Renew On Line (UK) 57

1. £40m for Carbon Abatement

The government has produced a pioneering £25m plan to tackle climate change by capturing carbon dioxide  from power plants and storing it in depleted North Sea oil and gas fields. The DTI says that carbon capture and storage demonstration projects could be up and running within a decade. 

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2. Renewables are the priority

The new DTI Secretary of State, Alan Johnson has made it clear that there will not be an early decision on nuclear power and for the present ‘the priorities must still be renewables’. 

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3. Wave power Developments

Wave gets Juiced

The green fund element of npowers Juice green power scheme, which is backed by Greenpeace, has provided £195,000 to Regen SW to help with the development of its wave energy programme. npower donates £10 for each

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4. Wind developments

Coming to Blows on Wind

Police have been called in to investigate a spate of attacks on property on the Isle of Skye as disagreements over the proposed 27 turbine wind farm there have flared.

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5. Intermittency? No problem! 

Research at the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University shows that intermittent renewables, combined with small scale domestic combined heat and power (dCHP) could provide the bulk of Britain’s electricity on a reliable basis. 

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6. Diversity is the Key

'Wind-powered generators and increasing energy efficiency will not meet the White Paper targets on their own.  The projected decline in non-CO2 generation capacity is greater than the feasible increase in existing renewable energy sources up to 2020.’  On the basis of this assertion, in its report ‘An Electricity Supply Strategy for the UK’ the government’s top-level advisory Council for Science and Technology has called for significant investment in low-carbon

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7. Commons on Energy

On 19th May the House of Commons debated the Climate and Energy policy aspects of the Queen’s speech, focussing, perhaps inevitably, on nuclear power. The new DTI Minister Alan Williams said that the government was sticking to the 2003 While paper policy, and though not every speaker agreed with that, simple assertions that we desperately needed new nuclear plants were balanced by more cautious views from  Conservatives

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8. REFIT beats RO

The UK’s Renewable Obligation (RO), with its emphasis on  competitive prices, is not only poor at stimulating the installation of new generation capacity, it also costs more per kilowatt installed than the fixed price ‘REFIT’ Renewable Energy Feed In Tariff approach adopted in Germany and elsewhere in europe.

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10. New BREW to cut waste

A new £284m initiative to help businesses manage resources more efficiently and cut waste has been launched by DEFRA- BREW, the Business Resource Efficiency and Waste. This programme recycles revenue generated through increases in Landfill Tax (which was increased to £18/tonne in April and will rise in stages to £35/tonne)

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11. Global Developments

$100bn green energy market

Renewables like wind & solar, and hydrogen fuel cells, could expand from £16bn, as at present, to a $100 bn a year global market by 2014 as technology costs fall, according to a study by Clean Edge, a research and publishing firm based in California.

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12. EU round up

EU Green Scenario

Strong support for renewables and energy efficiency in Europe could increase the contribution from renewables by 43% over the next 25 years and decrease greenhouse gases, according to the European Union. Primary energy demand in EU-25 would drop by 14% if the goal of 12% from renewables by 2010 was met-

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13. Nuclear Developments

‘5,000 new plants’

With global energy demand increasing, a clean-energy future will require at least 5,000 nuclear power reactors by 2050, producing electricity as well as hydrogen and clean water, according to Director General of the World Nuclear Association John Ritch.

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14. In the rest of Renew 157

The Feature looks at wind power Intermittency-or rather variability as David Milborrow prefers to call it and as he explains  in  his article, its not much  of a problem.  The Technology section  includes a look at Carbon Capture and Storage and at a new EU report on Energy R&D, while the Reviews  look at  some new global energy scenarios, at the UK Public Accounts Committee's recent discussions on the UK renewables programme  and at  ECI' s '40%House'  and Carbon Rationing ideas. The Groups section is packed with news on developments and projects  around the UK (including the Zero Carbon City Campaign and the ECI's new Meeting Place in Oxford)    and as  usual there's an insightful Editorial and  a quixotic Forum section-open to all..

*Conferences  OU EERU, in conjunction with Dave Toke from the University of Birmingham, has organised a conference  on  Locating Renewables In Community Contexts , looking at  windpower and other local renewables, on Nov 15th at the OU. It will look at the planning problems and at community initiatives. See flyer. Then on January 24th there will another conference, again at the OU, looking at the Intermittency issue: 'Integrating Renewables into the Energy System' . See http://eeru.open.ac.uk under 'Conferences'