Posted by on November 26th, 2007
The European Commission is good for many things. Chiefly giving the Daily Mail an excuse to print stories about those crazy Brussels bureaucrats banning bananas that were deemed too curvy. And it’s also good kicking Europe’s carbon offenders into line.
The venerable grey-haired fellows at Brussels have come up with the idea of a European Strategic Energy Technology Plan to push all that low-carbon goodness.
In its announcement about the plan, the Commission said :
In 2008 the Commission proposes to launch six new European Industrial Initiatives that will target sectors for which working at Community level will add most value – technologies for which the barriers, the scale of the investment and risk involved can be better tackled collectively.
The initiatives are as follows:
• European Wind Initiative: focus on large turbines and large systems validation and demonstration (relevant to on and off-shore applications).
• Solar Europe Initiative: focus on large-scale demonstration for photovoltaics and concentrated solar power.
• Bio-energy Europe Initiative: focus on ‘next generation’ biofuels within the context of an overall bio-energy use strategy.
• European CO2 capture, transport and storage initiative: focus on the whole system requirements, including efficiency, safety and public acceptance, to prove the viability of zero emission fossil fuel power plants at industrial scale.
• European electricity grid initiative: focus on the development of the smart electricity system, including storage, and on the creation of a European Centre to implement a research programme for the European transmission network.
• Sustainable nuclear fission initiative: focus on the development of Generation-IV technologies.
It also said:
The inter-related challenges of climate change, security of energy supply and competitiveness are multifaceted and require a coordinated response. We are piecing together a far-reaching jigsaw of policies and measures.
The word jigsaw gave Greenbang a bit of start. Jigsaw sort of implies ad hoc, bits lost down the back of the sofa, confusion and frustration, and no coherent picture emerging til the very end, if everything goes well. Hopefully it’s just a matter of semantics rather than a telling metaphor for the EC’s energy plans.
Posted by on November 26th, 2007
Did you know there was an election going on in Australia? No? Let Greenbang bring you up to speed in that case. The Aussies have thrown out shifty looking John Howard and brought in nerdy looking Kevin Rudd.
Rudd has already pledged to get all environmental on Australia’s ass. The Guardian says:
Australia’s new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, made climate change his top priority on Sunday, seeking advice on ratifying the Kyoto pact and telling Indonesia he will go to December’s UN climate summit in Bali.
Good news: Rudd has already also gone for 20 percent of the country’s energy to come from renewable energy by 2020. Bad news: he wants to be George ‘climate change? What climate change?’ Dubya’s mate.
Posted by on November 26th, 2007
Speak of the devil and he shall appear, so the wisdom goes. Although it’s more like speak of Motorola’s trial of wave and solar powered base stations and then something else happens with it. Although Greenbang is the first to admit it’s not the pithiest axiom you could think of.
The trial of the green base stations - which Hello Moto did with operator MTC Namibia - is now apparently over and was a good old success, according to all involved.
“The … trial project produced highly encouraging results. To move forward with our growth strategy, MTC Namibia needed an efficient and reliable alternative to mains grid electricity solution. Based on the success of this trial, we are now in a position to place remote base stations, fuelled by renewable energy sources, where we need them,” said Albertus Aochamub, general manager, corporate affairs, MTC Namibia.
Get yourself a cup of tea, sit down and learn all about it here.
Posted by Greenbang on November 24th, 2007
Greenbang is flippin’ tired of Christmas, and it’s still November.
This will make him sound like a grumpy old man, but it’s just not right that you can’t even fit into the shops, let alone find some crap to buy someone as a present.
Over the past few years, Christmas has come to mean less and less to Greenbang. It is of course great to see the family, but he doesn’t need people to buy him stupid presents he will never use again.
And despite trying to make polite protests about this to loved ones, every year it happens.
Last week for his birthday, his friend bought him a remote-controlled dalek (which is about to go Freecycle), while his family bought him new consumer electronics - an iPod to be precise (there are now four in the house…). He asked them not to do this and just get him a bit of running gear and maybe a new karate jacket.
It’s just common sense gone mad 
That might sound ungrateful, but Greenbang is a technology journalist. He has drawers full of gadgets and devices companies have sent him in the hope he’ll write something about them.
You’re probably thinking that Greenbang is an grumpy swine and is lucky to have the option. Of course, we’re lucky to have the problem of having too much crap in the shops.
But there is still too much crap in the shops.
Take wasabi (Japanese mustard) - ten years ago when Greenbang lived in Japan, you couldn’t find wasabi in the supermarket. These days, you can choose your brand of it in Tesco.
Greenbang is a bloke. He’s got all the stuff he needs. And if he needs something else, he gets it. He doesn’t need DVDs (it’s all on YouTube), smellys (he smells of roses), or music (it’s all on iTunes).
In fact, Greenbang is a pretty difficult person to buy for. And he likes it that way.
So for someone who likes a minimalist lifestyle, it’s quite grim going shopping on the high street.
The worst is the supermarket. The queues are depressing, and something feels very wrong with packing a trolley full of crap, half of which is going in the bin a day later.
Greenbang watches agog as people zoom around shopping centres buying more and more rubbish.
Perhaps these is a lack of evidence for this argument to pack any weight behind it, but Greenbang simply feels something is wrong.
That could be a lack of advertising about cutting down on wrapping paper and packaging. It could be that few ad campagins for Christmas even mention recycling. It could be that, despite grim reports of how we need to change actions now, Christmas goes on in the same way it always has - only with fiercer momentum to consume faster than ever and encouragement to buy more crap.
Or it could be that he’s just a grumpy sod (coz he’s hungry) and should forget the whole argument and spend the festive season getting drunk with friends as usual.
Now there’s an idea…
Posted by Greenbang on November 24th, 2007
That’s right, we said ‘welch’. For any Americans reading, it’s British English for ‘back track’ or ‘break’.
In this case, it’s a group of countries, including the UK, which have welched on a promise to pay more than a billion dollars to poorer countries cope with climate change.
The Guardian has this mother:
The group agreed in 2001 to pay $1.2bn (£600m) to help poor and vulnerable countries predict and plan for the effects of global warming as well as fund flood defences, conservation and thousands of other projects. But new figures show less than £90m of the promised money has been delivered Britain has so far paid just £10m…
Under the terms of the climate adaptation agreement, made at a UN meeting in Bonn in 2001, the EU, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and New Zealand said they would jointly pay developing countries $410m (£200m) each year from 2005 to 2008.
Posted by Greenbang on November 23rd, 2007
Interesting that it’s a newspaper firm…what are the awards made of? Paper mache?
The press release for the bally thing says:
The Sunday Times today announces that it is launching the Best Green Companies Awards to encourage, acknowledge and publicise businesses and other organisations, which are striving to improve their environmental performance.
At a time when many people are confused by a plethora of green messages and exaggerated claims, The Sunday Times recognises that there is a widespread desire for a stamp of credibility to mark those companies that are genuinely striving to improve their environmental performance.
Companies are invited to take part in the Best Green Companies survey which involves both employers and employees measuring their organisation’s approach to environmental management.
The methodology has been co-created with Bureau Veritas, the environmental performance specialists, and the survey will be co-ordinated by Munro Global, the independent research-focused marketing services group.
The employers’ section measures key performance indicators including standard core areas such as energy use and recycling, and also allows organisations to describe their environmental objectives and efforts to increase awareness of green issues in the workplace. The employees’ section seeks to understand the extent to which management strategies are embedded in, understood and acted on, throughout the organization.
Anyone can nominate their company. All they need to do is to register at www.timesonline.co.uk/bestgreencompanies before February 29, 2008 and complete the survey in the relevant category. The entries will then be assessed by environmental performance specialists and the winners will be announced at an awards ceremony and in a Green List supplement to be published with The Sunday Times in May 2008.
Richard Caseby, Managing Editor, The Sunday Times said: “There is no greater challenge facing UK companies today. We believe that if organisations have taken key steps to address their impact on the environment then they should be recognised and celebrated. The Sunday Times passionately supports good employer practice and our Green List seeks to build on this.”
The Best Green Companies awards follow the success of the prestigious Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For awards which celebrate the best practices in employment.
Posted by Greenbang on November 23rd, 2007
Certification to ISO 9001 (for quality management) and to ISO 14001 (for environmental management) increased in both cases during 2006 by 16 %.
During the same period, certification to more recent ISO management system standards for the automotive sector (ISO/TS 16949) and the medical device sector (ISO 13485) increased by more than 60 %.
These are among the principal findings of The ISO Survey - 2006 which for the first time also covered the new ISO/IEC 27001 standard for information security management systems and revealed that nearly 5 800 certificates of conformity to the standard had already been issued in 64 countries.
Source: The ISO Survey of Certifications 2006
Posted by on November 23rd, 2007
Those living in South Buckinghamshire, the Orkney Islands, Powys and County Down should slap themselves on the wrist, according to the Energy Saving Trust.
The independent body, which was set up by the Government, has listed council-by-council which households are the biggest carbon wasters.
It doesn’t make good reading for people living in Stoke Poges, Gerrard’s Cross and Denham. But then again, when you live in Stoke Poges, Gerrard’s Cross or Denham, little does.
And the news gets worse. The EST will now target those householders with ‘information and advice to help them cut home energy consumption, related to the type of property they live in and their individual needs’. So you better sort it out.
Philip Sellwood, chief executive of the Energy Saving Trust, said:
‘This latest Green Barometer report isn’t about singling out local authorities, as each area is unique and has its own challenges and opportunities. We provide help and advice to local authorities and we can now work with them to offer much more tailored energy advice. This wealth of information at our fingertips means householders are more likely to receive the information they need, to act to curb their carbon emissions.
‘Following the Comprehensive Spending Review, some local authorities’ overall budgets have been cut. What impact will this have on their household energy efficiency work? One thing’s for sure, a targeted, localised approach is critical for reducing household carbon emissions.’
