Green heat arrives in
the NE
Kielder Forest in Northumberland
is supplying wood chip to fire a
local district heating scheme in a local village. The £650,000
system supplies heat and hot water to a school, youth hostel,
six three-bedroom homes and a visitor centre. The Forestry
Commission is contracted to supply 250 tonnes of wood chip
a year.
One North East chairman, Margaret Fay, said: “The
North East’s ambition to become the biomass capital of Britain
is starting to be realised with schemes such as this coming
to fruition. The partners involved in the Kielder project
are also part of a wider regional biomass group that is hoping
to achieve a target of 50MW of power produced by biomass by
the end of the decade. That’s enough to provide hot water
for all the homes in Northumberland. This whole area of green
energy has huge potential for new employment, new investment
and protecting the environment in the North East
and this project shows the region is keen to harness this.”
Graham Gill, of the Forestry Commission, added: “Wood
fuel is carbon neutral and trees absorb as much carbon when
they are growing as they release when they are burned so there
is no net emission of carbon from using wood fuel. We replant
with new trees the areas that are felled so that there is
a never ending sustainable supply of wood from the forest.”
Wood fuel is also the topic of the UK’s
first VRQ training course/qualification in renewable energy-
via the NE’s ‘Ignite’ Training programme. See: www.northwoods.org.uk/ignite/
* Northumberland County Council is among the first
authorities in England
to be powered completely by green energy. From 1 April 2004,
100% of the council’s electricity has come from renewable
sources, via a deal with nPower, with over 500 council-owned
buildings being supplied.
Scotland
needs more than wind
Wind power is moving ahead in Scotland
despite some initial planning battles. The 70 turbine 130MW
wind farm at Hadyard Hill near Girvan, in South Ayrshire should
be operating later this year, after a long running battle
over planning permission- including long negotiation with
the Ministry of Defence which was concerned, since it was
located in an RAF low-flying zone, has started in South Ayrshire.
The go ahead for this £90 million project has been depicted
as a heralding the start of a new era of co-operation from
the Ministry of Defence (MoD) which will reduce a backlog
in the wind farm planning system. Ivor Caplin, a junior defence
minister, attended a ceremony at Hadyard Hill to mark the
start of construction, said: “The Hadyard Hill wind farm
is a prime example of the MoD working to resolve issues with
other agencies and adopting a positive ‘can-do’ attitude”.
Meanwhile, Scottish Power said the 30MW wind farm at Cruach
Mhor, near Glen Darval in Cowal, their 12th in the UK
and Ireland, represented
“the next step of planned investment to add a further 800Mw
of new renewables by 2010, creating a generation portfolio
which comprises 20% renewable sources”.
However looking further ahead, in a report on renewables
policy, the Scottish Parliament’s Enterprise Committee claimed
that the current renewables policy of the Scottish Parliament
is “unintentionally working against the development of
renewable energy sources other than onshore wind power,”
and that “over-reliance” on one source of renewables
is not good energy policy. Although the committee fully supports
the Executive’s targets for renewables it noted that the Renewables
Obligation (Scotland)
has been successful mainly in promoting onshore wind. On the
basis of the current approach, it felt that the Executive’s
target of 40% of green power by 2020 is likely to be met,
“almost entirely through onshore wind power.” and it felt
that the approach should be revised to shift the focus from
large onshore windfarms to other forms of renewables- which
Scotland had in plenty.
“The focus on wind power is depriving other technologies
such as tidal and wave power of much-needed investment. We
must not let this opportunity pass us by.”
Tilting at Hydrogen Tanks
in Hornchurch
As we noted in Renew 146, BP’s attempts to show their “green”
credentials are being thwarted at the UK’s
first public Hydrogen refueling station in Hornchurch,
Essex. Due to open in December 2003, it was still at the public
enquiry stage in May 2004. Chris Berridge reports.
'This ambitious project was intended to be a flagship development-
a BP fuelling station with both conventional and cleaner fuels.
This would include providing a hydrogen refueling facility
for the three fuel cell buses now operating between Ilford
& Oxford Circus on route 25. These are part of a pan-European
CEC-funded trial called CUTE (Clean Urban Transport for Europe)
to test out fuel cell powered buses in several major cities.
The Hornchurch station planned underground storage of liquid
hydrogen, complemented by electricity from renewable sources
using solar panels and wind turbines and also included an
environmentally friendly natural waste water management system.
The hydrogen storage was subject to exceptionally stringent
safety tests, which it passed with flying colours. The work
ran to schedule until the turbines appeared and local residents
and politicians started looking into what BP were doing on
the site. They didn’t like what they found. Objections started
to be raised, mostly over the noise and visual intrusion of
the wind turbines but they also started to use perceived hazards
of liquid hydrogen storage as a weapon against the site.
In retrospect, BP realised that the standard development
procedures they had used were not working. They had fulfilled
all the requirements of the planning authority, but these
were treated with skepticism by local residents and councilors.
This was not a technical process- it was a political one,
and one for which BP was not prepared. The safety procedures
counted for nothing. Hydrogen was what ‘bombs were made out
of’ and what ‘blew up the Hindenburg’. The fact that an underground
liquid hydrogen tank was many times safer than a petrol tank
was not relevant in such a debate.
The lack of public consultation by BP compounded the poor
awareness and knowledge of the fuel in question. It got too
far for BP to placate the local residents. Despite having
fulfilled all planning requirements, the planning application
was rejected and eventually a public enquiry called. This
delay has seriously affected the CUTE project for fuel cell
buses in London. The three fuel cell buses are in service
and are a quarter of the way into the two year trial period,
but they are having to use a temporary
refueling system. This uses compressed gaseous hydrogen, which
is transported by road tanker to a facility near the bus depot.
Unfortunately, transporting Hydrogen in gaseous requires a
ten fold increase in road tanker journeys compared to liquid
form, due to the different storage densities. Thus local residents
objections have led to more tanker traffic and increased pollution
negating the aims of the project on the first place.
Whilst Londoners may be experiencing the benefits of pollution
free transport at the point of use, the locals at Hornchurch
do not seem to care for the environmentally friendly qualities
of the fuel station with wind turbines seen as eyesores and
a whole welter of perceptions against storing hydrogen to
safety standards well above that for conventional transport
fuels.
It seems lessons are still not being learnt by technologists
and corporations. Clearly, if London is to have a hydrogen
future, then the public will need to be convinced as much
as the politicians of the benefits of technology change.'
Local Councils try hard-
but lack backup
A survey backed by the Energy Saving Trust and the
Improvement and Development Agency, shows that 71%
of local councils are exceeding government targets for procuring
green electricity and 65% use clean fuel or low carbon vehicles.
It found that energy efficiency is now a
core consideration for the vast majority of councils- 93%
have a specific strategy in place to improve home energy
conservation and 65% have set out plans to tackle the causes
of climate change in their area.
However, it is not all good news. The results also show
that more than 80% of local authorities are prevented from
making progress in key areas due to a shortage of funding,
too few staff and green issues being pushed down the agenda
by government priority areas. The survey also shows that 80%
have no current plans to set up an energy services company
to supply power in the council’s area and just 20% have targets
for the development of renewable energy in their area. 74%
admit they have not been very effective in tackling climate
change in their area. Just 14% of councils have access to
energy consumption data from utility companies to enable them
to focus help where it is needed most.
Councillor Sir Ron Watson, chairman of the Local Government
Associations environment and regeneration executive said:
“We cannot gloss over the facts, in many areas local authorities
are failing to make real progress in driving forward
the green agenda. But the reasons are equally clear, and this
survey has put the spotlight firmly on the cocktail of obstacles
and contradictions holding councils back in the fight against
climate change. Local councils have huge potential in this
area and can make a real difference, even exceeding government
targets, if they are enabled to do so. Many of the changes
that need to be delivered in housing, transport and planning,
to reduce harmful emissions, improve security of energy supply
and improve energy efficiency, will depend on local authorities.”
* The West Midlands Regional Assembly has urged industry
in the region to make the most of commercial opportunities
driven by climate change in its draft Regional Energy Strategy.
at: www.wmra.gov.uk/energy_strategy_consultation.htm
Consumers
keen
on green
Consumers say they are prepared to accept price rises
from companies that comply with new requirements to reduce
carbon dioxide emissions under the EU wide Emissions Trading
Scheme, set to be introduced next year. According to the
study by LogicaCMG, 90% of consumers asked were in favour
of the new regulations and 54% said if prices increased by
10% they would still support the regulations, while one in
six consumers said they would be happy to accept price rises
of up to 25%.
The research suggested that consumers will “vote with their
feet” if companies fail to comply with new “green” legislation.
One in three respondents said they would switch brand allegiance
on environmental grounds if a company they regularly buy goods
and services from, failed to comply. Furthermore, 8% said
they would complain to friends and family about any company
that failed to meet the deadline whilst 10% said they would
protest against the offending company. By contrast, 35% of businesses didn’t think that consumers will care if they
comply with new CO2 regulations and many have not yet made
plans for adjusting to them . Source: GreenBiz.com
But not all are green...
A majority of Britons accept human activity is responsible
for changing the climate of the planet, a new BBC poll suggests,
but many are unsure of the costs of climate change, and barely
half of more than 1,000 people polled thought they themselves
would feel any significant impact. Moreover almost half of
those interviewed thought changing their behaviour would make
no difference to climate change. Although most were willing
to take some action, nearly two out of three rejected paying
more for petrol
