International Renewable Energy Agency Launched, US and UK Opt Out

First conceived by Willy Brandt in 1980, an international body which would be responsible for helping developed and developing nations forge a mutual partnership to promote the use of renewable energy came into existence. The International Renewable Energy Agency or Irena is seen as an ‘institutional counterbalance’ to the International Energy Agency, which, in the eyes of some European leaders, favors use of fossils fuels over renewable energy sources.

Europe is continuously pushing for greater use of renewable energy to achieve its emissions reduction goals and has thrown its weight behind this new agency. However, the United States and Britain have, for the time being, refused to be members of the same.

While the U.S., under the leadership of President Barack Obama, is expected to join the group soon, Britain has shown no interest in joining the international agency any time soon. Britain maintains that it would come on-board once the developing countries like China, India and Brazil join the agency and commit to its energy goals.

Recession-hit UK Struggles to Manage its Recyclable Waste

In the time of recession we must try to use our resources efficiently, save as much as possible and reuse and recycle whatever we can. British households are trying to do exactly that, segregating wastes into as many as five different groups so as to help the city councils recycle the waste easily. Instead the councils are dumping anywhere between 10 to 30 percent of recyclable waste to landfills and incinerators. That’s wasting some very useful waste.

After inspiring and appealing to homeowners to do their bit for the environment by separating the waste generated at their homes, the city councils are struggling to recycle the wastes and selling them to the manufacturing and reprocessing sectors because of lower demand during this economic downturn. As a result, the recyclable waste is literally going waste as it is either dumped into the ground or burnt – adding to the rising carbon emissions instead of cutting them.

While claiming that they are trying to recycle as much waste as possible, various city councils in Britain are dumping or burning 10 percent or more of the recyclable wastes. The revelations have invited criticism from green groups and have also allowed the opposition parties to question Labor government’s green credentials.

Read rest of the story

UK Seeks to Tap Algae on its Shores for Biofuels

Marine scientists in Scotland are set to initiate a £5 million study which could transform seaweeds and marine plant algae into major sources of low emission automobile fuel in Britain. The scientists are calling them the mari-fuels and they hope that fuels produced from the seaweeds and algae would in part replace the controversial biofuels produced from food crops.

The study, which will be funded in part by The European Union, would look to formalize the best possible way of exploiting the vast reserves of the seaweeds which are found in great abundance along the British coastline.

The study holds great importance for Britain as it could help it achieve the emissions targets set by the EU. British government would be keening waiting for the outcome of the study as it sees fuels from plants an instrument to reduce or at least neutralize its carbon emissions. Britain wants 2.5 percent of all petrol and diesel to be produced from renewable sources like plants.

The biggest advantage of exploiting biofuels from marine plant algae is that it’s a completely natural process which requires almost no anthropogenic activity. They grow at a much greater rate as compared to the food crops, no environment degrading fertilizers are required and no deforestation. The seaweeds derive energy from ammonia produced as waste from farms of salmon fish. So it’s actually fuel from waste.

Read rest of the story here

Britain Struggles To Keep Wind Energy Targets In Sight

A wind farm in Cornwall County, England

As the world struggles to access the extent of damage the current economic crisis and while world banks, including those of European countries, unleash bailouts to financial institutions, Britain is trying its best to save its renewable energy targets safe for the collateral damage of the credit crunch. Although ample funding for renewable energy projects is now in doubts British lawmakers approved a highly ambitious goal of raising the emissions cut for 2050 from 60 to 80 percent. Even though Prime Minister Gordon Brown is optimistic of achieving the set goals, short and long-term, industry executives don’t seem too convinced. 

Before Prime Minister Brown had addressed the British Wind Energy Association’s annual conference the media was raising questions about the feasibility of the renewable energy goals that the government had so ambitiously embraced. 

Among the potential problems to be outlined are concerns of a severe shortage of engineers and worries companies are reviewing their commitments to wind energy because of spiralling costs.

Many experts believe it is technically feasible to meet the targets, but there is a growing conviction that the plans were rushed through so quickly by the Government that it will now take substantial new money and guarantees to work.

Accountibilty, Quality Issues Raise Questions About Effectiveness Of Biofuels In Britain

View of palm oil plantation in Bogor, Indonesia

Amidst the worsening food crisis and widespread poverty nations around the world continue to back biofuels as the replacement of fossil fuels. Even after a World Bank report blamed excessive biofuel production for the skyrocketing food prices the producer and importer countries seem unwilling to reform their production and usage methods. The European Union continues to overlook the concerns made by several of its member countries which have voiced concerns about the environmental effects of biofuel production and has so far refused to suspend or rethink its renewable energy goal which aims to include 10% biofuel in transport fuel by 2020. The producers too are dodging global criticism and forging biofuel deals across the world as they seek to take advantage of the rising demand.

But while setting goals for use of clean fuels is a good thing failing to take steps to prevent deforestation and other environmental catastrophes is bad. And that ’s what the many importers of biofuels are doing, Britain being one of them. A recent study by the Renewable Fuels Agency of Britain points out that merely 19% of the biofuel used in Britain meets the environmental standards and whose origins can be traced back to confirm that they were produced in a sustainable way while the rest 81% don’t fulfill the quality requirements or address the sustainability issues satisfactorily.