Mount Everest's glaciers shrinking at increasing rate

Global warming is melting snow and ice on the world's highest mountain at an accelerating rate, researchers have claimed.

A study by a team led by the University of Milan has found that glaciers on or around Mount Everest have shrunk by 13% and the snow line is 180 metres higher than it was 50 years ago. The glaciers are disappearing faster every year, it says.

The 60th anniversary of the first ascent of the 8,848 metre (29,028ft) peak by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay will be celebrated next week.

The researchers say they suspect that the decline of snow and ice in the Everest region is a result of changes in global climate caused by human-generated greenhouse gases.

Committee on Climate Change - ''Govt move faster it's cheaper''

Investing in new renewable power generation, rather than a "dash for gas", will be the lower-cost option for keeping the lights on while cutting greenhouse gas emissions, the government's climate change watchdog has said.

The sooner the UK makes large investments in low-carbon generation – including offshore and onshore wind, solar, nuclear power and energy from waste – the cheaper it will be, according to David Kennedy, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), the statutory body that advises ministers on meeting emissions targets.

The CCC's analysis found that investing in renewable energy made sense even if the price of gas was relatively low.

"Not investing in renewables only makes sense if you don't want to meet our emissions targets – if you tear up the Climate Change Act."

A DECC spokeswoman said: "We agree with the CCC on both the need to invest in a portfolio of low-carbon technologies, and the need to reduce our dependence on imported gas which is the main factor driving up household energy bills.''

Greg Barker lobbies EC to drop solar duties

The UK’s minister for energy and climate change, Greg Barker, arrived in Brussels to lobby the European Commission (EC) over proposed plans to impose trade duties on Chinese-manufactured solar products.

The UK government has broken its silence over the ongoing EC investigations, urging other EU member states to vote against provisional proposals that will see an average levy of 47% applied to all Chinese-manufactured solar products in the UK. Barker has personally written to all 26 EU environment ministers ahead of his visit, calling on his peers to “follow the UK in backing the growth of solar”.

A DECC spokesperson said: “We have serious reservations about these proposals, which we have made clear to the European Commission. These plans could have a significant knock-on effect on the price of solar panels, putting the growth of the low carbon market across Europe at risk and making solar PV a less viable option for householders and businesses in the UK.

Barker’s vocal opposition to the potential duties follows the German vice chancellor and economy minister Philipp Rösler’s recent outburst, in which he labelled the EC’s plans as a “grave mistake”.

A price rise in panels is not in the interest of anyone who wishes to see the growth of low carbon energy production.  I was lucky enough to be able to make my voice clearly heard at yesterdays BPVA working group meeting. If you have not commented yet, then surely in the interest of a cleaner energy future it could be worth a few moments to give our minister your support on this issue, we are all to quick to criticise.

Write to him here at - enquiries@gregorybarker.com

DECC doubles upfront grants for renewable heat technologies

Heat is the biggest use of energy in the UK. Just under half of the UK's CO2 emissions and 60% of domestic energy bills are used for heating space and water. Heat in the UK is currently supplied predominantly by fossil fuels - with less than 1% from renewable sources.

The renewable heat incentive (RHI) aims to change that. Its aim is that 12% of heat is generated renewably by 2020. A total budget of £860m is available for the renewable heat incentive, over the period 2011 - 2014.

More help with the upfront cost of installing renewable heat is now available as the Department of Energy and Climate Change announces a doubling of the Renewable Heat Premium Payments.

These money off vouchers have been increased to:

£2,300 for ground source heat pumps
£2,000 for biomass boilers
£1,300 for air source heat pumps, and
£600 for solar thermal systems.

The RHPP scheme was introduced to fill the gap, following several delays to the introduction of the renewable heat incentive which is now expected to launch in Spring 2014. Final details of the RHI scheme are expected this summer. The RHPP payments are in effect an upfront payment of some of the RHI money, and will be subtracted from the total amount of RHI money due (proposals are to adjust the length of tariff payments, rather than the amount).

Announcing the doubling of rates, Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker said:

"I want to kick start this exciting new market for consumer renewable heat technologies. This time limited, big increase in the value of vouchers for hardworking people who want to do something positive to install money saving green heating in their homes, should be a real boost for this growing green sector."

Work starts on £650m Swansea Bay tidal energy scheme

Early work has started on the ambitious project to develop a £650m tidal power lagoon in Swansea Bay, which if completed would become the first purpose-built power plant of its type anywhere in the world.

Developer Tidal Lagoon Power said yesterday that a four-week geotechnical investigation has started to determine seabed conditions and assess the viability of its plans.

 

The results will help the company decide how to progress with the proposed 250MW power plant, which is expected to be submitted for planning approval by the end of the year and could be connected to the grid as soon as 2017 if the local authority gives the project the go-ahead.

TLP said the power plant would generate electricity for 16 hours a day from the rise and fall of the area's tidal range, saving over 200,000 tonnes of CO2 during each year of its century-long lifespan.

BT,100 per cent renewables - Now thats leadership !

BT has become one of the largest companies in the world to switch to 100 per cent renewable power, after a landmark deal with N Power that commits the energy giant to only providing the firm with electricity from renewable sources.

BT is one of the UK's largest uses of electricity, last year consuming 2.3 TWh of power to run its national networks, data centres, and offices - equivalent to 0.76 per cent of all the electricity used in the UK.

 

The company said that switching from standard power to renewables on this scale would result in carbon emission savings equivalent to one million tons.

The move was welcomed by Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey, who urged other companies to follow BT's lead and commit to sourcing renewable power.

"I hope many other corporates will follow the lead of BT and others, in taking their electricity from renewable and low carbon sources."

A spokesman for the company said that it hoped that increasing corporate demand for renewable power will send a signal to energy firms and encourage them to develop more clean energy capacity.

Richard Tarboton, BT's director of energy and carbon, said "BT strives to help society live within the constraints of our planet's resources through our products and services," he said. "This is an example of BT's commitment to be a responsible and sustainable business leader."

Paul Massara, chief executive of RWE npower, who said the deal provided further evidence

"renewables are important to the UK and to British business". 

Well done BT - thats worthy of celebration !!

Renewables are becoming too competitive for fossil fuels.

Rick Needham, director of energy and sustainability at Google, “While fossil-based prices are on a cost curve that goes up, renewable prices are on this march downward.”

That pretty much sums it up. In just the last five years, solar photovoltaic module prices have fallen 80 percent and wind turbines have become 29 percent less expensive. Moreover, after the initial investment, renewables such as wind and solar, having no cost of fuel, will prove far too competitive for fossil fuels no matter how cheap those may appear to be.


Cheap fuel is still more than free fuel.

Further technological advances aren’t required to make renewables competitive, but advances are occurring. Fossil fuels will represent only a small percentage of all energy investments in just a few years for a simple reason: few will want to invest in the less profitable technologies of the past.

If we fear for the future, it is paradoxical to attempt to mitigate risks by continuing to invest in fossil fuels. What we do now will bring about the future for better or worse. If we’re to emerge from our 19^th century energy system, it must be us, now, today, who set that emergence in motion. Leave fossil fuels for those who prefer to look backwards.

Transition to renewables solves climate AND economy.

In addition to the overwhelming majority of the scientific fraternity constantly proving to us that climate change is a clear and present danger, we have also seen the related dire economic warnings about warming coming from the World Bank, IMF, Bloomberg, Citi and HSBC to name just a few economic institutions, who are far from alone.

The International Monetary Fund, in calling for “Energy Subsidy Reform,” recently calculated that between directly lowered prices, tax breaks, and the failure to properly price carbon, the world subsidised fossil fuel use by over $1.9 trillion in 2011 — or 8% of global government revenues, representing a huge drag on economies.

The United States taxpayer is fossil fuels’ largest benefactor at $502 billion in 2011. China came in second at $279 billion, and Russia was third at $116 billion. For perspective, that $502 billion is just over 3% of the US economy, currently being given away to big fossil fuels companies.

The IMF concluded that the “link between subsidies, consumption of energy, and climate change has added a new dimension to the debate on energy subsidies.”  The IMF’s solution to both economic and climate risk (as reported by The Hill) is in two simple parts: “end fossil fuel subsidies and tax carbon.”  The solution to both climate and economy is worldwide conversion from fossil fuels to renewables.

Economically - What is the logical future for fossil fuels versus renewables?

Fossil fuels have already begun to rapidly lose market share. In 2012, most new electricity generating capacity brought on line in the United States was from renewables, and in January and now March 2013, all new U.S. electrical generating capacity was provided by renewables. So where is this headed?

Global warming has not stalled

Suggestions that global warming has stalled are a "diversionary tactic" from "deniers" who want the public to be confused over climate change, according to the world's best-known climate scientist. Prof James Hansen.

Since 1998, when the Niño climate phenomenon caused global temperatures to soar, the rate of increase in warming has slowed, causing some sceptics to suggest climate change has stopped or that the effect of rising carbon dioxide levels on climate is not as great as previously thought.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he rejected both arguments. "In the last decade it has warmed only a tenth of a degree compared to two-tenths of a degree in the preceeding decade, but that's just natural variability. There is no reason to be surprised by that at all," he said. "If you look over a 30-40 year period the expected warming is two-tenths of a degree per decade, but that doesn't mean each decade is going to warm two-tenths of a degree."

"Our understanding of sensitivity is based on the Earth's history, not on climate models, and we have good data on how the Earth responded in the past when carbon dioxide changed."

On 9 May, a new study of lake sediments from a remote meteorite crater in Siberia showed temperatures in the region were 8C higher the last time CO2 levels were as high as they are today.

Last week, atmospheric CO2 concentrations reached the milestone 400 parts per million, for the first time in millions of years.

Climate research - 97% unanimous on humans being the cause

Of more than 4,000 academic papers published over 20 years, 97.1% agreed that climate change is caused by human activity.

Authors of the survey, published on Thursday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, said the finding of near unanimity provided a powerful rebuttal to climate contrarians who insist the science of climate change remains unsettled.

The survey considered the work of some 29,000 scientists published in 11,994 academic papers. Of the 4,000-plus papers that took a position on the causes of climate change only 0.7% or 83 of those thousands of academic articles, disputed the scientific consensus that climate change is the result of human activity, with
the view of the remaining 2.2% unclear.

The study described the dissent as a "vanishingly small proportion" of published research.

"Our findings prove that there is a strong scientific agreement about the cause of climate change, despite public perceptions to the contrary," said John Cook of the University of Queensland, who led the survey.

Bill Oddie protests against HSBC illegal logging in spoof documentary - video

In this spoof documentary, Bankwatch with Bill Oddie, the naturalist protests against HSBC's illegal logging by entering the den of a creature closely related to humans: the banker. HSBC has made nearly £100m bankrolling some of the world's most destructive logging companies in Sarawak Malaysia, and is at risk of violating international money laundering rules, according to NGO Global Witness

He's such a Goody

Watch logging here

Jonathon Porritt: Where’s our sense of urgency?

The reach of solar will spread, the scale will increase, and the impact on people’s lives will be massive. But the crucial question is, when? 

The direction of travel is clear: we are in the early stages of transitioning from the age of fossil fuels to the solar age. But many scientists now believe the future of humankind depends on how long it takes us to negotiate this transition.

I was struck by this at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi in January. Solar technologies were particularly visible. It’s only four years since the first World Future Energy Summit, but in that short time the market has grown massively. So much so that even Saudi Arabia has set a target for meeting a third of its electricity from solar power by 2032!

Much of that growth is down to the success of a handful of large photovoltaic (PV) manufacturers in China. They have been able to drive down the cost of PV by around 6.5% per annum over the last few years, to the point where it’s beginning to compete with electricity generated from fossil fuels. Those costs will continue to fall for a long time to come; the reach of solar will spread, the scale will increase, and the impact on people’s lives will be massive. (providing we do not ''lock'' them out with levies that slow thier development and thus our ability to adopt these systems)

I’ve been talking about this transition to a solar economy for the best part of 40 years. During that time, people mostly responded with contempt, incredulity or patronising jocularity. Now it’s happening. My forecast is that PV and its sister technology – concentrated solar power – will provide around 30% of total global electricity by 2030.

But it has been a long time coming. If we have to wait an equally long time for every one of the new technologies on which a sustainable economy depends, then it may well turn out to be too late.

By all accounts, that was part of President Obama’s thinking at the start of his first term in 2008. He opted out of any pitched battle with Congress, and used his regulatory powers instead (on vehicle efficiency standards, for instance). At the same time, he pumped money into ARPA-E, a new incubator for alternative energy technologies, funded out of the $800 billion stimulus from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

This has kickstarted what some describe as a ‘silent green revolution’ in the Department of Energy. More than 150 different projects and programmes – many on the cutting edge of research – have been funded. A few of these have failed, to be sure, but more than a dozen have been picked up by venture capitalists and are showing real promise.

As author Thomas Friedman puts it, “green is the new red, white and blue”.

Both Friedman and former Vice President Al Gore (in his excellent new book, The Future) are out and about reminding people of the economic cost of accelerating climate change. For instance, it looks as if the damage done by hurricane Sandy will exceed $60 billion – precisely the sum of money Obama fought so hard to get by marginally raising tax levels on the richest US citizens for the next four years!

What’s missing is any real sense of urgency – in the US and Europe, let alone anywhere else in the world. And the only way to get lead times down is for politicians to press down on that urgency button as hard as they can, and keep on pressing.

Jonathon Porritt is Founder Director of Forum for the Future.  (from Green enegry futures)

It is a frightening experiment we are conducting with our climate

The future of a globally warmed world has been revealed in a remote meteorite crater in Siberia, where lake sediments recorded the strikingly balmy climate of the Arctic during the last period when greenhouse gas levels were as high as today.

Unchecked burning of fossil fuels has driven carbon dioxide to levels not seen for 3m years when, the sediments show, temperatures were 8C higher than today, lush forests covered the tundra and sea levels were up to 40m higher than today.

"It's like deja vu," said Prof Julie Brigham-Grette, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who led the new research analysing a core of sediment to see what temperatures in the region were between 3.6 and 2.2m years ago. "We have seen these warm periods before. Many people now agree this is where we are heading."

"It shows a huge warming – unprecedented in human history," said Prof Scott Elias, at Royal Holloway University of London, and not involved in the work. "It is a frightening experiment we are conducting with our climate."

More from Guardian article here

Solar Group Urges EU to Oppose China Anti-Dumping Tariffs

Let's protect the environment, our kids

Great news - Bl ***y politicians are again trying to confuse people in their efforts to control energy bills and do their bit to help mitigate the massive issues surrounding climate change.  This time it's the turn of the EU officials (but they do come from our respective countries - we vote them in)  who even though they have the same issues as the UK - energy price rises and opportunity to use renewables to stimulate growth, they wish to pick a fight with the chinese over panel pricing.  Constantly challenging the industry to reduce costs and then penalising a whole industry when it does.

Going forwards the fundamentals will be the same, renewables will win because despite politicians best efforts they have to - for the protection of society, the environment and to protect individuals and business pockets from the ever rising cost of energy............

European Union member nations should oppose proposed anti-dumping duties on Chinese solar panels that may hinder free trade and market growth, the U.K.’s Solar Trade Association said.

The provisional tariffs will increase the cost of photovoltaic panels imported from China and other countries and slow growth, the lobby group said in a statement.

“These duties, if imposed, will damage the U.K. solar market, particularly the large scale ground-mount sector,” Paul Barwell, its chief executive officer. “This is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the U.K.’s commitment to both free trade and the environment by urging the other member states to vote ‘no’ to these duties.”

The European Commission plans to introduce levies of as much as 67.9 percent by June 6 to punish Chinese manufacturers for selling panels in the 27-nation bloc below cost, a practice known as dumping.

“The duties will actually result in a net reduction in EU solar jobs, restrict the growth of the solar market, and damage Europe’s chances of meeting its 2020 renewable targets,” Barwell said, urging the U.K. government to vote against them.

I hate to say it - prices will go up if this goes through.  Returns will still be good and as stated fundamentals remin intact. But why not help us and the planet and lobby against this proposal. Here's a link to find the contact details.

http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/
 

biomass 'needs to be part of our low-carbon future'

Protecting people and the environment must be at the forefront of all energy policy decisions; but unfortunately there's no single ‘silver bullet' technology to the key challenges of cost-effectiveness, emissions reductions, energy security and economic growth. However,while the world is still dependent on fossil fuels, we have a responsibility to seriously consider affordable low carbon options that are deliverable today to lower emissions.

A recent EU study found biomass provides more jobs than any other renewable industry. As a mature, proven technology, the capital and operating costs are very competitive relative to high risk ‘first of a kind' technologies. It's also capable of producing a 35-90 per cent reduction in emissions compared to fossil fuels. This has led numerous experts and analysts including AEA Technology, the International Panel on Climate Change, Imperial College's UK Energy Research Council and the Forestry Commission's Biomass Energy Centre, to rank biomass as among the most cost-effective ways to deliver carbon savings, especially when heat and power are generated together.

Despite such authoritative support, biomass is victim to some common myths and misunderstandings (rarely backed up by evidence), typified by a recent article by Biofuelswatch in the Ecologist. The Back Biomass campaign is grateful for the opportunity to set the story straight.

As fossil fuels supplies dwindle, it's clear prices are only going one way. Not so with biomass, where the long term prospects of the industry depend on actively encouraging continual feedstock renewal - there is no ‘peak biomass'. It's also wrong to suggest that solid biomass is limited to wood. A diverse range of sources exist, including: recovered waste wood, energy crops grown on marginal land or alongside food crops; and agricultural by-products from food production.

More here