1. A new UK Climate Plan
The Government has launched an ‘extensive and open’
consultation on its review of the UK
Climate Change Programme, focussing on opportunities to further
reduce carbon emissions, including:
* The EU Emissions Trading Scheme: UK
* Energy Efficiency:
* Biomass:
* Transport:
* Biofuels
2. Green Heat and Biofuels
The Renewable Power Association has worked with Friends of the Earth and
others to develop a proposal for a ‘Renewable
Heat Obligation.’ They say that although the UK
government has recognized the contribution of Green Heat technologies
in climate change programmes, it “has
not introduced a dedicated policy to support this low cost and proven
carbon abatement option.”
3. Local support for Tidal
Following the successful £3.4 m offshore tidal turbine test project off the coast
from Lynmouth in N. Devon, Martin Wright,
the managing director of Marine
Current Turbines (MCT), talking at at
public meeting on future plans in Lynmouth
in November, indicated that the second stage of their Seaflow project will be a £6m turbine connected to the national
grid
4. Wind rush- and wind problems
Construction of wind
farms hit a record last year. According to the British Wind Energy
Association, 253 megawatts of new capacity
started generating- five times the average annual capacity
built in the 1990s and more than double the figure in 2003.
5. Micro power push: PV and
micro-CHP
The Green
Alliance lobbying group says the government should support homeowners
as much as it does businesses in taking up renewables. It has put
forward the case for micro-generation at the domestic level-
using small, affordable, roof-mounted wind turbines, solar panels
and heating systems that can generate renewable, low-carbon heat and
power at home.
6. Clean-coal ‘better than
wind’
The UK
could cut the cost of reducing greenhouse gases by £3bn if it fitted
clean-coal technology to its aging power
stations, rather than building wind farms, according to Mitsui Babcock,
the British based power station manufacturer. It says that some 2,000 wind turbines will be installed
in the UK
over the next six years at a total cost of approximately £9 bn,
as power companies seek to comply with a government demand to increase
supplies of renewable energy.
7. Industrial ups and downs
Green Energy
UK, which supplies green energy to homes and businesses across
the UK,
is to use PV solar to power a new electric go-kart racing track in
Mile End
Park, London. The company buys in power from a wind farm
in the West Country and small-scale hydro plants in the Peak District
and Cumbria
and biomass in Yorkshire, but the go-kart track
will have it own PV canopy.
8. Grid Connection Charges
The issue of how to charge for connecting major wind farm projects to the national grid has still
not been fully resolved, but in response to a Parliamentary Question
last Dec, Energy Minister Mike O'Brien commented : ‘The
Energy Act 2004 laid the foundation for the creation of a single GB
market for wholesale electricity trading and transmission. Charges
to connect to and use the GB transmission system, and therefore access
the GB market, are still being developed by National Grid.’
9. £80m for Innovation
Launching an international G8 Roundtable discussion meeting last Nov. Prime Minister Tony Blair
said: ‘Over the coming decades,
a massive shift towards lower carbon energy systems will be needed
if we are to meet the world’s growing energy needs whilst also avoiding
the worst impacts of climate change. To achieve this, we will need
a green technological revolution- but we are only just at the beginning
of understanding how to bring this about.’
10. Efficiency Drives
In his Pre-Budget
report last Dec, the Chancellor
allocated £20m to a new fund to ‘accelerate
the development of energy efficient technology’- £10m per year
in 2006-07 and 2007-08. The
new fund will be managed by the
Carbon Trust, who will seek match funding from the private sector.
11. World news: Kyoto goes live
Russia’s
decision last year to ratify the Kyoto
Protocol on climate change re-energized
international cooperation on cutting greenhouse gas emissions- and
led to a tripling of speculative carbon trades within the EU. To enter into force, the Protocol had to be
ratified by 55 Parties to the Convention, including developed countries
whose combined 1990 emissions of carbon dioxide exceed 55% of that
group’s total. With the US
(36%) not intending to ratify, the 55% threshold could only be met
with the participation of Russia
(17%).
12. World Round up
EU
Solar visions
US potential
Japan may miss Kyoto targets
Spain top for renewables
China good for wind
Development Funding Spreads
Australia stops wind
13. Nuclear Power
We’d need lots
to make any impact
US Nuclear Waste plan flawed?
Nuclear undermines Finnish
renewables
Internal Radiation-
More dangerous than we thought?
UK Clean-up costs fall
14. In the rest of Renew 154
The Feature looks at how wind energy has been handled in Ireland- none too
well it seems, with a moratorium on new projects being impose due
to grid linkage problems. The Feature also has news of a new OU report
on the UK's grid system problems. The
Technology section looks
at what happened to the Regenesys project
and at flow-battery energy
storage issues generally. It also covers some novel tidal and wave energy projects in the USA. The Reviews
section looks at the history of windpower
in the USA and that the World
Renewable Energy Congress held in Denver last summer. The Groups section looks at Community Renewables
projects around the UK and also reviews recent debates on nuclear
power- as does the Forum
section. This material is
meant to support the "Nuclear
or Not?" Conference
being held at the Open University on March 15th:
(See the NATTA Bulletin Board on the EERU web site http://eeru.open.ac.uk/natta/index.html
More details from c.l.emburey@open.ac.uk)
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