Category: Energy Matters

The twentieth century way of life has been made available, largely due to the miracle of cheap energy. The price of energy has been at record lows for the past century and a half.As oil becomes increasingly scarce, it is becoming obvious to everyone, that the rapid economic and industrial growth we have enjoyed for that time is not sustainable.Now, the hunt is on. For renewable sources of energy, for alternative sources of energy, for a way of life that is less dependent on cheap energy.Â

Wind turbines and solar panels could be put up without planning permission.

Changes to the planning system would also make it easier for new solar roofs to go up on stadiums, schools and railway stations or for offices to be re-clad in solar panels, the Department for Communities and Local Government said.

But the new rules, which would also allow councils and electric car drivers to install charging points on streets and in car parks without a planning application, would come with strict caveats about size, noise levels and visual impacts on an area, the government said.

Installation of renewables ranging from ground and water source heat pumps, biomass boilers, anaerobic digestion system, solar panels and wind turbines could go ahead without planning permission in areas where they would be appropriate, with limits which would vary according to their location.

The overhaul of the planning system, which is being put out to consultation for three months, aims to help people cut their carbon emissions to fight climate change and deliver government commitments to boost renewables.

Housing minister John Healey said: “The people who want to greenproof their homes should get a helping hand, not a stop sign. At the same time we need tough rules so that permitted development does not become a nuisance, so I’m putting in place strong safeguards in relation to noise levels, size, location and the potential impact on an area.”

Energy minister Lord Hunt, added: “Our clean energy cashback scheme coming next year will mean people get paid to produce their own renewable energy. We can’t allow the planning system to get in the way of tackling climate change.”

Currently many householders wanting to add solar panels or wind turbines to their homes have to apply for planning permission with their local authority, despite government reforms of planning laws in 2008 (pdf) designed to make such “microgeneration” installations easier..

Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas this summer also blamed the closure of the UK’s only major turbine plant partly on UK planning laws. “It is clear there is a need for reviewing [planning laws] in the UK,” said Ditlev Engel, the company’s chief executive. “Nimbyism is also an issue.” In October, the British Wind Energy Association revealed (pdf) approvals by local authorities for small onshore wind farms are down to 25%, a record low and down from 63% in 2007.

Last week, the energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband announced plans to fast-track larger scale new energy developments such as nuclear power stations and wind farms

Thin-film’s share of Solar Panel Market to double by 2013

“The market viability of thin-film has been solidly established by First Solar Inc. as it rockets to become the world’s top solar panel maker this year, with more than a gigawatt of production,” said Greg Sheppard, chief research officer for iSuppli. “At the same time, the company has driven its cost of production to less than 90 cents per watt, keeping its costs at approximately half the level of crystalline module producers.”

Most solar panels are made of crystalline wafers with 180 to 230 microns of polysilicon. In contrast, thin-film panels are made by depositing multiple layers of other materials a few micrometers in thickness on a substrate.

The main tradeoff between the two technologies is efficiency versus cost per watt of electricity generation. Thin-film panels are less efficient at converting sunlight to electricity, but they also cost significantly less to make.

At the same time thin-film is at a disadvantage when installation space is limited, such as on a residential rooftop. A thin-film installation can take 15 percent to 40 percent more space to achieve the same total system wattage output as crystalline. This tends to limit its appeal in certain applications.

The average thin-film solar panel price is expected to decline to US $1.40 in 2010, down 17.6 percent from $1.70 in 2009. Average prices for crystalline panels are expected to drop to $2.00 in 2010, down 20 percent from $2.50 this year. Through 2012, crystalline prices will continue to close the thin-film pricing gap to some degree because its purveyors collectively have deeper pockets and keep pouring on capital spending, technology R&D developments and manufacturing refinements, iSuppli expects.

Another accelerator of thin-film technology is the rising availability of turn-key production lines from companies such as Applied Materials, Oerlikon, and Centrotherm.

Rudd wind farm launch pure spin until RET fixed

Canberra, Wednesday 18 November 2009

The Capital Wind Farm at Bungendore opened by Prime Minister Rudd today
may be amongst the last significant renewable energy developments in
Australia if the Government fails to fix the flawed renewable energy
target legislation.

As the Greens had repeatedly warned would happen, the inclusion of solar
hot water, heat pumps and multiplied rooftop solar credits in the
renewable energy target is undermining the scheme by crashing the price
of renewable energy certificates (RECs), meaning commercial-scale
renewable energy developments such as wind farms worth $20 billion
cannot get off the ground.

“Hundreds of jobs, a flourishing climate friendly industry and the Rudd
Government’s climate credibility are all on the line if the Renewable
Energy Target is not urgently fixed,” Australian Greens Deputy Leader,
Senator Christine Milne said.

“Mr Rudd is clearly keen to look green in the week that his failure of
an emissions trading scheme enters the Senate, but standing up in front
of a wind farm when his own policy will destroy investment in new wind
farms is no way to achieve that.

“I hope he enjoyed the photo opportunity as it might well be his last in
front of new investment in renewables unless his Government acknowledges
and fixes its mistake.

“The Rudd Government’s spin-over-substance approach to the climate
crisis is disintegrating”

Alongside the evidence that large-scale renewable energy developments
are stalling, there are now fears that the rooftop solar industry may
hit the wall early next year due to the crashed REC price. The scheme
must be urgently fixed by making the hot water technologies additional
to the target if the industry is to avoid dislocation in early 2010.

The Greens moved amendments to the legislation when it was debated in
August to prevent this problem from arising. It was a point that was
pressed in negotiations with Minister Wong, but was rejected by both the
Government and Opposition at the time. A Greens motion calling on the
Government to bring the legislation back and fix it immediately was
defeated by Labor, the Coalition and Family First last month.

“The Government bends over backwards to protect the profits of coal
corporations, but they won’t lift a finger when clean and clever
renewable energy jobs are on the line.

“The Government failed a critical test in rejecting the motion to bring
the renewable energy target legislation back. Jobs will be lost thanks
to this decision.”

Note: The Greens’ preferred position is to take solar hot water and heat
pumps out of the renewable energy target and placed in a parallel energy
efficiency target scheme, however what was proposed, adding these RECs
to the top of the target, was a compromise position which can easily be
immediately implemented to save jobs at risk.

Tim Hollo
Media Adviser
Senator Christine Milne | Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Climate
Change Spokesperson
Suite SG-112 Parliament House, Canberra ACT | P: 02 6277 3588 | M: 0437
587 562
http://www.christinemilne.org.au/| www.GreensMPs.org.au
<http://www.greensmps.org.au/>

PROTECTING THE CLIMATE IS A JOB FOR EVERYONE

Rees govt spending $100m backing coal power future

Rees govt spending $100m backing coal power future

Media release: 11 November 2009

The Rees government is squandering $100 million on a discredited
technology to keep coal-fired electricity as the major source of the
state’s energy, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.

Dr Kaye said: “Former Howard government Resources Minister, Ian
Macfarlane, has blown the whistle on carbon capture and storage.

“He has publicly stated that such technology is at least 20 years away,
and it will be 30 years before it will be financially viable.

“Despite the urgent need to address carbon emissions, carbon capture
and storage, or ‘clean coal’ as it is branded, is being used to justify
up to three new coal-fired power stations in NSW.

“The Rees government is throwing $100 million of taxpayers money at
this marketing exercise for the coal mining industry.

“The need to address carbon emission levels is too important for NSW
Energy Minister John Robertson to play politics by hiding behind mining
industry marketing rhetoric.

“The community is demanding a transition to a low carbon future by
embracing jobs-rich, ready to go renewable energy technology, such as
solar thermal.

“The Rees government should stop subsidising carbon-intensive
industries. It should abandon plans to hand over generator trading and
household electricity billing to the corporate sector.

“A just transition will only be possible for the community if energy
generation, distribution and retail remains in public hands,” Dr Kaye
said.

For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455

—
Another message from the Greens Media mailing list.

Too many messages? Don’t unsubscribe – try switching to a daily digest.
You can unsubscribe or change your subscription settings here:
<http://lists.greens.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/options/media>
Or send an email to <media-unsubscribe@lists.greens.org.au>

UK Councils using chip fat as fuel and road filler

Councils using chip fat as fuel and road filler

Amy Dickson

5th November, 2009

Richmond council has become the first in the country to run its entire vehicle fleet on 100 per cent recycled biodiesel, while Lincolnshire is using the stuff to patch roads

At first sight, ‘environmentally-friendly’ and ‘kebab shop’ may not seem like two concepts that belong particularly close together.

But in Richmond the two are being combined into a emissions-cutting superpower as the council moves to run their vehicles on recycled cooking oil sourced from local restaurants.

The 200-strong fleet, including waste collection vehicles and trucks, is making the straight switch from diesel to 100 per cent biofuel following a decision made during a Council meeting in September.

To cut waiting times for the oil, and the Borough’s carbon footprint even more, councillors have agreed a deal with two London-based suppliers – Uptown Oils and reserve supplier Proper Oils – to provide the required 750,000 litres of recycled fuel a year.

The move is set to save the Council around £60,000 per annum at current diesel prices, and is expected to cut its CO2 emissions by an impressive 1,170 tonnes a year.

At the forefront

David Trigg, Richmond Council’s Cabinet Member for Traffic, Transport and Parking, said: ‘We have put the environment at the heart of our operations for the past three years and the chance to cut our emissions this much could not be passed by and is something we are very proud of having done. We are committed to a cleaner, healthier atmosphere and this is a big step in the right direction.’

Aside from being a smart environmental move, using locally-sourced biofuels is also more cost effective.
‘The contract the Council has negotiated will see our fuel costs drop and the higher the price of standard forecourt diesel gets, the more money we will save,’ Trigg explains. ‘The decision is a win-win situation: in a recession particularly we have a duty to make the best use of our finances, and keeping this much money for other services is also important.’

Will others follow?

Local authorities watch each other closely, so you might expect others to be keen to follow Richmond’s lead.

But when the Ecologist contacted a number of councils in England, none could provide exact details of their current biofuel use. Some councils use a blend of biodiesel and regular diesel, but the ratio is rarely above 30 per cent biodiesel.

Yet the hurdles involved in reaching a 100 per cent biodiesel blend do not seem particularly high.
‘We carried out a trial in 2007 to find out how easy it would be to transfer every vehicle we have to running on 100 per cent biofuel,’ said Trigg. ‘The results proved there would no issues in changing; vehicles do not even need to be adapted.’

Innovation Elsewhere

Richmond Council may be the only one using 100 per cent recycled cooking fat to fuel their vehicles, but Lincolnshire council has announced plans for a new scheme to fill the roads with chip fat.

Instead of the use, oil-derived bitumen, chip fat will be used to bind together Tarmac and fix holes. The technique will be trialled in the county and could then be used across the country if proved successful.

The method’s developer, Helen Bailey of the engineering company Aggregate Industries, won the Fiona and Nicholas Hawley Excellence in Environmental Engineering Award from the Worshipful Company of Engineers for pioneering the idea.

Bailey said the use of chip fat to replace some of the 1.25 million tonnes of bitumen used every year would have environmental and economic benefits.
‘Bitumen is expensive and uses up valuable crude oil supplies,’ she pointed out.

A spokesperson for Aggregate Industries said:
‘We had a success road trial last week which took place in Bedfordshire. Materials will be laboratory tested and reported in due course; the section of the road will also be monitored

Solar Industry Emerging from the Darkness

This year, we may see around 350-400 MW of solar PV installations in the U.S. We’ll probably see another 150,000-200,000 square meters of solar thermal collectors, and around 5 MW of CSP. That’s just above last year’s overall installations. Even though we won’t see major growth like in previous years, the industry has held up well, considering the circumstances.

It took the greatest economic crisis in 80 years just to slow the growth of the solar industry. It’s exciting to imagine what will happen next year when the credit markets are healthier, consumers have more purchasing power and we finally have a carbon-weighted policy in place.

Our quick take: We are finally emerging from the darkness that descended upon us 12 months ago.