Dave Andrews | Claverton Group

Biomethane fueled vehicles – the carbon neutral option*

republished at http://tx1.fcomet.com/~claverto/cms/bio-methane-fuelled-vehicles-john-baldwin-cng-services.html

News Flash – HVDC European super grid meeting in London

A meeting of French government representatives and energy and financial experts occurred on Oct 30th in London at which a plan for the construction of an HVDC link to bring power from renewables sites in North Africa to Europe was discussed. It was not clear exactly what the French plans and motives were, although it […]

Systemic Fiscal Reform – way to beat boom and bust

By Dr Adrian Wrigley, Neale Upstone and Robin Smith (10th Sept 2008) – SystemicfiscalReform.Org

Systemic Fiscal Reform is a radical programme for the reform of taxation, subsidies and welfare. It is designed to stabilize economies, improve quality of life, and facilitates the transition to full environmental sustainability.

The reforms mainly comprise the abolition of cumbersome and wasteful tax, welfare and subsidy systems, together with abolishing the bureaucracies which implement them.

In their place, a simple integrated tax and welfare system is introduced. This includes retaining a number of existing taxes which have been found to operate effectively where they have been tried.

2008 Claverton Energy Group Conference Papers Available

Those that have been forwarded in text format have been published as News Articles. Those in PowerPoint or PDF format have been uploaded to the website, and can be downloaded for reading at:

What is Microgeneration? And what is the most cost effective in terms of CO2 reduction

The UK Government definition of Microgeneration[1] applies to a rather surprising mix of heat and power generating technologies with a thermal output below 45kWt or an electrical output of 50kWe. It covers electrical generation from wind, solar photovoltaics (PV) and hydro, and heat generation from biomass, solar thermal and heat pumps as well as micro CHP which produces heat and power from renewable or fossil fuels. It is not just another term for small scale renewables, but comprises a portfolio of low carbon technologies.

There has been a tendency amongst advocates[2] and sceptics[3] alike to lump all Microgeneration technologies together, either as “all good” or “all bad”. This is particularly unhelpful when attempting to understand the potential contribution Microgeneration can make to UK energy strategy and it is important that we understand the particular characteristics and potential role of each technology.

Smart Metering 2009; Making it Happen

The Institution of Engineering and Technology are working with Tom Eales from Special Report Publishing who is producing a 16 page Smart Metering Supplement, to be published in The Daily Telegraph.

The supplement will focus on explaining the advantages, opportunities and challenges around smart metering for business and will be published in The Daily Telegraph on the 27th November 2008 with a huge circulation of 610,000 copies.

Further copies will be distributed at Smart Metering 2009 and all editorial content will also be published on the Daily Telegraph Business Club website. The tabloid-sized page report will be written by highly regarded journalists and industry speakers and will be packed with relevant editorial.

The Sahara Forest Project – A new source of fresh water, food and energy

The world is running short of fresh water. With agriculture accounting for some 70% of all water

used, the water shortage is closely linked to food production and economic development. The

provision of clean water is a pre-condition to life, health and economic development and the lack

of water in many parts of the world is the root cause of much suffering and poverty. Present

methods of supplying water in arid regions include: over-abstraction from ground reserves,

diverting water from other regions and energy-intensive desalination. None of these methods are

sustainable in the long term and inequitable distribution leads to conflict. To make matters

worse, global warming is tending to make dry areas drier and wet areas wetter. Since the 1980’s,

rainfall has increased in several large regions of the world, including eastern North and South

America and northern Europe, while drying has been observed in the Sahel, the Mediterranean,

southern Africa, Australia and parts of Asia.

PR Report for 2008 Conference

By Keegan Wilson. In a short space of time (8-9 days) we crammed a huge amount of activity. We wrote three press releases, contacted 169 journalists on each occasion (507 in total) and spoke with key journalists in our agreed target media – national broadsheets, television and selected magazines.

Results: You were interviewed twice by Bath FM. Energy Now has written about the conference and Dr Czich’s strategy for Europe (this article should be out next month and I should be receiving a copy, which I can give you).

Lewis Smith at The Times is open to writing about this and is considering it for next week (from 10 Nov on). I finally managed to speak with John Vidal at the Guardian. John is interested in this story and I am still working to get coverage from him, so should have a clearer idea shortly of whether he is going to write something on this.

Roger Harrabin is the main man at the BBC for environment and energy, and he is associated with lots of BBC programmes. Roger has not committed to giving any coverage, but he has expressed a keen desire in the Claverton Group and this story. So we have made a good contact.

How to Turn Standby Generation Into Profit-Making Assets

It does not make sense to ignore assets, leaving them idle, collecting dust and slowly degenerating (excuse the pun). Ask yourself why we spend thousands of pounds on standby generation just to have it lying dormant, gathering dust? Surely it makes much more sense to generate a profit from at least some of these assets.

With the continued expansion of wind energy the national grid need to increase their ability to cope with power fluctuations. They are already discussing ways in which they can encourage increased participation in Short Term Operating Reserve (STOR).
What is the solution? One solution is to increase use of embedded generation

European Super Grid – press release

At the fourth Claverton Energy conference, hosted by Wessex Water, Bath, international energy expert Dr Czisch outlined his strategy for a European-wide super grid that would supply all of Europe with entirely renewable electricity. Speaking at the conference Dr Czisch of Kassel University, Germany, also said the move to a renewable electricity system could cost the UK consumer the same as what is currently being paid, and, if there is the political will, he added that it could in theory be achieved in decades.