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biodiesel backlash began yesterday in Bristol

February 25, 2010 by Casey Cole

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.

Continue Reading »

Posted in biofuel, chp, climate change, energy, engineering, renewable energy, sustainability, zero carbon | Tagged | 6 Comments »

omitted by twitter

February 23, 2010 by Casey Cole

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!

Posted in other stuff | Tagged , , | 7 Comments »

two roads to solving the refurb crisis – part 2

February 22, 2010 by Casey Cole

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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Posted in climate change, energy, engineering, ESCO, PAYS, renewable energy, sustainability, utilities, zero carbon | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments »

two roads to solving the refurb crisis – part 1

February 14, 2010 by Casey Cole

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.

Continue Reading »

Posted in climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, engineering, ESCO, passivhaus, PAYS, renewable energy, sustainability, utilities, zero carbon | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments »

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

February 1, 2010 by Casey Cole

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

so I tried to fix my iPhone

January 22, 2010 by Casey Cole

My headphones died a couple of months ago – a great pair of Sennheisers. The cord had shorted out for the second time in a just a few weeks. The first time it happened I’d got a replacement from Amazon and to have them break again so soon made me sick. I’m sure Amazon just chucked the old ones in the bin and posted out a new pair, so this time I decided I’d fix them myself.

Late at night under the kitchen downlights I grimly set to work on the headphones with my multitool. My multitool, incidentally, has become my entire toolbox since all my actual tools are in Italy – we live in a rental now, profound interventions are banned.

I poked and probed the headphones looking for a way to take the jack apart but it was soon clear that there was no easy way. The rubber casing was fused on. Undeterred, I pared the rubber back with the knife looking for the shorted connection. But the wires were encased in solid rubber at random depths, the connections to the jack fell to pieces, and in short it all went wrong.

I was gutted. Clearly these were unmendable consumer goods intended to be used for a few weeks or months and thrown in the bin. Worse, I suspected that shredding my own headphones with a multitool had invalidated the warranty so no chance of a replacement from Amazon.

The reaction from folks in the office the next day was: of course you can’t fix headphones, just get a new pair. I muttered disgustedly to myself and resentfully jabbed the keyboard as I bought another pair online.

Then, a few weeks later on an icy day just before Christmas, I slipped on a platform at East Croydon and smashed the screen on my iPhone.

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Posted in consumerism, other stuff | Tagged | 10 Comments »

see, I told you twitter was pants

January 15, 2010 by Casey Cole

Despite Phil’s best efforts, I’ve resisted tangling with twitter. Mostly because I’ve had trouble understanding how it would make my life better. (I’ve had even more trouble understanding people’s determination to apply it to things like construction management or FM.)

And other people seem to be coming round to this view. Ricky Gervais is the latest high profile twitterer to drop his account.

Looks like Mr. Gervais and I are in good company. Cultural juggernauts Stephen Fry and, er… Miley Cyrus have also recently ceased to tweet.

Maybe it has its uses but I can’t see them. Me, Ricky, Stephen, and er… Miley will be over here on the high ground if you need us.

Posted in other stuff | Tagged | 4 Comments »

what if everyone wore night vision goggles?

January 14, 2010 by Casey Cole

I’m on the train through Surrey on my way into London and there is still a thick blanket of snow on the ground. But not necessarily on the roofs: some are covered and some are bare. Occasionally the rows of terraced houses alternate like squares on a chess board. And it all depends on heat loss.

It’s funny catching such a stark glimpse of something that is ordinarily invisible. Heat, and therefore money, from these homes is gushing out through the roof. Ordinarily the symptoms only appear on a monthly bill where they’re too abstract and unlikely to have any effect at all. What do you suppose would happen if people could see a bit further up the red end of the spectrum and looked at their own houses on a chilly morning?

Posted in energy | 3 Comments »

HELP WANTED: job at Fontenergy

October 28, 2009 by Casey Cole

Things are picking up in the market. At Fontenergy, we’re run off our feet and will shortly need to expand the team. Right now, I’m looking for a consultant or engineer to work with me on DE and consulting projects.

Continue Reading »

Posted in uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

low carbon development: ESCOs can take on all the extra cost, right?

October 7, 2009 by Casey Cole

Wrong. Unless they include extra charges.

The Code for Sustainable Homes, upcoming changes to building regs, and national emissions targets are all driving the industry towards much wider use of on-site generation.

Reducing carbon with on-site generation (also called “distributed energy” or just “DE”) brings extra costs relative to the business-as-usual approach of individual gas boilers and grid electricity. Cyril Sweett and others put the additional cost of building a zero-regulated-emissions house at £10k – £13k per dwelling, and some recent projects at work have borne this out.

This £10k – £13k is a massive problem for developers and housing associations, in some cases making projects infeasible.

There’s a widespread misconception that ESCOs can make the problem disappear. Some of this misconception has been fostered by ESCOs  keen to get deals on the books (I’ll come back to this in a minute), but I think most of the problem is down to a poor understanding of distributed energy and how ESCOs make money.

So how much capital cost can ESCOs take on? Here’s an example: Continue Reading »

Posted in Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, ESCO, feed in tariff, sustainability, utilities, zero carbon | 4 Comments »

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