Energy Efficiency

'Green opportunity' knocks for Brown - and is missed

Posted by jossc — 12 January 2009 at 1:42pm - Comments

Energy efficient housing - 56 Tomlins Gove in London

Making our homes energy efficient is a key step towards decarbonising the economy

With our economy reeling under the worst economic conditions for over a decade, Gordon Brown held a much trumpeted 'jobs summit' today to outline his plans to keep the country at work. Facing the dangerous combination of a credit-fuelled financial crisis, concerns over energy security and prices and accelerating climate change, he has missed an historic opportunity to boost the economy and take an important step towards decarbonising it at the same time.

Article tagged as: climate change, energy efficiency, gordon brown, green jobs, renewable energy

Changing light bulbs doesn't please everyone

Posted by jamie — 6 January 2009 at 6:10pm - Comments

So we start to wave a fond farewell to the incandescent light - since its first demonstration in the 19th Century it has served us well, but the brutal march of progress has made it obsolete since the development of CFLs over 30 years ago. Even though the current depletion of 150W, 100W and 75W bulbs being reported in the press is only part of a voluntary agreement (no sensible efficiency standards here), there's a binding EU agreement (of sorts) on the way and the days of the filament bulb are numbered.

Article tagged as: climate change, daily mail, energy, energy efficiency, light bulbs

Video: bulbs, bulbs and more light bulbs!

Posted by jamie — 12 December 2008 at 9:37am - Comments

If you need some cheering up on this dark, dark afternoon (and who doesn't given the news spilling out of the various climate talks in Brussels and Poznan - I don't think we'll be able to update until next week, but it's not good), try this. An exuberant Hank Green from Ecogeek has done some ad-hoc light bulb testing to show how incandescents, CFLs and LEDs compare. Shame this wasn't done in time for the recent EU vote on light bulbs.

Link

(Thanks, Treehugger)

Article tagged as: climate change, energy efficiency, light bulbs, videos

EU to ban inefficient light bulbs. Eventually. Sort of

Posted by jamie — 12 December 2008 at 8:36am - Comments

If you've been wondering what's been happening on the light bulb front since our Woolworths campaign last year (and much as they were in our bad books, it's sorry to see them go), there's been some developments on the European stage where politicians have been voting on plans to improve their efficiency and so reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the EU.

The good news is that, on Tuesday, the EU has at long last agreed on a ban of inefficient incandescent light bulbs; the somewhat worse news is that we'll have to wait several years for it to come into full effect. In the meantime, inefficient bulbs will still be on sale and given the desperate need to reduce emissions, it's not enough and it's not soon enough.

Article tagged as: CFLs, climate change, energy efficiency, EU, incandescents, light bulbs

Keeping the lights on - without new coal

Posted by bex — 1 August 2008 at 5:57pm - Comments

Keeping the lights on

Keeping the lights on - without new coal

"[U]nless we want to risk our security of supply and face greater cost burdens, stations such as Kingsnorth must be part of the energy mix."

 

"Currently, we have to use a mix of energy sources to power our country - fossil fuel, renewable energy and nuclear power. Together they provide us with a reliable electricity supply. And although the use of low-carbon energy sources is growing, fossil fuel will continue to generate power, not just here but around the globe."

 

Senior government and Big Energy have been working hard to propagate the idea that, to keep the lights on, we need to build new coal plants.

So, is it true?

Article tagged as: climate change, coal, energy, energy efficiency, energy gap, nuclear power, poyry, solutions

Brown's green revolution?

Posted by jossc — 26 June 2008 at 5:23pm - Comments

Offshore wind - at the heart of MR Brown's energy revolution?

Offshore wind - 3,500 new turbines by 2020?

Although the PM has taken a few verbal pastings from us over the past few months on key climate issues like airport expansion and new coal-fired power stations, in a new speech today he did much to redeem himself by announcing an ambitious plan to ensure Britain generates 15 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

To be sure, the government has promised as much in the past and failed to deliver, but there seemed to be something different about today's Renewable Energy Strategy Consultation - some meat on the bones which indicated that the plan might just be more than empty rhetoric. The government is consulting on ambitious plans designed to allow the UK to meet its share of an overall EU target to generate 20 per cent of energy (electricity, heat and transport) from renewables within 12 years.

Article tagged as: biofuels, climate change, co2 emissions, energy efficiency, offshore wind, renewable energy
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