Frack Off!

Footage from the anti-fracking demo in Manchester on Saturday.

Follow

from climate change – Spinneyhead http://ift.tt/2fs7Phu
via IFTTT

Flying around Incredible Edible in Todmorden

Last week, I was lucky enough to get a look around Todmorden, to see how the Incredible Edible group in the town has found ways to bring food and colour to its public spaces. Thanks to my action cam and a selfie stick, I was able to get a view of the project from the point of view of some of the insects it helps promote.

Follow

from climate change – Spinneyhead http://ift.tt/2cSSTI9
via IFTTT

Newcastle professor says UK could produce 100% of its energy from renewable sources

Using the Internet of Things to cut energy use.

“In the years to come every household appliance will have its own IP address linking it to the internet and allowing it be controlled from an app on our smart phones,” he said.

This so-called ‘internet of things’ will allow us, and the network operator, to tailor demand to accommodate the unreliability of renewable energy.

“If the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining then we may be asked to use less electricity and our pre-programmed appliances will react as instructed,” explained Prof Taylor.

Source: Newcastle professor says UK could produce 100% of its energy from renewable sources

Follow

from climate change – Spinneyhead http://ift.tt/2a2fjGu
via IFTTT

Buy your own bit of Heathrow

Airplot is a scheme dreamt up by Greenpeace to scupper plans for a third runway at Heathrow. They've bought up land on the planned site (not quite on the runway itself, but near) and will refuse to sell it. I think the idea is that everyone named as a co-tenant/owner of the land will have to be approached by the Government when it comes time to start buying up the land, making the job particularly hard.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

Chorlton Green Festival

Chorlton Green Festival was on Saturday. It was overcast but didn't rain in the end, luckily for all the stalls that were outside. I chatted to Friends of the Earth and the local Green Party, blagged quite a few goodies and picked up a few leaflets.

Practical Cycles had a load of interesting bikes.

Manchester Free Software gave me a Linux boot disk. I may soon be in the position to det up a Linux box, if only to re-learn how to use it.

Little Valley Brewery had many interesting beers, but I didn't think midday drinking, and potential falling off my bike, was such a good idea.

There are more pictures on Flickr.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

Feed in tariffs on Radio 4

Costing the Earth on Radio 4 today examined the feed in tariff, which should become available with the new tax year, and the economics of buying yourself a windmill or solar panels. You can listen to it through iPlayer.

Normally listen and watch again programmes on the BBC site expire within a week, but this one says it's okay until January of 2099.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

Nuclear reactors that eat their own waste

I'm not keen on it, but I think nuclear power will have to be part of any low to no carbon future. There's a lot of other stuff that should be done before going nuclear, but that's another post.

The design of reactors which burn up most of their radioactive waste has to be a step in the right direction. As the article points out there are still a lot of other ethical and physical problems with the technology, but reducing the amount of stuff which has to be buried for millions of years is a good step in anyone's book.

Technorati tag: Nuclear Power

The algae powered house

Students from the University of Cambridge have designed a house which utilises algae and household waste to produce power.

More information here.

Around the world by chip fat

A trip around Europe in a biodiesel powered van was one of those plans I had that never came to fruition. Wired has an article about one man who is better organised than I and is on the road at the moment.

Global Cooling is a con

This won't be news to anyone who's been paying attention, but it needs to be shouted out and repeated often, because the American public and even the BBC are falling for the lie.

There are many quote worthy lines in this report. Almost at random, let's go with-

Saying there's a downward trend since 1998 is not scientifically legitimate, said David Peterson, a retired Duke University statistics professor and one of those analyzing the numbers.

Identifying a downward trend is a case of "people coming at the data with preconceived notions," said Peterson, author of the book "Why Did They Do That? An Introduction to Forensic Decision Analysis."

Hop aboard the biomethane bus

A team from the University of East Anglia has adapted a single decker midi bus to run on biomethane and diesel. The bus can run for at least 60 percent of the time on gas from landfill or special anaerobic digesters.

The coming energy gap

The government's new energy adviser has warned of a potential energy shortage by 2016, as old coal and oil power stations are taken out of use. He blames public opposition to new wind farms, nuclear plants etc. for slowing the building of renewable energy sources.

I've got a solution for this, which I have put forward before. It's partly a bribe, but it's also a way of cutting the national energy bill and promoting renewables. The government should extend its schemes for subsidising houseowners' efforts to cut consumption and begin microgeneration. As more people become eligible for insulation or solar grants they will see the benefits of lower consumption in their bank accounts. Not only will this go viral and convince ever more people that they need to work toward energy independence, it will make them more open to larger renewable energy schemes.

Paying out more, and larger, grants to homeowners will be more expensive in the long term than just trying to force through wind farms or nuclear against current levels of opposition, but it will also have more immediate positive effects. Those who take advantage of the schemes will see a benefit in their fuel bills within a quarter and a large proportion of the money paid out will go to small companies, keeping them afloat in the recession and finding its way back into the economy faster than a huge sum to a big construction conglomerate would.

Hair solar

A Nepali teenager has come up with a way to use hair to replace silicon in solar cells. The melanin in the hair is photo sensitive and a conductor, and can be bought for pennies a kilo. Panels could be made for £23, or less when production is scaled up.

There's no real explanation of what Milan Karki has done to the hair to take advantage of melanin's attributes. If I find them I'll investigate further.

Redesigning Farmers' Markets

GOODblog ran a competition to generate ideas for invigorating farmers' markets and has posted the winners and finalists.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

Vertical Gardens

Wired takes a look at the wall mounted gardens of Patrick Blanc. Impressive. Next time I'm in London I'll try to visit the Atheneum Theatre to check out its eight story living wall.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

Interactive flood maps

I may have linked to these before. See how your home, or anywhere else in the world, will be affected by rising sea levels. Both the places I consider home- in Manchester and the Lake District- are out of reach of even a 14 metre rise, for what little comfort that provides.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

The rules for debating with climate change deniers

Climate change deniers have rules that they expect you to stick to when debating their latest weak attempt to disprove the theory. They look a lot like the ones posted here.

And please note, that when I say evidence, I mean:

1) Nothing that was recorded by instruments such as weather-stations, ocean buoys or satellite data. Since all instruments are subject to error, we cannot use them to measure climate.

2) Nothing that has been corrected to account for the error of recording instruments. Any corrected data is a fudge. You must use only the raw data, which is previously disqualified under rule #1. Got that? OK, moving along…

3) Nothing that was produced by a computer model. We all know that you can’t trust computer models, and they have a terrible track record in any industrial, architectural, engineering, astronomical or medical context.

4) Nothing that was researched or published by a scientist. Such appeals to authority are invalid. We all know that scientists are just writing these papers to keep their grant money.

I still occasionally interact with some folks online for whom the rules above aren't satire. A good response- which they'll still ignore, of course- is given by one of the commenters on the post-

Mole, you’ve also got to factor in the consequences of inaction into the assessment of data.

If, for example, despite the existing scientific evidence, you personally would ONLY be satisfied by a longitudinal study over the next 30 years – well, what if it turned out todays’s scientists were actually right, and waiting for that study took us through the tipping point?

Why would policy makers be wise to adopt your approach?

See – even if I am wrong, cleaning up carbon emissions will do no harm. Clean the air up a bit, less pollution, fewer illnesses among kids, etc. No problemo.

If you are wrong, however: life on this planet could well be reduced to a few green sites supporting half a billion people – instead of 6 billion – by next century.

You see why doubt-mongers are losing this debate? And that that is a good thing?

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

All new homes to be "zero carbon" by 2016

The Government has released a white paper that calls for all domestic buildings to be zero carbon by 2016. There isn't a definition for "zero carbon", however, though it's likely to mean buildings which are net-zero carbon over a year. New public buildings will be held to similar standards within a few years.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

The XR3 hybrid is ugly but efficient

The XR3 diesel electric hybrid three wheeler has a claimed consumption of 125 miles to the gallon (US gallon, I assume) and is soon going to be mass produced. The XR3 started out as a set of plans so you could build your own. I found it whilst browsing the designer's other creations such as the XR2 recumbent bike.

It's cool that such a car is going into production, but does it have to look like one of the background vehicles from a 1980's science fiction movie?

Technorati tag: Hybrid

The Armadillo- permaculture for the trailer park

The Armadillo started life as one of the thousands of trailer homes purchased to house families displaced by HUrricane KAtrina and other natural disasters. Now it's a mobile composting and permaculture centre, with water catchment and a vertical garden.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse