What is a "Green Investment Bank"?

Later this month, the UK government will be giving details of the so-called Green Investment Bank (GIB). It should end up being a cornerstone of Britain's drive to halve it's carbon emissions by 2027. But, what exactly is a GIB and why is it so important to the UK?

Basically, the idea is for it to provide investment for any low carbon, private sector project that needs it. The aim is to kick-start a 'green' revolution that will not only help halve the emissions, but add billions to the economy, and generate thousands of jobs.

However, it will need cash to do this. In fact, a House of Commons committee estimated that such an economy would require between £200 billion to £1 trillion of investment.

So where will the money come from? Well, the government has promised £3 billion, and the Treasury has calculated that this will attract another £15bn of private finance to green projects. Hmmm...that's less than 1% of the minimum required isn't it? Where's shortfall going to come from then?

Funny story that one: The bank will begin life in 2012 but won't be allowed to borrow (A major source of any bank's funds) until.....2015! Why? Because the Treasury don't want the debt to appear against the nation's liabilities until after the election. Okaaay. How about the bank raising cash through green ISAs (where individuals invest in green stocks and shares, tax-free)? Nope, the Treasury says that would be competing with private sector bank offerings. And so it goes, on and on.

Based on what we know so far, the bank will be nothing more than the custodians and distributors of an inadequate pot of money.

Let's hope the government's announcement later this month will reveal that it's going to be so much more.

Carbon Emissions: UK Shows The Way?

Chris Huhne

The Environment minister, Chris Huhne, announced yesterday that the UK will attempt to halve emissions by 2027. But, as predicted, the announcement included a back-out clause should the EU let their own cuts slip.

That said, his words could be a potential game-changer if it leads to a series of similar announcements around the world in the coming months.

I notice Huhne was at pains to emphasis that there was more to this than climate change. It would also encourage "green growth" (i.e. economic growth based on things like renewable energy), give us a competitive advantage in a growing sector of the world economy (i.e. increase exports), improve energy security, and protect us from oil price volatility.

Blimey, sounds like our government knows what the issues are here. Do they also have the wit and strength of purpose to address them effectively? Only time will tell.

'Greenest UK Government' Under Pressure

When the current UK government came to power it claimed it was going to be the greenest ever. Just over a year later it is under pressure from all quarters to get it's act together and actually do something other than cut green schemes.

The government has claimed that it's been hampered by the economic situation but ,why then make the "greenest ever" claim when they already knew the economy was in trouble? Naivety? Wishful thinking? Greenwash? Or Bulls**t? Take your pick.

A recent review said that the government had only a remote chance of becoming the greenest ever because it had made no progress on the majority of it's green policies in year one.

A few days later, 15 green pressure groups wrote to the PM, saying the government was in danger of losing it's way, and saying he needed to promote a green economy with "urgency and resolve". So they also urged him to accept the main recommendations of the advisory body the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). The CCC recommends cutting emissions by 50% by 2025 and 60% by 2030. The green groups said this would provide clarity for investors and the public.

The Treasury and the Business minister's response to the CCC's report is that following their recommendations could harm the UK economy. This seems to have sparked off a long and heated debate amongst the Cabinet.

However, it looks like the PM will be announcing tomorrow that he will be accepting the report's main points but with a get-out clause should other european countries start back-sliding on their commitments.

Well, I guess that counts as "clarity" for investors. They're going to commit to bigger emissions cuts....for now. Until they need the funds elsewhere and then they'll find an excuse to back out.

What we really need is genuine commitment (no get-out clauses) and real support for investors so we can start to build a thriving green economy with thousands of new jobs bringing in billions of pounds in export deals. Rather like the Danes are doing with their wind turbines: Selling us thousands of them for millions of pounds each because we haven't bothered to re-skill our own engineers and ship-builders to do the job for ourselves.

We can learn a lot from the Danes, or the Germans, or the Spanish, or the Chinese......

Still Buying Bottled Water?!

Why do you buy bottled water? Well, in some countries, that's the only way you can get safe water. That's the only reason for buying it. In the rest of the world, we're just paying for something that comes for free out of the tap! How stupid is that?

If you need portable water then re-fill an empty, clean, plastic bottle with tap water (Bottles made of HDPE [Plastic number 2] and PP [number 5] are best for this). It'll save you money, cut your carbon footprint, and reduce waste. A win-win-win solution.

Need a little more convincing? Try this very entertaining short film.

Is Nuclear Power Wrong?

Many countries around the world have nuclear power. As of January this year, there were 31 countries with a total of 442 stations worldwide, with another 65 under construction.. For some nations, like France, nuclear provides a substantial portion of their electricity.

And, in recent years, many of the world's governments have been been considering extending or renewing their nuclear programmes to cover future energy gaps and/or reduce carbon emissions.

That is, until Fukushima.

Now many governments have put construction on hold and are asking for existing stations to be reviewed in the light of what has happened in Japan. There has also been a resurgence of protests against nuclear power in nations as far apart as Germany and India.

So, what has changed, and is nuclear power now the wrong way to go?

Well, what's changed is that the world has looked on in horror as Fukushima almost wrote itself into history as the planet's first, full-on, nuclear melt-down. That kind of thing can make anyone think twice.

However, it took one of the most powerful earthquakes ever, followed closely by a 3 storey high tsunami to bring this tragic event about.

From what I understand, it wasn't the earthquake that was the problem. The nuclear plants were designed to shutdown in the event of a quake, which is exactly what they did. No, it was the tsunami flooding the back-up diesel generators which were supposed cool down the reactors, that was the issue.

The lessons here seem to be: Don't build nuclear power stations in a major earthquake zone and, whatever you do, make sure you never lose power to your cooling system.

Hopefully both lessons will be learnt and the world's nuclear plants will become all the safer.

But let's put this in perspective. Nuclear stations are already designed to withstand almost literally anything (including 8.9 magnitude earthquakes it seems) and the modern ones are even better. So, unless you live in a coastal area prone to magnitude 8+ quakes, nothing's really changed.

Many Greens, of course, would like you to believe otherwise. For them, nuclear, in whatever form, is wrong, so they've seizied on Fukushima as a chance to put the brakes on the rush towards nuclear power. Maybe even kill it off altogether.

To be honest, I have some sympathy for their position: High level nuclear waste remains dangerous for centuries. In effect, we end up handing that problem onto future generations for the rest of the millenium. But, even if we were to put an end to nuclear power today, the problem of nuclear waste would still be there. Zero gain.

In fact, we could be shooting ourselves in the foot, because nuclear power may be an essential part of our battle against global warming. Without it, we may not be able to reduce carbon emissions fast enough to make a difference. The reason I say that is we need to replace hundreds of coal fired power stations and the only realistic way of doing that at the moment is with nuclear. Therefore it's got to be part of the picture until renewables can truly step up to the plate.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't need nuclear. Sadly, it's far from perfect.

So we have to make a tough choice: Turn our back on nuclear and keep our fingers crossed that we can reduce carbon emissions fast enough to make a difference; or use nuclear as part of a stop-gap solution despite it's obvious drawbacks.

At the end of the day, that choice will be based on risk perception. The threat of nuclear power stations versus the threat of climate change. For me, climate change is by far the greater threat, and it's a near certainty if we don't start doing something about it soon.

People talk about nuclear disasters killing hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, and making huge areas uninhabitable. Well, that's exactly what global warming will do too. People won't die from radiation poisoning, but from starvation, disease, floods, and war. They'll die in their millions, year after year. The land won't become radiactive, but there'll be vast areas of land made uninhabitable by lack of rain, and flooding from rising sea-levels. And these areas will expand inexorably for many decades to come, even as our increasing population needs more land in which to live.

Yes, nuclear power has it's risks, but we have to accept them, for the time being, if we are not to jeopardise the lives of future generations through climate change.

(UPDATE: A safer form of nuclear power here).