Woking Albion Square Canopy

The Albion Square Canopy has been a controversial project since it was first approved in 2004. It was conceived as a gateway to the town and as a solar power project generating an estimated 51,000 to 58,000 kWh a year. The project was overspent by £1,165,000. In 2008 it generated 45,123 kWh. The local Friends of the Earth came out against the project while the Local Agenda 21 group supported it. A report in Woking news and Mail estimated that “the figure equates to powering a 100-watt light bulb for 59 days” – clearly a huge underestimate. My maths calculates it as 18,801 days or 51 and a half years for 24 hours a day. Opinion in the town is divided as to its worth.

Green Energy Cuts

Green companies are in retreat, with a wave of staff layoffs and production cuts that could have dire consequences for government efforts to fight climate change by quickly bringing low-carbon power projects on stream. So begins an article in the Observer. While the USA has committed to spending heavily in this sector to combat the recession the reality in the UK seems very different. E.ON, one of the developers of the London Array offshore project has admitted that the economics are on a “knife edge”.

Happy new year … from London

Happy new year to all around the globe. May it be a more peaceful and happy year for you and your family.

Drax goes Green?

The Drax group which owns Drax power station has announced it is to build three biomass power stations at a cost of £2 billion. The company expects “attractive returns” and expects them to generate 900 megawatts of power compared to 4,000 megawatts from its coal power station.
Drax Chief executive Dorothy Thompson said “We believe our venture into dedicated bio-mass-fired generation underpins our commitment to reducing the carbon footprint of electricity generation from the continued, but necessary, reliance on fossil fuels, whilst delivering secure and reliable supplies of electricity.”
Greenpeace chief scientist Dr Doug Parr said: “Biomass plants can help us in the fight against climate change, but only if they make the most of the waste heat they produce and use fuel from carefully chosen sources. Otherwise they’re cutting down trees, shipping them across the world and then throwing away the energy they get from them. Drax already owns the single most polluting power station in the UK, and if they fail to get the technology right on these power plants they could be making their carbon footprint bigger, not smaller.”
It is not going to be easy to meet the UK’s target of producing 20% of energy from renewables by 2020 and it would be ironic if we did it by increasing our carbon footprint. Nevertheless should we welcome Drax’s latest venture? I would think with a cautious yes.

Environmental Transformation Fund; getting UK funding for environment projects.

The Environmental Transformation Fund (ETF) is a new initiative to bring forward the development of new low carbon energy and energy efficiency technologies in the UK. The fund will formally begin operation in April 2008, and will be jointly administered by Defra and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR).
Domestic funds

Funds within the domestic element of the Fund will total £400 million during the period 2008/09 to 2010/11.
International funds

Budget 2007 announced a joint Defra/DFID £800 million international element of the fund over the same period, to focus on poverty reduction and environmental protection, and help developing countries to tackle climate change. This brings the total value of the ETF to £1.2 billion over the three year period. The first £50 million has been earmarked to help tackle deforestation in the Congo basin.

What does it aim to do?

The domestic element of the Fund aims to accelerate the commercialisation of low carbon energy and energy efficiency technologies in the UK. In doing so, it will help reduce the carbon intensity of energy production as well as reduce energy demand. The fund will therefore contribute towards the UK’s climate change and renewable energy goals for 2020 and beyond.

The fund will specifically focus on the demonstration and deployment phases of bringing low carbon technologies to market. It will work closely with other organisations funding earlier stage research and development including the Energy Technologies Institute, Technology Strategy Board, and the Research Councils’ Energy Programme.

What will be covered by the domestic ETF?

The domestic ETF brings together Defra’s and BERR’s existing low carbon technology funding programmes together with a number of new investments to begin in 2008/09, as follows:

* Hydrogen Fuel Cell and Carbon Abatement Demonstration Programme
* Marine Renewables Deployment Fund
* Low Carbon Buildings Programmes
* Bio-energy Capital Grants and Bio-energy Infrastructure Schemes
* Offshore Wind Capital Grants programme
* Carbon Trust’s innovation programme, including research accelerators, technology accelerators, and incubators
* Carbon Trust funding for new low carbon technology enterprises, including Partnership for Renewables
* Carbon Trust investments in low carbon technology businesses
* Carbon Trust energy efficiency loans scheme for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs)
* Salix Finance public sector invest-to-save loan schemes

New schemes announced.

On 21 February 2008 Hilary Benn announced the first set of new schemes to be funded from Defra’s element of the domestic ETF (see Defra news release):

* £47.4m for the Carbon Trust’s technology programmes in 2008/09, including more funding for their SME loan scheme and the similar scheme in the public sector operated by Salix Finance Ltd
* £10m in 2008/09 for new rounds of the Bio-energy Capital Grants and Bio-energy Infrastructure Schemes
* Around £10m over three years for projects that demonstrate the potential of anaerobic digestion technologies at commercial scale

On 13 March we announced the investment of a further £30m over the next three years in public sector energy efficiency projects in England through Salix Finance Ltd. Salix is grant funded by the Carbon Trust as part of their wider approach to helping public bodies such as local authorities, universities, hospitals and central government departments reduce their carbon emissions. See Defra news release.

On 2 April Hilary Benn announced his intention to launch a Green Neighbourhoods competition, aiming to help up to 100 streets and local areas across England reduce their carbon footprint by 60%, with a focus on demonstrating what can be achieved with older housing stock. See Defra news release and further details.

How do I apply for funding?

The Environmental Transformation Fund itself will not be open for funding requests. Instead, schemes funded by the ETF, such as those operated by the Carbon Trust and BERR, will be publicised via their websites and in the usual ways when funding becomes available.

Links.

# The Carbon Trust website: www.carbontrust.co.uk
# Salix Finance website: www.salixfinance.co.uk
# Bioenergy Capital Grants Scheme (Defra website)
# Offshore Wind Capital Grants (BERR website)

“Apes and Gorillas are People Too”

Photograph: Guardian

I was curiously surprised when I read here that the Spanish government is to give human rights to great apes.  Of course it’s good news for the marvellous hairy beasts in that they will be given protection from experimentation and exploitation.  That protection should already be in place by way of their animal rights but if giving them human rights on acount of their kinship with their human cousins assures that protection by law then I won’t argue.  And anyway, it’s not such a crazy idea if you read this article.  It’s an old article and some of it may be irrelevant now but it does explain how making apes people by law can actually help protect the rainforests and also the livelihoods of the indigenous people.

But who can fail to miss the contrary message by the Spanish government?  They talk about animal rights and want to protect the gorilla while continuing to allow their barbaric bullfighting customs. 

Animal rights.  Human rights.  What does it matter?  All species have rights . . . just different needs.  Shame the world can’t protect all species from human abuse.

ExxonMobil – Debate on its future

ExxonMobil has a market value of around $500 billion. It has plans to spend $25 billion in exploration and research of carbon-based fuels while spending $100 million in funding Stanford University’s centre researching technical solutions to global warming. A shareholder revolt headed by descendants of John D. Rockefeller pressed for a change of policy at this year’s AGM attracting 39.5% of the vote but the support from the mutual fund companies carried the day for the CEO Rex Tillerson. So Exxon’s policies remain unchanged for another year.

The Dam Builders versus the Warriors

Picture: AP

Amazon Indians have been squaring up to the mighty corporations and the state in a bid to prevent the construction of a series of hydroelectric dams that are planned for the Xingu River. 

The officials are claiming that the construction plans are part of their sustainable energy drive but in reality it’s difficult to see how concreting, flooding and connecting immense power lines through thousands of miles of forests – forests that everybody in the world must now know are absolutely vital natural resources - can be considered as part of an environmentally-friendly initiative.

The dams will swallow up large areas of the rainforest, they will destroy rare fish species and will ultimately impact the lives and livelihoods of thousands of indigenous people living in the area who depend on the fish, the animals and the clean water of the rivers: 

‘We are indigenous people of the Xingu and we don’t want this dam on the river. We want the fish and the fauna and flora, we want the river to be clean, we want water that feeds us and quenches our thirst. We’re not holding back the country’s progress. We’re defending our rights to life, to our land, and to our way of life.’  Ikpeng people. 

It’s not the first time they’ve fought against such plans.  Rock-singer Sting attracted international condemnation to similar plans back in 1989:

“In 1989, our parents defeated a similar proposal with the help of the international media. Now it is back. But we are ready to fight again. This time we speak their language, and we are more determined than ever,”  Chief Bocaire.

Of course the officials are using emotional language to support their capitalist venture by claiming that it will provide jobs and boost the economy but there are wider implications and the dam-builders and the government ministers are failing to see the bigger picture.  Around 15,000 people will be displaced by these plans and in true warrior spirit, the people have issued a stark warning . . .

“We ask you to tell (president) Lula that we will not accept dams on the Xingu. If they try to build dams, there will be war.”

For more information visit the Xingu River website.

 

 

The US has ‘no energy strategy’.

image: play the game of Bonkers; the game your politicians will undoubtably win.

Article

Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: Americans borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through their gas tanks. What a way to build the country.

When the summer is over, they will have increased their debt to China, increased its transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased their contribution to global warming for their kids to inherit.

The author of the article in the International Herald Tribune, Thomas L. Friedman says;

But here’s what’s scary: America’s problem is so much worse than you think. We have no energy strategy. If you are going to use tax policy to shape energy strategy then you would want to raise taxes on the things you want to discourage – gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars – and you would want to lower taxes on the things you want to encourage – new, renewable energy technologies. We are doing just the opposite.

Are you sitting down?

Few people know it, but for almost a year now, Congress has been bickering over whether and how to renew the investment tax credit to stimulate investment in solar energy and the production tax credit to encourage investment in wind energy. The bickering has been so poisonous that when Congress passed the 2007 energy bill last December, it failed to extend any stimulus for wind and solar energy production. Oil and gas kept all their credits, but those for wind and solar have been left to expire this December. I am not making this up.

The Democrats wanted the wind and solar credits to be paid for by taking away tax credits from the oil industry. President George W. Bush said he would veto that. Neither side would back down, and Bush – showing not one iota of leadership – refused to get all the adults together in a room and work out a compromise. Stalemate. Meanwhile, Germany has a 20-year solar incentive program; Japan 12 years. The US, at best, run two years.

“It’s a disaster,” says Michael Polsky, founder of Invenergy, one of the biggest wind-power developers in America. “Wind is a very capital-intensive industry, and financial institutions are not ready to take ‘congressional risk.’ They say if you don’t get the [production tax credit] we will not lend you the money to buy more turbines and build projects.”

Rhone Resch, the president of the Solar Energy Industries Association says, the impact in just 2009 would be more than 100,000 jobs either lost or not created in these industries, and $20-billion worth of investments that won’t be made.

While all the presidential candidates were railing about lost manufacturing jobs in Ohio, no one noticed that America’s premier solar company, First Solar, from Toledo, Ohio, was opening its newest factory in the former East Germany – 540 high-paying engineering jobs – because Germany has created a booming solar market and America has not.

Continue reading.

Organic squash recipe and Earth Day!

My work allows me to meet and mingle with people of diversity. Most especially, I really enjoy and appreciate to mingle and discover how rural women live through day to day hardships and activities. So, traveling uncomfortably long hours on winding, bumpy, and rough roads are worth it after meeting all these people.  Their colourful stories brighten up my day.

On Earth Day last April 22, I had a fantastic lunch that reflects women’s splendor, the organic squash with fresh tuna flakes.

I met a group of women cultivating their backyard’s vegetable garden under the afternoon sun. I feel how terrible the sun’s heat is at 37 degrees centigrade! My hankichef seems to drown in my own sweat! But there they are, a few metres away from me keeping me caring for their vegetable garden. I can see how vibrant and positive they are in life. Their smiles and echoes of their laughter adds to their positive vibe. After a month of my visit, the variety of vegetables is ready for harvest – from radish, tomatoes, squash, etc.

And this earth day, I am having a fantastic lunch with organic squash with fresh tuna flakes. I remember the moment they told me, “Almost everybody is shifting from rice farming to growing of African palm oil and jatropha because we are tied down to debts to traders. Supports are given to farmers shifting/renting their lands to palm oil through free seedlings and fertilizers whilst rice and corn farming get nothing. But instead of following the temptation to palm oil, we decided to focus on organic vegetable gardening. And it paid off, I have paid all our debts and now, I am saving for my child’s education. We don’t want to destroy the bounty and fertility of our land. We want our environment better so that we also have a healthy living.”

The organic squash is like a precious gem that transforms people’s lives not only physically but also behaviourally.

“Let’s save Mother Earth.” I recall a simple mother who helps his husband by making organic fertilizers and pest controls. It is not only saving a family’s situation from being very vulnerable in a time of food shortages, but also saving our Mother Earth in their own little ways. If they only they knew, it is such a BIG and significant act for wider global concerns.