Green Business UK

Eight new nuclear power stations for UK

2010-10-18T08:37:00.000-07:00

Chris Huhne, Britain's Energy Secretary, has given the go-ahead for eight new nuclear power stations in Britain - but has not said they will be built, just that companies can build them if they want to.

However, he also said that that there will be no public subsidy for nuclear but that the Government was considering a limit on liability. This, it may be argued, is a for of subsidy because it means that taxpayers take on the risk if there is an accident and for the clean up costs.

"The Government has not ruled out the maintenance of a limit on operator liability set at an appropriate level provided that it is justifiable in the public interest, is the right way of ensuring that risk is appropriately managed, and that, overall, any potential cost or risk to the Government can be justified,..." - Chris Huhne

Other notable developments in the Energy Secretary's announcement were plans to build up to 44,000 wind turbines around the coast, official encouragement for households to put up solar panels, significant investment in developing new carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology and the scrapping of the proposed 10 mile barrage across the River Severn.

Eco Fascists Show Their True Colours

2010-10-01T09:15:00.000-07:00

Now, very slowly for all those who still don't get it.

Carbon dioxode makes plants grow faster.

The Disaster of Nu-Labour's Energy Policy

2010-08-20T03:44:00.000-07:00

There has been a nice series at the Capitalists@Work site on the 'scorched earth' policies of the out-going 'Nu-Labour' government. At the above link, they discuss three of the most damaging aspects of Labour's wilful abuse as concerning Energy Policy.

The three are:

1. The stymieing of extremely useful technology
2. The unnecessary costs of feed-in-tariffs
3. The looming trap of international ‘penalties’ for failure to meet renewable energy targets.

The Green Agenda

2010-07-25T02:29:00.000-07:00

"Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsiblity to bring that about?"

- Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme

More idiocy like this at: The Green Agenda, a site dedicated to Fisking the modern green movement.

Cleantech Investment in the UK

2010-05-18T02:41:00.000-07:00

Growth Business UK ezine has an interesting interview with David Gudgin, a partner at Albion Ventures which is active in venture capital for the renewable energy sector. Worth checking out. He thinks the Wind sector is the 'trickiest' but sees long-term growth in the Feed-in-Tariffs scheme.

Solar Panel Cowboys

2010-05-03T15:29:00.000-07:00

An undercover investigation by Which? magazine found that 10 out of 14 UK solar panel installation companies surveyed overstated the effectiveness of the systems.

Some companies quoted savings of as much as 50%. One company claimed the test homeowner would save £35,000 over 20 years, which the magazine described as a "massive exaggeration" - with £5,000 being nearer the mark.

Not a single company in the survey identified all the important technical challenges related to providing a quote. Only one, Southern Solar, was adjudged to have provided sensible advice.

Green Month at British Library Business

2010-04-25T04:31:00.000-07:00

A mail in our inbox announces that it will be 'Green Month' at the British Library Business IP Centre in May.

"Throughout May we're holding special events that explore green an ethical business, the oppportunities, the practicalities and the reasons to get involved."

More details here.

Beware The Greenpeace Mafia

2010-04-05T02:08:00.000-07:00

From the Greenpeace website:

If you’re one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this:

We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work. And we be many, but you be few.

Wonders of the Solar System

2010-04-04T14:27:00.000-07:00

The Cost of the UK Climate Change Act

2010-04-04T06:40:00.000-07:00

One of the best-kept secrets of British politics – although it is there for all to see on a Government website – is the cost of what is by far the most expensive piece of legislation ever put through Parliament. Every year between now and 2050, acccording to Ed Miliband's Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc), the Climate Change Act is to cost us all up to £18.3 billion – £760 for every household in the UK – as we reduce our carbon emissions by 80 per cent.

See the complete article by Christopher Booker here.

A New Green Investment Bank?

2010-03-21T16:28:00.000-07:00

Alistair Darling will use the Budget to announce the creation of a new state bank, backed by £2bn of public and private cash, which will help finance companies planning to build green energy projects and high-speed rail links. The venture is designed as a key plank in the Chancellor's platform for building growth and investment over the next decade.

More details from the Daily Telegraph

Inputs vs Outputs

2010-03-16T16:41:00.000-07:00

Renewable Energy - A Warning from Germany

2010-03-14T13:19:00.000-07:00

Dr Richard North has picked up on an important report from the Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, entitled: "Economic impacts from the promotion of renewable energies: The German experience" - (don't worry, it's in English).

This paper critically reviews the current centerpiece of this effort, the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), focusing on its costs and the associated implications for job creation and climate protection. We argue that German renewable energy policy, and in particular the adopted feed-in tariff scheme, has failed to harness the market incentives needed to ensure a viable and cost-effective introduction of renewable energies into the country’s energy portfolio. To the contrary, the government’s support mechanisms have in many respects subverted these incentives, resulting in massive expenditures that show little long-term promise for stimulating the economy, protecting the environment, or increasing energy security. In the case of photovoltaics, Germany’s subsidization regime has reached a level that by far exceeds average wages, with per-worker subsidies as high as 175,000 €
(US $ 240,000)

Dr North's own commentary on this report usefully brings in some UK examples:

Yet, this is the scheme (feed-in tariffs) that is to come into force in the UK on 1 April. Predictably, organisations such as the National Trust are leaping on the bandwagon, having already fitted PV to their Dunster Castle in Somerset. They are adding insult to injury by attracting funding from Barclays, the "Big Lottery Fund Bio-Energy Capital Grants Scheme" and the Rural Development Programme. Equally predictably, they do not tell us how much this is going to cost other electricity consumers, concentrating instead on the illusory "carbon" savings.

He ends with:

Forgive me for harping on, but this is so staggeringly stupid – in a land beset with stupidity – that it is difficult to take on board. One can only surmise that they really cannot be that stupid, and it is all a joke. After all, the scheme is set to start on 1 April.

We forgive you Richard. At least you're taking notice and trying to warn us.

Ever wondered why the eco-lobby is so pro-EU?

2010-03-13T15:00:00.000-08:00

Dan Hannan highlights the green merry-go-round in Brussels where green pressure groups get €66 million from the EU, while in turn, the green pressure groups lobby the EU for more money and influence.

"The EU pays eco-lobbyists to tell it what it wants to hear. Its clients, naturally enough, tell it that the EU ought to increase its powers. A similar racket goes on between Brussels and the mega-charities."

For an explicit expose of this expensive (to us) version of 'recycling' please see this study by the International Policy Network - 'Friends of the EU'.

Environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have enormous influence in the European Union. However, some of the most vocal green groups are actually funded directly by the EU to lobby it. The EU funds many NGOs operating in Brussels whose main purpose is to influence EU policy-making and implementation. This report analyses one programme of funding, in which DG Environment (the division of the European Commission responsible for environmental affairs) distributed over €66 million to environmental NGOs between 1998-2009.

Rosenblatt New Energy Awards

2010-03-01T14:21:00.000-08:00

The Rosenblatt New Energy Awards attracted an audience of more than 400 cleantech entrepreneurs, investors, academics and advisers to recognise the achievements of leading companies in the renewable energy industry.

List of winners and shortlisted companies.

Martin Dix, founder of Current Cost, won the top accolade following the success of his company in selling more than 400,000 energy monitors.

Voodoo Science - An Expert Speaks

2010-02-21T16:11:00.000-08:00

Utter Insanity

2010-02-20T15:56:00.000-08:00

Below an excerpt from Christopher Booker's column in the Daily Telegraph:

"One could not want a better vignette of the gulf that has opened up between our 'political class' and the rest of us than a bizarre little item which emerged last week on an obscure part of the European Commission's website. The British Government, as revealed by the EU's Official Journal, has allocated £60 million of taxpayers' money to be spent on buying carbon credits from the Third World for the use of government buildings and other official purposes – so that our civil servants can continue to benefit from the CO2 emissions needed to keep their offices warm and lit.

The Government has contracted to buy these credits, mainly available from China and India, through 10 British and foreign companies, including Barclays Bank and a branch of J P Morgan rather oddly situated in a back street in Oxford.

Our entire Government machine – politicians and civil servants alike – is now obsessively dedicated to the proposition that we must drastically cut our 'carbon emissions' to save the planet, at virtually unlimited cost. But when it comes to the officials and politicians themselves having to make sacrifices, as our own fuel bills soar, they have quietly arranged for the rest of us to shell out £60 million to allow them to carry on much as before.

The story then becomes even more bizarre. The contracts with Barclays, J P Morgan and co – who will retain up to £9 million in commissions – will be used to buy Certified Emissions Reduction (CER) credits under the UN's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) set up under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

Easily the largest beneficiaries of this curious system are firms in China and India which receive the credits for showing that they have at least nominally cut back on their own greenhouse gas emissions. They can then sell their CERs through intermediaries, to allow organisations in the West, such as the British Government, to continue pumping out greenhouse gases such as CO2.

The largest and easily the most lucrative component of the CDM market, administered under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is a peculiar racket centred on the manufacture of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), classified under Kyoto as greenhouse gases infinitely more potent than CO2. The way the racket works is that Chinese and Indian firms are permitted to carry on producing the refrigerant gas known as HCFC-22 until 2030. But a by-product of this process is HCFC-23, 11,700 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2. The firms can then destroy the HCFC-23, claiming allocations of carbon credits worth billions for doing so (while much of the useful HCFC-22 is then sold on to the international black market)."

Continues...

Conning The Climate

2010-02-19T15:37:00.000-08:00

Mark Schapiro, in an article sub-titled 'Inside the Carbon-Trading Shell Game', exposes the elaborate con - "(The) market is, in essence, an elaborate shell game, a disappearing act that nicely serves the immediate interests of the world's governments..."
Ya reckon?

DEFRA's Climate Challenge Fund at Work

2010-02-19T05:06:00.000-08:00

DEFRA has squandered an estimated £8.6 million of taxpayers' hard-earned money through its Climate Challenge Fund on this.

Climate Science - You're Doing It Wrong

2010-02-15T01:04:00.000-08:00

Feed-in-Tariffs from Solar Panels

2010-02-10T12:21:00.000-08:00

From April 1, households which install photovoltaic solar panels and feed the energy (green electricity) in to the national grid will be paid 41.3p per kilowatt hour (kWh).

A typical 2.5 kWh system takes up about 10 feet by 10 feet and costs about £14,000 (with install). The Department of Energy and Climate Change (natch) estimates this size of kit will produce about 2,125 kWh per year - so total returns (including reduced electricity bills) would be in the region of £1,050 per year. You can also factor in a property price boost.

More details at www.energysavingtrust.org.uk. For those of you who don't own your own roof, tough. This subsidy isn't for you. Remember, under NuLab governments you peons are only fit for means-tested credits in order that you can be controlled. For the rest of us, wahey! That's a yield of 8 per cent. Maybe this climate change bollocks isn't so bad after all.

The Green Police

2010-02-08T07:35:00.000-08:00

Coming to an eco-fascist state near you.

Tim Yeo’s Green Networking in Parliament

2010-02-04T15:37:00.000-08:00

Guido Fawkes has an interesting post on the Tim Yeo MP and AFC Energy plc connection.

In July last year he (Tim Yeo MP) sponsored an evening event for 150 members of the Environmental Investment Network. Held in the impressively plush Members’ Dining Room overlooking the Thames, it certainly is a pleasant environment in which to woo and lubricate potential green investors. Coincidentally Tim is also chairman of a small investment-hungry AIM listed company called AFC Energy plc developing “environmentally friendly fuel cells”.

At the time AFC Energy plc were involved in raising £2 million from environmental investors, and for each of the following five months AFC Energy paid Tim Yeo £3,750 a month (up to a total of £18,750) until in December when they succeeded in raising the £2m they were seeking from environmental investors in a share placing. Tim also got a bonus when the shares were placed with investors of 150,000 shares for his work. All in all he made a total of some £80,000 out of the AFC deal from July when he hosted the Environmental Investment Network event until December when they sold the shares to investors.

Hmmmmm.

Ice Work If You Can Get It

2010-02-04T01:06:00.000-08:00

In a bid to send the swivel-eyed AGW proponents who visit this blog even more swivel-eyed, I am linking to an article by Mark Steyn in this week's Macleans Magazine - Canada's leading news weekly.

For those that have been following the Climategate story there are no revelations within, but Mr Steyn does do an excellent job in summarising the issues, particularly the latest gate within the gate - Glaciergate - and does so with his usual pithy, biting style.

V. K. Raina, of the Geological Survey of India, produced a special report demonstrating that the run-for-your-life-the-glaciers-are-melting IPCC scenario was utterly false. For his pains, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the self-aggrandizing old bruiser and former railroad engineer who serves as head honcho of the IPCC jet set, dismissed Mr. Raina’s research as “voodoo science.” He’s now been obliged to admit the voodoo was all on his side. But don’t worry. By 2008, Syed Hasnain’s decade-old casual chit-chat over the phone to a London journalist had become “settled science,” so Dr. Pachauri’s company TERI (The Energy & Resources Institute) approached the Carnegie Corporation for a grant to research “challenges to South Asia posed by melting Himalayan glaciers,” and was rewarded with half a million bucks. Which they promptly used to hire Syed Hasnain. In other words, professor Hasnain has landed a cushy gig researching solutions to an entirely non-existent global crisis he accidentally invented over a 15-minute phone call 10 years earlier. As they say in the glacier business, ice work if you can get it.

Well worth a read.

Naked Self-interest ?

2010-02-01T16:50:00.000-08:00

Over at Biased BBC we have another 'follow the money' story impacting on the Climate Change bollox being forced down the public's throat.

Guess what? The man responsible for looking after the fat pensions of the boys and girls at the BBC is a climate change fanatic, and he is part of an international group of investment managers who bust a gut to invest in 'climate change' schemes. He's called Peter Dunscombe, and he runs the £8.2bn corporation pension fund, advising trustees on a day-to-day basis about their investments. Mr Dunscombe, who addresses conferences about 'ethical investments', is also chairman of the Institutional Investment Group on Climate Change(IIGCC), which has 47 members and manages four trillion euros' worth of investments...

That's your TV license money at work ladies and gents.