The study assessed the carbon footprint of server, networking and storage infrastructure for three different deployment sizes. – Researchers are now compiling hard numbers that prove running enterprise
applications in the cloud actually does complete a data center triple play by
reducing costs, use of electricity and carbon emissions.
A new study conducted on behalf of Microsoft, Accenture and WSP Environment
amp; Energy…
By comparing on-premises business applications to cloud-based equivalents, the researchers found that cloud computing has positive effects on the environment, especially if you are a small company. – A Microsoft study bears out what
environmentally-conscious companies have hoped for all along: cloud
computing has the potential to reduce energy consumption and carbon
emissions by 30 percent or more.
Large data centers, like those run by tech
giants Microsoft and Google, benefit from econom…
The PwrSmart Service from New Boundary Technologies allows cost-conscious businesses to more efficiently run their office computers and offers a variety of energy-saving features. – Configuration management and remote equipment monitoring and control
specialist New Boundary Technologies announced the launch of PwrSmart
Service, a PC power management solution that aims to deliver energy
savings and reduces carbon emissions to meet tightening facility
budgets and increased co…
Explains how the employment of advanced material technology in the manufacture of windows, today, is helping to reduce carbon emissions and cost on every building they are used on.
Despite China’s pledges to improve energy efficiency, its carbon emissions could double by 2020 as compared with 2005 levels, surpassing limits seen as key to fighting global warming, experts say. As officials in Copenhagen discuss how nations can share the global burden of reducing
Intel will participate in a series of events to showcase how Information Technology can help addressing climate challenges. Media opportunities include: a Green IT industry panel, the IDC launch of a Special Report on IT’s ability to reduce carbon emissions in G20 countries and Intel’s presence at Bright Green, the industry innovation show in Copenhagen.
A study by statisticians at Oregon State University (OSU) in the US has determined that family planning is important to reduce the “carbon footprint†of people.
According to the study, some people who are serious about wanting to reduce their “carbon footprint†on the Earth have one choice available to them that may yield a large [...]
With surging demand for power and blackouts common across the continent, Africa is looking to solar, wind and geothermal technologies to meet its energy needs
One of the hottest places in the world is set to become the site of Africa’s most ambitious venture in the battle against global warming.
Some 365 giant wind turbines are to be installed in desert around Lake Turkana in northern Kenya – used as a backdrop for the film The Constant Gardener – creating the biggest windfarm on the continent. When complete in 2012, the £533m project will have a capacity of 300MW, a quarter of Kenya’s current installed power and one of the highest proportions of wind energy to be fed in a national grid anywhere in the world.
Until now, only north African countries such as Morocco and Egypt have harnessed wind power for commercial purposes on any real scale on the continent. But projects are now beginning to bloom south of the Sahara as governments realise that harnessing the vast wind potential can efficiently meet a surging demand for electricity and ending blackouts.
Already Ethiopia has commissioned a £190m, 120MW farm in Tigray region, representing 15% of the current electricity capacity, and intends to build several more. Tanzania has announced plans to generate at least 100MW of power from two projects in the central Singida region, more than 10% of the country’s current supply. In March, South Africa, whose heavy reliance on coal makes its electricity the second most greenhouse-gas intensive in the world, became the first African country to announce a feed-in tariff for wind power, whereby customers generating electricity receive a cash payment for selling that power to the grid.
Kenya is trying to lead the way. Besides the Turkana project, which is being backed by the African Development Bank, private investors have proposed establishing a second windfarm near Naivasha, the well-known tourist town. And in the Ngong hills near Nairobi, the Maasai herders and elite long-distance athletes used to braving the frigid winds along the escarpment already have towering company: six 50m turbines from the Danish company Vestas that were erected last month and will add 5.1MW to the national grid from August. Another dozen turbines will be added at the site in the next few years.
Christopher Maende, an engineer from the state power company KenGen, which is running the Ngong farm and testing 14 other wind sites across the country, said local residents and herders were initially worried that noise from the turbines would scare the animals.
“Now they are coming to admire the beauty of these machines,” he said.
Kenya’s electricity is already very green by global standards. Nearly three-quarters of KenGen’s installed capacity comes from hydropower, and a further 11% from geothermal plants, which tap into the hot rocks a mile beneath the Rift Valley to release steam to power turbines.
Currently fewer than one-in-five Kenyans has access to electricity but demand is rising quickly, particularly in rural areas and from businesses. At the same time, increasingly erratic rainfall patterns and the destruction of key water catchment areas have affected hydroelectricity output. Low water levels caused the country’s largest hydropower dam to be shut down last month.
As a short-term measure KenGen is relying on imported fossil fuels, such as coal and diesel. But within five years the government wants to drastically reduce the reliance on hydro by adding 500MW of geothermal power and 800MW of wind energy to the grid.
Not only are they far greener options than coal or diesel, but the country’s favourable geology and meteorology make them cheaper alternatives over time. The possibility of selling carbon credits to companies in the industrialised world is an added financial advantage.
“Kenya’s natural fuel should come from the wind, hot underground rock and the sun, whose potential has barely even been considered,” said Nick Nuttall, spokesman for the United Nations Environment Programme. “After the initial capital costs this energy is free.”
The Dutch consortium behind the Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) project has leased 66,000 hectares of land on the eastern edge of the world’s largest permanent desert lake. The volcanic soil is scoured by hot winds that blow consistently year round through the channel between the Kenyan and Ethiopian highlands.
According to LTWP, which has an agreement to sell its electricity to the Kenya Power & Lighting Company, the average wind speed is 11metres per second, akin to “proven reserves” in the oil sector, said Carlo Van Wageningen, chairman of the company.
“We believe that this site is one of the best in the world for wind,” he said. If the project succeeds, the company estimates that there is the potential for the farm to generate a further 2,700MW of power, some of which could be exported.
First, however, there are huge logistical obstacles to overcome. The remote site of Loiyangalani is nearly 300 miles north of Nairobi. Transporting the turbines will require several thousand truck journeys, as well as the improvement of bridges and roads along the way. Security is also an issue as the region is known bandit country, and many locals are armed with AK-47 assault rifles.
LTWP also has to construct a 266-mile transmission line and several substations to connect the windfarm to the national grid. It has promised to provide electricity to the closest local towns, currently powered by generators.
At the end of 2008, Africa’s installed wind power capacity was only 593MW. But that is set to change fast. Egypt has declared plans to have 7,200MW of wind electricity by 2020, meeting 12% of the country’s energy needs. Morocco has a 15% target over the same period. South Africa and Kenya have not announced such long-term goals, but with power shortages and wind potential of up to 60,000MW and 30,000MW respectively, local projects are expected to boom. With the carbon credit market proving strong incentives for investment other types of renewable energy are also set to take off. Kenya is planning to quickly expanding its geothermal capacity, and neighbouring Rift Valley countries up to Djibouti are examining their own potential. As technology improves and costs fall, solar will also enter the mix. Germany has already publicised plans to develop a €400bn solar park in the Sahara.
“Ultimately for Africa solar is the answer, although [costs mean] we may still be decades away,” said Herman Oelsner, president of the African Wind Energy Association.
While I was away on vacation (it was wonderful, thanks for asking), the Washington Post editorial page featured opinion pieces from Sarah Palin and George…
The government must now put our money where its mouth was in the energy white paper and support the renewables industry
The chorus of red-green dissent over the proposed closure of Britain’s sole major wind turbine manufacturing plant perfectly indicates just how spectacularly this Labour government has failed both workers and the environment. In microcosm, the situation in the Isle of Wight demonstrates the extent to which ministers have ignored calls to promote the renewables industry – squandering opportunity after opportunity to create or protect jobs in fledgling green industries, as well as to meet the UK’s greenhouse gas reduction targets.
But it also illustrates the creative way in which the unions and the green movement are recognising that they share a common agenda based on an understanding that green politics can deliver both jobs and social justice.
After the NHS and the council, Vestas is the largest employer on the Isle of Wight. The loss of 600 jobs during a time of economic recession will have a devastating effect on the community. But it is clear to all involved that the decision to close the factory has a wider significance beyond the island’s economy, and those workers currently occupying the plant in a valiant attempt to preserve their futures.
The decision to close the plant goes to the very heart of the critical challenge of our time: the need to address the economic and energy crises in a way which also tackles climate change head-on. It brings us right back to the Green New Deal, an innovative plan to restructure the economy through a billion-pound package for investing in green jobs – in renewables and energy efficiency – to dramatically reduce carbon emissions and cut householders’ fuel bills.
In the wake of its white paper on energy, expectations were high that the government might be offering companies like Vestas a real reason to maintain UK operations and thus protect UK jobs, through a more favourable policy environment and long-term investment plans, combined with any necessary loans or guarantees. But the rhetoric on renewable energy has yet to be matched with swift and tangible policy changes to ensure, for example, that the wind turbines we will need to build for a greener and more sustainable future make use of parts created in UK factories – not by workers thousands of miles away.
We are undoubtedly entering a period of public spending cuts. And by all means, let us cut the mindless spending of the previous decade of turbo-consumerism, as well as gratuitous spending on the military, renewal of the Trident weapons system, unnecessary ID card schemes or endless road-building. But we must replace this with targeted investment in the energy efficiency and renewable energy infrastructure we so urgently need to enable us to make a swift transition to a steady-state, zero carbon economy.
Thanks to years of government neglect, the wind energy industry suffers from a significant lack of demand in the UK and Europe. In the face of weighty pressure from the powerful “dirty” energy lobby – coal, gas and nuclear – the government has lacked the courage to give clear signals to encourage sustainable and profitable investment in the fledgling green industries.
The renewable industry has also suffered the consequences of an unwieldy and inconsistent planning system. Only an urgent reform of the UK’s planning system that would put environmental sustainability at its heart can ensure that renewable energy developments can prosper. Where there are pressures for conflicting environmental benefits, such as the need to exploit renewable energy opportunities while also seeking to protect the UK’s rural landscapes, we need improved dialogue and firmer planning regulations to ensure that green spaces, green belts and biodiverse brownfield sites are protected – while at the same time providing space for the renewable energy industry to grow.
The proposed Isle of Wight closure isn’t just a huge blow for the 600 skilled British workers set to lose their jobs. It threatens any attempt the UK makes to position itself at the forefront of global technological efforts to create a greener and more sustainable future. The renewables sector – and the public at large – need something more substantial than intentions laid out in white papers. Ministers could make a positive start by proving to Vestas, and other renewable energy players, that it is seriously committed to providing security for future investment, to a major overhaul in policy and planning, and to the crucial fight against climate change.
Motorists do not believe the government’s claims that road taxes help cut carbon dioxide emissions and boost public transport investment, according to an MPs’ report released today which recommends a voluntary “pay as you drive” scheme.
The report, by the Commons transport committee, urges ministers to revive the idea of giving motorists the option of being taxed per mile driven – one of the most controversial government proposals of recent years. The recommendation comes with a warning that says the motoring public has become “mistrustful” of taxes on road users.
The committee’s chair, Louise Ellman, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, said recent increases in vehicle excise duty had been handled so badly the image of environmental taxes had been tarnished.
The report says: “The government has been inconsistent in the way that it has justified motoring taxes. Fuel duty has been presented, at different times, as a tool to reduce carbon emissions, a source of general revenue, and a means to fund transport investment. We are concerned that motorists are mistrustful of the government regarding taxes.”
The idea is that “pay as you drive” schemes could be used as a substitute for excise duty or fuel duty payments.
Road pricing remains a politically toxic subject for the government after nearly 2 million people signed an online Downing Street petition condemning the concept two years ago.
However, the reintroduction of road pricing into the tax debate was welcomed by one leading motorists’ thinktank. The RAC Foundation said a charging scheme “might become unavoidable” but ministers had to restore belief in the purpose of road taxes first.
Taxes on drivers raise about £45bn a year for the Treasury, say motorists’ groups.
Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation, said motorists would not back a revised road tax system with the “apparent sole intention of shoring up the nation’s ailing finances”. He added: “For any radical policy to be successful, public trust in the politicians introducing it is essential. That trust is lacking.”
According to an AA poll, 86% of UK drivers do not believe the government would deliver a fair road-pricing programme. Edmund King, the AA’s president, said the introduction of even a small scheme would be “some way off” because of the online petition revolt and the recent rejection of a congestion charge by voters in Manchester. “Voluntary or not, it would be very difficult to introduce at the moment,” he said.
A Treasury spokesperson said: “Government has always been very clear that transport taxes are primarily revenue-raising – but that they also send strong environmental signals, encouraging greater fuel efficiency, and the purchase of lower-emitting cars.”
Electrification will reduce carbon dioxide emissions and will mean faster and more reliable services for millions of passengers
Network Rail will electrify nearly 300 miles of Britain’s busiest railway track over the next decade after the government today gave its approval to a £1.1bn programme.
The plans, announced by Gordon Brown this morning, will transform the Great Western mainline, which runs from London to Oxford, Newbury and Cardiff, via Reading.
Electrification will reduce carbon dioxide emissions and will mean faster and more reliable services for millions of passengers.
The prime minister travelled on one of the routes to benefit from the scheme this morning, arriving at Paddington station in London to journey on the Great Western line to Cardiff for a cabinet meeting.
The Great Western route from London to Swansea is to be electrified over the next eight years at a cost of £1bn.
The government is also spending £100m on electrifying lines between Liverpool and Manchester, with the work taking four years.
At Paddington, Brown said: “This is the future. It is green, it is faster and it’s more reliable. This is about making the railways fit for the 21st century.”
Asked if the government could afford such a scheme now, Brown replied: “We have set aside money for this. It’s an important priority for us.”
Only about one third of the rail network is electrified at the moment, with the Great Western route the last of the major routes to be still predominantly using diesel trains.
The electrification will include the lines to Oxford and to Newbury in Berkshire and will also make possible the direct replacement of the ageing InterCity 125 fleet by electric Super Express trains.
Electrification will shorten the London to Swansea journey time – currently just over three hours – by about 20 minutes. The plans will involve installing hundreds of miles of electric cables as well as alterations to tunnels, bridges and stations on one of Britain’s oldest rail routes.
Travelling with the prime minister today was the transport secretary, Lord Adonis, who said: “We are electrifying 300 miles of track and we are also looking to extend electrification to other lines.
“There will be some disruptions while the work is going on but Network Rail plans to keep disruption to a minimum, with much of the work being done overnight.”
Lord Adonis went on: “Electrification will mean faster, quieter and more efficient trains, which break down far less often.”
Mark Hopwood, managing director of First Great Western, said: “We are really delighted with this news. It’s going to transform our route and provide cleaner and more environmentally friendly travel.”
The electrification announcement follows Network Rail’s consultation document on electrification earlier this year, which also made the case for electrifying the Midland mainline route.
Lord Adonis said today that the government did consider Midland mainline and would continue to consider it.
• Polish facility pumps out 30m tonnes of CO2 a year
• Activists say giant plants undermine climate fight
The biggest single producer of carbon emissions in the European Union has been named – and it is about to get even bigger. The appropriately titled Elektrownia Belchatow – a massive coal-fired power station – belched out 30,862,792 tonnes of CO2 last year and by 2010 the whole generating facility will have grown by 20%.
The Polish energy giant was named as climate change enemy number one in a report by the London-based Sandbag Climate Campaign and its greenhouse gas output dwarfed the 22m tonnes of annual carbon produced by the Drax power station in North Yorkshire and a host of equally dirty German plants.
Sandbag said the expansion of Belchatow and the planned construction of 50 coal-fired plants across the European mainland demonstrated that policies such as the EU’s European Trading Scheme (ETS) were not working.
Bryony Worthington, founder of Sandbag, said the price of pollution allowances in the ETS was too low to deter companies from choosing coal over clean energy, noting that six of the 10 most polluting plants are in Germany despite generous government subsidies for solar and other clean technologies.
“They have to buy emission allowances yet they are still planning a massive expansion. If the scheme was having the desired effect they would be pursuing cleaner options now, not at some distant point in the future,” she added.
While British ministers have taken a stand against constructing new coal stations at Kingsnorth in Kent and elsewhere without “clean” technology to capture the emissions, the deluge of projects in Europe is undermining EU credibility ahead of the forthcoming UN negotiations in Copenhagen on tackling global warming, according to Mark Johnson, a Brussels-based campaigner at the WWF.
“Dozens of new unabated projects across Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland and elsewhere are either under construction or could soon be approved. Going ahead with these could wreck Europe’s climate strategy,” he said.
Elektrownia Belchatow is raising coal-fired capacity from 4,400 megawatts to 5,258 from next year. The facility, which burns the most polluting lignite “brown” coal from its own mine next door, is earmarked for a full carbon capture and storage prototype, but only by 2015 at the earliest.
A spokesman for French engineering company Alstom said they were working on a range of initiatives to improve the wider efficiency of the plant and reduce its carbon output. It is one of an estimated 11 new coal schemes planned in Poland, while 28 more are on the drawing board in Germany, according to the WWF.
While Poland has long been dependent on its home-mined lignite, Germany is expanding its coal-fired stations to produce electricity in anticipation of a rundown in its nuclear facilities.
This strategy, being pioneered by RWE and E.ON, could yet be changed as the two main political parties vying for power in the September elections have opposing views on how energy security should be achieved.
E.ON said that coal is being pursued because it answers some of the problems posed in the energy sector.
“It is a cheap form of power but it also gives security of supply and flexibility. The final element is obviously to find a way of not damaging the environment and we hope CCS will be the answer to that,” explained a UK spokesman for the German company.
Protests by environmentalists over E.ON’s plans to build a coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth have encouraged Ed Miliband, the secretary of state for energy and climate change, to rule that there should be no plants in the UK without some degree of CCS, with the remainder of any plant having CCS fitted within five years of it being judged “technically and economically proven”.
The WWF believes the 50 coal schemes in total around Europe represent about 50 gigawatts of power. That compares with the 70GW of total power produced in Britain from all existing sources, including gas, nuclear and a small but growing contribution from wind.
New coal stations are being planned in big numbers in the US and China but the EU has been arguing that all countries should proceed only if they use CCS to turn them into “clean” coal projects.
The EU is committed to cutting carbon emissions by at least 20% by the year 2020 and 80% by 2050 and wants all nations to agree tough new targets at Copenhagen.
The concept of CCS is considered vital to the fight against global warming.
But question marks remain about whether the feasibility of doing it at large scale and at a cost that makes it work, leaving Belchatow and others belching on.
Winemaker deploys miniature sheep to cut fuel costs and keep grass short
Duncan Graham-Rowe
A New Zealand winemaker believes he has struck upon the solution to reducing the carbon footprint of wine – and the answer, which may come as no great surprise, lies in sheep. Miniature sheep, that is.
There are only 300 of them in the world and they were originally bred as cute miniature pets, but Peter Yealands believes that babydoll sheep could help him to reduce the environmental footprint of his wine.
By allowing the rare breed to graze on the grass between his vines, Yealands says he can dramatically reduce the energy his wine takes to make and ultimately enable the process to be more sustainable.
Wine producers often use sheep to keep grass short, such as in these Californian vineyards, left, but flocks must be removed when the vines bud because the animals will eat them too. So, to prevent the grass using up precious nutrients and water, and to prevent the spread of disease and fungus, growers normally use tractors to do the job.
With 1,000 hectares in his vineyard that means driving 3,500km for each of the 12 times a year the grass has to be mowed. As a result, for Yealands, diesel makes up about 60% of his energy costs.
To avoid using a tractor, last year Yealands experimented by letting loose giant guinea pigs. That worked initially, he said. “But once the hawks had a taste for them they were sitting prey. We were losing them by the hour. Besides, we would have needed 11 million of them to make it work.”
Now Yealands has turned his attention to babydolls, a rare breed of sheep which only reach about 60cm tall when fully grown. Because the grapes tend only to start growing from about 110cm off the ground the sheep can’t reach them. Yealands has tested 10 of the sheep on a 125-hectare patch of vines.
By selectively breeding them with another more common sheep, the Merino Saxon, which is favoured for its meat, Yealands now hopes to get his stock up to the 10,000 he needs within the next five years. If successful, the flock should save him NZ$1.5m (£600,000) a year in diesel alone, and he hopes to sell the sheep for meat too.
Marleen Stumpel, co-director of AdVintage Wines, a London-based supplier of carbon-neutral wines, said the babydolls are an unusual approach.
She said most wine makers reduce their carbon footprint by paying to offset their emissions. “There is a growing market for it, but the wine does tend to be a little bit more expensive,” she said.
One of Britain’s busiest rail lines is to be electrified in a move that will introduce greener and more reliable services for millions of passengers.
The government is finalising plans to transform the Great Western mainline as part of a drive to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from transport. The programme will involve installing hundreds of miles of electric cables as well as alterations to tunnels, bridges and stations on one of Britain’s oldest rail routes.
An announcement could come as soon as Thursday, although the financing is still being put in place. The Department for Transport (DfT) and Network Rail, owner of Britain’s rail infrastructure, have discussed electrifying the route from London Paddington to Cardiff, taking in Reading and Bristol, as well as the popular commuter route from London to Oxford.
However, the programme is expected to be carried out in phases over the next decade in order to minimise disruption.
Britain lags behind many of its European counterparts in electrical coverage of its rail system, with only 40% of the 20,000-mile network electrified. Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, has pledged to electrify swaths of the network, led by Great Western and the Midland mainline from St Pancras to Sheffield, in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from transport by 14% by 2020.
Train operators said electrification would bring quicker and more reliable services for passengers, as well as giving rail a green edge over car and air travel. Michael Roberts, chief executive of the Association of Train Operating Companies, said: “Electrification brings with it the dual benefits of helping to make rail services more attractive to customers and drawing them away from cars and planes. It also relies on lower-carbon sources of energy.” First Great Western, the main operator on the Great Western network, carries 84 million passengers a year.
According to Network Rail, the diesel trains that travel on the Great Western route emit at least double the carbon dioxide output per mile of an electric train. The government-backed company has also calculated that it will cost £800,000 a track mile just to erect the cabling. Once work on tunnels, bridges and culverts is added in electrifying the 118-mile stretch from London to Bristol could cost £380m, according to Network Rail.
It is understood that the DfT and Network Rail have discussed funding the work through an increase in Network Rail’s borrowings. Network Rail’s debt is underwritten by the state and the government will pay off the interest over a number of decades, minimising the immediate impact on the taxpayer.
Stephen Glaister, professor of transport and infrastructure at Imperial College London, said the benefits of electrifying thousands of miles of railway track would be undermined if trains were not powered by energy produced from low-carbon sources such as nuclear plants or wind farms. Otherwise, electrification would simply increase demand for electricity from coal- and gas-powered plants, he added. “The government has to clarify where the electricity is coming from. In a world where nuclear power is declining and renewables cannot fill the gap, where else is it going to come from apart from burning more coal and gas?”
Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, said last week: “Transport accounts for a significant amount of our domestic emissions. Therefore decarbonising this sector has to be front and centre of efforts to meet our obligations and commitments to tackle climate change.”
The government is also encouraging greater production, and acquisition, of electric and hybrid cars as part of its low-carbon policy.
One of Britain’s busiest rail lines is to be electrified in a move that will introduce greener and more reliable services for millions of passengers.
The government is finalising plans to transform the Great Western mainline as part of a drive to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from transport. The programme will involve installing hundreds of miles of electric cables as well as alterations to tunnels, bridges and stations on one of Britain’s oldest rail routes.
An announcement could come as soon as Thursday, although the financing is still being put in place. The Department for Transport (DfT) and Network Rail, owner of Britain’s rail infrastructure, have discussed electrifying the route from London Paddington to Cardiff, taking in Reading and Bristol, as well as the popular commuter route from London to Oxford.
However, the programme is expected to be carried out in phases over the next decade in order to minimise disruption.
Britain lags behind many of its European counterparts in electrical coverage of its rail system, with only 40% of the 20,000-mile network electrified. Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, has pledged to electrify swaths of the network, led by Great Western and the Midland mainline from St Pancras to Sheffield, in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from transport by 14% by 2020.
Train operators said electrification would bring quicker and more reliable services for passengers, as well as giving rail a green edge over car and air travel. Michael Roberts, chief executive of the Association of Train Operating Companies, said: “Electrification brings with it the dual benefits of helping to make rail services more attractive to customers and drawing them away from cars and planes. It also relies on lower-carbon sources of energy.” First Great Western, the main operator on the Great Western network, carries 84 million passengers a year.
According to Network Rail, the diesel trains that travel on the Great Western route emit at least double the carbon dioxide output per mile of an electric train. The government-backed company has also calculated that it will cost £800,000 a track mile just to erect the cabling. Once work on tunnels, bridges and culverts is added in electrifying the 118-mile stretch from London to Bristol could cost £380m, according to Network Rail.
It is understood that the DfT and Network Rail have discussed funding the work through an increase in Network Rail’s borrowings. Network Rail’s debt is underwritten by the state and the government will pay off the interest over a number of decades, minimising the immediate impact on the taxpayer.
Stephen Glaister, professor of transport and infrastructure at Imperial College London, said the benefits of electrifying thousands of miles of railway track would be undermined if trains were not powered by energy produced from low-carbon sources such as nuclear plants or wind farms. Otherwise, electrification would simply increase demand for electricity from coal- and gas-powered plants, he added. “The government has to clarify where the electricity is coming from. In a world where nuclear power is declining and renewables cannot fill the gap, where else is it going to come from apart from burning more coal and gas?”
Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, said last week: “Transport accounts for a significant amount of our domestic emissions. Therefore decarbonising this sector has to be front and centre of efforts to meet our obligations and commitments to tackle climate change.”
The government is also encouraging greater production, and acquisition, of electric and hybrid cars as part of its low-carbon policy.
Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah on Tuesday said India and United States have decided to work in close tandem in the field of climate change.
Abdullah, who met Todd Stern, US Special Envoy for Climate Change here to bridge differences between the two countries on reducing greenhouse gases, favoured transfer of technology to [...]
Despite government talk, transport emissions are rising because carbon-generating schemes are being given the go-ahead
Two key transport announcements were made yesterday. The UK government launched a Carbon Reduction Strategy for transport which set out a vision with little action on the ground. Far less noted was the launch of a National Transport Plan for Wales, cancelling an extension of the M4 planned for south-east Wales. A saving of a cool £1bn, with plans to invest instead in improvements to the existing road, together with sustainable travel initiatives.
The decision to cancel the M4 in south-east Wales can be seen as a watershed. As the first cancellation of a motorway extension in recent times, a low-carbon transport strategy is being led not from Whitehall but from Cardiff.
Clearly, the UK government recognises the need to promote low-carbon transport, and its proposals to integrate transport modes, promote walking and cycling and reduce the need to travel are welcome. But here’s the rub: transport emissions are increasing because, on the ground, schemes that generate carbon are being given the go-ahead. This is true at a national level through approval of Heathrow’s third runway, as well as at regional and local levels.
The government’s own assessment found that helping people to find alternatives to car use is one of the most effective and cost-efficient ways of reducing emissions from transport. Sustrans’ TravelSmart programme provides tailored travel advice direct to households and has reduced car use by more than 10% in the towns and cities where it has operated. Further city pilots and work with local authorities are welcome, but government has missed an opportunity to invest in a national Smarter Choices programme as a way of promoting change through better information. If the government invested the £250m earmarked for electric cars in Sustrans’ TravelSmart, it could reach about 10m households across the country and achieve reductions in car trips of about 10%, together with significant increases in levels of walking, cycling and public transport use.
The decision from the Welsh assembly has set the bar very high for the first litmus test of the low-carbon transport strategy. Today the UK government will announce decisions on English regional funding for transport. With the majority of English regions having prioritised road schemes it rests with the government to put its low-carbon transport strategy into action and ensure that we are indeed travelling towards a low-carbon future.
Miliband takes control of power grid and lays out plan for low-carbon UK
The government seized control of key levers in the energy sector today in an attempt to kickstart a stalling “green energy” revolution and head off the threats of global warming and a rundown in North Sea oil.
Ministers plan to take over the allocation of electricity grid connections in order to favour renewable schemes, force the industry regulator, Ofgem, to tackle carbon pollution and pass laws to compel power companies to help poorer families meet rising energy bills.
The moves came as Ed Miliband, energy and climate change secretary, set out an ambitious road map for the UK to meet its legally binding target of a 34% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Measures range across homes, cars, business and farming, but clean electricity generation will deliver half the reduction.
Miliband said Britain would meet 40% of its electricity needs from wind, tidal and nuclear by the end of the next decade. The government’s overall plans believe 1.2m new green jobs will be created.
“Our plan will strengthen our energy security, it seeks to be fair to the most vulnerable, it seizes industrial opportunity and it rises to the moral challenge of climate change,” he said.
The government said £100bn had to be spent on energy projects and accepted that customers’ bills would have to rise to pay for much of it.
But Miliband said domestic energy saving initiatives should mean there would be no related hikes in utility bills until 2015 and by 2020 should mean on average 6% – £75 – a year on domestic bills. The decision to significantly strengthen government control of the planning and infrastructure of the energy markets in a bid to increase renewable power sixfold turns back some of the market-driven approach developed by Margaret Thatcher.
Lord Mandelson, business secretary, said: “We must combine the dynamism of the private sector with a strategic role for government to deliver the benefits of innovation, growth and job creation in the UK.”
The developments have delighted a clean energy sector frustrated by long delays to win access to the national electricity grid. “The renewables industry has had a tough time in the UK for many years and it has missed out on technologies where it should have led the world. What we heard … today shows a level of understanding and political leadership that suggests that may be about to change,” said Gaynor Hartnell, director of policy at the Renewable Energy Association.
Friends of the Earth also welcomed the moves. “Today’s announcements are a significant step towards the creation of a safe, clean and low-carbon future,” said Andy Atkins, executive director.
But some of the large power companies which want to build nuclear and coal plants as well as wind farms still felt the government was not doing enough. “The government has to give companies such as E.ON a market that also gives them confidence to build Britain’s low carbon future,” said Paul Golby, chief executive of E.ON UK, which is pushing to build a coal-fired plant at Kingsnorth but is also engaged in the world’s biggest wind farm, the London Array off the coast of Kent.
Ofgem denied it had been found wanting by the government. “We don’t see this as a kick in the teeth. We have been working under our existing powers to make changes to the grid access regime without much success. So [we] welcome the government stepping in,” said an Ofgem spokesman, who also said it was happy to take on a greener role.
Miliband said he was exercising reserve powers provided under the 2008 Energy Act for the government to intervene. He expects wind and other renewables to provide “over 30%” of the renewable power for electricity by 2020 but denied this was rowing back on a previous commitment to obtain 32%.
Vestas is too vital to lose
The government must now put our money where its mouth was in the energy white paper and support the renewables industry
The chorus of red-green dissent over the proposed closure of Britain’s sole major wind turbine manufacturing plant perfectly indicates just how spectacularly this Labour government has failed both workers and the environment. In microcosm, the situation in the Isle of Wight demonstrates the extent to which ministers have ignored calls to promote the renewables industry – squandering opportunity after opportunity to create or protect jobs in fledgling green industries, as well as to meet the UK’s greenhouse gas reduction targets.
But it also illustrates the creative way in which the unions and the green movement are recognising that they share a common agenda based on an understanding that green politics can deliver both jobs and social justice.
After the NHS and the council, Vestas is the largest employer on the Isle of Wight. The loss of 600 jobs during a time of economic recession will have a devastating effect on the community. But it is clear to all involved that the decision to close the factory has a wider significance beyond the island’s economy, and those workers currently occupying the plant in a valiant attempt to preserve their futures.
The decision to close the plant goes to the very heart of the critical challenge of our time: the need to address the economic and energy crises in a way which also tackles climate change head-on. It brings us right back to the Green New Deal, an innovative plan to restructure the economy through a billion-pound package for investing in green jobs – in renewables and energy efficiency – to dramatically reduce carbon emissions and cut householders’ fuel bills.
In the wake of its white paper on energy, expectations were high that the government might be offering companies like Vestas a real reason to maintain UK operations and thus protect UK jobs, through a more favourable policy environment and long-term investment plans, combined with any necessary loans or guarantees. But the rhetoric on renewable energy has yet to be matched with swift and tangible policy changes to ensure, for example, that the wind turbines we will need to build for a greener and more sustainable future make use of parts created in UK factories – not by workers thousands of miles away.
We are undoubtedly entering a period of public spending cuts. And by all means, let us cut the mindless spending of the previous decade of turbo-consumerism, as well as gratuitous spending on the military, renewal of the Trident weapons system, unnecessary ID card schemes or endless road-building. But we must replace this with targeted investment in the energy efficiency and renewable energy infrastructure we so urgently need to enable us to make a swift transition to a steady-state, zero carbon economy.
Thanks to years of government neglect, the wind energy industry suffers from a significant lack of demand in the UK and Europe. In the face of weighty pressure from the powerful “dirty” energy lobby – coal, gas and nuclear – the government has lacked the courage to give clear signals to encourage sustainable and profitable investment in the fledgling green industries.
The renewable industry has also suffered the consequences of an unwieldy and inconsistent planning system. Only an urgent reform of the UK’s planning system that would put environmental sustainability at its heart can ensure that renewable energy developments can prosper. Where there are pressures for conflicting environmental benefits, such as the need to exploit renewable energy opportunities while also seeking to protect the UK’s rural landscapes, we need improved dialogue and firmer planning regulations to ensure that green spaces, green belts and biodiverse brownfield sites are protected – while at the same time providing space for the renewable energy industry to grow.
The proposed Isle of Wight closure isn’t just a huge blow for the 600 skilled British workers set to lose their jobs. It threatens any attempt the UK makes to position itself at the forefront of global technological efforts to create a greener and more sustainable future. The renewables sector – and the public at large – need something more substantial than intentions laid out in white papers. Ministers could make a positive start by proving to Vestas, and other renewable energy players, that it is seriously committed to providing security for future investment, to a major overhaul in policy and planning, and to the crucial fight against climate change.