The UK government have finally announced the details of their commitment to renewable energy. Whether or not these targets are attainable is another matter. However, from our point of view, any focus at all on this issue is to be welcomed. If this can be the start of the green energy revolution then hopefully in the future we will power our homes with cheap electricity and gas from clean sources.
For the unititated TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a conference which brings together some of the world’s greatest minds and challenges them to deliver the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (no pressure then!). The best of these are available online. Obviously the theme most relevant to us at Greener Power is ‘A Greener Future’. There are a total of 28 talks here on green issues and climate change, including big hitters such as Al Gore and Norman Foster. Our favourites include Juan Enriquez on ‘growing energy’, Edward Burtynsky’s photography and Marjora Carter’s heartfelt speech on greening her neighbourhood in the South Bronx-inspiring stuff. It would be great if the movers and shakers in the UK Energy industry could be influenced by these. There is also a great blog on TED, which is regularly updated with the latest happenings in Science and Technology. We haven’t had the time to go through the entire site yet, are there any others we should be watching?
Post in Response to : http://greenerpower.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/going-green-makes-good-business-sense/
Hi-Yep it is good to see that big business is recognising that by going green it does not necessarily follow that profits will suffer. They are finally beginning to realise that they could capitalise on the rise of ‘Green Consciousness’ amongst the UK population, and if thats the case then it should bode well for the environment.
Indeed, it is encouraging to see Scottish Hydro Electric implementing what they call their ‘better plan‘, which sounds like an excellent scheme to induce households accross the UK into increasing their day to day energy efficiency (100% hydro-electricity offered).
However, there is still a long road ahead as according to Statistics Estonia, although electricity generation from Renewables is increasing steadily (+7.5% from 2005-2006), the overall percentage of UK electricity generated in 2006 was only 4.6% - this is comapred to Germany (10.5%), France (11.3%), Sweden (54.3%), Austria (57.4%) and Norway (108.4%!).
More information on UK energy available here.
So, hopefully now the green energy momentum is staring to build in both the business sector and in the case of individual households we can look forward to closing the gap on the rest of Europe.
As i turned on my gas hob last night I had a quick thought - is this a green way to cook? Coal and gas powered electricity churns out tonne after tonne of CO2 and other environmentally unfriendly toxins into the air. If I stop using my gas hobs and moved to electricity - I already get 100% of my electricity from renewable sources would this be better for the environment.
Over at the University of Bristol they have a table suggesting that the use of gas hobs and electric hobs is the same in the UK - with each using around 3.364 Twh (where a Terrawatt hour is equivalent to 1,000,000,000 KwH). Instantly I was thinking if we all ditch the gas - which damages the environment more than green electricity does - the country would save the CO2 on the 3.364 TwH of Gas.
After a quick look in Google - and avoiding the wikipedia like the plague. The world nuclear assosciation, it was the best source I could find, stated that CO2 emmissions from gas is about 356 grams per kWh. So thats 3.364 TwH of CO2 = 3,364,000,000 kWh X 0.356 kilograms of CO2 = 1,197,584,000 kilograms (1.2 million tonnnes) of CO2 less being emitted by the UK.
There would of course be the CO2 emitted from the greener electricity plants, I’m not naive enough to think that Green Electricity is CO2 free, but I think that should be a healthy whack off the CO2 emissions in the UK - that gotta help us meet our CO2 targets from the EU.
I’m going to run off on a bit of a tangent from our normal theme and am looking to get some help about writing a blog post to do with the Environmental Impact of Bottled Water. On Monday it would appear that there will be a broadcast going out on BBC1s Panorama program about this subject.
From our core topic I’m really hoping to get pointed to some articles/blogs etc that contain information on the whole bottling process and how much energy could be saved by bottled water companies re-using their bottles.
If you have any info about the bottling, production, environmental impact or relating energy consumption used in the production of bottled spring and mineral water I would be really grateful to get some info.
Cheers in advance.
leonardo-energy.org energy blog have been kind enough to give us a break down of the winners and losers of the new EU climate project the full article can be found at http://www.leonardo-energy.org/drupal/node/2625#comment-538
The article goes into who has protested and who plain just ignoring the calls for their country to shift to renewable power!
Waitrose supermarket in Rickmansworth are using tomatoes to generate power for their store.
I will just direct you to the article itself but I thought this was amazing!
It will help reduce the amount of hydro and wind power stations if it can be managed on a large scale!
Governments across the world have been urging businesses to lead the way in the green revolution, so far the larger companies particularly ASDA, Tesco, Sainsbury etc., have been slightly more proactive in this step than smaller business this is because it is perceived that ‘going green’ means costing money. Experts are starting to show this is not true and that is can actually be cost effective to go green.
Dr Martin Gibson, director of Envirowise states that companies “who take action for the first time can identify savings of up to £250 per employee in office-based companies - or as much as £1,000 per employee for manufacturers.”(BBC, 2007). This makes renewable energy and green electricity an affordable and cost effective way to run a business.
There are a few energy companies that offer green electricity scottishpower.co.uk being one; however Scottish Southern Electric offering a fix rate tariff on green electricity. In the current market conditions this is another great example of how a business can cost effectively stay green, by using green electricity.
Today BBC1 news announced that the Scottish Executive2 plan to block the Isle of
Lewis wind farm proposal.
The Scottish Executive bowed to mounting pressure from the local people of Lewis and will block the planning application for the wind turbines. Residents of Lewis complained that the turbines would affect tourism and damage the wild life of Lewis, Lewis is home to Scotland’s largest population of birds.
What does this mean for the future of green energy in Scotland? It will become more difficult for energy companies to set up renewable energy sources in Scotland, future coastal wind farms can be blocked on the grounds of that it is an eyesore. Wind farms are not the best looking thing to have dotted across your coast however it is a trade off with cleaner full. I am sure most, when looking at the bigger picture, would agree that it is fair sacrifice to lose untainted coast lines in order to help preserve the environment as a whole; it is that or lose the coastlines altogether.
The European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso revealed his plan of action to reduce the EU’s selling the plan as “the first economy for the low-carbon age”. Barroso wants the whole of the EU to reduce its green house gas by 20% by 2020.
What does this mean for Britain, well first things first we would need to decide on what methods we would use to help bring down the countries green house gas. Being an island the UK’s first choice of renewable energies would be wind. Business Secretary John Hutton announced that UK government wanted to see enough offshore wind farms to power the all UK homes. Obviously this will lead to a slight decline in the quality of our seaside views but think of the good it will do for the environment as a whole. There are already some companies offering wind powered electricity.
Another option the UK has a tidal barrage1, a tidal barrage on the Severn estuary would contribute more that any of the other renewable sources. However this comes with a price, 15 billion pounds! Due to its massive price and the time it takes to set up, I fear that no matter how energy efficient a tidal barrage is, it will always be the last option. However, hydro electricity is being used by some energy providers in the UK.
You will find a brief run down of what biofuel are at wiki2. Basically it is a fuel made from living things or the waste that they produce. This sort of fuel was used in World War II but the cheap price of crude oil caused it to be knocked back to second place. The UK would make it’s biofuel from plants specifically grown for this purpose, e.g. maze. Although biofuels still release CO2, this is counter balanced by the plants absorbing CO2; though you still need to burn fuel to harvest and manufacture the biofuel. Even with the expenditure of fuel to harvest and manufacture biofuel, biofuel is believed to reduce green house gases by 30% – 40%. A downside to biofuel is that it may lead to entire areas of Britain’s countryside being turning into farms for biofuel crops. There are some companies just now who are offering biofuel as an alternative energy3 but not many at the moment.
Well, I am not sure if you notice from reading this article but no matter what we do to try reduce our greenhouse gases one way or the other we will need to trade off our British landscape for our green goals. In addition to that we will need to pay financially, Barroso believes that it will cost everyone approximately £2.10 per week4 to reach the goals set by the EU, it will be up to the public to decide if that is a fair price for a richer environment.
