Landowners who hope to make money by creating electricity from water power are running into conflict with anglers and conservationists.
Anglers and countryside campaigners claim that hydropower turbines would be eyesores and have a devastating impact on migrating fish such as trout and salmon
By Paul Stokes 7:00AM GMT 28 Feb 2011
About 26,000 inland waterways across England and Wales could be harnessed for generating electricity, including mills and weirs not used since the industrial revolution and sites on country estates.
Among the gentry leading the charge towards hydropower, which provides 1.4 per cent of Britain’s electricity, are the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland. Others include the Earl and Countess of Arran and Lord Clifford of Chudleigh.
They face opposition from the country’s 3.5 million anglers and countryside campaigners, who claim that hydropower turbines would be eyesores and have a devastating impact on migrating fish such as trout and salmon.
The schemes are subsidised by the Government’s feed-in tariff for renewable energy, which allows excess electricity from micro-generators to be fed to the National Grid. Critics say the cost of supporting such projects will be passed on to householders through energy bills.
The Duke is applying for permission to build two micro-hydro schemes, one at his family home of Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, which featured as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films, and the other at the nearby village of Denwick.
It is believed they could generate more than £1 million from annual subsidies over the next 20 years by feeding into the National Grid. A year ago the Duke started an £80,000 restoration of his estate’s hydroelectric system, which was installed in 1889 and last operated in 1948. It uses a weir and turbine in the River Aln.
This month the Angling Trust met the Environment Agency and British Waterways to complain about the way hydropower was being promoted and permitted. The Environment Agency agreed to review its guidelines.
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Cuts threaten green energy growth, says Ernst & Young
BusinessGreen: Government cuts are hitting the UK's place as an attractive market for renewable energy, warns E&Y report
BusinessGreen guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 February 2011 10.20 GMT
Ernst & Young will on Monday release the latest analysis of global renewable energy markets with a warning that government spending cuts are threatening to undermine the industry's continued expansion.
The latest update of the consultancy giant's Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices confirms that overall investment in clean energy hit record levels during 2010, rising 30 per cent year-on-year to $243bn, according to figures from analyst firm Bloomberg Energy Finance.
However, the report, which rates countries based on their renewable energy policies, technologies and infrastructure, found significant country-to-country variations in the level of support available to renewable energy projects.
For example, China again cemented its position as the most attractive market for renewable energy investment with total wind energy capacity soaring 64 per cent year-on-year to 42GW, while the US market continued to expand after the Obama administration extended its high-profile Treasury Grant Program and announced plans for new clean energy targets.
However, the outlook was mixed for many other countries as governments sought to tackle budget deficits by trimming renewable energy incentives. For example, feed-in tariff incentives were cut in Spain, Germany and Italy, while France imposed a three-month ban on new projects, and the Netherlands and Australia also scaled back incentives.
The UK remained fifth in the Ernst & Young rankings as the promise of improved support for clean energy contained in the government's Electricity Market Reforms was offset by the uncertainty created by the controversial decision to order an early review of feed-in tariff incentives for some solar projects.
"While the UK government can be commended for starting to create an energy market that reduces risk to investors, there is some uncertainty as to whether the new proposals will encourage competition and create a level playing field for investors," said Ben Warren, energy and environmental infrastructure advisory leader at Ernst & Young. "There is also concern over whether the proposed arrangements may end up too complex for investors to navigate."
He added that the willingness of some governments to scale back renewable energy incentives could impact long-term efforts to curb carbon emissions.
"Where energy policy is less directly linked to job growth in the clean energy sector, we are finding governments and policy-setters increasingly focused on delivering a low-carbon economy in the most affordable manner, possibly at the cost of longer-term economic value," he said. "Time will tell whether white-flag-waving, in terms of CO2 reduction ambitions and the pursuit of investment, will prove costly in some of the more mature renewable energy markets."
The report comes just a week after a landmark report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) concluded that the development of a green economy would lead to better GDP growth than business-as-usual and would require investment totalling just two per cent of GDP.
BusinessGreen guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 February 2011 10.20 GMT
Ernst & Young will on Monday release the latest analysis of global renewable energy markets with a warning that government spending cuts are threatening to undermine the industry's continued expansion.
The latest update of the consultancy giant's Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices confirms that overall investment in clean energy hit record levels during 2010, rising 30 per cent year-on-year to $243bn, according to figures from analyst firm Bloomberg Energy Finance.
However, the report, which rates countries based on their renewable energy policies, technologies and infrastructure, found significant country-to-country variations in the level of support available to renewable energy projects.
For example, China again cemented its position as the most attractive market for renewable energy investment with total wind energy capacity soaring 64 per cent year-on-year to 42GW, while the US market continued to expand after the Obama administration extended its high-profile Treasury Grant Program and announced plans for new clean energy targets.
However, the outlook was mixed for many other countries as governments sought to tackle budget deficits by trimming renewable energy incentives. For example, feed-in tariff incentives were cut in Spain, Germany and Italy, while France imposed a three-month ban on new projects, and the Netherlands and Australia also scaled back incentives.
The UK remained fifth in the Ernst & Young rankings as the promise of improved support for clean energy contained in the government's Electricity Market Reforms was offset by the uncertainty created by the controversial decision to order an early review of feed-in tariff incentives for some solar projects.
"While the UK government can be commended for starting to create an energy market that reduces risk to investors, there is some uncertainty as to whether the new proposals will encourage competition and create a level playing field for investors," said Ben Warren, energy and environmental infrastructure advisory leader at Ernst & Young. "There is also concern over whether the proposed arrangements may end up too complex for investors to navigate."
He added that the willingness of some governments to scale back renewable energy incentives could impact long-term efforts to curb carbon emissions.
"Where energy policy is less directly linked to job growth in the clean energy sector, we are finding governments and policy-setters increasingly focused on delivering a low-carbon economy in the most affordable manner, possibly at the cost of longer-term economic value," he said. "Time will tell whether white-flag-waving, in terms of CO2 reduction ambitions and the pursuit of investment, will prove costly in some of the more mature renewable energy markets."
The report comes just a week after a landmark report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) concluded that the development of a green economy would lead to better GDP growth than business-as-usual and would require investment totalling just two per cent of GDP.
Biofuel boom could follow oil price spike
When biofuels match oil on price, production could boom in the developing countries that also have the greatest need to boost food supply
The production of biofuels, good thing or not, will be decided by the setting of targets in the big western energy markets, right? Wrong, said bio-energy expert Jeremy Woods, at Imperial College, when I spoke to him yesterday.
He thinks biofuel production could pass a tipping point and start to rocket as rising oil prices make the plant-derived fuel cheaper in many developing countries around the world.
"Once oil is over $70 a barrel, conventional and new generation biofuels become cost competitive, certainly with tar sands and shale, and with oil from much of the Middle East and Brazil's new offshore fields," he says. "When oil and biofuels are competitive, we are into a different world."
Even more striking is his suggestion that this biofuel boom is most likely to happen in those developing countries that have fast growing populations and food needs. That's because those countries, including many African nations, are particularly vulnerable to high oil costs, for both transport and farming.
But Woods is not an opponent of biofuels. "Bioenergy done well is absolutely needed," he told me, at a Royal Society event titled Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. He believes projects that work with smallholders and ensure benefits are kept within the country can produce biofuels responsibly. "Delivering investment in this way may be the only way to raise yields," he adds.
However, there are risks too, he says, and these are greater if demand drives the production of large volumes in a short period of time. In that scenario, foreign companies or governments would secure vast tracts of land and export all the fuel and profits. That will exacerbate existing problems in the host country, he says, and could lead to people being driven off the land. "The harder you pull the lever [of biofuel production], the more likely you are to get competition between fuel and food.
Also yesterday, an unexpected benefit of some biofuel production was revealed in a scientific paper - they can cool the local area by as much a 2C.
The modelling study, by Matei Georgescu at Arizona State University and colleagues, indicated that replacing conventional crops such as wheat and maize with perennial grasses used for biofuel production cut temperatures.
Georgescu says he is not advocating a widespread switch, but that this cooling phenomenon should be taken into account when making decisions about biofuels. "It dawned on me that some mechanisms were not being accounted for in this topic which has implications for millions of people," he told me.
The cooling happens for two reasons. First, the grasses - switchgrass or miscanthus - cover the ground for more of the year, preventing the sun heating the ground. Second, and more important, the plants transpire more, i.e. they evaporate more water into the atmosphere.
All this is unlikely to persuade some that biofuels can be green. Keith Taylor, the Green Party MEP for South East England said on Monday: "Although biofuels come from plants they are not a 'green' solution. Growing, transporting and burning biofuels has devastating effects on people and the environment both in the UK and around the world."
Keith added: "Relying on biofuels to solve our energy crisis simply dumps the problem on developing countries. What we need is more efficient use of energy and committed investment in clean renewables like wind, solar and tidal power."
We'll be following the biofuel story closely in the future, so feel free to let me know what you think we should be looking at in the comments below.
The production of biofuels, good thing or not, will be decided by the setting of targets in the big western energy markets, right? Wrong, said bio-energy expert Jeremy Woods, at Imperial College, when I spoke to him yesterday.
He thinks biofuel production could pass a tipping point and start to rocket as rising oil prices make the plant-derived fuel cheaper in many developing countries around the world.
"Once oil is over $70 a barrel, conventional and new generation biofuels become cost competitive, certainly with tar sands and shale, and with oil from much of the Middle East and Brazil's new offshore fields," he says. "When oil and biofuels are competitive, we are into a different world."
Even more striking is his suggestion that this biofuel boom is most likely to happen in those developing countries that have fast growing populations and food needs. That's because those countries, including many African nations, are particularly vulnerable to high oil costs, for both transport and farming.
But Woods is not an opponent of biofuels. "Bioenergy done well is absolutely needed," he told me, at a Royal Society event titled Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. He believes projects that work with smallholders and ensure benefits are kept within the country can produce biofuels responsibly. "Delivering investment in this way may be the only way to raise yields," he adds.
However, there are risks too, he says, and these are greater if demand drives the production of large volumes in a short period of time. In that scenario, foreign companies or governments would secure vast tracts of land and export all the fuel and profits. That will exacerbate existing problems in the host country, he says, and could lead to people being driven off the land. "The harder you pull the lever [of biofuel production], the more likely you are to get competition between fuel and food.
Also yesterday, an unexpected benefit of some biofuel production was revealed in a scientific paper - they can cool the local area by as much a 2C.
The modelling study, by Matei Georgescu at Arizona State University and colleagues, indicated that replacing conventional crops such as wheat and maize with perennial grasses used for biofuel production cut temperatures.
Georgescu says he is not advocating a widespread switch, but that this cooling phenomenon should be taken into account when making decisions about biofuels. "It dawned on me that some mechanisms were not being accounted for in this topic which has implications for millions of people," he told me.
The cooling happens for two reasons. First, the grasses - switchgrass or miscanthus - cover the ground for more of the year, preventing the sun heating the ground. Second, and more important, the plants transpire more, i.e. they evaporate more water into the atmosphere.
All this is unlikely to persuade some that biofuels can be green. Keith Taylor, the Green Party MEP for South East England said on Monday: "Although biofuels come from plants they are not a 'green' solution. Growing, transporting and burning biofuels has devastating effects on people and the environment both in the UK and around the world."
Keith added: "Relying on biofuels to solve our energy crisis simply dumps the problem on developing countries. What we need is more efficient use of energy and committed investment in clean renewables like wind, solar and tidal power."
We'll be following the biofuel story closely in the future, so feel free to let me know what you think we should be looking at in the comments below.