£10,000 payout for a green home revamp

Households will be given up to £10,000 to spend on home improvements under plans to be unveiled today.

The money can be used to install energy-saving measures such as roof insulation, double glazing and cavity walls.

But homeowners will also be able to benefit from desirable mod- cons such as under-floor heating and new efficient boilers. They could also get public cash to install water-efficient taps and showers, light fittings and draught proofing.

The Government says 14million homes will benefit. Homeowners will qualify if their houses can be made more energy efficient and energy costs can be cut, though not all will qualify for the full £10,000.

This will leave them with cheaper bills, warmer homes and potentially higher house prices.
Consumers will have no up-front costs. The scheme will see utility companies, High Street retailers and charities send advisers to houses to identify potential savings.
They can then re-fit the homes, bearing the initial cost.

The customer will repay the fee in small instalments levied on their electricity and heating bills over 25 years.




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The Cube World’s Smallest Eco-friendly Home

Conceived, designed and managed by Dr Mike Page, engineer and Reader in Cognitive Psychology at the University’s School of Psychology, the Cube is said to be the world’s smallest eco-home, featuring an internal space of 3x3x3 metres. Built from sustainable materials with the predominance of wood, the Cube is designed to be comfortable and includes a host of advanced products with low energy use.

The Cube includes a lounge with a table and two custom-made chairs; a small 120cm wide double bed; a full-size shower; a kitchen with energy-efficient fridge, induction hob, re-circulating cooker hood, sink/drainer, combination microwave oven and storage cupboards; a washing machine; and a composting toilet.

The Cube is illuminated with ultra-efficient LED lights and heated using an Ecodan air-source heat pump with heat recovered from extracted air. It features cork flooring with two-metre head height throughout.

The Cube is insulated with a timber-frame shell, interior surfaces of birch plywood, and sweet-chestnut cladding on the exterior. It features a south-facing monopitch roof covered with solar panels. The south wall is also covered with solar panels. This generating capacity is expected to make the Cube carbon-neutral over the year.

If registered for the UK Government’s feed-in tariff, the Cube would have no utility bills and would raise around £1,000 ($1, 625.3) per year in income.


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Shortfall in electric car charging points

Just over a tenth of electric car charging points needed in the UK have been built so far, the BBC has learned.

Only 700 of the 5,000 required by the end of the year are in place and two-thirds of towns with a population of over 150,000 do not have any public charging infrastructure.

David Martell, of charging supplier Chargemaster, said the lack of points can be very stressful for drivers.

The Department of Transport said it plans to install 9,000 points by 2013.

It said it has also provided up to £30m to kick-start installation in 'test-bed' areas.

There are about 30 million vehicles on British roads - 3,000 of which are electric vehicles.

Mr Martell said many electric vehicle drivers suffer from "range anxiety", which concerns their fear that they run the risk of running out of power due to a lack of charging points.

"It's a concern. It's a barrier to some people," he said.

Experts say that nearly two million of the cars on Britain's roads will be electric powered by 2020.

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UK shale plans target cheap gas

The land here in Lancashire's Fylde region was on the sea bed in the age of the dinosaurs. That was when the gas was formed, as fragments of organic matter ran off the hills, became squashed amidst grains of clay, and decayed. But the heavily-compressed shale rock trapped the gas molecules so tight that they can't escape into a conventional gas bore.

Now a controversial technique called fracking (fracturing) allows that gas to be extracted, by setting off small controlled explosions more than a mile below ground then pumping in water and lubricant chemicals to set the gas free.
Environmentalists want a delay in fracking until a major review of the practice by the US Environmental Protection Agency has been carried out - maybe sometime next year. The government believes its own safety regulations are strict enough.

So far, the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) appears to be cautiously welcoming the advent of shale gas in the UK. Shale's not anticipated to supply a large proportion of Britain's gas needs, but it is contributing to a worldwide flow of gas that has halved gas prices in the US domestic market, and led to a glut in world markets.

At the moment, gas producers are succeeding in pegging global gas prices to oil prices but some analysts say this will have to change if gas remains in such plentiful supply compared with demand.



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