Private client manager Invicta is to launch a £300m fund targeting the biomass industry to cash in on government targets for renewable energy

( Bruno Prior, MD of Forever Fuels, comments on the Invicta announcement – these are Bruno’s personal views, not those of Claverton Group)

“Just one little problem (well actually, several, but this one’s a good one).

Invicta have been shy about whose technology they are using. We sent one of our team to a public meeting in Edinburgh, to ask the question. He was told that Organics would supply the kit, in 1.2MW modules. Happily for us, Rob Eden, Organics’ MD, is a long-time associate of ours (going back around 25 years), so we contacted Rob to express interest in a gasifier or pyroliser if he had 1.2MW modules

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President Obama signed the 2010 Energy & water appropriations bill

Good news for fuel cells. On October 28, 2009, President Obama signed the 2010 Energy & Water appropriations bill which includes funding for the DoE Hydrogen Program and other offices at approximately 2009 levels for both stationary and transportation hydrogen technologies. A recent news brief in Worldwide Independent Power has a piece from Cummins, who […]

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Hydrogen – the green currency of the future

All governments have pledged to improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions; this effectively means that the world must move to:

Electricity from nuclear, renewable or decarbonised sources
Hydrogen from renewable or decarbonised sources
biomass derived methane gas or hydrocarbon liquids or
heat as a by-product, or from biomass, solar or geothermal sources.

Of these electricity and hydrogen are purely manufactured energy vectors competing as intermediaries between energy sources and final consumers. In recent years the tide seems to have moved to electricity as the ultimate solution, but this article will take issue with this. This is principally because of the severe cost implications associated with either electricity storage or its corollary – demand side management.

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a regular up to date source of hard info on renewable energy- Renew

Need a regular up to date source of hard info on renewable energy? Renew is a 36 page newsletter on renewable energy developments and policy which has been produced  by Open University Professor Dave Elliott without a break bi-monthly since 1979. It’s widely seen as a reliable and up to date source of information, news […]

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Graduate attacks outsourcing of UK water engineering jobs to India etc as a cheap electoral gimmick by way of keeping water bills down.

The consultant I work for is undergoing a major redundancy process in the water engineering side of the business, with the majority of jobs being lost at graduate level and below.

We have been informed that the reasons for this are that the draft determination from Ofwat appears particularly tough and as such, we won’t be getting any work out of the water companies for possibly as much as a year. It is also apparent that when the work does start to come, unachievable efficiency will be required, forcing consultants to “offshore” work to India and the like.

To make graduates redundant in this country, only to employ staff in India in their place does not seem acceptable. If we, as an industry, are left with this as the only option to be able to survive, then it would seem that Ofwat has got it wrong and we should be doing more to influence its decision making.

This is a very important issue for the country as we have already practically lost manufacturing as an industry and cannot afford to lose construction skills overseas.

It is also clear that the reason for the harsh determination is that the government doesn’t want to put water bills up because it is still hoping to win the approaching General Election.

This is unacceptable and is destroying an industry. What is the ICE doing about this?

Joe Andrews, mailto:joekayaker at hotmail dot com

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Consultation Response from Renewable Energy Association – REA – Renewable Energy Financial Incentives – Feed-in Tariff – FIT

Introduction
We welcome the introduction of Feed-in Tariffs for sub 5MW renewable electricity generation and thank Decc for moving swiftly to pave the way for their introduction in April 2010. The proposals have the potential to foster much wider deployment of renewable energy at the local level and to attract investment in renewable energy from groups as diverse as farmers, commercial companies, social housing providers, local authorities and communities, as well as householders. Apart from helping to meet renewable energy targets, the Tariffs will enable greater consumer choice in the market going forward. A successful scheme will also contribute to economic prosperity through the creation of quality local jobs, wider sector innovation and new manufacturing opportunities.

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Has Professor MacKay FRS, Chief Scientific Advisor to DECC, underestimated Britain's potential for Renewable Energy?

Today, The Times has claimed that Britain’s potential renewable resources are insufficient to meet demand, and therefore that Britain needs new nuclear plants. This is reported as having been stated by the new Chief Scientific Advisor to DECC, Professor David MacKay FRS, the author of the free online book: Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air – though it appears that The Times invented this quote. Nevertheless, the claim that Britain cannot live on its own renewables, is also made in his book.

However, the claim is not true.

On the professor’s own (underestimated) calculation of Britain’s renewable potential, it is possible for Britain to power itself from wind and solar. Current energy demand (heat, transport & electricity), is 98kWh per person per day (245GW), and the professor’s book identifies 68kWh/d (170GW) of wind onshore and offshore, and 55kWh/d (137.5GW) from photovoltaics, which together gives 123kWh/d (307.5GW). That means that even ignoring wave, tidal, geothermal and biomass, Britain’s renewable potential supply just from solar and wind substantially exceeds our energy demand.

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