Dave Andrews | Claverton Group

EcoTrack: project monitoring for the carbon market

Introducing EcoTrack
Project monitoring is often haphazard and time-consuming. Furthermore, results from monitoring do not always lead to improvement and learning. Now EcoTrack makes project results transparent and easy to use.
EcoTrack is a new monitoring system for sustainable energy and household energy projects. It is highly reliable, networked, and results-based. Eco, a private company based in the UK, has developed EcoTrack to systematize the monitoring process, provide timely data, and enhance reporting to funders and other project stakeholders. EcoTrack allows users to track the progress of activities, outputs, outcomes and objectives against performance indicators. It therefore improves the quality of both monitoring and management.

"UK Energy Risks – Uncertain but not Unimaginable" – Global Energy Advisory

On the 23rd of February it was reported that one of the large six utility companies in the UK lost £172.5mn, in just three months, by trading a gas position. This loss could have been against a background of relatively low gas price volatility; presumably this “increase in wholesale cost” will now be passed on to end consumers? Who trades and who pays? Who invests and who pays?
The new Energy & Climate Change Committee is today taking oral evidence from the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Rt Hon Edward Miliband MP, in the House of Commons in London. The independent Global Energy Advisory White Paper entitled: Investment Failure, Fails Customers, was circulated to the Committee earlier this week.

The paper discusses the potential risks to UK energy security which are well known within the Industry. It also asks pertinent questions regarding the costs and consequences of the energy investment/trading decisions being taken at the current time.

This discussion will be continued at the Global Energy/Advisory Super Derivatives Seminar in London on March 5th – see below for full details.

Professor Lewis Lesley comments on the recently announced plan to purchase expensive High Speed Trains from Hitachi

(Letter originally printed in The Guardian but heavily edited…………) Dear Editor, Whilst commentators have been arguing about how many jobs and where, no one has raised the question of “value for money”. At £5.4m per carriage, these are the most expensive trains ever in real terms. As a comparison for the same money, 30,000 high speed luxury […]

Cheap Solar Concentrator for PV

“Article describes a square piece of clear, molded acrylic about a centimeter thick which when beam of light shines a directly at its flat surface, a green beam enters the acrylic and bends toward the center of the square. “If the process is repeated at different points on the surface the beam darts toward the […]

Carbon Pathways Analysis – Informing Development of a Carbon Reduction Strategy for the Transport Sector

Carbon Pathways Analysis July 2008 Executive Summary Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Carbon Pathways by Mode Chapter 3: Carbon Pathways by Type of Journey Chapter 4: The Impact of Mode Switch on Emissions Chapter 5: International Comparisons Chapter 6: The Challenge for Transport Acknowledgements This paper has benefited greatly from the inputs of Mark Barrett […]

Christophe de Margerie (no less!) agrees with Hugh Sharman's long-stated view that we are unlikely, ever, to see 90 million bopd liquids production

“Recently, OPEC cut back oil production in an attempt to stem the oil price decline. How much might their cutbacks delay the onset of world liquid fuels production decline? Assuming the plateau model and five years to the onset of decline, each million barrels per day of oil production withholding buys roughly three weeks delay, so a steady, continuing reduction of say four million barrels per day over five years might result in a delay in the onset of world oil production decline by maybe three months. Thats not very much.”

Bill Powell explains the reason for the financial crisis, and how to get to the root cause.

It is estimated that 70% of the money that circulates is created in the form of loans ’secured’ against ‘property’. They circulate as money until the loan is paid off. If loans stop the money money in circulation dries up. That’s what happened. That’s the origin of the credit crunch.
The bubble came about by banks enticing people to take on higher and higher loans with more and more ‘affordable’ payment terms, e.g. interest only, self-certified income, low teaser (aka ‘fixed’) rates for a couple of years. They competed with each other until the loan to earnings ratio became unbelieveable. Then the bubble burst!

Beyond Public and Private – Chris Cook

From Beyond Public and Private Submitted by ChrisCook on Monday, 23 February, 2009 – 10:24 ByChris Cook Beyond Public and Private – Chris Cook, 20 February 2009 21st Century problems cannot be fixed by 20th Century solutions”….Dr Narsi Ghorban The Credit Crash marks the end of an era for the global financial system, and […]

Professor Lowe notes connection between Birkenhead disaster and 'complex systems such as politics, globalisation and economics' – the banking crisis perhaps?

Note from Professor Lowe, All The following is taken from J.E Gordon’s book, Structures, or why things don’t fall down. I can’t help thinking it has lessons for globalisation. I particularly like the last sentence, which has an unintended application to politics and economics and to many complex systems. “A much better-known accident of this […]

CHANCELLOR RECEIVES PROPOSAL FOR RESOLUTION OF REPETITIVE BOOM AND BUST

I am writing this open letter to you on behalf of the Coalition for Economic Justice (CEJ). In response to the seriousness of the current economic crisis a number of think tanks, charities and pressure groups across the political spectrum recently decided to join forces as the CEJ. We propose the introduction of an annual Land Value Tax (LVT) to replace or reduce existing taxes on enterprise and labour in order to prevent future economic crises and alleviate the current one. The resolution below, passed at our first meeting sets out our broad position. (Set out at the foot of this letter is a list of the organisations concerned.)