LIVE EARTH FEEDS

Can't make it to 1 of the Live Earth concerts? Well, you can still be part of the action online. The eight concerts planned from Australia to New York will be broadcast live at liveearth.msn.com Saturday. Organizers hope the concerts will mark a watershed moment in fighting global warming. In addition to live streaming, the Live Earth MSN broadcast will have a number of on-demand features. Kevin Wall formed Live Earth in partnership with former Vice President Al Gore. Wall is a pioneer in online concerts and tells The AP there will be more than 500 hours of material over a 24 hour period. He adds concerts are better viewed online than on TV.

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Eco Friendly Home

AS OUR environmental awareness increases, many of us are prepared to insulate our loft or to invest in low-energy light bulbs. Other people – such as Colin and Pauline Ives, pictured – take a much more radical approach. They are building their own green home.

The couple found a suitable builder in Millwood Designer Homes – the first housebuilder to be assessed as “carbon neutral” (in that they buy carbon credits to offset the emissions from their head office and company cars) and the first to offer a service in which clients design their own home, adding whatever eco-friendly measures they wish.

Impressed by Millwood’s environmental credentials and the quality of their homes, the Ives and their teenage sons took to the drawing board last September. Wall insulation and double-glazing are standard in Millwood homes, but Colin ruled out solar heating because he felt it would take more than a decade to pay for itself. He also rejected a wind turbine because he expected planning approval to be slow. However, three eco-friendly measures are being installed in the Iveses’ five-bedroom house in West Malling, Kent.

The first, rainwater harvesting, cost £4,250 but Colin sees it as a must: “It’s surprising how much water you collect, and how much we all waste: 25 per cent goes just on flushing toilets.
An underground heat pump (£13,000) absorbs heat from the Iveses’ garden and then extracts it to provide hot water and underfloor heating. “It’s fantastically efficient,” Colin says. “The pump should last 20 to 25 years but we expect it to pay for itself within eight or nine.” The energy required to run the system produces three to four times as much energy in useable heat. The Iveses were helped by two grants for the system: £1,500 from npower and £1,200 from the Government’s Low Carbon Buildings Programme.

The final measure is a heat recovery system (£7,250) which uses warm air generated in the kitchen and bathrooms to heat incoming air. “The Iveses are unusual,” says John Elliott, Millwood’s managing director. “Most buyers aren’t ready to pay a large amount of eco-cash that takes years to repay.” He believes that the underground heat pump is too costly to install in the company’s standard houses, but he predicts that rainwater harvesting will be in all Millwood homes within three years.

“If I did it all again I would do exactly the same,” says Colin Ives, who hopes to be in his new house this summer. “Only next time I would have an additional tank for collecting rainwater, so that we have enough to run our washing machine.”

Energy Efficiency Advice Centres (0800 512012; www.energysavingadvice.co.uk). Energy Saving Trust (0845 1207799; www.est.org.uk). National Energy Foundation (01908 665555; www.nef.org.uk). Millwood: www.millwood-designer-homes.co.uk, 01732 770991. Ecobuild Conference, Earls Court, February 27 to March 1 (020-7153 4565; www.ecobuild.co.uk)
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China's eco-city faces growth challenge

China's plans to build an "eco-city" of 500,000 people on a huge island in the Yangtze Delta have been widely heralded. But local planners seem to have different priorities from the world leaders who have flocked to see the project.

It is here that Shanghai plans to build a demonstration eco-city which will ultimately house 500,000 people, designed by the UK engineering consultancy firm Arup.
Peter Head, Arup's project director, says that the project can be a model for the world.

"Significant global climate change, environmental issues, water shortages and the need for the use of cleaner and renewable energy demand the creation of a new approach to urban development," he explained in his office in Shanghai.

The eco-city, to be linked to the mainland by an 18-mile long bridge-tunnel which also spans two smaller islands, will initially house between 20,000 and 50,000 people.

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Gadgets and saving energy don’t mix

CAN YOU BE an obsessed gadget freak and green at the same time? I’m sure it’s possible, at a stretch, but the fact remains that every Watt you manage to save at home by closing the door to the bog, reducing your thermostat and wearing thermal underwear, is defeated by every new gadget you buy. Trust me, I’m no environmentalist - not through choice, but by the fact that my office and home are so crammed with tech stuff, my place can be seen pulsing brightly from space.
I’d like to be more green but the reality is that my babies need juice or else I can’t live out that stereotypical ‘boys and their toys’ fantasy life. One room alone in my house – which used to serve as my office, in my defence - has 52 plug sockets. My current office, beside the house, has 44 [maybe I am green], not including four, four-socket extension cables. At the moment, 20 are in use, with around half of them juicing up one piece of kit or another.
Still, I’m always up for a challenge and having read some interesting stuff yesterday from the Energy Savings Trust, I’m game to try and reduce my electricity bill by being a little more conscious about what’s drinking power. There’s a very good reason why I need to do this and it has nothing to do with cherishing our beautiful green and blue spinning ball. Right now, my electricity bill every two months averages £160 but, sometimes spikes to £180. The average UK bill for the year is around £400. Eek. I do have to factor in a few night storage heaters but gadgets are certainly to blame for most of it.
It seems gadgets, more than anything else, are set to be the biggest power drain on the national grid in the coming years. Consumer electronics, to give them their official name, are set to become the biggest power hogs by 2010, displacing previous power junkies lights and cold appliances from the top spots. By 2020, gadgets – from anorexic TVs to digital radios – will gobble up 45 per cent of UK household power every year. That’s 14 power stations-worth for those of you that need to know. UK folk spend £12 billion a year on gadgets and, short of a global economic implosion, that figure is set to keep rocketing. Among the worst offenders are flat TVs – especially plasma ones - digital radios, consoles left idling [not in standby], computers, etc.
For instance, there is a general belief/myth that thin TVs drink significantly less than your old fat CRT TV. According to the EST, an old CRT TV needed around 100W. A 40in+ plasma needs around 300W to get up and running. Even LCDs are not as power efficient as the marketing would lead us to believe. Take the humble digital radio. This inconspicuous device draws around 8.5W when running, compared to 2W for a analogue radio. Even in stand-by, it consumes 5W, versus 1W for analogue. As for people listening to digital radio via their TVs, you may as well just send a blank cheque to your local electricity supplier. I didn’t know that a console booted up and left on consumes almost the same amount of power as when it’s in active use. I have often left my Xbox 360 on like this for days at a time. As a result, I’m looking at adding over £100 to my yearly bill. I’d guess my biggest juicers are my PCs and laptops – with anything up to three [not all mine] running 12-16 hours a day.
I’ve spent a while going around today checking what’s on that doesn’t need to be on and what rarely used items can be switched off at the mains. And no, I’m not glowing a little greener and a halo of righteousness is not forming over my head. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t just about saving our planet, etc. but putting money – the useful type of green - back in my wallet. Like many people, my green aspirations have been kickstarted by selfish motivations and if the national grid benefits that’s all well and good. You can check out the amusingly titled report, “The Ampere Strikes Back” here.
I don’t expect miracles but I do expect to see a noticeable drop in my bill. And now that I’ll have this extra cash, there’s a couple of new gadgets I’ve been dying to get hold of. Hey, nobody’s perfect. µ
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