Why All The Packaging?

I've just purchased 4 new printer cartridges from an on-line retailer. Did these come in one nice package? Did they heck! Four separate sealed plastic bags! Then....inside each....four tasteful cardboard boxes each one about twice the size actually required to hold a cartridge. And inside those.....a nice new cartridge sealed in another plastic bag! Why?

Is Bioenergy Green?

I've long had an uneasy feeling about the efficacy of bioenergy without ever settling down to do the appropriate calculations. Recently I've become aware that accounting methods used in assessing the benefit of bioenergy actually ignore CO2 emissions associated with its production. I gather this was agreed so that there was no risk of double counting but the net result is that C savings from bioenergy are very much less than claimed and in some case may even be negative.

Let's take a simplistic example: I chop down an old tree that's been in my garden for absolute ages and burn it in my living room grate, so displacing the use of a certain amount of coal. I immediately plant a new sapling to replace the old tree. So I've "saved " the CO2 that would have been produced from the coal. However, wood is a poor fuel compared with coal so I've actually produced more CO2 from generating the same heat from my poor defunct tree. Furthermore I've removed the capacity of that tree to absorb CO2 and my new sapling will take up significantly less. Oh dear, I've actually increase global warming by being "green" and using a biofuel.

As I said, this is a simplistic example but with over 60% of the EU's renewable energy coming from biomass there would appear to be the potential for a big accounting problem.

Pricing Solar Out Of The Market?

My few dedicated followers will know that nearly five years ago we installed a PV array on our roof. We were lucky - we just managed to qualify for the original FIT rate, the main aspect of the house is SSW facing and the roof pitch is approximately 40 degrees - not perfect but pretty good. I built a calculator to assess the economics and went with a system that the model suggested should pay back in just under 10 years. So far, returns are just above the calculated rate (not by much) and I am expecting to, indeed, break even during year 9. I'm a pretty happy bunny.

I was struck today by a blog posting from Kieron suggesting that a new system for him was just not economic. I've plugged Kieron's parameters into my model just to get a feel for the most recent FIT rates. My model is set up for the sunny south of England and came back with a not too thrilling break even point in year 17, an IRR of 4.5% and a 25-year NPV of £295. I would not invest against those figures. Poor Kieron is looking at a property in the west of Scotland and I guess he has factored in much reduced incident radiation. He certainly is showing a loss at 20 years into his putative project.

I know that this is only one isolated case but if this is indicative of the generality of current domestic PV economics it would seem that HMG is pricing all but dedicated enthusiasts out of the market.

Grid-scale Storage

Storage on the electricity grid has been a peripheral interest of mine for a while. Although it might be argued that 6MW is not really "grid-scale" news of successful trials at the SNS facility in Leighton Buzzard are heartening. Furthermore scale, as in size of facility, is perhaps not the right measure; what is important is scale in terms of overall capacity across the grid and that certainly is ramping up. The need for storage in a system containing substantial intermittent generators is a well rehearsed argument. What is now required is the certainty of a robust and stable regulatory and financial system to support it.

Coffee Cups - Or London Buses

I don't know - you wait ages for one initiative to come along and then two arrive on consecutive days! Now it's the turn of Starbucks to offer disposal bins in their outlets (or at least some of them). It will be interesting to see if there is any impact on the debris we collect during our next village litter pick in the spring. I'm not holding my breath.

Coffee Cups Take 2

I've chuntered on about the scourge of disposable coffee cups on a number of occasions (see my post of 2/11/16 for instance). Now comes news that Costa is launching a recycling scheme. The idea is that any take-away coffee cup may be returned to a Costa store for recycling. One's immediate gut reaction is that the nature of "take-away" rather precludes a lot of returns but apparently there have been successful trials in London and Manchester. So, I shall suspend my scepticism and hope that the initiative has a significant effect. And, in any case, at least Costa is doing something and should be applauded for that.

Autumn Statement - Could Do Much Better

Plenty of food for thought in the comments reproduced here. It was noteworthy that neither Hammond nor MacDonald even mentioned climate change - that was left for Caroline Lucas to do.