Posted in agriculture, biofuel, biomass, chp, climate change, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged energy from Christmas trees on December 10, 2008| 3 Comments »
Just to warn you, this post is a bit trite and must have been done before, but here goes…
I reckon if you chipped all the Christmas trees in the UK and fed them into a biomass CHP , you’d provide enough zero carbon heat and electricity to supply about 25,000 new homes for the entire year.
If you can be bothered, here’s how I got there:
Posted in climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged Jonathon Porritt, Wilmot Dixon on December 8, 2008| 5 Comments »
At the end of last week, I was happy to hear that Jonathon Porritt had joined the board at Wilmott Dixon. It’s particularly poignant timing, given the beating the industry has taken in recent months: Wilmott Dixon is underlining their commitment to achieving the carbon reductions that will be required in the built environment in the runup to 2016 and beyond.
Ok, you could argue that he’s only going to be a non-executive director, so his influence will be limited to board level. That might not sound like such a bad thing, but working with a couple of developers of similar size, I’ve been surprised to find genuine support for low carbon measures among the board only to run into a brick wall at operational level. One is no good without the other. But in WD’s case, let’s assume that vision is going to translate into action.
The point is, Wilmott Dixon have made this move at a time of low morale and deep skepticism in the construction industry. Many developers find themselves saddled with projects whose land values were agreed at the height of the property boom. In some cases, even where there’s a solid case for development, the banks refuse to offer credit. The zero carbon housing deadline in 2016 is looming and we haven’t even decided yet what “zero carbon” means or how it should be achieved. Who can blame developers who’ve sunk into a funk and dismiss those who talk about zero carbon as having their heads in the clouds?
Posted in climate change, energy, feed in tariff, renewable energy, sustainability, utilities, tagged climate change bill, DECC, Energy Bill, planning bill on November 27, 2008| 1 Comment »
The mighty triumvirate has received royal assent: the climate change bill (excellent), the energy bill (excellent), and the planning bill (frightening) have now become acts. So now the UK is legally bound to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050 with interim targets along the way. Within a year we’ll see feed in tariffs for distributed energy up to 5MW. And ironically, the planning bill may be used to railroad through airport expansion and new coal fired power – but let’s ignore that for now.
Posted in biofuel, biomass, energy, renewable energy, tagged wood chip on November 23, 2008| 5 Comments »
Til recently, I’d only dealt with the very end of the wood chip supply chain, the part where the chips arrive in a lorry, ready to be tipped into the chip store and burned in the boiler. But in connection with a number of new projects, I’ll be more closely involved in the whole woodchip lifecycle: chipping, drying, storing, delivery etc. And while getting to grips with some practicalities a few interesting quirks have come to light. Maybe not earth-shattering, but interesting just the same so I thought I’d note a couple down here.
First, when you buy wood chip don’t forget you’re paying for water. So if you hold on to that chip for any length of time in the right conditions it will dry further, reducing your tonnage and so increasing your cost per tonne. For example, if you buy a tonne of fresh wood chip at 55% moisture content for £45 and then store it under cover and let it dry out, here’s how the total mass and £/tonne will change as the chip dries to around 25% moisture.
Fig 1 – Total mass and £/t for a tonne of wood chip as it dries
(more…)
Posted in climate change, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged IEA report on November 17, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Over on the Sustainability Blog, Michael pointed out that, according to the IEA report, the cost of decarbonising the world’s energy supply would be less than has been spent recently in shoring up the world’s economies. For me a slightly more disturbing number is hidden deeper in the IEA report.
$3.6 trillion – the cost of decarbonising all the world’s energy production between 2010 and 2030.
$9.5 trillion – required investment into oil infrastructure in order to meet demands for oil between now and 2030.
So the cost of decarbonising is a fraction of the amount needed in order to shore up oil infrastructure to maintain business as usual. Sure, this is an oversimplification, but at the heart of it is a sad truth.
Posted in energy, feed in tariff, micro chp, other stuff, renewable energy, uncategorized, utilities, tagged Energy Bill, FiT on November 16, 2008| Leave a Comment »
There have been further amendments to the Energy Bill in the Lords in connection with feed-in-tariffs. The one year implementation deadline is back in. Excellent news as the detail of how FiTs are implemented will almost inevitably be bogged down in long discussions between government and power suppliers – a one year limit should focus minds.
Also, the 50kW limit on capacity of gas CHP has been lifted. This means (more…)
Posted in biofuel, biomass, climate change, feed in tariff, heat pumps, micro chp, renewable energy, sustainability, wind turbines, tagged Energy Bill, heat incentive, heat obligation, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, renewable heat on October 30, 2008| 1 Comment »
Last night, Lord Hunt came back with his amendments to the Energy Bill and, as promised, here’s an update. For electricity feed in tariff, he’s proposed:
On a heat incentive:
Posted in climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged Feed In Tariffs on October 28, 2008| 2 Comments »
A quick thought on feed in tariffs.
If a value is agreed for micro power generating renewables, what will the impact be on the solar thermal industry? Would this amount to an anti-competetive subsidy for one type of technology over another? And if so, what are the wider implications?
I can see a scenario in super low energy dwellings where the feed-in tariff for PV might result in an electric heating and DHW solution, but without solar thermal as it may have a poorer pay back. This could result in solutions biased towards oversized PV in situations where solar thermal provides a more common sense fit.
Any thoughts?
Posted in chp, climate change, energy, feed in tariff, micro chp, renewable energy, sustainability, wind turbines, tagged Ed Miliband, Energy Bill, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, Lord Whitty on October 23, 2008| 2 Comments »
Away from the fanfare around Ed Miliband’s announcement that a feed in tariff (FiT) is on the way, the Lords have been debating an amendment to the Energy Bill that has the support of Conservatives, Lib Dems, and even some Labour peers.
What’s in the amendment? It says the Secretary of State has one year from the passing of the bill to bring in a feed in tariff. And the qualifying technologies, their maximum capacity, and their level of support are left to the Secretary of State to decide with no specified cap.
Despite wide support, it was clear that the Government wouldn’t officially get behind the bill as it wasn’t their idea. In fact, as recently as June the Government were firmly against a feed in tariff.
Baroness Wilcox, the amendment’s sponsor, has now withdrawn it, but only on the condition that the Government meet specific terms in their own amendment, which they’re expected put forward on 5 November. However, if the Government doesn’t fulfill her demands, she will reintroduce her original amendment. Here are her terms in a nutshell (my comments in italics):
Posted in climate change, energy, renewable energy, tagged DECC, Ed Miliband on October 16, 2008| 1 Comment »
Ed Miliband has just made his first speech to parliament in his role as head of the DECC. In it, he said he’ll accept all of the findings of the Committee on Climate Change and will amend the climate change bill to raise the legally binding cuts from 60% to 80%. He will also amend the bill to include a feed in tariff for “small community-scale renewable energy projects” as well as microgeneration. No indication of what this means in terms of kW’s or, crucially, what level of support they’ll offer.
Excellent news. Also positive is that Greg Clark, the shadow secretary for energy and climate change, was broadly in favour of the announcements. And he criticised big Ed for not including measures for renewable heat. I disagree with him about the “renewable” part, but it’s heartening to hear mainstream politicians getting close to the crux of the issue.
More details here.
Full text and ministerial bumpf here.
| Why Ofgem must stick… on how many old homes will get he… | |
 | Marko Cosic on Testing, testing |
| Martin Winlow on the myth of stone walls as… | |
| Martin Winlow on the myth of stone walls as… | |
 | Martin Winlow on the myth of stone walls as… |
 | AlanDHill@hotmail.co… on the myth of stone walls as… |
| Comment: What would… on why we’ll share Open… |
carbon limited 