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 | By engineertony at 18 May 2012 10:44:00 GMT I hear there's some second hand nuclear plant going cheap in Germany and Japan. » View the story |
| By barnabox at 17 May 2012 13:24:26 GMT To be fair, if each turbine is 126.5MW (as the story states) then they probably ARE too large, not to mention being a headline breakthrough in the technology! » View the story |
| By Wolfgang Weinmann at 15 May 2012 16:17:39 GMT Sorry, already posted response yesterday, but did not appear here?! Anyway, good point and that was precisely identified as major problem in Northern Peru as sudden droughts affected the flowering period, hence threatening coffee production. The adaptation measure being carried out now with funds from the carbon credit scheme is to set up local, viable, irrigation systems that ensure enough humidity to coffee bushes during flowering period to reduce drought exposure and vulnerability. » View the story |
 | By GNichs at 15 May 2012 11:36:52 GMT Presumably the wind farm is not on the National Trust (NT) site or land, in which case the NT should not be wasting subscriber money on this issue. I suspect many council and national tax payers will also have similar sentiment about the local council and English Heritage involvement. Wind energy has a visual aspect and some associated noise during operations, but from the perspective of maintaining historic buildings, acid rain and pollution are far greater enemies. How much of this is being led by NIMBYs within the organisations? » View the story |
| By Lftrsuk at 14 May 2012 10:22:13 GMT Because it costs average domestic users more at lower hydrocarbons prices,Fergus has picked out the highest possible hydrocarbon fuel price of $150/bbl. This gives an average domestic saving is 87.00, but average non-domestic - this is your shops, offices, small businesses - have to pay 283.00 extra. Now will they knock this off their profit margins? I doubt it; we'll have to pay for it as price additions to goods and services. So Fergus, au contraire - it won't keep bills down for ordinary families and it will not boost the economy. » View the story |
| By hostuniversal at 14 May 2012 08:05:11 GMT Good to see socially and environmentally sustainable practice coming together in an everyday product - let's hope there is still time to get on top of this issue, i've been in a mudslide and it wasn't much fun at all. Be good to understand from Wolfgang how coffee farmers can protect their flowering plants that are so often devastated by unseasonal rains. No flower, no bean, no coffee. » View the story |
| By The Auditor at 11 May 2012 11:40:16 GMT Wouldn't it be nice if they could also "trainlblaze" and prevent so much water leaking out of their system before it even reaches peoples hosepipes? » View the story |
| By no2windpower at 9 May 2012 21:49:55 GMT What rubbish. If we don't get away from this fixation that we can use renewables alone, the lights WILL go out. No amount of greenwash from the likes of Porritt and Juniper can alter that. » View the story |
| By Lftrsuk at 9 May 2012 17:12:38 GMT On average, every 6th day, for a period of 5 hours, wind farms across the length and breadth of the country deliver less that 1% of their average amount of electrical power: http://lftrsuk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/wind-energy-wanna-be-lievers-whats.html The 76 wind turbines of Pen y Cmoed (the highest generating capacity onshore wind farm anywhere in England and Wales) will deliver just enough electricity to power 2500 homes - that's 33 homes per 475 ft high turbine. Residents of the other 197,500 homes might as well have a few more hours in bed. But, as usual, they will use their normal amount of power and emit their normal contribution of greenhouse gases. This normality is achieved by powering up tragically inefficient spinning and/or non-spinning capacity, emitting many more greenhouse gases than they would have done under normal loads. This type of environmental damage is never mentioned by any party to the wind power hype. » View the story |
| By rosannabanana at 3 May 2012 11:27:48 GMT I don't understand why the U.K. still isn't selling bottles with a refundable deposit like they do in other European conutries. This would solve many recycling problems. » View the story |
| By The Auditor at 2 May 2012 17:04:44 GMT The renewables industry? Would that be made up of companies whose products are not economically competitive and who wouldn't be in business without eye watering subsidies from the tax payer? » View the story |
| By Thirlwall Associates at 1 May 2012 12:12:54 GMT A useful article to highlighting the issue of water management but I'd query some of the statements. "The UK's drought status and hosepipe ban during a period of torrential rain is the result of mismanagement by water companies." - I think this is a bit too black and white. Yes, water management is an issue but leaks simply mean that clean drinking water finds its way into the groundwater. They do not significantly affect how much water each region has available to use. According to the Met Office "13 of the last 24 months have seen less than 75% of average rainfall, and 6 months have seen less than 50%. Only 2 months - June 2011 and August 2010, have been significantly wetter than average." We are still in deficit. http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/ Water management is complex - not hard paving our gardens, using less water in our homes, changing farming practices and managing water abstraction all play their part. » View the story |
| By sirhillary at 1 May 2012 09:05:03 GMT What about indoor air quality? The world Health Organisation say that indoor environments are 2-10 times worse than outdoors and we spend 90% of a lives indoors. U.S. government authorities recommend the use of UVC (ultra violet C) in air conditioning systems to kill viruses & bacteria. In the UK we have nothing to stop the spread and regular filters wont stop viruses or bacteria. Ventilation systems a health & safety risk in the UK that the authorities try their best to ignore. » View the story |
| By Lftrsuk at 28 Apr 2012 11:40:56 GMT On the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl, how many of these illustrious Ministers know that 3 weeks before Chernobyl, in the USA, a fast breeder reactor underwent a Fukushima -style, common mode failure? With all safety systems shut down, all electrical power was then lost. In the control room, 70 scientists and technologists ".....got to watch the forces of nature shut the reactor down..... we'd found a reactor that could protect itself.....". No human intervention occurred or was necessary - it was a demonstration of 'walk-away' safe technology - inherent safety. Why doesn't anyone know that this inherently safe reactor produced electricity for 30 years? Because it was bulldozed out of public perception by grandstanding politicians, responding to the Chernobyl vituperation from the powerful anti-nuclear lobby. Between them they have kept at bay the deployment of breeder reactors, for the best part of 30 years - 30 years of the worst planetary pollution ever. When political expediency got the funding withdrawn, the project director's thoughts were: ".....Doesn't the country know what they're losing here?...." In fact, what the world lost was the answer to the future energy needs, for everyone on the planet, until the end of time - it's impossible to say that about any other technology having its entrails picked over at this event: http://lftrsuk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/1986-us-medias-coverage-of-chernobyl.html » View the story |
| By ajgadd at 25 Apr 2012 11:47:53 GMT It may be that household food waste accounts for 30% of overall food waste, but it is the fraction which needs a solution. Industrial food waste is largely sorted because it has been segregated and usually composted for many years. And the retailers are getting better at backhauling and sending food waste to recovery. So domestic waste ought to be the main point of attack, and would also support the AD industry that was promised there was many millions of tonnes of food waste readily available. » View the story |
| By Iamnotanumber at 24 Apr 2012 21:02:49 GMT Mr Barker should make it clear that 'renewables' does not include the destruction of waste by incineration. If you think about it, this should be obvious. Once you burn a object, it is no longer available for future use and, ergo, cannot be renewed. Incineration also has the significant disadvantage of being very inefficient when it comes to creating jobs. Typically, a plant capable of burning 600,000 tonnes per annum will have a total of 50 employees, including the security guards. Thats less, for example, than the local branch of Matalan. » View the story |
| By MinwooKim at 23 Apr 2012 23:32:50 GMT As you know, they have to reduce the vibration to install Floating Wind Turbines on the sea. Because, it makes many kinds of problems! The vibration’s caused by wind, waves and external forces. New Floating Body Stabilizer for Floating Wind Turbines has been created in South Korea. The Floating Body Stabilizers generate drag force immediately when Floating Wind Turbines are being rolled and pitched on the water. Recently, this Floating Body Stabilizer’s using to reduce the Vibration of Floating Solar Panels in South Korea. You can see New Floating Body Stabilizer videos in YouTube. You can see New Floating Body Stabilizer videos in YouTube. http://youtu.be/moO–q5B92k, http://youtu.be/nA_xFp5ktbU. Anyways, very interesting. Thanks. » View the story |
| By Iamnotanumber at 23 Apr 2012 16:44:42 GMT It is worrying to see your publication giving space to this nonsense. Even an elementary understanding of developments in the world of municipal and other waste streams shows that supplies will soon peak and then diminish for a number of obvious reasons. These include pressure on manufacturers to reduce packaging, higher levels of recycling as the reclaimed value of waste materials grows and the all important factor of behavior by the public who are increasingly willing to recycle more. Mr Palmer-Jones should calm down and welcome these trends. The less garbage we generate the better for all except, perhaps, the waste burning industry. » View the story |
| By Lftrsuk at 19 Apr 2012 20:07:35 GMT Of course we urbanites don't 'mind' wind turbines, just like we don't 'mind' opencast coal mining and toxic/radioactive fly-ash lagoons - who's bothered, as long as the lights go on and they're nowhere near us! The renewables proponents take it one stage further, because their dream of the planet running on green energy from windmills requires that a planted 'windmill seed' will blossom into a 100 metre high turbine, without any environmental impact. Green? - Wind turbines are most definitely not: http://lftrsuk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/how-green-is-wind-turbine-in-my-valley.html » View the story |
| By PeterJohn at 19 Apr 2012 09:27:23 GMT C02 is a gas not a pollutant » View the story |
| By engineertony at 17 Apr 2012 11:38:28 GMT Have these guys any idea what is involved. Talking around this complex subject is not leading anywhere, just a few guys making a good living from talking. The expensive Ferrybridge experiment only disolves 0.25% of the flue gases in amine which takes out the CO2. Then they heat the amine to liberate the CO2 and put it back in the flue. No one has checked where amine comes from, and what energy and processes produce the toxic stuff. No figures for the energy used to take out the flue gases and disolve in amine, then the energy to heat it up again, and then what? Has any of these guys ever seen a large gas compressor? Do they know how much energy it takes to compress all this CO2, then send it off to some underground location at high pressure, where in 100 years we will have billions of tons of CO2 for our grandchildren to sort out. » View the story |
| By The Auditor at 14 Apr 2012 14:50:08 GMT Fix the leaks! The UK water industries record on losses from leakage is abysmal. I wonder what will happen if someone challenges this latest hosepipe ban in the courts,on the grounds that, having paid up front for water, this is breach of contract? » View the story |
| By The Auditor at 14 Apr 2012 14:38:04 GMT Pretty vague as Principles go which isn't that surprising. Where are the goals to go with these principles, which are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely? I would be a lot more impressed if the word "can" was replaced by the word "will" in the statement about powering 17 million homes by 2020. » View the story |
| By The Auditor at 5 Apr 2012 07:29:59 GMT I wonder how you assess the risk from climate change given the apparent inability of the current theory to predict how the climate will change. Do companies plan for it getting hotter,colder, wetter and drier? » View the story |
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That is interesting. We were discussing this at a meeting this morning (we're www.businesscostconsultants.co.uk). If Scotland...
I hear there's some second hand nuclear plant going cheap in Germany and Japan....
To be fair, if each turbine is 126.5MW (as the story states) then they probably ARE too large, not to mention being a headlin...
Sorry, already posted response yesterday, but did not appear here?! Anyway, good point and that was precisely identified as m...
Presumably the wind farm is not on the National Trust (NT) site or land, in which case the NT should not be wasting subscribe...