Just heard from the folks at the Carbon Trust who are doing the micro-CHP field trials. The release date for the next interim report has been pushed back to the end of August with the methodology to follow some time after. Advise not holding breath.
Posted in chp, climate change, energy, engineering, london, micro chp, utilities | Leave a Comment »
Phil Clark at Zero Champion sent a request under the Freedom of Information Act for figures on CO2 emissions for Portcullis House, the office building for Members of Parliament across the road from Big Ben. When he received a response he wasn’t sure if performance was good or bad. It’s bad:
Posted in architecture, climate change, energy, engineering, london, renewable energy | 7 Comments »
There was an article in the Guardian last Saturday (thanks to Tessa for spotting it) by Alex James, the bassist from Blur, about having an architect come to his home to give green advice. It’s a scheme run by the RIBA where architects provide green advice in exchange for a donation to charity. At first glance this sounds positive. Certainly it’s a great channel to spread information on energy efficiency.
But things get a little weird when the article states that thick rubble walls keep the house warm in winter – which they don’t. Then architect George Stowell suggests that Alex installs a biomass CHP unit to generate his own electricity on site from wood chips. But there aren’t any commercially available biomass CHP units on a single house scale (or even twenty times that big). He may have meant biomass heating, but it’s a hell of a mistake to make, recommending something that doesn’t exist.
It might be better to send a services engineer. CIBSE should consider something similar to the RIBA programme.
Posted in architecture, biomass, chp, climate change, energy, engineering, micro chp, renewable energy | 6 Comments »
A project I led at XCO2 is being featured in the Ecotech supplement in Architecture Today this month (no link yet). It’s a visitors centre for the National Trust in the Chiltern Downs expected to provide services to around 400,000 visitors a year. And it’s loaded with green goodness: woodchip boiler for space and water heating, rainwater harvesting for toilet flushing, and an earth coupled ventilation system that brings air into the building through a 90m long concrete pipe buried below ground. Continue Reading »
Posted in architecture, biofuel, biomass, climate change, energy, engineering, renewable energy | Leave a Comment »
There’s another fridge discussion at No Impact Man, where he’s asked for ideas on how to keep milk fresh. In one of the comments, someone pointed to a passive ice box that freezes about a cubic meter of ice in winter and keeps your food cool the rest of the year. Kick ass. Unfortunately it looks like it requires much colder winter temperatures than we get here in Marche.
Someone else mentioned the Mitti Cool, a passive clay refrigerator invented in India. That’s more like it!
Posted in energy, engineering, house, renewable energy | 1 Comment »
I was lamenting in a post about compact florescent bulbs how I didn’t know where else we could significantly cut electricity consumption. Then I saw this post from Greenpa. Turns out I wasn’t thinking hard enough.
Posted in climate change, energy, house | 2 Comments »
The New Scientist published a fantastic article this week answering the 26 most commonly used arguments against climate change. Keep it close to hand.
Posted in climate change, energy | 1 Comment »
Via Tom N, a great article in BSJ on whether CHP (and CHP + cooling) actually has as much potential to reduce carbon emissions as the industry (and Ken Livingstone) would have you believe.
In general, I agree with James Thonger’s conclusions. However… Continue Reading »
Posted in chp, climate change, energy, engineering, london, micro chp, renewable energy | 1 Comment »
According to online energy auction house BuyEnergyOnline, during April 2007 UK gas wholesale prices rose by just 1% while electricity prices increased 13%, making the widest spark gap since deregulation. Continue Reading »
Posted in chp, climate change, energy, micro chp, renewable energy | 2 Comments »
Maurizio brought round our last one-tonne bag of wood pellets a few weeks ago and I’ve been meaning to post photos since. He’s been holding the last bag for us since last autumn when we only managed to get five of the six tonnes we’d bought into the pellet store.
We’ve now got plenty of pellets. A few too many, actually, because when you buy pellets you should a) buy in the summer when prices
are lower and b) buy as much as you can so you spread the cost of transport across as many tonnes as possible. We’ve now got enough pellets to get us through to the start of the heating season, which is a problem. If we buy in the next few months we won’t be able to fit more than 3 or 4 tonnes in the store because of our leftovers. If we buy in winter, we’ll buy at a premium and have to wait in line with everyone else. As a solution I’m hoping to find storage space somewhere (like Carletti’s barn or Marco’s cantina) so we can buy maybe 10 tonnes over the summer and transfer them to the pellet store as we need them.
Posted in biofuel, biomass, climate change, energy, engineering, house, italy, renewable energy | 1 Comment »
-
Join 1,209 other subscribers
categories
Recent Comments
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… Top Posts
archive
- May 2024
- January 2019
- August 2018
- October 2017
- July 2017
- March 2017
- January 2017
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- July 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- October 2015
- August 2015
- June 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- June 2011
- January 2011
- October 2010
- August 2010
- June 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
carbon limited 