|
|
By Kathy Marks, Asia-Pacific Correspondent, and Daniel Howden
INDEPENDENT GRAPHICS
A “plastic soup” of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said.
The vast expanse of debris – in effect the world’s largest rubbish dump – is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting “soup” stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.
Charles Moore, an American oceanographer who discovered the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” or “trash vortex”, believes that about 100 million tons of flotsam are circulating in the region. Marcus Eriksen, a research director of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which Mr Moore founded, said yesterday: “The original idea that people had was that it was an island of plastic garbage that you could almost walk on. It is not quite like that. It is almost like a plastic soup. It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States.”
Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer and leading authority on flotsam, has tracked the build-up of plastics in the seas for more than 15 years and compares the trash vortex to a living entity: “It moves around like a big animal without a leash.” When that animal comes close to land, as it does at the Hawaiian archipelago, the results are dramatic. “The garbage patch barfs, and you get a beach covered with this confetti of plastic,” he added.The “soup” is actually two linked areas, either side of the islands of Hawaii, known as the Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage Patches. About one-fifth of the junk – which includes everything from footballs and kayaks to Lego blocks and carrier bags – is thrown off ships or oil platforms. The rest comes from land.
Mr Moore, a former sailor, came across the sea of waste by chance in 1997, while taking a short cut home from a Los Angeles to Hawaii yacht race. He had steered his craft into the “North Pacific gyre” – a vortex where the ocean circulates slowly because of little wind and extreme high pressure systems. Usually sailors avoid it.
He was astonished to find himself surrounded by rubbish, day after day, thousands of miles from land. “Every time I came on deck, there was trash floating by,” he said in an interview. “How could we have fouled such a huge area? How could this go on for a week?”
Mr Moore, the heir to a family fortune from the oil industry, subsequently sold his business interests and became an environmental activist. He warned yesterday that unless consumers cut back on their use of disposable plastics, the plastic stew would double in size over the next decade.
Professor David Karl, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii, said more research was needed to establish the size and nature of the plastic soup but that there was “no reason to doubt” Algalita’s findings.
“After all, the plastic trash is going somewhere and it is about time we get a full accounting of the distribution of plastic in the marine ecosystem and especially its fate and impact on marine ecosystems.”
Professor Karl is co-ordinating an expedition with Algalita in search of the garbage patch later this year and believes the expanse of junk actually represents a new habitat. Historically, rubbish that ends up in oceanic gyres has biodegraded. But modern plastics are so durable that objects half-a-century old have been found in the north Pacific dump. “Every little piece of plastic manufactured in the past 50 years that made it into the ocean is still out there somewhere,” said Tony Andrady, a chemist with the US-based Research Triangle Institute.
Mr Moore said that because the sea of rubbish is translucent and lies just below the water’s surface, it is not detectable in satellite photographs. “You only see it from the bows of ships,” he said.
According to the UN Environment Programme, plastic debris causes the deaths of more than a million seabirds every year, as well as more than 100,000 marine mammals. Syringes, cigarette lighters and toothbrushes have been found inside the stomachs of dead seabirds, which mistake them for food.
Plastic is believed to constitute 90 per cent of all rubbish floating in the oceans. The UN Environment Programme estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic,
Dr Eriksen said the slowly rotating mass of rubbish-laden water poses a risk to human health, too. Hundreds of millions of tiny plastic pellets, or nurdles – the raw materials for the plastic industry – are lost or spilled every year, working their way into the sea. These pollutants act as chemical sponges attracting man-made chemicals such as hydrocarbons and the pesticide DDT. They then enter the food chain. “What goes into the ocean goes into these animals and onto your dinner plate. It’s that simple,” said Dr Eriksen.
Taken from the  on the 24 August 2010
Across the world, wind technology produces as much political heat as electric light—stirring local arguments as well as global ones
Aug 19th 2010 | Athens, Hyannis and sydney
 Flour, not power “OF COURSE I’m all in favour of clean energy, especially wind power, but…” That is a familiar opening gambit in a new sort of political storm, raging ever more fiercely in corners of the world where electric power comes, or may soon come, from flashing blades rather than blazing furnaces.
The odd thing about conflicts over wind is that, usually, each side claims to be greener than the other. Opponents say a unique landscape or seascape is being overshadowed, to the detriment of tourists and residents alike. Wind power does undoubtedly pose some hazard to birds and other fauna; some say it harms humans. Others simply find wind turbines ugly, an eyesore in any location. Yet, compared with other power sources, the green credentials of wind are pretty convincing: it creates no waste, uses no water and (unlike solar panels) doesn’t need much room.
As an example of a green-on-green row, take one in Maine, where environmentalists squabble over plans to expand a wind farm on the wilderness of Kibby Mountain. Opponents say the lynx and other species will be disturbed; they hate the fact that the wind farm’s builders, TransCanada, are also engaged in tar-sands extraction in Alberta. Supporters retort that global warming, which wind and other renewable energies help to avert, would not be good for big cats or the trees they prowl round. On August 5th, TransCanada announced that it was scaling back its expansion plan after running into resistance from state regulators.
Meanwhile in Scotland’s border country, David Bellamy, a broadcaster on wildlife, has joined the campaign against a wind farm in the rugged Lammermuir Hills. This row is not just green-on-green, but blueblood-against-blueblood. The Duke of Roxburghe wants to host the turbines; his neighbour, the Duke of Northumberland, opposes them.
Tempers run extra-high when the locations are glamorous and global celebrities are involved. Take Robert Kennedy junior, an environmental lawyer who helped to clean up New York’s Hudson River. He has been part of a campaign to stop a $1 billion sea-based project, called Cape Wind, that was approved by the Obama administration in April. If it proceeds, it will be America’s first offshore wind park, with an impressive capacity of 468 megawatts. The country has been a leader in land-based turbines but lags behind China and Europe in sea-based efforts. Among its many benefits, the park would meet the electricity needs of a gorgeous strip of coast where Kennedys and other grand folk have been summering for several generations. But it is a blessing those blazer-wearing, bourbon-sipping vacationers could do without.
Ken Salazar, America’s secretary of the interior, said he gave his approval only after making adjustments to parry all objectors. The number of turbines was cut from 170 to 130, in part to reduce the “visual impact” suffered by the Kennedys’ fabled compound. The wind park has been moved farther away from Nantucket island and its breadth has been reduced to make it less visible to holidaymakers there. The minimum distance from the mainland is now 5.2 nautical miles; Nantucket town is 14 miles away from the proposed blades.
But the Kennedys, as well as humbler sorts nearby, such as the owners of homes, boats and businesses, have not been persuaded. Before his death in 2009, Senator Ted Kennedy (Robert’s uncle) had denounced the project as a “special-interest giveaway”. Scott Brown, the Republican who took his place in the Senate, is following suit; he has likened the park to putting turbines in the Grand Canyon. In some local matters, even right-wing climate sceptics and climate-conscious lefties concur.
On a recent August day in Hyannis, the mood seemed carefree as tourists tucked into fish lunches or boarded ships for the islands. But in the naysayers’ view, it is precisely these idyllic scenes that are under threat from machines that may cover an area the size of Manhattan and be taller (at 134 metres) than the Statue of Liberty. “It would be like industrialising the Sound,” says Audra Parker, head of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, a protest group.
A study by the Beacon Hill Institute, a free-market think-tank associated with Boston’s Suffolk University, lists a sharp drop in tourist spending among the economic costs the project would impose; it would not be viable at all without a vast subsidy from state and federal taxpayers, the report argues. But Mr Salazar insists that the Cape Wind project is not only desirable in itself, but a precursor to other wind parks on America’s Atlantic coast, which has up to 1m megawatts of capacity.
One place where aesthetes and sceptics seem to have prevailed is the Greek island of Serifos, where plans were announced in 2007 to build 87 turbines of similar height to the ones proposed for Massachusetts. Critics felt the blades would disturb the 100,000 tourists who visit every year. “The project was way too large for our island,” says Angeliki Synodinou, the mayor. Another foe of the plan, Daphne Mavrogiorgos, said the turbines would have been almost as high as the island’s loftiest peak. Speaking for Elliniki Etaireia, an NGO which defends the Aegean’s ecology, she said turbines are both desirable and aesthetically fine, but the scale must be right.
Yet advocates of wind insist that tourists and turbines can go together. In 2002, a survey of visitors to the west of Scotland (where wind farms abound) found that only 8% said their feelings were negatively affected by the blades; some 43% said the mills made them feel better about the region. “In China and Poland people go to wind farms to have wedding pictures taken,” notes Steve Sawyer, of the Brussels-based Global Wind Energy Council.
Apart from aesthetics, the threat to migratory birds is the most frequently cited argument against wind farms. Since June, Cape Wind has faced a legal challenge from a group that includes Californians who normally lobby in favour of renewable energy. Their case is that the park could violate the Endangered Species Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
In the Australian state of Victoria, concern over the threat that turbines could pose to the rare orange-bellied parrot nearly put paid to a wind farm, the Bald Hills project, in 2006. Earlier this year, the spectacular bird was again in the eye of an Australian storm, this time over another, larger wind park in Victoria, even though research had suggested that the threat to parrots is small. The park is going ahead.*
Some Australians fret more about the effect of turbines on humans. Residents of Waubra, a town near Victoria’s biggest wind generator, recently complained that low-frequency noise was causing headaches and earaches. Noel Dean, a local farmer, said he had to move his family away. He then commissioned a report that seemed to confirm his view.
But the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, which advises the federal government, thinks otherwise. In a report published in July it concluded there was no scientific evidence to suggest that noise, flickering shadows or glinting blades made people sick. It found that a wind farm with ten turbines made much less din than an office; in fact, only about the level that might be found in a quiet bedroom, or in a rural area at night. Britain’s National Health Service agrees: having studied the available research, it finds no proof of harm from turbines.
In practice, the way people feel about windmills may have as much to do with financial effects as with physical ones. Many people fear that turbines will instantly depress the value of property nearby, even if it enriches those whose land is used. Research in America and Britain suggests there is no consistent relationship between blades and property prices. But if enough people expect a negative effect, the fear will be self-fulfilling.
 Flour, not power According to Australia’s Clean Energy Council, an industry association, wind farms divide rural communities. On one side are those who are well paid by power companies for the right to set up turbines; on the other are their neighbours who gain nothing but a darkened skyline. Perhaps not surprisingly, the council found that people who benefited from turbines could endure the noise “despite exposure to similar sound levels as people who were not economically benefiting”.
Learning Danish
Both Australia and Greece have looked at how Denmark has fared with its community-owned wind farms. Danish lessons were used in the Australian town of Daylesford, where wind power has been accepted by the whole population, in the form of a two-turbine station meeting the needs of the area’s 2,300 homes. The project, known as Hepburn Wind, grew out of a campaign by a few devotees to educate people about clean energy. They then raised about A$8 million ($7.2m) from the locals. Simon Holmes à Court, one of the founders, says a “wind rush” by big developers in Victoria a few years ago turned some citizens off. Hepburn took a different line, with consultation and co-ownership.
Wind doesn’t always lead to political problems. In several countries where it flourishes—such as Germany, China and Spain—the technology is relatively free from controversy, whether because the public has been convinced, or is simply prepared to accept top-down decisions.
In fiercely democratic Greece, the potential for wind farms certainly exists, as anyone who sails the Aegean knows. And Tina Birbili, Greece’s environment and climate-change minister, says her country can follow Spain and Portugal in promoting wind energy, despite the local opposition it sometimes arouses. Next year her government will invite bids for offshore parks—after specifying, to the dismay of some contractors, that the government would identify the locations. This was denounced in some newspapers as too statist an approach; she disagrees. Far from frustrating investors, the policy would help them by offering a one-stop shop. It would pre-empt the objections that might be raised by various bits of the Greek government—from the culture ministry, protective of antiquities, to the foreign and defence ministries, mindful of security. In any case, Miss Birbili says, the state welcomes private-sector proposals for land-based parks.
For visitors to Greece, the words “windmill” and “Aegean” evoke stone buildings with white sails, like the newly rebuilt ones on Patmos (pictured). Planning laws prevent such structures from being used for electricity. Miss Birbili thinks giant, high-tech blades, looming over the wine-dark sea, could become an equally welcome sight. But it may be a while before a new Homer hymns them in verse.
*Correction: In the original version of this article, we said the Bald Hills project was located in the state of Queensland. The project is actually located in the state of Victoria. This has been corrected online.
Taken from the Economist Website on the 23 August 2010
Michael McCarthy is given the chance to put his environmental policies to the test
SUSANNAH IRELAND
The Independent’s environment editor Michael McCarthy examines the 2050 Pathway Calculator
It’s not quite being at the controls of the Starship Enterprise. But it’s on the way there.
As from today, you can sit at your laptop or your workstation and redesign UK energy policy for the next 40 years. That’s you. Yes, you.
It’s simple. You do it using the software the British Government is using itself, and you can pick your own range of policies and measures that will keep the lights on, in the face of looming global threats to energy supply, while simultaneously cutting Britain’s emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, by 80 per cent – as the Government has pledged.
Once you start doing it, as I did yesterday, you get a feeling of Titanic Power, as in “Hmm. I think I’ll close down all coal-fired power plants”. (Unspoken thought: And have my picture displayed on all public buildings).
You also get a real sense, deciding with the click of a mouse whether to install 10,000 or 17,000 offshore wind turbines by 2050, or to build 13 nuclear power stations, or 30, or none at all, that in planning the energy future there are necessary choices and trade-offs, and you can’t rule something out, without ruling something in. And it’s all rather more complex than you might think. Whatever mix you choose, or whatever “pathway”, as the Government prefers to term it, the endpoint must be the same: CO2 emissions have to be slashed by 80 per cent in four decades’ time – with the lights still kept on.
Doing it yourself gives an unusual and vivid insight into the difficulties faced by real policymakers in grappling with our energy future. The software tool that makes it possible is called the 2050 Pathways Calculator and it is the brainchild of the blue-skies thinker at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), the chief scientist, Professor David Mackay.
When I began using the calculator yesterday – it’s available on the DECC website – I was quickly initiated into the frustrations, as well as the delights, of shaping the future.
The calculator has three lists of measures, which you can see in the columns on the screen, from left to right, under the headings UK demand for energy, UK supply of electricity, and greenhouse gas emissions.
The first has measures affecting demand, such as home heating and insulation, while the second lists power-supply sectors such as wind, solar and nuclear power, and fossil-fuel burning (combined with technology to store the CO2 given off). Each list has four ranges of effort, from one, which is doing virtually nothing, to four, which is doing everything short of breaking the laws of physics. You pick a series of measures and apply a range of effort to each one, and then column three works out for you what the result is, in terms of the percentage cut in CO2 by 2050. I decided to see how much I would cut if I put all the demand measures, and all the supply measures, on level two of effort (“effort described by most stakeholders as achievable”).
I did the clicking, and there was the result: Britain’s CO2 cut in 2050 by 42 per cent (a long way short of the target). So I ramped up onshore wind from effort level two (8,000 turbines covering the landscape by 2050) to effort level three (13,000 turbines).
Result: nothing. The CO2 cut stayed at 42 per cent. This can’t be right, I thought. Bloody government. Bloody software. So I ramped up the offshore wind sector from level two (10,000 turbines surrounding the coasts by 2050) to three (17,000). Result: nothing again. The CO2 stayed on 42 per cent.
Your calculator, I told the DECC press office indignantly, is broken on its first day. Washed up. Rubbish.
Five minutes later I had a call from a man at the DECC whom I can only describe as a boffin, called Jan, and when I explained to him that at the risk of permanent enmity from the Countryside Alliance, I had virtually doubled Britain’s wind turbines overnight, yet nothing had happened, he nodded – I can sense people nodding down the phone – and said: “But of course.”
He explained: “You are now merely oversupplying decarbonised electricity.” There was so much carbon-free electricity in the system I had chosen that adding more didn’t actually cut carbon emissions further. “However,” he went on, “if you move ‘electrification of individual transport’ from level two to level three, you will see that the CO2 emissions cut rises from 42 per cent to 43 per cent.”
“Ah,” I said. “Ah yes.” It was in other areas, he added, that the extra cuts needed to be found. Well, I never said it was simple, did I? All right. Maybe I did. But it’s fascinating, and you can try it yourself at 2050-calculator-tool.decc.gov.uk.
Taken from the Times Website on the 20 August 2010
Jessica Aldred
guardian.co.uk, Monday 10 December 2007 12.20 GMT
Wind turbines in in Stirling, Scotland. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty
What’s the history of wind energy?
For centuries, people have harnessed the wind’s energy for power, to sail ships (the ancient Egyptians) or to power windmills to grind grain (the Persians). The Dutch are famous for their windmills, which have formed the basis for the design of the modern wind turbines that we see today.
How does wind energy work?
Wind is caused by sunlight unevenly heating the surface of the Earth. During the day, air over the land heats up more quickly than air over the water, making it expand and rise. As it does so, cooler, more dense air rushes in beneath it, creating an air current. Some giant wind currents are driven by hot air at the equator and cool air at the poles. In Britain, we have enough wind to power the country several times over.
Turbines harness this energy by working like an old-fashioned windmill with rotor blades that face into the wind. When the blades are spinning, they drive a shaft that is connected to an electrical generator by a gearbox. Most wind turbines produce electricity when the wind is blowing at 10-30mph. One 1.8mW wind turbine produces enough electricity for 1,000 households every year.
What are wind farms?
Turbines tend to be built together, as “windfarms”, to produce more electricity in places that have strong, steady winds.
Windfarms can be onshore – on ridgelines, at the tops of rounded hills, open plains and gaps in mountains; near shore – on land within 3km of a shoreline, or offshore – generally 10km or more from land.
Onshore windfarm projects are finding it increasingly difficult to get planning approval because opposition to them is becoming more entrenched and better organised.
Offshore farms cost more to build but produce more electricity because they usually stand in open, windier spots. However, current offshore farms can encroach on shipping lanes, affect seabird sanctuaries and disturb marine life, limiting the number of suitable sites.
Wind energy is now available for both large and small-scale electricity generation, with huge technological advances over the past 20 years.
How many windfarms are there in the UK?
The UK has some of the best wind resources in Europe, if not the world, in both onshore and offshore locations. This makes the British Isles a very attractive location for wind developments, as high average wind speeds and good reliability results in more power output and lower costs.
The number of windfarms in the UK is steadily increasing. The first windfarm was set up in November 1991. According to the British Wind Energy Association, there are currently 186 operational windfarm projects in the UK, with 2,120 turbines creating enough energy to power the equivalent of 1,523,052 homes and saving 6,156,175 tonnes of carbon.
However, wind turbines do not yet make a significant contribution to electricity production, making up less than 1% of the national total.
The government last year announced plans for thousands of new offshore wind turbines which could power every home in Britain by 2020.
What are the benefits of wind energy?
Wind is really a form of solar power, so it has similar benefits of being clean, abundant and free. Some estimates suggest there is enough wind to generate one-third of the world’s electricity. Small wind turbines can be used in remote places to power homes that are too far away from the national grid.
What are the arguments against?
The major problem with wind power is that it is intermittent, so it can only be used to generate electricity when the wind is blowing strongly enough. Good sites for wind turbines are often quite remote, either offshore or up on mountainsides, far from the cities where the energy is most needed.
Another argument against large-scale windfarms is their impact on the natural landscape. Because they generally have to be positioned on hills to get the maximum benefits of the wind, some complain that they ruin the landscape.
Onshore windfarm projects are finding it increasingly difficult to get planning approval in the UK because local residents are fighting against windfarms being positioned in their area. There are now 151 UK anti windfarm action groups in the UK which have been formed as a result of windfarm developments planned for local countryside areas.
Another argument made against windfarms – particularly offshore ones- is the threat to birds. However, appropriately positioned windfarms do not pose a significant hazard for birds, says the RSPB.
Taken from the Gaurdian Website on 20 August 2010
By Dhruti Shah
BBC News
Sewage could become a more important energy source in the future
As the UK faces the prospect of North Sea gas running out, could supply problems be eased by using gas made from human waste?
For most people the waste they eject from their bodies is something they don’t bother thinking about once they’ve shut the toilet door behind them.
But there are some who think human waste could be a major part of a stable gas supply. Just as long as we can overcome our prejudices.
1: Domestic waste water heads to sewage processing plant
2: Settlement tanks separate sewage into clean water and sludge
3: Anaerobic digesters break down the waste and produce a thick, odourless waste and methane. Waste solids used as fuel or fertiliser
4: Biogas plant cleans methane to remove impurities, adds odorant to “smell like gas”
5: Clean biomethane pumped back into national network
|
The UK has to ensure that, by 2020, 15% of the energy it produces comes from renewable sources. This, combined with government plans to reward those who pursue this route sooner rather than later, has led to a surge in interest in deriving power from the euphemistically termed “sewage waste”.
With many energy experts already looking forward to the end of North Sea gas, much will hinge on the stability of supply from Russia and the Middle East. Uncertainty could be a driver for the exploration of alternative sources of gas.
The UK produces 1.73 million tonnes of sewage sludge every year, which the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says could potentially be used to produce biogas.
Anaerobic digesters
And, this summer British Gas, in partnership with Thames Water and Scotia Gas Networks, plan to be the first to start piping biomethane, derived from faecal matter, into the national network and straight back to the homes of 130 customers in Didcot in Oxfordshire.
Anaerobic digesters – carefully managed bacteria – are already used to turn faeces into a means of generating electricity, but the additional plant that British Gas will install will clean up the spare biogas and turn it into biomethane which can be used on household hobs and in gas central heating.
 |
 It is a way of turning methane into something useful and something which will prevent the displacement of fossil fuels 
|
The whole process should take about 23 days from flush to finish and since the infrastructure is already in place, British Gas say that the test customers would not notice any difference in the final product.
The most crucial thing for many consumers will be the issue of smell. The new biomethane will smell just like the standard natural gas supply.
Other energy firms including United Utilities and Ecotricity have also announced their plans to inject biomethane straight into the network at a later date.
There may be some people who find the idea strange, but deriving power from human waste is nothing new. Experts who have contributed to a list maintained by University of Adelaide say biogas was believed to be used to heat bath water in Assyria in the 10th century BC and Persia in the 16th Century.
In the 13th century, the traveller Marco Polo noted the Chinese used covered sewage tanks to generate power, while biogas technologies were also referred to by 17th century author Daniel Defoe.
In 1859, an anaerobic digestion plant was built to process sewage at a Bombay leper colony, while in Victorian Britain excreta was used to power gas street lamps.
Sewage is still an important source of energy in communities in India and China.
Although human waste power has made its mark in the electricity field in the UK thanks to incentives already in place, gas companies say that until now, it had been too expensive for them to clean up that gas for it to be used in hobs and heating.
Prof Frank Scholwin, the head of the Biogas Technology Department at the German Biomass Research Centre, says the trend in Europe began around 15 years ago when waste management companies realised they could use the sewage as a fuel source for buses and heavy vehicles they had on site.
European countries were interested in producing their own gas sources as, among other factors, it provided them with a degree of stability, Prof Scholwin suggests.
“The result was that they became far less dependent on other major natural gas producing countries such as Russia.”
The solid waste leftover in Didcot is given to farmers to use as fertiliser
|
Legal obligations and incentives resulted in an increase in the number of companies in Germany and Sweden producing biomethane for a variety of purposes.
A 2009 paper by the National Grid said with the “right government policies in place, renewable gas could meet up to 50% of the UK’s residential demand for gas” but admitted this would not be easy.
It said that by 2020, a more feasible projection could see sewage and waste water providing up to 270 million cubic metres (0.28%) of the estimated 97,000 million cubic metres total demand for gas. In an ideal scenario, by that same date, it could provide 629 million cubic metres (0.65%) of the total UK gas demand.
Dr Guy Hitchcock, head of Exeter University’s Centre for Energy and the Environment, says changes such as the Renewable Heat Incentives and other legal obligations have made sewage an attractive proposition for investment in the energy market.
Although biofuels made from food crops such as wheat and rapeseed were often criticised about their potential impact on the food chain, land development and carbon footprints, he says there were fewer arguments against biomethane derived from sewage.
Instead conflicts were over economics and the most profitable ways of utilising the gas.
“If we’re talking about biogas from food crops then the argument is similar but when it comes to sewage it appears to be a different matter.
|
POO POWER
In Oslo biomethane is used to power public buses
False Creek Energy Centre in Vancouver used human waste to ensure athletes stayed warm during the Winter Olympics
In Rwanda, prisoners’ waste is used to generate the heat to cook their food
|
“It is a way of turning methane into something useful and something which will prevent the displacement of fossil fuels.”
However he admitted that the potential for power generation has an obvious limitation – the finite amount of human waste produced.
“We produce what we produce and we use it. The resource is obviously limited by what we produce”, he notes.
The government’s Renewable Energy Strategy says “12% of our heat could come from sustainable biomass, biogas, solar and heat pumps, supplying the equivalent of four million households with their current heating demands”.
But it also warned that this could potentially lead to an increase in household electricity and gas bills.
And that could be of more concern to consumers than a bit of squeamishness.
Taken from the BBC News – Will we switch to gas made from human waste?. on the 09 July 2010
Europe’s first waste to bioethanol plant could be operational by 2012, according to the firm behind the project.
Plans for the plant, to be located in the Tees Valley in north east England, have moved ahead after INEOS Bio won funding for the scheme.
The firm was awarded £7.3M grant from both One North East and the Department for Energy and Climate Change to build the plant.
The project will create around 40 new permanent jobs and an estimated 350 jobs during the construction.
Once operational the firm has plans to expand the site into an integrated biorefinery, combining advanced bioenergy production with advanced waste treatment by 2015.
The plant is designed to produce 24,000 tonnes per year (30M litres) of carbon-neutral road transport fuel and generate more than 3MW of clean electricity for export from over 100,000 tonnes per year of biodegradable household and commercial waste.
This would provide the biofuel requirement of around 250,000 vehicles per year and the electricity needs of 6000 households.
Chief executive of INEOS Bio, Peter Williams, said the firm was building ‘Europe’s first waste to bioethanol plant’.
He said: “Using our technology, the waste that is collected from homes and offices and otherwise thrown away, can be re-cycled into clean biofuel for cars and renewable electricity for homes and industry.”
Taken from edie.net on the 30 June 2010 – Europe’s first waste to bio-ethanol plant announced.
By Nicky Burridge, Press Association
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Households are typically being charged more than £80 a year in hidden taxes to help combat the impact of climate change, research suggested today.The average household pays £84 a year in hidden taxes on their energy bills and the figure looks set to rise, according to price comparison website uSwitch.com.The group warned that mounting pressures could see these taxes double during the coming 10 years to reach £176 a year.
Environmental levies such as the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target, the Community Energy Saving Programme and the Renewables Obligation currently make up 7% of energy bills.But the group said policies launched under the previous government are expected to add further taxes worth 6% of gas and electricity bills during the coming 10 years, bringing the total to £156 a year.The Treasury is also thought to be considering an additional levy to electricity bills, which would add a further £10 to £20.Many people are unhappy about the environmental levies, with 44% saying the commitment towards cutting carbon emissions and moving to greener energy sources has to be balanced with the impact on people’s fuel bills.
Three out of 10 people also thought that the cost should be shared by the Government, industry, business and consumers.Ann Robinson, director of consumer policy at uSwitch.com, said: “Environmental levies are going to account for a growing and substantial part of our bills and will in turn play a growing and substantial part in pushing the cost of our energy up. “If consumers are to be expected to meet these costs then there has to be clarity over what these hidden taxes are for, a cap set on how much consumers will end up paying and transparency over how the levies are being applied.”If the levies are applied proportionately they will act as an incentive for households to cut their energy consumption. If not, then the industry will be sending out a very mixed message to consumers.”
:: YouGov questioned 2,146 people during February.
Taken from the Independant on the 30 June 2010 – ‘£80 cost’ of hidden taxes to combat climate change – Climate Change, Environment – The Independent.
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
 Lord Turner, Committee on Climate Change chairman: ‘The recession has created the illusion that progress is being made to reduce emissions. So we are repeating our call for new policy approaches’
Britain is not on course to meet its climate change targets for reducing carbon emissions, the Government is bluntly warned today.
Only a step change in effort, brought about by a range of new policies ranging from boosting numbers of electric cars to reforming the electricity market, will ensure that the UK’s legally binding “carbon budgets” can be complied with by 2020 and beyond, according to the independent Committee on Climate Change.
In its second progress report to Parliament, the committee cautions that the sharp fall in UK greenhouse gas emissions of 8.6 per cent seen last year is almost entirely due to the recession, and that the proportion of the drop due to actual climate policies is but “a fraction” of the total. When the economy recovers, the committee warns, the rate of reduction due will not be adequate to achieve the 34 per cent reduction in CO2 (on 1990 levels) by 2020, to which the Government is already committed – let alone the 42 per cent reduction to which Britain will move if a tougher target can be agreed with the rest of the EU.
“The recession has created the illusion that progress is being made to reduce emissions,” said the committee chairman, Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, who as Adair Turner was the director general of the Confederation of British Industry.
“Although emissions have declined substantially, our analysis shows that this is almost wholly due to a reduction in economic activity, and not from new measures being introduced to tackle climate change. So we are repeating our call for new policy approaches to drive the required step change, in order that the UK can ensure a low-carbon recovery.”
The committee was set up to monitor the performance of the government in implementing the 2008 Climate Change Act, which made the UK the first country in the world to have a legally binding long-term framework to cut carbon emissions. Britain is doing this through a series of five-yearly carbon budgets which have to be met, by law.
Today’s report is a candid signal to the new coalition, both parties of which have stressed their commitment to tackling global warming , that unless it acts decisively and quickly with a range of new initiatives, it will fail. Four areas in particular are highlighted: electric cars, buildings insulation, agriculture and reform of the energy market. The committee would like to see Britain running a fleet of 1.7m electric cars, which have zero CO2 emissions, by 2020 – at present there are thought to be only a few hundred electric vehicles on the roads.
Yet it is concerned that £260m in the budget of the Department for Transport, earmarked for price support for buyers, and for setting up a battery-charging network, may be swept away on the forthcoming cuts to reduce the deficit. “We would like to keep that funding for the electric car market,” said the committee secretary, David Kennedy.
Secondly, the committee would like to see new rules for how farmers apply nitrogen fertilisers to the land – which can release nitrogen oxides, themselves greenhouse gases. Thirdly, it wants a comprehensive programme of home insulation, which addresses all the barriers stopping people investing in domestic energy efficiency.
And fourthly, it would like to see a reorganisation of the current, liberalised energy market to make it more attractive to investors to put their money in low-carbon power generation, including a government-supported minimum price for carbon.
Taken from the Independant on 30 June 2010 - Emission cuts threatened by economic recovery – Climate Change, Environment – The Independent.
Even after the failure to reach agreement on binding CO2 cuts in Copenhagen last December, UNFCCC executive director Yvo de Boer is confident that the world is making progress on global warming
Elizabeth Kolbert for Yale Environment 360, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 22 June 2010 10.04 BST
Article history
Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, says he is not discouraged by the slow pace of talks to reduce emissions. Photograph: Oliver Berg/EPA
For four years, Yvo de Boer, executive director of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, has faced the daunting challenge of persuading nearly 200 nations that it’s in their interests to begin weaning themselves from the fossil fuels that make the world go ’round. The culmination of his tenure came last December in Denmark, where he and many others tried — and failed — to get world powers to commit to binding cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
As he prepares to leave his post at the end of June, de Boer — widely admired for his diplomatic skills and commitment to blunting the gathering threat of global warming — says he is not discouraged by the slow pace of talks to reduce emissions. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, conducted by New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert, de Boer said the world community now squarely acknowledges the dangers posed by climate change and that since Copenhagen 127 countries have backed the Copenhagen Accord, with many agreeing to voluntary emissions reductions targets. “Governments around the world are already beginning to shift their policies,” he said. “The world is beginning to move on climate change.”
It’s vital, said de Boer, that the world’s industrialized nations step up efforts to slash emissions, while also working with countries such as China to make the transition to green energy. Innovative policies to shift world economies to renewable fuels are needed to alleviate concerns from major developing countries that cutting emissions will prevent them from lifting their people out of poverty, said de Boer. “At the end of the day, if you can’t make a convincing case that green growth is possible, then it’s end of story,” he said.
De Boer said he is more optimistic today than when he assumed his position in 2006. The struggle to slow global warming will be a long one, he said, but he remains convinced that the world community will one day realize the economic and environmental benefits of making the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. “I really do believe,” said de Boer, “that once we take the first serious bites of this, we’ll actually find it tastes quite good.”
Yale Environment 360: Obviously no one’s had a more comprehensive view of climate negotiations for the last four years than you have. In your opinion, as you get ready to go, what is it going to take to move this process forward? You hear a lot of people saying we’re not going to do anything until there’s a disaster, at which point obviously the science tells us that it’s too late.
Yvo de Boer: Well, I certainly hope we’re not going to wait until there is a disaster because, as you rightly say, then it will be too late. Sometimes international climate policy reminds me a little bit of the frog in water that gets hotter and hotter, and the frog doesn’t notice until it’s too late. If we let things get out of control and are already confronted by extreme impacts of climate change, then it really will be too late.
I don’t have the sense that’s the direction in which it’s going. I think for a multitude of reasons, of which concern over climate change is one, governments around the world are already beginning to shift their policies.
Part of the stalemate is that developing nations are not impressed by the efforts made by industrialized countries.”
In the aftermath of Copenhagen we had 127 countries associate themselves with the Copenhagen Accord. Those countries cover more than 80 percent of global energy-related CO2 emissions. All industrialized countries have submitted 2020 targets and 35 or 36 developing countries, including all the big ones, have submitted national action plans. So I think the world is beginning to move on climate change. The challenge now is to put in place through the negotiations the regulatory framework that will allow them to proceed on that road in a balanced and well-organized way.
e360: You said [recently] that you did not see the process delivering adequate emissions targets in the next decade. What are the consequences of waiting beyond 2020?
de Boer: Well, what I was trying to explain is that the industrialized country targets that were offered post-Copenhagen do not take us into the minus 25 to 40 percent range that the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] says is what gives us a 50-50 chance of avoiding a more than 2 degree [Celsius] temperature increase. And the targets and actions committed by all countries post-Copenhagen are not sufficient to see a global peaking of emissions in the next decade. So that means that we would need to see a very significant increase of ambition in the next couple of years for goals by the end of the decade to measure up to what science tells us is needed. And I think that the likelihood of dramatically increasing on the offers that were made post-Copenhagen by the time we get to [climate talks in] Mexico [in December] is relatively small.
e360: Right. You also said that it’s essential that current pledges grow over the next few years, otherwise the 2 degree C world will be in danger. Now, you know already, even under best-case scenarios, we have a 50-50 chance, science tells us, of staying below 2 degrees C. So what do you see as the odds of staying below that target at this point? And, as a follow-up, at what point do we say that the door to a 2 degree C world has been slammed shut?
de Boer: I think that the key to getting this thing under control quickly enough lies in getting started. I mean, many people remember that when sulfur dioxide trading started in the United States, industry was screaming that this would be the end. And instead they turned out to be well-implementable programs that actually led to significant cost savings.
The big gain of [the] Bali [climate talks] for me was the fact that we recognized that having only industrialized-country targets under Kyoto was not good enough, that we need to move to a comprehensive global response. And I think that there needs to be learning-by-doing experience, especially in developing countries, that embarking on climate policy can be married with economic growth. And the speed at which we learn that lesson depends to a considerable extent on the effectiveness with which we can put an international regime in place. If developing countries are confident that there is financial, technological, and capacity-building support for them to embark on this journey, then I think that the willingness will grow to move forward.
Part of the stalemate, I think, is caused by the fact that developing nations are not particularly impressed by the efforts made by industrialized countries so far, be it in terms of emission reductions or in terms of financial support for the developing world. And at the same time, those developing countries are being asked to take on increasing commitments when they’re not sure that there will be delivery on the necessary infrastructure.
e360: When President Obama was elected there were high hopes in this country at least, and I assume internationally, that U.S. policy was going to change or there was going to be progress on climate. What kind of marks do you give the administration so far?
de Boer: Well it depends, I suppose, on what kind of an educationalist you are. I would give the administration eight out of 10 for effort since I believe in encouragement.
e360: Oh you’re an easy grader.
de Boer: Well, the mark for actual results would be unfortunately a little bit lower. But I must say the Obama administration hasn’t exactly had it easy in the sense that pretty much everything that could go wrong has gone wrong in terms of debates about the economic recovery package. The financial crisis which took up a lot of attention, then getting agreement on the economic recovery package, then health care coming on top of that, where I think President Obama had to use a lot of his credit and leverage. Then the legislation getting stuck in the Senate, now this oil crisis and the whole debate that that is sparking.
e360: Right, but I guess I would argue a lot of those things were self-inflicted. I mean, they didn’t have to do those things. They chose where to spend their chips.
de Boer: Well, I think you can blame President Obama for a lot, but I don’t think you can blame him for the economic crisis. I certainly think that that made the whole health care thing much more difficult, and even though I’ve devoted 14 or 15 years of my life to addressing climate change, I can understand that President Obama accorded a higher priority to health care given how important that is directly to the American people and how long Democratic administrations have been trying to get that fixed.
e360: What in your mind is a realistic stabilization target at this point?
de Boer: I think it’s realistic to work towards a 450 parts per million concentration [of atmospheric CO2] scenario, so the 50-50 for 2 degrees [C increase]. I really do believe that once we take the first serious bite of this, we’ll actually find it tastes quite good. What I find interesting is that countries like China and Korea seem to have realized more clearly than all
I believe that once we take the first serious bite of this, we’ll actually find it tastes quite good.”
others that this economic crisis needs to be used to change the economic growth paradigm. I think that China recognizes as no other country that you simply cannot continue to achieve 7, 8, 9 percent economic growth per year with the current economic model. I don’t know how many times in every decade you would need to double the size of the Chinese rail network to move enough coal across the country to keep the current model surviving. So I think there is in many parts of the world a recognition that something needs to change. And I honestly believe that once we begin to embark on that journey in a serious way, we will become increasingly enthusiastic and see that shift.
e360: After Copenhagen you heard people start to argue that the whole UN process is just too unwieldy, you can’t get 190-plus countries to agree to basically anything. And that we need to try to maybe find a new way forward. What would you say to those folks?
de Boer: Well, I would say we got 190 countries to sign up to the climate change convention in Rio, we got 190 countries to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol. We got 190 countries to launch negotiations for the next round in Bali, so I think it’s been done before. That doesn’t mean to say it’s easy. I suppose one of the great drawbacks of democracy is that it takes time and effort, that the fact of the matter is that in these negotiations you’ve got major industrialized countries that are worried about their competitive edge, major developing countries that are worrying about how they’re going to marry climate policy and poverty eradication. Small island countries that are afraid all of this debate is going to take so long they won’t be around to see the successful conclusion. And then oil-, coal-, and gas-producing countries or companies that are afraid climate policy is going to be the end of them.
And trying to find a balance in all of that is difficult. It would be relatively easy to get the 20 biggest emitters around the table and say, “Let’s deal with the emissions side of the equation.” But that doesn’t mean that you’ve addressed the concerns of the 100-plus developing countries that have contributed nothing to climate change but will be confronted with most of the consequences.
e360: Well, that gets to the question of whether there is even in theory a treaty that’s both equitable and effective. I mean, you do have these incredibly profound equity issues that are on the table and by some accounts [are] almost insoluble.
de Boer: Well, in my speech to delegates [at a meeting in Bonn] one of the things I said was that greater legal rigor doesn’t always lead to greater ambition. I don’t know if the attempt or the perceived attempt to impose
It’s a longer journey that we’re on and we need to raise our level of ambition over time.”
targets on major developing countries really encourages those countries to step forward and be ambitious. The dilemma in all this is that on the one hand the sense of urgency makes you want to act fast, but on the other hand I at least have the realization that this really needs to be a learning-by-doing process. That it’s a longer journey that we’re on and we need to raise our level of ambition over time.
When I was in that small group of heads of government negotiating the final deal in Copenhagen, I heard every single industrialized country leader being willing to commit to an 80 percent reduction by the middle of the century. Determining how that is to be achieved, how fast, and with who taking what share of that 80 percent reduction will require many rounds of negotiation.
e360: But couldn’t I argue anyone can agree to a target of 80 percent long after they’re dead. I mean, isn’t the challenge to agree to something that you can be held to, within a time span that people can adequately keep track of?
de Boer: I’ve tried to find the marking point between short term and long term. I think the marking point, the point that marks the transition from short term to long term, is called elections. And it doesn’t matter if the elections are in a week’s time or in three years’ time, that’s the point that marks the transition. If you as a leader commit to something which voters generally see as nonsense or offering platitudes beyond the grave, [it will] not be well received.
e360: If you look back in the history of the world, are there planetary problems that we’ve solved this way?
de Boer: We’ve made a number of transitions in the global economy, be it from steam to modern industry or into the Internet era. I think we have made big global transitions. If I had to compare it with another huge struggle, I think the struggle to get the world to accept that smoking is actually bad for your health is very comparable to what we’re going through on climate change, including much of the industry resistance and fighting the science and all of it. But I think at the end of the day if you
If you can’t make a convincing case that green growth is possible, then it’s end of story.”
can’t make a convincing case that green growth is possible, then it’s end of story. And part of being able to make a convincing case on green growth is pricing carbon properly… We have not made the green economic growth case convincingly. That’s still a process that we are in. I still maintain that the most effective way of making that case is by reversing the polluter pace principle and instead of seeing the producer as the polluter to see the consumer as the polluter. I don’t feel the slightest inclination to exert influence on your lifestyle, although that’s undoubtedly a very good one, as long as you don’t confront me with the bill for your bad behavior. You know, you can drive the biggest Hummer that you want, providing the environmental cost of that vehicle is in the price tag that you pay rather than in the price tag that I have to pick up on my bicycle.
e360: Is there any advice that you’re giving to your successor [Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica] that you can share with us?
de Boer: I think that clearly one of the major issues that we need to address in moving forward is confidence on the part of the developing countries that this actually is in their real long-term economic interest, their environmental interest aside. And I think she being someone who comes from a developing country, and somebody who comes from a developing country that’s decided to act very aggressively on climate change, will give her a definite advantage in terms of understanding where the concerns of developing countries lie and trying to find ways forward that deal with those concerns.
e360: Are you leaving this job more or less optimistic about solving this problem than you entered it four years ago?
de Boer: I’m leaving it more optimistic. I mean, I really think it was a tremendous achievement that under the Bush administration we managed to launch negotiations in Bali. I think the number of countries that have, after Copenhagen, associated themselves with the accord is a testament to
I’m leaving more optimistic. I think the world politically has turned a corner on this issue.”
the fact that leaders are not willing to be slowed down by lack of formal progress. So I think the world politically has turned a corner on this issue. Having worked in environment ministries for a large part of my life, I’ve always known that unless you get this topic on the agenda of world leaders it’s just not going to move. And 120 heads of state and governments coming to Copenhagen, I think, was in and of itself very significant indeed.
e360: Can you talk to us just a little bit about what you see your role as going forward? What are you going to be doing?
de Boer: Well, I’ve been saying for a long time that while governments need to provide the policy framework, it’s up to the private sector to deliver the results. And what I’m going to be doing over the coming years is looking very hard to see how you can design international and national climate change policy and sustainability policy that makes sense from a business point of view. What do you need to do to make it possible for business to advance?
e360: Is there anything I should have asked you that I missed?
de Boer: Well, what I see if I look around me is a number of global trends. There’s a global trend on energy prices and energy security, which is preoccupying you guys in the U.S. very much. There’s a global trend on climate change. There’s a global trend on natural resource depletion. And those three trends are all basically pointing in the same direction. And coming at those three trends at the speed of about 300 miles an hour is 5.4 billion people currently living on less than 10 dollars a day who would love to get a lifestyle.
e360: Those are very hard to reconcile.
de Boer: It’s possible to reconcile, but you can only reconcile it with a more sustainable economic model. So that means that even if the political climate change debate is delayed a little bit, that’s not going to slow things down on energy prices, resource depletion, or population growth. And I think, I’ve always maintained that the best thing that ever happened for climate policy in Europe was when Russia closed the gas pipeline to the Ukraine. Because then suddenly European energy policy, European climate policy, and industrial policy, which up to then had been in complete conflict with each other, suddenly became aligned.
Taken for the Gaurdian Website on the 22 June 2010: Article history
|
|
