At a time when Google is making some big investments in renewable energy (most recently in windfarms), home automation and innovative methods to green their data centres, the ninja-like deprecation of the Powermeter API will raise a few eyebrows, especially amongst existing partners.

The announcement was made as part of a ’spring cleaning exercise’ at Google, with 11 different APIs all being deprecated or shut down at once.

The Powermeter API won’t be being turned off: Google are just ceasing development on the project. Rather than having already attained perfection though, the Powermeter system is still in it’s infancy - a fact acknowledged on it’s official Google Code page:

The PowerMeter API is still in the early stages of development, and it may change very quickly as we work to make it better, more powerful, and more efficient.

An inability to sign up enough partners to use Powermeter with their smart metering is doubtless the reason that Google have ditched the API’s development (and it can be assumed that the core Powermeter system will probably be left alone too). Given the fact that the smart meter market has barely begun to roll out yet, giving up at this stage seems a little premature.

Most importantly, however, the announcement pours cold water all over the newly-announced Android@Home project. The newly-announced pet project of Google is designed to enable home automation to be run from an Android phone, but it doesn’t use any existing protocols such as Zigbee which are already compatible with smart meters. Instead, Google want to re-invent to wheel with their own system and will look to sign up partners along the way just as they hoped to do with Powermeter.

Just how willing companies will be to throw away existing developments to chase after Google’s vision will be debatable, and Google’s willingness to ditch it’s previous smart grid child after just a couple of years will make smart tech companies even less likely to commit to Google’s home-automation-handset vision. Google might be wiser to see how it can work with emerging technologies, rather than attempt to dictate the terms of engagement.

Related posts:

1. Google To Make Solar Thermal Power Cheaper Than Coal
2. Brighter Future For Interoperable Smart Meters And Energy Efficient Appliances
3. What Is The Carbon Footprint Of A Google Search?

Enter greenwash. Excessive claims of sustainable awesomeness can have detrimental effects on a company’s PR should they be exposed to be false, yet a company’s desire for every aspect of their CSR report to look ship-shape often leads to inflated claims with little foundation. What mechanism is then best for boardrooms to reign in the damaging hype being pedalled by their marketing departments?

What is Sustainability Assurance? It is the service designed specifically to fill this need. Sustainability assurance is a third party examining the claims made by CSR reports, independently auditing and verifying their veracity prior to their release into the public arena. By doing so, boards can protect their share price from unnecessary damage as well as encourage middle management to engage in sustainability projects which deliver genuine and measurable results to areas such as energy efficiency, waste reduction and water efficiency. On that basis, what self-respecting listed company could refuse the business case for sustainability assurance?

The answer to that question appears to be a big majority: indeed, perhaps this article should be re-titled ‘What Is Sustainability Assurance, and Why On Earth Should We Spend Money On It?’ according to this report by CarbonSmart.

Examining the CSR reports of the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 in 2009 and 2010, the report found that less than 25% of the companies had any form of sustainability assurance. The level of sustainability assurance in the FTSE 100 actually dropped slightly last year, and although the concept had started to gain a little more traction in the FTSE 250 only 8% of those companies had their carbon emissions independently verified.

When asked about the lack of sustainability assurance in their CSR reporting, common responses included not wishing to have to jump through yet another hoop, unnecessary cost avoidance, confidence in their own data and - most tellingly of all - that they had never heard of sustainability assurance!

The latter is hardly surprising. Sustainability assurance has only existed as a concept for the last four and a half years, and given the long hard slog that sustainability and energy efficiency have gone through to get the notice that they deserve it is entirely understandable why sustainability assurance has failed to capture much mindshare. Sustainability assurance is certainly not ‘the elephant in the room’.

For every time someone asks Google what is ’sustainability assurance’, 20 people search for the ever-unsexy ‘csr report’ and 1400 people search for ’sustainability’ or ‘csr’. As many people search for ’sustainable carpet’ as they do for sustainability assurance, and there has been no growth in the search volume for ’sustainability assurance’ at all over the last four years.

All this is bad news for the providers of sustainability assurance services. There’s definitely a business opportunity out there for them, but they’re still struggling to create enough awareness about the need for their services. Indeed, the additional costs that sustainability assurance brings to sustainability means that sanctioning assurance can impair the original business case for other projects - what waste, water and energy efficiency brings to the boardroom table is tangible and measurable cost savings, whilst further measurement can easily be framed as unnecessary extra cost by factions jostling for their own share of the company budgets.

Sustainability assurance is here to stay for the biggest players, but it is unlikely to ever crack into smaller companies in the absence of specific legislation. Companies can circumvent most of the need for sustainability assurance by prioritising effective measurement of sustainability internally and by reigning in any over-zealous marketeers.

Image of extra paperwork by moppet65535 @ Flickr

Related posts:

1. What Is The Best Enterprise Carbon Accounting Solution?
2. Using CSR Reporting To Identify New Business Opportunities
3. What Is The Carbon Footprint Of A Google Search?

Sounds good? I’m always looking out for advances in LED lighting but I haven’t got money to throw away without reason, so the first thing that I want to know when looking at the figures for a new product is whether it’s worth the cost. (I blame that mindset on working for an energy-efficient lighting company myself where we on average provide 74% savings and return on investment periods of 12-24 months to our commercial and industrial customers based on their actual usage patterns rather than just idealised scenarios. Nerdy - yes!)

There’s no point in comparing the financial case of LED lighting vs CFL light bulbs for this product, since Philips’ own CFL 75W replacement lights only consume 14W and cost around $2, thereby starting much cheaper and staying much cheaper too. The EnduraLED A21 is being marketed more towards those people who won’t give up their incandescent lights for CFL lights due to concerns about light quality (which is supposed to be superior with this LED light), for whom there are still savings to be made.

So instead I decided to see what those savings would mean to me, should I still use incandescents rather than energy-saving CFL bulbs.

The press release doesn’t state whether the $160 savings include or exclude the cost of the bulb, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume the total energy savings are $200 and the total cost savings are $160. The energy savings will be spread linearly over the lifetime of the bulb, so I’ll have broken even after 5000 hours of use (25,000*40/200). We’ll also ignore the fact that the savings based on those figures rely on an energy price of around 14¢ per kWh - very few US states pay that much for residential energy at the moment though.

If I leave my lights on 24/7, I would then see a return on investment after 7 months.

Problem 1: Being someone who cares about the environment and energy usage (and a good night’s sleep in a dark room!) means that I don’t leave all my lights on 24/7. They are all turned off when my family is at school and work, when we are asleep at night and when there is sufficient natural sunlight to light our house. The latter obviously varies with the seasons, meaning that the lights are for around an hour a day during the summer and around 7 hours a day in the winter - on average therefore the lights are on for 4 hours a day rather than 24.

So based on the lights being on ‘4/7′, I would see a return on investment after 3 years and 5 months.

Problem 2: Not only do I not leave my lights on all day, but my family and I only have the lights on in the rooms which we are currently in. On average there are no more than two lights on during the hours in which lighting is necessary, but there are 10 light fittings into which these LED light bulbs can be placed.

I could reduce initial costs by not replacing those lights used most infrequently - the porch, the two in the hallway and the landing - but this would still leave 6 bulbs to buy for $240 with a total break-even threshold of 30,000 hours, for an average of 8 hours total daily usage.

The return on investment period under those circumstances would be a whopping 10 years and 3 months! That’s before seeing a single penny back in gross financial savings.

On the same basis of calculation, my CFL bulbs return my investment after just six months rather than 10 years, and I’m saving more in the longer term too.

There’s probably a few extra factors which would alter the equation (current local energy price, energy price rises, risk of failure due to my landlord’s dodgy electrics!) but the bottom line is that it’s a big price to pay for an extra slice of LED-based energy efficiency, and that’s in the opinion of someone who’s completely on board the energy efficiency bandwagon.

According to CNET, the CEO of Philips Lighting North America believes that costs of household LED lights may drop by 50% over the next five years, but that would still leave me with a 5 year payback period which in these austere times would push that purchase to the very bottom of the pile.

LED lighting at this price point makes sense to those who leave their lights on all the time, but if you genuinely care about the costs then CFL bulbs are still the way to go - just as energy efficient and a lot cheaper. If light quality is your preference then the new Philips LED bulb may be a preferable option… but then incandescents might be too…

Energy-Savingnews.com editor Ross Tucknott lives, eats and breathes energy saving from his house in Cornwall because he’d rather spend his money on good food, good local ales, surfing and Redruth RFC. Come on you Reds!

Image of Canary Wharf (the lights are on, but no-one’s home!) by poolski @ Flickr

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2. Mercury-Free Energy Efficient Lighting From Vu1
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The Liberal Democrats saw less discord amongst party members for forming a coalition with the hated Conservatives than would have been expected last year. Even the diabolical showing at the local elections failed to cause any truly damaging internal strife amongst Liberal Democrats MPs. But the row that erupted in the cabinet between Chris Huhne and Vince Cable, backed on both sides by different Conservative allies, was the first true test of the cohesion of Liberal policy in the face of the reality of government.

The row revolved around the act of accepting the recommendations of the chief climate change advisor to adopt a new tough carbon emissions target for 2027 which would have put the UK ahead of every other developed nation in reducing carbon. The UK has historically always followed this independent scientific advice when concocting climate change policy, and by doing so has always been able to speak from a moral high ground in international climate change negotiations.

However a break from the science was exactly what Liberal Democrat Business Secretary Vince Cable was advocating, taking a rather protectionist “can’t damage the economy for climate change” stance which Americans would be all too familiar with, and he managed to rally Chancellor George Osbourne and Transport Secretary Philip Hammond to the defence of energy-intensive industries. Cable advocated a lower set of targets which he claimed “keeps us on course to meet our 2050 target and entails a steeper reduction in emissions than the previous government set for carbon budgets, which easily justifies our position as greenest government ever”. Political carbon targets then, rather than practical targets.

The alignment of his cabinet colleague against their party’s generally strong environmental stance was anathema to Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) secretary Chris Huhne, who soon had the unlikely figure of Foreign Secretary William Hague rushing to his defence. Eventually, David Cameron was forced to broker a deal between the two camps which saw the DECC victorious at the cost of an opt-out from the new targets should the European Union fail to agree to stronger targets itself.

So with damage done to the Liberals’ environmental credentials and some points-scoring by David Cameron over his coalition partners complete, all that should have been left was an announcement of the new proposals and targets before going to the pub, right? Conservative chairman of the Energy Select Committee Tim Yeo had other ideas, stepping forward to be the first to blast the new agreement for creating hidden subsidies for nuclear power despite the coalition agreement to prevent taxpayers from paying a penny towards any new nuclear power stations.

But how? The stealth subsidy in question would be generated from the setting of a floor price for carbon, something agreed upon in the 2011 Budget but which has received very little fanfare until now. What makes the attack on the floor price so controversial is that it was a deliberate attempt to skew market conditions towards better viability of low-carbon energy generation.

The real complaint therefore is that the government was unable to find a mechanism to promote low-carbon power sources by selectively promoting renewables at the expense of nuclear power.

This argument goes to the heart of the division of the environmental movement. The use of nuclear power as a low-carbon energy source is the biggest source of discord, with former anti-nuclear activists breaking ranks with their green colleagues by seeing climate change as a greater threat to humanity than the proliferation of toxic and indestructible nuclear waste.

All environmental campaigners realise that a floor price for carbon is necessary to level the business cases between traditional cheap fossil fuel power sources on the one hand such as coal, oil and gas, and more expensive renewable energy sources such as wind, wave, tidal, geothermal, hydroelectric and nuclear. The floor price could better reflect the environmental legacy costs inherent with fossil fuels rather than just the cost of extraction and exploitation.

The concept of a carbon floor price comes largely from the comparison of decarbonising technologies on a global or national scale through a MACC or Marginal Abatement Cost Chart. These charts show the effectiveness of every low-carbon technology against their cost to implement. High-yield options such as energy-efficient lighting systems have a negative cost per tonne of carbon dioxide saved, but most power-generating technologies have a higher cost than the baseline of inaction (i.e. the continuation of fossil fuels). A floor price for carbon lifts the inaction baseline cost, thereby enabling more low-carbon technologies to compete with “business as usual” as the floor price rises.

The fact that nuclear benefits from a simple floor price for carbon may rankle pro-renewable environmentalists, but it points to the inescapable truth that nuclear is a low-carbon energy source. The fact that there are huge environmental costs associated with the extraction of radioactive ores and the disposal of waste, as well as high damage-low probability risks associated with the reactors themselves as evidenced recently at Fukashima, has little impact on assessments made which prioritise carbon costs above all else.

The anti-nuclear environmentalists have to tread very carefully though. In decrying the benefits to the nuclear industry of the floor price of carbon they risk depriving renewable sources the benefits too which would prolong our dirty fossil dependency even longer. Nuclear power won’t benefit from the floor price for carbon any more than renewable energy sources, whereas historically nuclear subsidies have far outweighed those given to emerging wind and wave power. Restricting nuclear “subsidy” to just a floor price for carbon might be the best chance for many renewable technologies to ever get sufficiently competitive enough to start reaching the sort of economies of scale that mass roll-outs could produce.

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2. Energy Shortages Ahoy! No New UK Nuclear Before 2017
3. Who Benefits From Smart Meters?

Fuel Duty.

Green policies? Run away!

Previous Labour governments declared war on motorists, consistently and unashamedly increasing fuel tax with an aim not just to make more money (although this was hardly a happy accident) but to also drive down the escalation of car usage in the UK. Fuel costs have risen dramatically over the past 15 years, even when the price of oil dropped with the onset of the worldwide recession.

However, as part of their effort to not alienate every single person in the country through their spending cuts, the coalition government has decided in the 2011 Budget to give drivers a momentary reprieve by cancelling a planned 4p per litre fuel tax rise and instead cut fuel duty by 1p per litre instead. Great news for drivers (especially in rural environments where public transport is all but impossible and driving is a matter of survival rather than an option) but from a green perspective this is a definite step backwards if the government continues to aim to tax people out of their cars and onto public transport.

The cut is being paid for by oil companies as part of a Fair Fuel Stabiliser system - something thought to be too expensive for the Treasury to stomach, so the government has shifted the burden to the oil companies instead. Oil companies will foot the bill for less fuel duty whilst oil prices are high (during which time fuel duties will rise by inflation only), whereas lower oil prices will leave more room for duties to increase through the traditional escalator system.

Approved Mileage Allowance

More money for more travelling

Unexpectedly, the 2011 Budget created another incentive for greater car use. The Approved Mileage Allowance Payements was increased from 40p per mile to 45p - something which will likely increase both the use of cars and the use of larger, less efficient cars to boot.

The Green Investment Bank.

Still waiting for a free cashier

The green investment bank took a big hit in the 2011 Budget today, despite being a manifesto pledge of both coalition parties as well as being enshrined in the coalition agreement. Despite general acknowledgement that the green investment bank would only be able to properly fulfil it’s role by being able to independently borrow and issue bonds, Treasury officials have managed to defer any such powers until 2014, if at all. Why? Because due to pesky accounting rules, any borrowing that the green investment bank does will show itself up on the national debt, causing the Treasury a minor panic attack.

As a result the green investment bank will cease to function properly until 2014, enabling ministers to technically keep their promises whilst abandoning the necessary improvements to carbon-related infrastructure for the rest of this parliament. Energy companies - especially renewable energy manufacturers and smart grid suppliers - will be furious at this particular stalling tactic.

To mitigate this particular gripe, the government’s own seed money for the green investment bank has been tripled to £3bn, funded through extra asset sales unspecified in the speech although the High Speed Rail 1 link is cited in the 2011 Budget document. By doing so, the 2011 Budget has allowed the green investment bank to start operation a year earlier than planned in 2012, but it will likely struggle to bring in the necessary private sector funding until it can successfully issue bonds.

Air Taxes.

No extra air pain at the airport

Another retreat from previous green budgets comes in the form of the scrapped increase in air passenger duty. The Liberal Democrat policy of switching from a per-passenger to a per-plane tax was quickly shelved by the coalition due to international law issues, and now the consolatory increases in air passenger taxes is being scrapped too. Despite aviation emissions making up a sizeable proportion of the national total, there is still insufficient political willpower to tackle the issue rationally.

CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage).

Take from the rich and give to the rich. Then take from everybody else too. And hope it works.

Finding £1bn in the last budget for the country’s first long-overdue CCS trial was heralded at the time as a coup for the green agenda at a time when cuts were being piled high on every single department, despite the fact that the money was actually just a fraction of that being robbed from companies in the CRC Energy Efficiency scheme by changing the scheme from a revenue-neutral initiative to an out-and-out green tax.

The initial trial money hasn’t even been allocated yet, despite there being only one project now left in the running, but in today’s 2011 Budget it was announced that three more CCS projects due to be paid for with higher consumer energy bills will now not be paid for by a formerly-touted Climate Change Levy in energy bills but will be paid for by general taxation instead. Noticeably absent is any form of timetable for these further demonstration projects, however there is sufficient controversy over the possible effectiveness of ‘clean’ coal that most environmentalists will hardly be losing much sleep over this one. Besides, CCS supporters would have been hoping that the next measure drives investment instead…

Carbon Floor Price

Too low to make a difference… for now

The energy companies have long claimed that without a greater cost for carbon in the marketplace, there is no financial incentive for decent investment in low-carbon energy generation technologies such as renewables, CCS and nuclear power.

The government finally chose to act on this in today’s 2011 Budget by instituting a floor price for carbon of £16 per tCO2 from 2013. However, it’s own data shows that this price will fail to drive investment - after all, prices for carbon in the European emissions trading scheme (ETS) have perpetually hovered around the €15 mark with little effect, whilst the CRC Energy Efficiency scheme floor price of £12 per tCO2 isn’t expected to rise until trading begins during the next phase.

However, the 2011 Budget also has set a defined increase rate for the floor price for carbon as well. To counter concerns over long-term price uncertainty, the carbon floor price will increase linearly from £16 in 2013 to £30 in 2030 - roughly a £1 increase every year. A £30 floor price is far closer to the kind of price which really will drive low-carbon decision-making, so some companies will respond positively to the future figures rather than the current ones.

The government will also be laughing all the way to the Bank (of England) with this one too: £1.4bn in brand new revenues in 2015-16 alone (strangely double what is projected for 2013-14).

Related posts:

1. What’s Green In The UK Coalition’s Emergency Budget?
2. What The UK Carbon Budget 2010 Means For Small & Medium Businesses
3. UK’s Carbon Budget 2010 Is Gone With The Wind

Although that statement on face value comes across as a bit daft, installing energy efficient technology in your business can bring a raft of other benefits and/or costs which add more to the financial case than just the raw energy savings. Here’s a quick five-point checklist to look out for when costing and comparing energy efficiency projects.

1) Maintenance Savings

Does the new technology last longer than your current solution? Does it reduce the amount of maintenance required (costed in terms of parts and labour)? Will the warranty also save on maintenance costs?

When you dig into the detail, maintaining business infrastructure is a real expense and a new technology should help towards the goal of minimising those costs too. Try to quantify current maintenance costs and find projected maintenance costs from your energy efficiency suppliers, and work those into your calculations accordingly.

2) Downtime Costs

Reducing maintenance also reduces potential operation downtime and productivity lapses, which even just over a few hours a year can provide a boost to profits which makes a difference to your decision-making.

However, you also need to factor in any potential disruption to your operation during the energy efficient technology installation. Get a firm idea about installation times and disruptions from your contractors, and factor these costs into your equations too.

3) Tax Benefits and Funding

This is one factor that the energy efficiency vendors will probably shout from the high heavens about: there are various tax benefits which companies in various countries can tap into for energy efficiency projects (the Extended Capital Allowance in the UK, for example). Whilst not minimising the initial cash flow burden, recouping additional finance further down the line impacts on your investment calculations.

There also might be ways of avoiding any upfront costs at all! Schemes such as the Carbon Trust Big Business Refit in the UK offer interest-free loans for energy efficiency projects, whilst some projects offer pay-as-you-save pricing. Again, this is an area where your technology supplier is likely to be most aware of your eligibility for relevant loans, so find out what you might be able to take advantage of before doing your final number-crunching and decision-making.

4) Carbon Taxes and Trading Schemes

They’re sprouting up everywhere. Europe’s ETS, the UK’s CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, California’s new cap-and-trade scheme and a bundle of emerging carbon taxes all over the world. These will all directly affect your business’s finances, so a reduction in energy usage will equate to a reduction in your carbon tax or carbon credit liabilities. Find out the likely price for carbon across the project evaluation period: most schemes seem to be opting for a floor price so opt for this at the very minimum.

5) Cost of Delay

Still not approved the project 6 months down the line? Every day’s delay is a day in which you’re not saving more money. Sometimes proposed projects spend so long on a manager’s desk that they could have paid for themselves by the time they go ahead. Factor the cost of delay into your planning and decision-making: can you afford to do it, or can you afford not to?

Related posts:

1. Cuts Your Energy Costs: CRC Reason 3 For Immediate Energy Efficiency Action
2. Secret: There’s No Such Thing As Green Business
3. Carbon Trust Catches The Energy Wave

Although still playing catch-up with Europe, with the long-established ETS and 2020 emission targets of 20-30% reductions from 1990, Californians aims to return to 1990 levels over the next decade through their own cap-and-trade scheme after state regulators approved its framework this week.

After successfully repelling Clause 23 at the ballot box recently, which sought to shackle the proposed legislation under terms which would mean it would almost never become active, California’s Air Resources Board adopted the new rules which - although originally passed into legislation in 2006 - had to be approved before the 1st January 2011.

The laws allow California to allocate pollution permits to companies to be traded from 2012 onwards, with an initial price of $10 per tonne of CO2 expected to rise to $18 four years later.

It might not be long until California is joined by other states too. The other member states of the Western Climate Initiative - Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington - all intend to join California in the near future, along with the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. Other pro-cap-and-trade states in the north-east which form the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative will also be following progress closely as they try to achieve the same goals.

Sceptical states will be hoping that the additional financial burden of carbon trading will prove them right, hurting California’s economy and damaging its competitiveness. If not, it is likely to massively stimulate the Californian green-tech revolution, and other states looking to join in much later will probably find that the eco-innovation ship has already sailed without them.

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However, a new lawsuit brought by Gifford Fuel Saving’s Henry Gifford has cast an analytical spotlight onto the LEED certification scheme, and an obvious question quickly springs to mind.

Are LEED certificates greenwash?

The class action lawsuit accuses the USGBC of monopolizing “the market through fraudulent and intentionally misleading representations in the marketing and promotion of their LEED product line.” The primary bone of contention are the claims that LEED-certified properties are 25% more energy efficient, offer a smaller carbon footprint, and feature improved air quality and water efficiency in comparison to non LEED-certified buildings.

Gifford shines the legal spotlight on the fact that LEED certification does not require energy use verification, and that the USGBC doesn’t require the submission or review of facility plans either. The effect of this is that architects can - to all intents and purposes - self-certify their buildings with the LEED certificate.

Whilst the case doesn’t suggest that LEED-certified buildings are being dishonest, it certainly opens the door to abuse and allows LEED certification to be used as corporate greenwash.

The new focus on the LEED certification process will sit uneasily with many green advocates. Whilst a huge amount of criticism has been doled out to green labelling in many sectors, especially with respect to consumer-facing products where greenwash is routinely called out, LEED certificates have received far less although the points system has come in for previous criticism, as has the way buildings have been used after construction.

This is partially because press releases for LEED buildings often catalogue a raft of internal energy-efficient technologies which form the basis for the award of the certificate. To complain about LEED could also dent many emerging energy-saving technologies which sometimes struggle to generate much interest on their own but gain a better collective spotlight through the LEED certification.

However, this latest challenge is less about the imperfections of measuring ‘green’ and more about a process which is open to abuse. Whilst some commentators believe the case is destined to failure, only time will tell whether LEED certification announcements continue to command quite such high profiles in the green media.

Related posts:

1. UK Budget 2011 - What’s Green And What’s Greenwash
2. Carbon Trust Awards 100th Standard To HSBC; Doubles Assessment Staff

Such nefarious plans to subjugate the world or universe into eternal subservience tend to need the deployment of vast amounts of power not generally available on the national grid, and an approach to energy efficiency with a clear understanding of the business/armageddon case it lower energy use. Darth Vader doesn’t leave the television on all day, since he might need to blow up a planet at a moment’s notice (that, and hunting Jedi/ruling the universe requires the sort of drive and determination which doesn’t lend itself to watching daytime chat shows).

So below are five films in which the powers of darkness go green before being thwarted by the pesky energy-intensive do-gooders…

1) Geothermal power - Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

Evil super-villains have a long and glorious history of situating their secret evil bases in the bowels of a volcano, and Austin Powers’ nemesis Dr Evil is no different. As well as the obvious diabolical potential of fresh on-site liquid hot magma, the volcano provides central heating during the cold winter months and a limitless supply of energy to power the various time machines, space rockets and lasers which Dr Evil requires to defeat the British super-spy and extort billions rather than trillions from the worlds’ leaders.

There’s an extra special benefit of geothermal power to the budding global dictator. Don’t want to have your remote evil supervillain hideaway to be given away by giant cooling towers, wind turbines or tidal barrages? Geothermal power is the choice of all supervillain ninjas - it can be made comparatively invisible more easily than other power sources except ocean-floor tidal generators. However, given the fact that Dr Evil had his face carved into the side of the volcano it can be surmised that secrecy what not the over-riding factor in his choice of evil lair.

2) Hydroelectric power - X-Men 2

Note to governments - do not leave old power plants abandoned, since they provide fantastic bases for evil supervillains with their ready-made energy-generating capacities. General William Stryker and his Weapon X project are to be found holed up in the abandoned hydroelectric power station at Alkali Lake, where they are able to use the sluice gate as a secret entrance as well as being able to generate power for their experiments on mutant-kind, including the manipulation of adamantium.

3) Solar power - The Man With The Golden Gun

If there’s one good guy responsible for destroying more potentially world-saving technology than any other, then it’s James Bond. In The Man With The Golden Gun, super-assassin Francisco Scaramanga has stolen an amazingly efficient solar power technology which could entirely remove the need for fossil fuels. Understanding the business case for clean technology, he aimed to sell the technology to the highest bidder - namely the Gulf States who would be blackmailed into removing the unwelcome competition against their oil. Scaramanga also harnessed the power into an powerful solar gun - clean, green and mean all at once. However, rather than rescuing the technology and liberating mankind from the clutches of fossil fuel dependancy, Bond manages to ensure that the dirty status quo continued by letting love interest Mary Goodnight tip a henchman into a pool of liquid helium, overloading the solar plant and destroying the island.

4) Intelligent lighting - The Incredibles

So you’re an evil super-villain with an army of well-equipped goons, flying machines, robot parrots and a waterfall-curtained uber-base. Trouble is, you’ve just got to add a psychotic super-hero-killing robot and a giant rocket to your roster to complete your evil plans and you need to make a little extra room in your power consumption for the new hardware.

Well, after an energy efficiency audit and a brief with his eco-consultant, Mr Incredible’s nemesis Syndrome decided to plump for some bare-bones lighting for his evil supervillain computer desk, along with occupancy sensors to only turn them on when in use. Full lighting was reserved only for intruder alarms, so the massive expanding-glue guns can hit their targets more accurately. How very practical.

5) Sustainable warfare - Starship Troopers

Sometimes it pays to steer away from the energy-intensive super-high-tech armies which most supervillains promote and go for something a little more organic and sustainable instead. The Arachnids of Klendathu display a low-carbon interstellar warfare capacity beyond the wildest dreams of the US armed forces, which are currently exploring just about every green trick under the sun in an effort to decouple their dependence upon strategically risky fuel sources.

The pesky Arachnids, led by their evil supervillain ‘brain bugs’ boast formidable natural infantry and air force capabilities, but it is the giant weapon-platform beetles with flame-throwing heads which boast the biggest punch. Their ability to shoot giant bursts of plasma from their behinds enables them not only to shoot down enemy spacecraft, but to blast huge colonisation asteroids across space too. Interstellar imperialism without a sniff of oil, coal or gas, thereby minimising logistical support and deployment costs. Evil geniuses with a penchant for genetic modification take note; villains aiming for technological supremacy beware!

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As shown by this website recently based on current market prices, LED lighting is more expensive than CFL light bulbs across the (proposed) lifetime of the bulbs, with energy usage between the two almost identical. However, carbon footprints are not the be-all-and-end-all of environmental concerns, and the mercury content of CFL light bulbs continues to be a primary concern for many potential purchasers, especially in Europe where traditional incandescent bulbs are being banned.

Supporters of CFL light bulbs will doubtless start to cite new research from the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology which declares that CFLs have less of an environmental impact than halogen lamps, incandescent bulbs and fluorescent tubes. The researchers completed life-cycle analyses for the four types of lighting and found that, when all factors from cradle to grave are considered, CFLs leave a smaller environmental footprint than the alternatives.

However, the summary press information of the conclusions leaves a lot to be desired. In particular, it claims that the mercury in a CFL should be ignored upon disposal because the majority of mercury in the environment comes from fossil fuel power stations. This is like excusing leaving the lights on because the television uses more energy.

Not only that, though, but the numbers that are presented are deliberately misleading in an effort to make the impact seem more insignificant: the conclusion designed to grab attention and headlines is that “a coal fired power station emits the same quantity of mercury every hour as is contained in 8400 to 9000 energy saving lamps”. This is calculated from a power station emitting 0.042-0.045 milligrams of mercury for every kilowatt-hour of energy it produces, and from the fact that since 2005 compact fluorescent lamps sold in Europe may contain a maximum of only 5mg of mercury.

However, these figures can easily be looked at another way. The report cites an average lifetime for CFLs of around 10,000 hours, so the 40W-equivalent CFL bulb used in the LED-CFL financial comparison which drew 9W of power would use 90kWh over it’s lifetime. Even if the bulb was then used in Australia, which is supplied a stomach-churning 80% of it’s energy from coal power stations, then it would only be responsible for another 3-3.2mg of mercury. Most other countries have a lower level of coal power usage than that making the comparison worse still.

The report fails therefore to encourage proper disposal of CFL light bulbs in order to prevent the mercury entering the environment, instead promoting a nonchalant approach of “well, coal’s a bigger problem”. All electrical goods should be recycled/disposed of properly since all contain potentially harmful components, and LED lighting is no exception.

LED lighting was the elephant in the room with regards to this report. The most important comparison to make at the moment is between CFL and LED technologies since they are both vying for the energy-saving eco-crown at the moment, and at first glance the omission of LED lighting from the research would seem ludicrous.

The problem lies with a lack of understanding of the full environmental costs of LED lighting, however. Whilst the materials-, energy- and water-intensive manufacture of LED lighting’s semiconductor components is understood (if under-reported) and the energy efficiency laudable, the lifetime of LED lighting is often hotly disputed and the consequences of improper disposal is totally unknown, making a proper comparison with other lighting technologies currently impossible.

Therein lies a real difference between CFL and LED bulbs. The dangers and consequences of mercury in the environment is something which the public - especially in the USA - has a tangible understanding of, and so CFL bulbs have a massive PR issue. However, the effects of the breakdown of LED semiconductors made from gallium, arsenic, indium etc is unknown and unfortunately encourages a complacency with the possible repercussions. In this argument, the LED better-the-devil-you-don’t-know scenario is often most persuasive to the public, especially for environmentalists who have campaigned against mercury levels previously. By comparison e-waste danger, especially in Asian communities paid to recycle components involving combinations of powerful acids and heavy metals in their own back yards, is a fight that a few are only just starting to take on.

There is also a NIMBYism issue here too: at a time when the West consumes at the price of the developing world’s environment, and companies have incentives to outsource their emissions to less regulated nations, outsourcing the developed world’s waste is a natural companion to the globalisation of pollution.

Irrespective of what could happen to either technology in landfills, the best way forward is to establish effective recycling systems for light bulbs. The same would be practical for incandescents too - the hidden blessing of their retirement is a protection for our dwindling stocks of tungsten.

Image of a street mercury clean-up operation by Massachusetts Dept. of Environmental Protection @ Flickr

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