The giant 'anaerobic digesters' that will convert our slop buckets to electricity

They are set to divide our communities as efficiently as they break down our waste.

Huge ‘anaerobic digester’ plants the size of two football pitches will be built across Britain as a multi-million-pound industry develops to convert waste food scraps into usable electricity.

Fuelled by the Government’s drive to introduce kitchen slop buckets in every home, the units can transform 120,000 tons of scraps into six megawatts of power, enough to power 6,000 homes 24 hours a day.
Critics call them unsightly and smelly, but those in favour regard them as the ‘future of waste’.

Last week, rubbish disposal giant Biffa opened the country’s first ‘super’ £24 million plant in Cannock, Staffordshire, and the £800 million company is planning more.

Biffa chief executive Ian Wakelin said: ‘I am a man in a hurry. Over the next few years I would like to see these really large plants around London, the North-East, the South-West and the West. This is the future of waste. It is taking food that could once only be sent to landfill and turning it into something of value on a truly industrial scale.’

The Cannock plant, whose 60ft containers tower over the landscape, is based on an existing landfill site.

Spread over several acres, it includes a vast storage shed in which lorries can unload the waste, pipes to carry the methane gas it produces, and a balloon to store gas.

Cannock gets much of its waste from local restaurants, nightclubs and pubs, but increasingly such plants will use leftover food scraped by householders into ‘kitchen caddies’ for separate roadside collection.
The Government is pushing the fledgling industry because it is required by European legislation to reduce its use of landfill sites.

The Environment Department predicts the industry could produce enough energy for nearly a million homes within a decade.

Liberal Democrat peer Lord Redesdale, chairman of the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association, said the industry would bring down gas prices by making Britain less reliant on imported gas.

He said: ‘It’s a big ask but the Germans managed to build 1,000 new plants in ten years. This is not new technology. We are building on what is already out there.’

full article

Eco charity boss travels length of Britain in electric car - for just £20

An eco-friendly charity boss has completed a gruelling end-to-end journey across Britain by driving 894 miles in an electric car using public charging points.

Kevin Sharpe, 51, stopped six times to charge his Tesla Roadster along the route, at a cost of just £20.

The electricity used by the car was a fraction of the £138 it would have cost in fuel in a typical family vehicle.
Each charge of his car cost Mr Sharpe £3 or £4 and allowed him 200 miles of travel at 70mph before he had to power his vehicle again.
The charity has created the network of nine public charge points in hotel car parks across the country.

They cost £250 to install and users are charged for the electricity they use.

Drivers can opt for a quick three-hour charge or an eight-hour overnight top-up using a 70 amp plug.

Mr Sharpe, of Bath, Somerset, and David Peilow, 34, a satellite systems engineer of Winchester, Hants, set off from John O'Groats in the £86,000 Tesla on May 21.

Mr Sharpe said: 'This is another landmark because these are production cars, not prototypes.

'Nissan has already produced the leaf which costs around £25,000 and Mitsubishi, BMW, Audi and VW are all set to go to market with affordable electric cars in the next two years.

'Tesla are planning a family saloon too with a 300 mile range and 45 minute charge time. 'You could coincide a trip with a meal at a service station say and make a long distance journey in the same time you would now.'

The Tesla Roadster, produced by Tesla Motors in California, is based on a Lotus Elise and is the first production automobile to use lithium-ion battery cells.
full article

Geo-Engineering Elimate Solutions

Lighter-coloured crops, aerosols in the stratosphere and iron filings in the ocean are among the measures being considered by leading scientists for "geo-engineering" the Earth's climate, leaked documents from the UN climate science body show.

In a move that suggests the UN and rich countries are despairing of reaching agreement by consensus at global climate talks, the US, British and other western scientists will outline a series of ideas to manipulate the world's climate to reduce carbon emissions. But they accept that even though the ideas could theoretically work, they might equally have unintended and even irreversible consequences.

The papers, leaked from inside the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), ahead of a geo-engineering expert group meeting in Lima in Peru next week, show that around 60 scientists will propose or try to assess a range of radical measures, including:

• blasting sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight into space;

• depositing massive quantities of iron filings into the oceans;

• bio-engineering crops to be a lighter colour to reflect sunlight; and

• suppressing cirrus clouds.

Other proposals likely to be suggested include spraying sea water into clouds to reflect sunlight away from the Earth, burying charcoal, painting streets and roofs white on a vast scale, adding lime to oceans and finding different ways to suck greenhouse gases out of the air and deposit heat deep into oceans.

The meeting is expected to provide governments with a scientific assessment of geo-engineering technologies, but is widely expected to be in favour of more research and possibly large-scale experimentation despite an international moratorium adopted by the UN last year in Japan.

£120 heating discount for 2 million homes

Two million households will receive discounts to their heating bills this winter as the government forces energy firms to help pensioners pay soaring gas and electricity costs.
Ministers announced that 800,000 of the poorest pensioners will be among the first to receive the new Warm Home Discount, worth at least £120 this year.

Payments are also expected to be made to disadvantaged families, the disabled and the long-term sick.

Energy companies are to be required by law to give rebates totalling £1.1 billion over the next four years, three times as much as they provided under the previous voluntary arrangements.

The regulations introducing the new scheme are already in force, according to the Department for Energy and Climate Change. The Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, said: “The Warm Home Discount will give the most vulnerable pensioners practical help to manage rising energy bills through an annual rebate. Energy companies will be required by law to provide this support.”

The move follows warnings that consumers face steep rises in fuel bills. Last week, Scottish Power announced that prices will rise by up to 19%, increasing gas and electricity costs by up to £200 a year. Other companies are expected to follow suit.
full article