Renew On Line (UK) 29

Extracts from the Nov-Dec 2000 edition of Renew
These extracts only represent about 25% of it

DTI Plans get clearer

Waste Combustion to be excluded from RO?

The Department of Trade and Industry’s New and Renewable Energy Programme seems to be attracting criticism given that many observers are convinced that the existing programme will not meet the 10% by 2010 or the 5% by 2003 targets for renewables...MORE

VAT reduction campaign wins

The renewable energy community has been lobbying for reduced VAT on renewables for years but were told that the VAT rate could not be changed once set. This however contradicted the decision in 1997 to reduce VAT from 8% to 5% on domestic electricity.

The announcement in the April 2000 budget of a new reduction.... MORE

Spending Review 2000 DETR allocations

‘INVESTING IN A CLEANER FUTURE’

The Chancellor's Spending Review 2000 announcement in July pointed to increased resources for investment in the environment including support for sustainable agriculture, promoting emissions trading, energy efficiency, renewable energy and recycling. Details of specific allocations have been emerging, including those for the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR).

The largest single programme involves a £140m boost for business investment in low carbon technologies, so as to help to tackle climate... MORE

New DETR programmes

Carbon Trust

The Carbon Trust will be set up alongside the Climate Change levy - around April 2001 - and will be run by a company limited by guarantee. According to the DETR ‘it has wide business support - designed with the help of the Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment and will incorporate the successful Energy Efficiency Best Practice Programme. It will be set up to work seamlessly alongside other players in the energy efficiency field - principally the Energy Saving Trust.’

UK Energy : Renewables up 9.5%

The 2000 Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics ("DUKES"), published by the Department of Trade and Industry, indicate that primary fuel production in the United Kingdom in 1999, at 298 million tonnes of oil equivalent, was 4 % higher than in 1998...MORE

MAFF on Energy Crops

MAFF, the Ministry for Agriculture Fisheries and Food has now published details of the changes to its proposed £30m Energy Crops support scheme, as a result of the recent consultation. These are:...MORE

UK Green Power Market

Coalfield town goes green

With only around 13,500 consumers having subscribed by the spring of this year, the UK green power retail market may not have expanded as fast as some early predictions suggested, but there are still some hopeful signs, especially from the corporate and organisational sector, with local authorities taking the lead...MORE

Conservatives would scrap Climate Levy

With an election in the offing, Damian Green MP, the Conservative Spokesman for the Environment, announced that, if elected the Conservatives would pursue a 'blue green' agenda. Outlining the Conservative Party's alternative approach to tackling climate change...MORE

ZED Housing Projects spread

The Zero Energy Development housing project at Beddington has been getting some welcome publicity recently. This is to be an 82-home eco-village now started on site at the former London Road sewage works (brownfield site) in Beddington (Borough of Sutton, London ) - currently being developed by the Peabody Trust (who support social housing) and the Bio Regional Development Group. Homes will have roof gardens, and a CHP unit will service the village using wood fuel...MORE

Time for Tide?

The Severn Tidal Barrage idea seems to be back on the agenda- or at least that's the hope of the Severn Tidal Power Group, the industrial consortium who have been trying to promote it for years. With the nearby Hinkley Point MAGNOX reactor set to be closed (see later), it has been argued in the local press that opportunity exists for new generation capacity in the West- and the STPG has pointed out that a 8.6GW capacity barrage would create a lot of jobs in the area, as well as meeting 60% of the UK's target of obtaining 10% of its electricity from renewables by by 2010...MORE

BP rebrands

British Petroleum recently launched its new corporate identity, with the familiar green shield replaced with a solar 'sunburst' image. BP has also dropped Amoco from its name, and says its initials should now be taken to reflect its move 'Beyond Petroleum'. It has doubled its investment in renewables, including solar, to $500m...MORE

UK Wind keeps going

Local planning disputes over wind farms are still continuing around the UK. For example, as the EWEA’s journal Wind Direction (Sept) reported, a 39MW National Wind Power wind farm project in N. Wales, which had won planning approval from the local council, with a 19-2 vote in favour, was, at the last minute, called in for a public inquiry - which the developers estimate will cost them a years delay and £100,000 to fight- with the outcome uncertain...MORE

COP-6

Last Chance to slow Climate Change?

In the run up to COP-6, the sixth meeting of the Conference of Parties to the UN Climate Change Convention, to be held in the Hague from 13-24th Nov, the USA's representative Frank Lay was reported as saying that the US would not be able to meet the carbon dioxide reduction quota agreed at Kyoto through emission reductions...MORE

Nuclear News

UK Nuclear Going Bust?

British Energy, which runs the Sizewell and the AGR nuclear plants, suffered a serious shortfall in profits this year, and may even make a loss in the next year. It now wants to switch from reprocessing its spent fuel, to storage, and estimates that this could reduce costs by two-thirds. British Energy has £4bn worth of reprocessing contracts with BNFL and accounts for about a third of the baseload work for the Thorp reprocessing facility at Sellafield. Michael Kirwan, British Energy's finance director, said: "As far as we are concerned, reprocessing is an economic nonsense and should stop straight away."...MORE

UK Fuel Price crisis - what the green groups said

Last Septembers protests by farmers and truck drivers against the rise in prices of diesel fuel followed a somewhat less effective 'Dump the Pump' consumer protest over the rising cost of petrol. In response to the latter, Friends of the Earth argued that this was ‘a waste of energy and should have been avoided by anybody who truly cares about the environment’...MORE