David Cameron launched a challenge for Whitehall ministries: they are competing to slash the energy use in their departmental head quarters over the next month. Departmental progress will be revealed in an online league table that will be updated daily, at www.data.gov.uk

David Cameron said, “In May I called for real action to make us the greenest government ever. I made a commitment that over the next 12 months; central government departments would reduce their carbon emissions by 10 per cent. We have made a start but clearly we can all do much more to show leadership on this vital issue. So today is a clear challenge to cabinet ministers and an opportunity for the public to hold us to account.”

The departments are aiming to achieve a 10% saving over a longer timescale than a month. The Home Office has signed a ‘payment by results’ investment and performance contract with British Gas and facilities management specialist Amey to deliver energy saving solutions. There are a number of different ways in which they hope to save power and energy we will wait and find out how successful they will be.

Technology Strategy Board (TSB) will announce the results of the energy efficient Whitehall competition next month.

Last week, wind energy surpassed the 5GW energy generation mark, which is enough electricity to power 3 million homes for an entire year.

This landmark was achieved by the commissioning of 2 wind farm developments this month. The Vattenfall’s 300 MW Thanet offshore wind farm, which came on stream as of last week and the expansion of Fred Olsen Renewables’ Crystal Rig 200MW onshore wind farm in the Scottish Borders which was completed early September.

RenewableUK Chief Executive Maria McCaffery MBE, said last week: “Today’s developments are of tremendous significance for meeting our long term renewable energy targets.

“In 2002 the UK was generating around 2% of all electricity from renewable sources, we are now on the threshold of 10%, having increased outputs five fold.

“This demonstrates that, considering the current pipeline of projects, 2020 targets are realistic and achievable, provided the policies are in place.”

This is really beginning to seem like we may hit our targets regarding the Renewable Energy Strategy published in 2009, in which the Government outlined a scenario for the UK to reach around 30% of electricity from wind by 2020 in order to meet EU targets on reducing carbon emissions.

Birmingham City Council, which is the largest local authority in Europe, has had its motion passed to generate its own power.

On Tuesday 7 September the council passed a motion to develop a Green Energy Action Plan, which will look into government-backed plans for council to generate and sell their own power, through what is known as ‘feed in tariffs’.

This move will give authorities across England and Wales the ability to generate green electricity for their own use through solar panels and wind turbines, any surplus energy left can be sold directly to the national grid.

Birmingham’s deputy leader, Paul Tilsley presented the motion stating it would give the council the power to ‘take a leading role in tackling climate change’.

He added: “We currently spend in excess of £25million per annum on energy; the freedom to reduce this now exists and we should be maximising feed-in tariffs to their full potential.”

Birmingham has already proved it takes initiative when it comes to reducing carbon emissions, as it has three CHP schemes in the city which in total saves around 12,800 tonnes of CO2 per annum.

With the added financial incentive feed-in-tariffs provide for councils, there will be approximately £100 million per year across England and Wales.

Mr Tilsley added: “The development of micro generation facilities that can take advantage of feed-in tariffs is a further step on the road to reducing C02 emissions, cutting our energy bills and via the income generated, allowing us to invest the money in council services.”

After looking through some of the previous blogs I decided to write one that relates to how we can reduce the pollution in our cities and ultimately the global production of greenhouse gases. I came across several different methods in which a car can use hydrogen as a full or partial fuel and they all have there pro’s and cons.

The first is the more obvious and seemingly more popular one. The fuel cell has been around for a long time the principal was published in 1838 by Christian Friedrich Schönbein and was quickly taken up by Sir William Robert Grove, who in February 1839 invented the first fuel cell using very similar materials to the one’s we use today.

Cars today that use fuel cells have some catching up to do before they become a good replacement for the modern combustion engine. The efficiency of fuel cells has already been proven, between 2002 and 2007 several buses and taxi’s using fuel cells as a power source were driven around London. It is expected that by making the switch we could cut our greenhouse emissions by half.

Another option is using hydrogen as a direct fuel in other words replacing petrol and diesel with cars that burn hydrogen instead, you lose some of the efficiency from using a fuel cell but you get much more power (280hp) as apposed to the equivalent fuel cell (80hp). Right now it is unknown which one will win over but in the mean time it looks like the petrol and diesel engines will hang around till approximately 2030.

Another option which I recently found is instead of introducing fully hydrogen cars immediately, hydrogen can be generated on the go using only distilled water and electrolyte. While researching I came across a petrol/diesel and hydrogen hybrid system which can be attached to almost any car which still burns petrol/diesel but at a reduced rate. It does this by instead of burning air and fossil fuel it burns air, petrol/diesel, pure oxygen and hydrogen.

The system attaches directly to your air intake and tricks the car into thinking less air is going into the engine so the car then puts in less fuel. Hydrogen and oxygen produced from the hybrid system are fed into the engine through the air intake and the car benefits from burning a cleaner fuel along with a moderate power gain from burning a more volatile fuel and you the consumer don’t need to go to the petrol station as often. In some case studies, some cars are found to have gained an extra 20MPG just from using this system and some rumours say cars that are already efficient will gain a lot more.

After our recent blog regarding the state of London’s air quality, I thought I would find out how bad our problem is in relation to some places around the world.

In La Oroya, Peru, lead, copper, zinc and sulphur dioxide poisoning caused by heavy metal mining and processing is harming the world every day. Lead is seen as the biggest problem because of the effect it has on children. 99% of the children who live there have blood levels that excess acceptable limits and Neurologists at local hospitals state that even newborn children have high blood lead levels, inherited while still in the womb. A poly-metallic smelter seems to be the main problem which is owned by Missouri-based Doe Run Corporation. In 1999 a survey showed the World Health Organization (WHO) limit was triple what it’s supposed to be. Lead will continue to contaminate the environment for centuries to come. Activities are now underway to curtail emissions and clean up contamination.

Once a major Soviet industrial centre, Sumgayit, Azerbaijan, had more than 40 factories manufacturing industrial and agricultural chemicals. When fully operational 70-120,000 tonnes of harmful emissions were released annually. A continuing lack of pollution controls, dated technologies and the improper disposal and treatment of industrial waste are but a few of the problems that plague the city. Cancer cases in the area are 22-51% higher than the average in the rest of Azerbaijan and a high percentage of premature births and genetic defects are just a few of the symptoms the people there still face. Reports show only 20% of the Soviet Era factories are still operational and with the closure of the rest of them a matter of time, the biggest problem a head will be the clean up of the years of pollution and chemical waste left behind.

The last 2 big polluters, both come from China, the first is in Tianying, the city accounts for over 50% of China’s lead production. Due to poor technology, illegal operation and a lack of any proper legislation there is a severe lead poisoning crisis. The average lead concentration in both the air and soil is between 8-10 times higher than national standards, but in some cases can be as high as 24 times higher. The health impacts are vast, anything from lower IQ’s and stomach pains to kidney malfunction and brain damage. There have also been reports of numerous premature births and undeveloped infants.

Then onto Linfen, the heart of China’s enormous growing coal industry, China’s state Environment Protection Agency says that Linfen has the worst air pollution in the country, the World Bank says that 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are Chinese, which really is saying something about the state of this city. The reason for this is due to rapid development, ridiculous faith in the industry and the development of hundreds of unregulated coal mines, steel factories and refineries. All those factors have lead to growing cases of bronchitis, pneumonia, and lung cancer.

The headlines recently have been heavily dominated by the doom and gloom surrounding the inevitable cuts the Government are enforcing. I am happy to inform every one of some positive cuts; the Carbon Trust has shown that different kinds of cuts are being made by publicly-funded organisations.

Since 2001 the Carbon Trust has worked with a massive variety of public sector organisations from hospitals and schools to fire and police stations, from central government to local authority, nothing has escaped their notice.

From 2001, the 3,000 public organisations that been working with the Trust have together made savings of over £650m and also cut CO2 emissions by 6.5 million tones.

The Trust has already identified a number of other projects which will help save the environment as well as public money; they believe they could save up to £3bn and also help remove 34 million tones of CO2.

Richard Rugg, Head of Public Sector at the Carbon Trust, said:
“The UK public sector has shown impressive leadership in recent years in tackling carbon emissions and bringing down energy use.

“It is especially encouraging to see that, along with greater levels of knowledge and skills, we are also seeing a steady increase in ambition.

“A few years ago, organisations graduating from our public sector carbon management programmes aimed, on average, to cut their carbon emissions by 12% over five years, now they are aiming for 30%.”

The target of our Olympics providing low-carbon energy from their waste by the 2012 games seems destined to fail.

The ODA’s sustainability policy was recently released and while the event looked like being on course in many key areas, the document does state that the progress on waste infrastructure has been slower than first expected.

The original policy spoke of the games being “a catalyst for new waste management infrastructure in East London and other regional venues” and spoke of the London Development Agency being able to “ensure that the Olympic Park infrastructure is able to deliver zero carbon heat and very low carbon energy by 2016 at the latest, but preferably by 2012…to supply fuel derived from organic waste combined with the renewable energy solutions provided by the ODA.”

This week has seen a major turn around, with the report saying it knew that the targets set would be ‘challenging’ and even put some of the blame on the waste industry itself.

The report also admits it is yet to know how waste from the games will be handled.

“As a result of the difficulties in managing waste in London and the failure of the waste industry to come up with credible schemes, we have seen little evidence of this happening,” it said.

“We are disappointed to report that the opportunity to do this in time for the games has been lost and that any project starting now would be unlikely to be completed and able to supply a reliable source of energy during the Games.

“This is due to a combination of factors including lack of clarity around roles and responsibilities, inadequate response from the waste industry leading to delays in developing and securing funding for projects through the London Waste and Recycling Board.”

Worries have been raised that amongst all the confusion of a Liberal-Conservative coalition, the fight against climate change may take a back seat on priorities. The new Government have already had different opinions on major talking points such as nuclear power, renewable energy, airport expansion and offshore oil drilling.

These worries have not been helped by the new Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne, who is one of the most senior Lib Dems in the Cabinet, conceding responsibility for civil nuclear energy policy to his Tory deputy, Charles Hendry, who will now submit any potential changes in legislation through Parliament.

Prime Minister, David Cameron pledged to make the coalition the “greenest government ever” and announced that all departments must cut their carbon emissions by at least 10 per cent.

Yet an investigation by The Independent on Sunday has found that, despite his commitment to “vote blue, go green”, there are many difference between the two parties across the board with relation to environmental issues.

More concerns were expressed after the Coalition agreement published last week, while they have agreed on a number of policies there have been no targets set explicitly for reducing carbon emissions.

There was a 6% difference between the Lib Dems and Conservative’s manifesto regarding UK emissions. Lib Dems pledged a 40% reduction with the conservative only committing to 34%.

The Coalition agreement supports “measure to encourage marine energy” – which is the Tories preference. The Lib Dems want an “energy mix” including 15,000 new wind turbines, the Tories are not happy about wind power and many of the leading Conservatives have opposed wind farms near their constituencies. Mr. Cameron has now decided he wants the market to decide what they feel is the best form of low-carbon technology.

While both parties are opposed to a third runway at Heathrow, the Tories haven’t ruled out the possibility of a new airport in the South-east.

The most worrying prospect, is that of offshore drilling, the Tories in the past have let it be known they support such ventures, they have committed to renew and extend exploration and exploitation of offshore oil reserves in the document “Rebuilding Security: Conservative Energy Policy for an Uncertain World”. The report also stated they hope to open the entire coastline of Britain to potential offshore drilling.

Andy Atkins, Friends of the Earth’s executive director, said: “The coalition Government must agree to cut UK emissions by at least 42 per cent by 2020. This is the minimum that scientific experts say is needed for this country to play its fair part in preventing dangerous climate change.”

Here at BuilderScrap we came across this funny video on YouTube, let us know what you think.

From everyone in the BuilderScrap office, we would like to wish our members and readers a very happy new year!  2010 has gotten off to an exciting and busy start already for us!  There is so much happening this year, here is just a taster of things to come! 

 Ecobuild 2010 – BuilderScrap will once again be exhibiting at Ecobuild.  Make sure to visit us on stand 448, as well as catching our seminar – details TBC!

Carbon Calculator – In conjunction with the Centre for Construction Innovation and Salford University, BuilderScrap is currently developing a carbon calculator to measure the amount of carbon our members are saving by using BuilderScrap to pass on their surplus building materials.  Launching Spring 2010 – watch this space!

The BuilderScrap Roadshow – The first BuilderScrap roadshow is scheduled for the North West Region in early Spring.  We are currently still in the planning stage, but details will be coming soon!  The Roadshows will give members and non members alike the opportunity to learn more about BuilderScrap and the concept of Reuse in the construction industry.

Continued Partnerships – Through 2010 and beyond, we plan to continue and grow our partnerships with influential and relevant organisations.  O2 are offering our members an exclusive promotion, and we are also working together with WRAP, BRE and Envirolink on a number of projects, to name but a few!

Team Expansion- We are delighted to be welcoming a new member of the BuilderScrap team in February, Mike Close.  Keep an eye out for his environmental blog posts!

This is just a taster of what’s coming up.  If you have any ideas or suggestions for BuilderScrap, please let us know!