The Eco Elise - utilizing hemp, solar power & a whole lot more.

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The new Lotus Eco Elise makes its official debut at the London Motor Show today. See BBC video.

The Eco Elise uses a host of sustainable materials to make up the body and trim, including hemp, “eco wool,” sisal and a new high-tech, water-based paint that can be applied by hand. It’s fitted with a set of flexible solar panels on the hard top to help power the electrical systems, reducing the drain on the engine and improving efficiency. There is a new green shift light on the instrument panel that assists drivers in maximizing fuel efficiency.

All of these elements reduce the Eco Elise’s footprint throughout its lifecycle, limit the amount of energy used during production. Lotus looked to reduce the car’s environmental impact by focusing on how it is made as well as how it performs:

Process:

1. Creating cleaner manufacturing processes
2. Using sustainable materials
3. Reducing carbon impact of logistics

Performance:

1. Developing renewable energy generation
2. Promoting efficient driving techniques
3. Reducing vehicle weight to improve fuel efficiency

Mike Kimberley, CEO of Group Lotus plc commented “This Eco Elise is a great example of the advanced and affordable green technologies Lotus is developing. We are at the cutting edge of environmental technology and are determined to push forward with our green agenda.

Dramatic improvements to the culture and operations at Lotus has rewarded the company with staggering reductions in energy (Electricity 14%, Gas 30%) and water (11%) consumed across the Hethel headquarters in 2007, compared to 2006. These advances have coincided with improvements in recycling, with 57% of waste product now being recycled.

Are the CPRE destroying village life?

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Young couples are being forced to move away from the country to buy houses, turning villages into virtual ghettos of the very rich and the elderly without the families needed to keep schools and shops alive, according to the report from the National Housing Federation. It found the gap between local earnings and property prices had worsened in key rural districts over the last six years.

Its findings will be backed this week by a report from the Liberal Democrat MP Matthew Taylor on rural housing, commissioned by Gordon Brown.

More housing needed

We protect villages from almost any development because people want to be able to buy a little house that will still have a view of green fields in 20 years,’ he said. ‘But the villages that are being protected from development are actually being killed, because the people who sustain them - tend the fields, keep the shop running, open the pub every day - can’t afford to live there. The risk is that they are being turned into gated communities.’

Taylor’s report, published this Wednesday, will recommend that councils be encouraged to use existing powers to grant exceptional permission for building in villages to create affordable homes, covenanted so that they could only be sold on to local workers, with their price capped so they would remain affordable for generations.

Limit second home owners

He will also recommend that buyers in Britain’s national parks, in villages where services are deemed to be at risk because of a high proportion of weekenders, be required to seek planning permission if they want to ‘convert’ a house from a main residence into a second homes. That would allow councils to insist effectively that houses must be lived in full time.

Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE)

The CPRE are well known for leading the campaign against further house building on England’s green and pleasant land. They call for the use of brown field land to meet the needs of new build but, we all know this isn’t realistic. There’s simply not enough of it.

The CPRE have shot themselves in the foot. Their campaign, designed to protect rural England and its quaint little villages, has ended up exacerbating the problem. With not enough affordable housing the very people who run such places are being forced out.

The CPRE appear to have perpetuated a crisis in rural England.

Contract Electric Car

Photograph: EPA via the Independent

It seems that Gordon Brown is coming over all credible with his green attitude.  He is “embracing the electric car revolution” and plans to encourage the car industry to mass-produce electrically powered cars, right here in the UK.  

From today’s Independent . . .

He will meet manufacturers this week to try to persuade them to mass-produce electric cars, and is considering a remarkable plan to sell the cars cheap, together with their fuel, that is modelled on mobile-phone contracts.

So as with contract mobile phones, the idea is that you’d get a free car but would be signed up to a maximum mileage.  Well it seems feasible enough to me.  Maybe they will have a pay-as-you-go scheme too but you wouldn’t get your free car.  And also, perhaps it needs to be extended further to include vans and motor bikes (is it possible to include certain types of light aircraft or am I going beyond the realms of realistic possiblity?). 

If this thing took off (and according to the article, Denmark and Israel are already ahead in this) we’d get drastically reduced co2 which, needless to say, will benefit the whole planet.  And we’d have cheaper car costs which will be a definite vote-winner.  And Britain once again gets to produce something which is definitely on the upside seeing as how our days of industry and manufacturing have been on the decline for decades.  

Well I’m liking the idea.  It sounds like an ideal solution but it won’t be without its critics.  As the article states, the electricity needed to power the vehicles will have to come from renewable energy or the whole thing might end up being counterproductive.  Also, the oil giants might try to put their squeezers on it.  And it certainly won’t solve the problem of congestion on our small and increasingly-cramped British Isle. 

But the benefits should surely outweigh those little niggles.  It’s worth supporting, I think.

Ikea’s trailer bikes for customer use.

Introduced by Ikea Denmark for use by their customers. They noticed from a survey that 20 percent of its customers arrived by bike so a Ikea store in Copenhagen has just introduced this trailer shown in the image.

A sizeable deposit & insurance premium is necessary before use. See this site for more detail.

Aren’t those Danes so good with their cycling.

Farmers want your human waste.

The BBC radio 4 programme, Farming Today says that farmers are using increasing amounts of human waste to fertilise their crops, as the cost of conventional fertiliser - which is closely linked to the price of oil - has shot up over the past year.

Water companies are trying to get rid of their treated sewage as they are no longer allowed to dump it into the sea. The farmers are taking all they can get. This practice is regulated under the The Sludge (Use in Agriculture) Regulations 1989.

China and Japan have long traditions of re-using human waste as fertilizer. In England, as recently as the 19th century, “nightmen” would take human waste from backyards to sell to farmers.

Approximately 1.3M tonnes of sewage sludge (dry solids) was produced in 2006. The processes used for treating domestic effluent in septic tanks also produce an organic sludge. For both, the options for use or disposal are mostly restricted to treatment, followed by either:

• use as a soil conditioner (biosolids)
• incineration
• landfill

Defra and UK Water Industry Research carried out what are referred to as the long-term sludge experiments, from 1994 to 2005, examine the effects of heavy metals from sewage sludge on soil micro-organisms. The Environment Agency has the following roles;

• enforce the Sludge (Use in Agriculture) Regulations 1998
• inspect water companies sludge registers every year
• carry out farm inspections to make sure the sludge is being applied in accordance with the regulations and with the Code of Practice for the Agricultural Use of Sewage Sludge

So, you see it’s well controlled and smart use of your personal resource. Next time you plop a potato onto your dinner plate be proud of that personal contribution you’ve made to UK farming today.

Recycling electronics - it’s the law!

 

EU States are to minimise the disposal of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) as unsorted municipal waste and are to set up separate collection systems for WEEE. In the case of electrical and electronic waste, Member States are to ensure that, as from 13 August 2005:

• final holders and distributors can return such waste free of charge;
• distributors of new products ensure that waste of the same type of equipment can be returned to them free of charge on a one-to-one basis;
• producers are allowed to set up and operate individual or collective take-back systems;
• the return of contaminated waste presenting a risk to the health and safety of personnel may be refused.

Producers must make provision for the collection of waste which is not from private households. Member States must ensure that all waste electrical and electronic equipment is transported to authorised treatment facilities.

This Directive applies to the following categories of electrical and electronic equipment:

• large and small household appliances;
• IT and telecommunications equipment;
• consumer equipment;
• lighting equipment;
• electrical and electronic tools (with the exception of large-scale stationary industrial tools);
• toys, leisure and sports equipment;
• medical devices (with the exception of implanted and infected products);
• monitoring and control instruments;
• automatic dispensers.

When a producer places a product on the market, he must furnish a guarantee concerning the financing of the management of his waste.

Ring your council’s main switchboard number and ask for your local recycling centre that specifically accepts electronic waste.

More on WEEE compliance here.

UK nuclear clean up deal goes to Amec & partners.

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A consortium including Amec, the British engineering group, Areva of France and Washington Division of the US have won a £6.75 billion contract to clean up Sellafield. The consortium is called Nuclear Management Partners (NMP).

Bob Pedde, of Washington Division, part of the URS Corporation, the construction and engineering group, will head the consortium that is set to take over day-to-day management of Sellafield in November.

“The contract is designed to last for 17 years in five-year increments and we intend to be there for the long term,” he said. The The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said that the contract is worth £1.3 billion a year, plus annual fees of £50 million.

News that the nuclear power station developer Areva will be involved in Sellafield in the long term has increased speculation that the site in Cumbria will become home to one of the UK’s new generation of nuclear power stations. Areva works closely with EDF, the French energy giant, which has been considering Sellafield as a potential site.

Greenpeace expressed concerns, “Not only could this contract be worth £22 billion of taxpayers’ money, they have also waived the insurance indemnity meaning that public money could be used to sort out any accidents that occur on site.”

NMP now finds itself in the throes of a dispute with Sellafield’s 10,000 workers. After months of negotiations, the employees have rejected a 2 per cent pay settlement and will ballot on industrial action this month. They are expected to vote for a strike, which would shut down the plant for up to a week.

The clean up is expected to take up to 100 years. A child born today will die a good old age with the Sellafield clean up still on the political, environmental & energy agenda.

Recycle your old mobile … for cash or charity.

The average life of a mobile before it falls foul of fashion and technology trends? ; 18mths. The old mobiles need to go somewhere. Here’s what to do;

(1). Get cash for your phone from envirofone . Find your mobile on their site, request an envelope, send it in and then they aim to send out your cheque within 7 days.

(2). Send your mobile off to charity. Most charities will take your phone off you so check out your favourite charity. Here’s how Actionaid help you to recycle and contribute to charity; Actionaid now use an outfit called Greensource Solutions.

It’s that simple!

Fuel cells - market opportunities

	NEW Opportunity Compact Atmospheric Pressure & Self Humidifying PEM Stacks for Automotive Applications
	NEW Opportunity Seeking Collaborative Partnerships to Develop our SOFC Technology for Auxiliary Power Applications
	NEW Opportunity State-of-the-art Luxury Grid Independent Uninterrupted Domestic Power for Asian Markets Combining Fuel Cell, Hydrogen & Renewable Energy Technologies
	NEW Opportunity Hydrogen Fuel Cell CHP Projects
	NEW Opportunity Steelworks Industry: An Opportunity for On Site Generation of Power from Waste Hydrogen without Combustion
	NEW Opportunity FCM Projects: Assistance Sourcing 400kW to 2.4 MW Onsite Fuel Cell Combined Heat/Cooling and Power Systems
	NEW Opportunity Renewable Hydrogen Fuel Cell Backup / Standby Power Projects in Developing Countries
	Opportunity Waste Ammonia? An Opportunity to Generate Electricity
	Opportunity Hydrogen Powered Fuel Cell Forklift/Materials Handling Vehicle Demonstration Projects

Just some of the business opportunities out there involving fuel cell technological development and application. If this is something you’re interested in visit Fuel Cell Markets.

As they themselves say, Fuel Cell Markets assists the commercialisation of Fuel Cell and Hydrogen technologies across all applications including portable power, backup power, stationary power, and transportation.

They aim to cover relevant news and information, business opportunities, products & services, companies and more.

The above gives the general public an idea of just how extensive development in fuel cells has become. They will certainly play an important part with more efficient energy distribution systems.

Pictures of strawbale buildings

The Strawbale Building website has a series of images showing the huge variety of buildings that have strawbales as part of their construction.

Some are out buildings, almost sheds. A few clearly show the jagged outline of the bales!

There are however some clean cut designs out there presenting homes that need not set off that nimby neighbour.

Take a peek. The site has useful advice as well.

The photo below is my personal favourite of an interior of a strawbale house, taken from this site, which tells you how to build with straw;