Schools to join carbon trading scheme
by David Masters
Environment Minister Hilary Benn has announced that the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) will include state schools from 2010. It is mandatory for all local authorities to take part in the CRC, a revenue neutral scheme that gives financial rewards to councils with the best environmental performance, and penalises the worst performers. All large organisations within a council's jurisdiction will be part of the scheme, including hotel chains, supermarkets, universities, water companies, and ...
New technology recycles 90% of waste water
by David Masters
Environmental solutions company Enva have developed a new technique that could reduce industrial water consumption by up to 90%. Using a process called electro-coagulation, Enva's technology cleans up waste water by turning dissolved waste products into solids that can easily be filtered out from the water. Electro-coagulation has been around for over a century, but little research has been done into commercial applications. Dr. Frank Holland, a scientist on Enva's team ...
Nuclear costs hit £73 billion
by Grant Draper
MPs have claimed the cost of the UK Nuclear decommission will hit figures in excess of £73 billion, although this cost will include running the current plants that are open. January 2008 saw the launch of a new scheme which allowed energy companies to invest in Nuclear power, aslong as the oiperators met strict standards and provide enough capital for the decommissioning of new facilities and that they bear the full ...
Paris opts for sharing elecric cars
by Alan Harten
The Mayor of Paris has announced a doubling of the proposed number of electric cars for a service known as Autolib ', which will now use 4,000 vehicles against 2,000 originally planned. The establishment of operational Autolib 'should take place at the end of next year The city will launch a tender for 4,000 cars 2,000 to be used in the city of Paris and 2,000 more for the ...
Emirates ditch in flight magazine
by Grant Draper
Free in flight magazines may be a thing of the past, meaning you’ll have to find another maagzine edited by Michael Palin, and another magazine that features the like of Will Self and Julie Burchill. According to the Emirates, each seat receives 2kg worth of in flight magazine, and at 500 seats on an average aircraft, that’s a total gross weight of one tonne. Of course this represents a tiny amount ...
Reducing Pollution for Beijing Olympics
by Grant Draper
Organisers of one of the biggest events in the world, the Olimpics, set to be hosted by Beijing, will enforce some last minute, emergency measures, in a hope to cut pollution levels in the city back to the original target. Rules and regulations were put in place which reduced factory output and production, and took literally thousands of high polluting vehicles off the roads, being replaced by more eco friendly examples. ...
The asthma Olympics, as Beijing cloaked in smog
by Alan Harten
The Chinese government has spent untold billions preparing to show the world just how far they have come with their capitalist, sorry communist, revolution over the last couple of decades. But with their astounding progress they have also heralded in a new era of problems that are causing serious environmental troubles for the Olympics. There are just 11 days to go to the opening ceremony of the 2008 sporting extravaganza, and ...
UK sabotages EU renewables targets
by David Masters
The Guardian newspaper reports that British negotiators at the European Union are trying to sabotage an EU directive on green energy. A new EU directive proposes that member states give renewable energy - made using wind, solar or hydro power - easier access to their national grids by giving them priority. However, negotiators from BERR, the UK's business department, have proposed changes to the wording of the directive. BERR wants the wording ...
Theives strip sand from Jamaican beach
by David Masters
500 truckloads of sand were stolen from a Jamaican resort beach last week. Police suspect that the sand, lifted from Coral Springs beach in Trelawny, will be sold to building developers in the region. The theft has put a US$100 million development in Coral Springs in jeopardy, with investors in the development concerned about the environmental consequences of the theft. With significantly less sand on its beach, Coral Springs will be more susceptible ...
Naples streets cleared of rubbish
by David Masters
Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy, this week declared the Naples rubbish crisis over, with tonnes of rotting rubbish having been removed from the city's streets. Speaking at a cabinet office meeting, Berlusconi said he was fulfilling a promise made 2 months ago, although a long term solution to Naple's rubbish could take up to three years. Official landfill sites were declared full last year, so from January this year rubbish was ...
Should GPs get involved in population and climate problems?
by Alan Harten
British families are being urged to keep the number of children that they have to a maximum of two children per family unit. According to University College, London’s John Guillebaud and Exeter GP Pip Hayes mushrooming population around the world is putting extreme pressure on the world’s resources and increasing the output of green house gases. They say that population growth across the globe has now reached the point where ...
Global warming will melt Andes glaciers
by David Masters
Glaciers in the Andes mountain range are melting so fast that they could completely disappear by 2015, causing widespread devastation in the surrounding regions. 'Climate Change Knows No Borders', a report prepared for the Andean nations by Carlos Amat y León, Peru's former agricultural minister, warns that temperatures in the Andes are rising at a rate of 0.34 degrees per decade, 70% faster than the global average. If glaciers continue to ...
Tidal electricity floods national grid
by David Masters
The world's first commercial scale tidal turbine was connected to the national grid this week. Developed by Bristol-based Marine Current Turbines (MCT), the SeaGen turbine was installed in Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland, in May this year, and is now ready for trial operations. The turbine is currently producing 150kW of electricity, which will be bought by Irish company ESB energy and used by homes in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. If all ...
Northern Ireland’s water pollution ignored
by David Masters
Cases of water pollution in Northern Ireland rarely lead to a prosecution, despite thousands of fish being killed in Northern Ireland's rivers during recent years. Department of Environment statistics suggest that water polluters are more likely to receive a warning letter than be taken to court. Last year there were 1,259 confirmed cases of water pollution in NI, 22 classified as high severity, 203 classified as medium severity. An additional 1,036 ...
No joke: Irish consider seaweed biofuel
by David Masters
Why did the lobster blush? Because the seaweed. The Irish sense of humour might be more advanced than the English - and probably the rest of Europe - but in terms of biofuel and renewable energy production, Ireland lags far behind the rest of the continent. Ireland is one of the most energy dependent countries in Europe, having to import over 90% of its energy to make ends meet. It ...
Government green building policy ‘fragmented and inconsistant’
by David Masters
A coalition of businesses and environmental groups have released a report that lambastes government green building policy as inconsistent, fragmented, and poorly enforced. The Aldersgate Group - members include Friends of the Earth and the UK Green Building Council - published the 'Better Regulation for a Sustainable Built Environment' report to coincide with the launch of a government consultation on its renewable energy strategy. According to the report, well publicised and ...
Sheffield grants permission to ‘green’ powerplant
by David Masters
Energy supplier E.ON has received approval from Sheffield City Council to build a biomass power station in the city at Blackburn Meadows. Construction on the site, formerly home to a coal-fired power plant, could begin as early as next year, with power being produced by 2011. The £60 million power station will produce 25MW of electricity, enough to power 40,000 homes. It will be powered using recycled wood, displacing around 80,000 tonnes of ...
New Eco-towns may fall at the first hurdle
by Alan HartenThe governments must hyped plans for the construction of ten new eco-towns spread across the country consisting of many tens of thousands of new residencies may be in trouble before a single brick is laid. Legal council that has been engaged by several local councils through the Local Government Association (LGA) in England have offered their opinion that the proposals are not legally valid. The reason for this is the ...
One third of the world lacks sanitation
by David MastersA UNICEF report has revealed that 2.5 billion people, more than one third of the world's population, live without basic sanitation, resulting in the deaths of 5,000 children every day. 1.2 billion people practice open defecation, presenting a major health threat to themselves and their communities. Around 1 billion people - 13% of the world's population - lack access to safe drinking water. This is expected to fall to 10% by 2015, the ...
Al Gore: America must go 100% renewable
by David Masters
Environmental campaigner Al Gore has set the US an ambitious challenge: to produce all of its electricity from renewable and carbon constrained sources within the next ten years. Speaking in Washington the former vice president called upon Americans to end their 'dangerous over reliance' on oil and coal by switching electricity production to solar power, wind energy, and geothermal energy. 'We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian ...