A report from the Centre for Alternative Technology concludes that a massive expansion in offshore wind, a switch to electric vehicles and steps to halve household energy demand would make the country “zero-carbon” by the end of the next decade and without the need to rely on nuclear power.

The study said energy demand in buildings could be halved if changes such as; improved insulation, eliminating draughts and improving the efficiency of heating technology came in to effect.

It will need “whole house” refurbishment to upgrade energy efficiency and for new homes to be built from natural materials such as wood and straw to lock in carbon in an effort to cut overall emissions.

The report also said there should be a switch to electric vehicles, which would generate 50% less carbon dioxide than petrol or diesel cars.

As the grid is “decarbonised”, electrical vehicles will be even more environmentally friendly, however this will raise a huge demand for electricity, so, “smart charging” will be introduced in which they are charged up overnight when power demand is low – which will limit the extra pressure on the grid.

Domestic flights would be replaced with bus or rail travel, with fewer journeys taken overall.

Virgin racing and tyre recyclers Carbon Green have united in a move that could see top level motor racing becoming a little bit more environmentally friendly.

Both companies have announced the plans June 13 following Lewis Hamilton’s victory in the Canadian formula one race.

Carbon Green which is based in Canada, will become a sponsor of Virgin racing and Sir Richard Branson has declared it the ‘first truly green highly relevant’ deal in the sport.

The recycling firm transforms old tyres into useful products and Sir Richard hope the deal with make Virgin Racing more environmentally friendly.

Carbon Green has also opened its first tyre recycling plant in Canada, in south Ontario over the weekend.

Virgin Racing boss, Sir Richard, said: “I am delighted Virgin Racing is partnering with Carbon Green at their home country GP here in Montreal.

“I want Virgin Racing to drive the introduction of green technology into F1 and Carbon Green’s tire recycling company is, I believe, the first truly green and highly relevant sponsor in the sport and I hope only the first of many.

“I also want to congratulate Carbon Green on the announcement of their first production plant here in Canada.”

President of Carbon Green, John Novak, said: “We are thrilled to be in Montreal with our partner Virgin Racing, to witness the return of Formula one to Canada and Virgin’s inaugural race on Canadian soil.

“We have identified Canada as a world leader with very high standards of environmental practices which fits with our expansion plans for our unique proprietary technology that 100% recycles used tires into high grade commodities.

“We are therefore pleased to announce that we have chosen the southern Ontario region as the first location to launch our standardized plant roll-out in North America.”

In the Queen’s speech she spoke of a new era under the Coalition Government, a new dawn which will see a major change in the green initiative, which will allow more loans to enable house holds to invest in measure such as solar panels to help make their home more environmentally friendly.

The new Government wants to create a green investment bank which would loan individual household the money to invest in carbon-reducing measures which includes insulation.

The plan if introduced will be known as ‘pay as you save’, the idea is you will repay the loan using the money you save on your energy bills due to the changes you make. It was originally a Labour idea in which they intended to create a £2bn fund.

No figure has been confirmed as yet, Tories previously quoted £6,500 for every home and the Lib Dems suggest £10,000 maybe a more realistic number. Both will have to increase their quote if they are to reach the typical electricity generating solar scheme cost which is closer to £15,000. However their amounts would allow householders to invest in cheaper solar water heaters or a range of insulation measures.

The new energy bill may also contain measures to:

• Require energy companies to provide more information on energy bills in order to empower consumers and to ensure fair access to energy supplies.

• Regulate the carbon emissions from coal-fired power stations.

• Reform energy markets to deliver security of supply and ensure fair competition.

• Put in place a framework to guide the development of a smart grid that will revolutionise the management of supply and demand for electricity.

• Ensure that North Sea infrastructure is available to all companies to ease the exploitation of smaller and more difficult oil and gas fields.

Chris Huhne, the new energy and climate secretary said: “The Queen’s speech makes clear that energy security and taking real action to tackle climate change aren’t add-on extras for this new government, but are vital to our national interest.”

“The energy bill is designed to help consumers put a stop to wasting energy in their homes through a green deal while making sure our energy system is fit for the 21st-century.”

Paul King, chief executive of the UK Green Building Council, welcomed the focus on improving the energy efficiency of homes and buildings.

“The biggest barrier preventing home owners carrying out low carbon refurbishment is the upfront cost of the measures.”

“The ‘green deal’ will help overcome that problem by leveraging private sector investment – vitally important in this time of public sector spending cuts.”

He said legislation was needed to enable every home in the country to benefit from the pay-as-you-save scheme, which is already being piloted. He then went on to say “The legislation is also an opportunity to create a package of additional incentives that will encourage take-up of the green deal – and to bring forward a version of the scheme that will work for non-residential buildings”.

BuilderScrap welcomes any improvement and cost saving schemes for households and hope this will come into effect if or when the trial is deemed a success.

Deep in the heart of Pennsylvania, United States, there is a deep fire burning below the surface. This is coming from a coal fire that has been burning for a shocking 48 years and continues to burn on. Underground coal fires are almost impossible to contain and extinguish. Along with a vast amount of coal burning there are also large quantities of other green house gases like methane being released into the atmosphere. These fires can last for decades and decades.

Coal fires are considered to be a global catastrophe and rightly so. A town called Centralia, PA was once a coal mining town with a population of around 1,000, that has now sizzled down to a mere 9 people. The fire was started by the voluntary fire brigade in 1962 when they set fire to a rubbish dump as this was the way they dealt with waste (not exactly environmentally friendly), the fire wasn’t fully extinguished and spread through a hole in a rock pit and began to set fire to an abandoned underground coal mine. The most recent published report was on December 1st which confirmed the fire continues to burn to this day.

In 1981 the danger became all too apparent when a 12 year old boy fell into a sinkhole 42 meters deep that opened like the gates of hell beneath his very feet. Fortunately the boy was saved by his older cousin who managed to pull him from the mouth of the hole before he could fall to his inevitable death. After that traumatic event in 1984 the U.S congress gave more than $42 million to help relocate the town’s population.

The most shocking thing I found out whilst reading this article is that coal fires is quite common place all over the world. There are unwanted coal fires which continue to burn in the United States, South Africa, Australia, China and India. Coal fires around the world burn approximately 20 million tonnes of coal a year!

Fire fighters all over the world are fighting battles such as this every day, in these types of cases it’s the entire world that is losing with the destruction of our planet and the depletion of our resources. I just hope that these fires come to an end sooner rather than later.

So which is the most eco friendly pet to keep and which pets should come with an environmental hazard warning? I am looking at which pets are more environmentally friendly than others as well as investigating whether green options exist for pet owners.

As you might expect keeping a pet horse or cow is a little more carbon intensive than sharing your home with a hamster or a gerbil. Indeed keeping a hamster or gerbil is probably about as eco-friendly as a pet can be; they eat little; they are low maintenance and generally seem happiest exploring their cage for the zillionth time. Unfortunately other animals are far more environmentally damaging; horses take up too much space, dogs and cats consume large quantities of meat, and more unusual pets such as snakes, exotic fish and budgeries are often illegally trapped, removed from their natural habitats and transported long distances. Not environmentally sound.

Now I can take some moral high ground here, I am not a pet owner since my two gerbils departed earlier this year. To be honest I am generally not a fan of having pets in my home; don’t get me wrong I like animals but having them dependent on me… perhaps not. The gerbils were great though, minimal effort and great entertainment, usually much better than the slim offerings served up by my television.

In the UK by far the most popular pets are the dog (estimated at 31% of UK households) and the cat (26% of UK households) (BBC News 06/02/2010). According to Brenda Vale’s recent book “Time to Eat the Dog” keeping a cat was equivalent to driving a Volkswagen Golf 6000 miles a year, whilst the family dog could be even worse – similar to running a couple of gas guzzling 4×4’s (The Times Online 06/04/2010). I suspect that this statistic probably varies between a Chihuahua and a Great Dane however.

So how can the environmentally aware pet owner ensure that their favourite pet is not an ecological drain and what can they do about it? Most owners probably won’t consider eating said pet but they might want to try creating an environmentally friendly diet.  Many of the large pet food companies are now tapping into the ecological guilt of pet owners and are producing sustainable pet foods, so owners can be safe in the knowledge that their furry friend is not causing excessive damage to the natural world. Also on the market are eco friendly dog beds, pet septic tanks and durable toys.

I guess the current environmental awareness asks us to review every aspect of life to see where we can improve our environmental performance. I don’t suppose that anyone would realistically ask someone to give up their pet for the sake of reducing their carbon footprint, after all there are much worse things we can do for the environment. It does seem that it is now an option that pet owners can now choose from an increasing amount of greener options when it comes to buying pet supplies. This does of course open up another whole can of worms regarding the validity of eco branding but that can wait for another time.

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We all support our local suppliers… don’t we? Across the main surveys three statements about purchasing were presented to all respondents. They were asked to say how strongly they agreed or disagreed with each using a five-point scale (ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree). The findings are presented in Figure 8.

Around three-quarters (73%) of respondents agreed that they made an effort to buy things from local retailers and suppliers, while just 11% of respondents disagreed.

Half (50%) agreed that newer products are more environmentally-friendly compared with 15% who disagreed. Opinion was more divided when looking at whether respondents would be prepared to pay more for environmentally-friendly products. Just under half (46%) agreed that they would be prepared to pay more for environmentally-friendly products, while just under a third (31%) disagreed with this. There is no statistically significant difference between the 2007 and 2009 results – in 2007, 44% agreed with the statement while 29% disagreed with it.

Public atitudes and behaviours towards the environment – tracker survey.  Final Report to the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs; September 2009

Alex Thornton (2009). Public attitudes and behaviours towards the environment – tracker survey: A report to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. TNS. Defra, London.

This research was commissioned and funded by Defra. The views expressed reflect the research findings and the authors‟ interpretation; they do not necessarily reflect Defra policy or opinions.

Beliefs and attitudes towards the environment and knowledge of environmental terms

This looks at respondents‟ beliefs and attitudes towards the environment and knowledge of environmental terms. All attitudinal measures reported here were included in the main survey 3. Where possible, findings are compared with those from previous research carried out by Defra (2007) and the Energy Saving Trust (over a series of tracker surveys between 2006 and 2008).

Perceptions of own lifestyle

Respondents were asked two questions to establish how much they felt they were doing that was environmentally-friendly and how happy they were with the amount they were doing to help the environment. The results from these two questions are presented in Table 1 compared with the equivalent results from the 2007 Defra survey.

Perceptions of own lifestyle

At BuilderScrap.com we like this type of quantitative survey as.  The numbers suggest that respondents do think of themselves as environmentally friendly, but a tiny variable wish to do more to help than were recorded in 2007

What do you guys think?