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Archive for the ‘sustainability’ Category

Building Mag responds

Posted in biofuel, biomass, climate change, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged , on August 26, 2008|

In response to my post about his 20-mile claim, Michael Willoughby at Building has responded extensively in the comments – definitely worth a read. The carbon effectiveness of biomass is quite a hot topic so if you’ve got comments or information, please get stuck in.

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Building Mag says biomass only efficient if used within 20 miles

Posted in agriculture, biofuel, biomass, climate change, energy, engineering, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged , , on August 21, 2008| 6 Comments »

There’s a short video on the Building website of Phil Clark and Michael Willoughby discussing biomass. At one point Michael claims “it’s not efficient to transport biomass more than 20 miles.” Holy smokes, where does this fact come from? I took a stab at the numbers and came up with a figure of 3000km (1900 miles) by truck before you lose the carbon benefit. That’s 100 times more than Michael’s figure. Looks like one of us (or possibly both) has got it wrong.

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FEMA says: convert your car to wood gas

Posted in biomass, chp, climate change, energy, engineering, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged , , on August 5, 2008| 3 Comments »

On a project at Fontenergy we’re looking at some small scale gasifiers that claim to have overcome the traditional problems associated with wood gasification. While doing some research I came across this manual from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the US, with detailed instructions of how to convert your car, truck, or tractor to run on wood gas in the event of extended petroleum shortages. The practice of using wood gas in internal combustion engines was very common in Europe during the Second World War (apparently 95% of mobile farm machinery in Denmark ran on wood gas – I love Denmark) and this guide is aimed at preserving that knowledge.

I’m taking a sickie, grabbing the tool box and heading for the garage.

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liquid biofuel CHP: officially renewable or not?

Posted in agriculture, biofuel, biomass, chp, climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, DER Calculation, energy, engineering, london, renewable energy, SAP, stamp duty exemption, sustainability, tagged , , , , on July 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Love them or hate them, liquid biofuels are increasingly being put forward as a renewable fuel for CHP. Currently they’re eligible for ROCs and so appear to be considered renewable by BERR and OFGEM.

But when I spoke to the SAP team at BRE, not only did they confirm that liquid biofuels aren’t considered under SAP, they also said that “because of mounting doubts over the extent of emissions from biofuels”, you have to use the emissions factor for oil when carrying out your SAP calcs. Did they expect the treatment of biofuels to change for the 2010 review of SAP? Adamantly, they did not.

Then I called the BREEAM helpline. They told me that liquid biofuels also aren’t considered under the Code for Sustainable Homes. So no help in scoring points under ENE1 or ENE7.

So liquid biofuel CHP is eligible for ROCs but will do little for your Part L and Code requirements. Without achieving these requirements, the case for biofuel CHP for new buildings is severely undermined. Obviously this situation could change. With CLG on the lookout for ways to meet the 2016 zero carbon homes target, there might be considerable pressure applied in favour of making biofuel renewable under SAP. But for now the official line is that biofuels are not a solution for carbon reduction in new build.

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UKGBC: Boom! Take that BRE!

Posted in Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, engineering, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged , , , on July 15, 2008| 2 Comments »

The UKGBC is launching plans for a Code for Sustainable Buildings to “address the confusion arising from the myriad of different green building standards.” Although they’ve used the name, this isn’t the same Code for Sustainable Buildings that we were promised a few years back and that was eventually pared down into the Code for Sustainable Homes. This is an “open-source” UKGBC-managed standard which could then be used in other standards.

Reading between the lines, the UKGBC have just pre-empted a situation in which BREEAM is adopted wholesale as the basis of a future Code for non-residential buildings (a situation like we saw with EcoHomes and the CfSH). It looks to me like they’re looking to usurp BRE’s place as guardian’s of the public interest when it comes to building performance and I suspect the use of the words “open-source” is a stinging reference to BRE’s increasingly mercenary approach. So take that BRE – you’ve just been King-slapped.

Or am I just looking for drama on an otherwise dull Tuesday?

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carbon and the credit crunch

Posted in climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged , , , , on July 10, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Developers are taking a hard look at their pipelines in an effort to find savings and many projects are grinding to a halt. Redrow, Taylor Wimpey, Bovis, Barratts, Persimmon – each laying off thousands from their workforce. There’s no doubt that the credit crunch is taking a deep bite out of the construction sector. In addition, oil and energy prices are exacerbating the situation, rising continuously for the foreseeable future.

All this comes at a time when the UK is looking to new build projects to help it meet a significant proportion of its carbon and renewable energy targets, some of which are legally binding and carry fiscal penalties for failure.

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BERR’s reaction to Citiworks: bad news for small generation in the UK?

Posted in chp, climate change, energy, micro chp, private wire, renewable energy, sustainability, utilities, wind turbines, tagged , , , on June 19, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Yesterday BERR and OFGEM released proposals for changing the way the electricity regulations work with regard to distributed energy generation. This is particularly important because it’s BERR’s first public reaction to the Citiworks ruling by the European Court of Justice two weeks ago.

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no Code 6 without MVHR

Posted in climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, engineering, renewable energy, SAP, sustainability, tagged , , , , , , on June 6, 2008| 8 Comments »

For a while, I have suspected that the thermal efficiency requirements for Code 6 would almost certainly require MVHR. But I was always dimly aware that I hadn’t actually done the numbers and so couldn’t be sure. Now I am: no MVHR means no Code 6.

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new transport fuel strategy is off the rails

Posted in climate change, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, wind turbines, tagged , , , , on May 28, 2008| 2 Comments »

Listening to Radio 4 on my phone on the way home I heard the evening news: Gordon Brown, keen to show he’s doing all he can to ease the fuel crisis, has taken two decisive actions.

First he’s met with North Sea oil producers to urge them to pump more petroleum from their fields, which have been in decline since 1999. He apparently managed to persuade these producers to up their output by promising them a tax break (i.e. subsidy), which will make costly enhanced recovery techniques economically viable.

The total additional output is expected to amount to about 50 million barrels, enough to keep the world running for about 13 hours. Given that petroleum is a fungible globally traded commodity (there’s no such thing as local prices as the oil price is entirely determined by global factors), this tiny drop in the bucket won’t do anything to lower the price of fuel here in the UK or anywhere else. And you’ve got to think that if $130 a barrel wasn’t enough to stimulate recovery, maybe that subsidy would be better spent elsewhere. After all, given the record profits posted by oil companies this year, I think we could find one or two other technologies more deserving of a break.

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you mean oil’s not infinite?

Posted in climate change, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged , , , on May 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Weird reporting in the Observer today on the IEA’s upcoming study on the narrowing margin between oil demand and oil availability. Two snippets:

The International Energy Agency has ordered an inquiry into whether the world could run out of oil, The Observer has learnt.

Wow, hard hitting stuff from the IEA (and the Observer). I hadn’t realised it was possible that we wouldn’t run out of oil. Finite resource, projected exponential growth in demand. You might have thought it was a no brainer. I appreciate that there are some convincing arguments out there for why peak oil might still be several years off but I hadn’t realised there was anyone out there pushing the view that oil is infinite.

IEA researchers have warned that even if there is enough oil under the ground, which is probable, supply difficulties could emerge because national oil companies and Western multinationals have failed to invest sufficiently…

So the IEA says there is probably enough oil under the ground? Enough for what? To run the world forever? To avoid peak oil in 2012? What?

It’s just odd that the Observer would write in such a vague and useless way about a topic that’s tied for first on the end-of-the-world watch list.

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