post

What is the best communications protocol for Smart Grids?

by

Communications tower

Photo credit urbanfeel

One of the key tenets of a Smart Grid is that you have real-time, two-way communications between the consumer and the utility company. To enable this a communications infrastructure needs to be rolled out. Before that can happen though, we need to examine the different communications protocols to find the most suitable one.

I was talking to Andy Slater, the EMEA Marketing Director for Sensus, the other day. Sensus are the company providing the communications platform for UK-based Arqiva’s Smart Grid pilot in Reading [PDF]. And their proposed Smart Grid communications infrastructure for all of Britain. While, in North America Sensus have 8 million end points rolled out across 225 utilities.

The Sensus solution uses long range radio to communicate with smart meters. This allows Sensus to achieve a 99.5% first-time connection rate during installations, according to Slater. This is higher than most other technologies (GPRS, WiMax, etc.) and so saves a considerable amount of money by obviating the need for a second call out or re-engineering.

When I mentioned that Power Line Communications (PLC) would, by definition, have as close as possible to 100% first-time connectivity, Andy countered that that’s all well and good for electrical meters but the Sensus solution also works for gas and water meters. He then went on to point out that PLC requires far more repeaters to boost the signal and that it is not suitable for high voltage equipment.

The other advantage which Andy mentioned is that for gas and water meters which are not powered, battery life is going to be an issue. GPRS and mobile solutions require a lot of power and their battery life may be as short as 5 years whereas Andy claimed because the power requirement of long range radio is lower, the batteries in their meters could last up to 15 years, thereby reducing service calls to replace depleted batteries.

Listening to Andy, you could be forgiven for wondering why any utility would go with a communications protocol other than long-range radio – so can anyone enlighten me – what is the best communications protocol for Smart Grids?

You should follow me on twitter here.

post

Friday Green Numbers round-up 07/16/2010

by

Green Numbers

Photo credit XcBiker

And here are this week’s Green Numbers:

    Smart Grids

  • GE announces $200M Smart Grid challange

    GE wants to spark a revolution in the way we create and distribute electricity, and seizing on a critical underfunding of grid investments by the U.S. government (a paltry $3.4 billion) the 2nd largest company in the world (as ranked by Forbes) wants to do something about it.

    GE is partnering with four major venture capital firms, including Al Gore-advised Kleiner Perkins, to issue the $200 million challenge to “…businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators, and students to share their best ideas and come together to take on one of the world?s toughest challenges ? building the next-generation power grid to meet the needs of the 21st century.”

    tags: ge greennumbers electricity $200 million challenge smart grid

  • Smart Grid Spending To Plateau at $35 Billion in 3 Years

    The smart grid has been a lumbering but steady and inevitable presence in the utility industry, with a speedy uptake in the number of start-ups interested in creating everything from energy storage technology to user dashboards for home energy consumption and a somewhat slower uptake in the number of smart grid pilot projects popping up nationwide. Less than two years ago it was expected to grow to at least $65 billion by 2013. Cisco has identified at least $20 billion in potential business opportunities around the grid, which the company says will be bigger than the Internet, and $3.4 billion of stimulus money was to be dished out to 100 projects. So why the projection from Pike Research that the spending will top off at $35 billion by 2013?

    tags: greennumbers smart grid investments spending

  • Trilliant Raises $106 Million of Capital

    Trilliant Incorporated, a leader in delivering Smart Grid solutions that enhance energy efficiency, utility operations, and renewable resource integration, today announced that it has closed financing totaling $106 million from a global syndicate of industry and financial leaders.

    The financing round was led by two highly-respected financial investors, Investor Growth Capital (the wholly-owned venture arm of Investor AB of Sweden) and VantagePoint Venture Partners and two leading global grid-related equipment companies, ABB and GE. The financing, which was coordinated by Deutsche Bank, also includes a significant credit facility from a major venture credit provider as well as continuing financial support from existing investors MissionPoint Capital Partners and zouk ventures. The new investment will be used to finance Trilliant?s continued growth in North America and globally.

    tags: trilliant smart grid financing round investment greennumbers

    • Policy and Regulation:

  • Europe needs to reduce emissions by 30%

    An excellent article by the UK climate change secretary, German federal environment minister and French environment minister:
    Europe’s current focus on recovery from recession must not distract us from the question of what kind of economy we want to build. Unless we set our countries on a path to a sustainable low-carbon future, we will face continued uncertainty and significant costs from energy price volatility and a destabilising climate.\nThis is why we today set out our belief that the European Union should raise its emissions target. A reduction of 30 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020 would represent a real incentive for innovation and action in the international context. It would be a genuine attempt to restrict the rise in global temperatures to 2?C – the key climate danger threshold – stiffening the resolve of those already proposing ambitious action and encouraging those waiting in the wings. It would also make good business sense….

    tags: europe eu low carbon emissions 30% 20% carbon greennumbers

  • Cutting UK central Government carbon emissions by 10%

    “The new Coalition Government has pledged to be the ?greenest government ever? and has committed to reduce carbon emissions across the central Government estate by 10% within 12 months. Launched at the end of May, our Central Government Carbon Management Service is already working with twenty one Central Government bodies to help them meet this challenge.”

    tags: uk govt greennumbers central Government estate Central Government Carbon Management Service

  • China to Invest $3.7 Billion in Smart Grid this Year Alone

    The state-owned electric transmission company in China, State Grid, has moved forward with establishing a set of industry rules, standards and favored technologies for the growing smart grid industry in China. But the aggressive move to establish industry standards has competitors in the nascent smart grid sector a bit concerned.

    tags: china smart grid state grid greennumbers

    • Sustainability

  • The Seven Triads of Sustainability

    Seven ‘Triads of Sustainability’ – where seven issues (participation, decision-making, partnership, governance, knowledge and information, continual improvement, and lifestyles) leading to sustainability are explained in detail with case studies . These triads are key ingredients that define and drive sustainability, particularly at the local level.

    tags: sustainability triads Seven Triads of Sustainability greennumbers

  • Eurosif – European Sustainable Investment Forum Remuneration Report

    Eurosif partnered with EIRIS for the Remuneration theme report.

    Research highlights and recommendations for shareholders and regulators include:

    ?- 29% of FTSE Eurofirst300 listed companies have some commitment to linking remuneration to ESG performance ? although concerns exists around the extent to which performance targets are set as ?soft targets? thereby guaranteeing a minimum level of bonus
    ?- Financial institutions account for 23% of the FTSE Eurofirst300 index but only 16% of financial institutions have an ESG-linked remuneration system
    ?- Shareholders should engage with companies by voting against unacceptable remuneration packages and calling for and taking part in shareholder dialogue in determining remuneration policy,
    ?- Regulators should promote active dialogue between companies and shareholders by legislating for a binding ?say on pay? vote and setting appropriate guidelines to promote good remuneration practices and disclosure.

    The report examines critical challenges and opportunities for companies in relation to remuneration, incentives and long-term sustainability.

    tags: remuneration remuneration report eurofirst300 greennumbers

  • Accounting rules could force businesses to disclose environmental impact

    Companies could be asked to publish details of their environmental and social impacts alongside their financial accounts under new rules being discussed with the organisations that set accounting standards.

    News of the initiative ? which would mean that businesses have to account for the impacts they have on local water quality, plants and animals ? emerged as a major report for the UN is published today. It warns that companies are causing vast damage to the “living fabric of this planet”, raising threats to society and their own profits, but also that the business opportunities to make money from improving the environment are forecast to quadruple over the next decade.

    tags: environmental impacts social impacts csr corporate reporting greennumbers accounting standards

  • AT&T Rolls Out Its 2,000th Alternative Fuel Vehicle and 1,500th Compressed Natural Gas Vehicle in Its Corporate Fleet – Yahoo! Finance

    AT&T today announced the deployment of the 2,000th alternative fuel vehicle and 1,500th compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicle in its corporate vehicle fleet, giving it one of the largest CNG vehicle fleets in the U.S. These milestones are part of a $565 million planned investment announced in March 2009 to replace more than 15,000 fleet vehicles with alternative fuel models through 2018. Currently, the AT&T corporate fleet includes more than 75,900 vehicles.

    AT&T anticipates purchasing approximately 8,000 CNG vehicles over a five-year span, at an anticipated cost of $350 million. AT&T expects to spend an additional $215 million through 2018 to replace 7,100 fleet passenger cars with alternative fuel models. According to the Center for Automotive Research (CAR), AT&T’s alternative fuel vehicle initiative will:

    – Save 49 million gallons of gasoline over the 10-year deployment period.
    – Reduce carbon emissions by 211,000 metric tons ? the greenhouse gas equivalent of removing 147,929 passenger vehicles from the road for one year.

    tags: at&t att cng compressed natural gas vehicle fleet greennumbers

    • Renewables

  • Africa?s Largest Wind Farm Opens in Morocco

    Earlier this week, Morocco?s King Mohammed VI officially inaugurated a wind farm in the town of Melloussa.?? With 165 turbines and a production capacity of 140 megawatts, the farm is touted as Africa?s largest wind farm. Besides significantly reducing CO2 emissions, the farm is expected to save over 125,000 metric tons of oil annually.

    tags: morocco wind farm greennumbers

  • Germany targets switch to 100% renewables for its electricity by 2050 | Environment | The Guardian

    Germany could derive all of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2050 and become the world’s first major industrial nation to kick the fossil-fuel habit, the country’s Federal Environment Agency said today.

    The country already gets 16% of its electricity from wind, solar and other renewable sources ? three times’ higher than the level it had achieved 15 years ago.

    “A complete conversion to renewable energy by 2050 is possible from a technical and ecological point of view,” said Jochen Flasbarth, president of the Federal Environment Agency.

    “It’s a very realistic target based on technology that already exists ? it’s not a pie-in-the-sky prediction,” he said.

    tags: germany electricity renewable energy greennumbers fossil fuel

  • 10 Myths About The Gulf Oil Well Blowout And Offshore Drilling

    Is shutting down offshore drilling more risky than carrying on? What about jobs that real families depend on? Do we have to choose between dolphins and employment? What are the real issues in the Gulf? Here?s 10 Questions that were fielded by Andy Sharpless, the CEO of Oceana at a recent TedxOilSpill conference. We?ve let Andy speak in his own voice here unedited.

    tags: Andy Sharpless TedxOilSpill oilspill offshore drilling greennumbers

  • Gulf Oil Spill Investigation Now Includes Tens Of Thousands Of Abandoned Wells

    A lead congressional committee investigating the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has broadened its inquiry, now checking if tens of thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells are leaking or even being monitored for leaks.

    tags: salazar oilspill Gulf of Mexico oil wells gas wells abandoned oil wells greennumbers

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

You should follow me on twitter here.

post

Friday Green Numbers round-up 07/09/2010

by

Green Numbers

Photo credit trindade.joao

And here is this week’s Green numbers:

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

post

NightWatchman Server Edition v2.0 helps tackle virtual server sprawl

by

Grassy server room!

Photo via Tom Raftery

In a bid to help companies tackle server sprawl, 1E launched v2.0 of its NightWatchman Server Edition yesterday.

1E’s NightWatchman software comes in two flavours – the desktop edition to allow for central administration of the power management of laptops and desktops (including Macs) and the server edition.

The power consumption of desktop computers, which are often only used 8 hours a day, (and may need to be woken up once a month at 3am for an update) is relatively straightforward to manage. On the other hand, the power management of servers is quite a bit more complex. Servers are, by definition supposed to be accessible at all times, so you can’t shut them down, right?

Well, yes and no.

Not all servers are equal. Up to 15% of servers globally are powered on, and simply doing nothing. This equates to roughly $140 billion in power costs and produces 80 million tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Nightwatchman helps in a number of ways. First, its agent-based software quickly identifies servers whose CPU utilisation is is simply associated with its own management and maintenance processes (i.e. the server is unused). These servers can be decomissioned or repurposed.

NightWatchman goes further though and it uses its Drowsy Server technology to dynamically drop CPU and fan speeds on servers when they are not under pressure, and ramp them back up once more as soon as the server starts to be used. 1E estimates an average 12% energy savings per server due to Drowsy Server alone.

This latest release of NightWatchman Server Edition addresses virtualisation and virtual server sprawl.

Because virtualisation software vendors have made virtualisation such a trivial task there is now a growing issue of virtual server sprawl. NightWatchman v2.0 can now identify unused virtual servers to allow for them to be deleted or put to work freeing up server resources (and software licenses!).

Even more interesting though, is that 1E are publishing in the Customer Spotlight section of their blog, a series of posts from CSC detailing the journey of installing and using NightWatchman Server Edition within CSC to reduce energy consumption.

It is one thing to hear from the vendor just how good their product is. It is another thing completely to have someone like CSC detail the rollout of the software across their North American server infrastructure. This is a blog I will be following with interest.

You should follow me on twitter here.

post

Is daytime cleaning Green?

by

Daytime cleaning

Photo credit Senator Mark Warner

I have noticed several companies mention in their sustainability reports a shift to Daytime Cleaning and I wonder if this is a good thing.

On the face of it, daytime cleaning seems very obviously Green. The California EPA is saving $100,000 per year in energy costs by not having to light its headquarters by night for cleaning staff, for example.

However, by shifting cleaning services to daytime, you are also shifting the energy utilisation of the cleaning staff to the time of peak demand. At this time the electricity generation mix is at its dirtiest with all the fossil fuel generators in the mix. Adding demand during peak load is not a good thing.

During the evening/night however, energy demand falls and consequently at this time there is a higher percentage of renewables in the mix. As a result electricity consumed during off peak hours has a lower environmental impact.

It would depend from area to area and on the energy provider involved but shifting to daytime cleaning is not necessarily an environmentally sound practise and may, in fact do more harm than good.

You should follow me on twitter here.

post

Sustainability reporting in tech companies – the hardware vs software divide

by

Nature's fragility

Photo credit Koshyk

I wrote (and subsequently updated) a post a few weeks ago reviewing the Sustainability Reports of various companies in the technology space.

I updated the review again this afternoon (see the updated review below) with the 2009 reports from IBM, Adobe and SAS.

Something which struck me previously, and which hasn’t changed with the new rankings, is the yawning chasm in attitudes to sustainability reporting between hardware versus software companies.

Obviously this divide has a lot to do with risk – hardware companies who have significant manufacturing facilities, with massively complex supply chains, often containing toxic substances have far more exposure to risk than software companies.

This is reflected in the table below where eight of the top ten listings are hardware companies.

On the other hand, the bottom of the table is all software companies (with the exception of Apple – because they refuse to produce a sustainability report!).

The real odd one out though is the leader, SAP. Their sustainability reporting is out on its own. It is way ahead of any other organisation I have come across and this despite the fact that they are a software company!

One factor may be that they have a significantly European representation in senior management – they have a very different thought process when it comes to sustainability. SAP say they want to be an exemplar and an enabler – and, so far, they seem to be delivering on that.

None of the other software companies seem to take sustainability reporting anywhere nearly as seriously as the hardware companies.

Why do you think that is?

[table id=11 /]

You should follow me on twitter here.

post

Where is Adobe’s commitment to Sustainability?

by

Adobe

Photo credit midiman

I was extremely lucky to be given a tour of Adobe’s triple platinum LEED certified HQ in Palo Alto last year. I video’d highlights of the tour and posted them here. At the time I was extremely impressed with Adobe’s sustainability initiatives.

However, since then I have been more and more wondering if the building is a one-off and if Adobe has any significant commitment to Sustainability.

Why do I say this?

  1. Adobe’s 2009 CSR report, while slightly better than its 2008 report, it is still a triumph of style over content. There is no adherence to GRI reporting standards, no external audit and no mention of targets set or previous targets reached
  2. No-where on the Adobe site or in its CSR reports (that I could find) does it mention who in the organisation has responsibility for Sustainability. If no-one has overall responsibility for it, then we shouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t get done
  3. Adobe’s LiveCycle Enterprise Suite gets a passing mention in the 2009 CSR report when it says

    The United States Government Printing Office used Adobe? LiveCycle? and Adobe Acrobat? to generate, authenticate, and disseminate documents electronically, saving more than 20 tons of paper and $1 million over five years.

    Where are the white papers or case studies to back this up? Surely others are using LiveCycle and also saving paper. Why aren’t we hearing more about them? Similarly for Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro, and

  4. A more trivial example, but as I reported a few weeks back, Adobe charge more for downloadable, soft copies of their software, than they do for physical shipped product (which includes carbon associated with media, packaging and transportation)! This wouldn’t be allowed to happen in a company with any focus whatsoever on Sustainability. Software companies should be actively pushing customers to downloadable versions of their products

So, if a company of Adobe’s size and success can get away with such a passing regard for sustainability – are companies who take corporate responsibility seriously like SAP, BT and IBM wasting their time and energy?

You should follow me on twitter here.

post

Current Cost energy meter reviewed

by

CurrentCost Envi Energy Meter

Photo credit Tom Raftery

I emailed Chris Dalby of Current Cost a question about their devices a few weeks ago. Chris, not only answered my question but also offered to send me one of their energy monitors to try for myself!

I love my Current Cost Envi 128. It is incredibly straightforward to setup – even I could do it, despite living in an apartment complex with no access to the electricity meter. I had mine up and running within minutes of receiving the delivery (I attached the clamp to the wire going into the fuseboard)!

One of the really great things about the Current Cost energy meters is that they can be connected to a computer. This may not sound like a big deal but it means you can use software from the downloads page to chart your energy usage in real-time as well as for storing historical data. This allows for fascinating comparisons of energy use across different scenarios.

Recently Current Cost announced they were partnering with Google to allow Google’s PowerMeter software to be used with Current Cost meters.

Google PowerMeter

Google PowerMeter

The software for Google PowerMeter is available on the Current Cost site [after registration]. One disappointing aspect of the Powermeter software is that it is Windows only. Fortunately I have Windows installed (via Parallels) on my Mac so this wasn’t a major issue for me.

The biggest issue I came across with the Current Cost Envi and PowerMeter software is, if you want an accurate picture of your energy use, you need to leave your computer turned on running the PowerMeter software all the time! Obviously this is not very energy-efficient!

There is an historical data upload mode on the Envi. This allows you to upload data from the meter to the software in the case that the software wasn’t running (computer powered down, for example) but the historical data stored on the Envi is not at all granular, and worse, it overwrites the granular data which you had previously uploaded!

Current Cost say they are coming out with a Bridge device which will address this problem. Personally rather than forcing people into buying another device, I’d prefer if the software would simply not overwrite good data – that should be a simple software fix. The lack of granularity in the stored data is a tougher fix but I suspect could also be done via a software update of the Envi (while trading off the number of days’ data the Envi could store).

Apart from these niggles, I think the Current Cost energy meters are a superb way to visualise and track your energy consumption, something that is invaluable in helping to better manage your electricity usage.

I mentioned my concerns to Current Cost and asked for comment from them. As soon as they send me their comments, I will publish them here.

You should follow me on twitter here.

post

Living PlanIT brings sustainable urbanisation technologies to market

by

Construction

Photo credit billjacobus1

I had one of the most interesting calls of my RedMonk career last week. It was with Steve Lewis, CEO and co-founder of Living PlanIT (ignore the fact that they are using SilverLight on their homepage – that is prob because of Steve’s Microsoft background).

Living PlanIT are just coming out of stealth and have developed significant IP around sustainable urbanisation. To whit, as Steve explained to me on the call, up until now the construction industry was one of the final hold-outs in the technology revolution. There was very little by way of joined-up processes and consequently massive amounts of waste. Living PlanIT have created a new way of approaching construction projects which is technology led and will vastly reduce construction costs and footprints.

Living PlanIT haven’t just stopped there.

They have signed a letter of Intent with Cisco to work together to build a city in Paredes in northern Portugal on a 17 sq km site which house 225,000 people and will showcase, not just the company’s construction nous but also the city will be a sustainability showcase.

Cisco, as part of the agreement have committed to developing a global innovation center for sensor networks within the new city. They will also integrate tens of millions of sensors with Cisco’s network and computing platforms and integrate to demonstrate Cisco’s Smart+Connected Communities technologies and solutions at urban scale. This will be the ultimate test lab to develop technologies which can be quickly and easily deployed in other urban sustainability projects.

The city itself will run off renewable power and will generate 150% of its electricity needs. It will be importing waste from the surrounding towns and cities. The houses in the city will use 50-60% less electricity than comparable houses and 80% less water!

I asked Steve how they will achieve these kinds of savings and he told me they would be using a sensor network throughout the city – creating what he called an urban operating system. This is analogous, as Robert Eccles said, to a nervous system, which will make the city aware and able to respond quickly to events, minimising waste.

As an example, Steve mentioned that on average we waste 11 litres of water per day waiting for the shower to come to the right temperature. In the PlanIT Valley project in Portugal, water from the shower will only be delivered when it is the correct temperature, thereby in one swoop, saving 11 litres per person!

Renewables, storage (using ice, for example) and waste to energy will be used throughout so that the city will be importing waste from surrounding municipalities and exporting amino acid by-products for the pharmaceutical and food industries.

If they stopped right there Living PlanIT would be doing quite well.

However, with Steve’s background in the software industry, he wants to make this a platform! The idea being that Living PlanIT licenses its technology to other companies to quickly crank out new construction based on these principles.

Indeed, according to Steve, they already have inquiries for the development of another 30 cities and 16 other re-fits (including a recently announced agreement with Las Vegas)!

With projected population growth of 2-3bn, the world has to deliver between 9,500 and 10,000 new cities over the next 40 years to house everyone, so the scale of the opportunity is significant, to say the least. And, frankly, if these new cities are not developed sustainably, we are all in trouble!

Living PlanIT is no small project but if Steve and the guys can pull this off, it could change how the cities of tomorrow work. For good.

You should follow me on twitter here.

post

Friday Green Numbers round-up 06/25/2010

by

Green numbers

Photo credit Unhindered by Talent

And here is this week’s Green numbers:

  • Six Infrastructure Projects to Save 1.3 Billion Gallons of Water in Australia

    Australia is no stranger to tight water supplies, and fortunately that means smart water conservation strategies are being devised all the time. Australia is leading the way in everything from strategies to combat desertification to using renewable energy for desalination plants, and now it is putting that knowledge to work on six new infrastructure projects that can save 1.3 billion gallons of water.

    tags: greennumbers, australia, smart water, water conservation, desalination, renewable energy, desertification

  • Girls now begin puberty aged 9

    GROWING numbers of girls are reaching puberty before the age of 10, raising fears of increased sexual activity among a new generation of children.

    Scientists believe the phenomenon could be linked to obesity or exposure to chemicals in the food chain, and is putting girls at greater long-term risk of breast cancer.

    A study has revealed that breast development in a sample of 1,000 girls started at an average age of 9 years and 10 months ? an entire year earlier than when a similar cohort was examined in 1991.

    tags: greennumbers, girls, puberty, obesity, chemicals, food chain, breast cancer

  • Coal-fired power was the big loser in the economic downturn | Grist

    There’s some interesting new data out on recent shifts in electricity demand and consumption, courtesy of the DOE/EIA.

    In 2008, total U.S. power generation was 4.1 million GWh. In 2009, that fell by 4 percent, to 3.9 million. That’s a 4 percent reduction — clearly the result of the economic slowdown. Nothing surprising there.

    What’s interesting, though, is how generation shifted by fuel type. Over the same year, coal-fired power generation fell by 11 percent, from almost 2 million GWh to just under 1.8 million.

    tags: greennumbers, fuel, type, coal-fired power generation, coal, DOE, EIA, U.S. power generation, electricity demand, electricity consumption

  • New Microsoft App Can Cut PC Power Consumption By 80%

    Just how important is turning off computers at the end of the day in an office building? Very, if a company wants to save big bucks on electricity bills. According to UC San Diego researchers, 50-80% of a modern building’s electricity use goes to IT equipment, particularly desktop computers. A report last year showed that not shutting down PCs equated to $2.8 billion in wasted electricity. Still, many offices don’t encourage their employees to hit shut-down on their PCs for a variety of reasons, including updating software while everyone is out or being able to keep the computer attached to the network so information on the machine can be accessed at any time. However, Microsoft’s new Sleep Proxy system claims it can help cut energy consumption by 60-80%, without getting in the way of office systems.

    tags: greennumbers, IT equipment, electricity use, Sleep Proxy

  • RWE npower: wholesale electricity prices ?must double? to meet UK targets

    At a presentation at the Oxford Energy Futures conference on June 11th, Andy Duff, non-executive chair of RWE npower, made some controversial assertions about the future of electricity in the UK. He focused on three propositions.

    a)????? The UK cannot meet its carbon targets without new nuclear

    b)????? Electricity demand will grow at 1% less than GDP growth

    c)?????? The UK will not have enough electricity capacity by the latter part of this decade unless UK society accepts a doubling of wholesale electricity prices, which is the minimum required to free the capital investment required to 1) meet demand and 2) decarbonise sufficiently fast.

    In summary, we need nuclear and we all need to accept a substantial rise in electricity prices to pay for it.

    tags: Oxford Energy Futures, greennumbers, npower, nuclear, electricity demand

  • 60% of Chinese Consumers Sceptical of Companies’ CSR Communications: Global Poll

    Chinese consumers are becoming as cynical as those in the West about the way companies communicate about their social and environmental performance, according to the latest wave of GlobeScan’s annual global tracking research on public views of corporate social responsibility.\n\nThe study, which interviewed over 30,000 people across 34 countries, finds that while in 2005 more than 80 per cent of Chinese consumers felt that companies communicated ‘honestly and truthfully’ about their social and environmental performance, this has now fallen sharply, with only 40 per cent feeling this way in this year’s study.

    tags: CSR Communications, csr, china, consumers, GlobeScan, greennumbers

  • E-mail from BP engineer called Deepwater Horizon rig a ?nightmare well? six days before explosion

    Today, the chief executives of the five big oil companies ? including BP?s Tony Hayward ? are going to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. According to an e-mail released by that Committee yesterday, a BP drilling engineer warned that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was a ?nightmare well? that had caused the company problems in the past. The e-mail came just six days before the well exploded:

    tags: bp, oilspill, deepwater horizon, Macondo well, Gulf of Mexico, nightmare well, greennumbers

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.