Rain Gardens

Rain gardens, shallow depressions containing bark mulch and shrubs, can remove up to 99% of toxins from rainwater run off. With built-up urban areas generating nine times more runoff water than woodlands of a similar size anything that can act as a buffer has to be welcomed.

Technorati tag: Water Runoff, Rain Garden

Car firms 'blocking green fuel'

Car makers are not doing enough to develop green alternatives to petrol, an influential government adviser says.

Japanese companies had a better record than European or American ones, Professor Stephen Blythe said.

But the industry had still not grasped the urgency of the problem - despite promoting its green credentials.

Technorati tag: Transport

30 centimetres closer to the beach

Sea levels could rise by 30 centimetres by the end of the century if current trends prevail. An Australian study found that sea levels rose by 19.5cm between 1870 and 2004, with accelerated rates in the final 50 years of that period. Extrapolation gives the worrying century's end figure.

Technorati tag: Sea levels

Here comes the bio-power

Work is due to begin on a £90million biomass power station near Lockerbie in Scotland. The scheme converts waste timber products into energy and should supply enough power to meet the needs of around 70,000 homes.

Technorati tag: biomass power, Scotland

Tap your heels together and repeat "There's no such thing as global warming."

2005 was the warmest year on record, according to NASA.

Technorati tag: Global Warming

GCSE Level heat pumps

The Guardian on the wonder of heat pumps.

With fossil fuels becoming alarmingly expensive, this environmentally friendly and low-cost alternative to gas central heating is finally coming into its own in the UK. It is incrediblyeffective, capable of achieving 400% efficiency - giving out more energy (typically 3 to 4 kilowatts) than the householder puts in to run it (typically 1KW). By comparison, an average gas boiler works at 90% efficiency at best.

Technorati tag: Heat Pump

Titanium nanotubes to increase solar energy efficiency

Researchesr at Penn State university are using highly ordered arrays of titanium nanotubes to increase the efficiency of photolysis- the breaking down of water to hydrogen and oxygen by sunlight.

"Basically we are talking about taking sunlight and putting water on top of this material, and the sunlight turns the water into hydrogen and oxygen. With the highly-ordered titanium nanotube arrays, under UV illumination you have a photoconversion efficiency of 13.1%. Which means, in a nutshell, you get a lot of hydrogen out of the system per photon you put in. If we could successfully shift its bandgap into the visible spectrum we would have a commercially practical means of generating hydrogen by solar energy. It beats fighting wars over middle-eastern oil."

via Warren Ellis

Technorati tag: Photolysis, Solar Power, Hydrogen

Recycling Mobiles

Hippyshopper has a short post on one way to recycle mobile phones. I've got at least two hanging around that I haven't wanted to get rid of because they'd just end up in landfill. I think they'll be going in a bag marked FREEPOST GREEN GAMBIA instead.

Technorati tag: Recycle, Mobile phone

20% Tidal

The Carbon Trust thinks that up to a fifth of the UK's power could be generated by tidal and wave power.

Technorati tag: Tidal Power

Where do clouds come from?

Scientists are beginning a three week experiment to better understand the formation process of tropical clouds. Better understandings of the factors involved will help build better models for predicting climate change.

Technorati tag: tropical clouds

First get rid of the old waste

241,000 cubic metres of intermediate-level and 1,340 of high-level nuclear waste need disposal according to Nirex. The government adviser has published its latest inventory of current radioactive waste totals in the UK, and its forecast of waste totals to be created from the operation and decommissioning of existing nuclear facilities.

And if Tony Blair gets his way and restarts the UK's nuclear industry there'll be ever more of this stuff. I'm not as panicky as some about this, but we're supposed to be cutting down on the pollutants we bequeath our children not increasing the volume of it.

John Dalton, Nirex corporate communications manager, said: "We have been generating this stuff for 50 years or so - surely we have responsibility to deal with the waste we have got now.

"We don't want to just be passing it on to future generations."

Technorati tag: Nuclear Power, Radioactive waste

micro generation in New Scientist

Two truncated pieces in the New Scientist (you need premium membership to see the full versions) show the way that energy policy should be going. The rooftop power revolution and Editorial: A generator in every home. Somebody find the recent UK government report that estimates that such microgeneration could supply 25 per cent of the country's electricity by 2050 and make sure the Energy Secretary reads it.

Technorati tag: micro generation

Nuclear power no use

A recent poll found that 54% of people would support nucler power if it could stop global warming. The crucial word there is if. There are a lot of things that people would do if there were a guaranteed pay off. More importantly, and the part that Blair will ignore, 78% felt that renewable sources were more important in the fight against climate change, and 76% thought reducing energy through lifestyle changes and energy efficiency was better.

Far better, [Dr Kevin Anderson, from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester] believed, was a policy which sought significant emission reductions through greater efficiency.

"Why are we still selling fridges with a B, C, D, and E ratings? An A-rated fridge is a standard and you set it. You make sure all new buildings are well built with very high energy efficiency.

"You inform industry that standards will be incrementally increased so that they have market signals. You tell car manufacturers, for example, that to sell a car on a UK forecourt by 2010, it must meet a minimum fuel economy."

Which is pretty much what the Liberal Democrats say, making them still the most sensible political party no matter what they did to Charles Kennedy.

[Environment spokesman Norman Baker] said: "A new generation of nuclear power stations should not be part of the future UK energy mix.

"Nuclear power is hopelessly uneconomic and the commissioning of a new generation would effectively result in a nuclear tax on every household to pay for them.

"A new generation of nuclear power stations would generate vast quantities of nuclear waste and divert essential funding away from energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy."

Technorati tag: Nuclear Power, Renewable energy

'Better insulation could save £120'

Millions of British homes do not have enough insulation to cope during cold spells, a new survey has shown.

Householders prefer to crank up their thermostats to keep themselves warm.

This wastes an estimated £1.5 billion and produces 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, according to the Energy Saving Trust.

Rather than wasting time and money trying to relaunch nuclear power Blair should call for an initiative to fix this problem and cut energy consumption in general. Prevention is better than cure, remember. If the country's using less energy then it can afford to get its electricity from more sustainable sources.

Technorati tag: Waste, energy efficiency, Insulation

US tax breaks for hybrid buyers

A step in the right direction from an oil hungry country. The Energy Policy Act allows tax credits worth up to $3,400 for hybrid owners. Other vehicles eligible for credits include fuel cell vehicles, alternative fuel vehicles, and hybrid heavy trucks.

via Digg

Technorati tag: Hybrid car, tax credit, USA

Be a Real Man, be Green

Not really the meaning of Thomas Friedman's piece, but you get the gist of it. Our leaders are content to carry on with the same old same old, pretending that minor variations on old policies and moronic shows strength are new and brave. If they really cared about the future they'd be joining us in looking for new ways to live with minimal impact on the environment.

[W]hen it comes to what is actually the most important issue in U.S. foreign and domestic policy today - making ourselves energy efficient and independent, and environmentally green - [Bush and Cheney] ridicule it as something only liberals, tree-huggers and sissies believe is possible or necessary.

Sorry, but being green, focusing the nation on greater energy efficiency and conservation, is not some girlie-man issue. It is actually the most tough-minded, geostrategic, pro-growth and patriotic thing we can do. Living green is not for sissies. Sticking with oil, and basically saying that a country that can double the speed of microchips every 18 months is somehow incapable of innovating its way to energy independence - that is for sissies, defeatists and people who are ready to see American values eroded at home and abroad.

Living green is not just a "personal virtue," as Mr. Cheney says. It's a national security imperative.

via Treehugger

Technorati tag: Green, Petrolism, Friedman

Appleseed biodiesel processor

The "Appleseed" processor is an open source design for a cheap biodiesel refinery utilising an old water heater tank and easily available plumbing supplies. It's proved very popular with loads of versions, variations and improvements.

via Sustainablog

Technorati tag: Biodiesel, Home Brew

Money for old grass

I have to say I can't side with the farmers on this one. The NFU are unhappy that their members won't be able to rake it in growing crops for conversion to biofuels because the oil companies are considering the much greener alternative of making it from straw and green waste.

(The oil companies are considering the greener option? Am I in bizarro world?)

Technorati tag: biofuel

What Would the Stig Do?

Despite the fact that it can outperform most of the cars that give the Top Gear presenters wet dreams, I don't think the X1, electric concept car from Wrightspeed, is going to be doing a timed lap piloted by the Stig any time soon. Clarkson couldn't make any milk float jokes if presented with the truth.

Check out a ride along in this video.

via Jalopnik

Technorati tag: Electric Car, Wrightspeed

Life in the Project:LIFE House

The Parnell family spent a year in an experimental eco house to test a number of features that could be incorporated in the home of tomorrow. It was originally meant to be a six month trial but they loved it so much they doubled the length.

Although the Project:LIFE house contains so much that is environmentally friendly and technologically advanced, the prime aim of the project is to investigate the changing households of the future, according to James Wilson, the development director of David Wilson Homes. "As house builders we often have to be more conservative than we would like," he says. "In this project, we have pulled together a big collection of ideas. We're trying to consider demographics and changing lifestyles, different expectations and requirements and combine all the latest ideas and thoughts."

Technorati tag: Project:LIFE, Ecohouse

Police Horse Power

Manchester's Police horses are to contribute to cutting the costs of their upkeep. Dung from the equine coppers is to be compressed into bricks that can then be burnt to provide heating and hot water for the stables, helping reduce its £1.5m annual energy bill.

Shauna Carberry said: "This idea really stood out and as soon as we can find the money we are definitely going to put it into practice. The horse manure will provide heating and hot water for the stable block and it is likely to provide more energy on top of that.

"We're not sure yet exactly how much money will be saved, but it's likely to be a lot once the furnace costs are out of the way."

There are other initiatives as well- all the force's 1,275 diesel vehicles were converted to using biodiesel this week.

Technorati tag: biomass, Recycling, Manchester

Act Local

FutureManchester.org.uk, a list of local groups for campaigning, trading, etc.

Technorati tag: LETS Scheme, Manchester

NIMBYs in New York

Wired on the campaigners against New York state's plans for windmills. They seem to be concerned about the values of their property without thinking about how real estate prices will plummet when New York becomes the land of the constant blackout.

Technorati tag: Windmill, NIMBY

The return of the population timebomb

Professor Chris Rapley, the head of the UK's Antarctic research agency, says that the growing global population is one of the biggest problems facing the environment. He has named the issue the "Cinderella" issue of the eco debate.

"If we believe that the size of the human [ecological] 'footprint' is a serious problem, and there is much evidence for this," he writes, "then a rational view would be that along with a raft of measures to reduce the footprint per person, the issue of population management must be addressed."

A number of studies suggest that humankind is consuming the Earth's resources at an unsustainably fast rate.

Even so, the issue of population is hardly ever discussed at environmental summits or raised by green lobby groups.

Technorati tag: Population, Resources

Sea Solar Power- tapping the oceans' temperature gradients

Sea Solar Power Inc. (SSP) is developing a solar power technology that uses a reverse refrigeration cycle to harness the solar energy stored in the sea by tapping the thermal gradient that exists naturally between the surface and deep waters. This temperature difference between surface water and that at 3000 feet in tropical oceans is sufficient to operate vapor turbines, which drive generators to produce electricity, with fresh water as a byproduct. SSP, run by three generations of the Anderson family, has been working on the technology since 1962.

via Slashdot

Technorati tag: Solar Power, Sea

The end of cheap waste

Peter Jones, a director of Biffa- Britain's largest waste handling company, says that tighter EU recycling laws and higher landfill taxes will cost up to £8bn within years.

"The days of chucking waste into holes in the ground are over and the future is hi-tech, efficient, but fiendishly expensive. Instead of chucking 75% of everything we have finished with down a hole for about £12 a tonne, within a few years very little will be landfilled and that will cost two or three times what it costs now. We expect it to cost Britain £5-8bn to deliver an 80% diversion from landfill. Everyone is in for a rude shock."

Efficient and fiendishly expensive? I can't help thinking he's missing a bit of joined up thinking and hasn't considered the money making potential of closing the manufacturing cycle with recycling.

Technorati tag: Waste, Recycling

Warm weather 'to boost food bugs'

Almost a crossover with Digest here-

Britain could see a dramatic increase in food poisoning cases and waterborne disease as the warmer, wetter weather linked to climate change takes hold.

Hotter summers could lead to more salmonella cases as people opt for more barbecues but leave food out of the fridge, Professor Paul Hunter warned.

Heavy rain may also lead to more cases of diarrhoea-inducing cryptosporidium.

The University of East Anglia expert said Britain may also see some malaria cases - but is likely to cope.

Not what I'd consider the most pertinent factor of global warming, more of a worrisome side effect.

Technorati tag: Global Warming, Food Poisoning

Solar Tower

Whilst looking for stats on the CIS Tower's photovoltaic refit I found this CIS siteabout the project.

Technorati tag: Solar Power, CIS Tower, Manchester, Photovoltaic

Manchester's first biodiesel service station

The first service station in the country to sell only biodiesel opened yesterday on Fairfield Street, near Piccadilly Station in Manchester. It was set up by a co-operative of Manchester motorists keen to promote the new energy source.

Technorati tag: Biodiesel, Manchester

Peter Hain walks the talk

Peter Hain, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, and the secretary of state for Wales has taken advantage of a government grant to install photovoltaic panels on his constituency home.

"I decided to put my money where my mouth is. It's not cheap." Mr Hain and his businesswoman wife, Elizabeth Haywood, paid £8,000 - with another £8,000 coming from the grant - to place photovoltaic panels on the roof of the barn conversion they refurbished in the summer.

He hopes the investment will eventually pay for itself. Any surplus electricity generated is sold back to the national grid.

"When we are not using it, when we are away, then it generates electricity which goes back to the grid. So we save on our bills when we are at home, and when we are not at home it basically goes back to the grid and we get paid for it," he added.

It's also good to see that the Welsh Assembly's attitude to nuclear is more sensible- there is not yet a case for it because energy saving and more cost effective renewable sources should be utilised first.

Technorati tag: Solar power, Photovoltaic, Peter Hain, Wales

Top Ten Green Energy Schemes

The Department of Trade and Industry has named ten schemes which began last year that show the way ahead in cutting carbon emissions and promoting renewable energy. They include offshore turbines in Kent, a wave buoy in Cornwall and the solar-panelling of the CIS tower in Manchester.

Technorati tag: Renewable Energy

Jatropha powered Le Mans

D1 Oils, previously mentioned as a top supplier of Jatropha curcas tree based biodiesels, is set to enter a car in the 2006 Le Mans 24 hours. The top speed from the modified Volkswagen engine is 200mph, compared to 215mph for petrol engines, but the team are counting on the greater efficiency meaning fewer fuelling stops.

D1 chief executive Philip Wood said apart from winning the coveted Le Mans gold trophy, the team's other objective is to test the performance, fuel efficiency and emissions produced by different biodiesel blends during the trials.

"This is about demonstrating that low emissions don't mean low performance," he said.

"It is going to be of immense value to motorists who want to know that biodiesel will get them the mileage and performance they need while contributing less to global warming."

via Foursprung and Jalopnik

Technorati tag: biodiesel, Jatropha, Le Mans