Climate Change Bulletin April

Kia Ora,

The 16th of April

This is our 22nd edition and this month is Britain’s nuclear future in trouble? We look at the mission to clean up the Olympic river, the Lea .Our pick of the British media on Climate Change is a BBC inquiry into Denmark’s ultra ambitious plan to produce a third of its energy from renewables.

Plus believe it or not a really sexy electric car at last!

• Britain’s nuclear future and the Germans.

• That sexy electric car.

• New solar cells to recharge your mobile.

• British Government loses tariff battle in the courts.

• Nestle Waters open new green plant.

• Cleaning up London’s Olympic River.

• Denmark and its ultra ambitious plan for renewables.

More from Robert

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Is the UK's nuclear future in jeopardy?

Will steam still bill billowing from UK nuclear plants in years to come?

The energy minister Charles Hendry admits that the withdrawal of the German energy giants E.ON and RWE from a big nuclear power project in Anglesey is "clearly very disappointing".

He points out however that "the UK's new nuclear programme is far more than one consortia" and that "plans from EDF/Centrica and Nugen are on track".

EDF of France and Centrica are the big players in the development of new nuclear plants, which right now is the government's only serious initiative for filling a substantial looming gap in our generating capacity as old plants die - and which is also supposed to reduce our dependence on imports of energy and on CO2 emitting fossil fuels.

So whether you are a fan of nuclear or not, it is at the heart of energy policy.

And here is the worry.

The exit of E.ON and RWE may have more to do with post-Fukushima increased German wariness of nuclear power than with concerns about the commercial viability of UK nuclear.

But I'm not sure that Mr Hendry is right to be confident that Centrica and EDF are as committed as all that to the many many billions of pounds of investment that he expects from them.

I've spoken to sources at the companies, and they say there is a make-or-break decision to be made towards the end of the year by ministers - which is whether they are prepared to abandon their previous position that there won't be any substantial subsidies for nuclear, either from taxpayers or customers.

The cost of the newfangled plant being developed for the UK is rising, partly because of increased safety precautions deemed necessary after the Japanese debacle, and partly because the de facto prototype plant in Flamanville in France, developed by EDF, is taking longer to build and is much more expensive than had been thought.

The price of electricity that would be generated from new nuclear plants in the UK is looking more and more expensive. Which means that it won't be commercial for Centrica and EDF to provide it, without the kind of market-rigging that has financed the proliferation of wind turbines.

Will the government foist such costs on customers or taxpayers to obtain the greater energy security that nuclear will allegedly provide? I have to say that I don't detect much confidence from the power companies that ministers are anywhere near having made that substantial ideological leap.

BBC Business

UK’s newest electric cars turning heads at last

The Vauxhall Ampera heralds a new breed of electric cars

Sitting outside the Barley Mow on Tilford village cricket ground, a group of early evening drinkers swing their gaze from left to right, as earnestly as fans of Andy Murray on Centre Court.

Indeed, what they're watching has just flashed past with the quiet fizz of a tennis ball.But this isn't Wimbledon.

The object of their fascination is the Vauxhall Ampera, the latest electric car to arrive in the UK.For unusually in the world of electric motoring, this is a car that actually looks rather cool: the first head-turner in its class, perhaps.

And it's a sign that electric cars are changing fast.Ranges are extending, charge times are decreasing and prices are about to halve.

Costs cut

In the space of a year and a half, the economics of electric motoring will have changed significantly.Britain's best-known electric car, the Nissan Leaf, currently sells for just under £26,000, once the government grant of £5,000 is deducted.

This month, the Renault Fluence will enter showrooms in the UK with prices starting from £17,500.And by the autumn, the Renault Zoe will be with us for less than £14,000. How has Renault achieved such price reductions so rapidly?

For More Read : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17548480

Source BBC

Highly-efficient solar cells aim to power your iPhone

Powering smart phones such as iPhones with solar technology has moved a step closer, after a UK company set a new record for converting indoor light into electricity.

Cardiff-based G24 Innovations (G24i) claims to have produced a photovoltaic (PV) cell with an efficiency rate of 26 per cent, beating the previous record, also held by the company, by over 10 percentage points.

The company says the performance makes the cell almost five times more powerful than its nearest competitor, and according to its inventor, Professor Michael Graetzel, a 40 per cent efficiency rate remains feasible.

Richard Costello, chief operating officer of G24i, said such levels raise the possibility of the technology replacing batteries in consumer electronics or even reducing the carbon emissions impact of larger energy consuming appliances, such as TVs or sound systems.

The technology, which allows small solar cells to generate energy from low level indoor light, is already operating shade and blind systems for one of the largest hotels in Las Vegas and G24i is now working on applications for wireless keyboards.

"New applications of our technology become possible at this efficiency rate and current applications will require smaller modules to achieve the same power density, allowing product designers in the consumer electronics space to throw away the rule book," said Costello.

"The global market for disposable batteries is worth in the region of $80bn a year. The potential to increase the volume of sales for our technology is immense."

G24i has spent five years working to commercialise the technology, which works by using dye-sensitised cells that partially mimic the process of photosynthesis.

The design, which took several decades of work, won Prof Graetzel the 2012 Albert Einstein World Award of Science and the 2010 Millennium Technology Prize.

Source: BusinessGreen

Further reading

• Solar glass breakthrough promises to turn skyscrapers into power stations

• Naked Energy lays bare global expansion plans

Solar panel tariff appeal loss for government

The government had said the subsidy cut would ensure the scheme carried on in the future

The government has failed to get permission to appeal to the Supreme Court over its plan to cut subsidies for solar panels on homes.

The UK's highest court said it could not challenge a High Court ruling that blocked the halving of payments to households generating solar energy.

Critics argued the plan to bring the lower rate in in December was too short notice and lacked proper consultation.

The lower tariff will now apply to panels installed after 1 April.

Campaigners argued that the plans had caused huge uncertainty in the industry, which employs tens of thousands of people.

Friends of the Earth's executive director Andy Atkins described the ruling as "a landmark decision which will prevent ministers causing industry chaos with similar subsidy cuts in future".

The government said the court's decision drew a line under the case.

"We will now focus all our efforts on ensuring the future stability and cost effectiveness of solar and other micro generation technologies for the many, not the few," said Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey.

Continue reading the main story

Source: BBC

“Zero-waste”bottling plant to open in the UK

One of Europe’s most innovative and efficient bottling facilities is to open in the UK after a 35 million pounds investment in the new state-of-the-art plant by Nestlé Waters.

The bottling plant is the culmination of many years of research and development and is based in the English Midlands at Buxton, a spa town, renowned for the quality of its natural water for hundreds of years.

The new site will enable Nestlé to continue to decrease the amount of water used in its manufacturing and by the end of 2012 the site aims to be certified zero waste to landfill.

It will, for the first time, combine the Nestlé Waters UK bottling facility with a warehousing capability and the new bottling lines will significantly reduce the site’s total energy output, as well as producing the lightest-weight water bottles made in the UK.

To read more go to : http://www.londonpressservice.org.uk/lps/tradeindustry/item/285620.html

Source: London Press Service

Busy Lizzie to improve London’s Olympic river

A gigantic earth-chewing machine has started digging a six-kilometre tunnel under east London to stop vast amounts of sewage flowing into the River Lee that runs near the 2012 Olympics zone.

The huge borer/digger - called Busy Lizzie - has been lowered into a gigantic shaft, deeper than anything else in the capital. Costed at 635 million pounds, the Lee Tunnel will prevent 16 million tonnes of sewage entering the river each year, occasional overflows caused by heavy rainfall.

The scheme is expected to be completed by 2013, leaving a fitting legacy to this vastly improved area of east London after the London 2012 Olympic Games & Paralympic Games.

Constructing the Lee Tunnel has been described as a huge engineering challenge, involving tunneling through high groundwater pressures and passing through six kilometres (four miles) of the most abrasive ground from the starting point at Beckton to the destination at Abbey Mills.

Busy Lizzie is eight metres in diameter - wider than three double-decker buses side-by-side - and 120 metres long. The 800-tonne cutter head was the first piece of the drill lowered.

Martin Baggs, Thames Water’s chief executive, said: “This is a major milestone on our way to creating a cleaner, healthier River Thames and River Lee, by dealing with the unacceptable problem of sewer discharges into the river during heavy rainfall.

To read more go to : http://www.londonpressservice.org.uk/lps/tradeindustry/businessclimateinvestment/item/283681.htmlName: Simon Evans, Media Relations Manager

Website: http://www.thameswater.co.uk

Source :London Press Service

Are Denmark's renewable energy goals wishful thinking?

The politician wanted to make one thing absolutely clear. "We are not," she said, "just hippies."

Perhaps it sounded a little over-defensive, but then what Lykke Friis was defending was a remarkably bold initiative.

Denmark has announced that by the end of this decade, it will produce a third of its energy from renewable sources - wind power, in particular, but also solar power and the burning of "biomass."

More ambitiously, the Danish Government has set a goal of running the entire country on renewables by 2050.

What makes Denmark's announcement even more unusual is that it has won support from across the country's political spectrum.

Ms Friis, for example, is a front-bench spokeswoman for the opposition Liberal Party, right-of-centre and fiercely pro-business. For her, the decision to ditch fossil fuels is a matter of sound financial planning.

"No matter what we do, we will have an increase in the price of energy, simply because people in India and China want to have a car, want to travel," she says.

"That is why we came out with a clear ambition to be independent of fossil fuels: so we are not vulnerable to great fluctuations in energy price."

There is an historical experience at work here. The oil-shocks of the early nineteen-seventies were a particular blow to Denmark.

Continue reading the main story

Source: BBC

.And don’t forget we 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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