Archive for 'Regional News'
UK Needs To Build Two New Nuclear Power Stations Every Year… Forever!
Posted on 19. Mar, 2010 by Ross.
In order to meet its carbon reduction targets, the UK must build two new nuclear or CCS-equipped coal power stations every year, starting right now and continuing indefinitely - and do a whole lot more besides.
UK energy policy is failing by not facing up to the realities that its aim of an 80% reduction in [...]
Continue Reading
Carbon Trust Building The Low-Carbon Workplace: £350 Million Commercial Energy Efficiency Fund
Posted on 15. Mar, 2010 by Ross.
Is £100 million in interest-free loans to UK companies for energy efficiency projects through the Carbon Trust’s Big Business Refit not enough? The Carbon Trust seems to think so, as it is now amassing a new fund in order to push forward the retrofitting of commercial properties into new high-specification, low-carbon environments.
By collaborating with fund [...]
Continue Reading
Let Battle Commence: Green ‘Buy America’ Will Kick-Start Carbon Trade Wars
Posted on 12. Mar, 2010 by Ross.
After the collapse of the Copenhagen conference, there was one prediction which Energy-Saving News felt was easy to make: that a new era of green carbon tariffs in developed countries on dirty imports from developing nations was at hand. After recent comments from UK politicians suggesting a direction towards such steps, the battle in the [...]
Continue Reading
CBI: We Want Energy Efficiency On Driving Tests
Posted on 03. Mar, 2010 by Ross.
Business lobby organisation the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has called for mandatory energy efficiency testing as part of the driving test, doing a U-turn on its growing resistance to UK low-carbon legislation in the wake of the failed Copenhagen conference.
Smooth driving and the avoidance of sharp braking or acceleration can reduce fuel use by [...]
Continue Reading
UK Energy Efficiency Home Loans Take A Lesson From The Carbon Trust
Posted on 03. Mar, 2010 by Ross.
Smart, forward-thinking businesses have been doing it for years. An interest-free Carbon Trust loan of up to £500,000 for new energy-saving machinery, energy efficient lighting or other low-carbon technologies has been a great way to cut costs, whilst lower loan repayments than the achieved savings led to immediate positive cash flow.
Now UK householders are being [...]
Continue Reading
Dimming Coventry’s Street Lighting Will Save 40%
Posted on 18. Feb, 2010 by Ross.
Using lighting more efficiently - and using energy efficient lighting - is an obvious way to save substantial quantities of money, energy and carbon. However, it has taken public bodies a long time to finally wake up to the clear sense behind the business case for the adoption of energy efficient technologies and practices.
According to [...]
Continue Reading
UK and India Proves That Not All Of Copenhagen Was All Talk And No Action
Posted on 18. Feb, 2010 by Ross.
Copenhagen was full of hot air, right? Commitments by developed and developing nations fell short of the mark then and have since been further scaled back, correct? There’s no hope for further progress on the international response to climate change, is there?
Some countries have other ideas.
The Copenhagen agreement was a complicated beast, and although most [...]
Continue Reading
Blue Chip Hits The Jackpot With 500k Carbon Trust Loan For Energy Efficiency
Posted on 15. Feb, 2010 by Ross.
The Carbon Trust proved today that it means big business in the fight to improve corporate energy efficiency, awarding its first maximum £500k interest-free loan to IT company Blue Chip.
The loan, issued as part of the Carbon Trust’s Big Business Refit, will allow Blue Chip to install energy efficient evaporative cooling technology at its five-acre [...]
Continue Reading
The Low Carbon Economic Area Car Crash
Posted on 15. Feb, 2010 by Ross.
The UK government concept of Low Carbon Economic Areas is now looking like the ultimate in Whitehall greenwashing, and whilst the first blunder looked like the government had fallen asleep at the wheel, the latest news would suggest that they don’t know how to drive the car at all.
The concept of Low Carbon Economic Areas [...]
Continue Reading
UK Regulator Says Free Market Has Failed And The Lights Will Go Out
Posted on 05. Feb, 2010 by Ross.
UK energy market regulator Ofgem, once the strongest proponent of applying free market economics to energy companies, has waved a white flag and acknowledged that the system is failing the country, and that UK energy prices will go up by 20%.
In an amazing about-turn, Ofgem is now recommending a new part-nationalisation of the energy markets [...]
Continue Reading
Government Funding Ignores UK’s First Low Carbon Economic Area; Orecon Sinks
Posted on 04. Feb, 2010 by Ross.
The government has turned a blind eye to a key pledge in the world’s first Carbon Budget by allowing funds for wave power companies to be allocated almost entirely outside of the geographic area designated to see the benefits of the technology. As a result, Cornish wave power company Orecon has been forced to close, [...]


