We’ve recently came across this extremely cynical post on green electricity from Fred Pearce over at The Guardian. He slaughters the majority of the UK biggest energy suppliers, claiming that the green and clean electricity and gas tariffs that they offer are nothing more than a smokescreen.

We tend to feel that in some cases Mr Pearce may indeed have a point. However, you cannot possibly blame green conscious consumers for signing up to these tariffs - many of them will have no idea as to the technical aspects of the energy generation process. They simply wish to lower their carbon footprint and increase the energy efficiency of their homes.

News from the BBC this morning of the delay of a planned closure to the vestas wind turbine plant in Cambeltown, Western Scotland. 100 workers were in line to lose their jobs. It amazes us that this situation has been allowed to fester without a solution, however it seems that this scheme has been something of a political football from the start. Aside from the fact that these skilled people would be out of work, there is something quite sad about this plant being decommissioned at a time when demand for wind turbine technology is so high. Indeed, leading US clean energy research and advisory firm Emerging Energy Research expects the international wind power industry to increase 500 per cent over 12 years. Scotland should be at the forefront wind energy and a significant volume of Scottish power needs should be met by wind energy. The powers that be of each party must take control of this situation before we fall even further behind.

Wind Power - Scottish Energy Saviour?

Required Reading - BBC/Channel 4 Green Energy Q&A - EU Energy Policy

The complexities of EU bureaucracy can be difficult for anyone to comprehend, particularly when it comes to the issue of climate change. Thankfully, good old Auntie Beeb and Channel 4 have recently published excellent Q&A pages regarding the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). I have struggled with the comncept of this scheme for ages - therefore it was interesting to have it clarified by these two sources. Many of the issues regarding the function of the ETS are covered, including:

• What is the ETS?
• How will the ETS develop?
• Is the ETS working?
• What is carbon capture?
• What about CO2 emissions not covered by the ETS?
• What are carbon offsets?
• What role does the EU envisage for renewables?

Included in the BBC report are EEA Graphs which detail the scale of the task ahead for the new UK Deptartment of Energy and Climate Change. Due to starting from a low initial renewable energy base, the UK has to increase its capacity more than any country in th EU in order to meet the EU 20% renewable energy target by 2020. Good luck, Mr Milliband.

UK Energy - Sobering Graph

A desperate bid to win green votes or a pioneering move to tackle climate change?

In the latest Cabinet Reshuffle Gordon Brown has created a new Energy and Climate Change Department, to be headed up by Ed Milliband. This has to be seen as a positive move, as the previous line of climate change responsilbility was always rather conveniently blurred between DEFRA and BEER. Now there can be no doubt as to where blame will be apportioned if the green energy message doesn’t begin to make a significant impression. At the very least we can look forward to a slew of new energy initiatives and announcements over the coming weeks. We will be watching with interest.

These are difficult times for those of us associated with the Green Energy cause. Huge rises in energy costs have stilted the general public’s appetite for anything at all associated with the subject - the news is so grim that most people just want to forget about it. Therefore, it was great recently to find a story which cheered us up no end. Scottish architecture firm ZM Architecture have unveiled a ‘biomimicry’ scheme to provide solar power to the city of Glasgow. Their proposal involves the design of Solar Lily Pads which float in Glasgow’s River Clyde - soaking up the rays and powering the city! Firstly, it has to be said that this award winning scheme is very imaginative, pioneering and visually attractive - there is definitely potential for solar power generation in all our cities, and obviously we wholeheartedly condone any non fossil-fuel energy generation schemes.

Solar Lily Pads - River Clyde, Glasgow

However, to us native Glaswegians this scheme is utterly hilarious on many levels.

• To begin, anyone who has spent this ’summer’ in Glasgow will tell you that this has been one of the wettest and darkest summers ever, in fact whatever the season, the weather in Glasgow is now almost a permanent Autumn. Now, our understanding of Solar Power is slightly limited, but we believe that a sufficient amount of sunlight is required in order to generate any meaningful levels of energy - would these panels provide an adequate return on investment for the dear green place?

• Secondly, the record of Glasgow in the implemetation of large scale Architectural Schemes is not exactly gleaming. The Science Centre tower on the Clyde is constantly
  
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