British Sea Power

The Guardian recently published an article about a new type of underwater tidal power electricity generator being developed by a team from Oxford University.

The new turbine will be around 60m by 10m and if sited in the right place around the coast could generate 12Mw of power - enough to supply energy for 12,000 homes.

A much better and less environmentally threatening idea than a barrage across the Severn?

The hurricane season

The Caribbean and the US are currently being threatened by a tightly packed series of hurricanes and tropical storms. New Orleans has just narrowly escaped a further catastrophe, but the current storms are still massing in the Gulf of Mexico.

A recently published paper in Nature by Professor Elsner concludes that warming oceans are driving stronger hurricanes. In a 2007 Nature paper he concluded that climate change was also increasing the frequency of hurricanes.

The recent hurricane even affected the Democratic Convention where one of the debating topics was the call for increased off shore oil drilling. Ironic in a week when the price of oil dropped significantly because the off shore drilling rigs already in operation in the Gulf of Mexico were spared damage by the hurricane.

Peak oil will cause dramatic oil price hikes - the increased frequency and intensity of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico will cause the same phenomena

Locals oppose wind farm on Bodmin Moor

150 people has attended a public meeting at Davidstowe on Bodmin Moor opposing a proposed wind farm. 20 125m turbines are planned making it the biggest windfarm in Cornwall.

Opponents say it will affect wildlife.

The problem is that climate change will affect wildlife too....

Each Briton uses 4,645 litres a day when hidden factors are included

The new report from WWF states that each UK citizen consumes over 4500 litres of water if hidden factors are taken into account. Conventional wisdom suggests that we (in the UK) use 150 litres a day - but this figures is 30 times too small if we take 'virtual' water into account.

Virtual water includes the amount of water used to produce the amount of water needed to produce imported goods we utilise. See the Guardian for further details.

Fred Pearce in his excellent book When the Rivers Run Dry covers this topics in some detail.

Our use of virtual / imported water mirrors our 'use' of of CO2 - we are an importing nation so we need to take account of our impact on water consumption and CO2 emissions in other nation nations around the world. The water used in producing oranges in Israel which we then consume in Britain are our problem. Likewise the CO2 emissions emitted manufacturing cars overseas and producing consumers goods, in say, China, are also our problem.

See the following WWF link for details of the report. The full report can also be download ed from here.

UK emissions have risen not fallen

The assumptions in the Kyoto Protocol used to calculate carbon emissions do not include emissions from air travel, shipping or goods imported into the UK for our consumption (so called embedded carbon) . Under the Kyoto agreement, according to the Government we have seen a 5% decrease in UK emissions since 1990.

However a new report from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) has recalculated UK emissions taking air, shipping and embedded carbon into account. When this is done emissions have risen by 18%.

This makes much more sense! The 5% cut was largely attributable to the switch from coal to gas in electricity generation. The 18% rise as measured by the SEI ties in neatly with our love of consumerism and cheap air travel.

Depressing OK, but at least now we can measures what the 80% cut in emissions required needs to be measured against.

Can Britain feed itself?

Excellent article from Land Magazine on this very topic - press here for a download.

This article is an update of paper written by Kenneth Melamby in 1975. It was published in the Land which is an excellent magazine.

A positive upbeat article - life under peak oil and climate change will be very different but we are not necessarily doomed!

Also see the Ecologist about how to feed ourselves organically

Don't let the GM lot fool you.

Peak oil theory in the main stream

New Scientist Magazine (28th June 2008) contains a six page article on peak oil and the consequences. Well worth a read. First time I have seen a peak oil in the 'main stream' opposed to green magazines.

When will it filter through into policy? Maybe government cant cope with climate change and peak oil at the same time?