Reshaping Europe’s energy landscape

Pilita Clark, environment correspondent for the Financial Times, reports that a record 71% of all the new power generating capacity fitted in the Europe Union last year came from solar panels, wind turbines or other renewable energy sources.

Is the EU on course to meet its target of 20% of all energy needs from renewable sources by 2020?

A European Wind Energy Association report shows that the EU power sector is moving away from fuel oil, coal and nuclear while continuing to increase its total installed capacity with gas, wind and solar PV to meet increasing demand. It records that the amount of clean power installed in 2011 rose to 32 gigawatts*, compared with 23GW installed in 2010.

This was largely due to a surge in solar installations in Italy and Germany, whereas the number of wind power stations installed across Europe last year was similar to that in 2010. Solar photovoltaic systems made up 47% of all new installations, more than gas and wind power combined.

Italy became the world’s biggest solar PV market (9GW) for the first time in 2011, according to the European Photovoltaic Industry Association and Germany still leads the world in terms of the total amount of solar installations fitted.

Oil prices predicted to rise this year to a record high

As the chief executive of Vitol, the world’s largest independent oil trader, says today, oil prices could jump this year to a record high above $150 because of the Iranian sanctions. Will some of the electricity generated be used to power electric and hydrogen vehicles?

 

The New Automotive Innovation and Growth Team (NAIGT) issued a roadmap (above), which – rather cautiously? – forecasts that by 2020, hybrids, electric and hydrogen vehicles will be entering the market on a larger scale. 

If renewable power installations and oil prices continue to rise perhaps the market expansion will be brought forward. 

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* A gigawatt can supply 1 million U.S. households on average, according to Mark Pervan, head of commodity research at the Australia & New Zealand Banking Group.

Hydro-power in Wiltshire, Yorkshire, Somerset, Devon – and now Hall Green, Birmingham?

Until the 1950s many towns and villages generated electricity using water wheels. Most were disconnected with the post-war expansion of the national grid, but there are still 20,000 sites in the UK that could be used to harness river and stream power to help to meet Government renewable energy targets. 

When the writer visited Sarehole Mill, in Hall Green years ago, she  met the miller who was grinding flour.

She admired the setting and the building. The huge water-wheel, mill gears and grinding stones and bakehouse were an impressive sight. 

It was a great pleasure to read this month that – with a grant of  £50,000 from Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery Development Trust – work will be done on the mill’s waterwheel so that it can be connected to a motor and generate hydroelectric power for nearby houses. 

Other work is needed: three broken sluice gates must be replaced and the mill pond desilted, but other projects around the country show that with determination this one also could be successful. 

In 2010, the Government’s Feed In Tariff was extended to domestically generated hydro-electric power and there are loans from several organisations, such as the Energy Saving Trust, enabling householders to borrow money to install a turbine or water wheel. 

Some years ago the writer met Paul Lysley, a farmer who wanted to restore the old mill leat to produce electricity at Colham Mill in Wiltshire and also spoke to a member of the South Somerset Hydropower Group which is dedicated to bringing back mills into working condition. 

With help from the local district council and part-funded by the Energy Saving Trust, this group has been installing new turbines, restoring blocked water-courses and repairing sluice gates in order to generate electricity.

The first community-owned micro-hydropower project (2009) now provides half the electricity needed in Derbyshire Co-operative Group’s food store. store, using the River Goyt’s fast flow. Grants were made by the Co-operative Fund and the Co-operative Bank. The Co-op plans to extend this support to other micro-hydro schemes across the country. 

The Co-operative’s Yorkshire project at Bridge End Weir in Settle will use a modernised version of a 2,000-year-old Greek invention – the Archimedes screw, which easily pumps water to higher level – to generate electricity. 

Hydro-electric projects have advantages over wind power, generating electricity whatever the weather. In October 2010, Climate Change Minister Greg Barker explained: ‘Our ambition is to have local communities, families and households generating their own energy and one of the most overlooked sources is water.’ 

David Timms, Friends of the Earth, said the scheme ‘means we can use part of our industrial and pre-industrial heritage to create a low-carbon economy for the 21st century’.

The importance of preserving peat bogs underlined

In July Hilary sent an appeal  from – Garden Organic .

She wrote: 

“If we can get people to understand that by not using peat we can save areas of significant wildlife habitats.

Peat bogs are not renewable – well not in our lifetimes or our grandchildrens or our great great great great etc  children’s life times!  

“It takes hundreds of years to ‘renew’ a peat bog. We need to stop the plunder of peat bogs now and save wild life! Peat bogs support enormous amounts of wild life not just a few birds but mammals, plant life, some plant life will only grow in peat bogs so if we continue to use peat a lot of these plants could become extinct!” 

Earlier this month an article in the Financial Times gave news of a report by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature  about peatlands. formed over thousands of years from dead and decaying plants in waterlogged conditions, release the equivalent of almost 3.7m tonnes of CO2 a year – equal to the average emissions of about 660,000 UK households, more than all the households of Edinburgh, Cardiff and Leeds combined. 

The report says: “A loss of only 5% of UK peat carbon would equate to the total annual UK human greenhouse gas emissions. It is therefore vital for the UK to avoid the huge losses arising from peatland damage in order to meet its international obligations in tackling global warming.” 

The scientists found that much of the UK’s peatlands had been damaged, largely because of the way they had been managed, including drainage for agriculture or forestry, track building and peat extraction. 

Read more about the campaign here.

 

 

 

The Electric Highway

Read about the Electric Highway in the Birmingham Press:

Electric car drivers can now travel from Birmingham to Liverpool and Manchester without fear of running out of power after Ecotricity opened two new charging points on the M6 at Keele services – as part of the world’s first national charging network . . .

Continue here: http://www.thebirminghampress.com/2011/12/19/the-electric-highway/

NOTE:

More on Ecotricity here: Solar progress – http://antidotecounteragent.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/solar-progress/

And on the Electric Highway here: http://antidotecounteragent.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/birmingham-is-plugged-into-the-electric-highway-%e2%80%93-no-more-%e2%80%98range-anxiety%e2%80%99/

 

MAC Goes Solar

Cheering news was posted last week on the website of Balsall Heath Is Our Planet – a community initiative that aims to cut the carbon emissions of Birmingham’s inner city neighbourhood:

The Midlands Arts Centre, photographer Michael Westley 

The Midlands Arts Centre in Cannon Hill Park has planning permission for a new array of solar panels to meet some of the centre’s electricity demand from the sun. Installation is due in December, hopefully before the Feed In Tariff payment rate takes a step down.

The solar roof array is up and running on St Mary’s parish church in the centre of Moseley. They say that 3,000 kilowatt hours have been generated this summer, after their long battle to get planning permission. This will offset some of their electric heating. More Details here. 

The Hamza mosque on Church Road also has a new solar roof, sending clean electricity to the area. 

These are the kind of schemes that surely deserve the special ‘community tariff’ which the government is talking about in its Review of the Feed In Tariff  – details here. 

And earlier this month, news that Balsall Heath Church Centre has been generating plenty of clean electricity on their roof from the sun and feeding much of it into the local grid for the neighbourhood to use. There is a great display, showing how much has been generated every month at this link. 

The writer – probably John Newson – ends: 

We all have to ‘get a move on’ in the progress towards clean energy, as the World Meteorological Organisation reports that burning of fossil fuels is causing the highest ever greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.

A new manufacturing project in Walsall & established sustainable housing in Wolverhampton

In August Antidote readers were cheered by the news that the social housing Accord Group – Accord, Ashram, Caldmore and Moseley & District Housing Associations, Fry Housing Trust and Redditch Co-operative Homes – had bought a derelict Walsall factory on a five acre site on which it is to set up a timber frame assembly plant to manufacture low-carbon timber houses, which it had previously imported from Norway. 

During a web-search for news of Accord’s progress, another West Midlands achievement came to light. 

The Bromford Group, Cross Street South, Wolverhampton, won the Inside Housing award for a sustainable larger social housing project (25 homes or more) in 2008

 

Its energy efficient homes have been built on a brownfield site, with grass roofs, water recycling and a woodchip boiler. The homes use up to 50% less energy than standard homes, only needing 2 kilowatts of heat as opposed to the usual 8 to 10. A range of low maintenance materials such as cedar cladding and recycled wood in its kitchen units were used.

The grass roofs provide good insulation and keep the homes cool in the summer and warm in the winter. 

The recycled wood chip boiler – ‘space age’ design – provides all of the heating and hot water for the homes.

They have low energy lighting, composting, recycling bins, water butts and high performance softwood and double-glazing.  Cross Street South has its own park with ponds, wetland, a board walk and fountain and residents’ allotments. More detailed information can be seen on the website of Sustainability West Midlands.

The Diagonal Lock: moving towards a more productive, environmentally friendly canal system

On October 15^th the writer visited the ‘Diagonal Lock Roadshow’ in Knowle, meeting Terry Fogarty, a design engineer, company director and canal enthusiast. Mr Fogarty was presenting a model of his invention: a diagonal lock , which works on the principle of a sloping tube, cutting out time spent by canal users negotiating flights of locks. 

“This is a radical alternative that could help to alleviate transport problems on the motorways,” he said. “You could install freezers in a wide-beam boat so you could even transport food.”  

The Diagonal Lock is a new technology devised as an alternative to traditional canal locks, enabling boats to ascend/descend an incline whilst floating securely inside a watertight, concrete chamber.

It has many other advantages: 

1. The Diagonal Lock eliminates 100% of the pollution created by navigating traditional locks.
2. The Diagonal Lock is calculated to be at least ten times faster than any other lock design.
3. The Diagonal Lock can open up hitherto inaccessible areas
4. Building costs are slashed: building one Diagonal Lock costs one-third of the traditional lock
5. Safety is a fundamental part the design and safety precautions found in the Diagonal Lock are not found on any other waterway in the world.
6. The Diagonal Lock recycles all water used.
7. Much lower maintenance costs.
8. Has other applications, including cliff top marinas and reservoirs.
9. Increases the chances of freight returning to the canals reducing pressure on roads.

The Advisory Group 

Staunch support has been given by a number of people, in particular the advisory group: 

• Terry Fogarty, inventor of the Diagonal Lock.
• Phil Sharp of Battus Associates , a consulting engineering practice specialising in water and environmental Engineering. See their very interesting project list
• Caroline Spelman: Secretary of State for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and MP for Meriden well-positioned to advise the Diagonal Lock team on how to advance the Diagonal Lock project within the political arena.
• Roger Herrington, Managing Director: Roger Herrington & Associates, an experienced management consultant with specialist knowledge in canal regeneration and development. and productive partnership with Roger Herrington & Associates.
• Roy Pulley, specialist product innovation advisor, Manufacturing Advisory Service (West Midlands), whose support and involvement of enabled Coventry University students to take up the concept as part of an engineering project, producing a 3d model and developing a feasibility study.
• Earle Wightman, Managing Director: Sherborne Wharf in central Birmingham, whose support illustrates the appeal of the Diagonal Lock technology to the waterways leisure industry.
• Mike Lewis, electronic engineer and senior lecturer at Coventry University, whose knowledge spans electronics, dynamics and statics, thermofluids and time reduction technologies. His initial involvement began as a project supervisor to a team of students studying the Diagonal Lock as part of their Masters degree.
• Graham Freeman, technical head of the British Boating Federation & managing director: Tayman Services [marine surveyor and safety secialist], who has helped to identify some potential locations for the first Diagonal Lock.
• Alasdair Crichton, web designer, has over 10 years experience in IT, developing software and websites across a range of industries. He has maintained and developed the website ensuring the Diagonal Lock technology is promoted to as wide an audience as possible. 

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Mr Fogarty wrote to the compilers of the Big City Plan blueprint for Birmingham outlining his proposals for the ’diagonal lock’ scheme, which he said would wipe out long delays at flights of locks:

 

 One of the Camp Hill locks from a website with many other excellent canal pictures 

“At the moment you can only get narrowboats along it. There has been years of neglect and the network cries out for improvement. Nowhere is this more apparent than at Camp Hill locks, where the 300-year-old narrow lock flight meets the Grand Union Canal. This offers the potential for wide beam boats to move down to London. The shame of it is that at present a wide-beam boat coming from London is prevented from entering the canals of Birmingham, which is a tragedy. The diagonal lock would create worldwide interest as it would be the first new canal lock of its kind anywhere in the world. I believe a new lock system for Camp Hill would cost £6-7m - a fraction of the cost of the £18bn high speed rail link.”  

In July the Birmingham Mail reported a vote of confidence from British Waterways Head of Engineering George Ballinger, after meeting Mr Fogarty. Although British Waterways is currently unable to contribute to any funding package, it is fully supportive of the initiative and will assist in any other way to further the creation of ’such an iconic structure’ on the waterway network. Mr Ballinger expressed the need for the council to play a major part in taking things forward by looking at the overall development plan for the area. 

Mr Fogarty said: “It’s great news that British Waterways are backing the scheme. I believe a new lock system for Camp Hill would cost between £6 million and £7 million, a fraction of the cost of high-speed rail.” 

Reassurance for the non-technical reader 

At the exhibition the writer had the advantage of independent input from a visiting engineer.  He assured me that it would certainly work and recommended the animations on the website which explain all in five clear steps. 

Environmental advantages 

During a follow-up email exchange about upward journeys which are powered by pumping water into the tube once the bottom gate is closed, he added: 

“They could use side ponds to conserve water and then very little power is needed to pump it up, but it would be very slow. I think the simpler option – to let all the water out and pump it back – is better as they can generate electricity from it on the way down and use it on the way up. Essentially as the water runs out they pump it up to the top from where it came.The national grid uses pumped storage to smooth out the peaks and troughs of demand, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station. 

“Apart from inefficiencies it will not use water or energy, and the inefficiencies and technology are well understood.” 

It would be cheering to see the work of Terry Fogarty and his colleagues come to fruition – perhaps substantially funded by the Brummie Bonds advocated by Councillor Clancy.

Car clubs: saving carbon and reducing ownership

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There are now nearly 150,000 members of car clubs across the UK with cities, towns and even villages realising the cost, environmental and convenience benefits they offer. Car clubs provide the convenience and cost saving of being able to use cars based in neighbourhoods. They also offer strong savings on carbon through reduced car ownership and promotion of sustainable travel. 

Go! Co-operative is a Multistakeholder Co-operative (Somerset Rules), registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Acts. This co-operative aims to improve access to public transport by providing open access rail services linking main lines to smaller market towns. Where feasible, it aims to provide light rail or bus links or develop car pools to enable outlying communities to access these services. 

One project, the GOCO CAR club, has been developed in collaboration with Hab Oakus and a partnership with Commonwheels, social enterprise car clubs. 

The GOCO CAR club is based in Rodbourne on Northern Road next to ‘The Triangle’, a new high-quality sustainable 42-home development, with shared facilities, one mile north of Swindon rail station and developed by Hab Oakus, a housing company led by Channel 4’s Grand Designs presenter, Kevin McCloud, seen here driving past Triangle housing. 

The new car club is operating initially with two cars and is now available to all Swindon residents and local businesses. It offers users the opportunity of booking a car for 30 minutes or more to provide a cost-effective, convenient and sustainable travel option.

Read about the key benefits on their website.

Is Birmingham city centre’s first City Car Club at the Hub in the Gunsmiths Quarter still prospering?

The fourth step to self-reliance

The author of ‘The Growth Illusion’, Richard Douthwaite, lists four basic steps to self-reliance – the fourth being the production of the area’s basic food and clothing requirements without the use of inputs from outside:

“. . . every community should use part of its agricultural resource to produce fibres to turn into garments.”

(Short Circuit – Strengthening Local Economies for Security in an Unstable World, Green Books 1996, p50-1) 

In a letter to The Times years ago Louisa Radice urged the fashion industry to take its responsibilities to the wider environment more seriously. She listed some of the problems associated with the manufacture of clothing and textiles: 

• soil erosion caused by cotton cultivation;
• acid rain and carbon dioxide produced during the manufacture of petrochemical derived fibres;
• the replacement of biodiverse forest eco-systems with single-species timber plantations for the purpose of viscose and rayon production;
• water pollution resulting from the bleaching and dyeing processes;
• and the poor wages and conditions suffered by sweatshop workers in developing countries. 

Decorticating flax

Several organisations tried – without success – to design a machine which could process hemp fibres. In low-wage countries this process is carried out by hand under difficult conditions. Though not as easy to grow, flax can be machine-processed.

In Ireland Irish linen is still produced. Most of it is used for high quality table linen and a small amount for ‘apparel’ . 

Flax growing in Manchester  

Flax flowers

There are few known flax growing projects in the UK, but historically the crop was cultivated here successfully. Then, throughout the industrial revolution, there was a gradual drift towards manufacturing with imported cotton. 

Stronger than cotton, but not as elastic, flax fibres can be used to make a range of goods including bed linen, paper, rope, string, beats, eco-building materials and clothing.  Just one acre of the crop can produce 1500 shirts. The seeds can also be used to make oil and are often recommended as a nutritional supplement as they are rich in Omega 3. 

Flax is grown in the Cotswolds, processed by hand in the traditional manner.

Cotswold flax fibres

It was good to read about another small project in this country. Flax was grown in the fields round Manchester 200 years ago and the textile industry, of which flax was a part, was a driver of the industrial revolution.

Once again flax is being grown on disused brownfield land, in order to produce a special Manchester fabric – an initiative set up by sustainability charity MERCI (pronounced murky). 

Harvesting flax

A series of workshops are now being held to help the local community grow their own flax in gardens and allotments. 

It would be good to see – in due course – flax textiles offering new employment opportunities in this country, reducing dependence on oil for fabrics [polyester] and transport.

Hydrogen: A link with Birmingham’s past and a hope for its future.

 

On a day when it was reported that eleven year old Sophia Deans’ design for a hydrogen car has won an award, we add news of the Birmingham’s Lunar Society annual Boulton-Watt lecture: Hydrogen, Magnets, Sustainability and the Birmingham Connection, to be given by Professor Rex Harris, leader of the Ross Barlow project – the year’s top post on the Antidote website

 

Venue: Birmingham Metropolitan College -  Matthew Boulton Campus

5th October 2011, 6pm for 6.30

All are welcome, but non-members will have to register with the Lunar Society.

 Hydrogen:  A link with the past, a hope for the future.

Another planned development described by Professor Harris is a Hydrogen Heritage  Trail, addressing the twin threats of climate change and resource depletion.     

Hydrogen will be employed as a link to the Midlands’ engineering and scientific past whilst informing the public about its potential as a means of storing electricity and as a future zero-carbon fuel for transportation.

One link to the past is the canal and the hydrogen fuel cell boat, the Ross Barlow, provides a pointer to the future.