Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Interesting / weird article looking at companies secretly going green, or to be clearer, not wanting to mention it.

It seems if you celebrate progress, you might raise concerns about your product, or anger others into attacking you .... for some reason.

Seems we need to make these issues something to celebrate, not be suspicious of.

Why industry is going green on the quiet

There are other reasons why manufacturers keep quiet about their sustainable practices. After 15 years of dedicated effort, a well-known car manufacturer reduced the amount of energy it took to make its cars by 75%: it can now make four cars using the same amount of energy it formerly took to make one. Evans was amazed when he discovered this while working with the manufacturer and asked if he could tell the world. It refused, not because the innovations were trade secrets, or because it risked losing a cost-saving competitive edge (due to cheap electricity prices, the cost saving amounted to less than 1%), but because the management was worried that to flag one area of innovation in the business for praise might attract unwanted attention to parts of its operation that were less sustainable, potentially sparking accusations of “green-washing”.

Martyn1981

More good news / moves in a positive direction:

Energy firms plan UK's first carbon-neutral 'industrial cluster'

..... some snippets ....

An alliance of companies including National Grid, Drax and Norway’s state energy company, Equinor, are leading a campaign to shrink the carbon footprint of Britain’s most polluting industrial zone.

The cluster includes hundreds of refineries, factories and the Drax coal-fired power plant near the Humber estuary, safeguarding 55,000 jobs and a local industrial economy worth £18bn a year. However, it is also responsible for the highest concentration of industrial emissions in the country, undermining the UK’s goal to become a carbon-neutral economy by 2050.

UK urban centres are also vying for investment to become the country’s first carbon-neutral city. Bristol has joined the race by vowing to cut its carbon emissions to net zero by 2030 through a £1bn climate scheme. The UK’s first European Green Capital hopes to maintain its green lead by attracting investment from major companies and investors to create a carbon-neutral city.

But Bristol will face stiff competition in the race to tackle the climate crisis from Glasgow and Edinburgh, which launched bids to become the UK’s first carbon-neutral city this year. Edinburgh has already shrunk its carbon footprint by a third since 2005 and is on track to reduce its carbon emissions by more than 40% by 2020 before becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

The Committee on Climate Change said Scotland should take the lead with an aim to become carbon neutral five years before the rest of the UK because it had the potential to go further, faster.

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

More good news / moves in a positive direction:

Energy firms plan UK's first carbon-neutral 'industrial cluster'

..... some snippets ....

You omitted the paragraph that said that the solution was carbon capture technology.

The alliance plans to trial world-leading technology to capture and store carbon emissions from factory and power plant flues before they enter the atmosphere. It also hopes to use carbon capture while breaking down natural gas to create hydrogen, which can be used in industry, heating and transport without creating climate emissions.

Martyn1981

JKenH wrote: »

You omitted the paragraph that said that the solution was carbon capture technology.

Nope. I attached a link to the whole article.

Martyn1981

More on Bristol (mentioned in my morning post), and folk may recall they've been mentioned in lots of articles over the years as they've been behind a number of large PPA deals to rollout RE:

Bristol launches £1 billion net zero procurement programme

Bristol City Leap, a project co-led by Bristol City Council and local energy supplier Bristol Energy, has launched a global search for organisations willing to invest in a joint venture that will help deliver a net zero energy system in the city by 2030.

Martyn1981

Given the long life expectancy of buses I think 2025 is a bit late, but I suppose it's also pretty soon in the grand scheme of things.

UK bus firms vow to buy only ultra-low or zero-emission vehicles from 2025

Bus operators have pledged to buy only ultra-low or zero-emission vehicles from 2025 as they called on the government to outline a national strategy to encourage more people to use buses.

silverwhistle

JKenH wrote: »

Sorry about the last two posts, guys; thought I would try the sort of selective quoting that Mart gets up to that gets up my nose.

Doesn't GA get up your nose too? The nature and style of his contributions has already been highlighted to you.

silverwhistle

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Given the long life expectancy of buses I think 2025 is a bit late, but I suppose it's also pretty soon in the grand scheme of things.

Isn't it late exactly _because_ of the long life expectancy of buses? The small company that runs some of the local services here has had some really old buses in their time, handed down from the major operators. But even the major operators keep buses for years.

Martyn1981

silverwhistle wrote: »

Isn't it late exactly _because_ of the long life expectancy of buses? The small company that runs some of the local services here has had some really old buses in their time, handed down from the major operators. But even the major operators keep buses for years.

Hiya. Yep, that was my thinking, a new ICE bus deployed in 2024 will probably still be going long, long after, especially including second life with a smaller operator.

Thinking economically, if BEV buses are cheap to operate by 2025, then will the old ICE's have much of a second hand value when first users try to sell them on. Perhaps the risk of stranded assets, or low s/h values might make the large operators think twice .....much sooner.

Martyn1981

Big claims, perhaps too big? But a future with battery backup looks like solving multiple problems, and thereby attracting multiple income streams to help fund it.

RES battery prevented complete blackout in the UK

On August 9, a thunderstorm caused 1.5 GW of generation capacity to go offline within seconds in the U.K. The incident caused millions of households to temporarily lose power but the situation could have been considerably worse if not for the country’s battery storage reserves.

RES says its battery capacity was instrumental in preventing a complete blackout in the U.K. in the wake of a thunderstorm on August 9.