Mulled Wines

Global warming means that wine growers will have to adapt to the changing weather. Which is not something the French want to hear. Particularly not from an Englishman.

Years of trial and error by wine growers throughout the world have resulted in ideal combinations of grapes, soil ("terroir") and climate. In France, in particular, where the terroir is revered as the key to a wine's character, wines have evolved over centuries.

Prof Prentice argues that climate change will alter the optimal mix of grape varieties to grow in any one place. For the French system, which in law lays down in detail the boundaries of each appellation - in some cases just a few acres - and the grapes that may be grown there, adapting to climate change will pose a real challenge, he says.

Technorati tag: Global Warming, Winemaking

Powering Wales

The Welsh TUC conference is calling for the Welsh assembly and the British government to start properly planning for the country's future energy needs in th elight of British oil and gas supplies running low and nuclear plants being decommissioned.

Technorati tag: Renewable Energy

EU Rules

Following the announcement of the US/Asian climate change pact, the EU is to call for further restrictions on greenhouse gases.

Technorati tag: EU, Greenhouse Gases

Green Queen

Windsor Castle is to get its own hydro-power system.

A spokeswoman for the Queen said: “We’re constantly looking at ways of saving energy. We use energy efficient light bulbs at Buckingham Palace and recycle 99 per cent of green waste.”

Members of the Royal Family have long embraced an environmentally friendly lifestyle. The Duke of Edinburgh uses a taxi cab fuelled by liquid petroleum gas to travel around London, and water in a bore hole at Buckingham Palace is used to supply air conditioning to the Queen’s gallery before topping up the water levels in the Palace lake.

The electricity from the new plant will be fed straight into Windsor Castle and not into the local grid. It will be the biggest of its kind in the South of England. Four turbines, which will be built by npower renewables, will be submerged in two of Romney Weir’s bays.

Technorati tag: Hydro Power, Micro Hydro Power, Windsor Castle, Queen

Bizarro-Kyoto?

The US, Australia, China, India and South Korea, and possibly some more Asian countries, are to sign up to their own emmissions controlling programme. Radio news reports this morning suggested that Japan is one of those others, the only Kyoto signatory that is party to this agreement. Whilst I want to believe that this is a step forward I can't help but think it's a sop to their coal and other industries.

Details of the new pact have so far remained under wraps; but there are indications that it will focus on technology transfer, probably with an emphasis on cleaner ways of burning coal.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the four biggest producers of coal in the world are China, the United States, India and Australia; so it is unlikely that these nations would come up with an agreement to reduce the production and use of coal.
.........
But will this be enough to curb climate change? Environmental groups are sceptical.

"It's part of the Bush administration's strategy to prove that the technological approach is the answer to global warming," the director of WWF International's Climate Change Programme, Jennifer Morgan, told BBC News.

"You only need to look at the way that emissions are going to see that's not the case."

Technorati tag: Kyoto, Global Warming

The Running Tap

An art piece intended to highlight excessive water use is to be turned off because it has used too much water.

The Running Tap provoked passionate reactions - a few supporters and many more enraged. One sent a birthday card with the warning inside that if the tap was not turned off, the gallery would be blown up.

The irony was that in the course of producing the work, McGowan has become messianic about water wastage: yesterday he spluttered with outrage about people washing their teeth or cleaning vegetables under a running tap. At the weekend he denounced a family member for running the washing machine daily for only a handful of clothes.

Technorati tag: Water

Recycle Now

Hippyshopper points to Recycle Now, a government site full of useful information on disposing of your rubbish in the most productive ways possible.

Technorati tag: Recycle, Recycling

Decentralising

Every building with a solar, wind or geothermal element of energy production is another step away from Big Power and towards Decentralised Energy. Greenpeace like this idea and have released a report on how and why it should be achieved.

via Worldchanging

Technorati tag: Decentralised Energy

Bio Bling

Only in LA.

Colette Brooks loves cars. Big cars. Cars with fins, spinners and spoilers; cars that come in nice colors: mustard, seaweed, light teal. The kind of cars that some people might adorn with faux fur and fuzzy dice. But she also loves, as she puts it, "this beautiful blue ball we're so privileged to live on," and her car fetish wasn't exactly squaring with her environmental creds.

So she started buying "pimped out" cars and converting them to run on biodiesel. It's an interesting concept, I'll give it that. There are a couple of stretch limos soiling th eroads of Manchester at the moment. If they were fitted out to run on recycled chip fat I'd be less inclined to torch them.

via Jalopnik

Technorati tag: Biodiesel, Los Angeles

All pro air con

Three Utah students, working on a science fair project, have created an air-conditioning unit that doesn't require Freon. The system utilises the Peltier Effect, blowing hot air over commercially available chips and producing cold air, and could not only cut down on the use of an ozone depleting chemical but also save billions of dollars in petrol use.

via Jalopnik

Technorati tag: Air conditioning, Peltier Effect

Pedal Power

Pedalites could be just what every cycling commuter wants. They store electricity generated by pedalling (naturally) in an onboard capacitor to power the built in lights when the bike is moving. They flash white to the front, orange to the side and red behind. Legally I'm sure we're supposed to have constant beam lights, but from a visibility point of view they sound great. £49.99 for a set.

via Metaefficient

Technorati tag: Cycling

Poo Power

Collecting methane from faeces and using it to provide heat isn't that revolutionary a concept. So using human waste to that end seems like a good idea, as it also cuts the potential for pollution. One prison in Rwanda does it, but can people be convinced to get past the Eeeew! factor and adopt it for more widespread schemes?

Technorati tag: Biogas, Rwanda

Blogging Round the Clock

I should have mentioned this earlier. Sustainablog is Blogging Round the Clock today to raise money for the Earthways Centre. 2 or 3 posts an hour for 24 hours, it's all explained here

Technorati tag: Sustainablog, Blogging round the clock

Walking distance

Some stupidly large number of car journeys are less than two miles which, for most of us, isn't that hard a walk. One of the gimmicks I wanted to use for How to Save the World for Free the TV series (if it ever happened) was going to be hammering a nail into a map where the subject's house was and showing them just how much stuff was within walking distance. Now you can do something similar with Google maps. The Gmaps pedometer allows you to mark out a route on the map and will calculate the distance travelled. For instance this is my walk to work every morning, which comes in at just under a mile.

(Google maps now come with satellite images of the UK, though they're a little out of date, because they still feature the old City ground. the last time I walked past it my comment was "So what used to be over there, where that huge empty space is?")

via Lifehacker

Technorati tag: Google, Walking Distance

Renewable Cycling

There's a new Cycling on the Pavement up, and it's a biggie. Clare had to write an essay on the environmental impact of hydroelectric energy for her Renewable Energy course qand I finally got round to putting it up. I helped with the research, but really it's all her own work.

Technorati tag: Renewable Energy, Hydroelectric Power

Savonius Wind Turbine

For those times when you don't need a lot of wind power, such as aerating a pond or powering a small motor, you could build a Savonius wind turbine. The shape of this little windmill looks familiar to me because Dad and the Alternative Energy group he was involved with in the eighties built a larger scale version using sawn up oil drums as the scoops. I used to sit in one of the top drums and spin round and round, but that's another story.

via Treehugger

Technorati tag: Wind Power, Savonius

CIS goes greener still

It's already been announced that the CIS tower in Manchester is getting solar panels, but there are also going to be mini wind turbines on the top to generate even more power on site. The turbines should generate about five percent of the tower's power needs and pay for themselves within three years.

Ken Lewis, CFS resources director, said: "As an insurer, CIS is already experiencing the reality of climate change impacts. Over the past decade, CIS has seen claims arising from environmental flooding increase almost 500 per cent and these now total more than £1.5m per annum.

"About 40 per cent of Europe's energy use is associated with buildings. This turbine project, with the solar CIS Tower work, demonstrates these piles of steel and concrete have tremendous potential for future energy generation."

Technorati tag: Wind Power, CIS Tower, Manchester

Windforce 12

Greenpeace and the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) today launched 'Windforce 12', a global wind energy blueprint that describes how wind power can supply 12% of the world's electricity by 2020. The report is a crucial tool in the race to cut greenhouse gas emissions, showing that by 2020, 1,250 GW of wind power can be installed saving a cumulative 10,771 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, a key contributor to climate change. Wind Force 12 demonstrates that there are no technical, economic or resource barriers to supplying 12% of the world's electricity needs with wind power alone by 2020 - against the challenging backdrop of a projected two thirds increase of electricity demand by that date.

via Wind Energy News

Technorati tag: Wind Power, Gigawatt

Swift

Another option for rooftop micro wind generation. Swift turbines are reputedly the quietest available, have won awards for innovation and can be used to heat water, top up batteries or feed juice back to suppliers when not actively powering your home.

via hippyshopper

Technorati tag: Wind Power

And we can get renewable energy from the flying pigs..........

I missed the George Bush interview with Trevor McDonald, but apparently he was set to admit that global warming has a scientific basis and humans may be to blame. Of course, he's not actually going to do anything about it, but at least he's admitting the problem exists.

Technorati tag: George Bush, Global Warming

Ech2o

It's only a one off built for the Shell Eco Marathon, but the Ech2o is impressive nonetheless. The builders, BOC, reckon the hydrogen fuel cell powered car can travel 25,000 miles using only 25 watts and hope to break the world fuel efficiency record.

Technorati tag: Fuel Cell, Hydrogen, Shell Eco Marathon

Money to burn

It might be worth investing in a solar powered car if, as one analyst predicts, oil prices are set to soar to over $100 a barrel by Christmas.

But [Texan oil analyst Matt] Simmons believes surging demand will keep prices bubbling well above $50. 'We could be at $100 by this winter. We have the biggest risk we have ever had of demand exceeding supply. We are now just about to face up to the biggest crisis we have ever had,' he said.

Technorati tag: Oil, Peak Oil

QuikSolar

The QuickSolar Blog is recording one team's construction of a solar powered car.

Technorati tag: Solar Power, Solar Car

Smart Appliances

The US' Department of Energy is investigating add-ons to household appliances that can detect disruption in the power supply and temporarily turn themselves off. If enough were deployed they could significantly lower peak loads and cut down brown- and black-outs. Of course, it would be more intelligent to buy energy efficient appliances and lower overall consumption, but this helps as well.

Technorati tag: Appliances, Electricity

Cleaning with sunlight

Oxygena tiles contain titanium dioxide which, through its photocatalytic properties, can actually scrub the atmosphere of pollutants.

via Treehugger

Technorati tag: Pollution, Photocatalyst

Scrapback

Peugeot Citroën, Europe's second-biggest car maker, is promoting a Europe-wide plan to take older, more polluting cars off the roads by giving their owners a €1,000 (£665) incentive to scrap them.

The money, which would be paid by governments, could be used to buy a brand new car or a newer second hand one but the owners, if they wish, could choose to pocket the cash instead.

via Jalopnik

Technorati tag: Cars, Transport

Baby's first eco-house

The Power House is a science toy that teaches about renewable energy. It includes experiments with solar power, wind and plant growth, as well as featuring an electric car.

via Treehugger

Technorati tag: EcoHouse, Solar Power

Closing the price gap

Biofuels, ethanol and biodiesel, are getting more competitive as the price of oil soars.

Technorati tag: Biofuel, Oil

Gaia Selene

One man's solution to the Earth's coming energy and ecology crisis- move to the moon.

Technorati tag: Moon, Science fiction

UnGreen Screen

If you're worried about your power consumption then you'd better get a smaller TV or ditch the goggle box altogether.

Already, televisions account for about 4 percent of annual residential electricity use in the United States - enough to power all of the homes in the state of New York for a year, according to a new NRDC study. Today there are about 266 million TVs, and that number is growing by 3.5 million per year. By 2009, when half of all new TV sales are expected to be extended- or high-definition digital sets with big screens, TV energy use will reach about 70 billion kilowatt-hours per year nationwide - about 50 percent higher than at present. Throw in a DVD and VCR player, a pair of high-definition set-top boxes, and other household TVs, and the total TV-related energy use for the home rises to about 10 percent, the NRDC estimates.

Technorati tag: Energy, Television

Walk to work day

Today is Bike to Work Day. However, as I currently work so close to home it would actually take longer to cycle than to walk (when you factor in time to get changed) I don't think I will. However, I hope that enough other people do to make a difference and that a few of them are inspired to do it more regularly.

Technorati tag: Bike, Bike Week, Commute

Bicycle Race

Saturday saw the 2005 World Naked Bike Ride. I doubt it's officially tied to Bike Week and I'm fairly certain I wouldn't have participated if there'd been one in Manchester, but you never can tell.

via Treehugger

Technorati tag: Cycling, Nudity

Dubya saves the world

I've been pondering a question for a few days. One that is just a little heretical

Is George W Bush going to save the World?

Before the wailing and gnashing of teeth begins let me state that it's not something I expect him to do on purpose. Call it ecological blowback- the unforeseen consequence of policies that seem designed to do the exact opposite.

The US is, per capita, the world's biggest consumer of energy. It particularly has a penchant for oil and President Texas Tea is the logical last emperor of the kingdom that petrol built. If the US doesn't slow down its consumption it's due a big crash, one that could easily take the rest of us with it.

So it's for the best that the weak dollar, unrest in the Middle East and whatever other horrible things Dubya's caused means that petrol is now $3 a gallon. When you factor in the exchange rate that doesn't sound like much to us but to a population that has never really had to face up to the true expense of its greed it's quite harsh. Suddenly that SUV is revealed as the wasteful, useless penis extension the rest of us always knew it was.

Every day more and more US citizens are coming to their senses and opting out of the petrol bacchanal. Biofuel- both vegetable oil and ethanol- is being produced in greater amounts. Wired recently reported on what they called the hygrid movement- ordinary citizens protecting their energy supply with home solar or wind.

These aren't the folks on the fringe any more. The new breed of Green is resolutely middle of the road in so many other ways. As Bush's policies continue to hit the middle class we can only expect this constituency to grow and grow.

Even the man himself has paid lip service to biodiesel and fuel cells. But these are a politician's words- from a man other politicians consider untrustworthy- so we shouldn't expect him to really do anything.

In the long term as well Bush's tenure could leave a positive mark. As more cities, and then states, adopt their own Kyoto plans the possibility of a green president becomes stronger. As solar and other renewable technologies become cheaper and more widespread, mor epeople will understand why they should vote for a green president. The oil companies and corporate interests that fund the Bush school of politicians will find their incomes and influence waning. The smart ones will adopt the policies they've spent so many years campaigning against and the dumb ones will die. Foreign oil will become less and less important, bring about the change in the Middle East that force and bribery have failed to create. And the cleaner, greener, nicer United States won't be hated by everyone.

Yes, this is an extremely optimistic vision, but it's not impossible. The only down side will be the revisionists. Much as Reagan is now the man who single handedly brought down Communism- rather than being the guy who was there when it happened- in twenty or thirty years, just as the new Golden Green age is really beginning, we'll have to put up with being told that Dubya did it all on purpose.

Technorati tag: Dubya, Future, Sustainable Development

Think about the poor birds

That's been one of the cries of the wind power naysayers- migrating birds will be sliced into pate by those horrible razor sharp windmill blades. In fact, they either avoid wind farms altogether or steer a course between the turbines.

Technorati tag: Wind power, Birds

Cleaning Power

Microbiologists investigating the use of microbes to clean up contamination have found a strain that generates electricity whilst removing toxins. At the very least they could power their own home/ wastewater treatment facility.

"The bacteria are capable of continuously generating electricity at levels that could be used to operate small electronic devices. As long as the bacteria are fed fuel they are able to produce electricity 24 hours a day," says Charles Milliken of the Medical University of South Carolina, who conducted the research with colleague Harold May.

via Worldchanging

Technorati tag: Electricity, Microbes, Pollution

Greening the Estuary

Shell is proposing a massive windfarm in the Thames Estuary that could power the equivalent of all the houses in Kent and East Sussex.

The full development, costing up to £1.5bn, will require up to 270 wind turbines to generate 1,000 megawatts and would connect into the National Grid's transmission system in Kent. The turbines would be located in the outer Thames Estuary, more than 20 kilometres offshore and equidistant from the coasts of Essex and Kent. Due to the distance of the wind farm from the shore, there is expected to be little visual impact from the coastline.

via TriplePundit
Technorati tag: Wind Power

Shifting into neutral

The BBC on going carbon neutral

Technorati tag: Carbon Neutral

Off-Grid's huge list of links

To go through later, a lot of links to green and related sites.

Technorati tag: Links

Even Greener Bike

The pollutants produced by a bike are infinitessimal compared to those spewing out the back of a car. However, you can go one step further and use Soy based lubricant instead of the usual chain oil. I don't know whether it's available in this country though. At present my bike gets by on no chain oil because I keep forgetting to clean and lube it.

via Metaefficient

Technorati tag: Lubricant, Cycling

Bicycle Race

It's Bike Week in Manchester soon. Somehow I don't think the council will close roads to cars so that cyclists can "converge along 17 paths from the suburbs to the center of the city".

Technorati tag: Cycling, Transport

Green8

The G8 conference, to be held in Gleneagles next month, will at least be carbon neutral. Whether it can achieve anything else is up to the participants and how many of their promises they keep.

Technorati tag: Carbon balancing, G8

Changing world

Satellite photos from across the decades have been collected to show the way the world has changed since the seventies. The images acompanying the article are amazing.

Technorati tag: Satellite, Environment

Truths

The National Physics Laboratory in London has come up with a scheme to make satellite observations of the Earth's surface more accurate and silence the naysayers who use discrepancies to argue against human involvement in global warming. The Truths satellite has a 99.999% perfect radiometer. Readings taken using this device can then be used to calibrate devices on other satellites when they pass over the same area. The sensitivity and resolution of the device also means that pollution can be tracked with pin point (well, tennis court, but that's not bad from orbit) accuracy.

Technorati tag: Satellite, Global Warming, Pollution

British Wind

I may have to temper my lingering hatred of British Gas with today's news that they're to sell mini wind turbines to householders. About the size of, and far less ugly than, a satellite dish, the mini turbines produce a peak output of 1kw. They probably work best on detached or semi detached houses, but I'd love to see rows of them pop up on the terraces around here.

via city hippy

Technorati tag: wind power, microgeneration

Big Green

Some of Britain's leading industrialists are calling on the Government to give their industries concrete targets for reducing CO2 emmissions.

The letter has been arranged through the Prince of Wales Business and Environment programme. The business leaders say they are very concerned about the prospect of dangerous climate change and support the government's target of reducing CO2 emissions by 60% by 2050.

They regret that industry and government are currently caught in a Catch 22. Governments are nervous of clamping down on climate change emissions for fear of a backlash from business.

via treehugger

Technorati tag: Global Warming

But I want that one....

Moral dilemma time. Yesterday I was working out what I wanted from my next mobile phone (fewer minutes- I'm currently only using 40 of the 200 free minutes I pay for every month- better data rates and lots of cheap texts). Secondary in importance was which phone I wanted to do all these things with. Sadly, according to ethiscore, SonyEricsson, whose products I've liked since having a 6210, come out second from bottom in the ratings. Sharp, the maker of my current phone, come in joint second, but I'm less than impressed with the software that comes with it and my preferred supplier doesn't issue them anyway. Sagem is also joint second, but their phones are shit

I guess there's always Nokia.

via hippyshopper

Technorati tag: mobile phones

Green Chemistry Magazine

An affiliate link, and only for those with deep pockets or professional interest-

Today, with growing awareness in industry, academia and the general public of the need for sustainable development, the international chemistry community is under increasing pressure to change current working practices and to find greener alternatives.

In response, the Royal Society of Chemistry has produced Green Chemistry as a vehicle to inform all parties of the latest developments in the green chemistry revolution. Reporting on research activities and interests in chemical aspects of clean technology from academic, industrial and public sectors, Green Chemistry contains primary research papers, communications and reviews.


Subscription includes:

- 12 issues a year plus annual author index
- free site-wide online access

Technorati tag: Green Chemistry

Make a date

Manchester's Critical Mass does have a website. No Mass tomorrow, but June's is meeting up with the G8bike ride.

Technorati tag: Critical Mass, G8

We're going to need a bigger bike

I've carried some impressive loads on my bikes over the years. Panniers were the most effective things I ever fitted and I kind of miss them on my current bikes. However, I think I'd like the set up sold by Xtracycle even more. the Free Radical extends the wheelbase of a bike and allows loads to be carried around and above th erear wheel. This lowers the centre of gravity and increases the capacity.

via Treehugger

Technorati tag: Bicycle

Getting away from it all

responsibletravel.com is an on-line travel agent launched in 2001 for travellers who want more real and authentic holidays that also benefit the environment and local people. We market carefully pre-screened holidays from over 270 leading worldwide tourism brands and businesses. We do not act as a middleman - you can use the site to contact the experts who run the trips and hotels directly to make a booking

Thanks to Jo

Technorati tag: Holidays

Death and taxes

Could the UK be heading toward a Carbon Tax? The Royal Society certainly thinks we should be. Start investing in Green tech now, just in case.

via Worldchanging

Technorati tag: Carbon Tax

It's a gas gas gas

Sweden's AB Volvo has unveiled a truck equipped with an engine powered by DME—an alternative fuel produced from biomass that is used today as gas in spray cans.

The truck is a standard Volvo FM model equipped with a 9-liter diesel engine adapted to run on DME. "We know that in 20 years, alternative fuels will successively become increasingly commercially available," said Volvo CEO Leif Johansson. "Energy efficiency will become decisive and DME is truly an energy efficient fuel."

Volvo said DME is energy efficient and produces low emissions of carbon dioxide and particles.

Technorati tag: Transport, Biomass, DME

Buy Green

Green Moves specialise in selling eco houses. At present they only serve the South of England, if you absolutely must live down there.

via hippyshopper

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

Rules of the road

A woman's guide to cycling.

Local governments tell feeble lies

All local councils claim to want to encourage cycling. They read in a book somewhere that this is what you ought to say once you ascend into local office, like, "I've lived in this community all my life, and have a real commitment to the area." To this end, they put out measly leaflets telling you pig-obvious things like, "Avoid getting trapped between two articulated lorries." If you didn't know that, you'd already be dead.

The truth is, they hate cyclists with a passion. That's the only way you can possibly explain all the things they do to endanger us, like inventing giant buses that bend in the middle, and laughingly encouraging us on to cycle paths so badly maintained they look like a trap set by Wile E Coyote. When you hear anything from any official on this matter, never forget they lie. They lie, they lie, they lie. It's even possible that Steven Norris is lying about the helmets.

.....

A social observation

The kind of person who routinely prefixes "cyclist" with "kamikaze" is exactly the kind of person who prefixes "asylum seeker" with "bogus"

Technorati tag: Cycling

Nappy ever after

Leo Hickman, who has practical experience of nappies having spent a year "elbow deep in excrement" picks apart yesterday's report about disposable nappies.

The fact is that, to my eyes at least, this report is full of holes. Why are its findings based on an assumption that washable aficionados use 47 nappies, whereas we had easily got by on 20? Why did the Environment Agency survey 2,000 parents using disposable nappies compared with just 117 using washables, meaning that (taking into account the weighting towards those using older-style nappies which use more cloth), many of the assumptions are based on the habits of just 32 people? Why does the report include the energy used to iron nappies? Who on earth irons their nappies? Why was it assumed that people environmentally conscious enough to be using washable nappies would automatically want to tumble dry them?

Technorati tag: Nappies

Little polluters

The Environmental Agency has reviewed the relative ecological impact of disposable and washable nappies and found that, when water and energy used in washing has been factored in, they're equally as damaging. However larger, colder washes could reduce the environmental impact of reusable nappies.

Technorati tag: Nappies, Waste

Cool Roof

Obviously not of much use here in the UK, reflective roof tiles could be a boon nearer the equator when it comes to saving on air conditioning costs.

Technorati tag: Roofing

Dirty Old Town

Calcutta is India's most polluted city, with nearly 50% of its residents suffering some form of respiratory problem. As a first, major step toward cleaning up the local authorities have passed a law requiring cars built before 1990 be taken off the road or convert to cleaner fuel. An earlier law ordering cars made before 1975 off the road was overthrown when owners challenged it.

via Sepia Mutiny

Technorati tag: India, Transport

Think Local

City Life had an article in its last issue about local activist groups.

I used to be a regular at Critical Masses. Nowadays my involvement tends to be slapping myself on the forehead on the last Saturday of every month in a Homer-ish D'oh! kind of a way. There isn't a CM website listed in the article but ridemanchester, a collective dedicated to resurrecting abandoned bikes is mentioned.

Other links from the article-
Do Summat
Northern Arts Tactical Offensive
Indymedia
UHC

And one of my own-
Manchester Environmental Resource Centre initiative (MERCi)

Technorati tag: Manchester, Activism

EtOH

The US Patent Office's 5,000,000th patent is for a strain of E.Coli that can convert biomass to ethanol at 90-95% efficiency. Treehugger examines the pros and cons of industrialising this technology.

Technorati tag: Ethanol

Car Free

Car Free City USA

CarFree City, USA's goal is to provide Americans with an alternative: carfree cities. By creating new neighborhoods and cities or redeveloping existing areas on a scale that is for people and not cars, yields a host of personal, community and global benefits. It's an ambitious task, but not mere wishful thinking. It doesn't require futuristic technologies, just common sense and a willingness to try something new. And it's no more expensive than traditional development. The pages of this website describe how carfree districts work and the benefits and challenges of creating them. We hope that you will join with us in creating the first carfree city in the United States of America.

via Treehugger

Technorati tag: Transport

Nuclear Poll

52% of those questioned in a Newsnight poll said they don't think nuclear is the answer to the UK's energy problems. 57% said the renewable sources were the best bet. You could argue that nuclear has a future as a way of cutting down on CO2, but with that level of antipathy it's going to take so much longer to build the things that they'll be pointless.

Technorati tag: Renewable energy, Nuclear

Too much of a good thing?

Can too much sustainable development be dangerous? Yes, according to this opinion piece. However, Brian Gongol's argument would only make sense if we were all 'back to the land' hippies so it's a pretty obvious straw man argument. The average proponent of sustainable development is more in touch with comparative advantage than Mr Gongol thinks.

Technorati tag: Sustainable development

Camden

Another event I'm unlikely to get to because it's in London- the Camden Green Fair & Bikefest 2005.

via hippyshopper

Technorati tag: Green Events, London

Burn your own water filter

An Australian scientist has perfected a way to make an effective water filter from clay and coffee grounds (or other organic materials such as rice husks or tea leaves) and fired over burning cowdung. He hasn't patented it in the hope that its use will spread through the Third World and save lives.

via Treehugger

Technorati tag: Water filtration

Fluff

Fluff is household waste treated to become a stable and pathogen free composting material. It can also be compressed and extruded to form posts or sheet that can be used in buildings.

Technorati tag: Compost, Recycling

Clear Skies

I may have linked to this already- Clear Skies grants for households and businesses looking to install renewable energy systems.

Technorati tag: Grants, Renewable Energy

Tubes

One big problem with hydrogen fuel cells in vehicles has always been storing the fuel. A proposed system using carbon nanotubes doped with scandium could be the answer, doing away with th need for pressurised bottles.

Technorati tag: Fuel Cell, Hydrogen

Brazilia

Look to Brazil for a way to go over to a renewable energy economy.

Earlier this year, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said his country would become the world's largest producer of renewable energy. Brazil generates 43.8 percent of its power from renewable energy sources, including hydroelectricity, ethanol and biodiesel, according to Agencia Brasil, a government communications division. By contrast, the United States produced only 6 percent of its power from renewable sources in 2003, according to the Department of Energy's Annual Energy Outlook 2005.

According to the CIA's World Factbook, Brazil's economy is one-eighth the size of the United States', yet the country produces more ethanol, mostly from sugar cane.

Technorati tag: Renewable Energy, Brazil

Hot Air

With Tony Blair having made climate change one of the two major themes of his presidency of the G8 and the EU in June, it is a serious embarrassment to be told by the country's top scientific body that his claimed international leadership in the field is false, and that he needs to announce immediate action in the Queen's speech tomorrow to address the problem.

In fact. the scientists emphasise that most of the gains the UK has made in reducing emissions are nothing to do with Mr Blair, and happened because of the switch to gas before he came to office.

Technorati tag: Climate Change, Kyoto Agreement

It's clean, but is it really green?

Qatar plans to become the world's chief producer of Gas-to-Liquid diesel, which produces far less sulphur and a bit less CO2 when it burns. GTL fuelled city vehicles could greatly reduce smog, and it's being pimped as "green diesel". However, I can't help thinking that it's not, that it's simply "less dirty diesel", because the whole process still involves taking carbon that's been sequestered underground for millions of years and releasing it into the atmosphere. There's still a net addition to atmospheric CO2. Or am I missing something?

Technorati tag: Green Diesel

Two birds with one coconut

Tablas Island is one of the poorest parts of the Phillipines. It also has the highest harvest of coconuts. So a newly opened biodiesel plant that makes fuel from the coconuts serves two purposes- fuel independence and a cash crop from over production.

"We deliberately chose Romblon because it is an island province and it is coconut-producing. This being an island economy, diesel prices in the region are higher because of cost of transporting the fuel so it makes sense that the province look for an alternative fuel using the raw materials available, which is copra," [DOST Secretary Estrella] Alabastro said.

Technorati tag: Biodiesel

Best of the best

The Soil Association has announced its Best Organic Businesses 2005.

Technorati tag: Organic business

Screw you guys, I'm going Green

Showing that politicians at the local level can be sensible even if those at the top are idiots, 132 American mayors have signed up to abide by the Kyoto agreement in their areas.

The mayors, from cities as liberal as Los Angeles and as conservative as Hurst, Tex., represent nearly 29 million citizens in 35 states, according to Mayor Nickels's office. They are pledging to have their cities meet what would have been a binding requirement for the nation had the Bush administration not rejected the Kyoto Protocol: a reduction in heat-trapping gas emissions to levels 7 percent below those of 1990, by 2012.

On Thursday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg brought New York City into the coalition, the latest Republican mayor to join.

via Fab's Musings

Technorati tag: Kyoto

Blitz Spirit

Possibly not the best way to win the argument, even if you are technically correct- GLOBAL warming is a bigger threat to the world than Hitler, a leading historian has warned.

Technorati tag: Global Warming

Intermittent

The argument put forward for nuclear as the magic CO2 bullet is that energy sources such as wind power are intermittent and would therefore need to be backed up by coal or nuclear anyway. However, research at Oxford University has produced a plan for using these supposedly unreliable generation systems. A combination of wind, micro Combined Heat and Power and solar produces an overlapping and always on set of supplies (the wind blows the most at the times of year, and even the times of day, when it's most needed and the heating's on most at the same time as light is required). Throw tidal and wave energy into the mix and you're heading for a perfect solution.

Technorati tag: Wind Power, Renewable Energy

Cell Sufficiency

Off-Grid has a primer on how fuel cells work.

Technorati tag: Fuel Cell

UFO

Hippyshopper has been trying out the Eco Ball washing powder alternative and thinks they're an effective, perfume free and money saving option. If I had £35 (3p a wash) I'd give them a go.

Eco Balls

Technorati tag: Washing

Trickle up

"Middle Of the Road and Off the Grid." You could call them Moogs, Wired coins the term "hygrid". Ordinary households across the US are aiming for energy independence with solar power, wind turbines and wood burning stoves. They're still connected to the power lines, because sometimes they can't produce quite enough power and sometimes they have a surplus to sell back, but their bills have plummeted.

This is energy policy I want to see my government backing. One or two Smith or Patel families in each neighbourhood slashing their energy bills by over a half would do more to speed uptake of energy saving and micro generation than any amount of woolly promises Tony could make. Once again- don't waste money trying to sell nuclear power- fund a few power stations in Acacia Avenue and see the benefits roll in.

Technorati tag: Micro generation, Hygrid, self sufficiency

Native American wind

NativeEnergy, a leading national renewable energy company, is supplying Renewable Energy Credits or "Green Tags" to neutralize all carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution generated by travel and venue energy use for the 2005 Institutional Investors Summit on Climate Risk, the first "climate neutral" event ever held at U.N. Headquarters. Throughout the day today top institutional investors representing more than $5 Trillion in assets will discuss the financial risks and the investment opportunities posed by global climate change during an invitation-only summit at U.N. Headquarters in New York City. The Summit was organized by Ceres, the coalition of investor and public interest groups, who is co-hosting the event with the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships.

www.nativeenergy.com/

www.ceres.org/

Technorati tag: Green Tags, Renewable Energy

Rotary

The Rand Cam rotary engine is lighter, more efficient and easier to maintain, with only two moving parts, the vanes and rotor, compared to 40 in a simple four cylinder engine. It also works particularly well with clean burning fuels such as hydrogen and propane.

One of the most anticipated uses for the new technology is among the blossoming hydrogen-powered automobile industry. The development of the Rand Cam(TM) engine has sparked considerable interest among environmentalists and eco-friendly manufacturers because of its ability to operate using a clean-burning hydrogen fuel cell. "Hybrid electric vehicles and engines that run using cleaner-burning fuels such as hydrogen, propane and natural gas are the future of the automotive industry," said John Robertson, CEO of Reg Technologies and its US subsidiary, REGI US. "Our society has recognized the benefits of exploring hydrogen-based technologies, and we are happy to be contributing towards the development of more sophisticated engines that operate using hydrogen and other clean burning fuels."

via Jalopnik

Technorati tag: Transport, Fuel Efficiency

Know your enemy

Earth Shakers: The Counter-Enviro Power List
With "the death of environmentalism" being debated across the land—and with the mainstream movement under siege from without and within—it's time to meet the winning side in America's new green wars. Here they come, ready or not: the 20 most powerful voices leading the environmental counterrevolution.

via Treehugger

Technorati tag: Environmentalism

Grant

Biomass- coppiced willow etc.- is the UK's prime source of renewable energy. DEFRA even has a dedicated grant scheme.

Technorati tag: Biomass

Motes

Swarms of small, wirelessly connected sensors are to be deployed in forests and other habitats to provide deeper, more consistent readings of the environment. They'll give longer term data, can track animal movement through body heat and are to be deployed throughout America (maybe the rest of the world can roll out their own versions, I'd love to be able to log on to a real time sampoling of the barrier reef for example) for a "long-term investigation of temporal, climate or human impact".

"The potential for environmental science is amazing," said Dr. Alexandra Isern, a program director at the National Science Foundation. "With this technology, we can start to understand what is an event and what is normal. We're recognizing more and more how different processes in the environment operate at different frequencies. To comprehend that, you need to take measurements all the time."

Technorati tag: Environment

The Results are in

GreenHybrid.com provides lots of information about owning a hybrid vehicle, including fuel consumption figures garnered from over 5 million miles of driving. It looks like the Honda Insight is the way to go, with Ford and Lexus' offerings doing no better than a normal car (though, to be fair, the Lexus data is based upon the mileage of only two vehicles, a larger pool of data would be preferable).

via Slashdot

Technorati tag: Transport, Hybrid Vehicles

The long-time-coming crisis

Steven Grant has a sharp, if bleak, take on the US's prospects as far as fuel goes. It's about half way down the page.

If I appear to have no sympathy for this, it's because I don't. For a minimum of 30 years, we've known the energy crisis was the coming state of things, not just a brief blip during the Carter years.

This is also why I have no sympathy for tobacco companies or tobacco growers. There's an 1888 medical textbook that directly links tobacco to cancer, specifically lung cancer so the terminal health risks of the weed were known long before the '50s. Did tobacco companies expand into other areas and divest themselves of tobacco? No. Did tobacco farmers phase out tobacco crops in favor of other cash crops? No. If you have decades to deal with a problem, and you don't, when someone comes along and says "Take care of it right now!" do you have the right to bitch there's not enough time? Of course not.

Technorati tag: Transport

Everybody's windmill

It's not for everyone but the Scottish Executive is pushing to have local authorities allow residents to put mini wind turbines on their roofs. Personally, I'd find these five bladed turbines a pleasant and inspiring sight, and they're practically noiseless, but there will always be NIMBYs.

Gillian Bishop, a spokesman for Views of Scotland, an umbrella organisation representing wind farm protesters, said the devices would achieve little and could be more controversial than satellite dishes.

“It seems so much effort for so little power,” she said. “They are just twiddling around the edges and I think if these things are spinning around all over the place it could drive neighbours crazy.”

via Sustainablog

Technorati tag: Wind Power

New Clear

I can see, in the simplistic way that politicians have of viewing things, how nuclear power is an answer to CO2 emissions, but I can also see how it should be a long, long way down the list of things they can do. Government, and far too many activists and lobbyists, take a blinkered view of the problem. They can only think in terms of National Grid level generation. The first step toward cutting CO2 generation is making sure we use less. I don't have the figures in front of me, but I can confidently say that for the price of one nuclear power station we could install enough lagging, double glazing and low energy bulbs to save more electricity than the plant would generate. Hell, we could probably do it with the amount that's going to be wasted on the PR nightmare of selling nuclear power to the masses.

So here's my plan, if there are any politicians reading- increase the minimum insulation requirements for all new builds; give every new house a full set of low energy bulbs; offer the same for existing houses, and actually sell it rather than having it hidden in the documentary equivalent of a sullen mumble; expand the grants system for installing solar systems; and show you're committed by getting those Greenpeace blokes back on top of Prescott's palace to wire up the solar panels.

The plan will need finessing, of course, and it could be a hard sell. But think of it like this, if you can be the MP who saved householders hundreds or even thousands of pounds a year you know you're going to get re-elected. Leave the nuclear dreams to people with no imagination.

Technorati tag: Carbon Dioxide, Nuclear, Politics

Backyard Biodiversity

Wild About Gardens is a scheme to track the wildlife resident in Great Britain's 15 million gardens.

We'd like to build up a source of local knowledge about wildlife in gardens, and this is where we need YOU. You can provide us with valuable information about the wild creatures and plants in your garden. All you need to do is register and join our conversation.

via WorldChanging

Technorati tag: Wildlife, Gardens, Biodiversity

Two Wheels Good

Manchester Bike Week is from June 11th to June 19th.

Technorati tag: Manchester, Cycling

The biodiesel lorry is coming

Cambridge University has mounted a biodiesel refining plant on the back of a lorry so it can go to farms and convert rape oil to fuel at source. The portable refinery is the first in the world that can continuously produce fuel, rather than having to be emptied and cleaned after every batch.

A little bit at the end, however, has me pondering the mathematics of commercial biodiesel-

The government has made this market profitable by giving a tax rebate of 20p on every litre sold compared with commercial diesel. Tesco has begun selling a form of bio-diesel in some garages. It contains 5% bio-diesel and costs 2p a litre more than the 100% petrol version giving Tesco a substantial profit on each litre.

Unless I've read that wrong, or it's badly phrased, Tesco are taking advantage of a rebate and buyers' goodwill to gouge a profit whilst looking green. Surely they could make it a win-win by selling 5% biodiesel for a couple of pennies less and still make more per litre because of the rebate.

Technorati tag: Biodiesel

National Health

The sort of development you hope Tony was talking about when he said that public sector buildings would work toward sustainable development. A County Antrim hospital is to get a quarter of its electricity from a windmill.

Technorati tag: Wind power

Brightening

The results of a ten year study show that, in some parts of the world, a greater amount of sunlight is reaching the Earth's surface. This could be a sign that global dimming is being reversed due to stricter pollution controls and the collapse of the Soviet Union's dirty industries.

Of course, there isn't enough data to tell how this is going to affect global warming. I'm trying not to take the pessimistic view.

Technorati tag: Global Dimming

Sustainable Development

The Government's sustainable development site. If only they'd made more noise about it when I was looking into the green credentials of the three main parties I might not have been so damning of Labour. I still wouldn't have voted for them, but that's a different matter.

via Worldchanging

Technorati tag: Sustainable Development

Hydraulic SUV

As well as the hydraulic transmission system being developed by Vincent Carman it seems the US government, in the form of the EPA, is getting in on the act- Hydraulic Hybrid SUV.

via Jalopnik

Technorati tag: Transport, Fuel Economy

The other biofuel

Biodiesel's been getting all the press lately, but ethanol has been around as a fuel for cars since the early years of motoring. As more Americans realise how stupid and damaging their country's dependence on oil- foreign or domestic- is, the demand for alcofuel grows.

It's also being touted as a potential source of hydrogen because because the "fuel is more easily transported and is not limited to being produced in daylight hours". But Carbon Dioxide is a side effect of the process, an automatic and quite large negative mark.

Technorati tag: Ethanol

Elephant Poop

The Rosamund Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, NY, has a pack of elephants producing 1000lbs of dung a day. This steaming pile, with the output of all the other animals, costs $10,000 a year to take away and be dealt with. On top of that, the zoo has heating bills of $400,000 a year. In a bid to solve one problem and reduce another, they are looking into using all that shit to generate heat.

"Zoos are about conservation and stemming the loss of animals and habitat," Baker said. "But conservation also is about how people use natural resources. This is an opportunity to give visitors the whole picture."

Technorati tag: Biomass, Elephants

Slot Cone Generator

From Norway, a country with a long and rugged coastline made up of all Slartibartfast's squiggly bits, comes a design for harnessing wave power and using it to generate a steady, rather than tide-related, flow of energy. The Slot Cone Generator is a breakwater with four slots on its face. As a wave breaks over it, the water fills reservoirs through the slot. The system doesn't generate electricity directly from the wave's energy, but from the stored kinetic energy of the water carried up to the reservoirs, releasing it over a period of hours. To further increase the flexibility of the system, it's planned to use excess electricity to create hydrogen for fuel cells etc.

via sustainablog

Technorati tag: Wave power, Norway

Inertia

I seem to remember something about buses having a great big flywheel attached to their motors that spun up to speed whilst the bus was moving and effectively stored up energy to be used when it needed to accelerate from a stop. A much more elegant and efficient system has been developed by Vincent Carman. It uses hydraulic pressure to store up energy and transfer it to the wheels. The pressurisation means the engine can always be running at its most efficient without losing power through a geared transmission. Carman reckons his system, currently being tested in two cars, doubles fuel economy with no other changes.

Technorati tag: Transport, Fuel economy

Brief

I did a little investigating of the Green stances of the three major parties, now a CityHippy contributer has a look and lays their cards on the table.

Also: the BBC Election environment page

Technorati tag: Election