Home energy monitoring
By 2017, every home in the country will be equipped with a ‘real-time’ electricity meter that tells you exactly how many pounds and carbon you’re burning in electricity right that second. It’s hard to say how many of these so-called smart meters will be in homes by 2012, but you can safely bet there’ll be a few: from May next year, all new meters will be of this ‘smart’ variety, which usually consist of a wireless transmitter by your fuse box and a wireless display that sits somewhere prominent like your kitchen or living room.
Judging from previous studies, you’ll save anywhere between 3 and 15 per cent on your electricity bill by virtue of having it in your face every day rather than on a piece of paper four times a year. The result? Lower carbon emissions: a good thing considering over a quarter of the UK’s CO2 comes from our homes. Gadgets that monitor your water and gas consumption are in the (ahem) pipeline too. [more news here]
Biodegradable plastics
If you’ve bought a bottle of Belu’s plastic water or own one specific Sony DVD player already, biodegradable plastics are in your home right now. Usually made from a corn starch, the idea behind the plastic - which you might also have encountered on your organic veg wrapping at Sainsbury’s - is that you can compost it instead of adding to the landfill that’s forecast to be full within a decade.
Fast forward five years and many everyday products could be made from the stuff. In Japan, NEC has a phone with a biodegradable case already, while over here the University of Warwick have a similar concept that Green Mobile one day hopes to make a reality. The amount of biodegradable plastic in our 2012 lives, however, really depends on how well the plastic ages - Belu’s bottles eventually leak holes if you leave them long enough - and how easy it is to compost the stuff.
Energy-saving white goods
No one likes talking about boilers, washing machines and fridge-freezers. They’re boring. But they do use lots of energy - your fridge-freezer’s on 24 hours a day,
365 days a year - which is why it’s so important to buy energy efficient ones. The big energy-saving developments have happened in the past decade, with the EU energy label getting left so far behind on refrigeration that there’s now an A++ rating. So today’s C-rated fridge-freezers are effectively E-rated ones in modern terms. Efficiency improvements by 2012 are likely to be fairly minimal - the big change will be A and A++ appliances becoming cheaper.
One exciting development on the boiler front is the prospect of combined heat and power (CHP) ones going on sale in the UK. Such boilers, like the Whispergen, generate electricity while buring natural gas, which the Energy Savings Trust reckons could cut your home’s CO2 emissions by 20 per cent. Powergen’s planning to sell the boilers in 2009.
Personal gadgets
You might think the notion of green gadgets an oxymoron. And, to an extent, you’d be right. The Energy Saving Trust reckons our consumer electronics - broadband boxes, set-top boxes, iPods, flat screens - will account for more than 12 per cent of our electricity bills by 2012. But all we need do is adapt to our gadgets: don’t upgrade your phone every eighteen months (if you’re on O2, you can already get calling credit instead of an upgrade); don’t get seduced by extra megapixels; do sell stuff on eBay, give it away on Freecycle, use rechargable batteries and get stuff recycled.
By 2012, our gadgets should be inherently greener. Solar chargers for gadgets are already on sale for less than £30 and Motorola’s just filed a patent for screens that double as solar panels, so it’s not too hard to envisage future portable gizmos that power themselves.
Micro renewables
Wind turbines and solar panels are the pin-ups of the eco tech world. They’re sexy, talked about, and everyone wants one. Well, David Cameron wants one, and so do we - one of our few things in common. But despite the enthusiasm for the technologies, price is still a major obstacle. A wind turbine will set you back £1,500 and provide about 10-20 per cent of your electricity needs if plonked in the right place, solar thermal around £3,000 for just over half your annual hot water needs and an £8,000 solar photovoltaic setup could generate roughly half your electricity needs.
Even with grants, those are big price tags, and they’re unlikely to drop rapidly by 2012. Most solar PV panels, for example, are made from silicon, which is expensive because of its scarcity and demand for making computers. The major change by 2012 should be planning permission - if Ruth Kelly’s proposals this year go ahead, putting a solar array or turbine on your roof will be as easy as getting a satellite dish installed. [more on turbines] [more on solar electricity] [more on solar water heating]
full article
Sunday, 12 August 2007
Saturday, 11 August 2007
Now it's green grow the houses
In the future, we will live in homes made out of straw. If we're serious about minimising the carbon footprint of our homes, then straw bales, coated in plaster, are the way to go - and the Clark Government does seem serious.
If you thought the food miles debate was global warming moved too close to the sun, the Government's sudden focus on the embodied energy in our homes is even more esoteric. Embodied energy is the energy used to produce a final product from raw materials, from reinforced concrete to taps.
It's the front end of a bid to put a carbon footprint on our homes by calculating their whole-of-life energy output. It's a whole new way of looking at a plank of wood.
It promises much: lower greenhouse gas emissions, lower household energy bills, healthier homes and, some say, cheaper homes. Manufacturers will need to adapt products to minimise their carbon cost or face extinction. Our homes will be rated according to their lifetime carbon output - the more efficient, the higher the market value.
Sustainable housing is a path we're already some way down, and law changes require double glazing and more insulation in most areas, energy efficient lighting in new commercial buildings and incentives on offer for solar water hearing. Many homeowners and some property developers are voluntarily going further, aiming to reduce a building's operational energy output.
But lifecycle assessment goes the whole buffalo: considering the energy used in the manufacture of components, and the transporting of materials, through to the energy used in the building's eventual demolition.
What's envisaged is a time when houses will be rated according to their lifetime energy consumption, or carbon output. Architects will design to a carbon maximum, choosing long-lasting materials with low-embodied energy. Potential for end-use recycling will be factored in.
The manufacture of a cubic metre of baled, compressed straw consumes 31 megajoules. A cubic metre of ready mix concrete uses 2350 megajoules. Convert that to carbon-equivalent emissions and the obvious conclusion: concrete bad; straw bales good. But it's not that simple - what, for instance, if the concrete is recycled?
Last year, Scion looked at the energy required to build and run an average house for 50 years. The study concluded that operational energy use was more significant over the life of the house. But embodied energy is still significant and can be as high as 30 to 40 per cent of carbon equivalent emissions over the 50 years, says Nebel
"The more insulation you put into the house, obviously the higher the embodied energy will be. So it's not necessarily a bad thing to have high embodied energy. You have to take the two in combination - you need quite a lot of insulation before you reach the tipping point."
"Designers and regulators will have to be particularly careful in their decision making in this area if they are not to push housing and material costs to higher levels and cause confusion in the marketplace.
"The key will be to ensure that regulators and policy makers adopt an approach based on proven methodologies, not unsubstantiated theories."
Green Building Council chief executive Jane Henley is worried the Government is too focused on emissions. "From a sustainability perspective we risk losing sight of other environmental impacts such as waste and water." The biggest issue seems to be where to draw the line.
full article
If you thought the food miles debate was global warming moved too close to the sun, the Government's sudden focus on the embodied energy in our homes is even more esoteric. Embodied energy is the energy used to produce a final product from raw materials, from reinforced concrete to taps.
It's the front end of a bid to put a carbon footprint on our homes by calculating their whole-of-life energy output. It's a whole new way of looking at a plank of wood.
It promises much: lower greenhouse gas emissions, lower household energy bills, healthier homes and, some say, cheaper homes. Manufacturers will need to adapt products to minimise their carbon cost or face extinction. Our homes will be rated according to their lifetime carbon output - the more efficient, the higher the market value.
Sustainable housing is a path we're already some way down, and law changes require double glazing and more insulation in most areas, energy efficient lighting in new commercial buildings and incentives on offer for solar water hearing. Many homeowners and some property developers are voluntarily going further, aiming to reduce a building's operational energy output.
But lifecycle assessment goes the whole buffalo: considering the energy used in the manufacture of components, and the transporting of materials, through to the energy used in the building's eventual demolition.
What's envisaged is a time when houses will be rated according to their lifetime energy consumption, or carbon output. Architects will design to a carbon maximum, choosing long-lasting materials with low-embodied energy. Potential for end-use recycling will be factored in.
The manufacture of a cubic metre of baled, compressed straw consumes 31 megajoules. A cubic metre of ready mix concrete uses 2350 megajoules. Convert that to carbon-equivalent emissions and the obvious conclusion: concrete bad; straw bales good. But it's not that simple - what, for instance, if the concrete is recycled?
Last year, Scion looked at the energy required to build and run an average house for 50 years. The study concluded that operational energy use was more significant over the life of the house. But embodied energy is still significant and can be as high as 30 to 40 per cent of carbon equivalent emissions over the 50 years, says Nebel
"The more insulation you put into the house, obviously the higher the embodied energy will be. So it's not necessarily a bad thing to have high embodied energy. You have to take the two in combination - you need quite a lot of insulation before you reach the tipping point."
"Designers and regulators will have to be particularly careful in their decision making in this area if they are not to push housing and material costs to higher levels and cause confusion in the marketplace.
"The key will be to ensure that regulators and policy makers adopt an approach based on proven methodologies, not unsubstantiated theories."
Green Building Council chief executive Jane Henley is worried the Government is too focused on emissions. "From a sustainability perspective we risk losing sight of other environmental impacts such as waste and water." The biggest issue seems to be where to draw the line.
full article
Friday, 10 August 2007
The even darker side of brown clouds
Atmospheric aerosols compete with carbon dioxide as an agent of warming.
In the charge against global warming, carbon dioxide has long held sway as public enemy number one. But now, less-recognized molecules are entering the fray as significant agents of global warming. Aerosols emitted from smokestacks, exhaust pipes and domestic cooking fires consist of substances such as sulphates and nitrates that scatter light and have a local cooling effect; they also contain black carbon — or soot — a byproduct of incomplete combustion, which absorbs light.
Scientists modelled the behaviour of the cooling particles years ago, but so few direct measurements have been made of the heat-absorbing effects of black carbon that, even now, models do not adequately represent their influence. The most recent assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change1 reported that the total contribution of aerosols to climate warming since the onset of the industrial era was about 20% of that caused by greenhouse gases. As much as half of the recent warming trend attributed to CO2 and other greenhouse gases is thought1 to have been cancelled out by cooling from aerosols. But new observations show that in some regions black carbon is as culpable as CO2 for the warming, and in some cases, has a greater effect.
full article
In the charge against global warming, carbon dioxide has long held sway as public enemy number one. But now, less-recognized molecules are entering the fray as significant agents of global warming. Aerosols emitted from smokestacks, exhaust pipes and domestic cooking fires consist of substances such as sulphates and nitrates that scatter light and have a local cooling effect; they also contain black carbon — or soot — a byproduct of incomplete combustion, which absorbs light.
Scientists modelled the behaviour of the cooling particles years ago, but so few direct measurements have been made of the heat-absorbing effects of black carbon that, even now, models do not adequately represent their influence. The most recent assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change1 reported that the total contribution of aerosols to climate warming since the onset of the industrial era was about 20% of that caused by greenhouse gases. As much as half of the recent warming trend attributed to CO2 and other greenhouse gases is thought1 to have been cancelled out by cooling from aerosols. But new observations show that in some regions black carbon is as culpable as CO2 for the warming, and in some cases, has a greater effect.
full article
Prepare for another ten scorching years
Temperature records will be repeatedly shattered over the next few years, say researchers behind the first rigorous look at how global climate will change during the next decade.
The prediction comes from an innovative technique that combines the approaches used by weather forecasters, who typically look a few days ahead, and climate modellers, who produce projections that run up to the end of the century. The result is a model that can project as far as 2015, filling in a long-standing gap in climate predictions.
Although average global temperatures have been relatively flat in recent years, the model says they will start rising again next year. At least half of the years between 2009 and 2015 will exceed the current warmest year on record. By 2015, global temperatures will be 0.5 °C above the average value for the last 30 years.
full article
The prediction comes from an innovative technique that combines the approaches used by weather forecasters, who typically look a few days ahead, and climate modellers, who produce projections that run up to the end of the century. The result is a model that can project as far as 2015, filling in a long-standing gap in climate predictions.
Although average global temperatures have been relatively flat in recent years, the model says they will start rising again next year. At least half of the years between 2009 and 2015 will exceed the current warmest year on record. By 2015, global temperatures will be 0.5 °C above the average value for the last 30 years.
full article
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