Reduce Your CO2

The world’s press got very excited last week by a letter published in ‘Nature’ magazine by two researchers from MIT. They have been looking into enhancing lithium iron phosphate electrodes in order to improve charging times for batteries, and talk about the potential for Li-ion batteries (used in mobile phones, but also in the Tesla electric supercar) that could charge fully in seconds.

Clearly this would be good for mobile phone and laptop users, but just imagine what it would do for electric cars, where probably the biggest barrier to entry apart from how long they last is how long it takes to charge their batteries. Theoretically, our MIT heroes suggest, and the media emphasises, this could mean electric cars that are chargeable in under 10 minutes.

This truly would be an amazing development, although a quick surf around the more intelligent parts of the blogosphere suggests that things aren’t as simple as all that: fast charge batteries may not be capable of providing the same level of power, and the fast-charge process itself could require far more power than today’s typical batter-charge process. And anyway, this is a discovery in its early days…

Still, it does make you think - well, it makes me think at any rate. If I go back to the piece I wrote on Lord Stern’s analysis of what green technologies we should be investing in right now, he pushed the development of efficient batteries right down the scale. I said I didn’t agree then, and I repeat it now. Whilst I fully realise that batteries need to get their power from somewhere, I still think that electric power needs to play a major role in transport before we manage to develop other more efficient, safe solutions such as hydrogen power and maybe one day fusion on an industrial basis.

Electric power already delivers, if you work within its limitations. The Tesla will travel up to 220 miles between charges, and at high speeds, but its hugely expensive. Smaller electric cars such as the Nice Mega City are far more affordable, but with a typical range of 60 miles at 40 mph and only 2 seats. The Vectrix scooter will travel over 60 miles at an average of 40 mph with a 2 hour charge time. Other day to day cars and scooters are arriving on the market that will travel up to 100 miles per charge, even if at limited speeds. As a commuter solution, electric vehicles already work, but they could take far more of the transport market if the challenges of range, power and charge time were improved still further.

To me, the development of fast-charge batteries is one crucial step for electric vehicles, as it takes the pressure off the need for greater range - although this remains important. Also, if you think laterally, it brings into play other potential solutions. If a battery can be charged easier and faster, couldn’t it be charged by green energy in this way? Surely a fast-charge battery would be ideal for a hybrid car, enabling it to take even more weight off the petrol side of the bargain?

So I at least am going to watch this space closely, whilst I continue to save up for my Vectrix, or whatever is the best solution by the time I hit my budget target. I’m convinced that this is the future (or one of the futures) of private and public transport.

I first read about it a while ago, but now it’s really here, and time to create a buzz. The Age of Stupid, a full-length docu-drama about climate change, has its ‘people’s premiere’, showing simultaneously in cinemas across the country on the 15th of March.

The film, brainchild of Franny Armstrong, and Executive Produced by the energetic, Oscar-winning John Battsek, stars Pete Postlethwaite as a man living alone in a climate change wracked 2055, looking back at ‘archive’ footage of 2007 and asking the obvious question: why didn’t we do something when we had the chance?

I haven’t seen the film yet, but will absolutely go - and pay to do so as its highly original business model needs all the support we can give it. I have no doubt, however, that the reviews from a huge range of people speak the truth when they say it is a movie that has to be seen.

There are those who complain about the ’scare-tactics’ of climate campaigners, saying that this approach is more likely to get us turned-off than inspired. From the various clips I have seen of The Age of Stupid, I think that this film is more cerebral than that. It’s not just pointing out that the way we live today could bring about major climate change. It’s also pointing out quite how unnecessary, inefficient and abusive to our planet our way of life is.

Anyway, here’s the trailer as a taster. From May the 1st onwards, you can organise your own screening to raise money for your own green causes, and I for one will be encouraging every one I know to watch.

The Age of Stupid: final trailer, Feb 2009 HD from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

In these difficult economic times, many people have voiced concern over the fact that the many advances made over the last few years in the battle against global warming may be negated due to the sudden massive reduction in investment in this area.

It has always been recognised that investment is required on a public and, to a lesser extent a private level in order to reduce our CO2 emissions at the speed recommended to avoid major global incidents. Governments need to invest in our infrastructure, in planning for a future where oil becomes more and more scarce, and where less is more with regard to energy consumption, and everyday people need to invest in changing their lightbulbs, replacing inefficient appliances, and in more efficient, but more expensive fuel sources. Suddenly noone has any money: the governments have spent it on saving our banks, and people have lost it on the markets, in the drop in the value of housing, or quite simply by losing their jobs. Everyone is tightening their belt, and this is not good news for the new, Green Economy.

Barack Obama, I am glad to say, has made huge steps to counter these concerns by guaranteeing investment in the Green Economy. He has openly said that his goal is to stimulate the economy by investing in this new area, creating new jobs, planning for a better future, and, ultimately, saving people money in the process. In the UK, however, we haven’t quite got that far. There is proposed investment in improving efficiency in our homes, but many other potential areas of investment still seem up in the air, either due to lack of funds or lack of decision-making.

Which is why a briefing paper published this week by Lord Stern of Stern Report fame and Alex Bowen, entitled ‘An outline of the case for a ‘Green’ stimulus is well worth paying attention to. This short but perfectly formed document takes an intelligent, practical approach with the aim of identifying how boosting the Green Economy can boost our economy overall, thus justifying ongoing investment in spite of hard times.

The report looks at a range of different solutions currently which have been, are being, or should be considered to help us reduce our CO2 emissions. It then looks at each of them from several angles, with the goal of identifying those solutions that can both promote economic recovery and limit the adverse effects of climate change. How quickly can each solution be implemented, is the investment required short or long-term, how much will it help reduce emissions, and will it help businesses and everyday people save money, thus aiding recovery?

Based on these scoring criteria, the 5 best performers are:

• Improving residential home energy efficiency
• Improving public building energy efficiency
• Replacing boilers on a massive scale
• Replacing lights and other appliances
• Producing new, fuel-efficient cars

And the worst 5 solutions are:

• Domestic renewable energy
• Encouraging energy R&D
• Connected urban transport
• Advanced Battery development
• Carbon capture and storage projects

I don’t totally agree with the scoring in every case, and it would be easy to change around the order by changing the criteria, but the approach is still very interesting and makes you think. I’m happy to know that point 1 seems to be already in progress, but I feel that point 2 needs far more investment and point 3 is simply too expensive to consider today. And don’t even get me on to fuel-efficient cars, as the car companies are really dragging their heels here, and because for me this is totally linked with advanced battery development.

Still, at a time when difficult choices have to be made, I am impressed by this attempt to help clarify the arguments for the different solutions. If you want to learn more, you can read the whole paper here - it’s not too long and well worth the read.

Cadburys, the UK’s most famous chocolate manufacturer have joined the drive to reduce emissions in an innovative fashion.

Not only are they looking to reduce energy consumption via the use of timers, by ensuring machinery and lights are switched off when not in use, and by using fertilisers (which require oil to produce) more intelligently, they are also looking to reduce the methane emissions from the dairy cows that supply the milk that goes into their products by putting them on a low fibre diet.

Everyone, even children, seems to know that cows make a dramatic contribution to the planet’s emissions with the amount of methane they produce. A typical cow emits between 80 and 120kg of methane a  year - the equivalent, believe it or not of an average car, although from its mouth and not in the form of farts as believed by many. Cadburys believe that they can reduce these emissions by as much as 30% by changing their cows’ diet, and lets hope they are right, but couldn’t they, and all cow owners go even further?

Cows spend a fair amount of time indoors - in the case of dairy cows, whenever they are being milked, and in the case of all cows for at least some of the winter in order not to completely destroy the fields they live in. Surely it would be possible to install a system into the typical cow barn that captures the huge amounts of methane produced, and even uses it in a practical way, for instance to heat the barn in question?

As a child, I remember being told stories about farmers being blown up when lighting a cigarette too close to farting pigs. Probably totally exagerrated, but not completely impossible, and something that returned to my thoughts these last few weeks. Whilst I agree that we absolutely need to go easy on our meat consumption, and that we should ideally look to reduce the number of polluting and consuming animals, maybe we should also be looking to harness the natural fuel being produced by them… Sounds mad? Right now, I think we should look at every option available - you never know what might work!

Everyone is always looking for ‘big ideas’, the ones that will in one fail swoop solve all our problems. For me, the business of reducing our CO2 emissions and looking after the environment takes a different approach: we mustn’t stop looking for the ‘big idea’, or even several of them, but in the meantime we shouldn’t ignore the myriad of smaller ideas that on their own can’t turn everything around, but that definitely can help stop the rot.

This is why I love the latest idea put forward by Hasham Akbari, a scientist based at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. It’s really simple: if we turn more of the landscape, and above all the cityscape, white, more sunlight will be reflected and this will help reduce CO2 emissions and delay the effects of global warming.

So what we need to do is to emulate the inhabitants of many a sun-drenched country, and paint all possible outdoor surfaces (above all the roofs of all buildings) white, or at least a light-reflecting colour. This approach will contribute to the reduction of global warming in two ways:

1. Sunlight reflected back from the earth’s surface reduces the amount of thermal energy given off, and thermal energy contributes to the greenhouse effect. Therefore, if we increase the surface area that reflects sunlight, we reduce the thermal energy given off by the earth.
2. Buildings that reflect sunlight become less hot in the sun, and therefore need less cooling down. This concept has already been understood in places like California, where whitehouses with flat roofs have been painted white since 2005 in order to reduce the need for power-hungry, CO2 emissions-generating air conditioning.

Akbari reckons that if we all get together to paint an additional 0.3 percent of the earth’s surface white (or at least a colour that reflects sunlight), we could actually save 44 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions, the same as the expected rise in emissions over the next 10 years, giving us more time to work on other long-term ‘big ideas’.

Perhaps painting 0.3 percent of the earth’s surface white is a little too much to hope for, and to achieve it, we would certainly have to address several major issues, starting with the fact that white sloping roofs would be, quite frankly, ugly, let alone a potential navigational nightmare for air traffic (hold on, maybe this is a cunning plan to reduce air traffic… keep that thought!). This would certainly be the case for white roads.

However, it does remain an excellent idea, and everyone could contribute to it cheaply and quickly. Imagine, for instance, if we all went out this spring and painted just our patios and garden sheds white. This would already account for a huge surface area, and at least several million tonnes of CO2 emissions, and all for the cost of a pot of paint. Now, let’s take it further: imagine that governments decree that all playgrounds, outdoor carparks, warehouse roofs, the roofs of public buildings are painted white. What about if the roofs of all new cars have to be white? Ok, that’s a contradiction, but could theoretically reduce the emissions of all future transport…

I think this idea has mileage, and will be off tomorrow to B&Q to buy my pot of paint. Not sure what I’m going to paint yet, but here’s advance warning to the neighbours…

I was going to write a positive article today. I’ve been researching the electric car market this week, and was starting to get excited at the increasing number of options - some of them even starting to compete with the internal combustion engine in terms of top speed and distance between charges, and at the cars that have been announced for the next 12 months.

The announcement of the new electric Mini put me into an even better mood because, although it’s still not that practical (only 2 seats, and a maximum range of 150 miles), and at least for 2009 will only be available for a limited trial, it is tangible evidence of the mainstream car manufacturers looking for solutions in the electric vehicle market.

So, boosted by all of this good news, I was intending to write about how we seemed, finally, to be reaching a ‘tipping point’, where electric cars are actually being taken seriously, even by the mainstream, and looking forward to exciting developments over the next few years: the first electric 4-seater; the first 400 mile electric car; the first electric car that is genuinely worth its price.

And then came this morning, and not one, but two pieces of depressing news:

First, I read that the NICE Car Company, along with G-Wiz the UK’s main electric car distributor today, has gone into administration. Apparently sales had dipped to under 1 car per week this year and, in spite of bullish announcements about new models and a new test-drive stall in the new Westfield shopping centre, they have run out of funds.

Secondly, it seems that this exciting new market has been flat as a pancake in 2008, with a total of 156 sales this year, a 58% dip on 2007. Most of these were sold by G-Wiz, who seem to be surviving, but it must be touch and go even for them.

So maybe the constructors and distributors are waking up to the opportunity, but the public is not? Clearly the recession has played an important part in this dip, but what has happened to the crucial message: invest in low-emissions solutions, save the planet, and save money?

Ok, so I’d be the first to admit that currently available electric cars are by no means everyone’s cup of tea - in fact they are totaly impractical for many of us. In general only 2 real seats, which cuts out families, a short range, which means they are almost certainly a second car, and now most London boroughs have withdrawn their previous offer of totally free parking, replacing it with time-limited free parking. On top of all of this is the price range, running from £8,000 to around £15,000 for the just-launched 4-seater Ze-0.

We musn’t forget, however, that these guys are the forerunners, the start of the revolution. They may not be perfect, but they get our attention, and they get the message out there. This is not the time for things to stumble to a halt and start to go backwards. There is a market for these little cars, even in a downturn, and I think that with some targeted marketing and by running a tight ship, they could easily turn a small profit.

Which is why I am hoping against hope that our dear government, desperate to preserve institutions such as banking, might take a leaf from the USA’s books and also look for a solution to support the electric car industry. The investment will be minimal, but to me it’s absolutely crucial. Still, I’m not holding out much hope - does anyone know any investors out there? If not, do let anyone interested in buying a NICE know that right now, they just might get a good deal. Visit the NICE Car Company web site for more information.

No, in spite of the acronym it’s not about recycling human waste! 1BOG stands for 1Block Off The Grid, and the idea is ‘Solar Power Community Purchasing’.

Installing Solar Power is notoriously complicated and expensive, not to mention the red tape involved, which is certainly one of the reasons that  the uptake has been slow in most countries around the world. 1BOG has been set up to break down this barrier and encourage more US inhabitants to go the solar route by helping them do so as part of a group, thus simplifying the process, improving negotiating power, and giving support on red tape issues.

They have just been acquired by Virgance, owners of Carrotmob, another community based idea for reducing CO2, and a company to watch over the next few years. Today I received an email saying that 1BOG has launched officially in no less than 20 different US cities, so they are really going for it from the outset.

In these troubled times, we are all looking to save money and even Barack Obama (who has obviously been reading Reduce Your Co2) is now telling the world that by investing in sustainable power generation, we can save money and do good for the planet. 1BOG helps reduce the up-front investment, one of the bigger blocks to moving over to Solar Power, and I for one hope that their communities spread broad and wide as fast as possible. In fact, I very much hope we will very soon be seeing them on this side of the pond.

We all enjoy dreaming, and I’m no exception. It gives me a warm feeling inside to imagine how things would be if our wishes actually came true.

For anyone who cares about our world’s future, reducing CO2 emissions and improving the earth’s ability to absorb them shouldn’t be a dream, but when you look at the snail speed at which governments are currently moving, at the excuses put forward every time another target is missed, then perhaps fantasy is a more apt word than dream. And the most common excuse used is ‘we don’t have enough money’.

Only last week I read that the UK’s ambitious targets for building wind farms don’t have a chance without investment that is currently not forthcoming. As the Guardian commented - it’s all very well setting an ambitious and necessary target of reducing emissions by 80% by 2050, but we all know that unless there is a dramatic change in the attitude towards investment in renewable energies, it will never be achieved. Whilst positive noises are being made in public, negotiations go on behind the scene to back out of targets or push them back, and every time the investment needed is cited as the main reason. Apparently our governments just can’t afford to put in place the necessary schemes to achieve the goals they are setting, in spite of the dire warnings on what may happen if they don’t.

And yet, when there is a global crisis in the financial markets, suddenly there is enough money to save our banks. Not millions, not billions, not even hundreds of billions, but trillions are immediately made available to help out our ailing financial institutions and their oh so poor employees. Of course it was important to save the banks - it was either that or financial chaos, but the point is that the money - a lot of money - was there in the event of a crisis.

The world’s governments now seem to agree that if radical action is not taken to reduce CO2 emissions, and fast, our planet will go through some dramatic changes before the end of this century, changes that could affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people. If they’re right, then surely this is a crisis on the scale of the financial meltdown we are experiencing, although with one difference: we can see it coming, and we have time to do something about it?  In fact, if we do something about it now, it will cost us a hell of a lot less than in twenty years’ time when some of the predicted and potentially irreversible changes have already started to take place.

For instance, it is estimated that the UK’s plan to generated 36% of all energy from renewable sources by 2020 will cost around £50 billion. Even taking economies of scale into account, surely a complete conversion to renewables would only cost maybe £500 billion, and this over as much as 20 years? So why are there regular rumours that suggest that we will miss the 2020 target due to cost issues, and by a mile too?  If we look at things from a global perspective (which is of course more relevant), how much do we think it would cost to protect and even start to restore the rain forests, or to push for a complete conversion of transport to a cleaner fuel source by 2020? Yes, it’s a huge amount of money, but all I know is that drip-feeding in order to keep all parties happy today and to win votes, is certain to make many more people unhappy tomorrow.

The media often use the phrase ’short termism’ these days - basically another way to describe the policies of governments that are reactive rather than proactive. We have a real opportunity to avoid short termism in the battle to reduce CO2 emissions, and I just can’t understand why more isn’t being done to take advantage of it. Yes, it will cost a lot, but it has just been proved that the money can be found. Maybe it’s not a dream after all…

This week, the Met Office’s Hadley Centre published the results of a study into the potential effects of climate change, and the level of action required to avoid drastic increases in temperature over the next 100 years. They estimate that anything but ‘early and rapid’ action against climate change will result in a rise in global temperature of 2.9 degrees centigrade or more by 2100.

Also this week, Drax, Britains’s biggest coal-fired power station, announced that they are investing in direct-injection biomass co-firing systems for all 6 of their coal-fired units, which should cut their CO2 emissions by more than 2.5 million tonnes per year.

So here is a recognised weather authority giving a clear warning, and a recognised polluter taking positive action. If Global Warming is just a great corporate plot, then what is the point of all this action? I don’t think that the Met Office are particularly known for being ordered around by the government, and as for Drax, well I thought that power suppliers just wanted to build more power stations!

I have followed the Global Warming / Climate Change debate with interest for a long time. I’ve obviously always been more persuaded by the ‘for’ than the ‘against’, but I’ve also been fascinated to observe the typical human reaction to warnings of ‘future catastrophe’. ‘Give me proof!’ they say, and, when there’s no immediate catastrophe for them to feel and touch, they go on as before. ‘What’s the point?’ they say, pointing to the other polluters who are doing nothing about reducing their CO2 emissions. ‘It’s not my fault!’ they say, abstaining all responsibility and continuing as before.

Most of us just won’t believe that something is wrong until it bashes us over the head. The problem in this case is that by the time Climate Change bashes us over the head it will probably be too late - at least that’s what the Met Office are saying, and they are by no means the first.

So back to the question in the title: What’s it going to take for us to realise that things are going wrong, and that we need to take action, and lots of it? Well I have to admit that we’re not really being helped by our government making promises out of one side of their mouth and reneging on them out of the other side, but these moves by 2 disparate UK institutions this week brought it home to me. Let’s stop fannying around or maybe it really will be too late.

So what are you waiting for? Floods? Hurricanes? Killer freeze or killer heatwaves? Why bother waiting? There’s plenty you can do right now that really won’t stretch you, and if we all did it, maybe we can avoid that catastrophem whether we believe in it or not. Only one problem, though. If we do take action and avoid catastrophe, there will always be the naysayers saying ‘Told you so! There wasn’t a catastrophe in the first place!’

As I’m sure anyone interested in the subject of reducing CO2 emissions finds, there are some subjects that come back again and again. One, which I suppose should not be that surprising, is that of our gung ho ‘let’s reduce emissions by 80%’, ‘we are the number one in Europe for fighting climate change’ government once more working behind the scenes to make it easier for them to hit the famous EU CO2 emissions targets.

This time, according to an article in the Guardian’s enviroment section, who have got hold of a leaked document, they are lobbying to remove emissions from aviation from the energy targets, as it won’t be possible to produce the necessary biofuels by 2020. The thing is that if aviation emissions were removed from the target, it would make it significantly easier to hit, and that this far smaller reduction would have less of a positive impact on the environment.

This is apparently one of several attempts being made to find ways to reduce the actual targets that have to be hit by 2020. Others include allowing countries to count the impact of initiatives put into place before the deadline even if they will actually take far longer to have an effect, and various manipulations of carbon credits to enable them to buy their way out of actually making the promised reductions.

If there’s one thing that gets to me more than a government that does nothing, it’s one that makes a lot of noise about doing lots of things whilst not really doing them behind the scenes. Over the last few years, EU governments have all got together and said ‘we have a problem, and we want to fix it’. The UK government has stated their desire to be champions in this area, and have made many wonderful promises. If you look closer, however, it is clear that they are spending just as much time setting up the excuses to justify not achieving what they have promised to achieve - either that, or setting up the next government for a fall!

Either there’s a problem or there isn’t. Let’s put away what we the public think for a minute, and put ourselves in the position of a / the government. They have decided there is a problem, a big one, and a big threat to our future, and they have told us that this is what they think. They have then made a big song and dance about everything they are going to do, that has to be done, increasing and re-increasing targets until they are genuinely ambitious. Then, behind the scenes, they have been negotiating various reductions that makes hitting any of the targets impossible.

Lets say I make a simple commitment to replace all the lightbulbs in my house and turn down my thermostat by 10 degrees. Let’s also say however that I tell all my friends about it in order to show how wonderful I am, receiving pats on the back and big smiles all round. If I was then to go and see some of my key friends and say ‘do you think it would be ok if in fact I just replaced half the bulbs, because, you know, the one in the bathroom doesn’t turn on quick enough, so I can’t see to pee, and the one by my bed is not good for reading, and in fact I like a really hot shower and….’. What would they think?

I know what I’d think.