AFP
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
Charging electric cars at night eases a smog problem caused by fossil-fuel plants which provide the power for these vehicles, researchers reported on Tuesday.
Plug-in cars are viewed as a key tool in the fight for a cleaner planet as they do not emit tailpipe pollution when they run on electricity.
But they contribute indirectly to pollution, as well as global warming, if their electricity comes from a power station that runs on coal, oil or gas.
In a study published in a British journal, scientists in the United States simulated the local impact from "plug-in hybrid electric vehicles," or PHEVs, which are cars that can switch from battery power to petrol.
Their computer model was based on predictions for 2018 of emissions of nitrogen oxides, the basic ingredient for ground-level ozone, in four major cities in Texas: Dallas/Forth Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio.
Power generation for this grid in 2009 was provided by gas (46 percent), coal (35 percent), nuclear (13 percent) and wind (4.5 percent).
The study compared likely pollution levels when 20 percent of mileage in the region was carried out either by PHEVs or by vehicles that were only petrol-powered.
Regardless of the scenario, ozone pollution improved when PHVs were used, because they did not emit nitrogen oxides.
As for when PHEVs should be recharged, the paper found it was smarter to plug in the vehicle at night.
Extra demand from fossil-fuel power stations at night did cause levels of nitrogen oxides to rise compared to the typically shorter recharging periods in daytime.
But much of the gas emitted at night time had dissipated by daybreak. This eased the smog problem by a small but detectable margin.
Ozone, a triple molecule of oxygen, is protective when it is in the stratosphere, because it filters ultraviolet rays that can cause skin cancer and DNA mutations in plants.
But at ground level, where it forms from a reaction between sunlight and nitrogen oxides from fossil fuels, ozone irritates the body's airways, becoming a hazard for people with cardiac or respiratory problems.
The finding will guide policies on how to encourage cleaner cars, say the authors.
"This further supports efforts to develop regulation to encourage night-time charging - an example would be variable electricity pricing," said Tammy Thompson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
"As more of the fleet switches over to PHEVs and larger demand is placed on the electricity grid, it will become more important that we design and implement policy that will encourage charging behaviours that are positive both for air quality and grid reliability."
The paper appears in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
UK's first local power station rattles the bucket for investment
Project in Sussex will be generating electricity later this year if it can tempt local investors into hitting target of £300,000
Ben Bryant guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 April 2011 15.00 BST The UK's first renewable "community power station" will on Tuesday begin raising money to install solar panels housed on the roof of a local brewery. If its backers can raise enough money to get it off the ground, the project will begin generating electricity for the local area later in the year.
The planned 500 sq m installation in Lewes, near Brighton, will also use part of the revenue generated by the government's feed-in tariff scheme to fund community projects. But its future is in doubt because of a pending government review of the scheme.
The seven directors – all local residents – have managed to raise more than £150,000 of their £300,000 target and hope to acquire the remainder from local investors at the launch of a share issue on Tuesday.
Dirk Campbell, 65, a founding director of the Ouse Valley Energy Security Company (Ovesco), hopes the scheme will inspire others. He said: "We're doing this in order to create a model which will be exportable and replicable by people anywhere. The main focus of this is community ownership."
Ovesco will be run by its directors as a non-profit society for community benefit. Investors will receive a 4% rate of return on their outlay, profiting from the government's feed-in tariff scheme that pays for the generation of renewable electricity. Under these terms, the directors of the 98 kilowatt (kW) installation hope to repay investors over 20 years.
Harveys brewery hopes to host a solar panel on its roof. Photograph: Greenhouse PR The energy generated will be used by Harveys, the local brewery, which has leased its roof in exchange for free electricity, which will be used primarily to cool its beer, Sunshine Ale. Any surplus will be sold back to the grid, and the additional revenue will be used to fund community projects.
Without payment from the government's feed-in tariff scheme, which is currently under review, the project will not be financially sustainable. From 1 August, subsidies for schemes larger than 50kW will be slashed, meaning that Ovesco must install the panels within the next few months or face an unfeasibly low rate of return.
Campbell said: "We're completely dependent on the feed-in tariffs scheme to make it work, so in that sense it's not sustainable. The government might renege on their commitment."
Howard Johns, the managing director of Southern Solar, came up with the idea for Ovesco. He said: "We've finally got to a position where we've cracked a model that we think could work, and unfortunately the government have been meddling in the background."
He added: "The government have effectively trashed the feed-in tariff system."
Liz Mandeville, 65, another director of Ovesco, is investing more than £20,000 into the scheme with her partner because she believes "that climate change is the greatest single threat to human beings on the planet". She said: "We're both retired, we own this house, our children are all independent. We like Lewes. We don't like shopping, and we've got plenty of furniture – what better way for us to spend our money?"
Caroline Lucas, Green party leader and MP for Brighton Pavilion, said: "The government's reckless plan to review solar feed-in tariffs has created uncertainty in one of the few industries to have generated thousands of new green jobs. Proposals to slash financial support to solar projects over 50kW have further laid bare the shocking lack of ambition on solar energy.
"The feed-in tariff scheme is crucial to helping projects like the Lewes community-owned power station get off the ground – but thanks to the uncertainty brought about by the review, it will be difficult for renewables companies or investors to trust the government again."
Ben Bryant guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 April 2011 15.00 BST The UK's first renewable "community power station" will on Tuesday begin raising money to install solar panels housed on the roof of a local brewery. If its backers can raise enough money to get it off the ground, the project will begin generating electricity for the local area later in the year.
The planned 500 sq m installation in Lewes, near Brighton, will also use part of the revenue generated by the government's feed-in tariff scheme to fund community projects. But its future is in doubt because of a pending government review of the scheme.
The seven directors – all local residents – have managed to raise more than £150,000 of their £300,000 target and hope to acquire the remainder from local investors at the launch of a share issue on Tuesday.
Dirk Campbell, 65, a founding director of the Ouse Valley Energy Security Company (Ovesco), hopes the scheme will inspire others. He said: "We're doing this in order to create a model which will be exportable and replicable by people anywhere. The main focus of this is community ownership."
Ovesco will be run by its directors as a non-profit society for community benefit. Investors will receive a 4% rate of return on their outlay, profiting from the government's feed-in tariff scheme that pays for the generation of renewable electricity. Under these terms, the directors of the 98 kilowatt (kW) installation hope to repay investors over 20 years.
Harveys brewery hopes to host a solar panel on its roof. Photograph: Greenhouse PR The energy generated will be used by Harveys, the local brewery, which has leased its roof in exchange for free electricity, which will be used primarily to cool its beer, Sunshine Ale. Any surplus will be sold back to the grid, and the additional revenue will be used to fund community projects.
Without payment from the government's feed-in tariff scheme, which is currently under review, the project will not be financially sustainable. From 1 August, subsidies for schemes larger than 50kW will be slashed, meaning that Ovesco must install the panels within the next few months or face an unfeasibly low rate of return.
Campbell said: "We're completely dependent on the feed-in tariffs scheme to make it work, so in that sense it's not sustainable. The government might renege on their commitment."
Howard Johns, the managing director of Southern Solar, came up with the idea for Ovesco. He said: "We've finally got to a position where we've cracked a model that we think could work, and unfortunately the government have been meddling in the background."
He added: "The government have effectively trashed the feed-in tariff system."
Liz Mandeville, 65, another director of Ovesco, is investing more than £20,000 into the scheme with her partner because she believes "that climate change is the greatest single threat to human beings on the planet". She said: "We're both retired, we own this house, our children are all independent. We like Lewes. We don't like shopping, and we've got plenty of furniture – what better way for us to spend our money?"
Caroline Lucas, Green party leader and MP for Brighton Pavilion, said: "The government's reckless plan to review solar feed-in tariffs has created uncertainty in one of the few industries to have generated thousands of new green jobs. Proposals to slash financial support to solar projects over 50kW have further laid bare the shocking lack of ambition on solar energy.
"The feed-in tariff scheme is crucial to helping projects like the Lewes community-owned power station get off the ground – but thanks to the uncertainty brought about by the review, it will be difficult for renewables companies or investors to trust the government again."
Renewed energy for renewable energy
A new wave of activists is gearing up to combat the millions the US Chamber of Commerce invests in boosting fossil fuels
Amy Goodman guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 20 April 2011 02.23 BST
More than 10,000 people converged in Washington, DC, this past week to discuss, organise, mobilise and protest around the issue of climate change. While tax day Tea Party gatherings of a few hundred scattered around the country made the news, this massive gathering, Power Shift 2011, was largely ignored by the media. They met the week before Earth Day, around the first anniversary of the BP oil rig explosion and the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, while the Fukushima nuclear plant still spews radioactivity into the environment. Against such a calamitous backdrop, this renewed movement's power and passion ensure that it won't be ignored for long.
Rallying those attending to the work ahead, environmentalist, author and founder of 350.org Bill McKibben said:
"This city is as polluted as Beijing. But instead of coal smoke, it's polluted by money. Money warps our political life, it obscures our vision […] We know now what we need to do, and the first thing we need to do is build a movement. We will never have as much money as the oil companies, so we need a different currency to work in, we need bodies, we need creativity, we need spirit."
The organisers of Power Shift describe it as an intensive boot camp, training a new generation of activists to go back to their communities and build the movement that McKibben called for. Three areas are targeted by the organisers: Catalysing the Clean Energy Economy, Campus Climate Challenge 2.0 and Beyond Dirty Energy. The campaigns cross major sectors of US society. The move for a clean energy economy has been embraced by the AFL-CIO, seeing the potential for employment in construction of wind turbines, installation of solar panels and, one of the potentially greenest and oft-ignored sectors, retrofitting of existing buildings with energy efficiencies like better insulation and weatherproofing.
On Monday 18 April, tax day in the US, thousands held a "Make Big Polluters Pay" rally, targeting the fossil fuel and non-renewable energy industries. The demonstrators gathered in Lafayette Park, a traditional protest square wedged between the White House and the US Chamber of Commerce. As Bill McKibben said, the Chamber "spends more money lobbying than the next five lobbies combined …"
"It spent more money on politics last year than the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee combined, and 94% of that went to climate deniers."
The protests also targeted BP's offices, just after the BP shareholders' meeting was held last week in London. There, security officers blocked the entrance of a delegation of four fishermen and women from the Louisiana and Texas Gulf Coast areas heavily damaged by last year's oil spill. Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation fisherwoman, was arrested for disturbing the peace. She said:
"That was pretty outrageous. They had disrupted our lives down there. But just appearing at the door of a BP general assembly, and we're disrupting the peace."
Many of those gathered at Power Shift 2011 were not yet born when the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear disasters happened. These young people, seeking sustainable, renewable futures, are now learning about what President Barack Obama calls the "nuclear renaissance". The Fukushima nuclear crisis has escalated in severity to the top rating of seven, on par with Chernobyl. Best estimates are that the radiation leaks will persist for months, with ongoing impacts on health and the environment impossible to forecast.
Will Obama proceed to deliver $80bn in loan guarantees to build more nuclear power plants in the United States? He claims he's against tax cuts for the rich, but what about public subsidies for oil, gas, coal and nuclear, among the richest industries on earth?
We recently built new studios from which to broadcast the Democracy Now! news hour on public television and radio around the United States. Ours is the greenest TV/radio/internet broadcast facility in the nation, receiving the top rating, LEED Platinum (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), from the US Green Building Council. The medium is the message. We all need to do our part in pursuit of sustainability.
• Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
© 2011 Amy Goodman; distributed by King Features Syndicate
Amy Goodman guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 20 April 2011 02.23 BST
More than 10,000 people converged in Washington, DC, this past week to discuss, organise, mobilise and protest around the issue of climate change. While tax day Tea Party gatherings of a few hundred scattered around the country made the news, this massive gathering, Power Shift 2011, was largely ignored by the media. They met the week before Earth Day, around the first anniversary of the BP oil rig explosion and the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, while the Fukushima nuclear plant still spews radioactivity into the environment. Against such a calamitous backdrop, this renewed movement's power and passion ensure that it won't be ignored for long.
Rallying those attending to the work ahead, environmentalist, author and founder of 350.org Bill McKibben said:
"This city is as polluted as Beijing. But instead of coal smoke, it's polluted by money. Money warps our political life, it obscures our vision […] We know now what we need to do, and the first thing we need to do is build a movement. We will never have as much money as the oil companies, so we need a different currency to work in, we need bodies, we need creativity, we need spirit."
The organisers of Power Shift describe it as an intensive boot camp, training a new generation of activists to go back to their communities and build the movement that McKibben called for. Three areas are targeted by the organisers: Catalysing the Clean Energy Economy, Campus Climate Challenge 2.0 and Beyond Dirty Energy. The campaigns cross major sectors of US society. The move for a clean energy economy has been embraced by the AFL-CIO, seeing the potential for employment in construction of wind turbines, installation of solar panels and, one of the potentially greenest and oft-ignored sectors, retrofitting of existing buildings with energy efficiencies like better insulation and weatherproofing.
On Monday 18 April, tax day in the US, thousands held a "Make Big Polluters Pay" rally, targeting the fossil fuel and non-renewable energy industries. The demonstrators gathered in Lafayette Park, a traditional protest square wedged between the White House and the US Chamber of Commerce. As Bill McKibben said, the Chamber "spends more money lobbying than the next five lobbies combined …"
"It spent more money on politics last year than the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee combined, and 94% of that went to climate deniers."
The protests also targeted BP's offices, just after the BP shareholders' meeting was held last week in London. There, security officers blocked the entrance of a delegation of four fishermen and women from the Louisiana and Texas Gulf Coast areas heavily damaged by last year's oil spill. Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation fisherwoman, was arrested for disturbing the peace. She said:
"That was pretty outrageous. They had disrupted our lives down there. But just appearing at the door of a BP general assembly, and we're disrupting the peace."
Many of those gathered at Power Shift 2011 were not yet born when the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear disasters happened. These young people, seeking sustainable, renewable futures, are now learning about what President Barack Obama calls the "nuclear renaissance". The Fukushima nuclear crisis has escalated in severity to the top rating of seven, on par with Chernobyl. Best estimates are that the radiation leaks will persist for months, with ongoing impacts on health and the environment impossible to forecast.
Will Obama proceed to deliver $80bn in loan guarantees to build more nuclear power plants in the United States? He claims he's against tax cuts for the rich, but what about public subsidies for oil, gas, coal and nuclear, among the richest industries on earth?
We recently built new studios from which to broadcast the Democracy Now! news hour on public television and radio around the United States. Ours is the greenest TV/radio/internet broadcast facility in the nation, receiving the top rating, LEED Platinum (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), from the US Green Building Council. The medium is the message. We all need to do our part in pursuit of sustainability.
• Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
© 2011 Amy Goodman; distributed by King Features Syndicate
Solar companies take legal action over UK feed-in tariff cuts
High court to re-examine decision by Chris Huhne to fast-track review that scrapped subsidies for large-scale solar installations
Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 April 2011 17.36 BST
A group of companies filed on Tuesday for a judicial review against Chris Huhne, secretary of state for energy and climate change, for his decision to review the feed-in tariffs (Fits) that top up revenues for renewable power.
Ministers said in February they would end subsidies to large-scale solar power installations from this summer to ensure all money available would go to domestic or small commercial installations.
But solar companies are furious that dozens of planned installations will now be scuppered, including schemes for solar panels on farms, schools and other public buildings, which they said would have boosted the UK's renewable power capabilities. Larger scale deployments are more cost-effective than putting panels on individual roofs, say solar campaigners.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) said: "We have been served with a judicial review in relation to the feed-in tariff review into large-scale solar, which we will consider. We support sustained growth in the solar industry and have proposed measures for consultation that will protect the Fits scheme for homes, small businesses and communities." We are consulting on proposals and would encourage those with an interest to respond. It added that solar photovoltaic schemes under 50 kilowatts are unaffected by the fast-track review.
The case is based on the argument that Decc had made it clear that the first review of Fits would not take place until 2012, with changes not implemented until April 2013. Then last November, it said a review could take place earlier, but that any changes would not come into force until next year. Setting such expectations and then betraying them was unreasonable, the solar companies argue. They say Decc failed to give sufficient reason for beginning a review earlier than expected.
There is no evidence of "excessive" deployment of large-scale solar power, according to the complainants.
Mark Shorrock, chief executive of Low Carbon Solar UK, one of the group taking the case to court, said: "Further to communicating our concerns through various meetings and letters [to ministers], we now feel that the only course of action left to us as a group is to seek a judicial review. We hope Chris Huhne will abandon this fast-track review of Fits and work with us to find a more appropriate solution."
He said the government's plans would hobble solar development in the UK. "In pulling back on a commitment to support solar energy, the government will cause the abandonment of hundreds of community scale schemes. The costs of not getting this right now include the creation of new jobs, a diversified income for farmers and landowners, reduced energy costs for businesses and the provision of more secure and reliable energy for the UK."
The group of solar companies includes Low Carbon Solar, MO3 Power, Alectron Investments and Element Power. Several individuals are also involved in their own right.
Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 April 2011 17.36 BST
A group of companies filed on Tuesday for a judicial review against Chris Huhne, secretary of state for energy and climate change, for his decision to review the feed-in tariffs (Fits) that top up revenues for renewable power.
Ministers said in February they would end subsidies to large-scale solar power installations from this summer to ensure all money available would go to domestic or small commercial installations.
But solar companies are furious that dozens of planned installations will now be scuppered, including schemes for solar panels on farms, schools and other public buildings, which they said would have boosted the UK's renewable power capabilities. Larger scale deployments are more cost-effective than putting panels on individual roofs, say solar campaigners.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) said: "We have been served with a judicial review in relation to the feed-in tariff review into large-scale solar, which we will consider. We support sustained growth in the solar industry and have proposed measures for consultation that will protect the Fits scheme for homes, small businesses and communities." We are consulting on proposals and would encourage those with an interest to respond. It added that solar photovoltaic schemes under 50 kilowatts are unaffected by the fast-track review.
The case is based on the argument that Decc had made it clear that the first review of Fits would not take place until 2012, with changes not implemented until April 2013. Then last November, it said a review could take place earlier, but that any changes would not come into force until next year. Setting such expectations and then betraying them was unreasonable, the solar companies argue. They say Decc failed to give sufficient reason for beginning a review earlier than expected.
There is no evidence of "excessive" deployment of large-scale solar power, according to the complainants.
Mark Shorrock, chief executive of Low Carbon Solar UK, one of the group taking the case to court, said: "Further to communicating our concerns through various meetings and letters [to ministers], we now feel that the only course of action left to us as a group is to seek a judicial review. We hope Chris Huhne will abandon this fast-track review of Fits and work with us to find a more appropriate solution."
He said the government's plans would hobble solar development in the UK. "In pulling back on a commitment to support solar energy, the government will cause the abandonment of hundreds of community scale schemes. The costs of not getting this right now include the creation of new jobs, a diversified income for farmers and landowners, reduced energy costs for businesses and the provision of more secure and reliable energy for the UK."
The group of solar companies includes Low Carbon Solar, MO3 Power, Alectron Investments and Element Power. Several individuals are also involved in their own right.