6 million) live rurally. Few can afford generators. Even in urban areas, more than 90% of people go without power.

A recent World Bank report states that electricity is Sierra Leone's most daunting infrastructure challenge. This, despite the new Bumbuna hydropower plant, which has improved the situation in the capital, Freetown, a little during the rainy season, providing nearly half the city's demand. Nevertheless, rural areas lag far behind. Sierra Leone records 46 days of power outages a year, which is four times higher than in other low-income African states.

They may be a small part of a bigger strategy, but Sierra Leone's Barefoot women are thinking about the future. "Once these units are installed, I think we'll need an investor to manufacture solar units here to make them affordable for everyone," Barefoot College graduate Kanu says. "There's nothing we can't learn now to make our lives better. We have the power to change our villages."

Solar-powered homes remain a distant dream for many in the US

Solar power in the US is booming in large scale utility-size projects, but the residential market is 'plodding along'

Dave Levitan for Yale Environment 360, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Monday 15 August 2011 17.04 BST

It seems like the ultimate in green technology for an emissions-savvy citizen of the 21st century: solar panels on your roof, providing carbon dioxide-free electricity whenever the sun is shining. But as huge utility-scale solar and wind projects continue to make news and the economy continues to struggle, the state of the residential solar sector in the United States remains decidedly mixed.

From the first quarter of 2010 to the fourth quarter, installations of U.S. residential solar systems rose from 62 megawatts to 74 megawatts (enough to power about 15,000 homes), and the Solar Energy Industries Association reports that the first quarter of 2011 saw similar gains over the same period in 2010. Considering that the total installed solar capacity in the U.S. — residential, commercial, and industrial-scale of all types included — still hasn't cracked 3,000 megawatts (enough to power roughly 600,000 homes), this feels like progress.

Yet if you look at residential solar's share of the total U.S. solar market, the picture is less bright. In 2009, 36 percent of all installed solar systems were on homes; this dropped to 30 percent in 2010, and some experts think that will continue to fall.

"The way the U.S. solar market is really headed is toward utility projects," said MJ Shiao, a solar markets analyst with Greentech Media Research. He noted that the growth from the first quarter of 2010 to 2011 was about 14 percent in the residential market, compared with an impressive 119 percent for non-residential sectors. Just last week, the U.S. Interior Department approved First Solar's 4,100-acre solar project in the California desert, which is expected to generate enough electricity to power 165,000 homes.

"These other market sectors are really taking off," Shiao said. "That's not to say that residential isn't growing. It's sort of plodding along."

In some European countries — most notably Germany — generous government incentive programs and ambitious renewable energy targets have created a far more robust solar sector, including residential solar. In 2010 alone, Germany installed 7,400 megawatts of photovoltaic systems — more than double the entire existing solar capacity in the U.S. About 700 megawatts came from 100,000 small, residential-sized systems. Shiao said that Germany's and Italy's solar markets have traditionally been driven by residential and small commercial installations.

The primary issue stopping most U.S. homeowners from putting solar panels on their roofs is cost. Solar systems are expensive — on the order of $20,000 to $25,000 or more, depending on the system's size and other factors. And even though these systems can end up paying for themselves in the long run with lower electricity bills, most families cannot find tens of thousands of dollars for the upfront costs. Prices of solar panels are steadily coming down, but are still not low enough to prompt a mass movement to solar, especially at a time of economic stagnation.

Because of this, the main drivers of residential solar installations are state and federal incentives that help defray those costs, yet even these are in jeopardy as governments at all levels slash budgets. Everyone in the country can take advantage of a federal renewable energy tax credit; this reduces the costs of a solar installation by 30 percent, and since 2009 there is no maximum on the total amount. Beyond that, several states dominate the market because their incentives are so strong.

The California Solar Initiative has helped make the country's biggest state also the biggest residential solar market. So far, more than 50,000 installed systems have a total capacity of more than 240 megawatts; another 10,000 applications are waiting to add another 50 megawatts to the total. The initiative allows homeowners an upfront rebate based on how many installed megawatts the state has — the idea being that as the market takes off and as costs of solar drop, people will need less government help to prosper and the rebate will drop in value. At the moment, the initiative is in step 8 out of 10, meaning that a residential system can get back 35 cents per watt; this is down from $2.50 per watt when the program began. A typical installation ranges from two to 10 kilowatts, meaning the rebate can be upward of $2,000.

While California matches its sunny reputation with a relatively strong solar market, other states have emerged as less likely solar powerhouses. New Jersey trails only California in total installed solar power, and as of late July the state surpassed 10,000 total installed solar arrays. The bulk of the market is for commercial-sized projects, like a giant 9 megawatt array on the roof of the Gloucester Marine Terminal, but state policies have also pushed residential solar. However, under Gov. Chris Christie, New Jersey ended its upfront rebate program last year, although it still offers ongoing incentives through the Solar Renewable Energy Certificates program. Christie also abandoned the previous administration's goal of getting 30 percent of the state's power from renewable sources by 2020, reducing that target to 22.5 percent.

Looking a few years out, the federal 30 percent tax credit for commercial solar projects will drop to 10 percent in 2016, and may disappear altogether for residential projects. The unanswered question is whether the solar industry can thrive without such strong federal and state financial incentives.

Some experts, though, don't think the incentives are the only driver of the residential solar market. According to Michael Woodhouse, an analyst with the National Renewal Energy Laboratory, the economics of solar photovoltaics are better than many make them out to be.

"When people say PV will never compete without subsidies, that is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me," Woodhouse said. "That's a really incomplete picture." The key, he said, is to look at the cost of electricity on a regional and state level rather than overall. Woodhouse has conducted analyses of several specific locales. For example, in Santa Barbara, California, he said that right now, when the 30 percent federal tax credit for solar is included, residential solar power costs about 13.8 cents per kilowatt-hour. The average price of electricity across the state, meanwhile – meaning, from all sources – is 15.1 cents per kilowatt-hour. In other words, solar power might already have achieved "grid parity" in Santa Barbara.

In other places, solar power is not close to grid parity. In St. Louis, Missouri, the cost of residential solar power is more than double the 8-cent per kilowatt-hour average of traditional electricity sources.

"The best economics for PV are in places where you have a good solar resource and expensive traditional electricity," Woodhouse said. "There is no simple answer for this: when will PV compete with fossil fuels? It already does, it just depends on where we're talking about."

For one subset of the population, there is a way around at least some of the upfront costs involved with a home installation: install it yourself. In recent years, do-it-yourself solar has begun to go mainstream, with stores like Home Depot now selling solar installation kits. At Lowes, a package of 13 185-watt panels (enough for a small 2.4 kilowatt system) and all the hardware required to install them costs $9,219.

On the other end of the spectrum from the do-it-yourselfer lie people who would like to have solar panels on a roof in theory, but don't want to pay for them, install them, or even have the responsibility of owning them at all. Enter the most promising trend in residential solar power: the third party ownership model.

Adam Shuster of Ashland, Massachusetts took advantage of this model, under which a company installs, maintains, and owns a home's panels and charges a fixed rate for the electricity they generate. In 2008, Shuster looked into putting solar panels on his family home's roof, but decided it simply cost too much. But his ten-year-old son, Kenny, kept pushing him to look a bit harder.

"At one point I said to [Kenny], 'You know, it could look kind of ugly on the house,'" Shuster recalled. Kenny countered: "Would you rather have an ugly planet and a good-looking house, or a good-looking planet and an ugly house?" In September 2009, the ten-year-old got to flip the switch that turned on a 20-panel, five-kilowatt photovoltaic system. His family is now generating about a third of its home's power needs from the sun, saving about $75 per year on total electricity bills, and producing a third less carbon emissions as a result.

Several companies – notably SunRun, Sungevity, and Solar City – now will install a solar system on a homeowner's roof for little or no upfront cost. The homeowner pays a set price to the installing company for the electricity the system generates, and the company also takes care of maintenance and repair.

Susan Wise, a spokesperson for SunRun, said her company grew at 300 percent in 2010 and expects to at least double again in 2011; she says that they now install $1 million of solar panels every day. "We let homeowners switch to solar without having to put thousands of dollars up front," she said. "And they don't have to deal with owning the technology. That's a huge thing for lots of people. They don't want the panels, they just want power."

Though SunRun's installations rarely are big enough to produce all of a home's electricity, Wise said, the price of the solar portion of a home's power tends to be five to ten percent lower than the utility's portion at the start of the contract. Also, the third-party owners offer 18- and 20-year contracts with a locked-in price. Since utility electricity rates historically have risen consistently, a homeowner could save thousands of dollars over the life of a contract.

This corner of the market seems to be the fastest growing. Shiao of GTM Research said that in January of 2010, none of the solar installations in Colorado — which is among the top states for total solar installations — were third-party owned; only a year later, third party ownership accounted for 35 percent of the solar arrays installed. Notably, though, these companies rely on federal and state incentives, as well, and tend to follow the money to certain states. SunRun currently installs systems in nine states; Sungevity is in eight.

Another promising long-term trend for residential solar is that solar panels continue to drop in cost, and fairly drastically. Woodhouse said that in 2008, the price of a manufacturing a solar panel was about $4 per watt. Now, $1.50 per watt or below isn't out of the question.

"The cost reductions in PV are really remarkable," he said. "And there is every reason to believe that they will continue. We're not even close to hitting the bottom of cost reduction potential."

GM corn being developed for fuel instead of food

Campaigners say plants being grown in US may worsen global food crisis, while farmers express cross-contamination fears

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 15 August 2011 21.20 BST

US farmers are growing the first corn plants genetically modified for the specific purpose of putting more ethanol in gas tanks rather than producing more food.

Aid organisations warn the new GM corn could worsen a global food crisis exposed by the famine in Somalia by diverting more corn into energy production.

The food industry also opposes the new GM product because, although not inedible, it is unsuitable for use in the manufacture of food products that commonly use corn. Farmers growing corn for human consumption are also concerned about cross-contamination. The corn, developed by a branch of the Swiss pesticide firm Syngenta, contains an added gene for an enzyme (amylase) that speeds the breakdown of starches into ethanol. Ethanol plants normally have to add the enzyme to corn when making ethanol.

The Enogen-branded corn is being grown for the first time commercially on about 5,000 acres on the edge of America's corn belt in Kansas, following its approval by the US Department of Agriculture last February. In its promotional material Syngenta says it will allow farmers to produce more ethanol from the corn while using less energy and water.

Meanwhile, campaigners say the corn will heap pressure on global food supplies and contribute to environmental degradation. They argue Enogen will lead to an increase in the amount of food crops going to fuel, leaving less for human consumption and leading to food price rises. That will lead to food price rises on the global market. "The temptation to look at food as another form of fuel to use for the energy crisis will exacerbate the food crisis," said Todd Post of Bread for the World, a Christian anti-hunger organisation.

Although individual events such as the Somalia famine are caused by a complex combination of factors, several studies have established that the expansion of biofuels has pushed up food prices worldwide, making it harder to afford for the poorest. A World Bank report released on Tueday says food prices that are now close to their 2008 peak have contributed to the famine in Somalia. Marie Brill, a senior policy analyst at ActionAid warned: "It's going to put even more pressure on a really tight market. It will be really tempting to farmers to take on this new more efficient ethanol form of corn."

The food industry is warning of the dangers of contaminating existing corn crops with the new GM corn. The same traits that make the modified corn so attractive to the ethanol industry – the swift breakdown of starches – would be a disaster for the food industry, turning corn chips into shapeless lumps, and stripping the thickening properties from corn starch.

Even a small amount of the amylase corn – one kernel out of 10,000 – could damage food products, according to data supplied to the North American Millers' Association by Syngenta. The organisation, like most food industry groups, has opposed the corn, noting failures to prevent cross-contamination from earlier GM breeds.

The European Union, South Korea, and South Africa have not approved its import.

Enogen also has to catch on among farmers. "I'm sceptical as a farmer," said Allen Jasper, who runs a cattle-feed operation near Whitten, Iowa. "The first thing I'm going to ask is how does it yield. Any time you try and change a corn plant and get it to do something that is not native to the plant you have to be sceptical of the yield."

Syngenta maintains the corn variety has a high yield, and that it has the appropriate safeguards to prevent cross- pollination. After Kansas, the company plans to expand its growing area to Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, and southwest Minnesota.

Farmers will grow the corn under contract to an ethanol production plant, getting a premium over regular corn. Buffer rows of corn will be planted. "This is a very slow ramp-up. This is not a broad acre crop at this point," said Paul Minehart, a Syngenta spokesman.

Steve McNinch, of Western Plains Energy, in Kansas, the only ethanol plant to have processed the new corn, said adding a small amount of amylase corn to the mix – about 10% – would increase production by 10%.

Offshore wind farms are good for wildlife, say researchers

Dutch study finds birds avoid offshore wind turbines, while marine life finds shelter and new habitats

BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 11 August 2011 10.49 BST

It is the evidence proponents of offshore wind farms have been waiting for: a Dutch study has found that offshore wind turbines have "hardly any negative effects" on wildlife, and may even benefit animals living beneath the waves.

The researchers reached their conclusions after studying a wind farm near Windpark Egmond aan Zee, the first large-scale offshore wind farm built off the Dutch North Sea coast.

Anti-wind farm campaigners have often argued that wind farms can have a negative impact on bird populations, while some critics have voiced concerns that offshore wind farms could prove disruptive to marine life.

However, Professor Han Lindeboom from the Institute for Marine Resources and Ecosystem Studies at Wageningen University and Research centre, said that the new study revealed little evidence of negative effects on local wildlife.

"At most, a few bird species will avoid such a wind farm. It turns out that a wind farm also provides a new natural habitat for organisms living on the sea bed such as mussels, anemones and crabs, thereby contributing to increased biodiversity," he said.

"For fish and marine mammals, it provides an oasis of calm in a relatively busy coastal area."

The research, sponsored by NoordzeeWind, a joint venture of Nuon and Shell Wind Energy, claimed that offshore wind farms actually have a beneficial long-term effect on wildlife.

The wind farm functions as a new type of habitat, the report said, detailing how new species are attracted to the turbine foundations and surrounding rocks.

The researchers also noted that the turbines help to protect schools of cod, and that porpoises are heard more often inside than outside the wind farm.

Meanwhile, the survey concluded that sea bird species such as gannets tend to avoid the turbines, while seagulls appear unflustered and local cormorant numbers even increase.

"The number of birds that collided with the turbines was not determined but was estimated to be quite low on the basis of observations and model calculations," the researchers added in the article, published in online journal Environmental Research Letters.

The study noted that the effects of wind farms will inevitably vary depending on their position, but that offshore wind farms can contribute to a more diverse habitat and even help nature to recover from the effects of intensive fishing, pollution, oil and gas extraction, and shipping.

However, the report did recognise that the rotating blades can have a "disruptive impact" on some bird species, and recommends that wind farms are located in specific areas to minimise the possible impact.

Facility to convert energy from landfill waste may not go ahead

A pioneering UK gasification facility to produce energy for 50,000 homes may not go ahead owing to funding uncertainty

Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 11 August 2011 12.16 BST

A pioneering new facility to generate energy from waste – one of the biggest of its kind in the UK, according to its makers – may not go ahead, owing to uncertainty over government renewable energy subsidies.

Air Products announced on Wednesday it had received planning permission from Stockton-on-Tees borough council for its first advanced gasification facility in the UK that would convert household and commercial waste to gas, producing enough energy for 50,000 homes and diverting 300,000 tonnes of waste a year from landfill.

But the company said that, despite gaining planning permission, it would be unable to finance the plant unless the government resolves questions around future subsidies for renewable energy.

The plant joins a growing list of renewable energy projects that have been thrown into doubt as ministers continue to debate the value and extent of future subsidies for green energy.

Also on Wednesday, the government announced that Drax – which runs the UK's biggest coal-fired power station – had been granted planning permission for two biomass power plants of 299MW capacity each. But despite the planning green light, these too will be abandoned unless the government increases the amount of subsidy available, because otherwise they would not be economically viable, according to the company.

Ministers have not yet set a final date for when they will unveil new plans for renewable energy subsidies, which are paid for through consumers' energy bills.

Air Products' plan is for its first advanced gasification plant for the UK market, at the New Energy and Technology Business Park, near Billingham, Teesside with a generating capacity of 49MW. It would employ 500 to 700 people during construction with 50 permanent jobs thereafter. The company has proposed building five similar plants across the UK, investing about £1bn to build about 250MW of generating capacity.

Ian Williamson, European hydrogen and bioenergy director at Air Products, said: "We're really pleased to have secured Stockton council's approval for our first energy from waste project in the UK. Our facility will be using the latest and most advanced gasification technology to generate renewable power and at the same time, contribute towards Stockton council's environment, energy and economic investment objectives."

But the company said that in order to go ahead with the investment, it would need greater clarity on the plans for support for renewables. At present, each unit of energy from such a facility would receive two "renewable obligation certificates" ROCs, the currency of government energy subsidies. ROCs can be sold at around the unit price for electricity, or greater, and different forms of renewable energy attract higher and lower levels of ROCs, depending on how expensive they are to generate.

These concerns raised by Air Products are similar to those of Drax, which said last week it could not justify the investment required for two new biomass plants unless the amount of subsidy to biomass was raised from its current level of 0.5 ROCs per unit. Dorothy Thompson, chief executive, said the level must be raised to make burning biomass economic, and contrasted the technology with offshore wind, which is much more expensive and qualifies for 2 ROCs per unit. Thompson said biomass would require much less subsidy than offshore wind, and could provide baseload power and back up for intermittently generating wind farms.

Chris Huhne, secretary of state for energy and climate change, told the Guardian last week the decision would be finely balanced. "The key issue is setting the level of support – enough to deliver what is needed, but not too much or that becomes an unnecessary price for the end user to pay," he said.

Greg Barker, minister for energy and climate change, welcomed the proposals for the waste plant: "Energy from waste leads to considerable reductions in waste going into landfill, and makes an important contribution to the UK's low-carbon energy supply. This new technology will be an exciting addition to the energy from waste sector and I look forward to seeing the announcement of more of these projects."

Social housing tenants offered access to green heating fund

£3m fund for wood-fired boilers, solar-powered hot water systems and heat pumps expected to save money and cut emissions
Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 15 August 2011 11.46 BST

Social housing tenants will be able to gain access to green forms of heating, such as wood-fired boilers, solar-powered hot water systems and heat pumps, under plans unveiled by the government on Monday.


The heating should help to save households money and cut carbon dioxide emissions, and will be paid for from a £3m fund for social housing ringfenced as part of the £860m renewable heat incentive.


Greg Barker, minister of state for energy and climate change, said: "Improving and greening Britain's homes must make strong financial sense if we are to provide a real sustainable alternative to expensive old heating systems. If people choose to go green, they want to see real savings - this will drive the take up of new heating technologies in social housing and help slash their dependence on big energy companies and expensive tariffs."


The scheme is intended to cut fuel poverty – where households spend 10% or more of their household budget on heating – and to spur the development of renewable heating technologies.


Households across Britain have been badly hit by recent rises in energy bills, of 18% or more in some cases. The "big six" energy companies have blamed rising wholesale energy costs, driven by international factors including threats to supply in the Middle East and increasing demand from emerging economies.


The government has responded by calling for increased investment in renewable energy, including forms of heating and electricity generation, as well as a new fleet of gas-fired power stations ministers say is needed in order to fill the gap left by older power stations being taken out of service.


Companies supplying renewable heating technologies will be asked to apply to the government-funded Energy Saving Trust,bidding for a share of the £3m pot. The money will be allocated in early October.


About half of the UK's carbon dioxide emissions come from heating buildings, but little has been done to date to cut these emissions. The renewable heat incentive is expected to save 4.4m tonnes of carbon a year – equivalent to the output of two gas-fired power stations.


Households will also be encouraged to take up insulation, to be offered at no upfront cost from late next year under the "green deal", in the form of loans that are paid back in instalments through additions to household energy bills.


However, green thinktanks have calculated that under the current rules, the "green deal" is unlikely to work, as the interest charged on the loans will be too high to deliver sufficient savings to attract people.

Donald Trump in a huff over plans for windfarm near his Scottish golf resort

US tycoon says he is 'very disappointed' at prospect of 11 turbines off Aberdeen Bay being given planning permission

Press Association
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 10 August 2011 19.00 BST

US tycoon Donald Trump has criticised a move to build an offshore windfarm near his golf resort in Scotland after a planning application for 11 turbines was submitted last Friday.

The European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre is a £150m joint venture by utility company Vattenfall, engineering firm Technip and Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group.

In a statement, Trump said: "I am very disappointed that Scotland may allow the development of a wind-power plant directly off Aberdeen's beautiful coastline.

"When I first became involved with our billion-pound development – golf course construction is weeks away from completion with a planned opening before 1 July 2012 – I was repeatedly promised, as an incentive for us to go forward and proceed with this project, that wind turbines would not be destroying and distorting the magnificent coastline.

"Unfortunately, despite these prior assurances that the wind project would not proceed, I am now learning that this issue has again raised its ugly head.


"Scotland is one of the most beautiful countries on earth, with its greatest asset being its magnificent coastline, a coastline known for its great beauty throughout the entire world."


The windfarm planning application seeks permission for work to start on its construction and operation.

The site of Trump's golf course is the Menie estate near Aberdeen on the North Sea coast, parts of which are designated as sites of special scientific interest.

David Rodger, spokesman for the windfarm project, said: "We have been in regular contact with the Trump organisation and acknowledge the concern raised.

"We have made a strong case for the environmental and economic benefits of the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre as a centre of global research and development for offshore wind [energy] and as such it is of strategic importance to Aberdeen and Scotland's renewable energy ambitions.

"The project is now subject to a formal consultation and decision-making process."

German nuclear shutdown forces E.ON to cut 11,000 staff

Effects of Japanese disaster continue as £1.7bn closure cost pushes German power firm into first quarterly loss for 10 years

Tom Bawden
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 10 August 2011 18.01 BST

The financial effects of the Fukushima nuclear power crisis continued on Wednesday as Germany's E.ON announced that plans by its government to shut the country's reactors in response to the Japanese disaster would result in up to 11,000 job losses.

As fears mounted that the nuclear shutdown would significantly increase Germany's industrial operating costs – weakening its competitiveness in an already fragile global economy – E.ON announced a swing into the red, a dividend cut, the redundancies and profits warnings for the next three years.

Germany's biggest utility, which on Friday announced an average 15% price rise for its five million domestic UK gas and electricity customers, took a €1.9bn (£1.7bn) charge relating to plant closures and a new tax on spent nuclear fuel rods, pushing the group to its first quarterly loss in 10 years – a second-quarter deficit of €1.49bn.

E.ON was reporting a day after German rival RWE reported its own swing into deficit, reporting that €900m of decommissioning and tax costs dragged it to a €229m loss. This week's utility results are adding to concerns about the cost of closing all 17 of Germany's nuclear reactors by 2022 and making up the shortfall by doubling renewable energy output.

The German government finalised a package of bills in July that will phase out nuclear power plants which generated 23% of the country's total energy use last year, while increasing renewable output from 17% of power consumption to 35%. The move overturned Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision in September last year to extend the life of existing nuclear plants into the 2030s. It will turn Germany from a net exporter of energy to a net importer, making its economy less independent.

Opponents have warned that decommissioning nuclear plants and investing in renewable technologies will cost billions of euros, prompting an increase in Germany's already high energy prices. Furthermore, renewable energy generation can be intermittent, making it less reliable than fossil fuels and prompting fears of blackouts damaging to industry.

Christian Schulz, senior European economist at Berenberg Bank, said estimates suggested the nuclear shutdown would increase Germany's energy bill by a fifth, which will hit the country especially hard since its economy relies heavily on its energy-intensive manufacturing industry to propel growth. Manufacturing accounts for a quarter of the German economy, compared with 15% of Britain's.

"This is very significant for the German economy, particularly in energy intensive industries such as steel production, chemicals and carmaking. As a proportion of its overall economy, you could say that this move is 50% more important than it would be in Britain, because of Germany's reliance on manufacturing," Schulz said.

Bayer, the German pharmaceuticals and chemicals firm, warned at the weekend that the country's electricity costs, already the highest in the EU, were making the country unattractive for the chemicals industry. "It is important that we remain competitive. Otherwise a global company like Bayer will have to consider relocating its production to countries with lower energy costs," said Marijn Dekkers, its chief executive.

His comments came shortly after Robert Hoffmann, head of communications company 1&1, complained that taxes to subsidise renewable energy sources were too high in Germany. Hoffman said he was looking at locations where "green electricity exists without the extra costs".

German households pay twice as much for power than in France, where 80% of energy is generated by nuclear plants. Klaus Abberger, senior economist at the Ifo institute for economic research at the University of Munich, said energy prices had already gone up since plans to end nuclear power generation and would stay at high for at least the next five years.

E.ON in effect issued three profits warnings as the company reduced its net profit forecast for this year by 30% to about €3.35bn and said it expected "results in 2012-2014 to be on a much lower level than 2010" as a result of the overhaul of the power generation industry.

The company cut its full-year dividend target by 23% to €1 a share and announced plans to cut as much as % of its global workforce, mostly in administration.

Suspension of Europe's largest carbon capture gas plant 'unlikely to affect UK'

Netherlands court suspends work on largest gas storage project in Europe in attempt to prevent 'irreversible consequences'

BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 9 August 2011 12.08 BST

The suspension of the largest gas storage project in Europe is unlikely to have any bearing on the expansion of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology in the UK, according to industry experts.

The highest court in the Netherlands yesterday ruled that the government-approved Bergermeer project near Alkmaar should be temporarily halted to avoid "irreversible consequences".

The ruling provides a major boost to campaigners against the controversial gas sequestration project who have warned that plans to inject gas into a depleted gas field could lead to earth tremors.

Dr Jeff Chapman, the chief executive of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, told BusinessGreen that storing gas and CO2 were very different and he does not expect similar protests to derail the UK's plans to store CO2 emitted by power stations underground.

"This is the first protest I've heard of - it's surprising, because underground storage of gas is not all that uncommon," Chapman said, citing a huge gas storage site near Berlin and methane and hydrogen reservoirs in the UK.

"The current thinking in the UK is to do all carbon storage offshore, so there are not likely to be any local protests," he added. "There may be concerns over the marine environment, but that's not quite the same as onshore fears over human health and safety."

Up to 4.1 million cubic metres of gas could be stored in the Bergermeer gas storage site. But the gas will be stored in much smaller reservoirs than CO2, which would also be held permanently, unlike natural gas which is pumped out when needed.

The UK is looking to become a world leader in storing CO2 in geological formations and expired oil and gas reservoirs in the North Sea.

The industry, it is predicted, will be worth £10bn by 2025 and the government is expected to announce in the autumn that ScottishPower's Longannet power station in Fife will receive £1bn of public funds to build the country's first CCS demonstration project, set to be operational by 2014.

Three other projects will be given a second tranche of funding in 2012 with a view to having large-scale demonstration projects up and running between 2018 and 2020.

Facing a summer of algae

Our lakes and lochs may be choked by a surge of algae but it could also prove beneficial.

By Clive Aslet

7:30AM BST 06 Aug 2011

How children grow up. Not so long ago, my eldest son William would have associated slime with Fungus the Bogeyman. Now, having just sat his GCSEs, he says “eutrophication”. This is the process by which water becomes choked by algae, and it has been happening a lot recently.


A blue-green scum has overmantled the Norfolk Broads. Oxygen is being pumped into the Serpentine, in an effort to keep the lake in London’s Hyde Park fit for swimmers. In Scotland, Stirling Council has put up hazard notices around Loch Coulter. Some kinds of algae can be pretty nasty.


Fish are obviously the most vulnerable to it, but wild mammals and dogs have also been known to die. Blue-green algae can cause humans to suffer skin rashes, fever, dizziness, diarrhoea and vomiting. According to research from Plymouth University, even common algae appear to reduce fertility in fish – on account of the oestrogen they release – and could have the same effect on people.


At the beginning of our history, we emerged from the primordial slime, and now it looks as though it is coming back to get us.


It’s not only Britain that is affected. From Lake Eire in North America to Disko Bay in Greenland, they are fighting the green peril. Nor is it just an issue for fresh water.

Remember the Beijing Olympics? The organisers nearly had to call off the sailing events because of the world’s biggest algae bloom, off the coast of Qingdao, which was visible from space. A seaweed farm that had enriched the waters and led to the growth of algae was to blame.

So be afraid. We are now in the prime season for algae, and have probably seen nothing yet. Last year, the Environmental Agency received 225 reports of algal blooms killing fish on English and Welsh rivers, lakes and reservoirs. So far this year, the tally has been 83. It’s early days. The summer months are the worst.

Algae love sunny weather; they reproduce like crazy when it is accompanied by pollution. The latter can take many forms. Around Llanberis, Environmental Agency Wales is asking local people to reduce their use of washing machines and dishwashers: the phosphates that they discharge send the algae wild.

“We know that around 25 per cent of nutrients in sewage effluent come from modern detergents, which we use in washing machines and dishwashers,” says Meic Davies of Environment Agency Wales.

Farmers are doing better than they were. There are now stringent regulations to control the use of fertilisers in some areas, to stop nitrates entering drinking water; spreaders are only allowed out in wet seasons, when the fertiliser will be absorbed by the land.

These restrictions have coincided with a spike in the cost of fertiliser, which has in any case discouraged overuse. One of the many woes of dairy farmers is the demand that they should build expensive slurry tanks to store waste and reduce pollution.

But despite these measures, agriculture isn’t off the hook. Sudden torrential downpours, of the kind we seem to be experiencing more often these days, wash valuable soil off fields and into water courses: algae thrive on the nutrients that were intended to benefit the crops.

But in a world of hunger and rising food prices, it is difficult to balance the demand for increased productivity with the need to reduce fertiliser use – without, that is, licensing GM crops.

And so, instead of cruising through gin-clear waters, holidaymakers, who have booked into the Norfolk Broads, are forced to contemplate a repellent, scummy scene. It must seem as though a green mutant has invaded from outer space. To the people suffering this horror, it may be little comfort to reflect that the circumstances that cause algal blooms, and other infestations, tend to be localised.

Last year, the beach that I like outside Ramsgate in Kent was ankle deep in rotting seaweed; the council employed a man to scoop it up in a digger and dump it out to sea (from which it would wash back again, if the tides were right.) This year, the problem has either gone away or moved elsewhere. Algae, too, move in mysterious ways. Last August, fish were dying in two lakes in south-east London; those same lakes are now fine.

Lakes, particularly when the streams feeding them are sluggish, do have a tendency to mantel over – ask the numerous country-house owners who struggle to keep the sheet of water in their parks as Capability Brown intended.

But in general, Britain’s waterways are in far better condition than they have been since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The other day, I took a boat trip from Westminster to Kew: throughout its length, the Thames is now haunted by cormorants and herons, which would not be there if it weren’t full of fish.

Besides, while few of us would feel instinctively drawn to slime, it may be time to view it in a more friendly light. One of the most basic building blocks of life, sometimes single-celled, could possibly come to the rescue of the most sophisticated species on earth.

Scientists are hoping that algae, which absorb carbon dioxide, might be useful in trapping the gas from the atmosphere and burying it on the seabed, where it cannot contribute to global warming. Several years ago, there was an expedition to pour iron into the Southern Ocean, a vast area that encircles Antarctica, to stimulate a giant bloom of phytoplankton. The theory was that by stimulating the growth of more phytoplankton, more CO₂ might be sent to the bottom of the ocean.

But the experiment, conducted by India’s National Institute of Oceanography and the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, proved disappointing when it was found that blooms of the wrong sort of algae had been induced (the algae were eaten by other tiny organisms, not dispatching the carbon dioxide to the bottom of the ocean, as intended). Scientists are still on the case.

Meanwhile, Richard Branson believes that algae could provide a climate-friendly fuel for aircraft, and even the American Navy – hardly the most obviously green of consumers – began trials of an algae-based biofuel earlier this summer. Solazyme, the company which supplied the fuel, has used algae to make a kind of “flour”. Yum, slime sponge.

Algae are also being made to produce the stuff that partly causes the bloom problem in the first place: fertiliser. Alas, algal fertilisers won’t reduce the amount of algal bloom that ends up disfiguring our watercourses, but, given the large volume of fossil fuel used in making conventional fertiliser, it will help the environment in other ways.

So cheer up. Algae are a part of nature and thrive on the very thing that holidaymakers most like. If we’d had a wet summer, the scum problem would have solved itself – only not many holidaymakers would have been out and about to see it.

Clive Aslet is Editor at Large of Country Life.