2011: Arctic Temperatures Continue To Rise

One of the things that really concerns me about climate change is that it all seems to be moving way too fast in the Arctic.

Make no mistake: The ice in the Arctic is one of our best defences against global warming (By reflecting solar energy back into Space like a giant mirror). Without it, things will go to a whole new level.

It's now been reported that 2011 was the warmest yet in the Arctic (2.28 C above the base period of 1951-1980) beating the previous record set by 2010. This continues a disturbing trend that's been going on since the late Seventies (See the graph below).

Not surprisingly, sea ice extent (the area of sea covered by ice), as measured by satellite, reached it's second lowest level in 2011, whilst the volume of ice, reached a record low.

That's bad news for us because it means there's less ice reflecting solar energy away and more open water being warmed up. Result: More global warming. Not to mention what it's doing to the local wildlife, weather systems, and, presumably, ocean currents.

A warming Arctic has a further implication: Thawing permafrost. Permafrost is, as it's name suggests, ground that is always frozen. Now, however, large areas are thawing out in the Summer. "So what?" you might say. Well, this is releasing previously trapped carbon (in the form of methane) back into the atmosphere "at levels that are cause for serious concern.". (According to experts from Permafrost Carbon Network). Methane is many times more powerful than CO2 as a greenhouse gas and there is A LOT of the stuff currently locked up in the permafrost.

The bottom line is this: A disappearing Arctic ice cap and thawing permafrost could accelerate global warming beyond the point where we could control it.

UK Government Loses 2nd Court Case Over Feed-In Tariffs

Recently I reported that the UK government had been taken to court over the way it had cut feed-in tariffs (solar subsidies) from £0.43 per kW to £0.21 last December.

They lost that court case, so they went to the Court of Appeal just over a week ago, and the result has just been announced: They lost again.

Unfortunately, the government have decided to prolong the uncertainty for all concerned by taking their appeal to the Supreme Court.

The "Greenest Government Ever" (Their words, not mine) seem to be doing their best to undermine confidence in green industry, so stifling investment and growth.

This lot haven't got a clue.

More detail here.

Lighter Later Bill Fails

Here in the UK, there has been a campaign to move the clock forward by 1 hour throughout the year.

The campaign goes by the name of Lighter Later and is the brainchild of the 10:10 organisation, a team whose main aim is to encourage everyone to cut their carbon footprints by 10%.

However, the campaign, and the Lighter Later Private Members Bill that grew out of it, has gained widespread support from over 120 MPs in the Commons, 90 national organisations, the UK government and opinion polls.

Why? Because it has a lot of benefits besides carbon cutting by 500,000 tonnes per year:

• Save 80 lives a year on the roads and hundreds of injuries.
• Lower all our electric bills by maximising use of available daylight hours.
• Create 60,000–80,000 new jobs in leisure and tourism, bringing an extra £2.5–3.5 billion into the economy each year.
• Reduce crime and the fear of crime.
• Encourage people to exercise more.
• Save the NHS millions by reducing road accidents.
• Improve the quality of life for older people.
• Reduce the effects of seasonally affective disorder.
• Match daylight hours more accurately with when most people are actually awake.
  

(More detail on the benefits here)

So, with all those benefits and such widespread support, you'd expect the Bill to have got through it's third reading today (20th Jan. 2012) with ease.

Sadly that was not the case, as a group of 10 MPs deliberately wasted time so that it never made it to a vote. More here.

That's UK democracy in action for you: It doesn't matter about the thousands of people who supported this bill or the millions that would have benefited from it, when you've got a handful of MPs who just don't want it.

Disproportionate power in the hands of a few.

How Much Electric Do Solar Panels Create?

The answer to that depends on 2 things: How much sun the panels are getting; and how 'big' the solar panel system is.

Let's take my family's solar panels as an example.

We have 12 panels (covering a roof area of about 20 sq. metres), each with a capacity of 245 watts. This gives a total capacity of 2.94 kilowatts (kW). In other words, in good, sunny conditions, it will generate 2.94 kW per hour.

However, as you know, it is not always sunny, the length of daylight hours (outside the tropics) changes throughout the year, and so does the height of the sun above the horizon. All of these factors, plus others effect the amount of electric you get.

We had our system installed the day before the shortest day in the year. So even though the shortest day was wall to wall sunshine, we only got 5 kW. That's still a third of our daily Winter usage but we can expect a lot more from a similar day in Summer.

In the 3 weeks we've had the panels, the daily amount generated has varied from 0.4 to 6.7 kW with an average of 2.3 kW. Our electric meter regularly 'stands still', even in the depths of a British Winter and, on the best days, it's managed to do this with a TV, PC, numerous gadgets on stand-by, and the tumble dryer all on at the same time!

We're definately looking forward to the Summer.....

More about our system here.

How We've Cut Our Heating Bill

Regular readers of this blog will know that we've been trying to cut our fuel bills without having to throw big money around.

The graph you see above represents our gas usage over the last 2 years and, as you can see, we've achieved a sizeable cut so far - over 20% if you ignore that peak caused by last year's harsh winter - and the graph continues to fall.

Although we've got gas heating, what follows applies whatever fuel you use.

The most cost effective way of cutting your fuel bill is to insulate your home as I explain here. Basically, the insulation can pay for itself within 2 to 3 years and will not break the bank. Without it, you're spending a fortune heating the street outside!

If you can't afford it then, if you're a UK citizen, you will be able to make use of the Green Deal next Autumn, which'll make it even easier to insulate your home.

Anyway, what the graph has shown me is that it wasn't until we insulated our loft that we really began to make savings: Even with the cavity wall insulation, double glazing, and draft proofing, there was no 'lid' on our house, so all the heat just went out through the roof. The 2 month period over which the loft work was done, marks the beginning of that steep decline you see in the graph.

The lesson seems to be that, whilst any insulation is better than none, you won't see the full benefit until you've sealed all the leaks.

UK Solar Subsidy Cuts "Legally Flawed"

The very day I was getting my solar panels installed, the High Court ruled that the UK government's sudden halving of feed-in tariffs (FITs) for solar panels was "legally flawed".


Friends of the Earth and a couple of solar companies had taken the government to court to test whether it was lawful for them to cut FITs by more than 50% with very little notice - The whole industry had expected them to be cut, but not nearly so savagely and not until April 2012. By bringing the cuts forward some 4 months, they threw the entire industry into chaos, and dashed a lot of people's plans.

The government will challenge the ruling, of course, but it seems there's a good chance they won't be successful. I hope they fail, it's about time they got a whack across the nose for their attitude. They think they've the right to axe anything in any way they they see fit, all in the name of "austerity cuts". It's about time they learnt not to screw people about.

It's not just me who thinks that. The day after the above ruling, two parliamentary committees criticised the subsidy changes as clumsy and likely to deal a "fatal blow" to the solar industry. Yep, not only is the government cutting too much with little warning but, to even qualify for the lower subsidy from April 2012, you will have to have an energy performance certificate for your house first.

This means you may have to spend thousands of pounds on insulation work before you can even think about solar panels. Sounds like a deterrent to me. One that could finish the solar industry off.

More here and here.

Oh, and now the Church of England has waded in.Wake up and smell the coffee Prime Minister Cameron: Your lot have got it horribly wrong. Again.

Buying A Solar Panel: Part 7

Finally the panels have been installed (yesterday)! Around 6 or 7 weeks after paying the deposit. I imagine it would have happened a lot sooner had the government not caused panic buying with it's feed-in tariff cut.

Still, no point crying over spilt milk.

The installation went smoothly, the installers and scaffolders were very professional and helpful. They even replaced any broken roof tiles they found whether they'd damaged them or not.

So we're now micro-generators! Today we generated 5.2 kW - About 33% of our daily usage, despite this being the shortest day of the year! Can't wait till the Summer.

Durban Climate Deal: What's In It For Us?

As you may have heard, the Durban climate conference actually finished with a last minute deal. But what does it actually mean to you, me and, more importantly our kids?

Let's start with the headline details:

• The deal was historic because, for the first time, it was agreed by all countries. In the past, 'developing' countries have been exempt whilst others have simply not signed up (e.g. the USA).

• The deal says talks will start early next year with the aim of producing a legally binding agreement by 2015 that will come into force by 2020.

• Significant progress was also made on separate areas aimed at: providing financial support to developing countries effected by climate change; and protecting and developing forests.

What instantly struck me about all this were those dates. Basically there's little prospect of a final agreement before 2015, and no prospect of any serious cuts before 2020! This despite the fact that the science says that carbon emissions have to peak by 2020 (at the latest) and fall steeply thereafter if we are to keep the global rise in temperature to below 2 degrees C.

2 degrees isn't just some nice-to-have number that's been plucked from nowhere. It's a limit beyond which we are likely to run into all sorts of tipping points that could take the climate beyond our control. It's also what the world's governments have agreed to.

If the eventual deal for 2020 amounts to nothing more than locking in what countries have already commited to, we're looking at around a 4.5 degree rise by 2100. That would be disastrous.

We can still hope that the new alliance between the EU and many developing nations will grow in it's influence and lead negotiations towards a better result, but you can bet that a handful of countries (you know who they are) will be doing everything they can to water it down.

From Climate Summits to Carbon Footprints

Welcome to my 200th post.

When I started this blog nearly 2 years ago, it was in response to the complete and utter failure of the Copenhagen Climate Conference. I was incensed by the fact that narrow-minded politicians were putting national interests above the interests and, frankly, lives of future generations.

Since then, nothing much has changed on that front. For sure, all nations seem agreed that it would be a bad thing for the world to warm by any more than 2 degrees C, but they're doing precious little about it.

And if the likes of Canada, India, USA, China and Brazil have their way, there'll be no follow-up to the Kyoto Agreement until 2015 at the earliest and probably not until 2020.

Yet the science says that carbon emissions have to peak by 2020 if we are to have any chance of staying below that 2 degree target. Not looking good is it?

---oOo---

Politics aside, one of the other themes of this blog (As the sub-title suggests) is to show how my family is reducing it's carbon footprint (plus energy bill) and hopefully inspire others to have go. Not sure whether I'm inspiring others but I'm certainly doing that to myself. I've managed to find all sorts of ways to cut our footprint since starting this blog. And at little or no cost. That's been the whole point really: To show people that it doesn't have to cost the earth to save the Earth. Just simple, cheap, and often, cost saving measures.

Of course, I've gone a bit beyond that now. 2 years ago, getting a hybrid car or solar panels were just pipe-dreams. Way beyond my means. But, thanks to a dip into my savings and, later, some redundancy money, I have a Toyota Prius (Not a very cost effective way to cut your footprint admittedly but a very nice car all the same), and we'll hopefully have solar panels soon. Who'd have thought it?

Where will the next 2 years take me?

Buying A Solar Panel Part 6

Well, that's just great. My attempts to get solar panels fitted to our house before the government's stupid deadline (Dec 12th) have failed. The fitters have been swamped with jobs from people just like me and they've not been able to keep up with the work. Typical.

To their credit, the fitters have been very fair. They've offered to let me have the deposit back, or 30% off the price of the installation if I go ahead.

After a bit of thought and going over the figures, I decided it was still worth getting the panels installed. Hopefully, I'll finally get a date from the fitters this coming week.

Ironically, the government's savage cutting of the feed-in tariff has had one positive effect: In amongst the chaos it's caused in the solar industry, the grief it's caused to all those people, local councils, and charity organisations that were in the process of getting panels and had to cancel, plus the inevitable large-scale job losses, the solar panel manufacturers seem to have responded by cutting the price of their products to keep the market alive. Before the cut, you could expect to pay about £5000 per kWh. Now it seems to be about £3500.

Whether this will be enough to keep the industry from collapsing back to it's former niche market status remains to be seen.