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Archive for February, 2010

biodiesel backlash began yesterday in Bristol

Posted in biofuel, chp, climate change, energy, engineering, renewable energy, sustainability, zero carbon, tagged on February 25, 2010| 6 Comments »

Sure, biodiesel is considered “renewable” in the upcoming building regs. But that won’t stop the backlash against developers who use it.

Yesterday a biodiesel generation plant proposed for Avonmouth near Bristol was rejected 6-2 in planning committee on the grounds of its  impact on rainforests on the other side of the globe. Of the 1,121 letters received by councilors in advance of the meeting, only 2 were in favour of the plant.

Strictly speaking, the application should not have been rejected. The plant passed air quality tests and all other material considerations.  The chairwoman of the committe went as far as saying she could find no reason to refuse the application and the city’s legal chief agreed. After all, it’s not the job of the planners to consider the source of fuel – that’s OFGEM’s role.

But that didn’t stop the committee throwing it out anyway, at the end of a fiery meeting, on moral and ethical grounds.

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omitted by twitter

Posted in other stuff, tagged , , on February 23, 2010| 7 Comments »

I just heard from Mel Starrs that there may be beers after EcoBuild next week – but it’s being arranged via Twitter!

So is this it? Have I officially fallen out of my own peer group in 140 characters or less?

Now that Twitter is standing between me and blogger beers, I dislike it more than ever!

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two roads to solving the refurb crisis – part 2

Posted in climate change, energy, engineering, ESCO, PAYS, renewable energy, sustainability, utilities, zero carbon, tagged , , , on February 22, 2010| 6 Comments »

In Whitehall, advocates of PAYS and an expanded suppliers obligation are clashing over which mechanism should be used to refurb existing housing. This is the second post of two. If you missed it, read the first part here.

Here’s a quick summary of the two mechanisms:

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two roads to solving the refurb crisis – part 1

Posted in climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, engineering, ESCO, passivhaus, PAYS, renewable energy, sustainability, utilities, zero carbon, tagged , , , , on February 14, 2010| 5 Comments »

Hitting the 80% carbon reduction by 2050 has huge implications (and costs) for the residential sector. Two strategies are emerging for dealing with these costs, each with its own potentially severe side effects.

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FiT as pants as expected – but holy smokes look at that RHI!

Posted in biofuel, biomass, chp, climate change, energy, engineering, feed in tariff, renewable energy, renewable heat incentive on February 1, 2010| 6 Comments »

DECC have announced the final FiT levels in advance of the incentive coming in in April. Having had a number of disheartening conversations with policy makers over the last few months, the FiT levels are no surprise. No one in government seemed to mind that the FiT would be a subsidy for middle class greenies and folks like McAlpines. The important thing was that the FiT wouldn’t cost too much.

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