Climate Change Innovation Bulletin Edition 14

Kia Ora,

The 13th of July 2011

This is our 14th edition and this month we will take a look at the UK’s political decision to debate a strategy around Peak Oil as well as extreme weather events and their links with Climate Change. Extreme Weather is the work of Steve O’Connor, the science editor of the Independent.

In the beginning it was intended that we just provide you with a monthly snapshot of British business developments in the Climate Change arena and look at global business responses to Climate Change. Now we have decided to expand the concept to take longer think pieces. This month it is a thoughtful speech by Chris Huhne on Economics and Climate Change.

• Huhne and Peak Oil.
• New Green British buses for New Zealand.
• And greening up the London bus.
• A UK-Ireland wind deal?
• British Drought deepens.
• Stampede to beat Feed in Tariff deadline.
• Extreme Weather – the Connection.
• The Big Feature –Chris Huhne and the Economics of Climate Change.

UK Government to develop Peak Oil Plan

Chris Huhne agrees to work with UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security to assess risk of soaring oil prices.

Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne yesterday agreed to develop an 'Oil Shock Response Plan', following a meeting with the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security (ITPOES).

The group, which was formed by Arup, B&Q, Buro Happold, Solarcentury, SSE, Stagecoach and Virgin, and campaigns for greater awareness of the economic threat presented by dwindling oil supplies, said that the meeting had proved "constructive" and had helped to advance the energy security dialogue.

Specifically, Huhne agreed that DECC and ITPOES would work together on peak oil threat assessment and contingency planning.

Details on the collaboration are yet to be agreed, but the group is expected to be tasked with modeling some of the impacts that could result if, as growing number of experts fear, global oil supplies peak within the next five years.

Members of the taskforce said they would also explore steps that would need to be taken now to protect the UK economy "if we knew that the oil price would soar to $250 in 2014".

Oil prices have remained above $100 a barrel for much of the past few months, driven by rising demand and supply fears related to continuing unrest in Libya and the Middle East.

The elevated prices yesterday prompted the International Energy Agency to take the unusual step of calling on the OPEC cartel to increase production in an effort to bring down prices and protect the fragile global economic recovery.

However, there are growing numbers of experts in and outside the oil industry who have voiced fears that there is insufficient spare capacity for oil producers to respond easily to growing demand, with even figures such as IEA chief economist Fatih Birol suggesting that global oil supplies could peak in the near future.

The taskforce members also revealed that Huhne had called on them to present their concerns to the Chancellor and Treasury - a meeting that the group is now seeking.

A DECC spokesman told BusinessGreen that the department will publish a formal "call for evidence" from interested parties in the near future as it works to develop the new Oil Shock Response Plan.

You can read DECC’s research at this site :

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/meeting_energy/int_energy/global_oil/cfe_crude_oil/cfe_crude_oil.aspx

Source: BusinessGreen

NZ bus reveals new greener and cleaner buses from the UK

Last month the first in the line of 118 new British built Enviro 200 buses hit New Zealand roads.

The bus’s environmental credentials are second to none. The new ADL buses are equipped with the latest Euro5 engine emissions technology and are over 90% cleaner than the vehicles they are replacing. Their addition to the NZ bus fleet will reduce carbon emissions by around 2000 tonnes during their first year of operation.

It has a light, strong and long lasting low floor chassis with a lightweight aluminium body frame structure. The structure is clad with easy removable GRP and ABS panels. This has resulted in a bus that has all the traditional features of a single deck bus but with a substantially lower kerbweight.

The new buses launched by the Minister of Transport, Steven Joyce are designed and fabricated in the UK by Alexander Dennis Ltd, ADL, and are assembled in Tauranga by Kiwi bus.

Alexander Dennis busses carry over 25,000 passengers every minute of every day in cities around the world including London, New York, Las Vegas and Hong Kong. Almost 17,000 have been sold worldwide and new orders are at record levels.

ADL is Britain’s biggest bus and coach builder, employing around 2000 people and has three major manufacturing sites in the UK and build partnerships in North America, Hong Kong, China and now New Zealand. The company is the recognised world leader in the design, engineering and manufacture of double deck and midi buses.

The Enviro 200 is the latest version of the world’s bestselling midi bus and has transformed the face of public transport by providing all the passenger friendly services of a full size bus but as a lighter vehicle with a smaller footprint.

Operating costs are driven down as a much lighter kerbweight lowers fuel consumption. Plus the British made, low emissions, high performance, Cummins engine together with either an Allison or Voith transmission, saves fuel and improves journey times.

The chassis are shipped over fully built and the rest of the build is shipped over as a ‘flat pack’ for assembly at Kiwi Bus Builders in Tauranga. In much the same way as cars used to be imported to NZ in years gone by.

The Tauranga region will benefit as 25-30% of all the bus components are being locally sourced and one hundred and two direct new jobs have been created at Kiwi Bus Builders to fulfil the NZ Bus order.

The process, which started six months ago, has culminated in NZ Bus ordering one hundred and eighteen new buses to be delivered by March 2012. Thirty of these will be in service prior to the Rugby World Cup.

Alexander Dennis is investing further in this partnership and have already created a support infrastructure including parts inventory and warehousing in Auckland. They have commenced an in-depth training programme and have installed field service engineers.

Technology and research builds a better, cleaner London bus

The development of fuel-efficient hybrid diesel-electric buses is seen as an important means of cutting pollution in major cities.

A United Kingdom consortium is planning to speed the worldwide growth of the hybrid diesel-electric bus market by pioneering new exhaust-energy technology that will further reduce its fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

A bus maker, university and technology companies have been brought together in a United Kingdom initiative that promises to boost the appeal of hybrid diesel-electric buses by harnessing their exhaust heat energy to achieve new low levels of fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

The Thermal Energy Recovery Systems initiative - funded through the UK Government Technology Strategy Board - has been conceived with the aim of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of the latest breed of hybrid buses by another 10 per cent.

This can be achieved through the capture and use of waste exhaust heat that would otherwise be lost during bus operation, while also improving fuel consumption by halving the power consumption of the air-conditioning systems.

The three-year project is led by the Wrightbus company from Ballymena, Northern Ireland, and also involves Ulster-based Queen’s University and the Ricardo and Revolve technology companies. It is said to be “a potentially important step forward in public transport technology”.

The first-generation heat-recovery devices are expected to lead to a production-ready Thermal Energy Recovery Systems (TERS) system within the next six years.

The Wright Group’s managing director Mark Nodder explained: “TERS brings an interesting new dimension to the development of hybrid bus technology and seeks to find responsible solutions to the world’s environmental challenges. This exciting new initiative, in close cooperation with our TERS project partners, is a key strand of our on-going work to deliver the next generation of hybrid buses.”

Professor Roy Douglas is the leader of the research team at Queen’s University located in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He added: “In this concept, we are capturing heat energy that would normally be wasted and converting it into useful power. The challenges are huge but the potential for fuel economy improvement is also huge.”

He continued: “The targets for the project are to reduce fuel consumption by 10 to 20 per cent on top of the 30 per cent already delivered by the hybrid technology. It is this new hybrid technology that is the key enabler for waste heat recovery. Queen’s University has been developing this research for many years, and it is very exciting to have the opportunity to put it into practice.”

The heat lost in the exhaust of a modern diesel engine can represent up to 40 per cent of the available chemical energy content of the fuel used by the vehicle, said Nick Owen, director for research and collaboration at the Ricardo technology company (www.ricardo.com) based at Shoreham, southern England.

Wrightbus, founded in 1946 and still a family-owned and managed company, claims to be the UK’s leading independent supplier of public transport buses and has been chosen to build a fleet of hybrid buses for London.

These will bring a new look to what is already Europe’s largest low-emission bus fleet and as such are likely to be some of the first vehicles to benefit from the results of the TERS initiative.

The Transport for London organisation says the newcomers will reduce both fuel consumption and air quality emissions by 40 per cent compared with conventional diesel buses, as well as being 15 per cent more economical than the city’s current hybrids. Wrightbus was the first manufacturer to introduce hybrid buses into fare-paying service in London and is also testing fuel-cell buses.

The hybrid bus, in which a conventional diesel engine is paired with an electric motor, is seen as the people carrier or superbus of the future in the world’s crowded and polluted cities. London, for instance, plans to introduce 90 hybrid buses to service this year.

This will boost the UK capital’s fleet of hybrids to more than 200 by the end of 2011. With the potential benefits of the new research described as “huge,” the next generation of hybrids are expected to make a significant contribution to cutting London’s carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent from 1990 levels by the year 2025.

Source: Businessgreen

Did You Know: By 2015 the UK market for low carbon and environmental goods and services is expected to be worth £150 billion.

Ireland and UK wind power deal

The British government could massively subsidise the Irish wind energy industry under proposals to be considered in London .

Britain believes the west coast and the seas around Ireland can provide it with a large amount of its renewable energy and could be willing to subsidise offshore wind farms there.

Industry groups here say such a move could be worth up to €1.6 billion a year to the Irish economy.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Minister for Energy Pat Rabbitte will be attending the British-Irish Council, where the issue of electricity interconnectivity will be high on the agenda.Mr Rabbitte will have separate meetings with his British counterpart, Charles Hendry, who said at the weekend that the proposals could bring "significant wealth [to Ireland] with very little downside".

Mr Hendry said the west coast of Ireland was an ideal location for wind farms, but the small Irish market meant there was no demand for the potential power generation. "We want to put that right," he said.
...
Irish Wind Energy Association chief executive Dr Michael Walsh welcomed the wind farm proposal. He said Ireland needed to generate 4,500 to 5,000 megawatts a year by 2020 to meet renewable targets. He believed there was capacity to generate 6,000 megawatts from onshore and a further 4,000 from offshore, meaning half of all Irish wind-generated energy could be exported to Britain.

He estimated that 5,000 megawatts of exported electricity would be worth €1.6 billion annually at current electricity prices.

Source : The European Tribune

For a Kiwi slant on this story go to:
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2011/06/interesting-solution.html

Did You Know: The UK Government has committed more than £200 million over the next four years to establish an elite network of at least six technology and innovation centres.

England sees driest spring in a century as drought hits UK

England suffered its driest spring in a century last month, leaving fields parched and many rivers at record lows, the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) said on Friday, as government officials met experts and utilities to discuss the drought conditions prevailing in many parts of the country.

But Scotland, by contrast, had its wettest spring on record for the three-month period of March, April and May, showing the wide regional variation. Much of the south-east of England has also escaped drought.

Further reading

• Drought declared in East Anglia, with other parts on brink
• Defra urges water companies to beef up drought resilience

Most reservoir stocks throughout northern Scotland and Northern Ireland were described as "healthy" by the CEH, the public sector research centre charged with collating drought data. For England and Wales as a whole in May, stocks were within four per cent of the early June average. In areas such as London, stocks are also estimated within 10 per cent of capacity, but in the south-west, Wales and the Midlands, reservoir stocks are 10 to 20 per cent below where they should be at this time of year.

Terry Marsh, senior hydrologist at the CEH, said: "Late May soils were the driest on record across large parts of eastern and central England, causing substantial agricultural stress [and] impacting on crop yields. Currently, the most evident hydrological impact of the drought is on river flows across much of southern Britain - flows in responsive rivers were close to, or below, previous late-May minima over wide areas."

The drought conditions will continue even if rainfall returns in the next two months, because the soils are so dry it will take longer to recover than usual.

Marsh explained: "The very moderate infiltration since the winter has left groundwater levels below, to well below, average across most major aquifers. Above-average summer rainfall would ameliorate the drought's impact but with soils still exceptionally dry in much of southern Britain drought stress will continue with an expected substantial delay in seasonal recovery in runoff and recharge rates and, correspondingly, notably low autumn flows."

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed on Friday that Anglia was suffering a severe drought, and is expected to confirm soon drought conditions in parts of the south-west of England, the Midlands and Wales.

Farmers have been worst hit, but other companies - such as food processors, energy companies and some manufacturers - that rely heavily on abstracting water from rivers or underground sources are expected to experience problems. The amount of water they are allowed to abstract is to be cut in the worst affected areas. The Environment Agency said it was difficult to predict accurately at this stage exactly which businesses would be hit.

National Farmers Union president, Peter Kendall, said on Friday: "Let's make sure we make food production a priority. That we talk to farmers in advance, we don't just turn the taps right off. That we allow farmers to eke out supplies. It would be crazy, with such a big investment in the value of crops if you say 'that's it, no water from now on'. We'd much rather say 'actually it's getting low - you can have 30 per cent, 40 per cent of your water'."

However, water companies are hopeful that consumers may get off lightly. Caroline Spelman, secretary of state for the environment, said: "Water companies are confident that supplies are high enough so that widespread restrictions to the public are unlikely. We're doing all we can to reduce the impact on agriculture and wildlife, but everyone can play their part. Households know how to use less water and everyone can do their bit to use water more wisely, not only through the summer but throughout the year."

Friday's meeting, attended by Defra officials and meteorologists as well as business representatives, was one of a series of government-held emergency meetings to monitor and respond to the drought situation. Next Tuesday, Natural England will meet environmental groups and their views, as well as the CEH data, will be fed into a major "drought summit" to take place in the next few weeks, the second such summit so far.

Source: The Guardian

Did You Know: Low carbon industry is generating £107 billion a year in the UK and employing 880,000 people.

Solar parks launched as developers dash to beat feed-in tariff deadline

Two of the UK's largest solar arrays are set to come online as developers race to connect new solar farms to the grid before an August deadline cuts solar energy incentives by up to 70 per cent.

Green energy company Ecotricity will flick the switch on a 1MW development in Lincolnshire, while SolarCentury plans to inaugurate a 1.4MW solar farm, the UK's largest to date, at a reclaimed tin mine in Cornwall.

However, despite being convinced of the potential for combined plants, Dale Vince, Ecotricity founder and managing director, said the government's decision to cut feed-in tariff payments for large-scale solar from 1 August means that Ecotricity has shelved plans for similar developments that could have become operational later this year.

Developers had hoped that the UK could grow a PV industry to rival Germany's, which had built around 300 solar plants by the end of last year, creating a €10bn solar industry that has resulted in 133,000 jobs.

Most analysts agree that the cuts have rendered solar arrays over 50kW uneconomic, and Vince accused ministers of "strangling our solar industry at birth".

"With a big question mark right now over nuclear power, and huge climate change targets to hit, this is a crazy step to take, especially in the name of saving money," he said.

"It's not just about green jobs and green industry. We need large-scale solar as part of the UK's energy mix to make the UK more energy independent and reduce our carbon if this government is serious about being the greenest ever."

Meanwhile, SolarCentury's new Wheal Jane plant is the second large solar project inaugurated by the company in the past fortnight following the 3,000 panels fitted at Howbery Business Park in Wallingford, Oxfordshire.

Around 5,680 panels have been installed on the 7.2 acre plot outside Truro, as the first stage of developing a sustainable business park that in the future will also draw on electricity and heat produced from wind, hydro and shallow and deep geothermal energy sources.

Cornwall was tipped to experience a "solar gold-rush" when the feed-in tariffs were first announced, and even though subsidy levels have subsequently fallen, Julian German, Cornwall council cabinet member for the environment, insisted that smaller-scale developments would still have a big role to play across the county.

"Despite the government's change in policy on feed-in tariffs, we are determined to ensure that solar energy brings great benefits to businesses and communities throughout Cornwall," he said.

"Those with roof space for solar should see it as not only helping to contribute to our clean energy future but a rewarding investment

Further reading

• Ed Miliband joins fight to save solar feed-in tariffs
• Switch flicked on UK's "first solar business park"

Source: Businessgreen

Did You Know: By 2015 the UK market for low carbon and environmental goods and services is expected to employ over 1.2 million people

Extreme weather link 'can no longer be ignored'

Climate researchers from Britain, the United States and other parts of the world have formed a new international alliance that aims to investigate exceptional weather events to see whether they can be attributable to global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions. They believe that it is no longer plausible merely to claim that extreme weather is “consistent” with climate change. Instead, they intend to assess each unusual event in terms of the probability that it has been exacerbated or even caused by the global temperature increase seen over the past century.

The move is likely to be highly controversial because the science of “climate attribution” is still in the early stages of development and so is likely to be pounced on by climate “sceptics” who question any link between industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and rises in global average temperatures.

In the past scientists have been extremely reluctant to link a single extreme weather event with climate change, arguing that the natural variability of the weather makes it virtually impossible to establish any definitive association other than a possible general consistency with what is expected from studies based on computer models.

However, a growing number of climate scientists are now prepared to adopt a far more aggressive posture, arguing that the climate has already changed enough for it to be affecting the probability of an extreme weather event, whether it is an intense hurricane, a major flood or a devastating drought.

“We’ve certainly moved beyond the point of saying that we can’t say anything about attributing extreme weather events to climate change,” said Peter Stott, a leading climate scientist at the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter.

“It’s very clear we’re in a changed climate now which means there’s more moisture in the atmosphere and the potential for stronger storms and heavier rainfall is clearly there.”

Kevin Trenberth, a distinguished senior scientist at the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, also believes the time has come to emphasise the link between extreme weather and the global climate in which it develops.

“The environment in which all storms form has changed owing to human activities, in particular it is warmer and more moist than it was 30 or 40 years ago,” Dr Trenberth said.

“We have this extra water vapour lurking around waiting for storms to develop and then there is more moisture as well as heat that is available for these storms [to form]. The models suggest it is going to get drier in the subtropics, wetter in the monsoon trough and wetter at higher latitudes. This is the pattern we're already seeing.”

The Met Office and NCAR have joined forces with other climate organisations, including the influential US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organisation (NOAA), to carry out detailed investigations of extreme weather events, such as the vast flooding in Pakistan last year, to see whether they can detect a climate change “signal” as a likely cause.

A group of their researchers has formed a coalition called the Attribution of Climate-Related Events which is preparing a report on the subject to be published later this year at a meeting of the World Climate Research Programme in Denver. They hope in future to assess each extreme weather phenomenon in terms of its probability of being linked with global warming and then to post the result on the internet.

“There is strong evidence if you look across the world that we are seeing an increase in heatwaves and floods and droughts and extreme rainfall and extreme temperatures,” Dr Stott said.

“The evidence is clear from looking at the observational records globally that extreme temperatures and extreme rainfall are changing. But you can’t jump from that and say that a specific event is straightforwardly attributable because we know that natural variability could have played a part.

“We’ve been developing the science to be increasingly more quantitative about the links and make more definitive statements about how the risk has changed. You look sensibly about these things by talking about changing risk, or changing probability of these events.”

Dr Stott had his colleagues have already carried out studies of the 2003 heatwave in Europe, in which up to 35,000 people died of heat-related illnesses, as well as the devastating UK floods in 2000 which cost £1.3bn in insurance claims and destroyed 10,000 homes following the wettest autumn in England and Wales since records began in 1766.

In both cases, the scientists found that the contribution of man-made greenhouse gases to global warming substantially increased the risk of such extreme events occurring. The group is also investigating the exceptional warm April in Britain this year, which was the warmest since central England records were kept in 1659 and 0.5C warmer on average than the previous warmest April.

Also this year, an unprecedented number of tornadoes across the southeastern US and the flooding of major rivers such as the Mississippi and Missouri led many people to question whether they were exacerbated by global warming. In the past scientists would have been reluctant to link single weather events such as these with climate change, but Dr Trenberth believes this is wrong.

“I will not say that you cannot link one event to these things. I will say instead that the environment in which all of these storms are developing has changed,” Dr Trenberth told The Independent.

“It’s not so much the instantaneous result of the greenhouse effect, it’s the memory of the system and the main memory is in the oceans and the oceans have warmed up substantially, at depth, and we can measure that. I will assert that every event has been changed by climate change and the main time we perceive it is when we find ourselves outside the realms of the previous natural variability, and because natural variability is so large this is why we don't notice it most of the time.

“When we have things that occur usually 4 per cent of the time start to occur 10 per cent of the time, that’s when we begin to notice. The main way we perceive climate change is in changes in the extremes? this is when we break records.”

A report by the insurance company Munich Re found that 2010 was one of the worst years on record for natural disasters, nine-tenths of which were related to extreme weather, such as the floods in Pakistan and eastern Australia and heatwave in Russia, which is estimated to have killed at least 56,000 people, making it the most deadly natural disaster in the country’s history.

“This long-term trend can no longer be explained by natural climate oscillations alone. No, the probability is that climate change is contributing to some of the warming of the world’s oceans,” said Peter Höppe, author of the Munich Re report.

Making the connection

Tornadoes, US, 2011 More than 220 people were killed by tornadoes and violent storms that ripped through south-eastern United States in April; 131 were killed in Alabama alone. Fifteen people died in Tuscaloosa and sections of the city were destroyed.

Heatwave, UK, 2011April was the warmest since 1659, when records in England began. Sun-lovers flocked to St Ives, above, but fears of drought were raised. Rainfall in the UK that month was only 52 per cent of the long-term average.

Drought, Brazil, 2005 The Amazon region suffered the worst drought in more than a century. The floodplains dried up and people were walking or using bicycles on areas where canoes and river boats had been the only means of transport.

Floods, USA, 2005 Katrina was one of the five deadliest hurricanes in the history of the US, and it caused the destruction of New Orleans when levees were overwhelmed. Some 90 per cent of residents of south-east Louisiana were evacuated.

Source: Steve O’Connor – Science Editor, The Independent

The Big Feature.

The Economics of Climate Change (a speech by Chris Huhne to the Corporate Leaders Group)

29 June.UK Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne gave the first of a series of speeches stating the three central compelling arguments for national and global action on climate change: the economic case, the geopolitical case and the scientific case.

Speaking to the Prince of Wales’s UK Corporate Leaders’ Group in London, Mr Huhne said that the UK urgently needs to kick its addiction to fossil fuels and kickstart investment in new nuclear, renewables and clean coal or risk falling behind as countries around the world, including the US and China, race to develop clean energy.

Mr Huhne said:

“Some countries already have a head start. Electricity prices in France are set to rise by just 3% this year. Compare and contrast with Britain, where prices are rising by three times as much. It is no surprise that France is the European country with the least reliance on fossil fuels, and enjoys some of the lowest prices – 9.4 per cent below ours. We have a long way to go. But every long journey begins with a first step.”

Read a transcript of the speech on the DECC Website.

Source: DECC

And don’t forget we now have a Facebook site where you can also catch up on the latest Climate Change stories and more from the British High Commission: http://www.facebook.com/ukinnewzealand

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