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Should we be looking beyond electricity in green car design?

Over the last few years, car manufacturers have been working away to create a viable alternative to a petrol-fuelled vehicle. The solution seemed to be the electric car.

Peugeot has recently announced that its electric car, the i0n, is due to go on sale in the UK by the end of the year. Nissan has created the concept car the Leaf, while Renault has been working on the futuristic Twizy concept car, which will soon be entering the virtual world of The Sims.

But behind the scenes researchers in Israel have been working on making hydrogen a viable competitor as an alternative to petrol.

Previous problems identified with hydrogen have been its flammable nature and the difficulty in storing the gas within a vehicle, as it requires large, heavy tanks.

The Israeli scientists believe that they have overcome one of these problems by creating much smaller and lightweight storage containers.

The gas would be stored in a series of very small glass tubes. Almost 400 of these tubes would then be bundled together to create an “array”, which is about the size of a drinking straw. Finally, 11,000 of these arrays would be place in the vehicle.

This would take up half the space and weigh half as much as other storage methods, yet still power the vehicle for 240 miles.

So does this mean that manufacturers will all start scrambling to create hydrogen powered cars? The answer is probably not.

Electric cars still have the upper hand when it comes to refuelling, as there is already a national grid established, meaning large amounts will not have to be laid out to create a charging infrastructure.

In addition, car makers will be looking at their profits and will be unwilling to dispose of all the equipment they invested in to produce electric cars before seeing a return.

Hydrogen fuel cells are also often used in electric vehicles to charge batteries and extend the distance they can travel without having to stop. The new research will mean that the two could be able to operate better hand in hand.

Car manufacturers will continue to look at the bottom line, and green enthusiasts will continue to look at the carbon footprint various fuels, but should they also be keeping one eye on hydrogen technology in the coming years?

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UK water use ‘worsening global crisis’

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News

The amount of water used to produce food and goods imported by developed countries is worsening water shortages in the developing world, a report says.

The report, focusing on the UK, says two-thirds of the water used to make UK imports is used outside its borders.

The Engineering the Future alliance of professional engineering bodies says this is unsustainable, given population growth and climate change.

It says countries such as the UK must help poorer nations curb water use.

“We must take account of how our water footprint is impacting on the rest of the world,” said Professor Roger Falconer, director of the Hydro-Environmental Research Centre at Cardiff University and a member of the report’s steering committee.

If the water crisis becomes critical, it will pose a serious threat to the UK’s future development
Professor Peter Guthrie

“If we are to prevent the ‘perfect storm’, urgent action is necessary.”

The term perfect storm was used last year by the UK government’s chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, to describe future shortages of energy, food and water.

Forecasts suggest that when the world’s population soars beyond 8bn in 20 years time, the global demand for food and energy will jump by 50%, with the need for fresh water rising by 30%.

But developing countries are already using significant proportions of their water to grow food and produce goods for consumption in the West, the report says.

“The burgeoning demand from developed countries is putting severe pressure on areas that are already short of water,” said Professor Peter Guthrie, head of the Centre for Sustainable Development at Cambridge University, who chaired the steering group.

“If the water crisis becomes critical, it will pose a serious threat to the UK’s future development because of the impact it would have on our access to vital resources.”

Key to the report is the concept of “embedded water” – the water used to grow food and make things.

Embedded in a pint of beer, for example, is about 130 pints (74 litres) of water – the total amount needed to grow the ingredients and run all the processes that make the pint of beer.

A cup of coffee embeds about 140 litres (246 pints) of water, a cotton T-shirt about 2,000 litres, and a kilogram of steak 15,000 litres.

Using this methodology, UK consumers see only about 3% of the water usage they are responsible for.

The average UK consumer uses about 150 litres per day, the size of a large bath.

Ten times as much is embedded in the British-made goods bought by the average UK consumer; but that represents only about one-third of the total water embedded in all the average consumer’s food and goods, with the remainder coming from imports.

The UK is not unique in this – the same pattern is seen in most developed countries.

The engineering institutions say it means nations such as the UK have a duty to help curb water use in the developing world, where about one billion people already do not have sufficient access to clean drinking water.

UK-funded aid projects should have water conservation as a central tenet, the report recommends, while companies should examine their supply chains and reduce the water used in them.

This could lead to difficult questions being asked, such as whether it is right for the UK to import beans and flowers from water-stressed countries such as Kenya.

While growing crops such as these uses water, selling them brings foreign exchange into poor nations.

In the West, the report suggests, concerns over water could eventually lead to goods carrying a label denoting their embedded water content, in the same way as electrical goods now sport information about their energy consumption.

The Engineering the Future alliance includes the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) and the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM).

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Green policy: We need a seismic shift in thinking

Andy Atkins

The massive disruption to European air travel from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland is a stark reminder of the massive force of nature – and the powerlessness of our actions when we feel its full might.

It’s a timely reminder of the urgent need to heed warnings from the world’s leading climate scientists about the huge threat we face unless we slash greenhouse gas emissions and tackle global warming.

But despite widespread agreement among the main political parties that climate change is one of the biggest challenges we face, the issue has taken a back seat since Gordon Brown blew the general election whistle earlier this month.

Before the economic crisis took hold, all the main parties seemed to grasp the importance of making climate change a major issue.

David Cameron kicked off his party leadership by making the environment a leading priority, urging people to “vote blue, go green” in the runup to the 2006 council elections.

Nick Clegg told a 2008 climate rally that some were saying: “In a recession we can’t afford the luxury to worry about the planet … they are wrong, you are right.”

And at last year’s Copenhagen climate talks, Gordon Brown warned of the “economic catastrophe equivalent in this century to the impact of two world wars and the great depression in the last.”

Cross-party support in the last parliament led to the passing of the historic Climate Change Act. Championed by Friends of the Earth, this was the first national legislation anywhere in the world to set legally binding targets for cutting emissions.

All three parties have sizeable sections devoted to the environment in their manifestos, and these are certainly stronger and bolder than last time round. But none of them fully grasps the size of the environmental challenge we face.

There is little to choose between Labour and Conservative electoral pledges.

Perhaps most deplorable is the fact that neither includes a commitment to delivering the 42% reduction in greenhouse gases that the government’s key advisors – the committee on climate change – say is required by 2020. Labour hinted at it, but only if various international conditions are met, while the Conservatives don’t even have a 2020 target.

Labour are strong on making our homes more energy efficient, promising to improve 7 million homes through tougher standards for rented housing and a loans scheme for homeowners, with the aim that all lofts and cavity walls will be insulated by 2015. However, these laudable intentions are undermined by promises to widen motorways and build more runways.

A lack of detail permeates Conservative plans. How much money will its Green Investment Bank have? How big an impact will green government procurement plans have on the markets for eco products? And what emission standards will be set for new power stations? The promise to scrap airport expansion plans is welcome.

The Liberal Democrats have been most impressive – second only to the Green Party – in putting green issues at the heart of their policy proposals by including them on most pages and in every section of their manifesto.

The next UK parliament will be critical if the UK is to play its part in reducing emissions and seizing the enormous economic opportunities of developing a low-carbon future, which could deliver hundreds of thousands of new green jobs and business opportunities.

Strong leadership will be required from whichever party wins the election to ensure that the UK plays a fair role in tackling global warming. And this will be so much easier if they are supported by the other parties too. Climate change is too important to be a political football.

The starting point for the next government must be a far stronger target for cutting UK emissions – without buying carbon offsets from abroad.

Local carbon budgets should also be introduced for every local council. They have a crucial role to play in meeting our climate goals. And we need a new law to tackle the significant greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation caused by the UK’s dependence on imported feeds for livestock – which will also support better UK farming and domestic feed production.

And the next UK government must also play a prominent role in pushing for a strong and fair international agreement on cutting emissions where those responsible make the deepest cuts first, and developing countries are supported to grow in a clean, green way.

Aviation emissions have been reduced by the Icelandic volcano , but it’s also brought chaos, misery and frustration to tens of thousands of people. Cutting emissions and tackling climate change is essential – but this must be achieved through bold strategies, not volcanic activity.

It’s a seismic shift in political thinking that we desperately need.

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80 percent cuts in carbon emissions possible

Cutting Europe’s carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 is possible, but the continent must eradicate carbon-emitting power generation.

This is the conclusion of a new report by the European Climate Foundation, which states that an 80 percent cut on 1990 levels would require a move to an almost zero-carbon power supply.

In the short term, the cost of implementing these policies would be higher than conducting business as usual, but over the longer term it would not lead to higher energy prices, the document stated.

Matt Philips, a spokesman for the European Climate Foundation, said: “When the Roadmap 2050 project began it was assumed that high-renewable energy scenarios would be too unstable to provide sufficient reliability.”

It was also thought that they would be uneconomic and that major breakthroughs in technology would be needed to move in this direction.

“Roadmap 2050 has found all of these assertions to be untrue,” he said.

According to data from the European Commission, carbon emissions from companies covered by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme fell by 11.2 percent last year.

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Arctic winter ice recovers slightly despite record year low, scientists say

By Juliette Jowit – The Guardian

The melting Arctic ice cap recovered slightly over the last winter, but scientists warned that it was still one of the worst years on record.

The twice yearly figures published by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre of the winter high and summer low for the Arctic sea ice is seen as a powerful indicator of global warming.

Last night the US organisation released the data for the winter of 2009-10 showing the maximum extent reached on 31 March was 5.89m square miles (15.25m sq km). This was 250,000 square miles (650,000 sq km) below the 1979 to 2000 average for March when measurements are taken for winter sea ice. The rate of decline for March over the 1978 to 2010 period is 2.6% per decade, according to NSIDC data. Arctic sea ice reflects sunlight, keeping the polar regions cool and moderating global climate.

NSIDC said there had been some recovery in the amount of ice that was two years old or more, from last year’s previous record low.

However, the spread of the ice, though higher than in some recent very bad years, was still low compared to past decades. “I think it’s the sixth or seventh lowest maximum out of the previous 32 years,” said Walt Meier, a research scientist at NSIDC.

Looking ahead to the other key annual figure – the lowest extent of sea ice at the end of the summer melting season – Meier said this year was also expected to be historically low, depending on temperatures and winds which blow the ice around, and sometimes out of the Arctic Sea into the warmer Atlantic and Pacific currents.

“I would say [it's going to be] low, perhaps one of the lowest, but not approaching 2007,” said Meier, referring to the record lows that year when the Arctic lost an area of ice the size of Alaska in one year. “Given the amount of thin ice we know we’re going to be low, it’s just a matter of how low.”

Last month, Japanese scientists reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters that winds rather than climate change had been responsible for around one-third of the steep downward trend in sea ice extent in the region since 1979. The study did not question global warming is also melting ice in the Arctic, but it could raise doubts about high-profile claims that the region has passed a climate “tipping point” that could see ice loss sharply accelerate in coming years.

Last week the Catlin Arctic Survey leader Ann Daniels wrote for the Guardian about the ice seen by the team of three explorers trekking across the Arctic in “incredibly strong north winds” to measure ocean acidification linked to greenhouse gases. “We’ve also been seeing vast areas of open water and very thin ice — it’s the first time any of us have experienced anything quite like this on such a large scale,” wrote Daniels. “The way the ice is behaving is simply the strangest we have ever seen.”

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Solar-powered plane completes first test flight

A new solar-powered plane took to the skies in Switzerland this week as its manufacturers examined its flight behaviour.

The Solar Impulse has the wingspan of a Boeing 747 yet weighs the same as a small car and features four propellers which help to lift it off the ground.   These are powered using solar cells attached to the plane’s wings.

Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard is part of the team responsible for the aircraft and he hopes to fly it around the world in 2012.  He said it was important to determine how the prototype would fly and whether it would be able to keep a straight trajectory.

“To fly without fuel, we have to make it fly in line,” he told the Associated Press.  Witnesses said the flight was successful, with the plane enjoying a smooth take-off and landing.

According to government statistics, air travel accounted for 6.4 percent of the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2006.

Forecasts suggest they could make up around ten percent by 2020 unless action is taken to reduce them.

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Government announces low-carbon transport funding

The UK government has announced the launch of a £30 million fund to help reduce transport emissions and improve air quality in major cities.

It will deliver low-carbon buses across England, with local authorities and bus operators being given the chance to bid for additional funds to buy more vehicles.

Some £3.5 million will also be set aside to support increases in the use of biogas to power cars, buses and homes.

Biogas is produced from waste material and the government believes it can play a crucial role in helping the country meet its carbon reduction targets.

“These measures will not only help us to reduce emissions but also provide a sustainable and economically viable alternative to traditional carbon-based transport,” said transport secretary Andrew Adonis.

The announcement follows the publication of a report by the House of Commons environmental audit committee, which claimed that air pollution contributes to the early deaths of around 50,000 people in the UK each year.

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Green Alliance: Budget makes way for low carbon economy

Chancellor Alistair Darling’s establishment of a new green investment bank is a “very good starting point” for the UK to become a low carbon economy.

This is the view of Chris Hewitt, associate of environmental organisation Green Alliance, which comes after the announcement of a £2 billion green investment bank during Mr Darling’s Budget last week.

“Two billion [pounds] won’t transform our economy to a low carbon one but it is a very good starting point and it gives us a basis on which to raise more capital in the future,” commented Mr Hewitt.

Funds from the bank will focus on green transport and sustainable energy including offshore wind power.

As for the future, Mr Hewitt added: “We will be doing a lot more work on environmental taxation after the election and we would be looking for the next Budget, whenever it comes, to look at much more fundamental measures like that.”

However he explained that for the pre-election Budget, the Green Alliance had hoped for the creation of a green investment bank, which the government has delivered.

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UK must help homes adapt to climate change, MPs say

Programme to “retrofit” homes with measures to make them more energy and water efficient and resilient to flooding is needed to help households cope with climate change, MPs said today.

The environmental audit committee also warned that new housing developments should only get planning approval if they are designed to suit future changes in the climate, as part of efforts to make sure the UK adapts to rising temperatures.

And there needs to be greater focus on “green infrastructure” including water storage, more trees and more open spaces which can tackle flash flooding and hot city summers, the committee said.

A report by the committee of MPs warned efforts to adapt to a changing climate needed to be as much of a priority as cutting the greenhouse gas emissions which cause global warming.

The UK is already locked in to a rise in temperature, and is expected to experience wetter winters, drier summers and a higher likelihood of heatwaves, storms and flooding.

To maintain current levels of flood protection will require real terms spending on defences to increase from around £600m a year now to £1bn in 2035.

And by the end of the century some £7bn may be needed to improve the Thames barrier and tidal defences.

The committee called on the government to ensure there was a coherent approach to adaptation that involves all Whitehall departments and helps local communities tackle the risks posed by climate change.

The government should also be clear how it is going to help those worst affected by climate change – for example those whose homes face the risk of coastal erosion.

Tim Yeo, chairman of the committee, said: “For a long time the climate change debate has focused on reducing carbon emissions, but adapting to the inevitable impacts of rising global temperatures is equally critical.

“Even if all the world’s power stations were switched off tomorrow, past emissions mean that some climate change will still take place and we will face more floods, droughts and heat waves.”

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Forest loss slows, as China plants and Brazil preserves

The world’s net rate of forest loss has slowed markedly in the last decade, with less logging in the Amazon and China planting trees on a grand scale.

Yet forests continue to be lost at “an alarming rate” in some countries, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Its Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010 finds the loss of tree cover is most acute in Africa and South America. But Australia also suffered huge losses because of the recent drought.
“It is good news,” said the report’s co-ordinator Mette Loyche Wilkie, a senior forestry office with FAO.

The area of forests undisturbed by human activity continues to decrease, so countries must further strengthen their efforts to conserve and manage them
Eduardo Rojas, FAO

“This is the first time we’ve been able to say that the deforestation rate is going down across the world, and certainly when you look at the net rate that is certainly down.

“But the situation in some countries is still alarming,” she told BBC News.
The last decade saw forests being lost or converted at a rate of 13 million hectares per year, compared to 16 million hectares in the 1990s.
However, new forests were being planted to the tune of more than seven million hectares per year; so the net rate of loss since the year 2000 has been 5.2 million hectares per year, compared to 8.3 million in the 1990s.
Globally, forests now cover about 31% of the Earth’s land surface.

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